Everqueen (Warhammer 30K)

[r s]

I like this Emps. Better then most versions written by the other 60 or so authors of the canon.

 

[ATP]

I think,that ship is impossible,becouse both she and Emprah see themselves as fellow-nerds who simply love made things.And fellow failed rulers ,which failed to save their races empires. But - they could become best buddies.
And Isha would help him recreate human empire just to show Chaos gods their place.

P.S there was old soviet joke about soviet scientist which created hybrid of apple-tree and dog - which could watered itself,and bark at tchieves.
Could Isha made something like that for real ?

 

[Ashynarr]

So a friend on discord offered to do a commission for me, and I was able to get them to do some art for our take on Isha.


This is obviously not an outfit she'll be wearing until she's back with her people, but it gives the general gist of her appearance going forward.

Will also be adding this to the first chapter in spoilers for future readers to benefit from, so yeah.

 

[Solarion]

So, uh, this is kind of awkward, but I have to announce that this story will be going on hiatus for now. @Ashynarr is dealing with some personal issues, and I don't know when or even if she'll be back. But for now, I'm posting this incomplete draft of the next chapter. It's not much and it hasn't been beta-ed, but I hope people like it.

EDIT: Just to be clear, Ashynarr is perfectly healthy, just dealing with some personal stuff. Nothing to do with the current pandemic.

EDIT II: This had been edited and various grammar mistakes corrected. Thank you to Trevayne over on AH for helping out with that.

*​

"My liege." Valdor said, bowing deeply.

"At ease, Captain-General." The Emperor replied, clasping his hands behind his back as he observed the Thunder Warriors performing their drills below. They had clearly noticed the Emperor's arrival, but Valdor was satisfied (as much as any Custodian could be) to note that they had not so much as paused in their training despite that, even as he straightened from his bow.

The Emperor continued to observe the Thunder Warriors with a critical eye as Valdor patiently waited for his lord to speak. Others might have grown impatient, but such things were impossible for a Custodes.

Finally, after several minutes, the Emperor spoke once more, "The training of the Sixth Legion goes well, I see. They move with a cohesion and efficiency I had not ever expected to see from them."

"Yes, my lord." Valdor nodded, "They should be ready for deployment by next month, as you commanded."

While the...Lady's work had been invaluable in stabilizing and improving the Thunder Warriors, the fact that they were now saner, calmer, and more efficient meant that the Legio Cataegis had to be re-trained and reorganized to an extent.

As such, the responsibility of transforming the Thunder Warriors from a group of rampaging berserkers into proper soldiers had been entrusted to the Custodes, with the Emperor himself dropping by on occasion to help instill discipline and unity upon the Legio Cataegis, as he was doing now.

"You have done well, my friend." The Emperor commented, "The Thunder Warriors are a vastly more useful force than they were before, and it is in no small part thanks to you and your comrades."

"You flatter me, my lord." Valdor said, inclining his head in gratitude for the compliment.

The Emperor chuckled. "Is it flattery if it is the truth? The Thunder Warriors are indeed a far more effective and cohesive force than before, which they would not be without your training."

Valdor nodded, acknowledging the truth in the Emperor's words.

The Legio Custodes were conditioned to always look further, a soul deep obsession to work harder and faster to seek better ways to hone their skills for another day while treating even victories as only opportunities for further study, Valdor was still...pleased that his liege was satisfied with him and that his actions had benefited the Imperium.

"I had expected it to take far longer to destroy Ursh." The Emperor continued. "But with the steady improvement of the Thunder Warriors, our victory may come far sooner than we expected. In no small part due to our...guest."

And yet, as the Emperor had just reminded him...the change in the Thunder Warriors would not have been possible without Lady Isha's aid.

Valdor would be lying if he did not still have misgiving about her. While he had every faith in his lord to be able to handle any problems she could cause, his conditioning would not allow him to regard her, a xeno warp entity, with anything other than suspicion.

But his conditioning had also instilled pragmatism in him, and the importance of using every available resource for the benefit of the Emperor and the Imperium. The Lady's work with the Thunder Warriors had been truly invaluable.

The Sixth Legion was only the latest rotation of Thunder Warriors to be brought back from the frontlines, given the new gene therapies to stabilize them, retrained, and dispatched back to fight. They would depart the next month, at the same time the Seventh Legion was due to return.

But the other five Legions which had already been stabilized, re-trained, and returned to the frontlines had proven far different from before. They were no longer a blunt instrument of war, to be hurled at the worst monsters that plagued Terra and an ominous threat used to intimidate those who were more civilized. They were more efficient, more calculated and cautious. Still brutal, but much unnecessary collateral damage was avoided, with time not being wasted, as well as valuable infrastructure and populations remaining intact rather than being destroyed in a rampage. The Thunder Warriors were slowly becoming a true strike force of professional soldiers: disciplined, flexible, and deadly.

They were also more...human. That had always been the case, of course, the Thunder Warriors had not had their humanity bled to make them into what they were. They were capable of humor, love, and joy in ways that the Custodes simply were not.

But the shadow of the horrors they had faced through the Unification Wars and their own gene flaws had still hung over them. Though the Thunder Warriors did care for each other and for the Imperium in their own way, it had been marred by their madness, their uncontrollable rage, the fact that any of them could simply drop dead at any moment, or become rabid dogs that would need to be put down.

Now, as their flaws were corrected, their minds and bodies both made healthier, the Thunder Warriors seemed...lighter, less burdened. Their bonds were stronger, to each other and the Imperium, as they found other reasons to fight and live.

Not to mention the other work the Lady had done. Already, the Imperium had begun to use the crops and medicines she had provided, all of which had done wonders for the campaigns, saving lives, boosting morale, and giving other nations more incentive to swear fealty to the Imperium.

