A/N: Sorry for the hiatus... but don't worry - I'm back in business!

Book Two: Corruption's End

Chapter 68: Children

"Great and wide is the yawning gap that stretches between universes." Pyrrha Tou'Her, the Soul-Wielder

It was undoubtedly Pyrrha. Age had withered her beyond intimate familiarity, but Yang knew it was her all the same. Only a single strand of cherry-red was left to her hair, the rest of it as white as wraithbone. Thin cataracts shrouded the green of her eyes, and she leaned heavily upon her companion. Pyrrha.

Pyrrha Nikos.

Pyrrha Tou'Her, Yang realized, blinking away the stinging in her eyes.

"Not just your Mother," the older eldar said. "And it seems as though Garnet is not the only Tou'Her to visit us."

"Grandmother..." Maion said, face ruled by shock. "Grandfather... I..."

Pyrrha frowned, before her mouth opened in horror. "Obsidian… my son? Is that you?"

Lossamdir stood still, his blue-hued armor glistening in the low light of the Library.

Slowly, he removed his helmet, to reveal a face stained in tears. "Mother," Obsidian whimpered, his voice like a newborn's. He ran to his parents, embracing them both. They wept together.

"My son," Pyrrha said, again and again. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry."

Yang was in shock. There was little she could do or say. She felt like an intruder, an interloper into events that she couldn't understand or appreciate. Eventually, Maion and Garnet joined the reunion, running to their elders with salt rivers streaming down their faces.

Yang turned to ask Duulamor a question, but he had vanished, nowhere to be seen. She stepped forwards, wanting to say something, anything to her long-lost friend. Amat held her back. He had removed his mask, revealing his expressionless face. Yang could see the questions lurking behind his beautiful sunset eyes - the only indication that he knew who stood before him.

Pyrrha filled her knotted fingers with Obsidian's night-black hair, and she wept into his cheek.

"It is a fate no mother wishes for her children," Asillar said simply, sadly. Like Chera, his face wore a storm of conflicting emotions, surging between disgust and unabated pity.

"Amat?" Yang asked. The assassin had sprouted a single tear from his eye, one that wound over his cheeks and into the sandy stubble that painted his chin. "You okay buddy?"

"Hm?" He asked. "Oh. I... I don't know. I need to go pray. Let them speak first," he said, nodding at Pyrrha. Yang wiped the tear from his face, caressing his cheek with her thumb.

"I will. Don't get lost, okay?"

"I won't." Amat left the small gathering, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. He wouldn't need it here.

Among the titanic bookshelves, floating glass obelisks and metal fountains, Yang was truly lost for the first time since she arrived in the Imperium. When she looked to the ceiling far above her head, there was naught but a glass dome that revealed the dead city above, no light source to explain the even, unnaturally balanced lighting that suffused the Black Library.

What have I gotten myself into?

Yang returned her gaze to the Tou'Her reunion. Her tongue ran over her ruined lip, not sure of where it should be. Pyrrha's alive... after all these years… she's ancient.

They babbled in Il-Kaithe's lyrical tongue, each wearing pained smiles and red-stained eyes.

"This is Pyrrha then?" Chera said. "Your friend?"

"The one and only," Yang replied, wiping her own tears away. It was almost too much. The grief, pain and gladness that emanated from the Tou'Her was palpable enough to resonate in her very soul.

"She's old," Chera said, as if discovering that fact for the first time.

"Older than she has any right to be," Asillar said. "It is often said the Black Library has restorative properties - when she left Il-Kaithe, she was hunchbacked and wholly blind, her hair as white as snow. Isha protect me," he added.

He watched Maion embrace her Grandfather. The Swooping Hawk looked confused when she clapped him on the back. That seemed to be a gesture unique to humans. Asillar seemed even more confused that the old Tou'Her patriarch was so happy to see his hybrid children.

Yang looked for Amat among the towering bookshelves that seemed to stretch out into infinity. Perhaps it would be best if she followed him for now - Pyrrha wasn't going anywhere.

"Yang Xiao Long." Now that it was focused on Yang, Pyrrha's voice seemed to deafen her, and she heard it true for the first time - ragged and withered like rotten papyrus. What surprised her was that it bore the eldar's musical accent.

