Iron Lions Log: Three Were One : PART II

[jbaeza94]

Everyone gets a helmet

[jbaeza94]

PART I: THREE WERE ONE

 

Three Bodies, One soul - Varneth

The ash stuck to everything. It clung to our boots, softened our steps, turned every movement into a whisper. But even then, we were loud in how we moved. Not in sound, but in intention.
We weren’t perfect. Not by technique. But we flowed. Vasik advanced like a storm surge, blunt and brutal. Every blow he made was one I didn’t have to. Maerik danced, not elegant, but deliberate. He never wasted a step. Never struck first. But the moment you lost your guard, he was already there.
I cut between them. Fast. Playful. Sometimes reckless. I was the flicker, the one who filled the gaps, confident they'd hold the line.
We didn’t talk about it. We didn’t analyze it. We just moved.
I don’t know who we were fighting. It doesn’t matter. They moved like individuals. We moved like muscle memory.
One formation. One will. Three bodies. One soul.
The fight ended as fast as it began. Vasik knocked the last one down hard... too hard, maybe. The poor neophyte bounced off the sparring field’s edge with a grunt and rolled onto his side. Before anyone else could react, I clapped my hands once, loud, and shouted,
"We’ll stitch his pride back up, too!"
Maerik snorted. Vasik shook his head and muttered something about me needing a muzzle. I just grinned, arms wide, ash clinging to my armor like paint. The sun was high and hot. The world was still gray with smoke and dust. But we laughed.
We laughed together, not for long, not loudly. But enough. Just enough to remind ourselves we were still alive, still together.
That kind of laughter... it stays in the bones. It’s the sound you remember long after the voices are gone.
But not every day was like that. Not every day let us fight side by side.
They split us once. Just for a day.
Said it was to test our individual strengths. I remember Maerik raised an eyebrow, and Vasik just shrugged. I didn’t say anything. We all obeyed, of course, we were still too young to question orders, and too proud to admit we hated the thought of it.
I trained with a different squad that day. Good fighters. Focused. Efficient. But none of them moved like Maerik. None of them held the line like Vasik. No one shouted my name when I got ahead of myself, and no one laughed when I tripped into a barrier because I wasn’t watching the field.
Everything worked, technically. My strikes landed. I hit my marks. But something was off, like training inside someone else’s armor. Like wearing your brother’s boots and pretending they fit.
The silence after drills felt louder. The meal tasted flat.
And for the first time, I realized something I didn’t know how to say:
Without them, I was still breathing... but half the rhythm was gone.
The next day, they put us back together. Nothing was said, no reason given. Just a nod, a lineup, and the three of us were back in formation. But I never forgot that day apart.
Afterward, we sat on the edge of the sparring field. Helmets off, sweat drying, ash still in our hair. We didn’t speak. We didn’t need to.
Maerik passed me his canteen. Vasik leaned back on one arm, watching the horizon like it might try something. I closed my eyes and listened to the silence, the good kind, the kind that only existed between us.
I don’t remember what that day’s training exercise was meant to teach. I don’t remember who landed the final strike, or how many points we earned, or what the instructor yelled at us afterward. But I remember how we moved. How the three of us circled and crashed and shifted without a word, like limbs of the same body. I remember the weight of Vasik’s shoulder brushing mine as we turned. The soft hiss of Maerik’s blade just inches from my arm, always precise, always trusted.
That rhythm. That rightness.
We were three. But we weren’t. Not really.
We were one.
And those first steps... they still echo in me, louder than any war cry since.

