Chapter Text
The days never seem long enough for the pups.
Leman had spent his day with his brothers and sisters, cousins, friends, and so many more. All the pups of the tribe of Ásynja had played by the river that day, and they were exhausted. But the time of change was coming, and as such, Leman's Mother had called upon them to huddle in their deepest, most secret den.
There, his childish fingers clasping the fur of Greki, he sat down, confused as to what the matriarch was about to tell them.
She was a proud she-wolf, and wiser than most. Her inquisitive blue eyes observed the pups assembled in front of her, trying not to let her gaze stop on the human form of Leman. Her adopted child. Her human-pup.
It was more than time for them to know.
"Littles ones." She growled, in a language that no human would have understood, but who would forever be as poetic to Leman's ears as any of the High Gothic chants he would hear later in life. "It is time for you all to hear our story. The story. Of our people, of our world, and how it will all end."
"Today." She said, her profound gaze burning itself deep in Leman's memory. "You shall all learn of Ragnarøkkr."
—
Hope.
Hope is a strange, fickle thing. It could be extinguished like a candle, or it could lay dormant for many years, deeply hidden like embers in the ground.
Leman had not felt that precious spark of hope in a very, very long time.
He was… well. Did it even matter, where he was? Somewhere in the eye of terror. A world, an actual physical planet, orbiting a dying star. Even at mid day, the sky had a sickly red hue, as if bleeding out, begging for the final blow that would finally end his misery. He had started a fire, a mechanical ritual now, a parody of normality.
He related way too much to the sky.
He was… Old.
By the ice of Fenris, he felt so old.
He had no idea that creature of flesh and blood, like him, could reach such age. Ten millennia. Ten millennia of fighting, searching, seaking answers. Had it not been for his perfect memory, the happiness of his life early life would have been nothing but one of the thin filament of smoke trailing up from his anemic fire, spiraling up in the air and getting lost in that violent sky. He was scared. He was weary up to his bones, his joint starting to become painful from the torment of age.
He bowed his head. To the side, he saw his loose ponytail trail down.
Pure white.
His hair had been blond… A long time ago. When did that change? When did he go from a deep blond, to a pure white?
He had to huff a laugh, as the amusing idea that he now looked more like his father (his first one, his real one, who had snowy fur and a soothing growl) than he had ever before.
It felt fitting, that his body was slowly breaking down, just as the galaxy was. Ripped in two. A gigantic wound, at the heart of it. And that was just one of the many problems now ravaging the place he had once been calling home. Tyranid were devouring worlds. Orks were rising up. Necrons, awakening. The force of chaos were stronger than ever, and to face them, a crumbling empire, an horrific theocracy, build on a throne of lie and mistakes.
They had abandoned humanity, and now had to deal with the consequences.
But even as the darkest of twilight was going down, as the deepest, most painful night of humanity was knocking down their door… There was still hope.
Perhaps more hope than he had felt since before the heresy.
The night was falling fast. Abnormally so. It wasn't that unusual, in the warp. Time was a strange thing, and there were quite a few of it's denizens that could do horrific manipulation. Wearily, without hurry, he stood up, and grabbed his old frostblade. Mjalnar wasn't as sharp anymore, and clearly showed it's age as surely as Leman did, but the blade stayed loyal and true.
The shadow seemed to concentrate in front of him, almost absorbing the light of his fire. He stood, silent, as a great figure slowly started to form itself, tendril of darkness twisting and pulsing. It reeked of magic, of Tzeetchian magic, and he felt his hand tighten on his sword grip. Because, under the stench, there was another smell, an old one he had almost forgotten in their millenia appart. One of feather, oil, leather and lie.
"... You haven't changed much, sister ." He said, a hint of joy still piercing through his voice.
Emerging from the shadow, came a figure puppeteering a familiar form. He could recognise the the size, the shape, the bone structure. The clothes were new, but still quite familiar to what he had seen on her thin form before. Her hair were shorter, not even touching her shoulder, but he could swore that they seemed as soft as they had been, in his memory. In spite of all that, there was a tightness to her, a way as it seemed like she was bursting at the seams, filled with magic and darkness and angry screams. She felt like any other creature of the warp, like so many he had met and slain before.
But her eyes….
As he stared down into the inky darkness of Corvus Corax eyes, he could still feel the sister he had loved so long ago, still alive in this drowning black pit.
