Warrning:

It's 'slightly' bloody and revolving around rather delicate issues - such as torture, humilation and even rape (thought i tried keepin last as plain as possible). If you want to read it -then do. You have been warned

In the forest close to the border between Arthuria and Bellarik, around a small mountain chain, there were several villages, they were pretty much outside of either nation’s jurisdiction. They were too far removed from any important trade routes or cities, and so not even noble lords bothered to go in there and impose their laws. All that these villages were expected to do was pay an annual tax - which was also incredibly low in comparison to other such settlements closer to capital.

But, that of course came with a ‘price’ as well. Because they paid nearly no taxes, they didn’t receive any help from the administration. That meant that every road, well, building, and more they used, they had to build themselves. Essentially, if they needed anything that they couldn't create on their own, they needed to go for several days on a long journey to the nearest city and buy and sell things at their own risk. With the most important note being they did this without the conventional support of any guards, city or otherwise, risking monster attacks or bandit raids.

There was one more reason why no human administration wanted to ‘bother’ with these villages. The reason was that the settlers were completely demi-humans. More specifically, beast-kin. Treated as more bestial, savage, and simple, with a far more bizarre law system and traditions, that any form of ‘imposing’ human-like ways of living was deemed to be nothing less but a waste of resources.

One could believe that such villages left on their own would let them flourish in their own micro-ecosystems. But, there was one rather major problem that these villages faced. It was the beastmen's universal ‘Law of the Strongest’.

As more savage in traditional specimens than they were, they still valued raw physical strength and agility - especially talents that manifested in combat - as superior. Hence, those villages that had stronger warriors were periodically ‘visiting’ smaller settlements to take ‘tribute’. And by the tribute read: plundering them. Taking everything that they had in granaries, some goods and tools that they produced, sometimes burning some building - just to ‘remind them of their place’, very often raping women, because - why not? If you are a wolf-men warrior with violence buzzing in your veins - literally craving for combat and hunting - and you’re facing a docile ‘rabbit tribe’, which were often already leaving pre-ready tribute at front of the gate, just hoping you would take it and leave…

… that was nearly insulting wasn’t it?

They treated them as common thieves! They were not thieves! They were conquerors! Infact, it was the final time to remind them about it!

But, why are we bothering about the events in some tiny rabbit-man village in the middle of nowhere?

Because, my dearest apprentices, someone else's eyes gazed upon this land. Someone rather ‘significant’. These were the eyes of The Divine Joker. The Godlike Fool. The Traveler in Rags. The Beast in Black.

He stared down at the board as all the pieces were laid out, begging to be put into motion.

With a shake of his hands he threw a pair of dice onto the board. They clattered and rang with a sound of thunder as they hit each other and rolled, curiously just barely passing by notable figures in this small story without disturbing them one bit.

When they came to a rest the Three Goddess gasped as their eyes widened at the result, in perfect contrast to Zariel’s eyes which had gone paper thin to match his smile.

- “No! You cannot Zariel! The order in that place is stable, it’s an unfortunate but necessary equilibrium! The events that will happen there are needed for one of our...” One of the goddesses immediately objected.

- “Do not speak to me of misfortune! You and I both know why you never cared for this village! It was but a petty quest for your heroes to fill their vapid tales of grandeur! Of how they “were too slow” to save the village! Fulfilling your sick twisted need to give reason to your “hero’s” beings.” Zariel hissed, silencing the goddess as his gaze fiercely burned her, he then returned his attention to the board.

- “Let their Fate be decided now, by their own hands, not by some abstract hero on a journey they’d never care for.” He muttered.

- “Let the games begin.” He intoned as he began to weave his tale. The Goddess nearby clenched their hands, white with indignation.

For Kai - a beastmen teenager from the rabbit tribe, the day started out as usual. He woke up early in the morning, stretched his body, went down to his mother and father to eat breakfast and prepared for a long and boring day of working in the field. They were mostly herbivores, and hence, most of their food was given to them by fertile soil. Kai loved this life. Like every rabbitman, he loved routine and simple pleasures. He loved his life with everything he had and wanted to preserve this pace and way of life.

