𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐖𝐀𝐑 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐍𝐎 𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐍 𝐀 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐂𝐑𝐀𝐅𝐓. A brutal thing of skull and bone, brass and steel, it was a curious mixture of artistry and brutality, savagery and symmetry. There were four gleaming brassed skulls that formed the bowl it, godlings who had died for their presumptions of usurpation (or at the whim of the maker of this chalice; who could say?). Their skin-shorn heads looked out now, empty-eyed and screaming forever in rage at their defeat. It was the cleanest flesh-flensing the All-Slaughterer had ever seen, a job to put the Fifth Host of Murder to utter shame. The base was black metal and carved into it were harsh angles and khornate argot, glowing with a crimson heat. The stem, too, was blackened and made from the spines of the defeated divines; twined together like a thread of bones and inlaid with weeping bloodstones. This, the Prince of Pleasure had slipped gingerly into the armored claws of his warlike brother with the merest whisper of a knowing smirk.
Tearing his eyes away from it, 𝐊𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐄𝐓𝐇 looked instead to his brother-gods. Decay and Change, Nurgle and Tzeentch, who had both received their own glorious gifts: art wrought from the languid Prince's own manicured talons; Rarities, afforded to only the most high and most worthy. And as he looked at theirs and looked at his, he could have sworn his was better; made with more thought, and more care. More an example of the sheer perfection that the youngest of them was capable of them.
And despite himself, something curled in the chest of the 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐆𝐎𝐃 as he held it. It wasn't hatred-- not entirely. It was...soft. Not hot, but warm. Pleasant, like being lulled into a dream. Like reclining on a fluffy cloud after a hard campaign of endless, endless war. And he hated it. Immediately, the rage for he was so infamous flared up deep from within his chest. The 𝐁𝐋𝐎𝐎𝐃 𝐆𝐎𝐃 SNARLED, gripping the chalice for death and raising it high a above his flaming horns. With a thrust of his musclebound arm, he SPIKED the war goblet into the pristine tiles of the Covenantal Court, shattering the artifice into a thousand pieces.
And as soon as he did, he was overcome with the deepest dread and horror. His sword, All-Slaughter, CLATTERED to the ground with a deafening sound and Khorne had followed it on a knee. He reached out with his clawed gauntlet, talons trembling at the destruction he'd caused. Then, heedless of the eyes of siblings upon his bent form, Khorne began to gather the rent remains and reassembled the Chalice of War.
Piece-by-piece.
𝐄𝐗𝐂𝐄𝐑𝐏𝐓: 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐖𝐀𝐑