thecapitol | I'd like to phone a friend [Open]

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I'd like to phone a friend [Open]

WHO| Bunnymund and whoever you are.
WHAT| Bunny tries to get help from below, by contacting a local Earth spirit. His attempts are failing to yield results.
WHEN| As soon as he got out of the Training Center into the city.
WHERE| The park at the center of The Districts shopping center.
WARNINGS| Child-friendly swearing, attempted magic.

A giant rabbit lighting fires in a park draws attention. Which is all the more frustrating for Bunny, since he SHOULDN'T be drawing attention, no matter what he does out in the open like this. Every adult who stares at him with open confusion hammers home just how wrong something has gone, that whoever's in power in this city has the ability to suppress him into as close a state to mortality as he's been in many hundreds of years.

He could grumble about his situation, but that would get in the way of trying to get help. So he ignores the stares and keeps at work. His work, so far, is a hole in the ground, a pawful of pulled grass, moss, and flower petals stolen from various topiary on his way in search of the most natural place he could find in the midst of the city. He strikes a shard of flint he uncovered in the digging of the hole against the metal of his communicator, lighting a fire in the dry moss on a patch of earth he's cleared of grass, and dropping the flower petals onto the heat.

The way he kneels over the smoldering plants has all the look of a ritual, and the words he intones over them in a language that hasn't been used in the Capitol in much longer than 75 years do also.

All his kneeling and chanting isn't yielding much, though, to his frustration. With a growl, he jumps to his feet over the smoking flowers, still looking at the ground. "I know you're there, and I know you can hear me! You might not recognize me, but I'm close enough to being one 'a yours and I need your help. Wake up."

Still nothing. He stamps the ground, impatient, and growls again as no hole opens, no flowers grow, nothing happens except that he garners a few more bewildered looks from the humans who shouldn't be able to see him.

"Strewth."

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"I didn't even know spirits were real until I met Gabriel and I haven't met any other ones unless some of the people that look different here look different because they're spirits. They're just...stories. Ideas. That people have sometimes to explain things they don't understand," said Guy, inching a little closer.

Stories and ideas. Bunny couldn't help but chuckle out loud.

"Yeah, sometimes," he agreed.

He was still working at his offering fire, but his amusement was all too clear.

"And sometimes they're different from the stories. Sometimes they let humans have their own ideas."

Like that he was pink, or wore a top hat, or any number of other soft, harmlessly inaccurate presentations humans came up with for him.

"Or they're not real," said Guy, holding up a finger. "In some places, they might be. In other places, lightning is lightning and fire is fire and magic and spirits aren't real, they're just the ways people try to understand things."

He added, "Except for all the other types of magic. The types that happen every day. Those types are real."

There's a momentary pause as Bunny considers whether or not to be insulted by that. After all, how exactly does Guy know that there aren't spirits everywhere there are humans?

The look he finally throws Guy is dry.

"You know, at some point, when I'm not busy, you'll have to tell me about your journeys to these worlds where spirits definitely beyond a doubt do not exist and aren't just, ah, not interested in being proven. If you're implying this world has no spirits, forgive me if I don't take your word for it, seeing as how I am one, and you're not. Up to now, I had a pretty good track record of never being seen by adults."

The Earth here might not be listening to him, but that's no reason to give up. He can smell the pollution in the air, even with his power suppressed. The humans here might have done terrible things to their Earth.

Maybe she has a good reason not to help a foreign spirit who wants to help them. Or maybe they've done something to the point where she truly can't.

As that possibility rears its ugly head, Bunny's frown deepens. He exhales over his offering fire, concern starting to creep into his expression.

Edited 2014-03-23 06:43 (UTC)

"If there were spirits everywhere that could be seen by not-adults, I would have seen some in my world when I was a kid."

Logic.

"So if there were none in my world, it means there might not be any this world, which is possible because they take people - and spirits and trolls and I think they're called aliens? - they take them from all different worlds, where every kind of thing is possible and no single world is exactly alike."

