Common Isha W with her compassion grindset. torroar if it isn't much of a spoiler would you mind telling how was Isha fate point deal from Hultressa's POV. Did it happen when she was alone praying to Isha hoping for some sign and out of nowhere room filled with fragments from a verdant grove, did she suddenly remember caress of a mother she no longer remembers while she was with Coven or etc. ?
That's not, uh, not how it worked.
Hultressa, by her own admission, has been effectively trying to reach a position of simultaneous isolation and considerable influence+power from the rest of Druchii society for centuries. She achieved it, by basically reaching Number 3 To The Side of the pyramid which marks out a Coven's hierarchy. She has resisted being 100% indoctrinated by virtue of clinging to the barest scraps of her memories of childhood and Tiranoc, and prayer to the Cadai - but do not take that as her never having done anything for or with the priesthoods and Cults of the Cytharai. She's been alive for more than a thousand years. She had to scrabble her way up through Druchii society from the bottom of the barrel's dregs, so she has done some absolutely heinous 'go straight to death penalty' stuff. If only to keep herself alive. If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, she's cleared land, dredged, sunken down concrete+rebar foundations, and proceeded to build a gargantuan spaghetti junction of highways, side roads, access roads, and emergency lanes for - again - 1000+ years. After her magical talents were discovered, she got yanked up into Ghrond, which means an even more stringently treacherous and deadly environment where there is a nonzero chance that fucking Morathi herself could walk by one day and look into your soul and mind and oops the jig is up time to rip your soul out to make a lamp post.
However, it was only after she reached 500 years or so of age that she was ever actually in a position to actively start resisting against the Druchii's way of doing things. I've mentioned this before, but for DoDA's purposes, there
is a subset, a teeny, tiny, quiet, extremely careful and cautious subset, who find themselves absolutely and undeniably
plagued by a contagion for which they have found no satisfactory cure. Especially as revealing it to 99.9% of any other Druchii would surely result in death or torture or otherwise.
The way I view it and have pointed at before, Druchii society is on the face of it, a frankly incapable-of-functioning facsimile of a society. It's barely even that, more appropriate to say that it is a vast sociological-psychological assembly line of tools built to achieve a single goal - to see Malekith installed as the rightful ruler of all Ulthuan and the world entire. There was a discussion a while back between me and another about, like, the sheer ridiculousness of how the Druchii raise themselves, natural motherly instincts and nature and stuff about childcare, rearing, etc. and how it just plain old shouldn't work. And the truth of that matter remains as I said then - it shouldn't but does. And why is that?
Because Malekith, Morathi, Hellebron, and very importantly
the Cytharai make it so. Literal otherworldly beings who affect the soul, the mind, and the body, worshipped above all others. Constantly, constantly pressing and bending. I want you to imagine all those pairs of hands, literally and metaphysically, grasping at a singular wheel of a ship and
wrenching it in the direction they want it to go. And even when the tides, the wind, and even the crew of the ship might protest, and the wheel itself might try to twitch in another direction, they still
haul it back into the direction they want it to be. They are exerting inhuman levels of willpower, determination, power, and
time to keep things going that way. Sacrifices, Death Nights, blessings of Khaine, etc. I've thrown the quotes around before, and damn it I'll do it again:
"The blood of the druchii belongs to me. I and I alone have made you what you are. Mine is the will that has stripped all weakness from your hearts, mine is the vision that has poured strength into your bodies. All you think, all you dream, all that you are is as I have made it. The druchii are mine, formed by my vision, moulded by my cause. From the pathetic tatters of a vanquished realm, I have built a great and terrible people." - Malekith the Witch King
"Khaela Mensha Khaine, for hate's sake, hear our petition - as blood answers the throat slit. Keep the hearts of the Druchii cold and bitter, wherein the murderous will of our survivor-civilization be preserved for all eternity. Bring death, just and swift, to the weak. Daub the revenger's blade with the blood of enemies old. Watch over the inconstant north. Grant the wild men and their wilderness your darkness. Let blade and bolt bring sacrifice to your altar. Bless the druchii, ever your acolytes and assassins, with murder in your name and victories as certain as spite." - Hellebron, Hag Queen
He is being so, so very literal here. He has, OPENLY, confessed and informed the Druchii that literally all that they are and act and think and dream and believe and do is because of how he has MADE them. He, quite literally, 'built' the Druchii into their current state, and he keeps them that way. Hellebron, and her priesthood, and Khaine himself, are constantly ensuring and tugging at the souls and minds of the Druchii to keep them the way they are. Morathi, does it even need saying how her manipulations and magics have absolutely contributed to the continuted twisting?
