Ret hadn’t been feeling well for a while. While he had gone Defensive Stance plenty of times in the past, this was the first time Ret had been affected by telepathic manipulations, and while Nyssi meant well, knocking him out telepathically, it had screwed Ret up a little more than usual. Instead of rage and anger, Ret was fighting fear and sadness, but mostly guilt. During his Defensive Stance, Ret had briefly hurt Tanos, and he simply couldn’t get over that guilt, to the point that he had been isolating himself. Not even Kuta had been able to console Ret, and any time spent not on guard duty was spent marching along the beach or along the edges of Savepoint, away from everyone else.
Exhaustion was starting to overcome Ret though. That was technically a good thing, since Ret hadn’t slept since he’d woken up from Nyssi’s emergency sedation, but Ret didn’t believe he deserved sleep. Eventually, Ret could no longer keep himself upright, and stumbled to the ground on the beach, then sat down properly, feeling defeated.
Almost instantly, someone approached Ret. He didn’t see who they were though until they were right on top of him.
“Hello, Ret. How are you feeling?”
Ret glanced up, then grunted. “Hello, Kyr Elkay. I feel sad.”
“Understandable. May I join you?”
“I guess. You are going to tell me though that I should not feel sad.”
Elkay shrugged, then sat down next to Ret. “Actually, I am here to tell you that I know exactly how you feel. And I am not going to tell you that you should not feel sad. Because I have had several folks do the same to me and it is annoying.”
“You… you do?” Ret blinked.
“Mhm. Because I do the exact same thing as you, but with Teekay. In fact, I did the same thing just yesterday.”
“I do not follow.”
Elkay leaned back a little, glancing upwards at the sky. “Do you mind if I am briefly vulgar?”
“Not really.”
“Well, last shift, I accidentally hurt Teekay while we were… making out. He yelped in pain and I immediately stopped and backed off completely. I apologised and all that, but I still feel utterly awful. Even though Teekay told me he forgives me.”
Ret frowned. “I… admittedly have not had that problem with Kuta. But I… admittedly let them do what they want to me.”
“Nothing wrong with that. It took me a very long time to understand the fact that, in private, we can do whatever we want. Admittedly though, I only learned that recently, after I became a Decayling myself. Before then, when I was serving Kinisis as one of her slaves, Teekay and I were too scared to do much, and when we were mortal, again, we did very little, because I was scared of being discovered.”
Ret sat up and inspected Elkay. “I thought you were the High General in your universe?”
Elkay’s expression soured somewhat. “I… I was. About… a year and a half before our universe ended, I was attending a meeting between leaders. We were attacked by Yisini, who summoned clouds of noxious gas that made everyone mad with rage. I offered my life in exchange for everyone else’s and was… kidnapped, experimented on and tortured until I was dumped and managed to escape. But I was too broken to go back to being High General and most vok believed I was dead. After a lot of… pain and turmoil, Teekay saved my life, I promised to protect him with my life and, somewhere along the line, we fell in love. Now that I think about it, I lost my virginity in my 70s to a Skyan, not a Rethan. That is a little messed up.”
Ret blinked, not really sure how to respond to that.
“Sorry. Too much information.”
“No, it is fine, Kyr Elkay. You had a bad life.”
“Admittedly, yes, I accomplished a lot, but my personal life was cold and awful until I met Teekay.”
“I can relate. My life was cold and awful until I met Kayel, Nyssi and Tenuk. And it only really brightened up when I met Kuta…” Ret sighed.
“Our partners and our have brightened up our lives massively. We feel like we owe them. So when we accidentally hurt them, even just briefly, we feel absolutely awful about it. Even when we apologise and they forgive us. We cannot get it through our heads that it was an accident and accidents happen and they forgave us and we can move on from said accidents.”
Ret sighed. “You are completely right. I just feel so bad. And that memory of Tenuk meowing in pain keeps on repeating itself in my head.”
“Indeed. I have the exact same thing with the memory of Teekay yelping in pain.”
Ret sighed some more, then laid down. Elkay did the same. They didn’t say anything for a while.
“Kyr Elkay?”
“You do not need to call me “Kyr”, Ret. We are of the same rank.”
“You were-”
“I was. Past tense. My universe is gone, and I do not have a military rank within your universe. Now, we are both Decay Lords, we are both equals. But yes, what was your question?”
“Why do you remind me so much of my little sibling Relkir? You are very smart but also not as… gruff as Retvik and Litvir are. You are less gruff than Kuta as well.”
“The lack of gruffness is mostly because of my Synaisthn stuff, I have become less Rethan over time. I do not know why I am like your little sibling, but I suppose perhaps Relkir is the new-universe version of me. After all, you are the new-universe version of my half-brother. Tell me, what is Relkir like?”
Ret thought for a moment. “They are small but cute and very, very smart. Far smarter than Rethais and I. But Relkir always got picked on because they are small and have blue eyes and most Rethans do not have blue eyes. They know pretty much everything. And they ran Rethais’s campaign to become High General, despite General Photis trying to do strange things to win. But Relkir is also stronger than everyone expects. They chased off our stupid egg layer when they came back to try and make amends without apologising.”
“Hm…” Elkay smiled. “I bet Relkir would be a great High General if they had the chance.”
“Probably…” Ret trailed off. “Huh. I feel a bit better now.”
“Talking does a lot to help with one’s feelings!” Elkay smiled as he got up. “I will leave you alone now. But if you wish to talk, I am always available. Alright?”
“Thank you, Elkay. I appreciate the talk.”
Elkay smiled some more, then wandered off. “No worries, friend. Hope you feel better, Ret.”