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Aftermath of the Ullanor Crusade, Millennium 30

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I first met Magnus of Prospero when he was two hundred years old and I was roughly five times his age. Our second meeting was the first time we met without his entourage, and it might have been the first time we met without ceremony if I hadn't been on guard duty.

I'd been partnered with a warrior named Haedo, and we'd settled atop the eaves of an awning that provided a great view of our surroundings. It also gave us enough room to spread out, so I wasn't disturbed when my partner twitched at every insect, breeze, and imaginary dust ball that drew his ire.

The two of us didn't react when Magnus walked onto the balcony below us, as a known guest approaching from inside the citadel was no threat. We had no obligation to address him- our duty was to his father.

Magnus didn't acknowledge us, silently watching the night sky and, if the melancholic wind stirring in thematic ways was any indication, brooding. The three of us quietly ignored one another as we went about our business until the hour ended and our routine check-in was due. I activated the communications built into my armor to write the report for our post- No threat. Primarch Magnus located near our position. All clear.

Magnus hissed and took several quick steps away from my position. Naturally my partner and I assumed Magnus was reacting to a threat behind me. We swung our weapons in unison, but I could find no target along the walls or in the sky.

My first thought was that the enemy was invisible and Magnus had perceived it with his psyker abilities. My second was that an assassin clung to the underside of the overpass between me and the Primarch. I was moments away from climbing under the awning to check when Magnus addressed us. "At ease, Custodians. I was preoccupied and forgot your presence until you moved."

Haedo and I exchanged glances, using a gesture language to silently confer our next moves. Haedo was eager to confront an enemy, any enemy really, so he began the perimeter scan while I modified our report. Primarch Magnus located near our position, brief disruption. No perceived threat.

With that I resumed my vigil, giving a polite, "Apologies for our disturbance, my lord."

"It's not a problem, Custodian."

Haedo returned to his post with only a slight slump of disappointment. Magnus settled against the railing and went back to what was, given the dramatic nature of the Emperor's sons, most likely internal monologuing.

The night continued in this manner until Magnus broke the silence, "We've met before, haven't we?"

Haedo and I didn't realize he'd meant one of us until Magnus went on, "The one on the left up there. Farther from the wall."

Haedo and I locked eyes again. I was farther from the wall. Between the two of us I had the better track record with diplomatic assignments, in that such missions generally didn't end in failure the moment I was left unsupervised. Haedo composed a new report, while I rolled my body over the edge of the roof. I grabbed hold of the edge as I went so that I swung myself onto the balcony below.

I had no delusions of being able to surprise Magnus, though he did smirk as I dismounted. "Did you have a request of me, my lord?" I said, careful to keep my tone polite and my posture neutral.

He shook his head. "Just making an observation. I only just noticed that your presence is familiar to me."

"Our paths crossed earlier today." I confirmed.

"And here our paths cross again." Magnus' gaze returned to the night sky. "I can honestly say that I didn't expect such a thing. It's the most interesting little events in life that happen to occur on repeat. Don't you agree?"

As he outranked me, protocol demanded I give a reply. "I suppose that depends on the perspective of the man in question."

"Perspective, you say." Magnus said. I couldn't guess why he didn't return to the celebrations and seek conversation from his brothers and attendants.

"So many things occur that can be called coincidence. If the event in question results in significant change, we call it fate. Otherwise, the value of any given event is only decided by the value the participants attribute to it." I said.

Magnus looked at me. "You know, that reminds me of a philosophy held by a number of ancient cultures. That every man will experience thousands of omens throughout his life that foretell his fate. But he only notices a handful of these signs, and correctly interprets even fewer."

"I wouldn't know." I told him, carefully considering my words. "I don't have any reference frame to judge how much power the common man holds as a latent psyker, clairvoyance included."

Magnus' lips pulled back in what I suspect was meant to be a smile that failed to reach his eye. "Oh, it's greater than you think. Much greater than you think." He sighed, "Such a pity that so many refuse to see it."

Of the nine Primarchs hosted that night two were known to have no psykers serving under them. I was trained to handle any threat to my Emperor, his people, his lands, and his sons with deadly efficiency. I was never meant to get involved in politics, even in the slightest capacity.

To this day I remember thinking, 'How the hell can I answer that without digging my own grave?'

Fortunately for me, Magnus didn't wallow for long. "In any event, I find the implications of such superstitions interesting for very different reasons. If there is some unknown meaning in an unknown number of coincidences, should every unusual event be examined for prophecy?"

'It seems a rather impractical solution.' I thought, glad I wasn't expected to discuss civic matters. "I'm not sure how much of humanity has the time, resources, or memory to record and interpret every unexpected incident in their daily lives." I said.

"No, I suppose not." Magnus said. "Add in the challenges of ensuring each interpretation is the right one and it becomes outright impossible. Many of the civilization that believed in prophetic signs created streamlined prophecy interpretation guides and mass-produced fortunes. Discovery devolved into superstition, which was kept alive by greed.

"But the theory still remains, that some ancient visions were more than tales of charlatans. If rational men gained a belief in prophecy through observing the outcome of true visions, then there's no reason for such occurrences to stop just because some hacks start popping up. If anything the development of professionals with false guidance damaged humanity's ability to see…" Magnus sighed. "Ah, but I'm getting off topic."

"I found it fascinating." I said, before biting my tongue. I'd already known that particular tidbit of history, and Magnus' analysis had felt incomplete.

"The short version is that commercial fortune-telling was the undoubtedly death of serious exploration into true visions." Magnus said.

I found myself saying, "It seems the accuracy of that theory would depend on how often ancient humans were able to unknowingly use clairvoyance. If the theory is correct, wouldn't proto-psykers have drawn more accurate conclusions than others?"

