"I'll say it again, it's good to have you back. For a while I was afraid that I lost you on the Path of Mourning."
"You shouldn't have, it was barely a longcycle."
"The longcycle during which you never left the Hall of Sorrow."
"I needed it. A catharsis achieved in its meditation chambers; becoming a conduit for the Craftworld's anguish, and letting it go."
The pain was gone; the pain of losing friends, and of those who could have been them. As a thought-talker I perceived an empathetic link of Aeldari more keenly. Sharing death-screams of those I guided, even if they were strangers before, left me feeling as if a part of myself died along with them.
"Now I'm here," I said.
'Now, I'm alive,' I thought, taking a gulp from a bottle of sunvine, before passing it to Searlieth.
Had someone witnessed this behavior they'd been outraged, but here, in my apartment, between the two of us there was no need for needless decorum.
She sipped from the bottle and stood up, supporting herself on the balustrade, staring ponderously in the distance.
The view from the spire was breathtaking, ocean waves crashing against icy-fjords below. Still, that sight paled in comparison to what was in front of me. With wind gently caressing Searlieth's long hair, her dark curls sensually moving over her naked skin, there was no way I'd be looking at the ocean.
"Even then, you won't be returning on the Path of the Thought-Talker," it was more a statement than a question.
She was right; my pain was gone, but not anger. It still remained, nudging me forward.
"Maybe at some point in the future, but not now. There is another part of me that I need to face, other emotions that require resolution."
That part being Khaine's legacy was left unspoken. But the thought wasn't so easily hidden, omission obvious enough to dampen the mood.
"It would be a fitting moment to abandon this Path. Vaul's smiths from Eyslk-Tan managed to significantly improve psychic communication nodes, passes ago supposedly. It is said their patterns of wraithbone shielding allow a far greater range of safe operation without the necessity of prior extensive training. Now that we've received their designs, our artisans are already incorporating them. It won't be long before Path of the Thought-Talker becomes obsolete."
The scholar in Searlieth always turned to talk about research whenever she got uncomfortable. I welcomed the subject, even if I felt a strange undercurrent to her voice, something… foreign.
"We turn to technology, using it as a crutch to emulate what came naturally for our ancestors. I disagree with your prediction. How many would come to perceive it solely as a support for disability that could be healed through sufficient training? It might turn out to have an opposing effect, drawing more to that Path. You once told me that a value of the Path is measured by what it brings to an individual. Even if its importance to the community may diminish, people will still choose this Path when it harmonizes with their needs."
"It was an opinion of the scholar, influenced by the unrepentant dreamer she was back then," Searlieth's face turned towards me, her expression uncertain, almost fearful. "You're not the only one whose perspective is changing."
I encouraged her to continue.
"The focus of my Path changed. Now, I'm gathering knowledge not out of the desire to understand, but for the pleasure of owning it. I'm considering joining the ranks of merchants."
"A different urge for a different Path."
"But how much of us remains when we step onto the new Path? What is lost, forever left with the old one? I'm afraid."
"You shouldn't be. I'm sure you won't lose yourself on the Path of the Merchant."
"It's not me I'm worried about!" she shouted, throwing herself into my embrace. "My mother was from Alaitoc. They say the craftworlds like ours let too much of our previous Paths bled through, but it is what they are doing that is truly horrifying. They sever themselves from prior experiences, becoming almost unrecognizable to people who knew them. It is why my father took me and decided to return to Il'sariadh; he could not stand the stranger my mother has become."
I knew the story about Searlieth's father falling in love with Alaitoci Starstrider, moving to that craftworld before she was born. However, she was always vague about the reasons leading to his return.
"You said that your mother died."
"For she might as well have. I was only a child back then, but I still remember less and less of my mother remaining whenever she changed her Path. Even disillusioned with Il'sariadh's outlook over many matters, my father was unwilling to let me suffer from a similar fate, to grow in their 'safe' traditions. I doubt that what's left of her still even remembers me or him."
She hit my torso, the blow painful not due to strength mustered by her lithe figure, but emotions it contained.
