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She had spent long enough in the golden barrens.

Whisper was not yet ready to leave the nitrogen sea. There was still one more place for her to go, and that was south- Far south. So she departed. She meant to make haste, having already gathered much data from this region and spent much time away from her family.

The route she now chose took her through a region that was new to her, though in time she recognised it by what she had seen from space- In this case, less by colour, and more by motion. Despite herself, Whisper felt her journey slow as fascination with the landscape infected her.

Man and god alike had forgotten the Changing Plains. The Gilt, the Barrens, the Firewind- All these places had been generously populated, and yet the fields of chaos tossed and turned as if still aching from the pain of the Devil falling down from heaven.

Yet why was this so? Whisper searched her heart for a memory of Jvan's teachings, and found nothing. And this bewildered her, for the shattersteppe, burned and broken and humming with destructive magic, was full of life. Whisper could hear it sing.

Constant tectonic motion and volcanism had rendered the rock barren of soil, yet porous and immensely fertile. Rain turned the plain into a maze of shallow pools overnight that dried just as quickly, their water lost to aquifers, only to be forced back up into hot springs- Shallow lakes and streams layered with microbial mats as colourful as Whisper's sisterhood in the sky. At night the landscap was lit up by orange magma hissing from cracks that had opened hours before, by the blue of liquid sulphur rivulets burning as they trickled between the dark stone, and even the off-white of lightning, lightning in bolts, sheets and balls that leapt between clouds of ash and water and the peaks of stone spires charged by the restless friction below.

No grasses blanketed the rock as they did in the savannahs, nor did trees form a canopy. Yet still there were plants. Strange things they were. Some grew in hours, spiky tufts of bright green nothing that speckled the crevices, so as not to be lost to the chaos before they flowered. Others bore multiple stems and roots that clambered over the stone, all wildly bent and twisted from a lifetime of turmoil. Still others had no roots at all, lying dormant until rain fell on their leaves. Things grew that were not plants- Lichens that etched the rock itself, crystals grew until they were crushed. Tubeworms from Jvan's ocean had somehow risen from the depths and established themselves as they would in the abyss, and land crabs scuttled thereon.

Even the bare stone plain that dominated the landscape was exceptional. Much of it was black, but the madness had accelerated geological time and added layers of dark primary colours that were then twisted into mad patterns by the cracking earth. Landmarks that would be rare anywhere else were everywhere here. Stacked rocks, pinnacles, vast canyons, stone mazes and waterfalls abounded.

Aihtiraq had shown her a way to see all of these factors colliding and colluding, and for the first time Whisper began to appreciate her new sense as something more than a lulling distraction.

As days passed and her sense of environmental nuance was heightened, a fresh realisation eventually struck- There were no elementals here.

Well, a few. She had heard them far away, thunderous things. Whisper supposed they were the remains of the storm djinni, or a new crop of such. But where were the spirits that usually guarded every stream, laughed in every breeze? Eaten by their ravenous brothers and sisters?

Or had they simply never spawned, in a land where nature was in the hands of true chaos, as it had always been, since the dawn of the world when the Citadel was uncut marble locked in an untouched planet?

Is this what the Diaphanes are tasked with creating?

A world of wild Chaos. Where djinni control was fought for in battles that stood to be lost, not simply exchanged. Where things grew, not by the favour of their environment, but in spite of it.

Vestec did this, thought Whisper. The Sword With No Hilt. She scorns him, and yet this is what I'm modelled on. This is who we are.

The last thought came from nowhere, and yet Whisper knew it to be true. The change-eaters were a Jvanic interpretation of a Vestecian phenomenon. Storm Djinni, reinterpreted, revised, softened and sharpened.

Maybe we'll die just like they did.

That wasn't true. No. Jvan was too good at what she did.

Of course she was.

A change-eater traversed the Changing Plains, and found herself at peace.

