Mara had decided the Aeldari would celebrate quietly.

It seemed obvious.

They spoke quietly.

Moved quietly.

Looked at humans as though humans were an unfortunate engineering problem.

Therefore—

quiet parties.

This theory survived for eleven seconds.

Then the drums began.

Mara jumped.

Chibi laughed.

**MARA:**
“You knew.”

**CHIBI:**
“Yep.”

“You could have warned me.”

“Could have.”

A second drum answered.

Then another.

Silver bells.

Strings.

Something Mara could not identify at all.

The great wraithbone dome caught the sound and returned it changed.

Hundreds of Aeldari turned towards the centre of the plaza.

Mara stared.

**MARA:**
“They have parties.”

**CHIBI:**
“Apparently.”

“I thought they’d all stand around discussing poetry.”

Chibi listened to the drums.

**CHIBI:**
“Maybe this is poetry.”

—

The plaza had been transformed.

Ribbons of light stretched between pale wraithbone arches.

Tables held fruit, delicate cakes, cups and dishes Mara could not name.

Children ran between adults wearing bright strips of cloth.

People laughed.

Talked.

Touched shoulders.

Argued.

An elderly Aeldari appeared to be explaining the same joke for the third time to people who clearly wished he would stop.

Mara pointed.

**MARA:**
“Is he drunk?”

**CHIBI:**
“I don’t know.”

The old Aeldari began the joke again.

His companion covered her face.

**CHIBI:**
“But he’s certainly committed.”

Mara giggled.

Then the lights dimmed.

One figure entered the empty circle.

A Harlequin.

At first, the suit looked black.

Then the performer moved.

Colour exploded across it.

Red.

Blue.

Gold.

Green.

Patterns raced over the body faster than Mara could follow.

The Harlequin bowed.

Someone in the audience shouted something.

The performer answered.

The crowd laughed.

Mara leaned towards Chibi.

**MARA:**
“I thought this was sacred.”

**CHIBI:**
“Maybe it is.”

“They’re laughing.”

“Yep.”

“Sacred things are supposed to be serious.”

Chibi looked at her.

**CHIBI:**
“Says who?”

Mara thought.

**MARA:**
“Adults, probably.”

**CHIBI:**
“Suspicious source.”

—

More Harlequins entered.

The story began.

Ancient Aeldari.

Before the Fall.

Before Craftworlds.

Before everything Mara had learned to recognise as grief.

But this was not a funeral.

The performers became cities.

Ships.

Hunters.

Lovers.

Warriors.

Fools.

Gods.

The audience reacted constantly.

A gesture produced laughter.

A mask produced gasps.

A turn of the body brought hundreds of people forward at once.

Mara frowned.

**MARA:**
“They already know the story.”

**CHIBI:**
“Yep.”

“Then why are they reacting?”

“You know what happens in your favourite story.”

Mara considered that.

**MARA:**
“That doesn’t mean I don’t care.”

Chibi smiled.

**CHIBI:**
“There you go.”

—

The rhythm changed.

Mara felt it through her ribs.

The people around her began moving.

Not dancing exactly.

Small things.

A hand raised.

A step.

A turn.

A phrase spoken softly.

Then repeated.

An Aeldari girl beside Mara made one of the gestures.

Mara copied it.

Wrong.

The girl corrected her hand.

Mara tried again.

The girl nodded.

Mara grinned.

Chibi noticed.

**MARA:**
“What?”

**CHIBI:**
“Nothing.”

“I’m learning.”

“Obviously.”

The phrase returned.

The girl spoke it.

Mara tried.

Her pronunciation was terrible.

The girl laughed and repeated it more slowly.

This time Mara came closer.

—

Then another figure entered.

An elongated mask.

A strange gait.

The audience erupted in recognition.

Mara tugged Chibi’s sleeve.

**MARA:**
“Who?”

**CHIBI:**
“Cegorach, I think.”

“The Laughing God?”

“Yep.”

“He doesn’t look funny.”

Chibi watched the performer steal something from another dancer and vanish behind a third.

**CHIBI:**
“Maybe you haven’t heard the joke yet.”

The children in the audience began shouting warnings.

Cegorach was being chased.

Mara watched.

Then forgot she was supposed to be watching.

