THE STRING IS ALWAYS READY TOGGLE DARK MODE BACK TO NEXUS The first of the dragon hunters which passed by Rabbit’s humble camp was quite kind. He walked up, clearly in search of a spot of conversation, and grinned over the canteen of watery, cold tea which they offered up in response. Settled down opposite of them and asked all the right questions about the squirrel kebabs they had going on. Real friendly sort. Could pass as a simple, overzealous, ordinary hunter if he really wanted to- thick leather coat stitched together with a rainbow of spare thread, dagger worn openly at the hip and hair sheared in Rabbit’s own style, the poor man’s rush-job. Bow strapped to the pack on his back, a small number of arrows clattering away in their quiver next to it. Rabbit took their time in speaking up with more than just hums, attention locked on the kebabs. Hunters bunking down with them for a bit were nothing new, after all. Some folk said they had a settling presence about them. Like a knight, all dressed up in armor and sporting a greatsword, yet napping at their post. Rabbit quite liked the thought. Once they deemed the squirrels done through, they took one of three kebabs and offered it to the hunter across the fire, nodded their head down at the hand which reached out. “I like your gloves.” Thick wool with the fingers cut off. They’d been meaning to get a new pair for months by that point, yet never felt comfortable stopping by any town for so long. The hunter smiled bright at that. Had to swallow down his bite before he could answer. “Thank you kindly. Feels like I go through a new pair every other week, but these ones have held up quite well.” “Gloves are hard to get right. The open fingers are a good idea.” Rabbit held off on their own food- had only cooked it in case any folk walked past them. Hated hot foods. They had been surprised by how busy the evening forest could get if one settled on the side of a walking path when they’d first set out, how many people had just as little sense as them. It was almost a comfort, then, the thought of community. A whole lot of idiots which couldn’t stand still for more than an hour before they got nervous. “I think I got these ones in Saint-Romeiu. Cute little knitting shop there, tucked between the butcher and the chapel.” He took a swig from the tea canteen, a bite from the kebab that looked rather hungry. “Are you planning on camping here for the night?” A decade and change ago, that question would’ve scared Rabbit out of their mind. Would’ve made them think the man was planning on slinking back into their camp right when they’d gone to sleep, slither into their tent and slit their throat with a single, gentle swipe of the dagger at his hip. That he was going to gut them and rob them for all they were worth and bury them four feet deep in the forest. Now, it just brought a cold humor to the front of their mind. Let him be a killer. Not like anything he could do to them could be worse than what had already happened. Not like it would stick. “Aye. I was thinking a spot of wolf hunting could do me good. Give me better meat than this.” A wave towards their cooling kebabs. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” A phrase which would’ve brought Rabbit to panicked tears before. They’d never been killed by people much, but they thought about it quite a lot. All of the possibilities, the potential murders. Now, they tilted their head in silent question. The hunter smiled in response, took up the air of a teacher who didn’t get many opportunities to show off. “You mustn’t know. Do you smell that in the air? Underneath the smoke and the squirrel and everything else.” ( Cain had said something like that to them once, too. If they squinted, and if the hunter lost a few inches while dunking his hair in a bucketful of yellow paint, he might even look like him too. He lacked the discipline that Cain had- straight-backed sit and every expression of emotion beaten out of him through years of dinner parties- but the phrasing was almost there. Rabbit was not scared by the thought of the man anymore because they knew they could kill him, but it still made the tips of their fingers tingle. The back of their mouth burn with acid. Learned fear response. ) Rabbit humored the man. Closed their eyes and sniffed the air, forcing their shoulders to relax at the sudden spike of anxiety such vulnerability brought. Smoke, burnt meat, sweat, pine trees, rotting earth, drifting unfamiliars brought by the wind, and then, underneath all of that, a twinge of burnt cinnamon-and-sugar. Like the space where a bakery had burned down months before, a memory of spices still hanging about. They felt their lips twitching up into the faintest of sneers. The hunter must think them stupid if they didn’t know the witch-smell around these parts- but Rabbit was more patient these days. Had to be, to wait for little critters to run into snares and elk to trot out into clearings to shoot dead. So they breathed in deeper and bowed their head. Cinnamon, cloves, allspice, shed scales. There. The stink of the skin a snake would leave behind. The barest undercurrent of rot. They opened their eyes to the hunter’s expectant stare. Smelled smoke and squirrel again. “What is that?” “You smelled it? The-” “The scales, yes. I smelled it. Easy to find.” The stare the hunter was giving them made it quite clear that it was not supposed to be easy. He