Commissar in the Cabinet #1: Nameday Gifts

By FlawlessLogis, in Only War Fan Fiction and War Stories

This is the first of several parts of a piece of work I'm doing for a friend as a gift, so to speak.

If you like it, please feel free to say so!

- - -

I t wasn’t that Genevie didn’t appreciate Caffran’s present to him. In fact, he was actually quite grateful. Sort of. It was without a doubt very kind of Caffran to give Genevie anything at all in the first place, let alone a Commissar figurine that he himself had already finished with.

The trouble was, though, that Genevie was beginning to grow tired of small polymer figures. He did, after all, have a great many. Whole heavy stubber ammunition boxes full of them, probably two or three if they were all put away in the same place at the same time. Not that they were, of course, because his vast collection was scattered all about the washroom, the lavatory, Eagon and Kimber’s old room in the loft from before they left to join Kasr Muirdoc’s Whiteshields last year, the kitchen, the den, not even to mention Genevie’s room or the not-insubstantial victory garden that Mother kept. The biomatter reclamator was absolutely full of guardsmen who, as the seasons plodded along, had been deposited with all the offal the small living space could offer by Genevie’s siblings or Mother, who were all quite careless about such things.

Genevie and Caffran had spent many hours playing together with each of their collections of little Imperials and all sorts of dread xenos. Sometimes, the two boys even liked to pretend that some of the guardsmen had become evil rebels, but not anywhere Mother could hear. Such things were decidedly frowned upon. The time had come, however, where they’d had about as much fun as they could have. Which was why, when Caffran snuck Genevie’s present into schola beneath the very, very watchful eyes of the magisters and clerics as a nameday gift, Genevie was a bit let down. He tried not to show it, but he still was.

“Do you like him?” asked Caffran as Genevie stood quietly beside him, with Commissar in hand.

“He’s fantastic,” the younger brother replied in a voice that only had a touch of flatness, “I don’t have a Commissar.”

Caffran beamed, “I know.”

“I don’t have any Catachans, either,” Genevie’s tone was only vaguely flat.

“Me either,” nodded his brother, “that’s why I couldn’t have much fun with him.”

Genevie opened his mouth to say, “I won’t be able to either; Cadians don’t need Commissars,” but, thinking that might hurt Caffran’s feelings, he gave thanks and slid the secondhand little figure into his pocket. Then, he promptly forgot about it entirely.

After schola was dismissed, what family as was available gathered for recaf, which is to say, the adults and adolescents had recaf and the children all got ploin juice. Mother and Caffran were there, of course, and Aunt Margold from elsewhere in the Kasr with the four of her kids who remained at home. Father and Uncle Bengt were off with one of the Carnodon regiments, of course. Genevie couldn’t remember if they were in the 59th or the 95th, but today he had learned that there were only two active regiments who bore that name. Great Uncle Calligo arrived late due to some trouble with his augmetic legs; they weren’t very well made and tic’d on-and-off the whole time. He apologized profused every time the gears inside started to whine and grind, but everybody knew it wasn’t his fault; the limbwrights that they could afford were little more than novitiate Mechanicus working for some pocket gelt.

Genevie got what he’d been wishing for most - a real-life, actual working sting-las (patterned for youth-size one) - from Great Uncle Calligo and a whole caseful of rechargeable cells. Although it was old and had seen better days, Mother gave him a rebuild kit for it and Aunt Margold had crafted a new carry strap in the Kasr’s local camoweave from her eldest son’s old Whiteshield uniform. The rest of her children had pooled together with Tanda and Faye to buy Genevie a brass stock-plate with his name and hab number on it. Gregor hadn’t gotten him anything at all because all of his spending money and anything he earned around the block had been tithed to Mother on account of a very unfortunate incident involving Father’s old civil flak coat. So when Gregor’s turn came to give Genevie a present, he was exceptionally surprised when a large parcel was put before him, messily wrapped in brown parchment and twine.

“What is it?”