They knew that soon more violent tribes would ‘visit’ them, and so, for the past several weeks, they were working extra hard to produce more goods than they needed. Food. Clothes. Tools. They packed it all and already loaded it onto carts, so the Lycans could just come, strap them to their mounts, and go on their way. This had been the way it had been as far as he knew, his father had known, and his father, stretching back generations further. A routine.

For days they were working till late night, even in the field, lightening their workfields with several oil-lamps, suffering bruises and twisted ankles in the process.

Small price to pay for peace.

As so, he was working today in fields in high spirits - overjoyed knowing that he contributed for - possibly - the first blood-less tribute in years! He had rough memories of previous tributes that had ended off less well, but this one would be different, they had only requested normal food and cloth this time around! Imagine that, a tribute without bloodshed, his father and grandfather had often said there was a time long ago where that was the norm!

- “I reckon we can finish fertilizing this last area before sunset Kai!” Marik, Kai’s childhood friend, enthused happily, gesturing to the parts of the field they had left to cover in manure. The afternoon sun shining brightly against his teeth filled smile.

Somewhere a die rolled and the world shifted, ever so slightly.

- “Haha not if you keep talking Marik, come on let’s finish this and get back, I know you just want to go meet…” as he brought his hoe down his body had angled just enough to miss a black spec flying over his head. A thud resounded a second later.

- “Hmm what was…?” Kai half turned to see Marik lying flat on the ground, now with an arrow pointed out of his chest, right through his heart, just as he began to hear the screams around him.

- “LYCANS!” someone screamed, and every worker started running in utter chaos, trying to find a hideout.

But Lycans - born hunters - prepared well for this hunt, no - massacre. They creeped from different directions, trapping workers in a circle of violence.

On his first instinct, Kai wanted to start running as well, in the opposite direction from which the arrow had come.

But, a peaceful creature and natural coward that he was, he froze in place, and that possibly saved his life, for his friends that had chosen to flee ran into a she-wolf that had waited behind the nearest tree in the field. She smiled as she whipped her slightly curved sword, and began separating the rabbitmen’s heads from their necks.

Kai’s knees gave up seeing this pointless violence, making him drop in the manure that he was spreading over the field.

He grabbed his head, trembling, forcing his fingers into his oversized ears, trying to stop terrifying screams of agony and death from entering his mind. He had curled up into a ball, trying to physically compress himself and escape from what was happening around him.

But, to no avail. As a beastmen, he had naturally enhanced senses. No matter what he did, he couldn't stop the cacophony of misery from tormenting his senses.

Knowing he had to find shelter he slightly raised his head and began looking for a place to hide. At first instinct, he wanted to crawl into one of the piles of hay that were raised every several metters, but quickly abandoned the idea. He looked at his dead friend, and, with shaking hands, reached out to him.

He pulled the arrow from his wound, put his fingers over the bleeding hole and started standing his own clothes with it. Then, he placed the arrow under his armpit, before rolling to the side, pretending that it was him that suffered the deadly shot. Then, he closed his eyes, and started singing in his mind a song that his mother would sing to him when he was but a child.

- “Mother, why do they bully us?” Kai, a much younger and more naive Kai, had wept into his mother’s arms after a nightmare caused by seeing some of the lycan maim those in the village during the last tribute. Seeing them casually scar, even at a great distance away, some of his neighbors had shaken him deeply.

“Do not worry about that my little boy, just sleep, sleep my little boy…” His mother then began to sing a soft lullaby, one to encase her boy in pleasant thoughts away from reality, all while her eyes glistened with her own tears at her village’s state.

‘Let me sing a lullaby

As you close your eyes

And as you're drifting off to sleep

How I hope that the dreams that you find are bright...’

Why?

WhyWhyWhyWhyWhyWhy!? Why was that happening!? They are even more aggressive than usual! Did someone offend them?!

‘dream of blue and green. Of crystal rivers and fields of wheat…’

That made no sense! Why are they doing it?! They weren't even fighting back!

‘You are safe in mother’s arms, so let the dream heal your weary eyes…’

There were steps, as someone stopped next to him.

These steps were heavy, strong, hurried, not like steps of rabbit-men.

- “Glavi! Look at this one! HAHAHA! He landed in manure! Face-into-shit! Bwahaha! What a fitting end for a trash-race”

There was a sound of someone cleaning his deepest throat, and then he felt something wet on his cheek.

