“Is something wrong, Elkay?”
Kohra noticed that his friend (and the overall guide and smart person of the Twelve Anew) was sitting at his desk, sighing loudly, clearly in a bad mood. Kohra had come in, wanting some quick advice on setting up elections and doing a census (not really something Aster could help with currently) but Elkay’s feelings seemed more important right now.”
“No, not really. Actually… Somewhat.”
“Do you want to talk? I’m happy to listen.”
Elkay looked up, frowned, then sighed. “I do, yes. I have something I want to get off my chest.”
“Well!” Kohra smiled a little as he sat down and flicked back his fluffy ears. “I’m here, what’s up?”
“I… I feel awful right now…”
“How comes?”
“When I was young. I used to believe that, when we died, we would return to the eternal Darkness. It wasn’t really an afterlife. More just an idea. Some sort of peace after a stressful life. I watched my partner join that eternal Darkness. She slipped away. After months of agony. Months of pain. Months of treatments that didn’t work.
“She had cancer. A nasty one. Started as a small spot on her skin. Spread to her lungs. It just slowly grew inside her. Took over her. No matter what we did, it just kept on growing.
“This was a long time ago. Technology, especially medical tech and cancer treatments, it all sucked. You see I’ve actually pretty old. Older than I had like to admit. 121 years old. One of the oldest of my kind, really. Most of us die away before then…”
Elkay sighed, rubbing his eyes.
“She was 66 when she died. Not young. But not old either. But it was slow. Agonizing. A quick death would have been better. Somewhat.
“When she left, I never remarried. I remained on my own. By then, I was also pretty old. Only a couple of years older, but old enough. I didn’t want to go looking again, I remained single and alone. Because I didn’t want to go through that pain again. I didn’t want to watch someone else die. Because we were already kind of old. Well I was. If I remarried I would have just seen the same thing happened over and over. But I always hoped that one day, I would return to the Eternal Darkness, that I would rejoin her. We would both be at peace.”
Kohra was pretty sure Elkay was crying, just a little. He pulled a tissue from his pocket and handed it to Elkay, who didn’t use it at first and continued rubbing his eyes, hiding the tears behind tiredness.
“Except now, that’s never gonna happen. I’m stuck here. Forever. While I’m happy to be had to be given this power, well, I can do more now. We can do more now. The twelve of us. We would do miracles. We already have. We’re paving the way towards a new future. But I have already lost so much. When I lost her, I lost everything. Sure, I pushed on. I had to. It has always been my duty to help others. To do what is best for them. First for the K-Class, then the Skyavok overall, and now everyone.
“But there are times like these where I just want to join her again. I won’t ever see her again. Or hear her again. I’ll never be blessed by that silly smile, her beautiful orange eyes, the joy she brought to the world. It’s all gone. Drained away. She deserved better…
“When the corruption struck, when I was saving people, I hope that maybe, just maybe something would happen, maybe I would die. I would finally die in one final blast of heroic glory, my debts to existence paid, and I’d be rewarded by joining her in the Eternal Darkness. The fine, gentle, peaceful caress of the Silent Blade.
“But no. I woke up in a closed cell. I was cursed with immortality. Cursed to continue doing my job with helping others. I mean… I appreciate it. I was given perfection, the power to help everyone. But there is a part of me… a small part of me… That wishes to just see her again. To be with her again. Close my eyes and hold her.
“That will never happen. I accepted that long time ago. But occasionally… it just pops back. I find myself longing. The pain never goes away. I just bury it under things. It hurts. It hurts right now…”
Elkay paused, then looked up at Kohra.
“The funny thing is you probably understand. You lost your mother. You blame yourself for that. It wasn’t your fault. You weren’t even born. But you blame yourself. I figure that, deep down, we both believe and are hurt by the same thing. We probably want the same thing too. One last look. One last embrace. One final word. We will never get it though. We just struggle on. We continue onwards, trying to make a future they would have loved…”
Another sigh, but a different sigh.
“I get it. This is a blessing… I feel bad complaining. Sometimes it just hits me though. Harder than normal. It almost burns. I want to stop and just be silent, to not exist…
“It was a long time ago. Half my life ago. It was your entire life ago. Still hurts. Always will. I hate it. But we have to be strong.”
“You’re right, Elkay. But at the same time, they wouldn’t want us to be sad. They would want us to do everything we can to make others better. We’re making them proud.”
“We are, yes…” Elkay took a deep breath. We both miss them. And you don’t really need to hear me saying all of this. You know it all already.”
Kohra nodded. “It’s alright. But sometimes we need to do things together. We can mourn together. But we can also build together. Lift together. We got the power now, we can spare others from that eternal dark energy you mentioned.”
“You mean the Eternal Darkness.”
“Yeah… sorry… I don’t really know your stuff. I haven’t met that many Skyans before. But yeah… Elkay, friend, we feel each other’s pain. We’ll get through this. You can be sad right now. It’s okay. I’ll be here for you. Or I can go away and leave you alone, if you want. You can be happy later. And when you feel better. I’ll be there for you then as well. We all will. All twelve of us. We all lost things, you know we have…”
Kohra paused for a second. So did Elkay.
“Well, maybe not Litvir. He is literally a baby.”
“They.”
“Yeah, they.”
“Last thing we need to do accidentally give Litvir a gender…” Elkay tutted. “They barely fit in with other Rethans as it is. But they will work it out. But also… We can spare them from the pain of losing someone they love. At least, for a little while.”
“Yeah…”
The room went silent for a moment. Kohra realized that he had forgotten why he had come here in the first place. But the room stank of depression, and Kohra wanted to leave.
“So… You want to go and get something to eat?”
“Like what?”
“Cookies!”
“Just… cookies?”
“Yep! Well, I eat anything with sugar. Actually, I just eat sugar…” Kohra smiled. “The Spast diet is nothing but simple sugars.”
“… How and why?”
“I don’t know. Just how we evolved.”
“Alright then… I suppose I have complained enough about the gift of divinity… I should get back to work really, since I have a library to build.”
“Do you want some help? After we’ve had something to eat? I don’t know about you, but that was draining and depressing and those things make me hungry.”
Elkay looked Kohra up and down, briefly wondering why he was being so kind. Of course Kohra was being kind, he felt the same grief Elkay did. But he was fighting to do better. “Yeah, sure, why not? I need to finish what I am doing first. Akusasiiri asked me to do some research on what paints last the longest in rainy climates, and Murum’Va asked me to help her track down a legal reference.”
“Normally I’d say “sure, you do that”, but I think you need a break. You just trauma-dumped on me and you need to get out of this office and get some fresh air. That stuff can all wait an hour, right?”
Elkay glanced at the paperwork on his desk. It was all covered in shadowy tears. “You are absolutely right, Kohra. Let’s go and get some cookies.”