Joyride

Horus was bored. It had been over a month since their Olympic Games and nothing really interesting had happened in that time. He wanted to do something fun, but he wasn't quite sure what yet.
"It'll be fun when we're older and get to learn how to drive groundcars," Jaghatai was saying to Magnus.
"Probably," Magnus said. "Though the first time it'll be really weird."
"True," Jaghatai said. Hearing this, Horus was struck with an idea, he moved over to where Jaghatai and Magnus were sitting.
"Why wait until we're older?" Horus asked slyly. "We could sneak down to the garage and drive a groundcar ourselves."
"We aren't tall enough yet," Magnus said. "I could possibly make myself that tall, but that would require a lot of concentration."
"What if we got someone else to do the pedals?" Jaghatai suggested. "Alpharius maybe."
"What about me?" Alpharius asked, joining the others.
"What do you think about sneaking down to the garage and borrowing one of the groundcars?" Horus asked. "You can operate the pedals while Jaghatai drives."
"That sounds like fun," Alpharius said. He was getting bored himself.
"You'll let me drive?" Jaghatai asked, awed.
"Of course," Horus said. "I bet you can feel the speed from the driver's seat more than we do in the passengers' seats."
"What are you guys talking about?" Leman asked as he wandered over.
"Borrowing one of the groundcars," Horus said quietly.
"Can I join?" Leman asked.
"As long as you keep quiet until we have the vehicle," Horus said. Leman was known for being loud.
"I can do that," Leman said. He liked rides in the car.
"Also, you have to leave Freki and Geri here," Horus said.
"Right," Leman said. He understood that the wolves would be too hard to sneak around. "Let's go before Allfather gets back."
They headed towards the door, making sure that their brothers weren't looking. Sanguinius approached them, and Horus dragged him out the door with them.
"Where are we going?" Sanguinius asked, wrenching his arm away from Horus.
"The garage," Horus said. "We're going to try out driving."
"I think I've read that it's called a 'joyride'," Magnus said.
"I like that name," Leman said. They slipped into the garage, and got into a car, starting it after a few tries.
The garage doors opened as the groundcar approached. Jaghatai was steering, with Magnus helping him to see over the wheel. Alpharius was working the pedals as Jaghatai suggested. They went through the Palace districts, and out into the hive area. Leman rolled a window down and stuck his head out of it. Sanguinius was sitting in the most central seat of the groundcar, looking very unhappy.
"Can I have a turn?" Leman said after pulling his head back inside. He had nearly hit his head on a sign.
"You can steer when we turn around," Jaghatai said. He was having too much fun to want to let anyone else get in the way.
"I want to steer now," Leman said, moving over to try and push Jaghatai out of the way and grab the wheel.
"Hey!" Jaghatai said as the groundcar swerved on the road, barely missing another vehicle. Magnus got psychic control of the wheel and jerked the ground car back on course.
They saw flashing lights behind them, an Arbites groundcar was behind him. Leman backed off, allowing Jaghatai to pull over to the side and stop the groundcar. Sanguinius looked a little panicked, but stayed still. The Arbites officer approached the groundcar and rapped on the window. Jaghatai rolled it down, also looking a bit scared.
"How much have you been......." the Arbites trailed off as he noticed that groundcar was occupied only by children. It took him another few moments to realize that the children were the Primarchs. "Ellat, contact the Palace."
"Why?" Ellat asked, he was the other Arbites on the scene.
"We've pulled over some Lord Primarchs," the one by the groundcar said. "Get some orders while you're talking to the Golden Giants."
"They are called Custodians," Horus said. "And deserve your respect."
"We don't call 'em that to their faces, my lord," the Arbites said.
"That is all to the good," Horus said. There was a pause as Ellat spoke with the Palace.
"They say to stay, Lenod," Ellat said. "Lord Valdor himself is coming to get them."
"That's not good," Alpharius said to his brothers. "We'll get chewed out twice."
"We might get turned into fish," Magnus said.
"I don't want to be a fish," Sanguinius said quietly. There were tears forming in the corners of his eyes.
Valdor arrived in a flyer, landing nearby. He got out and trooped over to the groundcars. A moment later a terrified looking Palace serf stepped out of the flyer, moving over to the Arbities vehicle. She was to drive the groundcar back after Valdor had removed the Primarchs.
"All six of you, out of the groundcar," Valdor ordered. A similarity between Custodians and Primarchs was that they didn't typically take orders from the other. However, the Primarchs in the groundcar had never heard so much anger in Valdor's voice before.
"What were you thinking?" Valdor demanded. "You could have gotten into an accident, you could have been hurt or outright killed. You could have killed someone else, an innocent person."
The Primarchs didn't answer, even Horus was too startled and ashamed to reply to Valdor. Instead they looked at their feet and got onto the Custodian flyer. Valdor boarded behind them. Horus had taken the co-pilot's seat, though there were other seats.
"In the back," Valdor growled. Horus glanced up, wanting to object. He met Valdor's angry eyes, and got out of the co-pilot's seat. He took a seat next to Sanguinius, who promptly got up and moved to a different seat.
"I'm sorry, Valdor," Jaghatai said quietly after they started back to the Palace. "I can explain."
"Save it for your father, Lord Khan," Valdor said. He was not truly angry with the six, more disappointed. The rest of the flight back was spent in silence.
They touched down and Valdor waited for the Primarchs to get off the flyer. The Emperor was waiting for them in a meeting room. Valdor escorted them there, and motioned for them to go inside. He remained outside.
The Emperor was quite angry. The six bunched together as they approached their father. Sanguinius was in the back, trying to keep a bit of distance, though aware that he was going to be punished just like the others.
"Whose idea was this?" the Emperor asked when his sons had stopped before him.
