Editing Meet the Primarchs (Warhammer High) (section)

==Meeting Vulkan==

I looked out the window, nervous as hell. Venus noticed and smirked. “Relax. They’re good people.”

“I’m sure,” I said. I took a deep breath and stepped out of the car, craning my head to look at the house at which we had just arrived. For the estate of a Primarch, it wasn’t…large. I had seen Cora’s place, that was practically a mini-hive. This thing couldn’t have been more than three stories.

I walked up to the door, trailing behind Venus. Before she could open it, I heard someone call from inside. “Wait, no-”

The door burst open. A dog ran through and jumped around me, waving its tail like a propeller. Venus giggled. “Hey, Taxi, get off him, come on.” I reached down to pet him, but he launched himself back a pace, crouching down and daring me to move closer. I turned to Venus and cocked an eyebrow.

“Taxi?”

“Yeah, so when you tell him to come, you’re Hailing a Taxi,” she said, her face completely straight. I snorted.

“Nice.” I stuck my hand out for him to sniff, and he did, then slammed himself sideways into me, panting contentedly. I smiled and scratched him behind the ears. “Friendly mutt.”

“Who you callin’ a mutt?” a terrifyingly deep voice asked. I whipped my head up and found myself staring at the brilliantly shining red eyes of Vulkan himself.

“I…uh, I wasn’t…um.” Goodness, I’m eloquent when I’m frightened. Vulkan let the silence drag on for a second before Venus slapped him on the elbow.

“Daaaad, knock it off.”

Vulkan grinned broadly, flashing white teeth in the almost night-black skin on his face. “I jest. Come on in, Jake, Venus has told me a lot about you.”

“I hope she was lying,” I said, trying not to be intimidated by his eyes and colossal stature. I walked into the house behind him, pausing as he snagged a soda from the cooler by the door. When I walked in, I was surprised by two things: first, this was a much nicer house than it appeared from the front, and second, there were easily a dozen other guests.

“I hope not, myself, she says you two are serious,” Vulkan said, apparently not noticing how I missed a step when he said that. Venus slapped him again, harder.

“DAAAAD, stop it!”

“What?” he asked, all innocence. A few of the other people in the room wandered on over.

“Venus, hon, you look great,” a man in Fire Drake colors but no armor said, dropping to one knee so he could hug her without bending at the middle.

“Thanks, Uncle Ir’Sem!” she said, happily returning the hug. I stood back and watched, at a loss.

A woman who I recognized from pictures as Venus’ mother sidled up to me as I watched. “You must be Jake. Hi there,” she said, sticking a hand out. I took it and tried not to look out of my depth.

“Yes, I am, Lady Vulkan. I’m a bit surprised, though,” I said, gesturing to take in the crowd. “I didn’t know there was a party tonight.”

“Really? Venus probably wanted it to be a surprise,” she said, smiling. She looked far more like her daughter than Venus looked like Vulkan, to my lack of surprise.

"Uh. Is it someone’s birthday or something?” I asked weakly, suddenly aware of the fact that I knew NOTHING about her family beyond what the tabloids said.

“Two people’s, actually. And please, call me Misja,” she said, as I sat down at a counter at the back of the room, where something that smelled excellent was sitting in a bowl next to some chips. I glanced back to see that my ersatz date had vanished, and I looked around for her to no avail.

“All right, Misja, thank you. Um, did you see where she went?” I asked, still searching.

“Probably just changing,” Misja said, wandering over to the other side of the counter, where what looked like a four course meal was cooking. I nodded, as if I had any idea where her room was, and tried not to look anxious.

“So, Jake,” I heard, and twisted around, nacho halfway to my mouth. “Tell me a bit about yourself.” Vulkan had disentangled himself from the crowd of family and sat down at the much sturdier stool next to mine.

“Well…uh, you may have heard the basics,” I said nervously. “I’m in Venus’ Cogitator Design class in school, and I was in her gym and chemistry classes before that. What else do you want to know?”

“I mean tell me about you,” he said, raising his eyebrows and staring. Which just helped me relax so much.

“Uh. Well…I’m from Hive Tetra, and I’m an amateur designer. That’s where I met Farah, and she introduced me to Venus. And the rest, as they say, et cetera,” I said, trying to keep it succinct.

Vulkan laughed. “Amateur design, hmm? Is that what you want to do?” he asked, scooping up a few nuts from a bowl.

“Not sure,” I said honestly. “It’s interesting stuff, but I’m not sure I have the eye or talent for it. There’s other things that interest me, too.” Before I could expound upon the point, I heard someone tromping down the hall across the room. I half-turned to see who it was, and did a double-take. Freya Russ emerged from the hallway, looking around. When she set her eyes on me, her face lit up.

“Hey!” she said, her husky voice cutting through the general noise. She bounded on over and stood next to me, smirking. “I was wondering if I’d see you here! Venus has been talking about this party all damn day. Apparently cousins who don’t even live dirtside are here.”

“Hi Freya,” I said, trying not to let the girl’s hyperactive aura drive me back a step. “I didn’t even know there was a ‘here’ to be at until I got here.”

“That’s no shocker,” Russ said drily. “She wasn’t sure how you’d take it.”

“She said she wanted me to drop her off before we went out tonight,” I said, feeling sandbagged. Did everyone here but me know what was going on?

Apparently. Vulkan spoke up, sounding amused. “Hello, Freya. Glad you could make it. Jake,” he said, turning back to me. “Tell me what you do on the weekends.”

