unfinishedooc | TEST DRIVE MEME #2

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TEST DRIVE MEME #2

Welcome to the Library

Those who are new awake in the stacks.

You’re not sure when you fell asleep, and the memories of the last things you were doing are hazy at best. But now you’re here, and all you can see is books in every direction, the bookshelves teetering high enough above you to reach to the sky.

A helpful sign points you in the direction of the main circulation desk, and even if you try to ignore it and go in any other direction, the desk is where you will find yourself. A figure sits behind the desk, not even looking up as they sort through books and other media; they look, to your character, to be the exact picture of what they expect a Librarian to be.

Trying to ask the Librarian a question will get them shushed, but they’ll point down a hallway to the side, leading to a kitchenette and what appears to be a dorm room, where they’ll find they’re not alone in this strange place. But once they’ve looked away, when they look back, the Librarian is gone.

The Lobby

Those who are already familiar with the Library will see the Lobby change for the second time. It’s not paper plate UFOs and metal walls this time. Instead there are cheerful garlands strung about, and a stack of books shaped into a Christmas tree taking pride of place. The Help Desk is closed, the ‘Back in 5’ sign once again a bald-faced lie, but there is a menorah sat behind in the window, conveniently just out of reach of anyone who tries to get it. The candles are lit in a… somewhat sporadic fashion, the correct order but with no rhyme or reason to what ‘night’ is being represented. Either time is strange here, whoever’s in charge of it doesn’t know what day it is either, or they simply don’t care. Or some mix of the three.

Those two particular winter holidays are not the only ones represented either; characters will find a smattering of decorations or festive accessories from a great number of holidays, from their own worlds and beyond. There is what looks like a cabinet with instructions to pick your fortune from one of the many drawers. For some reason, there are a number of what looks like a child’s toy ponies placed on and around the cabinet. There are also some posters declaring in bold, decidedly upsetting typeset: “THE GOD-EMPEROR WISHES YOU A FESTIVE SANGUINALIA!” complete with a picture of a certain Library resident in all his feathered, shining glory. (The poster is not remotely shiny, but there are helpful accent lines to show that he should be shining.) And, for some reason, there is also a giant straw goat in the garden now, surrounded by festive strings of lights. Please do not set it on fire.

The Kitchens

It seems the decorations are not the only thing in the holiday spirit. The kitchens, usually bereft of anything but the most basic foodstuffs, are now full to the brim with a variety of holiday foods. There is always a tureen with hot mulled wine and a try of sweet pastries near by it, there’s ham and latkes in the fridge to be heated up, jelly doughnuts, moon cakes, pies, and an assortment of other delicious things. If your character would expect to find a certain thing within the stash, they do, regardless of how niche it may be. Christmas chili? Of course there’s christmas chili!

Oh, and that mulled wine isn’t the only alcohol around either- champagne, sake, hard cider… again, anything anyone might expect to find. Just try not to overdo it too much, alright? Everyone still has to sleep in the same room, and the Assistants aren’t going to show up to hold your hair back.

Crafts and More

What good are holidays without crafts? The Maker’s Space has been specially supplied with anything you might need to make your festive crafts- this includes everything you’d need for a gingerbread construction! (You’d think this would be in the kitchen, but don’t kid yourself- those things are not for eating.) There’s strips of colorful paper rings and instructions on how to make your own, little things of clay and paint and directions on how to craft your own dreidel, ’stained glass’ paper lanterns, and more. Oh, and glitter. Obviously there is a lot of glitter available.

There are also snow globe kits, mostly generic winter themes- trees, presents, and the like. Strangely enough, however, when they’re complete and shaken, they’ll show a memory from the person who shook it- a memory of a holiday, or snow, or generally something that invokes the feeling of the season- light, and hope, and togetherness. It’s fragmented, almost stop-motion in between the falling bits of ‘snow,’ but once it has settled the normal, basic scene inside returns.

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A rough chuckle. "Throne, please. Don't put that on me." But it's already too late, Guilliman knows. He shakes his head, a tired smile lingering, then pulling into a more apologetic look. He really should have known better. He should have been better.

