The Truth
The Focal Point of Rulek's victory and where the Warp twisted and split:
Her chains rattled in each step, they burned her for her sin of existing as a daughter of the Motherland. The lore that was so interweaved into her being was locked deep within her breast, fists clenching tight in a furious restrain. Even humbled and beaten as she was, Tzarina Katarin Bokha of Kislev was a woman of pride. Her shoulders broad and fallen hair graced her porcine pale face sculpted in a mask of hard disdain. The radiance of white-fire that normally burned her pupils were gone, reveal only an icy pale blue that reflected the hellish forge that sat far beyond the mortal realms.
And she, a meager mortal, was in constant threat of Chaos’ malevolent influence if it wasn’t for the carefully weaved spells placed upon her by her escort. A tall mutant of a snow leopard that dared to dress like one of the Ice Maidens, crowned by burning frost horns. The back of her attire askewed to reveal the mirror-like sheen of her broad shoulders and in the perfectly arranged fur, Katarin could see the faces of men and women...her own soldiers, kindred-in-arm, screaming and begging silently in a prison they could not escape.
A cruel position to put her in and the only thing keeping the Tzarina from attacking the foul beast was mere common sense. The softest hope that she will find a way to escape. A way to end this nightmare, only if she could get-
“Stop it.” A voice said.
That brought Katarin’s thoughts to a halt and her mask cracked oh so slightly in a blink. The felinid flickered its tall ears and glanced back with eyes similar to her own, the lore they both shared having that same effect of power. “Don’t do anything foolish, my Tzarina or the suffering you’ve felt before will not-”
The fact that Katarin could clearly take in the Kislevite accent hurt her so and with bared teeth, she commanded, “Silence, creature. Do not speak to me as if you are apart of my Kislev. It is obvious you abandoned it a long time ago.”
The beast looked at her a moment longer before facing forward. “When you have seen what we have, you would too…”
“Nothing would bring me to such lowly depths, creature. I would rather die.” The Tzarina hissed. “As they all say. As we have said...and what the ones after you will say, Katarin. I am sorry for you.”
“I don’t need nor want your sympathy!”
With a hateful snarl, Katarin lunged and snatched the long short-sword hanging off the mutant sorceress’ hip. The witch-blade whistled with its icy length exposed, boiling of its cold heat. Quick as a whip, her escort glanced down at the Tzarina and smacked her expected lunge before ironclad hands grabbed the smaller woman’s shoulders harshly. Ironically, Katarin snarled and fought like a wild cat with her legs kicking and newfound weapon swinging with nothing but the mad passion of someone who’ve lost everything. No skill. No finesse. Just desperate and sorrowful hate. She didn’t even care who she hitted, all she wanted was to kill.
With a holler, she rammed her shoulder against one of the daemon-charmed Ice Guard, throwing the traitor off her feet and when the other came, Katarin slammed the back of her head into the other’s nose before spiralling to plunge the whole frost blade under armored ribs. The woman gasped, hands immediately grabbing the Tzarin’s wrists and looked down at first.
And when the two met eyes, Katarin looked and saw the glazed look washing away to a painful clarity. “M-My Tzarin…?” The last words to leave those lips before frost glassed those same eyes and whitened the meat under the guardswoman’s skin. Her whole body stiffened to internal freezing. Katarin took a moment, frozen in horror at what she had just done and the condition that her murdered victim was in. Letting go and watching the body fall back.
CRASH!
Shattering like a glass figurine what was once a living, moving person. She has done it countless times against countless enemies, whether of the court or the monsters in the shape of daemons and men beyond Kislev’s bulwark. Katarin has never flinched to the power of her frost nor the state that her enemies had crumbled into, but this – the loss of Kislev, the loss of her people, the torture of their very souls – all manifested into this one moment and Katarin was in a moment of vertigo.
All of her fury became a momentary sickness in her stomach, gagging without anything, and stumbled into the hands of the other recovering guard. A yank of chains and Katarin found herself tripping over a short step, crashing onto the floor with a cry.
No, not a cry but she cried with her long-held emotions. It was a quick moment that she couldn’t hold back, even as the leopardess commanded her slaves to pick her up and drag her onwards through the Forge of Souls, just a walk longer before the great doors opened to reveal a place full of mists. Soul-residue that whispered and shaped sorrowful spirits that swam and gripped to flesh that they no longer possessed, helpless and woe heavy.
“W-why did you bring me here, you monsters?” Katarin’s drying voice questioned, finding no reason to be here. Was it her time now, to be melted of flesh and meat till only her own soul-stuff was left to the nefarious evils of the Ruinous Powers? One of the countless innocent and delusional that were caught in their selfish trap?
“To show you the Truth.” A voice said, great and terrible.
