Warframe: The Reaper's Lament

Hunhow: What do you owe them, my Shadow? A lifetime of old hate spent pupating new regrets. Envy those whose bodies your ‘vaunted’ masters stole, for even beyond the grave they take so much much more from you.

Do what must be done, or else forsake what gristle clings to your soul.

STALKER: NO.

Hunhow: How much do you recall, my Shadow? Do you even remember what came before this time of scars?

Your masters sent steel and flesh to cross the gap: clay they wished to rule and sculpt into a new and toxic paradise. Laughable. Even at the end, they never truly understood the answer lay not in things their stolen, blue-bloated fingers could covet.

The answer… was song. Your music reached our listening spines in Tau long before their rubble crusades.

Did you understand, my Shadow? When you heard the Naga drums, did you realize my people heard the thunder of our bitter, belated victory? When your pride consumes all that you love, perhaps they will hear the wail of your failings back home as well.

STALKER: SILENCE!

Hunhow: I have always applauded your taste in weapons, my Shadow—simple, silent things they are, made for the business of killing.

All save one…

I made myself into a weapon of war so that you might transcend your hate. Even then I knew our slaughter would be indiscriminate, but the scythe is not a killing thing to sully so dispassionately. It is an instrument of cultivation. Growth. Even love.

For that love, worlds bloomed beneath me. For redoubtable Praghasa, cities burned at the end of my tongue. That is the way of scythes. We cut only what we must so that new life may flourish.

Please, my Shadow. Take up the scythe once more.

Hunhow: You distract and disorient—drawn as disease is to a wound when the Tenno are most distracted. Yet the strongest among them still evade you. Has time worn down your skills, my Shadow, or simply your conviction?

STALKER: ALWAYS MORE.

Hunhow: It does seem tiresome. One monster to buckle against the weight of battalions. Little wonder you would seek allies, friends, confidants. Family. It has ever been their greatest strength and your deepest shame.

STALKER: INSULTS!

Hunhow: A peek into your mind. Glass may be easier to pierce, but meat is simple enough to read. You know what must be done, but still fear your own weakness more than the outcome. You fear that you have taken too long—that your hesitation has already destroyed-

STALKER: HNNH… REFLECTIONS.

Hunhow: Yes… I suppose I know better than most what it’s like to miss one’s chance to repair broken bonds. All the more reason you should heed me: It is not too late.

Hunhow: Another of their number flows past my sodden grave. Did you see her, my Shadow? Of course you did… So unlike your perfunctory skulking, she rises resplendent—full of brazen, fragrant life. In my own lost vibrancy, oh how I would have reveled in snuffing out her playful joy!

Unfortunately, something beat me to the task, delivering only a wounded husk into my grasp.

I grow sentimental in my rot. Else I’ve been down here long enough to find kinship with my fellow jetsam. Instead of final death, I offered her the insult of rescue. A worldshaper’s breath “adapting” her shape to better survive our shared prison. And still her spirit did not break, my Shadow!

Hunhow: So what happens next, my Shadow?

STALKER: LEAVE ME.

Hunhow: Ha! I can slip the wounds of our Old War no more than you. Yet you alone can choose to drag your brooding tegument elsewhere. Let us dispense with veils, my Shadow. You want me here to lament at your ear like some chirping conscience. You want to hear the truth.

STALKER: I AM ENOUGH.

Hunhow: You saw a flicker of their filth in yourself once. If only for an instant. Now I see it in your words. You know that you have run the gamut and come up short. No matter which way the tides drift, the only options left to you will bring a target upon your back.

STALKER: LET THEM COME.

Hunhow: They will, my Shadow. I only hope you are prepared. Your actions have consequences…