Alrighty, folks - I'm sorry this took so long to get up! I was hoping to have it done before I took a five hour drive to spend a weekend doing bridesmaid-ey things, but here it is. Next time will be an interlude and a whole new story thread so be sure to look for it!

Part 2 – The Black Brand

Chapter 10 – The First Death

She had noticed absolutely nothing different about this morning, and she wondered with rapid, terrified honesty, if that was what had gotten her into this situation.

As was typical, her body had woken her four bells into the morning watch and she had stolen across the hall to the head, avoiding the gaze of her master's trophies. After, she had returned to the meditation chamber, made her bed, and prayed. Her first lesson (particularly difficult addition of fractions) was at six bells and her first test at eight. She was sure she passed, though; that couldn't have been the reason.

The Litany of Flame's Seneschal, Michael Corrigan, had come to the door just after breakfast as she struggled to read some basic religious text printed in High Gothic. Her (and in a way, she supposed, his own) master, the Inquisitor Lord Pieter Mordekai had held him in quiet conversation for half an hour, and she increasingly suspected that this was more because they were friends than for the business of running the ship. The Seneschal didn't visit every day, but it wasn't uncommon; he would rap at the door, enter smiling, they would converse, and the Seneschal would leave. That couldn't have been it, either.

She ran through a list of external factors, but they, too, were inculpable (and would have been illogical as catalysts themselves). The warp drives hadn't disengaged, nor had they experienced any turbulence. No notification of enemy presence or threat had come through. There had been no ship-wide announcement of a drill or change in scheduled proceedings.

He'd acted no different during meditation. Her master hadn't broken from their routine, and so far as she could tell, she'd done nothing to displease him.

And yet here she was, alone in the Litany's training area, emptied of equipment to resemble an arena more than anything. Here she was in her pinafore and spats, staring across a too-short and far too barren distance at an adult grox. Here she was, armed with nothing more than a fixed-blade knife the length of her inner forearm; her master had pushed her through the door and tossed the knife in after her, sending it clattering across the floor to land somewhere near her boot.

While she was sure that she'd actively done nothing to frighten or threaten the animal, it was clearly agitated, breathing as fast as she was, tossing its head and growling a terrible, bestial noise of warning. Confused and more than a little nervous about the creature across the room, she turned her head back, hoping to see her master waiting for her. The door was closed with a crimson locking light at its panel; it wouldn't open unless she had a code.

This lack of regard on her part apparently didn't sit well with the grox, and it let out a tooth-rattling bellow, stepping toward her and raising its spiked tail like a scorpion might.

That got her attention.

A sickening realization crept over her that her master wouldn't be coming to protect her. No one would be. And while she didn't want to be near this animal any more than it seemed to want to be near her, walking away was apparently not an option. He had left her that knife so she could protect herself from this beast. Taking a deep breath and not removing her eyes from the threat and using slow, nonthreatening motions, she crouched low and patted around the ground until her fingers finally found and wrapped around the knife's hilt.

The reciprocation of nonviolent intent ended that second, and though she was equally slowly, carefully standing back up, it scraped its forefoot once and charged at her. While she'd been told once in class that grox were aggressive and dangerous, she hadn't understood why it mattered until the spiked, scaly head had slammed into her, too slow to get out of the way, and rammed her in the thigh, causing a sick, heavy crack to emanate from the leg and blinding pain to shoot up into her brain, forcing a scream from her to split the air. It had seemed to charge through her, not stopping until it hit the wall and roared again. She used its distraction as an opportunity to reach inwards – she had done it once before, and instead of hindering her, the panic stopped her from thinking of the details of how and she simply did – and caused herself to vanish: all of her, all at once.

Every step away from where she'd been standing was excruciating and she bit her lip until it bled, focusing desperately on remaining out of its sight. She headed towards the corner of the room to make herself small and unnoticeable. If she could just remain invisible for long enough it might forget her and she could leave without them hurting each other – well, any more than it already had. But she held no grudge for that – it was just an animal, it didn't know any better. She had no reason to want to hurt it. She didn't want to hurt anything. (Wasn't that why she was here? So that he could teach her to be safe?) She just wanted it to leave her alone.

Thinking, she realized, was a distraction. Part of her must have slipped back into the realm of visibility, because the animal behind her let out an outraged cry and charged at her unprotected back. Steeling herself, she continued on at her pace until the very last possible second and twisted her body out of its way just slightly, ending up on its side, encasing it to the wall, just before its foreleg. In a sort of desperation, realizing her options were quickly disappearing, she laid a gentle hand on the beast's shoulder, and whispered to it, "Please – calm down… don't make me –" but whatever else she could have said was cut off as its tail swung around and lashed into her unprotected side.

It knocked all the wind from her and her ribs were with lancing agony and the world slowed. She reached inside, again heedless of how and simply did, and this time it guided her arm, showing her the exact spot to aim. The knife connected to a soft spot just behind and beneath its wide jaw, and sunk in like it would with butter. A river of red washed over the whole of her arm and the hem of her dress and the sheen of her boots and the beast stilled. She yanked the blade back out and more red splashed the floor and the animal quivered and crumpled and lay gasping in a heap. She could see its shuddering. There was a roar of white noise in her ears but it wasn't quite enough to drown out the sound of its few seconds of panicked, dying whines.

Mechanically, she wiped the blood off the blade with her skirt and sat at the crook of its neck, one leg tucked beside her and the broken one splayed out to the side. Her blood-soaked little hand touched its jaw and the beast's movement ended completely. The enormity of this slammed into her – she had killed it. It was gone. It would never roar or charge or breathe or eat again. She hadn't meant to. She hadn't wanted to.

She'd never hurt anything on purpose before. She didn't like it. But this had been his idea. This was what he was going to be encouraging of her for the rest of her life. It was going to make her more of a monster than she ever would have been without him. But monsters were what the Imperium needed – so she would do it. The shock seemed to be wearing off, because another wave of dizzying, sickening pain washed over her. She was fairly sure – about as sure as she'd been about making the feather move - that she could make the pain stop, but she wouldn't.

Getting hurt had been incidental in this: her own fault for not taking this seriously enough. If he wanted her fixed, he would do it himself, but he probably thought she deserved it. She certainly did, though perhaps not for the same reason. The pain would remind her that a soft heart would get her killed. Part of her – the part that feared and hated him for orchestrating this – thought that might be better for her soul, but she refused to be wasteful. The greater part of her knew he made her do nothing – and that was certainly worse.

The door behind her slid open and she slowly stood, her body screaming in torment, but she walked to the exit like a wounded automaton. She could feel his eyes on her. She could feel his approval. LOOK! Her mind shouted it at her. He'll be smiling now. You were so desperate for that. Look now, and it'll be there. You'll see. But it hardly seemed to matter anymore. It hardly seemed worth the cost. She followed him down the hall, wherever he was leading her.

The white walls of the infirmary gleamed, and someone picked her up and set her on the bench. They pricked and pinched and prodded her, but she hardly felt it, and soon there were drugs for pain, coursing through her veins, beckoning her down into a dark sleep. Just before she succumbed, she heard his voice, quite near, rumbling, "Finally, you are ready, my apprentice." She felt a warm weight on her forehead and then blissful, blessed nothingness.

JustMe: I take absolutely no offense. Believe me, I know Ellie is over the top (and in game she's overpowered as all heck). I hope this gives you a fairly good indication of what life is going to have in store for our girl - all of that "almost too good"-ness is something she's going to need. Nothing is going to be easy.

Sir Rawk: So... heart warming, you say...

All the best,

-Your Friendly Neighborhood Geist