Day time... Night time!

It came through like a call that shouldn’t have been possible. Snorri felt it first—his helm vox flickering with an incoming link that carried a signature he recognized instantly, even before the system confirmed it.

Algeret. For a moment, none of them moved. Baggi opened the channel without thinking. Kolr’s head turned slightly. Herliefr went still in the way he did when instinct overtook speech.

The connection stabilised. And then— Breathing. Not steady. Not controlled. Wrong. Wet. Algeret tried to speak. The sound that came through was broken by something deep in his throat—wet choking, forced air, a body refusing to cooperate with command. There was no introduction. No code phrase. No report.

Just effort.

Snorri’s hand tightened slightly at his side. “Algeret?” he said, as if distance alone could fix whatever was happening.

A pause. Then a voice that barely made it through the suit systems. Not words, at first. Just fragments. A rasp. A sharp intake that never finished. Something wet shifted again—too close to the mic.

Kolr stepped forwards, half a step. “Algeret, report.”

Silence answered him. Then a sound like someone trying to laugh and failing halfway through it. Baggi’s expression changed—not fear, not yet. Calculation refusing to find purchase.

“Location,” Herliefr said sharply. “Give us your location.”

The reply never formed properly. Instead, there was a long, broken exhale. Something inside the line gave way. A wet collapse of breath and pressure and failing life support. For a brief second—too brief—the signal stabilized again.

And in that moment, they heard it clearly: Algeret trying to breathe through blood. Then nothing intelligible. Only strain. Only the sound of a body that was no longer winning the argument against death.

Snorri reached for the link instinctively. “We’re coming—hold—”

But the system didn’t wait. The signal flickered. Once. Twice. Then cut cleanly. No warning tone. No final message. Just silence. The vox channel remained open for another five seconds out of protocol redundancy—dead air stretching too long, as if expecting correction. None came. Then the line terminated itself. Baggi tried to reconnect immediately. Denied. Kolr attempted a direct override. No response path available.

Herliefr stared at the readout, jaw tight. “That wasn’t a drop,” he said quietly.

Snorri didn’t answer at first. His hand was still half-raised, like the conversation might resume if he waited long enough. 

Baggi finally spoke. “…He was alive when he called us.”

No one corrected him. Because the system log was already updating. It felt like things were going too fast and too slow at the same time. They were trying- desperately to try and find him. 

“We should try and chase after him!” Snorri says as he paces.

“And go where?” Herliefr snaps back, “He went for a walk out in the forest- that forest is huge. We could be lost in there for days and not find him!”

“Enough!” Baggi snaps out, “The machine just beeped - it should- hopefully give us more information.”

Last transmission: 00:00:05.

And after that, nothing at all. The moment the channel went dead, Baggi was already moving. Snorri scowls at it and smacks the machine- frustrated- that was not useful at all- just a timing- no coordinates.

“Trace it,” he said.

It wasn’t a request.

Snorri keyed his helm into diagnostics, fingers steady in a way his breathing wasn’t. Kolr dropped to a knee beside the nearest cogitator relay point, forcing a hard line into the barracks network. Herliefr stayed still—watching the system more than the others, like he expected it to lie.

The reply came almost immediately.

REQUEST: VOX TRACE — DENIED

Baggi frowned. “Again.”

Snorri tried. Different routing path. Secondary relay. Internal override.

DENIED

Kolr’s jaw tightened. “That’s not a standard failure.”

Herliefr stepped closer to the display. “It’s not a failure.”

That earned him a glance.

“What do you mean?” Baggi asked.

Herliefr didn’t look away from the readout. “The system isn’t trying and failing to trace it. It’s refusing to acknowledge the request.”

Snorri tried a third route—this time bypassing normal authorization tiers, pushing it through combat emergency protocol. For a moment, the system hesitated.

Then: 

ACCESS RESTRICTED — ORIGIN NODE UNAVAILABLE

Kolr straightened slightly. “Unavailable how?”

No answer came. Only a secondary line of text that shouldn’t have been there at all.

LAST KNOWN ORIGIN: NULL

Baggi stared at it. “Null isn’t a location.”

