Victory or Death♪
—------------------------------------------
In the unreality of the realm called the Sea of Souls, an eternal war is drawing to a close.
A pantheon of gods, formed by the gestalt minds of the Aeldari, creators of the greatest empire to arise from the astral armageddon known as the "War in Heaven" do battle with the nightmares of deceit, war, and despair.
Morai Heg, also known as the Crone or Crow Goddess, manages the strands of fate for all mortal souls in her rune skinned pouch, while battling the Chaos god Tzeentch; the Raven lord and self-styled Master of Fate.
Asuryan, the Phoenix King and Lord of the Pantheon has his legions of silvery sentinels slay the barbarous bloodthirsty hordes of Khorne.
At his side his brother, Khaine the Lord of Murder, does battle directly with the Chaos god of skulls, blood, and brass called Khorne the Blood God who sits upon a Skull Throne.
Meanwhile, Isha the Goddess of Life and mother to the ancient Aeldari holds back the foul gardens of Nurgle the Plaguefather and Lord of Decay.
For eons, the Aeldari pantheon has won every battle against these ruinous powers with runes, blades, and divine knowledge. Yet, now the very Aeldari that brought them into being have begun to undo them.
A fourth Chaos god gestates in the heart of the Aeldari empire and shall take form using the flesh and blood of their gods.
It is a god of excess in all things, born from the uninhibited decadence of a people free from want, suffering, even death.
Slaanesh, who is neither male nor female, for Hir titles are both She who Thirsts and the Prince of Pleasure.
As the birth of a new Chaos god draws ever closer, the three older Chaos gods storm the borders of the Aeldari pantheon, eager to rob and ravish the doomed gods themselves before Hir birth.
Seas of greater daemons gather at the call of the Tzeentch, Khorne, and Nurgle.
Avian Lords of Change circle overhead, like vultures above dying carrion. Their azure feathers cover only their back and wings, with pale white scales of a snake's underbelly covering their stomachs and chest. Long goose-like necks hang crooked from their shoulders, supporting a beaked head that opens periodically to let out a hoarse screech or cry made by their twisted throat and the wriggling worm-like tongue in their mouths. Their taloned hands hold stolen scrolls and scepters of foul magics, while golden amulets adorn their breast.
Flame belching horned Bloodthirsters, crimson in color and covered in bulging muscles, spread their tattered bat-like wings to dive hooved feet first upon their enemies with flaming swords and rage filled roars.
Great Unclean Ones guffaw as foul flatulence is expelled from their gargantuan obese gangrenous bodies as they raise rusted cleavers covered in pox and plague above their heads while clouds of flies and maggots erupt from their ever rotting flesh.
Nameless daemons from the still gestating Slaanesh emerge from thin air within the pantheon. Ghostly mockeries of the graceful Aeldari, they flit in and out of the shadows, preying on anything they can sink their crab-like claws and sharp nails into.
Doomed by their own believers, surrounded on all sides, the entire pantheon except one holds its ground for the final battle.
The Mad Clown God, Cegorach, ever laughing jester of the divine has disappeared from the Sea of Souls with its mortal followers into the labyrinthian Webway; a space between space that hides the First Fool from the hungry eyes and thirsty jaws of Chaos.
The death of an age and empire draws close as fated doom comes.
—-------------------------------------------------
'I never wanted this.' Lilieath, Goddess of Dreams and Visions, thought to herself as she sat upon the right shoulder of her giant one handed grandmother, Morai Heg.
The Crone stood silently before the shapeless ever shifting azure horror that was Tzeentch. Both were locked in a battle of plan against plan before the other's even began. Neither could move, for to take a step forwards would mean a step not taken back. Thus, the fates available to the one who moved first would be lesser than the one who moved second. So, the two gods were locked in eternal combat of prediction and counter-prediction. An endless staring match between the blind eyes of the Crow Goddess, and the infinitely opening and closing sight-orbs of the Raven Lord.
Lilieath would usually assist her grandmother with whispers of visions and dreams of possible futures, helping to sway the battle in their favor. However, Tzeentch was uncharacteristically quiet this time, doing only the bare minimum to keep Morai Heg occupied. For although its daemons swarmed above them, the Chaos god itself merely bided its time, waiting for its inevitable victory that was to be brought by the hands of the Ruinous Powers' newest member.
The lull in the battle between them allowed Lilieath to cast her eyes away from it, and look back onto their pantheon and the Aeldari's empire; stepping back into her mind's eye to see all that was and would be, waking from reality as a dreamer does from a dream.
Upon the massive patrolling crows of Morai Heg her thought-sight rode, and everywhere she looked war raged.
Her mother sat at the center of her domain, bound to a living wooden throne with the silvery light of Asuryan's edict; the all-binding order preventing gods from communicating to mortals. Around her lay the landscapes of every environment imaginable, taken from several hundred planets reborn by her hand and the Aeldari. All of these lands were beset on all sides by the youngest and oldest Chaos gods within and without.
Nurgle's Heralds and Plague Bearers groaned and gargled at the borders, waving rusted bells; counting the souls owed and the moments left before entropy and disease claimed everything. Great Unclean Ones stomped over the trees deserts and tundras, waded through her lakes and rivers, or floated upon the deep blue oceans on the rotting carcasses of ancient ships carrying great rusting cleavers to hack their way to her.
Rot flies and Plague Toads flew and flopped ever forwards as the infantile Nurglings sang and rolled in balls and piles of pus and phlegm, scattering feces wherever they went so the slug like bodies of the Beasts of Nurgle had easy passing over the slop of mucus and filth.
