Angel in White

I am feeling Fabius so much these days.

I need to read the novels and short stories once again.

Boom! This is canon. It took me to read a lot of literature and write down all the hints, but it was worth it.

Here we go ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

First of all, we need to start with Julius Kaeseron, who experienced sexual attraction to Bequa, and later to the demonette. Fun fact. In my native language, because of the translation, not only Julius appreciated the delights of the composer, but also Lucius, lol.

JULIUS WATCHED WITH barely contained excitement as the blue haired composer crossed the stage and descended into the orchestra pit to take her place on her conductor’s podium. Dressed in a scandalously translucent dress of gold and crimson, the gossamer thin material hung with precious stones that glittered like stars. The cut of her dress plunged from her shoulders to her pelvis, the swell of her breasts and the hairlessness of her flesh clearly visible beneath. ‘Magnificent!’ cried Fulgrim, clapping furiously with the audience at Bequa’s appearance, and Julius was amazed to see tears in his eyes. Julius nodded, and though he had no real memory of feminine splendour or any frame of reference against which to compare her, the composer’s curves and obvious womanhood stole away his breath. Julius had felt such stirrings of emotion when he gazed upon his primarch, heard a particularly inspiring piece of music or went into battle, but to feel his senses aroused by a mortal woman was a new experience for him.

Bequa Kynska thrashed like a lunatic atop her conductor’s podium, jabbing and slashing the air with her baton, her hair a wild comet of blue as it whipped around her head. Julius tore his eyes from the magnificent sight of her and looked out over the audience to witness its reaction to this sublime, raucous music.

And yes, in all of these examples, you can see that Julius doesn't just find the girl and the demonette beautiful. He notes that he was delighted by femininity. Moreover, he even calls it seductive. Seductive. Not the most commonly used word in the Space Marine vocabulary.

Julius had never seen anything so simultaneously beautiful and repellent, a naked female creature that evoked both a potent loathing, and a perverse sensuality that gnawed at the pit of his stomach. Hair like needle horns swept back from her oval face, with its green, saucer-like eyes, fanged mouth and luscious lips. Her body was sculpted perfection, lithe and sensuous, but with only a single breast, and her skin was loathsomely tattooed and pierced. Each of her arms terminated in a long crab-like claw of glistening red chitin and moist flesh. Despite the lethal claws, the creature was disturbingly seductive, and Julius felt moved in a way he had not been since he had been elevated to the ranks of the Astartes. She moved with languid, cat-like grace, her every movement redolent with sexuality and the promise of dark pleasures and excesses unknown to the minds of mortal men. Julius ached to taste them.

And here you can see that the space marines did not yet know how to unleash their emotions. How to have pleasure other ways than battle:

The Astartes too were swept up in the surging power generated by the Maraviglia. Blood was spilled as the emotions of the Astartes were overloaded with sensational excess, and were vented in the only way men bred as warriors knew how. An orgy of killing spread from the stage, blood running in rivers as the power of the music thundered through La Venice.

But they learn quickly and start trying a lot of different things. This can be clearly seen in "Reflection Is Cracked". And yes, there is even a special place for more intimate things:

"Which was not to say that the observation deck went unused. Those who imbibed the toxically hallucinogenic cocktails brewed by Apothecary Fabius found enlightenment in its infinite vistas, and many indulged their freshly awakened carnal hungers with vicarious feasts of flesh and blades. Discarded bodies and torn heaps of broken glass lay strewn throughout the bay, and the occasional moan issued from a jumbled pile of clothing and leather restraints."

The same story mentions that they had fun with prisoners on one of the planets for several days. At first, one company abused the slaves, later handing them over to another.

During the Siege of Terra, the Emperor's Children also tortured mortals. Moreover, it is not specified exactly how. If this were ordinary literature, then “more direct and crude enjoyment” could be perceived as a, ahem, dubious agreement. But since Warhammer 40k is here, use your imagination.

Simple pleasures had given way to complex debaucheries. While their allies fought and died the Emperor’s Children slaughtered more than a million people and rendered them down to create endless varieties of drugs and stimulants. Countless thousands more died to give the Emperor’s Children more direct, if cruder, enjoyment.

How exactly did they have fun? Not specified. But I think that everything was there. And yes, this is an important point.

In Angel Exterminatus, Julius even emphasizes that they began to experience pleasure in EVERYTHING. They began to look for pleasure in all things.

The Lords of Profligacy had lifted the suffocating veils of the mundane from their eyes and shown them unlimited worlds of sensation and indulgence. Undreamed vistas of excess in all things: noise, music, bloodshed, hedonism, torture, violence, adoration and most of all, worship. Every second not spent indulging desires declared taboo in an earlier age was a waste of life, and Julius Kaesoron had long since declared that no act of indulgence would remain beyond his grasp.

