I love him i hate him i love him i hate himI love him i hate him i love him i hate himI love him i hate him i love him i hate himI love him i hate him i love him i hate himI love him i hate him i love him i hate him
This is what i imagined while drawing:
Now, imagine your a painter / artist, the only one who managed to survive long enough to have your work realized, when forcefully brought aboard The Nightfall with a group of other aspiring, or accepted artists.
You are -of course- the underdog, a desperate, cut tooth little thing who crawled your way up from the sub layers of Nostramo, not through artistic talent or privilege (like your “compatriots”) but through grit and need.
The fact you could draw, and were considered a young virtuoso, were only bonuses that got you off Nostramo.
Now you were here, in a group of remainders from cullings, all those culled, who didn’t capture The Night-haunter correctly.
The task; Paint Lord Curze in his own light.
it seemed simple until he didn’t like the humble beginnings of a portrait, and demanded the group to sketch him FLAYING the poor soul who’s work he dramatically critiqued
the sole reason you lived to be selected as the artist for his perfect portrait? Your amygdala’s fear response is basically nonexistent. (Completely nonexistent, really. ) Which works in your favor, spending hours upon hours with a man who rules through fear.
Many moons ago I wrote this post about how about the kind of (happy) clusterfuck a Konrad Curze wedding would be. Important for the following to make sense being that Sanguinius and Guilliman were there (Sanguinius was invited as a friend and it involved a reader/oc from the realms of Ultramar hence Guilliman being there to officiate the wedding). In that post I ended with a strikethrough joke line about bringing out the Emperor flesh sculpture for the mother groom dance but I've since thought of an actually cute outcome for this:
Konrad doesn't have someone to dance with for the mother groom dance. It's a rare bitter spot on an otherwise perfect day but he'll push through it and he knew that ahead of time and they're planning to maybe just skip that part and continue on with the festivities. Then Sanguinius and Guilliman approach him and offer to dance with him, pointing out that THEY are his relatives after all. Cue happy brothers incl a rare happy Konrad jumping in a circle and doing that arms interlocked over each others shoulder thing. Smiling and laughing. Lots of hugging. Konrad gets both the love of his spouse and to be loved and accepted among his brothers. Konrad getting married is like the climax of side plot in a movie, it's something his Sanguinius and Guilliman never saw coming but they genuinely wish the couple all the best.
This is so sweet. You wonder how things might have turned out if Curze found love. Not only romantic love from a partner, but familial love from his brothers.
The corridors of Endurance quickly teach her one lesson. Nothing aboard the flagship is hurried. Crewmen move with measured purpose. Servitors trundle steadily along recessed guide rails. Even the ship itself seems to breathe differently than the vessels of the Iron Warriors, its decks humming beneath her boots with a deep, patient vibration that never quite leaves.
She follows the directions the Chief Steward had given her until the numbers painted onto the bulkheads finally lead her to Compartment Seventeen. The berth is smaller than she expected. Four bunks, each little more than a narrow frame bolted to the wall with a thin mattress and a footlocker beneath. The compartment is already occupied. One bunk has blankets folded with military precision. Another bears a stack of well-read devotional texts to the Emperor, their corners softened with age. A third belongs to a woman quietly mending a torn apron beneath the light of a single lumen globe. The woman glances up as she enters.
"New transfer?"
She nods.
"I was told... Berth Nine."
The woman points toward the empty bunk opposite her own.
"That one's yours."
No questions follow. No curiosity. Simply acceptance. She places her few belongings upon the mattress. There is very little. A spare pair of boots. A small cloth bundle containing the handful of personal seasonings she has carried since before joining the Iron Warriors. She unwraps them only long enough to make certain they survived the journey. They had. Satisfied, she tucks the bundle safely into the footlocker before closing the lid. The compartment feels no more hers than it had moments ago. Perhaps that will come with time. Perhaps not.
Gathering back up into her arms her new uniform, she sets out to find where the showers are. Thankfully, the showers lie several corridors away. Unlike the communal washrooms she had known aboard the Iron Blood, these are divided into narrow cubicles separated by steel partitions, each fitted with a drain grate and a battered shower head suspended overhead.
