Day 58
The Star Road flashed into existence in an instant, bathing in the light of a new star, a red dwarf. It found the experience something that could be likened to pleasant. Its bioform passenger, safely carried over five lightyears in an instant, or rather, the mind behind that bioform, was elated to be so far out. This, too, the Star Road found something that could be likened to pleasant.
Tide was, in turn, glad about that too.
The Star Road darted forwards. This time, what occupied its protective shell was not just the bioform. As capable as Tide's physical senses had grown to become thanks to a certain group of sleeping assassins, he was still not quite capable of picking out planets in the vast emptiness of space with any degree of reliability. Instead, he'd brought some compact mechanical sensors for that task. They weren't particularly fancy or anything, though he wouldn't have said as much to the nobleman whose personal shuttle he'd 'borrowed' the device from, just being intended to find nearby gravity wells.
They didn't get much for the first few minutes, with the Star Road moving around the solar system at slightly slower than the speed of light, a pace that was, for it, leisurely. However, it did not take long for the sensors to find something of interest.
The planet was a gas giant. He couldn't say what its composition was or anything with the tools he had on hand, though it was on the smaller side. Out of curiosity, he'd had the Star Road go down and take a dip. Naturally, the Star Road was fine, but he was interested in seeing what the inside of a planetary storm looked like. Turns out, very boring after the first five minutes of seeing the same gases get pushed around by winds moving at hundreds of kilometers per hour. Looking at the whole of the planet was much more interesting, though even that lost its luster after a while.
Instead, Tide turned his attention from the planet to its moons. Where Monstrum, Ignis, and Glacies had all lacked naturally occurring moons of their own, this world, if it had a name, had four in total. They were all barren and one lacked an atmosphere, but the other three had them at varying strengths. Two were quite thin, but the final one was similar to Monstrum's level. Not just that, but after checking by splitting off a piece of the Star Road's occupant and exposing it to the atmosphere, he learned it also had the right combination of gases in the right percentages that his bioforms could breathe there with relatively little modification. It was also quite temperate in the areas he explored, even possessing several bodies of water similarly sized to lakes. A moon that seemed quite fitting for habitation, if one ignored the low gravity.
Curiosity once more rearing its head, Tide readied a pod for Neural Transit and sent it on its way, using the Star Road's occupant to guide its journey. Within the pod, Tide included a dozen puppet bioforms. Rather than outfitting them with space suits or something, he instead relied on his collected array of genetic information, particularly that of genestealer purestrains. They were capable of surviving quite a lot, short of the true extremes like the Barren Lands or Freezing Wastes.
For a time, Tide enjoyed himself, jumping around on the low gravity moon, using gene-altered muscles to bound far higher than any mere astronaut. He dug in the soil, collecting samples both for scientific study and simply for the novelty of having a rock from another celestial body. However, like with the gas giant, he quickly realized something:
This was boring as hell.
He was messing around on another celestial body, a moon in an entirely separate solar system, but… There wasn't really anything to do here. It was just… barren rock. The novelty wore off quickly for him, perhaps because a few minutes for others could seem like hours to him, if not longer.
Maybe if he brought others here? But what would they even do? He guessed he could maybe have a… what, dust-ball fight? No, the soil was too loose, it wouldn't pack together and using biomass to replace it felt… kinda gross.
One of the puppets laid down on its back, staring off into the blue sky. For a moment, not for the first time, Tide felt nostalgic for home and, after another moment's consideration, he allowed himself to bask in that feeling and acknowledge a bit of his grief.
He recalled Earth's blue sky, so much like this moon's. He hadn't spent enough time looking up at it, but then, why would he have? It wasn't something that he'd ever really thought about.
There were a few clouds here. They looked a little funny, perhaps because of the low gravity, but he wasn't sure.
Would he ever get to go home again? He had no idea.
Earth, this galaxy's Earth, Terra was likely beyond his reach, at least for a long while. Even if he did get there and past everything that would be trying like hell to stop him, it wasn't his home. It didn't look anything like his home, hadn't for tens of thousands of years if it ever had. He imagined it looked like a hive city writ large, a grey landscape, probably with an excessive amount of gold and gun batteries that doubled as cathedrals.