recovered quickly enough, though, and the smile on his face was a new one. Less friendly, more like a man on the trail of something big ( an expression Rabbit thought looked out of place on any face but Cain’s ). “Most folk can’t smell it without guidance, and most don’t understand how to guide. It's a learned skill, you know? Wouldn’t expect anything less from the greatest prey.” He spread his arms out then, leaned closer to the fire. “ Dragons .” Dragons. Rabbit finally took a bite from one of their kebabs, thought it over as they chewed at the lean meat. The hunter must really be a kind man if he thought to warn them- they’d heard about the swathes of land those beasts could chew through when riled up. Miles of decimation. Weird critters, too. Wouldn’t be safe to be around the area if there was a dragon hunt going on- tended to tear up existence as well. Rabbit did not fear death, but life in an alien reality was too big a change for them to think of. They’d started to enjoy the rhythm of the hunt. “Hm. Where are the rest of you, then?” The hunter frowned at the skewer pointed his way. “Huh?” Rabbit felt their lips twitch up. Almost a sneer, though they’d never show their teeth to a nice man like him. He’d clearly thought they’d be a little more stupid- on account of them handing out food to a stranger in the middle of the forest, perhaps? “You’re just one man. One with good gloves, yes, but just a man. The dragon will crush you without even noticing. Where is the rest of your pack?” Anyone kills a single deer and they’d know that dragon hunters traveled in herds. Rabbit was almost insulted. ( Rabbit was sure they knew more about the hunt than the nice hunter sat before them ever would. A hell of a lot more. Someone like Cain teaches you how to kill and field dress, you sit up and listen. Rabbit had been the perfect study during those forest nights- attentive throughout all of the uncertain glances he’d shoot them when he thought they were distracted, quick to learn how to hold a knife and skin a rabbit. They had been weak and afraid for so Thule-damned long and Cain was offering them an out. An out from the terror which he himself had dunked them. Held their head under the waters of fear, helped them truly understand what it meant to be prey . Rabbit had died twelve times in the shallow grave Cain dug out for them years before. Still could not look at a fox without thinking of the one which had smelled fresh meat and dug at the ground long enough to loosen up the topsoil and grant them their first breath of something beyond tears and mud and pebble. Of course they listened when the man appeared twenty years later and taught them how to hunt. Offered them a key to peace through animal blood. ) “We- we aren’t a pack. Not really a hunting party either. Just a bunch of folk with the same prey.” He was regarding Rabbit with different eyes then. Like he was just realizing they might have the skill to back up their solitude. “Couple miles, I’d reckon? Most of ‘em are the ordinary sort.” “No tech?” The hunter shook his head. “Shame. Would’ve liked to see the pretty lights.” Rabbit finished off their first kebab, tossed the skewer into the flames. “Suppose I ought to make more food. Think I have time for a stew?” “You’re staying?” Rabbit huffed out a little laugh. “Of course I am.” They shifted in their seat to haul their pack closer, hands already going for the pan strapped on outside. “Already said I was hunting wolf around here. And I’ve set up camp.” From a sack next to the pack, a handful of potatoes. Rabbit never could help but splurge on them, impractical to travel with or not. A strip of preserved deer jerky. Carrots. Green onions pulled from underneath a birch tree. They’d never had a grasp on anything magic, but they liked to think alchemy might come easily enough. Was just complicated cooking, and that was their one creature comfort which they ever indulged in. Rabbit pointed a carrot the hunter’s way, free hand hauling out a chopping knife from their pack. “You’re losing your lead on them.” He blinked, then ducked his head with a smile. Embarrassed that he’d forgotten that. “That I am. Better get moving on, hm?” Rabbit nodded, eyes locked down on the carrot as they took to peeling it. A grunt, then he was standing over them ( Rabbit’s hand tightened on the handle of the knife. If he made a single move towards them, he would be dead. They would not ). One last swig from the canteen, then he held it out over the fire. “Thanks for the food and tea. Haven’t gotten anything good these past few days, trying to follow the scent around.” “Keep the canteen.” ( It might’ve sounded like a kind gesture, but Rabbit had learned quite a lot from Cain. The man was a nervous speaker, and it seemed that he started to fear Rabbit more the less they feared him. Tall tales about the strange beasts which he hunted in distant lands, manticores and wriggling wyrms. Vampires which walked and talked like any other man. Apparently, they could spit up their venom-blood at will. Method of infection. Rabbit glanced up to the canteen which the smiling hunter held out towards them and all they could think about were those stories. Cain had never told them how to identify vampires, just their horrors. A life without dying as a thing like that sounded like a nightmare. ) “Oh. Thanks.” The hunter tucked it away in a jacket pocket, gave them one cheery wave, and