Kairos as tempted to scream as the frozen water unexpectedly poured over him, but he had to restrain himself, lest someone else heard him. That being said, the last thing Kairos expected as he set foot back into his old universe was for a torrent of icy water to land on his head.
“What is the meaning of this, Elksia?” Kairos growled as he spotted the culprit behind all this mess. Sure, everything was actually clean and tidy, tidier than he had originally left his crystal palace, but there was still water everywhere, now draining out towards a small hole in the corner.
“Quarantine!” Elksia beamed, prancing around behind a glass screen. “You’ve been out there having fun in the space between universes and stuff! Gotta make sure you’re clean! Don’t want you dragging anything back!”
With a tut, Kairos ran his fingers across the glass, acting somewhat threateningly towards Elksia. Elksia though clearly didn’t care in the slightest. In fact, she had pulled up a stool and was now sitting there, smiling at him.
“What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing! Just wanna make sure nothing’s wrong with you!” Elksia continued to smile. “You’ve been making messes and stuff. The last thing we need is bits of freaky brain-sucking Life Goddess getting in. So I’ma quarantine ya and you’ll be alright!”
Behind Kairos, some basic housing equipment appeared. Mostly just a chair and a hammock. Not having much else to do, he sat himself down. Kairos, being a Dragon God of Time, could have easily broken out of this very basic glass box Elksia had erected, but he knew the little demi-deity was correct. He needed to make sure he was clean before he returned to his old duties.
However, the awkward silence and even more awkward stares from Elksia were getting on his nerves.
“So… what have you been up to, Elksia? Did you do the homework I gave you?”
“Yup!” Elksia grinned. “Did all of it. Did some stuff with Yisini. Did some stuff with Epani. Learned a lot of stuff! But now you’re coming back, I kinda wonder what to do now.”
“Oh… I suppose I didn’t think of that…” Kairos sighed. “Well, what do you want to do? Also, what did you do with my stuff?”
Elksia shrugged. “Your crap’s all in a big box. I’ll spray it down or something later. But yeah, I kinda dunno what I want.”
“Like, at all?” Kairos calmed himself down. After all, he was basically home. This was just a small, unexpected hiccup. And not even a particularly bad or dangerous one. Just annoying. But here Elksia was, his little apprentice that he had forgotten about. That everyone seemed to have forgotten about.
“Yeah, to be honest. Could just go back to being mortal. Living my life of luxury. That might be nice. But I’ve done that. I wanna be useful and lazy. At the same time.”
“That… is somewhat tricky.”
“Actually, kinda not…” Elksia paused. “I dunno if this sounds dumb or not… but… I kinda wanna make lots of little demi-gods.”
“You want children?” Kairos blinked.
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
Elksia shrugged. “Just do. Can’t really say why. Was always kinda scared to have kids because I knew I’d outlive them. But now? I think it’d be fiiine. You lot are making everyone live longer. And I can go and find one of them nice guys you made fight the golden voidborn things. They’ll live nearly as long as me, and we can have some nice, long-lived kids!”
“You’ve been thinking about this for a while.”
“Yeah.”
Kairos looked Elksia up and down. She had adapted incredibly well to her god-like time powers. She could have potentially been as powerful as Kairos was. This little Vrekan certainly had the aptitude for it. Yet he found it weirdly… cute that Elksia just wanted to have a family and be… happy.
“If that’s what you want, Elksia, then that is what you should do. But…” Kairos grunted. “One little thing. I’d… speak to Yisini first about having kids.”
“Why?” Elksia asked, crossing her legs. “She offered me sex but I didn’t fancy it.”
“No, that’s… actually very typical of Yisini. But she can help you have a happy, healthy, long-lived family. And since you are a basically a deity, she’ll want… data on how interbreeding between mortals, long-lived or otherwise, and beings like yourself all works.”
Elksia shrugged, then bounced excitedly on her chair. “That’s cool! But before then, I gotta up my dating game first! Once I’m out of quarantine of course.”
The Whenvern glared at Elksia. “What do you mean?”
“I went out into the big dark spaces too. So I gotta do a mini quarantine myself!”
“Oh… fair enough…” Kairos trailed off. “Oh well. How long do we have to stay in quarantine?”
“Not very long!” Elksia giggled, getting up from her stool. “I’ma get some cake. You want anything?”
“No thank you.”
“Suit yourself!”
Kairos watched as Elksia bounced off into another room. It was a shame Elksia had chosen a different past. She would have been an amazing Time Drake.
“Guess I’ll try and make another one then…” Kairos grunted, tutting to himself. “At least I have plenty of time…”