Tarasha Euten, Seneschal of Macragge, had seen many things happen in her life.
She had never truly expected to become a member of the inner circle of one of the most powerful men on Macragge, Konor Guilliman. She had never thought to rise to such political prominence, nor witness the brutal attacks of the raids of Illyrium on her home.
But she never thought-or imagined herself, truly- as a mother.
She had never truly been one to seek faith in gods or goddesses, nor superstition or magic. Such things had plagued Macragge during the horrors of Old Night, where psykers unleashed their mad power unto countless billions millenia before she was born, leaving chaos and destruction that not even Macragge's small slice of the galaxy could recover from. The nobles of Macragge had, for as long as she had remembered, been people of reason and logic.
They studied the stars, they flew their void-ships through the Immaterium to trade with nearby systems, they watched the skies for potential intruders beyond even the farthest reaches of their little empire. Things had remained the same for countless centuries, and she was content, along with her husband, to have it stay that way.
Such things changed with the arrival of her son.
Despite the best efforts of Macragge's finest physicians, Tarasha could not conceive a child. Though she had no husband, she had long wondered what it would be like to raise a child, to give them a safe life among the cities and bountiful fields of her homeworld. She had considered adoption when one day Konor returned from an apt and unscheduled hunting party, drawn away from his duties to attend to a matter that seemed to shake his nobles to the core.
What-or rather who- he returned with gave her the answer.
A mysterious pod had fallen from the sky, they said, containing a child unlike any they had seen before, glowing with an aura of power that did not seem human. The pod he had landed in was centuries, if not millenia, beyond anything Macragge's finest scientists could understand. But while the nobles were mystified, Konor was ecstatic.
And so, on that day, Konor named the child Roboute, and Macragge's future would change forever.
It had been obvious as the boy grew that he was no normal human. By the time he was ten, Roboute had possessed an intelligence far beyond his finest teachers, grown to inhuman heights for his age, and was able to calculate and strategize in an inexplicable manner. Yet such odd occurrences did not faze Konor nor Tarasha, who saw him as their adopted son, and treated him as such, ensuring he would live the best life they could accompany him.
Until Konor died, of course.
No one could have suspected Gallan, the other Consul of Macragge alongside Konor, would be willing to stage a bloody coup to attain power. She had hid while Gallan's men tore through the palace, killing whoever they could find and collapsing the building with explosives. Yet when Roboute returned from a military campaign, and recovered his dying father, she had seen him act in a way she never had, nor since.
His vengeance tore through Gallan's forces, slaughtering them to man and leaving the ringleader and his conspirators for public execution, forever changing the ways of Macragge. Where once an aristocracy kept order, a new system was implemented with equality for all in mind, the ideas of peasants and slaves under nobility abolished, where meritocratic ideas and equality ruled the lands. Under Roboute's genius, new starships capable of traveling across the stars, far superior to the ones they had relied on for countless generations, took flight, craving out a small yet grand empire in the stars.
For a time, Macragge was at peace.
And then, one day, the man in gold showed up.
His ship had appeared from the Warp, far more advanced than anything her people had to offer, landing on Macragge and asking to see the person named 'Roboute'.
He towered above even Roboute, wearing shining gold armor and ensheathed in a brilliant aura of light, emitting energy so powerful and bright that it nearly blinded Tarasha and anyone else who stepped even remotely close to him, save the huge golden compatriots he had brought alongside him, men in gold armor similar to him and carry spears unlike anything else she had ever seen.
Roboute, however, seemed to react completely differently.
This 'Emperor of Mankind' as he had called himself on the seldom occasion she had seen him, had met with Roboute behind closed doors within his personal space, not allowing anyone to enter while his golden guards stood outside, their sheer presence terrifying anyone who ventured even remotely close. For a whole day the doors had remained closed, with whatever goings-on muted behind the thick doors of his room.
So, after a day's wait and trying to hide the recent events from the general populace, Tarasha had elected to retire to her quarters to muse on these matters.
And just as night began to fall, someone knocked on her door.
She got out of bed, hurriedly opening the door to reveal Roboute, standing in front of her, looking…
Well, she wasn't sure how to describe it. But she'd never seen his face look that way before.
"Come in," She said, welcoming him in, closing the door behind him. "What happened?"
Roboute sat on her bed, shaking his head. "The Emperor. He's my father."
