The Broken Exarch

The following article is a /tg/ related story or fanfic. Should you continue, expect to find tl;dr and an occasional amount of awesome.

Story by an anonymous writefag about an Eldar Exarch.

Part I

I think I have walked too long on this path. Far, far too long.

My hands, stained with licks of paint - my ears filled with sounds of song and beauty. My hands weave in and out of their work - my obsession, my greatest... I cannot call it "joy". There is no joy to be had, not for us, not for me. We have had our fill - we have drunk deeply of the nectar of heaven, and paid dearly for the price, an eternal shame and torture the likes of which none others could comprehend.

There is the act - there is the correct path, myself nothing more than water flowing through the channels of time. I see what will happen, not with the mystic foresight of the seers, but with the perfect knowledge of the flow of the world. Each stroke, each movement a work of beauty and meaning in itself. My art is not a static one. The creation, a perfect moment etched into time.

I know that some artists of the lesser species find great satisfaction in layering meaning to their works - another story beyond the mere words or drawings they write. but they cannot compare to the artistry I employ. Every time my instrument touches my canvas, my thoughts are etched onto the world. I do not give meaning to some fictional, far-off tale - my thoughts and words are placed into the real world, this place of crystal and blood and bone.

My spear and sword sing as they work, cleanly laying open the follies of those who would get in the way of...us? Sometimes I wonder if the glory of my people is what truly drives me. Is it for my people that I work, for my audience? Or have I walked too far? Have I taken that fatal step off the end of this path in life?

I cannot say. My inner voice goes silent when I question myself - a symptom of my actions or of my people, I could not tell. I could no more ask my canvas for help than myself. Both pieces of the same whole, a work of art beyond my own contribution.

Part II

The moment before I took the next step on that path, I knew something was wrong. The rhythm, the beat of life in the mon-keigh strung up before me was... absent. Gone.

I looked upon a regiment of corpses, nightmarish grins carved on their faces, eyes devoid of even the limited feeling that they could ever possess.

My body anticipating the next beat in the dance, the next verse of the song, swung my sword in an arc to the side, and hit....nothing? No, there was the slightest bit of resistance at the nadir of my blade's arc, the slight sound of flesh being cleanly cut.

I looked, and I saw...a mirror. She was not a physical reflection, but inside her I saw one who had traveled on the same paths as me. She moved with the casual and refined grace I did, her body moving along the flow of perfection instant by instant.

And yet her clothes, her hair, her features, were all so...dark. She traveled the same paths as I, but there was something different pushing her forward, and something different holding her back.

"Oh, my joy at finally finding you knows no bounds. I've found the one person who's traveled the same lengths I have, another person who knows the depths of this...art, that we create. Someone else who can appreciate the beauty of this path we travel along."

As she speaks she runs her finger along her cheek, running it along the finest of cuts that my blade made as it sang through her skin.

"This, I think, is a perfect first meeting. I shall see you once more, my muse. Your work has inspired me as I followed behind you on this path - and now, with this inspiration, I shall give you a bit of the joy you gave to me. Farewell - as I know you shall."

As she turned and walked away, I did the same, only now I was following her.