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I was thinking about the whole "fandom moves on to something else" thing and it made me think about my annual picnic. Every year, I have a big picnic in early November and invite a bunch of people. I rent out a pavilion at a local lake, have people bring food that I grill for them if they want, have some games for the kids in the group, and just generally hang out.
Now, the way this goes is that I have everyone show up around 4:30pm. People show up, it's a big crowd, it's pretty warm out because the sun is still up and the mingling is great. People eat, share food, the kids run around in the trees and check out the lake, and we all just generally enjoy ourselves and catch up. Then the sun starts to go down.
People start getting under the pavilion, it starts getting a little chilly, and maybe those with really young kids start to pack up and say good-bye. This is usually when I light up the fire in the pavilion's fireplace and people will begin gathering around there. I let the grill burn down and sit down with everyone as everything gets a bit more mellow. Maybe we make s'mores or have cookies or something but this is usually were you start having more people say their good-byes and head out. That's how it goes for the next couple of hours, little dribbles of people winding up and heading on home until it's 9:30 at night and there's just a few people left in the pavilion in the woods sitting around a little fireplace quietly talking.
You know what? That's the best time at these things. Some years we'll be out there until almost midnight, just chatting quietly and staring into the coals. You learn things about people then, you hear interesting things, and you just feel closer.
So what does this have to do with fandom and moving on? Well, I see it like this. The show is still on, that's the early part of the day. Plenty of people around, lots of activity where art gets made, headcanons and meta fly fast and furious, and tons of fic gets written. Then the show ends, people are still creating but a few peel away, they have other things they have to do or just aren't interested in sticking around. Slowly but surely it goes until it's just a few people left.
That's when the interesting things really start coming out. You still have the other stuff but you start to get off the wall headcanons and wild meta, you get odd art, you get fic the person finally decided to write, and it's good. And hey, every once in a while, someone shows up late and you grab some food out of the cooler for them and warm up a burger for them over the coals while others grab a chair for them and you get them up to speed on the conversation and maybe show them some pictures from earlier in the night and they get to have some of that glow from earlier even if they missed the original.
That's fandom to me. As long as a person is still sitting around that fireplace late into the night, ready to chat, the fandom is never dead.
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Fulgrim complained from the moment he put the keys in the ignition.
“This was not my task,” he said for the fourth time, one hand on the wheel and the other lifting in offense. “This was Sanguinius’s task. He asked me with no warning. No warning. He said, ‘Fulgrim, dear, could you please take Konrad to his follow-up, I’ve been pulled into a meeting.’ As if I have no life. As if I sit around waiting to ferry tragic little boys to neurology.”
Konrad sat in the passenger seat with his knees drawn up enough to keep his shoes from touching the floor mat. He was seven years old and small for it. His dark coat made him look smaller. He held Sevatar, his stuffed mouse, by one worn ear and rubbed the velvet body with his thumb until the fur lay flat.
He did not answer.
Fulgrim glanced at him. “Do you have anything to say in defense of your favorite brother?”
Konrad looked out the window. “You are not my favorite.”
“I know,” Fulgrim said. “That was the joke.”
Konrad pressed the mouse to his chest. “There will be red lights ahead.”
Fulgrim sighed. “There are always red lights ahead. This is the city. It is built entirely out of bad timing and poor civic planning.”
Konrad said nothing after that. He only watched the road with the distant, tired look that always made strangers stare too long. Fulgrim had learned not to snap at them for it in front of Konrad. He saved it for afterward.
The first red light appeared three blocks later. Then a second. Then a construction crew with little blinking barriers and a police car stopped sideways across one lane while an ambulance waited to turn.
Fulgrim clicked his tongue. “Fine. Very impressive. A triumph. You have once again bested traffic.”
Konrad tucked Sevatar under his chin. “It was louder in the vision.”
Fulgrim’s mouth thinned. “Do not call it that in public.”
Konrad turned to look at him at last. His face was pale and serious. “But it was.”
Fulgrim looked back at the road. “I know what it was.”
That was the thing. They all knew.
Not all at once. Not all from the beginning. At first it had been bad dreams, or odd guesses, or Konrad saying not to use a certain staircase because someone would fall. Then Ferrus had slipped on those exact stairs an hour later and caught himself only because he had already been holding the rail. Then there had been the lost dog two streets over, and Konrad saying it was in the drainage ditch behind the pharmacy, and it had been. Then the kitchen fire. Then the seizure in the supermarket before it happened. Then too many things to dismiss and too many nights with Konrad awake and shaking and describing things in a flat, frightened voice.
They all knew now.
They had rules.
No making him perform.
No asking him about the future for fun.
No treating him like a broken machine.
No pretending it was nothing.
Sanguinius had made the rules and written them on the whiteboard in the kitchen. Vulkan added a fifth in bigger letters: He is seven.
Fulgrim had rolled his eyes at the time, but he obeyed all five.
At the hospital drop-off lane, he swung the car into a legal space with annoyance. “Come along,” he said. “Let us be medically confirmed as functional and then leave.”
Konrad unbuckled himself carefully. He always did things carefully, even before the appointment had started. Fulgrim got out and came around the car before Konrad had touched the handle. That was habit too. So was the hand at the back of Konrad’s neck as they crossed the lane to the entrance.
The children’s hospital smelled like sanitizer, crayons and old coffee. It was bright in the lobby in a way Konrad hated. Too much white. Too much polished floor. Too many cartoon animals smiling from wall decals.
Fulgrim checked them in with the front desk while Konrad stood so close to his side that the hem of Fulgrim’s coat brushed his face. The receptionist smiled too brightly at Konrad and asked, “And how are we today?”
Konrad looked at her name tag.
“Ms. Belle,” he said, “you're going to scratch your car and cry in the parking lot after work.”
The smile vanished.
Fulgrim closed his eyes. “He means,” he said smoothly, “that we are all holding up under modern conditions.”
Ms. Belle blinked. “I... yes. Of course.”
Konrad leaned against Fulgrim’s arm.
Fulgrim took the clipboard, signed what needed signing and guided Konrad away before the woman could ask another question. “You cannot simply say those things to people.”
“She asked.”
“That is not what she meant.”
“She should ask only true questions.”
Fulgrim looked down at him. “You make it very hard to win arguments with you.”
Konrad hugged Sevatar tighter. “I do not try. It happens on its own.”
They sat in the waiting area under a mural of a forest full of wide-eyed rabbits. Konrad stared at the rabbits with open dislike. Fulgrim crossed one elegant leg over the other and checked his phone. Messages from Sanguinius continued to arrive in a stream of apology.
Is he all right?
Did he eat?
Tell him I left the notebook by his bed.
I owe you.
I really do owe you.
Fulgrim typed back: You owe me several lives and possibly a vehicle.
“What did Sanguinius say?” Konrad asked.
“That he is eternally grateful and insufferably busy.”
Konrad nodded, as if this confirmed something already settled.
A nurse called his name. “Konrad Curze?”
Konrad stood at once. Sevatar went under his arm. Fulgrim rose after him and followed them through the double doors.
The examination itself was ordinary by the standards of their household. Height, weight, blood pressure, questions about medication, sleep, appetite, headaches, seizures. The neurologist was kind and efficient. She had met Konrad several times before and had learned not to fill silence just because a child was quiet.
“Any episodes since the last visit?” she asked.
“Two,” Fulgrim said.
“One and a half,” Konrad corrected.
The doctor paused. “One and a half?”
“The first one was real. The second was trying to be one but stopped.”
Fulgrim leaned back in the chair. “You see what I manage.”
