The court was silent as they watched their creator pull the blade out of his chest, their eyes fixated on the wound that closed in front of their eyes. Their minds churned with explanations for his attempt at self harm even as Feenritters swarmed him and locked his hands down at his sides while mutters sprinted for him. Their magic bathed his body in light as they looked for any signs of harm or foreign magic at work that could have caused their creator to perform such an act in front of his court.

For Komnan it was all far too surreal. As a fifth generation lord he had not been created personally by the Grand Hunter, instead he had been birthed by one of the countless Feenmutters that ensured the war effort had enough Fae to function. Despite that, his faith in the Hunter, the Creator was greater than perhaps any of the first three generations.

He had inherited the memories of the Mutter that created him and from his first moments he had known only awe for the Creator. The greatest of the Fae, first and strongest of their kind with magical power equal to a hundred lesser lords. How could he not worship their god and creator with everything he had?

Just as the humans in his domain were expected to worship him, he worshiped the creator. To see such a perfect and powerful existence try to end itself in front of him was… heartbreaking. He could only blame himself.

Somehow, and in some way they had failed the creator. What other reason could he have had to try and end himself in front of them than sheer disappointment and disgust with their very existence? He had always known that he was an imperfect existence, just a shadow of the Hunter created to help him in his ultimate rise to planetary dominance.

He had failed in that duty, that was beyond obvious. Not even a single city on this planet had fallen to their forces yet after two years of fighting. With all the might of the fey leveraged they had failed, their gifts bestowed by the creator meaning little and less due to their own incompetence and ineptitude, and now the creator himself was making it known what he thought of them.

In the face of such overwhelming disappointment from his creator what was he to do? What could he do? The tears wouldn't stop falling as his own eidetic memory, another gift from the creator, forced him to replay the events in his head.

Slowly a cry began to escape his throat as he began to have a mental breakdown. A cry taken up by many within the court as their own minds forced them to relive their creators suicide and rebirth, their own failures as creations playing on repeat within their heads.

The cries of the few spread to become the cries of the many as Fae broke down in tears, with only those of the first three generations that had been personally created by the Grand Hunter not falling into hysteria as they desperately tried to figure out why the rest of the court had broken down.

-

It was a shock watching as my court broke down in front of me. The sight of these inhuman monsters that I had created turning into crying children was quite the sight, I honestly didn't think they were capable of such displays of emotion.

Fae were weird creatures though and I honestly didn't know what to expect out of them at this point, I didn't have the Grand Hunters personality filtering it all for me anymore after all.

The mental breakdown of my court was the least of my concerns though, because I had work to do if I was to fix the shitshow that my life had become while the Grand hunter was in charge. The first step in that process would be to dominate my rogue power, and to do that I had to face it.

In an all too familiar process I closed my eyes and reached for the star of power that represented the Grand hunter. I could feel the hunter's rage, his hate and his need for power as he lashed out against my mind in an attempt to take my body from me. His will was great and as his power flooded into me so did his memories, memories of a being older than entire cultures and nations.

It was a fragmented mess through and through. It washed over me, inundated me with foreign and alien thoughts and memories and it was only the star of my will that kept him at bay as he tried to wrestle control away from me. In the end though he was just that, memories. I was fighting memories and a faint will, the echoes of a god that was long ago dead and buried.

I walked through the memories, even as fragmented as they were, the story it painted was great and mighty. Born in the twilight years of an age of myth the Hunter witnessed the fall of the giants and the rise of the gods. He fought in the wars of the Aesir and Vanir, he witnessed the creation of man, and he served as an emissary between the gods and their faithful.

Millenia passed and with time he grew powerful, age always made fey more powerful and his service to Odin allowed him ample time and opportunity to learn magics great and small.

Eventually he was chosen by the All-father for a great honor, to lead the wild hunt and become the Grand Hunter. It was a task he fulfilled with relish and one that would define him for all time. He led the hunt for a thousand years, he was the howling of the storm, the destruction left in the wake of the winds, and the baying of the wolves in the hurricane.

