#Phoenician Purple

[thetalesofrosaspandan]

What is Tyrian Purple?

Writing a short article about the regal color that dates back to the 1st century B.C.E.

Read the article here...

[alchemisland]

Making purple

Fastgoing my fixed feelings unendurable Fastgrowing my addiction to that miraculous admix The drugs don’t work, a cat on terra firma chasing birds soaring skyward My bleeding feet squash ten thousand snails into a wooden bucket Shells splintering like calcium carbonate true crosses Sharding themselves underheel, ceramic urns cracking hitting sedge Tossed overboard by Phoenician…

[ilisteria]

*unhaunts your Night and de-Romans your Phoenician*

Non-Roman Fulgrim designs my beloved

The cape on Konrad is supposed to be a vague reference to bat wings and the reddish-purple cloth on Fulgrim is meant to be two-tone fabric.

Extensive artistic liberties were taken on the Byzantine drip.

[moodymisty]

Author's note: Inspired by this post, and @kit-williams life changing addition

Relationships: Mortarion/Fem!Reader

Warnings: Some NSFW references

“Care to play a game with me brother?”

Sanguinius looks to Guilliman with a smile that he does not return.

“Not particularly. Though I imagine this wasn’t actually a question.”

Sanguinius smiles wider, before pointing someone out among the crowd of bodies.

“Do you see that young lady over there, in the purple?” Guilliman spots you among the crowd of marines shuffling to return to their drop ships.

“Yes, and?” Sanguinius has the expression of a man who knows something his others do not, which fails to amuse Guilliman in the slightest.

“She is the lover of one of our brothers. Care to guess who?”

Guilliman gives him a look of surprise that is uncharacteristic of him. He had assumed you were a remembrancer, a navigator perhaps that looks oddly more human than they usually do.

“One of the Primarchs has taken a consort? That is-“ Sanguinus waves his hand and brushes off the man’s words.

“Unimportant. Guess.”

Guilliman sighs- displeased at being interrupted - before he looks back your way, and thinks.

“Vulkan.”

An obvious choice; Vulkan is both kindhearted to unaugmented humans and is frequently around baseline populations, but Sanguinius shakes his head.

“Fulgrim.”

He’s had wives before, though he thought the Phoenician swore off it because of heartbreak. Sanguinus shakes again.

“…Magnus?”

Guilliman's voice raises in a now genuinely questioning tone. The fabric of your robes is similar to that of the Thousand Sons, but Sanguinius shakes again- Guilliman expresses his distaste.

“Sanguinius this game is ridiculous and I-“

Guilliman stops when he sees Mortarion walk up to you, saving you from being lost in a sea of marines. He looks down at you with his discontent neutral expression, the decayed skin of his lips shifting with thinly veiled irritation. His limp grey hair falls in chunks around his face, and without his mask, he lets out a cough before composing himself.

He reaches a hand out to grab your arm, and you bite your lip. You say something Guilliman cannot hear nor read off your lips, but it’s something that visibly surprises the primarch.

Guilliman is stunned into silence before quickly stammering.

“That is not true. There is absolutely no-“

Sanguinius laughs, overjoyed to see Guilliman’s genuine shock.

“Oh I have proof brother. Besides their loving gazes in public eye, my Sanguinary Guard… Quite unfortunately seemed to pass by Mortarion's private quarters on the way to mine and overheard some disquieting things.

“Mortarion!”

There was the sound of wood slamming against the wall, the sound of flesh and skin. A woman’s screams echoed through the walls as more concerning sounds slipped from the safety of the primarch’s chambers.

“Mortarion! Please!”

Sanguinius is still disquieted by it. ‘Mortarion is torturing serfs’ his guards had thought and told him, before their helmet recordings had realized they greatly misunderstood.

An awkward conversation, that had been.

What a beautiful woman you were, smiling up at Mortarion with eyes so full of love Sanguinius hadn’t thought it possible. To think you love a man stuck in a cycle of disease so readily and fully.

And deeply, judging by the slamming his guards had overheard.

