Mx._f1shz

Perturabo The marine asks and Perturabo looks at him with the pure disgust of a man who has just been asked to install Windows Vista on a cogitator. “No.”

The marine nods and leaves. Three hours later Perturabo has built an automated siege-grade compression device calibrated to simulate paternal approval. It has killed six Iron Warriors but Perturabo insists this is user error.

Jaghatai Khan The marine asks, Jaghatai laughs delighted and pulls him into a crushing one-armed hug. “Good! A warrior who asks plainly for what he wants. Better than brooding in corners like a gargoyle.” (Somewhere the Lion sneezes.)

He claps the marine on the back hard enough to reset his heart and then makes him ride for six hours because 'the soul digests affection better at speed.'

Leman Russ The marine asks and Russ is already hugging him before the sentence is finished. The marine’s ribs make a noise, Russ is laughs, someone brings ale, someone else starts singing, the marine is now legally part of a saga.

“Any son of mine who asks for a hug gets one! And any son too proud to ask gets two!” Russ says. Space Wolves across the hall begin fleeing.

Rogal Dorn The Marine asks, Dorn pauses then says “yes.” The hug is firm, structurally sound, emotionally reinforced with no wasted movement. The marine feels safer than he has ever felt in his life, he also feels like he has been temporarily installed into a fortress wall.

“This was a good use of time.” Dorn says. Then he makes a note in a tactical log: "Hugs: morale-effective. Implement sparingly but sincerely". Dorn didn't know he needed it until later when he stood alone and thought ''That was… good.'

Konrad Curze The Marine asks, everyone in the room stops breathing, Curze slowly turns his head. “A hug?” Curze approaches like a cryptid, he wraps his arms around the marine with terrifying gentleness. It's cold, awkward and lasts too long. The marine realizes Curze has no idea when a hug is supposed to end.

“I saw nine possible futures where you asked this. In six, I killed you. In one, you cried. In one, I cried. In this one, we are both confused.” Curze whispers.

Sanguinius The Marine asks and Sanguinius looks heartbroken that the marine thought he even had to ask. “Oh, my son.” The hug is divine. It fixes posture, trauma, hairline and one unresolved childhood issue the marine didn’t know survived indoctrination.

Nearby Blood Angels start quietly forming a line. “My lord, may I also-” one asks. Sanguinius opens both arms, the entire legion begins crying but in a beautiful way.

Ferrus Manus The Marine asks and Ferrus looks mildly annoyed. He grabs the Marine by the shoulders and pulls him into something that is technically a hug but feels like being inspected by industrial equipment. It is brief, powerful and it may also have dented his ceramite.

“You are not weak for needing reinforcement.” Ferrus says and immediately pretends he said nothing profound.

Angron The marine asks. Bad room, bad timing, bad everything. “What?” Angron snarls. The Marine repeats it because apparently this son has chosen death but politely. For a second Angron looks like he might tear him apart then something in him cracks in the other direction. The hug is brutal, trembling and almost too tight, not affectionate in the usual way, more like Angron is trying to hold together a world that was never allowed to exist.

Guilliman The marine asks and Guilliman says “of course” then he hugs him warmly and normally, like an emotionally functional person. Afterward, Guilliman asks if this is an isolated morale issue or if the chapter requires a broader framework for paternal reassurance.

By evening there is a document titled: Codex Astartes Appendix CXLII: On Appropriate Fraternal and Paternal Physical Reassurance in Times of Strategic Distress

Mortarion The marine asks and Mortarion stares. “No.” The Marine nods sadly and mortarion watches him go. Five minutes later Mortarion appears beside him like a tuberculosis cryptid and says: “Do not misunderstand me, I refused because sentiment makes warriors dependent.”

Then he stands there silently and finally places one huge hand on the Marine’s shoulder. It isn't a hug but the emotional equivalent of finding a blanket in a plague bunker. “Endure.”

Magnus the Red The marine asks, Magnus smiles. “My son, what you seek is not merely contact but recognition of the soul’s ache-” “Father, I meant a hug.” Magnus gives him one then also accidentally shares a psychic vision of cosmic unity, ancient Prospero, the marine’s own buried loneliness and a metaphor involving a burning library.

