40k

The world goes quiet and warm.I am dying, he thinks, I have failed and there will be nothing left, nothing but ash and hungering darkness.Something within him dims, fluttering to nothing like a flame fading to cold embers.He tries to raise his sword.He is falling_He was_ running the ashes of a dead world through his fingers.

These things were in the past now, many long years ago, though the memory remained as solid and present as his heartbeats. Time's passage had made the events seem almost crazed, hyper-real, stretched across a surreal dreamscape that felt more like a skjald's embellished saga than the intact past. Perhaps it had not happened like that. Perhaps the Lion had taken his Stormbirds to the Tyrant's fortress, and he himself had teleported in. Perhaps it had not been Ogvai there, but Gunn, or someone else. Had Bjorn been there too? It was a long time ago, so doubtful, but Bjorn seemed to always have been there, right from the start, just waiting for his time to come to maturity.

Perhaps everything you say is true and these are the death throes of the human race, but even if that was true, I would not lose faith. There must be hope, and I must fight for my Emperor against Chaos and it's servants. That is insanity.Wrong, it's being human.