Isha walked down the halls of the Sanctum Imperialis. Two Custodes were escorting her and a much smaller man in brown robes followed behind her. His hands wrung each other nervously, and sweat continued to bead down his forehead.
'Malcador…' Isha thought to herself bitterly.
Aely Wyntor was a normal man, or had at least believed himself to be one. He had memories of growing up as the son of an Administratum clerk, and through some stroke of luck, secured himself a friendship with one of the most important members of the Imperial Bureaucracy; the Imperial Regent Malcador.
That was what he thought his backstory was, but his last conversation with his 'friend' had begun to crack the conviction that he had.
"Curious. Your nausea is less pronounced than last time." Malcador said as he stroked his wrinkled chin. The two of them were having a private lunch in Malcador's office. It was a semi-regular occurrence amongst Malcador's chosen; the men and women Malcadro found interesting enough to promote to his personal service.
Ael Wyntor held back the contents of his stomach. The story Malcador had just told him was gut wrenching in more ways than one.
"This is the first time you have told me such things." Ael replied bitterly.
Malcador had recounted certain actions he had taken against a lord attempting to secede from the Imperium. It was in the early days of the war against Ursh, and the lord must have thought that the Thunder Warriors were too busy to deal with an uprising on the other side of the planet.
"Is it now?" Malcador said lazily as he turned the rotary dumbwaiter around, putting a wall of condiment bottles between the two of them.
Déjà vu struck Ael in that moment. Those same bottles stood between him and Malcador, but this time they were coated in spittle and vomit.
"Urgh!" He groaned, covering his mouth with his hand as his stomach heaved.
"Has this refreshed your memory?" Malcador said with a crooked smile as he watched Ael struggle to keep control of himself.
"Why?" Ael managed to sputter out. Many questions were merged into that single word.
'Why tell me these things?'
'Why disgust me in such a way?'
'Why act in such an inhospitable manner?'
"Because, my dear friend…" Malcador sighed. "Our friendship has come to an end."
Ael Wyntor's body went cold, but at the same time he felt a sense of relief.
'At last, it will end…'
The thought appeared in his mind, as if there were another person speaking with his voice behind him.
"Are you going to kill me?" Ael said quietly. There were enough rumors about the Imperial Regent, and given the nature of the story he had been told it was unlikely he'd be allowed to live.
"No." Malcador said while shaking his head. "It won't matter what secrets you take with you. You will be going to a place with far more dangerous ones, after all."
Ael Wyntor's vision went red. Vertigo sent his head spinning as various sights and sounds began to play in his brain. He fell forwards onto the table, knocking aside plates and cutlery as he grabbed at his head and began to writhe in pain.
"I am quite upset by this arrangement…" Malcador said as Ael's cutlery and plates smashed against the floor. He watched his 'friend' bang his head against the table, then lash out in pain, knocking bottles of condiments and sauces from the dumbwaiter onto the floor. "But this is not petty revenge against that." The Imperial Regent leaned back in his chair, lifting his own plates and cutlery off the shaking table with his psychic gifts. "I believe there are times when it is easier to deal with mental trauma all at once; like tearing off an old bandage."
Ael Wyntor fell to the floor as he saw himself dying over and over again.
Jumping off a balcony.
Bludgeoning his own head in against a wall.
Stabbing himself through the throat with a sharpened pen nib.
With each death, he remembered their cause.
Secrets. Horrible secrets and stories of murder and mutilation done by the man before him.
Verbal oration with additional hand motions and the occasional psychic transmission of memory.
He spent sleepless nights tormented by what he had been told, losing his sanity as normality collapsed around him. Food lost its taste. Entertainment lost its luster. Every shadow seemed to lengthen, trying to swallow him up into the abyss the words spoken by Malcador's wrinkled mouth had opened.
"Do not fear, Ael Wyntor." Malcador spoke lazily. "You feel afraid because you think you are human. It is because you think you are normal that you reject the abnormal. However, you never were normal to begin with."
