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

[dragonsaffron]

The Argent Wing was a small destroyer escort, barely over a kilometer in length and designed more with speed and armament in mind than carrying capacity. More importantly, it was forgettable enough, inessential enough to the operations of the Order of the Silver Scar, that it could be spared for the task of traveling about the Gabrielle system picking up shiploads of novitiates. So it was that Chrisenya found herself sharing an enormous single compartment with hundreds of other girls.

Once, when this ship had first departed from some distant shipyard, the chamber must have been intended for use transporting something absolutely enormous, running as it did nearly a tenth of the ship's length, with a triangular peaked roof rising easily twenty meters above the floor. But the volume had long since filled in. Thin slabs of flakboard and plasteel reinforcing rods had been formed into a sort of scaffold, filling the space three-dimensionally with layer upon layer of walkways and chambers, vast gaps connected together by a warren of ladders and makeshift bridges, all full of beds, mattresses, and other such accommodations. Only the toilets had any amount of proper construction, and there were terribly few of those; queueing was a popular pastime on the journey to Roctaln.

The toilets were not the greatest struggle, though. Nor was it the food, which while utterly unpalatable navy-issue carb-ration, was at least available in sufficient quality. Chrisenya's greatest foe was the noise. With so few barriers to stop it, the sound of boots on the floor could echo across the whole of the compartment, and even whispered conversations turned into an endless susurrus of noise. But beyond that was the sound of the ship itself.

It had been seven years since Chrisenya had been on a spacecraft for longer than a couple of hours at a time, and her overriding memory of that experience had been dread silence and an ever-present pressure upon the mind. But that was under the influence of a Gellar field. In realspace, where propulsion was based upon the expulsion of superheated reactant, a ship was always loud. The very floor rattled and rumbled, every wall replete with the rushing noise of vast and distant industrial machinery. There was no escaping it, no matter where one was, for even in the highest portions of the scaffold there was still the clattering of the suspended overhead pipes vibrating along with the hull. To another person, that kind of noise might have been commonplace, even comforting: but to Chrisenya, such omnipresent sound was intolerable.

Insomnia was inevitable under such circumstances. Chrisenya was, of course, used to finding herself unable to sleep, for with sleep came Misty. But the dislocation of being aboard the Argent Wing instead of secreted away within the heart of the Gabriellum meant that her usual techniques soon failed her. With no other resort, Chrisenya found herself wandering the chamber alone.

There was no goal, no aim to her wandering. Most of the other Progena were asleep, and those fellow travelers who she met pacing about, exploring the length and breadth of the room were girls unfamiliar to her by face or by name. She had little to speak to them about besides. All she did was walk and walk, climbing up or down the levels at random, trying to let the ever-present fear of the impending nightmare wash over her without effect. It must have been near midnight when, by complete coincidence, Chrisenya found herself in the one place on the Argent Wing, the one place in all the galaxy, where she could not consider herself alone.

Fidelitas had set up her things against a large wall, the three overstuffed bags carrying her material possessions flanked on either side by the bags of the other girls. She sat on a bed, back against the flakboard, slowly working a comb through her hair. Chrisenya had never seen it out of a braid before, at least not for a very long time.

Chrisenya could not bring herself to move. She stood by a corner where two flakboard walls met, just out of view, her own impulses at war with themselves. The more pious part of her wanted nothing to do with Fidelitas and her sacrilege. She should not have been there, after all, so that pious part thought it would be best if Chrisenya simply acted as though she were not. But another part of her, the vulnerable animal part, yearned intensely for Fidelitas's touch. For a moment, Chrisenya wondered if this were the stabbings of that accursed emotion lust, but no: what she desired was softer, more of the skin than of the core.

To desire companionship with one who disrespected the sanctity of the Ecclesiarchy was, of course, a sin. But nonetheless, Chrisenya stepped around the corner and into view. With deliberate steps, she moved past the others to stand, still and silent, before Fidelitas's bed.

Fidelitas's eyes followed Chrisenya as she approached, but the rest of her acted as though she were invisible. Stroke after stroke, she cleared the knots from her hair. Both women waited for the other to move, to speak, to acknowledge the presence of the other. In the end, it was Fidelitas who was the first.

"I tried telling you, if you didn't practice apologizing more, you wouldn't be able to do it when you needed to do it."

Chrisenya scoffed. "'Surrender not in the face of heresy, for to betray ones own soul is a far greater crime than to allow oneself to be spat upon by those without honor.' Not that I believe you're a heretic, of course. Your presence here is only a minor sacrilege."

Fidelitas dropped her comb and gazed in wide-eyed awe at Chrisenya. "…ought to study you in a bloody lab…" she muttered. "Then what are you here for?"

Chrisenya clasped her hands in front of her hips and let her chin rest upon her chest. "I… desired… your company. And presence."

Fidelitas smirked for a moment, then shifted to the side. She patted the mattress next to her. "Not much room around here, but you're small enough to fit, I think."

Chrisenya very much disliked the demeaning thread in Fidelitas's tone, and the fact that she was looking at her the way one might look at a stray animal, but could not resist the allure of sitting at her side. She primly sat down, arranging her legs just so, then promptly rested her head on Fidelitas's broad, soft shoulder. She felt better.

"So, the iron-willed Saint gets slightly lonely and has to crawl back to me for a cuddle, hm?"

Chrisenya grimaced again, pressing herself yet more tightly to Fidelitas's side, her eyes slipping shut as the warmth of her friend's flesh took her. "I haven't forgiven you."

"And yet, here we are." Fidelitas picked up the comb and, flipping her hair to the other side to keep it out of Chrisenya's face, resumed using it. "So, what's getting to you, anyways?"

Uncertainty, doubt, fear, all of those things were weaknesses. Chrisenya should have been buoyed by the joy of service in the name of the Empress, existing in a state of pure piety and grace, not dragged down by base emotions. But if she was going to admit it to anyone, why not one who had already proven herself disrespectful?

"This ship is too loud," Chrisenya whispered. "There's no walls anywhere, no little corners, no privacy. It's not like the Gabriellum."

"New circumstances are uncomfortable, that's normal. Do you not remember what it was like when you started living at the Gabriellum the first time? If it was anything like mine, it was probably pretty similar to this."

"I do," Chrisenya said. A cold, tight feeling settled in her innards, making her tense up for just a moment. When Chrisenya had first come to the Gabriellum, she hadn't been feeling much of anything at all, really.

"To be honest, I'm even feeling it myself. It's like… like you don't exist anymore, like everything you were has just turned into smoke and ash."

Chrisenya sat up, though she made sure that her shoulder was still against Fidelitas's as she made eye contact. "Then you shouldn't have done this. You will put yourself through awful things, just for the sake of… what?"

Fidelitas glanced down at the place where her shoulder and Chrisenya's met. "For your sake, I guess. For the sake of not having to break this… whatever thing we have."

"You've made a terrible mistake."

"Well," Fidelitas said, "I can't exactly take it back now, can I?" She raised her left hand, the index finger decorated with the black crystal of the novitiate's ring.

Chrisenya stared into Fidelitas's eyes, trying to summon up some spark of righteous fury in the name of the Empress, some tirade of castigation which would prove Fidelitas's folly and set her once and for all down the path of contrition, however that would look. The only emotions she could bring forth for Fidelitas's sake were fear and worry.

"Have you ever seen someone die?" Chrisenya asked.

Fidelitas's expression turned bitter, and she could not help but look away, focusing her eyes on a patch of bare ground. "Of course I have."

"When?"

"I grew up on Gabrielle, people died all the time. Plague sweeps through, kills a quarter of the neighborhood. You're walking home and you see a man who got one of his limbs hacked off in a factory accident and he bleeds out while you're standing there gawping. It happens."

That wasn't the question Chrisenya had meant to ask. She searched for the words, though it was curiously difficult for someone with so advanced a vocabulary. "Fidelitas, have you ever seen someone be killed?"

Fidelitas turned back in shock, meeting Chrisenya's eyes for a moment before her courage left her. "What's the difference?"

"Have you ever seen one person, one being, kill another, with murderous intent?"

Fidelitas shook her head. "Saw a hungry person kill a canid once so they could butcher it. Heard about people who got executed by the Arbites for whatever reason, but never saw it happen. You?"

Chrisenya had seen more people being killed than she knew how to put words to. They had started with the helpers, her maids and teachers, then worked their way up to family, aunts and uncles and young cousins. Her parents and sister had gone last. And then the Sororitas came and started killing them too, and being killed in turn, the whole floor an explosion of bolter-fire and blood as the armored servants of the Empress did battle against the heretic foe.

Chrisenya squeezed her eyes shut, tearing her mind back into the present. "Too many," she said. "And you're going to see it too, Fidelitas. Becoming a Sororitas means having to kill people, you know that?"

"Yeah, but, just heretics and stuff…"

"Heretics are people," Chrisenya said instantly.

"What the fuck?" Fidelitas said, her eyes suddenly very wide open. "Sorry, I… Chrisenya? Is that you?"

Chrisenya didn't feel much like herself. She hadn't realized where the topic would take her, and her soul felt sluggish, swollen with all of the history it had soaked up. "Do not mistake me," she said, her eyes turned down to gaze at the palms of her hands. "They are evil, corrupt people, debased and degenerated by their fall from the Empress's truth. Heretics deserve no mercy. But it does not change the fact that they are people."

This postulate had been the cause of several lengthy arguments between Chrisenya and her teachers at the Academia Ecclesia Gabriellum. But although there was substantive evidence within the liturgy to reason against it, this was something Chrisenya knew to be true.

Fidelitas frowned at her. "Well, now you look like someone pissed on your breakfast. Let's change the topic." She leaned in close, whispering directly against Chrisenya's ear. "I've got enough blankets here, I bet if you're really quiet I could reach under that skirt of yours and give you a—"

Chrisenya flinched back. "How dare y—" She forced her volume down. "You will not seduce me so easily."

"Really? I did the first time."

Chrisenya fumed, red-faced and with clenched fists. Before she could find it in herself to reply in anger or storm off, Fidelitas laughed.

"It's fine if you don't want to. C'mere."

She grabbed Chrisenya around the shoulders and pulled her in, giving her a kiss on the cheek before settling her into position against the softness of her chest. Chrisenya did not object to this treatment. Not even to the kiss. They talked for a little while longer, about nothing of much importance, until at last the lateness of the hour and the soft warmth of Fidelitas's skin seeped into Chrisenya's bones.

Fidelitas tried to convince Chrisenya to share her bed for the night as she staggered to her feet. Chrisenya had never been more tempted to break one of her principles. But she needed to be alone at night, or as alone as she could manage in the Argent Wing's packed hold, if she was to deal with Misty. So it had been, and so it always would be.

 

[dragonsaffron]

Roctaln III, third moon of the gas giant Roctaln, was an Alpha-class planet with a total population of some ninety million human souls. Those were the sorts of facts which Chrisenya had learned about the planet in the course of her education, and they were as far as possible from the facts that she was made painfully aware of as she set foot for the first time onto the planet's surface.

The gravity was different, lighter than the Imperium-standard maintained on the Gabriellum. It had been seven years since Chrisenya had felt wind on her face, and the wind on Roctaln III did not stop blowing, the angle and speed of it constantly swaying erratically to and fro. In general there was too much sky, fully half of the field of view dominated by unimpeded blue, so vast and open that even looking directly at the horizon would give Chrisenya vertigo. At least it was still an appropriately neutral temperature, though the immense humidity threatened to ruin even that.

After three days trapped within the hull of the Argent Wing, Chrisenya had hoped that her arrival would prove comforting. Instead, she had been shuffled about through tight corridors and packed chambers, then herded into a dropship for a deafeningly loud, bone-rattlingly rough descent to the surface, all the while clutching desperately to her chest the synthsilk carpet bag that contained the sum total of her material possessions. That she had then stepped out of the lighter into, quite literally, a whole new world of disorienting sights and sensations only added to the mess.

At least Fidelitas had been there by her side all the while, passively anchoring Chrisenya with the familiarity of her presence. As this latest shipload of novitiates traveled down the road from the local landing zone to the abbey itself, Chrisenya always kept one eye on her good friend, ensuring they never drifted too far apart.

Chrisenya's other eye was attempting to drink in every detail of her surroundings, a task somewhat akin to attempting to swallow a grox whole. Directly behind her was the landing area, a broad flat expanse of plascrete ringed about by high, spindly vox-towers. To either side was a never-ending expanse of flat ground, deep brown soil exposed between rows of fresh green crops that went on and on for tens of kilometers. Far on the distant horizon, occluded by atmospheric dust, the rust-colored backs of mega-harvesters rose above the landscape like distant plasteel hills.

And before her, a beacon amidst this strange new world, was the Abbey of the Twin Orders. It was a city and a fortress, a unified structure and a vast complex, the great bell tower rising half a kilometer into the air and its ring of walls stretching so far that to circle them would take hours. So far as Chrisenya knew, the Abbey had never been attacked, not even during the ork wars which had ravaged the system a few centuries earlier, but it was prepared for an assault regardless. Great macro-cannons sat idle atop bolter-studded fortress emplacements, their barrels ever aimed skyward.

Chrisenya could hardly tear her eyes away from the outline of the Abbey. The military might of it was one thing, but entirely another was the beauty of the architecture. The bell-tower spire was the standout piece, but it stood amidst many sisters, huge cathedral domes and grand buttressed towers, high pointed spires and gorgeous statues of woman saints with their arms held open to the sky. There were a few times when she would run into another of her fellow Progena for lack of ability to keep her eyes on the ground.

Chrisenya was left with plenty of time to adjust to the unfamiliar gravity and soak in the unfamiliar sights as she and the other novitiates made their way down the long road from the landing site to the Abbey's main gate. All along the roadside were smaller structures, the hovels of serfs who made their living buying and selling scrap off of the merchants who journeyed to the Abbey, or from the produce of their own microscopic fields. A few novitiates stopped there to barter, but Chrisenya was above such things. Instead she made her way to the grand gate, twenty meters in height and painted in gold and copper leaf to illustrate the coming of the Imperium to the Gabrielle system. The Empress's wings were platinum, and at her feet marched a legion of steel-skinned angels, Her grandchildren.

