It was nice being back home. Sure, Retvik needed to go shopping, but he could finally take off his armour and just wander around in a stomach wrap and loin cloth. In fact, his housemates had already gone and done something similar. As soon as they’d stepped back inside Retvik’s house, Nyssi had removed almost all her clothing apart from her knickers at an astonishing speed, while Kayel had taken off his hoodie and thrown it at Tenuk, before shadowjumping across the house to his room to remove everything else. Tenuk hadn’t done much at all, but, being a Spast, he mostly just wore a pair of shorts and a sash, light toga or robe anyway.
Retvik left his footplates by the door, then made his way over to the living area in the centre of the house and took off his wristbands, plugging them in to charge, before taking off the bulkier parts of his armour. Really, he should have taken everything upstairs and tidied everything away, but Retvik didn’t care. Instead, he sat down on the sofa, picked up an electronic tablet and started checking it for messages and news. Tenuk quickly joined him, sitting on the sofa opposite, having fetched a drink from the kitchen.
However, as Retvik began to flick through recent news, he became more and more disturbed.
“Bloody Light…” Retvik muttered to himself. “We were not on Kolasi for that long…”
“Well we have been busy!” Tenuk smiled as he sipped his drink, a can of light beer. “On top of all our flights being delayed, we got back, went straight to the arenas, did the stupid meeting with my brothers and with those high ranking Temthans and we’ve literally just gotten home to chill! Although we did admittedly spend a night at the hotel near the space port because Nyssi was too tired to drive back and Kayel and I aren’t insured on her truck…”
Retvik grunted, not at all amused. “In our time away, there has been an earthquake at the Rethan capital of Phos, the Lanex have offered their allegiance to the Whenvern, the Torr government is split between its relationships between the Panelix and a desire to move towards the Allbirther and…” Retvik paused, then opened up a messaging app, but not the Spast-run Ola app that most species used for cross-race communication.
After an annoyingly slow update, the Rethan communication app General Talks finally opened. Retvik admittedly only had five contacts on there, one contact was Vel, the leader of Retha Squad Three, one of them was his ex who he hadn’t spoken to in nearly a decade and two of those contacts were now dead, but he had recently added his sibling Relkir as a friend. There were no messages waiting for Retvik, but he weirdly did have two (two? why?) friend requests. However, that wasn’t important. Retvik quickly sent a message to Relkir, who seemed to be online.
To Retvik’s surprise, he actually got a rather swift response.
Relkir-Rethianos-116903: Hello.
Retvik-Rethianos-116902: Are you well?
Relkir-Rethianos-116903: Yes. Have concussion. Think I saw Allbirther again.
Retvik-Rethianos116902: She is admittedly not as bad as she seems. Did you speak to Arkay?
Relkir-Rethianos-116903: Yes. Saw him. Briefly. He said hi. Our new Matron Deity.
Relkir-Rethianos-116903: I was right. Is nice. Being right. Must rest though. Head hurts. Cannot do much to deal with other symptoms.
Retvik-Rethianos116902: Very well. Hope you feel better, Relkir. Let me know if I can help in any way.
Relkir-Rethianos-116903: Thank you.
“You look pretty concerned…” Tenuk whispered as he too had started reading the news. “Although, to be honest, you Rethans got the best deity. I’ll be pretty interested to see what the Lanex do though, if they’re going to be sheltered by Holy Kairos’s wings.”
Retvik sighed. “I am a little concerned. Not because of Arkay though. This article here says that my sibling Relkir got hurt and I had to check and make sure they were well. They thankfully just have a concussion.”
“Oh, that’s good!” Nyssi interrupted, throwing her mostly naked body next to Retvik. Retvik was thankful he was a Rethan and wasn’t attracted to Nyssi, because her actions would have otherwise been rather awkward. “Didn’t know you still spoke to your brothers.”
“Siblings.”
Tenuk tutted. “Same thing, Retvik.”
“It is not the same thing!” Retvik protested. “We do not-”
“You use a gender.”
