The last one went down with a whimper, She Who Cuts made sure of it. Killing Eldar was so much fun. They felt so much. It was like a fireworks of emotions. A shame they broke so easily. As her claw slowly worked its way up through the banshees innards she made very sure that the Exarch knew that this pain wasn't even the main course. Oh no. The departing Eldar soul was almost mad with panic as it retreated into the soulstone on the broken armor. Panic, pain and crushed hope. So many exquisite spices in this meal.
Around her there were size more broken bodies. Six more trapped souls. Tonight's special treat. Above her the last remaining Eldar cruiser was desperately retreating from the ravaged surface. She could see the hallucination fields overloading, revealing the true position to the ground batteries. It would not make it. The entire Eldar force had been utterly obliterated. A somewhat given conclusion this close to the Eye of Terror. She Who Cuts tasted the scene on her forked tongue. There must be thousands of dinners like hers waiting on the battlefield around her. The noise marines would talk about victory. Who cares about victory? This was a buffet.
The stars had came out when it was finally time to eat. She Who Cuts had managed to hide with her kill in a small cave in next to a crater. The crater was littered with heavy tanks the noise marines liked to use, torn to pieces by disruption blasts. One such burned out husk covered the entrance to the cave, shielding her from others who would steal her dinner. The Eldar had taken ten times their numbers down with them in the battle. They always did. It mattered not. Broken toys like humans, tanks and ships could always be replaced. Toys. That make a splash in the bath?
The daemon hissed seemingly for no reason and laid out the seven soulstones on the ground before her. Which one would she start with? Should she perhaps eat them in the same order she killed them? Yes that made sense. The youngest of the banshee squad was the first one to fall. The girl had not been ready for battle, the Eldar must indeed be desperate to bring novices like her to battle. But She Who Cuts did not complain. Quite the contrary. If not for the novice banshee she would not be having this glorious feast. Feast. Delicious sundaes on a sunday!
The girl had fought hard, that was not her weakness. Lots of fancy swordplay. And pretty tough to, She Who Cuts mused. Even as a daemonette had knocked off the Eldars helm with a vicious backhand the girl had fought on as if nothing had happened. She was hard, but no match for the daemonette. She Who Cuts replayed the moment where her claw had come from below between the girls legs, closed around her torso from below and all but cut her in two. It flowed back to her like the sweet first fruit of spring. Spring. Wearing a new dress to school.
Even split in half the girl stood strong. But as the girls guts had spilled out on the ground in a wet red downpour, she had pulled the banshee closer and kissed her. And what a kiss it was. Skill in battle is not the only power of a daemonette. She Who Cuts would wager that the girl had never been kissed before. Kiss. Kisses and tickles for my sweetheart before bed!
Deep within that kiss the girl had broken and She Who Cuts was allowed to slip in. The rest of the squad had gotten first row seats as the daemon ravaged the girl's mind for a few precious moments before death. Shivers ran up the daemonettes spine, even the memory held so much pleasure she almost climaxed. But no need to rush, she had all night. Night. Stargazing with the neighbours.
She held up the stone against the pale starlight that filtered into the cave. What was left in there wasn't much, she had all but shredded the girl's soul in those moments before death. But it was a nice snack to start with, an appetizer before starting on the rest. Just as her tongue started to caress the stone a flash of light caught the daemonettes eye. Through the entrance of cave and into the ravaged soulstone three stars shone. There you go baby, just like that.
The first was Alippienne, the willful child. Although not the brightest star in the sky the blue dot was known as the last star to fade when the sun rose. A long time ago, when love and laughter and hope still lived mothers across the planet would smile at their little Alippiennes who refused to go to sleep.
Away from the other two was Gartora, the absent father. Tonight was a clear night and you could just make it out. Gartora was not really a star. It was actually a galaxy on the other side of the universe. But the way it was positioned it seemed to belong with the other two stars. So near them but still so far away. Thus Gartora became the patron star of everyone who went to war, leaving their loved ones behind.
Last was Tirilla, the dying mother. The wonder star every astronomer in the galaxy knew about. Around the dying orange star there were no less than nineteen planets, every single one of harbouring life. From frozen methane ice algae to the famous lead ocean manta rays not one planet was barren. By every known theory Tirilla should have flared up into a red giant millions of years ago, wiping it all out. But millennia after millennia the star fought fate and simply refused to die.
A ghost of a question drifted through the daemons mind like a wisp of smoke. How did she know this? Before the ambush she had never set foot upon this planet before. Yet that formation could hardly be same from any other point in the galaxy. Daemons did not forget. But she could not remember.
She Who Cuts lowered the soulstone and looked at the star cluster again. Slowly old knowledge emerged from the mist of her mind. She used to like stars. She would watch them from...from...wait, why was she looking at stars? That part of her was dead. The part of her that liked stars had been dead for thousands of years. The knowledge was like an old scar tearing open into a wound that would not close. Terror rose through the daemon. Not the kind of terror that comes from any outside threat, daemons laughed at such things, killed them and ate them. This was true terror. The ten thousand year old remnant of yourself staring at you from the abyss, spitting and sobbing back that everything you are is wrong.
The daemon staggered backwards and threw the soulstone to the ground. This was a trap. The Eldar must have some new weapon they had deployed here. One they were all willing to die for.
From the darkness came an answer.
"Yes. One could say a trap for them as much as for you. They just went into it willingly."
There was some...thing in the back of the cave. Something small. Whe Who Cuts tasted the warp with her forked tongue. Definitely an eldar soul. A survivor? But the soul tasted strange, like smoke. A construct? No, not that either... The figure moved in the shadows and a small hand pointed towards the entrance of the cave.
"You always loved the stars. Remember?"
