132 – Krunch
"So dere I was, bored outta mind since dere was nobody to give a good scrap. Dere was no need fer a k boy, since da ship handles itself and da grub was grot, so I decided to tinker wiv it until it beca good."
“So you decided to try out cooking because you were bored?” I raised an eyebrow at the gigantic Ork sheepishly sitting with his legs crossed before . “And it worked?”
"It tastes better dan fresh mushrooms and raw squig at, so I guess it did."
This fellow was the largest Ork out of the five, though still a head shorter than Throgg and by a few inches under the bunch Throgg sent to follow Val around like an honour guard.
He was quite good at fighting, though it was easy to tell it was mostly because of brute strength and not skill, or even ferocity like the rest. It was weird, but he was unquestionably the strongest out of the five.
“And that was why an entire damned crowd gathered around you?” I asked. “To get themselves so of that food you made?”
"Yeah, dem gits all ca crawlin' to get a taste once dey caught da sll of cookin'."
“Well, alright.” I shrugged. Curiosity was all that drove to co down there, guessing that checking on the Orkz and seeing how they were settling in would give so fun after hours spent talking my throat dry with the tau envoy. “I suppose I should heal up the other four too? Shouldn’t I?”
The large Ork chef just shrugged, an apathetic gaze rely glancing at his four fellows sprawled out across the floor around us in various states of half-dead and dying. They could barely groan in pain from how many of their bones I’d broken.
Who told them to keep fighting through the first round of beating they got? They can only bla themselves for getting back up until I made sure they were incapable of as much as twitching.
"Uhm, boss?" the large Ork asked, raising a hand like so school kid. "I just wanna ask, but when are we gonna get to fightin' stuff? I an, we can scrap each otha, and I can cook, but none of us 'ere ever got into a real good scrap wiv sothin' we had to kill. So we wuz all just sort of wonderin' when we could get to dat part?"
“Good question,” I nodded at him with a smile. “What’s your na by the way?”
" na's Krunch da Cook."
“Well, Krunch,” I said. “We are heading to a region of space called the Jericho Reach where Humans, the Tau, Chaos warbands and the Tyranids are locked in a near constant state of war across a few dozen systems. We are going to go there and clean the place up, starting with the humans and the tyranids before going over to the chaos fucks.”
“Not the fish ‘eads?”
“Not the fish heads.” I shook my head sadly, then leaned closer and whispered only to him. “Not yet at least. We are working for them as rcenaries as of right now, they are going to get us to our destination and supply us with weapons and a new ship.”
"rcs?" Krunch scrunched up his face. “Do dey pay good?”
“We are getting a new ship and a whole load of weapons, as much as I can pry out of their miserly little hands.” I shrugged, leaning back and spinning around. I let my gaze flicker between the hundreds of dumb faces, each squinting and tilting their heads to listen in on what I said. “But they think we now believe in their Greater Good. Fight for the betternt of all, and all that crap. So, my Orkz, I’d like to ask you all to just, act like you are at the very least anable to the idea when so idiot cos down here to preach about their greater good?”
I got so nods to that, while many grinned evilly, and so surface level telepathy revealed they were actually quite proud that their big boss was fooling the silly Tau and getting them to hand over their stuff for free. Though most of them seed to just be giddy at the idea of fighting just about every sort of alien faction there was in the near future.
"Will do, boss. I'll make sure dese gits know to behave, or dey don't get no shootas. Or get tossed out to cool off in space."
“You do that Krunch,” I said. “I’ll also tell Throgg not to get too fussy with you, do continue your cooking, I’m sure you’ll be the biggest Ork here in no ti.”
“Thanks boss.”
***
“Mistress, a word if you would?”
I glanced over at Val, who Blinked next to the mont I was alone after eting the Orkz. He looked serious and felt a bit … confused? Yeah.
“It seems you have questions,” I said, tilting my head and squinting up at his athyst eyes. “Go ahead. Ask them.”
“Why are we doing this?” he asked, his nose scrunched up in distaste. “These … animals, don’t deserve the respect you show them. The respect you made show them. Loathe as I am to say it, the Humans you left behind on Baal had my grudging respect for their martial and psychic prowess and you showed them only disdain and played them for fools on every turn. So why? Why treat these Tau so differently?”
