Guardian of Dreams
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The universe of Warhammer 40,000 was already heady stuff for a grownup, and mind-warping to a little boy. For most people it should have remained clear, even to the worst obsessive fan, as nothing more than entertainment. It was all just some crass commercial product, not to be taken seriously.
Even the people who went around professing faith and calling other people heretics were doing it for fun. It was very fun to pretend.
Shinji was determined to puzzle it out. Not only was it his first exposure to in-depth creative entertainment, but of science fiction as well. It was a world of excitement and purpose far beyond his daily life, and Shinji was in elementary school; far too soon for chuunibiyou/middle-school syndrome. It was perfectly fine for young children to be deluded about the difference between media and reality.
Everything else he could see he began to link to Warhammer somehow. His childish daydreams involved hunting for xenos, Titans in the bushes, the sky above seemingly higher and bluer with the knowledge that beyond that might be alien worlds like the stories. His uncle grew hooked as well and soon put the books on prized display over at his desk. Armed with dictionaries the two slowly figured out the mechanics of the game.
Laughter rang in that house, for the first time in many years.
"Filthy xeno! You will be cleansed from this planet!" the office worker screamed in badly accented English. "In the name of the Emperor!"
"Waaaagh!" retorted Shinji, pushing a tray full of orkish figures and paper cut-outs to stand for missing pieces. It had gotten to the point that the two would not talk to each other except in English. And in this martial combative style.
His wife hated it. She hated the ugly, warlike setting. She hated the way they laid claim to the kitchen and sections of the living room as battlefield. Most of all she hated how her husband was treating the boy as a replacement for her son. He was forgetting who it was that he owed his love to. She hated how she was being cast aside, in their rapid exchanges in a language she was not really all that familiar with.
"You're Japanese!" she screeched. "At least speak that in this house!" /Nihonto/, to be exact. It was as if they were making fun of her ignorance.
They were taking her for granted. She had to clean up after them, and they would get annoyed if she did anything that might damage their toys? She expected more from her husband, he should act according to his age!
They should... they should remember... that there were more important things in life.
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One day, while they were away, she took and stuffed all the figurines into a sack. Space Marine and Land Raider, Ork mobs by the whole, Eldar so spindly and fragile, and the horrific Chaos specially… into the bag, out the door. She had to get it all out of the house, she had to take back her life.
Shinji arrived, smiling and polite. He noticed their absence. He looked frantically about, making noises, leaving messes. She snapped at him, told him to do his homework. With such accusing eyes, he looked at her, and he ran upstairs to get it all done.
All too soon he was back down, gasping for breath. He stood there clutching his notebooks and waiting, as she sat by the table and cradled her face in her hands. Minutes inched by, in silence, perhaps she hoped he would go away. Shinji's little body shook, but he stood there, as long as it would take. He did not dare to poke her and see if she was asleep.
"It's gone, damn it! GONE! They're trash! Worthless, useless, trash!" she screamed at him suddenly. "I THREW IT ALL AWAY! YOU'LL NEVER GET IT BACK!"
Shinji let out such a howl and dropped his notebooks, that she feared he might actually attack her. Instead, he cried. He had thought as much. "WHY?" was all he said, between whining sobs. He had stood there long enough that his legs were numb, locked into place. He wiped his face on the sleeves of his shirt, staining it with yellowish snot.
"Stop that!" his aunt shouted. "I have to wash that…!"
Shinji didn't care. He felt malice for the first time. It passed into him and then back outside. He blew his nose but it just came out in dribbles. He turned back to her, eyes red and sniffling… wetness down his cheeks and out his nose. "Why…?" he asked again.
"STOP THAT!" she screamed again. She launched off her chair and made as if to hit him. He shrank back, though still rooted to the spot. The aunt grimaced and pulled back her hands… she clutched them over her laboring chest, constricting emotions gripping her as well. She sniffled a bit as well, her eyes starting to tear up. The boy's howling never stopped.
She was sure the neighbors, though far enough away, could hear him. "Stop it…" she whispered. "You're not my son…"
"I'm sorry." said Shinji. "Whatever it is, I'm sorry."