Guilliman looks a bit paler, watching Mortarion shove you forward to follow his men.

“I… must go. I would thank you for your time but given what I have learned today, I quite honestly don’t believe it deserves gratitude.”

Sanguinius laughs with his entire chest, patting Guilliman on the shoulder.

[city-of-ladies]

"Mycenaean women put their own spindles to splendid use, producing luscious cloaks and long, richly patterned or striped skirts. Far from resigning themselves to the weaving rooms, they travelled in chariots, performed songs or poetry to the accompaniment of lyres, and carried wheatsheaves for public ceremonies and rituals, as vibrantly coloured frescoes from the palace at Mycenae reveal. In one of the most enigmatic paintings, one woman holds a sword, another a spear, while two tiny men, one painted red and the other black, float mysteriously between them, like toy models or thought bubbles. Through their contact with the divine, perhaps, the women pictured gain agency over the men’s fate. Hera, Zeus, Poseidon and a female birth and death goddess known as Potnia were among the deities the Mycenaeans are known to have worshipped. While Mycenaean women clearly played an important role in religion, their political position within the palaces was weaker than that of their Minoan counterparts, and secondary to the men’s. Each Mycenaean palace complex was presided over by a male ‘wa-na-ka’ or wanax.

Surviving clay writing tablets provide just as fascinating an insight into the lives of women in the real palaces of the Mycenaean era. The fullest collection of tablets comes from a pair of rooms in the palace complex of Pylos, but Knossos, the former Minoan capital, was also a key repository. A total of 4,476 tablets have been preserved across the two sites. Among these there are references to more than 2,000 different women. Unlike Linear A, the Minoans’ writing system, the Mycenaeans’ similarly syllabic Linear B has been successfully deciphered. Working (as opposed to non-working elite) women were denoted by signs resembling an abstract impression of the female form. ‘Woman’ was conveyed by two dots for breasts, legs joined to suggest a long skirt of the kind Mycenaean women wore, and a curved line where her head would be, suggestive of long or dressed hair (in the sign for a man, by contrast, there is a straight line for the head).

The women referred to in the tablets were employed in a wide range of jobs, many of them familiar from the Homeric epics. In the Odyssey, women grind wheat and barley, ‘the marrow of men’, at mills. There were ‘flour-grinders’ at the palace in Pylos. In both epics, women weave, whether royal or servile. Andromache works in the Trojan palace with a loom and distaff while ordering her servant women about their work. Helen embroiders a purple cloth with scenes from the Trojan War as if she were telling the story of the poem herself. And as we have seen, Penelope weaves and unweaves a funeral shroud for her father-in-law, Laertes. The women who wove at Pylos and Knossos were no less versatile in their handiwork. They managed something like a textile industry, producing goods for export as well as the palace community, and worked in groups according to specialism. There were wool-spinners and carders, linen- and leather-workers, finishers and headband-makers for horses. These women usually worked separately from men, but at Pylos there is evidence that at least two women, Wordieia and Amphehia, formed part of a mixed leather-making group. 

Working groups were the modus operandi at the Mycenaean palaces. Women were usually accompanied by boys and girls, presumably their own children, as they went about their tasks. Many were divided also according to their geographical region. Pylos was split into sixteen districts over two provinces, Nearer and Further, separated by Mount Aigaleo. The palace-workers came from more than 200 named places, some of which may have been local streets, while others, including Lemnos, Miletus and Knidos, lay further afield. It is possible that, like the Sidonian (Phoenician) women carried to Troy by Paris in the Iliad to weave fine robes for the court, some of the women working in the Mycenaean palaces had been enslaved.

Although the women were engaged in hard, practical labour, their work was recognised as highly skilled, and the Mycenaeans took some pride in it. Men were sometimes described on tablets as being the offspring of women of particular crafts, for example, ‘sons of flax-workers’. Female workers were allocated the same amount of food in the regular distributions as their male counterparts, and twice as much as their children, whereas in Babylonia, men typically received three times the female ration.

