Phovos saw him again. Repeatedly. Never directly though. Always from the corner of her eye. The pale blue Ksithan. Phovos had been running around all day, and it wasn’t until her Lanex House Fighters pointed out the ‘impossible Mage’ that she’d started noticing him too, and since then, that was all Phovos was seeing. A Ksithan in the wrong colours. Ksithans couldn’t be pale blue. They came in white, dark blue, dark green, or black, or, incredibly rarely, an odd, brown or dark red colour. Sure, some Ksithans did dye their manes black, white, grey or silver, but full body dyes were unheard of, and Ksithans only really brightened themselves up by painting their horns and claws.
Worse, this pale blue Ksithan was hideously attractive. A fine specimen. Male. Tall. 2m tall in fact. Which was insanely tall for a Ksithan. Well-built too, and muscular. Wearing a plain t-shirt and shorts. Showing off those arm muscles. Distracting Phovos. Distracting her staff too. Not just Ksithans, but other races as well. Timik Lilac-Crown, the number one House Fighter, had spotted the pale blue Ksithan and directly asked Phovos if 1. she knew him, 2. if he was single and 3. why wasn’t Phovos asking the pale blue Ksithan out on a date. Sure, Timik was a well-known stud, considered my many to be Temthan perfection, but Phovos had told him off for that inappropriate comment.
However, it wasn’t until the end of the day that this Ksithan finally actually approached her. He did so as Phovos was leaving the administrative building, heading out towards her car. His approach and the constant watching from a distance had unnerved Phovos, and she’d armed herself with a dagger, one of the fancy ones she kept in her office. If what she had been told about the identity of this Ksithan was true, Phovos was pretty sure that the dagger would do very little, but she was the Raptor, the Unending Fear, the Immortal Fang, if this Ksithan wanted business, she wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
Not wanting to put herself in a dangerous spot, Phovos stopped walking towards her car and changed direction, heading towards the main arenas, where there were still Rethan and Banikan guards patrolling, not stopping until she was in view of a pair of Rethan security staff members. One of them waved at her, and she waved back. However, as Phovos turned around, she noticed the pale blue Ksithan was gone.
Clearly, he wanted to talk in private. Or, at least, out of earshot of others.
Tutting, Phovos walked over to the two Rethans. Since they worked on a neutral world, they wore white and silver armour. Phovos never really understood why Rethans colour-coded themselves based on where they worked, but they were very good at their jobs, so she didn’t question it. As she approached, they both stood to attention.
“Hello, Kyr Raptor! Is everything well?” the Rethan who had waved asked politely.
“I guess… I need to ask a favour of you. Can one of you keep an eye on me as I walk to my car?”
Both Rethans were immediately concerned.
“You are being followed?”
“By the Time Dragon, yes. There’s nothing you can do should something happen, but I just want… evidence, in case things go awry.”
“Of course, Kyr Raptor…” the other, grumpier Rethan, tutted. “If you feel unsafe, pretend to yawn and stretch and we will come to assist you.”
“Thank you…” Phovos patted the Rethans on the shoulder, then made her way back to the car.
As soon as the Rethans were out of earshot, the pale blue Ksithan reappeared, already standing by her car, by the passenger’s side. Phovos took a deep breath, then spoke to the being.
“Hello.”
The pale blue Ksithan immediately smiled. “Phovoula Tromeros, it is a pleasure to meet you, properly and in person.”
Phovos hesitated, then tutted. “Please, call me Phovos. Or, preferably, call me by one of my many titles. You know I have an office, right? You don’t need to stalk me.”
The Ksithan stepped back, somewhat surprised. “You know who you are talking to, yes?”
“I do. You’re the Time Dragon. Disguised as an impossible Ksithan. The Ice Wolf warned me about you. And he was polite enough to come to my office, knock on the door and wait for me to let him in. You though, you’ve been following me around like, well, a fucking stalker! You should explain yourself! Right now!”
The Ksithan blinked, then frowned, then snapped his fingers. He instantly faded away and was replaced by the form of a colossal, shimmering, diamond and sapphire-speckled Thraki. One that was doing its best not to crush anything. Weirdly, it was white, not pale blue, which made Phovos wonder why it had appeared as a pale blue Ksithan in the first place.
“You know, you could have approached me as you are. We have met before.”
“You seemed annoyed at my Ksithan form, so I decided to be more blunt!” Kairos frowned some more. “I take it my little adopted brother told you about my idea.”
“Your deranged plan for revenge, to sleep with both me and my favourite Dessaron team? Yes, he told me. He also offered to protect me from you, should I need it.” Phovos stood her ground. She wasn’t scared. Sure, the Rethan guards in the distance probably were, but she was fine. “I take it you’re too much of a coward to follow through with it?”
The Whenvern tutted. “I hate making myself look like a Threanic. Stupid weird intersex bastards. It was a stupid idea anyway. But while I was sleuthing around, I realized that you would make an ideal partner. After all, Sini has a whole collection of partners she regularly visits, Arkay has his new Rethan girlfriend, who I did originally think was a very large, very ugly Skyavok, and I can do better than that.”
“The Space Whale…”
“Epani doesn’t care much for mortals, outside of her experiments and occasional flings…” Kairos interrupted, tutting some more. “I’m going to be blunt. Normally, if there is a mortal I like the look of, Sini, Epani and I, we all do the same thing. We take someone, give them the time of their life, then erase their memories and leave them none the wiser…”
Phovos stepped back in shock and anger. “You rape them?”
“No! I let them consent, I just wipe their memories afterwards. Mostly for their own benefit and safety. But I want what Arkay is doing, an actual, proper relationship with someone who isn’t blinded by my presence and will actually live for a long time for once.”
“Oh…” Phovos had no idea how to respond to that. “Uh… Well… You could start with… not stalking me…”
Kairos nodded. “Yes, I can. I am sorry about that. I had to work out the best way to approach you.”
“Well, you did a shit job.”
The Time Dragon blinked, then laughed, impressed with how brazen Phovos was being. “I like you. A lot. Would you like to go on a date with me? I know some very nice places we can visit.”
Phovos hesitated, but eventually shrugged. It had been a long, long time since Phovos had been on a date of some sort, and, frankly, who was she to say no to the Dragon God of Time? He didn’t seem that scary, and he did seem genuinely willing to be nice and, well, not scary and evil and godly.
“I guess. But I don’t want to go off-planet. Or leave Palaestra. I am an important Ksithan, a busy Ksithan and I can’t afford to disappear for too long.”
“That is fine. I am busy tomorrow, I have some time paradoxes I must fix, but how about the day after? 7:30pm, at the Spindle Claw Taverna?”
“I’ll have to look up where that is, but sure!” Phovos smiled. “See you there?”
Kairos smiled back. “See you there.”
Satisfied with the outcome of his conversation. the Whenvern stretched out his wings, then took off into the air, flying directly upwards and out of sight. Phovos sighed to herself, waved at the two Rethan guards who had seen everything and were now very confused, then unlocked her car and climbed inside. She needed to have a long, hard think about what had just happened.