A stranger tide we carry on
Holding flames and hungry smoke
Shouldering the Devil's yoke
On a world that wishes we were gone


Breathing of the cancer's curse
We sing for warmth for love for hope
We gnaw out our own hanging rope
To satiate a killing thirst


Yet I wonder, yet I see
The victory of All-Beauty
A law born of the dark decree
And wonder why that comforts me.


* * * * *
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About this time Whisper began to hear the echoes of alchemical theory on the telepathic song-lines. It was far from the first time she had listened to such arts, though they frustrated her. None of the reagents or conditions specified existed in recognisable form in the Ring of Lex.

She had tried to replicate what she could, anyway, only to find that she had neither the time nor the support from the sorority. Change-eaters in Lex could not survive by lazing, yet nor did they struggle. As such their arts were elaborate and their technologies simple. They gardened. They herded. They whaled. They did not need to make goods or potions.

Nonetheless, the lyrical exchange was stronger here, wittier, and harsher. Whisper homed in on the cry of the local Sculptors, thinking that they were lone wanderers, much like herself. And she was wrong.

There was an indigenous sapient native to the Changing Plains after all, Whisper found. They were... Rough.

Vestec's insidie lived clambered on the rocks like gargoyles or hungry baboons. They ate small animals they kicked to death with their talons, large animals they hunted in packs, and a cocktail of drugs derived from volcanic flora. At night they slept in rough hammocks spun between whatever two jutting rocks they could find, even if they seemed liable to collapse any second. Maybe especially if.

But they slept in the daytime too. And sometimes they just piled on top of each other for... Well, brawls and group sex seemed to be pretty much the same thing for them, and apparently the intimate physical connection of curling up and sleeping in an awkward pile of scarred muscle and fifty-seven gangly limbs fell into that spectrum too.

All of the 'tribes' Whisper found were a mix of mature adults and young children. Adolescents, it seemed, had to be nailed down to make them stay put, and none of the Voren- as they called themselves- had the motivation nor the nails required to do that. None of them even really knew how they kept their numbers up. Sometimes they just wandered across one of their own on the fields of chaos, bashed them across the head, and if they weren't too hungry they were allowed to stick around.

The Jvanic monks of the shattersteppe called themselves Fleshshapers, and flesh they shaped. Lethal physical trauma was abundant among Voren, and these oddballs were never far when it struck, ready with faery and thread to stitch and slice, cauterise with fire and purge with herbs and twist bones back into shape with rope. They transfused and transplanted, even, from any living thing they could find, taking advantage of the Voren's adaptive immune system- The genes of which read, as far as Whisper could tell, 'You see that leg? That's my leg now. Fuck you.'

Their own modified blood facilitated the process, and they carried wagons laden with bits and pieces preserved in barrels. Often storing these pieces became a hassle, and the Fleshshapers would combine them into something weirder. They were good at that. No two Voren looked the same after a while, and the Fleshshapers made good use of... Pets. Whisper learned that if you lashed three arms together wrist to shoulder, they make a good grabbing tool.

So... Adults, children and Sculptors. And slaves, near the edge of the plains, but nobody counted those and they didn't last long. And, well, maybe a few small demons. Demons that were also slaves, that they managed to fish out of blood wells in exchange for whatever they could find, which was usually each other after they got bored of exploring the caves for precious stones.

When Whisper first encountered the Voren, their immediate response to her presence was to take up their javelins and try to hunt her, to no success whatsoever. When the change-eater tried to pull her trick of standing in a humanoid shape, they seemed to take it as a challenge, and eventually she learned to play along.

Play was the correct term. Though Whisper could toss an insidie across twenty metres of bare rock with a flick of a tail and lacerate the skin from their chest with nothing more than a twitch, the people of the shattersteppe only laughed and shrieked and fought harder, scampering across the plain with catlike speed. Despite everything, they were actually enjoying themselves. They hadn't had a fight this good in years- No, ever!

Eventually the extended family grew tired, in that they had either been beaten unconscious, had passed out in exhaustion, or were actually dead. It was hard to tell. Whisper piled them up into a tidy bundle and waited.