Ael glared up at his 'friend' as he spasmed. What did he mean by that?
"Do you remember your parents, Ael? Do you remember what your occupation was before meeting me? Do you even have any personal memories that do not include your 'friend'?"
Ael Wyntor felt something crack inside him.
He couldn't remember his parents' names.
He couldn't remember what work he had done before meeting Malcador.
He couldn't remember any personal events older than 4 or 5 years ago, even though he was far older than that. Everything else was just information, like the dates of events and wars.
"You were never normal, Ael Wyntor." Malcador chuckled. "Thus, you have nothing to fear about my secrets. You are already part of them."
The red hot pain slowly began to fade as the words percolated into his brain and chilled him to the core.
"That's right." Malcador nodded. "You have no one. No one to fear for. No one to care about. No one to worry over as the nature of this Imperium is laid bare before you. All you have to worry about is yourself, and I guarantee your safety."
Ael's thrashing limbs stilled, robbed of their strength. The Imperium's macro-scale atrocities had no effect on him here in the Sanctum Imperialis. The only way they could have affected him was via proxies. But, Ael Wyntor had no one. He was a nobody.
"You are not a normal person." Malcador said. "You are just a flesh puppet I kept to check how far my sanity had fallen past the standard norms. As long as you went insane, I was assured that my mental fortitude remained intact. A sort of mental taring system I kept to amuse myself."
Ael laid utterly still, like a corpse. The only identity he had was of Malcador's friend. Now, that too had been taken away from him. Thus, there was truly nothing left inside him. No fear. No anger. Nothing.
'At last, it will end…' He heard his own voice speak to him, relieved that it was all over.
Suddenly, his arms pushed him off the floor, as his legs lifted him up. His body moved without his will, and he stood before Malcador like a puppet dangling from its strings.
"Clean yourself up and go to your mother." Malcador commanded, and Ael's body began to leave the room to obey. "You may feel depressed now, but she should be able to remedy that." Malcador called out after him. "I've uncovered all your mental scars, and cut out the damaged tissue. A clean cut heals faster than a messy one." There was no malice in the Imperial Regent's voice. It was all conversational, as if nothing extraordinary had happened at all. "I will miss our chats, my friend."
The doors shut before Ael could reply, but his mind quickly lost interest in the Imperial Regent. It would be pointless to get angry at a man who was so far removed from human emotions that they could act so cordially with someone they had utterly destroyed. That man truly felt no malice towards Ael Wyntor.
'But who is this 'mother' he mentioned?' Ael's mind seemed to have taken an interest in the word for some reason. He had no parents, so it could not be the woman who birthed him.
'It doesn't matter…' He thought to himself. Whoever they were, they would be the same as Malcador. A being far above his understanding which would play with him like a doll.
That was what Ael Wyntor thought before he met the woman Malcador had called his mother.
As soon as the doors to the Emperor's office opened, her form entered his eyes.
Golden hair, silver eyes, white skin, and a white shift.
*Ba-dump
His frozen heart skipped a beat.
'Beautiful…'
Like an untouched field of snow lit by the rising sun, she seemed pure and clean of all taint in this patchwork of secrets and lies that was the Imperium.
*Ba-dump
His dry mouth was rehydrated with fresh saliva. Her long ears and greater than average height accentuated her exotic beauty, making her stick out of the gaudy gold and reds of the Imperial Palace.
*Ba-dump
'At last, it will end…' His own voice came from behind him, and his stricken eyes widened.
Not human.
The being before was an alien being on the homeworld of humanity. It was something that called to the part of him that wanted to die.
Fear accelerated his heart to maximum speed. Adrenaline flooded his body, releasing cold sweat from every pore.
The lethargy of depression burned away as his blood began to boil. Every natural instinct was activated at once.
