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An Essay On The Education of An Eldritch Being Who's Only Been Embodied for 20 Years and Still Cannot Understand Humanity
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"Well, why should I care if anyone else dies?" Chaos seemed truly puzzled. "They're just there. You poke them, they do shit. Then you take them away." It had been embodied for such a short time that it was only beginning to care about things like this. "My primary nature is to put a spanner in the works of every enterprise, ruin things, force others to adapt and grow stronger. Not killing people she likes is pretty much as far as I've thought about." a slight shrug. The power claw did not bother it. Being mauled never did. Pain was irrelevant, unless it was emotional pain, which Chaos had (only recently, too recently) learned, sucked ass.
"I wouldn't know." He said carefully, I tend to not think that far. And as far as I know, as far as I can read, from her, the only one she would wish to truly protect would be your son. She'd obliterate anything she had to, to protect him." A grin. "She'd even stab me in the back for it."
The grin vanished as he contemplated the rest of the Emperor's speech, brow furrowed in confusion. Distressed. "But I don't quite understand how her happiness relies on the happiness of other people. As I said, normally, like for the past several reruns of the universe, I only ruin shit. Make other forces build their creations better. Twist things at a whim, and see how others adapt. Emotions aren't something I understand well, since I only started having them in shapes other than 'annoyance' around... " It tilted its head, thinking. "Perhaps as long as this shell has been alive, really. It's ... difficult to deal with. And prediction requires understanding Order beyond how to damage it. That's not something I've worked on, or had reason to work on, before."
"To put it plainly, you're dumb." The Emperor looked exasperated.
"HEY!" Chaos squawked. "Just because I don't bother to understand further consequences doesn't mean I'm 'dumb'. It just means it never mattered before." Chaos sulked. Clearly it needed schooling in things like well. Everything not involved in 'fucking shit up'.
Chaos had an instinctive knowledge of where, when and what to troll to have the most destructive effect. This included emotional buttons necessary to make people kill themselves or other people.
This knowledge does not, in any way imply that he was capable of comprehending human emotions when they were applied to him.
This was a glaring oversight.
The power claw tapped against its forehead. "I shall give you a simple example of how it works. Beryl likes my son Fulgrim. He has a good friend Ferrus Manus. His friend is fairly fond of his first captain. Now, assume the first captain dies. Ferrus will be unhappy. This in turn will upset Fulgrim, which will make Beryl unhappy. Simple?"
"...This confuses me. Go on. I need to learn this." A slight tilt of the head. Mulling things over like a cat poking at a toy.
"Do you feel unhappy, if Beryl is unhappy?"
"Yes. Very. Then I want to go and kill things until she smiles again," Chaos answered, honestly.
"Now, Beryl feels the same about Fulgrim, does she not?" the Emperor said. "Though, I believe she can think of other things that would make him happy other than killing."
"Yes. Sex. I still don't get what's so important about that. And cookies. I liked those." Chaos nodded.
"We... will leave sex for later. Now, as you see, her emotional state affects you. Does it not make sense it would apply to others?"
"...But they're just pawns..." Chaos seemed distressed. "They're not supposed to be people. Or valuable."
"...Oh Chaos, you fail at life," Cosmos thought, somewhere far, far away.
The Emperor nearly groaned, "They are people."
"...They're walking, talking tools which I can use to fuck shit up," Chaos' brow furrowed. "Beryl is a people. You are a people. Your kids are people. Cosmos is a troll, but she's people. Mama was people... The rest of all existence were just toys. And now you say everyone is a people? That makes no sense."
"How do you determine who is and who isn't a person?" the Emperor asked, patiently.
"IF I like them, then they are MY person. If I don't give a shit, they're tools." Chaos said, after a few moments of thinking.
"What about those you do not know, but your people like?" The Emperor asked.
"...They go away, but I try to make sure they go away quietly?" Chaos volunteered.
"But doesn't that make your people sad?" The Emperor asked.
"...They'll get over it, if I let them go with a minimum of pain." Chaos asked, tentatively. The talk was really helping in terms of education.
"Do you want them to be in pain?" The Emperor was very patient. It seemed that patience was to be put to the test, knocking some basic precepts of humanity into the other eldritch being's head.
"Er. Which them? If you mean my people, I don't want them to be in pain. If you mean their people's people... I think letting them die, in their sleep, is painless enough." Chaos frowned.
"But your people will be in pain even if their people die in painlessly, won't they?" the Emperor pointed out.
"...Well, generally, they're sad... but I only saw that once, with my mother. When I talked to mama about it, she said she's just grateful they didn't get eaten by monsters or die in worse ways... That means I'm doing this wrong, right?" Chaos asked, off balance.
"We're going fishing," the Emperor sighed. The damned thing WAS a child. A horribly powerful child and somebody needed to keep an eye on it.
"...This is that strange sport where you haul fish from the water and watch as they die in agony, right?" Chaos brightened. "Great!"
"...That is not the point of fishing at all." The Emperor looked long-suffering.
"Isn't it? Everyone seems unhappy when they don't get fish." Chaos seemed puzzled. "They always look so proud, comparing fish like... what was that term again? Phallic symbols?"
"That's swords," The Emperor sighed.
"And towers, right? I like swords, they get used to kill people!" Chaos grinned, brightly.
The Emperor arched his eyebrow. "You're quite pathetic."
"HEY!" Chaos squawked in protest.
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Sometime later, over a pile of fish, on an island, in what used to be an Eldar Maiden World, Chaos finally explains his side of the story.
"Well, Cosmos came first, then life happens. We play together. In the beginning it's quiet and strange to see things form up, discs and orbits and all that stuff. The first life is quiet and we both poke it. It gets loud and then I test it to destruction, only Cosmos won't let me. Some stupid thing about hope and shit," He frowned. "And then, when I finally start winning because it's inevitable and I'll finally be able to kill everything and die and sleep, she fucking starts it all over. Well I can get a bit of a nap while planets are forming, but sometimes Cosmos and Life troll me by making lifeforms out of hot gas and shit."
The Emperor frowned. "Stop personifying natural processes. Nobody is trolling you, that's just how reality works."
"...I regret to inform you that natural processes are embodied in my Universe. In human form, mostly," Chaos clarified. "The ones bringing forth life are female. Which is why I scream 'DAMN YOU COSMOS!' so often."
"Must you be so whiny? Personified or not, they're natural processes. I told you earlier, chaos leads to order. As long as you exist, so will they. You cannot change it, so accept it," The Emperor sighed, exasperated.
"I nearly got one of them to kill us all, once," Chaos said wistfully.
"It was brilliant. Spectacular."
"I can't hear you over how emo you are," The Emperor countered, ruthlessly.
"...You are a troll. But I like you anyway," Chaos admitted.
"Good. Then you will read all those books, then write an essay on what you learned from them. You are to consider things that do not involve killing everything. I will be unhappy if you do not."
Chaos looked distressed. "I hate books," he muttered, slumping.
"And don't complain so much. It makes others miserable. Oh, and while we're at it, sit straight," the Emperor corrected.
It was going to be a long thousand years.
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