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magistralucis · 1 year ago

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Zultanekh/Djoseras snippet

(Alright I'm doing it. Since I am showing no signs of recovering from The Twice-Dead King anytime soon, I guess I'm making this into a fic 🤣 This is a snippet of something much longer. Most of it is post-biotransference, but this bit is specifically from their necrontyr years, when the Ithakas-Ogdobekh war had not yet ended and none of them were the people they ended up becoming. The two princes discuss the kingships they will never take. More below cut.)

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Though the orbuculum he sees Djoseras unmoved. "Better to die than to merely live."

"What, better to die like a dog? Are you that afraid of Zultanekh?"

The Crown Prince chuckles. It is a fine quality of Ithakas, their laconicity, but they leave too much room for interpretation. "If this one is so much of a threat, I hate to imagine what you think of Anathrosis! Or perhaps it is not that. Perhaps what you want is a written oath of your safe passage?" He follows this with a wink, for they both know such a document could only be part of a surrender. According to the hekatic past of the Ogdobekh, it is entirely correct for them to demand this of their neighbours, since Ithakas should never have seceded from their kemmeht in the first place. "That could be granted easily. Why, Zultanekh shall commission the finest scribe among the five dynasties, the lead archivist of the Nihilakh, and will have it engraved in gold if Djoseras demands it. Is it the least you deserve? I suspect it is."

"I require nothing from you, Crown Prince."

"But you must, dear Djoseras; moreover, your dynast must, since he has sent you here." He is serious now. Zultanekh leans in closer, his hands steepled in front, oddly nervous. "You require my defeat and my humiliation. You are not likely to receive it, Kynazh Djoseras. What was Unnas's gamble? At best his victory, at worst the stalling of the frontline - but you have fought us for many cycles of the moon, and the best you've done is merely his worst, with the unimaginable worse to come if he does not rein it in. At least, I hope he has not imagined it. It would be sad if he sent away his only heirs wishing they would die."

He allows himself a moment of glumness. Technically Zultanekh comes off worse in a headcount, as he is the sole heir to the throne; he is not worried, for he has the whole of the Ogdobekh war machine behind him, but he has never been very certain whether Anathrosis wishes him to live. Wanting him gone on a paranoid hunch would be exactly the kind of thing the phaeron would do.

"In our tragedies of yore there is a recurring turn of phrase, kynazh: inija spase, ali sebe ne mozhet spasti. Why tragedies? Because we find such a man most pitiful. A fine warrior he might make, the one who saves others but cannot save himself. He is no good as a father, a leader, or a dynast, for to damn himself is to damn the whole." And that is the difference between Zultanekh and the rest of the dynasty: he loves his life, and takes as objective truth that everyone else values their own, while the rest of the Ogdobekh would simply shrug and raise their hammers. None of them would ever think to convince their enemy that being alive is worthwhile. "Unnas has lost one son already. It is irrational you should agree to sever his every remaining limb. You know his demands are wasteful: save him, save yourself and your dynasty, and cease those advances."

Then, just to lighten the mood: "It'd be awfully hard to rule Antikef one-handed."

Djoseras does not dignify this with an answer. He glances to the side instead. "Isn't my brother wonderful?"

Zultanekh cranes his head to look outside. Indeed, Oltyx is magnificent. Zultanekh is genuinely astonished to see how much the boy has grown, easily a hand past his elder's height, his shouts powerful and unwavering in the face of the charge; whether it is war that changes a man, or if it was the simple passage of time, the younger scion has not been done a disservice. As the two princes watch on Oltyx rallies his soldiers on the ground, his sword flashing uncanny silver through the slaughter-mist, and soon they are all vanished out of sight.

When Zultanekh turns again he finds Djoseras is watching him. "Might I ask you a question, Crown Prince?"

"Might you?" Zultanekh repeats. "Ask away."

"What is a king?"

"He is the Creator beyond all." The only king (lord, phaeron, Patriarch, still years away from reinvention) Zultanekh keeps faith to is Anathrosis. Their relationship is complicated but the awe is very real. "He is the one who weaves pure gold from the barest sand. He is the one who imposes unity over the stars. Like us, they are numerous, but faint and weak while scattered; brought together, their collective light powers our foundries, while we are made masters of the universe. As a miner does to the raw vein, the furnace to the ore and the craftsman to the ingot, our king does to our will and more: he is light itself, the passion of movement, the all-consuming fire of the forge."

"Spoken like a true blacksmith." Djoseras says impassively. Clearly he meant it as an insult, but Zultanekh fails to feel offended: rather than the snarling boasts he is used to, the kynazh's words are more like skolopendrae skittering through the reeds, collecting implications like burrs in their hide. "Certainly it is a phaeron's responsibility to do those things and more, but like so many others you mistake the effect for the essence, the appearance as the truth. I dare suggest, Prince Zultanekh, that a king does not comprise a series of phenomena, but rather the foundations upon which they occur."

