The palace was just as sound as the day it was first built. Even with the stains of candle wax and more Aquilas and skulls than he recalled embedding into the walls, Dorn was simply glad that whatever fools had done so hadn’t even broken past his first layer of safety precautions. After all, this was the reason the palace felt much smaller on the inside than the outside! To the trained eye anyway, accommodations for his brothers’ and father’s size and rowdiness meant the palace was still very large in spite of the many structural layers he had included to account for any misflung punches or brothers, and random zealotry induced remodeling it seemed.
Dorn would frequently fall behind his brothers to examine new carvings made into the walls he was sure he had built solid many eons ago, he knew such carvings never used to be there! His hand reached forward to put out the candle in a small shrine burrowed into the wall, the wax was staining the floors something unsightly but before he could follow through with his plans to extinguish it he was grabbed by the back of his uniform and dragged onward. Sigh, damnit Magnus. Frustrated or not, Dorn supposed it would be for the better, he found since his return he would often get into squabbles with many ecclesiastical figureheads. He could only imagine the dogmatic hysteria at him putting out the sacred ‘keep the palace upright’ candles, that if ever put out would cause the walls to crumble! He grunted gruffly, what foolishness many had chosen to believe in their absence. Candles do not keep buildings upright! Proper fortifications and structure do so. Dorn slouched with his arms crossed tightly across his chest, only his thumbs resting freely, tapping his biceps impatiently. So many stains across the once beautiful palace! Frustrating, but Magnus had fallen back to keep him moving forward so he would not begin any impromptu remodeling in the wake of all of this religious dribble.
All because father had become a god. Tch, a god. Who could take father for a saint, let alone a god? Perfect as an adjective to describe father was laughable. Father made mistakes all the time, they all did, demigod-like powers be damned, they were still human deep down. After all, they all fell to the same pitfalls they were alleged to rise above, if not to demigod proportions. What was the saying the old hero always chirped? “The bigger they are, the harder they fall”? Fall hard indeed. Placing improper reinforcements that don’t allow some room to squirm for larger structures was a sure way for them to fall! Tch. Any fool would know that, any fool not blinded by their own hubris. Of course father’s failings were really just what made him human, Dorn had come to terms with these little isms of his father. What else was one supposed to do when endlessly lost to the dizzying sameness of space? The slipping that time seems to commit itself to when you no longer have standardization leads you to ponder what had gotten you to this point? Father had been distant ever since Dorn could recall, oft treating them more like soldiers than sons. Dorn had heard a time or two whispers of these ideas that this was how father felt deep to his core, Dorn had learned otherwise early on. His father had always been a pompous overconfident bull charging forward, no doubt, but he was not indifferent to his sons. It’s what made Dorn always harp on his father’s humanity in the back of his mind, father was no more a god than any other warmonger. He simply had a few enhancements his unusual nature had gifted him and an obnoxious way of showing it. Father was no fool, not entirely, but he did often let his own thoughts and showy nature overtake logic. The palace was, after all, coated in gold at father’s behest. One of the weaker metals unless alloyed with other metals to strengthen it. Father likely didn’t ponder this idea too often that he, much like his metal of choice, could not stand alone no matter how brightly he shimmered. He needed allies to strengthen him.
Dorn grunted some as he was pulled from his thoughts, their little exhibition had been halted. Guilliman was heading their menagerie, he did the best with the zeal and dogma after all. Currently, they had been stopped by a slightly dazed commissar asking a few questions of them. The man seemed as though he’d just woken from slumber, dizzy and struggling to form his questions and thoughts. A lesser man might assume it demonic possession, Dorn however parsed that the man had likely just been slumbering at his post and was trying to cover it up. After all, he barely comprehended whom he was speaking to at first, before his eyes got big and wide as he began to process what was going on. Picking out two of his heroes of legend. Dorn could see the man’s gaze fall upon Magnus and felt a grunt of displeasure already boiling in his chest. He knew what would be the next question and implications. HE was nipping it in the bud. Pushing past his brothers, he glared down at the man— with no great malice or much aggression mind you, Dorn simply held an aura about him and he wished to move things along— clearing his throat as he spoke in that booming voice. “He is with us. We are on official business, the Emperor's work. Why don’t you run along, and rest during allotted hours?”
The man’s face reddened, either with the final realization of whom he was talking to, or the fact that Dorn had caught on to what he had been doing. The man fumbled over a few more words before he finally deemed it would be best to just offer a humble salute of submission and scamper away with his tail between his legs. Dorn snorted with displeasure as he turned back to his brothers, Guilliman held his usual nervously thoughtful look masked by his signature expression of “mature exhaustion” on his face and Magnus seemed to be processing Dorn’s actions. Dorn felt some sort of question that would be too much of a pain to parse answers for bubbling up in Magnus’s chest, thus he quickly dismissed any urges by brushing past the two brothers and taking up a spot leading the group. Most he offered them in some sense of closure was a grunt of ‘onward’ slurred and buried under Dorn’s thick drawl as he pressed forward. No time for foolish questions, just work to be done to aid his brothers’ concerns and hopefully give father some semblance of a “wake up call”, even if they wouldn’t actually be awakening father, this was merely proverbial.
