The expanse that stretches out before Sunset bleeds into existence piece by piece. Pulling themselves from a vast abyssal darkness, inky blobs congeal into vague rust and purple swatches of colour smeared like an artists paint across a canvas of impenetrable blackness. Something felt... different. This wasn't entirely a memory, and if it was, it was beyond comprehension. The universe seemed to come into being around her, winking lights sparking to life in the deep. Empty abyssal plains sparkle to beautiful life as the soft dots and warm lights spiral into being, unveiled by silently whirling nebulae that shine with a wine-red light both haunting and beautiful. And soon, despite the deepest silence in a star-spangled void, the song of the cosmos rang in Sunset's ears.

Sunset wills herself forward, feeling like she was swimming in her pony-form. And as her forelegs kick out, one strikes something with a crystalline 'ping' that resonates to infinity. Her eyes open, and after the tip of her hoof scrapes off whatever object it was, she tries again, and manages to land her forehooves directly on cold black stone. Pulling herself forward, all four hooves came to a rest on a nearly invisible trail more detected by the absence of stars than any true form.

The vertigo was immense for a moment, realizing there was no ground, no anything: an endless expanse above and below her where stars were so distant that they twinkled despite the immensity of their size. And as she stumbles forward in mesmerized silence, that haunting cosmic song at the edge of hearing, vanishes.

Part of her knew she could just turn back, the same sensation that told her that she shouldn't dare to enter the mind of a ruler of Equestria. It wasn't some magic: this was Luna, somehow. How far down this road could she travel before genuine concern turned to unrestrained curiosity? And yet, another part of her was darkly curious about what wonders and secrets she had locked away through countless life-ages. But all that apprehension bleeds together with one overwhelming sensation: hope. She could help. Deep in her bones the Unicorn could feel that, at least in part, she could aid the princess. Maybe in that, she could make some sort of overture to mend her relationship with Celestia.

All she had to do was help Luna. She could do that. Or at least, she was fairly certain she could, though now the question revolves around 'how.' “Hello?” Sunset calls into the starry expanse. She carefully edges forward, practically inching over the invisible pathway that suspends her in the starry firmament. The stretch was awkward, rump up and forehoof slowly scraping across the glassy stone until it skids off into nothingness. “Freaky.”

She wasn't puled anywhere, the thoughts and feelings of the Princess of the Night didn't play like a movie in front of her eyes. No, it was just a long glass road suspended over a yawning abyssal plain.

Slowly but surely, Sunset quickens her pace, sliding along the pathway with that constant rasp like she was skating. The twinkling lights and softly chiming vastness of space was cool but not cold, chilly and perhaps a little refreshing. It could almost be seen as pleasant so long as the crushing fear of endlessly falling into nothingness didn't rear its ugly head. Sunset hadn't been worried about heights before, but it turns out that looking into infinity and realizing there was a 'down', wasn't remotely comforting. As such, she cleaves closely to what she's fairly certain is the center of the path.

Up ahead, Sunset spots a glitter in what she had once took for a distant nebula. But as she draws closer, she spots the whirring cloud of scintillating aquamarine sparks. They buzz like fireflies, but the sound is a high pitched bubbling, airy and energetic.

“Hello?” The sparks slow for a moment, then slowly circle her, illuminating the Unicorn who smiles at the little flickers of playful light. They dart down, whisking through her mane and dancing in little circles in front of her eyes. “Hey there, so what exactly are you little guys?”

Sure enough, the tiny sparks of light make a noise. Their foalish babble sounds like it was words made from the tap of a dozen xylophones, and they slowly seem to migrate away from her, following the path.

“You want me to follow you, is that it?” The excited circuits and swirling bands that tug her towards the edge is her only answer. But she does follow until she reaches the ledge, hoof brushing just over the sheer cliff and feeling the gaping maw of the void perilously close. But staring out into endless space, it's hard to sense anything but the little fire-fly sparks dancing in front of her eyes. They hover just in front of her, almost beyond reach unless she was to stretch out over the abyss. Sunset sees them start to twist, a cloud of perhaps two or three dozen wheeling more excitedly than before. “Wait wait, are you su-”

The first zips down and touches her hoof.

