Meg's Doodles

You may be here due to one of my ongoing fics:

Have You Seen My Son?

-a collection of shorts from my personal canon for my FFXIV WoL Tseren Dotharl Buduga de Fortemps of the Seventh Dawn -Promises Kept is the main plot, a post EW world where Hades and Hythlodaeus stick around to haunt the WoL, who already has a propensity for keeping dead villains in his back pocket. -I very tentatively gifted Tseren the polyam card and he ran off and married half of ishgard. so there’s that

The Age of Balance

-like Promises, Hydd is the main longfic for my personal Elden Ring au in which the other shorts are set -Hydd (hiːð) - m, noun, Immutable follows a Little Omen child who has been set loose on the Lands Between. He remains (largely) unharmed! -The adult tarnished, particularly Elden Lord Medb and Frenzied Flame Adan, are trying to put together a new age, the titular Age of Balance, by working alongside Marika and her children in the background

The Updated Codex

-The standard way to explain this au is: Guilliman and Yvraine have a daughter, which greatly impacts the Imperium's relationship with xenos, Guilliman’s relationship with his sons, and the Ultramarines’ relationships with everyone else. -the Real way to explain this au is: ‘If the Emperor Had a Text To Speech Device’ sort of plot starts occurring post-Plague Wars. Primarchs back from the dead, traitors treating Terra like it’s the 2012 avengers’ tower, mittens, and warp shenanigans included. -this is planned to be a little more contained than the other two, at least for now. Start with Prelude: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

On this blog, alongside various fanart, you will also see things tagged Middleverse, a long-term personal project. You are welcome to ask anything you'd like about my ocs, but a lot of stuff about them is fairly involved so I never know where to start myself. Well. I do know where to start. We inevitably start with Z:

Zeniel Corbin is an 11-year-old half-demon who was born in Victorian England and works in a 2016-era Baltimore. As all Middleverse Academy students, he's trained for and very used to participating in crossover events; in particular, Z is one of The Author's favorite because certain quirks of his birth and upbringing making him naturally adept at facilitating fix-its, even in the most dire of circumstances. He is my precious baby boy who is extremely polite and also eats people. Please Look Forward To Seeing Him.

Mel stared up at the bolter, not quite believing it. He knew he wouldn't be able to move fast enough, he knew he had no weapon and no chance. He knew that, but still the name slipped from him in a whisper, shocked and heartbroken. "Lanzlet-?"

A shadow of something crossed Lanzlet's face, wide-eyed and stunned as Mel was, and then it was gone, his finger tensed on the trigger and-

The sound of two thousand pounds of ceramite colliding with another armored marine at sixty miles an hour was a little bit like bolter combustion at close range, so it took a moment for Melwas to register that Lanzlet's green shadow had been replaced by Ultramarine blue and gold. Juno's hair whipped in the storm wind, wet and glistening and dark in some places with blood. She growled as she exhaled, the handle of her sword creaking as she flexed her iron grip. Mel didn't need to see her face to know she was glaring at Lanzlet, laid out flat on his back several meters away. She'd hit him hard enough he must have been sent flying, and there was a short trench at his feet from where his power pack had plowed the mud as he'd skid.

Lanzlet did not rise. His limbs flailed about for purchase in the soft ground as he tried to gain his bearings and crawl away.

"Craven filth!"Juno roared over the sound of the battle, and Mel could hear now from her voice that the heir of Ultramar was beyond pissed. "Keep your hands off my squadmate!" She advanced on the downed man with murderous purpose.

Shots from the left. Something exploded along Mel's pauldron, but it surprised him more than it did any real damage. He was on his feet, reaching for his bolter and shooting back, and then Juno was there beside him, her own bolter barking over his shoulder at the reinforcements and shoving him towards cover.

Glancing back at the clearing, Mel saw Lanzlet being helped into a portal by another fallen.

"Come on," Juno broke into his attention with a gruff order. "Let's get to extraction, you need an apothecary."

Juno stayed with him in the apothecary bay. The Dark Angel didn't offer to treat her, but she stood there anyway, a dark shape in the corner, arms crossed, glowering at Mel as he got his rib plate set and thigh stapled.

"I didn't know," he told her miserably.

She scowled deeper at him. "I know that," she snapped.

He felt stupid for trying to speak, and spent the rest of his time in silence. When he had been cleared, he made to hoist himself off the bed, but the apothecary stopped him with a gauntleted hand. Despite the fear it garnered, Melwas had expected this.

