Ecstacies of Saint Chrisenya the Mad [Warhammer 40k] [Transgender Sororitas] [NSFW]

[dragonsaffron]

So this fic started as a shitpost about Sororitas-themed forcefem that someone on discord made at me while I was baked out of my goddamn mind. For some reason my brain then completely latched onto it and created a massive sprawling story with a huge cast, actual themes, and remarkably little smut compared to the initial concept. Blame my authorial brain, always coming up with interesting characters and concepts. Either way, this is EoSCtM, a story exploring my obsession with (consensual) gender transition as an apotheotic act of self-definition.

This fic is going to be all over the place: there will be sickeningly sweet intimacy, there will be ultraviolence, there will be trauma, there will be long stretches of pure character drama interrupted by graphic and kinky sex. The overall tone will probably be a lot lighter than is typical for 40k, but I get obsessive about research so I'm still trying to remain at least somewhat faithful to the canon.

Actual content warnings: explicit sexual content, gore and violence, fascism, sexual coercion and lack of proper consent, sexual trauma responses, psychosis/inability to tell reality from hallucination, body horror, some transphobia.

And a note about lore: I got this question a lot when I was posting on AO3 so I'm nipping it in the bud right now. No, this is not an AU where the Emperor is a woman. The references to an Empress are a quirk of where this story is set, way out on the edge of the Segmentum Tempestus, where there is an offshoot of the Imperial Cult which views the Emperor as female.

Mutually canonical with gargulec's ongoing Miracles of the Saint Lucretia of the Chains, a story which she created entirely independently of mine, until we both ran into each other, realized how funny the coincidence with the titles was, and decided to make them canonical to one another for the hell of it.

 

[dragonsaffron]

It might have been possible to identify, out of all the people in the smallest chapel of the Academia Ecclesia Gabriellum, which was fated to become a Saint. The signs were not obvious. She was but one of dozens of figures kneeling in prayer before the shrines and icons, all identically garbed in the Ministorum-grey robes of a Progena, the imperial aquila sewn into the synthicloth across her back. Her hair, though already silver despite her age of eighteen, was if anything a mark against her holiness. The murmuring of her voice, rasping and rattling as it pronounced High Gothic prayers with flawless recall, merely joined the chorus of prayers, pen-scratch, and muted footsteps which filled the air in the chapel. And yet it is true that an individual of great perception might have noted in the future Saint some elements of foreshadowing. In her posture could be found no flaw: her hands, smooth-skinned and thin-framed, were held clasped in perfect stillness. Her lips, though producing no sound louder than a whisper, nevertheless whispered with passionate fervor. The robe she wore, despite being nearly a year old, was both free of dirt and as stalwart and undamaged as her faith.

It is for this reason that she shall not be referred to using any false names, including that which she used at that time. Instead, she shall go by a nickname she had held on to for much of the term of her study at the Academia Ecclesia Gabriellum: the Saint.

The Saint had been in prayer for nearly an hour, unmoving and unwavering in her focus for all of that time. Then she stirred. Her scant weight shifted on her knees and, as she ceased her speech, she lifted her head. Though the image of the Empress Ascendant was radiant in its beauty, she did not gaze upon it. Her focus had been broken.

A moment later, a voice came from over her shoulder, hushed yet urgent. "Saint? Saint, there you are, I've been looking for you ever since lunch."

The Saint's hands remained clasped even as she turned, her eyes opening wide and her lips smiling faintly in recognition of the voice of Fidelitas Bolaran. The Saint had many admirers at the academia, and just as many enemies; but there was only one person who could be considered her friend. That was Fidelitas.

"Your hood is down outside of a designated area," said the Saint. "That's against regulations."

Fidelitas's eyes flicked upwards, as though it were easy to forget that her long, golden braid was uncovered. She mumbled an interrupted oath, flipping up the hood. "You know what else is against regulations, Saint? What you're doing right now."

"Prayer to the Empress of Humanity is never against regulations."

"It is when it causes you to miss a scheduled event," Fidelitas hissed. "Seriously, what were you thinking?"

"I was thinking of nothing but Her Mightiness."

Fidelitas raised an eyebrow. "'Rely thee not upon words and overlong consideration; but let faith guide thine action, and in action carry out thine faith.' Two can play at that game, Saint."

The Saint rose, a single fluid, spiraling gesture which turned her away from the icon and brought her to her feet at once. Her robes made barely a ripple. "By foot, the path from this chapel to the Conventus Praetorum can be traversed in a quarter of an hour. I would have finished my prayer well before then."

"Of course you would have," Fidelitas said, rolling her eyes. "Do you even know how long we have right now?"

"A third of an hour," said the Saint.

"A third of a—" Fidelitas stopped, suddenly fuming. "That was a guess. Now come, Saint, you cannot be late."

Fidelitas took her by the hand and the two of them walked carefully down the central aisle of the chapel, making for the double doors. Neither spoke, and there was only one interruption. Halfway to the exit, the Saint stopped. Though Fidelitas was nearly twenty centimeters her superior in height, the stop was so abrupt that she could not prevent it.

For several moments, the Saint considered the hunched, wrinkled figure of a scribe, working away on filling out the arcane logistics chart of some requisitions book or another. An urge had struck her, so undefinable that it took her several moments to account for what it was that had drawn her attention. Then she bent down and took one of the scribe's spare ink pots into her hand. The instant that was done, she continued moving.

"What was that, Saint? You've never stolen anything before, that's not… Why did you do that?"

The Saint examined the glass bottle clutched to her chest, turning it over and watching the black liquid slosh back and forth. "I haven't the faintest idea."


Fidelitas and the Saint arrived at the Conventus Praetorum with several minutes to spare. There were three thousand, six hundred, and forty-four students in the graduating class of the Academia Ecclesia Gabriellum, and every single one of them was in attendance, forming a vast grid pattern, all arranged by surname. The Prefects, those students entrusted with maintaining order and discipline, circled like vultures around the edges of the mass, crops in hand, ensuring that all remained silent. Fidelitas went off to her ordained position amongst the students whose surnames began with the letter "B". The Saint, meanwhile, received her crop from the Deputy Commandant and set about her patrol.

He did not raise his eyes enough to take note of the ink pot clutched to the Saint's bosom.

The calling began not long afterwards: one by one, every couple of seconds, a name would be called. The owner of the name would cross the floor and enter into the chambers beyond, where they would be informed of their performance in the Placements. The Saint's name would be called near the end of the process, in three or four hours time; but she already suspected how she had done.

In the meantime, the Prefects were given another privilege, besides that of the whip: the privilege of speech. The Saint indulged in it only the bare minimum necessary to carry out her duties, finding her inner voice more than sufficient to occupy her, but others were not so frugal. By chance, two of those others ended up following but a few paces behind her as she made her rounds.

"The Commissariat, obviously. No man will be showing cowardice in my regiment, that's for bloody certain," said one man. He was broad-shouldered and bald, and everybody knew him as Nines.

"Commissariat? I guess I shouldn't be surprised, coming from you."

They were speaking too loudly. The Saint tried to pay it no mind, but as she gave a quick flick of the crop on the hands of two girls who had started a whispered conversation, she knew the hypocrisy would send a poor message.

"What in the warp's that supposed to mean, Jocan? Yeah, I guess I am cut out for it, on account of I'm a born bloody leader."

"And you're too much of a coward to look a heretic in the eye without at least three layers of flak-vest between you and them," said Jocan, cloyingly. Jocan was just as tall as Nines, but slim and with a curling mustache. "Me, I'm signing up with the Tempestus. Hand me a lasgun and I'll show some heretics the wrath of the Empress."

Nines scoffed. "Right next to the other guardsmen? Damn, Jocan, I knew your brain was in the dirt but I didn't realize you had that little ambition."

The Saint sighed, turning her eyes briefly spaceward. "All shall serve the Empress in their own ways," she said musically, "and all service to the Empress is of equal magnitude in Her eyes, so long as it is undertaken with the wholeness of ones will."

Both of the men laughed.

"Well of course you'd say that," said Nines with a roll of his eyes.

"Doesn't even have the balls to go into war and he's pretending to lecture us," Jocan mumbled.

"Let me guess, you're going into the Ministorum? Gonna stand in front of a bunch of heretics and tell them to stop being so heretical? Or just stay down on Gabrielle's surface and polish some icons for eternity. Am I wrong, Saint?"

Except, he did not use the name Saint, because he knew that she was pleased with the nickname. The Saint remained unperturbed. Not the least because she knew that they were wrong.

"That sort of disrespect for the Ecclesiarchy is against regulations," she said.

Jocan flinched, his smug grin immediately dropping into a scowl of fear. "You're not gonna snitch on us for that, are you?"

"Not this time, no."

"You son of a bitch," Jocan muttered under his breath. But he said no more.

The Saint's thoughts swiftly turned elsewhere. The Conventus Praetorum was ringed all about with small, outlying chambers, used and repurposed for a variety of tasks. Most of them at that time were inhabited by minor deacons, reading out the Placements scores for each of the Progena summoned to them. But a few of those rooms had been taken up for other purposes. The Saint passed by one of those rooms, the door coincidentally open, and stopped in her tracks when she saw who it was was seated at the metal desk within.

Missionaries and priests were an ever-present sight within the Academia Ecclesia Gabriellum. The same station which housed the campus was also home to a small PDF detachment, including a typical allotment of commissars and other officers. Ecclesiastical Navy shipments were a regular sight, being the only way the station could be kept supplied. Even Inquisitors were not too rare, dropping by to ensure that the next generation of the Imperium's finest remained free of heresy and strictly along the ordained path. One group which was almost never seen within the Academia's walls, despite the proximity of the convent on Roctaln III, were the Adepta Sororitas.

And yet, here one was. In her dress, she did not quite meet the image of a warrior of the Empress: she wore similar robes to any other servant of the Ecclesiarchy, though hers were dyed blood-red. Only two things set her apart: the fleur-de-lis tattooed onto her cheek, and the bolt pistol concealed at her hip.

This particular Sister was a sturdy and broad-figured, physical power visible even through the concealing layers of robes. She looked to be about fifty, obviously aged yet hale and flush with vigor, from the keen sharpness of her blue eyes to the firm strength of the tendons in the hand gripping her quill. She was writing down a list of names, most likely of new recruits, or potential recruits: taking the orders was a common path for female Progena, and it was no doubt the case that at least a few hundred had chosen to join this year. As she reached the end of one name, the Sororitas found her quill running dry. Instinctually, she renewed it from the well placed nearby and resumed at the next line. But, almost immediately, it became clear that the ink was insufficient, leaving only scanty and illegible half-marks upon the parchment.

"Empress's blood," she muttered to herself. The Sororitas glanced hither and thither in search of more ink, but saw none. She had scarce placed her hands upon her desk to rise, however, when the Saint appeared. Held in the palm of her outthrust hand was a nearly-full pot of ink.

The Sororitas took the ink pot only after several moments of hesitation. "Well I'll be bolted. How did you know I was going to need that?"

The Saint shrugged. "I did not. But the will of the Empress guides us in all things, does it not, Sister Innogen?"

Innogen dipped her quill into the ink pot and resumed along the next line. "That's Canoness Innogen to you… Hold a moment. How did you know my name?"

Innogen looked up. The Saint made no audible reply, only the faintest grin. The look of dawning awe upon Innogen's face conveyed to her all the information she could possibly need.

"Those eyes," she said. "I couldn't possibly forget those eyes. Like crystal…"

The Saint's eyes were indeed distinct: her pupils had a strange, reflective quality to them, one which tended to catch light, and her irises were a shade of grey so pale as to be almost invisible. At a brief glance, under the proper lighting, it could appear sometimes that her eyes were a single uniform color. And as they gazed down at Innogen, they appeared to grow wide with pleasure.

"Indeed, Innogen. It is I."

"You remembered my name, after seven years?"

The Saint nodded. "I have an excellent memory. And how could I forget you, considering the circumstances under which we last met?"

Innogen did not break eye contact with the Saint, but her expression turned momentarily dark. "I suppose, yes, that such a memory might have an impact. Still, Saint, it warms my heart to see that you've made something of yourself." She nodded to the crop. "Most people who go through something like that… ah, I should not linger."

"'Weep not for the martyrs, for they are in Mine embrace; weep instead for those who reject Me.'"

"Indeed, indeed," said Innogen. "I shall have to tell the Sisters of this. The Thannetch boy, alive and well after seven years, I almost can't believe it."

"You may tell them that," said the Saint. "But there is more news you may be able to bring. You see, Innogen, the memory of your rescuing me has burned bright in my soul for all these past seven years, fueling my faith in the Empress and coloring my thoughts."

Innogen set down her quill, a curious expression falling over her face. "Indeed?"

"As the Adepta Sororitas gave me my life, I must give my life to the Sororitas. I wish to take the orders."

Innogen raised an eyebrow, her expression otherwise carefully neutral. She leaned forward, lowering her voice so as not to draw any attention. "Saint… you are aware of the Decree Passive, aren't you? The use of the word 'Sororitas' isn't just a coincidence."

"I am well aware," the Saint said with a nod. "There are sacrifices I am willing to make in the name of serving my Empress. Besides, I have never placed much value upon my masculinity."

 

[dragonsaffron]

Canoness Innogen blinked fervently, her gaze flickering between the placid face of the Saint and the parchments on her writing desk. The Saint grew concerned: it was not typical for a servant of the Empress to be indecisive. Finally, Innogen made a deep sigh, of the kind that only people of great age and experience can make.

"Well, if you say you've given it some thought, I can't stop you, really. In my experience, most of the girls who take the orders, well, they're already girls if you catch my meaning."

Innogen's gaze swept quickly down the length of the Saint's torso, then back up it. It was true that the Saint's body was not that of a Sororitas; she was slender, bordering on the gaunt, such that no curve nor angle of her body was made visible by the outline of her spotless robes.

"I've never thought it necessary to modify my appearance. Such vanity is unbecoming of a Progena."

"Indeed, indeed," said Innogen. "But you must understand, the Ecclesiarchy takes the mandate of the Decree Passive very seriously. You'll have to…" She paused, scowling. "You'll have to pretty it up at least a little bit before you take the orders.. It's an unfortunate requirement, but ironclad."

