Editing Bleeding Out (Warhammer High) (section)

===Purging a Wound===


Remilia sat down, feeling strangely detached from the world around her.  Miranda noticed her discomfort, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze.  “Just us, Remilia.”

“I know.”  She flipped her ponytail over her shoulder, glancing from side to side from nerves.  “When does he get here?”

“When he means to, and not a moment before or after,” Miranda said dryly.  “But don’t worry.  He knows how much it means to you to get this done quietly.”

“I hope so,” Remilia said.  Behind her, the door squeaked a bit on its hinges.  Remilia started.

Magnus the Red walked in, nodding serenely at his daughter as he did so.  She beamed a smile back at him, then turned it on her cousin.  “Should I...?”

“If you don’t mind,” Remilia asked sheepishly.

“Sure thing,” Miranda said.  She gave Remilia another squeeze for good measure before standing and heading out through the door her father had used.  Magnus turned to face his niece, sitting beside her at the little table in his study.

“I want to make it clear that I understand the responsibility you’re asking me to shoulder,” Magnus said by way of greeting.  His voice was in the range of bass that could vibrate small objects off of tables, but somehow didn’t feel too loud.  “However, Remilia, I feel I must ask.  Why are you asking me for help?”

“Because I’m absolutely ashamed of myself,” Remilia said, her voice catching in her throat, sudden bile and hatred clogging her voice.  “I’m…I’m seventeen goddamned years old, and I…” she slammed her hand down on the table.

Magnus watched the display in silence.  He could see her soul as plain as day.  It was a deep, throbbing red of anger, dashed with yellow of dishonesty.  Was she lying to him or herself?  “Remilia, please.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, instantly contrite.  The yellow faded.  The teal of self-loathing flooded in behind it.  Lying to herself.

“I can help,” he said softly, “but I will say now that I am not a doctor.  I may not know when I’ve found the problem.”

“I will,” she said coldly.  “I’ve had enough.  I can’t look my father in the eye and tell him…tell him…”

“Tell him that you have done as he asked,” Magnus began.  Remilia nodded, her eyes locked on the table.  “And stopped this pointless self-mutilation?”  Remilia’s eyes snapped up, wide and uneasy.

“…Yeah,” she breathed.  “Did…did Miranda tell you?”  Magnus took Remilia’s hands and flipped them.  A tracery of little red scars – most old and faded, two very fresh – webbed the skin.

“Dear child, these leave marks I don’t need both eyes to see,” he said gently.  “Each act of self-destruction scars your soul as deep as your body.”

Remilia’s eyes turned downward again.  “I know,” she said softly.

“No, you don’t,” Magnus said coldly, in complete contrast to his demeanor moments ago.  Remilia flinched.  “Remilia, you think of the mind.  When you think of a scar one can not see, you think of the mind, the activities and processes to which and through which your body acts.  I speak of the soul, the facet of personality as lasting as the body or the mind can even be.  You think of the pains of the mind, the shames and despairs that leave with death, and ease with time.”  He leaned forward again, and there was something terrible about him.  “I speak of ETERNITY.”

Remilia’s skin paled as some part of her genehanced mind started to fully comprehend what her uncle said.  He continued, hammering his point home.  “The body is a vessel, the mind a lens.  The soul is a diamond, borne by one and empowered by another, until they fade and it is cast adrift, and it rests in limbo.  When you draw that knife through your flesh, you damage yourself in a way that CAN NOT BE FIXED,” he thundered.  Or so it seemed.  In that little room, a whisper would have been a scream, in his voice.

“Never?” Remilia asked, in mounting horror.  “I-I’m damning myself?”

Magnus leaned back in his seat.  “Yes.  Your soul already bears its wounds.  I can see them as plainly as the scars on your flesh.”

“…I can do nothing to erase them?” Remilia asked.  Her instincts screamed to fight, to avoid the danger, but if what Magnus was saying was true, it was already past.

“You can not erase them.  You can, however, patch them.”  The red-headed man nodded slowly.  “Your father also bears those scars.  If he has not told you…I care not.  He should have.  The moment he sensed your own behavior.”

“Dad cut himself too?” Remilia asked.  Somehow she wasn’t surprised.

“He did not.  He subjected himself to a more…debasing treatment.  That, I shall leave to him.”  Magnus cocked his head back, remembering.  “He reveled in pain.  He loved it.  It was a focus.  It was a tool.  It was a reward.  It was a punishment and a blessing.  He found his strength in it.”  He peered down at his niece.  “Then you were born.  Tell me.  Do you know why he wants you to stop feeling this pain when he felt it himself, and enjoyed it, for three and a half millennia?”

