so good night unto you all - LIBRARY RETURN

[libraryassistants]

Who: The Editors, one and all
What: The fight is over, the pieces remain... and the Editors head back 'home'
When: Dawn of the Final Day Sunrise after the attack
Where: Leaving Montica, back to the Library
Content warnings: Please make sure to put CW in headers!

By the time morning comes around again, the fires are beginning to die down, thanks to the many efforts of the citizenry to keep them under control. The rebel vampires too have been largely dealt with. These two seemingly insurmountable obstacles were only possible thanks to a combination of factors: the Umbra not being as blind to their human servants as their opposition would have thought, defectors from the Orlocks who were able to counter-act some of their magic, the following Amalia gathered and deployed from Laurelthirst, some suspicious (though welcome) help from suspiciously new arrivals, and of course, House Guildulf throwing their own into the fray to ally with the vampires for this confrontation.

A unity the likes of which Montica has never truly seen.

As the sun rises, there are few left who are able to fight at all; the rebels are beaten, and even the forces built up by both the vampires and werewolves are exhausted or diminished, leaving no one able to take advantage. Citizens of both sides flee indoors, and the remaining rebels are forced to vanish into the woods once more, weakened and unable to strike again any time soon. But there are still repairs to be done, physically and otherwise. Will this unity last beyond tonight? Will young love and youthful hope prevail? Those are the questions that settle over a weary Montica, as light pours into the city once more.

And then, the world begins to fade, static taking over the senses, as the Editors return to the Library.

Welcome back, Editors

It looks much the same as they left it, though the makings of a masquerade are no longer arranged as finely, a few scorch marks here and there, and for some reason there’s some amazing optical illusions on the floor panelling that makes them look like actual manhole covers. Alas, no sewers lay beneath. It may still take Actors a bit of time to shake off the old-new memories, and for some reason the fluorescent lighting seems harsher on the skin than it has any right too. Good thing that the stacks cast long shadows.

The customary tea cart is set up in the Lobby again, and it seems some improvements have been made. The coffee still isn’t strong, but’s far more drinkable than it has been, and there’s an added decaf option now! The tea has still been overstepped, and the stale cookies have been replaced by scones that are hard as rocks, but clearly someone’s getting the message that there are improvements needed. Clearly the tea cart was the place to start.

If someone for some reason doesn’t want stale scones, there’s also a child sized food truck in the lobby, with a sign out front boasting a variety of tamales, including: black beans and cheese, birria, chicken, fire scorpion, man suffering to death via battle wound, and beef. Upon approach, what look like fuzzy puppets pop up to… take your order? They don’t say much, or rather, they make a single noise over and over that seems to be them communicating, but the tamales are good. Just… don’t try to look in the truck. They’ll screech, vanish, and then no tamales for you.

Meanwhile, the bulletin board has a cheerful sign decorated with colorful blocks, declaring: “Join us in the Children’s Area for Lego Club!” Upon locating the room in question, Editors will discover boxes among boxes of legos of various shapes and sizes. There are some ‘how to’ guides for various builds (including a ‘research space ship’ and a ‘vampire’s castle’), but also plenty of encouragement for people to make their own creations! Unlike normal creations, these will actually stick around for a while after they’re finished, and there’s a nice little table where people can display and share what they’ve made.

The Assistants, it seems, are nowhere to be seen: the ‘back in 5’ sign is still in place at the help desk. Still, even without their ‘helpful’ guidance, some facets of the Library may come more easily to some in the aftermath of Montica’s troubles.

[Due to the resolution of the Story, any skills tagged Archivist in the skill tree cost one less skill point (minimum of 1) until the next Story. This can stack with a normal Archivist bonus!]

Comments

[angel_of_baal]

He knew the fruit tree was not perfect camouflage, but privacy...privacy was an issue here, so the best he could manage was to get out of reach as much as possible, staring at the fake stars in the sky.

He sighs. He knew he could not put this off forever, avoid everyone until he...found peace. He sounds...tired. "I do not think anyone can compel you to do anything. Much less me." That said, he's not moving. This partridge is in his cherry tree.

[curzed]

Privacy is absolutely an issue around here. The one thing he'd miss about those stinking, filthy sewers. "Perhaps not. But I asked for a reason, instead of making that choice for you."

There's a smell he doesn't much care for in this garden. Like it's been used for something not gardening. "The boat's become a forest now," he adds, quiet this time. He knows he'll be heard easier. "Solitude may be easier to find there than here, if you truly wish it. I can send you there, without needing to damage anything." One useful thing, ONE useful thing he's gotten out of this.

[angel_of_baal]

"I would prefer," It hurts to talk for some reason, that has nothing to do with the wound he got on Montica, already healing. "no one exert themselves on my behalf. For some time." It's not personal. He's rethinking a great deal of things about family and obligations.

"Come up here before you add straining your neck to my list of transgressions."