"Stop it! No!" She placed her palms over hear ears and squeezed her eyes shut. She considered herself a good person. All she wanted was some peace! "Don't say that!"
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry… I'll try to be a good boy." He coughed as air went down the wrong pipe. "I'm sorry. I know I'm not your son. I won't play with uncle anymore. I'll help out more with the chores." Gendo's son wanted to kneel, but his knees were still locked. He wanted to run away. It was so painful! Why did he have to feel that way? It was better when there was nothing he actually liked!
"I'm sorry!" he shouted now.
She threw herself at him, her eyes glittering madly, and the boy screamed.
However, his aunt was just embracing him.
There was a crying child in her house and what sort of mother would she be if she just exulted in her power over him? That malicious bullying delight...? She thought about what would happen when her husband would come home, and he would just feel betrayed.
She worked so hard to make this home safe. But if one's home wasn't safe, then where else could anyone go? It wouldn't be worth it.
She could almost hear her own child's voice echo from beyond the grave /"Would you have treated me this way too, mother? If I annoyed you... then I can't count on you anymore?"/
If she wasn't a mother, then what's left for a woman like her? She had accepted her sister's child in the hopes that she could keep doing as she was living before her child's death, and in some way all that activity helped to keep her sane.
"Stop crying..." she whispered. "Stop making me feel bad about this...!"
"I'm sorry!"
"No, I'm sorry," she sobbed out as well. /My hair is now full of snot, a part of her mind noted/. Being a mother is disgusting, difficult job. Sometimes that what makes it worthwhile, to be so needed. "I'm sorry, Shinji…"
She pulled away at wiped his tears with her apron. She had served the domesticated wife for too long, she even wore her hair in the prim manner so demanded by the role. Every day without her son made it all meaningless, but still did so in a ritual to forget, to immerse herself in being needed that it only heightened her isolation.
"It… is… my fault… I didn't understand. I was selfish, too." she said. She all but collapsed, and Shinji had to support her with his tiny arms. "My son is dead! I can't… every day, I can almost hear his voice. /Kaa-san/, play with me! /Kaa-san/, where's father? Mother, look at me!"
Her hair came undone, she touched her forehead to his. Her bloodshot eyes met his. "You are drowning out his voice! When you laugh, it's like he can't be here anymore. It's like he was never here. Your room was his room. Your clothes were his clothes… you look so much like your mother, my sister, and me, it hurts! It hurts me! I can't let you be my son. I can't abandon him…! I have to prove he was alive! He was here! And he's NOT YOU!"
Neither were in any rational state of mind.
"I'm sorry…" Shinji said again.
"No!"
"I'm sorry."
"Stop saying that!"
"But I am!" he shouted. "I never wanted this! You're not my mother. My mother is DEAD! My father doesn't want me! And I do nothing except cause everybody pain…!"
"Shinji…"
"All I had was a place where I wasn't myself. It wasn't real… it made me happy because it wasn't real. I hate my life! I hate it! I hate this world!" He was grimacing so much veins in his neck were bulging out. "But over there, without hate you can't live. They're heroes out there. I want to be a hero. I want to die, that I did something that was worth everything before it… and it's not even real!"
He sniffled some more. "I'm sorry… I'm so sorry…"
His aunt drew back, staring at him in mute horror. Children were prone to the dramatic, and in their ignorance could be the cruelest creatures. Children were capable of being intolerant in totality. They were also in their way heartrendingly sincere. A child should not be entertaining such thoughts. She could blame part of that on his violent little hobby… but most of it, in a world and a family that had no affection to spare.
"…humanitas…" he mumbled. "For humanity. It was so big. It was so awesome. It was everything this stupid stupid world should have been…" He looked up, seemingly through her, his young eyes dark and piercing. "I want never having to be alone with the brotherhood of the Space Marine. I want to have a God-Emperor to trust with all my soul. I want the orks and their Waaagh and their joy in being alive, and the Eldar who are all so wise where I'm not. Even the Chaos and their demons made it all seem so worthwhile.
