“Well that completely backfired…” Tahnahos grunted as the ship door slammed shut. “I genuinely don’t think that could have gone any worse if we’d tried.”
Tahnahos’s complaining though was met with a handful of shrugs from his fellow guardians. Most of the Twelve had gone to bed, giving up on trying to cheer Kinisis up, but Tahnahos had been in charge of ship navigation and needed to keep everything under wraps while their boss was away.
“We definitely could have made it worse if we’d tried…” Teekay shrugged. “He only threatened to kill Kinisis if she tried to visit him and gave us some very obvious directions.”
“Our goal was literally to have Kinisis see her son and he’s now completely refusing contact…” Akah sighed. “We very obviously failed in our mission.”
“Her son could have just flat out killed her, he took the clean route…” Teekay frowned. “I don’t think we failed.”
The conversation was interrupted by the appearance of Relkir, who was carrying an overloaded tray. He handed Teekay, Akah and Tahnahos a drink each, then placed a bunch of bowls filled with snacks across the tables by the various consoles.
“I thought we could do with some treats…” Relkir smiled weakly as he sat himself down. “If Kinisis can bugger off to a Life Oasis to drink herself happy, I believe we can do the same.”
Akah eyed his drink, then eyed Relkir. Relkir tutted back, knowing why Akah was looking suspicious. The Lanex was still under the impression that he couldn’t drink alcohol in any way, despite being a god-like being now.
“It is non-alcoholic. I could not actually find any alcohol on board.”
“Oh. Good…” Akah rolled one eye and closed his mechanical one. “But still, we did, as Tahnahos would say, all fuck up majorly.”
“We did literally everything we could!” Teekay protested, quickly downing his drink and reaching for a bowl of savoury, crunchy snacks. “We were kind, we were polite, and Kinisis’s son said no. What else can we do? Clearly there was stuff going on between Kinisis and her son that we didn’t know about, and her son decided to deal with the issue somewhat reasonably!”
Relkir nodded in agreement. “Considering what he said and how angry he seemed, I think the whole situation could have gone better, but it could have also gone a lot worse.”
“That is true…” Akah admitted, as he pulled a straw out from a compartment on his arm and shoved it into his glass. “I suppose we are lucky Arkadin did not retaliate in any way. A threat is not great, but it shouldn’t be too difficult to keep Kinisis away. Is she staying at this Life Oasis?”
Tahnahos nodded. “Yep. Will be for a while. Not seen Kinisis so upset in like, ever.”
“Well maybe she should have treated Arkadin better…” Relkir tutted. “Then we would not have ended up in this mess. But in the mean time, we might as well get to know ourselves and each other better while Kinisis hides herself away.”
Akah gave Relkir another funny look. “What do you mean by that?”
“Kinisis gave us files about our previous lives. We never took the time to share that information.”
“Yeah, we all barely know each other…” Teekay added.
Tahnahos smirked, knowing that Relkir and Teekay were hinting at something different. “Heh. You’ve got a point. We’ve got some free time, might as well make the most of it!”