The doctor smiled slightly. “I do.”
She turned back to Konrad. “Did anything feel different before the real one happened?”
Konrad nodded.
“What did it feel like?”
He picked at a seam on Sevatar’s side. Fulgrim watched his hands and gently moved them away from the thread before he could worry it loose.
“It felt,” Konrad said slowly, “like the room was wrong first. Like something had already happened and the room knew it but I did not.”
The doctor wrote that down. “And after?”
“Very tired. Sore mouth. Fulgrim was upset.”
Fulgrim made a sound. “I was not upset. I was correctly alarmed.”
Konrad looked at him. “Your eyes were wet.”
The doctor lowered her pen and looked politely away. Fulgrim cleared his throat.
“Yes,” he said. “Well. Children should not convulse in kitchens. I hold that as a principle.”
The check-up ended with no dramatic changes. Medication would stay the same. More sleep. Stress should be reduced where possible. They were given a printout Fulgrim did not want and a follow-up date he immediately forwarded to the family calendar so this exact situation would never happen again.
On the way out, Konrad was given a sticker from a bowl at the nurse’s desk. He chose a black star.
“Of course you did,” Fulgrim said.
“It is better than the smiling sun.”
“Most things are.”
They stopped in the pharmacy section to pick up a refill. Konrad stood with his shoulder pressed to Fulgrim’s hip while Fulgrim signed. An old woman nearby smiled at the stuffed mouse and told Konrad, “That’s a sweet little friend.”
Konrad looked down at Sevatar. “He bites.”
The woman laughed, thinking it a joke.
Fulgrim ushered him out before he could clarify.
By the time they got back to the car, the afternoon had gone gray. Fulgrim settled Konrad in, checked the seat belt himself, and started the engine.
The first part of the drive home was quiet.
Konrad watched houses and shop fronts pass in a blur. Fulgrim drove with his shoulders still high from hospital air and hospital forms and the memory of pale little hands jerking in kitchen light two months ago. He disliked those memories. He disliked many things, but those most of all.
Konrad spoke when they were halfway through an intersection.
“There is a banana car.”
Fulgrim did not look away from the road. “A what.”
“A banana car.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“That is not a category.”
“It is yellow.”
“So a yellow car.”
Konrad’s fingers tightened around Sevatar. “No. It is long.”
Fulgrim frowned. “That narrows it down to every taxi, van, and municipal disaster in the district.”
“It is our father.”
Fulgrim’s hands locked on the wheel.
For one second he thought he had heard wrong. He looked sharply at Konrad, who had gone still in the way he did when something was about to happen and he hated it already.
Then Fulgrim looked ahead.
A bright yellow bus turned into view from the opposite lane, polished enough to throw back the weak daylight. Not a school bus, but one of the private shuttle coaches that did routes between the airport and the business district. It was absurdly yellow. Banana yellow, if one insisted on childish terms.
And behind the wheel—
Fulgrim swore and jerked the car hard into the next lane.
The tires shrieked. The car rocked so violently Konrad’s shoulder hit the door. A horn blared somewhere to the left. Fulgrim corrected, overcorrected, then seized the wheel with both hands and dragged them back into line. His heart hit so hard against his ribs that his breath turned thin.
The yellow bus swept past.
For a single sick second Fulgrim saw the driver’s face.
Their father. Older. Leaner. One hand on the wheel. Looking straight ahead as if none of them existed.
Beside him, Konrad had curled around Sevatar so tightly that the mouse’s nose was bent flat.
Fulgrim forced air into his lungs. “Konrad.”
No answer.
“Konrad.”
“I am here.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No.”
Fulgrim checked the mirror, changed lanes properly this time and pulled into the nearest side street. He parked badly and turned the hazards on. Then he put both hands on the steering wheel and lowered his head for two long seconds.
When he raised it again, he looked directly at Konrad.
“Did you know it was him?”
Konrad nodded.
“Why did you not say ‘our father is driving a yellow bus directly into my day’ instead of ‘banana car’?”
Konrad’s face stayed solemn. “I thought you would still see it.”
Fulgrim stared at him. Then, against reason and temperament, he laughed once. It came out frayed.
“That,” he said, “is not the point.”
Konrad blinked at him. His lower lip had gone white where he had been pressing it in.
Fulgrim’s anger dropped at once.
“Oh, no, don’t do that,” he said softly. “Do not think I am angry with you.”
Konrad looked at the dashboard. “You swerved.”
“Yes, because I saw a man I never wish to see again and responded with excellent instincts and some artistry.”
“The car almost tipped.”
“It did not.”
“It thought about it.”
Fulgrim let out a breath that was almost another laugh. He reached over and fixed Sevatar’s squashed nose with two careful fingers. Then he touched the back of Konrad’s head.
“You warned me,” he said. “Twice. I should have listened better.”
Konrad turned his face slightly into the touch before he could stop himself. “It was loud in my head.”
“I know.”
“He looked the same.”
Fulgrim’s expression hardened. “Yes.”
“Does he know where we live?”
“No.”
Konrad did not look convinced.
Fulgrim understood why. Children remembered danger in clear pieces. Doors. Voices. Tires on gravel. A father leaving. A father not returning. A father becoming the sort of absence that still felt present.
Fulgrim unbuckled, leaned over the console, and kissed the side of Konrad’s hair. He would deny doing it if any of the others asked.
“He does not know anything worth having,” Fulgrim said. “And if he ever tries to know it, he will have to get through all of us first. Including Dorn, who is basically a wall with opinions.”
Konrad looked at him at last. “And Sanguinius.”
“Yes,” Fulgrim said dryly. “The wall and the swan. Everyone.”
“And you.”
Fulgrim sat back, one hand still resting on Konrad’s shoulder. “Especially me.”
Konrad was quiet for a few seconds. Then he said, “I do not like when you are frightened.”
The words were plain. They landed all the same.
Fulgrim smoothed the collar of Konrad’s coat where it had twisted. “I do not like when you are frightened either. Yet here we are, endlessly inconvenienced by love.”
Konrad considered that. “That sounds true.”
“It is true.”
After a moment, Konrad held out Sevatar to him.
Fulgrim looked down. “What is this.”
“You may hold him if you need moral support.”
Fulgrim took the stuffed mouse with solemn care. “I am honored.”
“You should be.”
He held Sevatar through the rest of the drive, balanced one-handed against the gear shift whenever he needed to change. Konrad watched this with silent approval.
When they got home, Ferrus was already in the kitchen, sleeves rolled, taking something apart that probably still needed to exist. He looked up at the sound of the door.
“You’re late.”
Fulgrim came in like a storm cloud in expensive boots. “I have had a day.”
Ferrus took one look at his face and set the screwdriver down. “What happened.”
Konrad slipped off his shoes in the entryway and picked Sevatar back up from where Fulgrim handed him over.
Fulgrim threw his keys onto the counter. “We saw him.”
Ferrus went still. “Who.”
Fulgrim stared at him.
Ferrus’s jaw tightened. “Right. Him.”
“In a yellow bus,” Fulgrim said. “Driving like some grim joke made flesh.”
Ferrus looked toward Konrad at once, but Konrad was already moving past the kitchen, small and quick and silent in the way he became when adults started talking in voices that were too controlled.
“Konrad,” Ferrus called.
Konrad paused by the stairs.
“Are you okay?”
Konrad nodded once. “Yes.”
Fulgrim, still shaking with anger, said to Ferrus, “He warned me. He said ‘banana car’ and I, for some reason, did not interpret this as paternal horror.”
