So, I wrote a story. Here it is! Enjoy.

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Private Connie Obel of the Interix PDF paced slowly back and forth on the broad shoulder of the Emperor and prayed for rain. Looking to the heavens, she only saw the clear blue sky that had been mocking her for the better part of a week. She didn’t see the streaks of orbital insertion, or the winking lights of a retribution fleet, or any of the other signs of an imminent rescue. Slowly, Connie sat down on the smoothed stone that had been her home for three months and sighed.

“We really need to finish our discussion…”

Connie turned her head, slowly, as if she would see something new when she looked to her left. She didn’t. Sitting, about three meters away from her, was the wiry form of Sebastian Thor. He looked younger in person than he did in the religious iconography that had surrounded her for her whole life – in the stained glass and statuary and reliefs, he was depicted as he had been at the end of the Crusade of Light: Withered and elderly, a massive beard roiling down his face to his ankles, wearing only the robes of a penitent while he was flanked by the miniscule followers who made up the background, a great river of humanity looking up to him, their hands clasped together in adoration.

Connie rubbed her palms against her eyes, feeling the gritty texture of callouses, dirt and bits of stone worked into her palms by pressure and by constant contact.

“Go away.”

“I can’t simply go away, Connie.”