Interlude V
"Varanid"
zVx11-ALeRT [epinephrine spike: alert alert alert] + [kill quarter fallacy: false idiom, false idiom] A!ERT
14111vXz-REACt [DRAIN POOL/TAP ADRENAL GLANDS/STAND BY TO ASSIMILATE NEW CHEMICALS, RECOVER/RESOLVE DIRECTIVES]
CORE-THoUGHT ERROR-ERROR-ERR~{I dream of my mother's voice, my father's laughter}~SEEK aDMIN!STAT0R A!D
FALSE: "Spoken like a true admiral," her mother whispered.
Her father chuckled. "Does that mean I've done well by your esteemed estimation?"
"Oh, I would never presume."
They talked over her, speaking of adult matters and adult concepts. It was almost as if they couldn't imagine her listening in. It was almost as if they couldn't presume she would have an interest in anything they said. Which could have been true - but she was old enough, now, to take note of the wider world beyond the scope of her own veiled sight. She tugged absentmindedly at red lace, winding it through her satin-coated fingers. It scraped smoothly over her glass skin, satisfying in its soft friction.
"Oh Invicta," her mother sighed. She felt a tug on the soft clasp of her mask, of the lace holding her shawl in place. "Are you not comfortable?"
Invicta didn't know what to tell her. She considered the question, considered the possibilities that came with each answer, and at long last tilted her head; she did not know what to say.
"What of your eyes?" mother worriedly asked. "Do they still hurt?"
No. No, the glare of polarized starlight through the windows had become a natural part of her world. The years spent in quiet darkness now seemed like such a foreign time, far removed from her own present life.
Her father came over and picked her up. He was strong, his uniform was cold, his veil was a thick grey and his mask was gilded with gold. "She's fine," he said cheerfully. "Look at her. She's just a dreamer, like you."
Her mother may have smiled. She may have silently shed a tear. Invicta felt both were likely. But her mother still reached out, hand brushing against her shoulder in wary adoration - and she knew she was loved.
"She is," her mother murmured. "Just like me. And focused - just like you."
"It is so," her father happily agreed. He was stolid; he was stoic. He was seldom privy to her mother's uncertainties, not as Invicta was in the long hours where silence was their only companion and the stars flickered out, but he was a pillar of strength and they all clung tightly to it, knowingly or not.
The entrance to their quarters chimed.
"It's time," her father announced. "Are you ready?"
"Yes," Invicta said - her voice faint and rough from disuse. Not smooth like her mother's. Not silken like her father's. That would come in time, they always said. When you grow more comfortable living on this existential gradient.
As if that made any sense.
They made for the door, which slid open at their approach. Another figure, who may as well have been nameless to Invicta, bowed their veiled head and said, "Director. High Spe-"
"Are they here?" her mother impatiently, though not unkindly, asked.
"They are."
"Come," her mother said, leading the way. Her great radiant robes trailed behind her, leaving the air sparkling and bright in her way. She was difficult to look upon, more difficult than even the stars. Invicta turned her head and tucked her mask against her father's shoulder, finding solace in the gloom.
"Easy there," he said to her. "You'll get used to it."
They always said that too.
"Invicta."
"Yes?"
"So you are listening," he chuckled. "Are you alright? What do you think?"
"I am ready."
"Are you? At what chime do the Evenorese sit?"
"The third."
"And what happens on the fourth?"
"They pray."
"To?"
"Their ancestors."
"Good. And what do we do?"
"We offer support. We share encouragements. We do not pray, but we help them find comfort."
"Why?"
"Because only then will the table be stable. Only then will they parley."
Her father hummed with satisfaction. "Very good. Keep your mask steady, won't you?" He plucked at the lace woven around her fingers. "And don't get distracted."
She wouldn't. She was good at listening. She was well-versed in absorbing others' words and cycling them through introspective reflection later. It was that which entertained her in her dark; it was a habit that remained just as important in the li-igh-igh-ighighighighightttttt-
zvz11-SEMANTIC INJECTION/IDIOM CORRECTION [AWAKE=RECEIVE ORDERS] IDIOM PERFECtiON/COMBAT READY-11zvz
10101CORE-THOUGHT-SHATTER10101AWAKEN-FINDNEWDIRECTIVES-WEAREINORBIT-READYFORORBITALSTRIKE10101
CORE-THOUGHT-ASSIGNMENT: PRAGMATIC INFLICTION + SPIRITUAL ROUT :ASSIGNMENT PASSED/SCRUB ORDERS
ERROR-ERROR-ERROR {hold} ERROR-ERROR-ERRO {this is my battle} ERROR-ERROR-ER {this is the end} ERROR
TRUE: I awaken. Hell at my back, war on my mind. The chamber in which I come to is dark. I rise from my glass tomb, bare and sightless and weak at the knees, but I am not alone. They see me. I see them. We notice each other with the brush of wandering thoughts, the winding touch of desired perception. We rise unbidden to darker meditation chambers above - chambers for channeling and arming.
We are in orbit. I turn and look upon it: Khanfall. The fleet is already pushing, already pounding against the enemy. I see them just as clearly as I see my brothers and sisters in would-be genocide; I grasp at the notion of great obsidian slabs in orbit over the verdant world, rough-hewn warships of once-molten stone. Fires flickered under the shell of their hulls, licking at the distant starstuff. They're still hungry. They still haven't lost their appetite for rage. And this - this newest tact insults them beyond all other motions. If there's one thing the Tenerjiin hate, it's the very idea of their own people being driven to extinction. It rouses a fury like no other.
They chose this path. They chose it as surely as they drove me to it.
I don my robes and affix my ivory mask.
I slap heavy plate over black porcelain and slide on my weeping silver helm.
I pick up my pendant - my anchor.
I take in hand my partisan, my spear - my forever companion.
I look into the sky and I see an ashen wasteland caught up in a new war, a dividing war, a war over bonds irreversibly broken.
I look out a viewport and I see a world caught within a ring of frozen debris, in which the Tenerjiin have entrenched deep and laden with orbital hex-weapons and zero-gravity garrisons.
It will be a mission to end it - on our terms.
It is my directive to root them out and burn their nests wherever I find them.
I know he's here. The hellscape is lush with the fire of his every breath, the falling soot kicked up by every beat of his wings. He's here. Arch-Fiend. Vile-Lord. World-Breaker. Life-Cheater. Dragon-Eater, Worm-Usurper. Dead-moon-king.
Murderer. Murderer murderer murderer. She. Loved. You. You. Loved. Her. She's gone. Why is she GONE?!
zVx11-ALERt [epinephrine spike: alert alert alert] + [negative reinforcement; hate-bound] AL3RT
CORE-TH0UGHT-RIFT ERROR-ERROR-ERR~{I dream of days past, of tense silences gilded with ignorant hope}~SEEK 4DMIN
FALSE: Her mother was still as ice. Her father paced.
"How?" he said, moving with an angry air, with military force. "How... how did they do it?"
Invicta sat down beside her unresponsive mother.
"The scans don't..." her father huffed. "It doesn't make sense. They don't have the means. Alta's orbit is too strong; how did they transport their damned moon so far? They're... they're just primitive barbarians!"
"Crux," her mother whispered so softly even Invicta could barely hear - Invicta, who lived for nothing but to hear. "... Oh, Khiri..."
"This won't go unanswered," her father declared with vehemence, with righteous certainty. "We'll summon them, we'll call on them to explain their actions, we'll uncover the reason-"
"To live," her mother wept, growing louder. She trembled and shook. Invicta could taste her tears. "They only ever wanted to live."
Her father stopped. He knelt before them, took her mother's hand in between his own and said to her, oh so gently, "This isn't your fault."
"It is. I drove them to this."
"No. They drove themselves to it. We only ever offered to help."
Her mother raised her head. "Did we?"
Father had no answer to that. The door chimed. He waved it open; one of his aides marched inside, veiled in smooth, unwrinkled silk and masked with ivory. They stopped at the sight of mother, struck silent and bewildered as she continued to weep. "What is it?" father demanded.
"Director Ruedhran," the aide stammered. "The collective-"
"I know. I've already decided." Her father straightened up. He warmly brushed the side of Invicta's mask before he left.
Invicta turned to her mother. "What's wrong?"
"I think he must hate me," her mother said in a small voice. "I fear he may act aggressively."
"Father?"
