[Wh40k x Starcraft] A Sarah Kerrigan knock off MC sleeps her way through the imperium of man with increasing amounts of kink - We're off hiatus!

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B01-030 - Dissociate
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    • "I told Lord Guilliman you're fond of him, and he said we could call!" Lilith said brightly as Saint Celestine entered Varynna's quarters.

    Varynna freezes, staring at Celestine, brain beginning to process exactly what was just said. "I…Lilith." Her voice is very calm and very, very collected. Naval uniform tight and studded with medals, a threatening sabre in a sheath.

    "Also, Anastasia, Myself, and Celestine have been transferred to your ship." She added, staring at her for a reaction, keeping her face stony in case this was in fact a problem, that she caused. "We're going to be traveling for a month, I don't want to leave Ana my darling wife, I'm going to war for Celestine so we should spend more than a day together, and Guilliman seems nice, gave us permission to call, and not to mention I love you too, so… Seemed like your quarters or… Office… Dining room? I never asked what this is… Oh well… Would make a good home base!"

    "And I will assure you, Lord Admiral!" The Saint speaks with care, "Warp travel is much safer with me aboard." Pulling the attention of everyone in the room as she starts to pick through the liquor cabinets, staring at the various options Varynna has.

    "I see." Varynna growls, staring at Lilith again, "You are so very lucky Lilith."

    Lilith bit her tongue with a smile, "Lucky that I'm cute?" She said, somewhat hopefully. "I did more social math than you might have thought, Varynna. I'm getting very good at this whole politics thing."

    Ana lights up a lho stick for herself, making Celestine tilt her head, "Those are bad for you, Anastasia."

    "We're like, immortal? If anything super bad happens, I just vent myself and go back to the hatchery." Lilith said, reaching for the pack, lighting her own.

    "I suppose." She shrugs, pulling a wine bottle free as Varynna's eyes widen. "S-saint, no that's-!" Her shout is interrupted by Celestine drinking the entire bottle in one go. "Oh." Varynna quietly says.

    "She… Sees Truth, that means she knows what was in that bottle… Right? Varynna what did she just drink?" Lilith now recalling a very vivid memory of herself swallowing a random pill off the floor during a rave in Tarsonis.

    "Obscura." Celestine chuckles, falling backwards into a couch she barely fits on, "Very very illegal, Lord Admiral." Twisting to stare with golden eyes at Varynna, she confidently says, "You've been a bad girl." Varynna, to her credit, only stiffens a lot instead of freezing.

    Lilith stops for a second, looking at Ana, "We tried that right? It was like… We had terrible shakes for hours after I think, but then I learned how to just cut that out?"

    Ana smokes her lho deeply, breathing out the smoke as she stares at the slowly grinning Saint, "There were also the hallucinations, and…insatiability." As Celestine grabs another bottle of wine.

    "I think… One of us needs to be able to infest the rest."

    "Lilith, can I hold you up against the wall?" Celestine shakes the room with the simple request, now focusing on the aforementioned woman, giving Varynna a moment to breathe.

    For her benefit, Lilith had only spent a few moments gawking like a fish, "I didn't think she'd run straight to the fucking… Orgy decanter." Lilith says suddenly, before also saying, "Yes."

    "That's good." Celestine chuckles, not moving after the declaration with a cocky smile on her face. Ana starts to stand up.

    "I think I just realized the game I've started, and am feeling very objectified right now." LIlith said with a weak smile as Anastasia approached, though nothing in her tone, or in swarm space registered as a complaint.

    "Someone has to be uninvolved in this mess." Varynna declares, "So I suppose I'll be banished from my own quarters-."

    "No, I'll go," Lilith says suddenly, "I can… Watch? Through Swarmspace. Then there's not any competing!" What are you doing?! I'm chickening out. WHY?! I… Don't know WHY!? They're all so hot. Also, this is how you got your last wife killed. Are you really worried about that?! YES!

    "Liliiiiiiiiiiith." Celestine croons for the woman, vibrating the air with the noise, "Come to meeeeee." She extends her arms, awaiting an embrace with closed, spark-leaking eyes.

    "Awww… She just wants to cuddle…" Lilith says quietly, immediately melting. Walking towards Celestine for a moment, "I mean…" She looks at Ana, "Cuddling is… Fine. Right?" Taking very nervous steps.

    "You can hug other women Lilith." Ana declares with a smirk, "You've already done more with her anyways, right?" It's not heated, just curious.

    "I asked in the hallway!" For once not a lie, "If I'm asking can I run off with a giant angel with wings who can throw me like a football. That's… Like… I told you that, in the ship quarters."

    Rolling her eyes, Ana says, "Just making sure, I wasn't able to wat-" She freezes.

    "I knew it." Lilith said smiling, "I knew you were a little freak." The voice was very, very kind. "But why weren't you able to watch?" She's still looking at Anastasia, walking backwards towards Celestine.

    "The flash of light, mostly." Anastasia very carefully admits, the ruse finally up as Celestine's hands reach and pull Lilith back, almost ensconcing her with her leg and arms. "Mhmm, you're soft." The Saint mumbles, lips brushing against Lilith's ear.

    "That… Was the very very end. Whu—" Lilith was suddenly extremely grateful for Zerg parts again that were far more flexible, and more importantly, durable. "Hmmm!" Lilith said, before squeaking like a chew toy.

    Anastasia takes the opportunity to break line of sight, whilst Varynna goes back to getting her uniform just right for the voyage ahead. All the while Celestine keeps mumbling loudly, "I really like you."

    Then suddenly aware of Ana breaking eye contact, Weren't able to watch because of light? Or Feelings? Lilith said, not pushing Celestine off, but also not going much further.

    "Do you want me to let you go? For Ana?" Even through the haze, the Saint can see what others feel, asking with the gentle volume of a caring whisper.

    "I'm going to tell you the same thing I told Varynna, and Ana." Lilith said very calmly, "I'm not comfortable being intimate while anyone is under the influence without discussing it first. It's very odd to me that this is a conversation I've had with every woman I've met in the imperium. Also odd that I haven't met a woman in the imperium who doesn't like me, but I will stow that paranoia for later."

    "I'm more of a thoughtful wave than a woman." Celestine considers, "My body is light, if you were wondering." She flickers sparks from her fingertip, letting them fall on Lilith's arm.

    "If you're made of light, how do you get… All fucked u—" Then she stops herself, "I'm going to extricate for now we have a month. You have a day to un-Obscura so we can talk or plan that first."

    "I'm a being of light, Lilith." Celestine glows, a shuddering feeling passing through anyone the light touches, "I can just purge it." She smirks, looking confidently at the other woman.

    "You're so mean." Lilith says but not unkindly, before looking at Ana, "Do you and I need to have a talk?

    "I don't mind you with other women Lilith, I think." Ana says, "I just…don't enjoy watching, I realize."

    "Oh." Lilith says, then looking to Varynna, "You know I was thinking board games, but I guess I have a reputation at this point don't I?"

    "Certainly have." Varynna chuckles, properly fitting her medals, "I'd recommend avoiding my drinks, and using the games under the cupboard, they're tame."

    Not… quite annoyed, but also not overly pleased either Lilith said, "It's very… Odd to me, that I seem to be very clear on my wants." She says, walking over to the cupboard, hoping to god to find actual games or picts. "I do not think any of you, besides maybe Ana are entirely understanding of the fact that I'm truly not trying to bed everyone." She sighs, opening the cupboard, and sure enough, they were not board games of the traditional kind, before closing it.

    "I am lonely." She says, openly, "I walked into a hivemind, because I am lonely, my physical needs are… There's no… Max there lets say, but I do need a bare minimum of affection to exist." She's not even entirely sure who she's speaking too. She guess she was a little annoyed. "I'm trying to make a family, not a harem."

    "This feels like my fault." Celestine wonders from her couch.

    "Not entirely, no, it's actually a talk I wanted to have with everyone, but I've been trying to avoid big speeches. I'm rather preachy" Lilith admits, "But also a little bit that was a move for sure."

    Ana's quietly contemplating the words and Varynna is fixing her neck piece, leaving mostly Celestine to answer for now.

    "Not really, I was shocked not surprised if that makes sense." Lilith adds, not lying. "You're not at fault for anything. I kind of realized what I had done, and been signaling far too late."

    "Could you come back, once you find a game?" The Saint asks, shifting to allow more space, "I can't promise I won't tease, but, I enjoy holding others."

    "Oh!" Lilith said suddenly, "I just assumed…"




    Lilith the buzz kill.

    Can you calm down, you're too intense

    Gleaming steel.

    Cuts.

    Splash of blood.

    Alone.




    "I made an incorrect assumption, my bad, sorry."

    "We all make those. Now, stop letting me get cold." She reaches out a grasping limb to try and grab at Lilith, just a little too far even for her size.

    Am I strong enough too… Lilith thought to herself before, grabbing her arm and realizing that No she was not strong enough to overpower Celestine into a princess carry as she fell back into a teasing cuddle.




    Don't you love me? Why would you do this? That was my tuition…

    Of course I love you! But I needed rent.

    slice - butcher - disperse

    I adore you Lilith, can you take this package for me, don't worry what's in it.

    Are you sure? The last one….

    You got out fine, don't worry about it.

    slice - butcher - disperse

    You're the best Lilith, but actually something better came up. Sorry.

    What do you mean something better?

    I mean you're moving. You freak me the fuck out.

    slice - butcher - disperse



    "Unforgivable curs." A growled word from the Saint brings the whole room to a chilling stop. Anger like a flare, coating every surface with her feelings, forcing reality to acquiesce to what she feels. Even the air warbles with her, falling under Celestine's will.

    "All of them. Betrayers." Another rumbled word as Lilith fully blinks back out of the moment.

    With a big smile that doesn't reach her eyes Lilith says, "Oh. You see Truth with like… A capital T." She huffs, "That's been happening lately. No-one should see that! I cut it out from the swarm! Completely!"




    Hey look, do you want to eat tonight?

    Yeah…

    Then take the     fucking gun. Go.

    Sorry…

    It's ok,     I'm sorry. I'm trying to look out for you because I love you.




    "I am not the Swarm." The Angel answers Lilith, "Your pain. The pain of every human in this universe." Celestine calms her voice, moving back to something soft, almost whispered echoes. "It is why I fight. To stop it all. I'm truly sorry I couldn't save you." She holds Lilith lovingly, deeply.




    You chose to be Queen. Anastasia chose to stay. Everyone… Everyone picked me. I have a family.

    Yes    . We do.

    Is… Kerrigan going to hug me? Oh. Oh. Even after all that… I Just want a hug. Why do I always have to ask?

    She snatched at her to be the small spoon in a cuddle as she latched on.




    Lilith is… Dissociated, completely separated with a look that's just a bit quiet, and dead. Though she knows to keep smiling.

    "Anastasia. Come here." A request, but one she'd be a fool to not follow.




    My dream, lovely Is one day, this isn't just a beautiful dream. It's… real. The both us, real. And I can be there, forever.

    Well… Too late for that Manth… Sorry.




    Another person enters Lilith's space, smaller, proportional to her. "Love. Tell me what to do." Anastasia asks.




    I know that you almost didn't. It doesn't matter, because you chose me, and that's all I ever wanted.

    But do you choose me? Or am I just available
    I will always choose you. You are… everything to me.

    Oh… You still won't say it back…

    She… hugged you? And you fell for her? That's all I had to do? I didn't have to seduce you at all!

    Yes… It's literally that easy. Just… Please.

    Keep hugging me, and telling me I'm good, great even. Tell me my feelings are valid.

    You are my perfect, great, beautiful wife. I love everything about you.

    Why do I always have to ask…




    Has anyone ever told you, Lilith, that you are beautiful?

    Twice… No, once.

    She told me I'm beautiful. I didn't have to ask…




    "Hold her." A command from the divine woman gives Ana direction. Warmly wrapping around her love. "I love you Lilith." She says, "Please be alright." She begs.

    "Ana?" Lilith said, blinking, "What's wrong? Come here, I'm sorry. I must have… Got a bit distracted."

    Ana looks scared, holding Lilith desperately at the command of the Saint. "You are loved, Lilith. You are cared for." There's no room to brook argument with Celestine, she speaks with only truth. "Grasp the world, change it, for your heart cannot bear suffering silently." Ana's obviously not understanding, only one half of the conversation involving her.

    "Don't worry about it Ana." Lilith whispers, "I love you and I know you love me."



    No, you won't. Not when I've started to like you.

    I think… It might be too late… I ca-

    It's a trick, there's points involved. Your Queen is in danger.
    But, Lilith, the world is not simply others. The dread for others is blinding you.

    It's a trick, you should be mad that she's using this against you

    Fuck




    "Feel, remember, overcome." Celestine gently encourages, "You are strong, I know it." Holding both women at this point, a staunch, glowing fortress to hold onto, if anyone will reach out.

    "Tell me how to help." Ana whispers, either to the Saint or her love.




    Manth loves me, they seeked me out. Of course Manth loves me. They must, they chose me, they saved me and asked for nothing. I just need to keep some thoughts away from the swarm. Just a little twinge

    Oh. Manth is dead. Kerrigan is dead again. I killed them.




    "Kerrigan is dead… I killed her." Lilith whispered again. "Twice. Why does that bother me? It shouldn't." She squeezed Ana, harder, so hard that she felt her own muscles crack. She couldn't help but taste blood. Blood or pennies or steel. She had managed to kill everyone who had ever hurt her. Everyone. Why was she upset. She was here, and they were not. It shouldn't matter past that.

    "I love you Ana I'm fine. Sorry, I think this is my second breakdown in a week." She said quietly, "I'll recover, I think. I bounce back pretty fast."


     
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    • B01-031 - Into The Warp
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    • Something's off. Varynna senses it in an instant as minute alterations of course make the hairs on her neck rise up in a crawl. Immediately, she's on a vox, "Navis, why have we shifted course."

    "Damnit!" She moves to the doorway, rushing quickly out to the hall.

    Lilith, leaps to her feet, extending into a fully mobile form. "What is it?" She asks, wiping her tears away. An upper body, a spinal column, and dozens of legs.

    The Saint blinks, "Something is…off." She glares at the shuttered windows that block the Warp from infecting anyone indoors. "We are being moved." A harsh declaration, "We must make it to the Teleportarium!" Immediately, wings flare, armour collapses on her, and a blade forms.

    Lilith snatches Anastasia, and gets ready to sprint after the saint, "Sorry, you don't run as fast. Varynna fights." She says calmly. Forcing everything into the dead channel. Letting herself feel giddy at the thought of new violence.

    Following the Saints nigh-impossible pace, the ships halls are eaten up in the advance until finally, pushing a door open with her shoulder, steel broken open like paper. Inside, a vast machine rumbles and ripples with blue and red light, big enough to fit a house in its central chambers.

    "Servant of the Machine! I command you, send me to Macragge's Honour!" The demand rattles the glass of the room as she flies into the centre, slamming her blade into the metal below and kneeling in the machine, reducing her profile. The Tech Priest in command freezes, looking at the other two here, not sure if he should wait or not.

    Before The Saint can decide for her she latches on next to her with Ana by her side. Varynna wouldn't leave the ship anyways, Guilliman would face the largest of the fighting force, or… Her eyes flick back and forth but before she could change her mind the Tech Priest begins.

    Pulling a switch with the sound of a transformer shutting down. Flickering lightning catches the skins of all three women, not painful, just terrifying before, in a sudden absolute flicker of all reality, they are dragged across false-space and translate into somewhere else.

    Standing, tearing her blade from the hull of the new vessel. Celestine growls at the sights of crewmen forming hasty defensive lines as cawing horrible noise comes from hallways and ventilation around this secondary bridge. "Heed me armsmen, where is Lord Guilliman!"

    A commanding officer manages to get his thoughts together enough to answer, "In the bridge! Battling boarders!" Instantly, Celestine flexes her wings and begins the journey through bulkheads above, only a split second to grab onto her.

    "Ana, the soldiers know not to shoot the Swarm, you've got further Range, tell them to get in here." Lilith demands as she does her best in her spidery form to follow Celestine.

    The internals of a ship are old, rusty and full of oil. Difficult to navigate if not for the blinding light of an angel. Its merely a minute to cross the belly of this warmachine and emerge through the floor, finding Celestine already blade deep in an armoured traitor Astartes.

    Chaos infests the bridge, dozens of Astartes in blue and red armour slaughtering crewmen whilst loyalists try and marshall a fighting force. In the centre, a double-headed bird stands, staring down at the Primarch as chains that reek of guilt bind around him, holding him fast.

    Fucking finally. Lilith whispers looking at the bird. "You! You ruined everything." She was in a blind rage as she placed Ana down gently. Before leaping into the fray of Astartes with a blood lust and efficiency she had crafted over two decades. Sequencing over and over and over, to make herself Abathur's perfect project. Channeling the love he had for her, knowing if Kerrigan was good, then she surpassed her. That she refused to let these pathetic Terrans stop her. Zerg Steel and Acid, a proven effect weapon fires from inside like shotgun blasts, as she slips like slinky water between legs and over armor, before a knife-like tendril appears in her hand, and she will carve Into the bird, all of her tendrils will carve.

    This bird would die, She would fucking eat it.

    The battle is brutal, Astartes realizing Lilith's threat as they turn, forcing her to battle them head on, slipping past armour as acid coats their helmets and blinds them, zerg infection and simple trauma mixing to drive them to their knees, and then to be ripped into by hungry blades.

    "Imagine betraying the imperium just before they got ever-lasting life. Imagine being so used by masters who don't care about you." She screamed still trying to slice into the bird with tendrils. "Turn your guns on yourselves, it will be far kinder than what I will do." She whips around a blade trying to land it into the Daemon's neck rage, pure and simple consuming her.

    A ripple of warp-force is her barrier as the invisible shield around the Daemon and the Primarch holds fast, pushing Lilith away in a blast that has her rolling back to her feet. "You will choose." One head turns to her, staring into Lilith with the almost-mocking words. "Wrong." The second head croons before cackling as the Primarch struggles against the glowing mystic chains.

    Something like cloth tearing hits Lilith's ears as a presence falls over the bridge. Something truly monstrous. Clinking mail, plates of metal, twinned axes and demonic red skin is the first details as a colossal monster pushes through a portal. Horned like an ancient myth and easily twice the size of the Saint it stands before. It's digitigrade legs preparing to charge her.

    Lilith smiles at the Daemon mocking her, "The ships had warp shields too," Allowing acid and mutalisk spines to fire into the Daemon.

    Acid slips through and covers the Daemon with a hiss and a cry of pain on its vast part, all the while, a clash of blades takes place behind as Celestine is forced to lock weapons with the beast, barely able to hold it back in the contest of strength.

    She can handle herself, "Ana, help her!" She yells as the warp shield flickers, just enough to slip through. "Oh… Hi." Lilith said her eyes bright with joy. This time not stopping as every blade descends on the bird, trying to steal every bit of essence, every piece of it. To watch it know that its life force was being stolen.

    The creature does not idly sit and let itself be torn into, flickers of force blocking strikes whilst other, odd angled ones slip through, catching at feathers and skin. In this melee, however, its attention is broken, and with that, chains crack. Suddenly, it is broken inwards by a powerful armoured fist that lands in the middle of its monstrous, bent back.

    A distraction that lets Lilith fall upon it.

    Lilith leaps onto it with glee, her blades, carving and slicing taking chunks, a small orb appearing underneath it that continues to fill, as she does so she gets uncomfortably close to where she thinks it's ear is. "You die today, your masters are next." Before jamming a tendril into the side of its head. She grabs a handful of feathers as a trophy. Her joy, her victory is stolen from her as she reaches to stomp on the ball of essence, a portal splits open and she notices tendrils of it flying back into the body. She spits into it just as the portal closes.

    With disgust at the portal, but then concern, "Primarch my lord, on your feet. The battle will be won, you'll want to be there when it is." She uses all of her strength to try and lift the giant man. "To think, we'll have so much to talk about on our call." She tries to settle him, but the sound of battle behind her is distracting. She whirls around seeing Celestine fight. She tries racing for her but it's too late, she's too far away.

    Celestine is embattled. The Daemon's axes stumbling her with each blow. She raises her sword in a quick parry, catching the axe-hafts and slicing through them. Still, the Daemon proves despite its rage-filled appearance and foaming mouth to be a dangerous foe as it tackles through her guard, ramming her to the earth.

    With a flex of wings, she attempts escape, but is caught by its grip. With a roar of effort and breaking ligaments, the wings are freed from their bearer, the Saint screams, turning the pain to furious rage as she twists.

    "ANA GRAB HER!" Lilith is sprinting, spring with all her might.

    "I CAN'T! THE DAEMON REJECTS ME!" She screams back, nose bleeding like a faucet from the effort of trying to do anything.

    She won't let this end here, she can't, she slides on tendrils each one firing her forward in bursts like a slingshot. Spines firing the entire time. The Daemon, grumbling in a tone of distaste, swings a fist and forces Lilith to alter her course, sliding underneath it as spines sink into its ultra-dense skin. Celestine, eyes wide and face enraged, summons her blade in a flicker of flame and rams it into the chest of the creature, stilling both warriors for a moment.

    Yet, it does not die. The Daemon reaches forth with both arms, clasping at Celestines head.

    Trying to taunt the daemon, use their tactics against them she screams, "Did you know when a Zerg kills you, you Truly die Daemon."

    "Good." It answers, voice poisoning the air, inflaming rage and death and bloodlust everywhere as the stomp of a Primarchs charge nears. In a vicious twist, Celestine falls into light.

    "Where the FUCK is my swarm." Lilith roared, before leaping, at the Daemon. Reaching out to it in Swarm Space, demanding, the ENTIRE Swarm focus on tearing this creature apart.

    She impacts it and starts to dig in, talons, teeth and rage having far more effect than bolts and spines ever did, and within seconds, is assisted by the Primarch, a blade splitting open the Daemon's side. It fights with fury and rage, every injury seemingly not slowing it down as it breaks Lilith, forcing her to heal and adapt faster and faster whilst the Primarch tries to match its muscle, to slow it down, injured as it is, he is managing.

    Lilith tries to snatch out at it's essence, rip it out as Abathur has done to many. Swiping at it's essence the way she swiped at Kerrigan, at Ana, the way she was taught. The essence of the Daemon, glowing and bright is suddenly ripped from the body. She tears the thread, working on it, hacking at strings of it's very being. The code, the soul being torn apart.

