She flittered like a butterfly between the other partygoers at the celebration. A smile here, a joke shared there and then moving on as quickly as she'd come before she overstayed her welcome. It was how these events always were as she stepped loosely between light friendship and fear.

It could have been so easy to let go, to smile and flirt with whoever caught her eye and see if it was returned. Sometimes she almost believed they were flirting back, that everyone else was in on the joke too before the fear returned. Because even if there might be others, she had never met anyone brave enough to say it. A simple phrase hanging on the edge of her tongue whenever she might ask.

You must always be on the watch for signs of heresy.

Was she a heretic? She had never chosen to be so and had never thought of herself as one. As a child her parents had told her to be faithful to the Imperial Creed and she had listened to them as a good girl.

Was she different? She always had been so, from the way she stepped back as her friends had grown interested in boys, to the way her eyes had lingered on them instead. Hadn't she always been that way, born like this?

Was there a difference between the two? When it was so easy to accuse one another of being a deviant, when they preached from the pulpit the need to be vigilant against anyone who was different. It would only take one person who decided that there was no difference in the end, and so she had never felt safe.

She hovered on the edges of the party at the level of friendliness that just couldn't make the jump to romance. Just distant enough that when the dancing started she could slip off to the side unnoticed. Just present enough that no one would ask why a single young woman wasn't interested in romance. One step ahead of the accusations from people who didn't understand.

"May I have a dance." He fell into step beside her, and he was handsome and trying in his own way, and not the right gender for anything to work out regardless. She met his gaze even as she bit her lip, mind whirring, because no matter how earnest she'd rather not.

But having come refusing to dance would be weird in its own way. She steeled herself even as she slipped on a smile of her own, curtseying…

Crashing down to the ground as someone else walked into her, a drink pouring itself out all over her dress. "I'm sorry I didn't mean to do that I wasn't quite paying attention." The girl the voice belonged to smiled unapologetically in defiance of her words.

But it was an excuse and she needed one so it hadn't come at a bad time. "It's not your fault I wasn't looking either." She looked down at the stains across her dress before turning back to the man, inclining her head. "I'm sorry I really need to get changed or these stains will never come out. Perhaps some other time." Perhaps not if she could help it.

The guy hovered unsure even as concern warred with something else as he looked her up and down before mustering his courage. "If you need it I can arrange a ride to get you back home."

But the voice beside her chirped in. "There's already a spare room here, although can't say you'd be welcome in the girl's changing room really," the girl beside her looked at him intently and he got the hint backing off just a bit. Even as she let herself get pulled up easily until she was back on her feet.

And once they were out of the room she let her smile become just a bit more honest. "Thank you I actually did want to step out of that." It was an awkward admission but there was an excuse easily coming to her lips. "He just wasn't my type and I was struggling to say it."

"It's an excuse for me to leave as well so it's all good." Her new companion giggled, even as she smiled back. "Well neither of us is interested in guys like that so I'm only here for the other party."

Butterflies filled her stomach even as she forced them down. Because her companion obviously meant that kind of guy and not that she was the same as her. "Just point me to the right room you don't have to go in with me." Because getting changed in front of another girl would have butterflies filling her stomach the whole while.

"It's just through here." And then she pulled her through the wall, the solid substance parting into shadows as she stepped in. The room she found herself in was just like any other waiting room, but the walls were festooned with countless masks ranging from full face masks to dainty little things that barely covered the eyes.

A shadow detached from the wall, it's form pulled free into a silhouette of a woman tantalisingly beautiful. She found her eyes roaming openly even as their new companion stood half-formed. Then the veil lifted for a moment, and she peered across the divide at something larger than any human could be, the abyss meeting her eyes as it caressed her thoughts.

Fear and uncertainty fading away on a lilac promise of acceptance.

"It will keep all of your secrets for you while we're here." She looked back to the mask hanging in the air in front of her, the vague memory of the girl behind it slipping from her mind.

The mask came off and the beauty behind it pouted back at the shadow. "You can let her keep me in mind, when I bring a new girl in I'm trying to flirt with her."

"You are actually." She didn't finish the question half sure it was a trap.

"I am, and this is a place for us free from questions of whether we're heretics as well." The girl pouted and her heart fluttered. "So come on so I can get to know you for real, in this place we're safe."

A mask fell into her hand from the shadows, and she could feel something from it. The wisps of a shadow reaching around her as it seemed to cling to her form. "If it's safe then why the masks?"

"Weren't you always wearing a mask on your face anyway? This little thing just means you can put down your fear of being recognised, walk away from the shackles they placed on you. Wear the mask and be yourself." Her eyes twinkled as she smiled. "I'll show you a good time on the dance floor."


AN: Technically there have been attempts to make out that the Imperium isn't as homophobic as well anyone with eyes would expect of it. Naturally I just feel those are utterly pointless.

Between its core philosophy of othering people and Slaanesh being fully LGBT+ coded you cannot create a safe environment for people to decide to out themselves. Even if you had a hard line, the very nature of asking individuals to police it would lead to them wondering if they were going to get murdered.

As the Imperium has killing the innocent to ensure the death of the guilty as public policy, there aren't other options. Now chaos being fully accepting on the other hand is just as easy as saying ah well the worst parts of it are imperium propaganda, and the Imperium are Space Nazis so you should never trust anything they write anyway.

This one was hard to write, ah well.