Elian whistled appreciatively as he entered the Navenese Imperial Palace. “This place is gorgeous!” Illiam nodded in agreement. When he’d first toured the palace, he hadn’t noticed the place as much as the people there, but then again that was because he was so transfixed on Xander and this new world he’d been thrust into. Now past the large gates, Elian could fully see the large buildings that made up the palace’s grounds, as could the other visitors.
Elian, Ulmer, Elato, Mateus, Cadis, and a few other Xelcorp employees were here, other Xelcorp employees arriving at a later time. Cadis was hanging around Sevvie and Jiro, cheerfully chatting with them, and the others were preoccupied with a palace servant handing out maps.
Once everyone had their maps, Xander made his way to the front of the crowd like he was a tour guide rather than the actual emperor. “Well, you can see here we have the main palace. This is where the Imperial Family lives. Elian, Ulmer, you will have a guest room in the main palace, because you are family. Everyone else, you will have a guest room in the guest wing, which is technically more of a separate building, though it is connected to the main palace.”
Cadis put his bag on the bed. He had his own room in his parent’s guest suite, and after weeks of space travel, it was nice to finally once again have his own space. He unzipped the bag just as he heard Sevvie’s voice. “Cadis!”
Cadis left the room to see that the siblings were waiting outside the suite. “You want us to show you around?” asked Sevvie. “See the really cool stuff?”
“Um, yeah! That’d be cool!” He looked to his parents. “I’m going to go look around with them for a bit, okay?”
“Sure!” said Mateus. “We’ll buzz you once it’s time for dinner.”
Cadis left the room, closing the door. “I hope you can have dinner with us.” said Jiro. “I think my father said we’ll be having lamb tonight, that’s my favorite.”
“What’s a lamb?” said Cadis.
“It’s an animal.” said Sevvie. “A very soft, very cute, very small animal.”
“Oh, I rarely eat meat.” said Cadis. But noticing Jiro’s face fall slightly, he added, “But I’ll definetly try it out.”
“I’m glad! Anyway, I thought Sevvie and I might show you the library first. That’s closest.”
Sevvie rolled her eyes. “Oh, yeah, like we’ll ever escape once you start looking at the books there. I love the library, but let’s make that the end of the tour. We’ll see the goats first.”
“Are goats also animals?” asked Cadis.
“Yes, they are. And they’re the best animals that ever lived.”
Cadis got to see the goats, the Hall of Glory (apparently their dad had his own museum?), the gardens, and the memorial to all the demons and devils who’d died when Tsar Dmitri Alkavov destroyed the “Outer Planes.” Cadis thought that this Tsar Dmitri sounded like a bad character. Kind of like President Ma`loth, only with a worse fashion sense and wings.
Finally, they did end up at the Hall of Wisdom, which contained the palace’s main library, the laboratories, magical item workshops, and similar sorts of things, as Jiro helpfully explained. He held the door open for Cadis, who was surprised to see his fathers in the building as well, talking to a tall red devil with immaculately coiffed silver hair.
“Cade! Hey, Cade, were you trying to find us?” asked Elato. Cadis walked to his father, the devil turning his attention on Cadis as he approached. “This is Dr. Valpisin, he was just explaining to us how technology works on this side of the galaxy. And we were about to explain to him how it works over here.”
“It’s fascinating how they’ve been able to so tightly control and manipulate magical power.” said Mateus. “I’ve always thought as magic as the supernatural, the unexplained, but here they can explain it.”
“And I’ve always thought of technology as secondary to the power of magic in transforming society.” stated the devil. “But I am fascinated to learn how you managed to build such a civilization in a world without it.
Cadis thought this was awfully fascinating but kind of wanted to go back to his new friends. “Um, Sevvie and Jiro were actually going to show me the library.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s where we were heading too.” said Elato. He poked his son’s head, adding, “Great minds really do think alike! We’ll see you there in a while.”
Cadis, Sevvie, and Jiro finally arrived at the library, and Cadis nearly fainted at the sight.
He’d heard of the great libraries of Terra- Mateus had told him stories of them, before like all organic matter they’d been burned to ash. He’d seen the libraries that Immortals kept among themselves, smaller ones as resources were scarcer, digital books being cheaper and far easier to share. And of course there were the X`lanthian libraries he had seen images of, though most were now only displays of sorts so that books, new and old, could be advertised before download. And while Cadis was fond of digital books, the library here was just so magnificent…
There had to be hundreds of thousands of books here, not a single one of which Cadis had read before. “This is my favorite room in the palace.” said Jiro, smiling softly at Cadis.
If Cadis had liked Jiro before, his feelings for him took off into the sky like a spaceship. After taking a moment to register that, he asked Jiro, “Do you have any suggestions?”
“Oooh, lots!” said Jiro. “I can show you all my favorites!”
“I’ll help find some books too!” said Sevvie. “Right after I return these.”
Cadis followed Jiro to a large shelf in the back while Sevvie went to a desk where a devil was sitting and gave her her books. Cadis was ready to spend all day in this library.
Tsar Dmitri “the Great” Alkavov leaned on his bed, watching his wife pack. Chrysal was currently in her most humanoid form, seeming as nothing more than a regular human woman with delicate buttercup-yellow wings and a halo. One unused to gods would find her surprisingly unassuming, but if they’d met any other god (besides Asari, who was always wreathed in constant layers of holy energy, physically difficult to look at, and immaculately dressed) they would find her normality par for the course. Of course, one who had heard of the gods would most likely know some things about who and what Chrysal was and not find Chrysal normal at all.
Chrysal was currently deciding on what clothes she was going to take to the gathering. “Dmitri, what do you think? The yellow one? Or the gold one?”
“I think that you can create spiders who will weave dresses for you out of their own silk in a matter of hours. Pack your spiders, Chrysal. That’s what I think.”
Chrysal frowned. “Dmitri. Just because I could do that doesn’t mean that you should. And have you even packed at all?”
“I don’t need to.” said Dmitri. “Anything I need, I can conjure. Plus, this outfit cleans itself, can change into anything I want, and can repair itself.”
“You need to at least pack a toothbrush.” said Chrysal.
“I clean my teeth with prestidigitation!”
“Okay, but you need to brush them too!” Chrysal sighed. “You’re just as bad as the animals. Am I going to have to start brushing your teeth too?”
“Cleaning them with magic is-” Chrysal and Dmitri were interupted from their minor argument by a knock at their door. Before the person even said who they were, they both knew it was Helorie.
“Dmitri, can I come in? I’d like to talk to you about something.”
“Come right in, Helorie.” said Dmitri. “What’s up?”
The lich entered the room, closing the door behind him. He took a deep breath, even though he didn’t need to breathe and hadn’t in centuries. “Dmitri. I think it’d be better if I stayed here and you and Chrysal just went.”
“What?” said Dmitri. “Helorie, that’s a terrible idea!”