    Paradoxically, the Essence calms as this happens, trying to accept its fate, seeing the end as…desired. But as it falls apart, as it tears to pieces, something reaches out and tears it back to someplace, with cruel intentions and vicious hatred, even as the soul wishes to stay here.

    With a roar, she demands, with the psychic voice of her Ur-Sequencer. "That is MINE NOW!" and SLAMS her sequencers into the soul trying to pin it, tear at it faster. Slicing now at the essence of the hand itself that is grabbing. "YOU TRADE YOUR LIFE FOR ITS!"

    The hand, the limb, the enormity of what she just attacked is in half-shadow revealed to her. Something incoherently large and vast and godly. Boiling with rage that could crack worlds and with violence which has.

    "Whatever you are! You should be scared!" She yells at the planet sized entity, "If you ARE NOT, THEN YOU ARE UNPREPARED." Then, to spite this thing, she tears a large piece of the remaining essence of its prize. Destroying the daemon that took from her, proving to even the gods that what is hers. Is HERS. Then eats it in front of it trying to find EYES to make it watch.

    It doesn't spare her a second after that, moving to its business, treating her like an ant. Boiling rage builds, worse than she's ever felt, worse than anything, overpowering loneliness, love, hate, for a brief moment, all Lilith feels is the red fury of the Essence, the absolute pinnacle of feeling channeled merely to hatred.

    A feather lands in her hand.

    No… She thinks, the feather held. One white, to match the fist full of purple one's she stole. No. She reaches down cradling the body of Celestine. Another fucking Love stolen by fucking birds. The body is smaller than she was. Merely human, with scars and injuries, blood on her lips, hollow eyes and armour that seems less peerless than before, skin with flaws, hair matted with sweat. Mortal.

    "Oh…" Lilith realizes, "Oh you're not pure light… You're… Coming back." There's conviction, as she reaches out, and takes a second pinkie to match with Kerrigan's. Her lovers would remain with her always, as she places it inside the tangle of limbs in her chest next to her heart. Feeling, slightly warmer. A little bit of gold dripping out of her own ribcage.

    "I could have infested you…" She whispered, "But I'm immortal, I can wait for you to come back as you are." She touched the woman's head to hers. "You'll be back. You'll be back. I gotta go, I'm still a heroine after all." She drops the body, and searches for the next place to help. She fires spines and acid at the things approaching her Primarch. Reaching down for one of the Chaos Astartes weapons firing it as well.

    The battle dies down, the Primarch clashes through the remaining opposition like a god of war, loyalists surrounding traitors and the bridge being retaken with the efforts of Lilith and the practical army here. As everything calms, the white feather shifts in Lilith's hand, tugging a direction before stilling.

    Find me.

    "I promised to wait for you, I have other promises to keep." Lilith said crying, to the feather, talking to it as if Celestine was there. "My promises to everyone else are important too." She's pleading with it begging it to forgive her, "You… You wouldn't want me to find you… You'd want me to get our Primarch to Terra. I'll keep the feather ok? You can give me words of encouragement." That too is placed into her ribcage next to her heart. "I hate birds." She whispers.




    "Primarch, what are the words you say when an Angel dies. I can't think of anything to say." Lilith says weeping, holding Celestine to her chest. She can't believe it was so fast.

    "There are none." Guilliman may have had a flicker of emotion pass over him, but it was crushed under the stony mask of duty.

    "I keep forgetting you don't come back." She admits, "I keep looking and thinking, oh it's just a minute, she'll be right back but she won't. It was so fast. I didn't have time, did I?" She's not really, talking to Guilliman now. "She called me beautiful, I didn't have to ask." There's a pain inside her that she can't let go, as the tears grow and and— She stops.

    She stands. She takes a deep breath, she couldn't… Break down like this anymore. It was a waste of time. She had switches. Turn it off. She very quickly reached into her own essence with a sequencer, but she didn't know where to put the knot. So… She left it, and simply ignored it.

    Lilith looks to Guilliman quietly. "At your orders Primarch." Chaos would burn for this.

    A weight falls over the Primarch, the crushing weight of Imperium. Yet he bears it, the stony mask of duty not cracking yet. "We burn to Terra. Our crusade is not finished."


    "After we win, I would like you to tell me stories of her. I don't have any." Lilith whispers, letting a single tear out. "It will be fun." The voice does not sound like it will have fun ever again. Then she reaches out, and with a new found strength hefts the Saint's giant sword easily.

    "I only know a few. But they will be told." As he watches the blade flicker with flames at the touch, a scalding comfort spreading from it, like an echo of the Saint.

    "Does it go… Into a statue or…?" Lilith says as she looks at the sword, sheathing it.

    "She will want it returned. I'd keep hold of it." The Primarch answers as the bridge comes to life again, preparing .

    With a nod, Lilith uses a piece of herself to attach the giant sword to her five foot frame, finding a way to accomodate it. "I will have to sequence myself a bit taller unfortunately. I'll be in my Behemoth, if you do not need me at this time."

    Guilliman nods, dismissing Lilith.

    The carrier allowed the Behemoth to rest inside, where Lilith's home was. Where Anastasia was. Where the Evolution Pool that she borrowed from Abathur was. She quickly laid her sequencer along the length of the blade. Saying nothing to Anastasia. With a data pad she measured it, then herself. Her torso, arms, and legs. All carefully measured. "Call Abathur… For me Anastasia?" She asked quietly, looking away.

    Moments later, a deep rumble as Abathur spoke through the Astropath, said, "Project Lilith."

    "Ur-Sequencer Abathur. Devouring Daemon Essence, permanently stronger.    " She says quietly, "Need to use larger weapon. Emotionally distressed. Guide through sequencing. Measurements," She rattled off a long list of Leg, Arm, Torso, and other numbers. She would be bigger now. In more ways than one.

    "Apologies for… Breaking Greatest Achievement." Lilith says quietly, "I'm… Sorry."

    "Magnum Opus. Not Queen of Blades." The Ur Sequencer said, "Project Lilith Adapt. Build Social Networks. Plan."

    That was the nicest thing Abathur had said to possibly anyone outside of the Overmind. Maybe even including him. Lilith took the compliment with grace, as Ana acted as a connection between the two. She made herself far larger so that she could carry more. She was now taller than Ana, Her many tendrils and Sequencers had been improved with more aggressive muscle, more efficient ligaments, no longer needing to be an unthreatening diplomat, she shook off the shackles of seeming… Approachable. She permanently sequenced both fingers, and both feathers inside of herself. Cracking her neck after multiple hours. She kissed Anastasia.

    "We won, by the way. It just cost a lot." She said it to Abathur, and he disconnected, knowing that his Magnum Opus was bettering the Swarm.
     
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    • B01-032 - Letters from the Front
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    • War came to a hundred systems. The Swarm and Imperium united in a viciously violent purpose. Great guns break fleets in newborn stars of violence and explosives, worlds burn or are consumed, the chaotic horrors on the ground below reduced to ash or meat depending on who got there first.




    Celestine,

    Well, you're dead, and I don't know how to catch you up to speed. So I'm writing letters, today was our first system taken in the war since your death it's… Fun, but I miss you. I have placed your feather next to my heart, but you need to shut up while I'm fighting. Guilliman has taken to letting me call him, Ana and I are still on the Rage of Mercury with Varynna the chats are nice. He seems… Sad, most of the time. He doesn't show it. Lord Admiral has also given us free reign of the ship, and Ana has been intensely curious about the Astartes, her angels. Not sure what she sees in them exactly, but I've never enjoyed the company of men. Well most men…

    I miss you. You've been dead a day and it eats me up. I feel like it's my fault, I should have done… Something different, I don't know what. The Primarch being dead or worse ransomed would have been ruinous but I sacrificed you for it. I guess I'm truly a soldier of the Imperium now. There's more fighting to be had soon, but I love you. Ana says Hi. Also met a cute guard, she's nice.

    xoxoxo
    -Lilith von Illar



    Celestine,

    More days, more systems. I've been fighting with Guilliman, I thought the Astartes and guards would be freaked out with me in all Xeno'd out but they seem grateful for something that can past warp shielding. The cute guard's name is Lila, and she's an Officer, so Ana and I have been going on double dates with her at the Officer's bar. I know you'd think it's ok because you'd tell me to follow my heart I think, I can't wait to show you my trophies. I've been picking up cool rocks and things from the different systems we've tak

    sorry in the middle of writing this one, we got rammed by Chaos, but we ended up winning out in the end. Lilia and I are kind getting hot and heavy. She's really nice, I can't wait for you to meet her.

    xoxoxoxo
    -Lilith von Illar



    Celestine,

    We've taken many systems now, but I'm losing count. Lila is dead now. I offered to infest them, and they preferred to fight at the side of their god emperor. Of their fucking rotting god, made of bones and metal. I hate them. I have killed my second Extremis since I've started fighting Chaos, and while I still enjoy battle, I'm finding myself getting lost at times afterwards. Noises are starting to bother me greatly, and when it is quiet I can hear the sound of battle in my ears. It's probably nothing though. Your feather now cries constantly to come find you, I know it can't be you anymore. They know the swarm is a threat.

    They don't know hearing your voice only gives me strength. I will return to you.
    Regards,
    -Lilith von Illar



    I almost died. I got so close to dying this time, they broke through the backline and got to the Behemoth I think they're targeting me now, I had to activate my own Thanatomanic drive so that I could slice myself. I've learned that it's guilt about what I could have done for you that gets me. I think I could have done… Maybe it would have been better if I chose you instead of Guilliman. I would have been happier.

    I'm fighting with Anastasia now, she's not happy with me. I think she's not jealous so much as scared. She has to cease being as they tried to steal her instead of kill her this time.



    This is how Chaos plans to haunt me. Guardsman or Astartes who catch my affection die within hours if not days. Ana now dies, is stolen, or worse forcing me constantly to choose between her or Guilliman. This war has damaged me. I have killed my third Extremise. I long for either rest or death. I am not entirely sure anymore what the difference would be. We almost have reached Terra.



    I now spend my days alone, to protect the the remaining soldiers of the imperium. I ask for affection from Ana, but it's stiff and cold. I know she blames me too. Everyone blames me. Terra has heard of the swarm and demanded that I stay far away with my dreaded abhumanity. Only Varynna brings me comfort anymore, but this campaign is wearing on her as well.

    Celestine I am so tired, I long for positive touch of any kind, it does not come. The only joy I have left is death, and even that is beginning to feel hollow and empty. It's only been a month. Am I so weak?



    Fourth extremis, twenty three deaths Lilith, fourty six deaths Ana



    Ana no longer speaks to me twenty seven deaths Lilith, Fifty-two deaths Ana



    Chaos try to take Swam Systems behind us. They failed. thirty-one deaths Lilith, sixty-seven deaths Ana



    Your feather now screams at me. Calls me a bastard, a whore, a fool, a coward. Unworthy of love because I will not look for you. They are most likely right. I've lost count of the deaths now.



    Terra soon, last fight, will be the worst.


    The Primarch takes to the field, always, whenever there is hope for the world, he is heading the assault, cleansing Chaos with blade and fury. The now powerful form of Lilith swinging her own flaming sword always nearby, where the fighting is thickest. Its on schedule, the prescient prediction of one month almost exactly on track.

    In that final jump, nerves rise amongst all here as Terra beckons, the Zerg feeling something overwhelming nearing, a power that stretches past the world, past the system and glares down at all who approach. A golden light, tyrannical or protective depending purely on whom sees it.

    In a jolt, the ships fall out of Warp to see Sol. The home of mankind. The star burns brightly, a haze of thousands of ships in space around it like dots of black on its colossal visage, Mars in the distance, magnified by sensors lurks with a massive, interlocking series of iron rings rotating around it whilst Terra, Earth, is a solid wall of city, grey and gold and black mixing in continent plates of society, not one ounce of green left anywhere on it.

    Lilith can't help but balk, Look what the Terrans have done to their home. She pushed down the disgust. Of course they did. Knowing that it would not be Ana who reached for her she simply reached out and hugged Ana with a deep seated unwellness as she stared at it. I wonder if Chaos fears us yet… They will soon I imagine. Lilith didn't talk much after the death of Celestine. War was exhausting, Anastasia had never been taught or allowed to learn how to take the role of support, or comfort, and Lilith gave the aura of steel rebar creaking dangerously. A taught destructive forces moments away from snapping. Varynna, would have been able to help most likely, but she was on her own ship, fighting alongside them.

    When she saw Varynna again, she wondered if she would still see Lilith. She thought of her eyes, that knew her. That cut her up into slices and scanned them. Lilith would wait, the Feather in her chest whispers, Come Find Me, but now she knows that is a Chaos Trick. Celestine was a Saint. She would never beg. That too, she wondered about, as she literally chewed and supped through Chaos forces, whether they knew they only brought their destruction sooner with these tricks.

    She spent much time polishing Celestine's blade, mostly because of the comfort and the warmth provided. Similar enough to a hug that it filled the space. The blaze of it, she knew would keep her comfortable. Chaos corrupted in many ways, she then knew, that she hadn't known before. Chaos also had uses. The blade however, only gave her comfort, and she knew it was pure.

    "I'm going to ask Guilliman to let me accompany him." Lilith said to Anastasia, her voice flat and even. Then looking down with a smile, "Don't worry, I'll be less morose after this. I don't trust Terrans. I think I'm one of the strongest things that could be by his side right now."

    "I trust you." Ana answers simply, still worried for Lilith, but accepting of her drive.

    "I love you too," She said smiling, not really listening, forcing herself to hear the words she wanted to hear. She learned the pretty truths could work both ways with conviction. She gave Ana a kiss on the head. "Thank you." Guilliman probably knew already. He thought. He planned. She hadn't realized stretching herself with so little biomass would hurt for a while. She wasn't… Thick… Like the other Saint's or Battle Sisters. She was drawn out and lanky, like Leather stretched across scaffolding affixed by chewing gum.

    The fleets gather around the Throneworld of Mankind, the vast planetary defensive grids aiming at the fleet just in the terrifying fear that they may be traitors. The shuttles gather, preparing to take those who must go to the holiest of holies down. Lilith's opportunity is now. A vox caster looms within the Behemoth.

    "I am surprised Primarch, you truly do always answer if free." Very simple, to the point. "It's Lilith von Illar, I wish to accompany you." She had been calling him two or three times a week now. Mostly to chat, sometimes about Celestine, sometimes about the imperium. Something to just… Say something to someone new. "I will


    The Primarch looks as if the fury of a month of war had not touched him. As if blood and death and battle on a scale most have never seen is just the norm. He answers just as he would have answered thirty days ago, steady, "The High Lords are insensate your Swarm was allowed near the system, Lady."

    With a small smile, Lilith says, "That sounds like a yes, Primarch."

    Through the stone of his gaze, a slight flicker of bemusement forms, "You'll be the one listening to their jabbering. I am well used to it." It sounds like a serious warning, but the words used are less convincing.

    "I love jabbering." Lilith responds, "I come." She says, and leaves to the shuttle bay. Entering a recovered shuttlecraft, the infested pilot moves it into space and then into the atmosphere of Terra, plunging through black clouds in a plasma sheath, slowing down and moving alongside the Thunderhawk transporting the Primarch and his kin.

    The cities turn to more than just colours below, with light and life and prayer alike visible through portholes and audible through vibration alone. It flickers beneath at speed as, finally, a landing site is found. All of the shuttles landing in a golden pad, beginning to disgorge their passengers. The Primarch strides out first, staring at the colossal palace in the distance with a look of distaste, or perhaps that's the air quality.

    Once again, Lilith was grateful for the efficiency of Abathur's designs, as air was heavily filtered through microscopic spiracles. While a throat was fun, Abathur was right. It was inefficient. He had always been right, battle had made her realise he was right about many things. The place… was pitiable, she realised slowly. The stories of the thirtieth Millenium she had heard, made her realize just how tightly something had gotten its grips into the imperium. She was quiet, and followed Guillimans lead.

    He marches forwards, striding past supplicants who stare amazed at his presence. The caravan of armoured warriors behind him encircling Lilith and other valued figures, including that woman….Katarinya. She knew Celestine. The Inquisitor tosses a glance here and there at the blade in Lilith's possession, but leaves it at that.

    Lilith looks to Katarinya, "I'm merely holding it until she returns." Letting the low whispered words hang between them.

    "I realize, Lady von Illar." The Inquisitor answers, keeping her eyes forwards, "She will come for it, and you were trusted." It's a faint praise, she is a woman whose career was built exterminating the impure.

    It never bothered Lilith, none of it did anymore. People were people, and if they came to fight then there would be no stopping it beyond kindness and strength. Mincing words seemed… More pointless, now. "Nothing makes me happier, than knowing some day she will take it back." The empathy finally stayed in the box, just a bit. Not an overwhelming surge of love that ruined everything. Just a pip to show it was possible, and then put back away.

    Gold armoured giants stop the caravan, crossing halberds as their Guilliman-equalling size proves daunting. "Peace be, Custodes. I am here to speak with my father." He carefully speaks, looking into the red glaring lenses of their armour, flaring plumes drifting in the wind.

    "You alone will." The voice of the Custodes is as one, all of the ones in formation blocking the caravan unified. This makes Guilliman's stone mask shift, annoyance flickering.

    Lilith's neck hairs stand on end, as she starts to count heads, and observe the room more quickly. Still not fucking tall enough to see over people. Then the other humans for she too was human, she knew it because of Celestine's light. Looking for reactions. The slightest signs of shock were not good. They were big, Guilliman big, she gently loosened herself, realising she was getting wound like a clockwork toy. Surely you can take a Shield Maiden, Guilliman. She thought to herself.

    "Very well." He growls at them, "I demand my honour guard." The Custodes shift, considering amongst themselves, the almost silent whispering of their communication barely reaching any ears. They arrive at a conclusion.

    "Select three." They demand in unison, commanding the Primarch. Lilith was proud of herself, she didn't even give a derisive snort. War had finally given her discipline.

    "Lord Defender Marneus Calgar. Inquisitor Greyfax, Lady Von Illar. Follow me." He marches forth, pushing past the Custodes as they only move at the last second. The Primarch continues the march to the Palace, so close as to be felt, its towering, miles high walls shining and golden, the interior makeup vibrating with energetic reinforcement.


    The first name mentioned marchest forwards, an Astartes with the beginnings of grey in his hair, the first Lilith had ever seen with such. The second begins to follow, by far the smallest person here. As Lilith follows she readies herself silently. Greyfax had… That look. Her look. She wanted to tear it off sometimes, make her give it back. Probably better that Lilith made no attempts to get close. Though that was obviously insane.

    Then, as a feather whispered in her chest, and tickled two different women's pinkies Lilith remembered that she was also obviously insane, so at least it was sensical. She was an Inquisitor, she was careful not to stare. Surely the Xeno would just make her nervous. Even as she wins this entire war for the Imperium. No. For her.

    The gates of the Palace slip open, grand gates that could stop an army opening before the Emperor's Son to reveal scores of Custodes inside, lockstep and ready to jump into battle at a moments notice. Guilliman strides between them without fear as he arrives before another, smaller gate, leading into a chamber that glimmerss with rays of light.

    Inside the Palace is a place of gold and luxury and wealth beyond measure, every square inch coated in value. Warriors fade into the pillars, Lilith realizing their armour is camouflaged for this place, nowhere else. The opulence disgusted her personally, but not with fire anymore. Just more pity. Machines whirr, pumping fresh air from vast ceiling vents that blend in almost perfectly with the rest. The two others are looking around in wonderment, surprised at even making it here.

    "One will enter." A mechanism voice pierces the ears of everyone, gurgling with static and scrap. A titan of merged flesh and machinery crawls on a hundred miniscule, for his size, legs along his bottom half, most of the twisted arcane cybernetic merger hidden under red robes as a true machine man glares, six-dozen red and green lensed optical sensors on a mouldy, ancient face shot through with a grille on its mouth and barely any skin remaining.

    "Go, Lord Guilliman." An armoured warrior, human, with decorations all over his chest and the sag of age on his features answers, flickering in through a telepresent hologram. He bears the medals of generations upon generations of war, the stark, empty eyes of command across time immemorial.

    The doors start to creak open, letting streams of golden light past, which fade into sparks that vanish in the air, the Saint's aura, writ large. As it clears, a sight is revealed. A massive throne bearing a similarly massive skeleton. A red cybernetic eye the only still present sense on the degraded corpse, ticking, hissing machinery forcing life into the bones, keeping it, somehow, terribly, painfully alive.

    The things they do to stay alive… It's horrific. She couldn't help but think. Empathy, raw, and unfiltered once again leaking from its damnedable box where it belonged.

    "Father." A voice, grand and proud and yet so much like a child, seeing his parent hurt, weak, no longer inviolable escapes Guilliman before the stone shifts to cover and crush it. Restoring the visage, restoring the Lord. He takes a step forwards, hovering at the edge of the door.

    After a long wait, dreading this, he speaks again, "I come to demand answers." THe Primarch steps into the chamber, and doors snap shut behind him. Light gleaming through the edges of the entranceway as something happens. The machine man slinks back in a noise of mechanism, hiding in a side room whilst Katarinya, Marneus and Lilith are left to stand in the midst of the chamber, surrounded by Custodes.

    Lilith, pulled a coin from the clothes she now wore, letting it slide over her fingers in nervous energy. The coquettish dance that was now second nature and elegant, was almost as if the coin was a part of her. Letting it work its way around her fingers in a silent ballet. Sometimes it looks like the coin is dancing around the world, and sometimes the world looks like it's dancing around the coin. The irony of playing with a throne in the palace doesn't escape her.

    The other two honour guards glare, even the custodes seeming to be… Insulted by her lack of decorum as eyes snap to her. She puts her hands up, and then puts the coin away, waiting. Eyes searching the room as… Whatever… Was happening inside happened. This was the imperium palace, Lilith was positive whatever the end result was, it would be uniquely horrifying in a way that personally upset her.

    She considered for a second making a joke, but thought better of it for once.

    Hours pass, the glow intensifying and lessening in an almost rhythmic pulse, until finally, with a groan of effort, the gates are opened from inside. The Primarch pushes into the entrance chambers with the honour guard, and there is a glow in his eyes, golden and fading.

    "There is reason." He says, as if victorious, "And there is hope." Guilliman declares even to the small collection here. "I take what is mine, the title of Lord Commander. The weight of the Imperium shall fall on my shoulders, and I will lead it out of this darkness." The Custodes stomp their halberds once in response, a keening, echoing noise that ripples through the chamber.

