by Simon Archer
“Goddamn, you are just as bad as me.” I stopped that train in its tracks. “How does a bunny know how to talk around a private subject so blatantly like that? Wolves seem to want anything related to that literally in its own box in the corner to forget about.”
“Oh, um, some of the books I would read before I got put in the generator had some references like that.” She put her head down and looked up at me. “A lot of hares and bunnies going on adventures, fighting monsters and saving the day. The Hunter, saving the world long before now. Then, in some of them, they’d talk about things like that. It was always with different words, but they had the same feel to it. Besides the Hunter stories, those were actually some of my favorite ones.”
“So you were aware of what it was referring to, then?” I put the feather charm in a pocket in my overalls. “And you were drawn to that?”
“I, uh…” She avoided my gaze with her eyes, bouncing around the room in her anxiousness. “A few of my other masters had those stories in their libraries and offices. They never let slaves inside, but I didn’t care. They weren’t going to bother to read them. They just have them, so they look more civilized. I read those stories whenever I could. A couple of times each.”
“I thought you memorized everything you read on the first go?” I questioned her.
“I kept telling myself that I was just making sure I didn’t forget them.” She rubbed her little bunny footpaw on the floor in a twist. “But I think it was really just easier to… be there again. In those moments.”
“Does it feel better when you’re looking at it fresh?” I took a step toward her. “Like you’re there, a part of it, as one of them? As the bunny in the story?”
“Not me,” she whispered out. “I knew I could never actually be in a story like that, but just feeling it was enough, being present in it. I guess the emotion of it felt more alive, you know? Not just a memory but an experience. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone. It made me feel like someone was there for me when things were always getting worse. I always had somewhere to run to when I went back to those people’s lives, a brave adventure I could just fall into when I was tired of everything. When I was in the generator, I imagined those stories again to distract myself, except I needed to feel like I was there again, so I could not be where I was, so…”
“Take your time.” Another step to her, getting right up to her as she came up to my chest. “I’ll be right here when you’re ready. I want to know more about you.”
“It wasn’t enough to just think about it.” She pressed up next to me, her hands on my sides as mine reached down to hers. “It still hurt. I couldn’t leave and run like before. It had to be like when I read them on paper. That’s when I started to imagine myself as the bunny, but it was the Hunter who was with me. It felt the most real then, even more than reading it. Having the Hunter to be there for me kept me going when I wanted to give up. I wanted there to be a real Hunter, so I could get as real as I could.”
“Tinker, if only we had more time.” I put a hand to the side of her neck. “Once this nonsense with the Baron is over--”
With a crackling glub, a purplish misty static bursts wide into an oval, breaking us both out of the trance we were in as we looked to see one of Hopper’s portals manifest itself.
“WE SHOULD HAVE FOUND TINKER FIRST!” Hopper’s voice emanated from this portal just created in the office, heralding the portal-jumper to jump out of it. She bounced against the empty bookshelf on the wall opposite of her portal as it smacked against the wall and fell forward. As Hopper bounced back, she closed the portal behind her and opened another in front, just in time for the bookshelf to fall through. The bookshelf was pulled into it, flying, or better said falling, through the air to wherever Hopper set the other end. After a moment, a splintering crash rang out from the portal, along with a simultaneous muffled one just on the other side of the wall in the hallway.
“Oh, sweet mercy!” I heard a hare’s voice, Roger, through the portal speak. “Hopper broke the sky! Somebody, call Lord Dragonoak! The master’s sky is breaking!”
“Calm down, Roger! She just explained this to us.” Another hare, Peter, the one I saved from Timberpine before, called up to us, most likely yanking at Roger’s collar by the choking sounds. “That’s enough wood, Hopper, thank you! Are you sure we can use this? It’s broken now, but it looks like it came from Lord Dragonoak’s office. I don’t want to make him mad today. Or ever.”