He smiled. She did the same.
They sat down, both of their bodies on opposite side of the small fire.
He had food. Not much, not enough to share, and yet he still handed half to her. She took it in hands that were now ending in dark talons. A longue prehensile black tongue came from her open mouth, wrapped around the morsel, and went back into her head.
He was pretty sure he saw eyes on it.
"Do you even need to eat anymore?" He asked aloud. She blinked, from a pair of sideways eyelids.
"Not really." Her voice sounded like five mouths, all speaking at once, and as if one of said mouth was actually an angry owl. "I mostly absorb warp being nowadays. Lesser daemons and the like… they keep me strong."
Leman raised an eyebrow, and did an exaggerated double take toward what he was pretty sure was some kind of scorpion tail. "... I see that this has been working well for you." He said, voice sarcastic.
The tail flicked toward him, and he suddenly got himself a mouthful of feather.
"You are one to speak, old man. How is that back of yours?" She replied, her voice still so incredibly odd.
He huffed, pushing her deceptively soft tail away from his mouth. He had the feeling that, had she wanted to hurt him, the appendage would have been as sharp as steel.
"Creaking. I haven't slept in a bed in… 4 millennia." He rapidly calculated. At her raised eyebrow, he added. "There was a crashed space hulk with a quite nice commander cabin. Had to give it up after some world eater decided to punch the core of the planet it was on." He wished he had been joking. Corvus nodding in understanding was quite telling on the state of the warp.
They chewed in silence some more, until he couldn't stand it anymore. He had a million questions for her! How she had survived, what she had been doing, why did she turn like that , but one was more pressing than the rest in his head.
"Why are you here, Corvus?"
She went very still, at his question. What was probably her shoulder slumped, and she leaned forward, wings appearing from the darkness that seemed to seep from her body to hug herself.
"I'm… I'm changing, Leman." She gave him a quick warning look at his opening mouth, and he closed it wisely, deciding to not point out the oblivious. "Not just because I'm made of warp energy! I have been like that for a very long time now. But recently, with the galaxy tearing itself apart… I started feeling myself falling." She ended in a whisper.
"You are becoming a daemon." It wasn't a question. It was a statement of facts, a she nodded, visibly miserable. "Wich of the power?" He asked, full of a strange, morbid curiosity.
"My guess is Tzeetch. He does seem to love birds." She said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
Her joke fell flat, as Leman's expression remained stony. Even 10 000 years later…. Jokes about the crimson king did not come to him easily.
"... I don't want to fall, Leman. I don't want to become a daemon, but everyday, I feel myself slip further. And I'm scared that one day… One day, I will stop caring. And the worst thing is!" She took a moment to laugh. It sounded like a thousand cackling magpie. "There is nothing to stop it. Nothing to reverse a fall to the dark gods. I don't… have much time left, Leman."
He felt something in his stomach drop, and the meager warmth the fire had given him was replaced by icy tendril of dread. "... You need me to kill you." He said, voice slightly choked.
Corvus smiled. She looked so human. So tired.
"No, Leman. I'm going to kill myself." She said voice even, as even more ice was encapsulating Leman's hearts. "And if my plan works… It's going to save the galaxy."
—
She held him after that, and took flight. He had no idea to where, and he was pretty sure that she broke about every law of physic and created four paradoxe, before they landed on what had to be her domaine.
It was the ruin of an old world. An imperial one that had drifted into the warp, it seemed, full of temples that were built after their disappearance, and yet were crumbling ruins. Who were they, to still stand tall long after the stone fell? It was humbling.
They walked deep into one of the complex, in a room that must had been beautiful, several lifetime ago, with high ceiling and broken stained glass window. In a corner, he could see the unmistakable shape of a nest, where his sister undoubtedly rested. But what really grabbed his attention was the large, incredibly intricate sigil, carven onto the stone floor itself. Something complex and beautiful, and definitely profane. He looked at his sister claws, pretty certain of what had created such deep grooves.
"I have worked for the longest time to get that knowledge." Mentioned corvus, running a clawed hand along the floor. "And wasn't what made me start to fall… But it certainly accelerated it. This is deep arcane knowledge, and I doubt anyone, except maybe the Trickster and Magnus himself, known of it."
Leman had to suppress a growl at the name of his old nemesis. Corvus continued, unperturbed.
