Scene 6

Inside her mind’s eye

The grey mist parted as Mĕilì walked towards their table with drink in hand. She was dressed in a form fitting, flowery cheongsam dress with a billowy sheer shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Her waist length blue hair done up in elaborate loops held in place with an ornate, jewel encrusted broach. There her gaggle of friends eagerly greeted her.

She sat on a luscious feathered pillow in their little circle within the crystal meditation chamber. Through the walls she could see a rosy reflection of the maiden world they had come to vacation on. All Asuryani followed one path or another and were highly encouraged to switch, but the rout dedication of the paths still weighed heavy on her young soul. She had been flirting with the idea of going outcast but that came with a peril she wasn’t ready to accept. No, all I need is a little time or respite.

Maiden worlds were exquisitely gorgeous planets. Vast rolling hills of verdant green stretched for as far as the eye could see. The exquisitely crafted chamber hovered above the dazzling azure of the lake. All manner of exotic birds chirped, squawked, and chattered as they flew about the socialites. The blazing light of the system’s sun shined like a diamond in the sky. It was truly magnificent. Their lives were the envy of all lesser beings.

So why do I feel so empty?

Every night she looked up at the endless expanse of stars and couldn’t help but be captivated by the endless wonder of the cosmos. There was so much out there and she had seen so little. Whenever she went to speak of it, her kin and associates affirmed the perils that waited beyond the safety of the crafworld’s biodomes. Still, there was that restless itch. She had visited the shrines of Khaine, Morai-Heg, and Asuryan. None of the gods spoke to her.

Yet in her dreams she was haunted by the ghostly visage of being cloaked in a prismatic blur, cackling with laughter. She dared not speak of it, though her troubled thoughts were poorly hid. Her friends had brought her to this place to alleviate her mind of these visions. They had been growing in intensity.

Now she saw a man dressed in black and white, wearing a mask of the Laughing God, Cegorach. Her thoughts drifted back towards that mysterious man.

“Mĕilì!” one of her friends shouted.

“Huh? What?” Mĕilì questioned, snapped out of her trance.

“If you’re going to daydream do it a little quieter,” another friend chided her.

“Sorry. I don’t mean to,” she bashfully minced.

Her friends looked towards one another. They were communicating telepathically in such a way to deliberately exclude her. Mĕilì felt incensed but they picked up on that immediately. With a final collection of nods in agreement, the pack leader amongst them cleared her throat.

“Mĕilì, me and the girls were going to check out this new shrine. I hear they’ve got some Drukhari dancers and by all accounts it’s wild what they get away with. We were hoping to talk you into coming along.”

“Drukhari? Don’t you think that’s a little dangerous?” she asked.

She Who Thirsts did lay in wait in the debauchery of such Aeldari.

“Come on now!” they pressured her, “We’re away from the craftworld, we should be exploring our limits. Don’t ruin our fun, please. You’re dreaming of clowns, we got to get some real men on your mind.”

They all giggled along at their blithe insistence. Mĕilì shrugged. It didn’t feel right but some strange voice whispered to her, “Go! He’ll be there.”

“Okay. It should be fun.”

The grey fog swirled in and washed away like water paint upon a canvas, revealing the endless array of colored lights that illuminated this secluded circus on the far fringes of the forest as the star gleamed and red and orange rings of the planet were woven into the tapestry of the night sky. There was something so incredibly beautiful about the sight even to the eyes of an Aeldari, yet there sat a foreboding in her heart. Despite these misgivings, the murmurings of fate beckoned her to enter the tent.

Inside was an extravaganza of artistry through excess. The inebriated projections of those Aeldari on psychoactive drugs echoed through the thoughts of all around them. Lithe and toned dancers writhed with one another in a lurid spectacle. Mĕilì grew uneasy. The farseers had always warned of what evil grew in the hearts of such sinful pleasures.

Then the room fell quiet as the lights darkened save for a single spotlight at the center of the circus’ stage. In a puff of smoke, manifested the sensuous and alluring Drukhari Wyche. The hype was not overstated. Long, flowing black hair, eyes caked in dark shadow. Her deathly pale skin shimmered in a coat of sweat as her ample features were bound in skin tight leather.

She singled out one of the male dancer and seductively gestured for him to approach her. Her smile full of pointed daggers. The dancer complied and was greeted with the most tender of embraces. She adoringly disrobed him and seized his manhood in her hands. The Wyche hissed and snarled as she drug her razored nails across his flesh. Blood poured down his chest but he was too lost in the ecstasy to notice.

In that moment, as the crowd howled and they lost all sense of restraint, their thoughts running rampant with sexual excess; Mĕilì saw a flash of pink in the Drukhari’s eyes. It was then that she knew something terrible was about to happen.

The Wyche fell to her knees and took the full mass of his manhood into her mouth. The crowd cheered wildly as she slurped and gagged as the blood from his chest ran over her face. Then the dancer achieved his fruition. Upon doing so, the trance he had been in fell away and he became cognizant of the gashes in his chest. Then there was a chomp.

“Aaaaaaahhhhh!” he howled in agony. The crowd fell silent. The horror had stolen their breath away as they watched the poor fellow flail in wretched pain as blood spurted from his crotch.

With a single gulp, the Wyche swallowed the mass whole. She turned towards the crowd with a sinister blood-soaked, toothy grin. Her size emboldened, till her feminine features erupted from their restraints. A spiked tail grew out of her backbone as her hands cracked and fused into snapping claws. Her skin turned a purplish pink hue and the deamonette of Slaanesh fully revealed herself with a blood curdling scream.

The crowd instantly sough to flee, all save for one woman who was too stricken by the horror to move. Other performers had their heads warp and expand while spikes across their bodies as ethereal whips manifested into clawed hands. The demons had come to feast on their both their ecstasy and anguish. The most unfortunate would be made to understand how thin the line between the two truly were.