One fortress-city on the southern frontier of the Pan-Pacific Empire, which had seemed set to stall the Imperium's advance in that region for years to come had been brought into the Imperium peacefully after the city's ruler had been appeased by the promise of one of the Lady's fruits to heal his daughter, who had been suffering from a warp-based mutation. And so, valuable time, lives, and resources had been saved where they would have been otherwise wasted.

In the face of that, Valdor could hardly claim that the Emperor's decision to trust the Lady had not been the right one, but he was still uncomfortable around her. Her relationship with his lord too, was confounding. They had initially been cool and distant to each other, but they seemed much more causal these days. The Emperor tolerated her brash attitude as well as a shocking level of disrespect from her, even if it was with the amused tolerance of one who knew he was in control.

And yet...if the Captain-General had not known better, he would have thought that his lord enjoyed arguing with Lady Isha.

It was a ridiculous thought, of course. The only person the Emperor was remotely close to on a personal level was Malcador. The very idea that the Master of Mankind would extend a xeno warp entity even a fraction of the trust that he gave to his only friend was absurd.

In any case, it was not Valdor's place to question how his lord handled the Lady. The Emperor was far wiser than a mere soldier such as him, and undoubtedly knew the best way to exploit Lady Isha's abilities and knowledge for the benefit of mankind. If that meant giving her the impression that the Emperor considered her anything more than a valuable resource, who was Constantin to object?

"Indeed," The Emperor mused. "We may very well achieve victory over Ursh by the end of the decade."

Valdor blinked, genuinely surprised for a moment by his liege's words. "Is her work truly that useful, my lord?"

Despite the Imperium's overwhelming might and the urgent need for swiftness, the Emperor had always been cautious in dealing with warlords and sorcerers under the thrall of Chaos. It was not enough to merely destroy their foul empires. After five thousand years, those hideously corrupted lands often had to be carefully explored and cleansed of Chaos's influence, often by the Emperor's own power. There was a reason the Emperor had chosen to focus on Ursh over any of the Imperium's other rivals. The Pan-Pacific Empire was larger than Ursh, and Narthan Dume arguably a more dangerous opponent than Kalagann, but the longer that Chaos's influence was allowed to fester, the harder it would be to get rid of. Dume was powerful, clever and stringently opposed to the Imperium, but his empire was not corrupted by Chaos down to the very bedrock of the land itself.

Terra had come dangerously close to becoming a Daemon World during the Age of Strife, before his lord's return from Molech. Even Valdor was not fully aware of what the Emperor had done in the aftermath of his return, for that had been long before he had been taken and remade, when the Imperium was only an idea. The Emperor's only companion during those dark days had been Malcador, and the two of them rarely spoke of what they done to free Terra of the countless Neverborn that had infested the planet at the time.

But they had saved Terra from becoming a Daemon World in the end. Yet, the many mortal empires that served Chaos had still needed to be broken, and so that had been the first objective of the nascent Imperium. Ursh was the last of the wretched kingdoms of madness, and once it was destroyed and Terra purged of the last traces of Chaos's taint, they would be able to move their plans along much faster than they were doing now.

But the Emperor and Malcador had projected that breaking Ursh and cutting out the rot of Chaos would take at least another twenty years, especially since they could hardly afford to ignore the other powers on Terra. What had changed?

"If these latest experiments that I have in mind work, then, yes." The Emperor nodded. "There will have to be some adjustments to your training schedule, however, Constantin. I will require one of the Sixth Legion's companies to help oversee these new experiments I have ordered the Biotechnical Division to undertake."

"Of course, my lord." Valdor replied. "I can have a company ready within the hour. Are there any specific requirements you have?"

"Choose those who are stable and social, who can interact with mortals on friendly terms. But they should also be pragmatic, capable of doing what needs to be done with speed and efficiency." The Emperor replied, his eyes still following the movements of the Thunder Warriors as they performed their drills. "This experiment will involve the terraforming of one of the villages we captured from Ursh, and it would be best if everyone involved can cooperate, but also that we are prepared to deal with any negative ramifications."

Valdor understood instantly. His liege wished to finally utilize the sample of bio-technology that Lady Isha had provided.

While the Imperium had already begun to employ the crops and medicines she had crafted, it had been easy to test them and ensure their safety. They simply had to be tested on criminals and captured prisoners before being given to the Imperium's soldiers and civilians.

The terraforming plants, however, could be far more dangerous, and so they had remained in the Emperor's new labs for months, carefully monitored and analyzed by the Biotechnical Division. They seemed to work exactly as Lady Isha claimed, leeching carbon dioxide and radiation from the air and soil with incredible speed and efficiency, while also rapidly producing oxygen and making dead soil alive and fertile once more in ways that left the Imperium's best scientists utterly confounded. And much like some of the medicines the Lady had produced, those plants had also proven capable of removing the taint of the Warp and repairing any damage that it had caused.

If those plants could be used for large-scale terraforming, freeing their world of Chaos's influence would indeed go more far more rapidly than any of them could have envisioned.

But despite that, and though the Lady had kept up her promises so far, it was never wrong to be careful, especially with the Biotechnical Division's inability to understand exactly how the plant worked, even with the notes supplied by Isha. The Emperor understood, but it was clear that warpcraft had gone into those plants, so he had not authorized their use...until now.

"I understand, sire." Valdor said, "When do you wish for the company to be ready for departure?"

"Tomorrow, Constantin." The Emperor replied, turning away from the Thunder Warriors to look at him, a strangely nostalgic expression crossing his face. "I wish to begin the terraforming experiments as soon as possible."

"It will be done, my lord." Valdor replied, bowing once more.

