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The mountain of cushions and blankets which Sekhmetara fell backward onto amounted to a welcome reprieve to the trials of the day. Much as she was hardly one to shy away from the spotlight, often the politics and grandeur of her role as one of the scions of the Emperor could be more taxing than the fires of war for which her gene-enhanced form was built for. Politics may have been in her soul but was burned within her blood. The teal of the two-piece silk shuka drifting about her in the artificial breeze of her private chambers. In a display which would surely be disrespectful from any other, the colouration of her private wear was a slight nod to her favoured sister’s title as the Emerald Priestess. She wasn’t quite aware if her double primarch visitors ‘had’ a change of clothes for private matters, but she had set aside the time and space for them to do so regardless. Failing that, perhaps one of few individuals in the galaxy who could even loosely claim to have ‘something in their size’ was the host and so something could be salvaged.

“Enkosi, Enkosi, hamba.” Sekhmetara waved off the attendants which immediately flocked to the edge of her divan, leaving behind the decanters of Mithran wine laced with the Fenrisian herb introduced to her by the Emperor to enable even Primarchs to experience the benefits of wine. Mithran cuisine, known for both sweetness and fire, presented itself in the form of various side plates. Her people were well known for feasting, albeit with many smaller plates as opposed to the set courses common in other human cultures from across the Imperium. As her sisters arrived, Sekmetara sucked the full flesh of a Mithran date from the pip around it, motioning with her golden glass of wine from her reclined place to the two. “Sit, drink, eat, we are utterly alone, for once.” 	

Though the ornamentation within the Ultus-Solis was nothing new to Nelchitl, she always found herself strangely at odds with the design choices of her sister. To use such a mighty machine of war as a Gloriana for hosting the delegations of long-lost branches of humanity made sense. To awe the rediscovered worlds with the wonder and immense power of the Imperium’s manufacturing and the ability for war could set the tone before the first delegates had even landed in its vast hangar bays. But the interior had always been of such lavish decoration and opulent finish that it had always appeared as more of a luxury pleasure barge suited to the likes of nobility. Though, Nelchitl couldn’t lie to herself and say that the ship's extravagance was uncalled for, only that she disagreed with it.

She took another goblet of wine from a waiting attendant and waved him off with a hand. The server sliding quietly away as Nelchitl changed into one of the many outfits that had been laid out for her by Sekhmetara. She chafed at the sight of herself in the overly large mirror adorning one wall of the room, the blood red dress that she had chosen looking and feeling out of place on her as she longed to be back in her armor. With a single gulp of her goblet she was done with the wine and moving to meet her sisters.

Entering the chamber Nelchitl made a quick path to the assorted food and drink that had been laid out for them, and with little more than a smile to Sekhmetara finished another glass of wine before picking up a plate of assorted meats.

“Count yourself blessed, as I only wear such things for your amusement, nothing else Sister.” she said as she too fell into the myriad cushions and pillows of the room, “If any of your favorite little Remembrancers take a picture of me in this… Well.” she didn’t finish the thought as she took another long drink from her glass, “This does not suit a Scion of the Emperor.” she finished sorely as she attempted to shift to a more comfortable position in the dress.

Daena fiddled awkwardly with the clasp of her outfit as she prepared herself to greet her sisters, the woman slowly but surely lowering the mental walls she had erected around her true self. Far from finding her surroundings distasteful, she embraced the ostentatious decor as an anchor for her roiling mind. In truth, she had prior expectations to fall back upon for a private retreat with her only peers - perhaps the only individuals in the galaxy she both wanted to and could be herself with. But the charming diplomat gliding among the retreats of the powerful? That was close enough of a role to at least get her through the door. As far as after that, well, she’d play it by ear.

Steadying herself in the way that humans do, a category that she ruefully considered she still technically counted as, the Primarch finally placed the clasp of her voidblack gown in place. The dress was rarely worn, typically only on those happy occasions when newly rediscovered worlds voluntarily joined the Imperium. Its clasp was of pure silver, fashioned in the shape of the Imperial Eagle with her father’s lightning bolt clasped in one talon and a garland of laurels in the other. A smile tugged at the corner of her mouth as she remembered her father’s tailor taking the commission as a personal challenge, designing the outfit from scratch to accommodate her wings.

Drawing one last breath to steady herself, she entered her sister’s lounge, ignoring the few servants that she had to pass in order to reach it from the dressing room. Gliding into the room, Daena let her smile grow - a far warmer and calmer expression than the one she wore earlier in the day. “I think it fits you splendidly, little sister,” the Angel teased, continuing towards Sekhmetara and joining her on the small mountain of pillows. “I hope I did not overdo my introduction?” she asked, irisless eyes gazing up at the Mithran woman, this time making no attempt to hide the undercurrent of anxiety that had clouded her thoughts since her display in the hangar.