'See reason, Ahriman. I need your Cult of Time or this entire endeavor is in vain. You'll have no need for the Black Library if we smother this mistake in its cradle. Now, tell me: is the Obsidian Mirror real? Will it work?'

Voices, non-pony voices. Deep and metallic, they echo in Sunset's mind as a dream within a vision. The ember turns pale white and dolefully drifts off like a speck of dust into the endless depths of space. A second mote of light drifts against her nose.

'Gulliman's forces have departed from Manatax Prime. Order all legion discretionary assets to Eskrador. Draw them away from Manatax Secundus.'

More sparks surround her, more metallic voices assault Sunset, and none of them are Luna's. And now, she knew full well they weren't friendly wisps. The cosmic song was gone, and slowly but surely, Sunset spots the soft nebulae breaking apart and wheeling into psychedelic colours both sickly and riotous.

'Harrowmaster, I don't give a damn about casualty projections. The individual is unimportant. If we achieve operational success, we could lose everyone, and it will still be worth it.'

Flashes of memories, of violence, of blackened tunnels and screaming caverns of lit vats. Sunset watches through green- wire frame displays as black armoured figures sprint through the dark. They're shorter than herself, but they all move with unnatural speed. Blossoms of ephemeral flame light darkened corridors, and liquid splatters across ugly gunmetal grey walls. Illuminated vats pulled from her friends darkest movie-night films well up before her in startling clarity, and the ink-black armoured figures shatter the sickly squelching tank. One among thousands. An emaciated shaven-headed girl is pulled free of the amnion slick.

'Target acquired, returning to the Omega.'

Another flash, lights dim and go extinct in the abyss beneath her hooves.

'Damn you, land us there! It's so close... it's so damned close. And take down that sentry tower!'

The groaning of the abyss replaces that gentle song, like heavy air whipped to a frenzied tempest before a storm.

'Focus, Strider.'

Blots of concussive colour impact in the back of her eyes as the motes of light assail her. She can hear the pained gasp from her lungs, but the same voice doesn't stop.

'I have. I've seen it in my dreams. I've seen this in legends, and then in schematics. Now I see it with my own two eyes and still wonder if I'm asleep. You know this feeling, don't you?'

Now the stars start to disappear from all around her. The nebulae spinning and wheeling out tendrils like some monstrous spider of voracious appetites that devours the panoply of Luna's night-time masterpiece.

'No time. Six-six-six, Hydra Dominatus. Truth is a matter of perspectives so do not trust your eyes. Find it at all costs. Find Horus Lupercal. Go!'

And in a flash, she feels it. It's not Luna. Somehow, amidst the little motes of light she had the memories of another. Another... something, she wanted to say Human but part of her knew that was wrong.

“Luna, what's going on?” whatever presence was there had lingered in the smallest part, self contained, and lay just off the 'beaten path' of her conscience. One by one they had flashed before her very eyes as voices or hastily conjured up memories, and she smells the confusing stink of dust and smoke mingling with the warm waft of a kitchen. It was confused, half-melding two very different places. Perhaps it was just a repressed memory of the Princess.

And perhaps not.

In a burst of colour, the scintillating lights flash, forming a ghostly aquamarine specter. He's tall, a human of enormous size, clad in bulky armour inlaid with scales and crested with a three headed serpent. The gaunt face and bald head looks ageless, but definitely dangerous as his eyes lock with hers. This being wasn't Luna, but it was stuck in her head.

“Speak the words.” his voice is strong, no echo of a memory but one addressing Sunset here and now. She stares blankly for a moment, wondering what came next. But his eyes glint in a truthful intellect even in ephemeral shades. Sunset licks her lips, looking around and realizing full well that the figure was slowly reaching for a sheathed blade.

'Think, Sunset, THINK!'

“S-six-six-six Hydra Dominatus?” the words tumble from her lips almost unbidden, thinking of the only thing that held some relevance. And as she holds her breath, the figure stops.

He stares for a moment and nods. “You unwittingly led her here, but it's too late for the Lurker to do anything. Give it nothing of what you now know. Do. Not. Forget.”

In a low threatening howl, the edges of the heavens roll up like a scroll leaving only the void. The universe, as she felt it, breathed its last cosmic breath.

