Chapter 11: The new world comes with new dangers.
We have eventually settled on a world to take as temporary refuge. It was not a decision made because the world was an actually suitable place to be. It was too deep in the Empire. It wasn't just that I couldn't run anymore, I had one more day of running left in me thanks to my injuries. They will heal, I just need rest.
'All oaths fulfilled.' the memory came unbidden. It tasted of regret and hope.
I promised my siblings that we were to be eating cake on their birthday as we reached safety. Their birthday was to start in one hour. I would not be made a liar and an oathbreaker. The craftworlders don't count, to mock and deceive them is educational, a civic duty the entirety of the Empire has taken upon itself in order to help them learn I had found.
They were poor students I would also find, and so the lessons must be applied regularly. The empire was very enthusiastic to provide a learning opportunity on fools as nothing made Eldar happier than finding fools bigger than themselves and mocking them for it and if the others were Eldar then that only made them even happier.
We settled on a world whose name changed depending on the language, each language spoken by its inhabitants called this world in different sounds and meanings for it represented something different for all who beheld it.
For us it was a temporary stop point to rest and recover so in order to keep up with tradition we called it Staseashsolanu, for it is a lovely place and deserves the consideration.
My siblings gained the protection of the Maton the moment we set foot on it and gained access to the same maps we had back on our birth world. I gained the attention of a red colored Maton taller than two Eldar combined and its Eldar comrades meant to safeguard the Webway gate.
"You escaped much young one." One of the eldar, a woman with the prettiest face I have seen in two lives and long green hair that reached the middle of her spine, told me. She spoke in the common eldar tongue.
I nodded, my armor kept most of my condition from outsiders but my siblings and I had devised a way to avoid suspicion. We broke it, chips and cuts in the armor that reminded one more of a violent beast's violations upon the unwary graced all of our otherwise blank armors.
Mine was the worst and thus it seeped with the Murderous intent of Khaine.
It was suspicious, it was shoddy, it was again so obviously a deception that it looped back to being believable. Any madmen followers of the Bloody Handed God capable of actually creating such energies that suffused me and ravaged my body would not need to bother with any deception.
The Masks of Khaine ended worlds, they did not send Orphans and their older siblings to scout.
And so the eldar guardians and the Maton assisting them decided to focus on the least likely explanation, that said children and their older brother survived near a clash between a Mask of Khaine and its victims, said older brother taking the brunt of the damage themselves to protect his still child siblings.
And yes, victims not foes, for the Masks of Khaine have no foes, only victims to their depredations.
The cuts did not look right, they were purposefully made not to, the energy seeping from me, a poison that felt partially self-inflicted. It did not matter, the Maton confirmed my age and I was not even sixty years old.
I could not have normally created what happened to me and those that did would not do so as part of a scheme.
The strangeness was an unimportant backdrop to the portents I brought.
"Craftworlders and fools, to repeat myself in both retelling and their description, have angered a Mask of Khaine. A hero dressed in red and blue painted a smile upon the mask of Divinity and it had learned to sing. We ran before its mark touched us." I said.
My siblings stood behind me, pretending to cower behind their adult brother and not brandish guns, we destroyed our swords and scabbards to sell the story. Dileath mimed the making of an oath to stay away from swords for a lifetime.
"Masks that can sing…" Was her dry reply. She looked unimpressed as if we were hiding something.
She believed us I figured. If she didn't, she would not have offered to be serving us a meal in her own home to try and calm us down, nor left us leave to anywhere but an interrogation dungeon.
She thought we were hiding something, but whatever she believed we were hiding was something that would provide clarity to our situation and help her world, not incriminate us. And so she took us through lively but non-fluid or screams covered streets to give us a hot meal.
I made sure we did not need to either hide our flinching nor exaggerate it as we moved in the open. Each attention placed on us as uncomfortable and unwanted as a Shurkien strike and made us feel even less safe than if we were threatened by one.
The walk through crowded streets is not meant to be safe, not when the crowds were Eldar. But safe it was under the watchful eyes of one of the Guardians of this world.
I saw some onlookers look at us in fear and some in pity. The worst were the ones filled with compassion and empathy for a quartet of lost young souls and wishing them well. I had seen chefs give that look to what they called meals. Said meals had more in common with us than what rested inside our backpacks. It still moved as their clients ate too.
They searched them, our backpacks, they were very polite and a bit dismayed at what they found. Food bricks with only the barest of flavor, a nutripaste synthesizer made to feed the newly born and the very young, its life giving liquid red as opposed to white.
They asked me why red, I whimpered and remembered, they didn't want me to answer them in speech afterwards.
They looked upon our trinkets, they stopped at a cylinder each of us had but had never used. They asked us what it is.
I unclasped mine and a red light came from it as it floated and illuminated the gray wall of wraithbone in front of it in a single point of red light. Machine and flesh looked at it in curiosity. The Eldar wished to ask what purpose it served but I answered before they could vocalize it.
"It keeps fools distracted." I replied my voice as serious as a grave.
I was very serious in its purpose, as red narrow points of light had no other source in our world, except perhaps the Maton. It would keep the new experience junkies distracted for precious heartbeats, and we could maybe even trade it as a novel experience if we were cornered.
The Eldar laughed believing it to be a joke and the guardian now escorting us into her home told me that it had earned us a warm meal. They made no comments on the cakes each of us held at the bottom, we told them my siblings fiftieth birthday approached and we wished for a quiet celebration among ourselves only, they put them back once they finished checking and apologized.
We reached her home. It was quaint by the standards of the empire. It was three stories tall and white, red flowers that grew on purple barbed vines snaked throughout its surface. There were painted flowers as well as living ones, but the painted ones were done so well it was difficult even for Eldar to see if they were not moving.
The Door was made of Silver.
She opened it wide with a short song and welcomed us inside.
"Please follow me to the kitchen, my husband and youngest are home. I'm sure they would love to meet you." She said in a singsong tone, happy to be home.
She had us stay at a white table and dark chairs. She started to cook as we stared in silence and looked at each other then my siblings turned to me as one.
'What now?' My siblings asked me through the body language or our battle-cant.
'We wait and gather information.' I responded plainly.
We couldn't do anything but that. The guardian was friendly and from the way she moved through the streets respected but not feared. The onlookers on the streets all looked at us with different emotions but they all turned to confidence and kindness when they saw her.
They trusted her and thought we were in good hands.
We continued to wait, a man whose hair was as silver as mine but eyes red as opposed to my grey one looked upon us. We tensed, he went to help his wife with her cooking.
"My love you return to grace our home with laughter and sobriety."
"I do, my verdant forest."
"And what of my youngest my shield, won't he join us to greet our guests?"
"He sleeps, he helped his nephew and daughter of Lillea to relearn how to walk again, today marking his fifth uninterrupted day of doing so as they both first learned to walk with their gifts and not their muscles and our boy helped the two learn the difference between the two."
"Their mothers must have been very distraught!"
Their conversation continued as my siblings started to become more agitated, the scene remembering us of too many such scenes we have seen throughout our childhoods. The guests rarely lived to leave and those that continued to live left with their heads attached to the bodies of their hosts to serve as clothing.
I tried to calm them.
"They are not cultists, they are trying to calm us down." I sent to them through our soul.
They just tried to hide it better, their souls believed me, their bodies did not, instinct ingrained from decades of looking upon horrors and more than a month of living among them.
I am unsure if our hosts noticed.
They finished preparing the meal, I looked upon their work and tasted it with the sense of my soul. I had looked at them with a keen eye as they prepared it and inspected each ingredient as it was added and combined. It was probably rude but they did not question it. If anything once they noticed what I was doing they started adding little flourishes to their movements.
