“So, you are… our new… representative…”
Athu clearly was upset. Between his missing hand, the death of Imperator of the Endless Stars, the injuries of the other Imperators and the fact that, because everyone else had been down, he’d forced the otherwise antisocial Akah to deal with other races, the fact that a Lanex had been deified and that Lanex happened to be a Perpetual Abyssian, really, Athy was more insulted than anything else.
“You are obviously unhappy about that…” Aster muttered. He’d been dreading this meeting ever since he’d been given divinity. Sure, he was thankful there was a fellow Perpetual Abyss Lanex in the room, his friend Ignik, but Athu’s snarls and discontent were bothering him almost as much as the cold, steely gaze of Akah, who hadn’t said a single word yet.
“I am! We lost Kua! And now I have to put up with not just this asshole that we are, for some reason, extending an olive branch to, but our damn deity is you. A child. I am not just insulted, I am scared and concerned!”
The other two Imperators, Akah and Atuho, glanced at each other. Akah then turned to Athu.
“Why are you scared?”
“Because-”
“If you are about to say you are fearful of these two younglings, both of whom are assisting the Lanex overall, then I will be insulted.”
Athu frowned. “I know you are permanently fearless, Akah, but Aster here, a Crown Guide of the Perpetual Abyss, someone we believed to be our enemy, is now our damn deity.”
“I’m not your deity though. I’m a Lanex who happens to be a deity. And my duties are to help others, to assist in keeping the peace. Hence my title as the God of Gravity and Diplomacy. I will be blunt, I am not here to hurt you, Ignik is not here to hurt you, and you have Akah and Atuho here to protect you, as well as your own guards outside, in case anything does go wrong.”
“On top of that, none of us would be here had it not been for Aster persuading the rest of the Perpetual Abyss to share their information.” Akah explained further. “Yes, we may have picked something up eventually, but Aster gave us a vital head start.”
“He is also not our enemy either!” Atuho added.
“Well, we kinda were your enemies…” Ignik tutted.
“We were, yes, but Ignik and I were born into the Perpetual Abyss, we are proving that even beings as deeply ingrained as we are, we are capable of changing. Yes, there are some Perpetual Abyssian Lanex who don’t like the new path and don’t like that we want to rejoin the Lanex overall, but after what happened, we can’t afford to be splintered any more. We need to rebuild. Together.”
Athu hesitated, then sighed. “You… as much as I hate to say this, you are right. And I owe you an apology, because my hatred towards the Lost Eighth are somewhat ingrained into me as well.”
“That is understandable though. We all have a lot of anger towards each other,” Atuho shrugged. “But we are putting that behind us, yes?”
Akah also shrugged. “I do not have any anger towards anyone. But my emotions are still shut off and I am wondering if I should see a doctor about that.”
“Your emotions are shut off?” Aster asked.
“Yes. Typical Frozen Scythes trait.”
“How long have you been emotionless for?”
“Since Kua was confirmed dead. The Endless Stars are still working on voting for a new Imperator.”
“Um…” Atuho looked concerned. “Akah, my dear friend, after this meeting, please, go to a medic.”
Akah grunted. “I have work. Arrangements must be made for Imperator Ignik here.”
“You are working yourself to death. I’ll deal with the new guys.”
“You are injured.”
“I’m fine. You’re not.”
“I’m sorry!” Aster butted in. “Are you two related or something?”
Atuho snorted. “Very distantly. Either way, we need to arrange a proper meeting for when the other Imperators are back on their feet. Are you staying long, Aster?”
“I admittedly am not sure why I’m here, I thought I’d be meeting all of you and making sure you all don’t, uh, hate me or anything.”
“Eh, I don’t really like you, but those are just my old biases!” Athu frowned some more. “You seem decent enough. And, in all honesty, you are better than decent. As Akah said earlier, we’d all be dead if it wasn’t for you. Aster, you have the support of the Burning Blades, the Frozen Scythes and the Vast Sands. And, I assume, the Perpetual Abyss as well.”
Aster smiled, then bowed. “I appreciate that, Imperator. I look forward to working together. And, hopefully, with my, uh, godly powers, we can rebuild swiftly.”
Athu smiled back. “Wonderful.”
…
“Hello, All-Ksa… Bloody darkness, it feels… weird, saying that…”
Veeyel shrugged, stretching out in his faaaaancy chair. Unlike most other races, whenever the leader of the Skyavok was forced from power, the entire ruling class would switch. This meant that the L-Class were now the leading Class of the Skyavok, and Veeyel was now the All-Ksa. Taking his place as Vice-Ksa was Veekay Dytheanon, who had been the previous All-Ksa’s second in command.
“I bet it does, Elkay. How you doing? Glad to see you in one piece instead of two.”
Elkay sighed, fiddling with the dark, shadowy wings that had formed on his back. Sure, he’d always been a fantastically powerful Phantasma, he was formerly the Shadow of the Skyavok as well as the All-Ksa, but now he was a genuine, immortal deity. Almost on par with the old Silent Blade who had blessed Elkay in the first place.
“I’m alright, I guess. Still processing things. Sure, I’m coping with divinity better than the rest of the Twelve Anew, but it’s still weird. My head is so, so full of knowledge and secrets, and my work on building a new library for everyone keeps on getting interrupted.”
“Well, alright is… better than when we last saw you…” Veekay muttered. “I won’t lie, only finding half your body was… upsetting. And finding that your corpse had been stolen was horrible.”
