Vox Stellarum: The Haunting Harii of Hvergelmir

[Ryltar Thamior]

The Draugr-Valr.



“You have spent much energy, Grettir, in your search for me. Nor is that to be wondered at, if you should have little joy thereof. And now I tell you that you shall possess only half the strength and firmness of heart that were decreed to you if you had not striven with me. The might which was yours till now I am not able to take away, but it is in my power to ordain that never shall you grow stronger than you are now. Nevertheless your might is sufficient, as many shall find to their cost. Hitherto you have earned fame through your deeds, but henceforward there shall fall upon you exile and battle; your deeds shall turn to evil and your guardian-spirit shall forsake you. You will be outlawed and your lot shall be to dwell ever alone. And this I lay upon you, that these eyes of mine shall be ever before your vision. You will find it hard to live alone, and at last it shall drag you to death.”

 

- The Draugr Glamr , to Grettir the Strong.

 

- The Saga of Grettir, Son of Asmund

Fyalkonan, Sagaøya ; c.early M2.





Vitoð ér enn? 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The Draugr-Valr is well done.

[Ryltar Thamior]

"Mark thine enemy, for all that separates the damned from the chosen is a dot of monochrome light, projected onto the back of a neck."

"And remember well - a sniper's scope is *also* a Mask"




"I am the darkness that surrounds me, 

I am the air that surrounds me, 

I am the land that hides me, 

I wait to strike, 

From the Darkness, 

I wait to kill, 

From out of thin air, 

I am invisible, 

And I am silent death." 
 

— Prayer of Invisibility (To be whispered when remaining hidden from the eyes of the enemy), The Benedictions of the Emperor, Inspiration Source and Uplifting Creeds for all Infantrymen, The Imperial Infantryman's Uplifting Primer

"I am tucked up here out of sight. I am tucked up here
in the bell-tower of Our Lady of Retribution: my own space
well-stocked and arranged just so. This tower was raised in the year
blank-blank, the Year of the Crow the year of our disgrace.
I am tucked up here in the shadow of the cross
with my ear-muffs, with my quilt and pallaise,
kneeling up but looking down, like a man at prayer.
[...]
and, for comic disputation, the Birds of the Air.

With the scope pulled up to my eye, the world is close
and particular: [...] They go in fear. They go in fear 
of me. And where they go they go by my good grace. 

I am tucked up here with plenty left in store
The night-sky floods then clears, flagging a single star,
and the city settles to silence under my peace.
The woman, the child, the grandad, are nothing ... or nothing more
than what history can ignore, or love erase."
- Sniper [abridged]
David Harsent 




 

[CaptainStabby]

Dude, those heavy assault guys look amazing., I never thought of putting those torsos with those arms and legs.

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The sniper looks appropriately creepy as hell. Well done.

[Ryltar Thamior]

Dude, those heavy assault guys look amazing., I never thought of putting those torsos with those arms and legs.

 

Churr :D If you like those, check out some of the Thorian warriors I did awhile back , utilizing not entirely dissimilar partsmixes - including Blood Angels Sanguinary Guard torsos, Guard and Scion legs, similar arms, etc. ; I've also presently got some further conversions in the works utilizing Delaque legs and Sanguinary Guard torsos with scion arms, so keep an eye out for those [basically just waiting on the right heads to turn up] ;

 

I also have , I call them "Einherjar" - not entirely dissimilar partsmixes, which are mostly finished painting so i should have those up shortly. 

 

The sniper looks appropriately creepy as hell. Well done.

Thanks :D It's one of those conversions and paint-schemes that just sorta .. came together in my head with surprising alacrity. "Goldeneye", indeed :P 

[Ryltar Thamior]

"As applies the "Einherjar", the etymology of the term renders it something closely approximating "One Man Army" - a fitting epithet for those who were, in life, the mightiest of the mighty upon the fields of war. [The 'Herja' particle, as a point of interest, continues on also into modern German as "Heer" - Army; modern English in "to harry", or Harrow, the latter of which originally referred to a Germanic raiding party; and in a fitting bout of #NAS - is strongly coterminous with the "Hara" epithet of Mahadev, meaning a "Destroyer" or "Seizer", and in a slightly older form, "Overpowerer", "Victor".] [However, it is important to note the other potential rendering of 'Einherjar' - with 'Ein', in this sense, meaning a "Unique", 'one-of-a-kind' combatant - further underscoring the quite literally exceptionally high standards of both skill and nobility requisite for entry into Odin's own Spear-Hall]"
- the NASlepati Theologian Curwen Ares Rolinson
from "The Haunting Harii of the High(est) One" 
in "GHOST DIVISION - On The BhutaGana Of Mahadev & The Einherjar Of Odin"
Arya Akasha Research Institute, early M3. 



