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[hedgerow]

_{Was it Abny Girdle?}

Founding of Rabbitreel The Legend

   “This ought to do us just fine,” Samantha spoke with a huff.  She swiped the arch of her brow with a sleeve, gently shaded by the ever layering conifer canopy: walnut, peach, persimmon.  She and six other dwarves sat taciturn on their haunches, buddying on rocks and backpacks.

   From the side, a camel cocked its head in curiosity.

   “You couldn’t have picked a prettier site,” Lilly cooed, cradling her pumpkin bunny.

   Samantha snorted.  “Where did you find the rabbit?”

   “It’s a bunny, not a rabbit.”  Lilly lifted the animal by its shoulders, showing its whiskers and eyes to the crowd.  “What pitiless retort!  A rabbit!  What quaff!” she pantomimed.

   “Adorable.”  She took four steps closer to Lilly, who sat against the front of the wagon.  The bunny stared back at her silently, its eyes black as coal.

First Year to Autumn Where It All Went Wrong

   15 of Granite, 550
   Our caravan arrived precisely three hours ago.  Excavation is underway for a bulwark against the wilds.  We have taken the necessary precautions to defend our valuables by immediately moving them within the hillside.
   I’ve come to realize roosters are mighty fond of stamping and cucking underfoot.  I damn near kicked one out the door before Lilly told me I was being crude, and Williams took it upon himself to move the entire roost outside, above the excavation zone.
   I put Lilly to counting the stores, something she made known would be her primary occupation, and she has since directed stockpiles and plots to be perimetered off the meeting area.
   Digging deeper, we have appeared to hit a pebble-like rock.  Bell informs me it is ‘Conglomerate’.  Williams has since preoccupied himself with working them into fine blocks.

    8 of Slate, 550
   Williams has butchered the camel.  I can still hear it, off in the lower depths of the excavation, away from curious noses.  I can still see Williams with a heap of meat and the oddest haze about him, dumping that and the first bits of cleaned poultry into our stores.

   24 of Slate, 550
   The persimmons are abloom, vibrant with the other trees down the mountain slope.  Lilly dyed her hat a royal purple, and managed to snag a feather from one of the magpies haunting the frequented lumberyard.   Lupin has also removed himself from the rains, coming in as sweetly as possible, and thus distracting half of our roster from more important duties.

   2 of Galena, 550
   All of our Summer affairs are in order.  We have struck granite for future excavations, properly reinforced our bulwark for the Winter, and properly planned metallurgical development for the coming chill.  Further warehouse areas are also being excavated.
   The Baroness’s convoy visited in brief, which I thought rather fortuitous.  What but half a year since contact, and about four weeks journey from Rutodakrul.

Samantha   

Lupin And The Lamed Hens To Have Known Evil

   “Lupin!” Lilly exasperated.  Lupin continued nuzzling her stomach, sprawling himself over her lap like some exhausted, regal hunter.  The rest of the roster worked fitfully, congruing themselves to the logistical machinations of the bulwark which they had created.  Lupin rested his ears flatly on both of Lilly’s legs, staring blankly into the wall.

   Lilly sat unoccupied in her office.  The floors were well laid peach wood and the furniture a combination of fruit wood and granite.  Samantha had promised it to her by winter, another way of saying ‘thank you’.  But the growing animosity between them had become something insurmountable, and Lilly had since distanced herself from the former flame.

   On the desk across from her, stacks of papers lay haphazard.  Bussers of manufactured goods, cloth bags, and pig tail derivatives lay scattered and unaccounted for.  From behind her, shelves sat silent and waiting, waiting for the ledgers she’d eventually account.  Lupin lie comfortably beneath her.

   “I can’t be caught wasting time with you, that much is for sure,” she muttered bitterly.  She squared the papers away neatly and placed them at the corner of her desk.  From the distance, another frothful reminder of regander made itself heard: a fit of interest over the new horse.  Lilly wondered.  She wondered on the interest of dwarves who would never pave a day, never fallow a field, and she put her hand across Lupin’s resting furrow, clearly irritated at the coming development.

   From across the back of the room, she thought she heard a voice mellow, “You must murder the horse.”

   Startled, she looked at Lupin innocently.  “But I don’t want to murder the horse.”

   “Then you must house and nester six hens to make up for the transgression, o’ quaff.”  Lupin lazily chastened his dry mouth with multiple tastes, making mewls throughout the canvas of the room.

   Lilly stared hard at the bunny, thinking it too innocent to be so austere, but eventually surrendering to its greater will.  “I think I can do that,” she muttered quietly.

   “Thanks, the squirrels have been wild for months.”

   Holding Lupin by his shoulders, she sat him on the ground as she marched to the meeting room.  The room was askew with the intrusion as she began pointing to the various carpenters.  Courtney shrank into the corner stool as lesser immigrants began like clockwork to edge the hillside with nest boxes.

First Winter by Samantha Murderhammer Hens Unaccounted For

   Date Unknown, 550
   Lilly berated us to gather the hens.  One was lamed quite early on being attacked by the rather large auburn squirrels.

   As of this entry, ten dwarves have migrated westward to Rabbitreel, three of which are children.  While most of the adults stay busy, the children remain in the barracks.  As of yet, there have been no goblins or kobolds, save one thief which managed to steal a trifle from the stores.

   The bulwark has been designed across two early levels, both adjacent to one another, vertically speaking: above, a barracks area to defend the territory; and below, an underbelly to melt and fashion weapons.   The miners have found nothing worth smelting, though they have found various small stones and mineral deposits.

Samantha      

Lupin And The Cultists Someone Had To

   “Lupin!” Lilly exasperated, walking into the warehouse where string and pig tail lie strewn off the side of a stool.  The rabbit had already fled the watchful eyes of the stockpile workers, and began pushing neat yarns into long lines of tangled rub.

   The rabbit looked up briefly at Lilly as she clamored over the furniture.  From afar, sounds of laughter from The Tracks of Post, and further still, the bahs of baby goats.

   “Do not- get stuck,” Lilly tripped flat over a pile of old tools, and the rabbit scurried even further into the dark recesses of the lumberyard.  The dwarf looked up menacingly at the lagomorph, bravely testing her patience in the face of obvious pains.

   “You will get yours Lupin,” she warned sanctimoniously.

   The room went quiet as the last worker retreated, more heehawing from the dining room.  The rabbit scrambled quickly back to the main floor, coming but five feet short of Lilly before snatching her cap feather in his teeth.

   “Lu- Lupin, that’s my feather.”  Warm tears welled up in Lilly’s eyes as Lupin chewed the feather in length.  It circled the floor further, and discarded the molested article in the corner by a peach tree cabinet.

   “Lupin!” she resolved desperately, launching herself from the cold floor and dashing quickly over furniture.  She jumped atop her feather with both hands, bringing the frayed piece to eye level.

   “You ruined my feather!”  She glared at the corner stockpile with animosity, the rabbit hidden among its various piles.

   “Lilly?”

   “What is it?” she quipped in innocent surprise, turning to Bell, whose face was still covered in soot and powder.

   “What are you doing?” she asked.

   Silence stretched between the two dwarves as Lilly flattened her cotton shirt.  She coughed as she placed the feather back into her cap.

   “I’m working.”

   “Do I need to take the rabbit?”

   Both of the dwarves smirked as Lupin wandered the side in confusion.

   “I don’t think he can handle it.”

