A/N: SURPRISE! Bet you weren't expecting a) an epilogue, and b) this quickly. Has nothing to do with NaNoWriMo, I promise. I was just on fire to get this puppy done.

Reviewers:
Guest - I am glad you like it despite the sadness.
DarkQueenOriga – I can promise you, you won't be expecting this epilogue.
FrancisVamp0822 – Probably drink myself under a bridge. :D Was hoping it would be a shocker.
DanteInfernus – I mean, you technically aren't wrong, but I wouldn't agree with your fears.
ManwithaPlan113 – Purgatory is real, son of the God-Emperor! Until we cleanse the daemon from reality.
TwinkieMain – Was hoping it would be a well-played card and not come across as an "I Win" button.
Guest 2 – It is a Warhammer ending.
Gabriel – IT'S OVER 9000!
EnriksD8 – See, I stopped watching Text to Speech after the first season. It was funny, but the fanbase drove me up the wall. They are the 40k version of Rick and Morty fans. Louk kind of died. But he gets better. He always gets better, which is both awesome, but exhausting.
89 – Louk definitely doesn't have snapping power, but I can't promise it won't stay a bad ending.
Guest 3 – I mean, at least I don't have a thousand plot holes relating to time travel in this story. :D
Disciple of Ember – Never actually watched or read any of the Fate series. They look interesting, but can't bring myself to look them up. And yes, Louk's family is getting pretty big. And awkward. Real awkward family reunions.
Guest 4 – Olga, the forever virgin. Grace… Mournival still happened, so…
Janne Rolfe Jalandoni – He doesn't have time to rest. He's got reviving to do.
Razorclaw Predacon – Yeah… it sucks. As the Halo Announcer says… Double Kill!
Ekurman – It certainly was a rollercoaster.
Abdiel Amaro – Louk made the mistake of holding onto a daemon when it exploded. That was no Bueno. And loving that someone posted the reverse Star Wars reference. I almost put that in the previous Louk story, but thought it inappropriate.

He remembered this room. Rot and rust coating the bolt that held the prefabricated shelter together. Black stains on the grated metal floor, the walls, and sometimes the ceiling. A gutted dresser with one battered drawer, filled with baubles and shiny trinkets they scrounged in the alleys. A single faded lumenstrip flickered weakly overhead, casting a gloomy pall in the interior. It was a tiny space. Ten steps from wall to wall, twelve steps from door to the back wall. They did not have a bed; not a real one, at least. A rotten mattress that squirmed with lice and vermin. The air stank of promethium fumes and rancid gas. Thunderous noises rattled the shelter, the din of a hive city always in motion. It was a wretched place.

But it had been his.

He stretched out a hand for the worn, orange-stained door. The motors on the slides had failed centuries ago, if not longer. They had to pry their little fingers into… there, and he eased the door open. It shrieked, groaning in protest as he forced it aside. Once upon a time, it felt like trying to shift the world itself. Now it weighed practically nothing.

"I wouldn't go out there."

The words slunk out of the darkness. Bright, cheerful words in a voice he had not heard in so long he hardly remembered them. His grip on the door tightened, bending the weakened fiberplas until it crunched.

"You are dead" he grunted.

"Rude." Her voice was… so young. So innocent and lively. Sing-song, childlike.

He turned his head, dragging his eyes along the wall. His skin crawled at the thought of what he might find. Apprehension knotted his stomach.

The small figure sat on the mattress, her thin face bright despite the grime and dust caked on her skin. Thin, bony arms rested on her knees. She as so painfully thin. A lifetime of malnourishment and starvation, a scene repeated infinitely across the broad Imperium. But her eyes still shone with life, and she offered her crooked smile as she eased off the mattress and stood. For a long time, she had towered over him. She had been his only family and had fed him, clothed him, raised him. Now she hardly reached his chest, and he wondered if he had even noticed the changes. How their heights had leveled, how he grew strong and wiry while she remained weak and spindly.

"You've gotten so big, Lucky" she cooed, reaching out to grasp at his hand. He flinched back, wariness prickling his flesh.

"Where are we?"

"That's a silly question. We're home." She turned daintily on her toes, throwing her arms out wide as if to show off the room. The dirty, ragged shift she wore barely held to her shoulders. He could see so much of her underneath. Skin clinging to ribs. Bruises on her hips from where the men clawed at her small body.

