“Huh, you seem tired.”
Arkay eyed his Voidborn half-brother as he sat down at the table. The second he did so, three fruity cocktails had appeared, each with a small lable saying to have fun. While Arkay had planned to just go home to Savepoint, his step-sister Sini had asked him to stop by at her Life Oasis, and Vekeus had also requested that they meet up there too.
“Of course I’m tired!” Arkay didn’t mean to snap but he was annoyed. “I’ve been gallivanting around the multiverse fixing other people’s problems alongside a psionic lunatic and the hottest Rethan ever. It’s annoying work… Anyway, Elkay, brother, boss, how are you?”
Elkay-En sighed to himself. He hadn’t been aware that Arkay was coming and had been caught rather off-guard. “Exhausted, still. And permanently concerned and upset.”
“Fair enough…” Arkay shrugged. “You’ve been through a lot.”
“Not as much as you. I have just spent the goodness knows how long being a slave child to an utterly ancient strain of Corruption.”
Arkay inspected his older half-brother for a moment, then tutted. “You literally exorcised the Corruption out of yourself. Very few beings are capable of doing that. Most Life Goddesses can’t do that, and I only managed it because… uh… Rethan Elkay managed to work it out himself. And even then, sure, I can turn myself back. Haven’t worked out how to do that to other people.”
Vekeus nodded in agreement. “The silverblood is right. Brother, you did the impossible and it takes time to recover from that.”
“Yes, but I’m apparently a Life Goddess and I can’t do anything with any of it!”
Vekeus glanced back at Arkay. “Is it possible that Elkay’s just weaker because he’s technically a Life God, not a Life Goddess?”
“He’s intersex like us. He has a vagina. That does mean that he’s female enough to use the term Life Goddess.”
“Do male Life Goddesses even exist?” Elkay-En asked.
Arkay shrugged. “I assume so. There are female Voidborns and Time Drakes are split 50-50 in regards to gender. There’s no reason why a male Life Goddess couldn’t exist. You technically straddle the line anyway since you’re intersex and prefer male pronouns. But I think that the term “Life Goddess” is kinda wrong anyway since Zontanians can create anything and gender has nothing to do with it.”
“But why do they gender themselves in the first place?” Vekeus was confused now.
“Why do Voidborns gender themselves?” Arkay asked back.
“Good question. Most of us don’t, as far as I’m aware. Those tied to the Golden Doom only use male pronouns because the Grand Golden Lord considered himself solely male and using male pronouns was a way to suggest we were more like him. I think the Goldblessed did something similar but Theocydes doesn’t talk much about his cult because he got their main respawn point blown up by the local Kronothrax legion.”
“Fair enough. I was under the impression Theocydes never really liked being tied to a cult anyway. And I think Life Goddesses appear as female for a similar reason. They want to appear as motherly and earthly. Also helps hide their power a little too. Whenever I turn into a Life Goddess, I end up becoming solely female and I’m pretty sure that’s why.”
Vekeus nodded, but paused. “Wait, what do you mean by turning into a Life Goddess?”
“That’s my whole deal with being a Synaisthyn. I literally turn into the different Types. I’m not mimicking them, I literally become a Life Goddess or a Time Drake or whatever…” Arkay trailed off briefly. “I recently turned myself into a Voidborn to convince a bunch of lost younglings that I wasn’t a threat and that I was there to help them make peace with the local Decay Lord sects and I nearly forgot how to turn myself back into me again.”
Elkay-En shrugged. “Considering you have physical-formation schizophrenia, you’re not doing too bad for yourself.”
“Yeah, I… uh… what?” Arkay blinked in confusion. “What the fuck is physical-formation schizophrenia?”
More shrugs. “We’re Threan-type Retha. We had powerful telepathy even when we were alive. You’re also part Trehan-type and they had very slight shapeshifting powers. The combination of those two things meant that the schizophrenia you had also occasionally made you physically change yourself to match what you believed. Doesn’t surprise me that the condition bubbles up occasionally now that you’re a true deity with proper form-changing abilities. Have you spoken to a psychiatrist lately?”
Arkay leaned forward and eyed Elkay-En. “What sort of psychiatrist is capable of dealing with me?”
“Isn’t there an entire society of Decay Lords? Surely they have medics and doctors and stuff. Honestly, I’ve been thinking about becoming a Decay Lord myself. I’d be the first Life Goddess Decay Lord-”
“Phovos has been a fully fledged Decay Lord for over a year-string now…” Vekeus interrupted. “And Phovoula is a Decay Lord too. I think… her name was Seimeni, yes? She was affiliated with Deathven and called a Lady of Decay but didn’t do one of those Decay Lord trials like Arkay did. There’s Life Goddesses and Voidborns with ties and alliances to Deathven society all over the place.”
“Ugh…” Elkay-En tutted. “Is there nothing unique any more?”
Arkay shook his head. “Not at all. Existence and the multiverse are vast. I’m unique in that I’m the first official Synaisthyn Decay Lord, but I’m definitely not the first Synaisthyn. The others all mostly got murdered.”
“Just to clarify, we’re not Synaisthyns, are we?” Elkay-En asked.
“No. I don’t even know how you make a Synaisthyn. The only person who knew how to was Kinisis, it took a fucking long time and a lot of torture, and she’s dead.”
Elkay-En glanced away briefly. “Well… Sini has suggested that she has an idea how to do it and that Epani might know as well.”
“Well, I’m going to have to have a talk with Sini about that…” Arkay grunted, then took a deep breath and sipped his drink. “So, brother, you want to become a Decay Lord?”
“I think we both do, actually!” Vekeus exclaimed. “Being a Decay Lord gives us options. And a safety net. And maybe better purpose. At the very least, it’ll make people automatically hate me less.”
Elkay-En nodded in agreement. “I’m definitely considering it. Sure, Sini is helping me learn here, but I don’t want to be here forever. This is a resting place, not a future.”
Arkay smiled a little. “Well, alright. If you two are serious about this, then head down to Savepoint and speak to Vikalos, Itaviir or Galyn and they’ll get you started.”
“Why those guys?”
“They know their way around the system, and Retvik, Litvir and I aren’t always around.”
“Huh…” Elkay-En trailed off, then smiled as well. “Hm, I guess Vekeus and I have some planning to do…”