~Crowns of Light~
~804. M30~
~Segmentum Ultima~
~Bastonne~
~The Emperor of Mankind, The Hero with a Thousand Faces~
Four was safe and well. Wide and lidless eye mounted atop an unshakable steel-pillar-soul. Drawn from his recent days among Terra itself, in which he beheld the ruins of what was once his most venerable homeland. So much lost, so much wasted, and so many things to rebuild. Setting his arms to the task, he was again and again failed by what he had built, ruined in mere months or years when he looked away from them.
Unto Four, unto Petra, he gave a craftsman's soul. A love of ordered things, of planning and coordination. A soul brimming with wisdom and designs and the clever hands to realize these designs. A last gift he gave, the lidless eye, which would see those most-weak elements of her work long before he often did.
She was somewhat more choleric than he was expecting, but she was not tormented, she was healthy, she was productive, and she was sound-minded. She was already doing exactly what he had intended for her, and doing it most excellently. He had heard of her work from his custodians and the letters left for him. He couldn't be more satisfied with how she had grown in his absence.
"Come, Fah-la-lala-le~ Come visit my valley~" Sang a melodic voice above and in front of him. He continued to push through the thick snow-layer with ease, legs as immense plows in cutting a path through the frozen water.
Eight was safe and well. Pale and scale-weighing and sword-holding. Drawn from the late days of his first kingship, where the crown wore heavy atop his brow, but his sword only grew lighter with time. The judge and executioner, meant to look impartially about the world and see truth between lies of sniveling courtiers and snake-tongued nobility. A task that grew easier and easier for him in time, as he grew wiser and wiser with time.
Unto Eight, unto Kassandra, he gave the gift of foresight.
Waiting for milk-skinned petitioners to get to the point was the single most loathsome experience that a judge must endure. He despised it, he had no curse sufficient enough to express his disdain. Being able to look ahead and sentence them immediately would be something that would make the whole ordeal far more bearable. It was something that she had taken to well, in his absence.
She was quiet and observant, but firm, and her prowess in the sandy ring was magnificent, able to spar with several of her best trained sisters simultaneously. He would have to give them some more pointers to keep up, Kassandra had truly become a fearsome warrior in his absence. He was most proud of her.
"Come, Fah-la-lala-le~ Under the blooming holly~" The voice continued to sing, a gentle and happy tune as the journey through the frozen north continued, no winds currently blowing in a world of frozen-white, a world that reminded him of his ancient birthland, were it not for how bright it was.
Fourteen… He was quite glad to see fourteen healthy and whole after seeing the state of the world she had landed upon. A world fallen into green-sick rot-magics and daemons of decay abound. He had lost entirely too many men against that world, even if none of his armies saw it in such a manner. To them, they had marched against an unknowable foe, a corrupted world of witch-monsters, and had left behind sanctified ash.
They were already writing songs about it. Such songs seemed bitter to him, over the graves of so many lost to a single world. He would need to improve his strategems against such places.
Fourteen, Morrigan, was here though. Safe and whole and melancholic. She had been wrought of his memories of a warrior-woman he once knew, although the name long escaped him. A queen of shadows and cold, witch and warrior both.
Mankind had no gods, and no safe realm for their souls to travel. The best he could do with such little time was gentle annihilation. He knew he could do far better, had he the hours and wealth to work unobstructed. Morrigan was to assist him in such a grand task, soul well-suited to weaving shadows.
That dream was distant though, and so she was given the gift of endurance, to last until such a gentle place could be wrought.
"We hate to impose. So lonely do we lie~" The gentle song continued, and finally he looked up to the singer, pulled from his musings.
His initial assessment of the xeno-priestess was quite accurate. She was beautiful in form, ideal in all proportions and clad in accentuating garments and decorations. Of her flesh, only her great scale and long flickering ears gave away xeno-nature, otherwise nigh-identical to what he imagined a mastercrafted sculpture of painted-marble would appear as.