Guy moved in closer to the fire Bunny was bowed over, still curious and now catching just a glimpse of the concern.

"That's okay, though, if there aren't spirits here. Because people like you that were taken from home are - and you are a person. Spirits are just a different kind of people, like there are lots of kinds of people here. So you're not alone. People try to look out for each other. At least as best as we can, all things considered."

Very few had forgotten who the real enemy was.

Edited 2014-03-23 06:50 (UTC)

For another second, he debated telling Guy not to go down that road. The alone one. The one that few were ever unfortunate enough to know better than him.

He crossed his arms, drumming his fingers on his biceps, rolling his eyes and letting out his frustration in a deep sigh. No. Don't even draw attention to it.

The part he zeroed in on was still sensitive, but nowhere near as sensitive as the concept of being singular in the world. "Children don't need to see to believe. They shouldn't have to. It's bettah that they grow up thinking that the kind of joy I put into the world for them, they're responsible for passing on to their kids."

Adults with fond memories, adults who believe it's their job to give their children fond memories . . . they do that.

He looked up from the fire, considering the human. "You're tryin' to reassure me. You think I'm afraid to be alone? Nah, mate." He spread his paw on the ground, for effect, and to see if he could get the earth to respond to him better that way. He couldn't. "Whatever they've done to this world, it was bad. Bad enough that if there's a Grandmother Earth here like the one I know, even I might not be able to get her help."

And that's a horrifying prospect.

"I don't see anyone else trying though. And it's London to a brick I haven't met anyone else who'd get a bettah response from her than me."

Guy knew that road. Guy had walked that path in places where there was no road at all.

Losing a people was terrible but being a child alone in the wilderness, chased by things in the dark, after having lost all light and love and laughter, that was a special kind of alone, no worse, no better, but it's very own kind of terrible.

The fact Guy had lived it before dragging himself out of the dark to walk a path in search of the sun was all the proof he needed there were no special spirits that only children could see. He'd had to find his own light, his own joy.

If the rabbit-man wasn't afraid of being alone, though, then he wasn't going to be the one to dash his hopes of finding a way to change things.

So, at all that, he just shrugged.

"Do you need help with your fire then? It's kind of pitiful, unless you're trying to have it smolder like that." There was a chance he wanted it to smolder like Guy sometimes would make little smoldering fires of fragrant woods to smoke out his clothes to make them smell nice. "I can help you with it if you need it - it's kind of my thing."

"If a fire I built is smoldering, it's because I want it to."

Pitiful indeed. Bunny snorted.

After a moment, though, he recognized the olive branch for what it was.

"Where'd they take you from?"

Later, he'd really delve into his focus, and meditate on this problem of not being able to reach any Earth spirits through easy means. For now, though, it was a good idea to figure out who was being taken, besides spirits.

"Tomorrow," Guy said. "That's what me and my family called it, anyway, because we thought our old world was ending and that we could ride the sun as it went up into the sky to jump to the next day, where it would be safe." A movement of his hand mimicked the rise of the sun. "Hence: Tomorrow."

He went on, "Of course, I'm not sure it fits now that that I know the Earth revolves around the sun and that the old world didn't end, it was probably some kind of continental shift that led to mass tectonic instability and we just happened to get past a fault line to where the ground was stable."

A pause.

"But, you know, 'Tomorrow' just sounds a lot more poetic so maybe if I ever get back, we'll just keep it."

He didn't know if Bunny would get the reference but he figured an attempt might help.

"I'm a nomad. Where I'm from, the world is still new. Old, but newer than places like this. Some of the people here say I'm like people from their pasts, thousands and thousands of years ago. 'Prehistoric.' 'Neolithic.' Those are some of the words they have for it."

Edited 2014-03-23 07:56 (UTC)

"Or." Bunny held up a finger. "A couple of earth spirits were fighting, and you made it past their area of influence in time to get out of the way."

He smirked. "But you're probably right about the plate tectonics. A couple'a minor earth spirits tend to have disagreements on our Earth, but they don't have enough power to cause more than a few small tremors, and they didn't have enough to cause problems on the level of tectonic instability back before humans really organized enough to nail down their conception of them."

