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Some fluff that I need to finish writing, for my IG captain. So to encourage me to do so, I'm posting it here, reading over it, and brainstorming what I originally had in mind. I got caught up in IRL after the second chapter and haven't gotten around to finishing the other eight chapters since. I still have my outline though...


Writer's note: This story contains dark material, going full scope into the grim and dark world of 40k. It is not written to be "extreme" or groundbreaking or shocking, nor is it allegory for anything else. Melissa Taylor's unfortunate tale is written as if it were a historical account from that universe, written by none other than Taylor herself. Compared to the somewhat lighter tale of Groknar Skullsplitta, this is a bit more serious.

Chapter 1

Melissa, daughter...

Many years ago in the coldest hour of night, a child screamed as it took its first breaths upon that doomed world. She was taken from her mother, and fed an unholy first meal: the blood of a goat, entrails of a frog, the eye of a snake, and a single drop of the finest of wines. The same mixture was ground and mixed into a paste, and upon her belly was laid an invisible tattoo of the eight-pointed star of Chaos. The baby screamed in agony and passed out, oblivious to the dark designs of its tormenters.

The mother cried as she found the baby upon her bosom when she awoke, her joyous tears dropping upon its head of fair young hair. She gave it succor, and cared for it the best she could. And in its first years the child was given the name Melissa, daughter of Taylor, in honor of the child's now-deceased father. The child seemed to be a blessing to the mother, rarely crying and being obedient. In its third year, the mother was raped and stabbed in front of the child, and she huddled up to her mother, remembering her last words as the foul criminals looted the house:

"Melissa, daughter... I love you... these few years I had with you... the only warmth in a cold world..."

Her life faded from her much as the color fled from her skin, and when the Enforcers arrived they saw the blood-soaked child crying over her mother's defiled corpse, the house destroyed and looted. The child was placed in foster care, and the investigation was never finished.


Whispers in the Dark

Dear Emperor, that purple prose was torturous to write. No wonder no one ever honestly wants to read someone's autobiography, since they always use such writing styles. And why should I even bother to write this? Perhaps, in my delusions or just because of some head injury, I think that someone out there might care to know where I came from. Some unknown historian might find this, and perhaps understand how I came to fame. Or maybe not. And they might not publish the truth anyhow-- I don't think the Inquisition would let them.

Truth be told, only recently did I come across the story of my childhood. All I can really remember before my fifth year (by the Terran calendar-- Umara's years were a slight bit shorter) were those final words. They have given me the strength to fight off my ever-rampant depression. To hope for a better future, a better place for myself. A fool's hope, but I have always been called a fool.

I moved from foster home to orphanage to foster home, always moving around, from abusive parent to abusive parent. I didn't cry, no matter how hard they hit me. Or that's what I was told, anyway... I barely remember it-- perhaps a hit too hard on the head bruised my memory of what went on before pre-juve schola, or maybe I just didn't want to remember it. Or both.

How many households I moved through I don't know, but it hardened my soul and my heart. It seemed to me, that only two things ever truly loved me, and both of them were beyond my reach. My mother would never again hold me in her warm embrace, or talk to me in her soothing words, and the Emperor would never smile upon me for he had already sacrificed himself for us mean and cruel little unworthy creatures we call Humanity.

I had no friends, because no one wanted to be associated with me. Why, I didn't know at the time, but I learned in my teenaged years the reason. Whispers in the dark about a champion of The Enemy being born upon Umara, a Betrayer whom would enslave all. And it was believed that I was she, by many. They glared, and rumored, but never moved openly against me, because I was but a child and protected by the foster care system, as much as that could ever be called protection given how much abuse I received, but at least the Enforcers did their job, uncaring of who I was claimed to be.

Those whom cared least were the ones I trusted the most. Seems strange to others, I imagine, but if those whom care don't do it in a benevolent way, you'd act the same.


The Blackest Mountain

It didn't change for the better when I finally joined the schola. The other juves did not treat me well; I was the target of many of their pranks. And the professors did not care, as they were just doing their jobs and thought little of me to begin with. For the most part, I managed to get very good grades, if only because I had no social life. Social life was torment, where I would be mocked for being so thin (none of my foster parents ever fed me that well), and so un-endowed when puberty hit, or for being a nerd. Or for being "icy", or for being a witch, or for being a loner, or for having brown hair, or for being short, or for having pale skin, or for having bruises on my face, or for refusing to cry when I was hit.

Children are cruel as any other age of human. Still, I remembered my mother's last words, and tried my hardest to be happy for her. To, at least, make it to adulthood without breaking down and going insane. Like a single golden disk of hope held aloft by iron chains of will, in the cauldron of the blackest mountain of hate, running red with fiery red rivers of anger, surrounded by poisonous white clouds of wrath under a midnight sky of the deepest blue depression. The purple prose again... but I suppose it gives a deeper view into my mind, if anyone is ever to care.

At one instance, a student intentionally spilled ink over my test form, and quietly apologized and then moved back to his desk to refill it. The teacher was only convinced that it wasn't my own spill whenever I proved to her that my little gray ink pot was the only one that I had, and I had no backup pots or containers which I could have filled my own pot back up again after the spill. I was allowed to retake the test, and made As. The fact that I had to stay late didn't bother me at all, to be honest, it was better than going home at any rate.

The next day, someone took my ink pot and shattered it on my locker. I wasn't able to write anything, and we had a big test that day, and I was despairing and on the verge of tears-- though I refused to let them go, and always, always gave a stern, grim face much to the chagrin of my torturers. They thought me emotionless because of it, that they could torture me however they wanted and somehow I just wouldn't feel it. The schola officials looked into it, but couldn't figure out who had done it. No action was taken, save to replace my ink pot and allow me to carry it on my person so that I might protect it from future abuse-- they did not want to have to clean up another mess like that again.


Murmurs at Sunrise

As I reached the mid levels of the schola, the schola began to feed me better than my many foster parents ever did and I filled out physically, finally going from a thin and scrawny little tomboy to a pretty young girl . The boys found out that they liked girls more than they hated them, and found new, more embarrassing ways to harass me. The other girls helped them, joining in on their torture of me. My dresses were cut, torn, or had ink spilled or splashed on them, and I had to teach myself how to cleanse them, sew them back together, and even how to defend myself. I took a knife to schola, a secret hidden little knife that to me and the other children seemed huge, even if it was but a utensil.

The incidents became more vicious as finally they became old enough to listen to the rumors their parents were spreading, the murmurs at sunrise about that cursed child who everyone watches out of the corner of their eye. The students knew who their parents were talking about, and began to hate me even more for it. And thus the tale of my first kill comes into play, an inglorious murder that brought the entire schola under a shadow and made people start to actually believe the rumors.

I was ten Terran years, staying at the schola late one day to take a test alone so that I might take it without interruption from the other students-- the teachers seemed to think it was because I was so deeply involved in my schola work that I did not care for social interaction, which wasn't entirely far from the truth. They admired it, and allowed me some things that they wouldn't normally. Really, to the students it was just another reason to hate me-- teacher's pet, they said-- but I didn't mind. Perhaps I could make something of myself, better than what my childhood was, or so I hoped.

When I left the room, I went to the lavatories to fulfill my bodily needs, when I heard screams from within. Grim curiosity filled me and I ventured forth as silently as I could. Above a student in my class an older student lay, holding her struggling, naked body down. I was horrified. I was enraged. Something within me snapped, and the black mountain spewed such white smoke and red rivers that I could not stand the world and I hated everything and everyone. My knife was in my hand, covered in blood as the boy's corpse chilled on the cold tiled floor beneath it, blood leaking into a drain. The only noises that could be heard were her sobbing, and my angered, wrathful panting.

The rest was blurry... I know I didn't come home that night, and I gave her my jacket. The authorities interviewed us repeatedly, and the schola was put on lock-down with more enforcers and more strict rules. We saw armed men in uniform patrol our hallways and watch over our classrooms as we were taught, and eventually we just got used to it. I befriended that girl, whom everyone else shunned for what happened to her-- as if it were her fault, but humanity has always been cruel. She was my first true friend, and it felt great to have her to talk to, to study with, to hold when she cried. To be something more than a sack of misery and hate, to bring a bit of light into someone's life.

Those days were probably the best in my life. Even if we were watched and basically put under lock and key, I enjoyed them . I was teased less as everyone was forced to focus on schoolwork, and I made good grades. I had a friend, someone who responded to my kindness with her own. I was accused of feeling a bit more for her than was appropriate, but I don't know-- I've never known love of the romantic sort, she was just my best and only friend. Her parents glared at me, they hated me, but still she persisted, saying that I was nice, and smart... I blushed, but then nobody had ever called me either of those in my life.


Inglorious Victory

Such friendship and happiness would, as I have learned in my long life, never last long in this horrific universe. Upon our graduating year at the Terran age of sixteen, the war on Umara started. In this case, with a trickle, but I was one of those whom was made to slip through the cracks so that the embers could be smothered. The conscription ripped me from her, and put me into the brutality of conscript boot camp that is quite infamous across the Imperium. One week of nonstop training with little rest and even less mercy, was quite generous in comparison to what many conscripts receive, and I remember the lessons well, even the false ones. And then, untried, we were thrown into combat, force-marched for three days and then stuck in, commissars shooting anyone who dared to fall back.

We faced off against traitorous veterans and a defensive general which we outnumbered three to one, and they held a massive fortress known for being untakeable. They planned on just sending us in as human waves until we overwhelmed them, and then sending in the stormtroopers and grenadiers in order to clean up. As we fought our way to the base of the walls, an earthshaker round blasted a huge hole into it and made a massive crater, killing all of my squad-mates instantly and nearly killing me. A piece of shrapnel from the wall flew and smashed into my chest, somehow the sharp end was facing the other way and I was merely knocked down with a cruised chest and shattered flak armor, gasping for breath.

