by Simon Archer
“Mind if I…?” She gave me a nod, and I felt around her head for the headband keeping her ears on. There was no such headband. My hand drifted over to the base of one of her ears, and the other moved some of the hair around for a better look.
The ear was a part of her head. Proper hookups and everything.
“My lord?” she looked up to ask me, “May I ask you a few questions?”
“Ask any you like,” I said, stroking her hair back as I stared at her bunny ears, “I’m gonna be asking a few of my own in just a second.”
“What happened to yours?” She asked of me.
“What do you mean?” I had a suspicion about that already, but I needed to clarify to be sure. Something real strange was going on. Didn’t know if it was Russian genetic experimentation, black magic, or some Illuminati alien conspiracy, but something weird was happening all the same.
“Your Rabbit ears,” she clarified, confirming my suspicion that hers weren’t grafted on, but were there when she was born. “You only have your second ears. What happened to the Rabbit ones?”
“I don’t have a Rabbit pair,” I told her. “I’m not a rabbit person. I’m a human person. But you are not a human person.”
“What’s a human, if I may ask?” she asked me, “Is that what they call the hairless Hares? It’s so strange that you’re born with only the hairless ears. I’ve only ever seen other hairless Bunnies before. You must be extremely rare, my lord!”
“Alright, I think I found the problem here,” I said aloud, my Sherlockian instincts kicking in, if I had any, “Where did you say you were from? The big place, not the estate or the town.”
“The Great Burrow,” she answered.
“And there are a lot more rabbit people there, I imagine?”
“Yes, hundreds, thousands,” she answered again, “Hundreds of thousands. Many more than I could hope to count to. We make up the entirety of the serving class for the Wolves.”
“Now that’s an interesting bit of info,” I remarked, “you say you serve the Wolves? Like the ones chasing you before? Your old master was one of these Wolves?” Now everything was falling into place. She thought I was an oddity because she came from a place where her rabbitness was commonplace among most of them, except for these Wolf-types. If they were abusing and randomly killing her people, her imaginary ‘Wolves’ from before were now a much more visceral threat.
“Yes, Lord Timberpine,” she said, “lord of the Timberpine Estate. Though I don’t suppose…” She turned her face away, but her piercing blue eyes still stared into me.
“Suppose what?” I asked her. She could have supposed whatever she liked, and I may have just agreed with her for the hell of it.
“If I may be so bold as to ask anything of you,” she said with a playfully pleading sway to her shoulders, “could you take over as my new master?”
“Hold on just a tick!” I said, addled as the dickens, “what do you need a master for?”
“Please, my lord!” she put her face and hands to my chest, “Please take me into your household! I promise I won’t get in the way of your other servants. I’m an excellent housekeeper, and I’ll do anything you wish of me, day or night.”
“I don’t have any other servants, honey,” I told her flat out, “I’ve always done my own work! If I need help, I ask a neighbor down the road, and that’s always just for the job at hand. My own house don’t really need cleaning ‘cause I’m never in it. I ain’t looking for any of that.”
“So,” she said, looking up at me with the most potent puppy-dog eyes this side of the Mississippi, “do you not want me around? Are you not pleased with me?”
“What?” I said, absolutely incredulous at the thought, “Of course I want you around! Look at you! A passionate, pretty thing like you’d be the toast of any town you walked through round here! It’s just… we gotta find out how to get you back home, honey. And I think it’s real far away from Tennessee. In fact, I’m sure it’s far away from anywhere ‘round here.”
“But if you won’t be my master,” she kept those puppy dog eyes on me, and my soul pulled itself apart trying to keep looking at her, “Then Timberpine still is, and he wants to kill me. If I can’t be your slave, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“Well, when you put it like that, fine!” I relented, “Twist my arm, why don’tcha? I’ll be your master if it’ll keep you alive, at the very least. As long as you’re happy--”
I had no idea that a bear hug to knock the air out of your lungs could ever have come from a small package like her. But come it did, along with the muffled squeal of an ecstatic girl who just got a dream fulfilled. I still didn’t know what to make of it, but she couldn’t have been happier about it.
“Alright, you can keep hugging or get off whenever you want,” I told the beautiful barnacle, “but I still got a bear to get out of here.”
“Oh!” The girl unstuck herself from me, hopping excitedly, then stopping herself to give a polite bow. “As my first service to my new master, allow me to move this for you.” She clapped and hopped like a kid in a candy shop, bouncing her way to the side of the bear, which was already starting to smell. She turned around and fell into the grizzly’s side, bracing her legs with a fierce look of determination. “Where to, my lord?” Her voice had that silly helium tone you get from squishing your neck.
“Oh, honey, that’s probably a little too heavy for you,” I attempted to curb her enthusiasm, “I couldn’t bring my field-dressing tools out here, so I can’t get the thick of the meat out. Maybe you should just sit back and let me handle this for now.”
“But I want to serve!” she stretched the last word with a childish and warbled inflection.
“Okay, you win,” I relented yet again, “Give it a go.” So far, for a master-slave relationship, she’s been getting me to do more than I’ve been telling her to. There wasn’t any denying she was happy as a clam about it, though. I’m glad I could give that to her.
