158. Tales & Tears

Vox was tired beyond belief. She longed for Titus and his silence but there was something she still had to do before she could allow herself to rest. Still cradled in her innermost being, Sanguinius was too tired to object much and Vox prevailed. This was important. Not for her cause or the world. It was important to her.
She found Arrick in one of the training grounds. It had been less a matter of searching for him than trying not to be deafened by his inaudible screams of agony.
The white wolf was running through the hall, jumping over and ducking under obstacles while fighting shadows with a training sword. He wore nothing but a loincloth, showing off all the wounds he had suffered. A long scratch across his right shoulder blade had ripped open and blood ran down his back.
Vox swallowed and fought against this terrible desire to taste… She felt sick. Right here, she knew all too well what the daemon had triggered in the dead friend to get Celeste to kill like she had done it.
Immersed in his doing, Arrick did not spot the angel until he passed her by at close distance. From full speed he stopped dead. How he bent his joints to compensate all his momentum in an instant was an elegant and powerful movement. It gave contrast to the sheepish way he stood around afterwards. Just now at one with his blade, he hefted the weapon uncertainly as he wavered between turning towards and away from her.
Vox found nothing to say but when their sorrowful gazes met, gentle gestures arose between them. A raising of a hand, a slight leaning forward of the bodies and before his breath had subsided they had reached each other and slung their arms around the friend to hold on. They had a moment of difficulty before they worked out that he had to lay his arms around her neck so that she could sling her arms and wings around his chest.
“I thought you wouldn’t come”, he whispered into her ear.
“I’m eternally sorry that you had reason to suspect this”, Vox mumbled.
“Vox, I’m sorry for that episode earlier”, he said. “I really don’t know what has gotten into me…”
“A lot of life force, Arrick”, she replied easily, glad for the contact he granted her. “It has all kinds of strange effects and it will wear off. Don’t worry about it.”
“Was that what we saw on Erioch?”
“What did you see on Erioch?”, Vox asked cautiously.
“Oh, dear…”, he sighed. “It’s hard to keep track of what you remember…” He drew back from their embrace. “Sorry, I’m soaked”, he apologised sheepishly.
“I don’t mind”, Vox assured him while she wiped his sweat off her cheek and neck. “What were you saying?”
“Oh, just… I think you healed Titus once and I now understand what was going on with him then.” He walked around in a fidgety manner for a moment.
“Arrick, I have to tell you something.”
“Mh?”, he asked and made a vague gesture that asked her to accompany him to the weapon stand. In his nervousness he was unable to bear revelations standing still. At least not when they were announced as gravely as Vox had just done it.
“The white fire has another side effect…”, she started uneasily while she followed him. “I… I have to connect to your mind to use it and…”
Arrick shot her a sidelong glance.
“Now, that must have been a mess”, he said flatly.
“Quite”, Vox admitted.
“Still is, to tell you the truth”, he admitted in an inappropriately easy manner while he put the sword away. Then, he took a deep breath. “Vox, I’m… sorry. I don’t know if I ever screwed up so hard.”
“What? You think you screwed up?”
“Hell, yes!”, he said with conviction and fidgeted with one of the axes on the weapon stand. “All this babble of friendship and shit – I had that all my life. Fraternity is all very fine but this soppy definition of ‘I will look after you and you will look after me’ makes me sick. If I call someone friend, I expect them to look after themselves for me and… Well… I didn’t look after myself very well. I… I fell for her and followed her and dragged the others along and… and on top of all your burdens you had to come after me… Hell, I feel useless! Did I thank you by the way?”, he asked suddenly. He did not wait for an answer but grasped her by the shoulders. “Thank you, Vox!”, he said wholeheartedly. “Thank you for coming for me when I needed you. It’s… It’s good to know that someone will come when I really, really need help… I’m sorry it had to be you again… Everything alright?”
Vox was staring at him. She was certain that she had never considered the implications of friendship actively. It had probably been something that had just been there. Important but never properly understood. That it could be considered a friend’s duty to take care of themselves because they were dear to others had never occurred to her until Arrick had said it.
Vox failed to speak. All the implications! If Celeste had looked after herself. If Saphane had looked after herself instead of getting upset about Celeste’s upset. If Vox had managed to tend to herself better so that Sanguinius had not taken over…
“What’s wrong?”, Arrick asked in concern and came closer to take her into his arms again.
Such wisdom so casually spilt… Vox shook with the realisation of what they all had done wrong. Tears of grief wetted her cheeks as she mourned her own wrongdoing. 
The past was doomed and over. All that was left was to promise in silence that she would do better from here on.
With the beloved friend embracing her, her trials had already begun. Determined not to burst into flames, she sought all the things inside her she had missed until now. The strains she put on herself instead of soothing them. The spirals of thought leading into the dark places. The convictions and necessities dragging her forward when she had already done justice to them.
