The town of Lapine Falls was a smaller place, nestled into the base of the Rocky Mountains, with a river that runs through the center. The falls in question were pretty short, the person discovering it made the joke that it was more of a bunny’s hop than a dramatic leap, and the name stuck. Over the years, the city slowly grew, but never grew too much. Water was nice, but it wasn’t on any of the major routes across the country, so it stayed small and quiet.
On a sleepy night, an office building stood, the tinted windows showing only the bare few lights used by the cleaning crew. If anyone had been standing in the street and looking, they might have noticed the bright lights that looked like ball lightning on the third floor. Immediately afterwards, chunks of stone exploded outward, raining down with broken glass onto the street, along with one very strange creature: Me.
As blocks of stone weighing hundreds of pounds each slammed into the earth, I twisted in the air to land on my hooves. From the waist down, I looked much like a horse: large black hooves shod with metal shoes, feathery black fetlocks tipped with white covering my ankles, black fur up to just below my knees, transitioning to white with black spots. From the waist up, I looked more like a rabbit, with a teardrop-like fluffy tail, thick fur atop my chest, large paws for hands, and a rabbit head with long ears. The white fur with irregular black spots covered the rest of me, with some black patches being larger. These included my left paw and left ear, which also covered half my face. Around my neck was a pink leather collar, adorned with a carrot-shaped charm hanging from the front. My hair was long enough that I kept it in a short ponytail. Standing upright, the small shards of glass rained down around me as I took my bearings.
One of the stones had crashed through the plate glass window of a clothing store across the street from the office building. The keening wail of the alarm made it sound like the building itself was crying out in pain. A nameless dread was building within me, and I knew this would attract attention quickly. And that I didn’t want to be seen as I am. I needed a disguise, and for that I needed clothes. I hated stealing, but there was nobody around to take my coin anyway. Maybe I’d find a way to pay them back. Either way, I grabbed the first few articles I found once inside and made my escape.
Stepping outside, I heard a new wail, some kind of siren approaching. With my powerful legs, I was able to leap up to the roof of the one-story clothing store, and then across a few more buildings. Behind me, red and blue lights flashed, but I was already gone.
Resting for a moment, I surveyed the strange landscape where I found myself. Large square buildings everywhere, blocks that looked like they were sculpted out of a single mass of material yet studded with glass, or structures made from brick that towered impossibly high. Between them were roads without a single visible cobblestone, paths of stone with painted lines with lamps on either side, shining light without flame. Wires ran between poles, stretching across in sets. Where roads met, lights of green and red took turns shining in each direction, hanging from the wires. It was all so alien, and yet… hauntingly familiar, like something just out of reach. Maybe I’d heard about this kind of place once before, from a traveller?
Still, standing around wasn’t going to answer questions. One paw still holding clothes, I raised the other to my collar and closed my eyes. A gift from my Master, it had something special built in, a handy spell for visiting distant lands that weren’t ready to accept a hoofbun. Magic washed over me as my body shifted, ears pulling in and fur retracting. Face flattening, my nose pulling out. Paws slimmed into human hands, tail shrank back into my spine. The change stopped short just above my ankles, the spell couldn’t cope with metal horseshoes nailed into my hooves. A breeze sent a shiver through my body, since I was lacking my thick fur now. I looked over the clothes I had snagged, putting on a skirt and a blouse. I had grabbed a few blouses in the dark, so the other two I put into my Nowhere.
That was the other spell my collar had imbued into it. The actual name was something like “extradimensional pocket storage” or “nondimensional pocket plane” or something like that. I know “dimensional” is part of it, and that the important thing is that it allows me to store objects without having to deal with carrying them. I just reach over my shoulder, touch the back of my collar with a paw, and think about it. The thing I’m carrying disappears, or the item I want appears in my hand. There’s a limit to it, I can’t store too much or anything too big, but it’s really handy. Made things so much easier.
Now that I was changed and dressed, I was ready to try to talk to someone. I made my way across a few more rooftops, and found a place to start. Some sort of tavern, based on the sign. “Rocky Road Bar and Grill”, with a large collection of two-wheeled metal vehicles outside. Inns and taverns were always the best place to gather information and meet people to talk to, so it would be nice to find some jolly people in this strange place.
I leapt down from the roof, hooves clopping on the stone floor. They were a little odd, I knew, but claiming they were boots had always worked in the past. I walked inside, the smells making me glad my sense of smell was not as strong in this form as usual. A sharp acrid smell of some kind of burnt leaf was the worst offender, the smoke made a thick haze in the air. At a first glance, people seemed happy enough. Muscular men in some sort of thin leather armor, all dressed pretty similarly. A mercenary troupe, perhaps? They had various insignias on their clothing, after all. I sat down on a stool at the bar, earning a couple strange looks.