I Never Had to Look - Vasik
I don’t remember the name of the world. Might’ve been something with "Primaris" in it, or maybe a number. Doesn’t matter. It was dust. Rocks. Heat. A canyon with sharp drop-offs and wind that howled like it was in pain.
The enemy wasn’t impressive, fast, loud, overconfident. Thought they’d flank us from three ridgelines and cut our force off from the drop point.
They never got close.
We were sent as a forward element, a standard sweep operation. Three of us. No need for command vox or squad-wide coordination. Just the three who had trained together since they could walk upright in Astartes plate.
We moved without a word. Varneth was already sliding up the side slope before the vox even hissed. Maerik adjusted our formation without speaking, tightening the wedge, shifting our advance angle to trap the lead pack in a cross-pattern before they even realized they were spotted.
I kept the center. Shield up. Axe forward. That was always my place.
We didn’t call it strategy. We just knew what to do.
That’s the thing I remember most. Not the fight. Not the noise. Just the way we moved. I knew where they were before I looked. I knew their rhythm better than my own heartbeat.
And when the strike came, when the second wave burst from the ridge behind me, I didn’t turn.
I didn’t see the blade.
I heard it, maybe, somewhere behind my right flank. But I didn’t shift my footing. I didn’t check. I just kept swinging forward, one strike at a time.
Because I knew Maerik was there.
And he was.
His blade caught the attacker low, swept them off-balance. I felt the brush of movement behind my shoulder as he passed. I didn’t flinch.
Varneth came next, laughter in his voice as he drove the kill in deep.
I didn’t have to speak. Didn’t have to thank them. Didn’t even turn around.
We just kept moving.
That was the rhythm. That was the bond. Not because we trained it. Not because someone taught it.
Just... because it was true.
I always struck second. I always knew I could.
When it ended, we didn’t talk.
Maerik sat against a half-shattered rock, hands resting on the pommel of his blade, eyes closed, not sleeping, not praying. Just... still.
Varneth was wiping gore from his gauntlet using the edge of his own cloak. He said something. A joke, probably. His mouth moved like it was. But I didn’t catch it. Didn’t need to.
I just stood there for a while, axe resting against my boot, the weight of it settling deep into my arm. The wind had picked up again. The canyon below us was quiet. Still.
The three of us didn’t move for a long time.
That was how it was, sometimes. Not silence because we were tired. Not silence because we were angry. Just... the kind that came from knowing nothing needed to be said.
That was a good day. A quiet one. A day we’d forget in every way but one.
We were whole. We were exactly where we were supposed to be.
And I didn’t have to look to know that.
That day? It didn’t mean much. Just another patrol. Another fight. No medals. No names.
But I still think about it.
Because that was the day I knew, no matter where I stood, no matter how the lines shifted or how loud the war got...
I was never alone.
Not then. Not with them.
 