She raised an eyebrow. She and Konor had privately wondered if whoever had made Roboute would one day come back to claim him. "You're sure of this?"
"Yes. He created me using his own genetic material in his own image. And…I have brothers."
"There's more of you, boy?" She chuckled. "And I thought one of you was enough."
He smiled. "He-the Emperor- made us. Twenty Primarchs. Mother, he's from Terra. Earth."
She stiffened at that word. "The homeworld of humanity? The one whispered in the ancient texts?"
"It is quite real. This Emperor- he wants to reclaim humanity's place in the stars before Old Night. He's been on a Great Crusade for the past several decades, reclaiming mankind's lost worlds one at a time and bringing them under his rule."
Right now, she wasn't sure what to even comprehend. The people of Macragge had grown quite accustomed to their little place in the stars for millennia- the idea of an Emperor coming to 'reclaim' them distubed her greatly.
She did her best to hide her shock. "Does he…plan to conquer us?"
He shook his head. "No, mother. He does not. In fact, he was more than impressed with what I'd accomplished. Making my own little realm in the galaxy."
"Was he now?" For a man of such power, this 'Emperor' seemed like a reasonable person. Judging by the size of his armies, Macragge would not last a solar week. "Does he see you as a son?"
Roboute seemed shaken. "I do not know. He seemed quite ecstatic that he had found another of his sons. Apparently all of them were scattered across the galaxy, and still he has not found all of them."
Noticing his clear discomfort- he was her adoptive son, after all- she decided to change the subject. "What does he want with you?"
"Me- my brothers he speaks of, the Primarchs. My father created us to help reunify Mankind's place in the galaxy- but not alone. Though he has billions of troops far more advanced than the armies of Macragge, when we were…scattered, as he said, he used our genetic material to make super-soldiers. He calls them Adeptus Astartes, or Space Marines."
She forced a grin onto her face. "You have children, Roboute!" She laughed.
He gave a warm chuckle. "Yes. I do. I have a legion of these sons, as all primarchs do. They call themselves the 'War-Born'. The Emperor wishes for me to lead them."
She knew he was quite the accomplished general from his campaigns in Illyrium, but a galaxy?
"He would have you leave our home, after all you have done for our people?" She asked, her voice shaking. "Roboute, you barely know this man, and he already asks so much of you. How do you know you can trust him?"
"It's something about him, Mother. I feel this connection with him that I can't quite describe. It's like Konor, but he is simply something more than a human. The way he has spoken, the respect he's treated me with, what he has told me- Mother, I trust him. My purpose- what I was made for- I feel like I've realized that."
"To conquer? To become a general of the stars?"
He placed a hand over hers. "I know this is a lot. But he has shown me so much you wouldn't be able to understand. We can become a part of his Imperium of Man. He can give us technologies beyond anything we have access to. Ships, technology- we can have our best and brightest join the ranks of these Space Marines. We can become a force in this galaxy beyond what Konor realized. My statecraft- I can take it to other worlds, add them to our own!"
She still seemed skeptical. "The people may not approve."
"I will convince them. He nodded. "Of that you have my word."
She got up, walking to her bedroom's window. Outside, the lights of Macragge died down as its populace retired to bed, not knowing the world-shattering talks taking place inside of the palace.
Would they truly be ready for this?
This…Imperium? The Consul of Macragge leaving to crusade among the stars for an Imperium none of them existed? How would they react when Roboute told them the news?
Was their home as insignificant as this Emperor made it seem?
She turned back to her adopted son, standing up by the bed. "What do you plan to do next?"
"The Emperor's cause will be mine." He said. "I will appoint my advisors to watch over Macragge while I discuss things further with the Emperor. My legion has been notified, and they will arrive in due time."
"Can I come with you?"
He smiled. "What do you think Konor would say?"
She already knew the answer to this. Yet she paused again. "Your sons, this legion. What do you plan to do with them?"
"It will take time to add our sons to theirs, to swell this legion to great numbers. I will train them, and they will train me, as there is much we have to learn. But 'War-Born', it does not sound right. That I can start with."
"And what will you change it to?" She inquired.
"Do you remember the planning I did for expanding our little realm?" He asked. "The name I created for it, inspired by the old legends?"
Realizing what he was alluding to, she nodded, smiling.
"I will name them my Ultramarines."