And yes, sexual attraction is a matter for every person. While most Space Marines will be attracted to ladies, some will look at men. Yes, I can nitpick, but c'mon, just read this passage:

Lonomia Ruen detached himself from the advance, and Lucius cursed. Since the death of Bastarnae Abranxe, Ruen had transferred his cultish adoration to Lucius. For a while it had been an interesting diversion to have a slavish devotee, but Lucius was already tiring of the man’s desperate need. ‘Your body is a wonder,’ said Ruen.

In the first book about Fabius Bile, a lot is described about how the Emperor's Children have fun on the ship:

The observation deck had become a place of contemplation and experimentation for the masters of the Quarzhazat. A place to indulge in pleasures of body and mind. Slaves bearing immense narcotic generators staggered to and fro, filling the air with a pleasant fug. Emperor’s Children sat on marble benches looted from Imperial temples and eldar crone worlds, or lounged on cushions made from the flayed hides of prisoners, speaking softly to one another of past debaucheries and future ecstasies. They wagered on gladiatorial bouts, watching as unlucky crewmembers gutted each other with rusty blades or, in some cases,hands and teeth. Elsewhere, the crude gutter-poetry of lost Nostromo warred with ear-splitting songs culled from the manufactorums of Chemos and Cthonia. The more artistically inclined among them painted obscene murals on the wall and deck. Armour was peeled away from flesh, so that brands could be applied, or the bite of a tattooist’s needle.

And here we see this:

In the shadows, more intimate entertainments were being enjoyed, to judge by the screams of slave and Space Marines alike. The smell of blood and worse was strong on the air.

Moreover, their leader clearly loves his daemonettes too much. These are the interesting hints you can find in books.

The Radiant seemed to enjoy these occasional slaughters, and openly encouraged them, when he wasn’t leading a hunt or consorting with his Neverborn courtesans.

Oleander really distinguished himself, since apparently he started an affair with Fabius' daughter Melusine:

Oleander, it crackled. It has been so long, my love... come to me... come... He took a halting step forward, despite himself. Desire surged up in him, rising wild. His limbs trembled with need and his brain sparked with longing. A face swelled in his mind’s eye, inhuman and beautiful and terrible in that beauty, teased into the open by the electricfingers stroking his soul. He had danced to this rhythm before, however, and he recognised a lie when he heard one. He forced himself to stop, though his every instinct begged that he go forward. ‘No,’ he croaked. ‘No, I know her febrile stink, and you are not her,’ Oleander said. ‘She would not ask – she would demand.’

In the short story "A More Perfect Union" by Richard McCormick it's implied that some Emperor's Children are having sex (or something like sex). And not only with slaves but with each other.

Xantine to Euphoros:

'It has boon some time since you made your way to my bed chamber, my lord,' he said, draping a purple cloak around his naked body and drawing himself up to standing height with a predator's grace.

Euphoros to Xantine:

'I was worried, I hear pillow talk from from souls who tell me you are lost to your ...'* he looked at the empty containers. 'To your predilections.'

In the book Pariah, the simply amazing character Teke the Smiling appears. And yes, he not only notices the beauty of Beta and Judika, but also wants to “have fun” with the girl. He calls her "sweet" many times as if in mockery. And jokes that she should take her friend on board as "plaything".

‘My, but you’re beautiful,’ Teke said to me, regarding me intently. ‘As beautiful as the boy. Those eyes, that mouth. The hard absence of soul. It’s such a shame he’s been spoiled.’

‘I don’t want to hurt you, Bequin,’ he said. He paused. ‘Well, of course, I do. Very much. Right up to the unthinkable point where it becomes a pleasure for both of us. But I can’t. I’m not allowed to. You’re too valuable.’

‘You have provided us with it. Within just hours of knowing you, Bequin… sweet Mamzel Bequin… you have already performed an extraordinary service for us.’

‘Oh, he likes you, doesn’t he?’ said Teke, smiling at the Curst. ‘Do you want to bring him too, as your plaything?’

And I like how in the sequel the two girls talk about Teke.

‘I don’t have to imagine,’ she said. ‘I’ve met them. A brief encounter with the one named Teke. Thankfully, I was well warded. It was hard to tell what he wanted more – to kill me, or copulate with me.’ ‘Both, I should think. At the same time.’

Also worth mentioning is Telemachon, who was infatuated with Nefertari. Mostly due to the fact that she is a Drukhari. And he wanted to kill her for the Dark Prince. Is there any sexual connotation here? Well:

‘My angel. My lovely angel, you know nothing of what you speak. You’ve spent a lifetime running from the Youngest God. But he loves you, sweetling. He adores you and all of your kind. I can hear him sing each time you breathe. And one day, when you leave your flesh behind, you will be his. A concubine of spirit and shadow, claimed by your true love at last.’