He did not expect Juno to step in.

She placed herself, fully armored and stinking still of battle, in front of the apothecary, crowding him away with sudden force. "If Lord Uncle Lion wants to speak to my marine," she growled through grit teeth, "he may speak to me."

Melwas felt the blood drain from his face. Juno was intense on a good day but her fury now seemed to eclipse the very light in the room. The air was heavy with her presence in a way that was unique to the Emperor's kin, a very physical reminder of her heritage.

The apothecary balked.

Melwas followed timidly behind her as she stalked back through towards their lodgings. He wondered if the others had survived the collapse. It was not something he'd had time to think about before, but he had only seen Juno after. The xeno and the daemon would be fine, he was sure, but Boy…? And maybe the others weren't alright, he hadn't seen them. Juno hadn't spoken into her vox.

His heart sank. It was his fault. If he hadn't been so occupied with his own guilt he might have known something was off with his- with Lanzlet.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"Mel," Juno bit out, "shut up."

He pulled up short. They were in an empty hallway, Juno's armored footsteps echoing off the stone. "Lieutenant."

Juno turned to face him.

"If I may," Melwas said quickly, eyes glued to the ground, "there is something you should know." He didn't like the way she'd said his name; it was too familiar, and left the guilt in his stomach thick like tar.

"You may not," Juno interrupted.

Melwas jolted.

Juno stepped up to him, breastplate to breastplate. Her face was above him but Melwas didn't have the courage to look up that far.

"I-"

"Melwas," she said in her strict, sharp monotone. "I know about the reports."

Shame poured over him, heating his cheeks. He swallowed.

"Anyone Lion sent to us would be keeping him informed." She snorted softly. "Paranoid bastard."

Melwas said nothing. What could he say, knowing that he had been so thorough a failure?

One of Juno's gauntleted hands grasped the nape of his neck and she smashed their foreheads together. The pain was enough that Melwas gasped, but her hold kept him firmly in place. He had no choice but to stare.

"You. are. my. Brother," she said. "Do you understand?"

He made to nod, and realized too late he couldn't. "Y-yes," he said quietly. In this one thing Dark Angels and Ultramarines were in agreement; brotherhood was sacred.

"You are my brother," she repeated. "Am I yours?"

"Yes." It did not take conscious thought to answer.

At one point it had been a bond he and Lanzlet had shared.

"I have betrayed us," he said softly.

"You have not," Juno said, pressing forward into his bruised brow until Mel hissed through his teeth. "Lion has called us here. You think The Lion calls just anyone to his aid?"

"He's worked with you before?" Melwas tried, blinking rapidly through wet lashes.

"He did not call me," Juno's lip curled up in a vindictive grin. "He called Oddball. And he would not have done so if you did not vouch for us."

Melwas doubted he had any influence on the primarch's thoughts, but before he could say as much, Juno shifted. Still holding him in place by the scruff of his neck, she pulled back and pressed a firm kiss to his forehead. It was not tender; he could feel her teeth behind her thin lips.

It was an Ultramarine thing. He had seen Juno on the receiving end of such actions not infrequently from her myriad Brothers and the Chapter Master and her Lord Father.

While Oddball, sorry, Company 00, can work on their own, their intended purpose is actually to work in concert with forces already present and engaged at a scene (ideally, of any faction, hence their mixed makeup, though they are designed with 40k imperial command structures in mind for obvious reasons). This is why they’re numbered 00, it’s a blank space, meant to be taken under the authority of whoever they’re working with at the time. Juno is something between a lieutenant and a sargent (hence the odd markings on her armor. they’re mostly sargent marks, but she’s treated as a lieutenant, this is intentional). Technically all the kids on Command Squad have some amount of power; while they usually defer to Juno as the person with the most active combat experience and as a general leader, technically the other kids in command squad have the ability to step into command at least nominally, in order to treat and organize with other factions (necrons, for instance, generally disregard anything unless Tuk is handling communications). Juno is NOT a captain or primarch-equivalent command, because the intent is for them to be a specialty force under local command. (eg. if they were working on a planet in ultramar, juno would be under the perview of...lets say Captain Titus. If they went to solomnace they'd be operating under necron law and under Trazyn's protection). To put them under their own power is dangerous for the kids in combat situations on both a physical front and from the perspective of less tolerant factions (so. all of them). having them at least appear under a more familiar command is a tiny amount of protection from both external challenges and internal suspicion.