Sanguinius awoke in the turmoil and his bewilderment made things more confusing. As she started to tense against him, realised it and relaxed the tendrils of her thoughts, she was surprised that he rose to help for once. Whirling through her realisations he gently breathed more strength into new convictions and soothed her with his promise to watch out for when she might go wrong again.
Only hazily aware of her struggle, Arrick stood with the crying saint in his arms. For the life of him he could not determine what to do. Her outbreak took so long that he started to dread somebody might walk in on them and he had no idea how he could explain any of this. To him an embrace was nothing objectionable. Just an innocent connection without implications but he had learned the hard way that people, especially from other chapters, could make difficulties where none had existed before.
Even more troubling than the prospect of outside disturbances was the realisation that not even cuddling with Vox made him feel better. Things had gone so far wrong that not even the closeness to the beloved friend and admired angel could ease his agony.
It seemed aeons later when Vox finally drew back and wiped her eyes. Arrick’s hands slipped off her reluctantly, patting her arms on the way and his concerned gaze sought for answers in her face.
Instead of explaining, she suggested: “Come on, let’s find something to eat.” Hastily Arrick seized his chance to hide in his robe. The last thing he could live down right now was another attack of life force.
Since it was late, the kitchens were deserted apart from some cleaning staff. The surprised people still knew better how to procure food than the Space Marines and after a period of panicky activity, a bowl of nourishing snacks and fruit was produced.
Vox had trouble walking straight by now but she bit through her exhaustion and went on. They retired to one of the smaller observation decks and sat silent under their heavy thoughts for a while.
“Vox?”, Arrick finally asked. “In the cause of looking after myself, I have to ask your help.”
“Whatever you need, Arrick”, she replied softly.
“Could you… stay? Just for a while I mean? I… Would like to spend time talking at you again… It was always very comforting.”
Vox had to chuckle.
“Talking at me?”
“Yeah”, he grinned sheepishly. “You always used to sit and listen and let me blabber on.”
“I’ll try”, she promised.
“Thanks… You’re the only one I can talk to anyway. You already know anyway and…” He took a deep breath. “I… feel stupid about… Celeste”, he continued uneasily. “Believing that she wanted to be with me… I mean, apart from being possessed, she was a hell of a woman…” He leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “I should have known that she wasn’t really into me…”
“As far as I understand the mechanics, you were into her, right?”
Arrick’s eye bulged before he burst out with laughter. Vox laid a hand on Arrick’s shoulder and smiled at him.
“I know why she would have fallen for you”, she said softly when he subsided.
“And how would you know that?”
“I have your memories, remember?”
Arrick shot her a sidelong glance and then leaned over, gently stroking her cheek with his thumb.
“You remember everything but yourself?”, he asked softly.
Vox averted her gaze for a moment.
“Sometimes, it seems like that”, she admitted. “But I know that Celeste would have fallen for a kind, considerate and honest man. Who also is rather good looking by the way.”
“Will you stop patting my ego?”, he asked.
“Why? Will it bite?”
“Snap”, he said despondently.
“Oh, come now…”
“Vox, I fell in love with a freakin’ daemon!”
Vox thought for a while and let Sanguinius bounce gently against her considerations.
“Corruption is a tricky thing, Arrick”, she finally said. “I’m pretty certain that Celeste was only tainted before she shed the blood of our friends. That means, she wasn’t controlled by the thing. It just whispered suggestions to her. And I am very certain that it wouldn’t have gotten her to sleep with you unless there was a strong natural attraction between you.”
“You’re sweet”, he replied and leaned his head on her shoulder.
“Right back at you!”
“I’m not sweet.”
“Yes, you are”, Vox insisted happily. “All of you Space Wolves are. Fluffy killing machines every one of you.”
“Did you just call me fluffy?”, Arrick asked flatly.
Vox ruffled his hair.
“Yes”, she said softly and rearranged her limbs so that she could take him into her arms properly.
The white wolf leaned himself into the safety she offered and was silent for a long time.
“My first time with a woman was just after I had made full Astartes”, he said then, with a faraway tone in his voice. “I was so young… A boy really. Before we were off to war it was time for Belthane. All Space Wolves are sent down to tribes they don’t originate from, have a rousing feast and as much sex as possible with all the women the tribes can muster.” He sat up at this moment. Vox saw his jaw muscles tense a few times and he crossed his arms. “They tell us that they do it of their own free will but there is incredibly high social pressure behind it for the women. If you live on Fenris, are female, healthy, in a certain age range and tall and strong enough that a Space Marine has only little chance to kill you during the act, even if he gets careless, you can forget about missing out. I don’t know what the custom sounds like to outsiders. What it really is, is a breeding program. Those strong enough to have survived the implants are supposed to sire even stronger warriors. The women are not stupid. For them it is even more of a duty than for us and, as I said, they choose each other by height and still…” He sighed again. “Belthane goes on for three days and most of the time the women take care to stay as drunk as possible. They use other drugs too because we hurt them. Not with intent but by sheer size, can you imagine?”
