You beckon to Ekhi to help you back to your room. It's not that you need the support so much that you want to talk to her outside of Littleflame's hearing. When the hatch closes behind the two of you, you start asking questions. "How did Littleflame end up on board?"

Ekhi runs a hand through her hair. "How much do you know about what's gone wrong down on Vrenna?"

You shrug as you glide along. "Not terribly much. I know the Dark Voyage got shot down, so the local populace must be in revolt, corrupted by the Great Enemy, or infiltrated by Genestealers."

Ekhi sighs. "Try all of the above, plus the Tau enclave too. The Deathwatch was working on clearing out the cultists and trimming back the Tau's influence when the Genestealers started making some quiet moves."

"Ok, walk me through it, because I'm missing the pict here."

"The locals came from a fringe sect of the Cult Imperialis. The kind that would make a conservative Ecclesiarch look like a stark raving liberal. Why and how the Tau sponsored their colonization attempt I'll never know. But evidently one or more Chaos Cults had hidden themselves in the mix, and started spreading their tendrils as the colony matured.

"By the time Vrenna was well established as a frontier colony, with all of the xeno-influence and resulting tolerance and outright xenophilia that comes along with it, the cults were well-established too. The colony was steadily heading for a Chaos-influenced revolt, which would have sent the Tau running for the hills. They dislike the Great Enemy even more than we Humans, something in their cultural baggage.

"When the Deathwatch started cleaning up the cultists, the Tau pulled back to their enclave and forted up due to the running gunfights in the streets. That's when the Genestealers started poking around. They had started infesting Vrenna, and the local Tau, sometime in the past half-century. But something about the Great Enemy's corruption and the Genestealer's biological mind-control implants mean they don't work on the same subject, so the 'Stealers couldn't get a proper foothold until the Deathwatch started working over the cults. Pyrus and Hellheim's teams got called in when that infestation started showing up as well."

"So it's a three-sided war down there?"

"Five-sided. Loyalists, Cultists, 'Stealers, the Tau and their cronies, plus the Deathwatch. With the Ignis smack in the middle of it all."

"So how did Littleflame end up on the Ignis?"

"It came to our aid, and wasn't infested by the Genestealers. As far as the Deathwatch can tell, just about every other Tau on Vrenna is by this point, Littleflame being an exception due to having just been transferred in. So Bedard asked it aboard and stuck him to taking care of you while he went to talk to his bosses."

"Only port in a storm then?"

"Yeah, that's about the sum total of it."

"Then just for your ears, we may have a sixth cook stirring the pot. I had an eldar poking about in my head while Littleflame was operating. No damage or influence that I can detect, but I'm going to need to speak to Pyrus about it. Soon."

"Aww, hell. The last thing we need is those sneaky knife-eared bastards working their own angle here. You head to bed and rest up a bit, I'll send Pyrus your way when he becomes available."

"Thanks Ekhi. I appreciate it." You enter your quarters and sag as the hatch closes behind you. A xeno was inside your head. You feel your heart start to beat faster as that thought chases itself in circles. An eldar was inside your head, has plans for you, and is going to show up in person to make sure they go forward.

You sag to the floor and clasp your arms about your knees. This is all way above your paygrade. Way above your level of understanding. Way beyond your ability to grasp, hold, know. An eldar, older than you, your mother, her mother, and her mother's mother stretching back for thirteen generations, has you as a pawn on her regicide board. In a hooded, shadowed game moving into the end-phase after lifetimes of maneuvering, influencing, backstabbing. How much of your life did she set up? Of your mother's? Of aunt Yasha's? Of your father's? Your breathing accelerates, heading for hyperventilation as the panic and dread sets in.

+Breathe in slowly, and out moreso. I will explain what I can.+

You scrabble sideways as the familiar feather-light touch of music enters your thoughts. +What the hell what the hell what the hell???+

+Breathe slowly. Calm yourself. I mean you no harm.+

You take in a breath and hold it, biting your tongue to prevent yourself from screaming in panic. +Ariavari?+

+Indeed, Truthseeker. And no, I haven't orchestrated your life or that of your family. Either of them.+

+Pyrus know you are coming.+

+Flamebearer? Good, I have information for him as well. Repayment for a debt and battle-aid from before you were born.+

+Are you here? Can/will you show yourself?+

+Yes.+

You glance about, and watch a shadow in the far corner twist, unfurling to reveal a feminine form, shrouded in a grey-trimmed black robe, crowned by crystalline hair and knife-sharp ears. Ariavari bows gracefully, and makes a small gesture, asking if she can sit beside you.

You nod. "Not like I could stop you."

Ariavari glides over and drops slowly to a cross-legged seat. "Ahh, thank you. My joints aren't what they used to be. My years are catching up to me. I imagine you have questions, but let me give you a brief summary first. Perchance it will answer some and birth others."

You cough out a wet laugh. "The worthwhile ones always do."

"Indeed. I'm sure you noticed my hair, and my stiff limbs. I'm getting old, and for us Eldar, that means we start to... crystallize. Given long enough, and spared violent death, we become lifeless statues. This is something that I wish dearly to avoid, so Anai and I started experimenting. You know your aunt Yasha's wounds have a tendency to scar over with metal?"

You nod slowly, wondering where Ariavari is going with this.

"That was an accidental discovery, a side effect of a condition and a surge of biomancy coming together just right. I call it 'ferrosanguine', and it's something I'm looking to duplicate in myself on a much grander scale. You were an intermediate step, to see if it could even be done. The risk was great indeed, but if you survived, success or fail, them Miotal Scathanna would be of great use to you. You succeeded beyond my wildest hopes, and taught me infinitely more about what I must do in the process. Anai and I forged Miotal Scathanna out of sentient necrodermis, a kind of 'living metal'. This gives it several incredible properties, as you have discovered for yourself, as well as the complications. I'm no longer planning to use the same in my own reforging."