The alien approached him slowly, one step at a time. Her silver eyes caught him in their gaze, fixing him to the floor like a frog glared at by a serpent.
He wanted to both run towards and away from her. Love, hate, and fear tore at his breast, as he was both mesmerized and repulsed by her alien beauty.
That woman could tear his body apart like a piece of paper. She could out run him in a single step, and kill with a single word.
Her beauty was that of a wild animal with corded muscle beneath the smooth skin. Like a panther, her steps were soundless and smooth.
There was no way he was related to this creature, this apex predator in fair form. Yet, part of him longed for her. His heart ached from the sweet flower-like smell that he instinctively knew was hers. His mouth watered at the sight of the curve of her waist and the nape of her neck.
Her arms reached for him, hands open.
His knees trembled, suppressing the urge to run into those arms, into her embrace.
'No…' Ael Wyntor shook his head. Those were not the warm welcoming arms of a woman, but the spread jaws of death opening to devour him.
This being would kill him. She would tear him apart and devour his soul.
Part of him wanted that to happen. It wanted to stop thinking, stop existing.
He was a nobody. He was nothing. He was a manufactured disposable item made by Malcador. His mind and body were used up when his 'friend' told him secrets, and when it became too much a new Ael Wyntor would be prepared and sent out to befriend Malcador.
That was the only worth of Ael Wyntor.
But, he didn't even have that anymore. Malcador had disowned him, so the part of him that had remained from the very first iteration was now free, and it now wanted to return to the woman before him.
"N-gh!"
Ael attempted to reject the being before him, but he choked instead as his own throat constricted attempting to strangle him.
He didn't want to reject the woman before him. She was everything he ever wanted.
He didn't want to be near the woman before him. She was the end of everything he ever knew.
The fair white arms wrapped around him, like vines around a branch.
He breathed in her scent, sweet and warm.
His body relaxed.
'At last, it will end…'
He could not run. He had no reason to run. He was returning to where he came from, leaving nothing behind.
"Live." The woman whispered the word into his ear, and he felt blood curdling rage course through him.
She had rejected him. She refused him. The only thing he wanted was to return to her, and she denied him that wish.
He tried to push away from her, overwhelmed by emotions of past lives, of past 'Ael Wyntors'. They only wanted it all to end, but this person denied them that.
Arrogant. That was what she was. She didn't know what he had been through. What he had suffered. What he knew.
He wanted to inflict every atrocity he had experienced upon her in that instant. Let her understand what it felt like jumping off a building. Let her feel the sticky blood spilling out of her neck, opened up by a paper knife. Let her know the slow dread of losing all sense and emotion from sleepless nights and waking nightmares.
Her arms pressed his struggling body into hers, and he felt her soft skin against his. Her body warmth flowed through the thin white shift, and her sweet smell filled his nose.
Slowly, his murderous rage was replaced by a bitter sulk. Despite her denial, he could not deny how much he yearned for her at the same time. It felt good to be in her arms, against her body.
He nuzzled his nose against soft skin directly beneath her ribcage, as if to bury his face into her, like a child.
"I will stay by your side." She said softly. "I will walk with you, and talk with you, and keep you company." Her hand stroked his hair, tousling it like a toddler's. "I love you, Ael Wyntor."
Bitter tears started to fall down his cheek.
As much as he resented her, he loved her as well. From the moment he saw her, he loved her.
At that moment, the man who had nothing and nobody became a son and found his mother.
Isha held the man in her arms as he cried silently.
Ael Wyntor was an Aeldari-human hybrid made by Malcador, but it might be better to describe him as a well-made chimera of sorts.
Aeldari DNA was tri-helical. This was an advantage that allowed them to resist greater amounts of DNA damage, making them resistant to mutation and radiation at a fundamental level.
Human DNA was dual-helical, making it incompatible with Aeldari biology.
