(5.5 Deinarid years After Emperor's Rebirth)

The ancient inner gate of Old Stone Watcher Citadel rumbled closed behind her, as Fireblade strode across the drill fields towards the waiting skycar. A team of cadets sprinted past, their half-trained control over their own telekinesis only barely enough to keep them from stumbling as they attempted to keep pace with the instructor loping ahead of them.

Loping backwards, not even the slightest exertion receivable from the veteran teidar as she half-floated along, perfectly-honed telekinesis extending her strides with ease. Her boots would occasionally dip to tap against the time-worn stones still slick from the morning dew, lost amidst the clattering steps and heavy breaths of the cadets as they repeatedly caught themselves when their own telekinesis failed.

But to their credit, none so much as glanced at Fireblade as they passed by. A good show of discipline, from ones so young. And they were young, at least to her. She might have barely two decades on them, but these shorn-headed warriors who had only this year been accepted as teidar-in-training were among the first admitted 'post-war.'

If one could call the systematic elimination of the Hierarchy — rather, of the Shell species — a 'war,' that is. The Union had sent their own fleets in the wake of the human vessels, an operation which turned out to have been more of a 'gesture' than anything else: they were left only to catalog the array of dead worlds which the Astartes and human 'Imperial Guard' left behind them.

An extermination which had been most deserved.

{Something amiss?} came a burst of sanzai from behind her, rapidly approaching.

Fireblade turned just in time for Tempo to slow her jog to match Fireblade's own calm stride. The dark-red rank-tabs of a Parat still graced her uniform, but it was an open secret to those with any proximity to the Azerein's government that only political infighting had kept Tempo from a well-deserved promotion to Losat. The rapid — and very permanent — demise of the Hierarchy, as pleasing as it was to the weary warriors of the Union, had left them without a convenient foreign foe to focus on. And so the same disagreements which had led to the ill-fated rebellion against Azerein Greywind immediately after her accession smoldered on… and making the rapid promotion of any Mizol already known by name to the senior torrai here in Toridas a risky move. An entirely unfair treatment of her friend, which had bothered Fireblade ever since—

Another thought floated over to her mind, {I assure you, it does not bother me.}

Starting, Fireblade reflexively checked her mental formatting. Had her thoughts leaked out into passive sanzai, right here in the presence of her students? She could find nothing amiss, but—

The smile which spread across Tempo's face put pause to her efforts.

{You can still read so much from my expression alone?} Fireblade sent, impressed despite herself. Evidently her mizol friend had not allowed her skills to atrophy even over several years of paperwork-duty.

{Rather, you have become easier to read.} Tempo responded, with a spike of humor that she kept off of her own face. Then quickly reassured {Not so easy, but enough for one who has known you for so much time.} For a moment, her smile softened. {You are… different now, with more to be happy about.}

The two of them neared the waiting skycar, its orange-armored pilot leaping from the cockpit to palm open the passenger door. Just outside of easily-receivable sanzai range for the tenoin, Fireblade stopped and turned to fully face Tempo. The crisp harbor breeze pulled a strand of crimson hair across her vision as she sent {It is all most different, these days. Toridas itself seems... 'lighter,' perhaps, without the war always present.}

Tempo nodded, an unreadable blend of emotion in her sanzai as she replied {Because they know so little of the wider galaxy that has opened up all around us.}

{Then it is decided? The information quarantine shall remain in place?} Fireblade asked guardedly; she knew that Tempo's new duties kept the mizol within Deinar's Imperial Palace much of the time, and did not wish her friend to feel that she was being pressured to share an announcement which had not been made formally.}

{Correct.} Tempo replied. The faltering smile dropped fully from her face, and she stared now through Fireblade. {The records — and especially the videos — your Alexander relayed to us were… most persuasive. We must be careful in how and when such knowledge is distributed.}

Fireblade nodded grimly, her gaze rising above Tempo to track the young cadets now circling around the far end of the Citadel's outer courtyard. She herself hadn't needed to look through the briefings that Alex's contacts in the Imperium had sent to them; she had seen their like in his memories already, many times.

Say what one will about his strange extended family and their clan-like organization: they did not soften any blows when it came to educating their children on the many, many dangers of the galaxy. Even the threats within the Imperium's own government and society were explained, although thankfully Alex was most certain that they would not plague the Union for many centuries yet.

But the loroi would not — could not — huddle within the suddenly-tiny pocket of space that was the Union and its surroundings, terrified of what monsters prowled around them. The Azerein and her staff had spent the last several years determining just how the eldest daughters of Deinar would go about making their mark on the galaxy.