The Saint gave a curt nod. "Whatsoever the Imperium requires of me, I can do. 'For the will of the Empress is absolute; yea, with a light that is shed across the whole of the galaxy, how could it not be? Let thy will be as absolute as Hers.'"

Canoness Innogen barked out the briefest of laughs, one which was rapidly stifled when it drew the irate eye of one of the Saint's fellow Prefects. "Now, don't go getting ahead of yourself now, S— Hm. You might have to pick out a new name. Old one won't fit a Sororitas."

"Indeed," said the Saint. "I have briefly considered the matter, though never at length. Perhaps tonight I shall consult the Book of Saints."

Innogen picked up her quill again, giving the Saint a wagging gesture with the feathered end of it. "Don't go getting too far ahead of yourself now. The Placements are still on the letter 'C', so you don't know yet if you'll even meet the requirements."

The Saint grinned. "I have every confidence I will do well. Where might I speak with you again, when I have the news?"

There were a few seconds of silence between the two of them, during which time Innogen completed the unfinished name on her ledger and added on a few more. "Ninth bell," she said, without raising her gaze from the parchment. "After breakfast. Sororitas recruiting center is on the forty-first deck, you can follow the signs."

"Thank you," the Saint said, her chin bobbing briefly in an approximation of a standard Ecclesiarchal bow. She placed the crop once more upon her chest and, slipping from the side chamber into the Conventus Praetorum, resumed her rounds with a servitor-like rigidity that pretended to not having been interrupted at all. But her head was held just a little bit higher than usual, and the Saint's chest was every so slightly outthrust.

Canoness Innogen watched her leave. In the moment, she had fallen back upon training and prior experience to carry her through, but with the Saint no longer directly in Innogen's face, her mind sprang back into its usual position, and began to comprehend the strangeness she had just witnessed. That the Saint wished to take the orders was… not ordinary, but such a thing was not unheard of, and she could follow the logic. What she could not reconcile were the two images of the Saint in her mind, and how they could belong to the same individual. One was the young woman she had just seen: strange of affect but clever and eloquent. The other was the child she had known for but a few brief days, seven years before: how that starved, maddened, sobbing thing could have grown into a successful Progena was a mystery that occupied her the remainder of the day.

Not that she allowed the question to hinder her in her work. Recruiting was a terrible burden of labor, collimating all of the names of potential novitiates, writing sealed requests to the Abbey's logistics priests for precise availability of bolters, rations, armor, all the other goods that would determine the proportion of those girls which would go on to become novitiates proper. It was loathsome work, and Innogen really thought that it would be more just if it were done by someone at least fifty percent metal; but apparently such people were not capable of the discriminatory mental effort required in recruiting.

It had not even originally been Innogen's duty to go out to the Gabriellum. The Canoness in this year's rotation had been Sister Palmara. But only two days before the ship to Gabrielle was due to depart, Palmara had fallen ill, an old war wound suddenly beginning to bleed, forcing her into the care of the Hospitallers. With no time left, there had been no alternative but to skip ahead a year in the rotation and send Innogen in Palmara's stead.

By the time every Progena had been informed of their Placements scores, it had indeed been several hours, and it was nearly time for supper. That, at least, allowed Canoness Innogen to decompress. She sent a vox-relay message back to Roctaln III, nothing of import, merely a few words to Canoness Beulah about the drudgery and homesickness. Then it was right back to work, though work of an altogether more investigative sort.

Innogen was seated in an armchair in her quarters on the Argent Wing, staring into the starfield in silent contemplation, when Palatine Maryllis strode confidently through the doors, data-slate in hand. Maryllis was a woman who looked about half Innogen's age, though Innogen knew her to in fact be thirty-four. Empress-blessed genetics. She was, in a general sense, tainted by the sin of vanity, among other things preferring her figure-clinging body glove to traditional robes, and through means which remained carefully unknown to Innogen always maintained a supply of a gelatinous substance which made her hair exceedingly shiny.

None of that detracted from the fact that she was the best right-hand woman Innogen had ever known, but it did make her a rather striking person to see walking in through a doorway.

"All the data you wanted, here at your fingertips."

Innogen rose from the chair, as comfortable as it was, in order to meet Maryllis halfway. Turning on the data-slate, she found it already on the spreadsheet she'd been looking for: the Placements results for every one of this year's Progena. She tapped the stylus against the search bar and typed in "Thannetch."

"Thannetch?" said Maryllis, craning her neck in order to read the slate over Innogen's shoulder. "I didn't think there were any Thannetches still alive."

"There is, so far as I'm aware, exactly one."

And indeed, the data-slate returned only one result. The name matched what Innogen knew, though if the Saint succeeded in her goals it would not remain so for long. After a moment of sifting through irrelevant records, she found what she was looking for: the Placements.

Four numbers. Four numbers that, for the briefest of moments, made Innogen remember what it was like to be a Progena, young and anxious and scared out of her wits at the possibility that any one of those four numbers might not be up to lho. She went through them one at a time, turning over the implications in her head.

The Saint, the final surviving Thannetch, had strong enough scores in High Gothic that she could probably hold a conversation in it. Rhetorical speaking and Theology were both verging on perfect scores, higher even than she had expected, and the girl's ability to quote scripture entirely unprompted had given Innogen high expectations indeed. The problem was Athleticism. Her score in Athleticism was… well, it didn't indicate any sort of severe malformation or incapability. One might even call it "typical", if one's standards were based primarily on bureaucrats and priests.

"Hm. Smart one, he is," said Maryllis.

"She. The girl walked up to my desk in the Conventus Praetorum and said she wanted to take the orders."

Maryllis gave a sharp little inhale, the sort one would give upon hearing intriguing gossip. Another one of Maryllis's minor flaws. "Oh, the Hospitallers will be very pleased. Might even have to pawn her off on the Orders Famulous."

Innogen's frown deepened. It would, indeed, be a blessing for any of those orders to receive a novitiate with a mind as brilliant as hers. A perfect and happy ending, one which would make everybody happy. Except, of course, for the Thannetch heir herself.

"Fairly sure she wants to join the Orders Militant," Innogen said.

Maryllis's expression immediately fell, and she paused a moment to check the numbers again. "Oh dear. Are you sure?"

"Not entirely, but… You've seen it happen before, haven't you? A girl sees us in all our finery, battling back the forces of chaos, saving her from a terrible fate, and gets it in her head that she wants to be a hero just like us. A tale as old as the Sororitas."

Innogen paced across the room, setting the data-slate down on a shelf. Maryllis remained where she was in a blade-straight posture. Her eyes narrowed: she was thinking.

"Well, normally this is where I would say you can reject her and be done with it. But if it was that simple, you wouldn't have needed me in the room, would you? There's something else needling you."

"I can't figure her out," Innogen said. "You were there on Aktranis, you remember what it was like."

"It was my second-ever real fight," Maryllis said with a curt nod.

"Then you know where she was seven years ago." Innogen paused again, pulling a breath over her teeth as she allowed the ill memories to pass over her. "And you've just seen where she is now. What I can't put together is, how does a person get from that point A, to this point B?"

Maryllis remained where she was, eyes still narrowed, head tilting slowly to one side. "Why does it matter?"

"Because if I can figure out the answer to this mystery, I can figure out if I should tell her that she has to choose between the other Orders and fucking right off, or if I should give her the second chance that I'm denying a dozen other girls who didn't make the cut."

Maryllis gave a brief nod, and set to work pondering. She was like a cogitator in that way: where Innogen would pace and grunt and kineticise her problem, once one had given Maryllis something to think about, she would do so with quiet precision and, sometimes, a faint humming. Innogen couldn't help but watch her work, try to divine her conclusions from the faintest changes in expression and posture.

"Pain is something which takes many forms. No two people bleed in quite the same way."

"I know that," Innogen said. "I've been fighting wars for three decades, I know what pain looks like. I've seen it tear good women apart from the inside out. I've felt pain myself, even. Pain does two things: it fades, and it destroys."

"Does the phrase 'cleansing fire of the Empress's wrath' mean anything to you?"

Innogen circled the edge of her desk, feeling as though she'd just lost a pistol duel. "You know that's not what I mean."

"I don't know. You'll have to explain it to me."

"It's not the pain of the fire that cleanses, it's not the suffering. Canoness Adaïr believed that, and you know where it got her. The cleansing fire of the Empress cleanses by forcing action and uncomplacency. But the kind of pain that you face when… What she must have…" Innogen struggled to even put it into words what the Thannetch heir had gone through. It felt unholy to even speak, as though merely mentioning it would bring the taint of Chaos to the Argent Wing. "She couldn't have learned from that."

Maryllis nodded. "I don't believe she did. But, as you said, pain destroys. What happens, then, to one who faces a pain so great that nothing remains?"

"Well, they would have to start from nothing. Take a, a numb stump and build a whole person on top of it…" Innogen could hardly imagine it. Metaphor failed her, a rare feat of indescribability indeed. "You think that's what happened to her?"

Maryllis made a sort of twitch, a flick of the neck that sent her perfect hair fluttering in the still air while implying that she could not be bothered to put in the effort required of a thug. "Merely one possible explanation."

"And in only seven years…" Innogen said. "The sheer bloody-minded determination alone…"

"Less than seven. Marks like that don't appear in a day."

Innogen nodded, circling fully around the desk. Her thoughts slowly settled, all points in order. "It would be a shit shame if her dreams were quashed after all of that."

Maryllis smirked. "The Canoness in charge of recruiting has the right, so long as all other disciplinary and logistical requirements are satisfied, to waive Placements requirements in favor of the results on the auxiliary trials. I believe that's in the Rule of the Sororitas, Section… Ten?"

"Indeed it is," said Innogen. "Of course, it would be unwise to use such a power without consulting other Sororitas officers."

Maryllis rolled her eyes. "You have my permission, Canoness Innogen."

"Then I'll do it right away. What do you think, Trial of the Scroll and Trial of the Baton? Those aught to prove how much she really wants this."

"I agree." Maryllis paused, scanning each corner of the room in turn. "Is there anything else you'll require of me?"

"As a matter of fact, there is. Find this station's Sartorium, find out what her uniform size is, and set about requisitioning some…" Innogen looked down at the desk, a slight flush coming to her cheeks. "Forming garments?"

"Forming garments?" said Maryllis, a few fingers rising to her lips in an elaborated display of false reproof. Her eyes were glittering.

Innogen tried not to be amused. "The Thannetch girl has not, ah. She will need a little bit of assistance to show her compliance with the Decree Passive, if you catch my meaning."

"I understand your meaning perfectly, Canoness Innogen," Maryllis said, giving a quick salute. "Shall I also dip into my private stash?"

"Someday we're going to have to have a talk about your willingness to use the phrase 'private stash' in front of your own commanding officer. But yes. You may." No more words needed be said. As Innogen sat down and prepared to do her nightly studies of the literature, she could be sure that her orders would be carried out with utmost efficiency. For better or for worse.

 

[dragonsaffron]

Fidelitas adjusted the hood on the glow-globe until the cone of green-tinted light fell upon the latch of the Saint's door. She opened it partway, then slid through the gap, stifling a grunt of pain as her hip caught on the doorframe partway through. Fidelitas's already-simmering irritation was exacerbated by the reminder that Prefects, unique amongst all students of the Academia Ecclesia Gabriellum, had rooms entirely to themselves. The bed alone took up half the floor space of the small cell, forcing Fidelitas to slide along the edge until she reached the head of the cot. She shifted the beam along the covers, up the shape of the body under the covers, past the hands clasped precisely and peacefully over the chest, to the face. It was indeed the Saint: Fidelitas's half-memories of having seen the room number proved accurate.

She reached out and jostled the Saint's shoulder. And when that failed to awaken her, she jostled it again, shaking the bony thing until the Saint finally awoke. It was an eerie sight, the way the glow-globe's light reflected off of those overlarge eyes. The Saint did not move, nor speak, though the acceleration in the rise and fall of her chest and the way her pupils scanned up and down Fidelitas's body proved that she was awake.

"What are you looking at?" Fidelitas whispered.

"I don't know," the Saint said quietly.

"Well get up," Fidelitas snapped, struggling to keep her voice too quiet to be heard."I'm going to have a word with you."

"I'm sure you will," said the Saint. Fidelitas dragged her upright, and the Saint gave neither resistance nor cooperation. Her head lolled and her arms fell limply into her lap.

The shadows cast by the glow-globe rendered both of them in strange colors and contrasting hues, still paintings in the dark. Fidelitas expected some sort of reaction, some question as to her presence in the Saint's room, but she received only a blank and morose stare.

"Well," said the Saint. "Get on with it. Or are we trying something new tonight?"

"Something new? I… Forget it. Saint, I heard talk that you were going to join the Sororitas? Please tell me that was a lie, because if you're seriously joining the Sororitas, and you never told me—"

The Saint rolled her eyes, a gesture which Fidelitas was sure she had never seen her make before, and pressed together her palms. "Empress protect and Empress guide this pitiful vessel, grant strength beyond this mere shell of humanity by the exertion of thine will. Thou art the supreme of all mortal creatures, and only by thine light may I be guided. Forgive this fallible vessel of all its sins, and—"

Fidelitas slapped the Saint fully across the face. "What in the bloody warp has gotten into you?"

The Saint was undaunted. "—continue to grant thy grace in spite of its many failings. O Mightiest Empress of Humanity…"

She trailed off. The Saint's eyes flicked first spaceward, then to Fidelitas. Her expression instantly turned sad, even forlorn. "Oh," she said. "Oh, I am sorry."

All at once, without any apparent cause—the slap should have done it, but that failed to explain the delay—the Saint was back. Her flawless poise was as expected, and her voice, though tinged with a stronger strain of contrition than usual, was the same feather-light thing that usually issued from the Saint's lips.

"What… was that?"

"An error," the Saint whispered. "I had mistaken you for… another. Fidelitas, had I known it was you I would never have spoken as I did."

Fidelitas grimaced. She had already accepted the apology, at least in theory, but there were several other questions which needed answering. "Mistaken? For whom? Saint, who is going to be in your room at half-past first bell?"

