#setekh

Y’all ready for some REAL oc stuff?? Excellent cause I’ve got plenty

For the last couple weeks of the school term I’ve been pumping out exploratory sketches of the cast of my ya novel to get a better handle on how I’d like them to look

Have some drawings of Lilith at various stages of her life with all the people she knows and has known in the six thousand years she’s been alive!

Doing a little art dump again.

I want to sketch out what Sannet looks like to me. And then I did the scene where Szeras shows up at solomnec in the silence and the storm.

The second image is just me goofing off, trying to find the way I like to draw Thaszar. My desire for putting necrons in pretty little dresses can never be quenched.

I had a hard time visualizing the clothes in Ghosts, other fanfic. So I just decided to illustrate them myself.

Below that one is a sketch of Obyron taking a nap on Nep’s chest ass the others are goofing around.

These two are very old and as you can clearly see unfinished. The first one is supposed to be the scene in severed where obyron and Zahndrekh are trying to figure out the riddle puzzle to get in to the core.

And the other one I made when the silence and the storm had a particular chapter released that made me emotional to the point of tears for the first time. Thanks Ghost 🫠👍

First one is just a reference I did for Imothk and the other one is my OC Cachet, they are a bit of a fashion geek. Don’t worry about the other fella up in the corner, they are now long gone, hopefully.

And down here below we have our favorite battle fleet armada necrons. I never got to see their full bodies in the play through of the game I saw, so I made the executive decision to try and imagine what their whole bodies look like on my own. I imagine Amarakun being pretty normal and uninteresting down there. And I decided that Zaa secretly has a little tail under a big skirt. Because as everyone know, all astromancers are cats to some degree. 

That said...

Imagine being born into one of the most cut-throat societies imaginable. Life has no inherent value. Death is inevitable, close, and painful. Legacy and power are all you have, so pursue them at all costs if you are lucky enough to be born with access to those things.

Setekh was born with access to those things. And in his mind, played the game exactly how it was meant to be played. He gaslit, he gatekept, he girlbossed. He was model necrontyr nobility, and that must have eaten away at him. He probably believed everyone around him was just as duplicitous as he was, and he was 99% right. The only time he was wrong was Zahndrekh. Zahndrekh who was trusting and naive and who shouldn't have lasted five minutes in the "real world", military genius aside. He should have been eaten alive. He should have been punished for failing to adapt as Setekh had.

Except that didn't happen. Zahndrekh got all the glory, the planet, the hot bodyguard. He won without having to sacrifice his principles or his peace of mind. In fact won in part because of his ability to inspire loyalty and form the type of bond Setekh disdains (namely his bond with Obyron). And Setekh had a front row seat. He was passed over despite doing everything possible (including attempted assassination by giant carnivorous bugs!) to tear Zahndrekh down. How do you handle that? Realizing the world doesn't work the way you thought it did and you gave up any chance at peace or connection chasing a false goal?

Now, presumably Setekh went on to live some kind of normal life after Yama. Maybe he even stopped thinking about Zahndrekh and everything that happened, wrote it off as an anomaly. But then biotransference happens and every necron is reduced to some form of madness or obsession. And what does Setekh have to latch onto? An old grudge. An old wrong that he can make right. That is now the only thing tethering his mind to some semblance of sanity. All that hatred and jealousy and need to prove that he was right all along. Zahndrekh just hasn't gotten his comeuppance yet.

So he makes this plan to destroy Zahndrekh's world like Zahndrekh destroyed his (and get some powerful tech in the bargain). He's going to use the exact connection between Obyron and Zahndrekh that foiled him last time. Overcome both of them to restore his sense of order. But then that plan fails because no, love is fucking real and Setekh gave up any chance he ever had at getting it.

He is stuck in this tragic downward spiral. And it's particularly tragic because this type of bitter resentment is so real. He hates Zahndrekh because of what he represents, what he achieved, not because of anything Zahndrekh ever did to him. Raise your hand if you've met this person. Raise your hand if you've been this person. It is such an easy mental trap to fall into, hating a person because of how they challenge your view of the world.

“Setekh.”

“Mm?”

“You do know that man is one of my warriors, yes?”

Setekh's eyes narrowed with hunger. “Are you offering? You could order him in here right now. I think I would-”

“All of him is mine.”

But good things never last forever, and Setekh's gaping fishmouth soon sharpened into a tight grin. “You fiend. I should have known a piece like that wouldn't slip by unnoticed.”

Zahndrekh brought his glass up to his lips and took a long, satisfied sip as he waited for Setekh to come up with a response. He appeared to have locked up, mouth still parted slightly with nothing coming out. So that's what it takes to make him shut up.

Make it convincing. “How could I? You've seen him. Like an old god carved from stone - he could pick me up with one arm and carry me across the drill yard without breaking a sweat.”

“Oh, you can't say things such as that, making me think of him sweating.”

“Dedicated. Blazingly competent. Loyal, both to his commander and to his squad. Even-tempered, both on the field and off it. Not smart, perhaps - I don't believe he can read very well - but clever and wise beyond what anyone expects of the average soldier. And he spends a fair amount of his free time working out, even after normal drills. He genuinely tries to be the best he can.”

“By the stars.”

“Beg your pardon?”

Setekh waved his hands at Zahndrekh's face. The gesture was clumsy with wine now; he might not have to keep the act up much longer. “You're getting all soft-eyed. Don't tell me you actually like this man.”

Zahndrekh struggled to close his own stuttering mouth now. “What can I say, competence is attractive.”

“So we're in agreement!” As if toasting some great victory, Setekh raised his glass to Zahndrekh before taking his next sip. “You know… hear me out. Have him summoned, and we could share him. Clearly both of us appreciate him. Why not enjoy him together? I know it's been a while since we-”

“I did say he was mine, didn't I, Setekh?”

“Which is why there's nothing stopping you from calling him here immediately. You're clearly thinking about it.”

“I've considered it. And my conclusion is ‘no.’ I'm not keen on breaking him just for one fun night.”

“What? He's just a warrior! They don't even properly court each other; do you think you need to woo him or some nonsense?” Setekh scoffed.

If he won't stop pawing at the cookie jar, put it out of his reach. “Considering I plan to make him my vargard, yes, to a degree.”

“... You cannot be serious.”

“I'm not keen on getting on bad terms with someone who will be responsible for my food tasters and guard patrols.”

“No, him? As a vargard? He's an Immortal. Surely you would want to take a lychguard. A warrior with pedigree, not a sandborn walking gun-mount. Does he even know how to handle a glaive?”

“I told you, he practices in his free time. I've seen him work with the glaive plenty.”