Chapter 87:

Chapter 87: An Epilogue starts the same as all other parts of the story, by taking stock.



The natures of mortals and divines are separate yet intertwined, those of Eldar more so than most, for all Eldar's souls come from our Divines, and yet we insist that they be kept separate.

To be a mortal is to be limited at the extremes of how far you can embody specific concepts and to be a civilized mortal is to be able to choose how many and to what extent you embody them, but the Divine are neither mortal nor civilized. The Divine represent a certain number of concepts taken to extremes that shatter logic and reason and leave behind only madness, for madness is divine and to be Divine is to be Mad.

Despite our wishes to the contrary a bleed-through happened between the Pantheon and the Mortal Eldar with the re-birth of the priestly caste at the hands of Morathi and Malekith whose madness managed to bring them closer to Divinity, and in exchange the Pantheon learned to grow closer to Mortals and fragments of them became lesser divines.

Demi-godhood is a foreign concept to the Eldar, not because we are not familiar with the term, but because it is strange to think of it as distinct to us, for all eldar are by definition demi-gods. All of us are born from Divinity and the mortal shells whose origins can be found in the Old Ones and the idea that we can be something beyond that is foreign. Nevertheless people outside of the Empire have started to use the term and wonder if legendary heroes weren't in fact demi-gods as the term spread in the lexicon of those that do not live in the Empire and interact too much with aliens.

The nature of laws, of the interactions between eldar cultures and aliens and how they affect us and them are worthy subjects of study that a priest of Hoeth should be concerned with and not what I am currently experiencing.

"Your ears are a normal length Laciena, they have not grown nor has your head shrunk, they are the exact same size and physical density they were at the moment you met me." I informed the fussing young woman with a sigh.

"Then why do they feel smaller?!" She all but screeched.

This, this is my life now, telling women that can change their own bodies on a whim that their bodies haven't changed.

She was in her quarters now, looking in a hand mirror and obsessing over each of her features while I still remained the ship and was privy to everything in it, much to my displeasure. I could do without seeing my crew trying to pick which dress to wear while naked.

At least Laciena picked a pretty green one like her father wished her to.

I also did not need or want to know what neuroses my crew was getting up to in their spare time, but I did now and I still haven't figured out a way to shut it out.

"Perception, gaining the Sense of Song has modified your perception of reality and how all other senses feel to you and interact with one another. There is a reason we call the moment you learn to hear it adulthood, and it is because it changes the way you view reality to such a fundamental level that your perception of the past is changed as well. You are fine Laciena." I assured her.

She wasn't fully convinced yet, for Eldar women are as vain as eldar men are greedy and I should know, for I am a logistics officer and we hoard everything useful we come across.

I've looted swords, the knowledge of the Sirens, various trick and tips and techniques from the World of a Thousand Names, memorized sword techniques of the World of Clashing Blades and memorized the rituals of the World of Three Faces as well as their Splinter technology.

Splinter and Shuriken weaponry are different technologies, with different purposes and things they are used for despite their commonalities. Shuriken technology is meant for all targets by default and their preferred targets increase the more power they put into their shots but Splinter weapons a different and not something I had much experience with.

For most of Eldar Space splinter weapons are a law enforcement and hunting weapon meant to stun one's quarry with gravitationally or magnetically accelerated bits of crystalized poison. It's potency comes in the hand of psychic poison masters which can craft their poisons until even the living ships of some hive species die in a single shot that pierces the skin.

I wish I could have integrated some of them in my arsenal but I no longer have the room to do so, nor do I have experience with poisons or the inclination to bother much with them, except psychic poison that is, of which I have quite the interest still but you can't put those in a splinter gun, you need it be a hybrid poison for that or it does not work.

I should know, I tried.

"Are you fine?"

"Yes, my body is fine as well Sister."

That was not what she meant and we both knew it, but if she wants an answer to that question she will have to ask it.

"Your soul Bessar." She continued unamused.

"My soul is as well as can be expected." I replied with amusement.

"That is not the same as good, you were used as a puppet by a member of the Pantheon Bessar, I thought there were rules against it."

I considered how to answer her unspoken questions for a bit as it is a rather perilous topic.

"Do you remember the story of the Divine that lead to the War of the Bloody Hand that created the Veil separating us from the divine? Tell me the highlights as you know them please." I asked cheerly.

I could feel her wide eyes turn into thin strips as I deflected her original question for the one she least cared for but she still did as I asked her to, like the adorable Younger Sister that she is.

