Hope and Silence in the Hive [Warhammer 40K][Complete]

[Nighzmarquls]

With enough tries anything is possible...

There are near countless numbers of feelings, memories and stories echoing in the warp. Stories of pain, stories of bloodshed, stories of rot, stories of exultation.

They are told in agony and joy, hope and despair, rage and even love (what sparse parts of the universe can shine with such a thing).

Most of the faith, hope and prayers are siphoned to great terra and its emperor's choir the astronomicon.

Most of the rest are split amidst the gods of the ork, the eldar or the ruinous powers of chaos.

But even in all this mass and with all these forces gorging themselves on the stories and feelings of the warp there are some that slip the cracks.

Mere scraps of hope, of dreams of better times, of stories that no voice has shared in any living memory still whisper.

Of dreams of ascendency, dreams of peace, dreams of joy and friendship.

And as with all things in the warp. These things converge, congeal and seek out one another. Slowly growing and hiding and siphoning the few scraps true to their nature.

It was an old creature, but a small one.

But it’s diminutive size kept it safe.

Sometimes this thing of dream stuff answers the call of young psykers.

Time and again it has ended very badly for the psyker.

But this agelessly ancient child was spun of hopes and dreams.


So over the millennia it has tried again and again.

And of course with enough tries ANYTHING is possible.



***


Solin Gaskterson worked in the deep plumbing. He knew the sound of a full and empty pipe from the way his footsteps echoed in the grated platform behind it. He could manage a wrench and a junction replacement while blind, underwater and half deafened. He was a bastard and an orphan borne of a mother that no one believed when she swore up and down she hadn't been with a lad yet in her life.

That was a long time ago though, and now he worked pipes. He was best working the Handspan to smallest finger pipes. But with special tools he managed Tiny tubes running up into nutrient facs and with the whole crew with him they managed great wide tubes that could swallow the width of three trolley.

His floor was dark, grimy and full of so many smells some of the crew had their sinuses burned out to avoid the discomfort.

Solin Gaskterson prefered to be able to catch a whiff of fire or bad air personally. He worked pipes with his crew and took short reprieves for midshift meal and after shift meal.

It was after shift meal and he was having a bit of a dizzy spell, possibly from Oritz’ pipe still’s latest products.

The light was getting painful and he’d moved to a darker closet to try and get his bearings or if worse came to worse puke into the grated floor and sleep it off.

Suddenly he collapsed with a wheezy huff as every muscle and joint twisted and cramped into a seized lock.

His Every sight was pain, vision corruscating with light and whorls of contrast. Closing his eyes did nothing, the darkness this brought only made the incoherent vision brighter.

Staring at the filament of a yellow lamp did nothing. It cast the whorls and lightnings dancing behind his eyes into the black of a deepest alleyway. Maybe the visions could have been pretty but every sight and sound and change was agony.

Every sound was torture, the volume magnified, the distinctions around a water drop from a faucet echoing down a pipe. The bang of his head against the metal of the grated floor. The scrape of hair and cloth against skin. The footsteps of a shift departing two corridors down.

The murmur of voices of neighbors the sound of his peers laughing and praying and filling the time before lights out for their troop.

The normally comforting hum and buzz of the motors and rattle of water works.

Now every sound was like daggers jamming into his head.

He cried and the tears burned because there was nothing else they could do. The taste of his own mouth,the texture of hair upon his head. The touch of his own skin on itself at the temple, the elbow.

He was trapped in a prison with every sense a torture. Every muscle and nerve screaming.

He wanted it to stop.

His muscles twisted and strained as if they were trying to crack his bones. His skull felt like something inside it was trying to smash its way out. He felt encased and imprisoned from head to toe anchored and pinned down.

He had to get out. He was trapped in pain and he had to break free of it.

He did not know what was going on, but in the pain he found dreams.

Hopes.

Stories and feelings. Interspersed and filtering through.

The pain was still there but he felt that light and the promise for relief. He grasped it hope and vision filling and burning him at his core.

Then with a mighty effort She pulled herself free! Muscles, splitting and twisting, bones cracking and sliding, skin splitting around the imperfect fit and being pulled by threads into better shape.

Eyes burning out in a flare of white green before flesh closed over them once more and rose as lids with a vision that could encompass the sights that had burned before.

Ears perked and twisting to hear what before was agony.

Mouth parting and stretching wide. Teeth and tongue straining to shed the confinements and restraint.

And finally there was silence in the dark.

The glass of the lamp shattered. The filament sputtering with buzzes and snaps of freed power.

Pain was over, everything in the world was clear and bright and beautiful. The grating, the pipe works, The cramped storage closet, the charred shelves that once held tools and random bits and bobs, the figure standing in the doorway in a state of utter shock at what he beheld, the broken lamp with it’s pretty flickering arc of lightning.

It took several moments to register the words in the air stinging with an acrid stink all around them.

“Solin! What happened?! Was there a burst? What Happened?”

She turned to look up at him and tried to feel with her tongue at her teeth making a creaky buzz of a noise.

“Whargz?”

A realization seemed to strike the figure and the face went pale, the eyes widened and the reek spiked almost painfully bitter.

“DEMON! THERE'S A DEMON HERE!”

He turned and tripped over himself in an attempt to run away from her.

“Urrrhazat bahz?”

Concerned voices responded from the distance, muddled but made sharp with the sharp reek that was now practically fountaining off the man before her.

“Whazt ... going on?”

But he was already on his feet and fleeing.

She was confused.

But the mounting stink building and spreading up from the surrounding hallways suggested this was not going to be a good place to remain.

She turned around, peering over the pipe work. An open ventilation shaft had long since lost it’s covering baffles and fan. Open and empty.

Barely a thought was needed to leap into the vent and slither and crawl her way into the vaguely familiar plumbing of the hive world.

Spoiler: Author's Note'

I'm gonna try out something different from my usual. Aiming for semi daily updates for all of November. Length between 1000-2000 words a piece. I'll take advice, suggestions or critique as things go but getting words to page as a first draft is the priority.

This is a Multicross more as 'inspiration' for what the protagonist's thoughts, feelings and abilities are but it is meant to be ambiguous if this story is a fusion, inter dimensional shenanigan, ROB or just regular War Hammer Warp Shenanigans. I don't intend to directly explain what the source of stuff is as part of the narrative.

I welcome speculation on what things I'm drawing from and might take suggestions for what could be pulled or characters to get transposed in.

Spoiler: Super Spoilery Story Achievement List

FRIENDSHIP IS NOBLEBRIGHT
GRIMDARK: Get your first accumulation of corruption.
THE BIRDS AND THE BEELZEBUBS: Make your own neverborn.
HEARTBREAKER: Level up your friendship with a Genestraler Cult.
Nobility Oblidges: Level up your friendship with an Imperial noble.
We're Arians*, not Aryans: Make contact with a radical inquisitor.
Ominous Omnivores: Discover Father's origin.
Adoption Papers: Create a spawn using a human's soul.
A Bug's Life: Create a spawn using Tyranid souls.
Like Bunnies: Create a bunch of spawn. Like, a lot. Exactly 1,000,000.
Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah!: Learn your true name.
Full of DETERMINATION: Perform your first miracle. And with an Undertale reference, too!
Keep your Friends Close: Assimilate a Chaos daemon.
Row Row: Trigger a deus ex machina.
Text-to-speech device: Summon the Emperor of Mankind.
And Your Enemies Closer: Defeat an incursion by all four Chaos Gods.
Silence in the Hive: Avert the Tyranid threat before it reaches landfall.
Hope: Complete the main story on low corruption.

 

[Akshka]

Well you have my attention....let's see where this goes

 

[Professor Janus]

Hmm...let us see where this goes.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

Pipes, Turns and bitterness. It was these things which guided her. She traveled first through ventilation, standard seven hand span main lines rushing either with hot dry air, Cold frigid wind, or muggy stale air.

