Chapter Text
It started with art, with music.
It wasn't the kind that could be sung or played. It was the sound of dying, of metal scraping across still living bone, whips across the spine and the cries of things stitched open and together in living sculpture. She remembered things before the hum: the hallways of ships, armsmen, bright artificial light, the unease and prayers of traversing the Warp, and worlds hanging in space. They were memories, but they might as well have been dreams. All that was real now, all that mattered now, was the stage of Commorragh, and her role upon it.
Her old master had traded her away, and her new one collected her like a curio. He liked things that performed well, so she had learned to perform. How to look dead behind the eyes, to flinch when it pleased him, to bleed prettily and cry on cue. She still suffered, but only as art- unobtrusive, beautiful and silent. As her Master preferred.
She was never a favorite, but she was kept and that was survival enough.
She was kept for her silence, her discipline- how she could become a piece of the background, a moving ornament. She would be paraded out when she fit whatever theme he wanted, like another mask or blade or artifact. This time he wanted a living accent to the carnage, something that would know its place and be silent and still. The dress she was given was translucent and the chains they dug into her chest were gold. Apparently the colors would go well with screaming; her suffering a fitting accessory.
She was behind him on the skiff, arranged per his whims, while he preened and commanded and made a spectacle of slaughter. The guards ignored her- she was just part of the skiff. The suffering humans ignored her- she was just a traitor. She tried to just focus on the metal beneath her feet and her own shallow breaths.
Something changed. She felt it a second before hearing it, a shift in the air, and a break in the tension. She thought she saw something in the dark, lumbering and huge. Her Master stopped speaking, only for a second, before the silence was filled with a blast, louder than anything she’d ever heard. Then the horizon exploded.
The tank shell hit the opposite side of the skiff and flung her away. For one stupid instant, as she tumbled through the air, she thought that she had to look ugly and ungraceful and would be punished for it. Then she hit the ground. Her leg exploded in pain, her head rang and her hands caught dirt and stones. Blood filled her eyes and the stink of burning oil and metal filled her lungs.
She lay there, waiting for a blow, a chastisement about her torn dress, or a command to rise. Nothing came. No one kicked or whipped or beat her. She dared to glance towards her Master. The first thing she found was the golden chain of her leash, the links melting into a brilliant puddle.
She blinked and was careful to continue to take shallow breaths.
She didn't see her Master.
Her Master wasn't standing.
He wasn't anything.
She waited for something: anger, fear, grief. Any of the usual cues, the usual masks. Nothing came. Only surprise, quiet and wrong, like a line missed in the play. The guards that were left fell into disarray. Some cut down slaves, some cut down their kin, some shouted in her Masters tongue and skittered back towards the Webway portals. She lay there still enough that none of them even spared her a glance or a lash. Her Masters guards ran past. A woman with a roaring chainsword charged ahead of a tank and other mortals in battered flak armor followed her.
A stray bullet clipped the stone beside her, spraying grit into her face. Still she lay there, offering only the smallest flinch. No one noticed her, no one had told her to stand.
She waited. The sounds of humans remained, but they seemed focused on the victims of her Master. She considered staying still, pretending to be dead, but it was too likely she'd be caught. Humans wouldn't be forgiving of Drukhari possessions, so she sprang up and ran.
Shouts of surprise rang out behind her. The crack of a gunshot sounded, but it went wide, impacting the ground. She felt more than heard a clicking in her hip with every step she took. Blood colored her vision and ran down her face. She ignored it all.
She ran past the dead and ran past the dying. Past anything that might have been human or Drukhari. Only when her feet bled and she couldn't breath did she stop, collapsing on the downslope of a hill and tumbling into a tree.
—
She opened her eyes, staring into a canopy of leaves shielding a pale blue morning sky. Golden sun fell gentle and warm between branches, while the smell of dew and dirt lingered. Birds- or at least she thought they were birds- chirped. She stared up at the leaves, trying to decide if she really was alive, or if this beguiling moment was just the reward of death. It was too perfect, too magnificent. She did feel pain, and that let her know she was still alive. Alive and, impossibly, free.
Forcing thoughts of the future away she focused on herself now. A cut on her forehead explained the blood that had been in her eyes, but it had clotted. The chain was still hooked into her, and she wasn't sure if she could remove it. She had various cuts and bruises as well, but they were minor and would heal. The worst was her leg, screaming in pain so bad that she couldn't walk on it now that the adrenaline had worn off. It took work, but she was able to force the bone back into place from its dislocation. It hurt to force back, but pain was familiar and meant little. It did slow her down, gait limping and uneven.
It was a day later when she found the town. Small, and far less advanced than the Dark City. Birds sang against a vivid blue sky, and people talked as if they weren't being watched. She stole food and clothes from a house while people were working.
She followed the roads, staying out of sight, ignoring pain and the clank of chains. She stole food and water when she could, ate bugs and rats when she had to. After a week she found a city.
It was a city but not one like she was used to. It was too clean, too open. It bathed in the light of the sun by day and the stars and moon by night. There were no leashes, people argued in the street, children shouted and dogs barked. There were no screams of terror and pain, carefully curated to be art.
It was beautiful even as she dug through garbage, fled from guards and hid in gutters. It was so beautiful she stole charcoal and scraps of paper to draw and tied a bindle to hold it in. Yet, no matter how she tried, her art wasn't this place. Everything she drew ended up tainted, unsettling.