"And you are going to do this! Of all our Paths, the Warrior's is closest to Alatocii ways. I can't imagine losing you to your War Mask."
+Or on some nameless battlefield picked by the craftworld's seers,+ she continued, without speaking.
Embracing her, I brought our thoughts back to this cycle. If I were to pick the greatest lesson from the Path of Mourning, it would be to cherish the moments.
The threads of fate moved forward relentlessly, uncaring. The seers could moor over eulogies to come. Tomorrow we may change, fight or die, but it is today that we live.
Searlieth's concerns weren't unwarranted, even if stemming from misguided assumptions. The Path of the Warrior had its dangers, but so had further ignoring its call. Almirr spoke about the necessity of keeping an anchor, of maintaining something removing the War Mask would be worth for. And I couldn't imagine Khaine's offering anything comparable to the feelings I had for Searlieth right now.
Sometimes, transitions between Paths were swift, the next being an extension of the previous, a small aspect given a new meaning, experienced under a fresh view. Like my Path of Composer swiftly evolving into that of Playwright, expanding upon the fundamentals laid down earlier.
Sometimes, it was an event that brought an abrupt stop to the Path, pushing an Asuryani in a direction they never considered before. I began the Path of the Thought-Talker this way.
For a child, it was usually innocent curiosity that shaped their first choice, for they lack the mental baggage weighing them down.
For an adult, it was a choice. Limited by the experiences buried within oneself, the depths of psyche he was willing to confront, but a choice nonetheless. Even if one was to pick the Path of the Outcast or of Damnation, it was ultimately his own decision.
I took the Path of Mourning to confront the feeling of loss. To remove one of the unaddressed emotions within my soul before resolving the rest. Some would say that it was merely to further delay the Path I was going to take now. To not plunge breakneck into the abyss of war right after taking another sip from Khaine's chalice, a sip that finally made me drunk.
For drunk I was, despite the soothness Searlieth's caress offered.
The suppressed parts of me needed an outlet. They grew throughout my life, and now demanded my attention, requiring a vent. Anger seeded with every perceived insult, imaginary or real, fertilized by cruelty of the universe. Shame born out of understanding our downfall. Desire for the glory lost. Yearning for thrill; of battle, of victory. Urge to prove myself against the others, not in the ways only Asuryani would understand, but in the visceral manner that would speak even to mon-keigh. Revenge. Greed. Fear. And many others.
I could have ignored them. Plunge myself in deeper sensations, deafen them. Or fully embrace, experience them without any precautions. It would be so easy. There laid a Path well-known. After all it was always about choice.
For cycles I haunted the Craftworld's avenues, the spirits of those-that-walked-before sometimes reaching for me from the Infinity Circuit, offering guidance, advice or warning.
Once, they took me to the Shrine of Starlit Horizon. The building, adorned with scriptures of Khaine and Kuronous organically melded into tunneling labyrinths of semi-transparent corridors, expanding along the periphery of the craftworld and into the void of space. Inside them barely visible shapes of Darkstars coursed with incredible speeds, its pilots locked in training duels.
If I hadn't taken the Path of Mourning before, I would have joined them. I would have still thought that Almirr's death was my fault, that the order I relayed lacked the Autarch's authority, wasn't firm enough. Would have the guilt trapped me within the fighter's confines then, had I not received absolution before?
Now I knew; Almirr's choice was his own, the Autarch-(not)-to-be's decision to continue his assault despite the risk.
The shrine called, Khaine's voice alluring, promising challenges of speed, prey worthy of hunting, swift strike in response to any threat. The shrine called, but this Aspect's promises didn't resonate with me.
My path took me to numerous shrines, each of them inviting, and yet… inadequate.
The one I finally entered was the one I visited at first, but turned my back to it, for there was no call reaching for me, only the silence. It was only later that I remembered a famous philosopher's words and returned.
"To walk the Path of the Warrior, is to walk the path of outer war and inner peace."
The shrine's door opened and I stepped in, letting the howling storm embrace me.