As always, the next two chapters are up on my P-a-t-r-e-o-n, here: h*t*t*p*s :/ w*w*w . p*a*t*r*e*o*n user - ? - u = 52718582 (remove the spaces and stars)
Isha stood on the tip of a tower atop the Emperor's battle station, her eyes fixed on the deck below, a veil of illusion around her to ensure no one would see her.
Horus had returned from his first battle and looked every inch at a miniature version of his father in his golden armour. His dark hair billowed in the wind, and his teeth sparkled in the sunlight as he roared and cheered alongside the rest of the soldiers, the Emperor standing behind with a warm, proud smile.
It seemed the boy has done well. Unsurprising, given how strong he was.
He was raw, inexperienced and had a long way to go, but he was strong.
The Emperor had done superb work in crafting him, building a Demigod in the image of the ancient heroes of old. Physically, once Horus fully matured, it would take nothing less than a Greater Daemon to kill him. His body could endure incredible amounts of trauma, and heal from almost anything and the inlaid genetic memory of the Emperor's martial skills would ensure he was a warrior almost without equal.
Spiritually…the boy was not merely human. The Emperor had crafted his soul with clear, painstaking precision, shaping it according to his needs.
Such demigods were not unprecedented. To take a mortal and imbue them with your power, not merely as a Chosen, but so that they were considered your children, was an old practice, even older than the War in Heaven.
Isha herself had blessed and empowered Avatars of her own before the Old Ones had come for her children, the Everqueens, who had been called her Daughters. Asuryan had as well.
Direct avatars had become less common once the Old Ones bestowed upon them the ability to incarnate at will in defiance of the Veil, but demigods had still been made. Eldanesh and Ulthanesh were the most well-remembered among her children, blessed as they had been by the entire Pantheon, but they had not been the only ones.
Within Horus lay the potential to rival the greatest heroes of old, if he could achieve it.
The Emperor did not seem to have taken a particularly firm hand in his training yet, nor teaching him to develop his psychic abilities, but Isha supposed it was simply a matter of time.
Still, the stories of demigods were almost inevitably stories of tragedy. The power they were blessed with, the great destinies that awaited them, the enemies that their blessing earned them…even for those who did not break under the pressure were doomed to a life of woe and tragedy.
For the boy's sake, for the Emperor's sake, for humanity's sake…Isha hoped his story would not be a tragic one.
Not like her own.
Later that day, Isha was still perched atop the tower, though now she had a romance novel in hand, idly flipping through it.
There was no other work to be done, for she had already crafted antidotes to every new bioweapon found on this campaign, and terraformed every region they had conquered. Until they left this city behind and resumed the campaign, there was nothing for her to do and she needed something to keep herself occupied. The romance novels were silly, but they made her smile.
(And helped her ignore the dark thoughts that had clawed at her mind since the encounter with Nurgle.)
As she flipped the book open to a new chapter, the Emperor appeared next to her, floating in the air.
"Feeling bored, are we?" He asked, looking amused as he nodded to the way she was balanced atop a narrow spire in a feat of agility and balance impossible for humans, and mildly difficult even by the standards of her children.
Isha shrugged. "I can only spend so much time inside my chambers or the labs, Your Majesty." She replied, snapping the book shut, noting the page number for later.
"Fair enough," He replied with a chuckle. He was still clad in that enormous golden armour and long cape, though his sword was missing, resplendent against the dim light of the evening sun.
The Emperor's armour was far from the most ornate regalia that Isha had seen in her long life at the same time, she couldn't help but wonder what in the world the screaming faces on the knees were for.
But that was a question for later, as the Emperor's face took on a more serious expression.
"I have been considering something," He began. "You have given me much knowledge outside the bounds of our agreement without asking for anything in return, including answers to questions I had long given up on finding. Thus, I feel compelled to reciprocate in kind. You may ask me one question and whatever it is, I will answer you truthfully."
Isha eyed the Emperor suspiciously for a moment, baffled. Where was this coming from? What had provoked it? Did the Emperor want something?
The silence stretched as she tried to divine anything from his implacable expression, but…she supposed it couldn't hurt to try. His answer would be vague, but it would be something.
"If I may ask, given your nature as an incarnate…warp-construct-" Isha said, choosing her words carefully. "-crafted with the methods of the Old Ones, what exactly are your duties? Your Aetheric Dominion? I am aware you war is part of it, but…it was so for all us." Regardless of what their nature had been before the War in Heaven, the Old Ones had made sure that each of their slave-gods possessed a war-aspect that would allow them to match the Yngir in combat.
Isha watched the Emperor closely, expecting a negative response immediately after which he would either storm off or order her back to her chambers, but to her surprise, he did not become angry or change his mind. His eyes tightened for a moment, but then he let out a long sigh.
"A fair question. Very well."
Isha's eyebrows rose, her surprise deepening. Was the Emperor really going to answer her question?
"The elements of my Aetheric Dominion beyond war are simple. My mortal creators, the shamans of Terra, desired a protector. A being that could shield the souls of humanity from the dangers of Chaos. And with the aid of the Last of the Old Ones, they did so. My sphere is souls, the souls of the living, the souls of the dead. I was made to ensure my people would be untouched by the dangers of Chaos, to build a realm within the Warp for them to exist safely."
The Emperor's explanation was shockingly detailed, but it made a lot of sense. Of course, a group of primitive psykers being preyed upon by the Ruinous Powers would seek to create a psychopomp, a guardian of souls and a God of the Dead first and foremost. It neatly explained his intrinsic ability to repel Chaos, to oppose it in a similar, if not identical way, to how she herself did.
But that didn't explain one thing.
"But you do not have a realm within the Immaterium," Isha ventured warily. "There is no afterlife for human souls that I am aware of."