Eventually, all of the novitiates assembled on the far side of the gate, in the grand entry hall of the Abbey. This was not even the grandest structure in the Abbey, this Chrisenya knew, and yet in its grandeur and scale it very well matched that of the Gabriellum's Sacrarium Sacrosanctus, with all of its high marble pillars and intricate sculptures of martyrs. Waiting for the novitiates was an honor guard of battle-sisters arranged in two lines on either side, as well as two figures standing at the head of the room. One was clad in the crimson armor of a battle-sister, its decorations marking her as a Canoness. The other wore robes, and the elaborate set of mechanical limbs and tools mounted on her back marked her as a Hospitaller. The warrior Canoness stepped forward.

"Novitiates! With open arms and a joyous voice do I welcome you to this, the Abbey of the Twin Orders. I am Canoness-Superior Cassandra of the Order of the Silver Scar, and my laconic companion and partner is Canoness-Superior Phoebe of the Order of the Silver Suture. Ever since the founding of our two Orders…"

Canoness-Superior Cassandra then launched into a lengthy speech, one part historical lecture and one part sermon. It was all very stirring, the rhetoric second to none, and Chrisenya made sure to listen to every word. Once or twice, Canoness-Superior Cassandra's words proved so stirring that Chrisenya even found herself uttering a rousing cry of "For the Empress!", an act for which she received many an odd look.

After speaking at length upon the philosophical underpinnings of the Adepta Sororitas, impressing upon the new recruits the virtues required of them, and other such explanations, Cassandra turned her attention to matters more practical. "Novitiates are, as the Rule Sororitas guides us, assigned into drill squads numbering either eight or nine, and each squad assigned to a Sister-Superior. All Hospitallers, come to the front, and you will be assigned by Phoebe's own arcane methods. Battle-sisters, you will draw names from the bag currently being held by… Sister-Superior Lydia, over there. Your Sisters-Superior will then take over."

The sack began to be passed down the line. It was a simple thing, unadorned synth-cloth full of small slips of flimsy. Each novitiate took it from her neighbor, withdrew a slip, read from it briefly, and passed the sack down the line before rushing off to find her assigned Sister-Superior.

Fidelitas swore under her breath, then turned to Chrisenya. "D'you think we'll be able to meet each other, still, once we're in different squads? I'm sure they'll have meal times, maybe recreation…"

Chrisenya felt a faint pang of sympathy for the rising distress in Fidelitas's voice, the pang did not sink in. "I am certain that if the Empress wishes for us to remain close, She will let it be so. 'For the will of the Empress is absolute,' if you recall."

Fidelitas flashed her an angry look. "Is this about that sacrilege thing again? Are you trying to teach me a lesson?"

"It is a lesson worth learning," Chrisenya said.

Fidelitas continued to be angry as the sack continued to approach. When it was finally handed to her, that anger had vanished, replaced entirely with fear. She stuck her hand into the pile of flimsy slips and searched about, rustling through them in the manner of a scribe searching through a pile of scrolls. Only when it became absurd did Fidelitas yank her hand out and shove the bag anxiously into Chrisenya's arms.

Chrisenya reached into the bag and plucked out the first slip against which the tips of her fingers brushed, passing the bag swiftly on to the girl behind her.

"Who'd you get?"

"Sister-Superior Bellara," Chrisenya read coolly.

"Well, shit. Me too," said Fidelitas, flipping the slip over to reveal it to Chrisenya. As she said, the name "Bellara" was printed on it in a machine script. "What are the odds of that?"

Chrisenya shrugged. "I am no tech-priest. But I suppose we shall not be as separated as you were afraid of."

"Don't be so smug. Now let's find her and I can stop having to carry all this damn baggage around."

How Fidelitas could carry all three of her bags at once, Chrisenya had no idea; even just dragging her own carpet-bag the distance from the landing site to the front gate had left her arms begging for relief, whereas Fidelitas showed only the barest signs of fatigue. At the very least, this was proof that Fidelitas was physically suited for the role of battle-sister, lacking in temperament as she may have been.

As for finding Sister-Superior Bellara, it was a mercifully quick task. The first Sister-Superior they were able to get a word with was able to quickly describe her, and as it so happened, Sister-Superior Bellara was an exceptionally easy woman to describe. Most of her features were unremarkable for a Sororitas, her height about halfway between Chrisenya and Fidelitas, her build the typical warrior's muscle, her hair black and cut short. What was far from unremarkable about her was the upper left-hand portion of her face, which had been almost entirely replaced with a dull grey augmetic, including an eye of pitch-black material which shined like crystal. Chrisenya noticed her from across the hall, already in conversation with another novitiate.

Bellara stopped talking as Chrisenya and Fidelitas approached. "You two would be my final novitiates, then?"

"Indeed," said Chrisenya, giving her instructor a half-bow.

"I assume that the eye made me easy to find. Names?"

"Sister Fidelitas, and this is Sister Chrisenya."

"Fidelitas, Chrisenya, this is Sister Benedicta. She is another member of my drill-squad."

Sister Benedicta was slightly shorter than Fidelitas and rail thin, with white-dyed hair that fell to around her chin and a long, oval face. She wore a different variant on the novitiate's uniform, one which hugged her figure almost as much as Chrisenya's but also hid her legs beneath a much longer skirt. Almost as soon as she lay eyes upon Chrisenya, her small lips formed into a sly grin.

"Benedicta?" said Chrisenya, raking her memory. "You were a Prefect, weren't you, back on the Gabriellum?"

"Indeed I was," Sister Benedicta said with a smirk. "And that would make you the Saint, no? Oh, you have such a reputation."

"I do?" Chrisenya asked. "Well, I suppose I hope that I live up to it."

Sister Benedicta laughed.

"Hold on, you two knew each other on the Gabriellum?" Fidelitas said, brow furrowed with confusion. "Seriously, what are the odds…"

"We only knew each other by name," Chrisenya said, shaking her head. "And only barely at that. I think this may be the first time we've ever spoken to each other."

"It's not," said Benedicta. "I distinctly remember you said 'thank you' to me after I selflessly prevented you from tripping over your own robes and falling flat on your face a couple of years back."

Sister-Superior Bellara grunted with annoyance. "Enough chattering. The rest of the squad is waiting for you. You can drop your luggage off at the bunkroom, then we can begin the tour."

"Oh, thank the Empress," Fidelitas moaned.

There was little room for conversation as the four of them made their way to the novitiate dormitories, primarily because of Bellara setting the pace. She refused to walk any slower than the absolute maximum which could be called a walk; for Fidelitas and Benedicta this was barely manageable, but Chrisenya was left occasionally having to run to catch up.

It also did her no favors that the novitiate dormitories were not placed particularly closely to the entry hall. Indeed, the journey was somewhat longer even than the one getting to the entry hall from the landing site in the first place, and a good deal more winding, the pathway coiling and cornering between dozens of high towers and squat outbuildings. The Abbey really was a city in itself in that way, complete with the urban bustle of Sororitas and serfs alike going about their business. So it was that, by the time Chrisenya stepped onto the lift in the novitiates hall, her uniform was damp with sweat and her lungs burned for lack of air.

The novitiate hall was a huge, square building, bare of most of the decoration lavished upon the Abbey's other structures, its walls nothing but sculpted ferrocrete and the occasional plasteel elaboration. It stood a dozen floors tall, looming over the nearby fields, and must have held thousands. Chrisenya, Fidelitas, and Benedicta were quickly shown to the fifth floor, and their thumbprints added to the cogitative lock on a nondescript room.

Beyond that door was a single chamber, approximately fit for eight individuals. In each corner of the room was a bunk, and at the center was a single table. Along the back was a lavish shrine to the Empress, the only object in the entire room which bore any amount of decoration whatsoever. There were also, more importantly, several people already within.

Two of them were at the table, leaned over it, their elbows on the thermoplas and their hands clenched together as they wrestled for domination. Even hunched over, it was obvious to see that they were both tall and well-muscled women, to the point that it had clearly been a mild challenge supplying them with properly-sized uniforms. One of them, a rough-faced and stockily-built woman, had had to entirely forego her sleeves. The other, with a long mane of tight, beautifully-maintained, bone-white curls spilling down her shoulders, merely strained the fabric on her arms, but had found a way to fit.

In the very back of the room, her body almost entirely concealed under her novitiate's mantle, one member of the drill squad was engaged in prayer, kneeling with her hands clasped before the Empress's shrine. Chrisenya took a liking to her almost immediately.

The final two members of the squad could only be half-seen from the door, given they were around the corner between two of the bunks. One, a woman that Chrisenya was shocked to realize was actually shorter than her, was conversing animatedly, augmenting her speech with various hand gestures. The other, back against the wall and arms folded listened on with visible dis-interest. Strangely, unique amongst all of them, her novitiate's uniform was made from white fabric instead of black.

"Attention!" Bellara shouted.

There was a burst of activity. The two novitiates hunched over the table separated as though they had been caught doing something lascivious, leaping to their feet with incredible speed. In the back, the pious one lurched to her feet, her mantle nearly falling off as she awkwardly rushed to present the appearance of swiftness. The extremely short girl dashed around the corner to join the two at the table, while the white-garbed one slinked after her.

"Introducing Sister Chrisenya, Sister Fidelitas, and Sister Benedicta," Bellara said, gesturing to each in turn.

A chorus of greetings met them, in varying degrees of formality and enthusiasm.

"Now, Chrisenya, Fidelitas, and Benedicta. Might I introduce you to Sister Gwynette," She gestured to the short one. "In the white is Sister Serra. She's the squad's Hospitaller, so don't cross her if you want to remain alive. Sister Severn, I will have to give you a mark for illegal uniform modification."

Sister Severn, the one without sleeves, rolled her shoulders aggressively.

"The one you saw fighting for dominance with Sister Severn was Sister Regina."

Regina, the woman with the beautiful hair, flashed Chrisenya and Fidelitas a smile. Her teeth were brilliantly white, standing out against the dark brown of her lips like a candle's flame in a dark room.

"And there in the back, showing quite excellent piety, is Sister Liniel. Now then, set your bags down, and let's head out. Time for the introductory tour!"

 

[dragonsaffron]

"The one you saw fighting for dominance with Sister Severn was Sister Regina."

There was a very slight emphasis in Sister-Superior Bellara's voice, just a hint of it on the word "dominance." It was a reminder of the truth. That is, on some level, what Regina had been doing, trying to prove that she and not Severn was the strongest and toughest of the bunch.

The eyes of the newcomers naturally followed Bellara's terse gesture right to Regina. Without her permission, Regina's hindbrain worked out the social calculus of the situation. Its conclusion: minimize perceived aggression, make a show of friendliness. She flashed a smile. People had always told her that she'd had very nice teeth, and while the change in circumstances resulting from her running away to join the Sororitas might change that, she could still leverage it for a little while.

As the newcomers rushed to find a place to set down their baggage, particularly the diminutive Chrisenya, who looked on the verge of keeling over, Regina returned to her senses. She didn't need to live that way anymore. While she had no doubt that the endless struggle for power continued to some extent within the halls of the Abbey, the stakes were far lower, ruthlessness far less common. There was at least a decent chance that any given one of Regina's new sisters was a person who could be taken at face value.

Particularly Chrisenya. Benedicta and Fidelitas were enigmatic, in the sense that Regina had known them for a total of twenty seconds and could judge little from their appearances, though even the choice of which uniform variant to wear could tell her something. But it was Chrisenya who immediately drew her attention. She was minuscule, feeble, appearing to be even less suited for the battlefield than Liniel appeared to be. But the eyes were what Regina found the most intriguing. She had never seen eyes like them before, big and pale and all-seeing, never quite focusing on the object of Sister Chrisenya's attention in the way a human being's eyes were supposed to. By the time Chrisenya's single item of luggage crashed into the floor of the bunkroom, Regina had concluded that there was something deeply, profoundly wrong with her.

Again, hindbrain reflex kicked in. Unconformity was a weakness, a potential site of exploitation, if not by Regina then almost certainly by others. But hindbrain reflex would serve Regina well no longer. Consciously, with a bit of mental effort, Regina decided that she was fascinated.

Like a monarch dragging her hangers-on behind her, Sister-Superior Bellara initiated the tour, and the drill squad had no choice but to trail after her. Sister Chrisenya, sweat-stained and haggard, fell into the back, struggling to keep up. Regina had been exerting herself all morning, testing the limits of her muscles out of sheer boredom more than anything else, but she felt barely any exhaustion at all. Nevertheless, she allowed herself to slip into the back of the group.

"You look tired," she said to Chrisenya.

"'And though she was exhausted in the flesh, the will of the Empress flowed through her, and the saint was unbowed'," said Chrisenya.

"What?"

"Don't you read the liturgy?"

"Of course I do," said Regina. "On holidays and when I'm in a chapel and all that. Was that a quote?"

Chrisenya grimaced. "Yes, it was."

There was something very cute about Chrisenya's voice. It had a scratchy sort of quality to it, the kind you would expect to start cracking at a moment's notice, and yet she used it very well. Her words were not precise, not in the way Regina was used to, but they flowed from one to the other as though she did not have to think about her words or exert herself in their production.

"Well, you still look like you're about to collapse." Regina decided to see how Chrisenya would react to a joke. "Do you need someone to carry you around?"

Almost instantly, Sister Chrisenya jolted. It was a subtle reaction, but highly visible to Regina's trained eye despite Chrisenya's attempts to suppress it. For the next couple of seconds, Chrisenya could not quite seem to make eye contact with her.

"I am not so weak," Sister Chrisenya said.

"Of course not. But regardless, you need to be able to keep up with the rest of the group."

"Empress grant me strength, I will."

The squad piled into the lift, which arrived just as they did, and rode it down to the ground floor.

"This, as you've already seen, is the mess. Keep a firm eye on it at all times, for the will of our cooking staff is a variable thing, more capricious than any machine-spirit."