A mysterious senior class of priestess at Pylos known as ‘keybearers’ (did they open and close shrines within the palace complex?) even owned land. A landowning keybearer named ka-pa-ti-ja (‘Karpathia’) was wealthy enough to donate almost 200 litres of grain to the palace, probably for a religious festival. Given the historical prominence of women at the court of Pylos, it is fitting that a mythical Pylian king should intervene in the dispute over Briseis in the Iliad. Old Nestor urges Agamemnon to return the woman to Achilles and to end their feud."

The Missing Thread: A Women's History of the Ancient World, Daisy Dunn

[harmoniouseclipse]

Woe fankids be upon ye

Doing a little series where I took some ship requests on my instagram to make them fankids, this one is for me tho (jeanlisa to kick it off whoo 🙌🏻) The lineup so far is Cytham, Kavetham, Lionfish (aka Freminet x Gaming aged up probably idk how old they are canonically), Cynonari, Jealuc, and Beiguang, and feel free to send me some other pairings you wanna see (as long as they are legal pls otherwise I will ignore it 👎)

I'm gonna ramble about some headcanons and lore for them under the cut, continue with caution bc I'm insane

These two are my brainrot rn, don't even joke lad. And I wanna tell yall their name meanings too bc I like them a lot 🥹 Zephra's means "west wind" derived from Greek, and it's the feminine version of Zephyr. Tyrian was a type of purple dye used by the Ancient Phoenicians, huge huge HUGE thanks to my pookie bear @miothefish for helping me out with his name!!! Also he has Lisa's butterfly earring and you can't see bc of the angle but Zephra has the rose that went in her hair holding her ponytail <3

I'm also making a massive family tree for the characters as a go along, and just the jeanlisa tree is taking up half of the canvas bc of the KoF and Sumeru characters since Cyno is their uncle and the rest of the gang are their honorary uncles 😭 I'll be posting that once the series is done/all the requests are finished/I run out of ships and otps I enjoy

Here's an alternative version with some more info on most of the characters I wanted to briefly mention in their relation to them; Tyrian likes calling Eula his aunt too even though she was never really considered one for them so it's kind of like her unofficial title she pretends to dislike but she loves it and dotes on Tyrian 🤭 She and Diluc also helped train Zephra with a claymore and Diluc kind of became a parental figure to her in her teen years after Lisa's passing 🥺 She also feels like she's outshined by Jean and that she's not smart or powerful enough to follow in Lisa's footsteps (something that Lisa wouldn't want anyways bc it led her to her death 😔) rip zephra she's just like me fr

And yeah some Kaeya angst bc he's still going thru it I fear, and Jean is single mombossing but she's worried for zephra which me too dawg, im afraid to say she might be cooked 😦 Zephra is also kind of like a weird mix of Lisa when she was her age and Jean, where overall she's well-mannered and kind but she can be competitive and feel the need to push herself too much and pull a few strings to get what she wants from time to time. Tyrian is a ray of sunshine tho, he has not yet witnessed the horrors 💔 I do think that Jean is also a lot easier on him than her mom was with her so that also helps. He's very shy tho and wants to stick with Zephra or Razor most of the time, and they both have some nasty tan lines from going out with Razor and Klee and Fischl a lot 😔 Cyno also freaking loves them and dotes on them and Tyrian is getting a TCG addiction because of it smh, Cyno is also one of Zephra's favorite people and when she's in Sumeru she stays with him and Alhaitham (bc in my universe they are married ough I love cytham)

And (I think?) Klee physically and mentally ages slower than humans so I think she'd be technically 9 or 10, and Zephra is left with babysitting duty most of the time if she's home on break or smth 😭 Klee really looks up to her tho

Also, I wrote Tyrian's last bullet point like he was super young when Lisa died, but I think he was around 7 so he actually remembers Lisa better than I intended it to sound, he was just younger than Zephra (who was 11 at the time) and just didn't have as much time with her as Zeph did, but his most fond memory of Lisa was reading with her and she probably taught them some potion-making skills too.

