Motherhood: The Tale of Three

Motherhood: The Tale of Three is an Alternate Universe Warhammer 40,000 fanfic by Older-than-Time on Sufficient Velocity. Beginning as an expanded version of a series of snippets largely set around the 31st Millennium, story features among others the tales of three immortal women, who by a turn of fate all come to raise three specific Primarchs:

"The Eldar had committed to their...fertility ritual in an attempt to bolster their population across the galaxy. But instead, their ritual of debauchery had birthed...something. Whatever was born, it had rivaled the Three in both power and scope. Its very birth had churned the Immaterium into becoming the cataclysm that shattered the galaxy.

You...you had plans to implement if you were going to save mankind. Plans you wish you weren’t necessary.

You sighed once more and wished Eve was here."

—Intro

Lion El'Jonson, now known as Crown Prince Mordred.

Sanguinius, now known as Gabriel of Baal Secundus.

Magnus the Red, now known as Solaire of Prospero.

Suffice to say, the presence of such female "Perpetuals" raising Primarchs would have far-reaching consequences for the burgeoning Imperium, the Great Crusade and the Emperor's ultimate plans.

Tropes used in Motherhood: The Tale of Three include:

Adaptational Badass:
- Malcador the Sigillite is revealed to have be an artificial Perpetual born during the fall of Troy. Malcador also gone by Judas Iscariot and Douglas MacArthur in his long life.
- Ollanius Persson this time around is shown to have led more high-profile lives at a few points over the millennia, including being Achilles and Omar Nelson Bradley.
All Myths Are True: Sort of. Many of the Perpetuals are either the basis of various mythological and historical figures.
Alternate Universe Fic: It doesn't take too long after the Emperor reunites with his "sons" that divergences from canon become even more pronounced.
Expy:
- Eve, in both her appearance and personality, is based on C.C. from Code Geass. She also has a few tinges of a genderbent Malcador in for good measure.
- Merdraut is a combination of both Saber/Artoria Pendragon and Ruler/Jeanne d'Arc from the Nasuverse.Indeed, her backstory not only has her being a bastard child of the legendary King Arthur (aka, the Emperor) before being an artificial Perpetual, but also has Jeanne as one of her many aliases over the millennia.
- Anri, meanwhile, comes across as a an amalgamation of various characters from the Dark Souls series, which is lampshaded by how she still managed to preserve some lore from the video games as inspiration for her cult.
- The United Human Empire of Albion can come off as a peculiar blend of the Kingdom of Bretonnia and the Tau Empire due to its simultaneously idealized culture and high technology.
First-Name Basis: In a fashion. Eve is the only one who really gets to call the Emperor by what's heavily implied to be among his first names: {{{1}}}
In Spite of a Nail: Even with the renaming of the Primarchs, they still wind up using the names granted to them by the Emperor of Mankind.
Julius Beethoven Da Vinci: Many of the Perpetuals are revealed to have taken the guise of various mythological and historical figures of varying significance over the millennia.
Just Before the End: There are a few glimpses of how life was like during the final days of the Dark Age of Technology, just before everything goes mad.
Living Relic: While the Perpetuals themselves by and large are this by default in one way or another, some are much more so than others. Many of them have been around in time periods familiar to modern-day mankind, and still retain more than a few memories, cultural habits and personality tics from those eras.
Original Character: The Perpetual "mothers" themselves, though they're not the only ones. In addition to them, notably, are the two Lost Primarchs and their respective Lost Legions; unlike in canon, they're not only discovered but remain loyal to the Imperium.
Space Romans: Compared to the Imperium, the United Human Empire of Albion forged by Merdraut is based on an idealized, if technologically advanced re-imagining of Britannia.
Time Abyss: The Emperor and the other Perpetuals, by and large, have been around for since antiquity or some point in humanity's earlier history.