There was a calculated blankness to the Saint's expression. "It is none of your concern, Fidelitas. Now, what was it you said before? Yes, I do intend to take the orders."

"But—Never mind. Why didn't you tell me?"

"What? That I was joining the Sororitas?" The Saint frowned, ever so subtly. "You never told me where you were going."

"Yes, because I'm not going anywhere worth telling about. I'm going somewhere normal, like down to Gabrielle to become a deacon or, or joining the Ecclesiastical Navy or something. Somewhere we can still stay in touch. If I was going off to get myself killed on a distant planet, I'd at least have the common decency of telling my best friend about it beforehand."

"I would not merely be 'getting myself killed'," the Saint said softly. "A death in the service of the Empress, doing battle against Her enemies, is a calling to be lauded."

Without a gesture, without even a word, the Saint had a way of inflicting shame. Fidelitas reared back, as if wounded, and for a second found herself questioning her own motives. "I know that," she said. "But…Roctaln III, that's so far away. You go off and become a Sororitas and I'll never see you again."

Even the Saint looked perturbed, though in her case, perturbation was the smallest of gestures, a microscopic flick of the eyes and a subtle re-expression of the rigid posture. "Such is the way of things. Do you suppose that we would have been able to stay in the same place, otherwise? That two priests on Gabrielle or two captains of the Ecclesiarchal Navy would be glued together as closely as panes in a chapel window?"

"No, of course not," Fidelitas said. She had always imagined it to be so, but never believed it. "But at least then we could… keep in touch? Send messages over vox, or letters or some such. We'd be on the same level. A warrior of the Empress can't be exchanging letters with some nobody giving sermons to serfs."

"'And to the warriors, knights of the Imperium, She said: be humble, for you are nothing without the people you defend.' I will find a way." The Saint extended her hands, and with the gentlest pressure she took Fidelitas's spare hand from off of the glow-globe, and held it between her own. The Saint's hand was cold, but dreadfully soft.

Fidelitas refused to shed tears in front of the Saint, who as far as she could tell had never shed tears for anything. "I'm still mad at you for not telling me," she said. "I had to find out secondhand. Some arsehole talking over supper about how he wasn't surprised that you turned out to be a girl."

"Was it? Unsurprising, that is?"

"No!" Fidelitas hissed. "Of course it was surprising, that's why I'm bloody furious you didn't tell me."

"I have made no secret of my admiration for the Sororitas," said the Saint, stroking the back of Fidelitas's hand with her own thin fingertips.

"Have I not lectured you to the point of irritation on their position as the holiest of the Empress's soldiers?"

"You have," Fidelitas said. The touch of the Saint's fingers were a ploy, but it was one which was having an effect. "But I thought… Well I thought that was just the usual sort of admiration, given you were a man."

She gently pulled her hand away, slipping it through the Saint's grip. That grip was as sweet as salt of lead.

"And that's the other thing," Fidelitas continued. "You could have told me, you know. Even if you planned to keep it a secret until the last minute, you know I'm no snitch, you could have told me."

"Told you what?"

"That you're a woman."

The Saint fluttered her eyelashes, the very picture of innocence. "But I am not."

"You're joining the Sororitas," Fidelitas said. "And they didn't reject you, otherwise you'd have said something about that. You've never hesitated to produce some obscure bit of historical trivia, and you're trying to tell me you don't know of the Decree Passive?"

"I do. I will become a woman, as is required of me if I am to serve the Empress with the fullness of my strength. But I am not a woman yet. And if I am to be forthright, I have put little thought into it."

"You've put little thought into… becoming a woman?" Fidelitas said, with growing horror.

"I have never been a font of masculinity, Fidelitas," said the Saint.

"That's not… I don't think that works like that. What if you end up hating it, do you have a plan for what you'll do then?"

The Saint looked faintly offended. "Hate it? Is being a woman that awful? You have held up quite well."

The cell fell dreadfully quiet. The glow-globe flickered subtly. Fidelitas's jaw was fully open, and a lock of her hair fell out of her braid to lie across her back. "How are you so brilliant and yet so ignorant?" she whispered.

The Saint looked up at her and sighed, only briefly. "There are many things within my head which I have not shared with you. I have considered my desire to take the orders for years, and naught has dissuaded me. Not even this."

"I didn't want to dissuade you." Fidelitas said, brow furrowed. "I just wanted you to know how angry I am."

"You have," said the Saint. "And I can promise you this: my memory is long, and my thoughts never wander. I will not forget you, Fidelitas Bolaran. Ever."

"I don't think I could forget you if I tried. Friend." Fidelitas looked at the door, but quickly turned back to face the Saint. "I ought to be going. Tomorrow will be busy, and I need all the sleep I can get."

"Go," said the Saint. "I will be as right as I have ever been. Don't let me worry you."

It was a slow separation. The distance between Fidelitas and the Saint was a gelatinous mass, needing to be slowly stretched. Eventually, though, she did slip through and, with the hood of her glow-globe closed to its narrowest beam, vanished down the hallway.

The next morning, Fidelitas ate her breakfast of potato compress and onion-fried grox slowly and mechanically, as though it were a distraction from the true business of the morning. Which, in a way, it was. Satisfying her bodily requirements of starch, protein, and bramble-water was only something she did because of the potential health detriments if she failed to do so; what was important was happening in her mind.

Fidelitas Bolaran was the child of manufactural calculators in the urbanized belt of the cardinal world Gabrielle, the youngest of three. Six years earlier, she had been informed that, with the carb dole being cut for the third time, it would no longer be possible for her parents to keep her fed, and as the least employable, her only future was to be sent to the Progenium and trained for a better future. Ever since then, she had been certain that she knew the path her life would take: she would find her niche somewhere out there in the labyrinth of the Imperium, and her family would live out their lives secure in the knowledge that they had issued a daughter who had made something of herself. All of that had been blown away late last afternoon when she learned that her best friend was taking the orders.

Re-assessing all of her memories of the Saint from a more feminine angle was disconcerting, but it was not difficult or destructive to her worldview. It was, if anything, too easy. But how she was supposed to be able to comprehend the thought of someone she knew—someone she knew well—going off to war, being a literal soldier of the Empress, Fidelitas did not know.

Her eyes drifted away from her plate and across the great gap of the mess hall. The Saint was only a few tables down. She was just finishing her morning meal, engaging in only the lightest conversation with her peers, but otherwise looking entirely as expected. The Saint could not be said to be normal. But there was a baseline, an average of how she behaved on any given day, and in spite of everything, she was following it to the letter.

Then the Saint stood, tossing her utensils into the slot where they would be picked up and cleaned by a serf when breakfast was over, and made her way out of the mess hall. Fidelitas watched her go, watched her all the way to the door. That certainty made her want to slap the Saint a few times more.

As she watched the Saint go, Fidelitas started to panic. It was a quiet, calm sort of panic, but a panic nonetheless. She remembered again the four numbers she had been given the day before, and the droning voice of the deacon as he listed out in perfect monotone the long list of positions that she had apparently proven herself capable of holding. Perhaps Fidelitas Bolaran would do something unexpected. It was the last minute, after all, when the pressure was greatest; there would be no better time to go completely mad, to swerve wildly into the unknown. As the door rocked shut behind the Saint, Fidelitas's panic matured like aged amasec into something both stronger and altogether more directed. She turned her attention down to her plate, shoveling food into her mouth in preparation of what would come next.

 

[dragonsaffron]

The Saint did not pause to let the door to the mess hall rattle shut behind her. It was a little more than halfway to the ninth bell, after all. She drifted through the halls, weaving weightlessly through the everyday traffic, picking up snatches of conversation about bureaucratic ration grades and ongoing battlefronts as she made her way to the lifts. She arrived just as one opened up, going down, and entered it without breaking stride.

No men could be seen on the forty-first deck, though there must have been a few around somewhere. It was an old space, mostly unused, built more for the sake of having an extra deck that the Commandant could put to use than any real purpose. The ceiling was claustrophobically low, and there were large stretches of hallway made of plain sheet metal without gilding, murals, or skullwork. Those were like patches of rot on an old tree, and the Sororitas making temporary use of the deck had done their very best to cleanse the rot via the tactical addition of purity seals.

One Sororitas, Canoness Innogen, had been a welcome sight the day previous. The Saint had to hold back delight when she found herself surrounded by them. Crimson was the dominant color, be it of the tight-clasped everyday robes or, yet more excitingly, of the suits of battle armor that clanked down the hallways. The Saint could almost feel the weight of the armor plates, the gentle pressure of the inner control surfaces. It was not the only thing that made her feel oddly at home, either: silver hair was far from a common phenotype amongst humans, but easily half of the Sororitas and a similarly respectable percentage of the dozens of attendant Progena clustering in the passageways had the same pale hair color. How that hair color had become so common without something having gone horribly wrong, the Saint found herself at a loss to explain.

Regardless, the forty-first deck whisked the Saint along, words and signs and the fluid motion of people all creating a current that carried her to her destination. Said destination was a boxy antechamber, smelling thickly of incense, with a rope separating it into two sections. One, the larger, was carpeted, and inhabited by half a dozen anxious Progena, Canoness Innogen, and an unfamiliar battle-sister. The other part was left bare, and acted as a thoroughfare through which Sororitas and servitors could pass through.

The Saint joined the Progena, standing at ease, waiting for the ninth bell to signal the proper time. More Progena arrived while she waited, all united by nothing besides their gender and a faint air of optimistic fear. The Saint might have asked what it was that they were afraid of, but Innogen's steely glare made it quite obvious that silence was to be expected. There were ten Progena in attendance by the start of the ninth bell, all in a loose grid. By the end of the ninth bell, there were eleven.

A few breaths later, Innogen spoke. "To attention, Progena!"

All snapped to attention, aside from the Saint, who could be better said to have slipped or glided into an attentive state. Innogen spent a moment looking at each girl in turn, wordlessly counting heads.

"It appears that all of you are here, which bodes well. As you may have gathered, you are all here for the same reason: you didn't make the cut."

All of them had indeed gathered the fact, including the Saint. But there was no doubt in her mind that this truth would prove no obstacle.

"Whether because of the narrowness of your exclusion, the commendations of your peers, or extraordinary situations, your failures to meet the basic requirements of joining the Orders Militant will not bar your way; but neither can such shortfalls be ignored. The Rule of the Sororitas, in all of its great wisdom, allows us a flexibility in these situations. They're called the Lacuna Trials, and they are three in number: the Trial of the Scroll, the Trial of the Baton, and the Trial of the Gate. My judgement as Canoness-Recruiter has deemed that each of you will be allowed to take one or more of these Trials. Should you succeed, you will be allowed to take the orders. Should you fail, your path lies elsewhere. Remember that you have already been given a second chance: you will have no third. Understood?"

There was a chorus of "Yes Canoness"s, of varying degrees of enthusiasm. Innogen grunted turned to the more prosaic matters. She announced the hours and locations at which each trial would take place, then began calling forward names one at a time. When there were only two Progena left, Innogen hesitated.

"Er… Thannetch, you know who I'm talking to. Step forward."

The Saint did so. "I promise you, my family name is unimportant. It does not need to be spoken."

"Well, until you come up with a new name for yourself, family's going to have to suffice. Can't very well call you 'Saint'."

"Of course. I have put thought into it, but not decided yet. Which are my trials?" The thought that she might be given only a single trial had not crossed the Saint's mind even once. Her path would not be so easy.

"Scroll and Baton. But, er, before you go, there is some other business that must be attended to." Canoness Innogen patted the Saint lightly on the shoulder, subtly redirecting her to her Sororitas companion, who had remained silent and still up until then. "This here is my second in command, Palatine Maryllis. She'll be… helping you."

Palatine Maryllis struck an odd figure. She looked young for her middle thirties, and of surpassing beauty, with flawless skin and glossy hair. The flexible one-piece outfit she wore did little to obscure her wiry and athletic figure. If it weren't for the rosarius around her neck and the bolt pistol at her hip, a less astute observer might have mistaken her for a mere attendant. She was also, mysteriously, carrying a plasflex bag slung over one shoulder.

The Saint gave her a curt half-bow. "They call me the Saint, if my current name fails to please."

"You certainly have the look of one," Maryllis said. "I'll try not to ruin it."

"Maryllis will be helping you to… meet the requirements of the Decree Passive."

"I see," said the Saint. Her affect remained passive, despite the growing sense of foreboding about Maryllis's task.

"Follow me," said Palatine Maryllis. "I know a place with a mirror."

Maryllis did not wait, but set off at once. The Saint followed a step behind. They moved as quickly as a walking pace would allow, weaving narrowly past any pedestrians, the two of them in almost perfect synchronization. Despite all that, it wasn't long before Maryllis decided to start making small talk.

"So, how long have you known? That you had been poorly gendered, that is. Cannot have been long."

"I do not know," replied the Saint. "One might say that it has been many years. At least, that is how long I have known my destiny lay with the Sororitas. But all this talk of womanhood and masculinity, I have rarely considered, for my thoughts lay less on this material plane."

"I am afraid to say that the rest of humanity isn't as metaphysical. I imagine being with the rest of the girls will fem you up over time, but we have only six days."

Palatine Maryllis stopped in her tracks, spinning ninety degrees on one heel. "This is the door. You first."

The chamber beyond had once been a decontamination room, or perhaps a laundry of some description, but had been converted by the Sororitas into a dressing room via the addition of several clothing racks and a large mirror. The racks were burdened with spare robes, and even in the poor lighting the scrapes of powered-armor boots could be seen to have marked the floor. Whether because of the body heat of those who had passed through it, or because of some convolution of the station's life support systems, the room was oddly warm.

Maryllis followed the Saint inside and locked the door. Wasting no time, she set down the bag on the countertop by the rusted sink and began emptying out its contents: clothing. Black clothing, of a smoother texture than any synthcloth the Saint was used to.

"If I'm remembering it right, Academia uniform is shirt, trousers, robe and shoes?"

"Yes," said the Saint, voice wavering and hesitant. "You graduated from here?"

"Different Progenium," Maryllis said, sounding almost apologetic. "But they're not that different. A room this small and this hot, makes me almost nostalgic."

The Saint cleared her throat. "And what is this you've brought?"

