The Long Night Part One: Embers in the Dusk: A Planetary Governor Quest (43k) Complete Sequel Up

Wisdom

The scar on his shoulder ached with pain, the parting gift of the monstrous metal hive tyrant, the energies of the swarm combined with the science of the necrons to create something utterly lethal and dangerous even to a Primarch that had strained his brother's medical talents to their limits to cure and set to healing.

But, the battle had been won, the swarm dealt a mighty blow, since for all that the incorporation of Necrodermis had enhanced the Tyranids greatly, it hindered them as well, slowing down their rate of reproduction to a crawl compared to its previous self, more than slow enough for his siblings to punish the bugs as they were reeling and give them time to heal.

And him time to set into motion his plan.

They had discussed the information the Saint had given them, of how their father had tied them into various archetypes of Heroism and for some, who they were came easily, or at least allow them to come to them easier.

Vulkan was a maker hero or perhaps a dragon, Khan a unifier, Corvus the one who stood in the shadows...but he. He was not so easily placed.

Wolves tended to have few positive archetypes and for all that he had been named a dog, he was a wolf in full. Thus when they debated and talked he remained silent about his suspicions as to his, true nature, the true archetype that he had been made to embody.

But, the coincidences were too strong for him to ignore.

He could not forget the tales his father had told him when they first met, when he showed him Fenris. The dull reaction of surprise as he spoke of long dead myths remembered only by the Emperor who had lived throughout humanities history for tens of thousands of years.

Thus he sat within the webway as close to the cut off Fenris as possible, at a destroyed junction, the path behind him sealed off, the path in front of him barricaded shut, for no where else did he think he could perform this ritual, cut off from Syrtyr's Door as he was.

But, he was confident he could do it. 15,000 years ago it had taken the efforts of eight rune priests, faithful Bjorn and himself to perform the ritual, fumbling and unsure as they were, now he thought he could do it. Thousands of years spent surviving within the eye of terror, scraps of knowledge learned from his brother's lips as he tortured him, and now the knowledge from the Saint, unlocking the source of Fenris's power, the Primal Warp.

Silently he sat before the closed off webway gate, channeling his power into the myriad runes that he had carved all around himself, humming within his throat the ancient chants of Fenris, requesting entry into the underverse, to return to the realm he had visited to find wisdom 15,000 years ago.
Opening his eyes he saw the blocked gateway crumbled away, revealing the craggy stone tunnels of the Underverse, overgrown with mosses and flowers, the powerful push of life flooding through him as he rose to his feet and entered, walking down the unfamiliar pathways, listening to the sounds of familiar birds and beasts, dancing in the background in a painfully familiar medlee of sound and colour, the essence of the primal warp present all around him.

The memories of his home poured back into him, but he moved onwards, searching for what he hoped was his goal, the ancient legend that a foolish young pup had dismissed as unimportant compared to the grand purpose that had lain before him.

Had it been his father's way of telling him? Of giving him a hint at his true nature? Or just a coincidence, he could not say.

Peering forward he saw a home adorned in ivy, blacker than midnight, its dimensions twisting and changing, the materials that made up its high walls shifting, from stone to timber and bone. Yet for all its changes he recognised it from long ago, and hopeful that he could be shown upon his way before he was trapped in its master's cruel games.

He rapped upon the great log doors of the Muspajall, which creaked open to allow him entry the stench of nearly raw flesh pouring forth, the scent amplified by the plain in which he currently resided, staggering him as he saw at the head of the hall sat the Nettagangar in repose upon a throne of eternal ice.

"Ah, Russ. Returned to sample the pleasures of mine halls again after so many long years."

The voice was the carrion crow's caw, the whisper of a coward's knife the whining death of the pray, and it belonged to a being which was that and more. The king of the cursed dead, Erlking, his body tall and thin standing over Russ even while sitting, the complexion of naught, but a frost bitten corpse with eyes of blue flame hiding within. The embodiment of the cruel, merciless winters of Fenris, the bringer of death and cowardice, the gatherer of secrets.