[curzed]

Climbing is more of an exertion than putting Sanguinius somewhere else. The Night Haunter eyes the cherry tree doubtfully. It really didn't look like it'd hold the weight of two primarchs, how it's handling Sanguinius alone he can't tell from here.

But up he goes anyway. Sheer walls are no difficulty, a tree is a joke, and it doesn't much like the added weight but doesn't crack or break under the strain; he finds himself somewhere to settle that isn't in touching distance but is still nearby. He's not risking them both on one limb, that's begging for problems. "It is unfortunately our lot in life that people will continue to exert themselves for us."

And the millions who'd die in their names. "What do you recall of it?" This time, there's no question what the problem is. Last time, he hadn't known who he was dealing with, and treated the xenos like the xenos it was. This is different.

[angel_of_baal]

Curze is a primarch, designed for war. He can climb...a cherry tree. The worst thing that would happen would be getting a cherry stain on his skin or clothing.

"People did this, back there." In the city of Montica. He remembers seeing them. "Sitting in trees." So here he is, trying it. And thus far the tree is obliging in holding his weight, and Curze's. Magic trees? Magic trees.

"I recall..." He twists the tamale wrapper around one hand, a hand much better suited, he thinks to wielding the Spear of Telesto, or his sword than dancing. He looks over, trying to make at least fleeting eye contact. "I had a family. A father. A sibling." He knows Guilliman would not understand the weight of it, but Curze would.

[curzed]

"On Nostramo, girders and ledges did as well as any tree." This is the first he's climbed with intention to just sit in it, and he's.. hm, not super overly impressed, it didn't feel as solid as a nice chunk of ferrocrete. "..Less green though."

Maybe Sanguinius was a person who appreciated the green, but he was still not sold on it being better than any given hive's streets.

These things make him glad he has yet to be trapped in an Actor role. To have a mortal's life dangled like a prize, a sudden lived experience, day in and day out, only to have it torn away again.. "You still have some of those things." But he knows already. "It's not the same, I know. They have a different perspective."

[angel_of_baal]

"More living than girders, the green. The leaves." Baal was an irradiated wasteland, the few plants clinging bitterly to life, nothing like the exuberant flowers and leaves of the tree's broad branches. "People had everything we want--peace, prosperity, and still they found reasons to fight." Stupid reasons--inches of power, a street corner.

He shakes his head. "Our Father is...distant." He crumples the wrapper, flakes of it falling through his fingers. "Has he ever told you he was proud of you? Or even that he cared what we felt?"

[curzed]

"Do you like it? All this.. foliage." No judgment one way or another, everyone had different tastes. That he preferred the bleak or the bloody was entirely his own preferences. Maybe someone who grew up in a desert would find the green precious.

Whatever that thing is in Sanguinius' grip, Curze had .. been pretty sure that part was supposed to be eaten too. It added a bit of crunch, some roughage. Isn't that supposed to be important in a diet? "Human nature is at its core, bestial." He's said as much many times before, it's why terror worked. Give them everything and they still fight! "They were more aware of that than most, at least."

What did it take to bring out the supposed better nature of mankind?

The answer to the questions asked in turn are considered for a long moment. "Once. He called Nostramo a model of compliance." That's being proud, isn't it? "To the VIIIth is ... less praise and more continued assignment and a lack of censure. I don't think our desires weigh into matters much. We have a task to complete, we are set to it." He swings his legs a little idly, like a kid might. "What sort of sire was our brother? As distant?"

[angel_of_baal]

That....was a question. "I don't know." It's an honest answer, at least. All the green around Montica was so different from anything in the Baal system. "On Baal, to grow green was to show a furious tenacity, a refusal to die in a hostile place. Perhaps that matters."

Later, much later, after he is long gone, Commander Dante will commission a special garden in the Arx to preserve the few native plants of Baal. For possibly the same reason, possibly a connection to his past, Sanguinius's present.

Someone had told him not to eat the wrapper. He had tried to explain that he could digest it, but that apparently wasn't the point of eating or not eating. "But our father's whole point is that we should, eventually, be able to transcend the bestial. Even the Legions, our Legions, were supposed to bring glory and direction to it. Not just...killing for power." Duty was just honor stripped of ornament.

"Our...," he blinks. "That was Guilliman?" Well, that just made everything go from Weird to WEIRD.

[curzed]

There was no such green on Nostramo. The sun was too weak, where it even got past Tenebor's shadow, the little natural vegetation tended to have very dark leaves to absorb as much of the light as possible. Mushrooms are more common. "It matters if you think it does, because it's your perspective alone I'm asking of." What other people thought about it, wasn't relevant.

Why others built gardens didn't matter either. If Sanguinius did, why he did was the point.. even if it was as simple as 'I like it'.

"Thankfully few legionaires kill for power." Outside his own sons, a thought that brings a frown before he shakes it off. Sanguinius hasn't had enough time to really reflect on events if Roboute has been missed, but he'd had the benefit of all but having the man pointed out to him. "I believe so. There were similarities. Ones you were not in a position to recognize at the time."