I think there will be some abyss angst in here too at some point, since I hc Lisa to be probably an Abyss Lector/Harold (I forget which is which) um so thinking that Zeph and Tyrian experiencing some not normal things happening and Jean doesn't know what to do since Lisa also didn't really know what that dog in her was until it was too late 😔 That's what Kaeya's for tho since he's like the heir of the abyss???? Go off king. Also some touchy ragbros angst bc Kaeya is scared for Zeph knowing how close she is with Luc and he doesn't want him to push her away because of her being from the abyss or smth (they mostly made up but it's still a fear in Kaeya's mind both for him and Jean's kids)

I think that's all I wanted to touch on for now?? Mainly just thinking about domestic fluff and angst all the time now 🥺 Zeph not being able to be open with Jean bc she feels like a disappointment but Jean would literally actually die for her and shes proud of her no matter what ough im going to lose my freak dawg guess who my favorite fankid is it's super hard ik

Send me asks or dms or whatever for more ship requests!!! I'm having so much fun with this dawg 🫶🏻

[froody]

when I woke up from my first colonoscopy at age 18, I was in the middle of explaining the process of creating Phoenician purple to a nurse. Which is such a me thing to do. I could have started spilling secrets but instead my anesthesia addled brain decided to infodump about snails.

[mybeingthere]

Ausfärbungen auf Federn / Teintures sur Plumes or Shades on Feathers is a sample book from 1915 with dyeing instructions and an 18-section foldout containing 143 dyed feathers. Published by the Bayer Company of New York City in English, French

and German, the book begins with instructions for dying feathers (clean them in soap and ammonia, then boil in salts and sulphuric acid).

Humanity has been colouring things for millennia. Scientists have found evidence of the first natural reds and oranges in tombs back to 2600BC.

Written in Greek, the Papyrus Graecus Holmiensis (also known as the Stockholm papyrus) is a 4th century CE codex of craft recipes compiled in Egypt. The work’s 15 leaves contain 154 recipes for the manufacture of dyes and colours used in fashioning artificial stones.

Recipe 101 is as follows:

“Cold Dyeing for Purple which is Done in the True Way”

“Keep this as a secret matter because the purple has an extremely luster. Take scrum of woad from the dyer, and a sufficient portion of foreign askant of about the same weight as the scum – the scum is very light – and triturate it in the mortar. Thus dissolve the alkanet by grinding in the scum and it will give off its essence. Then take the brilliant color prepared by the dyer – if from kermis it is better, or else from kirmnos – heat, and put this liquor into half of the scum in the mortar. Then put the wool in and color it unmordanted and you will find it beyond all description.”

Back then, purple was the marker of rank and class.

The most well-known shellfish dye was the Tyrian purple, royal purple or imperial purple as it was called, which came from sea snails in the Eastern Mediterranean in the ancient city of Tyre. This dye was very special for all the civilisations around the Mediterranean and its use spanned whole centuries. It was the most expensive dye in the whole of ancient world, as the colour it produced was very bright and colourfast. Because of its properties, its use was restricted for royals, members of the royal family, and senior public officers and priests.

Archaeological evidence points out that the ancient Phoenicians first discovered and used it (Tyre was an important Phoenician city). From them, it became known to ancient Greeks, Romans and through them in Byzantium and Medieval Europe. It was so sought after that the Byzantine emperor Theodosius I prohibited its use from the lower classes or the penalty was death. The privilege of using this purple dye is so profound that the phrase “born in purple” was born in that period. In Western Europe, it was replaced in prominence around the 12th century, and finally went out of fashion around the 19th century, when a synthetic purple was invented and thus it became more accessible to the wider masses.

https://flashbak.com/shades-of-feathers-a-beautiful.../

[mapsontheweb]

By the end of the 3rd millennium BCE, Semitic tribes had settled on the coast of present-day Lebanon and Syria, making the cities of Tyre, Sidon, and Byblos. The Greeks named them Phoenicians, from the word “phoinix,” or purple, due to their purple cloaks.

by @NatGeoMaps

[blueiscoool]

In This Ancient Workshop, Greeks Crushed Snail Glands to Make the Purple Dye Worn by Royalty

Archaeologists discovered remnants of a 3,600-year-Old Dye factory on an island in Greece.

