“So… you have brothers?” Sini asked as she inspected the large pile of bones and teeth that Arkay had brought to her.
“Technically? Yes. But that’s not important.” Arkay had been trying to get Sini to focus on the task at hand, but she was insisting on asking all sorts of questions.
“But Kinisis only made you into a god?”
“Apparently.”
“What happened to them then?” Sini turned back to Arkay, way more interested in his past than she was in what was potentially the solution to all their future corruption problems. “Like, you’re here now, one of them is a universal door-to-door salesman selling corrupted bones, what happened to the others? How many siblings do you even have?”
Arkay frowned. “I have six siblings. As to what happened, I don’t know. I kinda don’t want to know.”
“Why not?”
“Kinisis tried to make me kill them, then they disappeared. I haven’t seen them in over 15 billion years, it’s a miracle that Elkay is alive, and he’s a fucking corruption now. Some-fucking-how. Can we get back to the vast new anti-corruption materials I got for free?”
Sini tutted to herself, then snapped her fingers, summoning a microscope out of thin air. She then took a nearby scalpel, sliced off a shard of bone and put it under the microscope to better examine it. After a few seconds though, Sini hissed and turned to Arkay.
“This stuff is literally just your bones.”
“Well of course it’s going to be similar to my DNA, Elkay is genetically my brother. Half-brother. Different father. My father was…” Arkay hesitated, realizing that he wasn’t exactly sure. “What’s the problem?”
“This Elkay guy claimed that it was his unique strain of corruption that allowed him to kill other corruptions, right?”
“Yeah. He said his father was The Vast Ancient One or some bollocks like that. A stupidly old corruption. Older corruption always kills newer corruption.”
Sini grunted, crossing her arms. “Well, that is true, but what’s also true is that your DNA does the exact same job. Your mother, whoever the fuck she was…”
“He.”
“He?”
“My mother was a Rethan.”
“Whatever…” Sini went back to her trail of thought. “Either way, it turns out that your brother is wrong, the whole corruption-killing side of things actually comes from your mother’s DNA. Which is 50% of both you and Elkay. You didn’t give anything important up for these bones, did you?”
Arkay shook his head. “No, I just gave Elkay his name back.”
“Good. Because otherwise I’d have said that he scammed you…” Sini frowned, then sighed to herself. “On the plus side, while this doesn’t do anything to increase efficiency, there is some working bone marrow in here, meaning I can make more supplies of anti-corruption blood without having to ask you every five minutes. The rest of the bones though, you might as well just make yourself some extra weapons and give some to your little mortal buddies…”
Something buzzed and started making an awkward racket, interrupting the two deities. Sini stared at Arkay, who fumbled with his communicator, not knowing what notification he was getting. His eyes widened in panic as he saw what it was and he swiftly unlocked the device. But before Arkay could answer, Sini snatched the communicator from Arkay’s hands.
“Give that back!” Arkay snarled.
Sini laughed. Whoever had called Arkay had already hung up, but she was now free to browse through the open app. Weirdly, it was one she didn’t recognize.
“Who is Souldrainer?” Sini asked, budding with curiosity.
“I’m not saying.”
“They’re not from this universe, are they?”
“Litvir is just someone I play video games with-”
“Don’t lie to me, Arkay. We both know you are bad at lying.”
Arkay sighed. “If I tell you, please, please promise me you won’t tell Epani? She’d kill me if she found out I was talking to people outside this universe. She already hates me, I don’t want her to hate me even more.”
Sini thought to herself, then smiled. “Tell me first, then I’ll tell you if I’ll mention this to Epani or not. Because you aren’t supposed to have exo-universal communications. I allow you to play your video games because they are rather self-contained, but this is clearly more than that, this is a whole application filled with beings from Out There. And that’s… potentially dangerous. We both know this.”
“Yeah but Litvir and Retvik would never hurt us. And I want to be with them but I’m kinda stuck here being your little deathy pet, billions, trillions of miles away from them…”
The Allbirther looked Arkay up and down. He was displaying an emotion she’d not seen from him before. That of a lost lover. Sini needed a little more information before she made any decisions.
