Again, thank you u/RussellZee for immortalizing our patron on this sub with a book. I hope you are able to keep on writing about Auxilia, about the regiment that Marea takes care of, and that she can appear more, even if it is just small sections.

STOMP STOMP.

(Source: https://x.com/BurlySwing/status/1873757741241729348 )

Second image is close up of our angel, and the sister

Hey everybody,

I'm Russell Zimmerman, and I write for, among other companies, Black Library. Last August, when Sweet_older-Sister posted a not-very-great update regarding her cancer, I felt moved to reach out. I sincerely feel that SoS's "girlfriend" series of drawings contributed significantly to the greater Warhammer community, bringing people together with cute, approachable, artwork that humanized a lot of characters, then a lot of factions/sub-factions. Her scribbles of these adorable little girlfriend archetypes brought people together, and that's something special, and I wanted to pay her back a little bit.

A little something I've done in lots of my Shadowrun and BattleTech fiction is include someone's character or name a supporting character after them, to canonize them -- with their permission and help! -- as a little tribute. It's a tradition I started with someone who'd been, frankly, bullied by their local gaming community, and I took their character and put him into a novel to show him that he was welcome here and they weren't. Then I did it again, later, when someone drew some furry artwork and got insulted for it (by folks who didn't even know the lore they were quoting). Then again, when a father passed away suddenly and his son posted about how much he loved their time gaming together, how those games had meant the world to him. It just turned into a little thing I'm able to do, to remind people that they're welcome in the community, or to make them a part of the official lore so that they'll always be in a game they love.

And I reached out and asked SoS, last August, if she'd like for me to do that for her, too. She and her husband brainstormed and got back to me, and I just wanted to let this community in particular know that I was able to talk to my editor and explain the situation, and with some last-minute edits I pushed through, there's a minor character in Auxilia named Marea Dulcis, 'The Saint,' that SoS helped me create.

Marea is one of a few medics who is in over her head in this Imperial Guard regiment without any trained surgeons, she's the survivor of a shrine world, a whole regiment of very religious troopers who leaned heavily into the Imperial Creed aesthetic. She recovered prayer-ribbons and purity seals from every lost member of her fallen regiment, and she now distributes them to the troopers she's trying her best to fix up, as charms for good luck and the Emperor's protection. She's beloved throughout the regiment for meaning well, and they adore her for making them feel better, and for praying with them and comforting them, even if her stitches are crooked and she's not a proper surgeon. She's not in the spotlight or anything, she's one of quite a few characters lurking at the edges of the story (it's about a whole regiment, after all!), but she's there, and I promise, she always will be for as long as the Black Library lets me write about this regiment. Marea's going to be okay. She's got a sweetheart she met in the Imperial Guard, and they're together, and they're safe.

I don't know how SoS is doing. I've tried to message her a few times about this, but I haven't heard back from her, and she seems not to have posted or commented anywhere in months. I hope she's okay. She always seemed to live up to her name -- she is so sweet -- and I hope and pray that she and her hubby are hanging out somewhere offline, and she's just recovering and taking it easy.

But, whatever the case may be, I promised her I'd do this, and I guess I just wanted to tell someone, somewhere, that it happened. Auxilia is out. Marea Dulcis serves the God-Emperor and the troopers around her, and she brings people together, and she makes one tiny little corner of the Imperium a little bit brighter.

https://www.instagram.com/bolshakov55tattoo

Art by: Dancwart on IG

https://www.instagram.com/bolshakov55tattoo

(Source: https://x.com/Octosoup_/status/2112181341060243548 )

Man, when I have the time, I really need to make another gf caption. Either way, another great art piece by octosoup, as always.

https://x.com/PodoBrick/status/2112772829448208751

(You can read the previous chapter right here and here is some good music to listen while reading)

…

and she prays… Throwing all curses to the enemies of mankind and asking for penance and blessings for the master of men as her preaching becomes automatic and her mind fogged…

When she returns back to consciousness. She is surrounded by only a binding darkness and the weight of an entire planet in her back as the wailing of a baby invades her ears and the creaking of a bed penetrates her hearing. The mother remembers well of her past mistakes and she attempts to cower before the sounds as they continue echoing and in front of her a glowing light of gold. Minerva looks forward.  And she assumes the only possible explanation: After all eight. or was it nine years? It didn’t matter in the moment as another sign of the god-emperor of man had blessed Minerva. She knows exactly what she must do. She crawls slowly towards the light attempting to ignore the growing resonance entering her head and the wailing gets louder and the creaking keeps continuing. She reaches out for the light and she slowly puts her hand through the Heavenly glow feeling a terrible aching pain on her venter and the feeling of a scorching fire burning onto her hand and melting away her tissue and muscles into a molten and bloody liquid that sizzles once it hits the dark floor and she suffers through the torture it in silence.
My god… My light.. Please guide me in my time of need…
She asks pitifully and with watering eyes as her forearm completely passes through the Holy glow. The burning sensation is hellish and the light starts blinding her pupils as she pushes forward and she finally releases a raw and painful wail of agony…

…

H-he’s born, Sister Minerva… Your… Y-your son is a healthy boy.