   “I don’t know.  He’ll get more done than you if he spends time near the farm.”  Bell strolled briskly to the rabbit, who retreated fearfully before being hoisted by his shoulders and placed in the nook of Bell’s arm.

   “Does he like gunpowder?” she asked cutely.

   Lilly bit her lip.  “I don’t think he cares for it.”

   “Good.  Then it’s agreed, the rabbit stays with me.”


   Bell placed the rabbit firmly on the soil as dwarves bustled through, scooping up handfuls of plump cap for the still.  The rabbit crawled unsteadily across the plot, giving a tentative sniff to the mushrooms before recoiling.

   “Amethyst, say hello to your new rabbit.”

   From the side of the plot, a dwarf looked up dazed, still fingersdeep in the rough ground and covered in wet dirt.  She seemed to realize Bell was standing there before looking back down at the toxic ferment.

   “Bell…?”

   “Lupin.”

   “Lupin?”  Amethyst stood slowly and collected herself as she waddled closer to the pair, looking down at the rabbit as it looked for prey.

   “It won’t have anything to eat down here.  Or anyone to talk to.”

   “Don’t be silly girl,” Bell admonished, turning to the exit.  “Rabbits cannot talk.”

   Amethyst watched as Bell exited the plot as confidently as she entered.  Several dwarves made motions to reseed the soil, and Williams even thought it polite to bring a wheelbarrow for the fruits.  It remained empty.  Amethyst reached down near Lupin’s ear and pulled a baby plump cap from the dirt, depositing it into her mouth with a sticky chew.

   “I ‘ope you can fin’ your way aroun’,” she said with her mouth full.  Lupin stared up at her lidded eyes, whiskers twitching.

   A voice from far away came to her then: “You and Williams are together?”

   A moment passed slyly as the girl looked at the rabbit.  A dumb grin found her face as she spat the mushroom into her palm.

   “How fungus’d am I?” she muttered in interest.

   “You must be wary.  Williams is only luring you into murder.”

   Amethyst looked incredulously at the rabbit, who was still stoic on the ground by her feet, whiskers atwitch.

   “Oh yeah?” she taunted, leaning to the side and tonguing plump cap from her molars.  “What business is it of yours, rodent?”

   “Well, you see…,” the rabbit continued, putting its arms in front it as if in presentation.  “Williams is actually Sabrina’s ex-lover.  They came from hamlets south of here after murdering two of their kin.”

   She let the rabbit finish as she chewed, never once taking her eyes off its intense fixture.  It nodded.

   “What’s more, the two of them are actually terrible cultists.  They have seen land ravaged by war, like all those who inhabited the hamlets east of the sea.  Williams is just charming you.  If you continue to fall into his clutches, you will surely meet your end.”

   “So what do I do,” she nommed lazily.  The rabbit came two steps closer, nearer to her feet.  “You must fill his butchery with hens.”

   Her eyes went solemn and her jaw stilled.  She seemed to understand briefly the rodent brought nothing but bad news, and not fortune.

   “All right, rodent.”  She turned and waded the loose soil, exiting the plot with Lupin in tow.


    “BUACK!”  The sound of a fight erupted from the lower depths of Rabbitreel, feathers flying as hens flew noisily up the stair.  Williams came swinging with his cleaver in the air, and the dwarves in the meeting room went silent as heir festivities were interrupted.

   “I went for a break for fifteen minutes and I come back and the entire roost is laying eggs over my station,” he appealed to the room.  Many of the dwarves ooh’d and ah’d at the sound of the drama.  “It’s still on m’ boots.”

   Samantha tipped her goblet back as she chuckled at the butcher, boots drenched in yolk.

Second Year To Limestone by Samantha Murderhammer It's Quite A Crowd In Here

   1 Granite, 551
   Deeper excavations are underway to find the metal that we desperately need.  I have instructed the bowyer to begin working on archery equipment, and Bell is to oversee the scout party.

   14 Granite, 551
   Bell has been appointed commander of the first scout regiment of Rabbitreel, which is as follows: Nick, Donnie, and Sabrina.

   5 Slate, 551
   Rabbitreel is now 43 strong.  The latest wave of migrants has caused our usually quiet huckleberry to become a dizzying bustle.  I have begun planning a separate outpost towards the northern gap.

   10 Felsite, 551
   A new migrant by the name of Nomal has been engrossed in a new craft as of late, occupying the workshop for a week straight.  When prodded about more important projects queued, she simply shoos me.

   12 Felsite, 551
   The Tracks of Post has been established.  Williams has been appointed manager, tasked to look over all work orders at the Eastern Bulwark.

   26 Felsite, 551
   Nomal finished a stone ring.

   12 Malachite, 551
   Summer is here.  Migrants have begun pouring as of late, and the steady inflow of work ready dwarves has resulted in a community of fifty-three dwarves.  The stockpiles have been better organized, and most of the finished goods in the Eastern Bulwark are being moved to the Western Outpost.

   21 Malachite, 551
   Excavation of the Western Outpost is mostly finished.  A shortage of wine occurs due to issues with the plump helmet supply being lost in traffic, and migrants can be found by the inactive still, sullen.

   24 Malachite, 551
     Feb Uzolmozib has been elected mayor.  I have agreed to take on Captain of the Guard.

   8 Galena, 551
   ‘Beetle’ and ‘Eustice’ have a baby.

   10 Galena, 551
   “Snickers’ and ‘Donnie’ have a baby.

   11 Galena, 551
   An expansive cavern has been discovered underground.

   13 Galena, 551
   Bell and her scouts have been deployed to deal with the giant flies that have been plaguing traffic.

   18 Galena, 551
   I have met Pobe, an herbalist who says he can be of use.  I have appointed him research lead for a mining expedition whose sole venture is to establish a colony underground.

   23 Galena, 551
   An underground highway has been planned to better secure traffic between the two outposts.  It runs straight and should be done by winter.
   The miners have petitioned for a guildhall.  The petition has been approved.  The guildhall will be located along the underground highway.

   7 Limestone, 551
   Olin Ethabalath, one of our miners, has killed himself.  After searching the retracted bridge at the Eastern Bulwark, we have found nothing.  He was a new migrant, and possibly had a pick.  It turns out we lost a pick too.

   13 Limestone, 551
   The Baroness Consort Edzul has visited.  Lilly and Neb have requested copper bars for the next year, in case our miners fail to find metal to defend ourselves with.

   17 Limestone, 551
   Migrants have arrived, bringing our headcount to sixty-two

   23 Limestone, 551
   The Miner’s Guildhall has been established, along with a tavern in the Western Outpost.  The Eastern Bulwark has been assigned a roster of seventeen dwarves, and the Western Outpost has been assigned rooms for its some thirty denizens.

Samantha   

Do Not Forward Do Not Forward

   “Hi, my name is Pobe.  And I’m your premier herbalist on display.  I have it all, a nice wife, a fancy hole, if holes were fancy, and a chief dwarf hat to premiere off to all the other dwarves and dwarfettes.”

   “I’m thirty-seven.  I’m pretty young; I think I’m the second youngest guy here.  And anyway, I got to thinking.”

   “There’s no way I’m gonna live like a vagrant.  I’m going to pick me and my doll up and sail way away, like far away.  Next pack of camels later, I was already a floating sea casket on the foamy beyond.  Last thing I can tell you is that I lost my touch with nature.  I was tempted to eat a dead seagull a time or two, flies and all.  But now, back on dry land, I am as capable as ever. “

   “You meet all kinds of people here at Rabbitreel.  Brick layers, city-planners…; but the first people you meet are the govuhment.”

