“Do you not have a home to go to?” Kuta asked as they glanced up from their desk. “Or at least other mortals to pester?”
Arkay tutted as he flicked through the pages of a pink, leather-bound book. “Ohi, o Kronthak halas’ta…”
“Um…”
“Oh. Sorry, kinda just assumed you spoke Shadowtongue…” Arkay tutted again. “Kairos keeps on wrecking my apartment and I don’t want him to wreck Retvik’s place, because, knowing Kairos, he probably would.”
“But my office is fine?”
“Kairos doesn’t know about you yet, so yeah, you’re fine. Sini’s aware of our budding relationship but she’s just happy I’m making new friends for once.” Arkay went back to what he was doing. Kuta was somewhat thankful that, all things considered, they did not have too busy a day, otherwise having the Thantophor appearing in their office and silently reading through a box of books would have been more of a problem.
“So what are you doing, if you do not mind me asking? Is it to do with the star that exploded and the other star that disappeared?”
“Mhm. Turns out, Epani ate them.”
While having a deity as a friend had been interesting, there were some things that did definitely throw Kuta off. Things like the sentence Arkay had so nonchalantly uttered.
“The Lady of Light ate those stars?”
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“Because she’ll ill and Sini and I are trying to work out why. A lot of beings, mortal or otherwise, stress-eat when they’re ill, and Epani’s meal of choice is ionizing radiation…” Arkay trailed off, putting the book he was reading down and rubbing his eyes. Kuta noticed a lot of errant emotions stemming from Arkay’s mind, and this was distracting them from their own work.
“Well, I understand eating while stressed. I get some… rather nasty desires. And no, I do not feast on blood, despite what my fellow Generals say.”
“Do you feed on emotions, like Litvir used to?” Arkay suggested.
Kuta hesitated. “Uh, no.”
“Oh. So what DO you like eating then?”
“Uh, nothing that crazy. I just overly enjoy energy drinks, which most Rethans avoid because caffeine gives us awful headaches.”
“Huh. And it doesn’t give you headaches?”
“Seemingly not.”
“Huh.”
Arkay grunted, then returned to his book. Kuta got up from their desk and wandered over, curious to see what Arkay was reading. Weirdly, the Thantophor didn’t seem to mind the fact that Kuta was not only approaching, but encroaching on his work. Then again, as Kut picked up one of the books, a purple, floral scented one, they realized that the writing was illegible. Some of the characters were vaguely recognizable, but others made non sense and almost seemed to move across the page.
“How can you even read this?” Kuta asked. They expected Arkay to snatch the book from them or even react vaguely violently, but no, the Thantophor hardly even moved. Instead, they put their own book down again, tutting loudly.
“With great difficulty…” Arkay sighed.
“Do the letters move around for you?”
“They move around for you?”
Kuta nodded. “The characters do not shift and travel across the page?”
Arkay took the book from Kuta’s hands, inspecting the page they had attempted to read. “No? Maybe that’s just how Xa Thimiouyalagi looks to non-Life Goddesses or something. That’s the language you are trying to read right now.”
“The what?”
“Xa Thimiouyalagi…” Arkay repeated.
Kuta stared blankly at Arkay. Arkay frowned.
“What?”
“Everyone seems to react the same way when I say the name of that language. Guess it really IS just a Life Goddess thing…”
“Is it all written in… that language?” Kuta asked. “Some of the characters look vaguely like Panlex.”
“Some of it is Panglish, which is a language that… came before Panlex. Some of it is also Theoglossa, the language of us four deities.”
“How many languages do you speak? I barely speak Panlex fluently!”
“You…” Arkay blinked. “You speak fine.”
Kuta smiled a little. “I kid. Still, you seem to speak multiple languages.”
Arkay thought to himself and started to count. “Hm. I speak Panlex, Shadowtongue, Banikanspeak, Theoglossa and Xa Thimiouyalagi, plus the Decayon language that I don’t even know the name of. But, to be fair, my godly brain automatically translates everything for me, and I created Shadowtongue and Banikanspeak just to fuck with Sini and Epani.”
Kuta stopped smiling. “Uh, why?”
“Epani arbitrarily decided the Banikans weren’t allowed to speak Panlex, so I gave them Banikanspeak until Epani relented. And Sini decided that the early Threavok were to be torn apart by bigger races until I gave them their own way to communicate in secret.”
