Mortaria awakens a day later in an unfamiliar room, it's all metal and the light artificial and a piercing bright white and the walls are of a sterile dull grey.
She lurches upright, yanking several medical cables and tubes free from her as she is dressed in nought but a thin gown and she looks down and sees several black ports jutting out of certain areas of her body, one on each arm and leg, same with the legs, one on the top and bottom of her spine and two on her lower chest and thankfully not on her breasts she notes.
She feels... almost nakedly clean, almost jarringly so by comparison to what she felt not a day prior to this. Her vision clears and she sees several white armoured astartes, marked with the symbol of the medical corps of the 14th legion and several of the Legio Custodes standing watch over her.
She growls her question out "where are my children and my clothes"
The shield captain steps forwards and speaks with an almost condescending tone "they are being checked in the next room, your clothes were tattered beyond use, dress yourself, your expected on the embarkation deck."
Mortaria casts an almost deadly glare at the golden armoured man who was almost equal to her hight as one of the 14th legion's medics presents her with a heavy stack of royal regalia to use for the time being.
She can feel his gaze is one of almost religious worship, desperate to say something but keeps quite inside of his power armour and she takes it and they leave the room thankfully, as even unarmoured or armed, she could murder the 8 of them.
Not a few minutes later she emerges from the room, she's dressed in fairly detailed regalia, trousers, under shirt, full shirt and a militaristic blouse which and a hood built into it which she kept up, covering most of her face, almost too ashamed to show her face in public.
She looks down at the shield captain and states "I will visit my children before arriving on the deck." she barges past the golden armoured man and into the medical deck room and sees several of the legion's medics performing almost religiously careful checks on her little ones.
She stands in the doorway and makes her way over to them and the lead medic doesn't speak to her but the human serf does.
"My lady Primarch! It is an honour to meet you, we are performing basic medical checks of their health and physiology." he says, clearly terrified of how Mortaria appears to him, like a spectral image of death itself, her life on barbarous forever scarring her body, not to the point of being hideous but to the point of making sure a vast majority feared her.
"If any harm comes to them... I will rip your guts out through your arse and mark my words..." her tone is of a fiercely protective one and her gaze drifts towards Albedo before it reaches Mortarion himself and she smiles, the astartes still refusing to speak to her as if ordered to do so.
The human medical serf freezes from the threat but Mortaria leaves the deck room and gets back into the hallway. And is escorted to the embarkation deck, seeing all sorts of unfamiliar sights, many more of the armoured giants who don't speak to her, humans who kneel to her and robed, cybernetic engineers, all of which greatly confused her but she kept silent.
But once on the embarkation deck however? She is greeted by the sight of the emperor, her apparent father, who is stood beside one of the golden warriors she does not know the name of yet and turning to face where their gaze went? She sees the entire 1st company of the 14th legion dusk raiders in parade order across the whole deck.
The emperor, ever resplendent addresses his daughter "Mortaria, tell me, do you recognise these men and women?" Mortaria's gaze turns to the arrayed mass of power armour, all of it grey with one dull red arm on the right-hand side.
The standard legionaries stand a full 8ft tall in their MK3 power armour, many if not all carrying bolters, absent their magazines of course and then? The one hundred strong formation of much shorter at 6ft tall but still power armoured warriors but their armour indicates that they are women?
On their non red painted arms sits a wrist mounted bolter with a combat shield attached to it and their red arm? It carries a power sword or axe but mostly axes across their ranks.
They look strong but not as bulky as their male brothers and drastically slimmer than most of them, their armour appearing a lot less bulky, slimer but bears all of the hallmarks of the Mk3 design but with an exception of their flowing white hair coming out the back of their helmets, the same shade as Mortaria's.
And after a moment she answers "no, I do not recognise them." and the emperor then tells her "These are your warriors, the 14th legion, the Dusk Raiders, men and women both, forged from your genes to become angels of death, you are their progenitor, their Primarch, I will answer all your questions but I will ask you this, will you accept your title as their Primarch and join me on humanity's crusade to retake it's birth right?"
Mortaria straightens herself and suddenly feels a sense of pride and purpose, thinking 'with these gene wrought warriors I can liberate countless thousands, topple tyrants... never again will people need to suffer'
With her answer she turns to face her astartes "I will father" the emperor impassively smiles and takes a step back to let his daughter take centre stage as if to address them.
She takes a noticeably deep breath "You are my unbroken blades. You are the Death Guard. By your hand shall justice be delivered, and doom shall stalk a thousand worlds, from this day forth, you are my sons and daughters."
The arrayed 1st company salute in unison, their power armoured fists slamming into their chests and creating a loud thundering boom and cheers in thick Albian accents, a similar one to her people on Barbarous.
The emperor speaks again "do you swear your service to me, to serve mankind in its conquest?" Mortaria is very reluctant in trading a tyrant for another, her eyes locking onto his and finding cold indifference in them, to eerily similar to her former father in the arch tyrant for her liking but she kneels but keeps her head held high, refusing to bow her head as the emperor then beckons her to rise "then rise Mortaria, as Primarch of the 14th legion, the Death Guard"
And that was Mortaria's reunion with her gene family, she would not depart from the world of Barbarous for some time, wishing to learn everything she could before departing the system, how her legion worked, it's combat records, culture and traditions, language and more.
Not just all of this, she learned what her father, the emperor was, and that of her other brothers and that she was the only one of them who was a woman, not that it disappointed her it mostly took her by surprise.
She was given a full education by the emperor of man himself, how to operate power armour and all of the other skills needed to be a Primarch and commander buuuuutttt... when it came time for Mortaria to learn of Psychic power? And her own abilities? She violently refused, deeming it sorcery despite her own potential much to the emperor's own disappointment and that of Malcador's.