Sunset's heart thunders in her chest, feeling that encroaching 'end'. “You mean M-”

The shimmering form reaches out, placing a palm scant millimetres from her muzzle, “Knowledge is power and truth commands a price more dear than that of a soul. I've spent mine to get us this far, do not squander it. You bear the wealth of hindsight bought by the greatest of catastrophes.”

The soft chill that had been so refreshing drops to a frost. And sure enough, like a shadow cast over her back, the temperature plummets further while the man in front of her stares up and over Sunset's head.

The shadow was a black abyss, lithe and enormous, outlined in the faintest trace of purple. It towers over them both, a form able to extinguish stars and swallow suns. The faintest smirk forms as an incandescent nebula where the silhouette of its face should be. It was vaguely equine, with a crown of curving horns atop its head. A mocking, sibilant hiss forms from everywhere and nowhere. “Weeeeeeell well, what have we here? The Serpent King. Seems I've finally run you to ground inside little Luna's head.”

The human, or near-human, keeps his gaze without flinching at the eldritch abomination towering above them to the stars. “You're too late, daemon. She'll know you for what you really are the moment you rear your head. Obliterate the spark that I gave to Luna willingly if you wish, Horus is known to her. And now she knows what to look for to find her own. You've failed, you and Erebus both.” The man replies, the smirk on his face guarded but still mocking. “You've lost and you know it.”

“Not quite yet. Mmmm, now that I look at you... yes, this will do nicely." The shadow whispers, and with a hand greater than anything Sunset could try to comprehend, it descends with impossible speed, plunging her into an inky torrent of shrieks and screams. The Serpent King disappears in a flash of aquamarine with the sound of broken glass, swallowed up by the eldritch shade.

It might have been moments, hours, or days, the shrieking assault on Sunset's senses muddled every moment as scratching screams claw relentlessly at her ears, sickly perfumed odors plug her nostrils, and shimmering varieties of impossible non-coloured flashes assault her eyes.

“This is dangerous, Horus.”

“And only now the princess of darkness is afraid? Well, I won't hold your hoof, this was your idea. Live with it, little moon horse. But feel free to step out of the way.”

“I told y-” she draws a steadying breath, looking up at the smirking face of a blood drenched Lupercal in his gore clotted dregs. Wind whistles past, sending scraps of cloth billowing in the breeze as he leans on Ceifador's haft. The lauding mass of mankind knelt before the corpse strewn escarpment, polearms and chain-teeth glinting in the mid-day sun. Yet Horus's attention stuck to Luna like glue. His golden eyes appear like glittering sundiscs. By now she could read him like a book, his eyes said it all: 'I deserve this.'

'Lupercal! Lupercal! Lupercal!'

Thousands of voices rise into the air as the Warrior god stands atop his vanquished foe.

Horus was a night terror in and of himself. After the latest warlord had challenged his right to rule, he'd physically torn the impertinent barbarian apart after plunging into the head of his huscarls. Augmented cyber-warriors wielding slabs of lightning imbued iron had tried to throw the Primarch back, and the glaives welded to the servo-actuated limbs screamed as they sought out yielding flesh. All proved less than worthless.

Even now, Luna couldn't shake the impression that for all their power, it had been little more than a fully grown warrior batting aside foals.

The hulking brute of a techno-barbarian warlord, body a hissing mass of pipes and cabling, had fared little better. His labyrinth of twisting mechanical limbs adorned with arcane cutting torches and mulching drills had been dismantled, then torn to scraps just as readily as his retainers, his household, and his pack of cyber-mastiffs.

Thousands of mortal soldiers had knelt down once the warlord's head had separated from his shoulders. Horus had tossed it to the clambering crowds like a Wonderbolt tossing a pair of flight goggles into the stands after a show.

'How dark is his kind when they mill about to claim such a prize?'

And Horus still smiles, the glint of recognition in his eyes. His gaze may have stayed on her, but the howl of his name had him rest so jauntily and effortlessly on his quarry.

'Well, enough of that.'

“Horus.” Luna calls.

Horus's jubilant visage wavers for just an instant, “In front of others, I am still Warmaster, Luna.”

