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Unlikely as it was that anyone or anything would be able to get far enough into the Imperial Palace to threaten the Primarchs, it was still important to guard the boys’s rooms at night. Both to protect the Emperor’s sons, and to keep said sons from sneaking out.
The “Sleep Shift” was either the easiest job a Custodes could get, or the hardest, depending on the Primarch and the night.
Aberjin Ghesti had dealt with both the perfect, peaceful nights of guarding an exhausted Vulkan, and the routine all-night check-ins of a fixated Roboute. It was the first time he specifically had to guard Konrad (or Kurze, or Nighthaunter, depending on what superhero comic the Emperor had lent him most recently) but he wasn’t expecting a hard night.
Konrad was prone to nightmares, but unless he’d gotten it into his head to try and play vigilante, he was generally not that big of a problem.
When Ghesti heard the scream from Konrad’s room, he moved quickly but not with any particular panic; he’d been warned that this might happen. Konrad would not want to be touched, but he would want to have someone nearby who he could talk to about his nightmare, and who could offer ways to prevent whatever terror had plagued the boy’s sleep.
The panic arrived when Ghesti opened the door and found the room empty.
“Konrad? Konrad, are you in here?” Ghesti called, stepping further into the room while opening a vox to the others on-shift.
No response. His armor overlaid his vision with heat, x-ray, plain night vision- nothing. The Primarch wasn’t in the room.
“Konrad’s gone. He screamed before I entered, hopefully he just ran off because of a nightmare, but-“
Ghesti had turned and begun walking toward the door when he heard the barest whisper of a voice that made him stop.
“Please don’t go.”
Ghesti looked back around the room. Nothing. Where-
“I’m here.”
A pair of eyes were suddenly reflecting light from under Konrad’s bed. Ghesti sighed in relief and quickly cancelled the alert.
“Were you under there the entire time?” Ghesti asked, kneeling down to look over the pale child.
Konrad nodded, looking down.
Ghesti tilted his head slightly, and asked, “Are you okay? I heard you scream.”
Konrad shrugged, and began wriggling his way out from under his bed. He crawled on top of it and sat down, pulling his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them.
Ghesti remained kneeling. It let him remain eye-level with Konrad.
“Would you like to talk about it?” He asked gently.
Konrad didn’t look at him.
“You’re going to die alone,” he murmured.
Ghesti took a moment to process that, then asked, “Why do you say that?”
Konrad still wasn’t looking at him.
“I saw it. In my dream. You’re going to die alone in a room, while you’re asleep, and I don’t think anyone will notice for hours. You’ll be old.” Tears beaded in Konrad’s eyes. “I don’t know how to fix that.”
Ghesti hummed thoughtfully for a moment.
“I think that sounds like a good, kind death,” he said finally, “Living in the Emperor’s service so long that I get to die an old man? I think that’s comforting. That means there was no threat large enough to cost my life during my service, and we both know how long I might live.”
Konrad still wasn’t looking at him. His grip on his legs got tighter.
“I’m supposed to save people,” Konrad said quietly, “It’s why I can see how they die. But how am I supposed to save you from that?”
Ghesti made a mental note to bring that thought pattern up with the others; the last thing the boy needed was to convince himself that every death in existence was somehow preventable and his fault if it wasn’t.
“Be there with me?”
Konrad finally looked at him, eyes wide. Ghesti smiled, not that it could be seen through his helm.
“If you’re there with me, I won’t die alone.”
Konrad just stared at him. Ghesti sighed.
“Konrad, death is inevitable. It’s good that you want to save as many people as you can, but sometimes all you can do - all you should do - is be there for them at the end. I don’t want to be saved from that death, but since you know what will happen, you can be there, or alert others to what happened so I don’t go unfound for hours. Okay?”
Konrad sniffled, but nodded, pressing his face into his legs. Ghesti let him sit there for a while, before asking what he’d been meaning to since Konrad appeared.
“Where did you go, before? I couldn’t detect you at all. Do you have a tunnel under your bed?”
Konrad looked up, frowning. Ghesti didn’t mention the faint tear tracks on his cheeks.
“I was just under the bed, hiding,” he said, sounding confused.
Ghesti tilted his head slightly.
“I scanned under your bed, you weren’t there,” he said.
Konrad’s frown deepened.
“I was hiding, of course you couldn’t see me.”
Ghesti could feel the creeping pressure of a headache threatening. After Sanguinius’ frustrated and frustrating explanation of his visions, any assertion from the Primarchs in that tone was to be met with concern.
“What do you mean, hiding?” he asked.
Konrad looked at him blankly for a moment, then vanished.
Completely.
Ghesti slowly raised a hand and reached forward, freezing when it met what seemed to be solid air.
“Hiding,” he repeated faintly.
Konrad reappeared. Ghesti pulled his hand back.
“It only works in darkness, but I can hide. I didn’t know it worked on your scanners, though.”
There was a note of wonderment in Konrad’s voice that made Ghesti certain that everyone in the palace was going to be suffering random appearances and disappearances of the Primarch in front of him. He wished he hadn’t mentioned his scanners.
“Please do not try to hide from us,” Ghesti said, “We’ll get very worried if cannot find you.”
Konrad offered him a grin that promised nothing reassuring.
“I won’t!” he promised, the image of a child dying to break his word as soon as authority broke eye contact.
Ghesti sighed but nodded.
“Do you want me to stay here for a little longer, or would you like to try and go back to sleep?” he asked.
Konrad’s smile faded a little.
“Stay with me, please? Just for a little bit?”
Ghesti nodded and sat down facing the door. Alone and old, huh? That would be something,