You moved mindlessly; a white snow dress like the one of a bride jumped out against the sea of colors, and silvery and white diamonds decorated your gown like small stars. The other guests moved around you, minding so little about your curious gaze against the area, and the few that did notice you shared just a look and some smiles. You were a mindless afterthought, something that clearly was standing out from. everyone and yet somehow belonged…or at least you thought you did.

You felt no boredom from the event; the night was beautiful outside the giant windows of the palace, a place of soft light that seemed to exist only to make that party perfect for everyone. You felt so little about it; it was so strange… curiosity for the other guests, each one of them wearing a mask that concealed their features, or for the nature of the festivity, maybe one of those galas born only for the sake of dueling boredom, you didn't know, but you felt strange…out.

Or maybe it was the fact that no matter how much you walked or how many people were around you, you felt the feeling of being observed, watched.

You turned around, your gown twirled with your moves, plays of light bloomed around you, and yet you could not see anyone. It was there, observing, maybe studying you, and yet you couldn't see it or interact with it.

It was like being in a dream; nothing seemed to be real, and yet it was there, a few inches for you to reach.

You kept on moving on, exploring the gala, getting drunk by the lights, the smells of liquors and alcohol, and the sounds around you that kept on swirling like a tide of emotions and sensations. You could have just stopped there, enjoying the music and the food, trying to strike up a conversation with someone; instead, you kept on moving, searching for the one whose eyes were stuck on you, that called you like a siren in this maelstrom. A shape that kept on luring you in, deeper and deeper in the ballroom, showing you the beauty and the small treasures of the palace.

You were fascinated, and you went on, following it blindly, ignoring the small whisper in your head.

Then a grip, small pressure on your hand, a pull. His arms around you, his hand on your side, moving gently and pulling you kindly towards the music. Silver hair like a star, magenta eyes like the prettiest of the gems, and a smile that could move armies to crumble. His dark robes, a deep blue tone like the night, made his features only shine brighter, the king of the night, master of stars and moons.

"Fulgrim…"

You whispered his name, and he smiled gently while allowing the music to slowly sway you both. People made space, enjoying the view of the two brightest stars of the party, moving like petals on water on the marble pavement of the ballroom.

"I'm here, my star…" He whispered, holding you close to his chest, more of an embrace than a stance now, "Enjoying the party?"

"I…I think so…"

"What's not of your liking? The music? The dress?"

"I…don't know… but you're here…"

"Yes, my heart, I'm here…"

He smiled again. Yes, Gulgrim was here; everything was perfect, like it was supposed to be.

Then why can't you shake away the grime from your bones?

He released you from his grip, now his attention on the tray of a waiter. He offered you a crystal glass; the red ruby liquid almost shone inside, and he raised his own.

"May I propose a toast? To us…"

Your hands moved almost by a command, brushing with your fingertips the cold and smooth surface of the glass, when a light struck directly in your eye.

Light reflecting on a mirror.

You immediately retracted your hand, covering the hit area of your face, finding it harder to look around. It was just a reflection. Why did your eyes respond in such a way? It was painful, annoyingly painful, and.

Wait… Why were you there?

Curiously, you started to remember details from that strange night, some of them blatantly in front of you, disposed in order like on a table, and yet you decided to not see them. Why?

The faces of everyone—they were in front of you… Why couldn't you grasp the details or the most normal features? Why did they seem blurred?

You couldn't remember much from before you entered this gala. How did you come? When did you come? And why couldn't you remember anything from before?

What was happening? Where did you take the dress? Why did-

"My love?" His calming voice tried to get you back to him and to the glass in his hand.

You gulped; you wanted to talk, to explain, to ask, but your eyes fell on that glass. Why did that wine look so…thick?

"I-I…" You moved away from him. "I need to…to… I'm sorry I…"

Again that light in your eyes, again the burning sensation. Now, for a split second, everything shifted in…in something…dark.

For a mere moment you saw…bodies. Thousands of bodies entangled in a grotesque way, like a composition whereby you could not get the shape or the beginning or the end of one form. For a moment, you saw eyes glowing in the dark in a mist made of colorful smoke and rivers of liquids that you were scared to give an origin.

For a moment, the ballroom wasn't like this at all but something more like a canopy, the lair of a beast, and the music was just a choir of moans and laughter of lost souls.

It was just a mere second, but it felt so real.

Your breath started to get shorter and quicker; you took another step away from your prince, his perfect face now worried.

"My love?" He whispered again. He looked concerned, like he knew what you saw but begged for it to not be real.

"I…I need…" Yoh looked around again, the blink of a light, the same reflection… You held the hem of your gown and quickly moved away from Fulgrim, heading now to the door, where the room was supposed to end and open to another area. But the door was not a door at all; your image became bigger and bigger in front of you, and more people appeared, minding their own business and yet with their eyes glued on you.

A mirror, the end of the room close to that, and an ancient trick to make it appear as a bigger space. You touched the smooth surface; maybe a light reflected on that and struck your face?

"My love," his honey voice followed you, close like a whisper and a threat. "Please. Come back to me. Stay, do not turn away from me…"

Why? Why the rush of escaping? You loved him, so why the feeling of being in danger?

You didn't want to stay there, under all those eyes; you wanted to go away. Where was the exit? The entrance? You entered the room, so where was the door?