Finally, safe ground. I turned away from Russ, who was digging into the nachos with healthy enthusiasm. “Well, I help out on the block. The whole hive is overpopulated, you know, so the district cast-lines are constantly falling apart.”

“Damned sloppy engineering,” Vulkan muttered, looking disgusted.

“Yes sir, quite” I said, sighing as I remembered my father’s endless tirades on the subject.

“So how do you help?” he asked, dragging his soda. Not beer, I noted. Not a drop of alcohol in the whole party?

“Well, I help the scrap teams. My hab’s lucky, I guess, we’re on the edge, so we get first access when the Mechanicum sends in repair teams, but they can’t use servitors in the access tunnels because those are the first places the shocklines break. My grandfather designed those lines, so I help the extractors,” I said, hoping I wasn’t shooting off at the mouth.

Vulkan looked mildly interested. “Really? Good for you!”

“Thanks,” I said, trying not to blush. “It’s tough work, but it’s rewarding, you know? My father probably still has the shockline prototypes in the shop.”

“You have a shop in your hab?” he asked.

“I help run the shop in my hab,” I said. “My father and I help run it when we get some downtime. My grandfather designed it and built it. He was a Magos of the Canstrides Chapel.”

Vulkan’s head pivoted down to stare at me. “Truly? Was his name Carmine?”

I blinked in shock. “Yeah…how did you know him?”

“I didn’t, not in person, but I remember his name on the rolls of the Chapel. Most of the Salamanders Legionary Techmarines trained at that seminary. Great Metallurgical Studies program.”

I was quiet for a long moment, as I contemplated the reminder that I was talking to one of the most powerful people in the galaxy. He looked at me askance. “So did you really not know there was a family party here tonight?”

“Um…no. No, sir, I didn’t,” I said, turning to find something to help reanchor me to reality. The crunching noises coming from where Russ was standing suddenly cut off.

“There you are, you little debutant!” Russ said, though a mouthful of nacho. I started to turn to see who she was talking to, when Venus’s familiar arms slid around my chest.

"Hey yourself, Freya,” she said in her ear, and pecked me on the cheek. “Hi, Jake. Settling in?”

“Such as I am,” I said, standing and hugging back, glad to be near someone I knew. And so comfortably, too…

Vulkan cleared his throat. “Venus, dearest, whyever did you not tell Jake that your cousins’ birthdays were today?”

Venus pulled back from me and shot her dad a look. “Dramatic tension.”

“Oh, sure,” I muttered, dropping back down. “Leave me in the dark.”

“Oh, bitch, bitch, bitch,” she said airily, dropping down on Russ’s far side and blowing a kiss at her mother. “It wouldn’t have been right if you had a chance to rehearse your lines. I’ll make it up to you.”

“I’ll hold you to that,” I said, in a tone that let her know I was kidding. The rest of the night went like that, for the most part. My testicles nearly crawled into my stomach when the Emperor Himself walked in the door, but to my quiet relief, he was only dropping by on his way to Luna, and I didn’t have time for a shaky “Hello, My Liege,” before he took off. As the night wore on though, and my belt slackened off after the absurdly good grox cordon bleu, I started to wonder if the party had been, somehow, altered to account for my presence, especially since nearly everyone had talked to me at some point.

When I voiced my concerns to Venus, though, she had just shaken her head.  “Nope, this happens at least once a month,” she said.

“Once a month? Really? Nobles from that many places?” I asked, stunned.

“We’re not nobles when we’re family,” she said, rolling her glowing red eyes…eyes I could dream about. “Did my cousins talk down to you tonight?”

“Faith and Petra did,” I muttered.

“Yeah, well, Petra’s just self-centered, and Faith’s never nice to atheists that aren’t Grandpa,” Venus said dismissively, waving her hand in the vague direction of the parking garage annexed to the building. We were on the roof garden now, along with Morticia and Roberta, both of whom had claimed that they needed some fresh air, and one of Misja’s nieces I didn’t recognize.

“Still. How do that many people get together like that?” I pressed. She leaned back in her deck chair, to my carefully hidden attention.

“We find ways. Family’s very important to Dad,” she said. “We’re products of that upbringing.”

“I guess. It’s no bad thing. I wish I could see my cousins as often as you get to see yours. Outside of school, obviously.”

When it was time to go, I stood at the edge of the patio watching the aircars fly off. The party had broken up early, it was barely 2000 hours. I glanced over my shoulder to see if there was anyone left in the house, and I saw Vulkan pointing at me, though his eyes were on his daughter. Venus shrugged in response to something he said, and he stared at her for a second before sighing and nodding nonchalantly. She clapped her hands together and hugged him, though her head barely came up to his waist. After a moment, she ran out and grabbed my hand, dragging me back to the house.

“Come on, we’re staying.”

“We are?” I asked, befuddled.

“Sure. It’s movie night,” she said, opening the door long enough to let the dog out and push me inside.

“Movie night?” I echoed. “Uh. OK. What were you talking about with your father just now?”

“The Arbitrator Senioris back there was just rendering judgment,” she said, rolling those beautiful eyes in exasperation. “He says you’ve passed muster.”

“Oh…uh, what, to go out with you?” I asked, flushing bright red.

“No, to join the Fire Drakes. Of course to go out with me! But there are certain rituals that must be observed first, and foremost among them is to watch ‘Attack of the Unliving Grox’ with the LaughTrax filter over it,” she said. I stood there, dumbfounded, watching her backside disappear up the stairs to where she had told me before the private theater was.

Misja saw me standing there as she walked by and leaned in. “Welcome to the family, Jake. Get used to it.”


FIN