"It's fresh from the Sartorium, based on a novitiates casual uniform, but with… modifications. Tunic, hose, boots, the mantlet's required on formal occasions but if you'd like to make a fashion statement feel free to do so."

The Saint approached the pile of clothing slowly and with great care, the sort of gingerness one would give to a grox calf. The hose was thin and flexible, looking deflated without a body to fill it, whereas the tunic was entirely the opposite, all sophisticated layers of stitching and strange additions of non-fabric material. "Am I to put this all on?"

Palatine Maryllis finished emptying the bag, setting out a small black case away from the rest. She turned back, catching the Saint's fearful expression. "It's clothes."

The Saint swallowed phlegm. "'Succumb thee not to pride, My children, nor to vanity, nor any other impulse which seeketh to place thineself above Me.' You might understand the trepidation?"

"It's clothes," Palatine Maryllis repeated. "Just put them on, please."

The Saint made no more complaint. Maryllis graciously averted her gaze while the Saint efficiently stripped down, and with equal efficiency added the new uniform onto herself. The tunic was the main article. It covered the Saint from collarbone to mid-thigh, though from the pelvic bone downward it did so with only a loose skirt, and had sleeves down to the wrist. It seemed dedicated to fighting against her, rigid rods in the torso yearning to spring into their proper shapes, and ellipsoid shells in the upper chest refusing to dissipate. One could almost imagine wearing the tunic as sole article of clothing, but the Saint nevertheless raced to cover up.

The hooded mantlet was, in her estimation, the best part of the uniform. It covered her hair almost entirely, and by its size obscured her shoulders and upper chest. Silver threads sewn into the fabric made it appear almost pious. The legwear was more difficult than the tunic, catching and dragging at every single centimeter of its journey from her ankles upward. It was almost weightless once on, though, and the sense of being able to walk around with one's legs unencumbered was profoundly unfamiliar.

When the Saint announced that she was done lacing up her boots, Maryllis turned around and set to work. "You've got the chest all wrong," was the first thing she said.

"Wrong? How could it be wrong?"

"You must have never seen a pair of breasts in your life, poor thing," said Maryllis. She stepped into grappling range of the Saint, and placed one hand on each of the firm, slightly giving ellipses of material sewn into the chest of the tunic. With a firm grip, she shifted them downward. "They go over the heart."

The Saint had entirely lost her ability to respond once Palatine Maryllis had said the word "breasts". Her face flushed with blood, and her eyes went unfocused in the general direction of Maryllis's expressionless face. She breathed through her open mouth.

Maryllis stepped back. "Turn three-hundred-sixty degrees, and do it slowly."

The Saint did as ordered, still wordless. She wondered if this was a dream, a very odd and convoluted dream for which the turn had not yet come. Strange and conflicting emotions bubbled within her, exactly the kind she only ever experienced in dreams.

"No arse at all," Maryllis muttered. "The Hospitallers will rectify that. But, you have a waistline and a bust, which is spectacular work for less than a day." She crossed to the other side of the Saint yet again, this time moving to the small box.

"You have four uniforms, including the one you're wearing. That should be enough for now. For an extra leg up, I'm giving you some of my private stash."

She opened the case. Inside were four brushes of varying sizes, three trays full of powder, a tiny jar of something black, and several square sheets of brilliantly red flimsy. The Saint returned to her senses for long enough to react to them as though they were venomous.

"These are—"

"I know what cosmetics are," the Saint said with disdain.

"Hmm? Ah, yes." Maryllis looked down at her feet, grinning like it was a private little joke. "I had not considered your… Will you need my assistance in the application, then?"

The Saint shook her head. "I can work it out from memory."

Seeing the Saint's ever-souring expression, Maryllis went for the door. "I'll give you privacy, then." She stopped in the doorframe. "But, do remember, this is no spiretop ball. So exercise restraint."

Despite Maryllis's actions, the Saint chose the path of forgiveness. Once that emotional matter was settled, she sat down on the edge of the sink, box of cosmetics at her side. She took out the broad brush and the Artipal powder, letting the weight settle in her hands. At any moment she felt liable to be subsumed, to discover the depth of the depravity to which she had sunk by accepting this offer. Memories returned, melted together where the flames had touched them the hottest, memories of perfumed ladies and raucous laughter, of coin and wine spilling from hand to hand.

Then she began to paint. Formally speaking, the Saint had never applied her own cosmetics, that being entirely too cosmopolitan a thing not to be left to ones lessers, but she had learned a decent amount through observation. The patterns were different, softening and highlighting rather than creating a regal image. But nonetheless, she knew the techniques.

Artipal on first, scattered across her face with even brushstrokes. Then Paper of Phycha between the lips, leaving behind a waxy stain that forced the Saint to wash her fingertips in stale faucet water. The hardest part was the Atramentum. Only the thinnest brush could apply it, its bristles tuned to a narrow point with a twist of the fingers. The Saint fell utterly still, her eyes turned skyward as though asking for approval for her Empress while she applied the black with long and achingly precise strokes. Above the eye, below the eye, thin strands across the ridge of the orbit, around the edge of the lip. When the final brush was set down, the final implement returned, the Saint was shaking with dread and inexplicable exhaustion.

With a knock on the inside of the door, Palatine Maryllis was summoned back into the room. Wordlessly, she placed the Saint in front of the large mirror, then took a step back, observing in silent stillness. The Saint had no choice but to observe as well.

She rapidly concluded that she looked too pretty for her own good. Even seizing on every plain aspect about herself—her bony frame, the pale hairs scattered across her face, legs, and upper chest, her slightly overlarge nose—there was no way of getting around that the Saint had achieved a far greater measure of true beauty than she ever had before. It was an unpleasant calculus, caught between the sin of vanity and the sin of breaking Ecclesiarchal rule, or at least being seen to do so.

"Does it… work?" said the Saint. "Is this enough?"

Palatine Maryllis blinked, as though awoken from a nap. "Oh, yes, I think it does. For a first-timer you look quite good. Are those wings on the eyes?"

They were. Wings spread wide across the outer corner of her eyes, complete with minute parallel strokes to create the impression of feathers. "The wings of the Empress, carrying humanity across the galaxy," said the Saint. "A pious gesture."

"Indeed. I shall have a servitor carry the items to your cell so that you can prepare for your first trial, which is in a few hours, if I remember."

"Indeed it is," said the Saint. Her gaze was locked on her own reflection. She felt ill, off-balance, blessed with an excess of blood and a shortage of gastrointestinal fortitude.

"Then I shall leave you to it. Empress guide you, Saint."

The Saint stared into the mirror for nearly a quarter of hour, attempting to wrestle down the damnable emotions. She reminded herself repeatedly that this was an essential part of the process, necessary to prove her devotion to the Sororitas. When she was done, she rushed to the nearest chapel, ready to thank the Empress for the blessing that this was not a dream.

 

[dragonsaffron]

Years of student's robes had rendered the Saint unused to moving through the Academia Ecclesia Gabriellum in any other attire. She maintained her usual poise, a lightness and surety of gait visible even from afar, but the appearance was deceiving. The boots fit strangely around her feet, and it would take a deal of time to become used to the lack of heavy material drifting about her lower half. The looseness of the tunic around her hips and the skin-tight hug of the black material over her legs left her in a constant, lurching state of perceived exposure.

It was a minor miracle, then, that as she entered the chamber of the Trial of the Scroll, she was able to maintain her habitual sense of poise. Her entrance attracted attention, all eyes on her for a handful of seconds, including that of Canoness Innogen. The Saint reminded herself that she had not sought out such attention. It spoke to the characters and wants of those witnessing her, not her own modesty or lack thereof.

"Well, would you look at that," said Canoness Innogen. "Maryllis did good work on you."

"Truly?" said the Saint, frowning.

The Saint ran her hands down the length of her tunic, straightened out her mantlet. The mantlet, at least, was an improvement: it was light, and did an excellent job of covering her hair. "I had no doubt that you had chosen whomever was best for the job," she said.

"Indeed. Now be seated, the trial is about to begin.

There were seven individuals taking the Trial of the Scroll, and seven tables had been set out. Each table bore a quill, a pot of ink, and a blank parchment scroll. The Saint sat down, flinching at the still unfamiliar sensation of a chair as felt through the new uniform. She had already rendered her knees sore, kneeling for extended prayer without the usual cushioning factor of the thick student's robes.

Canoness Innogen stood in the front of the chamber, lit from behind by a pair of false windows that opened only onto an array of electric lights, and beckoned in a servitor. In the servitor's hands was a tray, and on the tray were seven identical scrolls. "The Trial of the Scroll is simple," she explained. "Each of these scrolls is identical, copied by neurostabilized techpriests with the precision of a cogitator. You will have two hours to copy the scroll as precisely as possible: your performance will be measured based on both degree of completion, and the accuracy with which you replicate the original scroll in all capacities. Good luck."

The Saint was suddenly struck by an oddly pervasive paranoia. As the servitor slowly advanced down the row, an impending doom if ever there was one, the Saint tried to suppress this feeling, but found she could not. Instinct told her that this trial was, as presented, entirely too simple to possibly test the qualities necessary of a Sororitas.

But then, Innogen did not have the look of someone who was planning to commit harm or betrayal; and besides, a Canoness of the Adepta Sororitas would not dare to harm potential novitiates. The Saint had to believe that she had at heart the best interests of her potential recruits, that any trap that may be sprung would prove to be merely another part of the test. So, when the servitor arrived at her table, the Saint took a leap of faith. With a gentle hand, the Saint took a scroll from the pile, and set it out on her table.

"Open your scrolls on my mark. Three. Two. One. Begin!"

Almost immediately, the Saint realized that she had a minor advantage. The passage written on this parchment was familiar to her. It was a chapter from the Liber Mysteriorum, by Julek, reconciling the truth of humanity's position as the highest and most perfect form of life under the Empress, with the fact of human frailty and ignorance. She had been drawn to it during the emotional turmoil of the morning, and had last seen the book's contents only a few hours prior. There were some segments whose contents she could recall by rote.

That revelation made, the Saint set to her task. The spacing of the lines had to be set out just right, and it would likely be best if her script matched the angular glyphs of the techpriest-scribed original. For this she used the back of the already-written scroll for practice. But there was little time to waste upon that sort of thing: confident that her ability to replicate would grow with future practice, the Saint began to write.

It had been perhaps half an hour when the first symptoms began to arise. They were subtle: a tingle about the fingers, strange flickers in vision, lightness about the head. The Saint ignored them at first, attributing them to the stress of the moment and the aftereffects of the strange paranoiac episode which had begun the trial. But they did not relent. Her movements, which had been growing sharper with time as she practiced her replication of the other script, become sluggish and erratic. She felt both exhausted and manic, her skin a tight set of bonds holding down a core of heat and light. The Saint found herself unable to hold her quill correctly, knowing the precise posture of finger and hand but unable to bring her joints from where they were to where they were supposed to be.

The other Progena began to notice as well, shivering or trembling, quills dropping when their hands lost grip. One woman slumped over, the rhythmic drone of a prayer to the Empress filling the air as she attempted to regain control over her own thoughts. Another girl, in between jagged breaths, called for the Canoness. Innogen crossed the room, standing over the girl's shoulder, and curtly asked what was the matter.

"I don't know," she said. "Something's happened, I don't feel well."

Canoness Innogen stood a moment, coolly observing the Progena's distress. "Give me your hand." When the girl did so, Innogen carefully ran two of her fingers down the wrist, stopping at the elbow. "I promise you'll be alright. Continue the trial."

The Saint continued to copy line after line, more out of mechanical inertia than any ability to consciously perform. Each mark was more arduous than the last, her progress more slow, the microscopic errors of human imprecision more difficult to suppress. Her body was beset by exhaustion, shakes, strange phantom pains which appeared and vanished as easily and swiftly as apparitions of the warp. Even as her vision remained firmly fixed on the parchment before her, it wavered and grew indistinct, exhaustion pleading for her to let her eyelids fall.

But while the Saint's brain remained focused on the trial, the mind did not. This growing dissociation, this steady ramping-up of pain and discomfort, the inability to maintain control over her limbs, was all too familiar: she'd felt it in nightmares. In a nightmare, the awfulness would only grow, worsening until the Saint was trapped in a prison of her own body. She looked to Canoness Innogen again, saw that she was watching with great interest. It was only because of that faith that she did not retreat from herself, fall silent and still and wait for the harshest situation to pass with the coming of the next dawn. Instead, though it felt pointless to attempt at precision task in this liquid sea of pain, she continued to press forward with the trial, even pausing to copy some of the original scroll's binary marginalia.

The other Progena were faring much the same. One vomited bile onto the floor, a rancid pool which was swiftly cleaned up by the attending servitor, while the one who produced it still attempted to continue her work. The girl who had begun to pray was joined by another, then a third, all speaking the same prayers with similar wavering, toneless voices. One girl gave up entirely, setting down her quill in order to sob into her knees.

She was the first one to break. She stood up from her chair and begged Canoness Innogen to be allowed to leave. "Whatever this is, it's unbearable, it's awful, something's gone wrong. Please, call off the trial, I need to—"

"There will be no calling-off of the trial," Innogen said. Her voice was strong, forceful, but not quite at the level of anger. "Resume copying, if you would."

That Progena promptly fled, stumbling through the door, her breath ragged and her face red with tears and exertion alike. Several minutes passed before another made the same choice, almost leaping from her desk to race from the room, her feet hammering on the floor-panels with an uneven, ugly gait. Five girls yet remained, all in a sorry state, three of them praying frantically for strength or salvation.

The temptation to run was with the Saint for only a brief moment. Innogen would not put the lives of potential novitiates in danger. She would not. Through skull-pounding pain and throbbing heartbeat, the Saint continued to persist. She would complete the Trial, no matter the sickness, the exhaustion, the lack of focus. The reduction of her mind by weariness and dazing inebriation meant that she could hardly do anything else. She began to forget herself entirely, willpower taking up the role of thought, though willpower could do little to make her joints bend the way she wanted them to, or force her heart to beat a little more slowly in her chest.

"Alright, two hours are up," said Innogen. "Quills down."

