“So you lot just… do this on the regular?”
Vekeus was confused but rather satisfied. He was currently in the “cushion room”, which was pretty much what it sounded like. A room full of cushions. Apparently, it used to be the old classroom used for the Thantir’s last set of Decaylings, but since the Thantir hadn’t planned to have any more Decaylings after what had happened with Phovoula and the Xeno Dessaron One guys, the room now somewhat was only used by the Threan-type-like beings. And occasionally the younger Rethan members of the Thantir.
“Pretty much, yeah!”
Vekeus glanced around, looking for where that voice had come from. He was sharing the cushion room with quite a few people today. The voice came from somewhat underneath Vekeus’s legs and tail, from someone with yellow plating who enjoyed being squished.
“How comes, Kayel?”
Kayel thought for a moment. “Honestly? No idea. But there’s not really that much to do out here and not really that many comforts either, so we might as well just snuggle up against the cold.”
“Was it something you did in your universe?”
“Eh, not really. Not as adults at least. Teenagers having sleepovers was common as fuck, even back when I was in the Phantasma cult. Just all lying together and chatting and chilling and getting things off your chest.”
“I see…” Vekeus glanced around and decided to nudge his question to others. “Eksi, Psiksi and you two Teekays, were you all like this?”
Ksar Teekay grunted. Vekeus had quickly worked out that he didn’t really like being called “Ksarkay”, but he had noticed that Skyan Teekay didn’t mind being called Skyan Teekay if Ksar Teekay was around.
“Us Ksar were rather cold outside of mating season. Not much touching at all, mostly because we’re physically quite cold. I mean, I had to regularly use the Thrastarii incubator rooms to warm myself up when I was with the Alsyr.”
“Alright, but to be fair, the Alsyr flagships were fucking freezing!” Psiksi exclaimed from next to and under Kaytee and Skyan Teekay. “Like, they loved to save on heating because Thrastarii are dragons and warm themselves up with their elemental powers, so the average temperature on board was 275K, and that was only to stop the liquids in their pipe systems from freezing and causing blockages.”
“I’ll be honest, the more we talk, the more thankful I am that I got stuck with the Phantai…” Kaytee muttered. “Yeah, Beh’ens are kinda crazy and many of them wholeheartedly follow that Life Goddess worship stuff but at least they were… somewhat sensible most of the time when it came to heating conditions. They even set aside smaller rooms for us smaller folks.”
“What do you mean?” Vekeus asked.
“Well, uh, the average Beh’en is 3.5m tall. I’m not even 2m tall. They have toilets you can sit on, because they have anuses and need to poop. Which is fine and all but they’re made for giants. Us Loopblades had our own bathroom, but there was one time that I wasn’t near our bathroom and really needed to go and ended up pissing in a bottle because I was too short to piss in the nearest bathroom.”
Eksi snorted, but Skyan Teekay tutted.
“You laugh, Eksi, when we joined the Thantir as Decaylings, we had to have one of the bathrooms modified. Retvik and Litvir were tall enough to use the main toilet but Phovos, who’s purely female and always needs to sit down otherwise she makes a mess, definitely wasn’t. And we still had to keep a stool in the bathrooms so Tahvra could reach. Apparently it wasn’t a problem during the old Thantir days because most of the old Thantir didn’t need to go to the bathroom.”
Eksi snorted some more. “Litvir said, when he was being processed, he had to piss in bottles a few times. In hindsight, we’re pretty lucky that we piss everything out.”
“Oh… so that is why you guys have like six bathrooms and toilets here…” Vekeus suddenly realised. “Because you’re all different sizes. And still need to go to the bathroom sometimes… I’ll be honest, when I connected to the Eternal Darkness and became a true Voidborn, things like eating and pissing and all that just… well, instantly became no longer a thing for me.”
“Are they a thing for you now?” Kayel asked. “Because Phovoula still has some sort of working heart and stomach and, I assume, some sort of genitalia, even if she said she’s always been infertile.”
“Um…” Vekeus hesitated a little. “Well, I always had my stomach-furnace, that’s semi-common with Geneseon and Inspawned Voidborns, but I kinda only really got my dick back when Eksi and Kaytee reminded me of my mortal self. Beforehand, being a Golden Protector, no one was really allowed to be openly and sexually male unless they were a direct descendent of the Grand Golden Lord Himself.”
“What, like you?”
Vekeus paused, then very aggressively turned and stared at Eksi.
“What?”
“Don’t.”
“You are though!” Eksi tried to explain. “Your dad was the asshole Kenon, who was Kenostaton, who was one of the Stolen Prince guys, and weren’t those guys the direct sons of this Grand Golden Lord prick? Like, if you got rid of Kesistatir, you could just… be the heir to the Golden Doom throne. Or whatever it is.”
Vekeus continued to stare at Eksi. Eksi just did his normal all-knowing smirk.
“You know I’m right.”
Vekeus’s stare faded, and he tutted. “Yeah. You are. Don’t like it though…” Vekeus suddenly stopped. “Alright, is this normal? This whole snuggling and talking about stuff sort of thing?”
“Mhm!” Kayel beamed. “It’s nice. We get to talk about all sorts of things and get to learn about each other. Like, you just admitted you don’t have a dick when you’re in your Voidborn form.”
“Uh… good point…” Vekeus trailed off again, then thought to himself. “I’ll be honest though… I could probably give myself one if I wanted to. Nothing’s stopping me any more.”
“Alright, new question,” Psiksi interrupted. “Do most Voidborns even have genitalia?”
“No, not really…” Vekeus sighed. “I mean, most of us just spontaneously appear out of thin air and any bred Voidborns are normally made asexually. Phovoula and I are definitely not the norm.”
“Could you make more baby Voidborns?” Psiksi asked. “Or half-Voidborns?”
“I… I don’t know… and… I don’t think I want to find out…” Vekeus tutted. “Can we change the subject, please? This is getting weird.”
“Sure thing. But things being weird is kinda the norm around here.”
Everyone glanced at Kayel, then nodded in agreement.
Vekeus frowned, then found himself agreeing too. “Annoyingly, mate, you’re right. Still, these snuggles are nice.”
“Yeah, definitely.”