"At times. The snake poisoned the blade. My armour had managed the effects, but --" he gestures down at himself, in casual Macraggian garb. "There are parts that came with me, but only enough for a field solution, not an ideal one. I will have to adapt," he shrugs.

An echoing laugh that fades a little too fast. "Brother, I would not put that weight upon you." It was enough to ask after the survival of his sons. He knows he dies, and he sees glimpses enough of it to not want to burden Guilliman with having to speak the words, if it had already come to pass. "I will ask no more of you about that." Though he's burning with questions, what matters is that another of his brothers is here and together, they might puzzle their way out of things.

"Adaptation is what we are all forced to do in the great work. Let me know how I could ease your burden of it." He does reach forward to touch the edge of the scar, but feather gently, as if he could take the pain of it away. "It takes a great deal to scar our kind."

"It was by luck alone that it was not fatal. As it stands, I was in stasis for far too long, until a remedy was devised. I should have known better, truly." At this point, would Sanguinius have known -- no, he didn't think so. Damn. "If any more of us show, I will start wanting to brief you on who to be wary of, if Curze has not already done so. Even if they have not yet turned -- and may not, whatever he insists -- you should be aware. But I will not force the knowledge on you."

Not on top of the burdens Sanguinius already bears. Not until it is necessary.

"The only request I will make is that if an Archmagos Belisarius Cawl finds his way here, I should be alerted at once. He is a brilliant man -- he is the reason I am not still at the edge of death -- but he requires supervision."

'Luck' seems an odd word to use in circumstances that looked like they had caused Guilliman a great deal of suffering. "I am sorry for what you have endured." They were primarchs, and their duty involved a great many difficult things, but the thought of lying in stasis, in agony, unable to act or think...unbearable.

"Wary of?" It's not quite as bright-eyed innocent as it appeared, because he had his own concerns. "Brother. Is. Is the Warmaster to be trusted?" Horus, who had sent Sanguinius, his own beloved brother, and his Legion to die on Signus--there was no other way to construe the words of the 'daemons'. It feels like disloyalty to even ask the question. Horus, chosen by their Father himself, above them all.

No, surely not. Sanguinius shakes his head. "I'm sorry for that...unworthy question."

But he files the name away, and the title. That was a Martian title. "Do the Martians betray us?"

His face falls, at Sanguinius's question.

"You didn't know." Didn't take long for him to make his first misstep, did it? At least this, his brother certainly did need to know. But he'll need to be more careful in the future.

"I did not know how much you knew, yet. But I assumed that much. He cannot. Horus has turned on the Imperium, and the Emperor. And he will not be alone. Cawl is not a concern, or related to any of the rest of it," he adds, though it feels ridiculous for that statement to follow such a grave blow.

"No_ooo" the word comes out breathy. It's not that he's arguing with Guilliman, it's that it's too momentous, too much to take in at once. "I had thought he was just..." Just against Sanguinius, trying to eliminate his Legion due to the geneflaw he had discovered.

There's a sudden dizziness that strikes him, like deja vu. He had...seen this, somehow.

He's boiling with questions, but he sees how much it pains his brother to even speak of this. If it were any other than Rouboute, he would think it a bitter joke, but Guilliman did not jest. Not like this. "But you have survived it." Which means, he decides, the Imperium has survived. "We must be here, in this place, to share this knowledge for a reason."

"I'm sorry," Guilliman repeats. Has he become a new harbinger of doom, following in their cursed brother's footsteps? No. He has to believe otherwise.

"I hope so. I will not believe that your future cannot be changed." A sigh. "Konrad disagrees. I expect that argument shall be ongoing. But I have more sympathy for him now, having lived what he has seen."

Guilliman isn't the harbinger of Sanguinius's death. He's had the haunting ghost of it for years now. Guilliman could not change the inevitable. "You need not apologize for the truth, or for living."

"Konrad is...very set in his thinking." Said wearily. He has already had some run ins, head first, into Curze's stubbornness. "But I would hold some of my sympathy in reserve." Because he, too, has seen Curze in action, and the pleasure, the raw naked pleasure he took, in tormenting Sanguinius...he had not yet shaken off.