    He arrives before the three he brought, "If you three wish to follow me. You still may, but I release you of your bonds. You are free." A declaration, shucking bonds of duty. Marneus falls to a knee immediately, "My pledge remains, Primarch!" A shouted loyalty, unquestioning, unceasing.

    Not knowing the protocol, Lilith dips her head, "You have me and Mine, Lord Commander." Looking at the Astartes, not sure if that was an everyone thing or not.

    "The eye of the Inquisition remains, Lord Commander Guilliman." Katarinya keeps her cool even when confronted with such… majesty. Inclining her head, but not falling to a bow.

    Did she just out-do me in a game, Lilith thought for a moment. Then I miss Varynna. Feeling a bit of her old self again returning, Lilith looks to Guilliman, "Meeting went pretty good then, huh?"

    "Something of that nature. Yes." He answers, stone returning to him slowly.

    "I need you to know where I am anyways, so Celestine can find me." She says, letting the giddiness wash over her. Feeling something… Twinge inside, in the box. In the deck. In wherever she called that space where things go to be left untouched. In Swarm-space she observed, Ana and Varynna, but they felt so distant, the light so bright it made everything funny. Even Ana's voice seemed a little tinny in her ears. Get ready to celebrate. He's happy. Maybe Varynna should shoot her shot.

    "My first task for you, and Inquisitor Greyfax, then, will be heartening." Guilliman promises, "In a vision, I have seen where she lives again."

    "I leave at once, I can start going now, and you can have someone tell Ana." She says, turning and almost running out. "I need to prepare the Behemoth." As she starts to walk she stops, looking at Greyfax. "You're holding me up."

    "Where is she, Primarch?" Greyfax ignores the words from Lilith, gathering information first with the honed edge of an investigator. "The Hive World of Necromunda." At that, Katarinya turns on a heel, marching off.

    Lilith is nearly out of the Palace by now, almost sprinting the moment it wouldn't seem dangerous or indecorous to do so, Change of plans Ana, we go to Necromunda. Greyfax is coming, or taking her own ship. I'm not really overly concerned what the prejudicial ass does.

    "You will be coming on my vessel, Von Illar." Greyfax commands, "I will not have the enemy know we are searching for a Saint."

    T"How did you catch up to me?" Lilith said, turning around, "I walk faster than most men can sprint."

    "I am a psyker." She answers, as if that explains everything.

    "Cool, join the club, I seem to collect them." Lilith said, fuck I hate… She looks wrong and sounds wrong. For once feelings not coming as easy. "We can take two ships, or we can take my ship." Lilith finally said, not slowing, "I'm not going without my family, or my home. I don't really care by what authority you plan to stop me with."

    "I plan to stop you by your idiocy." Greyfax jabs, "You will not drag a psychic beast through the warp to the hiding place of Saint Celestine. You will not." A psychic emanation suggesting something deeper than just practicality lies behind the words used. "You will listen."

    "If it's idiocy, explain. If the explanation is good, I will listen. If you are used to being unquestionably followed, you are going to struggle a lot more with this then I will." Her jaw sets, as she looks her in the face, and then tries to stop herself from getting… Sad at her eyes, before looking away.

    She glares back, "You alone are a problem, a unique presence in the Warp. They know your scent. But I can hide it. That creature, I cannot hide."

    "Fuck." Lilith says, "That's a very good reason. A very good reason. I need to move something to your ship, a single piece of… Furniture."

    "Move it quickly, we leave when the fuel is done pumping." The Inquisitor answers. Continuing to the shuttle.

    In swarm space, Lilith wills her hatchery to spawn a single drone, then sent it to herself. Ana, meet me at Greyfax ship, we can't get the behemoth. We're allowed a piece of furniture, take the drone with you. Lilith was unclear when she got so demanding and she tried to soften herself.

    Yes love. Ana obeys through the link.

    Sorry. I love you. We're going to… I'll tell you when you're on the ship and why. I don't actually know how safe swarm-space is to chat on really. She says, growling, Also Greyfax looks like Celestine and it makes me want to gut her. It's not sensible.

    Alright love, I'll get everything ready. Tell me how else I can help.

    The little box peeps, say I love you too? Say… It unprompted? Say… You're fine dear, I'll be… better. I didn't realise I'd get so un-fun so fast. I'll warm up soon enough. Sorry. You mean the world to me.
     
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    • B01-033 - Talk
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    • The Inquisitors ship is black, unmarked. A light cruiser with no identifying brands whatsoever. A shuttle brings a drone over and unloads it into the cargo bowels of the craft, morphing into the safety that a Hatchery brings to Zerg.

    Inquisitor Greyfax is pouring over documentation that Guilliman had written and brought over as the last of the fueling tubes disconnect from it. Reading them over and over again. "Do you know anything of Necromunda, Lady Von Illar." She asks Lilith, frowning at the pages.

    "Like a giant… Weapon factory… Planet. No, I know it's a hive world. I'm sure it's horrific in some fascinating way." Why are you being like this? She asked herself. "Sorry."

    "You are not apologetic. Do not lie to me." Greyfax flips the pages.

    "Fuck you I don't lie most of the time," Lilith snorts, "I don't say sorry unless I mean it, you're not important enough to feign wanting forgiveness from."

    "Venom suits you better." The Inquisitor comments idly, "A hive world is a city world. Every centimetre of the planet converted to house human life. Necromunda is one of the largest in the galaxy, the upper spires alone house nearly fifty billion, any attempts to count the hive proper are doomed to failure."

    "So… You were worried about one ship showing up to a planet of fifty billion." Lilith said, very annoyed.

    Snapping a look at Lilith, "One planet with an advanced dockyard and Auspex sense-net." Her voice is cutting, at odds with how much like kindness she looks.

    "Well excuse fucking me for asking a question." Lilith said, "I'm going to be following your lead here, but I'm going to match your attitude." She clenched her jaw, and pulled out her throne playing with it again, trying to find something to do.

    Taking a breath in a honed relaxation technique, she continues, "I have played the Tarot, and believe I have some idea where she is in the hive. That is the good news." Katarinya slowly works through the stress. "The bad news is that she is in the underhive. A layer beyond the touch of law or society, left alone for millenia to self-govern without the touch of daylight."

    "So… Like every other planet we've visited." Lilith said gesturing to the Imperial City.

    "You've never been in an underhive. Else your tongue would be tempered." Katarinya speaks, flecks of venom in it as she reinvestigates the paperwork

    There's a quick smirk that Lilith tries to hide, "You'd be surprised how tempered my tongue is Katarinya." Then she looks at her, "Well. No. You'd only hear tales."

    "Saint Celestine was sure to mention your sinfulness, yes." She glares at Lilith.

    "That's not what I meant, don't be cra—" Then Lilith wondered if she meant her time with Celestine, or just her general… Attitude. "Actually, nevermind that was probably what I meant." She looks at Katarinya, and something makes her… Angry. "Don't worry, I'll be a good girl~" The last two words were breathy, trying to get a rise out of her. Suddenly wanting to test the limits of Katarinya's patience.

    Katarinya doesn't react to the words beyond scowling further, "Do not play filthy games. I have no interest." She barks suddenly, "Least of all with you."

    "Yeah, yeah, disgusting alien, whatever." Lilith said rolling her eyes, "God forbid I save fucking planets and fleets, I'm a disgusting freak." Then for good measure shows Katarinya her middle finger, "This means fuck you by the way. I don't know if it's carried forward this many millenia."

    "I hope one day, you throw yourself into a sun." Katarinya's barbs are losing their edge, as she catches a glimpse of Celestine's sword past the sheath with Lilith's motion. Immediately beginning to lose momentum.

    "I can't, if you let up even an inch I'm going to cry, so just…" Lilith turns angry at herself, "I'm nicer, normally."

    "And I'm angrier, normally." Katarinya admits, tiredly sighing. "The limits of a human body are something Primarchs and Xenos are unfamiliar with. I've come to realise."

    "I was human once, twice actually." Lilith said, "I know it, and Xenos still feel the limits of other parts."

    "I've been sleeping an hour a night for a month, Lady Von Illar." She stares forwards.

    "Jesus fucking Christ. Go to bed." Lilith almost shouted, "Go to bed. No-one could possibly want you to do that to yourself."

    "I do not ask what others want of me. I have work to do." The Inquisitor growls.

    Lilith's jaw set and she took a step forward, "Share the load, go to bed. You'll end up at half strength in this hive world, get shivved, and I won't know where to go."

    Shaking her head as the shuttle lands in her silent, near-empty ship. "If you'd like to share the load, pour over documents with me. I can't see an easy way to enter the Underhive in these plans."

    "Can you see anything? With 30 hours of sleep, in thirty days?!" She kept trying to cram down on the empathy, smoosh it back into its godDAMN box. "I'm… I care about people, I'm clearly not helping, I would love to pour over documents. Reading is one of my favourite hobbies on Illar."

    She hands a pair off to Lilith, quietly continuing her reading of maps. But still Katarinya can't stop tapping her foot. Eventually growling, "I can't understand how she fell for you. Fought with you." Exhaustion evident in how the words just tear out without fear.

    "In a jealous way, or protectful way? I didn't ask much about you when you were getting tossed around at the Victory Ball." Lilith said, "You know the one for me as honored guests of Varynna, because I saved a fleet of imperial ships, Varynna, and an entire fucking planet." Putting the maps down, and taking out her throne again.

    "Fuck off!" She throws the documents at Lilith, "If she hadn't done that, she wouldn't have been wounded!" Katarinya cries out, "If she'd ignored you, she'd be alive!"

    Lilith uses her tendrils to catch them all and quickly collate them, placing them neatly back on the desk. "No, I know you'd like to think that, but that's not what happened. She lost a fight, it's war. I was right next to her when it happened." Not engaging with the guilt, letting the box stay firmly shut, "I killed the Daemon that did it. Tore out its essence though they got a tiny fragment back the fucks."

    Like a deflated balloon, Katarinya collapses into the shuttle floor. "Do you want to know the first thing she said to me?"

    "I want to know everything about her," Lilith said, trying not to cry, keeping the BOX fucking SHUT.

    "We were on Cadia, my psychic focus." She gestures at the crystal topped gauntlet on her arm, "Was broken, I… am reliant on it. I described its importance, how it was its emotional weight which made it useful." She smiles, looking so much like Celestine.

    "She grinned, leaned on my back and whispered, "Could I be your psychic focus?"

    Lilith sniffled, "Oh… She liked you… That probably means you were a lot better than I gave you credit for…" She looked away, not wanting to be sad, not wanting the last month to spill out.

    "Since then…I had to protect her. She was so…pure, innocent–" The Inquisitor speaks, not minding interruption.

    "Perfect." Lilith said quietly. Wanting to die, wanting to not share this moment with someone else, not wanting to share this moment with anyone.

    "I am a monster, I will always be, for the Imperium I have done any…horror." Katarinya chuckles at the words, a hollow noise.

    Lilith rolled her eyes at that, "She told me… Why, Greyfax. It's the same… Reason that I'm not really bothered by you being an Inquisitor, or Guilliman being Guilliman, or Celestine even being Celestine. I treat everyone the same. She saw me, and she saw I didn't see a Saint. I didn't see an icon. I saw a pretty girl, who was very big." She huffed, "And I loved her so fucking much. She was the only person who told me… Anything kind, unprompted." Lilith can't stop crying now, just wanting to let it out.

    "She told me…that…" Katarinya trails off, confused by the turn of the conversation, but diving into it nonetheless. "I was still…valuable. That I hadn't tarnished beyond recovery. I did not ask." Its a vulnerable admission. "She was…kindness, forged in light."

    "She told a medicae to give me a las-pistol so I could execute my ex. Which means… She had a pretty good judge of character actually. She knew when people couldn't be saved as well as when they could." Lilith offered, "Sorry, all of my stories about people suck."

    "I think we should stick to her as a topic." Katarinya smiles, recovering quicker than Lilith in terms of the quivering tear that had not yet escaped. "Seems we shout less."

    "You know, a month ago, I didn't really shout at anyone too much. This was my first… War." She said quietly, staring in the distance. "My first battle was on Illar."

    Shaking her head, "I don't remember mine. This…this is just another war to me. Mixing with the rest because I haven't slept." Katarinya laughs.

    "I can't stress enough how much that bugs me even though it's none of my business." Lilith says quietly leafing through the documents, "I… Struggle with empathy. Not… The way most people do. A much more destructive way, I learned."

    "I have the opposite issue. I have no struggle with it." She admits, "Most…people are just vectors of risk. Calculations of danger to their fellows."

    "Oh, you're going to have a time then." Lilith echoed her earlier statements, "Everyone is a person, I dote on people. It's… Constantly making my life difficult actually. It's endearing. Stupid question, do you drink tea?" Lilith says standing up, "I can bring you something to drink, or recaf if you insist on not resting."

    "There's an inhaler." The Inquisitor points at a cabinet, "It's what I've been using."

    Lilith's face is appalled, "You've been using an inhaler as your sole nutrition for a month?"

    "I've been getting intravenous nutrients." She looks confused.

    "I cook. I assume the ship has a kitchen." Lilith asked, not even bothering to think about how fucking horrific that sounded. "I'm going to cook you food." It wasn't a request. "And you can let it get cold, if you choose."

    "I'll be checking it for poison." Katarinya answers the demand with her own.

    "Good, at least then I know you're not intending to throw it away. If you move the documents you can watch me cook to be extra sure." With that, she quickly left to get the provisions that Ana and Lilith had, and made herself useful.

    "I can see why she liked you, at least." Katarinya whispers, heard easily by Zerg senses.

    Thinking pointedly at the psyker, Same.



    Warp Travel is growing easy, the Inquisitorial vessel in excellent condition compared to many other ships Lilith or Ana has ridden in. It cleaves through warp-space and arrives at its destination rapidly, barely a day at Warp.

    Unfolding from that ensemble, manic space in a crackling portal, Necromunda can be seen. Where Terra is golden and glorious, Necromunda is rusted and black, spilling green toxic oceans into the vast barren plains that surround the great megacities, the great human Hives of wrought metal and broken nature.

    At the silent bridge, with just enough crew to function, Greyfax growls, "A den of heresy. I can sense it." Looking at the eyesore of a planet with hate. "I'd have it cleansed on suspicion alone."

    "Eh… Heresy is the one where you say bad things right? Ana?" Lilith asks looking towards her.

    "It's the one where you betray the Emperor, love." Ana speaks up, looking from a small knitting project she's taken up, a common activity with the Queen's on Illar.

    "I thought every planet was governed by it's own laws, that are then kind of in a big… Mesh that's the empire's laws?" Then Lilith touched her chin, "I'm realising I don't know what Heresy is."

    "I stand above law, I enforce the Emperor's will." Katarinya declares proudly. "The Imperium trusts my instinct above all other judgement."

    "Right so what's Heresy then." Lilith asks conversationally, "Is it like porn? You know it when you see it."

    "You very much know when you see it, yes." She presses down on a switch, lowering the ship towards the planet and beginning docking procedures.

    "Would… Blowing in an Inquisitor's ear be heresy?" Lilith asks, looking down at Katarinya.

    "...No, but I will hurt you." Katarinya threatens, not able to lie about that.

    Lilith looks at her, with a mock shocked gasp, "Are you turning red? Inquisitor, I'm a dirty Xeno, you can't have those thoughts about me."

    "I will hurt you." The threat escapes in an aged and grim growl.

    With a grin that reaches from ear to ear, Lilith can't help it. "My mistake, maybe you're just going flush because you're mad. I do want to see who'd win that tussle someday though." Lilith had been like this for the entire day. Her old self slowly returned, but more controlled and measured, actually pulling back occasionally.

    "Get off my ship." The Inquisitor says as the docking clamps lock on, holding it steady.

    "Do you salute an Inquisitor Ana?" Lilith asks, as she turns to leave.

    Putting her things together and following Lilith, she says "Typically, you pretend to not notice them."

    "Oh! I'm not going to do that, probably." Lilith admitted, going to the exiting ramp, and casually dropping down about fifteen feet, before the ship had finished docking procedures. Landing on the bay with a very light step. She looked up at Ana, who seemed to be choosing to stay, and called up "What? She said get off the ship!"

    "She told you that love! I value my knees and their lack of pain!" Ana shouts, waiting for the docking procedures to finish before gingerly stepping off the craft down the ramp. Greyfax is close behind, having gone from an almost gothic plate and coat to something near-normal. A coat thrown over a sweater and very generously pocketed long pants, ending with heavy boots, resembling a paranoid veteran rather than inquisitor.

    Lilith had gotten used to wearing clothes, finally, in the Imperium. Though her choices were… At ends, with her surroundings. A flowing black sundress, mostly to allow access from her tendrils at a moment's notice ended in low-top sneakers. Her foci had been sequenced a bit further to closer resemble hair, and in general she looked, closer to human than before. If not for the extremely odd clothing choices. Her hatchery had finally been able to create apples from Biomass, and so she happily snacked on one while she waited for Ana, in her robes, and Greyfax.

    "We've got to make this quick, port authorities are coming to welcome the Inquisitor, and I have bribed the dock staff to delay them." Greyfax walks past, "They will meet an Interrogator of mine whom is pretending to be me. Our presence will be secret." She continues, looking at the harsh drops of the spires down to the hive beneath with an uneasy eye.

    Lilith punctuated her sentence with the loud crunch of an apple. "Got it."

    Following the Inquisitor, they duck into side alleys and dark corners as cargo elevators take them lower and lower into the hive, a route planned before they'd arrived followed by memory as Katarinya displays exceptional spycraft, successfully avoiding all human contact for nearly two vertical miles until they're deep within the hive.

    As a teeming mass of humanity passes in the vast central causeways, tight and shoulder to shoulder, brushing past even Lilith without a care of who or what she is, under the almost-neon lights of the inner sections of this metallic cavern, Katarinya spots a flickering sign above what looks like a dive bar, "There, that establishment. I remember the owner's father."

    Leaning in very close with a breathy whisper that almost tickles Katarinya's ear Lilith says, "Ok, so what's the sign for me to start opening people up?"

    Twitching annoyedly, "I will shoot first." She answers, pushing Lilith away with a hand to her chest before storming to the bar.

    "Ma'am," Lilith whispers, shocked with faux embarrassment, but following quickly behind.

    Love, Anastasia asks, as they walk, Why are you trying to get the Inquisitor to kill you?

    As she steps into the bar, Lilith admits, I think if I showed my affection by being nice, she'd just shoot me. She needs to be teased. She yearns for it.

    The inside is something almost familiar to Lilith, some sort of jukebox playing what can only be rock music across the dive bar interior. Amasec's soaked into the floor, people are rough, reliable and violent besides. Dark light consumes everything, sending coloured rays from obviously salvaged LED's to light anything up.

    Anastasia, do you smell Rye whiskey? Lilith's eye twitches, as she looks around the bar, something sending hairs on end making her hackles raise.

    No, love, do you? Ana answers as Greyfax moves to the tender, a very attractive woman, riddled with electric lights implanted just beneath her skin in a rippling pattern, hair changing colour actively as the LED's shift to different tones second by second.

    Lilith shakes her head as she watches Greyfax talk, watching the hair changing color, and making note of that for her own sequencing, I've… I think bad things happen if you shoot a psyker at point blank range I'm learning.

    Generally, bad things happen at most ranges.     Ana says mentally whilst Greyfax speaks, "I've come to collect on…the gunmetal incident." The woman tilts her head, frowning. "Gunmetal-Oh." Before freezing, "That's…ancient news, that's…my great grandfather's time." Her voice is smooth, like wine poured on a sunny day.

    I think… I'm feeling the urge to talk suddenly, after a month Lilith admits, as she listens in carefully.

    "But you remember." Katarinya demands, "I need someone found." Her voice is low, but forceful, brooking no discontent, "If it is done quickly, I will consider the debt settled." The woman frowns, as if worried what she's about to say will have consequences, "I'm…sorry, but my family no longer…does that. It's been over two centuries."

    "Wait how old are y—" Lilith pauses, frozen in place, you had so much decorum what happened.

    Women.

    Women happened.

    Looking up at Lilith, the bartender smiles, "Oh, me? I'm twenty seven."

    "Right, so like, three generations separated from what is even being discussed." Lilith said, looking at Katarinya.

    "Well, I'm not useless!" She says, somewhat despondent. "Plenty of people come asking for grandfather's debts, I know who you have to talk to!"

    Lilith leans in with a big smile, "No-one said you were useless! I definitely didn't." Giving a Katarinya a gentle hip nudge to get out of the way. The Inquisitor growls, but gives way, sensing the winds of the conversation shift.

    "That'd be very helpful, thank you. I know it's your grandfather's debt, but if there's anything else you could do to…" She gave her a big smile, "Grease the wheels, that'd be terribly kind."

    She looks over at a dark corner of the bar, "Well, your first step is shaming him for sitting in the darkest corner alone." Her lips quirk as a pair of almost glowing white eyes glare back at her, "When he wants customers for his information."

    "Forgive him, he's… very smart in most ways." She apologetically states to Lilith, finding her an enjoyable conversational partner.

    Lilith smiles not quite looking at Katarinya she said, "I know the type. Does he have a favourite drink? Maybe I'll walk over with two, that way you also get something for your time! Later we can make it three or four after you get off."

    Smirking with a look of supreme confidence, "I'd prefer it before I got off-what was your name?" The Tender asks.

    "Eve," Lilith said, "They call me Eve, what about you?"

    "Torah." The now named woman answers, "Two Dammasine's sound good for now?" She pulls three bottles from the wall, starting to mix the drinks into a light green cocktail.

    "Yes ma'am, sounds wonderful," then she looked to Anastasia, I don't know what's an acceptable but sexy tip.

    Rolling her eyes, Ana answers, Three thrones for the drinks, two would be kind as a surcharge, yes.

    Reaching into her sundress as if it had a pocket, Lilith quickly pulls out five coins, stacking them all on top of each other vertically. Delicately putting the stack on the bar counter. At this point she was just having fun.

    As Katarinya walks past, she mumbles something about lust being sinful, moving to the new target.

    "I'm going to make someone blush by the end of the night," Lilith retorts at the mumble, walking over with two drinks. Placing one in front of the older gentleman and one in front of her self. Nimbly draping herself over the side of the booth as Ana scoots in.

    Katrina, on the other hand is standing, palms flat on the table, glaring at the man.

