Scene 7

Vaxanide

Mĕilì and Bella poofed out of liminal space back into physical space. They found themselves in the center of some primitive human village in the middle of vast expanse of nothing but wind and dirt. Not a soul to be found nor a sound beyond the creaking of an old iron sign in the breeze. Mĕilì cast an accusatory glance towards Bella.

What game is this, Izzy?

The witch simply shrugged her shoulders as she pursed her lips in a quizzical manner. The two women circled around one another as they looked high and low for the men of their hearts. Nothing.

Then the sound of a piano playing caught Mĕilì’s ear. She tapped Bella on the shoulder and nodded in the direction of the noise. As they walked deeper into town it grew louder and louder. Malicious birds touched by warp corruption sat perched on the rooftops surrounding the local saloon. Music emanated from its walls and masses of flesh could be seen darting back and forth through the windows.

Mĕilì could sense an overwhelming electric joy permeating the air, underlaid by a few points of cold terror. Whatever was happening in there, most everyone was having an incredible time except for the poor few living though the worst day of the lives.

Odyn’s in there. She didn’t need her psychic prowess to know that. Her heart told all she needed to know. Though her mental abilities did allow her deduce that he was not among the frightened. She breathed a sigh of relief. Though there was another signature she could pick up on that confounded her.

Androssian doesn’t have his wards up! She couldn’t believe it. The sorcerer never dropped his mental guard but she could clearly sense his mood and it was equally jovial to Odyn’s. Mĕilì looked towards Bella who had the same look of consternation upon her face. They shared a knowing glance before shaking their heads and approached the door.

“Let’s see what nonsense they’ve made for themselves,” Bella snipped.

Mĕilì opened the creaky old wooden doors and the both of them where flabbergasted by the sight. The human townsfolk had all mutated into either blue sinewy tentacled masses with jabbering maws or sultry lavender fiends that flung their bodies across the room in a violently euphoric daze as they poorly kept rhythm with the upbeat piano notes. All save for a young military man and young woman with white hair huddled underneath a table. They were the ones experiencing cold terror. There was also a trio of old (for humans) men peculiarly nonplused by the whole affair as they bobbed their heads along with the sounds.

Xavier Androssian was lost to the world as he played the song with all his heart and soul. He swayed and leaned wildly with the magic of the moment he was clearly feeling. Meanwhile, Odyn pranced about the stage area in excessive displays of athleticism as he too was clearly in tune with the music. The rest of their troupe sat next to one another on the far side of the bar, bobbing up and down with the haphazard maestroing of their leader.

Odyn snapped his head towards the direction of the pair of humans hiding under the table.

“I see a little silhouetto of a man,” he sang.

“Scaramouch, Scaramouch, will you do the Fandango!” the troupe joined in as Odyn effortlessly flung himself across the tables and past the demons that surrounded him. He seized the human male by the collar and pulled him to his feet. That hapless man’s face thoroughly advertised his sense of horrified confusion.

“Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening!” Androssian answered with his own demonic choir as bolts of warp lightning ripped through the building in tandem with his words.

“Galileo,” the player of Khorne sang.

“Galileo,” the player of Khaine joined.

“Galileo,” the player of Nurgle followed suit.

“Galileo,” Mĕilì, the player of Isha, shouted from across the bar instinctively knowing her part and time.

“Galileo, Figaro,” the Death Jester, player of Ynnead, growled.

“Magnifico-o-o-o-o!” the Solitaire, player of Slaanesh, finished the sequence.

Odyn tapped his foot along with the peppy beat. He wrapped an arm around the terrified guardsman, gazed into his eyes from behind his mask, then darted behind him as he sang.

“I'm just a poor boy nobody loves me.”

“He's just a poor boy from a poor family,

Spare him his life from this monstrosity,” the troupe choir replied.

As Androssian lithely played the brambling beat. Odyn seized the young man by his shirt collar and pulled his face within inches of the mask.

“Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?” then the troupe master flung the human into the center of the room.

“Bismillah! No, we will not let you go,” the demons roared on one side of the room.

“Let him go!” the Harlequin choir shouted on the other.