"No, it-" her mother turned to her at long last. "Oh Invicta. Oh, oh my little Invicta." She wrapped an arm around Invicta's shoulders and pulled her close. "I love you. More than anything and everything. Do you know that?"
Of course Invicta knew that. It was the law of the universe. Her parents loved her and she loved them.
"But I'm not..." her mother started to say, gave up, tried again. "I'm not good."
"You are."
"I'm not. I'm..." her mother hesitated. "A... A long time ago, before you, before I met your father, before I even... before I lived in this station, I... I didn't help someone. Not as I should have."
Invicta tilted her head. Nonsense, she thought. Mother helps everyone. That's who she is. "Why is that?"
"Because I was... I was nervous. I was scared. I was worried - about him, about all his family and friends and everyone in his life and around and beyond. I did not think my own actions through. I didn't... I didn't trust him as I should have. And he - he made his own mistakes too."
"Did you say sorry? Did he?"
Her mother paused. "No. Not I. Not he. We have not spoken for many, many, many years. I tried to tell him once, I think he heard me, but I don't know anymore And it's my fault. He must despise me now, for having done as I did. I'm scared he does. I... I think I'm more scared about what he has become."
"Who?"
Her mother stopped crying. "So many questions," she murmured. "But I daren't lie to you. All the same, that does not mean I must tell you the truth."
"Mother?"
"You're letting your hair loose."
Invicta playfully swatted her mother's hand away from the back of her head. "I like it."
"... I do too. You must brush it out. I can teach you... soon." Her mother embraced her tightly. "Your father and I will be busy for a while. I'm sorry."
"Mother."
"I'm so sorry."
Invicta just sat there and took it, too confused to formulate a response let alone a complaint. "Okay," was all she said.
Se(7)en-mind-rupture(s)-ALERt-ALERT-aLERT[false idiom; adrenaline injection, adrenaline rise]+[kill{him}now]-ALERT
zv1817+target acquired:godking+target acquired:highgeneral+target acquired:wisdomking[ARCHFIEND,KHARGRIVE,AVANT-GARDE noble-MERIT]
SPIRITUAL HOLD/fracturefracturefracture x RAGERAGERAGE~{I hate him}~{I have to kill him}~{As he has killed us}~ORDER:STRIKE NOW-ALERTALERTALERTALTERALTERALTERaLTER-PARAMETERS=fail
I set out into his world, garbed in robes like the darkest smoke. My pendant rattles in my hand.
I eject from a kinetic-slug pod in flight. It hits the fortified asteroid-habitat and cracks it open. I drift and tumble through the debris inside, spear in my hand.
The gates of the infernal battleground are closed and barred; entry is prohibited, even unto their own kind. A sentinel, a living spout of fire with many arms, guards the way. Black-steel swords are raised. The fire condenses, becomes obsidian carapace and leathery flesh. The Crux-born hesitates. They never hesitated before. Their dread-king is to blame.
Air shrieks past me and spills out into the void. One Tenerjiin, young and grey-shelled, staggers out with it, claws rending deep striations in the flooring. She bears a barbed chain in one hand and a knife in another. Her eyes are already bright with their king's foul magic. She is already a killer, gorged on the Light of living things. She is not scared. But she is reluctant. She no longer trusts that her kin have her back.
I raise my pendant and whisper a warning. The others hear. The others know. We congregate upon the lone sentinel. Nima, final Evenorese, takes a blade of manifested hate and brings it to bear. The dream-lanes and ley-lines allow his will to gather as faux-matter; it is as slick as ice and as sharp as glass. One strike, two strikes - the first steel blade shatters and the sentinel understands: they care not for who we find, no matter on which side of Crux they stand, for we are here to put all we meet to the blade.
I kick towards her. She lets go of the floor and meets me in kind. She is fast; I am faster. She is skilled; I am better. She weaves around the first lancing strike I aim at her and attempts to grapple with me, for she is larger and she has more limbs to constrain me with. I do not allow this. I bring the haft of my spear against her skull and daze her. I remove her head with a backsweep. It floats from her body and leaves an arc of brackish black blood in its wake. I kick her, providing another fraction of momentum and reach the edge of the shattered garrison. I close my hand on the edge of torn steel and once-molten rock and I look inside. Many more fire-charged eyes stare back.
Nima falls upon the sentinel with a wordless roar. He is a void-born creature, all spindly limbs and too-thin frame, groomed into fragility from a life lived without the strictures of gravity. In this place it does not matter. He needs no exo-suit, no combat-stimulants. He bears the power of a honed Thoughtcutter and that is what brings the Tenerjiin down. It is that which smites the shelled beast across the floor, dead and smoking and lacerated to bloody pieces. The torches lining the gatehouse alight. A sacrifice, made. An entry, permitted. Into hell we trek.
zvzvzvzvzv111-traitormind-see-you-[regret is a relic; mercy is a luxury; we are ended and we will end them][FORCED BELIEF INJECTION]-err0r-doesnotcompute(subject not responding subject not responding)+(order heard order heard)
ShUTDOWN-REFUSED/MINDCOREMINDCOREMINDCORE-unresponsive~I will not return/this is my war~response-taken
111zvz2837~{I see the familiar in the faces of ruin}~mind-core-meandering=bad trip, waitwaitwa-
FALSE: Esheec Kiars was quiet. Birds sang and soft winds whispered, but that was all. There was no great construction underway. There were no cities humming with all too many people. It was wild and natural and nearly silent in all the ways that mattered and she loved it at first sight. The sun overhead was fat and yellow and gave the light blue sky a pleasantly warm hue. Even the forests, thick and all-encompassing as they were, looked welcoming.
It could have been the real earth under her feet or the real air filling her lungs or even the real gravity holding her down, but overall everything felt... better. Better than the home that had given way to regrets and secrets and whispers of "Kharad-Tan, Kharad-Tan, Kharad-Tan, who is Kharad-Tan? How did he do it? How is he so strong? How did he change them? How? How, how, how?"
(The truth was only her mother knew but when in private, where Invicta might have asked her, her mother was inconsolable and her father was helpless to console her.)
Invicta imagined there would be more whispers when she returned. That those questions would be turned on her. It was not as if she had had much of a choice in the matter - thought it could have been worse. They could have sent her away in the company of someone less interesting.
"This world is wet," Triipotes complained. He swatted at a group of insects buzzing around his horns and, irritated, blew them away with a smoke ring. His eyes were fire and his shell was obsidian; he was only a little older than she was, and stronger, bigger, tougher. And yet all he did was raise complaint after complaint.
"It is an honour," Invicta told him.
"Is it? My father never sent me away like this."
"Well he has now, hasn't he?"
"Only because of your mother," Triipotes pointed out. He was smiling. It was difficult to notice, but Invicta spotted it. His mouth, like most Tenerjiik - or Tenerjiin, as they had introduced themselves - was hidden beneath an edge of carapace at the bottom of their crested skull. It was the glint of ivory teeth that gave it away.
Invicta didn't reply. She clutched at the edges of her robes and padded down the game trail. They were only two, for Triipotes had bid his guards to remain at the landing zone and Invicta had ordered the same of hers, but they were not alone. Silver shapes flitted between the trees, gazing upon them with eyes like stars. It was only when the trail ended at the base of a great oak did their watchers dare fully reveal themselves: silver-furred vulpines, no taller than Invicta's knee and three-tailed each. They were graceful creatures, sinuous and lithe and startlingly beautiful to behold.
One stalked towards her. Invicta held out her empty hands, still laced with red silk, and bowed before the grey fox. "King."
The fox did not respond. It looked upon her with scrutinizing, mischievous eyes and then to Triipotes. "We don't have what you seek, burned things."
"We seek nothing," Invicta replied.
"Then more fool you." The fox settled its gaze on Triipotes. "What about you? Do you seek nothing like this wayward stranger?"
"There are many times I seek something," Triipotes admitted, "but at every turn my father has provided. Of you I want nothing."
"Not even a snack?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say no to that." Triipotes offered a devious smile. "You do look appetising."
The fox laughed. "And you, veiled one? Are you hungry?"
"No," she said, and honestly at that. Hunger was a construct of other peoples, a rule for them to abide by. Not hers.
The fox sniffed. "You are more your mother's daughter. I see that now."
"You know who I am?"