I blinked at him, freezing in place as I slowly turned to fully face him. Searching his face, I only found genuine confusion bordering on befuddlent. He was lost and irritated. I opened up my empathy, actively reaching out to drink in his freely shown feelings.
He absolutely hated not knowing why I did such an objectively — from his standpoint — incomprehensible thing. He hated it, because he felt like he was failing if he couldn’t understand my thoughts. My wants. My needs.
“I’m afraid I don’t have a straight answer for that,” I said after a few monts of silence. “Logically, I should have acted the sa way with the Humans. Especially Guilliman. No?”
“I … don’t believe so.” He said, visibly chewing through each word only after considering what he was saying in his head. “You are a God. Not like those twisted abominations of chaos, but like the Gods of Old. The ones my kind followed into war in ages long past. You don’t have to show respect to a single being in this wretched galaxy.”
“A God, is it?” I felt myself smile at that, though it was not because he tickled my ego. Oh no, the exact opposite. I don’t know about old Eldar Gods, but a Greater Daemon put in mortal danger. I think that stupid chicken barely strained himself back then. He was a Lord of Change, probably just got sent to poke at and see how strong I was. And he was just a tiny fragnt of Tzeentch. I’m a sneeze from either of the big four away from oblivion. “Maybe once in the far future. I am far from invincible enough.”
“No one is invincible, Mistress,” he said with a frown. “Gods certainly aren’t. If they were, my kind wouldn’t have a single living God of our Pantheon remaining otherwise.”
“You have two and a half,” I said.
“Two and a half?” he blinked in surprise, then shook it off. “Mistress, please answer my question.”
“Best I can do is to tell you I am … had, still have on so level, controlling my impulses.” I said, grimacing throughout the sentence. “I don’t think it’ll ever be perfect, but I can now hold myself back from blasting that Tau Captain into his constituent atoms for being annoying. As for why I am even bothering trying to control myself for the Tau?”
I shrugged, turning away from his piercing purple gaze. “I suppose because it feels safer. I am not invincible, but here, with the Tau and their abysmal knowledge of the Warp, I might as well be. It feels safer than back on Baal, when demigods who stood a good chance at killing were surrounding .”
“I see,” he nodded. First I could tell he was just saying it, but his mind raced and his aura morphed and churned with new emotions from nano-second to nano-second. It cald after only five seconds, stilling into tranquillity. “You are using these primitives to train your ntal discipline. They are not deserving of it, but that only makes showing them respect more challenging and so makes the training even more effective. I believe I understand.”
“Good that you do,” I shrugged again, then snapped my gaze back at him. Sothing wasn’t quite right with what he said. “Also, I certainly loathe the Tau as a whole less than the Imperium. They are at least advancing, as one. The Imperium, though, is a decaying corpse still sohow clinging to life, but it’s days are numbered if so miracle doesn’t co knocking soon.”
“I suppose,” he looked torn, and I could tell what he was thinking. I rembered that gene-strain I removed from all of my Eldar templates, the one that made them instinctively view everyone with weaker souls than them as pathetic animals, little more than insects. For Val, showing any asure of respect to anyone who couldn’t trounce him in psychic power was a huge thing. “Their general mindset is conducive to growth. That they still exist, among the many ancient empires inhabiting this galaxy along with them, is sowhat deserving of respect.”
He was speaking purely in theoreticals. He understood why that could be deserving of respect, but he certainly didn’t feel a single flick of it. Should I fix that gene defect up for him? Or would that be like pulling a supporting pillar of his psyche out and letting it all co crashing down like a jenga tower?
“I do have so mbers of the Imperium I have so asure of respect for,” I said, mostly to take my mind off of that train of thought. If Val ever wanted to change himself, he’d co to himself. I felt if I gave him the option, he’d feel pressured to accept what he thought was my will, and that was not what I was going for.
“Who might those be?” he asked with genuine curiosity.
“I can respect Guilliman,” I said. “Even if he had been an asshole for most of our talks. I wouldn’t want to be in his place, and the fact he is single-handedly keeping the Imperium alive is by itself respectable.”
“It certainly is a feat,” Val said with a asure of sick amusent. “A feat indeed.”
“Another I think I can co to respect in the future would be the Lion.”
“Him?” Val frowned. “The Emperor’s Executioner?”
