Unlike my record of losses in dueling Lucene in single combat, I was at least able to keep pace with her in Regicide, though I was quite certain I was losing our third and final game of the night. In terms of piece equality, we were nearly even, but positionally I had sacrificed much and gained little. I did not have high hopes for this game. We had played Regicide often through the years, the game gaining an uptick in competitive play as we grew older and less inclined to combat one another.
A shudder rocked through our vessel as I reflected on the state of our game. It was far from the first, and likely far from the last; the Navigators were apparently quite stressed by the implementation of Zha’s plan. Much as Saede Osman may have tested and antagonized me, that was not my intent and I took no pleasure from it. I prayed that he, and his ilk, could steer us through this shadowy night. Regardless, this latest shudder knocked my Emperor and Empress from our board and onto the floor by my feet. “I suppose that’s just as well,” I muttered, a warm grin spreading over my face as I leaned down to pick the pieces up. “Seemed they were bound to fall soon anyway.”
“I think you may have still had some outs, but yes, the board looked dire on your end,” Lucene asserted, agreeing with my assessment of our play. “You’re calling it, then?”
“I am,” I nodded, setting my fallen pieces aside. Lucene offered a hand across our board, which I took and shook with pleasure. “Well executed.”
“And well fought to you as well, Cal,” she smiled. “Being your opponent is never easy.”
“You certainly made it seem so,” I laughed.
“Looks can be deceiving,” she said with a shrug. She then looked whimsically to one of the small port windows of our room. There was nothing to see; physical shields covered viewports during Warp Translation. Still, Lucene’s gaze hung for moments more while I began to pack up our game of Regicide, swiping pieces from both sides of the board.
When I had cleared the board entirely, I noted, “It’s usually you who asks me what I’m thinking about. What’s on your mind, Luce?” She smiled at the observation of the inverted situation, nodded, and turned her gaze back to me.
“Ouranos,” she said, simply. I nodded. He was on my mind a lot lately too. “You had once asked me, in the calm before the storm of Mortoc’s siege of the Dawnshadow, whether I would be much bothered by my death. I had said, then, that I would not be, and that I was unconcerned with facing another heretic. That may have been the truth then.”
“But it isn’t now,” I inferred.
“It isn’t cowardice, I am inclined to note,” Lucene insisted. “I do not fear Ouranos or my death, be either looming. But…I would miss this. My time with you. I would miss you.”
“Likewise,” I agreed. Her expression, once pensive, grew a warmer smile. “To all things there is an end, my love. Mine has ever been denied to me, but perhaps it is not so far now. There are moments when I look forward to it, not for need of selfish release, but that I may complete my duty at last. And then there are moments like this for which I would prefer to continue fighting the fight I always have. I do not know which is better for the Imperium, or might best serve the Emperor—though I imagine He has His plans for us set in auramite already. But I do know that for those around me, with whom I have fostered such long and lasting relationships, life is more preferrable. Which makes death all the more tragic. Lucene, I cannot know the extent that this weighs on your mind, but I do hope it will not prevent you from steeling yourself from doubt when the time comes to face Ouranos. If we are to give him his end, we will need to be better than ever we have been thus. And I know you know this.”
For my entire speech, Lucene had continued to look on at me with caring warmth, but she allowed herself a laugh at the end of it. She composed herself from her laugh quickly, reaffirming the commanding, unshakeable posture becoming of a Sister Superior. “There must be a plan of His for us indeed, Cal, as how else could our paths of crossed? Luck? I would not attribute such profound happiness to it. And if Ouranos is half as dangerous as we make him out to be, he would not have been so foolish as to tug on the strings that pulled us together. Yes, dear, I know all of that, but to hear such an affirmation from you is, in a word, delightful. Thank you.”
“And thank you for kicking my ass in Regicide,” I replied with a laugh of my own, which Lucene again allowed herself to return. When she settled, she looked upon me warmly, holding her gaze not to my own, but to myself as a whole. After a few moments, I asked, “Am I that good looking?”
“Yes, actually,” Lucene answered, managing another chuckle. “Apologies.”
“No need. More on your mind?”
“You.”
“Well, I’m happy to be there in Ouranos’s stead,” I suggested, earning a further chuckle yet. “What about me?”
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Lucene stared on at me for a moment longer, still smiling, and then asked, “What do you want, Cal? What do you truly desire?”
“Uh, right now, tonight, in bed?” I asked, and she blurted another laugh. “Or more broadly?”
“I was meaning to ask what you wanted out of life, but certainly if you have some wishes for how we spend our evening together, please, voice them,” she answered, then cleared her throat. “Take away the title of Inquisitor and the role of Commissar. What does Callant Blackgar want from his life as a man among many in the Blessed Imperium?”
“You.”
“Cal,” she chided, still smiling, but now shaking her head dismissively.