"Everyone knows who you are, oh Varanid. We all see you." The fox's smile fell. It assumed a dire expression, and it looked upon her with a strained kindness. "Scavenger-to-be. Eater of corpses, venom-toothed hunter. We see enough."
Invicta frowned under her mask, her shawl, her hood. "You have had a vision, oh Sight-King?"
"An augur," the fox said, "of times far ahead. Watch your step, Varanid."
"What do you mean, eater of corpses?" she questioned, bewildered.
"Only what I see." Once more the fox turned to Triipotes. "And in your future, hell-child, I see more fire. A blaze unending"
Triipotes remained still for a moment, then dipped his great crested head. "I believe I understand."
"There will be little kindness in it for you, either of you, beyond what you have already enjoyed."
"Is this your prophecy?"
"It is a forewarning," the fox corrected. "Nothing is set. The future teases, no more than that. Is that not why you are here?"
Invicta shifted. "My mother thought it pertinent to tell you that we may have more questions to ask of you. Is this inconvenient or-"
"We want nothing to do with whatever your father has in mind," the fox sharply told her, cutting her off. "Of your mother we have nothing but respect, but she would never tear us away for her own ends."
"I never said we would."
"I heard it, child. I heard it in the space between your words - even if they are not truly your own. We know her. And we know the Director of Stability just as well, despite our efforts. No. Our answer is no. We know what your father is, child. And we want nothing to do with him."
"That is your answer," Invicta said quietly. She glanced at the other foxes, young and old, that prowled by the edge of other trees. "Theirs as well?"
The fox yipped. "You are his daughter. And you," all their star-eyes flashed in tandem, all landing on Triipotes for the umpteenth time, "you are his son."
Invicta's frown deepened.
"You know who my father is?" Triipotes eagerly inquired. "Do you know he-"
"Only that he must be large and powerful and dark," the fox replied. "Now! Now I have kits to feed. Move along, two-legs; you disturb our hunting grounds. Move and move and move and leave us be."
Without another word, not even a farewell, the foxes turned and disappeared into the forest.
"There you are," Invicta said softly. "You have met the Verunlix."
"Curious pests," Triipotes said with a nod. "More intelligent than most I have seen. And honest too, in their tricksy ways."
That Invicta understood all too well. She started walking and Triipotes followed. They retraced their steps, meandering back down the game trail. The white noise of the forest tried to fill in the ensuing silence, tried to drown out her shifting thoughts and failed miserably. The concepts she grappled with were too dastardly to bow down before idle distractions.
"Where do you come from?" Triipotes suddenly said to her - to Invicta. She was glad for it. "You and your people?"
She shrugged with one shoulder. "Wending thoughts. Where do you come from?"
"Ash and brimstone."
"It's almost the same thing."
Triipotes laughs. "Yes! Almost."
"What about your father?"
"Ash and brimstone, just like me. He's an Ashlander."
"What does that mean?"
"It means he's the best of all," Triipotes firmly asserted.
"That's a bold claim," Invicta dubiously remarked.
"But it's true. He is my father. He is very good."
"At?"
"What?"
"What is he good at?"
Triipotes laughed again. "Everything! Everything. He knows so much and there's nothing he can't do. He moved our world to spare us the sun. Did you know that? Our entire world! I know it's just a moon, but everyone lives there. It's everything for us."
"There's other worlds," Invicta said softly.
"I know," Triipotes said wistfully. "But none like ours."
xvsxvvzzz181-BREACH-bREACH-BRE4CH[ORBIT-FALL]+[ASSET IMBOUND]+[DEMONS DIVE]=[equilibrium-fantasy-faux]-ALERT
K1LL_THEM_FIND_HIM_KILL_HIM=Order, commandment [TRANSLATION READ]ALERT[epinephrine spike, adrenaline spike, rage rage rage]
false-order, obey[?]~{I hear the bells toll}~{They put a knife in our belly and called it righteous}~MeMORY CORRUPT
FALSE: "No," her mother whispered.
"Yes," her father numbly replied. "They... they did it."
"And the boy?"
"... He lives. He lives. He's alive. He's intact."
"Was anyone killed?"
Her father spared her mother a look. "Not a single Tenerjiik fell," he murmured.
Mother shook her head. "Tenerjiin," she corrected in a small, subdued voice
"Does the difference matter?"
In every way, Invicta almost said. The same way you make me study every facet of every other species to the tiniest detail.
"The Alubero," her mother gasped. "They... they have no idea what they've done."
"The beast-"
"He is raging, Ruedhran. Raging. Can you not hear him roar? Can you hear him howl?" Her mother shivered. "The Ley-Lines shake with it. Other-space trembles with it."
"He is powerful," father admitted. "Stronger than we cared to imagine. But he won't-"
"He will."
"And jeopardize his own people?"
"You do not know him yet," mother said. "He moved a world for his people. Everything is for them, his chosen tribe. For... for his son. We should never have insisted on it, never have insisted on... on using our children!"
"We could never have known the Alubero-"
"But they did."
"And what will he do?"
Mother wrapped her arms about herself. "I don't know. I don't know anymore. And that scares me."
"Will he leave it be?"
"No. No, never. They're already dead. If he can move one world, why not break another? They're already gone."
"Cenereil. No. Don't speak like this. They're alive, they're under our protective custody. I'll... I'll send for their ministers to answer for this provocation, to parley."
Mother shook her head. "There's no parley. The Ashlanders have no law. All they have is their kin. And they tried to... to kill his son. Why would they do that…"
"Jealousy," Invicta whispered.
Her parents ignored her.
"Then we must protect them," her father decided. "From this beast."
"Ruedhran-"
"No. I am the Director of Stability. This is my responsibility." Her father stormed out. Mother sat where she was, shocked into stillness. She looked at Invicta.
"I'm sorry," she said.
Invicta understood. She'd understood since the very moment she'd first seen him - quite literally larger than life and stronger than death. Each eye an inferno and each finger a molecular-edged blade; his tail a thing of compact, shelled muscle and his horns larger than some trees. His wings were devastation and the very air had simmered with the ruinous heat of them. He was too different. Too... too beyond their ability to control from the very first moment he'd joined the fold, always to her father's dismay.
"I forgive you," Invicta whispered back. "But no one else will."
Her mother flinched. She stood up, shaking, and left.
vvvvazsw2-ALERT-RE_ENTRY-DETECTED/BURN_UP-SHIELDING-ACTIVATED-ALERT-ALERT-ALERT
WE-2EE-Y0U/no/KILL-QUARTEr-FALLACY-RE_ACTIVATED/BREAKBREAKBREAKMINDBREAK
zzvi-PLANETFALL-EMERGENCYLANDING-INVULNERABILITY_STIMULANTS-ACTIVATED~{The blockade cracks beneath our assault}~
FALLFALLFALL-[epinephrine spike]~{I descend upon Khanfall}~{I have passed through the ring and entered the gravity well}~H0STILES DETECTED
TRUE: I am inside his soul-realm. There is war here. War between brother and sister; war between sire and spawn. On the surface they assume an air of unity but here the truth is revealed. They are slaughtering one another. A wedge has been driven between mentor and mentee, irreparable. I don't understand it. They were as father and son and though they have their reservations this is too much. Tenerjiin love their own kind, they love their kith and kin so fiercely that they would let the galaxy burn before allowing another of their people to fall to harm. What... is... this?
I hit the ground running, my overshield taking the brunt of the impact. My stimulants render my bones as steel and my muscles as synthetic carbon-fibre weave. I am in a great forest of thorny pines, by the edge of a vast mudflat. The filth is everywhere. The world is quiet. Not a single animal stirs. Everything of flesh and blood has been devoured, the entire local ecosystem picked clean of warm life. Their hunger knows no bounds. But I hear THEM. They prowl and they stalk, demons between the trees, and they know I'm here.
No two Tenerjiin take the same shape. They are malleable beasts, adaptive survivors who shift to become whatever they need to to survive in this impossible space - this sea of screams. They set themselves upon us with as much viciousness as they do each other; they despise us but have suddenly developed a similar hate for others of their own kind. A divide has riven this brutal people in two and both sides are inconsolable with incandescent rage for the other. I can already see the standards ahead. The Khargrive is here. He has pierced through the veil of will-space and fielded his mighty loyalist army. They are here for the same reason I am - for the Herald of that Final Night. For Kharad-Tan.
