Chapter 48:
Chapter 48: The Second Arc is revealed and the preparations for the future start.
"It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor of Mankind has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million worlds by the might of His inexhaustible armies."
This is the first part of the intro everyone which has read any book about Warhammer 40k knows and Nobody will tell you that those gods are not the Chaos Gods they're talking about, for they want the Anathema dead and have been always trying to kill him and not make him a god, even if they are not strictly opposed to it. They've eaten human gods before, so that might give them an advantage if it stops him from being an Anathema.
They even sent Lorgar to try and end this faith by getting him to write a book refuting it, and he is the man which created the Holy Book the 'Lectitio Divinitatus' that the Imperium uses to justify his Divinity, to try and see if they can't stop it and he failed miserably.
Being worshiped enough won't turn you into a new Chaos God, as that requires direct and willing intervention and the injection of Chaos into the would-be new god and Anathemas eat that and turn it into Light and heat, so they can't turn into a Chaos God. No, the Anathema will just become a normal God of Mankind and it is what the Ork Gods wanted, a Sibling to adopt.
I saw wide stupefied looks as the War Machines ceased acting like One and they started thinking like priests, for few expect the orks to be cunning and those that don't are always surprised when it happens and now every single one of them is surprised. Everyone is always surprised when the species who have Half of their Pantheon specifically meant to hit you when you don't expect it, actually hit you when you don't expect it.
My siblings and fellow priests had just come to the same conclusion I have after reading that passage and the Warhammer lore and knowing what we know, and that is that Gork and Mork outmaneuvered us. They learned to play 'Throw and Catch' or 'Give and Take' as it is commonly called in social situations as humans insists on calling the same thing different things depending on the context when they are comfortable and the other way around when they are feeling petty.
They arranged somehow, by whatever weird nonsense the Old Ones smashed into their skulls for humanity to create its own Father in the Emperor, then when they have him ready they'll stop being forced to fight each other and start fighting us, for as the orks remind anyone that bothers to ask them why they have two gods.
'If we don't have two gods, who are they going to fight?'
The answer to that question is 'a new sibling or the Divine of their friends' or failing that 'Everything Else', because there is one god anyone with a brain and a pair of working eyes will be able to see in the near future and be willing to fight against all comers and it is the God Emperor of Mankind. I can see why we decided to try and get the Locusts to eat everything in that timeline, as we quite literally do not have another choice if the Anathema becomes the God Emperor of Mankind.
This is why we don't want the orks to learn more from humanity, for they learned how to play various games from them and are turning themselves more like Man and Man more like them and both of them are perfectly happy to kill anything that is not themselves or their friends and we are neither and have never been either.
The only things that want the Anathema to be a God is humanity and the orks, and everyone else wants him dead or to succeed in whatever scheme he has that would prevent it from becoming a god, for all of the Anathemas' problems started when his people wanted him to be a God and it all continued to get worse when the orks agreed and both decided to make it happen in the single most Obscene act of Syncretism or better said Divine Marriage in Existence one could make it happen in.
Chaos ate humanity's gods that humanity did not kill themselves and the Anathema is now on a Crusade, a Holy War against Holiness to prevent the orks from getting their way and the twin bastards 'Gave' Mankind a God and now they will 'Take' a Sibling.
Nobody trusts Eldar or Humanity when we tell them how two souls and minds in one body are capable of Obscene quantities of Nonsense, and they're capable of it even if they are not in the same body anymore and why we're very scared of them and will not provoke them.
Every single civilization, species, Divinity or anything in-between except the Necrons that is aware of it decided they'd rather kill Humanity when they could than let them merge with the Krorks, and Gork and Mork told us that we wouldn't be avoiding Gorkamorka by doing so, but will instead cause its rebirth and so we stopped, but the Others didn't get the message and humanity killed them or is in the process of killing them off for good, for they like us do not suffer treachery and betrayal to their detriment, but we were never friends and so we did not betray them, which is the only reason we're still on speaking terms.
We did not tell the Necrons that their old trick will not work against the Krorks for a simple reason, we expected betrayal and all our dealings with other species have at least two catches with more being added the less we like them.
Catch One is always that we need to be Alive to help you and Catch Two is always that we don't need to be Alive to beat the shit out of you and make you regret double-crossing us, for we have our own fail safes to make sure you regret betraying us. We add more as needed depending on how much we like you and against the Necrons, for their glorious trickery that killed the Old Ones and the immense amount of Respect we had for them for that, we only had three catches for closing the connection with the Warp, exterminating all remaining Eldar in Existence that they can find but staying out of the Webway and leaving those there alone then accepting to be our Vassals when we're back to refurbish our homes.
1. We are not telling them that their tricks won't work against the Krorks again so they can't run before its too late in case we're dead and they betrayed us, because if we're dying we're taking them down with us.
2. We will only give them the 'Golden Bodies' we promised them only if we are alive after they helped kill Slaanesh.
3. They are only getting helped if Slaanesh dies for good and we got rid of Boredom, for if they and we fail to kill her we won't be able to help them or care for treaties.
Now to figure out how Trazyn decided to get out of that deal and why, because it was quite literally the most generous deal we gave to anyone that is not us, but first I need to make sure my fellow priests understood what I tried to teach the War Machines.
"I hope you understand why our sister fucked up." I told to my fellow priests again.
Everyone with a Divine tried to kill humanity, some when it was at its Apex, others when it was down and all failed, and thus humanity considers everyone else enemies they have to Play against by default and won't trust the friendship of others, for even their friends betrayed them when they were down too and now our sister tried to pretend to friendship we lacked after we tried to kill them, pretend they are Young again and that they forgot, and they asked the pettiest and most Murderous of its future leaders for an Alliance, while they insulted him and pretended to be friends and left only trinkets to prove it.
If they left some armies and fleets to help reconquer the galaxy with, that would have been something else, but they left one Eldar there and they probably knew little and could do little to help.
I would have pretended to go with that deal then pretend it didn't happen if we died out of spite alone if I was that Insulted and in his place, so I won't judge him for it too harshly, for I understand exactly what he's thinking and can sympathize.
The Anathema is more willing to overlook his emotions when needed, and even if he is inconsistent about it he tries to keep to his word. Malcador is more War Machine than Man in how his mind works and it is no wonder he decided to just pretend it didn't happen, act like he 'mostly kept to the deal' if we weren't still kicking and see if he can't weasel out of it, especially as what we asked him benefits his and his friend's plan and he can just pretend we did not explain things properly when coming to the negotiation's table with an actual treaty they recognize and hold it against us for more concessions. Handshake deals and verbal agreements can only happen if there is some measure of Trust between participants and we have exactly zero between the two of us. No, zero trust would be better than what we have for we are in the Negatives as far as Trust goes but trying to count a negative emotion helps no one.
We might as well have whistled what we wanted to happen and it would have been more legally binding than what we got.
"We acted on trust we did not possess and did not offer a deal in an appropriately respectful matter they can understand and recognize as such while we insulted them with each word and now their levels of trust of us is even lower." The brother chosen as speaker for the rest said.
"Yes, we also need to send a marriage gift to Malcador if he did get married to the clone of our nephew." I said with a grin.
The rest grinned back and I am very glad that my siblings can be just as petty as I am, as I'm sure that the widespread announcement of the first political marriage between the son of an Eldar Priest and one of the Three Individuals that rule the Birth World of Humanity will be very well received by the newlyweds and their families. Just because I sympathized does not mean I won't hold it against him for I am a petty man too, for I am part Man and just as Petty when my survival and that of who I love is on the line.
"My husband, isn't this Malcador a man? How is he going to be married to a clone of a Nephew?" My wife asked.
I was expecting that question the moment I uttered the word 'married'.
I looked at her blue eyes with love in my heart and eyes again as I sang.
"My love, Marriage among humans is different than that among Eldar, as they have many reasons for it, and while it is done primarily between man and woman it does not strictly need to be so depending on the reason each civilization expects the marriage to happen for. If the only or the main reason the Marriage happens is the passing down of Genes or Inheritance then it is indeed only between Man and Woman, but if it is between two individuals that wish to 'Play together against the world' and make it official, then it does not need to be between man and woman as long as the two individuals consider themselves equals. Marriage is very confusing even for Mankind and they're the ones having to live with it." I explained and it was the truth.
Marriage made more sense as a human, but the more I thought and looked at it as an Eldar the less I wanted to bother with trying to understand that nonsense, so I stopped trying to and decided I will marry only as Eldar do, for it is the one thing that is simpler about us than it is about Man.