“A surprise, I found it in alley.”

The alley was a narrow corridor between their back of their block’s hab units and the opposite backs of the neighboring block. It ran along where their respective rubbish bins sat amid sparse bits of loose paving and the occasional bit of growth, just past Mother’s garden. While all of the Cutter children had played in the victory garden and out in the alley, Genevie and Caffran often found themselves there and occasionally found treasures that other - perhaps smaller or richer - neighbors had thrown away. So it went without saying that Genevie was excited as he tore off the wrinkled paper.

Inside was a smallish grey metal cabinet with a mirrored door, of the sort often seen of the basin in the schola's lavatories and washrooms.

It would be reasonable to suppose that Genevie would be even more disappointed about this cabinet that the Commissar that sat forgotten in his pocket, because the cabinet was fairly plain and wholly unextraordinary looking. It was completely empty inside except for a single shelf just above middle, but oddly enough he was quite pleased with it. In truth, Genevie rather enjoyed cabinets, cupboards, chests, trunks, and drawers of any sort because of the fun of keeping his things in them. He wasn’t a very tidy boy, in spite of the virtues of cleanliness they preached in schola, but he did like to arrange things in containers only to open them later and find that they were just as he’d left them.

“I wish I could lock it,” Genevie said somewhat wistfully.

“Or you could say ‘thank you,’ before you start whining,” replied Gregor.

“The keyhole looks generic,” pointed out their Great-Uncle, “and I’ve got whole boxes of keys I picked up during my service. Why don’t I send over all the smaller ones later once I’ve sorted them all out?”

- - -

It was the next day when a courier arrived after the odd-daily Kasr drill finished, with four containers each no bigger than a deck of cards. He also had a note saying they were from Great-Uncle Calligo that he gave to Mother after she gave her signum of receipt on his docket and sent him off with a couple of gelt as a tip.

Most of the keys were either too big or too small, but there were about half a dozen that looked to be the right size. All of them but one appeared to be exceedingly ordinary patterns that Genevie could imagine going to a trunk or arms coffer or even the heavy manacles that Arbites carried. The one that stood out was easily the most interesting key of all the one’s that he’d seen while sifting through the collection. It was as small as any of the others had been, but with toothily complicated lock part and a fanciful aquila top piece. The aquila’s talons formed a tiny loop for a chain that had long since disappeared. Genevie saved it for last.

After spending what felt like the Throne’s age on all the other keys, Genevie concluded that none of the others would fit and, at last, he picked up the aquila key. Carefully, he put it into the keyhole on the cabinet door, just below the tarnished knob. He hoped beyond hope that this would be the key to turn and regretted wasting his nameday-cake-cutting prayer to the Emperor on something so silly (or rather, unlikely) on such a thing as he might pass the Imperial Creed test tomorrow; it would take more than divine intervention to work that particular miracle, as Genevie hadn’t he so much as at the slim sheaf of assigned Ministorum verse in the whole week since they’d been given out. Now, he closed his eyes and desperately unprayed for a successful test and prayed now instead that this little symbolic key would turn Gregor’s present into Genevie’s own secret cabinet.

The aquila key turned effortlessly in the lock and when he gave a tentative tug, the door refused to open.

“Mum?” He called, partially stunned, before trying again louder, “Mum?! I’ve found one!”

“Have you, dear? Which one?” Mother replied as she walked into his small room. “ That one? How odd. That was a key to your grandfather’s arms coffer, you know. The one he was given as part of his promotion to Colonel? It was a fine one, too, made of nalwood, mukaali leather, and lined with silk. He grew poor as the madness took him and died penniless, my dear father, and had sold that beautiful case as dowry for me to a handsome young man who was something of a rising star in the PDF.” Her smile smile was a mix of something wistful and sad. “He kept crying during his moments of lucidity that he had nothing at all to leave me, so to soothe him I assured him that I’d rather have this little spare key than all the gelt of Scintilla. I had it hung on an length of camoweave, wore it about my neck, and told him I’d always keep it there to remember him. I did, too, for the longest time until the fabric tore and I nearly lost in during drills.”