Steam still hangs in the air. Someone has recently finished. She chooses an empty stall and carefully folds her new and old clothing outside the spray before stepping beneath it. Water strikes her shoulders with surprising force. Hot. Almost painfully so after weeks spent beneath cold rain and trench mud.
The first rivulets that run toward the drain are nearly black. Mud. Ash. Dried blood she hadn't realized had soaked into her hair. She watches it disappear between the grates without thinking. A metal dispenser fixed to the wall catches her eye. She presses the lever. A familiar gray-green bar drops into her hand. Disinfectant soap. Its sharp medicinal scent immediately carries her back to the Iron Warriors' barracks. Exactly the same. The realization brings the smallest breath of relief.
Somewhere in the endless bureaucracy of the Imperium, someone had decided every Legion's serfs should use the same harsh antiseptic soap. For once...Uniformity is comforting. She works the lather into her skin with practiced determination, scrubbing until the grime gives way to clean flesh beneath. The smell of the trenches proves more stubborn. It clings beneath her fingernails. Lingers in her hair. Lives somewhere deeper than soap can reach.
By the time she finishes, her skin has reddened from both heat and vigorous scrubbing. She scarcely notices. Standing beneath the spray, she closes her eyes for only a heartbeat. The campaign is over. She is alive. That will have to be enough. Taking a deep breath to compose herself before shutting off the water.
Drying herself with a coarse linen towel, she reaches for the folded garments issued by the Chief Steward. The fabric feels heavier than the Iron Warriors' work clothes. Better suited to damp corridors and colder decks. Slipping on the cream-colored tunic first, fastening each button with careful fingers. Dark green trousers follow. The leather work belt. Her eyes linger on the small cloth badge stitched over the left breast.
The reaper. She studies it for a moment. Yesterday it belonged to someone else. Today... It belongs to her. The thought sits strangely in her chest. She smooths the front of the uniform anyway. It fits remarkably well. Someone had measured her without her ever realizing it.
Gathering up her former uniform, she makes her way out of the showers and towards the stores. The stores occupy an entire section of the provisioning deck. Shelves disappear into the distance, stacked with folded uniforms, boots, blankets, tools, ration containers, and every imaginable necessity required to keep a Legion functioning. She joins the short queue waiting before a broad counter. When her turn arrives, the quartermaster barely looks up.
"Purpose?"
"Uniform surrender."
He extends a hand. She places the neatly folded Iron Warriors garments upon the counter. For just a moment, her fingertips linger on the coarse gray cloth. Years of service are stitched into those seams. Long nights in overheated kitchens. The constant bark of overseers. The smell of grease and iron. Everything familiar. Then she lets go. The quartermaster unfolds the tunic just enough to inspect the legion markings before making a notation in a ledger.
"Iron Warriors issue," he mutters. "Condition acceptable."
The uniform disappears into a collection crate already half-filled with clothing awaiting refurbishment. Another serf will wear it one day. Someone she will never meet. The ledger closes with a soft thump.
"Anything else?"
She shakes her head.
"No."
The quartermaster is already calling the next person forward. Just like that, the last visible piece of the Fourth Legion is gone. She leaves the stores empty-handed. For the first time since leaving the trenches, there is nothing upon her person bearing the iron skull of Perturabo. Only the muted green of the Fourteenth. Only the quiet corridors of Endurance, waiting to become something that, perhaps one day, she might call home.
The corridors leading toward the refectorium are nearly deserted. Most of the ship has settled into its cycle of work and rest. Somewhere far below, engines throb with a steady rhythm that never truly fades. Pipes murmur overhead. Occasionally a servitor trundles past carrying crates or stacked ration tins, paying her no more attention than it would a bulkhead.
She keeps to the edge of the passage. Tomorrow will be her first full day serving aboard Endurance. She has no intention of beginning it by getting lost. The kitchen reveals itself gradually through familiar sounds before she ever sees it. The scrape of knives against wooden boards. The hollow knock of lids settling onto pots. Water running into great iron cauldrons. Low voices discussing tomorrow's ration counts. She doesn't step inside immediately.
