Please note that I am not the author of this story. This story was written by someone on the /tg/ forum after seeing a comic made by Miko about a Vindicare assassin falling in love with Taldeer from Dawn of War.

As said by the article on :

"Love Can Bloom is the title of one of the most well-loved pieces of writefaggotry ever to grace /tg/. Once upon a time, there was a drawfag named Miko. She made a comic about a Vindicare assassin falling in love with Taldeer from Dawn of War: Dark Crusade and Dawn of War: Winter Assault. There was much nerd rage. Then, somebody started writing a fanfic for this fan picture. There was a mixture of nerd rage and delight."

After happening across this story I thought it deserved a better place to be accessed, so I have decided to upload the story to . Enjoy.

Chapter One

"Exitus Acta Probat: the Outcome Justifies the Deed." -Dictum Vindicare

The Vindicare creed is that enemies of the Imperium of man die ignoble deaths. No trials for these heretics, no recognition of any ability they hold, not even a record of their order to be killed. A quick, surgical procedure, a reflexive, impassive, reaction to eliminate an enemy that leaves behind only the slightest of blemishes, soon to be hushed up and covered for fear of prompting more invisible, bureaucratic executions. Traitors and rebels may gird themselves for the unlimited waves of guardsmen crushing their towns underfoot, continent disintegrating orbital bombings, and fearless, unstoppable, merciless space marines. Yet, how they quail when oh so casually, their honored leader, god figure, demagogue, idol, chosen one, noble general, great hero, neighbor, friend, mother, father, child, or beloved fall lifeless, a round dark hole in their forehead.

"Do not fail."

Most munitions that this assassin had dealt with previously have been subsonic, quiet, subtle machines that he is expected to keep hidden and assemble on site; other dogmas stated that all weapons had to be popular with those populations that were to be affected, to show the Emperor's judgment came from the people.

And then there was the Exitus rifle.

Tough enough to break a terminator's Tactical Dreadnought Armor, quiet enough to not wake the baby you are using for a fire brace. It is immense, huge and unwieldy, a full one point eight seven meters long when fully deployed, nearly as tall as the man carrying it, weighing eight kilograms unloaded, a full nine loaded.

"One shot is all I need."

By all means, Governor-Militant Alexander should have dispatched a Culexus. Whatever psychic blasphemy the witch unleashed, would have been stifled by the sheer terror generated by it. It was as close to monster a human could get and still be beloved by the Imperium. Only just.

Lukas Alexander hated those things. That's why the Vindicare had been dispatched. That, and a tangible reminder of the consequences of failure.

"Standby for drop order." The sighting array switched through the spectra, finally settling on human normal. The Vindicare enjoyed those brief moments when the targets were confirmed.

Eldar. Perhaps a one and two five meter tall one. Neck doesn't break easy, little bone. Very flexible. The Primary was having trouble with its helmet, and the Vindicare waited. A combat mission was free of the various restrictions, implications, and extenuating circumstances that were far too often glued to it. A swift kill was all that was necessary.

"Appears injured," he murmured into the mouthpiece. Just in case Lukas was listening. He was a paranoid man, the Inquisition playing both sides in the conflict between Astartes and Guard. Better to assuage the Governor that he was following policy.

"All the better. Drop her," The commander had no appreciation for the moment. Orders were orders. His finger was on the trigger-

"Wait, something's happening-"

"I-

Can't."

"What do you mean you can't? Soldier? What's going on?" Lieutenant Ardrin shot a glance at the monitors across the screen, running down the various cryptorunes that festooned the archaic mechanicals, "The Techpriest checked every last one of these things for flaws in their machine spirits, so I KNOW there is nothing wrong with you. What is the difficulty?"

Silence.

"I say again, assassin, what is the problem? Are you under attack? Is the Eldar dead?"

The glow of the glass machine in front of Ardrin said nothing. He sighed, and then turned to the vox operator next to him, currently relaying status reports on the destruction of a building to Lukas.

"Inform Lukas that the Vindicare is unresponsive." The officer nodded, speaking a word of prayer before entrusting it to the waves on the wind. The response was short in returning.

Dispatch two chimeras fully loaded. Contact the killer's handlers. Pray for forgiveness.

To know the future is to look upon an ocean of possibility. Twisting, turning vast and serene at the distance. What a harmonious blue it seems ahead of you, blended together with but the vague hints of surf and wave edging and bouncing across the way. You approach it, details start to come forth, and for a moment, you can see the lines of tide, the touch of the wind, rocks set in there, and aquatics going in and out of it.

Now you are on the beach, and you can see the future coming at you, then pulling back, a hunger determined by rocks in the sky and the density of particles hundreds of miles away. You stumble over a gewgaw vomited forth by the surf, but you can't stop walking forward. Cold, it seems to push you away at first, but then it pulls, pulls firmly. Suddenly, the possibility and limitless potential you saw a mile back is gone, replaced by green and white and blue pulling you down into the dark.

That's how this battle was. It seemed so simple, so easy at first. Then she stepped in, and suddenly she was in the middle, sucked out and away, her possibilities narrowing and tightening like water running down lungs. In the distance, screams of her kin, valuable every one of them, more long lives dimmed and smothered by a horde of sparks. Quick lived humans.

