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This one goes out to little old lady who visits my work and likes to say "F.A.F.O!"

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Kids these days…

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Public speaking is actually really easy if you don't respect a single soul in that room. I've had an incredibly easy time delivering speeches when I hated everybody I saw and they all thought I did amazing because my disdain was read as confidence. I don't have any tips for you I'm just telling you a fact

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Warhammer 40.000: Rogue Trader (Video Game) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Heinrix van Calox/Original Female Rogue Trader Character(s) Characters: Heinrix van Calox, Idira Tlass, Branwyn MacCionaodha von Valancius (OC), Yrliet Lanaevyss Series: Part 5 of The Heretic's Gambit Summary:

“I'll protect her again, if I need to,” she said.

“It might be better for everyone involved if you don't get shot next time, but… I am grateful for that,” he said, and meant it.

“Even if it's from you?”

“If it comes to that,” he said. “Somehow, I doubt it will be necessary; I'm nothing of consequence to her.”

Idira scoffed. “I don't need the voices to know that's a lie, iceman.”

“Oh? Am I her friend? Her confidant?” There was an edge of bitterness creeping into his voice he hadn't intended. “I am not her suitor, not courting her. Tell me, Mistress Tlass, what name do your voices give me that she could possibly need protection from? The Inquisition's watchdog, perhaps?” It was a common if unoriginal barb, though rarely expressed directly–more overheard in hushed whispers or intercepted in private correspondence.

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WORK IN PROGRESS: Rogue Trader.

Summary: the final meeting of Heinrix and a friend. Late game spoilers.

Inspired by @redstairs' poetic themed Rogue Trader writing prompts. Day three, specifically. Violence + Beauty. Or possibly day seven: 'Farewell'. Started out as day three, at least.

Thank you to @ravelsquadespresso for the WIP tag. Keep 'em coming.

...

He can feel it now, Heinrix thinks - the sure signs that Emelina’s mind is beginning to fray, now that the thread of Chaos has truly been plucked and pulled taut.

Emelina stands tall - calm and unafraid on the surface - but the signs of distress are there, plain to his sight. A light sheen of sweat crowns her brow, and a forlorn, regretful cast to her eyes quickly makes a home in his chest.

Beneath that calm - her shield - her body revolts in a discordant symphony to his biomantic senses. Her pulse pounds in his eardrums, racing ever faster, faster. He feels the shock, the desperation, as the cortisol and adrenaline spike, surge, and spike again.

He can taste the metallic tang of fear in his mouth, and suddenly, he feels impossibly alone.

Without thinking, Heinrix steps closer. Strips off his leather gloves. Reaches out to cradle her face in his hands, willing them to stay soft and steady - just for a moment longer.

Leaning in, his voice remains - he hopes - mercifully gentle.

“I’ll remember, Emelina,” Heinrix whispers. “For the both of us.”

For an instant, Heinrix swears he can smell the sweet, stale scent of recaf. Countless cups over countless games of regicide.

For a heartbeat, there is laughter—fragile and bright—like rare, autumnal sunshine on his skin.

Then, ever so gently, he puts her to sleep.

And stops her.

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49 for Evanelia and Heinrix!

Well this got out of hand.

————

Heinrix was deep in contemplation of his remaining ecclesiarch when Evanelia let out a pained exhale. He raised his eyes from the board to find her rounded over her knees, the heels of her hands pressed against her eyes.

He rose from his seat, the game quickly forgotten. “Are you alright?” He knelt alongside her. “What’s wrong?”

She lowered her hands and squinted at him for a brief moment before batting her eyelids shut. She groaned softly. “Sorry,” she said, her voice taut, “it’s the light. I thought I felt a migraine coming on, so I covered my eyes to see if the dark would help.” She sighed and covered her eyes again. “And it did. Which confirms my theory that whatever the Drukhari did to me screwed up the wiring of my neural implant… or maybe the way my brain wires itself around the implant…Mmph.”

He had placed a tentative hand against her temple and swiftly withdrew it at the noise she made, but now she grabbed blindly for his wrist.

“No, put it back,” she mumbled. “The cold feels nice.”

He cautiously replaced his hand and resumed his inventory of the cranial nerve endings. He recited their formal names like a litany, an anchor to keep his focus on the task at hand and away from intrusive thoughts about other contexts where he could evoke pleased sighs from her.

Evanelia flinched at some of his exploration. Heinrix grimaced.

He spoke in a soft voice and hoped it would be enough to avoid aggravating the pain. “I’m wary of trying to make permanent alterations to someone else’s neural circuitry,” he said. “It’s not my area of expertise, and it’s not the same modifying my own body where I have immediate feedback.”

Her hair was beginning to fall into her face, teased and coming loose from the tail she’d put it in. Heinrix realized that she must have been rubbing her head before he’d noticed she was in pain.

He gently brushed her hair back and tucked it behind her ear.

“You will still need to speak to the chirurgeon or a specialist to get it fixed. But I think I can soothe the nerves a bit, just for now. Unless you would prefer I call a medic?”

