“Bloody Light, we ordered way, way too much food yesterday…” Kayen groaned as he spotted the piles of sealed food in the fridge, then tried to pick which one he wanted to eat. Most of it was rather chunky and wet, heavy, sauce-covered stews with soft meat and plenty of starchy vegetables.
“Doesn’t help that the portion sizes are huge…” Kohra shrugged as he joined Kayen in the kitchen. But rather than grabbing some leftovers, Kohra headed to the cupboard, pulling out a bag of sugar and a spoon, before leaving again. Kohra seemed to do this on a regular basis and Kayen never understood why.
His curiosity being stronger than his hunger, Kayen abandoned the fridge and followed Kohra back into his bedroom, standing in the doorway. To Kayen’s surprise, Kohra was happily sitting at his head, shovelling spoonfuls of sugar into his mouth. Why Kayen was so surprised, he wasn’t really sure. After all, what else would Kohra actually do with a bag of sugar?
“Uh, do you want some water with that?” Kayen asked.
Kohra spun around in his chair, not having been aware that Kayen was watching him. “Oh! No! I’m… I’m good, thanks!”
“Why are you eating sugar directly from the bag?”
“Because, uh, I need to?”
“But why?”
“Because…” Kohra paused. “You didn’t know that the Kronospast diet consists of literally nothing but simple sugars? All this fat and protein is making me bloated, and I can’t get my normal sugar treats, so plain white sugar will have to do.”
“Huh…” Kayen trailed off, not really sure how to respond. “Then why did we order all that Rethan take away stuff?”
“I’m still trying to fit in.”
“Yeah but… you live with me… And you spend most of your time looking like a Rethan…” Kayen sighed. “I’ll be honest, I don’t really know how Kronospasts work. You’re all so weird.”
Kohra leaned back in his chair, reaching for his spoon. “I mean, I could, like, just answer your questions? Us Spasts are basically aliens to the rest of you.” With a smile, Kohra reached under the table he was sitting at and pulled out a second, foldable chair, pushing it towards Kayen. “Come on, let’s talk.”
Kayen hesitated, then sat down on the little chair. “Can we start with the sugar? Why so much sugar?”
“That’s just what we eat. We kinda evolved long before a lot of regular foodstuffs did. Sugar is closer to what our bodies need so our digestive tracts prefer it.”
“Huuuuh…” Kayen exclaimed. “I forgot you Kronospasts are really old! Like… super super old…”
“We’re ancient as a race. Like, I’m still technically a child, I’m only 520 years old.”
Kayen’s confusion only seemed to increase. “You are… over five hundred… years old?”
“Yeah.”
“Well piss…” Kayen shook his head in dismay. “How old are your siblings then?”
“Levik is 721 years old, Tenuk is… was… 1028 years old.”
“YOUR BROTHER IS A THOUSAND YEARS OLD?” Kayen nearly shrieked, almost falling out of his chair. “What the fuck? How do you all live so long?”
Kohra just tutted, dismissing Kayen’s surprise. “It’s… complicated. And it involves fucking with time and time gods and stuff. I mean, the reason we call ourselves Kronospasts is because we broke the Whenvern to make ourselves live longer, by making ourselves invisible to him. The Whenvern got his revenge by turning us into four-eyed, semi-infertile, ugly little golem creatures and making us worship him.”
“Wow… That… that’s all insane…”
The Kronospast simply nodded. “Yeah. Throw in a series of long-lived tyrants, a fuckton of corruption and an eternal desire to be tricksters and you have… well, you have a failed race, really. Which is why any decent Spast will just wander off and live with other races. It’s that or let the corruption take you in the end.”
Kayen blinked, utterly startled and his mind blown. He sat in silence, trying to digest Kohra’s lesson. After a while, he sighed, somewhat scared of what other questions would bring. So Kayen decided to round everything with what Kayen hoped was a simple question.
“So, uh, last question, do you all shapeshift on the regular? Like, in general?”
“In the safety of Spast society? No. While living alongside other races? It depends on the context, but it can be straining regularly changing form. In the bedroom? All the time.”
“Uh, why?”
Kohra smiled coyly. “Well, why not? There is a LOT you can do with all the genitalia you want.”
Kayen frowned. “I feel like I shouldn’t have asked.”
“Well, you did, and now you know!”
“Yeah, I guess…” Kayen sighed as he got up, leaving Kohra to his own devices. “Thank you for the… answers… Now to work out what to do with this new information…”