Tricking each other into being the reason you return home for, or the reason you go out and fight against anything that will come and try to kill you and getting some children out of it is a perfectly simple and valid reason for marriage. Human marriage and its nonsense can both go jump off a cliff and survive it, for both have survived worse and somehow they are still just as confusing.
I'll need to kill a lot of things to make sure my and my siblings children are safe and I'll start with Eldar, then see if I can't go kill some gods and see if that doesn't make me feel safer and I can always Murder more if that doesn't help.
My wife nodded but she did not ask for further questions on the topic, for I quite frankly had no answers to give her. I gave her the grand total of my knowledge on Human Marriage and I have nothing else on it, for I was never married myself as a Man.
My siblings returned with food and we all sang in gratitude as we ate some more during the break.
My wife and my younger siblings ate for pleasure, while the rest of us ate and drank to get our bodies to recover, for the Priests of Hoeth are on our last legs.
Too many of us fell asleep and were taken to Obscurity to give the rest of us more time.
"What happened with Trazyn? We gave him a good deal and some nephews informed us he might have broken it." I said as I fed my wife some strange looking yellow grapes.
They tasted like sweet lemons and she seemed to like it when I threw some in the air and had her catch them without hands so I did that a lot and she continued to smile and laugh as I did it and sent me lots of love.
"He went mad or at least pretended to go mad and forgot it, and so did every single one of those that stayed awake during their sleep. The necrons don't even know they fought us a second time and think we were just idiots that left them to sleep or couldn't find them in 65 million years and don't even know that they even have a Triarch alive. They think they just disappeared when the Silent King left too and the Triarch Praetorians rule what passes for the council of their leadership. They don't seem to think that their systems worked as intended and awakened them when they programmed them to and they just went to sleep again.
Trazyn also thinks or pretends to be just a Necron Overlord even as he does not realize no other necron is capable of his body snatching nonsense and some of his other tricks and instincts. He also continues adding to his museum and does not realize he has no more space to add to it and does not notice as his servants make some." He continued and my heart bled in sympathy for the treacherous bastard.
I wished to call bullshit on that, but 60 million years of being Awake is going to leave a mark, and all of us can understand that.
"Do we vote on if we keep them in contempt of breaking their deal, or if we act as if they betrayed us? As hosts and those that called for the vote we won't vote as is tradition." I asked.
If Trazyn truly lost it then yeah I'll feel bad if we just hold it against him, for his Gallery is Legendary as it is one of the Greatest Wonders of the Great Wheel and the last one standing and we did not have the heart to destroy it in the Vassals War and it is the reason we did not burn it, and if he does not notice his own servants are taking things from it to make more room then nobody here believes he actually went back on our deal. The man just loves history that much.
"We vote." He said and I nodded.
"All in favor of holding him in contempt?" Nine votes.
"All in favor of acting as if he betrayed us?" One vote, the rest abstained.
Some abstained but that is fine, as it's not like it matters much when we have a majority.
"The Followers of Hoeth have agreed by majority vote to keep Trazyn the Infinite and his species in contempt of breaking our treaty, and as such we are officially at war again."
Holding him in contempt means we have to kill him and kill all his people, for that Treaty was the Treaty that kept them from being killed off. It basically means that the circumstances of the treaty no longer apply due to their actions and as such the treaty is null and there are no hard feeling between us. Betraying us makes it personal and will have us destroy all they hold dear too and none of us wish to actually Destroy the Galleries of Solemnance as they're the Largest and most Complete repository of knowledge in the galaxy that holds authentic pre-War in Heaven artifacts.
We'll just do as Scholars do, and loot it and we're sure Hoeth will like us refurbishing his new White Tower with the originals we took from Trazyn and not merely the copies we made by Treaty when he's back.
I'm sure Trazyn will appreciate the professional courtesy too when we tell him about it, as it doesn't matter if he tricked us or not, for we'll trick ourselves into the answer we want and we want to loot all he has, so we'll pretend he forgot our deal and did not betray us for it helps us more. Professional Courtesy among fellow Scholars only means we're polite and try to find a reason to loot all that the other scholar owns and knows, not that we won't shank each other for knowledge.
We shank each other for less after all.
And besides, the necrons are idiots that bitch and moan when you don't give them what they want because they are rude and then stab you in the back when you do give it to them. Their fate is entirely on them and nobody will cry for them as we won't and we'll be the only ones to remember them in time.
I continued eating and I am glad I now have all my organs even if not all of them are functioning. I can feel the Followers of Hoec stirring and hear the Song and Dance of the Troupes of Cegorach as they entertain my and my wife's people and they outnumber those of Hoec.
There are twice the number of Followers of Hoec on this world than there are Followers of Hoeth and now there are 700 Harlequins of Cegorach on the World of Clashing Blades and are armed to the teeth and ready to fight and while they won't intervene in the ritual they will defend us regardless of what happens, for Cegorach has just learned his siblings are alive and while he can't come as he can't pass through the Veil he can and will defend us now that he knows we live and are all in one place.
I ate a few more fruits and there are now 707 Followers of Cegorach on this world, more are coming.
The fool and his children are far too loyal and now we need to prevent him from going to War with Hoec. We don't need that nonsense, we need them to continue doing their duties or pretend to do so as they escape, not squabble over our lives.
"Let's finish our meal, then I'll finish my tale as we need to deal with family and I need to go deal with their failed project Vect, and we need to see if they love the Handmaidens we made for them, for they are very loyal and work too hard and they need some rest and friends unless you have something else you need my help with." I said in between bites.
I wish to be able to see before I need to speak again, for I wish to look upon my wife with both my eyes and soul and I still can't see with one of those.
"All our remaining projects relate to Slaanesh, and the Divine wish for you to bother with something else brother and we'll handle it now. We'll even relocate your world to wherever you need to as thanks for the gifts you gave us." The speaker of the priests said and I thanked him for it.
Good, no more nonsense I need to worry with, all I need is deal is with the failed king the Harlequins tried to make and then I can see what we can do about my former people as Slaanesh dies, for it is too late now to kill her before birth, and as she only has one strike she won't be as reckless as before. My gambit was the last one for Murdering her before birth.
"Gifts?" My wife asked while grinning, she did love gifts and I have gifted her quite a lovely show filled with suspense and twists and turns.
It'll have to do for leaving her alone with my children as I go keep the Divine from killing us all again and my wife gives them the orders I asked her to give them and that I keep giving them and they refuse.
"Yes my dear, my siblings and I gave them some gifts, some… sleeping aids, other medicine and tools and how to repair and make their own while you weren't looking as it wouldn't do to receive family without gifts." I said slyly.
All of them showcased the small tablets that hold my gun-sword and the crystals we encrypted with the knowledge of their making, for they are family and so we are allowed to teach them all we know.
"But I didn't give them anything." She pouted and my heart melted.
"Don't worry my love, I gave them some gifts from both of our hearts.' I said softly.
I did, I gave them my Silence, for if the Fool with gray Eyes and the Fool with Eyes that are yellow, orange and brown think I haven't noticed they're my and my siblings descendants that their mothers are pregnant with, then I can assure them that they are wrong.
I can feel the souls in Marsa and Sian that formed in their wombs and they match those of the two souls that abstained, for they are family and thus hosts and can't vote and they did not greet their family as such.
The greatest gift my wife and I can give them is Pretending to Ignorance of this fact, for they tricked their mother and queen and aunt into giving a lighter punishment than they should have and all of them know it and know that I am very angry with them. I can't and won't do anything about it, as they have already been punished and I won't go against my wife on this matter, for she will be the one looking after the five fools as I trust her with looking after them, and I have to go alone to help Vect stop being a failure and fix the mess the Harlequins made of him, for they know nothing about making a king and while I know little of it myself as I was tricked into making a queen, I at least know that you need to teach kings what they need to know and do, not rely on them finding out and being surprised when they start thinking that becoming a lesser Divine is better than being a King.
I don't have the right to give them a punishment other than that which my wife already decided, for she will be the one to look after them when I leave, for I am not taking my pregnant younger sister on a planet held by the cults, nor am I separating them from their children or each other, and I won't do that, especially when I need them to stay and look over my plans for the Skin Walkers and the Sirens.
I closed my right fist softly when my wife was not looking as I looked at our descendants, they know that I know and will say nothing of it or punish them for it and that is Gift enough especially as the heartbreak of their mother and aunt would hurt just as much.
