Dancing with the Astartes -- a Sisters/Marines story of shopping trips & permanent scarring

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**SisterSydney**

"I don't know, dammit. Go -- go get a cup of coffee. Get a snack. Get a souvenir. Get a tattoo, for feth's sake. Just get lost."

The novices just stood there, staring.

Sister Superior Torres sighed. "Look," she said, "girls, the Marines aren't picking us up until 1400, this is probably the only time in your cloistered little lives you're going to get an hour to wander around a civilian spaceport, and I am literally fething sick to my stomach of being around you so continuously that our fething periods have fething synchronized. So go have some fun."

"Is that...." Novice Ginevra began. She stopped when she notices Torres's eyebrows arch in exasperation. "That's an order, isn't it, ma'am?"

"And that keen intuitive insight into commander's intent is why I made you Provisional Squad Leader," Torres said, tapping Ginevra on her Aquila badge. "Yes, it's an order."

This is the end. Superior Torres sends Ginevra's Novice Squad of teenage trainee Battle Sisters off on their own to go shopping, BECAUSE THAT CANNOT POSSIBLY GO WRONG, fish-out-of-water snark turns grimdark in an instant, and Ginevra has to make the most important decision of her life. And there the story of her novitiate, which started here, comes to an end.

1. Bolter B-Word Privileges: Ginevra begins her Novitiate, the hard way.
2. Ollanius Pius Requiem: Novice Ginevra encounters the Imperial Guard. There is singing.
3. Able Baker: Expect some sort of Inquisition.
4. The Beginning: Every Sister's story begins with tragedy... and paperwork.
5. Dancing with the Astartes: The finale, involving the galaxy's nicest Space Marine, a shopping trip, and permanent scarring. (This story)

About the series:

Spoiler:

And, now, "Dancing with the Astartes" in full, hidden in spoiler tags to prevent Wall of Text:

Spoiler:

Edited April 29 to add that bit of detail to just-before-the-ending people said it needed.

**bossfearless**

Not quite so hard a kick in the feels as Able Baker, but still an excellent look into the broader setting of the 40k universe and the sheer absurdity of its principal players.

**SisterSydney**

Well, it's .... a happy ending? .... sort of?

**Paradigm**

Good stuff, as per usual. The characterisation remains great, as does the presentation of the less-often-seen aspects of 40k.

However, there were a couple of things that I'm not sure worked here.

- The music I wasn't sure about, although I suppose they did have a meaning within the story. It's just 20th/21st music in 40k that seems a little out of place.

- The characterisation of the Space Marine also felt a little odd to me. The more down-to-earth nature works amazingly with the Novices, but I think I prefer Space Marines to be more aloof, more distant, and less human. This may just be a matter of preference, though, and it's obvious why you've chosen that style to fit the story.

On a less critical note, the ending, although tragic, was great, A real reminder of the grimdark setting. In the last few lines I was internally screaming at Ginerva 'don't do it! Run away!', a testament to how real and developed you've made these characters. I'll have to re-read them all in order at some point, but even as a standalone this was very good.

Any idea where you're going to take your writing next?

**Gogsnik**

Aww, all growed up. You spelt Glass as 'Grass' once but I assume that Granger not getting the right number of 'I's in XXXIII was intentional? Not so smart after all!

I liked it and the Marine's t-shirt made me chuckle out loud.

Well done on your exams by the way.

**bossfearless**

SisterSydney wrote:
Well, it's .... a happy ending? .... sort of?

Well, it's as happy an ending as the story could have. When Ginevra is contemplating her jumps, she's really exploring all the possibilities for the future. Her story only has a finite number of ways out: death, frantic escape and eventual pursuit and death, or a lifetime of service culminating in, you guessed it, death. I do think that her decision to stay came on a bit too easily, like that scene could have used just a few more seconds of turmoil. Perhaps when she's contemplating her escape, a thought could flash through her mind of herself as an aging priestess in some backwater church way out in the plains where the Inquisition wouldn't think of looking for her, but then she realizes that the number of souls she'd save in that little parish somewhere pales in comparison to the lives she could be saving as a bolter bitch. If you've ever seen 25th Hour (if not, shame on you, go download that gak and watch it right the feth now) you just have to picture the father's speech at the end as Edward Norton is contemplating his own escape.

**bossfearless**

I'm also kind of disappointed that you skipped the pure comedy gold of having a group of novice Sisters walk into a strip club, especially when Luna would be easily entranced by the shiny pole and Portia could totally lose her cool and try to drag the girl offstage only to have them both fall into a conveniently placed mud (or jello, I'm not picky) wrestling pit while Ginny and Granger (in the future, know when not to base your names on Harry Potter) watch in a kind of catatonic disbelief.