"You died."

"Me, dead?" She chuckled lightly. "That's a strange dream."

But this was the dream, wasn't it?

"I… I killed you."

Mouline pulled open the drawer of their broken dresser, fishing about the container. "You must have hit your head, Lucky. I can't be dead. I'm right here."

She turned around, and he felt the sliver of dread lance through his belly. A gruesome, crawling gash had opened up the front of her dress and split her skin. Seemingly oblivious to the wound, Mouline stepped up to him, her hands clasped tightly together. He knew what lay between her palms. But it was wrong. She had not been this young. And the wounds were not there yet.

"Lucky?" Mouline frowned, gazing down at the wound. "Lucky… I… what did you do?"

Her lip pulled slightly, twitching as another bloody gash traced its way across her chest, cutting just under her collarbone. She screamed, her face twisting in agony, tears pouring down her cheeks. But she did not drop the precious item in her hands, she did not thrash or fight or try to pull away. Her body melted away from his touch. Louk lunged to catch her, to hold her as another cut bloomed down her right arm, spreading from her wrist to her elbow. The cuts came quickly. He remembered each one. Opening her veins, collecting her blood in bowls.

Her screams pounded in his ears. She shrank away from him, melting into the floor, her skin bubbling as the heat of welding torches scalded her to the bone. Helpless, Louk grabbed at her wispy form, his fingers passing through her as if she was not truly there. She shriveled on the floor, body twisting and spasming, until she went blessedly still.

"S-s-s-shame" a voice hissed from the doorway.

Louk rounded on the intruder, his fists coming up and ready to defend himself.

Gutterball slunk into the cell. The misshapen ratman had always scurried rather than run, slunk rather than walked. His filthy clothes were layered on, obscuring his misshapen frame, hiding dozens of pouches filled with vials, jars, weapons. They had been allies, for a time. Allies was not the proper word for it. Work partners. Louk had always despised the creature.

"What are you" Louk demanded.

The creature slipped past him, ignoring his question entirely. Sidling up to the metal slab that served as the cell's bedframe, it ran a gentle, loving hand along the cold steel surface. "You k-k-killed me, here. Do you remember?"

He did, but he did not. Gutterball's death was a blur. He vaguely recalled the taste of acrid gas on his tongue. Breathing in stinking fumes and tasting vile blood. The mutant stared up at him, eyes twinkling under its cowl.

"My head… there." It pointed a too-long finger, tipped with a nail too thick to be ordinary but too thin to be a claw. "All over the w-w-wall."

"I am sure you deserved it" Louk grunted. He placed his back to the cell wall. On the Hound's Call, in the passage he had practically lived in for a time. Been forced to live in for a period of that. He remembered this cell, though they were all the same. The cell where the eldar warrior he affectionately had referred to as Angry Eyes. Throne, how she loathed him.

Gutterball lurched suddenly into the wall, thrown like a ragdoll. His skull cracked, and black blood spread in his wake. Again and again, his body was slammed into the unyielding metal. Broken and crushed until there was hardly anything left of his skull above the spinal cord. The slick, sickening taste of mutant blood flowed down Louk's throat. He retched, but it continued to dance and frolic in his mind.

"You leave only death in your wake" the third one announced.

This time Louk did not turn. He refused to, even though the walls and ground gave way, pitching into darkness only to be replaced by a vibrant, unsullied valley stretching for endless kilometers ahead. The loose rock crunched under his boots, and the bellowing roars of vox-enhanced lungs echoed mutely behind him. The air tasted of fyceline and blood. Blood for the servants of the Blood God.

The Eldar stood to his left, resplendent in the strange xenos armor they recovered on their evacuation of the ship. Her strange xenos weapon hissed and spat swarms of whistling dics, each tiny and deadly-sharp. Facing down monstrous demigods, she stood her ground and fired as they rushed down the slope.

"I didn't have a choice."

"Spoken like a true monkeigh." Her dismissive tone dripped hostility and acid. A venom he had never truly been relieved of. "Your entire race is unable to claim responsibility for their failures. You hide in self-pity and delusion."

"What was I supposed to do" he demanded, rounding on the xenos warrior.

"You ask questions whose answers are already known."

Two armored warriors crashed down onto the narrow path they had scouted. The hulking Astartes monsters charged after the retreating xenos, but she dodged and danced between them as if they were clumsy children.