    "Are you going to threaten everyone today?" Lilith's eyes light up as she moves to sit down, with her own drink matching the other man's.

    "Your tattoos mark you as a violent offender." She growls at the man, "Spent time in an iso-cube for murder, did you? Would you like to go back."

    Lilith looks at her, "Okay, that's a way to start a conversation, I was going to open with the drink. He doesn't even know why you're threatening him yet." Lilith reaches out her hand, "Hello, I'm Eve! We're hoping you can help us!"

    "Hello." He says, staring at Katarinya with a look of confusion, "I don't know who you are, but the Arbites haven't come down here since I was a child. No one's arresting me."

    "Yeah, she's the type to just shoot people honestly," Lilith admits, "Which I feel like, is not going to be that useful, which is why I'm currently ignoring her and trying to go for a more peaceful solution." She takes a sip of her Dammasine, tasting a fizzy, almost herbal liquor, "Oh this is good, I like this."

    The man frowns at the mention of shooting, seeing the pistol obviously on Katarinya's hip. "Quite, tell me then, what my services are needed for." His eyes finally drag over to Lilith, "Call me Broker." Prompting Torah to groan at the bar, putting her face in her hands.

    With a light titter, "Perfect, we…" Ana, ask… Kat, what we want said please. "We'd like to settle the gunmetal debt, or… Find someone."

    Katarinya intercedes, "Find a woman, approximately six foot three, built, long black hair, scars on her left cheek, right side of her lip, burn on her inner left arm, stab scars in her stomach and chest, a burn on her lower back."

    Lilith then added, "and smells like cinnamon."

    Katarinya seemed exasperated at that, shooting Lilith a death glare.

    "She also has a bite mark scar on the inner thigh I think." She added, trying to stifle a grin.

    It takes the will of an Inquisitor to not draw and fire on Lilith at that comment, whilst the man answers, "Detailed description, rare, but good. I'll ask my network, I don't have a stake in the gunmetal debt."

    "How many thrones then, for fast, how many more thrones for discreet?" Lilith said again, now having so much fun. Especially when she realised that Katarinya was about to shoot her.

    "Two hundred for fast, four hundred for discreet, eight hundred for both." The Broker gives an estimate quickly, thinking it over in a second.

    Ana how much is eight hundred thrones exactly? She smiles thinking.

    A house, or two. Anastasia gives an estimate,

    So… Bringing thousands was a great, or terrible idea "Five hundred for both, or six hundred for both and you tell us whoever else comes snooping." Lilith threw in for good measure. "It'll be easy, I think I'm going to be coming back at least a couple of times."

    "Eight hundred, and I tell you of snooping. A thousand and I tell you before I answer their questions–" Katarinya grabs his head and puts it through the table, "Six hundred, you tell us, and I don't rip your mind apart, filth."

    "With respect, the violence, was implied by the gun." Lilith chooses her words very carefully, realising she had found herself in the room with another Sarah Kerrigan, but with more combat experience, and far less patience for it. "Please let the nice man go."

    The flicker of psychic power in her eyes suggests she's looking for something, "I think I might just take a hand first." She plants her clawed gauntlet hand on his wrist, the points digging in through the skin as he finally realises where he is and starts to panic. "F-five hundred, a-and I w-warn you!" He negotiates through a broken nose.

    "Free, and I let you walk." Greyfax growls into his ear, holding him down, "Be convincing, and I forget about your family." He freezes.

    "You have to know that torture doesn't work." Lilith says now with a surge of annoyance before gently tapping her leg with a tendril. "Please, let him go, can we just try it my way first."

    Growling again, she throws the man back into his seat, standing with a slightly bloody hand and glaring at him "Cooperate with her." Or else, the implied threat lands home.

    "Eight hundred you warn us before you answer any questions, and I come back with just this one, the next time we meet." Lilith said, jerking her head to the Astropath. "Because we'll be business partners and friends." Her smile was venomously sweet like sour apple candy.

    Grayfax seems perturbed that they were giving money away in such great quantities, but it didn't really bother Lilith, they didn't even know where they landed. Though the angry glares didn't stop.

    "Agreed, agreed," Broker says quickly. "I'll r-return with answers in an hour. I g-give my word!" Something Katarinya snarls at, "I know if you are lying."

    "Wait," She says before Broker leaves, "We have to get your money as well, we'll trade then," Before turning around sweetly, "When does your shift end Torah? I'll just come back around then, and then after we're both done with work we can catch up!"

    "I own the bar, Eve." Torah chuckles, waving Lilith off.

    "So just after closing." Llilith says, "Sounds great for everyone involved!"

    A flicker of light passes through Torah, pink and purple pulsing as she smiles, before the mass of humanity overpowers any noise when Lilith and the rest go outside. Katarinya loses the faux anger, or perhaps just lets go of the real anger. "I think I know our next destination, I saw images in his mind."

    "Tailing Brok— Oh." Lilith said, realising they were on different pages entirely.

    "Getting ahead of him. I don't care what he tells us." She growls, "He's scum, I'll throw him down a spire before I leave." The Inquisitor keeps her pace up.

    "True, and then when we make enough enemies, and we never find what we're looking for, we'll have a nice pile of corpses and prisoners for our troubles." Lilith says, keeping pace with a light skip. "Or, we be methodical, make sure we don't make huge I'm incredibly blood thirsty, government affiliated, and will not work with you waves and this all gets wrapped up before tea." Then Lilith stops, "I think I'm into tea now."

    "Despite what you may think, I've done this a thousand times." Katarinya retorts, "I know how to manipulate criminals, fear is perfectly effective in the term we need."

    "So… What's your batting average then?" Lilith teases, "Have you never failed?"

    Katarinya flinches. Then growls, "Keep that to yourself."

    "Ah shit I keep doing that. I might be a low-level something." She whispers, "I didn't mean that like that. I'm saying, you get two shots at it if you start kind, then go to fear. You only get one shot if you start with fear." Maybe she was a psyker, maybe she had an ability to just nitpick people's insecurities. "I'd like two attempts at this incredibly important thing we're doing."

    Crushing the anger down again, Katarinya answers, "I am aware, yes. I will be polite when the situation calls for it." She's clipped and measured, keeping her tone steady.

    Lilith dropped the tone for now, "Thank you, I will, out of respect for you and your patience, not tease you again until tomorrow." Then followed it up with, "You're a psyker, you have full permission to look in my head and see that I was going to treat you this way no matter what. Just don't snoop around too much there's… Fantasies like… Strung about, I'm told."

    Following the trail, or the future trail of the man, Katarinya lets the words wash over her, devoting herself to the work. She's a bloodhound with this, finding a way around every crowd and obstacle in minutes at most. That is until she frowns and then growls, "Damnit, too slow." At the mouth of an alley, dirt and trash filling the edges in a very homely sight to Lilith.

    She starts looking around the alley, her eyes suddenly feeling odd. Little flashes of memory hitting her. This world was… Just like home. Which meant that if there was a meeting that was going to be here, it'd be a drop, or there's be a way into somewhere more private. People don't just have conversations in alleys; it's very sketchy. As she walks through it, she notices a dumpster. It has similar holes for some kind of… Garbage truck, or drone she supposed to pick up, dump, and put back down.

    "Kat hand me a light," Lilith said, holding her hand out behind her, not looking at Katarinya, "A flashlight or something."

    "What did you just call me?" Katarinya growled, before noticing where Lilith was looking. Handing a globe that she shakes to Lilith, the kinetic force turning to light, bright light.

    Looking at the glowing golf ball, with a bit of amusement, she grasped it with a quick tendril, and held it inside. Then, she reached another into the divot, and pulled out a small piece of electronics. Which was most likely a data storage device of some kind. "Did we just miss him, because they left this?" She held up a long thin hunk of technology. "Looks like a storage device maybe?"

    "A dataslate-duck." She commands, pistol drawing out and flaring with energy as someone turns the corner with a heavy barreled weapon. It is no laspistol, a solid beam the size and thickness of a human head impacts and detonates the first man in a bang.

    "You… You… You didn't just kill him, you… just removed him from existence." Lilith said, looking at the viscera and gore, "My god. I want one of those." she yelped looking back at the gun.

    Coolly flicking the capacitor cylinder open, she lets a single steaming heatsink slip out, rotating and locking it shut. "Everyone does."

    "You must have extras, right?" Lilith asks, now eyeing it like a particularly juicy piece of fruit.

    "They are still around the corner." She loudly hisses, "And should turn it to surrender if they want to live."

    "Oh." Lilith sprinted across the wall of the alley high above the corner, and poked her head around the top of it to see how many there were. Four terrified men and women drenched in blood and viscera stare back, dripping slightly. One's just gotten done vomiting into a divot.

    "You guys might want to slowly walk into the alleyway, she thinks you're trying to kill her." She says from above, before sliding back down the wall, and then giving a gentle, affirming beckon with her hand, "Come on, before she starts annihilating people again."

    The four men and women slowly surrender though not entirely clear, what they were surrendering too or for. Lilith rubbed her eyes before turning her back on them. "Did you kill that man because he pointed a gun at you, or because he existed around you and happened to have a gun?"

    "I killed him because he was pointing a weapon at me, yes." Katarinya is vaguely insulted, "Or was going too. I rarely let my opponents draw on me."

    "Right, but then you don't really know if they're going too or not, because you've killed them already." Lilith said, "I'm going to let these people go now, they've surrendered, and are largely unarmed." She turns around and gives a surprisingly thorough pat down of everyone.

    "They know our faces." Katarinya growls, pointing her pistol at them.

    "Fine," Lilith says, and with tendrils very quickly ends all four of them, in deathly silence, in less than a second. "But I'm keeping the biomass." Her sequencer tendrils quickly slicing them down into raw bio-matter that she could carry with her between her Carapace, everything happens in less than thirty seconds. Then she smiles at Kataryna and Anastasia, returning with mischievous energy.

    Ana smiles back, blase at the violence at this point. "Shall we continue on the trail?"

    "Maybe, I'm curious how many more people Kat is going to kill for existing around her." Lilith muses somewhat loudly.

    "Would you like to be one such person?" Katerinya threatens, "One more mention of a housepet and I'll be glad to add you to my tally."

    "Only because you kno—" Lilith stops, "I promised I would stop Teasing you, and I will, but the nickname is a sign of adoration, not an attempt to get a rise. I'll stop that until tomorrow too though."

    She chases the objective in response, all the way until she realises, "It's far, damnit." And turns to a nearby vehicle. An elbow smashes the window in, and a jab of a knife turns off the alarm as she…steals a car in twelve seconds flat. Opening wires underneath the steering wheel, she fiddles with them for maybe another half minute before an electric engine hums to life.

    "Get in." She orders, unlocking the doors.
     
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    • B01-034 - Boxing Day
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    • "Ana, you should get in the front seat, if I get in the front seat, I'm going to poke her and get shot in the head." Lilith admits, before climbing into the back very quickly, rolling down the window to put her hand out of it.

    Ana sits in the front seat, idly saying, "I don't know why you think being behind her will go any better for you."

    "She has to reach behind her to shoot me now." Lilith says, as she points at the driver side seat. "It's a truce, now she knows she can trust me six inches from her ba—"

    Kataryna peels down the pavement as the electric engine lets out a high pitch choir that seems to herald it's coming. Lilith, is finding Necromunda a very familiar sort of place, and places a hand outside the window to catch air, playing with it as it runs over her hands. There's a loud screeech as Kataryna hits a corner, before peeling down another six blocks, making another fish-tail inducing turn, then three more before slamming the entire car to a stop in front of…

    "Where are we?" Lilith asks, looking at Kataryna."What are we even looking for?"

    "This." She squeals into a handbrake turn, moving into a parking spot easily and clearing a crowd in the process, opening a way into the pulsating, almost vibratory music of some sort of club. A sight for sore eyes for many. "A den of iniquity. Inside I can sense–"

    "Oh SHIT. It's a CLUB!" Lilith squeals, "Ana, we have to go dancing later, come on." She walks inside, "Before K— Our good friend, shoots up the place." She gives the bouncer a big smile and holds her partner's hand as they easily find their way inside, though before The Inquisitor almost pulls her weapon, she runs back out and says, "Oh sorry, this is our friend! She's watching over us, a little overprotective but she's really sweet."

    She is allowed in. Growling at the bouncer who looks apologetic, "My mistake ma'am, I know what being a veteran is like." He pulls a sleeve up, showing a tattoo on pale skin of some regiment of Guard.

    The inside of the place is vibrating with noise. Flickering lights sending beams across a floor where bodies press against one another, human scents heavy in the dark air. Something industrial pulses from the speakers, clearing out and shaking the walls with force. The clothing choices here are zippers, leather, black and ultimately revealing.

    Ana blinks, "I've never been somewhere like this before!" Her shout barely carrying over the music.

    "Really?" Lilith shouts back, "We'll come back later when we're not working. It's fun!" She gives someone a little pinch as she walks past, before running up the stairs to a second floor. Somehow far ahead of the Inquisitor, who is following psychic senses. Eagle eyes scan the room, when she very quickly sees one particular corner booth that is lively with conversation, and has a small strap barrier sectioning it off with two guards on either side. She takes a moment for the Inquisitor to show up.

    When Kataryna, now far past her wits end huffs and puffs up the stairs she says "We nee—"

    "To talk to the guy in the corner booth?" Lilith cuts her off, to an almost feral glare. "Right. Do you actually want to shoot your way out of here, or get what we're looking for? Also, what are we looking for? I can go either way, but I truly believe we could have this solved in fifteen minutes."

    "Do you want to know what I'm best at? As a psyker?" Katarinya says, catching her breath.

    Lilith stops, now actually a little befuddled, "Does psyker not just mean telepath / telekinetic?"

    "No," She answers, her eyes turning to a doorway, "I'm a diviner." And it opens to reveal three men, each carrying one side of an oddly human sized box.

    "Did they put her in a fucking BOX?!" A psychic boom resonates from Lilith, as she races towards the doorway. Slaughtering her way past the armed guards with ease, merely human bodies breaking on impact and Kicking the door in watching as it crumples another man, the second's neck snapped as she reaches out simply grips it with her full force. The third she crushes between her hands like a cantaloupe, splattering herself in viscera. "Ahem," She says, realising she might have lost her temper, before opening the box.

    As she opens the box, a dirty shiv is planted in her hand and a vicious scream is heard as a dirty, soot and blood covered woman scrambles out of the container and to a corner of the room, looking for an escape with dark, amber eyes. Long black hair matted and tangled, familiar scars mixing with new injuries and no recognition of anything in her gaze.

    "Remind you of who you are." Lilith says, realising what she looks like now. "Hey, I'm here to save you, not kill you. I would have done that when you shived me." she starts getting very calm and low. "I saw them carrying away a woman in a box, and I got scared for her safety I'm sorry I startled you with grey matter." She's even quieter as she quietly sits down, and pulls the shiv out of her hand.

    "My name's Lilith, what's yours?"

    Staring with an abject terror, the word Lilith gives something resembling comfort to her. "I…knew? I knew someone named that-I think." She whispers.

    "You did, For… Like three days. Does Celestine mean anything to you?" Lilith said closely, watching her face for recognition.

    "How the fuck do you know my name!?" She shouts, "Why does everyone know my name!" Hearing curses leave her is odd.

    Lilith sighs, sad, trying not to take it to heart. "There's a Saint. Saint Celestine, who has died… Sixteen times now, everytime she comes back. She has to be found, and reminded who she is." Lilith doesn't approach her, simply sitting in the space, happy to be with her, and knowing how horrifically threatening she could be. "She is… A loving person. Incredibly kind. To everyone. She had a lot of friends." Lilith nods, just letting her voice fill the space. "She was a protector. The sixteenth time, she died fighting a Daemon on the way to Terra, to protect the Primarc." A tear, a single tear she had been holding back for a while left, "I was with her, I tried to kill the Daemon before it killed her, but I couldn't. So she died about… Six inches from my fave. It was a little traumatic? To be honest? Probably like this is for you." Lilith laughs just staring at her. "She told me to go find her, I have a feather. I keep next to my heart."

    Lilith reaches into her sundress, but turns away slightly, "Let a lady have her modesty Celestine, please." To grab it without revealing an unfurling carapace. She retrieves a fluffy white feather, and hands it back to the young woman. "I have her sword, and before she told me to go find her, I was told she would come to me to look for it. I… Finished her mission, I didn't thinks she'd forgive me if I gave up on our Primarch. Then I found this insane woman," She pointed to Katarinya, "And we went looking for her. I think, since the feather, and all the psychic abilities point to you. You might be the Seventeenth… Er… Sixteenth? The latest Saint Celestine."

    "You're crazy." Celestine says to herself, "I've gone from kidnapped to in a room with a madwoman." Katarinya finally enters, covered in blood from another guard, "Two madwomen."

    "I cook though, and I'm very nice." Then pointing at her, "And she also adores you, and is very nice to you specifically. We have thrones, food, no-one's going to hurt you. If you never remember that's fine. If you do that's lovely."

    "Recovery in progress." Katarinya speaks into a wristpiece.

    "If you hurt her Katarinya, you die." Lilith says very very quietly.

    "Insult me again, and I'll have you and your hive vented." Katarinya has heat come off her at the very idea suggested.

    Lilith ignores her, "I'm not going to fight you right now, there's an infinite later for that." She looks to Celestine, "I'm a big fan of giant chicks with giant swords." She takes the sword off her back. "Can I return this to you?"

    Celestine's eyes lock to the blade, flickers of gold passing through them, inciting hope, but seconds pass as they fade and she shakes her head, "I-I d-don't want it, I-." She trembles, aches and pains from her scars nearly forcing her to curl into a ball.

    "Ok." Lilith says, not letting, or needing it to go further than that, "Can I carry you someplace safe?"

    She looks at Lilith for a long moment. "I…trust you."

    "Excuse the crying, that's just really nice to hear." Lilith says, sniffling. She gently scoops Celestine into a princess carry. Squeezing her, not too hard to her chest. "Would you like to hear… Stories about Celestine? Stories about Lilith? Stories about Guilliman? A song? Or do you just want to walk in silence?"

    "I–" An impact sounds through the tight hive hallways, prompting Katarinya to hiss, "Drop pods!"

    "We're going to start running now ok? Hold on very tight." Lilith is still speaking, very calm. "I'm going to get a little freaky from the stomach down, I'd keep looking into my eyes." She said with a wink. Then. She picked up Ana on her back, and she looked to Katarinya "Meet me at the ship?"

    She nods sharply, "Keep to the left."

    That was all Lilith need as she RAN, her entire body unpacking with the speed and force of a freight train. almost a hundred spidery, efficient thin Tendrils now moved at lightning speed. Ana direct me. She said. As she rushes past the landing pods, piercing through layers of hive in metallic detonations, one lands directly infront of her. Opening to reveal a large shape, dark burning symbols on armour. A threatening blade drinking light and sending chills up Lilith's spine.

    "Give me the Saint." The Lord of Chaos demands.

    She looks at him with a big smile, "Aren't you that guy I beat on Illar?" Before Speeding to the left, racing through the tunnels with inhuman speed, with a pace that caused wind to whistle, and surrounding objects to blur for it's passengers. As more and more pods jumped through Lilith started to use their holes to climb through layers of the hive. Running, ever faster. At one point there's bolter fire, and she easily slips through a random shop, a shop built like they've always been built for fourty thousand years it seems. Jumping over diner tables, slipping past familiarly unfamiliar countertops out back where of course people would pile cigarettes after a hard shift Her body stretching and morphing with glee, as she navigates the city almost one sense alone.

    And yet, with every third corner, it is there. Like a monster in a cheap horror pict, it keeps up without moving, subtle smell of ozone suggesting teleportation. "I will not ask again." It rumbles as Lilith dives past it and continues forwards. Slipping a sequencer to cut out at it's leg trying to slice open his ankle as she passes. A sharp hiss of pain as she tears out a slip of his essence. Crushing it.

    She keeps to the left. Every third corner, she keeps her eyes open, the first left. She dodges another pod, flexes, shakes her shoulders. The second left, she speeds up again, another corner, firing as she turns the third, unleashing a hail of acid and spines into the third riddling the Chaos Lord with divots and burns, but he still stands, this time, she tries to slip past, taking another knick of Essence, greedy. Cocky.

    And with that cockyness, his blade slices shallowly. Taking with it a chunk of her own Essence as the black-flame blade drinks in her soul in a deep, agonizing and violating feeling. Holding onto Celestine, she stumbles and comes to a stop, recovering.

    Shit she whispers, gritting her teeth, she rips out the damaged tendril entirely, dropping it behind her, letting herself recover from it. Abandoning the ragged cut with a heavy greedy clean slice. Stitching herself back up as she runs again. Thinking.

    "I can catch you, now." He taunts, mechanically pumping legs sounding like a freight train. Reaching out to grab at Celestine, forcing Lilith to roll to the side and make him skid to a halt. "Fight me, or die running."

    "I'd rather keep embarrassing you." She doesn't stop sprinting, trying to build up speed, knowing that speed alone won't be what saves her. She wouldn't actually win this fight. As she runs, she talks. Thanking The Lord Commander for her Spiracles. "So when we first met Celestine. I had just hit Ultramar the first time, and Ana and I were making up, because I tried to get her hooked up with a shuttle pilot, it didn't work out he was gay." Lilith said, with a chuckle, as Ana seems to tighten around her throat. "You recognized me, and picked me out because everyone else was shrinking at you." She leaps through a second shop, kicking open the door, then doubling back. Hoping the trickery would help somehow. "But I was being a bit of a sinner. I have a vivid imagination and you were very pretty. When you challenged me on it, I doubled down, because I'm also stupid when I'm attracted to someone."

    The Chaos blade comes out again, and she tries to slide underneath, another RAGGED cut to her soul. This time she pulls out a klay-stim hoping to god it work as she injects it directly into her heart and keeps running. "I was walking up the stairs, and you said 'LILITH VON ILLAR I NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE.' And I begged Ana to let me go assist. You hadn't actually needed my assistance really. You were just a cuddler. I was a lot shorter, about five foot four, you held me. I assumed you wanted, what everyone else wanted. A kind of easy lay that'd hopefully turn into something more. You whispered to me a secret, and I realised I didn't just need to win your affection, but that you felt like you needed to win mine. I said you—"

    The Chaos Lord is close; she can hear it. It's laugh echoing in her mind. "I said you were Warm. That you were nice. And then you, completely unprompted, told me I was beautiful. At first I was like that was sweet, but you phrased it as a question. I counted, in my life, how many times someone had called me Beautiful… It was once, by Anastasia. I had begged for it, basically at the time. Well, I melted." It's so close, but this was her only choice. "I just melted. You scooped me up in your arms, and you flew me into the sky. Then you and I kissed, and to be honest Celestine, not to brag, but I rocked your world after that. Like actual explosions of light so strong I changed religions."

