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Sooner or later, Astra's dreams melt into a blood-red haze of distorted, screaming faces. As usual. She does not remember — it hurts to remember, like that thing at the back of her mind is digging its long serrated claws deep into throbbing, inflamed brain matter — the last time her dreams ended in any other way. On any, even remotely, better note.
She did use to get nightmares before, certainly. But just a scant handful of them. Mostly the twisted imprints of the things she'd occasionally glimpse in the Warp on her geology survey voyages towards new worlds, along half-forgotten Warp routes. And, of course, the echoes of muffled screams, of strangled breaths, of gunfire in her bleeding ears — reminders of what she endured when she was captured by pirates and set loose on a "hunting reserve" where Voidborn like her were the game.
Now, that is long in the past. And just as Drusus' Blessing — her research vessel, her home — is a tiny speck of rust next to the hulking hive-world mass of Theodora's Fatum Audacium, so do the flashes from her other life seem an oasis of blissful serenity, compared to the visions that started haunting Astra when she got saddled with this damned new ship.
To think. All of this happened because of one bloody person. Her mother, she supposes. Though she never was that to her. She was just some nameless noblewoman who'd browbeaten and bribed and bawled her way aboard the Blessing, despite the ship being in no way suited to entertain a highborn guest, let alone one heavy with child.
All she ever did for Astra was push her out — a squirming, malformed little freak — into the embrace of the Void, for the crew to care for (if they deigned not to toss her out the airlock), before hopping off in the nearest spaceport, never to be seen again.
And Astra would have been content for their connection to begin and end right there. She would have gladly kept on living her life with no other mother than the Blessing herself — and her Navigator. The latter was, after all, the one who cradled Astra in her scaly arms and promised to raise her against all odds. Mutant to mutant.
But no. Oh no. The Throne granted her no such luck.
Turns out the mysterious woman was, in some shape or form, a von Valancius. Not Theodora herself, that much Astra knows. But maybe niece of hers. A cousin. Twice, thrice, twelve times removed. Who knows. Who cares.
Either way, the little freak she birthed and abandoned is now a grown freak. A sallow, lanky, nigh-hairless thing. With perpetual bruises under her uncannily pale eyes. With oddly shaped ears that have led some people — those unused to creepy crawlies like her, not like her crew was — to gossip that she's part-xenos. And with an inheritance that gives her nightmares.
This time, she dreams of Rykad Minoris.
First, her head pounds and her throat contracts under the onslaught of little horrors. Like memories of the blasted finery that the governor's Master of Ceremonies shoved her into, for her pointless "triumph". Yes, that also counts as nightmare fuel.
The impossibly tall, bullet-shaped powdered wig gripped her forehead like an unrelenting vice... Wouldn't it have been a sight if her skull burst, brain matter raining on the waiting commoners instead of a promised bounty of gifts, and the posthumous rumor about her being a psyker was added to a list of everything else freakish about her.
And the dress, that layered cake of blinding gold and outrageous magenta, had clearly been snatched from the wardrobe of some refined, shapely lady dancing her days and nights away on a sun-kissed garden planet. It hung off Astra's gangly form like off a garden rake. Too broad and flappy where a healthy human, untouched by the poison of the Void, should have had curves; and painfully tight round her soldier's shoulders. The fabric's texture drove her to agony: a myriad mini cannon blasts of formic acid injected into her skin non-stop by an army of invisible, but very angry ants. The underwires, meant to accentuate a statuesque bosom, stabbed her with each attempt to play the benevolent Rogue Trader and wave to the crowd. And every other ill-fitting bit chafed her to a bloody pulp. And worse of all, the rectangular skirt — so unwieldy that she never would have clambered onto her chariot tank without Abelard's help — slowed her down when something rippled over the body of her conquered enemy, and the people, the very people whom she was supposed to protect, began to scream.
After the little horrors, comes the planet's fall. The collapse of the entire system. She barely finishes mindlessly writhing and clawing at herself in her sleep, trying to pull down the biting fabric that is not there anymore, when an overwhelming inky wave rolls over the skies in her memories. The darkness, once again, envelops everything: deep, cold, blank and lifeless, so unlike the familiar glimmering calm of her beloved outer space.
She dreams of the collapsing sun, and the swirls of dizzying purple, clinging like pus-filled sores to the streets of the city that had barely begun to heal.
She dreams of wailing smoky shades phasing in and out of reality, the boundaries of Realspace becoming as blotchy as broken pixels on a possessed cogitator's screen.