"Pyrrha?" Yang asked, wiping her eyes clear with the back of her hand.

"It's been quite some time since we last spoke," Pyrrha said, leaving the company of her family, leaning heavily on a wraithbone walking staff. "But not such a long time for you, I think - a mere heartbeat in the face of the millenia I have lived since we last met."

Yang approached the old woman and hugged her tightly, a gesture Pyrrha returned, lighting a weakened arm across the small of her back.

"I'm glad you remembered me," Yang said into her shoulder.

"Hardly had a choice," Garnet interjected. "She told stories about you all the time."

"It's a shame you have yet to meet my Daughter's twins," Pyrrha said, pulling away from the embrace. "You were always their favorite. A true Huntress, strong, proud, and laughing her away across battlefields."

"I was never as good as you," Yang replied, grinning wide despite the tears that filled her lips. "No matter what you've told your kids."

"Perhaps," Pyrrha said, "perhaps. Now come, meet my husband."

Yang looked back at Asillar and Chera, just as lost as Yang in the Library of wonders.

"They will find their own ways," Pyrrha assured her. "I fear they have no love for me."

"Always a figure of controversy," her husband said, pressing his lips to his wife's forehead and tucking a strand of grey hair behind the subtle point of her ear. Yang gaped - it seemed as though Pyrrha's time among the eldar had changed her more than she could have ever imagined.

"This is my husband," Pyrrha said. "Caelus Tou'Her, the Last Scion and first Patriarch of our clan."

"A pleasure to meet you in the flesh," Caelus said, taking Yang's hand and pressing a chaste kiss on the back of it. "Did I do that right?" He asked his wife. "I think I did."

"You did fine," Pyrrha said with feigned annoyance. "You know you did."

Caelus grinned. He was very different from other eldar Yang had met, though strangely familiar. His black-irised eyes were wide and welcoming like Garnet's, though far less jovial. He kept his salt-and-pepper hair cropped short in a disturbingly human style, one that sat atop a weathered and kindly face. Still too alien for Yang's tastes, but she saw the appeal.

"Dad," Garnet complained, his face meeting his palm. "You're embarrassing me in front of Yang."

"You do that often enough without his help," Maion replied, bringing a smile to Pyrrha's face. The ancient woman dried her eyes on the arm of her flowing white-black robes.

"My brother the clown," Obsidian said, standing still as a statue.

"Lossamdir," Maion pleaded. "Will you let Obsidian stay with us a little longer?"

"Feh," Lossamdir said, before Obsidian surfaced again. Caelus smiled wider, meeting his forehead to his lost son's.

"You were always too foolhardy," Caelus said.

"I know, Dad. I'm sorry."

"Do not apologize," Pyrrha said. "It was my fault. We left too early."

"We cannot blame you," Garnet said. "Losing Rhona was... it was a difficult time for us all."

"Jauna and Mirodir have done a fine job of running the family," Obsidian said. "Though my visits to the compound have ceased, I know that has not changed."

"Good, good," Caelus said, nodding.

"Garnet told me about all the kids," Yang chimed in. "You guys are breeding like rabbits." That earned her a few smiles, though Pyrrha did not wear one.

"There are few things more precious and more sacred to eldar than children," Pyrrha said. "But there are many other things we must speak about. The Harlequins are granting you entrance on the thinnest of terms, and it would be best not to test their patience. It could expire in a century or the very next moment."

"Right." Yang said. "Right." Briefly, she got caught up in the moment of reunion, and forgot where she stood, and why.

Is it too much to ask for a few moments of peace? Pyrrha was right, even though it felt... wrong to not relish the moment - it was a small and humble picture amidst a realm of fantasy unlike Yang had any seen before, all of it alien yet intimately familiar.

Lost, yet found. Home, yet not.

Looking at Pyrrha still felt wrong. Yang had seen her all of three years ago, healthy and hale in the arms of her first love. Now she was something else. Even if it weren't for her age and alien accent, she seemed to radiate wisdom, a soul-song that spilled from every pore. She was no longer the Pyrrha Nikos of Remnant.