    "Oh-WATCH OUT!" Celestine shouts as a blade catches Lilith in the back, dragging a furrow into it that sluggishly begins to heal. Ana cries out, struck as well. "I'll kill your love if you don't face me." The Lord jeers, "We have unfinished business. Swarm."

    She turns and she looks at Celestine, "I said I loved you, and I'd go to Terra for you. I'm really hoping if you pick up your sword, we can beat this guy. I'm out of options. I'm being really awful asking you to do this. Could you take your sword back? Please?" It's over my shoulder.

    The sword cuts through the air where Lilith was just a second ago. An armoured hand reaches for Celestine as Lilith is forced to push the limb away. Matching Astartes strength with a grit of her teeth before overpowering it with a growl, then saying, "Are you ready to die a true death today?"

    Two steps back is all he manages, "Are you?" He raises the Black-flame sword, its unlit edge terrifying in how it drinks in everything around it.

    Looking to Celestine one last time, "Alright, I'll do it, for you." And she pulls the blade out to match his own, it burns golden light in the presence of Celestine, and she holds it out in front of her. With a manic glee, "I am. We're going to make a symphony!" She yells, as she rushes in with the saint's sword, tendrils, sequencers, trying to pin his leg, swipe at essence, and bring the sword down all at once.

    The millenia old killer slips past blows, taking it as scraping hits to the armour whilst managing to intersperse bone shaking parries as the armours mechanism grants him power. A stabbed sequencing limb draws a line of blood from him whilst a crushing fist collapses multiple ribs on Lilith, in that breath to breath, helmet to face melee, he uses a honed swordsman's technique to lock blades and force Celestine's sword out of her hand, skidding across the ground. Getting pummeled with acid spines and spikes that cut through warp shields. No longer going for the sword, Lilith simply tries to attack from as many angles at once, using sequencers, tendrils, her own spines. Hoping to become a hydra of pain while almost silently slipping a silent tendril behind her to sneak it away. Forcing him to decide between defending the blade, or defending himself.

    He chooses to slash at Lilith, taking the blows to his sternum, armour cracking at the spines and then penetrated further by sequencing talons, internals filling with black bile. The sword impacts her, edge carving a furrow through the carapace and spilling blood.

    Even as she spills, she's still laughing, "When you die, I will rip out your last words, so I can send them to your masters." The blade is embedded in herself through a tendril, creating something far more familiar. Hoping beyond hope that the Chaos Lord had chosen poorly, dripping with nothing on her mind but love for Anastasia and Celestine she rushes in a new, using this new odd technique, something unseen. A new adaptation. As the sword Juts through a sequencer talon and out of her own chest.

    It slams into the chaos lord, plunging through breast plate and as she pulls out the now holy sequencer talon, she slashes at essence with the sword embedded around raw, actively healing flesh. Simply another blade that is an extension of herself, no longer a sword in her mind, but a claw, a talon. A talon she has been using to killed demons for a month straight.

    Her pride is cut short, as another ragged black flame slash cuts through the sequencer, sending the blade tumbling aside again, blood spilling from the scourged injury on the Lords chest. No more witty threats escape him, just heavy breaths of wounded lungs. Another slash catches her, forcing her back and onto the ground away from him as he catches his footing, trying to stay standing despite the inhuman injury.

    "Are you ready to die?!" She screams, as spiracles and pain nerves simply shut off around the damage, she rushes forward again. Not caring if she returns to a hatchery or dies. Not caring if he flees or fails. If her body will be unbearably damaged, crippled beyond repair. These chaos would learn to fear her. For destroying the things she loved. They would recognize her and FEEL something. She leaps to bury her TEETH, into the man's lungs, trying to rip. Them. Out

    The moment's unbearably slow. He's wearing a helmet, she doesn't know if the blade will catch her. If she'll strike home. If her hail mary will even work, but as she watches the man startle ever so slightly, she knew she won. Even if she died. She had scared him.

    A gauntlet grabs Lilith by the tendrils and throws her off him, impacting a far wall as pain nerves flare and deactivate, neural impact of hitting a wall briefly shocking the Zerg, barely a second of delay. "I will kill y–"

    A sword rams through his back and out his front, flaring with fire as a woman lifts him up. "Come, Astartes. Come and be forgiven." The flames start to reach across him, boiling the flesh in his armour in seconds of cleansing pain. As he stops moving, Celestine slowly lowers him to the ground, armour freshly cleansed of markings.

    Lilith looks at her with weak eyes, dripping blood, tendrils torn off, parts of her shrivelled and dishevelled. The black flame dripped across her essence, tearing at parts of her. Half her skull was crushed, with one eye lolling off to the side on a nerve strand. Her ribs had be pulverized, and parts of her skin had become tattered shreds.Organs were a leaky mash in a foaming pool around her, and the cut in her shoulder had partly severed her head. The one remaining eye, and the few remaining spiracles wheezed.

    "I had it covered."

    "I said I'd take care of you, no?" The Saint flexes her wings, floating over to Lilith, a hand banishing black flames and letting her heal faster, "Now." Her voice quiets. "May I carry you, Lilith?" She waits for a response.

    Lilith nods crying, "yesss ppleeeeease. Tha—tha—that sucked… Eeeehhh." Her macerated, hamburger-like form slowly pulled together as every part screamed in pain.

    Picking her up, she moves to Ana and gently pulls both women to her chest, wings flexing and pushing through the layers of steel hive above, piercing hundreds of metres of earth and metal in seconds of flight until she arrives in an arc high above the base ground, flying alongside spires in an unstoppable ascent.

    "We took all the systems to Terra… The Primarch is the Lord Commander. I'm sorry I did that first." She whispered quietly.

    "Why? You did something amazing." She tries to nuzzle Lilith, though the constant wingbeats make it difficult.

    "Your feather kept begging me to abandon my mission and come find you…" Lilith whispered sadly, "I knew you don't beg… But I liked hearing your voice…"

    Finally landing on a pad, she lets Lilith down, Ana finally blinking back to consciousness, less used to pain than the other women and rended by a slash that tapped bone in its passage. "Are we-Did we win?" She asks, looking around.

    "I made a Chaos Lord feel fear." Lilith said quietly with a bit of glee, "And I found out that there's almost no amount of pain that isn't fun." Lilith was still half hamburger, and mostly ligaments.

    "Oh, that's good." Ana is still dazed, whilst Celestine chuckles, "You two are a treat. And Katarinya, somehow, beat us here." She says as the Inquisitor stands at the top of the ramp, absolutely drenched in blood and metal shavings.

    She whispers to Celestine, "Her new Nickname is Kat, now, she hates it. I'm not going to stop calling her that." Then to Katarinya, "Hi Kat, I killed a Chaos Lord and saved a saint, what did you do?"

    The Inquisitor nearly breaks, growling before Celestine speaks, "Hello Kat!" The vibration of her voice and the fact she says it freezing Katarinya, eyes wide, words failing her and barbed insult dying before it ever escaped.

    Lilith looks to Celestine and Katarinya, "Um… Can you let Katarinya shoot me? It's way faster to get born in the hatchery, this is going to take hours." Lilith admits.

    "But Lilith." Celestine smiles, helping the aforementioned woman walk, "Then I can't dote on you."

     
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    • B01-035 - Knife Play
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    • Being doted on by Celestine is an experience that, quite literally, no one else in the Universe has had. She lowers to Lilith's level, kneeling next to the bed with a tray, her fourth tray, of cookies. "I think these ones aren't too badly burnt." She bashfully whispers, showing cookies that are, admittedly, an improvement over her last batch.

    An improvement meaning they are just black on the bottom.

    "They're lovely," Lilith whispered, as she took one and bit into it with a loud crunch, "Katarinya needs to sleep, she's been sleeping only an hour a day for a month. Anastasia I need to check on her as well." Lilith still hadn't stopped healing, but at least both eyes were now back in her skull. "She got hit bad, she's not tough like me."

    "I have an idea, I think you'll like it." There's a mischievous gleam in her golden eyes as she stands up, placing the tray on Lilith's bedside table and striding out of the room. Six minutes later, she has Ana hugged to her chest and a fighting Katarinya on her shoulder. "I brought room-mates!"

    "OH good!" Lilith said happily, "Oh good everyone's ok." Her breath starts to ease a little, "Please god Katarinya go to sleep." She murmurs, seeing Ana, "You ok Ana? You're so strong, thank you."

    Ana smiles, gently sliding into bed with Lilith and putting her head in the now larger woman's chest. "I'm very in need of cuddles, love." She asks, muffled.

    Lilith holds her tight, "Me too." She whispered, almost sad. The last month is finally starting to unravel. "Me too." She has a shuddering gasp, "Just hold me please." She begs.

    Anastasia wraps her arms around Lilith, and she smiles, at the touch. Her essence, at being embraced, feeling healed. Happy for the positive attention as it burns inside. She looks at Saint Celestine, and smiles, "No-one leave until I wake-up please. I need you all here… So I know you're all safe while I sleep. No-one else gets lost." Her eyes flutter as she smiles, letting them finally close. Listening to the room around her.

    "You heard her, Kat." Celestine croons to the Inquisitor, freezing her with a touch on the waist to pull her off her shoulder and lay her on the bed, "Sleep, rest. Do it for me." There isn't anything much more convincing in existence than that as Katarinya briefly tries to resist, but then finally gives in and closes her own eyes.

    A second later, Celestine kneels next to the bed, opening a prayer book and letting the three rest, standing guard.

    Lilith was the last to rise, but she rose healed, in a room full of everyone, though Katarinya seemed increasingly irate at not being allowed to leave. Not able to actually over-power, out-will, or convince Celestine to do what she wanted, she instead chose to pace, angrily muttering. Anastasia, whether my direction, or instinct had changed to hold Lilith from behind, so that she felt comforted. Celestine stood guard. Everything made her feel warm. Her eyes opened and caught Celestine's, so she winked, and closed them again for a few moments longer. Finally the pacing and muttering seemed to be accompanied by Kat toying with the gun on her waist, and Lilith had decided the moment had best be allowed to pass.

    She sat herself up happily, covered in a warm blanket, trying to figure out what to say. "Kat, I'd be concerned, you have two people who are extremely invested in your wellbeing now."

    "Ah, lovely." Celestine rises and grabs Lilith in a hug. Lilith returns it back with glee, squeezing her hard with silent sobs escaping her again. "I didn't want to hug you before, I thought I'd break you." She whispers.

    "I would have healed much faster, but I liked the rest." Lilith admitted, "That's why I didn't tell you to put me in the hatchery. The pools in there are almost instant. Then I realised you knew that, and I felt better."

    "Mhmm, I was being selfish. This new…Hive life has changed me a tad." The Saint mumbles, "You're no longer….the only one I've kissed." She admits.

    "That's fine, no-way they were as good as me." Lilith whispers, "I'm trying to decide if I want to be small or not. Do you want to bring them along?" Her mind is immediately drawn to what Celestine said, trying to suss out Celestine's needs the same way she susses out Varynna's and Ana's.

    "I like you tall, but I also like you short." She considers, "When you're tall, the image of me on my knees is less funny." She smirks, being intentionally loud and making Katarinya freeze again.

    "I think tall then." Lilith smiles back, her teeth gleaming, "though when I get more biomass I'll uh… Fill out a bit. I could actually be as tall as you I think, I'd have to talk to Abathur. I don't see why not, we have Zerg as big as spaceships."

    "You know, if you're that size, I'll stop treating you like you're fragile." Celestine promises with a wry grin, grip tightening to almost uncomfortable strength, far in excess of what even a body her size can doo.

    "Oh… A little smaller… Or A little… Larger…" Lilith said her mind now filled with ideas. "Oh… Ooooh!" The second noise is closer to a moan. "Well, we have forever, I'll experiment." Her mind kind of swirling. "You're not mad that I let you die, instead of infesting you when you got your wings ripped off?" Lilith asked, for some reason everything about that scene wouldn't stop playing over and over in her head. Trying to figure out if there was any way she could have changed things. Whether somewhere she had made an unforgivable mistake in Celestine's eyes.

    "Come now Lilith." Celestine chuckles, "I wouldn't look nearly as good without my feathers." The joke is a declaration of no fault, no forgiveness needed.

    She laughed, "You saw we have infested with wings. They're just… Far scarier. Far. Far. Scarier." Her mind rattles a bit, but she puts it back together quick enough. Her head feels light and floaty. "I was in the Golden Palace. That big ass door opened it was me, Grayfax, and the Old Guy. We just sat there for hours, and the light was so bright." She was blathering again, just happy to be talking to Celestine. "And… Oh I started playing with my coin, and everyone got pissed. We were standing there for hours, what were people expecting?"

    "They're always like that. Its why I tease them." Celestine laughs at the imagine,

    "I called Guilliman about two or three times a week as well, he's nice! He's cool. Killed a bunch of demons, I actually fought with him most of the time." Lilith continued.

    "Mhmm, he's impressively strong. Do you remember the arm wrestling contest I had with that Astarte?" The Saint chuckles at the memory.

    "Yeah, the one where we met." Lilith reached up to her face, completely forgotten where she was.

    Looking into Lilith with eyes of gold, smiling and full of care, not an obsessive madness, but a gentle love, a saintly one, she answers, "It goes much like that with him, except I'm the loser, and he's the one not using his armour."

    "So is he packing?" Lilith immediately blurts out, before wincing, then realising she was curious anyways.

    "I see Truth, not lewd facts, Lilith." Celeste rolls her perfect eyes at the question.

    "I suppose I'll arm wrestle him then, and try to survive it."

    "He disables the armour, dear. He can't leave it." The Saint explains, "His brother's killing blow still…weighs on him, it tore his soul asunder. Without the animating force of Arch Magos Cawl's tech-sorcery…he would not live." It suddenly gets serious, a wave of worry from Celestine making the whole room darken.

    "Oh good, you still do that." Lilith said happily, holding her tight. Hugging her, "I like comforting sometimes too."

    "You are incredible at it. I'll admit, that night, and day, and following morning before my death were…ecstatic." She leans in, barely an inch away from kissing Lilith.

    Lilith leaned in, letting her lips touch Celestines, gently, then pulls away content.

    "Is it wrong I have this need to call you a good girl after that?" A wry smirk breaks Celestine's image of seduction.

    "No, I am very good." Lilith says blushing.

    "No, I think it is wrong." Celeste's smirk widens, "After all, dear, you are the best."

    Somehow, lightyears away, a psychic tremor across swarm space tickles at Abathur's spine.

    "I was going to say something, but I think if I said it that The Inquisitor would actually shoot me."

    "Katerinya, what do you think Guilliman's manhood is like." The Saint asks, lacking any fear of retribution. Katerinya is frozen by the question again, "I…don't want to be in this ship anymore." She hisses, "It's my ship."

    "Oh she likes my cooking! By the way." Lilith says, "I got her to eat real food instead of intravenous Nutrient slop. I'm very convincing."

    "You were doing what, Katerinya Greyfax." Celeste's gaze snaps to the Inquisitor with force behind it.

    "I was working!" She tries to cover her sins with excuses. "I'm sorry dear, can I put you down? I have to…handle an unruly inquisitor."

    "Yes." Lilith said, not looking at Celestine at all making direct eye contact with Inquisitor Greyfax, "Absolutely."

    The Inquisitor is suddenly discomforted by Lilith's gaze as she is lowered and Celeste practically climbs onto the couch she was resting after an hour of pacing on, "I pulled you from the collection of an alien machine, Inquisitor." She speaks, gentle voice vibrating with power as a hand flattens the Inquisitor against the couch, her breath caught in the caring glare of the Saint.

    "I moved armies to see you safe, I killed avatars of dark gods. Shed blood in rivers." Katerinya manages a breath at that as Celeste is fully overtop her, casting a shadow of light and dark alike. "Why, the moment I wasn't there to tell you otherwise." She leans in closely, whispering in the Inquisitor's ear.

    "Did you stop eating food?" The Inquisitor has no words, her mind caught in some sort of flickering loop at the attention. Celeste leans up, tilting her head. "Oh dear, did I break her?"

    "M- M- My turn." Lilith's eyes had turn to stars, and her jaw dropped. Before catching herself, "You know, I think I had a cat that stopped eating when I left too actually, so the nickname fits."

    "Oh she's breathing, that's good." Celeste was focused on Katerinya for a time, answering Lilith after, "Hmm, she is rather like a violent, armed housepet." Her hand sinks into Kat's hair, ruffling it, "Can I call you Kat, Inquisitor?"

    "B-by your will, Saint." Katerinya stutters.

    Katerinya turns away to glare at Lilith, who is staring at her with… Adoring? Menace from across the room. Lilith said, "In my defence, I asked you multiple times to take care of yourself when we met."

    The glare turns to daggers before Celeste releases her. Lilith, at that, got a tiny bit nervous. Having thought that the woman would not be allowed to approach. "Ha… I mean, we're all friends right?" She said, quickly rolling off the table.

    "Far be it from me to stop a friendly quarrel.-Oh dear, the hive has changed me." Celeste realises as Katerinya jumps at Lilith with outstretched hands.

    Ducking under the table as Katerinya goes over it, the six foot tall woman scrabbles to get away. Suddenly, precisely aware of what it's like to me chased by an imperial inquisitor, as she feels something reach out and snatch at her leg. Looking down, it's Katerina.

    "HOW?" Lilith asks, as she tries to unfurl, unsuccessfully. "How could you… Learn to do that in a month?" A locked grip on her has somehow forced her body shut.

    "I've caught you." She growls, pulling Lilith underneath her and then suddenly realizing she can't do what she wants, a fist held back. "Damnit!" She shouts, slamming it into the floor next to Lilith's head.

    A wave of desire echoes off Lilith as it lands next to her. "Holy shit you were going to kill me." Lilith's eyes were wide, but not in the way they normally were for the Inquisitor. She whispers, "You know I go back to the hatchery right? You didn't have to chicken–"

    Her fist impacts hard, turning Lilith's brain into stars and images of light, strength psychically enhanced. "You shouldn't have told me that." The Inquisitor growls.

    "The danger makes it FUN." Lilith said biting her lip, "This is why I've been teasing you." Though, now she's taken a few blows, and isn't quite sure the words came out correctly.

    "Hmm, should I stop this?" Celestine questions, considering standing up from the couch.

    As blows rain down, and Lilith's essence leaves, she whispers, "No, no it's fine, I'm helping her learn to control her temper." As she's rebuilt in the hatchery. Coming out in a pulse of fluid and life-giving Essence, phantom pains of the brutal beating Katarinya gave out fading rapidly, the image of the woman so close to Celestine consumed with hateful rage burned into her mind.

    Lilith, as she left the hatchery, nearly fifteen minutes later still heard thuds on Lilith's corpse. Looking down the hallway, with a snort, decided to extend a hydralisk spine, excrete the acid. Blunt the end quite a bit, then flick it at the back of Katarinya's head from across the ship hall, watching as instead of hitting her, simply knocked over her hat. Like a kitten, who had just caught the tail of an elder cat Lilith watched with excited, large pupils.

    The Inquisitor stands, absolutely drenched in dripping blood that falls her fists, chest and face, eyes consumed with honed, focused, iron fury. Her hair falls behind her back, not cut in a month and looking much more like the Saint's because of that. "You."

    "I think we're both getting off on this don't lie." Lilith said, as she tried to see just how angry she could Katarinya. Now wondering how far she'd go if she knew her prey would never die. "Look you're all… Dripping, and red." It was Lilith's blood of course, but she had always been a fan of pretty Truths.

    Katarinya opened fire on Lilith's position, exploding a huge piece of the hallway, with a loud whistle and bang. Just barely missing her, a teasing voice from inside the ventilation yells "You missed me!~"

    "I warned you." Katarinya's eyes go white, rolling back as she senses something, putting a shot through the bulkheads and catching the vent Lilith is in with a wash of superheated air, forcing her out lest she be incinerated.

    "Holy Shit I love you too." Lilith says as she flops out of the Vent, trying to run in for a scrabbling hug.

    The energy is dragged out of Katarinya at that, "What!?" She shouts as Lilith tackles her into a hug.

    "You're awesome! No-one else is willing to shoot me! Ana nearly vomited the first time she did it on accident!" She realised that Katarinya had frozen in her arms. Gone fully stiff, completely unable to comprehend whatever weird Xeno bullshit was happening right now.

    "Get off me." She shouts, but the fight is now incredibly confused, as she's faced with very odd and alien ideas mixed with affection for herself. "Get OFF." She shouted again, as Lilith slipped away, though making sure not to position herself near anything Important just in case.

    Katarinya is confused, angry and freshly enraged from her personal space being violated. She storms to her chambers as Lilith scampers away, and, with a shouted, "I SEE YOU!" Striding white eyed out of her room with a blade, name written on the side. Tyrantslayer.

    Now Lilith had a new game, blades had a maximum distance. The new game was trying to see if she could poke Katarinya, before she got stabbed. Though, it wasn't quite going the way she'd hope, as it seemed she would react at speeds faster than anything Lilith had ever seen. Noticing that her tendril pokes were simply just a very slow julienne of her tendrils, she wanted to… test how many Katarinya could handle at once, first trying with two simultaneous, then three, then four, then seven, all dancing in, getting sliced or batted by a blade at lightning fast speeds. Lilith watched her with careful eyes, trying to create a pattern, a rhythm, When she finally had her moment, her chance, she lunged out!

    Realising she had no tendrils left. All of them torn to shreds. Katarinya eyes were milky white, and now she was smiling as Lilith slowly backed up the blade dancing closer and closer, tiny swipes, testing swipes. Then a large one that hit into Lilith's shoulder.

    "Oh meow, Kitty has cl—" Her sentence wasn't finished as the tip landed directly in the grey matter ceasing her speech, and in fact all signs of life. And again, Lilith popped out of the hatchery, though now… Oddly satisfied. In a way that was most likely unhealthy.

    She peeked out of the cargo bay where she hid the hatchery, but now there was an oddly cold chill down her spine. She took another quiet step out, her foot echoing on the grate. Another quiet step, as her ears listened for something.

