#fluffhammer

---------------------- Karimah gasped loudly.

She covered her mouth, stifling a scream.

Sweat had covered her forehead, as tears began to well up in her eyes.

No. She can't.

She cannot die.

She is with child.

Their child.

This....this must not happen.

Yet...she did not know who this woman was.

She had to tell him.

Karimah Tahrik very rarely got visions of future events. She can recall having three at most, her entire life.

This was the fourth.

And the most ominous.

Her past visions involved dangerous situations, but none of them involved a gruesome death.

As few as her visions are, they were always accurate. Always.

Would he believe her?

The Lord of Ultramar was a relatively approachable man from what she had known about him. But would he listen to a human psyker he did not even know?

"He needs to know."

Her vision when it occurred was extremely detailed. But by the time she rouses to it, she forgets elements to it, which was why she needed to transfer information immediately.

She needed to tell him.

Roboute Guilliman had stepped away from the small audience he had. He headed back to the table of desserts that sat in the middle of the banquet hall. For all his healthy eating, the Primarch did have a sweet tooth and from time to time indulged in his favorite treats.

"Lord Guilliman." she approached him cautiously. The Primarch smiled warmly at her in acknowledgment as he picked macarons off a multilevel silver tray. "I am Karimah Tahrik from the Order of Remembrancers."

"A pleasure to meet you, My Lady." he nodded, balancing a plate of the treats with one hand and shaking hers with the other.

This was her chance.

For the second Roboute Guilliman touched her hand, he felt it.

Before his eyes it appeared, flashes of imagery. A burning city. Buildings collapsing. Ultramarines battling forces he did not know or recognize.

"Help."

Then the image of a woman, buried in concrete slabs. She bore the outfit of a mechanicus. She struggled to breathe. She was bleeding.

Most curiously, she called him by name.

"Rob..."

She was on a gurney. She held his hand.

And then...she died.

She died and he wept.

He grieved for her.

Karimah pulled her hand away, jolting the Primarch from this vision. He was stunned for a moment, looking at his hand, and then turning his gaze at her.

"You are a Psyker...."

"Yes My Lord." the Remembrancer bowed her head. "I apologize for the abrupt visions Lord Guilliman but I wasn't sure you were going to believe me if I randomly just mentioned them to you."

"I'm...not certain that I do..." he eyed her skeptically as he picked up a pistachio macaron from his plate and devoured it in two bites. "Why did you show me this?"

"You have to save her, my Lord." Karimah spoke firmly.

"I do not know who she is."

"Neither do I my Lord."

"While I am all for saving civilians ....I am curious who this person is...." Roboute noted a brooch on Karimah's person, bearing the symbol of the Thousand Sons. "Did Magnus put you up to this?"

"No, Lord Guilliman." she insisted. "I am a Remembrancer for the Thousand Sons, yes. But this has nothing to do with what I showed you."

Roboute said nothing, as he assessed the woman before him. He bit into a chocolate macaron this time. "I will need time to process what you have showed me, my Lady." he turned towards the dessert table and plucked a few pastry balls from the Croque-en-bouche. "Do you have a name for her? This lady I need to save?"

"You called her...." Karimah paused. She had the young woman's name on the tip of her tongue and now she had seemed to have lost it. "I...I don't remember...it was a short name...and..." she felt frustrated as she tried to recall.

The Primarch picked a few more things from the table before turning about. "I thank for your concern, Lady Karimah. Allow me to think this through. Meanwhile it would honor me if you can join me and my brother Sanguinius at the dinner table....for your recording purposes of course. I'm certain Magnus won't mind. Perhaps then you may remember her name?"

She nodded, hoping then that she could get some memory of her vision. She took a few things from the dessert table before walking back with Roboute to his. ------------------------- This looks familiar.

Where have I seen this before?

Roboute Guilliman paused so very briefly, surveying the scene as the Ultramarines held their stance against the incoming Death Guard. He issued orders on his vox, just as enemy fire blew right past him and meeting its target on the most vulnerable citizens in this engaged battlefield.