“You could have put it on an old cogtag chain,” Genevie advised brightly.

She gave him a look. “You’re right,” she replied, “I should have, but I didn’t. And now it’s the key to your cabinet. Do be careful with it, Genevie, please?”

Later, the day was drawing to a close when Genevie finally put the cabinet on his bunkside table. He opened it and looked inside thoughtfully, rubbing his chin like he remembered Father doing before the Founding. What ever could he put inside?

“I think it’s supposed to be for medicants and unguents,” Gregor said from the door, “You could keep your nosedrops in it.”

“No, I don’t have anything else medicinal. That’d just be wasting it.”

“Why don’t you pop this in then?” Mother suggested as she peeked around the jamb and opened her hand. In it was Caffran’s Commissar. “I found it in your trousers while I was doing the wash.” She walked over and gave it to Genevie.

He carefully stood the Commissar on the shelf.

“Aren’t you going to close the door?” she asked.

“Yes,” he nodded, “and lock it.”

Genevie did so, then, and Mother kissed him goodnight on the forehead. Sometimes she would tell him stories, but tonight she simply smiled and turned out the light and he lay on his side, looking at the cabinet in the murk. He felt very content. Just as he was dropping off to sleep and his eyelids had begun to drowse sneakily down, Genevie’s eyes snapped back open. He thought that he heard a little noise… but no. All was quiet. After a few moments of listening, his eyes closed in slumber.

- - -

In the morning there was no doubt about it. The noise actually woke him.

He lay perfectly still in the faint glow of pre-dawn staring at the cabinet, from which was now coming a most fantastic series sounds. A pattering here; a tapping there; a scrabbling; a tinking; then a meandering knock and - surely? - a faint high-pitched noise like… well, almost like a tiny voice.

To be honest, Genevie was absolutely petrified. And why not? There was undoubtedly something alive in his cabinet! After several moments of gathering up his courage, Genevie reached out a hand and gently touched the mirrored door. The noises within continued. He pulled on it very carefully, but the door was shut tight. As he pulled, however, the cabinet shifted ever so slightly and the noise inside instantly stopped.

He lay in his bunk for a long time, wondering. Had he imagined it? The noise did not start again. Eventually, he slipped the aquila key slowly into the lock and opened the cabinet door.

The Commissar was gone.

He sat up so sharply that he saw dots. After they cleared, he peered into the dark corners. Suddenly Genevie saw him, but he wasn’t on the shelf anymore. He was on the bottom of the cabinet. He wasn’t standing upright, either. The Commissar was crouching in the darkest corner of the cabinet, half-hidden by the front.

And he was alive.

Genevie knew that immediately. First, though the Commissar was trying to keep perfectly still - as still as Genevie himself had been in his bunk only a few moments ago - he was breathing heavily. Normally, Commissars would have on a carapace chestpiece because all the posters had them shown as such, but this one had a simple uniform under his greatcoat and Genevie could see that his shoulders rose and fell; the chestpiece was on the shelf. The tall, pointed hat upon his head quivered minutely, as if the Commissar were trembling. Genevie could even see the lips on the Commissar’s face moving silently, forming what looked to be a prayer and, as he strained to peer closer, Genevie’s breath drifted about the tiny huddled figure. It’s only reaction was to lean somewhat more into the shadows, pressing against the side of the cabinet. When Genevie shifted slightly to get a better view, he saw it carefully brush back its coat to rest its minute hand on a tiny sword handle that could not have been bigger than the shaft of a tack.

Neither Genevie nor the Commissar moved for perhaps a minute and a half. They hardly breathed, for the matter. They just stared at each other, waiting. Even veiled in shadow, he could see that the Commissar’s eyes were brown and wide and fierce. He lips still moved in prayer, but had pulled back into something that was less a smile and more a primal baring of teeth. Genevie could even see his teeth, so small that they were barely visible except when the light caught them just so. He leaned almost impossibly closer to the side of the cabinet, clutching the hilt of his blade in rigid, defiant terror.

