"So i am your reason for living." Aki stated, briming with so much happiness Minthe almost didn't have the courage to keep to the joke he obviously intended. Almost.
"You're a tool i use to better live my life in the process of trying to escape chronic depression, not the contrary." She emotionless said, trying to burry her face a bit deeper in his clothes. Even in her most... unsightfull moments, she never stopped feeling the shame.
"I'm so proud you found strenght to try again." He said, his smirk practically audible. "It's only going to be harder even with help though. You sure you don't want that ring i suggested?" He asked, holding one of her hands.
"Yes, i'm sure i don't want to carry around a fucking star on my hand." She sighed, for some reason actually entertaining the idea even if she'd always been scared of rings.
"I'm still having it done. Ask for a color and finger size anytime and i will adjust it. Fuck physics on strange stars, my dear star is way more shining ." He exclaimed, having already found a material, space-time ambar, that could hold the energy of a star in any shape he whised. As long as he could form the amber over the condensed thing. He just needed to find a way to survive whatever the fuck such an event would cause.
"Shining, really?" She asked, looking at the young man in the face. Assuming her naturaly more somber form, she continued. "In what way, do elaborate." He'd been trying to find a fitting pet name from the moment they became lovers, and she just had her fun at his inability to think of anything actualy fitting.
"I always wanted a star, and you're way pretier than all the others, so i decided to make you mine. You already make all my every moment brighter, so it's a job with no work and all the benefits." He said, completly aware of how it sounded and looking her in the eyes, asking for confirmation or any sign that she did not want something like that.
Instead of any surprise or panic he expected, she laughed. A deep and weezing laugh that he'd never heard her laugh before. He did reconize it though.
"Hahaha, that's the stupidiest, haha, most childish thing i've ever heard, and i'm damn old. I seriously wonder why i decided to date you sometimes, oh wait, it's because you are my only fucking option and can control me!" She didn't histerically scream, she just mocked him in a way that made her voice sound more imposing, angry maybe, and raised an octave at the end, but it hurt. "Stop looking at me like that, it's not like you actually love me, i am also just a toy for your kid brain, a pet you will forget the moment someone else comes and thinks they can fix you better, because guess what, i'm not always going to be here." She icily said, her hair now dripping.
"I see, you're right. I might one day forget something about you as i am now. That is not acceptable." He nodded, focusing again in observing her soft lips releasing such poison and gently embracing her waist.
That gave her pause, but she was definetly not done.
"What bullshit are you spouting now? You just need to forget this whole bullshit you decided to call a relationship and let me go now, i will even fuck you every once in a while even if your dick is so useless." She pointed out, actually poisoning him with her nails. While unable to kill Aki in any way, Minthe had full authority to make him regret and suffer. That was what she did best.
"Urg, wow, so I only have three regretful memories from childhood and one of them is the time I almost drowned, who knew. Even if I have to listen to every cringy poem and terribly articulated song I ever sang again, I would never let you go. Never gonna let you down, never gonna..."
"Shut it, you're a terrible singer and completely ruining the song for me!" She screamed it, her nails digging deeper.
"Sorry." He weakly smiled. "Let me put some Neffex instead. Rumors or watch me? I know you don't really like rap, Eminen asside, but I've got a red head pumping poison on me, it's gotta be one of the two."
And so they kept going. Time passed and Aki was just as pale as his lover when she finally retracted her claws and weakly tried to avoid showing her crying face.
"Just let me go. I don't want to be here, I don't want to show you even worse. I'm sorry, I m sorry I did all... Uhm Munn..." She tried to continue, but Aki made sure to get all the air out of her lungs before he stopped kissing her.
"You can stop talking now. Feeling like shit alone is not allowed, you hear? You already found someone to love all your stupid tears and stay by your side as you talk things you don't mean, isn't that enough to start loving yourself even if just a little bit?" He kissed her tears, holding the woman in shock closer in his embrace. "I'm going to need to love you even more if you say no by the way." He murmured by her ear before lightly bitting it before dropping on the couch while holding her. He didn't think he had the energy to move his ass out of that couch. Not without bursting his liver.
*****
"Did they start fucking?" Asked a tall brunette.
"No, he's cuddling her to sleep."
"Well, he definitely got better nerves than you of back then. It's so strange to compare you and your chosen right now." Said the beauty in a suit.
"Well, there's certainly less pressure on her since officially being with me would mean being the queen of the underworld. Sometimes I wonder why I was so keen on making whoever could handle me get the title. I mean, it'd help if I had more options, but I really wish I'd stuck with that promise to visit the less annoying parts of my family more often." Complained Hades while reminiscing.
