"I met Guilliman and Sanguinius long ago, but you only learned of my existence now. You can't blame me for that."
"Don't look at me like that, Lion. This really isn't my fault."
"I originally intended to summon you before me and meet you, just as I did Guilliman, but one moment you were still on Karis, and the next you had run off."
The Emperor explained himself to Lion and Chagatai.
Lion listened in silence.
Chagatai wore the expression of someone who had seen through everything but would not say it, and likewise sat silently.
"This isn't my fault. Blame yourself, Lion."
"Besides, why did you need to see me at all? I'm fragile enough to be contained within a female psyker. There's nothing I can do to help you."
Hearing the Emperor defend himself, Chagatai lowered his eyes.
From just a few words, he could tell that the Emperor before him was indeed an exceptionally pure fragment of humanity.
Only mortals did things like shifting blame.
"Blame me, hm?" Lion spread his hands. "Why were you sitting there fishing in the illusion I saw when I woke up without saying anything? Why couldn't you look up and speak plainly while you were fishing? Besides, you squatted there for ages and didn't catch a single fish!"
"Brother. Before us is Father-Emperor's humanity, not the amalgamation of all wills from ten thousand years ago," Chagatai said gravely.
"Correct." The Emperor pointed both hands at Chagatai and smiled.
Lion nodded and could only accept it.
"I actually appeared a long time ago, around the year 989 of the forty-first millennium."
"I met the Lord of Tyran when he was still a PDF Legion Commander in your eyes."
"I helped him deal with a Gene Stealer Patriarch."
A smile appeared on the