The Beginning of the Dance

Harley sat fixated on the vid-screen. The pictures were grainy and would fade from black and white to color, and then back again, but her imagination was captured. Lord Helmawr had dispatched a vid reporter to tell the glories of the famous Necromunda 8^th Regiment, the “Spiders”. The reporter had started her report listing the many honors and glories won on far flung battlefields when several blurs of light flashed onto the screen and men began dying.

The sounds of lasgun shots and small explosions began to drown out the reporter, who was now desperately trying to get out of the way. The blurs of light were everywhere. Then it happened.

For a fraction of a second one of the blurs stopped long enough for the lens of the camera to get a clear shot of one of the assailants. Harley rubbed her eyes because she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. When she dropped her hands again the figure was gone. Then the screen went black and cut back to a newsroom somewhere up in the Spire. Another reporter went on to extol how courageous their Regiment was and that they had driven off the demon spawned xenos, but her mind had drifted and she was in her own world.

For weeks after the image would replay in her mind. It would come to her in her dreams., when she was awake, and it didn't matter what she was doing. A lithe figure poised upon her (whatever it was, it was obviously female) left foot, the right was drawn up to the inside of the left leg. Both arms came across the torso. The left arm came across the stomach and clasped some kind of alien pistol, while the right was behind her head holding an elegant sword that shimmered. The clothing was flamboyant. The legs, arms, and torso alternated back and forth in pattern and color. The left leg was a solid dark blue throughout, while the right leg had a checkered pattern of red and yellow. Upon the torso the patterns switched sides, while the arms followed the pattern of the legs. Upon the dancer’s legs and hands, for that is what came to Harley’s mind when she thought of her ~ that she looked very much like a dancer, were matching knee length boots and gloves. They were brown and made of some sort of animal skin. But it was her face and hair that kept Harley’s rapt attention more than anything. Her hair was a vivid red and orange in the shape of a plush Mohawk, with the sides of her head shaved. Upon her face she wore a mask. The left side was all in white and had the image of a smiling alien face, while the right a deep black that seemed to be weeping and upon the cheek a glittering diamond colored tear.

Finally she knew that she could not resist it any more. She arranged to meet with her closest friends. Let the enemies of House Escher be warned. The “Troupe of the Masque” was going on tour.