#Ushotan/Valdor

[sculptorofcrimson]

Genderbent Thunder Warriors when?

A/N: Some funny crack. Genderbent Ushotan.

Relationships: You'll see :3

The Cast: Valdor(mentioned), Ushotan(genderbent), Kandawire

~~~~

She saw the warriors emerge through the night-blown snow, standing motionless against the dark. For a moment, she thought they were Custodians, though their stature was not quite the same, and their armour not of the same quality. Up closer, and you could see the great differences – the plate was cruder, heavier, more bronze than gold. Much of it was heavily damaged, and individual plates had been replaced with cruder hammered steel. They still wore their crimson plumes, though, and still donned their thick crimson cloaks, all of it sodden in the freezing deluge. They carried their old weapons, the ones that had once been used in the Unity propaganda vids. She remembered seeing the first cuts of those, years ago, and laughing at the absurdity of them. No one was laughing now. They looked as savage as she had ever seen them, bereft of their old chains of command and now fighting out of bitter, wounded pride. Every movement they made brought a snarl of badly maintained servos, and you could smell the stink of atrophying flesh even through the storm’s lash. They did not have long, whatever the outcome here

They said nothing to her. Some, she recognised, were already deep into their pre-combat mania, and were working hard to maintain control of their faculties. Others were merely morose, or fixated on what was to come. Danger hung over them like a fog, creeping out into the frigid night. They had always been designed to cause terror, and that capacity at least had not yet eroded. 

As she walked among them, she could sense a strange sense of…amusement, almost pooling off from their veins. As if they knew something she did not. One leered at her as she passed. She held his gaze, just long enough, before turning away. 

She saw their master last, just as was appropriate. Armor colored a bronze so dark it might have been iron, lined with blood-red lacquer and covered in battle-honours, the finest ornaments encrusted with dust and ash. The Thunder Warrior’s helm was encrusted with heavy decoration, the vox-grille formed into a permanent grimace. A titanic broadsword swung in one gauntlet, a projectile gun in the other. A tabard, scaled like a fish’s flanks, hung from a curved and intricately decorated breast-plate, and the Primarch’s blunt greaves scored with the lightning strikes of the Legio.

Valdor was taller, it was true, but there was something absolutely brutal about the Primarch before her – a kind of amplified viciousness that made her eyes sting.

The High Lord came closer, staring up at the giant. Her lips parted, jaw dropping slowly in a silent gesture of surprise.

‘Lord Primarch Ushotan,’ she said, respectfully, her voice stunned with surprise and shock. ‘It is good to finally meet you.’ she finally managed. 

Amusement glinted behind that helmet. The Primarch of the IVth legion tossed back her ridged helm and laughed. Her laugh was sharp and guttural. 

‘You, too,’ she said, chuckling. The Primarch of the IVth legion steps closer, and Kandawire could see the Primarch’s breath pluming out past her rebreathers. 

Her voice was horrific. What had once been raucous laughter had been turned into a corroded scrape, dragging up from strained vocal cords and strangled by a damaged vox-unit. She laughed again, her chuckles growling and guttural like a wolf unrestrained, but still just about in control. Almost sane. ‘Didn’t know if you had the spine to see this through. Pleased to have my faith confirmed.’

The Primarch of the Iron Lords. The victor of Maulland Sen. Warrior, Primarch, captain, commander, mistress. Ushotan noted her surprised gaze, returning with a chuckle of her own.

‘You look surprised. I don’t blame you.’

‘I meant no offense, Lord…Lady Primarch.’ Kandawire said, looking up at the giantess with what felt like a daze. 

‘There was none taken. Captain-General did not speak much of me, did he?’

Kandawire thought for a moment, then replied. ‘No. He certainly did not.’

‘Serves that bastard right.’ Ushotan huffed, her well-decorated chestplate rising and falling as she growled at the air, hands clenching and unclenching around the pommel of her sword. ‘I’ll kill him either way. Slowly.’

‘I never wanted things to come to this.’ Kandawire did not know how long she had before the Primarch’s attention faded from her. 

‘None of us did.’ Ushotan looks away. Her ridged helm hid her grimace. She instead shakes her head. 

‘I wish to remind you – no more bloodshed than is needed. No anarchy. We are restoring, not destroying.’

Ushotan came closer. Her helm was frosted with ice, her hair a knotted mess that had been hastily cropped so only its ends hung limply from her helmet. Plumes of ragged breaths were vented from the outlets on her rebreather. She remembered how Valdor had described her, up in Maulland Sen at the extremity of the world.

Like the ghost of all murders.

Ushotan was close enough to glare down at her now. The giantess’ eyes were mirthless, her hidden smile a crooked path amid a visage twisted by madness. In a surprisingly graceful motion, she abruptly drops to a kneel before Kandawire, lowering herself until they were nearly eye to eye. Her breath fogged over Kandawire’s face. She smelled blood, the scent of ancient metal and the sterile fumes of combat stims, mixed with what vaguely resembles a scent of old oil. 

‘You want to know.’ Ushotan mused, looking her dead in the eye. ‘It does not matter, but you still want to know.’

‘Yes.’

‘You haven’t earned it.’ Ushotan doesn’t laugh again, but she makes a chuffing noise, forcing a sound out of her ruined throat. ‘But I’ll tell you anyways.’

Still kneeling in the snow, Ushotan laughs again, and begins. 

‘Constantin. You should’ve seen him then, so glorious in his invincibility. He was the first the Emperor created, and this, you already know. But he was also terrible to behold. The Emperor’s Spear, His finest weapon, and there was none after him, and certainly none before him. The process He used for the first Custodes was never replicated again.’ Ushotan shrugs. ‘He alone, he was unique. The first of the Custodes, greater than the rest of them all. But enough about Constantin. I’m sure you’ve already seen his brothers and sisters, much to your surprise. But you’ve never seen me. The propaganda vids made you think the Cataegis process would only work on males, eh?’ 

‘I suppose so, Lady Primarch.’ Even now, Kandawire was still unsure how to address her. ‘I had not expected…’

