Editing Trip Into Hell (Warhammer High) (section)

===Sundered Oaths===
Ever since Julius had re-connected with his faith, he’d noticed certain metaphors which now applied to his life. The last 28 days of total war had been one of those, heaven, hell and purgatory for Julius all rolled into one. Hell in the constant war and the eternal threat of defeat and death, heaven because of the person he’d met due to that war, and purgatory because of the implications of what had happened between them only a few hours earlier. 

Julius was a Catheric, and most Catherics believed in purity before wedlock. Julius had a looser definition of that, but he had been saving himself for the one he had considered his soulmate, even if that was no longer as certain as before. Not anymore. He hadn’t expected it to happen, but it happened anyway, and now he was torn up inside.

Julius sat in his room, softly playing on the harmonica he’d found in the broken remnants of somebody’s house while tramping back from another mission against the occupying Orks. He had always had a passion for music, and the sound of his harmonica soothed him, allowed him to reflect on himself without feeling all consumed by what he had done. He could also play the bugle, but his one was back on Terra, and the Guitar, of which he had found none around the outer city. 

It was several hours before dawn; the others were all fast asleep while he had spent the night torturing himself over and over again in his mind. He had already asked his god to forgive him many, many times over the course of the night, but forgiving himself was another matter.
Checking his watch, he decided he could no longer remain cooped up down here; he had to get out and see the sky. He got up and pulled several items from the steel box at the foot of his bed. He pulled on his boots, checked the charge in Vulkan’s hellpistol, and adjusted his cap before turning to the door.

She stood in the doorway, already in full uniform. Julius had no idea how she had got there without alerting him, or how she had even known that he was going at all, and for a second he did nothing but stare uncomfortably.

“I’m going out to see the sunrise.” He finally admitted.

“I know. And I’m coming with you. You always said you would take me with you one time, well that time is now.” Julius couldn’t argue, so he pulled his cap on and together they set off.

They slipped out into the inky night, and made their way parallel to the southern climbs, the near vertical hills which flanked the southern half of the city. Because it was so far from the walls, the Orks hardly ever went down there, making it a perfect route to take to escape after a raid, or slip past Ork patrols.
His chosen lookout stood between the abandoned outer city Defence Laser compound and the bay, an abandoned water tower. He’d found it before the invasion began, the day he’d first arrived on Seadelant, and amazingly it still stood despite all the devastation wrought upon the city. It was high but sheltered and offered amazing views of the bay, the perfect place to sit alone and reflect. Only this time he wouldn’t be alone.
Together they clambered up and sat there on top of it, listening to the faint call of distant seabats and the crash of the waves upon the shoreline, strangely loud in the pre-dawn gloom. As the first faint fingers of light pushed up above the quietly lapping waters, Summer abruptly spoke to him.

“Look, I can guess how you must feel about last night, and I know Catherics frown on that sort of thing, but you’ve told me you’re no fundamentalist, you don’t let doctrine make your choices for you. You can’t hold yourself solely responsible either, we were both at fault. We nearly died out there Oll, you saved my life yet again, and then you opened yourself up to me and vice versa. We repaid the death we’ve seen all too regularly with life, the most beautiful celebration of life there is.”

“I swore I would save myself for the one I loved, and now I have broken that vow. Is there any wonder I’m acting like this? It is my fault; I was overcome by my own weakness. I could have said no.” He said bitterly.

“You weren’t weak when you confronted that Ork armed only with a bayonet. You weren’t weak when you took on near forty enemies on your own. You’re the strongest man I’ve ever met, and I’ve met my fair share. You have a strong heart, you accept people regardless of what they think of your beliefs, and you’re willing to take the blame for your mistakes and try to fix them. By anyone’s standards you are a better man than most.”

“That doesn’t save me.” Julius picked up a shard of rock and threw it off the lookout. “I made a vow before God, my God, and I have broken my vow. Can He forgive me?”

“I don’t think so, I know so. He sees all, remember? He saw your need, saw your heart and your desire to comfort me and saw what you went through out there. He’d be no true god if he didn’t forgive you for this one mistake. You’ve made other, far worse ones before right?”
The Petitioner’s City. That was his worst one. But he couldn’t tell her, no matter how much he wanted to. 

“Before I found my faith, I did many things trying to get my parent’s attention.” She added. “Bad things I’d rather forget about. Yet though I considered promiscuity, I never could go through with it. There is no law in the Lectio Divinitatus about sex in or out of wedlock, I could have lost mine many times over both before and after my salvation on Dagonet, and yet I did not. And now you’ve come into my life, and made me feel things I haven’t felt since my banishment. I feel something for you Oll, something strong, and I know you must feel something similar for me, else wise you wouldn’t have given me that gift last night.”

