“Ugh, if I had known, I would have signed up for something else! The whole point was to explore the omniverse and shit, not dick around in the local neighbourhood before returning home for the holidays!”
Tahnahos was in a bad mood and it clearly showed. Throughout his entire shift, monitoring navigation, he had been bitching and moaning. To the point that Teekay had stepped in to keep him company, because their fellow navigator Tahvra was sick of listening to Tahnahos rant.
“I don’t want to go back to that stupid universe! It was blown up! It was all left behind because Kinisis fucked things up! And now we’re going back to its remains again, where Kinisis will probably piss someone off and make things worse! Instead, we should be out there, exploring the vast infinity ahead of us!”
“Are you done yet?” Relkir growled, having been standing on guard for the last hour or so. Time was rather uneven out in the Space Between universes, so, even on board a ship, no one could really tell how much time passed without the help of specially tuned clocks. “Because your rambling is getting on everyone’s nerves.”
Tahnahos spun round in his chair, snapping his fingers at the much taller, much more attractive Divine Guardian. “No, I’m not! I don’t want to go back to that shitty universe where my shitty father lives! That place, we left it behind. The other deities look after it now! It’s not our problem! Kinisis just has overly sentimental emotions and constantly checks in on the place and makes everyone unhappy!”
Teekay gently placed a hand on Tahnahos’s shoulder, a suggestion that he should calm down a little. Not because he was wrong, but the last thing any of them wanted was for Kinisis to catch wind of his ramblings. “It’ll be… like, a week or something. It’s not going to be that bad. At the very least, we’ll get to see Elksia again.”
Tahnahos briefly paused. “That… that’s true. But she can, like visit whenever she wants. Everyone else though, fuck them.”
“Don’t you have family though?” Teekay asked. “You have siblings.”
Again, Tahnahos paused. “That… is also true. I… didn’t even stop to think about what happened to them. But it’d be unfair to, well, pester them. I got to become a deity. They’re probably…”
Tahnahos trailed off, then fell completely silent. He sighed, then went back to work, completely dropping the whole topic.
Both Teekay and Relkir glanced at each other. Vexer, who had been standing in the opposite corner of the room, doing the same guard duties as Relkir, joined in on the staring.
“I think you hurt his feelings.”
“No, I hurt my own feelings…” Tahnahos grunted. “I forgot about family. That’s why Kinisis wants to go back. Because she wants to be with the family she helped raise and build. Even if most of them are assholes.”
“Like your own family?” Teekay asked.
“Eh. Just my father… But I’ll be honest… I don’t even really know if my family is alive or not. I got so caught up in all of this that I… forgot to check.”
“You are not alone there,” Relkir sighed. “My own family-”
“You have family?” Vexer interrupted. “I thought you were a gruff loner bastard, Relkir!”
Relkir rolled his eyes. “No, I am technically a bastard kid. But I have family. In fact, we all have pasts that we can perhaps go back to and, well, check in on, if just for a while.”
“Yeah, yeah…” Tahnahos sighed. “I was just overacting. Just didn’t want to consider seeing my dad, that’s all.”
“Then don’t then!” Vexer beamed. “You’re a Guardian, you’re good, mate!”
“True… true…” Tahnahos relaxed, just a little. “I guess you’re right…”