Would those short-haired girls off in the distance be among the first loroi to 'meet' an Ork? Or a Dark Eldar raider, or any of the other far worse menaces which haunted the Wheel of stars? Perhaps instead they would find themselves in front of a board of suspicious humans... but unlike Fireblade on Terra, this time devoid of any literally-divine intervention?

All she could do was ensure that they were as well-trained as possible for what they might find… or what might find them. Passing on her own experiences from fighting those few Daemons, and also speaking on Alex's behalf to the senior members of her caste. It had taken more than a year, but they had finally agreed to his suggestion to allow experienced human instructors to be imported to aid in the training of the next generations of teidar. Humans with particular experience and demonstrated skills in fighting the various enemies of Humanity… and now, of the Loroi.

Which would mean breaking the millennia-old code of spoken-silence that had laid upon Stone Watcher Citadel since long before the Union was founded.

But the loroi found themselves in a new place within the universe; it was hardly surprising that some traditions would have to bend. Bend, not break, as Fireblade had been careful to emphasize.

Tempo gazed off into the distance for a few moments more, before returning her focus to Fireblade. {The human Emperor's visit years ago was bad enough; we plan to wait until the domestic situation has stabilized until releasing more information to the warrior castes, and especially to the civilians.}

Fireblade nodded. {That seems wise.} In an attempt to jar her friend out of the dark memories that Fireblade knew where whirring inside the perreinid's mind, she added {I am surprised that a mizol would not suggest instead to release to the public those Imperium 'training' manuals and materials that we were given alongside the last few weapons shipments. They would buoy the confidence of the civilians, at least, those loroi who would never encounter any of the dangers 'described' in such an... inventive manner.} The ones that Alex had said — with a sheepish smile — should at least make any loroi thankful that the Union was not subject to the normal Imperium methods of training and indoctrinating soldiers.

That pulled the smile back to Tempo's eyes, if not her lips. {We mizol may sometimes mislead our fellow warriors, even perhaps outright falsify; but some excesses are beyond even us.}

Wryly Shaking her head, Fireblade walked once more towards her waiting vehicle. Speaking of humans, it was time to return to hers. Spending the last two nanapi supervising the newest training course for her young caste-sisters had been a most refreshing exercise, but she found herself looking forwards to returning… 'home.'

Her lips quirked in a smile which the tenoin pilot was clearly too wise to comment on.

The idea that 'home' could mean anything other than a deployment alongside her arms-sisters was a most strange feeling, yet it was one that had come to feel... right. With more and more of her time being taken up by her new duties liaising between House Jardin and the Teidar senior establishment, it was a great boon to be able to take a period of leave every now and then. Watching the House Jardin compound in the Toridas foothills grow and expand had been a most interesting experience, as well.

Her smile deepened. There were of course also other benefits to sharing a home with Alex.

Pausing with one boot on the lip of the car's passenger compartment, she sent over her shoulder to Tempo {If you have time free in the next few days, you should—}

She paused, turning her head once more to confirm what her sanzai senses had indicated.

And met Tempo's grinning eyes, waiting quietly right behind her. {It happens to be that my duties call me to visit your House's compound today.} She hefted the sealed packet tucked under one arm.

Fireblade shrugged, and pulled herself aboard. Shifted over one seat, making room for Tempo. {Alex's House.} she emphasized.

A distinction which had Tempo quirking her head slightly, while the skycar lifted off. The experienced pilot kept the flight comfortable as they banked over the walls of Stone Watcher Citadel, early-midday light dancing across the distant windows and building-fronts of the city far below. With blunt curiosity, the mizol asked {Do you draw that distinction because Alex has not yet formalized your entry into his clan, or because you prefer to consider him as having entered yours?}

{A human 'family' is not quite comparable to a loroi clan.} Fireblade corrected. Yet was that what she and Alex were? …The answer was obvious. {But while I am a member of his family, that is different from his House. The former is compatible with my duties to the Union; the latter would require compromises which I will never make.}

And to Alex's credit he had acknowledged that himself without any prompting, all those years ago when he had first explained to her what his new duties would require of him… and of her. Duties whose overwhelming pressure upon the then 20-year-old human's shoulders she had felt.

But duties that Alex had grown into with remarkable rapidity.