Then, of course, there is the influence of Chaos upon the elves and the World. Many of us have heard it before, how it upjumped the Asrai's isolationism, made the Asur stubbornly partake of their self-imposed duties with absolute certainty that only they are the best and worthiest and goodest of bois and gurls to save the world, and the Druchii got this:
For the Dark Elves, however, Chaos has brought what they consider enlightenment -- the knowledge that the world exists only for the pleasure of the strong. They have embraced this revelation with a burning passion that shames the cold hearts of their ancient cousins. Indeed, it may yet set the very world afire.
So, what do you imagine happens to someone who falters from that all dominating path? Because at the end of the day, upon all those atrocities, accomplishments, epic mythical moments of will and strength and power...Malekith has failed before. Morathi has not succeeded in every single thing she's ever done. Hellebron, the same. Khaine is defied every time an Asur refuses to take up the Widowmaker.
And yet, they live in world that Malekith has built for them. They are created from the same materials, tempered and tested the same ways. And yet, somehow, a flaw! A flaw occasionally emerges into this 'perfect machine' of cruelty, passion, and pain that has been constructed and maintained for thousands of years.
Some of them care.
This is bad!
But still, somehow, they find it within themselves to care. Some, sure, actually don't, and are instead absolutely coldly ambitious enough to try and consort with Ulthuan in secret, because again that's the society that the Cytharai and Khaine and Malekith and Morathi and Hellebron built.
But still. Some. Somehow.
Well, this was discussed a bit back in 2023:
If you asked the Druchii, and somehow managed to survive the experience, they would tell you they NEVER had a child in the year of whatever, not were they alive for however many years. And every history/annal would reflect that. The slaves would most likely, at best recall that there was a special torture victim around then who was a child and later died from said torture. Which, of course, only proves how deadly and cruel this particular Druchii household is. Not weak. NEVER weak. Because weakness is death.
Other occasions would have the local Barracks of Dusk proclaim the child was weak and died from the training/torture/was sacrificed to Khaine/etc.
(Naggaroth doesn't have orphanages like humans might. Parentless and Houseless children become part of communal training for service and distantly possible adoption into a House of the Druchii/are cast out to die in the wilderness/get picked up by Shades/sent to the Temples of Khaine to join their service or as a sacrifice/etc.)
And. Of course. There have never been any Druchii ambitious enough to slip details to Shadow Warriors who could sabotage a rival House by stealing their future (i.e. children to steal[rescue] / resources to steal or destroy / experts to kill).
That would be absurd. Druchii? Ambitious and ruthless enough to consort with people who by all rights are usually their enemies? Nah.
Weakness is death weakness is death weakness is death weakness is death.
How strong must a parent's love be to dig
aaaaaaaaall the way through all of that above? Those literal thousands and thousands of years of CONSTANT pressure and work and manipulation by beings who look like you and might sound like you but are practically demi-gods to someone like you?
That is not to say that affection and love cannot exist between Druchii. The Malus Darkblade shows this, and also how twisted it can be, and how even if one might well actually feel love in their heart for another Druchii, such is the society welded into being and millennia of all the manipulations and what not above, they will still feel obligated to step on you like the rung of a ladder to ascend. Or kill you, to ensure your weakness does not spread, or worse, infect
them. And, yeah, sometimes there's the whole psycho affection stuff too, but...bleh.
Point is, there are some within Druchii society who are capable of realizing 'Oh, fuck, my child deserves to grow up in a culture that is NOT THIS'. Not the 'I love you very much so I'll raise you cruel and strong like me to survive well in Druchii society, come let us have you torture your first pregnant woman to death with a barbed whip at five years old' but outright 'I want my child to have a better life so much that I need to get them out of this place and as far away as possible'.
