Editing Warhammer High (section)

=== Alternate Ending ===

"Well... Ms. McCann, my art teacher, she thinks I'm doing really well this semester. She wants to put up some of my work on display this weekend."

"Your work", rumbled the primarch like stone on stone.  "An exhibition of technical drawing?"

"No."

"Architectural planning? Botanical illustration? Sculpture?"

"No. Besides, I told you, sculpture is Victoria's thing."

Perturabo turned, facing her fully. In one long glance he took in a snapshot of Petra and ground methodically through its contents. His daughter's face, hopeful but dejected. Her fingertips, dusted almost indelibly with graphite and lead. Her notebooks, carefully ordered by subject. The tiny, detailed sketches along their margins.

Petra coughed uncertainly. "It's not going to be a big deal anyway. Victoria and Venus always come up with better art anyway." She started out of the room.

Head still oriented towards the doorway, Perturabo's gaze took in the rest of the stonework kitchen. The grand marble countertops, the unadorned cut of the entryway arches. The walls he'd built himself, buttressed by heavy I-beams of plasteel that carried the weight of his new life.

The flat, featureless panels he'd rasped clean of his carvings.

"Daughter." Petra halted, poked her head back into the kitchen. Perturabo paused, longer than he'd done in years.

"I shall be there."