A proud smile bloomed across Fireblade's face, one that she saw no need to hide from Tempo. It warmed her chest to know that even though Alex had then been the human equivalent of a young loroi fresh from initial training — an adult, yes, but utterly inexperienced and yet to truly mature — he had shouldered his new duties and pressed on with all the determination of a warrior.

Humans were strange half-aliens with an ancient and bizarre culture, yes, but of all of them Fireblade saw that she had been most fortunate to become bonded to this one in particular.

Tempo regarded her from across the small compartment, fingers drumming against the folded papers — nice synthetic fibers, rather than Imperial parchment — tucked under her arm. {You have no more complaints about the direction your life has taken than when last we met, then?} The mizol's sanzai made it clear that her question was little more than a formality.

{None. But it is good of you to ask.} Fireblade confirmed, nodding in thanks. {It is a most strange lifestyle that he and I now lead, but one that works well for us both.} Beyond the narrow windows, tall office buildings rose past their descending skycar. The familiar rounded dome and spire of one of the city's major civilian Guild office towers — she could never remember which Guild, but the building itself had been a familiar landmark on the Toridas skyline ever since her first coming to the city — was the last to dip below the line of smaller structures.

And then the outer walls of the House Jardin compound rose around them, sturdy bastions of solid plascrete. Short enough to be practical, but tall and strong enough to 'subtly' remind any passing loroi that their human cousins boasted a martial heritage very much the equal to that of the daughters of Deinar.

The rest of the House buildings matched that theme: low, squat structures nestled in against the base of the mountains flanking Toridas's seaward sprawl. The Gallen Sobatadi who had been half of the team that designed the compound had said that they were shaped after the style of Zaral's Iron Age hill-forts, and Fireblade could see the resemblance to distant Stone Watcher Citadel as it glared down at this young impostor from across the valley.

Of course, the red-robed techpriest who had been the other half of the design team had insisted that the buildings instead resembled the fortress-homesteads of a world named — in typical Imperial style — 'Wrath.' But no matter how those two had bickered as they worked, they had produced a most elegant and imposing series of structures.

Skycar landing-legs thumped against asphalt, and Fireblade wrenched open the door even before the pilot had left her cockpit.

It was good to be home once more.

The whistling of salty harbor winds over the wall parapet muffled Tempo's low chuckle as the mizol followed her out of the vehicle. Fireblade only half-received the quiet {Pilot, I will return within one cycle; wait here until then.} Ducking past a winding-down thruster nacelle, Fireblade straightened up and drank in the sight.

To either side, the two wings of the main structure wrapped halfway around the central square and landing pad. Recently-planted trees did not yet manage to quite shield those inner walls, nor the judging gazes of the statues which lined them. On a 'normal' Trader's headquarters, as Alex had explained, those larger-than-life figures would have been notable ancestors and worthies of the House and Family. Which had left him somewhat unsure as to whom to depict now, for a House where the ink on its Writ of Trade had only barely dried. Yet the grand approach to the main entrance would have looked rather bare indeed without any imposing statuary to confirm that this was indeed an Imperial building.

Fireblade had shot down his idea of a five-mannal statue of herself even before he had finished forming the thought, and Tempo had demurred at his similar suggestion to her. But the others who had been involved in Tempest's rescue of Alex from the emptiness of space had not been nearby enough to object.

Well, save for one. But judging by her ear-to-ear grin, Beryl had enjoyed directing the sculptor who carved the likenesses of her comrades from years ago into the Tallarni 'blue quartzite' that Alex had had imported from his homeworld.

Placeholder statues or no — and it would be centuries yet before 'House Jardin' produced enough heroes of its own to line hundreds of mannal of waiting walls — it had taken Fireblade some time to adjust to the impressively lifelike faces staring down at her. Beryl herself was at least a familiar sight, but there was also Reed, Talon, Spiral, Desire, Flint… and most amusingly Stillstorm, glowering from the base of the west wing on a plinth designed to be removable later.

But at Alex's personal insistence, there was one statue that had been installed on a permanent perch beside the main entrance. What had been the small frame and quiet presence of a once-living soroin was most different indeed when a much-taller-than-life Paset Cloud gazed serenely across the House compound from her great height.

It was perhaps not the way that loroi would honor the memory of their admirable war-dead — in memory, in story, and perhaps in the name of a proud warship — but the human-style memorial was a touching gesture all the same.