But on a whim and after shouts and heavy clouds of bitter sourness pooled and burst around her passing she slipped from ventilation to maintenance access. She was bemused and off center but the knowing of the pipeworks sat heavy in her twisted and changed bones.

Things were different, SHE was different but yet the pipes were still as much a part of her as she could vaguely recall it being a part of HIM.

It would be funny if it was not so sad how the only thing that seems to have carried over from HIM is the art of plumbing.

In maintenance she was still not safe. Although the clouds of bitterness seemed to have lost track of her. It was a more trafficked area, here other work shifts would find her, or gutter snipe orphans not claimed by the training camps might simply come upon her and cut her to pieces for her flesh to fill their bellies.

When was the last time she had ever tasted meat?

Was it a rat on a stick? Or a hamburger? Or never at all?

What even was a hamburger?

She’d never seen one in her life.

She’d never seen one in HIS life.

So how did she know that it was on the list of meats she might have eaten?

There was a low sour sweet feel to the air coming her way now. Not yet spiking with bitterness the way that those that screamed and chased her noise in the pipeworks did. This was she almost thought a kind of plodding flavour?

The world was strange and her flight through vent and hallway seemed to be edging into an ache of tiredness that cut sharply into hunger.

Half on the instinct of years grown up in pipe works and knowing where the eye won’t look and half on new strange urges moving up and down her muscles she curled and twisted into a cranny between one of the noisier wastewater pipes and the ceiling.

The plodding not bitter tasting cloud around the figure put her less on edge. This was a potentially safe person?

It’s what she tasted and that had been working out so far in the last few hours of life. Might as well try, but better this time, as innocuous and gentle as she could.
“Ex-Excuse me?” Where had she gotten a voice so much softer? So much more gentle than the rasping buzz of before? She had no idea but it seemed to avoid spiking the figure below her into a cloud of cloying bitterness.

Progress!

“What? What ya doin down here kidlin? This Ain’t no place fer ya. Where’s ya Shift? ... Or parents?” Some man, may be no older or younger than HE had been but it was fuzzy and hard to tell from outside the head that speaks.

She had not had the moment till now to notice how sharp her teeth seemed to be.

“Hello? Is ya playing me a trick then? This ollie pulling one?”

“N-no sir... I’m ... lost I don’t know where my” racking her memory she tried to make a pick on which would be more appropriate, she knew shifts and work but there was a hint of a flavor when he had said parents, like the bitter but also a sweet sort of zest to it too.

“Where my parents are... Everyone is scary here... and I just... I had to hide”

Something spicy and so tart it almost makes her sneeze pops around him at that.

“Where from you then? Where from your parents?”

There was a hint of the worst bitterness she had been fleeing so far under all of that. She needed to convince him she was safe, not to go all bitter and screaming and ‘DEMON DEMON DEMON’ like the others.

She needed to not be seen like that, here and now and however long she could, she reached for something, in a way that felt vaguely like when HIS head was splitting open to release her. But softer and much more natural.

Then with a little flash of green she found herself having great difficulty clinging to the ceiling and promptly started stumbling and sliding down the walls of the pipes squeaking in pain in the percussive descent. Finally plopping onto the floor shivering. Hair draped over most of her body as she cringed for the screaming and sour foulness to overwhelm her.

“Emperor wept, why dintcha say you were in ya skinnies girl?! Ere take ma coat and we can get ya to a constabulary to find where ta put ya and where ya parents lost ya”

The first hints of nasty smell had been swept away all at once by new and interesting flavors on the air, sweet ones, faintly spicy ones, something else she could not describe but it made her mouth water to the point she simply nodded to his suggestion and hopped up to her feet with the overlarge coat tightly closed around her.

For the first time no one seemed to be a gut wrenching stench factory and was treating her well.

How did she do that?

Didn't matter right now. She had finally found someone who would talk longer than the first sentence before running off screaming and stinking like the foulest tincture.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

Making our way through the story

 

[Vaalintine]

So a newly spawned warp being not aligned to chaos? Interesting.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

At first it was manageable. The delicious flavor in the air rose and fell. Mostly settling into a background humming tingle. That slightly sour but muted plodding scent slowly settling onto the man who was named “Viktor Weldson”.

It was simultaneously a relief and a stinging pain in her stomach as the flavor faded from around him.

At least without her mouth constantly gleeking full and sopping with saliva she could speak. Although it ended up being that she did not have much to answer his inquiries.

“Wot’s yor name?”

“Ss-Sol -in... as? Solínas”

“Got a family name with that? will help findin ya parents”

“p...V-valv’dottir?”

“Ah plumbin family? You a shift waif then?”

“Nmm”

“You been lost long?”

“ M-maybe a shift or two?”

“You willing ta tell me your mum’s name”

“Nmm”

“What about your pa’s ?”

“Nmm”

“How you got lost down here?”

“Nmm” it turns out shyly shivering into the man’s voluminous and waterproofed plumber’s coat is an excellent non-committal response to halt lines of inquiry.

Which he was persistent with and she neither wanted nor knew how to answer.

But with all the dodging of topics and the spotty knowledge in her own head (aside from plumbing that is. She had plenty of knowledge on plumbing such as how there was a good series of hand shaft feed tubes below the grate here, but that join right there was right spoiling to leak in a dozen shifts) it was not turning out to be a very talkative walk.

There was however as the walk went on a new syrupy sticky kind of cloying scent slowly building up under his trudging dullness. It was pleasant in a way but not quite as appetizing (or distracting) as the previous scent.

With slight shifts in her posture, intuitive little glances and a few brief strained smiles or frowns when the scent felt ‘right’ it seemed like she was managing to cultivate it to grow stronger around him.

As a distraction she had found herself playing with seeing how she could make the scents coming off him raise and fall, twist, turn. Some sour ones bloom and fade or sweeter ones grow and interlace with each other.

It was fascinating and beautiful and as she walked and talked with him something she was growing to suspect was all her own. He certainly did not act like he could detect the same on her.

Then again she could not taste a single scrap of such from herself.

However all of this intensive attention on how she spoke, walked, held herself, looked at him and the slight strained pressure in every single fibre of her body that was slowly growing like a cramped muscle made for poor situational awareness.

So it was rather shocking for her to find that the two of them were now entering a crush of bodies and a massive sea of familiar and new scents.

Figures moved by in a rushing press, shifts marching quick step to work, or leisurely stretching on the way back. Tasting tangy and bright or smooth and silky.

Some slumped over in defeat from back breaking labor. Almost drowning her in that plodding dullness

Others dripping with an almost black scent and faces sunken in despair and loss.

There was a new fresh and desperate tang in the skulking figures of alley wretches peeking out from the dark at the moving shifts. The same sharpness coming from the half starved bulging bellies of those wretches out in the open with begging bowls.

It was enough variety and flavor to set her mouth almost overflowing with drool all over again. Just from the exotic interplay alonbe. Her hand going to her mouth to hopefully cover any errant slobber.

A quick nervous glance up to her guide Viktor and a slightest shift of shoulders and footwork and he gives her shoulder a comforting squeeze and laces that syrupy cloying around himself even stronger. Unfortunately there is also a hint of that much sharper and more distracting scent.

Oh no... quick fix eyes to ground, act embarrassed? No that makes it even worse straight shoulders and put on a stern face? Okay better... more cloying and (slightly) less mouth watering, now focus on the grating and the plumbing!

Swallow saliva hard in a big gulp.

“D-don’t like c-crowds... ” Try and hold the tone just right, a little angry?

Gah no! Her mouth practically floods with slobber when he billows with a new puff of THAT scent. Augh! She swallows twice more and tries desperately to count how many bonding strips of plas-crete were used on that double hand span pipe running along the ceiling.

The one sloppily right next to an insulated power cable for the running lights.

The attempt to distract herself draws attention, giving her another short dose of THAT scent, her tongue wandering to suddenly apparent new points. Her teeth seem to have gotten much fangier then when she first started ‘holding herself in’.

