Ksini remained calm as the silky tendrils slithered in from the darkness and pulled her through a sudden portal. She was still calm as she was then thrown into a bed of silk pillows and soft blankets. But that calmness was briefly shaken as the Lady of All revealed herself. She wasn’t in her normal motherly shape, nor was she in her monstrous space whale form. Instead, Epani was Temthan-like, with her familiar lure, but also with pieces of armour on her. There were also blue gems scattered among her ruby scales.
“I think you can guess why I brought you here.”
Ksini thought for a moment, pondering the time threads that would make Epani the least annoyed and the most forgiving. But Epani wasn’t allowing Ksini to see too far into those future paths. Ksini assumed that was intentional, so she changed tact and decided to play dumb.
“I’m not sure, my dear, why have you summoned me?”
Epani inspected Ksini, then grunted and rolled her eyes. The silky tendrils came back, and they tied Ksini up. In a rather compromising manner. Well, mostly just her arms behind her back, and her wings tied up out of the way. Being a large serpentine being, tying Ksini up was a little tricky at times.
“You know why I brought you here.”
Epani seemed angry. Ksini dropped the dumbness, then sighed.
“It’s because of our now backup Time Drake, right?”
“No, it is because you have upset Litvir, by messing around with their family.”
“Litvir is a baby!” Ksini tutted. “They will-”
“Litvir is one of MY babies!” Epani interrupted. “They are one of my children, they are one of my Twelve Anew, and you are intentionally messing with them. So I looked into things and it turns out you are also nudging Maresia into doing things she would not normally do, tempting her with hot male Temthans in order to make her want kids; you are distracting Dalosisaar with female Thraki in vast numbers because of his new worshippers; you made Aster feel awful because you gave him intentionally faulty condoms, he used them and his date had to take an emergency contraceptive; Elkay keeps on complaining that he is feeling horny and can’t act on it because he feels old; and you gave up on Aesop because it turns out he is a closet homosexual. But even worse, you tried to set KOHRA up with a MUCH OLDER WOMAN!”
Ksini hesitated. “So, um, I take it you are angry at me.”
“Maresia is an adult, she knows what she wants. Dalosisaar is an adult, he can cope with temptation. Aster is upset but his friend was forgiving. But Litvir and Kohra are literal children, and you need to stop messing with them. You are incredibly lucky that Litvir chose a simple threat over true violence, and that they are INCREDIBLY skilled at not going Defensive Stance.”
“So… you’re angry at me…” Ksini sighed.
Epani sighed as well. “I am, yes. Because… Alright, I get it. You are a Life Goddess as well, you want to do Life Goddess things. That feeling burns inside you. But you keep on going beneath me and you keep on messing with my children. And right now? You are not properly treating your Dispa, and the cracks are showing. Part of what happened with Kairos was that he was not treating his Dispa, and it tore him apart and swallowed him up. I don’t want-”
“Wait!” Ksini suddenly butted in. “Kairos had Dispa too?”
“He did. He somewhat caught it off of us just before the Sudden Darkness. After you left, I spotted the symptoms and gave Kairos a plan on how to treat it, but he ignored me. And because of that, the destructive desires broke in, and Kairos ended up lashing out and then dying because of it…”
“Ah…” Ksini frowned. “Hm… I wonder if Arkay has Dispa…”
“No, Arkay had clinical depression and potentially a whole host of other mental illnesses. He never had Dispa because Kinisis didn’t need to inflict him with it to control him…” Epani trailed off, then sighed some more. “Ksini, you need to talk to me. I want to help you. Because I care about you. Your Dispa is flaring up right now and you are acting weird because of it. I know exactly what that is like, because it was flaring up for me just before… what happened with Kairos. And you cannot be taking those flare ups out on our kids, because, well… Litvir is a good kid. I don’t know what the other Twelve Anew would have done had they found out that you have been manipulating them.”
“I… yeah… I’ve been a right bitch…” Ksini relented. Epani was right, in every single way. “I’m sorry. Genuinely.”
“I understand, Ksini. Will you allow me to help you treat your Dispa?”
“Yeah… But… from your tone, have you found alternate methods to treat it?”
Epani nodded, and smiled a little as well. “I have, yes. Wonderful little Syksis has helped me a LOT when it comes to many illnesses. And we stumbled across a rather… simple and nice method to deal with more immediate symptoms. While a cure is currently out of reach, I actually have hope that we can, in the future, develop a proper way of treating the illness. But in the mean time…”
With a snap of her clawed fingers, Epani adjusted Ksini so she was still tied up, but was also sat up, nestled among the cushions and comfortable. She then opened up one of her hammer spaces and pulled out a large box.
“Is that chocolate?” Ksini asked.
“Yes. Specifically Ksithan chocolate. Fine, high quality, high cocoa Ksithan chocolate. It has the perfect combination of nice chemicals that manage to satiate that gnawing hunger. Anyway, I am now going to force-feed you this chocolate, then give you a massage. You are not to argue. Understand?”
Ksini smiled, just a tiny bit, “I understand. I’m sorry.”
“I know you are. Do not do it again, alright?”
“I won’t. Thank you for putting up with me, Epani. Despite my being a bitch.”
Epani gentle patted Ksini on the head. “No worries, my little sister. We have all been there. I forgive you. We will get through these things together, yes?”
Ksini nodded, then allowed herself to relax. “Yeah, we will…”