Chrysal, putting both dresses into her bag and now sorting through her various suits of armor, nodded in agreement, but with Helorie. “I know Helorie and I never agree on anything, but he’s right this time. I think having one of us three at home would be be the best.”
“You often agree and you always say that you never agree when you do.” whined Dmitri. “And Helorie, why in the world would you stay at home? You’re the lich here. If anyone were to stay home…” Dmitri calculated. Helorie was a lich. Chrysal couldn’t be killed by most things. In fact, he was the most vulnerable of the three! “Well, um, anyway, you can’t stay at home!”
“If anything happens to you, Helorie can ressurect you right away.” said Chrysal softly.
“So can you!” said Dmitri. “And what’s gonna happen to you?”
“And I think that Anya will miss me if I’m gone for so long. Weeks.” Helorie and Dmitri’s oldest great-granddaughter had been close friends since her horrible sixteenth birthday party, but this wasn’t a valid reason for Dmitri. “I could project into the meeting. Or send one of my impersonation golems.”
Dmitri rolled his eyes, before taking a deep breath (unlike Helorie, he actually had to breathe), pinching his nose, and thinking for a moment. Finally, he said, “Helorie, it’s your choice, but I’d like you to come.”
Helorie sighed. “I’ll come, alright?”
“Thanks, Helorie.” said Dmitri, before coming to hug him, and Helorie rolled his eyes.
“I guess Anya will just have to miss me for a while.”
The meeting place was a very beautiful planet that was part of the Uldoki empire, though a rather small one. It was close to Stellar League space, but honestly Dmitri didn’t care if Chandra showed up. The omnidryad and Chrysal were very close friends, and it was possible that she could have told them about it.
However, this planet was far enough away from the larger part of the empire. If these people proved a threat, Dmitri didn’t want them close to the capitol or anything. No, better for them to show up here, where Dmitri could control things and where the power of the Stellar League was close at hand. Chandra claimed to always want peace, but they were not afraid to fight for it.
Dmitri sat on the largest chair of one of the meeting podiums, watching Chrysal arrange things for the guests to arrive. She had a pod attached to a tree and every few seconds a beautiful bird would pop out of the pod, before brushing itself off and going to roost in a tree or sing a bird song or something. Dmitri patted his own familiar, Storky the Stork, on the head.
Helorie emerged from one of the nearby buildings. “A ship has seemingly, er, just appeared near this planet’s secondary moon. It’ll be here in about an hour.”
“Well, I guess we should go welcome them.” said Dmitri.
“I wonder how they got here so fast.” commented Chrysal. Her pod harmlessly burst and she absorbed its power back into her body. Several of her minions now went off to retrieve foods, fruits, and such similar things for the guests, while she herself looked to the sky. While it was daytime, and Dmitri and Helorie couldn’t see the moon or anything near it, Chrysal could easily see the ship now that it had been pointed out.
“Are you sure it’ll only be here in an hour, Helorie? It looks like it’s coming faster than that.” Chrysal blinked again. “No. There’s two ships.”
“Two of them?” questioned Helorie. “How can you see that well?”
Chrysal didn’t reply to Helorie, which was quite honestly quite common for her, rather instead gesturing slightly to her birds. They grew eyes across their bodies, flying up and looking at the moon as Chrysal noded. “Definetly two. And completely different styles, as well, one’s large and silver with a dome of sorts, I can sense a lot of life on it, and the other one is smaller, but faster. There’s only a few people in that ship.”
“Would you like me to go up and greet them?” asked Chandra, stepping out of a tree. Dmitri realized that he should have gotten used to Chandra doing that a few hundred years ago, but he never had.
“Oh, I don’t know about that, Chandra.” Chrysal turned to Dmitri. “I invited Chandra, if that’s okay? They’ve been really interested in meeting these people too.”
“Yeah, sure.” said Dmitri. Yeah, he wanted the advantage in meeting these people first, but you know what, whatever, he didn’t care. It wasn’t like Chandra getting to meet them affected him in any negative way. Chandra would sooner burn down all the trees in the universe before they attacked anyone who hadn’t attacked them first.
Helorie had made an excuse of why he had to leave (something about checking on the progress of the other spacecraft) and hid in a supply closet. Magically locking and barring the door, he dispelled the illusion that made him see as if he was still a lich and pulled a meat bar and a small hand mirror from his pocket.
Eating the meat bar with one hand, he flipped open the mirror with the other and focused on it. After a moment, Anya’s face appeared in the mirror. “Helorie, sweetie, how are things going?”
“They’re going well.” replied Helorie after a moment in a hushed voice. “Just checking in.” In order to keep the illusion that Helorie was still a lich, Anya and Helorie had devised a system where if Helorie didn’t contact Anya every hour she would attempt to resurrect him. It didn’t have to be a major conversation, a sending would do just fine, but Helorie honestly wanted to see the face of the woman who he loved again.
“Well, I’m glad you’re okay, Hells Bells.” Anya paused. “You know, um, Helorie, maybe when you come home, you could finally tell the family about the fact you’re not a lich anymore. About us.”
“Anya, Dmitri would kill me.”
“I’m sure he’d come to understand.” replied Anya. “But if you don’t want to, that’s okay.”
And despite Anya saying it was okay, Helorie realized that he had to. “Alright. Anya, I think, I think I actually might! Um, if this doesn’t go to hell, I definitely will.”
“Really?” asked Anya.
“Definitely.” said Helorie. “We can tell everyone when I get home.”
Chrysal was suspicious that her brother in law kept pretending to be a lich. She was the goddess of life, how could such a thing not be obvious to her? Here he came out from the main building, the delicate scent of some sort of meat bar on his teeth, his illusion slightly off. Dmitri would never notice such a thing, of course. He’d never suspect anything of his precious brother.
Chrysal adjusted a vine that twirled around the greeting pavilion, adorned with sweetly smelling flowers that would pump out sleep gas keyed to the unique biology of the attackers if her family was attacked. Or if they attacked Chandra. Chandra was leaning against a tree and watching. “Is Javier not coming?” she asked the fey.
Chandra shook their head. “Oh, goodness no. Coming to something like this, where he knows absolutely nothing about the people he’s meeting? He seemed so nervous when I even mentioned it.” In a hushed voice, Chandra added, “He’s watching from this, though.” Chandra motioned to a delicate bejeweled decoration on their military uniform. It joined countless others Chandra had been awarded (admittedly, mostly by themselves) as Grand Admiral of the Stellar League. In fact, if Chandra hadn’t pointed it out, Chrysal would just thought it was yet another magical ornament.
“Hi Javier!” whispered Chrysal, and Chandra smiled.
“He says hi back.”
“Alright, everyone!” said Helorie, pretending like he had actually gone to the building to get important information. “It seems that the second ship that we thought was arriving soon is just hovering near the moon, waiting for the first ship to land, which it looks like it will in about ten minutes. Is everyone in place?”