“Yes,” I snorted. “We’ll see I guess. All I have to go off of is hearsay, but if he is like I heard … we’ll see.”
“Two Primarchs,” he said, rubbing his chin. “I suppose it fits. The type of people their empire produces in this day and age leaves so things to be desired.”
I didn’t grace him with an answer. It was the truth, at least from our point of view. We were aliens, Xeno ‘scum’ and runaway enslaved bio-weapons. The last one was just , but I doubted most in the Imperium cared.
Hell, if it was before Guilliman took the reins, the High Lords would have sent half a dozen Inquisitors after my ass, coupled with a slew of assassins and maybe even an entire fucking Astartes Chapter. Well, that was if the Shadowkeepers bothered to enlighten them about it.
Oh, right? That dipshit got away … though I am 99% sure he died after. Still, they surely knew where he was and that the only reason he could have ended up dead was that he found .
Not that it would be all too hard to guess. If they knew he died of Baal, figuring out a strange woman was also on Baal just that ti. If they get every classified information, they’d even know about how the Shadowkeeper tried to kill and how Octavian ca all too late to save .
I don’t know when or how those fucks are going to approach this. I’m sure they are far too butthurt about my entire existence to just let go. I’ll have to expect a new Shadowkeeper once I settle down for a bit.
But I would be ready for them. They’d expect a single woman running for her life, but they would find an army. An army, the likes of which this galaxy’s never seen before.
“Thank you, Mistress,” Val said, falling into a bow which made snap my focus back onto him. “For entertaining my inquiries. I hope to be a better servant by keeping these clarifications in mind going forward.”
“It’s fine.” I waved him off. “Asking and making sothing clear is better than you working off of misconceptions and misunderstandings. Like that Fae girl, I’m going to have to do sothing about her.”
“Is she a bother?” he asked, interrupting my musings. Fae. What to do about little Fae?
“Bother?” I shrugged. “No. Not yet. Neither do I care about what beliefs she holds about , but I don’t want her to spread those beliefs. I can handle a believer, but not an evangelist.”
“Does it not empower you?” he asked evenly. “The power of fate is said to be the mightiest force in existence.”
“I’ve been lucky enough up until now to hardly have any downsides to my powers,” I said. “Gorging myself on fate would be a step too far. That is a power that is just as much of a burden and a shackle as it is a ‘mighty force’.”
“Is it?” he asked.
“What do you think happens when billions believe sothing to be true about you?” I asked. “What if they are all wrong? To the last one. But they all believe it, they are certain, and believe it down in their souls.”
“Ah,” he opened his mouth, then snapped it close as he just walked next to in silence for a minute. “I see. It wouldn’t be feasible to control the beliefs of billions. It could change you in ways no one could predict.”
“That is what I think at least,” I shrugged. “And I’m powerful enough already to not have to risk it. I’m not power-hungry enough to give up my self. I’d rather die.”
Val shuddered next to and I noticed so soul-energy seeped into my voice, an intense mixture drenched in my emotions. For a mont there, Val felt my raw fear and loathing for the notion of giving up the sanctity of my sense of self for power.
He bowed his head silently.
“I’ll ensure such a thing never cos to be Mistress. I swear it on my soul.”
I inclined my head in acknowledgent. He blinked away a mont after and I was left alone in the cold, dark hallways with my still simring emotions. I let out a snort. All that talk about self-control, and I let my emotions take the wheels again.
My fist itched to smash into sothing. To break sothing.
“I’m not a child,” I murmured, my fist trembling as bio-energy coursed through my veins thicker than blood. “I’m not going to throw a tantrum. I. Am. Not. Deep breaths.”
“Why not let go?” Selene’s voice whispered and I snapped my head up. There she stood, kneeling before and looking into my eyes with those enchanting silver eyes of hers. “Why do you hold yourself back? Why cling to this … facade of humanity?”
“You could be so much more, if you just beca what you were ant to be. If you just accepted what you were and gave up on this silly obsession with remaining ‘human’.”
My heart was thundering in my chest as a gulp of air got stuck in my throat. I stared at her. Uncomprehending, for a single horrifying mont. I doubted her for that single mont. Why?
Why would she tell that? Why? Why … No.
“Who are you?” I asked, trembling in fury as livid arcs of power jumped over my skin. “And what have you done to Selene?”
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