Chapter 16:

Chapter 16: Of Presentations and how they shall lead to Marriage, for Marriage is to keep us from being alone.



Marriage is strange among the Eldar but simple. For man it is complicated and messy, for the desires that go into it are diverse and the means to achieve it too many to bother with explaining.

For Eldar the reasons are simple, find someone that makes your home feel warm or whose presence makes the home warm enough for you that at least one of you are willing to fight mortal gods and daemon gods and things worse than that, for you know that what you fight for is worth it.

The means to do so for Eldar is through trickery and debts. The parents of either pair, or their masters in my case, must trick or put the party other than the one they represent into debt in order to convince them to look upon their loved one as if they are the only one they can build a sturdy home together with and make it filled with warmth, children and sweet kisses.

The means they can do so through are simple and annoying to do so, for they prey on Eldar pride to make it work as they do normally and are actually what guarantees healthy marriages I have been told by both family and friends.

None of those applies when neither Eldar have any pride left in them and why every single Eldar that exists and will ever exist would look in horror at my apprentice and his beloved, for they have no pride to trick and put into debt. This means that even if such a broken thing does get married the marriage will end in disaster for you need pride to remain married and happy and if you do not have it your home is not home.

They are cripples, both of them for none will get them to marry as is tradition and only one family of two mourns it.

Aisse Geara, for if I hear one more moron call her Innia Bris someone will die, and Cipanni Oiair are in love, madly so and yet instead of wishing to trick one another into their families they wish the other the best and pray they will find success.

It is sweet, if foolish by human standards and obscenely abhorrent to have such an atrocity happen in your eldar family and I can understand both points of view even as only one applies. For Eldar are prideful people and I wholeheartedly believe they would find joining the pleasure cults less horrific than that which has happened to my apprentice and his love and I continue to believe that they would find it so even after their doom will be born from it.

What do you mean you wish your beloved well? Fool, you must trick her pride into coming into your home and making sure she does both! Or if you can't do that trick her so you can sneak into hers and make it so!

These are the lessons his family and I try to teach my apprentice. Unfortunately from what I see of the fact that Aisse Geara is alone at her beloved's presentation when I and his family have heavily implied her family were welcomed too there was no way to deny it anymore.

The girl had nothing left: no pride, no craft to call her own, no master to look after her, no family to kiss and hug her soul and none to wish her well without mockery except Cipanni Oiair and she couldn't even bring herself to bother thinking of sneaking into his home. There is nobody left to teach it to her, so I now have to do it.

No, we had to tell her point blank that she is to come for I order Cipanni Oiair to do so if he wishes our apprenticeship to continue.

I lied when I said so, yet none of the cripples know it and I hope it fulfills the need for trickery, for I have none more to give that she would care for at least for now. Now only accumulating debt remains until she has done so enough and I can heap more trickery on her.

It saddened me, for Slaves owned more than this girl and they didn't even own themselves, and speaking of slaves.

"Boy please pour me more tea." I asked the boy I purchased so that his former master and her family and their friends will die.

"Yes Master." The boy replied with meekness he did not possess yesterday and poured it gently into my coup.

I do not beat him, I do not mock him for his status or his age or lack of family to love him, for he is but 20 and they have abandoned him and yet he is meeker than before I bought him and he was for two days after his purchase, for I have given him an insult he cannot speak, sing or rage against fairly.

And the boy is as fair as me and knows it.

I made him an honest promise, if he is capable of beating me in a contest of a skill of his choosing and I cannot prove a way for him to have cheated, he will be free and leave with trinkets and a favor from me beyond the one needed to free him. There are only two tricks to it too, for I am generous and kind and such deals must always have some.

He gets to choose the skill at his leisure and I will not stop him from learning more in his free time, for he has plenty with the exception of the days I need to interact with my young apprentice and teach him or speak of my vengeance on those who had wronged him with his family or my own, and I need my mint tea to help cool down my fiery tongue and someone to pour it so I may calm down.