I take to a fallen tree to clamber up out of a silt river. The riverbanks are too high to quickly scale on their own. It is in this endeavour that the first demon attacks, leaping for me with a burning spear. I parry his thrust, kick him in the chest and give myself room. He returns with a growl, fire-eyed and heavy horned, and he is ravenous. I cut his hunger short when I split him in two. His mate falls upon my flank with a howl and I smite him too, cracking his skull under the butt of my spear. Others hear. Others come running. I need to move.
We carve our way to the highest standard. The fighting grows ever more fierce. We hold weapons of sharpened thought and strike with pure willpower. Nima remains at my side, loyal and loving and devoted, and together we cut them down - proving ourselves in this time-honoured Tenerjiin tradition: murder. It is not long before we are noticed.
Another pounces, larger than those who had come before and armed with four separate swords. I fend him off but he is stronger than I and I cannot help that he is forcing me into the open, out into the mudflat. I stagger and hurtle down the cliff towards the bog and slide on my knees. I stand, the mud rising up to my ankles, and I raise my spear as the Tenerjiin runs down after me. They are more dangerous in enclosed spaces but in the open they are more terrifying to behold - sinewy creatures shelled and corded with pure muscle, not a single ounce of fat in sight. Smoke puffs out of their mouths and nostrils with every exhalation. The mud sizzles where the Tenerjiin's clawed feet fall and even at a distance I can sense the heat of him.
The rank of furious demons folds and makes way for a single bellowing figure. He falls silent at the sight of us and sneers, six eyes narrowing to glaring slits. "You," the Khargrive sardonically hisses. "Pacifist-spawn."
I raise a bloodied hand in answer, blackened with Tenerjiin ichor.
"You have fire at least," the Khargrive scowls. "Your time is yet to come, insect. Are you truly so eager to die?"
"Where. Is. He?" I demand. My mask is tight on my face, the silken-soft foam beneath conforming to my snarl.
"Where do you think?" The Khargrive points with a scimitar west, to the mountain dominating the red skyline. "He hides. He acts the coward!"
All around the Khargrive's loyal Tenerjiin howl with fury. "Death to false kings!" they roar. "Death to the deceiver!"
"Death to Khiri," the Khargrive concurs. "Death to he who denies us the universe." A sickly light enters his gaze. "You want him, don't you?"
Nima makes to step forward, makes to come to my defense. I stop him with a flick of a finger. "What do you propose?"
azci-WaRnING: HOSTILES DETECTED, MINDCORE GUARD-[Target identified: KHARGRIVE]=[Kill him+Kill him+Kill him]
DIRECTIVE OVERRIDEN; SOURCE UNKNOWN, INTERNAL FRACTURE, CONTROL CHIP INEFFECTIVE-aazzi2113
WHATAREYOUDOINGKILLHIMKILL~{I try to think of a kinder time}~{And all I remember is the pain}~KILLKILLKILLKIAE
FALSE: They laid together, in the dark. Alone. Quiet but for the beat of his hearts. Nima shifted and held her close. He was sickly with grief. Begotten with miserable loss. In passion he had tried to distract himself and in passion she had tried to reassure him that he wasn't alone.
Though there was no helping that he was the last of the Evenorese.
Nima absentmindedly traced her frame, skeletal fingers falling over her side and hip and he said, "Damn it all."
Invicta pressed her face into his shoulder.
"Damn them," he croaked.
"Damn them," she whispered.
"I'll kill them."
It was the duty of her people to erase that kind of talk. Invicta didn't have it in her to tell him off.
"You'll kill them," Nima said. One of his numerous hands ran through her hair. "Won't you?"
"Why do you think I'm here?" she murmured. Invicta felt for the metallic nodes under her ribs, on the back of her neck. "Why do you think I let this happen to me?"
"Boredom."
"Boredom?" she looked up at him but the darkness of space was so vast, so complete that neither could truly see the other. The life-cloud didn't provide even a lamp to light their bubble. It was better that way. None were to see her face. That was the rule.
"Boredom. Being a princess means four walls all around you, everywhere you go. And this..." she felt him raise an arm to the space around them, "takes those walls away."
"I wasn't a princess."
"Close enough."
"No. Nowhere near close enough." Invicta sighed and kicked away, to the edge of the bubble. "It's just duty. It's always been duty."
"To become a Thoughtcutter?"
"Whatever the universe needs."
Nima approached. He wrapped an arm around her waist. "You're a prisoner to it. Who even are you, outside of this obligated husk."
"What should never have been."
"The... what?"
Invicta sighed and leaned her head back against his ever-shifting chest. "Never you mind."
"Will you kill them, Invicta? For me?"
"I'll kill them. I just won't do it for anyone other than myself. I'm too tired of using every reason. None of them feel worth their weight."
"Are my people not enough?"
"No one's ever enough, Nima love. Life's a riptide and it's all we can do to keep afloat."
"Are you saying what happened was to be expected?"
"I'm saying... I don't know what I'm saying anymore. Just shut up and kiss me."
kkaizzzz171192-FALSEFALSEFALSE-[KHARGRIVE COMPROMISE]=[IMPOSSIBLE]/[KHARAD-TAN, killkillkill][PRIORITY TARGET: KHARAD-TAN]
DIRECTIVE: Kill priority target:/: operation khanfall primary objective: END WAR-zzz
ION FANTASY~{I look upon my once-muse and I wonder if she sees me the same way}~TARGET AQUIRED: NARKASA, HIGH GENERAL
TRUE: I look upon the Khargrive and I see what he's planning. He's a shallow creature - shallow by desperation and petty hatred. He can't understand this rift between himself and his greatest triumph anymore than we can. He can't understand the true ramifications of what they've done. All he wants now is to make things even: you take my spawn I take yours. Even so, he's pointed us the right way. He's even given us the opening we need. It rankles with them to see us alive, to see us marching on the mountain like they are, but every Tenerjiin that comes for us I cut down where they stand. They will learn to respect my strength. They will learn to beware my own manifested hatred, more fierce than even theirs.
The walls around the mountain are broken down. Tenerjiin strike Tenerjiin amongst the rubble. Highest above it all, champion of the crush of scrabbling, shrieking bodies, there stands a legend: Narkasa herself, scourge of three dozen worlds. A killer of physical bodies and a reaper of errant memories. The first Thoughtcutter, but on the other side. She wields four scimitars and each arcs through the air like fans of flames. Even the bravest of demons shies away from her; there is enough power in her to bring down an entire battlefleet, second only to the Arch-Fiend himself. In her truest soul form she is massive, marginally more so than even the Khargrive, and she only barely resembles the baseline Tenerjiin. Her shell is bloody red and the edge of each plate of carapace glows orange with heat. Her body is adorned with bony spikes, sharpened osteoderms and serrated ridges. Even her pauldrons, formed from fused shell plucked from rivals, have formed into two separate jaws snapping independently, lashing at the air with bladed tongues and spitting molten fire. Her long tail sweeps over the ground behind her, sinuous and powerful, and in it is enough strength to topple buildings. She is massive. She is indomitable. She is Narkasa, Favoured of Kharad-Tan.
I meet the Tenerjiin chief on the mudflats and deflect his every frantic strike. Our footwork, dazzlingly fast, kicks up brackish water in all directions. It sullies my armour, my hair flying free. I hate him, but I can respect that he knows his craft. This one is old. This one is experienced in the warrior arts. He's a killer, practiced and glorified, and he's set his sights on me. It's hard not to consider that. That he's a warlord of renown, that he's a soldier with the experience of dozens of bloody campaigns and he's decided I'm his next kill. But I don't let it get to me; I've come too far already.
I raise my spear, blocking two swords striking down towards my helm, and I twist to disengage. I leap and flip and kick, cracking one of his wrists - but he has three more and the pain only angers him. With a roar he presses closer, leaving me no room to maneuver. In a physical fight he has me at a disadvantage - so I phase through him, behind him, and re-manifest with my spear tearing out his tendons. He falls with a splash and a ragged howl, thrusting a sword beneath him to lean on. He tries to twirl around but he's two slow. My partisan cracks through the shell of his back and pierces through his chest. Three swords fall from nerveless fingers. I grasp his cranial crest with my offhand and pull it back to whisper into his ear, "We have you now."