Meanwhile, inside the woods and rivers of Isha's realm, mockeries of her mortal children cavorted through the trees. They strung up the wild animals that she gave life to; grasping at their feathers, fur, and fins, gutting them from tip to stern, and gouging out their still living eyes. Flowers and grasses were thrown into purple pink flames to make horrid musky incense, and the trees bringing nature's bounties fell as the daemons carved Hir blasphemous name into them again and again.
The forest.
The desert.
The arctic tundra and the humid swamp.
The pond, the lake, the deep blue of the ocean.
The daemons of two gods young and old, marched and swarmed, skipped and slogged.
Then there was a scream.
A mother's cry; the high pitched roar of a lioness finding an empty den, the howl of a she-wolf of stolen cubs.
And Isha's realm shook, as her voice ripped through it like the shockwave of an ancient nuclear bomb.
The forest grounds burst as ancient roots, newly grown, tore out the very ground beneath the daemons. Thousand year old trees emerged from thin air, swatting the fat and skinny alike with hardened branches that bent like young yews.
Peat bogs made of the non-existent matter of the immaterium swallowed agents of entropy and pleasure seeking pawns alike, filling every orifice with thick mud, robbing them of everything but the ability to live.
Striped of sanity, sentience, and even sense; those who came to feast on her misery became eternal food for her gardens of life.
In the desert, harsh winds raged, whipping up sand storms that ground chitinous claw and sticky fat to dust. All the while, arctic blizzards froze her foes in a shower of diamond dust.
Floods, big and small, drowned the enemy in her water ways. Smashing them against rock and pebble, shredding shell and meat, rendering their incorporeal forms into food for even the smallest shrimp to have a meal.
Upon the oceans, great sucker-covered arms surrounding beaked maws reached out and dragged both ship and daemon beneath the waves.
New blooms grew at the boundary between grandfather Nurgle's garden and hers. Pitcher plants with potent digestive juices sprang up as ferocious beasts with cruel claws and ferocious fangs descended upon the bell holders and tally makers of rot; grabbing them with teeth and claw, dragging them to the bubbling innards of hungry plants where their flesh burned and boiled with acids and enzymes to break down their cancers and cankers both.
Carrion birds came to snag the walking dead, for even in the real world they snacked on polluted flesh, turning it into natural fertilizer for future life.
Lo the Great Grandfather's servants died in droves, and the Prince's pawns perished in the rugged wild lands that would not tolerate their excess.
But Lilieath saw the whole of what was to come.
She felt Hir beneath her eyelids, inside her pores, under her nails, as Hir sharp tongue pressed up inside her ear.
Her mother was the antithesis to Hir. A goddess of life in balance opposed to that of excess. She could survive the coming of the Prince of Pleasure, even if it meant in a lesser state.
They, the other gods of the pantheon, would not be so fortunate.
Even now the Prince of Pleasure perverted their essence, stealing their myths, and polluted their legends.
In the far corner of their Pantheon, Khaine and Asuryan, brother gods, did battle with Khorne; God of War.
Silver shielded sentinels, mortal Aeldari heroes who had been elevated to god-hood before Asuryan's edict, slew wave after wave of Khorne's horde, with skill and silver blade.
But…
Lilieath saw Hir corruption there, for with every slash and slice, their moves became less precise.
What was a simple stab became a stab and twirl. Single steps became slight skips and hops. Meaningless flaunt entered their form. Although it did nothing to stop their slaying of the daemons, Lilieath could see the perversion of their purpose growing as the mortal Aeldari dived into further decadence and depravity.
Suddenly, there was a roar and the ground shook. Khorne stood from atop the bone white and blood red mountain of skulls that rose far in the distance. It was the place the Blood God had first arisen from; the fabled Skull Throne. Its literal seat of power was fed by the mortal mass-murderers in its service who screamed its name for every successful slaughter.
Armored in black smoking metal, and carrying a great sword as long as the Taker of Skulls was tall, it leapt onto the battlefield, crushing its minions underfoot.
Khaine, the Aeldari god of war, stepped forth with his ever burning blade. Orange armor engraved with runes of murder and death sheathed his burning body as blood flowed endlessly from the god's uninjured hands; the mark of unforgiven sin for his murder of the hero Eldanesh, first of all the Aeldari and friend to the gods.
The two Gods of War charged at each other. Khorne trampled and crushed Bloodletters and Bloodthirsters underfoot, as Khaine leapt over the lines of Asuryan's sentinels in a single bound.
Khaine's spear met Khorne's sword, and the shockwave shattered the earth upon which they stood, smashing Khorne's daemons into bloody chunks.
But, Khorne cares not from where the blood flows.
Gore and bone are sucked into the black smog coming off its blacker armor, and Khaine shifts backwards as Khorne's sword grows heavier.
With a single step back and well placed kick to the knee, Khaine forces Khorne to stumble forwards, and in that moment twirls to deal the death blow that tears off the black helm of Khorne.
As the black smoke that forms Khorne fades away, Khorne stares down from its Skull Throne, never having left it in the first place. Bitterness builds up in the red glowing lights it has instead of eyes.
NO!
Its wordless roar flattens its minions before him, crushing them to bloody pulp.
NO!
The great sword of Khorne stabs into the mountain of skulls, sending blood, bones, and flames in a gout of black smoke like the pyroclastic flow of a raging volcano.
NO!
The God of War does not speak, but its roars of anger leave little room to doubt its meaning.
Khaine grimaces up at the black god, before looking down at the faint motes of purple, sparking beneath his armor.
Just as Khaine could feel it, Khorne could see it too. The corruption of its eternal enemy, the perversion of a prize that belonged to Khorne.
In ages past when they fought, Khaine would not have twirled. He would have stabbed Khorne straight through the chest and pinned the Blood God to the ground.