    A heartbeat enters audible range as Katarinya's voice slips into Lilith's ear, inches behind her, "You can't hide." Grabbing the other woman and shoving her against a container with a growling glare. "How do you come back."

    "I told you? Didn't I?" Lilith said. "The whole fleet knows." Then she gently pats the woman on the head.

    Breathing out, she releases Lilith. "You snuck one on my ship, of course you did."

    "I told you I di—" Lilith stopped, "You didn't know?!"

    "You told me you brought furniture." She shouts, enraged.

    "We grow our furniture? We grow our housing too. It's all biorganic. It's literally furniture."

    "Can you see where I would make an assumption there." Its hissed out, calming slightly.

    "No!? We were going to Necromunda to save Saint Celestine, I assumed you'd want an immortal ally." Lilith said shocked, "That seemed like something that you'd… Want."

    She's breathing in a rhythmic familiar pattern, a time honed relaxation technique, "You…you aggravate me."

    "Yes, because the play is fun, but when it gets too much you can just ask me to stop. You seem like… You need to hurt people. Also like that's not constantly? Available to you. This seems a good compromise, plus I get combat training. Maybe one day I'll like." Lilith boops her on the nose. "Tag you."

    "I see the future–" She snaps a hand at Lilith, sending it past her as the other woman dips. "Damnit!" Her eyes flicker white then back to normal at that exclamation, glancing at the future before refocusing on the present.

    "Right, you see the future. Sorry."

    "You're already making my blood boil." The Inquisitor growls, "But nothing I say is going to stop you."

    "Then you can't see the future, there are very easy things to say to stop me." Lilith smiles. "I'm not having fun, I can't keep up with this game, I don't have the endurance for this."

    "Shut up Lilith." She stabs the other woman suddenly. Leaving the blade in and storming off. "You'll get that back to me." The Inquisitor demands.

    "Yes Inquisitor Kat," Lilith calls, pulling the blade out.

    Seeing the Inquisitor not rise to the bait. Lilith thought a little bit harder… "Ma'am? I love you!" She yelled. She waited, listening.

    Katarinya freezes again, growling under her breath about xenos witches, restarting the walk to get distance before she loses it again.

    Lilith sprints, "I only said my feelings, deep down you. how the fuck are you so fast?!" She looks back and realizes that Katarinya can outrun a zergling giving her chest palpitations. Lilith could outrun cars. How was she being outpaced by a… Ooh she should say that, "Seriously, how am I being out-paced by a seven hundred year old woman?!"

    "She knows how to walk." Celestine chuckles, finally intervening by grabbing Lilith and pulling her into a hug. "Sorry dear, I was just getting antsy without you." She admits as Katarinya escapes.

    "It's ok, it's probably better for her heart pressure anyways." Lilith said in the hug. "This rocks, do you want me to… Teach you how to bake?"

    "Sounds like fun," Celestine says as they walk around the corner chatting about Celestine's time in the hive.

    "You know, seeing Necromunda I actually grew up in a place that was almost exactly like that. I even beat Katerina to your location. Well you know that I guess." Lilith said as she sticks a tendril in the oven. "Oh, you're burning cookies because this oven runs too hot." then pulling out the slightly roasted appendage. "Just needs to be turned down a bit."

    "Yes, I did notice how you seemed to navigate the tunnels as if you had been there before." Celeste laughed with small rays of sun coming off of her. "Living them made many of your memories more understandable."

    As Lilith rolls balls of dough out she says, "Well it's nice, now we have shared experience. Did you stay with a family, or were you orphaned like me?"

    "Orphaned, a common fate in the underhive." She watches intently as Lilith deftly handles the dough, frowning, "How does it not…stick?"

    "What do you mean?" Lilith asked suddenly confused, "It doesn't stick because I'm very lightly rolling it not pressing it. It's kind of like when I roll that coin arou—" She stops, "You only knew me for a day and a half you don't know about the coin do you?" She very quickly finishes the dough balls, before taking out a couple of imperial thrones.

    Then she started to let them kind of roll around in her hands, letting them seem to float in airr, as if her hands were moving around the coin, instead of vice versa, then incorporating a second into the mix, letting them slide over each other, seeming to, on their own accord be stacked vertically in her palm. "I mean it took me like… Thirty? years now to get to this point."

    "I can do that with my tongue, but not anything else." She looks at the coin with amazement. Watching intently as it rolls and seems to almost float. "I don't think I'm gentle enough for that."

    "I actually started doing this to get gentle for everything else. I was also under the terrible impression that I would get laid a lot for knowing coin tricks? But like, you have to have a personality outside of a catchy eye-grabber I learned." Lilith said letting it roll around. "I can do them with smaller or bigger coins too, so If you think it's not big enough you're probably overthinking it."

    Then she dropped the coin, "Wait what can you do with your tongue?"

    "Tie stems, roll coins, bounce things. I learnt a lot from friends in the underhive." She shrugs.

    Lilith looks at her with a wide smile, thinking, "I would like to see this truth then."

    "Would you now~." Celestine says, grabbing Lilith by her hips and, fulfilling an earlier promise, now a month in the past, puts her against a wall. "Is this…fine?" She tilts her head, smiling up.

    "It's definitely a start," Lilith whispers, kissing her neck, before biting it gently. Suckling on the skin, pulling away to see if it'd even leave a mark. "My lovely Lilith." Celestine says, "Try much harder." Her hand pushes the Infested woman back into her neck, a breath leaving Celestine as she does.

    With full permission, but much apprehension, Lilith tries biting hard as if she were trying to simply sever the chunk entirely, seeing if she could break the skin, now trying too as she sucked on the bit of Celestine's neck. In response Celestine gasped, this time, though out of pain or shock was unclear. She let out a quiet noise, a heavenly pant as Lilith takes more time to dig in as it were, before pulling away to examine the spot.

    She was so excited, "Oh, I'm… Strong enough to do that. Oh… Actually shit did that hurt?" Lilith says, now concerned at the… dark colour of the mark.

    "Love, I go into battle daily." Celestine vibrates against Lilith, light threatening to push out of her skin, "That was…" She chuckles, "A love bite."

    At this Lilith leaps onto the woman, wrapping her legs around her waist, and her hands around her neck to pull herself in close for another, deeper, more loving kissing, before following it with a sharp chomp on the bottom lip, now feeling… Mischievous.

    "Wait, one second. Can we go back to the palace to get our things? I want to move in with you and Katarinya." Llilith did you ask Ana? You probably did right? Yeah you must have.

    Smiling broadly, Celeste asks with a smirk, "You do want to be mine, hmm?" The smirk turns to a smile, brushing Lilith's tendrils gently.

    "I think I was taken when you flew me into the sky, and showed me the entire city from the clouds." Lilith whispered, happy. Truly enthused. Overwhelmed. "You know Truth, did I ask Ana before I asked you?"

    "You don't remember doing so, Lilith." She answers.

    "Shit." Lilith says quietly, "Rain-check, she's going to be mad if I just say let's move without talking to her."

    "Whatever your choice, I'm going to call you my Lilith now, alright?" Celeste lowers her to the ground slowly.

    "Absolutely," Lilith says quietly. "I love you, I'll be back."
     
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    • Book 01: Cacophony - End
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    • "And you're sure you're ok moving in from the Behemoth Ana?" Lilith asked, her arms full of furniture and things from the Behemoth.

    They had returned to Terra momentarily, with Celestine and Greyfax. It was unclear whether Greyfax had warmed up to Lilith, or had just started to find amusement in the never ending hunt. All three of them, Celestine, Anastasia, and Lilith, were shocked at how easy it was to convince Greyfax to allow them to move in. Only a few days of pissing, moaning, and pouting about the new space being taken up occurred. Anastasia was agreeable, but had been distant since the fighting. It had been much harder both physically, and mentally on her than Lilith. Many of the things they scavenged or took from Illar were being left behind as well. Though a drone helpfully created spaces in the hold with the small hatchery to create a pseudo-bachelor apartment for them to stay in, a downgrade in space from the Behemoth.

    The Witch growled in response, "Stop asking." It was probably the closest that Lilith was going to get to a yes. The move was at least going fast, as a nine-foot tall Saint replete with wings, made light work of massive loads. And Lilith, while a bit more broken and empty, was still herself.

    Celestine was about to leave, when Anastasia raised an eye-brow before chucking a rucksack to her. "It's yours… Apparently." She said turning her back to the larger woman and lighting an Iho stick.

    Grabbing it one handed idly, putting a dresser down with the other. Celeste opens up the bag and blinks, "You wrote me letters?" She smiles, beginning to reach in for the first one.

    Lilith freezes, quietly, she can't lie. The minute she focuses on the letters then she'll remember exactly what they contained. It was… There was no real escape . She couldn't even ask her not to read them because she'd know. "There was supposed to be more, I didn't think we'd find you so fast. Trophies, chocolates and things." The voice Lilith spoke with was a broken morose whisper, "Sorry."

    The smile had drifted off Celestine's face, replaced with a small, barely notable frown as she flips through the letters, golden eyes intaking the words at an incredible pace. "Lilith." She whispers to herself.

    She felt like she was about to get dressed down by a teacher. That she'd been… Bad, and caught out. The joy of taking Terra, the rush to Necromunda had pushed them entirely out of her mind. "I… The idea was to show the ups and downs over… A hundred years or a dozen… Not… Just the shame of a shitty soldier."

    The letters are dropped, along with the bag as Celestine crosses five steps in two, pulling Lilith up and into her, wings folding to add a second layer of comfort. "You are brave, my dearest. You are a mortal woman, possessed of nothing but blade and venom." She starts the lecture, but its not a dressing down, "You fought alongside a demigod, faced with the servants of true, incoherent Evil. You are brave, you are beautiful, you are perfection." The room-shaking volume of each exclamation would be uncomfortable if Lilith wasn't used to it, the glowing gold of Celestine's eyes practically pouring sparks.

    "If I'm so perfect…" Lilith whispered, hugging her tighter, "Why couldn't I protect anyone. So many people died just for talking to me." It cut at her, she knew it was true, not a single soldier or Astartes she'd spoken to survived the trip, and Anastasia had almost been lost more times than she could count.

    "Because the enemy strikes at your heart." The Saint softens, her frown turning into something sad, "Because they know they cannot marr you, so they hunt for that which they can." There's fury at that, ten thousand years of built up anger and rage that has yet to boil over, yet to incinerate everything.

    It helps, knowing that someone understand, the anger helps, and Lilith focuses on it. There's something about her strength that's so comforting. They could be together forever if they planned their cards right maybe everyth—

    A squawk of a crow, or something similar sends Lilith into a near panic, her body unfurling in The Saints arms as a sequencer talon replaces her hand. Her eyes go wide, and she panics trying to turn to get better eyes around her from the hug, almost fighting the saint before her mind gathers again. Then, an even darker pit forms, the shame worsens, the misery of something so special and beautiful being marred. Tainted. Infested.

    Even Celestine isn't free from the touch, her head snapping to the noise, finding nothing immediately in sight, though she refuses to let go of Lilith, ready to fight this without her hands if she must. An exhalation of breath follows.

    "I ripped out the essence of the Daemon that killed you, and two Mallus Extremis." She whispers, "They will not return."

    "It is not the first time Skarbrand has taken my life." The Saint answers.

    With that Lilith smiles, "He was torn from me, just a shred. Everything else, obliterated, the way only we can."

    Nodding with a smile, a proud smile. "Then he didn't appreciate the blade through the chest?" The joke is quiet.

    "Actually, oddly when he realised that it would be a true death he stopped fighting. Chaos had to steal him from me." Lilith whispered remembering the moment. "I yelled at something as big as a planet to fear me, I felt a rage larger than anything I had ever felt before, that could consume systems."

    "His God." Celestine spits, "Skarbrand is cursed, a betrayer condemned, his mind flooded and destroyed. Ten thousand years ago he was a warrior. Now, a beast of war." She explains, not pitying him at all, just describing the creature.

    "So then you don't think it was frightened off?" The comment was wry, an admittance of a small belief that had given her strength. "At least the Chaos Lord was scared… In the end. I need them to stop trifling with me and my loved ones…"

    "They'll stop when we stop them." The living Saint commands, echoing. "The next crusade is slated in two years. Another step."

    Lilith had turned to a whisper when she said there was another Crusade, "I'll be there, I've got no other plans." Then gesturing with her head to the Behemoth. "Ana, I don't think she's forgiven me for going on the push to Terra. I think… I don't think she will. Like I said, it was much worse for her."

    "A psyker in this war experiences horrors we do not." Celestine answers.

    "The infested psykers at least can not hear them." Lilith whispers, "The only solace I can give her, as she is targeted for the sin of loving me." Her eyes have gone hollow now, dark and empty. Her voice flat, and now a bit scared.

    "We see horrid abominations, torn flesh and twisted metal. They see their true forms, and with none of my gifted strength to bear with it." The Saint whispers back, "She need not serve any more, rest is the reward of the loyal."

    Another nod, "I love her, but I know she doesn't love me anymore… At least not the same way. The swarm link is… It's stronger than she suspects, and I can feel it. What do I give her? How do I let her go in peace?"

    "I think, my dearest, that you should merely speak to her." Celestine's eyes dull from their bright flares to merely torches, "Love is impossible to plan."

    It's true, it wasn't like Lilith could hand her a card and send her away. There'd need to be a talk, and it would be h ard. Maybe even violent. "She didn't give you any of her things did she? She didn't give me any to pack either."

    "No Lilith, you know she did not." Saint Celestine whispered, squeezing her a little bit tighter before letting her go.

    A final, assured nod, as she walked towards the Behemoth. To Ana, angry, arms crossed watching the slow walk of defeat. Stepping into the Behemoth as Lilith approached. Sure enough, when Lilith stepped inside, all of Anastasia's things were still right where she left them. Most of the furniture, besides a single chair that Lilith preferred, a few dressers. Drones already producing new things to replace them. A screen on the wall shut's off. Zhakarov and her must have been talking.

    "I won't try to convince you to stay. Just tell me how to… How to…" There's a brokenness in her voice, "I owe you, for holding me together when no-one else would. I don't know what to give you."

    "I saw this coming, you know." The Witch is venomous, "The moment you laid eyes on her, I had a sense that I'd lose you." She taps her foot, still not looking away from the star-lit view.

    "Ana you stopped loving me halfway through the fight to Terra. Don't…" Maybe that's what she could give her, maybe her being the villain would be enough, "That's a lie, you're right."

    "I'm in your mind you–" Anastasia hisses, "No, no, its over, I can say what I want." There's an eerie sense of freedom at those words, "I know what you're thinking Lilith. Even without power I know." The smoke of lho sticks is heavy in the air, drifting through the Behemoth in clouds pushed around with lung-beats from the massive creature. "I lost you. Your obsession tore my love out. I don't need your fucking pretty truths and lies."

    She finally looks at Lilith, glaring.

    If she saw so much then why didn't she know to give a fucking hug, "You're right, do you need anything?"

    "I'm right?!" She shouts, "The fucking hugs, the damned hugs." Ana is growling to herself, another lho stick ignited by a flash of psychic will. "Why can't you just give me a hug." A tapping foot suddenly splits the floor.

    "I did. Constantly. I told you you were beautiful. I had you call yourself beautiful, I reached out to you constantly. I begged for affection, and tried to dole out as much as I wanted. Do you need to kill me to feel better? Do you need… Money? I don't… I'm tired." The exhaustion is evident in her voice, and her body suddenly feels stiff and creaky.

    "That's always been the problem. You give out to get. It never felt like love, just what I could accept as love." Ana hisses out again, "I don't need anything, Lilith. Go to your saint, to your inquisitor. I have work to do."

    "If you think of something let me know. You're still family if not… Anything else." There's a finality to it, how could she argue, Anastasia had been saying it the entire time. "I had Abathur wipe memories of a gift… He's probably going to try and give it to you if you get back. I don't… Obviously remember what it is. Goodbye Anastasia."

    The screen flickers back on, she ignores Lilith, discussing something important, number's heavy. Distractingly mathematical and logical whilst an angry tear can be seen for a split second falling from her face, obscured by smoke.

    God I fucking suck. Lilith walked off, glad to have a smaller swarm far far away, where she can't hurt anyone. Where people are strong enough to not be able to hurt them. She walks towards the Saint, crushed, her soul macerated. She fell in love with Kerrigan, and Kerrigan would never love her. She fell in love with Anastasia, but it was never going to be right, there were too many lies at the start. She could Lie to Lilith but Lilith couldn't lie back. Fell in love with Saint Celestine, who will probably leave. Then who? Just a constantly expanding web of people whose lives she flits too. A relationship swamp, and she…

    A leech

    Yeah. A leech. Even if Celestine knew she was sad, she didn't care. Brave faces are sometimes for yourself more than anyone else. Her teeth grit, and her eyes shut hard trying to force away the tears. How would she fuck this up, she wondered. By feeling sorry for yourself. That… Didn't sound like her voice. Like Lilith's voice. Even now she's looking out for you. Fuck. Big smile.

    "What are you griping about, Alien." Greyfax's voice slips around a corner, harsh, gritty, demanding attention. The hallway is empty besides her, flickers of white still leaving her eyes as she waits for a response, leaned against a wall with a curious, if distasteful look on her face.

    "You're kind of violent. You'll understand this I think. Anastasia and I murdered Kerrigan together, and I told her I shouldn't have given up something sure for something impossible. Then Saint Celestine said she cared about me, so I fought all the way to Terra and then Necromunda. By the end of that Anastasia realised that same kind of loving the impossible feeling had sparked again. That again it wasn't her. So we broke up." Lilith explained, her jaw setting upset.

    "Divorced." Greyfax corrects.

    "Wait, how do you know I'm divorced? Is it that fast?!" Lilith asks suddenly, "Mother-fucker." Still she moved towards the Inquisitor.

    "I'm a priest, Xenos." Katerinya chuckles, moving to the actual hall instead of loudly speaking in short sentences.

    That makes Lilith laugh, just this kind of weak chuckle that brings a genuine mirth to her, "You divorced me? Before I even knew. Thanks I guess." She moves closer, though still staying out of stabbing range. "Fuck." She whispers.

    Katerinya's eyes are very dark, something Lilith's noticed over the months she's known her, like pitch orbs ensconced in white. It's hard to tell what they're thinking, what they're feeling, anything about them other than where they are looking. Her face is preternaturally still at almost all times, only breaking that repose with rage, hate or violence. Still, today there's a twisted flicker of something that, eventually, could evolve into concern.

    "Who gets hurt, Me, Celestine, or Anastasia? Can't imagine you'd give a shit about her." Lilith asks, looking into the Katerinya's eyes, "You see the future right? How do I fuck this one up?"

    "In most futures." The Inquisitor stares, bubbling with distaste at something, "You don't." The distaste is at weakness, at the displayed doubt before her, a cruel sort of support. "You do it right, find Saint Celestine death after death, chase her to the ends of the galaxy."

    "I won't hug you this time, because I liked hearing that so much. I think I'm even figuring out how to compliment you." Lilith said watching Katerinya, who looks so much like Celestine for the slightest flicker of emotion, "You gave me the best news in the most horrifying way."

    The mask of stone is broken with a smirk, "That's my job, xenos. Making sure none of you are ever comfortable."

    As Lilith walks by, very slowly, trying not to betray her tenseness to run, "Oh, like a Kat among mice then." Before booking it.

    A lasbolt misses by inches, burning a hole in the wall next to her side, "You'll regret that!" A near-hoarse, rough cry follows Lilith into the hallways and finally, chamber of Celestine and…now her as well. The Saint has been reading the rest of the letters with a bittersweet expression, smelling their perfumed paper and then gently putting them away.

    "I'm still going to keep them. Since you lose your memory each time," Lilith says, "The rucksack is to fill with memories, until it's full." She walks over and sits with Celestine. Shivering like a leaf. "She could have been a lot meaner. She wasn't. I don't know what to make of that."

    "It means, dearest, that she does not hate you." Celeste is cross legged, putting the letters back into the rucksack after carefully arranging them back in order. "Would you like me to keep hold of you for the rest of today?" She offers, patting her lap.

    "I don't think I want to be… Polyamorous anymore, I mean, besides whatever we call the emotional thing we have going on with Katarinya. It's not romantic but she's family." Lilith admits, "If I try to kiss another Psyker slice me in two. Please. They have all been extremely bad for my mental health." It's not true, she loved Ana, but it helped to say something else. She could have just… What? She never finished that sentence.

    "I will help you be at peace, my dearest Lilith." Celestine rubs a hand on Lilith's back, bare skin on cloth, the Saint not wearing her armour yet. "If that means stopping you from loving whom you love, however, my position grows difficult." There's a warmth to her, she never is angry at Lilith, or anyone good as she understands it.

    "So you're saying calling and complaining to Varynna wouldn't be the worst idea in the world." Lilith asks, looking at Celestine with large puppy dog eyes.

    "I'm saying you should seek comfort where you want too, my Lilith." Her hand moves to brush Lilith's cheek with a thumb, resting on the side of her face.

    She melted into the woman's touch almost immediately, she could call Varynna later if she still felt bad. This was far too nice to pass up. Finally compassion, finally someone who cared. It didn't feel transactional, or like she was on the precipice of losing it. She felt secure and comforted. Though she tried not to focus on the fact it took a literal goddess to make her feel that way. Instead focusing on how lucky she was to find exactly what she needed as she was very gently pet into a very easy peace.

    Celestine sings as Lilith sinks, a beautiful background, letting the now drift into touch and sound alone. Keeping Lilith safe, safe from everything around her and inside her, putting thoughts to rest as time starts to lose meaning.
     
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    • Book 02: Journeyman - Start - 01 Invitations
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    • "Katarinya are you going for drinks with us? It's going to be Celeste, Guilliman, Me, and Varynna." Lilith said from the kitchen as she prepared dinner, "Everyone around them have a twelve gauge stick up the ass so we're going to have fun."

    "No." Katarinya Grayfax was reading a report at the kitchen table, but her tone was extremely firm and to the point. "I will not be caught dead with an Alien and Varynna." What Varynna did exactly, Lilith had never found out and she was too scared of Kat's expression to try prying.

    "You'll just live with the Alien and listen to—" Lilith winced as a knife found its way into her back from across the room, "You don't even know what I was going to say!"

