Do you wish to hear my story?
The first things I remember – when I was finally allowed to remember them – were colors. Vivid and plentiful, like nothing I ever seen before. Beautiful dream and peace that lasted for immeasurable time. Then, there were voices. Melodious, serene, utterly alien, bound to contain the meanings which eluded me at the time…
No, there was something else before that. But a flicker of flame, blink of an eye in the tapestry that is my life. It seemed so important, so grand back then.
And then there was an ending. And the beginning. Like with so many things touched by the skein, one can not differentiate one from the other.
It came with a silent storm and a smell of ozone. With a tear in reality. Irresistible pull and an endless, yet instant feeling of unbelievable pain drowning all else. Maddening screams heralding the change to come. Eternal and elusive alike.
Only after this end arrived the colors and the voices. Along with the only constant in my life to be – the soothing weight over my chest.
I don't know how long I spent in this dreamlike state, in a peaceful, timeless hallucination. Slowly colors began to gain shapes, melodic voices shifted and became alien sentences, various sensations started to make sense.
One day I simply opened my eyes and realized I wasn't dreaming anymore.
However… this is the beginning better recounted in another time.
For now, there are other actors eager to enter the scene. Better suited to begin this tale. For it is their agenda that shaped my fate into what it is today.
Veyn was seated on a comfortably shaped bench, a solid rock amidst the ceaseless ebb and flow of life aboard the craftworld. Her expression remained unreadable, akin to a mask chiseled from the same ethereal stone as the sleek spires which towered around her.
Draped in a flowing gray robe adorned with an array of pendants, each a masterwork of intricate crafting, she let a single rune dance between her fingers, a soft chime accompanying its movements.
A child passed her by, a fleeting flicker of innocence, darting by with a laughter that seemed to challenge the darkness suffocating the galaxy. In return, Veyn graced the youth with a rare smile - a gentle warmth that seemed almost foreign on her distant expression - and moved on with her exercise.
Having trodden the Path of Actor for passes before beginning her current Path, Veyn embodied the essence of confidence and purpose that her people expected from one of her station.
Because, beneath this practiced exterior, she was baffled by the task she had been entrusted with.
To watch over one of the Asuryani for two longcycles. And a toddler at that.
This request hadn't caught her unaware. Amongst those apprenticed to seers gathered in House Naer it had grown to be something akin to a rite of passage. Most often, it pertained to monitoring one of the younger Asuryani, albeit she heard of at least one case that involved following someone who became a corsair. As far as Veyn knew, none of the seers had to react in any fashion during their tasks.
Speculation ran rampant among her peers - some believed that this mundane charge was to instill humility and responsibility in the next generation, while others claimed it was intended to bridge the gulf between the seers and regular craftworlders, help them perceive them for another Eldar, not someone distant nor unfathomable. A handful tried to divine threads of fate on their own, believing this to be a true purpose of the task, however, they never found out anything substantial.
Lost in her contemplation, Veyn relished the vista before her—the intricate spires of the craftworld reaching upwards, piercing through a blanket of artificial clouds, reflecting the glimmers of flickering stars and the haunting elegance of the structures erected in areas of inverted gravity, looming over them like specters from another reality.
The view had been pleasant, but in a cycle or two, she would rather change it for another spot.
Suddenly, an overwhelming sense of wrongness coiled around her heart. The Infinity Circuit cried out in terror and revulsion, resonating deep with her own very being. And to make matters worse, the source of the disturbance was close to her charge.
Her heart racing, in one fluid motion, Veyn reached for her pouch, the runes reacting to her frantic will like sentient beings. The intricate patterns swirled around her, propelling her with a speed that defied the natural limitations of her people.
The wraithbone structures surrounding her hastily sprouted new pathways. They were ugly, jagged things, mere protrusions and holes, borne out of necessity, not to please. The material was yielding to her will, creating crude passages. She sprang through them, quicker than an eye could follow.
Startled gasps of nearby residents echoed in her ears, but she ignored them, along with a pang of guilt for the workload her impetuous dash would bring to the bonesingers. There were more pressing concerns.
When she reached the affected area, Veyn was momentarily halted by the sight of a tranquil Asuryani woman, blissfully engrossed in a crystal-reader, completely oblivious to the noxious stench and maddening screams coming from her son's chambers.
A heartbeat later she understood. The exercise she continued to perform; a peek at the threads a few seconds into the future.
What she had seen hadn't happened yet. It was happening right now.
Without another thought, Veyn plunged into the second room.
The chamber was shrouded in darkness, bereft of the alabaster glow of the wraithbone. It didn't mean, however, that there was nothing to see.
