Nightmare
Warp travel is an ordeal for any being with a soul.
Even though the Gloriana-class battleship Macragge's Honour was protected by one of the Imperium's most powerful Geller Fields—an energy barrier that wrapped the vessel in a fragile bubble of realspace—it was never perfect isolation.
The Warp is not empty.
It is an ocean of emotion, memory, hunger, and nightmare.
As the colossal warship tore through that empyrean sea like a steel leviathan, pressure built along the edges of reality. Whispers seeped through circuitry hums, through deck vibrations, through the cracks in mortal minds.
For the Adeptus Astartes, this was routine. Through discipline, hypno-indoctrination, and iron meditation, they endured.
But for Eileen—
A hive-born child, barely literate, raised beneath rusted pipes and toxic rain—
The Warp was merciless.
---
Eileen dreamed.
There was no warm chamber. No soft bed. No pudding.
She stood once more in Hive 42 on Iax.
But the sky was wrong.
It oozed a bruised purplish-green, dripping viscous filth. Rusted pipeways stretched beneath her bare feet. Something buzzed behind her.
Flies.
Not insects—monstrosities. Fist-sized, their compound eyes glowing red, proboscises dripping corruption.
Thousands.
They blotted out the sky, swirling together into a colossal, rotting human face.
"Run… little mouse…"
The voice rattled like a plague victim's lungs.
"There is no shelter… you will bloom in the garden…"
Eileen ran.
Her lungs burned.
Ahead stood her shack of scrap and timber. If she could crawl beneath her blanket, she would be safe. Blankets meant safety.
She burst inside. Threw it back.
Beneath—
Maggots.
White. Writhing.
Each bearing the face of someone she once knew.
---
In the real world, she screamed.
She bolted upright in bed, clawing at the air.
"No! Don't come closer! I have a knife!"
Her hand flew beneath the pillow, gripping the ceremonial short sword Guilliman had given her.
The door exploded open.
Sergeant Varo entered like a thunderbolt, bolt pistol drawn, autosenses sweeping the chamber.
"Report!" he barked.
There was nothing.
Only a trembling child in silk nightclothes soaked with sweat.
Varo lowered his weapon.
He would rather face an Ork Warboss than this.
"Miss Eileen," he said stiffly, approaching as quietly as multi-ton power armor allowed. "No breach detected. Geller Field stable. You are experiencing neural distress due to Warp turbulence."
She didn't hear him.
"Flies! They're everywhere!"
Her breathing became ragged.
Fear.
Raw, unshielded.
Warp resonance built around her like rot beneath skin.
---
[Tch. No sense of restraint.]
I stirred.
High-dimensional consciousness does not sleep. It merely idles.
Through her mind, I assessed the situation.
Not a simple nightmare.
Warp pressure. Nurgle's lingering shadow. Probing harassment from beyond the Geller veil.
Physical daemons could not enter.
But fear could.
[Very well. Landlord intervention.]
Energy was limited. But the crying was… unpleasant.
[System Operation: Mental Link Established.]
[Execution: Intrusion Purge Protocol.]
---
Inside the dream—
The fly-face descended.
"Receive Father's love…"
The swarm poured downward.
Snap.
A sharp finger snap echoed.
The buzzing ceased.
Eileen blinked.
Golden light rippled outward from her.
Where it touched, corruption vanished—like chalk erased from slate.
The shack dissolved.
The pipes vanished.
The maggots ceased to exist.
In their place—
An endless field of golden wheat.
Clear blue sky.
A warm sun.
Wind that smelled of bread and harvest.
Eileen stood in stunned silence.
"That's better," a voice said lazily behind her. "Children shouldn't have nightmares. Stunts their growth."
She turned.
A man stood there.
Not radiant. Not armored.
Just a middle-aged figure in a simple golden hoodie, hands in pockets, expression relaxed. His features were slightly blurred, as if behind gentle light.
Safe.
Familiar.
Like an imaginary father.
"Who are you?" she asked, stepping back, hand forming the reflex of gripping a blade.
I plucked a wheat stalk and chewed it thoughtfully.
"Tenant," I said, pointing to her head. "I live upstairs. Call me… Old Huang."
"Are you a junk collector?"
"…Close enough."
She sniffed.
"The flies?"
"Gone."
A golden butterfly appeared in my palm and fluttered to her nose.
"No maggots. No rot. No bad things here."
Her shoulders trembled.
"Really?"
"Really. As long as I'm here, this is the safest place in the galaxy. Even if those four noisy idiots show up, they're getting kicked out."
She didn't understand.
But the warmth was real.
"Is there food?" she asked hesitantly.
I laughed.
Snap.
A small round table appeared in the wheat.
Pudding. Cake. Chocolate—the same officer-grade ration Sicarius had given her.
"Dream calories don't count."
She lunged at it happily.
"If you can't handle something," I added softly, watching her eat, "call me."
For now, peace would suffice.
---
In reality—
The atmosphere changed.
Varo sensed it instantly.
The oppressive chill evaporated.
Warmth filled the room.
The faint scent of sun-baked grain replaced antiseptic and steel.
He looked down.
Eileen lay stretched peacefully.
Her grip on the short sword loosened.
A faint golden halo cocooned her.
Protective.
Intentional.
Varo instinctively began to kneel—
The door opened again.
Roboute Guilliman entered, wearing simple rest garments.
His senses detected the psychic shift before he crossed the threshold.
Not wrath.
Not judgment.
Protection.
He approached the bedside.
Behind him stood Shield-Captain Cato Sicarius? No. Correction needed.
(We must not alter canon incorrectly. In this scene it is the Victrix Guard.)
Behind him stood a Victrix Guard officer, silent and watchful.
"He protects her," the Guard murmured softly. "This is not passive discharge. This is deliberate."
Guilliman said nothing.
He sat beside the bed.
In his memory, his father had been a warlord. A scientist. A strategist willing to sacrifice entire worlds for humanity's future.
But this—
The Master of Mankind weaving a gentle dream for a terrified child?
Guilliman felt something tighten in his chest.
Perhaps ten thousand years upon the Golden Throne had changed something.
Or perhaps this had always been there—buried beneath war and betrayal.
He gently adjusted the blanket around Eileen.
She murmured something in her sleep.
"…chocolate…"
A faint smile touched his lips.
He rose and moved to the door.
There, he paused.
His voice, when it came, was quiet.
"Good night, Father."
A breath.
"Good night… sister."
The blast door sealed.
Inside the chamber, golden warmth lingered.
Outside, the warship continued its passage through the screaming immaterium—
—but in one small room, the Warp held no dominion.