#meduras chairon

“Chairon! Wait, Warp damn you! The Codex dictates-”

Gadriel’s voice was an annoying buzz in the back of the Chairon’s mind as he pounded down the unnaturally darkened corridor. His breath came in deep, bestial chugs, but not from exertion.

From anticipation.

I will find you, Abomination. I will hunt you down. And when I do-

The image of Vesta’s severed hand, pale and bloodless in the Apothecary’s gauntlet, flashed behind his eyes in a neverending loop.

I will sever both your hands first. Then gut you like the squealing porcine you are. Then, when the Lieutenant too has had his fill, I will sever your head from your shoulders and use your skull as a latrine!

The red-tinted fantasies did nothing to cool the wrath burning bright in his blood. He did not slow when he saw the door to the chamber had been torn open. He barely hesitated at the swirling pocket of madness within, not after seeing the Lieutenant disappear within it.

He followed.

And he knew no fear.

***

“By the THRONE!”

Gadriel cursed his battle brother’s recklessness as he charged after him, the Captain’s words ringing in his ears.

“Just keep him and the Lieutenant from doing anything foolish, Sergeant.”

The utterly foreign urge to laugh nearly overwhelmed him.

What is this madness that has consumed my fellow Ultramarines in recent days?!

He knew the answer: the women. Small. Frail. Unremarkable- no. They’d shown strength, those two. Endurance he could not help but respect. And yet they had also seemingly cast spells over his squadmates. Driven them to acts of near insanity.

Not to mention… affection. Beneath his helm, Gadriel’s lip curled.

But he had a duty to them. A failure to rectify. 

So, when he spotted Chairon’s form disappearing into the screaming rift, he carried on.

And he knew no fear.

***

The Daemon pressed its sinuous form against the ever-thinning veil between it and its prey. One of its mouths stretched wider than physical limitations should have allowed. Three tongues lolled forth, dragging lines of sizzling fluid across the pulsating membrane.

It could not enter yet, not until its servant completed the ritual. But that did not mean it could not still play. And the three souls who’d walked willingly into its little pocket of influence would make such pretty toys.

It clapped its many hands with an almost childlike glee.

Now.

Let the games.

BEGIN.

***

This… is not real.

Titus kept repeating those words in his head as he walked down a voidship’s corridors in armor that was not his own. Achingly familiar, but not his own. 

All around, the voidship interior blurred and changed, shifting from the standard corridors and doorways he knew from his time aboard the Resilient, to something older. A voidship whose halls he had not walked in over a century.

He tensed as shadowy figures materialized around him. Ultramarines. A few Primaris, mostly First Born. Faces he had not seen in-

“Titus.” 

The voice, gruff and familiar, hit him like a bolter round.

“...Sidonus?”

The one-eyed Sergeant huffed as he stepped toward him.

“You look as though you’ve seen a ghost, Captain.”

“This… is not real. You fell. Pierced by Nemeroth’s claw long ago!”

Sidonus arched an eyebrow. 

“Strange, I don’t feel dead. You’re in an odd mood today, Captain.”

Titus leveled his bolter at what must be a Warp-spawned apparition. “Come no closer, shade.” “Captain-”

“Do not call me that!”

Sidonus paused, and Titus swore he saw an odd, purplish light gleam from its eyes for just a second. Then it was gone, and the image of his long-dead friend shook its head. 

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you, Titus. But you’d best not keep the Lady Sera waiting much longer.”

Both Titus’s hearts ceased to beat.

“What did you say?”

“Throne, do not tell me you’ve forgotten that, too! She asked me to fetch you, and you know how her… condition… makes her.” Another chuckle. “Like an angry little Commissar, that one.”

The shade gestured back down the shifting corridor. Titus moved without conscious thought. 

This is not real!

More faces flashed. Battle Brothers from the Second Company. Heroes of the Chapter he’d only briefly met in his first days as an ascended Space Marine. Even a few of his closer Deathwatch squadmates.

The image of Ulfar of the Space Wolves roared with laughter as he raced past.

“Aye, Captain! Go to your woman!”

This is not real. This is not real. This is not-

A door materialized out of nowhere before him. He passed through into what, at first glance, seemed to be his old Captain’s quarters from more than a century gone. But… changed.

Bigger, for one. With a voidport that looked over a vast Ultramarine fleet against a backdrop of spinning stars. Banners and trophies lined the walls. Scrolls praising the Emperor for victories. A letter of commendation from the Primarch himself stood proud on a pedestal.

Thick rugs muffled even the sounds of his sabatons as he moved across the floor. Flowers, real, living flowers, bloomed from a dozen vases, their fragrance perfuming the air. An upright loom sat before the voidport, the figure before it humming softly as she moved the shuttle back and forth.

“Sera?”

The figure turned and Titus almost dropped to his knees.

It was Sera… but no longer did the rough cloth of a serf’s robe cover her. No. The stola of a Macraggian noblewoman flowed from her shoulders in soft pleats of fine linen, clasped at the waist with a belt of gold bearing the symbol of the Ultramarines. Her dark hair tumbled from her shoulder in thick, shining waves, woven with tiny pearls. More pearls glimmered at her ears and wrists and throat. Her skin fairly glowed with the health of the well-fed.

And all of this paled in comparison to the taught roundness of her belly.

“Demetrian!” Her cerulean-painted lips curled in a smile of utter delight as she stretched out her hands toward him. “Come to me, come to us, my husband!”

This… is not… real…..

