{oOo}
When they next saw Ruin, it was the aftermath of a battlefield. The creature was polishing a large scythe that looked as if it was made of bones and screaming faces. He raised his head, caught sight of them. Dispersed the scythe to wherever it came from and summoned golems to go, stacking the enemy corpses like cordwood.
The Night Lords were the last Legion to be upset about such a sight. Nevertheless, they were. There was a deep wrongness about Ruin, and even they could not stand its sight for too long. They fought, of course. They won.
The battlefield was a slaughterhouse and the Night Lords were far from done. Once they were deployed it meant an example needed to be made. They gather trophies for the populace to see. They took the wounded as prisoners, so that their maimed bodies stood as testament to Imperial judgment.
Konrad Curze cornered Ruin while his Astertes were busy. They needed to talk.
"You were wrong," he said, his voice a low hiss.
He couldn't properly show the being how wrong it had been. Couldn't make it understand. Words were not enough and being around Ruin made him want to lash out and scream. But they needed to talk.
"How was I wrong?" Ruin asked, tilting his head slightly, confused.
He didn't really understand humans. Konrad in particular was very difficult to understand.
"That woman-you killed her for your own satisfaction. It's wrong," Konrad replied, glaring at the creature. His hand twitched as he restrained himself with difficulty. Words. He needed to say things this time.
Ruin contemplated him. The face may have seemed to be placid, but the eyes were anything but. "I think we are not understanding each other." he said, as gently as he could. "Before I was born to my mother, I was a force of death, and destruction, as much as any of the cosmic horrors called the Ruinous Powers are now. I knew no love, no mercy, no pity. People weren't people. They were toys."
He met Curze's gaze directly, Cold. Calm. Terrible. "If your entire world is bound up in one person, if that person is everything good, beautiful, and perfect in the world to you. And then you come home, and find that person a corpse because some idiot wanted to use you, what would you have done?"
"Killed them. Slowly," Konrad replied. "Where everyone could see and learn that something like this should never happen again. If you hide it, then how will they know not to do it?"
"Oh, I didn't hide it. Not all of it." Ruin said slowly. "She.. the one who ordered my mother murdered..She said she was doing it for her people." His gaze sharpened. "So I killed them too. Slowly."
"I obliterated her planet. I tortured her people to death. I told them what I'd been told, that their Senshi, their precious protector, had a fellow guardian murdered, like she didn't matter."
"I told each and every one of them, and all their allies, why they were going to die."
"Then I killed them. Slowly. And then when that was done, I took their so-called protector, The idiot who started this whole goddamn mess, and then I broke her down over and over." The gaze was hard, terrible, implacable. "She stole my reason for giving a damn about humans. She took the one thing, one person I could not replace and then told me some shit about it being for the Greater Good."
"Then she told me she planned to use me against other planets. Couldn't comprehend why my mother hadn't done it before." Gritted teeth. "She deserved what she got. All of them did."
Konrad was silent. He listened to the whole monologue, his expression frozen and dead. When he finally spoke again, his voice was shaky. "I-I need..." he clutched his head, pulling at his hair, face twisted in a grimace of pain. Then he snarled. "GO AWAY!"
".. I will." Ruin agreed, carefully eyeing him with.. yes. It was concern. "You should go to the infirmary. And.." Ruin chose his words carefully. "You are right. I should have just taken the senshi and broken her down out in the open as an example, instead of taking my rage out on her people. I was in pain, desired to share my pain with what I saw as the cause for it, and then lashed out, to do more damage than was necessary."
"Go away. You're hurting me, go away," Konrad muttered. "You're all wrong, I can't see and-and now I... why aren't you going away?"
His head hurt. So terribly-he was pretty certain he'd be having a vision now, but the thing was blocking them somehow. It still hurt. Like something was inside his head and trying to claw its way out.
"I'm sorry." Ruin told Konrad quietly. "I know I'm all wrong. I'll go."
And he did. To find Terra to ask her about visions and how to make an efficient painkiller. He did, however, keep the block on the visions up. He wasn't going to let them keep screwing the man over like they used to.
At first, it did not help. He was still in pain, but slowly it passed-like always. Konrad Curze was functional again. It was hard to tell for how long, though. He, himself, had no idea.
{oOo}
And one day, Ruin came by again, bringing cookies, of all things. People shaped cookies. Secretly laced with painkillers.
"Hello." he said, almost hesitantly.
"I told you to go away," Konrad all but snapped. He backed away, body tense. He was starting to feel a headache building up.
"Eat one of these and I will." Ruin said stubbornly, folding his arms, gesturing to the cookies he'd laid on the table. They would, he was fairly sure, stop the migraine bit. He could handle the vision blocking bit on his own.
After a moment of hesitation, Konrad reached out and ate the cookie. He did not appear to be enjoying it, but then he hardly ever appeared to be enjoying anything. The headache was probably making him even more hostile.