“It is when something’s been scrubbed,” Herliefr said quietly.

Snorri tried to force a physical trace through suit logs—helm handshake data, signal compression signature, anything that could be reconstructed manually. The cogitator- the Ancient Terran equivalent of one responded again. Slower this time. Almost… deliberate.

TRANSMISSION SOURCE: INTERNAL

Silence hit the room harder than the message had. 

Kolr blinked once. “Internal to what?”

No one answered him, because the system had already moved on. Snorri’s eye twitches a little as he growls at the machine. “You useless piece of grox shit!”

“Don’t break the machine.” Korl warns. “Then we will get into a lot of trouble.”

ROUTING PATH CORRUPTED

EVENT LOG INCOMPLETE

RECOVERY IMPOSSIBLE

Baggi took a half-step back from the console without realizing it.

“That’s not how vox works,” he said.

Herliefr finally looked at him. “Not normally.”

Snorri’s voice was quieter now. “Then how did he call us?”

A pause.

Kolr answered without wanting to. “…From somewhere something- or someone didn’t want us to see.”

The terminal chimed once more. They had been told that the machines on Ancient Terra weren’t as efficient- that this technology had its advantages and disadvantages that the tech they are used to in the far flung future doesn’t have yet. 

A final line, almost unnecessary:

TRACE ATTEMPT LOGGED

And then it locked them out entirely. Not crashed. Not broken. Locked. Baggi stared at the frozen display for a long moment. Then, very slowly: “…Someone just decided we don't get know where he died.”

No one argued. Because for the first time since the call came in, that wasn’t a theory. It was the only explanation the machine would allow. The cogitator display had gone dark. Not crashed—locked. A clean, deliberate severance that left the room feeling abruptly smaller.

Baggi was still staring at it when the Thousand Sons officer arrived. He didn’t announce himself. He didn’t need to. The soft, precise cadence of armor on deck plating was enough—measured, controlled, entirely unlike the tension in the room.

He stopped just inside the threshold. He took in the scene once. Four Astartes. Stationary terminal. Locked systems. Elevated stress markers across all helm feeds. His sigh was quiet, but unmistakably tired.

“…Again?” he asked.

Snorri blinked. Kolr straightened slightly. Herliefr didn’t move. Baggi slowly turned his head. The officer folded his arms. “I leave you alone for a brief operational window and return to find you clustered around restricted cogitators as though they have personally insulted your lineage.”

Baggi’s jaw tightened. “We were tracking a vox signal.”

“A vox signal,” the officer repeated flatly. “Or what you believe was a vox signal.”

Snorri opened his mouth- to say something- to defend themselves.

The officer held up one hand. “No. Do not begin. I am not interested in speculative emotional escalation at this time.”

That shut Snorri down mid-breath.

Kolr stepped forward half a pace. “We received a transmission from Algeret.”

That gave the officer pause—but only briefly. These four have been so much trouble- and that is not including Algeret who’s almost quadrupled the trouble on his own. Hearing that something happened to Algeret made his hearts sink a little. He had been… waiting for something like this to happen. Algeret’s personality- arrogance- and lack of care in some regards… Well it was all but inevitable with the enemies he accumulates like flies to honey.

“…And you immediately attempted to brute-force restricted system access,” he said, glancing at the locked terminal. “Of course you did.”

The amount of paperwork he is going to have to do because of this latest stunt- he is not looking forwards to it- at all. And there is only going to be more looming in the distance. Some of the teaching methods that Anrir had offered- had helped- somewhat for the foolishness- but not enough. He couldn’t teach or discipline those that wouldn’t listen and regarded him as not a person worthy of respect. Despite all that he is- has been doing to keep their sorry hides intact. No wonder the other Thousand Son had dumped them off on him. They are a fucking nightmare.

Herliefr’s voice was low. “We were trying to trace him.”

“And now,” the officer replied, “you have succeeded only in convincing the system you are a persistent security risk.”

Baggi exhaled sharply through his nose. “We’re not making this up.”

