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Strange, sourceless noises were a staple of warp travel. The sounds were varied, and never pleasant. They were something everyone who sailed the stars eventually learned to harden their nerves against: irregular knocking along the hull, violent sounds of metal under stress, the occasional untraceable scream.
The sound of leaves rustling, Roboute Guilliman had to admit, was a new one for him.
It had been reported six times in the last five hours and forty-one minutes of the ship’s transit. He had kept the time himself, to ensure that the chrono-uncertainty brought on by warp travel wasn’t affecting his ability to discern any pattern in the manifestations.
So far, he was not having much luck.
There had been two instances in different landing bays of Macragge’s Honour, one in the hall outside the primary apothecarion, one in the arming chambers of Second Company, one in a dorsal transit corridor (keelward end), and one reported by a trembling mortal worker in the tertiary enginarium. In each instance, it had lasted less than ten seconds, whispering just on the edge of unmodified human hearing. Given the size of the ship, it was likely that the reported manifestations were only a small percentage of a much greater total, and the majority had simply gone unheard.
The manifestations didn’t seem to be centered on a particular part of the ship, and no failure of the Geller field had been detected, nor any other mechanical issues. Practically, there was nothing to do but wait for the situation to develop; they lacked sufficient actionable information to take any other course at this time.
There was little Guilliman disliked more than a threat he couldn’t plan for, which was why he was occupying himself on the bridge, pacing back and forth behind the strategium rail, when a crewmember at the shipside vox station called up to him.
“My lord, a message for the bridge from the Navigator’s chambers,” the officer said.
“Go on.”
“She reports an anomaly,” the officer continued. “Her view of the warp around us is not as expected. She says there are tall shapes around us where there should not be, like great trees. And…” he paused, listening. “She reports that while light and color follow no natural law in the immaterium, she sees green.”
Guilliman’s mind went, immediately and unpleasantly, to the fetid rot Mortarion had brought to Iax.
“Begin calculating contingencies for an emergency return to realspace,” he said, leaning forward against the rail. “And—”
Before he finished, the rustling came again, louder than at any point before. Faint hints of natural light played over the surfaces of the bridge, dappled as though obscured by a dense forest canopy. He could smell the soft, natural decay of leaf litter.
The rustling grew nearer and faintly louder, as though a large but stealthy creature was slipping through the underbrush towards him. Guilliman froze, carefully triangulating the sound’s approach. It seemed at first to come from everywhere, but it was loudest—
Behind him.
There was no obvious state-change. All at once, above his head, there was a thick, dark canopy of leaves transposed against where the high, arching ceiling of the bridge should be. The detritus of the forest crunched under his feet as he turned. Instead of the ancient supporting columns, the bridge was circled by tall, black-barked trees, soft with moss.
A tall figure pushed its way between two low branches into view, and as it did so the phantom forest faded again, as though it had never been, as though its job was done. The Ultramarines stationed to the bridge brought weapons up as one, but Guilliman held one fist up, forestalling them.
Before him stood a tall figure, helmed and hooded, in masterwork power armor of a sort he hadn’t seen in an age, ceramite inlaid a dark, almost-black green, flanked by an honor guard of two space marines on either side. The four strange Astartes immediately dropped to one knee in unison, fists to their chests in salute.
For an instant Guilliman thought he didn’t know their heraldry, but the winged sword device they wore was unmistakeable. Dark Angels— but their colors as they had been, the black of the Great Crusade, not the green they favored now. Their armor was battered, scarred in places.
The figure standing in their midst reached up, pushed back his hood and lifted his helmet free.
“Roboute,” the Lion said.
The old wound hurt, suddenly. This could be a miracle. It could also be a deception of the most intimate, wretched sort.
“If you are who you appear to be,” Guilliman said, carefully, raking emotion from his voice, “tell me this.” It still didn’t feel like it had been so very long since he’d last seen his brother, but it had been, and the galaxy had forgotten much. He cautiously excised details and context clues, trying to make the question something no one alive now could rightly guess. “When you arrived out of the storm, who struck you?”
One corner of the Lion’s mouth twitched up.
“Faffnr Bludbroder, of the Wolves,” he said. “Of Sesc, as I recall. A good man.”
Guilliman yanked him into an embrace so hastily it nearly knocked them both off their feet, armor clattering. He didn’t weep, but he swallowed hard, breathing deep to ease the sudden knot in his throat. The Lion hugged him back tightly enough that his armor protested slightly, and Guilliman could just discern a faint sigh of relief against his shoulder.
He had not thought he’d ever get the chance to be so close to family again.
Eventually, and with a distinct reluctance, Guilliman stood back, setting his hands on the Lion’s shoulders and examining his face. He had aged, visibly, his hair gone whiter and kept shorter. There were deep lines carved around his mouth and eyes. He’d always looked stern, but the effect now was nearly that of a patrician statesman, or a wise king.
There was something uncharacteristically soft in the Lion’s eyes. “Has it really been so long, Roboute?”
Guilliman had to blink hard. “No, no,” he murmured, completing his half of the old exchange, before finally giving voice to the question he couldn’t dismiss any longer: “How?”
“I was preserved from the Breaking of Caliban by… means I still do not entirely understand,” the Lion said, an admission that Guilliman could tell frustrated him. He gestured to the four Dark Angels, who rose to their feet. “It was only recently that I awoke.”
“But how did you arrive here? That was no teleport,” Guilliman pressed. “It was like nothing I’d ever seen. I feared a daemonic incursion.”
