…/…/…/…/…/…|…\…\…\…\…\…
Ep 15: Tau takes place
…/…/…/…/…/…|…\…\…\…\…\…
I had only just picked up the first book to put back onto the shelves when someone addressed me. "Custodian."
Since the voice came at my level, I figured this had to be one of the Adeptus Mechanicus. Nobody else would bother climbing up a twenty-meter bookshelf, and one of my fellow Custodians wouldn't address me by our shared gene type.
So I was caught completely by surprise when I saw who it was talking to me. "Oh damn, it's the xenophobic sycophant." He muttered.
"It's been a while since I was last here, and things have changed." Said Magnus the Red, fifteenth son of my Emperor, former traitor to the Imperium. Rescued by the Emperor and convinced to rejoin his fold only a few weeks or days ago, I couldn't keep track. Loyalties questionable at best, and holding a track record of ten-thousand years as a traitor and two hundred as a loyalist. Hovering in the air two meters before where I sat on a shelf.
Ten thousand years had passed for me as well, and I can honestly say I had no idea what to feel about him now beyond 'potential major security breach.'
"If I asked you to locate a specific book, could you do it?" Magnus demanded. Slowly I nodded. "Good. Tell me how this library's cataloguing system works, I've got things to do and working out obscure filing structures isn't one of them."
"Well the basic principal at the heart of our system is keeping the irreplaceable stuff out of the fortress-pillow fights." Honestly I didn't trust Magnus not to decide some of the books were 'too valuable to be wasted on illiterate loyalists' and steal something irreplaceable for his own collection.
"Fortress-" His head whipped so fast I could almost hear it break the sound barrier. "You do what with the books?"
"Erm…" I said in a quiet voice, unsure how to explain. Then I realized that I likely didn't have long to placate Magnus, and I hurried to respond.
"I try to stack them and shuffle them around to keep them safe. The other Custodians tend to evaluate reading materials according to their usefulness as projectiles. Or the mechanicus comes in and tries to upload the paper onto data-slates with mixed results." Until step one of book preservation became giving copies to the Harlequins.
"Wait. So you're saying you conceal these tomes whenever someone comes in?" He glanced again at the rows upon rows of shelves stacked several stories high.
"Not exactly," I admitted. "It's more like I make sure that if anything's going to be tossed about, it'll be something that can be replaced. Or at the very least, something that's sturdy enough to survive the abuse."
"And how would you ensure that?"
"By making sure that the shelves next to all the entrances are filled with copies of other books, and keeping the originals elsewhere. That which can be easily grabbed is usually the first thing to go." I slid down the side of the shelf and landed next to him. "In any event, you wanted to find a something specific, right? There may not be much logical organization, but I've got most of the layout organized."
"Well- yes." Magnus said "But it's… not really something you need to bother with. I was just wondering how one might find, say, a specific book that was here ten thousand years ago."
I looked at the shelves. Apart from some sections that were claimed by the various associations living in the palace, or inhabited by invasive species, I probably knew more about this library than almost anyone else. "Not easily. I'm surprised you don't have a spell for that"
"Watch this." Magnus raised a glowing hand, and a golden golden anvil instantly fell on his head and disintegrated. "There is- temporarily- a mortarium on certain spells permitted in the palace. Father has decided in his infinite wisdom that pointer spells deserve a spot."
"Ah. Well then, you're probably better off telling me what it is you're looking for."
"Er… isn't there a directory I can just use instead?"
"Is there…" I needed a way to ask if he was trying to steal contraband without provoking him, "something wrong with the book you're looking for?"
"Well… no. I just… I figured if I mastered the library now, I won't require guidance every time I need something."
"Well, until you memorize the layout, it's gonna be fairly difficult to find anything on your own. There's twelve, or, maybe thirteen hundred different organizational systems, all applied to different places depending on where you are and when it was last reorganized and how much the natives like you." Then again, it wasn't like there was much here that could seriously hurt Magnus.
"You must have millions of serfs in the palace, and yet nobody can collaborate on a filing system?"
"Actually, the population is part of the problem." Magnus raised an eyebrow. "Look, if you travel three kilometers down these very stacks in that direction," I pointed away from Magnus, "you'll find an entire tribe of illiterate book-worshipping fanatics who hold that the Emperor's throne is made of books, and they're His Chosen People allowed to live in this sacred land of the Library. Twelve stacks to the left, you enter the territory of the illiterate scroll-fanatics.
"They hold that the Emperor's throne is golden as the shelves, but the Emperor himself is actually a giant collection of scrolls, so powerful and sacred they've come to life. These two tribes hate each other fiercely, both considering the other to be heretics. The only thing they can agree on, is that the literate tribe living fifty kilometers that way," I pointed in a direction twelve degrees off Magnus' position relative to myself, "specifically to avoid the other two. Now, they think that creation is a sacred duty, and that they are the true chosen people because they've been tasked by the Emperor himself to produce by writing something new for everything they read. Ever.
"They had a civil war fifty years ago and almost split into two tribes- the critics and the fanfictionalists. Fortunately, a third faction of academic analysts managed to gain enough footing to convince the other two factions to come to an agreement."
None of which I'd seen personally, but I trusted the sources who I got this information from and it fit with the politics I saw in the library's present structure. "How did the political climate in this microsystem get so atrocious?" Magnus asked.
"From what I can gather of their folk tales and customs, a group of serfs got lost trying to take a shortcut and founded their own tribal society. The person who sent them in on some ridiculous orders kept giving the same task to more serfs, so the population managed to get to a sustainable size before they all died out."
