The Lost and the damned

[greyerrant]

Who: Garviel and you!
What: Being sad, sparring, Eating, Gardening
Where: Rig Gardens, Top of the Rig, Cafeteria, Gym depending on prompt
When: Post Babadon't
Warnings/Notes: Will add if they become necessary



Prompt one: Garviel is eating in the Cafeteria. There are plenty of seats nearby as he consumes the best slop Jorgmund has seen fit to send his way as nutrients. He doesn't appear to be enjoying it, just scowling and it gamely. He is approachable enough, and seems ready to talk if someone were to approach.

Prompt two: Loken is doing sword forms in the Gym, 3 blades lying out and ready for use, his chainsword, which is exactly what you might think, an oversized sword with chainsaw blades which he cycles doing his practice, a Power sword, which is a large two-handed weapon with crackling energy pouring off it once activated, and a gladius force sword, which has intricate circuitry which doesn't do much as he continues close combat forms with it, a lot more punching, stabbing, and shorter cuts than the other two heavier blades.

Prompt three: Loken is breaking a sweat in the Gardens, planting a few columbine plants as he continues to dig and transfer them from pots, covered in sweat and with cut-down overalls that barely contain his too large to be human form as he labors mightily to create a little ephemeral beauty in a sad, ugly world.

Prompt four: Garvi is on the top of the rig at night, bundled up in his best attempt at clothes that fit him that are mostly just other people's stuff sewn together in a sort of cloak. He'd probably look a lot more badass in his actual war plate but Jorgmund has got that locked up, as usual. He stares off into the distance as the below-freezing cold hits him, sternly refusing to acknowledge the cold beyond his clothing. It's like a contest between him and the weather. Or maybe he's just dramatic and likes to stand outside at night on top of large buildings. He watches the Helipad and seems to be occasionally looking over the rig and taking note of -where- things are. Like he's planning an assault, or an Exfiltration.

Comments

[hallelujahjunction]

That's vaguely horrifying to Dan, but he supposes it's like an extreme version of his parents raising him and his siblings as a little militia.

"How youth is 'youth'?"

[greyerrant]

"Implantation process normally begins in early teens. As puberty progresses, the body becomes less inclined to accept the implants and wastage increases." He frowns, "I have been told Lord Russ' personal hearthguard were implanted and brought to full Astartes as adults, though a commensurately large amount of them did not survive the enhancement process. That was their choice, however, and risked their lives out of loyalty to the only lord they had ever known."

He makes a vague gesture, as if dismissing that for the moment. "I am given to understand I was a young teenaged ganger before my recruitment. A kill ganger, to be precise. Loyal only to my own. But I was given a nobler destiny, for which I am grateful." He would have been a hundred years dead were it not for becoming Astartes, so in his mind it is a fair trade.

[hallelujahjunction]

Dan goes back to feeling horrified, although he does his best to hide it behind a cough. The question of consent is so murky when it comes to young people, and he can't help but think that turning anyone into a better weapon is presumptively horrific territory.

He tries to remind himself that when he first learned to use a gun, he had only just gotten to the age of speaking sentences. His parents had to help him hold the gun up because it was too heavy for his toddler hands.

"Kill ganger would be like a gang member in my world, right? Young person in an illicit group pitting themselves against others for lucrative territory?"

[greyerrant]

"My memories are blurred. We forget most of what we were before the conditioning, but that is the general idea, yes. Cthonia did not or does not have much in the way of licit activity, being a mined-out world. Just large cities with very little in the way of resources or hope." He shakes his head. "It was a hard existence, from what I remember. While being a soldier is harsh in a different way, we were never poorly resourced, at least."

[hallelujahjunction]

And mind-wiping, too. Everything about this sounds terrible. Dan clears his throat again, still tasting the morning cigarette.

"Armies wouldn't recruit a tenth as many if they didn't have resources to offer folks desperate for it."

[greyerrant]

"Likely not. But if you asked me again if I would choose killing in an alley for my own survival, or fighting for humanity more generally, despite the price to myself and despite what it all became, I think I would still join the intake. I wonder what peace would have been like for me. Maybe I would have been a gardener." He holds up his hands, lightly scarred from surgeries and more deeply scarred from battle. "That would have been an interesting use to put these hands to"