ROBOUTE GUILLIMAN
He watched as the body, not unlike that of a young woman, flaked away into a cloud of ash that slowly gathered into a pile on the floor. Nobody spoke, though he assumed their thoughts were just as loud as his own.
There were many things in the darker reaches of this galaxy no human could ever understand, not even one enhanced to such a degree as himself. Whatever just happened was far from the strangest thing that had happened in his life, it wasn’t even the strangest since he awoke from his stasis.
His meeting with the … being that was his father once took that spot easily.
“Octavian,” he said, sending a minute jolt through the Custodes as he removed his gaze from the pile of ash and met Guilliman’s gaze. “I want to know everything you can tell me about that ‘thing’.”
To be honest with himself, the primary feeling left in his heart in the aftermath of his meeting with the Xeno was worry, mixed with a trace amount of treacherous hope.
The creature somehow knew where exactly to plunge her metaphorical knife. The fact it knew the worry he hid in the depths of his heart so far was by itself eerie and he would have loved to ignore its little power play. Unfortunately, it was right. He suspected the Xeno knew even before coming here that he wouldn’t be able to give up on somehow getting even a single one of his brothers back. The creature figured out just the spot where it hurt the most, he would never know, but it had and it was right.
He loathed every day of trying to guide this mutated, rotting carcass of an empire back into order as it did its very best to tear itself apart from within while the scavengers already gathered to feast on it. Again and again, he wished for any of his brothers to come back, to let him share his burden with them or at least have a single other being in the entire galaxy who might be able to understand him.
Hope was a poison, he knew, but it was a delicious one and he drank it down like a starving man. If there was even the slightest little figment of truth to any of the claims the Xeno made, he had to get to the bottom of it.
What worried him though was that so far he gave nothing. True, the information was unconfirmed, but in essence the alien just waltzed up to him and gave him free information.
The gene-library, if she ever got around to claiming it, was entirely replaceable and almost worthless in his eyes and the Pariah was as good as new if the medics’ reports were right.
He didn’t understand his foe. That was his problem. He hadn’t the faintest clue how much the things he thought worthless and gave up with little resistance were worth to her.
Conveniently, before him stood just the man who could tell him everything he wanted to know. If only he wasn’t so tight-lipped.
“It is under the highest level of confidentiality, Lord Regent.” There was just the faintest trace of uncertainty in his voice.
Guilliman understood. The Xeno obviously didn’t share Octavian’s dogmatic attachment to secrecy and probably the only reason she never gave a full breakdown of what she was just because he hadn’t asked.
He knew the game more than well enough to refrain from doing so. She gave information for free, but if he showed interest she would have asked for compensation and would have been in a position to ask for much more than any other way.
“Your mission is to protect that creature if I remember correctly?” Not that he thought his memory would decide to fail him for the first time in his life.
“Yes,” Octavian said. “That is correct.”
“The biggest threat on the Xeno’s life at the moment is me deciding that her continued survival is a threat to the Imperium, is that not so?”
“Perhaps it is,” Octavian allowed. “If one doesn’t factor in the unknown and the danger the Shadowkeepers represent.”
“Perhaps if I knew more of this Xeno I could be convinced that cooperation is preferable to eliminating it,” Guilliman said. “Though if you were to keep your silence, I might just assume that is in accordance with your mission. That me knowing that information you withhold would only persuade me to terminate the threat the Xeno poses. I believe it would be prudent to act with that assumption in mind, if that was the case, wouldn’t it?”
Threatening a custode as he was doing right now might be a dangerous gambit, but he was more than willing to take it. Octavian and the Aquilian Shield next to him were tense, coiled like springs and the other golden warriors also showed readiness for combat — though who would they aid if a fight really did break out, he couldn’t know.
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Then Octavian gave the slightest of nods and Guilliman allowed himself a minute smile. From the conversation he had with it, he understood that the Xeno had an understanding of his character and the things he values — it knew of things that were long forgotten — he had to even the scales as much as possible before their next meeting.
He didn’t have long. Baal was already clearly visible through the viewing panels.
With that in mind, Guilliman listened with rapt attention as Octavian began to speak.
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Come on, you can do it. Okay … 3 … 2 … 1 … move. After psyching myself up for a good minute inside the confines of my head, I finally managed to gather the resolve to do what had to be done.
It might have been the hardest thing I’ve ever done, easily up there with my fight with the Shadowkeeper.
A single glance at Selene’s adorably drooling at my shoulder almost shattered that resolve, but I was made of sterner stuff than that … I think.
“Hey,” I nudged her softly. “We need to get up.”
She just groaned, scrunching up her eyebrows and flopping around to her other side, which unfortunately meant she was no longer stuck to my side like a koala. I used the opportunity to slip out from under the blanket and hop over to the other side and give her a poke. Then another, and another in all the tickly spots I discovered yesterday.
