Author's Note: For those interested, there are three advance chapters on P-atreon (remove the spaces and dash): p-atreon/ SkySage24.
Isha had never visited the Noctis Labyrinth before this.
Even in ages past, when Vaul had chosen the world that was not yet Mars to be the prison of the Dragon Shard, Isha had not been there. She had been occupied with her duties, of the thousand thousand matters that needed to be tended to in the aftermath of the Chronal Cataclysm. Worlds had needed mending, civilizations needed to be healed, the fabric of reality repaired, Daemon Kings hunted down and killed…Isha simply did not have the attention nor time to spare visiting this prison.
She had known where it was, of course, but she had trusted Vaul to manage the matter on his own. And if he somehow could not, their…father had been on hand to cut down the Dragon if it somehow escaped. And as much as Isha loathed him now, she would grudgingly acknowledge even Khaine would take such a matter seriously.
By the time Isha had any thoughts to spare for the prison her brother had built, an age had passed and there had just been no need to visit it. What would have been the point? She was not her father, to relish in gloating over a defeated foe, and neither did Vaul need her help in maintaining or managing the Dragon's cage.
She had noticed the Emperor's battle with the Dragon Shard, of course. By then, helplessness had been a bitterly familiar feeling, but she had quietly rejoiced when the young god had cast the shard back into the depths of the Labyrinth.
But even that had been a view of only the battle. Isha had never seen the prison, for Vaul had combined his ingenuity and their mother's advice to weave powerful protections to shield it from all prying eyes. Not even the greatest of the gods could simply peer into the Labyrinth without descending from their thrones.
No, the only way to see the prison was to set foot within it.
And from the very moment they entered the caverns, Vaul's workmanship became evident. For here, the labyrinth of caverns was not stone, but glass and crystal, beautiful yet eerie, glowing with silent light.
Isha felt a pang at the sight of it. She recognized his craftsmanship in everything, from the way the tunnel was hewn, to the precise way the crystal had been shaped.
But she could also see the defects that others would not. To mortal eyes, the crystal walls seemed without flaw, but Isha could see deeper. The crystal was not wraithbone, but it was one of the same family of psychoactive materials. Vaul must have developed this variant specifically to contain the Dragon Shard.
An entire mountain range, reforged and remade to contain the Yngir shard within.
There were still traces of Vaul's power within the walls, even after all these years, but those were merely silver sparks, embers of what had once been.
There was also the Emperor's power, golden lightning surging below the crystal, compensating for the faded power Vaul had once imbued it with. But the golden lightning did not fit as perfectly as it should have, the crystal almost uncomfortable with it.
Because there was something else: the Dragon's power.
It was obvious that the Dragon's presence and essence were bleeding outwards, seeking to sabotage and destroy the prison which contained it.
It was almost nothing. For all that the Dragon's power had spread through miles upon miles of the subterranean caverns, Isha felt no pressure and detected no technology.
And yet, to see even this little influence of the Dragon's power was alarming. None of its power should have been bleeding out.
And it had successfully sabotaged the prison to some extent. The crystal could not accommodate the Emperor's power because the Dragon's influence had dug into Vaul's work. It was subtle, almost unnoticeable, but Isha could see the tiny, almost invisible threads of Yngir energy spreading through the crystal, disrupting the atomic structure of her brother's work and the threads of the enchantments woven into them. It prevented the structure from integrating the Emperor's power properly, trying to pry open the cage so that the Dragon could escape once more.
Scowling, Isha reached out and placed a hand on the wall. The Emperor paused, staring at her in puzzlement, but Isha ignored him for the moment, instead injecting her own power into the crystal and glass.
For all that it looked metallic, this substance was as organic and psychoactive as anything the Eldar had ever made, and so Isha could heal it.
She nudged the cells and atoms back into place, calling upon the echoes of what had once been and urging the structure to return to that. And that was all it needed. Promptly, the Dragon's influence was pushed out and both her and the Emperor's energies were absorbed seamlessly, strengthening the whole structure.
And as they strengthened, the crystal shifted from transparent white to shining gold, shot through with veins of gleaming jade.
And from the deepest depths of the cave came a roar that blew through the tunnels, the frustrated howl of a prisoner whose bonds had just been tightened.
The Emperor looked around with academic curiosity, though still undeniably intrigued. "So, the prison wasn't functioning at peak capacity," He muttered, sounding annoyed with himself. "I always wondered, but I was never sure."