Words I Needed to Say - Maerik

He was staring at the names again.
The roll of the fallen, etched into cold stone across the Apothecarion wall. Varneth stood there longer than he needed to, his hand resting on the hilt of his scalpel like it was a relic instead of a tool.
He wasn’t praying. He wasn’t reflecting. He was... listening.
That’s when I knew. Not fully. Not with words. Just that feeling in the marrow of my bones that something had shifted. Like someone had stepped back from a fire, but left their shadow behind.
We weren’t neophytes anymore.
Varneth had taken the white, the scalpel, the rites, the silence. He bore the lives of others in his hands now, and he carried that burden with grace I never envied, only respected.
And I... I had been named Arbiter. Not a mere pathfinder of souls, but their guardian. The voice in the silence, the flame in the dark. The duty that watches even those you love most and holds them to truth.
I never told him I was proud. I thought he already knew.
Maybe he did. Maybe that’s why he looked away when he noticed I was watching.
It didn’t happen all at once.
Little things.
He stopped laughing first. Not entirely, but the kind that echoed, the kind that used to make even Vasik smirk, that was gone. Replaced with half-smiles, short exhales through his nose.
He stayed longer in the Apothecarion after drills. Said he had to restock or sanitize or finish reports. But when I passed the doorway, I saw him just sitting there sometimes. Not working. Not moving. Just... still.
He missed cues in our rhythm, minor things. A delayed nod. A strike that didn’t land with us. Not enough to draw comment. Enough to feel.
Once, Vasik threw an elbow at him during a lockup, half-playful, half correction. Varneth didn’t dodge. He didn’t react at all until it hit.
He blinked. Smiled like nothing happened.
I should have said something then. But I told myself it was fatigue. Or duty. Or... just life.
But it wasn’t. The space between us was growing. And I knew it. And still, I said nothing.
The Chapel was quiet. It always was.
I knelt before the Scales, not to ask for strength, but for clarity.
The Scales are not ornamental. Not to us. They are judgment. Balance. Truth. We don’t pray to them, we weigh ourselves against them.
And that day, I felt myself tilt.
“If you must take him,” I said, barely above a whisper, “let me not be blind when you do.”
The candles flickered. The censer’s smoke drifted across the tiles like fog.
I stayed there longer than I should’ve. Long enough for the ache in my knees to settle into the stone. Long enough for me to hope I was wrong.
But I wasn’t.
Because when I left the Chapel, I passed the infirmary again. And Varneth was still there. Sitting in the same place. Staring at the same wall.
And I didn’t go in.
There was a day, months before the signs, maybe years, when we sat and watched a storm break over the hills.
No drills. No patrols. Just stillness. A day between deployments. We remained in full armor, disciplined even in rest, but no one spoke of tactics. No one moved to break the silence.
The sky above was too clear at first, almost hollow. Then the clouds rolled in, thick, dark, alive. Lightning arced across the horizon, and thunder pressed itself into the stone beneath us like a slow heartbeat.
Varneth made a quiet joke. Said the storm looked like my temper and Vasik’s breath. Vasik replied with a low grunt that might’ve been amusement. I didn’t speak. I didn’t need to.
We weren’t analyzing. We weren’t training. We were just... together.
And it was enough.
That moment clings harder than any sermon I’ve ever given. It was the last time I can remember when none of us were being anything but brothers.
No command. No watch. Just the sky, and the sound of breathing that didn’t feel heavy.
And now I wonder if Varneth already felt it then, the pull, the quiet whisper of the Vault.
And if he did… Why didn’t I?
Moments when we were alone. When I could’ve asked what he was thinking. When I could’ve told him I was afraid. That I saw him changing. That I didn’t want to lose the shape we had always moved in.
But I held back.
I told myself it wasn’t the right time. That he would speak when he was ready. That whatever was pulling him inward would pass.
I was the Arbiter. I was supposed to guard their spirits. I was supposed to feel the weight shift before it cracked the stone.
And still, I let the silence settle.
I loved him, not with the love of duty or oath, but with the love of a brother born of my blood, shaped in the same womb, carried through the same rites and fires.
I thought he knew. I thought that knowing would be enough.
But truth unspoken does not echo.
There were no words. But I should’ve found some anyway.

Edited 17 hours ago by jbaeza94

[jbaeza94]

PART II: ONE WAS CALLED

 

Stillness in My Hands - Varneth
It started with a name.
I woke before morning bell, the air still heavy, the lights still dim. I said it aloud without meaning to, just one name. A brother I hadn’t thought about in years.
He died on Khareth's Reach. A clean death. Instant. No cry for help, no pain. One of the ones we always said "went well."
I remembered the way his fingers curled when he gripped his bolter. I remembered the scar above his brow. But I didn’t remember his name, not until I said it.
And then I heard another. And another.
Every night after, I heard them. Not voices exactly. Just... names. Not shouted. Not whispered. Not spoken in grief. Just said.
Over and over.
Not all at once. Not in a flood. Just one at a time. Steady. Like a heartbeat in reverse.
I used to have tremors in my fingers. Nothing that broke my work, just a slight jitter before a stitch, a breath before a seal. It kept me sharp. Reminded me I was alive.
But now... nothing.
My hands were still. Not steady, still. As if even my body knew it no longer needed to chase the moment. As if something deeper had already accepted where I was going.
I watched them once, during morning rites, palms open over the sterilizer’s glow. I flexed them slowly. No twitch. No tremble.
It felt wrong. Not broken. Not diseased. Just... quiet.
I didn’t tell anyone. What could I say? That I missed the shake? That the silence in my hands felt louder than any battlefield scream?
There was no diagnosis. No injury. But something inside me had stilled. And I already knew it wouldn’t return.
We were in the Chapel corridor. The three of us. Not armored, just robes. An evening after sparring. The kind of quiet we used to fall into without effort.
Maerik walked at my side. Vasik just behind. I almost spoke.
Just a word. A question. Anything. "Do you hear them?" "Have your hands changed too?" "Will you follow me if I go too far?"
But I said nothing.
Not because I didn’t trust them. Not because I wanted to carry it alone.
I think I didn’t speak... because I didn’t want to see the look on their faces.
I didn’t want to make it real.
The silence was easier. And once I chose it, it grew stronger.
After that, I started walking behind them more often.
I kept thinking the fear would come. That one night I would wake choking on it. That I would claw at the sheets, deny the names, scream until I broke the silence.
But it never came.
No dread. No protest. Just the slow, steady erosion of urgency.
I still trained. I still tended the wounded. I still listened when Maerik spoke of fire and balance, when Vasik clashed shields with younger brothers. But I was no longer part of the rhythm.
Not truly.
The Calling isn’t a command. It’s not a voice in the dark or a dream that drives you to your knees.
It’s a stillness that settles in the heart. A silence that asks no question, because it already knows the answer.
And I... accepted it. Quietly. Completely. Without glory or pain.
I didn’t want it. But I didn’t run from it either.
I simply began to walk toward it.
That night, I returned to the Apothecarion after hours.
No injuries. No summons. No reason anyone would question it.
I cleaned my station. Not just the surface, everything. The clamps, the lenses, the diagnostic interfaces. Every drawer set to alignment. Every vial labeled in fresh script.
Then I unrolled the cloth that held my instruments.
One by one, I laid them out. Not for use. Not for display. Just to feel them in place, right, for what might be the last time.
The scalpel. The sealant wand. The extractor. The bone-stitch.
And last, the preservation blade. The one used only when there is no saving what remains.
I set it down last. Centered it. Turned it parallel.
Then I folded the cloth over them again.
Nothing written. Nothing said.
Just an order left behind. For whoever comes next.
I didn’t cry. I didn’t pray.
But I whispered a name I knew I’d hear soon.
Not my own.
Vasik.
And after a long moment, I whispered the second.
Maerik.
 