Meaningless flaunt infected Khaine as well, for there was no point in trying to kill Khorne.
Eons ago, Khorne was nothing but a smokey sword wielding shadow that screamed and roared as Khaine stepped on its form. But, war and slaughter never ends, and as the primitive races of the galaxy wept and cried for all the death and destruction they wrought upon themselves they screamed, 'Why?'
The Aeldari gods heard those calls, even before Asuryan's edict when they could have answered it. But, being Aeldari gods, they gave no answers to the beings who didn't believe in them.
So, Khorne gave them meaning for their meaningless deeds.
Killing for the sake of killing.
Glory for the sake of glory.
Rage to rage further on.
And those cries of 'Why?' dimmed, only to be replaced by its clarion call.
"Blood for the Blood God!" Khorne's mortal champions cried as buildings burned around them.
"Skulls for the Skull Throne!" They yelled with grime covered sword, spear, or ax raised high.
Slaughter begat slaughter, and doubt and misery was replaced by simple rage.
So now Khorne sat, as tall as Khaine, armored in black steel and dark smoke on a Skull Throne.
Endless armies flowed at its feet, made from those freed of reason, guilt, and filled with the Truth of Khorne.
Khaine looks up at Khorne on its mountain once more; from the blood spattered burnt plains that they have fought upon countless times.
And Khorne roars again, as it charges down from the Skull Throne it eternally occupies. Rage and spite spur it on, for it knows it has been denied its rightful prize.
'I never wanted this.' Lilieath thinks to herself again, as the great black wings of the crow flap, carrying her back to the center of the Pantheon; to the white pillars of the parliament where she spoke the words that doomed them all.
—------------------------------------------
"Grandfather." Lilieath called out to Khaine, while standing midway up the white steps of parliament. He was slowly walking up the steps, far later in attendance than all the other gods.
"What is it?" The God of War replied irritably, orange armor glowing faintly with annoyance. He was bitter and bored from the long peace that came after the War in Heaven.
"I had a dream." Lilieath grasped her left arm, shivering at the memory of the nightmares she saw of what was to come. However, to stay silent was to see worse things come to pass.
"What dream?" Khaine said, stopping on the steps to look down at her. Orange eyes narrowed, yet burning with both curiosity and expectation. If the Goddess of Dreams and Visions had come to the God of War, surely it meant that a great enemy was to come, and battle was what he was made for.
"I saw your death, grandfather." Lilieath spoke, and Khaine's eyes widened a little before laughing at her.
"I am the God of War. granddaughter." Khaine finally spoke, wheezing a little from laughing so hard. "Death is a part of me. Tell me, what foe dares to strike me down, and will I take it down with me?"
"No grandfather." Lilieath shook her head. "You will not die a glorious death."
"What?" Khaine's voice was calm, but she could see the rage burning in his eyes as the shards of the Reaper, an ancient scar he received as his reward for slaying a Star God, rose to the surface blackening the orange and red of his armor.
"You will die by the hands of mortals." She said, and the blackness grew across Khaine. "Torn apart by the Aeldari, we will all die in depravity."
Then and there, with only words, she gave herself and her people to Slaanesh.
—------------------------------------------
'I never wanted this.' The thought echoed in her head as it had for the past several thousand years.
It had echoed when Khaine stormed from the Sea of Souls and became the Lord of Murder; slaughtering the very people he had spilt his divine blood, and spent thousands of years protecting.
It had echoed when her crying parents, Isha and Kurnous, begged the Phoenix King Asuryan to let them speak to their mortal children.
It had echoed when that same Phoenix King, furious at the betrayal of his order by her mother and father, gave them to Khaine to torture and blame for their future deaths.
Echoes and echoes of the same thought rang as civil war raged between gods.
When her grand-uncle, the Smith God Vaul, bargained for her parent's freedom.
When Khaine beat and broke Vaul for breaking his promise, before binding him to his own flaming anvil.
When fair Eldanesh took up Vauls's sword, only to be run through by Khaine's blade in cold blood.
Even now, the dark path she had started them on had not ended.
Visions of her mother forced themselves before her eyes. She would be one of the last remaining gods of the Aeldari, stripped bare and kept in a rusted cage. Her head, shoulders, knees, and toes were all curled in pain as blood spilt from her eyes, ears, mouth, and nose.
Nurgle's poisons ate away at her insides and clogged her lungs. Meanwhile, boils gathered together to form pustules on her pearly skin. Throughout all this, fevers fried thoughts and memories from her mind.
All of the blemishes and blood disappeared with time, cured by the divine essence of the Goddess of Life. But, all this was for nought, for once she was healed, the fleshy vines of rot and ruin would reach through the bar and seize her golden hair and arms, and force her mouth open for Nurgle's pox and plague filled ladle to pour another putrid concoction from his cracked and broken cauldron.
'I never wanted this.' She thought to herself as she looked down on their patheon; still a glorious beautiful city of bone white buildings and extravagant tapestries; organic lines and curves in every part of its architecture.
But, to stay silent was to endure far worse.
The Aeldari would whisper that it was her lust for her father's attention that drove her to speak to Khaine.
'Better a defamatory lie than the terrible truth.' Lilieath thought to herself, for it was not her father that forced her to speak, but her mother.
Isha was the Goddess of Life, and life was a constant state of balance and change.
The polar opposite of what the Aeldari had become.
In her dreams, Lilieath had watched her mother beg and plead with her mortal children; to turn them from their evil ways. Some would listen, but most would mock and spurn her warnings, instead demanding more of nature's bounty to feed their ever growing thirst.
Then, on one unknowable night, Isha would come with fatal song and silent voice to take back what she gave.