It was something that Regina had not been prepared for when she had arrived on Roctaln, and something that she was still finding herself becoming used to. All dining in the Abbey followed the schedule of the mess halls, without exception. There was no food to be found outside of the prescribed hour, no matter how much Regina may have felt the desire for a late-morning snack.

But the squad did not spend much time in the mess. Driven onward by Sister Bellara's relentless pace, they turned out through the main gates of the novitiate's hall and, within a few minutes, had entered a large field of mown grass. The mowers, a flock of ollrams, stood under the guard of a pair of servitors somewhere in the distance. Scattered across the field were mannequins, sandbags, long lengths of rope, and various uneven metallic objects of unclear providence. Along one edge of the field was a high wall of ferrocrete, heavily pockmarked, with various targets painted on its based and standing in front of it.

"This here is the novitiate training field. Empress willing, you will spend as much time here as your bodies will allow, both in scheduled and unscheduled time. Here you will learn to fight, to shoot, to maintain yourselves. There is only one rule."

Bellara pointed in the direction of the wall, angling down. "You will under no circumstances set foot in the space between the wall and the marking pylons without a direct order from someone of my rank or above. Am I clear?"

"Yes ma'am," said Regina.

"Yes, Sister-Superior!" cried out every other member of the squad, in near-perfect unison.

Sister Regina took note of the discrepancy, mentally thanking the Empress that Bellara had not noticed.

With a few more notes about scheduling, when training would begin, and so on, they were off once more. They passed a small chapel, which Bellara explained was one of fourteen in the Abbey, this one merely being the closest. They were of course allowed to visit it at any hour they pleased. Not long after that, Sister Chrisenya began to lag, and once more Regina fell naturally to her side. Whereas before her concern had been more of an opportunity for a light ribbing than anything else, as they continued on, she began to grow legitimately concerned for Chrisenya's health.

"Are you certain you don't need… an assist of some kind? You look… bad."

Chrisenya had been dutifully attempting to keep up with the long-legged Bellara, which meant alternating between fast walking and running, to ill effect. The sweat and the panting breaths had only grown worse with time, and the extreme precision and fluidity of her movements was beginning to break down. It took several seconds after Regina posed the question before Chrisenya could find the breath to answer.

"I'll make it," she said.

"At this rate I don't think you will."

Several more seconds passed, Chrisenya looking increasingly frustrated as she once again began to fall behind the Sister-Superior. "How would you even help me?"

For a few seconds Regina seriously considered making good on her previous offer to carry Chrisenya on her back. Regina was still considering her options when Sister Fidelitas, the tall and sturdily-built one, dropped away from the rest of the group to confront her.

"Regina, was it? Is something the matter?"

"Your friend here looks like she's about to collapse," Regina said, jerking her head in Chrisenya's direction. "Just asking if she needed some help."

Sister Fidelitas looked down at Chrisenya, brow furrowed, then over her head at Regina. "She'll manage. I've seen her get through worse. She'll complain, cough up some blood about it later, then it'll be fine."

"That's not fine," Regina said. "She needs a chance to slow down."

"Yeah, and how do you plan on getting that? Sister-Superior Bellara doesn't look like the type to take pity."

"You could always ask. What's the worst that could happen?"

Sister Fidelitas's expression went grave, her face going taut in a moment of panic. She glanced to the front of the group again, afraid that Sister-Superior Bellara might have overheard the conversation.

"You know damned well what's the worst that could happen. And it's a hell of a lot worse than collapsing from exhaustion."

Regina read between the lines. Another piece of cultural context she had failed to pick up on, another slip in the facade. Her hindbrain was determined to assimilate this information, or better yet, pretend that she'd already known it and had only a momentary lapse. Instead, she straightened up her shoulders and glared at the back of Bellara's head.

"Chrisenya's not the one asking, though. It'll be fine, I'll just say I noticed and ask her if we can—"

Fidelitas interrupted. "Are you mad? No, listen, it'll be fine. Right, Chrisenya? You can keep up the pace."

Sister Gwynette, whose legs were just as short as Sister Chrisenya's if not shorter, was not having nearly as much trouble keeping up the pace. This was partially because her compact build held far greater athleticism than Chrisenya's willowy body, and partially because she had not had to make the journey from the landing site to the novitiate's hall with an armful of luggage. She was instead trotting alongside the escalating argument and listening very carefully.

"I will not be defeated by the introductory tour," Chrisenya said. "If I give in now, then I might as well return to Gabrielle in a shroud of shame."

"That's the spirit. I'll even push you, how about that?" Fidelitas slapped a hand across Chrisenya's back.

"This is absurd," Regina said. "You will not martyr yourself on the first day of training, before the first day of training even. Even the Empress must have rested some of the time."

Chrisenya's eyes bulged, and her breaths deepened in preparation for some kind of outburst. Before Chrisenya could waste her limited air on castigating Regina, though, Gwynette sighed loudly, rolling her eyes.

"Let me show you how it's done," she said. Gwynette then did a pitch-perfect imitation of tripping over her own feet and falling on her face, before swearing loudly.

Sister-Superior Bellara promptly stopped in her tracks and turned around. "Sister Gwynette? What has happened back there?"

Gwynette rolled over. Regina was fairly certain that she had managed to do that fall, from a normal walk, onto solid stone, entirely without injuring herself in the least. Nonetheless, her voice was a vivid painting of mild agony.

"It's the bloody boots," Gwynette moaned. "I'm not used to walking in these things."

Bellara scoffed, looked around, then stormed over to where Gwynette had fallen. "If you can't even walk around properly on flat fucking ground, Sister Gwynette, you'll have to be reassigned to the staff. This is making a mockery of the Adepta Sororitas!"

"My apologies, Sister-Superior, this won't happen again, I know I'll get used to it. Oh, my knees…"

While Sister-Superior Bellara continued to berate Gwynette, milking the moment for all she could to the chuckles of Sisters Benedicta and Severn, Fidelitas quickly escorted Chrisenya to the side. A slab of architectural stone on the side of a nearby building provided something that could do half-decent service as a bench. Regina folded her arms and watched the scene play out. Once, when Bellara wasn't looking in her direction, Gwynette flashed Regina an ostentatious wink.

In the end, the stop only lasted a couple of minutes. Bellara dragged Gwynette to her feet, at which point the latter briefly tested her footing and discovered that she could push through the pain. Then they were off again. Chrisenya continued huffing and puffing, but was not quite as abject in her exhaustion.

"This building, here," Sister-Superior Bellara said, pointing to a conical spire of shining plasteel and gilding, "Is one of the Hospitaller's dens. Sister Serra, much of your training will be taking place here. The rest of you, this is where the Order of the Silver Suture will make damn sure you're taken care of. And let me make it clear: the strength of our Order Militant is based in our cooperation with the Hospitallers."

Bellara scanned across the squad, waiting for an objection. She found none.

"Do you want to know where I got this?" she said, tapping her finger directly on the surface of her black augmetic eye.

Sister Benedicta shrugged. "I'll admit, I've been rather curious."

"It was six years ago, putting down a chaos cult on Gilvator Secundus. I went down, and a rogue officer put a laspistol shot into my head from…" she held out her hands, flat, about a meter apart. "This distance. Not before I had stuck a live krak grenade to his back, but that was a separate lesson about fuse timings. Regardless, despite the fact that I had lost a substantial fraction of my brain, I was found and brought back to the field hospital. It took four elder sisters working in shifts for three days to revive me."

Bellara tapped the augmetic again. Regina tried not to think too hard about what any of that might have looked like, the blood and gore and shattered skull, but she could stomach the image. Chrisenya, on the other hand, looked like she'd heard the story a hundred times already.

"Rehabilitation took two years," Bellara continued. "I had to start with the bladder and rectum and work my way up from there. And do you know what I did to celebrate once I had control over my body again? I went out and I killed an ork captain in single combat, as a sacrifice to the Empress. So take that as a lesson, novitiates: treat the Hospitallers with respect. Get on their good sides, and you'll be able to survive anything. Your first examinations will be tomorrow morning at eighth bell, so be in that building by then."

Though the stories of the Sororitas as warrior-angels had always held strong in her consciousness, for most of Regina's life, she had always associated them with medicine. Just about every hospital on Notidal had had a Sister running it. If having one Sister on staff was considered the mark of medical excellence, then what sorts of surgical wonders would result from living within the base of an entire Order's worth of them? Regina turned over the idea of augmetic modification in her mind. Her body, as one of the few things under her control, had always been the site of her greatest self-improving efforts, as proven by her abdominals. The prospect of being able to carry it yet further with surgical aid was dizzyingly well of potential.

The drill squad continued to travel further afield, towards the densely-packed core of the Abbey. Sister-Superior Bellara pointed out the secondary command center, where the Canonesses went about their business, and explained that if advice were ever needed, novitiates were allowed to seek it. They then passed that area quickly, moving on to a high, square spire. To Regina's eyes it almost belonged more in a manufactorum than an abbey.

"This here is Central Requisitions. Should you ever need anything that the Order hasn't already provided—and you shouldn't, but if you do—you can make an appearance here to fill out a requisition form. Just don't expect it to happen quickly."

Sister Chrisenya seemed only faintly aware of the huge, looming tower of Central Requisitions. Instead, her eyes were turned to the side, towards a low-slung structure, looking like a bunker, its sloped sides covered in duralloy plate. Regina's ever-observant hindbrain marked that as strange; Chrisenya's pale eyes were almost always attentive.

"What is that building, over there?" Chrisenya said, pointing toward the object of her fascination.

"The Hall of Mementos," said Bellara with a frown. "Those objects which are important enough to be taken, but not so charged with holiness or corruption as to necessitate destruction or veneration. Sort of a holding area, if you will. I hardly remember the last time I've been inside."

Chrisenya nodded, sighing. It looked almost wistful, or as though she had given up on receiving an answer which satisfied her. Another piece of evidence, then, that there was something completely and utterly wrong with that woman. Regina felt the faint urge to pin her down and disassemble her to find out more. And not even in an unpleasant way.

 

[dragonsaffron]

The meals on offer at the Abbey of the Twin Orders were mysterious and enigmatic things. On that particular day, the main course was a highly flavorful slurry of unidentifiable solid pieces and thick liquid, served with a side of what looked like a small, hard biscuit, but was thick with the sour taste of bramble. A far cry from what Regina had spent the first eighteen years of her life eating, but she hadn't found it too difficult to adapt.

Regina set down a biscuit, again unable to ascertain what flavor it was supposed to represent. Her attention needed to be elsewhere. "So, what's it like on Gabrielle? I'd never left Notidal before."

Regina leaned over the table, eyes fixed firmly on Sister Chrisenya, the enigma. Chrisenya's lashes fluttered. "Oh, I'm not from Gabrielle. I only ever lived on the Academia Ecclesia Gabriellum. It's one of the two Progeniums, in orbit."

"Where are you from, then?" asked Regina.

Sister Chrisenya's expression turned dour. "I don't like to talk about that."

And yet again, more mystery. Regina tried to read the feelings behind the words and expressions, but couldn't quite piece it together. In the smallest twitches of Chrisenya's face she read shame, fear, and other things, but how that related to her past she didn't know.

"I'm from Gabrielle," said Sister Fidelitas, the fat one who more and more seemed to be joined to Chrisenya at the hip. "Big planet, billions of people on it, and there's a chapel on every street corner. Which, considering the man in charge of that chapel is also in charge of that whole block, I suppose there—"

"Severn, Liniel and I, we all arrived here nine days ago, I think," Regina began. "So we've had plenty of time to explore the Abbey. There's lots of places that Bellara didn't show us on the introductory tour that I bet you would love to hear about."

"What kinds of places?" said Chrisenya.

"Oh, all sorts. There's another training area, an indoor one, that the sisters proper use, but I don't think they'll stop a novitiate at the door. Liniel told me that the Abbey keeps a botanical garden somewhere around here, though you would have to ask her where they keep it. The one I'm most looking forward to using is the baths."

"Baths?" said Chrisenya, wrinkling her nose. "That sounds very… vain."

Regina had never met someone before who, upon hearing about the existence of a hot bath, was more concerned with the potential sinfulness involved than with the prospect of hot water. She affected a chuckle, buying herself enough time to come up with an approach that she might find more appealing.

"A Hospitaller once told me that hot water is good for the body."

Sister Chrisenya pouted. "But overmuch concern with one's appearance is harmful to the soul."

"Thus sayeth the only girl within a forty-meter radius who went to the effort of putting on atramentum," muttered Sister Severn.

Chrisenya turned on Severn with the ferocity of an unleashed canid, complete with the slightest baring of her teeth. "I do not do this out of vanity!" she hissed. "There must be no ambiguity as to the matter of my gender, for the sake of the Decree Passive. Thus, until the matter of my gender can be corrected, I must rely upon crude aesthetic."

Had Regina cottoned on previously? She must have, her hindbrain if nothing else was too observant to ignore the fact that Sister Chrisenya was badly gendered. And yet, having the information shoved into her face, by Chrisenya herself no less, still made Regina startle ever so slightly.

"I think you could get away without it," Regina said, in a rare moment of unconscious earnestness.

Chrisenya's eyes locked on Regina, her mouth falling open just for a moment with a kind of soft exhaling sound. She blinked repeatedly, unsure of how to respond. "That's absurd," she said, barely louder than a whisper.

Sister Severn groaned. "Oh, piss off," she said, then rose from the table with a heavy lurch. Regina, Chrisenya, and Fidelitas all watched as she stomped her way out of the novitiate's hall, leaving her half-finished meal behind.

Regina very much wanted to remain behind, learning more about the strange, pale creature that she now shared a room with. But there were stronger devotions at play. Once Sister Severn was gone, Regina rose as well, more delicately.

"I'll take care of her. I'm sure it's nothing too important."

Once she was out of the doors of the novitiate's hall, following Severn was no great challenge. Indeed, Regina had a suspicion about where Severn was going from the moment she left, a suspicion that was proven correct. They had discovered the spot, the both of them, within a matter of days of their arrival at the Abbey. One of the secondary workshops where novitiates could go to ask the tech-priests for repairs had been renovated at some point in the last few centuries, a new wing added onto it. But that wing did not butt directly up against the adjacent armory, instead leaving a small gap.

