Painted Sky Diorama
As the last structures of the xenos are toppled and set aflame, their corpses are fed to the pyre. A rush of fetid wind flutters our banner, sacred relic of the Order of the Painted Sky. The offense bears prometheum fumes and rotting gore to crinkle my nose, yet I smile. Not long ago, this planet was held in darkness from the holy starlight of Him on Terra. Now we have scoured it clean, the Saint Celestial herself leading our campaign to bring light and begin the world anew.
I cast my gaze about the valley below, all rubble and craters. The slope of the land is not so different from my own Scaena Cordis, the lands of our home to which I have pledged myself, their vistas forever preserved on the tassets of my power armor, protecting me as I in turn defend them. Hope builds as I imagine it, the last evidence of xenos occupation replaced by pastoral fields and rolling hills, winds carrying the scents of floral blossoms and clean air, rather than the harsh industry of war.
Our sanctuary home of Keadora is a paradise. Its surface ranges from primordial forests to arcadian meadows, mountainous peaks rising to the starlit path, and plunging to benthic depths. Colonies of coral that stretch from one horizon to the next, fed by the nutrient dense sands of vast deserts. Verdant jungles that blossom in the day and arctic nights color Keodora with more beauty than could ever be perceived in a lifetime. Billions arrive every year, offering themselves to the manufacturing demands of the Hive Moon of Setheas for decades, just to earn a day upon Keodora’s surface. Its beauty inspires the pilgrims to give everything, to feed bodies into the toil of industry, their daughters given to my Order, their sons to our brothers in the Keodoran regiments of the Militarum, or the noble chapter of Astartes who share our duty.
But it is not only war that is our duty. Our charge is not to fight the enemies of the Imperium, but to reclaim, restore, and preserve all that His holy starlight touches. Our campaign for this world may be over, but until these lands are restored, there will be no victory.