Chapter 13:

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 Gold