{It is different indeed than the last time I visited here.} Tempo observed, her footsteps catching up with Fireblade as the two of them strode towards the main entrance. Her head turned aside, tracking across the decorative raised gardens. And no doubt noting the half-scale trenches and fighting-positions that House gardeners were bemusedly working around. {Impressive changes, in barely two years.}

A gaggle of mind-signatures entered sanzai range ahead of them, flooding in disorganized regularity towards the main doors just as they opened. {Most different indeed.} Fireblade echoed, suppressing her grin.

Down the broad steps in front of them poured a crowd of young loroi, their creche uniforms mud-stained and occasionally torn. But each girl bore a broad grin that matched the bubbly sanzai which tore back-and-forth between them.

The front ranks broke into a run towards the waiting fortifications that their half-trained hands had carved into the gardens. Only brief sendings of acknowledgment were given to Fireblade as they passed, although a few did stare wide-eyed up at Tempo.

But they would not be kept from their afternoon games, nor the training-weapons which waited in crudely-dug trenches.

Behind the wave of creche-children strode their minder, a weary soroin who bobbed her head in more formal acknowledgment of Fireblade's arrival. {Pallan. The children will spend the afternoon with their exercises; their human tutor's lessons this morning were received with great interest and so I anticipate that it will be some time until they can be corralled back inside for their evening lessons.}

Good. That would mean the main house would be quiet — relatively — for a few hours.

Nodding in acknowledgment, Fireblade stepped past the soroin, Tempo in tow.

Just as she topped the steps, the human tutor in question limped with her familiar gait into the light cast by the bright near-equatorial sunlight. One gloved hand rose to shield her eyes, while the other instinctively waved across her scarred and too-pale face. Batting away a gas-mask filter tube that the veteran soldier no longer wore.

The ex-guardswoman's eyes traversed over to Fireblade, and the human immediately straightened up. Her crude artificial leg thumped heavily against the organic one, while one hand snapped out a crisp human-style salute.

A gesture that Fireblade returned in kind without hesitation, as one veteran warrior to another.

{Their tutor, no doubt.} Tempo sent, her head turning slightly to meet the human's gaze as they passed by into the building.

{One recommended by Alex's family in House Trask, once he managed to describe what sort of mind he was looking for correctly.} Fireblade sent, blinking against the sudden darkness as the grand doors thumped closed behind them. {The Grenadier-Sergeant has been an impressively good influence on the children's understanding of warfare, even speaking through an interpreter.}

Tempo drew alongside Fireblade, and nodded back over her shoulder. {The same group of children as during my last visit... and who I therefore still wear soroin creche-uniforms.}

Fireblade nodded. {The teidar examiner visited less than a year ago; my daughter showed no sign then of any meaningful telekinetic ability.} She shrugged. The last several years had seen a constant stream of doranzer petitioning to examine the loroi child fathered by a non-loroi, watching and waiting for any signs of the girl being anything other than a typical loroi. {She will be a most excellent soroin all the same, an honorable warrior.}

{There can be no doubt there, for any daughter of yours.} Tempo agreed. {A child of four years would by now show what sort of person she will be once matured. Although if I am not mistaken, she was not among the crowd now digging through the gardens?}

{It has been several nanapi since I last departed this compound; she doubtlessly is waiting inside to greet me personally.} A spark of warmth shot through her heart at the thought.

{That is perhaps not surprising; children with the luxury to be raised in their own mother's presence often derive great happiness from her visits.} Tempo's eyes smiled warmly, gazing through Fireblade to a memory that the teidar could guess at. {I greatly look forward to seeing what your daughter has grown into in these last two years.}

Fireblade smiled as well, gazing through several internal walls to track the last mind-signature now rapidly approaching them from ahead. {It seems that you will not have to wait long.}

The doors to the main hall opened at their approach. And did so using Union automation; Fireblade had taken one look at the 'wall-mounted servitors' that the techpriest architect had suggested for that purpose, and immediately vetoed the use of any such machine-zombies inside the building.

Her memories of the horrifying sight of that abomination were dashed aside as a waist-height blur darted out from between the doors as soon as they had cracked open. The bright colors of a creche uniform skidded to a halt right in front of Fireblade, and eyes only a slightly paler shade of green than her own gazed elatedly up at her.

{You're back!} sent her daughter, elation warring with discipline and leaking out onto her sanzai. Discipline won, and so while the young girl's hands twitched, she remained standing at a respectful distance instead of embracing her mother with infantile abandon.

Fireblade nodded in approval.