“Horus Sedecim Lupercal!” The name rolls off her tongue, and immediately the Lupercal's eyes turn flinty. “Get your head out of your rump, we do NOT have time for this.” her stamp on the ground echoes with the sound of distant thunder.

The Warmaster scoffs, “I wish I'd never told you that-”

Even as the noise tore itself from her throat, she hated how puny her growl could sound next to the Primarch's. “That's enough, Horus! Don't get off-track!”

The Lupercal holds up a hand, and the crowd falls silent as if by magic. “Luna, we've conquered every challenge Erebus crafted. We've put their leaders to the flame and shattered their armies. Nothing he can do can bring us to our knees. No Daemon, no warlord, no xeno. Luna, you and I have carved through his whole damned plan and set his own misbegotten filth calling out my name! We own them, I have earned this little indulgence.”

Luna bristles, and the little hop up on the escarpment ledge overlooking the horde of mankind finally let her take to the air. She soars upwards, flapping in front of Horus's face. “Think, think, think! It doesn't matter. Erebus let you win!”

Lupercal snorts. “He let nothing happen, we defied him. He is a troublesome child playing with fire. Did you ever wonder why he stopped taunting us, Luna? Because he can't hurt us. Not here, not now.”

The Alicorn snorts, “Are you truly that blind?”

“Not blind enough to miss that symbolism has power, Luna.” He pulls in close, nearly nose to nose with her now. And it took a moment of true concentration to let the Alicorn not wipe his face with a hoof like a mother would to a foal at the dinner table. But it wasn't food spattered onto his cheek and chin. And the Primarchs golden eyes break from hers with a slight nod of his chin to indicate the crowds, “Symbolism enough to say that when we take from Erebus's dream, we take from his influence. If he thinks we can be conquered, what does it do to him when we destroy his traps? What use is his threats of violence or meandering psychotic plots when we raze every fane and fortress he builds? It grates him, Luna. It grates him. He's a desperate man, and a persistent one. But every failure compounds more, and more, and more! His failures are piling up while we grow ever stronger! Soon, all that will be left is dust. And then we will pull him up by the neck and break him. Then, then... you and I, Princess, we'll see vengeance done.” He smiles down at her, a grin to say 'I'm not as stupid as you thought.'

And, in some cases, he was right. Erebus was likely weakening. It was stress, strain, and yet something raised her hackles. “Horus, you're grandstanding in front of a crowd of sycophantic puppets. They're illusions. Not to mention, they're still Erebus's pawns, and here you are, content to stand there lapping up praises from phantoms!”

With a twist of her head, light spirals along the grooves of her horn and lances out in a wide beam across the assembled multitudes. And after a single ringing second, all that's left is an empty field of scattered banners and churned up soil.

Horus's breath rings like a snort from his nostrils, and glancing back around, she was all but face to face with the glowering Warmaster. “You tread a very fine line, princess.”

Luna leans up, now physically nose to nose with the towering demigod. Her muzzle scrunches. And though part of her instinct said 'look away' from the fiery-eyed predator whose breath washed across her muzzle like a furnace, she didn't. She stares straight back, matching his glare. “When did the human competition start?”

That catches him offguard as the tiny pause gives way to a dismissive snort, “Does it ma-”

“When, Horus?! When?” she presses.

Horus takes a breath, and while the glower is still there, he leans back a fraction. “Two weeks.”

The Princess of the moon sighs and wrenches her eyes shut, massaging her brow. “It's been probably fifteen hours since Erebus taunted you.”

“I think I can read a chronometer, Luna.” he replies with a deadened blink.

She sighs in frustration, holding back her temper while chewing on the inside of her cheek. Circling around in mid air, she holds out a hoof for emphasis. “Time dilation, Horus. It took us that long here.”

“Well, I'd say that's impressive enough to bring a realm to hee-”

“You conquered nothing!” she bellows into his right ear. “This was a pointless errand meant to waste our time, nothing more! Nothing we've done up until now has mattered, and you can't think straight.” Luna snaps and with another errant pop of magic, the desert landscapes and distant mess of tangled hive spires fades away to a fragrant green countryside. Dusty blood soaked dunes melt into soft rolling hillocks. Luna might have been embarrassed that she was just replicating the world outside her bedroom window that overlooked the Unicorn range, but it wasn't like he'd ever know.

