"The sun, Lieserl. The sun..."
(Ring, Stephen Baxter)
Year 2771 Jecht Calendar.
Western End.
A man hid in the bushes, watching a trap. He had hid thus for three hours, because that was what he did. This man's name was Esorem. He was hungry.
I am the rabbit that comes to him two hours later.
He was still watching, even then.
After another hour, as the sun set, the man began to cook my body. As I slowly spun on the spit, feeling very stupid, the bushes rustled, and a man in the fantastic and elegant robes of a great sage strode out of the bushes, and into the camp.
Esorem looked at the man, the man looked back.
"...my apologies," the sage spoke, "I was looking for spirit fire. Enjoy your meal."
The sage turned, and it was at the moment that Esorem overcame his (lack of) awe, and spoke.
"Would you like some?"
What a ridiculous question! It was like asking a celestial dragon if it would like to eat mud.
Then, the sage turned back, and offered his response. "That's kind of you. Yes, with thanks."
...over there, I stood staring at the incredible scene unfolding below me. Surely my eyes were lying to me! Surely I was going mad!
"All right," Esorem said, "Then, if you don't mind watching the rabbit, I'm going to go check my other traps."
"Of course," the sage said. Esorem ran off into the woods, and the sage sat down, and
immediately began making gestures that could only have been some form of magic.
Moments later, my suspicions were confirmed as I felt a slow, inexorable tug - and with it, not a little bit of fear. This was the Samsara Breaking Method: a Transcendent Art not possible for those below the fifth level of enlightenment.
And so, clearly, the man currently making hand signs at my body was a supreme expert, and not at all a being that I could overcome.
I cursed bitterly in my heart as my body suddenly came back to life with a reflexive scream as it healed and burned and healed and burned, the sage holding it fast to life with the supreme indifference of a god.
Would that I were mortal, I would have gone mad. As it was, I withdrew from the body's sensations and stared out of it's sizzling eyes.
"Demon."
Rabbits can not, of course, speak.
"Serve me, or I will forge you into a treasure."
I nodded, carefully, inasmuch as a neck pierced through with wood could. The expert sneered. "Unveil your true form."
...the one over there? No, he couldn't be aware of that. So -
Expending a little of the power I had managed to embezzle into the world, I made the rabbit grow antlers.
Behold, sage, I thought
you've caught a Rabbit Demon.
"Insufficient," the sage said, and made a crushing gesture. The rabbit's body imploded, and my subsidiary consciousness lingered there, being eroded by the energy of heaven and earth as it had been before this particular example of powerful asshole showed up to drag it back into the body.
At least the hunter had been clean, damn it!
Without another word, the sage turned, and left - walking, incidentally, like the gobshite that he was. Five minutes later, when I was only a dull spark amidst the storm of all reality, Esorem came back. I quickly moved into his body. I was already far, far too weak to even talk to him, and my chances of influencing anything in this Kalpa were dead and gone, but I still wasn't ready to return to the interminable boredom of my true form.
At least here, I could linger a bit longer.
Turning my attention to the outside, I watched through Esorem's eyes as he cursed, and then...
began...
Oh. Ohohoh.
A little bit longer, I had said.
Another fifteen minutes, I should've.
A mortal trying to hunt down and take revenge on a Key Condensation expert. Oh, this can
only end well.