Wide eyed and jaw agape, abandoned by her “friends”, Mĕilì sat helplessly as a demon approached her. He drooled as his lurid gaze peered into her soul. Then a dark laughter echoed through corridors of her mind.

Instinctively Mĕilì looked up to find a blue portal high above her. Inside it she could see a prismatic blur racing towards the portal’s opening. Then with the speed of a shooting star and grace of a cat, a man dressed in black and white tumbled head first into the materium. All Mĕilì heard was a single “pew” and the demon’s forehead began to glow orange before it melted into chattering sludge.

“Harlequin!” the deamonette howled. All of the demons bounded towards their hated foe.

There he stood with his red and orange mohawk and Cegorach mask, unflinching at the oncoming the horror. Without a word he holstered his pistol and drew his blade. Then the Harlequin looked at the startled woman staring at him in awe.

“Excuse me love, can I have this dance?” he asked her.

“What?” Mĕilì questioned back.

At that he took her by the hand, twirled her into his chest as he pirouetted away from the lunging demonic threat, effortlessly slicing it to ribbons with a few flicks of his wrist. Mĕilì screamed as he tangoed her through a whirlwind of carnage. First he caught their whips in his blade and spun them into a cyclonic strike that severed the demon’s head from its shoulders.

With a sublime touch she had never known before, the lone Harlequin seamlessly guided his hands across the lengths of her arms and torso as he slid and dipped her between the claws and jaws of bloody, ruinous death. At a certain point Mĕilì’s screams of terror became an uproarious laughter and howls of delight. Never in her life had she felt more alive than in the arms of this man as he deftly dismembered the emissaries of She Who Thirsts.

In a matter of moments all that remained standing of the demonic hordes was the deamonette. She looked upon the bloody end of her comrades and broiling rage echoed from her thoughts.

“Noooo!” she screamed, her ethereal voice vibrating the air around her as she charged. Mĕilì looked at the oncoming Slaaneshi demon and then at the Harlequin staring into her eyes through his mask. Then back at the demon, Then back at the Harlequin who hadn’t even acknowledged the presence of said charging demon.

“Ummm…,” Mĕilì gestured toward the demonette with her head, “you see that, don’t you?”

“No fear my dear. The Great Enemy’s death is here.”

As the deamonette barreled towards them, he never took his eyes off Mĕilì. As soon as the demon was within striking distance, the Harlequin shot his sword out with the speed of thought. The blade slipped through the deamonette’s open mouth, piercing through the back of her skull. The demon’s blazing pink eyes welled in utter shock as she gagged. Only then did the Harlequin slowly turn his head to meet her dying gaze.

“Look at you, gagging on my blade. That’s right. Choke on it you dirty little bitch,” he quipped.

With that last insult, the demon disintegrated and her ashes drifted away into nothingness. Every fiber of Mĕilì’s body felt more alive in that moment alone than in the totality of the rest of her life. She knew with absolute certainty one thing:

This man is my destiny! He was everything she had dreamed of and so much more. She bit her lip as her breath trembled. She reached out to touch him, which she wanted to do so painfully bad, but she hesitated. Her hand trembled like the branches of a tree in the wind, closing and opening repeatedly. Then he turned his face back to hers and removed his mask. Mĕilì couldn’t help but have her mind scream her thoughts. He’s the most gorgeous thing I’ve ever seen in my life!

The Harlequin gently smiled, brushed aside the hair in her face, leaned in and said, “Ma’am, your thoughts are little loud.”

Mĕilì whelped as she covered her head in her hands and crumpled into a ball on the ground.

“I’m so stupid! I’m so stupid! I’m so stupid!” she whispered harshly.

The Harlequin looked down at this ridiculous girl, smiled, and laid down next to her. He calmly reached his hand out, took hers in one and lifted her chin with the other. “Hey,” he gently said to her, “no you’re not. Stop yelling yourself that.”

That was the first time his red lost themselves in her magenta. Mĕilì didn’t know how it was possible, but she knew they’d been in this place with one another and they’d be there again. For a beautiful, serene moment they just laid there in the center ring of the abandoned circus.

“What’s your name?” he asked her.

“M- Mĕilì,” she stuttered.

“Mĕilì? That sounds a lot like meleth nĩn.”

She couldn’t help but giggle at that corny but sweet line. Yet…somehow, it rang true to her.

“Well Mĕilì, my name is Odyn Maitar. Now I know dinner is supposed to precede the show, but would you be amenable to ‘flipping the script’ with me tonight?”

“Sure!” she blushed as she smiled wide, her eyes shining with wonder at the man before her. There were so many ways her mind could interpret his words…and she was ecstatic for all of it. The colors of that time and placed swirled away with the grey fog…

Inside another her’s mind’s eye

When the oblique curtain rose on the new scene, she found herself in the finest silken cerulean hanfu nobility could but. Her long, smooth black hair was done up in elaborate loops held in place by rose-gold crown encrusted with exquisite gemstones and sublime diamonds. The fog dissipated before her as she strutted with confidence and purpose. Her heels clicked across marble and jade as the light banished the shadows, revealing a palace from a time long before the Fall.

Mighty dragons were carved into the pillars that upheld the intricately carved marble ceiling beset with polished turquoise. For a moment she thinks she hears the sound of a sinister laugh. Her head snapped in its direction. All she saw down the corridor was the light pouring in through the meticulously kept royal garden. There was nothing there but the light choir of colorful birds. She shakes her head and refocuses herself.