“We have a saying on Mithra, a trap with no bait is no trap, but bait without a trap is just a gift.” Sekhmetara shifted slightly to lean upon her side, slightly raised up from her sister she smiled kindly to her. “Those that will not be won by honeyed words might still be won through fear, and if neither of those work, we can always throw Nelchitl at them.” She finished with a moment of levity, her eyes moving with mischief gleaming across them to regard her other sister, tilting her head just a little as she regarded her.

“You’d be surprised how dangerous a picture of a woman in a pretty dress can be, maybe I should sacrifice a remembrancer to enshrine this particular vision perpetually.” Her tone remained light with a teasing, if not unkind, tone. One hand moved languidly to her lips as she lifted the goblet of wine to her lips, savouring the taste and the previously unknown shifting of sensation that came with the touch of the altered alcohol. As swiftly as the Primach would notice a threat in battle, the taller of the primarch sister’s noticed her winged sibling’s lack of drink, and her other hand was quickly stretching to lift a spare from the low-table before her throne of cushioned padding. The wine was pressed to Daena’s hands with a laziness that belied a secret forcefulness. “It will help whatever storm brews behind those perfect eyes, dear sister.”

Nelchitl turned to regard Daena as she entered the room, the Scion of the Doomsayers a far better fit for a dress than she herself could ever be. She gave Daena a vexed look as she brought the cup of wine to her lips, “I am not little.” she huffed, her tone betraying the fact that the Emerald Priestess had taken the words of her sister quite literally, “But thank you.” she yielded to Daena’s compliment before turning her full attention to the honied words of her favored sister.

“I would prefer not to have to kill one of your cherished pictographers, but if you insist.” she smirked at Sekhmetara as she took another drink of wine. With a turn she faced her whole reclined body toward Daena, the silk of her dress shifting quietly around her as she did, “Drink, for these are blessed times Sister, and tell us what troubles you so. Perhaps, though I know I’m not the wisest among the Emperor’s children, we may be of some help to you.”

“I could always take the pict myself,” Daena teased, before looking down at the drink being pressed into her grip with a clear hesitance. To willingly have less control of herself than the already uncomfortable state she was in without psychic barriers was like being asked to strip naked when she was already unarmored. But, after looking into the eyes of her sisters, she relented.

A silence spreads between the three as she holds the wine in hand, Nelchitl’s unanswered statement the only thing on the Angel’s mind even as she stared into the cup. Her wings fluttered down close around her body as indecision wracked her mind, the massive woman eventually giving a sigh of defeat. “I saw your deaths,” she whispered, immediately drinking a heavy draw from the Fenrisian enhanced brew as if to drown the words she had spoken.

Nelchitl paused as she drank, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly as she lowered the wine from her lips. A tense moment of silence passed between the three before the Emerald Priestess abruptly rose from the cushions arrayed about her. Her dress flowed about her form, both beautiful and terrifying as she came to her full height, the light of the chamber catching the fine thread work of the gown and seeming to radiate a soft red glow about the Primarch. She brought a leg up onto the table before them, knocking over a small tray of delicacies and a pitcher of wine as she did. Raising her glass to the sky she smiled upon the troubled form of Daena, “Each of them more glorious than the next I’m sure Sister!” she beamed, “To give our lives in service of the Emperor and his vision…” she swayed where she stood, her eyes watering slightly as she looked down upon her sisters, her precious emeralds.

“Glory to the first to die!” she proclaimed haughtily as she pumped the wine glass further into the air, spilling wine over her fingers as she did.

The warmth of Sekhmetara’s eyes remained on Daena even as Nelchitl responded with the martial bravado which so defined the ‘youngest’ of the sisters in some amount of concern, but mostly with the dangerous curiosity of a huntress. Her sister’s words were as much an opportunity as they were a warning as she considered the consequences of such. Was her fellow primarch prophetic as part of the esoteric gifts of their bloodline, or was she simply mad? Perhaps both.

Finally as Nelchitl exclaimed her toast, the Mithran primarch turned her gaze to her treasured sister, a smile crossing her features as she rose from her languid recline amongst the cushions of her divan, lifting her own goblet of wine.