"Lileath had a dream of how the Mortal Eldar would be able to and will actually kill Khaine one day and Khaine reacted to it by starting an extermination of our species. Isha managed to get him to stop by pleading to Asuryan to save her children which he did by forbidding Eldar and the Divine from interacting, but Isha and Kurnous were too obvious in breaking the decree which ended with a War in Heaven, Vaul enslaved by Khaine and the Gods and Mortals separated by the Veil."

A decent enough answer and contains everything I need to educate her.

"Close enough, yes that happened but what are the implications and moral lessons learned from it based on what you know of their domains and duties?"

That made her think and I awaited for her to come up with an answer while I continued to get used to my new body, for while I was continuing her education I was also training both myself and my navigator, albeit considering she helps me maneuver she is now my pilot too.

The few tests I made near Anaen happened days ago and I am far from her now, but they were also far from what I would call complete. They allowed me to get used to my body and fly across space but they did not prepare me for combat maneuvers. As such I settled in a particularly asteroid rich environment and used it to get familiar to combat maneuvers.

I am now using my maximum speed to go through Asteroid fields and despite what most people would think of when they thought of Asteroid fields the early human movie makers were right on the fact that they are dense, their inaccuracy was in depicting it properly.

If you move slowly then you have plenty of room for maneuver, but if you're moving at maximum speed which is a good percentage of the speed of light then the Asteroid field is full of obstacles that you have nanoseconds to dance around.

In other words it is a perfect place to reproduce a combat scenario without having people actually shoot at you, much to the amusement of my Navigator. She's having the time of her life taking me for a ride in an Asteroid field if her cheers are anything to go by. I however continue looking around for threats and getting used to high intensity maneuvers.

"That was a hit." I said as the shield was activated.

"We would have dodged that!" She denied vehemently.

The ship's acceleration slowed down now as I allowed her to recover from the high intensity training we've been doing for the past three days without break.

This is the third accident in one hour, she needs sleep.

"The margin for error is meters not millimeters, we agreed to that, this training session is over, you will go to sleep then take a day to unwind before we start again." I explained as I cut our connection.

The woman was too tired to protest it, for our training regimen was brutal by the standards she was used to.

There are two aspects in which humans can claim that they have a physical advantage over Eldar, non-augmented humans that is and that is instincts with using ranged weapons in general which we overcome with a long lifespan and time taken with training and physical endurance in which we can learn how to cheat with psychic powers, but that takes time to learn.

Humans would have lasted for twelve hours at most in such a high intensity exercise, but that is without psychic powers, while Eldar would have been able to push for six hours if they did not use psychic abilities to keep themselves running. My little navigator and pilot still needs some training in that regard but until then I will do it for her and now that I've ceased doing it even her protest died in her throat.

"D-did I do good?" She asked already half asleep.

I will have to take her to her quarters it seems, good thing I have a wheelchair prepared.

"Yes, in a few months you should reach an adequate level." I informed her as I telekinetically placed her in the wheelchair.

The training standards of the Craftworlders are too lax. I asked her of her training in her flotilla and I grimaced at what she called 'grueling training', I was doing more grueling training at two months old.

Two hours of high intensity training followed by one hour of low-intensity mental training in physically demanding tasks was considered the warm-up, not half a day's training, and they even use their dreams to fully rest and not study.

We turn food into psychic energy and our body's building blocks but turning matter into psychic energy and back is far less efficient which in turn both reduces our weight and our endurance.

Father told me that civilian training standards were lax but what she described to me as the elite training was my warm-up at one year old. it is downright bizarre to see it described as difficult now, even if I do not have time for proper training now, thanks to my duties and studies. Hopefully Asurmen will teach them how to train properly.

Having two conversations at the same time is annoying but something I'll have to get used to.

The older woman fell asleep on route to her bedroom and I turned towards my Younger Sister, it's been a minute since I asked her a question, that should have been plenty to think about it.

"I don't need a perfect answer Laciena, just say the one that comes to mind, overthinking is not your friend on this topic."

She took my words to heart it seems for what she started to tell me was at least not what I would call the result of overthinking.

"Lileath acted rashly and did not think of the results of her actions and did like seers and farseers do when they try to avert a catastrophe and cause another or in our case bring it forth, Isha and Kurnous not only broke the law and suffered for it but caused innocents to suffer for it as well, and Khaine is a villain for… upholding the law? This is where I am stuck and I can't figure out what it means. Khaine enforces the law in that story but is taken to be a villain for it which would result in all laws and upholding them being villainous which is not what I believe a story should mean."

About what I expected then.