   “The govuhment are just a bunch of straight-collared types, and they all look the same.  In fact, about the only thing that’ll make you sick of looking at a room is the sight of twelve of these bastards.”

   “Anyway, that’s’ them.  This’s me.”

   “Every day is the same here.  I do my work, jot down some notes.  And occasionally, when no one’s looking.  I spit inside of the beer barrel.  That’s right, I spit into the spit barrel."

   “It’s not my spit barrel but it’s a spit barrel.”

Another Dead Body I Think That Makes Us Even

   

“Another dead body, one Ital, found dead against the wall.  Appeared choked, really.  Blue.”

“The burrow guard pays for one thing, and it’s to not deal with transients.  This is a first: dead bodies in the wrong place.  He was dead right out of the winery.”

Missing Meals A Step In The Wrong Direction

   Kathie?  Kathie’s an old dwarf.  She’s over one-hundred years old, actually.  She still works with a pick though.  Not everyone thinks about it, but we have more than meets the eye at Rabbitreel, like the lower concern, the research colony.

   It’s two kilometers below ground, on the edge of a grassland of moss, by hills of bioluminescent fungitrees.

   Not much higher than that, the current pet project of Samantha and Beetle, a research station tasked with Rabbitreel's eventual botanical expansion and cave division.  The truth is, if you don’t bring a meal, you’re bound to starve before you make it back up.

   Or so I hear.   

Lupin And The Invaders This Hemp Is Mien

   “Lupin!” Lilly exasperated.  The rabbit had taken to threshing outside near the hens.  When the horn rang loudly, all of the bulwark knew invasion was upon them.  Many of the scouts peeked out of the front entrance, only to turn back darkly:

   “The dead are near.”

   The machinitions of Rabbitreel slowly came to a crawl, with jotted work orders for statues and blocks being scuffed in lieu of more sensible things, like barrels and food rations.  Hunters scurried into the gate, running for their lives as the more nomadic dwarves were hunted down, their screams echoing throughout the valley.

   “Bell!”  Lilly entreated, the scout commander still directing traffic to the lower halls, desperate to save as many as possible.  “You have to get Lupin!”

   “The rabbit?” she frustrated, looking hard at the broker.  “Where is he?”

   “He’s just outside, just outside!”

   “The gates will be closing any moment,” Bell went on.  She looked around at the scurry, eyeing down two younger herbalists named Setduk and Em, and the former volunteered to deliver the rabbit to a better home.

   “Once you’re inside, the drawbridge will raise, leaving anyone outside to the invaders.  Be quick, and try not to get killed!”

   Setduk wasted no time, running out of the gate and circling the hillside to retrieve the rabbit.  Lilly edged to the gate and waited, purple hat á poise.
   

   “Thank you!”  Thank you!” Lilly repeated, as Setduk laid the rabbit squarely on the walnut floors.  “You have no idea how much this means to me!”

   The gate slowly rose behind him, and he brushed her off amiably as he sauntered to his wife.  Em looked positively astruck, chastising Setduk as a mother hen would over his uncalled for bravery.  The gate cinched shut with an audible clack, and the bulwark was dead quiet as the dwarves slowly receded into the earth, leaving Lupin, noisily gnawing at his hands.

   “This is it, no where to go,” Lupin lazily chantered.

   Lilly sucked her teeth, picking the rabbit up and looking at him squarely.  “You’d be surprised, rabbit.”

Third Year To Dolomite by Samantha Murderhammer Some People Don't Believe In A Miracle

   2 Granite, 552
   The undead have invaded our lands.  Bell’s scout regiment has been dispatched to the Eastern Gate, armed with crossbows.   Both gates have been closed, and the cattle have been slaughtered.

   13 Slate, 552
   The Underground Colony has been established, along with farm plots and dwellings.  Pobe is now the overseer of the development, and is currently moving twelve or so dwarves down to farm plots fulltime.

   1 Hematite, 552
   Sofia has been throwing a tantrum.  The incredible stresses of her day-to-day have labeled her ‘the least happy dwarf in Rabbitreel’, or ‘the most miserable’; whichever is preferred.

   24 Hematite, 552
   Reports have come in of fiendlings accosting the colonists.  Bell has been dispatched the sort them out.

   3 Malachite, 552
   Progress is as slow as ever.  Colonists have reported slow going with security, and miners have complained of being spread too thin.  Bell has successfully exterminated the Crundle infestation in the lower depths.

   25 Malachite, 552
   Excavation of the throne room has commenced.  After it is finished, I’ll be sure to point Feb in the right direction.

   15 Dolomite, 552
   The year is coming to a close.  The loomeries are churning out silk and there’s a wine bucket at every corner.  What more could we ask for?

Samantha   

Year 553 At Rabbitreel The Book Of Spiders

   1 Dolomite, 553
   Samantha has fallen.  Bell died months earlier from an attack on the colony.  It was on my way back from the bulwark, taking nothing more than a spicier drink, that I heard tale of a spider in the lower depths.  Intrigued, I rushed downwards, not seeing the tumult that had ensued: dwarves rushing with wheelbarrows, fleeing peasants and farmers, covered in webs, and even Lilly, eyes wide as if she’d seen some demon from the pits of hell.

   Walking in, nothing could have been more chaotic.  Samantha was already bleeding out by the dorms, guts ablush and cut into like some sort of corpse.  The militia had almost completely fallen.  Supported by crossbow fire, we charged the spider into the stores, where it eventually fell, covered in vomit and fluid, brains crushed in by bolts.


   Afterwards, I found out that William had been bled dry in the lower halls: the third victim.  Williams was acting as our hammerer, but Samantha was unwilling to follow up on imprisoning the wayward vampire that’s been scurrying about Rabbitreel.

   I’ve taken it upon myself to acquire all former logs and journals that Samantha may have archived, and to finish out her yearly reports as frugally as possible.

   Current populace numbers sixty-two dwarves, most farmers and children, by proportion.  The number was as high as one-hundred-and-two , but waves ended up falling now that Rabbitreel is perpetually under siege.

   Metallurgical development has been stalled for far too long, and now there’s a steady wheelbarrow lad taking what raw materials we can scavenge and find in the caves up top, where it is being smelted into wafers and weaponry.

   Below are a list of notable fatalities:

• Samantha ‘Murderhammer’, Captain of the Guard, killed by Cave Spider
• Sofia, Miner, death from dehydration
• Snickers, Tavern Keeper and Widow, death by bleeding (cause unknown)
• Bell, Rabbitreel Commander, killed by Gozru, the Cave Leach
• Williams, Hammerer, death by exsanguination
• Melanie, Librarian, death from infection

   Hopefully we can bury our dead respectfully come Spring, but my hopes are naught.

Pobe   

   This crooked idiot dwarf has been killing the women.  I can smell it on him.  He’s as bad as they come, but push come to shove, when cornered, he’s as quiet as can be.  Always willing to yell off about his day, but never enough to stay away from all of the helpless dwarfettes.  Backwards dwarf didn’t know what he had coming.

   What?  I know better.  I’m always busy, y’know.  He’s not that much of a rascal.  Little guy just needs to pray to Lalcil; maybe that’ll teach him something, heathen.


   We have a vampire at Rabbitreel!

