A knock on the door woke Relkir up, but Gath had hardly moved. To be fair, both of them were hungover. Or maybe still drunk. Relkir wasn’t sure. Probably the latter, since both they and Gath were on holiday, and all they’d really done so far was eat and drink. The previous night, they had visited a Temthan bar and grill, been given free cocktails because the staff had recognized Relkir (but weirdly, not Gath) and they had eaten freshly grilled exotic meats while chatting with some local Temthan regulars. They’d had a wonderful time and Relkir was feeling better about themselves already.
Another knock. And Gath still hadn’t moved. This bothered Relkir. They were in a private holiday villa in a closed park. Who was knocking? A quick glance at their wristband, which was lying on the pillow next to Relkir, said it was 9:30am. Normally Relkir was always out of bed before 7:30, and they had somewhat instinctively woken up earlier, but, again, they were on holiday. They were allowed to sleep in.
Maybe it was cleaning staff? But this was a villa, not a hotel room.
Relkir was vaguely concerned, but they didn’t want to wake Gath up. The brief time they had spent in Palaestra had convinced Relkir that, while yes, they were a small Rethan, but they were a Rethan nonetheless, covered in the same heavy armour all Rethans were. Relkir could look after themselves.
That being said, Relkir did grab that dagger they had been gifted. Just in case whoever outside was hostile. After all, there was no reason for anyone to be knocking on the door.
Relkir hesitated briefly, took a deep breath, then approached the door and opened it.
“Hello, my child.”
Relkir blinked. They backed off briefly and closed the door for a moment, muttering to themselves before opening the door again.
“Oath Keeper, give me the strength to do what is right… Revan, egg layer, what are you doing here? How did you even find me?”
Revan wasn’t that tall for a Rethan, in fact, they were slightly shorter than Retvik and Rethais, their older daughters. They still had that menacing aura though. The same one all Rethianoi had.
“General Gath is a pretty easy person to track down. I want to speak to you, child.”
Relkir snarled. “Was Retvik’s public tongue lashing not enough? He does not forgive you, and he was absolutely right to assume the same of me. I do not forgive you, monster, and I want you to leave!”
“Will you not let me speak, son?”
“No! I will not! You have not spoken well of me for the entirety of my existence! You have had over 50 years to not be an asshole, you have had thirty four and a half years to apologize to me, for wishing your own children dead! It is too damn late. Now leave!”
Revan remained unmoved for a moment, before reaching forward and putting their hand around Relkir’s wrist. “I realize now that I was wrong. I want to make amends. Starting with you.”
“I do not want to make amends. Remove your hand from my person and leave. Now.”
“No. We need to talk.”
“Remove. Your. Hand.”
Revan gripped tighter. That was a mistake. Relkir began to feel threatened. Revan was bigger than Relkir, and they were dressed in standard armour, with a General’s Insignia around their arm and a General’s Blade on their hip. Relkir was only wearing bedtime clothing.
“Last chance.”
“No.”
“I am not asking. I am telling.”
“You will stay here, and we will talk, whether you like it or not.”
Relkir breathed deep, then raised their left hand, in which they held their gifted dagger. Without hesitation, they jabbed the blade into Revan’s exposed elbow. This made Revan immediately let go and back off.
“You…”
“Leave! Before I strike you again, and before Gath discovers you were here!”
Revan blinked, glanced down at their wound, then sighed, before turning around and leaving, utterly defeated. Relkir snarled, and was about to head back inside to wake Gath up, but they paused briefly and turned to their right. There was someone standing there, watching them. And they had seen everything.
“I heard your prayer, but you clearly didn’t need me!” Arkay smiled somewhat.
“Oath Keeper…” Relkir muttered. They considered getting down on their knees, but Arkay wandered over and lead them back inside, closing the door behind them. Gath was still fast asleep, somehow, despite the commotion. “I… I messed up…”
“No, not at all!” Arkay sat Relkir down in the lounge area. “You acted in self-defence. That prick grabbed you without consent and refused to let go when you told them no. How are you feeling?”
“Um… confused… do you… do you normally check on people… in person? And are you normally solely a Skyavok?”
Arkay nodded. “If I came here as a Rethan, you’d feel more threatened. But, well… I have some biases. The first biases are towards people called Retvik, Tenuk, Nyssi or Kayel. But I have a bias towards people called Elkay too. And, as weird as it sounds, you actually fall into that bias.”
“How… how comes?”
