“So, you’re retiring completely?” Kass asked as she rolled over and eyed the beautiful Skyan lying next to her.
“Yeah.”
Psiksi’s answer was brief. He was distracted, mostly staring at the ceiling, lost in thought. He and Kass had decided to have a quick little date, mostly just ordering take away food and chilling out. On the bedside table were some opened and used rubbers, an inhaler and a thin metal crown.
“You’re really not getting any better?”
“Not as fast as I’d like…” Psiksi coughed a little. “Like, maybe, eventually, I’d get back to completely full health. But it’d take five years at least. I’m already in my fifties, I’d be nearly sixty once I’m clear to fight again. I don’t want to wait. I want to move on.”
“And you want me to replace you, permanently?”
Psiksi smiled, then put an arm around Kass. “Yeah. You can do it. You already are doing it. You’re building your own streak already. And you’re also starting to mimic my way of fighting, hitting hard and fast. You’re great.”
“I appreciate that, but I’m still worried about you. Your whole life is kinda over now.”
“Eh, I guess…” Psiksi didn’t seem particularly upset. “But we’re Skyavok. We don’t live that long. We’re one of the shortest lived of the Twelve. I would have retired at 65 anyway, possibly even earlier because being a gladiator is rough on the body in general, even with advanced healing tech. But now I get to do something else for a bit and live to see 100 without being in agony from years of fighting people much larger than me.”
Kass shrugged. “That’s fair, I guess. Do you at least know what’s wrong with you now?”
“Yep. The super smart doctor my mum knows, she worked it out. Turns out, the whole “inhaling Corruption” theory was… partially right. A bit of dead Corruption got stuck in my lungs, and my body was overreacting in trying to get rid of it. So my lungs got inflamed and the liquid is a side effect of all of that.”
“Can that be fixed?”
“Apparently. I had some scans done, and they’re going to try and find the foreign tissue. I’ll have to have surgery to have it removed, but once that crap’s gone, it’s all uphill from there. The inflammation will go down, the liquid can be drained permanently and my lungs will finally be able to relax. It just takes time, and it takes me taking things easy and not being stressed.”
“But… like…” Kass was full of questions. “What are you going to do, job-wise? You’re kinda too young to retire completely!”
Psiksi smiled some more. “Well, for the near future, I’m actually getting paid to take time off. I have a month of paid medical leave, which I’m using now, followed by a month of paid holiday leave which I haven’t used. After that, I’ll no longer be a gladiator or technically have a job, but I do have a few things lined up.”
“Like what?” Kass asked. “Also… do I get that as a House Fighter now?”
“You build up to it. I’ve been a House Fighter for most of my career, I get more. Mostly because the old Raptor knew how amazing I was and bribed me to ditch Ξ-Class somewhat and work for her directly before I got too good as a challenger. You’ll get whatever Levik gets, most likely, because we need to have a Skyan House Fighter.”
“What Levik gets is pretty good…” Kass trailed off briefly. “We still don’t have a Torr house fighter.”
“Maybe you could convince one to join?” Psiksi suggested. “You’re a charmer. You can talk vok into all sorts. You talked me into taking just now.”
“Huh. Maybe…” Kass went back to what she wanted to say. “But after your holiday time is up, what then? Are you moving away? Wait… is that why you invited me here?”
Psiksi hesitated, then nodded. “Alright, to be fair, travel is a lot easier for us shadowjumpers now, but yeah, I’m moving to Thre-Gnosis, where my parents live. Gonna rent out this place for cheap and use universal basic income to get myself a small Skyavok-sized apartment near the parents’ place. They’ve also got a basic job lined up for me, that I actually have some experience in.”
“You’re gonna have an A-Class job?” Kass exclaimed. “I… I admittedly always kinda wanted one. But being shadowtouched, I kinda never got the chance.”
“Oh, same here. But All-Ksa Veeyel has removed the shadowtouched laws related to some Classes, namely A-, Ψ- and F-Classes and plans to remove those laws for all Classes soon. Sure, we’ll have to undergo yearly testing to make sure we’re not cheating anything, but it means I can finally do something A-Class related. Sure, my new job will just be writing commentary for political gladiator matches and proof-reading transcripts and stuff related to the Arenas, but it’s a hint of familiarity while I get my foot into the door of A-Class proper.”
“That makes sense. I guess you have it all planned out…”
Psiksi nodded some more. “Yeah.”
Kass sighed, then snuggled up closer to Psiksi. “I’m going to miss you.”
“I-”
Psiksi suddenly fell completely silent. He just realized what was bothering Kass.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine. Like, you never wanted to settle down with one person anyway. But I like spending time with you…”
“I get that. But I’ll still pop by and visit. We can shadowjump across planets now. Because the Silent Blade left us with that gift. And once I’m settled? You can pop by my place too. Could even meet my parents. They’d probably like you.”
“Really?” Kass perked up.
“Oh, totally. Plus, you don’t know your parents. They’d totally dote on you.”
Kass smiled. “I like that. I like you.”
“And I like you too!” Psiksi smirked. “Want to have some more fun together? While I’m still around?”
Kass smirked back, then rolled on top of Psiksi, pinning him down. “Oh, definitely.”