Elkay yawned, then tutted, then grunted, then yawned again as he made his way back from the main canteen, where he’d gone to get some more pain killers from the vending machine there. The vast vacuum storm, the largest the Phantai had seen in a decade, had finally passed, and things were going back to normal, which meant that the Thantir in general were going back to their plans to leave.
Right now though, most of the Thantir were busy doing mechanical checks on their three ships, making sure they were safe to fly. Much to pretty much everyone’s surprise, the Phantai had presented the Thantir with a gift, a new ship to add to their fleet. The ship that Litvir had stolen and run away in. Turns out, the Phantai now believed the ship was haunted, so they’d had the ship fully repaired, refitted with a proper heating system and installed an extra set of emergency flares that ran without any electrical output. They’d also renamed the ship to Souldrainer’s Plight. Litvir in particular had no real idea how to accept the Phantai’s gift (and had been mostly hoping that everyone had forgotten his stupid stunt) but he did his best to not look too confused or upset.
But while everyone else was in the hangar was busy, Elkay had slipped off to be on his own. He couldn’t explain why, but Elkay just felt overall unwell and weirdly thirsty. He’d had two full bottles of water alongside the five painkillers he had taken. As far as Elkay could tell, the painkillers were just ibuprofen, which was relatively harmless to most of the Thantir, but were apparently ‘very strong’ for the Beh’evok. Phovos had complained a few times that the 50mg doses were borderline pointless for her, and, admittedly, even Akah, who rarely complained about anything (apart from people calling him a Voidborn) had mentioned that the painkiller doses were a little low. Elkay was pretty sure that, back when he was mortal, the standard ibuprofen tablet was 400mg, but the vending machine would lock up if Elkay tried to get more than 6 tablets.
Really, Elkay felt stupid. He’d been given the codename Unender, but out of all the Thantir, he’d been in need of medical care the most. In his time as a Decayling, he had been kicked in the head by Ahkron, filled with daggers and blown up by a possessed Galyn, stabbed by an elder Voidborn, accidentally shapeshifted into a Beh’evok and needed surgery and nearly turned into a Voidborn baby-making factory. The fact that Elkay was ill now, after everyone else had gotten over their vacuum-storm-caused migraines, pissed him off.
Although, lately, everything pissed Elkay off. He just wanted to be a normal Decayon like everyone else, but no, he had to be ‘special’. He was a… well, Elkay wasn’t really sure. He’d originally been called a ‘hybrid mimic’, Deathven officially called him an ‘amalgam mimic’ and the strange, corrupted Life Goddess Elkay had met during his Decay Lord Trial had called him a ‘Netra Oull’. Which was apparently different from the ‘other, Jahu Oull’ that corruption had met before. Elkay couldn’t wait for the Thantir to leave this stupid ship, because the Phantai were now 100% aware that he was a freak of nature. The only good news was that, despite seeing him as a freak, the Phantai did offer to protect Elkay with their lives, the same way they offered to protect Phovos for all eternity because she’s a Life Goddess. It was still awkward though.
Luckily, the canteen was pretty empty right now, which meant that Elkay could sit there and nurse his drink and his bad mood. As he sat down at a bench at the back of the room though, something orange and familiar flickered next to him.
“Hey, babe!” Teekay grinned. Ever since Teekay had become a bona-fide Decay Lord, he’d been incredibly perky. Mostly because he’d been working on plans for his and Elkay’s wedding. But to Elkay, this was just another thing to sour his mood. He felt guilty that he had been miserable lately.
“Hello, dear.”
“You look miserable. You alright?”
Elkay looked Teekay up and down. When they first met, both of them had been incredibly strict, no-nonsense beings with no time for anything fun. It had taken Teekay having both his legs broken, his house burnt down twice and being forced to retire, and it had taken Elkay losing pretty much everything for them to finally calm down and start living life. And then the universe ended, they’d been turned into Divine Guardians and… well, it was a mess. Now that Elkay thought about it, despite the chaos he had gone through as a Decayling, things were way, way better than when they directly served the Life Goddess Kinisis.
Mostly because, it turned out, Kinisis had been stealing Elkay from his bed every night and experimenting on him. Which was why Elkay was, internally, a mess.
“Ugh, not really, dear…” Elkay grunted as Teekay sat down next to him. With a sigh, he leaned against his little partner. “I do not feel well at all.”
“How so… huh…” Teekay very quickly realized that Elkay was definitely ill. He was very warm. “Uh, have you been borrowing Retvik’s fire powers again?”
“No?” Elkay straightened himself out. He was unaware that he’d been sweating, and he had left a wet mark on the table. “I have been intentionally not borrowing anyone’s powers apart from yours. Well, I tried borrowing from Phovos but… I cannot get my head around Life Goddess stuff.”
“To be fair, Phovos can’t get her head around Life Goddess stuff?” Teekay shrugged as he put his hand on Elkay’s cheek. “Mate, you have a fever. You’re as hot as Retvik was when he and Litvir were ill. We should take you to the medical bay.”
Elkay growled and rolled his eyes. “I do not want to go to the medical bay. I just want to lie down and sleep for a bit. I am supposedly unkillable, I am fine.”
Teekay eyed his stupid girlfriend. “Fuck you, we’re going to the medical bay. You literally have a fever. For all I know, you have the same shit Retvik and Litvir had and Kaytee had as well. And Arkay. Can’t forget about that trainwreck.”
“That… happened over the course of a few years though?” Elkay blinked.
“Still, you don’t just randomly get fevers!” Teekay tutted as he tried to pull Elkay to his feet and failed. Elkay was quite a bit taller than him, and he had noticed that Elkay had grown slightly over the last few months. Elkay did relent and climbed to his feet, taking Teekay’s hand.
“You are right, dear. But I want to get a fresh drink first.”
Teekay was glad that Elkay wasn’t being his normal, overly proud Rethan self. “Good boy.”
Smiling a little, Teekay took Elkay’s hand and led him off to a nearby vending machine. As Teekay reached into the pouch of his belt though to grab his little food card, he didn’t quite notice that Elkay was suddenly much paler.
Before Teekay could say anything, Elkay’s eyes rolled backwards, and 150kg of heavily armoured Rethan collapsed on top of the little Decay Lord.