She reeked of power.

"I... don't want to get in the way of your family," Yang said.

Pyrrha warmed at that. "Not to worry. Our time as Cegorach's guests has ended. We will be returning with you to Il-Kaithe."

An exclamation of excitement erupted from the Tou'Her present.

"Mother, are you sure?" Garnet asked.

"Absolutely," she replied. "I've lived a long and blessed life, but my mind grows frail. Even the Black Library cannot defeat mortality." She held a gnarled hand aloft before her children could interrupt. "It is Caelus' time as well, but there are matters that must be attended to on Il-Kaithe. Fear not, I shall not leave you just yet."

"Mother..." Obsidian said. "Is this true?"

Pyrrha sighed, and Caelus wrapped an arm around her shoulder, holding her tight.

"Yes. Do not mourn me just yet," she said with a crooked smile, waggling her finger at her son. "Not while I still breathe before you. Now come, be welcome in the Black Library."

"Haven't felt very welcome," Yang said ruefully. "Duulamor gave us an... interesting greeting."

"Such is his nature," Caelus said. "But, speaking for the mortals aboard, you are our guests as well. What of your assassin friend, Yang? Will he be joining us?"

"Amat?" Yang asked. "Yeah, he will." She shifted her weight, unsure of how to explain her friend's thoughts. She knew exactly what ate at him, sent him to explore this place, but communicating how she knew that - or what led Amat to such thoughts - was beyond her. "He's an assassin, as you've noticed. Vindicare. He's still figuring himself out."

"I see," Caelus said, scratching at his chin. "He seems like the quiet sort. What is he looking for?"

His mother, Yang wanted to say. "Himself, I think," she said. Also the truth.

"Another victim of the Imperium," Pyrrha sighed. "Caelus my love, would you escort everyone to their chambers? Their stay won't be long, but they will need a place to live, however briefly."

Caelus bent forward into a steep bow. "As my Mistress commands," he said with a sweep of his arms. Garnet and Obsidian groaned, but Maion giggled, a spritely, musical sound. Pyrrha smiled wide as well.

She's happy.

"Yang and I have things to discuss," Pyrrha said. "We'll be along shortly."

Obsidian embraced his mother once more, whispering something into her ear before retreating. Pyrrha only nodded.

"Come along Yang," Pyrrha said, beckoning her forward with a wave of her hand.

Yang had no choice but to follow. She shuffled along, jogging to catch up with her long-lost friend. Even though she was millenia old, Pyrrha hadn't slowed much.

"It's good to see you," Yang said, once she pulled up along the old woman.

"And you as well," Pyrrha said warmly.

"You don't seem surprised to see me," Yang noted.

"Yours is a radiant soul," Pyrrha said. "And a personality like wildfire. Even in the depths of the Webway, I felt your arrival. Weiss is just as clear, but for different reasons."

Yang frowned. "You haven't spoken with her?"

Pyrrha shook her head as she led Yang down a long hall, one that seemed to stretch on into infinity. Its walls were filled with whorling colors and pearlescent data streams not unlike the Webway's. Yang blinked, trying to keep up with Pyrrha despite the battery against her senses.

"I could have, but lacked the requisite desire. She mustn't know of me. Weiss is - and always has been - a greatly troubled woman. It is a shame the Imperium has warped her so."

"The Imperium isn't all bad," Yang protested, sensing the resentment written plain in Pyrrha's words. "Weiss just needs to let go."

"She does," Pyrrha said, scraping her walking staff along the wall. The infinite walls parted, revealing a simple door - one wrought in Mistralan fashion. "Whenever I brush against her consciousness, I see only rose petals. But I did not summon you here to discuss Weiss Schnee."

"You summoned me?" Yang asked. "How is that even possible?"

"Through my son," Pyrrha replied. "The Harlequins allowed it, aided me even... all for their own reasons."

The Mistralan door stared at Yang, wrought from rich scarlet mahogany, polished to a mirror shine and rimmed in pitch-black pig iron.

"What's this?" Yang asked.

"An explanation, of sorts," Pyrrha said. "Go on."