Magnus thought for a moment, then sighed with much exasperation, anger and disappointment, "Fine. Do you know where the works of Mickie Bei?"
"Mickie Bei of Zanarkin? Or the twelfth-millenium poet? Or, wait you mean-"
"The literary adapturist. Eighteenth millennium."
"Eighteenth…" I said, going through my mental list of humanity's greatest authors. "Wait, do you mean the guy who did 'Silurian Ecstasy'?"
"NOT the book I was looking for." Magnus said harshly. "But… yes. That's the one."
"I'm honestly surprised." I said, "I would've thought you'd be more interested in the twelfth millennium guy, considering how much classier her works are. Then again, considering the amount of pro-xenos propaganda…"
"Do I look like a fool to you? Mickie Bei of Klipton was a cad whose prejudices color every bit of her work that isn't egocentric projection, and power fantasy."
That I could agree with. "Honestly, that's why I found her stuff fascinating."
"Because self-inflating propaganda is interesting?"
"Only if you're in the right." I ignored Magnus' incredulous look, "But Bei is more like a complete illustration of the mind of a single person. Since everyone's either a self-insert or a reflection of how the author sees the world, you can get a pretty good grasp on why the writer thinks the way she does. 'Pearl Pier' in particular stuck out to me, because it's the only one that provides an admittedly shoddy reason for her hatred of men. Well. If you assume the story is autobiographical, granted I'll admit there's not really any evidence to support that theory. But if you assume it is her own story, it kind of makes all of Bei's other works easier to analyze, given that she only really has four different character archetypes she uses and reuses throughout her works, you can use that to study the lens through which she viewed the world. I don't agree with her, but I do find it fascinating to try to understand her."
I paused, considering the contradictions in what I'd just said. "That, and her works always have really cool descriptions of explosives."
Magnus looked at me like a fish head had sprouted from my helmet and begged us not to eat it. "That is admittedly true." After a moment, he returned to an impassive state. "Might I ask which ecclesiarch decided to metaphorically fellate a dead poet?"
"Um…" I stammered, "Actually I don't think anyone in the Adeptus Ministorium has read Bei. I've haven't seen one of them in the library in, actually I don't even know how long it's been. And even then they mostly come in to put black ink over the books."
Magnus scoffed. "Because of course they do."
"It's not that bad." I said deliberately nonchalauntly. "I mean, if you hold it up to a light source you can sort of sometimes see what was there. It takes some effort, but…"
"You- you do that?"
"Yes?" I said, watching as Magnus' brows creased. "Sometimes the scribes make a typo, and the investigator sent in will wind up censoring the wrong information. I like to check it when I can, because that means the harmful material is still out there. Besides which, there's a very limited time window to save the benign stuff before the ink sets and it's impossible to copy them."
"…Unexpected, but it's good to know at least some of the damage has been nullified." He said.
"So, which of Mickie Bai the adapturist's works are you looking for?" I asked.
"'The Screaming Angel,' if it's still here."
"'The Screaming Angel'…" I said, "Hang on, is that the one where Tiarna and the Doctor have to competitively bake their way to safety?"
"You know it?"
"I found- It was one of the mistaken books I've saved. Or, well, technically it wasn't, but the Inquisitor who banned it acted in direct opposition to his superior's rulings that the Doctor Who franchise is harmless." I prayed he didn't catch my slight blunder.
Magnus looked genuinely shocked. "I'm not speaking in defense of censorship, but," Magnus actually winced as he spoke, "I know next to nothing about the nuances of your Imperial Cannon and even I know that's garbage. The one consistent main character is explicitly stated to be a xeno, and diversity and exploration are almost always major themes."
"Not in some versions." I explained, "There's been multiple attempts to retcon the Doctor into an enhanced human, a series of normal humans taking up the job from each other, and various other things depending on the current popular opinion on Xenos and enhancements."
"So they just try to replace the old with propaganda, and in the process destroy the original versions."
Something the anti-Who group had noticed as well. "Well, one of the key arguments to keep the series going was that the Doctor in all incarnations is, essentially, a stand-in for the Emperor as imagined in a time before he revealed himself to humanity."
"Even in the female and genderless incarnations?" Magnus smirked, "So there's imperial propaganda showing mister 'girls are icky' as a woman?"
I considered, and decided not to discuss, the various Imperial cults which held or had developed their own version of a doctrine of the 'Parthenogenetic Parturient Potentate Apropos the Production of the Primarchs.' "The most frequent claim was that since so much of the franchise is so entertaining, the production team must clearly have the Emperor's blessing behind them. And if the Emperor approves, there must also have been some degree of divine inspiration involved. The closing statement was, and I quote, 'Obviously, something that's so much fun to read must be pro-humanity, as all good things are.'"
"So, because franchise is entertaining enough, it's allowed to survive?" Magnus said.
"…In essence, yes."
"Pfft!" He chuckled, "Well, that's one of the more unusual ways for people to see sense."
"Well, you're half right, because half a century later another Inquisitor had the books banned again. Then another inquisitor wanted them restricted, and the argument went back and forth for a while- I think they were using the whole thing as a proxy for some fight over Nautiline tariffs- and never really got settled before they all forgot and moved onto the next thing. As far as I know, I've got the only copies in the Imperium." All twelve copies of each book, in fact.
"So where will I find them?" Magnus asked.