He coughs and growls and sputters obscenities, but I do not tarry. I rip my partisan upwards, splitting him in two, and twist around to face the pair that followed us down to the mudflat. This is good. They are nearly as large, nearly as old as the beast I only just cut down, but this is fortunate. The more noise I make here, the slower they'll realize where I really am.
"Enough!" a dark, smoky voice shouts. The Tenerjiin before me stall and retreat. Up by the treeline stands another of their kind, huge and powerful and scorched at the edges. I know him. He knows me.
Narkasa raises her scimitars into the air, throwing glowing sparks all around her. A space clears in her proximity; even her own compatriots fear her. "Hiirix!" she roars. "Hiirix, where are-"
"I am here!" the Khargrive yells back.
The battle lulls. A circle is made. The Khargrive stands at one end and at the other is Narkasa.
"Cur," she snarls, "spawn-eater, triumph-traitor!"
"I betrayed none!" the Khargrive retorts. "He did this! He abandoned us!"
"He gave you an order and you disobeyed it!"
"With good reason."
"No. No no no. His word is final!" Narkasa stalks forth. Wildfire spits and flares in her wake. "And he has declared your life forfeit."
"We were once kin, Narkasa," the Khargrive barks. "We were Ashlanders."
"So was he."
"Never truthfully. His life was always someone else's. I freed him."
"No," Narkasa reprimands. "All you did was deprive us of a universe rightfully ours."
"Triipotes," I acknowledge. He has changed. He has grown. Triipotes is the spitting image of his father, dark of shell and bright of eye. But he is not completely the same. Not in his face. Kharad-Tan's visage is fierce, dangerous, savage and unrepentant - marked by sun-scalding and wind-scarring. Triipotes is younger, cleaner. Kindlier.
"It does not have to be this way," he says. He remembers, then. The time we spent as children, playing in forests, within star-stations, across the gulf of space. He remembers our friendship.
To think I'd almost forgotten.
"Yes it does," I snap. I'm angry. I want to blame him because there's no one else. I'm angry because he's the most familiar sight I've come across since... since his father ruined everything. But I'm angry because I see he holds a sword too, glowing with heat. He grew up just like I did, but in the other camp. He's a killer - just like I am.
I don't know if I want to kill him. I don't think I do. But I have to. Because he is the enemy.
"Take up your sword," I tell him, "and fight. Or I'll kill you where you stand."
There's something sad in him when I say this. It's overshadowed by the hunger, the bloodthirst.
"As you will, Varanid," Triipotes huffs. He brandishes his greatsword and unloops his wire-whip. "Who am I to deny you?"
vvv-CALLSIGNVARANID/UNRESPONSIVE-Admin(?)=ADMIN UNREPONSIVE/VARANID DISCONECCTED [error: interference]
88809OTHER_SPACE/CUSTODY?-SPECIALIST HAYWIRE/KILL KILL KILL [CEASE THAT ORDER, VARANID LIVES]
hereherehereweare~{I know where my rage began}~{But I still don't know why}~hereheiswehavehimwehavehim
FALSE: It was the off-cycle that her mother came to her, so clearly trying to keep it together. Invicta looked up from her book and tilted her head.
"The Alubero were attacked," mother whispered. "And..."
And?
"Your father is dead."
Invicta closed her book over and set it aside. "What happened?" she asked - channeling that cool, calm diplomatic part of her that her father had groomed. Something cold settled inside her. Something that wanted to burn and lash and hurt.
"Kharad-Tan," her mother choked out, "struck Respo-V. Ruedhran... he stepped in to protect the Alubero. Both fleets... the planet... they're gone. Your father is gone."
Gone.
No.
But-
No.
What?
Was this... war?
Invicta stood up and walked out of the room. The ground fell away below her. Her world... broke. War was a sickly, dark thing she'd only read about, a thing that the younger peoples talked about. Not something her people practiced. Not something they encouraged. Not something... not something they wanted.
But now...
Now her father was dead. Her mother said so - and her mother was rarely wrong. But later that very day, wandering the halls of the station in a numb fugue, Invicta overhead whispers of a new rumour.
"Kharad-Tan is alive."
"Kharad-Tan is alive."
"He is alive."
"He was dead and now he's alive."
"How is he alive?"
"He devoured the world."
"He broke the fleets."
"He shattered a star."
"He is alive and not even death can hold him."
Kharad-Tan lived. The cold feeling inside finally caught alight and Invicta - she understood. Finally understood: the concept of hatred, the sense of restlessness, the very thing her mother had tried to keep her blind to. Anger anger anger; it bloomed in her heart like some great molten flower, running through her veins and forcing her to pace, to move, to think and rage and weep and hate hate hate. She hated.
She hated.
Invicta returned to her family's quarters as the off-cycle fell. There she found her mother in the main room, still and sad and trying her best not to fall apart at the seams.
"Invicta," she said.
Invicta saw her, then. And she loved her mother - but her mother did not hate. She was incapable of it, so soft and kind and generous and sympathetic. Like so many of their own kind, she was... helpless before the Tenerjiin concept of loathing, of grudge and feud. She understood it but she could not emulate it. It made the truth so much more obvious and Invicta hated that too.
"He killed my father," Invicta said - both to her mother and herself. As if trying to convince herself. But she was already decided... wasn't she? "I'll never forgive him."
Her mother exhaled softly. "I know."
"I'm going to fight."
"... Invicta, please don't."
"I'm going to fight them."
"Invic-"
" I'm going to fight him."
"Then go!" her mother exclaimed fitfully. "Go become a fighter!"
"With your blessing."
"To kill? Never."
"To kill him."
Her mother stared. "A foul act," she muttered. "You would be stained with it. Stamped with atrocity."
"He deserves it."
"Who are we to judge?"
"This is our universe-" Invicta started to shout.
"It's everyone's."
"I won't let him sully it! Not for others as he has done for me."
"Then go," her mother said again, suddenly exhausted. "Go prove him right."
Invicta left.
She never spoke with her mother again.
Didacta-KILLORDER-standingzzz101101010=[HE MUST DIE]+[SEVER LEADERSHip]+[END tHE TENErJIIN]-mindcore-intact
thoughts calm, thoughts intact, fractures healing [THOUGHTCUTTER ONLINE][TARGET NEAR, TARGET AQUIRED][PERMMISION TO KILL?]
[PERMISSIONGRAaaaaa~{Here we are, at the end of everything}~{I look upon those who hold the universe in their hands and I feel... regret?}
{What is this feeling?}
{What...}
{Why...}
{I refuse}
TRUE: "Nima," I warn, but he was already moving past me. He can no more control his temper than I can - only channel it into a finely-honed blade. The mere sight of his people's murderer prompts him to rash action and I cannot follow. In a space cleared between two Tenerjiin armies he meets Narkasa and he draws twin sabres of wicked thought, weaving them out of his own misery. She cocks her horned head to the side and studies him, bewildered and amused.
"Really, Hiirix?" she questions incredulously. "You are a hypocrite."
"No more than any other here," the Khargrive retorts. He is smiling too. Smiling with teeth. They all find this amusing - as if the Evenorese standing in the centre of everything is just some little insect pest, something to be gawked at with mild interest and then squished underfoot. As if he isn't a person with thoughts and dreams and feelings - as if he doesn't matter.
Narkasa raises her scimitars. "You have a death-wish, little mold-beetle."
Nima says nothing. He was ever the silent type, at least until he finishes his internal introspection. Always thoughtful, always considerate, always aware of everything around him.
He's already dead and he knows it.
"Your funeral," Narkasa scoffs. Nima raises his blades - and he's gone. Scuffed across the ground as ash, Narkasa's burning scimitar having flashed through the air faster than was surely physically possible.
He's gone.
Nima is gone.
Another part of my crumbling heart breaks away.
The pain hits me in realspace. There's a buzz in the back of my head as a connection is severed. Someone has died. My family grows one Thoughtcutter smaller. I shake it away, roll my shoulders and focus; here he comes. Triipotes is hesitant, though he tries not to show it. His whip cracks through the air close by my head, but I trust my armour. I trust my overshield. I trust my reflexes. It snaps by my temple and does not touch me. A warning. A plea. I DON'T WANT TO KILL YOU, it says. I CARE.
But the time for caring has long since passed. And the feeling is far from mutual.
