Sini somewhat sighed to herself as she relaxed in some sort of restaurant that served some kind of space sea food. Currently, Sini was making herself look like a Time Drake. It turned out that this mall regularly had Life Goddesses roaming around, but Sini didn’t feel comfortable being near them. Sini had worked hard to turn herself into a Life Goddess, but these other Life Goddesses had been just… born that way, and were insanely obnoxious and often rude. In fact, Sini had originally thought that maybe it was just her mother who was an awful Life Goddess, but after wandering around this weird space mall for a bit, Sini had realized that more Life Goddesses were like Kinisis than they were like Sini or her sisters.
At least Sini was somewhere vaguely comfortable right now. She was done spending time with the local Decay Lord sect. They were all very kind to her, and Sini had appreciated all the information they’d given her, but Sini wanted to move on now. She had a better idea how things worked, she’d managed to convert some of her resources into proper cash and, before she left, the Phantai leaders both promised to help her if she needed assistance and they’d also given her a temporary card loaded with Decay Lord money, that some of the smaller Phantai had jokingly called “Deathvenbucks”. So Sini had resources and cash and could actually relax properly for a bit.
In the mean time, her little Guardians were relaxing as well. Sini was happy that they were all still willing to work for her. The only person who had complained was Vexer, but he was admittedly a rather grumpy Vrekan, made worse by the fact that he was an old-universe Vrekan who wasn’t compatible with new-universe Vrekans.
Atteh’Kus was also struggling a little bit, but only because he was so huge. This mall was built for beings up to around 4m tall and mostly upright, but Atteh’Kus, being a Banikan, was rather… big. And long. And tall. There was an area set aside for Time Drakes (who were large, draconic beings about 80% of the time) and Vokulunaax was already staying there, but Atteh’Kus didn’t really want to be there, because he wasn’t draconic. Vokukulaax though was thoroughly enjoying being around other wyverns, and he had made some friends.
Her other three Guardians were doing fine. Sini had given them all some money to treat themselves, and Lissandra, now back in her old, original snake-like Fidavok form, was having fun looking at fancy but technically pointless armoured bikini sets, Fragiir was busy chatting up some draconic beings from “the pentacluster up north” and Kayenus was in a nearby all-you-can-eat BBQ ribs restaurant. Sini could actually just about see Kayenus, and he had eaten a lot. But he’d actually started his massive meal with some super dooper extra spicy BBQ wings, something that was supposed to be a challenge to see if people could even properly eat them, and Kayenus had asked for a second dish.
Someone approached Sini, distracting her from her thoughts. It was the waiter, a weird Lanex-like being called Norik.
“Hello, do you wish to order now?” Norik smiled.
“Oh my!” Sini blinked. “My bad, I got completely distracted by my own thoughts. I would like to order, yes. Do you have a basic bit-of-everything platter for one?”
“I do! Do you want any sides with it?”
“What sides do you have?” Really, Sini should have been reading the menu in front of her/
“Chips or rice, mostly. We also have some lovely sauces to go alongside your platter, particularly our super garlic sauce. That is very popular.”
“Alright!” Sini beamed. “I’ll have some chips and some of that sauce then. They sound nice. Can you also get me a few more drinks, please? A diet cola and your most colourful cocktail.”
Norik bowed, then disappeared. Somehow, 30 seconds later, he returned with both drinks, before disappearing again. And as Sini sipped her cocktail, she started idly thinking once more.
At some point, Sini needed to get going. While she’d still be in this mall for a few more hours (after making sure all her guardians were happy and fed), she’d been saving one shop until last. After much thinking, Sini had decided to go ahead and make a Life Oasis, essentially a bar but for other Life Goddesses and occasionally other travellers. Sini’s one though was going to be more open and accepting. Probably closer to a Decayon’s pub than a normal Life Oasis.
So, the last shop Sini wanted to go to was the massive homeware, material and tool store which took up a big chunk of the first level. Sini both had her own resources and knew what she wanted to build, but the plan was to buy tools and other bits and pieces. Mostly stuff that would generally be useful, even if Sini could do things herself. And Sini didn’t even need to carry all this stuff back to her ship. She’d already created a hammerspace specifically to put all her new work stuff in.
Really, all Sini needed to do was find a good place to build. She had already decided that she didn’t want to build in the Goldtorn Remains though. Sure, it was now a safe sector (partially because of her little sister’s actions) and the locals were trying to reclaim its original name of the Golden paradise, but Sini didn’t want to stay in a place where all her ancestors lived. However, the Kinigian Wilderness, despite being named after Sini’s evil bitch of a mother, had better traffic and less people capitalizing on that traffic.
Plus, it was somewhat close to her old home. Meant Sini could keep an eye out on any potential threats. Sure, Sini had been exiled from the little universe she had spent so much time building and maintaining, but at least, by being close, she could still have a small connection to Epani’s universe.
All of a sudden, Sini’s order had arrived. A plate of very strange seafood, some chips and some sauces.
“Oh, thank you, dear!” Sini smiled at the waiter.
“Enjoy your meal!” Norik smiled back, bowed, then disappeared, to deal with some other customers.
Sini continued to grin as she picked at her food. It was all definitely seafood-y but it was all also very colourful. And the garlic sauce was very nice too.
As she leaned back and relaxed, for once, Sini felt… completely free, almost. She was going to forge her own path forward. And it was going to be fun.
“Life is good,” Sini muttered to herself. “Super good, for once…”