Fabrekena Beta had assured her long ago — after Fireblade had fought down her own fury at the Genetor's unsanctioned tinkering with such an intimate section of Alex's internal biology under control, and decided to let the techpriest live despite her great transgression — that the child would be entirely loroi, and not some bizarre fusion of two species. Yet it had taken only the first three years of the young one's life for Fireblade to determine for certain that there was indeed something of Alex in the unruly little child's head.

A litany of minor offenses — from sending back to her instructor without permission, to tinkering with the low-power bright-weapon used for training and setting a creche-mate's hair aflame — had followed the girl around like a warship's exhaust trail. Fireblade had eventually had to see to their child's discipline herself: Alex had done his best, but had only rarely managed to keep the proud grin from his face even while attempting to encourage more correct discipline.

And so it was good to see now that the rambunctious future-warrior had learned to hold herself in check, even if the energetic thoughts buzzing through the child's mind were clearly receivable.

A showing of warriorly resolve that had proved its point… and deserved to be rewarded. Fireblade nodded her head, broadcasting her assent.

The earnest young child once more blurred into motion. Ear-length hair splayed wide against Fireblade's armor as daughter wrapped mother in a tight embrace. It was not a proper loroi's gesture, but Alex had perhaps been something of a 'bad' influence on his offspring.

Not that Fireblade planned to discourage her human from expressing his love for her in such a manner himself, of course, no matter what an example it might set for their child. The girl had shown that she understood the difference between what was allowed in private versus public, after all.

An unceasing torrent of rapid thoughts — limned with the uncomplicated happiness of youth — slammed across into Fireblade's mind with all the clarity of such close contact. {Today was great! We learned about humans that fight in trenches yesterday so today we dug trenches in the garden and I found a scavenger-bug but it bit my finger and another girl threw a pozet-bulb at me so I threw the bug at her and she laughed and—!}

A burst of surprise echoed over sanzai, as a face half-flattened against Fireblade's armor plates belatedly caught sight of Tempo lurking to one side.

Immediately — correctly — the girl jumped back. Craned her head to stare from Tempo's boots up to her hair-clasp. {You are…? Oh! Aunt Tempo!}

The mizol slowly turned her eyes to Fireblade. While Tempo's face did not move so much as a single muscle, Fireblade could feel the smirk lurking underneath that stoic visage. {'Aunt,' am I?}

{The human term is often one of endearment rather than biological precision.} Fireblade explained, shaking her head ruefully. {She has taken to her lessons in spoken High Gothic with great speed, but has a habit of repeating concepts from one language into the other.}

A habit that came straight from Alex… and was admittedly just as endearing when done by a small child.

{I see.} Tempo turned back to the young one. {That is me, yes.} Her eyes narrowed slightly, and the hint of a smile curled at her lip. {And I think you seem to have something more to tell us both.}

One hardly needed to be a mizol to sense that. The child was all but bouncing on her feet in their rubberized boots, fingers dancing nervously in each hand, and that was as nothing compared to the suppressed anticipation whose muffled echoes clearly reverberated within her still-growing mind.

Feeling for what her daughter was clearly working hard to conceal, Fireblade pressed in on her daughter's thoughts with a measured amount of strength. And was rebuffed, with a pulse of mental force that was indeed impressive for a child so young. Next-to-nothing for even a just-graduated teidar, of course, but still enough for Fireblade to feel a pulse of satisfaction rising within her own chest.

Her daughter might not become a teidar like herself, but she was far from soft-minded.

{It's a surprise!} the girl insisted with a bubbling laugh, orange hair whipping back-and-forth as she shook her head giddily. {I want to show Dad, too!}

'Show,' she sent. Fireblade raised one eyebrow. Perhaps the Grenadier-Sergeant had taught the child a new flourish with the combat-knife — a sword, in half-grown hands — that Alex had given his daughter last year?

{Very well.} Fireblade raised her head, and gestured to one side. {He is nearby, and should not be busy much longer; you can show us all in the Chapel.} A room which had no real analogue in loroi architecture, but whose ornate decorations and central location revealed its importance to human architecture.

To Alex's mental signature on the other side of the heavy doors, she sent a wordless question.

Which he answered by standing up from his kneeling position, turning to meet the three of them as they entered the religious sanctum. {Fireblade.} The single thought came with enough warmth behind it to trigger a matching bloom of heat in Fireblade's chest. {Your girls up at the Citadel back from their camping trip?}

She nodded, walking past the two empty rows of pews to where Alex waited near the altar. {A field exercise whose tests the cadets passed by a comfortable margin. They will spend the next few nanapi with other instructors, leaving me with time to see to my other duties.} She rested one hand on his shoulder, squeezing slightly.

