The Rabbit Dies Pt. 06

"She likes that Lop Ear," hums Annette, "Keep doing it."

"That's the plan," he rumbles into me, "She's been holding back for a while."

"A day isn't a while, Lop Ear."

"It is for us. We have a different clock than you."

"No kidding. I'm surprised I even wanted-"

I make her stop talking. She has a wonderful voice, but it needs to sing. She wants to sing and I taste her. Intoxicating, simply intoxicating and her hands go to my hair. I have no desire to leave, so it's mostly theatrics at this point.

"That's why I wanted this," she hums, "I remember now. That's nice. That's very nice."

She grips tighter and just a hint of pain sparks through my scalp. For that, she gets a bit of teeth and the grip lightens. Not enough to stop, but she knows. And I know she knows. And I resume my own conducting exercises along the symphony of her body.

Amaru is less musically inclined, although no less artist. Sculpting, painting maybe, building the form of the sensation to a solid end point when the work is done. Patience, though, patience is the key. The sculptor cannot be rushed. For he works with stone, the eternal elemental that sits in mountains. Millennium, it takes millennium to wear them down and so to must the sculptor take years to fine tune the work into something complete. He does not have years. He has several minutes before I get frustrated and start choking him with my things. Really, we all need to calm down and go at this with our own pace, so long as I get to climax as soon as possible.

He does not take years. He takes minutes, that wonderfully broad tongue of his folding and unfolding, shaping me like wet clay. I, in turn, batter and ram against Annette, tapping into carnality and primal urge to force my way through. The beat is rushed, the strings are out of tune and I do not care. There is music from her, in her, and no matter how poorly played, it is beautiful. He makes the clay dance to the clashing they from me. Her hands are gripping my hair and that terribly rapturous pain starts tingling along my scalp. It feels good now so I refuse to let it go.

Amaru is humming a song into me and I can't quite find the melody. I can't make the harmony from Annette. Too slow, too meandering, a walkabout song that varies with rolling hills and plunging valleys and it feels good. I am the earth he imprints the steps on, the lines in the sand, the carved faces for ck and stone and he slowly pulls away the layers to find the form underneath.

I shatter Annette, my hands moving with my lips and my tongue, vivisect her weeping entrance in ecstasy. She is lost, she is lost in the turmoil of evisceration, lost all control of the self. Everything is tense within her, every muscle flexed, every joint locked and it shifts into each other until she is so tightly wound, she might burst.

The carving is coming to its end. The finished product stands on a pedestal and all that remains the curtain to be pulled back. With bated breath, the crowd waits for the final unveiling and he plunges into me and I see glorious cosmos spill from her void. Cold, gloriously cold that washes over my skin and sends lighting down my spine. Annette grips my hair in a death lock and if she tears any of it away, I will be rather cross. But she tightens and locks and settles down into a high-pitched hum against the world and it is rapturous to hear her scream my name. Her legs lock around my head and every tremble and quake is shared between the three of us.

Annette comes down first into a lazy pile of muscle and flesh. I follow soon after, Amaru doing his best to give me a soft landing in the calm embrace of his hands. He's hard. I can sense it and any man that is not hard in this instance has something wrong with him.

I guide Annette down his body once she recovers enough to start snickering. As long as she is laughing, she is alright. I worry when it stops. Together, we lavish him with kisses and licks and all the things of soft wet flesh that he likes. He groans and rumbles and I melt into warm grass on sunlight afternoons.

He is big enough to share, thick and long and twitching hard against the night. Eager, always so eager. And Annette is right. He does have a horny face, lips set and eyes narrowed like he's trying to be serious. I like it when he grits his teeth and softens the eyes when he's about to finish. Suits him much better, really. He is a mountain that is designed to be reduced to rubble and nothing more.

Annette hums again and I think I know the words to it.

"I'm the darkness, you're the starlight.

Shining brightly from afar.

Through hours of despair, I offer this prayer.

To you, my evening star," I hum along. Fairly certain those are the words, but every rendition tends to modify the tune just a bit.

The cold falls away to the bitter heat of his flesh. He is a man and two women are on him, adoring, lavishing him with wet hot attention and there is only one inevitable response. He does not pull my hair. He just instead grips at the floor like he's trying to reduce the whole of the boards to splinters.