Regina had to turn sideways to squeeze through the three-meter-long strait which connected the secret place from the outside world. On the other side was a patch of dying grass and overgrown ivy the size of a novitiate's bunkroom. The high plasteel walls of the workshop and the armory stretched high enough to leave the region perpetually in shadow.

Severn was there, leaning up against one of those walls, a lho stick pressed between her lips. She acknowledged Regina's arrival with an acrid glare.

"Bit dramatic for a smoke break," Regina said.

Severn exhaled a burst of smoke, then played with the stick between her index and middle fingers.

"Oh, and now you're not talking to me?" Regina said, with a hint of misery. "What in the warp did I ever do to you?"

Severn continued to smoke for a little while longer, wrapped up in her own inner world. She was toying with Regina, that much was obvious. Trying to force her into some kind of attention-grabbing gesture. Regina refused to play the game, folding her arms across her chest and meeting Severn's steely glare with one of her own.

Finally, Severn let the hand carrying the lho stick drop low. "So, what's the plan? You going to drop onto your knees and beg Sister Chrisenya to shove her cock in your mouth, or what?"

Anger and embarrassment burned in Regina's stomach. "Fuck you and fuck your assumptions, Severn."

Severn chuckled. "You're not making it very subtle, princess. Inviting her to the baths? Really?"

"Don't call me that," Regina said, drawing herself up to her full height. Which was still three centimeters shorter than Severn.

"Don't call you what? Princess?" Severn raised an eyebrow. "Make me, cunt."

Regina rushed forward, grabbing Severn by the shoulders and slamming her into the wall. Severn's lho stick fell onto the grass, and she grunted in pain as the back of her skull knocked against the plasteel.

"Oh, there we go," Severn groaned. "Now we can talk. What do you even see about her? She's not all that."

"She's different," Regina said. "Intriguing."

"By the Empress, Regina, you sound like a fucking poet! Oh, she intrigues you, does she? It's not that hard to figure out, I've seen girls like her before. Too much prayer boils the brain, makes you crazy."

Regina cocked back her fist, nails digging into her palms. But fighting, real fighting, the kind that leaves bruises, she knew would only lead to her being disciplined. She and Severn had both figured out an excellent way of working out aggression, and the way Severn's mouth twisted into a smirk, her eyes sparkling, suggested that she was thinking the same thing.

Regina pressed her lips to Severn's neck, hard enough to toe the line between a kiss and a bite, low enough down that any mark could be concealed by the collar of Severn's uniform. Severn reacted with gusto, pressing her hips forward against Regina's thigh. Regina could tell she was already well and truly hard. Both pairs of hands filled with a frantic energy, peeling back clothing wherever they thought they could get away with it in order to feel the soft skin underneath.

"There you go," Severn muttered. "Good girl."

Regina pulled her lips away from Severn's neck in order to glare directly into her eyes. "Don't pretend you aren't enjoying this too."

"Oh of course I am," Severn said, grinding her crotch against Regina's leg. "But I don't try to hide it. You pretend to be so refined and sweet and chivalrous." She fell in close, whispering into Regina's ear. "But as soon as eyes are off you, you turn into a monster."

Regina grabbed Severn by the chin, dragging her into a kiss involving an above-average amount of teeth. There were few things that Regina wouldn't have given for the chance to give her a proper headbutt, break her nose across her brow.

The difficulty was that Severn had already found Regina's weakness. Her hands forced themselves under Regina's tunic, found the bottom edge of her stays and yanked them down around her hips. That in and of itself made her hitch, as her breasts were suddenly exposed to the harsh rubbing of synthcloth against them. It only became worse when Severn's fingers, broad and rough, started to work on them.

"I wonder how your precious little Chrisenya would feel if she knew about us," Severn said. "Think she'd want to join in?"

Regina tried to speak but she kept interrupting herself, panting for breath. "If you tell her about any of this I'll—"

"Kill me? Good luck getting away with that."

Regina grimaced, jaw clenching until her teeth hurt. There really were times when she just wanted to kill Sister Severn and have it done with. But that wouldn't solve anything; and besides, she'd left that kind of cutthroat ruthlessness behind.

"I'll ruin you, someway or another. Because I know I'm better than you. More cunning."

"Cunning is certainly one way to—"

Regina's hand had snuck under the hem of Severn's tunic, yanking down the front of the padded hose. Her fingers wrapped around the shaft, just hard enough to show she meant business. Severn's jaw fell open, hot breaths spilling into the midday air as her head lolled forward. Her forehead came to rest against Regina's, and the two of them slowed their pace, relishing in the moment of inversion. With her free arm, Regina grabbed Severn's above the elbow and dragged it out from under her top.

"Soft fucking hands, you've got," Severn whispered. "Have you ever had to work hard a day in your bloody life?"

"By the Empress, Severn, have you ever shut the fuck up a day in yours?"

Severn's eyes flicked up, meeting Regina's for just a moment. But she had no response. She pressed her lips to the curve of Regina's chin, her mouth a hungry, demanding force, and started to trail her way down and back towards the collarbone. Regina closed her eyes to drink in the sensation and swiftly started to work her fingers up and down.

It was a tense, quiet affair as Regina pushed Severn to her completion. Severn gnawed spitefully at her, sucking and biting wherever she thought she could get away with, wrapping her fingers up in the curls of Regina's locks in an attempt to extract whines of pain from between her pretty teeth. As much as she tried to exert her aggression against Regina, there was little that could be done. Regina had her cock in her hand, and was handling it well enough to leave Severn shuddering.

Dominance had to be established. Regina sure that Severn kept it in her thick skull that Regina was the better woman, Regina was the stronger will, Regina was the one who would get in the last word. That wasn't to say that she wasn't going to enjoy the process. Her breasts were still rubbing against the inside of her tunic, the scratching soreness begging for release. Regina leaned into it as best she could, maximizing the stimulation with subtle shimmies and full-force presses against Severn's body.

But those brief distractions never stopped Regina from pushing to her goal. She kept a steady pace, firm and smooth and forceful. A week of this was far from enough to determine the exact contours of Severn's needs, but nevertheless, it was not long at all before Severn's breath began to quicken, her movements to grow sloppy. Regina allowed her hindbrain to take control, making a triumphant fang-bearing grin just before the final moment. Severn's whole body clenched, every muscle seizing at once and her nails digging into Regina's skin. She sucked in a breath, then stopped breathing entirely. Severn moaned, face wrinkled from a mixture of disgust and hate at having been, in more than one sense of the word, beaten.

Regina stepped back, allowing Severn to slouch onto the wall. She checked herself, ensuring nothing had stained her uniform, then paused a moment to spit in Severn's face. She would need to find the time to finger herself into oblivion later, just in order to be able to forget all of this.

Severn laughed, wiping the spit-stain from her cheek with the back of her hand. A lazy grin spread across her face. "This was such a good idea. I really am a genius," she said as she tucked herself back into her uniform.

"We wouldn't have to do this at all if you weren't such a raging arsehole."

"Don't lie to me. You loved that. All the best parts of fighting and fucking in one" She lazily reached into a pocket of her uniform and retrieved another lho stick and a bundle of matches. She cupped them all close, striking the matches against the plasteel wall, wasting one before the lho caught light. "Do you still want to chase the crazy girl's skirt?"

"This has nothing to do with her," Regina said.

"It could," Severn said. She took another drag, angling the smoke up at the sky. "Maybe I'll tell. Maybe I'll try stealing her for myself."

"Oh come now, Severn. We're not girls. Don't get jealous because you think I'm not giving you enough attention."

Severn shook her head. "I'm not jealous. I think you're fucking mental. I just hate you and your attitude so fucking much that the idea of stealing something that's yours strikes me as fun."

Regina wasn't sure what to think about this, mostly because, in a rare moment of failure, she couldn't tell whether Severn was being serious or not. She sounded serious, but her words were absurd. The uncertainty did bad things to her stomach. Regina whirled around and started walking back to the crack between the buildings.

"Gonna stay here, have another smoke?"

"Yeah."

"I'll tell the others you had to go be sick. Cunt."

 

[dragonsaffron]

Also, I got sick and tired of having to take up space in other servers rambling about 40k nonsense, and all of the 40k-focused servers I knew of were either SFW or full of right-wing dipshit chuds, so I made a Discord server! It's 50% fandom space for this fic, 50% general lefty 40k fandom space, so check it out. Invite link here.

 

[dragonsaffron]

It was hours before Chrisenya again had the spirit to walk anywhere, or do anything at all besides lie limp on one of the bunks in the squad's shared room and recuperate. There she slipped into and out of consciousness, though thankfully never deeply enough to dream. When she did get out of bed, Chrisenya's limbs still ached faintly, but on the balance it was not enough to stop her. She had to go to the Hall of Mementos. Something there was calling for her.

It was a long path to the Hall, winding through the canyons between the high towers and great domes of the Abbey, and by the time she reached the huge, dark, low-slung building the sun had sunk so low that it could no longer be seen except as brilliant reflections off of the gilded rooftops. An unaccountable itch in the back of Chrisenya's brain said that this was a secret mission, that she should act with the stealth of an assassin on the hunt, flitting between shadows and avoiding witnesses. But she ignored that impulse, instead focusing on the unfamiliar odor of farmland and metal on fresh planetary atmosphere.

The Hall of Mementos itself was very nearly abandoned. Only four battle-sisters stood guard over a complex as large as two city blocks, and even the usual bustle of servitors and serfs was so rarified that, when walking through the shelves, one was as often completely out of sight of any other creature as not.

Theoretically, the Hall should not have been so empty. According to the guards, this place was meant to be the haunt of the Pronatus, ever scouring the items collected by the battle-sisters in their raids for signs of true power, be it blessed or profane. But Pronatus were scarce to be found on Roctaln; so it was that relics accumulated, unless their character could be observed by a non-specialist.

This seemed rather odd to Chrisenya, for as soon as she was out of earshot of the guards at the front door, the titular Mementos of the Hall all started trying to talk to her. This was not to say that she could hear them, there were no little voices whispering in her ears, but the things they said were easy to parse. Some begged to be set free from their imprisonment, and others yearned for the owners from whom they had been stolen. Some moaned about lack of repair and maintenance, while others babbled about how they were meant to be used, not left to rot. A few expressed things which could not be resolved into words, sobs of woe or cries of pain and rage. Not every item could speak, only a small fraction, and yet there were some places where the noise became almost intolerable.

Once, and only once, Chrisenya yelled aloud to demand them to stop. There was nobody around, not that she could see, not even a servitor, and yet the echoes of her shout reverberated so terribly that she was certain someone would overhear. It hardly worked, anyway; the noise quieted only slightly.

It was good, then, that Chrisenya knew where she was going, and better still that the row of shelves which contained her destination was atypically quiet, only a few barely-perceptible murmurings. As she walked down the row of items, searching for the unknown thing which had caught her attention, Chrisenya began to feel a growing sense of unease. The items she saw, locked away in glass cases in case they posed a danger to the souls of the Sororitas, possessed the distinct artistic character of Aktranis. Home.

And then, at last, she found it. A small object sitting, alone and abandoned, in a small glass display case, a single anonymous thing surrounded by other trophies of war. Chrisenya almost expected it to begin speaking to her in nostalgic tones. Below the worn-out keypad and lock was a small placard: "Divinatory device of unknown providence. Possibly tool of chaos."

Separated from Chrisenya by only a thin panel of glass and the lock was a small, square leather pouch. Next to the pouch was a pair of small objects, the same as the dozen or so others which she knew to be inside. Each was about the size of a thumbnail, an uneven geometric shape with eight uneven faces separated by rounded corners, each face carved with a single sigil. They were called tallies, and they weren't a "divinatory device", but a child's game.

When Chrisenya was young, she had had a favorite horse. Her name was Venta, an old grey mare who had belonged to an aunt before she grew too old for anything but the pleasure-rides of a child. When she was eight, the animal had finally succumbed to disease. Chrisenya had been distraught by the loss of one of the few sources of joy and distraction in a life increasingly weighed down by suffering and woe, but her parents made her an offer. Venta's bones could be repurposed, the old creature continuing to provide joy for the girl even after her death. While they had suggested a musical instrument, Chrisenya had wanted something she could do with the other children. So she got a set of tallies

There were all sorts of games you could play with tallies. There were games of chance, where each player would make a guess about what marks would come up when you scattered the tallies across the floor, betting candies or favors to the winner. She had never liked those ones too much; they were always too easy. Her favorites had been the games of dexterity, where you would toss the tallies up in the air and see how many you could get to land in your palm, or on the back of your hand, or behind your back, or whatever would get you the most praise.

Once those memories had returned, of days spent running around the spire with distant cousins and the children of guests, the floodgates were opened. She remembered everything that Aktranis had been for her, everything that had been blotted out by the memories of the last, hopeless weeks. She remembered her parents as they had been alive instead of at the moments of their deaths, she remembered a world so broad and full of potential as to be infinite. She remembered warm breezes and the finest sandy beaches in all of the galaxy. All of that was gone, of course, and it would never come back. She would not want to return to that life of idyll, especially not knowing what that life had bred in lesser wills. But was she not entitled to her memories?

Indeed, she had nothing else from the planet which had given her birth. When the battle-sisters had escorted her, bloodied and sobbing, from her ancestral home, Chrisenya had been allowed to take nothing. Even the very clothes on her back had been burned as soon as replacements were available. Everything she carried with her, everything she owned, was something she had accumulated over the years spent learning at the Progenium.

Chrisenya placed her hand against the glass, slowly, as though like a sheet of falling water it would part before her and let her hand through. Tears streaked down her cheeks. The tallies were hers, they belonged to her, not to the fucking Abbey. She wanted them back.

Suddenly, Chrisenya was overcome by an inexplicable paroxysm. A searing, stinging pain formed in the center of her forehead and spread backwards into an arc of agony that ran along the midline of her scalp, threatening to split her skull in two. She gasped, breathing hard, muscles clenching against the pain, but no exertion could stifle it as it grew. Noise distorted, every shudder of plasteel architecture and distant footfall suddenly heavy with echoes and reverberation. The Hall of Mementos suddenly felt massive, larger than a city, larger than a planet, larger than the galaxy, its walls more vast than the gaze of the Empress.