She dreams of cultists, springing up again and again like black mold, no matter how much she scrubbed the planet clean. Of their sightless faces, all turned towards her, leering. Of hollow cheeks, burrowed by lumpy trails of crusted black tar: the last remnants of their liquefied eyes... Like a perversion of the weeping saint statues.
She dreams of Chaos Spawn, sickening blocks of misshapen mass lumbering about, hungry eyes blinking from crudely hewn shoulders, multiple mouths opening and shutting across swollen stomachs, on top of bulbous neck stumps, in the palms of grasping hands. Snatching, ripping, chewing, gargling on thick jets of crimson that dripped down on the flopping, heaving, still living torsos whose arms and legs they were gnawing down to the bone.
She dreams of them, on, and on, and on. By the Throne, there were so many of those things. Far more than she had ever seen in one place. She relives the sight of them cleaving glistening, squelching paths through the swaying wheat field of terrified townsfolk... She walked across a wheat field once, on a faraway world where her ship stopped for supplies; the crowd parted exactly as the plant stalks did in her wake. Fragile, brittle, so easy to mangle and spit out in bloodied flour.
She should have paid them more heed. She may be rubbing shoulders with the high and mighty now — awkward shoulders, unfit for finery — but she remembers what it was like, to be small and forgotten. And to find company among those as small and forgotten as herself. The Blessing's Navigator. And the simple, common voidsmen. Kin not through blood, but through one simple act. They found the best blanket to wrap around the tiny, wrinkly greyish-white void rat, because she always felt so cold... And since the moment she could form a coherent thought, the rat resolved to return their kindness. She stayed true to her resolve all the way, as she clung to life with all her might, and dug and dug her way up the ranks — so much easier to do on a ship where the upper and lower decks are not each the size of several cities — and eventually became the Blessing's captain.
As Rogue Trader, she has the power to spread that kindness — blasphemy? heresy? so be it — even further. To all common folk. Everywhere. Tenfold.
She should have done that. She should have kept them safe.
"The answer remains the same! You cannot talk to the Lord Captain! She has not yet recovered, and you will not expedite that by barging in here! Good day!"
Astra blinks off the last of her nightmare's poison fog, and lies perfectly still — eerily still, the planet folk say of her fellow Voidborn — holding her breath as she watches her surroundings take solid shape. She is back in Theodora's immense landing pad of a bed — her bed now, she supposes, but it will never be more "hers" than the good old bunk in her previous quarters, where her few belongings were allotted perfectly in their own proper places, and the scent of fresh linen was the only luxury that truly mattered.
She lifts her bleary gaze past the endless expanse of the plush red blanket. The color and the crinkled terrain make her wistfully remember a planet she'd explored — the last planet she would ever explore before Theodora tracked her down. The task was to mark it as a potential quarry world for the Imperium... Oh, how she misses researching interesting rocks.
There's a figure standing a respectful distance away from Astra's bed, back turned towards her, still observing the shuffling retreat of whoever just got admonished for disturbing the Lord Captain. Even the vague outline of that rigidly straight spine, those strong shoulders — a fair bit broader than hers, and far less sharp and angular — is enough to have her exhaling in relief. She may not always see eye to eye with her Seneschal about the things he has been stubbornly shielding her from — no, she will go down to the lower decks to hear out the protesting workers, protocol be damned! — but right now, she breathes easier, knowing that there's an unflinching sentinel on the threshold between her nightmares and the waking world.
"Abelard," she calls out faintly.
He instantly turns around, with the precision of a soldier snapping to attention.
"Lord Captain!"
There's an odd, hoarse leap in his voice. An intonation Astra never heard from him.
She wonders what color Cassia would ascribe to it. For her own part, she pictures it as a thread-thin crack running across an otherwise perfectly hewn block of granite.
His face, too, looks as if a gust of wind erosion had swept across his usual mask of polite professionalism. The shadows underneath his organic eye are nearly as deep as Astra's perpetual purple bruises, and the trim of his beard has started to lose its pristine contours to a creeping stubble. For however long Astra has slept, he must have been awake the entire time.
"You were wounded."
He has forced his voice into its usual no-nonsense tone, but his nostrils flare slightly. Is he... admonishing her? Now Astra can tell for certain that she is fully away: she can feel her windpipe narrowing. There comes that sensation, the companion of her every waking hour. A drip of icy cold that's been oozing down from each of her nerve endings like water from a stalactite, for as long as she's walked among planet folk. A suspicion that she must have done something wrong.
"And you did not tell me. You had me use the last medikit on Mistress Tlass."
Well. At least Abelard has an explanation fo her. She can count on him for that. She can count on him for... so much.