It reminded her: it was beautiful, but it wasn't safe.
She knew they were still here, not just in her art. Even if humans had chased them off, the Drukhari always returned. They were an inevitability on worlds with gates. So she set her eyes on the spaceport. Her memories of life before the Dark City had to be memories, and not dreams because, as she watched the port, she recognized the Aquila and the sign of the Imperial Navy. The rest she couldn't fully recognize, though one or two slipped through her fingers like she was trying to hold to a fever dream. It didn't matter though, any of the ships would do and the sooner the better.
The spaceport was more guarded than the rest of the planet, but that just made it harder, not impossible. She watched for days, then tore her clothes and shredded her back as she wriggled through a damaged grate and out past the perimeter. The ships that came to the ground were smaller, shuttles for goods, supplies and people meant for the larger ships in orbit. That did make it harder, but not impossible.
There she waited and hid for another day, drawing, watching, and planning.
There was finally one that looked to be all cargo and had a crew that had either fallen into complacency or routine. She thought that it could be dangerous, that perhaps it was all cargo because the back would have no air once it left orbit, but it looked like it could transport people, and the things they'd transported before looked like they would fare poorly in the vacuum of space. Besides, were it not pressurized, the only downside was death. Tears of glass lingered in the back of her mind: death wasn't such a terrible fate.
She slithered into the pallet, contorting herself as small as possible as the crew chatted about Angels. The positioning made breathing hard, and she did have to dislocate a shoulder, but this was far from the worst she'd endured.
She was good at suffering.
—
It started with shouting.
Half asleep she barely registered the voices. Shouting was commonplace in Commorragh. It wasn't her masters language or voice so she tuned it out. Then they grabbed her. At that point she struggled; twisting, writhing and trying to crawl off. A man and a woman managed to get her on her stomach and shackle her hands behind her back. She heard one saying she was probably dangerous and saw her drawings passed between them. The one in charge seemed horrified, and said to throw her in the brig.
She waited for something: anger, fear, sadness, but instead felt resignation and even some relief.
It had been beautiful while it lasted, but beautiful things always ended.
—
There were other cells in the area and, while she couldn't see them, she did know they were full. There was ambient noise and she heard at least one voice slurring words. Her cell was small and cold, with a metal slab bolted to the wall as a bed and bars on one side. The chill and the dark were familiar and the silence wasn't unwelcome. In the stillness she gave herself permission to lean her head back and think of the first day she'd woken up on the planet. She thought of the sky and the warmth of the sun, of the things she'd made and what she'd seen.
The door to the brig hissed open and instinctively sat up, hands in her lap, legs angled and pressed together, head bowed. She caught a glimpse outside. Both figures were massive, armored in blue and gold, but one loomed in the doorway and the other, half shrouded from sight, stood in the hall, attention already on her. She quickly tilted her head down and cast her eyes to the floor.
One entered the brig, far too heavy for a normal person, that easily notable even from the sound of their steps. As they stopped in front of her cell she focused on their metal boots.
"Do you understand me?" The voice was even and calm, without reproach. She nodded.
"Did you make these?" She looked up then, to see what he was holding. His figure filled the room, larger and broader than any man would have been, with blue power armor trimmed in gold. The ornate and unyielding visage of his helm told her nothing, but in his hand were some of the scraps of paper she'd drawn on. Once again she nodded.
"What's your name?"
Her name? It would be whatever he decided it was. Mon-keigh. Eadar. Geilliuil. She'd been called many things, but not her name. She tried to recall. Something with an L? Either way she'd taken far too long. As the seconds stretched on he didn't seem angry, just standing, waiting, as she opened and shut her mouth.
"L-lucia." She finally stumbled out. He simply nodded.
"How did you end up here, Lucia?" His tone wasn't warm, but it wasn't unkind either. Lucia swallowed, and focused on keeping her breathing light, even and quiet.
"I… I ran. From the, the" She fumbled for the Low Gothic word, "dark ones. They were shot down. I waited and ran away when it was safe. I'm not-" she stopped, trying to compose herself. Her throat had tightened and tears stung at the edge of her eyes, but she refused to cry; if she did it wouldn't be pleasing. "I'm not with them."
Now he was the one that nodded. "You're injured." It wasn't a question, just a statement. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to respond and the filigreed mask of his helm offered no clue.
"It's nothing."
His helmet shifted slightly, first to her wounds and then to the pair of armsmen in the hallway. "Get her seen by medicae. Feed her, and keep her here until further notice."
"Yes, my lord." She heard someone reply and then the sound of movement.
He turned back to Lucia, helm still leaving him unreadable. "You're a prisoner, but cooperate, and no one will harm you." With that he turned and left.
The armsman returned a short time later with a battered metal tray, half covered in some thin grey gruel and a dented tin cup filled with recycled water. She pushed it through a slot in the bars and returned to her post outside.
Lucia stared at it. She waited, patient and still, for someone to snatch it away, or strike her. It just sat there. Eventually she slunk over to it, kneeling next to the tray. She watched her surroundings and ate as quickly as possible. The man or a servant would return, surely. She expected him to chastise her, tell her she wasn't supposed to eat, that she was too ugly while doing so, to strike her. He never did.
Long after she'd finished eating she stared at the cup in her hands, unsure if this was what kindness tasted like.