160. How to Reach Out

Having sufficiently mastered the art of seeing people naked without dropping dead of embarrassment, Vox and Titus rose to the other challenges in their life. They established a slightly chaotic system to make time for the important people around them. Important in this context did not only comprise persons of rank but also friends they liked to have around them. Every night in their free time, they each picked one and took them on a walk to talk. Afterwards they brought each other up to speed. This approach turned out full of hidden difficulties as neither of them was used to effortless communication except with each other anymore. Vox took it harder than Titus, even though she bore it better than formerly. What she had been able to do without thinking, was still exhausting beyond belief. After the recent occurrences, she was determined to bite through these difficulties, however.
Once, she sat down with Xavor and Arhia to mediate between them. Their superficial squabbling had ceased but there was less than perfect harmony between them. Had this formerly been an amusing curiosity, between members of her honour guard, this was unacceptable.
It turned out to be a long night. Uncertain what she was doing most of the time, sometimes debating with Sanguinius that she did not need the scraps of memory he had about interceding between his brothers, she hoped that listening closely and sometimes rephrasing what she had heard would be enough.
In the end, Vox saw no future in keeping the status quo. To alleviate the tension without excluding one of them from the guard, she decided to pair each of them with one of the apothecaries. Since it was prudent to keep Gerneya and Dankwart in different parts of a battlefield, it was the most sensible solution for now.
After a few weeks of this, it turned out that the difficulties had not fully subsided and in one memorable bathing session, they ruled that Xavor and Arhia were to wrestle every other day to release their penned-up frustration.
Arrick and Corven made a few scathing remarks that they should hit it off in bed instead but once the two commanders had surreptitiously established more one on one unarmed combat units into the communal training, Arhia and Xavor suddenly snapped into order. They even developed a rough and easy-going friendship, which was rather pleasant to have around.
Someone, who neither of them found ways to handle, was Ferone. Since Elaine had died, he seemed to live in hell, watching heaven unfold around him.
Freed of the constant dreams of his Primarch dying and also freed from most obligations of his post, the millennium-old blood angel moved among the Wings of War, trained with them and conversed politely with anyone who dared to speak to him. The amount of the daring increased over time. Ferone especially attracted the younger warriors among the Wings of War who sought out his counsel in all sorts of matters. Soon, the commander in his black and silver power armour spent most of his evenings reviewing sword techniques, tactical movement patterns or philosophical questions. Be the conversation shallow or deep, he never seemed to mind.
Everything Vox and Titus saw and heard hardened the impression that Ferone had the time of his life while the sadness ate away at his very core. Not even Corven, the friend he had so dearly missed in the Deathwatch, could help him. 
Only the presence of his living saint seemed to lighten his sorrows a little. Once this had become apparent, his commanders drew him into close proximity during training. They found nothing more to do and kept a concerned eye on him. 
Whom the two of them also kept close scrutiny on was Saphane. Other than Ferone, she seemed to stabilise on her own. Praying, preaching and training seemed to lift her from her sadness.
She had stopped trying to come near Vox anymore as if she had shed this desire along with the woman she had lost. When they talked, she was friendly and content in herself and otherwise saw to her duties. Be it as chaplain, fellow warrior or friend, as if her own concerns could be silenced by caring for others she turned her attention to the people around her. There was nothing to be done for her and so Vox instead used the opportunity to learn from her example. The way Saphane listened with undivided attention or gave counsel when asked for. The manner in which she asked questions, be it to understand or guide the understanding of others. Vox was certain that she had known how to do it once and she wanted this skill back.
Having lost the intuitive access to it proved a major challenge. Sanguinius managed to put his own little twist on the problem. He encouraged Vox to strive for the understanding of body language, tone of voice and choice of words but he did it with such a hunger for control that Vox almost shied back from proceeding.
To her it felt like he wanted her to seize ultimate domination again while she longed to be able to dance with the flow and rhythm of her world again.