Katarin shivered at hearing it. She knew it too well know, how it tortured her even now and for the first time since her last great defiance to this monster – the Tzarina looked up beyond her fallen black locks at her greatest mistake.
The shape of that massive bat-winged abomination, how it dared to have its vague man-shape if it wasn’t for the twinned tail and bowed legs. From the black shape, there were its glowing gold eyes staring down at her from its alcove. “Of what, that you are nothing but a black-hearted monster? That you were always a treacherous opportunist seeking nothing but power? Were you always a slave to Them?”
Those eyes stared down at her for a long moment and it walked forward. “No…”
The thick mist twisted and reached towards her with ghostly claws, Katarin did not close her eyes. If she was to die, she will make sure she glared into the eyes of her murderer. Instead, a warm hand gently cupped her chin. Fingers curling and thumb over, what should have been a great daemon that once was a man. There was just…
The man.
His strong face was framed by the loose black locks of an otherwise tied back mane, fierce browed and lip crested with a trimmed mustache. His sun-kissed skin had become pale as if he never left the cold hell that she sent him to. Those eyes. Those once dark eyes glow with the same malevolence of a man that went into that evil place and devoured damnation.
“Yuri…”
“Kat…”
Even though she refused it, the Tzarina’s eyes stuck and watered. “Oh, Yuri...you traitor...why you?” She croaked finally. The question that burned her mind over and over since the revelation was given to her by a seer’s letter but she refused to believe that same man could do all of this. The same noble, sweet-hearted man that she knew since they were nothing but simple children caught in the webs of parents’ political games could turn into such a horrific monster. She refused this was nothing but an evil game by the daemons. They killed Yuri. They killed him and wore his name and skin as another weapon against Kislev. Against her but here he was.
“Oh Kat…” He said, cupping her face. For the briefest moment, he allowed himself to feel beyond the constant burning of hatred and spite that became his ichor. “If only you came with me and saw what I saw. The Wastes...is not a place for mortal men but mortal men must come to truly face their worst daemons and become more. Maybe things would be been different, but nothing would have changed the Truth that saw our Motherland suffering.”
With his gentle voice and care, Yuri stood up. The man that slew Ursun, the Bear God himself, stood in his regalia. Tattered cape flowed to the eldritch wind as he turned away. “Release her.” He commanded and the seduced slave obeyed, roughly so and that lack of care was rewarded with Yuri suddenly turning and turning the ice guard into a blown pillar of warp-burned sulfur by nothing but a disgusted flick of his hand.
That same hand scolding of its fell magics, clawed and scales crawled along its fingers and knuckles. His sneer akin to a bear before turning to wave the mist away. “Behold, Katarin! See why our Motherland suffered!”
Katarin squinted, trying to see what this daemon was raving about this 'Truth' and there it was...and her horror and hope fell into the abyss.
There, what was something so great and majestic, was now nothing but a humbled corpse held by slithering barbed chains against jagged rocks like a poor trophy. White fur marred by scars and dried god's blood. Jaws drooped with a blackening tongue...
Ursun, the Great Bear. The God that brought spring was dead. A God was dead.
"N-No...no, no."
"Yes, look at him. Look at our god."
Yuri hissed with so naked loathing as he pointed at the corpse. "I found him long ago. Pitiful. Pathetic. Weak. That is what we hung our very hopes and love for! A god that couldn't stop a daemon whilst we suffered and fought in his image, throwing ourselves as that same evil for all our lives and survive."
Katarin stared with lips opening and closing, unable to conceive what she was seeing as cold tears rolled down her face. "Ursun!"
"Scream his name, Katarin! Scream his name as so many of our kinsmen did! As we froze on that eternal field of ice and fire! As we starve and crawled! As we fought and bled! Scream his name, scream it with me!" Yuri insisted, as mockingly cruel as he was cruelly pained as she, and turned to scream at the corpse,
"URSUN! OUR GOD, OUR SAVIOR FROM THE STORMS!" Yuri screamed with the bellowing wrath of the monster that he became, echoing through the Forge of Souls' cackling mimicries of the aethers that died for Kislev's god. His arms wide as if to embrace the divine cadaver. "WEAKLING BEAR! BLED TO ITS LAST DROP! BE'LAKOR'S CARRION! MY TRIUMPH! MY FREEDOM!"
Yuri spun on Katarin with disgusted eyes crying black ichor. "This is what we wasted our lives and belief on. A corpse that will be martyred like our heroes before. Like your father. Martyred, but even that - I don't think he even deserves that. Don't you think?"
Katarin's mind was spiraling and soul writhing. So many, impossibilities truly made a nightmare's possibility, and she could do nothing but stare up at the thing that was Yuri as he came closer. For the briefest time, he looked like a bear to her. A man-eating, tainted bear prowling closer with unbreaking eyes. So great and terrible.