You kept on tasting the mirror, hoping to find a handle or something to open a passage, and…the strike again.

Not from it, but from through it.

"Y/n."

Fulgrim was there, in front of you. Now his voice is firm and strong. The music had stopped, everyone had stopped, and thousands of eyes stayed on you, waiting for your next move.

"Stop. It's just a mirror. Come to me…please…"

Something was wrong in his voice. You can taste the venom; it was there, a thin line between a command and a plea.

“I fucking need you more than I need to breathe.”

Another step, too much closer. You felt your breath getting shorter and shorter. Why did the man you had always loved scare you in such a way? It all felt so wrong, like being trapped in a serpent's spires.

You stood frozen while his steps came closer and closer, his eyes stuck on you, desperate but dangerous.

"Come back…come back, I said!"

The gleam of light again, and the trance dissipated, enough for you to grab the closest chair and smash it into the mirror surface. Everything crumbled down, not only the surface but also the reality around you crumbled down, revealing what he had desperately tried to cover with a pretty illusion.

The image of a few seconds turned into a reality, one that you had hoped to never be dragged into. Corpses entangled together in poses and expressions that you couldn't even imagine, fumes of incense full of substances that could put to sleep the strongest mind, sounds that made your head hurt and spin… And the people…the people were…they weren't people; you couldn't even understand what they were anymore, but they weren't human either.

The light and the dream palace were a lie; everything was draped in curtains and silk, trying to cover the rocky walls of the places that now looked more like a prison to you. Torches lit up the area, and a dim and eerie air was given by the low purple light, revealing more silhouettes of those demons.

And Fulgrim… he wasn't him, and yet he was. You could recognize him, his features, his eyes, and his hair; he was him, and yet he wasn't him any longer.

Two long horns, decorated in fine silver jewels and golden rings, his alabaster skin now in a soft pinkish tone turned into amethyst scales that decorated the long snake tail that once was his legs. A pair of wings on his back, similar to a bat's, was decorated with signs and writing, and more chains and rings decorated the organs that slowly trembled by the contact with air. You could see his mouth full of sharp teeth morphed into a painful expression while his coil quivered and constricted with each other.

The falling of the illusion morphed the moans and pants into a long and erupting sound of pain from everyone in that damn hole, recoiling away from the slowly dissipating mirror fragment. Your beautiful dress wasn't real at all, and you begged for the rags around your body to be just some old fabric that has been exposed to who knows what fluid, because the state of that thing was closer to the human skin than an actual cloth.

You screamed, your hands found your mouth, trying to avoid the content of your stomach evacuating your innards. Fulgrim recovered from the shattering of his precious dreams and looked at you with the expression of a broken beast.

"My love… My love, what have you done?! It was all perfect! It was a perfect dream for us!"

He got closer, his wings now reaching the very last of your peripheral vision, his glowing eyes piercing directly into your soul while his entire body made a strange and sickening sound of his spires that moved closer and closer to you. Another step back, your eyes now starting to get watery.

"No! No no no, it's fine, everything is fine! We can still fix this; we can be together! I just need to put you back to sleep; it will be good! It will be fine until you can accept the gift!"

His massive frame completely encased you with his shadow; two of his four arms were grabbing the stone ceiling to the point that it cracked, and the other two pointed towards you, giving you the choice to come back to him or to live in a lie that he had created for you both.

You felt the panic growing on you like ice, your breath stuck in your lungs. The image in front of you was hypnotic and frightening to the point that you had forgotten that glimpse of light, the reflection that once again appeared, now stronger and quicker, striking the eyes of the one that once was your lover.

He screamed in agony again; the sound of the other demons reflecting his emotion was like the echo of the cave, but you had so little time to think that something else grabbed you, pulling you out and dragging you into the maze of the snake lair.

The one that was taking you away, a dark strange robe with some greeny decorations and some mysterious signs on him. He was a giant, with a strange helmet on his head and, in his free hand, the mirror that helped you.

During that escape, you heard footsteps, blades that had been drawn, and the sound of the snake moving behind you.

"STOP! DON'T LET HER GET AWAY!"

They were behind you; there was no chance that you and your savior could escape from there with the ones that lived in that hell on your tail.

But he had come prepared, and he had a plan.

Suddenly, the ground started to shake, fire erupted, and the ground shook like an earthquake. Explosion—he had set the trap knowing what they would do.

More screams, now of pain; the smoke of rocks that started to collapse upon the entrance started to fog your vision while your savior never stopped for one minute to lead you into the tunnels, away from the illusion, away from Fulgrim. And yet, his voice still reaches you, a screaming and painful cry that hurts your ears and heart.

"I'LL DIE! IF YOU LEAVE ME, I'LL DIE! Y/N! COME BACK! COME BACK!

"Don't turn back." The man spoke, holding your hand and running faster. "Do never turn back!"

And even if his command prevented you from turning your head towards the Daemon Prince, his voice still echoed in your head.

Come back.

///

The ship was…different from the ones that you remembered. Yet, you could remember so little, your mind still fogged by the drugs and the strange abilities of the Slaanesh demons.

But when the one that saved you finally decided to reveal his face to you, a sense of confusion made you gasp his name, even if he had never told you.

"…Fulgrim?"

He smiled, his perfect face just like you remembered it, but more tired, more exhausted…more like him.

"I suppose you have questions…"