“Ugh, these dreams are beginning to annoy me.”
Litvir wrapped his arms around Arkay, who had once again woken up in a shock from a nightmare.
“Beginning to annoy you?”
“Well, they are far more realistic than normal.”
“Was that one of those “you jumped through the hole in the universe alternate timeline” dreams or the “hyperrealistic but completely not at all you apocalypse scenario” dreams?”
“The latter…” Arkay sighed, snuggling into Litvir’s arms. “But I think I prefer those dreams. They fade more quickly and I forget the painful parts after a few hours. Also, when I wake up, they feel less real. The alternate timeline dreams… they hurt.”
“I understand. From what I glimpsed of your dream though… you have an insane imagination at times… You invented an entire race of thropic beings in a unique city that blended two cultures I have no understanding of and recreated a trafficked person surviving a nuclear accident.”
“I guess I did…” Arkay sighed some more. “I appreciate that you are letting me sleep in your bed though.”
“Is it helping?” Litvir asked.
“I don’t know. At least, when I share a bed with you, I tend to only get the apocalypse dreams. It’s 50-50 when I am with Retvik but when I’m on my own, it’s “oops all alternate timelines” again.”
“Hm. Maybe we should do something about it…”
“Like what?” Arkay tutted. “They’re bad dreams. I’ve always had bad dreams.”
“They have been constant!” Litvir tutted back. “Far, far more than usual! We need to do something about this, and you seem unwilling to do anything about it. Will you at least let me look in your head or something?”
Arkay hesitated “I’m… not letting you do that… I love you, Litvir, but I am scared that letting you look in my head properly might… do far more to you. You know I am terrified of hurting you. And, frankly, I don’t want to risk hurting Kuta, Eksi or Nyssi either. Or, like, anyone.”
Litvir frowned. He understood where Arkay was coming from. But as he thought to himself, he suddenly had an idea.
“We could speak to the Healers.”
“Huh…” Arkay didn’t seem to immediately hate that idea. “That could work. I suppose I could message Veeyel…”
“Or you could just call him.”
“Eh, he’s busy, I-”
“Just call him.”
“He might be-”
“Are you allergic to phone calls or something?” Litvir snapped. “You are not well! Call the person whose job it is to make sure all Deathven’s stupid Hidden Trio idiots are healthy and make yourself well again!”
Arkay paused, then did as he was told. He reached for his communicator, opened up Wyvern, opened up his chat with Darkhealer then hit the call button.
There were quite a few rings, but to Arkay’s surprise, someone picked up.
“Heya, Arkay!” Veeyel chirped from the other end. “I was actually just kinda thinking about messaging you! You alright?”
Arkay glanced at Litvir, who nudged him and silently told him to be blunt and honest. “I’m… I’m not doing great, to be honest. I’ve been having constant nightmares.”
“I see… what sort of nightmares?”
“Well, Litvir and I have been describing them as two distinct types: hyperrealistic apocalypse scenarios and hyperrealistic alternate timeline scenarios.”
“Huh…” Veeyel seemed to trail off briefly. “Well, the first one, I don’t know off the top of my head, but the second one, you been spending time sleeping near a Time Drake or something?”
Arkay blinked. Litvir blinked too.
“Uh… yeah. We have two here at Savepoint.”
“And you are sleeping in close proximity to them?”
“Um…” Arkay glanced to the wall to his ide, then turned to Litvir. “Elksia’s room is next door, yes?”
“Four doors down. Elkay, Teekay and Tenuk all have rooms before Elksia’s room. But your room is directly next to Thassalin’s room.”
Clearly Veeyel had heard Litvir’s words. “That’s probably the cause of it. Had something similar with the girlfriend of a Teliavok Time Drake. Easiest solution would be to get you the time-resistant head band thing we got for her, but I’d have to have it delivered. For now, I’d recommend either moving your room or having your Time Drakes move elsewhere, because they might be affecting other people as well.”
“That might be worth doing…” Litvir muttered. “If you are having nightmares, then Elkay might be having difficulties too, as might Tenuk, since he sleeps with Elksia on the regular.”
“We can send you a bunch of these time-resistant bands… Actually! That’s why I wanted to speak to you, Arkay! I wanted me and my silly billies to meet up with you and your idiots!”
“Oh! That might be nice!” Arkay smiled briefly. “But we’re supposed to be busy training up these Decaylings and stuff. They’re nearly ready for their trial, and I have to arrange a meeting with Deathven to make sure he doesn’t fuck around with Helkas.”
“Who is Helkas?” Veeyel asked. “I knew you had knew Decaylings, but that name is new.”
“He… he’s the Synaisthyn we recently found.”
“Ah…” Veeyel trailed off for a moment. “Eh, still, doesn’t mean you can’t spend an evening with us!”
“I suppose we could… what do you have in mind?” Arkay queried. “Like, a meal or something?”
“I was thinking of a BBQ at Ralian’s place. He has… well, he literally has a temple that he lives in and he’s got the coolest barbecue area ever. Which he never fucking gets to use because he’s busy being worshipped by other Teliavok.”
“People worship him?” Litvir whispered. “Why?”
“It’s… complicated… But Letalis and I would like to spend time with you three, and I think Letalis and Litvir both want to egg Ralian and Retvik into… doing something… I think a nice meal at Ralian’s place, where he can show off and we can all just chill would be nice. Would you be up for that?”
Arkay and Litvir both shrugged.
“Sure, we’re up for that. The only question is how we get to your place.”
“I can send coordinates to you to put on your ship. We got a teleporter point reaaaaaal close to where we are.”
“Cool! We’ll go speak to Retvik and let him know and then we can discuss an actual time.”
“No worries! Anyway, I got work, speak soon!”
The call suddenly ended. Arkay immediately settled down.
“See, that was not so hard, was it?” Litvir smiled.
“Yeah, you were right, as always. Shall we go and wake Retvik up and tell him about our plan?”
Litvir gave Arkay a big hug. “Yes, we shall. Sounds like fun…”