“That’s the question I ask, Helorie!” said Dmitri. “Are we all in place?”
Everyone nodded.
“Alright then, get ready to greet whatever sort of weird alien comes off that ship!”
Far above the planet where the meeting was to take place, two beings floated, invisible even to the senses of Chrysal. The “older” of the two was an emerald green creature completely covered in scales, while the “younger” was relatively humanoid, though like him, her body also ended in a snake tail, hers covered in violet scales. Zayr and the Starry One. The creators of time and space, respectively.
Now just eavesdropping on the Starry One’s relatives, though.
“So, what’s going to happen with little you and Hells Bells?” asked Zayr. “We both know that he doesn’t tell Dmitri and Chrysal after this little meeting, Anya.”
The Starry One shook her head. “Just watch and see, Zayr. I’m not going to spoil it for you.”
“Aww.” pouted Zayr. He looked to the starship that hovered nearby, also unable to detect the pair. “Does it have something to do with Taine?”
“No, not really.” said the Starry One. “Zayr, come on. Just wait and see. Let’s see the meeting of the two greatest murderers in the galaxy.”
Ma`loth exited the spaceship, Ba`loth and Ui’kyo following shortly behind along with several members of the X`lanthian military. He turned around to address them, the end of his golden and fluffy cape swishing as he did so. “Now, let’s remember, these people look like winged numen, but they’re not numen. I hope that the resemblance is only visual and that we can forge a great and lasting peace with them, forever.”
“Well, not forever.” said Ba`loth, about to comment on the pointless as he always did. “One day the universe will end, and presumably our alliance will end then or before then.”
“I’m going to choose to ignore that comment.” said Ma`loth, turning back around and walking forward.
They didn’t have to walk very far before they arrived at a large pavillion. And Ma`loth and the other X`lanthians could not believe their eyes.
Yes, there was the one who Ma`loth had seen there. And there was another one very similar to him, with pale skin and golden wings and circles around her head. But there were two numen there! Ma`loth had no idea what to say to them. There was a large green-skinned numan (were they part Zhernian?) and a brown-skinned numan who had long black hair, some sort of flowers tucked behind their ears. Oh, they had very pointed ears, maybe they weren’t a numan?
Ma`loth was too stunned to speak and the one who he’d seen before, Dmitri, spoke. “I’m Tsar Dmitri Alkavov, and I’m so excited you could make it to the meeting. You’re the first delegation to arrive, by the way.” He paused, and when Ma`loth still said nothing, he added, “This is my wife, Tsaritsa Chrysal Alkavov, the Goddess of Life, and my brother, Grand Vizier Helorie Alkavov.” He indicated that the pink-haired winged numan was his wife and the green one was Helorie.
“And I and Grand Admiral Chandra of the Stellar League.” spoke the other numan in a beautiful, harmonious voice. “I use they/them/theirs pronouns or fae/faer/faers pronouns, whichever you would prefer.”
Shit. Gender. Ma`loth hoped that these aliens weren’t big on gender like the Zhernians or the Aaieu. Sure, X`lanthians had gender, but they cared very little about it, compared to some other species who were so big on it. Actually, thinking back to the numen, they were also very big on gender, at least in pairing consideration. Though then again they had a lot of strange pairing taboos, so maybe it had just been a numan thing. Ba`loth was sending out worry signals to Ma`loth, and Ma`loth stood up straightly and replied, “And I’m President Ma`loth Ka’rersn of the United Planet of X`lanthia.”
“I am Vice President Ba`loth.”
“And I am the head of the Senate, Ui`kyo.”
There was an awkward silence before Ma`loth finally asked, “So, um, Grand Vizier Helorie. Grand Admiral Chandra. Are you… numans?”
Helorie gave Ma`loth a questioning look. “I’m sorry, I’m not precisely sure what a numan is. I’m a human being, species wise, and I am also a lich. If either of those things are known in your sector of the galaxy.”
“And I am the spirit of all trees.” said Chandra in a breezy voice. “I’m sure you have dryads where you come from.”
Ma`loth had literally zero idea what any of those things were, but nodded like he understood.
“Anyway, if you’d like to sit, we can discuss things at the gazebo. And we have various foods, in case you’re hungry.”
They moved to a podium, where there was in fact various foods and a large table with a hole in the center. The chairs were definetly too small for the X`lanthian delegation, but before they opened their mouths to ask about potentially larger chairs, Dmitri waved his hand and they increased in size on the side of the table they’d come to.
They then looked to the food. “Um, do any of these foods contain animal products?” asked Ba`loth. “We don’t eat them.”
“Oh. Um, yeah, they do. Most of them do.” said Dmitri, looking slightly panicked.
“If I may ask, why do you find it better to eat plants than animals?” asked Chandra. “If it’s a moral reason, why do you find plants more moral to consume than animals?”
“Our digestive systems literally can’t.” said Ma`loth. “That’s what Ba`loth meant to say.”
“Oh, then I apologize.” said Chandra. “Please excuse my rudeness.”
“It’s fine.” replied Ma`loth.
“Well, if you don’t want any animal byproducts at all, we have a nice quinoa dish, we have a lovely salad, and we have lots of fruit. If you want any more fruit, I can make some for you.” offered Chrysal.
Ma`loth felt a little suspicious about “made” fruit and possibly suspicious about whatever effect was translating this conversation. Maybe it was a glitch in that. “Those look delicious.” he simply replied. “Um, a question I just thought of, how can we understand you?”
“It’s magic.” said Dmitri.
“Are you serious?” asked Ui’yko.
Dmitri blinked. “Of course I’m serious. I’m the great mage who ever lived.”
Chrysal patted her husband’s arm. “I don’t know if we can say de-”
“Yes, we can.” said Dmitri. “The power of the Uldoki empire comes from our magic and our use of magical technology. It brings everything you can see here, today, together.”
Ba`loth thought about this for a moment. “Perhaps it’s similar to psychic powers. Those are very rare among us, but more common among numen and Zhernians.”
“Oh, yeah, I’m also psychic, but no. Those are different. We have them, and they’re different.”
Ba`loth seemed slightly agitated, and Ma`loth sent back calm signals to him.
“I would like to know more about the Zhernians and the numen.” commented Helorie. “Do you know if either will be sending representatives to this meeting?”
Ba`loth and Ma`loth both felt incredibly awkward about this, and Ma`loth kind of juggled his hands. “Um, well, Zhernia, I think so. There may be a bit of a dispute because their enemy, the Kellish will be appearing. The numen… no. Though there may be two numen coming with the Kellish or the Aaieu, who may be coming with the Zhernians. We know the Kellish are coming, their ship wove here just after us.”
“Do you know why they’re not sending a delegate?” asked Helorie again.
The awkward signals sent between Ma`loth and Ba`loth reached a peak. “Well, the vast majority of the numen are dead.” Ma`loth paused. “Which is kind of a good thing. They were very xenophobic, and they would most likely declare war on you.”
