“Litvir, may we have a word with you?”
Litvir thought they were finished with office work today, but just as they were about to leave, they felt a tap on their shoulder. Standing behind them were their boss, General Tessar, the General of the Legion of Deitic Affairs, but also a second person, General Ritlir, of Hidden Internal Affairs. Seeing General Tessar made sense, Litvir was a member of their Legion, but General Ritlir was an unusual person, and their existence bothered Litvir because Litvir could never quite place their emotions.
“Of course, Kyr Tessar!” Litvir smiled nonetheless. “Is there something you need from me?”
“We just need to ask you a few questions. Do you mind coming to my office?”
Litvir nodded, then followed Tessar and Ritlir to Tessar’s little office at the back of the room. Litvir felt slightly uneasy, as if they had done something wrong, but they couldn’t think of anything bad they’d done, so it probably wasn’t anything too bad. Tessar sat behind their desk as always, Litvir sat in front of the desk but Ritlir sat to the side, somewhat watching on.
“Have I done something bad?” Litvir asked.
“No, not at all. You have been a good kid, as always.”
“Then why is Kyr Ritlir here?”
Ritlir smiled. “I come bearing questions from other Generals. General Lysar is busy currently, and the lovely folks of the 1044th Legion are on border patrols, as always. At some point, Tessar does want you to head to Thresisa and speak to them properly, but for now, I am asking the questions for them.”
“I… I see?” Litvir didn’t really see, but they let their superiors ask them questions anyway. “So what do you want to ask?”
Ritlir smiled some more. “First off, Lysar wants to know what you were doing at that Banikan party on the 6th of the 1st.”
Litvir blinked. “Was I not supposed to go?”
Tessar grunted. “From what I can tell, the party was supposed to be a gathering of powerful females. Last time we checked, you are not a powerful female.”
“But… but Murum’Va invited me…” Litvir stuttered. “She wanted me to go! She asked Kyr Elkay to go, he said no, but he said I should go in his place. So Murum’Va and Kyr Elkay both told me to go so I did. I was not sure. And it was not a fun party either. I left after a while and stood outside on guard.”
Ritlir glanced at Tessar, then leaned forward. “Litvir, do you understand biology? Rethans are not male or female.”
“We are both?” Litvir was confused. “We have the… thingies that a male and a female have. But also… some Rethans sometimes call themselves he or she? Like dada Relkir’s big fighty sibling who was taken away.”
“Alright…” Tessar sighed. “Next time someone asks you to go to a party like that, we want you to check in with us first, or at the very least, have a quick chat with Relkir and ask them. The Banikans were unbothered by your presence but some of the Ksithans were.”
“I am sorry…” Litvir muttered.
“It is fine, you did not know…” Tessar trailed off briefly, then went through some notes. “Anyway, the next thing we want to ask… In your patrol report on the 3rd, you mentioned a “big white ball” that you deemed was unsafe. The report says that you removed the ball from our universe. On the 4th, your report says that you checked the same area and the big white ball was not present. On the 5th, you stated that you checked the area again, and the big white ball had reappeared, so you removed it from the universe again. Can you tell us more about this?”
Litvir thought for a moment. “What about it?”
“How big was it? What was it made of? Things like that.”
More thinking. “It was… about 3m big? Big ball. Bigger than me. Was easy to move though, somewhat light. I did not touch it myself though. I used my gunstaff to nudge it as close to the universe’s edge as possible, I cut a hole in the membrane so I could push the ball through the hole, I pushed it out and then I fixed up the hole like old mama… sorry, like Kyr Elkay always tells me to.”
“Did you think it was Corruption?”
“Yes, which is why I did not touch it and immediately pushed it out. I thought about breaking the ball, but I did not want to make any little shards or anything. Those are harder to get rid of than a big ball.”
“I see…” Tessar wrote some stuff down. “And you said the ball came back on the 5th. Was the ball present when you did your patrol on the 7th? And were there any signs of intrusion, of how the ball got there in the first place?”
Litvir shook their head. “No, the ball was not there on the 7th. And I do not know how the ball got in. The thingies I made to seal the membrane were untouched. It was like it just… appeared. By magic. I am going to check again tomorrow though.”
“Good, good. And I assume you informed the other deities of the white ball as well?”
“Yes. If I see something weird, I have to write it down and give my writing to Kyr Elkay and Kyr Epani. I did that for the white ball both times I saw it.”
“Good…” Tessar noted something down, then wrote something else on a separate sheet of paper. “Alright, Litvir, can you do something for me, please?”
“Yes?”
Tessar leaned forward and handed Litvir the piece of paper. “When you go to check the area tomorrow, if there is something there, before you remove the foreign object, I want you to do two things: firstly, you will call this number. This is for the Ksithan Boundary Protection Fleet. Tell them where you are and that you have found something odd. They will send a ship to your location and they will take some scans and-”
“They are not allowed to take samples!” Litvir interrupted. “No one is.”
“They will not take samples or touch anything. We just want some photo evidence of this object. Once the Ksithans have their data, you will remove the foreign object the same way you did last time. But at the same time, I want you to observe the ball and see if it does anything, if it moves or rotates or whatever, and if it does do anything, you make note of it. Understood?”
Litvir suddenly realised what Tessar wanted, they just wanted more information. Feeling more confident, Litvir nodded. “Yes, Kyr Tessar. I will do as you say.”
“Good kid. Ritlir, do you need anything else?”
“No, no. We are all good.”
“Alright. Thank you for your time, Litvir. You are dismissed.”
Litvir smiled a little, then got up, bowed and left the office. Once the coast was clear, Ritlir turned to Tessar.
“They are really not that bad.”
“They are not bad at all. Just… annoyingly young.”
Ritlir shrugged. “Well, Litvir cannot help it. They are only a year old, after all…”