"The future is like a library. The prophecies you see are only one book among many, a possible direction, but never the whole story."
"You need to control prophecy, make it serve you, rather than letting prophecy control you."
Curze didn't really understand. Caelan didn't expect him to grasp it all at once, but there were some truths he had to tell him.
Caelan raised his palm toward Curze's small face.
"Next, I'm going to slap you. You can use your prophecy to see whether I'll slap your left cheek or your right."
Curze wanted to explain that he couldn't fully control prophecy, but the vision had already come to him.
"Left," he said.
Smack!
Caelan lightly slapped his own right cheek. The sound startled Phily awake.
"Did your prophecy foresee that?" Caelan asked.
Curze shook his head.
"Do you know what that's called?"
"Resistance. I want to resist my fate."
Curze lifted his head. Some things were becoming clearer to him.
"Wrong, it's choice." Caelan shook his head, raising his palm again. "I'll slap you once more. Tell me, left or right cheek?"
Curze replied, "I'll say right cheek, and you'll slap my left."
Caelan slapped him twice, once on each side, perfectly fair.
Curze's cheeks swelled; Caelan hadn't held back.
"Did your prophecy see that?"
Curze shook his head.
"Do you know why?"
He shook his head again.
"Because you already told me your prophecy. I thought it worked against me, so I chose not to follow it."
Curze pondered this.
"Again. Which cheek this time?"
"Left."
Smack! Caelan struck his left cheek. Curze's face swelled further.
Phily stared, dumbfounded. 'What on nostramo were they doing?'
"This time, did it match your prophecy?" Caelan asked.
Curze nodded. "Why?"
"Because human emotions are fickle. Just now I thought there was no benefit in obeying the prophecy, but then suddenly I felt like hitting you. Congratulations, your prophecy was right."
Curze half-understood. He raised his own palm. "Prophecy tells me I'll resist you and slap your left cheek."
"And?"
Curze said nothing. He swung.
Caelan caught his hand, smirking, only for Curze to dart his other hand across and slap Caelan's right cheek.
Caelan's face swelled, too.
"That wasn't prophecy," Curze said. "I liked you before, but just now I found you annoying. So I slapped you."
Caelan held his cheek. As Curze grinned, he cuffed him hard on the forehead, sending him sprawling face-first to the ground.
Curze climbed up again, nose and brow bleeding, but smiling widely.
"Why are you laughing?" Caelan asked.
"I choose not to answer."
"Prophecy isn't about guessing who slaps who," Caelan said.
"I understand."
"No, you don't. Prophecy shows you cold reality, but never the process."
Curze still didn't get it.
"Do you want me to die?" Caelan asked.
Curze shook his head.
"Then I will die," Caelan said calmly. "That is a destined prophecy. It says I'll die before you, on the day you unify Nostramo. I'll die in front of you, cut down by her."
He pointed at Phily, trembling and lost.
"I haven't seen that prophecy," Curze said.
"That's because your power isn't strong enough yet. In time, your visions will grow. You'll be able to see the end of someone's life at a single glance."
"Was what you just said… your prophecy?"
"Yes." Caelan nodded. In truth, he couldn't prophesy at all. But everything was possible, and if he claimed it was his vision, Curze couldn't disprove it.
"I won't let that happen," Curze said.
"And what will you do?"
Curze looked at Phily, clutching his shard of metal. The solution came instantly.
Phily recoiled in terror, curling into the corner.
"You want to kill her?" Caelan asked.
"If I kill her, she can't kill you."
"But have you thought that maybe it's this conversation, your intent to kill her, that makes her kill me in the future?"
Curze fell silent.
"That's what the Aeldars are like. Their seers try to prevent prophecy from coming true, but their attempts are what cause it to happen."
Curze approached Phily, shard in hand.
"I won't let you kill him," he told her.
"I won't! I'd never kill him!" Phily cried. Why would she murder the man who saved her life?
"Promise me."
She nodded rapidly. "I promise."
"If you break today's vow, I'll kill you, and everyone you care about."
Curze turned back to Caelan.
"So your choice is to threaten a helpless girl?" Caelan asked.
Curze nodded.
"And did it occur to you that your threat might backfire, and push her toward killing me?"
"I swear I won't!" Phily sobbed aloud. "I swear it!"
Curze thought hard. What exactly was Caelan trying to teach him? He'd learned about resistance, about choice, yet neither seemed enough. What else?
"Why do you want to please me?" Caelan asked.
"I don't," Curze shook his head.
"Then why do you listen to me?"
Curze thought carefully. He knew about something called imprinting, how newborn birds see the first living thing and mistake it for their mother. 'Was I the same?'
"…Because I choose to listen to you," he said.
"And is that truly your choice, or a choice I led you to?"
Curze frowned. "You want me to resist you?"
Caelan answered seriously: "I don't want you to resist me. Ideally, I'd prefer you to be my puppet, then I'd never worry about the future."
"I don't want to be a puppet. And you don't want me to either."
"Why not?"
"Because if you did, you wouldn't tell me."
Caelan chuckled. The boy was sharp, just driven half-mad by prophecy.
Perhaps raising a Primarch wasn't as impossible as it seemed. The so-called unbeatable demi-gods were, at heart, unloved children.
Good teaching could help them grow into sane, balanced people. That was Caelan's hope, the only thing he could offer.
But if the Four Gods decided to stuff a Primarch full of corruption, no amount of guidance would save him.
"Today's lesson is over. Sleep." Caelan ruffled Curze's head.
Curze obediently lay down and closed his eyes.
The Primarchs were giants in action, born with infinite knowledge. They could become scholars, warriors, scientists, or inventors. But none of that knowledge taught them how to be human.
In the M3 era, both family and schools raised children.
The Primarchs had neither family nor schools. That's why they so easily grew extreme.
So Caelan had to play father, mother, and teacher all at once.
"The fate of mankind rests in the hands of giant infants," Caelan muttered. "The thought alone is despair."
Curze opened his eyes. His inborn knowledge let him understand the meaning of giant infant precisely. He wondered who Caelan meant.
It couldn't possibly be him.