“It is a shame us Rethans somewhat… abandoned your offerings.”
Arkay shrugged. “Well, it’s not your fault. When the Threavok split, Epani only accepted the Rethavok and cast out the Skyavok, of course there were going to be problems. I’m honestly just more upset the Skyavok thought violence would help.”
“Can you blame them, being shunned from our light?”
“No, I can’t. But they embrace my darkness now, so I guess it’s not too bad…” Arkay trailed off, then went back to his books. Kuta glanced down at the rest of the pile and considered going back to their own work, but considered against it. They were too curious to do anything, especially when they had an overly open deity sharing office space with them.
“So why are you so blunt and open with me?” Kuta broke the silence. “I am just a humble Rethan. A powerful one, yes, but still humble.”
“Hah. You strut around wearing your cape and your fancy black armour, you’re not that humble. But honestly I’m only like this because I crave social interactions and have no friends. Plus, it’s not like you’re learning anything new, apart from Epani being ill and eating stars.”
“You do realise I will have to report this new information to my superiors, yes?”
Arkay nodded. “Yeah, but they’ll also get this information from other sources.”
The Thantophor fell silent again. Kuta considered asking more questions, but found themselves feeling somewhat uneasy. And the more Arkay remained silent, the uneasier Kuta felt. However, rather abruptly, Arkay threw the book he was reading against the wall, leaving a rather ugly dent. The book itself seemed to melt away, before reappearing by Arkay’s feet.
“Uh, Kyr Arkay?” Kuta stuttered. “Are you well?”
“N-no…”
“You seem upset.”
“No, really?”
Kuta tutted. “You know us Rethavok are bad with emotions. But you have not been right since you arrived here and started reading those strange books, and your temperament has only gotten worse. Clearly this duty of yours is disturbing you.”
“You’re fucking lucky you can’t read what’s in them!” Arkay snarled. “I was supposed to be reading these cursed tomes in the hopes of figuring out why Epani is ill, because Kinisis was an all-knowing Life Goddess who birthed Epani and Sini, attuned Kairos to the Forward Flow and turned me into a deity, but all these diaries, they’re just… why did Kinisis do these horrible things to me? I’ve just gone and dug up memories that I lost when Epani and Sini resurrected me to be the God of Death…”
Kuta shifted awkwardly, before sitting down next to Arkay. “I thought Kinisis was the name of that Corruption thing that tried to kill you all?”
“Yeah. She wasn’t always a Corruption. She used to be a Life Goddess. A very, very powerful one, from a long line of powerful Life Goddesses, that made, I don’t know, thousands of universes? But Kinisis was very much into a lot of negatives things too. Like torture and rape…” Arkay slowed down, choking on his words. “Things she… did to me…”
Kuta put an arm around Arkay, an attempt to comfort the deity. Arkay considered shrugging Kuta off, but relented, then found himself leaning against Kuta.
“I get that I’m a bad person now, I’m the reason everyone dies, I guess I deserve to be punished for that. But all of this happened before I became a deity, it happened as Kinisis made me into one. And I never wanted to be a death god, I was forced into the role.”
“To be fair, a lot of people are aware that you are somewhat anti-needless death, what with you often stepping in to stop conflicts and things like that.”
“I guess…”
Arkay trailed off again, but remained somewhat still. However, Kuta noticed that Arkay was breathing, despite not needing to breathe. They found it interesting just how mortal Arkay was acting. Of course Arkay acted like a mortal. He had admitted, repeatedly, that he was mortal at one point.
“I think you should stop your work and take a break. You are clearly in pain. Yes, you said that the Lady of Light is ill, but you cannot make yourself ill in trying to assist Her. Perhaps the Whenvern can assist. Or maybe my sibling can help. After all, they are some sort of deity too, yes?”
The Thantophor grunted, sitting up straight again. “I very much doubt Litvir or Retvik would know but… Actually, I might know someone who might have an idea…”
Kuta let go of Arkay, then tutted. “You should still take a break though. You are stressed, and we make bad decisions when stressed.”
“Yeah, you’re right…” Arkay sighed as he started clearing his stuff up, throwing all the books back into the box, then shoving the box through a nearby shadow. “I might just go for a walk, to clear my head. Do you… want to come with me?”
The vampiric Rethan smiled. “Of course, Kyr Arkay. I would love to come with you.”