It was rare, that Purilla ever glimpsed what tools Tide would create for himself. Not those who were Altered as she was, not those who were remade from the dead to form his puppet PDF. There was more she knew, much much more. Yet she did not wish to know more, for she had once asked Tide what had occurred at Hive Enyo and the other Genestealer held hives that had fallen silent before the PDF had ever arrived. And as ever, Tide had obliged.
She regretted it immediately.
For all that her privilege as part of an Inquisitorial retinue had provided her extensive information of the worst and most horrific enemies that Mankind had to face, none raised the level of visceral disquiet she had felt upon seeing his pure Flood forms. It was not the spikes and claws, the living weaponry they wielded and were, for she had seen as much and worse in the chitinous horrors of the Tyrannids. It was not the texture of rotting and molten flesh, though it dismayed her to see the similarities, however superficial to the minions of the Plague god, for all that they lacked the signature rot, bile and decay. She could state without a shred of doubt that when Tide was truly roused to war, to face his wrath was nightmares wrought real. And that it was done without the corruptive powers of the warp made it only more terrifying.
So when he had asked her to share views of a new creation of his, with all the excitement of a juvie on their name day, she agreed with more than a little trepidation. She knew what to expect after all.
This... was not what she expected at all.
Instead of the waxy hues of decaying flesh there was wave after wave of onyx scales that gleamed with mirror polish, each as wide as a man was broad. Thick bands of amber colored leather hide covered a chest wide enough to rest a baneblade on, the tough looking covering doing little to disguise the corded muscle and sinew of four digitigrade limbs the size of warlord titans, each one tipped with razor sharp claws that would surely rend as easily as power swords. A sinuous tail stretched behind, half again as long as its main body was, its end tipped with a serrated bone spear that promised no safe refuge or blind spot. A slightly shorter neck emerged from the shoulders, towering before her upon which a fang filled snout sat. A frill rose above its crest, the bone backed membrane waving in the nonexistent breeze, a pennant framed by massive goring horns that protruded forward on either side of its head.
And the wings! For all that it shared a similarity in structure to Tyranid Gargoyles, the sail like membranes were stretched out like an enormous light consuming cloud, easily dwarfing the lesser creature's limbs. They were currently stretched out to full extension, each claw tip pinion noiselessly leaving deep furrows in the rockrete as the creature tested its body. Yet for all its bulk, they retracted far quicker and gracefully than any living being had any right to be, the Eldar like grace dashing any doubt that should it choose, this creature would surely take flight as easily as any Imperial craft.
This was a creature of violence and power, Tide's answer to Imperial titans and then some. Yet unlike the God Machines of the Martian priesthood, there was a grace that belied its bulk, a perfect mimicry of life that all his previous creations did not possess as it breathed and stretched and settled on its haunches with all the leisure of a well satisfied predator. Cat slitted orbs the size of dinner plates and color of molten gold staring down at her with a cloak of age, intelligence and millennia deep wisdom it could not conceivably have.
It was magnificent. It was awe inspiring.
It was also sitting deep in the underhive, surrounded by sumps and the daily refuse of a billion hive inhabitants.
"Tide..." she started to speak, only to trail off as words failed her. Instead, she waved a hand at the less than matching surroundings for such a reveal. "Why?"
Instead of answering within her head as she was accustomed to, the creature cocked it's head to one side before pulling back on skinless lips, revealing the briefest of a razor smile. And then it spoke.
"TO CLAIM THE SKIES, ONE BEGINS ON GROUND"
The words were deep, brassy, each intonation reverbrating through the room and down to her very bones and soul, exuding the all encompassing power and presence she had experienced when they had first met. If ever there was to be a physical avatar to the magnitude that was Tide, surely this would be it. And then the meaning of the words struck her.
"You're going to fly?" She choked out. Even if all of Malum and its systems belonged to Tide, hiding a titan sized flying creature was surely too much? "Outside?"
"A GUEST IS WELCOME, TO SOAR TOGETHER"
A wing was stretched out, the phlanges placed on the ground before her in clear invitation. Suddenly Purilla was not a sanctioned psyker of an inquisitorial retinue. She was not the woman who had sailed the stars in service of grim bloody minded tasks and unflinching duty. She was not a witch held within the black ships, beaten and berated to prepare her for her service to the God Emperor. For but a moment, she was young Purilla Lysanka again, child of an agriworld who looked towards the sky and wished to join the avians in their freedom.
She was astride the beasts shoulders before she knew it, clutching at one the fin like spines that ran across its spine for stability before a pair of handholds grew from the scales much to her chagrin.
"What do you call it?" She whispered. The answer was a huff and a roll of its shoulders that spoke of amusement to her.
"A DRAGON IS ITS KIND, BUT THIS ONE I SHALL NAME MINE"
"ANCALAGON"
AN: You know, I've never seen Tide deploy flying units beyond that one time with the flies. Anyway, this one is not a fully Flood form, but a collaboration with various Magi. Plasma reactor heart, flanges are hollow and lined with heat resistant metallo-organic material for thrust direction, with intakes along the chest hidden by the faux leather hide. Yeah, it's a rocket dragon. Breathes plasma fire and flood spore vomit at the flick of a mental switch. And Purilla gets to pretend to be a pretty princess dragon rider.