“We einherjar know we are destined to die. The world will end. The big picture cannot be changed. But in the meantime, as Loki once said, we can choose to alter the details. That's how we take control of our destiny.
Sometimes even Loki can be right.”
- Rick Riordan, The Ship of the Dead; early M3. 

"At Stord, so late a lonely shore,

Was heard the battle's wild uproar;

The lightning of the flashing sword

Burned fiercely at the shore of Stord.

From levelled halberd and spearhead

Life-blood was dropping fast and red;

And the keen arrows' biting sleet

Upon the shore at Stord fast beat.
 

"Upon the thundering cloud of shield

Flashed bright the sword-storm o'er the field;

And on the plate-mail rattled loud

The arrow-shower's rushing cloud,

In Odin's tempest-weather, there

Swift whistling through the angry air;

And the spear-torrents swept away

Ranks of brave men from light of day.
 

"With batter'd shield, and blood-smear'd sword

Slits one beside the shore of Stord,

With armour crushed and gashed sits he,

A grim and ghastly sight to see;

And round about in sorrow stand

The warriors of his gallant band:

Because the king of Dags' old race

In Odin's hall must fill a place."
- Eyvindr Skaldaspillir, Hakonarmal;
Heimskringla ["The Chronicle of the Kings of Norway"]; M1, Skandza, Terra. 

[Bjorn Firewalker]

The Einherjar are well done.

[Ryltar Thamior]

"The courageous enter dark caves alone. The clever send in the courageous first. The cleverest wait behind the clever."

 

 

 

A Nobleman of the Harii 







 

[Ryltar Thamior]

figured i'd try getting back into the groove of things at some point after a few months of life. These're partially completed and still need detailing work done on them; 

 

[Ryltar Thamior]

"The Path of Poetry, is the Tongue. 

The Bridge of Piety, is the Tongue. 

The Tongue of Poetry, is the Flame" 

[Kolgrim DeathHowl]

Great conversions and painting looking forward to seeing more!

[Ryltar Thamior]

The Harii so far...



All the Astartes ; followed by groups of four









Nithhoggr Heavy Assault Regiment



Draugr-Valr & Operatives



Einherjar & Noble



Serpent's Tooth Commandos



Vitoð ér enn?
 

[Kolgrim DeathHowl]

Looking good, I really like the blue on the guns!

[Ryltar Thamior]

"Amongst the Harii, it is said 
That Fire, Lightning, Sun, 
Are all of common thread"

[Ryltar Thamior]

"A cleaved head no longer plots"
- Traditional Harii proverb





Shyena-Freyr ; Free-Falcon 

[Kolgrim DeathHowl]

Really love the color scheme!

[AstralPanda]

Very dark and gothic feeling miniatures you have made here. I think the conversions all capture a sense of the grim-dark and the marines look frankly menacing. Which I consider quite impressive, given that loyalist marines are usually more heroic and less brooding. Good show :)

[Ryltar Thamior]

I normally don't do WIP shots on this log ... but for various reasons, this felt like a good exception ...





 

@Kolgrim Deathhowl - thanks; there's a surprisingly good reason for it, too. Basically, Old Norse ... doesn't really have a word for "blue". You'll occasionally see various translations which refer to things as "blue" - including, not at all coincidentally, Odin's hood/cloak/mantle when travelling [i think the Grimnismal is one such instance]. But what's actually going on there is there's a colour more authentically translated/understood as something along the lines of "bruise-black" , or "corpse-blue/black" ; and some translator's chosen to render it as, more simply, 'blue'. 

Except that doesn't really conjure the right colour in the mind. Now, as it happens, 'blue-black' as a colour is not entirely unfamiliar to other Indo-European mytholinguistic corpuses, either - indeed, one understanding, if memory serves, of "Krishna" [as in, the word .. but you know, theonymics and what not] in Sanskrit, is pretty much along these lines.