It did not help my anxiety, nor that of my siblings.
The meal was served, a thick stew of vegetables and three types of meat. None of it smelled like Eldar.
I took a taste with my spoon, my siblings waiting for me to do so first, my condition making me far more sensitive to poisons and strange tastes. Meat and vegetables I have never tasted before met my tongue.
My siblings waited for my signal. If I was to give it too soon they would know I was compromised and shoot our way to safety, too late and it was not me that was giving it and they would avenge me.
I waited for two and a half heartbeats before nodding. My siblings started to cautiously eat as well.
~~~~~~
My foolish wife brought strays into our home.
I looked over the four all but feral younglings as the younger three waited for the eldest to give the signal that it is safe.
'As if these younglings could detect any poison I would put in their meals.' I thought in indignation.
Indignation that I sent to my wife.
"I demand an explanation." I sang, our souls in a choir only we could hear and feel.
"You need not move from your perch my lovely stone statue, the four have just come with an interesting story and I am trying to loosen their tongues with warmth and safety so that I may learn what they hide." My foolish wife sang back.
A stone statue, a term of the world with a thousand names to describe men that have decided to guard their homes in eternity used with both derision and affection.
I know what it means to lose ones home then spend centuries without any to call your own. I have moved through places I long to forget and ate things best left unremembered before meeting my love. The warp, the gods and not even the Phoenix King will get me to move from the home we have built together and if I am to die, I die here or wherever I can to ensure my family are safe.
"The four are all but willing to shoot us, the eldest ready to sacrifice his life and his younger siblings torn between avenging him or making use of his death to escape."
"Oh… I did not realize they were that bad, the oldest of them seemed quite well put together."
'He has to be woman, his siblings look up to him and he after them.' I thought in irritation but did not send it to her.
Some things are better left unsaid even if I cannot hide the feeling of irritation I felt.
"The oldest one took that bite like it would be a death pill on an altar. The younger three were not about to thank him for his sacrifice or us for giving it to him. Not from what I was able to get from their street-cant."
"Can you understand their conversation? I cannot do so." My foolish wife tried to change the topic.
"No, there's as many variations of street-cant as there are urchins to speak them, I get the general feeling of their conversation because I know a thousand of them."
She was ecstatic.
"What are they saying? Are they spilling their secrets?" She all but babbled at me as if I held the secrets she sought to find.
"No, I understand only the general emotions of their conversation, their words elude me." I replied annoyed as we too started to eat slowly to not spook our guests.
They still twitched as we ate.
"What are they feeling then? Your lovely wife would be very grateful if you could share with her your secrets, grateful enough to help you pay for your penance to the princess."
I owned a great penance to my liege.
I came to this world 451 years ago as I too escaped from a cult controlled world. I found a world that fought the cults, its princess wise in devising stratagems to reduce the influence of the cults and prevent them from being reinforced with madmen from afar as she and her retinue strangled them slowly.
I swore myself to her as her blade in the dark so that I may take my vengeance on those who had wronged me. I have done so for 300 years.
On the 301st year of my servitude I have come on a night under a starlit sky and asked for leave to marry.
Her anger was mighty and the stars dimmed from white to red under her wrath as I remained kneeling.
'Deceiver, monster, broken blade, FOOL! You promised yourself to me as my blade in the dark! If I knew you were a family man I would have refused and told you to marry. Penance! You must pay for the 300 years you have deceived me for you buffoon.
No it is not you that is a buffoon but me, cause I sent a family man to missions that should have gone to a blade! Five of them, FIVE YOU FOOL so you can remember! Five children for each century of lies and hidden humiliation you owe my world.
You have made a fool of me, of my mother and grandmother for they taught me well to spot fools and make use of my blades and that there are missions only a blade should do and you have done them even though you are not!
Leave! Leave you arms and armor, your oaths and you clothes, your pride and your dignity and feel a thousandth of the humiliations you have given me each day of your service for 300 years!'
Were the words she told me that night as I once again obeyed her orders. She remains my liege, my oaths reinforced each time I bring my children to her to coo over and to play with her own.
Now, 150 years later I still have 200 more years to atone for.
I returned to the conversation with my wife about our guests.
"The three are blood bound to each other, triplets most likely, they speak among themselves in sibling-cant. The older one is not related but loves them much and they have lived together. They look up to him for even as they are scared he tries to calm them down. Their souls' trust fights the fear of their muscles. I cannot tell anything more than that."
"So only three of them are siblings?" She asked.
I could feel my left eyebrow twitch. That was not what I said. I sent further annoyance through our bond.
"I didn't say that, the younger three are not related by blood to the older fourth, they are still siblings." I replied.
She sang me a song that smelled of a kiss and tasted of love.
We turned from the music of our soul to physical conversation with our guests.
Our bowls were half empty already.
"May I know your names honored guests?" I asked the three.
The four looked at each other. The oldest once again took lead.
"I am Bessar, I thank you for the meal and for letting us into your lovely home. I could see that the flowers outside were made with love."
I nodded at that, the young man was polite. It will serve him well.
I was quite proud of my work on the flowers.
"My siblings are from oldest to youngest: Guraith, Marsa, Aesan." The polite young man continued and pointed to each of his siblings that stood to his right.
Half names and the ones they used for each other but not the full ones. I used to give the same.
"I am Scarn Laddon*, I believe you have met Gua Bis, my lovely wife, albeit I doubt she had introduced herself properly as she always forgets to do so. I apologize for not introducing my youngest for he rests now and it would not do to introduce him to those he cannot see. He is tired and won't be joining us for lunch."
The four relaxed by a fraction and my wife swooned as I started making progress.
All they need is greater shows of trust than they offer. They shouldn't be too large lest they grow suspicious but be noticeable enough that they are unmistakable for anything but an attempt at mending distance and creating bonds of trust. They aren't the only ones I've helped with such.
My wife makes a habit of helping traumatized newcomers and placing her work on my shoulders.
I love her for it and so much more.
AN: Welcome to what I like to call the proper first chapter. No we have not moved to another reality. I have decided to explore and expand on Imperial Eldar culture that isn't just the cults and for that I need a world that still somewhat functions. Thankfully those still exist somewhat, even if they are not free of the cults.
Scarn Laddon= scáth dílis → stalwart shadow
Gua Bis= guth binn → sweet voice.Last edited: Nov 30, 2025 Like ReplyReport Reactions:RedLeafPine, Corvus 501, Atuli and 432 othersVladicusOct 29, 2025NewAdd bookmarkView di
Chapter 12: A loved home is a well defended one.
The Empire of Ten Million Suns has lived for Fifty Million years. During that time it has waxed and waned, our people either spreading to multiple galaxies where even now some live and it had contracted until all of the Wheel but certain passages of the Webway were empty of Eldar life.
We always rebuilt and grew stronger for it, this time would be no different. If I repeated it to myself perhaps I would start to believe it.
Never in our history have our own people been our greatest foe. Wars come and go between princes, planets burned and were restored and the mad and the foolish allowed to live and leave only to be killed off by some threat or another or brought back into the fold generations later. We've never had to contend with our civilization devouring itself.
A clearer example could not be found than when looking at the four souls I once again managed to convince my husband to assist. He loves to pretend I impose on him when all he would have to do was deny me once and I would cease forever.
He used to be like them, a broken soul of a broken home, son of a broken house of a broken empire. I love him still for he brings me joy. When I am forced to see an empire eat itself alive and beg for more, the one thing that allows me to continue watching its inheritors for one more day is the knowledge that a warm home awaits me when I return and that he is there to wait for me in it for my home is warm and lovely and safe because my husband stands in it.
