(( art by dark_roast - archiveofourown dot org /works /7586881 ))

So, I've been asked to write the next part of our saga.

Up until now, events have not really involved me. I was almost entirely unaware of what had been described so far except for what I had been told by the other two. Even when my own informants returned to me, they only had a small part of the tale to tell: namely, that they had managed to track down my cat when he finally decided to stay in one place, time and possible sequence of events for more than five seconds. Mittens had, apparently, grown exhausted from leading them in a merry chase across the four corners of the Universe (Bunfire reliably informs me that the Universe does not literally have four corners, by the way, it actually has zero, or possibly infinite, and that I should think of it as a sphere but with about nine added dimensions of various types) and had spotted something soft and warm to curl up on top of for a nap. The 'something' turned out to be a sleeping fire giant. My informants were about to petition a local adventurer's guild for assistance with rescuing my cat from said fire giant but fortune favoured them and it looked as if they could resolve business peacefully after all. Weakened and exhausted, the fire giant was in no mood to attempt to immolate the planet with my cat still on it, and was in fact just looking for some strong drink, friendly company and a way to make money. They took an assignment with the Guild, planning to retrieve the cat as soon as they managed to separate it from the flaming behemoth who had adopted it. Fortune turned upon them, however, and the job became complicated, causing them to lose sight of both Mittens and the giant.

Soon after, an invading alien fleet descended upon the planet and strip-mined it of all its resources, not even showing their faces to the inhabitants but sending down a completely automated factory. For all the people of the planet knew, the aliens may not even have realised it was inhabited by intelligent life. Rather suspiciously, Mr. Massebot also told me he saw a vision of Spatula the night before. Together with the disappearance and possible endangerment of a sacred cat from one of Her temples, the order of events was unlikely to be coincidence.

Yes, as you may have guessed, Perfidy and Massebot were my agents. Or, rather, they are good friends of mine who happen to be the owners, as well as pilot and navigator, of an airship equipped with an advanced enough magi-technological engine to travel the chaotic void between worlds. It took only a small amount of money - by which I mean, only a month's wages rather than three, taking into account that I am a Junior Celestial Bureaucrat and am by no means badly paid - to convince them that chasing down my mysteriously disappearing cat might be a fun and exciting adventure that would be a good way of testing the airship's capabilities with a mind to future improvements.

Just in case Tracy is reading this, yes, I'm aware that Mittens isn't actually *my* cat. She isn't exactly yours either, though, or the Temple's, or anyone's. It would not surprise me any more if she truly belonged to the Gods themselves, as nobody else could ever lay claim to her for long.

Anyway, Perfidy and Massebot were lucky to have managed to retreat to their airship and cross over into the void in time, before the mining lasers and tractor beams and planetary extraction units could arrive. Their journey back to our agreed meeting place - I had chosen a place on the edge of the Celestial Realm that was semi-abandoned and permanently in the process of repair, somewhere that only my own department would ever be sent to handle issues in - wasn't exactly uneventful either. The weather had been absolutely abysmal. Ion storms raged, tearing at their sails. Gravity wells threatened to crush their hull. Freak reality fluctuations pelted Massebot's barriers and scrambled his psychic navigation link. Shapes could be seen in the shadows that lingered in his near-blinded vision after every flash of arcane blue lightning. Some of those shapes had maws larger than the airship and full of sharp teeth. Others were mostly tentacles and had forms that Massebot didn't want to see up close, as he still valued what remained of his sanity. Then the one moment the void did clear up a little, they were beset by another kind of problem: lost travelers in spacecrafts, clearly designed for flight across mundane space, not for taking shortcuts through the next layer of reality down. One of the ships they recognised as having been in the mining fleet, the others were chasing it, and were heavily armed. Neither of my informants cared about the outcome, only that they were not caught in the crossfire. They were forced to go slowly and keep to the shadows, flinching at the slightest new noise or change of course from one of the ships. It looked as though the pursued single ship was doomed, despite its heavy shielding, as it was surrounded and outnumbered by what could only be seasoned pirates. Then the noise and lights unwittingly attracted some more attention, something Massebot had not even been able to spot. Whatever those things were that swarmed out of a thousand tiny imperfections, rifts in reality that nothing should fit through, they were biological in nature and perfectly able to survive in the void. Most likely, they were the natural denizens of chaos, the things Massebot saw in the shadows, or they were some other travelers that used these tunnels to catch prey, that were too many and too ravenous to be interested in smaller morsels like single airships. Their descriptions also reminded me of stories Tracy had told me of the entirely alien beings that Spatula had once led in conquest, an unstoppable predator that embodied swift and certain defeat for almost all other life forms.

