Rethans are Strange

Teekay was busy lounging in a reclining chair, sitting by a large, pink-tinted swimming pool, which fit seamlessly into the ground. He’d been sitting there for quite a bit now, enjoying the peace and quiet. That was until he was interrupted by a cream and yellow being.

“Heya Teekay, you busy?” Eksi asked as he pulled over a chair of his own and dumping it next to Teekay, then sitting himself down.

“Not really. Just taking a quick break…” Teekay muttered. “Do you need something?”

“Kinda. Have you noticed how strange Rethans are?”

Teekay sat up, somewhat perplexed. “What?”

“Rethans. How weird they are.”

“I don’t really follow.”

Eksi got up and dragged his chair closer to Teekay. “They’re weird. They act in weird ways. And have weird customs and stuff. But the biggest thing is, they don’t talk to each other.”

Teekay blinked. “I still don’t really follow. I’ve seen Litvir and Relkir talk to each other plenty of times.”

“Yeah but I stopped by to see them earlier as they’re on guard duty and they were completely silent.”

“They were probably communicating telepathically,” Teekay suggested. “Or they had nothing to talk about. Both Litvir and Relkir are pretty powerful telepaths.”

“Yeah but…” Eksi paused. “What about all the other stuff? They have barely any culture outside of being a military race, they don’t understand music outside of war drums and barely have personalities, aside from the more powerful ones!”

“That’s a bit mean, Eksi. Of course they have personalities.”

“Boring personalities. Even Litvir is kinda boring, being a reformed Saturday morning villain. I’m not saying that they’re bad, but, like, they’re all the same. They teeter on the edge of being, well, clones or something.”

“What makes you say this all of a sudden?” Teekay asked.

Eksi frowned. “I watched some Rethan television. It’s awful and boring. And consists of about 20% adverts for changing your armour.”

“Why were you watching Rethan television?”

“I was curious. I wanted to see what their political shows were like, but they all seem to agree with each other, unless they are from the elite top class. And even then, the disagreements were small. It seems like all Rethans are, well, the same, outside of looks.”

Teekay rolled his eyes. “Eksi, you are dating a Rethan.”

“Litvir and Relkir are exceptions.”

“How many other Rethans have you even met?”

“A few. Turns out three of them were siblings, and Litvir is definitely a member of the Rethan elite.”

Teekay tutted. “You can’t go and judge an entire species based on their television shows.”

“No, but I can judge them on how they all believe that they’re equal but they are being led by an almost secret elite tier of Rethavok that you can only get into if you’re born a certain way, mostly by luck.”

Teekay grunted, not really having an answer to Eksi’s statement. “Well, to be fair, the reason why they are like that IS kinda our fault. Us Skyavok designed the Rethans to be how they are, back when we were Threans. And it’s only been a couple of thousand years. Which seems long, but Rethans live to, on average, 150 anyway.”

“Oh. Good point…” Eksi sighed. “Still, Rethans are strange.”

“Yeah, they are strange. We’re all strange.”

Eksi laughed slightly. “Hah, don’t let me get started on that. We’d be here all day, discussing how strange us Skyans are…”