"We noticed," Miotal Scathanna's voice rasps out of your mouth. "We are now as One, though we suffered damage in the Union."

Ariavari nods. "We never intended that to happen, and for that we are sorry. It should heal over time. I only have a single attempt when it comes to myself, so I can't take the chance of anything going wrong. Which is why Anai is off collecting some non-sentient necrodermis. I didn't ask, but I have the feeling that she is using herself to grow more, carving away and regrowing portions of her own flesh."

"So you are looking to become more like her?"

Ariavari nods. "Eldar live for many centuries, millennia if we are fortunate. Anai's kind... The oldest is over sixty millennia old, perhaps older, and shows no signs of dying anytime soon. Which is fortunate in its own way, as they haven't had a 'birth' in the last forty-three millennia or so, and more than a few have 'died' over the same period, or been rendered to mindless automatons."

"And you are looking to become one of them?"

"No. That process is long abandoned, though not forgotten by Anai's race. It involves 'uploading' one's entire mind and soul onto a set of engrams and installing it in the proper 'body'. But the engrams are immensely intricate and complex, tens of thousands of microscopic engravings on a fractal-formed surface that must be utterly perfect on the atomic level, and then stay that way down the eons. They only got a tiny handful of them right, though the defects often didn't appear until millennia later. And the transferred mind itself tends to... fray in the process of uploading, resulting in thousands of little insanities, if the mind survives the experience."

"So what are you looking to do? Become?"

"As my flesh begins to fail, I'm hoping to replace it with living metal, using my own mind and body as a vessel for my soul. With enough Will and Anai's expertise, I think the odds are good, particularly if I bring in some Eldar techniques for psychic manipulation of the Self."

The hatch hisses quietly shut. "That sounds.. risky, Ariavari."

"And hello to you to Flamebearer. You will pardon me if I don't stand, I hope? My bones aren't what they used to be."

Pyrus nods. "I was hoping that you were the eldar Ekhi mentioned. I need to determine just how much damage Miotal Scathanna has done to poor Ethna Nic Vir Dannan here, and as you had a hand in it's creation, perhaps you can help me?"

"I can."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, you intend to pry my mind open?"

Pyrus nods. "We need to know if the staff has compromised your mind or just your flesh. I'd have said if it had, but Ariavari just confirmed it has done something to you.

"And if it has? My mind is still my own, and it is staying that way for as long as my will is my own."

Pyrus shakes his head. "That's the problem. Is your mind and will really your own?"

Your mouth drops open, and your head drops to your knees. "Oh, Emperor..."

You hear the thunderous crash as Pyrus drops to a knee beside you. "Open your mind, relax your will, and this will hurt less." His gauntleted hand grasps the back of your head, and hoarfrost starts to crystallize in your hair. "Open you mind to me, submit your will to mine, and reveal yourself onto my thoughts."

You can feel Ariavari's musical thoughts dancing around the edges. Pyrus is a battering ram, crashing against the walls of your will while Ariavari tries to undermine them, sneaking around the flanks. Their combined assault leaves you gasping, wheezing, helpless. Your Third Eye snaps open, and the room vanishes from your sight with your scream ringing in your ears.

Everything snaps back into razor-edged focus. You stand at the epicenter of a endless grey plane, its edges extending beyond all sight. To your left stands Pyrus, blue-hearted flames clothing his scarred flesh from head to toe. To your right stands the Song-shrouded figure of Ariavari. Pyrus recoils in horror at the sight of you. And rightly so: this is your mind, and here your will is supreme. Ariavari simply stands still and observant.

+You wanted to see my mind and will, did you not? Here we stand, Truth laid bare for all with the eyes to see in all of its glory.+

Ariavari nods, her gaze unrepentant in ins scanning of your skyclad flesh.

Pyrus gags on something, before forcing the thoughts from his flame-choked throat. +Your arm, your left arm, what happened to it?+

You glance down, and see the familiar tracery of chromed-metal necrodermis wire from Miotal Scathanna entwined into its being. +Scars, from the Merging.+ With a thought, you summon the silver-steel length of Miotal Scathanna into your left hand. +But you knew this, before you even forced your way into this place.+

Pyrus makes a sign of aversion, a childish gesture of warding against the darkness of the Void. Fire flashes at his fingertips, washing across the plane. Ariavari dances nimbly over and through it. Pyrus retches up more flame before speaking again. +It goes so deep, so deep, about the bones of your soul. How? How did you live through such Violation? Such Desecration?+

Ariavari speaks, her tones echoing off the infinite plane. +The Mon'keigh mind is as durable as the Will of the one that dwells within it. The Truthseeker Chose, and her Will would not be denied.+

+Indeed, I did Choose, and so We became as One.+

Pyrus heaves up more flame, wiping at his mouth. +It must come out. Out!+ He reaches forward to grasp at the staff, to burn it from your flesh and mind.

You stop him with a single gesture. +My Mind, My Will, My Domain. I will hear why you would set blindly down this course before you plunge into it.+

Pyrus strains against the ice-clad bindings preventing him from approaching any closer. +It is incomplete, and it is tearing you apart. Another Warp transit, perhaps three, and something else will reside here.+

+The Merging you mean.+

+ Yes. +

Ariavari bows. +Or she could complete it, and in the doing harden her mind and will against any intrusion. If she survives the doing. Even now, in this incomplete state, we are here on her sufferance alone Flamebearer.+