Every child of Druchii origins that shows up in Ulthuan by the hands of the Shadow Warriors of Nagarythe is stolen.
Because every Druchii that exists belongs to Malekith.
But not every child of Druchii origins that shows up in Ulthuan is stolen.
Both of those two statements are true.
Do you get what I mean?
There are many who, in reaching a position where they felt capable of delivering a child away from Naggaroth through some measure or another, did so in a fashion that left them incapable of leaving themselves. What life would their child live if they were known to come from a traitor that left? Because Malekith would, inevitably, learn of them at some point. Hellebron. Morathi. The Cytharai. Assassins. And so on and so forth. The Druchii can see, hear, and reach out and touch a great deal despite great distances. Better for them to live unburdened by connection to one such as they. And so there are Druchii who live out the rest of their lives, marching in lockstep, a withered flower in their heart that once upon a time managed to bloom just the once, and they will die in that lockstep under the orders of Malekith.
In the most curious of ironies, Ulthuan when Malekith considered himself Asur had this most infuriating issue. These...these secret cults, you understand? These things devoted to Gods that he refuted, denied, hated. And he dedicated himself to uprooting them. But in the end, he could never get all of them. Even now, the Cults of Pleasure are controlled discreetly by Morathi, and are now tolerated for their utility by Malekith despite them publicly needing to be disavowed and destroyed whenever found for basically the whole of the Druchii existence. And the Shadow Warriors, who worship Loec most highly, dance in and out of Naggaroth on their bloody and cold missions.
And by her own admission, Hultressa is doing all of this because she wants out, out, out, OUT. She has helped others. Delivered other children away. There have been clandestine meetings on dockyards at night, magical messages sent through the most secretive of means. Chests and/or pouches of gold have been lost in transit to places, sacks of foodstuffs have been delivered at odd hours, palms have been greased and minds clouded. She has been doing this for many, many years. Centuries, even. But now she has a child of her own, something she never actually expected to have, nor really desired, but now has, and is going to do what she can to get
her out.
I've actually spoken on Druchii and love before as well:
Oh sure. It's just weighted in different ways. Sometimes in incestuous ways, like with some family members and various half-siblings. Or, like in the actual case of Malus, he had a Druchii woman who was actually deeply in love with him but just couldn't actually manage to make herself tell him and release that sort of weakness into the world + make herself a weakness for Malus who also held affection for her. But then he got all possessed and killed her [to spare her the shame of serving a daemon-possessed master] and her love turned to hatred and she was strong enough to unkill herself with sheer potency of emotion with a smidge of the Chaos boosting/oath swearing for revenge. And Malus was capable of recognizing that she loved him, and felt regret as he crushed her skull after she came after him. They're capable of affection and care, but it's often a twisted possessive thing, because that's all they know after thousands of years with the aforementioned literal proud declaration of Malekith of how he's twisted them all up so perfectly.
Love exists, but it's not something to be openly declared unless not only you but the ones you love are just so simply absurdly powerful that there ain't dick anyone can do about it. Everyone knows that Morathi loves her son so very very much. You know. The Witch King? Not really something you can take advantage of. There are parents who ruffle the hair of their children, proudly smiling down at them, as the blood-covered child smiles back from atop the mutilated corpses of a husband and wife waving their knives around, that sort of thing for sure. But loving gazes into another's eyes, clasping hands in comfortable companionable silence in public? Not so much. The Druchii have spent a lot of time basically making every little private sanctuary they can, wherever they can. In the society Malekith has created, it's a vital necessity for continued long-term survival to be at least sure that your tiny closet room or cabin or house or manor is as protected as possible.
It matters less, I'd possibly argue, the lower down the rung you are in Druchii society.
If a noblewoman of any regard shows too much affection for a child or spouse, that transforms that child or spouse into a vector for treachery, for lies, for poison, for weakness. If you care for them, then you can be manipulated by threatening them, hurting them, turning them against you, and so on. Also, sometimes, a prospective wife might poison another wife and their unborn child so that they can become the new wife that can be courted by the powerful Druchii lord.
If another Druchii, say, Bel-Kalrath, who runs a tiny leatherworking businesses which involves just him and his one apprentice and their three - and only three - slaves, it's far more likely to be acceptable for him to show more affection and care for his single child son who is also his apprentice. Right up until another rival leatherworker tried to force him out of business by poisoning his son and withholding an antidote until they give up their business or something like that.
