# Reaching An Understanding



## andygorn (Apr 1, 2011)

_Hi All,
This was going to be an entry for the "Family Ties" HOES last month, but I missed out on it due to...stuff...happening.

Anyway, I thought I would still share it with you beautiful people here at Heresy.

Perhaps it works better as a shorter story, or you feel it needs more details and explanations adding?

As ever, the stories, characters, events & locations come to me from my Muse, as opposed to my imagination or me deliberately trying to think about scenario's or what to write.
Similarly, I am always really grateful for any and all feedback you might have to offer. I've found that I'm not too good at self-criticism; objective views help me so much more. 

Many thanks on advance for reading, AndyG.
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As the last guard falls, head severed in a fountain of gore, the defeated Archon wishes he could stretch out his tongue and taste such rain. Yet his tightly-held fetters make it impossible.

_“So, you brought me to task after all...I had not expected you to take so _long_ about it...”_
He exclaims, defeated yet defiant and untouched amongst the piles of carcasses that once made up his beloved retinue.

Her replying scream -hoarse and broken with exertion- resounds around the shattered spire, though there are only four left to now hear it:
_"The Wych Cult claims supremacy within the Kabal from this day forth! No longer shall my sisters and daughters bow and scrape to your short-sighted orders and petty demands!”_

_“Then, I had better submit to your untender mercies, hadn’t I..?”_
His tone is still mocking, despite the razorwire chains and the 3-1 disadvantage he faces.

As she approaches, her eyes flicker and half-close, imagining all manner of agonies for this man, her ultimate prey.

Centuries ago, he determined never to underestimate people and also that victors worthy of the name do not make mistakes.
Therefore her nonchalant, relaxed stance is naught but an invitation...daring him to make a move for freedom...a mere lure to wrap him in her poisoned vambraces.

He shivers slightly in uncommon delight as the restraints bite and cut into his flesh, causing myriad pearls of blood to dot his otherwise unblemished skin.

A smile -and then a laugh- graces his lips as he realises that it was worth sacrificing his retinue just for the feeling of being a bondsman once more.

Such insults were avenged an age past, yet he still feels the delicious scars upon his mind as freshly as though they were inflicted yesterday.

The swift journey back to the slave-galleries is conducted silently: travelling along slender gantries and through shrouded corridors -past the very portals he used to call home- even their footsteps give no sound.

Abruptly, their course takes a different direction, veering from the death-pits and towards the loftier heights of Courtly residences.
The prisoner does not even arch an eyebrow at the change in route. However, one of the guards is not so tactful: "_Milady, the pain-engines are the other way...”_

The half-step she takes instead of her full stride speaks of her displeasure (as does the almost-imperceptible loosening of the prisoner’s adamantium neck-chain).
Yet the preternaturally sensitive captive has felt these motions and rounds upon the Succubus who spoke. A twist of the metal around her neck and around his shoulder for leverage results in the woman’s slender spine snapping like dry brittle twigs.

The other bodyguard is too slow in bringing her gun to readiness: the shardcarbine clatters across the floor as her assailant throws himself upon her lithe form. Incisors and canines filed to needle-points savagely tear out her delicately soft throat.

Quickly sidestepping, the Archite is out of the arc of vitality as hot arterial crimson stains the walls and combatants. Yet the captive gleefully dives in, gluttonously drinking his fill of lifeblood from the shuddering, half-naked corpse.

The Mistress casts no backwards glances to the fools who thought themselves capable of guarding her.
Instead, she hauls her oddly silent prisoner across the polished floors to her opulent bedchambers.
He is still licking the blood from his chin as she yanks down hard upon his neck-chain. The motion forces him onto his knees amongst cushions of the finest spidersilk and furs from long-extinct beasts.

With a slight ripping sound, a crystal blade extends from between the fingers of her right glove, millimetres from his eye.
Mild paralysis poison drips from the tip, staining his skin and numbing the left side of his face.
The fingertips of her left hand capture his jaw. His face, once admirably arrogant, is now woefully cheapened by servitude.

_“Here, even your demise would mean nothing: just one amongst a thousand souls reaped from tonight’s feasts. What could you possibly offer to keep yourself from the same fate as the prey-beasts?”_

Extending his neck, his lips reply by subserviently kissing the edge of the blade. His soft flesh tears instantly and gore drips onto a pillow, once a priceless relic owned by a Lord he himself had crushed.
She laughs softly as the toxin frustrates and torments him, because it silences his nerves, ensuring he gains no welcoming pain from the act.

_“It would have been better if you had died with the rest of those idiots we put to the sword._
_“Instead, you put me to onerous task about what to do with you: forcing me to expend valuable time and energy upon your future."_
_“Those are resources which I could have expended in much more enjoyable pursuits in the bacchanals we so love here. So, what shall be your fate..?”_

Eyes full of...was that respect?...for her, he gazes back into her purple orbs and his fingers clamp down on her own, forcing her to grip harder and harder upon his jaw as her razor-sharp nails delve into skin, his blood staining more and more of the luxurious bedding.

Seeing her enthralled by the dribbling vitality, his hand moves lower to offer her his chain. It is a submissive act, yet his eyes still blaze with barely-checked vengeance.
This is just as it should be in one brought so low.

Gazing up at her captive, she does not have the words to express how she feels. Indeed, their entire language does not even possess the words to describe her feelings for him.

Instead, she presses a button on a recording device which begins a much-treasured (yet all too-brief) prey-quote from their last raid together:
_“Did I do well, daddy?”_ the frail mon-keigh voice enquires, before bursting into screams of horror as the child realised her parents were already deceased trophies by the time she returned from picking flowers in their garden.

The kneeling slave gives an almost imperceptible nod, his millennia of experience in herding the prey means he comprehends these alien emotions where she cannot fully.

An incline of her head dismisses the beribboned slave-girls, yet the last to leave sees his fingers clench around the noblewoman’s wrist, keeping the glinting chain links taut as they lie amongst the silken azure cushions.

As the doors to the sanctum close, the human woman's last vision is of the man stroking her mistress' cyan hair and nodding as she kisses the prisoner's inner wrist in reply.
This tenderest touch is not born from lust or salaciousness, but in daughterly deference to her much-admired sire.

Evidently, the pursuit was over; an accord and understanding reached.
At least for now...


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## Boc (Mar 19, 2010)

For some reason this was both disturbing and excellent. You have a keen understanding and way of portrayal of the perverse nature of Dark Eldar, and it's always a pleasure to read. Sorry you missed out on Family Ties, hopefully you can get in on Failure or the Annual Competition


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## andygorn (Apr 1, 2011)

I'd not realised about the annual competition before. I'll see if any visions occur to me. 

Wow! Many thanks, Boc, much appreciated.
These were the emotions I got when the story revealed itself to me, too.

Characters, motivations, events and their feelings come to me (as opposed to coming from me)...I think the closest analogy I can come up with is that it's a bit like being haunted or unconsciously acting as a medium:
I always try to keep myself open to listening to the visions I transcribe in my posts/tales and also what those people have to say. I also try to expand my vocabulary (when I can) in order to try to better capture the words and essence of what they're saying.

I'm glad these feelings came through and I'm certainly grateful to (and feel honoured by) wherever they come from so that I can share such tales with everyone here.


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