“You feeling well, dear?”
Litvir had gone back to his shared personal quarters for a quick nap after fifteen hours on his feet, but he was surprised to see Retvik standing by the edge of the bed.
“I thought you had work or something?” Litvir asked, shifting over so Retvik could lie down next to him. “Something about a report to the Phantai higher ups based on your last patrol?”
Retvik snorted. He climbed into bed, snuggling up way to close to Litvir. Litvir wondered if Retvik wanted something in particular, but normally Retvik would be more obvious. As Retvik put an arm around him, Litvir realized that Retvik just wanted to talk and snuggle. There were things on both of their minds.
“Lightblade always wants an excuse to talk to me. He wanted to congratulate me on killing so many Voidborn soldiers on our last patrol, and thank me and Elksia for helping keep injuries to a minimum. Elksia has done an awful lot of good work for everyone lately.”
Litvir nodded in agreement. “We are lucky to have an actually talented, combat-ready Time Drake on our hands. As far as I recall, when we worked alongside Kairos as Decaylings, the Whenvern always acted defensively and selfishly, while Elksia has the combat skills and desire to protect others.”
“Mhm. I just wish we could do more for Elksia. No one is capable of teaching her further, and the same applies to Phovos.”
Litvir nodded some more, but trailed off. “I do not want to sound rude, especially since you are now… dating me of all beings, but I find it… weird that you and Phovos so desperately tried to have a relationship that clearly was going to go the same way the singular relationship you had with Arkay went. After all, both Phovos and Arkay are somewhat tortured beings struggling with a heritage they hate, while also being blatantly mistreated by their mother. I assume you knew the relationship between you and Phovos would fail, yes?”
Retvik grunted. He wanted to be insulted, but Litvir’s comment was rather… truthful. “Yes, I was aware that our relationship would eventually fail.”
“It failed in the exact same way. With a fear of intimacy.”
“No, Phovos and I were just too incompatible.”
Litvir sat up and stared at Retvik. “So you were actually intimate with Phovos? And you dared consider my relationship with Eksi, Elkay and Teekay weird?”
“To be fair, my relationship with Phovos started after your weird four-way ordeal. And I will admit i was wrong to judge you. Still, it bothers me that Phovos sticks out so much and is mostly on her own, with no one to really relate to…” Retvik paused, then tutted. “This is not what I wanted to talk about though.”
Litvir knew that, but he always enjoyed these unusual, rambling conversations with his partner, they-
Litvir abruptly stopped mid-thought. He glanced at Retvik, who had picked up that something was wrong. While Retvik didn’t have any real telepathy, he did have the uncanny ability to know whenever Litvir wasn’t feeling quite right.
“Is something wrong?”
“Sometimes…” Litvir stuttered. “Sometimes I find it… almost wrong that we consider each other partners. For most of my mortal life, I never believed I would have a partner, not without some form of coercion. But here I am, lying in bed with you.”
“Is this going to be another “I do not deserve this” spiel from you, Litvir?” Retvik grunted.
“No, it just surprises me how much has changed in the last four or so years.”
Retvik didn’t answer at first. He eventually grunted, then shrugged. “I can understand that. Just over four years ago, Kenon took over our race, I was forced to end my 50-year partnership with Gath, I was nearly beaten to death and then not long after, the universe ended. A lot has happened. And if I think too hard about it, it does… hurt.”
“Ah, good, sometimes I wonder if I am alone in this… craziness.”
“You certainly are not alone. Things are definitely crazy. Which brings me back to what I wanted to talk about.”
Litvir smiled weakly. “What did you want to talk about?”
“How close we are. How everything is falling together, how our plan is coming together.” Retvik inched closer to Litvir. “I know you were initially unsure about all of this, but we are going to do some real good around here.”
“Heh…” Litvir smiled some more. “Righteous death and destruction, yes? As is deserved. We may be members of a military race, but we both know this war between the Phantai and the Crystal Doom has gone on long enough. Still, I am very nervous about all of this.”
“Understandable. This is a massive undertaking.”
“And Eksi and I have done a lot of work to keep this all secret…” Litvir tutted. “I will be honest, having Eksi just silently emit auras laced with my telepathic cantrips is genuinely very interesting, but I am worried that we will trip up at some point.”
“How comes?” Retvik got even closer. Litvir decided to relax and let Retvik put an arm around him.
“Psehon is constantly listening in. He has a telepathic aura, he maintains the Phantai’s version of the Rethan Secret, Eksi and I are very good at what we do, but all it takes is someone accidentally saying something that slips by Eksi or myself and the Phantai will know.”
“We have been fine so far.”
“We have. But I am still concerned. And at the same time, we have to work out a specific date to put everything into action.”
Retvik frowned. “That is the biggest problem we have. While we have sorted out all our other issues, we need to time our plan with when the Shimmering Blade is close to the Voidborn mothership and when the Phantai in general are preoccupied with their own missions. Which is… quite an awkward combination.”
“And we have to do this before the Decaylings do their Decay Lord trial…” Litvir sighed. “We still have not been given a confirmation date for their trial, and that bothers me. And because we were forced into doing our Decay Lord trial early because of… well, because of me, I do not like not having the proper required information.”
Retvik didn’t seem too bothered. “Vikalos has already informed us that we might be looking at a three month wait, simply because we are submitting eight Decaylings at once to do a trial. Vikalos seemed to suggest that this is somewhat normal. After all, we were the exception to the rule.”
“Still, after what happened to us, I am very concerned. Not only were we forced into a trial that was meant to kill us, but the Overlord seemed overly annoyed at us when we completed our trial and he did not remove our trackers, leaving us to suffer needlessly. I fear that the Overlord will take his frustrations out on our Decaylings.”
“That is… a valid concern. Maybe we should speak to Vikalos, or maybe even the Great Blades about this.”
“Why… why would we speak to the Great Blades?” Litvir asked. “How can they help?”
“They are not Thantir, they are the leaders of a dedicated and hopefully well-respected sect. I am sure they will back us up should Deathven get… angry.”
Litvir shrugged. “That makes sense, I guess. I really hope we do not have problems with the Decaylings. They do not deserve problems because of us. Frankly, we did not deserve problems either, and Deathven’s offer of making us higher Decay Lords or whatever does not make up for what we suffered through.”
“I agree, dear, I very much agree. But I think things will turn out alright in the end. I have faith in us.”
Retvik pulled Litvir close, holding him tightly.
“You think?”
“I do think.”
“Hm…” Litvir clearly lacked Retvik’s confidence, but he just shrugged and went along with it. “Retvik, can I ask a favour?”
“Sure, what is it?”
“When all of this stupid Phantai stuff is over and our Decaylings have graduated, can we do something… quieter for a bit?”
“Like what?”
“I do not know. Maybe take a holiday. Maybe put our money together and build a proper base for the Thantir. Just do something where no one else with bother us.”
Retvik immediately nodded, nuzzling up to Litvir. Litvir responded by nuzzling him back. “Of course, dear. Whatever you wish.”
“Good. Because, if we pull this off, we all deserve a break.”
“Oh, we will pull this off. I have faith in us all.”