Or you do it in secret. Very secret. Hugs and words delivered to children with multiple insistent oaths that they never tell anyone else about it. Where no one can see but you and the one you love. And, as I've alluded to before, some parents love their children enough to decide that even if they - the parents - are so entwined in Druchii society that they couldn't possibly extricate themselves safely, they might be able to get their children out. Because then they can take the normal Druchii tack of refusing to acknowledge the child's disappearance, spreading rumors of them dying, etc. Weakness is death, weakness is death, weakness is death. We've got weird but consistent references to creepy deviance amongst the Druchii, openly displayed in their society while toeing fine lines between Atharti/Hekarti/Khaine stuff and full on Cult of Pleasure stuff. For instance, Malus Darkblade's malformed brother Urial was a Disciple of Khaine and was significantly lustful towards his sister Yasmir, like really into her, but also Malus was literally able to distract him from trying to kill him (after Malus stole from him) by going 'But look! A Cult of Pleasure branch!' Which in turn had the Khainite who wanted to bang his sister go 'EW! A CULT OF PLEASURE?! DESTROY!' So, you know.
Because, sure, yes, the Shadow Warriors and Alith Anar have yanked children out before, but this also often pisses off the Druchii as well because hey my resource aka child aka resource/asset just got stolen from me!
"That's my child! That's MY property!" - Immortan Joe in Mad Max: Fury Road
But maybe an Asur or two dreams of a pair of watering eyes, a pale hand wiping down their hair, a pair of lips pressing against their forehead, of mists surrounding them and the creaking of boats and splashing of water. They wake up crying, but don't know quite why, and yet they awaken to a land daubed in sunlight and beauty, with their loving spouse and children, and go out to work work the farms in the Inner Kingdoms of Ulthuan, living in comfort and paradise and surrounded by love and joy for most all their centuries of life aside from the times when they were called to take up spear in hand. Maybe Malekith and Morathi and Hellebron and Khaine and the rest of the Cytharai have spent thousands of years crushing down on the Druchii and forcing them into the shape they desire, but they can't always manage to stamp out those quiet whispers and dreams from a weeping mother.
And maybe there has been a conversation like this, here and there:
"He will not survive! He was born frail, and they will not spare the costs of the rituals to help him! He is accursed, and the Cult of Khaine would rather he be sacrificed than bless him with the Cauldron! If my husband...he wishes to...spare us the embarrassment before The Hakseer* comes and-,"
"Shh."
"But-,"
"Shh. One thousand gold."
"That's-,"
"Not enough to make your treasury blink. They'll know what you spent it on - removing the boy from the bloodline before he becomes...an embarrassment."
"...I...,"
"Tomorrow. One hour past the moon's highest leap. Follow the warmth of this amulet. Or don't. And throw your son to the beasts, or let your husband drown him."
"..!!"
"It is your choice. Bring him and the gold, or don't. And if you try to speak to anyone about the amulet you now hold, it will erupt and devour your soul."
"-you-,"
"Be there. Or don't."
"...might I...leave him something?"
"Excuse me?"
"To...to remember...or...,"
"I would advise against it. Better for him to remember nothing at all of this land, this place, its people. Safer. Happier."
"...I understand. How will you-,"
"I'm not going to tell you that. But he will reach Ulthuan alive."
"...I shall see you tomorrow night. I...in Isha's name."
"In Isha's name."
The next night, the Claw of Dominion had several 'unreported' additional passengers, but only one of them was a child swaddled in the softest black silks held in some of the most heavily warded chambers in the Tor of Dominance.
^ That is literally something that has happened.
Hultressa has mentioned, a couple of times IC, how she's built up a considerable amount of wealth and power over her 1000+ years. It is what is expected of her. She's a powerful sorceress, a specialist in biomancy and fleshcrafting, got a post on the
Claw of Dominion itself, one of the more prestigious Arks around. She has partaken in raids and sackings across the entire world, from Nippon and Cathay to Ind to Khuresh to the Dark Lands and Lustria and more. She's killed every single one of the major races that have army books, boiled halflings alive in their own blood, ritually sacrificed zoats, and so on. Torn down temples to dead gods and absconded with huge amounts of treasure. Literally fought in the GWAC
against the Asur because she was at all times surrounded by other Druchii and Morathi and Malekith were there and on the field.