Telemachon closed his eyes, breathing in her breath, drinking her every exhalation. Being near her was rapture. ‘Let me touch you,’ he said, shuddering. ‘Just let me touch you once.’

‘You live in defiance of his hunger, lovely angel... Let me taste you. Let me bleed you. Let me kill you. Please. Please. Please.’

Telemachon’s hunger for her was still a palpable thing, an aura that invisibly stained the air around him. He was imagining the salty richness of her blood on his tongue, and the thought made him shiver.

I want her, came the swordsman’s wish, as clear as if he’d spoken it aloud. He did not send the words to me, but his murderous desire was fierce enough that I couldn’t help but sense his thoughts.

 A feather. A single black feather. I tore it from the fine golden chain that bound it to the pistol grip and crushed it in my hand. ‘Is this from her wings?’ I demanded.  ‘But of course.’ ‘You diseased creature. Stalking her. Watching her.’ ‘And more.’ The onyx of his eyes flashed with reflected light. Telemachon was smiling. His facemask didn’t change, but I sensed whatever was left of his face behind the silver twisting in mirth.

And I really like that the Thousand Sons Space Marine stubbornly says that he doesn’t need Nefertari. That she is simply his property and she has no value to him in the Black Legion. Also he when Telemachon speaks of Nefertari:

I will end him. My mind inferred the tigrus-lynx’s violent eagerness as words, though as ever no words were spoken.

‘Do you value your life so little?’ I asked him, surprising myself with my own honesty. ‘This hunger for her will be the death of you.’

And the Chaosites have clearly expanded their vocubular. Just imagine what the Space Marines said smt like that during the Great Crusade:

‘Prey,’ the wych hissed again, echoed crudely by her sisters. ‘Oh no,’ Lucius grinned. ‘You are quite mistaken, my lovelies. I am not being hunted by you. It is you who are being hunted by me.’

Even Abaddon knows how to speak with ladys even if they are eldar which is really funny:

‘The Maiden of Commorragh,’ he greeted her.

‘They are gone.’ Nefertari broke in, still wearing her smile. ‘Their bodies hang in my Aerie if you wish to introduce yourself to them the way you have to others.’ Abaddon snorted in amused resignation. ‘What a wretched little darling you are, alien. And what of Falkus? Where is he, Khayon?’

I also found two interesting comments on reddit, but alas, I could not find exact references in the books. I'm still a human being and this is a Tumblr post, not a dissertation:

The Emperor's Children are quite possessive of the Daemons of Slaanesh. Fighting honour duels for a kiss of a daemonette or to catch the eye of a Keeper of Secrets. They showered even the least of Dark Prince's daemons with affections and gifts. It is because of this they are jealous of the Word Bearers like Saqqara who needed none of that to be beloved by daemons.

And another one:

The bile series straight up has the ec doing kinky shit only just off screen and one of the things Fabius gets accused of when he's setting up his new men is that he's just making a harem for himself.

I also like reddit about Fulgrim because it's true:

I’m pretty sure there is a pretty blatant scene in Slaves to Darkness that shows Fulgrim’s interest in EVERY excess and sex is part of the equation. It’s like a bunch of cultists and demons in the Webway essentially worshipping Slaanesh by experiencing excess including sex, gluttony, etc. Fulgrim is taking part, but it’s not exactly clear what he is taking part in. He’s a demon prince by this point obviously.

He was the only primarch who was married. He can lie himself that he didn't really loved his adoptive parents and wives but can't lie me:

Fulgrim sat back. ‘I was betrothed, once,’ he continued idly. ‘Several times, actually. Political marriages, of course. Made to seal binding agreements, or open negotiations with certain executive dynasties.’ Pyke didn’t reply. His tone had become sombre. A rare thing, for Fulgrim. The Phoenician seemed to always be smiling, laughing at some joke only he understood. But now, he seemed tired. He rubbed his face. ‘I outlived them all, one way or another.’ ‘Did you love them?’ Fulgrim smiled slowly. ‘Some. I think. At first. After a time, I stopped. Love was a weakness I could ill afford in those days. A billion lives rested on my shoulders, and any hesitation on my part would have doomed them all irrevocably.’ He laughed softly. ‘Or so I told myself then.’ ‘And now?’ ‘Now, I know it would have. There is no room for weakness in this galaxy. No room for imperfection.’

