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The first time Jester Green died was in the arms of their mother, cradled against the first person they had ever known. They could hear her slowing heart, soft and small under the thundering of the Warden they were huddled by. Safety and warmth surrounding them on all sides. Even as the spreading death climbed into their lungs, they simply placed their head down and closed their eyes. More and more of their pack flocked to the Warden, burying Jester beneath the piles of their bodies in their panic.
Jester Green died suffocating on love and family. Bones shattering beneath the weight of friends all seeking the same comfort of their Warden.
But then the darkness was not eternal. Pain returned and the cave bunny was left gasping and clawing. Digging down through the cavity of the mechanical beast at their back to escape the crush of their pack's lifeless bodies. Bursting through the lining, they stood, chest heaving as they looked over the wasteland that had taken their home. Pulsing sculk eating through the echoes of life as far as the eye could see.
The wind rushed and the voice spoke, leading them from the empty city, promising to guide them to a new home. A new pack. A new warden.
The second death they were much more scared, rushing through tunnels to escape the relentless pursuit of the hordes that lived outside the safety of the Warden's territory. Decaying fingers pulled at their ears, ripped feathers from their wings, clawed at their calves. There was no comforting mother or friend, no arms to hold them, no one to hide away in their embrace. Only the cold adrenaline and panic spiking. Only the agonising pain as a zombie finally broke through their ribs and began to tear and chew.
They wondered if the dark blue spreading from the zombie's mouth was a final hallucination, eyes closing once more.
The tunnel they died in was empty when they woke. Only sculk and decaying bones spreading out from their body. Jester brought a paw to their chest, expecting to find a cavity, spilled guts and a gnawed heart. Instead there was the same pulsing stars of the sculk, tracing the shape of their split flesh.
A blessing, they were informed. Healed by death and rot.
The third death was strange. Their body bursting from the inside as anger and fear swirled into a toxic concoction. The sculk scars lining their flesh and organs bubbling and reacting until their bloodlust took shape. Jester Green cried in pain as they felt the death of their gentle bunny body, the birth of a monster. Hot tears flew from their cheeks, mixing with the spittle from their growling jaw. Claws slashed at whatever they were destroying, darkness clouding their vision. All that remained was glowing blue lights, soft and gentle. The lights angered them. They snuffed them all out.
The charged shriek put an end to their puppeted corpse, but it was too late. Death had come to the new city they had been lead to. The fourth death of Jester Green brought with it the end of all. This time, they woke to their ordinary body, sporting no new visible scars, but they could feel the rot lining their innards. Jester lifted their heavy eyes to the Warden that had tried to protect it's flock. It lay useless, now just a frame for the sculk to spread, cracked open and souls drank like the yolk from an eggshell.
"I thouht this sholde be our newe hom." They said to the decay. Death is in all places, they learned, everywhere could be their home. Everyone their pack.
The cave bunny pushed on. Seeking out new homes, new members of their pack.
Deaths five, six, and seven began to feel easier to take. The panic wasn't as all consuming, the pain easier to take. As their body collected scars, as rot became them, there was less flesh to rend. No more nerves to tell the brain how they felt. Jester became reckless, crashing into hordes of mobs, taking on Wardens head on against all their screaming instincts. Breaking into their stores of souls in service of the hungry death they carried in their fur. Even as their body tore apart to become bigger, stronger, deadlier, they became numb to the feeling. Letting the death take over faster, becoming as fluid as the sculk that covered the stone beneath their paws.
Two cities fell beneath their claws between their seventh and eighth death. Time passed and Jester became more desperate, with only rot and decay for company. It whispered to them, told them they were friends. They were pack.
Death would care for them. Cradle them. Heal them.
All they had to do was continue the Spread.
They died following the whispers, promising to lead them to a Warden. They climbed higher and higher, until the stone turned light and smooth, until the air tasted of more than damp and darkness. They could hear something swinging, metal against stone. Then muffled words they didn't understand, footsteps clamouring away. The thin wall of stone was destroyed by the TNT, and Jester Green was caught in the blast. They slumped against the rock they were caught beneath, fading to nothing as large hands wrapped around their arms, pulling them free.
