#space Marines | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

sunsetlobster · 2 days ago

Text

To Satiate a Hunger part 2

Authors: Myself and @sovietstrange45

Summary: Finding an appropriate stop on the brink of starvation, A Night lord War band ransacks Ghilana for every morsel of food and fuel they have. In the process, Ladomir an ex-terror squad member stumbles upon one thing they've been sorely needing.

Warnings: Self harm, horror themes, blood, implied violence, forced proximity, Ladomir has a blood kink, the writing structure is a raw cut from what was originally written so apologies for any weirdness there ><

Word Count: 7k

← Previous chapter | Next Chapter →

Blood covered her neck, dry and caked along her soft flesh. A crude bandage laid wrapped around herself, and she could feel how the dampness from such stains touched her shoulder. It hurt, it hurt terribly but that pain reminded her while she was alive, and it was dark. Terribly dark. She wasn't sure she'd opened her eyes at first, but she had. A soft gnarled whimper of a cry left her from the sting and throb of the slice she'd left on herself. Sneh put a hand over her neck unsure of where she was but with the certainty in mind that this was to be hell on earth.

The sudden slide of the door brought no light into the room. If not for the sound, you wouldn't even be able to tell where the door was. Or where the new presence was, without the growl of his armour joints and the thud of his ceramite boots against the metal floor. "Good, you are awake. The hunger begins to gnaw at the others."

She gave the voice a confused look, then memories of him lapping her blood from the knife came rushing back and once more her throat hissed with pain. “Who are you?” The small woman asked, her voice was a mere croak, a rasp of her usual sweet tone that greeted customers when they’d walk in.

The sounds of the hulking figure sitting echoed the sound of metal off metal. Followed by the thud of something else against the floor. "Ladomir, brother to many, friend to none." That strangely accented voice finally returned. "Former headsman of the Eighth Legion of the Legions Astartes. Though all your myths and golden lies would simply say I am the son of a demon."

Sneh burned holes into the darkness, a furrowed cautious brow on her soft face. She dared not move in the place she'd been laid lest he set upon her like a beast with whatever sort of intention he harboured behind those thinly vailed calm words.

"Well, what did they call you on that world?" He ventured, finger tapping against whatever it was that he had hauled with him. The sound of metal against tinny, rusted metal echoing throughout the void embodied room.

"Sneh." She said curt and short but with a restrained bite. Her fingers pressed into the flesh and bandages of her neck as her chest rose with the subtle breath.

"Sneh." Ladomir tested the name on his lips, and it rolled from his tongue in a grinning hiss. Just then a light shone, not particularly bright, but anything was much brighter than nothingness. Pointed directly at the woman laid out on the bed. A lamp pack, old and rusted over, with suspicious stains that one would hope at best was in fact blood. Set just between the armoured legs of her captor, unhelmed as before. "Welcome aboard the Bloody Screech, Sneh."

She gazed at the faint outline of his chin, the glint of his smile and the memory of those eyes. Those piercing eyes that infested her soul and made her instinctively look down and away, a stone newly formed in her stomach. "Why am I here?" She whispered swallowing harsh as the baseline closed her eyes to conceal herself in darkness once more.

Gently, he turned the lamp pack toward the side, just enough as to not be blinding her face with the newly introduced light. A small courtesy, and likely one of only very few that'd be offered. His gauntleted fingers wrapping the pole of his glaive, resting it against his inner thigh so he in turn could learn his head against it. An oddly and uncomfortable casual pose for something so gargantuan and beastly in its very nature. "Do you know what an army needs most to survive?"

"War." Her bladelike tongue spat without as much as a second thought as she lay prone before him. The soft light brushing over her cheek.

A laugh thudded from his throat, dry and without a smile. His glowing eyes like a predator's, assessing the baseline human in detail, like he may well make her his next meal like the pies and cakes from her shop. "No, war is what an army wastes all those precious efforts to keep itself alive on, to throw themselves onto spears and pikes until no one's left. Food, is what is most important to get to the war alive."

She looked to him confusion washing over once more. "You do not have cooks on this ship?" She asked genuinely surprised by the notion that such a force was so ill prepared and equipped.

