dragonsorcsandwolves: (Default)
Rob Edwards ([personal profile] dragonsorcsandwolves) wrote in [community profile] 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.
windgod: (Default)

[personal profile] windgod 2014-11-30 05:40 am (UTC)(link)
If the head massage was still on-going, he wasn't going to be reacting much to Ibuki's musings. However, he was going to kind of...slump over and rest his head on her shoulder, because that was far more comfortable and his body was having trouble with the whole sitting upright thing at the moment.
scary_music: (Ahaha...)

[personal profile] scary_music 2014-11-30 05:41 am (UTC)(link)
"Oooh, a thing happened... it's hard for Ibuki to massage heads like this! What should she do? Should she let Ippo-chan rest like this? But can Ibuki sit still for long? It's a dilemna!"
windgod: (Bashful)

[personal profile] windgod 2014-11-30 05:44 am (UTC)(link)
He's totally snuggling into that shoulder. Either he's really tired...which would be understandable as he'd only recently gotten back into a normal sleeping schedule...or you're just really good at head massages.

Where was this when he was having those nightmares, it would have done him a world of good just to have someone around to forcibly put him to sleep.
Edited 2014-11-30 05:45 (UTC)
scary_music: (Too stressful!)

[personal profile] scary_music 2014-11-30 05:49 am (UTC)(link)
"Ibuki became a pillow! It's the strangest thing! How long can Ibuki play pillow? She hasn't used up her energy reserves for the day!"

Ibuki was squirming, but at least she wasn't trying to pull away or anything.

"This has become something out of a bad comedy romance anime!"
windgod: (Seriously?)

[personal profile] windgod 2014-11-30 05:51 am (UTC)(link)
Well, eventually the fussing was bound to rouse him out of his half sleep, and with that his eyes fluttered for a moment and he looked around blearily. Not that he was going to move just yet...wherever he was, it was darn comfortable.

"Buh...? What...happened?"
scary_music: (Ayyy!)

[personal profile] scary_music 2014-11-30 05:53 am (UTC)(link)
"Ibuki defeated Ippo-chan with her head massage technique, but Ippo-chan retaliated by using Ibuki as a pillow."
windgod: (Default)

[personal profile] windgod 2014-11-30 05:56 am (UTC)(link)
Should he have reacted? Probably. Did he react? Not really. He was still thoroughly at the mercy of that head massage and all he could do was give a small nod of his head.

"That's nice...I'mjusgonna...I'll be up just...gimme five minutes..." andddddd there he goes again. Congratulations Ibuki you effectively found his off switch.
scary_music: (I left the oven on.)

[personal profile] scary_music 2014-11-30 06:00 am (UTC)(link)
"Ahhh... it's super effective! It seems Ibuki has found the Ippo-chan's weakness! Ooh, sorry Ippo-chan, Ibuki's getting restless...!"
scary_music: (Cannibalism is wrong)

[personal profile] scary_music 2014-11-30 06:01 am (UTC)(link)
With that, she grabbed Ippo's arm and... chomped on it.
windgod: (Embarrassed)

[personal profile] windgod 2014-11-30 06:14 am (UTC)(link)
Well that was one way to get him up. His eyes shot open and he moved back a little, his eyes snapping to attention to discover the unknown thing attacking him...and then realizing it was Ibuki giving him another arm chomp.

"I-Ibuki? What...just happened? Why are you biting my arm again?"
scary_music: (Ayyy!)

[personal profile] scary_music 2014-11-30 06:15 am (UTC)(link)
"Ibuki defeated Ippo-chan with her head massage technique, but Ippo-chan retaliated by using Ibuki as a pillow," Ibuki repeated, before adding, "Ibuki got restless, so she ended up biting your arm! So refreshing!"
windgod: (Man...)

[personal profile] windgod 2014-11-30 06:17 am (UTC)(link)
"I...'m sorry?" How...did one even respond to something like that? He'd never gotten a head massage before, so he'd not known he'd react like that. Still, it sounded rude to just use someone like a pillow out of the blue.

"Is...everything okay now?"
scary_music: (Land ho!)

[personal profile] scary_music 2014-11-30 06:20 am (UTC)(link)
"What do you mean? What was wrong? Ibuki's confused! Unless you mean our head injuries, but that's already way back in the past now! A lingering memory that we look back on fondly and laugh about!"
windgod: (Bashful)

[personal profile] windgod 2014-11-30 06:27 am (UTC)(link)
"Sorry...I guess I'm still waking back up." Well...if Ibuki wasn't perturbed by what had happened, then he supposed he shouldn't worry too much about it. Still...probably best to be more careful about getting head massages from now on.

scary_music: (Ayyy!)

[personal profile] scary_music 2014-11-30 06:28 am (UTC)(link)
"That's right! Good morning! It's been fifteen days since Ibuki's given you that head massage! Ippo-chan is such a heavy sleeper! Ibuki can't feel her legs anymore!" Ibuki paused a bit for effect, "Just kidding!"
Edited 2014-11-30 06:30 (UTC)
windgod: (Huh?)

[personal profile] windgod 2014-11-30 06:36 am (UTC)(link)
"It kinda feels like I did...I feel a lot more rested than I did before. Are you sure you're not a masseuse instead of a musician?"
scary_music: (Ahaha...)

[personal profile] scary_music 2014-11-30 06:39 am (UTC)(link)
"Huh? Huhhh? Is Ibuki's music bad? Is Ippo-chan saying that? Oooh, Ibuki feels sad now, she needs a tub of ice cream and bad soap operas, now..."
windgod: (Embarrassed)

[personal profile] windgod 2014-11-30 06:43 am (UTC)(link)
"Wait...no, not at all! I was just saying...you're also really good at massages!!" What even are his interactions with Ibuki?
scary_music: (Dat nose...)

[personal profile] scary_music 2014-11-30 06:48 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh, good! Ibuki was worried there for a second! You know, having finger dexterity is important for a lot of instruments! So, so, it's only natural that a musician can become a good masseuse with just a little bit of practice!"

All the masseuses in the other worlds would probably hate Ibuki for saying that.
windgod: (Bashful)

[personal profile] windgod 2014-11-30 06:51 am (UTC)(link)
"Well...if you chose to, it could probably be a pretty good side job. If you had time between all the practice that is."

To be fair, being a masseuse was a pretty profitable job if you knew what you were doing. It was clear that Ibuki definitely knew what she was doing, if the feeling of renewed energy moving through him was any indication.
scary_music: (I'm a psychic you know.)

[personal profile] scary_music 2014-11-30 07:51 am (UTC)(link)
Of course, at the Bastion, profits didn't mean much of anything. Unless shards started being used as currency...

"Ibuki has plenty of time! There's no school! But Ibuki's fine with leaving her masseuse skill where it is... ... ooh, Ippo-chan must have really liked Ibuki's massage!"