‘They lied.’ Ushotan replied bluntly. Almost unconsciously, Ushotan touches her throat, her gorget ringing as the Thunder Warrior digs her fingers into the ruined steel. ‘They lied. It worked on women, certainly, but not…well. The results were horrendous. It was like forcing a creation into what will never be. Even the Custodes struggled sometimes with their candidates, much less speaking of the Thunder Warriors. But the King was desperate. The Imperium took whatever recruits it had, in its earliest years. I was one of the poor bastards chosen, and by some freak of fate, I was one of those that lived. But they weren’t stable, no, even for a Thunder Warrior. They were fanatics. Screaming about the Emperor as their God.’ She chuckled again, mirtlessly.

‘Their god?’ Kandawire had believed it preposterous. The Emperor was a man. A great man, but a man nonetheless.

Ushotan smiled underneath that mask. She does not laugh, however. 

‘Their god.’

‘That’s preposterous.’

‘It is not.’ Ushotan shrugged her massive shoulders. ‘Didn’t affect their combat any. or all their augments, for all their madness, they were still sisters in battle, more or less. Doesn’t matter, does it? Worship never razed a city. Constantin himself never cared much, and it no longer matters. His treachery is all that matters. Whatever we had then, it didn’t matter anymore after Ararat.’

It could, thought Kandawire. Worship absolutely could, in fact, raze a city. But it didn’t matter, of course, the Primarch was already dusting herself off, and preparing to leave. 

‘And why are you telling me this? About…Constantin.’ Valdor’s first name tasted foreign on her tongue. 

‘Why?’ Ushotan almost looks surprised, turning around before she left. 

Kandawire swallowed, and gave the giantess a hesitant nod. ‘About Constantin. You and him.’

‘You really don’t know do you?’ Ushotan had stopped turning away. She was looking at her very intensely now, with a scrutinizing quality not unlike interrogation. Or rage. 

Then a smile, as slow as the rumbling of glaciers, breaks across that jagged expanse of a face, and she keels over, as if struck, her broad frame echoing with spasms. Kandawire, surprised, almost unconsciously takes a step back, before realizing the Thunder Warrior Primarch was laughing. 

She was laughing.

Ushotan howls her ragged laugh, and the chorus was taken up by her men in a horrible, amused symphony. They laughed, like corpses waiting to be put back to their grave, their combined voices not so unlike the rumble of ancient beasts spurred for war, they laughed in some kind of collective, amusing joke that Kandawire was not privy to.

‘He didn’t tell you, did she?’

‘No, Lord Primarch…I’m afraid not.’

‘He didn’t tell you we were lovers, eh?’

[winterninethree]

羊皮纸花

⚠️Valdor/Ushotan

Summary：乌索坦活下来了，也许出于瓦尔多的私心。

    “你在干什么？”瓦尔多问，几乎在开口的瞬间便开始以一个禁军能做到最接近于后悔的情绪想要将后续话语压下去。很显然，被从战场上抢救下来的钢铁领主正在用先前他留在这里的羊皮纸叠花，那被高领主写满毫无意义聒噪言论的浅褐纸卷在��霆战士指尖下变为了早已经在泰拉无数��混战中灭绝的一种小小花朵，随着手指主人的翻折弯出像是拥有生命般的弧度。

    “花。”乌索坦说，为这朵羊皮纸造的小花捏出带有尖角的萼片。“你要就拿去。”

    “你怎么会这个。”禁军统帅接住对方因为带着显而易见怒气而像是投掷手雷般丢来的纸花，看了看手中与对方形象丝毫不符的脆弱造物顺口问到。

    钢铁领主顿了一下，脸上浮现出种古怪的笑意，像是过去无数次带领他的队伍如尖刀般刺入敌营腹地后敌首惊慌失措抵抗时的表情。“我以前的亲卫常折这东西，他家乡的野花。”他说，手不自觉攥紧脸上却仍带着那奇怪的笑。“他被困于无止尽的幻象之中、有关战争与统一，于是我赐予了他荣耀之死。”

    乌索坦深吸一口气，面上笑容更甚，几乎到了有些扭曲的程度。“但他死得既无荣誉也无尊严，无法脱身的幻觉把他变成了个会对周遭进行无差别攻击的疯子。”

    禁军统帅沉默着。

    “在亚拉特山和东安纳托利亚高原之前，起码他没见过他所效忠的帝国将剑刃指向他的的模样。”

    禁军统帅仍然保持着沉默，没有丝毫反应，安静如同一尊华美的雕塑。

    “是啊，你当然无法理解，抛弃情感只余忠诚的帝皇之矛。”乌索坦长出口气，揉揉发僵的脸颊，眉眼间透露出疲态。“告诉我，康斯坦丁，祂还能从你身上拿走什么他没有已经拿走的东西？”

    禁军统帅的嘴唇张合却最终没能吐出半点话语，看着雷霆战士垂下头因为伤重与疲惫而陷入轻柔却难以挣脱的浅眠，尾音含糊不清却又无比坚定。

    “告诉我，你还剩下什么？”

作者：甘蔗紫伞

[stlptr]

[cursed-40k-thoughts]

Ushotan is one head shorter than Valdor, who is a foot or so taller than the average Custodes, which implies either Ushotan's exceptionally tall for a Thunder Warrior, or Thunder Warriors are the height of Custodes.

Also, if he's more muscular than Valdor, this implies either Valdor's a twink, or Ushotan's just built like a brick shithouse.

I absolutely loathe this knowledge.

Ushotan was both a big motherfucker and built like a brick shithouse. It's not really wild knowledge.

That said, all Custodes are twinks in the Emperor's eyes (he doesn't actually know what "twink" means, despite Malcador's yelling and diagrams).

[scp-xxxx]

Since you very deep in the early imperial lore. You have any information on what thunder warrior armour looked like? I remember when I draw it it was very hard to find sources. I did a super scaled back guesstimation based on what I did find. But not easy. I saw you mention at one point their armour in a joke. Do you know what it looked like? How it was worked?

How it worked was basically power armor.

They had lasrifles and were basically glorified Imperial guard(from Birth of the Imperium). They also had pretty good strength(the Outcast Dead).

From what we can tell of Ushotan, he's a pretty good example of how their armor looked like:

(And yes, this is Valdor simping for the insane military man(Ushotan).)

Apologies for the long quote, but Thunder Warrior descriptions. They're pretty damn cool.

(The lower one is Ushotan himself)

They had helmets and vox units, we know that.

And rebreathers.

I swear, Ushotan is singlehandely carrying Thunder Warrior fashion ON HIS BACK.... like so much of Thunder Warrior armor lore comes from Ushotan's drip.

And a very cool detail I just noticed is that Ushotan might've had augments, although if this is mechanical(which they had at the time, ex the soldier in BoTI) or genecraft is debatable

And their masks.

And lastly, the armor's durability: never really listed, but we do know Valdor pierces it with ease.

[marsskop]

Fav #wh40k character?

Constantin Valdor.

I am simply fascinated by his character (and the way Chris Wraight, in particular, writes him). I could write an essay about Valdor... Instead, have this ramble with a silly pic in the end ;)

Dour, reserved, quietly spoken, intelligent, and dry; preternaturally calm and infinitely intimidating. A man of no pride with one goal in mind. His emotions are etiolated, and emotions of others are hard to decipher. Obsessed with his armor and weapons, as every Custodes is, and obsessed over mistakes that should be fixed.

"You are the bringer of the new age. You are the warden of the old. You are the destroyer. You are the preserver."

The first of the Custodes, supposedly the template for all of them (nature, nurture). He knew more about the Emperor's plans than most. His sole goal is the protection of the Emperor, and he cares not for the Imperium.