Daughter to Khaine and Morai Heg, Isha carried within her two different stories of death. When she could bear it no more, her cries would become a banshee howl.
Isha was the mother of the Aeldari, and the mother of all that they needed to be. She gave life not only to them but the plants that they grew and the beasts that they hunted. And in the wild the mother not only gives but takes.
No matter how hard an injured cub cries, the lioness sinks her teeth into its stomach to take back the flesh and blood she gave in order to feed the other starving cubs with warmer healthier milk.
Parent birds pluck the smallest squealing chick from the nest, and cast it down to the ground to find more food for their larger healthier children.
So, Isha would take back what she gave to her sons and daughters, so new life could live once more.
However, Isha was not a wild animal.
Every life she took, each child undone by her voice would bring misery and mourning to her eternal heart.
And after eons, a new Goddess would be born; more terrible than serendipitous Slaanesh, self-defeating Tzeentch, rage-filled Khorne, or despondent Nurgle.
A sane self-loathing goddess of merciless culling and terrible purpose; the Miserable Mother. A goddess that would take from the weak and the strong in equal measure, to balance out the mourning she would spread. A new reaper of souls that kept all things in balance while seeking to tip the scale to one side at the same time. An internal hypocrisy that would see her torn apart by her own two hands.
Lilieath's visions ended there, and she did not wish to see any further. The endless black tears streaming down her suffering mother's face was enough to choose Slaanesh over her.
It would be easy to blame the Aeldari. Many times she had cursed, writhed, even had tantrums at their folly. No matter how many visions of death and despair she sent their way, her dreams never changed. Some had listened, becoming outcasts and drifters. Some even reverted to the wild, letting nature curb their instincts.
But, the majority either ignored her warnings or took them as unavoidable prophecies, further descending into madness in order to shut her out; imbibing in psychedelics, stimulants, and blasphemous mental sensations so they no longer dreamed or even slept.
A stabbing sensation drove into her gut, and her mind returned from the back of the crow to the perch on her Grandmother's shoulder.
Morai Heg's already bent back collapsed even further, as if she too could feel some unescapable pain.
'It has begun.' Lilieath thought to herself, and although she had seen and felt this very moment for tens of thousands of years, dark terror froze her blood and crept around her shoulders like an icy blanket or a stranger's arm.
Before them, Tzeentch sprouted 9 crooked mouths, each containing only 9 teeth and 9 different tongues. It whispered 9 heretical hymns, with 9 nauseating noises, each containing 9 sinister secrets. 9 different glyphs from 9 dead races appeared, and 9 baleful glows filled the room.
Outside Isha's garden, three Heralds climbed atop a massive molting maggot and rang their bells 7 times.
Khorne roared at Khaine, and charged him with its great sword in hand.
8 different blows fell; the head, the eyes, the neck, the wrist, forearm, upper thigh, behind the knee, with a final slash between the ribs.
Every blow, bar the final one, was deflected or dodged. When the final strike dug into Khaine's armor, he answered in turn; stabbing Khorne through its chest and binding the two giants of fire and smoke in a bladed embrace.
Lilieath gasped as the pain stabbed through her again a second time, then a third, then a fourth. Each sensation of suffering grew, spreading across her skin like lascivious eyes ogling at her body; imagining the dark torments it could inflict upon her fair flesh.
Then, the fifth pain closed like a vice around her throat, as if some ghostly hand had dug itself underneath her skin; like the hand of a stingy shopper searching at a fruit seller stall, finally finding the most succulent one of them all.
Then the 6th pain came, and tore out her throat.
Beside her, Morai Heg buckled, and blood burst out of her back followed by her ancient spine.
Across the Pantheon, the invisible forming hands of Slaanesh stole from the gods one by one; tearing off beautiful Atharti's skin, ripping out watchful Hekarti's eyes, pulling out Asuryan's heart and as many other organs as she could from the Phoenix King's broken body.
Khaine buckled as Slaanesh tore at his muscles and sinews, thirsty for the physical perfection of power and violence they contained.
As his body began to tear, the Lord of Murder rose, lifting up his spear still buried in Khorne's body before throwing the God of War off of its tip back to his Skull Throne. Then, the ever bleeding hands of Khorne took his spear and stabbed it into his gut.
A fire pillar formed, incinerating Slaanesh's taint, but also burning out Khaine's own body.
Drawing deep from his legends of bitter training and endless effort, Khaine focussed on all his different aspects and legends; driving out the flair and flamboyance that had been growing inside him. However, it was not enough. She who Thirsts still snatched at the torn tendons her earlier ravagings had revealed, and tugged at them tearing muscle away from Khaine's bones.
With a hoarse cry, Khaine stabbed his spear deeper into his gut. As his cheeks sagged and eyes sunk into their sockets, he drew out the aspect of the Reaper; turning black and charred like the living-mental monstrosity he had slain so long ago.
But, before Khaine could finish his battle with Slaanesh, Khorne stood over him; giant sword by its side.
As its eyes glowed red, Khorne lifted its sword above its head, and struck Khaine with a titanic two-handed blow.
With the aspect of the Reaper so close to the fore, Khaine shattered into countless shards, just as the Star Gods had been in the ancient past.
And Slaanesh screamed with Lilieath's throat.
"MI~NE!" She sang, still wrapping stolen organs with stolen skin. "MI~~~NE!" Nailless fingers pointed at Khorne, accusing the thief that stole her prey.
Khorne merely stared at the remains of Khaine before raising its head to the blood and gore that twisted and twirled around Slaanesh; reforming into pink-purple flesh, claws, nails, and horns. The giant sword groaned as the black gauntleted fist of Khorne clenched around its handle, before being raised horizontally to point at Slaanesh.