The commissar of our platoon helped me up and rushed the four remaining squads into the breach, and we began to pile debris up so that we could hold it until reinforcements arrived, preferably tanks or at least the Grenadiers. The entire complex was utterly devastated by artillery, and the enemy began to peek out of their bunkers and swarm our position. It was like most peoples' first firefights, chaotic and unforgiving, people dying left and right. Of the three conscript platoons (with six squads each) and six commissars that made it into the breach, only fifty of us remained, and a single commissar, one of the two that were watching over my platoon.

With only two more platoons as reinforcements, we received orders to march directly in and assault the central fortification, a hardened tower built to withstand orbital bombardment, and that we did. Floor by floor, room by room, we rushed in, and were slaughtered, and yet we pushed on. We found many signs of heresy, tortured remnants of loyal soldiers, and warpcraft, and some of us became insane from the sights we saw, forcing the commissar to execute them. On the top floor, I was wounded by a traitor Commissar, and watched as ours finally won over in their subsequent duel. A junior medic applied a quick patch and some drugs to keep me in the fight, and after picking up the traitor-commissar's power sword I joined the commissar and five other capables as we made it to the roof, only to look upon the most dangerous thing that I have, even to this day, seen.

A daemon had been summoned, a bloody flesh-daemon of the unholy god Khorne, with skulls for armor, and a bone sword crackling with the energies of the warp. He quickly destroyed our five compatriots, leaving nothing but the commissar and I to face off this horror before it rushed down upon the wounded and slaughtered them all in its pitiless rage. I managed to cut the beast's arm off after the commissar blocked its deadly blade with his power sword, and then we hacked it to pieces until there was nothing more than a pile of creepily evaporating blood.

Thus, our inglorious victory was achieved, and none save us knew of the final epic battle. The commissar commended me, and field-promoted me to the lowest NCO rank, which unfortunately was never made official, as the true war for Umara was soon to begin-- an Ork WAAAGH! had been burning in-system and in our fight against the traitors we somehow weren't able to see them until it was too late, and they were but a day from arriving.


Chapter 2

Single Day of Leave

I received a single day of leave while they argued about whether or not I should be given a permanent promotion to match the Commissar's field promotion-- I later was told that normally they just accept it, but apparently the political officials in charge of this planet's Guard and PDF listened too hard to the rumor mills. Instead of being promoted, they debated for a day then put it off to later as the Orks arrived. They never actually got around to it-- to this day, my official rank is still Conscript, although my actual authority is far greater, more than I ever wanted.

My day of leave was spent visiting my friend, and I found out that my foster family had already sold all of my possessions-- my clothes, my few toys, my study materials, everything. They thought I was dead and spent no time grieving, but I really didn't care as I didn't like them anyway. The two of us spent the last hour of my day before I had to go back watching the glowing Ork rok burning in-system, heading no doubt directly into the city. At that instant my friend decided to join the Guard. My sweet, emotionally scarred friend, the little nerd who couldn't even look at a gun without shaking.

A person like me... probably millions of people like me on this world alone, cursed, wretched, hated commoners, with no real talents save lack of luck... someone like me can join the Guard and make something of ourselves. But the cruelty of the galaxy is far greater than we know, for the best of us must also make sacrifices. I wrote a voucher for her, so that she could hopefully be trained as an officer, and gave her my best wishes as we tore ourselves apart in that last moment, and I boarded the Chimera that was heading back to the front. The Orks had already landed minutes before, crashing into the government building of this city, and my platoon was called into action.

I don't really remember much about that first fight with Orks, truth be told, I only know that I was full of rage and anger, at myself, at the Orks, at the galaxy as a whole, for forcing my friend to make such a decision. When I finally came to, I was exiting a now-emptied Rok, one of the smaller ones, and my platoon came up to meet me and cheered, rushing up to me and hugging me, before the commissar established order and reinstated his field promotion, giving me command authority over the conscript platoon. They named themselves "Taylor's Toughs"-- don't ask, I really don't get it myself, something about the military mind tending towards such names. It wasn't really my choice, anyway, and the Commissar thought it was a great idea to keep morale high because we had to go right back into combat.

And so we fought our way to the next Rok, and used the foul greenskins' own explosives against them to blow it up. We were berated by command for doing so, something about fouling our hands with their heretical technology-- I don't even think a techpriest would have complained about destroying Orks with Ork explosives, it's not like anything of value was lost. The days passed by, one by one platoons were destroyed, companies were destroyed, the city was taken over. We had to fall back, and we were the rear guard that protected the fleeing citizens. I wondered where she was...

Fall Back To Hubris

Finally, sometime in the middle of the night, we were told to stay and hold the line, essentially a death sentence. We knew it was, just being conscripted-- even if you're later raised to Guardsman status (I hadn't been, at that point, making me a the lowest ranked person officially), you know you're worthless chaff fit only to be thrown away by the generals that lord over you. Emperor knows that's what they've tried to do to me over the past several centuries. But I digress. Most of them spent their time drinking, and the Commissar raised hell about stolen amasec, but my focus was always towards the city. The Orks, the refugees... hoping to find her. The only person I really cared about at the moment. Even if I were to die, I wouldn't care so long as she had a chance to live, and become something great. I'm just pond scum compared to her lily flower. All of the people I knew, girl or boy, teacher or student, were scum, too. So we deserved this invasion. We were given a paradise world to live in, blessed by the Emperor and his Imperium with a life beyond our worth, and we lived that life without giving thanks, faithless and full of petty squabbles and politics and heretics.

No Orks showed up until around two hours past midnight, and I was the only one aside from the Commissar whom was sober. Thankfully it was only a group of five Orks, but they were far too sneaky to be proper Orks. After the fight, the Commissar said something about "kommandos" being the Ork term for them, and that they were considered cowardly and hated even by other Orks. Likely why they were sent first, but they certainly were more talented than the other Orks. Their nob snuck right up on us, and it was only a lucky blow from behind on my part that killed him and saved me and likely the entire platoon from being killed-- the Commissar was knocked down, seemingly unconscious, but regained his wits fast enough to get his bolt pistol out and hit the back of the greenskin's head.

An hour later, the first wave of refugees arrived, and the final one-- they had just barely escaped the slaughter, and were about to run right into a trap set by the Kommandos, had we not finished them off first. For several minutes I despaired, unable to find her in them, before the stragglers came and finally, I found her-- scared, clutching a lasgun picked up off of a corpse, a gun which had obviously recently been used. I hugged her, and comforted her. The refugees spent the night with the platoon, and we gave them a small amount of our supplies. I spent the night with her, and once again my spirits were lifted. I could do anything, I would not die as long as she lived, I would refuse to. Even to this day, I recall those feelings we shared that night, and they make me smile, something that I rarely do in this dark and forbidding galaxy of hate and death. We received many strange looks as we parted, and though I started to feel alone again, I at least stopped feeling hatred for myself at that point. The inescapable black mountain instead directed its rivers elsewhere... to the east, the Ork-infested city of my birth, and life.

The color I hated the most at that moment in life was green. I wanted to see their blood flow, to impale their heads upon poles and scream to the Orks, the nobles who denied me rank, the students who abused me, the dead whom I had already slain, the world, the galaxy, to the Dark Gods themselves: "Come and get me, for I am Conscript Taylor, and I will not die!" I was ready to challenge the gods, to stand tall in the name of the Emperor, for I am human and I refuse to give in, no matter how much pain and suffering I have to go through.

Hubris... but it was all that kept me going. All that kept everyone going...


Cut in half

Thankfully, I did not die that day. Or perhaps not so thankfully; death would have been a mercy. Still, we struggled on, killing hordes of Orks through some bizarre measure of luck and firepower. We'd have been overrun instantly if we hadn't had artillery support, and I thanked the Emperor every night that Juvin managed it-- but never to his face, because he was a prideful little bastard. But then it's not like very many people in that platoon were kind to me. The commissar took an Ork bullet to the chest and the medic struggled to keep him alive every day, but somehow he lived... he couldn't keep control of the platoon's morale problem like that, however. A pity, because I'd certainly have enjoyed it if he did... I remained a conscript; the only conscript my platoon in fact. I had the most combat experience and I was the best shot, and the best with a bayonet, too. But time and time again I was overlooked.

I prayed to the Emperor for some sign that I wasn't forgotten, but received nothing except for my continued survival. That, and the continued mockery of the others for my rank. They tried to force me to do everything because I was just a conscript, but thankfully the commissar was stable enough to give commands to temporarily restore my command of the platoon. But it didn't matter... the platoon was so stressed out that morale was impossible to maintain without a full fledged commissar on their asses at all times. So the abuse continued, persisting even to the point of the pranks becoming dangerous and deadly. I killed one of them after he startled me and woke me up in the middle of the night with a hand on my mouth, and another... somewhere else. I always slept with my stub pistol under my makeshift pillow, so I put a bullet in his head like that. They hated me even more after that, because Juvin was pretty popular. But he deserved it-- even now, having time to reflect on it, I have no regrets.

The Orks kept coming, no matter how many we killed. Most of us lost track of how many we killed; I went through three laspacks a day and I was the best shot in the platoon. Some of the less capable shooters went three or four times that many, and damn the Orks for wounding the commissar, because we really could have used more efficiency... we lost three of our six squads because of wasteful shooting, and as soon as the commissar was stable enough to move, I gave the order to make an orderly retreat. It wasn't popular, because some of the surviving soldiers thought that this was a skeet shoot and the perfect spot to camp out and take some Orks out; but nobody argued once we got formed up and began our retreat. Our platoon had been cut in half, and the size was extremely noticeable when on the move.

Our attempts to hail anything on the radio were met with confusion, as it was assumed our platoon had been overrun. Eventually, we convinced them we weren't Orks (though that should have been obvious) and they gave us new orders... make for a bunker which supposedly was harboring remnants of other platoons, and hunker there until we could be evacuated. Which probably would turn out to be never, but we at least had something to do so I organized an advance with a heavy rear guard and we double timed it to the bunker. We made it just in time, too... our rear guard squad was overrun by Orks as we run into the door, and we were forced to shut it on them.

Funny thing is, I put the guys who abused me the most in that squad after reorganizing the day before. The Emperor has one helluva sense of humor.