“Bismillah! We will not let you go”

“Let him go!”

“Bismillah! We will not let you go”

“Let me go”

“Will not let you go”

“Let me go!”

“Never let you go”

“Let me go”

“Never let you go”

“Let me go”

“No, no, no, no, no, no, no”

Then a plume of pulsating midnight blue, teal green, and neon purple smoke erupted out of the floor in the center of the two opposing choirs, immediately next to the guardsman who collapsed to the ground, emerged the Shadowseer. The player of Tzeentch. He held his staff to where his mouth would be behind his featureless mask, as though it were a microphone stand.

“Oh mama mia, mama mia, mama mia, let me go.”

Then he swung the staff about his body and it lost its form in the psychedelic haze. As the cloud of smoke dissipated, the Shadowseer held a gold guitar with a black and white Harlequin diamond pattern.

“Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me,

For meee!” both demon and Harlequin sang in harmony.

Then the Shadowseer strummed along furiously as the guitar solo while Odyn leapt and lunged his way to Mĕilì as he sang.

“So you think you can stop me and spit in my eye

So you think you can love me and leave me to die

Oh, baby, can't do this to me, baby,

Just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here.”

Arm in arm with one another they tangoed through the writhing labyrinth of demons: feet light, smiles wide, and hearts bursting with joy. The Shadowseer lead the instrumental choir as a dazzling array of lights and smoke permeated about him.

Meanwhile; Bella melted into the shadows. She raced along the floor, manifesting atop of the piano. Once there, she shared a smoldering grin her lover. They leaned in for a mutual kiss…but then with a “hah!” she slid to the side and rolled herself off of the piano. She fell perfectly into Androssian’s lap. Just as the guitar concluded, Bella tapped the closing notes of the piano without missing a beat.

In the slow finale, Odyn tenderly held Mĕilì tight to his body as they elegantly waltzed with one another as all eyes, friend and foe alike, were on them

“Nothing really matters, Anyone can see,” both Odyn and Androssian sang into their lover’s ears.

“Nothing really matters,

Nothing really matters to me.”

“Any way the wind blows...”

Odyn and Mĕilì peeled away one another’s masks and locked lips in euphoric bliss. His hands slowly ran themselves down from her hips, over the sleek and subtle curves of body. Mĕilì, feeling him holding her weight, lifted up her legs and wrapped them around his waist. Red and magenta stars burned with a roaring passion as they gazed into each other’s souls. The Harlequin lovers rubbed their faces against one another as they held their trembling lips mere inches from one another.

Their Chaos counterparts did so in their own fashion. Androssian worshipfully pecked the back of Bella’s neck as she closed her eyes, bit her lip, and let her full weight lean back into him as she wrapped an arm around the back of his head. She gyrated her hips in his lap. The sorcerer growled a chuckle of delight. He wrapped an arm around her waist, placing a firm yet gentle hand below her navel as he pulled her in tight. The witch gasped with breathless ecstasy as warp lightning rippled around them.

The onlookers whistled and howled. One demonette cast her gaze upon the Solitaire. She strutted across the room and laid her amble bosom on top of a table across from the Harlequin. She licked her dagger teeth while casting a sultry glare. Behind his mask, the solitaire remained a stoic enigma. The demonette purred as her forked tongue flicked in and out of her mouth. Then the solitaire looked down, turned his masked face towards his demonic suitor he gestured with his hand for her to approach.

The demonette wrapped her lavender body around the table as she circled towards the Aeldari. She sprang off of her taloned feet into his lap. She smiled fiendishly as his face remained hidden. She reached across the table, arching her back in such a way to pronounce the curves of her body in his sight, and grabbed a still smoldering cigar. The minion if Slaanesh did her god proud as she turned back to the Harlequin. With her thumb, index and pointer fingers curled around the meat of the cigar’s shaft, she slowly inserted it into her open mouth.

Upon its entry, she wrapped her extended forked tongue around the cigar as she pulled it in deeper and deeper. She moaned as she drooled all over the shaft, never breaking eye contact with the solitaire. Further and further the demonette shoved it down her throat. Her moaning only intensified as she gagged and tears ran down her face, and she began to paw at his crotch. The solitaire humored her antics as he sat there unmoving.

