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.

That was how it had been before. This was no longer the case, for Mariana at least. It's not that the serfs avoided the astartes, per say. The Lares were rarely on deployment and often around, and there were no mentions of ill-treatement in the living memory of the mortal crew, but the Astartes, fearsome living myths as they were, equally rarely paid the serfs any mind. Getting dragged in front of Chapter Command to explain to the host of tactical geniuses the concept of a 'baby gate,' Mariana seemed to have earned herself some undue attention.

This was not something Mariana found she particularly minded. Oh, they were loud, and their physicality was terrifying to witness, and often Mariana was seized by the irrational fear that they would, indeed, rend her apart for some slight, or no slight at all, even, but by a simple accident of their nature.

But they never did. They never touched her at all.

It had come to the point where she was starting to get to know a few of them as individuals. Her most frequent interruptions were from the squad who had called her over initially. They lived on her hallway, the one where Mariana had worked for almost fifty years, and she had, in the sanctitty of her own head, begun to think of these particular Astartes as hers. Her Angels.

She had not learned the names of her Angels at first, but had instead mentally refered to them by quirks of their personalities, or memorable things they had said in their first conversations until she could, through their conversations with each other, match them with their improvised titles.

The man she'd correctly identified as the squad leader was Sargent Ermaeus. He had a genial, lined face, and a crooked smile, and he liked to embellish his war-stories and his men liked to make light of him for it. Lord Jacobin was the one who liked to leap over railings to see his partner, Kel, who belonged to a different squad living on the floor below. Jacobin had a thin face, and often ribbed his brothers verbally, spurring them into bouts of hallway wrestling. Then there was the one who hadn't known what a picture book was. His name was Iridikles; a dark, square-faced marine with extensive augments and a permanent scowl. He was almost always accompanied by Lord Merinos, the youngest.

Merinos had a face split by two long, deep scars running through his left cheek and disrupting the bridge of his nose. He'd run headfirst into a Carnifex, he'd told her proudly. Mariana, who did not know precisely what a Carnifex was, gathered that this had not been considered a tactically sound motion, and that most marines would have been quite dead.

"He was only just inducted," Lord Ermaeus had told her, "when the chapter was founded. He's never had a younger Brother."

"Oh," Mariana had understood completely, "he's the baby of the family, then."

Ermaeus had burst into laughter.

Down the hall, Lord Merinos had poked his head out from his door, pouting magnificently. "I'm not a baby!" he insisted.

"You're kind of a baby," Lord Jacobin said, turning from where he had been in conversation with another set of marines farther down the hall. "To the rest of us, at least." The others with him laughed and called their agreement.

"I'm much more interesting than a baby!" Lord Merinos said, now properly cross. "I can hold a bolter."

Mariana snorted softly. "Still hung up on that is he?" she said. The Primarch's daughter had distinctly not favored Lord Merinos during her visit, and had, for some reason, preferred to be held by Lord Iridikles out of the whole of their squad. Lord Iridikles was hardly the friendliest of marines, but from what Mariana had seen from her distant glimpses, the princess was not a particularly bright and bubbly child.

"Quite a blow to his ego," Ermaeus told her solemnly, then had cracked his crooked smile.

Predictably, it was young Lord Merinos who asked her the most questions. She answered best she could, though there was much she did not know. What did the serfs eat? (whatever was portioned for them for the week) Had she been to the gardens? (for her honeymoon) How many children did she have? (three) Can they meet them?

"Um," Mariana had blinked. There was no reason for most baselines to enter the barracks. She wasn't sure it was allowed, nevermind that all her children worked as constantly as she. "Perhaps the next time they have leave…?" she had ventured.

Lord Merinos had accepted this possibility with customary enthusiasm.

Often, the happy marine would offer his experiences of his own accord, rambling off on winding, disjointed stories to explain his interest in one topic or another. Mariana heard a lot about bolters and chainswords, and about armor, and other such things she had difficulty understanding. She tried to listen when he and Lord Iridikles attempted to explain mission strategy to her because that was passing familiar, and because she thought, in a kind of distant way, that it might be helpful.

