Rob Edwards (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
dragonsorcsandwolves) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thebastion2014-11-24 01:07 pm
dragonsorcsandwolves) wrote in thebastion2014-11-24 01:07 pm
Day 253 | OPEN | Bunnygeddon: Rise of the Leporidae
Who: Bunnies, Rob, everyone - feel free to thread amongst yourselves and ignore Rob in favor of the much cuter mammals
Open: Open
When: Day 253
Where: EVERYWHERE
What: BUNNIES
Format: Any
Warnings: Animal death
This morning in the Bastion is like any other at first. Early risers won't notice anything unusual, and it seems like today will be just another day at the end of the worlds.
Then the Monument is activated, and the invasion begins. An invasion of bunnies.
The rabbits are each around the size of a large housecat, come in either brown (female) or a very light gray (male), and seem to have shown up everywhere, especially where they aren't wanted. Rabbits munching away in the garden, rabbits hopping into buildings through open windows and doors, rabbits making more rabbits in places one would really rather not see such things... the list goes on.
(Okay there are probably only like ten of them at any one time, but they're getting into everything and compared to the Bastion's previous rabbit population levels this is a pretty big increase.)
The first rabbit that Rob sees confuses him for a moment, and the second makes him realize what just happened; the Monument had no way to tell whether he'd bought rabbits as livestock or as ambiance and had assumed the latter. In fact, when he goes to check the animal pen, he discovers that absolutely no rabbits have ended up there. Cue facepalm.
[1]
Rob will be spending the majority of the day attempting to catch all the rabbits and put them in the animal pen. "Attempting" is the key word here, because it turns out that it's a lot harder to catch rabbits with your bare hands than it looks. If he didn't know better he'd say that they're trolling him, acting like they're unaware of his presence as he sneaks up on them, only to leap out of the way at the exact moment he's about to grab them.
[2]
It's starting to get dark by the time Rob finally manages to get his hands around one. It thrashes and bites, but Rob manages to hold it by the scruff in his left hand and draws his knife with his right. Screw putting it in the animal pen; he's spent almost the entire day chasing rabbits around and he's dirty, sweaty, and pissed at these rabbits. He's cooking himself some meat for dinner.
He readies his knife... and stops. He's always thought of rabbits as silent, but this one's squealing loudly. Its heart is pounding in its tiny chest, and he swears he can feel it trembling as it struggles. He looks into its eyes and is surprised to see terror there. He has such a hard time reading humans, but the rabbit's response is so primal that he can recognize it as a prey animal's knowledge that it's about to die but desperately trying to keep living. His knife hand begins to lower.
I've brought creatures into this world for the sole purpose of being killed. This one hasn't even been alive a day and already I'm trying to kill it. ...Were they even necessary? I told myself they'd be a good backup to the fake meat, but there are already other animals we could use in an emergency. I was just disgusted by the idea of eating meat that hadn't come from an animal.
His knife hand hits the ground.
I'm a terrible person, and I've just wasted 200 shards. Now what?
The hand holding the still-squealing rabbit begins to lower.
I can't bear to kill this rabbit. But...
His hand stops its descent.
But what if I had to? Part of why I bought these was in case of an emergency. If I can't do this now, how can I expect to be able to do it in an even more stressful situation? I could leave it for someone else to do, but... But how can I dump something like this on someone else? That'd make me even more of a terrible person.
His knife hand begins to rise from the ground.
I wanted to be a man. I wanted to be able to hunt and feed myself. If I can't kill the prey I've already caught then I might as well just give up right now.
He lifts the rabbit back to a better height and brings the knife towards it.
I have to do this.
He places the blade of the knife against the rabbit's throat. The rabbit's struggles cease, whether from exhaustion, not wanting to hasten its demise, or the realization of the futility of going on, he doesn't know. He swallows.
I have to do this.
He tenses, preparing to draw the knife across the rabbit's throat, and closes his eyes. A moment later he forces himself to open them and look into the rabbit's eyes, feeling its frantic heartbeat through his fingers. He clenches his teeth.