"Mine, Father," Horus said, looking at his feet.
"Look at me when you speak to me," the Emperor said.
"The idea was mine, Father," Horus said, lifting his head.
"I inspired Horus, Father," Jaghatai said, looking up at the Emperor.
"None of us went against him," Magnus said, he was only able to met the Emperor's gaze for a few seconds.
"I didn't want to be part of this at all, Father," Sanguinius said. "Horus grabbed me as they were heading out. I was curious about what they were doing though."
"I am disappointed in all of you," the Emperor said. The Primarchs all turned their gazes back to the floor in front of them. "You could have been hurt, or worse could have happened to you. I believe that Valdor told you about that."
"Yes, Allfather," Leman said for the group.
"Why did you do this?" the Emperor asked.
"I was bored," Horus admitted. "I overheard Jaghatai saying how he was looking forward to learning to drive when we are older."
"There are much better ways to handle your boredom, Horus," the Emperor said. Horus felt a bit of hope at the use of his name instead of his number. Sanguinius wasn't as comforted though, and mostly stifled a sob.
"I don't want to become a fish," Sanguinius sobbed when the Emperor turned to look at him. The Emperor was silent a moment, and sighed.
"I won't turn you into fish, Sanguinius," the Emperor said. "However, you will all be punished. Jaghatai, you are not allowed to win any races in your next track meet."
"Yes, Father," Jaghatai said. That would be hard on him as the next track meet was important for the team as a whole.
"Leman," the Emperor said, turning to the next Primarch in line. "You have to clean the fish tank, alone. This does not get you out of caring for Freki and Geri."
"Yes, Allfather," Leman said. Normally two Primarchs cleaned the tank together. Leman had just cleaned it the last time. He also usually didn't have to walk Freki and Geri if he helped clean the tank.
"Sanguinius," the Emperor said. "No flying for a week."
"Yes, Father," Sanguinius said, still looking close to tears. Flying was one of Sanguinius's favorite things in all the galaxy. It was nearly torture for him to not fly when he could.
"Magnus," the Emperor turned to the next. "No new books from the Library for a week."
"Yes, Father," Magnus sighed. He was nearly finished with the book he was reading, and didn't have any others that were new.
"Horus," The Emperor said, his brown eyes full of disappointment. "You have to go without Luna for a week."
"Yes, Father," Horus said. Luna was the name of his plush wolf toy. It was his favorite possession. Like grounding Sanguinius, it was going to be quite hard on Horus.
"Alpharius," the Emperor said. Alpharius was harder to punish due to Omegon. "Turn over your sound dampener. A week, just like Horus."
"Yes, Father," Alpharius said. They had two sound dampeners, the result of a mind game they had played with Ferrus once. Turning over one wasn't as big of a deal as the others. However, they couldn't use the other one until they got the first one back.
"Horus and Alpharius, you will give me your items when we return to the residence," the Emperor said. "Let's go."
"Yes, Father," the Primarchs chorused. They returned to the residence. Sanguinius headed directly to his room, still dejected. Horus and Alpharius quickly retrieved the things that they were to turn into the Emperor. He took them and put them in a special place that he kept confiscated items in.
The Emperor sent his errant sons to bed early, allowing the others to stay up until their normal bedtime, as long as they were quiet. He then went into Sanguinius's room. The winged Primarch had not come out of his room in the little bit of time before the early bed time.
"May I come in, Sanguinius?" the Emperor asked, knocking on the door.
"Yes," Sanguinius said with a sniffle. The door opened, and the Emperor entered. Sanguinius was sitting on the floor, preening his feathers. There was a box of tissues sitting next to Sanguinius.
"It wasn't my idea," Sanguinius said.
"I know," the Emperor said. "Though you should have tried harder to resist."
"He'd dragged me out of the residence," Sanguinius said. "I didn't want him to call me a tattle-tale." He reached around in a contorted way in order to try and get to feathers higher up his wings.
"Here," the Emperor said, sitting on the floor behind Sanguinius. He began to preen the feathers that Sanguinius was trying to reach. "There's nothing wrong with trying to keep your brothers safe. You wouldn't have really been a tattle-tale."
"That's not how Horus would have seen it though," Sanguinius said. He found he was really upset with Horus, but he knew he was partially responsible.
"He would come around," the Emperor said as he continued to preen. He pulled out a tissue and set the larger dirt particles on it for easy disposal.
"Probably," Sanguinius said, now more upset with himself. His wings twitched in his anger. "Though it doesn't matter now. What happened happened, and now I can't fly for a week."
"It's never easy to punish any of you," the Emperor said. "However, punishment is important."
"Why though?" Sanguinius asked. "Reinforcement techniques are more effective than punishment techniques for modifying behavior."
"You have a point," the Emperor said. "However, punishment works in tandem with reinforcement. Punishment does a better job of driving home the idea that consequences follow every action. Negative punishment, though hard on both sides, is better to put that idea in your minds. Then I can use reinforcement techniques instead."
"I understand," Sanguinius said. He had to admit that the Emperor was correct in the idea that reinforcement required a base of what was "good" and what was "bad" that were easier to tell apart. In both systems there was the risk of misinterpretation, which was what made training animals harder than teaching children.
"I understand that you didn't really want to be part of the joyride," the Emperor said. "However, you were there, and this serves to teach all of your brothers. It will keep the six of you from doing it again, and discourage the others from doing it at all."
"True," Sanguinius said. "Thanks, Father." The Emperor had finished preening Sanguinius's feathers.
"You're welcome," the Emperor said, gathering the tissues he and Sanguinius had used to gather the dirt. "Good night, Sanguinius."
"Good night, Father," Sanguinius said as he got into bed.