Roboute lost his balance from the impact, as debris from the building that was on the receiving end of the attack from an enemy tank flew across the killing fields.

It was the hospital.

Salvia.

He had taken her there in the last twenty four hours. She had been vomiting the last few days and he had concerned that she had contracted an illness the Death Guard had been spreading. Unlike the other civilians who had responded to his presence, she did not have any improvement in her symptoms.

"All Ultramarine squads and Chapter armor to the Hospital district. " he kept his voice firm but low, angered that his brother's traitorous command would prey on those who were most helpless. "Let us take these cowards down."

"Evacuating the hospital, Lord Guilliman." one of his Primaris lieutenants reported. "They hit the foundations extensively, my Lord. I'm not sure we can get everyone out before it caves in."

The Primarch had been fighting off several Death Guard Astartes who had chosen to pounce at him that very moment. He swung his sword precisely, aiming his stormbolter accurately as a nagging part of his brain questioned why he was having a sensation of deja vu. "Do what you can without compromise, Lieutenant." he responded.

"Enemy's pulling back from the Eastern Sector... they're headed your way sir." another officer came through the vox. "I'm mobilizing the troops to your location."

Guilliman ripped the spinal cord out of the last plague marine who had the misfortune to assault him. He finished him with his stormbolter, just as he turned to the hospital where his Astartes assisted in the evacuation.

The foundations of the hospital began to crumble as the first assault canons' effects tore through its  walls. He rapidly scanned the evacuees as they were being pulled out to a safe haven.

She wasn't there.

"Sal..." he murmured under his breath as he charged through a number of enemy troops trying to get closer, amidst the smoke and the falling debris. The tail of a massive explosion set the Primarch through the air as the rest of the building fragmented around him. He allowed himself to fall limp as he was tossed across the collapsing infrastructure. The roofing fell unceremoniously in a dust heap, the walls pulverized as they crashed with him upon the floor. It was in a haze of fire, smoke and dust that he realized why this scenario felt like he had seen it before.

You have to save her.

The words of the Prosperine Remembrancer echoed through his head.

She's going to die.

Get her out of the hospital.

Help her, Lord Guilliman.

Am I too late?

He cursed, chastising himself that he did not remember sooner.

"Reinforcements have arrived, m'Lord." was the first transmission he heard through his vox. "We're cutting through the enemy defenses. Zeroing in on your position..."

"The hospital." he replied, concealing the concern in his speech he swallowed before he spoke again. "Did we...did we get everyone out?"

The static that followed his question felt like an eternity.

"No sir." he recognized the voice of the Primaris Lieutenant. "I'm afraid we had some civilian casualties."

The Primarch issued some more orders to bombard the rest of the Death Guard and keep the focus off of rescuing him. He crawled through the debris, using the smoke and powder to conceal his escape. By the time he had managed to make it to the outside he saw that the hospital was leveled to the very ground it stood on. A pile of nothing but fire, smoke and rubble.

There was no way anyone who was not rescued was going to survive that.  If the smoke didn't kill them, the massive debris would have crushed them.

Roboute felt a massive weight on his chest. He summoned enough strength to communicate to the Primaris officer one last question.

"Lieutenant, is there.....is there a Mechanicus amongst the survivors? Female...dark red hair...."

More static.

"No sir. No one by that description among the survivors, my Lord."

The Primarch grew silent.

He thrust his sword through a thick slab of concrete, leaning his tired head against it and closed his eyes.

I failed you.

I have been warned and yet I failed you.

His grip on the sword tightened, cracking the concrete slab in two as his gloved fingers squeezed hard....as though this would take away the tide of pain that seared through his chest that very moment.

He audibly gasped, attempting to relieve himself of this discomfort as more feeds came through his Vox.

"Let's finish this." --------------------- He did not want to grieve.

She would have hated that. Hated seeing him despondent and sad.

So he kept his composure as his men started clearing the debris. Those who have perished should at least receive a proper burial.

He wasn't sure how he was going to respond when they finally do unearth her.

He had promised himself after his adoptive father died that he was not going to be as emotionally overwhelmed as he did back then.

You had the chance to save her.