**MARA:**
“Behind you!”

The Harlequin stopped.

Turned.

Pointed directly at Mara.

She froze.

**MARA:**
“Oh no.”

The performer pointed towards the pursuers.

Asking for help.

Every child near Mara suddenly became part of the performance.

One pointed left.

Another right.

The Aeldari girl shouted something.

Mara pointed with her.

Cegorach ran the opposite way.

The children screamed.

He escaped.

Of course he did.

The Harlequin bowed towards them.

Mara bowed back before she realised she was doing it.

—

Later, the music softened.

Two performers entered.

They approached.

Retreated.

Touched hands.

Separated.

Returned.

The crowd became quiet.

Mara whispered:

**MARA:**
“What does this mean?”

**CHIBI:**
“Maybe love.”

“Maybe?”

“Could be friendship.”

The dancers separated again.

“Could be two worlds.”

Another movement.

“Could be war.”

Mara frowned.

**MARA:**
“Those are very different things.”

**CHIBI:**
“Dances can be annoying like that.”

One dancer disappeared into darkness.

The other remained.

Reached towards the empty space.

Something changed in the crowd.

Nobody said:

Now be sad.

Nobody needed to.

Mara felt her throat tighten.

She did not know who had been lost.

She did not know the story.

But she knew what reaching towards someone who was no longer there meant.

Her hand found Chibi’s sleeve.

This time he did not tease her.

—

The missing dancer returned.

The audience breathed.

Mara breathed too.

Then the drums returned.

The two dancers ran together.

People laughed.

Some cried.

Some did both.

Mara wiped her face quickly.

Chibi saw.

**MARA:**
“Don’t.”

**CHIBI:**
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“Yes you were.”

“Maybe.”

—

Then the audience began joining.

Not everyone.

Some stood still.

Some drank.

Some talked quietly.

Some simply watched.

But enough moved that the boundary between performance and audience began to soften.

Children copied the Harlequins.

Adults joined them.

Hands rose.

Feet stamped.

People laughed when somebody got it wrong.

Mara looked at Chibi.

**MARA:**
“Let’s do it.”

Chibi looked horrified.

**CHIBI:**
“Absolutely not.”

“You were tapping along with the Orks.”

“That was research.”

“Your foot is moving.”

He looked down.

It was.

**CHIBI:**
“Traitor.”

Mara laughed.

—

They joined.

Badly.

The Aeldari girl took Mara’s hand.

Another child took Chibi’s.

The ring widened.

Step.

Turn.

Hands.

Release.

Clap.

Again.

Faster.

Again.

The music surrounded them.

At first Mara counted.

Four steps.

Turn.

Clap.

Repeat.

Then—

she stopped counting.

She simply knew.

The people to her left told her.

The people to her right told her.

The drum told her.

Her body told her.

Mara laughed.

Not because anything was funny.

Because it felt good.

—

The whole plaza moved.

Not identically.

Together.

That was different.

Harlequins spun through the centre.

Children ran around them.

Older people moved less but sang more.

Colours flowed across masks.

The wraithbone arches reflected the light until the entire dome seemed to breathe.

Mara felt tiny.

And enormous.

Both at once.

She turned to Chibi.

**MARA:**
“Do you feel that?”

He did not pretend not to understand.

**CHIBI:**
“Yep.”

“What is it?”

He was breathing hard.

**CHIBI:**
“Don’t know.”

“That is not helpful.”

“Nope.”

Mara laughed again.

—

She knew she was Mara.

She knew Chibi was beside her.

She knew they were visitors.

She knew the stars beneath their feet were projections.

She knew the Harlequins were performers.

She knew Cegorach was being played by someone wearing a mask.

None of that vanished.

But none of it made the experience smaller.

That confused her.

**MARA:**
“I know they’re pretending!”

**CHIBI:**
“Yep!”

“But it still feels like it’s happening!”

“Yep!”

“How?”

Chibi grinned.

**CHIBI:**
“Maybe pretending is one of the ways people make things happen.”

Mara frowned.

**MARA:**
“That makes no sense!”

**CHIBI:**
“Neither does dancing! Keep moving!”

—

So she did.

The performers began another journey.

The crowd changed with them.

When the dancers retreated, the ring opened.

