unfinishednetwork | an aid to laundry troubles

Yes.

I can teach.

I'm by the circulation desk.

[Dangerous offer, Sanguinius: He needs help with more than just his sewing.]

I will be there momentarily.

Many of the mortals here are...awkward about nudity.

[The people of the Pure Blood weren't really, and his Legion wasn't, but...well, they weren't everyone.]

I'm not, for what it's worth.

But the awkwardness is troublesome in public.

Take the time you need.

[He's staying right where he is until he's done converting his latest stack of bed sheets into clothing, something he estimates will take him another two hours at least.

Two hours he doesn't have to find anything else to do with himself.]

It's kind of you to take such concern for others.

[From someone else, it might sound sarcastic. And he does have an edge to him, but it's normally limned with anger. In this case, he's sincere.]

I had noticed some...reactions when I was using the dryer facility. [On his wings, which is an offlabel use, but shush.

He doesn't take much time because, honestly, he's bored. And staring at posters of his face or books that have no end, and no room to fly? Grating. He's probably easy to notice, because his newly (hopefully) deglittered and puffed wings brush the sides of the stacks as he approaches. ]

Edited (that pesky /!!!) 2026-01-01 01:34 (UTC)

[Kind. Is what he's doing truly kind if it's done simply out of habit -- out of years of brutal conditioning that warped his normal fellow-feeling for flock and family into mindless service of the Unearthed? Is it kind to coddle others' sensibilities simple because it's more of a bother to offend them?

Weigh on that, Warlord. Is it action or intent that matters?]

This is too small a space for unkindness.

[All necessity, you see? Maybe -- knowing what he knows of himself -- he ought to put more into pushing people away. Maybe they should not be comfortable with him.

He stops writing and stabs the needle into the tunic he's working on more fiercely. The other comment he can answer in person; conducting all this conversation by passing magical notes is foreign to him. Possibly risky, if anyone can see a conversation in progress, like Night Haunter had.

Such is his preoccupation with thinking instead of mindless doing he ends up stabbing himself with the needle on the next stitch. Barely registers as pain, but he still drops his sewing to keep the oozing coagulated black ichor from the wound off the fabric.

So -- very dignified -- he's got the side of one hand to his mouth while he rummages for a bandage with the other as Sanguinius walks up, radiant as the Judge of the Dawn.

He mumbles an anechoic "hello" into his hand. It's just going to keep oozing if he doesn't fix it.]

What place is not? Kindness is about one's own soul and character.

[He felt each of his sons when they died and that made each of their lives, to him, more precious while they lived. If they had to feel such pain at the end, who was he to try to add to it with thoughtlessness and malice? His job was to protect them from as much as he could, which was why he had barred Amit from attending the Council. Amit would have earned the censure of the other Primarchs, spoken out of turn and rashly. He hated it, but it had been for his own protection.

It's not hard to read the situation--he's seen such among the People. Part of him trills to the thought of blood, but it seems strange here, and he fights it down.] Are you injured?

[Always best to make light of such things when possible.] You didn't tell me I was entering a dangerous enterprise.

[There was another problem -- what shape were his own soul and character in, after so long in thrall to a monster?

He doesn't know. It should be more than an academic question that he vacillates about.

But it isn't, and it should be horrifying or frustrating or both, and it also isn't.]

Stuck myself, [he mutters, as he comes up with a bandage and can take his hand from his mouth. A little pad of lint will do to keep the ichor where it should be, and he wraps it in place using his free hand and mouth in a way that speaks of long practice.] I'll fix it later.

Only mildly dangerous, unless you've got a blood sickness. Don't think you'd've made it long in your line of work if you had. [Combat professions being strongly contraindicated for hemophiliacs.]

Join me? Looks like the chairs are settled. [His own has gotten large enough that he looks slightly comedic sitting in it, a toddler at the adults' table. There's another nearby that will fit a primarch at a scrunch.]

[Sangiunius would argue that the very fact that one would ask oneself about one's character is a positive sign.]

Why are you still bleeding? [It wasn't that bad an injury. His kind, and even his sons, would have stopped bleeding from a much worse injury well before now.