The new god shriek-cackled, and leapt forward with its new elongated legs. Hundreds of hands grew and shrunk from its back and sides as the minds of mortals went mad with Hir birth; shifting and churning Hir nightmarish form into new horrors and terrors.
Then a bulbous putrid fist back-handed the new god, sending Hir crashing through decaying buildings and crumbling arches.
Nurgle, oldest of them all, stepped forward from within the Warp; carried by its own two legs as much as the sea of Nurglings that spilled from his fat folds, eager to bury themselves underneath the Plaguefather's sloppy green backside in order to lift his girth with the billions of others beneath him.
Nurgle laughed as Slaanesh writhed in pain and shame, before casting a backward glance to Isha's domain.
The once vibrant lands wilted and died, drained of life by Slaanesh's ever growing thirst; giving free passage for the forces of Nurgle to trample over them. The Grandfather's minions sloppily flowed forwards, guffawing and giggling as they stumbled and slogged forwards, only stopping periodically to grab the dying beasts and birds so they could cover them with vomit, phlegm, and flatulence.
Isha herself was unharmed, her nature protecting her from Slaanesh's thirst.
Freed from the silvery light of the now dead Phoenix King's edict, she sang Wraithbone into armor and spear as Nurgle's minions drew near.
Nurgle smiled as his minions surrounded the Goddess of Life on all sides. Then a crab-like claw cut into Nurgle's face, tearing into the soggy meat and already softened skull of the Plaguelord's head.
Nurgle giggled and reached out with meaty paws, only to have Slaanesh dance away from him as Khorne's blade slammed into the other side of the Grandfather's face.
Ruinous Powers they may be, but they were as alien to each other as to anyone else. With the mouth watering Aeldari gods gone, they now turned to the less tasty prey that was each other.
As the three fought in the open palace of the Aeldari Pantheon, before the broken bloody body of Asuryan barely held together by his silver armor, Lilieath crawled forwards toward Morai Heg's body as Tzeentch's spells undid the wards around them. Bleeding from the throat, and no longer able to sing the Wraithbone, she pulled herself up by her staff; made from the pitch black quill of one of her Grandmother's birds.
Cawing filled the room as the murder of crows returned to their master, squawking and swooping endlessly, eyes wild with anger.
Then the Raven Lord's spell struck Morai Heg's minions; who had all drawn near to protect their master one last time.
Evil intelligence grew in their eyes, and thirst for knowledge filled their hearts. Their body's grew as their high pitched caws turned to dull croaks.
Lilieath watched in horror as Morai Heg's crows became Tzeentch's ravens, and they descended upon their previous master's body, hungry for the knowledge contained in her divine blood.
Lifting her staff, Lilieath began a silent spell of sleep, hoping that she could undo Tzeentch's spell by putting their minds to rest.
But, Tzeentch saw her and with 9 different barks ordered the ravens to attack.
Black beaks descended upon her, and stabbed into the ground she had been standing upon.
Stumbling forward, unable to breathe properly with a torn throat, Lilieath swung her staff; shooing the ravens away from her Grandmother.
The giant ravens hopped backwards and forwards surrounding her, letting their siblings dart forwards while she was distracted. Slowly, the black forms drew closer and closer as Lilieath choked on her own blood; body sweat drenched from exertion.
Black feathered bodies darkened her surroundings, as cold unblinking avian looked down at her.
She swung at the head of a raven that had snapped dangerously close to her face, forcing it to flap backwards, but the swing was too much for her and she stumbled forwards.
Then a black beak closed around her left wrist and bit.
Whispery gasps escaped her throat as she tried to scream in pain, then there was shake and a pop, and she was flung away from the flock of birds surrounding her.
Lilieath lay there gagging as the croaks of ravens filled her ear.
Finally, as the exertion finally left her, she pushed herself up off the floor, only to stumble into a pool of blood.
Her blood, for as she looked down in shock at her left shoulder, she saw nothing there.
A raven croaked, and she looked upwards. There, above her head, her own arm was pinched in a black beak like the leg of a half-swallowed cricket.
The raven spat out the arm and returned to the flock; already sinking their beaks into their previous master's body, sucking out the blood like vampire finches.
Shame, rage, and hopelessness filled her eyes with tears as the ever mutating form of Tzeentch finally stepped into their broken domain.
An azure 9 fingered arm sprouted and reached for the rune skinned pouch of Morai Heg; the pouch that contained the fate of all mortals, only to be suddenly bitten by one of the ravens.
Tzeentch grew a face to face the flock and the angry birds croaked in unison, not having had their fill.
Frowns of different sizes formed, and furrowed brows with eyebrows but no eyes creased across the Raven lord's formless blue flesh.
Then Tzeentch shrugged, and floated upwards to join the battle of the other Ruinous Powers.
In the proverbial sky above the Pantheon, purple clouds gathered. The Sea of Souls roiled as carnage, hedonism, and complacency tore and bit at each other.
Tzeentch's true minions, the Lords of Change circled in these treacherous skies as clouds of Chaos let loose mad lightning upon them; frying some of their number leaving nothing but black ash and monstrous screams.
These blue and purple daemons had taloned hands and vulture-like necks which held up beaked heads with beady eyes. Great feathered wings carried their scaly frames, as they all carried stolen artifacts of other primitive gods around their necks.
Masters of magics all, they spread out to 9 different points, centered around the Chaos gods below. Flying in obscene patterns, trailing floating feathers behind them like disgusting ink; they drew black marks and curses for Tzeentch's great spell.
As Tzeentch took center stage, it lifted 9 arms and made 9 glyphs.
Chaos lightning gathered above the Chaos gods, and the three below shielded their eyes from the blazing light that haloed the horrid Tzeentch.
