– Commorragh, –
– Yrliet's point of view –
Why was she even giving in into her dark cousin's experiences, Yrliet wondered.
If she had any spark of dignity, she should kill herself instead of bearing with this constant degradation and humiliation. She was struggling to survive - but she hated everything she had to do in order to live.
Her dark cousins would only feed her and tolerate her presence if she pretended to play the part they had set for her. They wished to pervert her, to twist her very nature away. To shape her in their cruel and terrible image.
Yrliet's sadness and grief was difficult to control. She sometimes felt like an ocean was growing inside her veins, an underiver of murky water, bloodied and mysterious. She tried to meditate, to flee into her inner world, to find a shelter from the stormy emotions raging inside of her.
But no matter how she tried, she couldn't. The drukhari had broken something in her.
She hated them, but more importantly, she hated herself.
Rationally, she perfectly knew the reasons that had led her to put her faith in Marazai. Her desperation to ever find her people, her desire to do everything to protect them. The humans' perpetual contempt towards her and her kin.
There was an exception. Elena. Elantach. The human from the stars, the wanderer. Yrliet could not bear to even think of her name. Her mind conjured images of Elena, her calm, her curiosity. Everytime Yrliet's heart constricted painfully in her chest.
She had betrayed the only person that had shown her any compassion and who had promised to help her.
Elena had her flaws, like all of her kin. She had grown distant lately, secretive. Yrliet hadn't been able to break through to her, to talk to her.
And now, would she even have the chance to ? Her kin was lost. The elantach that had helped her all this way was lost. Even the scornful mon-keighs that had accompanied her were lost. All of this because of her.
Yrliet's hand trembled and shook as she tried to focus on cutting her victim, to the loud exclamation of the drukhari "training" her to their dark ways. Yrliet tried not to look into the monkeigh's face, not to see its expression as it screamt and wiggled under her touch. Her knife was cutting through the skin of the chest, flaying it off, looking for a way to the heart.
I'm sorry , Yrliet thought with every fiber of her mind. I am so sorry.
She wanted to weep but she couldn't show any weaknesses to her dark cousins. Else they would do worse. Yrliet could shorten this man's suffering and give him, if not a quick end, one that was not the worst possible in this place where all hopes died. Her dark cousins were focused on her ; the monkeigh was just a pretext. She had to keep going for a few minutes, and eventually kill the monkeigh off, pretending not to bear the torture anymore. Her pain and suffering, her guilt and remorse would feed her dark cousins well enough.
I am so sorry , thought Yrliet. It's just a few minutes more and you'll be free from this place.
The monkeigh was watching her with eyes wide and rolling like crazy, his pain and fear oblivious to Yrliet's inner thinking. In his eyes she was a daemon, a terrible monster. A xenos, as they said. One of them.
She hated every second of her life right now, but she was still fighting. She was still hoping.
Elena.
That was all she thought about. The slender shape of the elantach, taken away by Marazai, brought into a fake trial.
Yrliet had the moral duty to do everything that was in her power to make it up to the elantach. To rescue her, even, or simply to give her a merciful death if she could.
I'm so sorry, she thought again, her heart beating painfully in her chest as she twisted the knife into the monkeigh's chest. It gargled its own blood, to the pleasure of her dark cousins monitoring her. Their slip of excitement would be her windows to end the monkeigh's life. I'm so sorry I have to do this, but I am doing it for her.
" Yrliet Lanavaeyss", said a cold-sounding voice, with tremors of unspeakable anger.
Yrliet looked up, blood on her face, feeling faint and weak. Against the dim, sickly green light of the Chasm, two figures stood up, watching her and the drukhari with contempt and rage.
" Seneschal", said Yrliet, the word rolling over her tongue strangely. Her eyes widened with the realization that, if the old one was here, then Elena should be here as well -
A cry of rage. Something hit her on the side of the face, projecting her to the ground. The drukhari hissed back.
" You filthy traitor ! It is all your fault ! You deserve to die !"
Yrliet felt every word said by Argenta in her flesh. The hit had made her dizzy. Argenta was only distracted from killing her on the spot because of the drukhari that tried to flee.
A shot - and he was down on his knees, reaching for his glaive, his eyes wide with hatred.
Like a snake bouncing on its prey, Yrliet ignored Argenta's attempt at shooting them both and leapt on the drukhari's back, stabbing it cleanly accross its throat. She then rolled over on the ground, as the corpse of her dark cousin fell dead head first into the ground. She was swift, but so was the Sister. Yrliet got up to face the barrel of a muzzle pressed harshly against her jaw, bruising her muscles.
On the other side of the muzzle, Argenta's eyes shone ablaze with fury and her fingers lingered on the trigger. Yrliet knew that exact second that, if Abelard Werserian had not strayed Argenta's hands away, she would be dead by now. There was nothing but sheer wrath in those hazel eyes.