"No, no in fact we do not." Ladomir admitted quite readily, his ceramite clad finger idly brushing up and down the wrap of his chain glaives handle. Softly shifting with every bump and slight imperfection within the material and its craft. "The last slave who attempted to show his worth by cooking, mishandled and spoiled our food so poorly, it was unsalvageable. So, we flayed him, made fashion pieces of his skin, and ate him instead."

She swallowed harsh and cold. The faint taste of bile in her throat. "I have no choice, do I?" Sneh asked taking a deep breath to keep her voice level and low as the faintness of sound became more prevalent with his impatience.

"You have a choice. Between being food or making food. I'd say make it quick, my brother's stomachs gnaw at them like a vicious tumour sapping all life it touches." The amusement never quite left his tone, at her expense of course. Given Sneh had no way of knowing that he could hear thunder of her heart, betraying her thin air of calm. "It'd be a shame, your baking tasted dilec'sthin." Again, that strange tongue, rolling from his lips so smoothly it became night and day from his Gothic.

Sneh brushed the strange tongue off from her mind and once more swallowed. “Does this ship even have equipment?” Sneh asked once more perhaps a little too hasty in her snap. “Or supplies?”

"We were just quite low," Ladomir once again admitted. Though the grin he held was followed by his gaze trailing up the well-loved chain glaive, still in need of a good clean from all the blood and viscera, before he looked back at that soft, human face. "Thankfully the raid on your home world seems to have been exactly what we needed."

The faint comfort of familiarity was enough to make her nod and roll onto her side, “then bring me to your kitchen or galley whatever it is.” She uttered trying to think of meals that she could produce in mass without having to worry about yeast needing to rise over hours.

Rising, Ladomir dropped the giant weapon onto its mount on the metal wall. Grasping the lamp pack setting it down at the bedside, now looming over. "Good, you will be needing this. As I am so courteous as to not try and make you bumble around our ship like a blind child." He remarked with another dry chuckle, dark eyes roaming over her bandaged throat. Lips feeling dry as he recalled the taste of her blood, and how he had lamented the difference when it was dried and stale.

Crawling out of the frankly massive bed, that house her, the gentle realisation that she'd been resting on his bed made her swallow down whatever other thought Sneh had as she tried to figure out and equip the lamp pack. Following him to the door with it on, she stayed close perhaps too close. Her gaze not daring to lower to the tabard that billowed from his waist, she didn't have to be a soldier or one of them to recognise that it wasn't an animals hide.

--------

"Stay close, little bird." Ladomir warned, before stepping out with the newest addition to their crew. The halls, at their very best, had dim lights that didn't light up the area, but more so offered a visible marker for those baselines in need of it. It didn't seem much an issue for the demi-human, who stalked these halls with black eyes and a familiarity unmatched. Guiding Sneh through those black winding halls of iron, whilst serving as her convenient wall in case of any danger. "Brother." A voice hissed. Raising a brow, the Night Lord turned to see his fellow. A man in battered old armour, covered in bonding studs. Crude and far from beautiful, but effective where it was needed. "Sarval." "Is this the new cook?' He asked leaning close, looming in the dark, hardly illuminated by her dim pack. Ladomir, clicked his tongue, gently raising a hand in front of Sneh. "Yes, she is."

Sneh's default now almost seemed to be that silent grimace, a brave face to hide the many stones that'd surely pile in her stomach and threaten to spill out one day. She said nothing, merely darting her eyes between the massive hand and Sarval’s barely lit visage.

"Slaves or rations first?" The other asked, his half blue and half yellow helmet still stained with the blood of its former owner. "That's what we're going to go find out now." Finally leaning back Sarval let out a scoff, garbled by vox modulation. "Well find out quick, we didn't raid that planet just to starve in the warp." Ladomir sneered, the thin blue veins underneath his pale skin shifting and pulling taught with his expressions. "Patience is a virtue brother. We'll make it to the eye, and we'll have food yet." "Better, or else that supposed cook is the one I'm eating first." Sarval spat, finger jabbing the air. "Go, brother. Fourth claw is certainly missing their stooge right now." "Whatever you say, Headsman." The sarcasm dripped from his lips as such that not even a vox grill could obscure it. Still, the Night Lord turned to leave, boots thudding against metal decking. "And find some paint for that damn helmet." Sarval, simply continued to laugh his way down the abyssal hall.