"Sympathy, not exculpation," he qualifies, with a half-second's prickle of annoyance before he reminds himself that Sanguinius does not yet know the full scope of his brother's crimes, and especially what he did to his realm.

(Their realm? Technically? At the time? Ugh.)

"Even with the nonsense since my waking, I have not borne the burden of the psyker's gift. It is not a practical I had ever anticipated. I still need to work through the logistics to my satisfaction. I do not wish to mishandle this, or cause unnecessary pain."

Edited 2026-01-02 02:50 (UTC)

"He has already drawn the ire and sanction of this place." Which is a good thing: there's now some sort of braking system on Curze, but also a bad thing: this place can do that. It was information Guilliman might need to know, though if there was a Primarch less likely than Sanguinius to enact unsanctioned violence, it would be Rouboute.

"I have...been given means to discover when next he has one of his states." Sanguinius gestures toward the small drone, the size of a human's palm, loitering behind him. He is clearly unhappy with this development.

"Take all the time you need, brother. And if I can assist, please let me." If nothing else, Sanguinius could show him around the place.

"He had mentioned the power of those he called assistants, but not the details, or how he knew of it. He lashed out, and experienced some consequence for his actions, I assume?" To be burdened with responsibility for Curze was not something that he envied, of course. But it was far preferable to the alternative. "He ran riot on Macragge for a time. An absolute nightmare."

He looks the drone over, comparing its appearance to various technologies he was familiar with. "Is it merely technology, or also warpcraft? Is he otherwise restricted?"

"He shared very little detail with me, as well." Which in Sanguinius's mind, meant it was all just too awful to manage. Though his own meeting with the Assistant Librarians had been cordial enough. But then again, he had asked for it. "But he did not lash out in anger. Rather he had some sort of...fit or fugue. Hence," a wave of the hand at the drone. "The need for this. To keep others away, but to signal me to assist."

How he can assist other than being too damn hard for Curze to kill? No idea, but being too damn tough to kill has gotten him rather far in life.

"How was this tolerated?" To Macragge? He has seen Curze's legion in action and while his own sons are savage and sometimes difficult to control (Nassir Amit), Curze's were dangerous. "By what grounds did he claim the right to attack another Primarch's sovereign territory?" That's an affront to kinship and brotherhood.

So was what Horus had done to his Legion, but at least Sanguinius could see the logic behind it. It didn't make it acceptable precedent.

"It appears to be technological. The SecUnit one, I believe, is an Abominable Intelligence. I tried to talk Curze out of cooperating with it for that reason, but my objections fell on deaf ears." Guilliman probably could figure that out. Arguing with Curze was like yelling down a well sometimes.

"We did bring him to heel eventually. I will not go into the details -- that will reveal too much." He waves a hand, avoiding a painful, humiliating story with just a few, technically correct words. "But it had gone well beyond 'right' by that point."

How much can he even elaborate on that? In general, and about Kurze's madness specifically? He had never known the man well enough to comprehend exactly how far he'd fallen.

"I have seen the xenos, some of them. And there are Abominable Intelligences as well?" A den of heresies, this. (Pay no attention to the nightmare that Cawl keeps on his flagship. That's different.) "I suppose I should expect followers of the powers as well, throne. That, I will need to brief you on," he adds, with a frown. "At least for you to know what to avoid."

He will not leave them defenseless here. Not like their Father did.

"Of course." He reaches forward to rest a hand on Guilliman's shoulder, in some mute gesture of comfort. It would be painful to retell: he did not need to know more. His curiosity was nothing compared to Guilliman's pain.

"I cannot imagine the pain you must have felt, having to fight one of your own brothers." He almost shudders to think of it, his wings pressing tightly against his back. "And your poor people." He had sworn to protect the people of Baal. He knew Guilliman felt deeply about his own planet, where he was raised, a gentler land than Baal Secundus.

"There is one that looks human. But it is not. It is the one that controls these...drone devices." That was the only one he knew of. But that didn't mean there weren't more. "I will accept whatever knowledge you feel is important. Especially if it helps us solve the mystery of this place."