Minerva opens her eyes slowly. The golden was nothing but the light of a sun and it hurts so much that god might as well have damned it . She can only hear the nervous laughing of the hospitaller and the wailing of the baby. The youthful doctor covers the infant with the silk that once was a refined table cloth and tries giving the baby back to its mother and Minerva looks at him in extreme discomfort and handles the infant like a dangerous and explosive device and her eyes are wide open. She does not pay mind to cleaning her tears or the pain of Labor. She looks aside and sees only destructed remains of a small villa and below her only harsh dust and she mutters to herself this isn`t happening. how nothing of this is happening and this isn’t happening… 
this isn’t happening… this isn’t happening…

Continuing muttering and repeating and an austere expression in her face only expecting danger to follow afterwards and her mind is in a blank state that attempts to remember how she arrived in this situation. Nothing. not a single memory. 

 The hospitaller looks concerned for her fellow sister’s well being and tries reaching out for her but she looks at the crying infant and her own hands before being riddled by the feeling of sickness and she almost falls backwards if she didn’t hold herself unto the destroyed wall. Minerva stills looks at the blue sharpness of the eyes of her child. The mild scent of sweet still lingering unto his skin and mixturing with the iron smell of blood and minerva now can only think of leaving… And return back to her duty.

Lianna… Sister Lianna, that was your name, correct… 

You’re correct sister mi-

Don’t tell anyone about this… You know exactly what happens when we distract ourselves from duty and you better believe that the superiors will drag you into this and I will drag you to this if necessary. Is that clear, Sister Lianna? 

Lianna looks at her sister solemnly. Her eyes shifted from Minerva’s own visage filled with sharpness and the still wailing. Minerva slowly picks up her bolt pistol as Lianna cuts off the umbilical cord with the scalpel. They stare at each other. Lianna closes her eyes attempting to calm herself down even if the baby starts crying out more..
I promise… I wish your child no harm and only the emperor’s blessings to him and he's a healthy boy and… Who… Who knows? Maybe he will be a promising man if you are to send him to study in the halls of the schola. Don’t you agree?
The mother lowers the weapon from the head of her fellow sister and watches as lianna moves aside and appears nauseated and overwhelmed at the situation and asking for forgiveness due to her state before she expels bile with a sickening sound. Disgusting. Minerva thought to herself before deciding her time was enough wasted there. She gets up. Holding the child in one hand and the pistol on the other. Not bothering to give the hospitaller her regards for helping her.