Although in terms of the actual comparative mythography, the *better* point of reference is most certainly Kaal [and, His Wife, Kali] - which, as a noun, is ... difficult to directly translate because it's ... several overlapping concepts in one; chiefly Black, Time, and Death. 

"Kaal" descends from the Proto-Indo-European "Kel", which refers to a 'covering' (it's the same place that "Hall", "Helmet", "Caul/Cowl", and a variety of other terms come from), so basically, the idea is a veil of darkness .. in one sense, the barrier between life and death, in another sense, basically dusk and thence night (which helps explain the 'time' association - it's how you measure time, in the most basic way, day-and-night] . So, in other words, and where I'm actually going with this unsolicited mytholinguistic trivia ... it's "Darkness", but not quite 'black' necessarily [although in some occurrences, yeah, it's ... none-more-black] , but the blackness of the night sky. Which, on a cloudless night, partially due to all the star-light and the Milky Way and such, is actually rather more *blue*. 

But I digress. 

The point is, I happened to buy some Dark Reaper many many moons ago, I'm not even quite sure why, now, and I looked at it one day, and something *clicked*, and I realized that *there*, was an *excellent* 'corpse-black'. This is amply proven via how it ... changes dependent upon what light's hitting it. In photographs, it'll occasionally appear *almost* blue, at other times, a kind of slate-ish green, or a dark and inscrutable grey-ish colour. *Exactly* what was called for, for multiple reasons!

In terms of the various other colourations - initial rounds were a quite subtle light grey for the rims of shoulderpads, wrist-rings, webbing, and other such spaces. It looked reasonable, made what little highlighting I was doing, rather easy, and will definitely work for the majority. Also, bronze/brass for faceplates, along with green eyes for something a bit eye-catching ... and blue for weaponry casings, red or occasionally metallics for grenades, darker grey for pouches/hostlers, purple for grips. Particular specialists, by contrast, wind up with slightly different schemes - most of which are personalized to the Harii in question, at least partially because it's sufficiently long between Marines that I don't manage much in the way of 'consistency'; and otherwise, because it indicates sometihng about their speciality or style of service. So the less 'subtle' sorts, like the hellblasters, have bright copper tones, because they ... may be rather more impetuous than the others; while somwehre in the middle, are the Astartes with the iron and generally Mk.III pads, who're often running close assault; and purple weapons, also, for some specialists. [incidentally, I"m really rather a fan of Mk.III elements on Mk.X armour - the extra-bulky shoulders just seem to re-balance the miniature somehow; and the blend of dieselpunk-ish power-packs i've used here and ther with the futuristic rest of the armour is quite nice, and adds a .. pleasant brutality [phrasing?]; if I could be bothered, i'd even go a bit further and equip some Harii with old-school Phobos bolters, perhaps - but for the moment, the closest I think we've gotten to that is a few Adamanticores on one of my other logs] .

Right, that was ... probably a bit much of a response to a simple compliment. 

The point is ... I thought a particular paint I happened to have was a really good way to represent an Old Norse [lack of a] concept, that was strongly relevant for the Harii. 



@AstralPanda Churr :D - interesting choice of words, there, "gothic" and "grim" ... because of the background vibe I've been running off here. I'll uh ... I'll spare you a lengthy digression on the etymological origins of both; but suffice to say that "grim", is closely cognate with a set of Old Norse terms built around, well, the concept of 'masks', 'hoods', and face-coverings ['grime' is from the same root - the actual PIE underpinning, if memory serves, is something around the concept of smearing , like with ash across the skin .. but ... that is a digression for another time; and I mean that rather literally, because there's a miniature to demonstrate this concept upcoming for the Hara Barazaiti log] ; which, when it entered into Old English from earlier Germanic as 'Grima', also acquired the connotation of a specter, a ghost. 

Although, as I mentioned/alluded to in the earlier response immediately above, possibly the most iconic occurrence is with Odin as Grimnir - 'The Masked One'. Whence the Grimnismal - 'Sayings of the Masked One'. Now, there's another rather curious digression into how this turns into a term for 'leadership' ... and also another brief mention of an 'Iron Mask' in the relevant mythology, I think again as a theonym ['Kaal', to link back to the start of my ravings, can also mean 'Iron'] ... but yeah, uh, that's perhaps enough unsolicited mytholinguistic trivia out of me for one five a.m dawn-breaking reply. 

