Chapter Text
Drukhari were not prone to sickness. That sort of weakness was something relegated to the mon-keigh and other lower beings. As such, he gave it little thought when the tightness began in his chest, brushing it off as unimportant. The side effects of some chemical or venom, or perhaps the side effects of his own bloodlust and desire for battle. But the tightness persisted, and he began to see it as something of a novelty. A unique flavor of pain he'd not had the pleasure of encountering before.
Similarly, the coughing didn’t concern him that much. It was small at first, one every once in a while, easy to ignore. But it grew worse by the day, until he was wracked by fits of coughing that actually made crew members stop and stare until he collected himself enough to snarl at them.
He didn’t enjoy the coughing nearly as much as he did the pressure around his chest.
The first time he coughed up a petal was on the lower deck, in his hunting ground. He’d been overtaken by a coughing fit, his hand pressed over his mouth. When he lowered his head, there had been a wet orange petal on his palm. Long and slender, thicker than expected for something he had just coughed up. He grimaced at the bright petal, shook it off his hand, and put it out of his mind.
It happened a few more times. The fleshy orange petals, and some thin, small purple petals. As he was heading across the bridge one day, he began coughing again. He tasted something earthy and heady, and when he pulled his hand back, his palm was covered in many tiny white flowers.
Idira had stopped to watch when she saw him coughing. A huff left her lips and she shook her head slightly. “Oh, you poor bastard.”
His head snapped toward her, his eyes narrowing. “What do you know?” he growled, his voice rougher than usual.
Idira laughed, the sound almost humorless. “What, stickbug? Never heard of hanahak diseasei before?”
“Some sort of mon-keigh illness? Why would I care about that?” he scoffed.
She pointed at the flowers still clinging wetly to his palm.
Marazhai growled. “Fine, human. What do you know of it?”
The smile she gave him was equal parts pity and irony. “It’s also called love sickness. The warp plants flowers in your lungs and they feed off your feelings for someone else. Romantic feelings.”
Again, Marazhai scoffed loudly. “How ridiculous.”
“Ridiculous or not, you’ve got them. They’re growing in your lungs right now. And soon enough, they’ll kill you.”
For the first time, Marazhai looked like he was giving her his full attention, his gaze intense and heavy on her, even though he said nothing.
“Oh yes, it will kill you if you don’t do something,” Idira went on.
“How?”
Of course, he didn’t want to die. It was the only thing that frightened him properly.
Idira smiled again, that pitying smile he wanted to tear from her face. “There’s only two cures - one, for the person you love to love you back, or, two, for a surgeon who specialized in it to remove the plants, roots and all, from your body. But if they do, you’ll never feel anything for that person again. Not love, not hate, nothing. Just apathy.”
Apathy. Indifference. For someone of a race that felt so keenly, who lived for sensation and emotion, that very idea was horrifying.
Unfortunately, he knew who these emotions were for. He would never have considered it romantic, but it did border on obsession. An obsession for her.
Meliana von Valancius.
His obsession with her began long ago, the first time he saw her on Grantis. Never would he have thought it would create an issue like this.
He looked down at the flowers on his palm and snarled. His hand closed into a fist, crushing the delicate white petals. He stalked off the bridge. He needed time to think. To decide what he was going to do about this.
Bringing it to Meliana should have been out of the question, but he also did not want to die, obviously. But total apathy…
It wasn’t long after his conversation with Idira that the petals began to accompany blood with his coughing. He didn’t have much longer to debate about his course of actions.
Romance had very little place among the Drukhari. Not as humans saw it, at least. The thought of placing himself in that sort of relationship with a human was… unthinkable. Absolutely and utterly unthinkable. He would fade away in that sort of relationship. He was a Drukhari, trying to fit himself into a human mold would kill him just as surely as any of the flowers currently growing in his lungs.
As loath as he was to cut off his emotions in any regards, especially if it was going to prevent him from having any feelings toward Meliana, he truly saw little other recourse.
The flowers had to be removed.
He would have gone to a haemonculus were he still in Commorragh. But he had no such luxury. Instead, he was forced to lower himself to ask Idira once more for assistance. She took him to a sawbones in the lower deck. He made it very clear that the man's life was on the line if he didn't remove all of the flowers.
He also made sure the man didn't bother using anesthesia on him.
Marazhai's coughing and the tightness in his chest was gone following the surgery, but he had to be certain.
He strode onto the bridge, head high as if he owned the place, coming to a stop mere feet away from where Meliana was bent over the navigation map with her Seneschal. She turned dark brown eyes to him, her face bathed in the green glow of the holo projector and he felt…
Nothing. He felt nothing at all. She was no more compelling to him than a stone wall.
“Yes, Marazhai?” She asked.
There was a distant sort of disappointment that all his rage and desire were gone. At least now he could be sure he would live.
“Nothing, Rogue Trader,” he said. He turned and stalked off, leaving a very confused woman behind him.
-Morning glory: Love in vain
-Orange lily: desire, passion, hatred
-Corriander: lust