Event: the Bother with Bunnies

[applesaucemod]

On the morning of May 6th, 2013, the citizens of Rift York will awaken to find themselves with a new and unexpected roommate. Or two. Or five. The good news: these new roommates don't eat much, they're quiet, and they're pretty adorable. The bad news: no one asked for their homes to be overrun by Angora rabbits.

The rift isn't in the habit of giving people what they ask for, though, so you're just going to have to deal with these bunnies everywhere until the evening of May 8th, when they will disappear as mysteriously and suddenly as they arrived. In the meantime, you might consider them a goodwill gesture from a rift that isn't always so kind. The rabbits seem to be most heavily concentrated in areas where rifties are staying, after all. While Manhattan at large might not appreciate the full extent of the bunnypocalypse, the rifties will find the creatures quite difficult to avoid.



Feel free to post your character's reactions here, or to make your own entries under the event tag. The event will be running for the next two days in-game, or through January 19th in real life. As ever, backdating is allowed and encouraged.

Comments

What the Fluff

[edgar_sawtelle]

Edgar's dreaming.

He's running through the woods near home, trying desperately to find someone. Or something. The moon is full and high, but the woods are unnaturally shadowed and he can't see more than a few yards in front of him. There's rustling in the undergrowth as he runs, now to his right, now behind him, now somewhere ahead and to his left. He's sure it's Almondine, but he can never catch a glimpse of her shimmering white in the leafy darkness.

He hears her whimper, though, and claps his hand to his leg without breaking stride, calling her to him. There's something in the woods - or someone - and fear for her floods through him like cold water. The rustling starts again, this time just ahead of him, and he darts toward it.

Almondine whines, high and long, and the woods darken around Edgar. He squints, trying to see, but the trees are fading, pulling away from him. He feels himself rising out of the dream and slowly becomes aware that Almondine is standing over him on the bed. She's staring down at the floor beside the bed, her tail held low and swinging gently back and forth. Whatever she is sensing or seeing, she doesn't consider it a threat, and Edgar feels the tension that followed him out of the dream ease slightly.

Reaching over his head, he clicks on the lamp on the bedside stand, shutting his eyes against the brightness for a couple of seconds. As he opens them again, he pulls himself to sit up in the bed without moving Almondine. She glances around at him as he shifts and lets out another short whine.

/What is it?/ he signs, even as he leans over to see what has caught her attention.

There are three rabbits - three large, very fluffy rabbits - huddled calmly on his floor. Edgar blinks at them. They wiggle their noses at him. Almondine, unable to contain herself, gently jumps off the bed and the rabbits scatter like fireworks. The closest two - a dark gray one with light speckling, and a caramel-colored one that is slightly small - dart under the bed. The largest one - a white, extra fluffy specimen - bolts for Edgar's desk and is followed by Almondine.

Concerned for the rabbit, Edgar throws back his covers, prepared to dash after her. Remembering the two rabbits huddled under his bed, he slows himself mid-motion and slides out of bed in a smoother, less startling manner. By the time he steps across the room, Almondine is on her stomach in front of the desk, head on her paws, tail fanning the floor behind her as she stares longingly at the rabbit huddled against the wall. Edgar
drops to a knee beside her.

/Careful,/ he signs in front of her face. /Gentle./

She whines again and rolls her eyes up to him. Edgar ponders - Almondine has never really dealt with other animals besides the puppies, so he isn't sure how she is viewing the rabbits. He decides to test it.

Cautiously, he reaches under the desk. The rabbit doesn't start or skitter away at his initial touch, so he slowly and deliberately wraps his hands around its middle, lifts it out from beneath the desk, and stands with it in his arms. Almodine rises as Edgar does and sits in front of him, eyes on the rabbit. Getting a more secure hold on the rabbit, Edgar frees one hand and signs again, /Gentle./

Then he squats and presents the rabbit to Almondine.

Almondine stretches her head forward and softly sniffs the rabbit. To Edgar's surprise, the rabbit tentatively sniffs her back, looking far more curious than scared. Going with a gut feeling, Edgar sets the rabbit back on the ground. It hops to Almondine and the two engage in a mutual sniff-and-greet. As Almondine sinks down into a lying position to get closer to the white rabbit, Edgar notices the other two emerge from under the bed. They join their fellow in circling Almondine before all three nuzzle up to her sides and look for all intents and purposes as if they plan to never move again. Almondine, for her part, looks as content as Edgar's ever seen her.

Edgar shakes his head in amusement. At least he doesn't have to worry about Almondine trying to eat their guests. Yawning, he gets dressed for the day.

