Ruination

''Well, they *say* that they don’t fall to Chaos, but all traitors eventually do. Dorn would not, too stubborn, but he would slowly watch his legion become corrupted and fractured over the millennia until he sits alone, the last uncorrupted Imperial Fist, upon an empty phalanx.''

>Drip, drip, drip
>A leaking pipe somewhere within Phalanx’s guts was quite easy to hear
>There were many leaking pipes these days
>Too many for the few remaining serfs to repair
>And no marines left to recruit more
>Rogal Dorn, primarch of the Imperial Fists, mused on this as he sat on his throne, alone in his cavernous chamber
>He would have to fix that pipe himself
>Fixing things was a small joy he could feel from time to time, although oft crushed by the knowledge that things were broken because the repairman had left
>When he had turned traitor, he had declared that none of his sons would fraternize with those corrupted by chaos
>But then, sometimes, he was forced to fight alongside Mortica, and his marines would fall ill, only to recover with unnatural speed and have their skin begin to rot inside their armor
>Dorn excized these tumors on the legion
>But then his librarians cornered by loyalists, summoned daemons to their aid
>And so he banished them
>And his assault marines would lose themselves to bloodlust, and be sent away
>And his bikers, bored of his attitude, would leave to seek higher glories
>And on and on
>Until finally, the Primarch sat alone
>He did not send the last away
>His first captain left in disgust
>And Dorn was alone

>sometimes he thought it was a nightmare
>and that he’d awaken soon to a still whole imperium
>and all would be as well as it ever was again
>and he would be receiving the orders to build his fathers palace
>instead of sitting over blueprints for his own tomb

“Brudda, why is it you sit alone in these darkened halls?”

>Dorn did not even lift his gaze towards the voice of his brother Vulcan
“I do not leave because it is a tomb, you apparition. It is my tomb, and the tomb of my legion, it’s legacy and name defiled.”

“There is still life in these halls. Yours.”

“Then I am a walking corpse, and even Morticia’s rotting flesh is more pleasing to the eye then my own visage. Leave me be. I will defend this tomb until all else ends, and continue defending it after that.”

>Vulkan shook his head and left. It was the third time he had tried to reason with his brother, and the third time Dorn had not even met his eye.