Fides in Ira

Depicted above is Canoness Preceptor Durandana, the current acting leader of the militant assets of the Cradle's Shield Preceptory.

She has served in the order for close to thirty odd years of her life. In that time, she has participated in the Fourth Tyrannic War and fought near Imperium Nihilus against heretics, xenos and the ruinous powers. This has left her a veteran of consummate skill with blade and bolter both, a commander possessed of iron will and steely leadership.

In combat, Durandana often fights with her Seraphim and Zeraphym sisters in rapid assault strikes. Her wargear includes a suit of artificer sororitas power armor, a condemner Godwyn-Walz’r boltgun, inferno pistol, grenades, and a eucharistic blessed glaive.

The other two heavy weapons that Mallia uses in her sainthood, these plus the Dominica-pattern Bolt Cannon were modified versions of much larger guns wielded by an advanced walker suit discovered on a besieged planet.

She rid herself of both with an exhale.

The saint rose from her bed and let the sheets pool at her lap, stretching. She thought of the pop in her back, arms, then they followed after. A ripple of mechanical relief flowing into the brief pocket worked into her joints. It was nice.

Candles burned low next to her. Rendered fat nipped her nose, veiled by the same haze dimming the light flittering against her face.

Her eyes remained closed, her senses narrowed to touch and sound and scent. This, too, was a filter. Her filter. Cushion. A divide between her and the stone-soft kiss of waking reality.

Temperature, cold—she stoked the fire under her skin.

Body, relaxed—she tensed and swelled.

Hair, brushing her back—she focused and it ignited.

Then she opened her eyes and cut through the incense gloam with eyes of starlight. She discarded the veil and remembered to breathe, the air still heavy. Now, she was the Starborne Saint anew, Regina Iudicii, a title and identity she must fill out in the most literal sense.

Appearances won where blade and bolt could not.

Mallia let her head hang, breathing in the incense, while bringing a knee up to her chest. Hugging it with an arm. Massaging her forehead to bid the idea of a migraine away.

She was so very tired of appearances.

After a moment of weakness, of weightless thought through spectra of white noise, the saint flooded her chest with the incense and stood. Her light flared to life. Hair floating around her, unbound. The stone was cold against her feet for a moment before her star-touched presence suffused it. Then she snapped her fingers twice, moving through the chamber.

Gunshot-clear.

Lumens overhead breathed to life and vanquished the shadows left to flicker betwixt her light. Veiled women adorned in shield robes ducked into the room. Two carry censors, while another pair brandish bundles of plant life bound with scarlet thread. Incense caught in the folds of their fabric from where it lingered in the ruffles of drapes they passed through. Each one is slighter than her, a gaggle of waifs charged with her upkeep.

Vassal girls, each one cracked and scarred, she'd taken under her wings.

They did not speak at first, lambs trailing their shepherd's saunter. Heads bowed. Despite her attempts to dissuade them of the notion, they did not believe they could behold her exposed face.

When she sat and reclined onto her divan, they set to their work of readying her for the day. Then they allowed themselves to speak.

It was chatter amongst themselves, sometimes to her but always deferential and joy-soft. One of them, Re-aean, had a voice like cracked glass; she had inhaled foul manufactorum fumes in her youth.

"You seem tired, my Lady—did you sleep well?" Re-aean asked.

Mallia had wanted to afford her the succor of the physicians in her order, to give back to her the songbird voice so callously stolen from her. But she always insisted that it was more than she deserved, that it was a burden she must bear. Her family had unknowingly bought into the cruel promises of a personality cult, had almost succumbed to it herself before she was uplifted, saved.

She reached out and tucked a lock of amber hair back under Re-aean's veil, a snow-soft smile evinced.

"Well enough, child."

The act chastened the girl, a brief moment of fluster before her sisters' ribbing prompted her composure. Despite the veil, Mallia could imagine the bashfulness unfurled across her face. She took the bushel held and resumed running the leaves over her matron's body.

Re-aean performed this duty with Jaelyn and Véronique, two young women at odds with each other when bereft of their patron's presence.

She could see, even with heads downcast, how they scowled at each other between brushstrokes.

"What happened?" she asked.

"…Véronique used my toothbrush…"

"First off!" Véronique brandished the bundle like an accusatory finger. "All of the toothbrushes look identical, you can't be mad at me! Second, we agreed not to burden our Lady with this!"

They seemed ready to go at it from opposite ends of the divan until one of the older women cleared their throat. Sheryll. She was who oversaw the younger girls. Taught them how to carry out their responsibilities, how to care for themselves, and more besides. Then they quieted and returned to their charge.

It all left a chortle playing across her lips.

"If I knew naught, how ye prod each other would make me think ye connected by blood more than oath."

Through the veils, Mallia glimpsed color spilling across their cheeks.