When they advanced, it closed.

When they fell, hands reached towards them.

Nobody actually rescued anyone.

But the gesture mattered.

Mara could feel when somebody missed it.

She suddenly stopped looking only at the performers.

The dance was not just in the middle.

It was between everyone.

**MARA:**
“Chibi!”

“What?”

She pointed around the entire plaza.

**MARA:**
“The dance is here.”

Chibi looked.

Then nodded.

**CHIBI:**
“Yep.”

—

At the end, the Harlequins carried small objects into the centre.

A ribbon.

A fragment of light.

A flower.

A mask.

The Harlequin playing Cegorach entered last.

Empty-handed.

Mara whispered:

**MARA:**
“He didn’t bring anything.”

**CHIBI:**
“Maybe that’s the point.”

“What point?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re terrible at this.”

“Yep.”

Cegorach looked at the gifts.

Then at the crowd.

Raised both empty hands.

The audience answered with one word.

Mara did not understand it.

The Aeldari girl whispered the meaning.

Mara looked at her.

**MARA:**
“Again?”

The girl repeated it.

The word meant—

*us.*

—

One drumbeat.

Hundreds of hands rose.

Mara’s among them.

The lights vanished.

Darkness.

For several seconds she could hear only breathing.

Hundreds of people breathing.

Then the light returned.

The performers were gone.

Mara stared at the empty circle.

**MARA:**
“No.”

Chibi smiled.

“No. They can’t stop there.”

“Apparently they can.”

“I wasn’t finished.”

“Maybe they were.”

“That isn’t fair.”

Chibi shrugged.

**CHIBI:**
“Festivals have a long history of ignoring your schedule.”

—

The extraordinary dissolved back into the ordinary.

People collected cups.

Children ran towards the food.

Musicians put down instruments.

The old Aeldari began telling his joke again.

His companion groaned.

Mara and Chibi sat on the edge of a low wraithbone platform.

Chibi handed her water.

She drank.

**MARA:**
“That was weird.”

**CHIBI:**
“Bad weird?”

Mara thought.

**MARA:**
“Big.”

“That isn’t a kind of weird.”

“It is now.”

—

Mara spotted one of the Harlequins.

The mask was gone.

The performer stood beside a table drinking with friends.

**MARA:**
“There.”

“What?”

“That was Cegorach.”

Chibi looked.

**CHIBI:**
“No. That was someone playing Cegorach.”

“I know.”

“Then why did you say it was Cegorach?”

Mara stopped.

Thought.

Became annoyed.

**MARA:**
“Because for a little while it was.”

Chibi said nothing.

Mara looked at him.

**MARA:**
“Don’t make that face.”

“What face?”

“The one where I accidentally said something clever.”

“I don’t have that face.”

“You absolutely do.”

—

She watched the performer.

**MARA:**
“Was it real?”

**CHIBI:**
“Which bit?”

“The god.”

“Don’t know.”

“The story.”

“Probably.”

“The dance.”

“Definitely.”

“What everyone felt?”

Chibi nodded.

**CHIBI:**
“Definitely.”

Mara counted on her fingers.

**MARA:**
“So there are different kinds of real.”

**CHIBI:**
“Quite a few.”

“That is inconvenient.”

“Reality often is.”

—

Mara looked around the plaza.

**MARA:**
“The Space Wolves did something like this.”

“Yep.”

“They sang the crossing.”

“Yep.”

“And the Orks.”

“Yep.”

“They had the Waaagh!”

“Yep.”

“But all three were completely different.”

“Yep.”

Mara frowned.

**MARA:**
“Then what’s the same?”

Chibi said nothing.

She waited.

Still nothing.

**MARA:**
“You know.”

**CHIBI:**
“I have an idea.”

“Tell me.”

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you nearly have one too.”

Mara groaned.

**MARA:**
“I hate when you do that.”

**CHIBI:**
“Good.”

—

She watched people repeating movements from the dance.

Arguing about what it meant.

Laughing about favourite moments.

Teaching children gestures.

Something from the performance was spreading through the feast.

Mara thought.

**MARA:**
“They were together before it started.”

Chibi nodded.

“And afterwards…”

She searched.

“They were more together.”

“Maybe.”

“Not just because they were in the same place.”