The Apollonian Spear, given to him by the Emperor, a restraint that tells stories of the foes Valdor slays (and imagine what happens when he slays daemons). The way he fights -- first, calculating as he stands still, then moving into action in the most optimal way. The inherent symbolism of Custodes armor, and them, in turn, and the connection between a Custodes and their armor.

How Valdor sees that humanity was "bled from" them, their dreams plucked away, their emotions left to wither.

‘What is left for you, Constantin?’ Ushotan breathed, blood bubbling up between his burned lips. ‘What more can He take from you that He hasn’t already?’

Valdor drew in a long breath, then plunged the knife in, ending the primarch’s agony. For a moment he did nothing else, his head bowed, the storm exhausting itself around him and coating the land in a film of pale, drifting grey.

Then, slowly, he withdrew the blade.

‘Nothing,’ he said, very softly. ‘Nothing at all.’

All excerpts are from Valdor: Birth of the Imperium by Chris Wraight. It is an awesome read, I highly recommend it! I'd say it is my favorite book in the whole Warhammer40k (by the number of rereads alone).

Also, have a silly pic.

[comradewisdom]

I rather have it this way than yours; No joy, no hate, no fear. Unbreakable, without growth. Immortal, without passion.

Ushotan, to Constantin Valdor

[tribunevalentinian]

Ushotan deserved better

also

fuck you Valdor 

[asklotarasarrin]

Damn Ushotan. Tell us how you really feel about Valdor.

[sculptorofcrimson]

Snowfields

Synopsis: A cold walk atop the mountain with Valdor.

Relations: Valdor x female Emperor shard

Warnings: Suicide attempt

This is relatively tame for what I write, and I wrote it in one sitting when I had roughly 20 minutes to spare. Ty for your time!

“Do you remember Ararat, my liege?”

No. No, she didn’t remember Ararat. She has never heard the name before. But she will. By the gods, she will. 

The air was cold. It rattled through her lungs when she tried to breathe. The white seemed to stretch forever, like malignant bones, the wind laid bare and rattling its screams. It would rise like a frosty howl around the two of them, wailing like a soldier who had lost a limb, weeping its cries for eternity. The cold bit at her, tore at her, the snow would have frozen mortal blood solid in mortal veins. Thunder grumbles in the distance. A crack of lightning splits the sky in half, purplish white against the ghoulish grey. 

His cloak was warm when he wrapped it around her. But his touch, without doubt, without even question, was unfathomably cold. Without even thinking of it, she had shrunk away.

Valdor’s grip had only tightened then. He fastened the clasp of the too-large cloak, the stench of incense and parchment wafting from the silk. A small smile, the emotionless movement perfected by a mind that could not actually smile, flashed briefly across his visage as he took her wrist, trapped it so effortlessly between his fingers and kissed the soft skin there.

“There was a Primarch once. A magnificent man. One that even I respected, in some regards.” Valdor led her, slowly and patiently, holding her up when she stumbled through the knee-high snow. The mountaintop seemed to rage against her. Well, too damn bad. She hated mountains, and she hated snow, and she was about to teach him a lesson out of spite. It was pure pettiness, but it was hers, it was one last plan she held to herself, one last wish she was certain was hers and not his, and if she was going to die, drowned limb by limb into the unseeing gold, she wished to at least pain him with it. 

How had it gone so wrong? How had angels of such glorious aurite turned into nightmares wrapped in gold and crimson? 

She yanked her arm away. Valdor let her go without struggle, simply rising back with a singular, elegant motion, as if he were a dancer performing a long-awaited waltz. When she stumbles over another snow-covered rock mere moments later, he was there, as if he had never left, one arm gently wrapped around her waist as he hauls her upright. This time, when she tries to pull away, his grip only tightens, as if he was defying the very storm itself.

“The snow reminds me of him. The Cataegis Primarch of the IVth legion. You watched us duel atop a mountain not so unlike this one, my liege, when the storm ended. It felt like the top of the world. We were in a deadlock when you appeared, your attention straying just for a moment to our fight. I snapped his wrist with a twisting motion, and slammed him into the ground hard enough to snap part of his spine. Your attention had departed by then, but it was enough. You still remember the frost, do you not?”

No. No. She didn’t. She couldn’t. Valdor’s hand, so gentle, so damnably gentle, placed itself under her chin. It stroked her hair, his gauntlets’ touch heavy yet tender, the jewels flashing dully through strands of hair that were quickly becoming darker, swallowed first by brown and then by black. He had not forbidden her to cut it. Out of spite, she had ordered him to cut it for her. 

It didn’t matter.

The strands had grown back, with an unrelenting zeal, glossy and luxurious and flowing like ink over water. She was innocent once, she was mortal, she lived among men and walked amongst mortals, and she will never be again. She will never live again, and that truth was simply so jagged, so broken, so horrifyingly caught between her chest and her throat that it was as if something broke a little further every time she took a breath. Valdor had only quietly polished, brushed and glossed over her hair, his movements methodical and calculated, even when silent tears rolled their way down her cheeks, her vision blurred by the salt and the water but just visible enough to see the flakes of gold swirling in her pupils. Still clear enough to see herself die.

She had felt Valdor’s fingers through her hair then, braiding it carefully in an intricate style she had never seen before, but one that tugged at familiar roots she had never felt before. 

Her hair. Some mewling, broken part of her(was it her dream or His? Was there a difference anymore?) instinctively felt like it should be darker. Longer. Wreathed with gold, and weighed down by a crown. But it was her hair. It was her hair, once upon a time, and she had lost it strand by strand, inch by inch, as the gold swam up through her vision and blocked out her eyes.

A rock clattered over the side of the mountain, followed by dull, distant thunder. It jolted her back to her mind, to her body, to the world that she did not rule over and should have never ruled. 