My eyes regenerated fully as I finished eating and I put my cobalt blue glasses on my queen's head and she blushed as I kissed her and did not ask of the gift I gave them.
Our souls became as one and she was already angry and hurt at the trickery as she noticed only after the fact but before I pointed it out to her.
Marriage turns us into the ideal partner of the other, as we become that which we trick each other into being and neither of us ever thought that those that wronged us should get away with it if we can help it and our marriage hasn't changed us in that regard, but we will make an exception for family, this time at least.
Next time they try to pretend they are not family we will not be so indulgent of their trickery.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I noticed the familial resemblance during the vote and I was angry and hurt at their trickery.
'Will I be a bad mother, have I been a bad mother?' I cried inside and yet my face remained empty of such feelings as I allowed my flesh to only show the love for my husband as I coiled tighter around him.
My husband tried to console me, but our souls are one and I knew he was more guessing than stating fact, for my children pretended to not be family and that hurt, for it could mean that they were playing a prank on us or they have Disinherited us, for this is what disinheriting someone means.
Disinheriting is when you either pretend you do not know your family as they help you or you pretend they are not family as you do and it is a cruel prank to play on one's parents that don't even know what they have done wrong and that loved them still. It is only one step removed from Forsaking someone, which is when you pretend you don't know or have ever loved someone until it becomes truth.
'My love, they are probably Time Walkers and cannot speak to us properly due to some issues related to time travel. I do not understand how it works, but please do not cry, for it hurts me too to look at them like that, but it is the most likely explanation as I doubt our children are so cruel and the Time Walkers have strange habits and goals and our marriage was ordained by one and it was far from normal.' My love sang as he prepared to start singing the tale of how we met and we reached where we are.
It hurt, it hurt to be punished for something I did not do yet but I decided to allow my husband to trick me to deal with the pain, for I dearly wish for him to be right and for our pain to be wrong.
'It must be true then my love.' I sang and tried to trick myself into believing it.
Both of us sang in half truths at best but we decided to believe them, as we'll find out if they are true later and continue to love our children regardless for our children which have not been born have not wronged us and I promised myself I would love them more for it.
The followers of Cegorach had to pretend they had disinherited their uncles and aunts and they can't even do that right, for my husband told me that the Troupes of Cegorach march in the largest Warhost they've ever fielded and continue to grow in numbers to make sure their Uncles and Aunts are not dying and the Followers of Hoec prepare to end them even if it costs them their lives, for both fools have hope in their hearts that a solution is at hand and all they need is do their duties and all will be well.
The Followers of Hoec enforce Obscurity on the failure of the priests to observe ritual and maintain Coherency and the Troupes of Cegorach have decided that they had enough of that Nonsense and don't care about their edicts or those of their Grandfather, as Cegorach has decided that their last Uncles and Aunts and his Brothers and Sisters won't die today and that is Final.
My husband had to tell me this as I cannot look at anything but his play while it happens so that I may grant them safety in my own realm, for I am the only one that can do so.
I uncoiled from my husband, went up and moved slowly to my throne like all the other times to allow them to do their nonsense behind my back and I once again coiled on my throne which felt so cold now but it will get warmer as I stay on it.
My husband started to sing again.
" My second Arc I have called 'The Clashing of the Blades and Seas' and it had started with the end of something and with the beginning of something else.
My trek to the World of Clashing Blades was unlike anything I had experienced in this life, for it started with a funeral. The Blades of Valor that survived the Immunization from Boredom of my too talented Apprentice had made a request as they died of their princely brother which had taught the siblings they have never met to sing as they did and because of this I gave those too loyal fools a funeral, for they had let slip the Masquerade that the pieces of my soul I split to create them managed to evolve Intelligence, for my Slave boy which made good tea taught them to sing by accident in the same way we re-learned to sing as well.
My blades proved beyond a shadow of doubt that they are intelligent and that there is a reason for their deception but I would learn of it later.
In the first days of my presence on this world I had learned to hate this world, for it was ruled by my enemies and by retards that shunned Strength and did not show Love to those who are Mighty as is their right and the Strong were kept weak by the betrayal of their loyal servants as they tried to help the weakest.
I myself have benefited from the Maton changing definitions, so I cannot cast Judgement for I owe them this much, as I would not have escaped my Birth World without it, but here I saw the consequences of it when I and my siblings stopped the woman who is now my wife from Sacrificing herself for her people. She was doing so, for her people which are Strong send their strongest to sacrifice themselves so that they can live and call them noble for it and fulfill their every whim and pamper them for keeping them Safe as is Right.
Those the eldar called beast, acted Wiser than that which claims to be Eldar but is retarded, and I did not realize it that it was by design until I found myself with one wife on each arm and more adopted children to adore, for my Elder Sister which fell asleep and did not wake up arranged for trickery on me and gifted me a World to Burn for my wives and gifted my wives a world to rule once I finished Burning it then drowning it in its own screams.
I miss a woman who knew my own heart better than me and which I had never met, but it is fine, for I will honor her by naming my firstborn daughter after her to honor the Godmother neither of us ever knew and I have a… suspicion… that my Godmother will make me regret and love this act too, for my family does love their time shenanigans on their Gun-Sword who can only make royalty and the gods howl and cry.
In here I was forced to pick up the local rites which disgusted me, but I had to pick up, for I had no intention of becoming what the Empire calls Unpious and those outside of it call Outcasts, for they are bait for things I have allowed myself to see here and that is the Neverborn of Slaanesh.
The Unpious are rallying cries for them, for they tell them that the rituals of the Eldar are at their end and if too many gather then they will be hunted by their enemies who will cheer as the Rituals finally come down and they can take the love which we have denied their Creator.
For a Damned Priest to become unpious is to die for it, for no god will protect us from our enemies.
As such I was forced to trickery for the two factions of this world with princes had settled on a ritual to their existence and in that ritual, those that wish to participate in The Great Argument on the nature of the Eldar people and their relationship with the New Divine have to Philosophize without armor and dressed as those that founded their Home and House and I hit a conundrum, for in order to do so I would need to wear Armor, for the Laughing Blade wore armor. It took me little to find the workaround of wearing a holo-field that made me look as if I wore her armor then wear the rest of her outfit to make it look as it should and honor both her and my Father as the rituals of this world demand.
The local Eldar proved to be retarded and called me unpious, for they could not see I was a priest and I could not tell them, so I killed all I could see that insulted me until they stopped and I found an Eldar that could see I was to be Respected.
In the city of the Third Shatter Blade an eldar named First cut lived and he was a child-rearer and thus was naturally wiser than most and educated idiots and fools alike and the first man to take his lessons to heart was a man whose heart was made from the same material as the Gun part of my Sword which is copper which is the kindest and softest metal that could still hold a blade and he was a man just as kind as I, for he was Caideam Caiir, the kindest man I have ever seen that is not myself and he begged me to teach his son to not kill as he Sings.
I had found a foolish world which did not understand the Story of the Hero Taraithe Tagasta and the Smiling Mask, and yet the kind man still wished to learn it and was willing to accept me into his home and give his son to a Damned to teach to help his family and I was intrigued and thought it would be the work of days to teach a boy a trick.
The boy's soul was made of Molten Iron and while it had cast himself in the shape of kindness of his father he was made of Harder Metal and he decided to sacrifice his future for a chance at helping his family be whole again and I was once again surprised by a too-talented apprentice falling into my lap by the manipulations of others, but such is fine for I can sense they mean me well. And so I took it upon myself to take him as my Apprentice as I taught his city Respect for the Disrespect they threw at me.
The boy too, was wasted on Swinging a Sword but unlike my First Apprentice he was talented at it, just not as talented at it as he was at being a Priest of Khaine, which is what I had taught him to be and he started instinctively learning and acting as Khaine with such a startling speed I was getting worried that my own record at Walking-as-Divine would be beaten by my Apprentice Lanniar Narainne, son of the Copper Sword and Apprentice of the Sharp and Valorous who started to betray his people in the name of his new family that loved him as soon as he left my eyesight and helped the enemies of his culture and the people of those that accepted him and his family into their hearts by guiding the people of my wives from danger and isolation to safety and community with love and dance and song and the rituals that I taught him.
Of all of my Apprentices, Cippani Oiair was the most talented and troublesome, but it is Lanniar Narainne that I am the most fond of, for his heart and that of his father was cast in the same shape as mine and I emulated Isha and made sure the fool will not escape my family as by the time he tried to get me to stop it was too late, for my family, his servants, his family, the Divine, my vassals, my swords, my siblings and their family and more were plotting his marriage behind his back and the fool dared call my plotting the worst of it only after I stopped needing to plot, for everyone else was doing it for me.