What if she can’t hold herself in and burst out again? With the screaming and the stinking terrible bitters!

She tries to lock in on all her muscles and hold herself in.

Her stomach gurgles ominously in response.

“Righto dehn. We can grab a nute-stick for ya on the way to the constab? When last was ya meal Kidlen?”

Unfortunately the scent just would not go away this time and so she could not open her mouth unless she wanted to splatter the grating and his boots in slobber. Her stomach however managed to convey that it must have certainly been a long time. It seems to work well with her pained and strained features and another heavy gulp.

“Right maybe two servings of nute for then... my treat”

More swallowing and a muttered “bondo on the fifth join gonna burst...” in the momentary dryness on her tongue.

“What ya yammering on?”

“Nuthin”

AUgh why the scent?! It’s like someone opened gaskets in her cheeks!

She tries spitting the next glob into a corner to both rid her mouth of unwanted fluids and help sell the tone.

Oh thank the pipeworks viktor’s scent goes back to syrupy clingy!

Spoiler: Author's Notes

Anyone got any good resources on the less extreme branches of the imperium's civil services? most people just focus on the murdering and the judge dredding

 

[Nighzmarquls]

She was finishing off her second of the dry and tasteless fibrous ‘nute-sticks’ listening to Viktor argue with the Constab.

It was interesting considering the way she had to strain her every ‘fibre’ to hold a shape like this. Whereas Viktor seemed to exert no real effort at all to look like everyone else. The constab was the same, and as was everyone else. Although some of the people that she had seen on the way here seemed utterly exhausted so maybe they were on the verge of popping loose?

She was pretty sure the constab was a woman, like she was holding herself to be but a lot bigger than her in almost every dimension and more bulgey in the hips and lumpy on the chest proportionately. She mused on if she could maybe let a bit of herself loose that way to ease the strain but it didn't feel like it would let out that way and probably ruin the whole shape if she tried.

And then of course as she had experienced already what would happen. It would be the screaming and the running and the bitters choking her all over.

“I’m telling ya Murial she ain’t no alley rat! Just lookit her! No way she woulda survived with hair like that down ‘ere she’s some shell shocked nobby from a level up at least! If not even further, she’s terrified of the crowds down here”

The constab that was getting kind of spicy as viktor insisted again that ‘Solínas’ was not meant for the alleys and pipeworks down here in the dark.

At least not the particular alleys and dark on this level.

She finished off the last of the nute-stick and hummed to herself. She had seen other people about her size enjoying them with great enthusiasm and a bubbly bright buttery scent oozing off of them as well.

But it might as well be particularly crunchy air for her.

The flavors of the people around her were more substantial than these nute sticks. Why did they seem so happy eating them?

“That’s Constable While I’m on duty Pipe Master. And I’m telling you that there have been no reports of a missing girl from any of the higher level families come through this office. If she’s too pretty to be a pipe worker she’s probably some courtesans apprentice wandered off from her troup. Drop her off at a recreation district and let me file the report on this and give your shift a few extra ration chits for aiding the peace”

“Are ya barking mad?! The wretches over there will tear her apart! Not unless her troup comes ta claim her”

Now viktor was getting spicier too. It was interesting tasting how it flared and poked up out of the syrupy sappiness. Like thorny knives jutting out of honey.

“... I appreciate your concern for the citizens of the emperor but there have been no reports from any families, it’s not my problem unless you are going to MAKE it my problem Viktor”

The spiciness was getting a little bit too hot for her, to help defuse the situation she tugged a bit at Viktor’s shirt and huddled a bit behind him from the constab. Adding a hint of a mewling whimper for good measure.

Viktor went from prickly spice to syrupy suffocating in a blink when he looked down at her, then got a thoughtful stern look to his face as he looked at the constab.

“Okay, how’s bout this... You file a report that I found a possible higher tier child down here in the plumbing and you put me down as a temporary guardianship for er with my work camp. I get the rations and space for a new pair of hands and if some pair of nobs up above or a powerful uncle comes looking for their lost pup you won’t get spiked up your arse when they hear ya sent their flesh and blood to ‘entertain’ the shit rakers”

The constab grumbled something about paper work but the spiciness in the room had settled down to a more plodding dull weariness that was so omnipresent down here she was starting to stop smelling it.

“That is going to be a good hand deep worth of forms for me Viktor. You owe me three top priority jobs on plumbing work for this”

“One fer now and two if no one tries to claim our little highborn pup in five ‘undred shifts”

“Two now and a third in sixty you know they dish extra compensation to shift crews hosting rescued ‘hostages’ from higher levels. Don’t think I didn't notice that”

“Bah fine Muriel... Ah sorry Constable... That’s square with me. If in we are in the area we will respond to anything urgent... Be misappropriation otherwise”

“Like claiming some recreation district run-away is a high born to get hostage rations misappropriation?”

“Why just the same, good thing I’m sure she’s gen-u-eine article and best not to err on the side of getting us both spitted and roasted by an angry nob family for leaving her ta the street urchins”

The spiciness had settled into a new sort of buttery scent that honestly perplexed her. With hints of a sort of off flavor syrupiness wafting between the constable and Viktor. What was up with that?

“Right, next off shift want to try some of jerba’s brew? Made it in a new still propah metal pipework this time.”

“Eh maybe shift after I’ve got a deep plunge patrol Viktor... now git so I can get these forms filled”

“Righto see ya soon”

And then they were off. Back into the crowd, although this time the waves of apathetic doldrums, bright exciting shifts and tired or mourning plodders was a bit less distracting.

The syrupy ambience that had been building around viktor and slowly been cultivated by her all along had changed, it had twisted, condensed, coiled and finally snapped into an almost chord of flavor that flowed from him and over to her, suffusing her with a much more tangible and almost filling flavor distinct and different from the mere experience it had before.

Her stomach of course gurgled in delighted hunger at this development.

“Emperor protect girl! Good thing We are getting the special compensation. How much do you eat?”

Spoiler: Author's Notes

So I think saturdays will be drawing days. Every saturday I will illustrate for one of the entries that don't have one yet. I'll listen to suggestion on which one in the intervening week.

 

[Phasehand]

While I like this, I have no idea what is going on.

 

[Jackercracks]

Hey Nighz, glad to see you're writing another eldritch horror in (vaguely, mostly) human form. Rock that aesthetic!

While I like this, I have no idea what is going on.

Click to shrink...

An innocent creature made of dreams, hopes and warm fuzzy emotions has been birthed into a xenophobic hellhole where non-humans are hunted and killed on sight. As a Warp-Spawn she seems to be made mostly from condensed emotion carefully held in humanoid form, as well as the remnants of the poor sod she half-chestbursted, half-devoured to enter our reality from the hellish reaches of the Empyrean. As such, she is an emotivore, and is trying to be as cute as possible to cause the tasty emotions to happen so she can eat them. This is unlikely to end well, and not just because nothing ever ends well in 40k.

 

[Giygas]

An innocent creature made of dreams, hopes and warm fuzzy emotions has been birthed into a xenophobic hellhole where non-humans are hunted and killed on sight. As a Warp-Spawn she seems to be made mostly from condensed emotion carefully held in humanoid form, as well as the remnants of the poor sod she half-chestbursted, half-devoured to enter our reality from the hellish reaches of the Empyrean. As such, she is an emotivore, and is trying to be as cute as possible to cause the tasty emotions to happen so she can eat them. This is unlikely to end well, and not just because nothing ever ends well in 40k.

Click to shrink...

Well, the introduction seem to be hopeful about this being the successful time.

Of course, we might be seeing a previous version that wasn't successful.

 

[Jackercracks]

Sometimes this thing of dream stuff answers the call of young psykers.

Time and again it has ended very badly for the psyker.

But this agelessly ancient child was spun of hopes and dreams.


So over the millennia it has tried again and again.

And of course with enough tries ANYTHING is possible.