Either way, Massebot was fairly sure he had seen the single ship escape in the confusion, and he had also managed to maneuver his own vessel to safety despite impractical odds. They were home at last, refusing to go on any more suicide missions for the sake of a stupid cat and demanding double pay as their danger money. I refused, pointing out that they had utterly failed their assignment. I still had no idea where my cat was or if she was safe. For all I know, she might not have left the planet on time, although I doubted it, especially if Spatula was as heavily involved as I was led to believe. The fact that the Goddess had been sighted was my only remaining lead and it wasn't really any practical use to me. If Tracy could contact Spatula, she would have done so already. I was back to square zero, as Bunfire would no doubt say.

Talking of Bunfire, his appearance soon after was the only thing stopping me from quitting entirely and returning to my highly important day-to-day duties as a Celestial Bureaucrat, or trying something hasty and ill-advised, such as summoning a demon. That, and the arrival of the other ship that survived the nightmare battle in the void, but first things first...

---

The Scribe called Scribe claims to be a Celestial Bureaucrat. As usual, his story is rife with inaccuracies. He is, in fact, an Infernal Bureaucrat with a small amount of Celestial cross-departmental training. This may seem pedantic but this singular fact, a technicality that turned out to make all the difference, was the only reason I was able to find him in the first place. In fact, had he been wholly Celestial in nature, I would not have even been chosen for the assignment.

There is Fire in my nature as there is in my name, you see. The fire that stories are told huddled around to keep warm, that they are told about in the oldest legends of both destruction and creation, that allows any animal to rise above its instincts and first start to become makers, inventors, imaginers, tellers of stories. I find fire, or it finds me. All Plotbunnies have something they seek and find, a special, overarching inspiration for the stories they spread.

Some exceptional Plotbunnies find other Plotbunnies, and it is these individuals who tend to rise up the ranks of the High Council. It is these scouts who managed to finally locate me, here inside my prison, the maw of a great void-Kraken. I had been longing for another living soul to finally find and rescue me for a long time now. I only wish it had been in less disastrous circumstances.

You see, I had only been found because one of the scouts had managed to track the signal of a God who had forced His way into my prison, and who wasn't even looking for me. He had come to steal away from me one who had been left in my charge, one who was badly damaged and needed the repair facilities of my crashed ship urgently. I had let the God snatch him from me. Quite possibly, I had let him die. This wasn't really my fault, as I am no mighty hero, to defeat in single combat the highest-ranking deities of a notoriously warlike pantheon, but I feel the guilt and shame nonetheless. We are unable to shirk our duty and are perfectly equipped for it but we are not entirely machine, devoid of emotion.

Mostly, I fear for the consequences. The particular damage that the man had taken was highly distressing for me to learn about the existence of, as a being in the service of narrative, of destiny, and I wished to learn more about its source, about how to stop it from happening again. I certainly did not trust Odin with such knowledge and the way the All-father had been talking as he claimed his prize led me to suspect that he already knew a lot more than I did.

Of course he does. He always does. That's who he is.