The Emperor's impatience to begin terraforming through the usage of Lady Isha's work was surprising in some ways...yet entirely expected in others.

The potential benefits to the Imperium and even the need to cleanse the planet of Chaos aside, Valdor knew that his liege longed to see Terra remade. The Master of Mankind had long spoken of healing the damage done to the cradle of humanity over the last five thousand years, of restoring the beauty that had been lost, transforming Terra from a barren wasteland to the greatest world in the galaxy once more.

Yet, such a process would take millennia, for his liege had countless other projects to tend to, and he would not be able to spare the time or resources to focus fully on restoring Terra for a long time to come, only on purging it of of Chaos's influence.

But with the Lady's help, the Emperor's dream of making Terra bloom once more might come to fruition far sooner than anyone had expected.

 

[ATP]

Could those plants not only clean soil,but also accumulate all toxins ? some toxins could be useful,too.

 

[Hazard]

Could those plants not only clean soil,but also accumulate all toxins ? some toxins could be useful,too.

Click to shrink...

Depends on the toxins.

 

[Ashynarr]

(9)

There was no breeze to rustle the grasses and leaves, no sunlight to pour in from above and warm the soil and air, no insects or birds or beasts to fill the atmosphere with their cries and whistles and movement. Birthed and nurtured deep within a man-made structure of metals, plastics, and ceramics, irradiated by artificial lamps buried into the ceiling, growing from dozens of identical containers of soil in neat rows and columns; nothing about them could be considered wild, not even their genomes.

In spite of that, the plants swayed in memory of winds they had never felt, the air was thick with moisture and heat, and the room echoed back the soft melody of their nurturer and caretaker. Roots and vines grew in and over their open containers into their neighbors, down to and across the floor, and even up the walls, hiding away the hard metallic floor and the stark, flat-colored walls behind blooms rich with dizzying scents and eye-catching colors. The very aura of the room was wild and untamed, a jungle cut out of time and placed within the heart of humanity's ancient monument to technological advancement, a challenge and a reminder of the natural world's quiet staying power on a world that had almost forgotten it.

In the heart of her jungle and oasis, Isha continued her work, her clothing and hair smeared with dirt as she dug her hands down into the soil. There was no specific need to do so - her awareness was part of every last living thing within the boundaries of the thick wards and thin walls - but she found it much more satisfying to pull up a mass of earth with her own two hands, several worms wriggling within it as they were taken from their tunnels and exposed to the open air.

"Calm, now," she hummed to the worms, who stilled for her as she gently removed them from the dirt, running the tips of her fingers along them as she checked on their health. As part of the newest generation birthed within the soil, descendants of the ones she'd first woven together in her earliest efforts, she wanted to be sure that their genetic template was remaining stable as they were exposed to the different radiations and toxins that afflicted the various parts of Terra's surface before they ended up out in the wider world with their many cousins and relatives.

Thousands of these pre-prepared boxes had already passed through her hands and her garden, all off to be studied and replanted and harvested to fuel the Emperor's war machine. And yet, Isha had not felt so invigorated and at peace with herself since she'd thrown herself into the Materium.

It had nothing to do with her being excited about helping a warlord conquer his world, or any sort of thrill in watching her captor build his armies and fleets on the food and resources and knowledge she provided. She hadn't really been hurting, since barely two solar cycles had passed between her isolation and her return to her aspect, but she could not deny she felt more grounded and present now that she could immerse herself within her garden, no matter how small and transient it might be compared to the ones she had kept within the warp and within her children's empire.

The undergrowth near her rustled, and she turned her head just as one of the bulb-shaped, palm-sized helpers she had woven together scuttled out from a low bush and over a raised root, bouncing on its legs and squeaking quietly as it waited for her to set the worms and soil back within the hole she'd dug before picking it up. Its top opened for her, unveiling several different samples of soil and fungi from another part of the garden.

"Ah, I see," she murmured as she touched on the samples, feeling the discordant mutations that could grow into something dangerous within a few dozen generations if not nipped away now. She made the corrections in a heartbeat, setting the samples back within her helper before setting it down again. It scuttled back and forth as she pushed herself up to her feet, making one last squeak before darting back the way it had come from.

She couldn't help but smile; these helpers had been very useful so far. They were biological automatons that worked well enough independently that she didn't have to actively control them, and they in turn would bring her attention to any issues that were too small to be caught by her more passive immersion within her garden. She only kept the helpers around while she was working, breaking them back down into raw material and warp stuff when her time was up. Of course, she had only been allowed to use them after she had given some of them to the Emperor so that he could study them privately and make sure they were not harmful.

In the old days, her helpers had been extensions of herself, nature spirits roughly equivalent to the daemons of the Chaos Gods, but Isha had decided it would be unwise to use them here. No doubt the Emperor would have wished to examine them as well, and Isha was unwilling to part with even the tiniest shard of her essence when there was no guarantee it would be returned to her. These biological automatons served essentially the same purpose, and giving some of them to the Emperor did not mean losing any of her power if he decided to keep or destroy it.

Even still, it wasn't the same as her gardens of old, where her strength and will were enough to have entire swathes of the warp cultivated under the hands of herself and her menagerie of tireless workers, scampering about and between her many gardens when they were not called upon by her children to help with a task that required her power or the other gods for something they needed her input on..

...not that either of the latter circumstances had happened much within the past few million years, compared to the times of old. Time was a funny thing within the warp - those bygone eras felt both recent and impossibly distant, the memories both fresh and worn away, her children unable to recall more than the most vague summaries in their histories and stories.

She sighed as she sank back to her knees, her hands already reaching out for the problem fungi as she allowed her mind to drift back, the work instinctual enough that her attention was unnecessary at this point. The warp and walls bounced her voice back as she hummed an old song, the original lyrics long gone even to her memory, but the familiarity of it comforting.

