Kairos sifted through the burning rubble, looking for that little glimmer of death hiding beneath it all. The universe had been unreasonably calm for the last few hours and Kairos knew that the reason was because the Thantophor was sulking again.
“Go away…” a muffled voice hissed from beneath a pile of burning planks.
“No.”
“Go away!”
Kairos sighed, moving burning planks to one side so he could get a good look at Arkadin. Arkadin responded by curling up into a little black and charred ball, wrapping his long, snaking tail around himself.
“Why are you sulking this time?”
“Because I’m a massive fuck-up who only ever hurts people, that’s why!” Arkadin wailed, pulling rubble back onto himself. “I hate myself and I want to die!”
“Well you can’t die, Arkadin. That’s not on the cards.”
“Yes it is! I could kill myself! Then there’d be a new death god! One who’s not as horrible as I am!”
Kairos sighed some more, once again moving the rubble. He kicked it all to one side then breathed deeply, exhaling cold nitrogen winds over the flames. This caused the flames to die away almost completely, leaving nothing more than charcoal and a shivering death god.
“You don’t understand, Kairos. I just want to have friends and things like you have. But I keep on fucking up their lives! I make them hate me! And I don’t even realise I am doing it until the last minute, when I’ve ruined the relationship beyond repair!”
Arkadin turned over, kicking rubble away from him in frustration. Kairos tutted, then helped Arkadin up.
“It’s not the end of the world…”
“It is for them. I ruin their lives and leave them with everything. I do to them what I do subconsciously to everyone else. They get it worse though because they want to be friends and I want to be friends.”
The Whenvern tilted his head to one side as Arkadin paced up and down, sobbing to himself.
“Well, you could always make new friends…”
“With who?” Arkadin suddenly wailed, much louder than before. “I kill everything! Whatever friends I make will die by my hand! Anyone who tries to get close to me suffers and dies! I’m doomed to always be on my own!”
Arkadin fell to the floor, still sobbing. Kairos edged closer, before sighing to himself again and getting down on the ground as well, wrapping a wing around his brother.
“This… never used to bother you before…”
“Before, I didn’t have proper emotions… You all had your emotional periods billions of years ago when most life was dumb and didn’t know better…”
Kairos pulled Arkadin close. “That’s not true. I lost friends. I lost almost all of them. Sadly, I don’t remember a lot of them either. That’s just how things are though. As time goes on, as mortals learn to extend their lives, they’ll live longer and you won’t need to worry about ruining them…”
“I don’t just kill them, I ruin them in other ways…”
The Whenvern grunted. “Is this about that Rethan? The one Yisini kidnapped? Because that wasn’t completely your fault. It was mostly Yisini’s fault.”
Arkadin sniffed a little. “He blamed me…”
“He is wrong. Or at least, he is not completely right…” Kairos patted Arkadin gently on the back. “Rather than burying yourself in rubble and feeling sorry for yourself, why not spend a little time on yourself. Pamper yourself. Treat yourself. Have some “you” time. Because you can’t make people like you if you don’t like yourself.”
“What’s the point though if they all die?”
“What’s the point of anything if everything dies? You act like that, you might as well give up and kill everything now…” Kairos stuttered. “Uh, please don’t kill everything now…”
The Thantophor smiled, ever so slightly. “Heh… I won’t do that. Promise.” He slowly picked himself up, then looked up at Kairos. “And you’re right, of course. I am overreacting and being silly. But I… kinda forgot that you’re my friend too.”
Kairos blinked. “Yeah, that’s true… Would you… like do to something together?”
Arkadin shrugged. “We could get ice cream?”
“I’d love that!” Kairos beamed. “Come on. Let’s get going before one of our sisters notices that it’s quiet starts doing something stupid.”