Anyway, Odin's intrusion was noticed, as was my presence behind the portal he had made. This was enough for the scouts who searched for me to locate the correct spot to create their own portal. I was recovered and immediately brought before the High Council for mission debriefing. Not aggressive questioning, you understand; the mood was one of only mild suspicion and milder relief to see me back. Even then, they were more happy to have an extra pair of hands on deck at a busy time of year than actually concerned about my safety. Mostly it was just business as usual. A Plotbunny getting lost isn't actually that unusual an occurrence, considering the conditions under which we work. I wasn't even thrown in quarantine, although the guards at the gate clearly wanted to quarantine me. I had come into contact with narrative damage but nothing viral, definitely nothing that could have gotten through my heavy antiviral shielding.

I was given the chance to fully upload everything from my personal recording device to the main data banks, however, for which I was eternally grateful, as it was a huge weight off my mind – literally, as my personal memory storage unit is a chip in my brain that gives me a migraine from sensory overload as soon as it fills up. Effectively, it is an extension of my own memory, except that I can access it even more accurately and speedily than the memory of the sharpest minds known to the Plotbunny race. I was also given a fresh notebook and some replacement pens, as well as a shower and change of clothes. The latter was not really necessary as my ship had been powered and intact enough to use the shower safely, if not the engines or warp drive, and the cupboard in my cabin was well stocked with fresh replacement uniforms that had all survived the crash. It had to be said, though, that there was nothing quite like returning to base after a long mission, to luxuriate in a comfortable bed, large shower, actually fresh clothes and real food.

Plotbunny Central Headquarters may have been more comfortable to live in than a crashed expedition frigate's cabin but it could hardly have been called a real home. It was an asteroid colony – a large, pretentious-looking pyramid of dark glass, shoved into a large, hollow rock. If it didn't occasionally light up in different colours, it could easily have mistaken for a particularly big black crystal in the rock and accidentally attacked with a mining laser. That would have been bad for the mining fleet, as the station was surrounded by small, spherical turrets that shot disproportionately powerful and plentiful laser beams, and could cloak themselves if an attack was unavoidable and an ambush would help in any way. Headquarters was a recognised Interplanetary-level Government building and was rarely attacked on purpose, although they had the occasional outbreak of space jellyfish infestation.

I wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of being back home. I was aware that my job was only half done. Nothing irritates a Plotbunny more than knowing that one of the seeds sown by their influence has sprouted and yet being unable to watch it blossom into something large and colourful. For a start, the Kraken still there, invisible in the depths of space, where anyone could fly into its open, hungry maw. I needed to make sure someone had picked up its location from my additions to the database and had contacted the Interplanetary Transport Authority, so they could cordon off the area or at least set up beacons around it. Secondly, I had no idea where Odin had taken Diggory or for what purpose. My guest had needed a lot more narrative repairs and there had been something wrong with Odin as well, something that tripped all the alarms in the laboratory. Finally - although it was undoubtedly related to the second point - my primary duty, as indicated to me by my Plotbunny's instinct, to follow Surt in his duties during the Ragnarok and find out what had gone wrong, was not over. I knew that the Lord of Fire Giants had escaped the galactic prison that, up until now, I was unable to leave, but I had completely lost contact with him after that. Now I was also free, I was starting to feel those twinges of purpose, that pull in the back of my mind, like a bird who knew it was time to fly south, a call I knew was my call to duty as an Agent of Universal Narrative. Like it or not, I was still mixed up in something big, something I couldn't ignore. As a trained Plotbunny, it would be unprofessional of me to even think about backing down.

Resting and restocking was a good idea during campaigns you knew were going to end up very long term. I ordered the usual fresh recording equipment, weapons, armour, power cells and large crate of tea. As an afterthought, I also requested as much fireproofing equipment for me and my ship as possible. I was told in no certain terms by the mechanics that I was lucky to have been allowed a replacement ship after what I had done to the last one, as well as being asked to please watch where I was flying in future and where was I planning to take the damn thing that I needed such strong heat shielding anyway?