Ferrus pinched the bridge of his nose. “You swerved.”
“Yes, thank you, there was swerving.”
“Did he see you?”
“I do not know. I do not care. If he comes near this house, I’ll—”
“Not in front of him,” Ferrus said quietly.
Fulgrim’s mouth snapped shut.
On the stairs, Konrad did not turn around. “I’m going to my room.”
Ferrus’s voice gentled. “All right.”
Konrad went upstairs without another word.
His room was at the back of the house where the light was weakest in the late afternoon. He liked that. The curtains were thick. The lamp by his bed had a low amber bulb. There were boxes of thread stacked beside the dresser, folded squares of fabric on a chair, a pincushion shaped like a tomato, sewing scissors locked in the top drawer because adults were cowards and pieces of half-finished projects spread with exact care across the desk.
He closed the door softly behind him.
The house still carried voices through the vents and floorboards. Fulgrim downstairs, bright with anger. Ferrus lower and steadier. Pots on the stove. Pipes ticking. The world went on.
Konrad took off his coat and dropped it over the chair. He did not put it properly on the hanger. He was not in the mood.
Usually sewing helped. The order of it. Needle in, needle out. Thread pulled through. In and out and in and out. The way cloth behaved if treated correctly. Today he looked at the waiting fabric and felt nothing.
So he got down on his hands and knees and crawled under the bed.
Dust lived there in soft gray drifts despite all efforts. Konrad reached past a flat shoebox, a missing slipper and the plastic coffin-shaped pencil case Corvus had given him as a joke, and pulled out the diary Sanguinius had hidden there with him three weeks earlier.
It was black, with no lock. Sanguinius had said locks made some children more anxious because then the thoughts felt important in the wrong way. “This is only a place to put things,” he had told Konrad, sitting cross-legged on the bedroom rug while helping him choose a notebook. “When your head is too full, the page can hold some of it for you. Then you do not have to hold all of it alone.”
Konrad had asked, “Will the page mind?”
Sanguinius had smiled and kissed his temple. “No. That is the page’s whole purpose.”
Konrad slid back out from under the bed and sat against the side of it with the diary in his lap. Sevatar rested by his left knee. He opened to the last page he had written on. His handwriting was neat when he forced it and jagged when he did not. Today it wanted to be jagged.
He uncapped the pen.
For a while he only listened.
Downstairs, Fulgrim was still speaking.
“I nearly rolled the car.”
“You didn’t.”
“I nearly did.”
“You got them home.”
“I hate that man.”
A pause.
Ferrus said, quieter, “I know.”
Konrad lowered his head over the diary and began to write.
Today Fulgrim took me to the hospital because Sanguinius had work and said sorry many times on the phone. Fulgrim complained in the car for most of the drive. This was normal and not a problem. He also drove acceptably.
He stopped and frowned at the page. Then he added:
He was careful with me when we crossed the road. He likes to pretend he is not soft but this is not true.
The pen scratched on.
The hospital was too bright. The rabbits on the wall looked dishonest. Ms. Belle at the desk cried because of her car, but I was not supposed to say that. The doctor asked sensible questions. I told the truth. Fulgrim almost cried again when she asked about the kitchen seizure. He says he was alarmed. This is technically true.
He paused and listened to the house again.
The voices downstairs had gone lower. Cups clinked. A cabinet shut. Ferrus was probably making tea because that was what he did when emotions became too large for the room.
Konrad wrote:
On the way home I saw the banana car. I warned Fulgrim before and he did not understand because adults need things said in very dull ways. The banana car was a bus and our father was driving it. He looked the same and older at once. I do not know how that works but it is real.
The pen pressed harder.
Fulgrim swerved and the car thought about falling over. I was not hurt. Fulgrim was frightened. I did not like that. He said our father would have to get through all of them first if he tried to come near us. This is also technically true. Ferrus would break his hands. Vulkan would open the door and smile in the very bad way. Sanguinius would say something kind and terrible. Corvus would already be behind him. I do not know what Lion would do because nobody ever does, including Lion.
His mouth twitched. That almost counted as a joke.
He shifted against the bed frame and kept writing.
Fulgrim held Sevatar for moral support. He did it correctly. Sevatar did not mind.
The next line came more slowly.
I was afraid when I saw him. Not because I thought he would follow us home right then. Because I remembered things I do not want. The smell of his coat when it rained. The sound of the front door. The way everyone got quieter after. I do not like remembering with my whole body.
His hand had begun to shake. He put the pen down for a moment, pressed both palms flat against the paper, and breathed the way Sanguinius taught him. In for four. Hold. Out for six. Again.
When he picked the pen back up, the shaking was smaller.
But we came home. This is important. Sometimes my head shows me things and it feels like they are happening forever, but they are not. The hospital ended. The road ended. The bus passed us and kept going. We came home.
He looked toward the window. The room was dimmer now, almost the right kind of dark.
Downstairs, footsteps crossed the hall. Then came the familiar pattern on the stairs. Not heavy like Ferrus. Not soft like Sanguinius. Fulgrim, still in shoes because rules about indoor dirt became flexible during emotional distress.
Konrad bent over the diary and wrote quickly.
I think Fulgrim was more frightened for me than for himself. That is irritating because I do not want him hurt. It is also nice. I do not know if both can happen at the same time. Probably yes.
A gentle knock came at the door.
Konrad did not answer at once.
The knob turned anyway, slowly enough to allow refusal. Fulgrim opened the door a few inches and peered in. “May I enter this cave of gothic industry.”
Konrad considered, then said, “Yes.”
Fulgrim came in carrying a mug that steamed faintly.
“I brought hot chocolate,” he said. “Ferrus made it, which means it is practical and sincere. I added the small marshmallows, which means it is civilized.”
Konrad closed the diary at once and slid it under his thigh.
Fulgrim noticed. He noticed everything. But he only set the mug carefully on the floor beside Konrad and lowered himself to sit across from him with more grace than anyone had a right to on hardwood.
“Your brother,” he said, “would like to know whether you are hiding because you are upset or because you prefer this location.”
“Both.”
“Yes. Fair.”
They sat in silence for a moment. Fulgrim looked around at the boxes of thread and fabric pieces.
“No sewing?”
“No.”
“Good. I would hate to think a traumatic reunion with a bus-driving father led directly to quilting.”
Konrad touched the edge of the mug. “I wrote instead.”
Fulgrim nodded. “Sanguinius said that might help.”
“It does.”
“I am glad.”
Konrad looked at him. “You are still upset.”
Fulgrim leaned his head back against the bed frame and stared at the ceiling. “I am furious. But the dramatic part has passed. Ferrus made tea and spoke to me as though I were the unreasonable one, which I resent but often need.”
“He is good at that.”
“He is unbearable at that.”
Konrad wrapped both hands around the mug. “I'm sorry you saw him.”
Fulgrim’s gaze dropped at once from the ceiling to Konrad’s face.
“Oh, no,” he said softly. “No. You do not apologize for that. Not ever.”
Konrad looked down at the marshmallows beginning to melt. “I should have said it better.”
“You warned me perfectly well. I am the fool who dismissed ‘banana car’ as nonsense when in fact it was precise prophecy.”
“It was a bus.”
“Still shaped like a banana if one is distressed enough.”
Konrad huffed a small breath through his nose. Another almost-joke.
Fulgrim smiled when he heard it. Then he reached forward and brushed a thumb under one of Konrad’s eyes. Konrad had not realized they were wet until then.
“There you are,” Fulgrim murmured. “I knew you were holding too much.”