My home is full of joy, the songs of my children echo through it and those echoes grow stronger as I cajole and trick them into returning every few decades to visit their tired old mother and passionate father.
I have lived for 28.346 years, my parents had died of old age, the bones of my grandparents are now dust if they had not turned to rock, my husband is less than a tenth my age and yet he still managed to give me a home worth living in and thus turned a spectre into a woman and a guardian into a mother and blushing wife.
I am all of that still and more for I love my husband, I love my children and their children and I love my princess and my world that have given me such treasures. It is why I do what I do, why I grant broken things my favor and do so while defending what I love.
I did so once and was made a mother and a wife. I am now greedy for more, for I have tasted the sweetest of fruits kindness can provide and like all my kin I now crave more, for I could any day give up my duty and spend the rest of my life patrolling the Webway or the Void between the Stars but as my empire craves for more as it dies so do I crave for more of that which my husband gave me.
Now the two of us help the broken things that come to my home, so that perhaps one day they may give back more. Three of those I helped have given me grandchildren. Some of the children of the others are set to give me great grandchildren if my husband and I can trick their children and grandchildren into falling in love with our descendants.
I considered the four souls and two minds before me as my husband proceeded to work that which I can only describe as magic for with a few kind words and a stew we forged together he turns four broken things less so.
I miss my children, it's been five years since the last of them left, and two before that when they had come to visit. That will change, and perhaps I can convince young Bessar to marry my fourth child? They are of similar age and the poor girl needs her mother to speak with any who had not earned her trust.
I focused back on them, my husband had just managed to earn their name as they complimented our dwelling and my husband's work.
'That's it, the boy is marrying one of my children or their children.'
It's so rare to find polite young men that appreciated the power of love, it would not do to have him be taken by some crone that would suck all joy from his soul or his loins.
I sang kisses to my husband as their conversation continued and he pried all their juicy secrets for me to know. I would do my part in time, but for now my husband must set his poor wife's stage for her.
"Would you mind telling me the name of the world you have been born from?" He asked kindly as I refilled our bowls.
I made enough for ten sittings for each and I am secretly making more to keep them here.
They owe us plenty of words for their food and I will make sure they get further into debt so we learn more!
"We have not heard its name spoken in the language of the prince so we cannot say it properly and translate from soul-song into speech but it translates in the common tongue to 'World of shimmering lakes and Third most Beautiful Sunrise'." The oldest of the two said.
"I know that world, I have helped a young man from that world 283 years ago." I replied.
My husband was annoyed as I showered him in kisses again.
'They won't work for much longer if you keep abusing.'
Silly man, heartfelt kisses always work.
This seemed to make the young ones think.
"Was he a short man with blue hair that liked to color his teeth pink?" Asked the older of three bodies.
"Hmm, let me recall, I remember the blue hair but he was tall when I last saw him, taller than your older brother still who is a tall young man."
I tried to recall something else about the man in question, it was obvious they did not trust me, but the man did exist… well technically it was a woman last I saw her but he was a man when we met.
"Yes, he had this interesting phrase, One sword one word, he would say before he became as woman and gave birth. She stopped afterwards but never told me what it meant before she died on her trip to her mother in law."
"We know of him, our father spoke of him as our older brother but he left home long before he found us." The older sibling said.
He did not chastise his sibling or stop him from speaking but it was quite obvious that of the two minds, his was geared towards speech more and the other seemed to realize it as well as it realized it lost ground it did not have to.
A strange quirk for a thrice blessed of Khaine to possess, even if he wasn't one of his faithful or priests.
"Do you know what it meant? He never did tell me, despite me being the one that set him up with one of my friends' cousins." A small step back as I repositioned for a better shot.
Soon my prey will reposition itself into my home, his own blushing wife giving me the news that I will have more grandchildren.
"No I'm sorry, all we know of him is his appearance and the fact that father sensed that he died in some Webway war. Would you be willing to introduce us to her family to pay our respects and bring gifts?" The boy continued as he lost even more ground to humor his sibling.
"Yes I do keep in contact with her son, he works as a Webway Guardian, but you have not met him as he works in another city to be closer to his home and family."
I offered joyfully. They even had family, no matter how distant on this world. The day just keeps getting better!
"We will naturally help you get in touch, family is important but before of that we do need to discuss your sleeping arrangements." My husband offered, saving my prey from my embrace.
I did not pout, despite my husband's amusement singing back at me.
My vengeance will be swift, it will be merciless… sweet kisses were sang to me as I was embraced deep within my soul and I swooned in love like the blushing maiden I was.
Where were we? Yes finding the broken things a home. The older brother can't marry my daughter without a home! I would be a laughing stock if I gave my daughter's hand in marriage to a vagrant!
"We are not familiar with the means of procuring a home. We had lived all our lives in an Orphanage and spent some months trying to sneak through the city and occupied empty dwellings as our own on our way to the Webway, where we had our encounter with the Mask that Sings."
Yes, lose more ground, ask for more so that I can give you more until you are family and grant me a bigger family. Fail, stumble and accept the hand of my daughter to lift you up!
"Do not worry about that young man, this is how it mostly works here as well, we have some small dwellings for travelers and residents seeking refuge until they build their own homes to raise families in, I'll show you today so you can celebrate your younger siblings birthday."
"I thank you Gua Bis, we are in your debt." He said and I celebrated in glee.
A gathering of power, a dark thought, scream of dark and pink.
My guests were spooked, my son awaked from his nightmare.
' They've been getting more common, and the dream catchers keeps on failing.' I sent to my husband.
Our youngest had Lileath's gift of prophecy and a strong variant at that. No dream catcher I could bargain for seemed to help. Even the latest one only lasted three nights before falling. I doubt it could be salvaged.
"I am sorry for that, our son has a rather strong blessing and the dreamcatchers keep on falling." I said as my husband went to calm our youngest.
He always wept blood when he saw me after a nightmare.
"It is no issue, I have had bad dreams myself, if you want we can weave a Murder Dream Charm on his room as it might help." the older body offered.
I stood and considered it. To waste a favor on a solution unlikely to grant more than a day of peaceful rest to my son?
I didn't need to think long, I'd give a thousand if it helped my boy and he stopped weeping blood when I tried to hug him.
"I would consider myself in your debt if it gave him but a day of peaceful rest. It has been a year since he had more than five consecutive ones and he is only 30."
The four siblings looked at each other.
"We will need some blood to attune the enchant to yourself so that you may refill it when it runs dry." The very kind older brother asked.
Hmm, how do I rip out my heart and not leave a mess? It has plenty.
"A few drops will do." The youngest triplet said.
"Oh, I will take you to his room and introduce you. Please follow me."
I went as we went from the ground floor to the first, his room exactly in the middle of it so that the rest of us might catch some of his visions before the dream catcher was overwhelmed.
I knocked at the door and sang to my love.
"May I come in? Our guests wish to try and provide some help to our son. They offer a favor if it can give him a night's rest."
I will give far more if their option lasts longer than the dream catchers.
I waited for twenty heartbeats.
"He will not weep as he sees you now."
I took that as invitation to come in. The door opened and I rushed to hug my boy.
He did not resist me as he trembled. He wept in water and not dark blood. I sent him sweet kisses and gave him hugs as I tried to ease his suffering.
"What is your solution exactly? And why does it requite my blood?" I asked the two minds as my son relaxed.
His red eyes turned towards our guests.
"Son, meet our guests, Bessar, Guraith, Marsa and Aesan. Guests this is our son Lestean Bairu."
