“Xentress! Xentress! Wake up!”
Lenik rushed over to the small, cushion-filled chamber, narrowly avoiding a low-hanging pip he could have easily smashed his head on. He slammed his fist on the door a few times, rudely awakening the sleeping beauty inside.
“XENTRESS!”
The door unlocked slowly. There must have been four or five locks on the door. It eventually opened, revealing the non-Temthan holy-being.
“Oh, hai, Lenik!” Arkai smiled dozily, leaning against the door frame. “Sorry ’bout that. Gotta have all these locks, just in case, you know?”
Lenik growled, grabbing Arkai by the arm and pulling her back down the hallway. “No time to chat, girl. Important stuff is going on.”
Arkai snatched her arm away, her mood quickly worsening. She stopped moving, refusing to go a step further. “Hey, no touchy. Why don’t you tell me what the problem is before you go all brutish on me?”
With a sigh, Lenik began to explain. “There is a lot we… haven’t mentioned to you. In how the Holy Cycle works. How we worship it…”
Arkai raised an imaginary eyebrow. “Another thing you haven’t explained?”
“Yes.”
“Like the thing where I had to eat that stuff? Or how we had to fill that bath tub for the Empress? Or the fact that on Saturdays we must be completely and utterly drunk before we do our sermons? Or what the Holy Wine is made from? Or what we are supposed to do with deceased Raptesses and Raptorans?”
Lenik eyed the floor, a little embarrassed. “Yes, another thing we haven’t explained.”
“Fine, out with it!” Arkai barked, crossing her arms angrily.
The Raptoran sighed. “The Temthan Empire has fallen on hard times over the last few hundred years. We have always assumed it was because we lacked a Xentress. And while things have improved a little via your presence and the continuation of our worship… There are still starving Temthans out there. Our harvests are failing us.”
“And how can we fix that?” Arkai asked. “Is there any effort going into creating stronger plants that can survive in harsher soil? Or perhaps new pesticides that leave melisses alive but kill damaging insects? Or perhaps a search for better crops?”
Lenik shrugged. “I… I can’t give you an answer to that.”
“Because the answer is no, correct?”
“Do you need your drugs again?” Lenik gently put his hand on Arkai’s shoulder. Through contact alone, Arkai already began to settle down.
“I am fine. What are you not telling me?”
“The Empress has decided that we need to satisfy the Laktara again.” Arkai was starting to tense up again, but Lenik didn’t loosen his grip. Instead he quickened his explanation. “The Laktara is a gigantic holy being, believed to be directly connected to the Cycle itself. The last, or the first, we don’t know. Normally, it is easily satisfied, but when it’s angry, things… tend to go bad for the rest of us. So the Empress sends down a handful of holy ones to help feed it and normally things go back to normal.”
“I’m sensing a problem here…” Arkai muttered.
“You are right. Because we’ve lacked a Xentress for so long… well…”
“Go on…”
“The Laktara has been killing those sent to help feed it. I hope that you being here means that it will calm down. It IS essentially a Xentoran after all.”
Arkai hesitated. “You know this sounds… silly, right?”
Lenik nodded. “Yes. But we do as the Empress wishes. And it has helped the Temthans before.”
“Alright, fine. Since the Empress wants me to do this, I will.” Arkai gave in, knowing that the alternative would be her going unwillingly.
“It… it should all be fine!” Lenik smiled awkwardly as they headed down to the Throne room for further instructions.