IC II: DH The Purity of Sacrifice

[BananaPhone]

Marcella

On the way in, Marcella eyed the van suspiciously. She hadn't detected anyone in there...and there were other logical explanations. It could be one of two incognito vehicles that had ferried the 12 Star Guard team here, with the other now out in the streets as a mobile HQ for the watchers, while the other one remained here. Was anyone in it now? She hadn't sensed anyone, and it made more sense for the security team to utilise Drimmle's own suite of security camera's and control over the barriers that permitted or denied access to the grounds, so it was doubtful. Still, the paranoid part in the back of Marcella's mind didn't like it.

What she did like, however, was the garden. The sight of the veritable rainbow carpet of flowers that blossomed across their neatly arrayed rectangles and circles admidsts little sea's of well-manicured green grass that were flanked by rows of beautiful tree's and their gentle, rustling leaves. Having grown up on a satelitte in orbit, it was one of the most beautiful things that she had ever seen, let alone being able to move through, as the Psyker moved her right, thinly-gloved hand and gently brushed it through a bank of soft flowers and smiled at the sensation across her skin and the seductive, odiferous melenge of petals, pistils and pollen. Peaceful. An Eden under the hand of man. The Psyker pictured herself being able to have a chair amidst this paradise where she could read her books for hours among the flora, her head rubbernecking about the garden as she tried to determine where it would be best to sit within tranquility.

"It's so beautiful, isn't it?" she spoke quietly to Orla, partly in response to what she had said.

"I'm just glad it exists somewhere. I grew up on a Satellite, I've never seen greenery like this...do you think Drimmle might let me take a bud to plant back at the Cathedral?" she asked, and it was hard to tell if she was being serious or joking, her tone almost hopeful.

Such was Marcella's transfixation that she was staring at the garden over her shoulder even as they entered the bay area of the large doors, before turning her attention back to the task at hand.

"Is that what your world is like?" she asked Arl, though didn't expect him to answer immediately, given the circumstances.