The wraith gestured around, at the crowds and hoards of savage Wulfen, enjoying their feast of human flesh.

"Few among these are your sons, but I'm sure if you look you'd find a few."

He kept his eyes tightly upon the spectre, he knew that to look was to invite hoard to try and devour him as their next meal. "I'm not here to seek your company Lord Erlking. I'm here to find wisdom."

At that the lord threw back its head and laughed, the sounds drowning out the howls of the Wulfen with its hoarse cry, as a rain of snow and nice began to fall from the darkened roof of the hall, the wind beginning to howl around him, dancing to the Lord of Winter's cry.

"Again, you come to sup on my knowledge 'Lord of Wolves'" the derision in his voice was palpable, yet he held his tongue. No good could come from fighting him, not here not anytime.

"Very well, give me your questions, and I shall give you the trials." A smile spread across the pale King's face, an unnaturally one, splitting its face like a Kraken's beak opening wide to devour him.

He shook his head silently. "I seek not your wisdom lord, only your advice."

"Advice does not come for free either boy. Now speak, I had little patience for you last time you were here I have even less now."

"I seek the Well of Mimir."

Whatever the Warp Spawn had been expecting, it was clear it had not anticipated this, as Erking jolted upon the throne before sweeping to its feet the few lights within the hall darkening, the meager fire pits dampening, while the ice and snow increased in intensity a full blizzard erupting around him buffetting him with incredible winds as the Wulfen turned from their meals to look at him, low growls erupting from their throats their yellow eyes sparkling in the darkness as the prowled around him.

"You seek the Well? A foolish child like you seeks it?"

"You're not deaf."

With a snarl the warp being was on him, clawed hands clasped around his throat. "You must be a very wit-less strippling to search for the Well! You are unworthy of it."

Breaking the hold he leapt away from the spirit, feeling the frost working its way deep into his throat where he had been touched as he worked his powers to remove the frost bite before it spread. "That is for the Well to decide, not you." His voice was shattered, but he could bite out this at least. "Tell me the trial, or I will take my leave and bother your halls no more."

Erlking stood to its fullest height, no longer even pretending to be a man, nothing more than a pillar of darkest ice, from which its eyes gleamed malevolently the hall seeming to spin in place around him, rearranging before its master's will and from the shadows of the room emerged...a pool of water. Clear, pure and utterly unmoving, the blizard stopping even as the snow continued its slow soft fall.

"Look into waters." The voice of Erlking resounded next to his ear, delicate and frozen, the very syllables turning his blood to ice as he followed the instruction and saw within himself. But not him now. It was his younger self.

He had not thought of that...him in an age, but he could tell when this reflection was from. Before the burning of Prospero. Perhaps from the time of the Triumph...maybe the Council.

In better days, returned with painful remembrance.

"Destroy the reflection."

The voice of Erlking boomed within his ear him as he knelt by the pool, pondering what the God could mean, for metaphor and simile was forever woven into his tests, hidden meanings hinting at the idiocy of mortals, a fact echoed in legend and truth.

Reaching a hand out towards the water he saw his reflection do the same, the armoured gauntlet moving towards his unguarded arm, until at last they touched, sending a small ripple across the water.

Through the cool spark of the water he felt the pressure, could feel the presence of the armoured finger cancelling out the force of his effort with equal strength.

A few more experimental prods later and he knew that this was no trial of strength. Had this been in the past he would have attempted to break the pool, to smash the reflection, to be the mindless brute that Erlking thought he was, but he had learned. There was another solution here, a solution that was almost painfully obvious, now that he did not rush into seek it, yet the solution was more painful for it. No simple test, only shattered dreams.

He knelt down towards the water, and turned his head to the side his reflection doing the same, lending him his ear as he began to whisper. To tell him what would come, what would befall him on his current path. To break the innocence of his former self, to crush it utterly and perhaps rebuild something that could stand against the oncoming darkness. And so he whispered and spoke of the mistakes he made, the crimes he had committed, the atrocities he had witnessed, he relieved them, felt again the pain received from them to try and explain to himself the magnitude of the loss and shame and suffering, and saw the image change under his words.