“Because he never looked in the mirror while he did it?” Remilia asked.

Magnus smiled.  “You are wise, child.”  Remilia shrugged, still feeling a creeping horror in her stomach.  “Your father came to view hurting oneself as indicative of a lack of strength, not a sign of strength.  Do you share this belief?  You came here, yes?”

“I asked Miranda for help.  She said I should…let you do whatever it is that you do,” Remilia confessed.  “So…I guess so.”

Magnus smiled again, all truculence gone.  “Dear child.  If your father and you are correct, you should leave.”

Remilia blinked.  “What?”

“If you had no strength…or not enough…you wouldn’t have come here.”

“I can’t stop myself,” Remilia said.  The dread in her stomach pulled itself higher, tightening her throat again.

“Yes, you can.  But you don’t want to.  At some level.”  Magnus softened the barb with a caveat.  “At least, that is what I would have said.  If I agreed with your own conclusion.  There is strength left in you, child.  There is.  Would you find it?  Even if that means you have even less of a means of dealing with the pain, of whatever incident robs you of your stability?”

Remilia stared straight back at her uncle, terrified.  His voice promised some horrible trials, she was sure, some grilling or test that would scour the weakness from her…but suddenly, she didn’t care.  She couldn’t even look her mother in the eye at dinner now.  Her cousins were confronting her in front of her friends and family.  Enough was enough.

“Yes.”

Magnus smiled once more.  “Good.  Tell me,” he asked, drawing a small blue card from his robes of office, “have you ever seen one of these before?”

Remilia leaned closer.  “Not sure.  What is it?”

“Here,” Magnus said, passing her the object.  Remilia held it up, staring at it.

“…It’s a business card-” her voice choked off as she blacked out, sinking down onto the table with a *thunk*.

Magnus took back the unoffending card, resting his hand on the back of her neck.  “Rest, child.  The hardest part – for you – is over.  Now, my work begins.”

Magnus effortlessly lifted the girl and laid her down on the table, glad she had chosen a modest outfit for the occasion.  He, of course, had seen more intimately into the souls of men and women then mere eyes ever could, but he was certain he’d never hear the end of it if her blouse had fallen open in the middle of the process.

Once she was down, and snoozing peacefully, Magnus glanced over her arms.  “Such pain you inflict upon yourself, girl.  You should have sought help years ago.  Rogal…you are a fool.”  Shaking his head again, he rested her hands over her heart, and sat down at the table side.  “Now…let us see how deep your scars lie, Remilia.”  He leaned forward, casting a small part of his mind across the insignificant gulf between him and the girl.  She was a restful light blue, at the moment.  Her mind was blank of dreams and thoughts, and in the absolute peace of her rest, was the absolute honesty of her spirit.  It could not lie to Magnus.

“…Poor thing,” he whispered.  Her soul was not the brilliant, undimmed beacon of his daughter.  The sheer brilliance of her light drew a tear to his eye when she wasn’t looking, out of paternal pride.  Nor was it the endless complexity of Magnus’ brother Horus, nor the swell of selfless kindness of Venus or the life-loving energy of Freya…but instead a darker pall.  It frayed, it wore.  And in it he sensed the same resignation and lack of motivation that plagued Furia, that which had only begun to heal after she had come so terribly close to loss.

As he examined it, he was struck by its similarity to Alpharius’ daughters.  They, too, felt a lack of direction in their lives, exacerbated by a sense of inadequacy.  They, at least, knew their feelings for the weakness it was, and attempted to overcome it.  Remilia, he realized, hadn’t had the guidance that the Twins had had: each other.  She was alone.  Badly, deeply, painfully, alone.  That, he could not cure.

He set his mind’s eye on the glowing crevasse in her psyche.  There.  It was from there that her pain stemmed.  The slashes across her self-esteem and the frayed edges of her kindness, they stemmed from there.  He closed his eye, allowing more of his untrammeled Warp mastery pour loose, bathing her soul in light.

“Oh, Rogal,” he said bitterly.  “You selfish bastard.”  The crack in her mind was more than loneliness.  She did not solely feel alone, she felt incomplete.  She saw in herself the design the Emperor had imparted, her genes twisted for great beauty, wisdom, longevity, health…but not success.  She saw the wondrous Imperial Palace, the gleaming ranks of the Imperial Fists on parade, and she despaired of ever equaling her glorious father.