“I did not say you were,” the officer replied calmly. “I said you are escalating without authorization.”

He stepped closer to the terminal, eyes scanning the frozen logs. His expression didn’t change much—but something in his tone shifted slightly. More focused.

“This trace denial is not standard,” he admitted.

That got all four of their attention.

The officer noticed immediately.

“And no,” he added, cutting off the reaction before it could form, “that does not mean it is evidence of conspiracy. It means it is evidence of systems behaving outside expected parameters.”

Snorri frowned. “That sounds like the same thing.”

“It is not.” A pause. The officer turned back to them.

“You are Blood Claws,” he said, with the tone of someone repeating a known structural flaw. “You are designed to run toward problems and assume violence is the correct interpretive lens.”

Baggi’s eyes narrowed slightly.

The officer continued. “This is not a battlefield yet. It is an investigation space. And you are contaminating it with assumption.”

Herliefr’s voice sharpened. “Our brother is missing.”

“And you will find him faster,” the officer said evenly, “if you stop behaving as though every locked door is an enemy soldier.”

Silence again. Heavy, but different from before. Controlled.

Then he added, almost as an afterthought: “Report this properly. Through command. Not through improvised system intrusion.”

A beat. “And stop breaking things I will later be required to explain.”

He turned to leave. Then paused at the threshold. Without looking back: “If your squadmate sent a transmission at all… someone allowed it. If he’s dead.”

That landed cleanly. Not comforting. Not accusatory. Just an observation that made the room feel colder than it had a moment ago. Then he was gone. And the locked terminal remained exactly as it was—silent, sealed, and refusing to say where Algeret had… might have died.

Baggi stands up, “Herlir, Kolr- go to the forest near Gannet Point- see if you can find Algeret.”

“And what will you and Snorri be doing?” Herliefr asks.

“We will be going to the security room and getting access to the cameras to find intel.” Baggi responds.

Part of her wishes to ask - to be able to send Evangeline a message, to have on who had once been her dearest friend to be at her wedding. But the rumors- that she has - that she has been… That a Space Marine has taken her bright firebrand friend hurts.

She had decided she would send her dearest friend a letter- if she doesn’t it would wound her friend dearly for not being invited.

Dearest Evangeline,

The vines are restless this autumn. The workers insist the fog lingers too long between the rows, but perhaps it is only my imagination, sharpened by too much solitude. Paris feels very far away, and I find myself thinking of our conversations, the laughter that carried well into the night, and the sharp comfort of your honesty.

I have heard whispers of your… Bond. I will not pretend I understand it, nor that I do not feel fear. But fear is not disgust, Evangeline. It is the fear one feels standing at the edge of a precipice, gazing into something vast and unknowable.

I confess—there are moments when I feel something not unlike what you described before you left. A tug, faint and insistent, as though my very soul is being tuned to a note only I can hear. Perhaps it is folly. Perhaps it is the champagne. But I cannot shake it.

Tell me truly, does it consume you? Or do you still remain yourself? I am torn between dread and the shameful relief that someone else has felt what I now begin to fear.

I long for your reply, even if only to confirm that you still exist, that this path does not erase.

With affection always, Clara

The Family’s Intercepted Response

On the stationary of the House D’Aubigny, delivered to Clara unopened, with her wax seal broken.

Mademoiselle Clara D’Aubigny,

Your letter of the 12th instant, addressed to Evangeline Moreau, has been duly received by her kin. It is our duty to inform you that she is no longer considered a member of her family, nor of polite society. Her choices have placed her outside all protection, and any continued correspondence with her would invite scandal of the gravest kind.

For the sake of your engagement, your family’s reputation, and your own future, you are strongly advised not to pursue further contact. The Bond you allude to is a corruption, not a union, and those who toy with such matters are inevitably lost.

Should you disregard this warning, know that your association will be made known.

By order of the House of Durand, Madame Béatrice Durand

Clara sat at her vanity, the rejection notice trembling in her hand. Her pearls rattled against the glass surface as though mocking her.

The language was so bloodless, so cold—corruption, inevitably lost. A human being reduced to a warning, a disease.

