Bunnygirls Read online

  “Whoa, whoa, slow down, miss,” Hank put his big, rough hands on my face, holding me steady as I bounced around excitedly. My cheeks flushed with red again as I realized I had been speaking those thoughts out loud just now.

  “We can talk guns in just a bit,” Hank assured me, “but first things first. What’s your name?”

  “I-I’m a foot masseuse.” I replied plainly, “or, at least, I was before I was sent here.”

  “That’s real good to know,” Hank said politely, “but could you tell me your name?”

  “She doesn’t have one, yet, my lord,” Hopper put a hand on Hank’s chest.

  “Right, right,” Hank sighed quietly, “I’ll leave that alone for now. You seem awfully booksmart for a Bunny. None of the Hares that I talked to couldn’t tell a barrel from a beanstalk, and here you are getting all technical. You wouldn’t happen to know how to read Cuniculus, would you?”

  I looked away, breaking from Hank’s hands and backing away. I couldn’t bear to tell him the truth about that. What if he tried to lock me up like the Wolves did? I tried to stay away from those books, I really did, but I couldn’t help but look at them. Picking up the little tricks of the words and shapes was easy, and I was learning so much. But I shouldn’t have wanted to learn. I should have focused on my job.

  “Hold on, now,” Hank said, coming up to me and pulling my chin up, “You got nothing to worry about, I could take it or leave it either way. I was just hoping you could read some things I have lying around. If not, fine by me. We can find a reader later.”

  “You…” the foot masseuse spoke up hesitantly, “Do you want me to read it for you?”

  “Wait, so you can read?” Hank said, almost shouting. I nodded my head, and Hank punched into the air in excitement. “Look at that! Two birds, one stone! I can’t wait to see what we got.”

  Hopper joined in the excitement, clapping and jumping joyously while Hank picked me up in a swirling hug as they kissed, Hopper’s feet pointed to the ceiling. He set me down, then went over to the foot masseuse, picking the little thing up in the tightest hug I’d ever experienced in my life. Before I could even think, Hank’s lips were against mine, in a kiss that felt even better than the first, his invigorating scent washing over me. I could spend an eternity in that moment. Sadly, it ended, but I got to look into those deep brown eyes of his again.

  “You,” Hank said to me, “are beautiful.” With that, he set my little frame down, picking up the shotgun he had dropped earlier and putting the bullets back inside so he could clip it to his side. He walked up to the door, opening it for Hopper to step out. When he looked over to me, I hadn’t yet moved from my spot. I couldn’t compel myself to.

  There was one nagging question on my mind, one that would help put all of these crazy things together. I had to know but couldn’t bear to ask. I’d read it a hundred times, heard legends from dozens of other slaves, and it all pointed here. Hoping for it had left an ache inside as the Wolves carried on their cruelty, but that hope was the last thing I had left. I had to know if it was worth it.

  “You look like you’re itching to ask a question,” Hank called me out. “Go on, ask. I’ll answer just about anything--”

  “Are you the Hunter?” I blurted out before Hank could finish, gasping and covering my mouth before any more words could escape. A pause filled the air as the tension cut through the elfin Bunny like a swarm of bees.

  “Well,” Hank stretched the word out, “mostly, but also not really. It’s a bit of a doozy to try to put together plain.”

  What the heck was that supposed to mean?

  “I can tell you the story on the way out.” he motioned for me to follow, which I promptly obeyed. As my new master, I couldn’t help but want to do anything he asked, or just wanted. “And pay attention. This gets complicated real quick. For starters, Hopper’s part is where it really begins.”

  2

  Hopper

  When I was much younger, I didn’t go by Hopper, and was just a simple housekeeper for a noble, like any Rabbit was in the Great Burrow. And, like any other Rabbit, Hare and Bunny alike, my noble was a Wolf of little mercy and much fury. No one knew about life before the Wolves came, and family ties were cut early by the Wolves to keep us from gathering in any way. From time to time, an older slave might speak of the stories of Rabbit nobility who attempted to rally a defense against the Wolves, but these armies were quickly crushed by the Wolves’ superior physical might. On the rare occasion, where no Wolf was around to hear, they would spread the tale of the Hunter, a hero of legend from thousands of years in the past who fought the Wolves and drove them back into obscurity. Somehow, they returned from their long respite and warred against Rabbit province after province. The Wolves established themselves as the new nobility, turning any surviving Rabbit nobles into slaves, and taking over the entire world in a swift campaign.