“You don’t think they could be convinced to reason?” asked Chandra.
Ui`kyo shook her head. “Been there, tried that. Believe me, we would have tried negotiating with them if they would have listened. As it was, we had to kill them.”
“Kill them?” asked Chrysal with a gasp.
Well, it was going to come up somehow. Better he just admit it than Taine casually bring it up in conversation. “Yes. We- I decided there was no other way to deal with them.” Ma`loth looked down at the table. “We had been at war for many dozens of years, you understand. It was a bloody, deadly war. Faced with the decision of allowing them to continue to fight against our species or destroy them all at once- we made the latter choice.”
Ma`loth looked up to the new people, and recognized something on Dmitri’s face he wasn’t expecting to see her.
It looked like Dmitri understood him. In a way that nobody had before.
“Well, I completely understand.” replied Dmitri. “Sometimes we have to make difficult choices. It’s the burden of being a ruler.”
Helorie’s expression was blank, and Chrysal didn’t seem so pleased. Chandra looked somewhat sad as well, but it was in fact sad, not angry or upset. “Well, it was my hope by coming here today, that any war between any of the people who have just discovered each other has been averted. My organization, the Stellar League, works tirelessly for peace in the galaxy. It is my belief that because of our tireless, endless efforts, that-”
Chandra was interupted by the small Kellish spaceship landing a little bit too close to the seating area for comfort. It opened nearly instantly, a quite short numan with horns and a halo exited, followed by few dozen Kellish. Ma`loth wanted to sigh. It was Taine Koremos. One of the few surviving numen. And unlike the Xelcorp people or Marie, Oracle of the Aaieu, he still wore the ceremonial blood makeup, probably being the last person in the galaxy to do so. The markings for an important numan, the markings for the survivor of many battles, of a victor were scrawled across his face in crimson. And, most bafflingly to Ma`loth, the ones that indicated one who was considered defective among the numen were there too, almost proudly marked upon his face.
“Alright, everyone, I think we really sticked that landing!” said Taine. He looked to the other people assembled there. “Oh, hey, Ma`loth, other X`lanthians, cool to see you here. People I don’t know. I am Taine Koremos, The Two Faced God, the Man Who Lives in Mirrors, the Adversary of the Diabolos, and these are the Kellish. My high priestess, Larella. And my head general, Jarrett. Oh man, do you have food here? I’m starving.”
Ui’kyo slid the meat platters that were on the X`lanthian side of the table over to the area between the X`lanthians and the Uldoki + Stellar League hosts. “They have a lot of it.”
Taine hopped onto a chair as the Kellish sat around him, Dmitri waving his hand once more to reinforce the chairs. The Kellish were the only species larger than X`lanthians, and while X`lanthians tended to have lighter builds (and just be lighter in general than other species, based on their body composition), the Kellish were huge, sturdily built with rocky skin. Even their horns had to weigh a fair amount, contemplated Ma`loth. Probably 10-12 pounds for a pair.
“I’m Tsar Dmitri Alkavov of the Uldoki Empire, and this is my wife, Tsaritsa Chrysal, and my brother, Grand Vizier Helorie.”
“And I am Grand Admiral of Chandra of the Stellar League, long time friends of the Uldoki empire.” added Chandra.
“Cool.” said Taine. “Hey, it really is nice to meet another numan, Helorie. How’d you get off-planet? Did you leave during the Immortal Rebellion? Or before the X`lanthians vaporized us?”
Helorie blinked. “I’m not a numan. I’m a human.”
Taine made a face. “What, is that some term for numen who are rejecting our past society? You must admit we sucked hard, but don’t deny what you were.”
“I have literally never heard the term numan before this meeting.” said Helorie. “I admit, if Ma`loth hadn’t mentioned you were a numan, I would be wondering what the hell a human was doing with all those aliens.”
Chrysal looked at her kabob. “Um, Helorie, I just want to point out that with my analysis of Taine’s DNA, it’s absolutely identical to human DNA in every single way.”
“What?” said Taine. “You can do that so instantly? Heck, I thought my wife was the best biologist around- oops, ex-wife- and she couldn’t even do that!”
Chrysal smiled politely at Taine. “I’m the god of life, actually. What did you say you were the god of, again?”
“Um, a lot of things.” said Taine. “Blood, mostly.”
“Blood, now that’s interesting.” said Chrysal. “That’s very close to life. Who is your opponent god? Mine is Krenmyr, the God of Death.”
Taine blinked. “Um, my major enemy is the Diabolos, but they’re not really a god. They’re like the source of all the suffering and sin in the universe.”
“And here I thought that was Xander.” quipped Helorie, and Dmitri, despite himself, laughed at his brother’s joke.
Chrysal continued to smile politely. “Well, they must be a god. Maybe the god of tears? I think that’s the opposite of blood, if blood can be really considered to have an opposite.”
Taine lit up. “That’s great! I love it. Larella, this is now canon- The Diabolos is the god of tears.”
“I don’t know if god is theologically accurate to describe the Diabolos, Lord Taine.” commented Jarrett.
“If Lord Taine says it is true, then it is true, Jarrett.” replied Larella.
Taine leaned back in the chair. “Okay, so, Helorie, you’re a human. Which is the same as a numan. So that’s cool. These guys are X`lanthians. What are the rest of you?”
“I’m a tiefling.” said Dmitri. “Part human, part devil.”
“Part devil!?!” asked Larella.
“Do you have something against devils?” asked Chandra. “One of my dearest friends is a devil, and he is a wonderful person.”
“I’m sure that devil means something else in our different regions of the galaxy,” suggested Ba`loth.
“Well, devils are people. Dead people, actually. They’re mostly evil.”
“Mostly evil!?” said Larella once again.
Chandra sighed. “When Dmitri says evil, what this means among us is strongly inclined to being selfish rather than altruistic. This is the most commonly accepted definition of evil as an alignment in our galaxy. It is only by accepting this that inner-alignment peace can be found among us all. I accept that Mazin is prone to thinking of himself first, just as I accept that he prefers the structured order of society to the freedom of individualism.”
“Don’t we all?” asked Ui’yko.
Ma`loth knew that many people who weren’t X`lanthians did not, because they couldn’t literally feel pain from other people’s emotions. “Well, I’m sure that Mazin is a pleasant person, and I’d be quite interested in meeting them. It is the hope of the X`lanthian people that we can make new friends and allies from this discovery of the other side of the galaxy.”
“And it’s the hope of the Kellish, and me, that we can find people to help us whip the Aaieu’s tentacles!” said Taine. “The most powerful empire on our side of the galaxy, the Zhernians, have teamed up with the Aaieu and the Diabolos who lead them! Once the Zhernians arrive, they have a good chance of destroying us. And not even my godly powers will be able to defeat them.”