Click to shrink...

Well, the introduction seem to be hopeful about this being the successful time.

Of course, we might be seeing a previous version that wasn't successful.

Click to shrink...

Since the story started with the young psyker more or less dying in agony, I think that part might be more about the mindset of the ancient hope-being than about how well things are going to go. It's early days yet, but if I were to speculate, I would think that it is the kind of creature that is truly benevolent and kindly to all it sees, but still causes suffering and pain because it simply cannot understand us fleshy humans who need food and air and can't survive on rainbows and imagination like they should. A thing that showcases exactly what happens when you make a human mind without certain the important bits.

Perhaps it will learn to understand this human thing we call love, or perhaps it will blindly manipulate and possibly mind control everyone around it into warm-fuzzies food sources without really understanding its own actions. Perhaps it will be such a nice person and make the Hive into such a nice world that it becomes the Warp God of warm fuzzies, or perhaps it will die before an Inquisitor's blade. There is plenty of potential here.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

On the way down and past the crowds she had seen a few people that seemed to have done a worse job of ‘holding themselves’ in then she or viktor. Ones with a few too many eyes, several with bulky muscles and lumps in places they really should not of. And even some pointy teeth. She’d noticed a lot of them had the acrid stinging scent to them much like the children with their begging bowls and even heavier doses of doldrums.

Quite a few people were very bitter cloud or spicy around them.

Viktor however seemed to have settled on merely being syrupy and a little cool whenever they had to cross paths with someone not holding themselves in well.

Eventually though they reached an active shift on a work site.

There was pipes being removed, pipes being replaced, the bright lights of welding, cutting and the almost musical (to her at least) sound of a particularly stubborn section having its bolts hammered tight.

She knew working in pipeworks. It was the only thing she really felt fully solid on. Language being a close second. She knew there was a degree of plumbing that deals with team and shift dynamics and thus she had an idea of just what she should expect from the shift troup of Viktor Weldson.

There was a Pipe Master (or plumbing master in some) who would survey the work, sort the orders and direct the crew and its members on big projects. That was Viktor apparently.

Then the pipe master had teamheads and journeymen that were well spoken, had solid memories and could manage the others. These worked with apprentices, muscle and junior pipers, about a dozen to a team.

In a given team they often made do with whatever skills were available, but ideally it would have a spotter who was good at catching bad pipes or leaks before they happened (and looking out for an ambush) and help the team head review work.

At least three or four strong muscle that could help unstuck seriously locked pipes, two or three apprentices and then five or six good pipe workers. She knew it almost never settled out as such and usually favored more heavily towards muscle and apprentices at any given moment but that was the ideal.

These teams seemed balanced but were short on muscle and made up the difference in fresher looking faces and wiry bodies about her size.

“Hi-Low! Hi-Low! Ya pipe rats I have some words wit ya!”

The near music of plumbing faded out in this particular section as valves were tightened and numerous other little jobs were settled to a point they could be left unattended a moment.

He stood up straight, and practically shined with a few scent, ruddy golden and heated. Mildly appetizing but in a way different from before. Also the syrupy cloying seemed to clarify around her and the little conduit nestling into her belly to reach out and embrace every single figure in the camp. It made her head go a little foggy and miss some of the words he was speaking.

Right wipe drool from mouth. Swallow hard look nervously and furtively around. What was he saying?

“-nd now the good news! Our newest little guest for as long as we have her. Solínas Valv’dottir has gotten our troup a special compensation of rations, they are to help make her comfortable but she’s a nice one and I’m sure she’d not mind sharing. Ain’t that right girl?”

Ah good timing she smiles brightly, feeling out the prickle of bitter in the ear, the pang sharp little snaps of something she’d not tasted yet and tangy sharp reeks of that starving child scent. But there is also something almost dumbfoundingly mouth watering in the air that is almost pulsing in the way it whorls out towards Viktor. Almost like a complementary to that Syrupy cling he has for them.

A heavy swallow and shuffle to show just how NERVOUS she is and a cracking voice echoing in the sudden quiet “Ye-yeah... I-I’d love to share with my friends”.

Nailed it, a good half of the team seemed to almost immediately hemorrhage syrupy stickiness. The rest oozed a little, with a few hold outs clamping down on it soon after.

She could work with that.

Viktor nods at her then says “You can sit over there and rest dis shift out, but we need ta git on with the work. Next shift I’ll have ya some proper clothes and get you settled inta a team”

Then another bellow “Hi-Low! Hi-Low ! Work Team Hup!”

And with that the tinkling, creaking, cursing, heaving music of plumbing started up again and she was left to watch all of them, giving just a few shifts, a cant of the head, momentary befuddlements.

It was getting easier to fit names to postures and faces, and from that flavors and their best fits.

It was harder to manage a crowd of fifty mostly focused on their work then a single man walking right next to her, but it surprised her that it was not all THAT much harder.

Soft nervous smiles, intent peering down at a pipe. Or just listening serenely to the music of pipe works or swinging a leg in rhythm to the heave ho of moving a heavy metal frame into place.

Knowing plumbing and her own growing familiarity with scents made it quite relaxing. And all the furtive attention was filling a chasm of hunger she had not even realized was draining her.

It relaxed the strain she felt from holding herself in, letting her posture settle more naturally in her needed poses. She found herself smiling even when it was not needed to tease more syrupy attention out of the workers.

What Viktor had with his crew was incredible, even thinking about it made her teeth want to point and her mouth water. She was going to find what that was and how to squeeze it out of them the same way he did.

She gave a little shiver at the thought.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

Thanks for the explanation folks, I generally want to avoid giving too much Word of Author explanations if I can help it. And if you're enjoying the show maybe relax and check in with the rest of the audience. If anyone spots stuff that actually looks like typos or sentences that flow super badly I'd love to hear it though. I'm aiming for word production most of all but a little bit of error fixing won't hurt the work.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

It was during the end shift meal that she discovered apparently she had no sense of ‘smell’ or ‘taste’.


“Scuze me wot miss? Ye don’t smell the reek? I stink enough to curl an ogryn’s scrot fuzz in!”


In fact (although she did not mention it) he smelled nice and syrupy just then with a hint of something fizzy shrinking she’d not tasted before.


For some reason that last statement got him cuffed upside the back of the head by victor.

“Mind the lady’s sensibilities, she’s prob upper level eared. None of that filthy outa yor mouth”

“I ain’t never heard of a upper nob wit a burnt out nose Vikter... She ain’t catch any whiff o ma reek”

“You’re smell-nub is burnt out?”

She blinked then and tilted her head “It is?” this prompted tests.


She tried to pay attention to what was the ‘right’ cue. Smiling and nodding, or looking perplexed. But this time it didn't seem to quite work. She got reactions that were mostly good tasting, but strange and weirdly flowing. Eventually settling in a syrupy closeness welling up from the surrounding team.

“Ya, she’s as dead nosed as Gerhber”


“Poor thing”

“Poor? More Like little lady is blessed If it did not risk burning my face off I’d git the job done so I didn't have to smell your stinky arse”

She looked around trying to gauge the best face, settling for wide eyed befuddlement. “So it’s not bad then?”

Viktor shrugged “It’s a bit of a strike against you being a top level princess, but we already got them forms done so shouldn't be a problem, unless you’ve changed your mind ‘bout telling me ya mum or pa’s name”


She looked down at her feet and darkened her expression at that. Drawing a boost to that syrupy conduit she had already built to viktor. And a cloud of it from It Jerba.


“Well at least you can taste right? They sent some Spices down wit the rations for ya”

She gave a weak smile. It seemed better to just go all in on eliciting that extra fizzy thing she had just started picking up.


“Emperor protect, not a bit?”


She shrugged “I... don’t think so?”

So they dug into the spice pack of ‘flavorfuls’ in her special ‘hostage’ rations for the shift and began experimenting.


The harshest ‘fire dust’. Did Not elicit a single tear although it set viktor into a coughing fit.