   How do I know?  Well, believe it or not, a lot of the dwarves are too busy to dispose of the corpses.  That’s where I come in!  Premier removal dwarf at your service!

   I was examining one of the older corpses and believe it or not, there were puncture marks at the neck!  What?

   Don’t keep going?  I already went to Enham and he told me the same thing.  You staunches are always a stick in the rear about this sort of thing.  I already told all of my besties.  Like it or not, we’re all in danger and the guard isn’t going to do a thing about it.


   Doc, it’s downright criminal what this woman has done.  Look at my arm!  Look at it!  I’ve been missing my hand for hours.  It’s just a bloody stump!

   She’s been in the temple, praying.  I already know that I deserve it.  I already know that I’ve done wrong, but I can’t work with a bloody stump!  Maybe if she cut off my right hand, I wouldn’t have to worry!

   The captain?  You mean that new fool Enham?  I already spoke to him, but he said there were no follow ups.  I’m officially off-

   What?  What do you mean I farm for a living?

   I have no idea what that crooked woman is thinking.  Whatever made her so high-and-mighty, I’ll never know.  I regret the day I ever met her.


   You will never find me.

   Stop looking now or else you will be next.

Lupin And The Herbalist It Was Me Pobe

   “Lupin!” Lilly exasperated.  The rabbit had taken to gnawing raw thatch in the corner, the congregation taken apart by the momentary disruption as Lilly lifted the bunny from the stone floor and held it to her chest.  Samantha’s body remained still on the platform, other dwarves paying their respects for the founder as the mayor underwent the proper ceremony.

   “Samantha was a good dwarf,” she began.  “Whatever creature could have done this, it has since been eradicated.  Nothing more will come from this escapade, the lower colony is safe from infestation and working as hard as possible, just as Samantha would have wanted.”

   Pobe nodded his head reasonably, looking on at the gathering with contempt as he thought on the dead bodies still rotting in the caves, beyond reach.

   “Samantha wanted one thing,” she continued.  “She wanted a good gathering, a community accounted for and thankful for the efforts that have been poured by every dwarf attending.  Let us do the best for her memory by being thankful for all we have, and continue pushing forward.”

   The mayor cleared her throat as she put the papyrus down, looking solemnly at the attendees.  Eustice walked forward gracefully, lifting the former captain’s corpse with the help of Enham as they laid it into the coffin.  Samantha lay peacefully as the lid shut, forever beyond the reach of the living.

   Lilly choked on tears as she cradled her rabbit, clearly lost to the moment as Samantha was carried away to the back of the crypts.  Pobe walked closer and comforted her, and the broker relented to his touch tearfully.

   “No one will ever know how much she sacrificed,” she cried passionately.  Many of the younger dwarves clamored through the passage to catch a glimpse of her burial.  “They’ll never know how hard she worked.”

   Pobe said nothing, resting his hand on the broker’s shoulder as silently as he could, carefully piecing together the tragedy as best he could.

   “She mentioned- she mentioned something about ‘Val’,” Lilly continued.  “Y’know, the new dwarf, Ilram, I think his name is.”

   “I haven’t heard of him.” Pobe answered simply.

   “The hunter?”  She looked into Pobe’s eyes, pleading.  “She didn’t tell me anything,” she cried, breaking down again.

   “I’ll have Kit look into it,” Pobe answered.  He let her go and walked back to the hall, disinterested with the proceeding and ruminating over the current dilemma.



   Ilram, alias ‘The Book of Spiders’, commonly known as ‘Val’, accused of bleeding two civilians in 552.  Has confessed to involvement.  Unwilling to divulge details.  A protection order has been given by the burrow guard to watch over the suspect…



   Samantha’s notes were gathered and sparing, a testament to her good will.  Dwarves have been dying left and right; the last Rabbitreel needs is a murderer.

   He turned left into the hall and entered the library, sneaking into the nearby office to peak at old documents, old logs written by Williams, which were more scant than most:



   …Sofia has been disposed of.  I enlisted her son shortly after the incident at the Western Outpost, and he’s proceeded to ascend to second-in-command under Bell’s scout regiment….

   …Samantha has sent Beetle to further plan the expansions of Rabbitreel Greater.  The plans have been discarded for the most part, in the wake of constant infiltration.  Notes of further struggle occur in the bulwark, children accosted.  I have forwarded-…



   Pobe shuffled through the papers expertly, listening for intruders as he gathered whatever notes he could.



   …Amethyst continues to shirk me.  I’ve asked her to look over the farming division judiciously.  She scoffed at me, but told me she’d keep a sharp eye…



   Pobe stuffed the documents into his tunics as he exited the room.  He walked calmly down the stair back to the colony, towards his office, where he hid the documents under his bookshelf.


   “Pobe,” Lilly began.  “I want you to look after Lupin.”  She crossed her arms at the dwarf as he leaned back in his chair,  holdering his arm like some sauntering king.  He nodded in aquiesence as the broker closed her eyes.

   “He’s been outside for months, but under the current climate, we can’t afford to keep him outside.  All you have to do is make sure he’s healthy.”

   “The rabbit?”

   “Believe it or not, he’s older than you,” she quipped, turning from the herbalist and exiting the room as quickly as she came.  Concerned, Pobe rose and followed her, approaching the underground farmsteads with interest and looking on the animal as it lay lazily in the fields.


   “You knew Cikul?”

   Granny poured the wine from the livetap on the counter, eyeing the herbalist curiously and with dignity.

   “You’d be surprised.  The boy was ecstatic.”

   “Ecstatic, you say?”

   “Not terribly so,” she retreated.  “Truth is, he was just happy to be fed.”  She placed the mug in front of Pobe.  “Boy was so underfed come sixteen, he was willing to do anything to prove his worth.”

   Pobe sipped at the wine slowly, studying the woman with expert skill.

   “You haven’t told me of his mother.”

   “What are you, the inquisition?” she hammered, walking away toward the rowdier, plainer patrons.


   “Cikul was a good lad.  He never said anything wrong,” Courtney began.

   “Was he indecent?”

   “No, never so,” she answered.  “He was just a dirt head.  Nothing deep in him.”

   Pobe looked at Courtney seriously as she skirted the question.  He cleared his throat for good measure and pressed on:

   “He was a part of the militia, from what I hear.”

   “Oh, Bell and him had a special kind of relationship…,” she antipathied.

   “Oh?  What was it like?” he interrogated.

   “Oh, I wouldn’t know.  He was the best crossbow dwarf that militia ever did see, but he died last summer from that colony invasion.”

   “I remember the one,” Pobe nonanswered.

   “Yeah, that one,” she plussed.  “He couldn’t help you.”

   “I’m sure, Pobe answered amiably, crossing his arms at the wood worker.


   “That lad?  He was a handful,” Ruddie started, eyeing his beer with smarts and Pobe with scrutiny.

   “What can you tell me about him?”

   “He was defeated,” Ruddie answered.  “Boy was torn apart over his mother.”

   “Sofia.”

   “That one,” Ruddie replied.  “Sofia thirsted by the tavern, so I hear.”

   “Reports collaborated,” droned the dungeon keeper.

   “I wouldn’t put it past him,” he began.  “Little boy hated the keeper for what she did, place all filled with goblins and the like…”

   “Nothing out of the usual?”

   “What are you?  The spy corp?” he sharpened, rising from his seat and sauntering toward the door.  “You wouldn’t get it, but that keeper had it coming.”