Her oldest, Fitz, was part of the Naval Auxiliary held in reserve on the voidship. In much of Mariana's memory, and in that of her mother's, and possibly her mother's mother's, the mortal guard of the Stultitia had never been mobilized.

In the past several months, her son had been deployed twice.

She knew it was an honor. She knew they were mostly diplomatic anyway, and Fitz had spent most of his time trying not to yawn while his superiors spoke to PDF officers.

Perhaps it was her frail mortal heart, but she was scared. There were many dangers he might face that he might not survive; her son was not a Space Marine.

But Lord Merinos was.

In his stories, he ripped through the strange and terrible, chopped horror into little bits and stomped on the pieces. And he laughed the whole way, fearless, white teeth gleaming bright as a muzzleflash. When Merinos spoke the transhuman sweat and unnatural bundles of muscle looming over her seemed to melt away, and she could see it. The myths made of ceramite and Emperor's gold, untouchable, immutable. The immortal Astartes.

And then he would finish his story, usually with a sheepish look as Lord Ermaeus reminded him of the lengthy lecture the apothecary had given him for whatever rash action he had taken to victory, and he would be large, clumsy, scatterbrained Lord Merinos again.

Mariana took heart in these stories. She knew, for every time her son was deployed, the Astartes were sent with them. That, too, was unusual in the crew's memory, and there were many rumors of unrest in the galaxy, great and terrible movements in the cosmos on scales the crew could barely comprehend. The Astartes themselves seemed no worse for wear and as they spoke to her, Mariana came to understand that it was rather their long period of inactivity that was considered odd for the Emperor's Angels.

"Good to get back on the grox," Lord Jacobin had said, stretching his shoulders far enough his carapace cracked.

The increase of activity did not go unnoticed by the lesser serfs. Those in the armoury and the mechanicum acolytes had the worst of it, workload suddenly exploding when there had before been very little but routine maintenance. The cleaning serfs too, begun to see the effects. Floors became grimed and scuffed by armored boots at alarming rates, the candle-burning set smoke-stains upon the walls and ceilings inaccessible to regular cleaning, and laundry…

Laundry had turned into a nightmare. It was never the most pleasant, though many of the boys did try to keep their rooms neat, but the increase of activity meant an increase of transhuman sweat and blood on their sheets and day-chitons, even if it was only from more intensive training regimes. The laundry was not close to the barrack halls. There was a servitor that pushed a large cloth bin, but there was only the one for all the halls (the others having long since broken down and their flesh components rotted out), and so it was parked two floors down, awaiting loads from all levels before it would leave for the tumbler room. Mariana had already hauled piles down the stairs eight times today, and was only halfway done. She had been fortunate in her life that she had never needed augments, but she was also growing old, and her back and joints ached. Having gathered the soiled cloth strewn about this particular room, she set the pile on the high bed cut into the wall and leaned with her back against the cool metal. She brushed the hair that had fallen from their ties out of her eyes and tried to catch her breath.

"Miss Mariana!"

A marine poked his head into the room. The half-augmented scowl of Lord Iridikles was very recognizable, and she was not surprised to see him here, for the room was his. It was not unusual for marines to be in their living spaces as they were being cleaned, though many serfs attempted to time around the Astartes' schedules so as to avoid potentially troubling their ever-busy masters (and, of course, to avoid embarrassing themselves in their uncontrollable fear of the living weapons). Mariana had found nowadays if she avoided her Angels for too long she was chased down by one of them, having inevitably amassed more questions and stories they wished to share with her in her absence.

"Hello Lord Iridikles," Mariana wiped her brow with the back of her hand. She assumed by the freshly-showered sheen of his skin that he had just returned from an exercise or deployment, and was likely looking to rest. "How may I help you?"