"I found a special hiding spot for some of the Who books back when their fate was being decided, just incase someone got too… trigger-happy and decided to burn them before a decision was made." One copy of which was stored alongside several other books with multiple copies. "C'mon, I'll show you where they are."
About two hours later, I somehow managed to impress.
"Whoah!" Magnus gaped as he peered over my shoulder.
I can honestly say that had me perplexed. "It's just a closet. Nothing fancy."
"Just a closet!" He waved a hand. "Only if you consider the Cadian guard just PDF. Look at this stuff!"
Nothing changed as I looked. It was still a tiny, unfurnished nook with no natural light, scarce traces of gold, and broken metal flooring. The ceiling was at a tilt, and while an adult human could probably walk inside I had to crawl to reach anything. It wasn't even a proper room, so much as an empty area between two support beams I'd discovered by pulling back part of the wall paneling in the hallway.
"I still don't get what you're looking at. It's just a blemish in the palace splendor."
"But look at what you've done with it!" Magnus said, "Forbidden tomes, original artwork books, ancient textbooks, some corpses-"
"Oh yeah, I forgot I need to bury those."
"-beautiful diagrams, outdated charts, covers made from the furs of extinct creatures, by the gods you could make an entire museum out of this!" Magnus stared at me incredulously, "Are you the only one who's been adding to this?"
"I think so?" Honestly, I sometimes felt bad for having pulled so little into storage. I spent so long fleeing from the palace and the memories back when things began going truly mad, I'm sure much must have been lost permanently. Sometimes I think I could've returned sooner and been able to do more if I'd put more effort into recovery, and less into learning how to pass for mortal as a super-human giant.
Magnus snorted. Oh right, there was a Primarch in the room. Literally.
I explained, "Look, I don't see what you're going on about, it's really just a storage closet."
"Just a closet? Then why do you have this?" He held up a copy of 'Nautilus Freisca Doombot.'
"That's just here for safekeeping. I only pulled it from the halls because it kept getting in people's way." Besides which, the Shadowkeepers had enough to worry about with the actual dangerous artifacts.
"What hall, the reliquary?"
"No, it- Look. This is all stuff that wasn't as valuable as what's out there now. The one you're holding was just something that was evaluated for display, didn't make the cut, and then nobody wanted it. The back rooms of the Hall of Victories got renovated a while ago, and they didn't have everywhere to store all the stuff."
"Torchwood isn't worthy of display? Why, is it not glorious enough?"
"Small tear on the corner there."
"Oh."
"Everything here has been shuffled into spare rooms at one point or another. When no one came to collect it later, people started needing to use those rooms, so I just stuck a whole bunch of it into random storage closets to get it out of the way."
"The complete works of Mako Voytek?"
"Exactly."
"Well, what about this one?"
"Nobody really wanted the taxidermy suites. That stuff was creepy."
"So they got you to clean the place out."
"Well- not exactly. First it all got put into the imperial organic preservation chambers, but those got closed down, so somebody moved it to somewhere else, I really don't know, then that collection got spread up when I wasn't here, and eventually I found about twenty-seven of these things when I opened a wardrobe and they fell on me."
"…You know what, I'm going to pretend to be unimpressed so it doesn't sink in just how much priceless stuff must've been lost for you to be allowed to keep all this."
"Alright." I rummaged through one of the piles until I found what I needed and offered it to Magnus. "In any event, here's your book."
"Right." As soon as he took it, Magnus' eye drifted to another volume in the pile. "…Is that the one that chronologically goes before 'Screaming Angel'?"
I checked the one he was indicating. 'Nightgown of the Sullen Moon'. "Should be. I think I've got the entirety of the series novelizations, somewhere around here, if not all in this room."
"Series 18V was a good one. Best one for that Doctor."
"To be fair, the 108th Doctor was only signed on for three series. Then the city got invaded and the invaders began making demands to the studio, writing their own episodes and demanding their favorite pairings be made into the series cannon."
"I think I heard about that. Actually, if you read some of the director's notes, you can see that there was clearly coded messages in the script. Combine it with the themes suddenly dropped into 108's goodbye episodes, and you get a rather clear picture of what went down."
"The goodbye episodes weren't translated into written format."
"I'm talking about the original acted production."
"Those are still around?"
"Well, not in the original format. But there are copies in holo-vid format that are still compatible with working machines, I think. Last I checked."
"Hm." Magnus scanned the area once more, as books shifted and floating around to reveal more books buried beneath the piles. "Hello, what's this? A new book?"
Another book on the floor glowed and floated into the air. "Swift Strike Reads' by Ridlam," he mumbled, before answering me, "Yes but I haven't read this." The pages opened the book and began rapidly flipping through the pages.
"Uh-"
"Just gimmie a second." A few minutes later he slammed the book shut. "Nope, nothing new."
"I don't think I've read that one either. Is it any good?"
"It's just a themed collection. Some annotations and notes trying to add context, which need annotations explaining their context."
"What about the stories?" Looking at the title I remembered the book Magnus held was one I'd wanted to read, but never found the time to do so until after I'd forgotten about it.
"All well-known works of antiquity, either anonymous or else their authors have been forgotten. 'Compiled Tweets', 'Baby Alli', 'blah blah blah', 'Don't Date a Woman Who Reads'."
"I'm not sure any of those are renowned." Magnus rolled his eye. "The only one I recognize is the last one. I think. An ancient poem that gets completely ruined by the sequel."
