Chapter 79:

Chapter 79: A long awaited event is most fortuitous.



All of the gods interact differently with Existence, and for the Eldar there are five categories of people each of our Gods interact with: Foreigners, Vassals, Eldar, The Lesser Divine and the Pantheon.

Foreigners are every single species not a part of our stories, be they strangers, foes or even friends, Vassals are species that have agreed to submit themselves to the Empire or the Pantheon and are thus granted a certain measure of consideration as many times they adopt certain elements of the Pantheon to serve and the Eldar need no explanation as to who and what they are.

The Lesser Divines are different from the Pantheon, for each is part of the Divinity of certain places or cultures, while the Pantheon is universal. Anaen for example is a lesser Divine, as for the Craftworlders that live under its protection she represents the Concepts of Home, of Safety and Community but there are many types of Lesser Divines, like my Failed Son, or the Soon to be Muses of Commoragh or the World Spirits of the Exodites and many others.

The Pantheon is Universal however and all Eldar are under their aegis, but it does not mean that each Divine is as influential on each of the five groups. The best examples of this are Isha and Gea.

Gea is mainly unknown to foreigners, for few of her domains and duties seem relevant or useful to outsiders and many of our Vassals don't even know she exists, let alone care for her. Even the Eldar don't tend to give much thought to the Consort of the Twins despite her position in the Pantheon, but to the Divines be they Lesser or of the Pantheon? She is crucial, for she represents wealth, stability, ritual and most importantly coherency, for it is her that keeps the peace between the Divines and when conflict does rise she ensure that it is prosecuted appropriately as befitting of the Wife of the King of the Divinities of the Eldar.

Isha on the other hand is known and important to many. To foreigners she is a strategic asset to be taken into consideration or denied to the Eldar when possible, to our Vassals she is many times their primary protector, patron and favored deity and to the Eldar she is the most beloved of the Divines too, for her love makes us feel treasured and loved and even the most jaded of us can't help but feel hopeful and light when feeling the barest whisper of her presence. To our Divines however? Isha does little for them be they of the Pantheon or not.

To the Divines, her primary domains and duties are that of a healer and it is rare that she does anything else in her interactions with the rest of the Pantheon, for while she is the Divine Mother of the Eldar, her importance in Divine Matters is generally speaking quite low, for the Divine have no need for food so her domain of Harvest does not interest them, she is not their mother with the exception of Lileath and the Divine and Mortals don't have a lot of overlap in their needs.

Isha is deeply protective of those under her protection and those she protects are very protective of her regardless of whether they are pets or family and it is for this reason that those who emulate her are the most loved and protected individuals in the Empire, for those that protect them know perfectly well that the blessed of Isha are perfectly willing to go through obscene things in the name of their family.

All of this doesn't change the fact that my current experience with one such individual is rather strange compared to what I know of them.

A woman blessed by Isha and by the looks of it a good mother came with her newly born son to me, claiming that 'he was born wrong' and asking me to fix it or take him with me.

The Blessed of Isha are highly protective of their children, especially newborns and just trying to get one to leave their home shortly after the birth of a new family member is liable to get many people stabbed, most of the time those demanding their presence away from their family. Them leaving their home, even with them in tow is just not done, unless they go to see other members of the family and even that is very rare.

Her telling me I can have what should be her most precious possession made me short-circuit. I have been healing the craftworlders for two weeks by now as I awaited for my sister to find us a navigator and I stayed primarily in this small room. I have healed many with little break as I instructed the leadership of the craftworld to prepare for my sleep just in case.

Few of the cases brought to me were in any way shape or form strange and the number of people coming to me either to tell me of possible breakages of Divine Law have reached 0 but I continued plying my services with resignation as I awaited for the Divine shenanigans the Pantheon wishes to throw at me in their next performance.

"Could you please repeat that miss, as I am afraid my mind is refusing to fully take in your words. You want me to take your child with me if I fail to heal him. Why?" I asked her.

The blonde woman in question was sitting on one of the two beds in my healing ward and was breastfeeding her son as he was hungry still.

The child is endlessly hungry, he never stops being hungry and none of the healers have been able to find even a reason as to why it's happening, let alone why. From what she told me, the healers have determined it's not related to his body, but none can even find a reason why the soul could turn it's body constantly hungry.

"I have seen the way people look at my son and I do not want him to grow here where the others look at him wondering if they should kill him or not. The rest of my family will not leave, for each of them has a family of their own that they won't abandon or don't know how to live outside of the craftworld and are unwilling to abandon it for a child that might not survive to adulthood. If you can't help him, please take him somewhere where he can live and be happy." She replied deeply ashamed of herself.

