“It’s all my fault…”
The twelve individuals had been wandering around the vast, dark hall, lit up with small, twinkling lights, for about an hour now. There were piles of gold, silver and gems everywhere, and a banquet had been laid out on the vast table at the centre of the room, with custom meals set up for each person. Except the table was enormous, and everyone needed a ladder to get into their allocated seats – even the Banikan and Thraki present had struggled. But each seat fit them perfectly, and the food and drink was whatever they wanted. There were also two much larger thrones at the head of the table, one in blue and silver, the other in red and gold.
While everyone was mostly just anxious and curious, they had all slowly begun to settle down. However, it was a little hard to enjoy the riches and luxury before them, mostly because they were all wearing strange collars that felt like they were affecting everyone’s minds, and the Lanex who was present had been bashing their head against the table the entire time, repeating the same phrase over and over.
“He is sad.”
“Well duh. What are you, Captain Obvious?” Aesop grunted. He was particularly pissed off, not because he’d been miraculously brought back from the dead, but because he was sat next to the Lanex, who had so far refused to introduce himself. What made matters worse was that, also sat next to him was a very young Rethan who was clearly very stupid.
“No. Just obvious…” Litvir frowned. “Not quite sure what are inside thoughts and outside thoughts yet.”
Aesop sighed, then turned to his new Rethan friend. Well, ‘friend’ was a rather strong word, but Aesop had a feeling that he was going to be stuck alongside two idiots, two monsters, five strangers and two actually half decent people for a while.
“So, kid, what legion are you? You’re not a captain, you just admitted that.”
Litvir’s face went somewhat blank and they frowned some more. This bothered Aesop. Most Rethans would immediately announce what legion they were in, even if they were in the shitty 800th Legion, the Legion of the Jobless. When Litvir decided not to answer, Aesop got suspicious.
“You’re Legion-less?”
“Yes.”
“How comes?”
“Too young.”
“That… makes no sense. Child Rethans have a Legion. The 900th Legion, the Junior Stratos.”
Litvir glanced across the table, to where Elkay, the (clearly former) All-Ksa was sitting, talking to a dark blue Ksithan. The Ksithan kept on rubbing her arms, as if she was cold. Aesop noticed that Litvir kept on looking towards Elkay, and Elkay would occasionally glance back, roll his eyes and go back to his conversation.
“Still too young.”
“How the fuck can you be younger than three years old?” Aesop snapped.
“I… I was made in a lab. The big red Temthan and the scary giant Thraki turned me from some cells into… this, I guess. I learned how to talk properly twelve hours ago.”
“Oh…” Aesop felt a bit bad about snapping now. “Why do you keep on looking at the old All-Ksa then?”
“Um…” Litvir hesitated some more. “It normally takes a few weeks for a baby to bond to a mummy. We are normally raised in large nurseries though, before being moved to the care of a mummy and daddy. I… I uh… hatched early, and because my growth was sped up by the big scary dragon, I accidentally bonded to Kyr Elkay, who just happened to be next to me. My brain thinks he is my mama. My brain is stupid.”
“Well, you are completely and utterly fucked up. Although maybe not as fucked up as our Lanex friend here. Or the Vohra who had decided to walk across the table to greet us.”
Litvir perked up and smiled and waved at the Vohra. “Hello!”
The Vohra grinned and waved back. “Hello! Am Nanik! I am here to help mister sad Lanex! Mister sad Lanex, please do not bash your head! Was not your fault!”
Aesop eyed Nanik. “I take it you are from an External Relations nest?”
“Yes, yes! Helped with evacs! Made people not scared! Then got squished. Woke up here. You are Torr! Torr with conscience. And lots of money. Mister sad Lanex here, he helped with first data. Sent first warnings. Baby Rethan here is made from special DNA and sees emotions!”
Aesop immediately turned back to Litvir. “Are you related to that asshole fanged General?”
“I do not know who you are talking about. I was born a few days ago.”
Nanik shrugged, then turned back to the Lanex. “Mister sad Lanex, it is okay. You did good.”
“I… I could have done more… acted faster…” the Lanex whimpered. “Two Imperators are dead, as are goodness knows how many more, because I was not fast enough.”