He was a natural disaster incarnate, a god in all but name. It was too bad then that Odin suffered no rivals and fey always reached beyond their station.

The fragmented memories grew inconsistent the farther I walked through them, war and death a common denominator within them all, and near the end everything grew hazy and dark until it all eventually went blank. All of it too distorted to piece together a narrative from, death the likely outcome in the end.

That was what the Grand Hunter truly was in the end, a dead god trying desperately to revive itself. I could only pity it even as I forced its will back and wrestled control away from it. I would never give it my body again, not while I still drew breath and my heart still beat. This was my body, not it's and that would never change.

I opened my eyes.

I was taller once more, powerful and magnificent in a way only a Fae could be. My cloak flowed around me and down the steps of my throne and for the first time I was truly the one in control, not the Grand Hunter. My court was still in the midst of their little mental breakdown, but they seemed to finally be coming out of it as they stared blankly, their eyes fixed on me.

"What disappointments." I said, my voice ringing throughout the room as they flinched.

I stood from my throne and pushed away the Feenmutters that had appeared to try and treat me while my Ritters tried their best to merge with me and keep me safe. I didn't fail to notice how their weapons were kept well away from my reach. Not that it mattered, if I truly wanted to harm myself I could simply create one for myself.

"To think I created you all to fulfill my dream of a utopia and you deliver to me just another hell of our own making. Why, why have you done this?" They did not speak as I walked down the steps of my throne to stand in front of them. Silence was my only answer. "No answer from you all? None of you can gather your wits about you to answer a simple question?"

"It was not our failing father, it was yours." My head snapped in the direction of the voice, ready to rip the speaker limb from limb. It was Dyrrath, his son in his arms and a look I couldn't place in his eyes. "You are the one who started this war, created us to be what we are and never once gave us guidance on how to create your so-called utopia. You were too busy fucking Celras and running the war to bother with the administration of our conquests."

His every word was filled with malice as he walked forward, cutting through the sea of Fae Lords. "We only acted in a manner befitting how you created us, we are Fae and you are the one who gave us life, made us how we are, and left us to our own devices. We are your children and we have only ever done as you designed."

He was standing in front of me now, his eyes downcast as he looked at the toddler in his arms. "Even when… even when it cost us everything." His arms squeezed the child lightly, unshed tears threatening to spill out of his eyes.

I was speechless as his eyes snapped open and his kaleidoscopic eyes looked into mine and only anger and grief met me. "You failed us father! You failed my wife and you failed me!"

"Dyrrath… I-" I Began to speak before he interrupted me, the anger still burning in his eyes. "You what? You're sorry? Well it's too late for that, my wife, my love, my Nuvi is dead and you weren't there!"

I didn't know how to respond to him, what could I say? I couldn't exactly tell him that my mind had been overwritten and I hadn't truly been myself for the last two years now could I?

He didn't say anything else, he just stared at me with a look of pure disgust. "You're right I wasn't there and I failed you. I failed all of you, I wasn't the father and creator you all needed me to be. I was too consumed by my own failings to realize that I had failed you all, and now I will fix that."

I couldn't bring Nuvi back, that was beyond my abilities. I couldn't turn back time to do better than I had, but I could do better now, both by my creations and the people that I was now in charge of.

First I would fix the first of many fuck ups. Reaching out to every Fae within range I put the screaming souls that made up their cores to sleep, in the process I also comforted the humans that they had twisted, quieting their souls and guarding them against further manipulation. Their bodies were twisted things, so far beyond the human norm by now that changing them would likely be more harmful than anything, but I left the choice in their hands and those who chose it I turned back into the people they once were.

With the screaming souls put to rest for the time I reached into their minds and imparted a new set of commands dealing with the administration of their domains. These new commands primarily dealt with the way they were to treat their human subjects and how they were to run said domains.