"That description fits most masterpieces." Magnus pointed out. "Including this one, admittedly. Though, I'm not convinced that 'Date A Woman Who Reads' was written by the same author. I know it seems likely, given that both have lasted so long and the titles are so similar, but the content is so different I seriously doubt the formers validity. I mean, one is satire and the other is trying to be inspirational.
"Honestly, I thought that the author got concerned that readers would take the first one too literally and wrote the second just to clarify the actual theme. I just find that it ruins the entire work when an author bends to accommodate the audience's ignorance."
"Well, maybe the writer thought people would take his advice literally and start treating each other badly because of something he'd written." I said.
"Mayhaps. But I think a good author seeks to lift up the readers and challenge them to change the way they think about what they read, not hand them something deep. Inspire them to find it for themselves."
He rubbed his long, silky fingers together. "Well, how would you fix it?" I asked.
"I'd keep 'Don't' the same, but I'd make the follow-up something that makes it painfully obvious to the reader that the narrator is unreliable. That way, it gives them a motive to go back over the first one, try to catch the lies, and maybe that will lead them to see what they missed. That way they learn to find the hidden depths for themselves." Magnus smiled, and I was struck by how gorgeous he looked.
"I'll have to remember that." I said, before something occurred to me. "Say- if that's the kind of series you like, have you tried Ignitus Sugimoto?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Oh my Emperor you MUST!" I cheered, "She writes all about the dialysis of the soul through facing one's inner demons, while still balancing out responsibilities and moral duty to society, my favorite series is set on a dying ship with undead monstrosities!
"Like a nurgle plague, but instead of winning with strength or force the main characters have to rely on tactics, strategy, skill, and even logistics to win! Sugimoto actually considers logistics, and it's actually pretty accurate-
I paused, seeing Magnus leaning slightly away from me, shoulders drawn back and lips pressed together. "Er, in any event, she's really good. I've got some of her work here, actually."
"I… haven't even heard of her." I saw his eye roam over the floating books before one of them levitated into his hand. "This one?"
"'Blue Rain'? Yeah, that's it- though I should warn you, that's the first in a series." Magnus opened the book as I spoke. "I've got the rest nestled somewhere around here, if it interests you." Which was to say the rest didn't have enough replicas and were current too valuable to risk disappearing into a Primarchs' personal library.
"I'll be sure to find you, then." Magnus said, barely looking up. He continued to not look up.
After a moment or so I said, "Magnus?"
"Mm." He said. A cursory glance over his arm told me that he was seven pages into the book, a faint smile decorating his face. If my memory served, that was about when one of my favorite characters made a memorable introduction. I let my own small smile form and watched Magnus' eye light up, wondering which part he was on.
"I'll leave you to it." I said. "Just please leave a copy of any books you want to steal for your collection, so we have something to use here."
"…Mm."
With nothing else requested of me, I departed for the scriptorium. I had a feeling Magnus would come looking for the rest of that series sooner rather than later, and I had no doubt they would vanish- it appeared Magnus had good taste.
Maybe if he really liked it, Magnus would be willing to read the unofficial series continuation I'd written up a while back. Or the short companion pieces filling in the gaps in character development Voytek had neglected in the original.
Or, as my wildest dream, I might've finally found someone to edit the adaptation I'd written exploring how the series could have gone if Lih had gotten over himself and just proposed in the first volume!
...I might've cackled a little at the thought, but on the bright side I don't think anyone nearby was aware enough to notice.
…/…/…/…/…/…|…\…\…\…\…\…
During Episode 17
…/…/…/…/…/…|…\…\…\…\…\…
As soon as we made it past the doors of Eternity Gate, I spun around and slammed the gate shut. Magnus had gathered too much momentum in our race to escape the Emperor's wrath, and in the seconds I used to close the gate he slid a few meters before coming to a stop.
The sudden lack of spectral lighting confirmed the barrier would protect us from the warp storm, and once I realized this I collapsed against Eternity Gate. I think both Magnus and I needed a little time to decompress and let the combat hormones die down enough for our perceptions of time to resume to normal.
I was the first to move, turning over with my back to the gate. By then Magnus' burns had healed and his golden armor completely re-formed, undamaged and clean. He remained in the same place where he'd stopped and even still bracing himself against the floor, but now he was staring at me.
I felt obligated to break the awkward silence. "So," I began, having no clue what to follow it up with.
"Why did you tell him." Magnus said quietly.
Oh thank the Emperor for the distraction. "Tell him what?" I asked.
"The Sensei." Magnus said. "Why did you tell him they existed?"
I wasn't sure what kind of answer Magnus was expecting. Because he'd asked? "Professionalism."
"Professionalism?" He said the word like I'd made a bad joke.
"That is what I said, yes."
"Telling a lonely old man he's got abandoned by-blows scattered to the corners of the galaxy is professionalism?" Magnus rose to his feet and then immediately wobbled. He managed to maintain his balance, but it'd already ruined any intimidating effect.
I shifted so I was sitting more comfortably. "I thought he'd want to know. It's my job to tell him things he wants to know."
"You insignificant half-brained fuck!" Magnus cried, voice reaching a puppy-like high pitch at the end of his words. He moved quickly towards me as he spoke. "Do you even realize what you've done?"
"I…" I braced myself, "Um…" when no blow or psyker bolt struck me down I replied, "I told the Emperor he had more children?"
"Worse!" He cried, and for a moment I feared Magnus would reveal some dark family secret that was somehow worse than any of the secrets already known throughout the galaxy. "You've dramatically increased the size of our menage! Our family reunions will be at least twice as large! And they-"
He cut himself off. Meanwhile, I found myself imagining the Primarchs and the Sensei gathered around a family feast, with the Emperor presenting the main dish, and half the participants seated at a separate table for children.