She hit too close to home with that one. He couldn’t deny the attraction he felt for her, which had grown over the weeks together until it had finally burst last night. But there was another, the first in more ways than one. He had to tell her, had to set the record straight. He awkwardly cleared his throat.

“Look, Summer, I have not been entirely honest with you. Back home on T…Calth, there’s someone. Someone I cared deeply for.”

“Cared.”

“What?”

“You used cared. Past tense. Do you still care for her?” Julius was taken aback at her question. He didn’t know what the status of his relationship with Isis was. They hadn’t parted well; he had left before he could explain to her how he felt regarding the Petitioner’s City, and how he had laid the full blame upon himself. His father had convinced the Warmaster to speak on his behalf at the trial over his shooting of those gangers, allowing him the chance to leave Terra, head to Calth to see his past, pay tribute to his deceased mother and decide where to go to from here. She hadn’t lifted a finger on his behalf.

“What is she like, this girl of yours?” 

That question caught Julius off guard. He had never spoken to anyone who didn’t know Isis either personally or by reputation. He struggled to find the right words. “She…she is a strong woman. Driven. She knows what she wants, and knows how to get it, and once she’s set on a course it is hard to make her change her mind or see reason. She’s proud of what she can do, knows her talents and how to excel in any field demanded of her. Unfortunately this attitude affected her relationships with others somewhat, as you were either her friend of her foe, and heaven help you if you were her foe. She also used to believe that a man was not worth her time unless he could become her equal.”
“And did you? Become her equal?” Julius could see the interest on Summer’s face, the fascination she seemed to have about what Isis was like.
“No, I never could. No-one could. I became something far more, her moral compass, her naysmith to use the old Terran term. I was, am one of the few who can sway her, apart from her father and grandfather. She would always turn to me for advice or if she felt she was doing something wrong or going too far, and if any others feared for her or for what she was doing it would be me they would come to. You know she has an amulet of lunar metal, her ‘lucky charm’, never goes anywhere without it. She once joked she had another, but she never could take that one with her as easily, as he couldn’t fit into her pocket.” Julius couldn’t hide the tone of regret in his voice, and Summer jumped on it.
“What? So you regret what happened between us?”
Julius shook his head. “Summer, I can’t regret what we did, but all the same I feel bad for what just happened. She’s always known about my beliefs, and though she’s never shared them she’s always respected the fact that I do, defended me from those more zealous in their dislike for faith.” Words now poured from him like a breached dam, all his pent up feelings rushing out.

“When we first started getting serious, there was an incident when she wanted something from me that I couldn’t give, and I had to refuse her. You have no idea how bad I felt that day, how I wanted to please her but at the same time wanted to stay true to my vows. I seriously though our budding relationship would die that day and I said as much to her, told her to find someone who could satisfy her the way I couldn’t.” He remembered that day well, it was the day he and Andrew had gone down to the Startseite War memorial to commemorate the death of Andrew’s grandfather.

“But it didn’t. It grew stronger; we came together in a relationship that despite there being no physical intimacy was considered one of the bedrocks of our scholum. You want to know something Summer, I was planning on giving myself to her when we graduated, I felt in my heart that God meant us to be together, but…something came up and I failed her. God, how I failed her.” 
Memories of the gene-modded gangers, the cursed symbol on the wall and how heavy his hand felt after he’d shot the ones threatening her bloomed anew in his mind, every one a monument to his foolish idea. “I promised myself to her, but I gave myself to you, and now I feel I have failed her. Again.” His body shuddered with a sob, and he could feel his eyes water, tears beginning to form. He’d laid his shame almost completely bare before Summer, and it felt liberating and heartbreaking at the same time. She moved over and took him in her arms, held him close.

“Oll, I can see how much this woman means to you, and how you must feel because of me. And you shouldn’t regret what came between us. There’s nothing to be gained by beating yourself up over this. If this girl truly loves you the way you love her, she will understand and forgive you. I know I do. No matter what happens, if you patch this relationship up or not, I am glad you were my first, Ollanius Parsson.”
As she spoke the first rays of sunlight caught in her hair, making it glow with golden light. Julius had never seen a more beautiful sight. This time he willingly bent over and thrilled at the feeling of her lips against his. Throwing his doubts to the wind, he threw his heart and soul into the kiss, and thrilled at it.
Summer broke off the kiss, smiling at him deeply. They just sat there, enjoying each other’s presence in silence as the sunshine grew brighter and the light glittered off the sea. 
Just as Julius was thinking of calling it a day and taking them both back to the Bunker, Summer’s expression changed to one of surprise and concern, and she gently tapped Julius on the shoulder, pointing to the Defence Laser bunker behind them.

“Oll, I just saw an Ork down there. A lone one. Orks don’t usually go off by themselves, and there was something strange about it, about how it was moving and acting. Should we check it out?”