Encrusting a knoll of vivid junipers and lurid asters sat a cabin of spruce logs. Its floral garden teemed with summer monarchs and snowy finches, their melody a marriage of flit and warble.
The cabin's interior stewed in sharp contrast. Two glowering men of erudite miens sat face to face in solemn silence.
"Envoy Li, I'm afraid I misheard," said a square-beard scholar. "What do you mean, dead?"
"Palatine Du, Overseer Dolores dispatched the boy herself—"
"He is no boy!" cried Palatine Du, spraying spittle. "Your station as his teacher has clouded your wisdom. Remember yourself."
"That may be so, but dead is dead," murmured Elder Li, fluttering his lids.
"Perhaps to us, perhaps to us." Palatine Du wet his lips, hunching over his twined legs. "You were rash to approach him."
"He butchered hundreds, I feared waiting would see him slip our control."
Palatine Du sighed. "This is your misunderstanding and our failure. He was never under our control." He shook his head. "The reason I stressed he is no boy is because such thoughts are dangerous."
"Why?"
"He is ..." Palatine Du shuddered, "calamity made form. He is the Great Cleanser. We never sought to control ... only to direct. Envoy, what happens when mortals wrestle the sea?"
"They drown."
"He is the sea."
They shared a somber quiet.
"Evacuate," ordered Palatine Du, making to rise.
"What?"
"You invoked calamity, so you must flee." Palatine Du straightened his alabaster robes, strolling to the cabin door. "Bring Scáthach and the Perennial O' girl with you. Don't waste any more prodigies."
Elder Li stepped between the Palatine and the door. "Speak a sentence and not a portent. Please ..."
Palatine Du walked through Elder Li. Placing his hand on the warm brass knob, he whispered, "Our Oracles forsake this outpost. Leave, or die with it."
Creaaaak.
Shut.
**
"Understood, Reverend Maitreya," humbly intoned Vice Abbot Pratigha, unclasping his palms. "Come, Son Tathāgata, the Revered One worries for you."
"Yes, Master."
**
Dread Monarch Delilah wordlessly exited her chambers. Marching unto a terraced balustrade, she commanded, "Fetch Thrax and Ilmiri."
"Of course, Monarch."
**
Sect Master Kharon smiled in melancholy, fading into the Áïs estate. Sparing a piteous glance at Melinoë's sulking visage, he whisked the three women into his stygian chariot.
"Orphnaeus, Aethon, Nyctaeus, Alastor, we ride home. Are you excited to see Him?"
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Neigh!
**
Returned to its arcane cell in the Culling Slate's depths, Death Bunny snuggled into a ball atop the harsh granite.
Hungry.
Snore.
Hungry.
Snore.
"Squeak?" its ears twitched. Uncurling, it observed the curious prompt etched into its swirling retinas.
----------------------------------------
User [Friend Bunny] has requested ownership.
Accept? (Squeak, Chitter)
----------------------------------------
Death Bunny thought to the green-robed man frolicking in its stomach, remembering his twin's forlorn gaze when the bastard Overseer stole its furry form.
"Squeak."
----------------------------------------
Owner [Friend Bunny] has requested manual operation for [one day] with note [food guaranteed].
Accept? (Squeak, Chitter)
----------------------------------------
"Squeak!"
**
"So, you agree that 'an Embryonic Inquisitor cannot spite a Celestial Overseer with a bunny' is a pervading assumption?" measuredly asked Karma.
"That's not what I said. I said: 'Nobody would be foolish enough to entertain the thought in the first place,'" replied Anlîthëma.
Both ignored the disparaged Lance curled up a few paces away.
"But do you agree?" stressed Karma.
"I suppose I do," said Anlîthëma, hesitant.
"Then it's settled!"
That was a mistake, thought Anlîthëma.
Why didn't I just tell Father about this damned thief? thought Lance.
"Your confidence is much appreciated!" Grinning, Karma disappeared from the Death Bunny's stomach region.
And entered ... the brain.
**
Lorenzö, having long since achieved Attunement, lazily reclined atop his and Lance's original ingress point.
I can't believe Melissa called off our engagement! So what if the Selenium Clan scattered? At least she still had me; aren't I enough?
His harrowed indolence continued for many days.
Did they forget about me?
Then weeks.
They forgot about me. Just like Melissa did ...
**
Karma Bunny's yin-yang eyes scanned about his runic cage. An azure saber jutted from his left paw while his right rubbed his chin. "Hmm, which to cut? This one?"
Snip.
"Nope ... that was the water valve. What about this one?"
Snip.
"And there goes the heat. How about—eh, fuck it."
Snip-snip-snip-snip-snip-snip.
The formation blinked away, freeing Karma Bunny to the vast, dim-lit halls of similar treasure vaults. Stretching his paws, he swaggered out of the cell on his hind feet.
"I'm in."
"Phase III?"
"Phase III."
"Mercy."
**
Karma Bunny negotiated a labyrinth of corridors, hopping to and fro amid countless artifacts.
"Why doesn't he take any?" queried Lance, joining Anlîthëma in its audience of Karma Bunny's shenanigans.
"He can't. The Death Bunny's un-molestation lies in its origin as an exchange item. Hauling any unsanctioned entity into the Death Bunny Realm would render it—like us—undetectable to the surveillance array."
"Then, what's he looking for?"
"... Snacks."
**
Pirouetting about an intersection, Karma Bunny came upon a garish, ebony pedestal.
Its ward?
A lone, chalky-white gelatinous cube.
"Origin Tofu ..." he mumbled, "is that my drool or yours?"
Squeak?
"Both is good."
Sporting an avaricious grin, Karma Bunny dismantled the runic rampart encasing his treat. Raising the panacea to his muzzle, he savored a lengthy whiff.
Sniiiff—thunk.
"It went"—cough!—"up my nose!"
Badum.
"I don't—"
Badum.
"—feel so—"
BADUM.
Eddies of milky white and tarry black enwreathed Karma Bunny in concentric orbital rings. His pupils shrunk to pinpoints as anachronistic cants blared in his pink, fluffy ears:
Immortal Dogma of Samsara,
We hail you, Lord of Death,
Our dirges sing your divinity,
Our pyres bless your comfort,
Heir to our lives, heir to our hearts,
Heir to everything, hare to nothing.
Wide-eyed, Karma Bunny vibrated with rapacious vigor. "Hungry ... HUNGRY." He tarried naught, bounding in strides of passion toward the Culling Treasury's "Advancement Aid" wing.
Peals of maddened giggles shepherded Karma Bunny through a warren of innumerable wealth. Welters of miraculous herbs, divine armaments, and pinnacle techniques were bypassed by his giddy lopes.
Until he found it.
His feast.
**
"Wow! So many Diametric Chrysalises and Coalescent Legumes!"
Gulp-gulp-gulp-gulp.
"Easy there, those are Inquisitive Enzymes."
Gulp-gulp-gulp-gulp.
"That's—that's an Earthen Diadem! Bad bunny! Don't eat it—"
Gulp.
"NO! Not the Heavenly Writ! I beg—"
Gulp.
"For all that is good, please, please, please do not eat the Celestial Dichotomy! Galaxies! That. Is. Worth. Galax—"
Gulp.
Gasp!—"You call that a snack?" blurted Lance, glaring at Anlîthëma's furtive aspect.
"This ... wasn't part of the plan. He was supposed to use the Death Bunny's temporary origin boost to steal not to—"
"Overseer!"—BUURRP—"Get ready for round two, bitch!"