Wrapped up in her work like this, immersed within her aspect, it was easy for her to lose track of time, only aware of a new presence when she felt their presence enter her claimed territory. She relaxed a second later, recognizing the familiar presence of her brother and twin, the heat of his forge warming the air but not harming the plants under his boots as he made his way past her workers towards the small grove she was tucked within.

"Vaul," she called out in greeting, leaning back far enough for him to see her within the foliage brushing against her back and arms. "You look well."

"Isha," he greeted in turn, coming to a pause several strides away from her grove. "I see you have something new within your gardens."

"I've been working on some designs," she replied, pushing herself to her feet, her hands resting against the bark. Over her head hung the literal fruits of her labors, emerald-green and rough of rind, rich tangy flesh contained within the thick skins, juices seeping with nutrients and minerals and proteins. "With the empire expanding, my children are discovering whole new worlds of potential risks and wonders, and I wish to have something for them in their times of greatest need."

"Well, they're certainly pretty to look at," Vaul said, his eyes shifting up to take in her trees and efforts with open admiration. "Though I was of the belief that you were trying to wean them off of your direct aid."

"I am, even if it pains me to let them go. They need to learn to stand on their own...but that does not mean I must stop helping them entirely." Isha reached up and pulled one of the fruit from its branch, tossing it gently to her twin god and watching him snatch it from the air, the surface blackening slightly from the heat under his skin.

Vaul bit into the fruit without hesitation, pulling a large strip of the rind away with his teeth and spitting it to the side before biting into the fruit-flesh. Juice leaked from between his teeth and over his lips before his other hand came up to wipe it away, tongue swiping the juice off his thumb as he hummed appreciatively. "A sharp flavor, and an interesting composition. Why a panacea?"

"There's been a rise in warp-touched illnesses in the materium," Isha watched as one of the garden helpers scrambled over to pick up the rind, taking it away to be turned into fresh mulch for other parts of the garden. "While I cannot personally cure every last one of them, I can at least provide the means to cut off the warp's influence and allow for material cures to take hold properly."

"As overprotective as always," Vaul teased, taking another bite to hide his grin.

Isha huffed, tilting her head up and crossing her arms in mock offense at his words. "I have every right to worry, and not just for my children alone."

"Worry is one thing, but you are practically on call the moment they ask for your help." Vaul took a third bite, red juice running down his hands and dripping to the soil from his wrist. "They already know how to handle warp-touch on their own."

"I know, but there are so many races out there that don't, and I can't help but think that it might not be enough…" Isha shifted in place, biting her lip as she felt a shiver of - something - brush the very edge of her territory, only to disappear a moment later.

Vaul considered her carefully, the last piece of fruit hanging between his fingertips. "You can't mother every species out there, no matter how much you might want to," he said, the fruit being waved in a slow circle as he rolled his wrist. "And Lileath's been put out with how preoccupied you've been with your projects lately."

Isha sighed, knowing how often she'd been so caught up in her work that she'd ignored the prodding and attention of the others outside of the occasional spared avatar. Certainly, she had still acknowledged those who entered her domain - how could she not, when she was her domain and thus required to notice? - but she could not recall the last time she had reached out to the others of her own volition aside from asking for the rare resource or aide she could not get on her own.

A brief flush of shame grew in her chest before she pushed it down again. She still felt justified in the efforts she'd made, not just for what she'd learned about the warp and the Old One's remnants, but what she'd in turn been able to provide to her children as she turned her old failures and explorations into new tools for them to wield as they would.

It had been so long since she'd started working on her projects, nearly hyperfocused on whatever had caught her attention most recently. At once point, it had been a cure for the Krork, then a counter to them and the K'nib, and later still a variety of new growing and hungering things as she and her children starting exploring and reshaping the galaxy that was now theirs, lacking any competition for the right of ownership of the stars or the Webway.

The Krork and K'nib - now broken into their shadowed selves, the Orks and Rangdan - still lurked in the dark, festering shadows and on the edges of the empire, far from the reach of what technology and foresight the Eldar had to bear. However, their threats had been minimized, even if eliminating them was impossible at this point. The old ones had designed them well, Isha had mused darkly, even as she allowed her attention to shift away from the material and to the shadows of the warp instead.

"With this finished, I have no major projects to work on," Isha told him, offering an apologetic smile. "So I won't have anything distracting me from them."

"They'll both be thrilled to hear that," he replied, a small grin dancing on his lips before he finally put the last of the fruit in his mouth.

Isha shifted on her feet again, fingers rubbing the dirt between them. "Have you noticed anything… odd around lately?"

"How so?" Vaul let his hands drop, idly wiping his hand on his burned and soot-stained tunic.

"Just…" Isha took a moment to order her thoughts, teeth dragging across her lower lip as her jaw shifted slightly. "There's been. Issues, in the gardens. Odd fungi. Wilted plants. A few trees on the edge rotted from the inside out. I had to completely break them down to their components and remake them."

"Oh, that sort of thing." Vaul waved his hand dismissively, rolling his shoulders back. "There's a lot of new warp spawns crawling up from the wounds in the warp. I wouldn't be surprised if it were some new troublemakers who don't know where the power in the warp lies yet."

"Perhaps," she conceded. "But I feel it's one of the larger ones. A weaker entity couldn't have done what they did with my own territory."

Vaul hummed in thought. "You have a point. Still, you're far stronger than anything else out there, so I wouldn't be too worried. If it actually tries to go after you, just give it a good kick and send it scurrying back to whatever hole it crawled out from."