But he has good news. ]

I have been learning skills you might find helpful. [Is it allowed to learn the strange dangerous sorcery of this place? He hasn't thought it through. The shame of having to....ask for blood was too much.]

[There might be hope for Illarion yet.

He flexes his hand at the question, checking that the bandage will hold.]

I don't heal the way the living do any longer. None of the dead do; the flesh doesn't remember how and the soul can't force it to. [Have some necromancy theory he'd ... absorbed, somehow, because he doesn't remember consciously learning it, ever.] Most of us don't have much liquid blood left. I'm lucky.

["Lucky's" a way to put it. "In possession of much more body mass and blood volume than he appears to have," is closer to the truth, but that's Veiled.

He lifts his head at the mention of skills, finding a small smile somewhere.]

Yeah? What've you learned?

[Sanguinius would assert that there is always hope, and even if the future involves loss, there is hope that the loss could be a noble sacrifice.

The coverts of his wings flare, briefly, before he forces them flat, turning his gaze away from the drop of blood with effort. ] The Assistant Librarians might be able to help.

[They helped him, with his...problem. Though clearly they found it distasteful, almost as much as Sanguinius hated having to...ask for it.]

I can pull materials from books. I have been practicing. [No one will find the trinkets he pulled out while practicing, stuffed into the pillowcase on his bed. Very well hidden. Just a bit lumpy.]

[Keen student of people that he -- was. Is? Still is? Even if the study no longer interests him the way it had when he was alive -- Illarion doesn't miss the look away.

He doesn't know what to make of it. But he doesn't miss it.] As long as there's meat in the icebox, I can fix it. Won't require anything exotic.

[It won't require eating something that once could think. No damage to his brain or spine.]

-- You can? Beautiful. [~~So's the new ability.~~] Do they stay around on their own? Or do we have to put them into something?

[No, you saw NOTHING. Nothing! Also don't ask why he was so keen on getting this skill.] I could help you acquire the meat, should you need.

[Through his...ability? Or...otherwise? Shhhh don't ask how. Just accept it.] I don't know. But it could help with your effort to clothe us. [Let him HELP!]

[Because Illarion is wired for mayhem, his immediate response is,] Didn't know you liked me that way. Might need to be careful how you make your proposal -- wouldn't want you and your brother dueling for my hand.

[Then, relenting, he adds:] Let me trade you for it. Gifts of meat have a certain meaning.

[Cloth, on the other hand, is a perfectly safe gift, especially being given to someone using it.] It will. We're going to run out of bedsheets if any more of you primarchs show up.

Want to try now?

Errr...[There is a long blink, a sort of processing moment. He didn't think Curze even...? Well, there were many things he didn't know about his brother, come to think of it.

His calculations went like so: If he wanted to, he knew he could defeat Curze in combat, even at his best. But Curze was not at his best right now, and there would be no real honor in such a duel, or victory. Also Curze has had...so little in his life. It would be cruelty to take away one thing he showed interest in.

Despite Sanguinius's streak of temper, he was not vengeful. At least beyond origami glitter bombs.

He lowers his head, as if in surrender.] I yield to his prior claim, then.

[And he will file that information away. Huh.] I have nothing I need, though. [Except blood to keep him stable, but that's...that's not appropriate to ask for.]

What would you need most? [He has been practicing his new skill under the Assistant Librarian's tutelage, and he can do things. It just takes time to find the correct book, but...well, there seems to be plenty of that lately.]

[... Well.

The problem with jokes -- especially barracks-jokes -- is they didn't always cross cultural boundaries.

Were Illarion's heart in working order, Sanguinius' response would induce equal parts mortification and helpless amusement. To see the giant primarch submit so humbly to the idea his brother might have somehow fallen for Illarion, enough to fight for his hand, is -- it's incongruous, at the very least.

It certainly adds a complication to Night Haunter's certainty that he was despised and denigrated by all his kin.