Slaves, there are humans onboard, how many? How many were there of their kind? “How many are in the legion?” Sneh softly asked after Sarval went on his way trying to gauge just how many mouths needed to presently be fed and how much she’d need to prep for.

Casting his gaze over his shoulder, those beaming eyes burned into Sneh. "In the warband, there are seven claws, four of which are at full strength. Give or take there is an average of five brothers to a claw." Ladomir went silent for a moment, rushing through numbers in his mind trying to assess the much less convenient to handle human population. "There are at least one hundred slaves on board, you included, but do not be surprised if that number is a rapid drop."

The notion of the slave population suddenly dropping sent a chill down her spine and yet the small classroom sized number of dower demons surprised her. But she didn’t her best to hide such shock in her eyes, keeping her head down. "So, roughly 140 souls are on board." She said silently hoping the space she'd been working to the bone in was at least clean.

"Give or take. Not counting the outliers such as the tech adepts, or the new slaves still being divided between importance, and a meat locker." The beast added, grumbling as he thought of the mess the lower decks must house. The moment this food issue was resolved, he swore he was going down there himself and instilling some order. Whether the salves down there wanted it, or not. "Which reminds me, that I need to have a servitor bring a crew member's cot to my quarters."

dared not say a word not when she had much more pressing matters to consider when it came to feeding so many mouths.

Finally coming to a double set sliding door, it opened for the two, to reveal a mess hall that looked like it hadn't housed a soul for generations. From blood and muck splattered tables and the cobwebs, it suddenly seemed a lot more believable how terrible their logistics were here. For decorations, there were dangling chains and old skulls that threatened to fall apart at the slightest touch. The skin and skull clad demon gestured for her to follow him into the actual kitchen. "Do not expect to see most of the ship. Your time will be spent here most often. When not here, you will either be in my quarters, or wherever I go."

There it was confirmation. She was to be a prisoner here, Ladomir's prisoner. A personal serf for a beast whose intentions she had no way of knowing except at least right now, he didn't want to rip her to shreds. She nodded and looked about. "I suppose the kitchen is close by then?" Sneh uttered coming to stand beside him in the dust bin of a mess hall.

"Yes." Guiding her toward the back of the room, this whole ship seemed designed to be hostile and unwelcoming in every regard. Not even where one breaks bread with others, felt safe. Thus, the kitchen itself was not any better. Only in the sense that it had better overhead lighting than any other singular room within the ship, minus perhaps the deck itself. As a room intended to be occupied by baselines, it seemed appropriate. Even still, it was nothing but rust and unwelcoming metal. Every surface meant for creating the dishes necessary for a long-term voyage on such a ship, looked as if it hadn't been used in years. And when it had, no one bothered to clean after themselves. It only made it look all the odder, when the old shelves held new and pristine boxes by comparison. Their most recent haul. "I took the liberty of waiting to bring you when my brothers were not so preoccupied with bringing all the new supplies here. To not surround you with their fresh skins. You're welcome." Ladomir chuckled, a throaty thing that resembled that dull thump, thump, thump of bolter shells firing.

She welcomed the light, a soft comfort that she'd be sure to cling onto as best she could even inside of a poor, rusted out kitchen. Then her skin crawled, the faint aroma of death still clung to the grime that stuck to the counters but that was for later. She needed one table. One clean space, a massive well of flour and as many eggs as she could physically amass. "How kind." She slipped it like a dagger once more the small knife on his back as she set the lamp down and went about investigating the space, evaluating the damage and trying to figure out what was workable and if there were any cleaning supplies.

"Of course." The tails of his laugh trailing away, Ladomir taking too much joy in this little game of daggers. Black eyes watched her intently, watching as Sneh inspected and discovered every new thing. Put together thoughts and possibilities in her mind to either discard or catalogue for further use. Putting her trade to work. It was relatable, in an odd way, even if the trades were far from similar. "Well? Is it adequate?"