The marine is healed, enlightened and has a migraine. “Was that sufficient?” Magnus asks. “Yes, lord.” The marine replies weeping.

Horus The marine asks and Horus beams. “Come here.” The hug is perfect: warm, strong, charming, fatherly, the kind of hug that makes a transhuman killing machine think, “I would follow this man anywhere.”

Horus remembers the marine’s name, his squad, his last campaign and exactly what to say. The marine leaves glowing with devotion and somewhere fate starts sweating.

Lorgar The marine asks and Lorgar’s eyes immediately go wet. “My son…” He hugs him like this is a sacrament and the Emperor himself might finally understand basic emotional literacy if enough people embraced sincerely.

The marine gets a hug then a sermon and a handwritten devotional pamphlet titled The Sacred Geometry of the Father’s Arms. The hug was excellent and the followup reading wasn't optional.

Vulkan The marine asks and Vulkan looks offended because he realizes this son has been walking around not already hugged. “My son, come here.” The marine disappears into the hug like a child inside a weighted blanket made of volcanoes and unconditional support.

Vulkan pats his back with the restraint of a god trying not to liquefy a beloved ant. Every Salamander nearby is nodding approvingly.

Corvus Corax The marine asks and Corax appears from a shadow. “You may.” The Marine nearly dies of cardiac surprise. The hug is quiet, careful and brief but not cold, Corax is very aware that some wounds don't like being grabbed. He lets the Marine choose how long it lasts.

“Do not mistake silence for absence.” Corax says afterward then vanishes dramatically because he physically can't end an emotional moment like a normal person.

Alpharius/Omegon The Marine asks his primarch for a hug and his primarch says: “Certainly.” The hug happens or does it? Later the Marine receives six conflicting reports: He hugged Alpharius. He hugged Omegon. He hugged a body double. He was hugged by three operatives in a trench coat. He himself is Alpharius and hugged himself. The hug was a psyop to improve morale metrics.

Lion El'Jonson He will keep his distance, always measured, always guarded. He will not offer false hope, and that restraint will leave you with only your love and nothing more. Fulgrim He will receive your love like praise or devotion. He will admire it, maybe even cherish it, but admiration is not love, and you will be left reaching for something he will never give. Perturabo He will see your love as another burden, another pressure, another thing to endure. He may not reject you loudly, but he will make it plain that his heart is not open to you. Jaghatai Khan He will be impossible to hold, always moving just beyond your grasp. You will love him for the freedom in him, and he will never be still enough to love you in return. Leman Russ He will laugh as if your longing is a story he has heard before. He may care for you, but not in the way you need, and that mismatch will sting every time he looks away. Rogal Dorn He will be steadfast, but not yielding. He can protect you, provide for you, yet he still leave your heart untouched, because duty is not the same as love. Konrad Curze You can give him your heart, but all he gives you is distance. He sees what you can offer, he understands it, and still he cannot meet you there. So you ache, and he lets the ache remain. Sanguinius He will be kind to you, which may hurt more. He will hold you gently, but his gentleness will only make it clearer that his love is elsewhere, and that your longing can never become his. Ferrus Manus He will be direct and unmoved. You will know where you stand with him, and that certainty will be its own heartbreak, because what you want will never be there. Angron He burns too fiercely to meet you softly. His pain and rage are his own, and your love will be swallowed in that fire without ever being returned. Roboute Guilliman He will understand you completely and still not choose you. There is no cruelty only certainty, and that certainty will make the rejection feel final. Mortarion He will not return your love with softness. He will stand in grim silence, all weight and no warmth, and you will come to understand that his heart does not bend in the way yours does. Magnus the Red He knows the shape of your desire before you say it. And so he will not turn away cruelly, but neither will he step into the place your heart has reserved for him. Horus Lupercal He will smile as if he knows your heart better than you do, and he will still not love you back. His absence will feel almost intentional, as though he were always meant to leave you wanting. Lorgar Aurelian Heis willing to worship the feeling without truly sharing it. He will speak as though your devotion is sacred, yet the love you want from him will remain just out of reach, forever blessed and forever denied. Corvus Corax He will vanish before you can reach for him. You may love the shadow, yet the shadow will not love you back, no matter how faithfully you wait. Alpharius Omegon You will never know which one you are speaking to, and that is the cruelest part. You will love what you cannot fully grasp, and they will remain one step beyond your heart.

