Primarch wrote:Chapter Master Garak it shall be then.
I think it's time to start adding some fluff now that the basics have been hashed out, don't you?
Well here is a start.
Unknown date. Early M42. A month before the Battle for CCX-104, Cyclops Cluster, and the full awakening of Overlord Khadekhotep. Astral Hammers fortress monastery on Lithore.
The cold sun of Lithore was trying its best to pierce the clouds of ash and soot. It was a weak light, but it was tenacious and relentless. Much like the people of this world, he thought. They were his people now, and the Chapter Master could respect them for that.
His morning contemplation had become just as routine as his meditations and oaths of service. It was quite possible, he thought, that his time spent amongst the Ravens had changed him just as much as his years of forced brotherhood with the Drakes of Nocturn. There! He caught himself lying again. It had not been forced, he had chosen to remain with the Salamanders rather than rejoin his legion. But it had been the right choice. Hadn’t it? Curse the Ravens and their infectious brooding!
“Are we going to be out here much longer? Because if we are, I’d just like to remind you that I, unlike you, do not have a biologically superior constitution that will prevent parts of me from turning black and dropping off – and I am talking about the important parts.”
“Your hands and feet?”
“Sure. Them, too.”
“You don’t have to be out here at all. I thought we had come to that understanding.”
“Oh, we did my Lord. I understood perfectly that it was my choice, and I have chosen to risk freezing my manhood off in order to fulfill my oaths. They’re just as important to me as yours are to you, you know. More so in fact.”
“Oh? Enlighten me.”
“Well, you get hundreds of years to fulfill your promises to Him. Us? We’re lucky to get a few decades before we fall down a mine shaft, get elbowed off a gangway, cough our guts out, or worse, get married and lose all self-determination.”
Garak let himself smile. He liked Maxin almost as often as he wanted to throw him down one the mind shafts he had just alluded to.
“So, what do you think of our guests?”
“Well, I’d be lying if I didn’t say that they come off as a little...err...cold. Oh, and they have this annoying habit of appearing out of nowhere. One second you’re walking merrily along with your jar of holy armour oils, and the next a ruddy great black-beaked fowl leaps in front of you causing you to drop said container of His holy oils.”
“Ravens fly. They don’t leap.”
“Well, whatever they do, it’s bloody maddening, thank you very much. And I’ll have you know that ravens often hop about. I’ve seen them on pict shows.”
“I’d advise you not to let them hear you say that. They’re not all stealth, you know. They’re beaks and claws are sharp Maxin Donis, and the loss of your manhood would be the least of your concerns.”
“You only say that because you never use yours.”
“I believe you are trying to insult me, are you not?”
“Very good my Lord; I told you I could teach you something.”
“Indeed. Now let me teach you something.” Garak leaned down to stare the man in the eye. “Those inhospitable fowl you refer to have more honour and nobility than you could ever hope to comprehend. I have fought with them, bled with them, and I can say with absolutely surety that there is nothing cold about them. Their valor and fury burns hotter than the furnaces that keep this world in His service.”
“Well, there may be nothing cold about them my Lord, but there is most definitely something quite chilly about where we are standing. Mind if we go inside, or shall I tell Lord Shrike that you’ll meet with him once you’ve finished your morning ablutions?”
Garak thought a mine shaft may be too unreliable. Success demanded a more definite and confident strategy. Throwing him into one of the furnaces would dramatically increase the assuredness to meet the fatal parameters necessary to end the man. Not today, though. Garak hadn’t smiled much even before Istavaan, and the fact that this mortal seemed to be able force one out of him every morning was doing him some good.
“I suppose you’re right, Maxin. Keeping the Lord of Shadows waiting won’t help my efforts to convince him to stay and fight with us.”
“You still think he’ll change his mind?”
“He must. Otherwise, this entire sector will be lost.”
“Well, try telling him that, only say it a little deeper and with more gravity.”
A growl was Garak’s response.
“Yes, exactly. Just like that my Lord!”
Gomen!
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