Editing Nobledark Imperium Writing (section)

== The Visitor ==

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Note: In the same timeline as the Good End of "The End, But One of Many"

Lofn Ulthran put away the last of loose things before surveying her now-tidy apartment on Colchis. Normally she didn’t put much effort into keeping her apartment neat, but today she was expecting a visitor. Apparently Lofn had gotten the job done just in time, for no sooner had she finished the job than she heard the doorbell ring. Humming to herself, she made her way to the apartment door and opened it to reveal a tall, slender figure standing just beyond. His skin was pale and his face angular and gaunt, a white shock of hair upon his head. His eyes were an ethereal blue, and in his left hand was a large, silver polearm that one might say resembled a halberd or some odd combination of sword and spear or, for those familiar with more exotic weaponry, a Necron warscythe.
 
“I see I could not stop for death, so he kindly stopped for me,” Lofn said, sounding oh-so-pleased with herself.
 
“Ha ha, like I’ve never heard that one before,” the figure drolled.
 
“Nice to see you too, Ynnead,” Lofn said to her guest, “and I suppose from that remark death’s too good for a case of fine Valhallan dark?”
 
“Valhallan? Damn, death will bite his tongue for that.”
 
Lofn paused for a moment.
 
“So is it, you know, okay for you to stop by like this? Like, people aren’t going to stop passing on just because you decided to stop for a beer or something?” She said, looking around as though she expected death to be put on pause any second.
 
“Nah. According to mom the process happens regardless of whether I’m incarnated on the material plane because technically I’m doing it simultaneously in the Warp. It’s like how people don’t stop getting pregnant just because mom’s around. I’d ask mom how that could be, but she’d tell me to ask dad, and he’s tell me…”
 
“Fourth-degree interdimensional warp fuckery,” the two said at the same time.
 
Lofn snorted.
 
“Come on in,” she said, turning back to the apartment and heading inside, “I’ll get the drinks.”
 
“You got a place for this thing?” Ynnead said, gesturing slightly to his giant Necron-style halberd for emphasis.
 
“Yeah, put it in the umbrella rack,” Lofn called from the kitchen, “Nothing’s in there anyway, don’t know why I have it, it never rains here.”
 
Depositing his weapon with a loud clang, Ynnead followed Lofn into the apartment. It was a nice apartment, not very large, but rather homey. Ynnead could see not much had changed since his last visit here. Lofn’s paintings still covered most of the walls. He turned to regard the one nearest to him, an eerie watercolor piece depicting a single figure holding open a black, sketchy doorway. He had a pretty good idea what that was supposed to be of. Lofn’s apartment had a single couch, facing the windows overlooking the city. Sitting on the couch sleeping in the sun was Lofn’s chitinous pet. A single look from Ynnead was all that it took to send the creature scurrying.
 
Ynnead and Lofn had known each other since they were children. Ynnead, due to his nature as the child of the Emperor and the Empress, had always been a fixture in the Imperial Court, whereas Lofn had been brought to Old Earth at a young age due to her political importance and at that time the danger in her life. Due to being the only half-human, half-eldar (though exactly what Ynnead was was a subject of debate), and more importantly, the only children at most court functions, the two struck up a friendship. It felt good to have someone else around who could finally empathize with how they saw the world, neither in terms of the obsessive, long-term view of the eldar or the wilder, short-term views of most humans, especially as the two of them sometimes felt like conversation pieces as opposed to people. A couple hundred years later, and their friendship was still going strong.
 
“Is the old man around?” Ynnead called.
 
“He’s around,” Lofn called from the kitchen, “Obyron knew you were going to be stopping by and stepped out for a bit. I think he’s going to go visit the Nemesor’s memorial.”
 
“Ouch,” Ynnead winced.
 
“Yeah, he really hasn’t been dealing with it well,” Lofn said, bringing over the case of Valhallan beer and handing one to Ynnead, “I’ve been meaning to try and talk with him about it but I worry that, you know, he’ll see me as part of the problem, given everything that happened. I know he really misses the Nemesor, but I also know Zahndrekh wouldn’t have wanted him to mope for eternity like this.”
 
Lofn flopped down on the couch, her arm across the back.
 
“Nothing’s really new with me,” she said, “No real crisis has popped up in the last few months. As I told you before, being a diplomat is mostly dependent on people being stupid and if people aren’t stupid then there’s little for me to do. Mostly I’ve just been doing humdrum stuff, some minor stuff for the Administratum, seeing a few friends, and painting.”
 
“So how’s the reincarnation gig?” Lofn said, popping open a bottle, “More eldar-human hybrids being born?”
 
“More are being born every year, but not many and not very often. You’re still the eldest by far.”
 
“Gah,” Lofn said, throwing up her hand, “Don’t say that. It makes me feel like an old lady.”
 
“You’re the eldest. The eeeeldest.”
 
“We’re the eldest. You’re the same age as me, dumbass.”
 
“I was born four years, seven months, and thirteen days after you, Sol standard time,” Ynnead said smugly, seemingly channeling his father for a moment.
 
“Come off it. Four years is chump change in the grand scheme of things.”
 
“Well, you know what mom says. 65 million is the new 40 million.”
 
“I guess. The eldest, huh? Isn’t that what that one guy used to call himself? The bird man?”
 
“Tzeentch? Yeah, I guess you’re right, he did.”
 
“Is he even still around?”
 
“I don’t know,” Ynnead said, “I didn’t pay much attention to what happened to him. I had bigger concerns at the time. It was a War in Heaven thing. You know I like talking about the War in Heaven just as much as you do. I mean, how would you like it if I asked you about the whole thing with Hive Fleet Enkidu?”
 
“Okay, point taken,” Lofn relented.
 