The first coherent thought that came into Genevie’s mind as he began to struggle over the shock was, “I must call the others!’ - meaning Mother and his siblings. But something (he wasn’t sure what) stopped him. Maybe he was afraid that if he took his eyes off the Commissar for even a moment, he would vanish or become polymer again and when the others came running in alarm they would laugh and accuse him of making things up or worse. Hallucination on Cadia was tantamount to apostasy and all knew that the heretic was fit only to be burned. And even then, who could blame anyone for not believing this unless they saw it with their own eyes?

Another reason that Genevie didn’t call anyone was that, if he was not in fact dreaming and the Commissar had really come to life, it was certainly the most marvelous thing that had ever happened to Genevie in his entire life and he wanted to keep it to himself, at least at first. The danger of this being some sort of Warp trickery seemed irrelevant, it was common knowledge that Commissars were incorruptible in their zealous armor of contempt.

His next thought was that he must somehow get the Commissar in his hand. He didn’t want to frighten him any more than he already had, but Genevie had to touch him. He simply had to. He slowly reached his hand into the cabinet.

The Commissar leapt into action. His greatcoat billowed out behind him as he moved, but his hat remained stubbornly atop his head. The small sword, raised above his head, flashed in the light. He gave a martial cry which, even though it was a shout tiny enough to match his body, was nonetheless loud enough to make Genevie start. But not so much as he jumped when the little sword sliced the tip of his finger deep enough to draw blood.

With a soft yelp of surprise, Genevie flinched backwards and stuck his finger into his mouth. As he sucked on it he thought about how gigantic he must look to the miniscule Commissar and how fantastically brave he had been to stab Genevie. The Commissar stood there with shiny black jackboot’d feet planted apart on the grey metal floor, chest heaving, with blade at the ready as he swiftly drew a bolt pistol as proportionate as the sword was and leveled it at Genevie. Although his brown eyes were wild, his poise was unwavering. His resolution, unbreaking. Genevie thought that he was magnificent and would later desire nothing more than to serve under such a gallant man.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said, “I only want to pick you up.”

The Commissar opened his mouth and a stream of words, spoken in that loud-tiny voice, came out in High Gothic, not a single one of which Genevie could recognize. Lowborn folk rarely needed such knowledge outside of the Administratum or Ministorum. What phrases they did need to know were often spoken moments before they were required to be repeated, rote, right back to the original speaker.

“Don’t you speak Low Gothic?” Genevie asked. He knew that all Progena from every Schola Progenium in the Imperium was fluent in that tongue(because all the vox reels and pict shows indicated they were,) but he was just the son of a soldier who was the son of a soldier going back generations. Low Gothic was the common language of the Imperium, however, and if the Commissar couldn’t speak it, how ever would they talk to each other?

The Commissar did not lower either weapon or change his stance, but Genevie heard the tiny clink of a pistol’s safety being toggled off. The Commissar said nothing.

Genevie blinked, “Listen, I don’t know how you came to life, but it must be something to do with the cabinet - or maybe the key - anyway, here you are and I think you’re great and I don’t mind that you cut me, but please may I pick you up, please? After all, you are my Commissar,” his tone was very reasonable.

He spoke in a great rush of words while the Commissar stood there, unflinching. Immobile. After a moment, the bolt pistol dipped down slightly, but the Commissar still didn’t speak.

“Well?” inquired Genevie, before urging impatiently, “May I? Say something ?”

“A servant of the Emperor does not converse with Warpspawn.”

“Oh, I’m neither of those,” Genevie answered before asking again “May I pick you up?”

“No.”

Please may I pick you up?” Genevie reached out a little.