Only the tribe's Fleshshaper remained, inhaling sulphurous lichen fumes out of a bowl and watching with lazy interest as she busied herself distilling a mix of spirits and oil of vitriol. She was the strangest Sculptor that Whisper had yet seen- Many limbs growing in two rings around a spoke with a fluted head, locking together to form something like a basket, or a spring, or a wheel. Hard to tell.

When prompted, she explained that the brew was producing ether, a liquor made of which could induce sleep. It made her family easier to work on, and there was plenty of work to be done. Whisper apologised. The Fleshshaper congratulated her on beating the living shit out of her relatives. It gave her an opportunity to have fun.

Morning came and the Voren were eager to try again. This time Whisper hovered above them and knocked away anything they threw. Between the work of the Fleshshaper, whose name was Fucking Big Mallet (after her backup anaesthetic), and the grogginess that gripped them as their natural blood rush from the previous night wore off, they soon calmed down and decided Whisper was a friend.

With some explanations from Fucking Big Mallet, who for a time joined her on her journey, Whisper soon learned that the Voren actually had a thriving artistic tradition. Their language had a complex system of synonyms and affixes allowing any and all adjectives to turn vulgar. Their stories lauded kismesitude- Romantic passion characterised by jealousy, frustration, rivalry, and mutual loathing. They flyted as easily as they breathed, settling disputes with verses that could put most Djinni to shame.

Whisper, having not forgotten her quest, took avid notes.

Listen now, you spineless bitch,
Step into the fray
You never got the chance to run-
Your love arrives today.
She leaves you groaning in a ditch
And wishing she would stay.


She tears you down and wraps your eyes
Makes you into her whore.
She says she hates you, lover dear,
And leaves you wanting more
For nothing ever satisfies
Until you're on the floor.


Your love will stretch you on a rack
She'll fuck you up and fuck you blind
But still you love with all your heart
The girl you sold your soul to find.
For, after all, she loves you back-
With bruises sweet and hands entwined.
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My name is Zotash'e. I was born in Vetros, and will one day become a shaman fully fledged.

-------->
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Whisper.


It was by the guidance of Zotash'e that Whisper eventually reached Flux's Well.

It had other names, of course. None of the Rukban tribes knew the name or nature of that ancient dancer, not really. There were stories. Some had not even a grain of truth in them, though they were far more believable than what had actually happened. That an older nation had once settled in these parts, and the garden hills were their burial mounds, for example. Speculation that became fact as it replaced the myth of reality.

All these stories and all these names had been passed down to Whisper by Zotash'e. They'd spoken of many things. Whisper doubted Zotash'e would remember much of it. The story of a whisper's world had been told and heard, and it was the spirit of that night, not its words, that would remain. The tune, not the verse.

A shame, maybe. Zotash'e had a flute, and they'd chosen the words together. At Whisper's request, it was one of the shaman's prayers, worked into a song.

Strange nights these were.

We wander like the birds
Birds of the hills
Wherever there's a wind.
See you?
You should follow him.
Child, you should follow him.


We're chasing for the clouds
Clouds and the rain
We're following the wind.
See now
You'll be safe with him.
Sister, you'll be safe with him.


He's lost on a wish
He's higher than skies
Listen little sister dear
Open up your eyes
See now
See him near


If we lose our way
This is what we'll pray.
Pray it to the spirits
Of wind and rain and clay.
See you?
See the way?


* * * * *
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But all the legends in the world could not obscure the truth. Whisper knew the history of this place. To her, it would always be the Well of Flux.

She saw it as it was meant to be seen- From afar, at the break of day, a verdant silhouette, growing closer, until it was before her, around her, above her, a canopy, a sound of birds. Acacias shed their fuzzy yellow florets at her side, and Whisper flowed in the paths between the mounds like a lost river on its way to the spring at its heart.

There by its terraced center did she rest, wondering at the mind of its Sculptor.