The two of them both took a deep swig.
 
“So is the scythe holding up okay? You seemed kind of worried about it last time.”
 
“Oh, I think it’s going fine now. It’s kind of like working with a suit of exarch armor and not getting overwhelmed, except instead of a bunch of little minds it’s you know.”
 
Ynnead dry gulped and his voice suddenly sounded very sober.
 
“One big one.”
 
“Are you sure it’s safe for you to be lugging that then around then?” Lofn said, suddenly worried about the contents of her umbrella holder.
 
“It’s actually safer with me than if I were to not have it. The C’tan exist as physical constants, and cannot be destroyed without seriously affecting the underlying nature of causality. As long as a single weakened piece of them exists in the universe, they can theoretically be contained without the entity running free. The consciousness remains trapped in the scythe and can never manifest in a free state. The alternative would be to bury it in a hole somewhere and hope it never gets out. And that’s never worked.”
 
“That sounds like something the Void Dragon would say. You’re still talking to the Void Dragon despite your parents telling you not to, aren’t you?”
 
“I am not and will vigorously deny it if you say anything.”
 
“You’re totally still talking to the Void Dragon,” Lofn said with a mischievous smile.
 
“Yes! I mean, he knows things. Things about how the universe works, what it means to be a god. Things my parents won’t tell me and I wish they’d tell me.”
 
“I don’t see what the big deal is? Cegorach said he’s safe, didn’t he?”
 
“Cegorach says the Iron Storm is safe,” Ynnead responded. “It’s not the kind of vote that inspires confidence. Anyway I figure, Nightbringer is a sociopath, right? So if you hear any voices telling you to do what you think he would do in that situation just do the exact opposite. Plus the way it works is most of what it kills gets funneled through me to be spit back out, so it’s not like its feeding and growing stronger.”
 
“And so you’re not worried about it being fed up with being stuck as a deathstick, deciding to take over your mind and using you like a puppet?”
 
“Hey, it got to take bites out of two different gods. It should be happy,” Ynnead said defensively, crossing his arms.
 
Lofn smiled.
 
Ynnead took a drink, “Are you worried at all that us hanging out a lot is going to get people…talking?”
 
“Only in that gods-awful unsanctioned material, which they still can’t find out who’s producing them. Grruh, so annoying. Can’t you, you know, appear in front of them and put the fear of death into them?”
 
“That would be a horrible abuse of my powers.”
 
“You summoned ghosts to scare me at my twenty-fifth birthday party.”
 
“That was Eldrad under a bedsheet, you do know that, right?”
 
“So you do admit ghosts were involved,” Lofn said with tones of false accusation.
 
“As I was saying,” Ynnead said, getting back to the subject at hand, “There is nothing I would love to do more, but doing so would be a grievous use of my phenomenal cosmic powers. And also because I’m fairly sure my mom would ground me for about three thousand years if she found out.”
 
“Ground you? You’re several centuries old. Sounds to me like you are too afraid of your mother.”
 
“I am not too afraid of my mother. I am exactly as afraid of my mother as I need to be. I once saw her chew out the entire ruling house of Kaelor. Kaelor. What do you think your mom would do to you if you pulled something like that?”
 
“She’d send me back to Cadian boot camp and suddenly I see where you are going with this.”
 
“My point. Has been made.”
 
“I would probably die if I had to go back to Cadian boot camp,” Lofn said, repressing the shivers.
 
“If you ever die, I will play you at any game of your choosing for the chance to come back to life. Except Battleaxe. You cheat.”
 
“What can I say?” Lofn shrugged in pride, “I’m an Ulthran.”
 
“Technically so am I,” Ynnead pointed out, “Mom was what, some distant cousin or something of Eldrad’s way back before the Fall.”
 
“Wait, if Isha was Eldrad’s distant cousin, does that mean we’re related?”
 
Both Lofn and Ynnead got a look on their face as if both had stepped on a particularly foul smelling piece of grox dung.
 
“I really don’t like where this train of thought is going,” Ynnead said.
 
“Ditto.”
 
“Speaking of Eldrad how is the old bastard?," Lofn said, changing the subject, "I saw him the other day and he got all weepy, he wouldn’t explain to me why.”
 
“He! Will! Not! Leave!” Ynnead said, suddenly animated, gesticulating with his hands. “I have tried to be generous with him, given the circumstances, but he refuses to leave that wraithbone prosthetic of his. I try to point out that reincarnation is a thing and he can be young again if he wants, but he won’t do it. I try to point out that the thing he’s in is an old relic outdated by modern standards and the least he could do is upgrade to something less shitty, but he won’t because he’s afraid I’m going to snatch his soul up when he tries to transfer. At which point he usually makes some remark about knowing me since I was in diapers. At this point he’s so stubborn he might as well become a universal fixture.”
 
Lofn broke out laughing.
 
“What!” Ynnead said, “what’s so funny?”
 
“Can you imagine,” Lofn said between laughs, “Grandpa Eldrad. The universal constant? I can just see him sitting around, waiting for a pair of young races to go to war on whatever planet he’s on, and then he’d rise from the ground like a fucking Necron and go ‘I have awoken from my eons long slumber, to tell you kids to get off my lawn.’”
 
Despite his frustration, Ynnead couldn't help but snicker at that. Before long the two of them were laughing.
 
“Hundreds of years and he still won’t leave that wraithbone shell," Lofn sighed. "Gods, are we going to drive our kids crazy with our antics when we reach that age?”
 
“Yes!” Ynnead said rather too quickly, “I mean yes, I can see that. Driving our children crazy. The ones we have. With other people.”
 
Lofn looked at Ynnead for a second, then flopped back on the couch.
 
“Yeah, I can see that,” she said.

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