Editing Trip Into Hell (Warhammer High) (section)

===Tales of Home===
When they got back it was night on the surface. Scvott, Dyllion and Flynn went their separate ways, Flynn smiling at Julius and Summer knowingly. He didn’t know what they did in there, but he had an idea, even if it was the wrong one. 
After they were gone Summer and Julius went together into her room, Summer lighting her candle and together they crouched before it side by side, Julius with his Crux and Summer with her statuette.  In silence he offered thanks for their victory, thanks that he had been able to save her from death yet again and thanks for another day of life, and as he crouched there he could feel her presence clearly, like a warm flame keeping the cold away. This had become a nightly ritual; they would pray together and afterwards spend an hour or two together talking about theology, history, music, topics in general. Sometimes he would play the Harmonica for her; other times listen to her recite old hymns. 

It was a way of escaping from the madness around them, even for only a short time, and he had grown to love the time they spent together, love the pleasure of her company.

As he sat there, something struck him. They had never spoken of each other. She had never once asked him about his family or his home, and likewise. He didn’t know her, not really, and this bugged him.

“Summer?” He asked softly. She turned to him.

“We’ve been doing this for nearly a month, and yet I still know nothing about you. Back at the ambush, I threw myself at the Orks because I thought you might have been killed or injured, but I don’t know why I care so much for you, given you haven’t told me anything. What did you do before this? What will you do if we survive? Why won’t you tell me anything?” he stopped, realising his voice had grown harsher as he piled on the questions.

“I can say the same Oll. I don’t know you either.”

“That’s true.” Julius held his head in his hands, thinking of how to reply. Suddenly he knew what to say, and he cleared his throat and began.

“My name is Ollanius Parsson, and I was born on Calth seventeen years ago. My father owns forty hectares of land on the estuary at Neride. I was christened at the little chapel on the edge of the swartgrass fields there. Some of our neighbours, who have been our neighbours ever since father settled there twenty years ago, whose children he employs, laugh at our faith. They call us ‘pious’.” He wasn’t lying, that was the first few months of his life, the life his parents had planned to live with him until Guilliman had come calling. Only the names were different. From there though, his fictional history took shape, the history he would have lived had his father not taken Guilliman up on his father’s offer, and he felt a guilty pang lying to her as he continued, which he hoped she couldn’t see reflected on his face.

“I went to the scholum at Numinus City, the capital of Calth. We were young and confident for the future of Ultramar, the future we would build. Did you know our manufacturing output rivals that of Macragge itself? We felt we were the future of the Imperium. I graduated top of my class, and was invited to attend one of the famed Military Academies of Ultramar in Macragge City itself.” Julius continued in this vein for several minutes, taking about military training, visiting Iax and Espandor, and finally going to Terra after graduation. The large scented candle slowly dipped as it burned, and the wafting fumes of incense grew stronger and stronger. She silently listened to him with interest on her face, nodding every so often to show she was listening, though when he started speaking of Terra, her eyes lit up.
She questioned him about every aspect of Terra, the cities and the people, and he answered her as honestly as he dared. She couldn’t believe him when he told her about the Petitioner’s City. “The Emperor would never allow such a thing, least of all on the doorstep of His palace!”

“Sad but true, I’m sorry to say. The Emperor may be the most powerful human ever; he may even be a god, but he has an Imperium to run, and things get overlooked. That is probably why relief hasn’t arrived here yet.” He was going to stop there, but something stirred within him and he continued, watching her.

“I’ll tell you something honest about the Emperor, and you can take this as you will. He rammed the Imperial Truth down the throats of the entire Imperium without caring for what people wanted. He didn’t give anyone a choice in the matter; it was ‘believe this or die’, no better than religious fundamentalists in times past. He thinks he does everything for the good of mankind, but I have to disagree with that.” He could see anger on her face, but he couldn’t stop now. 

“You should get a choice; you should be allowed to believe what you want, so long as it doesn’t interfere with the lives of others. The Emperor thinks that faith fuels the dark ones, but that’s not true. Its everyday emotions that keep them sustained, and that is something the Emperor can never hope to regulate, god or not. People going about their daily lives experience their normal emotions still empower the Dark Ones. What’s needed is an alternative to direct the belief at, faith in something regardless of whether people believe it’s true or not. If the Emperor ever listened to someone like me, the Imperium would become a better place. Of course that will never happen, but a man can dream.”
When he was done, she stared at him with a mix of admiration and surprise, the former anger seemingly gone despite the fact he had just criticized her god to her face. “That’s quite something Oll. Gives a girl a lot to think about.” She smiled at him, and his heart soared. “If I may ask, how do you know so much, the Primordial Annihilator isn’t usually taught about at schools?”