No longer him before the heresy, he saw himself after the burning, the ash and blood of Prospero still upon his plate, after his final battle with Horus, broken and defeated, after father was entombed tears streamed down his face in grief, after his capture bloody and beaten and now himself as he was now. Older, stretched and battered, fighting against the end.

As this happened his reflection looked up upon him and smiled, nodding before turning and walking away.

Calmly he looked up at the sound of slow applause, Erlking standing over him returned to the closest thing the creature held to a human form, face set in a neutral stare.

"Congratulations. It seems that time has been a good teacher to you. You surpassed my expectations low as they were."

"I remember the hits she put in."

Once again Erlking reared back his head and laughed, this time a sound of genuine merriment, and what emerged was beautiful. A clear joyous note that resonated and echoed within the darkened all, somehow amplified by the still falling snow, a thing that he did not think the lord of the Dead would be able to create, yet he found himself chuckling along too as well despite himself.

Eventually calming itself, Erlking leaned into him, the pitious cold of its form flooding into him as he whispered into his ear physically.

"The Well shall only reveal itself beyond the eye. Seek my love and enemy, Lady Freyja, in her hall Sessrúmnir. We two were given half the way to the Well. Go now and seek her."

Bowing, he retreated from the hall, leaving behind the cowardly dead returning to the tunnels of the Underverse, searching for the legendary Mjord halls, where the brave and the good who died in battle were sent to feast and drink until the Wolftime, the golden hall guarded by...a giant wolf and cockerel.

The two glared down at him, frost falling from the wolf's mouth as liquid fire dripped from the bird's, both preparing to attack the one who would defile their mistresses hall, while still among the living.

Preparing himself for a fight, he dashed forwards, towards the great doors, dodging the blast of flames that erupted from the Rooster's mouth, punching the wolf in the snout as he went past, ignoring the burst of freezing air that emanated from the ice dribbling maw.

Dancing between the Guardian beasts he advanced towards his goal, ever onwards, never taking the traps that they laid for him in their eery coordination until at last he burst through them, rolling to his feet as outside he heard the baying cry and disturbed cawing of the Guardian beasts as he beheld the hall.

All around him were Fenrisians, in the midst of laughing and making merry, surrounded in an iridescent glow most baring the signs of their dying blows, but more as faint echoes and as he looked he saw his sons, hundreds, thousands of them, staring at him with open surprise.

But, wherever he looked he was surrounded by a haze. His eyes could pierce them and see to an extent, but they were still disjointed. The entire hall seemed to stretch on forever, further and further back with more and new faces appearing the more he stretched his eyes, until it was no longer humans, but aliens and then monsters and stranger things who inhabited the hall, the mortals all gone.

"And so you have at least entered my halls, Son of the All Father. Early it must be said, but please speak your mind."

Once again at the head of the hall was a massive figure, sitting upon a throne of molten magma, clad in mail and wolfskin, but one that could not have made a greater contrast with Elking. Where the lord of Wraiths was a dessicated man, filled with cold and death, the Lady of life burned with a golden radiance, with hair of spun molten gold, a youthful face highlighting the figure of a warrior and queen both whose eyes were red with fire burning with intellect and fire, the furious summer and spring of Fenris personified, who brought life and struggle to the world.

Bowing to the Goddess he felt the eyes of the entire hall upon him, the silence deafening when compared to the previous bellowing and carousing, the inhabitants inspecting him, judging his worth, even his own children. In a way he prefered the Wulfen, at least they merely wanted to eat him.

"My lady I come seeking the well of Mimir."

There was a slight rustle throughout the hall, as the specters of the glorious dead whispered amongst themselves, staring at him and the Queen, trying to gage both their reactions, in the back he even heard hissing and booing at his pronouncement, but from whom he could not tell.

With solum slowness she blinked a single time, before responding, her eyes seeming to burn through his mind, as the already high temperature of the room spiked, his mouth and throat, suddenly dry, the power of this place overcoming his strength.

"You have visited that wretch Elking have you?"

