He stood in the middle of a room full of mirrors and tapestries.
The room was tall, so tall that the roof didn't seem to exist. Fog of the Warp danced and twirled with little wisps in the arches and the tops of pillars. The Mirrors hung from the ceiling on chains that raddle and shook with the wisps.
He walked around looking at every one of those mirrors. His robes dragging and catching on the carving underneath His bare feet. There was no care in Him anymore for robes and finery. He thinks, when He was mortal, that there had to have been a care – something had to have cared. But that piece of Him was long faded and forgotten. Or maybe it was that the care was faked, falsified to play nice with humanity. Yes, that did seem more like it. Playing up the roles of being human, clinging to mortality like it was a blessing and need and not a curse of a type. He danced to the songs, oaths, dreams, expectations, like He was a puppet on strings. The stage was the galaxy, and He was but an actor that chained to the stage as fire burned the curtains.
He stopped before He started to pace again. One deep breath, two deep breath, Terra was eaten and the screams of her people filled the endless halls of bottom of the Warp Palace; of the new Dark Cells. Plans of war was forming in His mind. Sons will soon be returned to His care and this time He will love them as they deserve.
The need though, the need to make the Imperium pay for what they had done. To make them regret killing Roboute and make them regret ever praying to Him. To make them see what they had made and see what was coming for them. That need was great.
His eyes, as numerus as they were, watched the mirrors as He paced and fumed in His thoughts – His mortal eyes stayed closed – and for what need does He have for them when every statue, every icon, every etching, was His eyes. His ears.
The Imperium turned Him into a God and used His likeness to decorate. And it was through that likeness that He could see. He could know.
He had been a psyker from the moment He took His first breath. He was born to a mother that was grieving her husband and an uncle who relished in killing his brother. The moment He cried; a delayed and forced thing – His mother knew something was off about Him. The word for what He was and later became wasn't even invented. But she was right when she called Him her cursed child. He was the odd one, the different one, the one that instinct knew was dangerous even if the eyes told a different story. He knew things, He spoke of things, He did things, everything He did was with a purpose, an action, because He knew.
But Knowing and Knowing were two different things and He did not know that till He stood there in the middle of rippling mirrors.
The 'Knowing' of His mortalhood was a rain drop in the 'Knowing' that His Godhood had granted Him.
But for all of His new sight; He had one blind spot. Well, twenty would be better to say.
He could not see His sons.
They were voids in His sight. Roboute's tomb was silent and a mass of the darkest night, though He where His son was. The others were not much better, but when one knew they had a blind spot it was easy to move around them. He may not be able to see them but the Mirrors do.
He had made the Mirrors, forged them from His own mortal bones and was bathed the, in the last of His mortal blood. He whispered spells to the carving that curved and twined around and bound chaos to the jewels embedded in the frames. All the Mirrors were made in the image of His sons and all they needed to work was the blood of their Primarchs.
One drop of blood and He would see His sons.
But he needed to find His sons to get that drop of blood.
He started to pace again.
Bare feet tapping against the stone floor.
How to find His sons when He couldn't see His sons?
He stopped His pacing and tilted His head to the door.
Valoris, the new General-Commander of the Custodies stood in the doorway. He had his helmet off and in his hands. When he noticed that he had his Lord's attention he fell to his knees. He was the one who had spoken and while He hadn't taken much time to speak with Him new members to His Golden Guard – He had wondered when one would get the guts to speak with Him.
"Raise Valoris, there is no need to take the knee at this time." His Eyes turned away from Valoris and went back the Mirrors. "What brings you here?"
"You seem –" Valoris cut himself off. Try to find the right word that described what he was seeing best, "Bothered." He settled on.
"For all my power. I find myself still short when it comes to my own sons."
"Sir?" Valoris took a step forward.
"Blood. I need their blood make it work –" He took a dep breath to calm the rage that built in His lungs and hearts. "– Something I don't have!"
His General was silent before he stood forward to get a better look at the Mirrors. He didn't touch any of them even as his hand was held out as he walked in a circle. "One for every one of them?" The question didn't need to be ask. The numbers of His sons were on the top of every one of those Mirrors.
His Lion had 'I' with two, green eyed, lions reared up framing it, His Raven and Angel had 'XIX' and 'IX' framed with wings. Black raven wings spread like in flight, ruby, red, angel wings curved in a way that spoke of guarding. The Blacksmith with two hammers crossed with 'XVIII' in the gaps under it. Skeletal hands held 'VIII', purple rose twirled around 'III', 'X' had steel gauntlets hold the number close, wires feeling like spider webs for 'IV', 'V' had his white eyes hawks, and 'VI' had howling wolves. That wasn't all His sons but that just a few that Valoris looked at as he passed them.
He stopped though in front of the one who bore the number 'XI'.