Konrad sat very still. “I did not want to make it worse.”
“My darling, your job is not to make adults comfortable.”
Konrad blinked.
Fulgrim held out his arms a little, not quite an order, not quite a question.
Konrad put the mug down and crawled across the short space between them without another word.
Fulgrim gathered him in at once, one hand on the back of his head, the other around his shoulders. Konrad fit there too easily. He was all elbows and cold fingers and hidden tension. Fulgrim could feel each careful breath.
“It was ugly,” Fulgrim said into his hair. “I know. But it is over.”
“For today,” Konrad said.
“For today,” Fulgrim agreed. “And when tomorrow comes, there will still be all of us.”
Konrad pressed his face into Fulgrim’s shirt. “Even Lion?”
“Especially Lion. He would be terrible in a useful way.”
After a moment, Konrad said, muffled, “I wrote that Corvus would already be behind him.”
Fulgrim made a startled sound of laughter. “Excellent. See, this is why the diary is good. It preserves your best insights.”
Konrad pulled back just enough to study his face. “You are not angry that I went away.”
“Of course not. You wanted your room.” Fulgrim smoothed his hair off his forehead. “But I am selfish enough to come after you once I’ve regained my composure.”
“You did not fully regain it.”
“No,” Fulgrim admitted. “But I improved.”
Konrad leaned into him again. Fulgrim held him and said nothing more for a while.
The room darkened another shade. Somewhere downstairs a door opened and shut. A floorboard creaked under Ferrus’s weight. The house settled around them with all its old sounds.
At last Konrad said, “Sanguinius left the notebook by my bed.”
“Yes. He texted me six times about it.”
“I found it.”
“And?”
Konrad hesitated. “I think the page does not mind.”
Fulgrim’s arms tightened a fraction. “No. I imagine the page is honored.”
Konrad nodded against him. Then, after a pause: “Will you stay until I finish my chocolate.”
“I suppose I must.”
“And maybe until Sanguinius comes home.”
Fulgrim made a show of thinking hard. “That is a long sentence of time.”
Konrad waited.
Fulgrim kissed the top of his head. “Yes. Obviously yes.”
Konrad closed his eyes. “Good.”
After a while he climbed back to his place against the bed, and Fulgrim remained seated across from him with his long legs stretched out and his back against the dresser. Konrad drank the chocolate in small careful sips. Fulgrim, finding himself without a task, began sorting a tin of buttons left open near the sewing basket into color families because idle hands offended him.
Konrad opened the diary again, glancing up once as if asking permission.
Fulgrim only lifted a shoulder. “Write whatever slanders you like. I know I am beautiful under scrutiny.”
Konrad bent over the page and added the last lines of the day.
Fulgrim came upstairs with hot chocolate and marshmallows. He said the page is honored, which is not how pages work, but I understand what he meant. He held me when I was too full of remembering. I think this is why Sanguinius said to write things down. Not only the bad parts. Also the true parts after.
He looked at Fulgrim, who was currently arranging pearl buttons by size with intense concentration.
Konrad wrote one more line.
The true part is that I came home, and my brothers were here.
Then he underlined it once, very carefully, and closed the diary.
Thank you again @ossmodula! I may be rocking up late with Starbucks, and it was either Ten's backstory or the one AU that hit the prompts of Creature, Stowaway, and Witness better... but I wanted to talk about the backstory! So have some Fun with that :)
So! Here's my Raven Guard Tenaebris Sixx. Warnings for general Space Marine interactions, glossed over a lot of things so it should be fine?
It means the read more I promise
---XIX---
Tenaebris Sixx knew he had an older brother in the abstract sense. His father loved him dearly, but part of him always felt... compared to this brother he never met.
Gone to join the Ravens, not gone from the hab.
He never felt haunted by the boy he'd never met, the one whose steps he found himself shadowing.
Eitticus had been gone far past what Ten would have known or remembered seeing him. If their father had liked speaking of him more, Ten would ask- but for all the pride there was a sorrow, too.
He tried racking his mind instead, wondering if he'd seen the brother his father said he shared the same eyes of, any memories in line with the brief scoring of the smallest lines against a shutter track. Tiny fingers marking heights which he compared himself to.
Eit was this tall, Eit was this tall, Eit was this tall.
And sometimes he was shorter. Sometimes he was taller. Always his father loved him, and always he wondered if he would see his brother again.
And then it was the time for recruits, and Ten would try where Eit had before.
And he wondered, as he pushed and pushed and pushed as his brother had to have before- did these gazes know him? The brother whose steps he found himself shadowing even now?
And even as he knew he would not see his father again, and knew he would hurt, and knew it was the path he could not avoid.
Ten followed Eit.
And he held onto something, he had to. To be a Space Marine would push anyone to the brink, and he knew that he needed an anchor. Why did he fight, why did he suffer, why did he keep going.
And was it a foolish reason? To follow the steps through the path you knew not where it ended, only that you need get there and it was possible?
Perhaps.
But again and more that path was not as clear- the surgeries, the sickness, the painful growth, the laying there wasting hours designated to sleep because you're too busy feeling yourself change fundamentally.
But Ten followed Eit.
And it kept him marching, following orders he knew not the source and only that he must or he must die. That those were the paths available- help the helpless or get out of the way of those who would.
And Ten would. Ten followed Eit, but this path was one he would walk even if his brother hadn't.
He knew his facts- he was tall, but not the tallest. He was strong, but far from the strongest. He was fast, but far from the fastest. He was quick with a shot and good with a blade, but not the swiftest draw or the best bladework.
He was a good Space Marine.
But not a great one.
And it galled him- he had potential, he could be more, but he knew not how or when.
Which was what truly shocked him, in the end.
Joining the 10th company, as ever still a neophyte with surgeries planned and armor light, he had expected... combat. Worse than the simulations and training could cover. He expected the silence between missions to be tense, fragile, uncertain.
He hadn't expected a sergeant among the scouts, a battle brother just into his own plate- the one of the 10th wielding Nihilus to watch him so carefully. Not when testing the marksmanship to see if the battle-brother truly deserved to continue wielding it, or pass along its legacy.
And he certainly hadn't expected the brother to stop by him afterwards, a friendly crinkle to his eyes, "it's a good thing you hadn't made sergeant yet, little brother," he'd offered, "I'm not yet ready to part with this rifle."
Ten had blinked, mildly bewildered, "I am not that sharp of a marksman, brother, to begin to compete for that honor."
"No," the question hung as the wielder eyed him, "we'll have to fix that," and he held out a gauntleted hand, "brother sergeant Eitticus Sixx."
Ten knew his expression shifted, and the grin on Eit's face was warm as he clasped his brother's hand, "Tenaebris Sixx, battle brother, I- I've followed you," and at the confused look and tilt of Eit's head he continued, "all this way, Eit- Etticus. All this time. I've followed."
Eit's face was frozen for a moment before a calm and fond smile settled, "well, then let me be worthy of it, Tenaebris."
Eit is everything a Raven Guard should be. He strides easily across the three paths, and teaches Ten just as easily as his squad does.
Ten is formally assigned not that long after, and he knows that this is an opportunity he can ill afford to shirk.
So he works hard, and seeks time and information from the squad.
He learns better skills and further utility for his knife. He learns to bring humor to deescalate situations. He learns how to focus and observe without giving yourself away. He learned he has steady hands and can handle their equally explosive demolitionist. He learns strategy and unconventional entry and exit points common in standard imperial architecture, and what had been recorded in common xenos structures.
And if his quick learning helped him and his brother in turn? He was happy.
