“Hey babe…”
It was incredibly difficult to do so, but as Elkay heard the voice of his beloved partner and felt their hand brush his, Elkay immediately grabbed onto Teekay and pulled him into a tight a hug as he could manage. Which, considering how drugged up he was, wasn’t very tight.
“Teekay, dear, I had a horrible nightmare…” Elkay couldn’t help but whimper. “I dreamed that we did our Trial and there was so much corruption and you were declared Decay Lords and all sent home and this horrible monster claimed I was dangerous and locked me away in a glass canister and gassed me and would not let me return to you…”
Teekay wriggled free from Elkay’s grip, then held him properly, looking up at the utterly exhausted, half-awake Rethan he called his girlfriend. “Uh, that all happened. Litvir, Vikalos and Voidblade went to Deathven proper and kicked up a right stink. Apparently Litvir really stirred things up among the Upper Decay Lords.”
Elkay blinked, than sat up straight. He didn’t realize that he and Teekay weren’t alone. Sitting all around them were their fellow Decaylings. Three of whom proceeded to spray something fizzy all over Teekay and Elkay.
“Congratulations, you mimic-y bastard!” Tenuk shouted as he opened a can of something and poured it all over Eksi, making him join Elkay and Teekay in being soaking wet. Sure, Eksi and Tahvra had just helped Tenuk soak everyone, but Eksi seemed unamused. Thankfully, Phovos was around to even things out, chucking some sort of hastily summoned water balloon at both Tenuk and Tahvra.
Elkay glanced down at himself. “Uh, did you just soak me in energy drinks?”
“We did!” Elksia chirped as she joined in the fun, pouring a bucket of fizzy drinks over Tenuk’s head. “We did it! We’re Decay Lords now! All of us! Even you! We were waiting for you to wake up, sleepy head!”
Teekay nodded, giving Elkay another brief hug before letting go. “You’ve been out of it for a few hours. According to Galyn, those cunts gave you enough sedatives to knock out one of those giant star whale things.”
“Really, it’s amazing you’re already awake!” Tahvra added. “But yeah we waited for you to wake up, mister Elkay! We wanted to celebrate together!”
Elkay hesitated some more, then turned to Tahvra. “Uh, Tahvra, why do you call me ‘mister’? You do not call anyone else that.”
Tahvra shrugged. “I dunno. You just seem like a ‘mister’. You were a queen, a leader, after all. Same way Phovos is a ‘missy’ but Elksia isn’t.”
Eksi chortled. “Elkay’s definitely a queen. He’s Teekay’s little bitch. But yeah, Elkay, we wanna celebrate, but we thought we’d let you choose what we do.”
“I… I just want to sleep though… I am utterly exhausted…” Elkay couldn’t help but mutter. Tenuk handed Elkay an unopened can of energy drink, which he snapped open and sipped, but it did little to make Elkay feel better. With a sigh, Elkay decided to pass the question onto someone else. Not Teekay though, because he knew Teekay’s answer would be “lets go sneak off and have sex” and Elkay barely had the energy to talk, let alone pleasure his partner. And he wasn’t really in the mood for being pleasured either. “I do not know what I want to do. Akah, what do you want to do?”
Akah had not been paying attention at all, he’d been staring out of the window of the observatory, and was nearly as tired as Elkay was.
“Uh, why are you asking me?”
“You deserve to choose. You worked incredibly hard.”
“Oh, totally!” Tenuk butted in. “Akah, you were totally the MVP of the team! I think Eksi wins on “most corrupted killed” and Tahvra definitely was a great leader, doubly so because he ain’t addled by way too much testosterone any more, but dude, you fucking did it.”
“I… I guess…” Akah shrugged, twisting round to look at his fellow Decay Lords. “I don’t know. I feel weird. As if I’m… slightly different now. More accepting that this is who I am. I’m Akah Icebreaker, codename Shattershield, a Decay Lord, a member of the Thantir, and I have… a completely open future ahead of me. I can do whatever I want… but I don’t know what to do.”
