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// Epilogue: Discord and Warhammer 40k 
// Story: Waiting at Home 
// by Darkstarling 
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Discord lay coughing on the floor of a higher dimensional realm that he had, for the moment, envisioned as a boxing ring. His fur was blue and falling out in patches, he was covered in livid orange polka dots, and he was running an anti-fever of 142 Kelvin. In the opposite corner of the ring loomed the bloated and behorned form of his opponent. "You hit me" he gasped out.

“Discord, why do we have to fight?” It said in a voice that oozed compassion. Among other things. “I don’t want to hurt you. I love you.” It smiled in complete sincerity as Discord glared up at it in defiance. “I love everything. Even the beautiful quantum virus that's killing you. Please, join me and end this.”

That was what he couldn’t stand, thought a part of Discord’s mind, as another began twisting the infinitely adaptive disease’s evolution on more interesting paths. It was the rank, twisted earnestness of this creature. He steeled his will. Stood. It was hard, and even harder to stand steady. But he did it. “You know something, you twisted snot sack? You’re really kind of pathetic." The polka dots itched, so he peeled off one and ate it. Bleugh, what a nasty flavor. "You think you’re kind, and you think you understand love. I was like you too, once.” There, in the 2351st mutagenic iteration. Perfect. “But I’ve met real kindness, seen real friendship, and frankly? This twisted selfish mockery of yours just really cheeses me off.” His temperature was still dropping, but he wasn’t coughing anymore. The polka dots were falling off, and flapping around him. Just like butterflies. The air began to rain from the cold. “You were right by the way: this IS a lovely quantum virus, I’ll have to invite it to my tea parties.” The bloated bestial brute was gaping with at least four of it’s mouths, and a wicked snaggletoothed grin covered Discord’s face. He was battered, and he still ached in places that didn't even exist, but the virus was coursing through his veins like liquid helium. “Symbiosis is magic, Nurgle. It's time to let this go. Your chances of victory are” he pulled a pair of sunglasses from nowhere "Sub-Zero." The arena reconfigured itself to two dimensions, and a voice boomed out: ROUND TWO, FIGHT!

Elsewhere, across the galaxy, the forces of Chaos reduced to utter confusion as tiny shards of Discord’s power did their work. Slaneshi demons were halted by dozens of strange stimulating puzzles that, somehow, they could never remember after they were done but were sure they had enjoyed so much they had to try again. Generals of the Lord of Change betrayed each other left and right or converted to Khorne, convinced by their orders that it was required by the True Master Plan. The Tyrannid Fleet was answering a barrage of psychic hails originating from “The Queen Bitch of the Universe” that offered deadly insult to their entire genetic lineage, and was rapidly devolving into an argument with itself about which were wrong.

And, on a million planets throughout the Imperium, a thousand dreamers were waking from visions of another world and a strange, yellow pegasus that told them about a better way.