Her soul was quite a separate matter. Human souls did not look like this.
There was a still lake where her soul might have been, but this was not her soul. Within the glass-clear reflection of this lake where her soul should be, he could see a reflection in its midst. There was a spear there, made of glass, made of rainbow-scales, scattering light into many hues through the waters, ever shedding scales which fell like droplets into a cup built into the spear-tip itself. But this spear existed only in the reflection of the lake, and when he looked above the water to where it should hang, he saw nothing.
"We're sure you understand. We'd hate to say goodbye~" Arms stretched wide, teetering as if balancing on the edge of a humble fence, the xeno-priestess stepped on top of the snow as if it was solid earth, feet barely leaving footsteps. He huffed in an unamused manner, staring at the back of her head as he pushed through the meter of snow without much effort.
She turned back to him, now walking backwards and smiling at him. "Oh? Are you bothered by our singing? We admit to being somewhat out of practice." To emphasize her point, she brought her hands down to clasp behind her back, rocking her shoulders back and forth in an apologetic manner. This did interesting things to her bust, which he noted idly.
From the mischievous look in her eyes, she was well aware of this. Continuing the charade, he responded as if he had not noticed. "I'm beginning to consider that there are no such serpents to hunt, and that you have lured me out here for nefarious designs."
She laughed lightly, a more open expression than he had seen from the vast majority of her people. For the most part, the Exodites seemed far more reserved then their 'Dark Eldar' kin. He once again felt a spark of amusement at that name. Urbanite was a simple descriptor, but to hear they had apparently taken up the name 'Dark Eldar' was quite amusing. A thousand and one potential titles to use and they decide on something so basic.
He had to thank the next one he saw for the good humor they brought before mounting its head on a stake.
"Nay, we have no tongue for lies." She boasted, chin tilted towards the sky and back straightened out. "They should be in the midst of their mating season now, males displaying their great crests in breeding fields beyond the next mountain range. We shall find the largest and make a fine meal of it."
He hummed in consideration for a moment, thinking on the matter. "...How large do these beasts grow?"
She tilted her head to the side, and spun briefly as she walked, before answering after a short time. "Perhaps one Lann at their largest, their forms cannot support larger flesh than that."
"And a Lann is?"
"'Water' in your tongue, we use it to measure many terrestrial lengths. From here, it would reach the horizon and a few finger-lengths further."
He looked out to the horizon, and ran figures in his mind for a few moments. Roughly three kilometers, then. He frowned as he considered that. That was quite a large serpent.
"...There will be a great deal left over." He eventually responded, not just in bulk, but he wasn't the greatest connoisseur of serpent-flesh. "I suppose it shall have to be brought back."
"Or the other serpents will devour it. Little is wasted in cold waters." She responded, unconcerned. "We will eat our fill, others will do the same, and the bones will sink to the depths below and become shelter for all the little lives down there."
The reasoning was good enough, he supposed. Instead he grunted and kept striding through the thick layer of snow onwards, aimed squarely at the next mountain pass in the distance.
His first proper evaluations of his supposed son's direct rule were promising. He could detect no sign of malign influence anywhere, save perhaps the abundance of xenos, and the letters were quite thorough in detailing exactly what he had done and his reasoning for each action. This was both a boon and a curse.
A boon because he had precise records to go off of. A curse because they have taken up entirely too much time to read through years of backlogged penmanship. It was always polite, formal, with the bleeding undercurrent of warmth for his sisters each time they were mentioned. The letters were also helpful in telling him exactly what had been done to Seventeen. He almost regretted not destroying the planet entirely rather than just leaving it lifeless.
There were always hints of emotion bleeding through the dry and impassive wording on each of the thick wax-sealed letters provided.
Save for one subject in particular. Himself.
Every passage that mentioned him was exactingly neutral. Perfectly and carefully devoid of emotion. Nothing to indicate the tone used to write left in the letters.