On an island in Greece, researchers have discovered a 3,600-year-old workshop that once turned out a rare purple dye coveted by royalty—and made from snail glands.

Archaeologists were excavating recently in the Bronze Age town of Kolonna, on the Greek island of Aegina, when they discovered two Mycenaean buildings. As the researchers write in a study published in the journal PLOS ONE, the buildings date to the 16th century B.C.E., and the older one contained pigmented ceramics, grinding tools and heaps of broken mollusk shells: all indicative of a purple dye factory.

In this workshop, ancient Greeks produced the vibrant pigment known as Mycenaean purple—or, as the Romans called it, Tyrian purple. First manufactured by the Phoenicians in present-day Lebanon, the dye was extracted from the mucus of the Mediterranean’s carnivorous sea snails. Across the region, only the rich owned anything dyed Mycenaean purple, as the color’s production was painstaking.

As Roman historian Pliny the Elder once wrote, thousands of snails were required to produce a single ounce of purple dye. Its creators had to crush snails’ shells, extract their tiny glands, mix them with salt water and let the concoction steep in the sun, per the study. The result was a “deep purple, lilac or dark red color,” which was used on textiles and paintings, study co-author Lydia Berger, an archaeologist at the University of Salzburg, tells Popular Science’s Laura Baisas.

The fragments of pottery the researchers found on the site were probably containers for dye. As Berger notes, the pottery’s pigments are so high-quality that they could still be extracted and used to dye clothing today. The site also contained stones used for grinding, a waste pit and piles of crushed snail shells.

Eventually, snail purple would become the color of royalty. In the first century C.E., Roman Emperor Julius Caesar named Tyrian purple his official color and inspired successive emperors to don the same hue. But back in the 1500s B.C.E., the color was just beginning to be produced.

At the time, Kolonna was a dense, fortified small town, says Berger, whose inhabitants produced and traded lots of different handcrafted products and raw materials like Mycenaean dye, which wasn’t yet exclusive. Though the dye factory is in an urban area—an oddity among dye workshops—its coastal location is ideal for purple production. As the researchers write, snails had to be caught and kept alive until their glands were harvested.

By analyzing the shells in this particular workshop, researchers concluded that just one snail species was used there: the banded dye-murex. Interestingly, it wasn’t the only animal killed at the site. As Newsweek’s Aristos Georgiou writes, archaeologists also found the burnt bones of several piglets and lambs. Researchers suggest these young mammals were sacrificed in the workshop as part of a ritual, meant to somehow bless the dye’s production.

As they write in the study, the ancient site not only proves that purple dye was manufactured in cities, but also provides “new insights into the technological and possibly spiritual background of the process.”

By Sonja Anderson.

[15-lizards]

I love your fashion takes, so I wanted to know: do you think in planetos there's any color that signifies wealth? Like it will obviously vary on resources/region and who knows how some colors would turn out as it is, yknow, fantasy, but I do adore Phoenician purple being THE color of royalty for ages and idk if it translates the same in planetos (again weird resources/magic available, who knows what wild colors they have!)

Canonically the Tyroshi and Braavosi have similar species of snail that yield a dark purple dye that can’t be found anywhere else 🐌

So if we’re being realistic, it would probably still be that dark purple hue due to its scarcity, just like how purple dye was scarce and hard to create, and thus expensive, in the real world for most of history. But if we’re going off Westerosi sociology, I think red is seen as a fairly regal color in the seven kingdoms, or devilish and evil, depending on your Roberts rebellion persuasions.