Then at last the burning tip of the cigar was encased in her mouth as she sealed her lips. She slipped her clawed hand under his flip belt and into his pants as she swallowed, never blinking. Her desperate gasp for breath rose into a girlish squeal of joy as she drew her face tantalizingly close to his mask.

“C’mon you knife-eared slut,” she whispered pleadingly to him, “you know what I want. You’re damned to Slaanesh anyways, let me take you to her with the ride of your infinity.”

He warped one arm around her waist and pulled her into his lap, her spike tipped tail flailing about with erratic excitement. She giggled and went in to kiss his mask but was halted as he pressed a finger against her lips with his other hand. On the wrist was attached a bulbous spherical device that faintly hummed. The demonette playfully bit at his finger with serrated fangs. She whimpered with mounting passion as she grinded her pelvis against his, her body undulating into increasingly serpentine movements.

“Yeah baby, all of me is yours for the taking,” she gasped breathily, “take my heart and fuck my tight-,”

The solitaire seized her by the throat and shoved her back onto the table, thrusting his hips into her. The demonette gasped with delight as she wrapped her tail around his waist. The Harlequin held himself over her, leering down. Then he took his hand, the humming of the device grew louder and louder, and he loving caressed down her neck and over her left breast. The demonette’s eye rolled back into her head as her back arched and a toothy smile spread across her face.

Then she gasped as a mass was penetrated into her. She desperately clung to his back as her legs trembled uncontrollably. Her eyes closed as pained breaths escaped her quivering lips. The solitaire adjusted the phase field of his Harlequin’s Caress as his hand lodged inside her chest cavity. The weapon hissed from inside her and he proceeded to rip her still beating heart out of her body in an eruption of blood that painted his black coat crimson.

As the demonette’s eyes fluttered close, lost somewhere between an unrivaled pleasure and agonizing death, she reached out for her lover murderer. He tenderly took her hand in his free one and held it gently. Then he lifted his mask, the black and violet nebula of his eyes stared through her. As she was taking her dying breath, he kissed her heart, staining his lips with her blood, then held it against his chest.

“Heh,” the demonette gasped before falling still and silent.

There was a moment of quiet where all held still, in somber reverence.

Then whole lot of them, Harlequin and demon alike, began laughing maniacally before laying into one another in a gruesome explosion of violence. Fusion blasts erupted the old timber into a thousand pieces of molten shrapnel. Blue warp fire raced and whirled about. Sinewy tentacles were sliced by enchanted blades and fell to floor as gelatinous goo. Harlequin Kisses hissed as wires pierced through demonic flesh or wrapped around and served demonette tails. Yet in the maelstrom the two pairs of lovers remained motionless.

In their lover’s arms they leered at their rivals, seemingly oblivious to the unfolding cacophony around them. Echoing from beyond the limits of the materium, Tzeentch and Cegorach chuckled as the final contest would not be decided by might. Odyn spoke through his mind to his lover and their rivals.

Let us see who shall have the last laugh.

In between them were five humans: the three old codgers of the guard and the novitiate and her hapless admirer. Odyn and Androssian fixed their sights upon Fuckin’ Tom as Mĕilì and Bella set their sights on the aspiring Sororitas.

“Well, well, well!” Bella snickered with a savage enthusiasm, “What do we have hear? Is that a Daughter of the Emperor, my dear?”

“Indeed she is,” Androssian smirked fiendishly, his eyes glowing electric blue, “Have fun with her.”

Bella leapt forward, clapping her hands in a mad flurry mid-air. She drew her pistol and leveled it against her most hated of all Imperium slaves, positively giddy with murderous delight.

“Listen little sister, you can fall on your knees and suck him off with all your heart, but your big daddy will never love you.”

“Fuck you, heretic!” Sister Christa snarled as she rose to her feet to meet her foe, “by the light of the Emperor, your sin of life will be purged.”