Like Monstrum, but even more depressing to look at, let alone live in.
For hours, Tide stared into the endless blue of the sky, watching the path of the sun. It was odd, seeing it from a moon rather than a planet, the gas giant looming large to his side, one of the other moons drifting close by.
He sucked in a breath, pretending, just for a moment, that he had only this body, and not countless more just like it. He let out a long breath.
Monstrum didn't have a blue sky. Even above the black clouds, the sky was bright. Not quite to the same degree as the Barren Lands, but the light there was strong enough to kill those exposed without filtration.
He'd thought about whether he could change that. If he could figure out how to make the world rotate just a bit faster, enough to get a day-night cycle.
He'd figured it out. At least, he'd figured out what it would require to accomplish, mainly being certain technologies he didn't have access to and had no idea where to look for. But he'd stopped hoping for that, because the time had also let him figure out something else: doing that would kill everyone on Monstrum.
Turns out, making a planet that has grown very much accustomed to always facing the sun suddenly start spinning around like a top could have side-effects. The Freezing Wastes had a massive amount of ice and other frozen liquids that would likely melt or, at the very least, shrink enough to flood the rest of the planet. Oddly enough, based off his initial calculations he'd made during a lull in the constant warfare he was engaging in, that in and of itself would likely not kill everyone. In fact, the hive cities, with their high outer walls and tunnels, would be relatively safe from the flooding. They seemed to have been almost designed to account for the possibility, being almost entirely sealed and resistant to flooding, though there were plenty of areas either in disrepair or damaged by the wars or even just by the Imperium itself to put in doors or monuments or something.
Not for the first time, Tide suspected that Monstrum might not have always been locked in facing the planet. That gave him some hope that it could spin again, but it also made him wonder just what force had changed the planet in so drastic a way. However, even if he were to ensure everything could survive the initial flooding, there were countless other ways in which so drastic a change could cause death and destruction on a monumental scale. As long as people lived there, he wouldn't risk it. It also wasn't like he could just deport everyone for a time and then bring them back.
Actually, he probably could do that if he just stuck them all in his Domain. He was basically doing just that to everyone who'd so much as had a conversation with a Chaos cultist in order to remove any corruption they might have gained from the interaction. However, dealing with an existential threat to people's souls merited such tactics and he wasn't sure wanting a planet to be prettier really deserved the same response.
No, Monstrum would never be a green paradise or anything of the sort, not in the way Earth and other worlds had been.
But, maybe this moon could be.
The puppets returned to one another, reaching out to each other. Their forms slowly began to lose their cohesion, like wax melting. They pushed against one another, merging and changing as many became one. The bioform that resulted was tall, with bark-like chitin colored an ashen white. Its legs were trunk-like and the branches of its head sprouted autumn leaves, forming a crown or mane of sorts. Four eyes, teardrop-shaped and similar in appearance to gemstones, were embedded in a featureless face, while a simple cloak made of reed-thin strands woven together was draped about its shoulders. Two arms, made of man branches that connected together like cords of muscle, clutched a thin staff.
"Let's begin, shall we?" Tide asked no one. His voice in this form was deeper than a man's could be and echoed strangely. It was produced not through a mouth, but travelled out through a number of hollow tubes that ringed where, on a human, the collarbone would have been.
There was a flash of light the color of which even Tide himself couldn't fully describe. When it faded, a great chunk of raw biomass had settled in front of him. It was nothing right now, little more than a great blob of Flood matter. But not for long.
He started small, drawing a way a tiny piece of biomass, roughly the same amount as a human's finger. Planting his staff aside, Tide sat down, crossing massive legs over one another, and dug out a bit of the soil, while the piece of biomass transformed, changing into a tiny seed. Gently, he dropped the seed in the tiny pit, covering it with soil once more. For a moment, he just looked at the tiny mound.
Then, with a miniscule effort of will, the seed sprouted.
