Elkay sat at his desk, reading over some paperwork. Ver was wandering around, knowing he also had things he needed to read and sign, but he couldn’t be asked. The guards outside had given them some privacy, so it was just the two of them in the grand office.
After taking a sip of his glass of water, Elkay suddenly spoke up. “Ver, may I ask a question of you?”
“I love questions!” Ver grabbed his chair and sat down opposite Elkay. “What do you wish to ask, my fellow High General?”
Elkay chewed briefly on the end of his pencil. He did that a lot. “Why were you so open to the little Skyavok yesterday? You offered him a drink, you let him hang around. Normally you are not that open with any Panvok race. Normally you are not that open in general.”
Ver shrugged, shifting his weight in his chair. “Normally. Normally I am closed off to non-Vrekan things, yes. But little Teekay? He looked like a being struggling with things. No vok listening to him. I bet that he has spent hours trying to explain his fears and worries to his peers, only for them to ignore him. The idea of fearing a threat to all of your kind, being helpless and unable to explain to others, it calls out to me, a fear that I keep in the back of my mind at all times.”
“Everyone feels like that at times…” Elkay muttered. “But you went above and beyond that.”
“I did.”
“For a Skyavok.”
“Yes.”
Elkay chewed the end of his pencil again, then put it back in the pencil pot and pulled out a well-chewed simple ink pen. “You believe what he said about monsters in the dark. More than I do.”
“We have no true understanding about the little… pocket the Skyavok live in. We have travelled there and only seen what we see out here in our own world, refitted for their purposes. They are a known living in an unknown. And they are our only warning should Teekay’s fears be correct and there actually is something in the dark!” Ver paused. “Do you think I am acting a little extreme?”
“Perhaps. But your points and Teekay’s points were fair. I was more wondering if you were looking to exploit them or something like that, but…”
“Oh no!” Ver interrupted. “Exploiting Skyavok? That would be suicide. On multiple fronts. Yes, they do have a lot of advantages that we do not have, and having them by our side would be a huge blessing, but they make for a better early warning system than anything else in their region. As I said before, a known in the unknown.”
“That is all very fair… I am glad you cleared that up.”
Ver smiled, paused, then smiled again. “There are two more reasons though.”
“Oh?”
Ver continued to smile. “Well, firstly, it was his birthday. Would be cruel to send him home empty-handed. From the way he was standing, I felt certain that no one had remembered or he had otherwise been disappointed.”
“Mhm. And the second reason?”
Again, Ver smiled, but not as much. “Well, you could do with a friend. Maybe even…”
Elkay stared at Ver.
“Really?”
“Well…”
“Do not suggest that again.”
Ver sighed. “Fine. But you still need to make friends…”