There was a tear in the Veil just beneath a child's cradle. Countless, misshapen, ethereal appendages stretched hungrily towards it, casting ominous flickers of unlight everywhere around. Swarms of tinyarachnidschurned on them chittering angrily, however despite their efforts to stave off the encroaching horror, its limbs were slowly becoming more substantial. The child's spirit stone pulsed with a frantic, blood-red light whenever the warp spawn came close to it.
With a scream stifled in her throat, Veyn harnessed her own psychic prowess, supplying it with the energy cycling through the Infinity Circuit. A brilliant conflagration of light erupted from her hand, scorching the foul essence that dared to manifest itself within the sanctum of her kin.
She barreled towards the child.
The boy kept staring forward without blinking, not producing a single sound throughout the whole ordeal. There was something unnerving in his gaze, an echo of horrors witnessed that seemed out of place on the face so young.
"It was bound to happen if someone peeked into the sea of madness unprotected and unprepared," she thought bleakly. "Even the mind of a child would be forever changed and twisted by the experience."
Veyn, careful as to not open her own mind to the child's, waved around him an intricate pattern, meant to put him in stupor, ease the burden on his psyche. That was all she could have done at the time.
"Iriath, my son, are you alright?" the mother's voice trembled as she ran into the room. "What happened to him?"
The woman clutched her child, panic coursing through her as she sought explanation for the events unfolding.
Inwardly, Veyn wanted to scream.
Had she failed? Was the child forever lost, due to her tardiness? If one of the farseers had predicted such an outcome, she should have been warned beforehand!
Forcing a tight leash onto her own emotions, she reached towards the Infinity Circuit, and the answer she received gave her a temporary relief.
"It's not my place to explain. Farseer Arhorwal Naer is the one who saw the threads. Your boy is calm for now, but his tranquility will fade soon. We must heed to the Farseer and you'll find the answers."
Veyn's answer hung in the air, shrouded in the mystique of her station - an enigma laced with restraint. Better for the mother to perceive her for a pillar of stability rather than another fragile Eldar, weighed down by uncertainties.
As they flew in a grav-shuttle towards the Dome of Crystal Seers, Veyn only prayed for the craft to reach it quicker.
"The Farseer will see you now," Veyn intoned, settling into familiar patterns she knew from countless ceremonies.
She gestured for the mother to step inside. The chamber beyond was ascetic, bereft of color and distraction, its austere walls having witnessed countless musings and divinations. In its center was a trio of elegant chairs and a large pouf.
Seated in one was Arhorwal Naer. The sight of the farseer's untroubled smile flooded Veyn with relief, a faint crystalline glow of his teeth marking the wisdom he was bound to gather during his long life.
He beckoned them closer with an inviting wave.
"Don't be afraid, Talanne of Starlight Dome. It is to this moment that the tapestry of Morai-Heg has led us. Please, make yourself comfortable."
Veyn positioned herself discreetly behind the farseer, in a proper distance for a disciple following her teacher, while the boy's mother hesitated at the precipice of the chamber, clutching the blanket that enveloped her son like a lifeline.
"What do you mean?" Talanne's voice trembled with a raw mix of fear and hope.
"Now that everyone is present, we can begin," Arhorwal said in place of answering.
A moment later an out-of-breath Eldar barged the chamber, causing Talanne to gasp in relief.
"Eraethel!"
"I heard that something happened to our son. Is he all right?" Eraethel's worried gaze darted to Iriath, whose stillness seemed to pull the air taut.
"We'll divine this. When you are ready, please lie Iriath on the pouf and seat yourselves," Arhorwal said. "Veyn, try to read the runes I cast."
Heart racing at the prospect of interpreting runes beside one of the most accomplished farseers of her faction, Veyn focused her attention inward, readying herself for the rite that would be performed.
The air brimmed with expectations as Iriath's parents complied with the farseer's request. Their faces reflected a storm of worry that, in such proximity to the Infinity Circuit, weighed on Veyn more akin to a physical burden than merely an echo of emotions.
"As is customary with every newborn, the runes were cast after his delivery. To see if no illnesses were to befell on your son. To get a glimpse into his future. The second most of the seers consider a futile effort, as the fate of an individual so young is a fleeting, capricious thing that is hard to locate. However, the threads of your son were the most peculiar."
Veyn leaned closer, sipping every word from the farseer's mouth, her thirst for understanding rivaling that of Iriath's parents.
"Where a child's threads should be a tapestry of possibilities, the Myriad Paths, his always converged to the same event, sometimes in a few cycles, sometimes in a few passes. Danger and turning point. I deemed it enough to warrant the presence of younger seers nearby."