She pressed the letter flat, then crumpled it again, her pulse thrumming like the tug she dared not name. Shame burned in her chest—shame that she had reached out, shame that they knew, shame that she could feel relief that Evangeline had not denied her existence outright.

Tears pricked, but she refused them. “If you are gone, then let me hear it from your own hand,” she whispered, as though Evangeline could hear through the shuttered windows.

That night, while her family dined and laughed, Clara slipped away with paper and ink. She wrote quickly, the words half-prayer, half-defiance, and sealed them under plain cover. Not to the Moreau estate, but to the little cottage in the countryside where Evangeline once fled when the city pressed too hard. A place only Clara would think to try.

My dearest Evangeline,

I do not know if this letter will reach you, or if your family’s hand will once again intrude to erase you. They have sent me their “warning,” with all the cold authority of their name. They call you lost. They say you are no longer of this world.

But I know that is not true. You are not erased. You are not a shadow. You are you.

Evangeline—will you come to my wedding? I ask it not out of duty, but longing. I do not know if you would even wish to sit among these people again, but to see your face, if only once, would steady me. The thought of standing there with everyone watching, with Julien smiling his polite smile—I confess, it chills me more than the fog that drifts in from the vineyards.

If you cannot come, if the Bond forbids it, then I beg you: write to me. Even a single line, even a word, would be enough. Let me know you still breathe, that your voice has not been taken from you.

They may call me foolish, reckless, disloyal. Let them. I would rather be thought scandalous than forget you.

Always, Clara

A slip of paper, the handwriting unmistakably her own, pressed between the folds of Clara’s letter. It smells faintly of woodsmoke and rosemary, as if kept in a country hearth.

My sweetest Clara,

I wept when I read your hand again. Not for sorrow alone, but for the courage it took you to send me these words knowing the eyes that watch you. Do not believe what my family writes. They cast me out because they fear what they cannot name, and because fear makes polite society cruel.

Yes, I am Bonded. Yes, it changes everything—and nothing. I am still myself. But I am also… more. There is a clarity now, a sense that I stand in two worlds at once. It is not annihilation, Clara, though it can feel like fire. It is not loss, but transformation.

If you wish it, I will come to your wedding. I would risk much for you. Though I may not sit at the front with the perfumed gossips, I will be near enough that you might look out and know you are not alone.

With unbroken affection, Evangeline

Tucked beneath Evangeline’s page, written in a bold, controlled script. The ink is darker, the lines straighter, the words few. It feels less like correspondence, more like declaration.

Lady Clara,

Evangeline is under my protection. No harm will come to her while I still draw breath.

Know this: the Bond is not chains, but covenant. You see her as she is—changed, but true. Do not let others’ fear blind you. The mortals may think it is damnation, but it can be salvation.

Stand as you are able. Endure as you must. — T. Varinus, 4th Company, XIII Legion

Clara unfolded Evangeline’s page first, her breath catching at the familiar, looping hand. Each word was like a hand reaching back across an abyss: warmth, memory, affection. She pressed the page to her lips, eyes burning. For a moment she felt not alone, but tethered again to something real and kind.

Then she saw the second sheet. The paper was heavier, the ink darker. The hand was utterly unlike Evangeline’s—it was as if carved into the page rather than written. She read it once, twice, a third time, the words etching themselves into her thoughts.

“The Bond is not chains, but covenant… salvation.”

Clara’s hand trembled. She had never spoken aloud of the pull she felt, not even in her letter. And yet this—this stranger, this Titan of a man—wrote as though answering a question buried in her very bones.

She hid both letters in a silk pouch beneath her gowns, close to her skin, where no maid nor fiancé could stumble upon them. But all that evening, through the laughter of guests and the hollow sparkle of champagne, her mind returned again and again to the bold lines of his hand.

The thought that chilled her most was not fear. It was longing.

My dearest Evangeline,

Your words have brought me more comfort than I can rightly say. To know you still live, still write, still are you—even if changed—gives me strength in this place where every smile feels like a mask.