"I have and passed his trial. I beg you, allow me to prove my worth so that I might continue."

He watched as she placed her hand upon her chin in deep consideration, her red eyes staring not at him, but beyond him before coming to a decision.

"Why do you seek the Well, Leman Russ? What purpose can you have for that which you already possess?"

He snorted and shook his head. "The Well is said to contain wisdom lady Freyja. If there is one thing I have learned over 15,000 years of setback and failure it is this is a quality I possess in frighteningly short amounts."

He gestured around himself. "Look at me, delving alone into the depths of the warp, on a foolish quest to find enlightenment. Surely this is proof alone that I am in desperate need."

Freyja merely raised an elegant eyebrow. "Foolishness and wisdom are not necessarily mutually exclusive, and self denial can infect even the the most intelligent in plague equal to that of pride."

He smiled "Yes I really am filled with flaws, but I hope to rectify at least this one today."

Freyja stepped from her throne, towering over him before she moved to a halt in front of him with a frosty expression upon her face, the wood of the hall starting to burn beneath her feet, the fire burning forth from her, as cracks of burning heat emerged from her flesh, the temperature rising with every step she took towards him, the golden glow surrounding the dead increasing until he was nearly blind.

"I am not like that cursed spectre, I do not give foolish tests for mortals to fail in order to teach them their place, my test is the trial of arriving here one you can pass with relative ease."

With a single hand she lifted him into the air, the mortal form gone, almost gone in its place a towering figure of molten earth and growing life his entire body burning from her presence.

"All I will give you is a warning. What you seek Son of Fenris you will not find at Mimir's well. Perhaps it will be better than you suspect, perhaps far worse, but your vision is clouded."

Without a word she let him fall to his knees upon the floor, returned to the form of a human in an instant as she leant down as her counterpart had before to whisper into his ear, her secret. "Within the eye, the well resides."

She drew back from him, turning to return to her throne, waving her hand in a clear sign of dismissal, a roar of sulphurous air following her action forcing him backwards even as he stood.

"Begone from my hall, Leman Russ and return not until your time is done. Then we shall drink together perhaps, but for now farewell."

One last time he bowed letting the wind speed his exit from the hall, pondering the riddle that he had been given leaving the great Mjord hall Sessrúmnir and its guardians behind, wandering through the Underverse, yet for all his thinking and Primarch mind no answers could appear.

He looked for pools of water like the one shown to him by Erlking. He hunted mighty beasts to look upon their eyes, but found nothing that could inform him on his quest, he gazed with all his sights and found he could see nothing new. He contemplated upon vision, trying to find patterns within stone walls and floors to no avail, searching the mosses and plants for clues anything to relieve him from his predicament. At last he came to a cavern with a massive bolder sitting within its centre and there he sat in repose upon it, his chin propped up, upon his fist, pondering.

"Thinking hard there brother?"

He started up, at the jolly voice coming from beside him, as he stood and turned seeing a small elderly human sitting beside him a massive salt and pepper bushy beard and prominent blue eyes staring up at him, looking up at him with a mischievous smile upon his face.

Relaxing slightly, but keeping his eyes close upon the stranger he nodded. "Yes, a riddle has been given to me and I'm at a loss at how to decipher it."

The human simply nodded in a knowing fashion reaching up to pat his knee in a familiar manner. "Yes that's always how these things go isn't it brother. Some wayward jackhabit gives a nice brain teaser to you, but since they know the answer and it make it sound so obvious you assume it must be easy. And when it turns out it's not" at that he started to make circular motions with his hands" , it gets the old thought caravan lost going round and round in circles."

"Heh. Quite so."

With a forceful nod the being stood up on its feet, grinning at him. "Well then brother in these situations I've found two heads beat one anyday, no offence made to yours mind, given that its quite a bit bigger than mine. You tell me the riddle and I'll see what I make of it."

At that Russ stopped and reached out with his mind, to examine this man and found...nothing. As far as he could tell it was a human soul, preserved from the deprivations of the warp by the nature of the Underverse. There were some daemons that could hide from his sight, but lack of trust had destroyed so much. He would take that risk, he would give it a chance.

