Bunnymund (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bringinghopewithme) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2014-03-22 07:22 pm
bringinghopewithme) wrote in thecapitol2014-03-22 07:22 pm
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."
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."
no subject
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.
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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."
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"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?"
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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."
no subject
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."
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"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."
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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.
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"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."
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"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.
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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."
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"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."
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"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?"
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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."
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"You mentioned kids and their joy - are you a kind of spirit that makes them happy?"
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The full story is AGES long, but even the shortened version, for someone who's never heard of Easter, is lengthy.
"First of all, there's a holiday - do you have holidays yet?"
Navigating the time difference thing is going to make these explanations even slower.
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He understood that reference!
"And it's the same time every time that season comes around."
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"Right, well, we have to have Easter once a year because I couldn't do it every day. And it'd . . . there's a lotta reasons it only comes once a year."
He settled in for the lengthy explanation, kneeling in front of Guy.
"Easter is -" the best holiday ever, bar none, forget Christmas. "It's a spring festival. The celebration of new life. You know the moment winter becomes spring, when the snow starts to melt, and new life comes back to the land. Easter brings people hope at the end of winter. And me?" he pointed at himself with a thumb, pride plain on his features. "I'm the Easter Bunny. Every Easter, I make gifts for the kids - colored eggs, candy, by the millions, and I hide 'em all over the world for the kids to find. It's a game but it's a celebration, too. The kids get a kick out of it."
He had the grin he only had when talking about his day, the one that said he couldn't be prouder to do what he does.
"And when it's not Easter? I look out for the kids. Make sure nothin' that goes bump in the night is givin' 'em trouble."
That was a far more casual description than the reality of being a Guardian entailed. But if the Capitol was listening, he wasn't going to spell it out in detail - how in another world, there was a team of powerful spirits, who all lived and breathed the protection and defense of all children, any children, and would lay down their lives for them.
That was a tale to give plenty of hope, but not if it meant the Capitol turned their eyes towards the others, and took them away from that very important task.
no subject
He paused.
"Better question - there are millions of kids? I didn't even know that number was a thing before I got here. It's good to know to use for the stars but there's no way there could be that many people."