(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.

AN: [in reply to a question about the origins of the older three Chaos Gods] Honestly, I would struggle to say myself what the deal is with the 'true origins' of the older three. All i can say for sure is that they were non-entities before the War in Heaven, and then they had some weight to them afterwards.

For a comparison I've made before, consider the post-war warp as akin to any Fallout-Earth, where everything is just mutated and hostile and overall a horrific mess that no one has the ability to fix because the people who knew how are all long dead, and the resources/knowledge/technology basically went with them. That still leaves plenty of 'life' existant beforehand, but it also gives an idea of just how different things are for the 'before' and 'after' scenarios.

[On the Emperor's Characterization, written by the co-author]

Okay, so, there was some discussion over on SV about the Emperor's personality, and we all know it's going to come up again at some point. So I'm just going to talk about our version of the Emperor a bit.

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. Someone over on SV called 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.