Dany also mentions the many colors of Qarth in her chapters, so there’s probably a high demand for bright dyes in all sorts of colors in Essos, something that stands out against the desert dryness or catches attention in one of the bustling free cities

[calabria-mediterranea]

The ancient tradition of drying figs in Calabria

Figs are a unique fruit resembling a teardrop. They’re about the size of your thumb, filled with hundreds of tiny seeds, and have an edible purple or green peel. The flesh of the fruit is pink and has a mild, sweet taste. The scientific name for the fig is Ficus carica.

The Dottato fig variety (or Kadota in the US) is the most common in Calabria and is usually found from the 2nd week of August into September (it’s also my personal favorite). The Dottato fig has green skin and a white / golden interior. The flesh is creamy, sweet, and bright tasting. The dottato fig variety is also a good choice for drying.

In Southern Italy's Calabria dried figs are a centuries-old tradition, which came here alongside with the Phoenicians. The particular environmental situation of Calabria has created special conditions which in other areas of Mediterranean were impossible.

Figs — and their leaves — are packed with nutrients and offer a variety of potential health benefits. They may promote healthy digestion, decrease your risk of heart disease, and help you manage your blood sugar levels.

Dried figs are high in sugar and rich in calories, as the sugar becomes concentrated when the fruits are dried.

Calabrian crocette are dried figs stuffed with almonds or walnuts and then baked in the oven with a pinch of cinnamon and a touch of your favorite liqueur. They can be consumed as is or covered with a thin layer of chocolate. They must, however, be stuffed and closed according to tradition. Each crocetta is made of four figs opened in half and held together. They are overlapped with another open fig so as to form a cross – hence the name. At this point they are stuffed and closed with two other half-opened dried figs.

Follow us on Instagram, @calabria_mediterranea

[kingdrawcse]

Chemistry behind Tyrian purple

Tyrian purple, also known as Tyre purple or Royal purple, is a reddish-purple natural dye extracted from certain species of sea snails in the Muricidae family. These snails secrete a yellow defensive mucus when stimulated, which gradually turns purple through complex chemical reactions after exposure to light. As early as around 1600 BC, the ancient Phoenicians in the eastern Mediterranean began using this dye.

Tyrian purple has strong coloring power, and the dyed fabric fades from purple to red and then to pink over time, appearing even more vibrant. However, the extraction and production process of Tyrian purple is labor-intensive. It takes about 12,000 dye-producing snails to produce 1.4 grams of pure dye, barely enough to dye a single garment edge, making Tyrian purple extremely precious at the time. Around 1000 BC, Tyrian purple was exported to Rome and other regions, and only the privileged class could wear this color. Through modern technological analysis, "6,6'-Dibromoindigo" has been identified as the primary coloring component in Tyrian purple.

[askmalal]

The Primarchs and their brothers, Part 3:

Fulgrim

1. The Lion:

“(he) quite literally defines the phrase ‘peacocking.”

2. REDACTED:

“He is a beautiful man. And, in truth, he is also a troubled one.”

4. Perturabo:

“Purple armor is a very good way of alerting the enemy to ‘shoot here,’ but I think that is rather the point.”

5. Jaghatai Khan:

“The Phoenician. From a world that has never heard of Phoenicia, given a badly transliterated name based upon his original cognomen (‘The Phoenix,’ or ‘The Phoenix Lord.’ ) That, I think, says a great deal.”

6. Leman Russ:

“No human being should wear that much perfume, cologne, musk, or… whatever it is he drapes himself in. I like my brother. I care less for migraines.”

7. Rogal Dorn:

“An exceptional soldier. Our tastes in art… vary somewhat.”

8. Konrad Curze:

“There is much to be concerned about. But much more to recommend him. He cares a great deal for other people, and this sometimes comes close to breaking him. If he does break… ”

9. Sanguinius:

“Speaks, sings, even thinks with the voice of an Angel. A being so suited to the restoration of culture, and yet so often expected to exterminate it. He is complex. There is nuance to him. I cannot say I always like him. But I do understand him.”

10. Ferrus Manus:

“Art is a wonderful thing. But not every thing we do should be labeled as such.”

