“Please, Rethais, come to bed.”
The High General had been standing by the tinted window for at least an hour, gazing off at the city of Thre-Vretantia, one of the main capitals of the planet Retha. Physically, Rethais was the perfect Rethan specimen, but deep down, Rethais was mentally exhausted from a never-ending stream of disasters he had to deal with.
“Rethais, dear…”
“One moment please, Lysar…”
“You have been standing there for far too long. Come to bed and sleep.”
Rethais sighed, then did as he was told. He may have been the High General, but Lysar was right. He had been stressed out of his mind due to a sudden flood of issues, all of which were out of Rethais’s control. Natural disasters and sudden deaths were bad enough, but now he also had to wrestle a massive cycle of corruption that had bubbled up. What bothered Rethais more though was he knew where this corruption had come from.
Pulling off the blanket, Lysar revealed his naked body. At least, he was as naked as a Rethan could be, having removed his shiny metal and leather armour, his natural carapace smoothed down and trimmed to not be too sharp.
Rethais sat on the edge of the bed, not climbing in. Lysar wriggled over, placing a hand on Rethais’s shoulder in an attempt to pull Rethais into bed properly.
“Dear, you seem more stressed than usual.”
“I am. Existence is not treating us well…” Rethais grunted. “Everything has multiple underlying issues that never seem to end. I was dealing with all of this with few problems but…”
“But your brother keeps on uncovering large amounts of corruption.”
The High General took a long, deep breath. “Yes. All of it popping up in the short amount of time that Elkay has been gone for. It is almost as if all the corruption has bubbled up the second Elkay’s light faded.”
“Because it never went away, perhaps?”
Rethais nodded. “I fear… I fear our corrupted sectors buried themselves away while Elkay was in charge, due to his lack of tolerance. These corrupted generals think little of me and have come back in his absence.”
“Then we will just have to fight them back again.”
“You do not…” Rethais rubbed his eyes, not sure how to explain what he was thinking. “I am of the opinion that we need a… a purge. To remove a large number of generals and have them replaced with… with Rethans who are not assholes to the common vok.”
“Are you willing to do that?”
“Yes, but I need vok ready to replace these generals, to do this cleanly and swiftly. But I lack the resources and… trust do to this quickly.”
Lysar smiled, pulling Rethais into bed properly. “Then wait. Be patient. We will fix these things when we can. But you cannot function properly if you do not rest and if you do not relax.”
Rethais sighed, leaning back and lying down. “Yes, you are right, my love.”
“Promise me you will relax here in bed with me for a few hours, Rethais?”
“I will…” Rethais finally smiled, putting an arm around Lysar. “We need a break…”