“I don’t get why you four enjoy that shit…” Tenuk grunted as he, Elksia and the four half-Synaisthyns disembarked the Thantir Three. Normally, they would have returned to Savepoint and Elksia and Tenuk, two of the (slightly) older Thantir, wouldn’t have left base in the first place, but Elksia wanted to stretch her legs and murder something, and she also wanted to visit the Pink Paradise, the Life Oasis built by Sini, the former Allbirther, for a very specific reason. Ret and Nyssi also wanted to visit, and since they had been vaguely nearby doing a Corruption Purge, they’d combined two separate trips into one.
“Well, to be fair, you’re the only one out of the six of us who’s at any real risk of being infected!” Tanos exclaimed. “But sometimes it’s fun to destroy weird black stuff, and, like, if you’re with us and you get infected, we’ll just bleed on you and fix you.”
“Assuming Elksia would let you get infected in the first place!” Kayel snorted. “Not that she would. She loves the fuck out of you. Definitely sees something we don’t.”
Tenuk rolled his eyes. “Cheers, thanks for the confidence boost.”
“Do you need it?” Tanos asked. “You’re normally stupidly confident.”
Tenuk sighed, then glanced around, looking for where Elksia had gone. “Normally, yeah. But today… well… Elksia and I have things to talk about… I’ll leave you all to it.”
“I’m sure things will be fine!” Kayel waved as Tenuk rushed off. “Things always are for you two!”
Elksia also seemed a tad nervous as she waited for both her partner and the Allbirther to arrive. Tenuk arrived first and patted her on the shoulder to make sure she was alright. Sini was admittedly a little late, but Elksia immediately saw why, as Sini was busy trying to talk a rather wyvern-y Time Drake into buggering off, and both Sini and the Time Drake’s time powers were conflicting, causing the conversation to drag on and go around in circles for too long.
Eventually, Sini managed to get the Time Drake to leave. But she didn’t join Elksia and Tenuk straight away. She fired off a few messages before greeting the happy couple.
“Hello, my dears! Please, follow me!”
Elksia and Tenuk did as they were told. They followed Sini and her long, snaking tail down a white stone path, until they reached a small outdoor meeting area shaded by several palm trees. Already present was someone insanely familiar to Elksia, who immediately jumped to his feet.
“Um… um… Hello…”
“Huh. Hi, Vexer, long time no see, dude!” Tenuk immediately perked up. He held out his hand, for Vexer to shake it.
“Yeah, been a while, Tahnahos. What you been up to?” Vexer smiled weakly. “Is being a Decay Lord fun?”
“Oh, totally. But not as cushy as being a Divine Guardian though. At least, one serving a Life Goddess like Sini here.”
“Well, that’s definitely true. You Thantir guys constantly deal with Corruption up close and in person and that scares the crap out of me!”
“Scares me too, admittedly,” Tenuk shrugged. “Still, uh, what’s going on?”
Vexer abruptly fell silent and glanced at Elksia but didn’t look directly at her. Elksia noticed this immediately.
“You don’t need to cower before me.”
“I do. You were literally one of the most attractive and powerful Vrekans in modern history until the universe went bye-bye. I may have been a member of the Myst, but I am a lowly nothing compared to you. Doubly so because you’re a Time Drake now, literally deified by the Dragon God of Time.”
Elksia shrugged. “Kairos made me into one by accident. Because he thought I was someone else. But you don’t need to worship me or anything. I ain’t into that. Also you’re special too. Kinisis picked you or some shit, right?” Elksia suddenly paused, her eyes briefly glowing blue. “Oh. Sini’s about to suggest that you be my sperm donor.”
“Fucking… what?” Vexer almost fell backwards in shock. “No fucking way!”