“Luna.” Horus's growl had reverted to the deep impenetrable landslide of warning, “Do I look like I have a ring in my nose? Remember what I said to Erebus, I will not be led around like a dog.”

She looks up, catching the haughty glint of rising anger. “I..” she sees it, the little flexed grip around Ceifador. Part of her says 'take it away from him', but she sighs and sits in front of him before gingerly reaches out a hoof. He stares, but allows her to brush his thigh. “We.... I'm sorry. Horus, please, will you forgive me?”

It was a quick enough touch before that she hadn't noticed the reaction against his rock hard musculature. But he'd tensed. And now it eases, drawing a slow noncommittal sigh.

It lasts for a moment before the Primarch nods.

“Horus,” she continues more subdued than before, “You're important. I can see that... just don't over extend yourself. Save your strength for the end. It's always going well, until it's not. Erebus switched tactics: did you notice when he stopped throwing dark spirits at you? Now they're mortal warlords from different worlds, your words, not mine. So, why? Why would he unless he was trying something else?”

Horus kneels, putting himself on the same level as the Alicorn. “I'm not so foolish as to dismiss someone who wishes me dead, or at least wants to make me into some fawning domestic pet. I am Horus Lupercal, and I've dealt with smarter men in the past two hundred years than Erebus of Colchis. I've never failed, and I've never met someone I couldn't fight and win. So Luna, have a little faith, hmm?” He reaches up and traces his fingers under her chin so she was forced to meet his fiery gaze.

“Never?” Luna asks.

And the facade flickers. A twitch in his smooth brow, the slightest furrow at the corners of his mouth from a nearly imperceptive pull. “Never.” he growls.

Never had she so clearly seen through a lie. It swirled in his golden eyes as he retreats, pulling his hand away and rocking back to stand to his full height. As if someone flicked a switch, the Warmaster takes a greedy breath and exhales. The soft hillocks and downs sparkle with morning dew, sending the smallest flashes like liquid fire across the quiet meadows outside Canterlot. Meadow flowers blossom and their scent softly permeates the air with a scent both heady and fragrant.

He gestures airily at the pastoral scene, “I take it this is familiar to you, Luna?”

She nods, “My home. Or, near to it.”

The Primarch continues unbroken, “A Princess lives near a wide open field of flowers. Tell me, is there a castle nearby?”

'I... is that, is that bad?'

“Oooooh, there is, isn't there?” Horus looks to the top of a hill and trudges up its slope into the soft sunlit glow.

She trots off behind him. It was stiff at first, but she finds she has to break into a canter to catch up. “H-Horus, we're getting off-track.”

“I am listening. Tell me, once again.” He ascends the slope with the huffy Alicorn trailing behind.

“We are sure we sensed strong nightmares, one much like before but others were new. Now, you said that it's likely your sons are nearby?” She pauses just long enough for Horus to give her a grunt of affirmation. “Then it may be possible to contact one of them for aid. Erebus is known to them, correct?”

Again, the Warmaster grunts, but his pace slows as he reaches the crest. The spires of Canterlot rise in the middling distance, painted turrets glitter as glints of gold reflect the morning sun. The snow capped Mount Canterlot glitters like a diamond of immeasurable size, lit by the vibrant halo of a dawning sun.

But Horus's light grunt had eased into a slow rumbling laugh. It bubbles like a spring, and yet felt a little mocking to the Alicorn.

She scowls at Horus as he surmounts the hillock. The rippling hills stretch out around them, rolling out like a carpet of patchy green and vibrant hues. But still she sniffles against the whisper of the wind.

“Luna,” he smirks, “If I didn't know better, I'd have thought this was just another little fantasy scene. A princess in a castle watching over a meadow.”

“It used to be in a forest but sister decided to move it during our... absence.” She hadn't really brought up Celestia, and by Horus's sidelong glance, it showed. Luna kept her muzzle pointed straight ahead and slightly up, trying to look regal to cover up the awkward shifting on her hooves.