His first skill was even a smart choice for a boy his age as he chose Sight. He reasoned that with Sight he is not as disadvantaged as in any others and it is the one thing he might have a chance to win with as a starting gambit.

But he was hit with the first trick for while he is free to cheat if he can get away with, so can I and he cannot prove so easily that I cheat. Nor did he specify that we need to see with our eyes, but that level of clarification will come as he learns the common language properly. He has time and I won't hold it too much against him, for I have only mocked him once for it and I have promised I will not do so anymore as he cried and that I will ask for clarifications next time.

The second trick is almost fair in how it benefits him more than me. This trick is that if he fails in the contest of skills he proposed, I will teach him from scratch the skill until I believe for sure he is at a proper level comparable to mine. This involved teaching him the color and the shape of objects, much to his humiliation, but we will move past it soon.

This means that while he will benefit from my tutelage for the skills he believes himself proficient in but isn't so, and this will also mean he has less time to study on his own some new skills.

Now all I need of him is to try and cheat and make some friends in his free time I insist to be unreasonable for, and prevent him from learning in order to help him cheat and once he has six or seven of them that he trusts and can sing discreetly with and that would swear themselves to him, I can just throw down the match and enact the plan the family of my apprentice have been spending the vastness of their favors to make happen and to which I will add my own as I earn them.

For after young Cipanni proves to his family that he has the basic skills needed to assist me in my craft, my siblings and I will begin to ply it so that I can combine work with teaching and do more with less time for as the time passes I have less hours in a day.

His family and my own, for I have invited them too, do not know how to treat the broken girl. She has no pride to play with, no willingness to play with the pride of others and no craft she can feel any pride in or family to feel pride in her.

To see a crippled Eldar is horrific indeed, for she stays as a statue as the world sings around her and she does not care for there is no pride left to care.

It is my duty now to put her into debt and make her care for it too, even as my apprentice is already into hers and she does not care for either of it. For this matching was my plan and I am the only one with barest inkling of what she feels, for I was as her too once upon a time in another life. But that is taboo to speak of out loud, for my new life has far more hope in it than I have felt in my first one, even if it has an obscenity more of despair to balance it out as well.

Just the thought of such a life afflicting millions would make Eldar weep in horror and kill themselves.

When I showed my siblings a shadow of what such an Eldar would feel they again wished to take me to the healers to save my soul from whatever threatened it for even the dead could feel more joy than what I showed them.

They were probably also worried that when I did so, I tried to kill myself before I noticed. I even had a knife in my hand that was not there before but that's not as important.

Depression for a human feels as if you are a gun and you are too frail and slow to hit others with your body and yet you have no more bullets to speak death with and feels like you never had.

For Eldar it felt as if you were a sword as light as a feather is light yet you cannot swing straight and your blade duller than a voidship is long so none of those little cuts you could do, if any, amount to much as you can't even cut hairs and yet you remember cutting mountains.

Oh and you felt very very small and unloved but that applies to both species.

I have become the greatest expert in the Empire and the rest Great Wheel in translating human experiences into eldar and the other way around even if I doubt any but myself would care to learn to do so and would be interested in the result. Too much bad blood and arrogance you see.

And neverborn don't count for they cheat and they have no birthright to claim otherwise, or any at all.

"I lied you know, for I am a liar that lies easier than he breaths and with twice the frequency." I spoke malevolently.

That was a lie, I can barely keep a secret convincingly let alone fully lie. I have to deal in half-truths at best if I was to deceive and often times I find myself needing to use nothing but the truth to deceive, but deception is not lies for the former is much easier than the latter.

I spoke in a whisper as my family and friends pretended not to hear me even as encouragements flooded my soul, for they prayed for my success and hoped for an entertaining evening.

The presentation was a farce anyway, the boy had already proven he could do what he will be demonstrating to me in private and I have already shown his family, even as he didn't know and most of his family only needed to know that their son and brother and their cousin and uncle and nephew was doing well.

Not like they fully understand what they'll see anyway.

The real show is myself and the beloved of my apprentice and me trying to help her grow some pride back for hers is not fully gone.

