Psiksi felt weird. He had spent all day going through Arkay’s old stuff. They’d been meaning to do it for ages, but every time Retvik had entered his bedroom, he’d burst into tears, Elksia was unable to even go near Arkay’s belongings and Tenuk was… well Tenuk was doing Tenuk things. That’s what they told Psiksi.
But no one else had been able to help either. Gath had offered but now he was busy running the city. Kass had been acting a little weird since that night out when he didn’t come back home until two in the morning. He didn’t want to talk about anything and he REALLY didn’t want to think about anything Arkay-related. Psiksi hadn’t known until afterwards that he and Arkay were going out for dinner and that he secretly blamed himself. But lately, it was as if Kass knew something no one else knew and he couldn’t bring himself to share with anyone. Not even Psiksi.
With a sigh, Psiksi went back to what he was doing. The most awkward thing about this whole mess was that he kinda wanted to keep a lot of Arkay’s stuff. There was a hard drive absolutely full of thrope stuff Arkay had somehow found, and Psiksi really wanted to go through it and nab all the music off it. If there was one thing most Rethans didn’t understand, it was music, but Psiksi loved music and could never get enough of it. Shame that he, like most Threan-types, had a particularly flat voice and no ability to sing at all.
Other stuff included piles upon piles of drawings. Psiksi had no idea where all these had come from. They depicted some sort of imaginary universe. Hundreds of pictures, mostly coupled with names or flavour text, not much else. There were also a handful of books with text written in them, but most of the letters had rubbed away, due to a pencil having been used.
Psiksi didn’t really know what to do with this stuff. That was probably why it was all still here, piled up inside Arkay’s old bedroom. The problem was, none of this stuff was important. Arkay’s more personal belongings, his weapons, his diary, his old Ksa armour and the like, that had all been taken away. His weapons and armour in particular were now on display at the Museum of Heroes in Thre-Sypria, as a symbol and memory to all that he’d done. The diaries were at the Great Library. All of Arkay’s money, what little he still had, had been split between the rest of his siblings, with 10% being taken as tax.
As he moved a pile of old books, a picture caught Psiksi’s eye. It was a drawing of a Thanatian. On closer inspection, it seemed to be a sketch of Phovos, the former ruler of Palaestra and the current ruler of the entirety of Vriskera. But it was rather cartoony and simplified. No real shading and bright, blocky colours. It was a really nice picture though. Psiksi rummaged through the pile and found more pictures, all in similar styles. He felt ashamed that he’d never really looked closely at this stuff.
Maybe it was worth sending this art to a gallery or something. It was all pretty nice.
But something else had caught Psiksi’s eye. There was a blade hidden among the paperwork. It didn’t look like it had been dropped there. It was neatly tucked away inside a book, and Psiksi’s moving stuff around had disturbed it. He picked up both the blade and the book in question and put them to one side, clearing some space before he inspected them properly.
The book was written in a language he didn’t understand. It was bound in some rough-feeling leather. It had a handful of pictures in it, mostly of what looked like various types of Thraki.
Unsure what to do with the book, Psiksi picked up the knife to inspect it. Suddenly, sparks of electricity shot out the end of it, causing both it and the book to glow. Psiksi quickly dropped the knife and backed away in shock.
“Maybe I should take this to Kayel or something later on…” Psiksi muttered as he wrapped the book and knife in cloth, then went back to tidying up.