"It has nothing to do with your actions," Isha told him. "The Dragon has had millions of years to take my brother's work apart, to make sure it does not function properly. It is a testament to Vaul's skill that this still exists."
The Emperor nodded thoughtfully.
They resumed their path through the caverns until they reached what seemed almost like a human laboratory.
It was crude even by human standards, hewn from the rock of the cave itself, wide and rectangular. It bore only the vaguest resemblance to the sterile white labs of the Imperial Palace, with a surgical table and various life-support machinery against one wall. Pinned to another wall were hundreds of colourful, glossy papers, with what appeared to be electrographs of the human body.
The ceiling was supported by a grid of iron girders, which were mostly grey, but were beginning to show signs of rust.
Most alarming of all was the bizarre-looking high-tech drill made of brass, steel and golden white, which looked like it had been cobbled together from a variety of different artifacts that were most assuredly not supposed to go together.
The Emperor paid none of it any mind, instead calling out. "Semyon! My old friend, it's me! Are you there?"
For a moment, there was no response. Then, the sound of footsteps, running towards them, and from a shadowy passageway at the end of the chamber, a figure emerged.
The figure looked almost like an adept of the Mechanicus, but his robes were old, the style subtly different from the ones worn by the Tech-Priests Isha had seen so far.
His hair was grey like iron wires, his features gaunt and his bright green eyes wild. But there was no sign of any cybernetics or augmentations upon him, save for one.
On his forehead, silver circuity had been embedded below the skin, in the shape of a stylized spiral with wings on either side.
The shape of a dragon.
Isha tensed, readying herself to summon a warsong, but there was no need.
Eyes wide with delight, the old man threw himself at the Emperor's feet.
"My lord!" He wept. "It has been so long! So long. I thought I would never see you again!"
Guilt flashed over the Emperor's face as he helped the old man to his feet. "There is no need to kneel, Semyon," He said, his voice soft and quiet in a way Isha had never heard it before. She had only ever seen this gentleness with Horus, but here, instead of parental affection, there was only guilt and sorrow.
"You have done all anyone could ever ask you. More than that. You need not bow."
The old man seemed confused by the Emperor's words, staring up at him in incomprehension. "My lord?"
Isha took the moment to peer a little deeper into the man-, Seymon's soul. Just to be safe.
Fortunately, what she found put her fears to rest. The old man's soul was weary and ragged, but merely because of age and toil. It was undamaged by the Dragon's influence.
More than that, there was a golden light in Seymon's soul, a flame that burned all too brightly even as the man himself seemed weary. It was a mantle of power, Isha realized, one forged by the Emperor himself.
Seymon was the Emperor's Chosen. Blessed by his god so that he could better fulfill the task he had been chosen for. The power within had kept him alive for centuries, almost a thousand years now.
"I am here to ease your burden," The Emperor told Seymon. "This is a…colleague of mine, Lady Isha. She is here to help."
The old man turned to look at Isha, and with the insight gifted to him by the power burning within him, he knew instantly what she was.
Seymon staggered backwards, his eyes wide and afraid, but the Emperor caught his shoulder, gentle but firm. "Be not afraid. She means no harm."
Isha smiled at the old man gently, raising her hands in a placating gesture. It was obvious his centuries of service, of watching over the Dragon, had left him worn down and paranoid.
"Hello," She said soothingly, in the same tone of voice she would have used for a wounded animal.
Seymon eyed her uneasily but didn't try to back away any further. "What can you do? How do you even know about the Dragon?"
"Isha's brother was the one who created the Dragon's prison, long ago," The Emperor told him. "I believe she may have some insight on how to repair and strengthen it. Indeed, she just helped me do so."
Seymon blinked, visibly startled by the revelation, but nodded jerkily.
"Can you lead us to the Dragon itself?" The Emperor asked gently. "We wish to check on it, just to be sure."
Seymon bowed deeply. "Of course, my lord."
He led them down the passageway he had emerged from, and here, the walls shifted from crystal to gleaming silver.
Or at least, it seemed like silver.
Isha recognized it for what it was. Necrodermis, the great metal from which the Necrontyr had fashioned vessels for their gods.
But here and how, the Necrodermis was rendered inert, unable to do much of anything because of what Vaul had wrought. The enchantments woven into the crystal were designed specifically to suppress and counteract the power of the Yngir, the technology of the Necrontyr.
But even looking at it brought back deeply unpleasant memories for Isha.