Instead, she watches from the doorway, careful not to interrupt. The kitchen is larger than the forward dugouts by several orders of magnitude, though still markedly plainer than the great refectories aboard the Iron Blood. Long preparation tables occupy the center of the room, their surfaces scrubbed smooth by years of use. Ovens line one wall, while broad copper kettles hang over recessed heating plates. One of the older cooks notices her lingering.
"You'll be the transfer."
She inclines her head.
"The Chief Steward said I begin tomorrow."
The cook wipes his hands on a towel before nodding toward the room.
"Then start learning where everything lives."
There is no suspicion in his voice. No challenge. Merely practical advice. She spends the next hour walking the kitchen slowly. Not touching. Only observing. She notes which shelves hold flour and which hold dried legumes. Which hooks carry cooking pots large enough for a hundred portions and which are reserved for officers' service. Which knives are sharpened for butchery, which for vegetables, which for delicate work.
Her eyes linger on the spice shelves. Sparse. Small jars of dried thyme. Ground mustard seed. Cracked pepper. Bay leaves preserved in waxed paper. Even a handful of carefully labeled medicinal herbs kept separate from the culinary stores. Nothing extravagant. Eventually she wanders into the adjoining storage chambers. Rows of shelves stretch into the dimness. Barrels. Crates. Netted sacks suspended from ceiling hooks. She pauses before the produce stores. Roots. Turnips. Hard winter carrots. Pale onions. Several varieties of mushrooms cultivated in darkness aboard the ship. Bundles of hardy greens packed in damp cloth to prolong their freshness.
Far more than they had possessed in the trenches. Yet, she crouches beside one stack of grain sacks. The inventory slate hanging from the shelf catches her eye. She reads the figures almost unconsciously. Then another. Then another. Her brow furrows. The stores are healthy, but only just.
She had spent too many years measuring rations not to recognize the pattern. Several bins stand lower than they should. Salt has been carefully restricted. Rendered fat is nearly exhausted. The preserved meats have been rotated so often that the oldest barrels now occupy the front of the racks, waiting to be used before spoilage could claim them. A campaign's worth of consumption. The Fourteenth had reached the edge of their reserves just as the Iron Warriors had. Victory had simply arrived before scarcity. A fresh convoy from the fleet's supply ships would have to replenish these shelves soon. Otherwise, she already knew how quickly generous portions became measured ones.
A quiet voice behind her interrupts the thought, "What do you see?"
She turns. The Chief Steward stands in the doorway, hands folded behind his back. She lowers her eyes respectfully.
"The stores are well ordered, sir."
"They are."
"They've also been worked hard."
The old steward raises an eyebrow.
"Go on."
She hesitates only a moment.
"The grain bins are lower than they should be after a campaign. The rendered fat is nearly gone. The preserved vegetables have been rotated recently to prevent waste, and..." She glances toward the mushroom racks. "...someone has begun supplementing meals with more fungi than roots."
The steward says nothing. She wonders if she has spoken out of turn. Finally, he nods once.
"The supply convoy arrives in six days. You noticed all that?"
"I..." She stops herself. "It was only an observation."
"It was a useful one."
The old man steps farther into the storeroom, following her gaze across the shelves.
"Many cooks see ingredients."
He looks sideways at her.
"You saw inventory."
A small silence settles between them.
"That," he says quietly, "is likely one of the reasons why the Lord Mortarion wanted to keep you."
She opens her mouth to respond. Nothing comes. The steward simply turns and walks back toward the kitchens.
"Be here before fourth watch," he calls over his shoulder. "The ovens won't light themselves."
Left alone among the orderly rows of provisions, she looks once more across the shelves. For the first time since boarding Endurance, the kitchen no longer feels unfamiliar. It feels like a puzzle waiting to be solved.
I think you probably do a better job with Mortarion than a lot of writers do. I think you perfectly capture his grim, quiet, determination in a way a lot of folks don't.
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