Janos had decided to remain on the Conqueror in transit. He had promised Father to teach his new brother and he could not do this when away from him, could he? He didn't regret this decision either, but at times he felt out of place. Angron had already learned quite a lot and seemed to prefer to turn to his Eighth Captain for advice.

Still, there was one thing that Kharn didn't seem to be adequate for. For all their durability and combat skill, the War Hounds were not the kind of opponents that could truly challenge a Primarch. Admittedly, Janos was quite certain that most of the time he was not the right opponent either and Angron was the challenging one and only a part of it stemmed from his attitude, but nevertheless, he dutifully sparred with Angron.

Every day.

"This is weird," Angron said, testing his axes again. He had been restless all the time, repeating actions over and over, as if they were somehow new to him. It was the first time he had donned his power-armor and it seemed that he needed time to get used to it. Janos nodded—he could sympathize. Armor—whole body armor with all those odd parts inside—had been something completely foreign to him, too.

"You will get used to it," he said.

"Easy-" Angron started to say, but fell silent. For a long while, he studied Janos' face, as if he had seen him for the first time. It was somewhat disquieting, given that usually Angron tended to dislike prolonged eye-contact. In that moment, however, he maintained it with surprising intensity. "You sound like you really know that and not like you're just saying that."

He circled Janos, both of them falling into a battle stance.

"It's not like any of us started wearing power armor as children," he pointed out, but Angron shook his head.

"That's not the whole truth," Angron said. Janos wondered how Angron kept noticing those things. He wasn't that obvious, after all.

"I suppose it's not," he conceded after a moment and found himself doubling over almost instantly. He had lost his focus and Angron was a demanding opponent, one that used any moment of weakness. He managed to give his brother an offended look and huff out, "I won't tell you now. You can figure it out yourself."

Their gazes met for a moment and he could see the bewilderment written over Angron's face, followed by an annoyed snort. "That is not funny and unfair."

Janos almost shrugged and dismissed his brother's complaint, but stopped himself. He wasn't being fair. They were brothers. Family. Shouldn't they trust one another then? Perhaps this was what was bothering him? Not the fact that he wasn't much of a challenge during sparring, but that he was the one responsible for the distance between them. Angron was open. Janos kept things to himself.

"No, it's not," he conceded. He let his sword arm fall and motioned at Angron with his free hand to follow him. Perhaps his brother found it easier to talk when fighting. He certainly seemed to be unable to stand still for a moment and by now, it seemed to Janos most of Angron's flashes of insight came when they were fighting.

Janos was not him. Perhaps he'd been wrong to assume his combat instincts had been destroyed long ago. Sometimes, when they trained, he almost reached the point where he wasn't making conscious decisions, where he reacted, but it was just brief flashes and most of the time he had to concentrate still. Besides, talking was hard. Searching for words and trying to fend off the furious maelstrom that was his brother was demanding, even when talking about less complicated matters. It would be impossible, if he were to fully explain himself.

"Unlike you I wasn't a warrior when Father found me. I wasn't in a shape to be anything."

He paused, trying to find the right words to go on, and failing. Instead, he started to remove his armor, piece by piece. This time, he didn't stop at the suit underneath, slowly exposing flesh. Most of it was hidden anyway, even without the protective shroud that his amour or clothes made. Both his back and his chest were covered by one tattoo—a giant likeness of a griffin, done in the brown and gold of his Legion.

But underneath the meticulously inked feathers and the ferocious beak there were the scars: a giant Y-shaped one, starting at his shoulders, joining on his chest and then running down his abdomen and smaller ones on his lower back.

Angron stared at him in silence, before letting out an annoyed half-hiss half-sigh. "If you are going to explain, do it. If not, tell me who will."

Janos gave him an offended look, but before he could manage to reply, his brother leaned closer and tapped his chest. "I've seen something like that—the High Raiders did it with corpses. You were taken for dead? You could have just said it."

"Dear brother, you have the tact of an angry rhino," Janos snapped.

Angron gaped for a moment, before saying, "I've heard be-"

Janos didn't hear the rest of the sentence, because by now he was quite certain he had had enough of being interrupted. The rest of his brother's words were muffled by his fist connecting with Angron's jaw. It silenced Angron quite well, though Janos suspected it was mostly surprise that was keeping his brother from interrupting again.

"I'm trying to explain to you how I managed to get gutted like a fish," he said. "If you do want to hear it, you will hear it from me, at my pace. And you will stay silent."

Angron stared at him, surprise plain on his features. Slowly, he nodded and took a step back. Janos was starting to feel uncomfortable. Outbreaks like that always made him feel guilty afterwards. Guilty and worried that he had damaged something, and yet, it didn't seem to be the case.

Slowly, he started his tale. He tried to focus on the bare facts and keep the emotions at bay. The very beginning proved hardest—he found he hardly remembered being found or what came next at all. A vague smell of grass and moist black soil, rain dripping down on him and two surprised voices. There had been two of them, a man and a woman…

But even as he spoke about it, a sense of dread lurked behind every word. He knew what was coming. A short period of false calm, when the world had seemed secure and then…

That part he remembered most vivid of all. The last day when he could walk and run and see. He remembered the bitter taste of the berries, the panicked shouts—a woman's high voice on the verge of hysteria and a male voice in the background.

They took him to a hospital—a clean white building with bright lights. Inside, figures as white as the walls bustled and the two with him seemed smaller and dirty compared to the staff. One of the white figures hovered over him, shinning a light in his eyes, taking blood samples, checking, checking, then came the shouting and then…

Then all was black.

He felt a sharp stab of pain, as something flat and hard collided with the side of his face. The hit had been powerful and he stumbled back, confused and-

Angron. He was there, watching him with a frown—but not the usual, impatient one.

"I'll find somebody else to tell me the rest," his brother said. "I didn't think-…"

He paused, shook his head and then grabbed Janos' shoulder. "I'm sorry. I will ask somebody else."

Janos stared at him, confused at the sudden change of heart. He felt lost—what had happened? True, he had never tried to tell the full story to anyone, but… But he didn't remember what he had told Angron or how he said it. It was almost as if a dark pit had opened in his head as soon as he recalled the past and it tried to swallow him whole, drag him back to where he had been trapped so long ago.

"There's not much else to tell-," he started to say, but Angron stopped him.

"I'm going to ask somebody else," he said firmly and Janos suddenly realized they were maintaining eye contact—had been for some time. His brother was still frowning and chewing on his lip.

"What did I do?" he asked, the feeling of dread slowly creeping back.

Angron broke the eye-contact first, closing his eyes. For a moment, just one, painful moment, he stopped moving at all.

"You frightened me," he replied.