"They aren't known to me" Louk snarled. He stepped through one of the Astartes. The battle continued to rage. One of the monsters tumbled to the ground, a sizzling hole blasted through his armor from the plasma pistol Louk had snatched up. They fought the last one together, but it was a greater opponent than the others. She turned to face him, snatching the soulstone from her throat and hurling it to him.

Remember her, Louk Shannegh. It is the only thing that will end this.

Those words did not come from the Lidrana standing in front of him. They came from the Lidrana of that time. Her eyes burned fiercely, glowing with witch-power as she spoke to him. Louk had the unsettling feeling that she had been speaking to him then, but she was also speaking to him now.

A strong blow hurled him backwards and he fell from the cliff.

"Oh, I do believe he is alive in there." Abara studied him curiously, his glasses glinting in the light. Kneeling in the grass, surrounded by warding runes and sigils, he struggled to rise. The abominable pressure forced him down, pinned him to the ground. "Putting up a valiant fight, I should say."

"Abara."

"He remembers me. Excellent! Do you understand, Reaper?"

"No. You died. They all died."

"Yes, that is what mortals do. Something you will never get the opportunity to fully savor."

"Why are they here? Where is… here?"

"Too many questions, Reaper. That is what I should call you, isn't it?" Abara approached closer, daring to stand at arm's length. "Really, I don't know why you got so worked up over this one."

"This… what? Have I died?" Louk strained to rise. Each word dragged like nails across his mind.

"I would think so." Abara pushed his glasses further up his nose. "I am never wrong."

"But I wasn't… I wasn't finished."

"Oh, I think you were quite done Rea-" Abara's throat opened in a great bloody spray. The witchling sank to his knees, grasping pitifully at his neck.

The hunger surged inside him. Ravenous, unforgiveable hunger. His fingers itched to lunge to the body, mouth blazing with a fire he had suppressed for so long. Flashes of agony stabbed through his mind, his body.

"Rippa!" The towering brute slowed to a stop as his body hurtled away from it, pointing a length of steel that ten men would have struggled to lift. "Wut you'z doin', Rippa?"

"Trying to figure that out" Louk gasped. He hurt. Every bone in his body ached. Every vein scratched for release. The ogryn took a step back, confusion on its face.

"Rippa! Why's you lookin' funneh?"

"End me or let me go" Louk screamed, howling into the distant clouds that rumbled overhead. The air swirled around them, shrieking and screaming. "Enough of this!"

The ogryn swung its weapon. "Rippa! Pleahs! I don' wanna hurt you."

"No!" He turned away, not willing to watch what was to come. Dunker's massive frame seemed to slide across the ground, always just in front of him. It howled in confused agony, too dumb to understand why its skin sizzled and burned as a great hunk of meat was torn from the brute's shoulder. "What do you want, you bastard!"

The ogryns' mouth opened wide, pried apart by invisible hands. Terrified noises whimpered out of the brute as it desperately tried to close its mouth. With a gruesome crack, the jaw broke. As the muscles tore he gave a great wrench, and tore the ogryn's head from its neck. Blood geysered into the air, showering the fluids of death all around.

Louk screamed in rage.

The world fell quiet, silent. The wind ceased whistling, the grass ceased blowing. He stood alone in the grass. He knew what…who… was coming next.

"Don't" he begged.

The slim figure padded into his vision, her petite frame dwarfed by the massive rifle strapped to her back. The thin, silvery wires of a garotte wrapped along her right forearm. Glossy black hair clumped about her shoulders, poorly cut and poorly treated. A drab, cameleoline cloak had been tied up on her shoulders.

"So demanding" Anna said, her voice flat and inflectionless. The dark-eyed sniper stopped just a few feet in front of him. "You know, you were a lot more fun when you were just an asshole. Then you went and became all responsible."

The word spat out of her mouth like poison. Waggling her eyebrows knowingly, she leaned in close. Her very presence churned his stomach. He grit his teeth against the miasma of wrongness that swept in advance of her approach.

"You shouldn't be here." He glared at the impudent smirk on her child-like face. It was a false smile. All of her expressions were fake and manufactured.

"That's just plain rude, you dumb fuck." She snickered, and started unwrapping the garrote from her arm. "You shouldn't be here. You should be dead. Perma-gone. Obliterated. But you aren't, because you're a cheating ass."