“Is there something I can get for you, girl?” A gruff voice called from behind the bar, the tavernkeeper eyeing me disdainfully.
“Mostly, I’m hoping for information. I’m not fully sure where I am, what town this is.” I replied with my most friendly smile. Politeness would go a much longer way than rudeness, in unfamiliar lands like this.
“What do I look like, Google? I serve drinks. To paying customers.”
I was a little taken aback by that, but I suppose it was a fair enough response. “Oh, well… I don’t suppose you have carrot juice?”
That earned me a belly laugh, which drew a few more onlookers. “What are you, a school girl? Beer and liquor, I don’t serve wimpy shit like that. You can’t handle it, get the hell out of here.”
I winced, sighing a little. “I’m afraid I never could find a tongue for the stuff. I don’t suppose you could at least tell me the name of this town before I go?”
My question fell on deaf ears, he had already turned to leave before I could even ask it, and he pointedly ignored me. However, one of the men had approached, with a grin I wasn’t sure I liked. “Eyy, why don’t you come over to the table, and I’ll answer yer questions?”
I gave a soft sigh, but nodded. The loud conversation and louder music made it so I could barely hear my hooves on the hardwood floor. The man led me over to a table where several of his friends had gathered, near a set of tables where sets of colored balls were being poked at with long sticks by more of the gruff-looking men. On the center of the friends’ table was a pile of green paper strips.
“So, girlie, what’s on your mind?” I liked his grin less, especially when the friends exchanged a low chuckle.
“Well, I admit I’m a bit lost. I’m not from the area, so I was hoping to get my bearings. Could you please tell me the name of this town?”
“Well, yer in Lapine Falls. A hole of a town if ever there was one, but at least they’ve got some good drinks here.” The comment got a response of a raised glass and a shout.
“Ah, well… I don’t actually know where that is. What about major cities nearby? Maybe I can recognize one of them?”
One of them had an almost predatory look. Behind me, balls clacked together and thumped against the rails of the table. “Oh, well, there’s Grand Junction to the south. If you want really big, there’s Denver. Not gonna get much bigger than that unless you wanna ride all day.”
I scowled, that wasn’t helping either. Two of the men had stopped paying attention to me and locked hands, elbows on the table. I wasn’t exactly sure what they were doing, they seemed to be straining, and eventually one brought the other’s hand to the table with a slam, seemingly pleased with himself. Someone else tossed a couple more green strips into the pile and took the other’s spot.
The confusion must’ve been evident on my face, as the man who brought me over laughed. “What, you never seen arm wrestling before?”
“No, actually… How does it work?”
“Really? Hah! Well, simple! You plant yer elbows, you grip their hands, and they try to pin your hand to the table, and you try to pin theirs. Winner stays. Whoever’s last gets the pot.”
“Oh… Pot… You’re playing for… what is that stuff on the table, anyway?”
The room went quiet, as those who heard my question reacted with complete disbelief. “It’s… cash. Money. How out of touch are ya?”
“Oh, sorry, it’s just… I’m not… from around here, that’s all.” This was starting to get worse, I could feel the tension thickening in the room. “Well, I could certainly use some local money, can I try?”
That was met with roaring laughter. “Well, I don’t know… Yer supposed to ante up, after all, and if you’ve got no money… What are ya gonna give up when ya lose?”
I reached behind myself and produced a gold Sovereign coin from my Nowhere and placed it on the table. “I don’t have local money, but I have money. Would this do? If not… What would you want me to wager?”
“What the hell is this play money shit? Tell ya what, we’ll think of something…” That was met with some pretty sinister laughter, and I was getting annoyed with their attitude. The winner of the last round waved me over and held his hand out, challenging me to accept.
I sat down, placing my elbow like I had seen the others, and clasped his hand to mine. With a cruel grin, he suddenly shouted “Go!” and started trying to pull my hand down with all his strength. I simply kept it where it was, in spite of his surprise start. The laughter started to die as the others exchanged glances.
“So, when is it my turn?” I calmly asked, as the man across from me struggled, veins in his arm bulging.
“Yer… turn?” The man that led me over asked, with a dumbfounded expression.
“Yeah. He tries to pin my hand, then I try to pin his. How do I know when it’s my turn?”
“Ya don’t… Ya don’t take turns… Ya just go, at the same time…” He stumbled over the concept that someone didn’t know something that was so simple and obvious to him, but I couldn’t be expected to know these things.