“Hee-hyah!” The girl let out what I could only assume was a yelling grunt, though it may have been an announcement for what followed. The mulching sound of dirt flying churning pieces into the air heralded the bear’s corpse as it propelled across the forest floor, a cream-colored rocket hurdling it away from its spot and out at least a half-length of a football field. The only thing keeping it from going farther was the tree that she crashed the bear into with a long, thunderous boom, almost like a twanging door-stopper at its lowest possible note. I couldn’t even attempt to fathom the strength involved to do that. “Ow.”
I ran over to the crash site, praying that she was alright. Sure enough, she was already dusting herself off. When I knew she was safe, I couldn’t help but laugh my ass off at the ridiculousness of what I had witnessed. How does that even happen?
“How did you do that?” I gasped. “That was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen!”
“Does it please you?” she cooed.
“‘Does it please me?’ she says,” I chuckled from my chest, “Yes, I am very pleased that you possess enough strength to kick a rock into orbit. Are all rabbit people like that?”
“No, just me,” she said, hiding a bit of pride behind her lips as she spoke, “Other Rabbits all have pretty strong legs, but even other Hares don’t stand a chance against me. Only the best for my master.”
“You did all of that with just your legs?”
“Yeah,” she said, “what else would I do it with?”
And then, I was struck with what I thought was brilliance.
“Hopper!” I shouted like it was the scientific discovery of the century.
“What does that mean?” she asked me.
“That can be your name,” I told her. “Because you can do that with your legs. It was like some kind of super-hop or something. You’re Hopper!”
“Hopper?” she puzzled. “Is that what you want me to do? Would it please you if I hopped for your purposes and pleasures?”
“Don’t make it like that!” I
said to her. “If you’re really gonna be a servant to a handyman, then you’re gonna have to do all kinds of things while working for me, not just the super-hops. It’s a name, something just for you.”
“But I’m not a noble,” she said. “I can’t have a noble name.”
“Well, then, don’t consider it a noble name.” I reasoned. “It’s not about achieving some sort of proper title or not. And I need to be able to call you something besides ‘maid’ or ‘hey, you.’ Think of it like…” I tried to think of a good parallel for her. “Like a universal job title. You’re not just gonna be a hopper, or a housekeeper, or a maid, or whatever I might need. You’re gonna do all of that, and more. You’ll be a Hopper, with a capital H.”
“A universal job title?” she visibly tried to wrap her head around the idea.
“Yeah, for everything that you bring.” I continued. “Take my name: Hank. I don’t just perform ‘Hanks’ or what-have-you. I do a little bit of everything. I fix, I clean, I lift, I haul, I help. And all of that, plus a whole lot more that even I don’t see, makes me Hank. It makes me very good at being a Hank because I’m being me. And no one can Hank as good as me.”
“So…” Hopper was piecing it together with her furrowed brow and wiggling nose, “I’m Hopper? I do all of the Hopper things? Like housekeeping? And the super-hop? And anything else you want?”
“I mean, you don’t have to do just that,” I tried to assure her. “You can do what you want, too.”
“I want to do what pleases you,” she said, looking deep into my soul through my eyes as she scooped up my heart with that smile. “I want to please you with everything that I do.”
“I’m telling you right now, that’s a fairly low bar,” I said to her. “I’m fairly easy-going and pretty happy all around. You really can’t lose.”
“Then I can only move up from here!” She exclaimed, falling back into the bear corpse to push it again. How did she make what would usually be a disgusting action so adorable? “Where to next, my lord?”
“How about you just push with those strong legs of yours while I steer?” I said, still not quite believing one girl could have moved all of this monster by herself, let alone across this distance. “If you get tired, let me know. And that’s a, um, a master’s order, before you get any funny ideas about pushing past your limits without telling me.”
“As you wish, my lord!” Hopper dug her legs into the ground to begin pushing the beast out, while I stood by the front with a hand on it, guiding our strange little vehicle through the woods and onto the adventure of a lifetime.
4
Getting to the truck was simple enough. Hopper had more than enough stamina to make it all the way over. We loaded it up, finally dressed it with my tools, showed the Hurmansons the body to give them some peace, registered it with the state, gave the bulk of it to a local taxidermist, and took the meat home. Good thing I had just emptied the coolers in my truck.
Keeping Hopper’s aggressively overt “master-slave” vocabulary toned down may have been the hardest part of the trip. Not that I minded so much, I was never ashamed of her, but I didn’t want to draw much attention to ourselves or have anyone figuring out too much about her special anatomy, or have any government-types poking around and wanting to dissect her or something. Luckily, we were fairly incident-free, just the odd stare here and there, and then we were back at the cabin. And that very well could have been because I forgot to put my back-up flannel on until we got to the cabin. Only problem now was figuring out how Hopper got over here in the first place and doing that in reverse. Hopper had told me all about what led up to her getting in here, and I was mulling it over for most of the truck ride.