These groves were not static. In time the hooves of a thousand horses led to drink had worn down the sides of the pool, prompting repair by the tribes that made use of it. Others had dug into the sides of the mounds seeking wealth and finding nothing. Shrines to the younger djinni of the region had appeared atop the larger hills, and one night the stone people had appeared to build a barrow of their own at the edge of the maze, upon which they had established a softly coloured orchard where restless skeletons might sleep in a tomb of glass. Pretty curls of those same twigs and veins later made their way into the jewellery of the Rukbans, and the spines of its faeries into their tools.

All this, thought Whisper. All this, out of parasitism and pain.

Few elementals had ever taken the Jvanic route. It was not often in their nature. And fewer still survived. The deepest throes of the ascension left them vulnerable. What then, was Flux? Lucky? Freakish? The oldest? The most powerful? /No,/ Whisper knew.

Flux was synthesis. Nothing more and nothing less. A collision of natures had been resolved in him. That was all.

This place stood monument to the union of nature at its grandest scale and art at its deepest esotery. In Flux, the living legacies of Jvan and Zephyrion stood side by side with no contradiction. Whisper looked at his story and recognised it as the beginning of her own. Pain. Parasitism. And in the end...

Flux never had to control a war, came the thought.

It was quiet here. When night fell, Whisper left that place, taking her first faeries from the lens tree.

What union exists
In proud and weird betwixt?
Do ashes live
When all is burned to dust and mist?


Do gardens to us show
The stranger end to all we know?
Can ashes give
A place where paradise will grow?


Will anything survive
The ones that ash of life deprive?
Should ash forgive
When gardens burn instead of thrive?


* * * * *
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And so it came. Two to the one to the one to the three, I like good pu$$y and I like good tree And so it went.
And so it came. Two to the one to the one to the three, I like good pu$$y and I like good tree And so it went.
And so it came. Two to the one to the one to the three, I like good pu$$y and I like good tree And so it went.
And so it came. Two to the one to the one to the three, I like good pu$$y and I like good tree And so it went.
And so it came. Two to the one to the one to the three, I like good pu$$y and I like good tree And so it went.
And so it came. Two to the one to the one to the three, I like good pu$$y and I like good tree And so it went.
And so it came. Two to the one to the one to the three, I like good pu$$y and I like good tree And so it went.
And so it came. Two to the one to the one to the three, I like good pu$$y and I like good tree And so it went.
And so it came. Two to the one to the one to the three, I like good pu$$y and I like good tree And so it went.
And so it came. Two to the one to the one to the three, I like good pu$$y and I like good tree And so it went.
And so it came. Two to the one to the one to the three, I like good pu$$y and I like good tree And so it went.
And so it came. Two to the one to the one to the three, I like good pu$$y and I like good tree And so it went.
And so it came. Two to the one to the one to the three, I like good pu$$y and I like good tree And so it went.


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What union exists
In proud and weird betwixt?
Do ashes live
When all is burned to dust and mist?


He's lost on a wish
He's higher than skies
Listen little sister dear
Open up your eyes
See now
See him near


Your love will stretch you on a rack
She'll fuck you up and fuck you blind
But still you love with all your heart
The girl you sold your soul to find.
For, after all, she loves you back-
With bruises sweet and hands entwined.


A stranger tide we carry on
Holding flames and hungry smoke
Shouldering the Devil's yoke
On a world that wishes we were gone


What union exists
In proud and weird betwixt?
Do ashes live
When all is burned to dust and mist?


He's lost on a wish
He's higher than skies
Listen little sister dear
Open up your eyes
See now
See him near
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Whisper.


It was by the guidance of Zotash'e that Whisper eventually reached Flux's Well.

It had other names, of course. None of the Rukban tribes knew the name or nature of that ancient dancer, not really. There were stories. Some had not even a grain of truth in them, though they were far more believable than what had actually happened. That an older nation had once settled in these parts, and the garden hills were their burial mounds, for example. Speculation that became fact as it replaced the myth of reality.