That could indicate many things. Grief, Anger, Concealed Joy, Guilt. Countless variations of why the tone was so empty when it came to himself. That alone was reason to pause and consider everything around him.
His supposed son had come back, supposedly to set right what went so disastrously wrong. His daughters scattered, their empire ruined, and ten thousand years of suffering to follow.
For a moment, his mind went back to Barbarus, and the words of the Eldar. Set right what went wrong, a retrieval from several locations, most reeking of malign daemon-worship…
He considered the very real possibility that several of his daughters had been corrupted by the circumstances of their homeworlds. It would fit well with the details he had thus far established, and a race to remove them as quickly as possible would also align with such. His daughters were handcrafted by him. He knew their potential. If any being could cause such ruin for the galaxy, it would be his daughters. The only question would be why he hasn't slain them in that once-future.
…He considered that again, what it would take to strike one of them down in that manner. He wasn't sure if he could bear the thought.
…which may explain the reason for his supposed-son's creation. Thirteenth iteration of Zero.
An executioner, to do what he couldn't bring himself to do. A tool wrought with the intention of using it to strike down his daughters. Not just one, by the implication, the thirteenth of who knows how many. Assuming one for each daughter…
His fist clenched. His eyes narrowed. How utterly-
The ice cracked below his feet. He blinked and looked down. The snow around him turned to hot slush and quickly melted further with his rage. He shifted his weight to move off th-
Feeling quite unimpressed with himself, the Emperor fell straight through the ice and into the polar sea below.
—
The xeno-priestess wouldn't stop giggling at him, pretending to hide it behind her hands and curtain of hair. Feeling vindictive, he shook his head roughly about, and scattered water all around himself with whipping hair. Unfortunately, the water did little but encourage her giggling. He glared for a moment behind wet hair and continued on, wet robes now tied tightly around his waist and freeing his upper body.
"Hehe~ No, don't stomp off now, We don't mean to offend." She called after him, a smile still audible in her voice. Quick footsteps brought her up and towards him once more, still stepping atop the snow as if she weighed nothing. "Our laughter is surely unrelated to your misfortune."
"I thought you had no tongue for lies, xeno-sorceress." He uffishly replied, plowing forwards through the snow without pause.
"Of course not, a supposition is surely not a lie. Merely a reasonable assumption on our part." She replied with merriment, teetering after him. "Our merriment is solely in the time spent with you."
He raised a brow, looking down in an impassive manner at her. A wet strand of hair fell down to smack against his face. She stared impassively back for a time, before breaking down into giggles once more. He snorted and continued onwards.
"We've heard that sickness is common for humans who are cold and wet." She mused aloud. "Shall we divest you of your sodden garments?"
"That will leave me nude."
She nodded. "Worry not, we are only concerned with your health. It would not do for you to fall ill in our care."
"In your care?" He raised both brows at this, looking at her again as he began to move up. They were just not reaching the most-distant foothills of the mountain-pass. "You would leave me nude in the frozen north."
"Ah, a most troublesome affair indeed." She pretended to consider this. "We shall have to warm you with vigorous activity."
"You are not the first sorceress to attempt seducing me." He waved off the hidden words, having little need for them while so far from listeners.
"Excellent. A trodden path is easier to travel." She replied quickly.
"The question is why." He replied lightly, idly. "The moment your people prove to be like all other kinds I'm already familiar with, I will crush your armies, raze your cities, and hear the lamentations for a hundred ages. I have little cause to believe your faction is any different from the ones that tormented my kind and caused thousands of years of suffering for everything in the galaxy through proxy of a grand and most-foul ritual."
She was silent for a moment, allowing him easy time to continue. "My foremost concern is mankind, I have not the heart to bathe in the lambency of federated suns, of man and xeno united once more, of brighter eras of peace and progress. I dwelt long in that era, and that era was strangled to death by your self-shattered Empire."