“I’m more glad it was your top half we found!” Veeyel giggled. Being L-Class, Veeyel was much more laid back than the two K-Class former Phantasma soldiers. Then again, Veeyel’s former job before getting into Class Leadership was teaching troubled primary school children, so Veeyel knew how to remain relaxed under pressure. “Still, it is loooovely to see you again! Glad we didn’t have to plan a funeral for you alongside the poor shadowtouched we lost… That being said, Elkay, I know you were close with both the Silent Blade, the Future Shadow and the ones we lost in evacuations. Do you… want to do something for them?”
Veekay turned to Veeyel. “Future Shadow?”
“Yes. Our little Shadowstalker. Kayel Theanon.”
“Kayel…” Elkay frowned. “I didn’t know he was dead too. I heard we lost quite a few Ξ-Class vok, didn’t know we… damn… He was going to be the Shadow after I passed… Except I’m never going to pass away now… We have a list of all the shadowtouched we lost, yes?”
“Thitaay has made a list, yes.”
“Well… I’m going to add a section to my new library for all those who sacrificed themselves for us. But for now…” Elkay thought for a moment. “Can we, I don’t know, commission some statues or something? I want to build a park somewhere and fill it with memoirs of the missing.”
Veeyel nodded in agreement. “That sounds like a splendid idea. Thankfully, we… don’t have that much to repair, but Arksi wants us to send resources up to the Rethans and the Temthans, and help strengthen ties with the Torr too.”
“We can do that. I’ll have a chat with Aesop, see what he needs.“
“Good, good!” Veeyel smiled. “Well, Elkay, don’t worry too much. We’re all admittedly rather fine.”
“I did somewhat leave you all unexpectedly.”
“Yes, but you left plans. We all know you’re an oldie, we transitioned smoothly, we’re all good. You can go off and be the Shadow full time now, and we’ve all got your back. The Panelix and the Whenvern couldn’t have picked a better successor to our Silent Blade.”
Elkay hesitantly smiled back. “I appreciate that, thanks, old friend.”
…
“Where is Levik?”
Both Ahvra and Psevra cowered in the presence of the Forever Lord Prince, as did most of the other Spast advisors in the room.
“Don’t make me repeat myself, where is my brother?”
Psevra, the Lord Advisor and brother of the Lord King, raised his hand awkwardly. “He… He is gone…”
“That doesn’t answer my damn question! Where is Levik?”
Ahvra swallowed nervously. “I… I blamed him for your death. And Tanos’s death. So I disowned him and exiled him. Sent him off to find his own path.”
“Yes, but where is he?” Kohra was getting angry now. His fur was standing up on end, and electricity trickled across his skin. He didn’t realize it, but Kohra was also floating about a meter up off the ground.
“I… I don’t know. The last time I spoke to him, he was on Thresisa, where his ship crashed when he was evacuating people.”
“And you… left him there, to fend for himself?”
Ahvra nodded. “He disobeyed me. He tricked you into sacrificing yourself. He convinced Tanos to stay away. He broke our family.”
Kohra took a long, deep breath, calming himself down. But the more he thought over Ahvra’s words, the more his anger spiked again.
“You do realize that YOU broke our family, yes? Levik never convinced anyone to do anything. He tried to convince me to sit down and do nothing, because he didn’t want me to get hurt. I went out there and put myself on the front lines, and I convinced Levik that he could be a hero as well. That’s what we did. We were heroes. In spite of you and your slow, old-fashioned ways.”
Psevra raised his hand again. “We, uh, thought you were dead. Is… is my eldest nephew still dead?”
Kohra frowned, then sighed. “Yeah. Tenuk’s gone. But Tenuk died a hero. I… technically died a hero. Pretty sure I did actually die briefly. But Epani brought me back, because she sees me as a hero as well. Selfless among the selfish. And Epani wants me to change you all. To make the Spasts better.”
Psevra glanced at Ahvra. “And how… how are you going to do that?”
“Well, I was going to be kind about it and gently nudge you into helping Levik become Lord King, because I have other duties now. But since you’ve hurt Levik and abandoned him, I’m going to be forceful. You, Ahvra, are going to step down as leader of the Spasts, and everyone in this room is going to help me set up both a new constitution and an election. It’s about time that the common Spast gets a choice in who leads them.”
“You… have no right, son…” Ahvra stuttered.
“You are not my father, not any more!” Kohra snapped back. “I have the blessing of the Great Whenvern Himself. If I make the Spasts a democracy, if we follow the societal cues of other races and give the people an actual voice, then Kairos might actually consider lifting our damn curse and making us long-lived again. Because he CERTAINLY isn’t going to remove our curse while YOU are in power, Ahvra!”
With a sigh, Kohra turned to everyone else in the room.
“You all are some of the smartest Spasts around. I didn’t intend to come here and give you direct instructions, but I need to. Because we’ll fall behind, otherwise. We already have examples from other races. I want you all to look at those examples, and build a proper constitution, enshrining a true democracy. In the mean time, Ahvra and Psevra, you will look for folks who have the capacity to be good, strong leaders. Once we have things set up, we’ll have ourselves an election.”
“And what are you going to do in the mean time?” Psevra asked.
Kohra tutted, calming down completely. The air in the room stopped tingling. “I… I have some repairs that need doing first, and some meetings with my fellow Twelve Anew. After that though? I’m going to go and find my brother.”