“Oh, damnit STOP,” she yelled, half crying, half laughing as I gave her naked side a final pinch. “You are evil.”
I puffed myself up at the compliment, which earned me a pillow to the face.
“Coffee?” I asked, putting the pillow back on the bed with a simple under Selene’s glare.
“What?” she asked.
“Uhm,” I frowned. “Recaff? That’s what you call it, right?”
“Yeah,” she frowned back, squinting at me suspiciously. “The one you make out of Xeno organic fluids?”
“… no?”
“I’m good, I think,” she huffed, slipping out of the bed with a scowl of one deprived of their morning intake of caffeine. Then she gave me a hopeful look. “Can you do that ‘pick-me-up’ thingy with your space-magic?”
“Sure,” I grinned, then poked her in the side again, which made her let out an adorable yelp as bio-energy rushed into her body and banished any semblance of fatigue.
“We should get dressed if you are in such a hurry,” she grumbled, but the tired scowl was gone from her face as she gave her body a look-over. She was certainly the more ‘enthusiastic’ out of the two of us yesterday, but she was still left with the marks of our lovemaking. It was beautiful, especially with her dishevelled hair to go with it.
“We probably should,” I gave a faux sigh as I conjured up my regular set of silken pants and … toga? No, that was that flowy Roman clothing. This was more of a long shirt split at the sides and held together by a sash at my waist. It was simplicity itself, but I loved how the materials felt against my skin and the fact that it didn’t limit my range of movement one bit. “Such a shame.”
“On that, we agree,” she gave my clothed form a regretful look. Just for her, I refrained from healing away the marks she left on me, and there were a lot. Selene was the sort that was surprisingly brazen once she let herself go. “The fleet’s here?”
“Yep,” I said. “Already in low orbit. The Thunderhawks are descending as we speak with the big blue man himself in one of them.”
“Hmm,” she frowned as she finished pulling on her pants, putting on her own set of the same clothing I had on, just in black. “Will that really be alright? Primarch’s are supposed to be a league above Custodian guards and a single one of those almost did you in.”
“If that Shadowkeeper didn’t have the exact combination of arcane toys that he had, I would have slaughtered him in a minute,” I shrugged. “But you are right, Guilliman has toys of his own that I should keep my distance from. Though unless he pulls out a Blank on the level of that black skull, he wouldn’t have much of a chance at doing me any permanent damage.”
“If you are sure,” she squinted at me. “You aren’t even back to full capacity yet, are you though?”
“… I should be in a few hours,” I grimaced as I felt around the hair-thin cracks crisscrossing an entire half of my mindscape. “I’ll be careful, and so will you. I have no idea whether I can save you if you get yourself impaled on his flaming word. That thing can obliterate souls.”
“Maybe you should go alone,” she said thoughtfully. “If it comes down to a fight, we’ll just be baggage.”
There was a resolve in the way her eyes narrowed as she said that. A promise that she would change that fact. I smiled at her. “It shouldn’t come to that. I had a little talk with him and I think he’ll err on the side of caution and aim for diplomacy … at least for now.”
“When?” she massaged her head as if nursing a headache. “Did you run off to talk with the Regent Lord of the Imperium while cuddling?”
“Yep,” I nodded. “Sorry.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“Should have given my entire focus to cuddling.”
She rolled her eyes, but not without a smirk tugging at her lips. “Let’s get the other two, or do you want to leave them? If you want to be there when the Thunderhawks land, we only have a few minutes.”
“I think Valenith should come.” I rubbed my chin. “Guilliman has one of Eldrad’s other stray apprentices tagging along with him. I’m curious what’ll happen when they meet.”
“Alright,” she nodded, emotion draining out of her face as her back straightened. She had no obvious weapons on her, but the Harlequin’s Kiss glinted on her left wrist and the white choker on her neck would unfurl into the best combat armour I could make for her, along with a small arsenal of weapons. “I’m ready.”
‘Val,’ I tightened the telepathic connection between me and the Eldar. ‘We are going to meet the newcomers. Come.’
“Let us go then,” I grinned. A portal hissed and tore through space, showing a very surprised and unfortunate human in a ragged PDF uniform on the other side. The moment I felt space warp a bit behind me as Valenith’s familiar aura spread out of it, I stepped through. “This is going to be fun.”
As an afterthought, I sent a summary of all the stuff that happened and where we were going to Zedev, along with a request to continue fortifying the place without committing too much of his resources.
The poor Magos was the only one of us who I didn’t make semi-immortal so he would be staying behind.
I sent a bolt of psychic power after the human now scrambling away, wiping his short-term memory and putting him to sleep. No need to have everyone up in arms just for little old me.
Well, there was no need at this time. I didn’t plan on attacking them, plus the surprise would be ruined if Dante knew I was here. I hope Mephiston wasn’t a killjoy.