Chrisenya's gaze turned back to the display case, blurry with tears and longing. The code to the keypad was obvious, two-nine-nine-nine-eight-three. Once she had the tallies, she could avoid the sight-lines of every servitor, serf, and sister keeping watch over the Hall of Mementos, the course charted with childish ease. It would be three weeks before anybody even noticed there had been a theft at all. And even then, if she kept the tallies hidden in her luggage, or concocted a story about having always had them on her, she could keep them forever.

The plan was all laid out before her, as simple and as easy to follow as it would be if every step had been written down in plain Low Gothic. The pain began to recede, and with relief came certainty. Chrisenya reached out, the tip of her index finger touching the keypad.

Of course, theft of an object from the Hall of Mementos was entirely against regulations. She still wanted her tallies dearly, those little pieces of bone that carried her innocence with them. Chrisenya removed her hand from the glass, leaving its print behind. Chrisenya was not a thief, and she was not a traitor. It felt important that she had been led here, and she would never forget the location. But perhaps, she mused to herself, wanting was better than having. Or perhaps that was just how she decided to cope. Either way, Chrisenya bent her head and offered up a prayer.

Except, of course, the liturgy had no words on the topic of what it was that Chrisenya was feeling. There were countless prayers for strength, for fortune, for defeat to the enemies of the Empress. But for this? None. Chrisenya extemporized.

"Empress…" Her mouth felt suddenly dry. "Mercy and succor to those who fell in your name. And clarity to those who have turned against you, that they might see the light once more. And to this pathetic servant, who has given her life to you…" Chrisenya shut her eyes and lowered her chin to her chest. "I ask only that you grant me clarity as well, clarity of judgement, that I may never forget that which is good, or ignore that which is wicked. Amen."

Chrisenya spared one last glance for the tallies in the display case. Then she began to retrace her steps for the long journey back to her quarters. It was past sunset by the time she returned, and the long stretch of walking both ways had her not merely sore, but exhausted down to the very bones. She arrived just in time for the last third of the dinner hour, and ate little before she retreated upstairs. In an ideal world, Chrisenya would have been allowed to take her evening prayers and then immediately fall into a deep slumber, not to be disturbed for some fourteen hours. Instead, she found herself in the middle of bunk-sharing negotiations.

"Oh, Chris, there you are," said Regina, waving her over as though there was somewhere else she could be. It was not an unwelcome gesture. "I was just explaining to Fidelitas and Benedicta what the lay of the land is like."

"The lay of the land?" Chrisenya said.

"Yes. So, Severn and Liniel are sharing that bunk over there," she said, indicating the bunk just to the left of the door. "Dunno why, the room was empty when we arrived, but there's no accounting for preferences. The other three got taken by Gwynette, myself, and Serra." With each name, she pointed out another bunk, going anticlockwise around the room. "Which means it's up to you three to decide who you're sharing with."

There was a long and uncomfortable exchange of gazes. Group sleeping was by no means new to Chrisenya, but the inherent pairing-up quality of the bunk beds was, as was the presence of a shrine nearby. Any illusions about sacred objects being able to act as a deterrent against Misty had been dispelled during childhood, but there was a sort of juvenile appeal to having a symbol of the Empress close at hand.

Chrisenya looked around, finding Gwynette filing her nails against the bedpost behind her. "I think I would rather take one of the beds further from the door. If it doesn't offend you, Sister Gwynette."

Gwynette looked up from her hands. "I literally don't know you," she said, and made the phrase sound cheerful while she did it. "Though if you want me to advertise, I'll point out that mine's got the only unclaimed bottom bunk left in the room."

Benedicta and Fidelitas both shared a look, a very pragmatic sort of look. Workmanlike. Then Sister Benedicta shrugged, grabbed her bag, and made for the bunk to the right of the door. "I never really liked ladders anyway," she said. Chrisenya was fairly certain there were no ladders on the Gabriellum.

Which just left Serra and Regina. Sister Serra was already in bed, staring up at the ceiling with a detached look. Regina, on the other hand, appeared to be watching Chrisenya very intently, waiting for her to make her choice. With her eyes blinking softly and her lips parted just enough to show a sliver of tooth, Chrisenya was forced to admit that Sister Regina was extraordinarily pretty. And, even after hours had passed, her comment on Chrisenya's use of cosmetics still stuck with her. Truly, someone so beautiful and yet so unconcerned with aesthetics must have possessed a remarkably humble outlook.

"Perhaps I'll share your bunk, Sister Regina," said Chrisenya, very softly.

"That's what she said," Gwynette muttered from across the room, to some chuckling from the others. Chrisenya had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

"That means I'm with you, nurse," said Fidelitas. Sister Serra grunted.

All of Chrisenya's luggage was relocated to the side of the bed, and after some brief confusion she realized that there was, in fact, a smaller room attached to the side of the main bunkroom, just large enough for two sonics and a space to change one's clothes and wipe cosmetics off of one's face. A full day of walking from place to place had left her feeling awful, and a physical cleansing proved more of a relief than she had expected.

As for cleansing of the mind, that was provided at the icon mounted on the back wall, between the outward-facing windows. As the all-natural twilight on Roctaln gave way to night, and the lights of the bunk room were shut off one by one and the other members fell asleep, Chrisenya set to prayer.

The words were reflexive, automatic. Chrisenya found herself instead examining the icon before her. It was, in many ways, typical: the Empress appeared in all of her gilded glory, fully nude, wings outstretched, sword in one hand and a human skull in the other. At her feet were her nine sons, the fatherless issue of her own divine womb, and arrayed all about her was the mass of humanity, all fallen onto their knees in awestruck worship. And yet it was not the same as on Gabrielle. The relief had not the same depth, and the icon itself was adorned with projecting pieces whose purpose Chrisenya could not divine, almost as though it had originally been built as an elaborately-decorated chair. On the Gabriellan shrine, each of the figures kneeling before the Empress had a symbolic value, such as the Doubting Scholar or the Awestruck Whore, but many of the figures on this icon were entirely unfamiliar.

Something else that caught Chrisenya unawares was the fact that most of the members of the drill squad were uninterested in worship. That had always been a part of the fantasy of taking the orders, to live forevermore amongst people who took service in the name of the Empress seriously. She had seen a few of her squadmates giving a brief prayer before the icon, but none of them seemed interested in the deep, focused prayer that Chrisenya found psychologically essential.

At least she was not entirely alone. It was not long after she knelt down before the icon that the murmurings of her words became mingled with another. The reclusive Sister Liniel had knelt down, a respectable half-meter away from her, and begun her own prayer. Chrisenya vaguely recognized the words, coming from a different part of the liturgy which she frequented only rarely, but after a long while of discordant whispers, she switched tack, and the two women prayed in unison.

Though sidelong from her position on the floor, this was nevertheless the best look Chrisenya had ever had at Sister Liniel. She had not spoken even once that whole day, not that Chrisenya could remember, and she almost always retreated to a distance when allowed to do so. And yet even up close there was little that could be seen. Sister Liniel was about the same height and build as Chrisenya, but where Chrisenya only somewhat preferred to keep her skin covered, Liniel took it a leap further. With the longest sleeves and skirt available on her novitiate's uniform, a pair of gloves, and a scarf wrapped around her face, the only part of Liniel that could be seen was the area around her eyes. They were brown eyes, embedded in pale skin with a golden undertone. That was all.

And yet, of course, Chrisenya felt an immediate bond with her, and of a different nature to the one she felt with Fidelitas. There was nothing which united two people more immediately than to pray together, to speak the same devoted words to the same divine Empress. Not to mention that she was the only member of the drill squad who could be bothered to prove her devotion so.

After some time, Chrisenya found exhaustion overtaking her. Less time had passed for prayer than she usually preferred to make, but the new circumstances would have to be accounted for. She smoothly rose, and to her surprise found Liniel rising with her. The two stared at each other in shock.

"Well then," said Liniel. Her voice was very soft, almost dainty.

"Well then, indeed. I did not wish to interrupt you to say so, but I am pleased to see that I am not the only one taking piety seriously," Chrisenya said, whispering so as not to awaken the others.

Liniel giggled. "Indeed. Same to you, as well."

Chrisenya turned, preparing to make her way up the ladder to her new bed, to face once more the challenges of the nightmare. But before she could make even a single step, Liniel cleared her throat subtly, drawing her attention back.

"Tell me, Sister Chrisenya, if it is not too much to ask. Why did you join the Orders Militant, and not one more… pacific?"

A darkness came over Chrisenya's thoughts, no doubt exacerbated by her run-in with her past earlier that day. As a favor to Liniel, though, she braved the depths of memory. "When I was much younger, a group of battle-sisters saved me from a terrible fate," she said. "Their heroism… inspired me. I wished to be like them."

"Oh," said Sister Liniel. She sounded profoundly disappointed. "Well, thank you for answering. Good night, Sister Chrisenya."

"Good night, Sister Liniel."

 

[dragonsaffron]

Morning came, and with it an entirely new form of torment. Chrisenya dreamt of a slow devouring by worms and beetles, one which she was forced to enjoy, when she was suddenly awoken by Sister Regina, who grabbed one strut of their shared bunk and shook it until Chrisenya complained that she was awake. Regina and Fidelitas had to all but shove her through the rest of the morning, through cleaning herself and making herself presentable, then through a few rushed mouthfuls of breakfast in the last few minutes before the mess closed. False awakenings had not been a theme of the last few nights, Chrisenya's tormentor much preferring the unrelenting agony of dilated time, and yet all throughout that morning Chrisenya could not shake the fear that this was merely an attempt to make her drop her guard.

The first duty of the first proper day at the Abbey was to make an appearance at the sanatorium, the high-peaked lair of the Hospitallers. The bottom floor was a maelstrom of chaotic activity, especially that morning, as nearly all of the new novitiates had been forced to make an appearance. They piled into the ward in clumps, their black uniforms blending into the dark and barely-decorated plasteel and flakboard of the walls while also marking them out as separate from both the nurses and the patients. The novitiates stuffed themselves into hallways, sat on unoccupied beds, leaned against the walls where they could.

It did not help that the lesser sisters, the nurses of the sanatorium, dressed in a way almost more fitting of a tech-priest than of a member of the Sororitas. Everything they wore was made from a sort of fitted synth-leather, cut precisely to measurement such that it hugged the body and left no gaps at the wrists, ankles, or waist. Skull-faced masks combined with a tight hood to completely obscure even the facial features of the medical staff. Sister Serra, quiet and surly, would fit right in.

Only adding to the general cacophony was Chrisenya's weary prayers, her attempts at centering herself amidst the rush of activity. She shut her eyes and clasped her hands, murmuring the words carved deeply into her mind by long repetition, while Fidelitas stroked her hair to keep her from falling asleep. And one by one, once the nurses realized that Bellara's squad had shown up, the members of the squad were plucked away. Sister Benedicta was first to go, as well as first to return, the nurses taking Regina in her stead. Fidelitas asked what to expect, but was rapidly waved off with a brief, dismissive answer. When Regina returned, it was with something new: a small data-slate.

"What's that for?" Severn said. "So much wrong with you they had to put it on a list?"

"No, as a matter of fact," Regina said, the haughty tone of her retort coming so easily she did not even have to raise her eyes. "These are the Tertius-grade augmetics I've been cleared to receive. It's all incumbent upon good behavior, of course, but unlike some people I have no issue with that."

Chrisenya lacked the time to listen to any more of that, as for once she was not the last name to be called. She rose, ceasing her prayers, and followed the nurses. Despite the chaos of nurses on duty, the wailing of the sick and the wounded, the trundling of supply-carts through the narrow passageways, the nurses had learned to thread the needle and navigate the lower wards with ease. Chrisenya did so as well.

And then they reached a staircase. The first floor was much the same as the ground, as was the second. But upon reaching the third floor, all sound cut out all at once. Chrisenya and the two nurses moved through a silent world, only occasionally interrupted by the passage of people much like herself. Before they reached their destination, Chrisenya had one question to ask.

"Why mask yourselves?" She said, indicating the skull-faced masks. "You're certainly scaring your patients."

"Taking care of the sick is not an act without risk on the part of the caretaker," said one nurse. "We must protect ourselves foremost."

"And besides," the other said with a shrill laugh, "better to not lie about what we are!"

The room into which the two nurses escorted Chrisenya was an utter void. Wall, floor, and ceiling were all black, such that the walls appeared to melt into the floor. The only objects of note were the stark white glow-globes on the ceiling, and the Hospitaller-Superior standing in wait. She, at least, did not wear the same strange garment as her nurses, or if she did it was well-covered by a flowing grey robe. Her skull mask was more decorated with golden accents, and a small crown upon her head indicated her state.

"Strength of the Empress upon you, Sister Chrisenya," said the Hospitaller, her voice roughened by age and yet exceedingly chipper. "My name is Sister Doloria, and I am glad to be your examining Hospitaller today. Now, strip."

"Strip?" Chrisenya asked. "You mean of my clothes?"

Doloria nodded. "I can't very well examine you through all those excess layers. Just getting through the skin is difficult enough! I assure you, my nurses and I have seen so many naked girls that one more will have no effect on us."

Chrisenya breathed out, reminding herself that this was the Sororitas; lewdness was not expected here. And as for her physical detriments, surely Doloria would have seen other girls similar to her before. Chrisenya even briefly wondered, as she began to remove her mantle, whether Sister Doloria would be the one responsible for correcting her physical flaws. As Chrisenya removed each article of clothing, they were taken by a nurse, who folded them carefully and placed them upon a rack that emerged unexpectedly from the wall. That, then, was the trick of the theater.

Once she was nude—and suddenly made very aware of how cold the air in the theater was—Doloria instructed Chrisenya to step onto the center of the room. All at once, the material below her feet separated into thousands of narrow segments, some of which began to rise up in rods, each narrower than Chrisenya's little finger. With in a matter of seconds, they had formed a slanted sort of wall behind her, onto which she was forced to recline by a quick push from a few of the pillars in front of her. The material of the floor was strange, neither metal nor stone nor synthwood, and despite the square edges of the tiny individual rods, as a whole they were quite comfortable.