"Khaine gained the Aspect of Villainy yes, but to uphold the Law is in and of itself not villainous, what is Villainous is the selective enforcing of the law as Isha and Kurnous were not the only ones breaking it, but they were so obvious with it that Khaine couldn't not act and was forced to stop pretending it wasn't happening." I explained.

I did not expand on it further to let her take that in and allow her to think. That story has a lot of implications, but Khaine acting according to his duties and punishing lawbreakers is not it, not directly that is.

"Are the gods capable of long-term planning? All of it could have been prevented is Lileath was." She asked.

"They are capable of it as well as non-linear planning." I answered softly.

I liked where this was going.

"If so what was the purpose of it? Why did they want that to happen?" She asked and made me proud for it.

"Multiple purposes, the first was to separate the gods from the Mortals to protect the Divine from the Wasting Plague known as Boredom, the second was the de-industrialization of Eldar society and reserving Industrialization strictly for war, the third was as you alluded to, to teach Seers to think of the consequences of their actions, the fourth to teach our people that breaking the law affects you as well as those near you, the fifth was that villainy can be also be the selective application of the law, the sixth is that a law is considered broken when somebody or someone notices it and takes offense to it, the seventh is to honor your agreements and the eight is to inform you that Khaine uses mortal and divine blades, for the 100th​ blade that Khaine got he never destroyed and Khaine still uses it and many others that I personally do not much care for."

She looked quite surprised by my answer and it made me wonder… Is this not common knowledge?

"We are not an industrial species? But we're space faring!" She asked in shock.

How cute, I would pinch her cheeks if I could.

"We are, our military at least, the rest of our society does not make use of factories, but individual workshops where master craftsmen make individual weapons." I explained.

She did not like that answer for some reason.

"How do civilians make ships then?"

"A bonesinger shipwright sings it out of existence, with their skill, knowledge and training determining the size of the ship they can build and speed at which they do so. One of your mothers from what rumors I've heard was skilled enough to make multiple Wraithships ships in a day, and I am probably in one of them too for that matter, but I can't confirm it. For most of the Empire making such a ship in a year is considered the height of skill most will achieve, as while making so much Wraithbone is easy to do in a day or two if you're feeling lazy, making something as complicated as a ship is time consuming." I explained.

She was probably the one that paid her father's ransom too, but that's the type of nonsense uncrowned royalty can get up to if they're feeling motivated by something else than singing and why getting them to do something is so monumentally difficult.

Most of our royalty is a bunch of lazy bastards that only want to sing, and the few with even a pinch of ambition get to be quite obscene in what they can get up to, but the fools like the current arrangement where they actually have to get up from their singing room to be roped into helping us and we can't exactly tell them to go do something they don't want to do.

Unfortunate, but at least my wife is a very active and good ruler and my triplet siblings are there to make sure nobody overworks her.

"Why is it like this? Why not keep the entire Empire industrialized?"

"Because Industry is dangerous and it is the kind of danger we don't need. Vaul is a perfectly moral and upstanding individual that wishes well to all those around him, he is crafty, pleasant to be around and those that emulate him are generally speaking pleasant individuals to be around, but nobody with sense lets them off their leash to start building something unsupervised. That's how you get self replicating blackhole eaters that turn dead stars into gems and can make more black holes when they run out of them and that's the tamest thing that comes to mind that Vaul got up to when he wanted to make something pretty for Isha." I told her.

Vaul represents pure industrial might and when you can create most of your materials out of thin air? You can do some truly horrific things and the last thing anyone wanted was for Vaul to start looking at galaxies and think they'd look very pretty in a jar.

Blackstone Fortresses represent for us a 65 million years old weapons platform, but after our fall they are the most dangerous artifacts around. Vaul and our people have not stood idly by for 65 million years and our technology has advanced to quite an extreme degree compared to what we used to have during the War in Heaven.

Humanity and other industrial species always look in amazement then bafflement at our cities when they don't spot any factories and grow arrogant thinking we crippled ourselves and that our technology only exists due to inertia and a few individuals keeping what shouldn't function working but we are no orks. We stopped allowing factories to keep our Forge priests and Forge God from turning the galaxy into raw materials and if we do feel like it we can turn the homeworld of any species that thinks that we are a paper tiger into a pretty gem.

"Did Isha like it at least?" She asked in a tone that was far, far too normal for the hysterical laughter her soul turned to.

I had to do a double take, I wasn't expecting that question.

"Yes, Isha continues to wear the gem he made out of the central Black Hole of a now dead galaxy to this day."

"Then that is good at least." She said airily.

I… think I broke something there, either me or Gea and I don't want to find out how or what broke so I am going to move on.