“You learn things from the strangest of places. In my case, books.” Again, close to the truth, though Ahriman and Magnus had shown him hints of the horrors lurking below, the eternal enemies of mankind. Books were a lot safer than seeing for yourself the horrors beyond.

“When I return to Calth, I aim to help my father with the harvest, and then enlist in the Ultramar Auxilia. After this, it can’t be too bad, and they have the XIII Legion backing them up. As for me personally, I love MST40k, but please don’t ask me who I prefer as host, it never ends well.” That was the truth, the endless debates between him and Venus over whether Myke or Jull was the better host were well known across Imperator High. “My favourite book is ‘Call of the Lion’, and my favourite of Shakespire’s plays is ‘Henri V’, so stirring.” He continued in that vein for a few minutes more, telling the truth once again and hoping it would drown the earlier lies.

“And that’s me.” He concluded, looking to see if she had swallowed his story, half true and half elaborate lies which filled him with shame. She didn’t respond, sitting there in total silence listening to the almost invisible hiss of the candle burning, the incense fumes from it filled the air with a sweet scent. Finally she ran her fingers through her long hair and abruptly asked Julius a question.

“Oll, have you heard of the Lantsfalle family?”

He was taken aback. “Who hasn’t heard of them? They’re one of the richest family businesses in the entire Imperium, they own a majority stake in the Void Lanes and the Terra-Ultramar road don’t they? They have the ear of the Speaker for the Chartist Captains, and were involved in that matter with Rogue Trader Carlin a few years back...”

“Yes, all that and more besides. The Lantsfalle’s have made themselves wealthy beyond the wildest dreams of most people, by shamelessly exploiting every loophole and taking advantage of their market control of the trade lanes to bump up tariffs and reap the profits, while backwater planets are crushed by trade debt and income tax. They are cold, caring only for money and status, with no shame and no loyalty beyond the almighty throne, and I mean the currency, not the God-Emperor. And they were never there for their children, who were brought up by maids, nurses and butlers with everything at their disposal and wanting for nothing, save that which we all need, love.” Her words were filled with passion, and Julius’s eyes widened as he realised what she was saying. “So, you are…”

“Summer Lantsfalle, once heir to the mighty Lantsfalle trade empire. That’s my name. Listen now to how I fell in the eyes of my parents.” There was the faintest hint of something in her voice. Sadness, bitterness? Julius couldn’t tell.

“My younger brother and I were brought up alone, moving from place to place aboard our parent’s ships, spending a few months, maybe even a year at one of their many palaces and estates dotted all over the Imperium. I grew up wanting for nothing, waited on hand and foot. Anything that money could buy was brought for me. But I didn’t have any love in my life. My parents weren’t there when I said my first word; they weren’t there when I started home-scholum. They weren’t there for any of my birthdays since I was three. My servants were kind enough, but I always knew the only reason they were was because they were being paid to, and otherwise they couldn’t care less what happened to me. I had a void in my soul, an emptiness which nothing material could fill, no matter where I went and no matter what I did.” Julius wanted to say something, but common sense got the better of him and he kept silent. She carried on.

“Then came the day everything changed, when I found my faith. I was on Dagonet, a planet famous for one of the Warmaster’s early victories, and I had heard of a hidden place at the edge of the city where people who worshipped the Emperor as a god went to pray. Like most people back then I thought of them as stupid, ignorant. I still don’t know why I ended up going; He must have been speaking to me even then. The meeting house was just a small barn; from outside you could barely tell what it was used for. There were only twenty or so people inside the empty space, huddled together before a wooden box being used as a pulpit. At first I thought it was all a farce, until the priest began speaking to us all.” The fire was back, her eyes aglow with it.

“He told of the Emperor, of how his love for Humanity was all encompassing, and how much he had sacrificed for our victory. He told how the Emperor was eternal, and how he had always been there for humanity, doing what he could for his chosen people. And he told that the God-Emperor protects, he protects humanity from all manner of foul things, and he protects every person, you and me. As I stood there at the far back, I swore the priest was speaking to me personally. I felt something that day Oll. I could feel the presence of the Emperor there, in that squalid little shack, feel his light shining upon me, and I felt that empty void fill, that hurt fade away. I went to the priest after the service and was given this.” She gestured to her copy of the Lectio Divinitatus with obvious pride.

“For the next few months I went there every sevday, learnt about the God-Emperor. I found myself among like minded people, and for the first time I felt I belonged. Every day my faith grew, every day I felt more and more at peace with myself and the universe. Hell, I began to forgive my parents for their years of absence.” Her voice dropped as she began the next part, and more and more emotion choked her voice.