"But now the danger is gone? Is Iriath safe?"
"We are here to find out."
Arhorwal rose, retrieving his pouch. With a flick of his wrist, the runes spilled forth in a swirling arcane pattern. They spread out, forming a tapestry that froze around the boy, glittering like stars on the firmament.
"Biel-Tan and Yme-Loc, shadowed by Harlequin," Arhorwal whispered, drawing Veyn's attention to the most pivotal symbols. "An expected portent. But to what end?"
Whereas Veyn tried to find the answer to the question he posed, the farseer recalled the runes, and cast them again a few more times, a tapestry of possibilities growing larger with each iteration. Only then he deemed it prudent to peer delicately into the depths of the infant's mind, inspecting the damage inflicted by the earlier ordeal.
When the rite was finished, the farseer returned to his seat, a fleeting smile crossing his face a moment later.
"The child has natural power, manifesting it far earlier than I even thought possible. He knows not how to suppress it nor how to control it and lacks the means to learn both at his age. He saw horrifying images piercing the skein without protection nor training. Sees them even now, clueless to their dangers and meanings."
Talanne gasped horrified, "What will become of him? As he is, he'd be vulnerable to the whispers of the Great Enemy!"
Meanwhile, Veyn recounted the runes that were cast. Biel-Tan, the harbinger of conflict and strife. A yearning for rebirth, accompanied by the willingness to pay its price. Yme-Loc, a crucible, a trial, yet also a forge. A means to shape one's destiny. And the Harlequin dancing at the edges of these portents, embodying deceit, chance and flickers of hope.
She felt relieved. The boy wasn't yet doomed. And if the farseers have foreseen similar portents at his birth, then her actions this cycle couldn't have turned his fate for worse.
"We could let him stay here, within the protection of the Dome of Crystal Seers until he becomes ready to learn," the farseer motioned, presenting one of the threads he had foreseen.
"You want to force an infant upon the Path of the Seer?" Veyn asked, bewildered by the implications of such an unprecedented solution.
"To teach him how to suppress his power, to shield his mind," Arhorwal countered gently. "He has not yet tread a Path. It would be monstrous to anchor him on this one - without the chance to explore others, oblivious to the traps that lie in wait."
"But being so close to the Infinity Circuit even I can hear them. The thoughts of those that passed, like a background noise in my mind. It would be a thousandfold worse for Iriath," Eraethel expressed a different concern.
The farseer nodded solemnly, acknowledging this undeniable truth.
'Yme-Loc, a true crucible indeed', Veyn mused inwardly. 'But the only one bringing hope.'
"The voices of those-who-walked-before would serve as his constant companions, intertwining with the memories of his visions. For if left unattended, they would only grow and fester inside his psyche, birthing an inner turmoil that would warp the very fabric of his being."
Arhorwal's posture shifted, signifying a different thread of fate for them to follow. Veyn giddily leaned forward, for it hadn't been something she had noticed in the swirling depths of the tapestry cast by the farseer. Was there another way, one in which the boy would be spared such a trial?
"Yet, I also perceive another Path for Iriath, one which would lead to him returning with you almost immediately. If he forgets what has transpired, there won't be a similar episode in the future."
"You want to wipe the mind of the child?" Veyn exclaimed, her blossoming hope suffocated by the terror.
The very notion sent shivers down her spine, conjuring images of her own identity stripped away, of severing all the threads that stitched her to the fabric of existence.
Though… it too might be viewed as another form of crucible, even if this one she would have never chosen for herself.
Had her perception been clouded by her own preconceptions, leaving her blind to the threads hidden within the runes? Was it the farseer's lesson for her?
"What import bears the memory of mere five passes?" Arhorwal said dismissively. "But no, it would be naught but a memory lock. The one that will fade when he's ready to remember."
Veyn stifled another question before it rose to her tongue, weighing the significance of such delicate distinctions in this situation. She had seen the same runes, yet now she understood there were meanings that could dance just beyond her sight.
A humbling thought, but expected one all the same. Veyn resolved to voice her doubts to the farseer afterwards.
"If it means that he would grow with us…" Eraethel whispered longingly.
"That way he would," Arhorwal concluded. He cast a glance towards Veyn and added. "It might seem excessive, but children are our greatest treasure, and we must do what it takes to ensure their safety. This is the thread of fate which leads to the betterment of both Iriath and Il'sariadh Craftworld.
This is how I died.
This is how I was born anew.
Like with so many things touched by the skein, one can not differentiate one from the other.