Dinner is awkward. It’s bound to be: after touching the apex of the universe, Misery’s expected to sit and eat slop in a long hall with the rest of the rank and file in their multitudes. And Ono Red-2 is expected to treat her the same as before, when her supposed powers were unproven and the bounds of her favor extended only to General Tsung. Still, mortal bodies require mortal food, and even the pilot-saints still sit and eat with the techs and other uniformed grunts every evening. It’s considered bad form to fuck off and starbathe, segregating themselves from those who can’t. A grave insult to the esprit de corps. So Ono Red-2 has to partake in this ritual of eating dinner with the rest. They’re stared at as they make their way to their assigned table. The slight turn of a thousand heads, all thinking they’re too coy to be noticed, trying to catch a glimpse of the Messiah among them. The banquet of Angelsteeth had watched Ono Red-2’s sparring exercise out of acrylglass in defiance of orders handed down by captains who also joined them in breaking those orders. They saw the archangel mech take on three seraphim and dance circles around them all. In the reverence and awe upon the faces turned in her direction Misery knows that the truth of what she has done and what she can do cannot be contained on Angelsteeth Base for long. In the inevitable way of these things, word will spread to the Capital whether the General wills it or not. Whispers will reach the halls where the sulky Emperor lounges on velvet chaises, ignoring the long-simmering war between the Heretics and the Faithful. Things will come to a head, one way or another. The day when Misery leads an army into battle is not far off; it’s so close she can almost taste the metallic tang of war. She will bring destruction as she skims the void between stars in archangel form. Her fate was sealed the moment she answered Ruin’s call.

How the shape of her life has changed. No matter how high Misery pushed herself up the rungs of Faithful society, she would always have been small. An insignificant creature, working for herself. Now she answers to a higher power. Her wants are not her own, but that of a greater being. She performs the will of the Demiurge: the will of an aspect of the universe. When she fights to get her way, she is fighting for Creation itself.

That her calling is now duty scares her—she is not a dutiful person and has never been. But this is the lot that was cast in her name. Growing up, her brother often extolled the virtue of duty, but he had no idea what that word meant. She’ll show him how it’s done, that sorry piece of shit.