thebastion | Day 253 | OPEN | Bunnygeddon: Rise of the Leporidae

Entry tags:

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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Sorry Rob. You're covered in bunny blood, carrying a dead relative, and they have nowhere to run. You are quite possibly the most terrifying thing in the Bastion right now, at least to rabbit-kind.

"They're designed to function in zero gravity and to survive exposure to the vacuum and the radiation and heat involved," Colin says, nodding. "And given everything that can go wrong with particulate matter, it's easier to keep it completely isolated. Those things will survive just about anything, and they're a breeze to clean. Just... don't go purposely dirtying it."

Colin rises from his seat and grabs a tarp from nearby, draping it over the bunny pen. "It's good that you're educating yourself on doing it right," Colin confirms. "I'm sure that some of the people here have hands on experience too, though I confess I don't exactly know WHO..."

Wait, so Rob has not only managed to intimidate someone, but can actually back it up? ...Yay?

Rob nods at Colin's request. He certainly would never try to damage someone else's property.

"I don't either, but from what I remember it doesn't sound hard. I think you can just peel the skin off rabbits once you make a few cuts, unlike other animals."

Oh boy is this line of discussion making him feel better. Not. He nods at the pen.

"You can just put them in the animal pen. That's where they were supposed to be anyways."

"That's what my sister says," Colin says. "Never skinned a rabbit, myself. Not much for the whole hunting thing. Spacer upbringing. Never had to sneak up on a replicator."

He smirks slightly, then he gestures to the pen. "I'm planning on it, but for now, they're not hurting anyone right here. I'm hoping that their presence will lure a few others so I can trap them and get a whole lot in there," he explains.

He just won't say that the scent of dead rabbit has probably killed any chance of that happening for the rest of the night.

"I've never had to hunt anything either."

If Colin can't read into that statement from the tone that Rob's using there's no hope for him.

"Maybe leaving some food out would help?"

Rob's kind of assuming that it's a lost cause at this point after bringing the dead rabbit in.

"Not many people do, once society hits the industrial age," Colin says, shaking his head. "Instincts get repressed, reactions dulled and heightened. It's a very strange thing for most people to kill once it's been bred out of them."

He can read into it plenty, but Rob doesn't seem to want to face that. Colin is many things, but when it comes to other peoples' decisions, he'll usually leave them to it. Helping where he's not wanted gets him in more trouble than he cares to deal with...

"Possibly, I've got some Navit slices in the trap," he says. "Lots of energy, lots of vitamins in it. Rabbits love fruit when they can get it."

Just... not going to bring up the dead rabbit. No need to make Rob feel bad.

"Yeah," Rob says a bit hoarsely, then pauses for a moment before continuing, as if suddenly deciding that a single word isn't enough of a response. "I don't know about bred out of them, but the cultural supports and direction are pretty much gone. I know intellectually why it happens - there's no longer a need for the average person to provide food for themselves directly, so they can dump that part on the people whose job it is - but it feels like... like some part of what makes humans humans is being cast aside. It's a disconnect from the world."

"What makes humans human is the same thing that makes most advanced races advanced," Colin says gently. "The ability to leave 'Hunter-Gatherer' behind as a product of a prior age. You're describing breeding something out of someone, every generation of humanity goes further and further from their roots as a nomadic species of creatures who needed to track their food to survive."

He smirks slightly. "I mean, if you want to be as good a hunter as your ancient ancestors were, you'd have to realize the pressures that made them so," he continues. "The ability to kill something before something else killed them. The constant fear of not having enough food to survive the week. The amazing realization that the broken rock you just cut your ankle on also probably cuts OTHER skin just as easily."

He shakes his head then, and gestures skyward as he speaks. "Of all of the species that have reached the warp age, only the Mrrshan retain their hunting instincts from when their species was young. That's because hunting holds personal, spiritual importance for them," he tells Rob, a sense of amusement plainly evident in his tone. "It also ensures that they're the best shots in the entire galaxy by a wide margin. Anyway, the ability to kill, eat their kill, and feel good about it doesn't make someone a sterling member of their race. It makes them a good killer who has better odds of surviving in the wild than someone who can't."

Edited 2014-11-27 04:08 (UTC)

Rob's silent for a bit while he processes Colin's words. If the events of the day hadn't been enough to clue him in on what certain aspects of the world were really like, what Colin was saying hammered it in even more. It was an additional dose of reality, and intellectually he could recognize that Colin had a valid point. But as much as Rob tried to hold to logic, there were some areas where that was significantly harder for him than others. After all, he would still only have one shard if logic was his sole guide.

"I don't think you can completely ignore where your species came from or where your species originally fit into the world. There's a reason people in offices and apartments keep potted plants around. I don't expect to ever be as good of a hunter as ancient humans were, especially without a childhood spent learning, just like I don't expect to be good at anything else. But, well, you can't just assume there are things that're beneath you now that you're 'advanced'. I mean, apply enough rock to this tablet and I bet the tablet would eventually lose."

"Oh, by all means, don't forget where you come from, but don't think you've got to hold on to outdated ideals as a measure of what you truly are," he says, smiling. "But... well, gimme back the pad for a moment?"

He holds his hand out expectantly.

Rob blinks and hands it over.