“Where have I heard that one before? Guess what?” Bella said as lightning poured out of her eyes and shadows whirled around her as she walked, “They’re all dead. You’ll be among them soon, little sister.”

As Bella trained her sights on the defiant novitiate, Mĕilì’s hand grabbed the barrel and pulled it aside. Bella’s sinister joy fell away to a stammering snarl.

“Y-you! No! Don’t do this Meiy. She a fucking a Sororitas! This genocidal xenophobe would burn every last Aeldarling alive just to prove her faithfulness to a corpse.”

Mĕilì shook her head.

“This isn’t about who she is. It’s about who I am and what I stand for.”

“D-don’t don’t do this Meiy,” Bella pleaded, “You know what this means to me. Please! Don’t make me kill you.”

“I have hope for you, Izzy.”

Bella scoffed but she also smiled as she held up her gun to the side of her head. Then she squared up against her foe and nodded to acknowledge her readiness. Mĕilì held the shaft of her Harlequin’s Kiss before her face before she turned over her open palm and blew a kiss to Bella. Shadows whirled around the floor like the hands of a ticking clock. As the “hour” struck midnight, Bella snapped her fingers.

The three women were subsumed into the black where all their colors were illuminated like neon pastels: Mĕilì a pastiche of blue, magenta, and white. Bella of blue, black, and pink. Sister Christa a swirl of black, white, and red. Their movements were the stuttered jumps of a film reel missing frames, painting wisping trails of their colors upon the void.

Bella fired her first shot. There was no sound but in its place a dazzling boom of blue lightning that raced towards the novitiate, but the Harlequin was too fast. Mĕilì had already closed the distance, grabbed Christa by the hand, and was dragging her away from the peril. With each successive shot, more and more bolts of blue lightning pursued their targets through the endless blackness. Mĕilì weaved in and around the bolts, dancing through them with a feckless human doing little but being dead weight.

She pirouetted, vaulted, and dove her way through the increasingly tight knit web of death. As the bolts closed in on her, Mĕilì activated her weapon. It painted magenta lines across the void which severed the arcs of the lightning. In whirling, whipping dance of death; Mĕilì closed the distance between her and Bella. Once in range, she cracked the wire and it sliced through gun which trailed off into a string of exploding stars.

Bella roared, still no noise but cracks in the void itself raced towards her. She stuck out her fingers in the shape of a gun and went to aim them upon Christa, but Mĕilì’s face stood square in the center of it. The witch gritted her teeth and her hand trembled. By all rights this should have been the easiest decision of her life. Her nemesis was presenting her a point blank kill shot…yet she couldn’t do it. Mĕilì’s thoughts entered her mind.

Now that’s funny.

Hands covering her face, Bella fell to her knees and roared with a primal fury. As she did so, the black loid slithered up and away revealing the wind swept ruins of the town outside the saloon.

“I knew I could believe in you, Izzy,” Mĕilì told her.

It was then that Mĕilì could hear the approving laughter of Cegorach in her mind. “And so the War for Hope shifts in my favor, Dread Infinity.”

Powerful bolts of lightning sparked off of Bella that shot up into rolling clouds of thunder in the sky as she stewed in her self-imposed defeat. Mĕilì shot her a loving smile and Bella raised her hands in the air as she turned away. A confounded and terrified Christa crawled away under the cover of wind-swept dust. Mĕilì heard her thoughts, “by the Emperor, I will kill them all!”, but she didn’t care. Whatever nuisance she’ll be later doesn’t matter now.

She looked towards Bella, who was cradling herself in her arms. Mĕilì went up and hugged her from behind. Resting her head over Bella’s shoulder. The witch initially cringed but sighed heavily and allowed the display of affection.

“Don’t worry. That zealot will give you every opportunity to kill her,” Mĕilì told Bella, “and I won’t interfere any further.”

“I can’t kill you…,” Bella trailed off.

Then a terrible symphony or squawks and gurgles rose. The two old foes looked up to behold a horrid mass of blue and pink flesh oozing up from the ground into a towering monstrosity as countless birds flew head long into it. Their bodies were subsumed by the monstrous chaos spawn and their sacrifice gave it form. Bony wings shot forth from its body, its feet curled into sharp talon, and a curved beak erupted from its face where a pair of beady black orbs stared at the two women.

