“I cannot believe that they just let you do all of this online…” Teekay blinked as he watched Elkay fill in forms. The process was going incredibly slowly, not because the forms were hard to answer, but because Elkay didn’t know what to put, aside from his name and date of birth. The fact that he was a Rethan General who had legally died nearly two months ago and only continued to exist due to a series of miracles made filling out re-nationalization forms to register one as a Skyavok made things trickier than they should have been.
“Well, when I am done with all this, I will have to go into a Skyan government office and finalize everything…” Elkay grunted as he deleted some text and sighed. “This would have all been so much easier if I actually was a Skyan…”
Teekay glanced at Elkay as he attempted to fill in the form again. A question was brewing in his mouth, but a small part of Teekay’s brain told him not to say it. He decided to say it anyway.
“I thought there was some Skyan DNA in you though?”
Immediately, Elkay stopped what he was doing and turned around to stare menacingly at Teekay.
“What?” Teekay shrugged. “You are much smaller than a normal Rethan, you have an off-tone to your skin and you have the wing nodules on your back!”
Elkay grunted, then asked a question of his own. “Do you know how much I spent getting DNA testing done? Genetics tests, family history tests and more?”
Teekay shook his head.
“Thousands. Thousands upon thousands. The last Skyan in my genetics was alive three hundred years ago!”
“So… assuming the average Skyan lives about 80 to 100 years… three or four generations ago?”
Elkay continued to stare at Teekay, but in a slightly less angry way. Teekay decided not to change the topic, but to nudge it in a different direction.
“Anyway, whatever your fancy DNA tests say, why do you not just claim to be a Skyan? You could almost certainly make yourself look like one of us. Add in a few apostrophes here and there, increase your pitch slightly and you sound like one of us as well.”
“I do not want the first thing I do as a new being to be lying on official government forms…” Elkay sighed. “That is why this is taking so damn long!”
“The Rethavok government has already lied by saying that you’re dead. Then lied further by not allowing you to reclaim your identity. Or any of your belongings or money.”
Teekay’s words made Elkay freeze.
“Wow… you are… right…”
“Right about what?”
“It is all a big, messy lie…”
“Well, not all of it, right?”
Elkay shook his head vigorously. He looked genuinely upset and confused all of a sudden. “But I… I do not want to lie… I am honest and lies always build up and turn into disasters…”
Teekay smiled. “That’s fine. Just say that you have amnesia. No one can judge you on your past if you can’t remember it!”
“A medical report-”
“Not if you are a Skyan! Amnesia and various other mental issues are nigh impossible to detect for us. Which is partly why our mental health services are in a bit of a shambles… But you could just claim amnesia and no one will bat an eye! It is a common thing after an accident during one’s mid-life crisis anyway…”
“But…” Elkay sighed. “I cannot just… magically become a Skyan…”
“No, but we can train you to act a lot more like one…” Teekay dragged over a chair and sat next to Elkay. “Let me help you with these forms, then we will start on your acting lessons…”