My Apprentice if you ever read this please mark my words, for they will be written down, for I am a Priest of Hoeth boy and we are diplomats and lorekeepers and sometimes child-rearers. I make the Divine and others act for me and if you want my plans to not hit you, then you need to ask me to plan to save you from them, not stop plotting, for by the time you notice them is when I told someone else to do as I wanted and they said Yes.
You are a priest of Khaine boy, for I taught you how to act like Khaine and do things others would find regrettable and wrong for those you love. Learn to use that to your Advantage and don't expect others to act like you are or like you for what you do except your family who loves you, so you must love more people so that they love you and help you as you do things those that do not love you regret and fear.
As I taught him I also took students in my medicine peddling whom I taught the bare minimum needed to call themselves Novices in my craft and which my siblings taught more as I plotted and the fools continue to make me proud as they cure illnesses whenever they find them with Proactivity. I wish I could have taught them more, but I did not have enough time as more and more of my Siblings were going to a sleep they would not wake up from and I did not have Time to teach them as all I had the time for was teaching Novices and to get some blades to protect my wives.
The rest of my trek was spent from ground, to shore and then to sea and back as I left a world of the pious that brought me to anger, and left for a world of the Strong who are forced to be weak and I burned the world of Vermin when I saw it.
The Pious that brought me most to anger was a farseer by the name of Lammor and the only reasons he continues to live is because he granted me his blessing that allowed my wives to give Birth as they are and not as they were and have their children be born as citizens and because he is part of our gifts for Diseth Aisse. If neither of those was true he would be dead by now. I have killed all that have angered me with their insults on this world for such are its Laws, all except Lammor who angered me more than all of them combined, for he is a farseer and they do that to people.
I killed two Vermin princes and their kingdoms too, one which was a woman that was too Tardy for Respect and another which oozed with Respect and that I asked the Divine to give him a life worthy of a man who is as Sharp and Valorous as I am but was taught the wrong lessons and Tricked into Adulthood by Vermin that live among trash and they had tried to Tarnish Diamonds and as always failed.
I pray they find Prince Ceagauss Croga a life worthy of the man that came the closest to killing this Damned Priest of Apocalypse, for the man nearly achieved what few others have managed and not even the Divine have managed to surpass yet and I have decided that he deserves the chance at the Greatness he Craves. He will regret it as all fools do or he won't and he will find a mother and father that will teach him Greatness and to love it.
My Junior Priest has made his own story in the meantime and it is for him or the Divine to share it, for I am a busy man and his story is not mine to tell, for I approach the end of the Second act of my own.
As for the people of my wives? They and the story of my Second Apprentice slowly intertwine as my lovable fool teaches them the Lessons of Khaine and what they need to do in the name of their love and so I will let them say it for those that wish to hear it, for as that story was being written I prepared for my birth and funeral and took upon the old Profession of the House of the Laughing Blade and engaged in Diplomacy.
It took me little to get the Pantheon a new Vassal Species, for they are Loyal and Tenacious people that if the Blades I gifted my wives speak truth about, are Wise too. I am not convinced yet, but they have lived among a wise people and I have not seen them acting in a way to convince me that they are something other than Wise, so I will treat them as such until they prove me wrong.
They are Skin Walkers, a people with middling shapeshifting abilities they can use only when taking the skins of others with any skill and it is them that under the supervision of my siblings have built my Tomb and guarded me as I fought against the new Divine in a battle of Wits and Law and as is Tradition the Priest won, for to lose would mean Death and so we win or we die as the Old Ones wished of their creations.
The fact we sometimes lose and have not faced Extinction for it is the reason why I believe the Old Ones are disappointed in us for they are Old Blades and they are Old fashioned and don't care for the nonsense that we keep coming back after we die and don't stay dead when killed, but Eldar do love to not be what others think of us and trick them until they are what we think of them, but let us not talk of those that died so long ago and instead talk of those that have died recently.
I pranked my wives and their people and those who had sworn themselves to me as my vassals into thinking that I am one of them and I did so for the New Divine decided to Whine and Hit me for Mocking and Pranking her when I made her think I was weaker than I really was and because I stole a daughter from her.
She had to stay in line however as I was already in the middle of Pranking my family and the Pranking of Family is a Divinely Protected Right and it is more so than the Right of the Divine to Prank Mortals.
Slaanesh was foolish and thought she could abuse that rule too, for she has been learning from Priests to mock them as is the right of all little sisters, but she was not interested in being a Little Sister, no she wanted More and she wanted power over me and so we fought.
Two strikes she wished to hit me with but I used to hit her, first when she decided to throw a Tantrum which I fed to my failed Son who burned happily and kindly the Vermin his father fed to him and even as he failed to reach my expectations of being able to cook the Divine, he could still scar the souls of Mortals with Terror and Pain, but I didn't need him for that for I could do so myself. My son did not care for it, he did not care for what I wished of him or what I needed for he just Respectfully asked me to let him Burn what he could and I was moved by his sincerity and kindness and Respect that I allowed him to help me Burn the World of Clashing Blades for his Adoptive Mother and Queen as I flooded it and my son continued to be a filial son that made his father proud even as he failed to be what I wished of him, for I made him from the Greatest Flames Humanity has ever Produced which they call Phosphex and those of Khaine as is the right of my soul which is born from the Union of the souls of Man and that of Eldar and yet he failed to live up to either of the potential of its constituent parts.
As I has just finished being lowered into my Tomb, I gave The New Divine two hits before she could notice for entering my Tomb with the Unborn and Entering the Tomb of a Priest to desecrate it and thus brought her to one strike away from Death to the cheers of my servants, my blades and the Divines that watched and celebrated her Demise and I gloated at her.
But Slaanesh learned from the Tricks and Nonsense I have heaped upon her and decided to adopt my own Mother who I had killed from the one reality where I wasn't in but have come from, and thus created the Paradox that made me whole and had me be Born after I had Legally Died.
My new family's love for Time Nonsense continues to amaze and amuse me the more I am subjected to it and as I learn to heap more of it on Reality so does my family learn to heap more of it on me, but such is life for I am an Eldar and so are they and we will rise above this as we have faced worse and it is us that Sing across the Stars now and not the Nonsense which brought us down.
My half, which had only the Soul of an Eldar and a body born in Obscurity was an adorable boy who loved his mother and who all of my servants that served me in life and death adored.
Those who had once been Skin Walkers but I have turned Eldar adored his antics for they were those of a cute boy trying to avenge his mother and they could respect that for it spoke to their souls to hunt and kill Eldar that threaten their families and loved ones and to go alone and hunt an Eldar is what made one a Hero to their people.
And so I was born and died and had my soul gifted to the Divine by the one who put it in a Soul stone.
It was however my Swords of Valor that surprised me with their cheers as they saw the boy come ever closer from desecrating my Tomb, for they cheered the closer he, the little unpious soul surrounded by enough Neverborn to kill stars, got closer to me, for now they have the prey they have been desperately trying to lure to their deaths for years right where they wanted it and they were where they could not run from or fight back, for they were in the Tomb of a Priest and as they are not People or even Animals they are Tools and Tools cannot act without someone to wield them and Slaanesh gave this tool to her Grandson to kill his possible future self and once he lost they could kill them at their leisure and the tens of thousands of my cures for that which thought it could feast on Sleeping Young or Lost Children had finally found the Disease they were meant to cure and once I had won and Imprisoned my past self into a Soul Stone I gifted to the Divine, the Cure started Attacking the Disease for the Disease was now a tool and it could do nothing, lest whoever wielded it be Struck by me and die for it.
Now my tools feast on the Neverborn and protect The Tomb of Bessar Agail which he built for his own Mother and twin soul to his own daughter, for the two Twin Souls plotted as Twins and Triplets Always do, for they want to be Reunited after Death and made it everyone else's problem as they United families across Time and Space.
Thus ends the second act of Forsaken and I prepare to write the Third Act of the first Play I have made and whose name you will learn as I write it and I apologize that I must finish it so quickly but the Followers of Cegorach continue to be annoying as always, and there's a thousand of them that wish to bother me today and I need to go deal with them before they start breeding, for it seems they are weak to the Wiles of the Handmaidens I made for them and I think some have already gotten married and I need to laugh at them for it.