From below, their daughter giggled.

Alex only smiled, before turning past them. "Tempo, how long can you stay? And do you have the—?"

The mizol took the sealed envelope from under her arm and extended it to Alex. "No more than a cycle today, unfortunately. But the Azerein has agreed to your suggestion, although she has insisted on keeping overall command of the units herself." One finger tapped the paper, as Alex took it from her. "Nominal command, at the very least. The formal documentation is all there, in the formatting you described."

"Good." Alex nodded, staring for a moment at the package in his hands before his eyes rose to dart between Tempo and Fireblade. "Is it, uh, officially announced, then? Or—?"

Tempo turned to regard Fireblade. "I have no doubt that the Teidar caste will be informed shortly, within a day or two. There seems to be little reason for any further secrecy in light of that."

Fireblade spent a moment deciding, before sending to Alex {?}

By way of answer, he took the letter-knife from his chest pocket with a flourish and slit open the thick envelope's seal. Withdrawing a sheaf of papers, he held them out to Fireblade. {The future of the Teidar, or at least the Azerein's Guard.}

A human Aquila flared its wings proudly atop the ornate text that marched down the page in two regimented columns. By the plasticized paper backing, it had been machine-printed; yet the style was clearly imitating actual handwriting.

And it was all in Gothic lettering.

Fireblade held out one hand, the other still holding the pages up to her eyes. After all these years, she could pick out some words by herself, but—

Alex's warm grip took hers, and the blocky letters blurred at last into readable concepts as she concentrated on that mental link. One that enabled her to feel his amusement and her astonishment meeting in the middle of the strange ties that bound them. {This—!}

{Is the founding document of the Deinarid Allied Legion. The first loroi regiment in the Astra Militarum.} He thumbed through the first few dozen pages, until he splayed one wide for her to read. One finger traced down the columns of listed personnel... as well as the litany of combat honors and awards next to each phonetically-transcribed name. {Officially, the first few dozen guardswomen are already in service with five years of seniority to their names. Technically assigned to the outskirts of the Imperial Palace, but I suspect that Mallas Steelgrasp has kept you appraised of what she and her warriors have actually been doing all this time.}

Fireblade nodded distractedly, her gaze still raking across the lines in front of her. She'd have traded a lot to be present the first time someone tried to address "Colonel" Steelgrasp by such a foreign rank; but then again, the veteran teidar had had most of a decade to get used to the half-aliens she worked with. At this point, she likely was almost as familiar with humans as Fireblade was.

The soft patter of feet receded behind her, as a young future-warrior padded off from a conversation that was doubtlessly most boring for her.

Which pulled a smile to Fireblade's face — she suspected that perhaps Steelgrasp was actually not quite as 'familiar' with humans as Fireblade herself was. Although… {Has your Emperor made any progress with his proposal to replicate our 'bond'?}

Alex shook his head. {He has not yet contacted me about it. I would assume that He is still sifting through His list of candidates to find ones that would, well, work.} His thoughts ended limply, diving into a stagnant pool of embarrassment.

Fireblade paused in her reading, regarding her human levelly over the top of the document. {I am aware that few humans would be 'open' to a bond such as ours, and that you yourself have stated that you would not have entered it voluntarily yourself had you been given a choice. But surely your Emperor of all people would have access to such a wide pool of humans in his service that he can find someone?}

{I'm not so sure, actually.} Alex replied, brows furrowing. {If I'm right about how our soul-binding is the core of our bond, then it is likely that most of the people that the Emperor could trust with such knowledge and power are already soul-bound... to Him, directly. His Astartes, for one, and probably most of the Sororitas, also many of the stronger Psykers. I'm mostly sure that it's impossible to soul-bind to multiple people; I can't imagine that such a commingling of one's true essence could be reversible or shared.}

Nodding, Fireblade stacked the papers back together and held them out. {Then let us hope that—}

Alex froze, staring past her with widening eyes.

{?} She spun on one foot, following his gaze.

To the statue of the human Emperor that stood proudly atop a waist-high dais next to the entrance door. Of course, a carved image of such an important person to humanity's strange religion could hardly be made at mere mortal scale, and so two glowering eyes peered down from a height of easily seven mannal above the floor.

Although perhaps those black, painted eyes were only 'glowering' because a small blue hand was currently using the statue's nose for a climbing-grip.

Alex stepped forwards, mind and body-language alike radiating nervousness. "Sabatbeshri, what are you—?"