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Hey! I now have more here! (and here)

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Sometimes, sometimes he forgot that it was too much for a baseline.

Black crusade after black crusade, horror after horror, and while he did his best to shield you from the worst of the worst - keeping you close to his side when out of his chambers, there were always terrors that slipped through the cracks. And the Vengeful Spirit was filled to the brim with such horrors.

After dispatching of the issue, he had to face that you would require some… caring for. He hadn’t considered that he would ever care enough for a mere baseline to comfort one - yet here he was, heading back to his quarters with sugary treats in tow.

All the power of the Black Legion combined just to indulge your sweet tooth, and yet he would gut anyone who dared speak in such a manner of you.

When he arrives its to find you curled in the centre of the bed, surrounded in a sort of nest of blacks, reds and golds, of silks and furs, everything soft pulled together to make a tiny plush fortress against the cold of the ship.

“Little lamb…” he starts, stepping towards the edge and sitting down, uncaring for how it dipped under his weight, “...I have an offering for you.”

Wide, wet and red rimmed eyes peak out from the covers.

Then a nose, then lips, which part softly while she looks up at him expectantly from the cocoon.

“I am not going to-”

She flutters her eyelashes at him, he sighs.

He spends the next twenty minutes feeding her the soft sugary dough, in tiny ripped bites that she nibbles from him. Little lamb indeed.

Slowly but surely she emerges though, crawling further into his lap while deftly avoiding any spikes or point bits with the much accumulated practice. She brings a blanket with her, wrapping up and cushioning between cold armour and soft, warm skin.

Eventually though, the treats run out.

“...pet my hair while I nap?” she asks in a small voice, already drifting off with the exhaustion of the day and melting in his hold.

Faces flashed before your eyes.

Your mother. Proud and strong as she lifted you in arms corded with muscle.

“My sweet girl.”

The Abbess. Wizened face smiling gently as she rested a hand upon your hair.

“Our young bloom.”

Captain Takahashi. Dark eyes calm as she stood at your side.

“My Lady Heir.”

Frenzy. Grinning wide and wild as she defended you with her life.

“For the fucking Matron Uncrowned!”

Listener. Voice soft and cool as she calmed your fears.

“You are Hope.”

The last… a memory? Or did you actually hear her voice inside your head? Did it matter?

As you released the breath you’d been holding and opened your eyes once more, a final face eclipsed all the others. A voice that rumbled through every nerve ending in your body. Eyes that carried an impossible resolve.

An impossible love.

“My Hearts.”

Your grandmother was still speaking. 

“I know you, girl, far better than you know yourself. Your dream of alliance will shatter like all other dreams of peace in this wretched universe. When our people scream under the Imperial boot, they will long for the days when I-”

“No more.”

Her jaw clicked shut, a look of shock coming over her wasted features. You stepped forward, feeling almost in a daze as your eyes passed over her. How old she looked now. How shrunken. Like an emaciated alley cat still hissing and brandishing broken claws.

“I pity you.”

You couldn’t tell what surprised you more: the words you spoke, or the fact that you spoke them with genuine sincerity.

“I may have held compassion for you as well, once. Your life has been cruel and lonely.”

Her face twisted into a mask of baffled loathing.

“You dare-”

“Oh, sh-shut up and let her talk.” Conrad spoke for the first time, his voice shaking slightly.

You spared your cousin a brief smile, then continued moving toward your grandmother. She remained still as stone when you stopped in front of her seated form, looking down on her for the first time in your life. Something in you hardened.

“But you have taken your pain and poured it out on the undeserving.”

***

“Stop! Please, stop!”