There’s a lot of nuance for where exactly oddball fits in depending on who’s involved and in what way, of course. Sometimes, Oddball acts as a singular entity on their own. They’ll find a planet, or travel the webway and warp, and just run into situations. In those cases they are, politically speaking, a collective of equals loosely embodying the currently allied factions they represent (tuk can speak on sazrekh’s behalf, and give some insight on what imotekh might want as well. juno is sanctioned to speak for Ultramar and the Ynnead, and technically Imperium Solar, though Boy is more qualified on that last front. and so on and so forth) but who are also acting outside of direct command structures. Sometimes Oddball isn’t necessarily brought on for combat, and they operate more as a mediating force, again, because the kids have political power individually outside of the military structures. But that power only reaches as far as Oddball has representatives. The Command core do have a surprising spread: Boy Dorn has Perturabo’s protection. Ubasti, while actually Not favored by his sorcerer brothers, has significant pull with the custodians and sisters of silence, as well as several non-marine daemon factions. Tuk loves flayers. Juno is just familiar with way more uncles than anyone has any right to be post-heresy... These kids can pretty confidently walk into most current conflicts and say ‘hey i know the guy in charge' for at least one side.

0-0 Juno [Ultramar | Ynnari] - Boy [Imperium Solar]- Ubasti [Deep Warp | Custodians/Sisters]- Melwas [Dark Angels | Imperium Nihilus]- Lil Nid [Tyrannids]

But they don’t cover everybody.

Enter A-0 and B-0 squads. They are essentially extensions of Oddball that form as Oddball continues to be a successful experiment. While Oddball makes many recurring friends and allies over the course of their existence who do not join officially (such as the many various marine factions, sorry guys can't rep them all, and Juno's Harlequin) there is an advantage to having direct ins with certain larger groups, and some actively choose to send representatives, recognizing this is kind of a way to get put on the new universal political stage that's forming up. A-0 squad is headed by the first de-nailed World Eater, a flesh-tearer geneseed marine Juno helped rescue. While the team was already familiar with an older Black Legion captain (and Juno is of course specifically familiar with cousin Abby) they figured it was time to have a CSM rep officially available (remember, Ubasti doesn't count). He didn't have his nails for very long, so he's in better shape than most. His squad consists of a lot of 'safe bets' - mostly people the team already knew. Ghaz jr. is a recurring opponent they've been forced to work alongside in the past, Tyelko is Juno's maternal cousin and childhood friend, and the Tech Adept has been 0-0's virtual IT guy and Boy's CSGo partner for a long time. The other newbie is a young Ethereal, who buts heads with Juno frequently but whose ultimate challenge is, like Juno, wrestling with the inherently unsustainable lack of personal autonomy her faction requires to function.

A-0 Flesh-Tearer World Eater [CSM | WE] - Tyelko [Corsairs | Exodites] - Ghaz jr [Orks | Astra Militarum] - Ethereal Tau [Tau] - Tech Adept [Mechanicus]

B-0 gets into some of the...more ideologically volatile factions. A hardline sister of battle, a genestealer, a kin of Votann, a rogue trader heir who's other dad is Marazhai, all the fun stuff, right? Addle is a chimeric-geneseed CSM who is specifically there for conflict resolution (and to smooth over the issues Juno has with both Salamanders and EC specifically). He is Amade's nephew. To appease her factions, the young sister is in charge on paper, but the one actually handling a lot of the leadership in practice is young von Valencius, since they already have a fair amount of cross-faction experience.

B-0 Young Sister [Sisters of Battle | Ecclesiarchy] - Kin [Votann] - von Valencius The Younger [RT | Drukhari] - Genestealer kid [Genestealers] - Addle [Salamanders | Emperor’s Children]

There is also a set of much younger characters who we meet fairly early on. They began to follow juno around in the warp during her teen years, but are too young to get caught up in her initial adventures. When they're eventually old enough they volunteer to form a new branch, affectionately named Chaos Squad, which is naturally headed by Lorgar's child Lamb.

C-0 Lamb - Pain - Panic - Cube - Worm

A hand on her elbow yanked her back.

“<Tyelko,>” she hissed, “<what the fuck?>”

“<Vaeyncaria, what the fuck!>” He echoed angrily, “<That’s a White Ghost.>”

The word he used was badly translated, she thought, leaning out to check the pauldrons on the bodies again. “<White Scars, actually.> Addanirwa,” she offered.