“It’s fine, Peter.” I walked over to the portal, looking down to the ground, even though the portal was sideways. “I am aware of the situation, and she has my blessing. After the fact, admittedly.”
He and Roger were outside, in the defunct garden just a dozen feet or so from us geographically, though we’d have to walk all the way around through the kitchen and out to get to it ourselves. The two hares were making piles of wood to put in bundles as emergency stock to put the barricades back up if needed. While both were frazzled by the flying bookshelf, Roger was not handling the portal with grace.
“Your grace, what are you doing in the sky hole?” He gasped out at the horrifying miracle he was experiencing. “Do you need me to help get… call someone to get you down?”
“No, no, like all things in my household, this is my sky hole.” I looked right at him, with the widest eyes and the most furrowed brow. “Because I’m always watching, Roger. Never forget that.”
“Of course, your grand and unknowable fierceness.” Roger’s squeak barely eeked out.
“Fine, work, gentlemen.” I returned my face to normal. “Use anything you want from the grand dining hall as well, if you haven’t already.”
“Thank you, your grace.” Peter bowed. “May I say, your powers are as magnificent as they are droppings-inducing.”
“You can thank Hopper for that.”
“That’s Portal-Hopper to you!” Hopper put her hands to her hips like a superhero. I rolled my eyes with a smile as she recoiled at her outburst, closing the portal. “I’m sorry, my lord, please forgive my presumptuous intrusion.”
“It’s perfectly fine.” I chuckled off the incident. “I’m glad you’re finding work to do. The portals seem to be handy. And very exhilarating. I haven’t seen you quite this amped about anything in a while.”
“The portals are amazing, my lord!” she said as if she were punched in the gut. “They’re the best thing that’s ever happened! I can only make them out to about thirty or so feet from me, but as long as I can picture where I want it, I can make it. There’s so much you can do with them!”
“Amazing.” I congratulated her. “Anything funky about them?”
“They don’t do that well inside or around solid things, my lord,” she said, relaying her discoveries. “The edges sort of press up against them sometimes if you try to stretch the portal into its space. I can make more static-y or more rubbery edges, but it doesn’t really do much yet. But they get more static-y and hurty if the portals are smaller, and I can do more to the edges. I got one to burn through a table longways, so that was fun. If I try really hard, I can move them just the tiniest bit at that size. Otherwise, they don’t move ever. I can only get it as big as a Wolf right now, and I can only make the two connected portals at a time. And they’re always oval-shaped, all the time. But they’re a lot of fun. Best gift ever, Tinker! Best. Gift. Ever. Besides the freedom, security, self-respect, and sense of purpose from Lord Hank, of course. Best holdable gift ever.”
“That’s four things in my gift list, though,” I contended. “A portal belt totally beats any one of those on their own, hands down. And I didn’t give you those. I just gave you opportunities to find them yourself.”
“I’d have traded thousands of portal belts for my freedom,” Tinker said, coming up next to me. “Because I feel like I can go anywhere in the world when I’m with you.”
“You really have been reading a lot of stories.” I put my hand to her side to bring her in. “That’s some mighty fine sappy language ther
e.”
“Ohoho!” Hopper guffawed with a knowing wink. “I’ll be right back. Hold on.”
The magical leapster made a portal and exited the room in a leap. As Tinker and I looked at each other for a moment, a little confused and embarrassed, Hopper was right back where she was before, but now with one of my flannel shirts.
“Here you go, my lord.” Hopper handed it to me. “For when you change. I’ll be making more shortly since I know we’ll be needing them right after we beat the Baron. Tinker, if you need it, I can show you how to make the shirt into a sundress so that we don’t have to adjust it, and Lord Hank can wear it later.”
“Why would she--?” I didn’t understand until I realized Hopper’s implication was based on an earlier conversation back in my world. Bunnies have a particular thing for specific smells. “Oh, no, we don’t have time--”
“You can’t leave the mansion unprotected until the barricades are complete,” Hopper told me as if it were absolutely necessary. “Don’t worry. The mansion’s already been attacked, and your Wolves dealt with a lot of guards at the generator entrance. There’s no way they can strike again for at least the next couple of hours. That’s almost enough time, and she’ll take it.”
