The Rabbit Dies Pt. 08

He tries. Amaru tries so hard to get me to scream something, to beg him to stop, to get him one up on me. And he gets nothing. The most he gets is a slight sigh and clench of my core to wring him dry. He gets another smirk and dark glance of my own to contemplate for the next strike. It comes and I sigh and shimmy. I hold, I hold him for a brief moment at his deepest, savoring the full sensation in my core. I flex and tense and writhe over him. His legs give out and I am supporting his entire weight along my back. Annette's legs are trapped. We are all locked and chained and bound to one another.

"Are you done," I say, "I'm not feeling done."

"Just give me a second," he pants, "My hand slipped and I couldn't keep myself up. And now my palm hurts."

"You hit too hard, that's the problem," says Annette.

"She told me to do it."

"I was goading you and you fell for it like an idiot."

I turn over my shoulder and kiss his chin. I could probably go a bit farther, but I don't want to bend too much. That might send us all toppling down our summit.

It feels so high up here, although it can't be more than Amaru's height. If it is, it's only by a bit. But with the flat land stretching forever, I can see the world bend beyond the horizon. An endless sea of pink rose grass waving in the wind, and we sit above all of it. I push my back into Ammy, feeling the soft heat of his chest piercing through the chill of his skin. The swirling temperatures, never mixing, never middling, always sends tingles and shivers and sparks into me. Eventually, the weight lifts and he is standing tall on the mountain top once again, surveying the land in all of its glory as he sits in all of his.

The speed comes quicker this time. The rhythm settles into its pace and I feel the stars come out once again, popping into existence for brief moment before snuffing out like midnight candles. Each one gone in an instant, but the afterimage burned into my mind feeds the next one to grow brighter, brighter and yet brighter still. Sunburst nova in my core blooms like searing desert wind where is tip ends and I being. Heat, white hot heat intense enough to have no concrete sensation. I moan with utter abandon. I cry into the barren sky that I am pleasured and sated. I roar into the air that this feels so fucking good.

The climax hits and what little coherence I had fades into the pure white nothingness of the stellar collapse in my core. There is more warmth there, that heavy thick seed pulsing out of Amaru. That does lend some amount of grounded realization to the whole affair. Not a lot, though, not enough to make me a sapient being. Just a beast bent on the pleasures of the flesh, the raw ecstasy of union and coupling and warmth filling my soul. Just under my skin, just under the surface, the starlight dances and tingles and sways in union with the primal abyss we all crawled out of to assert our civility. That is a lie. There is only the warm black darkness of pleasure and stillness. We will all sink back to comforting embrace, once the farce of our agency fades.

The starbursts fade on, dimming and lightning with no rhyme or reason. Chaos, pure chaos condescends into my body through Maru and I simply ride with it. There are stars in the sky to guide me to the end, but they come after galaxies of their kin. I jump from one light to the next as the warmth continues to spill into, never ceasing, that same endless ocean from before cresting numerous tidal waves of seed. Heavy, so heavy, dragging me down until my arms cannot take any more and I have to bring my cheek to the warm sunbaked stone again.

The final stars give wave and I can feel the softer sensations of reality again. The soft breeze carrying the scent of dry grass, the call of some mournful bird my mind is too taxed to recall, the fall of warm bitter salt rain down my back. Shame its not all inside me, but there is a pleasure in being a canvas in all senses of the word. Amaru's weight is back on me as the glow suffuses my body in the waning starlight. Cool, he is nice and cool. I turn and kiss his chin again. It's a good place to kiss, really. Not that he has a bad one per se, but there is a definite hierarchy of places I like.

Annette is choking me. I do not have the faintest recollection of what I have done to her, but she is still reeling from it, her own arcs hitting my cheeks, my chin, my nose. Her back is arched over the lip of the rocks, only the weight of Amaru and the interlocking limbs keeping her steady. She starts laughing, rivers and streams pouring from us all, a torrential monsoon of our bodies. Annette slowly starts undoing the knots and slipping to the ground. She looks at me and doubles over, clutching her stomach.

"I can't believe you let him finish on you. You look like a mess," she says.

Amaru takes his sweet time pulling out and rolling off, leaving that empty hollow of sweet misery within me.

"I feel fantastic though," I say.

"I bet. How about you, Lop Ear? Anything to add?"

"Not a thing. I'm feeling good. Really good. Little worried about what's going to go down in the future, but that's the future. Right now, I'm still basking." With the act complete, he too slowly dismounts from the rocks to the grass, the blades parting around his toes.

I stay on the rocks for a good long while, standing and stretching and looking over the horizons. Even now, the moon still hangs in grand defiance of the sunlit world.

"Hey Amaru, would you mind taking off the bandages now?" I ask, "I think I'm good."

---

I smell smoke, gentle wavering pipe smoke, glancing through the stars. And I wake up alone. My back is smooth, albeit scarred anew, but I am alone amid an endless sea of grass. Green grass, almost blue in the midnight moon. Stars shine and dance their celestial dance so far away. A streak and then another crosses the sky for a brief moment before fluttering back to the endless black. I spend a brief moment watching the Grand Star Road carry on its incessant journey east.