   “I believe you,” Pobe relented.

   “No, you really don’t,” Ruddie huffed.  “Boy was a star.  Never did anything wrong and served admirably.  Sofia thirsted on her own; nothing but tears.”


   “You must relent, sir,” the rabbit treasoned.

   “I would not take otherwise from any dwarf, much less a rodent.”

   “I am not a rodent,” the rabbit answered.  “He’s coming for you.”

   Pobe paused.

   “Can you tell me anything about the monster?” Pobe affected, shuffling ledgers for the export of plump cap.  “Anything at all?”

   “No, I cannot tell you anything about the vampire.”  The rabbit looked down at its arms, dejected.  “I can tell you Lilly would not mind if he made it away.”

   “Samantha did not think it Val,” he murmured.

   “Samantha?  The dark-haired one did what she did best, run and hide.”

   “There is no running in The World, only answers,” he said, looking up testily at Lupin as the rabbit morosed.  “I wouldn’t expect an animal to understand the way of the world.”

   The rabbit looked up at the herbalist, eyes dark like polish in the lamplight.

[King Zultan]

Liking the sound of this one, and it's already off to an interesting start with the talking bunny.

[hedgerow]

_{Was it a Pet Rabbit?}

Soybeans The Story

   “These are not native…,” the herbalist said calmly, holding the plant high to the sky.

   “They’re soybeans, numb numbs,” Courtney explained.  “Though I have no idea who put them here.”

   “Aye, I wouldn’t eat them.”

   Courtney took a bitter bite out of the unripened string, pulling it away fibrously and making loud chews.

   “Yeah, these are gonna have to sit awhile,” she mouthed.

Rabbitreel Everyone Has A Story

   “I’ll kill you!” the child shouted, walking towards the bookkeeper.  Amethyst turned on her crutches and ascended the stair in shock.  Her cries for help echoed up the flight.

   The long winter had dragged on for the child.  Unable to find plant fibers for his pet project, he had ruminated long weeks in the corner of the smithy floor, head gone blind to the ash and carbon.  The crazed look in his eyes was nothing more than a disease, having eaten away at any sanity he might have had the season prior.

   “Help!” the dwarf called breathlessly.  Pobe rushed quickly to the stair from the stockroom, discarding one of her crutches and helping her to the back of the hall.

   Omok, the lead cook of Rabbitreel Greater, rushed forward from the store to meet the boy, who swang his stubby arms at the man in earnest, brushing off his legs and hitting him in his groin for extra effect.  The cook parried his blows with stature, but as the child continued to threaten the man with madness, the dwarfs in the room grew silent.  Omok took the boy’s neck his hands, wrestled him to the floor, and choked him.
 
   “I can’t believe it.  Another dead child,” the cook muttered, briskly escaping the hostility of the room as Pobe reassured the bookkeeper.

   “Are you okay?” he asked.

   “Why me?” she replied, breathing harshly from the exertion.  Pobe tilted his head and raised his brow at the question, never quite knowing why the woman had such poor luck.  She leaned on his shoulder and cloak, and waited several moments before asking:

   “Pobe?  My crutch.”

   Right.  Just lean on the wall,” he said reassuringly, grabbing the walking aid from the floor and handing it to the one-legged woman.  She took it and thanked him, and the dwarf turned briskly to the stair and stepped over the child’s limp arm without a glance.

   Amethyst waited silently as traffic began to resume, dwarves rushing through and all but sucking teeth at the dead child.  She took one step at a time, always, and gave the child berth as she made her way to her office.

   Amethyst’s job was bookkeeper, but after losing her leg in the caves, she was formally chastined by Lilly and the doctor to stay above ground.  She acquiesced all but completely, and Rabbitreel was kind enough to move all of its acquired works into her very own public library, which she has tended to daily.

   She rounded the hall and opened the door, and the sight of two dwarves and an elf greeted her plainly, eyes only rising momentarily as they returned to their rolls of parchment.  She interrupted the pastor in passing, who was sitting against the wall, looking over what appeared to be a historical text seized after human caravans began to be ambushed in 553, and he only nodded as she murmured on the dead child:

   “His body’s upstairs.  People will be talking,” she reminded him.

   She entered her office briefly, and sat in her chair, happily reminded that Omok had been kind enough to deliver her a meal from the kitchens.  She eyed it hungrily, decorated with greasy mushrooms and wine.

   “You are a saint,” she thanked the room aloud.  She heard a knock on the door as she pushed herself closer to the plate, and the elf intruded rudely with a binder in her hand, waving it in the air as if it were important.

   “Excuse me, can I keep this?”

   “Of course,” she coughed.  The elf looked only slightly delighted as she continued.  “Just remember to keep it with you at all times.”


   Nickels had been commander for a year straight, having originally slain the infamous steed, Rhythmicfailure.  It had been a brutal winter, where the gates had been lowered too soon after the dead laid siege, and the monster had ran in, trampling and bludgeoning many dwarves to death before the commander had intervened.

   Today, however, was a different day.  Nickels regularly instructed his squad in the barracks, and the team of recruits and soldiers were nothing more than overworked and overzealous killers.  The atmosphere was always so charged near them that the burrow guard had to put a stomp on their patrol schedule, saying they were to well-armed and too underfed to be of any use near the civilian population.  Nickels agreed, but that didn’t mean The Robust Trolleys had no place.

   “Thirsty as can be,” he muttered, raising his mug to his lips and gulping noisily before returning back to his squad, additionally drunk.  The truth is, the commander never needed to be in his sober wits to still teach them up, most of them being recruited straight from the wagon as unwelcome and unskilled peasants.  This reality made the regiment bitter, but they were still brazen enough to loot the wine stores from time to time.

   “I’ll have been to be drunk to explain this one,” he lamented finally, drowning himself to the bottom of his mug with sadness.  This was the fourth child downed, and after his recruit killed one in a pitch fight, the squad was forbidden from approaching the children on duty.


   “Another one,” the hammerer spoke, hastily following the doctor as the two rushed downstairs.  The doctor stayed silent as he thought on it.

   “He wasn’t bitten, wasn’t bled.”

   “I know, that’s what I mean; it’s not my fault this time.”

   “Very chum,” the doctor offed casually.  “But for what it’s worth, this child was like most of them.  I don’t think any of those children were really your fault .”

   “Maybe, but that doesn’t stop them from wondering.”  He glanced ahead at the passerbys as the two quieted themselves.

   “Truth is, it’s been quiet.”

   “I never expect you to be fulltime.”

   “That’s what I mean; no point in having a jail when Abba’s stabbing everything.”

   The two turned the corner and Amethyst limped past, avoiding the doctor’s gaze as he pointed to her foot.  “Ah, no,” he quipped.

   “I’m sorry, doctor.”  The dwarfette looked at the hammerer pleadingly as the other shook his head, scowling.

   “Rakbin, my name is Rakbin.  And you shouldn’t be limping on crutches a kilometer underground.  Whatever could you have been doing?”

   The dwarf blushed.  “Well, I was just planting.”

   “After your accident?” he asked blankly.

   “Well, I just get so held up in that stuffy library,” she continued.  “Please?  Tell him it’s stuffy,” she aggressed the hammerer, whining.

   “It is stuffy.”

   “That is because you do not read,” the doctor reminded him.

   “True, and I never will.”


   “Captain, a child has been murdered.”

   “I heard,” Abba replied to the dwarf, still clad in his artsy silks.