“You're not getting out of that story so easily, Little Moon.” Horus steadily turns his attention to the mountain city. He flourishes an elaborate gesture in that direction, “Was there meant to be a purpose to this?”

“No,” Luna confesses, “'Twas merely familiar and comfortable for us.”

“Ah," he grins knowingly, "So you were indulging your own comforts.”

'Damn you for steering this off course.' she thinks, but it came out only as an awkward warble. He knew that she knew, he wasn't wrong.

The fur on her face prickles as the faint red blush shines through. Heat radiates from Luna's cheeks as her speech creeps up her verbal register to a note uncomfortably loud and sharp. “W-we shall leavest thou here as long as 'tis possible. Then, when an opportunity yet ariseth, we shall seek out thy sons and convince them that thou needest aid."

Horus gruffly snorts his irritation, the stony grumble rolling from his chest. "I don't need-”

“That We require to help facilitate Ou-m-my role.” Luna's correction stymies any reply long enough for the Alicorn to continue uninterrupted. “Then I'll return here as soon as possible." She lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding, calming her rapid heartbeat. Some of the faint red glow had faded, and her more airy lilt replaced the formal cadence. After a nervous flutter of her wings, she stretches them out again and looks back up to the nonplussed warrior. "It may seem like a long time, Horus... Erebus wasn't wrong. If he can manipulate dream magic, he can make it feel like an eternity. If you want me to stay here, I will. I will 'till the very end. It is your choice.”

The Lupercal sighs, taking a look at the distant mountain city. “Enough time perhaps to walk that way and see your little castle.” He flashes a self-satisfied smile at the Alicorn, “I can handle myself, Luna. I did on Cthonia when I was young, I can do it now. But my sons can be as stubborn as myself. Frankly, I doubt many of them would sleep at all. But if you happen upon a rather large one, who looks almost the same as myself, and twice as agitated, well... best steer clear of him. Abaddon is an excellent warrior. And an equally terrible diplomat.”

Horus smirks, and flicks a hand towards Luna in the same dismissive way that he had upon their meeting. “Off you go, I have no time to play, little horse. I have some sightseeing to do and time free from both Maloghurst's fastidious requests and the courtiers even more onerous demands.”

Luna sighs, licking her lips. “I can't exactly leave Ceifador with you, though I wish I could.”

“Luna, I'm 'the Warmaster' for a reason. If I couldn't break Erebus's neck with my bare hands, I don't deserve the title. I won't need it, even if it is a pretty little bauble for a pretty little princess-”

Luna smiles as he tosses the weapon into the air as it puffs into sapphire smoke.

“-horse.”

“GAAAAAH!” She stamps and sits down with a huff.

The indignation garners even more of a smirk, though Luna was sure he didn't mean the flicker of satisfaction to be seen. “Now,” he begins in his usual stately growl, “off with you. Don't you have someone else's mind to invade for once?”

The Alicorn just sighs and looks up before cantering back to be within a hooflength of him, “They have to be sleeping and attempting to dream for me to intervene.”

This time, the Lupercal lofts a brow. “My congratulations, Princess of the Night and Mistress of Dreams, you've made this slightly awkward. Now I'm sure you do have a court after all.”

“Horus, please be quiet. Now I have a headache.” But as he glances back again, she flashes a grin. A sincere smile forms on the Warmaster's face for the shortest of moments.

“They act like us, how very odd.” He mutters and returns to his leisurely stroll.

“Stubborn ass.” An unexpected snort leaves the Princess at the mocking imitation, leaving the Warmaster to stop. He didn't turn, and all the better for it as the Princess bristles with embarrassment. Waiting for just a few seconds, he starts walking again.

In the depths of the massive continent sized fortresses of adamantium and plasteel were little secrets. At almost thirty kilometers long, the Vengeful Spirit was full of them. There were nooks carved by errant workmen, small STC code overlays that went awry, leading to overlapping bulkheads with empty vacuous shafts in the middle, and small rooms now lost to even the master plans of the shipwrights themselves. Few designs were perfect, and the flagship of the Emperor's favourite son was no exception.