"I'm sorry."
For a moment, his world is reduced to nothing but the drawing of a thin red line.
He stays there for a while in silence, holding his knife in one hand and cooling meat in the other, breathing heavily as he feels a few drops of warm blood make their way down his cheek, eventually mixing with tears as their paths converge. His mind begins waking up again, annoying him by making frivolous associations and remembering inappropriate jokes relating to the current situation.
Dammit.
Then a single sentence emerges from the chaos of his thought processes, and context appears around it. Perhaps other people would consider the idea tacky and inappropriate, especially given its source, but to Rob it was slightly calming and felt right. He stood and wiped at his eyes with one of the cleaner parts of the hem of his tanktop, then began walking with purpose in his step.
[3]
As dusk begins to fall, Rob can be seen walking, dirty and sweaty, with red-rimmed eyes, splatters of drying blood on his tanktop and face, and a dead rabbit in one hand. He looks serious about whatever he's doing, which seems to amount to brief visits to the kitchen and workshop before he returns to his cottage for the night.
Open: Open
When: Day 253
Where: EVERYWHERE
What: BUNNIES
Format: Any
Warnings: Animal death
This morning in the Bastion is like any other at first. Early risers won't notice anything unusual, and it seems like today will be just another day at the end of the worlds.
Then the Monument is activated, and the invasion begins. An invasion of bunnies.
The rabbits are each around the size of a large housecat, come in either brown (female) or a very light gray (male), and seem to have shown up everywhere, especially where they aren't wanted. Rabbits munching away in the garden, rabbits hopping into buildings through open windows and doors, rabbits making more rabbits in places one would really rather not see such things... the list goes on.
(Okay there are probably only like ten of them at any one time, but they're getting into everything and compared to the Bastion's previous rabbit population levels this is a pretty big increase.)
The first rabbit that Rob sees confuses him for a moment, and the second makes him realize what just happened; the Monument had no way to tell whether he'd bought rabbits as livestock or as ambiance and had assumed the latter. In fact, when he goes to check the animal pen, he discovers that absolutely no rabbits have ended up there. Cue facepalm.
[1]
Rob will be spending the majority of the day attempting to catch all the rabbits and put them in the animal pen. "Attempting" is the key word here, because it turns out that it's a lot harder to catch rabbits with your bare hands than it looks. If he didn't know better he'd say that they're trolling him, acting like they're unaware of his presence as he sneaks up on them, only to leap out of the way at the exact moment he's about to grab them.
[2]
It's starting to get dark by the time Rob finally manages to get his hands around one. It thrashes and bites, but Rob manages to hold it by the scruff in his left hand and draws his knife with his right. Screw putting it in the animal pen; he's spent almost the entire day chasing rabbits around and he's dirty, sweaty, and pissed at these rabbits. He's cooking himself some meat for dinner.
He readies his knife... and stops. He's always thought of rabbits as silent, but this one's squealing loudly. Its heart is pounding in its tiny chest, and he swears he can feel it trembling as it struggles. He looks into its eyes and is surprised to see terror there. He has such a hard time reading humans, but the rabbit's response is so primal that he can recognize it as a prey animal's knowledge that it's about to die but desperately trying to keep living. His knife hand begins to lower.
I've brought creatures into this world for the sole purpose of being killed. This one hasn't even been alive a day and already I'm trying to kill it. ...Were they even necessary? I told myself they'd be a good backup to the fake meat, but there are already other animals we could use in an emergency. I was just disgusted by the idea of eating meat that hadn't come from an animal.
His knife hand hits the ground.
I'm a terrible person, and I've just wasted 200 shards. Now what?
The hand holding the still-squealing rabbit begins to lower.
I can't bear to kill this rabbit. But...
His hand stops its descent.
But what if I had to? Part of why I bought these was in case of an emergency. If I can't do this now, how can I expect to be able to do it in an even more stressful situation? I could leave it for someone else to do, but... But how can I dump something like this on someone else? That'd make me even more of a terrible person.
His knife hand begins to rise from the ground.
