The dead region of Lesser South Kinigi was normally cold, empty and abandoned. It had gone through various amounts of abandonment over the millennia but over the last few months, the desolate landscape had been utterly demolished and flattened out, no longer wanted in any way, no longer having even a trace of life. In fact, Kairos wouldn’t have even noticed anything going on there had he not spotted movement. And as soon as he noticed the Thantophor’s presence, he had to go and take a look.
“Hellooooo? Anyone here?” Kairos screeched as he came in a little bit too hard, landing with a loud thud. There was a solitary building here and it seemed to shake a little as Kairos had hit the ground. At first though, Kairos was greeted by silence. That swiftly changed as something thudded inside the house. After a few moments, Arkadin appeared, rubbing his neck.
“What the fuck do you want?”
Clearly Arkadin wasn’t doing too well. He looked tired and wasn’t really able to focus on Kairos, his gaze drifting off into nothingness.
Kairos smiled, patting Arkadin on the shoulder. “I saw stuff happening! Are you revamping this place? Planning on moving in?”
“No. Leave me alone.”
The Thantophor shook Kairos off, then wandered back inside the house, slamming the door shut. The door bounced open, then fell off its hinges, revealing what was inside. Kairos peered into the house to discover that it was pretty much empty, aside from some old, scattered furniture and some rope tied to a beam on the ceiling.
“Uh, brother, what’s going on?” Kairos asked as he stepped inside. The more he looked, the more awful everything looked. There were bits of bloody glass in one corner, piles of bottles and pills in another.
“Nothing! Go away!” Arkadin immediately snapped, literally jumping in front of Kairos and pushing him back out of the door. “None of your fucking business!”
Kairos grunted and pushed Arkadin back. He expected far more resistance as Arkadin fell backwards, landing on his back and staying there. Tears began to stream from the Thantophor’s eyes as he rolled over and started sobbing.
“Arkay… what’s wrong?”
“You don’t understand…”
Again, Kairos looked around. Everything in the house was… well, it was all horrible. The home of someone who had basically given up.
“Brother… have you… been trying to kill yourself?”
Arkadin settled down a little. The crying stopped but there were still tears pouring from his dark eyes. “I don’t want to do this any more. I just want that eternal peace and quiet again…”
“You really want to die?”
“I don’t even want to die…” Arkadin attempted to wipe his eyes but quickly gave up, the same way he had seemingly given up on everything else. “I just want… I want it all to be quiet. I don’t want the responsibilities and the pain and the suffering. I want to sleep.”
Kairos shook his head, then got down on the floor next to Arkadin. “You know you can’t have that, right?”
“I wanted to try… I just… Even just a few seconds…” Arkadin’s sobs turned back into pained cries. “I don’t want this! I… I…” Arkadin slowly stopped crying again, then sighed. “Why do you even care… You have all the shit you want… I can’t even work out basic mortal shit… I can’t do anything good and what I can do is just horrible… Why am I the fucking death god… I don’t like hurting people… You should just leave me and let me kill myself…”
The Whenvern remained where he was. “You know I can’t let you do that. You know that I’m going to stay here until you fix yourself.”
“I don’t want to fix myself…” Arkadin sobbed a little more. “I just…”
“You know that’s not happening.”
“Yeah…” The crying stopped abruptly. Arkadin tilted his head and started leaning on Kairos’s shoulder. “I’m sorry…”
Kairos put his winged arms around Arkadin, holding him tightly. “It’s alright. But we’ll fix this, okay? We’ll help you. I’ll help you.”
“Really?” Arkadin whimpered.
“Of course, little one. Of course…”