Numbly, she felt herself shake her head. Valdor only raised an eyebrow, and adjusted the clasp.

“I remember the rock, my master.” Valdor was saying. His voice rose and fell like a litany, carefully retracing steps the Emperor had once guided him through, when He was a king and gods walked the earth. She felt so small against him, so tired, so far from the invincible god-warrior he had once served, but that was alright, He had returned to him, and he would shepherd Him, guide Him, protect Him, through this life and through this death till the last. “Even the rocks felt cold. It was black, and it glistened like oil whenever the sun shone. There were storms every day of that campaign, as if the heavens themselves were against us, as if the gods had conspired to strike you down, but yet you gave us the order to march. And the wind. You told me that you heard it screaming. Malcador jokingly asked that if you should live again, you would choose to enact Ararat during the summer instead, if only out of sheer annoyance from the wind.” Valdor’s smile was nothing more than a reflex. There was no humor in it, nor human emotion. “Do you remember it then, my master?”

The wind. Had it screamed then, as it screams now? Had it screamed, beneath the weight of the betrayal, wailing with the sheer horror of what it had taken? Did it scream, singing a threnody with the thunder, as the skies growl and hail shudders from overcast clouds ahead? She shivers underneath her layers. The finest climate suits had been prepared, coupled with the Custodian cloak over her shoulders, but she felt cold, so unspeakably cold that it was nearly painful. 

Oh Throne. She was cold, so cold. 

“Constantin?” she rasps. Her voice was not her own. It was rusty from disuse, and cracked, and weak, but yet some part of it resonated, it echoed like the tongue of a god, speaking through the plaintive shell of a mortal, just enough to hiss like a shadowy undertone. It should have been more sonorous, it should have been softer, it should have been the voice of a conqueror, it should have been the voice of a girl snatched away from her home by an angel and transformed into a god. It should have been hers, but it was His instead. She licks her lips and tries again. “Constantin.”

“Yes, my lord?” he was at her side(was he always so close?), the memory jarringly left unfinished. The hand once gently guiding her and became more insistent as he knelt down until they were eye to eye. 

“I don’t remember the mountain.” she replied flatly. Her voice was weaker than a whisper. She didn’t care. She knew he’d hear it anyway. And if he didn’t, she no longer cared enough to ensure he did. She no longer believed she had the strength to stomach that voice any longer. 

The cliff looked dizzyingly as she peered over the edge. She wondered if even a Custodian could survive a fall at such a height. 

“I don’t remember the snow, Constantin.”

“That is alright, my liege.” He was so sweet, so sickeningly sweet, so unerringly gentle. It made her want to claw at him, to crack him, to see what could finally burrow under that invincible flesh and make him howl. It made her wonder how the Emperor broke him to make him the man he had become, how deeply He must have laid His tongs in the forge of flesh and fire. 

She wondered what his screams would sound like, if he could scream at all.

“Do not trouble yourself, my liege. Your form is still young.” Of course, he could afford to wait. He had waited for ten thousand years, and he would gladly wait for ten thousand more. In that broken, delusional mind of his, it was only just, after all. He’d speak litanies of loyalty, roaring them over the screams of her brethren, he’d speak praises so numerous that they’d drown out the sobs of her family. “Your memories will return, when given due time. I can tell you about them. The preliminaries, the campaigns, the plans you undertook.”

Of course. They’d have to return. They must return. They will return, and He will live again, born out of this mortal shell under Valdor’s guidance. Valdor simply could not be, must not be, could not accept, could not live in a world where his liege has fallen forever. 

The snow was no longer biting her. It seemed to have been cowed, laid low beneath the vengeful eye of its rightful master. Even the storm seems to have settled, briefly, at least for now. For the eye of the King, the Emperor, the god-sorceror. 

It was so cruel, the revelation, the realization that welled up in her when she gazed dully back at him with listless eyes. The revelation that came for her, and not for him, for he would be nothing if not for his delusion. How quickly she understood the truth beneath why she had called him here, why she had suddenly finally accepted his offer to visit the mountain, when she had been delaying it, dreading it, putting it off for weeks upon months. 

The edge. 

The end. (And not the death).

She wondered if even a Custodes could survive a fall from this height. She wondered if it mattered anymore. 

The plan had been formulating itself for weeks now, brewing like boiled flesh in a cyst, nursing itself, grieving its wounds, growing stronger, gaining weight. First she had refused to eat, then to bathe, then to move at all, all the dreary, listless days crushed into the same monotony as brass as she had sat still upon a throne she did not want and stared off into oblivion, as he occasionally knelt by her and asked for her commands while she numbly stared off in the distance, her eyes a thousand yards away. Her gaze had been lost in a time beyond time, beyond memory itself, and not even dreams could steal her away. 

First it had only been how she stopped even trying to hide from him. She simply let him follow her, on her aimless, little walks aboard the massive ship that had become her only location. Then it had been how her tongue had stalled and she no longer even greeted the serfs that occasionally came by to deliver her food she did not eat, water she did not want, utensils she did not use, how she simply stared ahead, as reactive as a corpse, about as conscious to the world as the dead. Valdor had cared after her then, when even her memory had failed her, when she lay still and sullen like ash, the weight of the world upon broken shoulders, silent, painful tears trickling a cheerless trail from her eyes to her duvet. How he had lifted her up and cradled her to him, asking which stories she wished to hear, which glories she wished him to recount. Which memories that were not hers but soon will be, tales he regaled her of His conquests, of His victories and His lessons, His mantras drilled into her bones as they have been drilled into his.

