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The first thing Heinrix senses about Lady von Valancius upon boarding their shuttle is that her temperature is abnormal– high enough that she fans her shirt as they travel, and a thin sheen of sweat adorns her brow.
He had seen enough to know it was a common sight among habitual stimulant users who made an error with their dosage; take too little, and your reward is a light, fitful sleep. Take too much, and your heart would pound so hard in its chest that even sitting for a short trip feels like an assault course– with it, increased temperature. Of course, an amateur would simply overdose on the spot. An expert endures.
Endures, but doesn’t necessarily derive any enjoyment. Today’s court of order involved a light trip into some very specific hell of human-making, followed by hours of intelligence and logistical reports from his cabin. Objectively, it was quite a shame, as the settlement they were set to arrive in was supposedly rather pastoral in its beauty; full of strange, docile beasts that chittered and grazed lazily amongst your feet across dunes of green painted in swathes of pink, blue and other colours he could only recall from his slowly dissipating recollections of Guisorn III. Sun-laced fingers of gold replaced by the slurry of frontier worlds and monotony of metal walls in increments, his mother’s warm touch slipping away under slick blood that covered the Inquisitorial Rosette.
And we will sit upon the Rocks,
Seeing the Shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow Rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing Madrigals.
Little bits and pieces clung on when his mind was clear. Times where she would comb his hair and read him verses on the beauty of the world he would be raised to protect… it didn’t hurt anymore, of course, and he had set out to protect her stars in ways that she never could have wanted or anticipated. Yet of his few belongings, Emmelina’s memory was not one– years of service ticked into decades, and he was forced to take more enjoyment in Cassia’s wide eyed wonder than his own unreliable memory.
Hara, conversely, seemed to see wonder in nothing at all. They were mere minutes away from landfall, and she had scarcely bothered to check what planet they were landing on.
“Rogue Trader?” He calls, casually.
Nothing.
“Hara?”
Heinrix pointedly ignores the virulent gaze of Seneschal Werserian over his shoulder when he addresses the Lord Captain by name. It wasn’t worth the fight; he was a formidable man in the same way a wall of rockrete may crush one's head if thrown against it.
“Hm. Yeah?” She mutters in between dragging the same ship design back and forth on her dataslate, carried by fingers that twitch just subtly enough only one looking for it would notice.
The way he laces his own fingers together is unnecessary in light of the fact she is paying no attention to her retinue whatsoever, but the motion comes almost by instinct “I’ve been thinking of adding a personal touch to my cabin wall. May I take ownership of the Warrant of Trade?”
“Sure.”
“Lord Captain!” Her Seneschal transitions between an amusing shade of red and stark white.
“What?” Before the schematics can complete their 20th anniversary tour around her screen, Hara looks up with a sudden cold shock of clarity “What?!”
“You have just relinquished your Writ of Trade to me.” He doesn’t sound smug. Not really.
Hara cuts a startled glance to Abelard, who nods with all the grave authority of a Rogue Trader’s right hand.
“He’s earned it fair and square, then. Does he give us orders now?”
“No.” Abelard replies with stern incredulity, as much as- Heinrix suspects- the last couple of months might have goaded him to say the opposite.
Face a perfect pict of mock remorse, she performs a noncommittal shrug and returns to her dataslate– the matter was already forgotten, as far as she seemed to be concerned. He could hardly claim to be surprised or necessarily disappointed, as narcotics were as common as alcohol in some circles. Not at all common on his own home planet, but he had spent long marches from regiment to regiment administering a stern healing hand to men and women who had seen the worst of humanity’s foes in the flesh, and saw the comforts they took when they could. Van Calox stayed far away from anything of the sort other than a too-strong drink when time allowed, but stress could drive the troubled mind to desperate, strange places… indeed, an Interrogator knew this better than any man in the Expanse.