“Glory Unending, and the promise that we shall all meet again amidst the Light Eternal.” Since compliance the old Mithran term for the realm of enlightened souls, said to become the forge of the stars themselves, had developed to relate to the guiding hand of the Emperor in all things. Officially it was a secular term for the power of reason the Imperium represented. In more whispered tones, it spoke to the Mithran doubt that one such as the Emperor could be considered anything other than divine, with his treasured daughter but a step from the cusp of godhood. “Besides, only I can challenge Nelchitl for martial ability, and I have little reason to kill her, beyond wasting my wine and food.” Sekhmetara added in a teasing tone, drinking a further gulp of wine after their finished toast.

Daena forced herself to look up at Nelchitl as she spoke, but the smile did not reach her eyes. It was far from the pristine formalism of an emissary of state, the oracle quietly enduring the agony of being [i]awkward[/i]. The wine, at least, helped.There had been no substance on Irkalla that could inebriate her semi-divine form, and a part of her could not help but enjoy the experience. But it was far from enough to overcome the unease of her visions, and of her ‘younger’ sister’s inadvertently recreating them.

With a defeated sigh she swiftly drained her glass before tossing it aside, the angelic woman slumping down on the mound of pillows. “I wish I could say all your deaths were glorious,” she began slowly, raising a hand towards the slowly spreading pool of wine Nelchitl had spilled. “I will do my best to explain.” The wine slowly began to lift off the ground, forming a thin strand, one of its ends splitting into many. Almost as an afterthought, Daena’s discarded glass floated up to join the display, the stem marking the barrier between the single strand and the many.

“What was is a simple enough of a question,” she said, lazily gesturing towards the single strand. “What will be is far less so,” she continued, inclining her head towards the many ragged strands. “Each of these possibilities could occur, but only one will,” she whispered, the wine glass sliding onwards, wine dropping to the floor once more as only one was chosen. “My own gift concerns endings, and of course not all fates are equal. A man conscripted into the Auxilia may one day be installed as a Governor and die at a great age in his palace. But it is far more likely that he will perish in battle. Most men have simple lives, simple fates, and simple deaths - some preventable, others not. But you, my sisters, do not. I cannot tell which of your fates will befall you, I cannot dismiss the ones which will not win you glory. And that frightens me,” she finally said, her detour into lecture and explanation finally ending with the frank admission, punctuated by the sound of the river of wine falling daintily into her hovering glass.

Nelchitl, still standing with a leg upon the table laughed, a hearty thing, full of amusement and bravado as Daena seemed to shrink within herself. She didn’t mean to offend her dear sister, but her words were simply too easy for the Primarch of the XVII to dismiss.

“And how many of my deaths have you prophesied thus far? Yet here I still stand before you both!” she tossed her goblet clear across the room as her sanguine rose within her and scooped the pitcher of wine from the table that was meant to refill the trios goblets. With a grin she drank amply from the pitcher, draining it’s contents in a few easy gulps. “Your prophecies are not set in stone sister, you yourself know this best!” she insisted as she wiped the wine from her lips, “Those deaths that lack glory I will simply defeat as they show themselves.” Nelchitl finished earnestly as she threw the empty pitcher to rest with the goblet from moments earlier.

She turned away from the pitcher as it clattered to the floor and looked upon her sisters, eyes glistening with pride, “I am no ordinary man…” she motioned to Daena and Sekhmetera after a moment of thought, “We aren’t even men.” she nodded thoughtfully, “We lead no ordinary lives, this we all know for truth. We are the chosen of the Emperor, Scions of the Master of Mankind!” she crossed her arms over her chest as she smiled down on Daena, hope and belief in their undertaking and in Him radiating from every ounce of her being, “He has entrusted us with his greatest undertaking! There can be no death lacking glory awaiting us! We shall shatter your visions and dance upon their shards! Of this I am certain,” she pressed her hands to her chest in the sign of the aquila, “The Emperor protects.”

Sekhmetara laughed in a manner full of infectious joy at her sister’s display, without a hint of a mocking tone, mirroring her salute moments after the empty pitcher clattered to the ground. “The Emperor protects, and he has no greater champion than Nelchitl of Ixhun.” Sekhmetara’s laugh ended with a bold and bright smile, her bare feet gliding across the soft rugs laid out across the chamber as she traced her way back to the private entrance to the trio’s chamber of escape from the wider galaxy, slipping only partially through the dividing curtain with a polite but brief request of “More wine,” to the awaiting servant, hovering so as to never overhear the Primarchs within, but at hand should they be required. The Mithran primarch did not wait to see her order fulfilled, instead pacing back into the room, the soft silk of her emerald garment flowing across her smooth skin.