Lord Iridikles was perhaps one of the more off-putting of the group, at least to the other serfs. He was often in the company of the ship mechanicum, and shared their blunt and unemotional approach to things. Mariana had been quite scared of him, at first.

The marine looked down at her. "You are working," he said, half a question.

Mariana looked at the opposite wall. There was soot in the corners again. "Yes," she said. If she was in the barracks, she was working. "I am supposed to be."

Iridikles stepped in. He showed no interest in sitting on the bed, or the simple chair at the desk in the far corner. "Grown weary of your task?" he asked.

Mariana smiled self-deprecatingly. "Weary, yes. I am an old lady, I am afraid I tire more quickly than in my youth," she admitted. She would not be punished by her Angels for this short break, she knew, but still she pushed herself away from the bed, preparing to gather the laundry and go back to her work.

The crease between Iridikles' eyebrows deepened. He frowned, the way he did when he did not quite understand something. Unlike Merinos, Iridikles was quiet and perpetually solemn. He did not ask for clarification, seeming to believe he would solve things on his own if he only gave his mind enough time to turn it over. "Do not go yet," he said, "your breath is uneven."

Mariana chuckled. She had been told the stories as a girl, that the Astartes could hear your heart from five rooms away, and smell you for ten. It appeared to be true, as the Angels often commented on reactions she had little control over, like now. "I will be back to work soon, my lord," she assured him, "I will have your bed made up in short order."

Iridikles shrugged; he cared not what the serfs and crew did, only that it did not interrupt him.

The tell-tale stomp of astartes in armor thundered towards them. Mariana looked out of the open doorway and saw Lord Merinos, clad in full plate except for his helm (which he was prone to forgetting), running with great strides down the hall. Unlike Iridikles, he had not taken the time to remove his armor, nor clean the ceramite itself, and mud coated the light blue paint from the kneepads down.

"Iri!" he called, at full astartes volume. "There you are-"

"Merinos! I just cleaned that!" Mariana snapped, and then she slapped a hand over her mouth. What was she thinking, addressing an Angel like an unruly child?

Lord Merinos had screeched to a halt at Iridikles' door and was cringing away from her, pauldrons up past his ears. "Oh shit," he mumbled, looking back at the bootprints scuffing the hall in his wake. "Sorry Ma."

Iridikles cocked his head.

"Er," Lord Merinos held his hands up, visibly panicking, "Ma-Mariana! I meant to say Miss Mariana." He looked at Iridikles for help, but his brother seemed uninterested in bailing him out.

"What," Iridikles said, "did you not say earlier she reminded you of your mother?"

Lord Merinos reeled back. "You can't just say that!" he hissed, and turned to Mariana apologetically. "Deepest apologies, miss," he said, cheeks ruddy with embarrassment. "I meant nothing by it. And, I'm sorry about the hallway," he glanced down at his armor, wrinkling his nose, "I'll be sure to be more careful coming back next time."

Mariana took a moment to find her voice. "T-that is no trouble, Lord Merinos," she murmured. "I should not have said anything, these are your living quarters."

"Exactly," Lord Merinos nodded, "I live here. I should take care not to ruin my own floors. My mother would tell me that," he added the last bit quickly, uncharacteristically uncertain, "or, I think she would have. It's been a long time."

In that moment, Mariana forgot about the hall, and the grime, and the dirty laundry, and the aches and pains she had and that would only grow as she worked the remainder of the day, and remembered that Merinos' mother was, with absolute certainty, dead. No rejuvenation ceremony would keep a baseline alive that long. And Merinos was the youngest. All their mothers were dead, along with everyone else they would have ever known. They never spoke of such things. It was said the want of the comforts of their mortal lives were scoured clean from the Astartes upon ascension, but, here Merinos was, remembering.

"Do not trouble yourself," she said again, voice gentling. "It is my honor to serve The Imperial Lares." She bowed slightly at the waist, but then looked brazenly up at the marine. "Even if you do get mud on my nice, newly-clean, polished floors."