"They will never perform it, because the amount of energy for this ritual is simply unthinkable. I searched for any possible way to do so, and even sacrificing an entire planet may not do the trick. The only reliable source of power that I could figure out… Would be the destruction of a primarch. Of a daemon primarch. The release of all that condensed wrap energy, channeled into one singular goal… It could give us what we want."
Leman bowed down, observing the sigil. Some of the forms seemed oddly familiar, like adapted from the sacred runes of the Fenrisian Alphabet. "And what will this ritual, that requires your death even do, sister?" He said, voice more antagonistic than he had wanted too.
She smiled at him, face devoid of humour.
"If I made this right? It's going to create a portal. A single way portal that will send exactly one person back in time. Over 10 000 years ago."
Leman froze. He held gaze with his sister, the enormity of what she just said hitting him harder than any blow he had ever received.
"... Truly?" His voice was strangled. He had to swallow down the lump in his throat, as the possibility made him dizzy. "You… You found a way to change it all? To start again?"
"I don't think it's a start over" she said, her shoulder slumping. "I think… that whoever goes back in time will be a duplicate. A paradoxe. They will exist, for as long as the world, the timeline they came from, still exist. And… When things change too much…" she trailed off. Unsure.
".... I will disappear." Completed Leman. "Corvus- you want me to? Go back in time? And change destiny, stop the dark gods from claiming our brothers? And to die while doing so?" his voice, to his great surprised, had stayed perfectly calm, as he laid down the plan his sister hatched. But to his surprised… She whipped around, something almost burning in her eyes.
"I want you to save everyone ." She said, voice as hot as the fire in her eyes and hearts. "Lorgar, Angron, Mortarion, Konrad, Horus- They all deserve a chance. They all deserve to live . And to do so happily. I want you to do that. You have to do that."
There was a convictions there. A desperate need, that Leman that he also shared, deep down.
He wanted his family, his pack , to be happy.
There was a resolve, slowly solidifying inside of him. He could do this. He… He simply had too. He could not go back to this rotting Imperium. Even if he might die, from doing his destiny.
Speaking of dying…
He walked over his sister. They had never been close. They both had other siblings that they had prefered. But now, standing at the edge of the end, they only had each other. He opened his arms, and wrapped them around his little sister, feeling her shiver against his chest almost imperceptibly.
"You don't have to do this." He said, voice gentle. "I will never think any less of you for wanting to live, Corvus." But even as he said those words, he could feel her shake her head, right against his chest.
"It has to be done. I… I don't want to fall. And there is so little of my humanity left. In fact…" she took a step back, her smile oddly wobbly. Then… she did something quite strange. She grabbed at her shoulder, at the darkness that always seemed to seep from deep within herself nowadays, and… pulled.
She stood there, her hands in front of her, and holding- holding a bundle of fabric, toward Leman. Hesitantly, he took it, surprised to find it so warm and soft. He let it dangle from his finger…. Before finally realising that it was a cape. One made of feather, as dark as night, almost alive under his hands.
"My last shard of Humanity" said Corvus. Her voice was even more distorted now, and it looked like ink was spilling from her shoulder, dripping onto the floor. It took a moment for Leman to understood what she meant, that she had tore apart a piece of her own soul , to give it to Leman. "I think it contains my power to hide. It should… be quite useful to you. As you hide amongst humans."
This was happening.
He felt something get tight in his throat, as Corvus presence was spilling onto the floor, faster and faster, slowly expanding across the room, as a multitude of eyes were starting to compose. The inky blackness, all staring at him. She had to be fast now, to still act while she was decided. Before the corruption completely took over.
Leman wrapped the cape around his shoulders, finding it as gentle as a hug. He stared ahead, at his sister, and let words that should have been said long ago comes out. "I love you." He said, almost impressed by his own sincerity. "I love you so much, Corvus. My only sister. I'm sorry that I was not there for you. That I could not stop your fall." He felt a tear fall along his cheek. There was no shame in a man crying for the death of his little sister.
Her face, rapidly mutating, still smiled with the lips he remembered. Her being was now all around him, and yet, he didn't feel any fear. Not with the warm love of his sister wrapped around his shoulder, a reminder of her affection and trust. A symbol of hope.
"Remember" her voice was Multitude, an echo that resonated everywhere and nowhere all at once. "You have to save everyone. "
And on those last word, the earth started to glow.
And the fabric of time itself was unraveled.