Warning: Nothing terribly graphic in this chapter, but sex is broadly implicated, skip if you don't like such things.

{oOo}

Terra knelt on the lichen covered stone, her fingers curling into thin top soil. Through her fingers grass sprouted and curled.

She turned her hands over and seed clusters dropped into her palms. She wanted to show him.
The Emperor knelt down by her side, running his fingers through the grass. It appeared perfectly healthy. He turned his attention to what she was holding and took one of the clusters. Carefully, he examined it, noting the structure. It was grass-the kind of grass that he had taken for granted for millenia.

"It's old, but it's mine." Not transplanted but what she could grow from her own tattered power. "They're fertile, it will spread. Bryophytes might have been easier but..." He might like the grass?

"Do you wish to rest?" she was still weak and far too valuable to lose. Her well-being was important. That he was already quite fond of her was only a secondary factor.
"Maybe I'll be able to sleep soon," without having to worry that she'd..well yes she would be bleeding but that wasn't what the humans usually called extreme magma spewing tectonic activity. She leaned against him. "I feel that this might be the start of Elysium." The safe place of her soul. She'd be much, much saner then.

He slid his arm around her to support her. "I wish to understand this concept," he said. Elysium appeared to be important to her, but so far she had but gleaned the idea in their conversations. There were so many important things to talk about.
"A world within," she stood with his help, unbalanced and gestured with her left hand. "The garden I craft, Elysium," she made a fist and held up her right, "the outside world the wild places," she wrapped that hand around her fist.

She put her arm around his waist. "The psykers are going well. Seed generation I have copied from Beryl, and have altered the parents to produce as if they were her many times granchildren to maximize mutation and diverisity potential."

He traced the outline of her cheek with his fingertips. She was so practical to have around, allowing him to avoid problems he might run in while using simple cloning and other derrivative processes. "It pleases me."

Her eyes closed and she tilted her head against him, some how feeding off of his touch and aura. "You love them very much." It made him powerful, it made him worthy of her love now that she was able.

"I suppose you can put it that way," he said after a moment. "I exist to protect them."

"You love them, and you are not even cognizent of it. Amazing. But then what comparison would you have?" There had been one other like this, only she had...She didn't remember very well.

"I suppose I am flawed like that," he mused. "The only love I remember is that of a child to its parents-back then I did not know myself."

"I love my children," she agreed as they walked down the path together. Her dear children who fed on each other and on her and fought to defend her. "I love you," not as a child.

"I am fond of you," he replied. "I desire you. It is... odd."

"We are odd," and then she nodded. "Hybridization in vertebrates does not occur often, it is often a result of desperation or more likely artificial circumstances. The same species is more likely to produce viable offspring that will go on to produce their own. What are mentally and what you have made of yourself physically, there is no female akin to you. I am the closest."

"...Also I am by certain definition the drive to reproduce, however I don't think I am actively interfering with your hormonal balance."

What was the phrase? "Take me now."

"My most stalwart defender," she murmured before kissing him.

It was an intriguing experience. He wrapped his arms around her, kissing her back. It was a pity she couldn't talk about hormones like that, though.

"Here, feel how we are made." Her fingers dipping down his back, she did not trigger mere lust in him, but rather set off his adrenals. Fear. Fear and alone, for the whole of the world was dead around him, no, them. She was here, vasodialatiors to increase blood flow, heat pocketed between two bodies. Lust, because the spark of life was here, here between them if they only kindle it. Then they won't be alone, won't be dead.

He slid his hands against her back, watching her. It was intriguing-how she could trigger such primal emotions. A part of him wondered how. A part of him always wondered how. "That's where everything starts, is it not?"

"In fire, yes. The soul, the mind, the brain, I reach up into you from the most physical piece." And make you my plaything. "You remember the horomones levels from previous instances, should I recreate them it will be as if it had just happened. I was not present for your battles, I do not know them, but sometimes," she caressed the muscles of his neck, "some become trapped in muscle tissue and can be released, or I can copy..."

She flicked a finger through his throat and innundated him. For a moment he stood atop a mountain of corpses as in the end of the battle Thale'thie. Even he had almost died, but he lived and the stinking air had never smelled as sweet.