((No, Surt, I am not going to tell you all about my private conversations with my friends at the bar, the people who were worried about me while I was away, who didn't want me to go out again, who offered to come with me or even exchange roles. Plotbunnies work alone to avoid the confusion of conflicting accounts - something you are ruining, by the way - we are all well trained enough to trust each other on assignments and we certainly don't drink alcohol on duty. And, no, Surt, I don't have 'a girl bunny or two waiting for me at every port'. Or a boy bunny. Not one that I'm going to tell you about, anyway. Will you please allow me to tell the story without interruption?))

While directing the small army of dock workers to steady the winch that hauled my tea supply onto the ship, an announcement over the intercom informed me that the Grand High Plotbunny requested my presence immediately. I must admit, this was rather an unexpected honour, one that I knew could quite quickly become dangerous. I reflexively froze, almost misdirecting the winch and crashing the crate into the cargo hold door. Leaving the important task to the cargo master was even more difficult for me and I felt my heart lurch as I bade my farewell, looking back several times to make sure my crate was still present and intact.

Rabilion, the Grand High Plotbunny, lived on the highest floor of the station, where the tip of the pyramid converged so that the top tier was effectively one very large room with sloping walls and a small ceiling that truncated the pyramid shape so that lights could run across the top. The far wall was a large display screen, the others were covered in neo-baroque artwork and shelves full of sculptures in a variety of exotic metals and impossible-looking curves, some of them shifting organically. In front of the far wall, a large desk made of dark steel-glass that doubled as a touch-screen control panel, shimmering with blue lights that flickered in arcane patterns as the highest Elder of the Plotbunnies controlled the station with superhumanly fast sweeps of his long, elegant fingers. He himself was short, wizened, with deep black fur peppered with gray, kept long and wispy so that it fell in front of his face and trailed from his fingers. His ears were long and floppy. Sharp red eyes could be seen piercing through his fringe. On a tray in one corner of his desk, he still used a large black notebook with a fountain pen elaborately painted and gilted in some metal that was rare on an interplanetary scale. In his black robe and skullcap, embroidered with silvery runes, he looked every inch the courtier of some interplanetary Empire. In reality, he was a typical Plotbunny - we love our drama and have been around a long time to pick up all sorts of ideas about how to achieve our aim of being dramatic. He was there because of seniority, experience and precedence, because there were systems on the station only he could remember how to run.

With a series of hand waves, he offered me a seat and a cup of tea. He looked irritated at having to place a bookmark in his record book and close it. Then he regarded me with those red eyes that showed no signs of mental degradation in his long years.

"You're probably wondering why I had to see you in person about this matter," he said, "I realise you have just returned from an assignment that became rather more complicated than intended. And, yes, I am aware that you have yet to finish said assignment. I'm afraid this is rather more immediate. In fact, from what I've managed to process of your records so far, it may possibly be related to your own mission."

This piqued my interest and my ears twitched involuntarily. I've never been good at hiding my emotions from people who actually understand Plotbunny body language.

"You see, we've located a True Scribe. I want you to be the one to make first contact with him."

My nose twitched. I wasn't sure if this was supposed to be a punishment or an honour but I understood why it was urgent. A True Scribe. A member of some intelligent species somewhere who had the gift of data memory recording, to a quality that events could be reloaded from backup if something went wrong with them. The perfect repository for the information that a Plotbunny carried around with them. Such an entity was rarely seen in history. There were always the Government municipal databanks but they were not mobile and the tiniest thing that went wrong tended to ruin everything.

"A standard humanoid male, we believe, last seen in the Broken City area of Celestial Bureaucracy territory. We have a permit to enter."

I had heard of the Broken City. It was the place where the Bureaucracy stored broken parts of the world they maintained, tools for repairing them, things they weren't sure if they worked or not, or even had a place in the system. Celestial Bureaucracy space was a long way away, in physical space and conceptually. They and the Plotbunnies only barely acknowledged each others' authorities.

"How powerful are we talking?"