Looking straight ahead once more, brow heavy with long-weighted concerns, he finished. "I have no reason to trust you or your kind. Not with so many atrocities your kin have a direct hand in. My sword is stayed only until your people prove to be yet another enemy."
"Your attempts to seduce me are likely to sway me from my potential judgment, I suppose."
There was silence for a long time, before the xeno-sorceress sighed mournfully. His heart demanded he reach out and comfort her, his mind knew that his heart was a damned fool that was best ignored. He did not bother looking at her expression as she began to reply.
"Speaking in the most-practical manner, yes. We are attempting to seduce you to secure your aid for our little-kin. Our pantheon shattered or devoured or lost or captured. Our empire broken, our homeworlds consumed, our souls gnawed at. Our urbanite kin, those who wrought the pleasure-cults and birthed She-Who-Thirsts, have descended into a form of despairing madness. Indulgence in excess as a final pleasure before true-death."
"Our trade-fleets are scattered and fearful, wandering routes collapsing into chaos. Our exodites, who have utterly rejected the pleasure-cults of the urbanites and escaped to distant maiden-worlds, are disparate and disorganized. Our last military force is warring against the endless twisting of Sha'iel and all the daemons it can belch forth through the Womb of Destruction, all to keep it from expanding for just a little longer."
"And were it not for your son, Hope-Bringer, not even this would be possible. Were it not for him, his rallying declaration, and his actions to save both our peoples, my little-kin would likely be doomed to extinction, and I would still be slumbering in my escape-vessel, locked in endless stasis by its mechanisms."
"They would be doomed." She choked out. "What kind of mother can do anything but everything to save her children?"
That was something he understood quite well.
He glanced over at her, her ears drooped, her expression wrought with sorrow and twisting. He frowned to himself, looking away and staying on his path. "Why not seek to seduce my supposed son then?"
She gave a choked snort, then escalated into a brief laughter as she wiped away at her eyes. "Your son is quite precocious, a very serious young man."
He narrowed his eyes as he rolled that statement over in his mind. He was too young for her to consider a relationship then? Or was it a matter of his demeanor?
"Moreover, little Miriel is head-over-heels for him, and they would be quite adorable together." Her ears fluttered happily.
Ah. "His maid?" She was doing that thing women-folk tend to do, where they pair young together for romantic scenarios.
She nodded happily. "She's much too shy to directly state her intentions, and he's much too focused on his labors to eat without a plate being set before him, much less notice her signs of affection. We eagerly await the day he realizes, he's too dutiful to let a thing such as that go unaddressed."
He filed the information away, and returned to the subject at hand. "So you are attempting to seduce me to secure an alliance, and thus safeguard your people." He was familiar with the strategy, having seen it play out in every variation over thousands of years.
"One third of our reasoning." She corrected. He rumbled in questioning, and she continued. "Your godling-daughters are quite adorable. We wish to mother them relentlessly."
He gave a suspicious glance down, only to see her not even paying attention, rolling a finger and continuing to speak. "Petra is very self-critical, and doesn't have much confidence in herself. Aurelia takes her devotion to her older brother very seriously, often too far. Morrigan scrubs long enough to scratch her body, and needs a second hand to relax in warm waters."
Cracking open an eye, she smiled. "And Kassandra doesn't express herself very well. We have decided that they need my help, so we will give it to them. If we seduce you, then our mothering will be far more official."
He huffed in amusement. "The third reason?"
She moved close, and pressed up against him, his glare snapped down to her. She looked up at him with half-lidded eyes and an undaunted expression. Smiling coyly, she whispered. "We are a woman, you know?"
She reached up, resting one hand against his stomach and letting it roam. "What were your words again? Our grails overflow? We were quite pleased to hear that."
He glared down for a moment longer, weighing truths in his mind.
…She had been honest. His daughters were safe, well, and sound of mind. That was far better than he could have feared. They had shown no hostility thus far, and he was more than mighty enough to survive any sorcery she could attempt long enough to activate the Imperial Teleportation Array.