She descends through the destroyed remains of civilization. It becomes impossible to differentiate what was once a sprawling metropolis of a civilized world or a village befitting those of a feudal planet for now only remains of ash and dust in the air and destruction on all sides and she continues her journey through destroyed houses attempting to find remains of anything of sustenance for the baby. Still moving and struggling against her arm. Most houses are devoid of any food. Stragglers and civilians have taken them all. In other houses, the food was burned, crushed or mixed with waste. broken as the idols for the imperial faith into pieces of silver and iron. And besides them only the charred or flayed corpses which once were its residents. And yet Minerva doesn't stop her attempts of finding anything of use. The mother passes through the roads. The scavenging birds pecking at the carcass of a canine hanging in a tree in a supine position and its organs falling down from their back and with its ribcages spread apart like wings of a cherub and an old woman hanging beside the animal with clear signs of bruises and holes caused by blades.
With the foul air upon her. Minerva attempts to minimize her breathing to spare herself from the smell of miasma. The baby’s face contorting due to the foul air much to Minerva's dismal.
Enough cryin. 
she says before poking the baby’s belly with her index finger to prevent him from crying with little success. She attempts to poke him again and again with the pressure being elevated by each touch and frustration against his crying and tantrums.
I demand you to cease your crying and that’s an order. 
The boy stills cry and Minerva gives in before searching in her memory. Remembering that she once was an infant sucking on a toy to pacify himself when the sororitas arrived. Minerva looks at her gloved hand and smells. before removing the iron gauntlet and cleaning her thumb against the rags that protect the baby and simply inserting it slowly to his mouth, and he starts sucking it. Minerva stops walking for a moment. stiffening as he calms down. She looks around before finding a preserved house that appears to have belonged to more rich residents.
God-emperor please… Lend me your strength.
She asks before walking towards the house and its walls are made out of clay bricks with a wooden door painted green and a shiny yellow brass handle that she opened with caution. A clean pleasant smell finally blesses her nostrils. Inside signs of a hurried attempt to leave: Various opened drawers and knocked chairs and most of the doors being opened aside a massive chunk and debris of the ceiling having fallen down to the floor and Minerva puts her baby on top of a table before searching in the drawers and cabinets finding a hand towel and a bottle of still fresh milk. Sitting next to the baby she soaks the towel on the liquid before cautiously inserting it to his mouth before picking him up and bringing him to the bathroom. Minerva lays him aside on the floor before staring down at the bathtub, removing her own armor once again before filling the bathtub and closes the door before aiming at it with her weapon and never lowering her guard even when she enters the cold water. 
The baby coos and moves around but that was none of the mother’s concern for when she looks down. The water tainted with her blood and spiralled in a hypnotic manner like it’s calling upon her like a guiding light. She slowly lowered herself down into the reddened water and the silt of it rose like dark smoke about her thighs. She lay there and closed her eyes to see the fire again and the heretics crushed upon the dirt and unclean meat of them smoking in the ditches. A good memory. She saw the iron sun rise on the day she knelt before the altar in their heavy armor and the cold oil smeared upon her brow and the great weight of the oath settled into her bones like lead. Yet her moment of remembrance is interrupted by the whimpering of the baby. Her voice raises like a tempestuous and violent cloud that paints the sky gray as she speaks. 
Quiet down. I do not wish to hear from you and nor do you understand that I am trying to focus on trying to get you something to eat and I am your mother and you should obey me. 
And yet the house now has started to shake like nature’s thunderous fury upon the earth but Minerva knows that it means the enemies are near and using artillery against another village. Quickly. She removes herself from the water and she starts wearing on her armor with roughness similar to dragging a person against a rugged road made out of hard rocks and roughcast cement before the baby can cry louder. She picks up the infant and puts her gloved gauntlet against his mouth before moving away outside the window just enough to witness glowing light of a dark void destroying a city in the distance and Minerva knows that in that exact moment the child’s survival state has turned even more difficult. Drukhari. She recognizes the type of explosive as the same was used against the guardsmen and fellow sisters as they engaged in a battle upon the crest of a hill within the smoke of a burning mill and it was an engine of absolute cowardice, a thing devised solely for the cold execution of men but nonetheless she must press forward. 

