A Navigators Duty

[Leektheratking]

Terran standard time: 11:24 sun fall, the 1st​ of the month Imperator pater.

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The Rogue traders. Founders. Those who step first.



They have many names and even more titles, self-appointed or not, a million worlds have been found by them, a million more exploited to destitution.



Their word is law with very little to contradict, their writ is sacrosanct on their own good word.



And right now, ones writing binds me for future more.



I look upon her, as she signs the vellum contract, longer then the room even when folded over twice, members of her retinue and my servants hold it aloft as the terms were read line by line, piece by piece, her Senechal a young woman, or so she seems.



My third eye tells different, as the wisps of her soul harbour her age, eight children she birthed, the ninth caused damage irreparable, it happened during a gunfight, she regrets it still, her husband died not long after.



Yet, even as I drift from the drolling sound of her voice, a wheezing nasally sound from her sinus that surely is the result of one to many broken noses, I stare once more, through the suit that keeps the harsh light from my skin, to look at the rogue trader, truly try to take in the tall woman's features, as her soul harshens her outline in a far too surreal way.



Tall. I think, too tall for someone born planeside, a void born, yet her skin is not pallid or lifeless as theirs, the lights on her ship are U.V, perhaps a smart preventative for the damages of low Vitamins on ones humours, yet I look deeper.



Nothing so wise it seems, she merely hates taking the pills.



Never had children, she knows she is expected, demanded twice already by those of her house, all other options exhausted, she hides the Vitaewombs within her private quarters, knows no one will find them.



Her teeth are too perfect, artificial, her father beat them out of her skull, a beringed hand hitting her for defiance, typical.



She does not look at me, not fear, not disgust, nervousness, I can see.



The alabaster print of the death mask I wear unnerves her, reminds her of a statue of Saint Drusus that hung over her childhood bed, it was a bed bigger then the habs of her servants, she didn't like it, she could touch the edges of the Balen great-goose feather mattress if she stretched, her current one is much bigger, after she made the statue she hated fall on it.



Five servants were executed because of that, her first she watched, she doesn't admit it, the scream they released from the whiplash intrigued her, she tries to repeat that feeling whenever she can, the line of bodies behind her do not haunt her.



Typical.



"and within bounds of these terms and conditions, so shall the Navigator house of Jacal be bound for the lifetime of the Navigator Deidrick, and therein all children or offspring brought forth to renew acceptable to the grand and noble line of house Calcaris and her head Lady Rywka" the words finally rung out, startling me, too loud, too noisy, the flesh lump of a Scion of my house always such a way, he does it on purpose, I know, I have seen, he hates that I was chosen and not him, that his spawning whore from a low house did not make him right, he had her murdered no a month ago, he thinks we do not know.



We do, his five true born siblings shall be told upon my departure, he will not survive the month.



Yet now that the procedure has finished, it will be a week still until I am to enter her ship, one "Grace of Luna" a new ship, made only ten thousand Terran years ago, its engines have taken the lives of thousand-two-hundred and thirty-two of its crew mates, they were tossed in as fuel.



I must wait a week, until my space is furbished, until the mess the last navigator became is cleaned out, I hear whispers, a guard who saw it, he will be dead in a month, the things he saw crawl out of the lasts third eye unnerve him, he draws them with a stick of pressed carbon he stole from a menial, his fellows will find them, the symbol that burns, that marks.



That burns, that marks, that burns, that marks.



Chaos, I see, my standard eyes weep, the twisting red of a burst vessel soak their white to near black, I am fine, that which he saw will kill him, there is no safety, what remains in his skin will kill many more.



They will be replaced, the floors will still be wet with water in his room above the furnace before someone new sits on his bleached bunk and looks upon his pristine clean walls, the cycle repeats.



The trader looks at me, her mouth opening and closing for a second until she finds how to speak to me, her last Navigator was mute I see, a birth defect rendering his mouth a hole unable to commune through, only consume.



"I hope our future together is prosperous and fruitful, for mankind and ourselves" she says simple and plainly, with teeth too white and flesh too tall.



She thinks of what sounds I'd make if she were to peel my suit from me, she is strange.



"that I do hope, my Lady Captain, a long and fortuitous career together would be best" I say, my words sound hollow to me, I do not feel the message they convey, yet they are the truth.



I wait.

Terran standard time: 00:01 sun rise, the 9th​ of the month Imperator pater.

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I rise, I have not slept, the ritual has to be done now, my first day upon her ship.



I await, within my sanctum the ritual of communion with the vessel is strange and difficult.