So he explained. Who he was, what he was, his relationship with Fenris and the archetype. How he thought and theorised that he needed wisdom to be...whole. To truly be who he was always meant to be and make up for the deficiency that had forever plagued him. And thus why he needed the Well and the riddle the twin beings had given him.

Throughout it all the mortal sat there, quiet and reflective, nodding to his words, but not speaking himself. Content to listen and when he was done to sit in silence a little more.

"Well...I think I see your problem brother."

He looked up, smiling. He had already made progress. "Speak then, what problem do you see, wise one?"

"Hold your horses on that title. I think the problem is that the answer is staring you right in the face, you just don't need it."

He sighed, rubbing his forehead. "I told you Freyja told me much the same…"

"No no not like that. Damn Gods can never give someone a straight answer."

The man sighed and held its fingers to its lips considering, before speaking again. "What do you think when you say wisdom hmm?"

The question surprised him. "I'm pretty sure that's a question that has been debated since the dawn of mankind."

"I know now how would you answer it?"

"Common sense...reason, good judgement."

"Go on."

"I'm sorry I don't see what this is meant to prove."

At that he rolled his eyes and walked forwards, jabbing a finger at his nose.

"It means you self pitying lug that the Well contains nothing for you in terms of Wisdom. You can't give those qualities to someone now can you! The galaxy would be far less fucked up if you could."

He started to open his mouth again, to deny it, but the man simply placed a finger on his lips and shook his head with a shake of his head.

"You talked at me for a while now I get to do it."

His mouth shut with a click, as the man smiled and stepped back.

"Where was I? Oh yes, wisdom and wells. You're looking for something that you can't drink, as much as I believe you can find wisdom at the bottom of a glass. It's something that comes with time and is recognised first by others. You've told me about your siblings, how they praise your intellect and good decision making. How is that not wisdom?"

He stepped back spreading his arms wide "What about your sons, you mentor them, you teach them not to repeat the same mistakes that you yourself made, and you try to learn from them as well. Is that not wise?"

The man stepped towards the rock and pulled him off of it with remarkable strength, although he came easily.

"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. You have wisdom brother plenty of it, you just have to accept that yourself, and to start it off."

He pointed at the rock, the massive thing that he had come upon and just sat on with little thought, but as he looked, it almost seemed...familiar.

"Move it over brother and you'll see what I mean."

To do so was no small feat even for him, it must have weighed tons in reality, and in the Underverse it felt like its weight was amplified, but he carried out the strange man's order and beneath it...beneath it.

His spear.

"Aye, brother. That rock was a fragment of Garm. Shattered and thrown through the warp by that giant cannon, dragged here with the spear until its master came to claim it."

The golden spear was just the same as when he left it behind, for safekeeping, a weapon to aid his children against Magnus as he abandoned them to throw himself into his foolish quest for the fruit of life, but when he looked again with the mystical senses he now let run rampant he could see he could not be more wrong.

The spear was so much more, awash with power, the signature of his father and a connection to him, through.

"Aye...an experiment by your Da that. Created in the Dark Age of Strife as an experiment, with the help of the best crafters of their day, Brokkr and Etiri. He made it for a wise hero, and like anyone truly wise this person would make mistakes. They would be flawed, after all nobody is flawless, but that they'd grow. That they'd never give up, they'd learn and vow never to repeat the mistakes they had made."

With steady hands he reached down, his mind awash with what the man had told him. And then he decided that he trusted this man so far. He would trust him again. He thought back to his decisions and thoughts. How they had changed over the millennia of mistakes and imprisonment. How he had slowly grown. And yet he was not certain. He did not know everything, and he never would. But, perhaps that was wisdom? So many mistakes had been made because his brothers believed themselves infallible. Because father believed himself all knowing, the Eldar too in their arrogance. And the galaxy had burned for it.