A tiny stem of green grew upwards, lengthening more and more. The stem thickened, turning into a bud, as something grew larger within it. The sides split open, though remained rigid and upright, and the first glimpse of the flower could be seen shooting out from the top. It was white with streaks of red running along its petals, which continued to sprout upwards, connecting to a new stem that sprouted out of the covers of the old one.
Tide tilted his head and watched, almost enraptured, as the tulip bloomed. There were plenty of flowers he could have chosen from, but he'd always liked tulips. They were unusual and came in many colors and different combinations. There was no deeper meaning to it, they were just pretty. While no tulips existed, at least on Monstrum, there were plenty of flowers in the private gardens of various nobles. Such things were wasteful of precious water and other resources as well, but Tide couldn't help but feel a touch grateful in this moment.
As the flower fully blossomed, however, Tide continued to make it change. He altered the color and patterns of the petals, thinned the stem as the lower gravity meant it did not need to be as strong to support its own weight. Night fell after a few hours and, rather than alter his eyes so he might see better, he changed the flower again and its petals glowed with luminescence.
The resulting flower was even more beautiful. But it had not bloomed purely on its own. He had guided it and fed it with the biomass from his staff, which had grown roots outwards to feed it. And, in the end, it was still just a Flood form, not a true flower.
Tide could decide how his Flood forms appeared, but that was not their 'natural' appearance. The Flood had desires of its own, to kill, to spread, to cause suffering, and their natural appearance was indicative of that. If Tide was not constantly aware of and suppressing its wishes… Something like the factory incident, when he first arrived in this galaxy, might occur again. He was naturally cautious of such things. There had only been a few times where he'd set the Flood loose, like it was some rabid dog that needed to be restrained. The genestealers and the Orks on the space hulk. And… the Chaos ship. The first two had been intentional, but the most recent time had been… That had been done out of anger. He had acted rashly. He didn't get to do that, that was not an option for him.
Tide recognized that he was becoming something of a control freak. It seemed like a fairly natural mindset given what he was, but he wasn't very keen on it either. The Emperor had been a control freak and he would very much rather avoiding any parallels with 'He on Terra' if he could help it.
He didn't want to rule an empire or anything like that. It would be easy for him to do so, he might even be able to create a utopia… But that kind of self-belief was what sent people down dark paths and the galaxy he was in was all-too happy to manipulate that kind of person. People could rule themselves and he… he wanted to do his own thing. He wanted to create life.
Yet, the flower before him wasn't that. It was just… a different kind of puppet. Tide reached down, preparing to crush the flower in one of his bioform's hands, but he stopped just short as a sudden thought intruded upon him.
Puppets have strings.
The thought occurred to him almost randomly, a burst of inspiration. Yet, in that inspiration, there was something else. A feeling, unlike anything he had experienced in his old life… but nonetheless familiar. The last time he had gotten this feeling, stars had wept and their tears had formed something beautiful.
Tide felt as though he were holding an invisible strand, one that connected him to the flower. Not 'him' meaning the tree-form, not the pile of biomass nearby, not even the Keymind back on Monstrum… But Tide himself.
Tide craned the neck of his form down, as if he might be able to see the strand. The index finger of the form extended, sharpened like a claw, curled around air, and… tugged.
It was like going outside and breathing in the fresh air after being inside for as long as he could remember. The feeling lasted only a moment, but that may as well have been an eternity for Tide. Pleasure was far from the right word for it. It was a number of emotions, many of which he had names for, but an even greater amount of which he didn't have a clue about.
How did you describe the feeling of watching a sunset or looking up and seeing the stars in all their glory? What words could you use to tell of the joy felt from seeing a loved one smile and laugh, or the suffering of seeing them in pain? He had the knowledge of countless billions of beings, yet he was still unsure.
Sweetness.
So that was it. No single word could fully encompass what he felt, no more than a single word could fully describe any other kind of emotion, but that one came the closest. It was strange, unique, familiar, impossible, and countless other things all at the same time.
