Sini sighed to herself as her body changed shape. She needed to be less of a Life Goddess, more of a Time God now, and her body was in the middle of making that reality. Silky scales became thicker and edgier, her well-trimmed nails became talons and a pair of draconic wings sprung from her back. Sini’s colours shifted from rich purples and pinks to cold blues and silvers, leaving only a handful of purple tips. Her whole body became stronger and more reptilian, less feminine, as she made herself into a proper Time Drake.
“This is temporary, you know.”
The transformation was quick but not pointless. And mostly self-done. The universe was aware that something had just happened with the fundamental of Time, but they weren’t quite ready to know that the Whenvern was well and truly dead, his eyes cut out, his brain turned to mush, stab wounds across his entire head and his whole body turned into solid, frozen diamond. While Sini and Epani had considered keeping Kairos’s body, it turned out, neither of them had a choice in the matter. Exactly 44 hours after Kairos’s passing, the corpse had crumbled into glistening dust, which had been dutifully collected and placed inside a temporary urn by the Twelve Anew.
Actually, the dust had been placed inside a tupperware box and then placed inside the temporary urn while Epani decided what to do, but the absurdity of a deity inside a piece of plastic had briefly made Epani smile, so it wasn’t too bad.
Either way, Sini was now ready to take over the fundamental of Time once again. And this time, she did so with ease. This wasn’t her first time being a Time Drake for a universe. Sini was annoyed that, for now, she was ONLY a Time Drake and NOT a Life Goddess, it was only temporary. Until the universe settled down and the story was ironed out.
And right now, the story was… a little obscene. They were keeping it a secret that Kairos had intentionally turned against the universe. The plan was to unfortunately lie. Kairos had been infected with Corruption again. He’d tried to kill Epani but had gone for Elkay first. The Twelve Anew had come together to defeat Kairos, but he couldn’t be saved. The universe currently didn’t know that Kairos was dead, they were just vaguely aware that Sini had returned to try and purify him and, in a few hours, Epani and Sini would admit to the universe that Kairos hadn’t made it and Sini was now taking Kairos’s place as the new God of Time, calling herself Ksini.
Did Sini really need to publicly change her name? Not really, but Epani and Sini were both still concerned that the Unending Ancient One would return in some way. A name change was… a vague attempt to make sure Epanophovon’s children didn’t come back to enforce their toxic agreement.
The entire time, while Sini had been changing herself, Epani had been watching on. She hadn’t said much up until now though.
“I know it’s temporary, but I… I’m not a fan. I’m not me right now.”
“We can tweak things over time. This is just a brief, awkward stop-gap.”
Sini grunted. “I know. I just don’t like not being me.”
“Are you in pain?”
“No. I’ve taken control of the Forward Flow no problem. It feels mostly natural to me. I’m just filled with misery because this is the second fucking time I’ve had to do this.”
Epani frowned. “I know, I know… But there is good to be had.”
“There is?”
“Yes. We get to be together now. We can do all those things we wanted to do, but with better knowledge and experience. Kairos turned out to be, well, an asshole, who didn’t want to help make a nice little universe. You always wanted to be part of a universe, and now you can be part of a universe with someone who understands better.”
“You understand better now.”
“I do…” Epani nodded solemnly. “Losing you… it hurt me. A lot. That pain amplified over time when I realised that Kairos didn’t feel the same way about things that I did. He just grew angrier over time. Probably because he wanted to leave, to return to the Periuniversal Void, but was too scared to do so and too cowardly to admit that he made a mistake, staying here when you were exiled.”
Sini growled angrily. “So you are saying all of this shit, all of this pain, could have been avoided?”
“Yes, but not by us. This was ALL on Kairos. This is all his fault. I… I do not know if I did something wrong, but in all honesty? I do not think I did anything wrong, outside of not keeping a closer eye on Kairos.”
“The fucker literally corrupted himself with Kinisis’s strain.”
“He did, yes. I do not know if it was a spur of the moment thing though. Part of me fears it was not, and Kairos had been planning to usurp me for a while now…” Epani trailed off. “I… I just do not understand why Kairos… why he hated me. I did everything I could to make him comfortable.”
“He wanted sex. Kinisis used to give him sex. You loved Kairos but not in the way he wanted, so, the egotistical prick that he was, he took it out on you. Kairos was always a cunt. You did nothing wrong, Epani.”
Epani didn’t answer at first. But she slowly smiled. “I… I needed to hear that.”
“Well, I’m right. None of us did anything wrong. And now we’re free from Kinisis AND her two awful little bitches. We can do what we want. And since you’ve already done good work on your own, I think you’re right, between us two, we can do something good.”
“Indeed!” Epani smiled properly, then held out her hand. “So, my darling sister, shall we go out there and let the universe know what happened?”
Ksini, the new Time Goddess, smiled back. “Yes, yes, we should.”