“Oh, well, okay.” Effortlessly, I slammed his hand down onto the table, worried for a moment that I might’ve hurt his shoulder. “So, now I’m the winner, right?”
The entire building was silent now, either because they had seen it or they had realized something was happening. The man I defeated glared, rubbing at his wrist. “She fuckin’ cheated!”
I supposed that might be true, in a sense. Another asked, “How did you DO that?”
“I used to do a lot of farm work, I’m stronger than I look, that’s all.” Maybe I overdid things. I blushed a little, embarrassed.
Another man slid over, pushing the defeated man out of the way with a laugh. He put his elbow down and glared, challenging me. “Watch her arm, make sure she don’t cheat again.”
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I took his hand in mine and nodded. When he started without even saying a word, I waited a moment before pinning his hand, trying to be a little more gentle this time. With all eyes on me, there was muttering starting to spread.
“I didn’t see nothin’, I dunno how she’s doing it…”
I tried to defuse the situation. “Look, it’s not… It’s all right, you can keep the pot…”
But another man had moved in to challenge me, a glare in his eye. “Nah, you know you’re gonna lose, that’s why you’re trying to back out.”
With a resigned sigh, I took his hand as well, letting him start before I pinned it once more. I was created for heavy labor, after all, with magically enhanced strength. When I did farm work, I pulled the plow. “It’s fine, I can just go…”
The group was crowded around, it was clear I was not being allowed to leave. Again they challenged me, and again I won. I didn’t want them to think they had license to do whatever they had in mind if I lost. The pot had been forgotten by this point, all eyes were glued to the sight, trying to figure out my secret.
Finally, one of the men got angry enough to grab the edge of the table and fling it upward in my direction. I raised an arm to stop it from hitting me, but that sent it off to the side, where it hit someone in the crowd. Money went flying everywhere, one man knelt down to grab some and another kicked him for it.
With that burst of violence, the gates were thrown open, and a full brawl erupted. The man that threw the table lunged at me, but I deflected him in a similar way, stepping to the side and shoving him, making him clatter into a chair and fall to the ground in a tangle.
Most weren’t after me directly, retaliating to whatever elbows or fists came too close to them. Glass shattered as tankards and bottles were thrown. I jumped clear of one attacker, dropping into a ready stance, only to be hit from behind with one of those thin sticks that snapped over my head. Spinning around, I kicked the man holding the broken thing and sent him falling backwards. This was getting out of control.
I tried to avoid attacking as much as possible, preferring to redirect people coming towards me, as I tried to pick my way towards the exit. But that was on the other end of the room, so that would be exceedingly difficult. A crash behind me signaled one of the green-topped tables being flipped, the colored balls clattering across the floor, creating stumbling hazards. I’d have to watch my hoofsteps.
The man I’d defeated first came at me directly, and the look in his eyes told me he wanted blood. I’d have to actually put a stop to him instead of just pushing him aside and letting him pick a new target. He threw quick punches, and I stepped back, giving up ground bit by bit. Finally, his frustration had him throw a wild swing, which I sidestepped and used as my opening. Grabbing his arm, then his body, I lifted him up into the air, tossing him at a friend that was starting to approach. The friend had stopped in his tracks at the sight of me casually lifting his buddy, and the two went down in a heap after the impact.
The crowd was starting to thin out, more and more participants laying in crumpled heaps on the floor or slumped over tables and chairs. Once there were only a few left, they seemed to notice me and remember how this all started, as they banded together and approached.
Fighting several people at once was a bit harder than single opponents. Kneeling down, I scooped up one of the colored balls that was part of the game that was being played before. It had a solid heft to it, based on the light toss I gave it as I stood. I didn’t hurl it as hard as I could, but I did fling it hard enough that when it hit a thigh, the man fell to the floor with a scream. The bone probably wasn’t broken, but it did thin their numbers by one.
The other three were on me by that point, and I did my best to block with my arms anything I couldn’t dodge out of. Ducking under one swing, I thrust the heel of my palm into the center of one man’s chest, knocking the wind out of his sails. He fell back, coughing and gasping for breath.
Doing that had cost me, one of the other two slipped behind me and grabbed my arms. If his hands were busy with that, then I didn’t have to worry about him right now. His friend, however, was swinging a chair at me, and that had priority. Twisting in the man’s grip, I kicked out and shattered the wooden chair with a hoof.
The second man was holding the broken pieces with a surprised expression, throwing them aside as he readied a punch, putting his full weight into it. I twisted again and put his friend’s head into its path instead, which made him release his grip and fall to the floor, groaning. Before the second man could recover, I grabbed him now that I had my arms free, tossing him in the direction of the bar. His head thumped into a wooden bench, seating for a booth-style table.