Isha wanted to explain how ill at ease she felt every time she encountered one of those 'trouble spots' within her own gardens, a violation on her own territory and sanctuary. She wanted to tell him how it sometimes felt like there were eyes on her, trailing down her like a sticky ooze she couldn't scrub off her skin, leaving her feeling unclean and exposed. She wanted to make him understand that she knew she was stronger than it, but something about this… thing dancing around her, hiding from her eyes but not her awareness, discomforted her in ways the Necrons and Yngir had never managed in all the long, long era of war against them.

Instead, she took a deep breath and exhaled, offering a smile she doubted reached her eyes. "Of course." She tilted her head, looking her brother over. "Speaking of projects, you look like you've been busy yourself."

"Ah, it's nothing big," Vaul replied, though she could see her twin straighten up a bit in pride of her noticing. "I've just been working out some of the finer details of my Talismans. They might not be needed against the enemy anymore, but they're still helpful in keeping the Rangdan contained, especially after their last breakout."

"Another one?" She asked, frowning in confusion. "I didn't hear anything about it from my children."

"It wasn't a large one, just a small species with a dozen worlds that got too close to the containment zone," he explained. "The Aeldari were able to intervene and cleanse the worlds before they could get too far, and new measures have been put in place to prevent a repeat leak."

Isha winced, wishing not for the first time that she had been able to find a final solution against the Krork and K'nib before their Old One-ingrained defenses had adapted to her works and made them too resistant to be worth further efforts on her part. However, current measures still involved purging entire worlds of sapient species, leaving behind resource-rich worlds for the Eldar to make use of for their own ends once the threat was passed. Even if it was less common with the almost complete containment of the Orks and Rangdan, each lost race still felt like a failure of her forethought and capability, all that potential wiped away like dust on a countertop.

"That's welcome news," she replied before her silence stretched too long. "I still have a few more things to finish up. Would you mind letting them know…"

"No worries, I understand," Vaul replied. "Just don't get too caught up in your work that I have to come back and drag you away myself."

"Of course not," she said, nodding her head as a send-off. "Fair travels."

"Fair travels," he returned the farewell, smiling, before Vaul's avatar faded away, the projection of her brother's power dissolving into motes of light.

Isha turned back to her trees, letting her other senses track him to the edge and then further away, leaving her alone with her thoughts and worries. Her fingers dug into the bark, nails catching against the wood.

Her brother was right - she worried too much about her children and the materium. The greatest dangers had been contained or vanished of their own volition into the corners of the galaxy. Whatever else was in the warp was something that would be dealt with in time, once the proper resources had been established and the cleansing and repair of the warp could begin in earnest.

(The fact that none of them had any idea of how to do so did not escape her. The Old Ones had kept many of their secrets even to their graves, and there was nothing any of them could do about it but figure out how to make the best of the ruins left behind.)

Her hands clenched in reactive anger, only for her to startle when it oozed between her fingers with minimal resistance. She looked up to see the tree in question half-rotted - all the trees around her dripping and rotting as she watched with horror, the air thick with decay and buzzing in her ears with flies, a chuckled rumble and looming shadow from behind her crawling up her spine like cockroaches-

Isha hissed, her hand stinging as she shook it and her thoughts back into order. The helper that had stung her was anything but contrite, rubbing itself against her leg, which she now noticed had several gouges from her own nails, the blood staining the tips of her fingers and smeared along her pants and palms. She took a deep breath and exhaled, closing the wounds and breaking down the blood, returning the material to her body even as she looked over her garden.

The plants had, of course, reacted to her perceived attacker, growing sharp thorns or thick vines in layers out away from her, the air cloyingly sweet with a subtle but dangerous poison. With a thought, all those features withdrew, the garden returning to his usual peaceful state as she shucked off the last of the… memory? Nightmare? The two blended together, what had actually happened and what had crept in from elsewhere indistinct in that moment.

She looked to the door of the room on instinct, not sure how much time she'd lost in her head. She was fortunate that the Emperor had decided that she could do her work in this room without supervision, or else he'd have been witness to her actions firsthand, perceiving them as a setback on her part.

Shaking her head one last time, she returned to her work, this time clearing her thoughts of anything but searching out other issues to amend before they were taken away and replaced, repeating the cycle once again.

 

[Ashynarr]

AN: With that month to cool my heels and focus on some other stuff, I am back on this train and have some good plans moving forward.

Nothing too big here, just a bit of flashback and exploration of Isha's past and powers. With her characters more solidified at this point, I wanna start leaning towards the main meat of the plot, but the transition has to be just right for her.

Also, did some reading on other things... Isha's got some fun scenes coming...

 

[Miestwin]

I have a feeling Emps might've been watching, but Isha would probably detect the cameras. Maybe some new "soules" design?

 

[r s]

How you gonna implement Erda?

Perpetual - 1d4chan

1d4chan.org

 

[Ashynarr]

How you gonna implement Erda?

Perpetual - 1d4chan

1d4chan.org

Click to shrink...

I'm not. It just seems fairly dumb to me and I don't have any attachment to her as a character in this setting.

 

[Alexander Sturnn]

I'm not. It just seems fairly dumb to me and I don't have any attachment to her as a character in this setting.

Click to shrink...

Good call, in my Opinion. I really hate this Character and the dumb Retcons surrounding her.
In General, GW seems to make more and more pointless and stupid Retcons recently....

 

[Rakan]

I'm not super caught up with Warhammer lore, but I'm certainly enjoying this story. Isha is pretty adorable and I think that friendship might be possible, but it will be... Maybe centuries before they actually trust each other.

Gladly looking to see what comes of their association.

 

[Anzer'ke]

Oh hell yes! I yelled quite exuberantly when I saw this had updated and for damn good reason. I love it. All of it. Time to reread from the beginning.