Yang obeyed, turning the ornate wrought-iron handle. The door opened up to reveal an empty void. A sharp jab from Pyrrha's staff struck her back, pitching her forward into the nothingness.

There was no time to question what happened, or even shout a strangled curse. There was only the void.

And then there was grass, smooth and soft. Yang was face down in the middle of an exquisite garden, one of undeniably alien origin. The trees were white-barked and blue-leafed, flanked by glass statues depicting grieving eldar.

Somewhere, a child wept.

"What the fuck," Yang hissed. "What the fuck."

"Thoughts quite similar to my own," Pyrrha said, though she seemed to be speaking from within Yang's mind.

In her original voice.

"Pyrrha?"

"The Gardens of Isha," Pyrrha said. "Go on."

Yang got to her feet, slowly, sluggishly. It felt like she was moving underwater. Or she was drunk. What is this? What is Pyrrha up to?

The child continued to weep, ignorant of the Garden's newest arrival.

Yang saw her, huddling underneath a tree, weeping into her hands. Her hair was cherry-red, crowned with a circlet of bronze while Miló and Akoúo̱ sat beside her. "Pyrrha..." Yang whispered. She stumbled forwards, trying to comfort her friend.

"This is a memory," Elder-Pyrrha informed her. "Nothing more."

Yang reached out for Child-Pyrrha, but her hand passed straight through her shoulder as if it wasn't even there.

"Why are you showing me this?" Yang asked, wishing desperately to dry the tears her fingers passed through. Pyrrha did not answer. Instead, a rustling bush startled Yang and Child-Pyrrha both.

Out stumbled an eldar child with long black hair and blacker eyes.

"Caelus," Yang whispered.

"Indeed," Pyrrha said, a touch of nostalgia coloring her voice.

"Who are you?" Child-Caelus asked. "Why are you crying?"

Child-Pyrrha ceased her weeping and huddled herself against the tree, struggling to lift her shield and spear.

"Where am I?" She asked.

"That's a dumb question," Child-Caelus said. "You're..." he paused, eyes growing wide with childish wonder. "Y-You're a mon'keigh!"

"A what?" Child-Pyrrha asked. "What are you talking about?"

"A human! But how are you speaking Eldarin?"

That's when Child-Pyrrha noticed Caelus' ears. She assumed a guarded stance, grunting as she brought Akoúo̱ to bear, shielding herself from the xenos.

"What are you? I've never seen a faunus like you, little one."

"You're a kid too," Child-Caelus protested. "And I don't know what a faunus is."

Yang watched them, mouth agape in fascination. She was witnessing Pyrrha's first moments in the Milky Way. Thinking back to Woadia, she didn't know who had it tougher.

"I did," Ancient-Pyrrha said. "I woke up in an alien garden, in a body three decades younger. My husband was gone, my children gone."

"He's not attacking you," Yang realized.

"The innocence of youth," Pyrrha answered. "I was a child then, in both mind and body, though I did not know it at the time. You are the same way, Yang."

Yang watched Child-Caelus offer Child-Pyrrha his cape. She took it gratefully, though with a degree of suspicion. Regardless, she huddled it around herself.

"He knew what I was and offered his clothes regardless," Elder-Pyrrha said. "Were he a mere ten passes older, he might have wrung my neck." A wry chuckle escaped her, as if she didn't believe her own words. A sigh. "He had not yet learned to hate. He lived alone, and walked no Path. To him, I was a curiosity, not a pest. A great discovery instead of an aberration."

"That's it?" Yang asked, watching Child-Caelus babble happily to his newfound friend. Child-Pyrrha sniffled, but listened with rapt attention. Her emerald eyes were bright, yet full of experience no child should possess. "That's all it took?"

"That's all it took," Pyrrha confirmed. "The eldars' arrogance stems from their psychic prowess and millennia of wisdom. Strip them of either and they are no less human than the faunus."

The scene vanished, and Yang plummeted once more, this time landing in a council chamber of sorts. Once more, she was besides Child-Pyrrha - though now she was dressed in eldar finery and her eyes were dry of tears. In fact, she stood as a soldier might, her feet shoulder width apart, her arms locked firmly behind her back. Given her diminutive stature, it was almost comical.

