Arkay frowned as Souldrainer’s Plight, Litvir’s ship, took off and disappeared into the darkness, taking Thassalin, the Raptors and Litvir himself with it. The old death god wasn’t happy to see Litvir go, because he’d be gone for a few hours, and Litvir currently had unresolved issues with their partner Retvik. This made Arkay feel uneasy, on top of his already growing anxiety from having to be the main Time Drake at Savepoint for a few days. Arkay didn’t like doing Time Drake things. It all did stuff to his body. Already, Arkay’s shadowy wings had turned into draconic wings and he could feel horns slowly pushing their way out of his skull. He was a Time Drake, after all. He needed to look the part, apparently.
With a tut, Arkay turned his attention to his duties, and teleported back to the main guard tower. Inside were television screens, all monitoring different parts of Savepoint. He couldn’t see everything, there were plenty of places that didn’t have cameras, mostly the sleeping areas and the gardens, after all, the Thantir themselves needed some privacy. They mostly watched the patient areas, and Arkay eyed one particular screen, the parking area, which was currently empty. Admittedly, Savepoint was partially closed right now, and although they weren’t turning people away, because of Elksia’s egg situation, they’d only been offering basic services. Arkay was hoping for a quiet day, or at least a quiet few hours until Thassalin returned.
Blinking several times, Arkay switched through firstly several types of vision, from normal light to heat vision to infrared then ultraviolet, before switching into different types of time manipulation. He started off with the old system that Kairos used to use, which was more like a video editing system, briefly touched on the branch-based system that Thassalin used, had a quick glance around with Elksia’s string-based system then settled down on the hybrid system Arkay had picked off his step-sister Sini. It did still use strings, but the strings weren’t tied together the same way they were in Elksia’s system, they were weaved together, which meant they were more easily unraveled, and it was easier to look backwards into the past, rather than sorting through various twists and knots.
Arkay eventually settled down and got to work, inspecting every camera in turn. He was glad that things were quiet, because his worries were getting to him. He was mostly worried about whatever was going on between Retvik and Litvir. Litvir hadn’t really told Arkay. Arkay had somewhat guessed what was going on though. Since Elksia was somewhat accidentally making everyone else want to have kids while she was preparing for motherhood, and she had invited Retvik to be a guard for her unhatched egg, Retvik was probably thinking about kids for himself. And since Arkay was not an old-universe Rethavok (and, according to Sini, completely barren, but Arkay didn’t believe her), and the only other old-universe Rethavok around was Retvik’s half-brother Elkay, Litvir was literally Retvik’s only chance to have a kid. And Litvir flat out refused to want kids in any way what so ever.
What made things worse was that Retvik had secretly always wanted a kid, with his ex-partner Gath. Gath was long gone now. Not only was Retvik’s universe dead, but Gath had been tricked into divorcing Retvik and falling in love with someone else. He’d ended up having a kid with that new partner, before the universe was changed into something else and Gath’s existence was completely rewritten. Those emotions were probably bubbling up a lot right now.
Arkay did another scan of the cameras, then checked the schedule to see who was doing what. Since the Thantir had multiple Flames, they all took shifts, and there were generally four shifts a day – three normal shifts and the emergency late night shift. It was technically morning at Savepoint but Savepoint was one of the few places locally that actually tried to show a day and night cycle, most places were either permanently well lit or permanently dark. This particular morning, Kayel was on duty for Main Flame, with Pah lingering around as a backup if needed. Considering Kayel was young and inexperienced, he’d taken to the job pretty damn well. Arkay was admittedly impressed by Kayel’s resolve.
That thought made Arkay decide to check on the rest of his newest team of Dessaron. Nyssi was thankfully still in bed and Tanos was working as a guard while practicing his shapeshifting. Ret on the other hand was in bed too, but not in his bedroom. He had just finished his shift as a night guard and was in Kuta’s room.
Arkay paused, then checked the schedule. Litvir was supposed to have made it so that couples were mostly split up, to try and avoid any accidental pregnancies. It had worked so far with the Skyan-likes, they all had their own projects currently, and Teekay and Elkay had grumbled a bit, but Teekay did at least understand when it was explained to him. Ret and Kuta hadn’t been told about the schedule situation. And now they were in Kuta’s room, about to make out.
“Oh fuck…”
Arkay quickly started inspecting time strings and time weaves. Things weren’t going well. They were discussing kids. They were actually, properly discussing things. There was talk of Kuta not using protection. While Kuta did have a IUD, that only stopped Kuta from getting pregnant. Ret had no such female protections and was putting a lot of trust in Kuta. And putting himself at risk for something he wasn’t ready for.
The strings were beginning to twist and weave together. Things were about to freeze and become real. Arkay started tugging at those strings, to stop the unwanted scenario happening. But the more Arkay pulled strings, the worse things got. There wasn’t a scenario where Ret would end up doing something he would later regret. There were no strings to pull, no twists of fate he could change, no threads to unravel… unless Arkay made some strings.
Ret and Kuta both nearly gasped with shock as something crashed into the door to Kuta’s sleeping quarters. Whatever it was started bashing on the door like a lunatic, and shouting very loudly.
“USE CONDOMS, YOU FUCKING IDIOTS!”
Kuta blinked, then climbed off of Ret, threw on a loincloth then went to see who was knocking on the door. As Kuta opened it though, they quickly realised there was no one there. However, the shouting and banging had left Kuta rather shaken.
“Do you want to do this some other time?” Ret asked as he got out of bed and put an arm around Kuta.
“Yes, definitely. I feel rather unsettled right now.”
“Oh well. Let us just snuggle instead. And maybe use condoms, like the angry voice suggested.”
“Good idea…” Kuta muttered as they headed back to bed. “Maybe we are not ready yet…”