Epani glanced at her fellow deities as she sat down on her red and gold throne. They all looked weird. Armoured and angry.
“My dear deities, why are all three of you dressed as Rethavok today? Do you not have your own races to dress as?”
Arkay crossed his arms and grunted but didn’t answer. Kairos took a deep breath and turned to Sini. Seeing Arkay as a Rethavok was pretty normal, his default, godly form, was similar to one. Kairos was normally covered in heavy scales, so seeing him in Panthreanic plating wasn’t too strange, although he did still have his signature horns and wings. Sini though rarely deviated from anything Temthaic, although both she and Kairos did look impressive dressed as one of Epani’s chosen races.
“I think you know the reason why.”
Epani tutted. “Is this because of the little earthquakes I caused? My chosen children of light and gravity have not been behaving lately, so I thought I would punish them.”
“In what way were they not behaving?” Kairos snorted.
“They have been considering worshipping you lot. There are multiple Lanex sects popping up that wish to worship Kairos, and a wave of Rethavok who, for reasons unknown, want to worship Arkay.”
“Since when the fuck did you care about worship, Epani?” Arkay rather abruptly shouted, slamming his fist into the table.
“I only care because they want to worship you, Arkay!” Epani smiled. “You know this yourself, you are Decay Personified, you are not to be worshipped. What have you done for the Rethavok for them to want to leave my Light and join your Darkness?”
“Well I fucking helped them pull bodies out of rubble after you caused an earthquake in a city that isn’t on any fault lines! I didn’t have to do that, I could have stuck to my duties and let hundreds die, but I didn’t!”
Sini reached over and patted Arkay on the shoulder, silently telling him to calm down and that she’d argue for him.
“Sister, dear, when it comes to the Twelve, your races are not doing too well. The Lanex are the second smallest species when it comes to population size, Lanex birth rates and Rethavok hatchling numbers are the lowest they’ve been for centuries, the Torr have by far the widest wealth gap, all three races rank lowest on universe-wide happiness polls and the Torr almost take pride in being the most corrupt species in this universe. Granted, someone has to be at the bottom, but time and time again, it’s your races, Epani.”
“And on top of that!” Kairos raised a finger. “I checked through old Spast and Skyavok records, although Epanian races only make up about a quarter of the universe’s overall population, they seem to suffer about 50% of the universe’s natural disasters. Part of this IS because the Torr are the second largest source of mining resources and equipment and they really like fracking for some reason, but that is still a worrying number, especially since it’s you who causes natural disasters, Epani.”
“So?”
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, ‘SO’?” Arkay lost his cool as he stood up and yet again bashed the table. The room shook briefly, and Arkay realized he may have been a bit over the top. He sat back down, closed his eyes and took a deep breath before speaking again. “How can you be so… careless about these things? These are living, breathing creatures we are talking about!”
“So? You deal with the corpses and Sini can just make more. That is what you are both here to do, yes?”
“Bloody void, Epani, that is cold…” Kairos muttered. “You are definitely starting to sound like Kinisis. Maybe you’re not really meant to deal with mortals. You lack the care and finesse to do so. Maybe Sini’s right, we SHOULD take your races away from you.”
Epani blinked, then turned to Sini. “You want to take my races away from me? You do realize I am the elder deity here, yes?”
“If we’re pulling ‘elder deity’ cards here, technically I’m older than both of you…” Arkay tutted. “But yeah, uh, Sini, you… want to take Epani’s races away?”
Sini nodded. “I do. Epani, you clearly don’t really care about your races, you just see them as trophies and things to be toyed with, objects to worship you and little else. You’re also clearly too busy or too lazy to, well, care. So I want to take them off your hands and make them better, so that the Lanex, Rethavok and Torr can all live better lives.”
“You cannot do this.”
“I can. I’m the Goddess of Life. You’re just the Goddess of Space. And Kairos and Arkay will back me up on this, yes?”
Kairos smiled and nodded in agreement. Arkay hesitated, then nodded as well.
Epani stood up and glared at her fellow deities.
“I killed less than 90 beings and now you are all up in arms against me?”
“Well, it’s 104 beings now, not including the 30 dead Rethan eggs and the two Lanex miscarriages!” Arkay hissed, avoiding the temptation of getting loud and angry again. He knew he needed to try and stay calm, so that Epani wouldn’t have any ammo to use against him. “All avoidable deaths! Just because they didn’t stroke your ego enough! The unborn children didn’t even get a chance to live! And don’t get me started on the 4096 injured mortals!”
“Those are some rather specific numbers, Arkay.”
“I’m the God of Death, I keep track of these things.”
Kairos shrugged. “Fair enough. But Arkay is 100% right here. Epani, you are being a massive bitch. Whenever the three of us act like bitches, we get punished for it. You are not above being punished.”
The Panelix sneered, remaining standing, her glowing lure swinging from side to side. “This is an ill-fitting punishment for two earthquakes.”
“It’s not just the earthquakes, sister! It’s the on-going mistreatment of mortal races, all because of your hard-to-understand whims and mood swings!” Sini countered. “Plus, you don’t even LIKE dealing with mortals! Let me deal with the Torr, let Kairos deal with the Lanex and let Arkay deal with the Rethavok, and when you have sorted your shit out and when we feel you can look after mortals properly again, we’ll give them back to you, and we’ll all be happier, gods and mortals!”
“Hang on… you’re… giving the Rethavok to me?” Arkay almost whispered.
Sini smiled, a little too much. “Well yeah, of course.”
“I thought you were going to take all three races yourself, Sini?”
The Allbirther smiled some more and patted Arkay on the head. “Of course not. That’d be unfair.”
“THIS IS ALL UNFAIR!” Epani spat. “You have no right to do this to me! Those races belong to me, not to that monster there!”
“The Skyavok, Banikans and Ksithans are all among the happier races in the universe, even if Skyavok and Banikan populations are too low for my liking!” Sini protested. “Arkay actually does a good job looking after the races we forced onto him. And they are all happy despite the fact that only the Banikans actively worship him, and we don’t allow Arkay to answer prayers. Don’t fret, your races will be in safe hands, and you can have some time to cool off and stop being a massive cunt.”
“It’s not like you do much anyway!” Kairos added. “We do all the hard work around here these days.”
Epani snarled some more, but realized that she didn’t really have an argument to make. With one last sigh, she relented, then disappeared in a puff of smoke.
After a long, awkward silence, Sini grinned and turned to the remaining deities.
“Well, that was easier than I thought!”
“Yeah… A little too easy. But we got what we wanted, right?” Kairos hesitated somewhat, then glanced at Arkay. “Are you happy, Arkay?”
Arkay didn’t answer at first. He was still focused on where Epani once stood.
“Arkay?”
“Uh…” Arkay blinked. “I mean… did… did all of that just happen? Did you three really just… give me the Rethans?”
“Yep.”
“Well!” the Thantophor leaped out of his seat and onto the table, almost overwhelmed with emotion. “I’d better go and tell them the good news then! Once I’ve fixed up Phos, of course! This is awesome!”
“Just try not to get too comfy,” Sini warned. “This is somewhat temporary.”
“I know, I know… but still! Thank you so much! I promise I won’t mess it up, Sini!”
Arkay leaped across the table and hugged Sini, waved goodbye to Kairos, then disappeared through the nearest shadow.
“Wow. I haven’t seen Arkay that blown away in a while…” Kairos murmured.
“Heh. He’s happy. It makes a change!” Sini also got up. “Anyway, I’ve got a race of bastards I need to make better, and you need to go and introduce yourself to the Lanex. See you around, Kairos.”
“Yeah, you too, Sini…”