Laughter from the hall told her the joke had reached the ears of the rest of the squad, and they proceeded to snipe at each other, Merinos arguing that he wasn't the only one who'd come back to the rooms in unwashed armor, and that the others might watch their steps as well.

Mariana left them to it, gathering the laundry and slipping out the other way.

Most of Mariana's time in the barracks was uneventful. It wasn't so strange that she knew her Angels, many serfs on steady assignments learned at least a little about their Lords, but it was odd that they sought her out specifically and spoke to her at length. The other serfs' reactions ranged from worried caution, gently asking if they had done her some harm, to jealous anger, incensed she'd dare speak to them at all. But Mariana was an established matriarch, and when no drama with the boys were forthcoming, the chatter died down. Her duties did not change, and so things continued as they had for thousands of years. Every fifth day, Mariana was rotated out to clean the common areas; the library, the meeting halls, the void-decks. She appreciated the change of scenery, but still she found herself waiting for the next five-day-shift, where she would be assigned the barracks again.

One evening while she was cleaning a set of recreational halls, Mariana was alarmed to hear a familiar, childish voice echoing above the low murmur of Astartes speech. Shuffling closer, she peered inside the nearest common room and caught her breath.

"Matty?" she gasped, appalled.

Her youngest, Mateus, turned to her and waved. "Hello mother!" he greeted cheerily. "I am comparing augments with Lord Iridikles." Indeed, the boy was perched upon the marine's knee, his robe hood pulled down so the metal plates fused with his neck and head could be seen where they cut through the soft blond curls that framed the rest of his apple-round face.

Mateus was a smart boy, who learned quickly. He'd done well enough in his early studies that they'd let him with the maintenance serfs, like his late father, and from there he'd caught the eye of the Adepts. He wasn't fully inducted, not many on The Stultitia were, and he had to pass his exams first, but they'd allowed him some boons. Most of Mateus' augments were mental, designed to assist his interactions with the ship's lesser systems.

Iridikles, for his part, did not seem upset, though it was difficult to tell with him. He seemed to largely have one expression, and one tone of voice. "I was once a student of the Mechanicum," he explained. "Though I did not complete my studies with them."

"I-I see," Mariana stuttered, though truly she did not. This was not the kind of thing serfs and Astartes did.

"He was also telling me of his brother."

"And sister!" Mateus corrected, fearless.

Iridikles inclined his head. "And sister," he acknowledged in the same even tone. "I should like to meet them," he continued.

Mariana blinked. Lord Iridikles asking to see her children was not the same as Lord Merinos wondering if he could meet them. Merinos was young; he looked young, he acted young, in Mariana's eyes he was half a child himself still. He often said things in jest, or without fully understanding the ramifications of what he wanted to do. Iridikles was not like that. For him to ask…

Mariana just couldn't fathom why.

To ask what interest her children held for her Angels would be rude, so she settled instead on the same excuse as before. "They are often at work," she said, "and not typically on the Astartes levels." Here she glared at Mateus.

Her youngest held up his hands in defense. "I was sent to fix a door!" he said, cow-eyed and contrite. "Lord Iri helped."

Iridikles nodded. "This is true. It was no trouble," he added, seeming to sense Mariana's impending panic. "Your son is a quick learner."

Mateus smiled up at the marine, pleased with himself.

"Yes, well, my son should also be at work," Mariana said, perhaps more sharply than she should have.

Mateus' smile fell a fraction. "I should probably report back," he said to Iridikles apologetically. "They'll have have missed me in engineering."

The marine picked the boy up and set him on the ground, humming in agreement. "I suppose they would have."

"I'll see you later, Lord Iridikles!" Mateus' grin was back as he flipped his hood up. "They'll never believe I made friends with an Astartes," he laughed, waving as he scurried past his mother and out the door.

Iridikles rose from his seat. He was out of armor, again but that meant little when he still had a marine's stature; compared to Mariana he was still quite intimidating.

"I would apologize for his lack of decorum," she started softly, "he is my wild one."

