Peaceful Days

That night, Guilliman did not sleep.

He sat by the window in his room, holding a cup of tea that had long since gone cold.

Moonlight streamed through the window, falling across the repeatedly polished tabletop, the open folder of documents, and the half-eaten biscuit at his side.

The biscuit had gone completely cold, but he did not throw it away. He simply left it there.

His gaze passed through the clear window and settled on Terra's streets, which were slowly returning to peace.

The streetlamps gradually lit up. The Adeptus Custodes on night patrol slowly crossed streets being cleaned anew, while craftsmen hung new signs outside the shops under reconstruction.

The signs were wooden, freshly repainted in gold and blue.

On those signs slowly taking shape, he saw familiar things: bakeries, blacksmiths, bookshops, teahouses.

Those things had nothing to do with the war, nothing to do with the churning green storms, nothing to do with the slowly closing rifts.

They were merely part of Terra, merely part of humanity, merely part of the everyday life that was slowly recovering.

He watched the streetlamps slowly light up in silence for a long time. Then he picked up the cold biscuit and slowly finished it.

By dawn, the sky above Terra was slowly turning white.

Clouds once blackened by thick smoke and fire were slowly pushed aside by a new wind, revealing the sky beyond, which was gradually brightening.

Guilliman rose, put on his freshly cleaned blue-and-gold robe again, fastened the Emperor's Sword back at his waist, and returned the empty plate that had held the biscuits to the kitchen shelf.

He walked through corridors that were gradually brightening, past Adeptus Custodes slowly changing shifts, past banners slowly unfurling.

Those banners bore the Aquila, gold and blue alternating slowly beneath the