Angron of course couldn't be trusted with the fine cutlery, so he'd be at the kiddie table. Vulkan would be banished there as well for being too positive, but the actual reason was to act as an immortal shield against Angron's inevitable tantrums. Mortarion would be pouting over having been banished for refusing to bathe, and Curze would probably choose to go there just to needle Vulkan with a straw (having lost knife, fork, and spoon privileges in reverse order) and agitate Angron's anti-psyker nails.
Not that the main table would be any better. Even if the various obvious rivalries were seated apart, you'd still have the insanity of Lion, Magnus, and Lorgar all fighting over who got to sit at the Emperor's left-hand side. The right-hand side would be occupied by Horus, either from before the Heresy, or else as a corpse on display of the Emperor's handiwork. Jaghatai Khan would be so agitated he'd turned his chair around, Fulgrim singing as loudly as he could, Perturabo trying to launch bread-rolls into Rogal Dorn's glass, Rogal Dorn trying to look like he was putting as little effort as possible into blocking the projectiles.
Magnus moaned and dropped his head in his hands. I couldn't tell if his groans were real or not, and I couldn't bring myself to care. I couldn't help myself, the vision of an "Imperial Family's Freedom From Want"[1] overtaking me. I started laughing. Naturally Magnus raised his hackles.
"Stop that!" I didn't.
"Stop laughing right this instance!" He cried, waving his arms at me as though trying to make himself bigger- sort of like what untrained civilians do when faced with hostile wildlife.
"I c-can't!" I managed to choke out. "It's t-too-" My words dissolved into peals of laughter.
"Why, I ought to- to- turn your armor into warp-paper and use it as my new book! While you're inside it!"
While the thought of such gruesome torture was certainly nothing to play around with, I continued laughing. "Stop it!" Magnus cried, "I mean it! I'll tend your flesh from your bones and makes you suffer in eternity! Cut it ooouuut!" I'd been losing some steam, but his whining drew forth a final burst of laughter from me.
"O-okay, okay," I let the last few peals of laughter die down. "Okay, I'm good now." Magnus' adorable pouting nearly brought me back to hysterics, but I managed to contain myself.
Although the whole thing was very rude of me. Feeling guilty, I said, "I apologize for my laughter. Your words reminded me of something, but that's no excuse for my disrespect. I'm sorry."
Magnus continued glaring, but he did huff and straighten his back a little. "Well. Good." He huffed. Then after a moment he added, "I still don't get how you can be so calm."
"The Emperor gets like this all the time. He just needs to let it out, and then everything will go back to normal. …Actually, I'm surprised you didn't remember. You were there for that fit he had when he found out about the shittiest fighters in the galaxy being unable to use melee."
"Not that." Magnus snapped, giving me a look of disgust I chose to take as a compliment, considering the circumstances. "Why would you give him false hope."
I blinked, before recalling that Magnus couldn't read the confusion in my body language. Of course he could probably sense the emotion, but I didn't recall this before I said, "What, you mean false hope about them being unaccounted for? Or some of them being dead already?"
"It-" Magnus looked away. "…No. Not that."
"…Well then, I don't see-"
"Forget about it." He snapped.
He leaned further from me and wouldn't meet my gaze. I tried, and he avoided me, dodging my attention. Granted he made a nice image, looking off thoughtfully like a portrait of an artist's lover, but I was curious as to why he didn't want to meet my gaze. It wasn't as though he had any reason to feel shame. Unless…
None of us thought we'd be able to fool Tzeentch- a god didn't need to be fooled to take the blame for a faked plot. Magnus couldn't have actually believed our cover story, could he?
But if he was, there was no reason for me to disabuse him of that notion. "It's not like I try to provoke him." I said. "There's always something that enrages him, and I can't always predict what it's gonna be since so much of it is about normal things. Or, well, things that have become normal, which I suppose is the source of his anger." I paused, considering the implications of my own words. "Still doesn't make it any easier to guess what's normal-normal and what's apparently preventable-normal."
For a moment he glared at me looked like he had something to snark, but then he sighed, looking away again. "Can't say I'm surprised. The powerful throwing temper tantrums and causing mass damage, leaving others to suffer for it."
"It's not that bad." Magnus didn't even bother to respond, his gaze alone reflecting how much grox shit we both knew that was.
I wanted to point out the hypocrisy, but I couldn't think of any specific examples where Magnus' irrationality had caused significant damage. He'd been surprisingly reliable for a daemon. Instead, I replied, "Well, if we didn't have the Emperor, life would be much harder for everyone, what with warp-travel being impossible and all. Even you have to admit that letting daemons loose on Terra would be a bad idea."
Except maybe he didn't. Chaos Space Marines warp travel as well, after all. Despite that Magnus seemed to agree, saying, "He doesn't have to be as cruel about it."
"He's been suffering for years. By this point, I don't think it's a matter of cruelty so much as inability to hold back."
"He's still an asshole!"
Something clicked. "You aren't talking about the warp storm, are you?"
His glare could cut diamonds like ice. "No. Despite the current predicament, I am not talking about the thing that nearly killed me. And you. Very recently, in fact."
I tried to think of something to say, but Magnus cut me off before I could begin "Stop- just stop it with the audulation. He's been cruel and you know it."
