Sanguinala on Slawkenburg
Winter had come to Slawkenburg, and snow had started to fall on Cainopolis, beautifully settled banks of fluffy flakes demonstrating why the former vacation world had been so successful year round. It was Sanguinala eve, the only Imperial holiday still widely celebrated in the Protectorate. Sanguinius was surprisingly one of the few Primarchs still respected there (along with Perturabo, Vulkan, and Magnus The Red, the rest being considered embarrassing, dangerous, mad, or a combination) for his act of tragic self-sacrifice to try to preserve a decaying imperium.
With a local year lasting 16 Terran months*, Slawkenburg could only rely on a white Sanguinala every 4 years, but it had come around again, and the people rejoiced.
The youth of the populace played in the streets and parks, taking full advantage of the holiday closure of the schola's. Meanwhile, the older citizens who remember the bad old days revelled in the simple pleasures of having sufficiently warm clothing and being able to watch their children laugh without fear.
*See 'The Beguiling', wherein it is stated that 8 standard months is half a Slawkenburg year.
The snow dusted recently cleared ground in front of the city's main tech shrine, where the BORG's youth outreach program had organised a snow sculpture building competition, with points being awarded for structural soundness, visual appearance, and construction efficiency. With the top three prizes being implantation of a manipulator/utility mechadendrite, an augmentic privilege normally kept only for fully ordained tech-priests, and with the addition of an externally linked cerebral cogitator for 1st place, the competition was understandably fierce, and it was widely considered that the two favourites to win were a 1:3 scale model of a Cain battle tank, and a life sized snow statue of the legendary Arkhan Land.
The snow heaped up on the vast parade ground in front of the grand Khornate temple, where USA recruitment officers were organising the city's Cain Youth for what would prove to be the most outrageous snowball fight ever seen off an ice world, with each team being over 4000 strong. They had been provided basic fortifications and tools, and all three teams had immediately raced off to add to them before the game started. The Burgundy team had chosen to build up in a fixed position, with heavy crenellations and murder-holes peppering their impressive ice keep, which was ringed by a number of small redoubts. The Crimson team on the other hand had chosen to dig in and forwards to aid offence, utilising a network of trenches and bunkers, the trenches being fronted with large blunt icicles to act as archers stakes, providing more than adequate cover for fast moving shock troops. Finally the Carmine team had opted to only set up minimal additional fortifications, focusing instead on correctly assembling the dozen onagers and half dozen small trebuchets they had secretly been working on since this event was announced in the late autumn, the components of which they had buried under the snow on the edge of the ground the night before, and assembling sufficient ammunition stocks for all the siege weapons to maintain an ongoing volley. The commanders of the winning team would be presented to the Liberator himself, and the whole team would undergo a special training session with Legionnaire Hektor.
The snow formed great drifts outside the city at the headquarters of the Handmaidens, where this year's graduating class of sorceresses were practicing for the annual tradition of the youngest members of their sisterhood giving a Sanguinala gift to the Lord Liberator, in remembrance of him giving their Lady Emeli the gift that had uplifted her from the mortal plane. Under Krystabel's supervision they had so far managed to fit 5 of their number (each carefully 'wrapped' in strategically placed ribbons) in a single 1 metre cubed box by choosing only their most supple members, but they were determined to make it 6 in honour of Slaanesh, and it was nothing less than their mistress's beloved deserved. They laughed and joked freely as they cooperated to lift one of the bound 'presents' out of the box and put her back at a more appealing angle.
Elsewhere their more senior sisters were putting the finishing touches on the logistics for the next day's festivities, and rehearsing ceremonial dances which symbolised the sadness of Sanguinius's duel with Horus, and bemourned the tragedy of how Nurgle's tainting of Horus's Rebellion caused brother to fight brother, and father to fight son.
The snow piled up around the Liberation palace, where Zerayah stood on a balcony with her uncle Jurgen, looking out over the city. Jurgen especially loved this time of year, as it reminded him of a comfortably balmy day on his beloved Valhalla, and was only wearing a short sleeved uniform shirt and light trousers in order to fully appreciate the conditions. By comparison Zerayah was well wrapped up, despite not technically needing the insulation, but she found the coat and hat combo appealing, and her daddy had given her the scarf as he said it matched her usual eyes, so naturally you couldn't separate her from it during the cold months even with big pliers and a crowbar.
They had secretly convened here to collaborate on a present for her daddy. Some time ago Jurgen had discovered that amongst the seed banks for the luxury crops which used to be cultivated on the planet for the visiting nobility were several boxes of tanna seeds imported from Valhalla, but which had never been successfully grown due to a lack of knowledge about their cultivation amongst the locals. For the past 3 standard years he and a few other Valhallan's had been tending them in one of the colder cellars beneath the palace which they had turned into a homemade hydroponic facility, and the plants had reached maturity a fortnight ago. They had since processed and dried the majority of the crop, and now it was ready for use.
He was planning on sharing it with his fellow Valhallans on Adumbria and Slawkenburg, who no doubt sorely missed it, and also with Lord Cain in the hope of giving him something more interesting to drink than recaff now he had cut back on his amasec consumption since he had adopted Zerayah. Jurgen was aware that tanna wasn't to everyone's taste, but you never knew.
When the young lady had come to him asking for help in thinking of a present for her father, he had an idea. One of classes she took at the Crèche for the Gifted was art, intended to aid the young psykers find methods of expressing their talents in non-destructive and stable ways, and included a pottery unit. He had drawn her out a schematic for a proper set of traditional tanna bowls, and she had got to work with enthusiasm.
Several months and numerous iterations of bowls later, they were ready. Zerayah drew some out of her coat, and he examined them. They weren't fine china, nor were they inlaid with gold filigree. No Imperial noble or officer would ever deign to drink out of these. They were formed from simple brown clay, but they were correct in their dimensions, soundly made, and elegant in their simplicity. The only visible ornamentation was on a single bowl, which had "Galaxy's Best Dad" painted on it in white. Jurgen was convinced that Lord Cain would love his daughter's gift, even if he didn't enjoy tanna that much. He expressed his unalloyed approval, earning an even happier smile from her than normal, and they went back inside to wrap the bowls up.
The snow formed patterns on the windowpanes of the Liberators private office, where Lord Cain was being addressed by Jafar. As he listened to his senior bureaucrat detail his schedule for the next two days his heart sank. First he would have to take part in judging some ice sculptures with Tessilon-Kappa, which would somehow likely culminate in the induction of more Hereteks, then he would have to congratulate the winners of a snowball fight from that Khornate cult masquerading as a youth group under HIS name that Mahlone set up, causing more civilians to join the blasted USA, then he would have an admittedly welcome breather on Sanguinala morning with Zerayah, but then he had to accept gifts from the populace all afternoon and pretend to appreciate them, culminating in the private presentation of the Handmaiden's annual gift (his back still twinged in memory of last year, which he knew was a psychological reaction what with his regular panacea injections, but that didn't make it hurt less). And he wouldn't even be able to take the edge off with Amasec as he was supposed to be a responsible parent now…
As the Emperor was his witness, Cain really didn't like Sanguinala.