"Everything made sense. Everything had a purpose…"
Shinji had actually gained better grades from the box, his drive to learn English and understand the concepts in science fiction made elementary school… well, elementary. As long as he could tie the concepts into his hobbies, he could learn things amazingly quickly. Math for example. Children hated maths and memorization. Shinji could calculate sums and multiply and divide very quickly because ranges and Invulnerability Saves were IMPORTANT.
Much like his father, he had let himself become absorbed by something greater than himself. The main difference was the he had swallowed a happy lie rather than building an edifice of it to entrap others.
"I'm not your son…" he continued. He clenched his fists and quivered in place. "What am I, really?"
"Shinji… I never realized it was this bad for you…"
"Who is Shinji? Someone please tell me! What am I supposed to be?" he asked in all desperation.
His aunt slowly shook her head. "You're just a child. Shinji… you shouldn't be thinking those things. You can be whatever you want to be, it's still all so far away for you…"
"Whatever else other than your son…" he finished. "I'm sorry. I'm not him. I can't ever be him. I'm sorry you thought I was trying…" he trailed off into silence.
Crickets chirped outside, the room was stained red.
She placed her hands on his shoulder, as if ready to push him away and sighed. "No, you can never replace my son…"
Instead, she pulled and crushed him into a hug. "But I think I can love you anyway…"
The boy began to cry again. He was, after all, just ten.
/"Baa-san."/ Aunti!
"Shinji…"
In the growing darkness they sat there, true family at last.
"Librarian!"
She blinked. That was one of the few English words she knew. What an odd thing to yell out in such a dramatic moment. Shinji struggled to get out of her embrace and she let him loose.
The boy tried to walk and nearly toppled over to smash his head on the table edge, luckily he was fast enough push away with his hands. Too quick, his aunt was left stunned silent. He could have died, right there!
Dammit, children in the house were always a danger to themselves! A mother's job was never done!
Shinji weaved past the dining table and into the kitchen. He reached into the shadows behind a shelf and brought out a figurine, a bald man, scowling, in thick stubby blue armor. "Hu-waaa." the boy gasped out. "I found it! Master Librarian of the Ultramarines!" He looked wildly around the kitchen. He pointed to another dark area. "Is that… is that, hey!" He rushed to over the refrigerator and pulled out a "Dreadnought-sama!" and "Wah! Tankbusta-dono! You were fighting again!"
Well, he was ten.
He turned around and gave her such a big, happy smile - so bright and honest, that it hurt. "That was a dirty trick you pulled, auntie." He wanted to hug her again, but his arms were rather already full. "But I'm glad we had this talk."
His aunt simply sat there, her eyes glazed, her hair frazzled. She managed to get herself to moving just in time to clean up after herself, and present a welcoming face to her husband. Meanwhile, Shinji went around finding Warhammer 40k figurines all over the place. He was having fun in this odd variation of hide and seek. It made him love - for yes, he finally identified that feeling - his aunt all the more.
They never mentioned again what happened then. They got along just fine, and it was from her that Shinji learn most of his cooking skills. She never interfered again in the boys' (both ages) playing, and went deliberately out of her way to allow them their time for bonding.
The miniatures were always clean and their colors bright and fresh as the day they were painted.
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[In the grim dark future of the forty-first millennium, there is only war.]
Warhammer 40k was perhaps one of the most violent, depressing, over-the-top mindscapes ever created. It dripped with blood, with dreams juiced into unrecognizable slurry, decency and morality stretched to the breaking point. The very intro proclaimed; this is the worst regime imaginable. There are no innocents, only degrees of guilt.
Shinji basked in it. The boy absorbed it into every corner of his being. There was nothing else at that time in Japan that could compare. The gods had abandoned man, cast him in the fires of their own stupidity. Shinji had no idea of what was behind Third Impact, whether it was punishment or mere random chance, and he didn't care.
In the grim solace of his pieces and codices, the human struggle outside paled in comparison. People were under pressure looking for work, to keep themselves fed, and to improve their social status. Desperate, but not grim. Daunting, but not dark. His dreams of untrammeled violence made the living world of the present look bright and new and still worthy of exploration.