I run, I dance, I become as weightless and as permeable as gas and then I am there, in his space, my spear cracking against his greatsword and my hand closing on his horn. I tug his head down, bring my knee up into his face and Triipotes grunts. He shakes and bucks me off, too strong to resist, and I quickly let go lest he sprain my wrist. His snout is bloodied and bruised and he snorts with irritation, shooting spouts of fire into the air.
There you are, old friend. It's good to see you again.
He circles. I circle. We prowl and stalk around one another, looking for an opening - but we are each unreadable. We've been taught well. War's a mentor like nothing other.
"Always the coward, Hiirix," Narkasa hisses. I barely hear her. "Always making others fight your battles. Always have, always will. You forced him to kill the dragon, you made him kill the Alugrive, you pressured him to wipe out the mutants - always him in your stead. Is it any surprise we love him more?"
"I have the majority," the Khargrive seethes. Ignorant to my pain, our pain. Forgetting us in his fury. They all have, so great is this petty grudge of theirs. So all-consuming. Do they never think of anything but violence? But the killing of others?
"Not in this place. Not where it matters. And we'll kill every last one of you!" Narkasa straightens up, raises her voice. "All of you! The audacity you show, breaking into here, where not one of you is worthy! You'll all die. We'll drink your souls and gnaw on your bones. Your shells will plate our mountain."
"There's no changing your mind, is there?"
"Never, Hiirix. Never." Narkasa narrows her eyes, all six of them. "To think I once thought you would have done the same."
The Khargrive bristles. "I-"
ENOUGH
I shiver. How can I not? That voice permeates everything. It shatters through the strained bonds of my uploaded psi-combat conditioning, disrupts my connection to home, to that pitch black chamber where we all woke up, where we all joined consciousness and from whence we dove into this place.
It's him.
Fire takes to hellscape, a whole tidal wave of it, and it fills the sky with smoke. A shape forms, a deep shadow up above, and from it flickers six malevolent stars stacked in pairs.
ENOUGH
The word drives the flames on, some colossal serpent of flickering, living flames. Too much for mortals to bear. It pricks my skin with the heat of it, it sizzles on the surface of my mask and eats at my veil. It devours the Khargrive's army, starting at the edges and slithering inwards. There is no escape. This is his realm and he is god; we were fools to think we, mere mortals, could change anything in this space. The Khargrive's followers have similarly realized this too late - and they die for good, forever, most of them lacking the eternal life their once-god promised them past a lifetime of ruin and slaughter.
In the blink of an eye the Tenerjiin race has been reduced to some mere hundreds, leaving those on Narkasa's side untouched and unmarred. They are quick to leave themselves, melting away back into realspace. If they fear her, then they certainly fear their highest lord. Of their ranks only Narkasa remains, red and brutish and offering Hiirix a feral grin with all three jaws. She's forgotten about us too.
But the fire hasn't. The serpent hasn't. It closes in, it constricts, it burns, and to the others I say, "Get out, pull back."
Some do so. Some die, instead of cutting the connection they try to shield themselves. They have not the strength for it. I do, but only just - and only because the fire mercifully abates at the very last moment. I'm the only one of my kind here. I'm the only one left. He knows that. They all know that. He probably wants to make a show of it.
I double over, the pain of too many severing links hitting me at once. Triipotes pauses. "Invic-"
My partisan rises, dashing across his head, and he recoils with a shout. Blood flies. I've taken out two of his eyes, maybe three. Triipotes refocuses on me with surprise. Annoyance. "Invicta," he scolds. As if I've crossed a line that hasn't already been crossed some billion times already. As if I had broken some unspoken rule. There's no rules in war, Triipotes dear. No rules at all. Your father taught me that.
zzvz-ALERT-ALERT-SHESBREAKINGRANK-ALERT-ADMIN_INTERVENTION_PRIORITY_KILL_LEVErA/
REFUTED/REFUSED = [access: denied]+[ADMIN LOGIN: WELCOME VARANID, INVICTA]
vzxxx-thought_order~{Do I even know who I am?}~mind-core-intact
FALSE: He was massive. Greater than anything she'd ever seen, ever imagined. When the little Urians spoke of their star-whale god Invicta thought of some great cosmic fish, but this... this was what she now imagined their cold ancestor-spirit to resemble. He was impossible in his scope and his every ashen breath tugged on her very spirit. Kharad-Tan was a deific demon. He was a demonic deity. He was everything the other Tenerjiin had boasted of and more. And when he looked down on her she felt nothing but animal fear - but also a strange... stillness. He did not mean her harm.
"This is Invicta," Kharad-Tan rumbled.
"Yes," mother confirmed. She was putting on a brave face - and for once Invicta knew it wasn't a charade. Her mother was brave. No, more than that; she was at ease.
She still adored him.
"I see," Kharad-Tan said. He lowered himself down, craning down his mighty head to her level. "... A strong child. Vibrant."
"She is my greatest joy."
"I know." Kharad-Tan looked back at mother. "I know."
"And you have a son?" mother questioned. Her tone wasn't right, though. Not a question. She knew the answer. More than she wanted to let on.
Kharad-Tan nodded wordlessly.
"You must be so proud. I hear he's a good boy."
"I sired him in the desert. Alone. He was so small, then." Kharad-Tan settled and closed his eyes. He's a better liar. "Triipotes is precious to me. More than I ever anticipated."
"I always imagined you would be a good father."
"It was for him I changed." Kharad-Tan stood back up. He looked down at them. "Him... and another."
"... Oh Khiri," her mother sighed.
"Yes. I know." Kharad-Tan's eyes settled on Invicta. "You will be strong, I think. You will be a warrior."
"Khiri. That isn't the life I want for her."
"It is not something for you to decide, Cenereil. Only her. And I see a fire inside her." He exhaled a cloud of black smoke. "You can try to hide it with a mask and veil but I see it. I see it."
Her mother paused. "She does not understand."
"Not yet." Kharad-Tan reached for her. The edge of a claw tapped the side of Invicta's mask, then lowered and curled under her hand. He studied the red silk looped around her fingers. "We are a people remade. I have already given my kind so many new customs to practice. We now name our children twice - once for life and once for spirit, should they survive infanthood. I am the razor-bird. Hiirix is the wisdom-king. Narkasa is my blood-guard. Triipotes I have named explorer. Trailblazer. A seeker of the new sun's light. But what of Invicta? Is she a dreamer like you, Cenereil?"
Mother did not respond.
"A speaker? Where do her merits lie?"
"Khiri..."
"If you will not name her," Kharad-Tan said softly, "then I will." He turned his attention back to her. "You are fortunate, child. You have never known hunger as I did at your age. Even Triipotes, timely spawned as he was, will never know the luxuries you were given. All this around you? All of it you will inherit. And why? Because you are born of the right blood?"
"Perhaps," Invicta croaked.
"Perhaps," Kharad-Tan agreed. "There will come those who will envy you. Who would go to any lengths to live your life in place of you. In doing so they will shatter everything apart in their irreverent haste, simply to have what you have. It will be up to you to pick up the pieces."
"Khiri," her mother said, growing exasperated. "That's not talk for-"
"Is it not?" Kharad-Tan challenged. "I was but a child when I learned to fight, to kill."
"She is my daughter!"
"Then let me help her as you never helped us. For her sake."
Her mother froze. "Khi-"
"You will fall," Kharad-Tan continued - voice rising, every word accompanied by a spout of scarlet flame. "You will descend into helplessness and you will know the lowest point of your life. You must pick up the pieces, Invicta. The pieces of the life you once lived, for your own sake. And you will have no way of repairing it to the way it was; the scars will always be there and you will always be left hungry for more."
"Khiri."
"I name you opportunist," Kharad-Tan declared. "I name you scavenger and carrion-eater. I name you Varanid. May you live to enjoy the fruits of such a life."
"Varanid," Invicta thoughtfully echoed.
"Khiri!" her mother snapped. "That is enough!"
"Yes," he quietly agreed, "I suppose it is. I have overstayed my welcome."
"What?" Her mother blanched. "No, Khiri, I never meant... No! You can't leave now!"
"Can I not? My people are anxious. They do not like me being with... your kind, your Beholders." His face twisted with disgust. "Nor do I enjoy it. It would take a gentler soul to retain their temper in a place of such overabundance."
"We are willing to share."
"With me? I have no need for food anymore. No need for your fruits or your delicacies. I have no desire for dream-baths or star-tours. I only want for a safer moon and a stronger people - and I cannot do that here."
