You take a split moment to think over whether you should bring Littleflame or not. Pure logic would dictate that bringing another Medicae into the mix couldn't hurt. But that rests on the assumption that the other medicaes involved would have no objections, doubtful in the extreme aboard an Imperial ship. Add to that the crew in the area, the orderlies, and the probable members of the Ordo Xenos or Deathwatch, and someone would pick up on what Littleflame is and object. Violently.

But the real deciding factor is that this is a personal family affair, and the fewer outsiders involved, the better. "Littleflame, Monat, stay here. Aunt Yasha, I presume you can lock your quarters?"

Aunt Yasha blinks, then nods. "Yes. Lets go, no time to waste!"

You follow Aunt Yasha out into the corridor, who pauses to lock her door, and then hustle off. You've never been aboard the Terra Incarnadine before, so you are hopelessly lost inside of four turns and one lift. The walk takes quite some time, and covers enough distance that you stop even trying to figure it out. Soon enough, you arrive at a very private medical bay. There is only one bed. No guard stands outside the door, nor inside the room. The only medical person in attendance is an elderly orderly, hunched over a life-support apparatus of some sort. The wires lead to the figure on the bed, and you can feel the bile rise in your throat as you survey the damage that Stiehr has survived.

The sheet is only pulled up to his waist, to facilitate the numerous attachments to the life-support equipment. You note and ignore a pair of tubes that do duck under the sheet: waste disposal, nothing you need to look at closely. The half-dozen drips tapped into Stiehr's arms and chest must be a mixture of nutrient and medicine feeds and monitoring sensors of some sort. But it’s the tattoos and scars that hold your gaze. They begin on Stiehr's left palm with a swirling circle, and spiral up that arm, over his left shoulder and down his left side to vanish below the sheet. All of it forms a single intricate pattern of knotwork, an unending loop of incredible complexity. A stylized human form stands at Stiehr's left shoulder, above three animal forms. The scars cover his entire chest. Some are the slapdash hatch-work of whip marks, others deliberate spiraling cuts where the flesh was peeled away. The knife-scars trail up Stiehr's neck and over his lips and cheeks, crossing over his eyes. Some of them are tender-pink, just healed shut. Others are the bone-pale white of old wounds. They overlap and criss-cross with wild abandon, several lifetime's worth of agony compressed into a canvas of flesh.

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Aunt Yasha sits at the foot of the bed and starts to speak. What, you are not sure, because she stops almost at once. You follow her gaze, and get a look at Stiehr's mutations. Pink scales dot his lower right arm, and more trace themselves out of the scars on his torso, becoming more frequent further down Stiehr's torso where they disappears beneath the sheet. Stiehr's head raises up fractionally to stare at aunt Yasha before dropping back to the pillow and rolling to fix his unblinking gaze on you. You note that his eyelids have been cut away. Stiehr speaks, his voice the rasp of one who has screamed for far too long. "You... I have Seen you. What is your name?"

You see no reason not to answer him. "Ethna Nic Vir Dannan, Daughter of Vir and Morrigan Dannan."

"The Truthseeker from the Blinded-Seer and the Battle-Crow." Stiehr hisses intermittently, which you take for laughter of a sort. "So the runes didn't lie. The old Matriarch is dead or damned, and with her passes House Saurlance."

"What runes?" Aunt Yasha exclaims. "Who cast them?"

Stiehr twitches his head from side to side. "Not ones that any mortal would use, and by a being once-human now damned and thrice-dead. But who are you? For they did not predict any other survivors of Saurlance."

Aunt Yasha grins crookedly. "Yasha Dannan. And they are right, after a fashion I guess. I did die, as I guess you did as well." her hand drifts over her abdomen, right above her womb.

Stiehr twitches a shoulder. "The Warp is... fluid... about such things. The person I was is certainly dead, annihilated that day back in Kania."

You lean forward a bit, recapturing Stiehr's attention. "So what do you know of what is going on at the moment? With house Saurlance destroyed, what will the last Saurlance do now?"

Stiehr's eyes lock onto yours, his unblinking stare holding your gaze. "Whatever you command, mistress mine."