    "Of course I d–" The hissed retort from Katarinya is interrupted by an almost choral "Come along Inquisitor, you are coming." Celestine finally enters the room, having figured out the exact armour to undersuit ratio for fashionable display, removing most of its plating on her waist and legs, leaving the chest and arms covered.

    With a wide smile after pulling the knife out of her back, and placing it next to the stove, Lilith said, "Yeah, hey maybe we'll even find a small animal outside the bar for you to club to dea—" Another hiss of breath and a wince, as the second knife struck much closer to where Lilith moved her own heart too. "I will burn dinner if you kill me."

    The next knife is snatched out of the air by Celestine, bending slightly under her inviolable grip as she smiles warmly, "I do enjoy her cooking, Kat. Allow me this indulgence." The twitch at the name makes Celestine smile wider, turning to help with whatever's on the stovetop, or at least stare at it.

    "Here try it," Lilith said holding a spoon upwards, "It's well, it would be red curry, but it's the best I could do with what we have. We never figured out pineapple on Illar, and all my attempts to recreate it are not going well." As Celeste took the spoon she was already dishing out the bowls and plates. Though careful around the Inquisitor who seemed to be especially touchy today. Though that was probably Lilith's fault even though she couldn't quite remember what stupid thing she could have done recently to torture the Inquisitor.

    "Was it the pink hat? I just put it in your room." Lilith asked suddenly looking at the Inquisitor with a twitching smile.

    "The what!?" Katarinya barks across the room, hand going to a charging inferno pistol immediately. Capacitor cylinder rotating threateningly as a red hue builds along the barrel.

    They both knew if the hat was on the ship, that Celestine would soon have Katarinya in it. It's why Lilith waited until dinner to bring it up. "My mistake, must not have been that." The very corner of her mouth was now almost unable to keep still, even though the inferno pistol hurt so goddamn bad. It was worth it. For the last month, Lilith had been making exact copies of Katarinya's wardrobe in bright pink, and simply leaving them out. Forcing Katarinya to decide between immediately trying to destroy the "gift" or hunting down Lilith.

    Once again, Celestine gently places a hand on the threatening weapon, lowering it to the ground, "Peace for now, Kat. We can discuss how you'll do something later." She's calming and soothing to everyone.

    That worried Lilith Peace for now, meant that she had gone too far into brat territory. A line she toyed with often but rarely crossed.

    "We have drinks with the Emperor's son and a Lord Admiral." The reminder puts a point of focus to Katarinya, breathing out her fury as she stares at Lilith.

    "We have drinks with Guilliman and Varynna, how many people treat them like people. It's important that the people running the imperium remember what it's like to be a normal person." Lilith said, pointing with a fork, "Though I am curious since I'm already in trouble if you'll shoot me in front of them or not." The giddyness rising very quickly.

    "I'll handle you in private. Xenos." Katarinya has no idea how that sounds to anyone else, just focusing on the hateful rage mixing in with some sort of twisted furious enjoyment at the idea.

    Lilith gives a quick glance to Celeste, Look at how good I'm being letting that one go! But she knew it was probably too late for that. There was no getting out of the hole at this point, just not going any deeper. "Besides, I think if they loosen up they'd make a nice couple." Lilith added at the end, "Varynna's clearly interested and Guilliman is… Well I guess technically a god of some sort, but that's never stopped anyone. I mean, his dad sired an heir some-how. Presumably not through mitosis."

    Shrugging, "You'd best ask Arch-Magos Cawl for the details, he's the one who is closest to those secrets." Celestine answers, taking another taste of the curry, obviously enjoying it.

    "How would you even begin to approach the question? 'Hello Arch-Magos, I have come for secrets about the Junk of Emperor's and God's.'" Lilith snorted as she started to quickly scarf down the last of her meal, far faster than was probably polite, though she wouldn't have known it.

    "I asked him that!" She laughs, "He said he had a ninety-three percent success rate on simulated battles against me. Very lovely sort."

    "You started with, 'He said he had a ninety-three' and for a split second, my jaw dropped." Lilith snorted, trying very hard not to make eye contact with Katarinya, as doing so at this point would most likely spell certain death.

    Celestine's laugh is a much more certain death-knell than any eye contact as Katarinya fumes at what surrounds her. "I believe…he was married?" She says after recovering, "When he was last awake, before his Stasis. I remember hearing of such things when I was young, a great celebration."

    Lilith nodded, getting up and bringing her bowl to the sink before coming back, "Oh that actually sounds a bit sad to be honest. You get married, cut down, take a ten thousand nap wake up to this?" She hadn't meant to gesture anywhere near Katarinya, nor did she think she did, but the Inquisitor growled all the same, "Not you, you're loyal at least. To something. Murder mostly, but I respect that."

    "I will hurt you." A curt and aggrieved response, the closest to flirting Lilith can get out of the Inquisitor.

    Lilith opens her mouth, but a warning smile catches her tongue. Oh, I'm really pushing it today. "You're right, I'm sorry." Lilith finally acquiesced. It'd be bad if the two ganged up on them, at least for a while.

    Finally finishing the last of her meal, Celeste speaks, "We should get properly ready, something that isn't a military uniform, Katerinya. Lord Guilliman is already trapped in his armour, he does not need further reminders." Its a command, a steel she rarely shows.

    Hoping to offer a truce, Lilith proffers, "I could actually help you find something that's basically what you already like but just a bit more civillian minded? My old stuff before I you know… Stretched out would… No wait, I was shorter than you then…" She touched her chin, "I could make you something? Something that doesn't make you look like you're getting revenge for being picked last at dodgeball I mean."

    "What?" Katarinya is confused at that comment.

    "Did… Did you not have schools growing up? And then… Upset kids shooting other kids in those schools?" Lilith asked, looking to Celeste, "I guess you probably did you're from a hive world."

    "I went to the Schola Progenium, Xenos. The teachers were veterans of decades of war. It would have not gone well." Katarinya answers, frowning at the idea. Celeste shrugs, "School is for upper-hive kids, I learnt-well, this last time-I learned to read at fifteen."

    "It's very odd being the most privileged person in the room for once. Not a feeling I'm used to—" Then she thought about something Kataryna said, "If I'm divorced am I still a noble? Lilith von Illar or am I just Lilith now? Or… Lilith von Celestine or something. Lilith von Saint?" Then looking to Celestine, "I mean hypothetically, of course. If it were to happen."

    "My last name is not Celestine, Lilith." The Saint smiles, amused.

    "I thought you only had a second name if you were like…" What did Varynna say about that, "If you're a planetary noble or super rich? Oh your first name isn't Saint. That makes more sense."

    "My last name is…" She chuckles, recalling an ancient memory, "Lady. After my old Order's title."

    "Lady Lilith von Lady actually sounds kind awesome. Or… Lady Lilith von Lady cum Illar? Something like that. We should probably get ready." Lilith admits, looking at the time.

    "We could make a family name together. A new one." Celestine ignores the impetus to rush, considering.

    "Oh Hell yeah. We could let Katarinya pick," The smile, now brimming ear to ear, as she stares at the Inquisitor.

    "Kat, could you adopt us?" Celestine stares at the inquisitor, who is wide eyed, "Greyfax is a very good last name, isn't it?"

    "I actually love it, Celestine, I really do." Lilith's eyes have not stopped staring.

    "I-" She's frozen, finding solace in glaring at Lilith, "This is your fault, somehow. You two planned this." Its a growl, somewhat shot through with tension. Celestine reaches across the table and ruffles her hair, causing another freezing episode.

    "Asking someone to take their name isn't really a plot exactly. It's a question you ask after living with them for a while. You've penet—" Lilith stopped, "I talk like tha— You know I talk like that, you've shot me enough times at this point that we're basically family."

    "I'm going to go get ready." Katarinya stands suddenly at that, stomping away to her own chambers.

    "She's going to call me family some day, I know it. It's coming, like a sto—" Lilith ducks as a heated charge blasts through the kitchen, though only a single shot is fired. "Storm." A piece of wall is smoking.

    "She already thinks that, without conscious thought." Celestine smiles at the blast brushing past her. "Katarinya is very lonely. The last…few hundred years were spent trapped in a…collection of an alien machine mind. Conscious." She looks at the doorway, a hint of sadness to her warmth.

    Lilith nods, "Yeah, unironically I think the violence might be healthy for her at this point. Cathartic, though I'll admit I'm biased. I do wonder what that feedback loop is like though." Then she admits, "This entire thing is mostly an excuse to," Then opens her palm flat, points at where Katarinya would be, and walks two fingers off the palm. "It'd be good for her."

    "You are so interesting to me, Lilith." Celestine warmly admits, "I know so much of you, but I will never understand it all."

    "Because I get off on getting stabbed?" Lilith says tilting her head, "I think that's just some brain things wired wrong."

    Laughing at that, "Lilith, I willingly walk into battlefields over and over again. I understand a lust for pain, though I don't quite share it." Celestine explains herself with a smile, "I just don't think like you do, I never will and that is the best part." She tilts Lilith's chin up and towards her, "My second half, completing me."

    "Why would you say that I'm going to try and figure out how I'm thinking wrong about this all night." Lilith groaned, though not overly dismayed, already lost in thought. "Seeing society from not a 'boogeyman come to murder' viewpoint seems healthy. You, Varynna, and Guilliman being there means everyone for the next fifty miles are going to be on their best behaviour. she'll be the least scary of the group."

    "Don't assail that image too much, its what she's built her life around. However." She nods firmly, "Katarinya needs love, and you, my Lilith, are a source without equal." The smile is back, spilling almost sunlight into the room as she stares.

    An enraged roar rips through the ship.

    "Fuck. I forgot about the pink inquisitor coat." Lilith says pinching the bridge of her nose.
     
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    • B02-002 - Drinks
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    • Lilith tried to walk a fine line between a place that wouldn't lose itself if the three most important people in the Imperium walked in, and a place so upper scale that Katarinya would be unable to be comfortable. It was a delicate line she was walking, and had in secret talked it over with Varynna quite a bit. They were going to a quiet, "intimate" sort of eatery not directly tied to the military might, but wouldn't be overwhelmed by the people showing up. Though, it helped to give a bit of forewarning, and make clear the importance of discretion. Varynna's considerable wealth had done quite a bit to smooth that part over as well.

    There was a moment, as they all arrived, that Lilith had realized that her life had gotten very odd. Wondering what set of choices brought her here, before stowing it for now, and waving at Lord Guilliman and Varynna who seemed to arrive together. The restaurant itself had a high rouge red ceiling, and large mirrors with gold trim. Though chandeliers were occasional, they weren't overly ornate, and the booth they were in had an all white table cloth. Brick facades decorated an accent wall, and while there was some staring, there wasn't as much fuss as Lilith was expecting, though Katarinya was already seeming ready to go feral.

    Lilith decided to wear a skirt that ended just beneath the knees and a halter top, once again looking very out of place with everything around her. Seeming not to understand or not care about how she appeared to her surroundings. Maybe it was the confidence of dating a saint, or the fact that anyone stupid enough to have an opinion at the moment, would likely keep it to themselves.

    As they sat down, Lilith tried to start her night as she usually did, before remembering the empire, thirty eight millenia in the future, did not have the same drinks or luxuries she remembered, "I'll have three appletinis to start, as in just bring three of them, they'll be gone by the next time you come around." She was saying this to the person seating them. High society she was not.

    "You have no idea what an Apple, or a Martini is do you?" Lilith said as the hostess looked at her somewhat blankly, which urged Lilith to sigh. "Varynna you know what apples are," She said as the hostess stood awkwardly, "What the hell is the closest thing? I just want a sugary drink that's a bit sour."

    "Get her a Tanith Sour, mix in sugar." Varynna chuckles, waving the waiter off.

    "A ton of it." Lilith added for good measure. "Fuck my life up." The absolute dour scowl from Katarinya was somewhat worth it. Though Lilith tried to force herself to remember that she wasn't here to torture her.

    "Varynna you never call anymore," Lilith said, "We got to Terra like three four months ago, what have you been up too?" Her eyes at Varynna were pleading as she tried to make contact with the other swarm member, Make small talk, pretend this is normal, you and I are the only one capable of faking this. Actually maybe Celestine can as well.

    "Mostly gossiping about you~!" Varynna smirks, immediately bouncing back into her games, a terrifying of normality to a situation that's far beyond it. "You're always a treat, as I'm sure you know." Rolling through the words with a practised tone.

    "I do get around," Lilith says with a smile, before wincing, "Is it that you set me up for those, or I just fall into them?"

    Putting a hand to her chest in a false display of hurt, "Me? Setting you up? Why, it's almost like you think ill of me!" The energy she displays is drawing everyone in, a whirlwind.

    "Quite the opposite," Lilith says, immediately drawn in like a moth to flame, "I just know how much you'd love to catch me." The comment ignites that furious fire in Varynna as well, bringing her back to old, gorgeous memories that tug a smile on her face.

    "As far as I remember, I did. You called the point." She teases, brushing nails on Lilith's hand in a ghost of a touch.

    "I was doing you a favour, you wouldn't have been able to keep up." Lilith said, tongue between her teeth. "Oh also I'm divorced. I lost the Swarm, and pretty much all my furniture."

    Laughing, Varynna comments, "So she did take the hound?" Making Celestine and Guilliman look sharply at her, though she doesn't visibly notice.

    Lilith snorted, "Yeah, and she was the phone. It took me a while to figure out how to get back in touch with Zhakarov who then said they were just coordinating around me with Ana, you and everyone else which honestly? A load off my mind."

    Varynna nods at the comment, delighting in Lilith in a way few others do. "Worry not, they had a fine strategic mind curbing their more interesting decisions."

    "Probably for the best, they're the kind of smart that gets really stupid, really quick." Lilith said morosely, thinking specifically of Zharkov… And now Anastasia. "I got to keep my own hatchery though, which is nice, and I have a few drones so I could always start up again if a place is empty and somewhat sustainable for life."

    Guilliman finally speaks, having merely observed the situation until now, "I am either sorry for your loss, or gladdened by your freedom, Lady Lilith, I am not sure which."

    "I was sad at first to be honest?" Lilith said as she finished the second of her sours, not sure when they arrived, "But it's like… She kind of loved me in a way where she hated me? Like, sometimes you like the idea of someone more than who they actually are. Then some people are exactly who you think they are." The third one isn't sipped so much as slammed, "I think the great thing is at least, is that it seems I am once again my own brood (Because I've made myself my own brood.) Which is nice, I've been really gung ho about the imperium so knowing Illar isn't going to send an angry letter saying how awful I am at my job is welcoming. Because I'm actually pretty damn good at my job."

    She's already waving down the waiter again, but this time with four fingers up. "So yeah, still a bad-ass warrior and immortal. Just not ultra rich, or you know wielding swarms of armies, yet." Lilith snorted, "Yet… BUT! I finally figured out how to make Coconuts again, and Coconut rum I think."

    "Coconuts?" Celestine asks curiously, sipping at her drink. From previous experience, the Saint is a lightweight when it comes to her liquor, so she's being careful. "What are those?"

    "There's these long skinny trees and that have huge palm fronds, which are like leaves, but they're the size of fans. These hard as hell fruits that will brain you fall out. Where they were connected to the tree has these soft spots, and when you crack them open they're filled with a juice. Pretty much everything but the shells is edible, and the juice is almost one to one with blood plasma." Lilith opens a clutch and starts rummaging, "I was going to pre-game a bit, but decided against it, but the rum turned out pretty good. Just careful, it's twice as strong as it tastes."

    She pulls out a fairly large metal flask handing it Celestine. The strong synthetic coconut smell wafts off it in waves, though the Imperials would likely not recognize it as synthetic. Instead simply recognizing a liquor that smells like some sort of sweet creamy candy. "Oh wait, you guys drink like fish, it's fifty-proof."

    Celestine takes a sip, nodding, "This is going to make me insensate in ten sips, I can feel it." Handing it to Varynna who gulps it approvingly, "I could use a flask of this, and a few barrels. I could work and drink!"

    Guilliman sips at it, nodding, "It is a tad too weak for my tastes, could you make it to…one hundred and fifty proof?" He asks, making everyone but Celeste look at him.

    "Actually, yeah probably, I figured out how to make one-ninety-five at one point but then it was basically just paint thinner. The one cool thing about learning genetics and bio-science for so long is that agriculture is basically a cinch." Lilith says, thinking back to the Queen's on Illar, "Like we'd met our dye tithe in I think, three years?"

    "Indeed, recalculating the Tithe of your world is a constant effort of mine." Guilliman nods, "But the work is soothing at times."

    "Yeah you seem like a guy who likes spreadsheets." Lilith admits, as four more drinks are placed in front of her, "By the way I'm broke, but like." She gestures at her current company, "One of you has got this right? I was only able to get like… a single metric tonne of thrones off the ship. Anastasia hid the rest."

    Varynna laughs loudly at that, almost flailing out of her seat whilst Guilliman sighs, "Worry not, the Imperium's coffers are vast." Shaking his head with a mirthful smile, as if remembering something pleasant.

    Lilith sighed with relief, before holding up another four fingers to the waiter, and continuing to drink, now on her sixth glass. "Oh no, did she only have a tonne?" Lilith said quietly when Varynna started laughing.

    Varynna recovers whilst Celestine explains, "My dearest Lilith, you could live comfortably for a century with a tonne of Throne Gelt." Patting Lilith on the cheek as she's obviously getting drunk, rapidly, even while trying to not drink too fast.

    "Oh! Good!" Lilith said happily, as she finished her… Well she lost count at this point. "Oh, I also saw Necromunda and learned that my planet way back when was basically a hive world. It was extremely familiar, if a bit more tunnelled." Did she always used to talk about herself this much? Yes? Probably. "How's sculpting going? Made anything fun lately?" She asked Varynna.

    "I made a sculpt of you and Celestine! My confessor said it must never see the light of day." Varynna smirks, "So I displayed it on the bridge, safely away from any starlight."

    "If I'm rich I'll rent it from you for our wedding," Lilith says before choking on her own drink a bit, "When, if. You know, someday." Then thinking, "Fuck there's a crusade in two years actually isn't there?" Romance was clearly in the drink, and the drink was gone.

    "Are you proposing-Oh sorry!" Celestine's voice shatters a glass on a nearby table as she briefly loses control of herself, flushed and ditzy as she is, a broad smile, hazy golden glow and gorgeous, almost floating hair. "Are you proposing?" She settles on the words much quieter this time, though the entire establishment, and likely everyone outside already heard it.

    Lilith looks to Varynna, and thinks Do you have two rings on you by chance? Wait nevermind she'll know that wasn't planned. "I wanted too, but I didn't really consider how little time there actually was to get all that done. I was going to wait so it didn't seem so…" She makes a hand gesture that is very clearly.

    "Oh shush Lilith, my dearest lovely Lilith." Celestine throws herself over the other woman, almost ensconcing her.

    "Oh! Oh. You are like a real lightweight, featherweight even." Lilith says suddenly, "We've never really tested it vigorously." Though she's very much enjoying the attention. "I don't think you're going to remember this so I'm going to propose when you're sober and I'll like… Plan something, do it right."

    Celestine giggles, a sharp, adorable sound, "But I want you on one knee! Please? My dearest, indulge me!" It's an obvious beg, but somehow still refined and elegant.

    "Oh, wow" Then suddenly Lilith yelps, "Hey, that hand is going very far south for a bar."

    Stopping at Lilith's waist with a lustful smile, Celestine says, "I disagree, look how flushed you are." The saint says, practically red herself from the glass and a quarter she had.

    "You had one glass." Lilith said shocked, "You're like eight-eleven or something." The hand slips underneath the waistband, "Ok!~" Almost singing. "Compromise, let me do the proposal right and I'll be on both knees tonight."

    Laughing as she falls backwards out of her chair, Celeste says, "Why would I barter for what I'll already get?"

    "Compromise and you'll be on both knees tonight." Lilith says, leaping up and biting Celestine's lip hard because she knows she can. The bite rapidly turns to a kiss as the lip bruises in real time, on the ruins of a chair Celestine has to be stopped lest this far exceeds the bounds of propriety, smiling lasciviously. "I think I want tonight to be…mysterious. Don't tell me anything, I won't tell you anything."

    "That." Lilith says mischievously, as she leans in, "Sounds like someone else is getting flustered for once." Getting just close enough that Celestine slightly parts her lips before pulling away mischievously.

    "I could have told you that, my sweetest." Celestine chuckles, hands lingering in the air where Lilith just was.

    "How you doing Kat—" Then very quickly adding the rest of her name, "arinya Greyfax Inquisitor misses."

    Katarinya downs her own drink, something that smells acrid and terribly rough, burning nostrils just by contact alone. She's not drunk, but getting there even with her gulping pace. "Fine." She twitches, not at Kat, but at "misses", a lasbolts retort suddenly being recalled.

    Seeing that, and letting the liquor wash over her, "You can snap back at me with insults, none of us are like… Pulling rank here, and even if we did I think my official title would be like…" She looks at Celestine who is currently being brought a second chair, "Do Saints have Concubines?"

    "I was thinking more wife, but if you are a concubine!" Celestine laughs, word once again sounding out loudly, "I can put you in one of those outfits, the ones with chains for my…what is it again? The wheel device." The Saint admits to possessing such a thing casually, bringing stares.

    Lilith's eyes go wide, as she looks at the rest of the table, "Ah!~ We~ I forget you just say things sometimes. It's really awesome and liberating. It's just called a wheel, or a bondage wheel." She finally finishes, "And they already come with cuffs. Wait no, the Enfettered wheel you mean."

    "I have no idea-You know!" She switches topics suddenly, "I have-had, I had a friend you'd have liked. I met her once on a battlefield before she passed."

    Oh she's one of those drunks,     "Yeah," Lilith said with a smile.

    "Anais, well, Saint Anais! She was like me, but add two more feet in every direction." Gesturing at her chest and hips firmly, "I was baffled when I saw her. Like a sudden vision overcame me." Celestine is smiling brightly at the memory, "But the Emperor has not seen fit to bring her back yet, do you know what she was a saint of?"

    "No? What?" Lilith asked smiling, looking at her patting her leg.

    "Protection, she was protection." The Saint smiles even brighter somehow, "On Kaurava, she took on the blows that any Sister on planet faced, every injury they had on her body. It saved the convent, but even we have limits."