Kai had been spit on.

- “Pft. Nice one, but, hey! Their women aren’t half-as-bad either. They screamed in a rather delightful way when you take’ em”

- “Speaking about which - let’s finish this. Tonight we are sleeping in their village. Their booze is decent too. Nothing beats making a mother serve you alcohol as you take her daughter over her husband's corpse!” He huffed and laughed heartily at his own joke.

- “Ha. You are sick. Even for our standards…”

There was a brief pause, before both attackers burst into mad laughter, as if one another had told the best joke in the world.

Never before had he actually directly dealt with Lycans.When he was a child he had heard horror stories of tributes to them going awry. He had known that they are ‘sick, twisted, always hungry and sadistic’, but he didn’t want to believe it. He treated it as a fairy tale to scare him from ‘talking to strangers’.

“Be nice or the big bad wolf will come and take you!”

He had often heard his mother tease, and yet, the reality turned out to be far, far worse than what he was told.

He wouldn't move. He waited. Covered in his friend’s blood. In manure. For long, long minutes, the sound of his kin being killed or even tortured could be heard. Had it been hours?

- “Hey! Nice ears!” He heard one of the attackers say.

- “Please… please! I will give you everything you want!” Kai heard his neighbor say.

- “Noo! Please no!” A nearby rabbitwoman, his wife, began screaming! “Take me not him!”

- “Now don’t you worry, we’ll get to you soon. As for you that’s what I mean, I want your ears!” He gleamed with a toothed smile.

Then, there was the sound of a sword being drawn from a sheet, and a deep guttural scream.

- “AHHHHHH MY EARS! MY EARS! YOU CUT O...!” The rabbitman wailed before being kicked across the face.

- “Stop wailing. Be grateful I didn’t take something else… I have heard that the young ones of your kind have balls that are a great component in potions of fertility…”

- “M-m-myth…” The rabbit-boy tried to murmur.

- “I have heard that too, but you know what they say? You never know until you try… I will give you a handicap. You have time till I count from thirty. Run.”

- “W-what…” He turned his head slightly to look at his aggressors.

- “Twenty-nine, twenty-eight…” The lycan counted, now on a rhythm.

- “Y-you c-can’t…” The rabbit-boy desperately tried to raise himself.

- “Twenty-five…”

There was a sudden sound of the rabbit-boy getting up, and bolting through the fields, with streams of blood being left in the air. A bunch of wolfmen burst into laughter.

- “Yo’ he is fast… at this pace he might make it.”

- “....Twenty… and....”

There was a sound of an arrow being released from a bow, and something heavy falling onto the fields of wheat with a wet thud.

- “Lycans! You cheat!” A rabbitwoman this time, screamed as she was being held down and stripped. Someone else cheered.

- “What?! When!? I said when I COUNT from thirty - never said it was to one, that’s his fault for making assumptions.”

Another sick burst of laughter echoed across the field, matching the women’s equally increasing screams.

And Kai just remained there, humiliated and terrified, begging to remain undetected.

Minutes passed, then an hour. He didn’t hear any other sound of wolfmen in the fields for quite some time, but he still didn’t get up.

Time would keep on passing, hour after hour, eventually the sun would fall behind the horizon, turning day into night. Only once he started trembling from the cold did he find the courage to slowly get up.

His feet slowly dragged him towards the village. Towards his home.

He crept towards the village on all four, looking at it from a small hill nearby. There, over two dozen Lycan warriors were partying - grilling meat over the fire of a burned building.

In some houses light was shining, there, he could see disgusting scenes, as wolfmen were brutalizing the village’s women.

In another it had been converted into a butcher’s area, with a line of struggling rabbitmen, hog-tied and gagged, being brought to a table for “processing”.

Kai was crying.

Helpless.

And as he did, he kept on crawling closer to his home.

Then, his heart would break. Shatter, as he found his father literally nailed to the door, a rabbit dart board.

Through the window, he saw something too horrifying. Something that his mind didn’t want to comprehend.

His mother…

No. No. No no no!

It was not happening. It was all a dream. A disgusting, terrible, nightmare.

