Yeah, well, it worked. No one would guess you have difficulty with it.

Nice to have good dialogue, too, may I say?

It really fits the tone of NW 25 too. (If anyone cares you can read NW 25 in the tpb: Love and Bullets.)

Yeah, really. And thanks. I'm still precocious. I can be as cynical as somebody almost twice my age.;)

WH 40K fan fic

• *****************

No matter where Hope of Eidilla was, its shipboard time changing to what system it was in, Hoya always managed to wake five minutes before the morning bell. Usually he would use the showers before the rest of the troopers in the hall rushed into them. Other times he would lay in his bunk, mentally organizing his day, considering each detail so nothing would surprise him again. The murmurs and mutterings of still-dreaming troopers still lost in the missions that had brought them here were the only distraction.

On this day he did the rarest of his morning rituals, quietly leaving his bunk and going to the lockers at the end of the hall to open his and dig out an old dog-eared copy of the Infantryman’s Primer. Opening it revealed a cavity, made by glued-together pages, containing a primitive spear point.

Officially, none of the troopers were supposed to have weapons off duty, especially not in their barracks, to make sure that fights didn’t get out of hand. There were always a few ship’s armsmen willing to turn a blind eye, but this was something Hoya felt unwilling to leave to the mercy of an armsman’s judgment.

Just touching brought back the memories of a gaggle of young boys, bored with the schola’s endless routines - all intended to make them the finest stormtroopers that the Imperium had ever seen (and that they would be, they had no doubt.) Still it seemed like the routines were also intended to bore them to death, and their one diversion had been teasing the old auroch bull on the schola’s farm. A whole set of rules for scoring arose. Soon they had to throw rocks from inside the enclosure and scramble out just ahead of the auroch’s horns to even begin to score points.

It was Hoya’s suggestion that led to the coup stick. He had a distant uncle from his mother’s tribe that would visit from the foothills every few seasons while on trade missions. The uncle had been a Rough Rider in the Imperial Guard and had shown Hoya some of the gear he had kept. Among them was a coup stick which warriors would use to prove their bravery by touching their enemies and leaving them alive.

The rest of the boys told him that he was the lucky one, that he still had someone living.

Within a week they fashioned the spear point out of stone and scrap metal, attached it to a pole and Kilchii marked the auroch on the shoulder from inside its pen. Quickly the pole became a stick and most likely they would have soon been using just the spearpoint itself when a passing Sororitas teacher spotted them, nearly getting Nik killed by distracting him while he was in range of the auroch’s hooves. They had all gotten a beating for wounding the auroch and it was only by some clever and impassioned quotations of the Emperor’s Beautitudes that they remained on the stormtrooper curricula rather than becoming Ecclesiarch castrati.

Sometimes Hoya wonders if it would have been better if they had left the stormtrooper curricula then. Not to become castrati, there was no way he could justify that, not even in jest, but anything else would have been better than what finally did happen.

Hoya put away the spearpoint and forced himself not to look at Kilchii as he did so. Kilchii never looked his way, even though his bunk was right by the lockers and he had taught Hoya the early rising habit, but he continued to steadfastedly refuse to get out of the bunk early or even acknowledge him. Hoya doubted Kilchii even knew that he had kept the spearpoint from among Nik’s things when they were both packing the rest of the squad’s effects.

Hoya was already shrugging on his dutyjacket when the ship’s bell woke the rest of the troopers in the hall. It still felt odd to see the ship’s insignia where the regimental one once had been, the fabric slightly discolored around the edges because the different patch shapes aged the fabric differently.

Kilchii smoothly got out of the bunk with no hesitation when the ship’s bell rang, confirming Hoya’s suspicion that he had been lying awake.

They nodded to each other, painfully formal despite years of easy familiarity. Like always, Hoya had to begin the conversation. That hadn’t changed, at least.

“We have to mount the new bolters today.”

“The ship’s chirugeons want the squadron’s extraction medics this morning, they have some new procedures they want to go over.”

A simple nod on Hoya’s part continued the conversation, even though he wasn’t sure Kilchii had seen it. “I’ll start working on the new mounts then. Join me when you finish?”

Kilchii gave an affirmative grunt, one that Hoya could still easily decipher from when Kilchii tried to avoid speaking for several months because his voiced had changed last and had taken an especially long and embarrassing time to do so. Kilchii cut off the chance for further conversation by turning away to head towards the showers.

As Hoya left, resigned and trying to figure out how to reach Kilchii, the traitorous thought that he had lived with for the last six months returned, ever since he and Kilchii returned to their barracks to pack the rest of the squad’s effects and were summarily told by a Munitorum aide that they would be reassigned to an Imperial Navy squadron since just two survivors of a stormtrooper squad were of no use to the regiment.

The rest of the squad had been the lucky ones.

CaBil, that's damned powerful. What's the fandom?

Warhammer 40,000, the background of a miniatures game.

Far future, but neo-medieval/dark age feel to it. The company that created it is in the UK, so a lot of their language/terminology is in old English and Germanic to give it that feel.

It's a new one to me, so I just read it as a story, period. It did seem to have the mixture of tribal/primitive and futuristic.

Really well-done.

Ngah. CaBil, I'm sorry, your story is v. well done but unfortunately amych broke me. I -- no, she broke me. I'm broken. With the gah.

(prior to which I'd been admiring erika's Munch, and wishing I knew him outwith her fic, but then - amych, and the broken-ness.)

I'm sure he would like to know you, too. In more than one sense, probably. I don't know very much about amych's heroes, but still, good story.

Schmoop, of a kind. This week's Open on Sunday drabble challenge is "ice Cream".

Leftovers (referencing I Will Remember You)

The ice cream, a soupy mass, sat on the table. It was liquefying slowly, its butterfat solids breaking down, returning to its original state. The Hyperion's fans were no match for the LA heat.

"Angel?"

His stance caught Cordelia's attention. Shoulders hunched, head bowed, the way a man might stand if he was fighting tears.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing. I - I just need to get rid of this ice cream."

"Since when do you eat ice cream?"

"It was left over." Something in his face broke. "From when Buffy was here last."

She stared, uncomprehending. This was not her memory.