A wise Interrogator, of course, would most likely leave the matter well alone. There was very little chance a low grade fever could overwhelm a woman of her grox-like constitution, and he was very much secure in the impression this was not her first time making a mistake. Yet… Heinrix racks his brain for an approach that does not embarrass anyone overmuch. The whole thing is an open secret- as much as the upper deck plugs their ears and pretends it isn’t so- but that doesn’t mean he needs to make this difficult. A quick venture against the boundaries of the Immaterium, and she would feel considerably healthier.
Considerably. They would all be better served by a Rogue Trader who was in good health, for once.
“In all seriousness, there is one matter.” He states before an imperious wave of his arm “I must requisition a few moments of your time when we land.”
“‘Requisition’? Blimey. No need to make it sound like I’m off to the slammer.”
If any more of Seneschal Wesarian’s blood pools in his face, he may well pass out. This woman was making an unintentional mockery of him and his hard work.
“No one is going to the ‘slammer’, Rogue Trader. It is just a conversation not intended for other ears.” Heinrix’s response carries all the weight of the Rosette, wielded as a silent hammer that quells further resistance.
Hara, to her credit, confirms she hears and understands via a languid nod. Her dataslate moves somewhere out of sight so their journey can be finished with her full attention.
“Master Haneumann? What colloquialism does ‘the slammer’ refer to?” A small voice whispers somewhere to his right. Cassia- as she always is when Hara enters a room- had been astoundingly quiet thus far.
Pasqal, shocked by the intrusion, appears to jolt out of whatever deep trance he had been in throughout the throes of their trip. His vox crackles in thought, but offers nothing until-
“It’s where we put Navigators who drive our ship into the middle of a pirate fleet.” Hara interjects with a wry glance, but any additions seem to die on the spot when she sees the look on Cassia’s face “We’re uh- we’re not putting you in jail. Ma’am.”
“Helmsman Ravor is the unit who coordinates your flagship’s physical movement, your Ladyship.” Pasqal counters. Heinrix has no doubt some form of penal servitorisation will be suggested as an appropriate course of action soon after.
“Right.” Hara’s feverish bewilderment at just how far the joke has missed its mark does nothing to discourage her Engiseer, who watches on in complete, self-satisfied objectivity “I suggest the fellow who pointed out who’s t’blame should also take responsibility for the arrest.”
A tense, mysterious stand off befalls the two of them. She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand.
“... Request denied.”
“As I have clearly stated, no one has done anything that would warrant a custodial sentence.” Yet, but he chooses to omit that part.
Right on cue, Abelard clears his throat “As if you would have the authority to render one whilst under the Rogue Trader’s com-”
“Be nice to each other. We’re here.”
As if in recognition of their mistress’ sovereignty, the von Valancius shuttle lets out an almighty groan that indicates it has made planetside contact. Shortly after, heavy footfall envelopes both sides of where they are seated until it coalesces into a unified force in front of the exit.
The door opens and reveals a land that -as the picts suggested- is the work of artists. Today a thick blanket of morning fog covers flowers he has no name for yet, dotted around like little stars across a tapestry of jewell-green no image could do justice. As there is no human-made construction in sight, their landing zone is flat and open. It gives him a clear line of sight to his left where distant shadows of forest arms climb up, up, up as if reaching towards a pale sky that has no end. In the old tales of Holy Terra, fathers would take their sons down to the babbling brooks of places like this and teach them how to live off the land without doing it harm.
Whatever he sees here, Cassia seems to agree, and her quiet gasp breaks whatever wistfulness has besieged him. It is a reminder to attend to reality; somewhere here, the enemies of humanity weaved their foul web amongst His most serene gardens. Someone had to do it– best it be the psyker who had already seen more than enough.
“Alright, you lot. Make yourselves useful-like round the perimeter, and I’ll wander back over after my performance review.” Hara sends them off with a casual salute, and van Calox follows up in kind with his own polite, assertive gesture of dismissal.