   “Did you hear of this one?  He was drained in his bed.”

   Abba stood still for a moment as the information sank in.  That was two in a day.  He looked at the dwarf as he silently gestured to the door.


   “Another dwarf drained, sir.” Ashe called to Pobe, who was currently in conversation with a human who had wandered too far to the stills.

   “Another dwarf drained, you hear that?” he interrogated.  “What do you think?”

   “I think it’s just that wayward vampire,” the man spoke.  “We had several at my old hamlet.  I told you about that one.”

   “I remember.”

   “Took his head clean off,” he smiled maddeningly.  “They’re just like any other varmint; rip their heads off and they lie still.”

   Ashe waited patiently as the man and dwarf waved their goodbyes.  She looked at him and hiked her thumb at the stair.

   “He’s still up there.  He died today, by Granny’s tavern.”

   “That’s odd,” he said, drunk and admiring the stair.  “Truth is, if it were any of my business, I’d already be up there.”

   “Oh, you’re silly,” she scolded, mad.  “You don’t think it’s weird for two boys to be dead in the same day?”

   He scrunched his brow.  “No, not really.”  He looked down the hall as the burrow guard rushed up the flight with linens.  “I can’t speak on it. 
Abba’s been working nonstop to get things back under control; wouldn’t appreciate my uninformed expertise,” he slurred.

   “And if I had wanted to go to Pobe, I would have gone to Pobe!  I came to you because Pobe doesn’t know a damn thing about it!” Mira spoke loudly.  Abba shrank just slightly at the mayor’s vehemence.  The woman walked to his table and threw down the record, which Abba only momentarily glanced at before squirming.

   “You think we do nothing all day,” he floundered.

   “Explain it to me again.”

   “Well,” he exhaled tiredly, pulling the sheet towards him and reading the feathery letters at a glance.  “It isn’t ‘Val’.”

   “Your predecessor said the same thing,” she squinted disapprovingly.

   “Yeah, well, he isn’t popular.  Doesn’t mean he’s a child killer.”

   She looked at the paper with severity:  “Two more.”

   He glanced at the paper again.  Before pushing it back to the woman, clearly upset.  “I’ll look into it, but if you think I can hold Ruddie accountable for anything, you’re out of your damn mind.”

   “He’s just a drunk,” she scoffed.

   “Yeah, and I’m my best dwarf’s whore.”


   Beetle had been the manager at Rabbitreel since day one, though you might not know her.  She wears the same colors Amethyst wears, but she’s the quicker of the two, usually directing dwarves to their respective burrows and looking over all of the work orders and mandates.  When asked about the hardest part of her job, she simply says, “It’s the wood.”

   Today, she walked to the caves in silence, a bag full of seeds under her arm, cleverly too big for anyone of her stature to actually plant in an afternoon.  She approached Lupin in the moss fields, who was looking sicker than usual.

   “Like your new friend?” she asked cutely.  The rabbit turned his head to the left and right as the other dwarves circled the farmsteads, organizing and sending silk topside for the clothiers.  Beetle turned away from the rabbit in another moment, opening the door and delivering the seeds to their proper stockpile.  She exited the room in a quick moment, and stood surprised as a dwarf hoisted a barrel waddling to the cave entrance, clearly sodden off his pimpled ass.

   “Excuse me? What are you doing?”

   “It’s mine!  I found it,” he claimed aloud, huffing to the stair as Beetle simply walked behind him, curious as to how the dwarf would make it away.

   “You need to put it back.  You’re not allowed to take that up there.”

   “But we’re thirsty!” he complained childishly, climbing on as the two chased one another up to city.

   
   “Stop tuggin’ on me clothes!” the dwarf huffed, limping.  Beetle had gotten onto him like the most awful hen, telling him to put it down and rest his legs, pulling at his coat tail, and even threatening him with a night in the jailroom.

   She called to a guard as he did his regular, pointing at the dwarf primly and asking for the dwarf to be put in a cage.

   “It’s me and mine.  I’m taking her to my room to make me love!”

   The guard chuckled and patted the drunk dwarf on the back, and he stumbled forward with his prize, other dwarves whistling from afar as he held it like a bride.

   
   Lilly lay face down in her bed, dejected in spirit after a long winter of nothing but work.  The dwarves had churned out so much, she had to take to accounting her ledgers and books fulltime.  In fact, the bitterness of the workers was so immense after the winter, they had taken to calling her ‘Lillypad’ and stealing her mug.

   “I feel so bad,” she groaned honestly.  The lobby was quiet as she let her report lay on the mattress.  Abba’s inquiry.  She had no idea what she was supposed to do; just more conspiracy theories, much like the ones Pobe had.

   “What did he even want me to do?” she wondered, turning over and holding the papyrus to the ceiling.

   
   …please audit all stills and account for interm…


   “In a million years Abba!” she yelled loudly.  The other dwarves grumbled from the hall as they continued on their way, city still tender from the loss of its two children.

Lupin And The Atom Smasher Time To Fly

   “Lupin!” Lilly exasperated.

   Lupin raised his head to the woman.  Some sick dwarf had pomaded the rabbit's ears with grease to keep them down; it had not worked.

   “What have they done to his ears?”

   “One of the cooks, maybe?”

   The dwarves in the gallery continued to ogle the rabbit.  He had been missing for days, lost in the back of the inner storerooms.

   “Who messed with the rabbit?”

   “Someone messed with the rabbit?”


   Pobe and Mira strolled in abruptly, the former directing most of the crowd to the halls as Mira tested Lupin’s slick fur with her fingers.  Her lip curled in a sneer.

   “It’s duck grease.”

   Pobe couldn’t help himself.  “I almost want to say no cook is this stupid.”

   “You can’t style rabbit ears,” Lilly murmured.

   “How long has he been missing?”

   It’s almost been a week."

   “Who would have put him in there?”

   Yards away, Beetle rummaged through the gallery stores, grabbing her mug and filling it with as much beer as she could hold.  At times, she felt like a drunk, but this was not one of them.

   Pobe looked haggard as he understood the commotion.

   “Not that you would be aware,” he started, dragging Mira’s attention immediately from the rabbit, “but we’ve also been missing dwarves.”

   “What do you mean?” Lilly frowned.

   “Well…”

   “I did it,” Beetle issued, raising her hand to the party as children were audibly scattered from above.

   “You- pomaded my rabbit?"

   “No, I locked them out.”

   “First off we were getting tired of them holding up the gates,” Pobe explained.  “Do you know how-“

   “First off, it’s all on me,” Beetle excused him abruptly, adding quietly: “-plus we were killing a vampire.”

   “So he’s gone?” the mayor asked with relief.  “Might I ask who?”

   No,” the three of them collectively answered.  Mira held her ribs as she rocked on her feet, clearly chaperoned.

   “In a moment, I’m going to divulge a little secret,” Pobe continued.  “We don’t need you driving us up a wall over a pet prank.”

   "I never have.”

   “Well, the rest is quite simple.  You don’t need to know.”

   “I was getting so sick of dwarves wandering outside.  Do you know how long it takes me to clear the forest?  It takes me an entire afternoon. Sometimes three!  I don’t have the time,” Beetle complained.

   “What’s more, we never have anyone come anyways, what with all the danger,” Lilly added.

   Silence ensued as the mayor nodded her head.  Lilly waited a hair before turning to the hall, eager to rinse her rabbit off.  Beetle slowly turned her beer up to watch Mira with interest.

