{oOo}

"...In one alternate future," the words are dust, ash in her throat. I fell in love with you, she wanted to say, yet she continues.

"I failed to protect you from Slaanesh." the words are bile-bitter, the full weight of thousands of years crashing down on her, crushing the life out of her. "I was used against you. I would prefer not to go into the details. but it was... horrible beyond words. I'm sorry, I ..."

Oh gods she couldn't do this.

"I have to go." she said, hands cold, before she fled.

{oOo}

Ruin cornered Fulgrim sometime later, smiling that fragmented smile, a shard of madness glimmering in his eyes. "I believe we need to talk,"he purred, voice as sharply edged as a razor, as gentle as a caress.

"About what?" Fulgrim asked. He felt a chill run down his spine-the creature unnerved him.

Ruin grinned, death's rictus, cold. "What exactly did you say to my little girl?"

It gazed at him, weighing everything he was in its ice-blue gaze. "I understand you have some questions about alternate futures. Perhaps you should have directed them to me instead."

"I had dreams of myself," Fulgrim replied. "I'm different in them. Older. Sort of... tired? I think she was in one of them, or at least somebody very similar to her. She looked... different."

"...That's probably because she was." Ruin said mildly. " Each timeline is different from the other. And in one timeline, she sold her soul to me to get you out of Slaanesh's clutches."

"I should be grateful?" he snapped. "I never asked her to do this! I... What the hell is going on?"

"Gratitude has never been an aspect inherent in the human species." Ruin informed him. "You want information? Perhaps we should speak in private, yes?" Some place where he could cloak them both.

"Fine," Fulgrim replied after a momentary hesitation. He needed to understand what was going on.

The alcove was secluded, silent, the room itself empty. The first thing that Ruin did was cloak them in his own warp signature to silence any watchers. The next…

"Each decision causes a change, a separate timeline." Ruin informed him. "In many timelines, your brother Lorgar corrupts Horus."

A feral, unpleasant grin. "Horus falls. He murders Sanguinius."

Ruin continued recounting the horrible domino of events as they fell, one after the other. "He strikes down Roboute."

Then, for a vicious hit, "He cripples your father."

While Fulgrim reeled from those words, Ruin moved on to the next, "In many timelines, you find a sword on Laer, because none of your siblings got to it first. It is a trap." Ruin informed him calmly.

"You take the blade. The warp creature within it worms its way into your body, your mind."

The being's gestures are expressive, the shadows on the wall twist to show a black battlefield.

A terrible strike to the man's composure, as deliberately delivered as a sword blow. "And then it uses you to murder your own brother, Ferrus."

The being has no mercy. He continues with but a short pause, "Your legion, who love you, falls. They turn on your brother's legion, all but exterminating them." A piercing look. "and your soul? That is taken, imprisoned in a painting, to suffer sensory deprivation for thousands of years, until you go mad."

Fulgrim was silent, his face pale, eyes wide. Horus? A traitor? Him, killing Ferrus? It all sounded like some sort of a horrible nightmare. It couldn't happen. It wouldn't happen.

It had. Ruin offered him the most skeleton of records, the entire run of the mildest accurate images, evidence. It was, as Beryl had said, horrible beyond description.

And yet it was real, and Ruin coddled him still by not giving him the fullness of that truth, that he'd been violated and used to violate others in ways other than treachery, other than imprisonment, other that on the battlefields.

For millenia.

No. He gave him the recorded pict-casts, the vids, the medical records, the screams of the dying, the sight of the corrupted Emperor's Children.

But not the rapes, the tortures inflicted for amusement.

He didn't do it for Fulgrim. He did it for Beryl, who would have to bear the weight of his words.

When the Primarch had gone ashen pale, and trembling, he ventured onwards.

"In one timeline, the daemon wearing your face, came to Beryl and told her he had an important task for her. The poor girl was in love with you, and, given her relative youth at the time, it was easy for it to manipulate her." Ruin said flatly. What had she been? Twenty? And the legion's marines had been a century at the youngest.

Poor mortal fool. At least this time, Ruin would set the record straight.

"It told her it wanted her to protect its soul, your soul, in that painting. For centuries, she stood by that task, faithfully trying to please you, and keep you sane." Ruin's smile is terrible, sharp edged. "It was not completely successful, though she did the best she could. She was never equipped for such a task, you see. In the end when she'd discovered she had been misled, she sacrificed her life, and directed your rescuers to other things that held the daemon to the materium, as a physical anchor. You were freed." it said flatly.

