“You know what, we’ve been sitting here drinking and talking this entire time and we don’t know how any of the multiple couples present got together!” Vikalos laughed as he downed yet another beer. The magic food and drink vendors had been working overtime that evening, as most of the Thantir were kinda having a stag do for Teekay but not really. Being a Skyavok, stag dos weren’t a thing culturally for them, so they’d somewhat reverted to a Rethan tradition, called a Singles’ Party, where everyone was spending the night discussing old dates and partners and silly things like that.
Out of all of them though, it was Vikalos who had been enjoying himself the most, since he was utterly full of silly stories. In fact, it began to occur to everyone just how ancient Vikalos was. Ages were hard to calculate, but he had to have been at least double Itaviir’s age, as Vikalos had been a Decay Lord for a while before Itaviir even became a Decayling, and both of them were much older than Galyn, who turned out to be relatively young for a (former) Phantai Decay Lord. Everyone else though was somewhat young, apart from Saahro, who was the first Decayling the Tattered Navigators had picked up. Turned out, when Saahro left the Thantir and returned to Deathven, he spent all his money drinking and getting laid, and Saahro had gone into detail a few times about how dragon genitalia varied very, very wildly. He was glad to be back with the Thantir though, after a more long-term relationship went south hard.
“I’m pretty sure Elkay already told you, Vikalos…” Teekay muttered. He’d been enjoying listening to all the stories but was somewhat upset that he had nothing to offer. “It’s pretty stupid anyway. The TLDR is that Elkay was presumed dead, Arkay found his sorry ass and put him in a hospital where I was helping out, hospital exploded, I let Elkay live with me for a bit and we got drunk one day and fell in love after realizing we had pretty much everything in common.”
“Still find it weird that a super strict guy like you didn’t turn Elkay in to R-Class!” Eksi squeaked. “Like… most of us would have.”
Teekay crossed his arms and grunted. “Mate, R-Class fucking hated me. Some religious fanatic broke into my home once, I knocked them out and it took two hours for the local R-Class to respond. And the bastards didn’t even offer to take me to the hospital to fix the big slice down my arm plating… Speaking of which, Retvik, didn’t you meet Litvir via a hospital or something?”
Retvik grunted. “A hospital was involved, yes.”
Vikalos immediately turned to Retvik. Retvik recognized the look Vikalos was giving him, realized that everyone else was giving Retvik a similar look.
“Alright, fine. To cut a very stupid story short, when I got my stupid fire powers as a mortal, I lost all control and set the hospital I was recovering at on fire. To save face and because I had blatantly obvious unnatural powers, I was stripped of my rank and delivered to the 11th Legion, which specialized in containing Rethans with, well, unnatural powers. Litvir was the General of the 11th Legion, and, to be fair, he did help me control my powers, but then, uh…” Retvik paused, trying to work out how to phrase his next few words. “Well, it turned out Litvir had just imprisoned everyone in some sort of digital matrix and was experimenting on us for some sort of… thing. Some things happened, I got out with one of Litvir’s captains, Litvir spent several months being dead, Kenon ruined everything and then the universe ended and here we are.”
“Yeah but…” Akah hesitated. “How did you both end up out here and… please forgive me for this… sharing beds? Because what you are saying Litvir did is kinda along the lines of what the Deitic races did to the Nexian races for millennia. No offence, Tenuk.”
“None taken. Us Deitic races were cunts…” Tenuk muttered. “But yeah, Akah’s got a REALLY good point. Out of all the beings who were deified, how the fuck did Litvir of all people end up being both alive and out here, and how did you end up fucking him when you had Arkay hanging around?”
“Oh that was Seimeni’s fault…” Galyn answered in Retvik’s place. “She helped us pick up all the poor bastards that got chucked out of your universe when it exploded. She found both Retvik and Litvir and a handful of other poor bastards, most of whom were sent home. I assume at some point she decided to get them both together. That is a rather… Life-Goddess-y thing to do.”
“Huh. Explains why Kinisis was always pushing me to get more info on Arkay and Retvik being together and why she was so insistent that I pair all her Divine Guardians up…” Tenuk muttered some more. “Pretty sure she also suggested to Elksia to come and visit our southern base on the regular when things between me and Phovos clearly weren’t working.”
Vikalos blinked, then turned to Teekay and Akah. “Is Tenuk telling the truth?”
“Why are you asking them?” Saahro randomly asked.
“Well, Tenuk, Teekay and I were all Divine Guardians working for Kinisis. And Tenuk did try to date Phovos. And it was almost as awkward as the multiple times Tenuk has tried to date me…” Akah frowned.
