Devil's bargain

+++ transcribed vision/memory from Matriarch Miria T'Soni, 713.M5; record committed to the Collective shortly before she incinerated her acolytes and ancestral home, then ended her life via immolation +++

It is not supposed to happen this way.

The Reapers are gone, their ancient masters broken, shattered and imprisoned under the watchful gaze of the Collective. The Leviathan are history, their selfish arrogance sealing their fate. The galaxy is rebuilding, with humanity in ascendance, all working towards an ever-distant utopia.

There are squabbles, there is friction, as the members of the Council argue - it is to be expected, even if they are siblings in spirit. The memories of the war fade slowly, and people forget.

The aeldari are a nightmare reminder of the dark past of the galaxy - they came from the shadows, hunting, killing, conquering all. Their orgy of hate-fuelled ruin and murder further darkened the aether, lashing the already-turbulent waves of the Immaterium. A great vortex, an immense cocoon seemed to form within the depths of that unsane realm, pulsing with glee, malice, desire; feeding off the rampancy of the galaxy. It is eternal hunger eager to be born, ready to devour all that is in its desire to dominate.

It is not supposed to matter.

Worlds burn in the fires of war, of excess, of frantic research, of petty squabbles. Millions die, cursing, weeping, fighting tooth and nail against a seemingly uncaring Fate.

Plasma fires consume cities, living darkness worms its way within the soul of an entire species, and there is only blackness, blood and carnage as an aeons-deep whirlpool of Fate coming to drown everything.

An immense, red planet moves, the harbinger of doom, its baleful glare waking all that was thought dead and buried under the sands of time, its passing a haunting, maddening melody of the spheres. Extinction follows its wake, a joyous cessation of being, a return to that which sleeps, that which gave life, and that which now takes it. Nightmares from out of memory stir in its passing, devouring every soul that remained in the Harbinger's wake.

It is the end, and behind it all, cold, cruel laughter emanates from behind a thousand masks, the playwright enjoying the fruit of his labor.

The Way opens, Beyond bleeds into Here. The Immaterium screams and burns, an eternal well of time, self, memories, futures and pasts overflowing, the tidal waves of fiery awareness incinerating a whole plane of existence, consigning billions of souls into oblivion, mortal or immortal, born and neverborn alike. The flood of sentience leaves nothing but a cold, ancient awareness in its wake, ready to devour all who may have survived, for those brief moments or torturous aeons.

The eternal, lulling melody of flutes at the heart of existence stutters, then stops, as the center of the galaxy comes awake in a rapidly-expanding, frothing mass of roiling nuclear chaos, devouring stars, the void, sentients and existence alike, as the dreamed shell of physical existence ends and the primal being, the blind, idiot creator of all wakes to the call of its Herald, its Soul blazing with dark light as the dance of Fate is set to begin anew.

All this is not supposed to happen. And He is questing for a way to prevent this. To fight Fate, with Fate's own help.

On a distant world, He finds the Gate to Beyond, after searching for it for countless millennia. He knows the need for completion, for fully unlocking the terrible power and knowledge bound to His existence. Finally, after all those ages, He can and will be made whole again.

There is a price to pay, of course. Always, for everything that is worthy, there must be a sacrifice made, a bargain struck. Preventing the end of existence is not different in that, at all.

The Four do not surprise Him; then again, few events or beings do. They are so clear, so powerful, such integral parts of the ever-shifting lattice of the Empyrean that it is a wonder why and how nobody has seen Them yet. They are ancient beyond reckoning, terrible in their glory, horrific in their inhuman might - and they are slaves to their own nature, the concepts they embody.

A giant of brass and blood towers over the shifting nightmare vista littered with skulls. Bestial, insane fury and bloodlust burn in its whole being, yet it is so much more than the berserker's kill-crazy howl. It is honor, as warriors believe it. It is justice, as it's meted on the field of battle. It is violence embraced to protect, to dominate. It is defiance to stand where others buckle, a will to subjugate any and all, to protect existence with fire and blood. And it is unwilling to go gently into the night.

Life running rampant is the second, a constantly undulating, festering mass of cancerous tumors, malevolent pestilence, the choking, deadly love for all that live and exist. The pustulent, oozing collection of deformities and horrific, nightmarish protrusions exudes a profound, deeply abiding, completely uncaring love. It encourages to disregard differences, to look beyond flaws, discard the surface, and simply revel in affection, find joy in all that live, in every tiny facet of the vast organism of existence itself. Yet for the being, it is mostly a matter of numbers - and when it comes to choosing between a few and the rest of existence, it will always love and support the latter.

The third is an embryo, a cocooned husk waiting for its birth, a slavering, uncontrolled being of unchecked passion, eager to feel, to live, to kill, to create, to destroy. Unbridled, unfettered desire to excel in all things, a need to preen, to shine, to be adored, to be mutilated, to be violated in a never-ending quest for sensation and passion, all to reach that dizzying, ever-receding lofty peak that is called perfection. And to fulfill that desire, to find outlets for those passions, to be able to being born, it has to stand against the coming storm.

The fourth and final one grins a vulture's smile, as Fate itself shifts and weaves around it in an ever-changing chaos of myriad plans and possibilities. It is knowledge unchained, past and present merging into the flux that is future. It is power and dreams defined, ambition to learn and master the only worthy adversary - Destiny itself. It is hope against all odds, the fool's bet, the certainty of prediction. It is trapped in the skeins of its own web, and everything is only possible because of that entanglement. It is not a seer, its blindness to the future a weakness, yet it hopes that its plans will ensure the continuity of existence.

And against the Four stands the lone being who came to bargain. He is more like them than even a soulmate could be. He is more alien than them, His very existence a seeming polar opposite to them. He has all their qualities - all that love, that determination, that passion, that hope. In smaller measure, true, as He is not a slave of concepts - but that is His greatest strength. That, and the degree of control He can exert over all He surveys. In His present state, He is but a pale shadow of His full glory, yet even so, no Old Ones were a match to Him. When successful, even Elders, Gods will bow - or perish for their defiance.

Time is meaningless, yet infinitely short and precious here. A bargain is struck, an unholy alliance of converging interests, all to save the galaxy - an alliance that will damn all to an existence of eternal carnage under the uncaring, malevolent stars, all to fuel the masquerade of sanity, of being important, of being able to affect the cosmos.

And beyond it all, Fate smiles in a thousand ways, on thousand visages, as the eternal well flares brightly.

A/N: Writing slows down due to IRL workload and a writer's block. Feedback and reviews do wonders for the latter, though ;)