The Wolves are hunting down a special gift, huh? And Hopper felt something happen to her right before she came here. That was definitely not a gift you’d want your slave class walking around with if they could have just left whenever they wanted to. If I was right, she already did it once, so all we had to do was do it again, but on purpose this time. We were just miles away from all the libraries that still had no information about any of this and a universe away from any libraries that actually had information in Hopper’s world. Wouldn’t even know where to look in either place if we could’ve. Also, the last time Hopper had her world-swapping experience like this, she was in a life-or-death situation of heightened adrenaline and panic. We were gonna find another way to get this done, I was sure of it. I just didn’t know how, yet.
“My lord, may I ask some questions?” Hopper was sitting beside me in my truck, curled up inside my shirt. Even with those rock-and-roll legs, she managed to tuck her knees in to make a little plaid ball of herself. By heavenly grace, that booty couldn’t quite fit inside, and could still be seen as she leaned against the window. Not that I was peeking. Too much.
“Of course,” I said, leaving my train of thought behind. “Can’t promise I’ve got any good answers for you. Not much learned of things outside my work and where I’d been.”
“Do you know of the Hunter, then?” she asked.
“I know of some hunters,” I answered, “Hell, I’m one of them. I suspect that’s not what you were really asking about.”
“Does this world have many of them?” She bobbed herself off the window to bring her full attention up, resting on the backrest to stay upright.
“Course we do,” I said, “It’s a proud and noble tradition. Some folks look down on it, and others just plain do it wrong, but it’s got rich history all the same.”
“Do they hunt Wolves?”
“They hunt our wolves, sure,” I answered. “It’s not legal most places, but it still happens. Some places don’t have any, where others have ‘em like pests.”
“Do you hunt Wolves, my lord?” there was a powerful hope in those eyes.
“Yeah, I’ve taken care of a few problems with wolves,” I answered. “You gotta be clever with them. Most game runs when you shoot it. Wolves make it their business to try to turn the tables. And it works for them more than I’d like to think about.”
“Do they ‘turn the tables’ for you?” She continued to press in as she leaned in towards me.
“I’m still here, aren’t I?” I quipped. “Though, I’m not too sure I can use the same tactics with your Wolf people. Are they like you? You know how you’re rabbits, but you’ve got people parts, still? Do your Wolves have people parts?”
“I wouldn’t say they’re anything like us.” She told me. “They’re brutish and cruel, mindless and hateful. If they have a cruel noble to work for, they share in all of its brutality.”
“Nasty creeps,” I remarked, “but I was talking more about body shapes, arms, and legs, that sort of thing. Do they walk on two legs like you and me or all four?”
“Two legs,” she replied, “unless they’re running. They use their front claws for holding weapons often, like their hammers, and some of them with their muskets.”
“Alright, that clears up a few questions,” I said, pushing my hair back in a moment of anxiety. Firearms meant they wouldn’t just fight like beasts. Cruel and brutal as they could have been, tools at that level suggested they might have had some idea of battle tactics. “So, this Timberpine Wolf, what can you tell me about him? He a fighter, charge-in type or more of a thinker-planner Wolf?”
“He thinks of new ways to punish his slaves when he’s bored,” she said, looking down at the dashboard as if it was playing a memory for her, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him fight. Lord Timberpine hasn’t been challenged as long as I’ve served under him.”
“He got a mate to worry about?” I asked her. “I know our wolves work together in those kinds of pairs all the time. Makes them a bitch to take on when you’re alone, no pun intended.”
“Wolf nobles don’t have mates.” She clarified. “They have never even shown an interest in mating, especially not with Rabbits. They abuse their status and nobility, and especially our sexuality, but they have never partaken, at least not with their slave
s. I also can’t tell if there are Bunnies among them at all. I’ve only heard of Hares.”
“You mean ‘no girls, just men’?” I scoffed quietly, “That’s… odd. Do you think maybe that it was just Timberpine who didn’t have a mate, and he didn’t happen to like Rabbits, but you just didn’t know about other nobles?”
“Wolf nobles traded slaves often,” she explained, “so stories of other nobles spread between all of us. They can’t find a difference, either. And no nobles have taken to visiting or relating to another for anything conjugal.”
“You’d think beastly Wolf people with political power would be all about abusing sex,” I pointed out. “Can’t fit my head around it. So,” I changed the topic, “We find Timberpine, we kill him for being an evil piece of horseshit, and then what?”
“What do you mean, my lord?” she asked me.
“Well, your world’s packed with Wolves, right?” I spelled out my thought. “So, once I put one in Timberpine, what’re the other ones gonna do? Do I gotta worry about revenge or something? They’re not just gonna let me walk away with murder, right?”
“You wouldn’t go away,” Hopper said, puzzling in her twitchy nose, “As the victor in combat, you’d take over his estate, merging all of his property with yours. You’d take your proper place among Thumperton Port’s elite.”
“What?” I was a tad skeptical. “They’re just gonna let a random foreign alien kill a politician and take all of their stuff?”
“That’s how Timberpine got the estate previously, according to the older slaves,” she said matter-of-factly. “The Wolves require a simple system of succession and ownership. A Rabbit can’t take up nobility because the Wolves are far stronger. Just like my legs are strong, their whole bodies are more so.”