Rhizome was confused as he attempted to wander the warren. His body refused to awaken since his almost-drowning. He wasn’t a ghostly apparition; that implied something perceptible, if not tangible. Rhizo lacked any pretense of a form; there was only a place his perceptions came from. Moving that was like sliding an eye around his stomach without paws.

Perhaps he was dead, with his spirit looking for Death to escape this place. While he might have been initially drawn to Erebus, the more he attempted to move, the less he could. Panic was different without a body, more an intellectual feeling of being helpless. The lack of panicked breath brought a different concern.

Something grabbed him. Without a manifestation, it seemed impossible to be contained, but whatever held him did not care about such nuance. Rhizome didn’t have limbs or muscles to flex, but he struggled against it somehow.

“Calm down. Follow where I’m pulling you.” The words came as knowledge, not language, not spoken, just understood.

The direction offered was not a traditional one. An incomprehensible distance to a wooden covering that blocked the entrance to a burrow. Rhizome flailed at it for a moment before a metal part off to one side got pushed down and the covering fell inward. This other place had something like a body that Rhizome fell into, but it was balanced oddly and he hit the floor on what he didn’t know were called arms. A second rabbit helped him onto his feet.

“I thought you’d be familiar with this. My brother used it before.” This time, it was a voice. Still more thought than language, but it at least felt familiar.

Rhizome stared at his paws. He flexed the extra toe on the inside, and turned them over, before that felt too unnatural and shivered. “Am I dead?”

“Not as you mean it.” The other rabbit was standing on his hind legs, and reached out to stabilize Rhizome. “Fate wants to talk to you.”

This form had a heart that could beat from fear, but he was getting a little more steady on his feet. He flicked his ears. “Are you him? Prince Twilight?”

“No.” The other rabbit thought. “I represent Life as my brother represents Death. The one you call Prince Twilight is actually our sister. She is Fortune and the safety of the burrow.”

“I hope I did not offend.” Rhizome awkwardly went to nudge the other rabbit and almost fell again. He sighed, hopefully Erebus’ family would be understanding. “I hope she’s okay with being called Prince.”

“She doesn’t care. Most gods don’t.” He offered a forepaw for some inexplicable reason. “I’m Aether. I understand my brother trusted you with his name. Perhaps that’s why Fate wishes to talk to you. He’s in a lot of trouble for saving your life.”

“He couldn’t. He didn’t?” Rhizo objected, “Ghostpaw wasn’t really going to drown me.”

“He was.” Aether withdrew his paw. “Did you not hear Erebus refuse to take you? How are you in this form if you don’t know how to use it?”

“I don’t know. I was drowning, shouted that I wanted to live, and… then I was sorta watching Erebus talk his way out of that burrow.” Rhizo flattened his ears against his head. “I’m sorry. None of that makes sense to me.”

Aether frowned. “He refused to take you, and said it wasn’t your time. It’s never happened before, and he might not be allowed to return. And if he remains mortal, maybe he’ll die.”

“How could that be allowed to happen?” Rhizome shivered and found himself crouching and hugging his legs.

“You better be sure it doesn’t.” Aether stomped toward the entrance. “If you’ll excuse me, I have a message to deliver.” He opened the wooden covering to exit and closed it behind himself with a loud thump.

A soft voice came from deeper into the burrow. “You’ll have to excuse him. He’s worried about our brother. Darkness acted rashly and let instinct override reason.”

Rhizome stumbled past a small run, a strange opening between two of the kettles of the burrow that was only a paw’s width. The kettle was lit like day, with tiny stars or soft suns placed around the room, giving off light. Had they been in the other room?

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Sitting by a large mural on one wall was a giant furry spider with too many legs. The many legs ended in rabbit feet, with the lower legs larger. Her rabbit head was adorned with the strange eye-clusters of a spider, all of which had irises and pupils. The large chewing teeth of a rabbit jutted out from the sides of her mouth like a spider’s mandible. Absently, she continued to work on the mural as she tilted her head to welcome Rhizo.

