Siân Aanwen struggled to hold back tears as her grip tightened on the Witchblade in her hand. She had dropped her telekyne shield when the boy raised his and focused all her might against the entity inhabiting the human body in front of her. Weak as its hold on Reality is, the Keeper is too strong for me, she realized. He's toying with me. Caorthannach was an ancient Keeper of Secrets and Siân Aanwen knew defeat here would mean the souls of the children, as well as her own, would be consumed by Slaanesh, She Who Thirsts.

Give me strength, oh Cegorach! she cried in her mind, praying to the Great Fool for the strength to banish the Keeper. Prayed to Cegorach, the only Aeldari god to have escaped the birth of She Who Thirsts, the devourer of Aeldari souls.

And a voice answered her.

"Let me help you," it cried. Only it wasn't the voice of Cegorach, it was the voice of the boy who had raised the telekyne shield. She felt the boy drop his shield and reach out to her, offering his power.

And she latched onto it.

The power of the Warp flooded into her. How can he hold so much? Siân Aanwen cried in shock as it filled her beyond control. She refocused her mind and leashed the power to her will. Filled with power, her soul blazed in the Warp, a beacon to daemons and entities, but she was an Aeldari schooled in the Path of the Seer. The power she wielded was bound to her will, its edges closed so that the denizens of the Warp could not use them to slip into her mind.

And she began to recite the Words of Banishment.

The world slowed itself in Siân Aanwen's mind. She was aware of everything around her in painstaking detail. Each individual carving on the gate. The breath of the human soldier whose body the Keeper was housed within. And she was aware of the bullets fired by the other human soldiers. Aware of them one by one tearing flesh as they entered the boy's body. Aware of his life slipping away and aware that he was not protecting himself, not pulling back the power he had surrendered to her control.

He fell to the ground, riddled with bullets.

And, with time slowed, Siân Aanwen stepped forward like lightning as she finished reciting the Words of Banishment. "Begone!" she cried and thrust the Witchblade into the human's chest, the blade effortlessly passing through bone and muscle alike as she did so until the hilt pressed against the soldier's flesh with nearly the entire blade extending from his back.

And the Warp recoiled.

Lightning crashed from the sky. And the great form of Caorthannach was, for an instant, visible to all onlookers in its wicked glory. Six metres in height of purple evil with a bird head and a crown of horns. Then, nothing. The wicked emotions filling the void and clearing were gone. Siân Aanwen collapsed to her knees, sword still in her hand. The soldier collapsed onto her shoulder, the tapered end of her Witchblade pointing high into the sky. Drained of energy, she simply leaned a little to her left and allowed the corpse to fall from her shoulder.

She glanced ahead.

The human soldiers were all on the ground. Are they dead? Siân Aanwen asked herself. I don't care, she concluded. The Keeper probably ripped the energy from their souls trying to remain in Reality. She glanced to her side and her eyes locked onto the boy lying on his back, staff lying in his open hand. He was covered in blood seeping out from the many open bullet wounds on his body. No, don't die! Siân Aanwen cried in agony, her sorrow and anger spanning depths as only an Aeldari could. She scampered over to him without ever standing up, then removed his over-sized helmet and cradled his bald head in her hands.

Tears streamed from her face.

"I have nothing left in me to heal you," she cried aloud in Low Gothic, the Common tongue of the Imperium of man. "Why'd you do it?" she whispered into his ear in Aeldari.

His eyes flickered open, golden orbs stared back at her. "I don't know what that thing was," he whispered in Low gothic. "No one…should suffer…that." His eyes closed.

Does he understand Aeldari? She pulled him more tightly into her arms and began rocking him, filled with sadness and anger. Why him? The truth is so obvious, why are so many humans blind to it? She calmed her nerves. "What is your name, boy?" she asked. "Tell me so that I may remember it."

"Basil Cadmus," he whispered. What he then said, was barely audible. "Thank you…for asking."

At that moment, Siân Aanwen became aware that she was no longer alone with the boy. She glanced up to see others had reached the edge of the clearing. Fool, she snapped at herself. You let your emotions run wild like a child and now trouble is upon you.

The trouble before her was in the form of a single human followed by four automatons stepping out of the jungle where the corpses of the soldiers were scattered on the ground. The human was dressed in Imperial power armour topped with a white surcoat. Hexagrammic wards were inscribed in red onto the armour's ceramite plates and stitched with gold threads into the surcoat. His helmet was in one hand, revealing a square jaw topped with white hair and cold dark eyes. In his other hand, the man carried a staff topped with the Imperial Aquila. A staff the Aeldari recognized as tuned to focus psychic energies like her Witchblade and the staff still held in the boy's hand. The automatons behind him were crude Imperial constructions, each painted rust red and hunched over and with a head that resembled that of a bug. Crude but dangerous. Each had an arm that ended in a rotary cannon as well as a large firearm she didn't recognize mounted to a turret on its back. The left most automaton had a dead or unconscious human soldier draped over its soldier. She despaired as she had no strength left to fight them, then glanced over her shoulder to the still open gate into the Webway and determination to not fail her people filled her.

Determination and anger.

Can I make it? Can I close the gate in time? She tried to harness her emotions but anger filled her. "Why are so many of your kind so stupid?" she cried aloud in Low Gothic as she released the boy to the ground and raised her Witchblade. "Why? This boy could see it?" she snapped. "Why can your God Emperor not see it? Why can't you humans recognize the simple truth this boy saw?"

The man reached back and held his palm out, signaling the automatons to stop. They quickly complied and Siân Aanwen prepared for battle. Prepared to race through the gate and close it behind her. "I recognize it. I know who the true enemy is," he replied in a calm slow voice.

Siân Aanwen watched him, doubting his words, then glanced back and forth between him and the automatons behind him.

"I was too late to help you…and the boy…defeat the daemon," he said. "But I came to this world chasing it, to rid Reality of it. Not to kill you or your people."

"You've got what you wanted," Siân Aanwen answered. "Now leave."

"That is not all I came for," the man said. "I came for the boy too. He has not passed yet and I have the means to save him."

"You came all this way for the boy?" she asked and stepped away from him, and toward the gate. "Then take him." She took another step closer to the gate.

"I hope we will meet again," the man said as he walked over to the boy. "I believe there is much we can learn from each other about our common enemy."

The moment the words left the man's mouth, Siân Aanwen was through the gate and closing it from within.

"Much I can learn from you?" she snapped aloud in Aeldari as she followed the path to where she knew the children were waiting. "Don't you mean how much you can learn from me? I was Farseer of Craftworld Rubha Àird Driseig and granted the honour of studying in the Black Library. The arrogance of you humans knows no bounds." She grew quiet after her outburst and her mind returned to the boy. Thank you, Basil Cadmus, she said to herself. Thank you for your compassion. Do not let the other humans break that compassion if you survive today. I would rather meet you again with a smile than a need to kill you.

A/N I plan for this to be an extended work but don't have a time frame yet.