Yisini had been following Arkadin around for about three hours now. He hadn’t been doing anything impressive or particular, he had just been going from planet to planet, looking around and clearing up after natural disasters, plagues and wars. Not that Arkadin minded. He clearly knew she was there but he was definitely pretending that she wasn’t. He just wanted to get on with his work. Yet Yisini had found herself to be particularly curious as to what the Death Lord was up to.
That was until she slipped into the fourth hour of sneakily following him around. That was when Yisini started to get bored. Arkadin had stopped on a seventh boring, backwater planet filled with life that was completely unaware that there was anything outside their tiny existence and was beginning to clean up after a bloody war over which deity was right and which one was wrong. The deities in question didn’t actually exist, they were just made up by locals. And now they were all dead. Over stupid nonsense.
For reasons Yisini couldn’t explain, the fact those mortals had died over nothing angered her far more than it should have. Sure, there were always planets filled with morons who believed anything vaguely tribal or religious, but this particular one annoyed her. Audibly. Which meant that Arkadin had properly noticed her.
“You’re still following me…”
Yisini stared at Arkadin. “Yeah, so?”
“I really don’t like being followed…” Arkadin tutted. “I know you want things from me but I’m really not in the mood right now.”
“You killed them all though.”
Arkadin rolled his eyes. “Yisini, please, I don’t want to do this right now.”
“You killed them!” Yisini repeated.
“They killed each other! They were the idiots who took up arms against one another! I didn’t make them do anything! I’m just here to clean up the corpses!”
“Yeah but they’re still dead!” Yisini exclaimed. She didn’t know why she was so angry. Yisini coiled herself around Arkadin’s arms. “I don’t want you to kill any more! I want you to be nice and happy and not a murderous monster!”
Arkadin slid Yisini off. As he did so, Yisini left a trail of slime all over his arm. Arkadin really didn’t appreciate that or Yisini’s sudden bitching. “You don’t think I want to be happy? I do. But someone has to do this job and it’s better that I do it and not you.”
Yisini growled, then leaped back onto Arkadin’s arm, once again covering him in slime.
“What if we did everything together?”
“Sister, please, stop this…” Arkadin tried to shake Yisini off, but she wasn’t letting go.
“But we could make things better! We could make things better if we loved and cared for each other the way we cared for our work!” Yisini ran a damp finger down Arkadin’s face. “Maybe if we were… one…”
“What.”
“We should become one…” Yisini’s tone suddenly changed, becoming rather… seductive.
In a panic, Arkadin threw his arms down, slamming Yisini towards the nearest solid surface. Yisini immediately let go, sliding along the surface of the moon Arkadin had thrown her into, before collapsing in a slimy, squiggly heap.
“Yisini! Don’t DO that…” Arkadin hesitated. He landed on the moon’s surface and edged his way towards his serpentine sibling. “Uh, Yisini?”
Yisini didn’t move. Arkadin edged closer still.
“Yisini… is this…”
The Allbirther still didn’t move. She was alive, but still.
“Yisini!”
Still nothing.
A wave of fear and panic washed over Arkadin as he slowly began to realise what had happened.
“YISINI! Oh no… Please… no… I didn’t mean it…”
Yisini remained where she was, quietly breathing but otherwise completely stationary. Not knowing what else to do, Arkadin rolled Yisini into a first aid recovery position, then lit a large cold-flame fire beside to grab the attention of any passers by.
“I’m sorry… I didn’t mean it…”
Worried thoughts entered Arkadin’s mind. What if the other deities found out. What if they thought he’d attacked her? What if they wanted to punish him again? What if what if what if?
The Thantophor checked Yisini’s vital signs one last time, then disappeared in a cloud of black smoke, fearing how his fellow gods would react…