All these stories and all these names had been passed down to Whisper by Zotash'e. They'd spoken of many things. Whisper doubted Zotash'e would remember much of it. The story of a whisper's world had been told and heard, and it was the spirit of that night, not its words, that would remain. The tune, not the verse.

A shame, maybe. Zotash'e had a flute, and they'd chosen the words together. At Whisper's request, it was one of the shaman's prayers, worked into a song.

Strange nights these were.

We wander like the birds
Birds of the hills
Wherever there's a wind.
See you?
You should follow him.
Child, you should follow him.


We're chasing for the clouds
Clouds and the rain
We're following the wind.
See now
You'll be safe with him.
Sister, you'll be safe with him.


He's lost on a wish
He's higher than skies
Listen little sister dear
Open up your eyes
See now
See him near


If we lose our way
This is what we'll pray.
Pray it to the spirits
Of wind and rain and clay.
See you?
See the way?


* * * * *


But all the legends in the world could not obscure the truth. Whisper knew the history of this place. To her, it would always be the Well of Flux.

She saw it as it was meant to be seen- From afar, at the break of day, a verdant silhouette, growing closer, until it was before her, around her, above her, a canopy, a sound of birds. Acacias shed their fuzzy yellow florets at her side, and Whisper flowed in the paths between the mounds like a lost river on its way to the spring at its heart.

There by its terraced center did she rest, wondering at the mind of its Sculptor.

These groves were not static. In time the hooves of a thousand horses led to drink had worn down the sides of the pool, prompting repair by the tribes that made use of it. Others had dug into the sides of the mounds seeking wealth and finding nothing. Shrines to the younger djinni of the region had appeared atop the larger hills, and one night the stone people had appeared to build a barrow of their own at the edge of the maze, upon which they had established a softly coloured orchard where restless skeletons might sleep in a tomb of glass. Pretty curls of those same twigs and veins later made their way into the jewellery of the Rukbans, and the spines of its faeries into their tools.

All this, thought Whisper. All this, out of parasitism and pain.

Few elementals had ever taken the Jvanic route. It was not often in their nature. And fewer still survived. The deepest throes of the ascension left them vulnerable. What then, was Flux? Lucky? Freakish? The oldest? The most powerful? /No,/ Whisper knew.

Flux was synthesis. Nothing more and nothing less. A collision of natures had been resolved in him. That was all.

This place stood monument to the union of nature at its grandest scale and art at its deepest esotery. In Flux, the living legacies of Jvan and Zephyrion stood side by side with no contradiction. Whisper looked at his story and recognised it as the beginning of her own. Pain. Parasitism. And in the end...

Flux never had to control a war, came the thought.

It was quiet here. When night fell, Whisper left that place, taking her first faeries from the lens tree.

What union exists
In proud and weird betwixt?
Do ashes live
When all is burned to dust and mist?


Do gardens to us show
The stranger end to all we know?
Can ashes give
A place where paradise will grow?


Will anything survive
The ones that ash of life deprive?
Should ash forgive
When gardens burn instead of thrive?


* * * * *


She had spent long enough in the golden barrens.

Whisper was not yet ready to leave the nitrogen sea. There was still one more place for her to go, and that was south- Far south. So she departed. She meant to make haste, having already gathered much data from this region and spent much time away from her family.

The route she now chose took her through a region that was new to her, though in time she recognised it by what she had seen from space- In this case, less by colour, and more by motion. Despite herself, Whisper felt her journey slow as fascination with the landscape infected her.

Man and god alike had forgotten the Changing Plains. The Gilt, the Barrens, the Firewind- All these places had been generously populated, and yet the fields of chaos tossed and turned as if still aching from the pain of the Devil falling down from heaven.

Yet why was this so? Whisper searched her heart for a memory of Jvan's teachings, and found nothing. And this bewildered her, for the shattersteppe, burned and broken and humming with destructive magic, was full of life. Whisper could hear it sing.