"Greetings honored guests, mother please I'm fine now I need to greet our guests properly, especially if they offer help." My little ruby said.
I acquiesced but not before giving him a few kisses.
"Well met young man, but it is not necessary to rise, we know how bad sleep can affect one, my brother Guraith had gone through quite a lot of it himself which led me to develop my enchantment to help him sleep. Please rest while we work, we will need the walls to be empty." The older brother said and my son stood back down in my embrace.
All furniture, posters, broken dream catchers and prayers did not have the time to burn under my wrath, the failed things died with prejudice as I gave my guests the chance to help.
The three bodies started working preparing the walls, making measurements and singing Wraithbone into string.
"The solution, if you could call it such is that which I traded my birthright for, which is the swing of a blade. The Murder Dream Charm does the same. It swings a blade that kills dreams as opposed to catching them. It does not work with the essence of those who sleep for the sleeping cannot protect themselves, so it needs the energy of someone other than those who defend it even if they sleep as well."
"How does it work?" My husband asked as my son looked hopefully at them.
"Simply, the dreams come to haunt one, they try to sneak through your nets and overwhelm them with the doom that approaches. The Murder Dream Charm does not bother with captives it just cuts anything that dares approach."
"Will it prevent communications and song?"
"If they are inside the room as they do so no. From outside only the protectors song can be heard for as long as the charm swings."
"Limitations?"
"The blessings of Khaine are needed to make repairs and those that do them need to know how to make it from scratch as well and if it loses all energy it will need them. Normally a single small tablet of wraithbone would do, but we will fill the walls and ceiling to ensure it lasts for at least a few days so you have time to recharge it."
"Could you do so for the entire house?" I asked.
They stopped and thought an unseen conversation going between siblings. Eventually the older brother spoke its result.
"Technically yes, practically no. We need the blood of both the protected and the protector to do so" "Not a problem." "It will only protect the one it is meant to do so to." "Not an issue, he is the only one to have these issues." "And if any but the protected and protector sleep in the area covered by the charm the sword will swing for them."
We stopped. We were willing to take the risk for ourselves, we are old and can defend ourselves even in sleep. Our children can't, nor can we make repairs if the sword continues to swing until exhaustion.
"We can make it for two rooms, each separate, energy will only be depleted if he sleeps in the room. We can key each to you so you have a backup in case one of you is not available to refill it and the charm is on its last legs, we don't know how to allow for multiple protectors."
"Please do so." I asked as I continued to send kisses and well wished to my baby.
"Also, I have a nephew with the blessing of Khaine, would you be willing to take him as an apprentice to learn how to make it if it proves successful?" I asked
The four siblings exchanged songs again as I gave favors like they were air.
That's what they are for after all.
"Yes, it should take them two years to learn or perhaps a year if they are more talented. This should also be enough for my injuries to fully heal and to prepare for our departure." The older brother said and I felt my heart crack a little.
No matter it will heal and they have given me enough.
I nodded at that, if it worked I will help them pack and find whatever they need.
The four continued the work. Two hours later the walls and ceiling were filled with Wraithbone string in complex forms I did not understand that spoke in a language I had no point of reference for.
"Done young Lestean, please provide a few drops of blood where I show you. Which one of you wishes to protect this room?" The oldest sibling asked.
My son rose and did so, then came back to me.
"I will." I offered.
"Please put a few drops at the glowing lines on the ceiling."
I did so.
"Good, everything looks horrible, but it would allow my brother enough energy to sleep for a year based on how much we put on it."
They gave a small tablet with the same runes on it.
"This is the energy control mechanism. You can check the energy consumption and adjust it like this. We have placed it at my brothers' nightmare mode, this should give your son a month of good sleep before you need to recharge it, just pour energy incredibly slowly into this tablet and it will do so. If it requires more for a good night's sleep then we have offered please let us know, we will disassemble it immediately and make it larger to fit multiple rooms, if that is not enough I'm sorry to say but it is beyond us unless you wish to cover the entire floor."
We nodded at that, they were not the only ones we have gone to for help that promised much and delivered little. At least they had the decency to not demand favors for fixing subpar work.
"Please show us the other room so that we may work there as well."
I lifted my son in my arms and showered him in love and hope as we showed our guests the room my husband and I chose. Its walls were just as empty as those of my sons' room courtesy of my husband.
I sent him kisses as we waited and he received his own tablet.
I put my son on his second bed as he fell asleep. I thanked them and offered to find them a home right away so that they may celebrate.
As we left I sang to my husband to ask him its results.
'Five days of sleep.' he sent back.
'Better than the dreamcatchers.' I sang back.
Lets hope my nephew will listen to his new masters and learn well.
AN: Lestean Bairu= rúbaí léirsteanach- insightful ruby.Last edited: Nov 30, 2025 Like
Chapter 13: To celebrate is to relax, to relax is to invite mischief and to learn properly is to chase it away.
I slept for three days under the protection and murderous rampage of my father's sword. I was awakened by my father's worried prompting so that I may sleep under my mothers rampage for three more and allow my father to repair the sword which had been gifted to him by mothers guests.
Each sword strike brought pain upon the future, each cut done with love and each death it dealt an altar a parent had built for their child.
I had not been awakened by my parents or slept until fully rested since I was ten. I missed it and so I have decided to embark upon the trek to find my parents friends and find where they went to, for they were no longer my mothers' guests but my as friends as well now.
My mother wished to join me, but her own command refused her, for travelers among the Webway made messes of the princess' walls and gardens as they screamed, ran and died by singing masks and gleeful swords as the story of my new friends repeated on a thousand worlds and a millions passages of book and bone alike.
The followers of Khaine celebrated the gift of their bloody master for it taught them to sing again.
Her Highnesses' Lord Husband and prince had need of my mother and her fellow old swords to clean the walls and punish loiterers and vandals and villains for he needed sharp and old blades by his side to make sure none dared to dirty the home his wife cleaned each day and kept homely for her love and father of her children, for that was the duty of warriors to their spouses, to keep their spouses home safe so that they may be kept warm and filled with love.
I found the house in question based on mothers instructions and sent her kisses and love as she sang back the same. They held a faint aftertaste of ash and screams.
She was busy now but would always make time to share her love for me. I love my mother for she loves me and I weep when I hear she loses favors and earns mockery each day to help me sleep. Hopefully that will stop now for I will be cross if the mockery of the mother that loves me continues.
Father continues to repair his sword, for it needs one day of repair work for three of service. Mother would do the same when she returned and I endeavored to sleep little until then so that my mother would have her way and have me sleep as long as possible under her sword as she is there to swing it and for me to love her for it.
My new friends lived modestly, the one storied home with no basement and floor beyond what laid on the ground was meant to house a traveler for days as they rested from their adventure and thanked the princess for her generosity in song and dance.
It had two rooms to sleep in, one for themselves which was supposed to house one body but housed four and one for friends to visit in and other areas for the preparation of food and dance and art and grooming.
The princess may give modest housing to travelers but she is not so miserly as to be a poor host for them and leave them miserable.
I was not bothered on my road towards them, for my friends knew to not let me waste my waking hours when I went on missions and treks and that I would always come to them with song and joy and either take them on my adventures or join them on theirs when I had the energy to do so and from now on I had a lot more to share the song of childhood with.
Strangers and foes did not know me but they felt the echo of my parents swings, they knew I was protected and so they cowered and left me alone.
I knocked on their door and awaited for response. My father told me that they are skittish as they escaped great hardship and that had chipped their sword-souls but those chips are sharp and still bleed.