  While Timberpine, the lord of my estate, never spent a day without physical violence to a slave, especially the women, no slave was pushed to attempt to escape this life, especially when escape was akin to death with Wolves patrolling constantly. The Wolves wanted to harvest the inherent magical essence inside of Bunnies, the uses of which were lost to the Rabbits for hundreds of years, save for one special ability that was still being hunted down.

  So, being a good slave and a good housekeeper, I learned to live as any Rabbit would live and merely accepted the world order. If I kept my mouth shut and never stepped out of line, I could live a relatively decent life without pain, at the very least. I learned to attempt to be content with that.

  That was until the night I ran away.

  Like any other night, I was doing my duties well. It was just after the weekly party that Lord Timberpine hosted at his Estate, and it ended just like every other week before. Wolves did not eat anything without at least a little rage involved, and the meats that they gorged themselves on would end up mostly on the floor and the walls. Lord Timberpine had gotten into a competition with another noble over some drinks, and the two had passed out along with all of the others. So I cleaned the house just as I always did, hopping over slumbering Wolves as I picked up every wasted piece of meat and threw it away. I then collected every dish I could find that was not buried beneath four hundred pounds of fur and muscle, though I could push one over if I really needed to, and put them inside the kitchen to clean them.

  I was teaching another slave to be a housekeeper like myself at this time, as instructed by Timberpine’s Wolf overseers, a young Hare barely beyond his childhood years. He was rather clumsy and prone to accidents, as one might be prone to breathing. Still, I was able to keep his buffoonery in line, and he saw me as a fairly kind and thoughtful teacher, thankfully. I had only been assigned this extra task a week before, and it was to be his first time helping clean Timberpine’s soiree.

  This particular night, a group of the Wolf nobles had decided to roam the Estate, leaving a trail of spilled booze, rancid meat, blood, and broken furniture as they crawled through the house. I had my new apprentice tend to the rest of the kitchen cleaning while I, as a good housekeeper, followed that trail and made it disappear as if they never were there. I could even map out the events of their little escapade. They went into the kitchen for food, fought in the kitchen, went to the courtyard, fought in the courtyard, went to Timberpine’s bedroom, fought in the bedroom, then roamed the halls for a bit before passing out in Timberpine’s study.

  As I approached the study, I became conflicted. The study was forbidden for slaves to enter. Many Rabbits had died from forgetting that this was where the study was located and entering by accident. It was also a goddamn mess in there, and Timberpine would whip me half to death, in the most literal sense, if it saw the travesty of filth in its office. I chose to clean it.

  Moving the Wolves out was probably the hardest thing, but I made quick work of it using my powerful legs. Even among the naturally gifted Bunnies, I was pretty proud of what I could pull off with mine. Once they were moved o
ut, I got underneath all of the chairs, the shelves, behind the shelves, under the carpet. It was almost prolific how many places they managed to soil. Once I had gotten every spot shiny and spotless, I finally got to the desk, cleaning it up spick and span, when I spied into a slightly open drawer, with some papers inside.

  Well, I had already gone into the room to clean it. It would be a shame if I didn’t also clean these drawers as clean as they could be. If I just checked it, just to be sure, then I could say I did my duty as a housekeeper. Plus, I couldn’t help but look once. I took a quick peek.

  Several papers were thrown about inside, all of varying sizes and colors. I didn’t quite know why I thought that this would be a fun idea; the Wolves didn’t allow slaves to read. As I pulled papers out, I felt more and more that this idea was foolish, and that I could get into some lethal danger if I lingered here.