Ael Wyntor's body was a well made mix of human organs and Aeldari organs, woven together into a single living being. Care was taken to ensure each half recognized the other as a part of itself. It must have taken several years of 'teaching' the cell lines that would form Ael Wyntor in order for them to not reject the other. It was for this reason Malcador kept the corpse of the original Aeldar in a preservative nutri-vat solution. Ael Wyntor could not simply be cloned. He had to be manufactured from the start, and pieced together like a work of art.
She sighed to herself as she inspected his body with her psychic senses, looking through every cell in a few minutes.
Even his brain was a mix of Aeldari and human components, with Aeldari hippocampi but a human limbic system.
That was the core of his mental problems, however.
Ael Wyntor's emotional outbursts and depressive episodes were triggered by memory. These parts of his brain were Aeldari in origin, and were most likely made that way to ensure he had the same ability all her children had. Namely, the recovery of past experiences from the immaterium post-reincarnation.
The hippocampi, or the Aeldari equivalent of the human organ, was designed to do that. However, this part of the brain was also loosely tied in with emotion.
Aeldari emotions were more intense than human ones. Thus, even though Ael Wyntor's limbic system was human in design, these main emotional centers would be overwhelmed whenever emotions emerged from the hippocampi. These Aeldari emotions would color anything he felt at the time, suffusing him in whatever the memory associated with that emotion was.
This was the scientific source of the sound of his own voice, his descent into obsession with memory, and his extreme depressive episodes.
For what purpose the Sigilite had done this, she didn't know. Perhaps that was for the better. If it had been for some perverse pleasure, she might have lost control and killed him.
Slowly, she soothed her own anger by hugging Ael Wyntor into her.
He may need her, but she also needed him at that moment. By being his loving mother, she could distract herself from her own murderous rage.
She too was Aeldari, and prone to emotional outbursts. Stability was something that took many years to master, but she could take her time with Ael Wyntor. He would live longer than the average human, and he was hers now, not Malcador's. There would be ample time to provide him with better memories to blot out the black ones instilled by the Sigillite.
Neoth watched the mother and son embrace.
In the past, he would have watched with indifference or boredom or disgust.
It was not the familial expression of emotion that would have upset him, but the fact that Isha was an immaterial creature from the empyrean.
This emotional connection she was creating with Ael Wyntor would feed her, and the almost mundane form the process took was why it was so sickening.
Those warm arms embracing Ael Wyntor would have appeared to be the legs of a spider entrapping new prey in invisible silk strands.
Those kind words would have seemed like fangs, seeping into the targets brain, numbing them to pain as they reassured them and brought temporary relief from their emotional distress.
That was Neoth's view of all things that originated from the immaterium. They were all predators or parasites that fed on the weakness and vulnerabilities of mortal beings.
However, he now no longer harbored such dark thoughts.
Whatever she was, the fact that Isha was Ael Wyntor's mother was true. Both of them felt it, and that maternal connection was not something to hate or abhor.
Neoth looked up at the ceiling of his office, up at the hundreds of artifacts and items he had collected throughout the Unification Wars. Through their past, he reflected on his own personal life as just a mortal man.
His biological mother had died in childbirth. Whether that was just an unfortunate accident, or due to some complication caused by his unnatural nature, he did not know. He was raised with goats' milk, and weaned off of it with ground-up seed and berries with dried meat provided by his father.
That man was nothing special. He was a man of that time, barbaric and violent by the standards of modern man. Mistakes would be met with a slap or shouting. Compliments for others were non-existent, but he was an endless self-aggrandizing braggart.
Truly, his father was nothing special for a man of that primitive time.
'Perhaps the apple hasn't fallen far from the tree.' He thought to himself, kneading his temples with his armored fingers as he realized many of those descriptors could be used for him as well.
Even so, it was that man who raised him as a babe.
It was that man who brought his lips to the goats' teat.
It was that man who crushed tough wild seeds between rocks and sifted through them to dig out stray grains of sand.