Bei Bei, Queen of Leng and Jia, soon to be empress but above all else she was the Daughter of the Dragon: her father’s daughter. She was bold, beautiful, and brilliant. In a few short years she had successfully orchestrated the murder of the Ox King by his heir, eliminated said heir, taken the kingdom for herself, inherited the full measure of father’s kingdom, and utterly decimated the forces of the proud Tiger King to her south. Her ascent to the imperial throne was all but assured.

All that remained of her opposition were the fragments of those rebellious sorcerers. Little did they know Bei Bei’s unparalleled mind had already plotted their downfall. Though they were farseers and she wasn’t, it wouldn’t do them any good. They never stood a chance. She couldn’t help but smugly grin at the simple brilliance of her work.

While it may have been true that they were led by the “True Phoenix”, the supposed legitimate heir to the imperial throne, she was nothing but a foolish girl. Her fickle heart and feckless mind will destroy her for me. Bei Bei had captured the one thing the little phoenix princess required to overcome her own inadequacies: her mentor. So long as that ludicrous, charming, handsome…she shook her head to keep that line of thought in check…fool remains safely locked in my dungeon my victory is all but assured.

Guards heaved open the grand obsidian doorway to the throne room. The chamber itself was quiet and cold. Empty…or at least it should have been. Bei Bei squinted down the end of the pathway. There was a person standing next to her throne. She stopped, nodded to her personal body guard and bastard brother, Jieshi, to “be ready”. He wordlessly nodded as he held his staff forward, ready for battle. Cautiously they approached.

As she drew nearer, Bei Bei could see that it was a man dressed in an open red robe. On his shoulder sat a rainbow colored raven. In one hand he held a sorcerer’s staff and in the other he swung about a blade that hissed at the air as it burned white hot as star light. He was chopping her throne of marble and gold into tiny pieces, his burning blade slicing through the stone as if it were butter.

Bei Bei cupped her hands over her mouth to restrain the gasp gurgling in her throat. The raven turned its head towards the approaching foes and cawed. That’s when the red sorcerer followed suit. “The fool” smirked as his burning red eyes met Bei Bei’s searing pink. Even in the wake of his humiliation and defeat, his roguish swagger had not abetted and Bei Bei despised how it made her heart flutter. Keep your game face on Bei.

“Eh hem,” she cleared her throat, “Aren’t you supposed to be detained right now?”

“I’m sorry BeiBei girl,” he cooed, “but you know I’m a stubborn brat that needs to be taught a lesson.”

Despite her mind’s protest, Bei Bei’s lips curled up into a girlish smile as she blushed hard. I hate how much I love it when he calls me that. She took a breath and composed herself.

“Save the tete a tete for later-,”

“Later tonight?” he interjected.

Bei Bei held up a single finger, demanding he hush. The sorcerer chuckled under his breath as he complied.

“Guangdao, how did you get out of your cell?” she asked.

“Do you really think there’s a prison that can hold me?” he snapped back as whirling staff summoned a mighty gust of wind and waves of flame danced off his flickering blade, “But you knew that already. Didn’t you, BeiBei girl?”

“Why didn’t you escape while you had the chance?”

“For the same reason you didn’t kill me when you had the chance,” Guangdao replied, “We’re never going to give up on each other.”

Guangdao’s painfully sweet words, struck through Bei Bei’s cold heart like an arrow, setting it a flutter. Even after all these years, through all the pain and sorrow, he still knew how to speak to her like no other person alive. Despite her best efforts to know better, Bei Bei could not deny that their love for one another had not abated in the least.

That’s when a sneering Jieshi interceded on the behalf of his flummoxed sister and queen.

“Cease your prattling, traitor,” he snarled.

“Look at you Jieshi,” Guangdao said, “all grown up and still two heads shorter than me. When I heard about your father’s displeasure at your ‘stature’ I just assumed he was being a snobbish prick, as was his way. I didn’t realize he was being such a literal hypocrite.”

“Do not besmirch our father.”

“Oh? What if I don’t ease up off of the megalomaniacal, ruthless beast who did all in his power to ruin the most wondrous woman the world has ever known? What are you going to do about it, Slick?”

Jieshi tapped his staff on the floor as he held up his right hand before his face. He made a well-practiced gesture with his fingers as his pink eyes blazed with power. His pupils withdrew as he sneered at his foe with a fiendish joy.

“I’m going to put you in your place, peasant!”

Sorcerous power crackled off of Jieshi’s hand. Guangdao trembled and his brave face slowly gave way to a trembling lip betraying a sense of terror. Jieshi rotated his wrist as he cracked his knuckles and Guangdao was pulled to the floor by the weight of his fears at horrid mental pageant Jieshi played through his mind.

“Nyuuuaah…” he groaned till it had risen to a wailing shriek as he collapsed on the floor, “yuuuaeeeeeeee!” There he went limp, eyes rolled back, tongue jutted out to the side of his mouth.

Jieshi smiled with savage pride as Bei Bei coyly smiled. She walked over, sat down next to his supposedly unconscious body, laid her head on her hand as her elbow rested on the stairs up to the disassembled throne, and smirked down at the fool.

“You having fun?” she asked him. Instantly, Guangdao’s face snapped back to his smarmy grin in an instant. “Hey, your rat bastard brother still ain’t shit. You can do much better for a body guard.”

“Yeah…there was supposed to be somebody a lot better suited to the task but then he went and lost his nerve.”

Guangdao reached up, brushed the hair out of Bei Bei’s face, and gently stroked her cheek.

“Or he couldn’t ignore what was being done to the woman he loved anymore.”

“Take your filthy peasant hands off of the queen!” Jieshi shouted.

