Slayer descended deep into the bowels of the Fang. He'd walked these halls many times before. It was the hall of the revered fallen. He headed toward the back, to where the oldest Dreadnoughts rested. He was on his way to speak to one of his oldest friends, Bjorn.

At the very end of the hall sat the venerable chassis of the ancient marine, interred within his sarcophagus. He paused, the pelt of a Thunderwolf resting over his armor. The last time he had spoken to Bjorn it had been when the Inquisition had attempted to command the Wolves after the First War for Armageddon.

Or, at least, that was the last time that Slayer had been on Fenris when the Bjorn had been awoken for something that wasn't a Great Feast. He hadn't bothered to instruct the Iron Priests to awaken his old friend. It wasn't the first time he would have spoken to the hull of the Dreadnought as the ancient warrior slumbered within.

"Hello old friend. It's been a while, hasn't it?" What he didn't expect was the crackling of a vox-emitter. "Hello Lord Slayer. Has Lady Freya returned?" Slayer's head jerked up. He had no idea that Bjorn could wake himself from the long sleep. "No Bjorn, she has yet to." There was a slipping of gears. Bjorn was laughing. "Then why have you come down to see a bunch of old men? Surely you could talk to someone younger about your problems than we old fogeys." Beneath his mask, Slayer grinned. "Not just any old man Bjorn. You. And Logan knows I'm here. I may have been Freya's consort, but I had the manners of the two of us. It would be rude to land using clearance codes from the Great Crusade and cause every menial, serf, and mid-ranking marine to run around like an ice troll with one arm off." The venerable dreadnought made the gear-slipping chuckle. "Well then. It would have been funny to see them running down here to wake me up to talk to you. Anyway, what is the news from the wider Imperium?"

Slayer sat on the stone floor in front of Bjorn's cradle. "Well old friend, it seems that Juno has returned, and with that, Centurion is abroad the galaxy at his wife's side once again. I traveled with them to Baal some time ago. They had just barely fought off a Hive Fleet when we arrived with Juno's new Primaris marines." Bjorn took advantage of his pause to ask something. "Slayer. What are Primaris marines?" Bjorn's visual receptors registered Slayer shaking his head. "An invention of Cawl that Juno apparently commissioned him to create before she was entombed."

A shifting of gears came from Bjorn. Slayer knew it was the closest thing to a nod he would get from the ancient warrior. He took off his helmet and turned it in his hands, looking at it. It resembled the helm of a wolf priest, the ceramite shaped into the shape of a wolf skull by artisians during the Great Crusade. "Every day I hope she returns. And every day I search the skys for her Bjorn. Ten-thousand years, and I'm still here, waiting for her to come back. Just an old lovestruck fool waiting for her to come back."

"I do not think you are a fool Slayer. After all, Lady Freya left me behind as well when she departed. And you've done more for the Imperium than I have in the last few thousand years." Bjorn gave the gear-slipping chuckle again. "Keep your head up. You're still needed. And besides, call a feast. Maybe she'll return for this one." Slayer allowed himself a tiny smile as he rose from the floor. "Perhaps old friend. I'll have to have you brought up to drink with us then."

Slayer turned and departed. Bjorn watched him go before his chuckle echoed out again through the vastness of the hall. "That man spends too much time here." he thought as he slipped back into his slumber, memories of battling hordes of Orks with his Primarch and her husband in the years before the great betrayal.