Illarion could leave the misapprehension alone. It would be a little piece of cruelty to do so, and his taste for cruelty is sharpening the longer he's gone without killing. But it is also likely to bring complications further down the line that could -- conceivably -- interfere with his own plans. Lies, even lies of omission, usually did that.

One of the many reasons why shrikes favor truth.]

He's threatened to kill my gods and eat my heart, [the shrike says, gently as he can without leaning hard into putting unfelt emotion in his voice.] Would have done the latter last Story, if we hadn't come to a more beneficial agreement.

[Before he'd known Night Haunter wasn't the Imperium's only representative in the Library. It might've been better to wait to make his deal, but he had acted on the facts he'd had.] Making it into a courtship is a barracks-joke.

[That is: Black humor to make the awful situation more bearable. A staple of soldiers everywhere.

Then, briskly, onward!]

Do you have anything you want? Doesn't need to be of equal value. Symbolism is what matters.

[If it's a trade for meat, it's a transaction, not a romance. Didn't matter what the trade was.

Thinking of that -- and the notion of what he needs most -- he looks down at the last of the bedsheets, half cut-up to make another tunic.]

Let's try cloth. Something you'd like, that would match your wings. See if can't fix the problem with everyone else's -- mm -- scruples.

Then you can find me some meat. [There, a suitable trade.]

I. See. [ Nope, he totally doesn't see because what the actual...??? If that's flirtation, then Sanguinius is going to need some sort of manual for it because that's very CURZE but also very...not appealing.

Is this another thing he will have to ask the Assistant Librarians about?] And what is this....agreement? If I am allowed to know? [And if he is allowed to intervene. That's the larger concern. ]

I want for nothing here. [He's also lying, but the things he needs are not things Ilarion could provide, so it's better to just pretend they don't exist.] But I would consider you teaching me this skill as a valuable trade.

[But cloth. All right. He has been practicing.] Wait here. It will take me some time to find a book to use. [Don't mind him as he heads over to the Regency romance section. All he knows is their clothes are very ornately described. And one benefit of the imperfect use of his Skill is instead of getting the dress described he just gets the fabric for it. Seven or so yards of heavy red silk.] Will this do?

[The puzzlement is patently obvious, but Illarion will let that alone for now. No sense adding to the confusion when it came down to Night Haunter and the shrike simply being kindred spirits in not letting an awful bit die.]

We have a contract, [because of course they did,] you can review if you want the full details. The short of it is he doesn't kill me, and I give him certain information on my world that will let you eliminate a dire threat from it. If your Imperium ever finds us.

We're on our own for gaining the right to exist in it, after that. [Here is where Illarion would sound dubious about that prospect, if he emoted much.

He also is not quite sure he believes that Sanguinius wants for nothing -- and the look he briefly turns on the Great Angel says so -- but he'll let that abide for now. Let him go find cloth, and maybe think about what Illarion's told him.

The shrike himself will simply resume cutting out pieces while he waits on the primarch's return. He's got the tunic mostway assembled by the time Sanguinius does get back, and glances up from his pinning to examine the fabric.

(Useful that he can detect one of these oversized fellows approaching by how the Library's ((outward)) dimensions compress to squeeze more Library into being for them.)]

It'll work. Don't know my poor skill is up to doing it justice as a festival-piece, but it will be a good color on you. [He tips his head, birdlike, and considers it more.] Has some pretty highlights to match your feathers.

Do you ever paint them? [ -- wait where did that come from. That was not how he meant to enact the feather-painting joke.]

[Curze would always put the worst possible spin and read on everything he came across--even his own Legion, and including himself. It wouldn't surprise Sanguinius to find that that's what he told others, however unfair it was.

At least he was opening up to someone. And while Sanguinius wished it would be him, he knew that it was not likely to happen, especially now. ] I would not invade your--either of you--privacy. Our kind have had so little.

Only, if you feel he is a threat to your safety, I would ask that you extend me the honor of letting me know. [If he sounds overly formal, it's because he'd rather err on the side of formality than overstep where there was something going on he clearly didn't understand.]

It need not be special. I just liked the color. [One fun fact about being Sanguinius is he could probably literally just wear a bedsheet and be fine. He's not Fulgrim, for Terra's sake!]