“These two beings, what are they like?”
“They’re from the Before. Back when I wasn’t chained to a universe. Retvik is big and tough and fiery but also warm and kind. Litvir seems cold and manipulative but he’s a good vok deep down. We became Decay Lords together. We bled together. But I fucked up and had to be sent away. And then Epani dragged me back here and you turned me back into an intra-universal deity. I miss them dearly, and that app is my only way of talking to them.”
“You… love them?”
“… Yeah. I do love them…” Arkay rubbed his eyes. “I guess I’ll just have to… stop talking to them, though. You don’t seem to approve. Epani would never approve. Fuck, if Epani found out, she’d probably try to kill them for tampering with her property.”
Sini didn’t say anything at first. She instead turned to the messages on Arkay’s communicator, quickly scanning them. Genuine conversations. Genuine care and love. Emotions she didn’t know Arkay had.
“You haven’t been back in touch with them for very long.”
“You and Epani blocked my memories. It took a vast amount of luck for me to accidentally run into Retvik and Litvir again, and even then, it’s all digital. As much as I desperately want to physically be with them again, I have to keep my promise to you first. One more cycle.”
“Wow…” Sini hesitated. “I… I’m sorry, Arkay. I had no idea about any of this. I just assumed that you went off to be cold and alone outside of this universe. But without us, without our horrible mother, you went off and formed romantic bonds, you fell in love. And we dragged you out of that.”
Arkay blinked in confusion. “Did you just… apologise to me?”
“Yes. I never realized you could actually fall in love with someone. But here you are, in love with… well, I don’t know either of them, but they must be impressive beings if you of all beings fell for them…” Sini tutted, then smiled. “I won’t tell Epani. I’ll keep my mouth shut. But you have to promise me that you won’t let your relationship with these two exo-universal beings get in the way of your duties here. Fair?”
“Fair…” Arkay sighed. “I’m sorry for keeping secrets.”
“It’s fine, Arkay, I forgive you. And I don’t blame you for hiding this away, after all, Epani HAS been a massive bitch lately. More so than usual…” Sini handed the communicator back to Arkay. “Answer your friend. They seem like they need you. Also, tell them the language is our Theoglossa, then ask them where the fuck they found it.”
Arkay took the communicator back and read through the recent messages. Litvir had asked for some help in translating a couple of short sentences, which, as Sini had correctly pointed out was the language that Arkay, Sini, Epani and Kairos all spoke, but no one else seemed to. Arkay quickly translated the text and sent it back to Litvir, before asking him where the text had come from.
“So?” Sini asked, somewhat impatiently.
The Thantophor waited for Litvir to reply, then re-read the message several times. “Uh… That… um…”
“Arkay?”
“You know how, in the Before, Kinisis made a bunch of servants, her Divine Guardians, that were loyal to her?”
Sini shrugged. “Somewhat. What about them?”
“Well, some of them ended up becoming Decaylings after I killed Kinisis, and Litvir and Retvik saved them. But apparently they all passed out while Litvir was looking into one of their minds, they all muttered the words that Litvir sent to us, then woke up, completely unaware of what happened.”
“But… you killed Kinisis…”
“Yeah…”
The Allbirther frowned. “It… it was probably some sort of genetic fluke, a programming error in their minds because of how Kinisis always manipulated things. But… to be on the safe side, we should both keep a look out for anything suspicious. Just in case.”
“Are you going to tell Epani and Kairos?”
“Kairos yes, Epani no. With how Epani’s been acting lately, I don’t want her doing anything rash or stupid or both. In the mean time, can you do a few extra patrols?”
Arkay nodded. “I can do that, yes.”
“Alright, good…” Sini trailed off again. “Anyway… I’ll have a further look at these bones, see if I can set up some sort of reproduction supply. I’ll let you get back to work and your friends. Alright?”
The Thantophor smiled, just a little. “Thank you, Sini.”
“Eh, no worries, Arkay. Try not to lose your friends. I’m glad they make you happy. Have a good one.”
“You too, Sini, you too…”