His eyes never left the flower. Its petals glowed softly in the night, swaying in the breeze on its wire-thin stem, near-invisible in the darkness, making the bulb look as though it hovered just above the base of the flower, touching only air.
For a moment, he was afraid. Afraid that it might transform from something beautiful into a Flood form unleashed by his reckless action, but nothing of the sort occurred. What rested before him was no longer just Flood biomass, transformed to look a certain way.
No, this was a flower, unique in all the universe, a singular existence.
But not for long.
Aliciel wandered the halls of the Cathedral of the Ashen Mists, the headquarters of the Order of the Cleansing Rains. It had been… a while since she'd left Tide's Domain. Years, in fact. That was what it felt like it had been for her, though Tide had informed her he'd, effectively, slowed time for her during her stay. It was too casual a remark for something that seemed so… frankly, godlike in power, but Aliciel hadn't commented on it. She was pretty sure Tide was grateful to her for that.
In her mind, however, it had been many years since she'd walked these halls. The corridors were grand, covered in tapestries depicting the many victories of the Order, the God-Emperor's glory, and other things she had once believed in.
She wasn't sure if she still believed in the God-Emperor. He on Terra was certainly real, according to Tide, but whether he was a god was a matter of opinion according to him, one that Tide himself did not hold to be true anymore than the one that posited the Ruinous Powers were gods.
But, even when she'd been resting, floating on the surface of that memory of her home, neither she or Tide had ever really brought the Emperor up. It was odd, given how… central to her life He had been. Everything was about the God-Emperor, everything she did was for Him.
Yet, Tide had never brought the subject up. He hadn't demanded she stop worshipping Him, in spite of the fact that His teachings would have demanded her to oppose Tide simply for existing, not mentioning all the other 'crimes' against the God-Emperor's realm that Tide had committed through his actions.
Of those rare few times where she had broached the subject with him, Tide had simply said it wasn't his business who she worshipped, nor did he particularly want her to stop or continue. That idea had been very hard to wrap her head around. For a Sister of Battle, anything besides faith in the God-Emperor was heresy of the highest order, let alone faith in a different god. While Tide had clearly shown he was opposed to Chaos in the extreme, he seemed less certain about the Emperor. Yet, he had seemed content to let her continue her worship He on Terra if she wished.
Now though, she strode down the halls, empty save for the occasional serf who stood aside and bowed to her as she passed. Each of them was well-fed and moving with strength and purpose. It was something that conflicted with her memories of them. They had always been wiry things. As fanatical as any Sister of Battle, of course, but thin enough from their fasting that they would have folded like flimsiplast if struck, something which, she was ashamed to admit, was not all that uncommon. The very idea of doing something like that now disgusted her, even as guilt for her past reared its head once more.
She nodded at each serf as they bowed, trying to put on a friendly smile, but it didn't seem to have much effect. Not surprising, given that not one of them, not a single one, dared to look up at her, instead focusing on the ground. It wasn't just a sign of respect, but also of fear. She suspected it was because they each were noticeably well-fed and they feared punishment.
Each of them had been fasting, or so she assumed, yet they didn't look it. Instead, each one was healthy, with not a hint of exhaustion or sickness. Tide had been at work here and she wondered if the serfs thought it a blessing of the God-Emperor, since it had happened to all of them.
"Aliciel."
She froze halfway down the hall as the familiar voice called out to her. That wasn't… She couldn't have…
"Canoness Praxiah," Aliciel said, more out of trained instinct than anything else, turning to look at the head of the Order of the Cleansing Rains. Both women were dressed in simple robes, the kind worn by pilgrims on journeys. Aliciel had never asked, never wanted to know, what had happened to her Power Armor, whether it had been recovered by Tide or lost to the depths of the hive city, and he had never told her.
The woman, who only a little over a month ago Aliciel would have followed into the mouth of a Tyranid Hive Ship if asked, was strange to look at now. Physically, she had not changed since the last time Aliciel had seen her, yet Praxiah had lost something. The fire in her eyes, that zeal that drove her, that told her she could do no wrong in service to the God-Emperor, it was gone, extinguished.