I sighed at her words, she wanted her child to be happy and came to me to help. That made sense at least, and the why she wasn't coming was obvious at least, this is not her first child and she is unwilling to abandon the rest.

"Contact one of you clan members and tell them to bring one of you senior healers to me, I need to know what they've done and checked for already and assist me in case some sort of parasite is the reason for it." I ordered her softly.

I might as well talk with the senior healers while I look over this.

I pulled out one of my Nourishing Liquid makers and put in on the second bed then did the same to a nutri-cube fabricator. I have two of each and can make more and I guess I can part with it.

"This is a food fabricator, it is meant to make a Young-Nourishing Liquid from psychic power, Assuming I can't cure him you can use it to feed him and make sure he is fed. The other makes nutri-cubes which provide all of the nutrients an adult might need, just put your hand on the top and it will make food. I can't teach others how to make it as I am not a master of the craft, but it should help keep your boy fed and the two of you together and you can keep both assuming I can't help the boy."
"Th-thank you." She stuttered.

I could feel the song of this room and of her heart change from nervousness to gratitude and I awaited for her clan to retrieve one of the healers and did some routine checks on the boy, the sort that any aspiring healer should be able to do to check if the craftworlders had some healers worth a damn.

The body was fine, the mind was what one would expect of a two months old and a cursory view on the boy's soul showed nothing unusual at first glance.

"My husband is outside with the healer." She told me after a few minutes.

That was fast, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, as the craftworlders do have access to portable webway portals while inside their craftworld after all. I still can't get over the fact the fools have access to restricted military technology, but seem to think they can only use Soulstones to enhance their gear.

I wondered if it's perhaps something Slaanesh made more difficult to learn, but the Aspect Warriors, Warlocks or Farseers should have been able to learn it as one dedicates their life to honing every part of themselves to war, lives for thousands of years or both.

"Inform your husband that he can come in if he wishes, but that he is to not interfere or bother us." I ordered.

The families of those blessed by Isha are tight-knit and it is unsurprising to me that her husband is the one available to immediately go to find someone to help his child. The mother is breastfeeding and is constantly doing so, but the father can't carry that many baby bottles to keep the boy fed. He's drunk the equivalent of four of them since coming to my room and is still doing so.

Two men entered the room through the sliding doors, a man dressed in green and gold armor with two red wings painted on the chest and with a helmet on and a healer in blue robes.

He was a healer at least, I could feel it in his song that he has dedicated his life to the health of others and I could also feel that he has given up on the boy in front of me as his avian features were painted by the foul visage of resignation. I greeted him with a nod and turned to the husband of the mother of my patient to appraise him on instinct.

The man in green was familiar and it took me little to realize who he was. Disseth Aisse, the fairest of Anaen and the woman near me was his wife which has just entrusted her child to me. That was unexpected to put it lightly and I felt the stench of Divine shenanigans.

Cegorach's meddling no doubt as I could feel that Anaen was not interested in anything but getting me out of her domain.

The man bore two blessings of Cegorach and Asuryan too now, where before he only had that of Cegorach. Four blessings is the sign of a respectable career of serving as an example to others and dealing with many, many fools.

"Diseth Aisse, we meet again and I am glad to see that you are well." I welcomed the man warmly.

The man was caught off-guard by my words and stayed at the entrance obeying my directive corresponding to his presence.

"I greet you Holy One, I thank you for agreeing to help my wife and family, but I am sorry to say that I do not remember ever meeting you before." He said.

How cute, he does not recognize me, time to rectify it.

"It has been a long time since we've last talked and you and your host interrupted my and my younger siblings mission on the only world they've ever known, but such is fine for life has strange twists and turns." I spoke and my Voice was that of Khaine.

My words were accompanied by the memory of our meeting, each word a different scene of the day we first met and the last word being punctuated with the moment my face plate turned into a fiery smile. I could feel three of the four other beings in this room suddenly being very scared, but the fourth was… burping?

The baby stopped eating.

"Oh dear." I said as I turned towards the smiling child.

That is most definitely not normal.

"Cease being scared and assist me." I ordered in the harsh bark of gunfire and screaming swords.

The Bald healer did as I instructed and came to me, and the couple were connected to one another as the husband tried to calm down his wife.

I ignored them and turned to the now smiling baby.

"What have you done to this baby?" I asked.