Iridikles was silent for a moment. "Is it offensive, to ask about your children?"

"No," Mariana said, so confused she forgot herself and looked up into his face. "No it is not- No. You may ask all you wish."

The marine nodded shortly. Another strange thing about Lord Iridikles: he always took Mariana for her word.

Mariana said nothing, and held herself still while Lord Iridikles passed her on his way out the door.

She brought it up to her daughter a few days later. Serendipity was, like her eldest, part of the Stultitia's Naval Auxiliary. She was a vox operator, and liked the work. Unlike Fitz, she'd never been in close proximity to a Space Marine; her primary station was in the communication hub- the baseline one, Mariana assumed the Marines had their own.

"The Feasts are coming up." Serendipity finished replacing the clean plates in the cupboard above the sink. "They celebrate the Feasts, don't they?"

Mariana frowned. "Well, I'm not sure," she said. The Feast Days were a tradition as old as the Chapter itself. It seemed odd to her that the Astartes would not celebrate as they did, but, then, she had never worked the holiday, and did not spend it on the Marine decks.

"They have some notion of it, but they don't really celebrate," Fitz said as he ducked under the doorframe. "Hello Mother." He came around and set three bottles of cider on the table, and then bent to kiss Mariana on her cheek.

"Fitz!" said Serendipity. "You're back from deployment!"

"Aye," answered Mariana's eldest, beaming broadly. He did not live in the family's tiny quarters anymore- neither of her adult children did -but he stopped home when he could.

A smile crinkled the edges of Mariana's eyes. "And so full of knowledge on our Lords," she said.

"I speak to them sometimes," Fitz said. "Not yours, I don't think," he added, "but I have found they are quiet more from a lack of things to say, than of any malice. One of them congratulated me on my promotion, even." A wince, and a sheepish smile. "Oh, I've been put up for promotion. Suppose I should have led with that."

"Suppose you should have!" said Serendipity.

"Well done!" Mariana reached up to tousle Fitz's hair. "My dear boy," she took his face and planted a kiss on his squished cheeks.

Fitz flushed with pride. "Thanks, Ma. Anyway, I think it's a fine shot to take."

"You know," said Mariana, "back in my day it would be quite unthinkable, to invite the Lords over for the holidays."

Fitz's smile turned rueful. "True," he said, "but these are strange times."

Mariana thought on it for a little while. Sweeping floors lent itself to thinking deeply on things, at least while she was uninterrupted. It was Jacobin who spotted her as he was walking down the hall and struck up conversation. He was accompanied today by Lord Kel. Kel was not one of Mariana's marines, but she had met him before on account of Jacobin's affections. Namely, when the two had last had a lover's spat it had been Mariana who Jacobin spoke to, his brothers having little experience in the area, and she and gone with him when he had walked down to Kel's rooms; he had admitted that, as a sniper, he was not accustomed to direct confrontation.

That had been months ago, and it had all worked out of course. The point was, Mariana knew Lord Kel, too.

Kel had a proud, sun-touched face and a set of solid silver studs hammered into the right side of his skull, under the fringe of his honey-colored hair. He did not speak much, as a rule, but his dark eyes were kindled with a gentle mischief, and it had been clear to Mariana, when he had taken the knee to save her neck the strain of looking up during their first encounter, that he was well matched to Jacobin's sharp edges.

"Do my Lords have plans for the Feasts this year?" she asked when she had gathered the courage.

Kel and Jacobin had shared a curious look.

"The serf holidays?" Jacobin frowned. "When is that again?"

"Just a few weeks m'Lords," Mariana said, knocking dust off the bristles of her broom. She chanced a glance up. "You don't celebrate then?"

Kel's smile turned rueful. "We have in the past taken note of the observance, but we won't this year," he admitted in his smooth baritone.

"We'll likely be deployed," Jacobin explained. "Big guys have been talking about it for a bit." Then, misreading Mariana's fallen expression, he hurried to add: "Shouldn't affect you much. It's Astartes work, no baselines involved, so I don't think any of the crew up here will need to work overtime."