She walked upon the next parts of the carcass of the town where once there was live now only stands stone falling down like rotten teeth against the prussian sky and tired ground and just ahead of her there is a trio of two old men and a frail old lady severely covered in smog and quietly muttering their pleas for god as they play with burnt figures with an noxious reek reaching her nose as she passes by them and minerva hurries and passes through a building where a child with eyes pallid like glass from a cathedral. Begging. calling out the name of its parents or family for a hint of comfort of which Minerva cannot bother to give as she moves through the side and reaches the heart of the street where tons of corpses still rest fresh with the poisoned spikes still attached to their backs and their faces bloated like pustules as a result of its effects and yet minerva can’t do nothing but to be disgusted not from the corpses and the results of the raids, but from the familiar scent coming ahead of her in the shrine dedicated to Saint Celestine. Defiled. It’s winged separated from the back of the statue and candles crushed and holes upon the mouth of the corpse of what was once an idol dedicated to the imperium faith now stands covered in urine tarnishing its marble body and a liquid that only brings sorrow to Minerva's heart even if she desperately tries to find faith and fury to curse them. Semen. of which give the statue’s skin a yellow appearance similar to that of a miasma-riddled hive ganger. No more faith living inside the idol and thus only silence falls upon her face and she punches her leg again and again and again and once again and her ire only grows stronger when the infant doesn’t cry alongside her but with she will waste no breath with it as she presses herself forward with the words written on the saint’s face haunting her memory.
Faerfaug di Dhúath… She mutters to herself, feeling her heart tightening and she walks forward to the safest position her eyes help her find. She walks towards it questioning all her feelings as she feels her faith faltering for a long time since forever like a sword shattering against rock and she wonders how did this come to happen. Maybe the infant made her soft and cautious and she wonders that perhaps… Perhaps she will send him away. It seems logical to her since she didn’t want this and sisters are not supposed to take care of babies or children and it's her duty to slay the foul aliens that defiled the spirit of saint celestine and yet nonetheless she needed to rest safely.
The journey continues. Minerva can only ask herself when can she finally fall asleep and when to return to combat as her feet start failing her from such tireless walking and scavenging like a common cur while the moon of sleep starts rising against the horizon of which no stars appear but then she stops. Humming. Ahead of her a young woman cradling another infant singing a comforting hymn about the god-emperor’s ever so lasting kindness, A sight of which stands like a tiny wild flower in a garden of old nettles. Minerva watches in utter silence. Muttering the lyrics and mimicking the murmuring and movements of which the young lady cradles the infant to please the baby within Minerva' own arms and he calms down. An unbelievable sight to minerva after hours of having to deal with it’s crying and whining and she swings him slowly and he makes him murmur softly and lay his head against her calmly and minerva’s face bares no expression but she looks forward. The woman is standing in front of her and carrying a dead infant whose face is scorched and blackened like coal and its lower skin is still reddened and fat falling like molten gold from its little form.
He created it and he knitted it together inside my womb. said the woman
the emperor, you mean?
That is correct and I love my baby. The emperor gave each and every human being of the galaxy life and destiny and unsearchable are his judgments. When God made our children he filled them with hope and kindness yet at the same time he cannot stop horrors from reaching our sweet children… 
I have the duty of stopping as you can see by my armor and the notions that… that the emperor was the one that doomed your child it’s a foolish and traitorous statement. Minerva answers before the woman drops the infant and slowly reaches for Minerva's own and as she cradles it before she continues
God made the galaxy but he didn’t make it to suit our children’s interests, did he?
…I believe he has the interest of the survival of men in mind, Could you please give back the baby?
When will our emperor make better futures for my child to be? 
No… Give back my child. You’re delusional and a heretic. says minerva whose grip to her bolter becomes even tighter by the second
it is the best gift the emperor can bestow upon a woman is indeed motherhood. she said. It's the very duty to ensure that her children grow
Ensure. Minerva mutters to herself as her fists become red from holding the gun
there is a great malice upon each and very living being in this galaxy be it the faithful or the beasts alike. We have sown war against them and now they reap from us. It’s a debt God expects us to pay and it’s a sad thing but I do not care…
Spoken like a traitor. Minerva says as her righteous fury starts boiling out. 
God does not care for what we want-
I know. but the baby is important. and I love him. 
The woman says before pushing down the gown from her chest and Minerva reacts quickly by delivering a butt from the handle of her bolt pistol directly against the woman’s face. Shock. She quickly snatches the infant from the falling woman. It cries from the sudden movement as the lady hits the ground dry with her arms extended away from the body and her fists flexed and rotted. Rigid. the neck arching backwards and the head spasms pitifully as the wound bleeds out. Minerva can only look on what she did.
m… may… may the emperor have its mercy.
She says before quickly moving out without looking behind. feeling the judgmental gaze of the destroyed houses and wind hitting her back as she quickly enters house to seek refuge and she runs straight to the second floor ignoring all damages before shutting the door behind her and sitting down on the floor. 
Make it stop. make it stop. please god make it stop. the feelings of frustration and agony. shame and disgust on herself. She killed that innocent woman and she failed her duty ever since she allowed her guard to be down enough so that men could have laid with her.

…

Only silence. the baby still cries with no answer. no orders or sermons to be given to minerva. the mother of the child as she looks down upon her baby before removing her power armor for the third time of the day before simply putting the baby near her chest where it quickly latches upon one of her breasts. She feels disgusted and dirty by what she’s doing yet she cannot explain how. it’s a feeling of weakness. that’s what it is she concludes and yet she stills allows the baby to take sustenance from her body. and love it or hate it. This is her life now…
and i don’t know what to think about it.

says Minerva. before closing her eyes

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/19kPpUTnhE/

Tehehe

Daughter Atlanta welcome I am so happy to see you. Please give me a hug I have good news. While I sadly still haven't found a way to remove the nails I did discover something special you can wear that should cut down the pain and hopefully stop it. I have to say first it looks weird can't be helped and second I am still working to figure out how to remove them.

Anyway I present you with this hat. I proceeded to pull out a primach sized multi colour baseball cap with attached propeller. Now before you say everything plays a part. The multi colour is help channel other non violent emotions. The propeller will also spin the more angry you are as a reminder to calm down. Before you ask no I can't change it the technology is very important and rare so I couldn't change it.

So I say hand holding the hat. Do you like it Atlanta is it okay?

Plus Primarch Yuri

(He would have loved Fem primarchs)

It was made by a friend long before I start writing. I already had the idea of a story of a sororitas being a mother long enough. Although the idea evolved a lot

Chapter three of Konstantin and Minerva is almost done. And just wanted to thanks this sub for allowing me to post it here