Coveting
Trazyn/Clone!Fulgrim requested by @chemos-factories (first time writing these two so drawing a lot of inspiration from your fics)
It's natural to play games with things you own.
Today's entertainment was an old favourite of theirs, and a way for Fulgrim to show off the knowledge he'd gained. Fulgrim loved nothing more than to show off.
"And here we see a typical cabinet of curiosities," he said, leading the way into the wide, marble-floored hall dotted with exhibit cases that formed a space so stereotypically like a museum as Fulgrim understood the term that, to an outsider, it would have verged on parody.
A strictly delimited playhouse, everything arranged just so and built to perfectly suit the superhuman build of the Primarch who was not a Primarch, in which Fulgrim had free rein to explore and learn as he wished.
Ancient scientists had done such things with rats in mazes once.
"They are also called wonder-cabinets," Fulgrim continued, eager to share his knowledge with his visitor. He was suitably attired in purple silks, and delicate gold bangles shifted on his wrists as he gestured to the object in front of them.
"Although the gathering of disparate objects and artefacts has no real scholarly intent or value, they represent an important step in the development of Old Earth's versions of museums as we would know them."
"How fascinating," Trazyn said, playing his role of distinguished guest to perfection.
"I think so too," Fulgrim answered. "And although the exhibit appears to be fully authentic to its ancient origins, further inspection reveals that the curator has included a number of deliberate anachronisms."
"Deliberate, you say?"
"Yes. To reward the attentive viewer for his study. For example, in the centre, beside a truly ancient specimen of monodon monoceros tusk, we can see a comparatively much more recent piece. A bust of an unknown subject by the remebrancer Delafour."
"Oh, how intriguing." Trazyn leaned closer, as though seeing the sculpture for the first time. "May I touch it?"
"My deepest apologies, honoured guest," Fulgrim replied, "but these objects are too fragile to touch. Lord Trazyn forbids it."
Trazyn stood back with a gesture of mock offence. "But I am, as you say, an honoured guest," he said. "Surely there's something here I can touch?"
The script being old didn't make the play any less entertaining.
Fulgrim hesitated for a moment. "The fragile objects are forbidden, but... I am not, honoured guest."
Sometimes he remembered that he had been something else, once. A being created for a very different purpose. But remembering brought pain and after so much time among Trazyn's other possessions it was infinitely easier to let go, to drift into the comfortable haze of being simply one more pliant, complaisant object to be arranged alongside many others. And so he did.
"A most agreeable solution," Trazyn said, radiating satisfaction as he moved closer to Fulgrim. "Shall we continue?"
The Archaeovist's hand settled comfortably in the small of Fulgrim's back and directed him onwards through an ornate archway with a subtle application of strength.
"Of course, honoured guest. We now enter the gallery of Terran dolls."
"Oh, how appropriate."
They halted in front of a tall, glass-fronted display case containing a multitude of dolls with painted ceramic faces and wigs of genuine human hair.
"In this exhibit," Fulgrim said, "we see every surviving product of the warrior and artisan Jean-Andoche Juneau, a toymaker from ancient Franc. The effort required to gather them here must have been vast."
"It was," Trazyn said. "Put your hands on the glass."
Fulgrim obeyed, bending gracefully at the waist to lean forward and place his palms flat on the cold surface. The dolls in their serried ranks smiled vacantly up at him.
"Good. Look only at yourself."
He locked his gaze onto his own face reflected in the glass, reducing Trazyn to a blurred outline as the Overlord of Solemnace moved behind him.
"Every object has a purpose, does it not?" Trazyn asked.
Fulgrim swallowed dryly as the Archaeovist's hand began to stroke languidly up and down his back. "I would agree, honoured guest."
"And, having acquired a truly beautiful, precious object, would it not be shameful for me to deprive it of its purpose?"
Necrodermis fingers glided up over the back of Fulgrim's neck and into his hair, stroking through it with intermixed possessiveness and reverence. He was intensely aware of how easy it would be for Trazyn to grab it if he wanted to.
"What is the purpose of a doll, Fulgrim?"
"To be looked at," he replied quietly. "To be dressed and posed as its owner pleases."
"And above all?"
"To be played with."
As all pretence fell away and Trazyn began to explore and claim his body in earnest, Fulgrim kept his focus on his own reflection as he had been ordered to and saw exactly what his owner wished him to see - himself in the glass as simply one more doll arranged among a thousand others. He matched their placid, vacant smiles with his own and felt nothing but happiness.
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BERNARD: Welcome back to K-Bear radio. You're listening to Chris in the Morning. Chris in the Late Afternoon actually. And this isn't Chris Stevens. It's Bernard Stevens, sitting in for my brother, Chris. Chill, Cicely. For the names may change, the tune remains the same. And by the way, my brother Chris would like to thank all of you who've called in to express your support. We're all hoping for a speedy recovery from whatever it is that's been afflicting him of late. In the meantime, a big hello to all of you out there from all of me in here. As you may know, I spent the last three months in Africa, a wondrous, magical place. But as shadows lengthen across the K-Bear window, thoughts turn to homecoming, journey's end. Because, in a sense, it's the coming back— the return— which gives meaning to the going forth. We— We really don't know where we've been... until we've come back to where we were. Only where we were may not be as it was because of who we've become. Which, after all, is why we left. Do you have anything to add, Chris?
NORTHERN EXPOSURE
3.21 It Happened In Juneau
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