"I see," said Mariana. In some ways she was relieved, for she had been trying to imagine a squad of astartes squeezed into her quarters, sparse as they were outfitted, and failing.

Lord Kel cast her a shrewd look. "Did you have plans?" he asked, idly curious.

"Plans for what?" Merinos inserted himself into the conversation literally, shoving between Jacobin and Kel until he could smile at Mariana.

Jacobin, amused and annoyed at his youngest brother in equal measure, began to explain even as he attempted to push the other Astartes away from him. "The Feasts-"

"Oh the Feasts!" Merinos exclaimed, dodging Jacobin's shoving hands. "I always liked the Feasts, but we haven't done them in quite a while."

"There's little reason to," Jacobin said. "A year is not long, for an Astartes. We can't be stopping every so often just to have a lay-in, now can we?" He pursed his thin lips and paused his assault for a moment. "Not now, anyway."

"Well no, not now," Merinos repeated with a sigh. "But there's nothing in the Codex that says we can't have fun every now and again."

Jacobin laughed. "Don't pretend you care about that."

"Its a good argument! And many people care about the Codex," Merinos insisted.

"But it wouldn't stop you," Jacobin said, arching a thin brow. "Brother, you wouldn't listen to the Codex if we taped the pages to the inside of your helmet." He ruffled Merinos' shaggy mohawk and finally succeeded in wrestling him back a bit as Merinos squawked with indignation.

Mariana could not help but smile. She always did, when the Astartes acted as though they were not their swords and bolters.

"Still," said Merinos, hiding now behind Kel's shoulder. "It is nice to spend time with your brothers, isn't it?"

"You're always with us, idiot."

"You know what I meant!"

Of course, acting like children often resulted in childish arguments. Mariana coughed, and the marines dropped their grievances to turn to her.

"You'll see us when we get back," Jacobin assured her.

"Maybe you could save us some food?" Merinos said hopefully as he dodged his brother's elbow. "Rations suck."

Mariana nodded and, realizing she had stopped her sweeping, hastily resumed. "Of course, my lords."

She put the thought of inviting her Angels into the serf quarters from her mind then, and did not bring it up again for everyone was very busy. While her Angels prepared for what must be war, Mariana prepared for the Feasts.

The Feasts were a span of about a week when shipments of baked sweets and other perishables arrived to The Stultitia in bulk. They had to be eaten; the shipments were such that to store them would infringe The Stultitia's perfectly well-stocked preserves, and so, once a year, the serfs of The Stultitia overindulged until the excess food and drink was gone. They made a bit of an occasion out of it, and it was the custom to return to kith and kin for the duration, and work hours were cut short across much of the ship. When they had the means and mind to do so, it was not uncommon for the serfs to decorate their residences. It was also, often, an excuse to clean one's living space in the process, and this was what occupied Mariana's time as the Feasts approached.

Now it was not unusual for the Astartes to be occupied with whatever Astartes did during this time, as they seemed never to have rest-days as a collective people, but they did not make much use of their serfs anyway- nothing, at least, that they could not make do with half-days of work for a single week out of every year. Mariana had never thought much of it; her Angels, certainly, had never before thought to comment on the reduced hours.

This time, there was some feeling nagging at her. Her Angels, along with several other squads, left before the Feasts began. She noticed, as she had started to these days, the empty spaces in her hallways when they were gone. There were plenty of Astartes still on board, but none of them were hers. She stripped their beds, and cleaned their walls and trophies until they gleamed, and still she felt unsatisfied.

The strange feeling persisted even as her children came home, even as the runners crossed the halls delivering the meals door-to-door, though she tries to put it behind her and enjoy her family's company and good cheer. She is mostly successful, but she is still unsurprised when a message pings on the communication panel, hardwired into the wall of her kitchen, with a request.