"It is the 41st Millennium. For more than a hundred centuries the Emperor of Mankind has sat immobile on the Golden Throne of Earth. He is the master of mankind by the will of the gods and master of a million worlds by the might of His inexhaustible armies."
This is the first part of the intro everyone which has read any book about Warhammer 40k knows and Nobody will tell you that those gods are not the Chaos Gods they're talking about, for they want the Anathema dead and have been always trying to kill him and not make him a god, even if they are not strictly opposed to it. They've eaten human gods before, so that might give them an advantage if it stops him from being an Anathema.
They even sent Lorgar to try and end this faith by getting him to write a book refuting it, and he is the man which created the Holy Book the 'Lectitio Divinitatus' that the Imperium uses to justify his Divinity, to try and see if they can't stop it and he failed miserably.
Being worshiped enough won't turn you into a new Chaos God, as that requires direct and willing intervention and the injection of Chaos into the would-be new god and Anathemas eat that and turn it into Light and heat, so they can't turn into a Chaos God. No, the Anathema will just become a normal God of Mankind and it is what the Ork Gods wanted, a Sibling to adopt.
I saw wide stupefied looks as the War Machines ceased acting like One and they started thinking like priests, for few expect the orks to be cunning and those that don't are always surprised when it happens and now every single one of them is surprised. Everyone is always surprised when the species who have Half of their Pantheon specifically meant to hit you when you don't expect it, actually hit you when you don't expect it.
My siblings and fellow priests had just come to the same conclusion I have after reading that passage and the Warhammer lore and knowing what we know, and that is that Gork and Mork outmaneuvered us. They learned to play 'Throw and Catch' or 'Give and Take' as it is commonly called in social situations as humans insists on calling the same thing different things depending on the context when they are comfortable and the other way around when they are feeling petty.
They arranged somehow, by whatever weird nonsense the Old Ones smashed into their skulls for humanity to create its own Father in the Emperor, then when they have him ready they'll stop being forced to fight each other and start fighting us, for as the orks remind anyone that bothers to ask them why they have two gods.
'If we don't have two gods, who are they going to fight?'
The answer to that question is 'a new sibling or the Divine of their friends' or failing that 'Everything Else', because there is one god anyone with a brain and a pair of working eyes will be able to see in the near future and be willing to fight against all comers and it is the God Emperor of Mankind. I can see why we decided to try and get the Locusts to eat everything in that timeline, as we quite literally do not have another choice if the Anathema becomes the God Emperor of Mankind.
This is why we don't want the orks to learn more from humanity, for they learned how to play various games from them and are turning themselves more like Man and Man more like them and both of them are perfectly happy to kill anything that is not themselves or their friends and we are neither and have never been either.
The only things that want the Anathema to be a God is humanity and the orks, and everyone else wants him dead or to succeed in whatever scheme he has that would prevent it from becoming a god, for all of the Anathemas' problems started when his people wanted him to be a God and it all continued to get worse when the orks agreed and both decided to make it happen in the single most Obscene act of Syncretism or better said Divine Marriage in Existence one could make it happen in.
Chaos ate humanity's gods that humanity did not kill themselves and the Anathema is now on a Crusade, a Holy War against Holiness to prevent the orks from getting their way and the twin bastards 'Gave' Mankind a God and now they will 'Take' a Sibling.
Nobody trusts Eldar or Humanity when we tell them how two souls and minds in one body are capable of Obscene quantities of Nonsense, and they're capable of it even if they are not in the same body anymore and why we're very scared of them and will not provoke them.
Every single civilization, species, Divinity or anything in-between except the Necrons that is aware of it decided they'd rather kill Humanity when they could than let them merge with the Krorks, and Gork and Mork told us that we wouldn't be avoiding Gorkamorka by doing so, but will instead cause its rebirth and so we stopped, but the Others didn't get the message and humanity killed them or is in the process of killing them off for good, for they like us do not suffer treachery and betrayal to their detriment, but we were never friends and so we did not betray them, which is the only reason we're still on speaking terms.
We did not tell the Necrons that their old trick will not work against the Krorks for a simple reason, we expected betrayal and all our dealings with other species have at least two catches with more being added the less we like them.
Catch One is always that we need to be Alive to help you and Catch Two is always that we don't need to be Alive to beat the shit out of you and make you regret double-crossing us, for we have our own fail safes to make sure you regret betraying us. We add more as needed depending on how much we like you and against the Necrons, for their glorious trickery that killed the Old Ones and the immense amount of Respect we had for them for that, we only had three catches for closing the connection with the Warp, exterminating all remaining Eldar in Existence that they can find but staying out of the Webway and leaving those there alone then accepting to be our Vassals when we're back to refurbish our homes.
1. We are not telling them that their tricks won't work against the Krorks again so they can't run before its too late in case we're dead and they betrayed us, because if we're dying we're taking them down with us.
2. We will only give them the 'Golden Bodies' we promised them only if we are alive after they helped kill Slaanesh.
3. They are only getting helped if Slaanesh dies for good and we got rid of Boredom, for if they and we fail to kill her we won't be able to help them or care for treaties.
Now to figure out how Trazyn decided to get out of that deal and why, because it was quite literally the most generous deal we gave to anyone that is not us, but first I need to make sure my fellow priests understood what I tried to teach the War Machines.
"I hope you understand why our sister fucked up." I told to my fellow priests again.
Everyone with a Divine tried to kill humanity, some when it was at its Apex, others when it was down and all failed, and thus humanity considers everyone else enemies they have to Play against by default and won't trust the friendship of others, for even their friends betrayed them when they were down too and now our sister tried to pretend to friendship we lacked after we tried to kill them, pretend they are Young again and that they forgot, and they asked the pettiest and most Murderous of its future leaders for an Alliance, while they insulted him and pretended to be friends and left only trinkets to prove it.
If they left some armies and fleets to help reconquer the galaxy with, that would have been something else, but they left one Eldar there and they probably knew little and could do little to help.
I would have pretended to go with that deal then pretend it didn't happen if we died out of spite alone if I was that Insulted and in his place, so I won't judge him for it too harshly, for I understand exactly what he's thinking and can sympathize.
The Anathema is more willing to overlook his emotions when needed, and even if he is inconsistent about it he tries to keep to his word. Malcador is more War Machine than Man in how his mind works and it is no wonder he decided to just pretend it didn't happen, act like he 'mostly kept to the deal' if we weren't still kicking and see if he can't weasel out of it, especially as what we asked him benefits his and his friend's plan and he can just pretend we did not explain things properly when coming to the negotiation's table with an actual treaty they recognize and hold it against us for more concessions. Handshake deals and verbal agreements can only happen if there is some measure of Trust between participants and we have exactly zero between the two of us. No, zero trust would be better than what we have for we are in the Negatives as far as Trust goes but trying to count a negative emotion helps no one.
We might as well have whistled what we wanted to happen and it would have been more legally binding than what we got.
"We acted on trust we did not possess and did not offer a deal in an appropriately respectful matter they can understand and recognize as such while we insulted them with each word and now their levels of trust of us is even lower." The brother chosen as speaker for the rest said.
"Yes, we also need to send a marriage gift to Malcador if he did get married to the clone of our nephew." I said with a grin.
The rest grinned back and I am very glad that my siblings can be just as petty as I am, as I'm sure that the widespread announcement of the first political marriage between the son of an Eldar Priest and one of the Three Individuals that rule the Birth World of Humanity will be very well received by the newlyweds and their families. Just because I sympathized does not mean I won't hold it against him for I am a petty man too, for I am part Man and just as Petty when my survival and that of who I love is on the line.
"My husband, isn't this Malcador a man? How is he going to be married to a clone of a Nephew?" My wife asked.
I was expecting that question the moment I uttered the word 'married'.
I looked at her blue eyes with love in my heart and eyes again as I sang.
"My love, Marriage among humans is different than that among Eldar, as they have many reasons for it, and while it is done primarily between man and woman it does not strictly need to be so depending on the reason each civilization expects the marriage to happen for. If the only or the main reason the Marriage happens is the passing down of Genes or Inheritance then it is indeed only between Man and Woman, but if it is between two individuals that wish to 'Play together against the world' and make it official, then it does not need to be between man and woman as long as the two individuals consider themselves equals. Marriage is very confusing even for Mankind and they're the ones having to live with it." I explained and it was the truth.
Marriage made more sense as a human, but the more I thought and looked at it as an Eldar the less I wanted to bother with trying to understand that nonsense, so I stopped trying to and decided I will marry only as Eldar do, for it is the one thing that is simpler about us than it is about Man.