Prelude at Noon

We wiped out the Orks that has slaughtered our rear guard from the safety of the bunker, and killed any Orks that got close. The days went as slow as could be expected, before the trickle of survivors went past us. Some Guard units joined us, remnants of other conscript units mostly, and some support units-- one was a platoon of artillery, without their pieces. No doubt they were either destroyed intentionally by the defending forces, or captured. I hoped they were destroyed at any rate, but the men and women in the platoon were rather confused, and they weren't sure if the charges went off-- the commander who had them was overrun, and there were explosions... but these are Orks, remember, they can loot just about anything. Probably could loot a person if given enough time and interest.

Along with the guardsmen that joined us-- putting us at the level of a large regiment once again in these (now quite full, although not yet cramped) bunkers, we received quite a few civilians. At first, it was mostly the privileged... those that had bodyguards, and were already themselves well fed-- often coming along in armored ground cars, stopping only to get a few rations if eve that much. They seemed to expect the bunker to be deserted, not to have guardsmen in it, it was like they had a plan and we were in their way. At any rate, we sent them on their way, and gradually, the refugees started becoming less and less privileged, priests and nobles leading way to families of craftsmen with autoguns and stubbers, whom eventually gave way to those whose only weapons were stolen from the corpses of orks and guardsmen, and then finally the injured started coming in. We did what we could, but we were under orders not to give out medical supplies to civilians, and to instead move them on to the guarded refugee camp several miles away.

Assuming they'd make it that far, it probably was for the best-- or so we thought at the time. We were already crowded in here, and the last thing we needed was to have sickness spreading. So we did what we could and sped them on their way afterwards. The Orks slowed down for a bit, and there were reports of Space Marines landing on the planet, getting peoples' hopes up. Not my own though, I didn't believe in a universe that would be so kind. No, I believed-- and I still believe-- that humanity must find its own way to salvation, not relying upon the Emperor's Angels of Death... for they have so many things to do that they cannot afford to save every single one of us. That's why we have the Imperial Guard, after all.

It was rather tedious and boring, and with that of course came the discipline problems. The Commissar was well enough to walk, at least, and with me at his side, that let him start to whip us in shape-- often literally-- even in this typical military setting of "hurry up and wait". Several dissidents were found, too, those with weird symbols on their personal effects... symbols that scratched at the back of one's mind when one looked at it. Or maybe it was just me. I certainly didn't tell the commissar about it, sure I'm faithful but I'm not stupid, but aside from having an aversion to non-Imperial symbols they didn't seem to be bothered by them. Once the eight of them were found-- plus a ninth that managed to escape-- they were executed, their corpses laid with that of the Orks rotting outside our bunker complex.

It's weird writing about times like these... in truth, what I described was something like at least two months of waiting and fighting, yet the way I just described it, it sounded like a few days at most. After the first month, we didn't get any more civilians coming in. Just stragglers of destroyed platoons, coming in a squad, or half a squad at a time. One of them was even one of the infamous grenadier regiments, utterly destroyed save for eleven guardsmen, whom had broken and ran upon seeing the warboss tear through their colonel. I had to persuade the commissar from having them all killed, instead talking him into demoting them and having their equipment passed on to our most skilled and bravest, to create an assault squad-- the automatic shotguns the grenadiers liked so much were designed for such anyway.

I took the remaining carapace suit, one suited to my smaller body (though I am about average in height for a human, Umara's residents were actually a bit taller than average), and looked quite fine I'm sure as the impromptu officer of this haphazard regiment. Truth be told, this was probably the best time I had ever had on Umara, as far as extended times go. It was a proper military regiment, and the commissar noted that if Umara was to survive we might even be drafted into the true Imperial Guard (as opposed to the Imperial Umaran Guard, a misleading name designed to give more prestige to the planet's PDF). It was just another prelude to yet another storm, one which would signal the planet was already well on its way to the end of its path towards damnation.


A Ray of Hope

When the universe was created long ago, before the Emperor rose up to protect humanity, it lied to us and said we could hope, and then went around with joyous abandon crushing every being's hope and then making us forget about it so that we could do it again and again. Or something to that effect anyway-- at least it sounds poetic enough for what happened next. Our bunker's vox, which was mostly full of screaming and panicking on the various channels, suddenly had orders-- to retreat (well to be fair, they said fall back, you know how nervous officers get about using words like retreat around a commissar).

Actually making this retreat-- or advancing in the other direction at any rate-- was another thing entirely. Still, we had enough discipline now that the commissar was well enough to walk around shouting and shooting people, so we made good time packing all useful supplies and exiting the bunker complex. And by that I mean it only took a few days of shouting, and my voice was only somewhat sore, which was a relief. Hey, commanding is hard work for us newbies. We have to get everyone to respect us. By planting the soles of your combat boots into the backside of anyone who tries to tell you otherwise. Of course, that's only PART of command, but if nobody obeys your orders in a time of stress you have to be hard on them-- otherwise people could die. And I made this quite clear to them, so most of them were pretty good about moving their flak armored backsides and get this train-wreck rolling.

In truth it was a decently performed tactical withdraw, we only lost about one squad of soldiers to the advancing Orks. Then when we were safely out of sight we blew the looters up with all of the munitions we couldn't afford to carry and some well placed demolitions charges, because if there's anything we know about Orks, it's that they will take anything you leave behind and then come for you and kill you with it. The commissars didn't like to talk about it, but they also like to sneak up on you when you least expect it-- and when exactly do you expect an Ork to sneak up on you? Yeah, life's like that sometimes, though we lucked out and weren't chased by these stormtrooper wannabe greenskins, or very many other ones once we blew the base. Though some of the shrapnel of Ork artillery that had occasionally dropped onto us was definitely of Imperial make for example-- probably captured mortar rounds, though doubtless the mortars were converted into some orkish monstrosity that wouldn't be recognized by any normal and sane person, or a Techpriest.

At least, we hoped it was. Given what I know now, it could very well have been our own people. But that's something that will have to be discussed later. After a week of very tense traveling and firefights (I honestly don't remember much of it, or I'd give more details-- suffice it to say we lost a few good men and some more not so good ones), we finally made it to the command post, which was more of a makeshift fortress surrounded by emplacements, trenches, hull-down vehicles, and heavy weapons teams. They seemed surprised to see us, though at the time I didn't blame them. I still kinda don't, who expects a force of remnants to show up in this good of order? They probably expected us to show up one squad at a time at most, stragglers.

There was some more good news, for me anyway. Sort of. The kind of good news that is always countered by bad news-- hey, you live in this galaxy too (I assume anyway, seeing as you're reading this), you know what I mean. The NORMAL kind of good news. At any rate, this was the next time I saw Castella-- I think this is the first time I've even mentioned her name, but there it is. You can tell by just the name alone that she's a higher class of person than I am, hell her name is High Gothic whereas mine isn't even Low Gothic, it's just from a weird dialect of it (I've been to enough worlds to overcome my own dialect and speak in true Low Gothic since I left, and you should thank me for it because trying to read Umaran Low Gothic drawl is pretty tough for outsiders), though it's not like names truly tell you anything about a person. In this case, though, the name fits.

She was given command of my unit, and the commissars at the command center said they'd get to work on making my rank change permanent. They didn't, but that's just how my life went at that time. But that's okay, because Castella was a competent officer, and I was basically her enforcer alongside the commissar, whom was none too happy to see his fellow commissars shirking their duties, but there wasn't much he could do about it for now (it was a political move in a sense, he could use this as more ammunition against them to prove their cowardice later). But as the days went by and we were placed on temporary leave to rest up after our journey (which was nice to say the least), I started to realize how lucky I was in my other unit.

Amongst conscripts, no one looked down at each-other, not really anyway. Everyone was equal-- everyone was worthless. But now I was a conscript once more, amongst soldiers. Amongst Astartes-- it appears that a company of Astartes had landed on the planet and were the ones to clear out the area for the command post, and were even now pushing the Orks back. One of them, a captain apparently, was even in constant conference with our governor-militant (in times of war, the governor assumes absolute power, it was apparently a little known laws, the most dangerous kind of law as any citizen that lives as long as I have finds out). And more than that... I heard whispers of that old rumor, the betrayer. And they thought it was me, apparently. I snuck about at night, listening to them after I noticed the trend, and I realized it-- they thought I was going to betray them, to betray the Imperium. To destroy the powers that ruled this world, and doom it to destruction. To strike down the heroic Space Marines that were rescuing us, and damn every soul on the planet into oblivion.

And you know, for the most part they were right.


Chapter 3

Darkness Ascending

Commissar Yuvaris-- yeah, I know, I haven't said his name yet. But I've never been good with them, and you try remembering the names of everyone you were in contact with when you reach your sixth century. No, I know I don't look it. No, little Inquisitor who is reading this and locking it away so noone else reads it (I don't know which one, but I know at least one will), don't bother trying to look up where I got juvenat treatments. You'll learn the dangerous truth of why I live that long by the end of this little faerie tale I'm telling you. Assuming you still possess the ability to believe someone's eye witness account after your years of backstabbing and murdering and trading and dealing with the worst of humanity. Emperor knows that I have a problem with this sometimes, but then the fiery agony of dying dozens of times might also have something to do with it.

Anyway, Yuvaris... a good man, one of the better commissars. Not the power hungry kind-- and I've faced the end of their bolt pistol a few times myself and it ain't a pleasant sight no matter how well polished they, let me tell you. Poor man was just trying to serve the Imperium the best he can, but in the weeks we spent there, he was assassinated. It was a shock, a complete surprise and a break-up of the monotony of the day. At the time it appeared to be without warning, but given the knowledge I have of what really happened afterwards,I suppose we were all-- except the guilty party of course-- completely caught off guard and in denial that this sort of thing could happen within our own camp. And who could blame us? Sure, commissars were killed on the battlefield by friendly fire all the time, I've done it myself. Don't sound so shocked, you don't live as long as I do by letting some nutjob point a gun at you and try to claim the only way you can serve the Emperor is through suicide. And I have lived a very long time, far more than it appears. I don't think that, visually, I've aged a day since I left the planet.