"Is this the Warp?" Louk glanced past her, struggling to focus on the distant landscape. The shapes blurred and shifted, refusing to be identified.

"Wow, you aren't absolutely clueless." She paused in her unwinding of the weapon. Flashing him a knowing grin, she stamped her foot once, and a rush of vertigo sent Louk staggering to his knees. The world became dark. Pitch black, empty. He tried to find a grip to stand and slid to his stomach.

"So what does that make you?"

"It makes me whatever I want to be" she answered.

Her boots clicked on the void, her body circling underneath him like he was trapped in a clear glass ball, and she was on the surface. Gazing down at him between her feet, she flexed her toes once.

"You clearly brought me here for a reason."

"Did I, now? That's presumptuous."

"And you clearly don't understand Anna."

Anna grimaced faintly, a real expression that he would never have seen on the tiny little monster. She brought the garotte up, settling her chin on the thin wire, and sighed heavily. "I have to admit, this one is a bit tough. Squirrely, even. These damned pariahs of yours. Useful, but obnoxious. Perhaps you would like something else?"

A violent squeal burst from the small figure. Blood splattered from the back of her skull, and she collapsed lifelessly. Shame, and fury, boiled in his chest. Louk crawled over to the corpse, but it faded into ash and disappeared in emptiness of the void.

"Perhaps you would like this better?"

A blonde woman in a striking red uniform eyed him with her ever-familiar frown. It was a grimace he had seen hundreds, if not thousands, of times before. Eulogy Jones glanced down at the vacant spot where Anna's corpse had been.

"Eul…" he caught himself. This was not real. None of it was real.

"Oh, it most assuredly is real, Louk." Her voice was sharp, authoritative. It carried the right blend of haughty disdain and warm affection that never failed to make him smile. At first he had hated the Praetorian officer. Loathed her, and lusted after her. She had been the one to reteach him what it meant to be human after Warsaw. When they went side by side into the hellhole that was Gehenna.

Eulogy Jones was also the healthiest relationship he had ever held with a woman, which was pretty damn pathetic, considering.

"You won't tell me what you are. You won't tell me where I am. What will you tell me?"

"I can tell you so many things. Things about you, about the creature you hunt." Her mouth formed that beautiful, confident grin he adored. "You always were a fan of the hunt."

"I am tired of the hunt." He shrugged weakly. At some point he had stood up, or perhaps his orientation had shifted and he was still lying down.

"You aren't a quitter, Louk."

"I never said I was."

"And yet you gave up so easily."

She stepped closer. The familiar tang of burnt ozone, fyceline, and blood mingled in his nostrils. For a long, painful moment he remembered what it was like to hold her. Four decades had passed too quickly. His palms itched to take her hand, to feel the callouses on her fingers from wielding her weapons. To run his fingers along her muscular belly and thin hips. It had been a very long time. So long he had resigned himself to forget her face, her voice.

"Where is the Reaper, Louk? Where is the beast, the hunter, the proud creature that spat in the eyes of gods?"

"That Reaper is long dead" he answered, daring to hold her smoldering gaze. Her lips brushed against his, touching so softly he swore he imagined it. The woman before him was no dainty creature. Beautiful, desirable, but not soft. Had he ever accused her of that, she might have shot him and left him to bleed in the dust.

"Why did it die?"

"It died," he answered, his words choking in his throat, "when you died."

Her expression went slack. A dark stain spread down from her shoulder, stretching from her collarbone down to her sternum. A glistening wetness filled her eyes as she gazed at him, and the damning smile of hers was more painful than any wound he had ever received. Words formed in her throat, but her head jerked backwards, throat opened to her spine. She too dropped away.

"But it came back" Jaycel reminded him. The tattooed bodyguard looked remarkably health, happy even. The rare occurrence was explained when a graceful figure slinked around the man, her hands tight around Jaycel's arm as she clung to his side. The cloth-blind psyker leaned up to kiss Jaycel's cheek, and snuggled into his arm. His smiled widened a hair.

"And then it died. Again and again. Three times… four. Sometimes I don't remember."