“Have you ever even told the girl how deeply you love her, you arrogant craven?” Magnus hissed.  Her memories parted before his psychic wake.  He saw his brother lift the young Remilia over his head on Remembrance Day, rest her on his shoulders as a parade went by, hold her hand and look encouraging as a boyfriend walked out on her…but he saw also the look of stone on Rogal’s face as Remilia scrambled through her bag for a report card, forgotten in a desk at school.  He saw Dorn’s cold face of disapproval as Remilia sobbingly hid her ‘injured’ arm from her weeping mother.  He saw…

“You son of a bitch,” Magnus snarled under his breath.  He saw her vision turn white from the blow as Dorn slapped his daughter across the face for daring to lift some trophy weapon from its cradle in the hall.

“No wonder the girl bleeds from the wrists, you churl,” Magnus said darkly.  “You made her bleed from the lips.”  He pulled back, looking carefully at the rest of her memory.  Her sports career.  Her glee as she found her first puppy love, and her pride as she beat out even his own daughter Miranda at some academic achievement or another.  Nowhere else in her entire mind did he see the pain and fear and loathing of that slap.  “I wonder,” he said to himself.  With exquisite care, he pulled her remembered memories aside, looking for something buried more deeply.  With a glance at her body on the table – she slept still – he leaned into her mind, seeking the places where the character of her soul filtered through the sheen of her mind.

“I see,” he whispered.  He had feared that she simply felt that she would NEVER equal her father…but she saw instead a competition.  She would never lead armies and Legions, and she knew it.  Instead she would surpass his outward advancements.  She sought to overcome every obstacle in her way, not because it was there, like he would, but because he would have done it.  And when she hit a wall, some problem her competitive spirit could not surmount…

“Then you take your own blood, sweet girl, in punishment,” Magnus said.  He opened his eye, staring at her prone form on the table.  Her cheeks were caked in tears.  They had not been there when he started.  “You care for Morticia as much as Kelly does.  I dare say you care for her nearly as much as brother Mortarion, who sees his wife as much as he sees his daughter, in her.”  Magnus carefully dried her cheeks, sighing to himself.  “I shall see what I can do.”  He sat back down, focusing on the memory from which all the pain stemmed.  “I will not take this from you, child.  It is not mine to take.  But…you deserve better than this.”  His mind sharpened, focusing his efforts.  With the greatest care, he tamped the ragged edges of her conscience, her compassion.  As he did, he saw her father, offering up a smile of approval as Remilia bounced a goal off the bar, sliding under the goalie’s hands.  He saw both of her parents, hands held, as they watched Remilia accept the Junior Combined Activities Award, on stage, with rivals and friends alike applauding.

“You do love her, Rogal, you just can’t bring yourself to show it sometimes,” Magnus said, his displeasure fading.  “…You and I must speak, when this is over.”


Remilia stirred.  She blinked grime from her eyes, wiping her hand over them, and looked around herself.  Magnus was sitting in the corner, cradling a vox in his hands.  “Uncle Magnus?”

“Remilia.”  Magnus looked up, exhausted, but clearly happy.  “You awaken.”

“Is it over?  Am I still…damned?” Remilia asked tremulously.

“No, child, and I was very glad to see the worst had not come to pass.  There was more strength in you than either of us guessed,” Magnus admitted.  “I owe you a sincere apology.  The last soul from which I removed such a taint was…beyond salvation.  Yours is very much on the right path.”

Remilia recoiled, betrayal and relief battling for supremacy.  “I was scared over nothing?” she asked.

“Far from it,” Magnus said gravely.  “Your soul was in very real danger.  But…do you feel different?”

“No,” she said.  “I feel the same.”

“I see.”  Magnus stood.  He dropped the vox into a charger, looking down at Remilia as she rolled off the table.  “Give it a few days.  Go see Morticia.  You’ll feel like a new woman.”

“Okay…who were you calling?” she asked in sudden suspicion.

“Your father.  You and he are going to have a very important conversation when you get home.”

“What did you tell him?” Remilia asked.

“That strength comes from action as much as will,” Magnus said darkly.  Remilia shook her head, uncomprehending.  “Fear not, you will see.  Go, my child.  And please…be well.”

“Thank you, Uncle Magnus,” Remilia said.