As he wrapped his fingers around the hilt of the Dionysian spear he felt acceptance, within himself and his mind, something snapped into place and he knew what it was. He looked down at the spear. At the letters engraved upon it by unknown hands and knew its true hidden name, given to it in mankind's ancient past so that it may serve in the future.

Gungnir.

Standing with the spear he placed its butt upon the floor and turned to the man, and smiled ruefully.

"It seems both, were right. I have been a fool. Self doubt it seems is a great enemy as well."

"True, brother, but I'd say arrogance has killed far more. Let the two temper each other and make a better whole no?"

"Indeed. And now, I would have your name."

At that the man looked towards the ceiling stroking his thick beard. "Some call me, the Wolf Whisperer. Others the Chicken Rustler, and other assorted titles. Kraken Tamer, Rune Carver, Ice Splitter, Magma Drinker...but at the end of the day I prefer the my name. Mimir."

This time it was his turn to roll his eyes and nod. "I wish I could say I was more surprised than I am, but I rather suspected this."

"Good, then you're learning."

"I must ask then. The Well. What is it?"

"Ahhh well, it's where I stored all my knowledge. Everything I learned about Fenris and runes, magicks and the Natural Plain. Most of which I just...didn't have time to pass on to my students before my end. I made the little riddle and gave it to the Gods to test those who came looking for it. I'd hoped it'd be one of my students soon after my death its why I taught them the ritual to get in here in the first place, but they never came. And centuries later language changes and Knowledge becomes Wisdom. Whatever it is, without me well, your rune priests I'm afraid have been unfortunately...stunted."

He nodded, for it was the truth. He'd honestly never given much mind to the origins of the Rune Priest's powers, satisfying himself with the Underverse and world spirit, but the revelations of the Primal Warp...it revealed so much of what they had known was built upon something much stranger, with secrets that could change so much if they had known them earlier.

"Then you know what I must do."

Without a word he reached towards his left eye, Mimir's face grave. "You sure brother? You've got what you came for now. Don't get greedy."

"Your knowledge, has languished away for mellennia" with gasp he tore into his face, feeling the blood drip from his eye socket as he drew forth the prize, gasping in agony. "It could help so many. I can't leave it."

Then to his surprise...he found he could see.

"My vision...it's"

"Fine. Be a lousy riddle if you couldn't solve it. See beyond the eye, within the eye."

He could see his eye, changing, transforming. Energies from the Underverse infusing it, as his flesh and tissue transformed into a goblet of kraken bone, carved with pictographs of the creatures of Fenris, but within the goblet was water. Water filled with millions of runes, yet he could only see with a his empty eye socket.

His functional eye could see nothing.

"Well then bottoms up brother."

He toasted Mimir, and drank, and drank and drank.

He felt like he was draining an ocean. For every scrap of knowledge he consumed ten times that stepped forward to take its place as he supped upon the infinite well, draining it into his soul and being as Mimir watched closely.

He was drowning in it. Drowning in the well. His eyes shut, his mouth seemed to slow, his head ached and burned, with fire and then frost, until finally it was done.

He collapsed upon Gungnir, the his eye falling from his hands with a clatter as he looked upon the Underverse with new eyes, runes scattering behind his eyes, his power swelling has he gasped for air, to try and contain and corral all that he had learned.

"Deep breaths there brother? Wouldn't be good for you to pop off just as I'm checking out now."

He forced his head up to see...Mimir. Vanishing. The previously vital and powerful spirit fading away.

"You know what's happening. You got it all in your head. All my knowledge. And I suppose all of me if we're being honest."

Relying heavily upon Gungnir he forced himself to his feet, looking at Mimir softly. "If I had known I don't think I would have drunk."

Mimir merely scoffed. "Pha brother, I had a good run. Thousand or so years after the Iron Men trashed Fenris learning about something my 'peers' told me was a load of rot and now I've spent a lot more in here adding to the well. Nooo it's time for me to be getting on. Just remember this. All of this."

"I swear."

Mimir nodded and reached up to pat him upon the shoulder before straightening up and nodding.

"Right...well I best be off. I got a great adventure I need to be getting to don't you know and you've got family to get back too."

