~Father of Demigods~
~801. M30~
~Segmentum Obscurus~
~Approaching Medusa~
~The Emperor of Mankind, The Hero with a Thousand Faces~
Caliban was a rather pleasant divergence. At first thinking his daughter had yet to arrive, he had decided upon a similar solution to Baal. Purgation of the dangers of the world, establishment of an Imperial colony, integration of the locals, and moving on. Baal was abrim with mutation and creatures of chaos, a wild and wasteland-riddled world, its conquest had to be done with a great army and dedicated slaughter. The least warp-spasmed lives were spared, and left to become the laborers of the Imperial city to be established there.
Caliban was different. Thick and overflowing with life, flora and fauna both, with a notable lack of mutation amongst its inhabitants despite proximity to the great storm to the galactic south-west. The Beasts of Caliban told him what he needed to know. A half-functional psy-device of some manner, hidden deep within the planet, still working to draw winds of change from the warp and condense them for some purpose.
Whatever its original design, now it served to create the Beasts of Caliban. Grand and unique creatures of predation, filled with the mutagenic magics of the nearby warp, and filled with terrible malignancy.
Most importantly, the Beasts of Caliban took on the bulk of the twisting energies that flowed into the planet, leaving the rest of the population mostly untouched. Reservoir-creatures that took on chaotic immaterium and converted it into creatures from humanity's collective fears.
But they were creatures. Not daemons. They acted as creatures do. Predator-beasts with meat and hides and bones, all useful things when harvested from their corpse-piles. He had made sure to sample many, and found their natures had changed in the process, from chaos to mere meat. Roasted and honey-glazed and delicious meats.
It was delightful to realize. He had to go back to that place in time, to study that device and understand its functions. He had half a mind to install a copy of it upon every world in the Imperium. Assuming of course, that it had no malign long-term effects.
Indeed, he had thought that his daughter had not yet landed. Engaged in battle with two great white lions, one snuck around behind him. He had foreseen this, and was planning on a clever maneuver.
In his youth, he remembered slaying a great lion. A quest given to him to atone for a fit of terrible wrath. He did not recall the reason for his anger, or the face of the one who tasked him with it. A king perhaps, or maybe a shepard, or just a boy? It did not matter. The lion had a golden hide, which was unbreachable by mortal weapon and looked quite handsome about his shoulders.
Its hide was impervious. The flesh inside was not. He forced an arm down its throat and crushed the heart in his fist, he thinks. Or maybe he strangled it? It was slain regardless, and the quest had been completed without hindrance. He had been planning on something similar with the lion behind him, claw-gauntlet readied.
At that time, the sky cracked, the warp convulsed, and the life-container that shielded his daughter from the warp smashed through the air, and crashed into the lion's skull. Quickly slaying the other beast, he approached the container to find One, thrashing in a manner only infants could, a mighty frown on her face. The corpse of the lion serving as her landing-cushion.
Oh how he howled with laughter at that, taking up his daughter, emptying his satchel of trophies, and carefully swaddling her inside. Her sisters were quite surprised to see him remove her from the satchel at the end of the first day.
His daughter, naught a day old and already making him proud! Most pelts of his kills he gave to Caliban, to do with as they willed. The pelts of the two lions he made sure to keep. Once for himself and one for his daughter.
For little Atalanta. She'd need a fine cloak when she was finished growing, what better than her first slain beast?
Seated once more on the Golden Throne, he focused. The bulk of his will was dedicated to maintaining the great projection of his soul, shearing a way through the twisting narratives of the immaterium. A small portion of his will was dedicated to manifesting gentle images in the air before him, weapons of various designs. Resting in the crook of his arm, Atalanta stared transfixed.
Quiet for a child, and enraptured in the most fundamental method of learning humanity had. Mimicry. Not of the body or mind, however.
The golden image of a sword gently hovered in the air before him, and slowly he made it act as if it was wielded. Block, parry, swing, thrust. All the motions inherent to a sword. All the narratives a sword engages in. A materium-holo image, brought into being by a small application of will. A useful learning trick he had picked up some time ago.
Slowly, crudely, Atalanta's soul changed shape. Its gentle swirls of light and color condensed slightly into something closer in shape to a set of crossed lines. It kept trying to length and sharpen, but her control was not yet fine enough for that.
Smiling, he slowly returned the images to a ball of gentle light, and waited for her soul to do the same. A shapeless thing at one glance, a complex thing at another glance. A mass of bright and sharpened silver, folding with layers and potential, but in truth was merely one thing. Formless steel, yet-unworked by the fire of her will.
Then he shaped the gold projection into a spear, and began the process anew. As children are ought to do, she attempted to copy what she saw, and her soul did its best to lengthen, to sharpen, to thrust. It was perhaps the poorest spear he had ever seen, it was an excellent start.
It was important to teach her many forms early, lest her spirit ossify into a single shape.