Constant tectonic motion and volcanism had rendered the rock barren of soil, yet porous and immensely fertile. Rain turned the plain into a maze of shallow pools overnight that dried just as quickly, their water lost to aquifers, only to be forced back up into hot springs- Shallow lakes and streams layered with microbial mats as colourful as Whisper's sisterhood in the sky. At night the landscap was lit up by orange magma hissing from cracks that had opened hours before, by the blue of liquid sulphur rivulets burning as they trickled between the dark stone, and even the off-white of lightning, lightning in bolts, sheets and balls that leapt between clouds of ash and water and the peaks of stone spires charged by the restless friction below.

No grasses blanketed the rock as they did in the savannahs, nor did trees form a canopy. Yet still there were plants. Strange things they were. Some grew in hours, spiky tufts of bright green nothing that speckled the crevices, so as not to be lost to the chaos before they flowered. Others bore multiple stems and roots that clambered over the stone, all wildly bent and twisted from a lifetime of turmoil. Still others had no roots at all, lying dormant until rain fell on their leaves. Things grew that were not plants- Lichens that etched the rock itself, crystals grew until they were crushed. Tubeworms from Jvan's ocean had somehow risen from the depths and established themselves as they would in the abyss, and land crabs scuttled thereon.

Even the bare stone plain that dominated the landscape was exceptional. Much of it was black, but the madness had accelerated geological time and added layers of dark primary colours that were then twisted into mad patterns by the cracking earth. Landmarks that would be rare anywhere else were everywhere here. Stacked rocks, pinnacles, vast canyons, stone mazes and waterfalls abounded.

Aihtiraq had shown her a way to see all of these factors colliding and colluding, and for the first time Whisper began to appreciate her new sense as something more than a lulling distraction.

As days passed and her sense of environmental nuance was heightened, a fresh realisation eventually struck- There were no elementals here.

Well, a few. She had heard them far away, thunderous things. Whisper supposed they were the remains of the storm djinni, or a new crop of such. But where were the spirits that usually guarded every stream, laughed in every breeze? Eaten by their ravenous brothers and sisters?

Or had they simply never spawned, in a land where nature was in the hands of true chaos, as it had always been, since the dawn of the world when the Citadel was uncut marble locked in an untouched planet?

Is this what the Diaphanes are tasked with creating?

A world of wild Chaos. Where djinni control was fought for in battles that stood to be lost, not simply exchanged. Where things grew, not by the favour of their environment, but in spite of it.

Vestec did this, thought Whisper. The Sword With No Hilt. She scorns him, and yet this is what I'm modelled on. This is who we are.

The last thought came from nowhere, and yet Whisper knew it to be true. The change-eaters were a Jvanic interpretation of a Vestecian phenomenon. Storm Djinni, reinterpreted, revised, softened and sharpened.

Maybe we'll die just like they did.

That wasn't true. No. Jvan was too good at what she did.

Of course she was.

A change-eater traversed the Changing Plains, and found herself at peace.

A stranger tide we carry on
Holding flames and hungry smoke
Shouldering the Devil's yoke
On a world that wishes we were gone


Breathing of the cancer's curse
We sing for warmth for love for hope
We gnaw out our own hanging rope
To satiate a killing thirst


Yet I wonder, yet I see
The victory of All-Beauty
A law born of the dark decree
And wonder why that comforts me.


* * * * *


About this time Whisper began to hear the echoes of alchemical theory on the telepathic song-lines. It was far from the first time she had listened to such arts, though they frustrated her. None of the reagents or conditions specified existed in recognisable form in the Ring of Lex.

She had tried to replicate what she could, anyway, only to find that she had neither the time nor the support from the sorority. Change-eaters in Lex could not survive by lazing, yet nor did they struggle. As such their arts were elaborate and their technologies simple. They gardened. They herded. They whaled. They did not need to make goods or potions.

Nonetheless, the lyrical exchange was stronger here, wittier, and harsher. Whisper homed in on the cry of the local Sculptors, thinking that they were lone wanderers, much like herself. And she was wrong.