"There are tables, and I think the water runs." She said finding towels to clean out the centre table. "I just need you to find me some eggs and flour." Sneh said searching for some kind of soap and a knife.

The expression on that pale, blue-veined face betrayed nothing, but his tone was another matter. "And why should I have to search for egg and flour?" He was like a midnight mountain, standing stiff as a rock watching the small woman scrounge up items he hadn't even realized still existed in those cabinets.

"Because your legion needs to eat." Sneh said Putting down the small bits and pieces to sweep her hair back in a cap and pull the top part of her apron on to wear it in full. Grimy massive bowls finally surfaced after what seemed like decades and she blew the dust off and threw them in the sink with a found fury.

Ladomir laughed, watching the wild woman go, dangerously confident in herself whilst dancing around the wolf’s den. Then, he stopped, eyes locked on her bandaged throat. Just a little clearer now with her hair back. Memories of his tongue over those dried blood streaks, came forth in utter clarity. And it still stung, how unclear the taste was in comparison to how it dropped form the knife's edge. Slicing his own tongue and mixing the sanguine fluid together, before it sealed like nothing and he was tasting the fresh drip, lavishing how it refreshed him like crisp dew off a mountain side. Scratching his bottom lip with a ceramite clad finger, Ladomir shook his head. "Careful, little bird. I may find your antics amusing, but my brothers won't. Speak too much, and they won’t hesitate to kill you and make you into a cloak when we come across another cook."

Sneh ran the tap and grit her teeth, her shoulders softly dropping. Her hands balled into fists over the dirty sink and that bite was swiftly channelled into violent scrubbing, soap suds spread like flames, and she was even more thankful to have short sleeves. Even so though, such bite even channelled wasn't hide-able, the intensity exuded off her back like a heat. "Do you all at least have a pasta frame?" She asked in a softer tone knowing it'd need to be full if the souls on board were to have enough to eat that night.

Raising a brow, he simply stared into her back, the growl of his armour joints signalling his steps toward the newly stocked, and none too much organized, shelves. Grasping a blue box and begrudgingly setting the flour on the nearby counter for Sneh. "A what?"

Pulling a pen and paper out of her pocket she slammed it onto the counter and drew out what looked like a picture frame, with ladder rungs into it. Beside it she drew it hanging from the ceiling. "You lay pasta on it to wait before you cook it or store it." Sneh explained ripping the slip off before she slid it over to him and looked at the meagre amount of flour knowing she'd need far, far more.

Ladomir scoffed, snatching the paper and giving it a moment's inspection. "As you command, my lady." The Night Lord mocked, stepping away to unceremoniously inspect the old storerooms left decades neglected by the bat fanged creatures living amongst this derelict ship. Soft flickers of light breaching the storeroom from his armour every once and a while as he searched for Sneh's odd object. Only returning after he'd thoroughly rummaged and kicked up a century’s worth of dust crudely knocking around for the odd contraption. An old and cobwebbed thing dangling from a midnight gauntlet before setting it up on the newly, somewhat, freshened counters.

Sneh paid his comment no mind even if she knew deep down, it was a dangerous thing to do. Such violent words could and would have consequences if spoken to the wrong people and yet as always, she couldn't help herself.

She'd just about made the bowls shine when he returned, and Sneh thanked him in kind only wondering if it'd truly hold out for what she needed it to do. But with it dangling from the ceiling and not instantly snapping in half, she gave it her faith and poured a heaping mountain of flour into each massive bowl.

His gnarled lip pressed into a thin line as he leant against a wall and watched as Sneh worked. A curiosity in his dark eyes, as much as they glinted with annoyance along the same line. Taking the moment to activate his wrist vox and request that servitor service while he waited.