It was that man who taste tested the berries to make sure they weren't poisonous before feeding them to his infant son.
'Love that is easy to see, and love that is hard to see…' Neoth mused as he watched Isha.
The love before him between mother and child was easy to see. It was warm, and accepting, and natural.
The love his father felt for him was not so visible. On the surface, it did not exist. But, how else could he explain the effort that man made to provide sustenance for him?
There was no comparing the two forms. Even if the male parent of mammals lacked the biological advantages and organs of child rearing that a woman had, being more difficult did not make a thing inherently better. Regardless, the fact that both forms of love existed was undeniable.
'I may not have respected him, but I loved him enough to avenge him.' Neoth thought to himself.
Perhaps he could use this moment of reflection when he met the 20 unborn sons he had made. His perception of them was complicated, to say the least. They were tools and weapons for the completion of his plan, but they were also his children. Their origins lay with many bitter memories, but he shook his head and sent his thoughts towards other things. He did not want to think about what happened on Molech. To do so would sour his mood too much.
'Erda…' Instead, Neoth's thoughts shifted to his own equivalent of Isha.
He had first recognized her existence sometime during his travels across the globe. Perhaps it was when he was crossing the first desert. He felt something watching him from the distance. At first, he assumed it was another bird of prey or scavenger waiting for him to weaken, However, he did not feel the same hungry intent from the gaze. Time passed, and he grew more unnerved by the unfamiliar nature of the eyes that laid upon him. He felt no hostility from the gaze, and it did not make his skin crawl. It was closer to a slight itch that he could not scratch.
'Perhaps it was embarrassment.' Neoth chuckled to himself. He was still a brat too big for his boots back then. Striking out alone across the desert with no food or water had been harder than he expected. If it wasn't for his psychic gifts he would have certainly died. Normal humans couldn't draw up groundwater from the depths of the earth beneath hundreds of meters of sand.
'That was exhausting.' He sighed, remembering the frustration he felt as the liquid slipped and spilled underground from his psychic grip.
'Erda…' He sighed mentally. He didn't need someone to cry on, like Ael Wyntor. But, leaving things between them as they were now was… irritating for him.
'I don't want to fight with Erda…' He concluded. Even without all the divine implications and symbolism their current conflicted status brought, he personally did not want things to be the way they were between them.
'I don't need someone to cry on, and I don't need to be reassured about what I am doing. I don't need admiration or praise. I do what must be done. That is enough. But… I… don't want to see her with that expression.'
That expression. That sad resigned smile that seemed to have given up on everything, but didn't want to show that to him.
'Do not… give up on us. Do not abandon us.' Neoth gave the irritation he felt a form in words.
'But, the only way to ask that of her is to trust her.' Neoth gave another mental sigh.
Erda resigned herself to being ignored by him again. That was the reason for her smile. Thus, the only way to rectify that was to deal with that core issue.
'Fine…' Neoth thought, and sent a psychic message to his Emissaries Imperatus.
'I am the Emperor of the Imperium of Man. So long as she acts with my word, her acts will be made mine.'
Just like the shuttle she rode upon was named 'The Emperor's Grip' to hide her existence, his heralds would act as the cover for her actions. Those actions might contradict his own. However, his own plans were twisted masses of false leads and traps. A few more seemingly contradictory orders would alert no one.
Isha allowed Ael Wyntor to stand on his own after he stopped crying, unraveling his arms from her, freeing him like a butterfly from its cocoon.
"Mo…ther." Ael Wyntor stammered out. He was still slightly shaky before her, feeling the gap in their existences instinctively. He was only half Aeldari, and that made him painfully aware how weak he was compared to the rest of her children.
"Isha." She said with a smile. "My name is Isha, Ael Wyntor. I am what you feel me to be. Life in all its parts, and your maternal parent. My blood runs in your veins, and my joy beats in your breast."