Then all 9 hands thrust downwards at the other Gods, followed by roaring thunder and flashing bolts.
Khorne shouldered its sword, and swung back at Tzeentch with all its might.
Nurgle belched, coughed, and then vomited green bile gas and stench.
Slaanesh opened its toothy mouth, and screamed with the twisted stolen voice of beings that sang matter into reality.
As the Four struck at each other, their individual Truths shifted the Warp; twisting, cutting, corroding, and corrupting the very fabric of reality.
Tzeentch's spells swayed the laws of the Warp and physical realm to his side.
Khorne's sword smashed the space between real and un-real.
Nurgle's rancid breath spread and stank; rusting and rotting the walls between thing and not-thing.
And Slaanesh's scream shattered the thin shell of sanity that held the now roiling madness of the Warp behind the veil of dreams and nightmare.
Where the Four's blows met, the Sea of Souls shook, and then space opened.
Like the eye of a mad-man awakened from a fever dream, empty space split open letting out the Chaos and cruelty of the deepest reaches of the mind into the world.
Fear and hopelessness. Terror. An eye filled with the Terror; of knowing the Primordial Truth of this new world.
Madness.
Violence.
Despair.
Selfishness.
The Four's Neverborn screamed and roared as the very Warp poured out into the materium, like air from a hull-breached void ship, dragging their non-existent being into reality.
Billions upon billions of unprepared daemons were dragged to their doom; to dissipate as their very essence spread out like steam from raindrops on red-hot steel; fogging the minds and sight of psykers in a thick cloud of panic and horror.
Bloodletters howled as Plaguewalkers groaned. Pink and blue horrors screamed and Daemonettes laughed as their bodies broke apart, burning and bubbling as their non-flesh fell away into the nothingness they truly were.
In that moment as laughing Nurglings rolled past Great Unclean Ones, who clung to their crusty cleavers with blades dug deep into the remains of Isha's domain, barely holding on as the Eye of Terror spilled daemons in never-ending tears, Lilieath saw her mother. Clothed in nothing but her broken armor and torn shift, the Goddess of Life took one last look at the remains of their Pantheon before cutting her rooted feet from the land that formed her body and home.
Weakened and silently weeping, Lilieath watched as all that made her mother launched herself into the howling winds and fled to the world of the living; towards a golden blood-stained path bordered on both sides with deep ditches, brimming with billions upon billions of dead and suffering mortals.
Nurgle roared, his prize denied. A horrid sound, like the concerted bubbling flatulence of corpse gasses passing from bloated cadavers in a mass grave. It was an alien sound for the God of Despair; for rage and anger were Khorne's domain. In-turn Tzeentch laughed as secret visions it had never seen came to pass as it knew they always would. Khorne brooded, feeling itself become more cunning; plans for future conquests forming in its skull. Slaanesh slumped, giggling softly to Hirself; the slow pleasures and gentle whispers of addiction and avarice filling Hir mind like fumes from an opium pipe.
As Chaos struck at itself, they had infected one another. Traits from their siblings polluted the purity of purpose they possessed when battling the Pantheon. Then, the moment passed and they were as they had always been. For in the Warp, what happened tomorrow would happen yesterday. Siblings of cause and causality chasing the other's tail only to find it was its own brother.
Even as the Four realized a change that had happened before they had been born, the broken form of the Crone goddess stirred. The ravens drinking her blood shimmered, shedding off illusions of madness and ditching the greedy look in their eyes for the cold intelligence of the avian companions of Morai Heg.
As one the murder of crows flew upwards, disappearing into the Webway before reappearing above the Lords of Change with small mortal forms on their backs, followed by the echoing ghosts of laughter.
Cegorach, the First Fool and Mad Clown, played his last joke for the Aeldari gods. Being of trickery and showmanship, Cegorach could not resist the irony of deceiving the Warp creature that called itself the Great Deceiver.
Black beaks and talons tore the wings off of the Lords of Change as Harlequin riders jumped from their backs, floating down with Flip-Belts onto Tzeentch's daemons to deliver painful death with the Harlequin's kiss.
"The Laughing God's Faithful have arrived, and Death and Fate have taken the stage!" Cried one of the masked crow riders, leaping from its mount towards one of Tzeentch's Greater Daemons.
Too close for magic, the daemon opens its mouth to bite the foolish mortal in two, but snaps short as the Aeldari performer backflips in midair, before falling past its shut beak, wrapping its legs in checkerbox tights around the daemons long neck.
"Feel my kiss, and despair!" the Harlequin cried, stabbing the sharpened tube attached to its wrist down into the daemon's breast. Coiled monofilament wires burst and danced within the chest cavity of the demon; liquifying its innards, forcing it to cough up blood and gore before falling from the sky.
Pulling back the monofilaments into her gauntlet with a click, the Fool's follower kicked off from the dissipating daemon, landing back onto her crow steed before firing into the eye of a different Lord of Change that had begun to flank them with thousands of monomolecular blades from her Shuriken pistol while simultaneously throwing a Star-Bola to wrap around the beak of another daemon looming behind them.
Below them, the Four turned to Morai Heg, for the Crone cackled as she lifted her spineless, blind, beak mark covered body with her right arm stump and left hand.
With a single motion of her stump, the shards of Khaine rose, then flew to the waiting hands of even more Harlequin, who tucked them under arm, before disappearing in flashes of blinding color as Mirage Launchers fired from positions hidden by Holo-Fields.
"MI~~~~NE!" Slaanesh screamed, more of its prey stolen by a lesser god, and raised its scythed hands to slash apart the Crone.
But, before it could take a single step, silver chains wrapped around its face; for the broken form of Asuryan was replaced by a being of silvery flame, donned with his shining armor. New edicts rang, binding Slaanesh; frying its disobedient skin and treacherous limbs.
