#remembrancer

The study was dark, the soft glow of the desk-lamp illuminating the numerous data slates and tomes he had acquired. Although what he was given was told to be only an introductory and incomplete accounting of the 10,000 years that have passed since the crusade. The Logos Historica Verita had only begun on their great work, and here Daurion Farax is, searching by the scraps between redacted and inaccurate accounts that reek of sacred propaganda.  He scratches at his head, scowling as he read through another such text, glasses slowly slipping off his nose, only to return to its place by his intervention, a chronic push back up the bridge. His autoquill continued to mark out sentences and paragraphs with questions, notes, and even pointing out blatant contradictions. At least he was, until the dataslate pinged in warning, earning a heavy groan from the remembrancer’s lips.  “Blasted modern dataslates. Barely any memory in this damned thing. 10th one I’ve filled today.” He idly picks it up, and just tosses it onto the pile of others he’s completed. “At least they don’t break easily.” Sighing, he leans back on his chair, rubbing his eyes. He was tired. First the outbreak of the Heresy....the anchorage at Macragge....the flight to Terra...and now the duty to stitch back an Imperium that has been in decline for 10,000 years, only has now been literally torn asunder. There had been no rest, and while an Astartes would be able to handle such stress...he was only mortal. His world and understanding of it has never stopped shaking since. All he could do was press on. Its all he can do. He leans back up, ready to pick up a new dataslate, gratefully provided by the Logos Historica, when his eye took notice of something. Among his shelves in his room, the dim light reflected off a sheet of some sort. With a strained effort, he got up from his chair, and approached it. He pulled it out, and brought it into the light.  In it he found a reflection of his own face, but younger. Bright and beaming. With him were others like him, remembrancers bound to other fleets, likewise full of inspiration and hope. Curse his memory....he could recall them all. Lonn....then of the 3rd Legion before her transfer to the 19th, always fitting in wherever she goes. Gwill, of the 10th, similarly stoic as their kin. And of course, the brilliant Wirai, bound to the Custodes themselves, who composed this piece.  His muscles tensed at their memory.....at their fate unknown to him still. Did they perish during the war? Did they die later, in bed, aware of the path humanity was taking? Did they have hope that the Imperium could return? Did it still  even seem possible back then? He walks over back to the desk, gently laying the pict against one of the stack of books. Then he continues over, to the pile of dataslates, and begins to organize them more properly into some of the empty spots on the shelves. He then returned to the desk, new dataslate in hand, and let out a deep breath, readying himself.  He knows that he brethren would have continued to do their work as well as they could. In war or decline. It is very lonely in the 42nd millennium, without the company of such brilliant souls as those theirs, but the task is set. The duty must be obligated. Whatever this poor Remembrancer can do, as minimal as it may be, must be done.  The Remembrancer Order has not died until he’s breath his last. Even if its over these damned atrocious tomes.