***

Chairon walked barefoot beneath a clear, shining sky. Emerald-colored grass reached his knees and whispered peacefully as he passed through it. Birdsong carried on the breeze, and in the distance, shining city towers rose all the way into the upper atmosphere.

Looking around, he could not remember how he came to be in this place. Nor could he remember when he’d changed his armor for the loose tunic and trousers he had not worn since-

Since I was a boy.

He stopped dead. He knew this place. Knew this path. Knew what lay just over the next hill.

Chairon broke into a run, cresting the gentle slope in just a few strides. He’d made this run many times before. The last time the grass had been blackened, the cities in the distance burning. Screams of terror and pain had filled the air as monsters fell from the heavens.

But now….

The sight below him made him catch his breath.

A simple house. Old, but lovingly maintained. A fenced yard full of flowers and vegetables and squawking poultry. 

Memories he had not dwelled upon since his reawakening from stasis slowly trickled back.

Grandfather built this house. Grandmother wanted a quiet place away from the hum of the factoriums. Father grumbled about the commute into the city. Mother planted that garden.

As if on cue, the door of the house opened and a plump middle-aged woman stepped outside, a basket of gardening tools hanging from the crook of her elbow. She was humming a song he hadn’t heard in millennia.

“Mother….”

She looked up and her face broke into a joyful smile. 

“Meduras! You’re early!”

Chairon leapt down the slope, over the fence, and dropped to his knees before the woman. She stood just as he remembered her, lines of laughter crinkling the skin around her eyes, hair just beginning to gray at the temples. 

“I am sorry.” The words burst forth. “I am so sorry. I ran as fast as I could. The house was burning, I could hear you inside but I could not… I could not… I tried, Mother!”

Hands reached up to cradle his face. 

“Oh, child. You must be tired, you’re not making any sense.”

Chairon just stared down at her, tears beginning to blur his vision. He leaned into her touch. For a moment, he swore he saw her eyes glint purple. But then it vanished. Perhaps he hadn’t seen anything at all.

She smiled.

“It’s been too long since you visited. Come inside, we have a surprise for you!”

She stepped away. He followed, ducking his head to fit through the doorway. Familiar laughter filled the air.

His Mother patted his hand.

“You should have told us about her sooner, Meduras. Your sisters already love her. She’ll be such a fine addition to the family.”

A figure sat at the kitchen table, talking merrily with his three older sisters. At his approach, it turned, red hair flying.

“Chairon! Or should I call you Meduras?”

Vesta smiled brightly.

“You never told me your family on Calth was so wonderful!”

His Mother slipped her hand into his.

“Welcome home.”

***

“Sergeant Valorem Gadriel, come with me.”

Gadriel looked around him in bewilderment. This… this was not the Resilient. The corridors were too ornate, too ancient. Even the way the innumerable voices of the crowd around him sounded were different. They echoed through a vastly larger space.

“Where am I?”

“Turn around, Sergeant.”

The authoritative voice rumbled from somewhere behind him. He turned to find himself face to face with Chapter Master Marneus Calgar himself, and snapped to attention.

“Forgive me, Chapter Master! I did not know you had returned to the Second Company.”

Calgar arched an eyebrow.

“Did you suffer a recent blow to the head, Sergeant? Do you remember nothing of our journey here?”

“Our journey….”

The Chapter Master grunted.

“I should have you examined by the Apothecaries. Unfortunately, we have no time now. The Primarch has summoned us.”

Gadriel blinked. “The Primarch?”

“Throne, boy.” Calgar stepped past Gadriel. “Follow. And try to order your thoughts.”

Gadriel tried.

I was… on the Resilient. Was I not? Following the Lieutenant and Chairon. We were… we were… what were we doing?

He could not seem to align his present surroundings with his surroundings mere moments prior. And yet his feet followed the Chapter Master almost of their own accord, moving through a vast voidship he had only read of.

“Is this… the Macragge’s Honour?”

Another grunt. 

“Where else would the Primarch be, Sergeant?”

“Why… why am I-”

“Your memory lapse concerns me. But I will let the Primarch Himself explain.”

The Primarch Himself….

Gadriel asked no more questions as they moved through the Gloriana-class battleship. His eyes drank in every ornate detail, every magnificent vista. When a squad of Victrix Guard passed by, he had to fight not to stare like a child.

Their leader nodded to him. Not the Chapter Master. Him.

“Well met, brother.”

He could barely manage a nod back. 

What in the name of Holy Terra is happening?!

Finally, they passed through gilded doors into the great Strategium. And there he stood. Towering above mortal and Space Marine alike. His blue eyes seared into Gadriel’s very soul. Or… were they purple? No. Most assuredly blue.

I should be kneeling, should I not?

Before he could decide, Guilliman Himself spoke in a voice like thunder from the heavens.

“I have called you here, Sergeant Valorem Gadriel of the Second Company, to reward you for acts of exemplary valor.”

What acts? What had he done? 

The Primarch’s voice drowned out his confusion.

“Your courageous adherence to the Codex and to the ideals of the Ultramarines has saved our Chapter World, Macragge, my home, from assured annihilation.”

The Primarch smiled.

“Well done, my son.”

Gadriel found breathing difficult. He stood in the presence of his Primarch, of his Chapter Master, of the heroes of the Ultramarines. And they welcomed him as someone who deserved a place amongst them.

This is everything I ever dreamed!

***

“Yes, yes. Dream on, brave Ultramarines. Dream on, while my servant prepares the way for me. Dream on, while your females scream. All you see can be yours….”

Dark laughter made the very void shudder.

“...for the right price.”