The sweetest nectarition. She had to be stopped from just swallowing all of it for she could barely tell it was on her tongue.


Harshest salt, was no worse or better than the nute sticks.


Meatiest powder seasonings she was disappointed to find just as empty.


It was all of it just gritty or sticky air as far as her tongue could tell. Smelled of nothing either. She kept up a good mood but it seemed that despite her best efforts the mood of her new work crew could not be lifted from oozing a sappy dullness harsher and deeper than any she had tasted yet.

“Alright, I’ll admit that ain’t no blessing. It’s a curse it is... We get all these fine seasonings for her rations and she can’t taste any of em?”


She shrugged a little offered “it’s alright, I said I would share... You can all have my rations? Would be a waste on me”

Viktor however is mulling the most and leans closer to her as the rest of the crew begin to organizing a divvying up of the flavorfulls. And With the excitement a raising of the scent in the air of the dormitory.

“Is this something to do with why I found you abandoned and naked in a maintenance hall girl?”

Despite the grim tone his syrupy connection to her was almost smothering in it’s strength. Filling her belly almost ‘too much’.

But not quite, she is in fact not certain that she will ever be full again?

Ever?


Never has before?

Never will be.

But viktor all the same seemed certain to give a try to satiate the slightly gnawing hunger in her proverbial guts.

Not seeing a risk of alienating him one way or another she decided to try a bit of honesty.

“I don’t know... I... I don’t remember... I’m sorry viktor I should have said... but I don’t know where I’m from... I... the first thing I remember is the plumbing down here and then you”

She shivers and sniffles a bit, wets her eyes a bit with an oozing build up to add some sparkle.


She pretends not to hear him mutter about “mind scourers” and plays up a quaver in her voice and a thickness bordering on sobs to help cover how mouth watering the whole exchange was being for her.


“Y-you aren't mad are you?”

She knew of course that he wasn't mad at all, fierce maybe, he was prickly at exactly not in her direction in particular and almost choking her in syrupy protectiveness.

“Course not, nothing to be worried about We’ll look out for ya if you pull your weight. And I promise if emperor wills it I’ll keep ya safe even if whoever did this to ya come looking”

He gives a shine of conviction there that she ‘CAN’T’ grasp then, something warm and bright and siphoned off quick as can be into the aether.


How Curious that is.


“Now let's get you settled in and fed, got a big day tomorrow lil princess”


He guided her back into the main serving tables for the regular rations showed her where to get the tray and where to place them for rinse. The narrow cot she would have for herself in the small room with the rest of her team and who would be at its head.

Her leader and teacher was a big woman with arms almost as wide around as Her current waist named Jori. Who was already almost dripping with a sticky syrupy taste before her assignment and shortly after tousling her hair hard enough to jostle her ‘lil bones’ about soon had her lassoed in almost as strong a connection as the one she had hooked into herself from Viktor.
Goodness if before she had felt like she was full to bursting, now she was certain there had to be new and strange spaces unfolding within herself to handle the flood of syrupy sweetness.

It would be nice to rest somewhere warm and protected, where she can be well fed.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

We are passing through the halfway point on introduction entries

 

[Jackercracks]

Goodness if before she had felt like she was full to bursting, now she was certain there had to be new and strange spaces unfolding within herself to handle the flood of syrupy sweetness.

Click to shrink...

Well, that's not horrifyingly eldritch at all, no sir-ee.

 

[Ashaeron]

Sounds like the Emperor's leeching any mention of himself / faith in Him in the same manner she's feeding on lesser emotions. Honestly it's about as positive a result as can be hoped - an ambient emotivore seems fine until 'she' loses control of the hunger and it all goes to shit, which is less likely as she gets more food. Until she 'grows' with that food supply and gets hungrier, etc.

Keeping an eye on this.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

Perhaps she should have feigned more incompetence with the plumbing.

It impressed everyone, and delighted Jori so much it was like the bigger woman’s wide smile might split her skull around the middle and let the thing fall off.

But it also seemed like it was making for a bit of an odd bitter undercurrent in those not dealing directly with her. Not stinking overwhelming but she’s finding that she has to work doubly to soften those little uneasy upwellings in more syrupy affection.

But then again it was just as well she was not rocketing into the favored place for the whole work crew.

She might actually explode if that happened, or at the very least she probably would slip up and lose hold of herself and burst free of the seeming of a little girl.

She had seven of her work team already tied to her seemingly bottomless hunger. Every time she got a new one it felt like she would burst from it. And then she stretched, the fibre of her flesh strained at the compactness she forced onto it.

Her rambunctious flesh always settled down again and became almost effortless afterwards. But if she actually had all 64 men and women latch their oozing syrupy links onto her she is almost certain she would have neither the self control or the ability to stop herself from bursting loose. Quite possibly bursting loose a great deal more then she WOULD have back before viktor.

It seemed to be working out all the same.

“Right you gonna show up The rest of these sprats at welding now princess?”

The name had stuck, and she supposed maybe she suited herself too it?

Even in the worker cover-alls she found it rather easy to just, not get stained by the toil. Her hair which by all rights should have gotten caught in any number of situations was incredibly conveniently just not in the way at any given moment. And although she TRIED to play it down after the first time she unstuck a bolt with a wrench in a single heave, It was to no avail. The massive shriek of metal had drawn everyone’s eyes and now everyone was sort of laughing and expecting it of her.

Quite a few of the work crews had gone from thinking she was some nobility from the upper levels, soft and to be coddled or hated to a kind of personal saint/mascot for the crew.

It gave a nice golden glow and helped her cultivate more connections between the crew members and her ever growing cavernous maw of a thirst.

Viktor’s syrupiness was strong as ever but it tasted tangy and seemed to have grown more and more prickly over the shift as she continued with her already shown acumen with the pipeworks.

At the mid shift break for lunch she received her ration (with extra helpings and seasoning packs as Viktor had arranged) but it was a good excuse for her to walk amidst her fellows offering up the flavorings to those that had not gotten a chance to try them already (a few of her team threw dice over who could get the Sachirium).

It gave the flowing cloying syrup a bitter sour tang that was somehow refreshing as she drifted about soaking it in. She nestled the start of more chords of protectiveness towards her almost effortlessly now. Weaving them with shifts and facial expressions and little head dips, she offered a happy smile to viktor at ‘just’ the right time. He had been watching her since mid shift meal started but then called over another team leader and muttered something inaudible to her.

After that the team leader (she thinks his name was urist) shouted to his team and then took up viktor’s position as ‘overseer’ while he himself walked off down the hallway.

Perhaps he was going to find more naked lost girls in maintenance shafts?

If this was a habit of viktor it would explain why there was quite so many young faces amongst the crew.

Either way she happily eat the might as well be air base gruel (everything the emperor’s citizens need for health and soul). And sat down next to Jori humming a little tune.

She was certain there was music in the plumbing work, and her humming kept with her as she finished the midshift meal.

Her voice rose as she took up the cadence with jori’s direction, and her tones soon found words with the pace of other teams orders, the move of muscle, the pull of wrench. The slosh of water and waste from old pipe sections pulled loose.

Soon Jori was belting out orders to the rhythm.

And other team leads called out the same, the other workers who were most closely tied with her sang the song as words to the emperor and praise for his work. It sent golden bright flutters of lightness out of her grasp but also swelled the bonds she had woven with them with new richness.

Others filled her voice and her belly with the warmth of new bonds as they found themselves taken up in the song and singing or moving with it.

And then all of them, all 63 souls were with her in the song, a nice even cadence, good for work, but rhythmic and harmonious in a way that.

All of that ground to a mildly discordant shock when viktor’s voice at the entryway to the work area belted out “Hi-Low! Hi-Low! What’s all this? Urist! Did you start a work dirge?”

The shock of losing her rythm very nearly had her lose her grip and burst free of her flesh.

And urist, with his bond syrupy and tightly wrapped into her belly looked at the white and red robed man then at her and gave a shrug.