"I came upon her as she lay dying and offered her compact. Her, to be mine, in exchange for this whole set of traumatic events never happening to you."

That feral smile directed at the Primarch once more.

"Your honor, sanity, freedom, this all remains intact. You should have fallen at Laer. We slagged Laer, she and I. The sword that would have been the tool used to corrupt you is less than dust now."

It shrugged. "And I expect nothing from you, Fulgrim. Neither does she, save for the chance to... what is the human term? Atone." Ruin shrugged. "She will protect you until her physical form is dust. Then her soul is mine. And because she is a good little pawn, an obedient little bird, I will not harm her. At least, not more than this fiasco already has."

"And my dreams-where do they fit in?" he asked quietly. He wanted to say so many other things, but first he had to know all he could. The dreams were still unexplained. In one timeline, she seemed not to exist. In another, she was dead. In his dreams... by now he was quite sure it was her who rested her head on his lap when his other self was reading.

He should have expected that, Ruin knew. Reality contamination. And yet... "A timeline wherein she was reincarnated, as a full human without my interference. You were captured there, and freed, but it took you centuries to get over the mental trauma of being violated both mentally, and physically." Ruin clarified. "By the time she was reborn, the fourth time around, you'd had a complete recovery, and since she'd died in battle, trying to protect you in that world, her position was less... tenuous. She courted you as best she could, going into what is termed the Inquisition, in order to be of use to you."

A shrug, nonchalant on the surface only. "Perhaps, one might assume that since she got what she wanted, it was a happy ending. Apparently though, a happy ending in her eyes, is one where you never had to suffer being captured by Slaanesh like that in the first place."

"Did you tell her what you told me before making a contract with her?" Fulgrim asked. If it did and she rejected it-he wasn't sure if he liked the thought. Love, he supposed he could understand, but this was too much. Even his Children wouldn't value his safety so much over theirs, and he was their Primarch.

A part of him wanted to meet the other Fulgrim's, see how different they would be.

Likely, Ruin knew, they'd be gibbering idiots, or insane berserkers, or worse, superficially recovered fighters, with hair trigger berserk buttons. That… wouldn't do Fulgrim much good, and it would depress Beryl to no end. He cut to the point.

"...You think she would have cared?" That smile again, bleak and terrible. A truth that poisoned wells. "Even had I told her, she would have chosen your safety over her own, refusing to leave it to chance. Perhaps she will maul me for speaking to you, but that is irrelevant, this form is but a shell."

Another shrug. "She will use me to destroy your enemies, and will be happy for it. And the only thing she will fear is your disfavor."

Ah. the boy was still curious? "...and as for the other Fulgrim, the one in your dream.. He is happy, as much as I can tell. She who is with him is happy. And they both do their jobs, exterminating cultists, pedophiles and other threats to your father's empire, waiting for your father's wounds to heal. He was, after all, crippled by what is now called The Heresy."

"Is he always crippled?" He closed his eyes, It was so hard to to ask for anything, so hard to grasp what he was being told. So many, many questions...

Ruin answered him as necessary. He did, after all, promise himself to tell the truth this time around. "...As far as I can tell... And I can read far indeed; yes, though... they have not corrupted your brothers here yet, so it may be preventable." Ruin admitted. "Beryl's plan to prevent it from happening involved her summoning the woman who just married your sire." A vicious grin.

"When she is at full strength, anything that threatens your father will be prey."

A contemplative look. A wary offering. "In the timeline where your alternate married Beryl, your alternate had sisters as well as brothers."

Ruin clarified. "Nine of them, actually. They helped hold your sire's empire together while he was out of commission."

"Why are they not here?" Fulgrim asked, gaze sharp, determined.

"Ah? That would be my fault." Ruin admitted. "I backstabbed Beryl. She was expecting them to be here when she awoke." He knew why he was taking the credit for this, after all. It was because it really was his fault, never mind Beryl's tendency to hog all the blame. That girl... blamed herself too much. He hated the martyr-complex. He hated the self-blame. And besides, what Chaos put in, Chaos could, easily, take out.

"Which," Ruin admitted. "Is why she is working so hard to ensure the one she summoned will be at full strength as soon as possible. After all, she has to make up for my dickery."

"I need to think," Fulgrim said, sounding tired. "Leave me."

"As you wish." Ruin smiled, taking his cloaking essence, "but be careful who you inform. If I am not cloaking the area, it may lead to rather adverse events. From your lips, to Chaos' ears, as they say. You would not wish their attention."

{oOo}