“To cut a very, very long story short, there are… technically different types of deity. Kairos is a god specially created to handle time, Sini and Epani are Life Goddesses, blessed with a divine, creative gift. I’m… something incredibly rare, and there’s only one other deity a bit like me. His name happens to be Elkay, and you look a LOT like him, but with red plating instead of green, and he has a pair of wings. You also remind me of him in other ways. That lovely, intelligent, curious spark of yours. Simply put, I like you, and I appreciate having someone who believes in me not as a death god but as a god of something good for a change.”
“I, uh, feel there is more to it than that…” Relkir lowered their voice, glancing to where Gath was sleeping.
“A little. You’ve prayed to me quite a bit over the last few days. I saw Retvik’s put down of your mother, wondered if they would try to contact you, turned out to be correct and made sure Gath remained unconscious while you proved that you have ALWAYS been as strong as your siblings. Because, uh, if Gath had been awake? They probably would have seriously harmed or even killed Revan.”
“Wait, really?”
Arkay nodded. “You are everything to Gath. They’ve been mourning for 40 years, thinking they would never find love again, and you proved them wrong. I’m just sorry it took me so long to get things into gear, but I’ve been mostly hands off with mortals for… well, since before you were born.”
Relkir sniffed, but remained silent for a moment. They had the Oath Keeper literally sitting next to them. They HAD to ask some questions. But what? As they looked over to Gath again, they made a swift decision.
“I… I assume you… you get this question a lot…”
“Is it about immortality?”
“N-no. I understand that life as it currently exists is unfortunately finite. However, I do not want to lose Gath so soon.”
Arkay also glanced at Gath, inspecting them. Gath, unaware of what was going on, snored loudly, then turned over. Relkir noticed that Arkay’s dimly glowing gold eyes briefly flashed blue, before turning back to gold.
“Well… the good news is, you’re both already on the right path. As long as Gath retires in five years, and you keep on convincing Gath to go with you on your daily walks. Cut out the alcohol too, make sure Gath takes their medication, and try to go swimming or something once a week. Between the reduced stress and the low-impact exercise, you could get thirty, maybe even forty years out of Gath. Nudge some more funding towards prostaxia treatment, open up to more Ksithan medical research, you might even get a breakthrough in ten years, which could give Gath fifty years or more.”
“Really?”
“Yep. And…” Arkay’s eyes briefly flashed pink this time. “You want kids. That’ll make Sini happy. But you ought to be the mother. And if or when that happens, take the full parental leave. Be the mother you always wanted. Because I have faith in you both.”
“Well… that is a given…” Relkir tutted. “Still… thank you. You have given me a lot of unwarranted hope. More than I deserve.”
“Eh, you do deserve it. You’ve spent your whole adult life wondering if you even deserve to be alive. The least I can do is make two people happy for a bit longer, even as I make the rest of the universe sad.”
“You are not that bad.”
Arkay snorted. “I’m not. I just do the job no one else wants to do…” Arkay suddenly fell silent, then sniffed. “Can I be honest, for a moment?”
“Of course.”
The Thantophor glanced at Gath, then turned back to Relkir. “Do you ever feel like… ugh… never mind…”
“You can talk to me.”
“I can’t. I don’t want to cause a panic… Question, how quickly can you set up a new Legion to do a specific duty?”
“Depends on the duty. About a week or two, I guess?”
“Would you be able to set up a Legion to work alongside the Howling Gales Edgewatchers and the Spast Perimeter Monitoring network? When you’re back at work, of course. They do a lot of work for Kairos, and I want to bolster them a bit. Would speak to the 11th Legion or something, but I thought, since you’re right here…”
Relkir bowed. “I will pass the message on once I have, uh, calmed down a bit.”
Arkay patted Relkir on the shoulder. “Thank you. And, uh, I know you don’t like keeping secrets, but don’t let Gath know what happened here with Revan. Because they will freak out. Got it?”
“Yes, blessed Oath Keeper.”
“Hah… You can call me Arkay. We’re on a first name basis, you and I!” Arkay got up, then made his way to the door. “Have a great rest of your holiday!”
Relkir bowed some more. “Thank you, Arkay. Goodbye.”
“See ya!”
The Oath Keeper stepped outside, closed the door, then disappeared in a puff of smoke. Relkir blinked in confusion, rather shocked by all that had just happened. After a while though, Relkir smiled, then climbed back into bed with Gath. After all, they didn’t have any plans until the afternoon, and Relkir loved to snuggle.