Sini sat everyone down and summoned some drinks. “Well, yes, actually. You see, I’ve been thinking things through and wondering what would be in everyone’s best interests. Sure, I do have old-universe Vrekan eggs and sperm in my frozen genetics hammer space, and they are definitely usable, I thought to myself, well, I have literally the perfect Vrekan specimen working for me, and the other perfect Vrekan specimen that’s still alive wants to have a kid, why not just cut the middleman, i.e. me, out of the picture. Of course, I wanted to bring you all together to discuss it first though.”
Vexer was astonished and barely capable of speaking. “That… that is insane… you… you want kids… and… you… uh…”
Elksia shrugged. “I want kids, yes. And I know that means I gotta put jizz in me. Sini’s kinda got the right idea. Would be way easier for you to just do that. Better than artificial insemination. More fun too.”
Tenuk smirked. “I suppose we could have an actual Vrekan threesome. Well, two thirds of one. I’ve got no problem shapeshifting into a Vrekan these days.”
“This… this is fucking insane!” Vexer exclaimed. “Literally the most desirable Vrekan ever wants me to knock her up?”
Elksia smiled. “Yeah. How else am I gonna have kids?”
“Well, I did just mention how I have frozen genetic parts… and I have other ways too…” Sini muttered. “But still, data and experimental-wise, I’m more interested in what happens when a Time Drake has kids. Can’t have kids myself, it turns out, so I gotta push my desires on others in a way. Elksia wants kids, Tenuk wants kids, Vexer, you have a dick and working sperm, all we really need is for you to all agree.”
Vexer thought for a moment, then sighed. “This is a lot to throw at me.”
Elksia nodded in agreement. “It is, yeah. I wanna do this. But if you don’t wanna, we’ll go the turkey baster option instead. I just wanna be a mum. Especially after I saw all my sisters having kids.”
“Yeah… I… I get that…” Vexer sighed some more. “I was always part of the Myst. I thought having a family was always an impossibility even before the universe went tits up. But… Alright… I… I kinda want to do this. But I have some conditions.”
“Sure! What are they?” Tenuk asked.
“Alright, first off, if we’re going to have a Vrekan threesome, Tenuk, you have to stay shapeshifted until I’ve fucked off. Because, no offence, you… being you is a complete turn off for me. And you have to be the bitch when we do our post-game show for Elksia. I’d also like to, I dunno, sleep with Elksia just on her own, but with me wearing a condom, at some point. Because I haven’t slept with another Vrekan in a longass time.”
Tenuk shrugged. “Fair enough. Consider it done.”
“Secondly… alright, I know I’m only going to be the biological father but…” Vexer hesitated. “I want to help raise the kid. Or kids. Or whatever. You’ll be the real dad, Tenuk, and Elksia, you’ll be the mum of course. But I want to help in a way. Like, be an uncle or something. Babysit occasionally. Something like that.”
“Of course!” Elksia beamed. “You’ll get to help too! I’d want you too. Kid is gonna want familiarity.”
“Yeah… But… also… okay, this is really selfish of me, but I’d like you to let me also help name the kid. Let me give it a middle name.”
Elksia’s grin only grew. “Deal.”
“Deal? Really?”
“Yeah. Tenuk and I will give it a first name. It will have my surname. You can give it a middle name.”
“Really?”
“Yep.”
“Really, really?”
“Yep.”
Vexer blinked. “You’re letting me have a lot here.”
“You’re giving me my dream. You’re giving me a kid. What you’ve asked for is nothing!” Elksia smiled some more. “As far as I’m concerned? You can have the moon.”
Vexer stopped blinking, then slowly began to smile himself. “Well, alright then. Where do we go from here?”
“With them, back to Savepoint!” Sini exclaimed. “You three have stuff to work out. Also, you kinda need to tell Retvik and your fellow Thantir what you plan to do. But, for now, I guess you three can chill out here for a bit, until the little half-Synthaisyns are done.”
“Sure.”
“Cool. Toodles!”
Sini giggled like a lunatic, then got up and disappeared in a puff of pink sparkles. Tenuk, Elksia and Vexer all glanced at each other, then shrugged.
“Well, guess we have planning to do…”