That walked through the woods, the air minty with eucalyptus. Black peppermint, blue gum, dawn redwood, and sequoia were all interspersed, light filtering down in dappled greens from the canopy high above. Moss softened their footsteps as they walked around clumps of ferns and anise. It was one of the most beautiful forests Iseult had ever been in. They wound their way around a felled rainbow eucalyptus, its decomposing bark a host of stunning color. ‘Are you trying to allow the gods to die,’ Iseult asked, unable to hold the question in any longer. She had been sitting on the question ever since they had visited Tva, Orikka’s comment that they weren’t there for Tva’s life lingering on her mind. ‘It would be an option for them, should we succeed in finding a path for them to pass over the moribund.’ Orikka responded, thoughtfully. ‘Ideally they would be able to release some of their energy, releasing their internally trapped souls across the moribund into bliss, but if they choose they could pass over themselves, to let go of their resentment and purify their core, and then they would be able to diffuse as well. I want them to be able to find true peace, to be able to reincarnate.’ Iseult mulled over their answer, delicately making her way around a clump of ferns.

‘I think I found something, Nobi’ Iseult said after a while, crouching down, a tuft of tawny fur at the tip of her finger as she pointed to where it lay on the ground. They wandered the area nearby, finding more fur and droppings, searching until they found the warren. Rabbits popping in and out of the ground as they went about their day, unaware of the two higher dimensional beings observing them. Time trajectories of their furry bodies stretched behind them, outlining the vitality of their lives, visible only to her and Orikka. Ghostly apparitions of rabbits passed, those with strong emotion visible on the living world, and those pure souls, who eyed them beadily, hopped alongside their living counterparts, still caught up in their habitual behaviors.

Isuelt and Orikka set themselves up a blind nearby, calling down a sliver of cloud to a nearby tree top to watch over the warren easily. They had no idea how long it might take for Yanus to arrive, and Iseult insisted they may as well get comfortable. There were a great many rabbits living in the burrows, rabbits of every species imaginable, different sizes and ear lengths, solid coats, stripes and spots. The warren must extend far beneath the ground to accommodate all of the activity above, Iseult marveled.

‘What if, what if she isn’t coming. What if she’s already here?’ Iseult mused, much later, watching rabbits darting beneath the earth. She could be hidden deep beneath them. It really didn’t change the problem, though. Either way they just had to wait. Yanus would appear one way or another, either from the woods or from below. Hopefully. The rabbits were entertaining, at least. It was kind of relaxing watching them as they carried on, nibbling happily on the white clover surrounding the entrance.

Iseut was proven correct some time later, when a white rabbit with a scar of twisted, mottled skin on her shoulder emerged from the warren, the void inside her a whirling vortex, strong enough to pull at the souls of the living, though they remained attached to their mortal host. Definitely at god. And if that hadn’t been enough to identify her as Yanus, her one brilliant red eye and the other, a purple, fire opal eye glittered merrily from her sockets, something devious and ancient about the pairing.

Iseult tensed, attention on Yanus, watching as the god settled herself on the peak of the warrens. The other rabbits milled around her, forming a writhing circle, around and around they hopped, Yanus at their center, the eye of their storm. Their time trajectories followed, until the fourth dimension formed a sleek vortex, a tornado of time, the emotional mass of their action completely focused, stretching the spacetime around them, bending it, pulling the both ghosts and pure souls in, focusing their energies to the focal point that was their god. Yanus seemed to be saying something, her mouth moving. Until Iseult realized it wasn’t words at all. She was eating the souls that were pulled in by her congregation's actions, slurping them up like the delicious treat they were to her. Iseult shivered. She seemed exempt from the soul harvesting method, luckily. As did the other non-rabbit souls in the area, she could still see the souls of plants and insects carrying on, unperturbed, even next to the rabbit whirlpool.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Well, she thought, it was somewhat of a relief that Yanus didn’t seem to be able to see the pure souls, that she was still limited to the phase of the living. She wondered if the god even knew the souls were caught up, or if it was a happy coincidence. On the other hand, it was terrifying to know that there was a method for souls to be harvested. What if other gods found out about Yanus’ technique, or worse, replicated it? It seemed the time frame on their problem had been accelerated, if the other gods found out all the pure souls could be absorbed, corrupted. And eventually, there would be no more birth, no more pure souls to recombine and come into the living world. All of the energy of the world would be contaminated, poised to rip apart the entire universe. She shook her head, horrified by the implications. This had to stop. But would the rabbit god be willing to stop gouging herself? Novem had said that the god was half mad, would there be any reasoning with her? Perhaps they should try and bypass her, directly appeal to the rabbits she guided. What did they get out of their devotion? They had left Tva because he had failed to protect them, perhaps there were some rabbit predators in the forest that Yanus deterred?

As the circle slowed, the feeding coming to an end, the clover in the immediate vicinity, rather than being trampled, remained lush, more vibrant even, more full than before. The energy of the ritual had saturated the site, time having bent, filling the previously patchy plants with their future and past vegetation, replenishing the grove. The rabbits fell on the feast gluttonously. How frequently could Yanus keep this up, Iseult wondered, would at some point the past and future be depleted, become barren, or would the energy of the rite keep them flush with greenery?

At any rate, Yanus didn’t seem to be interacting with the moribund, though she seemed to be very nearly separating the living rabbit souls from their bodies, she wasn’t actually doing so, was falling just short of annihilating her devotee’s souls. Would at some point she become powerful enough to do so? What would happen to the moribund then, would she by bypassing it, opening a gate through it? It shouldn’t be so, she reasoned, the souls would be consumed and their bodies left behind, they should be simply dead, just in a way she hadn’t heard of before. She sighed, this was a much bigger headache than she had anticipated. ‘What do you think, should we confront Yanus, ask her about how she’s accessing the soul realm?’ She asked, hoping that Orikka might have some thoughts on their next course of action, as she was a bit overwhelmed by the breadth of the problem. Her god paused, cheek resting on their hand, considering. ‘I do not wish to reveal the moribund to this child, the gluttonous consumption of souls worries me, and I am concerned that this one might abuse the power if they were granting knowledge of the inner workings of the soul world.’ Iseult nodded in agreement. Despite this god being an entirely unknown entity, thus far her impression had been even more negative than usual. By Novem’s account Yanus had deliberately murdered her daughter Yuno, the second head that sprouted from her, now the scar on her shoulder, much after they had become a god, a death beyond the initial kin killing required for the transformation. She was a frightening creature, more so than any of the gods she had encountered thus far, as mad as Veris the chaos god, or Zsa Zsa, the witch-god. Yanus had access to the soul-world, a feat no other god had yet acquired, making her a threat to reality itself.

‘We have to step up our timeline for crossing the moribund and creating a soulgate, but first, we need to stop her.’ Orikka said, with finality, resignation in her voice.