Zultanekh feels like he needs to say something, but he suddenly feels lost. Inwardly he follows the motion of those same skittering legs, while the kynazh carries on. "You say you do not understand why I should want to die. I hold in contempt your desire to live. Are you not yourself on the battlefield, subject to the same risks as my brother and I? Our presence here was requested to Unnas, and agreed after his deliberation; your speech implies to me you made no such agreement with your sire. Perhaps he has made a plan to lose you already?"

Zultanekh hopes he didn't see how he clenched his fist in that moment. Djoseras smiles thinly. "You wish to know what I think of Anathrosis?"

Do I? "Yes."

"He is inconstant. He struggles to lose the smallest things, lands and bagatelles, in pursuit of his grandiose delusions, yet he feels no remorse sacrificing the greater things which hold his kemmeht aloft - his one heir the greatest of them all." Djoseras tilts up his chin then, his dark eyes aflame with something far from hatred. "I suggest he ought to be honest about wanting to sacrifice everything, if he truly values his dynasty, and not his feelings. A true king is neither the fire nor the forge, but the earth upon which they dance and fall; he is not the weaver nor the gold, but the sand from which it is crushed, at once lower and stronger than any of us will ever be. An all-consuming fire will eventually burn down the foundries, but the stones will always endure, and it will befit Anathrosis to take their example."

Zultanekh lets out a quiet hiss. "You are happy to be slaughtered."

"The flesh is ephemeral. I am ephemeral, as is my brother. Unnas is ephemeral, and so are you, even Anathrosis whom you fear so greatly."

There is a hefty pause. Zultanekh thinks he sees something like pity in the other's expression, which seems contrary to this message of indiscriminate sacrifice he's been espousing. Just the first of many Djoserasian contradictions that will fascinate the Crown Prince in the eternity to come.

"If I should fall, my brother will take my place. You have seen for yourself how much he has learned. Anathrosis nurtured his own foe, poor creature, and he did not even realize it; you are the best among the Ogdobekh, Prince Zultanekh, but you are only one, and you do not understand what you are fighting for." Djoseras smiles. "You are a just man, a reasonable man. It does you no good to assume Unnas's intentions, for Oltyx and I fight not for his person but our legacy, and all of Ithakas stands behind us. I pray you will reassess your intentions swiftly, or else prepare for the ice of eternal night."

All tension leaves Zultanekh like an arrow. He chuckles - first hollowly, then with legitimate mirth, that he is still capable of surprise - and strokes his hand through his coppery beard (a redhead, of course he was a redhead, he forgets this often) as he sits back on his chair. "So that's what it comes down to in the end! In any case, I suppose we must destroy one another, as expected. Yet have you spoken admirably, kynazh? You have. Why, that's the nearest thing to a love-speech that was ever made to Zultanekh."

It is Zultanekh's personal policy to break the ice after frosty words have been exchanged. Officially, it's because he wishes to avoid things escalating at a poor moment's notice; in truth, it's an excuse for absurdity. "Do not be concerned that your judgement falls incongruent with ours. Is your Oltyx a remarkable fighter? Certainly. He strikes me as a worthy scion, and he brings fresh blood to the fight, better equipped than us elders." Soft stone, fluid steel - flyting, or flirting, there need not be much difference. Zultanekh grins. "But your brother, he is too young for me, is he not? Zultanekh will not reckon with him. If you desire to petition a peace-match between ourselves, it is not his praises you should sing - but your own."

He expects Djoseras to ignore him then, or give him that look of insane violence he showed when Zultanekh last threatened Oltyx's life. What he did not expect was for Djoseras to stare at him in silence, neither dismissive nor angry, nor even as if Zultanekh has said anything asnine. The kynazh often keeps a blank face in conflict, but this is not like that, in that it is not deliberate. The best way to describe his expression is transparent. Regrettably Zultanekh is not given more time to contemplate it, for he is briefly called away to receive a report. When he comes back a mere five minutes later, he finds Djoseras is no longer there, the orbuculum smooth and empty once more.

"The stones will endure," the Ogdobekh prince mutters, resting a hand atop the smooth crystal surface. Djoseras meant bedrock, but Zultanekh ends up thinking about a pebble instead, skipped merrily across the surface of a long and silver lake; leaving wide ripples upon it, then sinking into its heart, its gleam white and secretive under the surface. "Well, then."

He has been at war for too long to hazard this emotion.

#warhammer 40k #the twice dead king #necrons #necron #oltyx #zultanekh #djoseras #zultanekh's 'turn of phrase' is in old church slavonic. since the ogdobekh-ithakas relationship seems to be that of medieval russia-greece #like i'm sure that's canon. 'kynazh' connects to князь. they are both concerned with what is 'orthodox'#ogdobekh space literally has a world named 'vorronezh'... like... like 'voronezh'? the real life russian city воронеж? 😳#i jump on any opportunity to use medieval/classical languages in anything i do so i was pretty happy about that setting ngl #i just like being able to write again

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