915.M41
Officio Prefectus Schola Progenium
[RECORD EXPUNGED]
THOUGHT OF THE DAY
"Enlightenment is a myth; we do not need to understand in order to hate."
"Are you crazy, Ciaphas?" says a young man, roughly sixteen Terran years of age with curly brown hair and vivid green eyes. Across the canteen table from him was another teen similar in age who could best be described as 'rugged', already growing the start of a set of black sideburns and lounging back casually against his chair.
The black haired teen, dressed in the uniform of a Cadet of the Commissariat leans forwards looking fairly incredulous as he responds,
"What could possibly be the issue? All I said was I reckoned I'd go see what all the fuss was about."
The brown haired cadet across from him frowns and leans towards on his elbow, lowering his voice,
"Listen mate, she's cursed. Biggest screw up in the Schola - bad enough she's come from Emperor knows where, just bloody shows up one day. My bets she's some bastard of an aristocrat who figured the Schola was the best place to sweep his 'mistake' under the rug, and listen mate your marks are already bad enough, you don't need anymore bad luck - yeah? Only future for her is some old fraks office eye candy, only she doesn't really have much going for her in that department either now that I think on it. Maybe a penal officer?" he says, eyes glancing towards the target of their conversation. A young girl with pink hair, dressed in the same uniform and yet seated completely alone within the cafeteria - no other cadet within five seats of her as she stares into her lap, platter of ration paste in front of her completely untouched.
"Oh sod off, mate - she can't be that bad. I mean she made it in, didn't she? Must be some quality or another that she has." Ciaphas says, furrowing his brows somewhat.
Both teens are interrupted from their conversation as a loudspeaker within the canteen crackles to life, their heads turning towards the audio projector built into a large decorative skull hanging from the side of the room as it blares it's message.
"They who feast today do so in ignorance of their mortality. Tomorrow they must die or change."
Both cadets roll their eyes, seemingly in sync before the teen with brown hair responds,
"Whatever mate, I'm just saying there is something explosively wrong with that girl, literally in most cases. Things seem to just go wrong around her but if you insist on trying to be 'the nice one' - it's your choice, but you can bet I'll be there to say 'I told you so' when it all goes to frak."
Ciaphas frowns, before standing up and grabbing his tray - the cadets nearby glancing at him for a moment before returning to their own hushed conversations.
"I'm going over, Lefran. This whole situation has me highly intrigued." he says to the other cadet, who simply shrugs and waves him off, muttering something that sounded vaguely like 'Your funeral'.
Rolling his eyes at the other teen, Ciaphas walks his way over towards the lone cadet, conversation pausing in the cafeteria as several pairs of eyes lock onto him and not a small amount of snickering follows his footsteps as he arrives at the table.
Glancing down at the pink haired cadet he winces slightly in sympathy, a set of prominent welts across her hand, face and likely chest as well as several vicious looking scratch marks. Now her untouched meal starts to make more sense, a certain Drill Abbot being infamous for his particular brand of brutal punishments.
"Ran afoul of The Claw, haven't you?" Ciaphas says, putting his tray down and seating himself directly across from her.
Drill Abbot Sevor nicknamed 'The Claw' by spiteful students was well known through the Schola. Constantly prowling the halls for any infraction and delivering punishment in the form of merciless beatings or using his vicious fingernails grown out for years to be long, sharp and jagged. Some students even suspect the steel eyed man to have some sort of razor augment in the nails.
The cadet across him remained silent, staring into the bland gruel on her tray, giving no indication she'd even heard him.
Clearing his throat, Ciaphas leans back and says with a shiver "Run into old Abbot Sevor a fair few times myself you know. The man has a mean right hook."
The pinkette sighs and looks up at him, revealing her violet eyes.
'A Cadian? Out here in this backwater?'
He is pulled from his thoughts as she responds in extremely accented High Gothic, "You're not going to leave, even if I ask you to, are you?"
