Elkay was mostly minding his own business, doing little tasks around the Great Library Near the Centre of the Universe. Wasn’t anything special, it was mostly putting back books that had been misplaced. Elkay liked this little job because, unlike most of his staff, Elkay knew where pretty much every book was supposed to go. It was also a bit of a break from proper work, and being asked questions by staff and visitors alike. The only problem was that Elkay’s fellow deities would occasionally interrupt, but that was to be expected.
Speaking of which, a deity had just arrived.
While most of the “being united between all races” stance was more Dalosisaar’s thing, Aster was much more of a diplomat. In fact, as far as Elkay was concerned, even before Aster was deified, he was insanely good at diplomacy within the ranks of the Perpetual Abyss, the formerly nomadic sub-group of the Lanex overall. And as a deity, Aster had successfully convinced the Perpetual Abyssians to rejoin Lanex society.
“Hello, Elkay, are you busy?” Aster asked, looking up at the stupidly tall book shelf containing information about ceramics and pottery.
Elkay floated back down on a pair of shadowy wings, stretched slightly, then smiled. “I’m not too busy, do you need help with something, Aster?”
Aster shrugged. “It’s not so much help I need, more of a second opinion. Can we talk in private?”
“Of course, of course!”
Elkay took Aster by the hand, then pulled him through the nearest shadow. They reappeared in Elkay’s main office, which had no lights on. Elkay didn’t turn the light on either. In fact, the room seemed to get darker and quieter.
“You’re doing this intentionally, yes?” Aster asked as he sat down. Elkay sat down as well, twirling with a little trail of darkness.
“Yep. You wanted privacy, we get privacy!” Elkay smiled. “So, kiddo, what’s bothering you?”
Aster hesitated for a moment. “I… I wanted to talk to you about something unsavoury. Dalosisaar was going to plan a meeting for a few of us, to discuss what I want to talk about, but, yet again, Dalosisaar is being tied up with work for Kairos, so we haven’t gotten anywhere with any of this.”
“Hm…” Elkay frowned. “Kairos has been dragging Dalosisaar off to do things lately. And Kairos as been looking at a lot of mortal goings-on. Pretty sure he’s also messing with Aesop and putting roadblocks in his political work, and is trying to give Litvir more work again to keep them away from their adoptive parents. On top of that, Syksis and Maresia have been helping Epani with some medical research. It’s been tricky to even do our weekly meetings between the twelve of us.”
Aster sighed. “I knew you were going to say that. We’ve all been very busy lately. I often wonder if it’s intentional.”
“You do?”
“Yes. I have been… thinking about something. Something… uh… I don’t know…” Aster paused. “I don’t know why I’m being so discreet right now. I was fine telling this to Dalosisaar…”
“What did you say to Dalosisaar?”
“That I feel like we’re never doing enough. We’re never good enough. We’ll be working forever to get things as close to perfect as possible, long after our friends and families have withered away.”
Elkay sighed. “That is one thing I’m worried about. We’re doing fine now, those of us who have family, they’ll all be long-lived if Syksis can get her project off the ground, but at some point… I get what you mean. Doubly so since I have grandkids I’ll probably outlive.”
“Ive been checking in with Litvir, by the way,” Aster frowned as he briefly changed the subject. “They’re doing alright, despite what nearly happened to their adoptive parent. But Litvir is what triggered my thoughts about… all of this. The idea that what we do as deities will never, ever be enough. And part of me thinks it’s also by design.”
Elkay blinked. “What do you mean?”
“From what I can tell, Epani is working towards perfection, but doing so slowly. I don’t think Epani quite knows how to make everything both perfect and stable. Kairos, I… I admittedly don’t know about him. I thought maybe Kairos was training Dalosisaar up to assist in time-related duties. But we’re somewhat still moving very slowly.”
“That does seem somewhat normal. Perfection takes time and patience.”
“And that would make sense if Epani and Kairos were smaller deities like we are. But Epani and Kairos are genuine deities, they have been from the start. I don’t know if they’re omnipotent, I assume not, because the Sudden Darkness proved that. But they are still insanely powerful. Epani and Sini built this universe, after all, out of pretty much nothing. Surely Epani could do something to obtain perfection sooner, right? And why is Kairos not helping her?”
Elkay thought for a moment, then shrugged. “When it comes to Epani, it’s somewhat complicated, mostly because she’s taking over the roles of the Allbirther and my Silent Blade, the Thantophor, on top of her duties as the Panelix. She’s doing the work of three deities now, so I assume things are going to be slow. It’s only been, what, seven months, since it all… happened? It’s been hard.”
Aster frowned. “So you don’t think that Epani is intentionally holding back?”
“I don’t think she is. At least, not currently. She’s still mourning. Sure, Epani very much disliked Arkay, but Sini was Epani’s sister, they shared blood, and now they’re never going to see each other again.”
“Fair. But I noticed you haven’t mentioned Kairos.”
Elkay lowered his head and closed his eyes briefly, before looking back at Aster. “I don’t know what Kairos is doing. And ever since he attacked me, I’ve been feeling uneasy about some future things. His attack wasn’t completely unprovoked. But I just… don’t have enough evidence or anything, that Kairos is acting against our best interests.”
Aster continued frowning. “So we have no idea.”
“Nothing usable. Kairos’s duties keep him far away from the rest of us. But also I don’t want to have to ask Dalosisaar to be sneaky. He’s a Thraki, Thraki can’t be sneaky.”
“Oh…” Aster paused for a moment. “Do you think Kairos’s attack against you was a one-off thing?”
“I don’t know. I’m not sure. But you bring up a good point. Kairos is not above getting incredibly pissed off at us, most of the time, and if we go to him about anything, Kairos does get angry easily.”
“True… That does mean we can at least take notes though. See why and when he gets pissed off. See if there’s a pattern.”
Elkay shrugged. “That is a good idea, but I also agree with Dalosisaar, we should have a group meeting about this. I’ll have a chat with Dalosisaar and arrange something.”
“Understandable, thank you…” Aster clicked in annoyance as he got up. “I’ll leave you to your work now.”
“No worries, kid. Have a good day.”
“You too…”