"Are you getting the pressure readings?" Sister Doloria said curtly.

"Yes," replied one of the nurses, a data-slate having appeared in her hand.

"Let us begin the examination, then."

From over Sister Doloria's shoulder unfolded an entire array of chirurgeon's tools, each one mounted upon its own semi-independent mechanical limb, again reminding Chrisenya of a tech-priest. She and one of the nurses each took their place on either side of Chrisenya, and began closely examining each part of her body in turn. The most common tool for that purpose was a sort of flat, warm, slightly curved paddle mounted on Doloria's shoulder, which she would run across the smooth expanse of Chrisenya's flank. Gloved fingers were much rarer, made unpleasant by the cold.

All the while, Sister Doloria kept up a steady chant of inexplicable jargon and medical terminology, each utterance followed by a series of muffled taps from the nurse with the data-slate. Sometimes she would list off numbers, usually in sequence. Every so often there would be a word in High Gothic which Chrisenya would recognize, usually an archaic term for a part of the body, but sometimes stranger words referring to mechanical action or tools.

Sister Doloria never acted cruelly or without care, but she was always swift and efficient, and the same was true of the assisting nurse. Chrisenya found herself drifting off into a sort of hypnotic trance, staring up at the harsh glow-globes built into the ceiling and hoping that she would score high marks in "having a physical body", an aspiration both normal to wish for and possible to achieve. Nowhere seemed overly sensitive or private, no examination too invasive, even as human fingers ran a quick circle around Chrisenya's nipple or slipped through the crease of her inner thigh. She simply existed.

That was almost certainly the intended reaction. Chrisenya realized this fact, that Doloria surely knew of the tranquilizing effect of her steady whispers and warm pressure, approximately zero-point-three seconds before she was jabbed with a large hypodermic needle in the upper arm. The pain jolted her out of her reverie almost immediately, back to the fact of her nudity in a cold, dark theater.

"Blood sample," Sister Doloria said, returning rapidly to her cheery tone. "That was the only one."

The other nurse stepped away, and with no visible command the bed of a thousand tiny rods upon which Chrisenya had been suspended started gradually to tip forward, depositing her back on the floor.

"You can get dressed now. It will just be a moment while my assistants and I complete all the requisite calculations."

Chrisenya did as she was told, replacing her uniform with mechanical efficiency. Sister Doloria and the two nurses retreated to the corner of the room and began speaking to each other in rapid, quiet tones. Chrisenya strained her ears to collect even a snatch of their conversation, but whether because of their volume or the densely technical nature of their speech, she couldn't figure out a wit of it.

When Chrisenya was fully dressed, Doloria was ready as well, having returned to her straight-backed and clasped-hand posture. Her head was tilted ever so slightly to one side, giving the impression of a matronly smile even behind the expressionless metal of her protective mask. Chrisenya stood facing her, and she stood facing Chrisenya, and both of them acted as though the other one could be expected to speak first.

Then Doloria sighed, her posture sagging ever so slightly. "You need to eat more," she said.

"Pardon?"

"Forty-six kilograms, one-five-seven centimeters. You need to eat more." Doloria raised one finger and wagged it for emphasis. "I am adding a supplementary ration to your meal plan, and I will hound you down if you do not eat every last drop."

Chrisenya winced. "Yes ma'am. Of course ma'am."

"I presume there is some other reason you were allowed to take the orders as a Militant, despite your physical condition?"

Chrisenya nodded at once. "The Lacuna Trials."

"Oh, yes," Doloria said, nodding as though she was recalling an old memory. "I still say the Trial of the Scroll is reckless, but you have to admire the efficiency of the thing. Yes, in that case your lack of strength shouldn't hinder you much."

Chrisenya had always assumed that her physical frailty was more than made up for by the strength of her faith in the Empress. While she supposed that her successes in the Lacuna Trials demonstrated that she possessed a fragment of the Empress's favor, something still failed to connect. "Neither of the trials I took were tests of strength. This does not change the fact of my frailty."

"Mmm, that may be true, and yet it proves that you aren't a hopeless case." Doloria bent down, as though to whisper into Chrisenya's ear. "Do you wish to be let in on a little secret?"

"If it were a secret, why would you be telling me?" said Chrisenya.

"Because some patients like to pretend they're being told a secret," Doloria said, straightening back up. "Regardless: the Trials exist to test, not your strength, but your will. And while it's nice to have both, as long as you have the latter, you can get the former. It'll just be very difficult."

"Then I suppose I have no choice." Chrisenya raised one pale, thin arm, examining it with fresh eyes. "I shall have to remake myself into strength. But what about… my other physical shortcoming?"

There was a hiss of an inhale through Doloria's mask, as though she were about to speak; then she hesitated. She quickly crossed the room, the length of her robe making her appear as though she were hovering, and took the data-slate which one of her nurses graciously held out to her. She searched through the data for a few moments, then turned her gaze between the slate and Chrisenya a few times.

"There are things that can be done. Quaternius-grade augmetic procedures, things meant to correct flaws rather than add, and things for which the ratio of effect to bodily strain is low. Passivation, for instance, and certain matters involving therapeutic tattooing."

There was an undertone of regret to Sister Doloria's voice, a bad news around which she was very desperately trying to speak. "But I assume that does not include… everything?" Chrisenya asked, having no idea what "everything" would even entail.

"No, I am afraid not," said Doloria. "But, let us not put the engine before the ship! Focus on one problem at a time and the rest shall happen as naturally as the rain, that is what my teacher always said to me. I am certain that, the next time I see you, there have been progress made."

"Indeed," said Chrisenya. She suddenly felt infinitely more self-conscious clothed than she had nude just a few minutes earlier. The feeling stayed with her all the way out of the room, back down the stairs, and onto the training field.

 

[dragonsaffron]

There was precious little time to recover after the morning's revelations, as the first of what would be many hundreds of daily trainings was already about to begin. Chrisenya, legs still feeling the aftereffects of the previous day's travels, arrived at the training field with seconds to spare.

For the morning, the drill-squad would be taking part in Commandery drills, merely one part of a mass of almost a hundred and fifty novitiates under the instruction of one Sister-Superior Coriah. She was the very image of a Sister Militant, tall and slender in her power armor, white hair in a stern bun on the back of her head. Held primly in front of her waist, coiled around both hands, was a whip, several meters in length and smoothly tapering to a sharp tip.

Along with Sister Coriah, though, came something rather more unexpected. Pulled along by teams of two servitors apiece were great trundling racks, row upon row of black plasteel rods spanning the insides of rectangular frames, all mounted atop sets of small wheels. Sitting upon those rods, carefully placed such that their every contour would be supported, were scores of boltguns. Chrisenya had never seen a boltgun before, not in person, but one didn't exactly need to be a witch to recognize the great square shape of the receiver, the stubby stock, the immense curving magazine. Those were boltguns, complete with purity seals swaying gently in the Roctaln wind.

"One novitiate, one boltgun," said Coriah. "And try not to start a crush."

Chrisenya would have thought that the admonishment would have been unnecessary given how easy navigating around people usually was. But, as the novitiates swarmed the weapon racks, girls passing in both directions as they tried to reach in, grab a bolter for themselves, then retreat where they had come, she started to wonder. Coriah waited until about half of the novitiates had armed themselves before she began to speak.

"What you now hold in your hand, novitiates, is a Godwyn-De'az pattern boltgun. It is a fully automatic rocket launcher, firing a seventy-five caliber projectile with a diamantine penetrating tip and a core of depleted deuterium explosive at a rate of four hundred rounds per minute." Coriah paused briefly to lick her lips. "Of all the ways to arrange nine kilograms of plasteel, it is by far the deadliest."

Nine kilograms sounded, to Chrisenya, like quite a bit of weight. Indeed, as the novitiates armed themselves and she came closer and closer to the weapons racks, the sheer size of a boltgun became more and more obvious. Chrisenya remembered having read once that part of the purpose of Sororitas wearing power armor at all was to mitigate the weight of her weapons.

"But just as we are not mere soldiers of the Imperium," Coriah continued, her voice rapturous, "so too the boltgun is no ordinary weapon. The boltgun is the powerful arm of the Empress, smiting Her enemies. The boltgun is a melding of spirit, machine, and will, and it is the foundation of the holy trinity through which the Adepta Sororitas carries out its holy mission. For the remainder of your lives, you will come to know the boltgun with intimate familiarity, for it will be always by your side."

Regina and Severn both took it upon themselves to start handing out boltguns to the others, racing to demonstrate their strength. With casual ease, Sister Regina picked up a boltgun with both hands, turned slightly, and passed it into Chrisenya's waiting arms.

For a brief moment, Chrisenya felt the chill touch of death upon her. Her breath was ripped from her lungs, her legs stumbled. The boltgun was agonizingly heavy, threatening credibly to hear her arms from her shoulders. She turned, sweat already beading upon her brow, having to force her panicking lungs to breathe normally, and tottered back to the rest of the group.

"As the weapon upon which the power of the Sororitas is based, you will spend each and every day learning to use the boltgun. But I must make myself clear: to fire a boltgun and to use a boltgun are as different as love and passion. These particular boltguns will never be fired again, due to the addition of a single plate of metal within the receiver; and yet, nevertheless, they will serve to familiarize you with the use of the weapon." Sister-Superior Coriah glared at one of the novitiates, a look that could melt stone. "That includes not pointing the barrel of your weapon at one of your sisters."

The drill-squad, with the exception of Chrisenya, had found a place to gather amidst the crowd, weighed down by the vague expectation of impending challenges. They all watched, heads on a swivel, as Chrisenya tried to catch up with them. It was Sister Severn who suddenly found her poet's heart in the heat of the moment.

"It's like watching an ant try to carry around a leaf," she said.

"Hey!" replied Fidelitas with a scowl.

Sister Benedicta suppressed a grin, folding her arms across her midsection. "No, no, she has a point."

Chrisenya clutched the immense block of the boltgun as close to her center of mass as she could, but that did little to counteract the fact that it was attempting to tear through every joint and muscle of her arms. When she finally reached the rest of the squad, she collapsed, falling onto her knees and letting the boltgun hit the ground with a thud. She had no choice but to lever it off of the grass and pick it up once again.

"As for the use of a boltgun, you must first and most simply learn how to maneuver through the world with a boltgun at your side. Now, novitiates, turn your attention to the north!"

Sister-Superior Coriah pointed using her non-whip-holding hand, in a direction which had to be taken on faith as northward. There was little to be seen there besides the further extent of the grassy training field, and the rest of the Abbey beyond that. The crowd of novitiates, all handling their new boltguns with varying degrees of success, all looked anyway.

"Four hundred meters in that direction, there is a line painted on the grass. You will all cross that line. And the ten novitiates who are the last to cross that line…" Coriah made a swift and subtle gesture with her right hand, and the coiled length of the whip suddenly unfurled to its full length, a serpentine arc along the grass. With another, almost effortless flick, it snapped through the air with a crack like shattering stone. "…they will find out why I carry this whip. For the Empress!"

There was a second where none of the novitiates knew what was happening. The bottom fell out of Chrisenya's stomach as she struggled to her feet, the knowledge of what was to come racing through her mind with no way to stop it. Then one of the girls nearest to the edge of the group broke into a run. A few more started to follow her, a handful of novitiates even beginning to shove their way out of the crowd from in the midst of it.

That was the trigger for the rest to realize their task. With a few discordant echoes of "For the Empress!", they broke out into a run, the crowd of novitiates scattering into a long streak as the slow and the fast were naturally separated out. It was a mad race, complete with much shoving and jockeying for position, stampeding over the flat plain of the training field. It was also a race in which Chrisenya stood no chance whatsoever. Even barehanded, her short stride and poor endurance would have been a crippling weakness: but with the boltgun in her arms, its weight destroying her balance just as much as it destroyed her muscles, it was no surprise at all that she was in last place. Chrisenya made it one step over the painted line before falling onto her knees and casting the boltgun onto the ground.

But she was not allowed to rest, at least not there. Sister Coriah grabbed her personally by the back of the collar and yanked her to her feet. Nine other girls, nine total strangers, skinny or fat or injured or sick or slow with no apparent cause, all formed up under the harsh ministrations of Sister Coriah, facing their sister-novitiates.

"Know that I do this, not to punish, but to motivate, to draw out strength and cleanse impurity through the application of pain. 'For know, my followers, that there is no suffering which I do not witness, and no sting of pain which is not an honor in My name!' For the Empress!"

Chrisenya shut her eyes before it came, though that did not stop her from seeing the thin edge of the whip tearing through the air in her mind's eye. With a mighty crack, the tip struck her between the shoulder-blades, a sting of pain so sudden and so overwhelming that she was sure the blow must have torn through synthcloth and skin alike. She staggered a step forward, tried to stand, and then her knees gave out and she fell. Nine more cracks sounded out in sequence, somewhere else. Chrisenya reached one hand over her shoulder, just to confirm: the whip had stung her without so much as scratching her uniform.

Once Sister-Superior Coriah had finished administering her punishments, she stood once more before the crowd, face expressionless as she examined them. Then, with no apparent cause, she nodded, and turned.

"Very good. Now, take up your boltguns once more. Back to where we started! And with speed!"

Chrisenya rapidly lost count of how many times she was forced across the training field. It could have been enough to count on one hand. It could have been a thousand. She lost track of more or less everything, even where the other members of her drill-squad were, everything but the total suffusion of her flesh with fatigue and pain. Both of those were things she was used to, but never in such a total conjunction, and never under a circumstance in which her performance had mattered. She remembered how to walk, and she remembered how to hold the bulk of plasteel to her chest.

None of that, no amount of resilience, changed the fact of her position within the final ten. Coriah always made sure to single out that cohort, every dash ending with their being formed up into a squad of their own. Sometimes she would spare them the whip, though not most of the time; by the time Chrisenya was finally allowed to sit for more than a moment, a half-dozen new welts had been raised across her back.

