An-nakhrimun awkwardly stares at the tiny human in her hand, confused and unsure. The human stares back, extending tiny hands towards her while making incoherent noises, clearly unafraid of the soulless Necron.

What is she supposed to do, is she supposed to eat her? She quickly glances up, seeking instruction from the mature human couple, yet to her dismay only receiving their smiles.

Ever since awoke from the Great Sleep and subsequent exile by Illuminor Szeras, she has been drowning in despair and sadness, wallowing at the memory of her failing her entire species and the terrible fate upon herself and her mother. Landing her ship on this nameless planet, she sat upon the top of her ship's exterior and fell into unmoving catatonia, with only the maintenance of her mother, now a mindless warrior, drove her to act slightly.

Not even herself realized how long it had been, but before she realized, an alien race that called themselves “human” appeared. Time has been hard to grasp for An-nakhrimun, as the humans have been in a completely different state each time she paid attention to them. From colonizing the planet, building gleaming cities, fighting among themselves against their robotic servants, collapsing into primitivism, and rebuilding their society with even more inferior technology. She is the only unchanged constant on this planet.

Humans have long used to her presence, sometimes even scaling her ship to try to communicate with her. Now, with her ship buried under dirt, humans have built a park around her seat, these interactions only became more frequent. Sometimes when she pays attention, she could even see humans sketching her figure with primitive pen and papers.

Most of the interaction has been quiet and distanced, but only once, she was forced into physical confrontation.

On a heavy snowy night, two tiny humans, male and female, wearing tattered clothes, stumbled to her seat, cold and shaking. They have no home to return to, and in the winter’s chill, they will not see tomorrow’s sunrise. They embraced the metal alien lady, waiting to die, instead, they found a warm energy dome around her. An-nakhrimun, frozen in confusion and flustered at the tiny humans grabbing onto her, channeled a deflection shield to repel the coldness, in order to try scaring them away.

She sighed a silent relief when they finally left when the sun rise, and didn’t even realize just for that night, she paid so much attention to those two humans, she even forgot to wallow in her own sadness.

Since then, An-nakhrimun sometimes would find small trinkets and items on herself and her mother, scarf, small flower, sachet. She does not understand the purpose, yet keeps them as it might be of some significance she doesn’t get.

Now the two humans have matured, and they came to her with their own offspring, like a female feline eager to show its master what she produced, and asked her to join them on a “family dinner”.

The word sounds so foreign, yet so familiar. Though she lacks the flesh to consume food anymore, she remembers how her mother used to be smiling at the dinner table even with barely any food. She glances at her mindless mother, and allows both of them to be dragged out of the park.

The interaction with humans has distracted her from her own sadness, and she doesn’t hate it.

Yet, such a time would be short lived, as the current Terra time is 850.M30, and the 16th legion of power armoured genetic soldiers, serving the self-proclaimed Emperor of Mankind, will be arriving into the system in less than a year…

Scene art for my tabletop campaign, depicting the pre-campaign story of Lone Cryptek An-Nakhrimun (background here), who sat on a planet being depressed for 10k+ years until Great Crusade came knocking. And the baby that would become the origin of her fake human face.

Drawn by Carl_tabora