"I want to tell you," escapes him. It is weakness, to be sure. But it is his brother, and he has been alone for so long. "Throne. All of it. But I want it to be right."

He runs a hand through his hair -- a sad ash-blond, streaked with white and grey. "I can at least warn you of the bastard four, before anything else. I will need paper, and a way to burn it after. Or otherwise make certain it is gone. There can be no trace for others to see." His expression is deep and earnestly haunted. This risk is true and honest and real.

"A burden shared is a burden halved, dear brother." He does not want to distress Guilliman by these shades of his past, but if it would help ease his mind, Sanguinius would gladly listen. It was the least he could do.

"The Librarians' desk has these implements. There are ways to destroy things as well. The place, though, is not kindly to fire." Being mostly paper books.

And all of the burdens that then result from the sharing? he thinks, but only hums.

"Fire is not required. But a way to destroy the material after, yes. It should not be known beyond a select few. What else is not acceptable behavior?"

If Guilliman can bear it, so can Sanguinius. He would rather suffer than feel the pain of someone suffering alone. If Guilliman could not let down his guard around Sanguinius, then who?

"We shall find a way to destroy it." He can get creative. "We are not allowed to damage the Library or its contents. Even these," he gestures to the embarrassing poster advertising the obviously-fake holiday of Sanguinala. "If you tear them down, they reappear. But books are warded more strongly." As his Librarians told him was important--some arcane tomes were so dangerous that even to look at them brought madness. The protections on the books here just made sense. "We are also not permitted to harm each other. And that is where our brother went awry."

Roboute had never been the most expressive of his brothers -- he was always distant, endlessly busy. It had been easy, once, to mistake it for high-mindedness, the Thirteenth simply thinking he was better than the rest of them. But this exhausted, halfway-broken man... he had embraced Sanguinius so eagerly, remembering things that this version did not yet know.

And yet, now, he hesitated. But not for his own sake.

"I see. Sensible library conduct, all. I do not require a book. Merely enough scrap paper to put down the signs, only long enough for you to know them. The knowledge cannot go any further than it absolutely must."

"We can find some paper by the Assistant Librarian's desk." That's one option. Scraps of paper and those little things called 'golf pencils'. He gestures for his brother to follow, stopping after a few steps to turn and face him.

"If it is really as fearsome as you say, you could simply trace the symbols on my hand." There would be no need to destroy anything that way.

"No." His response is immediate, and emphatic. It takes a second for his good sense to catch up.

"...I must sound paranoid. I know. Or unwell. But I have seen terrible things. I will tell you what I can. Paper will do." A nod. Please, continue to lead him?

The 'no' is so sudden that Sanguinius's wings flick with surprise. It had seemed a reasonable solution to him.

But he does not question. Because he's seen some...also terrible things. "I understand." At least he understands enough, and he guides his brother to the desk with the phone for the Assistant Librarians. It's very easy at his height to bend over the desk, rifling for office supplies.

Roboute follows, though he seems increasingly, quietly stressed. How to explain? How to start? He is overthinking.

"You have clashed at least once with daemons," he says softly, as Sanguinius looks for paper and pencil. "I need to show you five. Enough paper for that." He continues, "I ask you to believe me, as I tell you their substance, and their masters. These are the things that have stolen our brothers."

Guilliman always overthought. It was better, perhaps, than Sanguinius, who too often plunged into danger and left the thinking until later, more times than he cared to admit.

There's a flare of concern, before he remembers. Of course. Guilliman is from much, much later than he was. Of course he must have found out about Signus.

Saguinius wasn't sure if this was a relief or not. One less thing to have to explain. "They have stolen our brothers?" He could easily imagine it, though he still had no idea of the plans of Kyriss and Ka'Bandha, beyond the dripping monstrosity that had once been Meros. "Surely we are launching rescue missions, yes?" SURELY.

"No. Sanguinius." This time it is gentle, mournful, but determined. This, then, is the point of no return. The cruel truth he must force upon his brother. "They have turned them traitor. Turned them against the Imperium and mankind. Not all of them. But more than just Horus."

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