Lucem had been his initial attempt. An experiment in some part, to see if what he desired was even possible. A warrior that could aid him against the horrors of Terra, if not an equal, then a powerful son by his side. He had succeeded, but his initial process had been flawed, limited. The boy was powerful, the boy was loyal, the boy was not a warrior. He was a weapon. His spirit was mere fuel and memory, his metal-flesh mere material to bring forth weaponry, his will was singular.
He did not need powerful weapons. He needed powerful allies. But the boy's creation taught him much about the process, and with newfound wisdom he set to creating a second iteration. A batch of twenty. But one does not start with twenty without first ensuring the process was understood, Malcador ensured he kept this in mind.
Geneseed was forged, then put to work on creating less costly prototypes. The primordial strands were wrought from base human stock, and few survived more than a century. Once he had finally mastered the process, he moved back to the initial goal. He had set to work, and soon enough, embryonic Atalanta had been sired. The first complete success.
Lucem had not reacted strongly upon seeing her initial state, but the fixed gaze told him the boy was intrigued by the prospect of having a sister.
Atalanta was drawn from the aspect of his life he thought would serve her best. She was drawn from his many blended memories of slaying great and terrible beasts. The times in which the sword in his hands was the most valuable treasure he possessed, and his mind raced with visions of how he might overcome the foe before him.
She would be far better equipped than he. His soul was a sword, after all. As much as he favored a sword, it was not always desired. It took great amounts of focus for it to be anything else, something that he found troublesome many times before. Some beasts simply were not suited towards being slain with swords, some required axes, or spears, or…
Smiling, he watched as she attempted to crudely mimic the bow and arrow he let dance before her infant eyes. Her soul slowly morphing and twisting in the attempt to form the complex shape.
Even bows.
She would be far better equipped than he, for her soul was any weapon she could imagine, and her mind would race with visions of how to best use all things at her disposal in order to achieve victory. She was a warrior, not a weapon, and she would serve him exceptionally well. She had proved that what he wished was possible, and with her success he moved on to drafting her many sisters.
Sisters, such as Ten, which he could distantly feel on the world just beyond the reach of his sword. He smiled.
This trip was quite productive thus far.
—
Once, when she was a young woman, barely more than a child with slothful eyes and pallid scales, her patriarch took her to the balcony of a grand city on the surface-world. She had never been to the surface of any world before then, she had yet to return to one. Her forebears ensured she knew of their depravity and indulgences. Barbaric and crude, genelines intermingling carelessly, great violence in open streets and dunes and visible to all.
Yet the Patriarch of the ancient and noble navigator-house of Stryx had brought her to the surface, and none attempted to discourage him. Tradition they called it. Something that sat sour in his mouth as she felt the whipping winds dry her skin and the dust accumulate in her eyes.
He made her wait there, and a grand procession began through the city. Armies of soldiers in thick-clad armor and wielding great crude weapons marching down a massive causeway. War machines and ramshackle jetbikes following. She had complained loudly and incessantly, the Patriarch ignored her impudent requests to return to the comfort of their voidship homes.
Instead, he commanded her to stand next to him, pointed a webbed and clawed hand at the final war-machine in the distance, from which a light could be seen even through the glare of the horrid sun. In the rasp of a venerable elder, he spoke.
"Daughter of Stryx. Still your tongue. Open your Eye. And look to the horizon."
With impertinence in her heart, she did as she was bade. The eye upon her brow, concealed from the common rabble with silks and golds, focused. Fledging and childish, her Eye was still covered in the fog of youth.
The vision was burned into her mind. She could not recall in precise detail what she bore witness to on that day. Golden and bright and burning. A presence and idea carved into her mind and vision. A man, and nothing more was certain until the patriarch spoke again. Distant and withered, pallid compared to that all-encompassing heat.
"This is Heaven. Do not invoke its judgment."
It took her months to recover from that terrible and awesome sight. Her Eye burned to look upon a much duller world, strained with images of light and thunder. Slowly, she managed to muster herself to see once more, and with the return of her sight came clarity she had never known before. The twistings of the warp were suddenly quaint to behold, their writhing no longer so horrid and sickening, the false-whispers no longer so easy to listen to.
Her Eye had been open before, but clouded. Her Eye was clear now, and the hearts of men were plain to her sight.
She grew from the experience. Soon she became a young woman, and her sight grew more and more efficacious. It was not the greatest among her peers, but it was more than respectable.
Then came to her noble house a message, from the Paternova himself. A command. The Emperor of Mankind required a Navigator for his flagship, the behemoth Bucephalus, a hundred and seventy kilometers in length and crown jewel of Sol's shipyards. She had been chosen for the honor.
She was confused. Many among her generation were more talented than she. Many could see further or clearer. Many were more refined or intellectually gifted. Why her?
She had been told in short and uncharacteristically blunt order.
She had been chosen for her beauty, and little more. Her sight was clear enough to serve well, but she had been selected as an enticing doll. High cheekbones, full lips, pearlescent scales, dainty frame. A thing to be pleasing to look upon, and perhaps used if the Emperor of Mankind was even capable of indulging himself in mortal flesh as hers. If the… logistics of such a union were even possible.