"He's been careless." I said, gently as I could. I still felt a little guilty about laughing at him.
"Careless and lazy. Just look at how he treats you!"
"Me?"
"You're the most loyal man he has- the most dedicated and useful survivor of your gene-batch- and he still pushes you around. He doesn't even try to straighten up the others, or rebuild the palace infrastructure. You're still here, you're still working, so everything else has to fall on your shoulders to keep up the pace.
"Not to mention, it was his flawed design of Terra's support system and government that led to this level of decay, but has he ever acknowledged that? No! You'd think he'd learn to take responsibility, but instead he just keeps looking for ways to scrap the failures and start over."
On kids, I realized. Starting over with new children, after the last batch fucked up. After Magnus' batch.
Oh fuck, no wonder Magnus was so upset, I basically just kick-started a new round of "Who's daddy's favorite" just when he finally got some alone time with dad.
"Well maybe-" I realized seconds after opening my mouth that I was in the process of word-vomiting and had nothing beneficial to say.
"What?" Magnus asked. When I shook my head he said, "If you have something to say, say it."
"Maybe it's worked for him before." I wondered if it was a mistake even as I said it.
Magnus looked furious, but he said and did nothing. When thirty seconds passed and nothing exploded I said, "Thirty thousand years just watching from the shadows doesn't give someone perspective on what it's like to be normal. To be dedicated to one cause and goal. No cause lasts forever, and when you outlive one, then you have to move on."
Magnus' grimace fell, but in its place was an unimpressed stare. I pressed on. "I don't know who I'd be if I didn't have something solid to fall back on. Too much in my life has collapsed and died, that what this concept I have of him may not be real, but it steadies me in ways nothing else can. It's not logical, but emotion rarely is and that doesn't make it any less valid. Even if you're right, and he is horrible," Even in my mind I couldn't help but acknowledge that he is, "it's the best I've got."
Magnus continued to stare for a moment. Then he sighed, looked me in the eye-holes and said, "I once overheard one of my children saying the exact same thing about me. Almost word-for-word, actually."
I could practically feel the awful revelation lying on top of us. "I didn't it as an insult!" I said as quickly as I could. "Certainly not the Emperor- though, admittedly, I can see how it'd look like that- b-but not for you either-"
"The thing is, it wasn't the excuse you used it as. Not long after we first joined Tzeentch, one of my sons used those words when talking down a terrorist who hadn't handled the change well." Magnus said, "And it actually worked! Well, for a time. The point is, I get where you're coming from. The future may be infinite, but even so, it's so hard for humans to build something from nothing that very, very few can do it.
"But that doesn't mean you have to, or should, be bound to a force or a person who's doing you harm. It's easy to cling to what you know, but when that person starts degenerating- or if they were never as perfect as you thought-" I winced internally at the heresy, already deciding I'd be 'forgetting' everything Magnus said later.
"You need… something else to take on the role he fills in your life." He caught my gaze, face gentle and warm- sympathetic- for only a moment. "It must've been hell, being all alone for so long. Surrounded by people, but none of them having what you were looking for- what you needed. But the thing is, and I know this is going to be hard to hear, but bear with me-
"You deserve better than what you've got here."
I knew he wasn't talking about the things his words made me recall. I knew Magnus probably thought the Imperium was so horrid no being alive 'deserved' to be stuck in it. I knew he thought I deserved better because he believed all of the Emperor's followers deserved 'better,' because in his mind the Imperium was just that horrid.
But it was hard to remember these things when it had been so long since anyone had actually said those words to me.
Magnus looked so handsome in the aftermath of that moment of what I'd interpreted as compassion- though in hindsight it was more likely pity- that I didn't want to break the spell. Briefly, I wondered if he'd grant me a hug if I asked for one, if only so I could get those muscular arms wrapped around me.
And damn, my standards must have been sitting in Terra's core if the mere implication of possessing some smidgen of semi-corrupted basic decency was enough to make me wonder how he'd react if I told him to be more gentle in bed. That, or it had been too long since I'd been with someone I didn't have to worry about literally breaking.
Or Magnus was just hot enough that I just couldn't be arsed to care. Given who he was a clone of, that seemed pretty likely. I'd done stranger, and if you look past his coloring and the missing eye he looked very much like his father. And for all his posturing, I'd never seen him resort to violence.
Of course, that didn't mean I wanted to see him start.
But it didn't mean he would. Although maybe if I asked him to-
And I really needed to find a distraction before my fantasies got too carried away.
…/…/…/…/…/…|…\…\…\…\…\…
Before Episode 18.5 Atrocious Answers
…/…/…/…/…/…|…\…\…\…\…\…
"Remind me again, how much are we getting paid to do this?" Magnus asked as he incinerated a letter. He glared at the closest mound of envelopes. Since the two of us had been working on it for a while, the tip of the pile reached just a little bit over Magnus' head when he sat legs crossed on the floor.
I stood leaning against one of several counters, glancing at envelopes in my hands and picking out ones covering topics we felt the Emperor wasn't… stable enough to learn about yet.
"Some appreciation from the Emperor, and in your case, a decrease in the number of sins you have to repent for." I told Magnus.
"So, nothing." Magnus said, as he pulled a letter from the pile. "I'm putting my sanity, and quite possibly my life on the line for what boils down to nothing." He winced at the paper in his hand and turned it to ash very quickly.
I wondered what reparations Tzeentch gave his followers when they damaged their minds for his sake. And how much time handing out said reparations would take, considering the number of wackjob chaos worshippers.
