Elkay grunted, then looked up from the article he was reading on his tablet. There was a shadow over him. And, unfortunately, it wasn’t his darling husband Teekay. Teekay was still clearly busy with work, as he was busy repairing a ship.
“Hello, Elkay-En!” Elkay smiled, acknowledging the presence.
“Hello…” Elkay-En’s words were very hesitant.
“How are you?”
“I am… concerned…”
“You are concerned, Elkay-En? Do you want to talk about what is concerning you?”
Elkay-En frowned, then nodded. “I do, yes, but… I also… somewhat need to show you what’s concerning me too.”
“Of course, not a problem!” Elkay continued to be courteous as he put his tablet away, then got up. “Lead the way!”
Elkay-En frowned some more, then led Elkay off, up to the private quarters. Every member of the Thantir had their own personal and private bedroom, but with more and more people joining the Thantir, what had once been two storeys was now three storeys and was much longer. Elkay-En’s room was right on the end, on the top storey, the last private room to be added.
As they approached the room, Elkay noticed that Elkay-En was becoming more and more uneasy. To the point that Elkay’s weak telepathy and empathic powers were picking up on Elkay-En’s thoughts and those thoughts were making Elkay himself uneasy.
Elkay-En hesitated, then slowly opened the door to his room, then stepped to one side.
“The problem is pretty bad. I have worked out what kind of Life Goddess I am, and it’s not good.”
Elkay peered into the room, then blinked several times, not sure what he was looking at at first.
“Is that… Corruption?”
Elkay took a second look, and was still confused. It looked like Corruption, but fleshier. More dark red than black. And it was completely filling up and coating a large plastic box on Elkay-En’s desk, squelching away to itself. It wasn’t doing anything though, it was just sitting here. There were two other plastic boxes on the floor, both also filled with the strange material.
“Technically? No. It’s… basically Corruption though. Not infectious, not… really anything. But it’s basically flesh and slime that I can create, summon, control and manipulate.”
“Manipulate how so?”
Elkay-En grunted, then raised his hand. A tendril grew out of the closest plastic container then formed a hand-like shape. Elkay-En then waved his hand, and the tendril copied his actions. Using this tendril, Elkay-En then picked up a pen from his desk, which he handed to Elkay.
“Alright… that is… weird… but…” Elkay stared blankly at the pen for a moment. “You said it is not contagious or anything?”
“Yes. I can completely destroy it if I want to.”
“Care to show me?”
Another grunt. Elkay-En concentrated, then growled slightly, closing his eyes as he did so. The tendril suddenly vaporised, as did the contents of the plastic boxes on the floor. The box on the desk remained, but the fleshy material shrank down into it, no longer coating the sides.
“Huh… So it is relatively contained… May I take a closer look?”
“Sure.”
Elkay stepped into the room properly and approached the container on the desk. He didn’t particularly want to touch it, but he found himself doing so anyway, just so he could check that it genuinely wasn’t Corruption. It wasn’t. It felt like touching a slug. Slimy but also mostly just… not muscle but some sort of flesh. But it also didn’t leave any residue on Elkay’s hands.
Noticing that Elkay wasn’t terrified or anything, Elkay-En found the courage to join Elkay and start explaining.
“I was trying to make a tree, but it wasn’t working. So I tried to make vines, the way Phovos does, but that didn’t work. Somewhere along the line, I thought about making a vine but made out of flesh and somehow that did work… but it’s… it’s an insult to life and existence in general.”
“You say that, there is a lot of life made by Life Goddesses which is absolutely awful. We both came from universes made by Life Goddesses, and they allowed horrible things like diseases, parasites and mosquitoes to exist.”
“The crap I just made is far worse.”
Elkay tutted. “How is some slime worse? You did not create a disease, you created a… uh… a flesh thing. It is gross, yes, but being gross is not the same as being bad.”
“I… I guess…” Elkay-En sighed. “The only good thing about it though is that it glows when Corruption is near. Because this isn’t the first time I’ve made this stuff. I accidentally made some of it when Vikalos and Pah were showing Veekay and I how to burn Corruption.”
“That is an interesting trait!” Elkay tried to be more optimistic. “I do not know why you are so angry. You have learned to do something. The positives are not obvious, but, well, this is a step towards becoming a more powerful Life Goddess. Plus, it is not like Life Goddesses are always clean and tidy. You have never been inside one of Yisini’s labs, they are… mostly made of flesh and bone as well.”
Elkay-En still didn’t seem persuaded. He sighed some more, then snapped his fingers, causing the rest of the flesh to disintegrate.
“You seem… rather angry…” Elkay muttered.
“Not angry. Embarrassed. The thoughts of me being a sick monster are all coming back.”
“You are not a sick monster though. All you did was create some slimy flesh stuff. You are not bad, you are just an odd type of Life Goddess. And on the list of “Life Goddesses and how good or bad they are”, you are like, one rung below Phovos at worst, and you are way, way above Yisini, Epani and Kinisis.”
“That… that is true…” Elkay-En calmed down, just a little. “Still… can you do me a favour and… not tell anyone about this? I… I already think I’m a freak. I don’t need others thinking I’m a freak as well.”
Elkay sighed. “I will not tell anyone. But I will reiterate, you are not a freak. If anyone is a freak here, it is me. Still… do you want to go and sit somewhere quiet with me, for a bit? I am still waiting for Teekay to finish work, and you could do with being away from your room and your experiments.”
Elkay-En’s frown faded and he smiled, just a little. “That sounds nice. Sure thing…”