"It is a gift." His former bodyguard reached up and caught Sameen's jaw. Guiding her head to his shoulder, he smiled down at the woman. The pair could not have been more mismatched. A well-trained assassin, veteran of dozens of engagements and schooled in a thousand skills. A young and innocent girl, persecuted for her unnatural abilities and convinced that her deserved fate was skated to a fire.

He remembered their bodies, draped over each other, their lives snuffed out because of that passion they had dared to share.

"You taught me value of life" Sameen whispered, the eerie dissonance of her words grating in his ears. "Life must be protected."

"Not my life." He shook his head.

"But you save life. This is what you do."

Louk gave a dismissive shrug. "Haven't been very good at it. It's damn exhausting, failing every time. Watching worlds burn because you could not catch the heretic fast enough. Losing a friend because you let him on his own too soon."

It was Jaycel that answered his claim. The handsome gunslinger clutched his chest, hiding the growing bloodstain pooling over his heart. "And yet you can learn from your mistakes. Every loss makes you stronger. No one gets that opportunity like you do."

"Opportunity means nothing when I can't save those I've lost."

Jaycel staggered to his knees, and slumped lifelessly on his back. Sameen wailed, crouching over his corpse, screaming into his chest until she snapped forwards, a crisp hole drilled through the back of her skull.

Opportunity?

This voice was new. It was soft, melodic. The first musical notes of her thoughts tickled his ears, sent a shiver rushing up his spine. Louk gasped faintly, and refused to turn to face the newest arrival. Some of the deaths he had refused to acknowledge. Others he hated to see. The one standing behind him… He would rather die every day than turn to face her.

There was only one person it could be.

"I caused you so much pain" he mumbled. "Throne, I caused everyone so much pain."

It truly is your pride she told him. Her words carried no judgement, no scorn. They caressed his weary thoughts as surely as a mother caressed her child.

"I killed you."

My death… it was foretold. There was nothing you could do.

"Feck fortelling. To hell with prophecy! I could have stopped it all. I could have been strong. I could have-"

You could have not loved me?

He sensed the hurt in her thoughts, and tears formed in his eyes. It was a damning thing to say. He hated himself for even thinking it. Because of him she had suffered horribly.

Soft hands crept up his back. He shivered and stepped away, but she stayed close to him. Thin lips pressed against his back; he felt the gentle touch through his coat as if he wore nothing. It burned on his skin, set his nerves on fire and only sharpened the pain in his heart.

"That isn't fair."

Fair? Her amusement cut him like a knife. Such a childish statement.

"Cruel, then."

His skin crawled as her hands slid apart, roving under his shoulder and coming around to wrap about his chest. The faint brush of her eartip on his neck caused Louk to groan.

Perhaps. But I would not have traded it for a thousand years. We created life.

"Bitter lives" he countered. "They are outcasts on all sides."

But they are alive. It is a gift you gave them. She kissed his shoulder. I am content. Our time was fleeting, even for your kind. You should let it go.

"Let what go?"

Everything you have lost. You cannot carry regret for eternity. Even we do not let our fears and sorrows consume us. To go forward you must be strong. You must hold onto the good that you have accomplished, and abandon your weakness.

"So I am supposed to just… let it go."

You have been blessed with a great gift. The ability to battle evil for all time. It is not a happy gift. But it is precious. There will always be loss, suffering. That is the way of life. It is up to you to leave more good than evil.

"Doesn't seem like that's possible."

Just as it does not seem like the man I fell in love with would ever surrender. Not the man who challenged champions of the Darkness. The man who uncaged himself from the bonds of mankind's greatest soldiers.

She slipped under his arm, her face pressed tight to his coat. Louk averted his gaze, unwilling to see the rich, breathtaking blue of her eyes, or the pure white skin of her face, or the fiery red of her hair. She was an angel made manifest. A being of sure purity and loveliness that her fading memory still caused him to weep for what he had done to her.

It is no small thing, what you have accomplished. Time and time again. Know that I am waiting for you. But I do not require you to wait for me.

"I… don't know what that means."

She leaned up and placed a single, chaste kiss on his lips. The Eldar sorceress faded away, sparing him the horrors of her death, vanishing in the dark as if she had never been there.

In her place, a tiny Eldar child sat cross-legged, covered by an elegant and multi-hued cloak that shimmered with each move of its tiny arms. The child had stones in its hands, and cast them as if seeking some mystical answer in their placement.

"What the hell was this" Louk demanded. He gestured with his arms. "What the hell was all of this?"