She had left the world, bit by bit, husk by husk, until she felt as if she weighed no more than one of His eagles’ feathers did, frailly clinging onto the world with a whisper and a dream. It was as if she was sinking into some calm, clear, colorless water and feeling the waves close in above her, but there was no sensation of drowning, no voiceless cry in the deep. Simply the noiseless struggle in her own dreams, as she prepared herself for the final breath before oblivion. 

(Did she have the strength? Did it matter any longer, when he could overpower her no matter the answer?)

It was so beautiful, up here, at the edge of the sky. She could hear the storm breathing in the clouds. It was close enough that she could close her eyes, and dream of Ararat, listening to Valdor’s words. An end. An end, just like the Thunder Warriors He(and she?) slaughtered so long ago. The final unraveling. She didn’t want to die, but was she truly living? An immortality without life, without passion, without even joy itself, was that truly living when she was little more than a corpse, kept alive through obsession?

If the Emperor had loved them, He would have never created them at all. What merciful god would create such grotesque angels? 

If the Four were merciful, they would have sought Valdor, as they sought the Primarchs. They would have whisked him away, upon winds of change, tainted him with their mark, made sure He would never accept him as a servant again. They would have saved him, corrupted him, broken him, taught him what it felt like to dream, before the golden light shone again, and His dream took over his. 

But he was a servant, not a master. He was not a leader. He knelt, instead of ruling, and the Emperor had sunk in His claws so deep even the Four could not pry it out. And so he was His, forevermore.

He died ten thousand years ago. And somewhere, inside that twisted, broken Palace that was a mind, His dog was still waiting loyally at the door, waiting for Him to return. 

He was kneeling beside her now. She had never even heard him move. With infinite reverence, he cups her features, admiring the black strands falling over his gauntlets, the golden eyes - so broken, so gorgeous, so His - staring back at him.

“It was the end of the Unification Wars, my liege. And the start of your rule. The Imperium was born that day, your coronation happened atop that bloodstained snowfield, when Malcador held up that laurel, and crowned you King. How could you forget how I, the first of your Custodes, knelt first and rose last, when the ceremony ended?” 

So careful. So gentle as not to hurt her.

“Tell me about them.” a small, cruel smile had found its way onto her face. She was no longer looking at him, instead smiling serenely, blankly staring out upon the sky. The mountain truly was beautiful. It was such a shame this was where she would die. She should have felt something then. A sense of guilt, perhaps. A moment of horror for what she had become, for taking advantage of something so deeply broken into him that it was written into his very bones. Obedience was carved into his blood, seared into his marrow. He would know no other way but to obey. 

“The Unification Wars?” Valdor asks, the question poised so effortlessly, head tilted like a loyal dog, perfectly prepared to obey his master’s every word. 

It would be almost easier, she thought, if he had been a crueller man. Easier to break him, easier to hate him, easier to gaze upon that perfect, immaculate features and wonder what if he had lost those duels. If he had been taught to be mortal, what his screams would’ve sounded like, what sounds of pain he might wheeze out when his perfect, immaculate dancer’s grace falters and he learns, he learns the price for immortality. 

He was never meant to love. 

Not for the first time, she wonders if he can feel pain. If she’ll even care, if it’ll even matter. For a creature who loved no one but his master, would it even be a sin?A sin, to teach him what it meant to fear? To taste the copper tang of terror, to twist the knife in him as he had twisted the knife in her. And to die, exalted, knowing she would have hurt him, knowing she brought down a demigod. 

You can’t reason with a mad dog. You can’t plead with someone who knows they’re right. You can’t gaze into the eyes of Constantin Valdor and expect to see reason back, when his master was right in front of him and alive, so sickeningly alive he would rather kill than forget Him again.

Would he even mourn this time? Did he even know what mourning felt like? She had an inkling that he did, however twisted it may be. Because, for him, the tale isn't over yet, the tale must not be over. His Emperor is not dead, it cannot be, he cannot be, in a world without the Emperor, it simply is not possible. Without Valdor, the Emperor could not lead His Custodes, but without Him, the Custodes could not live. 

“No.” she replies. “The mountain. Tell me of them.” The smile that stretched across her face felt nothing like her. It did not belong to this life. It was too old, too heavy, too sad and too cruel for a face that was once joyous and wide with mischief. She had an inkling of the words Valdor was about to say, the bitter, treacherous words she would weep to hear, and regret ever having forced him to speak. 

“The Thunder Warriors.” she murmured. She had closed her eyes again by then. The plan was formulating, inking itself together with the same mindlessness of crawling, squirming things beneath the earth. And she didn’t want to see what the ground would look like when she fell. She didn’t want to see what it felt like to die a second time. This was only a distraction, a charade, a pitiful illusion built by a mind almost broken. There was no one here but a madman, a broken girl, and the ghosts of the storm calling out its mournful rage overhead. 

“Tell me what became of them. Of that Primarch you spoke so highly of. And no lies.” she sighs, and the voice that whistles out of her is too old, too broken. She brushes his hand away. This time, he doesn’t even insist on remaining. “Tell me what happened on Ararat. I want to hear the truth from your lips.” 

If there had been anything left of her heart, she might have mourned for him. For what he had become, living not for himself but for another. Living His life for Him. And when He died, what could become of him? What could become of him except to endure? When he had slaughtered brothers, lovers, children upon the snowfields, betrayed loyalists and watched life fade from their eyes, all in the name of Him, what could be left of him if not to serve?