The painkillers had been formulated by a being who knew more about the human and other species brain than any being could ever lay claim to.
The pain began to change, becoming little by little, lessened, and more distant, until it was little more than a slight pulse, a throbbing sensation, in the back of his mind.
Ruin watched him expectantly. "So. Feel better now?" he asked?
"W-what did you do?" Konrad asked at the same moment. He appeared to be mostly surprised, but suspicious too. He looked at the cookies, as if he expected them to be poisoned.
Ruin grinned smugly, like a cat. "I did the vision blocking, and Terra did the painkillers." He folded his arms. "Now we can talk without your getting migraines, right?" A tilt of the head, inquisitive. "You should have one a day, at least."
"I'd rather talk to Terra, then you," Konrad replied. Painkillers? "Wa-ait, what did you say about vision blocking?"
"I didn't like the way the other powers were dicking around with your vision." Ruin pointed out mildly. "So I did the equivalent of shutting them out, by slamming the door in their faces."
Konrad stared at Ruin. His face showed no expression for a moment, as he seemed to be trying to grasp what he heard. "Why?" he whispered.
A tilt of the head again as Ruin tried to phrase what felt like a difficult concept. "You..." How does one explain the thought processes of an eldritch horror? He was responsible for Konrad, he knew. He didn't like seeing him in pain. He just didn't know what it meant.
"I'm responsible for you?" He hazarded, though clearly, from the slight confusion on his face, that wasn't the wording he was looking for. "Because it has to be done?" A frown. Still clearly looking for words since those were inadequate.
A shrug. "I'm adopting you." That was as good a reason as any. "Besides," he hazarded. "Someone has to tell me when I'm doing the wrong thing?"
A frown. "I don't like seeing you hurting. It makes me feel odd. Bad."
Konrad stared at the creature, trying to understand what he heard. It didn't really make sense. "You like me?"
It appeared to be the most logical explanation, but he felt that it was still very shaky and probably wrong.
"Sort of." Ruin said hesitantly. "and you were a nice man in the other universes." A wry smile. "Rescued your brother, Fulgrim from one of those cosmic horrors that freak Horus out so badly."
"Nice?" Konrad asked, his mind boggling. "Other universe? Saved Fulgrim? What are you talking about?"
Ruin tilted his head slightly. Then played back the rescue attempt in an illusion. Konrad could see himself, facing a four armed monstrosity with wings, and a snake's tail for a lower body, demanding the return of his brother. Could see the creature dying. Could see himself hauling Fulgrim out of that place, as the other man looked seriously traumatized.
"This." Ruin said hesitantly. "Every choice makes another timeline, like a universe." He shrugged. "You were a hero in one of them. Protected your sibling. Made sure he didn't kill himself after that... thing. used him."
"So. If I say you are a nice man, it is because you are one." It was that simple for him.
Ruin noticed the other male's look of confusion. Horrible brain broken confusion.
He clarified it as best as he could. "Your visions show you what can go wrong, not necessarily what will. I see.. well, all the ways how things can go wrong, if I poke it just..like so. Although for how to fix things, I have to go by ear, and guess like crazy, or in several cases, look through other timelines made by other people's decisions to guess what's going to happen in this world." he shrugged. "I am not a nice man. I am a very badman, but I recognize decency when I see it."
"How does this work?" Konrad asked. "I... how?" He wasn't even sure what he was asking about-the way Ruin knew other realities, the scene he was shown... He just didn't understand.
"I am the inevitability of defeat, the inevitability of things going wrong just when everyone else thinks it's going their way." Ruin offered carefully. "I am certain destruction. I am that which tests to destruction, forcing people and things to adapt."
"I am not salvation, nor rescue, nor peace." he said hesitantly, "Thus my abilities only allow me to act in certain ways."
"In essence, as long as anyone makes plans, a part of me is there to fuck them sideways, with a pitchfork, and no lube." A slight shrug.
"On the other hand, I can make people change, so they get stronger. I can give someone the power to change an event, or destroy things."
He now seemed uncomfortable. The words weren't quite describing all that he was, and they were, as usual, inadequate. Chaos was... he was... more complicated than that. He was all the processes that broke things down, so others could build them up. He was the change that could make things better or worse. He was confusion and emotion and the change of seasons. He was a lot of things not in his own offered definition.
"Things like that. I am Chaos by nature, and must therefore act chaotically, which leaves me a little leeway in my actions. Since I spent most of my previous unembodied existence predictably ruining entire galaxies, I can choose to spend my lee-way of 'good luck' in this timeline, until the human race here ends. On its own. Naturally."
He grinned. "In short, I can now choose who to troll."
"I think I need to rest," Konrad said weakly. He had braved through visions of unspeakable horrors, but finding out that an Eldritch Abomination liked him was an experience he did not wish to repeat. He wondered if the new Empress would allow him to use that hiding place she promised for him after all.
{oOo}