When he goes to leave his quarters, he encounters a hurdle. Almondine doesn't want him to go without her, but she also doesn't want to leave behind her new charges. She whines at him as he stands beside the open door, waiting for her to precede him into the hall.

/What is it?/ he asks. /We're going to find out where they came from./

Almondine looks down at the rabbits, who are still hovering near her even though she's now standing. Bending her head, she starts to nose them toward the doorway. They hop forward without any urgency, but manage to move in the general direction of the door. With only minor herding, Almondine gets them into the hall and Edgar closes the door behind his menagerie.

His first instinct is to find the resident animal expert, so he heads off toward Daine's quarters. Almondine trots at his side, and trailing behind her are their three rabbits. Almondine checks on them with occasion glances over her shoulder, and the rabbits huddle around her whenever the group comes to a halt.

Edgar's first sign that this is a bigger problem than he originally thought is when he turns the first corner in the hallway. There are at least seven rabbits hopping around this stretch of hall, and he sees at least one person standing in the doorway to her quarters, arms full of rabbit, the expression on her face a mixture of bemusement, delight, and irritation.

Edgar looks down at Almondine. Their rabbits are ranged around her like escape pods.

/I think we need Daine./

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine enters the base with a laundry basket full of rabbits tucked under one arm. There had been two in her apartment when she woke up, and her first thought had been that it was some sort of prank. Except she doesn't know anyone here well enough to be on pranking terms - and, to be honest, anyone who knew her very well at all would know that pranking her was Not Okay.

Also Not Okay: pets, especially ones she didn't ask for. So, she brought her two rabbits to the base in the hopes that someone here would know what was going on. In that sense, she's come up empty… but at least she knows she isn't the only one dealing with a sudden onslaught of rabbits.

She's giving serious consideration to the idea of just quietly tipping her rabbits out onto the floor and beating a hasty retreat - there's no way they'd notice two more - but then she catches sight of a kid who appears to be collecting the things. "Hey," she says, approaching Edgar from behind, "do you know what's going on?"

[edgar_sawtelle]

Edgar's surveying the be-rabbited hallway with concern and amusement when he hears a voice behind him. He turns to find a pretty young woman holding a laundry basket of bunnies.

He shakes his head at her question and shrugs. He has no idea.

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine stares. Gods and frigging angels. So this is what Gabriel was talking about.

"… Huh." She blinks, then gives her head a little shake. "Sorry, you look like someone else I know." Hoisting the laundry basket against her hip, she asks, "You don't know a guy named Peeta, do you?"

[edgar_sawtelle]

Edgar frowns slightly at her reaction. She seems - surprised? And a little thrown?

He shakes his head in reply. He doesn't know anyone named Peeta.

[rae_of_sun]

He's a quiet one, isn't he? Not that that's necessarily a bad trait in a teenage boy. Her own brothers never seem to shut up.

"I'm Sunshine," she offers, setting down the laundry basket. If the rabbits decide to make a break for it, she'll just pretend not to notice. They'd probably be happier here with their fellows, anyway, right?

[edgar_sawtelle]

Edgar, having become rather accustomed to the awkward meet-and-greet his introductions always create, employs his new quick and dirty measure of communication. He smiles, and sticks out his hand for Sunshine to shake, ready to "speak" to her the minute her hand makes contact with his.

[rae_of_sun]

On any given day, interacting with Spike is pretty low on Sunshine's to-do list. Actually, it's not on the to-do list at all, it's on the to-avoid list. But after her visit to the base, it occurred to her that if there were rabbits in her apartment, there are probably rabbits in his. And unlike Sunshine, Spike might actually eat the creatures. Okay, so she approves of his non-human diet, but there's a difference between getting blood from the butcher's and eating some defenseless rabbits that the rift just dropped into your apartment for reasons unknown. The rabbits are having bad enough days as it is without that.

So at a quarter to nine, she knocks on his door. It's not a very polite knock, but whatever. He's not a very polite person, so why should she be on her best behavior? She's just going to rescue some bunnies and get the hell out.

[erratic_hematic]

To say that Spike's sleep schedule has been out of whack lately would be an understatement. He's just as likely to be awake at 2AM or 2PM, and he's been spending the time in the past few weeks trying to decide if he's the kind of person that likes going out in the middle of the day, so that he might settle on one or the other. First results seem to indicate that, no, he doesn't actually like it much at all, and sleeping in till at least four in the afternoon is a fantastic idea. Especially if going out in daylight means he's going to meet people that will come banging on his door not long after he's fallen asleep.

