Editing Venaro sector (section)

===A fan-fiction===
Tariel had seen horses before. In her pict-books as a child, in the holovids shown at midday during the worker's break. They were noble things, she had thought, holy animals from blessed Terra, bearing aloft nobler men and women. She had wished for one since before she had taken her mother's place in the pressing lines, wished to ride out into the stars on the mythical creature and leave the soot and smoke behind. She had not wished for this.

"Tarieeel..."

The voice that spoke to her was like brittle glass, broken shards of sounds slowly scraping against her ears, working its way into her head with a bloody ache. It didn't matter how close or far she was, still it seeped into her. She cringed involuntarily. The voice of a demon.

"Bring him to meee..."

Tariel pushed herself up from the floor, kept her eyes to her feet, winced as blood rushed back to her tingling legs. The metal grating beneath her feet was always cold. Not like home, where the pounding rhythm of the foundries shuddered through every inch of the planet, where the forges wicked away heat to all corners of the industry sector. She wore as much as she could find, as many socks and coats and ragged cloaks as were left by the others. But it wasn't enough. Was this what the stars were like, she wondered, or was it because of... them?

The Pale Gallantry they called themselves. Like knights from the pict-books. Like noble things from the stories. Only, far from the books and vids and the pleasant dreams. She had thought they would take her from her home, to a place more noble and beautiful, and she would be able to breath clear air and sleep without the hammering of machines waking her in the mornings.

She leaned her weight against the massive dead-bolt latching the pen shut, the cage she watched for her new master. It creaked with cold and age and slowly ground open, and the thing inside beat against the gate in its eagerness. The gate slowly swung open with a hideous squeal and Tariel pressed herself back behind the door, trying to hide herself as the beast inside paced out. She tried to ignore the sickly sweet smell of perfume and decay, the trickles of blood dripping from the creature's muzzle, the scraps of clothing trailing behind its feet.

Her master swept up to the creature, pale hood cloaking its features and paler armour hiding its form, and gripped the barbed reins wound around the creature's skull. A low hum, a halting melody, crept into her ears again as her master leaned closer to the beast. Armoured gloves stroked down its sinuous flank.

"You do wellll, Tariel... You shaaall be rewarded for your sssservice, have no feear..."

Tariel cringed back, pressed her back to the cold wall and sunk down to her haunches again. She clamped her hands over her ears, shut her eyes tight and wished for the din of the forges and her mother's smile again.

"Have no fear..."

In the deep was where the other things lived. 

Like the city where Tariel was born, her new home swelled in every direction, countless levels upon levels of metal and wire, hatches and grates and heavy hissing pipes that thrummed with life. The walls were near, and the floor hummed beneath her feet, just as her home had. The more spacious hallways were unusually empty, and she was free to roam them, exploring the hidden places and empty rooms, sometimes wondering at the scratched marks on the walls left by those that had come before her, just as she had as a child. 

She roamed to keep her mind from the things she did, but as she walked, the world around slowly blurred into her memories. Walls of metal like home, a twist of cable curling around a corner vent just as it had in her childhood hab, the way the lights flickered from time to time. She knew she was on a voidship, her new master had told her as such, but it didn't feel like it. She couldn't see the stars, or even find the edges of her world. It felt no different from home, save for the cold, and the quiet. 

But in the deep...

Her master had told her not to stray far, but his words hurt to hear, hurt to remember. Tariel tried to forget them as she tried to forget everything else, but she knew he had not spoken them idly, and she often found herself skirting along the edges of the deeper levels, the stairwells and ladders and cargo shafts that led down into the dark. Sometimes she heard voices coming up from the deep.

The closest she ever came to the deeper levels was an open hall, a dozen levels below the pens housing her masters' pets, so tall and wide that shadows formed within that covered everything with a thick haze. A tent sat just short of the entrance, and oddly seemed to be the only thing within the huge room. Pallid cream cloth, almost out of place against the dark, cavernous black. Stains crept along the bottoms of the tent's sides, where it brushed over the ground on a perfumed breeze coming from deeper within the hall. She couldn't see much past the little fabric hut, and she had no desire to find out what lay beneath the shadows that clung to the hall.