 

[SkyLing]

Very nice. BIg E and Isha are doing pretty well. Now they just need to talk about their feelings and become buddy buddy.

 

[Baron Ouroboros]

Big E is a genocidal tyrant with a supremacist dream to achieve eternal hegemony with a psychic-human master race. He's literally as bad as they come, and part of 40k's tragedy is that one such as him took the reigns of humanity when it was at its weakest.

 

[Luminous]

He's literally as bad as they come

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He's not exactly mother Terrisa, but 40K has plenty worse.

 

[Space_void]

Good call, in my Opinion. I really hate this Character and the dumb Retcons surrounding her.
In General, GW seems to make more and more pointless and stupid Retcons recently....

Click to shrink...

One thing about 40k Canon is that there truly isn't one that can't be revised, or revealed to be outright lies. There are entire ordo of the inquisition dedicated to removing historic records, or outright replacing them with lies. Much the Ollanius Pius its possible Erda may well be misdirection, or may be a purely fabricated character designed to cover for how the Emperor designed the Primarchs. It would not surprise me.

 

[Baron Ouroboros]

He's not exactly mother Terrisa, but 40K has plenty worse.

Click to shrink...

I mean, he's Space God Hitler for goodness' sake. Disregarding Chaos, orks, and tyranids, he's as bad as they come.

 

[Luminous]

I mean, he's Space God Hitler for goodness' sake. Disregarding Chaos, orks, and tyranids, he's as bad as they come.

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If you disregard half the things in the setting, he's the worst!

Yeah, sure.

Because the Eldar are clearly all for cross-species equality and the T'au, in their feudal cast system with sterilization camps, are just precious little friends.

 

[Baron Ouroboros]

If you disregard half the things in the setting, he's the worst!

Yeah, sure.

Because the Eldar are clearly all for cross-species equality and the T'au, in their feudal cast system with sterilization camps, are just precious little friends.

Click to shrink...

This has nothing to with anyone else and everything to do with the Imperium being an imperialist supremacist polity. The Great Crusade was fascist-like in ideology and aesthetics, and the leader of that project was someone with the arrogance to call themselves Emperor of humanity.

 

[Ashynarr]

Friendly warning, no faction / character morality discussion in my threads. I don't particularly care how you view the Emperor or any other faction in canon, as this isn't canon and I'm doing what I damn well please with all the characters. Warhammer is a setting full of bad people doing bad things, we all know this, you don't have to remind us about what terrible things people have done in canon when we already know. If you're really bothered by me writing the Emperor as an engaging and multifaceted character who still isn't necessarily a 'good person', then you can just... leave the thread. And not bother me. Or anyone else here to enjoy the story. It's really simple.

 

[Baron Ouroboros]

Alright.

 

[Solarion]

I mean, he's Space God Hitler for goodness' sake. Disregarding Chaos, orks, and tyranids, he's as bad as they come.

Click to shrink...

As co-author, I feel it important to clear this up, because we all know the issue is going to come up again. So with permission from Ashynarr, I'm going to talk a bit about the Emperor's personality and what we're doing with it.

Now, we know the Emperor as presented by the Horus Heresy novels is simply awful. We're not going to pretend that he's remotely a good or even rational person because he...isn't.

The problem is twofold. Firstly, if we wrote the Emperor as the heartless (and moronic) machine that Black Library has portrayed him as, the basic concept of this story would never work. Isha would never even have gone near him in that case, she'd just have taken her chances with trying to find a secure Webway portal.

Secondly, well, the Emperor of the HH novels just...doesn't have much of a personality. Let's not pretend he does. Baron Ourobros calls him Space God Hitler, but while the modern Emperor is certainly that awful, he's really more of an organic machine than anything else. Granted, this isn't just the Emperor's problem, because even Horus, the character the entire series is named after, becomes basically just yet another generic Chaos Champion after being stabbed with the Anathame, but it is what it is.

We've repeatedly said before that canon is a guideline, not a rule, and towards that end, we've gone with the Emperor as he was portrayed in 2nd and 3rd editions, which were very different from the Heresy novels. The Emperor of that era was actually reasonable: the Great Crusade took over a thousand years, was mostly peaceful, involved integrating alien protectorates and the Emperor explicitly got stuck on the Golden Throne because he couldn't bear to bring himself to just crush Horus. If we didn't do this, the basic concept of this story would never work and also, well, the 2nd/3rd edition Emperor has more of a personality than his modern incarnation purely by virtue of the fact that we can say for certain that he actually loved his sons.

I'm not going to tell you that our version of the Emperor is an unblemished paragon whose never done anything wrong, because he isn't, and he'd be pretty boring if he was, but he's most certainly not just the Chaos God of Order whose only different from the other Ruinous Powers in that he can actually walk around the Materium.

EDIT: As an addenum, I'd say our version of the Emperor is essentially the human equivalent of Eldrad (when Eldrad isn't being written as a moron anyway). He's ruthless, arrogant, believes the ends will justify the means, is fairly callous as far as other species are concerned, and when he makes mistakes, those mistakes have catastrophic consequences, but he is capable of being pragmatic and reasonable, as well as acknowledging his flaws.

 

[Ashynarr]

===================================
Episode 3: Life is Suffering
===================================

[Scene: The Warp. The Four Gods of Chaos are gathered around, caught up in some form of argument.]

Slaanesh: I still can't believe you let her get away!

Nurgle: You were the one to rile her up enough that I couldn't keep a hold of her despair! All that cultivation, wasted because of your little daemonette mouthing off!

Slaanesh: (scoff and hand wave) Oh please, it was your balls of pus getting all handsy with her that disgusted her enough to run the materium instead of putting up with your stench for the next ten thousand years.