The point is .. "Grim" and "Gothic" is *exactly* what we're going for here ... even though I mean both of those words in *rather different* ways than we usually do in this hobby. 

So it's  great that you found them thus, in whichever sense of the term - and especially the "frankly menacing"! That's the best possible way I could have managed to get things across !

I suspect that partially it's the colour-palette, and partially it's the way i've photographed things - for many of the first page or so of shots, i was literally waiting for pre-dawn darkness for lighting because anything else was too bright/yellow. Which is ... eccentric at best, "ridiculous" otherwise, now that I think about it, but ehh. 

But it's probably quite largely the way I've *not* done a lot of the flashy ornamentation quite common on loyalist Astartes. There's  gold and other brighter metals here and there; there's runic talismans, and a certain amount of gadgetry, even some rather ornate helmets or shoulder-pads here and there. Even some pseudo-Greek plumery. 

Yet in the main, I tried getting the miniatures' posing and other such conversion-work to do the 'speaking'. And really convey that these are, after all, highly-trained, highly proficient killers. Who also turn up, as the Tacitus quote we opened with notes, out of the dark and sow terror through tactical fury and precision strikes. Semi-literal Ghost Soldiers, who really do let their blades and bolters do the talking. [except with some of them who get a bit 'creative' , and start doing 'artistry' things with gouts of flame or burning incandescent plasma, and suchlike; or really get into the psychological warfare side of things, occasionally while shouting, potentially in the Far Future's form of Old Norse .. with occasional Sanskrit characteristics. ] 

Anyway, thanks again - and if you've liked what's been presented so far ... keep checking back over the next few weeks/months. I've got several more Harii, and a few more operatives and other such types , that're presently part way through building/painting processes. 

It's been interesting and often rather frustrating seeing just how far in which directions the Primaris kits can go , in terms of making every miniature different, cool, 'sensible'/'plausible'/'reasonable', mythically resonant to a further standard in a few cases, and really trying to get the "Astartes"-ness [and some of that 'transhuman dread', apparently :D ] back into the new era/generation of kits. 

But again, I digress. 

[Ryltar Thamior]

“Over the centuries, mankind has tried many ways of combating the forces of evil... prayer, fasting, good works and so on. Up until Doom, no one seemed to have thought about the double-barrel shotgun. Eat leaden death, demon...”

- St. PTerry of the Ankh 

[Custom Hero]

Nice work. I’m normally not a fan of the muted scheme, but you’ve pulled it off quite nicely.

[Ryltar Thamior]

WHAT THE THUNDER SAID 



The nephrite-clad juggernaut shifted slightly in his stance. It reminded Say of a mountain moving. Which disconcerted him - as the main way a mountain moves, is with the force of an oncoming avalanche. An association considerably underscored when the looming figure leaned itself forward towards him.

 

"I am called 'Geirraj"

 

Say's mouth had run dry with the natural preservation instincts of fear; yet the name twigged quite another of his underlying basal drives. Curiosity, and an intellectual enthusiasm.

 

Before he quite knew what he was doing, the mind had analyzed and the mouth had spoke. "'Geirraj'? That ... is that Old Adamantian and .. Skandavak? 'Spear-Lord'?"

 

The figure straightened up, leaning back as if satisfied. Say became acutely conscious in retrospect of the sensation, how it had felt to have those plasma-green helmet lenses directly gazing at him. He'd been too absorbed in the linguistic puzzle at the time to notice, but it had the sense of a tiger intensely scrutinizing potential prey. Your existence was reduced down to a function of its presence. Not least because it could end you, at a will.

 

'Geirraj' turned his helmet to one side; booming voice conveying humour with a harsh suffusion. "He'll Do!"

 

He turned back to Say, and modulated his voice back down to a quiet roar.

 

"Your Old Adamantian is not bad; but it is a shorter 'a' sound."

 

Say suddenly felt the electric-icy serpent of fear rear up again from his spine to his stomach. And also a sting of guilt - he should have picked that.

 

He tried again, doing his best to mask the quailing in his voice with the already-there curiosity.

 

"Night? Dark? Energized/Active? Dust?"

 

"Better. Although you missed 'Mist'/'Clouds', 'Fury', 'Moving', and 'Region of Storms'."