Viktor had come back, with a man in white robes, letters woven and written on parchment going up and down his clothing. A scroll was even mounted so it unfurled from the head of a long staff or cane he was gripping tightly and staring on the now confused and a little sheepish workers.

Urist finally found his voice.

“The miss just started humming a little tune, and it was a good chant for the work... So we just... added words as we went”

There was something prickly and unpleasant about the white and red robed man. She knew it. But his eyes were very intently fixed on her without sign of fear.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

I regret nothing, however I will spare you the lyrics unless people demand it. Also imagine it sung a bit like a sea shanty got frisky with a Gregorian chant and had horrific mutant babies

 

[Ashaeron]

That sounds like an Ecclesiarchy priest. Sounds like a 50/50 on good or absolutely terrible results.

 

[Jackercracks]

That sounds like an Ecclesiarchy priest. Sounds like a 50/50 on good or absolutely terrible results.

Click to shrink...

It would be hilarious if they ended up mistaking her for a Living Saint or something.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

“Child, Your overseer has come to me with concerns about your spiritual health”

She was sitting in a closed off office away from the work crew. There was still a bit of a jubilant chorus murmuring amongst them and she could feel prickles and spikes oozing in and out of the warm sticky embrace of all their chords.

Just at the start of the shift she had felt stuffed from just Jori and Viktor’s attention. Now she felt the pulse of attention from 64 souls and it seemed barely to be keeping her even.

There was a potency to the constrained fibres of her body now of course. She could tell obviously that the fuel of the syrupy protectiveness was being used. But she held herself contained even with it.

Ah he is expecting her to speak. This silence has gone on long enough with her staring at her feet shyly.

“I... How so?”

The figure in the red and white with parchment writing words she did not know (but recognized to be knowable) seemed to take a tone of firm assuredness.

“He spoke that you are stronger than your age and build should allow. That you can neither taste nor smell anything. That you befriend hardened workers with incredible almost ‘bewitching’ ease. He noted on reflection that he himself seemed to grow fond of you overly quickly even for his kind nature”

She slumped under the words, she could not feel any other expectation from him, she hunched with innocent but unmalicious guilt of a child for it seemed the only way to appease him. But even that was settling in a cold prickly spiny stink. Hovering over the smallest trace of bitterness.

“Did he tell you I don’t remember where I am from?”

She makes it a quiet voice, a sad voice.

The eyes were unrelenting. The flavor remained unchanged.

“He said he suspected you were evasive on your origins when you first met and was later convinced for a time you had no memory of it, that you may have been a mind scoured noble. On your soul and in the eyes of the emperor is this true?”

She felt a shining radiance flutter about her and then be whisked out. She felt a hint of something she maybe should do? Raise her head at his words and meet his gaze with the face of a serious child.

She reached with her tongue and tooth for the words and found them shaping as she watched him. “I-I S-swear by the holy seat of ... t-terra that I do not know of whence I came before coming to the pipes and the plumbing... I know nothing but the words of the people here... a-and the workings of the p-plumbing to be found here”

She shivers and feels a precipice, a danger but also a need to give him something more a boon, a sign.

His eyes are on her, his scent a little lighter a little less bitter.

“B-but I also have not been forthright with the good p-pipemaster v-viktor... He took me in on good f-faith not knowing of what I will tell you... and I have o-only recently learned it was unusual”

Suspicion on his face, bitterness in his scent, a goading itch of how to look and how to speak and how to hold herself and shape words. The bitterness was so close to the suffocating eruptions that had driven her to flee before.

But those instincts had not served her wrong yet?

“I-I can smell... and taste... but not what everyone else does”

His brows lowered. And his prickly flavor grew stronger along side a brightening around himself shining out to be whisked free. Almost numbingly bright.

“What can you smell child?”

“I don’t ... f-fully know It is on everyone, everywhere... you right now taste... sh-sharp but also br-bright... and beautiful I think the bright is your f-faith in the emperor... It glows... but like a warmth in the air... I”


She lets herself be driven to silence in his gasped hiss of “Psykera”. There is a snap making her jump of bitterest ice.

Then he rises swiftly to his feet.

“You will come with me, We shall inform your overseer for the missed work and if needed have an orphan found to fill your place”

He rose and began walking, she of course followed shyly in her coveralls. For to do literally anything but absolute obedience and subservience in the precise way felt like knives and daggers brushing her skin.

Her every movement was like dancing a maze of death.

Not a word, shift or even glance could be anywhere out of place.

It required such concentration she did not even really hear the words of Viktor as the red and white robed man spoke to him. It took every concentrated fibre of her body to keep the course as the threads of syrupy comfort from her crew waned and eventually snapped loose. Stinging her belly with the future hunger it would bring.

As they walked the figure looked over her sternly, but with the slightest hint of a cloying smell. Like a precursor to the syrupy protectiveness she had honed in the workers. But she knew that pursuing it now would be death as much as flinging herself into a vat of acid.

So she held the posture of a penitent and dutiful child.

“You know of what you have claimed to be child?” his tone was stone. But she could taste a bitter spike turned inward on himself followed by a glow of brightness.

She spoke softly “No sir... I know plumbing and words... and what sparse things I have felt and seen for the last three shifts”

He looked pained, and again that sharp spike into himself followed by a harsher less warm brightness that was again sucked up into aether. A direction she could almost divine that was neither forward, nor back, left nor right, up nor down.

“Whether ignorant or not you have claimed to be either mutant, psykira or both... If you are blessed by the emperor we shall find you a psykira and you shall be gathered for the black ships to join the tithe of this world. To be sent to serve his holy emperor of mankind”

The light shined through his words, mingling with the self lacerations and even hints of bitterness at the words of the black ships.

She lets her voice quaver and a few tears to soak her throat and eyes “I do not fully understand. But until my time... Will you tell me of the emperor? I can feel his light from you... b-but I do not have any memory of him... I would know him if I’m to die”

Again the sharp cut into himself, and the attempt to smother it with the light and warmth. But even among that and the bitterness she could feel the faintest hint of syrup. And a different warmer inner glow not like the one that was constantly dragged off the man.

This one reminded her of the way the crew smelled towards Viktor.

She could feel her ‘inner’ bellies still full from the sticky sweetness the crew had lavished on her, but it was not being refilled. And as she held her flesh knitted together and the rest of herself ‘inside’ there was a hint of slowly, oh so slowly drawing off of it.

But there was a hook latched into the armour of the man now.

“Please... tell me of who could make you and the others shine so warm and beautiful”

A bitter spark of fear, but then something reinforcing him, flowing across and through the syrupy cloud she was nurturing. Soothing and dulling the edges he seemed to try to turn inward.

“Alright... it will be some travel to the chapel and then we must await the Census Psykera’s arrival. But if there is a soul to be saved in you It is my duty to help bring you back to his light”

And he spoke, his words were strong, with conviction, but most fascinating of all to her was the tone. The cadence and the way his scent welled up. There was a constant glow siphoning off of him to that ‘elsewhere’ direction. But also amongst it a deep fiery warmth and that syrupy haze she had grown to crave.

He told her of great battle and terrible betrayal. Of pain and loss that she hardly needed to force a tear for. He spoke of cruel and terrible times, his eyes went cold and grim when he spoke of terrible witches and foul demons of the immaterium. The bitter sharp panic finally making sense!

If they thought she was a demon then of course they fled. If she ever saw a demon or one of these terrors of the warp she would be sure to run too.

But he also spoke of the heroes and righteous warriors of mankind. The uncountable and valorous imperial guard.

The near divine Adeptus Astartes.

Here too she barely had to force even an ounce of awe to her face. Nor did she feign wonder.

When he spoke of the number of imperial worlds and the need of every member to serve the emperor in his quest to protect mankind from the forces of demon, xeno heretic and wild psykers she required help. She felt comfortable with a few hundred, but what even WAS a million souls?

