Kayel glanced down at his navy hoodie and matching black and navy gloves, socks, stomach wrap and loin cloth, then glanced at the two people sitting with him. Teekay was just wearing a loin cloth and a stomach wrap, but Kaytee was wearing a full set of white and silver armour, but he almost never wore his helmet. After a little thought, Kayel sighed.
“I somehow feel overdressed and underdressed at the same time.”
Kaytee and Teekay both shrugged.
“Fair enough. I’ll be honest, since I was with the Phantai for so long, I kinda just wear armour all the time anyway…” Kaytee muttered. “I feel a tad naked if I’m not wearing armour.”
“I used to wear Ksa leadership clothing, half armour, half clothing, mostly a sash and scarf, all the time when I was mortal, now I don’t have to, I can wear whatever.”
Kayel inspected his new friends some more. “And neither of you feel you need to cover yourselves up to get away from the sun? We’re Skyavok, beings of darkness, after all, and surely you, uh, Threan-type Retha were similar?”
Kaytee shook his head. “Threan-types were just as sun-blessed as the other sub-types. It was only the Trehan-types, who we used to call Skyavok in mockery when they wanted to call themselves Trehavok, who liked shadows. Not that I ever really met a Trehan-type, they’d been extinct for thousands of years before I was born, apart from one hybrid.”
“Were hybrids a thing?” Teekay asked. “Because Rethan-Skyan hybrids are theoretically possible but very rare and most of them came out either just as big Skyans or, uh, brain-dead.”
“Um… It was complicated. If most of the sub-types had a kid with a standard type, they’d just come out as one or the other, at a 50% chance… most of the time. Tharen-types rarely interbred and they only did so with Threan-types or Hertan-types, who were closer to their size. Most Threan-types kept to ourselves because there was a fuckton of racism against us.”
“Did you all have wings?”
“No. But most Ksa made to look after the High General and Vice General were bred to have wings. A lot of vok thought that maybe there was a ninth sub-type, but it was never really prove.”
“NINTH?” Teekay suddenly exclaimed. “What were all these different types?”
Kaytee thought for a moment. “Well, the most common was Standard-type. After that, you had Ethran-types, Hertan-types, Threan-types and Athren-types which were all less common than standard type. Tharen-types did their own thing. Trehan-types and Rhetan-types both kinda went extinct. Winged Rethans were almost always small Standard-types or Threan-types, and the proposed name for them was Rahten-types but, uh, the universe kinda died and got reset before the science came out.”
“Huh…” Kayel shrugged. “So you Retha were kinda like the Temthans of my universe. Nyssi’s a pretty standard Temthan, but there were sub-types that could breed with normal Temthans and other types. But they all interbred so much that the sub-types became incredibly blurry outside of some particularly crazy breeds.”
“Well, in my universe, Ksithans were considered a sub-species of Temthans, alongside Thraki and they could interbreed…” Teekay also shrugged. “They did also have other named sub-types though. The Temthan Guardian Kinisis made, he was a Kaoshan Temthan, filled the same niche Banikans did. Most Skyavok though were the same, Athrevok did their own thing and Rethavok didn’t really have much outside of the Bloodlines, and they were designed to be perfect, not unique. Admittedly, we did kinda call ourselves Threavok originally but renamed ourselves after the early Rethavok fucked us over.”
“Interesting!” Kayel smiled. “Still, that doesn’t explain why your wife has wings. Like, actually functional wings the same way Kaytee does.”
Kaytee frowned. “My wings flap but I can’t get airborne on my own, I use telekinesis to help.”
“Actually, admittedly, Elkay only really got his wings back when we became Decaylings!” Teekay explained. “Yisini cut Elkay’s wings off when she kidnapped him and experimented on him. But he escaped and got adaptation powers, and at some point that turned into full shapeshifting. Dunno how he was born with them though, but other Rethans used to say he was demonic. Turned out to be a good thing during the stupid war against the Whenvern because the ‘angels’ were definitely trying to wipe us all out.”
Kayel blinked, suddenly feeling rather awkward. “Oh… Um… I just realized, the “overly sexy Threanic” that Sini told me she once fucked up… She was talking about your wife.”
Teekay nodded. “Probably. Did you meet Yisini in person a lot?”
“She broke into my house and asked me to try and seduce Arkay so he’d stop being Epani’s slave. Also at one point she left me under a heat source until my skin started to burn, but she did apologize for that.”
Kaytee also suddenly felt awkward. “Technically, am I older than Sini? After all, I was born a day before Arkay was, but Arkay went on to be a god in a new universe, and Sini was born inside that new universe.”
“Kinda. Elksia says there’s different kinds of time, depending on how we perceive it…” Teekay paused rather abruptly as he noticed someone was approaching. “Hey, babe. What’s up?”
Elkay tutted as he threw himself into the empty seat. “Eh.”
“Why are you covered in fur?” Kaytee asked.
“Ugh…” Clearly Elkay was in a bad mood because he grunting a lot. “Shapeshifting is hard.”
“What has shapeshifting got to do with being covered in fur?”
Elkay sighed some more. “My attempts at turning myself into a cat are not going well. Arkay can flawlessly turn himself into a cat, but I remain large. And, somehow, our little Voidborn friend has worked out proper shapeshifting too.”
“Oh neat!” Kayel beamed. “That will make Phovos feel a lot better, now she can make herself how she wants to be! Can Life Goddess Phovos shapeshift too?”
Elkay paused, sighed, then shrugged. “I believe she can, but she does not do so in the open, similarly to how most Life Goddesses take pride in their shape and change it very little.”
“Alright, cool. Second question, why are you trying to shapeshift into a cat? I know Tenuk does it all the time, mostly to cheer Ret up.”
“Hmph. Arkay has this insane idea about surprising Orion when the Travellers come by to visit. But I am not allowed to spoil it…” Elkay trailed off, then tried to dust some fur off his shoulder, only for it to stick to his hand.. “I think I am going to go and have a shower.”
“I’ll join you!” Teekay smiled as he got up. “Kaytee, do me a favour and keep Kayel busy for me.”
“Yeah, sure…” Kaytee shrugged. “He’s got homework to do anyway. Have fun.”
“Will do!” Teekay beamed, dragging Elkay off to the showers.