Your cries fell on deaf ears. The cudgel rose and fell again and again. Sobs and screams filled the chamber as your maid desperately tried to crawl away, only for the guard’s foot to come down squarely on her bruised back, pinning her in place.

You writhed in another guard’s grip. “She didn’t do anything!”

“I know.”

Your grandmother stood next to you, eyes cold but for the faintest glitter of smug satisfaction.

“Then why?!”

Bony fingers gripped your chin, forcing you to look away from the beating and into the Matriarch’s face. “A lesson, girl. So you remember what happens to those you care for when you disobey me.”

***

Reaching out, you lifted your grandmother’s chin, feeling her parchment-like skin under your fingers. “Having known weakness, you took pleasure in your power over others.”

***

“The riot has been quelled, Matriarch.” The Intelligence Colonel’s eyes were carefully blank as she spoke. “We have the ringleaders in custody.”

You perched upon a stool below your grandmother’s throne. Your back ached from hours of maintaining perfect posture. The steel ribs of your tightened corset had surely broken skin by now. But you didn’t dare move a muscle. 

The Secretary of Veteran’s Affairs finally spoke through gritted teeth. “Was sending in your Black Squads truly necessary, Colonel? Dozens are dead, hundreds injured!”

“Traitors.” You saw the faintest curve in your grandmother’s lips.

“Veterans of the Ork Incursion of Amanecer! Many of them suffering from chronic wounds and neurological disorders! Their pensions hadn’t been paid in months, their petitions to be treated by Light-blessed Healers denied, what did you expect-”

“You are dismissed, Secretary.”

The man marched out of the Hall with clenched teeth and fists.

“Colonel Foster,” your grandmother’s voice was a purr, “prepare the traitors’ transport to the asteroid penal colonies.” She smiled fully then. “And make sure the Secretary’s son is among them.”

***

You stared down into the old woman’s eyes and felt the last of your fear evaporate. “And still, it was never enough.”

***

“I am Matriarch!”

From behind the door, you flinched. Your grandmother had summoned you to the Council Chamber. Yet you didn’t dare enter after hearing her enraged outburst.

You recognized the Secretary of Preservation’s voice. “Nowhere in the Articles of Government, passed down from the First Captain, are you given authority to disband a religious institute.”

“They openly flaunt my dictates! Shelter dissidents! Poison the media against me!”

The woman continued, voice steady. “All they have done falls within their rights of free speech.”

You jumped at the sound of what you knew must be the Rod of State striking wood. “The First Captain and his Officers would not have allowed such rights if they knew they would be twisted into forces for treason! The last bastion of Humanity That Was must be maintained, with an iron fist if necessary!”

“The video and text records our founders left behind suggest-.”

“Bah! The ramblings of ancients. Outdated and irrelevant.”

A scandalized gasp. “You would scoff at the very foundations of TerraNovan society?!”

“I would suggest those foundations need… revising.”

“With you being the one to do said ‘revising’, I presume?” The Secretary’s voice had lost its calm.

You could hear the venom in your grandmother’s reply. “Precisely.”

***

“You spoke often of defending the TerraNovan way of life, Grandmother, of keeping us strong. And yet you have done more to turn us into a facsimile of the Imperium than any leader in our history.”

You could hear the slightest sound in the cold, dim chamber. The constant tick of cooling and heating metal. The distant thud of footsteps in the corridor without. Your cousin’s increasingly labored breathing.

How your grandmother’s finger joints creaked as they curled into fists at her sides.

The minty freshness of her breath washed over your face. Sweetness at odds with the bitterness of her words.

“You will destroy us all.”

You waited for the shame. The fear. The feelings of inadequacy.

Nothing.

“I do not believe so.” You whispered back. “We can ally with the Imperium without being consumed. We can influence our human brethren for the better. It will be difficult, brutally difficult, but I believe we stand upon the precipice of change.”

“Then you are a fool.”

“Perhaps.” You smiled. “But if to hope is to be foolish, then I would rather be a fool than the wisest of women.”

