Only Dreams

Ama-gi rolled herself more tightly into her rags. They were dreams! Only dreams! There was nothing wrong with those, right?

She went over the Three Impediments in her head, again, just to check.

They didn’t say anything about dreams. And her arm was still strong and steadfast – for a wardum, at least. After all, it had been her pen that had raised the Utnapishtim-wide MPM by at least 0.19%, by recommending her assigned master, the gruff former Pactsman Awīlu Kânugaur, to move 9.8% more chainaxe lubricant to the outer void station Dilmun. Such brilliant supply planning! When Awīlu had received the report that the lubricant had been crucial in defeating the heretic expeditionary force from Enlil, he had beamed with pride that his small, forgotten Lubricant Distribution section of the Office of Ceremonial Calculation had for once been pivotal. The subsequent investigation and trials to determine why the chainaxes of an entire Pactsmen philia had been allowed to become rusty had even led to a very noticeable further surge in MPM of about 0.00045%, as well as the promotion of the entire office’s cadre to Chainaxe Management & Logistics as a replacement for its previous, clearly incompetent fools. And of course, Awīlu had taken her with him. He knew strength where he saw it, even if the brutalities mostly played out in her mind and through the scratching of her pen.

She went over the Three Impediments again.

The Three Impediments really did not say anything about dreams. And her desire was still steadily with murders-per-minute, as her father’s, grandmother’s and most glorious great-great-grandmother’s had been. Or still were. They had not been in touch after she failed to become Mighty, and when Grand Grand Nanna had emerged from the Warp for the bidecennial Slaughterfest two years ago, she did not even throw a glance to the crowd blocking most of Ama-gi’s view of the parade to the bloodpit. And even when Ama-gi’s name had been dutifully mentioned as scribe of the prized report “Eighty Recommendations for Chainaxe Use in Sacrifice And Solo Combat: From Axe to Ziggurat” – in which she had secretly added an eighty-first recommendation by splitting the seventy-second in two subrecommendations, which according to her own calculations had actually had the most impact – her grandmother had not even blinked before announcing that Awīlu Kânugaur had won that year’s Etogaur’s Choice award (‘Bringing us one step closer to the ideal MPMr, eight calculations at a time!’).

Again.

She tried to put herself at ease. Khorne, Lord of Blood, simply recognized her, a wardum, through Awīlu, who being Mighty was simply showing he was the next rising star of the Office. He was the one who was truly favored – no – chosen by Khorne, for his brutally efficient logistical reasoning. She was honoured to be by his side, as the chosen-of-the-chosen. That is how it was. Maybe Khorne thought of her too, sometimes, by extension.

But then why did the dreams keep coming? At this point, she was a more-or-less recognised wardum. Glory was hers, insofar as her feeble unMighty shell was capable of achieving so! The last time she had been lashed had been two weeks ago, and she had noticed that the Pactsman had withheld a bit. And Awīlu had switched to beating other wardums to deal with his stress, although this probably had to do with the extremely punchable face of the stress-slave he had now been assigned to help him cope with his duties as head of the Motorised Weaponry Assignment Department. It was hard to keep track of chainaxes, chainswords, chainglaives, chainsaws and generalized chaincutlery, Utnapishtim-wide.

Ama-gi’s heart beat faster for a second upon remembering the vid-pict introducing the newly developed chainspoon, and its additional flensing applications. Overnight she had immediately intuited this should be assigned to the 36th and 54th Philia stationed at Atrahasis, but Awīlu had so far not given in. Apparently, they were not ‘combat-tested’ yet, and some worries had arisen about the vulnerability of Atrahasis to recently disappeared Kurist heretic fleets.

In her mind’s eye, she saw a burly, beefy Pactsman be disarmed by a Kurist heretic, who, cowardly and frail as they were, would lower his lasgun under the assumption that she would now be harmless. Averting his eyes briefly, they would be drawn back upon hearing a sudden engine rattle – only to see a whirling circle of sawteeth close in on his face and rip off its skin in a single roar, revealing…

…the glistening, leathery beak protruding from the hole in his head, whispering, his hands ripping apart to reveal pink, flaming tendrils of warpfire, grasping at her, pointing at her. His uniform flickered, cracking into a thousand small pieces of cloth with yet more legs, all streaming down his legs unto the floor.

And the thing pointed behind her, and she would look.

Again.

And she would see the desk of bone and bloodstain, and that desk was hers, and the skull of Kânu laid waiting for her to sip her morning bloodblend recaf.

And on that desk lay a book with nine eyes all watching her – her father’s, her grandmother’s, even the large bloodred eye of her Grand Grand Nanna, the eyes of every degenerate wardum in her department whom she had refused to learn the names of in this last almost-decade, and the eye only she knew was of the Etrogaur and now finally on her, on her, on her all alone.

And she would open the book and it would say:

Awīlu Kânugaur could not believe the report on his desk. An MPM increase of 9%! Nine, whole, percents! Surely, he would soon ascend. If not soon, then during the next Eight-Year Plan.

He swiveled his chair to take a good long look at his trophy wall, and sighed. He would have to requisition a skull from one of the Kurist heretics that had attacked, just to commemorate this occasion. Surely, they would grant him this? It would look perfect on the top right spike, especially if he…

Awīlu Kânugaur could also not believe it when – at that very moment – the door of his office was kicked open hard enough to make him hear bones snap. Apparently, it had smashed into the back of his wardum Am-igo (or whatever her name was), who unwisely had stepped away from her desk.

“Awīlu Kânugaur!”

Eight huge Mashkim stormed into his office.

“You have been challenged to an immediate trial of might by Nanni, vice-comptroller-supreme-assistant-head of the regional Ceremonial Office Propaganda Production & Error Reduction branch, due to the long-term significant MRM reduction suffered due to the loss of thousands at Arkhasis without proper access to, or even assigned, chainaxes – an error caused directly by orders from your very office!”

Awīlu blinked, and looked around the room for his stress-reduction wardum. The wardum stood in the corner, cowering in advance of what was coming. “YOU! HERE!”

Yet, before he could land a single punch, he was dragged away – over the convulsing body of Ima-go (yes, that was her name), who seemed to have coughed up some blood.

In his head, Awīlu made a note for later. Direct Material Contributions: a .0000000000001% increase in blood spilled, Utnapishtim-wide.