The Lion winced. It was minute, but still far more emotion than Guilliman was used to seeing on his brother’s face. It was mildly unsettling. “An… ability I seem to have developed during my slumber,” he said haltingly. “My control is still… imperfect. My apologies.”
Guilliman was still processing being apologized to by the Lion when the nearest Dark Angel lifted his helm free. The face beneath clearly belonged to a veteran of some age— it was dark and weathered, but approachable. “Forgive my lord. He is improving,” the Astartes said with a grin. “You should’ve seen him when he first woke. First time he took anyone else with him into the forest, he stranded us several star systems over on accident.”
The Lion growled. “Zabriel.”
“Apologies, lord,” the Dark Angel said, not sounding sorry at all.
It was a degree of disrespect the Lion never would have brooked in past days, but he just looked mildly annoyed. Guilliman’s astonishment must have shown on his face, because the Lion frowned at him. “What?”
“You’ve changed,” Guilliman said, seeing no harm in the truth. “You seem… calmer.”
The Lion exhaled. “I have been... trying to avoid repeating past mistakes,” he said.
“He’s been apologizing,” one of the other Dark Angels said seriously. “At first we thought he must be an imposter.”
The Lion whipped around to glare at the speaker. Guilliman snorted despite himself.
“Clearly I have overcorrected, if you are all now so comfortable undermining me in front of my brother,” the Lion said flatly. “I should bring back punishment details.”
“For the twenty of us?” the Dark Angel answered back, undaunted. “You’d run out of men.”
Guilliman‘s brow furrowed. “Twenty? I thought the Dark Angels were operating at full Chapter strength.”
“I have not yet made contact with the modern Dark Angels,” the Lion admitted.
Guilliman frowned, looking back to the unhelmed Dark Angel— Zabriel. “But—?”
“We’re not modern, my lord,” Zabriel said, grinning broadly. “As out of time as you, I expect.”
“Caliban was destroyed in the midst of a catastrophic warp storm,” the Lion explained. “Many of those among my sons who had been— misled— were scattered throughout time and space.”
Guilliman dropped to one knee without hesitation to examine the Dark Angels more closely, the archaic and mostly worn-away markings of their armor, the way they held themselves. “Fascinating,” he breathed. “I had not thought to meet loyal Astartes who yet remembered— all of it.“
Everything. The Great Crusade, that time of such hope and viciousness and momentum, when the Emperor still walked among men and the nonexistence of gods was doctrine and the future felt open and magnificent. A feeling nestled in his chest that he realized with some shame was envy. What he wouldn’t give, to have Ultramarines with him who had seen what once had been.
The Dark Angels had always been particularly impenetrable in their heraldry, but he had fought beside them, and it was legible enough to him. “Rangdan, of course. First and second compliances of Karkasarn, very good,” he murmured, eyes dancing over Zabriel’s armor. He tapped one device he didn’t recognize, worn almost to illegibility. “What is this?”
The Dark Angel was watching him with wide eyes. “The— scouring of the Oort Cloud, my lord.”
Guilliman brightened. “The solar compliance! You are older than me! Marvelous.”
The Lion cleared his throat. “Roboute.”
Oh, he really was quite close, wasn’t he? He stood and stepped back. “Pardon me,” he said, abashed but still smiling a little foolishly. “It is— good to see you. Very good.”
“No apology necessary, my lord,” Zabriel said, trading a glance with one of the other Dark Angels. “…Before our lord returned to us, we had hardly dreamed of ever meeting such a warm welcome aboard any Imperial vessel.”
“Our little brothers will be furious,” one of the other Dark Angels said, sounding very entertained by the prospect. He waved at the nearest Ultramarines in greeting. One of the Ultramarines hesitantly nodded back. “You’ve just announced to the Lord Regent and a bridge full of Ultramarines that there have been renegade legionaries of the First running around for the last ten millennia. After all the work they put in trying to hunt us down in secret.”
The Lion sighed exasperatedly, glanced at Guilliman. “Do you also find this future to be an excruciating exercise in self-awareness?” he asked wryly. “I feel like I could have done without seeing what my own worst tendencies look like when left unattended for ten thousand years.”
Guilliman thought about the Codex and winced. “Perhaps,” he said delicately, acutely aware of how many Ultramarines were currently within earshot.
“I disagree, lord, I think it’s been good for you,” the Dark Angel who’d been speaking said cheerfully.
“You are testing my patience, Kai,” the Lion said flatly.
“It’s on purpose, lord.”
That feeling again, part envy and part grief. He missed Thiel suddenly and fiercely.
“I will not be able to remain for long,” the Lion told him, blunt as ever. “I have taken a region of Imperium Nihilus under my protection, and it is under constant threat.”
Guilliman swallowed his disappointment at that news, set it carefully aside. “Why am I not surprised, Lord Protector?” he asked instead, smiling a little.
The Lion raised an eyebrow, amusement glimmering in his eyes. “So says the Lord Regent,” he answered back.
There was an ugly hole in the conversation, an unaddressed absence that Guilliman could not bring himself to touch, not yet. Perhaps later, in some more private setting, the two of them might sit and grieve the Angel. It was strange to think that such a thing might even be possible, now.
“I would not presume to keep you from your duty, but stay a little longer, at least,” Guilliman said instead. “Long enough to let my apothecaries and artificers see to your men and their armor.”
It was a transparent excuse, but with the Lion such things were often necessary. Indeed, the look on the Lion’s face told him he had not been as subtle as he might have liked to be, but he did not look angry.
“A little longer,” the Lion acquiesed. “Very well.”