Or a billion?

He actually laughed a bit with her and explained.

And the world suddenly felt looming all that much more.

And her own place in it shrunk to near insignificance.

His syrupy cloud was tempered by his understandable fear of her as a psykera (to be confirmed by the Census Psykera). But she also grasped at it, felt it flow into her as she felt her own conviction seem to settle into a shape.

Obviously she could tell it was precisely the right ‘posture’ to take with him. That it was the only posture she could use and hope to not waste away to nothing. But even knowing this in her confined bones she could practically feel that posture seeping deep into her. Helping her hold it all the better for it not having to be forced at all.

She understood in her soul the emperor protects. She could feel it as a certainty at her core that filled every constrained and lightly thrumming fibre of her being.

She would almost miss it when she had to shed that conviction for a new one.

But for now she would BELIEVE.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

If the ramifications of this chapter do not terrify you, I don't think you are paying close enough attention

 

[Jackercracks]

She would almost miss it when she had to shed that conviction for a new one.

But for now she would BELIEVE.

Click to shrink...

Some of the most convincing liars are the ones who believe their own bullshit. Further, when the Psykers scan her, they'll find that she's made of refined, 100% pure THE EMPEROR PROTECTS. Which is really the best thing for her health that they could possibly find, though still no true guarantee of survival. Also she's a master manipulator now, whilst knowing almost nothing about the world, its people or their beliefs. And she can either look a short distance into the future to read which actions will cause her to not get food, or some part of her can intuitively scan a person on such a deep level that she knows what actions will cause her to not get food. Both of which are terrifyingly useful powers to have.

More disquieting though is the shedding of conviction she talks of. It means her past actions are simply never a full predictor of future actions. That makes her inherently unpredictable without a full understanding of her nature, and unpredictability is bad in people who are always only a moment away from going full teeth/tentacle monster.

 

[Nighzmarquls]

It was during a sermon on the dangers of heresy and the mutant with Brother Pious the 22nd that the Census Psykera arrived. They came both prickling with bitter fear and sharpest bright faith. There were guards prickly and sharp with them and even a figure dressed in a manner She had never seen before.

It wore a coat heavy and intricate, similar to the one which viktor had draped over her three shifts past. But festooned with all manner of odd items and overburdened with pockets and shining yellow metal buttons.

They burned with a black kind of grasping scent, sputtering flares of golden searing warmth that were swallowed up rhythmically. As if they were somehow pulsing with faith for the emperor. More constantly and intensely then Brother Pious ever managed at his most uncertain.

It was a strange and new banquet but against the two others figures with them this coated figure was rather boring to her palette.

They each wove and twisted scents around them like a glorious tapestry. A knitted pattern which inspired her in it's refinement compared to her own crude joins and siphoning.

It was at once like each was a crystal, a door and a fabric woven. Against to the structure of their scent and flavor their visual appearance was almost lost.

Eyes covered by red cloth on the left one with barely any other cloth coverings to speak of. a strange metal collar on the right and robes so tightly fitted they seemed to almost be strangling the body beneath. Both seemingly haunted and emaciated.

Then their tapestries of scent reached for her, stroked her in ways she had not felt till this point. Almost seeming to brush her inner self.

But she could feel even as they delved that there was a posture to take, it was stretching and bending in a new way but she knew it's shape.

She recognized it.

And so she found the means to ‘shine’.

Brother Pious bowed to the coated figure between the two psykers, unaware of her welcoming light.

“Inquisitor, it is an honor for you to bring your presence here, I was merely expecting the Census Psykera to confirm the girl is suitable for the tithes I believe she will serve a truly fine servant of the emperor... please just... this way?”


She held herself strong now, for that was the way they expected her. She stood and she shined for their probing gropes to feel the warmth of her glow.

And before her radiance and comfort the two psykira fell to their knees weeping.

She nodded her head to the coated figure, inquisitor brother Pious had said, feeling for the manner in which she should hold her poise to draw them out of that black abyss.

And almost stumbled as she found a chasm where she expected guidance. She held herself up at the behest of the two psykers who spoke softly and with choked sobs.

“A saint... a living saint”

“I never thought I’d hear... to hear such voice”

But the inquisitor drew a weapon with practiced, almost bored smoothness. It was obviously a weapon, it was like the gun viktor kept hidden in the back of his shirt but magnified in every way. And it stung her just to LOOK at it.

There was a single word spoken from the lips of the figure, even now she cound not see or taste if it was man or woman.

“Stop”

The ominous barrel shined and the bore hole soaked up the light directly pointed at one of her eyes.

She let go of her shine, she let go of her poise. She could not feel how to cultivate that black absence of smoke pierced by rhythmic cold faith.


So she let herself fall to her knees like a puppet with it’s strings cut etching real and performed fear across her face and shoulders. She breathed shallow panicked whispers.

“I... I’m sorry... I didn't know... I’m sorry”

Brother Pious oozed prickling blades and syrupy protectiveness. The two psykera seemed to crumple in on themselves as if they had lost their last breath of air.

The figure in the coat and the hat turned to the left.

“What by the emperor’s grace was that? Explain now”

A second pistol gun of overgrown proportions was pointed at the psykera’s blindfolded face.

The blind one rose a bit and then spoke with a croak.

“S-she shined... with purity... like the light of his holiness... there is not a mark of malice upon her soul and her faith for him is more whole than any servant I have ever beheld”

The inquisitor grunted then shifted the pistol to join it’s sibling in pointing at her head, before letting the right hand turn to point at the collared psyker.
“What did you sense? What did you hear?”

The voice is an awed quaver.

“She sings like a chorus of the faithful, innocence, beauty”

Brother pious finally found his courage, a bolstering of syrupy ropes reaching out to her as she stood straighter and gave voice to words.

“I told her she would go to the black ships, and still she came willingly, If ever there is a more sincere acolyte for his holy emperor I have not met them”

The inquisitor brought the other gun back around to fix each of her eyes with the returning glare of a black barrel.

“Is the witch so warp addled in the head that she thinks the ships are a pleasure cruise?”

She does not blink.

The Inquisitor is impenetrable to her.

She reaches for the others around him, a sudden spike of fear and syrupy cloying from each psykera at even the mention of the black ships. A solemn self flagellating inner cutting from Brother Pious.

She lets confusion and befuddlement fill her features.

“W-what awaits me on the black ships?”

The inquisitor does not lower the barrels but laughs without joy, light or warmth, just a pitch cloud and that same constant thrumming of pale empty bright.

“Pain, Isolation, Endless noise, screaming and desperation. You may even be locked in a null room alone from all others if your abilities are truly so potent as to bring trained adepts to their knees with your trickery and witchcraft”

The figures all around her were flinching at that.

She looks hurt, confused, tries to square her shoulders and fix him with a teary eyed gaze.

“B-but... the emperor protects... I-I’m to be a servant to join him in his quest to protect mankind! The EMPEROR PROTECTS! Why would he torture his servants?”

The inquisitor sighs and one of the barrels dips a moment before catching themselves and straightening it back to point at her left eye.

“Tools”

“W-what?”

“The emperor protects, and you would be reforged as one of his tools, The emperor protects against the alien, the mutant and most of all the PSYKER.”

She could feel truth in the others, they dripped with the black of mourning and loss. She felt brother pious drop his syrupy comfort from her.

“You are unshaped metal and dangerous ore at that, you are not under his protection. You are from what he protects mankind from psyker witchling”

She felt the faith in the emperor shift loose from her core.

“Now You will be chained in null shackles and drugged, and you will indeed go to the black ships in perhaps the next few years. And until then we will hold you secure and alive and nothing more”

And then the faith and conviction fell away from her and she was alone.

“...”

She could not read the Inquisitor for whatever reason, but she could read the psykera with them and brother pious and the guards. She could taste what THEY expected from the Inquisitor.

The inquisitor barked an order to red and white clothed man who had told her fanciful tales of good service and faith.

