“So, uh, you’re actually leaving?”
Kaytee tutted as he started packing away his handful of belongings. The final date that the Thantir would be moving on hadn’t been decided yet, but Kaytee had decided to get everything ready as soon as possible. Now that Kaytee thought about it though, he… kinda didn’t really own anything. He just shared everything with the rest of Loopblade, apart from his silver sword, which he always carried on his back, between his tattered wings.
“I am, yes.”
“Huh… why?”
Loopblade-1, who most people on the ship referred to as One, seemed vaguely annoyed. He was the first TK0016K, the first Teekay Theanon to join the Phantai. He’d overseen five other Teekays become Decay Lords with the Phantai over many, many year-strings. In all his time serving the Phantai, he’d only seen two people leave, and now, all of a sudden, this copy of One was going to be leaving the Phantai as well. To join the sect that the other two people who had left had founded.
“Before I answer, you should try answering the question yourself.”
One fell silent, not really having a response. “I’ll be honest, Six, I don’t really know.”
Kaytee closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “There’s one reason right there. I asked you all to stop calling me Six because I hate that ‘name’, and for you all to call me Kaytee instead. None of you have done that.”
One grunted. “Sorry. I am used to calling you Six. Do you not find it… insulting or belittling that you feel you have to change your name?”
“No. I want to change my name.”
“Why? Are you ashamed of who you are?”
“Not at all!” Kaytee hissed. “But I am genuinely sick and tired of being the sixth Teekay here, and I am definitely sick of being nothing more than a number!”
“But you will be the second Teekay among the Thantir. Still a number.”
Kaytee stopped what he was doing. One was genuinely pissing him off. “That’s another reason why I’m changing my name to Kaytee. Makes me more of an individual. And that just further illustrates why I want to leave you lot. Because I want to be my own person, and I can’t do that when I’m stuck under your damn shadows!”
One frowned some more, then crossed his arms. “I don’t see you as a lesser being.”
“You treat me like one. Most of the Phantai do. The Thantir though see me as an individual, my own person. Sure, they have a Teekay of their own, but Shocktrooper Teekay is both not the same person as we all are and doesn’t see me as competition or someone who needs to be put in his place. All the Thantir seem to like me as well. You all seem to hate me.”
“You just want our boyfriend back.” One tutted dismissively. “You just want to shirk your duties here and run off with your old, dead boyfriend. I don’t blame you for wanting that. I’m just… sad, I guess, that you’re going through with it, and leaving us behind.”
Kaytee fell silent. He hadn’t considered that. But of course Kaytee hadn’t considered that. Eksi, the youngest member of the Thantir (and, technically, the Master Psion on the Shimmering Blade), looked almost identical to the Eksi that the rest of Loopblade remembered. To the point that they all originally believed he WAS their long lost, probably dead partner. Eksi had calmly explained that he wasn’t their partner, he just happened to look similar, the same way Shocktrooper Teekay just happened to look like Loopblade themselves. But the problem was, apparently, Eksi was born with yellow and cream plating, when, as far as Kaytee could recall, the Eksi he loved, his old partner, he’d been born with yellow and black armour plating, and used to dye the yellow plating silver. According to the rest of Loopblade, their old Eksi used to dye their black plating cream.
“I’m not doing this for Eksi.”
“Seems like you are.”
“Unlike you, I can accept that our partner is long gone!” Kaytee hissed. “Our Eksi is dead. As dead as our old, stupid, looping universe. We KNOW he’s dead, because our universe’s loop finally ended, and nothing survived it apart from us and the Cycle’s tortured pet, our ex. And Soulsoother Eksi isn’t even that interested in me anyway.”
One paused. “He’s… not?”
Kaytee shook his head, and went back to packing. “He doesn’t like you all. Thinks we’re all pricks. And I don’t blame him, we left an awful first impression when we kidnapped Shocktrooper Teekay and blatantly ignored everything he said to us. He doesn’t even look like MY Eksi anyway. Well, colour-wise at least. And he’s a… a Skyavok, not a Threan-type Retha like us. We’re genetically closer to Elkay, Retvik and Litvir than we are to Eksi.”
“You know, you should call them by their codenames…”
“Retvik said it was fine. That’s another thing about the Thantir. I don’t need to bow down to everyone like I have to here! And I don’t have to use my codename either, they’ll all happily call me whatever I ask them to call me. Heck, I can apply for a new damn codename if I want to, because being Loopblade-6 fucking sucks. The Phantai don’t allow codename changes.”
One frowned some more, then sighed. “Well… I get it now. And you’re right, we haven’t treated you fairly. I… I just didn’t want to admit it, I guess. I’ll be honest though, we will miss you.”
“You won’t.”
“We’ll… miss you a little bit?” One hesitantly joked. “Either way… I guess all I can say is that I wish you luck. When are you leaving and do you want help with packing?”
Kaytee paused, then gestured around. “Well, we’ve got to wait for the stupid vacuum storms to pass before the Thantir can leave. This is, like the worst we’ve seen since I became a Decay Lord. I don’t even really own anything apart from my silver blade, my armour and clothing, some plushies and…”
Kaytee fell completely silent, then fiddled around with the band on his neck, pulling something out from underneath it. A silver chain with two small decorations, one a strange, circle/cross combination with an orange gem embedded in it, the other a silver and gold heart. It was one of the few things Kaytee had on him when he was picked up by the Phantai as a Decayling. Gifts from Kaytee’s two former lovers.
“Six… uh… Kaytee, are you alright?” One asked, knowing exactly what Kaytee was looking at. After all, One had an almost identical necklace of his own.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine.”
“No. I feel bad.”
One took a deep breath. “Yeah, we all do. But, maybe… since you are joining the Thantir… I mean, Flamebearer said that their Lost Third would return to them one day. Maybe you’ll get to apologise to Arkay in person.”
“Hah. He wouldn’t accept an apology. We spent years toying with his emotions, he died and we started fucking his little brother. And his other love interest started fucking his other little brother. And then the Cycle tortured him and turned him into a depressed god of death permanently.”
“You don’t know that until you see him.”
“Won’t be for a good 10 or so year-strings. Sure, the Thantir themselves are fine, but, well… I still feel bad. Probably always will”
“Yeah, I feel you… Still, I wish you good luck. We were clearly blind to your unhappiness. You’re going to go and be properly happy for once.”
“I… I appreciate that, Teekay.”
One blinked. It’d been a long time since someone had directly called him that. He quickly shook himself out of that confusion though and patted Kaytee on the back.
“No worries. Just let us know when you and your new sect are leaving, so we can give you a proper goodbye.”
One gave Kaytee a second pat on the back for good measure, then left Kaytee to his own devices. Kaytee fell completely silent, then sighed to himself and went back to packing, wondering why no one had treated him nicely in the past.