Tariel dipped her head and brushed aside a flap of cloth, stepping into the almost-familiar room. A table sat in the middle, surrounded by a stack of sealed boxes, each marked with words that hurt to look at. One of them was for her, a part of her new duties, and her eyes strained to pick out the strange runes she was forced to remember. 

"Second from the top, sweet, on the corner." 

Jaram stood behind the table, a soiled knife in his clean hands. Tall, lithe, perhaps handsome in the gloom. His was one of the only names she knew in her new life, though she wasn't sure if she'd call him a friend. Not exactly. Jaram elegantly gestured with the tip of his knife, smiled at her, and turned back to his work.

Tariel shuddered at his smile. A smile too wide, teeth too long, tongue too sharp. His eyes were a pale lilac, and his skin was smooth and soft. If she glanced at him from the corner of her eye, he almost looked like a boy she had known in her foundry, though the boy had been much younger than her then. Almost looked like him until she looked closer and remembered that she was far from home.  

Jaram hummed as he worked. Hummed a broken tune that stopped and started as he worked his knife between cartilage and bone. She tried not to look too closely at the neat piles of meat on his board, and tried not to listen to the sounds the blade made as it parted sinew and flesh. She heaved the box Jaram had pointed out from the stack, settling it on the floor with a huff of effort. The name on her box danced in her eyes and she sat down on it to keep it from her sight. 

For a moment she simply caught her breath, considering the route back to her pen. The box was heavy with Jaram's work, and the path back was long and winding. She almost considered asking Jaram for help, but a glance to the boxes surrounding his table cut that thought short. Jaram always seemed to be working. She wondered if he truly spent all his time here, at his little table, working his knife and humming his lilting tune.

"You'll never know if you never ask, Tari." 

She flinched at Jaram's voice, a jolt sparking up her spine, as if he had read her mind. She anxiously worked her aching fingers around the edges of her cloak and blinked away the beginnings of thin tears. He was smiling at her again with his terrible smile, hands still, his lilac gaze gently meeting hers. 

It seemed an odd word to describe it, she thought. Gentle. But she couldn't help the feeling. Her master was surely not, nor the creatures kept in cages and cells. The other people she met in the metal corridors tended towards silence, or simply disappeared before she could catch up to them. But Jaram smiled and crooned softly with his broken voice, almost friendly as he worked his bloody knife.

"I think... I think the answer would scare me more than asking, wouldn't it?" 

Jaram cocked his head, paused, bowed his head and nodded sagely. He slowly set his knife down beside his work. His eyes flicked between hers, perhaps looking for something in them, though she didn't care to know what. His smooth lips curled up again, snaking into a lopsided grin. 

"The answers will come, sweet, whether you ask for them or not. Do you understand? Best make sure you ask the question before you receive the answer you hadn't wished for." 

Tariel tried to meet his gaze, but couldn't. She couldn't look into those pale eyes, so instead she simply nodded, worrying the frayed fabric of her cloak. The box creaked beneath her, something shifting ever so slightly inside, or perhaps just her nerves. She wiped a hand across her eyes and looked up again to find Jaram standing in front of her, apron streak with red, back stooped slightly to meet her eye line. He almost lazily scooped up a trio of boxes beneath one arm, barely straining with their weight. 

"But that is a thing of the future, is it not? Come, I find myself in need of distraction, and you have work of your own to do. Shall we walk together?" 

He offered a slender hand, long-boned fingers curling slightly in front of her. Spotless hands, clean and smooth as silk. Tariel stared at his fingers for a moment, then pushed herself to her feet. She heaved her own box into her arms, hesitated, and reached a clumsy hand out to meet Jaram's. He smiled again, softly, and led her from his tent, back into the metal hallways and the cold and quiet where she had come from, humming gently as he went.


[[Category:Warhammer 40,000]]
[[Category:/tg/ 40,000]]