Besides this she prized the prospect of growth above all else. She wanted to be better than yesterday and this was a strangely pure desire. Sanguinius somehow smudged it by pointing out the means she was learning. Whether this aspiration was inherent in herself or if she had adopted it from Titus she was unable to tell. The lover, however, was certain that they had shared this trait long before they had merged into each other. He brought up memories of the writing friend in black and silver armour who searched for a reason to remember why he was an Astartes.
Having lost so many social skills and dealing with her weakened body, Vox was provided with so many opportunities to strive for betterment that it was hard to get the measure right. Often she practised beyond exhaustion. These were the days when Titus had to drag her away from training or pull her out of a conversation before she fell over. Each time he did it with a smile because he remembered how Vox, Tiberius and Dankwart had been required to stop him from training on their way to Erioch. But since he had not threatened to crack the world open just by falling asleep too soon, he was far more scrupulous with her. In the beginning she complained but yielded when her attention was drawn to the underlying predicament. With a sigh she promised to look after herself better.
Another difficult bend in the path to Corred was the Counsel of the Commanders. It only existed while the chapter was missing a mistress and contained all captains, the company champions, the highest ranking librarian, the first chaplain, the mistress of the forge and the highest ranking apothecary of the Wings of War. Only the captains had a vote in this counsel, the others had merely voices but when they spoke, they were assumed to speak for their sisters. A captain remained somewhat isolated from her warriors, divided by healthy respect for her rank. The other stations were able to move more freely among the warriors and hear what was going on.
Since the companies of the Wings of War never were all in one place, it had traditionally been difficult to extract a common vote. The astropaths had always worked hard to bridge this gap but even before the warp storms had sprung up, communication across star systems had been unreliable at best. Date checks were easy enough, pointing out a certain planet usually worked but that was about the extent of this way of communication. 
Therefore the vote for the new chapter mistress had usually been ascertained in Jericho Keep. With at least two companies stationed there at all times it had been the prudent choice. However, with five companies, Vox, Saphane, Jebilla and M’gha, the highest apothecary, in on the ‘Primarch’s Bride’, tradition was broken by practical considerations.
The convocation in the audience chamber on the bridge started out as a solemn occasion but quickly developed into a heated dispute.
Vox, in her black and red robe, felt out of place among her sisters. It was frowned upon if an aspirant interfered in the considerations about herself. Having been brought up as a possible candidate, she was obliged to listen to the discussion about her versus 1st captain Hierouba. She and Saphane both had seen to it beforehand that each of the captains was informed that Vox did not wish to become chapter mistress and still they were in two minds about preferring Hierouba instead. At least her nominal participation had eliminated any other competition and they only had the struggle for two candidates at their hand.
It was an aggravating state nevertheless. At one point the discussion inclined in her favour so severely that she worried she might be made chapter mistress after all. 
Sanguinius stirred in her mind when this happened. He felt unusually sleek and soft. Politics had been a very competent politician in his day. Patiently, benevolently almost, he pointed out to her who among the sisters spoke least. They were Saphane and M’gha, the head apothecary. Like Vox, they only watched the proceedings with fathomless patience. Now her attention had been drawn to it, she realised that everybody else seemed to move around them. There were subtle, probably subconscious gestures from all the others. A glance here, a waving hand in their direction there. They stood at opposite points of the table and yet, they commanded the whole counsel by their sheer presence.
Vox wondered if she had ever been able to do this but when Saphane glanced over to her with a confident glint in her bright eyes, she felt the satisfaction of her Primarch flow through her for the first time.
“You probably even taught”, he thought.
Embarrassment lingered between them for a moment. Both had been so resentful of their opposing approaches to almost any situation. Approving and finding approval now was a change of pace that brought a fragile kind of relief that would need to grow and harden before it could be trusted. 
Outside her inner world, the succession debate finally ended hours later with the vote. Vox, Saphane and M’gha all named Hierouba and enough of the other captains fell into line to make the absent 1st captain the first among her kind.