Instinctively, Astra slides her hand under the covers, searching for the gash in her side. The nasty, tattered souvenir from a Chaos Spawn claw that she had to covertly press closed for about half the final battle against Aurora's cult. Her endless dream did include some clipped, jittery visions of her own bloody palm, of her quivering fingers... But somehow, she barely remembers the pain. Adrenaline, a true blessing from the Emperor.
Now, her fingertips meet only a thin strip of scar tissue. Abelard must have taken care of it after she... after she... What was the last thing that happened to her between Rykad and here? There was the fight, the rush to the spaceport... The roaring flames, the whimpering, cowardly nobles. More and more enemies blocking their way. Idira being tossed to the ground and nearly trampled by that towering Chaos Marine —
"She needed your aid more," Astra says, staring at the sandstone crease of her blanket. For a moment, the relentless icy drip stops. No, what she did was not wrong. It was right. She knows that.
She has a keen, burning sense of what is right, running through her gut like a crystalline core. She focuses on those unseen, glinting facets, and musters her voice into a quiet firmness that Abelard once called a sign of her "admirable resolve". The memory of his face when he said that to her, in the sickly flickering light of Depot 4, makes her concentration wobble somewhat. Unbidden, blood rushes up her throat, blooming in a blueish cloud under her mother-of-pearl skin.
"I could not in good conscience let people fuss over me when we had so much to do. The cult, the evacuation, everyone screaming in my ear whose lives have more value... And the moment we made contact with Fatum, Pasqal rushed me off to do the blood ritual for calming our warp engine. Where would I find the time to — "
Oh.
Oh! That must have been when she lost consciousness. Being drained of her oh-so-sacred von Valancius blood by a cybergargoyle must have proven too much on top of concealing a wound. She certainly cannot recollect anything else afterwards.
Abelard takes a broad stride forward. Something glints in his organic eye — light reflecting off liquid.
To Astra's astonishment — and more so his own, she is sure; this is the opposite of prim officer conduct — he lowers himself to his knees by her bedside and grasps her hand over the covers.
"I found you on the floor of the bridge, Lord Captain," he says. And with each word, the crack carves deeper and deeper into the granite.
"Motionless. Unresponsive. With Master Haneumann just — just standing there! Philosophizing about how the flesh is weak."
Astra raises her silvery eyebrows the merest fraction of an inch.
It has taken a bit of practice to memorize which planet folk expressions correspond to which emotion and situation, but quietly moving her eyebrows seems appropriate here.
"That does sound like him. I trust you were not too harsh to him. I don’t think he understands how organic bodies work."
Sometimes she feels she and Pasqal have that in common.
Abelard shakes his head.
"If I am to be completely frank, Lord Captain, I, ahem — I do not remember what I said to him in that moment. That entire swathe of time is distant. Submerged. Forgive my blathering, but every movement as I carried you from the bridge felt like drowning in swamp water. I should know — I was part of Navy expeditions to several jungle planets."
Astra swallows.
Another memory stirs her blood, blush seeping through her cheeks like a bruise. Her clumsy ascent for the triumph in her cumbersome dress. And Abelard's hand, firm and supportive, on the small of her back.
"You... carried me? In your arms?"
A charge of electricity seems to run through Abelard. The impeccably competent, respectful Seneschal once more, he tries to pull his hand away — but Astra, on an inexplicable impulse, grips his fingers and leans over, her heart hammering in her chest. She did not even have to go through her mental data slate of fitting gestures!
Her gaze leaps up and down Abelard's face. It makes her uneasy, looking people directly in the eye for too long, so eventually, she focuses on the frame of his ocular implant. Even so, she catches a glimpse of his pupil widening.
"Abelard — " she begins cautiously. An odd thing to ask, under the circumstances. But it's important — to her.
"Tell me: when you found me... Did you feel frightened for the dynasty's future — because you were about to lose another Rogue Trader... Maybe the last von Valancius in the universe... Or did you worry for — "
She cuts herself off. No. She should remember her lesson, reiterated dozens and dozens and dozens of times over.
What is important to her, is never important to others. Doing what's right means different things to her and to planet folk. To normal people.
This is not her world. Not the world of orderly, comforting solitary journeys on a hunt for rocks, with a tight-knit crew that rallied under a Voidborn because she was... herself, not because of her special blood.
In this world, she will never matter. Hers is to carry the von Valancius name, to lord it over those who would have spat on her just a Terran year ago.
And his is to serve that name — the name, and nothing else.