“What exactly are your qualms with the Aaieu?” asked Chandra. “Where did your conflict begin?”
Taine’s eyes lit up as he begun to recount the story.
Nearly an hour later, Helorie was ready to collapse from exhaustion from pretending not to be tired out by Taine’s longwinded, barely lucid story. He kept going off on various asides, sprinkled the tale with pointless metaphors, and in fact used figurative language of such irrational quality that Helorie could not tell what had actually happened.
Basically the impression he’d gotten was that the Diabolos was actually Taine’s ex? And that they might be two people? Or possibly bigender? They’d had a huge falling out, then they’d ruled the Aaieu because of their powers, and they and the Kellish had fought over their planet, before the Kellish had pushed the Aaieu off.
Helorie looked to Chandra, ready to see how the dryad would handle this one. Everyone thought of Chandra as being so peaceful and gentle, but Helorie knew all too well that they could be fucking brutal when they wanted to be. However, it didn’t look like Helorie would be witness to yet another beautiful tongue-lashing by Chandra, and he was quite preemptively disappointed.
Chandra smiled softly, folded their hands, and replied, “Well, thank you for telling us the full story. I think it was very insightful. You know, Taine, if you were ever interested in conflict mediation services, I’d be more than happy to provide. I think that a peaceful arrangement can come between you and the Kellish, even now. “
“You really do?” asked Taine.
“Yes. I truly do. I think that peace can come anywhere, anywhen, anywhy.” Helorie wasn’t sure that anywhen or anywhy was a word, but that was Chandra.
“So you think that Marie and Kalligu could love me again?”
Chandra hesitated. “Well, I don’t know about that….”
“But then you think it’s possible?”
“Well…”
Dmitri stood up. “Well, everyone, I’d like to call a short break so we can all refresh ourselves, take care of our needs, maybe the servants can show you all to the accomodations we’ve provided for you and you can take your luggage in and stuff. If you’d rather stay here and talk, that’s also fine, and we can come back and discuss everything some more.”
Helorie was glad that Dmitri had freed him and made his way into the housing building to escape.
Helorie, however, did not in fact escape. As he left that building to make his way back to the pavillion, he bumped into one of the Kellish. Jarrett, right? “Oh, excuse me, I didn’t see you there.”
“You know, I think you’re the most interesting of the people we’ve met today. Except for Chrysal, who is absolutely terrifying.” said Jarrett. Thinking of what Chrysal actually was, Helorie kind of had to agree with Jarrett on the absolutely terrifying part, though he could have phased it better.
“Um. Thank you?” said Helorie. He had honestly barely said two words to- wait, how did he know what Chrysal really was.
“You seem like the most sensible of the people gathered. Which is why I’m telling you this. Taine is not a god.”
Helorie nodded. “Yeah, I kind of got that when he didn’t know who his opposite god was. That’s kind of very obvious to gods on our side. Who are real, by the way.”
“Oh, I know.” said Jarrett. “And you probably should not get involved with Taine. But he’s honestly better than the alternative. And you shouldn’t underestimate him. He has the ability to perfectly control blood.”
Helorie sweated slightly before vanishing the drop magically so it didn’t look like he was a biological person (though the illusion covered it up). “Well, I’m not actually alive, so-”
Jarrett rolled his eyes. “Don’t try to claim that around me. I know everything about you. Everything about all of you. I’ve been working on analysing all of you since Taine first told me about you.”
“You’ve been doing what?” asked Helorie.
Jarrett tapped his horns. “I have the ability to see into the past of anyone I know. Postcognition. It’s honestly far more reliable than its more famous counterpart. And more useful as well.”
“You’ve seen everything in my life?” said Helorie. He honestly wanted to kill this Jarrett, diplomatic incident or no! If he’d seen him and Anya- Oh gods. He couldn’t have seen-
“It’s honestly a quite horrible and terrifying power.” said Jarrett. “Anyway, Taine’s bad. But he’s better than the Zhernians. They’re not too fond of…” He paused. “Men.”
Helorie blinked. “Was that supposed to be a subtle transphobic dig, or-”
“What? No! They honestly find men inferior to all other genders. And they don’t believe in transgender people, either. You will have an incredibly hard time making an alliance with them, and honestly I doubt you’ll be able to at all. So Taine may be the best option.”
“Well, thank you for the advice.” said Helorie. “I’d like you to discuss these things with you more honestly later, but we need to make our way back to the pavilion.”
“Perhaps we can discuss them over dinner.”
Helorie wasn’t sure whether this alien was trying to hit on him or had made a comment that had no such connotation in Kellish (was that their language?) but Helorie simply nodded and made his way to the pavillion.
Where Chandra was shrieking at a bald green person and Chrysal was in “still pretending to be humanoid but full freakout” mode towards the green person and the other green people. Taine, appearing out of roughly nowhere, hovered next to Jarrett. “Okay, Jarrett, future reference. Chandra is not a him. Chandra is definitely not a him.”
Chandra swung a fist at the green person who dodged it, and Jarrett nodded to Taine. “Yes, Taine, I realized that. Well, it doesn’t look like Chandra will be allying with the Zhernians either.”
“Which is weird, because they’re apparently a plant.” said Taine.
Mentally cheering Chandra on, Helorie added, “Well, humans don’t get along with other humans, and tieflings don’t get along with other tieflings. It makes complete sense.”
“I guess it does.” said Taine. “I guess it does.”
Chandra glared at the Zhernians who were now leaving on their beautiful spaceship, negotiations failed before they had even begun. They took a moment to wipe off amber-like blood from their hands, not wanting immaculately polished nails to be stained.
Helorie, Jarrett, and Taine arrived, and as they took their seats, Dmitri begun to recap what had happened. “So those green people, the Zhernians, they just showed up, and their head guy started talking about they were the prince, the third son of the emperor, and then they asked if Chrysal was the one in charge, because she was a woman, and if Chandra and I were “the help” or if we conducted things like X`lanthians.”
“And I demanded to know why they thought that, and they tried to claim I’m male, when no such thing is true!” exclaimed Chandra. “And I tried to correct them on the topic of my gender and they told me my genders are false, and that I wasn’t really the spirit of all trees, and then it got kind of nasty.”
“It really did.” nodded Chrysal with a sigh.
Taine hopped into the chair where he was sitting before. “Are you really the spirit of all trees?”
“Yes.” nodded Chandra in reply.
Taine pointed to a tree. “Are you the spirit of that tree?”
“Yes.”
He pointed to a different tree. ‘Are you the spirit of that tree?”
“Yes.”
Taine pointed to a third tree. “What about that tree?”
“Yes.”
Taine pointed to the tree he’d pointed to originally. “How about that one?”
“That’s the first tree.”
“Chandra is the spirit of all trees!” said Chrysal in an attempt to end Taine’s questioning.
“On all planets?”
“Yes.”
“What about the tree behind my cathedral that fell over during the storm last year?”
