AutoAxpert's eyes twitched as they adapted to the baleful light of the candle flickering on the reflective wall of the cramped closet. It had been a while since the last time he used one. The main reason was that no matter how long he left the windows open even in the stormiest weather the Wasteland had to offer (veeery stormy) there was no way to get rid of the smell and greasy soot they produced, which sticked to clothes and skin like a bad habit. Huxkos, his familiar attendant, had an apparently neverending stock of them, which he was suspiciously forthcoming in getting rid of. Any request could be followed by a nasal "mmmyes, candles?". The coach didn't trust them; to be fair, he didn't trust anything that could be found in that Myrmidia-forsaken place, but the smell, that smell... Not to mention the way the changing light flashed over the nooks and crannies of his apartment, tricking his eyes, making him see things that could not be there (they couldn't, could they?). Curse those damn candles! Much better to strain his sight in the suffused light of the night in the Hall, where centuries of Morrslieb and Mannslieb and Gods know which other forsaken moonlight bounced between the polished walls for long centuries.

But some things required precision, and precision required light. AutoAxpert's hands threaded carefully the needle along the suture point that connected the stubby legs to the torso.

"You know, it is kinda funny" the coach trilled with an unsavory amount of glee "how time in this place can seem both to fly and crawl to a stop at the same time"

He rummaged for a bit in a dirty jar, until he found a fleshy, discolored lump. He pushed inside the chest cavity, which responded with an encouraging twitch. The man grunted his approval.

"I mean, how long exactly have I kept myself isolated in this room? Weeks? Seasons? Years? Are they even different things now? Sometimes it feels like they never end, and sometimes they are gone in the blink of an eye."

He carefully placed the copper apparatus so that the two sigils matched the profile of the sinew stretched on the table, then he chanted for a couple of seconds. He was something of an expert now, having repeated this procedure multiple times (and you also did it wrong many more, how can you be such a slob, at some point you should stop failing and failing and failing and failing....)

"Especially winter. Winter never seems to last more than ten days. Weird."

He smacked his lips, trying to recollect the thread of his thoughts. The alchemic fluid simmered through the syringe smoothly through the newly-formed veins of the thing on the table.

"So, yeah. On one hand you have the future, coming at full speed in your face ut somehow escaping your attention, on the other you have the past. Intangible, confused, shrouded in mist. Unknowable, maybe? Don't get me wrong, I am sure there was a before the Coven. But I'll be damned, how much time ago was it? Four years? Seven? I want to say seven, but then there is this part of my brain that keeps repeating '4, 4, 4, 4'. I mean, it must have some significance, doesn't it?"

He turned on the pump and checked with a ruler the growth ratio of the appendages. The symmetry was acceptable, maybe a little bit bloated on the right side but nothing that limited functions too much (CAUTION: excessive imbalance may cause wobbliness, stumbling, general uselessness. WARNING: excessive pressure from the fluid can cause explosions, combustion, that nasty thing that happened last time and that you could have prevented).

"And it doesn't end here. For instance, I am sure that I spent my childhood in Tilea. My father was a trader, he passed me his passion for Blood Bowl but I had no talent whatsoever. So I travelled to the Empire, found a paid internship with the Grasshuggers, became a coach and then made the bad decision of signing a contract with the Hall. That's it, right? And yet while this is my story it feels like I am hearing it now from myself telling it. There are like two versions of it and both are similar but different. For instance, I think I had a cat once? It was black with a white spot on the throat. I have perfect memories of it, even though he doesn't fit anywhere in what I think my past is. Does that make sense to you?"

The body on the desk was slowly stirring to life, part of it regenerating tissues from a long-dead beastman, partly being conjured from the realm of Chaos.

"Probably doesn't make sense, but that is how I feel. So anyway, about a year ago my mother called me (how? No idea.) and told me the cat was dying. I was far, very far away but by pure chance I was going to go back home in a couple of days anyway. In any case, those hours might have been to much for the poor animal, as whatever illness he got at that point was literally consuming it. It was a pretty miserable farewell; the old cat died the same night I came back."

The bald head of the familiar inflated with a disgusting *PLOP*.

"And yet I have no idea whose cat this was; it was mine and it wasn't. Sometimes it feels like there is another me that is somewhere behind the Mirror, but unlike all these other false 'me's I can never see him completely. But I feel him, you know?"

(IT IS INTUITIVE BUT YOU WOULD NOT UNDERSTAND IF YOU WEREN'T A HORSE)

"Sometimes I feel like the world ends there, at the door of my room, and that outside the world is just a cardboard scene. But sometimes instead I think that even this room is just another flat scenery, and that there is another, more real room that I still can't leave, where I waste my time worrying about the future rushing towards me and worrying about the future never coming."

One last check, then AutoAxpert unplugged the pipe and admired his creation. Cooked to perfection.

"So, what was all this rambling about time for? Well, it was to say that I kinda envy you? It must be reassuring to know that no matter the path you will always find yourself back at the same spot, am I right?"

The current iteration of Horok answered by coughing out a substantial quantity of phlegm and with a desperate "BAAAAA".

"Ah, you are right. Hard to tell what's more terrifying between a line with the extremities unknown and a circle that you can't escape. Did anybody ever tell you that you are a nice conversationalist?"

A black box on the shelf thumped loudly. Horok reborn bleated again, full of anguish. Second thump.

"Aah, speaking of conversationalists..."
AutoAxpert opened the box with a wide grin.
"Evening. Are you done with tantrums and ready to discuss like an adult, responsible man again?"
"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT YOU BLOODY MANIAC! YOU WIN! FOUR FAMILIARS SET-UPS ON DEFENSE AND I HOPE YOU CHOKE ON YOUR NEXT MEAL!"
"Thaaaank you, assistant coach Von Hexenberg. So reasonable. I knew keeping your head was gonna be a helpful addition to my staff."
"GO TO HELL."



Dedicated to Zorba the cat, who was almost twenty years old almost one year ago