“No.”

“Because they had all been inside something.”

Chibi looked at her.

Mara corrected herself.

**MARA:**
“Not exactly the same thing.”

“Better.”

“They probably felt different things.”

“Yep.”

“But they felt them together.”

Chibi smiled.

—

Mara became quiet.

Then:

**MARA:**
“Is that ecstasy?”

Chibi shrugged.

“Don’t.”

“Sorry.”

He thought.

**CHIBI:**
“Maybe ecstasy isn’t always forgetting who you are.”

Mara listened.

**CHIBI:**
“Maybe sometimes it’s when being only you isn’t enough to explain what you’re feeling.”

Mara frowned.

**MARA:**
“That sounds annoyingly like Caelwyn.”

**CHIBI:**
“I know. I’m devastated.”

—

The ordinary feast continued around them.

Food.

Music.

Conversation.

People leaving.

Someone asleep against someone else’s shoulder.

The extraordinary had not vanished completely.

It had folded back into ordinary life.

Mara watched.

**MARA:**
“Why stop?”

Chibi looked at her.

“The dance.”

“The big part.”

“Why not keep going?”

He considered.

**CHIBI:**
“Maybe because if everything feels like that all the time…”

He looked towards the empty circle.

“…eventually nothing does.”

Mara frowned.

**MARA:**
“So it matters because it ends?”

“Maybe partly.”

“That sounds sad.”

“Why?”

“Because you find something and lose it.”

Chibi pointed towards her feet.

They were still moving slightly with the rhythm.

**CHIBI:**
“Did you lose it?”

Mara looked down.

Then smiled.

**MARA:**
“No.”

—

The Harlequin who had played Cegorach passed them.

No mask.

No coloured light.

Just a person now.

The performer stopped.

Looked at Mara.

Raised both empty hands.

Exactly as before.

Mara stared.

Then remembered.

She raised hers.

The Harlequin bowed.

And walked on.

Mara watched until the figure disappeared.

**MARA:**
“See?”

**CHIBI:**
“What?”

She smiled.

**MARA:**
“It followed us out.”

—

Then Mara looked at us.

**MARA:**
“We do that too.”

Chibi glanced at her.

“Concerts.”

“Yep.”

“Football.”

“Yep.”

“Festivals.”

“Yep.”

“Religious things.”

“Yep.”

“Parties.”

“Yep.”

Mara thought.

**MARA:**
“People sing songs they already know.”

“Yep.”

“Shout things together.”

“Yep.”

“Dance.”

“Sometimes badly.”

She ignored him.

“And afterwards they say…”

She found it.

**MARA:**
“‘You had to be there.’”

Chibi smiled.

**CHIBI:**
“Yep.”

Mara looked straight at us.

**MARA:**
“Maybe that’s what they mean.”

Because you can explain the song.

The food.

The steps.

The masks.

The lights.

The story.

You can explain all of it.

And still fail to explain what happened when everyone entered it together.

Behind them, the music began again.

Mara stood.

Held out her hand.

Chibi sighed.

**CHIBI:**
“We already danced.”

**MARA:**
“So?”

“I’ve completed the research.”

“You enjoyed it.”

“Unproven.”

“Your foot is moving.”

He looked down.

**CHIBI:**
“Traitor.”

Mara laughed.

He took her hand.

They ran back towards the lights.

The gods had gone back to being performers.

The story had gone back to being a story.

But not completely.

Because something created together had become real enough to carry home.

**When a feast makes a story, a god, a people or even a sense of belonging feel more real than ordinary life does, are we merely pretending together — or discovering something that only becomes visible when we enter it together?**

—

**Game:** Warhammer 40,000
**System:** Wrath & Glory / Imperium Maledictum
**Campaign:** Mythveil Chronicles
**Theme:** The Bacchanalia · Month IX · Week II — The Ecstatic Feast

**PLAY EPIC. FEEL THE STORY.**

Enter the living worlds of Mythveil Chronicles, where ritual, story and celebration do not merely describe a world — sometimes they make it present.

Campaigns and games:
https://startplaying.games/gm/dunchan

Explore the research, philosophical dialogues and stories behind our worlds:
https://www.patreon.com/c/mythveilchronicles_bydunchanhuntergames