then set off into the evening dark of the forest. Another fellow Rabbit would never see again. They watched his frame until it faded to nothing, then set back at the vegetable. Water and herbs would have to make do for the broth- they’d tried lugging about stock before and found it far too impractical. The second dragon hunter arrived just as the stew was beginning to boil. Too early to eat it. She slithered between the long shadows the trees cast like an impression of a human, not the real deal, and she walked right up to Rabbit’s camp as the first had done. Nice nobleman’s clothes- perfectly clean button down, cloth vest, even a jeweled brooch holding together a cravat at her throat- and a heavy belt which held an array of clinking bottles and a single hip pouch. Dark hair spilling down to her waist, bars of black striped across her arms, neck, and one cheek. Obvious sign of magic meddling. She walked up to the spot the smiling hunter had been sat in and settled down herself, settled down into a squat which she could jump from in a moment. Stuck her bare hands out to the fire and waited until they were warm before she spoke. “I do hope I’m not intruding. You let the other rest for a moment.” Magic had been another source of anxiety for Rabbit when they were still nothing but a terrified animal. Something which they’d never had the money or the talent to grasp at that just gave everyone else an edge. Now, they quite liked it. Magicians, witches, warlocks- they were all compensating for something. A weakness to be picked at and exploited. A little show-off of information and hidden eyes was nothing to be frightened of. Rabbit leaned closer to the fire, stirred the stew with one of two spoons they carried about. “You’ll have to wait for food.” “No matter.” At that assurance, the tattooed hunter settled down into a lounge upon the forest floor. Casual and lithe, like a fox which had already eaten its fill watching all the others attempt to wriggle underneath barbed wire. “I’m not like that other fellow, you know. I just wanted a peek at the dragon. Bit barbaric to kill the thing, if you ask me.” Rabbit raised a brow at her. “How so? It’ll rampage across dozens of villages if left unchecked.” “You’re killing it, though. Ending a life and sending it to the great beyond.” She stretched out one leg and withdrew a dagger from her shined boot. Wiped it down on a pant leg and let it rest there, threat or absent motion unclear to Rabbit. “I’m not saying what it does is any better. Don’t have any solutions, either. Just think the death is a little morbid.” “Death is death. Part of nature. It happens- it's the most god awful thing around, but it still happens. Would be wrong if it didn’t.” “Is that what you think?” The tattooed hunter smiled. “I’ve been there, you know? The dark after death. I don’t think you would be saying it should happen if you could see it.” Rabbit couldn’t help the loud laugh which bubbled out of them, much less the hand slapping down on one knee. The force of it almost pitched them into the fire, even if it was just a few moments of hard laughter. They straightened up and let out another short hoot at the hunter’s sudden confused frown. How stupid were these people? “No you haven’t.” ( Rabbit’s first death had been in the cradle. Their second had been because a classmate dared them to wander around the woods at night and they stepped straight into a bear trap. One of the village hunters had found them after they’d woken back up, early enough in the morning that dew still dripped and the sky was still dark. Drenched in their own blood and delirious with pain, drowning in the terror of a nightmare finally realized. There was no black in death. There was the build up, the fear, and then nothing. Rabbit was just unlucky that there was more life tucked away behind that nothing. ) ( Their worst death had been Cain’s. He’d hunted them like an animal, plain and simple. Never even told them how much he made off their bounty. ) The hunter puffed herself up at that doubt. Chest stuck out, nose held high into the air, sparkling grin on her smooth face. “I really have! Real high-grade necromancy. I went on down to the Furnace and chatted with demons. Dragged my way out and woke up in a grave. Had to dig my way out with my own hands.” Rabbit couldn’t help but mirror that mean smile, lips twitching up far enough to show blunt teeth. There was something burning in their chest, two inches away from their heart, and they couldn’t decide if it was anger or amusement. Perhaps a mix of both, unfamiliar emotions so easily slipping from one to the other. They couldn’t believe the clown in front of them. “Bullshit. Bullshit. You’re smiling and laughing over there. You’re living. Even if you come back from death, you do not live for the rest of your life. You rot. Not laugh.” They wanted to grab a burning log from the fire and smash it down on her head. Wanted to kick the pan at them, boiling liquid and all, and then take up her hand as gentle as a butterfly and ask her to tell them another joke because that was the hardest they’d laughed in over ten years. “Sounds a bit dramatic.” The tattooed hunter rocked her weight back, tilted her chin up at Rabbit. Challenge? Respect? Their stupid animal brain couldn’t make sense of it, not when they were clenching a spoon with all of their strength and thinking of the best way to shut her up. Dramatic . They’d show her dramatic. “I’m telling you the truth, I swear! I alone hold the secret to escaping death- it took more than one try to figure out, more than a few rude awakenings six feet under, but I’ve got it. And nobody else ever will.” Neither were that surprised by the words which slipped out of Rabbit. “I could kill you right now.” They didn’t know when they’d stood up, but there they were. Towering over her and fighting back the tremble of rage working into their hands. Unsteady hands meant nothing good. Made it easy to fumble the stab, miss the desperate strike before teeth buried into flesh. Rabbit wanted to eat her whole. “What then? You would be dead, and you would not come back. No dragon-watching then.” “Maybe, maybe. I’d have to get lost on the way out.” Before Rabbit could do anything entirely irrational- pin her to the ground and strangle her, jab the spoon into and through her stomach- the hunter pointed at the pot. “I believe the stew ought to be done now. I’m sure the jerky freshened up in a real lovely way in there.” Rabbit stared at her. A moment, two, then they slowly sank back down into their huddle at the fire. Pulled two chipped bowls from their pack and ladled stew into both, passed one over to the hunter with a hum. They made sure to give her the spoon they’d been holding throughout the whole ordeal. Let that be as strange a threat as the dagger which was resting forgotten on her thigh. “Enjoy.” Overall, it was quite a pleasant meal. The tattooed hunter ate quickly, humming out compliments between bites over Rabbit making the best that they had to work with- Rabbit barked out another laugh at that and barely held back from asking if all the hunter knew how to say were strange, backhand insults. When she was finished, she set her bowl upon the forest floor and poked a hand into her hip pack. Pulled out a pinch of herbs and held them out to Rabbit over the fire. “As tasteful as the grime from weeks without washing in these bowls were, perhaps some thyme? Could brighten up the water-broth.” Another smile. Rabbit didn’t know what was wrong with them, why this strange hunter was getting so much from them. They reached out. Took her wrist in one callused hand. Squeezed until the smile dropped from the hunter’s face, then squeezed until they could hear bone grinding on bone. Neither dared shift- statues beyond the eyes and Rabbit’s hand-and-smile. Harder, and then she could not fight anymore. Dropped the sprigs of thyme into the fire. Rabbit let go as soon as she did, but still kept their hand resting there. Felt a pulse under burnt fingertips. “Do not insult me.” The hunter was slow in drawing back, like Rabbit would jump all at once and seize her wrist once more. There was no more mean humor in her eyes, no teeth shown behind chapped lips. Good. She got the message, loud and clear. Rabbit could kill her. They just wished she could smell the gravedirt still trapped under their nails, over thirty years and thousands of attempts to wash it away meaningless. They cleared the rumble out of their throat before speaking again. “You should move along. Get the best seats in the house for the hunt.” The tattooed hunter made to stand up. Froze like a deer when Rabbit waved a hand her way. “Take the spoon with you. Never know when you might need one.” “Of course.” She straightened up, didn’t even have to gather any supplies before she was slowly cutting her way into the forest. Glanced over her shoulder a few times, stopped when Rabbit’s laugh reached her ear, and then she was gone. Just like the smiling hunter. ( Cain had told Rabbit that hunting was not about power, the first time they walked out into the forest by their home. The forest they’d died in for the first time in four years, first time since they’d met dear Maycourt and fallen into a cheerful, innocent sort of love. He’d said it while dressed up in his hunting clothes, family’s heirloom of a bastard sword forged from silver at his hip, and Rabbit had to sit down on the ground from how much they laughed. Laughed until they started choking, almost. They’d spat at his feet when they’d caught their breath. Bullshit. They wanted to kill him. Wanted him to kill them. Wanted to die. They all blended together those days, the terror and the desperate anger, before they learned how to hunt. It was about power when you killed me. You’re teaching me because you think power will help me. They’d left without explanation for Maycourt once Cain had taught them all he thought he could. A pretty wife and a cozy home were things which could hurt them, hold them back from the neverending pace of the hunt. ) The third dragon hunter arrived when Rabbit was about to douse out the campfire. Crunch of leaves underfoot, the acrid stench of brimstone and charred metal drifting upon the winds. The gentle whistle of steam from a hole upon a pot’s lid, a purple haze floating in the air, and then it was there at the border of their camp. Rabbit looked up, met goat eyes, and could think of only one thing. Demon machine . It looked the part. It really did. Their eyes moved from piece to piece- horns and striped tail flicking on the ground and armored, bladed pauldrons- and not a single detail could stick with another in their mind to form a cohesive image. They blinked at the tattered cape that hung from one shoulder. Demon machine. The vents upon its chest piece from which steam slowly curled. Demon