The Saint did not put her quill down; she had almost forgotten that there was anybody else in the room with her. Fortunately, the servitor was not so confused, and with a swift and forceful gesture, seized first the quill and then the scrolls from her table, before placing down a pale capsule in their place. The Saint stared. Her pupils had expanded until her eyes were dark as a cat's. The room was painted onto her retinas in pastel contrasts, blindingly bright and impossibly blurry.

"These capsules," Innogen said, holding one up between forefinger and thumb, "are the antidote to the drug that was imbued into the parchment upon which you've been writing for the last two hours. Don't ask me how it works, it's mechanicus nonsense."

One of the other Progena, her voice croaking with the strain of the prayer she had only just ceased to recite, spoke up. "You… poisoned us?"

"Indeed I did. Though I had been assured that the drug in question would require a massively greater dose to be fatal."

The other Progena swallowed the pills down as quickly as they could, but the Saint waited a moment. "Would you have… what if something had gone wrong?"

"If it looked like anyone was in serious danger, I would have rushed you off to the infirmary. Then, unless it were found that there had been some unexpected error—your scroll contained too much of the drug or what have you—you would have failed the trial. We cannot accept novitiates with frail constitutions. Drugging is the least of the things you might face on the battlefield."

"But you did not mean any harm?" asked the Saint.

"Of course not," said Innogen. "Now take that antidote. That should cause it to wear off before the afternoon is out."

The Saint did as commanded. Innogen explained that, for those who had not retreated, whether they had passed or failed would be known to them by the next morning. They were then dismissed.

The Saint spent much of the rest of that day feeling faintly miserable. The antidote quickly banished the overwhelming awfulness of the drug at its worst, but an uneasy illness pervaded for hours afterwards. For a while it was all she could do to find a nook in the library and fall asleep. Once she had recovered to the level of being able to think or act, and once she had offered a brief round of prayers to the Empress, the Saint still had work to do, scouring the library for a few important texts whose contents she would need for the days ahead.

The artificial lights of the Academia Ecclesia Gabriellum were dimming into the ordained hours of twilight when the Saint finally felt the need to return to her cell. She loathed sleep for many reasons, but the turmoil of the day had drained her, and it was nevertheless better to sleep in a space which would be familiar to her upon awakening than whichever corner of the Gabriellum she happened to be in when the battle against exhaustion was lost.

Thus it was that the Saint pushed through the door to her cramped cell, and discovered that there was somebody already waiting for her. It was Fidelitas, seated on the bed facing the wall. She looked almost lost in thought for a moment, but not long. Hearing the slight creak of the cell door opening, Fidelitas turned, revealing a half-smile on her lips and a ruddy bruise around her left eye socket.

 

[dragonsaffron]

"What happened to you?" said the Saint.

It took a moment for Fidelitas to see through the shadowy dark of the room and see the Saint properly. She broke out into a broad grin. "I could ask the same of you."

The Saint felt a faint heat rising up in her face. "This is merely my duty. I could not very well take the orders with my prior sense of fashion."

Fidelitas rose from the bed, or tried to, though her size and the tight confines of the chamber made it a rather unsteady movement. The Saint, meanwhile, closed the distance with effortless ease. Within a moment, she was standing close enough to Fidelitas to grab her.

"Where did you get this?" asked the Saint again. Before she could, stop herself the Saint's hands were on Fidelitas's cheeks, closely examining the bruise as though she knew anything of medicine. Fidelitas's pupils dilated all at once, and she made a soft "err" noise with her open mouth.

"It… it wasn't anything. Got into a fight with Skelgan, you know that cunt? Threw a punch, took a punch, it wasn't any big deal."

"Why?"

Fidelitas smirked. "What, you don't think he had it coming?"

The Saint conceded the point. If one assumed that violence was just retribution, Skelgan deserved it. "Deserved or not, I struggle to imagine you attacking someone for no reason other than as retribution for past misdeeds."

"I was feeling brave," Fidelitas said. "And speaking of brave, fuck, have a look at you! I'm being serious, you look gorgeous."

Slowly, almost unconscious of the fact that it was the Saint standing before her, Fidelitas returned the skin contact, running her hands along the Saint's skirt, then further up to where her waist was covered by the tunic. Words could scarce describe the power of the feeling which overcame the Saint. It was a slight touch, and yet even that slight touch caused a frisson of passion ran up the length of the Saint's back. She shut her eyes, trying to remember the last time she had been touched out of affection instead of out of rage or rapacity.

"Saint? Are you alright?"

"I— I don't know." The Saint bit her lower lip, heedless of the waxy substance coating it. "Why did you call me beautiful? And why have you never done that before?"

Fidelitas made another hesitant, stuttering noise. Then she turned her eyes starward, as though imploring the Empress for strength. "Because it's true? I dunno. I've never seen you like this before."

"It's a set of clothes and a few cosmetics, it shouldn't change anything."

Fidelitas's voice lowered to a whisper. "You look gorgeous."

The toxic hormonal release of human contact, the close whispers, the addicting sensation of being told she was beautiful, all of these things finally caused the Saint to lose control. She took Fidelitas by the hips. They weren't quite close enough for their breasts to make contact, but the ambient warmth spilling off of each others' bodies was palpable. The Saint's heart was pounding. She wanted to be touched and held, needed it, and the sound of Fidelitas's whispers was music to her ears, but temptation was to be rejected in all of its forms.

"Fidelitas," the Saint said, voice tremulous with fear. "What are you doing? What am I doing? I'm making a mistake, I can feel it."

"What sort of mistake?" Fidelitas asked.

The Saint could not answer. She familiar sensation of lust was beginning to arise at the periphery of her body, and the accompanying sensation of falling into a deep pit. But her thoughts were too addled to name what it was she was afraid of.

"Say so and I'll stop," Fidelitas continued. "I won't hurt you. Other than that I don't know what there is to be afraid of."

The final barrier broke, and the Saint rose up onto the balls of her feet, or did as best as she could in her new boots. Fidelitas did the rest, bending down until their lips were at an even level and could, at last, meet. The Saint drank deep of Fidelitas, savoring every aspect of the kiss, from the soft sucking noise of their breaths to the taste of her tongue. For her first kiss, the Saint was lucky enough to have an excellent one.

When Fidelitas stood up once more, her face was fully red, and her chest was heaving with breath. The waxy red mark of the Saint's lips stained hers. The Saint felt as though she were about to burst entirely, her skull spiraling with lightheadedness and her legs suddenly so weak that she had no choice but to collapse onto her bed. Almost immediately she yearned for Fidelitas's touch again.

"Wow," Fidelitas said. "Oh wow. Are you alright?"

The Saint nodded. Speech was becoming more difficult. "That was… soft."

Fidelitas nodded. "You know, if getting a black eye was the way to get you to live a little… like that… would have definitely gotten into some fights sooner."

"Don't say that," the Saint hissed. She was uncertain if she was about to start crying.

Fidelitas glanced down at her, her expression sinking as she noticed the watering of the Saint's eyes. "Sorry. Erm. I probably wouldn't have." Another pause, as Fidelitas's eyes wandered around the tiny cell, before inevitably circling back to the Saint. "Do you want to do that again?"

The temptation was too strong to resist. The gentleness, the softness of Fidelitas's touch, it was something beyond the Saint's comprehension. She took Fidelitas's hands in hers as she raised up one leg onto the bed for balance, bending over double so that their lips could meet once more. The Saint felt about ready to melt.

Without another word, they kissed again. Then a third time. Before long the Saint was out of breath, her heart hammering so rapidly that it began to ache. And yet she wanted more, no, needed more. This time, when Fidelitas pulled her lips away, their hands stayed clasped.

"Was that… your first?"

The Saint nodded enthusiastically.

Fidelitas's brow furrowed, as though solving a difficult problem. "So you're… you're a virgin, then?"

That was a far more difficult question to answer. The Saint pondered it for a while, but could come up with no answer. Fidelitas apparently took her silence to be a negative.

"You're going off to Roctaln, soon… Do you want to still be a virgin when you get there?"

Fidelitas could have offered to do almost anything and the Saint would have agreed to it. She was afraid, of course, afraid for her soul. But she yearned for touch more than she ever had before.

"Be gentle," said the Saint.

"Of course," replied Fidelitas.

The Saint made a shrill noise in the back of her throat. "This is going to break so many regulations."

Fidelitas snorted, barely avoiding a laugh. "You're so damn pretty right now that I almost forgot I was still dealing with you, Saint."

"Chrisenya," she blurted out.

"What?"

"Call me Chrisenya. I'll have to change my name to something before I join the Sororitas, and I picked it out from—"

"The Book of Saints, I know. Isn't Saint Chrisenya's chapter two pages of backstory and then forty about getting tortured by aeldari?"

Chrisenya nodded.

Fidelitas frowned down at her, faintly dubious. "Well, Chrisenya, I guess I can't stop you if that's what you want. Now let's lay you down so we can do this proper."

Fidelitas guided Chrisenya onto her back, before stepping away from the bed. The mantlet fell from Chrisenya's hair, but she did not mind Fidelitas seeing her hair un-covered. Nor for that matter did she mind anything Fidelitas might see. Following some basal instinct, Chrisenya rubbed at her chest, and although she was well aware of the several centimeters of padding to be found there, she still found herself slightly disappointed at the lack of sensation.

That disappointment was more than counteracted by the sight of Fidelitas casually removing her robe. She had always been faintly aware that Fidelitas was larger than her, but had assumed it was a relative matter, caused by her naturally slight build and the twenty-centimeters difference in height. The truth, now revealed by the fitted material of her shirt and trousers, was that Fidelitas was a full-bodied woman, buxom, round about the hips, with stocky arms and a slight paunch. As though this sight were not a blessing enough, Fidelitas stripped down even further, dragging off every layer one at time until her whole body was left bare. Chrisenya was enthralled. It was all so overwhelmingly real.

With all of Fidelitas's clothes in a pile in the corner, she stepped onto the bed. It was barely large enough to fit her, and it creaked under the combined weights of both women, but after a moment of adjustment, Fidelitas found a comfortable position, resting with her elbows on either side of Chrisenya's shoulders.

"Like what you see?"

Speech was the last thing on Chrisenya's mind. Her tongue felt ensorcelled, vocal cords and jaw paralyzed with the hot feeling of desire and closeness. "Y— Ah. Un. I. Ah."

Fidelitas frowned. "Something wrong?"

Chrisenya could not speak. As she tried, her lips able only to produce indistinct sounds, an unexpected emotion came over her. Not fear or disgust, but base embarrassment. As was often the case when new challenges arose, Chrisenya turned to her faith; a passage suddenly recommended itself.

"And the heretic prince was suddenly struck dumb and blind, for the awesome power of the Empress was upon him, and her radiance overwhelmed his senses."

Fidelitas chuckled. "I don't even have to be as devout as you to know how blasphemous that is."

Chrisenya knew it, but the necessary counterargument was far beyond her faculties. She hid in the only way she could, curling around her stomach until her face was pressed against Fidelitas's collarbone. To the chorus of her grunts and moans, she traced a path, placing a dotted line of kisses first up her throat, then down the length of her sternum, ending with several pecks at the softness of the tops of her breasts. What makeup had remained on Chrisenya's face was now mostly smeared across Fidelitas's skin.

One hand gripped Chrisenya's hair, fingertips massaging her scalp. The other hand groped at her chest, pawing and rubbing the twin mounds of padding there. Somehow those touches, though blunted by the material, felt just as strong as direct skin contact, sending an electric feeling flowing through Chrisenya's chest.

"Oh bloody warp that's good," Fidelitas groaned. "Who knew your lips were cute and useful? If we had more time I might be tempted to test that out more…" Fidelitas lowered down, kissing Chrisenya on the lips once more. "But I think we should get to the good stuff, yeah?"

To Chrisenya's dismay, Fidelitas retreated down her body, slowly shifting her weight back off of her elbows and onto her knees. She stopped at Chrisenya's chest once more, running her hands along the edges of the artificial bustline with enough fascination to make her whimper. Chrisenya imagined, for a moment, what she might feel if there was more than just padding; but that thought was too sweet to hold.

After a little more play, kissing Chrisenya's stomach and giving the briefest of attentions to her rear end, Fidelitas settled fully onto her haunches. With one quick movement, she flicked up the loose skirt of material, exposing the skintight fabric underneath, against which strained the outline of Chrisenya's length. Chrisenya's breath caught in her throat. Revulsion, fear, wide-eyed and open-mouthed. She had been here before, she knew what came next. She watched Fidelitas carefully, ready for the lustful grimace and the firm hand between her legs.

"Is something wrong? We, erm. We don't have to do… I mean if you don't want to."

"What?"

"You look, I dunno. Scared? Not even scared, I don't know what to call it, but it wasn't any good."

Hints of soft pity filled Fidelitas's voice, the slightest fear and trepidation, and above all else honest concern for Chrisenya's well-being. Chrisenya breathed deep, the invisible vise around her chest suddenly released. Fidelitas had promised to be gentle.

"No, I'm… You're very overwhelming. Your beauty, that is."

"Oh shush," Fidelitas said. "You're not half-bad yourself, though. And just think, you'll probably look downright fetching in all that armor with the holy seals and the skulls… Let's get these layers off you." Fidelitas winked as she hooked her thumbs around the waistband of the hose.

Chrisenya nodded, turning her face starward as the last pieces of fabric separating her genitals from the open air were swiftly and efficiently stripped from her. To her surprise, Fidelitas did not set herself to work on the tunic. Instead, she shifted forward, positioning herself over Chrisenya's hips. Chrisenya grabbed the sleeves of the tunic and began to work herself out of it, but was stopped.

"No, no, keep that on," Fidelitas said. "You look good in that."

It was a moot point either way. Chrisenya would not have had the wherewithal to remove any of her own clothing once Fidelitas ran a single finger along her underside, lifting it a few degrees higher.

Fidelitas hummed appreciatively. "Oooh, nice. I can work with this."

A complicated process began, one of shifting weights and approximated angles. Fidelitas rose then fell then rose again, mumbling to herself about "fitting" and "finding" and "maybe there", all the while driving Chrisenya slowly insane through the unintentional application of the slightest friction. She was trapped by the millions of tiny sensations running under and across her skin from the soles of her feet up to her chest. Even if she weren't being handled, the anticipation alone might have driven her into a frenzy.

