Kairos grunted to himself as he changed his physical form, from his standard, godly draconic self, into a winged Temthan with perfect white skin and blue scales. He was due to meet his little Ksithan girlfriend, the one he had been dating on and off for a while. Phovoula was a busy mortal, Kairos was a busy deity, their schedules were finicky. Well, Phovoula’s schedules were. Kairos however was getting over a bad meeting with his fellow deities and needed cheering up.
Today, weirdly, Phovos (Kairos never understood why Phovoula shortened her name to a male version) had picked a rather unusual location. Normally they met in the Temthan or Ksithan sub-districts of Palaesta, but today, the venue of choice was The Long String, a Rethan noodle bar in the Queen’s Avenue Mall, the massive, mixed-race shopping centre in Palestra’s centre. According to Phovos, this restaurant did an all-you-can-eat menu. As Kairos entered the bar, he noticed a small panel on the wall, showing a ‘hall of big eaters’, and on it was a small picture of Phovos. She’d clearly been here before.
“So, how was your day?” Phovos asked. She was smiling. That was weird. Phovos didn’t smile that much, not when she was on her own. It seemed that Phovos had already ordered food and drinks as well. There were two large, cardboard containers and two diet colas in massive glasses already waiting for Kairos.
“Ugh. I can’t WAIT for Epani to get back to her damn duties. Her automated detection systems are awful to maintain since I don’t know what can be ignored and what is a false alarm.”
“I thought that sort of thing was part of the Ice Wolf’s duties?” Phovos tilted her head to one side, then abruptly stopped, looking past Kairos. She smiled some more, then waved as a massive, white and green Rethan walked in. The colossal Rethan, who, weirdly, wasn’t wearing any armour, waved back. Clearly, Phovos knew them, she seemed to know everyone. The Rethan made their way to the corner of the bar and sat in a way that they could see the entire room. Kairos realized that the bar was intentionally set up like that, Rethans clearly liked being able to monitor their surroundings, the lumbering brute guardians that they were.
Kairos fiddled with the heavy metal fork, then sipped his drink. “Arkay is… out of commission for a bit. He and Epani had… some problems. I dealt with them.”
“Yeah, so I heard. I also heard that the Star Whale was treating the Ice Wolf poorly. Again. And the Life Serpent had to step in. Don’t know why you all treat the Ice Wolf so badly.”
Kairos snarled and leaned forward. “Why do you care so much about Arkay?”
Phovos didn’t answer at first. She tucked into her food, swallowing a massive mouthful of noodles. It was particularly weird that Phovos was eating heavy carbohydrates. Or was it? Kairos had briefly forgotten that, unlike Temthans, who were strictly carnivorous, Ksithans did occasionally consume small amounts of vegetables, fruit and fibre as part of their diets.
“That’s a stupid question.”
“It is not.”
“There’s, like, so many obvious answers to that question though. Answers you should already have, since we’ve been dating. The most obvious one though is that I worship the Ice Wolf. He is our Patron Deity, our Divine Guardian. He sees us as abandoned children and he protects us, doing so via the shadows, ice and flames.”
“You don’t worship me. And you said you don’t actively worship any more.”
Phovos shrugged. “I don’t need to worship you. You’re dating me. Arkay works tirelessly for the universe when he’s not forcibly comatose, and does so for no reward. The least I can do is mutter a prayer to him occasionally.”
“You…” Kairos grunted. “You do realize I literally maintain and control time, yes?”
“You do it subconsciously, I assume. Which is why you’re in here right now, trying to score with an old Ksithan. As far as I’m aware, normally it’s the Ice Wolf that is constantly on patrol, scouring the universe, dealing with threats against it, yes?”
Kairos nodded. “Normally, yes. But Arkay is in time out right now.”
“Because he wanted revenge against the Star Whale, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And why did he want revenge?”
Kairos leaned forward some more. “You seem to know far too much.”
Phovos shrugged some more and went back to her food. Before long, she had finished the entire pot. She waved at the waiter to make her next order. In less than 30 seconds, another massive cardboard bowl of noodles appeared in front of her.
“This is literally all they serve on Thursdays!” Phovos grinned as she tucked in. “Great value, and it actually fills you up. Well, it fills most people up. I’m always eternally hungry. Something to do with being a Voidborn, apparently. Filling a hole that can only be filled by my returning to the eternal darkness outside of the universe. But I’m also apparently somehow bound to the Life Goddesses of this universe, same way the Ice Wolf is, so actually leaving is out of the question…” Phovos paused. “Don’t look at me like that! You gave me a lot of this information! And I used my… sources to find out more!”
The Whenvern said nothing, and instead continued to sip his drink. Phovos continued to stuff her face, and quickly found herself ordering a third bowl. However, Phovos didn’t immediately tuck in though. She looked at Kairos. That grin returned. Kairos felt oddly unnerved.
“I’m going to cut to the chase. I found out what happened between you four deities recently. About what’s happening on planet Kolasi. Where you chained the Ice Wolf to the planet and forced him into a coma.”
“He deser-”
Phovos raised a finger. “No, no. Shut up and listen. I met the Ice Wolf, I met Arkay before I met you. Despite my being an abomination to his domain of decay, Arkay… is a genuinely nice guy. I met General Kuta, the weird, fanged Rethan that Arkay briefly dated, and Kuta just reaffirmed to me that Arkay is a genuinely nice guy.”
“Where are you going with this? Because-”
“Shush. Let me talk. You have forever to talk. I have… a long time, but not infinite time. Anyway, Arkay is a nice guy. But you let him get hurt. You let the Star Whale pester and bother Arkay. You were going to let the Star Whale KILL Arkay and have ME become the Ice Wolf. You let a nice guy get hurt. And that makes me think. You let someone with a dark duty but a golden soul get hurt, what in the name of the Four would you let happen to someone with a stained spirit like me? I am a bad person and I accept that. But I have lived long enough that I can recognize other bad people.”
“You are about to call the Whenvern a bad person.”
“Because you are. You’re selfish and cruel and willing to turn a blind eye to suffering. And because of that, and because of a bunch of other things, like you hurting the Ice Wolf and attacking mortals just doing a job given to them by the holy Life Serpent, I’ve come to a decision.”
“… What decision?”
“I don’t want to date you any more. I am dumping you.”
Kairos blinked. That moment of confusion though turned into a threatening hiss. “You… you dare?”
“I’m not daring, I’m doing. I don’t like you. I want you to leave and I don’t want to see you again.”
The Whenvern stood up from the table, snarling and opening his wings threateningly, knocking his chair over in anger. However, his fury had immediately caught the attention of every single Rethavok in the bar, and they had all stood up as well, considering the strange, unknown Temthan to be a threat.
Not wanting to make a scene and expose himself, Kairos took a deep breath then stomped out of the bar, vanishing in a puff of smoke once he was out of sight.
With the potential threat having left, the majority of the Rethans all sat back down, but the waiter approached Phovos’s table, pausing to pick up the fallen chair.
“Is everything alright, Kyr Raptor?”
Phovos smiled some more. She helped herself to the food that Kairos had abandoned. “Yeah, everything’s awesome!”
“Are you sure?”
The Raptor nodded. “I am. He deserved it.”
“I guess…” The waiter didn’t seem to understand, but Phovos didn’t expect them to. “Is there anything you need?”
Phovos downed her drink, then went back to smiling. “Can I get another diet cola please?”
“Of course.”
The waiter headed off. Phovos started stuffing her face, feeling genuinely amazing for once.