   “I have waited many months to put an end to this conspiracy.”

   “Frankly I’m not that stupid,” Pobe growled harshly.  “How many months do you think I’ve been digging for that vampire?”

   “Six?  Seven?” she guessed sarcastically.

   “Only one,” he answered disappointed.  “No, this isn’t new, and I suspected as much.”

   “And there’s no guarantee that the threat’s been eradicated.”

   “Well I hope there aren’t any more of those bloodsuckers,” Mira concerned.

   “Well, there were two,” Pobe exhaled.  "Frankly, I let Courtney tend to the dwarves for quite a while.  It’s the victim profile I’ve been running into.”

   “You mean the children?”

   “It isn’t that it hates the children.  It’s that it hates me,” Beetle informed.  “Val’s been drugging our rabbit for years now and they really do hate it.”

   “For reasons of state, I’ve never pushed Tirist to the wall over anything, but with the children dying left and right…”

   At that moment, Abba entered the room, locking eyes with Pobe bitterly.

   “Gallery’s cleared.”

   “I don’t want to know about it.”

   “Did you see our little Lupin?” Beetle asked Abba.  “They tried to slick his ears back."

   Abba shrugged.  “I hate that rabbit; always will.”

[hedgerow]

That puts an end to that!

God, I got so tired doing that.  It was fun as hell just yesterday, and then I had a good can of conk.

[King Zultan]

You need to give yourself more credit when it comes to writing I liked how the story was written.


Also what is a can of conk?

[hedgerow]

You need to give yourself more credit when it comes to writing I liked how the story was written.


Also what is a can of conk?

Part X - where is the bepis?

[hedgerow]

_{That's About Everything}

The Answer

   “It’s like, when Samantha told me water wasn’t wet,” she started, tearing.  “She told me it was just thick, and then I joked about it and it became hot, so she shook her mug and said it was cold.”

   “Well, water can be thick,” he tested.

   “What if life is nothing but water if water is just a triangle?”  She made bumbling noises as she came to with the realization that she was, in fact, composed of water.

   Samantha hiked up the hillside as the two dwarves bickered over water being irresolute.  She comforted the dwarf with simplicity.  “You really set yourself up for that.”

   “Can’t be composed of water,” the male dwarf added.

   “If water isn’t wet, and ice isn’t dry, does it mumble to me too?” She looked startled as Samantha held up her stubby hand.

   Courtney shirked her off.  The eeriness of the scene was enough to put her off.  “It doesn’t help,” she finished.  Samantha looked behind herself at the hill across from the brook.

   “If life were something, it’s lasted a long time.”

   “It’s like Johnny Depp in that one uphill movie about scissors.”

   Samantha looked at Courtney as she talked in nonsensical circles.  Her eyes were large and her teeth were slightly pointed.  The vampire continued to huckleberry nonsense and the two concluded that life must indeed be harder than that.

   The male dwarf chipped at the rock with his chisel as he tested it.  Samantha looked at it disinterested:

   “I found a rabbit.”

   “What’s a rabbit?” the dwarf asked.


   Courtney resembled the rabbit as it looked at her with beady black eyes.  The young animal was still a child, and didn’t understand the difference in their stature.  She left out her hands and it hobbled over to her on its paws.  She picked them up.

   “My name is Lupin,” she pantomimed, animating the critter with its front end.  It held on for dear life and made odd angles as the struggling vampire gave the small creature a voice.  “I’m a rabbit, guffaw.”

   She stared at it intensively.  The others sat on the wagon experting drink, and she waved its paw over as if to give it personality.
“I come from the dim lands, seeking fortune, but have been met with hardship.”  She put the paw down as if to reassure herself, and the animal began to resent her animaling.  “Life is a dangerous place, and there’s no time in it.”

   “I grow wiser by the minoot.” The rabbit recoiled at the sound, and Courtney let the paws drop as she took in the others.

   “You don’t have to do that,” she chided at Samantha.

   “It’s like,” the woman whispered with her hand covering her mouth, “that one zingy move with the Johnny Depp.”

   “Lupin,” Courtney began faux respectively.  “I had no idea you had appreciation for higher cinema.”

   Lupin leapt between piles of stocked wood with deft quickness, his limbs hurtling him to speeds which would seem unusual, especially for such a small animal.  His eyes locked in on his intended prize, goose feather.  ‘Good feather,’ the rabbit reminded himself, hurtling with speed around a ball of wound yarn.

   His eyes met the purple cladded stock maiden with tentativeness.  She fell over herself in a heap and dishevel, tipping and knocking benches and chairs, making a clop as he dove in with mortal assurety.

   “With this knap and knave,” he began, “I clinger on toil, of tepsid and intrepid meguiles, on dwarf but you beckon, happen and happen still, ye’ markel.”  He snatched the feather with that, and the tips and tufts of it buried burningly and bleedingly in his small gums and teeth.

   “Do not – get stuck,” the dwarf pulled at her dress and its hem slid from beneath a chair, letting it skid and hit the rock floor with a noise.  She looked at the gate toward The Tracks of Post, and was remiss as they laughed and called on her misfortune.

   “Your guile, if for taken, gives no yield.  Yon and ye knappery is misbegotten, untaught – ye’ thorough and truly.  Misfortune for your neighbor, and I had no answer.”

   “You will get yours Lupin,” she warned against the rabbit.  Lupin leapt quickly towards her hat before knocking her back onto the ground with aggressive agonisation.  She rolled on herself before standing and tipping over her uncollected item.

   Realization met her quickly as her face tore from hatred to curiosity.  “Lu-Lupin, that’s my feather.”

   Lupin destroyed the feather slowly, tearing its evenly rowed farthers into skewed megarments.  He tasted his revenge before propelling himself forward once further and dropping the bloodied bird thing against the corner.  The dwarf threw herself on the floor.
   “Locke, methroughit and I knack; happen still you dainty.  I have no recause.”

   “You ruined my feather,” she defeated, aglare at the animal as it hoisted itself on all fours like a tight and strung cable.

   “Lilly?”

   “What is it?” she quipped in innocent surprise, turning to Bell, whose face was still -covered in soot and powder.

   “What are you doing?” she asked. Silence ensued and Lupin skewed his paws against the floor in frustration, letting a huff.  “Huff,” he carled, and the dwarf put the feather back into her cap before answering:

   “I’m working.”

   “Do I need to take the rabbit?”

   “You thought it bestered by henden hammock, ye rethard, heppen.”

   “I don’t think he can handle it.”

   “Rob and havoc, ye carling make no scurvy here, misheard; shall hot and finger ye coy, and nothing.”

   Suddenly, Lupin’s shoulders lifted and he resumed a limp condition, as if the energy left him immediately.  His eyes widened. “Meguile bandits and wonderwarted, take me and tackle, for once, to henden – neverone.”

   “Does he like gunpowder?”  The accompaniment quieted as the dwarf looked at the rodent in disinterest.  The rabbit tacked at its hold in latent gests.

   “I don’t think he cares for it.”

   “Good, then it’s agreed,” the dwarf finished, “the rabbit stays with me.”

   “So you see, people are composed of amino acids, so they share a common critter.”

   “Can I tell you a story?”

   Rose looked up from the hole as he figured his lecture was completed.

   “It was called No Money No Fun and it was this story of a guy who travelled the whole world so he could carry around a ledger.”

   “What was he ledgering?”