If Cipanni's pride was a bone cleaned of all meat and gnawed upon by wolves when he met me, hers was a cracked one that still had some marrow in it and as long as there is any pride to work with, there is hope for as hope dies last in the heart of Man so does pride die last in the heart of Eldar.

Both need it to breathe after all.

She looked at me with a hollow face and eyes I have only seen once in this life. She quickly turned to looking at the stage her beloved will soon occupy.

"Cipanni will not lose his apprenticeship regardless of the results here today, for he has already done all that he is about to do and more in front of me. This whole show is a chance for his family to feel pride in their son."

"Must be nice." She said, her voice just as hollow as when she bowed and formally introduced herself to me.

"He was like you, perhaps not as worse as you are now but not far off."

She nodded but did not care, the only thing she could look at is the door through which her love would come from and show off to his family.

"Why did you give up?"

Her head snapped me in anger and I grinned evilly at the reaction.

So anger and fear still get a reaction.

That is such a delicious thing to know.

"What do you know?" She all but hissed in whispers.

Her future family were smiling as they pretended to not listen and if they had any they would have grabbed popcorn but it would not do to alert the spectacle of the fact they were watched.

Ruined the meal you see and what a fine meal it was, for they could see their boy could not yet bring back the passion in her voice to this level, but their future adoptee could and they loved it.

They approved of my methods and wished for me to continue.

"I know plenty small one, for I am a master and you master-less but that is fine, I am willing to find you one if you agree to get further into debt to my apprentice and his family and take your beloved's hand in marriage to atone."

My grin would scare daemons if they knew what I planned for them, not that fear would help them much.

It made her angrier and we all rejoiced as celebrations happened around the girl and she knew not of them, for we kept them hidden of her as she was our tasty prey, for her hate and pride taste most delicious and we here hunters and we shall hunt her into the home of her beloved where she will find sweet kisses, joy and even more kisses if she just decided to run as we cajoled her.

For the purpose of prey is to find safety and what more safety one can find than in a warm home filled with love and children and all that her heart desires yet knew not.

"Why have you brought me here to mock me more? Is it not enough that I see the man I love leave me alone?"

Jubilations erupted near her as spectators saw that the hunt was moving in the direction they wished for.

Unfortunately it would not be so simple for I was now both hunter and director and I needed to keep my audience in suspense and my prey off balance.

"Do you believe you are the only one to have experienced the grey wastes? I am a master and have experienced far worse."

I told her to the confusion of my audience and her disbelief.

"Do you expect me to believe that? You who could give others all that they wished for?"

Anger started coloring her voice as confusion started coloring that of my audience.

My siblings started radiating fear for they knew what I would do as I told them and I begged them to not hide their feelings for they are needed for my plan.

Confusion and fear spread among my audience as they noticed that my siblings felt fear and they knew me best and if there was something to be feared, it was the fact they looked upon my actions and remembered something worse than despair.

"I do, do you wish for me to prove it to you?" I looked down on her and I started embodying the villainous aspects that I have bargained for with the god of such things.

"How could you possibly do such a thing?" She asked with bile and distrust and the barest hint of curiosity.

"Take the hand of a poor sinner and a soul which was once damned and see that which I have gained before my birthright for this was the wages I have been paid for ten years for my sins and from which I escaped alive by love which you deny yourself before awakening again."

Fear colored both audience and spectators and yet my spectators were told in no uncertain terms to not intervene in my arena. My siblings feared the most yet they warned the loudest not to interfere as some tried and were stopped by their fellows.

The feelings of eldar are amplified a thousand more, both the good and the bad but there is one thing that is not amplified in size or in depth. What I called the grey line is that which is not amplified for it is where all strong emotions come to die and is where true hell begins for the Eldar.

The Grey Line or Gray Wastes as I call them in my second life are where one finds themselves where they can feel but echoes of emotion and this is hell as Eldar know and can think of.

But there is a deeper pit, one that Eldar are denied entry from, for even echoes of feelings are enough to keep them out of it.