11. REDACTED:

“A self important popinjay. Opinionated, self referential. Too much lapping powder. But for reasons I cannot quite describe, we are quite fond of each other.”

12. Angron:

“Blood stains and art meet only in the mind of an eldritch terror.”

13. Roboute Guilliman:

“A brilliant demonstrator of the practical.”

14. Mortarion:

“He has a talent for… making the most hideous thing beautiful. I am unsure how to process this.”

15. Magnus:

“The man has done more to save what remains of human physical culture than… just about anyone else now living. Which is ironic, given his calling, I think.”

16. Horus:

“The best and most capable offensive strategist I know. And, including my father, I have known nineteen paragons of that martial paradigm.”

17. Lorgar:

“The temples he has saved! The cathedrals he has destroyed!”

18. Vulkan:

“He is a polymath among polymaths. He has graced our forges, and our hearts. He is a fine man, and one of my dearest friends. Do not allow the silk wrappings to mislead you.”

19. Corvus Corax:

“The man is pained. I feel it in his words. I see it in his eyes. There is goodness there undoubtedly… but… there is something more, and it is something he hides well.”

20. Alpharius Omegon:

“My brother has the heart of a Lion, the personality of a Peacock, and the Moral Compass of a Viper. At times I love him. At times I loathe him. But he is always a presence to be carefully considered. Will he bite the heel, or protect the nest? Difficult to predict from moment to moment.”

[moodymisty]

I am back to ask for more peterturabo fics. He is a petty boy who i love dearly. Do anything you want i love all your warhammer fics so much

Author's Note: You had me at Perturabo, friend. Here's some writing of turbocunt, hope you enjoy. It's sort of a rehash of a drabble I did not long ago. But I'm kinda amazed how weighed my requests are towards chaos. Y'all are some horny heretics.

Summary: You feel like a creature on display, surrounded by curious Primarchs eager to learn about Perturabo's littlest warrior.

Relationships: Perturabo/Fem!Reader

Warnings: Perturabo's shitass attitude, General 40kness, Gossipy Primarchs because when you're emotionally stunted demigods stuck up in a palace or on a battleship someone getting laid is probably international fucking news

Word Count: 1255

"I see the littlest Iron Warrior has made a return to Terra; Was Olympia to your liking?"

The uniquely loud but gentle voice stops you dead in your tracks, and only after two distinct pairs of steps come thundering closer do you dare to turn.

It would take someone of extraordinary denseness or hermitic nature to not recognize the Angel Sanguinius as the source of one pair of footsteps, though his companion alludes you for a moment. He's almost as pristine as Sanguinius, but there's a particular aura around him that is distinctly different. When Sanguinius says his name to fully catch his attention, you remember.

Fulgrim, The Phoenician; Perturabo had spoken of him a sparse number of times, though most hadn't been the most positive. Then again, he rarely speaks of his fellow Primarchs in any other way than with sentences filled with disdain and pejoratives.

He looks right at you, through you, and you try not to completely melt under his gaze. You swallow a knot in your throat as you realize you haven't even said a single word, though you don't really get the chance to. You must have been the subject of a previous conversation, judging by the phrasing of his next sentence.

"She's not what I expected of him."

You dare to glance towards Fulgrim. Was that meant to be a snub? A compliment? Is he insulting Perturabo?

You had only meant to make it back to your chambers before it got dark, the chance of crossing not one but two Primarchs was an astronomically low one.

The Angel smiles, gentle and soft. Just like the pristine white feathers of his wings. He laughs, presumably at your apprehensive mien.

"Oh come now, we won't bite."

Sanguinus' smile is gentle, while Fulgrim scoffs. His smooth white hair slides down over his shoulder, covering a portion of the elegant purple cloth he's currently wearing.

"Says you," Fulgrim's expression is what you can only describe as cold, but not emotionless. He's controlled, elegant and pristine; Like a flower carved from ice. "I'm sure being around Perturabo hasn't helped matters. He isn't exactly the most amicable company."

You swallow that same pesky knot that stays in your throat again, and give a nervous smile.