Fireblade grabbed hold of his upper arm, halting him. {She is planning something.} she relayed, eyes narrowing as she skimmed the anticipatory thoughts glowing from her daughter's mind. {Let her climb.}

And watching the young child use the figure of the haughty Emperor as a climbing-wall was most entertaining. Perhaps a small dash of revenge for his poorly-timed visit to Deinar several years ago. A formal occasion which had seen him and his entourage given a tour of the city and the under-construction Jardin compound, for which Alex had had no option but to serve as guide. And Tempo had insisted that Fireblade ought to accompany them as well, which resulted in one heavily-pregnant teidar spending more than twelve cycles on her feet without any opportunity to rest. Thankfully the Emperor had then spent most of the next day speaking privately with Genetor Fabrekena and thus gave her a break, but the duties of essentially hosting a diplomatic delegation had not been easy.

She had almost wished that the doranzer carefully studying her pregnancy had allowed the use of an external incubator for the final few months, as was normal for warrior-mothers. But only 'almost': in the end, carrying her daughter to term had indeed proven worth the challenges.

{That's a stone floor, though.} Alex sent back, eyes locked onto his only child as she ascended past his head-height.

{And she is loroi.} Fireblade emphasized, rolling her eyes. {She knows what risk she is taking... and even a fall would be a useful lesson.}

That said, Fireblade did reach out via sanzai to one of the loroi staff of the compound. The on-site doranzer, currently… two rooms away from them, a quick journey if her presence would become needed. And presently working in the kitchen, which likely foretold of yet another experiment in creating foodstuffs compatible with human and loroi both.

She nodded to herself. From previous experience, that test meal would likely be an appropriate punishment for the young child if she injured herself unnecessarily and thus interrupted Alex and Tempo's explanation of the planned Loroi Guard regiment.

{But Sabatbeshri is—}

Fireblade's grip on his arm tightened, even as the accompanying sanzai conveyed her weary amusement. {Still not her name. She has not yet been given a spoken name, and as charming as 'Sparkdagger' is, Deinarid loroi do not inherit name-patterns from their mother.}

Alex sent back a halfhearted affirmation, one that Fireblade knew had little to do with being distracted as their daughter climbed to such a dangerous height. He was most attached to the name he had thought up for the child, and had attempted for years to popularize it among the Household staff.

Something that Fireblade had had to keep an eye on, to make sure that he did not unduly influence the other children of the creche. The right of a warrior-in-training to be named by her peers and her peers alone was among the oldest traditions practiced by the loroi, dating back to the wandering warrior-bands of dark-age Deinar.

But even her own thoughts halted as Sparkd— as her daughter pulled herself with a final grunt of exertion up onto the Emperor's golden shoulder. Resting one hand on the statue's pitch-black hair, the child turned a beaming expression on both her and Alex. "Now watch!" She took in a deep breath.

And then she leapt.

Straight out into a long drop towards an unyielding stone floor.

Despite her assurances to Alex, Fireblade's powers flared instinctively. Preparing to catch her only daughter just an instant before the girl dashed her skull open on the ground.

But her preparation was not needed.

A split-solon away from impact, the child halted.

Floated mid-air, slowly rotating one direction and then another. Her beaming smile only widening as she craned her neck to grin across at her staring parents.

Fireblade did not need to feel the echo within her own powers to recognize the use of a similar talent by the young loroi in front of her.

{Psychokinesis?} Tempo mused from Fireblade's side. {And developed this late in her life. Most interesting…} her thoughts submerged behind the veil of mizol secrecy, unreadable to Fireblade.

Alex reached out one hand toward his daughter, his mouth hanging open.

The girl giggled. "See? I—"

Her concentration — untrained and little-practiced, at such a young age — broken, she dropped the last mannal-and-a-half to the floor with a thump.

And immediately pushed herself upright, the broad smile that split her face in two utterly unaffected by the twin rivulets of azure blood that now traced from a bent nose. "Zee? I learned how do fload!" She frowned, eyes crossing as she stared down at her own nose. "By dose is—?"

Brows creasing, the child snorted in an unwise attempt to clear the nasal blockage impeding her verbal speech.

A pang of sharp pain echoed out over sanzai, but the only physical betrayal of such was a widening of the girl's eyes and the whitening of fists as her fingers dug into them. Neck-muscles taut, she raised her eyes to Fireblade. With impressive calmness girded round by a determination not to cry, she sent {Please tell Dad that my mouth isn't speaking right.}

Fireblade relayed the sending, at the same time withdrawing a folded bandage from her armor's first-aid kit. After a brief consideration she handed the cloth to Alex, nudging him forwards and out of his stupor.