“Don’t worry, Akah, I’m very, very happy with Elksia now!” Tenuk smiled as he leaned forward. “You don’t need to worry about me trying to seduce you. Unless you want me to. Honestly, same goes for pretty much all of you. Elksia and I enjoy the company and Elksia LOVES having Vrekan threesomes.”
“Do I dare ask what the difference is between a Vrekan threesome and a normal threesome?” Itaviir grunted, before realizing he had said that out loud.
Tenuk continued to smile. “Oh, it’s mostly like a normal threesome, but the two dudes fuck each other and put on a show for the pleasure of the lady afterwards.”
Both Itaviir and Galyn glanced at Vikalos. Vikalos, who was blatantly very drunk and didn’t care, just shrugged. “You two are both hot and cute when you make out. You should do it more often. For each other, not just for me.”
Itaviir downed his drink, pretending to not hear what Vikalos said, but Galyn sighed, not wanting to agree but doing so anyway.
“So how did you three get together?” Kaytee, who had been drinking heavily the entire time and had forgotten how to speak on multiple occasions, suddenly blurted. “Like, how the fuck did Itaviir and Galyn even get together? Because Galyn ain’t that old for a Phantai and, according to One, he was troublesome, while Itaviir was one of the top ranked Phantai soldiers!”
“I was only considered troublesome because I refused to take those stupid Motherbound oaths!” Galyn didn’t mean to snap. “And Beh’ens that lived inside universes were always looked down upon because we were born mortal!”
“Oh, fair. Still, you were kinda cannon-fodde. Us Loopblades had a cushy job in navigation, although I think One joined the Phantai just after you did, Gayln. Itaviir though led charges, he was on the same level as the likes of Shimmerblade and Goldenblade.”
“Galyn saved my life!” Itaviir interrupted. “Yes, he was a lower ranked soldier, but he was still noble. We were ambushed during an attack on a Voidborn flagship and Galyn clawed his way through rubble to save me from being executed and dragged me to safety.”
“The higher ups still punished me for disobeying orders. Which is why I was forced into the old Decayling Maganement System. Had Itaviir not randomly sought me out later on and requested that I come with him on a diplomatic trip to meet with the Justar, none of us would be here.”
“And why were you meeting with the Justar?” Tenuk asked.
“The Justar were pissed off that the Phantai’s war against the Golden Protectors, Golden Defenders and Crystal Doom was spilling into their territories, and that the Phantai were also not processing the extra Decaylings the Justar had sent them quickly enough…” Itaviir sighed. “Things used to be a LOT messier around here, and the Golden Doom Voidborn Alliance was utterly huge, to the point that the whole pentacluster was almost considered Voidborn territories for a while.”
“You met Vikalos on this trip yes?” Retvik was quite curious.
Itaviir nodded. “Galyn and I… were having some problems with a couple of grumpy Justar higher ups, Vikalos intervened and suggested everyone take a quick break and cool off, then he took us both somewhere to have a drink.”
“I think we spent two hours just… talking…” Galyn grunted. “Back then, that was quite rare for Phantai like us. Vikalos asked us if we were unhappy, we said yes, he gave us his contact details so we could keep in touch before we were dragged off back to work.
“When we returned back to the Shimmering Blade, I think it was version 56, I was forced back into Decayling duties. I was asked to… dispose of two Decaylings who had lost control of themselves and seriously harmed another Decayling. I refused and said we should rehabilitate the Decaylings instead, they locked me up for a bit. I told Itaviir what had happened when he came to visit me, so Itaviir broke me out, we stole a ship and we left.”
“We called Vikalos and he just… immediately met us in the middle of what is now the Kinigian Wilderness… I will be honest, I was mostly blinded by Phantai ways, and Galyn and Vikalos helped me open my eyes!” Itaviir exclaimed. “Admittedly, the idea of forming the Thantir came later, we initially were just going to join the Justar until Vikalos said he hated it there. I suppose it is somewhat ironic that we left the Phantai because of stressed Decaylings and a stressed Decayling is what caused the Thantir to be torn apart by Deathven…”
“Yes, but we are all back together now!” Vikalos beamed as he wrapped his arms around Itaviir and Galyn. “Everything is good and wonderful and we are finally doing the good work we always wanted to do and we’ve got an awesome team of Decay Lords by our side! You little ones are all awesome and I love you all!”
Galyn and Itaviir both nodded in agreement.
“Well…” Teekay smiled as he raised his glass. “Here’s hoping us Thantir continue being strong, and here’s hoping me and Elkay last as long as you three idiots. Because fucking void, you three are oooooooold!”
Everyone else raised their glasses.
“To the Thantir, and to Teekay and Elkay and their perfect union!” Retvik proudly announced. “Cheers!”