You missed the chance to have me spitting my coffee out on my computer screen, is what I'm saying.

**SisterSydney**

Yes, I understand, I enjoy The Nargles in the Air rather too much, and, at age 17, I wrote a story in which the heroine and villainess are battling in the kind of power armor you can't wear much under and then fall off the building onto the lawn about 50 stories below, which breaks the suits but not their will to get out and fight on hand-to-hand -- at which point the lawn sprinklers go off.
But it didn't fit here, mate, it really didn't.

As for the ending:
I.... I didn't make Ginevra suffer enough? Oh no!
Actually, I may want to drag the pain out a little more. Thoughts for the rewrite when I put these together in an article.
I'm glad it had punch, though. It's easy to say "there is only WAR!," but the whole point of these stories is that can't be true for everybody all the time. The grimdark really hurts when you know that people have an alternative they're giving up.

Music:
Was a deliberate experiment, and not without risk, so I'm very interested in people's opinions on whether it worked or not.
There are just so many songs that I listen to when I brainstorm those stories (not when writing -- can't concentrate) and some of them have stuck in my head, I wanted to try including some of them. The piped-in music in the spaceport gave me an excuse to do a soundtrack in-story.
Yes, the songs are all late 20th or early 21st century, but they also have familiar names, speak English with a dash of butchered Latin, etc. I attribute all these things to what TvTropes calls the Translation Convention: They're really speaking Low and High Gothic, have utterly foreign names like "Q@zba(k 32," and are listening to 41st Millennium pop music entirely composed of dischordant pinging sounds, but since that would be completely unintelligible to the readers, we translate all of it into contemporary English and contemporary cultural references.
Bonus Sydney Points to whoever names the most songs correctly.

Space Marine characterization:
Yes, I had fun with that. All my characters are more down-to-earth, scruffy, and generally human than their counterparts in most 40K fluff, with the notable exception of Commissar Ciaphas Cain & co. (which is why the Cain books are the only 40K fiction I can actually stand to read).
But Brother-Captain Manganiello is exceptionally down-to-earth. (Bonus Sydney points if you recognize the name without Googling it). I wrote him that way to make him a good foil for Torres and the naive Novices. I could also have a contrast if I made him much more fanatical than them, since this is a fairly laid-back bunch of girls by Sororitas standards, but then he would've come off as kind of a dick, and I wanted him sympathetic.
In fact, when I finished the story, I realized that the genetically augmented centuries-old superhuman war machine was in fact the most human character in it. He's the Only Sane Man pointing out all the crazy around him in much the same way the reader would. And "Joe Astartes" is my mental model for the Ultramarines and most of their offspring, who in my headcanon are in fact pretty low-key guys who get terribly, terribly embarrassed by the in-universe propaganda that we're actually reading when we read the fluff.

Typos: I'll fix Grass/Glass. I'll leave Granger's error as it is -- it was not intentional on my part but does end up being a subtle way of showing how rattled she is. Very subtle. So subtle I'm a little worried that Gogsnik noticed it.....

Finally, Gogsnik: Thanks, mate. I'm pretty sure I passed. 90% of people did in the program's worst year on record, and I'm a professional writer who didn't have a nervous breakdown during the test, so I think I'm safe.

**SisterSydney**

PS: What's wrong with naming all the girls after Harry Potter characters and the adults after Firefly or (in one case) True Blood actors?

Besides the fact that it's incredibly juvenile of me, of course, but as long as I'm writing fanfic, I might as well "borrow" lots of people's intellectual property, from Leonard Cohen to JK Rowling, not just GW's.

**bossfearless**

If you want a great read that isn't the usual bolter-porn, I would read The Emperor's Gift, a novel about Grey Knights and the First Armageddon War. There is a fantastic scene where a group of people come face to face with Bjorn the Fellhanded and completely lose their minds trying to act all pious before him, and he's just like "Oh not this crap again."

**Evil Lamp 6**

First off, just finished reading all five in order, and well, hot damn! Quit your day job and just do this.

Songs:

Everclear - Everything to Everyone
Sir-Mix-A-Lot - Baby Got Back
Buckcherry - Crazy Bitch
Leonard Cohen - Hallelujah

That's all I've got.

**SisterSydney**

Ha! Thanks. All correct. There are two really subtle references you missed, though -- one is a single line of a Blink-182 song and the other is actually a Kasey Chambers quote in the dialogue.

Also I forgot to thank Gogsnik for saying he enjoyed the Ultramarines t-shirt. I had fun there.