  Just as I was about to leave, I heard the familiar snarls of my Lord Timberpine echoing through the halls. With all of the extra cleaning I had to do, I had no idea how much time I had been eaten up. It was well into the day by this point, and well past the time that Lord Timberpine would recover from its hangover and food coma. I barely managed to hide behind the desk before the Wolf noble stepped into the room, sniffing about. Each sniff was stuffed and wet, just as they always were when a Wolf recovered from such ailments as a raging party. I could do nothing but watch Timberpine’s paws on the ground in the hopes that I could keep out of its field of vision. Slowly, Timberpine took steps to the left, and I to the right, staying deftly low and keeping the desk between myself and the lord’s eyes. When I reached the front of the desk, and Timberpine the back, I ran into a problem.

  Timberpine had closed the door behind himself, and its desk faced the door directly. Timberpine was also tall amongst Wolves and could see the entire door from his chair, keeping me trapped in that position. The final complication: Timberpine’s dulled senses would eventually wear off, and it would eventually pick me up in such close proximity. I had no choice but to wait for Timberpine to leave the office, but it had to be done quickly, or I’d never leave it alive. Or I had to wait for a miracle. Timberpine looked at the papers strewn about on its desk, thinking aloud as it did so.

  “Did I leave these out here?” Timberpine spoke, a posh accent crammed into its inflection. No other Wolf sported this accent; the proud lord invented it to seem more noble and superior to others. “What a mess. I should have the maid come clean this up, then flog her for coming into my office. Or maybe I should have that new hare clean it, then flog them both.”

  A pregnant pause loomed as I imagined every way that Timberpine could pounce over the desk to kill me. I had been discovered so quickly. If the door could be opened quickly enough, I could slip through it in a single jump and be out the door. I knew I could outpace most others, but I’d never had to test it on a Wolf.

  “Eh, I’ll just clean it up myself,” Timberpine continued, “My head is killing me too much to howl for her. Where is she, anyway? The banquet hall is still a mess. Maybe I’ll have her flogged for that, later. Might make me feel better.”

  I didn’t know whether to shout in frustration, shriek in fear, or sigh in relief. I was finished with the banquet hall when I left to clean the hallways! Either way, I had to stifle all of it as I continued to think of a way out of the study, and Timberpine shuffled through the papers.

  “What’s this?” the lord continued. “Right, deeds. Deeds, deeds, Writ of Ownership, Writ of Ownership, Writ, Writ, Writ, blank, blank, deed, blank, letter from Lord Harlumon I need to wipe my ass with and return as an insult, Writ, and…”

  The noble stopped listing his papers, and I finally had an idea. Timberpine’s fancy cane was stowed next to the door in the bin which the noble only used if it wanted to flaunt its superiority over another noble. The bottom of the bin wasn’t visible, even by Timberpine. I could have grabbed it, hopefully without being noticed, and made a dash for the door while hooking the handle from the other side with the cane, slamming it shut to give me that crucial half-second I would have needed to escape unnoticed. If I was fast enough, I could have made it over to where I was expected to be before anyone suspected a thing. My long legs reached over to the cane bin, anxiously keeping within the zone of concealment allowed by the desk.

  “Suspects?” Timberpine read one of the papers allowed. “Oh, right, the ones suspected of having that gift, the slave gift, what was that called? Eh, I’ll think of it later. Looks like I already got a few crossed off: the old cook, the stagecoach, the washer, and the dryer…”

  I hesitated for just a moment. I knew most of those servants. I’d worked with them. And I knew they were taken away to the Baron’s castle. I kept a reflexive shudder from coming out of my mouth at the thought of what the Baron did with its slaves. And the Baron looked kind in comparison to the more powerful Wolf nobles; if the Baron had to give a slave up to one of them, dying may have been a better fate. But I couldn’t think about that at that moment. I had to get out of this study or die.

  “Next on the list is… Oh, perfect!” The regal savage shouted, “I was just looking for a reason to replace the maid. Now I can just kill her.”

  My surprise at hearing myself be mentioned in a death list pushed my foot just ever too far forward, pushing the cane forward and bumping it into the wall. Timberpine stopped moving. It attempted to sniff the air with its clogged nose, clearing out the airways to bring smell back into its nostrils. It growled at the realization of another presence in its precious study, a killing intent flooding the psychic space.