The Emperor grimaced. "I…I was foolish." He admitted quietly, looking off into the distance at where the sun would have been, if not hidden by the dense clouds of the gathering storm. "After my thousands of years as an ordinary human, I did not wish to take up my duties. The Ruinous Powers were a danger, but I was reluctant to create an afterlife, to decide what made a human soul worthy or unworthy."
Reluctant to act as a god, Isha translated mentally.
"I thought that it was best if I simply prevented the Chaos Gods from preying on human souls, otherwise allowing them to fade into the Warp. I was arrogant and reckless and irresponsible-" The Emperor cut himself off, his hands trembling with shame and anger.
After he had regained control of himself, he continued. "By the time I realized my mistake, it was too late. And so here we are."
"Here we are," Isha echoed softly.
"I intend to correct my mistake in time," The Emperor said eventually, after several minutes of silence. "But it will take time and preparation."
"Of course," Isha said quietly, pausing briefly before deciding she might as well seize the momentum. "The Primarchs…they are externalized Aspects of your Aetheric Dominion, are they not?"
The Emperor nodded, seemingly relieved at the change of subject. "In a sense. I did not create them as extensions of myself, rather I created them as vessels that could mantle parts of my Dominion, and invested them with that power once I had refined them enough."
Closer to Daemon Princes than Greater Daemons, then. Still, it was fascinating.
"It is a little strange to see, I must admit," Isha admitted. "Externalizing our Aspects as such is…it is possible, but it is not our way. I do not mean that as a criticism," Isha added hastily, not wanting to undo any progress. "Simply that for my family and I, we simply…shifted between Aspects, as it was."
The Emperor leaned forward, his curiosity undeniable. "But that would cause conflicts between Aspects, would it not? Similar to an affliction amongst humans, multiple personality disorder."
"Sometimes," Isha acknowledged. "But we were usually able to remain in harmony fairly well, and our core aspect was able to maintain dominance, to avoid changing and becoming something else."
It was something the Old Ones had done, to ensure that the trauma of her children would not drive their gods mad in turn.
Isha was usually glad for it, for the ability to choose who and what she could be. Especially in the age after the Sundering, where she might otherwise have fallen and become the dark and cruel patron the pleasure cults wished for.
But it was not always for the best. Khaine…if Khaine the Avenger had been the War God's dominant Aspect rather than Khaine the Murderer, then the galaxy might be a better place.
Yet, Khaine had chosen to remain a blood-soaked murderer, relishing in the thrill of slaughter and conquest, refusing to let go of the past. To him, the War in Heaven had been the most glorious part of his existence, and everything else after a disappointment. The decision of the rest of the Pantheon to choose peace and embrace their gentler aspects was a cowardly mistake.
But there was no point in dwelling on what-ifs. They had all made their choices, and they would have to live with them.
"I see," The Emperor said thoughtfully, rubbing his chin. "In that case-"
And then they felt it.
The Sea of Souls rippled, and a vision flashed through both of their minds at once.
In the void of stars, the fabric of reality trembled as a great gate opened and a gleaming, crystalline ship emerged from the hidden realm below reality.
The ship was beautiful, but it was battered and ragged, and the souls within shone with fear, despair…and the tiniest spark of hope.
At the heart of the vessel were the last embers of a once mighty flame, and far below it was a fragment of divinity, burning crimson still.
A Craftworld. A vessel filled with the souls of her children. Not the pleasure cultists, but the desperate and the afraid, who had fled the Dominion as Slaanesh's birth approached.
Isha reeled as the vision ended. The ship was not in Sol yet.
But it was close.
It would only be a matter of days before it arrived at the edge of the Solar System.
Her children had heard her, and they had come looking.
But even so, Isha felt cold dread clutch her heart.
She had not expected this. Her children should not have been able to find her. Their divination arts should have needed decades or even centuries of work to reform given the current nature of the Immaterium, and the grasp Slaanesh had on their souls. Never mind that they would also have to pierce the protections around Terra, and find her in the shadow of the blazing star that was the Emperor.
Isha had never intended them to come looking for her, only to send them what comfort she could.
But they were coming, and as Isha looked at the Emperor, she felt a chill crawl down her spine as his eyes became fixed upon her, all openness and humour gone. The sky above had suddenly gone dark, the sun obscured by thick storm clouds.
"You sent your children a message somehow." His voice and face were flat and emotionless, yet his aura was blazing, golden lightning crackling in his eyes. "And they used that to track you. Here, to my home."
Isha swallowed as she tensed, preparing to fight for her life as she felt the Emperor loom over her in the Immaterium as he had not done since her earliest years on Terra.
"Yes," She rasped, as the rain began to fall, each drop of water like a bullet.
The Emperor stared at her with unblinking golden eyes that burned like an inferno in the darkness of the storm.
Thunder rumbled and lightning flashed as Isha waited for his judgment.
And far away, Craftworld Iyanden continued to sail through the sea of stars towards an uncertain fate.
Author's Note: The Fracture of Biel-Tan supplement describes Ynnead as anathema to Chaos, a description otherwise unique to the Emperor.
I asked myself what Ynnead and the Emperor have in common, and, well, it turns out quite a bit. They're both powerful psychic beings crafted from the sacrifice of many souls to protect their race from Chaos.
Thus the Emperor being the human God of the Dead makes sense to me.
The difference in EQ is that the shamans who created the Emperor had the Last Old One to help them. The Craftworld Eldar do not.
The term Aetheric Dominion is from The Burning of Ohmn-Mat campaign book released by GW for free on their website. It's used exclusively for the Chaos Gods there, but no reason it can't apply to other Warp Gods as well.