He Looked Away - Maerik
It wasn’t in the way he moved. Not at first.
Varneth was always precise. Always where he needed to be. But one day, during a simple inspection, I said his name, and he didn’t turn.
He heard me. I know he did. His head tilted slightly. His fingers paused over the clasp he was adjusting. But he didn’t look at me.
That was the first time.
There wasn’t defiance in it. No distance, even. Just... absence. Like part of him had already taken a step away.
I thought it was distraction. Then I hoped it was fatigue.
But I felt the edge of it in my chest. A pressure behind the ribs. And I knew. Not with words. Not with reason. I knew.
The Calling had touched him. And worse, I could hear it too.
Not clearly. Not in full. But enough. Just enough to feel the echo.
It was not mine. But it passed through me because I am part of him. Because we were born together. Because some cords don’t sever until one has already started to slip away.
I started visiting the Chapel more often. Not during the rites. Not when the others gathered. Alone. In the quiet between bells, when the incense was cold and the flames burned low.
I knelt at the Scales. Not as an Arbiter. Not to weigh another soul.
I prayed as a brother. Not for courage. Not for clarity. But for delay.
"Not yet." That’s all I ever said.
"Not yet."
Sometimes I stayed for hours. Until the stone beneath my knees left bruises. Until the ache crept into my bones and I could almost pretend the pain was for him.
But it never was. It was mine. Because I knew what was coming. And I couldn’t stop it.
The fracture hadn’t come yet. But I could feel the line forming.
And no prayer, no matter how often whispered, can seal a stone already beginning to crack.
Vasik watches him too. I’ve seen it.
He doesn’t say anything. That’s not his way. But I’ve seen the way his eyes linger a half-second longer when Varneth walks past. The way his jaw tightens when Varneth forgets to return a word. A gesture. A laugh.
He knows something is changing. He just doesn’t know what.
I caught him staring once, after drills. Varneth had already left the field. Vasik remained, arms folded, still in armor, watching the corridor long after his brother was gone.
I asked nothing. He said nothing.
But in that silence, I understood. He could feel the fracture forming.
Not the shape of it. Not the reason. But he could feel the weight shifting beneath our feet.
I almost spoke. Almost told him.
But I didn’t. Because it wasn’t time.
Because Varneth hadn’t said it aloud. And until he did, we were supposed to pretend we didn’t know.
That’s the cruelty of love between brothers. You feel the loss before it comes. And you carry it quietly, because to say it would make it real.
I waited for the denial. For the fire in my chest. For the weight of resistance. For the stubborn spark that would tell me I could stop it.
But it never came.
Just the quiet. The steady, settling truth that Varneth was already turning away from us. Not in anger. Not in sorrow. Just... turning.
I began to pray differently after that. I stopped asking for time. I started asking for peace.
I watched Vasik more closely. Not because I feared he’d break. But because I knew, when the moment came, he’d feel it sharper than either of us.
He’d carry the weight with his hands, like he always had. And he’d do it in silence. The kind that would wound.
And I... I had to be the one who stayed whole.
Because someone had to speak when the silence swallowed Varneth. Someone had to remain behind and name what was lost.
And I already knew: It would not be Varneth. It would not be Vasik.
It would be me.
 