Nurgle: You, talking about laying hands on someone? It was your daemonettes who were stripping her bare for anyone to ogle!

Slaanesh: Well, it wasn't like she needed that armor when she wasn't even supposed to be fighting.

Khorne: (grumble) Still a waste we didn't let her build an army to fight with.

Nurgle: She's delicate and frightened! She needs to be protected, not thrown into your games.

Tzeentch: I imagine she'd be quite entertaining in games, actually.

Khorne: She could have been a champion if she weren't so afraid to fight back. All I would have needed was a few centuries…

Slaanesh: And scar up that body of hers wastefully? I'm all for bloodplay, but it's so much nicer on the sheets than on the battlefield.

Nurgle: You two and your obsession with blood! Blood is much more useful inside her body, carrying the vectors to all the diseases I could be brewing for her to try. (sighs forlornly) I had so many ideas… all going to waste…

Slaanesh: Honestly, it's no fun if she's getting sick all the time, even if she can recover from it. It'd be inefficient for getting the most pain and pleasure out of her.

Tzeentch: Oh, you mean before you finished with her for good?

Nurgle: What do you mean for good?

Slaanesh: What were you expecting, a comfy little cottage for her to live in like you were planning? No, she only gets to live until she's boring, and then I plan on devouring her whole. (tosses hair back, pulling a mirror out from nowhere to look themselves over) I think her face would really look stunning on me, don't you?

Nurgle: DEVOUR HER? HOW DARE YOU, BRAT!

Slaanesh: SHE'S MINE, I GET TO DECIDE WHAT TO DO WITH HER!

Nurgle: NO, SHE'S MINE!

Slaanesh: MINE!

Nurgle: MINE!

Khorne: Will the two of you shut up already! It's obvious we're going nowhere with this.

Tzeentch: And we can't forget we have other concerns besides one rogue goddess.

Nurgle: More important than Isha? Her being in his hands could ruin everything!

Khorne: Come on, she's not that powerful outside the warp, especially in his territory.

Tzeentch: The odds of her surviving long enough to do anything important are too low to mention, really.

Slaanesh: (sigh) Urgh, fine, let's focus on the original plan, from before she decided to be a little wretch.

Nurgle: Well, I suppose it would be nice to collect on what he owes us after what he stole, even if it can't fill the hole in my heart…

Slaanesh: You mean the one oozing with pus, or the one with stomach acid?

Khorne: He means the one the shit comes out of.

Slaanesh: Oh, I thought that was his mouth.

Nurgle: I'm still more than willing to put you in your place, if you keep pushing like this.

Slaanesh: (mocking purr) Oh please, give me your worst punishment, I've been a bad girl lately...

Tzeentch: Enough! The Primarchs are ripe for the plucking, and with the Anathema distracted, now is the most opportune moment to strike.

Slaanesh: Yeah yeah, I know, everything's all set up already, literally all we have to do is pull the lever.

Tzeentch: The correct lever. I can't begin to explain the narrative headache that will come if we pull the wrong one and scatter them to the wrong places.

Slaanesh: (raised brow) But isn't half your thing finding the most convoluted timelines and fucking around with them?

Tzeentch: (waggles hand) It might be, it might not be.

Khorne: Well, that would explain why you didn't see Isha coming.

Tzeentch: It was a slight miscalculation! There was no way what happened should have happened, and I still can't figure out why!

Slaanesh: Whatever, it's happened and she's gone. I want to do this before the window of opportunity closes… unless you want Isha to get her hands on the Primarchs and make them untouchable?

Khorne: Urgh, please don't suggest stuff like that, it's disgusting.

Tzeentch: Indeed, imagining Primarchs immune to our teachings is just unpleasant.

Nurgle: (hopeful) We'll be able to rescue Isha while we're at it, won't we?

Khorne: (scoff) We don't have time to waste on a half-bit washed up goddess like her. If you want to waste your energy going after her, feel free.

Tzeentch: I agree, especially when it's highly likely that golden brat will either kill her right away, or torture her for her knowledge before killing her. There's no sense in wasting our collective energy trying to get to her as well.

Nurgle: (wailing) Oh, my poor, beloved Isha! How you must be suffering away from me right now!

Slaanesh: (sigh) Oh me, why is this rabble what I have to work with?

[Meanwhile, on Terra, in a very nice bedroom suite, with many decals and symbols that indicate that this is for Imperial guests. Isha sits in a somewhat fancy seat, reading a datapad.]

Isha: This language would be so much easier to figure out if I just knew the narrative significance behind the syntax involved…

[A knock on the door before it is opened by one of the guards, allowing a servant in with a tray loaded with a full meal - a salad, some roast meat, a bowl of rich dark stew, and a bowl of roasted tubers, as well as a glass each of wine and water.]

Servant: Your meal, madam.

Isha: Oh, thank you! If you could just leave it at the desk, please? I'll get to it in just a minute.

[The servant sets it down on the desk beside her, bowing shallowly before moving to leave, only to panic and bow more deeply as the Emperor is let into the room.]

Servant: Your majesty!

Emperor: Be on your way.

[The servant rushes out of the room, the door closing behind them.]

Isha: Greetings, your majesty.

Emperor: Greetings to you as well. I see they have brought you your meal.

Isha: They did, and I do appreciate it. Every little bit of energy helps, after all.

Emperor: I can imagine. Do you mind if I sit down?

Isha: Not at all.

[The Emperor sits on the bed, hands clasped together on his lap.]

Emperor: I have come to see that my initial assessment of your presence here was somewhat… hasty. I hope that we might speak for a while and rectify the issue before finalizing the deal I offered you earlier.