“Squaaaonk!” it roared as it lumbered forward, orange green feathers shooting out of its pores.

With a final series of bones crunching into place so that crude fingers with scythe like claws snap out of the wings, the mutant bird demon staggered forward towards its prey.

As Mĕilì focused her attention on the approaching threat, Bella took the opportunity to break free of her grasp. She shoved herself free and turned around to address the Harlequin.

“…but I don’t have to save you.”

“Oh Isabella! No saving is needed,” Mĕilì fired back.

“What!” Bella exclaimed, “B-b-but you don’t have your gun! All your friends are busy fighting!”

Mĕilì wagged her finger “no” as she mentally attuned her webway device. A shimmering blue portal opened behind her which towered over them.

“Not quite all my friends,” she smiled, “Ace!”

There was mighty roar that shook the very air and the ground quaked as thunderous footsteps drew near. Then a mighty red monstrosity came charging out of the hole in space. The carnosaur slammed into the parrot demon using its head like a bettering ram. The awestruck demon staggered back, desperately flailing its claws but to no avail. The ground shook upon its impact.

Bella pointed at the daring dinosaur and slowly turned to face Mĕilì. “I want one,” she said before vanishing into the shadows. Mĕilì flared her hand out into a theatrical bow. Good show, Bella.

“Squaaaonk!” the parrot demon roared. Ace slammed his titanic jaws into the warp beast’s malleable flesh, which oozed and bubbled at every gaping wound. In a wild flurry it managed to slice at Ace’s chest which forced him to step back. Seizing the opportunity, the parrot demon staggered to its feet. It crouched down and leapt at the dinosaur, but Ace was too quick. He whipped his tail into the parrot demon’s face, which knocked it through the locals’ Church of the Emperor. But the beast would not relent. Again it would stand back up.

Mĕilì activated her flip belt, centering her gravity at the top of Ace’s head. She tumbled and flipped through the air to the top of her dinosaur’s nose. He looked up at her quizzically. Wait for it.

The parrot demon raised its beak to “squaonk” once more. Mĕilì leapt from Ace’s nose, targeted her gravity directly in front of herself, and she plucked the fusion grenade from her belt. With a tight barrel roll, she flung the grenade down the demon’s gullet. Once she had travelled sufficiently far enough, she deactivated her flip belt and skidded across to ground to a halt.

The parrot demon turned its attention on her. Then there was a muffled “boom” and the beast’s murderous gaze gave way to pained dread. It’s innards are liquifying. With a wretched heave, the demon puked up a veritable river of lava that melted its lower beak.

Now!

Ace raised his open maw above the fell gooey bird, slamming his many daggers into its neck. The parrot demon went to screech but it could no longer manage the effort. The carnosaur then proceed to shove the parrot demon’s face into its own molten vomit. It flailed in agony as smoke rose out of its burning flesh till all that remained of was inert, bubbling goo.

Ace stomped over the noxious mess and nuzzled his face against his master’s.

“Aww! Who’s a good boy!” she baby talked to the beast who replied with a “huff”. Mĕilì patted the side of his face then leapt up to the top of his head. “C’mon. Let’s go find daddy.”

Odyn and Androssian, two men who had been clashing with each other for centuries, glared at one another as they smiled gleefully. Though they had arrived at such violent conclusions many times before, they never got old. Of all the tales that could be told of his travels and travails, Odyn knew that all the best were owed to his principle antagonist. He projected his thoughts to Androssian.

Sharing the stage with you makes the performance worth it, you sonofabitch.

The sorcerer held up a glass and nodded in reply. If they had their preference, they’d dance this insane dance till the End of All Days. Every story worth telling needed a foe to match its hero, and the two of them knew they had many absurd tales to tell. So they set aside their weapons as they sat at the table. The avatars of Cegorach and Tzeentch would resolve this in their own fashion.