At the reminder of his brother's he winced, and ducked his head in shame. "They are going to give me such a lecture."

"Well they're not wrong brother, this wasn't a very smart thing to do."

"Yes. Farewell, Mimir."

With those final words, the shade of Mimir finally dissipated, the ancient scholar's spirit passing onwards, as his knowledge infused him, telling him the routes to leave the Underverse, to return to where he had began.

Tracing the runes into the air, whispering their hidden names, the caverns bent, and twisted around him, changing to his will depositing him back in the webway, Gungnir in hand, knowledge racing through his mind, as he moved slowly home, his efforts within the Underverse weighing heavily upon his body, soul and mind.

Through the webway he walked, navigating it with complex applications of the primal warp, to finally arrive...home. He saw the comforting glow of mount Deathfire, felt the slumbering thoughts of the Drakes and mosses that made it home and saw the highly disappointed face of his brother Vulkan frowning down at him, before darting forward in surprise as he beheld his empty eye socket.

"Russ you idiot, what, were thinking!"

He groaned in pain as Vulkan pulled him onwards, dragging him into his work shop, where instantly a bevee of diagnostic machines set about examining every trace of his being.

At last given a chance to speak he groaned through the wounds on his throat "Looking for something I already had. Found it and something more."

He felt his brother's frustration burning through the psycic link they shared as he worked in silence, but more painful was the frustration with him. He'd have to make sure he didn't have to worry Vulkan like that again...he could drive himself silly.

"I'm going to try and help the severe heat and frost burns that are utterly infused with psychic energy that you've managed to accumulate. After I am done you will tell me what you thought was so important, every single detail about how you got that spear, lost your eye near as I can tell permanently and changed on a spiritual level. Understood!?"

He nodded only to feel his brother rougly grab his face and turn it up to look at him, forcing him to gaze into his magma red eyes.

"After that I'm going to sit you down, and I'm going to examine every facet of how you and utter fool and why you will never do that again, even I have to make a shock collar. That" an obsidian finger was pointed directly between his eyes "is an oath."


Not trusting his brutalised vocal cords he simply nodded Vulkan as smiled, not one of his normal ones that over flowed with kindness, one of his strained ones.

"And as it may be obvious, I am not Corvus so" picking up a strange device and activating it with a whirring sound, the expression he was giving starting to concern Russ as he felt nothing but disappointment through their link "This will hurt a bit. Think of it as a small punishment for doing whatever this was without telling us and before your wound healed."

Haltingly he smiled and croaked. "Fair enough brother...fair enough."

As Vulkan approached, still smiling that strained disappointed smile he shook his head and tutted.

"Just be glad I found you before Corvus did and that you're going to be patched up a little before he gets his talons into you."

"I think I'm going to have to correct you on that Vulkan."

For all that his senses had been enhanced by his experiences within the Underverse, he still could not detect his brother's arrival, the wraith slip completely shielding him from sight. Even Vulkan hadn't noticed him, his lack of reaction explained only thanks to sheer experience with the furious Raven Lord, clad in inky darkness as light wavered and died around him.

Vulkan merely nodded and sighed. "Alright then Russ, change of plans. Corvus just let me finish patching him up just in case, then I'll get out of the way to let you properly express your... disappointment."

Deep within himself, he felt shame.

He had been foolish he really had. Not accepting what he had learned before. The fact that it had taken yet another suicidal dive into the warp to learn this, was out of line. Yet...he still felt he had made the correct decision.

Just this one time, his foolishness had paid off, his galavanting into the Underverse had revealed to him much, the wisdom of himself, the knowledge and perhaps a way to help his siblings as well...

And so as Corvus his saviour nodded, he resolved himself to do as Mimir had said. To be the one who would always grow from their mistakes, to learn and to not repeat them at last, to turn misfortune into wisdom.

He would shoulder their right criticism, he would make amends for what he had done to them and he would ensure that this did not go to waste and turn this to their betterment, as was right. As was proper.

As was wise.

---

He's growing up lil Odin that he is.

Many many thanks to @random_npc

@Durin