He served, and loyalty was its own reward. Loyalty, unyielding, unbreaking, even in death his duty would not end.

Valdor tilts his head like a confused dog. “What good will it do now?” 

She utters a dry, raspy laugh. It had no inflection within it, no actual human emotion. 

“I command you, Valdor.” she spoke. There was nothing behind it, nothing even when the command hurt him. It stirred nothing but a deep, dull ache and the brief knife of guilt, which was quickly surpassed by the lasting numbness that did not seem to leave her bones. “I command you to speak of them. On Ararat. What happened on Ararat?”

She turns from him, walking slowly, and without care. She needed to be on a ledge. Distantly, thunder shrieks, and the storm crashes down. Lightning briefly illuminates her features, skin half-tanned, black hair flowing and golden eyes peering through the brume, and in that radiant flare of lightning she looked positively divine, a half-god caught on earth, if not for the weary, haunted gaze of a hunted animal. Her shoulders were hunched, her movements withered, as if her bones could no longer support her weight. She walked without a singular care in the world, and Valdor trailed immediately afterwards. She knew to jump was no longer an option. Even the stormclouds seemed to mock her. It was foolish, so foolish, she knew. He could not let her die. He would move faster than she could even think, he could catch her, snatch her around her waist and carry her to a safe distance before she could even advance an inch towards the edge. 

She could not die here. He would not allow her to die.

And they both knew that.

Voicelessly, soundlessly, she gazes up upon the stormladen sky. Its grey dances across her golden irises, the stormwind playing with her hair. Thunder crashes, and she feels herself scream back, wordlessly, soundlessly, without even conscious thought. Dully, she knew she was raging, screaming, that her mind was seizing at the clouds and tearing at them, begging them to save her, but physically she made not even a single move. Her body was frozen, the snow pelting her shoulders, Valdor’s cloak swirling from the wind. She felt frozen, too. Her mind was no longer wreathed with such self-pity it once had, it was churning, clawing, raging like a caught rabbit in a trap, desperately wishing the ground would open up and swallow it whole, not as a kind of freedom, but as a final form of spite to the hunter.

Thunder crashes around the two of them. Neither of them move. The edge was close, so dizzyingly close that she could feel the wind gusting around her. Valdor was watching her closely, the same way a starved wolf may watch a weakened deer.

When Valdor finally speaks, unable to resist the bluntness of her command, his eyes were still distantly focused on the memories of Ararat. And his voice was passionlessly dull, carefully kept neutral and utterly without pity. 

“I slit his throat.” he confesses dully, flatly, without even a hint of inflection. “The Primarch. I slit his throat on Ararat, from ear to ear, then from ear to clavicle. I only stopped when I felt bone scraping against the edge of my knife.”

Surprisingly she laughed, and the sound was garbled, as grim and as dry as bones. “I suppose you killed him then?” she asked. One more step. One more step and she would be at the edge. He would not let her. He would move faster than the earth could drag her down anyways. But it did not matter. Slowly, incredulously, she could feel herself smiling. It was going to be alright. She could feel it in her bones, the static, the storm. Even the snow seemed to be on her side. For a moment, she felt like a god, standing at the top of the world, the conquered earth groveling beneath Him, knowing that even the elements would fall beneath His gaze. 

She could taste the ichor then, sweet and lifeless and pouring from the sky along with the snow, the charge in the sky and the thunder. The vengeance it held. The sheer rage, an echo of her own. She would rule them. She did not want to rule. She would rule, for one singular moment in her wretched life, she would rule, and she would hurt him, as he had hurt her. For the serfs he terrorized, for the Sisters he slaughtered, for the martyrs he first betrayed and then hung out to die. All in her name. All for her wishes. She no longer wished to wish. She no longer wished to reign. 

Let her abdicate the throne of skulls. Just once. Just once, she prayed. 

“No.” Valdor shook his head. He was already moving, one hand reaching out to grasp her arm and drag her back before she could approach the edge. “It would have been a kinder fate if he had died then. It would have been a kinder fate if-”

“-if you had granted him an honorable death.” she finished for him. She spoke softly, plaintively, as if this was a comfort. She had turned her face a little, just enough to see him, just enough to see his elegant features illuminated by the storm. To gaze upon him, one last time. The way he held himself, like a dancer, his lean features accentuated by the lightning as the thunderbolt carved the sky open and struck the ledge beside her. The way his auramite had shuddered from the lightning as he had, for the first time in her memory, stumbled, his gait not utterly perfect before the divine rage. The first word she had heard him say that was not perfectly calculated.

The lightning snaps the ledge like bone.

The surprised intake of breath she had uttered, a squeal that was nearly a gasp as the rock beneath her feet had caved in, and then crumbled as she had desperately hoped, the weathered stone no longer capable of supporting its own weight bending and breaking and shattering as the lightning arced through it, the smite separating the ledge like the same way Valdor had carved through that serf. That poor, poor serf who had slipped her a kiss upon her request. It was little more than a peck, that poor thing. And he hadn’t even been able to scream when Valdor separated his bones like paper. 

In a silent vow to him, in a wordless vow to them all, the corpses he laid so she could climb atop her throne, she promised she wouldn’t scream as she fell.

Grimly, lips drawn in a tight line, she only felt the distant thunder as she descended like a one-winged eagle, her face utterly expressionless, lightning briefly dancing sparks against her hair as if in reverence. 

Valdor’s cloak, still wrapped around her, its silk as crimson as spilled blood, unfurled around her as she fell.

Distantly, from somewhere beyond the mountaintop, thunder roared. 