At any rate, I know from hindsight that the assassin struck in the daytime, when the commissar was visiting the latrines. A needle to the throat, full of painful poison, and then a knife to slash chaos symbols all over his dying body. His screams alerted everyone, and yet, noone was able to find the assassin-- except me, and yet noone would believe a mere conscript, so I bid my time as I tried to figure out a way to get revenge on that assassin, and more importantly, figure out who exactly had hired her. But I wouldn't get the chance. I was considered suspect number one, for some reason, even though there was no reason to suspect a conscript had access to that kind of technology or equipment. They tossed me into a cell, beat me, refused to let me sleep, the usual tactics. This lasted for days and days, and I was simply unable to stay awake by the end of it, so they finally just let me sleep, on the cold stone floor, battered and bruised, bleeding lightly from several spots. Frankly I'm surprised I didn't get sick, even now.

That's when things started to get bad. The Astartes had a psyker-- a Librarian they called him, even though I learned afterwards that he was nothing of the sort-- and HE tried to crack my mind. But he didn't seem to care about extracting information, and I wasn't an idiot. He just wanted me to crack and become a babbling insane worshiper of Chaos. It is then that I first began to truly suspect the ruling party of Umara IV to be corrupt. The Astartes certainly were. The sorcerer, as I know him now, tore into my mind, flooding it with images of the warp, forcing me to gaze upon it unaided. It was maddening, I saw tastes whose color was beyond description, and I saw illogical numbers-- as in, the numbers themselves did not conform to reality, it was maddening-- and symbols in my mind that even today cause me to shudder, after I have long since conquered champions of each of those symbols.

I'm honestly not sure why I didn't break. Maybe I have some gifted willpower or other... maybe I just got lucky. Maybe the Emperor was watching over me. Maybe it was my love for the Imperium, the Emperor, and Castella that overrode the insanity being forced upon me. I couldn't help but spout gibberish and I had to constantly suppress a giggle... my mind was rendered into two pieces, and it was only when the sorcerer's attention was dragged away from me that I managed to fuse it back into one. The Orks had attacked the camp, and his dark powers were needed to respond properly to the amazingly stealthy sneak attack they pulled. I imagine this wouldn't normally have stopped him, but it seemed that the Orks, in taking an Astartes by surprise, had insulted the chaos-tainted giant's pride, whatever shred that it had after serving its dark gods for so long, so he tore itself away from me in mid-torment, leaving me try to build a fortress out of my mind for when he returned.

It wasn't as easy said as done. I heard voices in my head... four of them. A voice of rage, which I empathized with, for it was angry at everything, and wanted me to pick up its cursed sword so that I might slaughter and maim i the name of its dark patron. Another espoused the despair that I felt, that I would never get out of this, but I ignored its rotting voice the best I could. Yet another whispered dark secrets in my mind, and I tried to shut it out, but couldn't. And the final one I could not identify at the time... it had the weakest pull on me. But I know it now, its dark tendrils wanting me to stop struggling and start enjoying life, to seek out greater pleasures, culinary, physical, chemical, it didn't matter. At the time, I didn't really know pleasure, or happiness, or joy... I just knew the struggle to survive. Its voice in my head, at the time, was thus remarkably quiet, unlike the red-skinned daemon whom I got to know so very well the next couple days.

In truth, if they weren't battling amongst each-other, one of them might have claimed its prize, probably the one of rage and blood.


What doesn't kill you

It felt like an eternity before anything happened. At the time, I didn't know what was going on, but apparently the Astartes and the high command's officers were organizing some sort of Chaos ritual. Just as the more astute readers would have already suspected, the upper echelons of our world were already turned, and now they wanted to use these sick, mind-bending symbols to turn everyone else. I only found out later, but at the time, there was a huge uproar, a rebellion in camp. An explosion blasted a hole in the wall small enough for me to crawl through-- seeing as I didn't have my armor or weapon-- and I did that, escaping to find her, to keep her safe from these tainted bastards. At the entrance to our regiment's camp, however, I was stopped by the chaos sorcerer who had tormented me so. Seeing my babbling, addled form (my mind still hadn't recovered, despite it being days since he had moved to repel the Orks), he decided to finish what he had started right there.

And I had had enough. I don't know how it happened, or why. But when his mind made contact with mine, I unleashed all of my wrath and rage upon his mind, all of my hatred, every single ounce of mental effort I could muster. And it translated into physical force, literally exploding from the inside of the Astartes' head. The daemons in my head cackled with glee, each one admiring the result in a different way, for a different reason. For all I know, it was them who translated my emotions into physical force, even now I'm still not sure if it was my own psychic power or their power. As his corpse stood there, power armor keeping it standing erect, gouts of unnatural, chaotic flame poured from the hole, eventually forming into an ever-changing daemon. Some weird blue and pink shifting thing, growing new mouths to screech at me, then pseudo-pods formed to charge at me. I was caught completely by surprise, but the commotion ahd gotten the attention of Castella and her command squad, whom opened fire with their lasguns on full power, blowing the heretical thing to bit as it tackled me, sending it back to the warp with a wrong-sounding crack and a blast of foul-smelling air just before it managed to bite me with one of its many mouths.

I wish I could have said something, so that she wouldn't mistake the silence somehow. There was so much I wanted to say, and I couldn't say any of it... it's just that, at the time, it wasn't anywhere near peaceful or quiet in my head, and I didn't want... to speak in THEIR voices. I wanted to shut them out, to mentally punch them, to kick them from my mind so that I never had to hear their slithering voices again. But hell.. I couldn't even tell her that, either. She was a loyal soldier, loyal to the Imperium to the end, and there were very clear methods of dealing with a nascent psyker or a possessed soldier. So I let myself look as if I was shell-shocked from the interrogation methods by this chaos-touched freak of Astartes, and from the daemonic attack. They pulled me into the complex, letting noone see what happened, and started to argue about what to do next, what with the Astartes being traitors and high command being imbeciles and heretics.

As iF that doesn't sound dismal enough, the astropaths of the camp began to babble about a shadow in the warp, and that set high command's bowels spasming let me tell you. We didn't know it at the time, but that was as sure a sign as any that a Tyranid splinter fleet was about to attack. So you can imagine how it was, what with the Imperial forces split between loyalist and traitor, and the Marines being entirely traitor, and the Orks still rampaging through the planet (oddly enough not massacring everything they saw, they only went for military targets... civvies apparently being boring to fight. Weird, but Orks on that planet seemed more civilized than the chaos-touched Astartes as we were soon to find out). The loyalist elements began to withdraw from camp, an uneasy, unspoken sort-of-truce being formed. If it can be called that, there were still firefights, but the Astartes didn't participate, instead preparing themselves to repel the Tyranid invasion.

All but the lord and his bodyguard unit headed back up into their thrice-damned naval vessel, to face the Tyranids head on, while they fully expected the lost and the damned under their command to wipe out the loyalists on the planet without their help. We were outnumbered two to one as far as soldiery goes, even if we had more bodies. Most of them were civilians, and I wouldn't trust half of them anyway, what with them being mostly hive gangers and other lowlifes. But then, they DID choose to stay loyal in the end, so I can't really begrudge them what they chose in their past lives. After the wounded were treated, we decided to move into one of the smaller hive spires, fighting the Ork invasion of it and using its upper levels as a fortress. The things were intended to survive orbital bombardment, and most of what the Orks threw at it didn't even shake it. They had to come up at us from the ground level, as when it was in its security lockdown it was basically an adamantine spike.

I honestly don't remember much of that time-- the medics were giving me medical treatment for my torture-induced wounds, Castella was giving me psychological treatment, and the few priests that weren't slaughtered (there weren't many of them on the planet in the first place) were giving me spiritual treatment. They found out about my psychic power then, and reasoned that it was awakened by foul sorceries. It was part of a multi-generation plan, in fact, of which I was the last piece. The betrayer. But I didn't betray the Imperium... I betrayed the forces of Chaos, whom were counting upon my turning; the generations of breeding my ancestors to produce the right genetics, the ritual performed on me at the day of my birth, the miserable childhood, everything was all their fault. I realized that I knew this because I had scanned the sorcerer's mind. I was supposed to be a cornerstone of their invasion, to be used to create a massive warp gate to summon a greater daemon.

I'm not sure why they spared me after they found out. I told them everything.-- my body, mind, and soul were shattered, too much so for me to bother resisting any interrogation, no matter how gentle. Especially the gentle ones, in fact. At least I still had Castella, and those days with her saved my mind from damnation, returning me back to the fold of the Imperial faith. I promised to her, and the priests, and the loyal commissars present, that I would turn myself in to the Black Ships at the first chance I could. The priests performed rituals which weakened the daemons in my head, bathing me in holy water to heal the wounds I took and I instantly felt like (And I really mean it, this isn't hyperbole) a heavy shadowy weight had lifted off of my body, mind, and soul. Not that it seemed to matter at the time. We all thought we were doomed anyway and that it would all end in vain, but we would fight to the end. The heretics and Orks almost seemed to take turns attacking us, but all in vain, as they simply were unable to wipe us out before the Tyranids arrived. Eventually I became well enough to support the defense myself, and I did so the best I could.

That's when the chaos lord decided to enter the fray and finish us off.


See the Truth

I could see him. The true Chaos Lord, not the image he wanted to project of a noble chapter master of the Adeptus Astartes. No... I saw the ugly thing that resided within. The dessicated, twisted soul of a man who cared for nothing but power, and gave up all nobility and dignity, everything but something that marginally resembled a sickening pride, for power. There, standing at effectively the edge of Imperial society, allowed to be free only because we were all gonna die anyway, I was privy to the truth-- his disgusting form could not hide before my sight. He was just like me, an ugly little thing, but the difference was that in his crucial moment, he gave in, instead of resisting and staying loyal. He was WEAK, and that made me angrier than anything I had felt since that incident in the schola, where I saved Castella's life. I suppose... I'm getting ahead of myself. But thinking of that time brings up emotions that are best left suppressed... I was angry enough to let the world burn in my power, had I only the control to do it. Let it burn... let it go all into flames, so long as this creature that dared to try to look noble in front of me burned with it.