“You’re definitely not alone there!” Phovos added. “Something about our trial did legitimately do something to us. I feel more powerful now, and my Life Goddess stuff, what little I’ve tried to do, comes more naturally to me now… Speaking of which…” Phovos climbed to her feet, then waved her hands around in front of her. A small, shimmering portal opened up, and Phovos reached inside, rummaging around until she found what she was looking for. Eventually, she pulled out a large, golden, familiar chalice.
“Did you steal that from the Overlord?” Tenuk immediately asked as Phovos played around with the chalice, fiddling with a button on the side. As she did so, the chalice immediately filled up with a fruity, alcoholic cocktail. Phovos then handed the chalice to Elkay.
“Mhm. Nabbed it while he was monologuing at Elksia and telling her that she was free to travel through Kornothrax territories or some shit. He clearly doesn’t need it, he’s a massive cunt. So I think Elkay should have it. After all, the guy was a colossal asshole to you, for literally no reason.”
Eksi nodded in agreement. “From what Vikalos told us when he, Litvir and Soulblade went to rescue you, that Overlord guy just blatantly lied and spouted a load of piss. They saw Orion in the council thing, and the cat god and quite a few of the other Decay Lords there all started shouting at the Overlord…” Eksi paused for a moment. “Honestly, I really, really fucking wish I was there in person. I’d fucking love to see how everyone reacted when Litvir dropped that Everlord truth bomb on them all. Guy was apparently so upset that he just summoned you out of thin air, Elkay, and dropped you on the floor.”
“What truth bomb?” Elkay blinked as he took a sip from the chalice. It was a remarkably tasty cocktail, considering that Elkay couldn’t tell what flavour it was.
“That Everlord, Overlord’s old Trio buddy, wasn’t killed by a mimic, that he WAS a mimic.”
“… Huh…” Elkay had no idea how to respond to that. “Guess there are more mimics than we thought.”
“Either way, I want to make a suggestion!” Phovos perked up. “I had a quick chat with Retvik when we got back, I asked him what he, Litvir and Arkay did to celebrate, and they didn’t do anything apart from sleep be depressed from spending three days trying not to die. I don’t want to be like that. So I say that we get shitfaced, celebrate with the other Decay Lords, since we’re Decay Lords too now, have a quick break so Elkay, Teekay, Tenuk and Elksia can fuck around and Eksi can be rammed repeatedly by those Loopblade guys, then, when we get our first pay check from Deathven, we go back to that mall and have a massive spend up. Since we’ll have our own money now.”
“And Teekay can start planning for his wedding!” Eksi added, smirking at Phovos’s comment about him and the League of the Loop. He knew it wasn’t true, that, these days, he normally just made Kaytee, their youngest member, beg for more.
“Oh. Yeah. Fuck. Elkay, babe, we can finally get married!” Teekay beamed. “I mean… it’s gonna be a pretty tame wedding because I’m pretty sure you can’t get void sparkles or shadowred grass out here, but we can tie the knot and be official!”
Elkay seemed less certain, but only because he admittedly didn’t know much about Skyavok weddings. “What is shadowred grass?”
“Basically a cross between natural viagra and weed!” Teekay explained. “I’m sure Phovos could make us some awesome glittery confetti though! And we gotta pick out some nice necklaces to seal our marriage! And we’ll have to find an extra large veil and a white, lace cloak for you! You don’t mind being the bride, do you, Elkay?”
“I will be whatever you want me to be!” Elkay smiled, hugging Teekay tightly again. He felt a LOT better now. Sure, there were lingering fears in his mind, and he did already feel drunk, but as far as Elkay was concerned, everything was better now.
“Are you not going to do anything Rethavok-y at your wedding?” Tahvra blinked, quite confused at the whole concept of weddings in general.
“Oh, no, fuck that!” Elkay exclaimed. “Rethan weddings are boring. The only thing I want is a new set of partnership daggers, now that I will be able to afford more expensive ones. And I want those to go alongside our Skyan marriage necklaces.”
“So, we all agree on our plan?” Phovos asked.
The eight Thantir Decay Lords all glanced at each other, then nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, let’s get drunk!” everyone cheered. “To us!”