+ inload: Our Presence Remakes the Past +

Another? Well-met, Brother.

You have caught our us mired in memories. Arkhan had been regaling us with tales of Saturn. It had reminded me of a conversation with a fatalistic member of the First Legion during the closing stages of the Lunar Compliance – though we didn't call it that at the time, of course. We were both propped up in a field apothecarian, the atmosphere cyclers hissing to keep the cloudy tent inflated, he had talked of the Thunder Warriors. His words were matter-of-fact, but there was an odd tone or inflection. Mournful? Placid? It might merely have been his unfamiliar accent. It had been a short conversation, but I found myself thinking of it years later, when our Primarch was found at last.

For the best part of a decade, we waited impatiently, and all of a sudden, he was there. You remember. I see you do. We were met by, embraced by, and addressed by a statesman. He was a veteran; a hero. More than that; he was everything you and I had wished for in a leader and in a father.

We were Ultramarines now, fighting alongside an intake from Macragge, from Iax, from Espandor – beyond. They were bound together, and sought to bind us in – as brothers, of course – but there was something of an incompatibility. Nothing so great as to disbar us from the Legion, but nevertheless, a difficulty of integration. An uneasiness of spirit that drew us together with our own while they intermingled.

War-Born. War-bred. 

War inside and out leaves little room for compassion. 

...and thus it continued, unspoken. Even at our apogee, we were found somehow lacking. However reliable and well-tested we were, however exemplary – and however we uphold the ideals of our father and the Emperor, beloved-by-all, we are not the same as the Warrior-Kings of Ultramar. Like apex predators too far evolved down one breed-line to adapt, we are relegated to this appendix.

All of you. All of us. One by one, transferred, seconded, sidelined or outright expelled into the 22nd. Thus it is that we of the Old Legion find ourselves herded – not unwillingly – into a brotherhood outside a brotherhood. We are Terrans, to a man. 

So. Well-met, Brother. You are the last, I believe.

And now? Now we find ourselves dug inside this husk of a world we should love. And here, here at last, we can demonstrate the strength of Unity one last time. Pass me that rad-rifle. Buckle on your life-eaters. This isn't for Calth, or Macragge, or even home. Today, we go to underline the unkindness of fate. We go to spite those bastard Heralds. Today, we go to kill a dead world. 

It's back to the old ways, lads. Triumph, or death. Either way, bring honour to the Emperor, to Guilliman, to the Legion. Either way, keep the motto on your tongue as we make those words ring true one more time. Say it with me. 

Say it now. 

Our Presence Remakes the Past.