I... need to keep my mind off of that for a few minutes. So, backing up a bit... on that day, the Orks launched an attack on us as they did every day, testing our defenses, but then it was halted in mid attack, as they turned tail and ran. Except, they weren't running away from us... they were running towards a new enemy. They had been launching more and more creative attacks before this, and some of them even managed to penetrate-- most notably their jump pack troops, if they could be called such with a straight face, but at least one couldn't doubt their courage and bravado because by the Emperor it worked, and they slaughtered a few militia before we managed to put them down. This time they were trying to use these miniature dreadnoughts and tanks, driven no doubt by their little grots, the almost human sized Orks that lack the tenacity and brute strength of their more capable larger cousins.

But they also had swarms of Boyz and even a minor warboss with them, after all, someone had to lead the attacks while the warlord dealt with the heretics, and these were the real threat. So we were both relieved and worried that they turned away. Eventually, the smaller ones scattered and routed completely, as we saw what was making its way towards us... six Astartes. Traitors. and here, my anger rises again, but hopefully I'll keep it in check long enough to make this coherent. They wore the skin of guardsmen as cloaks, I could see then, but even with that grotesque sight, I could see... two images, transposed onto one. A faint image of what could have been, and the disgusting image of what was. It was too much for my mind to bear, not because it was horrifying, or maddening... at least, not in the traditional sense of maddening. But it did make me mad.

Mad enough that when they reached the Imperial lines, I snapped

I'm working from after-reports here, as is the case in many times when my emotions overcome me I enter some peculiar state where I don't really remember what happens afterwards. I launched myself at the Chaos Lord using my psychic power, the stolen power sword from long ago suddenly in my hands again, its power field turned on. Whereas before, it had had a deep red sheen to it when activated, for some reason, at that point it instead turned the same vivid green color that my eyes tended to glow whenever I was using my psychic power, so bright with the arcane energies its technology bestowed upon it that they told me it temporarily blinded several nearby guardsmen. and with that power sword in hand, I cut through the first of his bodyguard without any warning, and then began to duel the chaos lord himself while the remaining four members of his bodyguard were picked apart by the regiment's heavy firepower. I moved with the fury of a berserker, and never stopped attacking, forcing the chaos lord through some miracle to stay on the defense, and even to back away from my furious assault.

I do, at least, recall that I could see his movements before he could make them, transposed on his form just like before, but even then I admit that I was afraid. He was far more experienced a duelist than I, and he was focused, where I was utterly enraged. In the end, he beat me-- a fist to the chest that sent me flying, as I began to wear down and become exhausted. How may minutes it took I don't know... I know I've fought longer duels and battles, but rarely so ferociously as that. The blow smashed my carapace armor, and quite a few of my ribs, causing me to be out of the fight completely. He would have finished the job, too, except that the distraction caused him to forget about the thousand pound fungus behind him. Unceremoniously, the Ork boss's power klaw cut off the chaos lord's bolter arm, and forced him to begin to duel with the boss instead.

It was peculiar, cheering for Orks, but at least Orks didn't worship Chaos. Orks just worshiped war instead. And frankly, given what I know about humanity, so do we sometimes, so I can't begrudge them that (That won't stop me from putting a lasbolt in each and very one of their heads if I can, mind you, but give me a chance and I'd go take on the heretic first and foremost. They're the real bastards, trying to subvert everything that makes humanity good in this dark galaxy of sin, where Orks merely want to fight for the sake of fighting. I can respect an Ork, sort of, but the heretic and the traitor are lower than a pregnant squig, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.). But then, we didn't really even cheer that boss on, as we knew he'd take us on afterwards, and that was no task we envied. His mega armor rendered him nigh invulnerable to anything that wouldn't take out a tank, and his immense strength allowed him to shatter the daemonsword used by the chaos lord... and then tear the lord in half. The duel between the two lasted much less time than the one between me and the lord did, in fact, it probably lasted little more than ten seconds. But it certainly didn't feel like it, as often happens in stressful times.

We held our fire afterwards, and the boss bellowed out a victorious shout, droplets of disgusting, smelly saliva spraying from his mouth as he shouted his race's traditional war chant. He then decided he wanted to make that Chaos Lord into a trophy, and walked away to find his race's equivalent to a techpriest,leaving all of us confused. It's a pity that we didn't have time to celebrate though... as by then, we had confirmation of Tyranid spore pods dropping onto the surface, in far too large quantities to be shot down by what little remained of our hydra batteries...


Cloudy With a Chance of 'Nids

A pity I wasn't there to fight them at first. The fighting was hard, though. All of it focused on a narrow choke point, but even still, it was fierce. I wanted to help so much... but I was injured, and frankly, they were right in that I was a danger to myself and the soldiers around me, if I went berserk again. As the the next day arrived, I spent in the medicae, and Castella (breveted up to the highest ranking officer we had by our remaining commissars, making her a colonel, which goes to show the sad state of affairs we were in, most of our officer caste had turned traitor) appointed someone else to head the defense while she watched over me. It was... sweet. Time alone, in that quiet place with her, to chat, to talk. It did my mind good to hear a soft voice talking with me, about my problems. I think I spilled out the truth to her then, simply because it's one of the few times I ever really felt at peace, because when I was recovered enough to move around without my ribs reminding me that I was a fething idiot, she had me sent to the remnants of the Astropaths that had gathered with us. It was haunting, I must admit... like all good Imperial citizens, I was rather afraid of psykers, even the blessed Astropaths that send messages across the void, without which all humanity would quickly fall apart. But in I went...

They, of course, knew my situation. What was being asked of them was incredibly irregular, as they made it abundantly clear that if they had their way, they'd lock me in a cage and mind-lock me until they could toss me to the black ships. I assured them that if I had my choice, I'd be on one of the black ships rather than here, and that only made them give one of those grim laughs when one knows that someone just said something horrifically ironic and didn't know it. The Sanctioning, it appeared, was the main reason why psykers were generally considered insane. Well, at least according to them, but even today I still think a lot of it is the fact that something about the genetics of having psychic powers makes one a bit unhinged to begin with. Or maybe that's just the voices in one's head, and the knowledge that a doorway to hell existed in each and every one of our heads.

But orders were orders, and they trained me. Damn did they train me, testing me more stringently than I had ever been tested. It wasn't my body that was being tested, but my mind-- and at the end of each day I felt more mentally exhausted than I had ever felt, like you were exercising a muscle that had rarely been used. All the while, my mind felt a shadow over it, a great weight, like something was trying to crush my mind. I've had headaches before, and this isn't it. It's not some pain from just behind one's nose, or a dull throb at the back of the head. It was... something else. It's hard to describe in words even today, but if I had to, I'd describe it as someone literally putting an iron weight on the inside of my skull, resting directly against my brain, pushing down on it at all times. But at least the voices died down with the weight's existence, as if they were scared off by it-- which I must admit I was also frightened by. It was hard to scare daemons, and yet these Tyranids did. What did that say about the future of us mere humans? How would WE survive... WOULD we survive?

Don't think that the answer was obvious. My little secret, I suppose-- I have died numerous times. But here, in this training, I learned the disturbing truth, down to the barest details, of the curse that had been laid upon me, and activated by the sorcerer's torture. The mark was more on my soul than my body, and it kept my body from aging, which was certainly a nice boon, beyond the age at which point it was activated. But that, I eventually found out after my first century ended, was itself a curse. Eternal life is pretty hellish, let me tell you. But more than that, if I were to "die", my soul is dragged into the warp, buffeted about by its various currents, only to be vomited out in some random world in the galaxy. Usually a world where I would suffer and die again, because the powers that control the warp hated me for rejecting them.

They wanted me to despair, and give in... to become what I was supposed to be. An eternally living daemonhost, under the control of a powerful daemon, whom could go wherever he pleased, whenever he pleased, simply by killing himself. Or herself, I really don't know that much about the genders of daemons, I'd say they don't really have them to begin with, but then, I'd also rather not think about them anyway. Regardless, the Tyranids... for the most part, they were busy fighting the Orks. I would later understand this as the fact that the Orks represented the largest concentration of biomass, and thus the most food. Of course, they were also by far the most powerful one on this planet, with only the traitor Astartes fighting boarding actions amidst their hive ships any more powerful, and even then I'd still not shy away from betting on the Orks. I had, after all, just seen one of the Orks take out the Chaos Lord's leader rather effortlessly, even if he was taken by surprise.

I know, I know, I keep getting dragged off topic. But I really don't want to think about that training. It was worse than my sanctioning, and let me tell you, when your training is worse than... than THAT.... well, you know it's really bad. They pushed directly into my mind, and though my will was strong, I couldn't even hinder this group of skilled psykers from drudging up every weakness, every opening in it. They mocked me and ridiculed me in ways which would cause a lesser person to commit suicide just to end the embarrassment, ways which were the most personal, ways one could imagine, as they were drudged up from my own mind. They attacked my mind directly in all the myriad ways they could think of-- and being skilled and experienced psykers, they could think of a lot of Emperor-damned ways of doing that let me tell you-- battering it like one would a piece of heated steel to make a sword, so that the constant attacks would harden it and shape it into a weapon in the Emperor's name. Throne, I know I owe those fething bastards a lot, but I still can't help but hate the memory of them to this very day. It looked like they were enjoying it. And all the while, the shadow pressed into my mind.

What was going on in my mind was probably also mimicked in the battle at our entrance. The adamantine spike that we had lived in for the past however many days was basically one solid structure except for the opening at the bottom-- and we'd have closed that, except we'd rather present ONE opening for them to come thorugh than to wait until they created many. We still kept patrols throughout the spire, in case they tried anything, but the bugs were rarely accompanied by their larger creatures, they were beasts basically. Droven off again and again, they still for some reason kept coming back, tenacious as a kitten eying a piece of freshly cooked poultry-- it can see that thrice-damned food, and it can smell it, it wants it so damned bad, so why the hell are you trying to keep it from it? Except, of course, with the Tyranids, you were the food, and it could chop you up well enough to bite sized chunks by itself, without any help from the kitten's owner.