There was an indigenous sapient native to the Changing Plains after all, Whisper found. They were... Rough.

Vestec's insidie lived clambered on the rocks like gargoyles or hungry baboons. They ate small animals they kicked to death with their talons, large animals they hunted in packs, and a cocktail of drugs derived from volcanic flora. At night they slept in rough hammocks spun between whatever two jutting rocks they could find, even if they seemed liable to collapse any second. Maybe especially if.

But they slept in the daytime too. And sometimes they just piled on top of each other for... Well, brawls and group sex seemed to be pretty much the same thing for them, and apparently the intimate physical connection of curling up and sleeping in an awkward pile of scarred muscle and fifty-seven gangly limbs fell into that spectrum too.

All of the 'tribes' Whisper found were a mix of mature adults and young children. Adolescents, it seemed, had to be nailed down to make them stay put, and none of the Voren- as they called themselves- had the motivation nor the nails required to do that. None of them even really knew how they kept their numbers up. Sometimes they just wandered across one of their own on the fields of chaos, bashed them across the head, and if they weren't too hungry they were allowed to stick around.

The Jvanic monks of the shattersteppe called themselves Fleshshapers, and flesh they shaped. Lethal physical trauma was abundant among Voren, and these oddballs were never far when it struck, ready with faery and thread to stitch and slice, cauterise with fire and purge with herbs and twist bones back into shape with rope. They transfused and transplanted, even, from any living thing they could find, taking advantage of the Voren's adaptive immune system- The genes of which read, as far as Whisper could tell, 'You see that leg? That's my leg now. Fuck you.'

Their own modified blood facilitated the process, and they carried wagons laden with bits and pieces preserved in barrels. Often storing these pieces became a hassle, and the Fleshshapers would combine them into something weirder. They were good at that. No two Voren looked the same after a while, and the Fleshshapers made good use of... Pets. Whisper learned that if you lashed three arms together wrist to shoulder, they make a good grabbing tool.

So... Adults, children and Sculptors. And slaves, near the edge of the plains, but nobody counted those and they didn't last long. And, well, maybe a few small demons. Demons that were also slaves, that they managed to fish out of blood wells in exchange for whatever they could find, which was usually each other after they got bored of exploring the caves for precious stones.

When Whisper first encountered the Voren, their immediate response to her presence was to take up their javelins and try to hunt her, to no success whatsoever. When the change-eater tried to pull her trick of standing in a humanoid shape, they seemed to take it as a challenge, and eventually she learned to play along.

Play was the correct term. Though Whisper could toss an insidie across twenty metres of bare rock with a flick of a tail and lacerate the skin from their chest with nothing more than a twitch, the people of the shattersteppe only laughed and shrieked and fought harder, scampering across the plain with catlike speed. Despite everything, they were actually enjoying themselves. They hadn't had a fight this good in years- No, ever!

Eventually the extended family grew tired, in that they had either been beaten unconscious, had passed out in exhaustion, or were actually dead. It was hard to tell. Whisper piled them up into a tidy bundle and waited.

Only the tribe's Fleshshaper remained, inhaling sulphurous lichen fumes out of a bowl and watching with lazy interest as she busied herself distilling a mix of spirits and oil of vitriol. She was the strangest Sculptor that Whisper had yet seen- Many limbs growing in two rings around a spoke with a fluted head, locking together to form something like a basket, or a spring, or a wheel. Hard to tell.

When prompted, she explained that the brew was producing ether, a liquor made of which could induce sleep. It made her family easier to work on, and there was plenty of work to be done. Whisper apologised. The Fleshshaper congratulated her on beating the living shit out of her relatives. It gave her an opportunity to have fun.

Morning came and the Voren were eager to try again. This time Whisper hovered above them and knocked away anything they threw. Between the work of the Fleshshaper, whose name was Fucking Big Mallet (after her backup anaesthetic), and the grogginess that gripped them as their natural blood rush from the previous night wore off, they soon calmed down and decided Whisper was a friend.