It does not want new, it is new, it wishes for its first, it longs for the one that took its virginity, she communed different then me, the ship does not like it, wishes me to be her, struggles against me as the ritual is prepared.



I am stripped slowly, I feel the hands of the servants of my house, withered and worn, caress my paleness so delicately.



My skin burns upon their contact, the blood welling forth from my skin strange and purple, leaving stains that would remain for months of cleaning cycles, from cloth it never leaves.



The others filter in and take their position around as I do, naked as I and unafraid.



The massive depression gives me pause, far more than a grand pool in size, I see, the hundred-fold servants, not one eighth of my retinue sit, blade at the ready.



My eye sees as I stand, fifteen drugged, unwilling to commit as I too drew my knife, wicked and long, a thing of brutality.



Slowly, the tip slices down the sternum, to the mons pubis, and around, I am the eye that peers beyond, I am the soul that survived, I am a navigator.



The one hundred slit themselves, throat to groin, all the same do others slice cables, non-vital and agreed upon with the High Factorum of the vessel, the slick oil mixing with the blood, with my own.



The ship rages against me, I feel as I take my first step down, across the far too big pool of slick and gore, my throne at the other end.



I walk, then I waddle, then I swim.



The contact burns, the oil dries and splits my frailty, I open my mouth and consume, deeper and deeper I drink as I move, until I am one.



The ship, the crew, me, I am one, I am three, as the Emperor is.



In flesh, machine and soul. I have been born anew.



I walk naked upwards, the grates digging harshly into my soft feet, cutting trenches I will live with for the rest of my days with.



As I sit, I repeat the words, burned into my mind.



"Grace of Luna, I am of you, of your flesh I have drank, of mine you have drank, of us we are one, my eyes are your eyes, your Vid feeds are my Vid feeds, my throat your throat, your speakers mine own, of one flesh we are bound, in sickness and health we are bound"



The machines rage is quelled as I listen in, the discordant song now a hum, married once more, it is content.



I am tired, yet I cannot rest, almost within an instant of its completion, did Lady Rwyka enter, unannounced as she had done three times today, behind hr a cadre of followers.



One a soldier, Krieg born, I cannot tell their gender, neither can they, they have never questioned, never looked, they heard it was heresy, and that was enough, their hair is red, they are proud of it, they are ashamed of their pride, they will flagellate themselves in private later.



Another is inhuman, hiding themselves, it is a Xenos, a Aeldari, they do not like me, they are filled with contempt as they stare at my nude form, some sense of familiar mockery to their own as they look, what I can see is blurred, their mind far more defended and quiet, I appear as a relative, one who fled to an impossible realm for a taste of something sweet beyond the tastes of a craft world, they hate me for it. Their mind is quiet, I like them.



Of the last two, they are twins, strange and foreign to even each other, one joined a cult, worshipping the Emperor through Pious violence, the other the Munitorum, a man of pious paper work, he can sort a sheaf in a mere month that others would take a year, he does not know how to read, he has memorised the orders and their shapes, he has not made a mistake yet.



"I was told it went well, I am glad dear Navigator, I had high hopes" she did not, I know this, the blood drips down my body in constant streams of slick gore.



I lick my lips, the sweet oil soothing my ruined tongue.



"it went as well as any could suspect My lady, pray tell when is our first translation, I should wish to be prepared in more fitting attire before so" I speak maintaining eye contact as I was taught, all but my third.



The Lady captain does not, instead she traces the flow of my muscle, the sinewy and weak fibres that show themselves beneath my alabaster skin leaving nothing for the impression, she takes me in, and a strange lust comes to her, I can see, she has never met someone she cannot have, I am intriguing to her in an all new way, I will resist.



"it shall be within a month, I have little else to do in this system" she spoke with the authority I expected, this ship that was me, was hers, ever nut and bolt and panel and birth aboard it was hers.



"I will await with baited breath" I speak, my voice almost jovial, she leaves quickly after one more look to my body, a child will disappear from the lower decks tonight, I will feel their pain, I do not await it.



When they leave however, finally does my readiness lower, a simple order and the servants, blind and complacent, do they lead me onward to a prepared bath, the water temperate and neutrally buoyant, I cannot stay within too long, I scrub my flesh, and scrub and scrub.



Tears well within my flesh eyes, this body is not my own, it yet clings to me, refuses me rapture, I am trapped within the depths of a body that hates its inhabitant, the servants quickly stop the soft cloth tearing my skin, they finish my cleaning and adorn me in my suit, panels depicting saints and servants of the Imperium on every piece, I am sealed within.



My sorrow has not gone unnoticed, I will be tied down to the bed again this night, to avoid any more incidents.



Typical.