When he wakes up on the couch, the TV is still going, and it takes him a dazed moment before he realizes that the banging at the door is actually happening. "Wha-? Hold your bloody horses! I'm coming." He stands up and makes his way to the door, which is when he trips over a fluffy rabbit and face-plants into the carpet. "Ow."

And now, he's noticing that there are actually several rabbits in his apartment, but that mystery will have to wait until he stops the damn knocking. He's not wearing a shirt or shoes as he yanks open the door. Sunshine should be glad that he's wearing pants. "What could you possibly want."

[rae_of_sun]

The lack of a shirt earns him a blink. He looks… substantially less dead than the vampires back home. Which she already knew, but… never mind. Focus, Sunshine. She leans a little to the side, and quickly spots the enormously poofy rabbit on his floor.

"That," she says, nodding toward it. "Is that the only one?"

[erratic_hematic]

"No." He opens the door wider so that she can see further into the little apartment. That he can see, there are a couple more in the living room area and one hopping its way into the kitchen. "Did you do this? I mean, I appreciate the snack, but you might've warned me first." Because she's asking for them, he's assuming they're her rabbits that somehow ended up here. Spell gone wrong, maybe? But that wouldn't explain why there are so many, unless she's some sort of fluffy-animal hoarder.

[rae_of_sun]

'Snack'? Yeah, that's what she was afraid of. She wonders if taking credit for their appearance will make him more likely to give them up, but then again, does she really want Spike to think rabbit conjuring is a skill she possesses? It's one thing to keep the implications of her counteraffinity a secret, and quite another to start copping to talents she doesn't even have (or want, for that matter; what good is rabbit conjuring?).

"Wasn't me," she says. "I've been taking the ones I find back to the base." And that includes the unfortunates hopping around your apartment, Spike.

[erratic_hematic]

"How sweet." Rabbit conjuring would be great skill for a vampire like Spike to have. It'd be a really convenient food delivery system. Now that he's gotten over the indignity of tripping over one of the things, he's warming to the idea of having some really fresh blood. Even if it is rabbit, it'd have to be better than the stuff he gets at the butcher's. It's this like of reasoning that makes him say "I'm keeping them" and shut the door in Sunshine's face.

[stronglikebear]

As someone who's more or less signed on to help with anything and everything the rebels need done, Yuri has suddenly found his list of titles expanding to include 'rabbit wrangler.' He's not particularly good with animals, but not particularly bad with them either outside that time of the month when an animal the size of a rabbit would remind him uncomfortably of food. Ideally he'd be herding them in the direction of the communal room that has been established as a rabbit holding cell until they can figure out what to do with the sudden influx of leporidae, but Yuri is no sheepdog and he quickly found that strategy to largely result in rabbits slipping past him and sprinting back the other way. Right now he's laboriously catching the rabbits one or two at a time and carrying them to where they need to go. Unfortunately, that room is rapidly becoming inundated with captured rabbits.

[peeta_mellark]

Peeta wakes up face to face with a ridiculously fluffy something. Wariness keeps him from launching himself out of bed and, after a bit of tentative poking, he determines the thing on his chest is an extremely fluffy rabbit which, apart from the ludicrous amount of fur, appears to be no different from the rabbits in District 12.

He carefully sets the rabbit aside so that he can get out of bed and almost steps on another, identical one on the floor. Sidestepping it, he gets dressed, tucks a rabbit under each arm (thankfully they seem to be especially placid), and heads out into the base. Along the way he meets others surrounded by rabbits, including a few who direct him to a place in the base where the rabbits are being collected.

Peeta heads there and is surprised to find Yuri.

"Hi, Yuri," Peeta calls as he nears. "Is this the drop-off area for these?" he asks, shrugging one of his shoulders to indicate the rabbits in his arms.

[stronglikebear]

"For now," confirms Yuri, carefully reaching over the board put across the bottom of a doorway to set his current rabbit down inside. "We're gonna need a new spot soon, though. I'm pretty sure we're going to reach bunny critical mass in the next half hour -- and people keep bringing in more from the apartments."

He sounds exasperated at that, but gestures for Peeta to fork over a rabbit. While leaving the rabbits where they might get hurt doesn't sit right with him, he doesn't see why the people in the apartments can't just hang onto theirs.

[peeta_mellark]

Peeta doesn't miss the exasperation, and something about it is so Gale that homesickness twists his heart for a moment, quick as lightning. To mask it, he glances in the nearest doorway, surprised at the sea of rabbits the room contains.