“Hopper, I really appreciate what you’re trying to do here.” I put my hands up in a calm protest. “If we had even a half-hour to spare, believe me, I’d use it all, but avoiding another attack is the main--”
“Hey, Bugs!” Hopper called into a portal she created beside her as a rebuke to my protest.
“Bless my ears!” Bugs put a hand to his chest to check his heart as he recovered from the shock of Hopper’s surprise entrance. He was working with some hares in the kitchen to bring out meals to all of the workers and staff. “Hopper! Good heavens, please give me a little more warning. This heart’s not nearly as young as it used to be. Thank you for keeping your portal out of the walkway this time. Um, always a pleasure, your grace. Do you need something?”
“Can you repeat what that Wolf who came by was saying a little earlier?” Hopper asked the hare butler. “About the Captain of the Guard and stuff?”
“Oh, I was just about to come to find you after I was done here, your grace.” Bugs composed himself. “One of your spies within the guard managed to come to us with news of the Captain’s movements. It appears they’ve been ordered to all report to the Baron’s keep. With their numbers and supplies, they believe they can outlast you, simply starve you of your resources and redirect them with the Baron’s connections. It seems they won’t be attacking us at all and wish for us to die on our own so as not to bother them with the trouble of doing it themselves anymore.”
Attrition warfare was always a bet made by a tactician who was confident they were already winning. But he’d be right if I tried to call his bluff. He definitely had the resources to outlast me, and the ability to starve my resources while keeping himself full. That would practically force me to attack him to have any chance of winning, from a logical standpoint. And he’d be ready for any time we attacked because of it, making the frontal assault a suicide. He could have won just by watching me thrash about and waste my time.
However, without any city guard in the town, I could have made my fortune in dead nobles, gaining their stuff to supplement me. I could have claimed everything around him, That keep can only hold so many people, and there would have to have been a few who didn’t make the cut. They’d be the lowliest and weakest of the bunch, with maybe a strong dissident or two, if I hadn’t already killed that one when I killed Timberpine. Probably not a smart bet to make if I was going to wage a war. I probably could have done it if I was desperate and yet with all the time to waste, but that’d cost too many lives that I could be saving to fight later battles. With this Wolf culture of strength asset acquisition, every battle was like a part of the Civil War; in a strange sort of way, I was always attacking and weakening my own future resources.
The smartest thing to do might have been to look to other towns and cities, move my resources away from here. Try to gain territory elsewhere and fight him another day, another way, with more to work with and without the chokehold on what I could work with.
But he could have just taken back the estate and returned everything to what it was before as if I did nothing. Then, as I’d have been moving a giant force of people, he’d have sent out raiders to catch us where we’d have been vulnerable. You couldn’t have protected a valuable asset reliably without speed or stealth. I’d have neither.
He may have even wanted me to leave. That could have been why he let my spy come warn me as a scare tactic. If that were the case, we would have played right into his hands. My spies were dead meat already if that was true, and I didn’t have any way to pull them out. If they knew about the spies, they could have been playing all kinds of mind tricks and misinformation to try to trick me. Or to get me to overthink their cleverness. They were wealthy, but they were still Wolves. There was a bit of a cap. The Baron’s was definitely higher than average, so I couldn’t underestimate him, but he was also the guy who let me get this far in the first place. Maybe we wouldn’t give him too much credit, then.
We could have tried some guerilla warfare, attack supply lines and such to cripple the keep from the outside and starve it, creating an effective siege. Technically, that was always a winning strategy in the long run, but that also required knowing the geography better than your opponent to hide effectively. That would have taken far too long, also, and I still had no idea when this Blood Moon was. If I dallied about trying to get this one city, the whole world’s bunnies could have been endangered when I was still here, and the Blood Moon was active. I didn’t have time to wait like that. I had to claim that fortress soon. Thankfully, because of the Baron himself, I had much more time than I thought. I could relax a bit.