So I would have to wait for sixty heartbeats, until the middle twin would open the door.
Her gray hair and silver eyes were framed prettily by her beautiful face. It is a shame that she did not smile genuinely at me but I would earn her smiles and more. She at least did not wear her armor, and instead wore white garments made out of silk.
"Lestean Bairu, I hope our sword swung your lullabies to death and made your dreams sweet." She greeted me and opened the door.
She stood at its entrance to greet me properly and gave a slight bow and another false smile.
I was not yet let in. For chipped and battered souls an open door meant the chance to hear what one had to say, it was not an invite like in my parents home.
"They did and it is a pleasure to behold your beauty again Marsa. I have come to give my thanks to you and your siblings for the gifts and speak with my older cousin for it has been long since he and I have spoken and I have given little thanks and less courtesy to friends." I said and bowed lightly as the beautiful woman stared at me and most likely sang to her siblings to consider my words.
"I have also brought a gift, two in fact, a dream catcher who had survived a blessed Chosen of Khaine and a sword crafted by the blessed of Asuryan so that their murder logic and sword shape may inspire your craft." I said and carefully pointed to the two gifts I held at my hip. My mother had collected many gifts from those she helped and father helped me pick two of them to give to our friends.
'It would not do to scare my friends.' I thought as I remembered the lesson taught to me by mother who was blessed by Isha and father who was blessed by Kurnous.
They were meant to help one to catch prey and family in their nets and hopefully they will serve me well.
"Be welcomed then Lestean Bairu, your cousin is just finishing his studies for today and I am sure my siblings will rejoice at your gifts." She said as whatever conversation she had with her siblings ended.
My words and gifts did not hold enough weight to allow me entry freely yet. She entered back in and kept the door widely open.
I entered tenderly, the craft of my cousin's masters apparent as the house considered whether it should cut me down or not.
Its masters remained silent on the issue but the sword didn't swing for its masters have not ordered it so and I was invited in and I hardened my conviction so that I would earn their words on the issue and have them be of welcome and joy at my presence. I had the days and waking hours to do so in now.
I would not waste them.
We traveled through the sparse hallway only decorated by a portrait or the princess and her lord husband and bowed to it slightly without stopping.
The princess is kind, the princess is mighty and the princess loves us as she allows me to play with her sons when I'm rested enough to do so, it would not do to not show appreciation when given the opportunity.
We continued for three heartbeats until we reached the door separating the hallways from the room of arts and crafts and it was open.
"Do come in." A song of beauty reached my ears and I followed it.
As I entered I saw my cousin on the floor brandishing a sword with song as it swung with more skill and grace than he could bring forth with his hand and fists.
The little sword, for even as it was smaller than a dagger it was still shaped like a sword flew across the room under the envious looks of its older cousin for the younger could be used in service of its creator but the older one couldn't.
"Congratulations on your first sword my apprentice, in two days or three you will learn to fully speak and in a week sing, then you will start learning the seven crafts and tools I have to teach you then after a year or two as your apprenticeship is over you will teach me one tool to craft and use yourself to prove to me that you have learned and that you won't shame us by merely repeating what I have shown you what to do and call me master." Bessar said to my cousin Cipanni Oiair.
My cousin was blessed by the Bloody Handed God but he had not been able to do much with his blessing for in duels he won rarely against those that have swung a sword for a tenth of his years and with half the effort.
My cousin bowed to one of his four masters in deep reverence he had long since stopped showing his teachers.
"Thank you Master, I will endeavor not to waste the time you have granted me under your tutelage and that for which my Grand Aunt has paid for. But this unworthy apprentice has a question of his masters."
"You are not unworthy, for if you were I would not have bothered to teach you your second lesson, but ask your questions."
"Why can I do what I do? In five days I have made more progress than in six years and in a month I will have made more than in my 240 years of life. I do not understand how it is so. Have I not listened to my teachers properly? Have I brought shame to my mother and father, to my cousins and aunts and uncles and to my nephews that believed in me by being a layabout?"
It hurt me to hear so but this question is not without merit even if it is foolish for while his family and cousins and aunts could see his struggle, it never amounted to much, even if my cousins and siblings and our friends would beat all that said so, but the truth is the truth for my cousin would lose even to those without blessings in relation to swordsmanship or violence.
The older of four masters mimed caressing his own nonexistent face stubble as he pondered his answer.
"I need more tea to deal with this foolishness."
My cousin obliged and poured tea he had made in his masters cup as he awaited for an answer to his questions.
"Your teachers will curse my answer for it is nothing but a cock slapping their shameful faces and shaming them more for they deserve it and refuse to open it and do more but it is not your fault. All fault with the student falls on their teacher and they have tried and failed into teaching you the wrong skills." He responded after a long sip after my cousin returned to bowing deeply on his knees.
"I do not understand master, my teachers teach and all listen but only I and one other fail so."
His master just gazed upon him with contempt that did not care for the fact that of all the beings in this house its target had lived longer than all the others put together.
"Your teachers were fools, for they tried to teach you to swing a sword and use your fist with your muscles when you have not even the basest talent for it. No you don't even have that you have an anti-talent, each swing serving you less than if you had not done it. It is your song and your mind and your pen that you must use to draw and swing a sword.
Now for your insolence you are to find five warriors that can easily beat you now but, if your teachers would have taught you well, shouldn't have and fight them giving your best today. They will beat you bloody and you will ask for more for after your apprenticeship is done you will do so again to those five and defeat them. And if your parents are to ask you why you have done so you are recite this conversation to them and accept their punishment as well."
"I thank you master for your mild punishment."
"I look upon you and know you do not fully understand why you are being punished but that is for your family to correct if they care for it, for I have already done my half of the work. Now the lesson for today is over and your cousin here to give you his love, do not disappoint him for you owe a great debt to his mother and today's lesson tired me more than if I had swung the sword all day."
"I thank you master once again and I promise that tomorrow I will learn more than today and not bring shame to my family."
His oldest master nodded.
"You will do so, of that there is no doubt. Tomorrow Aesan will spend his time teaching you spelling to allow your body time to heal from your punishment. You need both."
The small sword stopped swinging and rested.
I went to greet my cousin and present the gifts my father and I have chosen for his masters, glad that I have done so and that my cousins' punishment was light for his transgression. For how could one call themselves layabouts when they went to train each day with little break for more than one hundred years and continue to do so even now. All to try and make his family proud.
I will make sure to tell his parents too of his punishment to make sure the lesson sticks and he ceases such foolishness.
Oh and to take revenge on his teachers as well I suppose. We can't have teachers fail their students and not be mocked for it afterwards anyway.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Few Eldar understand the dual purposes of Asuryan-Khaine and even fewer understand that they are more than brothers born on the same day but twins and twins share all including duties.
While one took the Murder part of Stewardship and called it War, the other took the Stewardship part of Murder and called it Villainy yet both are crucial for both ensure that heroes rule justly and fools die.
I am not a hero.
There might have been days where I could call myself such, where my princess wife grants me kisses and songs and love proclaiming it such and days when I pretend to believe her, but today is not today for today I am a failure of a husband and warrior both and even as they claim otherwise I know that my own children look upon me in shame for I would do so if I dared and looked in the mirror.
I fail and fail again for the home of my princess wife I could not protect from vagrants and thieves and villains. And now her beautiful garden lays in ruins as the blood and piss and tears of villains and fools alike had destroyed her garden she had spent centuries tending to welcome visitors to our world and now it stands defiled.
It was defiled because I failed and I raged at my failure and took my sword-sisters and sword-brothers to avenge my honor on those who have used it as a rag to spit upon!