He will soon wake up, go downstairs, eat a bowl of oatmeal with milk, then he will go to work in the fields and see his neighbor and friend. Living. With ears where they belong and smiles gleaming for each other!

Yes. Yes. He just needed to wake up. To wake up. To-

And, wishing with his entire being for this to be true, he bit himself, sinking his sharp rabbit teeth into his hand, hoping to wake up.

But, the taste of iron filled his mouth, and sharp pain made him hiss.

It wasn’t a dream. With that realization, his eyes opened wide, as he watched his mother being tormented by three Lycans. One of them had a long scar over his missing-eye. They railed her from behind while also tearing off small chunks of flesh from her breasts and thighs. Her wails were echoing into the night to join the others around him, contrasting the laughs from the Lycan.

… Go. Go Kai! Save your mother!

An inner voice in him yelled.

...I can’t. There are three of them, and I am alone! And each of them could break me in half with one hand!

Your mother is hurting Kai! She is crying! Move! MOVE!

...I can’t….

WHY!? WHY CAN’T YOU MOVE KAI!?

BECAUSE I AM WEAK!

He screamed in his mind, then completely collapsed, pushing his face into the ground, weeping.

- “...If only I was stronger… If only I wasn’t born a rabbitman…If only I..”

Giving himself completely to his weak state he suddenly felt odd.

The sounds had stopped. The wind had stopped. The heat from the fires and gross smells had stopped. Everything had…

Frozen.

- “Eh? So that is it. Is it strength that you seek?” A nonchalant voice echoed.

The voice right behind him made him jump up, roll from his belly onto his back and crawl a good two meters away.

Before him, sitting with his back supporting a small tree, sat a man. Human in appearance, with bizarre eyes and white hair. Kai couldn't mutter a single word.

- “I asked a question. Do you think that with power alone you could make it? Well, I doubt it. To be honest, strength alone isn’t all that is needed to kill. I mean, no matter how big they are, all you need to do is to slit their throats. All you have to do is to take a kitchen knife, and jump at them from behind. They are far too busy with your mom to react in time, no?” The being reasoned with perfect straightforward logic.

W-why is this weird person here? Why was he talking with him as if this whole cruelty wasn’t bothering him? As if it was not happening?!

- “What you lack, my soon to be friend, is a killer-instinct. You see, there is a book, called ‘Crime and Punishment’, written by Fyodor Dostojevsky - in this book, the author states - or at least how I understood it - that the strong - as long as they have commitment - have an absolute power and can create the law. As long as you tell yourself that you can kill someone - you can kill someone. Because, in the end, what separates one murder from another? What’s the difference between ambushing someone and stabbing them in the back and killing someone in the city plaza, by hanging, as someone reads the crimes of the hanged? To me, both are murder. Both are killing someone - but somehow, people think of the latter as less “murdery”, when it is done by ‘authority’, no? They even get out of their homes to see it, calling it a spectacle. I can see you saying - but in the second case, the person that was hanged was a criminal - well, how can you say that in the first case it wasn’t a private vendetta? That the stabbed man was also a serial killer and the man that abused him had his family bothered by him? You are all being fed convenient lies making you accept authority, which leaves you defenseless before it. Authority bullies and terrorizes you? Well. They can do that, no? They are law. They are stronger. They are smarter. No matter what form of authority it is - an executioner, a city guard… or a Lycan that executes the Law of the Stronger. It is so convenient to just accept a pre-ready set of rules. To tell yourself ‘you can do nothing about it’. Fuck it I say! - you can. You just don’t want to. You are just a coward, and you would gladly press your face into shit and pretend to be dead for hours just to avoid their wrath…” He ended his speech off with a low disgruntled voice.

The man was talking and talking, seemingly lost in the way his own voice sounded like. By now, Kai wasn’t sure if the man was talking to him, or himself.

There was only one thing that he noticed now - the world around him was grey. He could see a moth frozen mid air, with its wings not moving.

Time truly had frozen, it wasn’t just a delusion.

- “W-who are you…” Kai finally asked, with a trembling voice filled with fear.

- “Me? Oh, no one of import, though, some might be calling me ‘a Fate-Breaker’. I travel the world, looking for individuals, who would be willing to throw everything away just to change who they are… Tell me, little rabbit, can I perhaps interest you in a small itty-bitty-titty deal? Hmm? Is that a no?”

