Chapter Text
Taylor Hebert wakes up surrounded by silk. Her mind is foggy. She does not know what silk is. She does not know her name, her past, or a language to speak. She vaguely recognizes colors, forms. She lies there for a long time, until attendants arrive.
She has no words for any of this, but if she had, she would call it extravagant. Like something out of Scheherazade. Only female attendants help her, though she does not notice at first. She is bathed, shown how to dress and undress, how to eat, shown how to walk and later how to speak and read. She does not remember her former language and she does not recognize this one. High Gothic, she ties the words with the notion of language much later.
The attendants are caring, yet aloof at the same time somehow. They are wary of her, similar to the word she later learns, nobility. At some point, she asks why she is here. Was she part of this... household? They explain that they are in a manse owned by Lady Lyra. Lady Lyra is hyped up to be something other than human. Something in Taylor's mind does not believe it, but she nods and absorbs all. She starts seeing strange, wondrous things: men and women with metal limbs, or with extra fleshy ones, or with extra eyes, noses, mouths, tongues. Everyone around her is still wary of offending her while careful with her every wish. They assure her that Lady Lyra compensates them kingly (or queenly). They call her Lady Khepri. It is the only name of herself she ever knows.
As she learns to live again, finally she is escorted out. She learns that they live on an asteroid taken over by a Pirate Prince named Jarek Marr. She learns that asteroids are rocks that fly through the void of space, and then she is taught what the latter entails. They explain that asteroids usually don't have atmosphere except when great technologies are employed... or if the warp is beckoned. They tell her this is a case of the latter, but they don't teach her yet what the warp is. She finds out later from bits and pieces, then from books she runs into (she doesn't smuggle anything, nobody dares take from her what she has touched). This power over people feels... uncomfortable.
The scene outside Lady Lyra's manse is much different than inside: it is not misery, exactly, but there is a great deal of neglect. People do as they will: it is not outright anarchy, and apparently since Lady Lyra's arrival, people no longer die, and those who mortally wound others feel a great sense of dread on raising Lady Lyra's ire. Supposedly, Jarek Marr had been initially concerned, but when this new turn of events did not affect his rulership, he was content to leave it be. Whenever Taylor looks outside the manse, it is a contrast of riches and misery: some have much, others rot on the streets, never allowed to die, yet never helped or elevated. More often, they are rounded up into slavery, either for this asteroid, for the Ragged Helix or somewhere outside the Screaming Vortex.
Taylor does not like this. She starts small. She finds she has powers. The power to control insects. It comes slowly, but it does. One insect, two, dozens, hundreds. She first warns some to run from thugs. When she gathers enough, she fends off thugs from setting upon the destitute. The more insects she has, the more she does. She learns she can make clothes. She has all the clothes she can require from the attendants, but they do not allow her to give them gifts outside Lady Lyra's manse. So Taylor makes clothes for the destitute, then protects them when others would steal them from them. Soon – although time passes more strangely than her instincts tell her it should, here, in the Vortex, and everyone confirms – she gathers a cult. Or gang. They don't know it's "Lady Khepri" helping them. Some say it's a kind insect daemon. Some say it's some psyker. Some say it's some incorporeal xenos or a machine from the Dark Age of Technology running amok. As far as the people know, Lady Khepri is simply an honored guest of the daemonette Lady Lyra.
Pirate Prince Jarek Marr is not spoken of with resentment. That is not because he is kind or generous, far from that, that is because there are other Pirate Princes in the Ragged Helix, and they are, if not infinitely, then at least greatly worse. Jarek Marr is an uncaring ruler arrived from the Imperium of Man with an army at his back who took an asteroid simply because he had dreamed this is his destiny. This is, Taylor learns, one of the more sane and rational behaviors an inhabitant of the Ragged Helix, or rather the Screaming Vortex itself, can have. Jarek Marr has lieutenants, and a loose collection of "understandings" with those he allows on his asteroid. As long as they don't interfere in Jarek's affairs, they can do as they wish. Jarek had been weary of Lyra's arrival, but realistically had no power against "a being like her", so he had been grateful that he was allowed to live his lifestyle. Taylor was still skeptical about this Lyra, who she had not yet even met, being something else than human, but she had to concede someone stopping a Pirate Prince to do as he willed had to have formidable connections at the very least.
A revolution had been brewing on Jarek Marr's asteroid. Not because of direct resentment toward Jarek himself, but out of desire for more. Taylor's actions, which had been mostly away from Jarek's own stronghold, which was on the east, had gathered followers and resentment for their living conditions. She had not interfered in the east for two simple reasons: not wanting to bring trouble between the Pirate Prince and Lyra, and because, with Jarek's lieutenants swarming that part of the asteroid, the people there lived in much better conditions and thus did not require help.
Eventually, things came to a head, as they always did. A mob gathered and followed Taylor's insects, to meet their savior and crown her Pirate Princess of the asteroid itself – or at least of the part they lived in. Wary, Taylor gathered all the insects that she could, in preparation for dispersing the crowd if it came to that. Her attendants had suggested she use a false silhouette made of insects instead, and Taylor had agreed. There, her insect-construct showed up and was crowned Pirate Princess.
She had expected retaliation, but a letter had come for a parley. Only for the three of them, Taylor, Lyra and Jarek Marr. Lyra was perhaps not what she expected, and much more besides. A radiant beauty showing off her body in a scandalous dress. Jarek Marr is what she had seen from pict-vids: a swashbuckling hedonist, pure and simple. Jarek, to her surprise, greeted her as warmly as Lyra and conceded the western half of the asteroid with no issue. His only demands – if they were to be called that – were that he continue to rule his half, and continue to keep the title of Pirate Prince. He would even swear fealty and concede much more, except for his title for which he had given up everything in the Imperium of Man to achieve. Lyra, too, had been gracious, and declined all offers from Jarek, only requiring him to treat Taylor (known as Lady Khepri) as an equal.
So began the story of Pirate Princess Khepri.