Guangdao rolled his eyes. He peeled back his right sleeve to reveal a mighty serpentine god wrapped around his forearm. The sorcerer closed his eyes. They snapped open, glowing with pale light of ethereal power, the serpent did so in kind. With a snap of his fingers, Guangdao projected some manner of horrid vision into Jieshi’s head. Bei Bei didn’t know what it was but it was enough to make her brother pass out in pure fright, crashing hard onto the cold floor. Guangdao chuckled sinisterly as the pale light faded from his eyes back to their natural red.

Then he and Bei Bei lost themselves in each other. Her in his red and him in her pink. They meekly smiled as this moment quietly reminded them of infinitely happier days they shared long ago.

“You know I would be the greatest wizard ever,” Bei Bei said.

Guangdao laughed warmly, “As much as your ego doesn’t need to be inflated any further, you’re not wrong. Shame you’re too busy playing princess.”

“Okay tiger, what would have me do? Throw away everything I’ve-my family has worked so hard for so I-,”

“So you could run away with the man you love, fulfill your wildest dreams, and be your true self: the haughty arrogant bitch I love. Not the perfect little princess playing out her father’s designs.”

Bei Bei swallowed hard. Deep down, something in her desperately wanted to agree with him…but she was too close to everything her family had aspired for just to walk away. She pressed her forehead against his. They rubbed against one another like cats greeting their mates. She leaned in and they tenderly pressed their fingers against one another’s in long, loving caress. Bei Bei pursed hers lips as she furrowed her brow.

“In another life…”

The grey fog rolled in and that ancient world washed away, leaving only a pair of red and pink stars staring at one another…

Inside a different her’s mind’s eye

Those stars twinkled in the heavens as the fog receded into patchwork clouds, partially blotting out the night sky. The lights of the city’s center illuminated the horizon across the river. Down in the quaint boroughs of the old town, the sounds of reserved revelry filled the air. The symphony of the night was filled the hums, croaks, and chirps of the beasts of the bayou.

Cypress trees and magnolias lined the streets of this city in a time long past. It was a time before this world forgot its own name. The bright lights of primitive vehicles plopped along cobblestone roads overgrown with moss. Streets lights hissed as a steady flow of gas sustained their orange glow. Peoples of many and mixed cultures paraded about one another as they prowled the streets seeking entertainment, speaking in a tongue blended from three separate languages.

The cool breeze of a picturesque early summer night flittered through the satin curtains of one well-renowned establishment. In their booths or at their tables, the Bywater beasties nursed their tonics and cocktails. A light haze of cigarette smoke hung about their heads. The lot of them remained contentedly silent as they listened to the moody jazz of the lounge’s combo.

The clarinet player swooned as he found his rhythm among the drums, trumpet, bass, and sultry tones of the singer. Five of the sextet basked in the gentle light cast upon the stage. The piano sat conspicuously empty. Despite their best efforts, they knew they were out of tune without their full measure.

Then a pair sauntered onto the stage. The first was a man by the name of Odell: the pianist and proprietor of this establishment. He wore his signature electric blue suit and his shades hung at the edge of his nose. Hand in hand, he walked with a young woman with exceedingly pale skin, raven black hair, and violet eyes. If he cut a handsome figure, she was an enthralling specter. Belle LaRue did not fall short of expectations.

The reclusive daughter of the recently deceased Grand Patron of the Bayou Milieu had become the center of a many rumor or story. She glided across the piano top in her formfitting cocktail dress, which was as black as her hair, with ethereal grace. Her smoking gloves ran the length of her forearms. She seemed to fade in and out of the shadows with every move she made. The crowd and band sat transfixed by her.

Tall tales about her were nothing new. People gossip most about what they haven’t seen and nobody outside her dearly departed father knew much of anything about her. That was until Odell approached her at his funeral. In his quest to keep the families of the Milieu from killing each other, and to find Marcel LaRue’s killer, he brought Belle into his orbit.

The past several weeks had been the best of her life. He was the first man to never be afraid of her. Considering how her father’s grizzly death only exacerbated the rumors of her supposed ghoulish nature; Belle couldn’t help but be enchanted by the man. He can never know the truth. She was all too certain that if he knew the truth Odell would want nothing more to do with her…and the thought of that broke her heart.

Odell nodded to the clarinet player, his right hand man, who responded in kind. The man spun his instrument about his hands and tapped his foot to establish the rhythm. The drummer and bassist crossed their bow and stick before they joined. The trumpeter puffed upon his mouthpiece. Odell’s head nodded along. His fingers hung above the keys before he brought them down gently on the high notes. The singer began to hum along.

Odell looked up at his ingénue muse and smiled. Belle did so in kind, nodding along with the rhythm, biting her lip as she felt the magic of the music begin to flow within her. She kicked her legs out to side of the piano, allowing one to slice through the slit in her dress. Whistles from the crowd were heard. They were ready.

Odell locked eyes with his paramour, hazel lost in violet. His burned with a fiery passion as his grin grew wider and toothier. He snapped his head around and shouted, “Ladies and gentlemen,: if you would please raise a toast to Great Khaos, take a good toke, and lose yourselves in the miracle of jazz. Here we go! A one, a one, two, three, four!”

The sextet exploded with high paced energy and the crowd stomped and clapped along. Then the singer, the fabulous Faye LaReine, made her entrance.

“Monsieur, ne resterez-vous pas la nuit?

You have no better place to be.

The sun is set and I can bet

there be thieves and I must plea

you don’t them alone with me.

Mon lit est bien chaud monsieur.

Do not deprive yourself of fate’s conjure,

and spend a night and eternity with me.”

The instrumental chorus swelled into a bombastic array. Odell thundered on his piano’s keys with blistering speed as the combo raced into the pianist’s solo. Just as all the other instruments faded and Odell raised his hands high to strike down with all the power he could muster as sweat poured off his brow, a long slender, pale leg entered his frame of vision.