The man started getting up, motioning to leave

- “W-wait! P-please! Help me! Save my mother! I beg you! I will…”

The man suddenly appeared in front of him and pressed his forefinger on Kai's lips.

- “Shhh… It doesn’t work like that, little one. I can’t interfere. I am not even here. All you see is but an echo - a mirror of me. You can save her. The knife is just there on that table next to them… Actually, there is one small favor I can do for you…”

The knife suddenly materialized in the air in front of him, before dropping down.

It was the same, dull knife that he had in the kitchen.

- “B-but…” Kai stuttered.

- “But they will kill me?” the man in rags finished his own words “...But where will I go then? But what next? I will tell you. Take your mother and go north, then, bow before the fate you will want to embrace. This much I can promise you - a small haven in the North, at least for several days, enough to let you rethink what you want to do in the future. Or what you want to become.” The man explained, now with a sad smile on his face.

- “B-but still I…”

- “Kai.” the man suddenly lost his carefree mood “...Listen closely to what I am about to tell you. Do you know why the things around you are happening? Because you are weak. Because you accepted the authority of the stronger. The only way to stop it is to break free from this spiral of madness that you call a peaceful life. Tell me, do you want to be prey for your entire life?”

… No…

- “Look at the deadmen lying in the fields - after several days, no one will remember them. Stop wasting time - it’s time to act. Gods - gods are not here. Nothing will change unless you get up from your knees! No divine will help you. If you want to change your fate, do so with determination by your own two hands. Aren’t you sick of this cage? Of these shackles?! Look at yourself, look at the males of your village - cornering in the shadows, letting everything they have been working for be taken from them without a fight?! YOU ARE DISGRACE UNTIL YOU ARE STRUGGLING WITH YOUR ENTIRE BEING, KAI! LOOK WHAT THEY ARE DOING, KAI? DO YOU WANT TO BE LIKE THEM!?”

N-no…

- “Climb over the dead, Kai, keep advancing ahead! Look at their faces! Remember them! Burn their images in your brain, Kai…”

The man approached him, grabbed his face tightly and turned it towards the window, making him look at this scene, now frozen in time. The tears of his mother in free fall as the blood over her chest dripped.

His words were so soothing, yet filled with subtle anger. So calming, yet making his heart pound.

- “If you ever were to succeed you need to be prepared for sacrifices. You are not prey, Kai. In the heart of every creature lives a predator… Look at your people - like cattle - their will is frozen in their blood. They will rot in their dream in worry and care about their own little shed. Let them be in peace and celebrate ‘liberty’ - as you unleash the beast in your heart…”

His words were so appealing, seeping deep into the boy's traumatized mind.

- “LEAVE THE SHED, AND REVERSE THE ROLES! FLIP THE BOARD! LET ALL YOUR HATE POUR INTO YOUR FISTS! RUSH AT YOUR ENEMY! IT IS TIME TO HUNT - LET THEM FEEL THE TASTE OF REVENGE! WITH YOUR WHOLE ESSENCE - BECOME A WEAPON! AWAKE THE PREDATOR THAT LIES DORMANT WITHIN YOU! MAKE THE DAWN BE PAINTED WITH RED OF THE BLOOD THAT YOU HAVE SPILLED!”

The man vanished, the grey world broke, shattering like glass, making color return.

Everything returned to order - the violence. The cries. The agony - it was all there.

Back as it used to, as if nothing had happened.

With a small exception. Kai, a rabbit boy of golden heart was no longer there. Kai - one of the most cowardly rabbit-men, even among themselves.

Instead, his gently blue eyes were completely red, his frontal teeth appeared to be shorter, but even sharper, in his hand he held a knife.

And right now, he was circling his house, to get inside from the back - through a partially opened window in his room.

In this ‘new’ reality, everything was as it used to be.

Except for one boy, that was replaced with a monster.

The last thing he remembered was the same lullaby his mother had sung for him.

‘Let me sing a lullaby

As you close your eyes

And as you're drifting off to sleep

How I hope that the dreams that you find are bright...’

With blood now dripping from his eyes he moved, hoping that the tomorrow he would find would be brighter than the darkness he was in now.