"That'd not have worked even if you liked doing such." She chuckled, a glint passing through her golden eyes. "You think he's ready for my test?" Questioned Hecate while playing with her pony tail.
"As long as you don't ask for something at lord level it should be fine. He doesn't really have any elemental or magical truths, but he sure as heck understands origin. A bit of caos and order as well, but don't expect him to just transform into an impossible or something. He does have the talent to be an inevitable though. In some years."
*****
Some awkward hemodialysis later.
"The poison sacks are on your wrists, aren't they." Aki asked.
"Yes, but i..."
"Nope, i'll just simulate something similar. How hard can it be to produce liquid guilt? Don't answer that." He interupted her, completly not wanting to know. "Want some hamburgers before i go try to advance some affinities? Maybe we could have a look around whatever is on the other side of this goblin rift, no way it is all a desolate wasteland." He offered, imediatly realising he'd just raised a flag, and that he may have to bombard the whole place even if it was like paradise, so it'd not actually make for a very romantic date.
"I'm good, not hungry and there's some work i postponed." She sighed and gave him a weak smile while putting some hair behind her ear. Her image was completly diferent as she voraciously devoured the eighth double burger. Even Aki didn't think his cooking on that level yet, and he'd tried one himself, but decided he'd just get the taste out of his lover's mouth before going out instead of spending even more time making food.
On another note, Aki had made sure to drop some burgers for his family as well, though he made sure not to come face to face to his mother and only give his grandmother a quick hug before running away.
*****
"Wow, I take back what I said, this place is a complete wasteland. Did they kill anything stronger than them with human wave tactics or something." Aki murmured, not stopping the manipulation of the carbon and silica that made these goblins with gray skin for a second as a bigger and bigger tornado of dust formed around him as they all simply turned to minimum particles.
While Aki could deconstruct all of then into atoms as well, he would be neither as energy effective nor would he be able to so easily turn so many individuals at the same time.
It was all quite intuitive though, agitate structural particles, take control of the resulting mater to spread the agitation, absorb the liberated time and life energies, repeat.
Walking around like that had killed only some millions of goblins, who seemed more than happy to keep killing themselves, but it had also allowed Aki to discover the ruins of whatever the name of the civilization that had made these things.
While it seemed that goblins had indeed been a local species, by the looks of the pictures showing them as cattle and slaves to the gray humanoids with bigger craniums and six fingers per hand, but the grays had suddenly fallen ill because of a genetical reaction to a meteorite that fallen into their planet, if the high amount of paperwork, mummies, squeletons and medical equipment were to be believed, so they started experimenting interlocking their genes with the suddenly smarter and more vigorous goblins, if the underground bunkhouses with dead and conserved specimens showing gradually greater changes in both species were to be believed.
"Wait, isn't that the premise of a shity alien movie? Was it from 2000 or 1990, I can't remember." Aki pointed out, examining the beady black eyes of a squeletal individual that softly murmured something that sounded like a broken plea for death after he'd taken him out of the green goo tank.
After foto graphing the thing from all angles, he evaporated it completly.
"Well, it's not getting any worse than this unless..."
*****
"Humans. Took long enough. Yeah, this is going to add at least a decade before my mother will look me in the eye if she ever does forgive me for the faults she finds in my conduct. I will never understand how she thought me a good person the same way as her. " Aki murmured, looking at the now familiar scene of an army awaiting beyond the rifts. "Yo! Who in here is in command? I come in peace by the way, and i don't really mind the artillery spell, no harm done, but ya all got ten to fifteen minutes before I start killing everyone here and just go looking for the biggest city nearby till I find a ruler I can overthrow." Calmly said Aki through a voice enhancing spell, which he doesn't have in printed on his soul, and just slapping the balls of magma and poison while ignoring the gravity well.
It didn't actually take long for the attacks to stop, a powerful and manly voice clearly using some kind of charm power claiming everyone's attention.
"Greetings honored expert. We would like to ask for your intentions to appearing in this realm."
"Hello mister handlebar mustache, I am Aki, chosen of Aidoneus and protector of the realm recently connected to yours. I come with the intent of assuring peace, be it through diplomacy or through superior firepower, I really don't mind the difference. Now, you can tell your troops to waste all their ammunition and energy, or we can go directly to the discussion of future interactions."
The irritation at the nick name asside, the standing general did not mind much since he'd not introduced himself anyway. Staying angry at an expert with such ferocious aura was not a good idea anyway. Hopefully he'd be just as understanding during the talks.
Several crippled, traumatized and poached nobles later, it became obvious such possibility had never been there.