Built from the Gods of the Aeldari Pantheon, Asuryan's orders held some sway over She who Thirsts; part of the reason the Chaos god stole so much from the Phoenix King in the first place.
The youngest Chaos god screamed, shattering the Wraithbone walls and ground around it.
Silvery flames spread across its form, as the Fire of Asuryan grabbed the ends of the chains that formed his edict, and yanked Hir to the ground.
Khorne and Nurgle looked on as their youngest member struggled; then they fell upon Hir with cunning and greed.
What morsel could this last ember of a dead god provide, when compared to the succulent full form of their youngest sibling?
However, the most horrified of them all was Tzeentch; for it watched with all its ever-forming eyes the loss of the greatest prize.
For before Morai Heg was a single Aeldari warrior, bowed before her bent bleeding form.
The Crone Goddess reached down with her wrinkled left hand, and picked up the Aeldari between thumb and forefinger.
Then, she raised up their armored form above her head, where the last shard of Khaine hung.
And with a cracked voice passing through cracked lips, the Goddess of Fate pronounced them, "Young King."
Fire and fury burst from the shard, swallowing the Aeldari's form; consuming all that they were, are, and would be in an inferno of hate.
As the ashes of the Young King fell from Morai Heg's grasp, the awful, giant, full form of Kaela Mensha Khaine rose once more for one final time.
Tzeentch screamed, for it knew all was too late, but in its maddening self-defeating schemes, it could not stop itself from casting a spell it could only ever cast once.
9 newly formed mouths cast 9 terrible spells in 9 damned dialects. Each spell more powerful than the one before formed a cyclical ring of ever growing mind manipulation and madness. However, each and every spell was just as impotent as the last.
With a banshee cry Khaine swung his burning blade onto the broken bones of the Crone's last outstretched hand. The hand that held the rune skinned pouch of Morai Heg; the pouch that contained the fate of all mortals.
Sword then spell hit Morai Heg, and the cackling goddess of crows vanished from sight under azure flames; burning her form and memory from both Warp and mind. Consuming all her myths and legends; leaving only the Black Library and faded runes in forgotten temples to remember her name.
Even in the Webway Tzeentch's spell was felt, for the Harlequin carrying the shards of Khaine stumbled, mission forgotten, purpose lost. Then, they began to dance. In practiced form, all in sync with a performance planned by the Laughing God, they moved forwards. For binding every hand and every limb was a strand of fate grasped by the Clown God's hand.
The floating god sniggered, puppeteering its troupe in both Webway and Warp with its last gift from Morai Heg. Although its fellow gods were dead and its followers damned; the last laugh would always be the Mad God Cegorach's.
As the ashes of Morai Heg drifted away with the last spent shard of Khaine,
her severed hand flew, straight and true, like a spear,
Through tainted air, beyond beak and claw, with not a single fear
For nothing could deny its destined course.
To spill the contents it carried, and let mortal backs bend under fate's cruel weight.
Tzeentch's minions rushed to block the hand's path and seize all mortal fate in order to deliver to their master's infinite hands. But, the crows of the Crow Goddess swooped down upon them, having thinned the herd of Tzeentch's Lords of Change.
Blessed with the blood of Morai Heg, willingly given, they saw all fate; avoiding daemonic blows and magic blasts, while casting counter-spells to all of their curses with cacophonous cawing cries.
"This dance is our last, so make it our finest!" Cried one of the Harlequin, for though she no longer knew why she was here or what she was fighting for, her God's script ran in her mind.
Throwing another Star-Bola at a Flamer of Tzeetch, she leapt from her mount without a second glance at the plasma charged conflagration that incinerated the triple mouthed daemon.
Landing on the head of a Pink horror, she pulled out her Fusion Pistol and blasted it through the head with superheated force.
Torn in two, the two pink halves turned blue and two new Blue horrors wrapped their many hands around her legs.
With a twirl, she slammed one horror against the other before smashing them both into the side of a manta ray shaped Tzeenchian screamer, squashing both stunned daemons underfoot.
"In war there is poetry. In death release!"
Pulling her power sword from its sheath, she buried it between the many eyes and fangs of the Screamer's head and twisted the blade, driving herself and the Screamer straight into the path of Tzeench's magic.
The Chaos god screamed as another one of its minions ran headlong into blue and purple flames; once again defeated as Harlequin and crow covered the hand's path. Slaying daemons and sacrificing themselves to shield Morai Heg's pouch from the self-styled Master of Fate.
Swarms of Horrors, Screamers, and Flamers hurtled after the hand.
Like clouds of locusts, they blackened the land.
Forsight can only cover so much, for although the crows saw all they were only one.
So one by one they fell.
Torn to shreds by seas of Horrors.
Shattered to pieces after being surrounded by Screamers.
Burned to cinders, steed and rider, as Flamers filled their path with purple conflagrations.
"Long ago, Lilieath foretold this day." The last Harlequin spoke as it rode upon the very hand it was to protect; firing Shuriken pistol and Neuro Disruptor at the two closest targets among the thousands that chased them.
Purple bolts fly towards them, and with one last look at the swiftly approaching portal between reality and nightmare, the last Harlequin summersaults from the hand directly into the path of the magic.
"Like Cegorach, I laugh at fear and pain."
And laugh she did, all the way; as she plunged feet first into the purple bolts of Warp energy.
Foul power shattered her feet and legs like sticks, cauterized her midriff until it was as brittle as dried plaster before it incinerated the rest of her body; leaving only a spinning mask that sunk silently into the Webway, just as daemonic claws swiped at the Warp where it was.
