Chapter 1–Left together, Returned alone

Elias Miranda of Biel-Tan was a technician of sorts. She sang to/repaired the crystal matrices which formed the power conduits of the craftworld, making sure the energy which was needed got where it was needed. It was a simple job, but often quite rewarding. She'd found friends in her co-workers Tam and Yurih, and a lover in Tam's sister Toryll. She'd gotten very good at it, one of the best.

Of course, none of that mattered now, because she had been drafted and was now staring death in the face.

She was on some Asuryan-forsaken maiden world, facing down a veritable horde of human settlers carrying crude firearms, she herself carrying naught but a shuriken pistol and a delicately curved sword. Her features were clearly feminine, but otherwise nothing could be discerned beneath her white and green, one-size-fits-all combat armour.

The field was in twilight, with tall grass covering the terrified eldar's approach to the terrified humans as each force sprayed wildly at the other, neither having had more than a few weeks of basic training before heading out.

The storm guardians knew their duty, but they also knew to wait for the signal to strike, lest they be caught unsupported. It was their task to, after providing distraction for the guardian defenders, advance under cover of fire to provide further distraction for the aspect warriors who would then make mincemeat out of the humans, thus spilling a minimum amount of eldar blood.

Of course, with the amount of emplaced guns there were, the autarch had to sacrifice a few lives, and that had been them; the storm guardians. Elias fired off a snap shot before melting back into the grass, where her white armour served to identify her as a target, voiding much of the effectiveness of her cover. However, she thought not of that, merely that she was scared and needed to get away from the gunfire.

There was a body next to her and as she crouched and hid from the gunfire she saw it was eldar. Tam, she thought in horror, this was Tam.

Utter horror washed over her then as she saw her friend Tam, his helmet blown off by a bomb and his arm snapped by gunshots, bones sticking out at drastic, unnatural angles from the crook of his elbow. Blood and other fluids pooled beneath his motionless body from this and several other wounds in his abdomen and chest, soaking his armour, his soulstone, his once-handsome face. His eyes were unfocused, staring at the blue sky above, and Elias felt herself barely able to comprehend the horror before her.

Her head swam, her stomach heaved, her body cramped. She felt her knees buckling, collapsed on the ground, fighting to keep her food down. She lay there, convulsing in her revulsion and terror, until she longed for a quick bullet to the head to end it all.

Elias knew not how long she lay there before she got up, but get up she did, picking her sword off the ground but being unable to find her pistol before a curt order came over the communication lines: "Now!"

Deadened, Elias charged the humans as they ducked their heads to avoid the scatter laser the other guardians had pointed at them. Elias saw her fellow storm guardians rushing up alongside her, saw her beloved Toryll be shot down next to her, then turned to the mon-keigh and saw red.

Howling in anguish and rage, Elias leapt over the sandbags and onto the first mon-keigh, swinging down and shearing through his collarbone. She then stepped forward and hacked wildly at the next, though he warded her off with bayonet till she stepped in, punched him in the face and then swung horizontally as he stumbled back.

The impact jarred her arm as her blade hit his spinal column, but it did not stop. The mon-keigh's head flew to her right, and she cried out in triumph and bloodlust as she literally jumped at the next mon-keigh, tackling him and knocking him back before sticking her blade through his gut.

Unaware of anything but the need to kill, Elias hacked savagely at the next mon-keigh, a woman who had shot her with a pistol, which felt like being punched, but never got the chance to shoot again before Elias' sword chopped her hand off and then swung diagonally up into her jaw.

Turning to find more, Elias had just a split second to register fear again before three mon-keigh gunned her down.

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There she lay, in a pool of her own blood, every part of her in agony from the multiple gunshots.

The bloodlust in her had ebbed as quickly as it had risen, and she lay there wondering what she had become. Had she become an animalistic beast? A monster which revelled in death and bloodshed? Did it matter, now that she was dying, as Tam had died? As her beloved Toryll had died?

She watched as the green figures –the striking scorpions– burst from the grass and slaughtered the humans like so many lambs. As one of them picked her up and brought her back, still conscious but numb to the world, into the field hospital.

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She awoke to find herself in the craftworld, the high, vaulted wraithbone walls white as the bed she lay in. She was good as new physically, but as the enormity of what had happened dawned on her, she let out a wail of anguish that was echoed for hours after she had been drugged back asleep. She knew not that her cry was echoed not by the walls, but by dozens of other survivors of the battle, their own experiences no less terrible than her own.

Within a week, they had let her out of the hospital. She knew then there was only one place for her to go: To the infinity circuit. To Toryll.

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She stood in the twilight world within the craftworld, touching the soulstone of her lover as it slowly absorbed into one of the great wraithbone spires which supported the domed ceiling above. She had never had any significant psychic talent, but she knew at least how to contact such a recently-deceased soul.

Toryll stood before her. She had a shortish, stocky frame for an eldar and sharply slanted, auburn eyes. Her hair was short and ginger, her face round but not quite plump. Her ears were less pointed than normal and her breasts were small. Her skin was a bronzed pigment and somewhat rough for an eldar.

Her expression was one of scornful detachment, not at all like the last time Elias had seen her alive. Toryll, or Toryll's ghost, said in a harsher tone than she usually took "Who are you? What is it you want?"

Taken aback by this, Elias ventured "I am Elias. Do you not recognize me?" tears welling in her own blue eyes. "Ah," responded Toryll, "It is you. I apologize for my confusion," though her tone was still the harsh, distant one it had been before.

Elias broke down and started to weep. Toryll stood there, impassive, as Elias choked out "I don't know what to do. Without you," she sobbed, "without Tam, what will I do?" she pleaded, hoping against hope that Toryll would have some miracle answer. Toryll was always so much smarter than her, she always knew what to do. Toryll responded, her voice still distant, with only the faintest flicker of emotion betrayed by it "You will move on. You will find other friends, other lovers, and you will one day be happy. That is all."

Elias wept and wept until she could weep no more. She did not even notice when Toryll, or what was left of her, disappeared, leaving her alone once again.


AN: mon-keigh literally means mammal, and is somewhat of a derogatory eldar term for humans.