Chrisenya lifted her head to find Fidelitas still calculating angles. "Fidelitas, have you… have you ever done this before?"

"Of course I have!" she snapped. "I mean, I've never gone this far. But there was this one person, a couple of years ago, Quincey? He was nice so I…" Fidelitas made a gesture with one hand to indicate the act.

"Oh," said Chrisenya.

Fidelitas looked down at herself. "Alright, maybe if I just…"

With one hand, the one that was not still teasing Chrisenya's length, she reached down between her own legs, and with two fingers spread herself open. The sudden exposure was entrancing, Fidelitas's pink bared to the air. Chrisenya watched, a little awestruck, as Fidelitas finally lowered her hips down, and with a swift sensation of wetness, engulfed her. Fidelitas gasped, a noise almost more of surprise than of pleasure, as she found the proper settling.

"Praise the Empress, praise the Empress, praise the Empress…"

"Yeah, wow," Fidelitas panted. Her heart suddenly accelerated, and Chrisenya knew because she could feel it. "Okay, let's do this."

Fidelitas started to rock forward and back, using the substantial power of her feet and thighs to guide herself along. The first few movements were strong and forceful, but Chrisenya's request for gentleness was soon heeded as Fidelitas found a slower and more rhythmic pace. She reveled in the sensation, laughing out loud in paradoxical glee.

Chrisenya needed control, and she needed touch. Though they were about as close as any two human beings could be, Chrisenya nevertheless wished that Fidelitas were not so far away, gazing down at her from atop her high throne. She reached for the only thing she could, which happened to be the broad curve of Fidelitas's hips, her fingers sinking into the soft fat and relishing in the texture.

"Ooh, Chrisenya, I never took you for someone who could be so," Fidelitas moaned, "handsy."

"W-well I never realized you were so… so…" Chrisenya once again ran out of words. Lacking a quote from the liturgy to convey the sentiment, she instead gave Fidelitas a pat on her haunch.

She chuckled. "The Gabriellum has a whole gymnasium on it, you know. You could have been using it."

Chrisenya did not respond, though she did take a moment to imagine Fidelitas engaged in exercise of the body, a pleasing image indeed. A few seconds later, that image was banished. Fidelitas leaned back, bringing to bear the slightest increase in pressure which made Chrisenya's thoughts fully blank.

It was good, almost too good. She was entranced in the wet, hot sensation, every nerve alight with sensitivity. Chrisenya was animal, fully embraced, touch and friction and pressure without compare. Her gaze locked on the only thing moving, Fidelitas, eyes shut with focus and her lips a broad smile, body swaying with motion.

Chrisenya felt liquid. A tremor started in her legs, moved up her hips, her nails dug into Fidelitas's skin, her moans tipped into a yet-higher pitch. Regret mingled with want, Chrisenya needed to find her release yet at the same time could not bear to imagine it, nor the world that would exist after. But it was already too late. The endless grinding motion of Fidelitas's hips, the contractions and pressures of her center, had gently coaxed forth what Chrisenya had spent so long keeping hidden from sight. For a moment, she forgot how to breathe, her back arched and her legs kicked against the creaking bed frame. Spend spilled forth, a delectable emptying, as Chrisenya's eyes snapped shut.

A blinding stab of pain pierced through the center of Chrisenya's forehead, at the same time as Fidelitas gasped with sudden pain. She lost momentary control of her muscles and slipped forward, releasing her grip on Chrisenya entirely as she fell on top of her partner. For a few seconds, all was silent. Chrisenya floated in the void, buffeted by hormones and the unaccountable feeling that she had, despite her better judgement, done the correct thing.

Then, with a groan, Fidelitas lifted herself up.

"What happened? Are you alright?" Chrisenya said.

"I don't know. Right at the end there I got a, like a blinding headache? I'm fine now. And that was still worth it in spite of that, you were… We were wonderful."

Finding room for the both of them remained a challenge, but it was not long before the pair had shuffled around into a comfortable position. Chrisenya found herself nested into Fidelitas's arms, listening to her friend's heart beating through her broad chest. They remained there for a while, on the border of sleep and wakefulness. This alone was worth all the risks, even more so than the sex itself. But sleep beckoned, forcing Chrisenya to break out.

"You can't stay here," she said.

Fidelitas lurched upright, stretching her arms. "I know. I imagine there'll be a lot of questions if I did. It was nice, though, wasn't it?"

Chrisenya nodded. The regulations about two individuals sharing a Prefect's cell were the last thing on her mind, but if it meant Fidelitas would leave without argument, she wasn't going to argue further. She watched all the while as Fidelitas dressed herself and said her goodbyes, before finally setting about washing her face and changing into her nightclothes. This was a good memory. She would hold it close during what came next.

 

[dragonsaffron]

Chrisenya's face refused to be put on that next morning, and not for lack of trying. She painted and repainted herself, stripping the oily liquids from her skin and starting anew, and yet failed to find the inspiration that had struck her during that first attempt. It was a moment of weakness on her part, a slight buckling in her war against the sin of vanity, and yet it was only her fear of wasting too much of Maryllis's private stash that forced Chrisenya to finally settle for less.

The Trial of the Baton was scheduled for just before the midday meal. She ate breakfast without complaint, and spent the scant free time she had afterward searching for Fidelitas. The memory of skin against skin was one which did not fade quickly, and she yearned for the reassurance of even the slightest contact. But alas, it was not to be.

Mysteriously, the second trial did not take place in the bowels of the Academia Ecclesia Gabriellum, where the Sororitas were, but had instead been dragged upwards into the light and visibility of the upper floors. Upon reporting to the appointed place, Chrisenya was rapidly taken by a pair of battle-sisters and escorted into a side chamber, one much larger than necessary for the purpose of holding half a dozen listless, anxious Progena. Canoness Innogen was nowhere to be seen, nor any other sign or instrument of the Trial. It soon became obvious that this was merely a waiting room.

Chrisenya did what she usually did when given spare time and nothing to do with it, that being to pray. She ran through several litanies, kneeling on the floor, her lips and tongue forming words so familiar that they had ages ago ceased to have the effects of words. Her thoughts and meanings instead spilled directly into the air, to be met by annoyed indifference from the others.

Just as the bell finished ringing to signify the coming of the hour, a door opened in the side of the empty chamber, and a Sororitas in robes called out a name. The owner of the name, and she alone, passed through. Chrisenya did not interrupt her prayers, assuming rightly that her time would come: but a brief pang of curiosity interrupted her train of thought when she noted that on the other side of the open door was the mixed murmur of dozens, possibly hundreds, of human voices. The door remained closed for quite some time, nearly a quarter of an hour, and when it opened again, only the same Sororitas came through to call another name. The nature of the trial was being kept from her, but Chrisenya did not feel the same paranoia that had struck her during the Trial of the Scroll: she remained in prayer, calling upon the luck and favor of the Empress for when her time would come.

It did not come for well over an hour. Of the six Progena participating in the Trial of the Baton, Chrisenya was the last. When the Sororitas finally opened the door for her, Chrisenya was already standing ready, having felt that the time for prayer had come to an end. She crossed into the chamber of the Trial with light steps and careful poise.

The room of the Trial of the Baton looked for all the galaxy like a sporting arena. In fact, Chrisenya was fairly certain that it was one. She remembered, vaguely, hearing of the Gabriellum's arenas for various games of athletics and skill, though she had never set foot in one, and could not remember which games were played. This arena was a broad, flat expanse of synthwood, surrounded on three sides by rows of public seating, as one might find in a amphitheater. Or a gladiatorial colosseum. The source of the voices was quickly revealed, for the seats were full of Progena, male and female alike, watching the proceedings below them with rapt attention. Chrisenya recognized few, and to her relief, Fidelitas was not amongst their number.

More important was what stood directly before Chrisenya, at the center of the field. The set-up was exceedingly simple. White paint marked a three-meter diameter circle on the floor. Within that circle stood Canoness Innogen. She was fully clad in the crimson-and-silver armor of a Sororitas, legs spread, breathing fast as sweat dried from her brow. In either hand she held a cylinder of black thermoplas, half a meter in length, with a ridged section near one end for gripping and an expanded striking head.

Canoness Innogen spoke at a low volume, such that only Chrisenya would be able to hear her over the general din. "And here you are. Catch."

Innogen tossed one of the batons, the one in her offhand, hurling it toward Chrisenya with a lazy underhand grip. She snatched it out of the air by the grip, and took note of its weight. It was light, but the balance was well forward of the hand. It would probably hurt to get hit by such a thing.

"Why the audience?" Chrisenya asked.

"It'd be easier to keep a tech-priest away from an unclaimed pile of scrap than keep a bunch of Progena away from public violence. Better to get ahead of the crowd than try fighting them."

Chrisenya's brow furrowed dubiously. "We are to duel, then?"

"Wouldn't be hardly fair, would it?" said Innogen. "But yes, in a sense. Rules are simple: you can go wherever you like, and I can't set foot outside of this circle. To win, you have to knock this thing off of my armor."

Innogen reached down to something Chrisenya hadn't noticed before: a small cube of black material adhered halfway down her ribs on the right side. She pried it off with only a slight effort, then reattached it just as easily to demonstrate.

"One good hit ought to do it."

"And how do you win?" said Chrisenya.

"Oh, that's much simpler. I win if I beat you so badly you can't stand, or you run away. Begin!"

Chrisenya wasn't sure how to hold a weapon, but Innogen was a solid example. She turned to the side, such that her whole body was a single line starting at the baton in her hand and extending directly away from where Chrisenya stood, the baton lax at her side. As she promised, Innogen kept her front foot just behind the circle. But only just.

The target seemed so terribly vulnerable at that angle. It was almost the closest part of Innogen's form to Chrisenya, aside from the extended right arm; but that arm would be able to defend it with skill, speed, and acuity. Innogen also, crucially, had a severe advantage in terms of reach, being about equal in height with Fidelitas even before accounting for the size of her armor.

"Why is it that you're allowed to wear armor?" Chrisenya said.

"I can trust myself to pull my punches. Can't trust the same from you."

To merely swing would invite counterattack, and while Chrisenya was more than prepared to bruise in exchange for a role amongst the Sororitas, she could guess that Innogen knew how to stop her dead in her tracks. Chrisenya circled slowly, and Innogen adjusted, always facing her. After a moment, she hit upon an idea: to turn Innogen's reach advantage against her by falling within the radius of her arm. It was a trick she had used once or twice before during brawls against Progena who were envious of her faith: once she was in extreme close range, Chrisenya could focus on delivering a single pinpoint blow to the target, while Innogen was hopefully unable to counter effectively.

Chrisenya choked up on the baton. With how easily Innogen had removed the target previously, she could simply use the tool to push it off. She began to approach, slowly reaching the limit of Innogen's reach.

Canoness Innogen lunged, balancing herself on her front foot such that she never touched the ground outside of the circle, and thrust with the tip of the baton, sending a hard point of thermoplas directly into Chrisenya's diaphragm. Chrisenya saw it coming, but was so shocked by the audacity of the move that she did nothing to avoid it. The pain caused her to double, nearly falling onto her knees while she tried to get out of reach.

"Never said I had to wait for you to hit first," said Canoness Innogen. "You'll have to learn to be more wary if you make the cut."

Chrisenya made no response, muttering a brief prayer to the Empress as she suppressed the pain. A few seconds later, she was ready to attempt her stratagem in earnest. She rushed in without a word, unconsciously curling around her torso. Innogen's counterattack was swift and brutal, an uppercut blow to the chin that she hoped would knock Chrisenya back and to the ground. She weaved to the side, but was too slow, and took a hit to the armpit.

The pain did not stop her momentum, though, and while Innogen let out a yelp of shock, Chrisenya pressed herself to her opponent's armored flank. As she struggled to lever the target off of her, Innogen lashed out with a knee to Chrisenya's hip, strong enough to tear muscle if she hadn't pulled back. In avoiding that first blow, Chrisenya widened the gap enough to create an opening for a second: Canoness Innogen struck Chrisenya in the mouth with the fist of her off-hand.

A roar went up from the crowd. Warm liquid streamed down Chrisenya's face, and once again she was forced to retreat.

"Grappling, I see," said Innogen. "Clever, very clever. But a warning, if I break one of your limbs, there's no doings-over."

"I would not have it—" Chrisenya spat out a glob of blood "—any other way."

They skirmished for some minutes, each clash resulting in more bruises and more failure for Chrisenya. She tried everything she could think of, every technique and trick. At one point she came close, her plan of feinting at the target before striking to disarm Innogen of her baton successfully fooling the experienced Sororitas, only for the plan to fail at the last moment. Chrisenya lacked the coordination to strike the baton itself instead of sending her weapon deflecting harmlessly off of the armor on Innogen's wrist.

But Chrisenya would not relent. Failure at this final step would mean a lifetime utterly unmoored from its destined goal. She would win even if it meant remaining there in that arena until the Canoness collapsed unconscious from lack of sleep while Chrisenya, an experienced insomniac, remained standing.

While Chrisenya circled, her makeup mixed with crusted blood, half a dozen bruises all crying out in pain along her body, an ancient machine rumbled and hissed far below her feet. The Gabriellum was an old structure, dragged into orbit and bolted together piece by piece the better part of a millennium previous. The reactor which lay in its belly, supplying heat, light, and power for the thousands of humans which dwelt within that plasteel shell, was a temperamental creature, its lair a place into which only the toughest and most skilled dared to go. Scores of servitors worked it, most lasting only months before radiation or accident ended their pitiful lives, and no less than four tech-priests were required at any given moment to monitor the moods of its machine-spirit.

At that very moment, one of those tech-priests made a mild error.

The whole of the arena shuddered, a rolling creak passing through every deck. The lights flickered twilight-dim, and a minor shift in the artificial gravity created the uneasy sensation of falling. In her seven years there, Chrisenya had felt such flickers many times. But Innogen, too used to a life within the warm cradle of a habitable gravity well, was thrown momentarily off-balance, glancing about in confusion.

While the lights flickered about them, Chrisenya burst forward so quickly that she seemed forewarned, ignoring strategy to instead swing the baton at the target with as much speed as she could muster. Canoness Innogen reacted not a moment too late, falling back with a frantic deflectional parry that rattled Chrisenya's hands.