" SISTER, I ORDER YOU, KEEP YOUR GUN DOWN !"
Argenta bit her lips so strongly that Yrliet saw droplets of blood leaking on her chin. Her whole body was shivering with the anticipation of the kill. She didn't seem like she was going to obey the Seneschal's order.
The old man did something that Yrliet would never forget. He slid away between the muzzle of the bolt pistol and the Aeldari, brushing the pistol harshly so that it now rested on his forehead.
Argenta bit her lips harder, her eyes looking away.
Yrliet spotted the lumped and crumbled shape of Elena in Abelard's arms. Suddenly the scenery was gone, and so were Argenta and Abelard. She extended her arms out, trying to check for a sign of life - the elantach looked so lifeless like this - but something struck her hard on the face once more. A slap. The Seneschal had slapped her down. The humiliation and the pain bubbled inside Yrliet's mind and soul, tensing an invisible chord inside of her - but the hunter relented and accepted her fate as she fell down on her knees, her face bruised and red.
His voice growling with barely contained anger, the Seneschal was fixating her. Yrliet wasn't good with remembering monkeigh's appearance but it seemed to her that he was a lot weaker and older than before…before Marazai. Before her.
" You ", he said, and there was no disappointment in his voice. Only the cold, harsh fact that she had always been scum in his eyes and had proved him right. " You don't deserve to live, xenos. But I shall not be the one to order you to your death. The Lord Captain will decide what to do with you. "
Argenta pressed her lips together, her gun tilting down indecisively. Yrliet had no trouble comprehending the words the Sister did not utter : the elantach had always been soft with Yrliet. In their eyes, it was a sin. Yrliet's kin was no different. She was glad that her ancestors did not get to feel how her soul wavered and softened when the elantach was around.
Especially now. While Abelard held her life in his hands, Yrliet could only but look up to Elena's body. She was more corpse by now than alive, but Yrliet could hear the wheezing and painful breathing through her teeth. Her now skeletal body abhorred different and recent signs of torture that Yrliet dared not think about. The back of her hair was gone, leaving a lump of mangled blonde hair greasy with blood and other bodily remnants better not described. She lacked one arm, and the stump lacked the cleanness and precision of a surgeon. She stank of decay and death. Her left eye was inflamed, her eyelid and orbit a sickly red.
As she observed the wound, Yrliet realized that something was forming an abnormal bump inside of Elena's eye orbit. Her stomach turned and, had she been fed anything these last days, she would have gagged from the horror it inspired her.
" She is dying from the erzaketh ", she said.
Abelard's hand rested tightly over his thunder hammer. He looked down at Yrliet. " What are you speaking about ? Do you know what befell her ?"
Me , thought Yrliet. She replied : " The mind maggot. Do you remember the crewman we found during the void battle with the drukhari ? "
Yrliet pointed to Elena - she heard the metallic clank of the bolt pistol tilting up and Abelard pressed the agonizing body against him closer.
" Confusion. Loss of sense of reality. Hallucinations. Weakness. Paralysis. Loss of sense of self. And, as the parasite struggles for its life in an alien body, so does the host die as well. Did any of this happen to her ?" asked Yrliet, unrelenting. She stared at the Seneschal, searching for anything in his eyes - and there it was. The flicker of doubt.
" She could be making this up", said Argenta.
" I am not ! I know you don't want to trust me after what happened. But I promise I know how to save her. You cannot extract the maggot yourself. If we were in a medbay…but neither of us have the proper tools or experiences. There is, however, someone who does. The Archmachinator. The Crafter of Flesh. "
Yrliet's face looked up towards the top of the Chasm; towards what she knew to be the Archmachinator's lab.
The Seneschal replied : " And why would that…Archmachinator help us ?"
Yrliet smiled, sadly. " Because I can offer him something he desires. I can offer him my suffering. I can sacrifice myself in order to save elantach. "
" And why would you do that ? You, who have betrayed us all ?" asked Argenta, scornful.
Yrliet said nothing, daring not to speak the words out loud. What they were was a thing of beauty and light, something not shared in the darkness of death and pain.
Abelard stared at her instantly, assessing her. Yrliet stayed down, waiting for his judgment. All she wanted was to speak with the elantach, to reach out towards her with her mind and soul. She was aware that she could die, in this place and time - by the hands of the monkeighs she had dragged with her to this cruel place.
She was all right with it.
Abelard must have seen something in her that brought him to a surprising conclusion : " Fine. You have a chance to prove you don't deserve to be slaughtered like the animal you are. Lead the way, xenos. And if you ever think about betraying us again…just know you shall be shown no mercy as we send your wretched soul straight to the warp you so fear. "