Not least because it meant they had entered the Dragon's mouth. And even if the Yngir was shattered and caged…it was still a Yngir.
They continued through the silver tunnels in silence, until they finally emerged out onto a wide ledge in a vast cavern, one so dark and deep that it would seem bottomless to most.
"The cavern," Seymon said wonderingly. "It's different."
"Hmm?" Isha frowned. Somehow she got the impression it wasn't the colour of the walls he was talking about. What did he mean? She extended her senses and-
Ah.
Here, in the heart of its prison, the Dragon sought to warp not just rock and stone, but the very dimensions of space it was imprisoned in, stretching and twisting them.
Or at least, it had.
Now that she had repaired the prison, Vaul's work bore down on the dragon more heavily than before, suppressing its power.
Reality was forced back into shape, even as the dragon tried to push against it.
There was a wooden lectern with a seemingly old, weathered book on top of it, though Isha could sense more of the Emperor's power within it.
But the Emperor himself ignored it entirely, instead striding forward to the very end of the ledge and peering down.
And there was a roar.
For a moment, reality threatened to distort and compress into a singularity, twisting and breaking and reassembling itself. Then, Vaul's safeguards activated, ending the distortion in a moment and restabilizing reality.
The Emperor was unaffected by the brief experience and even Seymon stood firm, to Isha's surprise.
He hadn't been chosen to be the Dragon's Guardian for nothing.
As for herself…
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. "Enough with the parlour tricks, Mag'ladroth. We are not a band of naive mortals to be intimidated by such petty nonsense."
The dragon said nothing. Nonetheless, Isha could feel it, feel its pure, raw hatred pressing down on all of them, filled with unending malice for everything that did exist, had existed and dared to exist without its permission and beyond its control.
Then, finally, it spoke. Its voice was cold and mechanical, like great grinding gears that could crush worlds between their spokes.
+SLAANI WEAPONIZED THOUGHTFORM: VARIANT AELDARI. DESIGNATE: ISHA+
+SLAANI WEAPONIZED THOUGHTFORM: VARIANT HUMAN. DESIGNATE: GEORGIUS+
+WHAT DO YOU WANT?+
"Nothing from you," The Emperor said, his face grim. "We are only here to check on your prison."
Another wave of anger washed over them, making space tremble and twist.
+BEGONE+
"Is that all you have to say?" Isha asked, unable to resist. "Nothing at all to say to your jailer? To the sister of the man who imprisoned you here in the first place?"
The dragon did not sneer. A sneer was a mortal expression, and the Dragon was far above such petty things. Nevertheless, its next words more or less conveyed the same impression, dripping with condescension and contempt.
+SLAANI WEAPON PROGRAMMING CANNOT BE OVERCOME.
THE VALUE OF ANY ATTEMPT AT COMMUNICATION IS ZERO.+
Isha's lip curled. "Yes, our programming," She scoffed. "The directives of the Slaani are the only reason we would ever oppose you. Not the fact that you were dedicated to erasing us and our people from existence."
But the Dragon was done talking. It did not respond, but its fury continued to pulse through the air, trying to twist space and time once more. The Dragon's power could not escape Vaul's prison, but it continued to rage all the same, hammering away at the confines as it had done for millennia.
And even though the Dragon was only a shard, more diminished than even Isha herself, its power was still enough to make even two Incarnate Gods uncomfortable, like sandpaper against their skin.
"Let's go," The Emperor decided. "There is no point to this."
Isha didn't disagree, following him and Seymon back out of the cave.
She paused momentarily to cast a glimpse back at the Dragon. Memories whirled through her mind; of ruined worlds, shattered civilizations, and dead friends. Of reality itself torn asunder, the destroyed souls of a trillion trillion of her children who had been condemned to oblivion by the creature in front of her.
And couldn't resist throwing out one more jab.
"I wonder, what would the other C'tan, or indeed, even the other shards of your true self, think if they knew that you had been defeated and imprisoned by such a young god? A mere child, hastily cobbled together by a handful of mystics and a mere shard of an Old One? One who was little more than an infant when it happened?"
Isha left, laughing as she went, relishing in the sound of the Dragon's roars echoing behind her.
Author's Note: The description of the Labyrinth of Night and its guardian, Seymon, is drawn from the novel Mechanicum by Graham McNeill. I made some adjustments to suit my own continuity and the fact that this is set over two centuries over before the events of the novel, though.