I can sense the pulse and throb in his veins as he simply cannot withstand any longer. I do not blame him. I eagerly redouble my efforts to finish hum, reaching his peak while Annette goes lower, lower and lower still. He grunts and moans my name to the rafters as the first shot hits the back of my throat.

Salt and heat sliding down, filling me, settling heavy in my stomach and dragging me down. Annette taps my cheek and I take a moment to decide whether or not I want to share. She keeps poking me and that doesn't make me want to move. But I am kind and forgiving and I do not want to deal with a pouting Annette anymore. So, I swap and watch her devour him. With no small amount of pride, I realize that I can still take him deeper, despite all the practice she's had.

Amaru stops and goes limp after a long, long moment. It's all quiet in our little hovel at the end of the world. The fire still cracks and snaps at the edges of the room, down the embers. A frog croaks at the water's edge and I have an Amaru to lay on and feel his heartbeat dim. He puts a hand around my waist and there is no hesitation anymore. I think I've made it abundantly clear that I enjoy his company. Annette swings in, finding another arm to drape over her back. Everything is so warm now.

---

I do not get a good night's sleep. I do get a good hour or so to myself and a dead mind that stops thinking. Annette gets slightly more than an hour and Amaru gets a smidge more than that. I hate them for that. They should suffer as I have with too little sleep. Although they get to keep the bodies pressed into them. I have that and that is nice. Everyone should have a body to sleep on, especially when it remains nice and cool throughout the night.

But I am up and on my feet with my hands creeping towards my hammer. Heavy, still so heavy and wonderful as my arms work through the stagnant rust.

"Claire," Amaru yawns, "What's going on?"

"Quiet. I don't know. Feeling, just a feeling."

A branch cracks outside the walls and I almost jump. It smells off. Nothing green or wooden or mossy. Even the mildew working its way through the rotted floor isn't there. There's just nothing, but this dry must weaving and swirling.

"It's just an animal," he says, "Come back to bed. It's still late."

"I'm with Cottontail," says Annette, "Something's up. I'm not hearing anything."

"That's good though."

"Like 'anything' anything."

It is silent, so incredibly silent. The frogs and the toads, all the little buzzing insects that poke and prod the mind, those are all deathly silent. Silent as the grave. I grip the hammer tighter and tighter and I do not like the lack of noise coming from the world. Annette goes for her daggers as I dress as much as I can. Should have brought some armor with me, but I am not lugging a full kit up to the frontier without payment. But a thin layer of cloth is better than nothing at all.

I move to the window as silently as I can. Dark, so incredibly dark out, not even the moon hangs in its solemn watch over the world. The mist from the lake has spilled over, covering the ground with its snaking fingers. It writhes like a worm nest with the cold chill of the moonless night. I don't trust it. I don't trust nights without a moon and I don't trust this night. Another branch snaps and my hand twitches on the handle.

There are figures out there. I can't see them, but I know, I know that there are things crawling in the dark forgotten places with sharp teeth and empty stomachs, waiting to devour and sate their violent urges. I grip my hammer tighter. Shield, I need a shield and I don't trust the wood on the house to do me any good. Traveling light is always a mistake, always, always, always. Keep to the herd with the armor and the bows and the mages who call down fire and lightning at my back while I bend and break and crack the line. That's the strategy and right now I only have a handful of daggers and dull sword at my back. But I can't let that get to me. A threat, at threat stands at the gates.

Another branch cracks and now whoever is out there is just playing some game with themselves. Laughing, I can feel the laughter rock through the world and I don't get the joke.

"Little bugs, little bugs," whispers the fog.

"Little weeds, little weeds," murmurs the mist.

"Little vermin, little vermin," mutters the haze.

"We have come to play," says all three combined.

"Ok," says Annette, "I don't like these guys. Rob us or kill is or whatever, but don't play this stupid mind game. Tell them to eat shit, Claire."

"Tell them yourself."

"Eat shit assholes," she yells, "I hope you fall on your blades."

"What fun, what fun, what fun," says the trio on the outside, "Thought they would be asleep, but they're awake and alert."

"Bloody and red," says the mist.

"Burned and charred," says the haze.

"With every inside on the outside," says the fog.