Above the nearly silent layers of the Vengeful Spirit's massive bridge, suspended by columns of twisted black iron, sat the Warmaster's strategium. The towering dome of black iron was dominated by small hololithic projectors where Horus delivered his tactical briefings or received audiences. Banners line the walls, disappearing into the sheltered niches and stanchion lining the edges.

But in a small offshoot corridor hidden behind a great red cloth banner heralding the Warmaster's 7th company, lay a small corridor seared through the adamantium bulwarks. The twisting maze of switchbacks and blind runs folded eight times until it came to an end in a single door surmounted by a leering metal skull. Beyond the simple portal resides what could only have been a casting error in the massive vessel's secondary armoured bulkhead. And thus, the grotto-like enclosure of roughly molten metal and ceramic binding dust lent the world an unnaturally surreal look. To the unpracticed eye, it was a stone cavern inside a vast metal city. But unnatural was still its more defining quality.

Two rows of stone pews line the back wall. Sickly tangles of leering skulls hang from the ceiling in morbid decoration. A figure stands in front of a roughly hewn wooden table sidled against the distant wall. The hulking form huddles over the table, cloaked in a thick black hooded habit.

The footsteps of another being didn't so much as phase the individual, so intent were they on a single leather-bound book laying in a small crimson stained depression.

“Who's there?” The new figure calls, his voice tone light and airy. There's no response from the figure huddled over the table. With an errant breath now more annoyed than jovial, the newly arrived figure raps a knuckle on the rough adamantium wall. “I said 'who's there'?”

Again, nothing.

But with a resigned sigh, the genhanced figure strides forward and pulls the cowl back, exposing a neat mop of blond hair, widows peak deep and plunging from his hairline. Luc Sedirae grumbles as he crosses over to the second form. “Oh for Lupercal's sake Targost, you're supposed to be the stickler for this sanctimonious ceremonial groxshit.” The hooded lodge master, Serghar Targost, still looms over the book.

Blowing a blustering breath from between cracked lips, Sedirae unfastens his cloak and tosses it limply to the stone pew. Drawing up beside his fellow astartes, he kept focused on the man, not seeing the thin tendrils of black-green smoke wafting from the grinning skulls. Sedirae twists and relaxes back against the wall next to the wooden table.

“Targ... what's that?” he lofts a brow at the open book.

Again, no answer. But Sedirae does squint, seeing the blank parchment page. Targost's granite chiseled face is red with effort, a vein throbbing in his temple as he softly mumbles to himself. The fellow astartes leans in just a little closer, hands folded over his chest.

'Yes, First Chaplain. Thy will be done, lord.' and a single droplet of blood rolls down from his nose and spatters on the parchment. It spiders, running like scarlet ink across the page and forming a strange labyrinth surmounted by an eight pointed star.

Sedirae rears back as Targost gasps and seemingly releases the book from taloned hands, ignoring the clatter of inanimate skulls above him. “Serghar, you okay?” he asks, clutching at the black cloak.

“L-Luc?” Targost asks blankly, eyes dilated, “Is that you?”

His friend just furrows a brow, “I can't say.” and breaks into a grin. “Oaths be damned, what in oblivion is that?” he points to the book.

“Nevermind, it's not important. Luc, you led the assault on the Glory of Terra, right?” Seized by some manic energy, he grips his friends shoulder and stares into his bright blue eyes, his own wild and wide like some backwater wildman.

Sedirae's lofted brow only rises further, “Sure?”

“Tell me, did you find a stone sword anywhere? About ye long.” Targost mimes a decently sized longsword.

“No, we got bogged down pretty bad. Lost more than I care to remember. It was a real shit-show, Serghar. Took Tarik and Loken's groups to pull us out of the fire and even then, those 'things' just vanished into thin air. What's this about?”

Targost glances towards the door. “Vaddon... Chief apothecary Vaddon might know. I'm sorry Luc, I've got to-”

“I ran into Vaddon talking with Tarik in Loken about thirty minutes ago.” Sedirae interrupts, the confusion only growing. “Seriously, what's this about?”

“Garviel and Tarik." he says, eyes widening. "I... I really can't say. Not yet. Luc.” He swiftly interrupts, clasping the shorter astarte's shoulders and staring with an unnaturally cold glint, “Luc, I need a favour. Can you go get Vaddon, and bring him here?"