Once their retinue is well out of sight (Abelard leads Lady Orsellio down a desire path by her white, clawed hand with Pasqal gloomily treading grass behind) the two of them roam somewhere well towards the trees he had spotted until crisp, chill air floods both of their lungs. Before he can make some genteel comment about the scenery, a quiet click indicates Hara has begun smoking at his side.
“Right.” She cracks her back, then watches with eyes that dart to nowhere in particular “You’ve got me to yourself. What have I done?”
“It’s… nothing like that.” He needs to offer carefully. Correct. Official.
She leans in conspiratorially, then hovers just close enough that he can feel faint, warm breath on his cheek. She exhales a thick cloud of smoke away from his face– because she always blows it away, and always to her left. It was one of the first things he had noticed about her, oddly “You gonna kindly tell me what it is, then?”
Marked by a sombre pang in his stomach, Heinrix realises that he can count the number of times she has willingly stood this close on one hand. It’s strange, for a woman who by most accounts barely left Sibellus and its outlying stations; Hivers tended to pile on top of each other by instinct. Yet from what he observed, she doesn’t like to be near anyone very much. Regardless, he bends in no further, nor does he back down in the face of her proximity.
“I simply have some concerns I wished to voice to you privately, Rogue Trader.”
“So it is something.” Hara’s mouth draws into a tight line, emphasised by some faint grinding noise within her jaw implant. Her lho-stick burns ever closer to the filter.
“Yes. Perhaps. If it were anything serious, though, we would not be having a conversation in the shadow of your own shuttle.”
On command, her gaze strays to blue metal that towers in the distance. She pulls away, face drawn, but forces herself to focus on him “Alright?”
“It really isn’t anything bad.” He tries to mollify her with a restrained nod, but he isn’t sure how effective it is. “I just couldn’t help but notice you don’t look very well.”
For just a moment, a mien akin to a cornered hound burns in her eyes. Vicious, desperate and a moment of Throne-damned weakness conjures an image of his great-aunt’s grink just seconds before it bites him. At the same time he is able to banish the accursed thing, whatever animal fear was there drains from her expression.
“That ain’t a very nice thing to say to someone.” Hara sighs with smile, but it doesn’t quite manage to move past the bottom half of her face. She dabs at her forehead with the back of her sleeve.
As these things often go, his attempts to strike a genuine accord with her had fallen flat. He had filed away the means to make real connections somewhere alongside his recollection of how the first harvests of Guisorn III had tasted– an acceptable sacrifice so far gone he understood it was likely lost forever. He knows that she won't admit to taking anything, even though she cannot hide a damn thing from a trained biomancer. All he can do is offer.
“Rogue Trader, if I may…” In one smooth motion, he removes his right glove and raises his bare hand until it is level with his shoulder.
“Dunno.” She stares, blithe indifference writ large “May you?”
Heinrix gives her plenty of time to utilise those suffering but still lightning-quick reflexes and slap him away if she so desires, but Hara simply watches to see what will happen with the morose resignation of a woman at the gallows. Making a physical gesture of it is entirely unnecessary, of course, but just as he had learned how to put fear in the heart of man, he had learned how to put them at ease– however infrequently the latter worked.
The way she fought her instinct to flinch wasn’t her fault. The average Imperium citizen was raised on a diet of necessary intolerance; better to lose one child to superstition than one village to a loose psyker, as his old Commissar would say. They liked things that could be seen and understood. She had tried rather admirably to hide any trepidation around his psykana behind a veneer of amiable stoicism, but it was as clear as whatever sickness followed her into the Electrodynamic Cenobium that she was afraid. Afraid of his curse, and afraid that he knew something he hadn’t been able to put his finger on yet.
Some fell spectre dogged her footsteps, pulling her further into despair, and it was his job to discover whether she would drag the entire Expanse down with her.
A cold hand rests on her forehead.
“You’re running a wicked fever.”
