Everqueen Reclamation - 53

The boy’s first awakening was quite something.

Blue eyes with slitted pupils opened, slowly at first as drowsiness receded, before abruptly widening as Leman realized that he was in an unfamiliar location.

Immediately, he sprang out of the bed, and backed away from Isha and the Emperor, teeth bared to reveal two pointed fangs as he growled at them, trying to intimidate them.

It was a little adorable.

Isha watched with amusement, but did nothing to intervene, leaning back in her chair.

She was curious to see how the Emperor would handle this.

The Guardian of Mankind stepped forward, his hands raised as he spoke. “Easy, my son, easy.” The words were less important than his tone, of course. Gentle and soothing, akin to the one might employ while speaking to a spooked animal.

Which the young Primarch was, in many ways.

Leman stared at him uncertainly, a spark of recognition flickering in his eyes, his soul recognizing his creator though his mind and body did not.

The Emperor dared to take a step forward, which the boy immediately responded to by backing away, leaping onto backwards on top of one of the beds, crouched in his hands and knees in a distinctly lupine way.

The Emperor sighed, and then he knelt. His golden aura shimmered and receded ever so slightly, eyes shifting from bright gold to warm brown.

“Leman, my son,” George said softly, careful not to approach this time. “It is good to see you again. Do you not remember me?”

Leman blinked, and the two stared at each other for a long moment.

Then, finally, the boy spoke, his words hesitant and slow as he spoke for the first time. “F…fa…father?” The word was dredged up from within the depths of his soul, from the knowledge of the spirits of those that had formed the gestalt that would become the young Primarch.

“It is I,” George said warmly.

“Father!” Leman said with more certainty this time.

George chuckled. “Yes-”

He was interrupted as Russ literally sprang at him, limbs wrapped around the Emperor in a tight hug. “Father!” Russ said happily, burying his face in the Emperor’s shoulder.

George sighed a little, but he kept smiling.

Isha maintained a stoic, impassive expression, but the look that George shot her made it clear he knew she was silently laughing at him.

Isha simply raised an eyebrow back at him, daring him to make anything of it.

After a moment, George huffed before his hands moved to pry Leman off of him.

“I am glad you remember me now, my son, but we need to get you cleaned and dressed up-”

“Father!” The boy protested, digging his nails deeper into George’s clothes, uncaring of the resulting tears in the expensive fabric.

“Yes, it’s me, I-” George heaved a sigh and then switched tactics. “You can’t cling to me and eat food like this you know.”

“Food?” Leman said slowly, clearly trying to work out the process via his ingrained knowledge.

“Food,” George nodded amiably, packing the word with intent and psychic imagery so his son would understand.

“Food!” Leman enthused. “Food to share with the pack!” He paused for a moment, suddenly emanating distress. “Where pack?”

“The pack is back on Fenris,” The Emperor said carefully. “We left them there when we took you.”

“Want pack!” Leman insisted, looking frightened. “Feed pack, keep them safe.”

“Leman, I can’t do that. They’re animals, you have to let them go.”

The boy’s face crumpled even as George’s eyes widened in alarm.

What followed would vividly be remembered as the first ever temper tantrum thrown by a young Primarch in the Emperor’s presence. Horus had his share, to be sure (not that anyone dared call them that) but his father’s presence usually instilled in him immediate calm.

Russ, however, sobbed and howled like the wolves he had been raised by. “PACK!” He wailed.

It was almost impressive how quickly he had adapted to the language.

“Leman, I-” George said helplessly, the Emperor of Mankind powerless in the face of a distressed child. 

The boy continued to wail.

The Emperor’s face twitched. “Why don’t you go to sleep, son?” He suggested, his words laced with power.

Leman was immediately out like a light and would have fallen off the Emperor if his father hadn’t caught him, placing him back on his bed.

“That was unworthy of you,” Isha said mildly.

The Emperor shot her a scathing look, eyes once more golden. “I didn’t see you intervening to help.”

Isha was unfazed. “He is your son, and a human besides,” She pointed out dryly. “They are your responsibility, as you have made clear to me many times. And that still does not change the fact that it was unworthy of you to use such tactics on a child.”

George winced, deflating. “Yes, you’re correct. I just…” He heaved a sigh. “It has been a long time since I handled children. Even Horus was older than this when we met.”

Isha crossed her arms, letting her silence speak for itself. George sighed again. “Yes, I know that’s not an excuse.”

She relented. “Let the boy sleep for now, your command had enough weight in it that waking him up would only leave him disoriented. But you should think of a solution before he wakes up.”

George grimaced, but nodded crisply.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Isha said, deciding he would probably find it less embarrassing if she wasn’t there to watch his fumbling attempts at parenting.

She was out of the door in moments, wandering down the hallways of the Epona.

A sensation settled on her as she walked, one she was all too familiar with: boredom.

It was annoying, but it was true. For many millennia now, she had been too anxious or angry to be bored. Most recently, the Emperor had kept her busy, working keeping her occupied even when he gave her no cause for concern. Before that, Isha had been watching the Dominion spiral into decadence and madness for thousands of years, trying her best to prevent it by exploiting the cracks in Asuryan’s edict. And failing miserably.

But for the first time in a very long time, she was calm. Not free of stress or worry, but there was no point in fretting right now. Nor was there any work to occupy her, now that she was no longer on Terra.

In short, Isha was bored. Or perhaps restless? 

No, she was bored, she admitted to herself. To say otherwise would only be unnecessarily pretentious.

Sighing, she considered what to do. Isha could return to working on more cures and vaccines. No doubt Nurgle was concocting yet more horrors for her to fight. But there was a limit to how effective Isha could make her antidotes when she didn’t even know what she was fighting yet.

Perhaps the Emperor’s library had something to occupy her time. She remembered that he kept a variety of old books stored in the Epona’s data archives for perusal.

Soon, Isha had returned to her chambers, opening the archive of the Epona for anything that might amuse her.

It took a while to browse through it to find something, but eventually she found a somewhat interesting treatise on the growth and development of humanity’s terraforming methods during their early millennia as starfarers.

Isha had just settled into to read it when she felt the World Spirit of Fenris reach out to her.

Surprised, Isha accepted it.

“Is something wrong, my dear?” She queried, puzzled.

Need Aid. Danger To My People.

Isha blinked. Fenris was a World Spirit gone wild, one that cared for the people on its surface in its own way, but still tested them fiercely. If Fenris considered something a danger…

“What kind of danger?” She asked, unease stirring in her heart.

Wound. Tear. Poison Pouring Through. Have Kept It Buried But Cannot Heal.

“Show me?” Isha suggested gently, reaching out to more fully connect with the World Spirit.

Fenris obliged, guiding to one of the caverns below the planet’s surface, a cavern containing…an unstable warp rift.

One that was growing, with a Greater Daemon of Tzentech trying to tear its way out of it, forcing the portal open as it tried to enter reality without a summoning. It was having limited success, but the foul energies pouring through the portal were warping reality, seeping into the flesh of the planet.

“Of course I will help,” Isha answered breathlessly. “Why didn’t you ask me before?”

There was a tinge of shame from Fenris. 

Didn’t Want To Show Weakness. All-Mother Has Other Worries. But Danger.

“You silly child,” Isha said with exasperation. “I will go down there immediately.”

There was a sensation of pure relief and thanks.

Isha paused only to contact the Emperor. 

“There is a daemon incursion about to happen on the planet below, we need to deal with it now.”

+Where?+ Was the brisk, curt response.

The name came through the World Spirit, in a language that must have belonged to the humans below.

“The Gate of Morkai.”