With some explanations from Fucking Big Mallet, who for a time joined her on her journey, Whisper soon learned that the Voren actually had a thriving artistic tradition. Their language had a complex system of synonyms and affixes allowing any and all adjectives to turn vulgar. Their stories lauded kismesitude- Romantic passion characterised by jealousy, frustration, rivalry, and mutual loathing. They flyted as easily as they breathed, settling disputes with verses that could put most Djinni to shame.

Whisper, having not forgotten her quest, took avid notes.

Listen now, you spineless bitch,
Step into the fray
You never got the chance to run-
Your love arrives today.
She leaves you groaning in a ditch
And wishing she would stay.


She tears you down and wraps your eyes
Makes you into her whore.
She says she hates you, lover dear,
And leaves you wanting more
For nothing ever satisfies
Until you're on the floor.


Your love will stretch you on a rack
She'll fuck you up and fuck you blind
But still you love with all your heart
The girl you sold your soul to find.
For, after all, she loves you back-
With bruises sweet and hands entwined.


Hidden 7 yrs ago Post by Antarctic Termite
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Antarctic Termite Resident of Mortasheen

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Two figures in the dark. One tall. Relaxed, in the dangerously confident way of one about to smash a skull with his boot.

Torches weren't used here. Only bioluminescent microbial sprawl marked the walls. It cast no shadows, and relegated the face into a silhouette recognisable only by its familiarity. It was dangerous darkness. It was suspicion given form and fizzed into the atmosphere.

"Finally remembered us, did ye?" said the tall figure. "Did ye no' think that things might've done changed 'fore comin' back tae us?" The tall figure clicked his tongue and shook his head slowly. "O nae, lassie."

The smaller figure said nothing but was not silent. They could hear her breathe.

"Queer that, don'chu think? So much dwarves gettin' bleeded an' giving birth tae wee bats an' lynxes. But no' a finger wass laid on our bodies. So everything's still the same for us, nae?" The tall figure spat. Another shadow moved in the background, stood, became a dwarf; and at her example more followed.

The smaller figure breathed even, a sleek robe trapped between ragged furs and muscle.

"Way we see it, we're no' so diff'rent," said the tall one, softer now. "Ye lord over us, you and yer Emperor, but yer still one of us. Blood of our blood. But ye think ye can leash yer brothers like a mangy bitch. Ain't that just the queerest thing."

He stepped forward, his height and hatred towering, and he did not stop. The robed figure clenched her jaw and felt fear.

And she raised a rune-marked hand that shone with power, illuminating the curved horns that crowned her skull.

The Shamed Ones recoiled in agony from the light, their own branded sigils resonating with hers. With burning hand she grabbed the tall figure by his wrist and his mouth flew open, throat rattling in pain. She threw him down and pulled the knife from her belt.

The marks she made burned them both with radiant heat, but she did not falter and she was not disturbed. Even before she was finished the Shamed One's body had begun to swell and crack, his spasms quavering and involuntary, his groans vanishing. She struggled to wrest his engorged body into position. After a while, though, there was more than enough free skin to carve up.

Once complete, she left the still-growing figure on the ground, a leash around its neck. It did not struggle. It never would again.

The psyker made her way back down the corridor, where a demon was waiting, exactly where she'd last left it.

"'Tis done."

**"Adequate. Findings?"

The psyker shrugged. "He's growing fast. I can take 'im tae the mills soon, if I find a good yoke. Bastard's got more muscle'n a coo by now, 'e'll be big's a beast by mornin'."

**"Compliance?"

A grimace for the strange god, but she was used to as much. The Emaciator had been straightforward with the ruling caste. "Yes, yes, blinks when I tell 'im n'all that."

**"Sufficient," said Heartworm. "The procedure is applicable to all dwarves. Inform Lazarus of its practical applications." It turned, and tapped its way down the corridor.

"...Do ye always jabber like that?" called the psyker abruptly to its back.

**"Sometimes."
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