“I am– didn’t sleep well.” She doesn’t even try to lie, so much as blatantly neglects to mention any pertinent details. All skills diverted towards her sharp mind have evidently been borrowed from her ability to play the game.
Playing the game… her canny senses no doubt spoke of danger, but if she wanted to weather whatever storm Kunrad had summoned she would need to learn far quicker than anyone could reasonably expect. Nothing Achilleas had managed to slip past the vox master’s watchful eyes and ears carried good tidings; the nobles of Dargonus smelled blood, and more than that saw a lowlife criminal who filled Lady Theodora’s throne so conveniently after her sudden demise.
Yet, how was he supposed to warn her with one of his agent’s words? If she knows how much he knows about a place he hasn’t even set foot on yet, the entire house of cards collapses around them. She is exhausted, not dense; it would take her only a moment to comprehend just how deep the Inquisition's talons are in her newly inherited dynasty. Trapped behind a pane of stained glass, he couldn’t warn her of the oncoming menace, and couldn’t even stop her substituting sleep with a constant stream of chemicals. One of the most powerful men in the Expanse, completely powerless to help her in any way that mattered.
Heinrix pulls himself from his ruminations, then realises with dawning horror that the length of time it is socially acceptable to keep your palm upon another’s forehead has long since passed. Two figures stare at each other in rigid silence, one with a smoke long burned down.
“What are you doin’, exactly?” She asks without a hint of derision. The mind will try to fill in space when presented with silence– it is one of the first lessons that comes to mind, and so he instinctively fights against her quiet interest in order not to say something he shouldn’t. Eyes trained on him in search of something he isn’t able to make sense of, Hara flicks her lho-stuck butt aside and places a cautious hand over his own. She makes no further move after, and takes him in for a minute.
“I’m measuring your vitals.” He responds eventually, with a mouth full of lead.
“Right.” She murmurs, and looks past his shoulder “Is it terminal?”
“It’s–” He can only imagine how ridiculous this must look to an outside party. Abelard is hopefully somewhere far away, trying to burn a hole into the ground with his boots. “It’s not the worst prognosis.”
They both laugh, but there’s very little humour in it. Despite himself, he can’t help but make a note of the pleasant contrast between the warmth of her skin and the chill of her augmetics in the morning air.
“I could help you.”
It comes out almost uninvited, and so much more desperate than it was meant to be. He wants to. He knows that he shouldn’t delve much deeper than propriety demands, but sometimes he thinks such crude, uncharitable thoughts about her; his hand threatens to stray from the safety of her upper face to somewhere dangerous. The Rogue Trader is the unflappable owner of a hopeless allure, and sometimes she stands still long enough that he can delude himself into believing she thinks these thoughts as well. Delude himself.
More than that, she was a woman in her mid-thirties- shaped by a world inconceivably senseless to anyone outside of it- and had clawed her way out of the dark long before she ever needed his ‘protection’. Yet, he also can’t help but feel she must have been different, once. Young and excited, like he had been.
“Aye. Maybe you could.” She replies enigmatically.
He wished he could have seen it.
“... But you would rather I didn’t.”
“I’d rather you didn’t”
“I think… I think you will regret it if you don’t allow me to.” He enunciates the last half, well aware of the muddy water he strides within. They had strayed somewhere well past the topic of a common fever as he tried to dig under her skin (so much more kindly than how he has been taught).
For the first time since they alighted the shuttle, Hara’s tired smile widens and reaches her eyes– they are two deep, dark pits of tar that promise a stupor softer than any bed in the world. With a gentle hand, she finally tightens her grip around his own and lowers it back down to his side–
Go on then, she seems to dare him. What could one man possibly do?
“Heinrix. My mam always said if you worry too much, you’ll make yourself sick.”
If the Expanse didn’t destroy her, she would find a way to die all on her own. The last thing Heinrix senses about Lady von Valancius is what her calloused fingers feel like against his.