Tricking each other into being the reason you return home for, or the reason you go out and fight against anything that will come and try to kill you and getting some children out of it is a perfectly simple and valid reason for marriage. Human marriage and its nonsense can both go jump off a cliff and survive it, for both have survived worse and somehow they are still just as confusing.
I'll need to kill a lot of things to make sure my and my siblings children are safe and I'll start with Eldar, then see if I can't go kill some gods and see if that doesn't make me feel safer and I can always Murder more if that doesn't help.
My wife nodded but she did not ask for further questions on the topic, for I quite frankly had no answers to give her. I gave her the grand total of my knowledge on Human Marriage and I have nothing else on it, for I was never married myself as a Man.
My siblings returned with food and we all sang in gratitude as we ate some more during the break.
My wife and my younger siblings ate for pleasure, while the rest of us ate and drank to get our bodies to recover, for the Priests of Hoeth are on our last legs.
Too many of us fell asleep and were taken to Obscurity to give the rest of us more time.
"What happened with Trazyn? We gave him a good deal and some nephews informed us he might have broken it." I said as I fed my wife some strange looking yellow grapes.
They tasted like sweet lemons and she seemed to like it when I threw some in the air and had her catch them without hands so I did that a lot and she continued to smile and laugh as I did it and sent me lots of love.
"He went mad or at least pretended to go mad and forgot it, and so did every single one of those that stayed awake during their sleep. The necrons don't even know they fought us a second time and think we were just idiots that left them to sleep or couldn't find them in 65 million years and don't even know that they even have a Triarch alive. They think they just disappeared when the Silent King left too and the Triarch Praetorians rule what passes for the council of their leadership. They don't seem to think that their systems worked as intended and awakened them when they programmed them to and they just went to sleep again.
Trazyn also thinks or pretends to be just a Necron Overlord even as he does not realize no other necron is capable of his body snatching nonsense and some of his other tricks and instincts. He also continues adding to his museum and does not realize he has no more space to add to it and does not notice as his servants make some." He continued and my heart bled in sympathy for the treacherous bastard.
I wished to call bullshit on that, but 60 million years of being Awake is going to leave a mark, and all of us can understand that.
"Do we vote on if we keep them in contempt of breaking their deal, or if we act as if they betrayed us? As hosts and those that called for the vote we won't vote as is tradition." I asked.
If Trazyn truly lost it then yeah I'll feel bad if we just hold it against him, for his Gallery is Legendary as it is one of the Greatest Wonders of the Great Wheel and the last one standing and we did not have the heart to destroy it in the Vassals War and it is the reason we did not burn it, and if he does not notice his own servants are taking things from it to make more room then nobody here believes he actually went back on our deal. The man just loves history that much.
"We vote." He said and I nodded.
"All in favor of holding him in contempt?" Nine votes.
"All in favor of acting as if he betrayed us?" One vote, the rest abstained.
Some abstained but that is fine, as it's not like it matters much when we have a majority.
"The Followers of Hoeth have agreed by majority vote to keep Trazyn the Infinite and his species in contempt of breaking our treaty, and as such we are officially at war again."
Holding him in contempt means we have to kill him and kill all his people, for that Treaty was the Treaty that kept them from being killed off. It basically means that the circumstances of the treaty no longer apply due to their actions and as such the treaty is null and there are no hard feeling between us. Betraying us makes it personal and will have us destroy all they hold dear too and none of us wish to actually Destroy the Galleries of Solemnance as they're the Largest and most Complete repository of knowledge in the galaxy that holds authentic pre-War in Heaven artifacts.
We'll just do as Scholars do, and loot it and we're sure Hoeth will like us refurbishing his new White Tower with the originals we took from Trazyn and not merely the copies we made by Treaty when he's back.
I'm sure Trazyn will appreciate the professional courtesy too when we tell him about it, as it doesn't matter if he tricked us or not, for we'll trick ourselves into the answer we want and we want to loot all he has, so we'll pretend he forgot our deal and did not betray us for it helps us more. Professional Courtesy among fellow Scholars only means we're polite and try to find a reason to loot all that the other scholar owns and knows, not that we won't shank each other for knowledge.
We shank each other for less after all.
And besides, the necrons are idiots that bitch and moan when you don't give them what they want because they are rude and then stab you in the back when you do give it to them. Their fate is entirely on them and nobody will cry for them as we won't and we'll be the only ones to remember them in time.
I continued eating and I am glad I now have all my organs even if not all of them are functioning. I can feel the Followers of Hoec stirring and hear the Song and Dance of the Troupes of Cegorach as they entertain my and my wife's people and they outnumber those of Hoec.
There are twice the number of Followers of Hoec on this world than there are Followers of Hoeth and now there are 700 Harlequins of Cegorach on the World of Clashing Blades and are armed to the teeth and ready to fight and while they won't intervene in the ritual they will defend us regardless of what happens, for Cegorach has just learned his siblings are alive and while he can't come as he can't pass through the Veil he can and will defend us now that he knows we live and are all in one place.
I ate a few more fruits and there are now 707 Followers of Cegorach on this world, more are coming.
The fool and his children are far too loyal and now we need to prevent him from going to War with Hoec. We don't need that nonsense, we need them to continue doing their duties or pretend to do so as they escape, not squabble over our lives.
"Let's finish our meal, then I'll finish my tale as we need to deal with family and I need to go deal with their failed project Vect, and we need to see if they love the Handmaidens we made for them, for they are very loyal and work too hard and they need some rest and friends unless you have something else you need my help with." I said in between bites.
I wish to be able to see before I need to speak again, for I wish to look upon my wife with both my eyes and soul and I still can't see with one of those.
"All our remaining projects relate to Slaanesh, and the Divine wish for you to bother with something else brother and we'll handle it now. We'll even relocate your world to wherever you need to as thanks for the gifts you gave us." The speaker of the priests said and I thanked him for it.
Good, no more nonsense I need to worry with, all I need is deal is with the failed king the Harlequins tried to make and then I can see what we can do about my former people as Slaanesh dies, for it is too late now to kill her before birth, and as she only has one strike she won't be as reckless as before. My gambit was the last one for Murdering her before birth.
"Gifts?" My wife asked while grinning, she did love gifts and I have gifted her quite a lovely show filled with suspense and twists and turns.
It'll have to do for leaving her alone with my children as I go keep the Divine from killing us all again and my wife gives them the orders I asked her to give them and that I keep giving them and they refuse.
"Yes my dear, my siblings and I gave them some gifts, some… sleeping aids, other medicine and tools and how to repair and make their own while you weren't looking as it wouldn't do to receive family without gifts." I said slyly.
All of them showcased the small tablets that hold my gun-sword and the crystals we encrypted with the knowledge of their making, for they are family and so we are allowed to teach them all we know.
"But I didn't give them anything." She pouted and my heart melted.
"Don't worry my love, I gave them some gifts from both of our hearts.' I said softly.
I did, I gave them my Silence, for if the Fool with gray Eyes and the Fool with Eyes that are yellow, orange and brown think I haven't noticed they're my and my siblings descendants that their mothers are pregnant with, then I can assure them that they are wrong.
I can feel the souls in Marsa and Sian that formed in their wombs and they match those of the two souls that abstained, for they are family and thus hosts and can't vote and they did not greet their family as such.
The greatest gift my wife and I can give them is Pretending to Ignorance of this fact, for they tricked their mother and queen and aunt into giving a lighter punishment than they should have and all of them know it and know that I am very angry with them. I can't and won't do anything about it, as they have already been punished and I won't go against my wife on this matter, for she will be the one looking after the five fools as I trust her with looking after them, and I have to go alone to help Vect stop being a failure and fix the mess the Harlequins made of him, for they know nothing about making a king and while I know little of it myself as I was tricked into making a queen, I at least know that you need to teach kings what they need to know and do, not rely on them finding out and being surprised when they start thinking that becoming a lesser Divine is better than being a King.
I don't have the right to give them a punishment other than that which my wife already decided, for she will be the one to look after them when I leave, for I am not taking my pregnant younger sister on a planet held by the cults, nor am I separating them from their children or each other, and I won't do that, especially when I need them to stay and look over my plans for the Skin Walkers and the Sirens.
I closed my right fist softly when my wife was not looking as I looked at our descendants, they know that I know and will say nothing of it or punish them for it and that is Gift enough especially as the heartbreak of their mother and aunt would hurt just as much.