It was warm when they woke. A warmth unlike anything they'd known before. Sculk stuck their cheek to the material of whatever they lay on, something soft and comforting. Eyes fluttered open to see they were in a bed, by a furnace that was running on coals. A bright orange spider tended to the fire, feeding it logs to keep it burning.
"Wher am I?" They hummed, eyeing the spider suspiciously. She'd be easy enough to crush, Spread knows Jester had taken down enough spiders to know one blow to the thick abdomen and they'd suffocate on their own blue blood.
"What was that?" She hummed, turning with a gentle smile that had the bunny's half formed heart fluttering in their chest. "Oh! You're in Spawntown, dearie. They found you out in the mines, you poor thing. We don't have a healer here, so I'm the next best thing I suppose."
Jester spent many days with the spider, after she had been convinced of their wellbeing. It took a long while for them to understand the so-called sky, and everyone spoke so strangely, everything was covered in the Glow, harsh and bright, making them want to return to the underground. But they were not permitted this retreat. Death would have the surface too. It would blot out the Glow in the sky, and Darkness would cover all. They had been the downfall of enough places to know patience was key. The kindly spider, Pumpkin, allowed for the bunny to work alongside her at a factory manned by chickens. Making pie, apparently.
The work was idle enough for them to turn over ideas in their mind. They had tried to start the spread, only the sculk seemed to struggle to take here. The grass was too absorbent, and the sky too bright. A bigger sacrifice might be necessary…
Their ninth death came after only a handful of months on the surface. They had brought death to this Spawntown, splattered their friend's blue blood in the tunnels they had been found in. They had been rewarded with a storm. Harsh wind and biting cold. They hadn't been able to recognise the roads, hidden beneath a blanket of white, and had wandered in the wrong direction. Their fur was too thin to keep them warm in this sudden chill. They tried to press on, but they were so tired, they only meant to lie down for a little while.
The cave bunny hadn't even noticed they'd died. Not until they were being woken by a small paw shaking them. Big black eyes, wet with tears, met their gaze, and the snow crunched as it fell from their body. The kitten sniffled, gave some sad tale of her missing mother, but Jester's ears were burning from frostbite, the Sculk quickly spreading to combat it. They led the small thing back into town, pointed them in the direction of the inn she had a photograph of, and didn't spare a second thought.
Jester's tenth death was a long time after. They had settled into this town as a resident. Befriended their new neighbours, which seemed to grow every day. They'd even managed to make enemies. Every day, Gester - as they had been affectionately nicknamed now - remembered what it was like to truly belong to a pack. Just as the whispers had promised, even a Warden had surfaced too, although they were struggling to find exactly who.
They sated their god with sacrifices of wild foxes, or cows stolen from the local farms. Sculk was starting to take root, clinging to the walls of the factory and warehouse they'd made their home. But something didn't feel right, in their gut. They no longer felt so numb, and the more they stayed and became a part of this new home, the more everything felt.
Even as the spread hushed promises of being together in death, Gester could not yet take that step. Selfishly keeping them from joining the souls they had taken, risking losing them to other gods. All for the sake of companionship.
A small blue elven child helped keep them from their cyclical thoughts. A welcome distraction, even if their time was spent trying to have another fighter to bring death to the world. Gester had fought the child's doppelganger enough to have a clean study of his fighting style. And it was that style they trained the child against. Snowball fights to mimic the bullets of the enemy's musket, sticks in place of swords for duelling. In their downtime, they let the child sit between their shoulder blades, wrapped in the fur of their ruff, using the form that had only known violence instead now to play. The once-bunny could feel a shift in them.
Upon reflection, it was perhaps too early to gift the child their first revolver. Or perhaps they had simply underestimated the child's abilities. Either way, they lay bleeding black against the snow, a paw over the oozing hole in their side.
"Staye back! Staye wher thou art!" They rasped, breath rattling as they tried to stay still, tried to keep the young elf from seeing death so soon. He didn't listen, and they could hear his small cries as he grasped at their arms, begging them to be okay, blubbering apologies.
"It is al right, I shal be al right. Thou didest naught amiss. Pray, weep not." Their voice was fading now, as they brought their blood slicked claw to his cheek to collect his tears. "Ich am blest. Deþ wole healien me. Thou shalt see…"