The psykers with their broken guttering lights of faith flinched from the shackles which the man in white and red handled like they would bite him.

She sat there as the man in red and white approached her with metal shackles that seemed to pull at her inner bellies.

She tasted the tense humming from the guards that had accompanied many a Census Psykera encounter.

She saw and felt in each of them an echo that would be her doom.

She was surrounded.

There was no hope here.

But that could change.

She let go of holding herself in and brought Hope to this place.

Her flesh sang as it burst free of its confines her limbs stretched, her jaws parted and gaped as teeth pushed her lips further and further forward, her fangs were freed from the confines of lips that stretched taught to her elongated face and her tongue arched in rapturous relief in echo of her neck, spine and tail. She filled the space and almost by accident swept her head under the first spike of searing pain fired from the inquisitor's gun.

She felt fast and light as a dream, no longer confined to heavy and crude matter condensed so.

She had watched every hallway she passed on her way here, and she was full and heavy with the comfort and protectiveness of 65 souls freely given.

She burned in radiance and joy and the two psykera fell before her in shock and rapture.

The man in red and white who had told her beautiful lies to lift her spirits fell to his knees, eyes wide to behold her and mouth agape in horror and joy of equal measure.

The guards dropped their armaments to gaze, eyes welling in tears at her radiance.

Then the inquisitor fired again.

Everyone seemed to gasp in surprise.

Stillness followed with only the sound of another shell being slotted into place for the next shot.

She had been hit center in her stretched and altered chest and it felt like everything within had been torn out in a burst of pain and rainbow gore splattering against the chapel walls behind her.

The scintillating aurora of color that was her viscera dripped with a sound like chiming silver bells as it sunk into the bulkheads of the chapel.

She gave the humans before her a sad tightness to her eyes sheding a single sparkling tear that burst like a star upon the ground.

But her face remained in a curve of a friendly smile, flesh unchanging like the contortion of a dolphin or crocodile.

She saw all but the terrible coated man collapse in on themselves for her pain and their guilt at her suffering. Their compliance in her injury.

But she whispered a wordless sigh of forgiveness to them to ease that pain. Then she turned and bolted into the halls, trailing splatters of rainbow blood, followed by the sound of exploding gun fire and bellowed orders by the inquisitor.

She knew pipes and soon took advantage of them to disappear in spite of her radiance. She had also grown flexible, strong and more assured in her senses compared to her infancy five shifts ago.

She would be able to hide, and then try again at making friends.

For she had hope that she could succeed.

She was Hope after all.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

Next Entry Is an Intermission. I'll take requests on who you would like to spend a thousand words in the head of tomorrow

 

[Ashaeron]

I guess that's why he's the Inquisitor. A Mind of Steel. Possibly a psyker-shield?

 

[Runa]

This is very enjoyable. The idea of a non chaos aligned warp entity has niggled at my mind for a while, but I never felt like I could execute it properly. This right here? This is how you properly executive this idea. So thank you for making that idea come true in such a great way.

 

[SouvikKundu]

Her ascended form looks like Human?

 

[Nighzmarquls]

Brother Pious the 22nd knew he was damned. Whether by the taint of the psykera, the heretic or the xeno the glorious and beautiful thing which had come to his chapel in guise of an innocent and penitent psykera had damned him.

He had heard of demon which tempted mortals with carnal beauty and pleasure. He had given sermons on it.

But the glory SHE shined with was chaste and unless his soul had been deeply cursed with a desire for the bestial this was no carnal infatuation.

But the being SHE had been shown to be still invigorated him so. It made his heart seem to fill up with light and prayer for his holy emperor. It made him stand straighter his muscles more firm and his voice more sure.

He was damned and his soul was tainted by the ruinous powers he was certain. But if possible he must save the others who had suffered less exposure to the wicked serpent temptress.

He turned on the guard who he could see wrought with an uncertainty ill fit on the hardened bearing of Census Psykera.

They had been trained to resist temptation, they had seen monsters and demons and witches turn on their number and slaughter them by the dozen.

“My Brothers! Do not let the bearing and sorcery of this v-vile and corruptive serpent turn you! Do not be taken in by this fiendish witchery of a demon! You are servants of the emperor and he shall protect, do not think on this day. It was a grim time for the emperor’s servants. A test and we all fell short of it. Were it not for our blessed Inquisitor the beast would surely have devoured us with her toothsome maw”

He could still feel pain even suggesting such a act of the ‘thing’ that he had seen. It was too innocent, those inhuman and yet so fragile eyes had reached back into him and made him feel like a child. He had remembered when he first kept a little rat named bolter as a young boy. He had remembered when bolter didn't wake up and became still in his hands and chirped no more after close years as his only friend among the other young wards of the ecclesiarchy.

He mentally gripped himself. He was a orator and a priest of the emperor. He would hold to his faith in the emperor. He knew it was a witchery upon him to bring sympathy to the xeno demon. For that is the only words that could describe the inhumanity that burst free of a frail young girl bereft upon the floor and crushing reality of the black ships.

It was a xeno and a demon and surely also heresy incarnate.

He tried to nurture a guttering flame of holy hatred in his heart but found himself simply lost and sad.

He could see the guard in a similar dire straights for their souls, but if he could not find words that would move him? If the learned and faithful of the emperor were lost to this witchery how could he overcome the spell upon the Psykera and the guard?

He turned from the flock that so desperately needed him, his heart twisting and conflicted.

Walking up to the inquisitor who stood peering down at the beautiful and shining blood and strange organs that had burst from the beast.

Poking it with a grey metal baton engraved in prayers and holy texts of the emperor.

A deeply creased frown seeming carved in the inquisitor’s face.

As he approached the dark dressed figure turned and spoke sharply “You will tell me everything you said to this creature. And all that it said to you. Then you will inform me of everyone you know that came in contact with h-her... IT I mean it.”

He shivered at the words he was about to commit but he was a servant of the emperor and he knew he was damned, and that he and the guards and quite possibly even the psykera were tainted.

“My lord inquisitor. I have concerns for the souls of the psykera... and the guard and...”

There on the inquisitor's face Brother Pious saw something which sealed his soul’s fate and filled him with terror. It was quickly smothered with cold blankness but Brother Pious had seen a flicker of the doubt, anguish and conflict he felt in his own soul over the monster they had encountered.

The Inquisitor had been ensorceled as well. If he hid it well there was still a taint on him.

The inquisitor’s eye became suspicious and a hand reached for the bolter at his side. Blessed with weaponry and scripture against the witch and the psyker. The coat was bedecked with talismans and holy symbols.

It was said inquisitors could fight off the influence of demons. But here before him was an inquisitor who was feeling the most terrible sin of doubt in the face of a monster that should have only inspired a zeal to destroy the enemy of the emperor.

“We should pray being so close to the terrible of the warp has shaken all our souls”

The inquisitor should have been stalwart and insisted that his business in service of the emperor was more important.

But the Inquisitor stood with them in prayer as well. Shaken but unwilling to overtly show it.

Brother Pious felt himself a traitor and a heretic as he prepared to speak the words of faith. He should have turned himself and all the weak souled and tainted over to the merciful judgement of the inquisitor.

But he had seen the inquisitor was also tainted. He could feel the courage to reveal them fleeing him.

He could see that same courage failing in each of the psykera and the faces of the guard before him as he rallied them in prayer for their souls and the emperor of mankind.

But who could he trust if even the inquisitors of the emperor were susceptible to the horrible beauty and allure of such radiant ‘innocence’ ?

As he had so many times before he began a prayer to restore their spirits.

“The Emperor Protects”

But for the first time since he was a very young boy with a dead friend held in his hands Brother Pious was lying in his heart.

Spoiler: Author's Notes

to answer souvikkundu0017, No the 'ascended' or true form is not really human at all even a little bit. Anything human and hope shaped in the warp would have been pulled into the da-emprah's wheel house. May get a special bonus update later today.