A midnight blue heel placed itself against his chest. Belle shoved him, spun herself atop the piano, then flung herself back into Odell’s lap. As she landed, she hit the keys with flawless timing and did not miss a single one. The rest of the combo cheered on at the incredible display of her skill and the crowd howled in approval.

Belle cast a glance over her shoulder at her lover with a proud smile. As the rest of the sextet rejoined the number, he leaned in and kissed her. Their lips met with a zealous euphoria. All the while, he wrapped his arms around her and played half the notes along with her. They smiled and giggled at one another as their arms entwined and wormed around one another in their duet on one piano.

It was the best night of Belle LaRue’s life. She never wanted it to end. The gray haze of the psychedelic smoke filled her lungs as neon rainbows illuminated the synapses of her mind. They fired off into pastel paint strokes dancing in time and meter with sweet sounds of jazz as a fiendish grimace in the stars watched on and the majestic yet horrific amalgamation of an owl, a crow, and a heron sailed over the surface of the bayou. The rising steam off the water swirled about the great bird till all the world vanished in the fog...

Inside her mind’s eye

A hawk with electric blue feathers sailed through the grey haze. It descended through the cancerous cloud rising out of industrial stacks. The sprawling mass of the filthy, degenerate city stretched to the horizon of the Imperium hive-world. Tens of billions of souls toiled in their waste as they bore no hope for their own existences.

The hawk sailed over the wretched spectacle of desperation and depravity that played out on every street corner of the endless city. Brutality, savagery, and inconsistence were but the rules of existence in this awful place. So much so, that the most ghastly human horrors were all but banal. There was no justice for the murdered bodies lying in the open street nor any salvation for the poor adolescents abducted for cruel and vile ends. They were all infinitesimal specks in a bloated, hideous machine that spanned the stars.

Yet in such desperate circumstances people cling all the more tightly to hope. As the cries, pleas, and shouts of anguish rose above the city the hawk seemed cackle as it cawed. Then it folded its wings and divebombed towards the ground. Faster and faster it went. As it appeared as if it would splatter itself upon the ground, a manhole cover opened in the streets. The hawk sailed through it and the subsequent labyrinth of tunnels till it emerged in a massive cavern where an entire second city could be found beneath the other.

In this place secluded from the searing heat of the sun or baleful glare of the Inquisition, countless thousands of people lived with a zeal, passion, and fury their topside counterparts could scarcely fathom. All the same evils taunted and tormented this place but there was also laughter and joy to be found among the howls and screeches of mutants and thieves.

The air was thick with a murky green haze that was pumped from the city above into their air. A great dazzling green sea of toxic waste lined the shores of the underground city. The hawk sailed amongst flocks of mutated xeno birds. The putrid waters gurgled and spat forth noxious spews. The loud roar of handcrafted engines echoed down the alleys as gangs raced their rigs against one another for one inane reason or another. The bird soared through the maze buildings forged from the patchwork of disposed steel, concrete, and plastic.

At last the hawk found itself a perch in the mangled, blackened husk of a pitiful excuse of a tree. From that vantage point it could leer through an open window. Inside it sat a sad little girl with blue eyes and black hair, looking out over the dirty streets of the city from her window. The hawk, or the Ruinous Power behind it, had been keeping his eyes on young Bella for his own ends. He had been since before her species evolved. She could be everything he needed...all she needed was nudge down that path.

A cat meowed and the bird trained its attention on it. The opportunity had presented itself. The hawk leapt from its perch and descended upon the unsuspecting feline. Its cruel talons dug deep into the flesh of the terrified animal. Before the feline could land a clawed swipe at the bird carrying it into the air, the hawk released it from its grip sending the cat crashing against the wall. It’s pained moans caught the ear of the young Bella. Her head snapped upright and a lump swelled in her throat as cold terror gripped her heart.

“Ziggy!” the little girl cried out for her pet as she ran outside, the hawk watching intently from the roof.

All according to plan.

Little Bella fell to her knees as she held her dying cat in her arms. Its warm blood washed over her clothes. It nuzzled close to its master as the light in its eyes began to fade.

“No! No! No! No! No!” she wept as she held tightly to her pet. Then a thought crossed Bella’s mind. You can save him.

She knew what she had been told: “don’t let anyone know, the inquisitors will come for you.” The little girl didn’t truly understand what was up with these “inquisitors”. All she knew is that when they came to visit somebody they were never seen again. Bella didn’t want to be taken to wherever they took everyone but she also couldn’t just allow Ziggy to die.

She looked around. There’s nobody watching. Bella composed herself, breathed in deep, and let her mind go to that scary place in space. She imagined herself in a crystalline labyrinth. There she’d gaze at reflections of herself that weren’t quite her. She stared at a grown version of herself with long braided blue hair and magenta eyes. There she waited patiently.

Then a chittering voice of something beyond her understanding whispered a phrase to her, “hesh tel at tal.”

“Hesh tel at tal,” she whispered back.

In a swirling vortex of red clouds she vanished and was returned to her body in that exact moment she had left it. Ziggy was still alive but he wouldn’t be for much longer if she didn’t act quickly.

“Hesh tel at tal,” she began, with no seeming effect. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she repeated the phrase louder and louder, “Hesh tel at tal. Hesh tel at tal!” With every incantation, sorcerous power further enveloped her. Little Bella was terrified as the shadows began to dance around her but she couldn’t stop.

“Hesh tel at tal,” she whispered and ethereal lightning echoed out of her eyes as a dim light emanated from Ziggy’s wounds. She had no idea how she was doing any of this, but Bella knew the spell was working.

“Hesh tel at tal,” she whispered one last time and the shadows enveloped her. In the dark there was a sinister laughter and the cry of some kind of bird. Then all the darkness was gone and Ziggy was all better, purring as she held him in her arms.

