“Kyr Elkay, are you busy? I think the answer is yes but I am concerned about you.”
Elkay looked up from his desk, which was utterly covered in paper. The most important piece of paper was directly in front of him, a photo of some sort of strange sentence written in light, which Elkay had stuck multiple sticky notes on.
“Oh. Hello, Litvir.”
“Hello, Kyr Elkay!” Litvir smiled a little. “You have not slept. Not since we last spoke.”
“How… how do you…” Elkay rubbed his eyes, then tutted. “Of course you know.”
“Actually, I did not know until just now. Nanik said you were sad and I was the only one of us Twelve who was free so I came to talk to you and make sure you are well!” Litvir was still smiling. “Also, I am remembering not to call you mama or old mama. But more importantly, you are doing the thing I do sometimes and forgetting to sleep and eat and things like that!”
“I am, yes, but I’ve got important work to do.”
“So important that you are not sleeping or eating or taking breaks?”
Elkay grunted. “In all honesty, based on my rough maths? Somewhat, yes.”
Litvir wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that. Their response ended up a little… odd. “Is this as bad as the big bad black stuff that nearly ate the universe, exiled one deity, killed another, humbled a third deity, broke the fourth deity and unfortunately culminated with me coming into existence?”
Elkay blinked some more. “That… uh… That was oddly dark, for you.”
Litvir shrugged. “I am a baby in an adult body with godly powers and the ability to move very, very fast. My thoughts are often very… wobbly, I guess. Still, that is… not the point. You are doing what I do and are forgetting to rest. That is bad, you only do that sometimes, so I assume something bad is happening.”
“Something bad isn’t happening right now. But Kairos believes something bad is going to happen to him. And if something bad happens to him, then we get another Second Darkness.”
“But is the bad thing happening right now? And was the stupid white ball part of it?” Litvir inched closer, looking at all the paper. Although, from Litvir’s point of view, everything was upside down.
“I’ve been working on some calculations. Now, I don’t know if time is… as steady or stable as Kairos claims, but the time scale does… sort of… intersect with our current existence.”
“So it IS happening right now?” Litvir asked again. “Do we need to put mean old Kairos in a room so he can do icky stuff with some girl Thraki while other Thraki do religion things for him again?”
“No, no, that… that’s a whole separate issue. Something I am so, so glad my old master wasn’t afflicted with… I mean… I… If he was… Maybe…” Elkay trailed off.
Litvir tilted their head to one side as they went back to eyeing Elkay. “You wanted to do the icky thing with the Dead God?”
“Uh… No…”
“Please do not lie to me. I can read minds.”
Elkay leaned across the desk, moving sheets of paper all over the place. “You never met Arkay. He was a very, very attractive Skyavok. My wife has been dead for over fifty years now, sometimes I have sexual desires. Just because you’re a baby and can’t comprehend sex, doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to think about it. And yes, I KNOW there are people in L-Class for that sort of thing, but… Just shut the fuck up, alright?”
Litvir backed down. “I guess. Is just icky. But also it is not important. You said bad things are happening.”
“No, there’s no bad things happening right now. There is just a bad thing predicted to happen in the future, and I am struggling to work out what the bad thing is and how we can stop it. And this stupid distant-past light show thing contains both and I can’t work out how to fucking translate it.”
“A light show?” Litvir perked up. “I know things about light! Maybe I can help?”
Elkay went back to staring at Litvir. But after a few moments, he relented, then reached for a folder. Inside were more copies of the photo, but without any notes. He pulled one out and handed it to Litvir.
“Take a look.”
Litvir accepted the photo and fell silent, clearly not making any real sense of it.
“What is this a photo of?”
“It’s some sort of hologram that’s created by a silver gem that Kairos keeps nearby at all times. This is the clearest image I could get of the sentence.”
“Huh…” Litvir muttered. “It is pink and purple. Like the light I can see in the distance at the top of the universe… And the… are they letters? They are weird. Like the ones in Epani’s books.”
“As far as I can tell, this was written by a Life Goddess of some sort. Or at least, something from… outside a universe.”
Litvir shrugged and fell silent, then rotated the photo several times until it was upside down. Elkay rolled his eyes, thinking Litvir was being silly or something, up until they suddenly plonked the photo down in front of Elkay and pointed at a single letter.
“That is an R.”
“What?” Elkay gasped.
“That is an R! The funny squiggly R!”
“What?”
Litvir drew a circle around a handful of letters. “Those letters are the funny squiggly letters that Staton writes in! I do not remember most of them, but that is a letter R, I am certain! And that one may be a K but I do not know, I would have to ask Staton again… Maybe like… like an… R and a K…”
Elkay stared at the photo in front of him for way too long before responding to Litvir. “Are you… suggesting that some of these letters are… Voidborn letters?”
Litvir nodded. “Yes, they have their own language too. I think Staton called it Keni… kenosimi… ken… kenosomi… Something. The special Voidborn language.”
“And… who is Staton?”
“He is one of the two friendly Voidborns who come near the universe sometimes. I have only seen him twice though and both times we talked a lot. The other one is… Theocydes? But I only saw that one once. Aesop told him to go away. I tell Staton what it is like inside a universe and he tells me what it is like outside universes.”
Elkay’s eyes lit up with a hint of realisation. Whether Litvir was correct about the letters or not, Elkay didn’t know, but he now had an idea of what one of the languages was.
“Litvir?”
“Yes?”
“When you next see Staton, can you call me? I’d like to see him too.”
Litvir smiled. “Of course! Is there anything else I can do?”
“For now? No, I just want you to keep a look out, alright? But I have work to do now.”
“Will you take a break, first?” Litvir asked.
“I will, I’ll take a break as soon as I’ve written some important things down.”
“Alright!” Litvir seemed satisfied with Elkay’s answer. “Please do not overwork yourself.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. But I need some quiet time now, so I’ll catch up with you later.”
“Of course, Kyr Elkay!”
Litvir beamed, then did as asked, leaving Elkay alone and exiting the office. Once the door was shut, Elkay got back to work, this time with renewed vigour and a bit more hope.
“The little bastard is on to something…”