machine. Great mechanical gauntlets at the end of its arms, interlocking metal and strange meat underneath, all heated high enough to burn upon touch. Demon machine. The air shimmered like a mirage. Its form waved like a banner one moment, seemed solid as death itself the next. A contradiction to some great law of existence, a beast unlike any other. It did not have any way to smile with the great golden helm of a head, but Rabbit felt as if there was something grinning at them. Something to the left of it? But that was empty air. Air which burned to breath. The beast had a horn like a rhinoceros beetle at the tip of its snout. Whiskers like the fat antennae of a centipede. Rabbit stared and thought spurned child. Blinked and thought revenge-saint. The grinning-feeling got worse, and the machine shifted in closer. Swung open the mouth upon its helm-head and spoke. “I am not hungry.” It sounded as if its voice was an afterthought. Barely an effort made to translate screaming binary and shrieking lava bound up somewhere in that metal suit to something that Rabbit could understand. Like a child that had gone hoarse from screaming. A poor man, cast away from everything he had ever loved. The smile was still there, and the eyes were expectant upon them. It took Rabbit two tries to summon up their own voice. “I’ve eaten the rest of the stew already. Couldn’t offer it if I wanted.” ( Rabbit wanted to clasp their hands together and beg the demon machine to leave them. To let them live. Cain was no longer a predator in their brain, that beastly man which had ruined their life, but this thing was. It reeked of danger, of the willingness to hurt and the inability to drop a fight once it was dropped. Rabbit did not want such a beast chasing after them for the rest of their poor life. ) It grinned down at them for a bit longer. Waiting for a grand revelation that simply would not come. Gave up and laughed- a cough of a sound, more smoke than actual noise slipping from that great fanged mouth- and then spread its arm out in a kindly gesture. “You are not prey. Not anymore. You slipped those shackles. Forgot heaven in favor of how to skin a rabbit.” A tilt of its head, one hand pointed down at the heart which Cain had ripped out with one of his own. “You’re normal. As normal as you can get. But we were once the same. Holiness found in the terrible. I won’t hurt a sibling.” Rabbit did not want to think about what it was saying. The years spent more animal than human, a very real power found in the horrors of their life. Did not want to think about how the thing before them was the same thing they had once been. That they could have been that, instead of a simple hunter. “Then why come?” “Don’t know.” The demon machine shrugged, too casual a gesture for it. “I knew you were handing out gifts. Those can have power.” One great gauntlet was held out towards them. Goat eyes watched, expectant. Rabbit didn’t have a damn clue what it could want from them. A hand darted into their pack, came out with the necklace they had been slowly working on- rabbit bones stringed up on dull thread, clattering together with any movement made. They were careful to not touch the hand as they passed it over, drew back into themself when they had nothing left. “There. There. Go now.” The demon machine gave the necklace a long look, then cupped it in both hands and squeezed. When it released the grip, there was nothing but ash. It then laughed, head rocking back with the force of it. Sounded like Rabbit’s own. Mean and unpracticed. The tail lashing through the leaves slapped onto the ground, writhed like a beheaded snake. More steam hissed out of vents. Seemed like it found a great deal of amusement in the plain horror upon their face. “You are going to die tomorrow, Rabbit. Do not interfere with this hunt.” Rabbit half expected the beast to leave a burning path behind it as it walked off as the other two hunters had. Nothing- nothing but the imprints of cloven hooves in the undergrowth which would soon fade away. Just as the reek of swamps and brimstone and malevolence would. It faded out into the distance as any solid folk would and Rabbit could not shake the sense that were was something very, very wrong with the demon machine. Worse than the sort of terror which brought people up into holiness, more terrible than dying twelve times in a four foot grave. And it knew their name. Rabbit did not put out the fire when they tucked themself away for sleep. Slept through the entire great hunt ( Cain had once told him that he had heard all successful dragon hunts took place in the morning before the sun rose. Then he told them it was merely superstition ), and woke up only when a tree damaged by the entire ordeal toppled down directly onto their tent. Just a flash of brightness and pain and panic, and then nothing. They would wake up three more times with that trunk pinning them down by their chest. Short lives filled with kicking, animal panic and enough beating upon the tree to break two fingers. Eventually, they would wiggle out from underneath it and hobble two feet away before dropping back to the ground just to die somewhere else. And then they would wake for a fourth time and set to the task of packing up camp among the ravaged forest, and they knew that they would complete this entire process for the rest of their life. Strange encounters and terror and miserable deaths.