Decades of this dance, learning and growing and developing as he watched Eit become more and more the exemplar Raven Guard.
It was a matter of time before he made Lieutenant, and Ten was equally ecstatic for Eit to cement this opportunity, to better help and provide the hope he seemed a veritable beacon for.
And it would all crumble around Ten with a simple T'au assignment.
---XIX---
The brief was routine, one could even go so far as to call it simple enough.
The usual planning - infiltration, navigation, decimation, wait for the cascade of failures to eliminate its own problem.
"Any questions?"
"Plenty," Alon chimed in, Alvar elbowing him at Eit's cursory glance.
"Relevant to the mission, brother Sotaq?"
"No further questions at this time," the demolitionist nodded with a dry expression.
"Then the briefing is concluded," Eit announced, and Ten knew the cycle of banter would continue, just not sure how.
Clearly Eit was also curious, leaning a shoulder against the metal grating as he looked at the man, "alright Alon, hit us with it now before we have to hear it through the vox."
"I'm just saying," Alon raised his hands in mock surrender, "they're barely over a meter tall. We could kick them and be done with it."
"They've managed to take the Imperial world, brother Sotaq," Morne's dour tone ground out from behind his helm, "their technology is not to be underestimated."
Alon shrugged, "perhaps," he offered as a platitude before he kept talking, "but T'au? We've done T'au. Outside of their mechs and armors? So tiny."
"And they all blow up the same," Alvar and Aplo said in unison, the tone of a frequently repeated phrase dry between them.
Still, Alon gestured to them, "see? They get it."
Ten shot the other two members of 'A Team' a glance, the heavy weapons operator and the all-rounder meeting gazes with an exaggerated weariness.
Morne tilted his head, nodding to some call he'd likely been voxxed specifically as a techmarine and he stood, nodding to Eit before striding off.
Khor melted from the shadows as the second slipped out, turning to Eit, "anything else we should know, Sergeant?"
"Not at all, brother Hef," Eit confirmed, "not unless you have anything to share."
Khor nodded at that, striding away before pausing at the door, "Sixx," he called over his shoulder, both Ten and Eit turning to him at the name.
A sly grin cut across his face, "the tall one," and his words sent a ripple of chuckles through the squad, even as Eit sighed and shook his head.
"Betrayed by my own kindred," he sighed, "for all I have done, this is how he repays me."
"Come off it, Eit," Aplo calls, "Ten probably was always taller, right kid?"
Ten thought to the wall, and how their growth patterns had been only so different growing up, and simply offered an exaggerated shrug, the others laughing again even as the youngest of the squad gave his attention back to the Shadow.
Khor met his gaze, "meet me in the training cages, claw practice."
Ten nodded sharply and eagerly, he'd been doing well in progressing with the claws and his proficiency only ever grew whenever he had the time to learn from his squadmate.
Khor Hef was one of the best with the claws on their particular battle barge- the title for best was hotly contested, and an exhibition bout was scheduled for after the planet's liberation.
Still, Ten was an eager student when the squad shared their knowledge with him and in this he was no different.
Eit looked over the stragglers before waving at the lot, "A Team I'll check back with you shortly. A minute with Ten, if you don't mind?"
Alvar, Aplo, and Alon all nodded, the men filing out after where the Shadow had disappeared.
Eit looked his brother over, "how are you feeling? Any concerns?"
Ten shook his head, "no, not any that I can prevent. I know the briefing, I know the enemy, I know how I fit with A Team," he offered easily before eyeing how his brother's expression had briefly changed, "do you?"
Eit shook his hand and waved a hand, "no, I don't have concerns- but you're not with A Team this time."
Ten blinked, rocking his weight for a moment as if the physical motion would make it make more sense, "I- why not? Am I being left behind?"
Again Eit shook his head, "not that, Khor will need to range ahead from us and scout for a secondary objective. You'll be with me and Morne," and he eyed his little brother's shock, "do I need to worry about you keeping up?"
"I think you need to worry more about Alon," Ten deflected easily though he met his brother's gaze with a decisive nod, "I won't slow you two down."
Eit offered a smile, clapping a hand to Ten's pauldron before pressing his forehead to Ten's, "I know you won't," and he let the press linger before gesturing for the both of them to leave, "but it's best not to keep Khor waiting, and I need to make sure Morne won't get so lost in his task he forgets about us."
Ten chuckled with his brother, and it was easy to fall into routine- Khor drilling all the harder knowing that Ten would have to pick up the slack he usually handles.
He knew he would be ready for whatever the mission threw at them, just as his battle brothers were.
---XIX---
It started the same as any other mission in T'au space.
Stealth around the T'au craft, land on the planet, work on dismantling communication methods and send let the cascading failures of their systems do the work of making themselves incomprehensible.
The smaller suits were easier to work around and take down, but the larger suits were best avoided when possible. Stealth suits hadn't been reported, but that was in the name, so due caution was exercised.
The first tower was easy to get into and detonate- they weren't expected then.
The exfiltration, however, was a firefight as expected. No one would leave a communication tower going down unanswered, and their retreat was inhibited but not thwarted.
Logically, the next tower they should take down would be one of the ones along the way to their next major objective.
This is, of course, why A team and B team had split up early enough that by the time the forces had arrived at B team's location, A team would be across the Hive and taking down a tower completely outside the expected sphere of battle.
This is where the T'au communications falling apart would lead to their own undoing.
They reconvened much later, shaking the frantic pursuit of the T'au and making sure it remained lost.
After all, for all their bolt hole was carefully selected, it was technically just any other slum.
It was a human settlement- and one in an area with minimal T'au interference at that. One of many that fit that criteria around that particular hive.
Let the T'au stretch themselves thin- searching for ghosts and shadows and trying to bolster their towers and further exhaust their options. The Raven Guard would not be there, and it would only further their initiatives.
The problem was the resistance was... unsettled.
Not that they weren't grateful of the Space Marine's presence, but there was a shiftiness that had the Ravens wary.
For all that wariness was a warning sign, any number of causes could spook baselines. They tried to assuage it… but to no avail.
It started with standard requirements.
There was a command dome hovering above the hive, and in that dome the leaders of the T'au would congregate.
The strikes around the city would need to confuse and disorient, force the leadership to consolidate to better plan for how to tackle the rapidly escalating problem.
The optimal time, then, to strike and bring it down.
Sneaking onto the dome is a concerted effort with a small but trusted cadre of humans, a carefully orchestrated and scheduled plan that had very little margin for error.
The Ravens knew who they could choose for best results from their human allies, and prepared accordingly.
Two equal groups of Raven Guard and one wildcard made quick work with precisely placed charges in carefully plotted structural weak spots.
The greater marvel was that no earth caste T'au stumbled across the charges.
That, perhaps, should have been its own warning.
They're on their way to exfil when Khor breaks the vox silence, "sergeant," he warns, "there are no T'au here."
Ten almost falters at the revelation, but the charges are primed and on a timer- the team keeps moving, "we've seen," Eit begins to protest before Morne turned and looked at him with an expression hidden behind the blank helm.
Eit met his gaze and his expression became grim, "eyes peeled, confirm any T'au beyond drone activity."
There was a chorus of agreements across the line.
By the time they made it to their exfil point, all were acutely aware of the distinct lack of a living presence.
"This plan will fail," Morne griped as the PDF troop carrier slowly approached their dropping point.
"It will at least send a message," Eit pointed out as the squad dove to intercept the craft, "demoralizing if nothing else."