"A learning experience" the child answered. Though small and unassuming, its voice came deeply and richly, far too old and powerful for such a slight frame. It staggered Louk, knocking him back a pace.

"For me?"

"Or me. Both. Neither. Does it matter?" The child lifted its head, revealing deep black eyes that reflected nothing. "You intrigue me."

"And who are you?"

"I am something very old." The child chuckled softly.

"A daemon?"

"Perhaps. Some would consider me a daemon. Others a god. The truth, like all truths, varies depends on perspective."

"Truth is absolute" Louk snapped.

"No…" the being chuckled louder, and pointedly picked up one of its cast stones. Inverting the stone, it set the piece back. "It is not."

"So you are a daemon. One of the Chan-"

"Do not dare group me with those wretches" the child snarled. The power in its voice battered him to his knees. Louk groveled, unable to lift his head against the immense pressure of its wrath. It lasted only a second, then faded in place of a giggling, shrill laugh. "I have heard so much about you. Your human stubbornness is a compliment to your newborn race."

"Newborn? Humans have been around for-"

"For far too little time to be considered anything but" the figure chided. "You think you are special, powerful. I must remind you that in the timeline of this galaxy you are younger than a hair on your arm."

He had no response to that. Stewing in silent indignation, Louk pushed himself to his feet. The child pulled its hood back, revealing a handsome face with long white locks that spilled free of a loose bun, draping over its shoulders and running down its back.

"You must wonder why I brought you here."

"Oh, never had a question about that" Louk growled.

The child's laughter grew louder. "You humans burn so hot in your daily lives. So different from the children."

"Children?"

"The children who walked the galaxy when it was yet young. Who ruled it for uncountable rotations, whose decadence brought about the greatest calamity of its era."

"Eldar."

"As you call them."

"You are Eldar?"

The child frowned. It did not seem keen on answering such a foolish question.

"Do you know how you came to that world?"

"Eostia?"

"It was not allowed, what you did. Even amongst the Dark Pantheon, among the Old Ones, it is not allowed. You plane of existence is but one in an infinite chain, an endless sea of live and death and beyond."

"Other… existences. What does that mean" Louk demanded.

"Life as you know it, understand it: humanity, chaos, the Sea of Souls. It is self-contained on a scale you could not fathom. We are alone, and yet we are alone in a great crowd. A speck of sand on the shore. You, reborn in the death of eternity, and Born in the Death of Eternity escaped that speck of sand. Your violent entry into the Sea of Souls disrupted it, caused a great storm that cast you out and into a realm where you should not have gone. Your presence was anomalous."

"That means nothing to me."

"As it should not. I would not expect so young a creature to understand such things." The child collected its stones and cast them again. After spending some time reading them, it laughed again. "The problem, now, is how to bring you back. As long as you are here, neither can return. But we cannot allow you to remain away. There is too much at stake."

"And you have the power to do this?" Louk glanced around. You said I cannot return. But we are in the Warp now, aren't we?"

"I don't play by the rules" the child said, its smile growing sweet and decidedly predatory. "There is a bitter change coming to your galaxy. Gods will rise, worlds will be broken. The cornerstone of your newborn race will be shattered. So many moving parts dancing to our whims. Yours is a piece that must be returned to its proper place."

"My piece?"

"A wonderful thing is coming, Louk Shannegh." The child rose to its feet, gliding upwards with hardly a sign of movement. It gripped his wrist, and its touch burned like fire. "Soon I will no longer be alone. She-Who-Thirsts will be cast down. And the children will be freed of her tyranny."

"She-Wh-"

"You must be brought back, but you cannot leave your work here undone. Born in the Death of Eternity glutted itself on that world. It filled itself with power that does not belong to it. With souls that should never have been taken. If it returns as it is, it will cause great harm. It will be… problematic."

The child's words were tinged with laughter, but there was no mirth in its dull, horrifying eyes. Louk hissed against its boiling touch. It would not let him go.

"You must defeat it here, Louk Shannegh. You must break it. Only then can you return."

"How am I supposed to defeat it? I don't have an army. I don't have the weapons."

"An army. Weapons. Meaningless. You have the power to defeat it. Reaper is the greatest weapon you could possess. I have seen your future, Louk Shannegh. Reaper is the only weapon you will ever need. You will battle gods. You will stand alongside heroes. But you will never be more powerful because of them."