Ael Wyntor drew a sharp breath as he felt the warmth of her acceptance wash over him.
"Why have you called for me, Isha." He asked, bending one knee and bowing his head before her.
"Must there be a reason a mother wishes to see her child?" Isha chuckled.
"No." Ael shook his head. "Yet, I am not just a child. I am a grown man. I cannot simply stand by and accept your benevolence. I must have an occupation or trade. I would wish this to be one that assists you."
"Hmmm…" Isha mused.
Ael Wyntor's mental state was still vulnerable. His desire to do something must be an instinctual understanding that keeping himself busy would distract himself from the memories of his past life. It was either that, or he wished to reinvent himself with this life to shrug off the pain of the old.
"Ordinarily I would be delighted by your devotion, but our situation makes things difficult." She put her arms on her hips. "I cannot have you preaching my teachings here, and although your human parts have matured, you do not have control over your Aeldari organs or emotions."
This was the homeworld of humanity, so having Ael Wyntor begin preaching an Aeldari faith in the anti-religious Imperium would go badly for everybody involved. Furthermore, he himself was possibly more unstable than before. He thought he was human until now. However, he could no longer tell himself that. Sooner or later, his Aeldari biology would come into conflict with his human parts.
"If I require teaching I will learn." Ael pressed on.
Isha frowned. Ael's new attachment to her was driving him to emulate her, and her fully Aeldari children. Hence, his desire to learn of her and be in her service. However, he was not a full Aeldari. He was a hybrid. He would need to accept that fact, and find a balance between both sides.
"Fine then…" Isha finally nodded, losing the frown. "I will have to take you on as my servant."
Neoth palmed his face as Ael looked up at her in surprise.
"Your… servant?" He asked back.
"Yes. It would seem quite nepotistic in this situation, but with no other gods or even Aeldari to entrust you to, you will have to be my servant." Isha nodded to herself, matter-of-factly, as if what she had said was the most obvious thing in the world.
'Well, in the proper context, her actions make sense.' Neoth thought to himself.
Isha was a deity, thus she would be at the top of whatever Aeldari society she was a part of. This made her effectively royalty wherever she went.
Royalty, both Aeldari and human, often had the custom of sending their children into the service of close friends or relatives. This had the dual benefit of creating close ties between groups, and providing the children with knowledge of the customs and necessary day to day jobs to run a realm. For the Aeldari, it had a third additional benefit of allowing their children to learn ways to curb their pride by working in the service of another.
However…
"And what will I do as your servant?" Ael asked, reassuming his composure.
"I don't know."
Neoth palmed his face a second time as Ael's eyebrow twitched.
"You… don't know?" Ael asked with a strained smile.
Isha shrugged. "Ordinarily, I would send you to be in charge of an entire planet, but I don't even have a biosphere or castle for you to maintain at the moment. You're too young to ask to manage a portion of the Webway. Even if you were old enough, one wrong turn and the Warp spiders would make a quick meal out of at least half of you if I did that."
Cold sweat started to bead on Ael's brow as he learned what Isha would have done if she still had her full capabilities.
'This is a splendid case of asking the wrong person at the wrong time.' Neoth muttered to himself.
Isha was one of the main deities of the Aeldari pantheon. Only the most powerful and resourceful Aeldari would have been able to talk to her, let alone ask her a favor. Naturally, her answer to the request of 'give me a job' would be fitting for a person of that scale.
Ael would have probably got a more appropriate answer if he answered one of the simulacra dealing with the rescued children. They were far closer to mortals in terms of existence and nature. Then again, not many mortals had the opportunity to ask a deity for a personal favor.
"..." Ael ended up remaining silent, unsure how to continue the conversation.
"Don't worry. I'm sure we'll be able to find something for you to do." Isha said as she patted him on the head. "They have a human saying for this, don't they? 'Life always finds a way!' "
'That's not what that means.' Neoth and Ael both thought the same thing at the same time.