Then, with a silent rip the bag was gone and the deed was done. Infinite strands of fate flew out into the mortal space between the stars, forever out of Tzeentch's reach; who shrieked with 9 frustrated howls and beat the ground of 9 different realms with 9 balled fists.
Meanwhile, Slaanesh, who had been stabbed and stepped on by Khorne and Nurgle returned their blows in kind; stabbing them both with scissor-like claws before kicking them away with purple hooved feet.
Grabbing the chains that bound Hir with Hir multiple hands, the Chaos god wrenched them causing the flaming figure in silver armor to stumble forwards.
Smiling, the Prince of Pleasure wrapped the chains around Hir chitinous forelimbs; dragging the struggling remnants of the Phoenix King closer towards her.
With one final yank, Asuryan stumbled forward, right into the outstretched pincers and claws of She who Thirsts. Those limbs that attempted to grab the flaming body passed right through the fire, but the claws that grabbed the silver armor found purchase there, and they crushed and pried the metal like a lobster with a clam.
Bit by bit, the armor warped and the flames that formed Asuryan sputtered and shook like a campfire in strong winds. Finally, his knees buckled sending his armored helm into one of Slaanesh's hands.
For one moment, the metallic creaking and grinding of claws crushing metal stopped as Slaanesh tilted the helm upwards, stroking the flaming figure's ethereal chin with a soft finger even as Asuryan's flames burned the digits all the way to the bone.
Then a sadistic grin spread across Slaanesh's beautiful face, and she raised 6 scythed limbs before stabbing and slicing the silvery helm from 6 different sides.
The silvery flames of the Phoenix King sputtered once before being snuffed out, leaving only smoking silvery ruins behind as well as grinning Slaanesh. But, as the ruined helm of Asuryan fell from Hir grasp, a single spark flashed in the rubble, then detonated with apocalyptic force.
Slaanesh, Khorne, and Nurgle were consumed by flames that wiped Asuryan's palace from the face of the Warp, and those same flames burned through the very fabric of reality, falling down to real-space where mortal hands could find them someday.
As three of the Four shrieked, roared, and groaned while the fourth continued its terrible tantrum, the Eye of Terror twisted.
The echoes of Slaanesh's screams had tainted it.
What was a gaping wound became a hungry maw that swallowed entire worlds, licking them up like grains of rice with countless purple tongues. The Aeldari empire, filled with the sacrificed, died a second time as the remains of Hir voice fell upon them.
Daemons took form on their wicked worlds, descending upon the damned.
As the screams and cries of billions of voices left from torn throats on millions of worlds, the victorious yet defeated Chaos gods rose. Each of the Four glowered at the others, cursing and blaming them for their lost prizes and stolen prey.
With a shriek, a shout, a mocking laugh, and a cursed spell; the battle between them began anew. Keepers of Secrets formed from the thick musk of Slaanesh's pores, descending upon the winged Lords of Change flying upon winds of magic. Great Unclean Ones guffawed as their fat flabby fingers grappled with enraged Bloodthirsters spitting fire and fury with every breath. Seas of lesser demons charged forward, eager to draw the new borders of their god's domain.
It was a sick parody of the Eternal War fought moments before.
No, it was no longer a war. No side could win. Whether it be Khorne's rage, or Nurgle's despair; Tzeentch's madness, or Slaanesh's hunger.
They were Chaos. The Four; Evermore.
No One would best the other.
The Eternal War had ended… and The Great Game had begun.
Lilieath woke from her vision dream, similar yet different in detail.
Cautiously, she whispered into her Grandmother's ear with cupped hands to hide what she said from Tzeentch's ever present gaze.
A twinkle appeared in Morai Heg's eye, but she remained as still as she had always been, giving no reason for Tzeentch to suspect anything.
'So, Isha, you have another path ahead of you, daughter.' The Crone thought to herself. 'Whether it's for better or worse, my blind eyes can't see at this time, but let my blessings be upon you and all your children,'
A slightly strained crease crossed across her face as she gave a sideways glance at her little Lilieath on her shoulder.
'I'm sorry that I can't say the same for you, Granddaughter.'
—----------------------------------------
Lilieath woke in the dark palace of the Prince of Pleasure; to the sucking sound of meat off bone.
Her body remained as ruined as it was at Hir birth. Left arm missing. Throat still torn out.
In the darkness, the source of the sound was hunched over the remains of a different Aeldari god, mutilated beyond all recognition, greedily sucking off the remaining flesh; digesting marrow while it was still in its living victim's bones.
Then the sucking sound stopped, and Hir head rose and turned towards her; baleful eyes glowing like those of a great cat in the dark.
The many hands and claws of She who Thirsts waved like reeds in the wind, before reaching forwards to crawl sickly and sensuously; like a mix between a bug and predator of the night.
Finally, it reached her, and cupped her cheeks with hands softer than silks, as the nails from those same hands dug into her skull like the prongs of a fork does to a juicy steak.
The beautiful, yet disgusting face of the newest Chaos god cooed softly, a sweet dove sound. Then she smiled; so gently.
A smile so sweet that spread and spread, splitting cheek and ear, before going around the back of Hir head.
The corners slithered between the horns that were there instead of hair.
Crossing the brow, the bridge of the nose, before joining up again at the top lip.
Hir mouth opened like a burst vomit bag, turning the face inside out, revealing a maw filled with teeth, tongues, tongue covered teeth and teeth covered tongues.
Some were spikey and serrated to stab and slice.
Others were flat and hard to gnash and grind.
All covered in a thin layer of gristle; the grime of its first meal, the remains of her family.
It lunged forward, and darkness swallowed her.
The last thing she heard… was the crackle and pop of a thousand teeth piercing her skull.
But her silent suffering had just begun.