I wanted to be a man. I wanted to be able to hunt and feed myself. If I can't kill the prey I've already caught then I might as well just give up right now.
He lifts the rabbit back to a better height and brings the knife towards it.
I have to do this.
He places the blade of the knife against the rabbit's throat. The rabbit's struggles cease, whether from exhaustion, not wanting to hasten its demise, or the realization of the futility of going on, he doesn't know. He swallows.
I have to do this.
He tenses, preparing to draw the knife across the rabbit's throat, and closes his eyes. A moment later he forces himself to open them and look into the rabbit's eyes, feeling its frantic heartbeat through his fingers. He clenches his teeth.
"I'm sorry."
For a moment, his world is reduced to nothing but the drawing of a thin red line.
He stays there for a while in silence, holding his knife in one hand and cooling meat in the other, breathing heavily as he feels a few drops of warm blood make their way down his cheek, eventually mixing with tears as their paths converge. His mind begins waking up again, annoying him by making frivolous associations and remembering inappropriate jokes relating to the current situation.
Dammit.
Then a single sentence emerges from the chaos of his thought processes, and context appears around it. Perhaps other people would consider the idea tacky and inappropriate, especially given its source, but to Rob it was slightly calming and felt right. He stood and wiped at his eyes with one of the cleaner parts of the hem of his tanktop, then began walking with purpose in his step.
[3]
As dusk begins to fall, Rob can be seen walking, dirty and sweaty, with red-rimmed eyes, splatters of drying blood on his tanktop and face, and a dead rabbit in one hand. He looks serious about whatever he's doing, which seems to amount to brief visits to the kitchen and workshop before he returns to his cottage for the night.
no subject
no subject
He sets the pad down and takes the handkerchief, wiping at his eyes. He's never been offered a handkerchief before, so he doesn't know if there's any special etiquette involved, but after a moment he wipes at his nose, too, the process made slightly awkward by not taking out his septum piercing first.
no subject
"The only thing you need to worry about is trying to trick yourself into something you're not comfortable with," he says gently. "Your body and your heart will tell you what you can handle, more often than not."
no subject
Rob finishes wiping his face but doesn't give the handkerchief back right away, unsure if he's actually done with it yet.
no subject
no subject
His breathing turns heavier as he tries to keep himself reasonably calm. He doesn't subscribe to the "real men never cry" line, but that doesn't mean that he particularly wants to be seen crying by more people who he doesn't know that well, even if one of them has just seen his tears.
no subject
It's not hard to miss Rob's heavy breathing, and Colin turns towards his desk briefly to divert attention away from him. "You don't need to worry about concealing your feelings in here," he says gently, his hands going to work organizing some tools. "I've never felt the need to judge someone for acting as their natural processes direct them to. And I won't tell anyone."
no subject
One of his exhalations turns into a sigh.
"I'm gonna hafta think about what to do about the rabbits now though, especially considering they might turn into an annoyance since they didn't get spawned in the animal pen. Stupid."
no subject
Colin may not be much of a hunter, but he knows enough about some animals to know what will work. "Otherwise, we'll just need to make sure that they stay out of the garden. Easily accomplished. He says, knowing just how many farmers have been driven to insanity after uttering those exact words."
no subject
"I forgot to specify that they should all spawn in the animal pen. I can't blame the Monument for not being able to divine my unspoken intentions."
He sets down the handkerchief (because Colin might not want to touch it right away) and picks up the pad.
"I'm assuming you've got some info on live rabbit traps in here, right? It's got everything else."
no subject
"And yeah, there's lots of information on traps. You can also borrow one of the ones I've already made, if you want to try and set it somewhere else," he says, gesturing off to a cage tucked away under a table. "No more bunnies have approached since I caught these two."
no subject
"I think I'll come back for it, otherwise none of them will approach it either."
He moves to leave, but stops mid-motion and nods at the covered pen.
"Just so you know, you've got a breeding pair in there."
no subject
He glances back to Rob, and he smiles. "Figure out what you need to do, everything'll be here when you get back," he says.
no subject
He nods slightly.
"Will do."