But her fellow Druchii would act to kill her in vast number, extreme prejudice, and nanosecond rapidity if they ever learned just how large a percentage of her wealth has actually come off from payments to deliver innocent lives to Ulthuan through one method or another.
Well, often after being invested into long term compound interest return ventures, but still.
"Because I...am going to help you," she leans back again, "Because you are going to speak to the Everqueen again. Or the Queen in the Woods. Either or, it doesn't matter to me. For me."
Then, finally, the facade wavers. The haughty superiority drifts ever so sightly out of view, to be replaced with an expression that your mind could simply not comprehend on a Druchii's face, an emotion in those eyes so strong it literally drowns out the dark powers that clearly normally reside there.
"And my daughter," she says, the words ever so faintly trembling.
Your mind stutters and grinds to a halt.
"You...,"
"I have given enough," she seethes, jaw setting. "And Alith Anar has refused me too many times. So I will go above him."
This is the crux of the matter for her. She wanted out the moment she realized she was pregnant.
Alith Anar, however, has refused to aid her escape. He's accepted her aid before after she managed to poke her way into a very tiny, tiny, tiny subset of a subset of Druchii society, and has worked with her before. But in the years since, every single time 'it has not been the right time/we cannot do so now/we don't have the resources/other operations are too important to deal with/etc.'. It's never going to be the right time, and she realized that a few years ago.
Hultressa is not
the anomaly amongst that which Malekith et all constructed and maintain.
She is
an anomaly.
You get what I mean?
However, 1000+ years of harboring resentment, rebelliousness, etc. and memories, or to be more accurate, clinging on with one's fingernails despite EVERYTHING constantly done to hammer down on mind/souls/bodies of the Druchii, has engendered a not incorrectly high paranoia and cautiousness. Weakness is death, after all. She has gotten first hand experience watching Morathi punish people in Ghrond. The wrong move, at any time, could be catastrophic, and often have been, with her having to work extremely hard to correct when those mistakes have happened in the past. Sometimes to the point of abandoning those she was going to aid to the mercies of the system, because there would be others she could help later.
If I really, really had to describe it, the Hidden Heart Cult is the absolute coldest, most painfully pragmatic subset of Isha worshippers that have ever existed. And it is by
necessity. They, all of them, realize that. Like, holy fuck, the things the Cult of Khaine would and have done to their members if they found out about their mentalities - even if they never realized that they were actually part of a larger network. And sometimes they're not! Sometimes it really is just the one mother, the one father, who realizes one day that they've been forcibly held underwater their entire existence and for some reason or another just took their first breath of air ever. And they can't handle it. They cut out that part of themselves, or end up cut down. Because again, Druchii society is a perpetual clenching of the fist - around the throat of the world, around the heart, around the soul.
Hultressa has been desperate. She has been pragmatic, ruthless, monstrous, loving, giving, and self-sacrificial. And at other times, she's been so beaten down by Druchii existence and pressures that she's failed to do anything for decades at a time. She was in one of those periods, realizing that Alith Anar was actually not going to help her escape, or even her child escape, and still insisted on her helping others escape Druchii existence instead. That she couldn't overpower Screamtaker or the others, couldn't leave, couldn't keep her child from being violated at conception by Khaine, that the Cult of Khaine wanted her daughter to turn her into another Hellebron. And even before then, her elation at Malekith going away was beaten down by them winning in Albion, Screamtaker about to command the stones, etc. To the point that she very strongly was considering just giving up, only to then have Gwendolyn.
Which radically altered her path and thoughts further. She became more secretive, more isolated, more defensive, more stoic, more cautious.
The Fate Point did not do as you described, no.
She was going to let Frederick die because she's let good people die before, and
nothing was as important to her as getting her daughter before the Everqueen to try and save her from Khaine, and frankly, he lost. He was not going to live. The Ark was departing, unlike the
Eternal which she briefly regretted not being stationed on instead. Because there she could have surrendered outright, pled for mercy on behalf of Gwendolyn. A chance to escape, to live, was right in front of her, and god damn it the human bungled it, if only they'd charged fully into the Ark they could have fought a war on it and she could have helped them sabotage the Ark etc. etc.