Requests like this, a single room, were rare for the cleaning staff. They happened where there had perhaps been an incident that required one to disregard the regular rotation as it had been scheduled. An inordinate amount of blood, spilled food and drink in a dorm, that kind of thing. Mariana knew this was not why the request had gone through.

She dressed in her plaindress. Passing Serendipity, still half-asleep in extra bedsheets on the floor, Mariana murmured she had been called to work, and would be back. Traditionally, the important part of Feast days were in the evenings, anyway. She made the long trek to the elevators, and the longer trek from there to the Astartes barracks, and finally she came to Lord Merinos' room.

It was as she had left it. The grey metal was dull without the candlelight, but free of accumulated wax drippings. The tapestry above the bed was steam-cleaned and vibrant. His collection of claws and bones were in their proper alcoves, recently dusted. Fresh bedsheets were folded at the foot of his bunk.

Mariana made the bed and lit the candles, checked the reading light on the desk and straightened the pile of datapads next to it. There was nothing else to be done. She had already cleaned the room.

She walked back down the hallways. The murmuring of astartes voices faded as she returned to the serf quarters, but she did not find herself completely alone as a familiar face stepped onto the lift with her.

Cecily was a scant few years younger than Mariana. The two had grown up together, and though they worked on separate floors now, she still lived just a few doors down from Mariana. They exchanged warm greetings, and got right down to commiserating.

"So early," Mariana sighed. "And for what? The Lords told me they weren't to be back till after the Feasts were over!"

"Did you have to do your whole hall?" Cecily asked, aghast.

"Oh, no," Mariana assured. "Just the one room."

Her fellow serf relaxed. "Ah, that's good then. Me too."

Mariana frowned, still confused.

"Don't you know?" Cecily said, "it is because only one of them had to come back."

"Why ever would only one of them come back?" Mariana snorted. They were a squad, and they were never far from each other.

Cecily shrugged, rolling her shoulders back with the back with the practice of one long used to the pains of physical labor. "Maybe they were injured," she suggested, oblivious to the storm such a thing stirred in Mariana's heart. "I've heard that happen, on occasion. Haven't any of yours ever been injured?"

Mariana reeled. "No," she said, quite a bit louder than she meant. Then, catching herself, "No, I mean, not in my lifetime."

Of course her Angels had been injured. There was not a one of them that was without scars and without stories, and often they gave each other bruises and scrapes and bleeding cuts that scabbed over even as she watched them, but she had never seen any of them injured.

The lift jolted to a stop. They walked out, Cecily still chatting idly about the time one of the Astartes on her floor had come back with an augmetic eye. "It bothered him a little at first, but he's quite fine with it now. Difficult to tell, when they spend the whole time scowling of course, but you pick up on things."

Mariana nodded. She wondered if Iridikles' eye had bothered him when he had first received it. Had that been an injury, or an augment? She did not know. Unease coiled in her gut.

The two friends shared well-wishes as they split off to their own lodgings. Mariana slipped back inside and found all three children in the kitchen, having prepared a meal of sweet rolls and fried meats, and she tried to put the thought behind her as she had done before. Mateus lept off his seat and squeezed her around the middle and began to chatter about his morning. Mariana pat the top of his head as she listened, and the vice around her heart eased. And when she sat and took a roll, and watched Fitz scold Serendipity for reaching for another- her fourth, if he was to be believed -she breathed even easier. They all gathered on the couch to view an old holodrama, Mateus curled against her side and Serendipity's feet slung over their laps, and she realized as she sat there what the feeling was, and also why it would not go away entirely. She should have realized earlier, for it was a feeling she was well accustomed to ever since Fitz had left to begin his training, and it was never gone unless her children had returned home to her arms, where she could see they were well, and thriving.

When the holo had finished, Mariana made a proposal. "What do you think about going on an adventure?"

Fitz turned to look at her from his place on the floor in front of the couch. "Where to?"

"I like adventures," Mateus said, unconcerned with the specifics.

"Would you like to see the Astartes quarters?"

Mateus nodded emphatically.