The moment passed just as suddenly as it had come, light and gravity returned to normal, but Chrisenya's will was inflamed. She took the baton in both hands for strength, and with a cry of "For the Empress!" continued to press the attack. Again and again she swung, each time barely missing the target. Canoness Innogen counterattacked with the same contemptuous ease as the previous exchanges, bludgeoning Chrisenya's head and limbs with strike after surgical strike. The pain of her injuries grew as fresh bruises bloomed to life.

But Chrisenya had grown used to shutting pain out from her mind, and none of Innogen's strikes were powerful enough to truly wound her. For crucial seconds she charged ahead to no avail, expending her little stamina on wild and useless swings. Then, whether through luck or skill, she saw her opportunity. Innogen's arm was raised, leaving the target exposed. Chrisenya swung again, her baton arcing through the air as though guided along a pre-ordained path until it at last struck the target with its very tip.

The cube detached with a click and went flying through the air to clatter onto the ground. For a fraction of a second longer the battle continued, neither party realizing that Chrisenya had won. Then, all at once, Canoness Innogen's nerves caught up to her senses, and she nearly leapt back, raising both hands into the air and dropping her baton to the ground. Chrisenya let go of her baton as well, fingers aching with tension, and the two of them stared at each other, panting with breath. Pain and exhaustion caught up to Chrisenya all at once, and she nearly fell, Innogen catching her before she added yet another bruise.

"Well, there you have it. That's a win."

Chrisenya laughed out loud, struggling to feel like a victor. It was an entirely new battle to regain her footing, with every muscle burning from exertion. "The Empress has granted me victory."

"Indeed She has," said Innogen, still holding Chrisenya up by one shoulder. "I'll have to admit, in all my years carrying out the trials, I've never seen someone complete the Baton so… aggressively. Or in so short a time."

Chrisenya nodded. That violent aggression was something she had not realized she possessed, and for a moment it worried her. But if it was in the name of the Empress, there was nothing to fear. "How did the others do it, then?"

A pair of battle-sisters approached from the far side of the room, taking Chrisenya's weight from their commander. In response to the question, Innogen paused, her eyes glancing skyward in an almost wistful stare.

"One of them didn't. One realized I wasn't wearing a helmet and took advantage, the bitch. One threw the baton like a fucking javelin, and if I'm being honest I don't know if that one was skill or luck. And as for the rest, well, would you believe me if I said that you had a major advantage?"

Chrisenya slowly limped towards the chamber exit. All around her, the crowd was beginning to realize that there would be no more bloodshed, and slowly pour out into the hallways. "I fail to see how."

"In the Trial of the Baton, there's a serious mismatch. You only have to win once and you've beaten me. But I, I can't finish the fight the same way. In a battle, you can't be lucky forever; the point of skill is to make sure that your opponent gets unlucky before you do. Those other girls didn't have some secret technique or special talent, they just stayed in the fight long enough that I got unlucky."

Chrisenya nodded, storing that wisdom for later consideration. It made her smile: if battle was a matter of becoming unlucky, then so long as she had the will of the Empress on her side, she had quite the advantage indeed.

She was then rushed off to the Gabriellum's infirmary, where she received the best care that the doctors there had ever given her. All other priorities were dropped when a Canoness of the Sororitas ordered that she be checked for severe injuries. None were found, at least none immediately obvious, but her state was such that it was determined that Chrisenya would be kept overnight for observation.

It was strange, being so cared for, having orderlies and nurses examining each and every one of her wounds, and prescribing her analgesics and coagulixirs with hardly any fuss at all. The remainder of the day was a slow, hazy thing. Buffeted upon a cushion of drugs, Chrisenya replayed the battle in her mind. Emotions, tactile sensation, and detached analysis of her performance echoed through the rest of the day. Finally, evening came, and after a simple meal of rendered nutri-biscuit and bramble-water, Chrisenya fell into a deep, addled sleep.

 

[dragonsaffron]

Chrisenya lay upon a slab of rough stone, her body twisted and bent into a horrible arc by the braided muscles of a hundred mighty serpents. Movement and resistance were both rendered impossible, her own limbs utterly powerless against their inexorable strength. It was all that she could do to offer no resistance and focus herself inward, ignoring the pain even as her joints were twisted out of their sockets, her limbs bent to the breaking point, her ribs crushed and spine snapped. Sometimes the serpents would dig their fangs into her hairy, blistered skin, injecting venom into the flesh beneath. There, after the sting of the needle-fang had vanished, the flesh would burn and rot, leaving behind patches of purple skin which would sting even at the gliding of scales across them.

How long she had been held in that position, Chrisenya had no idea. It felt like months. Her eyes were dry and her mouth parched. All she could see was a ruddy, multicolored sky. Until, suddenly, that sky was obscured by the arrival of a thick mist.

The mist itself had a color to it, though faint: the whole world turned shades of red and purple and pink. Flecks of material floated about, glittering and twinkling in the dim sunlight. It was not long after that before the endless slithering and hissing of the serpents was interrupted as well, by the heavy clumping of a pair of heeled boots upon dry soil. Chrisenya knew who it was.

The newcomer seized Chrisenya by the throat, and with a casual toss, ripped her from the slab and hurled her to the ground. The snakes provided no resistance, and Chrisenya ended up naked on the ground. Nonetheless, she rose onto her knees and looked up at the one who had pulled her from the morass. She was tall, pale, with a pile of curling blonde locks atop her head. The boots which had been the first sign of her arrival were familiar to Chrisenya, the brown-red grox leather having been said to go excellently with the mauve fabric and silver lace accents of that specific ballgown. Even the face was a correct approximation of something out of her memories. But despite all appearances, the being standing before her was only wearing the skin of Lady Fredrika Thannetch.

"Hello, Misty," said Chrisenya.

The imitation had worked the first hundred times or so, but after that it became more of a tradition. For all that the material things lined up, Misty didn't look all that much like Chrisenya's mother. True, that specific expression did sometimes grace Lady Thannetch's expression, and the posture, with one hand across her waist and a wineglass perched upon her fingers, was something that Chrisenya vaguely remembered her mother putting on. But Fredrika Thannetch had the same pale grey eyes as both of her children, not purple. And, of course, she did not have a sixth finger on each hand.

"Hello, Chrisenya," Misty replied, one eyebrow raised as though daring Chrisenya to ask how she knew. Misty always knew. "Chrisenya… What a self-serving name. Is that really how you see yourself? The innocent girl, tormented by evil forces, her will ever resolute even in the face of unaccountable pain and suffering?"

Chrisenya ignored the pouting expression and the honey-sweet voice. It was a miraculous state in which she found herself: the pain of every broken bone, every dislocated joint, every patch of envenomed flesh she could feel with full acuity. And yet, despite her profound injuries, the movement of her body was unimpeded.

"You know, Chrisenya, I'm really not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to teach you."

"You have nothing to teach me," Chrisenya said. Thirst rendered her voice scratchy and weak.

"Is that the best retort you can come up with?"

Chrisenya turned her eyes skyward. "Empress protect and Empress guide this pitiful vessel, grant strength beyond this mere shell of humanity by the exertion of thine will. Thou art the supreme of all mortal creatures, and—"

It was a pointless prayer. There was no satisfaction to it, no outer light being shed upon Chrisenya's soul from some high, distant place. Here, in the nightmare, there was no succor to be found. She prayed anyway, as a gesture of defiance. Then, suddenly, Misty was right there, crouching before her, and with a light gesture of her fingertips she set Chrisenya's wounds aflame, every bone and bite searing with white hot agony. Chrisenya could pray no longer, because she was entirely too busy screaming.

And then Misty was back where she had started, a distance away. "None of that. You're going to listen to me, Chrisenya. I am trying to teach you about pain and pleasure. About how pain need not be a bad thing, and pleasure can be found anywhere… if only you'll let Her in."

Chrisenya remained on her hands and knees, face to the hard, dry soil. She knew a sermon when she heard one, and hoped that if she remained silent that she would be granted, however unintentionally, a moment of respite.

"It seems another lesson is in order. But it's not one I can teach you dressing like this. How about… now?"

The voice speaking suddenly changed, and Chrisenya could not help but glance upward. No longer was Misty wearing the face of Lady Fredrika Thannetch, but instead, had taken on the form of Palatine Maryllis. The key flaws were still plainly visible: the sickeningly purple eyes, the six fingers on each hand, and of course the heavy mass stuffed into the crotch of not-Maryllis's bodysuit.

"Oh, I see now why you like her…" said Misty. The shrill tone of the words were Maryllis through and through, but the enunciation, the slow drawl, all of that remained entirely Misty.

Chrisenya tried to keep her head down and her eyes closed. Misty was mostly wrong. Chrisenya didn't "like" Maryllis, but neither did she dislike the woman, especially not when not-Maryllis was right up against her, caressing her throat and sinking fangs into her tender cheek. The venom of this bite felt different from all the ones before: it coursed not merely through the area around the bite but through all of Chrisenya's body, and wherever it flowed it left both pain and a sickening, turgid pleasure.

"A lesson in rewards, I think," Misty said. "A lesson in what life will be like when you finally let me show Her to you."

Chrisenya went fully limp, her heels dragging across the ground as not-Maryllis carried her back to the slab. As the venom took hold, Chrisenya's body began to mutate. Her skin turned an unwholesome red-pink as her slender frame boiled over, muscle and fat rising to the surface, pressing against her skin, forcing it outwards. In the nightmare, Misty had total control, and she was using that control to remold Chrisenya's body in her own image. Her thighs, her hips, her breasts all swelled with heavy, sensitive flesh. Despite her best efforts, Chrisenya was dewy with lust when not-Maryllis finally pinned her down, pressing her hips onto the slab of stone.

With long, sharp nails, Misty prodded and kneaded at Chrisenya's breasts, feeling out the ever-shifting texture of the expanding, mutant flesh. Her nails and fingertips moved with impossible grace, delivering a symphony of pain and pleasure alike. Chrisenya groaned, and to her shock it was not the scratchy, pit-deep thing she had gotten used to, but a gorgeous and beautiful choir-bell note. Pure lust pounded through Chrisenya's veins, and it redoubled at the sound of her own voice, but it was only physical. She fell back and allowed her mind to empty of all thought, knowing that to resist would invite retribution, and to relish would risk her very soul.

"Do you want to be beautiful?" Misty asked with a cackle. "Do you want to be desired, envied, idolized? All you have to do is let me show you, let Her make you into whomever you want to be!"

Misty bit Chrisenya again, this time more softly, along the throat. A painful tug emerged in Chrisenya's belly and worked its way down, aimed squarely between her legs. Her length spasmed, so close to not-Maryllis's crotch that she could feel the bodily warmth. Then the tug hit like lightning, and the skin began to warp, then to stretch, then to tear. Blood spilled out onto the stone as Chrisenya's body was reshaped, and it felt so very good.

"This beating pleasure you feel, Chrisenya? You could feel it always, forever! Pleasure and pain, joy and hate, forever!"

Misty pulled herself upwards, lifting Chrisenya's hips into position just as, with a crackle of altering bone, they grew wide and sturdy. With a single powerful press, she thrust herself into Chrisenya, splitting her open from the very bottom. If Chrisenya had ever felt anything like this, she could hardly remember it. The beautiful pressure, the pain of being opened and the yawning warm-cold of becoming exposed, made her quiver. But, of course, Misty was not going to be merciful.

No, she held Chrisenya even closer to herself, running her talons down Chrisenya's back, pressing her hips close with each and every pounding impact of her body. It wasn't long at all before Chrisenya found herself breathing in time with the powerful thrusts, her lungs no longer under her control, but Misty's, as her every muscle tensed and relaxed along the same rhythm. She was drowning in unfamiliar sensations, from the agony of penetration, to the painful sway of her new form, to mingling of pleasure and pain across every surface of her abused, love-lavished skin. It made it so much easier to forget to think, sinking into the feeling and forgetting where she was and what was being done to her.

Misty slowed down but moved with purpose, forcing herself into Chrisenya with inhuman strength. Still pinning her hips to the slab, she grabbed her by the hair and pulled her in close, until her lips were very nearly touching Chrisenya's ear. "Let me love you," she fervently whispered. "Let me teach you how to experience Her!"

A bright, all-consuming tingling began to form, starting at the tips of Chrisenya's toes and the bed of her nails and moving inwards. With each powerful thrust, it grew a little stronger and spread a little wider. She tasted metal on her tongue, and her broad thighs clenched and twitched under the influence of the overwhelm. Warmth suffused her breasts and poured between her legs, and her chest felt so ready to burst that Chrisenya momentarily forgot to breathe. She shut her eyes against it, wished it wasn't happening, but there was no stopping it. Chrisenya threw her arms open and scissored her legs together, her back arched and Misty's claws scythed through her flesh and…

Chrisenya awoke with a jolt. She was back to her real body, the slender thing that she had inhabited for the last eighteen years. There were bandages taped to her body, and even in the dark she could identify the room as the large infirmary chamber of the Academia Ecclesia Gabriellum. Sitting at her side, fingers drumming on her thigh, was Fidelitas.

"Fidelitas?" Chrisenya said. She was worried. Afraid.

"Oh, there you are," Fidelitas replied. "I heard what happened, with your injuries and the trial and all that. Just wanted to see you and make sure you were alright."

"Oh, yes," said Chrisenya. Her muscles slowly relaxed. "The concern is… much appreciated."

The both of them fell silent for a while, the only sound the five-tap beat of Fidelitas's fingers on the crisp blanket. She never looked quite at Chrisenya, instead gazing out over the other sleeping sick as though it were a vast vista. A sigh, long and deep and weary, slipped from between Fidelitas's lips.

"What's the matter?" said Chrisenya.

Fidelitas sighed again, with even deeper weariness and sorrow. "It's you, is the matter. I'm worried about you, and what you're doing."

"My taking the orders? Fidelitas, we've talked about this. I have no other purpose, and to give my life to the Sororitas is what I've always wanted to do."

"I know," Fidelitas said. "It's just that… You know they won't love you back, right?"

"What?"

