Death.
"Minerva, you're gripping too tight."
"Oh, damn."
The pressure eased just enough for Morrelia to gasp down a breath of air. The darkness receded long enough for her to raise her hands and pat her mother on the back.
"Nice to see you too, mother," she rasped.
"Aww, it's great to see you too kid."
With one final bone crunching squeeze, Minerva released her daughter and Morrelia fell on her heels. She absent-mindedly rubbed at her arms. Just how strong was this woman?
Minerva stood taller than her daughter by a few inches, but in many other respects the two looked much the same. The same dark, wavy hair, the same squarish jaw and the same muscular build. Even their eyes were the same steely grey. Having not been this close to her for so many years, Morrelia was shocked at just how alike they were.
"It's wonderful to see you two together again," Titus smiled, an unusual expression on his generally stony face.
Minerva was quick to remark on it.
"Don't smile, husband, you look strange."
Then she laughed.
"By the flame I am happy to finally be out of that office! Now all the pencil pushers will have someone else to bother and I can get back to campaigning. How about you, daughter? Ready to join me in the field."
Minerva flashed a wild grin as Morrelia gaped at her.
"I'm still in training! I'm supposed to be meditating in my pod, isolation to reflect on my gains. Not that I can do that now I suppose," she gestured to the ruined door.
"It's good to be patient and think carefully about how you want to proceed," Titus approved, "believe it or not, your mother had to go through it as well. Don't mind her attitude, she's just excited to see you."
The former Consul eyed the commander through narrowed lids as she pondered violence but Titus just spread his hands. Finally she sighed and sat on the bed.
"Of course I'm excited."
She gestured vaguely.
"I've been glued to that desk, sending others out to do the fighting and the dying for far too long. I want to be with my family and start making a difference again."
"You were the Consul, mother. I think you were making a difference."
"It's not the same. I think you know exactly what I mean, Morr."
She did. Much like her more short tempered parent, Morrelia much preferred to get her hands dirty.
"Is it really alright that your final act as Consul is to break a thousands of years old alliance?" she asked.
"That? Forget about that," Minerva dismissed it with a wave. "That's not worth worrying about."
"You can't be serious."
"I'm deadly serious. They broke the alliance with their actions, I simply made it formal. Enough of that, I want to hear about what you've been up to here in this poisonous hellhole."
Morrelia shrugged.
"Probably exactly what you'd expect. Getting adapted to the training armour. Working on skills. Hunting monsters. Trying to survive the environment. Leadership exercises. They keep us pretty busy."
"Of course they do," Titus rumbled, "if you're going to lead your own Legion someday, you need to be prepared. The soldiers won't follow someone they don't believe in."
"Are you saying that someone wouldn't follow her?" Minerva growled. "She's more than ready to handle her own Legion."
"Mother, you have no idea what level I am…"
She only just got here!
"Nonsense! I've been getting weekly reports from your instructors. I know exactly how far you've come."
Morrelia turned to her father.
"Isn't that an abuse of authority? Can I report her?"
"Obviously not. What are they going to do? Strip her of the role? Her term already finished."
"As if they'd do anything to me anyway," Minerva said, her eyes sparking with the faintest hint of her famed rage. "They wouldn't have had the guts."
The three fell into a comfortable silence as the bulkheads around them groaned and shifted under the pressure they were subjected to. The absence of her brother was a painful hole that each felt keenly but wouldn't talk about. There was no need. His memory was too large to fit into a few words, it felt as if he would be diminished if they were to try.
"How are you finding the praetorian training?" Titus was the one to break the silence, curious about how Morrelia was handling the heavy warsuits of the Legion.
Morrelia slumped.
"Exhausting," she confessed. "The mana demand is so extreme I can barely keep it active for ten minutes at a time. The power is incredible, but I'm worried I'll never be able to get my operation time high enough to qualify for a proper suit.
"It just takes time," Minerva assured her. "The more you demand of the mana channels in your body, the more they can do. The rest is down to your determination and ability to handle bucket loads of pain."
"I'm guessing you did well then," Morrelia said wryly.
Minerva smiled.
"I still hold the record for the training course," she boasted.
"And second is not close," Titus shook his head.
"You would know."
"You'll never let that go."
"Of course not."
Titus turned to his daughter.
"Don't bother comparing yourself to this outlier," he jabbed a thumb at his wife, "she also holds the record for the longest exposure to the air outside without a helmet. Mainly because nobody else was dumb enough to try it."
"A full minute," Minerva laughed when Morrelia turned a wide-eyed stare at her. "Almost died for it though."
"That's longer than most monsters from the fourth will last out there…" Morrelia muttered.
"That's what I mean. Don't compare yourself to someone as abnormal as your mother."
"Your tone is getting on my nerves, Titus," Minerva growled.
"Are you going to do anything about it?" he countered.
The two glared at each other but under the surface level of simmering anger there was something else that Morrelia did not want to explore.
"What happens if I continue to widen the mana channels in my body? The amount of mana I can handle goes up, but what about acclimatisation? Wouldn't there be powerful side effects?"
Both parents turned towards her but it was Titus who answered.
"In short, yes. If you manage to pilot a praetorian suit, you'll never be able to walk normally on the surface again."
He held up a hand before she could interrupt him.
"Obviously your mother and I were able to return to the surface, but there were several key conditions. First of all, the process to reacclimatise to low mana environments was… extreme. Secondly, even after that extended process we needed to take liquid mana supplements to keep us alive. Once your body has gotten used to having that much mana inside it, there really is no going back."
Morrelia absorbed this in silence. She'd suspected just how difficult the process of returning to the surface had been for her parents, and the more she learned the more she understood how hard, and how rare an act it was that they had done.
"Why did you do it?" she finally asked. "You could have raised us in the fourth if you'd wanted. Why did you put yourselves through it?"
It was Minerva who offered an answer.
"Children should grow up under the sun," she shrugged. "That's all."