Fear is a strange thing. The physical terror he should have felt would have forced him to be quiet. Without such concerns, there was only the emotional side of it. A sense of the strange, without any specific feeling in his gut. He kept his breathing shallow lest he scream when he tried to respond. On the other paw, the lack of a creeping feeling or other unpleasantness made recovering easier. Once his mind understood there wasn’t immediate danger, his emotions were willing to follow.

He fought to keep his tone soft. There was danger here, if he was careless. “It’s good to meet you. I’m Rhizome. You probably knew that already.”

“Nice to meet you as well. I am Nyx, but Fate will do as well.” She held out one of her smaller paws, expecting something.

Confused, Rhizo leaned forward to sniff it. He had planned on supporting himself with his arms, but this form didn’t move like that and he fell forward. Fate caught him.

“Steady.” She shook her head and turned to the mural nearby. Two of her paws dipped into small clay containers filled with pigments, and made a small change to one of the lines. “Forgive me, I thought my brother might have shown you this form. Your thread is frustratingly difficult to read.”

The change was subtle. A shifting of proportions, forelegs returned without that odd extra toe that opposed the others. Rhizome sat back on his haunches. “I don’t mean any disrespect.”

“Yet, that is why you’re here.” She traced one of her many forepaw-toes over the jumble of lines and notations that took up the entire wall. “Your fate is shown in my mural, my tapestry. You seem to have found a loophole in what was written. While the weasel was to inspire your search for heroes, it was supposed to be with his death. Technically, nothing you have done is outside of your story. You were supposed to find the stories of others false. I did not expect that to apply to mine.”

Was he just a story? Some paw of Fate that was unable to create his own path? Was him changing visions something he was simply fated to do, and not even his choice? Rhizome felt ill at that thought, but what could he do? Fate was writing his story, even now. He thought about stopping her. Erebus made a sacrifice to help him, to bring him here. Wasn’t the best use of that opportunity to stop Fate?

“No,” Rhizome said. “I don’t believe in enemies.”

But, wasn’t someone who could write his thoughts, who could change his form, too dangerous to allow to continue? What if Fate decided the test was over? What if she simply declared he had lost? She was making sure Eitan died the next winter. She had clearly caused Eitan’s mother to die. And what of Whitepaw? Fate’s original plan was to kill him.

“Stop!” Rhizome shuddered. “I don’t want to hurt you anymore than you want to hurt me.”

“And what do you know of what I want?” Fate demanded.

“I know if you wanted to hurt me, you have the power to do it. Perhaps it is forbidden, but that didn’t stop Erebus from trying to help me. Your goal isn’t harm; you want me to lose.” He hesitated. “No. That’s too simple isn’t it? I made a mess of things, and you want to fix it. And you don’t know what fixed looks like.”

“How is it that you don’t blame me? I’m going to hurt you. I’m going to hurt your friends. I must confess, I did arrange for Erebus to become mortal.”

“He wanted to participate,” Rhizo said. “You gave him a chance to do so. Can you really tell me that wasn’t for his benefit?”

“I don’t know if he’d see it that way,” Fate admitted. “I don’t know if that was really my intent. Maybe I wanted to see if he understood the danger.”

“So, the mess I made, your mural says I should make it.”

He couldn’t win. Not like this. He was angry, but that anger wasn’t his choice. It was natural. His desire to break her pots, spill her pigments, free himself. Those were the thoughts he should be having. But they were thoughts she had written or was writing for him.

“I have to find my own voice. Maybe that’s what my fate is supposed to be, but you can’t control the form that voice takes.”

“And what will you do with that voice? What story will you tell?” She fixed her gaze on him. “You were asked this once before, were you not? What will you do with your life?”

“You’re the one telling it.” Rhizome laughed. “No, I am the one telling it. I am the one doing things you didn’t notice. Things that were in your tapestry, but you didn’t put there.”

“The only way to make your own story is to get me to stop writing it.”

“But, you wrote that solution.”

“Yes.”

Rhizome turned and hopped to the entrance. He threw his weight against the covering once, then flailed at the metal thing that Aether used. Something caught and it opened. Rhizo exited without any further word.

Fate looked at her mural, at the web of stories and lives, and traced Rhizome’s to the present. Yes. In the past few moments, it had definitely changed. Had he done it?