**Paradigm**

SisterSydney wrote:

Music:
Was a deliberate experiment, and not without risk, so I'm very interested in people's opinions on whether it worked or not.
There are just so many songs that I listen to when I brainstorm those stories (not when writing -- can't concentrate) and some of them have stuck in my head, I wanted to try including some of them. The piped-in music in the spaceport gave me an excuse to do a soundtrack in-story.
Yes, the songs are all late 20th or early 21st century, but they also have familiar names, speak English with a dash of butchered Latin, etc. I attribute all these things to what TvTropes calls the Translation Convention: They're really speaking Low and High Gothic, have utterly foreign names like "Q@zba(k 32," and are listening to 41st Millennium pop music entirely composed of dischordant pinging sounds, but since that would be completely unintelligible to the readers, we translate all of it into contemporary English and contemporary cultural references.
Bonus Sydney Points to whoever names the most songs correctly.

I do think it worked, and the lyrics did add to the story. I might try reading it without the lyrics in to see if it changes any of it. It was just a little jarring at the start. Certainly effective though.

Space Marine characterization:
Yes, I had fun with that. All my characters are more down-to-earth, scruffy, and generally human than their counterparts in most 40K fluff, with the notable exception of Commissar Ciaphas Cain & co. (which is why the Cain books are the only 40K fiction I can actually stand to read).
But Brother-Captain Manganiello is exceptionally down-to-earth. (Bonus Sydney points if you recognize the name without Googling it). I wrote him that way to make him a good foil for Torres and the naive Novices. I could also have a contrast if I made him much more fanatical than them, since this is a fairly laid-back bunch of girls by Sororitas standards, but then he would've come off as kind of a dick, and I wanted him sympathetic.
In fact, when I finished the story, I realized that the genetically augmented centuries-old superhuman war machine was in fact the most human character in it. He's the Only Sane Man pointing out all the crazy around him in much the same way the reader would. And "Joe Astartes" is my mental model for the Ultramarines and most of their offspring, who in my headcanon are in fact pretty low-key guys who get terribly, terribly embarrassed by the in-universe propaganda that we're actually reading when we read the fluff.

This is interesting. In most 40k fiction I've read, the character that basically provides an audience voice for anything involving SM is generally a PDF/Guard soldier, a human seeing a demigod. So reversing that does show just how insane/inhuman the SOB are, which works. Again, it's just a little outside the norm (if there is a norm in 40k).

I also find that view of marines as a whole rather intriguing; it's not something I would necessarily agree with (I can see IG propaganda blowing stuff out of proportion, but I think fluff-SM are as good as they are made out to me.... This may just be because I have 6 space marine armies, though). Your theory is certainly credible, and offers a very different spin on 40k.

About the ending, as others have said, I think it maybe could be longer. The reference to the other stories was a great way of tying it all up, but maybe a couple of flash-forwards to life as either a full Sister or some priestess or runaway could be an interesting way of doing it, just to really get that 'time stands still' moment across.

Once more, though, great stuff.

**bossfearless**

While this is a nice ending to Novice Ginevra, since from this point on she'll be a full fledged Sister, the time you've taken to develop the characters has made this fertile ground for the growth of future tales.

**SisterSydney**

Thanks. I'm not saying Brother-Captain Manganiello isn't a terrifying demi-god of war when he needs to be, just that he's a pretty regular guy the rest of the time. Perhaps he's even self-consciously trying to act "normal" so he doesn't make civilians freak out more than his sheer size already does. (You saw his frustration at being worshipped). Though my mental image of him even among his own troops is pretty matter-of-fact.

"Okay, brothers, buncha Tyranids again today, here's the briefing slides. Gonna drop the hammer on their fethin' heads at these three points and converge on the objective -- pretty standard -- place the targeting beacon on it so the Navy fethers can actually hit something for a change and then exfil fast, fast, fast before they swarm us. Any questions? No, Bob, you can't bring a 'nid back as a pet. Any real questions? Ok, roll Blue Tide roll!"

Of course, his chapter (Drop Hounds) doesn't have to be representative of the Ultramarines-descended chapters, any more than my Novices have to be representative of the Sororitas.

**Mr Morden**

I liked it alot - but then thats been true of all your work.

It kinda fits most of my own views of 40k Universe as described by Abnet, ADB and S. Mitchel so that goods.

You have mastered the art of make the darker elements worse by contrasting periods of ligtht - most impressive....