Grabbing both of her hands with his own, he slammed her into the side of the snow-blanketed mountain and loomed above. The snow began to sizzle and melt with an emotion other than anger. He leaned down and let his frustrated breath wash over her face.
She gave out a stuttering gasp and full-body wiggle. "O-oh no~?" She had a breathless smile on her face as she put up token, toying, resistance.
"Very well." He growled out.
He would extend a hand of trust, and ready himself for it to be cut off.
It had been some time since he had known a woman in any carnal sense. There was always work to be done, there were always matters to attend to, there was always strength to regather. In time, his flesh ceased being something used to live within, and became yet another tool in his arsenal. A biological war-walker, to carry his psychic power, great arms, and great armor into the frontlines. Little more.
In time, he had ceased to enjoy his flesh and blood. The Age of Strife allowed him little in the way of opportunity for such.
One mighty brazen hand, large enough to eclipse both of her own with scale, pressed down and pinned her arms above her head. Trunk-like arms bound in muscle held her firmly against the quickly-melting snow, and the running waters were beginning to soak through her thin white garments.
He did not bother overmuch with the pageantry of writhing flesh, only enough to buy him time to remember the steps of this dance. His other hand rested upon her generous hips, and he kneaded his accumulated frustrates into soft and smooth cream-meat.
"Ah~" The priestess gasped out, valiantly squirming against his firm grip. Her elbows buckled as they instinctively attempted to pull her arms in on herself, and her knees withdrew to guard her exposed torso.
Doing so left her exposed, and he brought his own knee up to press firmly against her groin, an action met with a deep shudder and a half-hearted attempt to to push his thigh away with her legs. This lasted only until she realized that she had wrapped her legs against one of his in doing so, and began to grind against him.
With half-lidded eyes, she challenged him. His hand rose to grab hold of silky-white garments of masterful manufacture and beautiful design.
Contemptuously, he tore them off, revealing her form in all its nubile grandeur. She gasped in delighted outrage and opened her mouth to say something. With a growl of warning, he silenced her with his lips and tongue. An invasion of her upper lips, a battle he had not fought in many millenia. He made up for the lack of experience in recent memory with overwhelming force, tongue forcing its way into her mouth and trampling about.
"Hmm!" She returned, tongue attempting to rise against his own. With contemptuous force, he wrestled with it and directed his attentions elsewhere. His hand, currently continuing its ministrations on her hips, turned its focus upwards towards exposed weaknesses.
Her heaving chest, burdened by great mounds, came under assault at once. His calloused hand found its target soon enough, pinching and rolling and squeezing just firmly enough for the sensation to burn its way into her body.
"Mhm!" She let out yet more noise of pleased distress. Seeing his path of attack was currently suboptimal, he moved his hand and thumb in practiced motion, and took hold of her other nipple, two of them pinched between his fingers and firm enough to direct as he desired.
He stayed in this position for some time, desperately trying to recall the optimal path forwards, busying the enemy with his tongue and hands.
Her burst of greater-than normal shuddering alerted him, and his attention turned southwards with renewed clarity of purpose.
He pulled away from her mouth, her tongue exhausted and body in a state of constant tremor at this point, and released her teats in turn. She opened eyes a tad in question, feeling him retreat from their entanglement for a moment. Her defenses had grown lax in that moment, and his assault returned with vengeance.
His hand came down to tear away her soaked lower garments. Her legs, quaking in the wake of their grinding assault, were easily parted by his strength, and his hand clamped down on her groin. "Fwaa!" A strangled declaration came from her upper lips as two of his fingers forced their way within.
He narrowed his eyes, and curled his fingers.
Her body quaked.
Push, curl, pull. Push, curl, pull. Push, curl, pull. A relentless assault on her lower lips, now deeply-slicked and at his mercy.
He gave a half grin, and pressed his thumb down firmly.