For the briefest of moments, your grandmother’s contemptuous mask fractured. Her steely eyes softened. She reached up with one icy hand, cupping your cheek in her palm.

“You… are your mother’s daughter.”

The child in you wept. 

Then something snapped.You felt it, as if some barrier somewhere had given way all at once. A light flared in your grandmother’s eyes, the hand on your cheek curling around your throat. Her words ripped through your skull with inhuman force.

“I will end you!”

***

Guilliman sensed the shift even before he heard Conrad cry out. The foulness in the recycled air. The pressure against his psyche.

“NO.”

Beside him, Cato tensed, half-drawing the Tempest Blade. “My Lord, what-”

Guilliman ripped the chamber door out of the wall. The metal shrieked as if in pain when he forced his shoulders through the still too small opening, pauldrons grinding, halo tearing the rent even wider. 

The scene unfolded before him in the time between heartbeats.

You, on the floor, eyes wide with shock as your fingers clawed desperately at the… thing… crouched over you. It could not be called a woman. Not any longer. Its eyes bulged and blazed with madness. Its stringy hair whipped wildly about its face.

Its slavering maw lowered toward your throat.

Conrad, to Guilliman’s surprise, was not cowering in a corner. He’d latched onto the thing’s back. The tendons in his neck bulged as he pulled with all his meager strength at its twitching shoulders. His terrified eyes found the Primarch’s.

“Help her! By the Light, help her!”

Not me.

Not us.

Her.

“MOVE, BOY!”

The prince flung himself to one side as Guilliman wrenched the thing off you, sending it flying into the far wall with a crunch of frail bones. In the next moment he had you in his arms. He pressed his gauntlet against the bloody scratches on your throat. 

I am a Warp-damned FOOL.

The beast he thought he’d coaxed back into its cage after the battle howled within him once more. He pressed you tight against his breastplate.

“Enough of this. Enough! I do not care if I must strap you to my body, you are not leaving my side for the remainder of this voyage. And I will not hear any argument!”

The room trembled beneath the force of a Primarch’s wrath.

Before you could respond, an eerie cackle drew his attention back to the crumpled figure at the base of the wall. A figure that was untangling its mangled limbs like a half-crushed arachnid. A figure whose head flopped to one side on an obviously broken neck.

And still it spoke.

“So protective. So in love! How touching.”

Guilliman snarled. Behind him, he heard Cato activate the Tempest Blade. Tarchus’s chainsword was already revving. He reached for his own weapon.

The thing cackled again.

“You would run Anathema’s sword straight through her if you knew! We know. We know what she is!”

The eyes cleared, the face becoming human once more. It screamed in a voice full of horror and agony.

“Halfbreed bitch! Your mother was a whore and your father-”

The voice cut off as if a hand had wrapped around its throat. The face, switching back and forth from monster to human, bent back. And back. And back. Guilliman heard more bones splintering as its spine twisted into an unnatural arch. 

“KILL IT NOW, MY PATRON!”

The voice inside his skull rang with desperation… and familiarity. The Primarch didn’t hesitate. The Emperor’s Sword ignited and swung.

***

In her chamber back aboard the Macragge’s Honour, Indira Patel, called Listener, collapsed to the floor. Blood flowed in a steady stream from her nose. Every muscle in her body twitched and spasmed as she curled into a fetal position, fighting for breath.

A pounding on the door. She heard it open, heard the patter of sandaled feet. Felt arms lift her semi-conscious body.

“Listener! Sister! What has happened?”

Father Gregory’s voice rang with concern. Listener whispered through her exhaustion.

“We… misscalculated… the Withered Branch… a breach….”

She heard the Father’s horrified gasp. “Mother Isha, save us!”

“She… did… gave me… strength… just enough….” Listener panted. “The Bloom… the Long Plan… still safe.”

The Father let out a sob of relief. “Thank the Light!”

Listener felt darkness encroaching. Holding back the breach had taken her to the very limits of her Light-blessed abilities. She needed rest. Desperately.

But the words had to be said.

“The Matriarch… is dead. Long live… the Matron….”