"Nothing, nothing is wrong with it, and none of us affected him in any way. We could find nothing wrong despite all we tried and we dared not touch anything without knowing for certain." He answered.

Useless, completely and totally useless knowledge.

I stopped being restrained by propriety and glimpsed fully on the soul of the baby whose mother gave me permission to heal.

There was nothing there, nothing wrong, the child was blessed by Cegorach once, he was healthy, he had two blessings, all links between the soul and body were well, all of the spirit-organs of the body were fine, the emotion receptors and transmitters were fine, the soul was healthy.

I need to check where the terror is heading towards and the three have calmed down.

"I require one of you to feel terror, there might be some parasite that feeds on terror and that hides from our sight and if I can trace the terror it feeds upon to its existence then I can kill it for it." I informed the parents.

The healers stopped being useless now as my Severing Blades continued to cut lightly for hidden growth and my blades of Valor assisted me. My cuts were small and barely perceptible to adults, but to a baby they would have deep consequences if left untended and I dared not let even a single heartbeat go towards not finding the parasite now that it might know we're onto it.

If I let it out of my sight it might bury itself deeper or worse, lay eggs and eggs of such a creature would probably be harder to find than the adult itself as there are few creatures that can hide from my sight and none of them are good.

The healer continued his healing of my cuts as I let no stone left untouched and unchecked. I could feel terror in the air, it was light, barely perceptible but it was enough and it was slowly growing, as the father remembered his past missions and used said memories to increase his terror.

The parasite was no longer feeding on it and the baby once again started to suckle on his mother's teat.

"I am missing something." I hissed in my own voice.

Something was messing with my perception and I could feel my very being twisting and concentrating on this single child as the room became bathed in psychic energies.

"Perhaps Khaine's voice frightened the parasite enough to release it's grip? Can you speak again as Khaine?" The other healer proposed as I kept searching for a hidden parasite.

He continued healing the damage my light cuts were doing so fast the boy wasn't even noticing them.

I considered his words and did as he proposed.

"Where are you little morsel? Come near my teeth and let them cut into you, come sit upon my tongue and let it pull you in. Do not resist little morsel, for you have no place to hide and no place to run, come into my maw and let me feast, come and let me give you all that you deserve and more." I sang a sweet lullaby as Khaine.

My voice was the sweetness of heartfelt murder as I sought to Murder whatever thought the soul of a baby Eldar tasted sweet.

I felt movement, and the Divine energies moved into the soul of the baby boy and mixed with the terror of his parents as the soul itself feasted on the psychic energy.

The healer opposite to me was shocked and moved away from the boy and prepared to bolt through the door and get reinforcements.

"Stop trying to run coward, I know what's wrong and it's not that dangerous to you that you should act like you do." I told the man.

I hated what I was looking at more than he did, for I knew exactly what I was looking upon, a Soul Eater, a child blessed by Cegorach and Slaanesh, a monster that feasts on eldar souls and all that we are.