I had nothing to gain from provoking Magnus into an argument, so instead I shrugged and said, "Oh, come on. It's not that bad."
"I'm surrounded by countless reminders of just how deep human ignorance can go. The walls are flaking, and I think a rat just crawled into that pile over there."
"Well, yeah, but…" True, the mail room was one of the few places in the Imperial Palace that wasn't covered in gold. It had mandatory Aquilla symbols, but years of damage from heretic mail bombs and poorly-made potassium prayer cakes (usually poor attempts to recreate bananas) left it looking had worn away the decorative gold plating on the walls. "That's kind of what makes this place special."
"Special?" Magnus eyed me, the corners of his mouth tilted up. "Here I thought you were the one true sane Custodian. Have your standards really slipped so far throughout the millennia that this squalor is somehow sacrosanct? Honestly, I wouldn't even consider this serviceable."
I looked around the room. "Sure, it's a bit…" part of the drywall collapsed and spread dust over us, "derelict, but it's unusually peaceful. There's the servitors scuttling around, but they never break their routine. This is one of the few places in the palace where you can actually settle down and relax without a- a loose taurox bulldozing through the walls every other Tuesday." As tended to happen in my eighth favorite hallway in the palace.
I could forget that I was in the Imperial Palace when I came here. I could get lost in whatever book I'd borrowed from the library and feel safe for just a few hours.
"Hmph." Magnus snorted, one hand brushing the dust out of his luscious red hair. "Well, I can't deny that the palace does seem to have gotten a bit more… disorganized since I was last here. Still, if you want somewhere quiet, there are other places you can go which aren't filled with probable diseases."
"You and I both have immune systems more than strong enough to overcome anything these walls carry. And I kind of like having somewhere I can lose track of time without needing to check the calendar to see if the semi-tri-or-bi-monthly-or-yearly-parade-of-blue-wires-through-only-halls-with-red-rugs is going to be happening soon. The tech-priests never announce their upcoming events, and I swear they only put notices on the palace boards the day of, if not the hour before."
"Sounds like a major hassle." Magnus said dryly, leaning back with his hands on the floor behind him in a way that would have showcased his broad form just so if he hadn't been wearing armor.
"There isn't even a fully connected path in the route, so every time it happens the entire procession has to stop and figure out how they're going to get from one rug to the next without touching bare floor." I said.
"I'd ask if you were being serious, but even after my short amount of time living here I've seen enough to know you're not."
I nodded. "As much as I- as much as it's an honor to be living in the Imperial palace, sometimes the insanity of this place just gets to me. It's nice to have somewhere you don't have to put up with… well…"
"The cesspool of ignorance and infatuation that the Imperium now exalts?" He gave me a cheeky smile that highlighted his strong jawline, and sat back up to grab more letters.
"…Yeah. Something like that."
"Oh god." Magnus said. "Speaking of which."
"What is it?" I asked.
"Read this. I, I can't even." He levitated a letter up, turning it away from himself before it floated to me.
To the Most Harmonious and Loving and Excellent and Gold Plated and Fancy and Wowazing Emperor of Mankind.
I, a humble and pious and hopefully loyal Preacher, wish to gain your glorious advice on a personal public pet project of mine. You see my wonderous lord, I work on a poor agri-world where much of the hard-working and diligent but illiterate populace cares little for the traditional sermons. They are bored not due to impiety, my Lord, but simply because most are too uneducated in the arts and sciences and any topic not pertaining to the work they take very seriously to understand the topics of the regular sermons and, if I may be honest, spend most of their time thinking about how they can feasibly serve the Imperium in their everyday lives such as the crops they grow for the Imperium and the families they raise to continue growing those crops. As such, I have taken to transforming my sermons into hopefully catchy musical format, so that my congregation will get the tunes stuck in their heads and recall words of your glorious praise at all times. I am humbled to say that so far it has worked brilliantly, and I have even identified a couple heretics who threw spoiled vegetables at me when they could not forget my praise for you at any time of the day.
Unfortunately, I have the drawn attention of the local Deacon, and while I have not been directly approached on the matter, I fear the Deacon thinks it is heretical for me to express your glory in this manner, and will soon have me arrested. To you I ask; is the Deacon right, and my actions have offended you in your awesomeness, my lord? Or may I continue to preach your lovely and most grandiose worshipfulness as I have?
I have attached one of my more popular songs to this letter. I believe it conveys the full honesty and intentions of my actions
Sincerely, your loyal servant Tomaz Lerheirn
"It's a bit flowery, but I don't see what's so-"
"Read the back page." Magnus said.
[2]
First you get down on your knees,
Kneel before the rosaries,
Bow your head with great respect,
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect!
Whatever lights your holy beacon,
Works if you impress the Deacon.
Everybody say his own
Imperor Clipeum,
Do the Imperial rag.
Get in line in that processional,
Step into that small confessional,
There, the guy who knows the Emperor
Tells you if you've made an error
If you have, give your best prayer
Now it's time go meet your maker
Two, four, six, eight,
Time to set humanity straight!
So get down upon your knees,
Kneel and pray for His mercy,
Light the torch with great respect, and
Burn em all, all of em, all the heretics!
Make the sign of the Aquilla,
When it's time we'll come to greet ya
Oh Omnissiah,
Hold our guns up for ya,
Gettin' ecstatic an'
Sorta dramatic an'
Do the Imperial rag!
"Isn't it hilarious?" He grinned at me. "I'm thinking about leaving it in, just to brighten Father's day. Like the burger one!"
