thebastion | 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

"Do you not understand the concept of 'false sense of security'?"

"... The what of what?"

That would be a 'no'.

"It's when someone tricks you into thinking they're harmless by acting nice and timid and adorable, but they don't mean any of it. That's what bunnies do. They're just waiting for the right opportunity to strike."

"... I just really don't get why you can't defend yourself from them. They really aren't that big."

"Right, because it never makes sense to be frightened of things that are smaller than you."

"It depends what it is. If it's a Bolt Archer or something like that, then yeah, it's dangerous."

Especially fighting one on one. The Plains were pretty horrible.

Anya huffs and folds her arms.

"Fine. You can think bunnies are exactly what they pretend to be. I won't be responsible for your doom."

"I think I can handle my doom."

"Death by bunnies is not a doom I'd want to handle."

She shudders at the very thought of it.

Edited 2014-11-30 21:51 (UTC)

"I have fire. And I don't think bunnies can take down a dragon."

Someone has not watched Monty Python.

Anya looks around to make sure none of them have snuck back up on them during this conversation. "There's no need to give them a challenge...!"

"Eheh..."

He just rubs the back of his neck. "Sorry?"

He still seems so unconcerned. She's given him all this warning and he'll still never see it coming. It's a lost cause.

"...but if you're that confident, then you can make sure it's gone. The one in my room." He can probably handle one of them.

"Sure. Lead the way. Or point the way, and I can go first."

It's not like he's memorized where everyone lives.

Anya starts cautiously back towards the apartment building, keeping alert for any sign of rabbits. She'll fall behind him once they reach the entrance. He can go through all the doors first.

"It's number nine, at the end of the hall."

Ryu will lead the way through the doors, then. He carefully heads forwards. Even if he's not afraid of the rabbits, she is, and one sneaking up on her would probably be pretty bad. He opens the door at the end of the hall and peeks in. Rabbit? Are you there?

He won't find the rabbit in the main living area, but if he searches around, he will find it... still in Anya's bed, and looking quite cozy on her pillow.

... Oh. Ryu smiles a little and picks it up carefully, holding it out a bit so he can shake his head at it.

"Time to go, you. No more scaring Anya."

Anya of course keeps her distance, wringing her hands.

"Is that all you're going to do, give it a gentle scolding?"

"I'm not going to kill it unless it tries to hurt someone. But I'll take him far away from you."

"Can you go and put it near the big dragon? Maybe he'll see it as a snack."

"Sure." Or at least in the pen. "Are you going to be okay now that he's gone?"

"I'm not certain any of us are going to be okay."

He is never going to understand just how dire their situation has become.

He never does, really.

"Um... well if you have problems, my room is upstairs. You can come get me if there's something wrong."

More than usual, he means.

Anya just looks at him for a moment. Maybe he doesn't recognize the danger for himself, but at least he's not dismissing her concerns or feelings like most people do when it comes to bunnies. Usually there's just no response at all.

"...thank you. That's surprisingly thoughtful of you.

"Now please take that thing away."

(no subject)

amnesiadragon - 2014-12-01 03:47 (UTC) - Expand