“How do those wonderful feathers of yours handle being wet my dear sister?” Sekhmetara asked as she drew closer, even as the servants arrived with more flagons of wine, one immediately refilling Sekhmetara’s glass as it dangled from her right hand, while the rest was simply positioned back on the table before the mortal humans withdrew. She did not reveal the cause for her question, instead moving to refill her sister’s drinks themselves, quite pointedly handing Nelchitl another goblet as opposed to the whole pitcher of wine.

Color returned to Daena’s face at her sister’s bravado, the Oracle heartened by the belief that Nelchitl spoke true. Fate could be defied, that much she knew better than most, and none could face greater challenges than Nelchitl. She hoped. So strongly did she hope that without even recognizing Sekhmetara’s question she stood from the cushions and threw her arms around her ‘younger’ sister, reenacting their embrace in the hangar bay but without any of the pomp or formality.

A niggling part of her mind informed her that there was a question yet unanswered, the fact asserting control of her thoughts at the same instant she opened her mouth to speak to Nelchitl. Deciding that was as good an excuse as any to prevent her wine dulled mind from further embarrassing herself, she slowly shut it. Sheepishly, she turned her head towards her ‘elder’ sister, embarrassment soon replaced by confusion. “Well enough, I suppose. I retain the ability to fly even in the heaviest of storms, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she replied, completely oblivious as to Sekhmetara’s true objective.

Nelchitl smiled wide as Sekhmetara praised her. Being recognized as His greatest champion was intoxicating, exhilarating. Her hearts began to pump faster as the weight of the words processed through her superhuman mind and her breathing became shallow and clipped. Her mind swam with the possibilities of others thinking so highly of her. Of her daughters and nieces, brothers and sisters, of the common folk of the Imperium, but no one individual resounded as strongly in her mind as did the possibility that [i]He[/i] thought so highly of her. “You spoil me sister, though I am inclined to agree of course.” she beamed, the smile spreading to her eyes as she spoke. 

Before she could continue she found herself wrapped in the embrace of Daena, the sudden show of affection catching her mind slightly off guard as she pulled herself out of the reverie that Sekhmetara had caused her. She brought her arms up and wrapped them fully around her sister, the delicate threads of Daena’s dress a strange sensation when compared to the power armor Nelchitl was so used to interacting with her in. She brought herself to look at her older sister as she appeared about to speak, but found only a timid look of embarrassment in place of the ironclad surety that Daena so often wore on her perfect features. 

Nelchit, still embracing her sister, turned to Sekhmetara with confusion on her face as the oddity of the question came to finally process through her mind, dulled as it was by the wine and overwhelming emotions from just earlier. “I hesitate to see how this has anything to do with me being the finest champion the Emperor has ever known.” she stated with a laugh before gently untangling herself from Daena’s embrace. 

“Oh very little.” Sekhmetara admitted with a grin only slightly concealed by her raised goblet of wine, the hazel of her eyes flecked with gold as her mischief blazed through for a moment, the tallest of the female primarchs allowing her fingers to drift to her own hip as she paced closer to a panel on the wall, hidden among the various drapes and curtains decorating the chamber. There was a brief chime of affirmation as one outstretched finger from her wine hand pressed down.

The transformation of the room was not particularly rapid, but it was dramatic, the smooth stone of the flooring beginning to retract away, steam immediately rising in gouts from beneath as the central portion of the lounge retracted away to reveal the contents beneath. Scented water bubbled, but without the fierce nature to suggest truly harmful temperatures. As the stone slid away to near to Sekhmetara’s feet, on the very edge of the revealed pool, the slotting stone folded into the shape of stairs, leading down into the churning water. With a coy smile, Sekhmetara took the first step, allowing the water to swirl over her ankles, she increased her descent.

“Bring the wine.”

Nelchitl watched with confusion as the room transformed before them. She stood for a moment watching her sister as she entered the water, “I don’t think this dress is suited for such activities. My body glove is back in the dressing area, I’d prefer not to ruin this fine piece if it can be avoided.” she stated hesitantly as she stopped just shy of jumping into the pool. Gazing into the churning waters, the want to simply enter the waters nearly threatened to overpower her consideration for the dress she had been loaned by her sister.

“I must say sister, this is perhaps the [i]politest[/i] way anyone has ever told me my tendency to lecture is boring,” Daena replied dryly, looking down into the pool with a wistful expression that soon morphed into a smile. “Praise to you, O mighty Sekhmetara, befuddler of prophets and blinder of oracles, defier of fate,” she said in teasing praise, raising her glass towards her sister. “None of my seers forewarned me of this.”