She was… not opposed to this role. It was her duty to serve her house, and this was perhaps one of the greatest honors that could be bestowed. Lady Navigator of the Lord Emperor's personal vessel. Her.
Given to her for the fortune of her breeding. The knowledge filled her with turbulent emotion. Surely the Lord Emperor, immortal conqueror, great-unifier of Terra, slayer of god-monsters, bane of sorcerers, destroyer of mutation, banisher of xenos, master of gene-forging, and lord of the golden host deserved more than an appealing idol to gaze upon?
But it was not her place to argue against the Paternova, so she did as she was bid, and desperately attempted to improve the clarity of her sight. To be worthy of the throne she was thrust upon. All resources were available to her in this endeavor, for her position afforded her great authority to requisition assets in the pursuit of improvement.
It never felt as if it were enough to truly be useful. Even as her sight expanded day after day, she held the private suspicion in her heart of hearts that the Emperor could see further than her still, that he did not need her in any regard.
It was difficult to merely see beyond the reach of gold, beyond the tip of his embodied will. Even as her gaze strained for paths between, even the once-shadowy warp was illuminated by the light of the Astronomicon and his present blade, even as she saw further and clearer each passing day.
The path always felt warm. It was only enough to arouse her suspicions and nothing more.
Reality cracked. An eye ripped a way into the materium. A fleet of thousands slowly emerged from this tear, sheltered by the now fading vision of gold left in their wake.
She wet her lips, and slowly closing her Eye, she spoke aloud in the most refined Terran she could muster. "Lord Emperor. We have arrived at Medusa." Delicate, sweet, refined, elegant. That was what the voice of a lady should be. Yet her tongue felt heavy and her collar felt hot as she spoke.
Medusa. Another world bearing another of his children, their locations scouted by agents in his service. She felt her soul stain just looking upon it, choked in smog and thick with pollutants. She risked a furtive glance up and behind her, at the face the patriarch bid her to memorize.
Some days were clearer than others. Some days it was almost impossible to look upon. Young and Old. Furious and Joyous. Handsome and Hideous. The features were impossible to know with any certainty, everything possible at once, and nothing true.
Other days were clear, and on the clearest of those days she could almost see his face. Strong-jawed, high-cheeked, bronze skin, straight midnight hair. His eyes were always impossible to distinguish, hidden behind the ever-present sunfire that served as his sight, his crown, and his halo.
This was a very clear day. She could see a gentle, fatherly smile on his face. She quickly pulled her gaze from it, feeling as if she was shaming it with her vision, and her eyes settled upon the babe in the crook of his arm. One of his daughters, the youngest yet recovered. Golden-haired and emerald-eyed, fair-skinned and pudgy in cheek.
It was an exceptionally beautiful baby.
He rose, and her gaze was locked upon the moment. She desperately struggled to not picture the body beneath his armor, brazen and broad-shouldered, smooth of skin and firm of muscle…
She failed.
Her face was unbearably hot.
My gratitude, Lady Navigator. The voice boomed. It rolled like thunder and flowed like honey. It sounded like a war-horn and a lover's lyre. It filled the room with its utterances, and settled into her memory without motion.
His smile was upon her, and for one moment heat had flushed out all other sensations.
His gaze turned, and the moment was over. A distant part of her wished that moment had lasted eternity.
Deputy Commander Harron. You have my License, carry out my vision. The voice boomed again. The man in question snapped into a salute, prodigious will alone preventing him from falling to his knees. She was jealous of his self-control.
Custodian Sanctes. I entrust to you Atalanta.
The demigod clad in gold snapped into a salute, and adjusted his posture, accepting the daughter of the Emperor into his arms with superhuman care and delicacy, immediately beginning to rock her in a rhythmic manner, bringing her eyes to rest. There was no need to command him to guard her with his life, that was already known to all parties bearing witness.
Finally, the Emperor turned, and began to walk down the immense steps of his immense throne. His newly acquired cloak made from the skin of some truly immense and terrible white lion waved as he descended.
Lord Archmagos. Please relay my use of the Imperial Teleportation Array, and ready an expedition-army. This world may contain relics of interest.
The red-roped and barely-human priest began to fulfill these orders at once, not pausing in carrying out his commanded duties. Pausing to reply would be moot regardless.
For in a crack of archeotech lightning, the Emperor vanished from the helm of his ship, commanding the grand machine that connected distant points with naught but will. How he was able to do so was unknown to her. He simply was.
The helm felt colder with his absence.
Sitting in silence as the others went about their duties, she chanced another furtive glance, this time at the golden Custodian, gently holding the infant daughter of the Emperor.
Shamefully, she felt a great jealousy well up inside of her.
Persephone VIII, daughter of the most ancient and noble house of Styrx and Lady Navigator of the Bucephalus, flagship of the Lord Emperor of Mankind, found that she very much desired to hold the child and gently rock her in her arms.