Her cousin shook his head. “No,” he insisted. “Addancairn,” he spat the word. “<Aeldari hunters.>”

“<They hunt Drukhari,>” she corrected.

Tyelkarel looked at her like she’d gone mad. “<Oh, and they can tell the difference?>” he asked sharply.

Juno stared at him.

“<There are always more of them, after the scouts,>” Tyelkarel said, glancing around nervously. “<We should go.>”

Juno took a breath through her nose, and took stock of the situation. They were lost, the Harlequin could not be counted on to help. Tyelkarel was a passable duelist for his age, but he wasn’t much older than she was, and she only had two bolter mags left. She relaxed her stance, waited for Tyelkarel’s grip to go slack as he assumed her acquiescence, and then swung herself out over their cover.

“<Juno!>”

The first body was dead. She listened, took the helm off carefully to check the slack face beneath. His eyes and mouth had deep claw marks scraping across his features like something had clawed its way out from the inside, bleeding sluggishly still. She made a face, but couldn’t sense any lingering Daemon in the air. He had six mags left on him, but she couldn’t carry that many in her scout’s armor. She took one, noted that the body was largely intact otherwise, and moved on.

The second body was alive. Missing most of the left side, but the Sus An had activated. His bike had been the one that exploded, she guessed. Maybe his brother had been compelled in his possession to shoot it. His face was full of old scars, and he had some impressively well-kept facial hair, but he seemed younger.

Juno stood. “<Tyelko, get out here,>” she called, loud as she dared in the open.

“<Are you fucking nuts?>” Tyelko popped his head above the wall, glaring.

She rolled her eyes and scoffed. “By the throne, <it’s fine. Get over here and help me get these guys onto the bike.>”

The Harlequin flipped over the wall and landed nimbly on her feet. She pranced over to the first body and leaned over it, head tilting like a curious bird’s.

She made no move to touch the bodies. Juno knew better than to ask.

Tyelkarel moved hesitantly from the ruined building, inching towards the open space like the inert marines might explode at any moment.

“<Come on,>” Juno grunted, already hauling the dead one over towards the vehicle. “<Give me a hand.>”

With some effort, she and Tyelko managed to strap both bodies to the bike, and then get it started. The engine coughed, sputtering dust and rubble out of the exhaust. Juno had not paid attention to machine spirit care outside of arms and armor, but it seemed to be cooperative for now. “Easy,” she patted the side paneling with an open palm, “we’ll bring ‘em home.”

“<Do you know how to drive this thing?>” her cousin called over the roar of the engine.

Juno shrugged and tested the throttle. The handlebars were a little high but she could manage. “<Theoretically.>”

“<Theoretically??>”

Practically Juno wasn’t allowed to drive anything, but it wasn’t that hard to figure out. She only almost ran into walls twice on their way out of the city! She ran them off the road and into the vast empty desert as soon as she was free of the buildings, navigating around rocks and warp pools by instinct and the flicking of the Harlequin’s ears as she sat perched on the handlebars. Tyelko was hunched behind her, spear clutched in a white-knuckled grip across his lap.

She drove them out for a while. Long enough that they couldn’t see the buildings anymore. They came to a low valley between rising, ragged peaks, and she cut the engine.

“<Why are we stopping,>” Tyelkarel asked. “<What’s wrong?>”

“<Nothing,>” Juno said, shrugging as she disembarked. “<But this is the best place to call the others. They’ll circle up close as they can.>” She pointed to the rocky outcrops that carved themselves into canyons farther down. “<But if we need to make a break for it we have more options here than in the flat lands.>”

Tyelko sputtered. “<What do you mean? Vaeyncaria- >” He caught her arm again as she walked to the rear of the bike. “<I am serious, you can’t just call the hunters down on us! We just dragged,>” he flung his arms out, gesturing wildly, "<two of their corpses out into the middle of nowhere, for some gods-forsaken reason. At best they will think we are scavenging, and they will kill us for that.>”

She squinted up at him. Tyelkarel was taller, and the bike gave him almost a whole head and neck-length over her, but she was significantly bigger along the shoulders, solid muscle where her mother’s people were lithe and lean. It let her seem like she was crowding him, looming, even from the ground. “<Tyelko,>” she growled calmly, “<they will not kill us. My father would throw a fit.>” With a yank and a yelp, Tyelko was pulled off the bike. Juno hoisted herself up to where he’d been sitting so she could reach the dead marine’s armor. “<And we dragged their corpses out here as a favor. Let me handle it.>”

This armor was much older than she was used to, but she was still able to find the integrated comm system and open a long range channel. A few minutes of scanning got her a scratchy but distinctly gothic “Identify.”