I talk about a kitten... an infant feline creature. Well, apparently one had psychically attuned itself to me because of the backlash of my training. By the time it was done each day, the poor thing was mewling at me and licking my ankle, pathetically mewling its attention. No doubt that's what we looked like to the Imperium, as our Astropaths sent out messages each day, hoping daddy Emperor could spare us the attention we needed to save us from this triple threat...

It would come, but too late to save Umara.


Torturous waiting

I FINALLY completed all of the training that they said they could give me. In the mean time, the remaining loyalists had either died out or straggled on in to join us. Even now, it's still hard to think of just how many of them had to be put down due to genestealer infestation. Too many... we barely had enough to hold off the various ravening swarms, bellowing hordes, or laughing warbands as it was. There was, at least, a bright side... one of our techpriests managed to get our spire defense mechanisms working. Though long since gone into disrepair, the venerable machine somehow managed to work exactly as it had in the old days when it was constructed-- beyond recorded history for our planet, back in the world's war-torn beginnings. Fitting, perhaps, that the machine's spirit spoke out one last time in the war that ended the world as well.

The tower became wreathed in flame, as the beasts crawling over it were burnt into ashes by its void shield. At the entrance, long-dormant turrets lowered from the overhang under which we defended, and began to spout a neverending rain of lasbolts at anything that wasn't human, the machine's spirit ensuring unerring accuracy. We took the time to try to regroup and regain our wits, and our techpriests wasted no time with celebration, instead going to make sure our plasma reactors were in the best of shape. We still had to have some man heavy weapons, because of the Chaos marauders that dropped onto the planet as their ships were destroyed one by one in a war of attrition that they couldn't hope to win, though no doubt the price the Tyranids paid for it was quite high-- nevermind the bigger creatures which needed cannons to take down.

Still, it was, though not happier, certainly less dreadful. We had enough Soylens Viridians to last a couple years, (not that anyone was celebrating over that, we hadn't gone insane enough to enjoy that gray matter disguised as food quite yet), and our power would run for far, far longer than that. And, a week after the defense systems turned on, we got a response-- the Imperial Navy was headed our way, as part of the overall effort to push back the Tyranid invasion. I headed towards the front, not being an Astropath I couldn't help interpret the message, but I COULD fight and raise morale. I was a hero for my duel with the Chaos Lord, and for slaying their Sorcerer, and the countless other battles I had gone through-- though even now, I don't really think I deserved any of it. Everyone was a hero those days... and most of them became saints, too. One by one... they died off.

Some to stupidity, some to recklessness, some to sheer bad luck. I tried to warn each and every one of them, some of them I saved... for a while. I saw their corpses superimposed over their bodies, and the killing wound glowed with a sickly green pallor. The daemons suppressed by my training were laughing, especially the little rotting runt-- not laughing maliciously, more like... joyous, even if it was sickly. Like a little girl with the flu, whom found out that she's been nominated to go to Holy Terra-- so happy she has to laugh or she'll explode. It was disgusting. Even to this day I cannot understand why anyone gives in to that thing... it was the first daemon I managed to kick out of my mind through the purifications of pain and war.

And it was a battle, there's no doubt of that. It's hard to really describe to those whom aren't cursed as all psykers are-- but the old description is that... imagine there's a door in your mind... and beyond it is limitless power-- and limitless danger in the form of daemons who would rip the door open to pour out into reality. Well... in my mind there were five doors. One of them shut tightly, a golden door with a single silver skull in the middle, bisected with handles in its eyes. The others matched the daemons that I battled-- a rotting wooden thing was the one I closed firstl... and barred using the mental form of plasticrete. The others were more elusive, having seen what I did to their rival, they sought to hide from me within the deepest recesses of my mind-- where I could not easily go in the heat of battle. Their banishment would have to wait until a relatively more peaceful time, but eventually I shut them all.

The golden door opened ever so slightly with each one... never opening too much. Even the faintest crack let burning light into my mind, and I realized instantly that I was subconsciously trying to gaze directly at the Astronomican... the equivalent of staring directly at an exploding star upon a planet that is orbiting it. And yet, the pain felt good... somehow... I'm not sure how to explain it. Or if I even can.

In realspace, I had taken my lasgun back as before, but most importantly I advised the commanding council on what I perceived in the warp. I had at least one member, Castella, with whom I shared an inherent and mutual trust, and I tried to explain to her in the safest yet most intense level of detail I could when attacks were to happen and who was going to be attacking. Divination is never a precise thing, but my record back then in that war-touched place was nine to one, so generally speaking I hope I am not arrogant in saying I helped.

Eventually, the fleet arrived, and the prelude to the end began. Because it wasn't merely an Imperial Navy fleet... but an Inquisition-led fleet.

Unexpected Arrivals

Truth be told, in our hearts we knew that our world was doomed, but the Inquisition was still unexpected-- or perhaps we were just being overly optimistic. Still, given what was going on, we couldn't argue against the general evacuation order. By the time the fleet had arrived, we were out of ammunition for the fortress' hydra batteries; our techpriests managed to exchange the autocannons for multilasers in time to repel the next wave of airborne xenos, but they were supremely unhappy about such desecration of the machine spirits, even if they admitted that it was better than Orks or Chaos getting ahold of it, or Tyranids destroying it.

Our enemies must hvae known that the end was coming soon, as well; in the two weeks it took for the fleet to arrive on our world, all three forces began massive assaults on the fortress. Were it not for them fighting eachother, any one of those assaults would have succeeded, and we all praised the Emperor for such small blessings. Eventually, as the Imperial fleet managed to get into orbit, the Orks managed to break through our defenses, and we were forced to withdraw, fighting a desperate retreat up to the stardocks where the Inquisition's evacuation fleet would land. It took days to evacuate everyone, and anyone who could wield a gun stayed behind to help protect those who couldn't.

The Tyranids were soon in after the Orks, taking a different route up-- the massive freight elevator shafts, forcing us to divert our defenses. Chaos tried a different method, using what was left of its forces to attack the stardocks themselves, but the Imperial Navy managed to keep them away as we evacuated. The three-fold attack caused us to lose nearly half of what remained of the Imperial Guard and PDF, and those that were left barely made it to the bridge to the stardocks when it came time for the last ship to leave. And they would not make it, they knew it-- I know it. We had too many pursuers, too many xenos attacking, and the Navy's fighters were being harried too much to help us.

And so I made the choice, and ordered everyone on as I faced the encoming horde, alone. Claws tore me apart, and jaws ripped chunks off of my body, but I didn't feel them; instead, focusing on opening my mind's eye one last time I grasped the golden door's handles, and flung the portal open, letting in the light of the Emperor, the fires of the Astronomican, be channeled through my soul and in to His enemies.



And it burned.



The next thing I remembered was being curled up in my tattered, charred robes, shivering cold in a jungle. Numerous predatory creatures were watching me from the surrounding shadows, wondering what this unnatural creature would do next, and if it was edible. And yet, all I could think about was the newfound knowledge that I would never be able to rest beside the Golden Throne. Instead, I was doomed to wander the galaxy like this, to be reborn over and over again, never resting. Some might think eternal life is a great thing, and maybe in some other situation, in another reality, it would be. But who other than the criminally insane would want to live forever in this galaxy of violence?


APPENDED AS FOOTNOTE:

Editor's note: I have refrained from making any footnotes thus far and instead given the unadulterated text of her autobiography, but this section requires some further notes.

Her attempt to draw in the light of the Emperor was noticed by navigators throughout the segmentum as a brief flare-up in the brightness of the beacon. The results on planet were far more spectacular, setting the entire hive fortress ablaze in white fire. Everyone who was looking directly at it was blinded for weeks, and even those of us that were looking away or even inside of vessels found it unbearably bright.

For a few brief hours, the Astropaths in the fleet were able to send and receive messages with amazing clarity and speed as the shadow in the warp was cleared away, and the Inquisitorial presence made good use of this, ordering the deployment of a large number of Imperial Navy and Imperial Guard forces, as well as putting in a request for Astartes and Sororitas support. This was considered a turning point, as this incident caused the hive fleet's advance to be stalled long enough for the reinforcements to arrive. The fleet never made it past this planet.

The hive fortress somehow survived the ensuing exterminatus, and has been appropriated and renovated by the Inquisition for use as a space station where we could coordinate driving back the hive fleet. For those with proper security clearance, it is known as Inquisition Outpost 7-██████-α-███;

-- Inquisitor Castella

A brand new... something.

In truth, I would likely have lain there and been eaten. The depression I had was great, perhaps a bit too great, knowing that the afterlife would be eternally denied to me. To some, it may sound rather petty, but it's not a realization to take lightly-- I had lost everything in the the short years of my life. I wouldn't, at the time, even be considered an adult in many places, having not yet reached my second decade. Seeing my mother wither away and die, my best friend... assaulted, being hated and abused all my life, conscripted despite not qualifying for it, seeing the terrors of war and suffering the hatred of command for years, turning out to be a witch and dying knowing my martyrdom would not be honored except by a very tiny few, for who has ever heard of a psyker being sainted? I imagine this sounds whiny, but there is my explanation-- there's only so much willpower one person can have. What motivated me to move wasn't willpower... but rather, spite.

Spite is always a good motivator.

The filthy power of decay and death beckoned to me, and I spat in his face and slammed the door on him, mentally speaking, simply out of hatred for what he and the other three dark powers did to me. I still follow that solemn vow, that I would forever spitefully reject the so-called chaos gods. The hatred burns cold, and has for centuries. It's been the only thing that's kept me going at times. And so I picked myself up, and summoned the weapon which I had marked with the psychic runes as my teacher had taught me-- a pittance of a power which even the weakest of psykers is able to do-- and made short work of the beasts which thought me easy prey. I made them fear me, the near-human dog-things. Weeks of attacks petered out in to random raids, which eventually ended entirely. They began worshipping me as the witch-goddess of war, as sometimes happens in primitive societies when they encounter something that they cannot kill.