Isha: Oh, I understand. I did make something of a spectacle of myself with my hasty arrival, and I know my people have been anything but kind to yours.

Emperor: (huff of laughter) An understatement if I've ever heard one. Though it still begs the question of what brings an Eldar goddess to my doorstep at all, when there must be thousands of Eldar worlds who would have bent themselves in twain to accommodate you, or even the Webway's twisting mazes to lose yourself in.

Isha: (sighs) The Webway was too damaged for me to safely enter near where I was, and any other entrances would have taken too long for me to get to in order to get away. In addition, I must admit that seeing them so soon after what they did would not have had me in the most forgiving of moods.

Emperor: So you hoped that I and my people would be enough to shield you from the unwanted attentions of the four instead.

Isha: (wince) I can see how bad that looks in retrospect, but I did not intend to put your people in harm's way, merely to get enough time to recover my strength before I search out my children and reprimand them.

Emperor: An ambitious goal, though I must ask why you didn't step in before they chose to create their pleasure god and tear apart their own empire from the inside out.

Isha: (grimace) Asuryan would be why. If the choice had been up to me, I would have stepped in several million years ago to whip them into shape, well before they fell far enough to create that… degenerate being. However, he refused to admit to his mistake in separating the gods from their people, and now I am the only one left besides Cegorach to clean up the aftermath and hope that my people will actually listen to me now that I'm on this side of the veil.

Emperor: And if they don't?

Isha: Then they suffer the consequences. A thorough spanking is the least all of them deserve, though I will probably have to forgo that for yelling so that I'm not spending the next ten thousand years working through them all.

Emperor: (a short laugh) Sounds rather troublesome. And from what I've seen of your people, that might not be the most effective method either.

Isha: (groans) I know, but I'd rather try and fail than not even bother to make the effort, and I know I can get at least enough of them to make myself heard by the rest, regardless of their feelings on the matter.

Emperor: And then? I can't help but be concerned that you'll just end up making another Eldar Empire and restarting the issues that lead to all this in the first place.

Isha: (sigh) I really don't have much proof of my intentions besides my own word, not that you have much reason to trust it...

Emperor: Indeed. (suggestive voice) However, I think I can allow you some leeway so long as you provide some of your more prominent talents...

Isha: (perks up) Oh, I would be delighted to!

Emperor: (beat and slightly confused tone) Really now.

Isha: Well, I already have some ideas on how to help with the radiation damage I was noticing in a lot of the material you provided, as well as a list of more simple and easy to produce panaceas for the more common conditions and illnesses among those patients I healed. (short laugh) I am sorry about throwing that dataslate at you, by the way, I probably should have mentioned that I have some ability to work with your technology before I let you leave me with a bunch of it unsupervised, but I got a bit overprotective… I'm happy to make up for it by clarifying anything you find confusing about the more complex designs, and I'm fine with working on any projects you need my input or touch on, or even just advice if you don't trust me to actually get near them.

Emperor: (long beat before a flat tone) What.

Isha: (taps her mouth, looking up at the ceiling) Well, any projects besides weaponizing diseases, I am not going to give that warp pustule any chance of an in on my remaining essence because of overlapping influences, but I can definitely cure such things should I get some samples first.

Emperor: That's not what I- (frustrated sigh) fine, those will do for now. Just… give me a moment to get the details of the deal finalized, and then we can talk about your first few official projects.

Isha: Of course, I'm glad I can help while I'm here.

[The Emperor gets to his feet.]

Emperor: Enjoy your meal.

Isha: Thank you for the food and the lodging.

[The Emperor leaves the room, waiting for the door to close before heaving another frustrated sigh. He then looks forward and glares offscreen.]

Emperor: Do you have something to say, Malcador?

[The screen shifts slightly, showing Malcador standing there with a serene smile that in no way is hiding the fact that he's laughing hysterically on the inside.]

Malcador: I am just here to ensure that I am aware of all the details of the final agreement between you and our esteemed guest, your majesty.

Emperor: You know, I'm sure you have plenty of other work to be doing besides this.

Malcador: I am your primary diplomat, my liege, I would hate to be left unaware of any progress in relations with such a prominent foreign emissary.

Emperor: (grumbling) It's a work in progress, though I might have underestimated the time necessary to enact my plans for her.

Malcador: Of course, I have no reason to doubt your impeccable charm and wit.

[The two begin walking down the hall, the custodian escorts behind them as they move past the occasional servant hastily bowing or kotowing as they pass by.]

Emperor: (sigh) Sometimes I struggle to remember how we became friends.

Malcador: Age cripples even the best of us, though I would remind my liege that I currently am the one in charge of most of the projects that are keeping the Imperium from running itself into the ground.

Emperor: (unimpressed look) I'm sure I can find and train a few other perpetuals to replace you within the decade.

Malcador: I eagerly await the day I am finally allowed to take a vacation, my lord.

Emperor: (huffs) Don't hold your breath too long, I still need to-

[A wave of psychic power washes through the room, causing the servants on screen to collapse and the custodians to hold their hands to where their ears would be if they weren't wearing their helmets.]

Malcador: What was that? It feels like it came from the west.

Emperor: (staggers and pales) The primarchs!

[The Emperor teleports out, the custodians panicking and gathering close to Malcador, who is wiping away a small streak of blood trickling from his nose.]

Leonidas: Lord Malcador, the menials are all unconscious or dead! What should we do?

Malcador: (silent for a moment) ...try to find any of the workers who are still awake and have them gather the dead and bring them to the usual place. I have to get to my offices and prepare a statement to our allies on what just happened.

Leonidas: As you command!

[The custodians salute before rushing off, leaving Malcador alone to his brooding.]

Malcador: Of course things couldn't just go right for once… this is what I get for trying out optimism for a day...