 

This relieved Say somewhat.

 

"And my Skandavak?"

 

"Spear is, indeed, the meaning - in that language. It would mean 'from the Mountains' in Adamantian. As you shall learn, we encode multiple meanings in multiple languages, simultaneously. Although it is *amusing* that you term it 'Skandavak'."

 

There was something about the way Geirraj had said 'amusing', which put Say in the mind of the tiger now baring its shining teeth. The sort of smile which would surely be the last thing its viewer should ever see.

 

"W-why? Is that not the term for the 'Speech of the Skanda'?"

 

Geirraj laughed. It was the rolling sound of thunder, the booming of distant meteorite impacts or some form of orbital bombardment which was making *absolutely sure*.

 

"Yes, aye, that it is. But you have not stopped to consider just what it is that 'Ska(n)da' means.

 

For us, it means to hurt, to injure. For those who hear it, it means the ones who are hurting and injuring them. So 'SkandaVak' means - "

 

"...the Harsh Speech?"

 

Geirraj tilted his helmet slightly to one side, as if now further scrutinizing his interlocutor.

 

"I am impressed. The more logical pathway would have been 'Speech of the People Harming Us' - it is that, too, of course. But yes. Even to hear our words causes discomfort to our targets, to our prey. But there are two more - let us see how clever you really are."

 

Say paused, then realized that he had forgotten to breathe since the Astartes had thrown down the Skald's Challenge to him. That's what this was, wasn't it. The ancient and traditional exchange of riddles and cyphers with a view to testing the intellect and entertaining the mind amidst sages? He got half-way through a sharp intake of breath as he realized the potential significance of being treated in such a manner by this Darkened Storm-Spear in the armour the colour of malachite. This wasn't what you did with a slave ...

 

"'Attacking Speech'. You are Astartes, I presume you make frequent use of battle-cant designed to occlude your tactics yet avail your communication - despite whomever may happen to be listening."

 

"Good. And the second?"

 

Say faltered, his voice less sure now.

 

"I have two-and-a-half possibilities. I am unsure which to venture in answer to your question."

 

Geirraj drew himself up further, helmet back and looking down almost the length of the face-plate at him. There seemed almost a sense of interest to his pose and visage. Not the hard, searing intensity of the supernatural spirit-of-death of Adamantine folklore, who stripped away all pretensions and prevarications to truly see the nature, the character, of the slain soul within; nor the fierce, laser-like focus of the predator evaluating its next potential prey. It looked like the Astartes was almost .... listening to him.

 

"Try them all."

 

"'Shadow-Speech'. Slight pronunciation difference to get there, from 'Attacking', 'Injuring', but it makes figurative sense. Connotes the way in which you use your words to hide what you really mean - in the Shadows. And how you strike from them.

 

That's the 'half', by the way - links back to the shadowy denizens of the Underworld."

 

Say couldn't single out why, but he felt like Geirraj was smiling behind his visor.

 

"You do us credit. You have a poet's sight. Now what is the other."

 

Say paused; took a breath, attempting to work up the courage which came with the air's influx into his lungs and turn it into his next, carefully chosen words. He'd made it this far through an encounter with a being of myth ... he knew the folklore ...

 

"Before I answer, I have a question for you in return."

 

Geirraj leaned forward again slightly. It wasn't sudden - more in the sense of a cobra swaying, than a serpent's lunging strike.

 

"Oh? Speak, then, Asker"

 

"'Skanda' would also mean something in Old Adamantian. 'Charge',' Attack', 'Leap', 'Onrushing Tide', 'Assault'. It is the Name of one of the Mighty Sons of the Spear-Lord. Their Head of the Pantheon, I mean."

 

"Yes? And what of it?" Geirraj seemed to be studying him again - the hard-edged scrutiny of the predator - the sense-blades of the living weapon - was back.

 

"He also wielded the Spear. Why is it that your cognomen is part Old Adamantine, with a pronounced affectation for double-meanings in that language? It's a long-dead culture, and a long-dead language. Everything else about you skreams Skandza."

 

Geirraj moved his shoulders out, and began to walk forward, head slightly down, and leaning - looming, rather - in Say's direction.

 

This was it, Say thought. He had allowed that nagging curiosity which had splintered at the back of his mind to get the better of him. He'd probed too deeply in dialogue with a demigod, and now he'd find himself carrying its secrets to the silence of the grave.