“Not fully”, Vox admitted. “I can accept the fact though.”
“Most of the boys are careful”, Arrick told her. “They just let the women do the work so they don’t hurt them but I know that some of us have problems finishing if they don’t take active parts and… Well. The whole idea is to make children, right?”
Vox blinked in confusion and Arrick had to grin.
“And you have no idea what I’m talking about because you don’t know where kids come from”, he called her out.
“I… Think, I just got the pieces together”, she said carefully.
“At least I don’t have to draw you a picture.”
“Does that mean that nobody knows who the fathers of Belthane children are?”, Vox asked.
“Yeah. Belthane children belong to the wolves, not to the tribes.”
“Why do Corven and Xavor know each other then?”
Arrick looked at her with a sad frown and gently took her hand. “Corven told us when we brought you to that cave on Thetis”, he recounted for her. “We have these wolves on Fenris. Mighty beasts, almost as tall as a human. Corven found one of them that had started to behave oddly. He suspected chaotic corruption and brought it down but he got hurt badly in the fight. The Silverhorn clan found him and he fell in love with the shaman of the tribe who cared for him while he was recovering. She was the mother of his children.” Absently he played with her fingers.
“Thank you”, Vox said after a while and watched him let go of her hand again as if he was doing something wrong. “You started out talking about your first Belthane. What were you getting at?”, Vox inquired.
“Oh, dread Belthane”, Arrick sighed. “What a mighty fuck up. Literally!” He shook his head. “As I said, the women aren’t stupid. There are usually more women than men so, on the first night mostly those with experience try to grab any stray Space Wolf they can find and show them how the thing works. When you’ve just made full Astartes… Hell, I was so young… I know, I must have been so young but I can’t remember what that feels like. I only remember what I did… Well, whatever. Women. They have an interest to establish with the newcomers how things are supposed to go. I don’t even know the name of my first one. She just came at me and she sure as hell knew that the trick was to get me to lie still and… Well. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed the other five women I had too… But the last one… I found out afterwards that it was her first Belthane and she was drunk and I’m sure she had taken something else. She wasn’t as determined as the others before and I…”, he sighed agonisingly. “I just had this fixed in my mind, you know? That sex had to happen.” Arrick looked down. “I hurt her and she cried all the way through and afterwards… Hell, I never felt so… Degraded and dirty… The next time I was on Fenris during Belthane I tried not to go and you know what I found?”
“That there is incredibly high social pressure behind it?”, she ventured a guess.
“Exactly”, Arrick confirmed with a nod. “You met Space Wolves, you know how we are. Or… Knew at least…? And please, don’t say fluffy.” He shot her an uncertain glance.
“I still have a vague feeling”, she reassured him.
“Well, in the Deathwatch you only get older Space Wolves”, he continued with a resentful frown. “And not many at once. At home we are even rougher, tougher, louder. Our younglings have to find their places in a society like this and sometimes that gets bloody. Sometimes young Space Wolves don’t get the measure right. When I declared that I wouldn’t participate in Belthane, I had an ‘unfortunate accident’ during training that damaged my armour to an extent that it had to be sent out to the mechanicum and that night on my way to the quarters, I had my pack mates waiting for me. They still were in armour.” His features twitched a little. “I’m sure the boys had meant to give me a good hiding and nothing else but we were a newly mixed pack and hadn’t settled our hierarchy yet. Well and five men in armour when I didn’t have mine…”, he crossed his arms again. “I tend to get erratic when I feel threatened and before anyone knew what was going on, there were knives out and things got ugly. Really ugly. I almost killed a brother that day and the others ended up trying to castrate me as soon as they had me pinned. I only got out of there because our pack sergeant interfered. Good man that one. Had his ear to the ground and knew what was going on. He threatened to kill anyone who laid a hand on me and while the others brought our unconscious teammate to the apothecarium, he took me aside and gave me a few tips. There were ways to avoid Belthane he told me but he advised that I should go and rely on the fact that tents are quite opaque. He suggested I should see if I found something else to do with the women while nobody was looking. Also, he transferred me to another pack after this incident. Really good man that. Olgard Bloodbeard. I don’t know if he’s still alive… Well, I took his advice and went down for Belthane again. First I tried to avoid the act altogether. There were enough brothers handing round their seed, I figured, but most women are set on bearing the child of a Space Marine and throw themselves at you… well, maybe not at you”, he had to concede. “But at us. Probably, to avoid thinking about it too much. So, I made the whole thing into a game for myself. I tried to find the shy ones, hanging on to their drinks in the background and get them into my tent before they were completely incoherent. I tried to give them as much time as they needed to be at least halfway comfortable with it and mostly, that worked fine. I had that one time where I had managed to get three women with me on the last night and all of them were really tired and sore and so, we agreed that they had done their duty, snuggled up and I let them sleep while I constructed as unbelievable tales for my brothers as possible…” He grinned at the memory. “If I couldn’t find the shy ones, I took the loud and forthright ones because most of them were just trying to overcome their shyness in any case. Ah, I didn’t mention it, there is a fight beforehand and the champion of the fight has the right to claim any woman he wants. Starting with my second Belthane I always managed to come first. This avoided complications. I could just sit and watch and get any woman out of trouble because I could just claim her.”