My eyes regenerated fully as I finished eating and I put my cobalt blue glasses on my queen's head and she blushed as I kissed her and did not ask of the gift I gave them.
Our souls became as one and she was already angry and hurt at the trickery as she noticed only after the fact but before I pointed it out to her.
Marriage turns us into the ideal partner of the other, as we become that which we trick each other into being and neither of us ever thought that those that wronged us should get away with it if we can help it and our marriage hasn't changed us in that regard, but we will make an exception for family, this time at least.
Next time they try to pretend they are not family we will not be so indulgent of their trickery.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I noticed the familial resemblance during the vote and I was angry and hurt at their trickery.
'Will I be a bad mother, have I been a bad mother?' I cried inside and yet my face remained empty of such feelings as I allowed my flesh to only show the love for my husband as I coiled tighter around him.
My husband tried to console me, but our souls are one and I knew he was more guessing than stating fact, for my children pretended to not be family and that hurt, for it could mean that they were playing a prank on us or they have Disinherited us, for this is what disinheriting someone means.
Disinheriting is when you either pretend you do not know your family as they help you or you pretend they are not family as you do and it is a cruel prank to play on one's parents that don't even know what they have done wrong and that loved them still. It is only one step removed from Forsaking someone, which is when you pretend you don't know or have ever loved someone until it becomes truth.
'My love, they are probably Time Walkers and cannot speak to us properly due to some issues related to time travel. I do not understand how it works, but please do not cry, for it hurts me too to look at them like that, but it is the most likely explanation as I doubt our children are so cruel and the Time Walkers have strange habits and goals and our marriage was ordained by one and it was far from normal.' My love sang as he prepared to start singing the tale of how we met and we reached where we are.
It hurt, it hurt to be punished for something I did not do yet but I decided to allow my husband to trick me to deal with the pain, for I dearly wish for him to be right and for our pain to be wrong.
'It must be true then my love.' I sang and tried to trick myself into believing it.
Both of us sang in half truths at best but we decided to believe them, as we'll find out if they are true later and continue to love our children regardless for our children which have not been born have not wronged us and I promised myself I would love them more for it.
The followers of Cegorach had to pretend they had disinherited their uncles and aunts and they can't even do that right, for my husband told me that the Troupes of Cegorach march in the largest Warhost they've ever fielded and continue to grow in numbers to make sure their Uncles and Aunts are not dying and the Followers of Hoec prepare to end them even if it costs them their lives, for both fools have hope in their hearts that a solution is at hand and all they need is do their duties and all will be well.
The Followers of Hoec enforce Obscurity on the failure of the priests to observe ritual and maintain Coherency and the Troupes of Cegorach have decided that they had enough of that Nonsense and don't care about their edicts or those of their Grandfather, as Cegorach has decided that their last Uncles and Aunts and his Brothers and Sisters won't die today and that is Final.
My husband had to tell me this as I cannot look at anything but his play while it happens so that I may grant them safety in my own realm, for I am the only one that can do so.
I uncoiled from my husband, went up and moved slowly to my throne like all the other times to allow them to do their nonsense behind my back and I once again coiled on my throne which felt so cold now but it will get warmer as I stay on it.
My husband started to sing again.
" My second Arc I have called 'The Clashing of the Blades and Seas' and it had started with the end of something and with the beginning of something else.
My trek to the World of Clashing Blades was unlike anything I had experienced in this life, for it started with a funeral. The Blades of Valor that survived the Immunization from Boredom of my too talented Apprentice had made a request as they died of their princely brother which had taught the siblings they have never met to sing as they did and because of this I gave those too loyal fools a funeral, for they had let slip the Masquerade that the pieces of my soul I split to create them managed to evolve Intelligence, for my Slave boy which made good tea taught them to sing by accident in the same way we re-learned to sing as well.
My blades proved beyond a shadow of doubt that they are intelligent and that there is a reason for their deception but I would learn of it later.
In the first days of my presence on this world I had learned to hate this world, for it was ruled by my enemies and by retards that shunned Strength and did not show Love to those who are Mighty as is their right and the Strong were kept weak by the betrayal of their loyal servants as they tried to help the weakest.
I myself have benefited from the Maton changing definitions, so I cannot cast Judgement for I owe them this much, as I would not have escaped my Birth World without it, but here I saw the consequences of it when I and my siblings stopped the woman who is now my wife from Sacrificing herself for her people. She was doing so, for her people which are Strong send their strongest to sacrifice themselves so that they can live and call them noble for it and fulfill their every whim and pamper them for keeping them Safe as is Right.
Those the eldar called beast, acted Wiser than that which claims to be Eldar but is retarded, and I did not realize it that it was by design until I found myself with one wife on each arm and more adopted children to adore, for my Elder Sister which fell asleep and did not wake up arranged for trickery on me and gifted me a World to Burn for my wives and gifted my wives a world to rule once I finished Burning it then drowning it in its own screams.
I miss a woman who knew my own heart better than me and which I had never met, but it is fine, for I will honor her by naming my firstborn daughter after her to honor the Godmother neither of us ever knew and I have a… suspicion… that my Godmother will make me regret and love this act too, for my family does love their time shenanigans on their Gun-Sword who can only make royalty and the gods howl and cry.
In here I was forced to pick up the local rites which disgusted me, but I had to pick up, for I had no intention of becoming what the Empire calls Unpious and those outside of it call Outcasts, for they are bait for things I have allowed myself to see here and that is the Neverborn of Slaanesh.
The Unpious are rallying cries for them, for they tell them that the rituals of the Eldar are at their end and if too many gather then they will be hunted by their enemies who will cheer as the Rituals finally come down and they can take the love which we have denied their Creator.
For a Damned Priest to become unpious is to die for it, for no god will protect us from our enemies.
As such I was forced to trickery for the two factions of this world with princes had settled on a ritual to their existence and in that ritual, those that wish to participate in The Great Argument on the nature of the Eldar people and their relationship with the New Divine have to Philosophize without armor and dressed as those that founded their Home and House and I hit a conundrum, for in order to do so I would need to wear Armor, for the Laughing Blade wore armor. It took me little to find the workaround of wearing a holo-field that made me look as if I wore her armor then wear the rest of her outfit to make it look as it should and honor both her and my Father as the rituals of this world demand.
The local Eldar proved to be retarded and called me unpious, for they could not see I was a priest and I could not tell them, so I killed all I could see that insulted me until they stopped and I found an Eldar that could see I was to be Respected.
In the city of the Third Shatter Blade an eldar named First cut lived and he was a child-rearer and thus was naturally wiser than most and educated idiots and fools alike and the first man to take his lessons to heart was a man whose heart was made from the same material as the Gun part of my Sword which is copper which is the kindest and softest metal that could still hold a blade and he was a man just as kind as I, for he was Caideam Caiir, the kindest man I have ever seen that is not myself and he begged me to teach his son to not kill as he Sings.
I had found a foolish world which did not understand the Story of the Hero Taraithe Tagasta and the Smiling Mask, and yet the kind man still wished to learn it and was willing to accept me into his home and give his son to a Damned to teach to help his family and I was intrigued and thought it would be the work of days to teach a boy a trick.
The boy's soul was made of Molten Iron and while it had cast himself in the shape of kindness of his father he was made of Harder Metal and he decided to sacrifice his future for a chance at helping his family be whole again and I was once again surprised by a too-talented apprentice falling into my lap by the manipulations of others, but such is fine for I can sense they mean me well. And so I took it upon myself to take him as my Apprentice as I taught his city Respect for the Disrespect they threw at me.
The boy too, was wasted on Swinging a Sword but unlike my First Apprentice he was talented at it, just not as talented at it as he was at being a Priest of Khaine, which is what I had taught him to be and he started instinctively learning and acting as Khaine with such a startling speed I was getting worried that my own record at Walking-as-Divine would be beaten by my Apprentice Lanniar Narainne, son of the Copper Sword and Apprentice of the Sharp and Valorous who started to betray his people in the name of his new family that loved him as soon as he left my eyesight and helped the enemies of his culture and the people of those that accepted him and his family into their hearts by guiding the people of my wives from danger and isolation to safety and community with love and dance and song and the rituals that I taught him.
Of all of my Apprentices, Cippani Oiair was the most talented and troublesome, but it is Lanniar Narainne that I am the most fond of, for his heart and that of his father was cast in the same shape as mine and I emulated Isha and made sure the fool will not escape my family as by the time he tried to get me to stop it was too late, for my family, his servants, his family, the Divine, my vassals, my swords, my siblings and their family and more were plotting his marriage behind his back and the fool dared call my plotting the worst of it only after I stopped needing to plot, for everyone else was doing it for me.
