Gath and Retvik fidgeted in their seats. The chairs were not made for Rethans, they were hard and wooden, with no room for their tails. Well, there were holes in the backs of the chairs, but they were too small for the two gigantic Rethans and their decorated tail armour attachments. There was a reason why most Rethans sat on stools.
“Thank you both for coming…”
Phovos on the other hand, seemed plenty comfortable. Her chair was made out of soft aggelad skin, fur attached and anything. She was leaning forward, arms crossed over her desk.
“Um, you are welcome?” Retvik glanced at Gath. “Why did you want us here?”
The Raptor let out a long sigh. The look in her eyes was one of exhaustion, as if she hadn’t slept for several weeks. Her claws were dirty and untrimmed, with old nail varnish coming off in chunks.
“I assume you have some vague idea how things are with Thanatians right now?”
“Only partially…” Gath admitted. “We have been caught up with our own lives and politics. But Retvik told me how he’s heard rumours of some sort of cult spreading among the Thanatians?”
A small smile flickered across Phovos’s face before quickly fading away. “A cult. Funny. Probably true, actually. Disappointing as well, especially considering how much noise I’ve made over the last few hundred years about how dangerous cults and religions are… But no one listens to old Phovos these days. It’s fine, I only turned things around for everyone, trained the sixteen most powerful Thanatians ever and run the most successful Thanatian territory in our history, it’s not like my thoughts are worth listening too… I’m sorry. Bad mood.”
“You look like you need a nap,” Retvik suggested.
“I do. A ten year nap, until my fellow Thanatians stop acting like retards and denounce those fucking Temthans and their stupid time-dragon cult. I thought the literal fucking death cult was retarded. Some stupid giant Thraki suggests everyone could be immortal if we worshipped something or other and now everyone’s falling for it! So now if you’re an unbeliever…” Phovos raised her claws, making speech marks with her fingers. “…You’ve got to get the heck out of standard Thanatian territories and get to safety. Meaning everyone’s flooding here, and I’ve got fucking megalomaniacs and lunatics calling for me to resign and bend my will to this fucking cult. Well fuck the Followers of the Whenvern, they can chop off their own gentialia and go fuck themselves!”
Phovos gasped, then bashed her head on her desk in anger, before calming down, if only momentarily.
“The only way this gets worse is if you Rethans are retarded enough to vote for Photeianos, because that cunt has turned down every single request for political asylum that I’ve sent through for so many poor Thanatians…”
Retvik glanced at Gath again, who replied with a concerned glance of his own.
“I thought…”
“You thought wrong. Your current leader is a fucking cuntbag and I hope he loses in a fucking landslide…” Phovos took a deep breath before continuing. “My point that I am trying to get across is that I need someone who is not a Thanatian to run the city. I have Thanatians screaming for my head for protecting ‘heretics’, ‘traitors’ and ‘non-believers’. I can’t protect those who have rightfully fled their lands if I’m being attacked as well. A non-Thanatian ruling Palaestra turns the city into properly neutral territory. They can’t harm anyone here.”
“So why us?” Retvik asked.
“You two have helped me do this before. You’ve run both the arena and parts of the city. And you did an amazing job protecting it during that horrible Feralheart Plague. You are on my list of beings who I am considering to run the city in a more permanent way.”
“You want us to run Palaestra?” Gath blurted out. “Permanently?”
“Yep. Well, not yet. I’m still going through lists. Legally, I have to consider Thanatians before anyone else, but fuck that. We’re all at risk. Same with Banikans. Cassids too. Vrekans I know have their own beliefs, they would never tie themselves up in a cult, and you Rethans are a good choice too, you all believe that religions are bad…”
“They are actually somewhat illegal…” Gath muttered.
“They are?”
“Not really,” Retvik clarified. “You can have a religion, but there are laws. You can not try and convert people, you can not use charity as a cover-up for your religion, and religions are strictly forbidden to interfere with government, education or military.”
Phovos shrugged. “Well, that is good to know, I guess. But I’m getting distracted. Would you two like to have another crack at running Palaestra? I’ve looked into it, any money you earn would be exempt from your insanely high socialist taxes since you’re working for a foreign body, and legally there is nothing stopping you from accepting this job apart from my word.”
“And whether we want the job or not,” Gath added. “Because we will have to take some time to discuss this.”
“Yes, Gath is right. We need to think about this.”
Phovos sighed, laying her head on her desk. “Fine. Go. Talk about it. Whatever. Just be quick with your answer, alright? I can’t wait forever, and neither can the Thanatians trying to get away from all of this…”
Gath and Retvik both got up. “We will be as fast as we can. Unfortunately, we have other duties we must finish off first. Thank you for the consideration, though…”
“Very well…” Phovos grunted as the two Rethans left. “You know where I am. Call me when you have made up your minds.”
“Thank you, Raptor.”
“Thank you too, Rethans…”