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In the putrid darkness of Commorragh, the Rogue Trader scavenged for such revolting filth! Patches of mummified human skin; shattered bones picked clean by who knows which refuse pile-dwellers — surely, there were no animals in this place. And when she was done putting together her little morbid collection, she sat — nay, slumped, with blood bubbling dark and viscous on her twitching lips again — in a corner of the shadowy xenos maze, and raised a looted knife to her open palm. Argenta's breath caught in her throat at first, when she beheld this ritualistic motion, and her hand fumbled instinctively for her flamer. But, through His Grace, her initial panic was promptly soothed. For she realized that the Rogue Trader, for all her past heretical inclinations, was merely drawing blood to serve as ink for her makeshift bone quill, with the skin serving her as a grotesque approximation of vellum.
She wrote on and on, even as tears streamed down her pale face, and more blood streamed out of her mouth and nose — clearly pushing through a wave of pain. Argenta could not but raise her hands in the sign of the Holy Aquila, praying under her breath that the Emperor steel her companion's resolve and grant her the wisdom to finish whatever message she'd set out to make.
When she was done, the Rogue Trader looked up at Argenta with red-clouded eyes, and pushed the first few words through a sickly, moist gurgle.
"I'm really feeling it, darling... The..."
Profanities fell off her lips like blood clots. Oh woe, the Emperor's Anointed was regressing to her past self — a heretical criminal with no regard for the Creed! Still, Argenta's heart clenched with sympathy.
"The fucking slimy brain worm might explode soon. Remember that... poor bastard in... in the reactor room? The pointy fuckers... forced to him to betray us... Put the same maggot in his nose... He said he could see the swamp... where he lost his son... Behind our backs... Well, I — I keep seeing the bridge... Right there behind you... Can almost touch the galaxy map..."
She reached forward weakly, grasping at nothing, and doubled over in a wheezing cough.
When it subsided, she lifted her heavy head, every inch below her Aquila mask glazing over with perspiration — and thrust the folded vellum into Argenta's hands.
"I'm done for, I think. Like he was. I... I want you to have this. If anyone makes it out of here, it's got to be you. If... When... I don't know... When I die, first. Don't kill Yrliet. She has no reason to come back to... to the ship... she won't be protected without me."
Argenta filled her lungs with Commoragh's poisoned air, pressing down the rise of bitter bile at the mention of the treacherous xenos.
"So please... Just make sure she's safe, and let her go. Take care of Pasqal; he's... not himself right now. Try to find Cassia and Heinrix. And this — "
She nodded limply at the vellum.
"Give this to Abelard."
"I will, Lumen!" Argenta promised solemnly.
And she intended to keep that promise, from the bottom of her heart. But then — praised be the Emperor's Holy Light! — the Rogue Trader lived. Through this bout of torture, and several more that followed, her spirit ever unshakable.
Argenta never asked what she was to do with the vellum; for her thoughts were too preoccupied by the terrible confession she had to make before their final desperate fight for freedom at the thrice-cursed xenos arena.
And she would never dare approach the Seneschal on her own, not after the chasm of loathing opened between them.
So the vellum stays, packed tidily against the rest of her few earthly possessions. The contents of the message, scrawled across it in blood by the unsteady hand of a woman in agony's throes, remain unknown to Argenta, or fo the vellum's intended reader.
Perhaps even the Rogue Trader does not remember what she etched into that dead skin, feverish as she was at the time.
But to someone possessed of all-encompassing knowledge, aware of every mortal thought, like He on distant Terra, the jumbled dark-red stains on withered skin would spell out the following:
Abelard,
If you are reading this, I am gone. I am so terribly sorry, my darling. I did not mean for you to lose another Rogue Trader so soon. If you have to grieve — not as much for my sake, I suppose, as for the dynasty's future — please do that. It will be healthier in the long run.
As for little old me, well. I could go out in more of a blaze of glory, but maybe in between writing this and dropping dead, I can take down a few more Drukhari. If I am lucky.
Oh, darling, you can tell I am stalling at this point, can't you? I can just picture that tight-lipped look on your face!
Well. Out with it then.
I love you.
No, this is not me being coy with you. This is not one of our little back and forths in the Dargonus study. Well, mostly my forths and your backs.
I am gravely serious (hah! Pun intended!).
I love you. I cherish you. I respect you. And I am also in love with you. Have been for a long, long time — far longer than my poor swimming head allows me to remember.
You once told me, with that ever so slight frown, that you were too old for matters of the heart. For wooing young ladies with flowers. Well, I would have gladly uprooted an entire field of flowers and dumped them at your feet. I would have drowned you in petals, my heart, because you deserve it.
I wish I had told you that, back then. You might have dismissed it as my usual nonsense — but I would have gotten it off my chest.
And now... Now this is all you get, my sweet. I am sorry.
If you forgive me, maybe you will humor me too? When you think of me next — can you call me by name? Like when we first met. Before I was the Lord Captain — when I was just some upstart from the dumpster, here to clap for Edelthrad and steal Theodora's silver spoons. Please? Can you do that for me?
Good night, darling Seneschal. I am glad to have met you.
I love you.
Lumen