"I didn't realize there were so many. I can always keep these in my room, if I need to," he offers. He really wouldn't mind; the company would actually be nice, and the rabbits seem to be very docile. "And I can help with all the rest."

[stronglikebear]

Yuri withdraws the extended hand, glances at the overcrowded bunny pit, and grimaces when he sees two of them scrapping. When they don't stop after a few seconds, he steps over the gate and starts carefully picking his way to the fighters. "It's up to you," he calls back as he goes. "I mean, I get it, I put mine in here this morning -- come on, guys, cut it out!"

This while stooping and trying to pry two raging fluffballs apart.

[peeta_mellark]

Peeta watches Yuri's struggles with a sympathetic gaze. He glances down at the rabbits in his arms who, in contrast to their dueling fellows, seem to be entirely unperturbed by either their current circumstances or being held. Peeta feels a little guilty at the idea of leaving them with the others.

"I'll hold on to them, I guess. No reason to add to the chaos if I don't have to." He adjusts his slipping grip. "I'm going to take these two back to my room, but then I'll come back and help."

[watchesthebeans]

Aglet awakens to the sounds of something moving about softly nearby. For a few moments he lays in his tiny bed and listens, thinking it sounds like Jennifer's rifling around on his shelf --but what for? Fully awake, he abruptly sits up to look in the direction of the sounds, ready to tell her off for invading his space (probably to try to steal the things he rightfully borrowed), and stops and stares when all he sees is an enormous plush toy on the other end of his shelf.

"What...?" he mutters. Then the fluffy thing reaches out its neck and takes a chunk out of the papier-mâché wall enclosing most of the front of the shelf at this point, and Aglet shrieks and bolts from his bed, going straight for the escape hole he carved in the back wall of the bookcase without Jennifer's knowledge. From there he takes the secret ladder of handholds to the top shelf, where he crouches, shaking, amongst the knickknacks.

[jennifer_strange]

Aglet's shriek starts to pull Jennifer out of what had been a perfectly pleasant dream, but the Beast's excited, "Quark! Quark!" finishes the job. She squints at her bedside clock, then turns her head into her pillow and indulges in a little groan. It's really too early for this. The Quarkbeast knows the routine by now; it shouldn't be pestering her for another hour, at least.

"Shut up," she tells the Quarkbeast. "Go back to sleep."

[watchesthebeans]

"Jennifer!" Aglet's voice probably doesn't carry all that far when he's not literally shrieking in terror, but he's giving it his best try. Maybe if he had his phone...but he's not about to go back down there to use it. Gulping air, he creeps to the edge of the shelf and peers down, meaning to try to get a glimpse of the fluffy thing. "Jennifer! There's a -- a thing!"

[jennifer_strange]

"Quark," the Beast repeats insistently, rearing up to put its paws on the bed. If Jennifer had been starting to drift off again, that succeeds in waking her fully.

"Paws off," she says, voice no less stern for all that it's still a bit muzzy with sleepiness. The Quarkbeast looks mournful, but doesn't actually hop back to the floor until after Jennifer's sat up and flicked on her bedside lamp.

A quick sweep of the apartment reveals absolutely nothing unusual or out of place, and she squints up the side of the bookshelf as Aglet's squawking belatedly registers. "There's a what, now?"

[watchesthebeans]

"A thing!" repeats Aglet, lifting an arm to block the sudden bright light. "It's hairy, and it's eating my wall -- I think it's a possessed teddy bear or something!"

In this world? Not entirely out of the question.

[jennifer_strange]

Jennifer has just enough time to wonder if she's still dreaming - or if perhaps Aglet was - before she hears a faint rustle from his shelf, followed by the distinct scrape of teeth through papier-mâché. The Beast pads over to the front of the shelf and briefly rears onto its hind legs, tail wagging. "Quark!"

"Okay, hang on…" Jennifer slides out of bed and grabs the nearest blunt object to hand, a flashlight she keeps near her pillow. Whatever's up there, she'd like to think it isn't that dangerous. Otherwise, it would have gone for Aglet and not his wall, and the Quarkbeast would seem more upset about having it here. Clicking on the flashlight, Jennifer shines it at Aglet's shelf. For a moment, she frowns at the mass of white fluff, and then she blinks in surprise as a distinctly rabbity nose pokes itself out so it can take another little chunk out of the wall. Well. That explains why the Beast is so interested.

"I think it's a rabbit," Jennifer says, stepping a bit closer to the shelf. "It's sort of hard to tell with all that fur, though."