It could be some cosmic irony, that a galaxy torn in strife and populated with the worst and best of zealotry, lusts, hatred, fear, deceit, mutation, and just senseless murder… was the one thing that could turn him… normal.
Shinji was, by nature and nurture, a nervous, easily frightened child. The very first power blackout he ever experienced froze him in mid-step. There was a typhoon, and the old house groaned as what sounded like a howling army of vicious toothy beasts beat themselves against it. He had suffered through tropical storms before, but it was the first time having read of the dark future and the science behind typhoons, that it struck him all at once how massive the world was and how little he was. Everything was dark and hopeless. He was cold. Unsurprisingly, that realization was how it was all the time to the mere grunts in Warhammer.
It was an odd time to feel empathy for mere mortals who were thrown into the meat grinder of war, facing xenos that were their physically or technologically superior or cursed traitors to humanity itself. That sheer helplessness was similar... but at least they had a lasgun to shoot back before they inevitably got eviscerated and their souls devoured. You can't shoot a typhoon. The great eye stared back balefully, and without remorse.
A roar, and his window broke from a flung branch and icy air rushed knife-like in, seeming to grasp him in great claws. He screamed his little head off in terror. His uncle went rushing in, and his candle blew out.
It took the man a few moments to rekindle it, every second sending the over-imaginative boy further into cold shock.
Shinji's aunt led him away while his uncle boarded up the cracked glass window. They boy felt the universe dammed away in the warmth of her arms. "Are you all right, Shin-chan? Maybe you should stay with us in our room." The boy was not her son, and with regret she wished that if he had lived, her own child would have been so well-behaved.
Shinji shook his head. He didn't want to impose even further. His guardians likewise didn't want to force anything they wanted, even for his own good, to him.
They left him alone. The boy sat silently in the center of his room, bundled in multiple layers of blankets, the candle-lights sending strange writhing shadows dancing on the walls. Outside the primordial fury still raged. He closed his eyes. Total darkness was actually less scary.
He rushed to a place he was absolutely certain on, where he had stashed his miniatures as the family prepared for the storm. He opened the cardboard box and took out a Space Marine without his helmet. His square-jawed faced and steely gaze held a Space Marine's unfaltering will.
The Adeptus Astartes, surgically transhuman warriors designed by the God-Emperor of Mankind, were unflinching in their duty and brutal in their war against the xeno, and the traitor, and the mutant. They were the bulwark of the Imperium against the terrors of the endless dark, with bolter and blade and their own lives burning it away so that humanity may live and thrive in a galaxy that HATED them.
And he whispered that old litany:
"In great armor shall I clad them,
"And with the mightiest weapons shall I arm them.
"With wills of iron and sinews of steel,
"They shall be my finest warriors,
"These men who give of themselves to me.
"Like clay I shall mould them, and in the furnace of war forge them.
"They will be untouched by plague or disease,
"No sickness nor age will blight them.
"They shall have the mightiest tactics, strategies and war machines,
"No foe shall best them in battle.
"They are my bulwark against the Terror.
"They are the Defenders of Humanity.
"They are my Space Marines.
"And they Shall Know No Fear!"
He took that figurine and set it on the desk near his bed. He lay down, with the Space Marine standing between him and the shadows. Its own shadow loomed large over Shinji's bed, and it was good. When the candle died, and all was rage and darkness, Shinji was no longer afraid. He believed, with a child's pure and utter faith, that the Space Marine stands as a guardian against all darkness, that the light of the Emperor will yet prevail. He stands as the rock upon which the hope of humanity is built.
Shinji never feared the dark again, no matter where it was. As long as his Space Marine stood there, he never had any bad dreams. Scary movies, ghost stories, among the pastime of children, had him listen there unflinching. The kids he played with called him the boy without fear. Graveyards and old buildings were merely gothic grounds, and in their dark stillness he felt as if welcomed.
His nights would always be safe, thanks to his Space Marine.
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