After endurance training, the next phase was a more intellectual pursuit: learning how to maintain the boltgun itself. This was simple, ritualistic, something that Chrisenya understood, though the intense tiredness and the scores of aches and pains all across her body threatened to ruin even that. The machine spirit of a boltgun, even one which could no longer fire, enjoyed two things: attention and care. The former was provided through prayers, and the latter through a thorough process of disassembly and oiling, the steps to which were outlined in the Cantus Boltra, which was drilled into the minds of each and every novitiate over the course of the better part of an hour.

Chrisenya had been told of machine spirits before, but considering technology was ritually suspect at best, she had had little interest. But then had come her visit to the Hall of Mementos, and with it reason to consider artifacts of craft in a new light. When her lungs grew too tired to repeat the Cantus Boltra any longer, Chrisenya switched tack, bending down to whisper gently into her boltgun's lower receiver. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not hear it whisper back.

Being forced to stand and walk once more after the completion of the maintenance training was abject misery, but the next section was not quite so strenuous as the first had been. The act of drawing a mock grenade from a belt loop, pulling the pin, and throwing it as far as possible took little effort and was in and of itself somehow calming. There was also no penalty for failing to throw sufficiently far besides some light verbal berating, so long as one's form was correct. Nevertheless, by the time Commandery drills were dismissed for the midday meal, Chrisenya was in a sorry state indeed. Fidelitas held her up with an arm around her waist, necessary to keep her moving.

Lunch was mostly as expected for the Abbey, strange concoctions of ingredients combined in arcane and inexplicable ways. It had none of the simplicity of Progenium fare, not basic components fried in grox lard or baked together in an oven, but it was also not the calculated homogeneity of a basic ration. There were at least half a dozen menu options that Chrisenya could identify, various pies and stews and biscuits and plates, but absolutely none of them contained so much as a single identifiable ingredient.

Her plate in particular had something extra on it, specifically added when she scanned her thumbprint on the mechanical dispenser. It was a thermoplas bottle, transparent, stenciled with the phrase "caloric supplement". The stuff inside was definitely some kind of homogenized ration, a thick and syrupy white liquid having only the faintest flavor. After the first sip, Chrisenya set it aside and tried to ignore the fact that she had been medically ordered to eat it. In truth, Chrisenya was in something of a paradoxical state: her lack of breakfast followed by the hard exertion left her ravenously hungry. Yet at the same time, the full-body musculoskeletal pain left her stomach ready to upend itself at a moment's notice. So she picked away at her meal, not thinking of much of anything, until the issue was forced.

"What's that you have there?" said Sister Benedicta. "Did the Saint figure out how to cheat the dispensers? Hmph, learn how to break rules and not even doing anything with it."

"It's a caloric supplement," Chrisenya said morosely. "Sister Doloria said I'm not eating enough."

Benedicta shrugged. "Oh. True enough."

Fidelitas glanced at Chrisenya and at her plate. "You certainly don't look like someone who was just told she needs to eat more. You know we have limited time, don't you? And you're going to regret it later if you don't eat something."

Chrisenya didn't like this kind of attention in the slightest. She was used to being able to control herself, and so long as she got results, nobody would bother her. Now even Fidelitas was treating her as though she needed advice.

"You're a lucky girl, you know," said Sister Regina. "Think about it, you just got given license by a Sister Hospitaller to eat as much as you want, and you got given extra food to help you do it. Some people would kill for that, you know."

"Gluttony is a sin," Chrisenya said.

Some of her earliest visits from Misty, when she was young, before her libido had kicked in, had been centered around food. Endless feasts, sweets and greasy cuts of meat placed into her mouth by the soft hands of her caretakers. Hunger without cease, consumption without thought. The pain of training had put Chrisenya back in the mindset of nightmares, and her thoughts were turning dark.

"I can help you with that."

Chrisenya swallowed a forkful of something dry, gritty, and sweet, then turned her pale eyes angrily in the direction of the voice. It was Sister Severn, sitting at the end of the table.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, if you're having so much trouble with the doctor's orders, I'll help you." Sister Severn was being entirely serious, which made what she was saying vastly more confusing.

Chrisenya hesitated. Fidelitas looked confused. Regina was staring daggers at Severn. Chrisenya wasn't sure what Severn was offering, but if it meant not having to sit by while her loyalty to given orders fought a war against her instincts of temperance, it would be a relief.

"Alright, fine," Chrisenya said. She flinched at the sound of her own voice turned petulant.

Sister Severn rose, circling around the edge of the mess hall bench. Chrisenya was sandwiched between Benedicta on her left and Fidelitas on her right, so Severn ended up standing over her shoulder, hunching down. Chrisenya was told to turn around, and did so, swinging her legs from one side of the bench to the other.

Then Severn snatched up the thermoplas bottle with her left hand and, with her right, carefully held Chrisenya's jaw between the three main fingers. Chrisenya knew what was happening, and yet her mind refused to believe it. It was too much. Just as predicted, Severn raised the rim of the bottle up to Chrisenya's lips and began to tip it forward. She opened her lips just a crack, just enough for the milky liquid to pour through. Severn's and Chrisenya's eyes met, the huge, flat, grey plates staring across at the slightly squinty brown hollows, each focused intensely on the other as Chrisenya's throat worked to swallow. The sorry state of her stomach was quietly ignored in the face of more immediate urgency.

Severn slammed down the empty plastic bottle onto the table, returning to her seat. "There. At least now you'll have something in you."

Sister Regina's jaw was clenched so severely that she seemed about to fracture one of her gorgeous teeth. The rest of the table had gone into a state of shock, aside from Severn, who acted as if nothing had happened. Chrisenya's mind was blank, existing in a state far beyond even ordinary shock or confusion, but her heart was racing behind her ribcage. She wordlessly thanked the Empress for the concealing nature of her tunic's skirt.

 

[dragonsaffron]

The afternoon was squad drills, just the eight of them and Sister-Superior Bellara. Chrisenya was of two minds. Her body dreaded the further brutalization. But her heart took solace in the Empress's grace, and felt no panic, not even when she noticed that Bellara had brought equipment with her, in the form of eight bolt pistols and eight thin, half-meter plasteel blades.

As always, Chrisenya's optimism was confirmed when Bellara revealed that the first step in learning close-quarters combat was the drilling of guards, steps, and forms. There was, of course, another lengthy sermon about the symbolism of this act, the way in which the holy violence of war rose up from simple parts. But Chrisenya listened with only half an ear. She was grateful to be carrying only a few kilograms of weight, and moving with hardly any speed at all. After an hour of slow movements and constructive, contemplative instruction, Chrisenya felt almost whole again. Then came time to practice grappling, and almost immediately that sense of peace was interrupted with discord. More specifically, it was interrupted when Sister-Superior Bellara informed the drill squad that they would be moving on to grappling, and to pair up.

Gwynette and Serra resolved the issue almost immediately, selecting each other as sparring partners, as did Benedicta and Liniel. As it so happened, when Bellara finished speaking, Regina was standing the closest to Chrisenya. And that was where the trouble started.

"Feel like sparring with me, Chris? I actually have a bit of formal experience with this sort of thing from before, I know how to be gentle." Regina winked ostentatiously.

"Shouldn't I be paired with someone… not quite so tall?" said Chrisenya. Regina had several centimeters on Fidelitas, let alone Chrisenya herself. She glanced at Bellara.

"Training to fight against a height imbalance is an essential skill," Bellara said. "You'll be fighting against orks, aeldari, and who knows what else. Pair up how you like."

Regina raised an eyebrow suggestively, just in time for Severn to punch her in the back of the shoulder and call her a bitch.

"You don't get to just run up and poach Chrisenya for yourself. Especially not if you're going to be a bad sparring partner."

"Excuse me?" Regina said, folding her arms. "I will be the best sparring partner."

"By going easy on her? That's not how this works, princess. She's gotta learn how to fight against someone who's actually trying to kill her, that's what this is all about."

Regina lunged forward, like she was stopping herself partway through delivering Severn a headbutt. Even with her voice dripping with aggression, her expression remained measured and slight. "I don't know what you think you're trying to do, Severn, but stop this pointless aggression. We are sisters in arms. We aren't meant to be fighting each other."

"We're not?" said Severn, raising an eyebrow. "Damn, you could have fooled me."

Chrisenya found herself once again unable to speak. What she wanted to do was tell them both to set their disagreement aside. Perhaps if she chose one of them, that would settle the matter. But more relevant than any objection of that nature was the dawning realization that she did in fact know what was happening, at least in part. Both Severn and Regina wanted to spar her badly enough they were ready to come to blows over it.

Fidelitas stepped in. "Or, and hear me out here, you two go work out your aggressions on each other, and I'll be Chrisenya's sparring partner, yeah?"

Regina and Severn stopped, breathing heavily in each other's faces. Chrisenya moved to Fidelitas's side, glad to have been saved from herself.

"Of course," said Regina.

"Fine," said Severn at the same time.

Grappling instruction was a step above the slow, formal method of close quarters combat, in that a degree of actual grappling took place. Bellara put the squad through their paces, using Severn and Regina to demonstrate common positions and the most effective holds, escapes, and counter-holds to use in each one. Chrisenya understood the mechanics easily, but as usual struggled greatly with the kinetic aspects. Fidelitas was simply too large for Chrisenya's already-exhausted muscles to affect in any significant way. She did, at least, get to enjoy the skin contact.

The real stand-out of grappling practice, as it happened, was neither Chrisenya, who had fully expected herself to be useless, nor Regina and Severn, who were both powerful enough. It was Sister Liniel. Despite being matched with a substantially taller opponent, Liniel followed every demonstrated maneuver with brutal efficiency, and quickly proved Benedicta completely outmatched.

Grappling training ended almost as soon as it had begun, and the drill squad moved on to what Bellara referred to as "tactical maneuver". What this meant in practice was more running, though not quite as ruthless as the mad sprints under Coriah's tutelage. The true purpose, as became clear, was to learn one another's paces, to hold formation even while moving at speed, to be able to react to stimulus as one group. Chrisenya would have been quite adept at this, able to react to Bellara's unexpected orders almost before they were given, were she not on the verge of physical collapse.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent on various other pursuits, learning from the Rule Sororitas, washing clothes and other such chores, and three-quarters of an hour of mandatory prayers, the latter of which filled Chrisenya with such a wondrous sense of accomplishment that it almost made the rest of the day seem bearable. After the third daily meal was a window of time before curfew which the novitiates were allowed to spend doing whatsoever they wished. Chrisenya wished to dip into the bunkroom and collapse.

And then, the next morning, it all began again. The chief differences were twofold: firstly, Chrisenya had much more of her morning free, without the obligations of visiting the Sanatorium, time which she spent sleeping so deeply that it was only thanks to Regina's herculean efforts that she didn't miss breakfast entirely. Secondly, the previous day's exertions had left Chrisenya's entire body a single, stiff knot of raw soreness. And there would be no relenting, no slack added to the training for her sake. The boltgun still did its best to crush Chrisenya under its iron bulk, and she still felt the sting of the whip upon her back. Even the Cantus Boltra and attendant maintenance grew difficult with cramping joints and weak muscles. The rest of the day's training all blurred together, all the colors and distinctions smeared together into a single streak of unrelenting misery like paint upon a cosmic easel.

And then it happened a third time. And a fourth. And a fifth. Each day that passed, Chrisenya grew slightly weaker, her physical pains slightly deeper and more painful. There was no time with which to rest, no period of reset when Chrisenya could attack the problem anew and refreshed. Every night's sleep, hours of hallucinatory torment at the hands of countless faceless captors, ended with a forced awakening and the feeling that the night had not been long enough. Exhaustion quickly became a fact of life, and even a moment's sleep a gift from the Empress.

Thus, sleep and rest began to take precedence over all other things. Chrisenya rarely ever spoke unless spoken to, and even then only spoke the bare minimum necessary to complete the conversation. She and Fidelitas became as strangers to one another, and although Sister Regina was clearly attempting to make social inroads of some kind or another, Chrisenya had little choice but to stop them in their tracks with her silent and morose attitude. Whenever there was a gap in training, Chrisenya would spend it asleep, thankful to the Empress that Misty could only gain access during the long hours of the night, or if she could not sleep from the pain she would curl up motionless and pray.

About the only thing which Chrisenya did not find herself lacking was food. If anything, food was provided in overabundance, the sheer quantity of it offensive to Chrisenya's sense of temperance. At first, it was only the desire to avoid repeating the incident with Sister Severn and the excuse of medical necessity that allowed her to choke down as much as she did. But then, no doubt brought on by the exertion, Chrisenya's appetite returned. Given the circumstances, there was little that could be done to resist yet another burden on her flesh and soul, not when its solution was there before her. Chrisenya ate, and let the guilt come when it could.

There was one brief interruption in the cycle, in the form of something that Chrisenya had almost forgotten existed. Roctaln III was an ideal agri-world not merely because of its flat terrain and arable land, but because of its weather patterns. Mighty winds blew almost unobstructed from pole to pole, sweeping up moisture from the massive oceans. And with the winds came, inevitably, rain.

And oh, what rain it was. The sky curdled, clouds growing denser and denser until the whole of the cosmos had been covered over with a heavy layer of black foam. Then came the thunder, great roaring crashes that split the very air with tumultuous, echoing sound. Water poured in great streams from the high roofs and domes of the Abbey, and its incessant rattle could be heard against every window and every colonnade. Many of the pathways turned into rivers, and those which did not were spared only by sacrificing their edges to great streams of water. Anywhere there was dirt turned rapidly to mud.

Of course, none of this meant that the novitiates were in any way excused from their training. Commandery drills were dissolved, squad-level drills taking their place, and those moved indoors. Chrisenya climbed walls and crawled through pits of imitation grass instead of dashing across open ground, though Bellara at least had no interest in the use of the whip. The rain was not a respite, but it was a half of a respite for the two days that it lasted.