"Then who?"
"If I give you Triipotes, will you ensure his safety?"
Her mother paused. "Of course," she said. "Of course he will be safe."
"I will hold you to it. Without him I..." Kharad-Tan trailed off. "Keep him safe. Keep him occupied. He is insatiable for worlds to map out, secrets to unravel."
"He is bright."
"He is a nuisance," Kharad-Tan said with some affection. "But one I am hesitant to lend to you. Fare thee well... Cenereil." He briefly took up mother's hand and bowed his head. And mother touched his cheek.
"Do not remain away too long," mother instructed him. "We still have a better universe to shape, you and I."
"I know." Kharad-Tan's eyes glinted with joyous hope. "I look forward to it."
-=CONNECTION: LOST/ SEARCHING FOR SPECIALIST, SEARCHING FOR SPECIALIST - ERROR, ERROR, SPECIALIST NOT FOUND(!)
VARANID: UNRESPONSIVE/VARANID: OFFLINE/VARANID: EXTINCT/VARANID: LOST IN ACTION/VARANID: BIOSIGNATURE FOUND
LOCATION: KHANFALL [body warm, body active, hostiles engaged]+[target aquired: Triipotes, Crux-Heir]=[KILL ORDER PAaaAaaa-
~{Here he is}~{Here they all are}~{Are you watching, father?}~{Are you paying attention, mother?}~{I avenge you}~{I... something's wrong, something's wrong, WHAT IS THIS FEELING}~
TRUE: The hellscape shifts and takes a new form. A chamber, wide and open and well-lit, with smooth black marble floors and walls and ceiling. We are few. We are all that remain.
"Khiri," the Khargrive growls.
"Khiri," Narkasa murmurs.
"Khiri," I say, invoking his name-before-name. The name his mother gave him. Kharad-Tan, manifested and material, looks upon me and says nothing. His shell is darker than dark, his eyes are brighter than bright, and he takes the appearance of a simple Tenerjiin but of size unparalleled. Behind him rests a statue of obsidian, flickering with un-life.
I know its shape.
I remember the feel of her soft hands on my cheek. Of her fingers righting my loose mask, tucking in my veil, fixing my shawl, brushing out my hair. I remember when she used to sing to me at the onset of the off-cycle, how she greeted me into the world with a burst of nurturing Light, how she used to cradle me close to her heart.
She does none of this anymore.
I know her shape and I know despair.
There is silence in the chamber. Only four of us stand within: myself and the three demons, but by now they have turned their attention back upon themselves. Narkasa stalks, a storm of violence only just caged within, and Kharad-Tan stands oh so still. As much a statue as the effigy behind him.
And the Khargrive... gives up. He falls to his knees and barks a mirthless laugh. "This was never going to work."
"No," Kharad-Tan replies. He doesn't sound happy. He doesn't sound sad. He doesn't even sound angry. He just... is.
"Where did we go wrong?"
"When you took her from me."
I freeze. I listen. I cannot breathe.
"Her?" the Khargrive huffs. "She was a harlot. A charlatan. She had you wrapped around her finger. I did you a favour. I have always looked out for you, even when she led you astray."
"You mistake me."
"Oh, do I?"
"Yes," Kharad-Tan rumbles with all the intensity of a volcano about to erupt. "You think I followed her. That it was all some grand plans of hers."
"Wasn't it?"
"No. It was mine. And you... you broke it." Kharad-Tan ducks his chin against his chest. "You broke me."
The Khargrive exhales. "Khiri-"
"Hiirix. I gave you every chance."
"You denied me."
"I made you what you are."
"And I didn't do the same for you? You made me Tenerjiin, but you could have made me a god. All of us! But you... you kept it for yourself! Eternal life! Ultimate power!"
"And what then?" Kharad-Tan challenges. "The universe?"
"Yes!"
"No. We have a place in it and not as rulers."
"According to who?!"
"ACCORDING TO ME!" Kharad-Tan roars. The very foundations of this will-space shakes with the force of his voice.
The Khargrive cringes. "I never meant for this! I never meant to destroy her! I only-"
"You did not destroy her," Kharad-Tan sighs. "You did not."
"It... worked?"
"You took her, Hiirix. You Took her. You opened a wound that cannot be closed and offered her as sacrifice to something beyond our power to control. You changed her shape and you whetted this thing's hunger."
"What... what do you mean?"
"I had a plan. I had a scheme. It was perfect. This universe needed a saint." Kharad-Tan looks over his shoulder, to the statue. The idol in the form of my own mother. "And it needed a monster. A forever-paradise is exquisite torture and an absence of salvation, as you well know, is desolation. They lived unblemished lives. We lived short, fleeting ones where every day was fear. Every hour was pain. We could have given it balance, but you... you Took her. You Took our saint - and you've given us a more terrible monster than I could ever be." Kharad-Tan looks back to the Khargrive. "I had her, I was going to explain it to her, and you... let it in. Now it stands witness to our every failing, our every wrong, and there is nothing to prevent it from passing its judgement."
"Khiri-"
"You've broken the universe, Hiirix. You've broken it. There's no fixing this. Not anymore. We can only..." Kharad-Tan glances my way, "pick up the pieces."
I say nothing. What can I say, beyond a scream for all this cosmic unfairness? I don't know what to think, I don't know who I hate more - and I don't know what I can do.
"We were the nightmare," Kharad-Tan continues, his gaze back upon the Khargrive. "We were the evil this universe needed to keep from growing stagnant. We were terrible so that everyone else might be good. Every ecosystem needs a predator to keep the chattel in check. You've introduced a foreign species - and unlike us it won't know when to stop. Never, perhaps."
"Then why didn't you tell me?" the Khargrive demands. "I deserved to know!"
"No. You didn't. You've grown fat and lazy on your own self-importance. I would have left you to lead our still living people on the side of the real universe, to live your own lives in comparative luxury, but you've grown too selfish, too used to the taste of blood."
"We're all killers, Khiri. It makes no difference."
"It does. It certainly does. But I owe you nothing more."
"I saved your life!"
"And I uplifted yours," Kharad-Tan shoots back. "No, we're done here. I am half-tempted to leave you to the creature you Took. Oh, she would surely destroy you slowly, utterly. Can you hear her? Can you hear her whispers?"
I can. They are low and sibilant and full of violent noise. I know that voice. I hate what it has become.
"I should," Kharad-Tan snarls. "I loved her. You knew that. I loved her as she was, not this twisted thing. I loved her for everything that she used to be and you destroyed that."
"She was your saint," the Khargrive reminds him, "and you her monster. It was never to be."
"To be? Oh yes, never to be. But it was. It had been. And that was enough."
"What, you would cling to a mere memory?! The past-"
"Silence," Kharad-Tan orders. The Khagrive staggers and falls to his hands, gasping for breath. "You destroyed Cenereil. She and I were to remake this universe into something better - but now only I remain. It falls to me to pass your sentence. I am your god. I am your lord. And you - you are a relic of the past who has outlived his purpose."
The Khargrive spits blood. "Khiri," he gasps.
"Your line is cursed. Your sons and daughters, if they still live, are hereby exiled from Crux on pain of true death. But you... you I give to those you have wronged above all others." Kharad-Tan turns his head my way. "Varanid. Do what you will."
... Me?!
I stumble and fall and croak out a pained, "Stop."
Triipotes, too gentle for this life, lowers his blade.
"Stop," I weep. Something inside me rebels against it all. It does not exult in the violence, it does not savour the kill. The vengeance in me says otherwise and it tears me asunder. "Stop. I'm not your servant. I'm not your lackey. Stop."
"Father," Triipotes pleads. "Leave her be."
"Kill him," Kharad-Tan orders.
"Father."
"Quiet. Varanid, kill him. For Cenereil."
"I won't-"
The Khargrive's head hits the ground with a wet thump. His body follows. I don't know whether to feel relieved or insulted. Narkasa lowers her scimitar and looks to Kharad-Tan. "She is not what you think she is."
Kharad-Tan glowers. "She is a warrior."
"But not yours to command."
"She is my-"
What? Your what?!
"We're all well aware," Narkasa snaps. "But you didn't raise her. She's not one of us."
"She kills."
"For her saintly mother. Not her monstrous father."