"Potentially." Magnus said. Mentally I chastised myself for speaking aloud, but having already begun I found no reason not to continue.

"Perhaps those with nascent psyker abilities found work in commercial fortune telling, their successful results keeping the myths alive, and making the superstitions a mix of faith and deduction." I said.

"You're assuming the presence of omens works the same way as a psykers' perception of the future."

"Forgive me, I presumed that the presence of psyker ability is important when accessing… a psyker's abilities." I said. "Is that not the case?"

"It's a complicated subject." As he spoke, I saw creases form at the corners of Magnus' one good eye. "The key concept is that the future reaches us even when we're not reaching for it. I, and those among my brothers who share the gift of foresight don't seek our glimpses of the future. The visions come to us whether we're ready or not."

"So the theory is that the same thing happens to all of humanity, just on a smaller scale. And man unconsciously associates the prophecies with whatever he is looking at when he gets them." I said.

Magnus said to me, "That's one of two approaches to the theory. The other is an inversion of what you just said. Basically, the belief is that everyone will, at times in their life, be exposed to a potential future. When someone gets a whisper of a vision, he or she unintentionally fixates on things in their surroundings that reflect some aspect of the prophecy.

"The only advantages a psyker or proto-psyker might have is the ability to recognize such visions for what they were, enhance their comprehension of the vision, or induce visions at their leisure." Magnus paused. "Given, of course, that the psyker understands enough about their gifts to use them."

"So, wouldn't that still mean that the successes of proto-psykers were still responsible for keeping omen superstition alive?" I asked.

"There likely wouldn't have been enough proto-psykers to explain the widespread belief in omens. But if everyone receives omens, then survivorship bias provides another explanation. You see, a perceptive man might still have noticed when the future showed itself to him. If he was open-minded and critical, he might be able to deduct a hidden truth. Perceptive men tend to be the sort that accomplish great deeds, and their claims of prophetic symbols are given greater trust by the general public."

"Wouldn't survivorship bias have the opposite effect?" I asked, "No one who loses a war wants to talk about how their gods had promised them a victory that they never received. For that matter, considering how rationality and logic were historically restrained by communal faith, wouldn't most successful men want to claim their victories had been foretold by greater forces? Winning because of a talented commander might encourage soldiers to fight harder in the next battle, but winning because god is on your side raises morale for the entire war.

"Alternatively, confusion between correlation and causality could explain why influential men claimed their victories had been foretold to them." I said.

"Whichever maximizes the appeal of Occam's Razor?" Magnus joked.

"The simplest solution…"

"Well, this is all theoretical. There's no evidence, and no feasible way to collect evidence one way or another." Magnus said. "Still, when faced with the unexpected I find it entertaining to try to guess what the theoretical omen is telling me."

"If it behooves you to hear my advice," I paused until Magnus nodded for me to continue, "if you see a black dog in your tanna then prepare to live long and meet your godfather soon."

Magnus made a noise like a cat's sneeze, and I realized he was holding back laughter. "And here you said the Custodians had no room for levity."

"I might've been exaggerating." I admitted, "We get two minutes once a year for a joke and a little bit of ancient literature."

"Well I'm glad to have been present for your annual two minutes." He reached out, one hand brushing my shoulder, his hand dwarfing the pauldron. "Perhaps meeting you twice within the span of a day is a sign that your fate will cross with mine."

Magnus' smile widened. "Seeker of hidden truths… There aren't many I've met who are as open-minded as you. You could teach my brother a thing or two."

I barely noticed when I pulled back, and Magnus gaped as though he thought his touch had burned me. I was a Custodian. I guarded the Emperor. I stayed neutral in politics.

That only worked if politics stayed away from me. Over the last few minutes I'd forgotten that I was in an excellent position to collect secrets that the Emperor gathered in keeping tabs on his sons. If one of them recruited me to leak that information, I could give him a tremendous advantage over his brothers.

Magnus' face lost the relaxed expression I hadn't realized it had acquired until that moment, as it turned to disappointment. Any guilt this sparked in me died once I realized that I hadn't spoken a word aloud, and the thought of telepathic meddling incited fear.

Magnus soon shifted to a calm expression that reminded me of our first meeting, and he turned from me. "In any event, I certainly didn't mean to call you away from your responsibilities."

I couldn't tell him he hadn't, because that was exactly what had happened. Above us Haedo was still listening in, and since nothing was on fire or eviscerated by now he'd have summoned back up to compensate for my preoccupation.

"You're free to continue your duty, Custodian." With that he went back inside.

Four seconds. That's about how long I remained where I was. Then I turned, pushed myself onto the balcony ledge and climbed back onto the awning.

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Yes I know that Harry Potter wasn't written in antiquity and that it's not a funny joke. I chalk these up to 3000 years being small enough to mix up your eras when you're well past 10,000 years on the calendar, and I have no excuse for the latter.

Well at almost a full year since my last publication I think we can safely say that I'm a slow poster. Warning- this is the first part of a story I've had in mind for a long time, and the next part is at least three times as long. It's gonna take a while before the first real chapter goes up, and I'm putting this on here so I'll stop fussing over it and start writing the rest.

This one is 1/2 of a "time they don't" because I imagine had the conversation gone a bit differently, they might've spent several hours talking and eventually forgotten that Kitten's helmet has a camera on it and wandered off and had fun and eventually had a one-night stand. Maybe. If everything went absolutely perfectly and they were given six uninterrupted hours to get to know each other plus an additional thirty minutes for a quicky. As is the case in almost every Mittens fic idea I have taking place during/before the Horus Heresy that isn't Soulmate AU or has Magnus in a relationship pre-Heresy.

For those interested, I made a blog just for this pairing. It's also got a list of every single TTS fanfic I can find.
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