Since I reminded myself of this, and the story was so close to completion, I have wrapped up my little prelude miniseries.

Life and Death - the thrilling conclusion to the IStLY prequel!
Spoiler
Show
Rabbit continued to see things in death. As she cleaned carcasses while preparing meals, she glimpsed things that she somehow knew would be true. The knowledge frightened her. The blood scattered around a deer that she had brought down told her of coming shifts in the weather. But every time she saw herself, she was alone.

She was able to hide the knowledge from her mentor and lover, but her feelings were clear. She brushed off all attempts to probe, and the relationship gradually began deteriorating. After a month had passed, there was very little nonphysical feeling expressed between the two. Rabbit still loved Ego dearly, but couldn’t bear to share her horrific secret.

As Rabbit’s power grew, she found herself not only able to see things in the passing of other creatures, but able to speak with those on the other side as well. She even found the strength to command them. She remembered her vow to avenge her first mentor, and envisioned hordes or rotting corpses smothering the little town. She was disturbed by the seeming pleasantness of the thought, but continued to entertain it.

Finally, Rabbit felt powerful enough to act. She wrote a note to explain her absence, kissed her lover on the cheek as she slept, and slipped out of their home. A skeletal horse bore her toward the city on hooves of smoke and flame. She dismounted, dismissing the steed, and approached the decrepit tower on foot. It stood as she had seen it in her dreams. The windows were dark, the glass shattered. Sections of wall had collapsed as the townspeople scavenged stone. Splintered wood lay around the piles of rubble. She climbed through a rent in the outer wall, knowing the path she must follow. Knowing that the door she sought would be intact, the chamber behind it sealed by the master’s magics, everything within perfectly preserved. She stepped over rotting bodies as she ascended the stairs and the skeletal remains of those who had attempted to assault the door into the stronghold. It opened at her touch eagerly, as if it had been waiting for her.

A staff of dark wood stood unsupported in the center of the room, an onyx crystal in a setting shaped like a claw glistening atop it in the light of five candles set in the points of a pentagram surrounding it. The flames danced in the wind caused by her passage, but she knew that they would never burn out. The staff seemed to hum as her fingers closed around the smooth wooden shaft. Everything was as it should be. As it must be.

A burst of power sundered the protections gathered around the master’s workroom and blew the walls outward. Rabbit strode to the remains of a window in the outer wall overlooking the municipal cemetery, one hand raised, the other firmly planting the staff on the stone beneath her feet. The light in her aura had been completely recast into shadow. Dark tendrils swept out from her, ripping into the ground. The ancestors of the town’s current inhabitants rose from their graves, fueled by Rabbit’s lust for vengeance.

She turned as a warbling cry rose behind her. A dove descended into the wreckage of the tower, its cry becoming a human scream as it transformed into Rabbit’s lover. “What are you doing?”

“What must be done.”

The tendrils of shadow thickened into a pall that blotted out the moon and stars. The townspeople’s panicked screams drifted through the air. Every citizen that fell to Rabbit’s creations rose of its own volition, joining the throngs running rampant through the streets. In one neighborhood, flames began licking the thatched roofs of the houses. It was the only light for miles, but Rabbit could clearly see everything in her mind.

“Please, stop this.”

For no reason that she understood, knowing only that it was right, Rabbit spun the staff and smashed the crystal head into the floor. The gem shattered. Rabbit gasped as a black shard pierced her heart. The world turned gray as she fell forward. Her last thought was that the ground seemed oddly soft.

Ego laid Rabbit on the ground gently and turned her over. She bathed the wound with her tears. She felt her own power rising within her and directed it into the still form. Rabbit shuddered and spluttered blood over Ego’s face. The skin that the blood touched began to crack and smoke. Ego collapsed next to Rabbit, convulsing wildly as her flesh burned.

Rabbit bolted upright. Her eyes watered as she realized that the body lying next to her was her best friend, mentor, and lover. The crystal shard had been sealed inside her – she could feel it pulsing in the rhythm of her heart. In the growing light of predawn, she saw that the destruction of the town was complete. The undead legion now surrounded the tower, those able to do so kneeling to her. She turned away from them, and saw that Ego had brought Rabbit’s old stuffed bear with her. The dam that had held her tears back broke.

After she had cried herself hoarse and dry, Rabbit picked up Ego’s body and carried it through the streets of the demolished town. She dug a grave in what had been the main plaza and laid the body inside wrapped in her cloak, her bear snuggled against the breast. She then fetched a censer of holy water from the remains of the local temple and consecrated the resting spot, ignoring the pain of her scalded hands. The undead army watched, bearing silent witness to the only words Rabbit would utter for many days to come.

“I will never love again.”