The bolt pistol raised back up and fired. It was a sound not unlike the snapping of a pencil against a desktop like Caffran did so often in schola. There was a tiny flash similar to the striking of a spark and Genevie felt something whiz through his hair.

The Commissar uttered a swear like Genevie had heard one of the Drill-Abbots do. “No. If you try, I’ll kill you, witch. Daemon.”

It would be reasonable to expect Genevie to laugh at the absurdity of the threatening insult from a tiny man hardly bigger than his middle finger, armed with a toothpick and a BB gun. But Genevie didn’t laugh. He didn’t even feel like smiling. This Commissar - his Commissar - was behaving in every way like a real live Commissar and despite the vast difference in their sizes and strengths, Genevie respected him for that and even, odd as it might seem, feared the tiny man at that moment.

“Okay, I won’t then, but I’m not a witch or a daemon.” The Commissar’s face looked like he believed not one whit of it. Genevie insisted, “I’m just a boy, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“If you try anything, I will hurt you ,” the Commissar said, “no matter what you say you are.”

Genevie had been half laying in bunk all this time. Now, cautiously and slow as molass, he got up. The heart in his chest was thundering like the distant artillery of the daily Kasr drills. He wasn’t quite sure why he was being so cautious. Perhaps it was so as not to frighten the Commissar, or because Genevie himself was frightened? He wished that one of his siblings would come in or, better still, Mother.... but nobody did.

Standing in his bare feet and turned into until it faced the window that looked out over the alley. Though he did this with the utmost care, the Commissar was nonetheless jolted and would surely have fallen down, had he not braced himself against the cabinet wall. He had not let go of either weapon.

“I’m sorry,” Genevie apologized.

The Commissar’s made a noise that sounded like nothing so much as a snarl.

There was no more conversation for the next few minutes. Genevie looked at the Commissar in the growing light of daybreak. He was truly a splendid sight. The little man was just under three inches tall. Now that the light was better, Genevie could see thick, black hair swept back under his tall hat. The coming dawn caught on the insignia upon it, flashing gold. The same thing happened when it caught on bits of metal on the Commissar’s greatcoat, his uniform and belt buckle, the weapons in his hands, and even on the buckles of his shiny black boots. He almost twinkled in the light, not that Genevie would say such a thing. He also had something not unlike a bandolier hanging from one shoulder, but Genevie couldn’t quite make out what was upon it. There were other bits of decoration, too, that were just too small for Genevie to see from so far away and he wondered (not for the first time recently) where his maglense was. It seemed quite the only way he would ever be able and appreciate the intricate little details on the Commissar’s clothes.

Genevie looked as closely as he dared at the Commissar’s face. He expected to see it painted on, but it had all the protrusions and contours of a real, living face. Incredible. He had a tall forehead that disappeared under his hat, thin yet clearly bold eyebrows, high and prominent cheekbones but the cheeks themselves were just ever so slightly gaunt. His nose was distinctly aquiline. It had a very straight bridge and looked not unlike a thin right triangle, as such, was a large feature on his face. The Commissar had thin lips and a hint of dimples. His jaw was as well defined as his chin and there was no fat below it.

Genevie suddenly asked, “Were you always this small?”

“Were you always Warpspawn?” The question sounded rhetorical and his tone was unpleasant.

“No, I-” began Genevie, but stopped mid rebuttal.

He heard mother beginning to move about next door.

The Commissar heard it too. He slunk into what shadow as was available and froze just as the door to Genevie’s room cracked open. Genevie knew that at any moment, Mother would come in to wake him before even-daily morning drill so that he wouldn’t be late. In a heedless flash he bent down and whispered, “Stay here, I’ll be back,” and before the Commissar could so much as peep, he closed and locked the mirrored cabinet door before leaping into the bunk.

“Come on, Genevie,” there was a creak as the door opened wider and Mother walked in. “Time to get up.” As was her wont, she bent down and kissed him on his forehead, paying no attention to the cabinet and went out again, leaving the room's door open wide.

Edited by FlawlessLogis