Chandra sighed. “Which one, the tall white one or the short black one? And yes, I was, until they both died. I’m not the spirit of dead trees.”
“Is there a spirit of all dead trees?”
“No.” said Chandra. “I don’t think so.”
Dmitri folded his hands. “So that’s all of you? Everyone on your side of the galaxy?”
“Yup.” said Taine. “Aw, I didn’t get to see Marie and Kalligu again. We could have had a good fight this time.”
“Or you could have told them about your desire to make peace with them.” added Chandra.
“Yeah, that too.” said Taine.
“Anyway, the Zhernians didn’t seem like the nicest people anyway,” said Dmitri. “I’m not shedding any tears that they’re gone.”
“You shouldn’t.” said Ma`loth. “Their sexist mindsets, which they apply not only to themselves but to others that they meet, make them incredibly difficult for us to interact with. I’d imagine it be difficult for any species, whether they care little or a great deal about gender.”
“Or genderless entirely!” added Taine. “They wouldn’t know who to be assholes to!”
Dmitri nodded in agreement. “Well, then, now that everyone’s here, I’d like to show you the current situation on our side of the galaxy.”
A giant display depicting all of the known planets and systems, though not to scale so you could actually see them all appeared in the hole in the center of the table, before rising up and expanding to an even larger size. Dmitri pointed to a group of color-coded planets, one of the largest groups. “These are the planets that make up the Uldoki empire. Our capitol, Aaia. Our secondary capitol, Varov. And many other planets, not all of which we’ve settled, but all of which we control and have at least some structures on or near. Our close neighbors are the Stellar League, shown here, and the Empire of Hell, who we have difficult relationships with, depicted here.”
Dmitri pointed to the Empire of Hell and it zoomed in onto them. “They’re small, but shouldn’t be underestimated. They’re extremely militant and their leaders, Emperors Xander and Illiam, are incredibly powerful. They have a very large population for the amount of planets they possess.” He zoomed out, and then zoomed into the Stellar League. “Chandra, of course, is the Grand Admiral of the Stellar League, and if they’d like to stay a few words?”
“Of course.” replied Chandra, smiling. “The Stellar League’s primary goal is to promote peace in the galaxy. Our secondary goals are prosperity for all peoples as well as freedom of all sentient beings. As you can see, we technically control only one planet, Dream.” Chandra gestured, hoping it would zoom into dream, but this was Dmitri’s illusion and it did not. “Um, Dmitri, can you pull up-” Dmitri zoomed into the artificial planet, showing it on the screen. “Thank you. Dream is our headquarters and produces a fair amount of the League’s supplies. We have the largest fleet on this side of the galaxy, ranging from our 2-crew Figments to our largest and most beautiful ship, the Aurora.”
Dmitri didn’t need prompting to pull up a picture of the Aurora on the screen. It glowed brightly even as an illusion, the large and elegant ship rotating slowly in the illusion. “The Aurora shows the Stellar League’s advancements in the field of grammarie, as well as hard-light manipulation. Her hull is made entirely out of hard-light, making her incredibly agile and yet also incredibly difficult to injure. We’re currently working on a new spaceport made of hard-light as well. We control around twenty major spaceports and countless minor spaceports in the galaxy as well.”
“Alright, Chandra, thank you for your explanation.” Chandra sat back down, hoping Javier would approve of their praise of the Aurora. “Next to Stellar League space is the territory of the Fiendish Republic of Infernus, and the Dead Planet. Two very closely allied places, mostly because their rulers are married. The Dead Planet is the galaxy’s sanctuary for the undead, while Infernus is the continuation of the government of the former plane of Infernus. Infernus is also the name of their capital planet, and they control quite a few others around the same area. The Dead Planet is a single, large, undead-” Dmitri paused, like he had been about to say an offensive word but decided against it. “Undead-occupied planet. Living people don’t live there.”
“Undead. Like what does that mean? Are you talking about… Immortals?” asked Taine.
Dmitri blinked. “Um, I guess, in a way they are? Like, people who aren’t living or dead. Zombies, vampires, skeletons, liches.” Dmitri patted Helorie’s shoulder when he mentioned liches.
“Yeah, never heard of any of them.” said Taine.
Ba`loth pushed up his double-glasses and took a breath. “So you mean there are entities who are not alive? And they’re considered people?”
“I mean, you’re talking to one of them.” said Helorie.
Ba`loth tried to look like he was simply fine with that, as did Larella and Ui`kyo. Ma`loth seemed far more accepting of the revelation than the other X`lanthians, and Jarrett… well, Jarrett didn’t seem as if he cared at all. Chandra looked at Jarrett curiously, wondering why that was.
Chandra wasn’t one to speak for someone who could speak for himself, but Helorie simply looked so uncomfortable at everyone’s reaction that they simply had to say something. “Well, the ruler of the Dead Planet is one of my dearest and most wonderful friends, Krenmyr, and I’m sure if you met em and other undead, you’d quickly see that they’re just the same as everyone else, even if they have less biological functions.” Chrysal shifted in her chair, not happy at the mention of Krenmyr, and Helorie looked somewhat relieved.
“Right. What Chandra said. You didn’t think anything was different about me until it was pointed out.”
“Right. It’s just that… religiously…” said Ba`loth.
Larella looked to Taine as if she was expecting him to say the same. Taine shrugged, putting his feet up on the table. “Well, I don’t know what problem you people have with sentient people who aren’t technically alive, but I’m fine with it. Though, honestly, you’ve got more blood than I’d expect a dead man to have.”
Helorie turned slightly paler and coughed. “I taxidermied myself.”
“You did what?!” asked Ui’kyo.
“Look, do we really need to talk about this?” asked Helorie. “In public? Can’t we get back to Dmitri’s very nice presentation?”
“Look, I don’t believe everything about The Relation.” said Ui’kyo. “I don’t think anyone does. But what I’m saying is the X`lanthian people may have a hard time handling people who aren’t alive but are somehow still people. We had a hard enough time accepting people who didn’t Signal to each other. It’s like talking to someone who only ever says every other word and has no remorse upon hurting others.”
“Right, the chemical signals you’re sending to each other.” said Chrysal. “I could attempt to replicate them myself and modify us to do so as well, if you think it would make negotiations go better?”
There was full silence from the X`lanthian delegation for nearly a minute.
Finally, Ma`loth stood up. “You know what, I know we just had a break, but we’ve been talking so much, I think that-”
“Right!” said Dmitri, standing up as well. “Another break! To absorb stuff!”
Ui’kyo slammed her fist into the wall of the common room of the X`lanthian delegation’s quarters. “Damn that woman! Calling the Relation mere chemical signals. Offering to give it to others like it was merely some party favor!”
“It is very distressing.” said Ba`loth, sitting on the couch, knees curled up to his chest.
Ma`loth sighed. “I don’t know. I think it was a very nice gesture that we should have made a politer response to. And I would have, if you two wouldn’t have been distracting me!”