"How very intriguing," he said, closing his eyes. Her powers were so firmly grounded in biology and chemistry, but they were still so very fascinating. He bowed his head to kiss her jaw.

She showed him her throat and sunk her hands into his thick hair. "You know," she husked, lips pursed into a smile, "I'm only going to get stronger."

"Very good," he said. "I do want you stronger."

She breathed as any woman did. "RNA to resequence DNA into familiar forms saves me energy."

"Evolution is slow but magnificent. When my powers wax, with this mind? I will make things that have never been seen for you. DNA will unravel and cells will realign and reform by my will. Spiders with silicate spinerretes to reinforce your cities. Psykers of every stripe and ability, honing their skills against each other, improving and breeding and being worthy of us. Bury dragons teeth and I will give you an army."

"There are so many possiblities," he said, "There are several projects I might wish to brush up. Secretions could be interesting."

It was nice of him to not crush the thin topsoil with the excess weight of his armor

With beings of their power, clothing damage was nothing to worry. He could fix it with a thought.

"My lord, I hope this isn't a chore," she knew it wasn't anymore and tugged hard on his testosterone.

"Not at all," he chuckled. "Though I think I wouldn't mind a bit more convincing."

Her eyes took on a very far away look, and for a moment his body still felt desire, though his mind did not. She neatly blocked the feed back there. Her power traces into him like a multitude of fingers, she let him feel it

One by one she tapped on ancient neurons. Lighting the fire of the mind. "Remember," she whispered as she called up his adolescence and young adulthood.

"Look to the stars, but I am the grass and earth you laid upon, the goats you tended. Remember how your body first warmed, first awoke. Awaken to me my lord."

And then she let the floodgates open, as the man he was now, as the teen he had been then.

He gasped. He closed his eyes, as he remembered. How odd it felt. How alien. Had he really changed so much? He pulled her closer. It had been all so long ago...

He pressed his lips to her throat again, his body reacting while his mind dealt with the memories.

She was in every cell of his body, every process and heart beat, and wanted him with her. "My lord, my lord," He was a being of soul and mind incarnated into flesh which he shaped, she was all flesh, too real to be borne. She made him remember his own flesh and fire.

He obliged. Oh, how willing he was to unite with her.

She pressed against him, smiling, sighing. "Strongest, most worthy, most fit. Best beloved of this earth."

She nipped at him, gentle. Guided him with her hands, she made herself fit to him.

She slid against him, both of them burning equally for all that only he visibly glowed like the sun.

It was an ancient drive that was at work here, but in a sense it was new to him. Her powers were a part of it, as was her way of thinking, but there was also the fact she was an equal.

Ancient and new—it was like it should be

Around them the grass and moss became a lighter shade of green with new growth, and set out tiny little flowers.
Perhaps it was this, perhaps it was her, but memories of past passion were called up, and none held a candle to her.

Indeed, none had been like her. Before, he had always felt a sense of uniqueness? loneliness? It was hard to tell at now. It was not her body, though he found it more than enjoyable. The powers and the mind... Oh, he wanted to study them.

Her eyes rolled upward briefly, then focused (the tarnished crescent of Luna hanging in the day sky.) Her eyes came back to him, and only him. "My lord, my high king, my Emperor," She drank from him with a kiss, flexing and holding him tight to her in all ways she could.

Ah, he was starting to understand better. She was his and he was hers. That was why it felt so different. Before, he had not felt a sense of belonging. "My queen," he whispered.

A deeper breath, held for an instant and she smiled at him so, so, there weren't words yet for it, not fully. Half closed eyes and...completion, contentment, correctness. But more. "I am. Should you fall, should you fade, I will strike them down, and I would continue your will." That was very, very nearly against her nature. But she loved him as fiercely and fully as she could recall loving another long ago. For that one she put aside her power without a thought, for this one she gathered strength, for him mother earth would bear arms.

He grinned. "We are wed," he stated. "You and I are one now. Nothing will stand in our way." It was such an exhilarating feeling. He would not lead alone now.

She pulled him down to kiss her, fierce and exultant and then pushed him away so he would lay upon her rocks and she could rise above him. "My glorious golden lord. We will craft together things that the stars have never seen." She thought of a golden millenium. "Our children will be around every sun and in every void."

{oOo}