And the strategy was already in place as soon as I learned about all of the charms. We were doing the frontal assault. Why the suicide attempt? Because the Baron wasn’t actually expecting the frontal assault. He just wanted to make it look like he’d be ready for it. No one in this world had been ready for me yet. I wondered how he would fare. With some creative use of charms and other magic we had in the arsenal now, I’d have had them whittled down to half before the battle even started. It would have been crippled from the inside before they knew there was an assault. But more on that later.
“Have either of them been compromised?” I asked. Just to be sure that we didn’t have to pull them out, too. “Warning us was pretty risky. If he thought they might be on to him, I would have told him to come back to us.”
“No, sir,” Bugs replied. “He came alone, our conversation was unseen, and he has returned without anyone being the wiser.”
“You’re sure?” I gave the hare an eye. “Wolves aren’t the most socially observant people I’ve worked with. Something may have gone over his head.”
“You are quite right.” Bugs agreed with me, to my slight chagrin. I was sure he had more to say. “This is my observation. His city guard fellows seem to still think he is a loyal guardsman to the end, from what I overheard from afar. He was actually planning to come back into our fold, as you would have wanted, but I advised against it upon the discovery.”
“Why?” I questioned, almost accused him. “He’d be safe here. I don’t view my Wolves as expenda-- Wait, how come you knew, but he didn’t?”
“Just wait!” Hopper said to brace me. “This part’s hilarious.”
“A Rabbit’s ears pick up many things, your grace, if one knows where to hear.” Bugs gave his own a bend as they were mentioned. “For example, he was asked by his fellow guardsmen why he was heading over to your estate. He had told them, ‘I’m off to give the Dragonoak estate a message. Go to hell.’ And off he went with his tactful self. Based on their discussion and laughter after he left, I reasoned that they must have thought he said, ‘I’m off to give the Dragonoak estate a message: Go to Hell.’ They thought that was a rather funny message for us to recei
ve, and I was laughing at something similar.”
“Good call, then,” I said with a laugh that bled into a sigh. “He acted well enough with what he knew, and I’m proud of both of you. Thank you for telling me, Bugs. Return to work.”
“You’re quite welcome, your grace,” Bugs said as the portal collapsed into oblivion.
“Alright, so we have more time than I thought.” I sighed in defeat. “Thank you, Hopper. And yes, it would be a lot of fun. A lot of fun. But is now an appropriate time--?”
Hopper looked at me with wide eyes and a constant nod, darting her eyes and slightly tipping her head over to Tinker as if to say ‘there has never been a more appropriate time in the history of all times ever recorded for this. Exhibit A: just look at her and the vibe she is radiating off like a furnace on a cold night so you can see how stupid you look.’
I looked down at the petite bunny, her thin, snowy white fur looking so soft, and her eyes were so pleading, though she was ‘trying’ to hide it. The effort was purposefully lacking as she had already taken off her make-shift mechanic gloves and shifted her blackened shirt to almost totally expose a shoulder but technically be on it. With some undone buttons, she was making the whole ensemble ready for me to rip off with one swipe of my hand, should I have been so inclined. And I was. Very much so. While still a respectable and mostly functional outfit to wear around on the street, even in this state, it was easily transitioned to the floor like a pair of rip-off pants. Except, you know, significantly less silly, since an attractive woman was modeling all of it. Although the intimate and tender moment we were having before wasn’t there anymore, the way that she arranged herself said she definitely still was.
There was a certain, rightfully earned, stigma to the phrase “Look at what she was wearing. She was asking for it.” And I’d have completely disagreed with that in almost every context I could have imagined. But when the woman was dressed how Tinker was right then, especially considering she wasn’t so just a minute ago and made the changes herself, there may be a certain unspoken request on her mind.