And do you know why this is a lie? Because after Fulgrim become a daemon prince, he immediately got N'kari as his consort:

Fulgrim reached the dais and flowed up its side. The bloated thing squirmed in greeting, uncoiling its bulk and twining it around Fulgrim as he embraced it. The thing purred up at the daemon primarch, baring its teeth. Fulgrim ran a hand over its hair. ‘There, N’kari, my delight… We will have bliss again once this is done with, but he is family, and that means I should listen to what he says, hmm? At least a little.' N’kari… It was not its true name – that was a thing that would have broken reality to speak – but in the realm of the warp it was like a signature drawn in atrocity. Layak had glimpsed it and heard it at the edge of bloody visions, but never seen it before. Now it sat before him. N’kari… Eater of Delight, the Son of Ruin, the Daughter of Delight, one of the Six Courtesans of the Dark Prince. Fulgrim settled next to the exalted daemon, their snake bodies intertwining with a sigh, then turned his gaze back on Lorgar.

Fulgrim squirmed, a hand running through N’kari’s hair, while another picked a wet, red fruit from a silver platter and held it out to the bloated daemon. Layak noticed that the exalted daemon’s face was a warped echo of Fulgrim’s own, a fattened parody of the daemon primarch’s primarch’s soul-breaking perfection. N’kari ate the fruit and licked Fulgrim’s fingers.

‘Which war is this, brother dear?’ said Fulgrim, running a finger over N’kari’s cheek.

Fulgrim snarled as soon as Layak willed him speech. ‘I will take your soul and–’ ‘Your consort has already issued the necessary threats.'

N’kari walked to Fulgrim’s side, its bull-headed form shrinking and thinning until it was a slender figure wrapped in red silk, its skin the colour of a shark’s belly, its eyes black orbs. A delicate crest of bone and skin ran down the centre of its scalp. ‘Where the Prince of the Princes goes, so go I,’ it said, its voice a melody that promised bliss and suffering. ‘I am bound to this and to him. As you command him, so shall I follow your will.

By the way let's not forget the words of my man Tyrell, Renegade Lord of Arden IX (Codex: Chaos Space Marines (8th Edition, pg. 52):

Take care, lest your protests grow tiresome. I have asked for so little! Anyone would think that I have asked you to sacrifice yourselves and your sons! And yet, in Slaanesh's boundless and pleasing mercy, I have asked only for your daughters. Surely you would not deny me my small enjoyments?

And I don't care what fandom thinks about my beloved Ian Watson. I don't like he's other space marines. But his Children of Emperor are great:

Were the screaming tethered female prisoners hallucinating while abominations were perpetrated slowly and perversely upon their flesh? A few tormentors had shed items of armour, exposing grotesquely mutated rampant groins, their organs of pleasure bifurcated and more, with squinting eyes sprouting from them, and with drooling lips. Others had no need to shed armour. Chaos Spawn had materialized: wolf-sized creatures with legs of spiders and bodies of imps, with questing tentacles and phallic tubes. Jaq himself almost believed that he was hallucinating. A snake-like umbilical cord connected these spawn to the swollen groin-guards of their master – who stood back, roaring and whinnying with delight, as they guided the spawn in the ravishing of their captives, soaking up the sensations of these roving external members. Corralling other hysterical captives were beastmen slaves armed with serrated axes. A Chaos Tech-Marine monitored these slaves. His armour was studded with spikes. Each shoulder pauldron was in the shape of giant clutching fingers. He wore a nightmare helmet shaped like a horse’s head, eyes glowing red. One of the shaggy beastmen drooled and dropped his axe. The beastman reached out a paw to caress a particularly voluptuous captive. Immediately the Tech-Marine adjusted a control-box strapped to his forearm. The disobedient beastman’s metal collar exploded, severing his head. The head fell. It bounced and rolled amidst the captives even as the beastman’s body was tottering.

I almost forgot to add that in the book Renegades: Lord of Excess Xantine emphasizes that he is fascinated by love. He liked to kill, torture and just look at lovers. So much so that he was delighted with the way his personal daemonette of Slaanesh hugged him. The usual hug after sex, something personal and more sensual.

Later, he warms up to Cecile, a psyker, but not enough to not use her as a navigator. Although the book mentions that he didn't want to know whether she sighed in surprise or pain when he loaded the helmet on her.

He also called one woman, whom he had picked up a long time ago (she interested him because she laughed when she learned that she had become with the inhabitants of the world, who kicked her out of the city, calling her a witch) a muse.

 So...

It is clear that, first of all, the Emperor's Children derive pleasure from murder and torture. But still this is not enough. Some may have their own personal obsession. For example, Lucius' fencing. A Space Marine was mentioned who sought satisfaction in the spiritual realm rather than the material. They may love music, food, or take drugs. Including fucking. It's just not their main goal.

Fabius Bile

For a while now I've been wanting to pay tribute to my original OTP for this game. So many words written, so much old colored pencil art. Shoutout to the old AeriSeph Yahoo! Group, now gone from existence. It was a good time.