Waking Up Different

Kairos, the Dragon God of Time, woke up on the floor, not knowing where he was. The ‘not knowing where he was’ part of that sentence was somewhat worrying, but so was the whole ‘waking up’ point as well. Kairos normally never actually slept, and whenever he did, it was always in short bursts, with one eye always open. To have been completely and utterly unconscious was definitely a problem.

Picking himself up, Kairos inspected his surroundings. The first two things he noticed were that it was really quiet in the room he was in and that he wasn’t alone. Behind him were four seats, three of which were occupied by other beings.

One of the beings, Kairos recognized immediately. A yellow-armoured being with black skin was slumped in its seat, drooling and muttering to itself. This creature was the form the Thantophor, the God of Death, took whenever it was around mortals. Small, elegant, simple and well-protected, using the form of a local race called the Skyavok. Unusually though, the Thantophor lacked the strange, dark glow that he normally had, even when he was disguised as a mortal.

The other two beings, Kairos wasn’t so sure about.

The first one, the smaller being (although still larger than the sleeping Thantophor), was a Temthan, a scaled being with a somewhat humanoid body and a reptilian head and tail, complete with large talons on their hands and feet. This specimen was clearly female, since it had small horns on her head and a pair of plump, uncovered breasts with no scales on – some Temthans fed their newborns on a mixture of blood, milk and proteins produced in those sacks. Most curiously, this Temthan was black and purple, an odd colour combination for a normally rather bright species.

The other being was far stranger, to the point that Kairos was not really sure what it was. It had very smooth skin, mostly dark grey with dark red patches on it, and a large fin protruding from its back. It was clearly designed for movement both in water and on land, as it had webbed hands and a wide, heavy fin on its thick tail.

Realising that something was clearly wrong, Kairos decided to try and wake the Thantophor and work out what was going on. He slowly approached the little, yellow creature, then slapped it across the face with his massive wing.

“Arkadin, wake up.”

“Ugh… don’t wake me up…” the Thantophor muttered, his eyes flicking open and closed. “I’m sleeping…”

“Brother, it’s important.”

“But…” Arkadin grunted, finally opening his eyes properly. “But that was the best sleep I’ve ever had… Say, you look rather dull and normal today!”

Kairos sighed, helping Arkadin to his feet. “Something is really wrong right now. Something happened and I… I don’t know what to do. And I don’t know who those two are.”

The Thantophor stretched, then turned around to see what the Whenvern was pointing at. He glanced at the two females, then glanced back at Kairos. “You don’t recognise your own sisters?”

“Those are our sisters?”

“Yeah.”

Kairos blinked several times. He could… somewhat see the resemblance? What bothered him more though was how Arkadin had very suddenly gone completely silent, staring almost blankly at the unconscious beings. The Thantophor slowly approached the sleeping reptile, placing his hand on her neck.

“Oh no.”

“What?”

“Oh no…”

“WHAT?” Kairos shouted. The Whenvern’s words echoed around the room, immediately waking up the two other beings, making the Temthan fall out of her seat.

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WHERE IS MY TAIL?” Yisini, the Allbirther and Goddess of Life, screamed as she flailed around, trying to pick herself up. “WHAT HAPPENED? WHERE ARE WE? WHY AM I… MORTAL? WHY ARE WE MORTAL?”

“And why do I have… legs…” Epani, the Goddess of Life, gurgled as she tried to stand up, then decided that staying seated was a better idea. “Did we… did we do something wrong? Are we being punished?

Kairos shuddered as he turned back to Arkadin, not having any answers to offer.

“Looks like it…” Arkadin frowned, picking both himself and Yisini up. “I have a horrible feeling that our mother is punishing us… by making us mortal.”

The other three deities all gasped in horror, before abruptly stopping their gasps and glaring at Arkadin.

“You don’t seem too worried!” Yisini hissed, barely remaining upright.

The Thantophor shrugged. “I’m fine. I’ve done this before. Come on, let’s get out of here. We’re going to get hungry soon…”