"Astra," he whispers suddenly. In his voice, she can hear the granite shatter, revealing something new, something fragile and precious, something she would be afraid to touch with even the finest geologist tools.
Deeply, reverently, as a pilgrim in prayer, he kisses her hand. In all its clammy, cold, long-fingered awkwardness.
Her heart races, as though she were plummeting down in a broken elevator — and before her rational thoughts can catch up to speed, she gets out of bed, almost getting tangled comically in those ostentatious embroidered sheets, and kneels on the floor beside him, their heads almost level (Throne, she forgets how much smaller he is than her), their lips inches from touching.
"I... I have something to say. If you will listen."
"Of course."
She exhales, resting her hand on his shoulder. Just the way he laid his hand on hers as he healed her, during their very first meeting. That gesture holds a special place in her mental data slate.
"I never hid the fact that I am out of my depth. I don't belong on Theodora's throne. She was a gemstone, before and after death; brilliant and unbreakable. Me..."
She looks to her core again, and the facets within her suddenly lose her luster.
"I would be imitation crystal at best. Easy to pulverize. But the one thing that's kept me from shattering... Was you. Always there. Beside me. With time, you became not just a Seneschal to me, but a friend... And then — "
She bridges those inches at last, brushing her mouth against his. He does not flinch back from her. And when she smiles hesitantly at the tickle of his stubble — less of a stabbing sensation than she feared — he smiles as well.
"I am honored," he says, as he takes her hand in his again. "If you recall... That moment when we were returning from the lower decks, I was challenging your decisions, you were retorting back, insisting that your way, the new way, was right..."
He runs his thumb in circles over her palm, as if charting his own thoughts.
"I looked up at you, and it was as if for a moment, I understood how Mistress Orsellio sees the world. If I may say something foolish — your colors shined so bright, I could scarcely breathe."
He clears his throat and casts his gaze away for a moment. "It... seemed prudent to me, as an older man, as one sworn to your dynasty's service — to... to conceal my feelings, but after today, there can hardly be any turning back."
"No," she agrees, breathing the word out through half-parted lips. "Abelard, I — "
This might not be how such things go in Cassia's books, but... She's always thought it fair to clearly announce her intent.
"I would like you to kiss me."
"It would be an honor, Lord Captain."
Just like when he performs any other task for the glory of House von Valancius, Abelard gives the kiss his all.
His tongue meets Astra's, again and again, determined to drink every last drop of her. He tilts his face so that his ocular implant does not cut into her cheek, and takes great care not to disturb the tubes that keep sustaining her weakened Voidborn immune system with medicae. His other eye slips closed, under an intently furrowed brow. It is almost a pity to tear her lips from his, but the next thing Astra does is to put a bit of gentle pressure on his chest; and heeding her command, loyal as ever, he lies down underneath her. On the floor, not the bed. But then again, the bed was never truly hers.
His overcoat pools over the floor, providing them with a makeshift blanket, and her fingers, used to high-precision tasks like cutting open a geode, easily undo the buckles on his chest plate's straps. She manages to do it one-handed, even, while her free hand weaves through his hair, and her mouth travels down his throat. He grunts a most unbecoming curse under his breath, his pelvis thrusting upwards a little bit...
The vox caster at his hip crackles.
"Seneschal! I hate to ask this again, but we really need the Lord Captain at the bridge! There are some disturbing signals coming from this system! This might be a hostile force approaching!"
Both Abelard and Astra freeze, her on top of him, her thighs wrapped around his leg, a particularly voracious kiss mark darkening his throat.
She huffs a few breaths, trying to sober herself up.
"I just woke up, Vigdis!"
Not technically a lie; her stomach does not even churn the way it usually does when she's forced to bend the truth.
"I will be there in ten minutes!"
"Thank the Throne! Please hurry, Lord Captain!"
"I will handle this, Abelard, and then I will send for you. Through the Master of Ablutions," Astra says while they pull each other to their feet.
Abelard quirks an eyebrow. Yes, she knows this facial expression.
"I see, Lord Captain. Just like you did when you could not sleep, and had me lecture you on etiquette."
"I could not help it," Astra declares, frank as ever. "You have a very beautiful voice, and I find it soothing to hear you talk."
Abelard smoothes back his hair. Two spots of tenderest pink brush over his cheekbones.
"Thank you, Lord Cap.. Astra."
"I will see you soon," she says — purrs? Emperor knows she's never purred before — before planting one last swift, parting kiss at the corner of his mouth and hurrying off to the bridge.
"I will be there," he calls after her, absentmindedly massaging the kiss mark.
"Always".