“Hi.”
“Hi…”
“You awake?”
Elkay lifted his head wearily. “I am now.”
“Sorry, but I have a lot of questions and I really have to ask you now.”
Teekay was sitting on top of Elkay, pinning him down. How Elkay hadn’t noticed, he wasn’t sure. But he was so exhausted that it was possible he’d fallen asleep like that and simply not cared.
“What sort of questions?”
“Weeeellll…” Teekay’s voice was particularly grating today. Most Skyavok had slightly high-pitched voices that, at the right volume, would cause mild annoyance to a Rethan like Elkay, but Teekay’s long, drawn out words just made Elkay angry.
“Do you not know or are you just annoying me?” Elkay grunted.
Teekay stopped being annoying and grunted back. “Hey, don’t get pissy at me. You are the one staying in my house and you are the one who terrified me by running off. Where did you go anyway? Because none of the neighbours saw where you went, and as far as I am aware, you just turned up at the local astynom station and asked to be brought back here…”
Elkay didn’t answer at first. He couldn’t decide whether to tell the truth or not. He quickly realised he should though. After all, Teekay had been honest with him all this time.
“I… I was… considering… I was standing on the edge of one of these floating islands, considering…”
The words didn’t want to come out properly. Elkay tried again.
“I was considering suicide. But I changed my mind. Because I realised I am… not completely alone…”
Teekay blinked. “R-really?”
“Yes.”
Teekay hesitated a little, then climbed off of Elkay’s chest, leaning off to one side. “Because… because I care about you..?”
“Yes.”
“… Huh…”
Teekay fell silent, slumping over to one side and lying down next to Elkay. He was staring a little too hard and that too was annoying Elkay, more than it should have. Wanting to ease the tension and break the silence, Elkay decided to say something.
“So what else did you want to ask of me?”
Teekay blinked. The blinking was oddly charming and far better than his previous fiery stare. Those bright, orange eyes of his were oddly hypnotic. Actually, everything about Teekay was slightly hypnotic. He reminded Elkay of… himself.
“I wanted to ask what your real name was.”
“My real name?”
“You’re not really called Elkay Theanon.”
“I am. That is my legal name. Or at least it was until I became legally dead.”
Teekay hissed in disbelief. “You have a Skyan name. And a Temthaic surname.”
“My surname is not Temthaic! It is just an uncommon and old name.” Elkay snapped back.
“Yes but it’s not your birth name, is it?”
Elkay grunted some more. He just wanted to go back to sleep. “I do not have a birth name. I was abandoned before I had even hatched…”
“Oh… But still, your name is weird. It does not sound… Rethan-y at all!”
“That is…” Elkay sighed again. He didn’t like lying to Teekay. But he had kept his past a secret for so long that it was basically second nature to him. “Orphaned and abandoned Rethans can learn about their heritage from a very young age, and DNA is testing almost as soon as a Rethan hatches, to find out who an abandoned kid belongs to. Unfortunately for me, it was discovered that I… I really should not have existed…”
“Your mother was a virgin?” Teekay asked.
“What? No!” Elkay tutted. “No, my poor mother, whoever she was, no one knows. But it was discovered that my father was Revalos Rethianos, the father of Rethais and Retvik Rethianos and the one being who should not have had more than two kids.”
Teekay blinked in confusion. “Is that the Rethianos family thing where there is some very strange genetic purity going on?”
“Yes.”
“The family which only ever produces two children per generation and has been bred to Rethan perfection?”
“Yes.”
And you are… half of that?”
“Yes.”
“Oh…”
Teekay trailed off, lost in thought. When he finally remembered what he had been doing, he smiled slyly.
“That explains why you are so… weird. And that also means you would have had a firsts name beginning with R. Relkay maybe?”
Elkay rolled his eyes. “Can I go back to sleep now?”
“Yes, but when you wake up, I would like to talk more.”
“Yeah, sure…” Elkay tutted as he turned over, away from Teekay. “Please just let me sleep…”