 

Geirraj was right in front of him, now. Much like the Mountain, it was an altogether entirely different experience to see an Astartes like this up close, rather than from a distance. Perhaps it was the last sight he'd ever see. In which case, he'd do his best to take it all in. Before the Astartes' fist no doubt caused his skull to do likewise.

 

Geirraj moved his right arm out, twisted his torso so that his left pauldron was now closest to Say's face. Say braced himself. Tried to meet Death (again) bravely. realized he was squinting his eyes shut through protective force of habit.

 

"If you're quite finished ..."

 

Say noticed he was still in possession of all his limbs and a heart-beat. He prised open first one eye, and then the other.

 

Geirraj's right hand had moved. But not in the way in which Say had expected. Indeed, he hadn't even heard the massive tree-trunk of armour with servos swing past his skull mere inches away.

 

The fingers on the mailed fist were mostly clasped. One pointing, to the design on the now-lowered left-hand pauldron.

 

"You see this?"

 

Say weakly nodded. He wasn't quite sure what it was that he was supposed to be seeing. Everything was still hazy with the norepinephrine spike of his near-Death experience becoming even .. nearer.

 

"The disc in the middle, 'midst the golden wreath, and above the iron skull. What colour is it."

 

Say did his best to recover; mentally shaking his thoughts in a bid to clear them, and to see what was actually in front of him, this time. Not just a Specter of the Underworld implicitly threatening to claw him off to the World Below.

 

It was a darkened bronze. The colour of apocalyptic light dimly glowing through the dust-clouds at the end of the world. Perhaps, given the overarching shape, it *was* the Sun in question.

 

"That's ... that's Adamantian Bronze"

 

"Yes."

 

There was a silence between them. The "Yes" hung in the air, like the bridging-thread between void-bound worlds.

 

"What was it which you said about Old Adamantia?"

 

Geirraj's voice was softer, now. Not the serrated whisper Say knew he was capable of ; almost ... human, a vague note of .. melancholia? Was that even possible? Could Astartes *feel* almost as mortal men?

 

The beginnings of a thought percolated through Say's mind; spiking up through the dirt from the subconscious like the miniature spear-shafts of growing plants.

 

"That it was a long-dead culture, and a long-dead language."

 

Say's voice, too, had modulated - gone was the driving curiosity of the pseudo-academic; although the terror was still not far from his thoughts, this too had been tempered with a certain attempt at compassion. A ridiculous thought ... and yet, here they were.

 

Geirraj leaned in closer, his head nearly at the height of Say's. Say realized that at some point, the helmet eye-lenses the colour of green, glowing plasma-coils had been rendered transparent. Or maybe they simply weren't there anymore. A barrier between them had evidently been retracted.

 

He looked into the eyes of the Astartes. Grey-Brown-Green, and full of both sadness and life. He wasn't sure quite what it was that he had been expecting. He wasn't expecting them to look almost ... human. If only because they had misted up - and small rivulets of moisture had begun to run.

 

'Aksha', Say thought to himself - it meant 'eye' ... yet it also meant 'tears' - and, curiously enough, given the emerging shape of the latter's course ... 'serpent'.

 

'Look Death in the Eyes', the saying had went. Say hadn't expected this, when Death looked back also into his.

 

"Long Dead. Yes. Yet not quite .. Gone."

 

Geirraj drew himself back up, somewhat. Then, phrased deliberately as an afterthought - as if feeling out just how not simply the words, but the whole concept could sound out loud ... where it might be subjected to the withering scrutiny of reality's hard-light, in lieu of the sheltering glow of the conceiver's imagination :

 

"The Past is Always With Us."

 

"For We Are The Past!"

 

Say stiffened slightly. He wasn't sure that Geirraj had said that last part, nor even that it had been said out loud.

 

He looked back up to Geirraj's face-plate; half-expecting ... he didn't quite know what. There was a brief look of tenderness, perhaps almost of shadowy gratitude ... then the verdant-green eye-lenses were back up, glowing as they reached full opacity. The rest of Geirraj's monumental armoured frame fading somewhat into the gloom as he retreated back towards the wall; only the eyes continuing to maintain their shining lustre amidst the dark, regardless of the distance now between them.