Did Aliciel look the same, she wondered, even as Praxiah gave her a smile that was far softer than any she had ever seen on the Canoness' face.
"You don't have to call me that anymore," She said. The other woman turned and looked up at a tapestry, one which depicted the six founding Saints of the Orders Militant Majoris, garbed in wargear and clad in holy relics. The tapestry was old, supposedly created at a time when the six Saints still drew breath. Its age had worn it nearly to tatters and only a stasis field kept it from disintegrating further. "I don't think there really is an Order of the Cleansing Rains anymore, anyways."
"You've… spoken with Tide, then." It was a statement, not a question.
"Spoken?" Praxiah repeated the word, as though sounding it out. "No, that's not quite it. He showed me things. Memories that I'd tried so hard to forget. Memories that I never wanted to relive again."
"It can be… a lot," Aliciel said with a small burst of sympathy. "Did he… did you take your time?"
Praxiah looked away, but Aliciel thought she saw something glistening in the other woman's eyes before they vanished from view. "I… I thought I was strong enough to withstand them. To see it all through to the end."
Aliciel nodded, even though the movement couldn't be seen. "So did I. It was years for me."
Praxiah gave a hollow laugh, but the only mockery in it was directed inwardly. "Twelve years, six months, and four days. At least, that's how long it was for me. Yet, it seems like not even a month has actually passed. Our savior is terrifying."
Aliciel tilted her head slightly. "Savior?" She repeated.
"What else would I call him?" Praxiah asked, looking towards her. "Monster? I am not sure if he is either of those things. I relived the worst days of my life because of him, but only when I thought I was ready to do so. He challenged me, challenged my strength, but he did not make me choose to see when my parents were ripped apart by genestealers. He did not make me choose to see when those who I had called my friends in the Schola Progenium had their bones broken by the drill abbots for talking back. He did not make me walk down the tunnel under the Barren Lands with those who I'd hoped to return with and call Sister, only to watch them collapse as heat and exhaustion took them. He did not make me send countless more initiates into that same tunnel, year after damned year!"
With that final word, Praxiah's fist slammed into the stasis generator of the tapestry, smashing the delicate machinery with enough force that it flickered then failed. The ancient cloth shuddered and fell, but a piece of it snagged on the generator and the design came apart with a gentle tearing sound. Praxiah glared down at the tapestry, drops of blood from her fist falling down onto its faded weaving. Already, the wound was beginning to reknit and heal itself.
Aliciel did not comment on the sacrilege or the explosion of violence. What would have once had her attack the other woman on grounds of heresy now seemed so… pointless.
"Her name was Helena."
Praxiah turned to look at her, a lack of understanding plain on her face. Aliciel just has a wistful smile on her own.
"She was the initiate I went down the tunnel with," Aliciel continued, turning to lean against the wall, her eyes staring upwards as she slowly sunk downwards. "This was long before you were canoness, back under Canoness Praxedes. Helena was… brilliant. Passionate. A zealot, through and through… We were friends and…"
Praxiah joined her on the ground, sitting next to the wreckage of the stasis generator.
"When she fell the first time, I…" Aliciel shuddered and she blinked away unshed tears from her eyes. "I tried to help her."
Praxiah's eyes widened at the admission. Initiates were forbidden from giving or receiving aid in the tunnel. It was a test of one person's zeal, after all, their willingness to ignore even the suffering of those they loved if it meant the completion of their mission.
"She pushed me away," Aliciel said. "She screamed curses at me for even trying, said I was dishonoring her, myself, and the God-Emperor's test of us."
For a time, Aliciel was quiet, reminiscing in the pain she'd felt.
"I left her," She said, continuing. "By the time I began the journey back, she was already dead. I didn't look back."
Another silent moment passed.
"Then, we went down the tunnel to reach Malum," Aliciel said. "We passed by her skeleton. I barely recognized the section she was in, barely noticed her bones laying in a corner."
She turned to look at Praxiah, fixing the other woman with a gaze that flickered with the fires of old determination.
"I'm going back down the tunnel and getting her."