The forms finally come to the senses I can put into words. And that word is black, simply black. Darker than night, darker than ash and coal, darker than the hidden parts of the world down in the depths of souls and minds. There is only the form of flowing robe and sweeping cloth. As one, a limb extends and blade, curved and shape, forms from the fog.

"I'm going out there," I say.

"I'm coming with you," Amaru says.

"No, you're not."

"Claire, there are three of them. You need someone else. I don't care that you're good at this part. Three on one isn't fair odds. And I'll feel a lot-"

"Can you kill someone?"

"What?"

"Can you take that sword of yours and kill someone with it?"

"I... I don't know. Maybe, if-"

"If the answer isn't a confident 'yes,' then you stay behind. I don't know who these people are or what they want, but it can't be good. And if you can't go that far, then you're better off hiding."

That hurts him. I see the look cross his face and I do not care. I will care later. But not now. Scary men are outside and I need to do something about that and if he wants to actually go out there and help me with the bloody work, then he will have to do some rather ugly things. I don't think he has it in him to do those ugly things, despite what he thinks.

"Amaru," Annette says, "There will be time to get your kill count up. Not now. There's a root cellar under the floor. Get down there and just be quiet."

"What are you going to do then?"

"Put on a show. It's what I do."

There's a knock at the door and I pull away from the wall. The fog's too thick anyway to get anything tactical. I loosen my shoulder. It pops and snaps. Bad sign, very bad sign. Too long, been too long since I've swung my hammer with any heavy intent behind. But it will work.

I hear a door creak open and it's not the front one. Amaru has decided to swallow his pride and make himself scarce. He will get a balm later once the world is safe and calm again. The knock comes again and it is growing impatient. It can wait. I feel like being a rude host anyway.

"Don't have a lot to give in the way of offense, Cottontail," Annette says.

"What do you have?"

"At this short notice, smokescreen and some decoys. That's all I can do while making myself and Lop Ear scarce."

"More than enough. Can you give me some music, too?"

"That's coming your way for free. I'm headed up to the roof. I'll call if I spot anything."

She hums and starts plucking the strings softly. Her form wavers and vanishes like smoke in the wind. The knock comes once gain and I do not like their insistence. They should have picked up the hint that nobody is home and that they should do their business somewhere else. They don't of course and that scent, dry dust and stagnant air hangs heavy in front of me. I move to the door and take a deep breath. There is still the chill of the night air, the fresh dew forming on the grass, the still water of the lake underneath. No matter who they are, they cannot cover that up.

One more knock and I use that moment to kick out the door. It goes flying off the hinges and some poor robe is getting mud and grass stains all over it. It didn't make the choice to be worn by this fool, but that's just the way things go on. The figure in the mud starts laughing.

"Fun, what fun, brothers," it chortles, "Fun, fun, fun. We knock on the den's door and the door knocks back."

All three of them break down into that same manic laughter of a joke shared and not understood. The black-green smoke starts spilling from the open doorway, swirling around my legs. That sends another fit of high-pitched laughter through the gathered robes.

"Fun, fun, fun," says one that has decided that it shall be the first to die, "Smoke and mirrors, smoke and mirrors and all the bells and whistles. The rabbit vermin has tricks and we have tricks too."

The mist coils and writhes and fills the robes until whatever is solid in them withers away. In perfect heaps, the cloth falls into snaking piles. I ready the hammer.

There is no trick I have, no clever gambit, no grand twist to yank the rug out from under them. I feel the magic whirl around me as Annette continues to weave. That is her domain. I am the one with the hammer. There is only one solution I know. And it works. The cleverest of strategists cannot outthink their caved in skull. The traps and the schemes do not work if the machinery underlying them is in tattered pieces. There is another me at my side, stone still. It does not breathe. It does not blink. My chest sticks out very far. Never realized that. I have noticed it, but it's never quite hit me. Or it could be artistic license. I'll chalk it up to that and broach the topic at some other point. I do have a good ass though. That is not an embellishment from the artist.

I start the march down to the center of the road. Mist and smoke, mist and smoke intermingling with the scent filling my mind. Dry so dry, despite the lake and the mud and the grass. I feel it choke down my throat, turning it all to sand and grit. My double walks with me, its movements slow and stiff. It has its back to me.