She faded into the background, letting her mind drift into the bushels of leaves and herbs brushing across her body. Her scars. Sage, tulsi and hyssop with lavender and branches taken from the birch of der'Attica, a genus of magnolia from Tetra IV, and the Enme tree found in the Helix subsector. She could feel the sleep, the fatigue melting away.

A smile spread across her face like daylight over the horizon.

The process of readying herself for the day was not quick nor was it simple. But it was pleasant. It's one of the few kindnesses she indulges in. Eventually culminating in donning her raiments.

Fabric, scant jewellery.

The candles upon His altar glowed. They dimmed for a moment, yet not once fading in their light. The smell of holy smoke changed from the scents of anointed incense and oils to that of something almost nostalgic— as if it were from long ago, hoping to reach out. One candle flame flickered, and the air itself settled with a sense of calm. Revelation spoke His words, a whisper into her mind, " It will bloom, in time. " Crisp, clear. A deep rumble like thunder clapping after lightning struck, like the endless flame of the Imperium's torches… and yet… so soft. A gentleness unlike any other. A bronze-skinned hand pressed against the floor behind her— a projection, as the Emperor willed it to see His saint in the flesh. Here, He was no broken man— but instead the golden god He once was, clad in the finest silks of pure whites and embroidered with golds, complemented with red sashes. Bright, burning golden eyes were within a well-sculpted, perfectly chiseled face, and inky black hair waterfalled down His back to the tailbone. His laurel rested upon His head, glimmering in the candlelight, as His halo burned brightly. " It can seem so endless, when in the midst of nonstop battle. To witness friend and foe alike fall, even the greatest of warriors may begin to falter. But your efforts ripple across the Imperium. Like a drop of water. It can seem, sometimes, so small, so insignificant. But that drop causes ripples within the water it lands in, spreading throughout in droves— and as more drops fall, more ripples are caused. It is simply so hard to see it because you are that drop. The efforts of you and your kith have not gone unnoticed. You are bringing hope to My Imperium. The flower, with every water drop, is sprouting… it just takes time, my Chosen. " " Do not give up. "

True divinity was neither loud nor carnival—a gentle touch was louder than a vengeful storm.

When the blades dancing amid rich, oozing wax dimmed to star-soft embers upon the black tips of wicks, the saint's radiant eyes brightened with life anew. They brimmed with starlight. She took in a breath and was met with half-forgotten spices of midday markets amid the freshness of linen cloth and fastidious hygiene. Hallmarks of Kaba Fii, the home she has long since left in the past; she felt the warmth of a hand around hers and the sting of suds in her eyes.

She looked up off the ground, hands still clasped, and focused on the candle flickering atop the altar. Her hair matched its movement. All the world seemed hidden in that light.

Then came Revelation's sussurro.

Mallia, festooned in His auspices, was no stranger to the weight of His presence. His authority. If you were not accustomed to it, then the way He cut to the quick of your soul would stagger you. But though it was known to her, the sister was still taken aback.

From silence to an answer—ice-bright and glass-clear.

She sat up straight and felt His warmth wash over the room like the kiss of a hearth. A presence behind her. He would offer so much for so simple a question? Yet she could not compel herself to behold that which manifested, instead observing what she could through the reflections caught against the altar's precious metals. Even through the reflection, she could not help but marvel at the whole form of the Master of Mankind. He was both more and less than what the Ecclesiarchy taught of him, than what artists and poets from ages past tried to convey.

When was the last time she glimpsed Him rendered in such stark clarity?

A corpse choked field fetid with blood and the ravings of a cult grown out of hand; the stench of gastrointestinal juices; the slow march to the only end left in a galaxy long-lost to insanity. It was the end she thought she wanted then, so swallowed in despair and depression. But He emerged then, too, and led her into the light of tomorrow.

When He spoke, she thought of Tomorrow and found starlight brimming in her eyes. Tears. Star-bright and radiant. She blinked, and they ran over before gathering at the edge of her chin.

A thousand faces.

A thousand places.

A thousand voices.

The teeming masses crying for salvation amid the endless night—the long night of eleven-thousand years of war. Yet all she could do was offer drops in a vast ocean. Indeed, the hardest thing she did was trying to remember why it was important to keep casting starfish back into the water. That was the lesson she learned the day she died. Hope was not a porcelain doll someone can take from your hands and shatter at any given moment. Hope was the scabbed knuckles, the dirt on your face, the grit of cobblestone in your hair; hope is what you give yourself. And despite the bluster of legion, the only one who could take it away is the one who gave it.

"…'tis hard, my Lord," she whispered. "Thy sons return, yet the night stretches on. Beyond and without on all sides. Rot within. It is… difficult to see as far as thee when faced with ranges occluding the horizon. Now more than ever before with teeming hordes spilling from the mountainsides."