With that, silence descended heavily, only the occasional groan filled the air. The tavernkeeper was staring in awed silence as I surveyed the damages. “Holy… shit.”
Kneeling down, I picked up my coin and some of the green papers that had gone flying at the start of the brawl, stashing them into my Nowhere. I felt bad about the mess, so I picked up the green-topped table that had been overturned and set it upright. “Boy, they really lost control, huh? Sorry about this, I guess I riled them up more than I expected…”
“Yeah, but you… How did you…?” The tavernkeeper was still dumbfounded, his mind likely spinning as he thought about the damage done and the fact that I was the only one still standing.
“Oh, I used to have to do a lot of fighting, back home. The roads can be pretty dangerous, you know. One time, I even had to fight a gryphon!” Smiling, I pulled out the trophy of that fight, a large feather nearly as long as I am tall, showing it off the way one might show off a long blade. “That was probably the scariest fight I’d ever been in, but I managed to drive it off.”
“Wha…? Where were you keeping that thing?”
“In my Nowhere!” I put it away, partially to keep it safe and partially to demonstrate it. “Well, I better go. I’m sorry they made such a mess. Best of luck with that.” As I stepped out, I heard those sirens again, getting closer. Before the tavernkeeper could follow me outside, I leapt up onto the roof and started making my way elsewhere.
Blue and red lights flashed in the parking lot, flickering through the windows as the two officers stood in the bar. By now, some of the men had recovered enough to groggily sit in chairs or on stools, or lean against the wall. Stories were fragmented, most not willing to admit being beaten by what looked like a young woman.
A girl in a skirt was mentioned a couple of times, but nobody could really say exactly how the fight started, and injuries were pretty minor. A few bikers ended up handcuffed on “drunk and disorderly conduct” charges, but without a clear telling, there wasn’t a lot that could be done. The barkeep was still in dumb shock. When asked about the girl, all he would say was, “She keeps a feather in her nowhere.”
“Man, I’ll have some of whatever he’s on, right?” One of the officers joked to the other.
“Yeah, I could use it after tonight. That shit downtown, then this? Weird fuckin’ night.”
“You said it. But maybe that’s all the weird shit for a while.”
“I hope so.” With that, they left the scene, with a few people to sleep off their drink in a holding cell.
I made my way towards a spot of green, jumping down between two buildings where I wouldn’t be seen. My hooves clopped loudly on the pavement as I walked, looking around. My destination was an area with grass and trees, an island in this strange stone city. I could use the sight of something familiar and comforting after tonight.
I reached a spot with a bench that was tucked away, along a path that cut through the trees, winding in such a way that I couldn’t see any of the strange buildings or lights, and for a moment, it felt like home. With a deep breath, I raised a paw to my collar. Activating the spells, I willed my clothes into my Nowhere at the same time as I undid the spell keeping me in this human form. It was tiring to have it active too long, on top of being annoying. I didn’t like having clothes on skin instead of just my fur.
I sat on the bench, leaning back to look at the stars above. They seemed so faint, the sky seeming to have an almost pre-dawn look to it with light coming from somewhere, but I wasn’t looking at the stars, just in their direction.
If I learned one thing at that tavern, it was this: I was far from home. I had no idea how far, either, or in what direction. Somehow, the experiment’s failure had sent me far away. In order to even start getting home, I would need to find out where I needed to go.
The experiment… Master had been experimenting with the Storms, the chaotic force of destruction that had started making a mess of things. They started out infrequent enough that they could be dismissed as drunken ramblings of fools, but as more and more started happening, it was clear they were becoming a serious threat. Master’s attempts to solve the mystery of my creation were stalling, so he turned his attention to the threat. His latest bit of progress was the creation of a large frame, fitted with a gemstone that had trapped some of a Storm’s essence inside.
I replayed the events in my head. Everything happened so fast… Master began channeling his energies into the spell he had created. Much like a Storm, the frame filled with a swirling mass of chaotic mess. Like a roiling surface of water, a mass of gray with hints of other colors filled the frame, yet when you looked from the side, there was nothing. It was like a hole into a Storm, like a hole in the air itself. It wasn’t pure black like my Nothing, either, it was… frightening. Looking at it, I was filled with pure dread, a horror I couldn’t possibly put into words. I don’t think I was alone, either.
