Work Text:
Even the slightest raising of her silent breath may doom her to the bolter of her Lord's severely rationed patience, or worse, to the human stock catching mines and lasfire when they were forced out as his first 'wave'. Good friends of hers fell this way, friends she was not allowed to grief about, lest she may end as a meat shield for a being far below her Lord, who nevertheless was an Astartes. The only value she truly had for Lord Toramino was that of her hands. His armor needed to stay presentable after all.
Truly, his immaculate, mirror-polished power armor was perfection incarnate. The heraldry partly covered by a cape with his family's symbol proudly displayed was probably the most difficult to polish to acceptable levels, even more than the chains on it's codpiece. It always looked so fragile, as if it was... herself, the family's sigil splayed across her chest, the iron skull of his legion displayed directly below.
She was his cloth to polish himself over, to wipe away the filth and grime the harsh areas of his deployments gave him, to make him look as immaculate as he truly was. A truly prestigious role - fit only for a noble's descendant underneath his family's, underneath him. And she was from low Olympian nobility. Acceptable in looks also, he noted from time to time which made her heart swell with docile thankfulness.
This very day was different though. Instead of his for an Iron Warrior untypically ornate 'master room, the Dodekathron or the Stor-Bezahk, they, together with three personal bodyguards were at the main base, still far away from the Ork infestation this world had to endure, but still on the planet.
All orders have been given and no updates have been delivered. How could his men even, they most likely haven't even reached the first scrap cities yet. Still, she did what she was to do - on this dusty planet around every single hour - to polish his armor, no matter how clean it already was.
Of course Lord Toramino was not to move a finger for the hereditarilly disgraced lady unless he wanted a specific spot to blind any in awe of his thoroughness.
Sometimes though, the most irrational of her thoughts had slipped through, which was where she started to caress the helmet where his cheek would be with the ceramite polish-covered nanocloth, while wondering on how kissing someone on the cheek may feel. Or the hesitation she showed whenever she was tasked to free the chains on his codpiece of the rather sticky and dried fine gore, feeling fortunate that Astartes did not have sex drives, at least to her knowledge.
Or even how a... a... a hug may feel. A genuine, heartfelt hug not made in niceties or barely concealing gossip or any other purpose than the feeling of another's body one oneself. Despite very few words other than short orders, he surprisingly enough hasn't degraded her that much for her grandfather having been defeated and his family put into indentured service by his. Not when it was just the two of them... and sometimes the best of the Stor-Bezahk as well.
"Toramino..."
In the next moment, she was slammed onto the fortunately soft enough tent floor by one of his bodyguards, bolter against her throat. She let herself go at the wrong moment, in front of the wrong men - although Toramino entertained largely women as the serfs under his command.
A shot was fired, but her brains weren't blown out, shooting a burning hole into the tent floor. One heavy ceramite boot to extinguish the flame, the other to extinguish any hopes of this bodyguard to ever serve him or be a member of the Stor-Bezahk ever again.
Trying not to show any signs of how terrified she was, she got up as Toramino simply pointed towards the exit. Were words to be exchanged, brains may have been spilled on the floor still, but the disgraced body guard had chosen the less wasteful way to go out in the few Astartes lines of actual close combat. Still, she just couldn't hide the sheer confusion in her eyes. Why exchange a skilled chain blade for a washcloth?
"Who am I, serf."
Oh no, Entire noble households, both Olympian and foreign have been keeled off of incorrectly answering this deliberately vague question. Her answer would need to be something which may balm the most likely gaping wound she thought inflicted on her Lord's being.
"You are the master of the very weaponry the IVth needs, my Lord."
With not quite the directness, Toramino hand waved the other two, the stalwart ones out of the tent as well, leaving only the extinguished hole caused by las fire.
He nodded as he finished laying out the last corrections on his mostly remote siege plan - unfortunately for him, the planet's surface was red-tinged, and the orange sky did not harm the Orks heightened fighting power as well.
"Eight minutes and 12 seconds." Some small switch from within his voxgrill clicked, setting some sort of alarm.
"I deeply apologize for my confusion, but why did you send one of your best men to the death instead of me?"
"Polish the gap between helmet and core piece."
Toramino did not, would not sit down, but he did lean over, just slightly enough for her to reach the gap with her cloth when on her fingertips. How merciful he was at this day! Was it perhaps so the greenskin horde would see the screens tied to the more autonomous, albeit simple weaponry depicting him later would see him in his flawlessness and start to disperse just so the auto cannons would obliterate them all?
She was very much used to no single question being answered by the high blood, after all, not every detail needed to be explained except to his men perhaps. With grest strain she kept her arms up, one lightly steadying her on his shoulder pad she'd need to polish later, the other at it's meticulous work.