I tremble as I write this, but I must confess: I feel echoes of what you described. Not in fullness, but in faint tugs, moments when the world seems tilted toward something I cannot name. It frightens me. And yet—it would be dishonest to claim I do not also feel a kind of awe.

I have hidden your letter, and his note, close against me. If discovered, I would be ruined, but I cannot part with them. They burn against my heart, reminding me that I am not mad, that what I sense is not invention.

If you come to my wedding, even in shadow, I will look for you. Just to see you again, to know I am not alone, would mean more than any jeweled gift or whispered blessing.

Yours in defiance of all they say, Clara

Written in a different ink, slanted as if an afterthought. Clara uses imagery that could pass as idle fancy if intercepted.

P.S. Do you remember when we were girls, and we spoke of ghostly knights wandering old vineyards? I think I have seen one. A figure among the vines—too large for a man, too silent for a laborer. The workers laugh at my talk of shadows, but I feel him there. He does not come close, yet sometimes I wake with the certainty that he watches. Tell me, Evangeline: when you first felt your Bond, did it begin with such distant company?

Sent in the same delicate stationery Clara has grown to recognize, the scent faintly of lavender and smoke from her country hearth.

My dearest Clara,

Your words make my heart ache and flutter all at once. I understand the trembling, the awe, the fear. That strange, immense presence you speak of—ghostly knight, shadow among the vines—do not doubt yourself. It is real, even if the world insists you imagine it.

I remember well those first tugs, the quiet pull that seemed to whisper in our very bones. You are not alone in this. And neither were we truly alone, not ever. Fear is natural, but it is only part of it; the wonder, the awe, the warmth you cannot name—these are gifts as well.

Come to me when you can, even if for a stolen hour, and I will teach you what it means to walk both worlds. And yes, it began just so: distant, patient, insistent, threading itself into everything until one day it is no longer just a presence, but a truth you cannot ignore.

Always yours, Evangeline

Written on heavy cardstock, the letters are precise and deliberate, unflinching as steel.

Lady Clara,

You describe the figure accurately. Your perception does not deceive you. He is not a shadow, nor a product of imagination. He is as you sense: present, observing, patient.

Do not approach him without preparation. Do not speak of him to others. Do not attempt to name him in a way that invites interference. Your family, your society, your fiancé—they cannot comprehend, and any mention risks ruin.

Observe. Endure. You are not yet Bonded, but the thread has begun. Keep your mind clear. Your courage will be required, and your discretion is paramount.

Even if he didn't really like it (due to the inefficiency of the act) his eyes wandered to find her pinkish toned thighs, his body craved the softness of it. You could ask the Davrax some time ago and he wouldn't even care about the comfort of the thin mattress of the cot, "As long as it's usable to it's purpose" that would be his reply.

But now the tables had shifted, and his mind couldn't or just didn't want to concentrate on his blueprints any longer, Davrax's subconsciousness had another thing to put all its efforts in memorizing.

"Stay there, Little Thing" he ordered with a groggy voice.

Lonihx didn't even plan to move in the first place. The cot, while a bit too hard to nap on it, was pretty decent for her to stretch her legs.

"There... just like... that" A loud metallic thud was heard as the Warpsmith fell to his knees right in front of the cot, while removing the helmet as his head slowly fell to that sweet spot where her thighs met.

In the moment she felt the weight of the man on her lap, Lonihx's throat purred smoothly to the first showcase of his neediness for the daemonette.

"Finally cracking?" She asked in her usual honey-like tone, the same tone she uses to tease him because she knows how much he hates it.

And that was the same tone he was now craving to hear in hush tones on his ear.

"Just... need to check something"

The usual silence of the recluded room would keep going, until a murmur started to rise from him.

"...18, 19, 20..."

"...27, 28, 29, 30..."

And then again.

"...14, 15, 16, 17..."

"...23, 24, 25, 26..."

Memorizing her little details, this was his excuse, his little loophole to just not admit that he was falling for the softness of her flesh.

"37 little moles on your right thigh, 32 on the left one..." He mumbled as he engraved into his mind that little fact about her.

"And that information is useful because...?"