As clowns and demons engaged in vicious, spectacular slaughter all around them, the two old foes siddled up to the table where the three peculiar old men sat; all of them unphased by the chaotic maelstrom encircling them. Both Odyn and Androssian set their upon Fuckin’ Tom, the grizzled old Cadian who had survived all the worst the galaxy could throw at a person and still carried on with a wry smile and faint chuckle. For all their interdimensional hopping about the far flung reaches of the cosmos and ludicrous displays of power, today’s contest would be decided by a deal with a mortal human.

A joke is only as good as its punchline…and what could be funnier than fate hinging upon the whim of a monkeigh?

“Have to give to you boys, in all my years I’ve never seen a catastrophe quite like this one,” Tom said.

“Well, when we work within-,” Odyn started.

“Stop it,” Androssian interjected.

The three old men chuckled. The two sitting to either side of Tom had their faces veiled in shade, their beady eyes burning faintly blue as they smiled.

“You two really are quite the pair, ain’t ya?” Tom said.

“It would appear so,” Androssian snipped.

“And it appears we remain at an impasse a simple hand of cards can’t decide,” Odyn said, “so we’re going to need you to make a choice on that deal so that we can get the void out of here.”

Tom grunted. He took a long swig of his drink, set in down on the table, and folded his arms behind his head as he leaned back in his chair.

“Alright boys. Make your pitch.”

Androssian chuckled as he rose to his feet. He called his staff to his hand as lightning sparked from his eye and blue warp fire engulfed his body but he was unharmed. The ethereal flames whirled upward, burning a hole into the materium revealing the limitless horror and awe of the warp as it pulsed with the manifestation all sentient thought in the cosmos. Infinite abstract pageants played out over the course of eons in the span of seconds.

“Swear yourself to Tzeentch and allow him to flood your mind with unfettered knowledge,” Androssian’s voice echoed through the immaterium, “Take the might of true magic for yourself and take the power to change the world as you see fit. Accept the power of change and become the weaver of your own fate. Look at your sad, miserable, joke of a life Tom. All it has been in service to is a cruel joke and a thankless corpse…”

With a flick of his wrist, Androssian pulled some debris from the whirling maelstrom that surrounded them to play out the story of Tom’s life as spoke. Through every scene, a crude rendering of a corpse upon a throne towered over the pitiful stick person that represented Tom.

“…You killed for him. You bled for him. You surrendered your whole life and multiple families to the dictates of that corpse god. Does that not make you angry…”

As Androssian growled, Odyn could peer into his mind. Behind the snarls the memories of his own life played out: him growing up on an Imperium pleasure world having to hide his gifts. The woman he longed for swearing herself to the Adepta Sororitas and the Emperor. Of vile Oblivion’s traitor marines descending upon the world and the Imperium leaving them for dead. Him unleashing his prowess as a psyker to save his family, only to be declared a heretic for his heroism and bound upon the Black Ships to be offered as a ritual sacrifice for the God Emperor. His deal with Tzeentch and escape into the void. His horror at discovering the atrocious conditions of Imperium hive worlds. Founding the “Cult of the Piano Men” and freeing world of their Imperial chains with whispers, music, and sorcerous magic. Lastly, the serenity he found in a young woman who he saw much of himself in her pains and how his heart soared as she learned to unleash her full potential.

I can’t hate you now that I understand you, X. There were parts of that tale that Odyn found frighteningly similar to his own. He’d never blame them for their hatred of the corpse god. Though that golden fool may still play a vital part in the cosmic finale, it wasn’t hard to understand why so many humans turned to chaos when this was the power that had absolute dominion over their lives. Stupid monkeigh! The more effort you commit to destroying Chaos, the stronger you make it. Your efforts only make everything worse. Hopefully the son will be better than his father.

“…Open your mind and embrace all the thoughts the wretched Imperium forbade you think. Accept your power to change the world and be all that grandest dreams can imagine. Slaughter the governors who abused and forsook you. Become young and ageless and handcraft as many families as you wish from your very thoughts. Find the Drukhari who took your daughter and trap them in an unending metamorphosis that’ll pay back all the terror and agony they inflicted on your child a hundred full. Join the Long War and free your fellow slaves from their chains.”