~~~~

It was warm, when she finally awoke. She muttered something, tried to turn, and decided to burrow deeper against the warmth instead. There was a rumble, a purr-like sound, and the slow, drifting scent of incense as one titanic hand came up to rest against her hair. 

With careful reverence, it adjusted the master’s laurel. 

“Welcome back, by lord.” the voice purred. “You expressed quite the interest in the Cataegis Primarch.”

She groaned. Golden irises flickered back and forth, as if in distress, beneath her lids. Valdor’s other hand reached up to stroke through her hair, careful not to upset the laurel.  

“I had thought you would have recognized him, my lord. It was, after all, his grave that I showed you that night upon the mountain.”

He makes a long, slow chuckle, almost like amusement, if he had been capable of it. “I had expected you’ve greeted him already, my master. You were standing atop his bones.” 

Somewhere, distantly, thunder growled. And without even being conscious of it, she shivered, and tried to burrow closer to his warmth.  

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[cursed-40k-thoughts]

I resonate with Ushotan

[sculptorofcrimson]

to kiss a Thunder Warrior

A/N: I trackdrifted from Aphrodite’s Cell into this. Please do not bang the Thunder Warriors, this is definitely heresy and I totally do not condone it! Small drabble. P.S. I know no other Thunder Warrior. I am sorry. Relations: Ushotan/gn!reader

“So if you're looking, you will find me standing next to him

Kissing underneath the palm trees, feigning for his sin

I don't care if it's not righteous, I don't give a damn”

What does it feel like to kiss a Thunder Warrior?

Rough, unrestrained, a trace of whiskey and the acrid taste of combat-stimns. The undercurrent of blood boiling just beneath it all. Bones and muscle and all rough edges, occasionally tinged with a laugh as ragged as barbarian armor as Ushotan pulls back a chuckle still trailing from his strained voice. Hands, trailing around his thick neck, fingering the scars that were inlaid there, ignoring the way he shivers and groans as fingernails tease over the rim of his neural interfaces, the tubing old and harshly integrated in a Thunder Warrior’s frame but still functional. Barely. His scars, so close, the primarch himself purring in a ragged growl, like the hiffing of the run down engine, but still snarling against its own demise, still powerful underneath all that rot. The way his storm-grey eyes briefly slip closed as he tolerates hands tugging against his cropped hair and the occasional mischievous drag on his tabard. The Thunder Warrior still surprisingly playful as he lets himself be tugged, how he follows his darling lazily, without a care in the world, his grin somehow both brash and with that cynical jesting he was know for. The clanking of his armor. The soft hiss of the servos as he helps detach the seals, unarmoring him in silence now, without even another sharp joke from him except for his ragged voice. 

He’s almost hot to the touch. Thunder Warrior metabolism. Embracing was like hugging a furnace, meant to burn bright and short and then burn itself out. Only one heart, originally meant to be claimed - literally - at the hand of the captain-general. 

You saved him from that fate.

(It’s a good distraction, at least. A good distraction to forget what Valdor did to him. The way he held him. The way his gauntlets had felt, so cold against his neck, warmed by the fresh blood. The nightmares, the snarls, the screams. The silence of the utter violation, the treachery, the bones upon the first. The death from which no soul could recover. The snow will never spare him as long as he lives.)

There is no hint of that trauma. No hint of that sorrow, that guilt, the hollowness beneath that false bravado he wears, only the liveliness as he eagerly returns. As restrained as he was, he was still a Thunder Warrior. He couldn’t help but be rough, possessive, almost too greedy as he nips and unkindly manuveers his beloved close enough to nip surprisingly sharp bites, lips curled into a grin even when he was nearly rough enough to draw blood.

(Of course, no Thunder Warrior could call themselves sane. They lost their sanity when they were strapped upon that dissection slab so long ago.)

Almost playfully, he sometimes growls during the kisses. He’s frisky, this one. You can feel his heart rate speeding up, rising from its usual lumbering pace to a pace akin to the battle frenzies his brethren had. The way he playfully traces and teases, smug and arrogant and somehow still a glorious bastard even through all he had suffered. Rough and ragged and flamboyant, without the same frost the Astartes had. He was, after all, a man. A man that was made to die a demigod, and entombed in golden armor. 

The way he laughs as his lover pushes him down, his broad frame crashing against the bed. Thunder Warriors played, they had their games, they wrestled, tackled and grappled. Ushotan was no exception. The same rough playfulness shines through as he grasps the darling that had dragged him from the snow and the frost and easily rolls over to pin them down beneath his greater bulk, smugly stretching overhead. 

(That bastard.)

(That playful bastard.)

(It’s a wonder how he never learnt the meaning of punishment for insubordination). 

The way he sounds both like the growling roll of a mountainslide, and somehow playful like the purr of an ancient cat. How large hands cup around his lover’s neck, the Thunder Warrior not resisting as they reverse his position, chuckling slightly as he was the one pinned down this time, although his storm-blue eyes still showed a hint of smug humor. 

“Hmph. Surprise me a little less next time, will you?"

[scp-xxxx]

The essay about relations in Valdor: Birth of the Imperium.

[scp-xxxx]

Friendly reminder that every time Ushotan goes on a mountain, he nearly fucking dies(or actually dies.)

1. Maulland Sen was held on a mountain and he nearly died

2. Mt. Ararat was held on a mountain and he ALSO nearly died

3. The Palace Coup was held on a mountain and he actually died

Once is an accident, twice is a coincidence, three times is a pattern.

Therefore, I have come to the conclusion that Ushotan just suffers terrible luck on mountains.

(Valdor and the Custodes only won because Ushotan was on a mountain. /j)

[scp-xxxx]

Valdor: Birth of the Imperium

The entire book.

[sculptorofcrimson]

Aphrodite’s Cell

Synopsis: The residents of the Dark Cells, and their golden keepers.

Relations: Custodes x unnamed f!character, Sister of Silence x unnamed m! character, Valdor x Ushotan

Mildly dubious consent

“Aphrodite, hear my prayer

Sunset rays in my golden hair

Palm tree dreams in my words and songs

How can my pleas be so wrong?”

How could creatures clad in such glorious gold be monsters? How could angels clad in the raiments of gods be anything but worshipped, even as they raised their blades?

“We will protect you, forever and always.” They had promised, so patient, so promising, so monstrous, so cowardly in their lies. They had promised. They had given their word. The Custodes had given their word. 