“I don’t know how my parents found out; someone must have tipped them off, one of my servants perhaps. All I know is that no sooner had they arrived in system then an Arbites taskforce destroyed the temple and had the entire congregation arrested, including me. I didn’t know at the time, of course, all I knew was that I had been swept up and locked away with all the others. It was nearly a week before my parents even bothered to come see me.

“They tried to make me disown my faith; reject it as so much nonsense. But I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, it was now a part of me, and I couldn’t part from it any more than I could part with my heart or head. They hated that, told me time and again that faith was for the narrow minded, that people didn’t need it anymore thanks to the new lights of science and reason. Since when did they have a monopoly on reason? Finally I could stand it no more and I told them that my faith was my own, and they could never make me reject it or give it up, and that I would rather die than lose my new identity. So they gave me a one way ticket to Seadelant and disowned me. They couldn’t castigate me publically as they cared too much for their precious image, the prestige of the Lantsfalle name could not be soiled by some grubby revelations of Emperor-Worship within the family, but they cut me off, made my brother the new heir to the Lantsfalle fortune, and once again forgot I existed. I have a nice house here, and enough money to live on for at least another few years, until I decide what to do with my life, they gave me that much at least.” Julius had no idea she had gone through this, he wanted to say something, but she carried on relentlessly, her story consuming her like fire consumes paper.

“I don’t hate them, they are how they are and I can’t change that. I still miss my brother though; they have barred him from ever trying to contact me. To them, I don’t exist anymore, and if I die here, they won’t mourn me.” Try as she might, she couldn’t keep the hurt off her face, and Julius felt hurt seeing it.

“So that’s it Oll. I have no more secrets. You know who I am, and how I came to be here. A spoilt rich girl, thrown out for believing in something more powerful than her, for seeking to fill the void in her soul her parents wouldn’t fill.” He could see the hurt in her eyes; though she had forgiven them or at least tried to the memory still pained her. Several tears painted streaks down her cheeks. He knew that feeling as he had been harbouring it himself the past few weeks, and he didn’t like seeing it repeated before him. He didn’t want her to feel like that. He had to do something. He reached over and embraced her, and as he did he felt her softly sobbing. That hurt him even more, he had seen her face a dozen Orks armed only with a Lasgun and laugh it off afterwards. The smell of incense was almost overpowering, a thick fog seeping into his skull. He only knew one thing he could do.

One kiss couldn’t do any harm.

He gently broke the embrace, looked deep into her large hazel eyes, and leant over and kissed her, trying to keep it as chaste as possible and knowing he was failing at it. When they were done she turned towards him, her hazel eyes shining in the candlelight and her golden hair glowing, and before he knew what was happening they were kissing again, this time passionately, deeply. Julius wanted to say no, wanted to stop, but his body wouldn’t obey him, even his mind wouldn’t obey him. A lifetime of denial was swept away in moments. His lips eagerly clasped against hers, his hands helping her strip out of her soiled uniform, his arms hauling them both up onto her small cot. He let her strip him out of his own uniform, and he was struck dumb at her natural beauty, laid bare before him. Her breasts were for lack of a better word average, her nipples tight pink circles. Between her legs was a net of spun gold, the curly hair gleaming in the low light. For Julius, who had never seen a woman nude before, the sight was intoxicating. Part of him recoiled from what he was doing, as his lips instinctively took one of her nipples in and sucked eagerly; nibbling the hard peak, sucking gently then firmly, making her emit a sensuous moan so loud he feared the others would hear her and see his shame. She reached out for his hand and brought it between her legs, where she was already wet. Without prompting he stroked her, feeling her reaction as she reached for him, took his hardness and gently rubbed it in time with his stroking of her.

After a few minutes, as the sensations within them both grew and strained, she let go and pulled him down towards her, wordlessly offering herself to him. Not one word passed either of their lips. No words were needed.

As he entered her he felt a brief feeling of resistance and she moaned, burying her face in his shoulder. At that moment he realised that like him she too was a virgin. Was, not anymore. Neither of them were anymore.

His oaths, his beliefs, the girlfriend back on Terra he may or may not still be with and the way he’d felt towards her before all hell had come in the form of a bullet, none of it mattered anymore. All that mattered was the heat of Summer’s body against his, the silky feel of her skin, how wet she was down there. He’d never thought it could get so wet down there. He knew how awkward he felt, how awkward he was, but she helped him overcome that.

She came first, clutching him tightly, her back arching, moaning loudly, her body shaking with the release. Her reaction pushed him over the edge, and for a brief moment the two were locked in a feeling of sublime pleasure, warmth spilling from him into her as all was lost in the moment.

After the deed was done and his conscience returned with a vengeance he all but fled from her room ignoring her hoarse protests, and sat on his own bed trying to come to terms with what he had done. He had violated his own beliefs, given up his most sacred gift, and not to the one he’d pledged it to. That night was one of the longest of his entire life.