Chapter Text
Mortarion was getting desperate.
Nurgle did not anger easily, but Mortarion had managed to invoke his fury. And once lost, his favor was not easy to regain.
The Pale King's punishment was severe. He had not been permitted to leave the Grandfather's house for…he knew not how long. All he remembered were shadows, darkness, the Plague Lord's rage, and pain.
Being a scion of Nurgle meant that his gifts were received with bliss. Pain was unheard of, even as flesh rotted and skin peeled. But after his failure, Mortarion's body lost the privilege of that mercy. The agony was incomprehensible.
Even now, he still hurt. His punishment was not yet over. Not as nearly as extreme as before, but he was still in some pain. Nurgle had released him in the expectation that his failure would motivate him to seek atonement through achievement. Mortarion could not afford to fail.
And yet, as he set foot on the surface of the planet, he could not shake the sinking dread that he already had.
The world of Wosan was a small, civilized Imperium world, of a tropical temperament. It was in ruins before the Death Guard even arrived.
It was an Ork WAAAGH!, judging from the senseless patterns of mindless violence. Destruction and death without rhyme or reason. There was no one left alive to deliver pestilence to, The primarch clenched his fist terrified rage. The Greenskins had robbed him of his opportunity. He was once more risking Nurgle’s ire.
A loud, high pitched sound emanated from a ruined house, one alien to his ears. Despite not knowing what it was, he knew it came from something alive, and it drew his curiosity. He turned to the Death Guard lieutenant beside him.
“Investigate it. It may be of use.” With a silent nod, the lieutenant obeyed, marching towards the wreckage, his heavy footsteps rattling the earth. The door, dangling off its hinges, was torn aside for the ease of his entry. After a moment within what remained of the house, he emerged.
“My lord, it is a mortal survivor.” Impossible, he thought. How had they escaped the carnage?
“Bring them out, then. Such a resilient being will make an excellent servant to the Grandfather.” Perhaps his journey had not been wasted after all.
“Forgive me, my lord, but I sincerely doubt that.” Mortarion let out a huff of annoyance through his mask.
“For what reason do you come to that conclusion?”
“The survivor is…small.”
“Get out of my way.” He had no time for such nonsense. He shoved past the lieutenant and into the house.
There were two corpses laid across the floor, a man and a woman, of middle wealth judging from their attire, their throats messily slit, most likely by a Gretchin. Their faces were frozen in an expression of fear. Tied to the woman’s back was a bundle of brightly colored fabric. The bundle was wriggling and making the same noises as before. A tiny face, scrunched up in displeasure, poked out from between the vibrant folds.
“An..infant?”
Mortarion had seen few children in his life. The poisons of Barbarus made reproduction hard for its human population. This infant was young, too young to even speak or walk on its own. He sighed heavily, turning his face skyward.
The only quarry I am worthy of claiming is a helpless infant. How poetic.
It would be insultingly easy to end the creature’s life. It was orphaned, it might as well be a mercy kill, a better death than slow starvation and neglect. It stopped wailing for a moment, looking up at the primarch with a whimper. It pulled its tiny arms out of the fabric and reached out at him, as if in request. The primarch had an urge to laugh out loud. The infant had asked the Death Lord, the Prince of Decay, the fountain from which all manner of disease and infection flowed, to hold it.
An utterly fearless child, he thought. It, in spite of everything, was fighting to hold on to its short, insignificant life. Killing it would not accomplish anything. Why not let the poor thing keep clinging on? A meager prize, but a prize nonetheless.
A child is useful enough, he supposed. My redemption may not come today, but it will come. And perhaps it will make a decent trinket for the Grandfather. No doubt he will find it amusing. An infant is a weak, screeching, repulsive little thing, constantly soiling itself and others, not dissimilar from a Nurgling. But how to transport it?
The virulent presence of Mortarion and the Death Guard would infect and kill any human eventually, especially one with an underdeveloped immune system. He could not touch it without killing it. There was really only one way to move it, even though the thought repulsed him. A small bubble of faint light encased the child as they, still swaddled in their green-dyed wrapping, were lifted off of their mother’s back. Mortarion despised using this ability of his, but his “father” had made him this way, after all. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t been forced to utilize it in his service to Nurgle before. The infant stopped crying, cooing and babbling in amazement as they found themself dangling in the air.
Mortarion and his legion left Wosan, with the orphaned infant in tow.