[angel_of_baal]

The true mystery of Sanguinius is how he could grow up on an irradiated desert planet, blasted for most of the year by a hostile sun, and still remain as pale as a Victorian lady.

"It seemed...almost an offense, for people to have petty squabbles in the middle of such plenty." Perhaps it was the People of the Blood, the scrabbling over resources that was almost daily life on Baal, that made him think so.

"None of us fight for power. Only duty, service to an ideal larger than we are." Which, in Sanguinius's case, was pretty large.

He looks away for a long moment, as if the bland fake sky of the garden held answers, if he looked hard enough. "Similarities to our father?"

[curzed]

Especially since they were supposed to have melanchromatic abilities on par with the rest of their brothers, such as Vulkan. By all rights Sanguinius should be a statue of gold and obsidian, not marble. "I don't understand it." There's a twitch of lean shoulders, almost a shrug. "But it's how humanity is."

They can be taught, at least. Leashed and brought to heel and trained on how to be civilized. How to treat each other well, on pain of retribution.

"...No. Not to the Father I have interacted with." He leans a little against the trunk of the cherry tree, brow furrowed. The Emperor was not a kind man, a loving man. He doubted their vaunted Father would extend a hand to save them, never mind exact bloody retribution for the offense of even trying to harm them. "The Guildulf lord seemed to love his pack very much. The things he would do for them were considerable. Our father, I suspect, will shed no tears when we are all red ruin."

cw: stuff on baal sucks esp for kids.

[angel_of_baal]

"What we would have done on Baal, with such abundance." He risks a glance over, gold eyes lighing on his brother in the false twilight. "Or Nostramo. What might we have become, brother?"

He had seen sorrow in Montica, but no mother wailing over her mutant child. He had seen poverty, but none of it the bird-bone thin desperation of some of the tribes of the Blood. He had lifted them from that, as much as he was able, but he still remembered.

"He did love, perhaps, but it felt, at least, conditional. And the conditions felt impossible." That much was familiar. "But yes, he seemed to show...real affection." To his sister, to Jadis. "Perhaps with age, our Father has had such feelings wither."

cw: more horrible childhoods

[curzed]

He shakes his head, curtain of dark hair swaying with the motion. "There's no point in dwelling on what-ifs, brother. It was not, and cannot be." Had he wondered, many times, growing up what it would be like to have a family? Of course. What it would like to not be so ravenously hungry that rats and garbage were a fine meal? Of course he did.

But it changed nothing. That wasn't who he was. "Baal might be terraformed into a paradise, but would it be the same? And Nostramo.." Nostramo will die, crisscrossed in molten golden cracks-- It's forced away with difficulty. "Will never be a garden world."

If it was true that Roberte Guildulf's love was conditional, Curze didn't know it. He wasn't sure he'd know the difference. "I provide no excuses for our vaunted Sire, or suppositions of his purposes. As for Guilliman and his lupine counterpart, I found them similar enough to recognize it, once I understood what I was looking at. You .. you were much more troublesome." He says it like it's something to be proud of.

[angel_of_baal]

"There is no point dwelling, perhaps, but I do mourn it. Not for myself but my people. All the suffering that might not have happened." He sighed. "You're right, though. Harsh as it was, Baal is my home. It would feel like betrayal to wish it changed."

"I do not hold Guildulf reponsible as a reflection of our brother in any way. You do not know, but when you are...in one of those stories. But I remember it all now, all the things I never had to try." He shrugs. "That is why I am so disoriented. It will pass, brother. Have no fear."

Not that Curze did fear, really. "Was I?"

[curzed]

He has his concerns, with how long the last effects had lingered. Might linger even now, in fact, merely hidden better by a measure of experience. "A world for recruiting our legions from that grows soft and decadent will not produce the sons our duties require either. Let it stay a dream. Or perhaps, not even that."

It's the best counsel he can offer. What-ifs caused too much trouble. Seeded too much doubt. "To be taunted so with a life you cannot have seems terrible cruelty. I'm not sure I approve of this sort." A master of all forms of terror, but melancholy? No.

"Mm. Much like the last time, there was no sight, or smell or sound that identified you. Very troublesome." The great angel is given a sidelong look. Was there some instinctive knack for being sneaky buried in there somewhere? "Some are effortlessly spotted but you.. you hide well."

[angel_of_baal]

"Do not let Guilliman hear such talk." It's a weak attempt at a joke, but it's an attempt at least.

"I wonder, my brother," since Curze is one of the few he has told of his curse, "if the Thirst that afflicts my sons is in part from that. If they would be more resistant if they had had a slightly kinder life." Probably not, but maybe. Maybe something would have soothed Nassir Amit's fire without blunting his edge.

Perhaps not.

"I did not hide intentionally. Especially this life." Less embarrassing than last time, but more distressing.