She screamed as her womb was pressed down from above. He leaned down and buried his face within her soft, delicate neck, letting his breath wash over her. She leaned in, trying to stabilize herself against his body as she was wracked with storms of sensation.
He brought his head up, and mouth clamped down gently on one of her long, spasming ears. His probing attack was rewarded with the lovely, breathless gasps of his target.
As a lyre, he played her body, finger-presses and firm hands returning exclamations in the wordless language, and indeed, the occasional exclamation in a language he did not understand but presumed to be her native tongue. These he silenced with tongue and deep-chested rumbles, there was no need for words here, and he had no interest in them regardless.
He intended to take his fill from her body, and he was long overdue for such indulgences.
Reminding himself of his, he pulled slick hands from her sex and reached down. She stared to the sky, chest heaving as she desperately attempted to return air to her lungs, before blinking and refocusing to look down at him.
He pushed himself between her thighs, a pillar of flesh breaching between her pillowy legs and settling against her stomach. Her legs squeezed together around him, and her face was flush with desire, hot breath of her own clashing with the cold air in bursts of steam that framed her face.
Despite her continued torments at his hands, she looked triumphant, as if achieving a great victory over him. He growled, pulled back, and pierced her.
Hot and vice-like and slick. His eyes closed in focus, and a rebellious grunt came from between his teeth. Her legs came around his hips, feet locking in place behind his back, and he cracked open one eye to glare down at her.
She was almost grinning now. He snarled and pushed forwards.
Her eyes rolled back and body spasmed as he sheathed himself fully within her. Her stomach flexed with his intrusion, and her hips instinctively worked to roll against him.
He pulled back, her deceptively strong legs fighting him all the while, trying to keep him deep within. Then, with only the tip remaining within, he lanced forwards again.
Again his assault was met with aftershocks, her half-words and gasps losing coherency as he went to work. Slowly at first, but building momentum as he continued, he thrust into her again and again. The shock of each thrust began from the point of impact, their hips colliding, and rippled through her flesh and body, sending her teats bouncing and hair astray. Each thrust accented by a now-consistent rhythm of moans from her lips.
"Ah~ Ah~ Ah~"
Speed was a fool's goal, the true path to victory was hidden within this succulent rhythm, and the pace that came from it. There was no reason he couldn't tip the scales further in his favor, of course.
His hand, free for some time, seized her hip once more. She convulsed as he went to work again, squeezing her flesh and thumb pressing down on her womb from above as he thrust up from below. He rolled his fingers, and forced his breathing to steady.
It was growing more difficult to restrain himself, her hot folds clenched down upon him in deliriously pleasing manners. Her moans only accented each rolling tide of sensation.
He silenced them with his mouth once more, invading both sets of lips in an effort to distract himself from his own body.
He realized too quickly his mistake, as she moaned directly into his mouth, the sound now nearly a physical sensation.
He rumbled in frustration and relish as he stained her interior white, thrusts continuing without pause for as long as he could manage, hot seed filling her and spilling out with each pump.
At a certain point, he realized that one of her arms was up under his, hand firmly against his back and pressing him down against her lovely form, her other hand interlaced with his above her head.
He pulled back, long black hair hanging low and surrounding her face, shrouding both of them in its curtain.
Her breathing was heavy, her face flushed, her ears swaying.
And that damned look of exhausted victory on her face. He growled and pulled back, grabbing her by the hips with both hands and flipping her around. She barely pushed up from the soaked earth in time to look back at him.
He forced her face forwards again, taking up a tangle of her hair by the base in one hand, forcing her delightful rear up with the other, and thrusting inside again. Her legs resumed their quaking almost immediately, the aftershocks not having left her yet.
"Ah! Ah! Ah~" Her tunes began quickly again, her body pressed against the earth time and time again as he took her from behind. The impacts once more rippled through her body as their hips collided again and again.
He would empty her of any expression of victory, he swore it.