Guy wasn't the only one who could unexpectedly speak like a textbook.

"But then again, if your Tomorrow isn't my Yesterday, and your Earth has more than one deity, and they don't get along - " he shrugged, glancing back at Guy with significantly more interest.

"Neolithic, huh?"

There was a touch of sudden, unexpected surprise in his expression that . . . looked like it might have been a form of delight. As if Guy were a rare flower, one he'd never expected to see.

"That's -" He paused, to order his thoughts, and his small smile confirmed - meeting a prehistoric human delighted him. "You've been around for history even I'm not old enough to have seen. I don't get to say that often."

And never about a mortal.

Guy liked that look. It was better than some of the reactions he'd gotten. In fact, it made him feel almost...special. Not an oddity, not an object of curiosity, not an object in general like the people of the Capitol made him feel.

Even among the people who treated him well, he sometimes felt...out of place. People were always trying to help him out, offering to teach him science, how to read...

It was a kindness on their part, naturally, but it was a constant reminder of how "behind" he was on everything.

He edged slightly closer to Bunny, a strange sort of eagerness in his eyes.

"It's beautiful where I'm from. Everything is new. Old at the same time, but - well it's new to us."

"Yeah, it would be. Not much out there that's older than Terra, or even close."

Not since Eos was murdered. But Bunny was so not getting into that. Not when this conversation was tipping back towards going well.

He crouched down a little closer to Guy's level,

"What's livin' with you in your time, what kinda creatures? What're the plants like?"

He was so, so curious. Not just about how the world was back then, or what was alive that isn't alive anymore, but how humans were before they overcivilized themselves.

"Oh, there are all kinds of plants. Trees and vines and flowers in every color and in all different shapes. And lots of animals - most of which are dangerous and prone to trying to eat people, but all kinds of animals. Like girelephants and bear owls and turtle doves."

He added, almost excitedly, "And me and my best friend Belt (he's a sloth) we were even friends with a jackrobat for a while - lil' guy needed some help finding his family."

Edited 2014-03-31 04:57 (UTC)

The names are weird, but they paint a much clearer picture than "leoplurodon" or "zygomaturus," so Bunny finds himself appreciating them.

"Yeah, and you found 'em? Good onya."

He was letting his fire smolder out, but from his point of view, he had plenty of time still, and he'd already gone a while with no response from any Earth spirits. Urgent though this situation was, taking an hour out of it to talk to a neolithic human was a flash in the pan of his very, very long life. A very unique flash.

"How'd ya make friends with a sloth, giant or regular?"

"Tiny. Really long arms, but he's pretty tiny."

He held out his hands to show that Belt was the size of the average teddy bear.

"I met him when I was about...ten. I think? Maybe nine? It was during the years I lost track of my age a little bit."

It was a strange thing to say about one's childhood.

"I had crossed some grasslands and then a desert - I was pinned one side by some mountains and the dry season was starting so I knew I had to cross it then or I'd be stuck there as everything dried up an starve and go thirsty. So I crossed it and some mountains and by the time I got through I was half-starved and pretty much delirious from thirst. That's when I started to find the forests and wetter places again but by the time I got there, I was too weak, so I collapsed, too weak to find any food or water."

He held up his hand, now telling it like a story, as if him almost dying wasn't a trauma but part of some sprawling narrative.

"But then all of a sudden, I felt something drop near my head. It was a fruit. So I opened it up and drank all the juice and ate it. And then plop, something hit my head - and it was another fruit. They kept falling down one by one until I'd drank and eaten enough to be okay. I wound up going unconscious because I was exhausted, but when I woke up, I felt better, and he was just dangling right above me, upside down, staring at me. He saw that I was in trouble and had helped just because."

Guy shrugged.

"But he was alone, too, and lonely, so I brought him with me and we've been best friends ever since."

