“Do you know what I find odd?” Death giggled as she opened the door Tenuk was just about to knock on. She found Tenuk’s confusion incredibly amusing and slightly attractive as well. To add to his confusion, as Tenuk entered the room, he found that Death was at the opposite side of it, working on some sort of large contraption.
“How you don’t normally greet me, and instead ask a random question I have no hope of answering?” Tenuk asked as he glanced around, unsure what the contraption was.
Death giggled again. “That is indeed an odd thing! But not the odd thing I was thinking about. You want to guess again?”
Tenuk sighed. “There is no way I can work out what you’re thinking about. For all I know, you’re thinking of breeding gigantic galactic cats to combat a rapidly growing race of intelligent rodents.”
Death blinked. “That was random.”
“Coming from the Creator of Chaos and Change?”
“True…” Death blinked again, then remembered what she was talking about. “Oh yes! I know! The thing I find odd!”
“What do you find odd, Death?” Tenuk asked as he found somewhere to sit down, dropping next to him a large box that Death hadn’t noticed when he came in. Death stopped tinkering with her contraption and sat down next to the Kronoreth, making a teapot, a pot of milk, a tub of sugar and two cups appear on a nearby table.
“Weeeeeellllllllll…” Death’s voice went on for too long. “It’s weird how I can’t really create something out of nothing. I can create things out of other things. That’s easy. I can teleport things across the universe, breaking Stasis’s bullshit rules about the speed of light. But I can’t make something out of nothing. I need a handful of particles to get me started. Can’t just create a new Veth-Generator out of thin air…”
Tenuk glanced over to the machine Death had been tinkering with.
“Is that what that thing is?”
“New version, yeah. Think it’s version seven. Honestly I don’t need to change my Veth very often, but the version 6 Veth are too… close to me.”
“Close?” Tenuk wasn’t following. His confusion was so cute.
“Yeah, close. They don’t like leaving Kinigi. I’m gonna need Veth who are willing to go out there and get things done. That means I gotta upgrade. But I gotta actually make a new Veth to base my upgrades on.”
“I don’t follow…” Tenuk pretended to take a sip of tea, but as the liquid touched his tongue, he realised it wasn’t actually that bad. It wasn’t tea, it was coffee, so a load of milk and sugar helped sort the taste out.
“I gotta build me a prototype. And I have to do it fast, because things are changing. Getting weird. Getting bad.”
“Getting bad?”
Death sighed, then got up and went back to her machine. “Tenuk, I suggest you head off. Go spend some time with your Dessaron friends. You won’t have forever to spend with them. Especially not with the way things are going.”
Tenuk jumped to his feet, shocked. “What are you implying, Death?”
“Oh, nothing. Things happen, Tenuk. Things outside one’s scope. Accidents. Mistakes. Unintentional acts of war. It’s been unusually quiet around Kinigi, but that is soon to change.”
Tenuk didn’t know what to say. Death didn’t want him to say anything. With a flick of her claws, she teleported Tenuk out of Kinigi.
The bright teleporting flash caused Tenuk to close his eyes tight. When he finally opened them, he realised he was back in his home, the old Dessaron HQ.
“You alright, Tenuk?”
A voice behind him made the Kronoreth jump.
“Oh, Arkay. Hi.”
“You alright?” Arkay repeated. He was sitting on a bean bag, trimming his claws. “You look like you’ve been staring Death in the eye.”
Tenuk took a deep breath, then sat down next to Arkay. “You could say that… What are you doing?”
Arkay shrugged. “Kass and I are going on a date tomorrow. I want to look good for a change, so I’m basically taking the day to make myself look nice.”
Arkay was interrupted by Retvik and Elksia plodding down the stairs. Elksia was wearing a shawl and a bag with her stuff, she was about to head off to the Dessaron Battle Arena.
“You look awful, Tenuk.”
Tenuk sighed. “Thanks, Elksia. Are you heading out? Can you stay a bit?”
Elksia glanced at Retvik, then at Tenuk. She skipped over and sat down next to Arkay, while Retvik remained standing. “I got five minutes, what’s up?”
“I just… Uh…” Tenuk didn’t know how to word his next sentence. Saying that he’d just visited the personification of life and death was a bit too on the nose. “I’ve been looking around lately. At bigger things. Things are getting tense and it’s making me worried. Just the last week or so lately…”
“So?” Elksia asked. “Aren’t things always tense?”
“More than normal… I… I feel like something horrible is going to happen. In the next few days. That we’re all going to die in a catastrophic event… I wanted you all just to stay here with me for a bit. Stay here, we’ll have a little at-home vacation, the four of us, starting now…”
Retvik tutted, then put an arm around Tenuk. “You are worrying needlessly, old friend. Things happen.”
“Many accidents happen at home!” Elksia added. “We’ll all be fine. We’re always fine! But I gotta get to the Arena. I got a training session. Retvik’s coming with me, he’s meeting the Raptor for some random thing.”
Elksia leaped up, grabbing Retvik’s arm as she did so, and dragged him to the door.
“See you later, you two,” Retvik waved as the door slammed shut behind them.
Tenuk stared at where his friends once were, then sighed and sunk into his bean bag. Arkay noticed how upset Tenuk looked, and put down his claw cutters.
“Seriously, Tenuk, you look awful.”
“I’m scared, Arkay…”
Arkay shrugged, unsure what to say. “Uh, well… I got stuff to do tomorrow, plus my date. Really looking forward to that. But if you want, I’ll stick with you for the weekend!”
Tenuk smiled. “I’d appreciate that. Is there… no way…”
“For tomorrow? Nah. I’m super looking forward to my date.”
“Very well…” Tenuk grunted as he tried to get up, then gave up and fell back into the bean bag. “You look after yourself tomorrow, alright?”
“Will do! Now…” Arkay changed the subject. “… Help me pick what claw polish to wear!”