Arkay groaned as he rolled over in bed, wiping a little too much saliva from his mouth. Despite having slept, Arkay was still tired. And achy. And nauseous. And he had stomach ache. Basically, Arkay felt absolutely awful, and he really didn’t want to get up.
Checking the clock though, Arkay quickly realised he had to. He was supposed to be doing some teaching today. Teaching and experimenting. The little Half-Synaisthyns, his little team of heroes, had been showing some strange traits over the last few days and he, Elkay and Phovos were going to sit down with them and see what was going on. Admittedly, they had been meaning to for a while, because it turned out that the little guys could read and somewhat understand words written in that horrible Life Goddess language without any ill effects, but everyone had been busy. And now that they had a chance to do so… well…
Arkay rolled around some more. He was in pain. Too much of it. There was definitely something wrong with him. He’d thought that maybe it was that Life Goddess “desire to create” thing again, which always manifested in Arkay as something akin to female menstruation, but this felt worse. And different. Mostly the aches and pains and the constant stomach ache. Then again, the pain was where his womb should have been, so maybe it was just that?
Someone had noticed Arkay moving around. Arkay had forgotten he was lying next to someone, and all of a sudden, a pair of big, muscular, overly warm arms wrapped themselves around Arkay.
“You are not well, my dear.”
Arkay grunted, not sure if he wanted a hug or not, but he quickly relented. Retvik’s warmth was soothing.
“I’m not well at all. I am not right.”
“What is wrong?”
One arm continued to hold Arkay tightly, but the other was… moving around. Retvik was gently stroking Arkay, and by the way Retvik was rubbing Arkay’s thigh, Arkay realised that Retvik may have wanted sensual times. Or maybe even sexy times.
“I feel sick.”
“In what way?”
“Feels like I am having a period.”
“Like how… how mammals do? Is this also…” Retvik paused briefly. “You used to have this when it was just the four of us.”
“Yeah. For some reason, it’s come back.”
“Oh…”
“Makes me feel shitty… Don’t really want to do anything…”
Arkay was right, Retvik had wanted sexy times. The thigh rubbing had stopped, and Retvik was now stroking Arkay’s cheek.
“Aw, that is not good.”
“Yeah.”
Retvik sighed, then went back to just hugging Arkay. “It is tempting to just stay here and not do anything, but we ought to do something about it. You have not been well for a few days.”
“I know…” Arkay sighed as well. “Thing is, I think my problem is something stupid and Synaisthyn-y. And that means it’s going to be really hard to fix my problem.”
Retvik thought for a moment, then grunted. “Fair enough. You are not technically Threanic any more. You just look like it. I think Elkay is still Threanic though. And so are your little guys.”
Arkay hesitated “Actually… I think… I don’t think Elkay is Threanic any more. He has a pure Synaisthyn form that he has only ever allowed two people to see.”
“He still has internal organs.”
“There’s a point where you… you change enough and you somewhat lose them. Or rather, they become redundant. And mine are… weird.”
“Still, we ought to do something to work out the cause of your illness. Because you are definitely not well right now.”
Arkay sighed, then wrapped his tail around Retvik. Arkay’s tail was very long and he could wrap it around both himself an Retvik several times. “I know, I know. But right now, I just want you to hold me and comfort me. I want to rest.”
“We can both rest and discuss solutions to our problems.”
“Ugh… I hate that you are right… But… admittedly… we do not really have a proper medical doctor here. Kal, Galyn and Tahvra do good work, many of us are trained in first aid and Litvir and our Psions are all good at mental health, we… we ought to hire one.”
“We should. Might be tricky, but I have people I can ask…”
Arkay trailed off, then grunted, clutching his stomach. Retvik grunted as well, and held Arkay more tightly. As he did so, the temperature of the room changed, warming up and becoming more comfortable. Retvik also moved his hand underneath Arkay’s, pressing it against his stomach. The warmth helped a lot.
“Thank you.”
“You are welcome, my dear. But you see what I mean, yes?”
“Yeah…” Arkay relented. “But I don’t know what to do. Like, who do I even speak to?”
“Sini?”
“I am not talking to her.”
Retvik frowned. “She would be the most obvious answer.”
“Yeah, she is, but only because she knows my body because she’s utterly fucked me up in the past. She probably does know what is wrong, but I don’t trust her to do some rummaging around while I’m there. Because she would.”
“You have that little faith?”
Arkay snarled. “Sini is why I no longer have testes.”
Retvik didn’t answer at first. Eventually though, he shrugged. “Fair enough. I can understand your reluctance. But I fear you will now disregard my next suggestion too.”
“Who are you thinking of?”
“The Healers. They are somewhat connected to Deathven, but I think they trust us enough to not blindly do Deathven’s bidding, the way the Travellers tend to do.”
Arkay thought for a moment. “You know what? That’s actually a good idea. But it does mean leaving Savepoint.”
“That is fine. We have plenty of vok who can look after the place. If you want, just you and I can go, we can keep it private and cover it up as Deathven wanting to talk to you.”
Arkay settled down. “That’s a good idea. But for now… can we just snuggle a bit more please?”
Retvik glanced at his communicator, which was on the bedside table ahead of him. “Yes, but not for too long. We have responsibilities.”
“Of course…” Arkay smiled. “Just for ten more minutes…”