Litvir wasn’t that surprised to see that parts of his shared personal quarters were on fire. He and Retvik had had two very different conversations between two very different people. Litvir had just gotten back from a nice chat with Tah, the leader of the tiny group of Decay Lords that the Thantir had adopted. Retvik had recently had a blazing row with his two oldest friends. It turned out, Kal had bought some land and were building a base for the Thantir, as a thank you gift for saving them when they were stranded after Ahkron attacked them and nearly destroyed their ship. But that land happened to be the floating island where Litvir and Retvik’s long lost partner had lost his mind, killing 30 Voidborns and a Life Goddess in the process. Kal had been completely unaware of this until Elksia went with them and had accidentally triggered her Time Drake powers, allowing her to see everything that had happened that day.
Litvir had been very understanding with Kal. They felt bad. But there was no way they could have known, and Litvir had done his best to try and spin things around positively. They were taking a horrible, desolate place and turning it into something positive, Litvir wasn’t angry with them in the slightest, and he’d asked Tah if there was anything he could do to help.
Retvik’s argument though, everyone knew something was wrong. Elksia very rarely got angry. It was apparently so bad that pretty much every Psion on the Shimmering Blade was aware something had happened. So, of course, as soon as Litvir was done with Kal, he went off to see what was wrong. Eksi had thankfully managed to catch up with Tenuk and Elksia and had telepathically sent Litvir a rundown of what had happened, so he wasn’t walking in blind.
“Are you well, dear?” Litvir asked as he put out some of the lingering flames with his telekinesis.
“Do not ask stupid questions.”
That was not a good start. Litvir grunted, then decided to sit on the edge of the bed. Retvik was lying on his back, staring at the ceiling, his tail swishing from side to side angrily.
“Well… clearly not. But I feel we need to talk.”
“I am angry. I do not want to talk.”
“Maybe, but I want to talk. And I am happy to talk at you if you do not want to talk back.”
Retvik didn’t say anything, but his tail swished harder, thwacking Litvir on the side. Litvir snickered, then laid back and wrapped his longer tail around Retvik’s to stop it moving. Most Rethans didn’t have much dexterity in their tails, and Retvik in particular struggled as he’d lost the tip of his tail several times over the years.
“Litvir…”
“You are hurting. I do not want you to be hurting. But at the same time, you do need to be told that you are wrong. Elksia was needlessly harsh in what she said, but she was right. We did stand idly as that bitch pushed Arkay over the edge. But also Arkay did… somewhat do that to himself. Problem is, Elksia has the power of hindsight and can see pretty much everything. Arkay was standing there, panicking that this Life Goddess bitch was going to force him to make a universe with her. Meanwhile, I was busy trying to work out why I couldn’t telepathically count how many Voidborns were outside, Kuta was trying not to piss himself in fear and you were trying to work out how to deal with the horde outside. But while all three of us were definitely at fault, at the end of the day, the REAL blame falls on the Life Goddess bitch. Again.”
Retvik growled. “I do not want to-”
“Shush. We are blaming ourselves. We were just reacting. We were told we were just acting as body guards to a Life Goddess for a week while she worked on a project. The bitch lied to us constantly, she didn’t tell us that we’d potentially have an entire Voidborn cult popping by. Especially since, well, a member of that cult directly harmed Arkay and threatened to kill him. And she knew about them.”
Retvik was about to speak, but paused and thought to himself for a moment. “She… knew? About the army of Voidborns?”
Litvir nodded. “When I spoke to Tah, he told me that he didn’t know about what had happened there when it came to us, but before they bought the place, they did some research on the location. Turns out, the place dropped massively in value because a small Voidborn cult used to protect the area but disappeared. I looked them up, messaged Theocydes and he said they were called the Athanathean League. They were literally named after that bitch of a Life Goddess. For all we know, she planned the whole damn thing.”
“Still. I am sick and tired of… just thinking and worrying about Arkay. It is exhausting. I want him to leave me alone.”
“Hmph…” Litvir tutted. “That is solely on you then. Arkay literally is not here, he literally cannot do anything more to leave you alone. You need to get a grip on your feelings. I am going to be my normal, rude, blunt self and just tell you that you need to stop thinking about Arkay and sort yourself out. You handled yourself badly with Elksia, you should have just calmly nodded and accepted what she said and moved on.”
“She-”
“She is right. Well, Elksia was wrong to get so angry at you, but she is right about what happened. We were slow to act and we let Arkay hurt himself. We cannot change the past, so all we can do is apologize, move on and try to do better in the future. That is what you have told me to do, and you need to take that advice yourself.”
“I… I guess… Not that it matters. Arkay is not coming back.”
Litvir sighed, then scooted over, so he was closer to Retvik. “You are clearly very upset and you need some time to cool down, because, right now, everything feels like the end of the universe. And as a being that somehow lived through the end of the universe, twice, I understand that.”
“I am ri-”
“No, you are fucking wrong…” Litvir hissed ever so slightly. “At least, you cannot know for sure. You cannot see the future. Elksia is a Time Drake and cannot really see that far into the future. But right now you are pissed off and you are taking it out on everyone else. So here is what you are going to do: You are going to take all your armour off; you are going to have a shower; you are going to stand under the falling water and sob for a bit; you are going to dry yourself off and not use a towel because you never use a towel; you are going to go back to bed, rub out one and go to sleep for a few hours. Then, after your nap, you are going to make amends with Elksia, then you are going to come back to bed and sleep a bit more and start fresh in… I do not know, twelve hours or so.”
Retvik glanced at Litvir, then grunted. “And what are you going to do?”
Litvir climbed out of bed and shrugged. “I do not know. I will find something to preoccupy myself with. Most likely I will just sit and chat with our freshly graduated Decay Lords. Eksi normally has some silly, overly sexual questions to ask.”
“I do not understand your relationship with Eksi. He is tiny and somehow-”
“You are not allowed to comment on my brief four-way fling until you openly admit you slept with Phovos. Which you did. With her on top, I assume, because you would otherwise crush her frail, unarmoured Ksithan body.”
Retvik snarled, but that snarl turned into a deflated grumble. “Alright. Fuck off now.”
“Will you do as I recommended?” Litvir asked.
“I will.”
“Alright. Sleep well. Hope you feel better…” Litvir waved as he floated out of the room, gently closing the door behind him.