"He has his moments."

Sanguinius' face lights up upon hearing your voice, perhaps a bit mischievous at the tidbit you'd spilled. Fulgrim is the one who speaks up, however- eyebrows raised.

"Oh really? Tell me; Does actually have a bone capable of a romantic emotion in his body, or does he just fiddle with machinery all hours of the day?"

You smile fades a bit, pursing your lips shut tight like you're attempting to lock them for a moment.

"I, don't think he would be pleased if i said anything more on the subject." Sanguinius wings shift.

"Then we won't keep you from him any longer." He looks to Fulgrim, and you dip your head as you move out of the way and they pass you by. You continue standing in the middle of the massive hall for what feels like forever, just staring at the gold filigree and ornate tapestries.

But once you manage to unstick your feet, you finally make it to Perturabo's private chambers. Iron Warriors pass you by, on guard duty while their Primarch stays in the palace. They grant you entry on his orders, but you can feel the energy coming from them isn't the most positive. But their gene-sire is Perturabo, afterall. You won't proclaim he has the most amicable personality.

When you enter the foremost room of the massive bedchamber, you see him slightly hunched over a worktable. You can't quite see what he's fixing from this angle, but it appears to possibly be something relatively small in comparison to him. He looks away from it to you, brow furrowed.

"What is with that expression of yours."

Brushing a chunk of hair behind your ear, you purse your lips. Tools are scattered across the table, stained with oil and scuffed from use. You still can't quite see what he's working on when you shift a bit to your left.

"I met Primarch Fulgrim and Primarch Sanguinius."

The change in his posture is immediate, and energy palpable. He doesn't ask where, so you assume he has a general idea that they crossed you on the way here. His brow is furrowed as he stares at you, thin lips tight.

"And what did they say, or did they merely try and pry as much information from you as they could get?"

Would it make him more upset to say they did one of those things, or both?

You purse your lips to one side, trying to find the right way to word it. Perturabo's eyes glance between you and his current project multiple times.

"They didn't say much of anything. Other than that I wasn't what they expected of you. I'm, not entirely sure what they meant by it." He makes a noise somewhere between a hum, and a displeased grunt.

You stand still for a moment after speaking, before coming closer to stand at his side. He moves his arm for you to come even closer, and silently assists with helping you into his lap. It's been something you've been doing more as of late; Perturabo is always working, and this is one way you can manage to steal a bit of his time. He doesn't mind it either. And if anything, he seems to enjoy when you watch him make things for you.

"I didn't tell them a thing. I didn't feel like it was something they should know." He continues working, but you know he's listening. You wring your hands and try to dislodge this feeling in your gut. Your feet dangle off his legs, feeling small in the shadow of his chest.

"I feel terrible because, they're Primarchs; But they aren't my Primarch."

Perturabo lets out a one note laugh.

"If their prides were so insulted that you managed to skirt around their questioning, then they can say so to me. I'm in need of the amusement."

You watch closer at his hands, and realize he's tinkering with something for you.

It's an automata, he calls it. Something that is powered by an unknown machinery inside. It just looks like a bunch of baubles and gears, to you. All you know is that each have a key that when you turn it, makes them move. You have many of them already, it seems this one is shaped like a small Iron Warrior.

Perhaps he just enjoys making the little things. Not much will ever be difficult to the Primarch, so maybe he just finds their simplicity and clumsy mimicry of whatever he's cast their silhouette in silly. They entertain you, at least.

Sitting it down onto the massive table, he closes it's back and winds it up, watching it stomp across the table in the pose of a proper Astartes march. When it slows to a stop, you lean forward to pick it up.

It's heavy, and while it looked small in Perturabo's hands, it's massive in yours; Around the size of your head. He watches you hold it from above, you can feel his gaze on you. You try not to smile as a bit of a mischievous thought crosses your mind.

"You should make one that looks like Sanguinius."

The Primarch lets out a surprisingly loud gauffaw. His left hand lands on your thigh.

"The next one, perhaps."