The remembrancer had warned you.

And yet....

One of the Ultramarines pulled out a blood-tinged cloak that he recognized as hers.

The Primarch rubbed a weary, gloved hand over his face.

He took a deep breath as he reached his hand out to ask for the cloak. It was the colors of his legion. She had sewn it herself, joking that her regular Mechanicus cloak was drab and clashed with the Ultramarines color scheme.

There were spatters of blood all over it.

Knowing her she would be telling him what a pain it was going to be to wash the blood off of it. And how it was going to fade the vivid blue if she bleached it.

As the Ultramarines unearthed further, something had caught the Primarch's eye.

Was that...

He leaped downwards, as he spotted a circular, metal object on the ground that appeared to have been moved.

Roboute lifted the heavy, metallic door single-handedly when he realized what it was.

"Rob?"

She leapt into his arms the minute he entered the bomb shelter.

"You're alive." he spoke in respite. The Primarch buried his face on her neck. She was covered in dust, blood and mud but by the Thrones she made it. "You're alive...."

She nodded, tears streaming down her face. "Barely...but my Lord constructs the most durable bomb shelters in all of the Imperium." she smiled as she pulled away, wiping her filthy face.

The look of immense relief registered on his passive features. He cupped her face in his gloved hands, pulling to kiss her quivering mouth. He kissed her deeply, lovingly, happily. She wrapped her bruised arms around his neck to pull him closer.

A mild coughing in the background interrupted their intimate moment.

The Primarch turned to see a Primaris marine sitting on the floor next to a few other medical personnel from the hospital.

He stood up to acknowledge the Primarch, extending his hand in introduction.

"Sergeant Jahangir Tahrik, my Lord. From the 3rd company."

"He saved us....all of us." Salvia beamed proudly. "I remember you showing me the drafts for the hospital many years ago, mentioning the Bomb shelter, but it was the sargeant who lead us all in here. That metal door was a little tricky."

"Thank you for your services, Sergeant Tahrik." Roboute shook his hand, squinting as the name seemed to stir a certain memory with him. "Your heroism will not go unnoticed."

"All in a day's work sir." he nodded. "Apologies I could not radio out. My vox didn't make it here with me. "

Salvia shook her head. "I need to put that on the to-do list. We need to make those things more indestructible. I suspect it would need a thicker shell...but that may impede faster transmission...I guess it depends on the material too...mmmmmph."

She was very briefly interrupted by Roboute kissing her again. "How can you think of work at a time like this?"

"Says the pot to the kettle." she laughed as she released herself from his embrace.

One by one they climbed up the short passageway leading to the surface. Salvia allowed the other survivors to go up first as she stayed behind with her Primarch.

"Are you feeling better?" he inquired as he let her walk before him to go upstairs.

"I am....for now." she said. "The Apothecary says its a normal part of my condition...it will subside eventually...for the most part. Some women do not quite get over the whole thing."

"Condition..."

Salvia sighed. Her facial expression was somewhere between repressed joy and unwavering awkwardness. "I don't know how you're going to take this...because I personally am over the moon with it...but you're a busy man and I'm not sure if its..."

"Sal....are we having a child?"

She paused, gauging his reaction. "Yes."

She squealed when he picked her up, embracing her hard and holding her as close to him as his armor will allow it.

"Rob..." she spoke finally as he loosened his hold on her.

"Can we name her Tarasha if she would be a girl?"

"Of course." she smiled, relieved of his reaction with the news. "How about if its a boy? Konor?"

"You know me far too well."

"We do need to get out of here."

"I need to take you to the Apothecary." he noted the gashes on her arms where the blood on her cloak had likely come from. "I can't have you die on me again, silly woman."

"Die again?"

"Nevermind." he laughed as he lifted her out to the exit. He's going to have to relay to her at some point the odd little encounter he had with a Remembrancer ten milennia ago. 

1:10 pm 6/10/2017

This is my ship. Apologies if you ship otherwise. The author is just having fun ^_^.

To my Tumblr friends “B” and “H”...I think of you guys when I write for this Primarch. That’s why he can’t have a sad ending.