His eleventh son was one that history had been made to forget. He had been the one to make history forget. It had been at the pleads of Roboute, the most beloved of the two brothers who were wiped away, Roboute had always been the one who stood apart from his brothers – the odd one of the pack as it were. The Second born and the Eleventh born had always favored him, though, cherished him even, as much as each other, out of all His sons those three were the closest.
Closer then Sanguinius and Horcus, Fulgrim and Ferrus, and Magnus and Jaghatai.
Where one Legion went the others were close behind.
It wasn't a surprise that when the survivors of the Second and Eleventh Legions needed a new home; Roboute was the one who stepped up. He welcomed all new sons home like they were his from the very start. Like his hearts didn't ache and burn at every similar eye shape and hair color, it mourned things that mind didn't.
It was a miracle honestly, that He got there before the two had taken Roboute with them, that He didn't lose three that day.
Shamlock and Beau, the forgotten Sons, the ones that Roboute never stopped mourning.
Valoris looked back at Him before looking back. "I had always wondered what happened to them." He paused then and stepped away hurriedly from the Mirror. "Sorry! My Lord! There was no meaning to over step!"
There was no overstep. "Beau is my Eleventh." He stepped up to the Mirror and stood in line with Valoris. "He was my quiet one." He have a few 'quiets ones' and the 'quiet' always meant something different. Lion was quiet because he was always thinking about one thing or another, Mortartion was a bitter quiet, and the twins had secretes they wanted to keep. Konrad was quiet in the way a hunter was and Corvus just didn't know that making noise was an option. The Eleventh was quiet in the same way of Corvus and Lion with a hit of Mortartion. Words were something that never seemed to be a thing he spared to anyone.
Anyone but the Second and Roboute.
"He was the one who found Roboute. Had panicked in his own way and called his finding in. There was another legion near by, the Second, and were the first to answer the call. A warp storm came up and cut the three of them off. When I got to them, it had been a decade and they had made their own little mini empire." He paused then. "I don't remember a time that Shamlock had ever smiled as much as he did when with Roboute and Beau ruling the 500 planets."
Valoris hummed. "What –" He cut himself off.
The Dark King sighed. Valdor was not a man known to second guess speaking his mind to his lord. Valdor was long gone though, and so was many of his brothers, so Valoris would need to learn how and interact with Him. That would be trying and tiring to teach but He will.
Valoris turned to him and then asked: "What happened to them?" There was no need to add the fact that they were wiped from history, from records, from minds, memories, from oaths and lives. That was place that they once stood – stood out.
A photograph with the whole family lined up with two places that were poorly edit to remove two.
The two sons who were so clearly removed.
"There were creatures that came from the outer edges of the galaxy. Insect things that were part of a Hivemind. I never did find the Brood Mother but it found my sons. Beau had went further then he normally did – chasing after the last of some Orks." The Dark king stepped away from the Mirror and from Valoris and looked up at the winding wisps of the Warp. "He called for some back up, his connection was staticky and there was something there in his eyes. Of course, Shamlock had answered. He was both the closest brother to Beau and the one that Beau had asked for."
"We lost connection with Shamlock. He told us that he had gotten to Beau, that something was up, and then nothing."
Shamlock's hair was pulled back and he had sat the captain's chair. He had barely looked at the Hailing Screen and was looking at the holoscreen that held the glow blue dots of Beau's ships. He was looking for the Orks, because it had to be Orks, because that was what Beau was chasing. He didn't see anything else because he wasn't looking for anything else. He didn't know anything was there to be seen.
There was a hidden Hive Ship that had attached itself to Beau's flagship; the Clawed One. He didn't know if Beau had fought to keep the creatures out before he fell, He didn't know if Beau knew that whatever took his body would call his brother, He didn't know a thing that happened on the ship.
He did know when a squad of the Eleventh had been welcomed aboard Shamlock's flagship; the Mourning Glory.
Had watched in horror as the fight took placed, had seen the panic on the bridge as the creatures attached it's own ship to the Glory. Had seen the creatures attack and weaken Shamlock before dragging him off the ship after leaving a massacre behind.
Shamlock had dug his hands into the floor of the ship and left marking as he was pulled. His screams and yells filled the hall as he went.
He had watched it all on the Hailing Screen.
So had the other brothers.
They had raced to get there.
"When we got to them – it was too late. The Hive had taken Beau and Shamlock. Both Legions were being infected and joining the hive. And they were long gone."
"We would see them here an there over the years. But we would never get close enough to them." 'See them' was wasn't the right thing to say and there wasn't anything else to say. They didn't 'see them' they had seen the aftermath of them. Planets they were devoured. They had left them dead, hanging in space like dehydrated carcasses – it would have been a mercy to break them then to leave them as it were.
They would see ships. Imperial ships that were slowly degrading and shifting – they were slowly becoming more alive then what the Machine Spirits could allow. Breathing creatures that housed the sons of the Second and Eleventh Legions as they hunted.
Crafts and ships of all types would be hunted down and board. Stripped and eaten. There was nothing but debris fields left behind in their wake.