Paint? No. Is that common in your world? [It must be, because why would Ilarion ask, otherwise?] But for formal occasions, my Legion does like to have me don nets of chain and jewels over them. [It makes them so happy: how could he say no?]

[Our kind have had so little.

That would have been sad to Illarion, at one time. Now it simply makes a grim sort of sense: Who would make weapons that glorious and not put them on display at all times? Who would make weapons intended to be held up for public view and not insist they fulfill their roles to the hilt?

Even if they weren't aware of it.

("Such is his role, as judgment is mine. I do not envy it.")

It makes all his questions and speculation on Sanguinius' appearance seem suddenly tawdry and unworthy somehow. Like he's shamed himself by even thinking of it, without recourse to feeling any shame in the process to keep from just going on.

Better if he kept to his place, as a dead thing. He has a job to do. He turns his attention back to his sewing and resumes pinning pieces together.

If anything, his tone's even more clinically detached when he speaks again -- his diction's changed, to a crisp, over-precise formality instead of the curled-in laziness he usually adopts.]

People with feathers often paint them. For all the same reasons people paint their faces. [War. Courtship. Confidence in front of strangers.]

I'll do what I can with the silk. Leave it with me.

[A pause, as he surveys his work, then returns to the previous topic of conversation -- still without looking up.]

It isn't a private contract. You and any of your other brothers who show up here should know the terms, as a matter of military intelligence. I will make you a copy.

He isn't a threat to my safety here so long as he continues to honor our contract. He may choose not to. Then we'll learn if the Library is capable of repairing me as well as it does the living.

Either way, there is a good chance I will die with all my people and all my world if he finds us, for your Imperium. I understand there is nothing you can do about that.

Oh. [He's never thought about painting them, but the idea is somehow charming. What if each of his Legion could paint one feather--would he have enough?

...now. After Signus, he would. With too many to spare as stark, blank white. The smile, which had started to glow on his face faltered. ]

Were you the one who altered the posters? [Maybe this was some bleedover from his time as Tsang. Maybe Ilarion had asked because he wanted to. ] If you wanted to, you could. Paint them.

But I would use the silk to make clothes for someone else, first. As I said, my needs are very little.

[Right, that was about as much of that sort of talk as Sanguinius is willing to endure. He drops off the seat to kneel in front of Ilarion, reaching to take his hands seeking the other's gaze, earnestly.] Friend--if I can call you that--our deaths are inevitable. For all of us, we should try to sell our lives at the highest cost. There is no honor in wasting your life, contract or no. Do not merely surrender to this.

Yes. [Quietly admitted. He was the one who'd decorated the posters.

Quieter still,] I told you before. I don't want things. I can't.

[He'd told Tsang before, and he'd been wearing his own human guise in the Story, but just as Tsang's voice had been Sanguinius', "Forster Green's" had that same flat tone and uncanny echo that mar Illarion's.

Tsang had been so much easier to deal with.

Tsang's bumbling affection in the Story had been incomprehensible. Disconcerting. Illarion had wanted to get away from it as quickly as he could and back to his self-imposed mission. There had been no need to consider it as anything but an obstacle.

Sanguinius' affection is devastating -- the more so because the shrike doesn't understand what's hit him, his dead heart unable to express the riptide pull it's caught in. All he knows is he cannot think straight any longer, staring down at the primarch's much larger hands where they envelop his own -- small and pale and bloodless and bandaged.

He does not look up. That would be dangerous for so many reasons.

But he doesn't protest the appellation of "friend," either, not knowing that's what has so completely crippled him.]

I do not intend to go quietly. But what hope is there for us against your empire? We won't be permitted to stay what we are. Most of us would die before give up our gods.

If we even survive long enough to be found. [The King of Eyes was winning his war of annihilation. Illarion would not have made his devil's bargain otherwise.]

You did a beautiful job. It's rare to feel truly...seen. [His brothers could see his patterns, but few others could. And none commented on them. It felt like a great compliment, and an honor.

If he had to have posters made of him, at least someone had liked them.