 

'He didn't have to do that', thought Say - initially meaning the activation of the brightness of the lenses; but then realizing, as part of his mind danced along the skein of 'Loka' in mytho-etymological derivation, that this was a remark of *much* broader saliency and application.

 

"Now - your final answer. The one I had, apparently, not anticipated of you. Albeit this now seems one amidst many."

 

Say felt the embers of pride begin to stir in his chest. So *that's* what had motivated the colossus of jade's surprising display. He must have, on some level, *impressed* the Ghost-Warrior.

 

"Well, it's a bit theoretical ... but I noticed the potential linguistic overlap between the root-term you were using for 'harm', 'injure' - and words meaning, I suppose effectively 'to shoot', 'to skewer', in other languages of the Spoil."

 

"Oh?" This time Geirraj's tone was almost warm-soundingly amused. Genuine warmth, this time - not the heat of a red-hot flensing knife. Genuine amusement, too - the subtle difference of a joke shared, rather than a joke wherein you were about to become the punched-line. "I can, perhaps, see where this is going ..."

 

Say nodded his head in a direction off to the side - towards the mighty great power-spear, almost twice the length of a man, that Geirraj had leaned up against the wall before the start of their 'interview'.

 

"Spear-sound. Spear-speech. Spear-voice. Or, if we are being somewhat poetic ... and I think this captures what is implicitly meant by it the best - Spear-Tongue. 'Weaponized Speech', in other words."

 

In an instant, Say realized that Geirraj had covered the distance between them before he could even blink. One moment, he had been on the other side of the room. The next, he was not. How was it possible for something that ... megalithic - Say noted that his mind was running out of appropriate words, under stress, at that point - to move so swiftly? Even an oncoming storm-front, you usually at least managed to see rolling in!

 

He felt a smash of bone-jarring pain in his right shoulder. Surely, this was the end! ... And then realized that instead of a hail of ensuing blows, the Astartes' mailed gauntlet was clasped about his shoulder and right upper arm. And Geirraj seemed to be ... laughing at him.

 

No, no that wasn't quite right. Not laughing *at* him, nor even simply laughing in his general proximity, as he had done before. But rather, laughing *for* him. And with a such a significant difference on overall tone and timbre that it could only be termed Jovian - more so than, perhaps, 'Jovial', but definitely that too, and with a capital J/I. Whereas previously, the Laugh had had the quality of rolling thunder about to reign down in wrathful bolts of electrifying destructive tumult, now the Voice of Thunder was almost that of a friendly Father, genuinely and genially pleased to see a Son home following a long sojourn-voyage.

 

Say concluded that he must surely have already died when that first blow struck. Or at any point previously, with the whole conversation being some form of not-entirely-mythical metempsychosis.

 

In a sense, he was right.

 

"DO YOU KNOW WHAT WE CALL OUR OWN SPEECH, IN SUCH A SENSE?" There was still a wild energy that could not be quite tamed nor submerged within the pleasense and frithfulness of the still-ongoing bout of vocally emphatic amusement.

 

"GEIRORMUN!"

 

The revelation struck with the force of a thunderclap, and entered Say's brain like lightning; shooting down his spine, out through his eyes, and adding steel, light, and life, to his soul amidst all of the above.

 

"OF COURSE!" Say began to laugh as well. It was a rather excellent and decidedly multi-layered joke. Albeit one which would require .... quite a rarified and ... grim ...demeanour to truly appreciate. Not to mention a veer-y particular set of skills and eth(n)os to one's spirit.

 

"WELCOME TO THE HARII!", the Resounding Storm-Wind Roared.

 

"WELCOME TO 'OPERATION APAM NAPAT'" The Spearing Thunder Said.

[Kolgrim DeathHowl]

Love the fluff you've created, the models look cool too!

[Ryltar Thamior]

For bonus points, in case it wasn't clearly obvious ... pretty much all linguistics and most of the mythological references in my logs are ... mostly accurate. I've *slightly* altered some minor bits to 'compress' several hundred years' worth of etymological development inside a single sentence ... but yeah. 

If you read the stuff going on in this log and Hara Barazaiti more especially, and do so with a careful eye, then you are basically learning some rather advanced comparative Indo-European mythology & linguistics. 

[Ryltar Thamior]

"Appear at points which the enemy must hasten to defend; march swiftly to places where you are not expected."
- Sun Tzu