I would institute a whole new law code along with vast reforms in the days to come, but for now laws forbidding the torture or hunting of humans for sport would have to act as a good buffer along with the commandments that they were to begin feeding all people within their domains. It was far too little, far too late, but it took time to write up laws that Fae wouldn't be able to rules lawyer around.

With my new commands in effect amongst my court and the screams of souls no longer trying to kill me the first step in changing fate had been achieved. Looking at Dyrrath's still enraged eyes told me it was still nowhere enough. I had much work to do, and many more hours of work ahead of me.

-

The war for Ulanir had always been a slow thing, a grinding battle of attrition as millions died daily to slow down the encroaching legions of Fey. With the fall of Hive Nafith the war had expanded outwards.

Nafith was closest to hives Hafin and Lafin and as a consequence the Imperial forces were most concentrated in those two hives, already having destroyed the cults that had risen in revolt there. The two hives were constantly raiding Nafith and regiments were constantly attacking the lost hive even as the rest of the guard across the planet was fighting for its life against the cults.

WIthout warning suddenly that all changed, the vast majority of the regiments that had been stationed in said hives were reassigned, moved to other hives to crush the cults, leaving only two regiments of dedicated guardsmen to defend the hives, along with ten regiments of PDF each.

It was a paltry number compared the near thirty regiments of guard and PDF that had once been assigned to the two hives. Despite the vast decrease in defensive power no attack came from Nafith, in fact from the reports the imperials received it almost seemed as if we Fey didn't have the ability to expand outwards yet.

This was a false assumption. We could have begun expansion months ago, but on the command of the Grand Hunter we had not. Instead he ordered the expansion to come to a halt after the capture of the hive and not long after a new law code was passed down from on high. It was a complete codex of new laws that all Fey were bound to obey as it had come from the creator himself.

The new laws encompassed every aspect of life for both Fey and human, including the ways in which the two were to interact. No longer were Fey allowed to kill men for sport, twist their forms to their desired shape, or use them in any way which pleased us. Now we were to treat them with respect, feed them, clothe them, and ensure they had good lives working for the betterment of the Grand Hunters new Kingdom.

The worst part of it all was the Grand Hunter had even made sure to word it all in such a way that it was an ironclad declaration that none but the most clever of us could work around. It was infuriating, but he could at least understand why the creator had done such a thing. The humans were only good for their souls, but the Grand Hunter had made it known that he wished to create a utopia in which men and fey could live lives free of strife and hardship.

It was a dream that he could respect and as such he went about his duties with his usual diligence. Right now said duties revolved around the construction of a great warding matrix that the creator had ordered built to defend against orbital bombardment. As an artificer it was his pleasure to build and create, but the warding matrix was perhaps the hardest thing he had ever been requisitioned to create.

He along with a thousand other artificers had been assigned to the project, and even with so many of their kind it didn't feel as if they had enough help. The hive was massive after all, and creating the matrix towers required a truly immense amount of souls and time for each, leaving the artificers involved drained of power and energy by the end of the week-long construction effort.

After six months of work most of the matrix was complete, thank the creator, but he still hated every minute of the project. He would rather be back under that witch Uffi construction thousands of artillery pieces per week. That was less draining than even a single tower was to build.

At the very least he was happy that he wasn't a Jaeger. With the war for the hive over and the hunters shift in priorities they had been conscripted as labor to rebuild the entirety of the hive from the ground up. The hive had to be completely remade to be a more livable and comfortable space, even if it meant less people could live in it, and the creator wanted its industries completely replaced with new and more reliable fey constructed machines that the humans could use.

It was looking to be a multi year process and he was eternally grateful that he wasn't one of those assigned to it. Even after the matrix was complete he knew that he would next be assigned to work on the other defenses of the hive, a duty he was more than happy to carry out. Weapons were where he shined after all, it was what he had been created for and the duty which he carried out most vigorously.

Now if only he could convince his current lord to petition the Grand Hunter to renew the war effort and all would be right in the world. A fey could dream.