    Lilith stifled a quick memory of her taking someone else's pain for eight fucking weeks, but let it think. "You know, when you described being 'baffled' when you saw her. I was thinking pretty much the same thing when we met. It was hard to believe you were real. Like, an actual fucking angel was far out of my realm of things I believed were possible, and then you were there you were there." She stops, slurring her words a bit, "And then there you were, just beautiful as fucking… fuck. Just out and about, existing perfectly in the world."

    "I know, I spotted you from across the room. Before you ever spoke to me, I found you refreshingly direct. So little fear, no apprehension. I was nothing but a dream to you." She confesses, eyes glowing with sparks falling from them, a sign of excitement.

    "A dream that turned wet real quick," Lilith said crassly with a laugh, "I swear to god emp —hiccough— emperor I nearly died the minute I saw you."

    Then sluggishly, "I do wanna be Lilith and Celestine von gra—hiccough—" Then she stops herself, "Whatever name we choose. Our little —hiccough— family."
    Celestine stands up, grabbing Lilith and pulling her up to her chest before stomping around the table with an armours clink, grabbing Katerinya as well. "Don't worry Primarch, you can enjoy the night with the woman who can't stop thinking of you!" Celestine throws Varynna under the moving bus.

    As this is happening Lilith has become a stream of commentary, when Katerinya is picked up she starts mumbling, "Wait she's ace, don't she doesn't wanna— Oh. that's not what's happening. okay." Then, "Oh my god, She spent fifteen hours picking a dress to be perfect for you. please get on that you silly man. There is no-one better for you." Now fully slipped into the drink

    "What the hell is going on?!" Katerinya shouts past her haze, grabbing the bottle of rotgut Amasec she was downing in a lightning reflex.

    Lilith giggles, "You're marrying us! All of us."

    "Well first, we're going to have a sermo-No, wrong gothic, conversation!" She's kicked open the door and with a flare of wings, ascends up.

    "Is she her flying drunk safe?" Lilith asks Katarinya, "Are we in danger? Ooooh wind is cool on my faaaace."
     
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    • B02-003 - Drink and Drive
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    • Hey if you're reading this at work listen up!
    The entire thread is NSFW by default, but maybe your work is more progressive!
    The following content may be more explicit than your average update!

    The next slide has trigger warnings for those who need them.
    Extremely Vanilla sex.
    ​


    Celestine's flight is horribly dangerous, taking her within inches of impacts, last second turns, bare misses with low flying aircraft and inbetween obstacles as she laughs wildly, "Do you know what I'm the Saint of, Lilith?" She asks above the wind, adoring the danger.

    "Truth!" Lilith yells out with a smile.

    "I dearly hope you are right!" She spins, slipping through a window into the space dock that holds the shuttles which can take everyone back into the ship.

    "Wait what?" Lilith says suddenly, "Wait… What!?" Her eyes very blearly blinking.

    "It is a common debate." Katarinya states dully, sipping at her bottle, "Whether Saint Celestine is a Saint of Truth or Hate. We are undecided." Another sip, turning into a gulp.

    "How can someone who radiates warmth literally constantly, and explodes into light orgasms be a Saint of Hate." Lilith asks, forgetting Katarinya is there, "Do they know about the lightgasm. I feel like that solved the debate."

    "I get excited in battle my lovely Lilith. And then a little…loud." She admits, trying to figure out which shuttle is the one for their ship.

    "Liking to fight isn't hate, I don't like to fight because I hate. I like to fight because combat is fun, it's a true test of mettle. No matter what you do, what you say, there's only one truth. Whose standing at the end." Lilith says giggling.

    "You are definitely on your knees tonight." The Saint speaks loud enough to reverberate in a tangible vibration.

    "Wrestle you for it," Lilith says, biting her on the ear, gnawing on her neck now trying to make cute noises.

    "Filthy." Katarinya mutters, kicking open a shuttle cockpit and opening the back door. Sitting at the controls with practised ease. "Get in."

    "Do you have…" Lilith says stumbling into the back of the shuttle. "Do you have even an inkling of how cool you are? Like… As a conceptual understanding of what cool and rad is?"

    "You sound like a teenager." Katarinya says as she hums and drives the engines to life, escaping the world's pull roughly, not at all like the previous pilot."

    "I'm twenty six" Lilith says morosely, "Or thirty now… Maybe, I actually am not sure how much I'm aging mentally. But seriously. You… You like hot rigged a car, you turned a guy into pink mist, you drive cool. I know receiving a compliment is probably poison… venom… poison… venomous to you. But it's true!" She then lounges in Celestine's lap after she crawls in.

    "You should have seen her on Cadia. I remember being so worried when a Berserker slipped past me." Celestine remembers a battle fondly, "But she locked blades with it, barely holding it back as it screamed. Then, holding her sword with one hand, she drew her pistol and shot both its knees out!"

    "See? That's cool. The coolest thing I did in battle was eat a guys heart. It's just not the same. Guns are cool, but I can't aim them at all." She was almost pouting, "I'm glad she's a part of our group I don't think I could compete." Lilith said slumping over dizzily, "I love our little family."

    Katerinya makes a noise just short of annoyed at that, kicking the engines on harder as she escapes the atmosphere, piloting as if bullets are in the air.

    "You're not spacing me right Celestina?" Lilith said suddenly looking at the sky around her, "Everyone I trust them, then, they hate me." She gets a little sad now. "I trust Kerrigan, she hated me. Tried to kill me. I trust Anastasia, she lies to me, then she hates me. Takes my swarm. I trust Varynna and… Wait. No Varynna's cool never mind. It's fifty fifty right now. The only person I really want killing me is people who have fun with it. Has to be fun for… For…" Lilith looks at Celestina and then pokes her in the chest.

    "You are a treasure." Celestine comments, looking at Lilith with something like a mix of adoration and devotion. "You are my treasure, aren't you?" It's a question that somehow makes her more flushed.

    "Yes! You get it. I just want to be wanted, not because I'm the last woman available but because I make you happy." Lilith says with a smile. "It's why I love playing with that one!" Lilith says point at "Kat she… She lets me stay, because she knows I'd leave if she didn't. Didn't want me there or here or anywhere. It's all games. I love games. That's why I like Varynna, she plays really scary games. Kat's games are scary in a more physical oh look a docking bay." Lilith looks out the window as the shuttle does some complicated maneuver making her mutter, "Coool."

    An alarm on her datapad pings, and blearily checking it Lilith hisses with a groan. She scheduled it for a few days later, swearing at herself for forgetting. She needed to write down for Guilliman what was needed for her own Swarm a private one separated off to manage herself, a back-up plan in case Ana and the others moved against the imperium. There was a moment she considered trying to do it now, but the numbers swam in her head, making her want to vomit. Alcohol dulling her connection to everything. She missed them, she missed the background chatter always having someone somewhere to talk too.

    With a quick look at Celestine, the sadness turned to overwhelming joy, and she sniffled with a deep inner warmth before saying, "I'm so happy to have you guys. Especially now when I've got nothing else." The words are slurred before something tugs her to consciousness and space spun outside the shuttle.

    The shuttle suddenly twists as it enters a docking bay, engines flaming out as they stop all momentum, slamming into the docking bay with force, denting the floor tiles, sending sparks and metal everywhere as Katerinya has popped the cockpit and is stepping out of it before the thing's done moving, letting it slip past her.

    "She knows I mean it right? She's a psyker so she knows I mean it." Lilith asks as it looks like Katerinya is almost fleeing the vehicle.

    "Once I'm done with you." Celestine smiles, "Have a conversation with her. Informal agreements like yours are sometimes…complex, my dearest." She whispers as the shuttle stops just short of a wall. "For now though." Lilith is lifted back up and into her chest as she starts the journey to her chambers, "We have to wrestle!" The excited cry shakes the walls and terrifies crewmen.

    Stumbling into the room, it's an immediate struggle as Celestine tries to put Lilith on the bed, but finds her very fast and unpredictable. A struggle here or there, trying to put her superior strength to use despite the fact that she's slipped four times so far and Lilith seems, physically, unaffected by the liquor. Pouncing from place to place like a cat.

    Finally deciding to go for it, irreverent of consequence, Celestine rushes Lilith in a flare of wings, a proper charge of the sort that's driven through entire regiments of enemies before, catching her and denting in the wall with the impact to a slow drip of worry from the Saint.

    The screeching giggle, that comes from Lilith as she suddenly bites the Saint's hand, trying to get let go is all that's really needed to show that she's Okay. "You know you had to try, like actually try. So I won when you think about it. Because I get a handicap for being cute."

    "Minx." She laughs, trying to think of what to do before, suddenly, as if struck by lightning, having an idea. "Remember when I promised to hold you against a wall?" She says, drifting a hand down to firmly grip Lilith's waist, the other one still busy holding her upper half steady.

    Lilith leans in, "No, remind me what that'd look like?" Chomping at Celestine's face, full Zerg instincts in effect to bite and tear though the reasoning not exactly clear on why.

    Suddenly, Lilith is pushed up the wall, skirt torn off in another motion, expensive cloth in one flattened sheet on the floor as Celestine smiles, feeling this new role through, figuring out how to be the one in charge.

    "Oh Miss Saint," Lilith says in a faux breathy voice stretching down the collar of her halter top, "You've conquered me… What spoils will you be taking, I'll do anything." The voice is low and languid, and her body feels slightly too loose as her tongue almost drips her body covered in rivulets of sweat.

    "Everything, my dearest." She booms, leaning in to bite at Lilith's thigh, spilling a a streak of blood from the force as she suddenly blinks. "Oh, I can't control my strength, is that fine?" Celestine looks up for permission at Lilith, worried suddenly.

    Drunk, and confused, Lilith simply headbutts Celestine, "That wasn't even strong! What are you scared of!?"

    Celestine lifts Lilith higher, slamming her again into the wall. The bulkheads creaking and groaning under the force of their combined weight. She presses on, biting, licking, and pushing causing Lilith to try and grasp at something her hands tearing metal. The Saint's pushing hard with her Elbows to keep slight amount of space between them. Her tongue flicks out, teasing Lilith's sensitive center, eliciting a startled gasp and an answering moan.

    Celestine's touch is unlike anything Lilith has experienced before. Though firm and forceful, there's a smooth, gentle quality to it as well, Like the tide, something fluid that could carve mountains. The Zerg princess's bruises have already begun to heal as gripping hands make new ones, but they only enhance the sensation of being held in place by Celestine's strong grip. Lilith shifts, running her hands in Celestine's silky hair. "You're doing... Great." She pants, her body trembling with need and anticipation.

    Celestine shows no signs of relenting, maintaining her relentless pace, each movement perfectly timed and tuned. With every bruising squeeze, every nail digging into soft flesh, she pushes her partner closer to the edge. Metal groans, time seems to lose all meaning, and then, suddenly, the wall gives way, sending them both tumbling onto the bulkheads in a tangle of limbs and laughter. Confused amusement lights Celestine's features as she gazes down at the smaller woman beneath her.

    "I think we just extended our quarters, and took over someone else's how the fuck did you break solid steel?" Lilith said, gasping. "Also I got a strap. It's under the bed. I was going to tell you… but I was distracted very suddenly."

    "What's that?" Celestine asks, smiling at Lilith with a drenched face. Lilith decided to explain later as she heard an angry growl.

    Lilith stops looking over, "Uh… Hi…" She gasped, "Katarinya, our wall broke… Please don't shoot me."

    Katarinya was holding a gun looking shocked, enraged, and a little frightened, most likely startled by nearly 400 pounds of woman, muscle, and steel bursting into where she was trying to relax, or possibly sleep. Before the sudden wall cave in, her room was a spartan affair, with barely any symbols and stark white sheets identical to the one's her crew uses. Now it's been accessorised with sparking wire and metal chunks everywhere. Including a small splatter of body glitter that had fallen off Lilith into the room.

    "I…" Lilith starts to say, "Is this awkward for you guys, or a normal thing, because like, giant angels and dudes in two ton power armour makes it unclear how often walls cave in during passion." She's gasping, and letting her mouth simply flow with no filter.

    "What are you up to?" She asks, as she tries to climb out from under Celestine. "Please don't shoot me."

    Katerinya glares past her gun, bottle still in the other hand, "Get out before I break you." She threatens in a gruff growl, sounding like a woman twice her apparent age and thrice as lethal.

    Lilith walks through the hole in the wall, but then looks behind her, it didn't really seem to do much for Katerinya's privacy. "Ah, now there's a decision to make." Celestine whines, idly putting her hands on Lilith's hips and dragging her to the bed. "On one hand, I want to keep hearing you moan." She whispers, considering, "On the other, Katerinya probably wouldn't like that."

    Extremely drunk and confused, Lilith looks between the two of then, and says, extremely bluntly, "Katerinya is ace and likes to watch / listen? or does want to join in but thinks she can't? or… a third option? She knows she's a part of… Us right?" Looking back to Katerinya, "You're a part of… Whatever you want to be a part of or don't want to be a part of."

    "Katerinya." The way Celestine says her name drags goosebumps across anyone who can hear her. "You are always welcome by my side, is she welcome by yours, Lilith?" The Angel looks down.

    "Side, ontop, beneath, behind, she is maybe one of my most trusted people outside of you." Lilith said with full honesty, "She helped me get you back in Necromunda, and we fought through to Terra together. She's a… Sister in arms. She's our family."

    There's a complex series of emotions on Katerinya's face, the visage cracking to reveal what's beneath for a split second. And then she moves slowly. But Celestine frowns immediately as she does, "It is not your duty, Katerinya."

    "Oh." Lilith says quietly, "Oh, honey no." She's quickly picking up her own clothes now and getting dressed. "Hey. It wasn't like that, I'm sorry." Lilith runs to her private things rummaging through it grabbing a glass, and some liquid that is not alcohol that smells faintly of sugar and citrus. "It's… I tried recreating an electrolyte drink, here." She hands it to Katerinya, and makes sure not to make skin contact when doing so.

    She takes a few steps back and sits down, "We were teasing for some people that can be fun." Lilith says quietly, sitting on the ground. "You don't have to join. Even if you want to, but it doesn't feel right. Even if you love the person involved and you don't want them to be unhappy." Lilith is quiet looking at Katarinya

    "I don't know what you and Celestine have, I don't know if you hate me being here and I misread signals. We don't tell you you're welcome as coercion. It's a sign that if some day in the future, maybe far far far in the future, maybe never, you're welcome. On your terms." Lilith says quietly with a smile.

    "I want to maim you." Katerinya growls, "Cut, burn, slice, shoot. I want to mount you to my ship and every other slaughter I can think of."

    "I'd like that especially if that's how it needs to be for you to show you care." Lilith says happily, looking at her, that she's letting her feelings out.

    "But I don't want to kill you." The voice almost cracks at that, as if its some grand, complete, terrible shame. That because of that, she's a failure. "I am the dagger of the Imperium, its hidden blade to do everything that must stay in the dark." She's glaring now, burning a hole in a wall as she speaks, "I should not have weakness, doubt is my enemy."

    "Oh, because I'm mostly alien parts? Does it not matter that Celestine turns me human? I don't know really what an inquisitor does." Lilith admits looking at her, "I just know I've never seen you doubt anything. You're convicted to your ideals seeing me as important doesn't change that if I were a threat you'd do what had to be done."

    She's looking at Katarinya, "Do you really think, if I did something to hurt you, or Celestine, or anything you love you wouldn't burn down heaven, hell, the warp, and every system between you and me to make sure that I paid dearly for the mistake?"

    Katerinya stares at Lilith with something empty in her, like a soul that's been long since torn out, "I wouldn't care to make you pay, Lilith. You'd be a name on paper then."

    "Right, so it sounds like you don't have any doubts, your ideals are firm. You're still the hidden blade." Lilith follows up, the empty stare leaving her unphased. A woman who has spent her entirety staring at Ultralisks, Hydralisks, Mutalisks, Abathur. Tearing out horrific biomorphs, and tearing apart for resequencing. "You're… Convicted. It's a switch, and the minute I'm out of line that switch gets flicked. I don't doubt that, I just don't intend to get out of line so it doesn't bother me. I know all that, I love you because of that."

    "Do you want to understand it." Katerinya growls out, one eye beginning to flicker to a milky white, "You don't. I can make you."

    "Okay." Lilith says, "That's fine, please do I want to understand you."

    Her hand moves to grab the side of Lilith's head roughly, a blue-mist glow emanating from it. Both women's eyes roll back as centuries of service are transferred. A gunshot retort grows familiar, the peculiar sound of a body stiffening at death drills into Lilith constantly, every variety imaginable. The way violence becomes easy, then necessary, then an addiction, how blood feels when its coating every inch of you. How a world's ashes drift from between your fingers after three words commanded it.

    How the survivors decry your name, how you become the monster of those you hope to protect. Of isolation and hatred hounding you for centuries. Of nothing but vitriolic fury keeping you in the fight. There's a separation, Lilith blinks back to sanity, to here, while Katerinya vibrates with that same fury, controlling it, honing it, bringing it to her.

    "I'm not a psyker, but can I try to share something with you?" She says, looking at Katerinya, breathing deeply, shaken a bit, but not overwhelmingly so. "I want to show you the hive memories, of a woman I loved very dearly."

    "Fine." Katerinya grabs the side of Lilith's had again.

    Lilith focuses on first, herself and Tarsonis, the Zerg swarming her planet, ripping her, then Kerrigan, the Queen of blades, years of her tormenting Terrans, and herself, tormenting everyone. Then generations, thousands of generations of Zerg, thousands of different adaptations, first stupid, warring, mean, the Overmind, the Brood Wars. Fighting with Mengsk, deep memories that she had taken from Abathur, years of being tortured, Lilith reliving those years over and over for a woman who destroyed worlds who did not have mercy. Who was incapable of understanding the concept of what needed to be done and what didn't.

    The Zerg, the old Zerg this horrifying biophage that threatened galaxies and tore things to pieces. Then unity, it learning, adapting. Creating Lilith. Abathur choosing Lilith to help Kerrigan, programming Lilith to love and care for people so that the Zerg could learn something anything besides being genocidal monsters. It working, and that woman, that awful woman who Lilith loved more than anything else deciding that she'd rather condemn the world than work with the imperium threatening everything over and over again. Lilith killing her twice because she loved her more then life itself but she loved people everyone more. That everyone was good, and no-one was irredeemable as long as they had reasons and beliefs and morals and ideals.

    There's a clash, a violent shove against that, a deep seated truth that lies somewhere in Katarinya, bashed there by pain and betrayal and hatred alike. No one is innocent. It repeats constantly, a song, a drum, a chant in her deepest mind. Nothing is pure. It continues, pulsing in her, only interrupted by the image of Celestine on rare, sudden occasions.

    "Was it too much? I'm sorry." Lilith said quietly. "Innocence and Purity are notions that help people do things, but they're not useful. What's useful is what's pragmatic, for the survival of the people you love and care about."

    "There is nothing beyond the Imperium's survival." Katarinya states with a sad, deathly fanaticism, "Nothing, no one."

    "Correct, that's one of the reasons I had to kill Kerrigan." Lilith said, "I didn't realise it at the time, but I started planning when she attacked the admiral, when I realised that if she led the Zerg she'd try to wipe it out."

    There's a darkening to her at that, as if finding it distasteful that someone else faced a betrayal. "You've faced one such faithlessness. I have hundreds." The growl that escapes her is wounded and angry, rage the stitching keeping her together, fully on display now.

    "You're a good person, it doesn't matter how many you've faced. You're a good person because you're true to what you believe. You have a moral code, it's compatible with what you do, just doesn't match what most people tell you it should be." Lilith continues to stare, her voice is low calm and even though she knows that Katarinya has probably now heard it a millions times with a dozen different people at this point. "It's not just one though. The other ones are just really small, so they don't seem significant. Someone cheating, someone stealing, someone making me homeless, someone getting me arrested. They're not… Big betrayals, they don't match, but I saw your mind, and I saw someone worth trusting. Not someone to recoil from."

    "And what, that means I should kiss you now?" She barks, finding solace in the anger.

    "No, what I saw makes me think you're a very far way from that with someone. It means that some day, if you want to talk about it we can. If some day, you want to kiss Celestine." Lilith says pointedly, "You can. It's that right now, today, you're in a spot where some of the things you want aren't possible or compatible. Find as close as you can get, and because we, that's both of us, love you we'll work with you. If some day, you want to get closer, we'll accommodate. If some day you need to be further, we can accommodate that too."

    Lilith says very softly, pushing everything to try and make it clear that this isn't an accusation, or an attack or a failing. "What you want may not be possible now. That doesn't mean it's impossible forever. Until then, sit with us. Eat my food, listen to Celestine's songs, be tossed around and get called Kat, and throw knives at me. All of that stuff is great, makes me happy. We'll do what it takes to get you as close to happy as you feel you can achieve."

    Katarinya has a long period of silence fall over her, the sort that shouldn't be broken. Eventually, she finds words with no stutter, no breaks nor issues, as if completely untouched by anything. "Death in the Emperor's service is the only happiness a dagger deserves, Lilith." She's stiffened into her shell, fanaticism replacing humanity.

    "Sometimes we get better than what we deserve. When we're really lucky, there's people around us, maybe even put there by some bigger power, that gives us so much more than we deserve, because we are worth more to them then we are to ourselves." Lilith says, looking at her with a smile, looking at her shell. "That may be all you deserve, but what you deserve isn't your maximum."

    "The galaxy has a sense of humour." Katarinya finally says, low and quiet, pulling an inhaler out, letting its chemicals discharge into her mouth with a hiss of air. "A quadrillion souls that would need this, and I have to be the one to receive it. The one already ready to die."

    "I don't agree with you, but it is a moot point." The chemicals seem to calm her, remove a stress that speaks of addiction, "The universe doesn't care what either of us think, it follows the calls of thirsting gods and base mathematics. Truth will outweigh any argument I have." It's a common justification for her, far too practised to be anything but. "The future will…decide the truth." Truth is an obsession of hers, it was evident in the wash of memory, truth always preempted death. No execution without reason no matter how big or small.

    "I'd like to prove to you then, that you're worth what we want to give you." Lilith said quietly, "Let the future decide, test it by Celestine the Saint of Truth who says you are worth it. I'd say by myself but uh… You saw my memories. I'm a bad test case." Her face falls, sad, looking to the side.

    Katarinya rolls her eyes, lacking back down in bed, "You've tormented me enough for one day."

    "Fair, I'll… Put up a sheet or something? I'm sorry I covered your room in body glitter." Lilith says as she grabs a blanket and starts to think about how to pin it up.
     
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