"You here Warren?" I shout to the endless sea of wavering grass.

"Down here," he says, almost on my feet. Three smoke rings come from the blades. I move to lie down next to where they came from.

As always, he is turned to the sky, half propped up on some rocks that haven't received the message of the grass' supremacy. He watches the stars and the streaks and all the wonderful endless things of the cosmos turn and turn and turn some more. Everything is content with what they are. There is no reason to change any of it at all. It will carry on whether either of us see it or not.

"Back healed up alright?" he asks.

"Probably going to scar," I say, "But I'm not the one who has to look at it, so what do I care?"

"I think you care a little. The body's changed and that's always a big deal. I remember once when I broke my toe. Had a right conniption when I saw that it healed crooked. Granted, I got used to it, but every so often, I'll glance down there and see something that could have been straight and narrow. Saw you met Soddal. She's nice. I like her. A little smothering at times, but hey, what are you going to do?"

"Didn't really get a chance to talk. What was the dice?"

"Why do you use a hammer? Or Annette that stringed thing? Or Amaru, his cock? We all use whatever works for us. What do you think this pipe is for?"

"Smoking."

"Not wrong. Mostly right, even. But this is something special. It was a gift. So, I keep it on me and it makes me feel better when I smoke it. Shooting star. Make a wish."

I do not make a wish. I just look to him and see a man's face set in stone, deep bags under his eyes, every single heartbeat drawing him deeper down into an endless pit of exhaustion.

"Got all of your affairs in order?" I ask, "Done everything you want to do?"

"I ran out of stuff I wanted to do a long time ago. Part of why I'm asking you to do this. But yeah, everything's set. The world will keep turning. Hell, the world would keep turning if I did nothing to prepare. It certainly turned before me. Before us."

He takes a shallow pull from the pipe and lets it flow through the nose.

"Thank you for trusting me."

"As much as a bastard as sometimes are," I say, "You're very rarely wrong. If anything, that makes you more of a bastard."

"That arm thing, right? Can't tell you how many nights I used that trick to save me some hassle."

"The arm thing. The tongue things. The hip things. Even the hammer things."

"Those ones were second hand, in all fairness. But I'm glad you got some use out of it. I certainly didn't."

"Taught me more than the Burrow ever did, that's for sure."

"Don't be so hard on them. They teach people how to be in the Burrow, and they do a very good job of it. Its not their fault you decided that the Burrow is a godsawful place where no one should ever go."

"I just don't want to deal with Estlin again."

"Yeah, he's not great. Got some game, though. Have to give him that. Never found a reason to talk to him though. Kind of boring, really. But you'll be fine. I've met maybe one person more stubborn than you. And stubborn gets a lot done."

He sets the pipe down and turns to me. He has soft brown eyes, watery and clear. I've never noticed them, but they've certainly noticed me. Young, so young. He looks so young, like he just hit that invisible line that makes him a man. He smirks and huffs through his nose and moves his hands behind his head.

"We're not so important, y'know," he says, "People say we are, but they're really talking about themselves. I have only one who walks with me that I talk to and look at all the people who come flocking."

"Why do you talk to me?"

"Because you let me. And you don't ask things of me. You ask a lot of questions, but they're ones I don't mind answering. Do you want me to ask you questions? I know most of the answers already, but there's still something to be said for answering?"

"I don't really have all that many, to be honest. But it can wait."

He shrugs and moves to hand me the pipe and he just gets a hand to stop the offer.

"Amaru and I are good, I think," I say, "Annette's always been good, but I'm not the best at this part of the relationship. The physical stuff, that's where I shine. Talking, though, never that good at it."

"Sometimes you don't need to be," he says, "But a lot of the times you do. You're going to keep charging forward, no matter what. I'm not worried about you Claire. Never have been."

"Still, I'm not sure what's going to happen afterwards."

"Did you care what happened after the Saavedra job? Or the whole bit with the Squirrel & Hawk Rebellion?"

"Not really. But I was alone for all of that. Now I'm not. I want to keep going with Annette and Amaru. I might even want more."

He chuckles and the option of violence comes to my mind. I don't have my hammer, but I have hands and those can be rather devasting.

"And now I kind of don't want to die, just to see you juggle a harem. That's a disaster waiting to happen."

"So, we can all turn back and I can start on the Burrow 2?"

"Oh no. That's still happening. I'm going to miss a lot, and I mean a lot of interesting things. But I'm good. I am going to miss our talks, Claire. They've been fun."

He offers the pipe once again and I mull the decision over. I take it and breathe in. I cough and hack and bolt upright, trying to clear the noxious smoke from my chest and I all taste is ash and bitter and smooth death coursing through my veins. Warren breaks down, laughing and laughing and laughing. The grass and the wind laugh with him and I will strangle them all.

"I did warn you," he chuckles, "I told you its not just pipe weed. There's some heavy shit in there. But keep at it. It's an acquired taste."

I shove the pipe back I his hand and go back to looking at the stars. Despite its rough entrance, the smoke is settling in my blood, turning the claw and clutch back on to something ravenous. I think I'll like my dreams tonight. And Amaru and Annette will be there in the morning to make them a reality.