She inhaled, then brought her clasped hands closer to her chest, mind split between the present and her prayer. Focus. Would the communion end if she broke concentration?

The saint knew not.

(( Man, this blog is very old and its information about Mallia shows. One day soon I will try to update it all.

The shrine world of Kaba, located in Segmentum Tempestus, is a dry world of arid and semiarid ecosystems spread between savannahs, deserts, and the subtropical environs that crop up around the great lakes spread across the planet. It was an overcrowded place where the deeds and miracles of the imperial saint, Manfred de Ashbourne, converted a once industrial hub into a place of piety and worship. They were a figure who, through their revolutionary orations, allegedly stoked the fervor of a hundred worlds to resist the perdition of fraternizing with those Without, and alerted the Emperor's Angels to the existence of the Autocracy of Szaeyr.

It is referred to as Kaba because its original settlers were believed to have been drawn to its harsh star as navigators are to the blessed light of the Astronomicon, thereby denoting it as a place in close communion with the God-Emperor in the native language used by those settles.

Small townships and outposts cling to the banks of said lakes, trailing down rivers flowing from and feeding into each other. Seven hive cities can be found looming across the equator where hamadas texture the world. Each city takes the world's name as a surname with a given name based on which layer of the God-Emperor's holy realm it is meant to represent.

These cities are as follows: Kaba Noro, Kaba Dye, Kaba Fii, Kaba Mana, Koblekaba, Suna Kaba, and Wolo Fia Kaba.

Due to the oppressive heat of an overactive star and fierce winds laden with sand and blistering particulate, the population of the planet have taken to wearing covering but breathable clothing with a tendency toward vivid colors and artful patterns. This has led to a culture in which showing skin outside the privacy of family, loved ones very close friends, or religious ceremony is considered taboo. It is believed to have started with the thought that the star's intensity was due to its direct connection with His gaze.

Mallia was born in Kaba Fii, the third largest city.

Kaba Fii, before the revolt, was regarded as the Eye due to its subsolar geographic placement on the planet. In this place, it received the most sunlight, experienced the longest day cycle year-round, and as such, the population considered it the topmost layer of the God-Emperor's realm. Due to this, the populace of Kaba Fii often fashioned their lives, their environs, their very city into an altar of worship.

This piety led the people of Kaba Fii to develop many traditions and beliefs unique to them.

They believed the world's light was too holy for bare skin to bathe in, thus their clothing was thicker than their kinsmen. Beads, coins, or sequins were often incorporated into their cloth to reflect light off of them. Which is then used to accentuate patterns wrought from gold, silver or violet thread. These patterns are often sweeping, vectored, a river of scripture and cuniform symbols from their native alphabet, each one unique and embroidered by the wearer, as is tradition.

It is believed by doing so, the light will follow the flow of patterns, of thread, and pool against the fabric without letting the impurity of their souls sully the light. You're expected to wear this outfit, to veil your face, from the moment you turn of age when the purity of childhood is stripped away. Even during mass, prayer, or in private wheresoever light filters into the city. Until then, children are allowed to be bare faced or thinly veiled.

The most prominent aspect of these outfits, called burq'an raagi, are the veils that shield the face.

You can tell a person's status and gender on the accoutrement decorating the veil. If the wearer is a woman, it will often have a layer of beads, coins, gems, shards of glass or worked crystal, or small plates of metal. What is used and how much is dependent on the affluence and position of a person in society. Whereas if the wearer is a man, the fabric will be dyed and incorporate slivers of metal or exotic thread to make patterns.

And the quality of material used would determine the affluence of said individual, precious gems and metals indicative of wealth and high status while more common metals and glass indicative of someone with humbler means.

There were also allowances provided for those of the Ecclesiarchy, people of great piety, or those recognized as blessed.

For members of the Ecclesiarchy, their veils are allowed partings or gaps relevant to their area of expertise. Orators will have their mouths exposed. People entrusted with reading or guarding sacred texts are allowed to expose their eyes. But in order to claim these allowances, one must go through several sacraments, purifying the area of all taint so as to not sully the light. It is believed that these areas, when cleansed, will channel the God-Emperor's light with crystal clarity.

The most prominent aspect of their dress is the symbol embroidered onto the center of the burq'an raagi's veil. This is seen as the most important aspect of the outfit, as well as the most personal. Each symbol is meant to be a name or place or virtue that the wearer wishes to embody, emulate, or to develop inside themselves. This is expected to be something in contrast with their greatest internal flaw or shortcoming—the representation of that which necessitates their separation from the world's light. The people of Kaba Fii believed that if someone could fully realize that which was marked on their veil, they would be able to stride out into the light without covering.

(( Another commission of Mallia! This time in her shield robes with @kriegtrooper's Bloodhound, having an intimate moment.