Slowly, before my eyes, the Storm began to clear. Amazingly, I saw a room on the other side, a floor and chairs and desks. Square columns, a paneled ceiling. Again, it was like a hole in reality, looking around the frame showed the wall of our workroom, but looking through the frame showed this strange, other place.
As it turned out, we weren’t alone. While I was looking at the room, I heard Master’s chanted words cut off with a gasp, the kind of air being driven out of someone’s lungs forcefully. I spun to look, just in time to watch him collapse, eyes in shock, and a dagger in his back. The man that stood there glared cruelly at the crumpled form at his feet, and then looked at me. Pulling the knife from Master’s spine, he stepped forward, a burning hatred in his eyes. The tattoo on his forehead told me everything I needed to know about his motivation: a closed eye with a line slashed across it.
He was a member of a group known as the Sightless Third Eye. A cult that believed magic should be reserved for the Gods alone, that it didn’t belong in mortal hands. They hated all mages, anyone who “twisted the Gods’ power to their will”. Being a creation of magic, I would be hated as well, as I was a symbol of everything they stood against. Not only was I made by magic, I was also a form of life, created by mortal hands.
Constructs were nothing new, golems had existed for countless centuries. However, a construct like me was new. Master sought to create a “living construct”, one that could think and reason and perform tasks even if something was slightly different than expected. Something that wouldn’t fall prey to a slight miswording of a task. Something that could work around problems that arose after the fact. I was the first success in this attempt, and the last. For whatever reason, he was never able to duplicate his victory, and the two of us had spent so many nights going over the diagrams and spells and rituals of my creation, trying to see what the difference was between myself and any of the others. Four and a half years after I awoke, we still hadn’t gotten it to work again, and the project fell by the wayside. We’ve been tackling the problem of the Storms for a year now.
The cultist had killed my Master, and now he was after me. I backed up, studying his movements, but it was clear he would be a formidable opponent. He was one of their Mage Hunters, the section of the cult that dedicated themselves to tracking and murdering mages. Highly skilled, he also wasn’t above using enchanted and imbued equipment, believing the ends justified the means. A low rumble filled the air, and it felt like a shaking but of everything, not just the ground. He closed in, grinning a snide grin. “Disgusting thing. Bad enough he made you, but inviting a Storm to kill us all? If only I could kill him several times over. I’ll have to settle for destroying his life’s work, I guess.”
Without Master’s control, the frame cracked and burst. The hole filled the room, my vision stretched and contracted. Lights, colors, darkness, clouds, everything and nothing all at once. It felt like I was crushed into a single speck of dust before exploding. That was when I found myself in the air, amid a hail of stone and glass. Maybe… if I could find that room? That might be tough, the place I arrived was bound to be full of people.
Still, maybe I could… what? What could I do? Even if I had a way back, what would I return to? A destroyed home and a dead Master? The sight of him collapsing, life fading from his eyes, haunted me. What could I do…? I could try to get home, and hope that something would present itself, but it was the slimmest of chances. Instead, I would probably get home… and dig a grave.
My eyes watered. My nose wiggling, I started to sniffle. It wasn’t long before I started crying. Thinking of all the things I’d never be able to say to him, of all the things we’d never be able to do. We’d never make another Living Construct, we’d never solve the mystery of the Storms, we’d never even understand how one led to that room and this place. Why didn’t I hear that hunter? Why did I fail to protect my Master?
The questions started to come in a flood. Why did I have to fail like this? Where even was I? What would I do? Where would I go? How would I get there? Then what? I had no plan, I had no idea, I had no orders… Master would never be able to Order me to do anything ever again! I was… a rogue Construct! Most of the time, they weren’t too much of a problem. Worst case, you simply waited until it ran out of power, but I was a special case. I was self-sustaining, self-repairing, self… I don’t even know my limits. I didn’t need to be fed power from my creator, I ate food like any living being. I breathed air, I had a heart that pumped blood. The only difference between me and a living being was that I wasn’t born, so I didn’t have a soul.
My head in my paws, I cried harder. Everything I had was gone. The Master I loved was dead. Everyone I knew was impossibly far away. The town I’d spent nearly my entire life in might never be seen by these eyes again. I wouldn’t be there to help with the harvest or the planting of next year’s crop, or help with festivals, or help with labor… I wouldn’t visit new towns with Master, either to seek answers to questions of my success, or seek funding for continued experiments, or to answer requests for assistance with various problems that required a highly-trained mage.
I was here, in this “Lapine Falls”, wherever that was. I had nothing, I had no one, and I had no idea what to even do. I was the most alone I had ever been, the most it was possible to be. I had nothing but questions, and I didn’t even have hope for answers. Just tears and more tears.