The day after the rain let up was by far the worst. Commandery drills were back on, but the field had not had time to convert back to dry earth, and so Chrisenya found herself racing through pits of mud. Coriah said there would be a good deal of mud on the battlefield. Coriah also made sure that that morning, not a single race went by without an application of the whip; and so Chrisenya sat down in the mire for boltgun maintenance with more stinging pains on her back than ever before. It did not help that her outfit had been made wet, and stuck to her back, rendering what little protection it could provide to her skin null and void. At the same time, however, Chrisenya did not feel quite so tired as she always had, thanks to the machinations of the cunning Sister Gwynette.

Within the first days of training, it had become obvious to everyone that the poor condition of Chrisenya's sleep cycle was causing her difficulty. The dark circles which had always marked her eyes had grown more intense, and it was functionally impossible to avoid noticing the daily escapades required on Regina's part to get Chrisenya conscious and ready in time for anything.

The obvious solution was to drink recaf. It was available in measured quantities with both breakfast and lunch, and Chrisenya knew well enough via the testimonies of other Prefects who had grown obsessed with the substance that it did banish exhaustion. There were just two issues. The first was that it did not do enough: being "perky" could do little against the bone-deep fatigue of endless toil. The second, far worse, was the taste of the stuff. Chrisenya could not tolerate it: it was bitter, and worse than being bitter, the black liquid coated the inside of her mouth with a bitter film which no amount of food could scrape away. It made her sick. And Chrisenya could not afford to be sick, not when every other aspect of her life had turned against her at once.

So it was that, after breakfast on the day after the rain let up, Sister Gwynette approached her as they were leaving the mess hall. Gwynette had a way of being able to appear unannounced, her movements so silent that the first sign that she was anywhere in the vicinity being her voice over your shoulder. Chrisenya stiffened in anticipation.

"Chrisenya? Can we talk somewhere private?"

"We can. I don't know where."

"I'll find a place," said Gwynette. "Just follow me."

The place that Gwynette found did not strike Chrisenya as particularly private, where the buttress on one of the chapels met its supporting wall. But she felt that nobody would find them in the next handful of minutes, so it would serve well enough.

"So, what was it you wanted to talk about?"

"I wanted to… offer a gift, I suppose. Everybody knows you're… well, you're having trouble not sleeping enough. I have something that might help. But you have to swear something to me first."

Chrisenya was too tired and in too much pain to be suspicious. "What would you have me swear?"

"Swear that, even if you reject my offer, you will tell nobody about it who does not already know."

Chrisenya propped up her hand against the quarried-stone wall. She was going to do it anyway to take the weight off her legs, but now it served a double purpose. "I swear on this consecrated chapel that I will tell nobody of this offer. Now make it."

Sister Gwynette reached under the collar of her shirt for something. Judging by the several seconds of awkward movement necessary to retrieve the thing, it must have been well-stowed indeed. It was a small glass vial, stoppered with a cork. Through the dark amber glass, it could be seen to contain a collection of tiny white pills.

"This is… well it's called a lot of things, but I just call it stimm. You take one of these, just one, in the morning, and I promise you won't even remember what sleep is for the next eight hours."

Gwynette held out the vial, her expression faintly regretful. It did not need to be spoken that such substances, if not provided through the official channels of the Departmento Munitorum, were strictly against regulations. But Chrisenya's defenses were crumbling: if the solution to her tiredness was right before her, there was little she could do to resist.

"Just one a day?"

"Just one," Gwynette affirmed. "You take more than one at once, or take them more than once a day, and… Well, I'm assuming you want to feel less miserable on the amount of sleep you're getting, not find out what it's like not having to sleep at all."

Chrisenya needed any edge she could get. Any relief. Even if it damned her soul. She reached slowly for the vial, hand suddenly trembling with inner conflict. It would not kill her. If she could resist Misty's influence for as many years as it had been, she could resist the power of illicit substances.

"And this is a gift?"

Gwynette looked momentarily uncertain. "Call it a favor. For a sister. Say you owe me one and I'll figure out what that means somewhere down the line."

Chrisenya took the vial from Gwynette's hand and held it in her own. It felt like holding a piece of the warp in her hand.

"Oh, and I've been told that Sisters-Superior like to do inspections. So find a place to keep that that's not in your bunk, if you like the idea of being allowed to keep your uniform on."

Gwynette's words registered, but only faintly. Chrisenya stared down at the vial. Slowly, her instincts at war with themselves, Chrisenya unstoppered the cork, and carefully let fall a single tiny pill. It looked like a grain of wheat in her hand, yet held almost as much weight in it as a loaded boltgun. Perhaps once she was a full sister she could submit herself to the Repentia for this. But she would need to get there first. With casual speed, Chrisenya upended the pill into her mouth.

 

[dragonsaffron]

Chrisenya was drowning, and nobody was going to save her. Her lungs, already full of saltwater, burned and burned for lack of air. She stretched out her hands towards the slowly-receding surface, the sunlight shining down on her, but there was nothing upon which to grasp. The weight of the water was immense, her ears bled from the depth. Shimmery and indistinct through the great distance, Chrisenya could see all of her friends, Fidelitas and Regina and Benedicta, everyone she had ever known on Aktranis or Gabrielle or Roctaln, gazing down on her. They had seen her fall into the deep. They relished it. Any one of them could dive down and save her from an awful death, but none of them dared to.

Chrisenya shut her eyes, threatened to be crushed into jelly by the water pressure. This was how she was going to die.

Except, all of a sudden, she felt gentle hands upon her back. They were sharp-edged hands, nails like knives, but they held her with such terrible softness. Six pairs of strong hands grasped her around the shoulders, the midsection, then hips. Then they pushed. The steady pressure of the water became a surging backwards flow, Chrisenya's ears popped and her chest cavity felt as though it were going to burst from within as she rocketed up and up, towards the brightening surface. The water parted, and she was deposited in a chair.

Chrisenya opened her eyes once more, then glanced around. Sudden changes of scenery were not unheard of in her dreams, but they were not typically so apropos, nor did they so effortlessly draw attention to their artificiality. She was still drenched in water, a thin dress adhering to her skin as though glued; but the only water source to be found was a small, tinkling fountain.

Not that she could see it. Chrisenya's view of what lay behind her was obstructed by half a dozen of what she could only assume were daemons. They appeared almost human, pink-skinned, slender and feminine and purposefully nude. They could almost be mistaken for human women, but Chrisenya did not make that error: their skin was an orchid pink, they possessed no hair neither on scalp nor brow, and their fingers did not terminate with nails, but with needle spikes of black chitin. The daemons hummed and purred, using the tips of their claws to tickle and massage Chrisenya's back.

It felt very good, of course. They were deft claws. But Chrisenya forced herself to focus on what was before her. A small table lay in front of her, large enough to seat six, though only occupied by two, and laden with delicacies, aromatic tea and sweet pastries and soft fruit. Across the table, leaning forward in order to display an un-characteristic and likely entirely invented quantity of cleavage, was Misty, wearing the form of Sister Regina.

"I'd be insulted you thought that a display of chest would work on me," said Chrisenya. "If I didn't hate you already."

"That's because I'm not trying to seduce you, Chrisenya. If I were trying to seduce you I could…"

Misty flickered, and she was on the other side of the table. A bottle of wine was already in her hands. Then it was on Chrisenya's mouth. Bitter wine poured down, spilling across her lips, mingling with the water as it trickled down her chest and across her cheeks. Chrisenya choked and gasped, caught unawares, drowning in violet.

And then Misty was back where she had started, and the wine was nowhere to be seen. Chrisenya hacked, bent over the table, vomiting purple liquid as she emptied her sodden lungs.

"We now know how easily you can be seduced," Misty said calmly. "I'm here to help you."

"'May the lies of the deceivers turn to vitriol on their tongues, and burn their mouths from within, and render them mute of their lying,'" hissed Chrisenya in between choking coughs.

Misty rolled her eyes. She watched as Chrisenya cleared out her lungs, saliva and bile splattering across the plain white of the tablecloth. The daemons behind Chrisenya still rubbed at her back, reaching out to caress the skin with the very tips of their claws. Eventually, Chrisenya could breathe again, and sat upright, the better to hold on to her dignity.

"Go ahead," Chrisenya said. "Make the pitch. You always do."

Misty spread out her hands in an "if you say so" sort of gesture. "Recently, we all learned that, while you certainly have the willpower for service to your Empress, you lack a certain… constitution, shall we say?"

In response, all of the welts on Chrisenya's back, the web of injuries left by the mark of the whip, suddenly burned. She gritted her teeth against the pain, but said nothing. This was far from the worst Misty could bring forth, and so long as she was rambling, Chrisenya would be spared it.

"But of course, this is only a problem because you appear to have forgotten the nature of our… special relationship." Misty smirked with Regina's borrowed lips. "If you find yourself lacking strength, my Queen has it in limitless quantity. You need merely let her in."

And there it was. Like lunch to her hunger and Gwynette's pills to her exhaustion, the solution to her struggle was right before her, within hand's reach. As though to emphasize the point, Misty extended her hand to the center of the table. All Chrisenya would have to do, she somehow knew, would be to extend her own hand and take Misty's. Her captor would guide her the rest of the way.

"You will not break my will so easily," Chrisenya said. "You will not have me."

"Oh, but just think about the possibilities," Misty whined, an eerily discordant tone coming from Regina's mouth. "You'd be strong, you'd be tough, you'd be sexy. The best version of yourself, the ideal battle-sister. And the best part is…" Misty leaned forwards. "I'm sure that nobody would notice. You are exceptionally good at hiding what you are, after all, it's the only reason you made it this far without getting lobotomized or your eyes gouged out or whatever it is humans do to people like you."

"I don't know what you're talking about," said Chrisenya. "I have made no secret of who I am. My only secret is you."

Misty rolled her eyes knowingly. "Keep telling yourself that."

For a handful of moments, Misty and Chrisenya sat in silence. There were birds singing somewhere off in the distance, though considering their surroundings more closely resembled an abstract painting than it did reality, Chrisenya was unsure of where that sound could have come from.

"Is this your new strategy? Boring me?"

"No, I was simply… giving it some thought. I understand your hesitance to accept my help, learning to accept the aid of others can be a very difficult thing… But perhaps what you need to get over that is a free sample of what I have on offer."

For a fraction of a second, Chrisenya was shot through with terror, knowing what was about to happen but unable to act quickly enough to stop it. Then the daemons behind her moved all at once, gentle hands turning to lightning-fast claws that grabbed her by the arms, around the throat. She was pulled taut against the back of her chair as a soft, gentle figure pressed its cheek against hers. There was a vision of pale skin and hair the color of hydrangeas, and then the soft lips parted; needle-sharp teeth bit a chunk out of Chrisenya's cheek.

Chrisenya's reflexes caught up to her own surprise, and she attempted to swat the daemons aside. But it was too late, and they had already retreated. Her hand flew to her face, sure she would find a bare flesh and spilling blood, and found only her skin. What was much more concerning was what she saw on her hand: her nails were long and black, sharp and almond in shape, and the tendons were already beginning to quiver and morph. Before her very eyes Chrisenya watched as the bones of her hand were forced apart, millimeters at a time.

There was a tightness all over Chrisenya, a surging heat in her stomach, a pressure building up below her skin. It concentrated between her legs, where the thin cloth of the dress that Misty had placed her in was already tenting, higher and higher, beyond the limits of her physical flesh. Chrisenya wrapped her arms around her chest, her heart felt about to burst, but her arms could not hope to contain what was coming. As though some inner source had been unstoppered, her flesh rose up, muscular pectoral first then bubbling, roiling waves of mammary fat. There was an awful crunching, a crackle of dislocating bone as Chrisenya's hips surged outward and her spine lengthened. She bent forward over the table, a moan escaping her lips that started as pain and shifted rapidly to pleasure. All across her back new muscles emerged into view, thick cords of sinew straining against Chrisenya's skin.

Chrisenya's thoughts grew clouded, and the straining hardness of her length—now far beyond its normal size, a heavy weapon indeed—consumed her thoughts. She glared across the table at Misty, Chrisenya's eyes gone a sickly mauve, curling horns piercing through her skull from within. She hated Misty, the author of her pain, but hate curled in on itself under the influence of the fell corruption coursing through her.

Chrisenya's legs were thicker than Misty's waist, the muscles within them continuing to throb and grow. Her stomach was protected by rows of tight, corded abdominal, and the veins in her arms stood out against the bulging power of her biceps. Misty grinned wide, eyes alight with a feral glee as she clapped her hands unselfconsciously. Chrisenya opened her mouth to spite her, but all that came out was a long, low growl.

Chrisenya had had enough of this mockery. She was going to put Misty in her place, prove that she was superior. So she charged, slamming the table aside with casual ease, knocking the daemon to the ground. Misty lay on her back, Regina's white mane of hair scattered all about her as Chrisenya straddled the narrow part of her waist. She reared up higher, bursts of rough pleasure in her shoulders as they stretched apart, bursting the dress. Still Misty gazed up at Chrisenya with delight, eyelids gone heavy and lips hanging lazily open.

Chrisenya ran the muscular tendril of her tongue across her dagger-sharp serrated teeth and decided that she knew what she had to do. With her clawed hands, powered by muscles that could put the Empress to shame, she tore the novitiate's uniform from Misty's body, then positioned herself between the dark, athletic thighs. Misty's cock tipped over to fall onto her stomach as she giggled ecstatically.

Like a predator tearing into a live catch, Chrisenya forced herself up and through Misty, bending over the borrowed body with territorial protectiveness. Misty luxuriated in the attention, running her fingers across her tight stomach, caressing her disproportionate breasts. Chrisenya panted and grimaced and growled, every one of her grandiose muscles flexing in concert to dominate and overpower. She was seeking something, trying to grasp it between her legs and make it hers, but as Misty cooed and the tightness of sensation grew larger and hotter within Chrisenya's stomach, that thing was nowhere to be found.

Chrisenya overflowed, melted into white-hot sensation and frigid rage. Everything collapsed, the dream falling in on itself once again. The last thing she saw before she awoke was Misty's purple eyes looking out through Regina's beautiful face, locked mid-cackle in an explosion of euphoria.