“Ziggy!” she shouted, “You’re okay!”

Then the little girl carried her pet back inside the ramshackle hut of industrial waste that was her home. All the while the hawk watched. Then the bird snapped its head towards you, dear reader.

A sinister grin grows across its beak. With a twinkle in its eye betraying the underlying insanity, it obscures the world with its wing. It withdraws it and the bird is gone.

A pre-teen Bella strolled down the street of the over city. She anxiously searches for where her brother Viktor had gone. He had gone off to rescue their gang leader, who had been abducted by an Inquisitor of the Ordo Hereticus. Rumors of a “witch” had brought them to their door.

“I can help them!” she muttered to herself proudly. Her powers were more than enough. She knew Viktor was only trying to protect her but Bella knew she could be of much greater use to the gang. All she wanted was their respect, and this was just the opportunity she needed to earn it.

A short while later she had found them. They were huddled behind a doorway as a vicious mutant slowly ripped the door to pieces as his master watched on with smug satisfaction.

Bella, knowing this was her moment, confidently strolled toward the monstrosity. It glared at her as the neon green of the chemicals that had mutated it shone through its skin as mangled knuckles and distended muscle fidgeted with power and fury. The Inquisitor stared at her in disbelief and nodded to the mutant to kill her.

“Bella, no!” Viktor pleaded as he reached an arm through the mangled sheet of steel that had once been a reinforced door. But he was too late. The burgeoning witch had spent years practicing for just such a moment. Nothing could dissuade her now.

Bella opened her mind to the warp and ethereal power flowed through her body. Lightning arched out of her eyes, waves of concussive force emanated from where she stood, and the shadows wrapped themselves around her foe. With a flick of her wrist, the tendrils of darkness ripped the mutant to pieces…but as it did so, its toxic blood ignited on contact with the lightning.

The explosion tore the floor asunder and the heinous projectile of acidic bodily humors ate through the door that had been protecting her brother and his comrades. The sight of him imperiled greatly heightened her emotional state which scaled with her power. Bolts of arcane lightning ripped through her brother’s flesh. Bella could scarcely comprehend what she had done as he stared back at her, his eyes holding the piercing gaze of “betrayal” as his body disintegrated to ashes.

The horrific death of her sole surviving relative only further heightened Bella’s emotional trauma and therefor her power. As she screamed, all noise faded away and timed stopped. A black sphere of sorcerous power engulfed the city block. The shadows reflected the infinite dance of cosmic bodies in all their terror and splendor. Then a nearly inaudible screech rose in volume till it had far surpassed human limits. The higher it rose, the more cracks appeared in the shadowy sphere.

Then came the dreadful implosion. All that had been engulfed by the shadows receded with them into a miniature black hole that blinked itself out of existence. Once it had gone, all that remained of the city block was Bella herself.

She fell to her knees and gasped for breath. The agony of the realization of what she had done made her blood run cold. The idea she had killed the brother who had always looked out for her was crippling. The idea that she was indeed the monster that the hated Inquisition always warned of ate at her soul. Then her thoughts turned towards the Inquisition, the Imperium, and that baleful corpse of a god-emperor who had made her life miserable. Fuck the god-emperor!

From that moment on she would be everything they accused her of. She was now a witch and heretic. An enemy to all Imperium scum. On the edge of the ruin sat an electric blue hawk.

The next several years passed by in flashes. There were many others like her: hapless wretches who had nothing left to lose and every reason to despise their oppressors. However, there were very few who had talents like hers. When the arbites would come, it was by her might that they would die, engulfed in psychic lightning or pulled apart by the shadows of the under hive. And at every opportunity, Inquisitors and their acolytes would die first and worst.

In time a Chaos cult formed around her and that painted a target on her back. They were far from the only cult in the under hive. They would have their clashes with the servants of Khorne, Slaanesh, and Nurgle. Sometimes they would lose and other times they would win. During her time as the cult leader, the blue hawk always stayed close to her. He spoke of grand dreams and great spells.

“Kill the slaves of the corpse!”

And so she did. Though through it all, she felt cold and lifeless inside. Tzeentch promised she’d find hope in her power to change the world around her, but that always seemed a hollow promise from the Changer of Ways.

“Why am I doing this?” she would plead with the bird.

“Oh! You’ll see,” he would answer, “just keep an ear open to a song in your heart.”

A song in my heart? Bella had no clue what that meant.

A short time later whispers of a new cult of Tzeentch spread amongst the hive. They called themselves “the Piano Men”. They filled the streets with songs that spoke the good word of Chaos to all who heard without any knowing it. They also formed an alliance the followers of Slaanesh and they had infiltrated the upper ranks of the over hive.

These guys are pros. Bella recognized that this was a cult that had become well versed in corrupting worlds. This one was far from their first. Yet despite all her best efforts, she could never find their leader. So her band remained separate and apart, uncertain of their place in the grand plan. The blue hawk of Tzeentch no longer appeared to her. Have I served my purpose? Is it over?

Almost as if in answer to her thoughts, a crow cawed. Bella looked up to see a raven of rainbow colors soaring above her. It would continue to follow her for several weeks.

Given the massive size of the Imperium, it often took many years to martial responses to crises on distant planets such as theirs…but when that response came it would be formidable. The Inquisition had not forgotten the deaths of their agents. They would answer this affront with fiery fury.

One day high gothic hymns blared down from the sky. Then a rain of holy water that seared the flesh of all touched by Chaos. As the warships set positions above the hive, they rained down churches and cathedrals. From out of the ostentatiously gold ornamented structures stepped legions of warrior women dressed in red and black.

Their leader, flanked by the lobotomized and augmented babies they called cherubs, took the podium in her power armor and the golden light of dawn shined through her white hair.

