=I=

And so, it is over.

Think of me, think of me fondly, when we've said goodbye...

We had close to a years playing of this campaign. We started on the Saturday evening before September 12th last year, and played for five days, this campaign and the other 40K one (wolf's). Long ago, it seems so long ago... I was knocked out and taken in a Chimera to be used for some experiment with a psychic conductor, Sam was out and blowing up enemy tanks with his Sentinel, and Karstius we ran into in the forest, out on a mission of his own. I remember the fright, the knowledge that without my guards I was as good as dead as soon as we met up with him. But he didn't shoot me, and soon after it turned out to have been a very good thing, when we ran into several blips on the auspex screen - "Karstius to loyal Imperial forces?"
"This is Inquisitor Kerebius."
And then he asked if they had the psyker Anjie with them.

It all ended yesterday. For now, as the storyteller, and Kerebius himself, said. But still. It ended. I hate that very fact.
It ended. We were recalled after a short detour guarding a facility, and found our three ships under attack and damaged, with boarding torpedoes in our Inquisitor's ship. We snuck onboard and discovered what we were up against - Astartes. That led to much discomfort and some despair, and we took backdoors up to the bridge, where we hid. I wanted, wanted to rush, to run to our Inquisitor, but it was better we remained hidden, as a trump card should anything go awry. He capitulated, eventually, and we were ordered to come out of hiding. Then we were transported away, and kept in solitary cells... for four months.
That was unpleasant. Anjie, me, being used to it, didn't have too much trouble, and she also had her Primer. Eventually, she would sing hymns loud enough that others could hear, that might have helped a little bit for some of them. But four months, still, was harrowing. No one was very healthy coming out of those cells, and we hadn't got very good food either.
But we were allowed to shower, to shave, to cut our hair and then, then we were brought before a council of Inquisitors, and an Inquisitor Lord.
In game terms, I have a -2 in Calm whenever something, anything, =I= is near.

We were told, you each have one chance, to say something to sway us to not burn your Inquisitor and you as the heretics you are. This is the very last thing we will allow Kerebius (who was sitting, shackled, looking very tired, beside the podium). Servo skulls buzzed through the air, scribes and savants were scribbling, over 40 Inquisitors were regarding us, everything from big, muscular men in power armour to silent, scrawny types in the dark of a corner.
Each of us had a go. We said we served the Imperium in a greater fashion than we could have as Imperial Guard. That we'd never seen any evidence that our Inquisitor was a heretic and traitor. That we'd seen the conspiracy first-hand.
I went last. Anjie needed to work up some courage, remember the things lord Inquisitor Kerebius had told her about posture and such, needed to figure out how to say what she wanted. A prayer, a look at the man that had had such an impact on her life, and then I spoke, right to the council. I said: I am a psyker. I thought serving in the Imperial Guard was the greatest thing I would ever be able to achieve for our Immortal God-Emperor. Then I got the chance to serve the holy Inquisition, and do good on a much greater scale - just like Shivers was the first to say. And I saw what evil Feros did, and then we met him, and I thought, this is not an Inquisitor. This is a monster, and a monster of the kind I thought the holy Inquisition hunted and killed. If killing him was heretical, then... And I was there when the Inquisitor in the space station told us about the conspiracy. They wanted to kill the God-Emperor. They wanted the Imperium of mankind to fall. And if preventing this was heretical, if it was traitorous, then it would have been better had I not... if I hadn't even ever been born. I don't want to think of an Imperium where such things are not traced and weeded out and stopped, and by the most Holy Inquisition, one of whose duties it is to do such. Or so I thought, at least. If this is not how an Inquisitor should work, what an Inquisitor should do, then... In all, we have served our Inquisitor Kerebius. And through this we have done nothing but His work. There is nothing that can convince me that my lord Inquisitor Kerebius is a traitor and a heretic.

There were even applauses after that, a few, scattered, short - but still. Then I bowed, stepped back, and promptly started sweating like it was highsummer, heart beating like a turbo hammer. Anjie.
There was deliberation.
And then there was a verdict. With a few admonitions, and a warning, they said: We declare Inquisitor Kerebius free from guilt and suspicion. And us others, with him. They freed him, and he came up to us, and then we walked out of there, to a room with a view of the sky and of the sea, free.
To live in the Inquisitorial base was nerve-wracking. Inquisitors everywhere! I kept in my room or in the chapel, mostly, when they weren't pumping us for information. We got to know that Mag'on had somehow managed to get out of his cell (hardly surprising, really) and was caught somehow, inconspicuously walking down the hall to free Kerebius. Yeddon had grabbed the one giving him food once a day, take the keys and gotten out, but been arrested again and promptly beaten the hell out of.
Of course. They were his closest, most long-time companions.
And so, we were released. In the room we always used, conference room 7b, with tea and freshly baked buns, we talked about the future, and Kerebius came in looking at a dataslate. Everything seemed so ordinary. We joked, and we talked. Kerebius told us we were free to do whatever we wished - but to not sell our swords or guns. He just might have use for us in the future, and to be honest, those of us who had been in his service the longest, how could he but trust us after what we did, what we said, even after all we'd gone through? So we were free to go - for now. We might meet again.
Shivers asked to be sent to Cadia, to become a drill sergeant there. Liam, I think, kept serving our Inquisitor. Karran seemed quite content to keep being a bounty hunter, and was rewarded richly, then sent on his way to wherever he wanted to go. Sam, and Req, chased down Dolores, Sam's monkey, and went to his home planet of Corran. They had a great time, it seemed. Karstius, he went to his home planet, giving money to the Ecclesiarchy, his mother and bought a horse. He seemed really happy, thundering away on the great plains, with only grass, sky and the far, far horizon. My guard, Merrick, she went to her home planet for a while. Being all alone, not having even her around, was incredibly strange and uncomfortable.
Me, then, Anjie, what did I do, what did I choose? For I did actually choose. I, Anjie, made a choice.
I chose to remain with the Inquisitor Kerebius, of course. I didn't want anything else. And even had my once-home planet not been eaten by the 'nids, had I wanted something else. I wanted to stay as close to the Inquisitor as I could, and serve in whatever way he wished. So I did. I would train and help psykers to control themselves, to become stronger but above all more controlled and focused. And when Sam and Req returned also, after several months, I trained and helped and used them too.

And so, the story ended. For this time.

I'm no good at goodbyes. I hate knowing we won't just sit down and play this again. I loved being Anjie, and I loved Anjie herself. But we've come such a long way. Two years passed for the characters. We grew older, and we changed. I think among my favourite moments were to be taken to the ship and tested - something which I still won't talk too much about, other than that it was a very intense session of playing, for me - and, probably, the breaking of the mindlock.
Meeting the Inquisitor every now and then.
Being asked to choose.
Feeling calm and concentration wash over me when in a fight, throw things around and be in a psychic duel with an Alpha-level psyker.
Getting to know the others, and in some cases, getting to know them over again.
The feelings, the events, the good times and the bad.

But I don't think anyone guessed, and I don't think I, Anjie, ever told anyone even afterwards - she likes the Inquisitor, very much, and perhaps, a bit more than she realises. She'd never use the l-word; of course, it is Anjie. But I suspect, as I know her because I've been in the back of her mind, that if one were to look at it, define it - that's what it'd be. Little Anjie.

And so, it is over. For now.