Then it was impossible. She had gone so far as to charge, for a moment caught on the path of the warrior all those blood obsessed spoke so highly of. And what did she get? Stabbed through the torso for it.

It was the adrenaline, the tactical necessity, her own fate, to flee. Anything but cowardice. The helmet was stifling. It had to come off, she had to breath- It wasn't the helmet. It was blood, filling her throat. She leaned heavily on her spear, opening her mouth, spit and blood running out like a fountain, that she used to know.

A kilometer and a half under her, she hears grinding.

The tide is coming back to her.

"You had better give me a GOOD reason why in the name of the Throne you gave an order to move out my assassin on your own, Ardrin!"

Lukas was angry. Still injured, with the high of triumph dashed upon the rocks of disappointment, he was hardly pleased. He had had to order his troops that they could not stand down yet, and the reaction had been as expected: Nineteen floggings, one execution for Conspiracy to Sabotage Imperial Morale.

"Sire, I have served you lon-"

"Yes, from Cadia. I had TRUSTED you. Do not dare bring up any terms of friendship, I should have you SHOT for disobedience."

"Well- Look at your condition."

The medicae swam around Governor Militant Lukas Alexander like flies, stitching up wounds and removing broken ribs to replace with new ones. His power packs had burst, scorching a full half of his torso. And unlike Sturnn, mused Ardrin, Alexander tolerated the longer treatment time to heal the cosmetics. Of course, unlike Sturnn, Alexander was to be a governor.

"That, that damn witch unleashed her, her, her witchcraft upon me," Lukas stuttered, as a greater dose of the pain dimmers hit him, "And she g-GOT away, if you had just let me-"

"Let your retinue carry you around, with a mobile med station at the ready, and your soldiers distracted from securing Tyrea? Of course, I'll just invite those Orks next door to share a glass of Amasec sire."

"I have a commissar outside." "And I know you're smart enough not to execute an honest aide," Ardrin spread his hands, "I was thinking of the greater campaign."

Alexander sighed, nodded slowly, wincing again, "Very well. I'll afford you this luxury. I must admit," He waved the untreated hand down to himself, "I was hardly in any condition to act. Thank the Emperor for unh - the fine medical supplies the men got from those Tau- Not that we need to tell anybody about this."

"Of course sire. And the Officios of the Assassinorium?"

"I expect they're already here."

The Eldar's biology is similar to a human's. They still have sweat and adrenal glands, they have pupils that dilate, lungs that draw in more oxygen in preparation of a standard fight or flight situation. What they do not have are the instincts of a human being. A human being (As was drilled into the Vindicare at the Temple) when confronted by a situation of fear will scream to alert members of its family unit, will attempt to either keep the predator in sight, or flee blindly to shelter or more family units. A sign you have done a job poorly is when the target is allowed to display the fear instinct. Typically, these instincts manifest themselves in the "Secondaries" onlookers, targets of opportunity, and the populace that one is attempting to get the message to. This is considered victory.

However, when it comes to Eldar, they do not follow human instinct. The Farseer in the Vindicare's sights does not scream, she draws her foot back, places both hands on her weapon, lowers her center of gravity. Sweat does not appear on her skin, rather muscles tense and relax, testing each. A moment of sensitivity in her abdominals, then release, as the weight shifts once more. A gloved hand reaches up, pulls back long black hair out of her eyes.

But her eyes, they do dilate. The Vindicare's spymask zooms in on the point to which he already looked; those frightened eyes focusing on a patch of dirt. Sharp metal breaks through dry dirt.

The ocean is around Farseer Taldeer now. She drifts on the eddies, bobbing away from the hungry black below. Whenever death came close, she could feel it tugging, not the ocean tide, but something hungry. Fate mocked her, jeered her, pointing down there, but she had to ignore it, put it out of mind. And the smell of Lameras.

She drifts up, her fingers running down the wraithbone howling spear, runes of victory, rage, Khaela Mensha Khaine, Biel Tan, rebirth, death, and Ulthwe, sliding between her fingers. She breathes in the sharp air of an alien world, one that she always loathed, but now was smelling familiarly of something. On the air was something else, rust, and the innate, repulsive soulessness of the Great Enemy. Her eyes flutter, pale light filtered by eyelashes. An eddy washes over her; voices of dirt and stone and dead bones buried saying, "Here." She draws her hair back, swallows her blood, and looks at the ground. Wicked knives sprout from dead Earth. Wraithbone whistles through foreign air.

Sweep in low, drag it out so as to finish it, it moves down, dips into the ground, tearing up yellow grass and slamming into the pair of hands, pulling it up, revealing the roots of a vile steel skeleton. Only half out, and her spear is only half through the second hand. The first falls on the ground behind it, rolling and twitching in its search for flesh and blood.

She surges forward, as the hand pulls out of the edge of her blade with unnatural strength. She steps across and in the blink of an eye slams her foot into the things face, ramming it back into the ground, revealing the neck. A bare instant before a response was formulated in the thing's brain, Wraithbone severs its head, sending sparks gushing.