The green-steel look in her eyes robbed the sight of any laughter. A pendant of some sort hung from her neck too, a moon clasped between two hands. Around her there was naught but scintillating crystal and elegant wraithbone sculptures.

"Where did you learn our language?" A voice boomed from atop a dais. Seven eldar stood before her, each of them dressed in resplendent robes.

"I could ask the same of you," Child-Pyrrha said. "For you are speaking Lilt, the tongue native to all who hail from Remnant."

"Remnant?" The same eldar cried. "I know not of that mon'keigh world, nor have I deigned to learn your barbaric tongue."

"It seems apparent then, that I am speaking in tongues," Child-Pyrrha said, stony-faced despite the absurdity of her claim. "I speak in my native tongue, and you hear me in your own."

They didn't like the sound of that. Murmuring amidst themselves, they showed her a set of runes, electric blue and shimmering with power.

"Read these," one demanded.

"And so it came to pass," Child-Pyrrha recited, "that Isha, most beautiful and loving of the gods, fell into the realm of rot, the prisoner of putrefaction and pestilence, who cared not for the bitter, bitter tears she spilled, the crystal rivers that sprung forth from her eyes like blood from Khaine's wounds."

The eldar nearly erupted, which, for them, was an explosive bout of whispering and telepathic communication.

"They had no idea what I was," Pyrrha said. "And I suppose they still don't."

"And do you know?" Yang asked, crouching to get a better look at Child-Pyrrha. Her face betrayed nothing of what lay within, despite the absurdity of the situation before her.

Yang didn't know if she could have done the same.

"I do," Pyrrha said. "We are Interlopers."

With the final syllable of her words pronounced, Yang plummeted once more, spinning and turning until she landed on her feet, boots scraping on a stony walkway.

Child-Pyrrha had grown, now standing as tall as Yang remembered her, the same chiseled muscles, the same warrior's demeanour. Only her garb was different - a simple and elegant eldar stola. An older Caelus approached Pyrrha, a natural swagger to each silent step. His face did not match his gait… in fact, he seemed close to tears.

"What's wrong with him?" Yang asked.

"Once the council of Autarchs allowed me to stay - at dear Caelus' insistence - I was his guest," Pyrrha said. "The other children would mock him relentlessly. They would call him the 'Zoo Keeper' and beat him relentlessly."

"Emperor," Yang whispered. Bullies are cruel no matter where they come from.

Young-Pyrrha comforted her friend, drawing him into a warm embrace.

In response, Caelus pressed his lips to Pyrrha's. The moment seemed to stretch, an elastic heartbeat that swallowed Yang whole. For a moment, she wondered if the memory was collapsing.

"Pyrrha..." Yang said. Young-Pyrrha gasped, a sound that held both shock, delight, and bitter regret. It did not stop her for long. A weight sprung loose from her shoulders, and she sank into her future husband, tears watering her eyes.

"The moment I said goodbye to who I once was," Pyrrha said. "That is the moment, the very second Pyrrha Nikos, Wife of Jaune Arc, Mother of Thalon, Cynthia, and Wisteria Arc, Champion of Mistral and Maiden of Fall left who she once was to the realm of treasured memory," she explained. "The moment I said goodbye to Remnant, and accepted my fate."

"I think I get what you're doing here," Yang said.

"Good," Pyrrha said, a hint of a smile in her voice. "Then we need not continue for now."

This time, Yang did not fall. Instead, she was propelled forwards, thrown free from the Mistralan door. She ended up ass over teakettle in the hallway she started in, Pyrrha Tou'Her staring down at her. Shrouded by milk though they were, her emerald eyes saw more than they ever did when they were pure and bright.

"You're one of them," Yang gasped, struggling for breath. "An eldar."

Pyrrha nodded. "In a manner of speaking. I am certainly no mon'keigh. My efforts here at the Black Library, the millenia I spent fighting under the flag of Il-Kaithe… it is all for the Tou'Her. They are my family, my children… and for them, I have left my humanity far behind."

A/N: I hope it was worth the wait! As always, I would really appreciate your thoughts, especially as we move further into the Black Library mini-arc. I always love to hear from you guys!