"How do you tell if something's actually outdated or if everyone around you just falsely thinks that it is?"

"From a cultural standpoint? The reactions of most people to how actions are presented. From a personal standpoint? Your body language," Colin says, taking the pad from him. "You look like somebody just told you that Christmas was cancelled forever."

Colin rises from the seat so as not to disturb the bunnies. He walks over to a work bench and grabs a hammer off of the tool rack on the wall. Then, without ceremony, he brings the hammer down swiftly on the data pad's screen, generating a sharp "CRACK" through the workshop.

He then puts the hammer back, and lifts the data pad up for Rob to see. The screen is apparently no worse for wear.

"I'm more worried about fingerprints than I am this thing getting broken by a sharp impact," Colin says, smiling. "It's not unbreakable, but no rock will ever break this thing."

Rob watches Colin get up.

"I'm not sure what you mean. An entire culture deciding something doesn't make it true."

He signs as Colin turns back to him.

"I am pretty sure you know what I meant, though. You are smarter than the average bear, after all."

"I can make estimates," Colin says, walking back to Rob and holding out the pad to him. "But operating off of assumptions and guesses is a poor way to live a life, and really good way to get people angry. Especially when it's about something important to them. ESPECIALLY when you're uncertain of where the importance lies."

When Rob takes the pad, Colin returns to his seat and sits. He keeps his gaze on Rob, waiting for him to elaborate if he so chooses.

"Tell me about it," he mutters as he takes the pad. All too often, assumptions and guesses are all he has to work from when dealing with other people, and it gets old fast.

Colin watching him like this makes him feel pressured into discussing the situation though, despite having only come to grab the pad and nothing else. He sighs and raises the dead rabbit slightly, casting his eyes downward.

"My first kill."

"And how do you feel about it now?" Colin asks, watching him. He doesn't see any reason to make any observations just yet, he has no idea what Rob's even looking for right now.

Rob doesn't know what Rob's looking for right now, so Colin's excused there.

"I... I spent pretty much all of today chasing rabbits around, and I finally caught one. I thought it'd be more satisfying, but... I feel guilty, like I just murdered a person. I can tell myself it's just an animal, that it's prey that's supposed to be hunted and killed by a predator, but..."

He scrunches his eyes closed for a moment, moisture welling around them as he tries to avoid actually crying.

"I created living creatures, creatures who want to keep living, for the sole purpose of being killed. They may not be as intelligent as humans, but I... I looked into its eyes as I killed it. It knew exactly what was going on. It felt fear. It didn't want to die. It..." He goes even quieter. "Do animals have souls like people do? It felt like it did."

"Yes, it felt fear. And what you saw when you killed it? That wasn't fear. That was a biological process. Its blood pressure shot up, its body released a combination of adrenaline and endorphins, its brain was suddenly aware of everything," he explains. "It happens to everyone and everything that sees their deaths coming. And you can't avoid it. The only way to avoid it is the probial bullet marked 'occupant'."

He shakes his head, and draws a breath. This next bit isn't going to be easy to say. It's hard for anyone, let alone a guy with no social skills. "I can't make you feel better about killing," he says. "Nothing can, sort of sociopathy. Nor can I tell you it didn't have a soul. EVERYTHING has a soul. I know that better than most. But what I can tell you is that it doesn't make you an awful person. People throughout the galaxy have tried to romanticize life, the right to life, the sanctity of life."

He leans back against his work bench, keeping his eye fixated on Rob's. "That's bunk, by the way. Life is important, yes. But it is not holy, and it is no irrevocably sacred. Life is fragile, and it starts and ends every day. What you did is what happens every day in some measure or another, and you're not better than it. It's happened since the dawn of time, and it will keep happening right up until eternity comes to an end. That bunny? Like it or not, it would have died sooner or later. Its guide is leading it to the great beyond as we speak. Or it may already be there. The point is... yes, it had a soul, and no, killing it doesn't make you a bad person."

He straightens up a bit and points at him. "You wouldn't be having such turmoil in you if you were a bad person," he explained. "You wouldn't CARE."

Tears start to trickle down Rob's cheeks and he nods slightly. He doesn't know exactly why he's crying, just that something in what Colin said struck something in him. Colin's words aren't comforting, per se, but they give him some perspective, and right now that helps.

He wipes at his eyes as best he can with the thumb side of the hand holding the pad.

Without even needing prompting, Colin reaches into one of his pockets and pulls out a handkerchief. He holds it out to Rob in silent offering, letting him take things at his own pace.

Rob will be rather miffed if that handkerchief isn't clean, Colin.

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.

With his wife and the people he hangs around, clean handkerchiefs are the order of the day. Don't worry, that handkerchief is clean... at least until Rob's done with it.

"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."

"Just not my head, apparently."

Rob finishes wiping his face but doesn't give the handkerchief back right away, unsure if he's actually done with it yet.

Colin looks slightly amused, and he nods. "People have been fighting between their heads and their hearts for centuries, longer even," he observes. "It's a fight you're destined to continue waging until you can find inner peace. You aren't alone there, not by a long shot."

"Good to know I guess, even if it doesn't help me in the immediate future."

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.

"Not much can help in the immediate future," Colin says, shaking his head.

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."

Day 253 | OPEN | Bunnygeddon: Rise of the Leporidae

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