**SisterSydney**

Than you, Mr. Modern. Who's "ADB"? Maybe an author I should be reading? Book recommendations are a good thing.

bossfearless wrote:
While this is a nice ending to Novice Ginevra, since from this point on she'll be a full fledged Sister, the time you've taken to develop the characters has made this fertile ground for the growth of future tales.

Thanks. I have some vague ideas for "Sister Ginevra" stories, where she'd still be a protagonist or even the main one. I even have an idea for a story where the reader sees actual combat... briefly, from a command-and-control Valkyrie when it touches down to drop off the Canoness before immediately rocketing back up out of range of ground fire. Also ideas about how the really annoying part of being bombarded with long-range artillery is how debris ends up falling in your coffee. And a very, very messy death in a non-combat accident due to faulty maintenance.

**Mr Morden**

ADB = Aaron Dembski Bowden

He writes really awesome 40k Stories - my favourite is Helsreach, but the Night Lords Trilogy is close behind.

Lots of interesting ideas, characters, twists and turns and unusal story structures. HIGHLY recomend.

**Trondheim**

Mr Morden wrote:
ADB = Aaron Dembski Bowden

He writes really awesome 40k Stories - my favourite is Helsreach, but the Night Lords Trilogy is close behind.

Lots of interesting ideas, characters, twists and turns and unusal story structures. HIGHLY recomend.

Agreed on all acounts, ABB really produces some awesome stories for 40k

**SisterSydney**

Thanks. I'll do my usual hunt for used copies on Amazon....

Also: I'm curious, anyone pick up on how Ginevra and Portia were behaving in the first shop? Granger is right when she says they're "channeling" other people -- five Meaningless Sydney Points to the first person to guess correctly who.

**Gogsnik**

SisterSydney wrote:
So subtle I'm a little worried that Gogsnik noticed it....

You know when Monk says, 'it's a blessing... and a curse' well if only I could actually use my eye for detail for some kind of critical analysis but I just read stories/watch films et cetera and either like them or not, I just like to be entertained.

I like these stories. I will say, they are quite different to the background as presented by GW and I am aware of it whilst reading, but in their own context that doesn't bother me. I was thinking about this instalment today, and two things occurred to me. Firstly, I'm not too sure about GInevra having a memory of dancing on her daddy's shoes, I do wonder that, she would have probably been a toddler in order to have done that and yet, as an SoB, we have the whole 'from birth' angle. Hmm. Secondly I thought the story gave an angle on Manganiello which was quite sad in its own way. Obviously Ginevra is aware of the ordinary human life being denied her, where the Brother-Captain didn't seem to be, but it seemed sad that him trying to comfort her is about as close to a family he will ever get himself.

As for book recommendations, it isn't a BL one (I have most of them and only got bored by one so, I wouldn't know how to recommend them specifically) but you should read Grunts! by Mary Gentle (assuming you haven't). I think you would really like it a lot.

**SisterSydney**

Thanks. Manganiello was with his family through at least "junior high" (an Americanism, obviously), so he was at least 13 when he started the trials for the Adeptus Astartes -- which I understand is pretty typical. So the irony is, as he points out in the story, the average Marine actually has much more of a normal childhood than a Sister of Battle.

If you read The Beginning, you'll see I'm pretty liberal with the Sororitas "from birth" thing, though. (And the fluff is sparse). Portia doesn't actually "enlist" until age 4, Ginevra doesn't get sent to Schola until the ripe old age of 5 -- whereas Granger is literally "from birth," which might explains where she's much more strait-laced.

**Gogsnik**

I think that seems fair, I mean, realistically, even in the Imperium, how many actual Imperial servants are going to either die as their child is born or end up in circumstances where it is placed into the Schola immediately? Although, I take orphans and the way it is presented to mean actual orphans and not children who were just taken at birth. Doing it your way makes more sense to me.

**bossfearless**

Is it bad that I really want to steal a couple of your characters for random, irreverent fanfics of my own?

Also, you can have one of mine if you want. Sister Claire of the Order Dialogous, whose sole purpose in life seems to be to chastise everyone for the use of profanity ("Language!"). She dies in a boarding action, sucked out into the vacuum, because she wasn't wearing a helmet, and nobody misses her because she was kind of a bitch anyway.

...

...

...I'm totally taking Luna and Portia hostage in a literary sense

**Mr Morden**

SisterSydney wrote:
Thanks. Manganiello was with his family through at least "junior high" (an Americanism, obviously), so he was at least 13 when he started the trials for the Adeptus Astartes -- which I understand is pretty typical. So the irony is, as he points out in the story, the average Marine actually has much more of a normal childhood than a Sister of Battle.