“Humble servants of the God-Emperor!” she shouted into a vox box that could be heard throughout the entirety of the hive, “Be not afraid! Rejoice, for the hour of thy liberation hast come! By the blessings of the God-Emperor you shall all be forgiven your sins…”

She closed her eyes and raised her arms as battle sisters to either side of her raised their weapons in the air.

“…by the forfeit of your flesh! Embrace the purification of the flame…,” as she spoke the flamers ignited their weapons in a blazing salute, “…and be set free from demonic curse! In His holy name we shall cast you all back to the hated Warp! Offer your prayers and submit yourselves to His judgment and you yet may be spared from Hell! Come one, come all and receive the gift of holy death!”

The Adepta Sororitas had come. The Daughters of the Emperor descended upon the city and no one would be spared. Man, woman, and child were all put to the flamer, melta, and bolter. “Innocentia nihil probat”, the Inquisition’s official motto of “innocence proves nothing”, was in full effect. In lock-step with the arbites, the Sororitas went house by house exterminating all they found. Eventually, among the millions slaughtered, some heretics and witches were found.

But the under hive would not lay down and peacefully die. The wild and colorful menagerie of rogues, criminals, mutants, and cultist charged defiantly into the planet’s apocalypse. Bella was amongst their numbers. Her shadows and lightning ripped through Imperium dogs but their firepower and holy wards proved too much. Block by block they were pushed back to the edge of the toxic sea.

In that moment, Bella felt the cold grasp of despair seize her. It’s hopeless.

“No!” screeched a rainbow raven in reply to her thoughts.

The bird sailed high into the sky and the ground shifted. The sororitas ceased firing as all eyes turned to the sea. A fell breeze blew off of it and it carried a strange morbid, yet childish tune. After a long lead in, a choir of ghostly voices joined in.

“Boys and girls of every age

Wouldn't you like to see something strange?”

Out of the neon green sludge rose beasts of blue feathers and pink sinewy tendrils. The demons of Tzeentch had come in the darkest hour.

“Come with us and you will see

This, our town of Halloween,” the shadows sang.

“This is Halloween, this is Halloween

Pumpkins scream in the dead of night,” the rotting mounds of recycled protein shrieked as they sprang alive.

“This is Halloween, everybody make a scene

Trick or treat till the neighbors gonna die of fright

It's our town, everybody scream

In this town of Halloween,” spirits screeched as they assailed the sororitas.

So the hymn of an ancient era echoed through the streets as grander demonic monstrosities manifested into the material plane. Despite their sundering firepower, the sisters of battle were overwhelmed and forced to flee back to the over hive where they mounted a defense against the counter assault, but the demons were only empowered by the sense of hope that had been ignited in the hearts of the survivors, making them resistant to the sisters’ warding.

Yet as the hymns ended, the sororitas replied with their own. Lost in jubilant exhalations, there might was magnified by the power of hope. Yet in such an act Tzeentch, the Chaos god of hope, held a trick up his sleeve. His demons cackled even as they were slaughtered; for all had gone, “according to plan”.

Bella watched in awe as the rainbow raven flew behind the ranks of their enemies and the hymns blaring out of their battle barges were suddenly cut off and replaced by the sound of a piano and man’s voice singing.

“Come out, Virginia, don't let me wait

You Imperium girls start much too late

Aw, but sooner or later it comes down to fate

I might as well will be the one,”

Then in flash of rainbow light a man in a blue cloak and a staff subsumed in sorcerous power manifested amongst the ranks of the sororitas, immediately behind their leader.

“Well, they showed you a statue, told you to pray

They built you a temple and locked you away

Aw, but they never told you the price that you pay

For things that you might have done,”

As he sung he plunged his staff through the abbess’ chest, opening up a portal from whence demonic entities pulled themselves into the materium through the gaping wound.

“Well, only the good die young

That's what I said

Only the good die young

Only the good die young,”

The demons of Tzeentch giggled and squealed with delight as they tore the Daughters of the Emperor to pieces or used profane psychic power to mutate them into gelatinous goop, the sorcerer snapped his head in the direction of Bella. His blazing blue eyes met hers and they both smiled. Then with a snap of his fingers he manifested her next to him.

“You mighta heard I run with a dangerous crowd

We ain't too pretty, we ain't too proud

We might be laughing a bit too loud

Aw, but that never hurt no one,” he sang to her as the Sisters of Battle screamed in fury and agony as they were viciously annihilated and Bella felt the rhythm of that song in her heart that Tzeentch promised her as they danced through the carnage.

“So come on, Virginia, show me a sign

Send up a signal, I'll throw you the line

The stained-glass curtain you're hiding behind

Never lets in the sun

Darlin', only the good die young”

It was in that moment that Bella fully knew her destiny and this man named Xavier Androssian knew his as well. Tzeentch had always intended for their meeting. Their love was the work of the architect of fate and that sublime joy gave them a greater knowledge of themselves than they ever could have known otherwise. In that hope each other inspired they knew a greater power than either could have imagined.

The grey fog rolled in once more…

Somewhere in the space between spaces

The grey fog rolled back one last time to reveal Mĕilì and Bella laying on top of one of the polyhedric structures as the shattered debris of several others floated in the liminal haze of this place. Mĕilì’s mind raced with all the memories of her past and/or future lives. She looked towards Bella, who had none of her psychic defenses raised. Her mind was an open book but Mĕilì didn’t need her sylvan gifts to know exactly what the human was thinking. In some sense, they were different version of the same person living through similar but different existences. The two particular iterations of this same person that was them just happened to co-exist in the same and time during their lifetimes.

What the fuck does that even mean?