It was maddening the amount of everything that was used to produce it, she swirled oil, eggs all of it until the liquid turned to a paste then a dough. And soon enough she was laying towels atop the bowls while he cut up the massive head sized dough balls into much more manageable ones. A rolling pin covered in flour pressed it and the handle of a cut up broom stick rolled each flat roll of pasta dough before she cut it and laid the pasta over the frame. One by one the frame was slowly filled until it was completely full, and Sneh was covered in dough parts, flour and a stubbornness on her face. And so, she wiped her brow with her elbow and washed herself off before she went to go to the meat locker and well, after one glance she quietly turned back. A cold shocked look on her face as she near slumped to the floor.

Ladomir's roaring laughter broke through the air, previously filled with the sound of vicious dough mixing. A booming thud, that was closer now to the blunt thud of a bolter shell finding home within flesh and detonating with force. "Not your Favorite cut, I take it?" That damn smirk etched itself into his features, twisted further by the scars.

She didn't even budge, a curled-up ball on the floor as Sneh tried to process what she'd seen. Skinless half bodies, organs, eyeless heads. Frozen fat and exposed bone all covered in a sheet of ice in the meat locker.

"Your planet was a good haul." Ladomir reiterated, a fond sort of gaze in his eyes as he cast them toward the meat locker. Servo joints whirring as he thudded his way over to stand in front of the freshly traumatized cook. "Personally, I prefer the fresh, but we make do. When food is scarce, you make do. Everyone does. So, I hope your stomachs hardens as much as your tongue has."

Sneh shook on the floor at the notion of it, her father had been a butcher, she was no stranger to dried or hanging meat carouses but.... These weren't animals. There were animals but, the eyeless stare of the frozen man wouldn't leave her. Her breath hitched as Sneh very well forgot to breath and the poor baker couldn't rip her gaze from the floor and far beyond where it truly laid.

Kneeling, he still was not at her level, just a little bit closer. With a huff, he curled a finger and tilted her chin upward to meet his dark gaze. The blue veins practically screaming and begging attention to the pools of black endless space that occupied his eye sockets. "Look at me, little bird. Do not clip your wings before you even take flight."

His words snatched her back into reality and Sneh's lip trembled a lone indicator that she was still with him at all. "And what if I try to leave of my own accord?" She asked small and soft her eyes phasing in and out of recognition of his face, the hiss of her freshly made cut and that man's face.

Fingers unfurled from his otherwise balled fist, the tips brushing against her bandaged throat. Something akin to an almost sickening form of affection. Affection for a memory, of a taste that still bit at his taste bud harder than the serrated edge of the knife could have ever hoped to. His face was that of cracked marble. Concerningly pale, near sculpted in its large and squared features, marred by cracks that took the form of scars and warped veins, and eyes that managed utter emotionlessness, and somehow the full range of them, on a whim. And his voice was softer than the black stubble ingrained on his jaw. "I stopped that once, I will again. Your life is not one worth wasting. But it is also not one worth so much hassle, should it become such, and it will not be on your own accord."

--------

She nodded and swallowed from the faint touch. Then her quivering lips opened. "Please, could you retrieve some meat from the back. I don't think I could carry half a cow even if I wanted to." She closed her eyes and tried to find comfort in the threatening touch of ceramite hands over her throat that could so easily rip her head from her shoulders.

Those midnight clad fingers lingered over her bandage, lips feeling particularly dry now. As before he shook it off, retracting his touch from the shaken maiden, and rising to his full stature. An indecipherable look in his gaze. Pity? Disgust? Perhaps both, or neither of? The only thing that was clear, was his intent as he wondered off. Disappearing behind the large freezer door and returned not a minute later. A corpse strung over his shoulder, and subsequently laid out over the proper surface, as if it were simply any other cut of animal one would expect to find.

She grimaced over what laid there and at the very least she didn't have to serve meat to herself from here on. So, pushing herself up on trembling legs, she grabbed the largest knife she could and did her best to remember what her father had taught her when it came to cutting meat. And sure, enough after wrapping the lower half of her face and trying her best not to think of it, she managed to pull usable meat from what remained of a dismembered human being. "If you crush the bones, it can be used as flour in future when stocks are low." She said washing her now shaking hands over the sink. Sneh felt like one of them, one of the horrible beasts that skinned people to wear as ornaments and clothing. Beasts who looked upon people as a resource and not simple as a soul. It mortified her that she'd gone through with it, that she'd salted and prepaid the meat as best she could for mincing and that now that it laid on the table it was near no different to that of a cow or pig. She'd very well never eat meat again and there was a faint comfort in that thought.