And so I took my sword-siblings, my vassals, and my lesser warriors that were not busy in other cities or recovering from their injuries and took them to avenge the sanctity of the home my wife made of our world.
The first to die were the villains and pleasure cultists they sang to, for they had started it and the greatest desecration came from their deprecations. Those that fought with sword or gun in hand died where they stood as their only mercy for the flames of my hate did not manage to fully cleanse them of their sins for some of them had shown something that mimicked valour as they died.
The rest of the desecrators had no valour to protect themselves with and all but two groups would help grow my wife a new forest and garden to replace the one they had made filthy with their blood.
Each would burn on stakes of wood and Wraithbone for an equal number of heartbeats as they had lived and there are many that did so, enough to crown a prince twice over and some for twenty million is no small number and yet felt too low to quench the flames of my hate.
Some finished burning in the first days, others will finish as we finish placing them on stakes and turn to flowers and grasses for my wife to tame as their souls leave the ashes of their bodies.
Others would take years or centuries and some more than a thousand years but all will burn, all but two groups.
The first is the smaller of the two, vagrants and beggars that proved they had not trespassed and blasphemed against the bond between lord husband and wife-princess. They would serve penance still for wasting our time as they would help my warriors in one of two tasks of their choosing.
The first task would be to watch over the burning forest until it had stopped burning and the last tree had bloomed as the last Eldar soul had left its shell and had finished its screams for there were many screams and they would have to hear them all before they were allowed to leave.
The second task would be to help the second group, for as parent transgressed against my lady wife for their children both would burn but none did so for those yet unborn and so they were told to either watch the forest finish burning to life or to take one of those born from the womb of their screaming mothers in their two arms after their mothers had started their penance for their transgressions.
Fifty-five of the Unlucky ones were tasked to watch the forest grow or adopt one of those who would otherwise be left to starve to death and raise them until they become adults and love them as they grow. If they did not do so and gave the child they had taken from the burning fields to another they would return to the field and pay the penance they had lied to escape from.
None others were allowed to assist that swore allegiance to me or to my wife or that lived on the world she ruled for to do so would be to transgress against my honor and that of my wife and so none but the Unlucky Ones may save those born from burning wombs.
Of these Unlucky Ones, fifty-four have taken a child and not returned. My hidden eyes and those of my princess-wife will watch them and if they stray they will pay for their lies.
The last Unlucky One had earned the favor of myself, my wife, my children and my sword-siblings and all my vassals for he left with two arms holding a bundle and returned with eight free ones as he apologized and said that he would pick up his son from the princess once he had finished rescuing the screaming babes that were left and sending them to orphanages.
The madman and hero and vagrant in little more than rags had taken upon himself to save all two hundred and three of them before they could starve and for that he had earned the favor of many.
I approached my sword sister Gua Bis, one of the few blades in my service who have served for longer than I have lived.
I envied her love and link to her husband and all life that she had created for her love runs deep and she can sing to those who love her even among the screams and all but the worst cacophonies, and so I asked her to send my eldest my love for my eldest and hers are friends. Her own daughter my own's childhood friend and handmaiden and best friend for both hold the blessing of Gea goddess of Dance of Gestures and of Histories told through Such and consort to twins for their passion is theater and the desecrators punishment had made me lose the last repetition of her latest show before she would show it to the public.
After she was done the madman came for the last of those born in screams and still had two free hands as he approached us and sang food into the children's mouths.
"My Lord Prince, I have saved the last of the babes and with your leave I do so but I have a favor to ask." The madman said.
"Ask away, you have earned many today Unlucky One."
"I have come for a dream catcher as I have received visions that one which would help my boy exists upon this world for he was blessed by Lileath and yet dreams of doom and cannot sleep and he is young and cannot walk yet and yet he cannot sleep."
"You wish for leave to take your second son with you?" I frowned at this.
'I guess I could allow it for he has earned it.'
"No my lord, I wish to be able to bring my wife here as I know the terms of my penance."
"I will send a host of two hundred of my vassals to escort the wife of a man among men, but for the second issue I am afraid I cannot help much with. My sworn-sister has the same issues as you do and her son cannot sleep for he too weeps dark blood for doom approaches."
I spoke and I could see the poor man's hopes crumble and my heart bled for his for he did not deserve to have his heart crushed like this.
"I have managed to find one actually my lord prince. This Gua Bis would not let her son weep blood as he saw her and I have managed to find some that would assist him." My sworn sister interjected and more than two men rejoiced at the news.
I could feel the news spread as my vassals listened into the news and I could easily see as they lifted the soul of all who knew her and had tried to help her in her quest. They sang in joy for her quest had taken many years.
"You did? Then that is joyous news my sword-sister."
"Yes my lord, they are the three young men and a young woman who had first come to sing of the hero who had painted a smile on the Mask of the Divine and so had taught said mask to sing. They had crafted me two blades of foreign runes that would keep the nightmares at bay and gave us great joy for it allowed my youngest to sleep fully for six days and allows my husband and I to carve and slash at that which would keep him from doing so!"
"Is it possible that I could meet these four my Lord-Prince and Guardian Gua Bis? I would wish to trade what meager favors I could for their services to allow my young Eldrad to sleep." The Unlucky One begged with hope rekindled.
I too hoped he would be able to do so for he had earned such a boon.
"You will require to build yourself a house first and by the time you can do so they will have left, for the sword they craft requires runes to be painted in a room to cut the portents of doom. But fret not, for you have earned my favor and that of many others and I will allow you to live in my home where the four will paint a sword to allow you to protect your boy.
And so once my nephews' apprenticeship to his four masters ends he will draw two of them in the rooms of the home you have built with your wife and in the rooms you will have your boy live in. Like this he will learn what it means to live under the love and protection of both mother and father."
"I give you a thousand thanks my friend for the favor you have granted me and I swear you will not regret it, but now I need to leave these babes to those that can look after them and pick my second son from the lovely songstresses that look after him for me until I am finished."
"Do so and when you return you shall receive an escort to ensure you can bring your wife and first son to the home of Gua Bis." I ordered and the two obeyed.
I let the feelings of pride and joy wash away the feelings of anger and to cover the screams, and they did so easily for I wished to feel some more than the others.
AN: Cipanni Oiair= Cnop Óir → Pommel of GoldLast edited: Nov 30, 2025 Like ReplyReport Reactions:RedLeafPine, Corvus 501, Atuli and 368 others
Chapter 14: Of Duties and the Longing for a home Little can be said that one does not already Feel.
The souls of man and elder are different, too different to ever be confused for the other.
The shape I believe most resonates with the soul of man is a gun, a boltgun in this reality to be more specific, for man had evolved and claimed as his birthright ranged combat and heavy mass and lumbering strides for their small frames.
A boltgun best describes man for as he learned to fight, he had learned to hit from further and further away as if possessed by their soul in order to find the shape that most resonates to that which they crave to posses and are. I have not seen other men in this reality, not living and whole ones at least, though I have seen fragments and read on them, but what little I have seen confirms it.
They also love leaving a mess where their shots hit.
We are boltguns made of scrap metal, shaped by evolution and refined by our craving to see our foes brought low from afar and crushed till bone and blood are indistinguishable between our boots. I have come upon this realization when I found out that that which my former people from this dimension consider basic infantry fit for only the most untrained conscripts are called Armingers and wished I could posses one and I would settle for an Arminger even as I craved its larger siblings.
All that is lesser than this are called colonial militias or drone technicians and specialists and still they posses great bulk and ranged weapons as default for there are very few men that would not take guns to shoot with when granted the honor.