In my former life I spent hours each month in there over the course of the ten years I struggled with depression and while I have never bothered to find the name others called it by, and I have taken to call such an area the Black Line, where all emotions no longer exist and echoes are but a distant past.

For Eldar this is a dimension of pain they have never experienced for even despair is preferable to them than what I am about to unleash on the broken mind before me if she were to take my hand and I would do so with love for my apprentice and his family to which she will join.

My siblings have called the lines by different names which I have taken for myself for they sound more impressive to an audience.

The Grey Line turned into the Grey Wastes for they have experienced it once and have found that it wastes life and soul away.

I have in actuality spent one week at most there in my ten years of pain and it was spread out among those ten years from which love pulled me out from and is that which my siblings called the Dark Soul Pits. They called it that, for they said that if the souls of the dead were to experience it they would weep for they would try to commit suicide and find that they cannot for they have already done so.

She who is about to experience damnation did so with a mocking smile as she looked into my one uncovered eye with her blue ones. This time it was the left one for I like to switch the place my third blessing appears on from time to time.

"I don't believe you, give me your best." She replied arrogantly.

Not quite the pride that is her birthright but close enough that lesser showmen would call it a win, but I am not a lesser showman for I am a master looking after his apprentice and trying to trick a woman into his house so it may become a home.

I did so and she screamed for she experienced a heartbeat of a type of hell Eldar did not know existed but all 'lesser' species knew of.

She fell from her chair and I pretended to not care as I screamed at my audience to not interfere.

The noise attracted the attention of my apprentice.

'Master?'

'Continue your preparations apprentice, I will inform you when you must come out and pretend that what you are about to do has meaning as if you hadn't done it before repeatedly in front of me.'

'Master.' The fool sang with tiredness he has not earned.

'Cipanni Oiair, I am getting you a wife, you will do as I command on this.' I barked in the cadence of gunfire.

'Yes Master!' He sang in fear.

"Is that all?" I asked the weeping and screaming eldar to the shock of my audience.

"I guess I should have expected it, for while you are older than both my lives put together you have not experienced much."

I pretended to give a disappointed sigh and knelt before her and placed a hand to her face and looked her in the eyes.

'Restrain yourself.' I sang.

Her mind did so, and the unnatural horrors her mind was not meant for retreated to a dark corner of her mind until only the memory of what she had experienced remained.

I could hear as she recovered and extirpated from her soul and mind that which I have given her and left the memory of a memory behind. It still shook her for no Eldar has felt this in fifty million years since before they were elevated by the Old Ones as their sword-children.

"Wha-What are you?" She asked in a trembling voice and song for both trembled as they remembered they remembered hell.

She looked at me in fear from the floor of the small cabin of the small theater we have spent favors to occupy only ourselves for today.

"The man that is willing to give you a home before you repeat the mistakes of my past life, now take my hand again for you will feel that which you have experienced again if you do not look upon the man whose house I intend to trick you into."

'Come you fool.' I ordered softly to my apprentice.

He did so and entered the stage as I helped his future lady wife to her feet and directed her eyes to the man who would save her from that which she knew not she can never return to.

'You are a very scary master, Master. Much scarier than the pink lady.'

My young slave who is the blade of my vengeance whispered in song.

'Boy, give me some more tea please, and I hope you have kept it warm.' I said softly as both I and future wife begun to sit.

I cooed as a woman fell in love to her love again for she knew that my apprentice was the only individual that would keep her out the hell I would put her in if she dared repeat my own mistakes.

'Yes Master, I'm getting better with it too, it didn't even fall to the floor so far.'

'Thank you boy, I'm proud of your progress.' I said and he preened and nearly caused the tray to fall again.

Of course it didn't fall to the floor, I gave the tray with tea both wings and wheels to prevent it but don't worry boy for I know you are clumsy and I still love you for it for as you stumble, your stumbling makes my vengeance all the sweeter when you stumble with your blade down my enemies' throats.

My audience naturally cheered, for they saw the result of my meddling but not all that I have done to make it so, except for my siblings to whom I share everything that I can.