"It will force their leadership to take more drastic action," Khor mused before they all used their jump packs to halt their momentum enough to land on the craft, boots maglocking to the metal skin as they all moved to climb down to the opened hatch.
"We'll need to work harder to find their leaders if they've scattered to the fringes," Aplo pointed out as Alvar nodded, "but Eit isn't wrong."
There was some muttering as they closed the ramp behind them, contingencies forming as they wondered if they would instead need to bring the fight to the T'au fleet.
Morne and Khor met gazes, the former voxxing the pilot, "why do we ascend," less a question, more in the way of a demand.
"We've had orders, Lords," the pilot answered through tinny tones, "that the planetary sphere of battle needed your squad less than the atmospheric one."
Alvar cursed, helmet turning fruitlessly around the hold of the Defense Force Cab, "damn these ships and their lack of visibility."
Eit turned to Morne, "thoughts?"
The techmarine looked slowly, pausing before noting, "we were aware certain equipment was damaged. The terminals I would use to connect to the ship's machine spirit seem to be one such casualty."
Ten frowned behind his helmet, and Eit's expression mirrored it freely while his brows furrowed, "then let me see," he mused before sliding his helmet on, locking it into place as the click of a vox connection went off.
Silence held in the cabin, interspersed with two more spread out clicks from Ten before the Sergeant pulled his helmet off again.
He looked to his squad, "we have been betrayed, brothers," he stated solemnly and simply, "unless any one of you knows a vox officer that would not patch me through to the ship's captain. Otherwise," and here he locked his helmet back to his thigh with a disgusted look, "our vox signal is being rerouted, and we're headed into a trap."
Morne grunted, "we could blast a hole in the ship," his eye lenses carefully taking in the plating, "wouldn't be that hard, not with this."
Alon moved to speak, but Khor beat him to it, "that's all well and good," he mused, "but if they aim to bring us to the T'au flagship we may yet turn this mission into a success."
Eit nodded slowly, turning to Morne, "what can you do to cripple their fleet from within?"
Morne stared at his sergeant, "anything. Everything."
Eit looked from brother to brother, each nodding their head grimly in time.
They would not let this betrayal see them done this day.
---XIX---
The key to success in battle can boil down to one thing, maybe two if pressed and splitting hairs.
First, know your enemy.
Second, do not underestimate them.
After confirming this blasted craft had been modified to prevent anyone from the bay to gain access to the cockpit without first reintroducing themselves to the vacuum, they'd had to plan in such a way as to assume Morne couldn't coax the machine spirit to listen to his orders via limited wiring before they arrived.
The squad briefly discussed what could be facing them in the hangar bay when they arrive- suits, certainly, but how many could reasonably fit before their lines of fire risk punching through? Ground troops to fill in the gaps? Drones to track from above?
And contingency plans from there.
The best approaches considered, reconsidered, holes poked, flaws noted- everything down to debris of the supplies they held were considered.
Ten knew he wasn't the only one with the realization that there was a very real chance this might be their final duty.
None of them feared this, for Space Marines knew no fear. No, their duty was not yet complete, and the only regrets had were that the explosives planted on the dome weren't available.
"Least they could've done was spring this before we wasted perfectly good explosives," Alon grumbled as he continued raiding the cargo bay for impromptu ordinance, "inconsiderate."
"Not idiotic," Alvar grunted as he took stock of their consumables.
Alon waved a hand dismissively and shoved more miscellany in Ten's arms, "for all their greater good, they don't consider mine."
"Conflict of interest," Khor mused as he sharpened yet another blade, "and they picked their own self interest."
Alon sniffed in indignant offense, "selfish," he declared dramatically before he began siphoning the craft's prometheum tanks for improvised firebombs.
The squad did the best they could to prepare, and while Morne couldn't steal the ship without a true MIU interface, he was able to slow their approach and mask the dramatic difference in prometheum levels.
They stood together, the ramp before them slowly lowering as they held bolter's to their chests. As one they still moved, grenades flying to remove visibility- the split second view of the hangar bay all they needed to realize their preparations had been for naught.
The Raven Guard had no way of knowing they had not been the first Space Marine forces to answer the call, let alone that the forces of Chaos would have been opportunistic enough.
They could only marvel in that moment that the humans had so easily turned from the Emperor's Light to that of Chaos's taint.
What was to be a two-way conflict swiftly became a battle on multiple fronts. A war their relative scouting party were decidedly not equipped for.
All they could do was acknowledge this information, and use it to better formulate escapes.
To the squad Eit called "charge!" even as he signed for the Empty Chime.
As the smoke grenades detonated in the throng of cultists and traitorous Space Marines, gouts of smoke erupting through the air and impact exponentially increasing it.
There were shouts, swiping, lunges to where Chaos would meet their foes.
But they would not find it.
Up the frame of the hauler and to the struts beyond the Ravens climbed, swiftly hiding in the wispy traces of rising dissipation.
Unfortunately a human cultist on a gantry looked at just the right time, arms raised and mouth open-
While he may not be 10th company and no longer had the rights to Nihilus, Eit was no less a sharpshooter and the target went down in a headless heap, one crack of the bolter lost in the cacophony below.
They crouched along the framework around the lights, Eit cursing softly as the smog rolled out and settled heavy against the floor, "would've loved that to rise," he grumbled under his breath.
"The point of it is ground cover, Sergeant," Alon snipped subvocally before falling silent at the looks of reproach from the rest, "the plan?"
"We don't know how long they've been here," Eit subvocalized, "but if there's a cult presence-"
"The planet is lost," Khor sighed.
"Word Bearers. Zealots," Morne agreed in a tone noting he wished it was anything else, "we cannot save them from themselves."
"We keep moving," Eit catches the eyes of each member, "we split up, same teams. This ship was Imperial, we know its layout. Morne," he turned to the techmarine, who only shook his head once.
"Connecting to the machine spirit of the ship would expose our location and the risk of infecting the machine spirits of my armor too great," he warned before tilting his head, "but their reactor. I can destabilize that if we run them elsewhere."
Eit nodded, looking at A Team who nodded easily, "leave distraction to us," Aplo agreed for them.
Khor nodded at Eit's look, "I can place the charges in more sensitive locations."
Alon passed the detonator to Eit, "your call on when we blow it, Sergeant. We'll do our part," the traces of humor were wiped from him in this moment, the man as serious as the grave.
Eit took the detonator, and Ten offered the spare bandolier of ordinance back to the crafter.
Alon pushed it back to him, "you're with them, they might need a little extra help, " he offered this while passing his own bandolier to Khor.
They all knew what they needed to do, just as they all knew the odds of coming out on top of this was...
"We need to move," Eit ordered, "they'll notice the body soon and it won't be that hard to figure out where the bullet came from. Concerns?"
They all had concerns, but it would be foolish to list them- instead they all nodded and the squad split anew.
Ten only knows of that day from what he could see.
He knew Eit's team kept along the high path, making their way around in the shadows and occasionally planting charges as they made time to their goal.
The generatorium was minded by Heretechs, and Ten knew Morne took distinct pride in being able to take the lot of them down before they could sound the alarm.
But it was easy to use the body's credentials to rouse the machine spirit of the generator, and he steadily ramped it up.
It wouldn't go critical now, but by the time they needed to exfil it would be hitting critical with no adepts to be able to soothe it.
For good measure, while he was busy, Ten and Eit carefully rationed their explosives but scattered them around the generators in case that changed.
It's as Morne takes the time to weld a series of doors shut that the attempt at comms came in- "Serg...e fou...or. Kho...n on d...een...pea...or is dow...eck fif-"
The garbled line became flooded with junk code, the scree of it making Ten wince and Eit swear.