What the Fate Point did was reach down into her heart, and soul, and dragged up that kernel of compassion that existed there, that Hultressa had fought so very long and hard over 1000+ years to hold onto in some fashion. She was so locked into 'the chance is lost, Screamtaker is gone, but now Voidreaper is in charge' depressive-dismissive mindset that it Isha essentially punched her in the chest to get her heart beating again. Reminded her of who she was, and broke through. Compassion actually did and does matter. Compassion
is its own strength. And, to be frank, Isha reminded her of her own bravery to do what she had done all this time. She is a scary 1000+ year old powerful sorceress, but damn it she is so fucking constantly scared for her daughter's well being that it was putting blinders on her. Isha just gave her a bit more light, and pulled the blinders off.
There were and are layers to the situation, the individuals, and the gods involved.
But Isha loves her children, and she wants them to love themselves as well. She wishes only the best for them. She has defied the Edict before, and she'll do it again. Because that's how powerful a mother's love can be, to defy the Head God of Gods for your entire pantheon, repeatedly. Because she can, and she will, and she does. The punishments can be dire, the realities of failure worse. But if that stopped her from doing it once, it would stop her from doing it ever again. IIRC, the description for her wiping clean Ulthuan of monsters and Chaos in the past is literally something like 'and then when Asuryan blinked' for like a picosecond she went ALL IN on helping out. So she stole fate from Morai-heg.
She bargained with the Goddess of the Mists, the Shadow Dancer, her beloved Hunter, and whispered a single word, all she could manage before Asuryan found her out.
A single word that is among the most secret and hidden of things (to the Druchii) that Malekith cannot abide, that Morathi derides, that Hellebron hates, that Khaine tramples upon, and all the Cytharai spit upon.
But all it took was that one word, to break through those barriers and walls and worries and paranoia, because it is a word that she has held close to her own heart before.
Seeking to find, hoping beyond hope, to see what flowers may still grow in cold cruelty and wrathful blood.
Imagine the wonder of the Mother as she seeks out that self-same essence within Her within another.
It is battered. It is bruised. It is so shrunken and malnourished, bloody and dying.
But not dead.
Not yet.
And so the word comes from the heavens, carrying with it so much more than a word. It is the word and beyond the word.
A whisper from the Grove, in the scant amount of time the attention can be hidden from:
Compassion
So Hultressa took a deep breath, swallowed down the bile that threatened to come out of her throat, and held tight onto that one word, whispered from on high and perhaps - PERHAPS - signal boosted by an artifact bound to a mighty tree grown in a realm of magic by those who worship Isha and Kurnous most highly despite worshipping a balance of Cadai and Cytharai.
Not an elf, but an object. Not held by an elf, but by a human.
The Edict Stands...does it not?
Regardless, the reminder worked, and a decision was made, and Hultressa decided to make the gamble, and in doing so changed a
vast amount of things.
That was how the Fate Point worked. It worked, specifically, in that moment, and made Hultressa take a chance. In turn, Frederick was saved, and gained a powerful, intelligent, knowledgeable ally who is now - as is her way - fully committed to the course of getting them out. He has to, if nothing else, because he has an in with the Everqueen, however slight, which is far more than she herself possesses. It's been discussed a few times in Blackout's quest that elves are masters at twisting around situations and memories and words to fit how they want the world to be in their head. So now she is committed, so now she
has to keep them alive and helpful and thankful to her. Because she needs her daughter to be seen by an Avatar of Isha, and by God - by
Isha - her daughter is going to get the chance to be free of Khaine.
That's what the Fate Point did. It was, basically, in a single word, in the most motherly, kindly, compassionately, delicate way of Isha transmitting to concept of 'I know you've got it in you. Let me see you grit those teeth'.
And in return, to Her joy, Hultressa responded with:
"You know what? Yeah. Fuck it. Let's do it. I'm going to help the shit out of this motherfucker, and he is going to help me take my daughter before living Avatar of the Goddess Isha Herself."