Androssian cackled sinisterly. “Do we have a deal?” he asked as he reached out a hand rippling with blue electricity.

Tom stared at the Chaos sorcerer. Odyn could read his thoughts and knew the old man was on the verge of accepting the demonic deal. His eyes darted around the room looking for something he could make use of as a distraction, but the room as an active explosion of fiery timbers and liquifying demonic goo. I got nothing to work with!

That’s when Goddamn Andy slid a lily moon delight in a martini glass with a cherry floating on top. Odyn looked down at the drink then snapped his head up. He went to shout a name but the old man hushed him with a mischievous smile. Odyn knew instantly what was expected of him. He snatched the cherry out of the glass, placed it on the table, pulled back his finger, lined up the shot and flicked. It splattered on Androssian’s eye patch and their eyes turned towards him.

Odyn summersaulted onto the table. Once at center, he crouched down to be at eye level with Tom. He snapped his head towards Androssian, and pulled a pinched finger and thumb across his lips in a zipping motion. Then his eyes settled on the weathered but resolute man before him. There was only thing he could offer the old man. Even as he prepared to speak his mind was clouded with a thought: What is so important about children?

“The devil’s whispered on your shoulder dear soldier, but alas I must beg you to hear the angel out before you make your choice,” the Harlequin chirped, “Forsake the temptations of Ruinous Chaos and I shall do you this kindness: go to the Dark City and retrieve your daughter for you.”

“What is one child in the face of cosmic power?” Androssian sneered.

Tom grit his teeth as her glared at the sorcerer with furrowed brow. Oh X! You’ve undone yourself. It’s not just any child but his child.

“Our children give purpose to our lives, meaning to our existence,” Odyn said, “In them we discover the sweetest joy and find hope,” as he said those words Goddamn Andy smiled wide, “for the future. They are what keeps not only the species, but a culture alive. It is through them that we pass on our songs, hymns, poems, and tales; thus keeping all that is born of them alive as well. We preserve our people and our gods with our procreation. Our children are the proof of our lives’ success by the most primal of measures; and for all their peril and controvesy , they are simultaneously a gift from and to the divine…”

That’s when it clicked in Odyn’s head and he nodded to Goddamn Andy. I understand my lord.

“…and it is for that reason a father will spit in the face of destiny for the promise of seeing his daughter again.”

The old Cadian rose out of his chair, tears running down his cheeks, nodded his head and slapped his hand together with Odyn’s. As they did so, the old man between Fuckin’ Tom and Androssian wailed and hissed as his skin fell away to reveal an eyeless head of funnels with crooked, jagged teeth and blue sinewy muscle around a lanky, bony frame with writhing tentacles jutting out of his back. In either hand sat a pair of eyes. It was Tzeentch, the Chaos god of magic, Changer of Ways.

The old man on the opposite out of his seat. As he did so, a long black robe fell to the floor as his rainbow colored jester’s hat jingled it’s bells. His was was bone white and inert, not unlike a mask, with a massive Cheshire cat’s grin. Cegorach laughed heartily as Tzeentch hissed. One vanished into the Warp in a storm of red smoke and took his demons with him. The other turned to his loyal Harlequins, who fell to their knees in reverence, and saluted them before vanishing in a blue mist.

Odyn looked up to see the ruins of the tiny town. What little remained of the saloon tumbled over around him as the rest of the troupe back flipped, summersaulted, and cartwheeled to a tight unit standing back to back with one another, surrounding Tom. Flaming beams and hunks of the upper floor came crashing down. The dust from the wreckage was picked up by the planet’s winds and swept away to reveal the rest of the village as still and quiet as a graveyard. By the looks of it most of the townsfolk had been transformed into the demons they slayed. Their bubbling, twitching corpses laid scatter beneath the wreckage of their drinking establishment.

As he stepped forward, Odyn’s foot rested ill against something squishy. He looked down to see the lifeless of the guardsman who harbored feelings for Sister Christa. Odyn was twinged with a sense of guilt for his loss but it was little more than the discomfort of seeing an animal struck dead by a vehicle. He was sorry that this poor creature had lived such a short and miserable existence. Good news for you little buddy. You didn’t live long enough to discover that she never gave a shit about you.