Despite Magnus' jocular insistence, I still had my doubts about the burger letter. "Do you know if the Emperor even likes music, or would we be increasing his perpetual torment just by bringing this one up?"
"Yes." Magnus paused and looked at the letter. "Well… I mean- I'm fairly sure."
He fidgeted, looking off into the distance with a soft wistful smile, which was so adorable I couldn't help but watch and coo internally. Leaning back in a way that spread his body, he looked like a pornographic statue some idiot had decided to clothe- the kind that was meant to be coy without vulgarity.
I can honestly say I'd forgotten that I wasn't hiding off-world and disguised as a tall Space Marine when I said:
"Do you want to have sex?"
Magnus responded with jerk and a noise somewhat like an elephant trying to hit all the notes in "Amazing Grace" backwards on a trumpet within three seconds. He flailed, hitting a nearby table with enough impact to send it flying out the door and hit a wall in the hallway with a loud clang.
The sound echoed while the two of us stared at each other.
"I'm sorry, what?" Magnus asked, leaning away- and up- from me.
It was at this point that I remembered that he was far stronger than me. And likely very, very unaccustomed to hearing the word 'No' spoken aloud in his general direction.
And had only recently turned his back on Chaos and re-entered the light. After millennia of worshipping the god of betrayal and lies.
Maybe it wasn't a good idea to just hand Magnus the tools to manipulate me…
Thinking fast, I decided that now would be a good time to proverbially turn about and run like a bitch from my bad decisions.
"Y-You know what? Nevermind. It was… a dumb idea anyways." I couldn't be quick enough as I said, "Forget about it."
"Oh." Magnus said. "Well, alright then. If you say so, then consider it done."
"Yes." I said.
"That memory has been eradicated." Magnus held up a glowing hand and pressed it to his face, producing a loud smacking noise.
"That question was never asked." I said.
"Right." Agreed Mangus.
"Right." I said.
The ensuing awkward pause provided strong evidence against my claims, until a distant voice screamed from somewhere far away: "Just fuck already!"
"ANYway!" Magnus said, "It's been a while I'm hungry, are you hungry? Why don't I get us some snacks, do you like popcorn?"
'I want to pour butter into you and then lick it out.' I thought.
Instead of saying this I lied, "No, no. None for me, I'm not thirsty."
…/…/…/…/…/…|…\…\…\…\…\…
[1] Note that The Captain-General would not use the words "Freedom From Want" in his actual mind. He would reference a relatively well-known tapestry representing the concepts of prosperity and family ( featuring a kid's table and an adult's table) which holds similar significance and cultural importance in the 41stMillenium's Terra that "Freedom From Want" does in 2ndCentury Earth, so I used it as a translational stand-in. A direct translation of the Captain-Generals thoughts would be: "the vision of an 'Imperial Family's Climate Control Device's Spirit Appeased'."
[2] Intended to be sung to a tune similar to "The Vatican Rag" by Tom Lehrer
So this took MUCH less time to write than the next chapter will. A large part of this was because the last scene of this chapter was, in actuality, the first thing I wrote, and originally meant to be the entire first chapter in the vein of those "5+1" drabble collection fics. When I showed it to Justin he told me I needed more content and more showing WHY there would be attraction between them. I found I agreed, and in the process this became a very different story.
One of the hardest things about this chapter was NOT writing romance between the two leads. They don't even know each other yet. I want each of the chapters to represent a different phase in their personal relationship, and the first one was merely showing the groundwork for their amicable friendship with some sexual attraction for one of them.
I have a sketchy outline for Chapter 3, but most likely it'll change as Alfabusa comes out with more episodes and I get more content to work with. If by some miracle I finish writing before Alfa finishes his series, I do have a plan for what to do with this story. It'll be majorly AU by the end of it, but I do have a backup plan.
The Sensei are indeed alive in this AU, though what the Captain General does NOT know is that their current situation is one of many outcomes of one of Tzeentch's gambits. I'm not sure if I should include this, so could someone please tell me if a Tzeentchian cult convincing the Inquisition that the Sensei were part of a Tzeentchian cult, thus forcing the Sensei into hiding, ensuring their location is going to be constant so they can be reached for further use in the future since Tzeentch is at the very least claiming to want the Emperor to turn into a Chaos God and the whole sacrificing the Sensei plot seems like a great way to help kick start an ascension AND has the bonus of ensuring these mini-heroes can't continue galavanting about the Galaxy, righting wrongs and making a minor nuisance of themselves is Tzeentchian enough Just As Planned?
Chapter 1 gets its name from the fact that this "time they didn't" occurred because they have different views on sex and the casualness of it. One of my biggest concerns is that readers will think that Kitten is being too forward with Magnus, and believe me, I have an explanation which will apply no matter what backstory I wind up using- and if Alfa actively refutes my explanation, I'll go AU to include it anyways.
In relation to the strange book names, let me know if it's too confusing to have the characters talk about stuff that doesn't exist in real life. I understand why Alfa has to stick to the Black Library, but honestly I neither want to nor feel the need to, unless it's damaging the quality of my work. So in my universe, The Great Khan of Quan Zhou by Ogedei is indeed a real book- the Captain General just had it checked out when the Custodians were looking for it.
Chapter 1 is also from Kitten's POV because that gave me an easy way to avoid using his name. Originally this was a second-person POV story, but I decided to change it early on.
If I made any grammatical, spacing, spelling errors, etc, please let me know so I can fix them.