I didn't pity them, however... I was too busy just trying to find civilization and get off the planet, truth be told, but even now I still don't. They're mutants. I don't hate mutants as much as I hate heretics, but they're still mutants. One could argue that I'm one as well, given that I am a psyker, but where did one get the idea that I excepted myself from this? But more on the point, I just didn't have the time or will to care about their situation. They were an obstacle to pass over, around, or through, and thankfully they learned to leave me well enough alone. Even still it took months before I finally got close enough to Imperial society on that world to sense the psychic echo of the only notable city on it, and I lost track of how many times I almost died again. Or perhaps I didn't bother to count at all-- thinking was... painful at the time. The remaining three voices in my head screamed loud every time I tried to think, and so I shut them off, shut off everything except the survival instinct, which was probably for the best as the world itself was trying to kill me.

It was what one would have expected from a death world, although at the time, I didn't consider it one. It certainly wasn't any more deadly than the battlefield I was used to. Trees attempted to strangle me if I was unwary, but then again, the same could be said of razor wire, and it was harder to see and cut the skin as well. Plants laid traps on the ground which snapped to eat prey if you stepped on them, but they were still less deadly than mines. Some of the animals would explode or launch spines at you if you startled them, but it was still more predictable and less deadly than artillery shells or heavy stubber nests. I suppose I'm trivializing the world's dangers, and I shouldn't do that, but it still felt easy compared to fighting the hordes of heretics and their filthy tricks, the endless tides of Orks, or the ever-changing swarms of Tyranids.

When I did finally arrive at the city of Yinnoth Segundus (the first city apparently having been destroyed by the wildlife, or so I was told), the city's guards were as surprised to see me as I was to see the thick walls of plasticrete and heavy weapon turrets. It was like being a kid and finding out that it was Emperor's day and you actually had parents that cared about you and showered you with gifts. Except the gifts these people were wanting to shower on me, at first, were heavy bolter shells and missiles. Still, they at least accepted that I was human, and sent down an Enforcer squad led by the local Arbites to take me in to custody for questioning. Being arrested was probably the most pleasant thing that had happened to me in years. I slept for the first time since I arrived on the world, apparently for several days in a row, when they put me in my cell.

I dreamed of the doors again, and their endless temptations. Thankfully, I was too weary to care, even in my dreams, and idly rejected them. Dreams are rather nice... after all, what goes on in them is never real. Unlike the waking world where due to the influence of the Dark Powers you are never sure what is real and what isn't, in dreams, everything is a force of the mind. I could deal with that. I could control it. Sometimes, I just want to sleep off eternity, but inevitably reality comes crashing back, and I have to deal with the uncertainty of life again. Which probably just makes me sound more pathetic I suppose, but it's true, especially for psykers. I don't see the same things normal humans do, and I would know because I used to be one. It's probably the only thing that kept me ground in reality, although I have come to know some psykers more sane than I (as if that was difficult) in my many lives.



Seconds

I imagine my meandering thoughts are an annoying read, aren't they little Inquisitor? "The nonsensical ravings of a deranged mind", I believe one of your ilk once said to describe anything out of a psyker's mouth. Or mind, in this case. I suppose I should get back to my story instead of discussing philosophy. I'll indulge you.

After I woke up from my apparent coma, I was in a null containment room-- apparently the P-α on my cognomen tags tipped off that I am a psyker--and the Arbites interviewed me... or interrogated me is probably the most accurate way to do it. He asked for my identification, and I provided my cognomen tags and the burned remnants of my papers, then asked me why the warp I was half a galaxy away from where I was supposed to be. I, obviously, had no freaking clue... I could guess sure, but he didn't need to know. So I didn't tell him. The fact that I'm a psyker allowed me to act like I was mentally disturbed and incoherent anyway, without giving anything away. He expected me to be incoherent, after all, and playing to expectations is a great way to ensure lower peoples' guard. Still, he found no sanctionite brand, and stated that I was going to sit in here until the black ships arrived, and be sent off on them. After all, I was sane enough without sanctioning, so with it, maybe I stood a chance of being useful to the Imperium. And even if I wasn't sane, in this chamber I couldn't do much of anything-- I was cut off from the warp in here.

It felt good. This may seem strange, but I had no voices in my head in that room. I came to a realization in there, of what the curse did to me. There was a... portal of sorts, in to the warp... within me. Not like a normal psyker's soul, but more like a gate, where warp energies seeped in to my body, keeping it from dying, from aging. I could have lived my whole life there even given the rations they gave me, and quite enjoyed it as well, but fate is rarely so kind. Besides, I've since found out that once I die, it doesn't matter if there's a null field in place or whatever, I am reborn even still, my soul vomited out once again in to realspace, some new place to die painfully. This place was no different, truth be told. The dark powers of the warp knew that the attack would come shortly after I made it here, through whatever deranged divinations that they use.

I didn't know anything about Eldar at the time, for all I knew they were nothing more than mutated heretics, rather than xenos. I knew less than nothing about their internal politics, always assuming like most soldiers that the enemy is a united front against Humanity. Certainly that's how it seemed to those of us on the front lines-- sure, the different forces sometimes bickered and fought, but it appeared as if they were only fighting over the chance to kill us in whatever messy way they preferred. So I couldn't appreciate that these were hated even amongst that xenos race, heretics even amongst the decadent Eldar, known for their disgusting practices, their insane raids, and their viciousness.

The door to my cell was blasted off, and the raiders stabbed me in the gut (I was still asleep at the time, and woke up from the explosion), then tossed me out of the cell to be put in with the rest of the slaves. But outside of the cell was exactly where I needed to be to put up resistance... and so, suddenly reconnected with the warp, its energies flowed in to me, and I became death. A pithy poetic statement perhaps, but I don't quite remember what was going on. Psychic energies streamed from me, sucking the decadent souls out of their gaunt, alien bodies, and then sent the corpses flying out like ragdolls. I then turned their screaming souls in to weapons, ripping them apart and using their psychic presence as bolts to directly assault the minds of the raiders. I was in a place of madness, the sudden reconnection with the warp had taken me by surprise and overwhelmed me.

Eventually, I stood at the top of the capital spire, gazing in to the void. The city beneath me was soaked in that peculiar xenos blood. It was... almost beautiful, seeing the blood coagulate in to wondrous crystal formations. It took me over an hour to realize that these thoughts were being inserted in to me by the red-skinned demon of wrath, and it took half again as long to regain control of my mind. The remaining human survivors -- I somehow had the presence of mind to not kill any humans-- looked at me like I was some wrathful goddess. It was likely a shock to them whenever I collapsed from my wounds, and the poison in my veins, and fell from the top of the tower down to the bottom, my psychic energy just barely cushioning the landing enough that I survived, albeit injured and greatly weakened.

But I wasn't conscious enough to appreciate it.


Re-Leashed

You may be wondering why exactly I keep dying if I have such immense power, to destroy a whole Chaos-Touched Eldar raiding force. In truth, it wasn't my power. It was... theirs. The daemons that spoke within my mind. Injured, poisoned, barely conscious, they took over to give me a demonstration of their power-- the hedonistic one devouring souls, the sorcerous one turning the souls in to bolts of power, and the bloodthirsty one boiling the blood of those who were hit, in a never-ending cycle-- holding back just enough that they thought they could trick me in to thinking that I could control it and make it serve the Imperium, when they had no such desires. It was a trick, to lower my guard. And for the day it took me to cleanse the city, I fell for the trick-- too wounded, my willpower sapped by the vile poisons and lack of sleep. When I woke up, my wounds were gone, my blood was pure of poison, but I felt I had become the hated thing... a mutant.

I've gotten better since then of course, there's always ways of purifying yourself. But the horror in my mind from the realization was enough to reactivate my depression. Not only would I never see the Emperor, but now my body, my soul, were tainted because of my weakened willpower. Sitting there in a pool of blood, my new twin horns resting on my knees as I curled up, I cried for I have no clue how long. Eventually rain washed the blood away, but the horns remained, grisly things that showed that the bloodlust of the red demon had taken my mind. Even if it was for just an instant, that instant was all it ever took to earn eternal damnation after all. And so I relied upon that old standby of spite once again. It's a wonderful emotion, spite, probably the best thing the Emperor ever granted us for resisting the archenemy.

It wouldn't, however, turn back the taint that had touched me. That would take weeks of fasting, praying, and agonizing surgery... I was especially vulnerable to such things because of the gateway within my soul, within my gut. Eventually I found myself within the black ships of the Inquisition, bruised and battered as apparently the natives thought that I had brought this cataclysm upon them. It could hardly be blamed, what with me being a psyker, I suppose. They worked to remove the taint surgically as well as ensuring, at gunpoint, that I followed the fasting rituals to remove the taint of the soul-- the never-ending prayers and self-mortification, the endless self-denial. In truth I think they rather enjoyed it themselves, torturing the poor little psyker girl, but it was still good for me I think. Three of the daemons in my head didn't like the pain, and the other one was so quiet and unheard of at the time that I couldn't hear it anyway-- the hedonist. I still hadn't experienced anything of the pleasures in life that would awaken it, or really much desire for them, and in this black ship there was no chance of THAT awakening.

All psykers have horror stories of what goes on in the sanctioning process. Most won't speak of them. For myself, I barely remember mine, some part of my mind repressing the memory-- and considering what else I remember, it really must have been horrifying to me. I do remember needles, and nuns, and red-hot brands... angry machine spirits with their painful energies, and at one point I think there was a knife involved somewhere. But... just trying to think about THINKING about it hurts my mind. Eventually the pain ended, and I found myself kneeling in the Throne Room. Those of us who were unworthy were sent forward one by one, to join, briefly, with the Emperor and power the Astronomican, their souls spent to fuel its ever-burning fire, and to feed the Golden Throne itself, and whom would receive the sanction. Perhaps those chose to join with the Emperor were the lucky ones, in the end, their souls burning bright and then laid to rest when they are spent.

