“You were gone a while.”
The Thantir Three had landed about five minutes ago, and already Kaytee and Ret had gone off to clean themselves up. Retvik though was lingering a little bit, but once he had locked the ship up, he made his way to the canteen, for something to eat.
However, Retvik had only taken a handful of steps before someone stopped him. Litvir seemed rather unamused currently.
“We… had a lot to talk about…” Retvik wasn’t sure how angry Litvir was. “Of course we did, we met… hm…”
“Letharus is fine, yes? I know he has a new poten-partner currently, did you meet them?”
Retvik continued to walk. Litvir followed him.
“Ret and I did meet Letharus’s poten-partner, yes.”
Litvir’s annoyance was growing. He admittedly still had a bit of a headache, but with Retvik not being around for a bit, Arkay had done most of the work, and Litvir felt like he had missed something.
“What were they like?”
“Hm…” Retvik also didn’t know how to explain who he had recently met.
When Retvik didn’t answer in a timely manner, Litvir tutted and answered his own question.
“You found a third Retvik.”
“Well, technically, Vick was the first Retvik, I am the second, and little Ret is the third.”
Litvir sighed, then calmed down. “Was Letharus alright? He messaged me, telling me he had killed some Voidborns and felt a tiny weeny bit bad for doing so. I was admittedly asleep when I got that message though. And what was… this other Retvik like?”
Retvik shrugged. “He admittedly did not remember most of his mortal life. He is a very decent person though, and has been running that pub of his for a while.”
“Is he taller than you?”
“Hah, no. In fact, he was shorter than Ret, Elkay and Kuta… Litvir, may I has, why are you asking me these questions?”
Litvir frowned, then glanced towards the offices, where Arkay was working. “I am worried about Arkay knowing that the being who was always his father figure is still alive and a Decay Lord now.”
“Arkay would be-”
“He knows his existence has screwed multiple Retviks and Tenuks. It bothers him. And it will bother Arkay even more knowing you three have met.”
“Arkay is an adult, you do not need to baby the 16 billion year old former death god. But at the same time, I am a little concerned about you, Litvir. You seem off.”
“The telepathic headache has not gone away, so I am in a bad mood.”
Retvik put an arm around Litvir. “Why are you not resting then? If you are ill, then you need to look after yourself!”
“I know. Arkay said the same thing. I feel bad sleeping while you are working.”
“You are ill. When you are better, you can go back to work… Speaking of which, how is Arkay? I have not seen him.”
Litvir snorted. “He is in the office, doing normal work. He is also in communication with our friends the Doom Drums, marking out locations within the Kinigian Wilderness and the Ventra Expanse that we can train our new Corruption Purgers on.”
“Good, good. Shall we go and see Arkay?”
“Yeah, sure…”
Retvik patted Litvir on the shoulder, then headed up to the main office. As they entered though, they noticed Arkay’s tail was stupidly long and was holding the entrance open for Litvir and Retvik. As they stepped inside, Arkay’s tail moved away from the door and rolled back up into the Missing’s private office.
“… And is this the common strain again? Or is it one of those nasty chanting strains? Ah, good… Yeah, should be perfect for the team… Yep! Thank you, Permafrost… Alright, speak soon. Have a good one!”
Arkay finished his call, then put the communicator down and got up from his little desk. He floated over towards Retvik and Litvir and gave them both a hug.
“Hey! You’re back! You were… gone for fucking ages.”
“I apologise, Arkay.”
“It’s fine, but…” Arkay glanced at Litvir. Litvir grunted and didn’t answer. “Was Letharus at that pub that everyone keeps on hinting that one of my original mortal friends works at?”
Retvik sighed. “Yes, we met another Retvik. But these days, he calls himself Vick, and he does not remember much.”
Arkay eyed Retvik for a moment. “Why did you not want to tell me?”
“I thought you would be upset.”
“Of course not!” Arkay exclaimed. “I mean, we met old-old Kronospast Tenuk during that stupid Justar party, and Tenuk and I accidentally rank into our old friend Elksos not too long later. If anything, I’m glad that old old Retvik is alive and well! Maybe, at some point, I’ll go visit or something…”
“Theoretically, you could arrange a meet up of all of the original… Exaron? Is that what you called yourselves?” Retvik suggested. “After all, they were, well, the originals. Admittedly, after you went back to being the Thantophor, we… well, we fell apart, until Psiksi got us back together properly.”
Litvir glanced at Retvik, then at Arkay, then tutted. “That would be silly.”
Arkay nodded in agreement. “Silly and awkward and stupidly hard to organize. But pretty much everyone who came from my originally very stupid universe has massive memory problems. I… don’t want to think about it.”
Litvir telepathically mentioned something to Arkay and Arkay silently agreed, before turning back to Retvik.
“Anyway, is everything all sorted? Is Letharus alright?”
Retvik smiled. “Yes, everything is fine now. Kaytee fixed the damaged ship and Ret was very helpful at fixing everything up.”
“That’s good to hear!” Arkay smiled back. “Not much has gone on here, outside of me constantly telling Litvir that he needs to rest and let that headache pass. In fact, Savepoint in general is working like a well-oiled machine. Tah and Koh came in earlier to tell me to tell you that everything is fine.”
“So we are all good?”
“We’re all good!” Arkay turned to Retvik. “Although, babe, there is ONE thing you can do for me.”
“Oh?”
Arkay pointed at Litvir. “Please tell this idiot to go back to bed.”
Litvir snorted. “Hah. I shall go to bed, but only if one of you two joins m-.”
Retvik scooped Litvir up, not letting him finish his sentence. “See you later, Arkay.”
“Heh, have fun, you two.”