"Khor on deck fifteen," Morne noted, "data storage?"
Eit shook his head, "Khor wouldn't gather intel there. Exfil opportunities?"
"Life pods," Morne grunted, "no defenses, suboptimal."
"But viable," Ten pointed out, "especially if you could make the machine spirit think none had been launched."
Again Morne grunted, "possible. Suboptimal, subterfuge would only work if we created a debris field upon exit and hinges on no collisions."
"A distraction, then," Eit offered, "keep them wasting resources on life pods while we slip out elsewhere?"
"Optimal use of resources," Morne agreed after a moment.
"It didn't sound like there was any gunfire," Ten offered, "what's the plan, sergeant?"
Eit thought for a moment, "we need to see if they need help getting Khor out. We cannot abandon them without knowing more."
"Sentiment," Morne noted though he nodded in compliance to his sergeant's orders.
With the opposition already dead, it's much faster to get out of the generatorium than it was to get in.
As they made their way to the fifteenth floor Ten frowned, the air itself felt wrong, an uneasiness settling in his bones that he knew he wasn't the only one feeling.
"Sergeant! It's Khor," the voice is Alons, and he kneels by where Khor lay crumpled against one of the walls, "we've never seen the like, he's- I don't know," and the concern in his voice has Eit immediately.
The other two pressed on, but Ten lagged as they entered a hub between multiple halls.
At least, it was supposed to be.
Something was wrong, and he stepped closer to the wall to try to figure out what had his attention so-
The air coursed with a sickening greasy feel, and Eit froze in his approach, a snap moment of calculus and myriad decisions folding together to balance upon the knife's edge.
He pivots, charging for Ten and pushing him out of the room, detonator shoved at him as a series of runes inscribed on the floor of the chamber light up with a sickening glow.
The runes peel away a glamour of sorts, walls particularly etched in runes and sigils that made his vision swim and his eyes itch with pain. The smell of blood permeating the air is thick enough to taste through his breather grill, and as Ten falls back from the force of the blow he identified the xenos tang mixed in with the fluid.
That's what happened to all the T'au, he mused in muted acceptance. The greasy shimmer through the room fading to show saw hundreds of hanging bodies lining the upper corridors of the room- crucified, flensed, flayed, mangled, and maligned.
Everything from the highest T'au to their lowest but most reverent human slaves: chained and fodder.
Belief, hope, and trust- all systematically broken for a more potent sacrifice.
Ten scrambled to his feet, mindlessly scooping up the detonator, before wrenching his eyes down from the sight to stare into the circle.
Already Khor's body was writhing, the low groan becoming a feral shriek as ceramite split like wet paper, bone and sinew and flesh and talons and feathers pushing past the confines of his armor.
There was laughter from a gantry above, and from the gloom a horned abomination of what was once a space marine looked down upon them with smug satisfaction, "they doubted me," he crooned, "but you have to let birds land in a trap by themselves, you understand."
He was a child of Dark Gods for certain, and like as not he was some Apostle for the forces of Chaos.
But more importantly, he was keeping Ten's squad trapped.
He reached for his bolter, but he found himself aware in that moment that more and more scions of Chaos emerged from the rest of the eight halls that ringed the junction.
He was outclassed, outmatched, and there was nothing he could do in this moment to free his squad.
"I do think my genesire could use a nice flock of birds," he mused, tapping at the railing and watching the form of Khor writhe, "especially since there's been such a nasty one tapping at his windows. Don't you think?"
Eit doubled over like the rest, in that moment, and Ten watched with horror as black eyes became flooded with the color of blood, wiping away all traces of iris or sclera. He looked at his sibling as his face began warping, gritting out through what had to be agony, "run."
Ten ran.
They let him leave, they let him.
It galled him that they did, but they let him flee and flee he did.
He sprinted, memory of the halls and what should be the layout warped by the corrupting touch of Chaos and desecrated by unholy sigils and glyphs that made his eyes hurt and teeth itch should his gaze linger.
Safety, safety was relative and unlikely but planning, what plan, what could they- no, he even do?
Running aimlessly would do him no favors, and being on the ground meant any with intent could find him.
He looked for a relatively unblemished column, a rarity, but there was a chunk that seemed to have been broken in some altercation, and that would have to suffice for now.
He scrabbled upward, making his way along the beams and supports.
He fished in his belt pouch, pulling out the detonator he'd habitually shoved in there in his headlong flight.
His helmet would have Morne's timer, there... there was still time.
Even if the reactor was stabilized, which he did have doubts, the charges would still be enough.
They had to be.
So where- where does one hunker down?
Objectively there were plenty of places he could think of- when the blasts go, bulkheads would drop and make airlocked pockets in a vain attempt to keep the ship from cataclysmic damage, but just any hallway wouldn't be ideal.
The usual decks for the serfs would be perilous, if only for the amount of the scrawl he would be forced to see...
Did it matter if he was a safe distance, anyway?
He... he didn't dwell on that. He had to at least operate under the assumption that he should. Make it out.
He had a guess, and hope that it would at least work.
In some ways, the forces of Chaos were bound to the same laws as those of the Imperium, and gleefully did Ten come to the realization his hunch was correct.
In spite of it all, they hadn't yet converted the water tanks away from their intended purpose.
The lesser of the water tanks he checked was only the dregs, enough that he would be able to hide in the darkness if searched for, but not so much as to dominate the space with… whatever the liquid had become.
Which was perfect for what he needed.
He wedged the door shut and stuck, cursing the lack of torch that Morne had kept on him to truly and reliably make it airtight, but he backed away from it warily.
He didn't know how much time he had before he was found, but the timer was almost up.
He watched the glyphs count down in the corner of his vision, a peace overtaking him as he let himself fall over the rail of the gantry.
He pushed the button on the detonator.
For the few beats of his hearts that it took for him to plummet into the dark, the silent and stagnant air had no change.
And then the world around him erupted into noise- first the sound of his air-tight ceramite armor crashing into the wall, the muffled sounds of sirens wailing, and all that overtaken by the shuddering shriek of the engine going critical and exploding.
It didn't take much else for the ship to tear itself apart- he knew Khor had had his detonators on him, so that would've punched a hole big enough to connect to the chain and jet the Word Bearers into the vacuum.
Another law Chaos had to follow - breathing, and the significance of it.
Harder, perhaps, when your armor was no longer vacuum-stable.
Ten had expected the explosions to rip into his tank, to slice it to ribbons and jet him into the void just as simply.
What it seemed instead, he found, was drifting in a heavily dented pod of air and liquid without any gravity to temper it.
He supposed he should be grateful the heat of the sun fought the chill of the void to not freeze everything in its entirety, but he also wasn't certain what exactly went into a water tank's construction.
It had been a guess, and he wouldn't have called it a particularly educated one.
He minded his chronometer, knowing that the explosion would have revealed any hidden ship- and any other fleet in the area worth their weight would investigate.
He could only hope that he was found by friendly forces, and not captured for a second time.
Still, as the hours crept onward and he eyed the time on his helm's chonometer, he kept trying the Raven Guard frequencies.
He could not vox the ship, he had not the rank, but... he had to try something. A beacon, cocooned in darkness and ignorant to the stars around him.
Perhaps he would run into debris enough to finally punch a hole in the tank.
Perhaps his luck had run out, and he would be adrift in the void until he died an ignoble death in sus-an.
---XIX---
As hours ticked to days, he only had so much he could do.
