“So, you’re, like, actually a kid?”
Helkas blinked, then looked up from what he was doing. He was currently working on reading the first page of a very, very sparkly book, but apparently according to everyone else, it just looked plain. The nice Life Goddess and her strange Voidborn friend (was it a boy or a girl, Helkas wasn’t sure) had given him the book, asked him if he could read it then told him to only read the first page and left him to his own devices. They didn’t really explain why he couldn’t read more, outside of “it’s a lot to digest”, that turned out to be fine, since the book was hard to read.
The distraction was pleasant though. Helkas was maybe studying a little too much.
“Oh! Hello, Lissandra! Hello, Vokulunaax! How are you both?”
“Lissandra will not admit it, but she is concerned about you, out here on your own, working…” the colossal purple Thraki grunted.
“You were worried about me?” Helkas immediately addressed Lissandra. She was a very large serpent creature.
“No.”
“Don’t lie, Lissandra. That is what you just told me.”
“Well… Okay, fine, I was a bit worried about you. Because I ain’t been seeing you taking breaks like we do! And you’re also way younger than us. Like, ignoring the fact we got stuck inside a universe for fucking ages, you’re literally a kid.”
Helkas thought for a moment, then put his book and notes away. “Well, actually… I’m actually really old as well. I lived in my universe for a long time. Not the whole time, not like Arkay, but I served mum for a long time, at least a few billion years.”
“Really? Lissandra exclaimed. “So why are you, like, a horny little teenager? Actually, I take that shit back. I’m just comparing you to all the fucking Skyans here, they are basically an entire species of horny armoured teenagers.”
“To be fair, they are only like that because the Rethavok in our universe destroyed their numbers and killed a vast number of them, about ten thousand years ago…” Vokulunaax muttered.
Lissandra paused, then turned to Vokulunaax. “How do you know that?”
“I was alive then. I was somewhat present. The Thraki unfortunately kept to themselves though and didn’t assist.”
“Oh…” Lissandra paused again. “Hang on, what?”
“What?”
“You witnessed a massacre and didn’t help?”
“Well, would you confront an army of Rethavok fighting for their own freedom? The massacres happened because the Skyavok enslaved the Rethavok. The Rethavok did go overboard, but the Skyavok were not without blame.”
“Oh. But also… damn, you’re fucking ancient, Vokulunaax!” Lissandra hissed. “Like, really really fucking ancient. And you also do the resetting bullshit Kinisis cursed us with!”
“To be fair, I only ever died and was reborn once. Some Thraki just naturally live for a very, very long time. The same way Kronospasts do. But I think Helkas here is still much older. That begs the question though, Helkas, why are you physically so young?”
Helkas shrugged. “Mum just made me young again. As a thank you for serving her so diligently. She gave me a second chance, to be born again, and to live forever. Because, I think, unlike the Life Goddess who made you, my mum actually cared about me.”
“Wow. You lucky cunt…” Lissandra tutted. “You lucky, lucky cunt. The mass-murderer Arkad… Arkay was routinely tortured apparently, and we’re not allowed to talk about what happened to Elkay.”
“What… what happened to Elkay?”
“I just said we ain’t allowed to talk about it!” Lissandra went back to hissing, but quickly lowered her voice. “But basically, Kinisis destroyed as much about Elkay as possible. Wiped his memories, changed his name, tried to separate him from Teekay, then would drug him every night, take him to her lab and experiment on him.”
“And you knew about this?”
“Sadly, yeah. But we couldn’t do shit about it. Because she’d threaten to do the same to us. But also she’d routinely alter our memories to make sure we didn’t fight back too much.”
Vokulunaax nodded in agreement. “Kinisis is routinely considered to be the worst Life Goddess in this sector. Which is… made worse by the fact that the sector is named after her. Your Life Goddess mother sounds heavenly in comparison, even if it meant she did something to you that was similar to what Kinisis did to Elkay and Arkay.”
“How comes you ain’t just a Life Goddess though?” Lissandra suddenly asked. “Like, you call your… whatever her name was… you call her your mum. But Kinisis was Phovos’s mum and Sini and Epani’s mum… and Elkay-En’s dad somehow… and they’re Life Goddesses too. You ain’t though.”
“Mum didn’t… give birth to me though. She… adopted me? I don’t remember. I just remember dying, mum taking me in rather than letting me go down the river and her remaking me into her guardian, and later into the Bloodied Lord, to work as her God of Death.”
“She didn’t torture you though…” Vokulunaax sighed. “That is miles better than what we went through.”
Helkas frowned. “I am sorry your Life Goddess was mean. And I’m thankful that I was looked over, even if she messed me up a little. I’m also thankful that my universe is safe and sound.”
“It is?” Lissandra blinked.
“Yeah. I am only out here because mum didn’t want me to die inside her universe. Out here, there are… uh… no rules or anything. So it spared me from dying to her “nothing is infinite” rules.”
“Huh…”
Vokulunaax and Lissandra both fell silent, lost in thought and clearly not understanding what Helkas meant. Eventually though, Lissandra changed the subject.
“Anyway, I’m gonna go swimming in the lake. Elkay and Pah just finished purifying it and making it clean. I’m trying to be a nicer person, and also I need to wash all my angry toxins off me, they dissolve harmlessly in water. You wanna join me?”
“Is Vokulunaax not coming?”
“He’s gonna watch. Because he doesn’t like water but he wants to watch Thassalin and Saahro play in the water because he’s shy and also in the-”
“Lissandra…” Vokulunaax growled.
“Sorry. Anyway, you in?”
Helkas looked at his work, then hastily put everything inside his satchel. “I’m in!”