Odyn had read her mind with casual ease. Sister Christa scarcely recognized the fool. The thought made him snicker. She was still in range In life she had no regard for you but already her mind is justifying her sense of vengeance by reimagining you as her great lost love. If he met her a week later she’d remember them as having a mutual unrequited attraction. A year later and she’d be telling herself they were regularly dating. In half a decade she will have lost her virginity to him. Oh, she’ll be a problem for later.

Thunderous footsteps shook the ground. The troupe focused forward on the sound to find a mighty red therapod with a Harlequin with a long blue ponytail riding atop its nose. Ace plodded his way towards their group. Odyn turned to witness Tom’s reaction only to discover him thoroughly unimpressed.

“So Tom, you ever seen a carnosaur before?”

“Eh, I’ve seen worse,” Tom said. Then he looked around at the ruins of his latest home, “Xenos, I know better than to ask this by this point…but I still got to. Why did this happen?”

“Because we’re all infinitesimal specks in the frenetic tapestry of savage existence. There is no meaning in any of it beyond that which you find yourself. So the choice is yours monkeigh,” Odyn raised either hand as he explained the options, “on the one hand you can view this as just another cruelty in service to wicked humor and bloodthirsty vanity or you can see it as the day you you’d get daughter back.”

Tom swallowed hard and sniffled as a single tear rolled down his cheek.

“Fuckin’ hell! Fuck xeno. Even after all I been through you still found a way to make this old man cry. You ain’t bullshittin’ me, right? Your kind are craft, duplicitous lot after all.”

“Do I strike you as the type of man who sugarcoats anything?”

Tom wryly smiled. He knew the answer. Ace came to a stop and Mĕilì drifted down gently like leaf on the wind. She nestled herself into Odyn’s open arms. They removed their masks and nuzzled their face against one another’s. Then kissed passionately, lips smacking, and tongues entwining between heavy breaths. Today was a hell of a day, but tonight we’re going to make it all worth it.

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Mĕilì whispered in his ear.

“Meleth nĩn, I’ve had time to consider it. Let’s make a baby.”

Mĕilì’s joy beamed with the warm radiance of a sun. Her wide eyes shimmered like starlight as she smiled wide and squealed with delight. Whatever doubts he had before were gone. They wouldn’t stop their dance along the Path of the Harlequin. While that would certainly imperil their child, but as proven by the life of Fuckin’ Tom, the galaxy was a cruel, vicious place. Such a fact or fear of it was no justification in denying themselves the sweetest joys in life. For hope is not sheltered from darkness, rather it shines brightest when enveloped by it. If they were to succeed in their quest in stealing the power of hope away from Tzeentch for Cegorach, they would every triumph they could get.

Odyn turned his head as Mĕilì nibbled on his ear. “So old man Tom, you ever been to Craftworld?”

“Heh!” the old man coughed, “Now that’s something I never even knew was possible.”

“Well even for an old geezer like you, there’s a first time for everything.”

The shadowseer approached. As he did so, Odyn set Mĕilì down. The player of Tzeentch shook his head “no”.

“The high council will not like this,” he said.

“No, they won’t, but they’ll abide it,” Odyn replied.

It’s good to be a Harlequin. Odyn’s thought was heard by all the troupe and they all laughed in reply. It was for that reason alone he even dared to attempt to bring a human to Attika. By the standards of most Asuryani, they were especially hostile to Imperials. Sister Christa is going to be in good company when her superiors deduce we’re based on Attika.

It was the only reason he even felt comfortable entering Commorraugh. Only a Harlequin had the privilege of safe travel in the Dark City. He would find Tom’s daughter. All he needed was a little time and for the old man to not keel over in the meantime. That was one joke he would find too cruel.

They activated their webway device and the shimmering blue portals appeared before them. Thus, the Masque of the Last Laugh marched triumphantly back to their temporary home with a new tale to perform and songs to sing of their victories in the War for Hope.