The Raven Guard found him, eventually.
They found the Chaos vessel, first. Spent days making sure no survivors could infect anything further.
T'au leadership had floundered, and as the rest of the fleet caught up the xenos were crushed.
Then he'd been found.
The mission had succeeded.
The mission had failed.
Ten just knew he had six brothers without bodies, armor, or corvia to bring home.
He was confined to the Apothecarium for a few days, monitoring for the conditions he'd been in, they told him.
Monitoring for any taint, he presumed.
And when he was released the Chaplains wished to speak with him.
He had no words to say.
When his armor was returned it was pristine, no hints of anything his squad had faced.
It truly struck him, when he learned he had missed the bladework exhibition while he'd been adrift. That there had been a rematch while he was in the Apothecarium.
Battle Brothers die.
That is their duty.
But it didn't make it any easier.
He felt out of step with his body in realspace, as though the present occurred around him but muffled from a distance as well.
The Apothecary had terms for it, advice, too, but it wasn't something that he could have treated and move on.
But... he had no words for the Chaplains.
What could he say that hadn't already been said?
It isn't long after that when he learns the new assignment, or rather- the lack thereof.
They're heading back to Deliverance, and a part of him feels the pang of bitterness that he hadn't expected.
It was cruel of him to feel that, bitterness and a childish urge to lash out that others might find their peace when some of the best men he'd known would never have it.
It hurt, and not just the hurt he was used to, now. Now the hurt of feeling such a way to his battle brothers whose duties had ended in the combat.
Their foot lockers were long cleared by the time he was out of the Apothecarium, miscellany trashed and basics reallocated as needed.
Nothing would go to waste, but Ten wished it would linger at least.
There was one silver lining, at least, and after enough frustration Ten found himself hunting them down, climbing the walls and into the ductwork to find it.
Alon's material caches.
He'd had to show Ten in the past where he's stashed them, the best of his kit that he didn't want just anyone to use. He normally packed some for impromptu bomb crafting, and Ten hoped he felt vindicated that the habit was correct.
That's how Ten spent his days, in his room with the contents of the caches from across the ship not quite halphazardly strewn about his desk, but an organized chaos.
You had to have a clear mind making an explosive.
He would stop his process whenever he got too in his own head, hands shaking or focus waning.
It... was an outlet. Familiar. Taxing.
And he was... almost satisfied when they returned to Deliverance and he had accomplished his goal.
From his return, it isn't hard to take a shuttle down to Kiavahr, to the forests that the small, clever birds were native to.
He breathed in the air, radiation mixing with the life that persisted in spite of it.
He looked at his hands, holding his own corvia, the skull resting in his palm and empty sockets staring up at him.
He would give up his honor, all he was and had left, if he thought it would make a difference.
But he knew it wouldn't, and he squeezed it in some semblance of... acknowledgement? Resolution?
Peace?
He heard steps approach behind him- two pairs, the treads of marine in armor, the clack of bone and whisper of fabric.
Polite of them to let him hear.
He turned to face them, a Chaplain and his Judiciar. They both inclined their heads in greeting, though the latter remained as silent as the grave while the former spoke, "brother-sergeant."
Ten nodded his head in return, even as the new rank sat upon his shoulders like an uncomfortable mantle, "brother-chaplain. Has the task of dealing with me fallen to you?"
The roc skull tilted, "not in so many words. I knew your squadmates, and I feel their loss keenly as well."
Part of Ten wanted to push back on that, that no one knew them as he had- but that belief was fundamentally a falsehood.
He dipped his head in acknowledgement, and the Chaplain continued, "the lack of recovery of their corvia is tragic," and Ten looked down from the Chaplain to the skull in his hand, "but yours would do them no good."
"I know that," Ten agreed, the edge of defensiveness born of uncertainty in his voice making him frown, "is there a reason you're here, Chaplain?"
"Is there a reason you are, Sergeant?"
Ten opened his mouth to offer rebuttal, but he closed it without words. He turned to look back into the landscape that ached in his bones of a simpler time, "I don't know. It... felt right."
The click of bone implied the Chaplain tilting his head in some capacity, "we are above many things, this is true, but we hone our instincts to the knife's edge. They warn you when logic is too slow, too clouded. Have you been uncertain?"
Ten laughed, a single bitter note, "that is the one thing I feel I can acknowledge with any certainty."
The Chaplain's answering chuckle felt warmer, "so put your thoughts to rest. Tell me, what is it you think would ease your mind?"
Ten looked up from his corvia, across the irradiated landscape, and back over his shoulder to the Chaplain, "are any trials being undertaken at this time?"
---XIX---
The first explosion rattled the ground, even detonating above the surface the radius had been enough to send debris flying and wood shards out as shrapnel.
Ten's helmet protected him from the bulk of the noise, but the vibrations and proximity to impact would have toppled a lesser man.
He idly spun the pin hooked around his finger, watching the veritable cloud of kiavahran ravens fly away from the sudden explosion.
They're much closer to Ravendelve, where the risk of any long buried corvia being destroyed was minimal.
The Chaplain turned to him, "is that-" he began, Ten's answering pull of another pin and second forceful throw sufficing.
Where the first explosion had been purely functional and devastating, this one was flashy- loud, bold, bright light and a bloom of heat.
One bomb for Eit Team, one bomb for A Team.
It was... it was what he could do for them, in this again.
Remember what they taught him, he mused as he spun the pins around his index fingers.
"Better," the Chaplain asked, and Ten nodded his assent, "I'm pleased," and the man did sound it, as far as Raven Guard went.
He approached the sergeant, "the chapter master would speak with you," he cut to the chase, the empty sockets of the skull unflinching as Ten's head snapped to meet his gaze, "you're being assigned a squad, and he must speak with you about it."
Ten's mind raced, and he felt his brow furrow- this was a lieutenant's job, maybe a captain's.
There was much more to this, Ten knew, just as he knew it was not his place to refuse.
"Of course," Ten agreed as any astartes would, "when am I to meet him?"
"If we're done here," the question lingers for the time it takes Ten to nod after a beat, "then we leave at once."
Something was amiss, but he simply extended a hand, noting the silver gleam against the coal black, "lead the way."
You are aware that a fictional character is just a rhetorical construct designed to fulfill a narrative/thematic purpose right? That their actions are written by an author who wants to use them to explore complex ideas and moral gray areas within the safe confines of fiction right? That they aren't a real person who has killed real people right?
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i love it when im rereading a story and i find these little breadcrumbs of foreshadowing the author left. everytime im like “ohoho!!!! i wouldve gotten that before if i had the big picture!!! and now i do!!! delightful!!!” and idk i just love being able to read the same story twice but have two different experiences. i like when a story has so many layers that it can keep you entertained for a long time as you unravel all its secret nooks and crannies. thats a good story.
.ᐟ Another fun weekend of oc fic posting! Thanks to all who participated!
Next weekend, 6/19-6-22 (extra day to accomodate for this failed queue post and a holiday lol) we’ll introduce some challenges to go with the word prompts!
.✦ ݁˖ your words for that weekend: Creature, Stowaway, and Witness.
.✦ ݁˖ your challenges:
- include another person’s oc (with permission!)
- feature an element of chaos corruption
- showcase a moment of hope in the grimdarkness
ﾟ*✩‧₊˚｡:° as always, you can choose to do any combination of these, or none at all! see you guys next weekend!*✩‧₊˚｡:°
"hey toast you stayed up past midnight because you were working on the fic and not because you were procrastinating by making a hideous pattern for a joke cross stitch" have you never met a writer before
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