"Yes, it is, but we keep our most powerful forges closed until we go to war for a reason, as once we do let them out it is very difficult to put them back in and they are only useful when an actual threat comes around and there's few of those where it's worth using them."

There comes a time where it does not matter the number of things you can throw at something to kill it, but the quality and our people are at a point where just throwing more stars at a problem is not enough, we need something of higher quality to deal with issues that quantity alone won't cut it.

"How so?"

"There are things where just throwing more resources at something doesn't work. Most things in this galaxy and reality and those around us are either things we don't need a serious industry to exterminate them, or are things that it doesn't help us much with, like Gorkamorka and our younger siblings the Krork for example. There's a small number of things that we can't kill without restarting the Forges of Vaul but that the forges would actually allow us to win and so we don't bother with them."

Eldar and our Divines are creatures of Obsession, and among our Divines, Vaul is uniquely dangerous as his Obsession is building, and when your obsession is building it doesn't take long until you turn to building factories and you start thinking how large or impressive you could make them much to the detriment of everyone and everything that can't run fast enough before turning into materials for the factory.

There's also the fact that the forges can only make Wraithstone, as only Eldar can make Wraithbone itself and the more Wraithstone we start using, the more like the Small Singing Swords we become, so it is truly for the best that Vaul is kept in check by Khaine producing singular masterwork blades or tinkering with our souls as opposed to making Galaxy Eating factories.

We don't need more of them and those we do have were a pain to hide.

Her brows furrowed as she started concentrating on whatever logic train her mind went to and I rechecked my sensor logs as I considered my next move.

I moved closer to the star as I did so and could feel my acceleration stop to a crawl as my solar sails furled behind me and I started to reduce my emissions and fire up my holo-fields on a stealth configuration, there was something else here beyond me.

A single wave of psychic meaning hit and bounced off my sails just before I sent my navigator to sleep and while I did not recognize the device that could do so, I knew what this meant. There was something in this system with me, something that I cannot see but knows I am here. And judging by the fact it's sensors only reacted to my Solar Sails it is familiar enough with Eldar ships to hunt them.

I'll have to go to the gas giant closest to me and its many moons and large gravitational field to lay in wait until my navigator could awaken or my would be predator would reveal itself.

How exciting~

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bessar is not well, his soul at the very least.

The impromptu lesson her gave me now is informative and useful but I did not forget my initial question to him.

"What happened to your soul Bessar?" I asked as I looked at the light at the center of the ceiling.

Bessar is uncomfortable with the Shadow he created as a focus for his might and I've stopped asking about it when I noticed. It made me worry that he could not turn back into a normal eldar, but then he proceeded to do just that yesterday to eat much to our surprise then went back into the Wraithbone core like it was nothing special.

Both of us were too stunned at the sight to say anything as he ate for two minutes, then went back into the core before we could comment, and the it turned too awkward to comment on it.

"What do you think happened?" He replied with amusement.

"I think you are heavily wounded and hiding it from us, and even if I don't know how or even if I can help, I do want to know when something is wrong with you." I replied evenly.

Giving him a chance to weasel out of a question he does not like is how you get a completely unrelated lesson and while I do like them, I like getting my questions asked more.

"Yes, quite heavily in fact and my soul is a few inconveniences away from breaking like a cheap porcelain statue, which is a far better result than anyone could expect given what I put it through."

" Having your soul close to breaking is not something to write off Bessar!" I shouted.

I don't want my madman of an Older Brother to die!

"We all die Laciena, but my death is far off, and death is what happens when a normal soul is touched by the Divine the way I was. I am a priest and a Godsgrief and so I am meant to interact with Divinity and even the Pantheon and survive it unlike the vast majority of Eldar who would die if even a lesser Divine gave them their full and undivided attention." The idiotic ship said.

I don't care that everyone dies someday, I don't want him to die and leave me alone. I don't want to be alone.

"How is what the Divine did to you legal or even possible then? Even if the laws can be applied selectively you were harmed by them!"

I could feel the sigh even if he did not vocalize it and my eyes squinted. That is not the appropriate reaction he should be having! He should be as outraged as I was.

I took a deep breath and I relaxed my fingers which tightened into a fist without knowing. Now was not for anger.

"Among my many duties as a priest, I carry the duty to mediate between Divines, and Anaen is a Divine herself, but as she is a Lesser Divine with a physical body the Divine can't talk to her normally lest her children hear and so they had to do so through an intermediary that would make it seem as if it's two ships talking to one another and not two Divines. I acted as the mouthpiece of Gea in that conversation as I am meant to do and nobody broke any rules there, for Anaen spoke in her quality of home of her children and I spoke to her as a ship. It just so happens that there was also a Divine discussion that nobody else was aware off happening at the same time and that I facilitated."