Eldar are not guns, the handicraft of the Old Ones ensure that whatever we once were, we are now swords now and forever more and unlike man our souls and minds do not contradict. What the soul thinks so does the mind which is why it takes so long for many of us to tell the difference.
I am a gun-sword now, I prefer to kill my enemies from afar where they cannot see me from, but I can see the results of my handiwork or cut them down from close range as I shoot them and their fellows before they can do so to me.
Both appeal to me.
Others have their own souls but all eldar have soul swords and while this is limiting in some respects there's as many different types of swords as fools to wield them. Some cut to heal and some to destroy or create but they all cut.
All can see the outer shape of each other's soul and with age may learn to gleam secrets from what we see, but to see deeper without offense requires a bond of trust that not even parents can impose on their children. Apprentices and master do posses this bond for it is useful for master to know the tool that he works with and so I have seen the soul of my apprentice in all its scarred glory. His sword soul was made of ink and thanks to the blessing of Khaine he could turn it to murderous purpose.
The craft I was teach him is a mix of Eldar crafting and the gun logic of my old people and it was simple in its application and creation yet counter-intuitive to both Human and Eldar alike for it required both perspectives to make sense of it at first, or at least so I thought.
My craft however, is simple. Man would make implements that would shoot away from where they are, Eldar too could do so but while capable of such and more skilled in their making thanks to a fifty million years head start, their instincts was that of a sword unlike that of my old people's gun instincts, and a sword cuts but what it needs, while a gun shoots and destroys not only its target but all that it can see that would stop it from doing so until it has run out of ammo or things to kill or it broke.
I have decided to just mix the two soul logics and call it my craft. And so I would make rune guns that would create swords and other implements away from the runes but that had no true body of their own for they were ammo and ammo only needed as much mass as it needed to kill and my ammo needed none so it had none.
I have created rune guns that shoot bullets that act like tools and do so separated from that which sustains and creates them. Uninspired for sure but difficult for both Man and Eldar to normally understand and in all their history neither had created what I have made with the help of my siblings in thirty years.
My apprentice older than myself and my siblings combined offered a bond of deep trust he had not given his own parents, freely and unprompted at that, on the first minute after he had sworn his oaths of apprenticeship to me and my siblings in the hope that he would earn favor or perhaps his first apprenticeship would earn him a way to make his family proud. He had no more pride left in his soul.
Two hundred years of mockery and broken dreams and failure have stripped it away as if they were some ravenous beasts that sought to eat every scrap of flesh from bone and very nearly cracked the bone too before he came to us escorted by his own mother.
His family called him slow but hard working for they still loved their fool and saw his struggles, his own mother begged us to extend his apprenticeship for while he lacks talent he will surely pick a craft from the talented young masters of it if he is given the time to do so. All that met him and knew of him and his family mocked him, for they believed he couldn't even do that.
He believed himself both lazy and untalented for he learned little to nothing from his teachers or his centuries of work.
Before we started teaching him we believed this to be the plan of Gua Bis to keep us on her world for longer and give herself enough time to put me so deep into her debt that I had to take the hand of one of her children or nephews in marriage to pull myself out of it. She very nearly did so in an hour and a half of talking and a meal and I'm scared to speak for longer periods of time with her lest she succeeds the next time.
My siblings and I needed a single lesson to reconsider his apprenticeship because we believed his family had lied to us and the situation was far worse than we expected to have to face.
The fool was talented, too talented and hard working and made my siblings and I face an existential crisis after yesterday.
This piece of trash dared call himself a talentless layabout? What nonsense is this? He must repent for the insult he had given us and his family who believed in him!
He made more progress in five days than we thought even theoretically possible and while I and my siblings initially wanted to perhaps teach him two of my soul tools to make and use of and the knowledge to learn more in service of his lovely world and his Great Aunt and Uncle which have earned our friendship for their help and kindness.
This moron would run us dry of the knowledge of the art we have spent more than 30 years creating and afterwards be teaching us in a year. This is not what his parents, family and world sang to us would happen and we were fools for believing it!
I call nonsense, Divine Nonsense at that! For what world and teachers would fail a talent this monumental that he would surpass his masters who had crafted a new art and lesser tongue and had spent most of their lives perfecting it and do so in a year or even less.
I meant every word I said when I told him the best thing his teachers can do for him with their mouths is not speak but suck his cock for all eternity. They are not good to do anything else, for they failed to nurture such a talent and dare call themselves teachers and mock him that their own incompetence failed to teach him much.
I hoped Lestean Bairu understood my message to him and his family that my foolish apprentice had wronged both myself and his family. And that he understood that his teachers had wronged ourselves, the fool in question and his family, for the mockery their incompetence had earned us yesterday was great.
Or it is that he had replayed our conversation to his family as they questioned him. Judging by the subdued tone my moronic apprentice took in his lesson with my youngest sibling he did, for the silence of his mouth did not come only from our punishment but that of his family as well.
"Have we wasted our lives for this fool to call himself lazy and a layabout?" My siblings sang.
They felt what I felt but I could not let them see that.
"No for he is a fool and does not know what he does not know." I replied chagrined.
"Then how it is that it feels so? It took as 30 years to develop the craft you have created and he will be teaching us in a year."
"He is a fool, a talented fool who has learned to work harder than any other, for his world mocked him, because his teachers were incompetent and too good at hiding it."
I said so and I believed so even if I did not fully believe all of it myself. Talent and work go hand in hand for those that posses the two, but of them hard work is more important, as talent merely multiplies the result of hard work.
"Talent multiplies the result of hard work and while for us it multiplied by three and we have worked harder than most, the moron had learned to work hard in mastering something his talent divided by twenty and now works under masters that see this and work him hard in an art his talent multiplies by ten. That is all and it is humbling but we have not wasted our lives for our hard work and talent has carried us far and it will continue to do so if we continue working hard."
They nodded and I thanked the gods or whoever listened that they bought it. I'm not sure I did but will continue to work hard. In front of such dedication and loyalty what else you could do lest you failed those who look up to you.
If he dared call himself a lazy layabout and us incarnations of sloth who had never worked a day in our lives again as comparison my punishment will not be light again though. My soul can only take so much punishment, even with Khaine's second blessing that made soul wounds heal faster. I cannot defend my soul well only heal that which it had suffered and grow stronger from it and I could still feel the scar the moron put upon it.
We continued our study as my soul slowly healed from its own self-multilation, wounds that should take decades to recover from the cuts and flames of Khaine would heal in at most two years.
Scarn Laddon made himself welcome while we did so, our sword welcoming him for he was a friend that would help it protects its creators.
We sang to him to greet us in our rooms as we placed crystals and books and strings neatly away. It would not do to disrespect a friend, not when we are welcomed in their home and they in our house and they had offered to introduce us to our distant family of our brother turned sister.
The man with silver hair and green eyes and husband of woman with green hair and eyes that changed colors daily entered our sanctum and was welcome for it. Scarn Laddon was a good man that loved his family and his friends if not as much as he loved his family.
"Be welcome friend and sit in the bed with us, we had just finished exercising our craft." I said to the man politely.
The bed was so large that five people would have plenty of room to sit on it in a circle and talk and it had room for seven more.
"I'm glad to hear it and thank you for your invite."
"No invite is needed you know that now, for we are friends and our friends are always welcome in our home or house." The older triplet said and I nodded as the much older man sat down on our bed.
"Thank you and I would like to apologize on behalf of our nephew both I and my wife and his family."
We sighed as one, the boy just continues to make us more and more tired.
"Has he told you why?" Marsa asked.