Edited 2014-04-08 05:04 (UTC)

People not used to the trials involved in survival outside of human civilization - before it was even invented - would be horrified at the implications of Guy's past.

They just make Bunny sad on Guy's behalf. The kid's been through a lot, obviously - and without any Guardians around to bring him hope, or help him remember the good times when everything around him was bad.

Obviously he held on to both of those himself well enough to make it this far. More power to him.

"Glad y'found each other," Bunny said, nodding. "Nothing like a friend t'keep y'goin when times are tough."

He'd gone through the toughest part of his life without friends. He'd have not wished it on anyone, much less a lonely child.

"They didn't bring him over, did they?" It was an obvious conclusion. Otherwise, Belt would be there. "I'm sorry, mate."

It had been a very lonely and scary time in his life and while part of him knew that, knew it had been hardship, Guy would never see it as the same hardship people from other worlds might. It was a hardship that was always a possibility, one to be expected, when there was nothing to catch the people who fell through the cracks and when there was no societal structure for there tp be crack in to begin with.

"It's better he's not here," said Guy. "He's - he's a little guy, you know?" Easily killable and that - that was something Guy knew he would not survive, despite surviving so many things, a little dead bundle of arms and fur that might not come back.

It was something he couldn't even really think about, not without his mind going strangely dull and blank.

"My people family will take care of him and he'll help take care of them and that's good because I'm not there to, and they're probably all worried sick."

He nodded in understanding. "There are a couple of people I'll be happy never to see here."

Unfortunately for him, one of them already was - he just hadn't run into Jack yet.

"Found a human family of your own? That's good. I'm happy for ya."

And he genuinely was - it was clear to see.

It gave him comfort to know people were out there, recovering from deep sadness, finding each other and making new families, giving each other happiness they'd hoped for. It was what everyone hoped for, truly. That they'd have reason to smile again.

He nodded, smiling.

"I have a mate, and her family took Belt and I in." He flapped his hand at Bunny to show off his bone bracelet, one with designs carved in of a warthog and tiger chasing each other's tails. Rings were attached that, to Bunny, were probably obviously meant to be a rattle. "We carved these for each other."

He played with the rings with his fingers, his gaze going a little distant.

"We have a daughter. Her name's Bug. She's - well, I'll just say that I'm glad I learned what buttons are so now I can say she's as cute as one."

Edited 2014-04-13 04:33 (UTC)

The mention of the kid clinched it.

"I'm gonna do everything I can t'getcha back t'her," he said. He said it like a fact, and an inevitability - not a promise.

"Don't say that," said Guy, shaking his head. "One, that's a promise you can't keep. It's not. Two, they listen and hear everything. Little -" He made a scrambly gesture with his fingers. "Bugs. Machine bugs. That hear everything, everywhere. They punish people - sometimes kill them - if they think they're fighting back too much."

He gestured to his check. "If you want to hold that right here, that's one thing but don't - don't ever say it."

"Oh well in that case, guess I'll just go crawl back to the training center and do nothing," he said, with a tone that maybe an idiot would have mistaken for sincere. He would NOT be doing nothing, or going to the training center. He'd be digging a hole and grooming any and all nanobots out of his fur obsessively, but that wasn't nothing.

"I mean, one rabbit can't compete with bug machines. Nope. I know when I'm beat."

He rolled his eyes, fixing Guy with a look that said "and it's not now."

That just made Guy have to resist a smile because the lack of sincerity was clear, though not too much.

"You could settle for maybe being my friend. I like making new friends. Who doesn't like making new friends? I'm Guy. Guy Crood. What's your name?"

Edited 2014-04-26 21:33 (UTC)

"Bunnymund. Bunny'll do."

Bunny resisted a smile back. "Not often I make friends with a mortal, and the circumstances aren't great, but I'm glad to meetcha all the same."

"What kind of spirit are you?" Guy asked, drawing up his knees and staring at Bunny intently, looking for all the world like he was filled with a child's curiosity himself.

"You mentioned kids and their joy - are you a kind of spirit that makes them happy?"

I'd like to phone a friend [Open]

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