“I think the most distressing thing is we have no idea what we’re dealing with.” said Ba`loth. “The Tsaritsa, Chrysal, I think she’s probably very dangerous. If she can tell things about a person’s genetic code without even touching them, add features to people, even spy on the Relation and analyze it-”
“She analyzed nothing!” said Ui’kyo. “She must have mistaken something else for it! The Relation is between us. It’s what makes us X`lanthians.”
“There are X`lanthians without the Relation.” commented Ma`loth.
Ui’kyo frowned. “Yes, and I still don’t agree with your decision to let them into society proper.”
Ma`loth sighed before collapsing onto the couch. “Anyway, Ba`loth, finish your thought.”
“Grand Admiral Chandra is apparently the spirit of all trees, while the Tsar seems to have the ability to manipulate things at his will and show images spontaneously. The only person who we know nothing about is Helorie, except for the fact he’s apparently dead.”
“This isn’t like when we encoutered the numen.” said Ui`kyo. “We knew what they were about. They were strong, and resilient, and had technology around ours, but they didn’t have these powers!”
Ma`loth got up off the couch. “You’re right. It’s not. And not because of that reason. It’s because we can reason with these people. They seem like they’re really trying to make a good impression with us. Trying to make an alliance. Yes, they’re wierd. They’ve very strange. Very very strange. But I think we can work it out.” Ma`loth sent out calming, agreeable signals to both. “We need to be able to work it out.”
Ba`loth stood up as well. “You’re right.”
Helorie absolutely hated it when Chrysal and Dmitri went to go relax in Chrysal’s dreamscape. Unlike Dmitri, Helorie wasn’t foolish enough to go into anyone’s dreamscape. Not that there were that many entities around that were powerful enough to produce them, but still.
So Helorie had to resort to knocking on the dream gateway, located on the side of one of of Chrysal’s bodies in the undergarden. Not that the dream gateway was precisely a door, but he wasn’t going to go in there, ever. He had to escape in there once and it was an experience he did not want to relive.
Those perfect, beautiful fields of grass and flowers… the animals, all encircling around Helorie and singing to him… the way the sun looked like one of Chrysal’s massive eyes in the sky, blazing with golden fire… Helorie shuddered. No thank you.
He knocked again, and after a moment, a person that resembled Chrysal’s humanoid form emerged from the side of the large body, connected by a tendril of flesh. “Oh, Helorie, what is it? Is the meeting starting back up again?”
“I actually just wanted to talk to Dmitri.”
“I could pass a message on.” Then the Chrysal smiled in the way that Chrysal smiled when she wasn’t focusing on being humanoid, a lazy, almost drugged smile, strange in its ectasy. “Or you could come in here.”
“No thank you.” said Helorie. “I’ll stay out here in reality, if you don’t mind.”
“Alright, then I’ll send Dmitri out… right away.”
Dmitri was deposited outside of the gateway, and brushed himself off. “Hey, Helorie. What’s going on?”
Helorie took a deep breath, then said, “Do you think it would be better if I left?”
‘What?” asked Dmitri. “No way, no. You’re my brother, and my best advisor, you need to stay here!”
Helorie shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m not sure. The X`lanthians seem to be offended by my mere existence. Maybe I should go home.”
“You can’t go home.” said Dmitri, placing a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “If they can’t accept you for who you are, they can’t be our allies.”
Now Helorie felt completely awful for lying to his brother about still being a lich. If he’d cast that illusion away before the trip, they wouldn’t have even had this argument! It wouldn’t be a big deal! And now it was making coming clean to them sound even worse! Maybe he could leave the planet, pretend to have been turned back and- no. That was another lie. He had to stop lying.
But before Helorie could reply, Chrysal’s entire body shook and she focused herself once again into her humanoid form. “There’s another ship coming.”
“What?” said Dmitri. “Another one? But the X`lanthians said-”
“Come on, let’s go right away!” said Helorie.
Chrysal smiled politely at the new visitors. One of them, a mostly humanoid creature with bright amber eyes, pointed furred ears, and a tail offered a hand to her. “I am Evelin, the representative sent by the Association of Immortals to attend this meeting. We do not believe in people having more power than each other, having a direct democracy, and so I was voted as the head of the representatives coming here today.”
Chrysal shook Evelin’s hand. “I use they/them/theirs pronouns, by the way.” they added.
Chrysal was fascinated by Evelin. Their brain structure- their brain still fit in the space that a normal human brain would take, but their neurons were arranged in such an unusual structure…
Chrysal would require a good deal more time to analyze what she’d seen, but it seemed like a good new brain structure to at least test out on some creations.
While Chrysal thought about this, everyone re-introduced themselves and Evelin made their way to the table with a few other Immortals. Looking down at the food, they then asked, “Do you have anything vegetarian?”
“If milk and cheese are fine, we have a few dishes with them in it.” suggested Chrysal. “The ones with meat are over on this side of the table.”
“Yes, those sorts of things are fine.” said Evelin. “Unlike X`lanthians. our dislike of meat is emotional, not biological.” They looked around casually. “We’ve been trying to get over it. Experimenting with lab-grown meat.”
“Well, most of this meat is actually produced in a meat factory.” said Chrysal. “Though if you asked which one is which, I’m afraid I don’t.”
“Well, thank you for your consideration.” said Evelin.
Taine raised an eyebrow at the Immortals. “Hey, Evelin. Didn’t realize that you and the others were coming.”
“The same is true of you.” replied Evelin. “And we thought for sure the Zhernians would send their representatives.”
“Oh, they did.” said Taine. “They came. And left.”
“Good.” said Evelin.
Evelin and the other Immortals put food onto plates provided and they began eating, except for Evelin. “Now, the reason I’ve come here is that our people hopes that we can find a place to live on this side of the galaxy. We have, ever since leaving Terra, struggled with the problem of finding a home for our species, resources, and the like. Our civilization is young, but during the time we have existed we have created many technological advances, which we are willing to share with those willing to aid us.”
“X`lanthia has offered aid in the past!” replied Ui’yko, clearly adjitaited.
“Yes, well, we’d rather not ally with a species who considers the deaths of billions of us ‘collateral damage.’” replied Evelin in a cool voice. They looked to the Uldoki and Stellar League hosts. “You are not X`lanthians. Nor are you numen. We, therefore, do not bear a grudge against you.”
“Right. We’re not numen.” said Dmitri.
“If I may ask, what were your issues with the numen?”
Evelin’s lip curled. “They created us. And by they, I mean specifically Dr. Koremos’s wife, Marie. They kept us as livestock and slaves. We formed a rebellion, fought against them, but in the end the only thing we could do to save ourselves was abandon the rest of our kind and flee. Those of us who escaped planned to go back and rescue our siblings. Until someone decided to destroy every living on that planet.”
Chrysal covered her hands with her mouth. “That’s terrible!”