I was looking at a boy that could become a Solitaire, a future nephew of mine, born sooner than he should have but nonetheless in front of me.

~~~~~~~~~~

The healer I brought ran through the door and left me, my wife and our youngest with the priest that has been terrorizing my home for weeks. It was also the same priest that nearly killed me and my warriors while on a mission from the farseer.

"What is wrong with my son, holy one?" I asked him as my wife frightfully held our youngest son of three.

The man was visibly tired when we entered this room and was even more tired once he told the soul-healer to leave and prepare a meeting with the rest of his peers. His black robes continued to sit properly on them, but the man himself was sluggish and his every move telegraphed and lethargic.

It didn't change the fact that he was just one step below being the mask the Divine could use to peer through reality and was thus capable of Murdering my home and everyone on it.

"Nothing and everything is wrong with him. The boy is born healthy and he is exactly what he is supposed to be and what he is, is a soul eater. His soul craves the souls of other creatures to devour as he is blessed by the Unborn Divine. To stop being so, he needs to either find a way to get the New Divine to rescind its blessing and have another take him in, or find someone that can take it from him and not subject him to a fate worse than death if you want him to live a normal life." He answered.

He motioned me to approach and I went and held my wife's arm.

"How do we do that?" I asked with steel in my voice.

If there is a solution then we will take it, whatever it takes. I could feel my wife's conviction join mine as her thought mirrored mine

"Normally it would be easy, I did it when I changed my blessing from that of Isha to that of Khaine when I Murdered my own father. The issue is that the New Divine has no taboos. Everything is permitted, everything is welcomed and everything must be brought to greater and greater heights." He answered and I could feel my hope crumble.

"Then what can we do?" My wife asked.

The priest looked at her and for a moment I could see beyond the facade of a tired healer and see something else, something calculating and sinister and very patient but the moment was gone and the facade was back. And then the tired man started to speak.

"Cegorach helps Isha with children with special needs and your child and those like him will have a very special role to play in the future. A servant of Cegorach will come in the future and take your boy to a role that will see him help others and he will be able to sate his thirst for souls in his service. Until then, let me make him something that should keep him fed for a bit."

He went to the tools on the shelves and picked some of the tools the healers have prepared for the creature married to royalty. He picked a strange wraithbone claw and a few crystals from the shelves before he placed them on the bed opposite to us where 2 strange contraptions awaited.

'Those are food synthesizers my love.' My wife sang to my soul as she sensed my curiosity.

I thanked her as we continued to look over the priest. He took a bottle of the red liquid I was told was not actually blood and he combined the bottle of liquid with the wraithbone and fixed the four crystals to the sides. He then proceeded to take a crystal from his robes and attached it to the bottom of the now opaque bottle.

Our son start to hunger once more as he sensed the bottle.

"Here, one bottle a day, no more and no less, and the crystal on the bottle should last you a month at most. Do not let him touch the soul stone at the bottom or it will get empty faster and I doubt you have a soul to put into the soulstone to feed him." He said and handed my wife the bottle.

"Why do you have a soul to feed others?" She asked confused.

She did not understand what she was dealing with, few did and all she knew was that she is to observe certain rituals when interacting with him. She did not realize that what she now held was not some animal soul but an eldar one.

"Some fools decided to try and kill me while I was on a mission and unlike your husband and his warhost when they tried the same, they were far less polite and sorry about it as they tried to make amends, assuming I even allowed them to." He answered and I could feel her panic.

She remembered the mission from decades ago when I came and the Seers and Masters went mad trying to defend our home from every single threat that kept on popping out of nowhere. I told her what we faced then and now she realized what she was dealing with, a priest of Murder and Carnage.

'We are safe my love, the priest is kept tame by oaths and debts and ritual and as long as all of them hold we are safe, assuming it does not try to sleep.' I whispered to her soul to calm her down.

The creature was at its most dangerous when it slept, for it is then that a bigger more dangerous creature will look upon it as prey and start trying to eat it.

'How can you be so calm?' She all but screeched into my soul.

She is a civilian, not a warrior, and does not understand what it means to have your life and danger, and right now we weren't in danger. We were near a dangerous creature for sure, but we were not in danger, for the creature liked us.

'You get used to it and let me talk to him while you look over our son.' I softly asked.

My wife's attention went back to our son and I addressed the creature pretending to be an eldar.

"Is there no other way?" I asked it.

He started caressing his face as he considered my question.

"If you can find something that not even the New Divine would condone doing and then convince your son to do it and have said act honor one of the other gods of the Pantheon, then yes you could do that. I am sorry to tell you however that I don't know what that would be, not a single priest knows, which is why we want the creature dead among many other reasons." He answered.

"Why my son? Why did my son have to be cursed by whatever creature turned him into a soul eater?" My wife asked what I wished to before I could.

"The creature is the Divine most of the Empire has prepared itself to welcome for many thousands of years as it fell into excess and debauchery. It is not known to many outside of the priesthood, but all Eldar are born blessed by any of the Living Divine, be they born or not, and the creature it seems has started blessing newborn. More will follow, which is why it is important that you listen to me and agree to fulfill the ritual I will provide you in order to make sure that the babies born like this or those that become like this in the future will not just be killed or jeopardize your home." He said and pulled out a piece of paper and a notebook and a pen to write on.

He started writing on the paper which he help on the notebook and gave both to me.

"On the paper there is the detail of a ritual to keep the Soul Eaters tame until a servant of Cegorach will come and take them with them as well as a way to interact with them appropriately when they do come to collect the child. Please make sure you follow it precisely. The notebook is the evidence for some of the legal issues I have come across that others have subjected your people to as well as some personal notes. Please do not read it as it is for your own good not to do so and merely give it to whichever servant of Cegorach comes to you." He continued.

"I will do so." I swore.

He smiled thinly at us, as if the smile itself was in an of itself a difficult task.

"Excellent, now please leave and inform the rest of your craftworld that I will no longer be needing this healing ward and that unless there is an emergency to go to the other healers as I need to make preparations for an upcoming ritual and then to sleep."

I nodded at that and proceeded to guide my wife and giggling son back home, we had another apocalypse to prepare for.