Redmond and Harlan were looking at the now completely monstrous rabbit.

Redmond figured that Harlan meant for it to end up like this.

Harlan was baffled and a little worried that it turned out this way.

Its legs were long, its skull was long, it had antlers, its teeth had shifted in both size and shape, the fur had taken on a more tan color with a white underbelly and tail, hooves were starting to take shape on its now fused toes.

Harlan looked at it for about 5 minutes before he figured out what he thought it was.

“Ava. What did you feed this thing?”

“Well. The feed you told me to give it, and since it seemed to like meat I gave it some of those thinner pieces of meat you keep around.”

“Deer? How very strange. Did you feed it any other animals?”

“I guess not. I just gave it what Isha gave me when I said I needed some meat.”

“This is not what I wanted to do. But thank you, this might hold a lot of answers for me.” Harlan briefly wondered if it would be good to feed it beef. Or to feed deer beef. Deer was alright, but he didn’t like how it became when the fat got cold.

“You’re welcome? What was supposed to happen with it?”

“I was just making it bigger for now. But I am trying to get things to take on traits from other animals. A scaled rabbit. A deer with feathers. Things like that.”

“What good is tha-” She realized the real purpose of his work.

“NO. Full stop. Do not do that. You have enough problems as it is, don’t give yourself antlers and claws unless you want to be treated like a real monster for the rest of your life.”

“Oh, that is being overly dramatic. People don’t treat the beastkin like that.”

“Yeah, but they are just born like that. They didn’t change themselves into people with fur and horns.”

Harlan wasn’t entirely sure about telling her about how wrong she was.

Redmond made a face that Harlan was sure meant to shut up.

“So. Harlan, Ava. Both of you have butchered stuff before. It isn’t much different from butchering a… That thing. I hope it isn’t different. So, what is the first step? And do you want the entire coat and head intact? Both of these questions are related.”

“Well, for starters yes I want the entire coat and skeleton unharmed so I can study it, or have someone smarter than me study it. Because THAT is weird. Ava, you met Ky, right?”

She had a slight smile that Harlan didn’t miss.

“Yeah. I remember him.”

“You know what he could do, right?”

“Yeah. He ate magical creatures and got their powers.”

“Yes. but this is very different. He could switch those powers by just eating things, but he didn’t change that much. His hair went all wispy from eating wargs because wargs have shadowy fur that isn’t fully physical. But that… thing. Its bones and skull and fur color. Everything has changed, I assume permanently. Because undoing whatever happened would require remaking its entire body. Before we kill it. I want to look at its soul. Because that is probably going to give me answers.”

“Alright… let’s see. I bet we could hit it in the head hard enough to knock it out without killing it.”

“I don’t want to risk fracturing its skull. I have no idea if it has brittle bones or if the bones are actually harder. Strangulation maybe?”

Ava and Harlan went back and forth for a bit before Redmond spoke to them.

“Alright. It’s sleeping. It won’t be waking up any time soon.”

“What?” they both said.

“I am a certified healer. I know spells for making sleeping air, not everyone can be healed willingly and cracking skulls to knock them out just adds more work.”

“Well. that is convenient. You are sure it isn’t going to wake up and start mauling me?”

“Of course. I once had to put a great bear to sleep, and it worked just fine.” Redmond left out the part where it was already hibernating and it took him hours before he was sure it was actually in a wakeless slumber and wasn’t going to maul him.

“Alright. Let’s take it outside, I want Hech to look at it as well. Maybe someone like him will get something out of this.”

Redmond slung it over his shoulders, having to turn sideways to walk through the doorways. And they went outside. They had made a bit of a stir when they came outside and everyone saw what they thought was a weird deer before they looked closer.

“Boy… what manner of abomination have you made?”

Sindry was still sitting outside with Sen having replaced one of the guards watching her.

“No clue what to call it, I didn’t mean to do this. It just worked out that way.”

“Harlan. That really doesn’t help… You know what. I don’t want to know what you were trying to do actually. How can I help?”

Sen was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, though they had known one another for such a short time Harlan’s willingness to work sleepless nights and supply them with anti-sleep elixirs made a strong impression on top of his waving of the issue of Sindry sending Ibery as a spy.

“I want Hech to look at this with me. I don’t fully know why it turned out like this other than it had eaten deer. But that shouldn’t be how souls work.”

Sen sent one of the guards inside to tell Hech and ask if he wanted to be involved.

Moments later Hech burst outside.

“Harlan, what have you done?” Despite his words, Harlan could tell it was a tone of curiosity instead of horror.

“I made a big weird rabbit by accident.”

“Well, that sounds accurate. Shall we take a peek at its soul?”

“Of course.” Hech and Harlan were reasonably close, having both taught each other tricks of the trade and unique insights the other missed because of formal and lack of formal teachings steering them away from some things.

After 10 minutes of silence they finally spoke. Just not aloud.