A twig snaps and I whip my neck towards the sound, only to find nothing at all. Something rakes across my back and I smother a scream. Cold, not cool, not refreshing, and solid, but frigid cold of winter storms seeps into the wound. I touch the wound and wince. It's wet and warm, not in the good way. I wipe my hand clean.

The smoke swirls for a moment and I see an arrow pointing to my left. I swing and feel the wonderful impact of something heavy breaking. I love the way bone feels when it shatters, like dry wood under an axe. I love the reverberations that travel up my arm and settle in my stomach. I did that. I broke something in someone else and now whatever is on the other end is forever changed.

The mist laughs and laughs and laughs in the manic lunatic high. I can only see black.

"She swings, she swings, and she breaks," the trio laugh. I can't hear any of them wheezing. Nothing at all to indicate a hit. They're all fine. An arrow in the smoke to my right and I swing again and that same rapture vibration rattles my core. I am the hammer. I am the impact against bone and flesh and blood.

Another rake across my back and I do not let the yell out. Pain, wonderful pain and smoke and mist and all I have the hammer in my hand. I step forward and let my weight settle in my back foot. The smoke keeps painting targets and I keep swinging and breaking things. Splinters and shatters and tatters in the world, in the bone, in the cloth and I keep letting the weight fall.

More than three, I have broken more than three and that is a sign to start to pull back. The decoy does not break. I don't think anything has happened to the blank facing me. Nothing bit. My foot hits a rock and I do not fall.

"Annette," I whisper, "What's going on?" the smoke carries my words in a loving embrace up to the roof.

"Not a damn thing. Fog's too thick. The smoke is just giving me bodies. You've hit at least five of them and they aren't moving anymore."

"Are you and Amaru still safe?"

"My perch is surrounded in mist, but nothing's come at me. Amaru's still in his hidey hole."

"Get rid of the decoy. They're not biting for it."

A moment and the other me dissolves into black-green smoke, lovingly coiling around my hips before joining the cloud.

"I'm pulling back to the house. Get somewhere with a sight line and we'll go from there."

The smoke parts for a moment and I see the steps back to our special hovel appear through the gray fog. I step over the door and let the smoke fill in the threshold. There is laughter again, maniacal high laughter through the walls that shatter the fog and rattle the walls. A knock at the door that is not there anymore and I raise the hammer as another deluge of slick blood crawls down my back.

I hear the steps now, the branch snapping steps of the trio outside. I hear the laughter, the snickering giggles, and chortles of some grand joke that I do not get. I see the glint of the blades they all wield catch what little light there is and fling it with reckless abandon.

"Annette, give me something."

The world shatters and breaks as she starts playing in earnest.

"Under the lonely moon

In an influx of words

This road shines with my colors," she sings.

I see the words rattle the fog in hurricane waves. My grip is still strong, still earnest, still vicious. The music, the rapturous music of lightning fire down my spine gives me strength. Cold, I am still cold, but raging cold. Furious cold and I still have my hammer. There is a mate to protect and a mate to aid and I cannot lose.

"She's cornered, she's cornered, she's cornered, in her little burrow," the mist laughs.

"But cornered things tend to bite and tend to snap and tend to claw," the fog chuckles.

"Then break the teeth, break the-"

The haze doesn't get to finish the thought. The hammer has taken the place of anything capable of thought. One by one, I knock their skulls against the head of my hammer and return them all to dust.

I stop after the third. Heads do not turn into dust. There tends to be a small amount of wetness and meat to the whole affair. But there is none of that here. There are only piles of dust, splintered bone that settles into a messy heap at my feet. Skeletons, just skeletons. The floor creaks and I feel the cold panic settle in my stomach.

"Amaru," I yell, "Amaru. Get out of the basement."

There is no response. My steps shake the foundation with the rattling earth beneath all of us. I find the door down and kick it open. Weak, the entire house is weak. Not safe. Not safe at all. I should have followed the rabbit away to somewhere warm and dry and better than here. But I didn't. I am here and Amaru is fighting and he shouldn't. He needs to be safe and happy and warm and he is not. The door splinters against the stone foundation. Louder, I want the music louder and it is. It is in my head, in my flesh, in my joints and I am marching down into the cold earth with a maelstrom overhead.