She took a breath. “Juno Guilliman, Ultramarine Scout, scion of Ultramar.” She gave her priority codes. They were Ultramarine specific, though any loyalists should have them. Forces like these, trapped in the warp, might not have been updated, but they were close enough to her father’s idents that anyone heresy-era with half a brain should at least be prompted to investigate seriously. She gave the code for recovered bodies, and for Sus An protocol. “I have no idea where we are,” she added, “but I trust you have tracking capabilities on either the armor or this bike, or both. Over.”

It didn’t take too long for the rest of the White Scars to appear. Tyelkarel, who’d been pouting off in a corner kicking tumbleweeds and rocks, quickly put himself as close to their bike as possible.

The roar of a squad’s worth of engines was deafening. As she had predicted, they circled them in a cloud of dust and streaking color, but kept a healthy radius. Bolters and swords were drawn and readied, but the riders’ constant motion made them difficult to target in turn. Juno didn’t even try. Instead she smiled. “Cousins! The thirteenth send their regards.” She gestured behind her. “I apologize for bad tidings, but we have recovered your brothers.”

Some of the noise died down as a few in the back slowed to a rumbling roll. She could see them now. They were all firstborn, all ancient armor and weapons. She knew her uncle had taken a small force with him, when he’d gone into the warp. Collected stray, lost detachments when he ran into them. She wondered idly if they’d met their Primarch at all. The Captain pulled his bike around front, facing theirs, and idled. His helmeted face gave nothing away, but Juno didn’t pick up any true hostility from him. They’d taken the codes after a long pause and with appropriate wariness, but had given no other signs of either believing or not believing her.

She didn’t blame them. You couldn’t just trust whatever you heard in the warp.

“Ultramarine,” his voice rolled out of his vox grille tinny and heavily accented.

She stood at attention, saluting with a fist to her chest. “My lord.”

He looked at her for another long moment. “Away from the bike,” he ordered eventually.

Juno obeyed, then reached over and pulled Tyelkarel with her.

“<We’re just listening to them?>” He hissed.

Juno flattened her ears, frowning. “<Obviously. He outranks us both.>” These marines were likely pre-codex of course, but riders were highly regarded, and even if they weren’t the two of them were just scouts.

Well, she was just a scout. Tyelkarel was a xeno.

Behind them, two bikes broke formation and rolled close to theirs. While one cut them off from the vehicle, the other stopped and the marine clambered down. Peering around the front wheel of the closer bike, Juno saw a narthecium at work. Good. She nodded, and returned to attention, giving the marine guarding them a brief friendly acknowledgement.

He only stared.

Besides the engine noise, it was eerily quiet. She knew the marines must be conferring over vox, the apothecary confirming their finds, the brothers conferring on what to do. She’d never been on the other side of it, and knowing she was left out made her miss her brothers even more acutely. Were he the captain, Brother Cato would argue that they should take the bodies and be done with them, leave them behind in the warp to die. They had no business picking up strange children in the warp, he would say, and some other brother with a better sense of humor would have to talk him down, argue their usefulness perhaps.

Of course, if Brother Cato were here, he would know her, and would have swept her up so she might sit on his shoulder safe behind a pauldron, and her father would be there because they were rarely far from each other.

“You have brought us our dead,” the Captain’s declaration cut into her reverie.

She nodded. In the warp as they were, geneseed would be limited and precious. She wondered if they had a base, and the medical facilities to revive the younger marine.

“You have earned your audience. You will come with us.”

Juno blinked. Who did they have that was of greater rank than a Captain? Maybe she’d gotten her heraldry wrong, that would be embarrassing, but it wasn’t her fault if they were non-compliant!

Regardless, she nodded her assent and the marine on the bike held out a hand. She climbed up in front of him, relaxing at the familiar feeling of ceramite behind and around her as he reached for the controls. There was a quiet thunk as the Harlequin climbed up the side of the vehicle’s front chassis. The marine waited for her to balance herself, and then he reached for Tyelkarel.

Tyelkarel shied back, clutching his weapon. “No,” he said in gothic, the word odd in his mouth. “<I don’t- I don’t want to- >”

Juno cocked her head. It was a completely illogical response from him, but it was one she’d seen before, on serfs and civilians sometimes, when her brothers were trying to order them out of an area. They dug their heels in sometimes, refusing to understand they’d be worse off if they stayed with what they knew. It was some kind of fear response. Juno wouldn’t know.