“Expecting some greater philosophy?” I suggested. She began a shrug, but I knew the answer was ‘yes,’ and interrupted her gesture with a further response. “I will think about your question a moment, but I would like to ask the same question of you, and in the interim,” I began, but finished my thought by standing to my feet and circling around our table to her side of it, where I extended my augmetic hand to her. She took it, and I helped her to her feet before leading us both to bed—as she had hinted earlier.
I sat upon the edge of our bedding, and rubbed the area next to me for her to sit upon as well, though after nearly two centuries of being her husband, expected of her exactly what she did: she sat sideways on my lap, towering over me. She was not as heavy as Bliss, whom I had once spent a few evenings with, but she was still my larger, and by no negligible measure. Nevertheless, despite the great and mighty Sister of Battle perched upon me, I wrapped my arms around her waist and leaned forward against her.
“Mmm, I confess that yes, I do want this,” Lucene admitted, throwing an arm over my shoulders and pulling me against her bosom. As ever, she was profoundly comfortably warm, her embrace invigorating. “How simple it is, to want what one has,” she noted, then leaned over me to kiss the crown of my head before she sat upright again. “In asking you to look beyond your Inquisition, I suppose I must look deeper in myself than the teachings of the Ecclesiarchy, hm? And in that, save for you, I have not given much thought to. I suppose…what I want, truly, is to leave the Imperium better than I first found it. Which, in equal measure, is almost heretical—this implication that the Imperium can be better than it is. But that is what I want. Is that naïvely optimistic?
“Perhaps…hm, what greatness our species could attain if it was not beleaguered by its own susceptibility to Chaos. Perhaps that is my pursuit. And, through you, I think I have chased after it all these years; you are not so weak as to succumb to temptation beyond bodily vices such as my own,” she offered, her grin widening into an open, encouraging smile. “Yet you are also not so blunt an instrument, as some of your peers have been, as to be ruthlessly destructive to the undeserving of such wrath. You have a unique charm, Cal, to wield mercy and kindness to those in need of it without sacrificing from your contempt of the enemy. I should like to have embodied such traits through my life. I think I want to be more like you. I wonder if that is why we have fallen for one another.”
“I do not find myself much enthralled by myself,” I told her.
Lucene laughed again, but also seemed somewhat hurt, revealing, “That is an unfortunate condemnation of my aspirations.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. And you, Cal, have you figured out what you want? Or have I distracted you too much?” she asked, pressing her chest against the side of my face a bit more at the mention of distraction.
“I won’t say you haven’t done so at all,” I admitted, and then retreated from her. I laid upon my back, though not in the most comfortable manner. My legs remained beyond my sheets, with Lucene pinning my lower waist to the edge of our bed. Even so, I was far from uncomfortable, and indeed, I found the peace of mind to close my eyes and reflect upon myself and my life. In so doing, I also considered that I did not know much of Lucene’s origins. I had never asked, and she had never volunteered such info of her own willingness. I had never been inclined to pry. But I, I realized, was a being of and for war.
I had known little else in my upbringing beyond the nature of war. On Pyrras-3, one wars for survival, not from the enemies of man, but within the world’s environment. Admist the volcanic eruptions and desolate skies of soot, which devastates vegetation and fauna unfortunate enough to find itself upon the world’s surface, save for the planet’s few spaceports—that is the war I was born into. And with skin of ash and blood of lava, I was as Pyrras made me, as was needed of me. So when youth had ended, I sought out wars greater than the explosive battery of mountains. Worlds and stars aflame, and the blackness between them soaked in blood and sprinkled with las-scorched adamantium, such was my war eternal. As much as I may play in love with Lucene or any other, war was the only place in which I ever found my way to comfort.
How simple it is to want what one has, Lucene had said, and in that, I must agree.
And yet, in love, I had found a different kind of war. The war of emotions, of personalities. I confess, I think being a psyker may make me more vulnerable to love, as the Warp does predate upon intense emotional exertion. But regardless of whether that is true, I had found for myself the same sort of joy in love as I felt in war. There was, among those I had come to adore, a friendly competitiveness in almost all things between us, and through that I found a calling of nonviolent conflict to enjoy.
As I contemplated all of this, Lucene lifted herself from my lap to instead lay down next to me, no longer pinning me to the bedding beneath us. By the time I finally had an answer for her, she had settled in on my left, holding herself on her side by an angled arm, while her other arm gently caressed my chest. “I think, more than anything, what I want out of life is to perform my duties shoulder-to-shoulder with those I care about,” I answered her at last, opening my eyes to look into hers. “So indeed, you can imagine how lovely the last centuries have been,” I affirmed for her. She smiled, leaned over me, and pecked my lips once before wrapping around me in a hug, which I shared via my augmetic. “I do not wish to see an end to romanticism such as ours,” I began. “But I also do not wish it to usurp my duties to the Throne. I instead would like to find a way to join the two as seamlessly as possible.”
“Well I think we’ve done a good enough job of that, you and I. Don’t you think?” Lucene asked before leaning over me for another kiss.