“Its soul… it has these gaps. They are being filled in by foreign material. From what you have told me and my own workings. This isn’t far from how some bloodlines are formed, an adding of new material by subtly forcing an area to hold this information. But this was by accident you say? Quite odd… Quite odd… Normally it is a trying task to do such a thing, and to add completely new information by accident? Odder still.”

“I am going to let you in on some of this. But this rabbit was originally normal sized. I have been growing it by changing the soul. Maybe because it grew larger physically faster than the soul changed in size to fill this new body those gaps formed naturally? I want to dissect some goblins souls. Do people know how they adapt to their environment like they do?”

“Well, I believe they are using some very advanced instinctual imbibing technique. But if what you are saying is the case, then maybe because of their quick rate of growth mixed with them simply absorbing mana from their environment naturally they become attuned to where they are. But that would mean they should also be taking on more animal features, should it not?”

Ava saw the look both of them had, the shimmering of their eyes as they spoke with their souls.

“Hey. gonna let the rest of us know what you are talking about? I thought we were going to butcher this thing, not awkwardly stand around it.”

“Sorry. Yeah we learned some stuff. But we aren’t really sure about what it means. We should string this thing up and start that then. Hech, thank you for your insights.”

“You are welcome as always. I would never have had the chance to look over something so odd without being here.”

They bowed to one another and then Hech went back inside.

Harlan set up an arch of dirt and a pit in the ground, then he hung the thing upside down, Ava cut the throat and Harlan used a little magic to make sure the blood wouldn’t splash on them as it filled the pit.

Redmond gave them little tips about using their free hand to make sure the guts didn’t get in the way as they cut them out so they wouldn’t pierce them with their knives.

Then once the insides were clean and Harlan was done checking the organs Redmond showed them a trick to cleanly remove the pelt from the muscle underneath.

He placed his fingers inside the space between muscle and pelt and then conjured small air blades that conformed to the rabbit and cleanly cut the connective tissue without harming the meat or the pelt.

Harlan was thoroughly impressed.

Finally they moved the body to a stone table they had set up and they put the pelt on a separate table for now.

They quartered the body as one would a deer and Harlan reminded them to check for any odd growths as they were cutting.

Everything seemed fairly normal until Redmond started taking the meat off the face.

He could see that the skull was fused with a smaller rabbit skull and asked Harlan to look at it.

“Huh. so it didn’t just grow. It grew the new body on top of the old one.” Harlan cut the meat off a leg and then cleanly split it open from top to bottom.

“As I thought…” He could see inside where the marrow should be was also a second smaller bone.

“So it has two skeletons. That is… interesting?”

“It is creepy. Are you sure this stuff is going to be safe to eat?”

Redmond formed signs and mouthed words, a light enveloped the entire body but didn’t seem to do anything.

“It isn’t poison. I can say that much at least.”

Once it was butchered and Sara was told to start a stew using most of the meat, saving the rest for a testing, Redmond tanned the hide since he said magically tanning took experience to not ruin the whole thing.

Harlan wanted to mount the skull without the pelt on it, then make the pelt a rug. But he didn’t really know where to put the rug. It was too soft and would be damaged if he just put it in front of the door. But he didn’t sleep enough to justify putting it by his bed.

Mounted on a wall was his fall back option if he couldn’t figure out anything else.

For the time being Harlan wanted a snack at least. Redmond and Ava agreed.

So they spoke as they waited for Isha to make their sandwiches.

“How did you find me in the last round?”

“How are you so heavy?”

“You first.”

“I felt the shifting of the fog. Because it was made with magic, a little bit of air mana was dispersed throughout the cloud. So I supplanted the mana already in there and extended my senses throughout the area.”

“Is that hard?”

Redmond answered.

“Yes. Who taught you that?”

“Rosewell. She likes her air magic and is a bit paranoid about people sneaking up on her. She wanted to keep it from happening with me. I think…”

Harlan really wanted that talk with her at some point soon.

He hated feeling nostalgic and yet resentful of what his paranoia thought she might be. Harlan was shifting his cup awkwardly back and forth.

”You alright? You want to talk somewhere else?”

“No. Answer my question.” He felt he hid his turmoil well enough. No one else in the room agreed.

“Gravity magic. I made myself heavier as soon as I heard you coming. You were off balance when your assumption of how heavy I should be was wrong. If you learned grappling like I did then maybe you would’ve still been able to win. But instead you don’t come over to train and just built things out here.”

“Are you alright?” Harlan quickly realized that mocking was not the right tone to take at the moment.

“How about I teach you to build some stuff while we have time? I shouldn’t have said that before.”

Isha set the food down on the table which Ava ate in silence for a time.

“Alright, show me how to do that soul stuff.”

“I am not going to have the time for more than a very basic overview since I’d need to teach you a bunch of stuff leading up to proper soul work and we are already almost halfway done with the month, I could show you how to put new spells inside items though.”

“Deal.”

Redmond was glad to see things not turn into pointless melodrama. He had enough arguing in the army as is.