“That’s the story Ma`loth told us, Chrysal. That’s literally the story he told us.” said Dmitri.
“He said that he killed all the numen!”
“Yes, alright, the nature of the weapon that we used was that it destroyed everything of biological origin on the planet!” said Ma`loth.
“The weapon you stole from the numen.” muttered Evelin.
“Wait, when did this happen?” questioned Chandra. “Was it around a decade ago? Because if that’s so, then that’s when I felt all those trees die at once! It was a horrible sensation. All those precious trees who I’d never noticed before… beyond billions of them, all dying at once.”
“Yes! We had to do it, though. The numen were- the numen were-” Ma`loth was standing up now, two sets of arms clasped to his head. “They were monsters! They were people and they weren’t people! If you had met them- if you would have known how they killed, how they hated one another, how they fought-” He suddenly remembered that Taine was still sitting there, casually drinking a smoothie from a glass with a straw. “Um, Taine, No-”
“Hey, none taken.” said Taine. “I know I’m a monster, and so is Marie. And I’m also a god. That’s why they call me the two faced god.”
This was most likely the most calm anyone had ever been upon being called a monster in the history of the galaxy. Taine slurped more of his smoothie before putting it on the table. “Ma`loth is right. If they hadn’t killed the numen, you’d have to deal with them next. They wouldn’t have negotiated with you. They’d have probably killed the Zhernians, too. We were a vast and powerful swarm, devouring everything in our paths. Like locusts in mammal flesh.”
“I think that’s a little mean to locusts.” muttered Ba`loth softly, making Ma`loth laugh.
Dmitri looked to Evelin. “We would be very interested in aiding you. But you would have to know that we’re still considering an alliance with X`lanthia and the Kellish.”
“And the Stellar League would be interested in providing any aid or trade that’s possible.” said Chandra. “We can share with you our planet-making and biological manipulation technology in case you’re interested in creating your own worlds, give you places to stay in the meanwhile, and if any Immortals would like to join the Stellar League and work for peace in the galaxy, we would love to have them.”
“You can make planets?” asked Evelin excitedly.
“Hey, so can I!” said Taine.
“Yes.” said Chandra with a nod. “In fact, my husband Javier is the inventor of the technique. It does require a good deal of time and specific machinery, but once properly constructed the planet can fit any specification you desire. Custom weather, plants, and animals, continents of any size and shape. In fact, you can create more space inside the planets, if you aren’t adverse to having less sunlight inside. We usually compensate for such with the use of sunlamps.”
“This is very exciting news.” said Evelin. “We are very excited for the prospect of the Stellar League and us Immortals working together.”
Chandra smiled widely and opened their mouth to speak again, until suddenly Chrysal pointed out something. “Um, there wasn’t anyone else who said they were coming, right? No surprise species arriving?”
“I think this is it.” said Ba`loth. “Why?”
“There’s another ship up there.”
But Chrysal was mistaken, despite her powerful vision. It was not, in fact, a ship. And as it approached closer, she realized what it was. A communication pod from Naven. And she barely had time to point at it before it entered the atmosphere, seeming as if it was going to crash down next to the gazebo before suddenly slowing down immensely, though still coming to a thudding stop on the ground.
The pod opened and the illusion began to project. It depicted Emperor Xander and Emperor Illiam, as well as a man who Chrysal had never seen before who was identical to Emperor Illiam. Amazing! That was just what the world needed, another Illiam. Unless this was one of Illiam’s doubles wearing an eyepatch and- no. There were too many differences, it couldn’t be him.
“Hey, Ashburs!” called out Taine. “Illiam, I thought you were dead!”
“Taine? What?” said Illiam. “What in the world are you doing here?”
“I should ask the same of you!”
“That man is Emperor Illiam, Emperor Xander’s husband.” said Helorie. “How do you two know each other?”
“Oh, we go waaay back. I used to work at Xelcorp with him, before there was… there was a lot of stuff, and we all thought he was dead, and wow! Here he is now! You look great, Illiam, and what, you’re an emperor now? I’m a god, so I guess we’ve both moved up in life. This is Larella and Jarrett, by the way.”
Xander looked like he was physically in pain. “Um. Illiam. Elian. Didn’t you have a… bit?”
“This is a warning.” said Elian. “The remants of numanity and the Empire of Hell will be declaring war on the X`lanthians. We will not fight you for the reasons our species before. We fight you in the name of every innocent killed by you, every person oppressed by our species who was slaughtered like the rest. If you’d ended the war like a civilized person, we wouldn’t have done this. But because you perpetrated genocide on our entire species, we will destroy you.”
“I think that’s called specicide, or extinction.” corrected Helorie. Elian rolled his eyes.
“Are you sure you want to do that?” asked Ma`loth. “We, um, still have the ultimate weapon.”
“Yes, and as I believe you’ve probably discovered by this point, this is a world of magic.” said Elian. “The people here could capture that weapon and turn it against you. Honestly, if I were you, I would destroy it. Probably safest for the X`lanthian species.”
“Elian, I’ve never met you. And I’ve only heard one side of the story about your species’s death.” said Chandra. “But is there any way at all you could be convinced not to do this?”
“Chandra, I’ve never met you, but I heard you care about peace in the galaxy.” replied Elian. “What I’d suggest you do is not ally with the X`lanthians, and convince others not to do so. Let us fight the X`lanthians. And once this war is over, I think the galaxy can be at peace once more.”
Chandra sighed. “But that will just lead to them retaliating against you! Violence goes nowhere! What I’d like to do is arrange a large meeting where you two could air your grievances. Then-”
Chandra was interupted by Dmitri picking up the pod. “Listen up, Illiam #2. People have to make difficult choices. And I’ll ally with the X`lanthians if I want to ally with the X`lanthians. I believe that Ma`loth did what he had to do. Just like I had to. And if you don’t know about you, ask your double to brush you up on a little history from this side of the galaxy.”
“Well, that’s dissapointing. It seems that Hell and Uldok are going to war once more.”
“Wait, no, stop!” said Chandra, who had spent years of their life attempting to negotiate the Uldok-Naven peace treaty. “You don’t have to do this! You can-!”
Dmitri grabbed the other side of the pod with his other hand and crushed it before throwing it to the ground. He then turned around to Ma`loth. “Oh. Um, sorry, I should have asked first before declaring that we were all-”
“It’s fine.” said Ma`loth. He stood up. “The X`lanthian people and the Uldoki people shall be allies!”
“That’s wonderful news!” said Dmitri. “Let’s shake on it!”
“With what hand?” asked Ma`loth, offering all six.
“All of them!”
Dmitri then proceeded to shake each of Ma`loth’s hands in turn as Helorie and Chrysal turned to each other and shared a look of utter horror. Yes, they had gained an ally, but it seemed that they’d gained two enemies as well. It seemed as if a new intergalactic war was about to begin.