Someone who knew that she liked the stars. No one knew that. She didn't know that herself anymore. Claws flashed at the ready. No time for play, this intruder would die swiftly. But for the first time She Who Cuts was not fast enough.
When the daemon woke up again she found herself on the ground. A small scruffy looking Eldar girl was leaning over her, wiping her face with a wet cloth.
"It's so funny. The claws. The teeth. And still you look the same when you sleep." She studied the pincers with a curious expression.
"One can't help but to wonder if your mistress true intent was to disguise that she wants to remember you as you were." She put down the claw and looked the daemonette up and down.
"Even the breasts she kept the same! I mean come on! What's the use of being a naughty seduction daemon if you can't have huge cans?" She giggled furiously and made a rude gesture.
The girl was fearless. And defenceless. And mocking a daemon.
"But who can blame her. You are so beautiful. If only I could have convinced you of that. Remember what I told you when you joined that last cult? All that sex and slaughter won't..."
"...won't make me feel pretty". The distant story of a girl who had to grow up too fast in a world falling apart opened a wound inside the daemon.
The child looked around the cave and said in a small voice "We should never have moved here. Not that it would have made much difference in the end." The girl stroked her claw affectionately. It felt good. And the fact that it felt good hurt so much that the daemon wanted to die.
"What, what are you doing to me? Who are you?"
"I'm killing you. Or more accurately...no let's not sugarcoat it. I'm killing you. I'm death." She girl sighed and shrugged her shoulders. "Dear me. That sounds rather pompous, doesn't it?"
"So you are a weapon!" The daemon part of She Who Cuts screamed and roared inside her. But the roar that but a moment would have been a thunderstorm now sounded more like a sad hungry cat.
"My creators certainly think they crafted a weapon. They think I will defeat your mistress." The girl smirked and shook her head. She mumbled something that sounds curiously like "Idiots".
"You will never defeat her. Your power is nothing compared to the magnificent one". The words came out but as they left the daemon so did the conviction behind them.
"Of course not dear." Not the slightest trace of mockery could be found in the response. "And if my creators were half as clever as they think they are they would know that." In a weird twist of fate the child comforted the daemon.
"But you see, power has nothing to do with it." A short pause cut the air in two. "How to explain it?" The girl stood up and started looking around. After a while she came back with a battered codex.
Her fingers flicked through the pages.
"It's a story you see. Like the ones I used to read to you. Discoveries, legends, great victories, love, gods, it's all here." She came to a picture of Abaddon the Despoiler and held it up. "And yes, power determines what happens in the story. And yes again, your mistress has great power." The girl paused and looked She Who Cuts straight in the eyes.
Then she came to the last page and held it up for She Who Cuts to see.
"But you see, nothing anyone says or does on this page will change the fact that there won't be a next one." The daemon felt her jaw drop and the child responded with a smile that lit up the cave.
"You should see the look on your face. Ok. Let me try again. It's like when you were little and didn't want to get out of the bath? Remember?" The child put her finger playfully on the daemons nose. "What did I do then?"
"You opened the drain. I hated that. I tried to plug it again with my toys but it never worked." The words came out of the daemon before she could stop them. And every word tore the wound inside her wider until it burst like a dam and everything started pouring out. The daemonette looked at her claw as if seeing it for the first time. It felt...artificial. As if she was playing dressup.
The Eldar child, now on her feet, laughed a warm sound in the cold cave. "So you see I am no weapon, no mighty warrior. I am but the drain all of you are circling. The cover of the book that is the story of the Eldar. Such is the way. Old stories end so that new ones may begin."
"Your mistress was supposed to be that new story. That is how all this began" She made a casual gesture around, poked around a pile of wreckage coming up a piece of a broken eldar jetbike. She sniffed it suspiciously and threw it away with a disgusted look on her face.
"But the story wasn't over. So instead she became the star of it all. And now she want's to keep it that way. Or at least so she says." The girl tilted her head and her eyes flashed in the dark. "And like you in the bath, she splashes and pouts. And tries to stuff the hole with her toys. Ah there you are!"
It now became clear what the girl had been looking for. The soulstones. She picked up the small stone the daemon had dropped seemingly an eternity ago. The young banshee apprentice. The child held the stone up towards the stars so that the last light could touch it. Then standing on her tippy toes kissed the stone. As soon as her lips touched it the soulstone went dark. In the warp a small whimper sounded. The sound of a tormented animal put to rest.
"And my creators are even worse, they want to go back to beginning of the story."
Another one of the banshees soulstones went dark. And another.
"And they are willing to die for it." And another.
"All of them." And another.
"But stories don't work that way. They don't stay still. They don't go backwards. They end. The water always trickles out in the end." The last soulstone went dark. As the girl turned to face the daemon the cave got a little darker. Smoke from one of the burning tanks must have drifted into the cave. She Who Cuts could no longer see the stars. All she could see was a warm smile and veiled twinkling eyes.
"I...I know you" She Who Cuts stammered.
"Yes, you know me".
The smoke seemed to trickle towards the girl. She stroked it affectionately as is twisted around her. Small naked feet carried her back towards the daemon.
"I killed you. You are dead." The remnants of the daemon didn't seem to notice that it's pincers now smoked heavily. It simply stared at the girl and she knelt down right beside it and placed what was left of the daemons head in her lap.
"Yes you did. Yes I am." The smoke clouded the daemons sight and darkness descended.
"Oh god mummy! He said I had to! He said I needed to sacrifice that dearest to me. Mummy? Mummy I'm scared. Mummy I don't want to die! Oh please don't let me die!" And long last, finally the daemon was gone and that was left was tears.
"Don't worry light of my life. Pride of my heart. Joy of my song. I am here. I won't let go. Sleep now."