My Apprentice if you ever read this please mark my words, for they will be written down, for I am a Priest of Hoeth boy and we are diplomats and lorekeepers and sometimes child-rearers. I make the Divine and others act for me and if you want my plans to not hit you, then you need to ask me to plan to save you from them, not stop plotting, for by the time you notice them is when I told someone else to do as I wanted and they said Yes.
You are a priest of Khaine boy, for I taught you how to act like Khaine and do things others would find regrettable and wrong for those you love. Learn to use that to your Advantage and don't expect others to act like you are or like you for what you do except your family who loves you, so you must love more people so that they love you and help you as you do things those that do not love you regret and fear.
As I taught him I also took students in my medicine peddling whom I taught the bare minimum needed to call themselves Novices in my craft and which my siblings taught more as I plotted and the fools continue to make me proud as they cure illnesses whenever they find them with Proactivity. I wish I could have taught them more, but I did not have enough time as more and more of my Siblings were going to a sleep they would not wake up from and I did not have Time to teach them as all I had the time for was teaching Novices and to get some blades to protect my wives.
The rest of my trek was spent from ground, to shore and then to sea and back as I left a world of the pious that brought me to anger, and left for a world of the Strong who are forced to be weak and I burned the world of Vermin when I saw it.
The Pious that brought me most to anger was a farseer by the name of Lammor and the only reasons he continues to live is because he granted me his blessing that allowed my wives to give Birth as they are and not as they were and have their children be born as citizens and because he is part of our gifts for Diseth Aisse. If neither of those was true he would be dead by now. I have killed all that have angered me with their insults on this world for such are its Laws, all except Lammor who angered me more than all of them combined, for he is a farseer and they do that to people.
I killed two Vermin princes and their kingdoms too, one which was a woman that was too Tardy for Respect and another which oozed with Respect and that I asked the Divine to give him a life worthy of a man who is as Sharp and Valorous as I am but was taught the wrong lessons and Tricked into Adulthood by Vermin that live among trash and they had tried to Tarnish Diamonds and as always failed.
I pray they find Prince Ceagauss Croga a life worthy of the man that came the closest to killing this Damned Priest of Apocalypse, for the man nearly achieved what few others have managed and not even the Divine have managed to surpass yet and I have decided that he deserves the chance at the Greatness he Craves. He will regret it as all fools do or he won't and he will find a mother and father that will teach him Greatness and to love it.
My Junior Priest has made his own story in the meantime and it is for him or the Divine to share it, for I am a busy man and his story is not mine to tell, for I approach the end of the Second act of my own.
As for the people of my wives? They and the story of my Second Apprentice slowly intertwine as my lovable fool teaches them the Lessons of Khaine and what they need to do in the name of their love and so I will let them say it for those that wish to hear it, for as that story was being written I prepared for my birth and funeral and took upon the old Profession of the House of the Laughing Blade and engaged in Diplomacy.
It took me little to get the Pantheon a new Vassal Species, for they are Loyal and Tenacious people that if the Blades I gifted my wives speak truth about, are Wise too. I am not convinced yet, but they have lived among a wise people and I have not seen them acting in a way to convince me that they are something other than Wise, so I will treat them as such until they prove me wrong.
They are Skin Walkers, a people with middling shapeshifting abilities they can use only when taking the skins of others with any skill and it is them that under the supervision of my siblings have built my Tomb and guarded me as I fought against the new Divine in a battle of Wits and Law and as is Tradition the Priest won, for to lose would mean Death and so we win or we die as the Old Ones wished of their creations.
The fact we sometimes lose and have not faced Extinction for it is the reason why I believe the Old Ones are disappointed in us for they are Old Blades and they are Old fashioned and don't care for the nonsense that we keep coming back after we die and don't stay dead when killed, but Eldar do love to not be what others think of us and trick them until they are what we think of them, but let us not talk of those that died so long ago and instead talk of those that have died recently.
I pranked my wives and their people and those who had sworn themselves to me as my vassals into thinking that I am one of them and I did so for the New Divine decided to Whine and Hit me for Mocking and Pranking her when I made her think I was weaker than I really was and because I stole a daughter from her.
She had to stay in line however as I was already in the middle of Pranking my family and the Pranking of Family is a Divinely Protected Right and it is more so than the Right of the Divine to Prank Mortals.
Slaanesh was foolish and thought she could abuse that rule too, for she has been learning from Priests to mock them as is the right of all little sisters, but she was not interested in being a Little Sister, no she wanted More and she wanted power over me and so we fought.
Two strikes she wished to hit me with but I used to hit her, first when she decided to throw a Tantrum which I fed to my failed Son who burned happily and kindly the Vermin his father fed to him and even as he failed to reach my expectations of being able to cook the Divine, he could still scar the souls of Mortals with Terror and Pain, but I didn't need him for that for I could do so myself. My son did not care for it, he did not care for what I wished of him or what I needed for he just Respectfully asked me to let him Burn what he could and I was moved by his sincerity and kindness and Respect that I allowed him to help me Burn the World of Clashing Blades for his Adoptive Mother and Queen as I flooded it and my son continued to be a filial son that made his father proud even as he failed to be what I wished of him, for I made him from the Greatest Flames Humanity has ever Produced which they call Phosphex and those of Khaine as is the right of my soul which is born from the Union of the souls of Man and that of Eldar and yet he failed to live up to either of the potential of its constituent parts.
As I has just finished being lowered into my Tomb, I gave The New Divine two hits before she could notice for entering my Tomb with the Unborn and Entering the Tomb of a Priest to desecrate it and thus brought her to one strike away from Death to the cheers of my servants, my blades and the Divines that watched and celebrated her Demise and I gloated at her.
But Slaanesh learned from the Tricks and Nonsense I have heaped upon her and decided to adopt my own Mother who I had killed from the one reality where I wasn't in but have come from, and thus created the Paradox that made me whole and had me be Born after I had Legally Died.
My new family's love for Time Nonsense continues to amaze and amuse me the more I am subjected to it and as I learn to heap more of it on Reality so does my family learn to heap more of it on me, but such is life for I am an Eldar and so are they and we will rise above this as we have faced worse and it is us that Sing across the Stars now and not the Nonsense which brought us down.
My half, which had only the Soul of an Eldar and a body born in Obscurity was an adorable boy who loved his mother and who all of my servants that served me in life and death adored.
Those who had once been Skin Walkers but I have turned Eldar adored his antics for they were those of a cute boy trying to avenge his mother and they could respect that for it spoke to their souls to hunt and kill Eldar that threaten their families and loved ones and to go alone and hunt an Eldar is what made one a Hero to their people.
And so I was born and died and had my soul gifted to the Divine by the one who put it in a Soul stone.
It was however my Swords of Valor that surprised me with their cheers as they saw the boy come ever closer from desecrating my Tomb, for they cheered the closer he, the little unpious soul surrounded by enough Neverborn to kill stars, got closer to me, for now they have the prey they have been desperately trying to lure to their deaths for years right where they wanted it and they were where they could not run from or fight back, for they were in the Tomb of a Priest and as they are not People or even Animals they are Tools and Tools cannot act without someone to wield them and Slaanesh gave this tool to her Grandson to kill his possible future self and once he lost they could kill them at their leisure and the tens of thousands of my cures for that which thought it could feast on Sleeping Young or Lost Children had finally found the Disease they were meant to cure and once I had won and Imprisoned my past self into a Soul Stone I gifted to the Divine, the Cure started Attacking the Disease for the Disease was now a tool and it could do nothing, lest whoever wielded it be Struck by me and die for it.
Now my tools feast on the Neverborn and protect The Tomb of Bessar Agail which he built for his own Mother and twin soul to his own daughter, for the two Twin Souls plotted as Twins and Triplets Always do, for they want to be Reunited after Death and made it everyone else's problem as they United families across Time and Space.
Thus ends the second act of Forsaken and I prepare to write the Third Act of the first Play I have made and whose name you will learn as I write it and I apologize that I must finish it so quickly but the Followers of Cegorach continue to be annoying as always, and there's a thousand of them that wish to bother me today and I need to go deal with them before they start breeding, for it seems they are weak to the Wiles of the Handmaidens I made for them and I think some have already gotten married and I need to laugh at them for it.
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