At that, the beast seemed genuinely interested. Finding new ways to utilize the mutilated figure must've been like discovering a new fact about your favourite hobby, after you'd dedicated your entire life to its pursuit. "That so? That can keep the slaves in the lower decks fed more easily." He thought aloud, already enjoying the sound of it. Whilst also seemingly taking great care to watch how she prepped and carved the flesh bit by bit, a truly skilled butcher indeed. Nothing compared to him and his brothers of course, but that was to be expected. "I knew that I chose well to bring you aboard, you have our touch, little bird." Whether mockery or genuine remark, who knew? The malicious glee on his features made it clear he had no intent to hide the joy he took in such acts as it was, as he did down on the planet, and as he as making her do now thousands of miles deep into space.

"Your Legion will need more; can you carve more meat?" She asked taking deep breaths to try and centre herself before she began mincing the meat away from the bones and viscera that'd be thrown away.

"That, is a much more enjoyable prospect, than picking eggs." Ladomir laughed, armour growling and flickering all the way to and from the freezer as he brought out more meat to cut. Like a well-oiled machine, he pulled the gladius from where it was strapped and sheathed on his shin and went to work. "Warband." He corrected, hand and blade moving with the resounding slick sound of a blade carving through meat. Barely even needing to pay any real attention to what he was doing. "This warband, has not been a legion for over ten millennia now."

"Forgive me for thinking more highly of you then I should have then." She returned putting it in a massive metal pot before going and trying to raid the vegetables from the pantry.

"Careful, speaking like that will have you labelled a heretic under your imperial law." His voice was laden with sarcasm, practically dripping off his tongue like her blood once had. Oh, how that sanguine nectar clawed at the back of his throat.

Ladomir had always been a tad peculiar in his own regards to that. Whereas his brothers had no care one way or the other, both before and after the food shortages, Ladomir did. He preferred blood of the living, the freshest, most exquisite delight one could hope to delight in.

Some were sweeter than others, bitter, sour, everything and anything. Sneh had been a particular delight upon his taste buds, still resounding within their memories now. So much it had him licking the dried streaks from the mess afterward. To kill her would not only be a detriment to their food stock, but a loss of such a delicacy. Yet, she could not serve well if she was held solely from the occasional blood draining. And Ladomir had a sneaking suspicion that she would not appreciate nor comply with him simply drinking from her throat whenever he pleased.

So now he was vexed as to how he should deal with such a conundrum. It was a delicacy he could never forget, but also an asset that he hoped they would never lose. Perhaps such a sweet taste came from its forbidden nature, he did not know. All he knew, is that he would have to stay his teeth now for a long while.

Coming back, she scrubbed down any blood left from her site, as though she were trying to sponge away the very imagery from her skull. But as the blood washed away, her memories did not, and Sneh could only lay out the vegetables to be cut into a bowl and the tomato’s to be mashed into a motor. “I think they’d make an exception for speaking ill of creatures like you.” Sneh softly said under her breath as she salted it and poured the paste into a bowl slowly but surely building a stock of a massive amount of tomato paste.

Another laugh came thudding from his massive and broad chest. A laugh that sounded tailor made for mockery. "The moment you laid eyes upon me Sneh, they considered your soul lost. The moment we stepped foot on this ship, you were considered a heretic. They wouldn't make an exception; they'd make a stake." The light shone and reflected off his old gladius, Ladomir holding it up for emphasis and letting the blood trickle along its edge and drip, drip, drip onto the metal flooring.

She thrashed the tomato in the mortar in turn, the red of the paste painted her pestle like it was a club to be used for her own crusade. Pouring out the paste she turned up the heat on the meat finally. "Put the meat in the pot after you mince it." She dismissed gripping the pestle with white knuckled fists.