  Right at that moment, the door swung open, and one of the Wolf nobles who crashed through the house stumbled into the study, still somehow inebriated.

  “Pimbertime, you fr- you Rabbit’s asshole,” it slurred out the best it could as it attempted to address the lord of the estate, “Why can’t I find my house?”

  The drunkard proved a suitable distraction for both the hungover lord and myself, neither of us possessing the ability to understand what was currently happening. Its head fell down to look at me.

  “Who’s ‘is Bunny bitch?”

  I was the first to take advantage of the opportunity, kicking against the desk to rocket out between the drunken lord’s wide stance. The force of the kick smashed the desk against the back wall of the study, pinning Timberpine in between them. I was through the hall, past the kitchen, and running through the woods by the time Timberpine’s raging howl echoed out to the treetops.

  With such a wild head start, I had no trouble losing most of the estate guards sent out to chase me. A select few, though, outpaced the others, closing the distance between us at a troubling pace. I dashed left. They pounced right. I bounced off a tree to turn a corner. They bolted down a straightaway in the trees. I dared not to look back. The huffing of sour breaths getting closer was enough to tell me I wasn’t fast enough.

  I took to the treetops, looking for any advantage. Hopping from branch to branch, tree to tree, I kept my path sporadic. The Wolf guards were relentless, keeping their eyes on me as I pushed through the leaves.

  I heard a thunderous thumping from below as one of the Wolves charged. Like a strike of lightning, it used its monstrous strength and crashed into the base of the tree I was landing on, tripping me as I fell spinning towards the ground. My hand managed to catch onto another branch of the next tree, but the first had fallen into it, creating a domino of falling timber. Jumping to the forest floor, I slid underneath the tree right as it came crashing down, putting a wall of lumber between my assailants and myself.

  That still didn’t prove enough for one of them, as the beast leapt right over the fallen tree and rushed towards me, closing the distance faster than I could think to stop it. Turning corners, jumping up branches, dancing from treetop to treetop, the Wolf was right on my tail at every maneuver, and only getting closer. I was going to die. This dread welled up inside me, forcing me to realize I hated what these Wolves did to my people and me. I didn’t just wa
nt to live beyond this moment; I wanted things to change. I reached out my hand like I expected, by some miracle, someone to reach out and save me, to help me fix this. But I was alone. The creature reached its own beastly hand out, grabbing onto my ankle as we had just jumped into the air.

  Right at that moment, I felt something in my chest, almost like a spark, flare up, as if a light had turned on from a dusty lamp for the first time. The spark flew up my arm, tingling past my fingertips and out into the space in front of me. I couldn’t see anything yet, but I could feel something happening.

  In a flash, or more of a blur, of motion and light, my orientation flew every way it could, my directions were switched, up was down, left was right, and I fell right into the strangest creature you’d ever seen.

  3

  The inner workings of this damn temple were so complex that I was more than glad we had a way to pass the time like telling this story. Plus, it gave me time to think of a name for the new girl. She was a dainty little thing, the flannel I gave her covering most of her body like something between a nightgown with sleeves and a full dress. Not counting those ears, she stood about chest-to-neck height on Hopper, and her head came up to my lower ribs. Her pink noise and fur gave her a much more rabbit-like appearance than Hopper, but I was told that was pretty normal for Rabbits. The girls, or Bunnies as they called it, had all kinds of body types, ranging from fairly fluffy and rabbit-like to basically human-looking with rabbit ears. The Hares, or guy Rabbits, were mostly rabbit-like and were pretty easy to spot. Maybe a few were more human-shaped, but, for the most part, if you spotted a giant jackrabbit in a coat, you were talking to a Hare.

  This new Bunny fell a bit into the middle, though. Pale as a fresh winter sheet, her fur covered her from head to toe, save for the dark-brown hair in the pixie cut on her head. She had more rabbity legs than Hopper did, with little bunny paws at the ends, though Hopper’s legs were longer and thicker because of those hips of hers. Not that the new girl didn’t have a nice set of hips of her own, even covered by my flannel.