Fidelitas's tone turned dark. "The Sororitas. You care about them, you wish to give your life to them, but they'll hate you. As soon as they find out what you are, they'll turn on you and destroy you."

Chrisenya felt as though she were falling, and a chill passed down the exact middle of her spine. "I don't know what you're talking about, Fidelitas. You're starting to worry me."

Fidelitas held still for a while, continuing to make that same five-tap beat on Chrisenya's blanket. It really was quite strange that she was tapping on Chrisenya's leg like that. Making a five-tap beat like that would imply that Fidelitas was in possession of six fingers per hand.

"How does the motto go? Burn the heretic, kill the mutant, purge the unclean? Chrisenya, you are the heretic. You are a mutant. Those people that you're so desperate to join, to them you are unclean."

Chrisenya leaned up in the bed, her wounds already beginning to grow unnaturally sore. Her entire body was quivering with a combination of fear and profound rage. "Liar! All that the Enemy has is lies. 'For the Word is the Truth, and the Truth is the Word, and the speech of the Empress is the Word…'"

Not-Fidelitas's eyes flashed purple as she laughed, dropping all attempt at impersonation. "Oh, Chrisenya, you poor thing. Still in denial after so long. I suppose that powerful of an ability for self-deception is beyond even my ability to break."

"You will never break me, fiend."

"Perhaps not," Misty said with a shrug. "But there is something I want you to consider."

"Never."

Misty paused, raising an eyebrow such that one might almost expect her to wag her finger at Chrisenya.

"When it all comes crashing down, and your sisters have you cornered, ready to burn you alive, to whom will you turn? Will you cling to the deity which has, by virtue of a quirk of your birth, already condemned you as a monster? Or will you seek the succor of the Queen? She awaits you with open arms, Chrisenya."

Chrisenya put on her strongest expression of righteous fury, in this brief moment while she still remained in control of the nightmare. "In return, Misty, consider this. For five thousand nights have you tormented me, and for five thousand nights has my will remained absolute and undamaged. When will you realize that you will never have me?"

Misty huffed. A glass of wine appeared between not-Fidelitas's fingers, and the image of the infirmary around them began to dissolve into mist. "Five thousand nights?" She raised the glass in a sort of toast. "Well. Here's to five thousand and one," she said, then downed half the wine in one go.

 

[dragonsaffron]

It was a tradition that after the Placements had been taken and the results tallied, that all graduating Progena would have seven days to make their decisions and vacate their sleeping arrangements. With the completion of the trials, four days remained before the fleet that had assembled at the Gabriellum, chartered by a dozen different organizations, would depart. In three days, Chrisenya would be a novitiate.

The morning after the Trial of the Baton, Chrisenya was banished from the infirmary, the chirurgeons confirming that none of her injuries were more than cosmetically detrimental. Aside from the reverberating aches of her many bruises, the day that ensued was shockingly typical. Chrisenya spent a substantial portion of it in prayer. The food tasted just as it always had, and Chrisenya ate frugally. Not even the hope of imminent recruitment into a more productive lot of life could dissuade the usual pranks and spats and public lewdness that were the domain of a Prefect to correct. Though Chrisenya could not bring herself to be strict about the latter.

All in all, there was very little left to do. Chrisenya might have liked to spend some of that time with Fidelitas, but Fidelitas was nowhere to be found, or more accurately, everywhere.

Uncovering what Fidelitas had put her mind to over the last days of her time at the Gabriellum was something akin to assembling a historical record out of a pile of biased, incomplete sources. Not a score had gone un-settled, apparently, not a reckless act un-performed. Fidelitas had supposedly gotten into at least eight fights, including one with a professor, stayed out in the library from dusk to dawn, consumed illicit substances for the first and hopefully last time, and even gone charge-hopping in the Gabriellum's underbelly.

Chrisenya was not going to search for her. It was probable that, had she gone to the effort of properly searching for Fidelitas, that Fidelitas would have been found; but Chrisenya did not need Fidelitas so urgently, and besides, they would soon be separated forever. If Fidelitas wished to speak to her, surely Fidelitas would make herself known. Until that happened, Chrisenya chose the path of patience.

So it was that on the morning of, Chrisenya was prepared to believe that she would never speak to Fidelitas again. As final meetings went, theirs had at least been very sweet. But as she donned her formal uniform, Chrisenya was not troubled. In truth, though the feeling was not allowed to appear in Chrisenya's huge grey eyes or the thin contours of her cheeks, she was alight with joy.

She spent a few minutes in prayer as final confirmation that what was happening to her was real, before setting out for the Sacrarium Sacrosanctus, the holiest chamber in all of the Gabriellum, as well as one of the largest. It was a path Chrisenya knew well, but did not walk often; the holiness of the Sacrarium Sacrosanctus was too overwhelming for all but the most momentous of occasions. If the taking of the orders was not a momentous occasion, then there was no such thing.

Even the very un-sacred hallway outside of the Sacrarium Sacrosantus's grand doors was abuzz with activity. The soon-to-be novitiates poured through, servitors and bureaucrats of the Gabriellum bustled about on missions of logistics, and the battle-sisters themselves seemed about ready to combust from the potential of the hour. Chrisenya tried to steel herself against the wall of noise, but there was only so much she could do.

And then she passed through the doors, and stepped into a riot of sound and color. The Sacrarium Sacrosanctus was encrusted with the results of a millennium of piety: gold plating, ivory sculpture, and consecrated bone built up along the walls and ceiling like some ancient coral. Flocks of cherubim nested amongst the rafters, swooping down to feed from plates of holy wafer during the breaks in their eternal mission to cleanse the gold and ivory of the Sacrarium. The way that the walls and ceiling reflected the candle-light like a billion tiny mirrors proved their effectiveness.

Chrisenya navigated through the Sacrarium Sacrosanctus almost entirely by memory. The dazzling brilliance forced her gaze to the floor, the constant human noise was a spike in her ears, and the thick clouds of incense caused her head to spin. Nevertheless, she found her way to the main floor where the Progena had assembled in a great crowd, flanked by a guard of battle-sisters. As she shuffled to her ordained position, Chrisenya felt a sudden burst of clarity, the light dimming and the smoke clearing. For a few seconds, she could look up from her feet, just long enough to see Fidelitas but a few meters away, fully clad in a novitiate's uniform.

Chrisenya hurried through the throng, threading her way between the other Progena until she stood behind Fidelitas's shoulder. With a twang of desperate affront, she said, "What are you doing here?"

Fidelitas whirled around, her face turning a frightful red as soon as she realized that she had been found out. "Same thing you are, I'd assume."

"I am here to take the orders and join the Sororitas as a novitiate," Chrisenya said.

Fidelitas sighed. "So am I."

"You are not."

"Yes, I am," Fidelitas said, blinking the confusion from her eyes. "I've already decided, Saint, this is where I'm going. I have the prerequisites, I cleared it with the Canoness, and my name is on the list."

Chrisenya did her very best to slow her breathing, to calm her fretting heart. In that she was only partially successful. "That is absurd. Fidelitas, what recklessness is this? Taking the orders as a battle-sister is no jest."

"It's not a jest," said Fidelitas, her expression turning sour. "Just because I haven't spent half a decade pondering the question doesn't mean this is reckless. 'Rely thee not upon words and overlong consideration', remember?"

It was one of Fidelitas's favorite passages from the liturgy, and one that for a brief moment blunted Chrisenya's offense. "How long, then? How long have you wished for this?"

"Since that night, in your chambers," said Fidelitas. Then, seeing Chrisenya's face growing flushed, she added, "Not that one. The one before. When I was still reeling from discovering that you intended to take the orders. After that night I started… thinking. Pondering. Considering my future path."

Fidelitas gazed into Chrisenya's eyes, and she wished to be able to take her only friend's hands. If only they were not so surrounded. "Does this have anything to do with… with the fight, with all of this insanity you've gotten yourself involved with?"

Fidelitas nodded.

"Why? It's not like you."

Fidelitas sighed, looking around the churning crowd of Progena as though one of them would tell her the answer. "You know how, when you get stuck on something or upset, you go and you lock yourself in an icon nook somewhere and pray until you lose consciousness?"

"Yes," said Chrisenya. She had only done such a thing a handful of times, all in times of great distress and uncertainty.

"Well, I'm not as good at praying as you are. I—"

"Which is why you shouldn't be taking the orders!" Chrisenya said shrilly. "The Sororitas are the soldiers of the Empress, blessed by her power, holy warriors in Her name. It is no place for those of flawed piety."

"Let me finish, Chrisenya."

There was a pause, the moment filled in with the pressing clamor of the assembled crowd. Fidelitas waited until she was absolutely certain that Chrisenya was waiting for her, and not merely trying to invent another comeback.

"I'm not good at the kind of prayer you do, with the memorized words and the holding still. I can manage it for an hour, tops, before my brain refuses any more of it. But I wasn't just going to go ahead and do it either, I needed… Well, I knew I had the prerequisites, I can focus and I have the strength for it, but I didn't know if I had the spirit. So I put my life into my own hands, and the hands of the Empress. I started fights, and realized I could win them. I did reckless shit, and found that I could pull through. And I…" She looked down at Chrisenya, face suddenly set with guilt and apprehension once more. "I wanted to see if I could be brave at something that I couldn't get over with force or bravado. And then I discovered that I hardly had to be brave about it at all, that actually it felt more right and natural than anything."

Chrisenya's heart skipped a beat. She wanted to say something sweet, but bile rose up in her throat instead. "Did you do this because of me?"

"I already told you, I've thought it through. I know the risks, I know what I'm getting myself into. And you're not going to change my mind."

"Please answer my question, Fidelitas."

Fidelitas looked as though she were about to shatter, like so much crystal. She nodded. "I'd rather risk my life on some battlefield than go without seeing you again, Saint. And the thought of you locked up in a suit of power armor on some foreign planet, without me by your side? Couldn't bloody stomach it."

Chrisenya could hardly breathe, her skin suddenly feeling tightly wrapped around her fragile bones. "You dare to sully the sanctity of the Adepta Sororitas for the sake of your own selfish desires?" she said, staggering back under the weight of her words.

"Chrisenya, I…"

She took another step back, then another. Chrisenya's grey eyes refused to grow wet with tears, though they burned for lack of blinking and stung in the brilliant light of the Sacrarium. Fidelitas was not so restrained: a single tear spilled down the crease of her nose. That was the final straw. Chrisenya fled to the furthest corner, and did not return until the bell rang to announce the beginning of the ceremony.

One by one the girls were called forward, and one by one they passed through the solemn ritual. Though her heart hammered against her ribcage and her skin was alight with prickling passion, Chrisenya remained still and watched the names and faces go by with detached stillness. Fidelitas went up before she did, and hers was the only name with which Chrisenya had more than a passing familiarity. She watched as Fidelitas passed through each of the stations without flaw. It seemed almost farcical, watching someone who had confessed to impure motivations carry out one of the most sacred acts a human can perform; Chrisenya nearly expected to see some sign of the Empress's disfavor, a candle guttering out or a sudden flicker of the station's reactor. But there was none, and Fidelitas returned to the crowd a novitiate.

Though it had been hours, it felt as though almost no time at all passed before it came Chrisenya's turn. Her name—the old one—rang out through the hall. Hers was not the only male name to have been called, so she felt no unease as she stepped forward, for she knew that the chance to rectify it would come soon.

First, she approached the Pontifex Astra, a wizened old man of nearly a century, bent-backed and with skin the texture and color of well-worn grox-leather. She knelt before him, face down to the spotless marble, while in his creaking voice he spoke an unfamiliar High Gothic blessing.

Chrisenya's nerves were aflame. The excitement and anticipation of the moment had exceeded any previous, and though she remained still and quiet there was an unaccountable energy suffusing her body. She heard distant voices and the violent jostling of bodies somewhere far away. When at last the Pontifex Astra completed his prayer, and the twin streaks of sacred oil were painted across Chrisenya's eyelids, she could not smell the comforting, familiar bite of the oil itself, but only a thick and metallic scent. But surely there was no blood to smell.

Then Chrisenya rose, and with a nod passed into the care of Canoness Innogen. Again she knelt, and again she faced the floor. More sounds came to Chrisenya's ears, the cawing of ravens at a great distance. She blinked, and for a moment the ground before her was doused in silver flames, licking at every surface, trailing up Innogen's armored legs. There was a sense of vertigo, as though Chrisenya's head were falling while her body remained still; but Chrisenya let no outside sign show as Innogen finished reciting her blessing and, taking Chrisenya's hand, pulled her to her feet.

As Innogen began to recite the words of the Novitiate's Oath, Chrisenya's attention wavered. All across Innogen's arms, her shoulders, atop her head, sat an unkindness of ravens. Their black eyes stared back at Chrisenya, and though their beaks issued forth no sound, she knew that they meant death. Only a supreme exertion of will kept Chrisenya on her allotted track, and although her voice was distant and unfamiliar to her, she began to recite the oath back to Canoness Innogen. Another shock of pain passed through her, this time in a line down her scalp from brow to nape in a thin arc. More silver fire flickered away at the edge of Chrisenya's vision, daring her to avert her eyes long enough to learn from whence it had come. The final words of the Novitiate's Oath stumbled through Chrisenya's lips.

And then Innogen took Chrisenya's hand once more, and the visions vanished like so many wisps of candle-smoke. Innogen placed in her palm a ring of black metal. She knew what came next, for she had witnessed it hundreds of times in the hours before. She turned to look at the assembled, the mix of Progena and novitiates, every eye gazing right back at her. Another unaccountable feeling arrived, the near-total certainty that there were more eyes watching her than she could witness. Somewhere infinitely far away, she had attracted attention.

"Name thyself, Sister," said Innogen.

"I am Sister Chrisenya." She placed the ring upon her left index finger, where it would remain until she became in truth a battle-sister. "And in the name of the Empress of Humankind, I give my life to the Order of the Silver Scar. Let it be known."

"Chrisenya," Innogen said, sotto voce. "A name worth taking."

That brief comment brought forth a smile upon Chrisenya's face, but she dared not delay the ritual. Chrisenya had to fight to maintain consciousness as she returned to her place. Her legs shook, her head pounded, and it was nearly a full minute before her senses ceased to register things that did not exist.