I Hear the Names Too - Vasik
It was a clean strike. My form didn’t break. The blade didn’t slip. But when I stepped through, they weren’t where they were supposed to be.
Varneth had lagged behind a pace. Maerik had shifted wide.
Just a moment. Just a breath of mist where there should’ve been clarity. But I felt it.
We weren’t off by much. No one would’ve noticed. Not the others. Not the instructors. Not even the enemy.
But I noticed.
We had trained together since we could lift training axes. Slept shoulder-to-shoulder on the stone. Bled into the same dust. We moved like a single strike.
And this time, we didn’t.
I thought it was fatigue. Or maybe a missed cue. Nothing serious. Nothing that couldn’t be corrected.
But then it happened again. A day later. A drill. A delay. A pause before Varneth raised his hand. A look from Maerik I couldn’t read.
I didn’t say anything. Because if I said it aloud, it might become real.
The first name came in the middle of sparring. Not shouted. Not whispered. Just there.
It was inside my helmet. In the quiet between my breath and the next strike. One name. A brother long gone.
I hadn’t thought about him in years. I didn’t even remember the battle until later. Just the name, clear as steel, sharp as the moment he fell.
I missed a step. Just one. Varneth covered for it without saying a word.
I shook it off. Blamed the heat. The weight of the armor. The noise of drills in the next hall.
Then came the second name. And the third.
Not in dreams. Not in visions. Just names. Quiet. Certain. Like someone reading them from a list I wasn’t meant to hear.
I didn’t tell Maerik. I didn’t tell Varneth.
I told myself it was nothing. And I believed that, for a little while.
The breach was small. A single corridor. Four hostiles, maybe five. We had cleared worse together without drawing breath.
I took point. Maerik called the angle. Varneth moved behind me.
It should’ve been perfect.
But the angle was wrong. Varneth didn’t take the opening. Maerik didn’t push the flank. I had to shift early, too early. My shield caught a blade meant for him.
I didn’t look back. Didn’t say a word.
We finished it. Quick. Brutal. Efficient. But it wasn’t right.
Afterward, we regrouped outside the breach. Just a quiet hallway. No enemy left. Just breath and the buzz of still-burning adrenaline.
I turned to Varneth. Not angry. Just... off. Waiting for him to say something. To nod. To offer the nod he always did.
But he didn’t.
He looked at me, then at Maerik.
And he said, "I hear their names too."
That was all. Like he was admitting to a dream. Or a wound that hadn’t started bleeding yet.
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t.
Because I knew.
And I think a part of me had known long before he said it.
The words hung in the air longer than they should have. Not heavy. Just final.
I turned to Maerik. Not for confirmation, just to see if he was hearing what I was.
He didn’t look surprised. He didn’t even blink.
He just said, “The Vault is calling him.”
Like it was fact. Like it had already happened.
I didn’t know what that meant. Not fully. But Maerik did. He said it the way a judge pronounces a sentence. Not with anger. Not with grief. Just certainty.
And in that moment, I knew something else too: This wasn’t a sickness. It wasn’t a curse. It was a path.
One that didn’t have room for three.
I didn’t ask what it meant.
I should have. I think part of me wanted to. Maybe needed to.
But instead I stood there, between them, silent. Like if I didn’t move, none of this could change.
The Vault. A Calling. Words that meant nothing to me.
But they meant everything to Maerik. And Varneth.
I didn’t know what they meant. I wish I knew sooner.