I did indeed β but you're getting ahead of the story, my sweet Archmage.
[ And Lucius does mean sweet. Beneath the fawning attention, even the set of his shoulders seems to swell with pride. He tips his head into those hands so greedily worshiping the planes of his face, and despite the way Eridanus lies astride him now, when Lucius inclines his chin upward, it's as though he gazes down from the impossible height of the Corpse-Emperor himself. ]
I haven't even spoken to you of my glorious triumph over Chaplain Charmosian. [ But, of course, Lucius forgives him for his enthusiasm. It's a duel ten-thousand years old; the galaxy itself has long moved on from that old battle. It rests murky even in Lucius' own mind, words forgotten and details obscured as if they lay behind a field of black smog.
But that doesn't mean he doesn't recall it. He remembers the way it had felt, and he remembers its final sword-stroke, when a precise movement of his arm had sent Charmosian's skull twirling through the air and into his hand. ]
He was one of the Legion's finest β but he was no match for me, at half his age. [ Lucius laughs, and for a moment, it has all the boyish delight he had felt as a mere child of 150 years old. ] My men held the chapel behind me, and I led from the front, just as all great heroes of the Emperor's Children did before me. I crossed fields of interlacing bolter-fire and the blades of my lesser brothers, culling the weak from my father's Legion with my every step.
[ That is certainly how he reconciles his self-proclaimed heroism with all the traitors he himself killed! Anyway, ]
And then I came to Chaplain Charmosian, proud atop the tank that had brought him to our battlefield. We hardly exchanged wordsβ [ though he's sure whatever it is he said, it was very cool ] βas I took that stage alongside him, and then our blades were upon each other.
Charmosian favored the greatsword, a huge and heavy thing that would have knocked me to my back of I had tried to bear the weight of its swings. [ There is an itching in his limbs as he recalls the duel itself; Eridanus can surely feel it, in the way it renders fingers restless against his waist. ] Effective enough in cutting down the rank and file, but not a master in the art of the duel. [ Smug pride curls his lipless mouth. ] A single strike from Charmosian likely would have been enough to cleave my torso clean in two, and he and I both knew it β so I took care not to be there when his blade cleaved through the air, deflecting its weight or sidestepping its mighty swing.
I could taste his irritation, [ he licks his lips ] so I made no move to riposte. Instead, I allowed Charmosian to do the work for me. I waited for that inevitable moment when frustration would cause him to overreach, and when it came, I took both his arms from the elbow down.
[ And that he does remember well. Is there anything more pathetic than the sight of a swordsman rendered impotent with the loss of his hands? Just the memory of it is enough to make him laugh under his breath, and he tuts his tongue as if in scolding disappointment at that long-dead brother. ]
I gave him no chance for a valedictory, and no chance for dignity. In another stroke of my arm, his head spun from his shoulders β and right into my grip. I held it aloft for all my brothers to see, my friends and my foes, and that was the moment in which each and every one of them knew the battle was decided.
[ He lets the painted image linger for the space of a heartbeat, and then the space of another, and then Lucius ducks his face still closer to Eridanus' hovered in front of his own. ]
With Eidolon's men set into retreat, it would seem only fair that I could keep that one small memento of the victory I had assured us, wouldn't you say?
sorry that Lucius will not shut up about himself and how great he is
[ And Lucius does mean sweet. Beneath the fawning attention, even the set of his shoulders seems to swell with pride. He tips his head into those hands so greedily worshiping the planes of his face, and despite the way Eridanus lies astride him now, when Lucius inclines his chin upward, it's as though he gazes down from the impossible height of the Corpse-Emperor himself. ]
I haven't even spoken to you of my glorious triumph over Chaplain Charmosian. [ But, of course, Lucius forgives him for his enthusiasm. It's a duel ten-thousand years old; the galaxy itself has long moved on from that old battle. It rests murky even in Lucius' own mind, words forgotten and details obscured as if they lay behind a field of black smog.
But that doesn't mean he doesn't recall it. He remembers the way it had felt, and he remembers its final sword-stroke, when a precise movement of his arm had sent Charmosian's skull twirling through the air and into his hand. ]
He was one of the Legion's finest β but he was no match for me, at half his age. [ Lucius laughs, and for a moment, it has all the boyish delight he had felt as a mere child of 150 years old. ] My men held the chapel behind me, and I led from the front, just as all great heroes of the Emperor's Children did before me. I crossed fields of interlacing bolter-fire and the blades of my lesser brothers, culling the weak from my father's Legion with my every step.
[ That is certainly how he reconciles his self-proclaimed heroism with all the traitors he himself killed! Anyway, ]
And then I came to Chaplain Charmosian, proud atop the tank that had brought him to our battlefield. We hardly exchanged wordsβ [ though he's sure whatever it is he said, it was very cool ] βas I took that stage alongside him, and then our blades were upon each other.
Charmosian favored the greatsword, a huge and heavy thing that would have knocked me to my back of I had tried to bear the weight of its swings. [ There is an itching in his limbs as he recalls the duel itself; Eridanus can surely feel it, in the way it renders fingers restless against his waist. ] Effective enough in cutting down the rank and file, but not a master in the art of the duel. [ Smug pride curls his lipless mouth. ] A single strike from Charmosian likely would have been enough to cleave my torso clean in two, and he and I both knew it β so I took care not to be there when his blade cleaved through the air, deflecting its weight or sidestepping its mighty swing.
I could taste his irritation, [ he licks his lips ] so I made no move to riposte. Instead, I allowed Charmosian to do the work for me. I waited for that inevitable moment when frustration would cause him to overreach, and when it came, I took both his arms from the elbow down.
[ And that he does remember well. Is there anything more pathetic than the sight of a swordsman rendered impotent with the loss of his hands? Just the memory of it is enough to make him laugh under his breath, and he tuts his tongue as if in scolding disappointment at that long-dead brother. ]
I gave him no chance for a valedictory, and no chance for dignity. In another stroke of my arm, his head spun from his shoulders β and right into my grip. I held it aloft for all my brothers to see, my friends and my foes, and that was the moment in which each and every one of them knew the battle was decided.
[ He lets the painted image linger for the space of a heartbeat, and then the space of another, and then Lucius ducks his face still closer to Eridanus' hovered in front of his own. ]
With Eidolon's men set into retreat, it would seem only fair that I could keep that one small memento of the victory I had assured us, wouldn't you say?