"So I am supposed to fight it by myself?"

"By yourself? No. You are defending a world. Let the world fight with you. Let it fight for you. But do not forget, it is you who can slay Born in the Death of Eternity. It is a proud thing, reckless in its hubris. For it has already given you its greatest weakness. The weapon that will destroy it so utterly it will become a ghost of its former self."

"What tool?"

"That would be telling." The child released his arm and danced back a step. Its gaze shifted past him, as if something stood behind him. Louk had the uncomfortable sensation of thousands of eyes staring into his back. "Besides, your audience deserves a better story, don't you think?"

"Audience?" He turned, surveying the darkness. There was nothing there, of course.

"We are all just players on a great stage, Louk Shannegh. We dance and fight and die at the whim of the ones that create us." The child laughed, and drew his attention to the stones. "I will give you this opportunity. To go back and right your wrongs. To avenge the fallen and save the weak. But it will not be easy. Surely you know that."

"You… are sending me back?" His skin crawled at the thought. "To Olga?"

"Yes. And no. One can never truly go back. Not to the same place. A path once trod is forever trampled. No, I will send you back to that world. But it will not be the same one you knew."

"That makes no sense."

"The world you knew was, is, and will be irrecoverably spoiled. But I can send you to the next closest thing. A mirror world, if you will. Fundamentally the same, but with subtle ripples that separate it from the one before."

"And the daemon will still be there?"

"It must be there. Born in the Death of Eternity cannot return to its home. You are travelers left adrift. And it will follow you wherever you go, until you return to where you belong."

"So I go back to Eostia. And fight the same damned war with the same damned people."

"You will be quite surprised by what you find." The child's grin faded slightly. "But more importantly, you will not be alone. I have… favors, I can call in."

"Why are you helping me?" Louk eyed the child, and the stones. "What is in it for you?"

"Born in the Death of Eternity is an exalted being in the eyes of She-Who-Thirsts. Should it return, it will hunt my children without respite, without mercy. You created the monster. You must be the one to defeat it."

He crossed his arms, scrutinizing the child. "I know what you are."

"Do you? How amusing."

"She showed me many things. Most of it I will never understand. But I remember the one that escaped." Louk pointed accusingly. "You are the La-"

The child shushed him with a finger placed over his lips. Its eyes gleamed, reflecting an unsettling edge to its smile that drained the strength from his limbs.

"It isn't nice to use names. Names have power. Do you understand what you must do, Louk Shannegh?"

"Kill the daemon."

"Yes." It nodded sagely. "By whatever means necessary. You must crush it, grind it under your heel. To do this, I will grant you one wish. Name your desire, what you would have by your side. State it, and it will join you in this battle."

"Can I ask for you to blow that bastard up for me?"

"That would be cheating" it giggled.

"Do I have a moment to think about it?"

"You have all the time in the world." It returned to its stones, picked them up and rolled them in its hands. "But I would hurry, if I were you. You are going to wake up soon. And this opportunity will pass you by if you are not careful."

Louk took a deep breath. It spoke again before he could ponder what it meant.

"Ask yourself, Louk Shannegh. What, or who, do you value most in your existence? What precious things do you desire? What haunts your thoughts and dreams, laces your steps with regret? If you could bring them to your side, to assure yourself of their safety." Its eyes glittered, sparkling like pinpricks of light amidst the utter darkness.

He took another breath, his thoughts drawn unerringly to those the child spoke of. It was obvious what he wanted. Who he needed to see. Steadying his breath, slowing his pulse, he considered the possibility, and found it terrifying.

Louk stared down at the child. It had the stones cupped in its hands, ready to cast the stones for a third time as it waited on his answer. He knew the answer he desired. He knew that it wanted him to ask for it.

"I want my daughters."

And... end Act I. That's right. Act. One. Louk is going to NG+ Virtuoso's ass. Look for Act II to resume in early 2020, as I currently need to recover from horrific depression that was writing out this first act. It will be a separate story, btw, so be on the lookout either through Following me or just scanning FFnet every so often.

Thanks so much for sticking through this bad boy! It's been a wild ride, and holding back to hundreds of things I have planned for Act II has been driving me nuts. Y'all are awesome!

Sincerely,
ApostleOfWrath