Broken Star II

He had not known what to expect at first. When the Emperor had stepped away from the wreckage of his hopes with the little girl in his arms, for once the future had been utterly unknown to him.

"Valdor, please hand me your cloak." Wrapped in smoke-stained purple velvet, the child snuggled into his arms, utterly oblivious to his golden armour, squeezed out a few silent tears and fell asleep.

As he began to make his way up from the catacombs, giving further orders to his custodians, he wondered what would become of her.

Would she stay this way? Or would this child's body constructed from the rests of her own and the energies floating around the lab grow up like the little girl she seemed to be? What of her intellectual faculties? Of the layers of personalities he had felt during their brief contact? Would they be restored, or would she remain broken and amnesiac?

"Valdor, arrange for a nursery to be equipped in my quarters. And a trustworthy person who is capable of dealing with... diapers and the likes."

He wasn't entirely sure, but the girl looked about 18 months old, and at this age, bladder control was still entirely optional. As he found out when passing through the doors of the secret elevator that had taken them up from the ruined lab.

His glamour hid the brief smile making his mouth twitch as he cleaned himself and the girl with a short exertion of psychic force.

Adepts, servants and more Custodes came running in their direction, most of them worried and confused about the explosion that had shaken the palace, but others – especially the females – immediately dissolved into cooing over the child. In three minutes, the Emperor learned about nine new words meaning cute in various dialects.

Clearly, if he wanted to get things under control, he could not afford distractions of this nature. With a tiny pang of regret, he handed her over to Constantin Valdor. "Take care of her for now. And send me your second to deal with this crisis."

If he had not engineered his Custodes with the inability to feel fear – a very useful modification, after all – the Emperor of Mankind would have sworn that it was precisely this expression appearing in Valdor's eyes as the slight, fragile form of the child was deposited in his arms...

Time came. Time answered his questions.

Serenity, as he had named the girl, from a name plucked from her disintegrating mind as she crossed over, did indeed grow up. She also matured mentally, but her memories seemed to be gone for good, except for the most basic, most instinctive understanding of her powers and her situation. And most of it only returned in situations where it was required – no gentle telepathic probing could unlock it before.

Her personality was a curious amalgam of conflicting traits and he couldn't help but wonder if that came from her traumatic entry into this world, or had always been so. She could be serious, wise and gentle, but she could also be loud, childish and immature. He supposed she would grow out of this eventually.

No matter which side of her was in ascendancy though, she was always utterly charming and endearing, making everyone love her. Even Valdor, this paragon of 'ends justifying the means' doted on her and allowed himself to laugh at her jokes or be roped into her projects.

The Emperor had been prepared to raise his sons. And because in his long life he had seen children grow and knew what inevitable problems one encountered in this endeavour, he had taken certain precautions – like giving them implanted knowledge that would enable them to lead conversations basically from birth, and that would reduce the need for training and schooling to a bare minimum.

None of this was present in Serenity. What she learned, she learned the hard way. Hypnoconditioning was out, he was too apprehensive of damaging the delicate amalgam of her mind and its buried knowledge and abilities. And so he hired teachers and instructors and set aside time to teach her himself, the things that she could not learn from anybody else.

More than once, he wished at least one or two of his sons were still around, to deal with her overflowing, boundless energy that could make a genetically engineered warrior run himself ragged following her explorations of the growing palace.

And so, he made a decision. And one day, he brought three giant warriors, only slightly smaller than the Custodes, into the nursery. "Serenity, these are Merir Astelan, Kevan Ordes and Tal Yorvir. They are your new playmates."

Used to the superhuman stature of the men she had been around from birth, Serenity scrutinised her new playmates critically. They were clearly different from the Custodes – for once, they wore no armour, but simple tunics. They also had a certain similar look that marked them as related. Carefully, the little girl reached out with her mind. Then, a wide smile broke on her face. "Oh, they are your grandsons, right?"

"In a way."

AN: And since we have this marvellous opportunity, we will be posting the chapters in the order they actually happened, instead of the one we have on the thread on SpaceBattles.