Nanik wasn’t completely sure how to respond, and she was quite surprised when pretty much everyone else had decided to join in on making the sad Lanex feel better. And the first to speak was the former All-Ksa.
“Aster, kid, as someone who was literally there, trying to evacuate the Imperators, Kua Lightblade’s death isn’t on your hands… It’s somewhat on my hands, because I was not fast enough. But, while I hate to speak ill of the dead, Kua refused to evacuate, because he wanted to make sure his Crown Guides were all evacuated first. But if it wasn’t for you, none of us would be here.”
“I still… I still hesitated.”
“You blinked!” Dalosisaar, a beautiful white and gold Thraki, growled. “You blinked and you were attacked. But do you know who else blinked? Our Great Whenvern Above. He blinked and he was torn from the Blessed Skies. I tried to help the Great Whenvern, but I was not fast enough and my flames did not burn hot enough. But even though we were not strong, we still fought. We saved what we could.”
“The pretty wyvern is right!” Aesop tutted. “All of you here, you all acted as fast as you could. The only folks who should be ashamed of themselves are my fellow Torr, they only got their fat asses into gear when I… well… died, I guess.”
“Oh hey, you died too…” Kohra, a (very) young Spast, muttered as he got up, clambered across the table and stood next to Nanik.
“Oh!” Aesop paused briefly. “Hello, little Lord Prince! Guess the All-Ksa and I weren’t the only political folks to get ourselves killed by doing good things.”
“I’m pretty sure I didn’t die!” Maresia, an absolutely gorgeous pink-scaled Temthan frowned, then pointed at the Vrekan sitting next to her, then at the fiery orange Banikan. “Valksia, she was, like, a super smart doctor person who worked out how to purify water. And that… I’m sorry if I fuck up your name, but you’re Mur’Emva? M’Urumvi? Mur… uh… Either way, you’re like, the top Banikan lawyer or something.”
“My amono, my name is Murum’Va, and yes, I was the head lawyer, serving the Mind of the Banikans. It seems that all of us here acted heroically during the Idatoks Onotnys, the Sudden Darkness, and have been chosen by the Living Gods in some way. Perhaps for aiga, for sainthood ourselves.”
“But why am I here?” Litvir protested. “I was literally born three days ago!”
“Because…” Murum’Va hesitated. “Perhaps the Allmaker could not save the Sorofsof that they wished to give divinity to, and made you in their memory?”
“So THAT is why you look like Little Bitey…” Elkay muttered. “Because they are dead. Genuinely dead.”
“Is okay!” Nanik perked up. “We all are good. Good helpers. God helpers! We help the gods now!”
“That is what the Panelix suggested to me when I woke up after… being sewn back together…” Elkay frowned. “I never really wanted… divinity though.”
“Maybe, but you were always about helping your pretty little shadowfolk!” Aesop smiled. “We are ALL about helping our kin. And now, if Nanik here is right, if we’ve been chosen by the gods to BE gods, then we owe it to everyone else to, and this sounds really weird coming from a Torr’s mouth, do as much good as we can.”
Elkay eyed Aesop. “Who are you and what the fuck happened to the real Aesop?”
“Come on now, I’ve not always been as blatantly evil as Panos is. I put my ass on the line. We all did. Apart from the baby Rethan here, but you can’t help that, little Litty. You’ll just have to work extra hard to catch up with the rest of us heroes. And we ALL have to work hard to catch up with Aster here.”
“I-”
“Shut it, mask-boy!” Aesop laughed. “If it weren’t for you, we’d all be nothing but black goo now. And if you STILL think you fucked up, well, now you have a chance to make up for it.”
Aster lifted himself up and sighed. “Yeah… I guess you’re right…”
A low rumble interrupted the conversation. Everyone glanced around, wondering what it was, before turning to Murum’Va.
“Ach! I guess I am hungry!” Murum’Va laughed, then raised a nearby chalice. “We should make use of the meals the gods have set up for us. To us.”
“Hah… Cheers…” Aster smiled weakly. “To us and our godhood, I guess…”