Ergo, they had not kept their word.

(The lies. The lies. The discovery. The treachery. The girl with her paintbrush. The girl with her words, her voice. The arrest. The chains.)

(The mountain. The blood. The betrayal. The High Lord. The storm. The snow. And the sinking of the knife. The chains.)

(The historian, young and naive. The vids in his hand. The horror. The betrayal. The gold. The stance of incense. And the chains.) 

The prisoner exhales, and shuts storm-grey eyes, sinking down into the frost of dreams until sleep, cold, cruel and relentless, takes over once more, beneath the cold trampling of heartless beasts’ boots. 

(All of them had the same story. All of them would never be free.)

Terra would never welcome them back. In cells of gilded gold, let them dream. 

~~~~~~

“Aphrodite, hear my pain

I want to fall in love again

Not in love with a man of this world

Fall in love with life itself”

~~~

The Shadowkeeper had taken a liking to the painter. He brings the painter flowers, he braids her hair at regular intervals, he even brings her favorite drinks to her regularly. He tries to speak to her, of color and of light, of areas he would’ve thought the painter would have cared for. She did not. The Shadowkeeper offers to take her outside of her cell, to the Imperial gardens, even, to paint the flowers. Like a sunflower without water, she only refuses her jailer, and goes back to her sullen, frosty brooding. Sometimes, she tries to paint the Shadowkeeper. He was always thrilled to sit for these portraits while the painter idly flicked ink from her brush, carving the form of a dragon, a jailer, a warden in the brume, a groom wearing a wedding dress made from bones and holding golden chains. 

Her jailer. Her warden. 

These portraits line the edges of her cell. 

~~~

What reason was there to live, when he had failed even his brothers? What reason was there to live, when his very order had been marked obsolete, when he had already been replaced by the usurpers? 

What reason was there to live at all, when even your death has been drained of all honor?

It’s better not to resist when the Captain-General leans in, close enough to smell the incense and the parchment clinging onto his robes.

(After all, what can a failed Thunder Warrior Primarch do against the Captain-General himself? Valdor was a god. No mortal could bring down a god. It was foolish for him to have ever tried.)

Storm-grey eyes slip shut as Valdor takes his hand, raising it up to press a kiss against the underside, Ushotan not even voicing a single grumble of protest. Cold hands, effortless, immaculate, cup the Thunder Warrior’s jawline, pressing in until even the edge of his vision was blurred by those cold, immaculate features. Valdor smiles as the Thunder Warrior makes no move to fight him, no longer pushing him away as he closes in to steal a kiss from unresisting lips. 

(By Terra. He was tired, so unspeakably tired, so tired of fighting. What he would give to simply sleep, and never awaken before carefully doting and petting hands...)

~~~

The Sister without a voice tries to bring him gifts. She likes his archival mind, she “says”. She cannot speak, and her very presence was like the pressing of some heavy stone upon his chest when she leaned in to press short kisses against his temple. She brings him gifts, silent and unresisting, bringing flowers wrapped in paper and intricate golden carvings and shy, carefully decorated books and asking him to speak what she cannot. She tries to ask for kisses, in her own quiet, skittish way, and sooner or later he caves to her. There was no shortage of joy in that curved smile, forming from ecstatic silent lips as he kissed her, the Sister’s hands moving in their jumble of joyous, intelligible signs the Remembrancer had never learnt. 

Her lips were cold. Her hands, crushing in their grips, were joyous. 

(It pains the poor Remembrancer, to be near her. But she loved him, and was it such a sin to love her back, when no else would set him free?)

~~~~~

“Aphrodite, set me free

Find a way to let me leave

As the future, it unfolds

I leave the past and turn to gold”

~~~

She no longer paints him. Why the matter, when he was at every second of her vision, every moment of her life? She feared him, loathed him in fact, she loathed every inch of the grey cell they had tossed her into, where no amount of drawings, of pretty illusions she wove, could disguise the barrenness. 

When he offers to take her out for the gardens, for a split second of tasting the wind and spring on her tongue, she jumps at the chance.

It was the only time the painter had ever seen Hades smile.

“A pomegranate too, my floret?” he had offered, the Shadowkeeper’s grin as charming and as utterly without heart as a skeleton’s. 

She had accepted that walk in the gardens. And the flowers. And the pomegranate too. His later bargains would not be as favorable. 

~~~

Valdor’s heartbeat is slow. It presses against him, as slow as the exhalation of some titanic beast, barely humming along as if even life had been bred out of his genecraft. Ushotan can feel it just through his thin robes, Valdor pressing him carefully against him with just enough force he couldn’t squirm free.

(That bastard.)

Ushotan mutters a half-hearted growl, and tries to pull away from Valdor’s warmth. The Custodian’s only response was to tighten his grip, dragging the Thunder Warrior closer and curling up against his side, wrapping himself firmly in the closest limb he could grab. His next escape attempt is foiled when Valdor rests his entire weight upon him, his breaths rattling like the purr of some titanic and viciously amused cat. 

(That bastard.)

Eventually, when exhaustion sets in, the Thunder Warrior utters a short, defeated sigh, and leans himself into Valdor’s touch. 

Ah, victory. Of course it would be victory, no Custodian engagement was ever lost, especially not for the Captain-General.

~~~

She only wants to be loved. To be touched. To be warmed by another. It hurts him to comfort her. Does she still even care? He was learning thoughtmark, even when his head burned with every second of her presence. Even when his eyes blurred over her very frame. She brings him a thick tome one day, uncensored from Imperial scripts, and the glint in her smile when he stammers out a thank you and eagerly delves into its depths was not lost. She only rises in a slow, elegant fashion, and kisses him on the lips. The Sister was not adept with kisses, a lifetime of half-paralyzed lips had made her clumsy and forceful, but it did not matter, he had wrapped his arms around her, he had embraced her as she had so desperately wanted, and now she will let no daemon, no beast, touch him.  

(It hurts him. But he loved her, didn’t he? He loved her enough to endure the pain, surely? She certainly believed so.)