"No, neither has his family for they told me I have to speak with you to believe it, for they are unsure if they should believe it and the song he recited back to them even as they punished him in accordance to what it said, but I do not know how."
About what we expected. The man looked pained that his own nephew had started bungling his apprenticeship in the first week and had come hoping to make amends.
"My apprentice called himself a lazy layabout without talent and so called his four masters Incarnations of sloth for whom talent is a distant dream and that have not worked a day in-between our four lives. We were quite insulted by it and believed his family as well for they love him and we all believe in him." I replied blandly.
The man looked with shock at my words as I started speaking them but as I spoke more, shock was replaced by joy and once I finished he started to laugh.
We did not see what was so funny, it was the truth.
"You speak truly? Then I am cross myself with the boy and joyful for he has found a craft that suits him and masters that care for him." He spoke among laughs and songs of joy.
We all nodded at this. Again it was the truth, only that he spoke of it this time and not us.
"We need to decide for a punishment for his teachers, for they have given us a moron that needs more pride beaten into his soul which I did not believe it was possible to ever speak about when speaking of an Eldar." Aesan spoke.
Aesan's words were truth, that someone would turn someone of such monumental talent and capacity for hard work that surpassed ours was an insult for they sent us a broken thing as our apprentice and it was our job to fix it.
"Then I would assume your apprenticeship to him will be shorter than expected?" He asked mournfully.
"No, we initially wanted to teach him how to do the Murder Dream Charm and one other, as well as leave him tools and knowledge to develop his own but the moron will suck us dry of all we know in a year and be teaching us afterwards." Marsa replied.
The man laughed again at our annoyed song.
"Then I am happy, happy for my nephew, for he had found both a craft that spoke to him and masters to learn from once again and I agree with you that we have been wronged. I will speak with my wife and our brothers and sisters, to our and aunts and uncles and to our cousins and nephews and then to their families for they have wronged us and you deeply."
His tone was jovial and serious for now he knew his family had a great talent in its bosom and those that were meant to nurture it have scarred it.
"Do not punish the moron more, his family had told him how much of a fool he is and have already done so and he does not deserve more, for his failure in this regard was born from his teachers." Aesan spoke and pilled more punishment on the heads of those who had wronged us.
'We need to find what portents of doom we will abate by doing what you said now brother.' I sang to my siblings.
Aesan rarely speaks with his voice these days even as his song graces the soul of all who could hear it.
We realized that he hears the warnings of his future self as he tries to help us avoid misfortune but his warning are not open with teaching us what we require to defend ourselves from and the younger self has decided to only speak these warnings with his tongue so that we would not mistake them for anything else.
It is half of why we have decided to open our hearts to Gua Bis and Scarn Laddon despite only meeting them for a day when we had done so. The other half was because we had fallen in love with their home and its song and echoes of love once we had stopped shivering in fear and listened to it.
If we were born in that house or married into it after being born on this world we would not have left it but gave our souls and our knowledge into its fortification and even still it hurt that we had to leave.
We were born alone or less than so. I only have slightly less than three years to remember the father who had took me in for and what I remember spoke of his character and of the fact he cared and wished us best. What he left us and what those that had his position before did as well told us they cared for us too even if they had not met us.
My siblings only had months of memory of such but they still loved him.
The woman and warrior and mother Gua Bis and her husband and father of her children Scarn Laddon showered us with a parents love and it took all we had and the result of the warnings given to us by Aesan's future self to not settle here and take on her and her husbands offer of motherhood and fatherhood.
We couldn't, for this was not our home to defend for we had none even if we now knew we had a soul that was willing to love us as her own children and make her home our home with song and dance and kisses.
It hurt but it had to be done. We will not ask them to come with us for it would bring shame upon us to ask the woman who all but gave her heart to us to abandon her home, for we wouldn't if we were offered, but we will leave gifts when we leave to perhaps give them or more likely their families a slightly greater chance at running.
We wouldn't have used them to do so if doom came for our home while it was still standing but fought to the bitter end, on this both gun-sword and swords agreed, but gifts will be thought of, made and freely given for those that have earned it.
Once we will have found a safe place to call home we weren't moving until both us and our home were dust.
My siblings sang in agreement.
' Something will have to die when it was not looking and it will not know it died until after the fact. We just have to find out what and shoot and stab it many times till it dies.' They sang as one.
I sang my confirmation, so has it been sang and so it shall be done.
"I will not do so and will try to convince my wife of the same, for she was cross when she heard of it but too tired from her duties to do much more than sleep. His family has already convinced all others of this until they hear confirmation of this from us for if my nephew would have erred too drastically it would be my wife's work that would be mocked for it."
We nodded at that and that was that.
"I do actually have something more to talk with you, something important." Our friend said seriously.
His voice had no more of its mirth and joy and instead was as stalwart as a sword but nowhere near as sharp.
Something important but not dangerous then.
"Do speak of it friend, for it would not do to leave important things untold." I welcomed cautiously.
"During my wife's toils as she punished those who scarred my lord princes' honor and desecrated the garden of his Princess-wife, my wife had gained the honor and privilege of hosting a man among men and his own wife. For he is a man among men who had in a days work earned many favors and that now has a son born of his wife with the same issues as our youngest and a new son he has adopted to look after and all four of them are ours to host until they can build themselves a home. We were hoping you could hear him out as he offers his favors and make him a sword as you have made for us."
We looked at each other and considered. We had not planned to ply the one fifth of our trade we were teaching our apprentice so soon, but the man did seem important and if he was hosted and respected by our friends and our family then he deserved it.
"We will go and meet with the man and hear his offer. Even if he does not impress we will still paint him a sword as we have done for you, as well as see if we cannot make improvements at that which we have already given to you and no favors need be exchanged for either of this for you are friends and they your honored guests as we were before we became friends."
My offer was simple and generous for we too were as the man in question and were received in an open home full of love, it would not do to deny it to others or be petty about it.
Favors are just favors, friendship cares not for them.
Our friend bowed with tears in his eyes.
"Thank you my friends, I promise you he will impress."
We nodded, that remained to be seen.
We left and went to our friends' home and we passed through bustling theaters and concerts and arenas until we reached the home of our friend.
We entered through the silver door and went to the meditation room the man in question used to relax and rest as his hosts slept or were away and as his wife looked after his sons. He was tired and needed a few hours of rest.
"Friends may I present you Ulthuan the Unlucky, father of Eldrad of Ulthuan who is a boy who should be nameless but isn't for his father has foreseen his name spoken in song and thunder."
The man dropped his meditation and rose. His body, was unimpressive, his face plain and his short hair as black as his eyes and his garments little more than rags but his face shined in joy as he greeted us in voice and song and bowed deeply.
"Greetings young masters, I thank you for agreeing to hear my proposal and I'm sorry I could not do so dressed more adequately for both my wife and I are too tired to work today and I have sworn to only wear what she has crafted for me or that which our children have done so, for it is rude to refuse clothes given and crafted by ones' children." He greeted us warmly.
We beheld his song and the toil that made him a man among men and held it as true as we knelt and bowed in respect for he was a man among men and deserved it and our favor.
"We greet the man among men as true and promise our assistance."
"Young Masters, please this is unnecessary, I am willing to pay in favors and friendship." He cried honestly as we bowed.
The toil of saving two hundred and four souls from burning wombs in one day as he, they and their mothers burned as he did so, as well as the birthright of twins and triplets to be blessed by two divines in the same day and by three divines in total said deed had earned him sang otherwise.
He was a fool and he has earned the right to be so and more. We will do the work for free, for he has done to children that would be abandoned to die what we hoped others would have done for us.Last edited: Nov 30, 2025 Like