So becoming a craftworld was Anaen's way of remaining hidden from the Pantheon, that was useful knowledge to file away for later. The craftwrelders like to hide a lot and knowing their techniques and what they are usually trying to hide makes it easier to notice what they want to do.

"Are the Laws even logical? They feel like they should be contradictory based on all of the nonsense going on with them." I complained, muttering to myself.

Bessar refused to tell me the Divine Edicts saying that the less I knew of them the better. but the more I hear of them, the more infuriating they become. Laws should be short and make sense, not be some eldritch abomination nobody can understand.

"To us? No, as there are plenty of Edicts that would result in breaking others if we did try to follow them, but to the Gods they make perfect sense. People often times forget, but our Pantheon is ruled by Twins and Twins share everything including duties, and Asuryan is capable of interacting with such contradictory Laws and Nonsense, and handle and straighten them out, as while Khaine gained the Villainous Aspect that allows him to selectively enforce Laws, Asuryan gained something out of that as well and gained the ability to pass contradictory laws to give us more breathing room in The Small Singing Swords' quest for personhood and a way to get out of the Edicts of the Old Ones."

The more I learn of the Old Ones and what our people had to do to be free of them the more I despise them.

"Did we succeed at least? And why did the gods have to harm you like that? We have stories of the Gods walking alongside us and people didn't combust by having them near us."

"Partially, we can reinterpret laws in ways the Old Ones didn't agree to and selectively choose which to apply when considering complex cases to allow ourselves to live 'on the edge' of legality as far as the Old Ones are concerned, but it is not moving out of their legal system. However, with each War in Heaven the line gets thinner." He revealed with what I felt was an evil grin.

That same grin was matched by me.

"How?" I asked eagerly to learn more.

"The War in Heaven ended with the Old Ones losing their prominent position in the Galaxy and while their infrastructure continues to plague us even as we repurpose it for our ends, it doesn't change the fact that their influence is diminished compared to what it used to be. Each War in Heaven further diminishes it and one day we will be able to make it so that the Laws of the Old Ones are a subset of our own Laws and then… then we will be free."

His tone was as vicious as my smile, as I imagine that of any Eldar would be if they knew of what the Old Ones have truly done to us. No species wishes to be in constant never ending war, to look at violence as a source of nourishment and biological need equal to food, nothing but us, the children of the Old Ones.

The vast majority of our race can pretend they don't feel it by replacing it with our own thirst for art that we pretend is conflict and when that fails Khaine provides the final fallback where he turns war and bloodshed into art allowing us to still keep some sliver of civilized thought in our minds by pretending that he is the cause of our murderlust.

"But we are far, far away from that point, at least four more reenactments of the War In Heaven before we can get anywhere close to that without breaking this galaxy according to what I have been told, assuming it is correct and it's possible, as for your other questions? Avatars allow the Pantheon and the Lesser Divines to shave off a portion of themselves into a vessel and use that to interact with us. The only Divines that can fully interact with us without harming us are Lileath and Cegorach as the two are purely the Divines of the Children of the Stars and our divines are capable of all that we are." He continued.

I wanted to speak but something changed in the air, it was a strange desire, a desire for something sweet yet profane that tickled the soul and horrified the mind.

"What happened?" I asked.

Bessar did not respond for one heartbeat, then two and then three and a full minute passed before he returned his focus to me.

"In the last hour, somebody has been trying to find us by using some form of sensor technology I am not familiar with but can faintly detect. Now the fools have made themselves visible and I realized that I crave for violence."

I shuddered as the air turned red for a fraction of a heartbeat before Bessar put his psychic power back in control.

"I think we should leave." I advised.

"Why?" He asked.

I could feel the incredulity in his voice as if the thought of leaving never even crossed his mind.

"You are wounded and if this enemy has a way to attack your soul you will die and we have work to do and nobody to replace you with." I tried to explain reasonably.

He might reject a reason based on emotions, but he won't reject one based on duty and he had the tendency of justifying past my personal reasons for doing something when he felt like it.

"We also don't know what we're dealing with." I added.

Bessar is at his core not a man searching for Violence, but he will look for it when he needs to recover energy and having him go out of his way to search for conflict to feed on.

"Your reasoning is sound my sister and I would normally agree with you, but I do know what I am dealing with and they don't seem that dangerous."

"What are you dealing with?" I asked cautiously.

Maybe it was just some pirates we could ignore, I did not like seeing Bessar like this.

"Vermin."