If you read The Beginning, you'll see I'm pretty liberal with the Sororitas "from birth" thing, though. (And the fluff is sparse). Portia doesn't actually "enlist" until age 4, Ginevra doesn't get sent to Schola until the ripe old age of 5 -- whereas Granger is literally "from birth," which might explains where she's much more strait-laced.

As you say the fluff is pretty vague - we do know that some orphans are honoured by being sent to the Schola but not if there is any age limits (likely not) - in the same way Astartes do vary a bit on how they recruit - Space Wolves taking their aspirants quite late (apparently so they can get some drinking and wenching in).

Descriptions of the Schola are very short - and very little on how it actually operates - we know it was horribly abused by Vandire and there were reforms that followed this ......................I think the only one who has even tried to tackle the subject is Sandy Mitchel and I liked his version a lot - a cross between a English Boarding school and the Hitler Youth seemed very 40k to me................ now a lot of this gets lost in the controversy about Sister Julian - who Sister Superior Torres seemed to have quite a bit in common with in terms of her experiences and general behaviour whilst still maintaining her fanatical faith.

..... "Yeah. I spent six years undercover with an Inquisitorial kill team. How do you think I got so foul-mouthed, cynical, and generally nasty?"

**SisterSydney**

There's a Cain story where he's retired and running a Schola, isn't there? Is that the one where Sister Julian shows up? I've not read it, just the passing description of Schola in one of the first three books -- which as you say seems British public school meets Hitlerjugend, very fitting in my eyes, but apparently people were incensed by how Cain supposedly snuck over to the girls' side to... um... fraternize with a future Sister. Also it seems Schola ends very early in adolescence, at least for Sisters, who go on to their novitiate on Terra or Ophelia.

And yes, people should of course feel totally free to steal my characters that I stole from other people. Ginevra and Susan are pretty different as Novices than as Hogwarts students (not that either gets much characterization in the books, let alone the movies), but Luna, Granger, and even Portia are pretty much straight lifts, only with more swearing. For those who don't remember, Portia is the horrid girl who hangs out with and eventually dates Draco Malfoy for much of the Potter series - Rowling said Portia was actually one of the characters she hated the most because she was based on girls who we're mean to her at school.

**poda_t**

I think this points out very well one of the core attitudes/behaviours of ultramarines that every writer has failed to pen. They're just brainwashed dimwits that carry their little wee book around for how and when they are allowed to pee and in what direction to angle into the wind...the presentation of ultramarines is just absurd, and I hate the ultramarines for it. This presentation of astartes is a good one. Although there's a few problems, like the missing studs, scars or plugs all over the body. Then again, my personal interpretation of astartes is permanently butt ugly, with damnably near none of their original teeth remaining and metal incisors bolted into their jaw to replace lost teeth. Faces restitched multiple times over and over again with synthetic skin grafted on and ears chopped down to nubs... you know. ugly.

Also, I have huge problems with people stealing characters developed by others. I don't mean lifting the character and putting them in another environment, I mean taking over the character's story in that environment. For example, Ahriaman: Exile was incredibly infuriating. That was not Ahriman, that was some imposter running around with the characters name. There is no sense of changing identity, there is absolutely no sense of the roots from where the character came from or the transformation of what he becomes. None of the basic patterns of behaviour are there as established in A Thousand Sons, including approach to conflict or the sense of loss of control. Even accounting for the idea that Ahriman is bereft, lost, and who knows what else, that is not Ahriman in that book, not the former, not the latter and most definately not one in transition.

**SisterSydney**

Not familiar with that Ahriman story, but definitely ain't gonna read it now.

Brother-Captain Manganiello is from an Ultramarines offshoot with sufficiently divergent geneseed he can have a beard, so their cultural practices about studs, quality of cosmetic surgery for facial wounds, covering interface sockets with flesh-colored caps when not in use, etc. could be different too.

Or perhaps the beard is a way to cover horrific scarring!

But, yes, appearance aside, I'd imagine Ultramarines proper to be pretty similar: probably more formal, but not simultaneously over-the-top superheroes and pants-on-head-stupid Codex fundamentalists that fluff often makes them out to be.

**Gogsnik**

I quite liked Ahriman: Exile, certainly though he is, at least initially, quite a different sort of person but then, that was the point; Ahriman has a lot more humanity and nobility to him and that basically destroys him after the great big feth-up which is the Rubric.

**poda_t**

my imagination of astartes: as long as you have 9 square inches of virgin flesh remaining, you're still a neophyte. If half your organs didn't have to be re-stitched together, you're still a neophye. if one of your limbs wasnt split open and hanging on by sniews... still a neophite...