She shook her head. “Here is good.” She adjusted her hands to peer at him, though still shading her eyes from the lamps. She smiled sheepishly. “First, can you help me turn the lights out? … and then get to my bed in the dark without bruising my shins?” She hesitated. “And without carrying me because I’m not sure what the swaying would do for my equilibrium or my nausea.”

“Of course.” He offered her his arm. “Let’s get you settled then I can go around and turn the lights off.”

Her eyes were closed again. “Thank you,” she said with audible relief.

He helped her shuffle from the regicide table to her chambers without running into anything, guiding her around corners with a hand on her waist. When they reached her bed he steered her hands so she could feel where the bed was and lower herself onto it.

“I’ll be back.”

Then he went between the rooms turning the lights off, leaving only a dimmed lantern in the hall and in the bath chamber to guide him. It struck him as he darkened the last how strange it was to be navigating the Rogue Trader’s chambers in such a way. As if they were his. As if he belonged there. The path back to her room already felt as familiar as finding his own bunk without light.

She had taken her hair down completely when he returned to sit beside her. She hadn’t bothered to change, but she’d kicked her stockings off and he caught a shadowed glimpse of a hastily discarded undergarment draped over the bedframe.

“Thank you,” she said again, her hand fumbling for his in the dark.

He squeezed it and raised her knuckles to his lips. “Think nothing of it.”

“What if I like thinking of it?”

He smiled faintly, reluctantly untangling his fingers from hers so he could press them to her temples. “I suppose I can’t stop you.”

She replied with an absentminded hum of approval as he began to soothe the nerves.

It never felt quite the same, working on someone else’s nerves… coarser, less tactile. Like touch through a glove. But he knew how to amplify the sensitivity of others’ nerves to increase pain; he’d done it so often he could practically do it in his sleep. Pure muscle memory. Inverting the process wasn’t significantly harder. It was certainly easier to observe. He much preferred sensing the tension in her body melt away over witnessing the results of an interrogation.

And perhaps with time, he mused, the workings of her body might become more familiar, like the pathways he walked in her chambers. Already he’d subconsciously synchronized his heartbeats to hers. It was as if there was a string tied between them, the space inside their chests resonating in unison with its strumming.

With time. But how much time would he have? How much time could he expect before Xavier summoned him back?

Why did part of him recoil at the realization that he might not remain by her side long enough to grow familiar with the pathways of her body? Was it really a shock? Had he really let himself imagine he might remain with her indefinitely?

His chest ached.

Heinrix gingerly disentangled his awareness from her nerve endings. “Any better?” he asked quietly, his voice unexpectedly hoarse.

Evanelia sounded half asleep when she replied. “Much.”

“Good.” He delicately kissed her knuckles and began to get up from the bed.

She gripped his hand and pulled him back towards her, surprisingly determined for one on the brink of falling asleep.

“Stay,” she mumbled. Perhaps startled into wakefulness by the unexpected force of her own request, she added in a clearer voice: “Please stay with me.”

Heinrix could no more refuse her than he did in the aftermath of her return from Commorragh. As quietly as he could, he kicked off his boots and eased himself onto the bed, where Evanelia wasted no time in nestling against his side.

He ran his fingers through her hair as her breathing once again began to slow.

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She lifts her own hand - the left, for once uncovered, all her scars on full display - and lightly rests her fingertips to his knuckles. His eyes flick almost imperceptibly to track the motion. “And your hand?” She grits her teeth, and he looks pained, feeling the clench of her jaw beneath his fingers. “That’s a longer story.” He’s leaning towards her; she can tell from the way their breaths both fog the air between them that he is holding it all in, but the dam could break at any moment, and if she raises up on her toes, perhaps, she can coax enough heat to thaw the last of his resolve…

—Tread Softly, chapter two

Commission by @infernaldaydreams

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Oooh, I like that. I know neural inhibitors are a thing, but I think those are more likely augments than tubes.

What do you mean I am 50k words deep and just now learning that this:

has a name????? Psykana collar

Now it's mostly relevant to Idira and psyker OCs but still.

I do not wish to speak about the hours I spent trying to find out the names for any of the weird little psyker greeble tubes/rigs. If you know any others I've missed, please add on and share!

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What do you mean I am 50k words deep and just now learning that this:

has a name????? Psykana collar

Now it's mostly relevant to Idira and psyker OCs but still.

I do not wish to speak about the hours I spent trying to find out the names for any of the weird little psyker greeble tubes/rigs. If you know any others I've missed, please add on and share!

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Hugs time!

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happy pride month

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And im so done with this Sunday....

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Everyone needs an Abelard in their life to announce their each and every wish 😔

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Realizing in the process of editing chapter 5 that I have been spelling my own character's name wrong for 4 chapters:

Realizing that I spelled it wrong /in the game/ and /twelve years ago/ playing the ttrpg:

Correcting it now but aaaaugh the trout population will be affected

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I love you Janris

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Miss you not - a non-animated version Animated one here