"Does this have something to do with you work this morning?" Serendipity asked.

"Yes," Mariana admitted, nudging Mateus up so she could extract herself from the soft embrace of the cushions. "A bit. I believe one of the Lord Astartes has returned."

Mateus nearly bounced off his feet. "Is it Lord Iridikles?"

Mariana laughed. "No. His brother, Lord Merinos."

"I thought they were all out on deployment." Fitz rose to his feet, and followed his mother and siblings into the kitchen.

"They were," Mariana said. "But Lord Merinos has returned early." She began removing food from her icebox; yesterdays leftovers, the midday snacks, and today's cake in it's pretty, printed box.

"Alone?" Serendipity asked, moving to help her hoist the sweets.

Mariana looked at her daughter. Serendipity was a very shrewd girl, and Mariana had not spoken infrequently of the closeness the Lord Angels with each other. "As far as I can tell."

"Nobody should be alone during the Feasts," Mateus said thoughtfully, though the sentiment was muffled by the cookie he'd stolen and shoved into his cheeks.

Mariana ruffled his hair again. "Indeed, go get your cloak now. It can be cold on the decks."

Nobody asked them where they were off to- it wasn't unusual for the serfs to be out visiting relatives or friends, and when they exited the lifts onto the astartes floors, there was no one who thought to ask. There was an odd astartes, Mariana noticed, who glanced over at the lot of them, but she thought it was perhaps because of Mateus' red cloak- they likely mistook him for an acolyte. Still, they were not acknowledged otherwise, and quickly came to Merinos' door.

Mateus had been allowed on astartes decks before, but the other two had not been since they were very young, and so Serendipity and Fitz stared, wondering, at the soaring ceilings with their many meter-tall banners in the pale blue and red that were the chapter colors. They peered down the huge gap between decks, where one could see the barrack levels continue down and down, farther than the eye could see, and blinked up at the towering doorframes that led to each room. Everything on The Stultitia was big; it was a flagship of an Astartes Chapter, but there was always something different about being in the spaces designed for transhuman use.

Mariana did not mind her children falling behind as she walked with purpose down her hall, because it gave her a little time to slide the door open a crack, and see if her littlest Angel was in his room.

Lord Merinos was already looking for her, and as she met his gaze she saw his shoulders drop and his scarred face open in surprise. "Miss Mariana!" he sat up straighter on his bed. "I thought that might be you. But," his expression fell a little, "I thought you had off?"

Mariana tsked her teeth. "I did! But someone returned early, and I had to make your bed," she scolded. It was not a very harsh scolding, because the moment he spoke there was a warmth in her chest that made it quite difficult to pretend to be upset.

Merinos ducked his head. He was dressed in a loose chiton that did not cover the bandages encasing his left shoulder and the bolted metal brace on his right ankle. There were fading bruises and healing cuts in the meat of his soft cheeks, red and angry. "I see," he said. "Sorry to cause you trouble." He tried to rub the back of his neck with his injured arm and winced at the motion. "You're meant to be with your family now, right?"

Mariana smiled, touched that he remembered. "I am," she said gently. "We thought you should be too."

He inhaled a little sharply, and then the edges of his eyes went soft and round as his smile bloomed.

Later, when the cake had been eaten and card games had been played, and several other astartes had wandered over to see what the racket was about, and Mateus was snoring slightly, tangled in Merinos' blanket and Fitz's bottles of cider had been shared, and everyone was pleasantly full and content to lay about and doze, Merinos, sitting on the floor with his cheek resting on the side of his bed, thanked her.

"I'm glad I get to protect humanity," he said, "if it is this. They are very lucky," he inclined his head to Serendipity and Fitz, similarly sprawled atop Merinos' scattered pillows, "to be human, and to have one to care for them as you do."

Mariana, sitting on the overlarge chair beside him, reached over and brushed the tuft of hair laying over his forehead. "You are human too," she reminded him gently, "and there is nothing to say you can not be cared for the same."