The smaller ships of the fleets were spotted but never the Flagships.
Slowly though, the ships were spotted more and more. They were on the move and they were moving to Ultramar. They were aiming for Macragge.
Roboute put up a good defense.
And it was him that made the find that they were indeed a Hivemind.
But they kept coming, and coming, and coming.
His distress signal did not turn off, it did not go silent, it rang on all the flagships and fleets. Every Legion knew the sound like the hearts in their chests.
The Nightfall and The Pride of the Emperor had dropped out of the Warp first with many brothers on their tails as the Mother Ships – the Flagships – came out of the Warp.
It was not His sons in the captain's chairs when they hailed them to stall them. But it was too.
Shamlock did not smile like that. But it was his smile just with more teeth.
Beau's eyes were glassy and far away, thoughts and mind jumping around. Those were his eyes, thought, and that far away look was not a shock for a man who daydreamed in his free time.
His first stolen sons. Not Lost because of the scattering, but beucase another's hands had ripped them away from Him.
"When we fought, we fought in clashes, and quick bouts. They knew how we fought and we were learning how they fought." They had won the fight for Ultramar and they chased them till they lost them in the warp.
They kept coming back, they kept eating, killing, and leaving a wake that made no effort to hide what it was.
"One battle we clashed. I had Shamlock on the ropes and I realized I couldn't do it," He stopped then.
Valoris spoke up in the sudden silence. "Do what, My Lord?"
He had His sword to Shamlock's throat. Shamlock's eyes, bright blue with the madness of the Hivemind dancing in them, looked into His and tears fell even as he laughed and chocked on his spit from a hit that went to his stomach.
"Father," he chocked out. "Father! Father!" His eyes found Roboute. "Brother! Roboute! Blue! We wait for you!" He held his hand out.
Roboute was behind Him looking on in horror. He stepped in front of him to block the view.
Shamlock's mad eyes jumped back to Him. "Father." He said. "Father. Come with us?"
"I had thrown my own son into a statis that was going to last until the heat death of the universe or till I found a cure for the Hivemind Madness." He scoffed then. "All so I didn't have to kill him. Them."
Beau had come looking for Shamlock or maybe he had coming looking for Roboute. Either way, he had come and he too was put into a statis.
"Their fleets froze up like someone had thrown them into a statis as well. Sons paused like statues in the middle of strikes. The bug things reared up like horse. The Fleets became Ghost Fleets. Left to float around the Imperium's Outer Planets and stars. Going wherever gravity and the Warp called them." Two different Fleets to find, two different sons to wake up. "Their right hands, the First Captains, the Legion Masters. The Commaders. Whatever you want to call them were different. Harder to handle. They did not freeze with their father like their brothers and the bugs."
They were the ones caused the most issue. Their father sealed away and brothers set to drift aimless. But them? Commander Alaric of the Second and Commander Isen of the Eleventh were what He would call colonizers. They made sub-Hiveminds for the main Hivemind. They worked as their own Hive Mother as they moved on and hunted without connection to the main Hive.
Many planets and cities fell to them and them alone.
"We put them in the Ghoul Stars. They would not stop searching for their fathers, finding them, and trying to awaken them. They were more dangerous then ever without the Main Hive."
It was at the Ghoul Stars that Roboute and later Dorn asked for the memories of their brothers to be removed.
Roboute had not slept in years at that point and he was getting worse and worse. In all honesty? It looked like he would be the first of His sons to die and it would be from exhaustion. Grief, sadness, something that would play a part in his death ten thousand years in the future.
And the one hint that they were ever there was poorly edited areas of history.
"Sound like the Tyranids." Valoris spoke after a moment of silence. "They came out of no where after the Heresy and planets fell to them. Some repel them but most put up a good fight and then fall. The Genestealer cults are the worse of them. They breed with humans and the humans are part of the hive and they can take over a planet like that. Takes generations though."
The Dark King huffed, "Sound like the Commanders. Just weaker."
They stood there in silence for a moment. "You don't care for the Imperium anyone?"
There was much He could say on the matter but it would sour the already sour mood. "No." He settled on.
"Then why not let the Commanders lose to find the Primarchs? The hive will always call itself, correct?"
It was just the thing He needed.
"Valoris. Call the Astartes away from the Ghoul Starts. We have a few Commanders to set free."
So here it is! So like the tags say this is the side story to 'a Guide'. I'll be working on this one a little more then the other right because two stories will be influencing each other and I rather both written out and ready for the crossover to happen ya know?
For the whole tagging thing because this is the same universe but not the same story. How do you want to do tagging? like anything updated into one shared universe get tagged in or just that story?
Anywho other thoughts? The next chapter we should get to see Shamlock and Beau and then the party really starts. Also how does Valoris sound? I haven't read any of the books with him in it I don't have a clue what to do with him.
Oh, Blueberry will most likely be getting an update soon so look forward to that!
@gallifreyianrosearkytiorsusan @sleepyfan-blog