Vox smiled softly. Arrick showed a lot more compassion than she had been able to feel lately and she marvelled at the beauty of a kind soul which had opened itself to her. She admired Arrick’s courage to show her these details and she wanted to learn from him what she had forgotten.
“What really bothers me about the whole Belthane thing”, he said. “Is that the women all get drilled beforehand that they must please us or they will never have the honour to bear our children. Somehow, the concept of mutual pleasure is completely alien to all of them. To most of my dear brothers too. They think women are something to do and they never really talk to them simply because… It’s not what you do. That there is pleasure in pleasing is a concept they can’t get their heads ‘round… I… started to try and please the women instead of just… performing. It was just what I enjoyed more.” He shrugged one shoulder. “The boys don’t talk about it. At least I never managed to get one to open up… I’m not like you.” He looked at her with his dark eye as if he noticed her only now and then, his gaze unfocused again and his frown deepened. “I never found someone who shared my… desire to see the other one pleased.” He looked at the floor despondently. “It’s not as if I didn’t have any effect on them”, he mumbled. “But I never found this desire in someone else, man or woman. No one shared it… And then, came Celeste…” He went still, staring at nothing for a few seconds. When he started to speak again, his voice was flat and full of pain he only just managed to hold off at arm’s length.
“She found pleasure in my excitement”, he said. “She loved seeing and feeling my reaction to her and I loved her right back for hers… It had never been like this…” He shut his eye and Vox gently grasped him and pulled him into her arms again. When he had sorted out that slinging his arms around her was still hindered by the wings and gave up trying, he gently collapsed into her embrace.
Not being a psyker made Arrick’s breakdown less dramatic but for Vox it still was a test of endurance. She held him cradled in her arms and sheltered by her wings while he wept in bottomless grief. The very quietness of his sobs was testimony of the wound he had retained and as Vox gazed into it, she did her best to endure his pain with him. After a long time, he went still and a soft calmness settled over them both.
They stayed like this for a long time and when Arrick shifted position slightly he realised that Vox had fallen asleep. Having weathered the immediate storm the exhaustion had claimed her.
Exhausted himself but grateful beyond belief that she had given him the space he had needed, Arrick carefully rearranged her position so that he would be able to carry her. He looked at her peaceful features as her head came to rest in the crook of his arm and without thinking bent over her. His conscience caught up with him just before his lips touched hers and he sighed. There it was again. This fixed idea in his mind about how things had to go. He nudged it aside and shifted his kiss to her forehead. A sad smile gently pulled his lips away from her skin and he straightened up.
He had kissed less than two days ago and what good had it done anyone? Gently, his embrace tightened around her. Falling in love with other women had never worked for him or for them. Vox meanwhile was safe. He could love her from where he stood. Basking in Titus’ shadow. Close enough not to freeze. Close enough to survive and fulfil his duty. He stroked her cheek before he carefully folded her wings properly and stood up.
Vox slept on. Not even when he reached her room and kicked the door until Titus opened did she wake.
The men looked at each other for a moment and then, both looked at the slumbering angel. Titus smiled and took her from him with all the tenderness he never displayed to anyone else. He nodded towards the new captain in a manner that asked ‘Are you alright?’ and Arrick weighed his head vaguely for a moment before he nodded. Alright enough for now, then.
“Good night, captain”, Titus said when nothing else was forthcoming.
Arrick stared at him for a while without moving.
“Anything else?”, the right hand of the saint inquired softly.
“Could… Could you call me by name?”, the Space Wolf in the black and silver robe asked.
“It would be my honour and my pleasure, Arrick”, Titus replied wholeheartedly. “Call me Titus.”
Arrick grinned sheepishly.
“Like officially?”, he asked, scratching his head. He had never really stopped calling Titus just by name instead of by title.
“Yes”, Titus said with a gentle smile.
“Thanks, Titus”, Arrick said. “And please relay my thanks to her.”
“I will. Good night.”
“May the Emperor guide you through the darkness”, Arrick said.
“May He guide us together”, Titus replied smoothly and watched Arrick as he disappeared down the corridor. He sighed slightly. That the Emperor would continue to guide anyone was only to be hoped.