As she asked herself this question, a pair of tricksters began to laugh in the palace of her mind, which echoed through the void of this place between everywhere and nowhere. As they did so, an image came to her mind. It was a single face with two sides. One was that of Cegorach and the other was that of Tzeentch. Then the vision vanished in a swirling mass of red and blue ethereal clouds.

Mĕilì held her eyes open painfully wide, blinked repeatedly, and shook her head. Then she became cognizant of the fact that her mortal enemy was just lying beside her. With much trepidation she slowly turned her heads towards her foe to find her doing the same. As they made eye contact, Cegorach’s voice spoke to her.

“Don’t blink.”

There the two women laid on the ground, staring unblinkingly at one another; magenta and blue locked in mortal struggle. As they did, their minds bore witness to one another’s souls through their memories. Bella watched the entirety of Mĕilì’s affluent upbringing as Mĕilì beheld Bella’s squalor. They both lived through one another’s moments of bliss with their true loves, visiting the countless worlds they either saved or ruined in the process. Finally, they lived through one another’s commitment to their deity. Mĕilì was a human witch devoted to Tzeentch and Bella was an Aeldari worshiper of Cegorach.

Their minds began to strain under the strain of such existential absurdism. It was in that moment that Mĕilì realized something. This is a contest! Just like the climax of their play, this was a test of the mind and spirit, not the body. This was the true plane by which the war between Tzeentch and Cegorach would be decided. It’s all about who will get the last laugh.

Mĕilì smirked.

“What does it say about us that we’re nemesis’?”

“Bwahhaheeehahhaaaa!” Bella blurted out as she covered her face and rolled to her side.

As she did so, Mĕilì could hear Cegorach laughing and Tzeentch fell silent. Bella then abruptly broke her own laughter and snarled in frustration. She knew she had lost the game.

“Fuck me,” she muttered.

“Would that be masturbation?” Mĕilì quipped.

“Hmmmm!” Bella grunted as she restrained as her pursed lips curled up into a smile, “Toots, don’t even! Self-love is clearly a practice we don’t believe in.”

“Why is that?”

“You think I know?”

“Maybe it is because we are a haughty, arrogant bitch…”

“…who don’t need no man…”

“…except for our man,” the said in unison.

The two fall quiet. Smiles slowly cracked on their faces and they burst out laughing heartily.

“So speaking of, is ‘he’ them?” Bella asked.

“It would appear so,” Mĕilì replied.

“Okay! When Xavier told me he’d love me through all eternity, this is not what I had in mind.”

“Yeah…turns out being souls mates is a lot more complicated than dime store romance novels make it out to be.”

“I feel like there’s another word you could have used to describe them.”

Mĕilì chuckled, “Well there’s a harlequin romance and there’s a Harlequin romance,” and she winks at you, dear reader.

“Hey!” Bella snapped, “Don’t you touch that wall! That’s our thing!”

“Exactly. It’s our thing.”

The two who were reflection of one, laid there side by side when they had been striving so fervently to kill one another in a length of time that was both immediate and eons ago.

“So I got a question of my own,” Bella said.

“Go for it,” Mĕilì answered.

“If we’re both ‘her’ and they’re ‘him’, would that be considered cheating-,”

Before Bella could even finish her sentence, the hiss of Mĕilì’s Harlequin’s Kiss silenced her as she found the Aeldari straddling her with the weapon pulled back and ready to strike.

“We’re supposed to be smart. So you know better than to finish that question,” Mĕilì snarled.

“Pwuah! Please! Do you really think I want that slimy xeno dick?”

“Hey, it’s not slimy. Even if it were, I’d take that over Tzeentch thinking it would be funny to turn it into a bird’s head.”

“Look, it only happened the one time.”

Mĕilì was speechless. The horrifying thought of that nightmarish occurrence made her stagger back as she held a hand over her mouth. More than anything, it affirmed to her that she had allied herself with the correct trickster god. Bella held a finger up as she stammered, trying to find the right words.

“Now I know how this is going to sound,” she couldn’t help cracking a vicious smile, “but there are certain carnal benefits to a changeling.”

“Please stop,” Mĕilì pleaded.

“All I’m saying is that man who’s good with his tentacles is a man you keep.”

Mĕilì held her hands over her mouth as she gagged.

“That sound you’re making. That’s how he knows he’s hitting the perfect spot in your throat,” Bella said with a sinister glee, delighting in the torment she was putting Mĕilì through.

“No! A million times no!” Mĕilì screamed, “Isabella, you shut your filthy mouth and get us the void out of here!”

“That’s the thing, toots. You can’t just leave. This ain’t the webway. It ain’t even the warp. It’s the maze of my-our mind-s. You can’t just leave it.”

“Then how the fuck do we get out of here?”

“For the record, since you’re me you should be able to figure this out but the sake of the attending eyes, I’ll spell it out for ya. Who’s the one person who can get you out of your own head?”

Mĕilì slapped a hand against her forehead. Duh! She snapped her fingers and held a thumbs up towards Bella. The witch nodded and pointed towards the sky.

“Look up,” she instructed.

As Mĕilì did so, all the fog vanished as well as the polyhedrons. The two of them were left floating in the pulsating watercolors of space. Bella slapped Mĕilì’s shoulder and pointed at a pair of stars: one red, one blue. As she gazed up at them, Mĕilì felt her heart flutter and she was filled with an overwhelming joy. Elen nĩn.

“Do you feel it?” Bella asked. Mĕilì nodded. “Good. All you have to do is let your mind go quiet and have your pull you towards exactly where you want to be: by his side, aaand...poof! You’ll be there.”

So they did and all the cosmos around them faded away into a rapidly accelerating light where two pairs of heartbeats synched with their respective partner and pounded louder and louder till all there was a white nothingness.