The rest of us had to serve for far longer. The brand was placed upon my shoulder, one last pain before the ordeal was over, and I was sent to the Scholastica Psykana with the others. My body was sore and I still felt the echoes of pain, but more than that, my mind was as well... as if every single weakness was tested, prodded, poked, attacked, stretched, beaten, assaulted, in every way they could, judging how worthy I was of keeping the powers I was cursed with. Even today I wish I had been declared unworthy... that I would be allowed to join with the Emperor and seek my final resting place. But that wasn't to be my fate. The scholam was shocked at my "natural ability", not knowing that I was technically already trained, and rated me Alpha again, even though I was already rated such. Such was Imperial Bureaucracy that I eventually had to wear two pairs of cognomen tags because of this.

They called me a diviner, but truth be told, my powers were far beyond that. I knew it, and they did as well. More than just glimpse in to the past-- or the future-- I had, and still have, some sway over time itself. To create localized distortions, or even a barrier of stopped time. An extension of the divination that I had been cursed with. Several times I found my scholam tutors desiring to kill me (including seeing numerous false futures where they attempted to fulfill those desires), not trusting a young thing such as I with such dangerous powers, and I couldn't blame them. After what happened earlier with the Eldar raiders, how could I? I certainly didn't trust myself either.

But I was sanctioned now... whatever the hell they did to me, it hardened my soul, like fire-forged steel. I couldn't hear the voices anymore except in rare moments of weakness... and even then they were but whispers. As I graduated and was sent out to my first assignment, I would soon be thankful for the protection the sanctioning provided me.

Pretty good. You've flat out go the word 'Nerd" in there though. I would grimdark it up with something more obscure or dog-latiney as they usually do. Also, you should name "The commissar" and "my friend" at the very least to take some of the edge of the general "woe is me" tone.

The commissar has a name, it's just not revealed yet. Same with the friend.

As for the woe is me part, err... well, they did just get into an enclosed bunker, so it's not quite as bad for them at the moment in the story... but things are only gonna get worse before they get better for the poor conscript. Especially when it is revealed what exactly that first paragraph was about.

I like it. I think you'd say more about the character (in first person) with less, given her tough attitude. Also, I'd reconsider the name.

Dammit, just as your story is drawing me in, it stops....
WRITE MORE!

I like the first person, but the luck seems a little repetitive. Perhaps throw in another injury, or shall I assume that all will be explained later, as evidenced by the first part?

Also, would you lie down on the couch? Alright, now tell me about your mother...

Yeah, the "luck" will be explained later. And possibly change rather dramatically in more ways than one, and not always in the same way at the same time.

Manchu wrote:I like it. I think you'd say more about the character (in first person) with less, given her tough attitude. Also, I'd reconsider the name.

Dunno, I was intending to elicit that she was a commoner, with a simple, common name (Melissa, descendant of a tailor/clothier) with the name.

micahaphone wrote:Also, would you lie down on the couch? Alright, now tell me about your mother...

Funny

I actually really like my family, and they've always been good to me. This isn't reflective of anything in my upbringing, it's just something pulled from the recesses of my mind and imagination.

As a side note, I'm finishing up the work on the next part. I've had several papers to write for my classes, and that takes precedence...

There, now to work on the next part after I get done with my ochem homework.

I enjoyed it. You have a talent for writing. I'm guessing that this is not your most polished work, as there are several typos. They are minor, and the story goes right over them. Keep it up, and may the Emperor protect you from Organic Chemistry.

You kidding me? Compared to general chemistry, ochem is AWESOME.

Nerd.

Proudly!

Well written indeed melissia but i cant help feeling parts of it don't quite hit the 40k sweet spot. For example parts of this story seem to be oddly specific, almost atobiographical in nature (if indeed you had a difficult childhood etc i aologise) that doesn't really fit in with the 40k feel. All in all i cant help but get 'mary sue' vibes from the character of Melissia Taylor.

This is however coming from someone who in their own fiction likes to combine 'Banksian' detached hyperviolence with bro-full camaredery so take from it what you will.

Perkustin wrote:parts of this story seem to be oddly specific, almost atobiographical in nature

Oh good, then I've succeeded.

Because as noted in the writer's note paragraph at the top, that was my intent.

It is the story of Conscript (later, Captain) Melissa Taylor, written as if it were her writing her own autobiography.

Don't be obtuse. He means in real like were you forced as a baby to eat the blood of a goat, entrails of a frog, the eye of a snake, and a single drop of the finest of wines. Then have that mixture ground and mixed into a paste, and upon your belly laid an invisible tattoo of an eight-pointed star.

Oh right. Well, yeah. I got better.

Having chosen a first-person perspective, you've established a license to present your narrative in a very personal and character-centred fashion. The advantage of this is that we see through the character's eyes, also allowing you to ignore certain established conventions. First-person accounts are rare in published 40K background, although it's very common in fan fiction.

Certain types of writers tend towards personal characters - practically all novice writers do so. The challenge for both the writer and the reader is seperating the narrator from the author, and sometimes it's impossible. Really good examples of first-person narrative tend towards characters that are vastly different to the author, and it's for that reason that the majority of the first chapter here doesn't really appeal to me. It's not that I feel you're writing about yourself in a fantasy setting (and why shouldn't a wargamer establish their army general as a fantasised version of their self?) but rather that it's hard to avoid feeling that way as a reader.

Beginning at 'Inglorious Victory' the writing feels a lot more comfortable, and I would recommend that the preceeding material be woven into her development after establishing her outward character. It's all too easy to completely define and describe a main character right off the bat, and then burn out on 'the continued adventures of the aforementioned'. As readers we usually need to be intrigued by the character's actions before we desire to discover their motivations, just like in real life. The reader feels rewarded rather than 'informed'.

Imagine if you began every conversation with a stranger by explaining who you are and where you're from. You might want the person to understand you, but the other has no reason to really care - it's conventional to establish initial rapport even if it's in an impersonal fashion.

Have a look at C.L Werner's "Wulfrik", for example. He is initially described as the fearsome and brutal marauder that we expect him to be, and it's easy to understand the character because his actions are congruent with his simple depiction. Later, after some significant and great-to-read action, we are confronted with the concept that Wulfrik is actually a very sensitive and human character. We feel priveleged to relate to this highly individual character before we even have an appreciation of what motivates him, and this makes the unravelling of his personal character genuinely intriguing rather than awkward.

Because you're writing in an autobiographical fashion this compounds the difficulty - we normally read autobiographies because we're already intrigued by the author. If anything the writing feels too personal, and whilst I don't want you to lose that unique 'personal' feeling I challenge you to make it more engaging so I want to keep reading!

To reiterate what I said before about rewarding the reader - I hope that my focused criticism of such a small aspect of your personal creation is something you can appreciate and use rather than dismiss... I don't know why you write, but for most artists the 'reason' is very personal. Writing is rewarding like any form of expressive art but if you can relate to others through that creation it's much more so!

I don't actually have any personal connection to Taylor-- in the sense that nothing of the sort has happened to me. She isn't me, as I've noted before. I can bring myself to feel her emotions and think her thoughts, but they're her emotions and thoughts, not mine. Just like I do with all of my characters.

Dunno if that explains it very well. In the end, I just write because I like creating new worlds, new characters. Different characters than ones I've created before. To experience a new world from a new point of view. One that I sympathize with, but isn't mine.

The change in style is probably because I've written this story over the course of about four years-- and have gone through three iterations on paper and countless iterations in my mind. I'd really have to re-write the whole thing in order to make Inglorious Defeat the beginning, so to fix any problems the narrative might have, I'll want to look for a simpler solution first.

I understand that this is mostly ideas - obviously it doesn't feature a lot of literal details and it's relieving that I can comment on the character without you taking it too personally. That said, most people are sensitive about their art.

Manchu mentioned it earlier - the less you say straight-up about the character whilst reinforcing her strong attitude will make the further exploration of that personality far more engaging to read.

The ideas are great, and I'm inclined to see everything up to Inglorious Defeat as a brainstorm. That's how I best appreciate it... and please don't take that the wrong way - I'm now aware that you enjoy developing characters and backgrounds and I envy you a little.

In a way I wish I could still write like you - writing professionally, editing others and being criticised myself has made me analyse the reader too much, and it affects just how creative and original I'm willing to be.

Like a Space Marine eating an innocent child in order to experience pleasing memories via omophaegic function, it's strangely satisfying to read works that aren't so bound by convention... I almost ruin it for myself by commenting.

Although, to be positive, the fact that this many people have been concerned about you having traumatic experiences denotes that you are writing very personally and realistically, as if we could assume you had such experiences.

The fact that you're able to make a personality very different from your own, and make it convincing, shows great skill as a writer.

Good fluff, better voice. Melissia seems very real. I hesitate to say "jump off the page," but I can see how drawing from your own experiences breaths life into the character.

But I'm not... well, not really.

At any rate, I've paused this because these are the last two weeks before finals (well, last one week now). So I have tons of gak to finish.

Sad to hear about the pause, but grades should come first. I look forward to when you post again.

*Like Button*

Me likey.

Great, now you've got me regressing to caveman speech.

Write some more already!!!

I love the emotion... cliched but then the whole 40k universe is cliched!!!

I bloody love it!!

Melissia wrote:But I'm not... well, not really.

Take it as a compliment, if nothing else. It's a common trait amongst good writers to not only feel the emotions of their characters as if they were outside of the writer, but also to impress upon the character a sense of "worldlyness." I guess, without trying to be too vague, it's the idea that no matter what the character is like, he/she will always retain a portion of reality that has been impressed onto them by the writer, simply through the connection the writer has with his/her creations.

It sounds very y, I know. It's true though, I swear.

Ugh. My last final is about nine days from now. I can't wait.

The next section finishes chapter two, and then at the start of chapter 3 several plot points will become coherent...

There, finally, done with finals. And now, to work on this over the weekend.

As a side note, I wish Slider Da Feral's signature wasn't so damned wide.

Hooookay, posted the next part, and the last part of that chapter. Now begins a the htird chapter-- the midway point of the story (I have the plot of five chapters, well, plotted out).

As a side note, it also should be spellchecked by now as well.