In this time her children grew remarkably fast for being only demi Primarchs, half breeds, Mortarion grew a lot more than his sister Albedo has and it was discovered that... she was a blank but something was wrong, she could still muster psychic power and might to her despite this which made her the target of dozens of scientists and even Malcador and the emperor, something that Mortaria deeply despised and tried to hide her from them, seeing no reason to trust either of them.
Whilst her son became the master of poisons and toxins, her daughter became an extremely adept engineer and had fallen in love with working on the legion's vehicle arsenal, the dreadnoughts being a particular point of fancy.
The reforms however? Those were what took the longest for the young Primarch, still gripped by grief for the loss of Tarion and her reforms were harsher than she likely intended. Brutal trials of endurance were held for the current legionaries, toxins, poisons, daring climbs up Barbarous's highest peaks and two groups had her attention the most, the legions librairius of psykers and the Adepta astartes, the legions female astartes finding a close kinship with them.
And it was on the 42nd day of her reforms and acclimatising with her legion that she called her Adepta astartes to her, all one thousand of them, as the process to bring a woman to that of an astartes equal is a long and difficult process.
Mortaria stands within her creamy white power armour with bright green shoulder guards and a large red rose engraved over her right breast area of the main breast plate. The whole armour itself made her feminine appearance much more prominent inside of it, having a gasmask styled mono lensed helmet with a hood that would encase itself over it and lastly, her nigh titanic power scythe, refusing to touch the scythe of the arch tyrant, instead keeping it as a trophy.
Her brilliant white/grey hair would come out the back of her helmet and cascade over her left shoulder with a specially built field to keep the hermetic seal of the helmet.
Her legion officers of the Adepta astartes and several of the senior NCOs of that branch step into the large chamber and kneel before their Primarch as her daughter Albedo is with her, choosing to adopt an armour and weapon very similar to her mothers.
"Our lady, you have summoned us?" asks the mistress of the Adepta, removing her helmet as did the others as they were all unarmed with the exception of the housecarls and their wrist mounted bolters.
Mortaria reaches for her helmet to remove it, her hair being sucked through the seal and a hiss as the seal is broken and is then lifted free of her head and she responds "yes, I have, I wanted a measure of your character and that of your fellow officers, as I understand it, your kind are a rarity, even with this legion?"
The officer answers her "yes, we are my lady, the process to be elevated above our mortal selves is an arduous one, many of us die in the process." she answers her honestly and looks up at her and then Mortaria motions for her to stand up as she responds "I see, and how are you treated by your brothers"
That question seems to have the legionaries confused as the mistress answers for them "we are treated as equals my lady, none have dared to lay hands on another except for sparring and medical reasons."
Mortaria lets out an easy-going smile and motions towards the table "be seated, we have much to discuss and introductions to be made." she takes a seat and does her daughter Albedo followed by the Adepta sisters.
Mortaria then asks "introduce yourselves, we will be working closely and I will tire of using ranks" the mistress of the legions Adepta forces speaks up 1st "I am Talian of Albia, elevated to a Adepta legionary after the conquest of Albia during the unification wars."
The Primarch nods and motions to her daughter who removes her MK2 helmet and introduces herself "I am Albedo Tariana, it is a pleasure to meet you." whilst only being less than two Terran years of age, ALbedo and her brother had grown and matured mentally to that of educated teenagers, the Primarch genetics having overpowered a lot of the base human genetics.
And so, the meeting went on for some time, the doctrines and organisation structure of the legions Adepta contingent, tactical roles and doctrines and assigning a total of a quarter of the Adepta's troops to her daughter Albedo until her own gene seeds can be manufactured.
And towards the end of the meeting the Primarch makes a final announcement "I hereby commission a full grand company of this legion to be made soley of Adepta recruits, all taken from Barabarous or Albia, no exceptions are to be made."
Years later...
with the reforms and changes been made Mortaria and her two children are finally ready to leave Barbarous with their legion at their backs and join the great crusade.
Mortaria's 1st combat action would be the liberation of the feral world of Kalotars 4...
The mostly feudal tech level world was under the cast iron grip of an insectoid Xenos race that took humans to devour in crude rituals, something that Mortaria took personal offence too as did the newly growing core of Barbaran legionaries with the 1st two of the Adeptus and Adepta branches serving as the 1st captains, Talian of Albia and Calous Typhon respectively.
The emperor and Malcador both stood watch over the 1st combat action as both wished to know how the 1st and only female Primarch performs in combat and to see if she would use her psychic power that was plain to all that she had at her disposal.
Mortaria was to deploy in the vanguard alongside her two children and a vast majority of the legions 1st company in a frontal assault as the insectoids Xenos had no ranged weaponry from what the scouting had indicated.
And Mortaria stood in the hold of her stormbird beside her two children, her daughter causing her mild discomfort due to her being a psychic anomaly and her son also due to his poison spewer built into the neck of his armour.
She is with four Death Shroud terminators, equipped in Tartarous pattern armour and their cloaks displaying the legions symbol with a rose in its teeth and the rest being the housecarls of the legions Adepta contingent, the elite warrior maidens of the 1st company.
To say that she does not feel nervous would be Mortaria lying to herself, she knows that in her armour and with her gene children beside her but... this is the 1st time she will battle in her armour and beside her legion and a certain eagerness to impress hangs over her.
Loud thundering cracks can be heard as the turrets on the stormbirds and Thunderhawk's open up on the insectoid 'civilians' that came to inspect the wired metal boxes coming out of the sky before being torn asunder by bolter shells and the incoming drop pods further out.
And as soon as the stormbird opens? Mortaria is 1st out of it, her scythe held high as her legs propel her forwards into her 1st true combat.
To be continue...