There was a click and a hiss, and the brother behind her lifted off his helmet. He had typical White Scar features: a short nose, long dark hair done up in a bun, brown  eyes with deep laugh lines scored alongside old war wounds.

“<Come,>” he said, in passable aeldari. “<No harm.>”

So shocked at being addressed in his own language, Tyelkarel forgot to dodge away from the reaching hands, and was lifted up and tucked in front of Juno on the bike. She grinned at him.

“<Told you,>” she said, delighted. She turned to look up at their driver. “Secured for transport, my lord.”

Without his helmet, she could see him smile in return.

The marine’s camp was not far away by bike, though the landscape seemed to change as they rolled through it. Not that Juno could see much except for clouds of dust; their marine encouraged them both with one armored hand to keep their heads below the dashboard so the wind and rocks would not bite at their exposed faces. They were going much faster than Juno had been before, for certain. Juno had no idea how the Harlequin was faring.

When they slowed enough for her to peek out under their driver’s arms, Juno gasped. The camp was a series of tents, cloth and ceramite but mostly cloth. It was unusual to her, used to bunkers and marble, but it wasn’t overly unusual for White Scars.

The command tent was though. In splendid colors and patterns, the rounded structure was three times as big as the others, with massive painted doors and decorative mats along the outside. Smoke drifted cheerily through the hole in the center.

Space marines needed a lot of space. They did not need this much space. Something tugged at the back of Juno’s consciousness, and she had slipped off the bike before the marine had parked. He lifted Tyelkarel down and then joined them, waiting as the others motored in, serfs and other marines arriving to inspect them and the bikes. The bike with the bodies had been driven out with them, but must have peeled off the main convoy earlier; Juno couldn’t see it.

The marine put a hand on Juno’s shoulder. “Let us go.”

Inside the tent- well. To call it a tent was rude. It was fully furnished, dimly lit by braziers and the center fire, full of color and sweet-smelling smoke. Huge, decorated posts held up the canvas ceiling, and along the floor were intricately woven mats and cushions. Most were occupied by unarmored marines, who sat around the fire discussing in small groups or with their serfs. Most of them were quite old, as old or older than the ones who had gone to retrieve them. Chapter ancients, she thought. Then, no. Legion ancients.

At the opposite end of the circle, a massive man sat cross-legged. He had a long, thin mustache and beard, and dark hair done up in the same striking topknot the aeldari liked. He looked up when they entered and smiled, his white teeth almost luminous in the dark.

Juno had not met the Khan before, though she had received a series of gifts from him when she was little. She’d met his sons though, the younger ones in the materium, and her father had said they were pretty representative, so she was expecting it when the massive man hauled himself to his feet, threw his arms wide, and laughed.

“Niece!”

“Uncle Jaghatai!” She hugged him without hesitation, and was promptly engulfed in an enthusiastic embrace in return.

“My,” he said, pushing away to inspect her face, the tattoos on her shoulders, “you are magnificent, look at you! Nearly a warrior grown!”

Juno ducked her head, embarrassed. “Only a scout,” she muttered, “Father says I’ll get my plate after majority.”

“Last I heard you were a little worm!” He laughed again, “crawling around and causing trouble for your babysitters. Have those two that let you discover stairs been let out of their penitent crusade yet?”

“Uncle!” She flushed. “Maybe if you came out of the warp ever you would know I can cause much more trouble than that,” she huffed, “and Macragge would be honored to host you,” she added primly.

He laughed again. Slinging an arm around her shoulder he turned to address the others present. “My sons! My brother’s daughter, Juno of the Ultramarines!”

There were calls of acknowledgement from the seated councilmen. Juno lifted her chin, proud to represent her chapter here. Her uncle turned to her again.

“And your companions?”

“My Harlequin,” she said as her Harlequin gave a cheeky salute, “and my…” she hesitated, “my cousin,” she settled. “Tyelkarel, Scion of Prince Yriel, a great general of the Ynnead, of my mother’s people.”

The Khan nodded. He sat, pulled Juno down to sit with him, and patted the cushions there. “Come, come,” he said, “friends of Juno are friends of mine.”

Tyelkarel nervously lowered himself into the seat beside Juno. He’d been allowed his spear still, and he laid it awkwardly beside him. The Harlequin bounced around to the Khan’s other side, kneeling at his side with her mask grinning widely.