40k: Midnight Blade

Chapter 94 92. A Mother (3k)

Five minutes later, they were standing in an empty ward, face to face, ready to talk.

Khalil tried to help the woman on the road, but she refused.After entering the room, he also moved her a chair and wanted her to sit down, but she refused.

From those eyes, Khalil could get a firm message.

Lowering his head, Khalil inevitably smiled wryly.

In a sense, the identity of Tarasa Udon was somewhat similar to him. In fact, when he knew about it, he couldn't even believe it—is there another person who raised the Primarch in the whole world?
However, she obviously has to go farther than him on the road of fulfilling her obligations.

"I don't want to speak to you as Robert Guilliman's housekeeper, Mr. Carrier."

Eudon spoke in a low voice, bravely being the first mover in their conversation.She was much smaller than Khalil, but even though she was facing a giant of giants, she showed no fear.

She even dared to look directly into Khalil's eyes and add a long stare.

"You can see that I come to you with an emotion that I shouldn't have. It shouldn't be, but I can't control myself. You may already know who I am, or you may not. Anyway, allow me to introduce myself to you. I am Tarasa Eudon, foster mother of Robert Guilliman."

She gripped the brass end of her cane tightly, two thumbs crisscrossing the smooth surface quickly.The lady wasn't in great shape and was emotionally stressed, which compounded the situation.

This was obvious, and Khalil could hear the less obvious hissing between her words.

She has a lung problem, perhaps from her youth, or from overwork
Khalil didn't think about it any further, he let the thoughts go.

"I know that, ma'am," he said softly. "I've spoken to the Ultramarines and they've given me some...necessary things."

"Knowing who I am is a necessity in Macragge?"

Tarasa Euton leaned back in astonishment, and after the momentary surprise disappeared, she inevitably took a deep breath.

".I see. Thank you for your information, Mr. Khalil. This matter really shouldn't be."

"Shouldn't it?" Khalil shook his head and laughed. "You are the mother of Robert Guilliman."

"Adoptive mother." Youton corrected. "It's nothing to be proud of or to show off. He can do just fine without me and his adoptive father. He's the Emperor's son, a Primarch."

"Is that King Connor?"

"You know?"

"I have seen many statues about him in the city these days, ah, and the portrait in your son's room."

".I told him that he should take down that portrait." Tallasha Uton pursed her lips tightly. "After all, he shouldn't have put a portrait of his adoptive father next to a portrait of his real father."

"Why not?" Khalil asked.

Eugene's eyes widened in surprise.

"His biological father, the Emperor of Humanity, gave him life. However, it was the King Connor and you who made him Robert Guilliman. His surname was inherited from King Connor, didn't he? There is an ancient Terran saying, I don't know if you have heard it, and the literal translation of that sentence in Gothic is not difficult to pronounce, it is very simple."

Khalil looked at her calmly.

"If you are raised before you are born, it will be hard to return in a lifetime."

"."

Tarasa Euton was silent.

After a long time, she spoke in a low voice.

"No, it's not like that," she said. "It is indeed a laudable virtue to rear a foundling, but not in the case of Robert, Mr. Carrier."

"He was brought back to the court by my former master King Connor. Do you know what I thought when I first saw him? I was very young at that time, but I still felt that there must be something wrong with my eyes, otherwise how could I see such a child?"

"He was smiling at us when he was a baby. His skin was shining, he was like an angel when he smiled, and he was. But my first reaction was not to love him, but to be afraid."

"He is obviously a kind of existence beyond human beings. His adoptive father knows this, but he never interferes. He gradually grows up, and soon he is taller than everyone. From this time on, I realized that he is truly extraordinary."

"He was only four or five years old, and while other children were swinging wooden daggers in the courtyard and happily engaged in heroic battles with imaginary enemies, he was immersed in our history and progressive technology."

"At dinner time, he would wave the newspaper to tell his adoptive father who was busy with work, and tell him what's new in Macragge today. This is their exclusive time, because Robert actually deliberately saved the newspaper for this time to read."

"If there is something about scientific progress, he will be very happy, if not, he will be very depressed. This is the only time when he looks like a child. Most of the other time, he is reading a book and thinking silently. And the way he thinks—"

Tallasha Euton gripped her cane tightly and took a few more deep breaths.

Talking too much at once was a bit overwhelming, but it wasn't a problem, and Khalil hadn't tried to stop it.Why should he stop it?

As the lady said, she was not talking to him as a housekeeper, but simply as a mother.

She may not know what Kalil's identity is other than the legion instructor, but she has roughly made a guess based on the authority and freedom given to her adopted son in the past four days.

She believed Khalil had a special identity.

She didn't know what that identity was, but she didn't care either.Khalil believed that the sole purpose of Tarasa Udon coming here and in front of him was probably just to find a solution in some way.

She wanted her son to come out of that study.

"—he looks like a machine when he thinks, Mr. Khalil. Rational and indifferent, even to the extreme that I can bear, until this time, I am still a little afraid of him, and I can't stop being afraid of him until I start to see more things."

"He was ostracized by kids his age, and rightly so. Few people treated him like a child, and Robert wanted to play with them, and they said no. But he didn't talk to us like other ostracized kids did, he just locked himself in his room, that's all."

"One night, he locked himself in his room for so long that his father had to come with me to find him. We opened his door and found the child, who was already taller than everyone else, curled up in his room and cried silently."

"He realized we were coming and seemed flustered. His father asked him why he was crying and if he was being bullied, but he didn't reveal anything, just told us not to worry about him."

"He didn't eat that night, and I worked late into the night, still thinking about him. So I went to the kitchen, got some slices of bread, and knocked on his door again."

Perhaps it was Khalil's silence that gave Tarasa Euton the strength to go on—at this moment the lady wore an expression somewhere between lucid and dreamy.

She smiled, and the posture of leaning on the cane no longer looked uncomfortable.Her back straightened, and the wrinkles on her face softened, and she just smiled and shook her head.

"That was the first time I realized that Robert Guilliman was actually a human being."

She said softly, speaking softly with a mother's expression.

"He shrank behind the door, Mr. Khalil. From then on, I began to love him with all my heart. Because I knew that he may have power beyond our reach and a body that transcended human beings, but his heart still belonged to human beings. He stood with us, and he stood between us."

Khalil nodded calmly without commenting.He didn't have anything to say, and Euton was much better at it than he was.The lady looked at him and laughed again.

"You may wonder why I am telling you this," she asked.

"Yes."

"The reason is actually very simple. Sir, Robert explained to me who you really are on the afternoon of your first day. He doesn't like to lie or hide from me. So I know that you also raised a Primarch—or rather, the Emperor's son."

It turned out to be like this.Khalil suddenly realized, he nodded, and wanted to speak, but Yudun stopped him with a gesture.The posture is gentle and firm.

"Please let me finish," she asked solemnly. "I didn't say who you are to find a sense of identity in this way, so that you can tell me the truth that night."

"My son will not lie to me, nor will he hide anything from me, unless he really can't tell. And I have never asked about such things. The reason why I came here to tell you that story as Tarasa Euton is just to make you understand one thing."

"what's up?"

"I want you to understand that I am his mother."

In the empty ward, a woman who was much shorter than a giant leaned on her cane and made an announcement with an undeniably firm voice: "So I will not allow anyone to hurt my son, even you, Khalil Rohars."

After saying this, she turned and left.Khalil stood in the room and smiled wryly.He came to the window and gazed into the night.Or rather, staring at a star that he couldn't see at all.

(End of this chapter)