“So, uh, this room is nice…”
Kohra hesitated slightly as he entered a rather unusual, somewhat dark but also rather cosy room. There was no main light, instead, little LED lights lined the ceiling, shining like tiny stars. There was no conventional seating either. Just a small coffee table and some rather soft and squishy sack chair things. On the table were a pot of coffee, two cups, some milk, sugar and bottles of water.
“It is nice, isn’t it?”
Also present, and not in a comfortable way, was Elkay. The god of shadows and knowledge had summoned Kohra, saying he “just wanted to talk”. But every other time Elkay had just wanted to talk, they had done so in a normal place.
The shadow at the back of the room moved briefly. After a moment, Elkay appeared, wrapped in a cloak of darkness, holding a pen and some paper.
“Please, sit down, dear!”
Kohra hesitated some more, then did as he was told. He wasn’t sure why he was feeling uneasy. When it came to being threatened, Kohra was the fastest of the Twelve Anew, tied with the little Rethan deity. Kohra’s electricity powers meant he could teleport to safety in nano-seconds, and he also had the power to leave EMPs in his place as he did so. And even if he was ever in trouble, he could just call the little Rethan deity, who would instantly come to assist him. That being said, Elkay was the third fastest member of the Twelve Anew (behind Kohra and Litvir) and his shadowjumping powers made no sense what so ever.
“So, uh… um… what do you want?” Kohra asked.
Elkay smiled as he sat down himself, placing the pen and paper on the table. “Nothing much. Would you like some tea?”
“Sure, I guess. What sort of tea is it?”
“A standard herbal tea. Low caffeine though. Skyans don’t get headaches the same way Athrens and Rethans do when it comes to caffeine, but we have low tolerance levels of it. Pretty sure caffeine is something you thrive on though.”
“Somewhat. It’s actually a more recent addition to our diet.”
“Oh? I suppose it makes sense. Caffeine can be tricky to obtain when most of your agriculture is focused on anything to do with sugar. Speaking of which, do you want milk or sugar in your tea?”
“Five sugars, no milk, please.”
Elkay snickered briefly. “Only five?”
“Yeah. I’m not a big tea person but I ought to at least try and taste the herbal stuff.”
“And what is the normal amount of sugar in a Spast hot beverage?”
Kohra shrugged. “Depends. Generally we use honey in tea, at a 1:6 ratio. Coffee, it depends, but for a standard cup, we have six or seven sugars.”
Elkay glanced at Kohra, then snickered again. “Might as well just eat the sugar straight from the bowl.”
“Sometimes we do. But, like, most Spasts prefer our meals in liquid form. Just honey. Or golden syrup for a treat. Occasionally we mix in some sherbet or lemon juice or treacle for extra flavour.”
“I see…”
Kohra slowly began to settle down as Elkay sorted out a cup of tea and handed it to him. There was nothing to worry about. Elkay was just being his sweet old self. He somewhat reminded Kohra of his old grandma. Admittedly, Kohra never really knew his grandma for that long, she had died when Kohra was ten, but she was pretty old. And she was Kohra’s last living grandparent. Both grandparents on Kohra’s dad’s side had died long before even his big brother Tanos was born, and his grandad on his mum’s side had died when Tanos was a baby.
“So what is all this about?” Kohra asked as he accepted the cup of tea, then watched Elkay make a cup for himself.
“Nothing much. I was going through some old godly archive stuff and decided to do something nice based on what I read.” Elkay sipped his tea. His had milk and sugar in it. Probably more milk than tea.
“And that is?”
“My old master used to sit down and have a cup of tea with random mortals. He would literally just invite them to his home and have a drink with them. Some of the material I read doesn’t quite make sense, because I’m aware that, for the last few years, Arkay lived in Palaestra and the names he mentions… don’t correctly fit the time scales or my records… but there was a time when Arkay lived somewhere where he could actually invite people to have tea with him, and they’d just talk.”
Kohra thought for a moment. “So… like… tea with death itself?”
“Himself. But yes. We technically don’t have a death god any more. As the Allmaker, Epani makes sure that decay functions as its own separate thing, with no mortal ties. It’s far less efficient than having a broken down Threavok doing all the work, but it means Epani keeps herself pure and it also keeps her Dispa at bay. However, I really liked the idea of a deity sitting down and chatting with random folks, and I want to do it on the regular. But at the same time, I want to make it a much more public thing.”
“How comes?”
Elkay shrugged. “In the past, divinity was shrouded in secrecy. What mortals saw was only what Arkay silently and secretly gave us glimpses of. I somewhat want to change that. We are mortals turned into deities after all, and I don’t want us to forget our mortal roots. Right now, we are still young, but as years turn to decades turn to centuries…”
“I see what you mean. You want to keep things open on both sides. We keep in touch with mortals, and mortals see us as more caring beings.”
“Exactly!” Elkay beamed. “And I think this is a good way to do that. To just sit with someone, have a drink and a chat and be normal.”
“Am I the trial run for this then?” Kohra asked. “Because if I am, I have a suggestion, and that’s to get more drinks than just tea. Like, I’d bet a pretty penny that, because the Dead God was a Skyavok-shaped thing, he didn’t actually drink tea.”
“HAH!” Elkay snorted. “You’re absolutely right. I’ll keep that in mind. So, Kohra, is there anything you want to talk about?”
Kohra paused, then thought to himself. “Honestly? Not really. I want to know more about these… things the Dead God used to do. After all, you actually knew-knew him. Few people outside of, like, my missing brother, were that close to the Dead God.”
Elkay leaned back and smiled. “Sure. I’ll tell you all about him. I have plenty of stories to tell…”