Retvik crossed his arms and grunted, before relenting and going back to his tablet. “Literally everyone around me calls me a ‘he’, so that is what I do. If I lived with other Rethans, I would go back to using ‘they’ like everyone else. Still, I wonder how Arkay feels about this?”
Kayel suddenly popped up, having brought everyone an alcopop from the fridge. He wasn’t sure where they had come from, but Kayel didn’t fancy a beer and he certainly wasn’t going to complain.
“Fuck Arkay, how the fuck is the rest of our union going to think about this? Sure, us Skyans get on with you Rethans now, but, like we weren’t friends too long ago.”
“To be fair, a lot of those N-Class guys were all isolationist cunts!” Nyssi smiled. “The K-Class, your military class, are in charge now, right? Bet your leaders get on like a house on fire now.”
Retvik glanced back at the news site he was reading. “Seems like it. Apparently Rethais is meeting All-Ksa Elkay. We met the All-Ksa, yes?”
Kayel nodded. “Yeah. He seemed pretty chill, even though we were sharing a room with Arkay. I still wonder if the All-Ksa is a Phantasma or not, he’s never confirmed or not but I bet he can speak Shadow Tongue.”
Nyssi leaned forward, smirking almost evilly. “Can you teach us your death cult language?”
“Uh…” Kayel hesitated. “I… I’m not supposed to. Mostly because I’m not K-Class or technically a Phantasma any more. Honestly, half the time I speak it, I don’t even really know that I’m doing so and only work it out when others stop understanding me.”
“That’s actually rather freaky!” Tenuk blinked. “Like, speaking a whole different language and not realizing? That’s like… I mean, I’ve shapeshifted without realizing and it gave me amnesia.”
“You also kinda changed your colours without realizing!” Nyssi added. “Like, you just appeared in my spare room in blue. Did you ever work out why?”
Tenuk shrugged. “Nope. No idea. Makes no sense at all. What bothers me more is that I kinda didn’t recognize Kohra at first because he used to be white with a pale blue mane and dad made him change his mane to gold to look more regal.”
“That’s… pretty fucked up…” Nyssi glanced at Retvik and Kayel. “That’s a fucked up thing for your dad to ask you to… oh…” Nyssi paused. “Sorry, forgot that you two don’t have parents.”
Retvik glanced back at Nyssi, he had been staring at his tablet, reading the news and only partially paying attention. “Oh, I do have parents, I just have not met them. But you are right, Nyssi, one’s parents forcing you to look a certain way is somewhat messed up. My foster parents were strict but not that strict.”
Nyssi was glad that Retvik agreed with her. However, as she peeked at Retvik’s tablet, she spotted the notifications from the General Talks app. “Retty, you have friend requests and you haven’t answered them?”
“They are probably spam. I never get friend requests from other Rethans.”
“I know us Temthans get a fuckton of fake friend requests from porn bots, but surely your apps ain’t that bad?”
“Can’t be that bad, I heard you need a Rethan ID to sign up anyway, same as most Skyan apps!” Kayel shrugged as he sipped his drink. He didn’t have a spare tablet or anything to look at while his communicator charged, so he was mostly just staring off into space.
“Go on, see who wants to be your friend!”
Retvik relented and did as Nyssi suggested. He opened up the General Talks app again, switched to the Requests tab then blinked in confusion.
“Kuta-Tieridos-290324… is that Arkay’s girlfriend?” Nyssi asked.
“I assume so, yes, but…” Retvik practically whispered his next few words. “I am more surprised that Rethais has sent me a friend request.”
“That’s your other brother, right? Or sister?”
“Sibling.”
“Same thing.”
Tenuk chuckled, enjoying how Nyssi was winding Retvik up. “So, you gonna accept it? Or are you going to pull a massive power move and ignore it?”
Retvik hesitated, then put his tablet down, deciding to drink the alcopop Kayel had brought him before it went warm. “I will… think about it. After all, if Rethais genuinely wanted to get in touch, he would probably just have me kidnapped again or something…”