"This was no doubt the first time you encountered the Astartes." Ladomir continued, mincing and prepping the human meat with all the casual grace of the village butcher. "You think my former legion monster, but I've always felt a strange kinship with my sanguine cousins. You call them the Emperor's Angels of Death, his divine smiting wherever it is needed. But the Blood Angels have always had such a vicious thirst for blood, only they think it something shameful." Shaking his head he scoffed at the notion, tossing the meat in the pot, licking his fingers of the left over. "The most noble and elegant of my kin, but they're savages at the core, and they may not me eating their serfs, but they are not so far from what we are doing here. Some have gotten unlucky, that a Blood Angel went mad, and tore through everybody without care, feasting on their blood while their hearts gave out their last pitiful pumps. Hypocrisy runs rampant through your Imperium."

She passed him a long wooden spoon, freshly cleaned for him to mash and turn it over as it browned and got even further lost in its origin. "I cared not for the Imperium before this, and I care not for your ramblings now." She spat back knowing all too well a reaction was what he was after, and yet she couldn't help herself. The spite was the only thing keeping her from dwelling on the fact she was stuck here, with him for the foreseeable future with no way to escape and the breath of winged demons down her back.

Perhaps that was the only way he could pass off doing such pitifully menial task. Still, it didn't make it any less difficult to deal with his pestering’s and provocations. His gauntlet clad hand stirring as she directed, while his lips split with the smile held. "Truly? That is quite heretical little bird, you really are like us."

Sneh's hair was the shade of midnight like her eyes, she wore a red gown with a dark blue head covering. Her hands were covered in red from the paste and her brow remained furrowed. Carrying the bowl over, she dumped the massive amount in and shook her head. "It seems wherever I go I need to bite my tongue." Sneh uttered to herself looking over the remains of the paste through long soft lashes.

Void filled eyes absorbed that absence of light that was Sneh's hair. Getting lost in the contrasting shimmer of the dull lights atop it. A soft reminiscence of home, thousands of years ago in a time nobody truly remembered anymore outside of myth and legends skewed by bias and age. "Such is the way of things, when death is around every corner in the galaxy."

"Like you?" She asked washing it out before cutting vegetables to also throw in and some to save on the side with what remained of the sauce. Then another heavy pot came to sit on the stove filled with water and the whole frames worth of pasta was laid in.

"Precisely." The grin was so clear, you could hear it before seeing it. Idly stroking one of the skulls dangling from his chest, most of its teeth removed to leave behind only the canines, a crude resemblance of his bat helm and the constant legion iconography.

--------

"...How do I call them?" She asked as the pasta cooked so very quickly. Like a mass of writhing worms in the boiling pot.

"I will take care of that." Ladomir returned, turning to speak into his wrist vox. Informing his brothers of the great news, in fork tongued, hissing speech far too flowery and eloquent with the way it rolled from his tongue, then it had any right to be. Just as soon, the growling thuds of their footsteps would be reaching the mess, for the first time in damnable throne knows how many years.

It was a tense dinner service, only one serf to dish up bowls to a classroom sized group of violent psychopaths that could rip her to shreds. Then she waited. Hoping they wouldn't skin her for the meal she'd provided and the amount of food she'd made to serve the slave hold. It still sent a shiver down her spine over the meat and how readily they ate it but none of that was her business anymore, she simply had to wait. Knowing if she did survive, she wouldn't be leaving the kitchen any time soon, not when every square inch needed to be cleaned.

Even when eating, they were all terribly silent. No bustle of common speak, but small conversations hidden and tucked away between individual claws, not so eager to share with others. Mostly time to speak, was spent as time to eat. Even Sarval had kept his tongue, bloodied stolen helm sitting just beside him as he devoured his bowl. Rarely, here and there, there might even have been a compliment about the quality of such a dish.

Yet, not Ladomir, no not Ladomir. He hardly bothered to mingle with his brothers, at best leant against a wall and savouring his sinister concoction. But he was like Sneh's shadow, making sure no one got out of hand, or that she didn't get herself skinned. A constant deterrent. Her jailer, and her protector all at once. Once it was all said and down, he was still smiling that maliciously joyful smile, thin lips pulled by thicker scars, and a pride somewhere within his blackened soul. "You did good, little bird."