Illarion hasn't swatted his hands aside, so he keeps them, offering a gentle squeeze.] There is always hope. The Imperium is not savage, slaughtering those who are willing to live in peace, and who don't threaten our own. [At least that's how his understanding is. They are defenders. Sometimes attackers, but never without provocation.]

My brother's vision is always darkened. But we are a place of light and hope. He does not always see clearly.

[He tosses his head to get a stray lock of hair off his face, without letting go of the other's hands.] Do not yield your heart so easily to despair.

Edited (wtf with that bottom margin ) 2026-01-07 03:04 (UTC)

It -- felt right. To make them visible to others.

[To let the unseen be seen. Illarion has not felt seen himself since his Prince -- his true Prince, Evdokim, Dusya, who called him Hydra-Heart -- died. He has had a Prince-shape wound in his heart, in his whole world, since then -- one that led him into horror and then to death; one the King of Eyes had ruthlessly exploited without his full realization. Sleepwalker, he'd been, chained to the Prince of Locusts by poisoned magic.

Now the threads are cut, and now that wound bleeds anew, and now -- again, without his knowing -- he's desperate for anything to staunch it.

Why not someone who is kind, and concerned, and not afraid to touch hands with him, and beautiful as the Judge besides? (Why not someone who was made to lead, his fundamental essence woven to capture the minds and hearts of anyone who so much looked at him?)

It isn't that he wants to paint Sanguinius' feathers in courtship colors. He wants to paint them for war and follow the primarch to his second death. He wants to call him "lord" and bend the knee to him. He wants -- he doesn't want, he can't want -- but how is wanting different from knowing what his next move should be, knowing what words he should say to pledge his cause to his Prince?

Knowing how to be the perfect soldier, the perfect uncomplaining follower. To someone he has known barely more than a month.

He curls in on himself, pulls his hands up -- and Sanguinius' with them -- to hide his face.]

I won't.

[I won't, lord, he thinks, but somehow -- somehow -- manages not to say.]

I will believe you.

[Then, much harder to say,] I'm not sure I can do otherwise. You are --

You are doing something very strange to me. I don't understand it. [His voice is small, flatter even than usual, and sounds like he's speaking from the bottom of a well.]

I'm sorry.

I did not care for the posters, [They felt like a sick joke, some reference to something he didn't understand and no one explained.] until I saw those...additions. [Clearly added by hand: someone had taken time and effort to make something beautiful.]

My brother.[He lets his hands be taken up to the other's face, curled around, and he stretches his wings to cover them both. If it was one of his legionaries, upset like this, he would do the same.] You are not alone in this, . I will not let you be alone in this.

[Curze is the issue, and Curze is Sanguinius's brother and that translates to Curze being Sanguinius's problem. There has to be a way to protect them both from each other. He would stand in the breach between them.

He drops his voice to a whisper, trying to not overwhelm the other.] I mean no harm. I only want your happiness.

Edited 2026-01-08 02:54 (UTC)

[Night Haunter and the devil's bargain Illarion made with him was only part of the problem -- a comprehensible part, the shrike thought. He'd lived under the threat of torture and death and worse for half-a-decade, awake forever with the horror of it. He could function in such an environment. Had been made for it.

He could even pretend he was something -- living, social, to most of the other Editors. He still had that patterns of it. He could always walk away when the illusion grew too thin.

This -- this... He is trembling and doesn't understand why. It isn't from fear because he can't feel fear. It isn't -- it is nothing else he can name, part of no pattern he can remember, because the only person who cared for him like this is dead, has been dead for years.]

Lord, [he whispers, unable to keep the title from his tongue; it is the right word for this situation,] I'm not meant for happiness anymore. My heart is dead. I will only fail you.

[Because that is a liegeman's highest concern -- should be. That he do his utmost to serve.

On the silk Sanguinius brought, a single black eye blinks open.]

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angel_of_baal - 2026-01-09 01:43 (UTC) - Expand

an aid to laundry troubles

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>>action?

holds open my arms for ACTION!!

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now skill update flavored!

heck YEAH

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