Starting, the human half-knelt and half-collapsed in front of his daughter. First pulling her into a tight hug — careful not to jar her nose, but uncaring of the blood that stained his gold-embroidered robes — and then leaning back to gently dab at the beaming child's face.

Fireblade stood back with Tempo, pride warring with shock in her own mind for all that she hid it better than her human did. It was… not unheard of for a psychokinetic loroi to bear a child with the same talent, but it was most rare. And for the girl to have developed this ability now after several years of life, barely a year out from her own diral…

Fireblade nodded. {She will have to transfer to a teidar creche.} To be able to arrest one's own fall un-amplified, even for a small child, indicated telekinetic strength that was well within the range of Fireblade's own caste.

{Yet to have clearly concealed it and practiced her stunt until she could show you and Alexander here shows that she is not merely a strong future warrior.} Tempo noted. Armor rustled, as one black-armored hand rose to tap at the mizol's chin. {A clever mind, inclined to and capable of secrecy at such a young age…}

Fireblade could see where her friend was going. {She would be an awkward fit for a mizol creche, so soon before they would leave for their diral years.} From what Tempo had told her over the years, a mizol's diral focused far more on interpersonal maneuvering and intrigue-weaving when compared to the challenges of strength and tactics that group of teidar-in-training focused on. A child who transferred into a mizol creche with barely a year to forge her own place within their group before they were sent onto their diral would be at a significant disadvantage.

And while Fireblade had no doubt that her daughter was clever enough to push through nonetheless, she would be a far better match for a teidar creche.

The fact that it was a rare honor for a teidar to boast a daughter of the same caste did help her decision as well, as she acknowledged to herself.

{Perhaps.} Tempo sent, allowing the emotions accompanying her unusually-open sanzai to convey her agreement with Fireblade's reasoning. {Although for her remaining time here at your family's compound, I believe that it might be best nonetheless to find her an instructor from my caste as well as from yours.}

{You would have an instructor brought in for a single student?} That would be most irregular… but 'irregular' was the core of what it meant to be 'mizol,' wasn't it? And there were already several human instructors that Alex had brought in; ones that were clearly here for his daughter first and the rest of the soroin creche second.

{I believe it would be wise.} Tempo inclined her head towards Alex and his daughter. {It seems that your human may yet come to feel more sure of his choice to name this child as the designated inheritor of his Writ. For her to be not only a soroin — an honorable warrior, but little different from the other billions of that caste — but a teidar is good for her duties to the Union, yes. Yet she may also have to balance duties to her House, and for that it may be best for her to receive training in the intrigues and deceptions which come more easily to my own caste.}

Fireblade nodded, lips pursed. Alex had written in his daughter as his House's heir shortly after her birth, still basking in the rapturous glow of a new parent. Later, he had privately admitted to Fireblade that he may have acted hastily, to have placed such a burden upon his daughter.

But now that she would be a teidar as well as a soroin, Fireblade knew that her child would be up to the challenge.

But Tempo had one more sending to share. Taking a step back to put Fireblade closer to Alex and their child, she sent {Yet it seems that he has now found a new burden upon his shoulders.}

Frowning, Fireblade stepped forwards, focusing on the mixed thoughts pouring from Alex's mind. At the same moment that she noticed that his surprised-and-proud laughter had shifted into sounds closer to a sob as he wrapped his arms around his only child, she finally parsed the jumbled signals coming across their shared link.

Pride. Sadness. Elation. Despair.

And… regret?

After a moment, she followed his glum reasoning. Alex could send freely with Fireblade, the teidar whom he clearly loved in his focused, strange, but heartwarming human way. But it was because of their 'soul-binding' that Alex could sanzai with Fireblade... and Fireblade alone.

He had never been able to send to or receive from any other loroi.

Including his own daughter.

Who would leave his home in barely a year for her diral and then training, to now emerge a teidar rather than a soroin. Sworn to verbal silence… and unable to speak to her father when they met again.

Alex pulled his beloved child into his arms, the blood that stained his robes now matched by the human tears which wetted the girl's creche jumpsuit. Confused pale-green eyes framed by orange bangs turned up to search Fireblade's own, widening slightly in surprise as the teidar knelt alongside her weeping mate.

In the privacy of their family's chapel with only Tempo present, the three of them held each other for a long time, the weight of future duties settling onto their shoulders.