“I still yet have work to do.” Sneh said finally eating her own bowl as she looked at the messy pile that now needed to be cleaned. Not to mention the rest of the ancient kitchen that no doubt harboured…. Pests between its grimy books and cranny’s.

"That it seems you do." He returned with a nod, his voice that of smooth stoned gravel. The licks and hints of rasp on the edge of his words. Accented as ever with his strange tongue. A tongue that still held the sweet flavours, a meal fit for lords of the night. "But when is anyone's work truly over?"

"When they're dead." She spat back pilling it all in once she'd finished her bowl and began to push the massive iron pots back.

"Unfortunate then, that none of us plan on dying soon, or letting you die either Sneh." The care in his voice, was it genuine, or another mockery? With such a creature, it could never be easy or as clear as any would wish to tell. No less when laughs left Ladmoir's lips so liberally, happy to play everything as a passing joke or snide remark.

"How kind." Sneh tatted back shoving it inside so she could shove the bowls in the sink. "How do you suppose the leftover food will be given to, the others..." She asked grabbing the crunchy sponge on a stick. to begin cleaning each bowl.

Tapping a finger against his chin, Ladomir could see already just how it would play out. The joy, and chaos that would ensue as a result. It etched a frown into his features, thinking about how unorganized it all still was. "No doubt, someone within one of the claws will draw a short stick, so to speak. And they will begrudgingly march down to those decks of whoresons and toss in the food and let them fight and kill over it."

She paused and then nodded. "And you'll stay here, to watch me work?" She asked wondering all too much how this would even work. Sure, he'd stay because of the fear of her poisoning his warband but would she be watched over every swab and mop of this place going forward? Would he drag her along to places or would she ever be left alone somewhere? Many questions swirled in her mind as Sneh began the long and terrible task of cleaning out this ancient kitchen. Only to find a cat sized violent rat creature that tried to bite her and left her scrambling back toward her captor.

"Oh but of course!" Ladomir laughed. Not that the prospect was a very exciting one. After all, all this time had been spent by entertaining himself as best he could. If his oh so delightful talks with Sneh were anything to go by at the very least. Only to have his head whip violently in her direction at her sudden scurry, a hand reaching for his gladius. "What is it?"

The vermin hissed a battle cry and lurched after her making Sneh in her tied dress reluctantly crawl behind him as fast as she could. "That!" Half the kitchen now was clean and the tub she'd had to change out twice was even now half clear and ready to be turned black with the muck that clung to every surface.

Stopping for a moment, he couldn't help letting out something akin to a bark, out of his amusement. "A rat?" He remarked with a shake of the head, of course finding an amusement in her fear and horror over what he considered such a simple creature. Flipping the gladius around to hold it by the blade's tip, Ladomir reared his arm back, and it snapped forward with a violent speed, a midnight smear that suddenly had his wrist aiming forward. While the blade shot like a bullet from his grip, finding home within the mutated and mangled rat, sinking into its flank and ending the creature with a sickening crack, and the sound of metal slicing through flesh.

She cringed at the sound but found a sweet sense of peace in its death. "Thank you." She said crawling out from behind his legs. She was a cocktail of grime and filth, sweat and the lingering stench of fear, blood and food. It was suffocating to a fiend whose nose was so far above a baseline human. And yet even as she shuffled outward to finish the job, Sneh did not want to cease. She needed the time and task to work off the shock and horror of the day.

"Now I am on pest control duties too." The giant of a man mumbled to himself, shaking his head as his metal being stomped over to the rodent carcass, yanking his blade from it. "Maybe I need to get you a blade, if pests are going to be such an issue." His nose twitched, tingling and stuffy as he took in all the scents. An odd concoction, not necessarily a pleasant one either, by any "normal" standards. For the Night Lord, it seemed standard fare as ever. Only layered with his unfamiliarity in dealing and having to interact with humans as such, on such a now regular basis.

#warhammer 40k #night lords #oc x oc roleplay #oc x oc ship #rp writing #space marines #astartes x human

24 notes · View notes