"Us outcasts have to stick together, you know. And I have to admit, I'm curious." he says, pushing his tray to the side and straightening up in his chair.
"Curious? About what." she says, narrowing her eyes at him in clear hostility.
Raising his arms Cain says, "Peace, peace. I'm not here to harass you. I'm just simply curious."
He leans forward, lowering his tone as his gaze turns serious, "I know everyone in this Schola. I was raised with them - and they with me. And yet I don't even know your name. Oh, for sure I've seen you around, sulking at the end of formations, being berated for lacking the most simple of knowledge. You can't even field strip an autogun, something everyone in this Schola could do by the time they were ten. By all logic you should've been deemed hopeless by now, shipped off to spend the rest of your life leading a platoon of penal troopers more likely to murder you in your sleep than follow your orders. And yet you haven't been. I want to know why."
Her eyes widen before she scowls, turning her nose upwards and puffing out her nonexistent chest and growling out "I am not a ze- failure. My name is Louise Françoise le blanc de la Vallière. Just because the... auto-gun refused to cooperate, I don't see how it was my fault. And on how I am here... I-I..." she tapers off before continuing in a much more subdued voice, "I am not from here. No one will listen to me - or believe me. They do not care that I am a noble..." the last sentence is barely a whisper as she looks down at her lap once again.
"Reason begets doubt; doubt begets heresy." The loudspeaker blares, causing Louise to jump slightly and glance around before sighing again.
Ciaphas remains silent for nearly a minute, simply drumming his fingers against the table in a rhythmic pattern.
"If you are not from here, where are you from then?" he eventually asks, leaning back and tilting his head slightly.
Louise looks back up at him, saying nothing for a few moments before replying, "Tristain. The kingdom of Tristain. I am a noble, I-I was g-going to receive my familiar... and then I was here." She takes a deep breathe, muttering something about steel before glaring at him again.
"Kingdom?" Ciaphas asks, the dots slowly starting to connect as he snorts in amusement.
"What planet do you think you're on right now?"
Louise glowers at him and says, "Do not mock me! We are on Halkeginia, what a stupid question."
Cain snorts again, then a third time before breaking out into small chuckles much to Louise's visible annoyance.
"What is so funny, commoner?!" she says, cheeks heating up in embarrassment at being the butt of someone else's joke.
"Y-you really don't get it do you? A blasted feudal worlder! Here of all places..." Cain says, continuing to chuckle before leaning forward.
"Don't you get it? You've been tithed. You're not in Tristain anymore, you're not even on Halkegenia. Your parents pawned you off in your familiar ceremony - he says, making air quotes with his fingers - and sent you to serve in His Officio Prefectus. You still think you have a title, or power. But the thing is here, we're all equal under the Abbots. Oh this is just rich, a hive rat and a noble at the same table - eating the same recycled garbage, His sense of humor truly is a thing of wonder."
"Y-you are lying. This is a cruel joke and you should be a-ashamed of yourself, you dog!" she says, nearly shouting at the end even as her voice is drowned out by the general clamor of the cafeteria and her eyes tear up.
"I-I want to go home." she admits, letting out a sniffle.
Ciaphas's face softens as he says, "This is home now, there's no going back. I don't know how you went so long without realizing it, but the Imperium has always been here and it's our turn to answer the call. Your best hope is to work to be unremarkable enough to get a quiet office job or position in a nice artillery regiment, like me."
"But like it or not, whatever life you had - it's over."
So I cracked, after a night of sleep I just couldn't get the idea out of my head so it looks like we're in this for the long haul.
I'm winging it mainly with Young!Cain and the Schola as not a lot of information is available about either, and I'm taking a bit of creative liberty as I go.
Though overall I'm fairly happy with chapter, I just hope I got writing Louise down. She's actually fairly difficult believe it or not.
But she's in for the long haul, and the ripples are already going to begin. For in the Grim Darkness of the far future, there is only warp fuckery.
As always leave a review, I don't own FoZ or Warhammer yadda yadda fair use, etc.
See you next chapter.