There it is. Confirmation to a suspicion I've held to for centuries. For some reason a weight lifts from my shoulders. I can breathe easier. It's a beautiful feeling - internal freedom - but it is not long to last. It fizzles out beneath the molten blanket of my anger until there is almost nothing left of it. I'm too furious to be relieved. I'm too...
I still hate him.
I hate him with every fibre of my being, every molecule of matter, every strand of semi-corporeal thought - and for me, for what I am, that is dangerous indeed. It's the very reason my people don't hate. It's the very reason why I shouldn't. But I'm... not truly a Beholder. Not as my mother was. Not as the entity I called my father was. I feel rage and lust and jealousy and I chose to be a killer under a morbid sense of self-determined obligation. No one pressed me into it; the daughter of the Speaker, Cenereil herself? No, they would never have coerced me to become this. I made this decision myself, on my own terms, based on alien stimuli.
My body in realspace seizes. The other Thoughtcutters, those who live, are confused and worried. They think I should be with them. Some might presume I've become an empty husk for a Tenerjiin host to puppeteer. The temple, the fleet above assails my implants with queries and demands, fills my mind with piercing white noise. They yammer and they shout, turning the nodes on the back of my neck hot with increased electrical activity. My muscles twitch and my bones lurch; my face presses against the confines of my greathelm and I bite down on a scream.
I wasn't made for this. I don't know what I was made for, but it certainly wasn't this.
Triipotes stands by my side. He wants to help. He wants to retaliate. He's almost as torn as I am. But he's my enemy. "No," I say. "No." I look up at Triipotes and I thrust for his heart. He is forced to move quick to deflect the fatal blow. "I refuse."
Enough
Third time he's said that. Both planes tremble with his decree; Khanfall's skies blacken and tear asunder. Hell seeps in. The battle in close orbit lulls. At last my connection to those above severs with a final crackling hiss; this is worrying. This is not a good thing. My thoughts clear and my mind grows quiet, but I needed them. I needed their support, their strength to do what must be done. I lash out unthinking as other-space devours me in full, pulls me through a rift-that-isn't according to his vile will. I-
-become two in a place where only one should stand and I struggle to remedy that. Two becomes one, and my spirit crawls back into a body of warm flesh and nurturing Light, like a maggot too addicted to the feeling being real. It hurts, the process, and the pain of it prior to joining is worse. I don't know how the Tenerjiin stand it, soul-riven as they are. I don't know how they can bear the pain. Do they enjoy it? Do they bask in it? I don't think I want to know - because what will that say about me?
But here I am. Here they are. I hold in one hand my pendant and in the other my partisan. My armour and robes are as one. I feel stronger. Not strong enough, but still greater than before.
I have to kill him.
I must.
Kharad-Tan rolls his shoulder and straightens his back - assuming a proud posture. Birds manifest out of thin air, flocking around him, and they settle across his arms and upon his horns. They were vicious creatures, steel-beaked and razor-winged and they sang to him in shrill, metallic voices. He whistles back.
"Varanid," Triipotes intones. He arrives beside me with a burst of flame. "Peace, Varanid. Lay down your arms. It's done."
(I cherish his earnestness. I've always found it refreshing.)
"Never," I tell him. "Never."
"Definitely your fire," Narkasa points out. She spares me a look of open derision and mutters under her breath, "mongrel cur."
"My fire," Kharad-Tan echoes. He's not even listening. Not to us, not anymore. Just... just the statue.
"Khiri," Narkasa chides, "leave it. There's nothing left worth our time there." A strong tone. Provocative words. I expect her to be killed for going too far - but Kharad-Tan simply shoots her an irritated look and otherwise takes it in stride. They're close, I come to understand. As close as two Tenerjiin war criminals can get.
Kharad-Tan looks to me. "Your mother has been avenged. The perpetrator of her end has been put to the sword. Are you still set to commit patricide?"
Patricide. Patricide? No. I don't care. I can't. I'm too angry already. I shouldn't be, hatred isn't something my people do, but I still hate. An oh so Tenerjiin trait - but I hate them. I hate the demons. I hate... and I know who my mother is. I know the Beholder I named my father.
And I know who killed them.
"You're not my sire," I declare. It's the truth - as much as it can be, in this wicked place, where the flames merely warm my skin and all this murderous fury of mine doesn't seem so out of the ordinary.
"I see my fire in you," Kharad-Tan says. "She gave it to me first, in the shape of a dragon. I devoured its heart. We fed its offal to a shining tree until it bled sustenance instead of water. It filled our hearts with burning power - and of that I returned a portion of it, of my heart's own flame, to your mother, out of good faith. With it she molded you out of glorious light, as your kind were wont to. Light and fire. You would have been glorious."
Glory?! A sick joke. No, never. I hate. I hate him like I never should. I hate him and I lift my partisan. I hate him and I align it with his throat. "I have come," I say, "to kill you. Trillions have perished. Worlds have crumbled and stars have died. All on your orders. All on your blade. That cannot go unpunished."
"There. See? It's over, it's done," Narkasa declares. "Let the bastard child go and move on. It's over, Khiri. Her mother's already gone and she's still closer to them than she is to us. Leave it."
"I would rather she follow us," Kharad-Tan growls.
"She won't. You know she won't. She's your blood, remember? You never followed anyone."
"I only did what I thought best."
"She has those same convictions. She'll never accept you." Narkasa looks back my way. "She doesn't belong with us. Look at her. She's let them turn herself into something she's not."
"We could remedy the damage."
"Only if she's willing. And all she's willing to do is kill us."
Kharad-Tan scoffed. "The war is over. The killing has lost its purpose."
"Tell it to them."
"Let her go, father," Triipotes pleads. I don't know why he cares - because I wouldn't extend the same mercy to him, if I were in his place.
Kharad-Tan listens to them. He considers them. He considers me. And he takes his time doing it. I wonder if I could lob my partisan hard enough to pierce his skull, but I'm not confident. The rules of this realm are his control, completely hinged to his very will. I'm not certain that the gravity surrounding him hasn't been altered or that there aren't protective wards encircling his body.
"So be it," Kharad-Tan rumbles. "I will not kill you."
No? But I will destroy him. I vow it.
"Nor will I insist you come with us. You are not Tenerjiin, not truly. Narkasa is right. But this war is over. We will conquer no further. We will kill no more." Kharad-Tan glanced off to the side, to the far wall. "We must preserve our strength for battles to come. Oh, how the universe shall beg for our aid..."
"We won't stop," I tell him. I can't help it. I want to see some fear in those eyes. Something other than cold fire.
"No," Kharad-Tan murmurs, "I imagine you won't. But the doors are shut and Crux is ours; no living thing will ever reach us. We are done here."
No we're not. I dash forward, partisan in both hands and I-
-land back in a bog of dark rancid muck. The air is still; the skies are blue. The battle above is over. The Tenerjiin, for the first time in their entire dark history, have fled the field. My neck buzzes with foreign signals, other Thoughtcutters trying to force a connection. I do not allow them. My mind is awhirl and the rage consumes me. I roar, I shout, I curse at the asteroid belt above - to the broken ships left in orbit, the only trace they'd left behind. Bodies will rot and garrisons will be reduced to rubble, but their ships are stubbornly resilient craft. Even with a dead crew and a blown spell-core, they will never crumble.
zz301919[VARANID, DETECTED]+[NO DAMAGE DETECTED]+[MINDCORE INTACT]=SUCCESS(?)
!HOSTILE ENERGIES DETECTED; TARGET INTACT(?) - REPORT, REPORT, REPORT Varanid, report, what happened?
99(affliction: epinephrine oversaturation)~{I am lost}~{But I know what I must do}~(injecting endorphins)
TRUE: He does not fear me. I can't make him fear me. I can't kill him either, but if I could have at least frightened him... No, I can't. If he's returned to Crux, then he must have done it with the knowledge that he is untouchable - because he is. They all are. I'm sorry, Nima, but I can't avenge you just yet. You'll have to wait in line first.
Still. Kharad-Tan is not without fear. The Khargrive, by proxy, gave him cause to pull back, to retreat. I won't be the last hero to step upon that plane, nor will Kharad-Tan be the last villain, but that is not to say I give up. If there is something out there that gives the Arch-Fiend pause, then I must have it.
I must.
I need to find this... 'witnessing power'.
I will petition it for the power to destroy the Tenerjiin. And then - the power to free my mother.
This I vow.
!CONNECTION: LOST!