   “Manhood.”

   Rose looked at Samantha as she finished her drunken spiel.  She smiled and put her hands out in compliment about the question he hadn’t asked.  “Most people would have said it was planes, or perhaps trains, or maybe even birds, but it was a ledger from a man who had no money and had no fun.”

   “Was he kidding?”

   “No, they taught him that too.  It’s just funny cause it was labeled a form of terrorism.”

   “You wouldn’t need to explain the theory; terrorism hardly ever works.”

   Courtney eyed the two as they sipped at their drinks.  Amino acids sounded like heaven to the lively vampire, so she asked her question.

   “What is terrorism?”

   Samantha scratched her head and pulled at Lupin’s leg.  The rabbit squeaked as it was flung over to her side and began scratching at the air as she covered her mouth:

   “Give me what I want, it has been ordained.”  The rabbit squeaked in interrogation.

   “Nevermind,” she added, stuporing to indifference.  “Do you remember that one zingy move, Johnny?”

   “So you just,” Courtney poked at him to make sure he was still listening.  “You just teach it something every day and adjust for it.”

   “No, terrorism wasn’t supposed to be a rabbit.”

   “This isn’t terrorism?” she prodded Lupin with her finger.  The rabbit laid in mortal ambivalence.

   The three stared as the rabbit refused to move.  Eventually, Rose conceded.

   “Perhaps you’re right, but it talks too much.”

   “Like Keanu Reeves from that one zingy move with the matrix.”

   “What?"

   Lupin limped to the inside of Master Pobe’s chambers unattended.  His wizened frame had begun weak after the undead had attacked:

   “Limey ye mekkerd curr, bogot unsullied; this hemp is mien!”

   So exhausted was Lupin after the raid, that he had taken to numbing himself on fungus, a thick, veiny spread of soft sourness many dwarves had taken to calling wine when brewed.  From what he gathered, it was mixed with waters and let to rest, and then powers relinquished it of sweetness and turned it into drink.

   It was, to him, a sour taste.  He mewled at his mouth as he resented the eating, and looked upon Pobe, who was busy sorting through paperwork in his afternoon.

   “You must relent, sir,” the rabbit treasoned.

   “I would not take otherwise from any dwarf, much less a rodent.”

   “I am not a rodent,” the rabbit answered.  Concern welled up in Lupin:

   “He is coming for you.”

   Pobe played with his papers lightly and made the time as much he could, looking on them like something saddened him.  The echor of the room grew stiffer, and he defeated the rabbit with his pause.  “Can you tell me anything about the monster?  Anything at all?”

   Lupin looked at the man and for a moment came to the zebulous realization that time were indeed a wicked fellow, and reason a temperate bitch.  He fetched his paws in front of him, at a loss.  At a loss namely due to his nature to not speak of such devils, but to contain it.  He meastered his reasoning and whimsied on: “No, I cannot tell you anything about the vampire.”

   The heat resumed.  The two of them sat in idle silence, the room still.  “I can tell you Lilly would not mind if he made it away.”  The rabbit bit his lip a bit.

   “Samantha did not think it Val.”

   “Samantha?  The dark one did what she did best, run and hide.”  Lupin tasted discontent on his mouth, its gums still sore from tearing into the mistress’ feather.  He looked at the master in haste, eager to not make suggestion.

   “There is no running in the world, only answers.  I wouldn’t expect an animal to understand the ways of the world.”

   Lupin looked at the herbalist, eyes toying in the light like quiet coals.  “So that’s what this is?”

   “What?” Pobe asked.

   “You think the world is running away and it’s not just Lilly.”

   “No, I just…,” he held his arms at his sides in confidence.  “I presume on our friendship.”



   Lupin toyed with his arms longer as Beetle made her entrance into the room, her eyes still bug-eyed and lidded.

   “We’re not investigating a rabbit.”

   “I just asked our friend if he knew anything about the vampire; he knew nothing.”

   “You interrogated a rabbit.”

   “I asked him if he knew anything, he said its allegiances are fair.”

   “You instigated a rabbit.”

   Pobe shuffled around again as he left the room defeated.  Lupin mewed at his breakfast as the female dwarf eyed him hairily.

   “I brought the pomade.”  The broad-eyed dwarf handed up a goop of gelatinous goop as the rabbit morosed over the pentinence of his sorry master.

   “There is no vampire.”

   “This is a vampire,” the goop fell once further.  Lupin felt momentarily inspired.

   “I, I am the vampire.”  He treatied with the woman with his ears, and she began shucking hot goop at the bunny in mock consideration.

   “No, that’s just petroleum jelly.”

   "Samantha, your eyebrows."

   Samantha played with her eyebrows as they began floating into the sky.  She did it over and over again.

   "What you wanted to know was whether I possessed them."

   "It's an open-ended question."

   "And the scary part is they're meant that way," she added.  "Like a kite, they just keep subdividing over and over until they're finally done.

   "There's a moral in that parable."

   "That only the weak are strong."

   "Horrible parable: I think it's that people want to believe someone cared but all I get is special."

   "Outside of a class, the whole world is special."

   She looked at her handiwork.  The dwarf remained still and stoic as the last of her adornments were removed.  "You would have really liked the idea of a woman with bangs, wouldn't you have?"

   "You would think they would get me all of the attention in the world."

   "Like Nelly Furtardo in that one zingy escher piece."

   "So this isn't unobtanium, but it turns and reflects to radio energy from the heat of the star, and then metastasizes so it always faces one direction to the first orbit it adjusts, keeping the planet warmer."

   "Sometimes it spins on its own."

   "It also," she interrupted, "takes two years to metastasize from inside."

   "She is not funny.  It takes 1,200 years for potassium to pass out."

   " Does it do more than spin and shake?"

   "It can actually turn over, which was the in and out of your reasoning, so you put it."

   "That's the principle arrangement of jackasshattery, as you so put it."

   "They also," she pained, "don't interrupt each other in a large enough sample, so they presume their own nature when struck with electricity."

   "And if you whack it," he said, "it'll totally turn back inside itself and hide.  So you have to be real careful."

   "It's a veritable Garden of Eden."

   "That's just it; you can't realize a terrorist when you see it."

   Rose was in the event of dying from laughter.

   Laughter, the feeling of being eviscerated and gutted.  It's the unknowable part of something you're sure you know.  And he was currently in bouts and fits, laughing and giggling in his shortness.

   "Your mortgage worked out."

   "You could believe in Joseph and Israel, or you could believe in a mortgage, because that's what happened."

   There are many parts of the world where I would lie to you, but only an insane person would lie this much.

   "A mortgage is knowing that you will die some day."

   "You really didn't stand a chance with the funny bone."  It was the only reason to go to college.

   Pobe impacted his feet on the desk in triumph as Lupin’s whiskers quivered. The dwarf had successfully taught the rabbit a lesson.

   “I hope you know,” he said bravely, “that this means I’m not in charge.”

   “You’re right, sir.” The rabbit grew even smaller and more maracausal in the abyss that pervaded the room. His fur shrinking inward, and his eyes bulging outwards.

   “Well, you learned a lesson today.”

   “Surely it could have been more complicated, sir.”

   “Nope,” Pobe finally transgressed, dohickies sticking from his bare brain as he complimented the animal’s rhetoric. “Couldn’t have happened.”

   “Truly breathtaking, sir.”

   “Why does Mira even talk for you, that’s,” he hesitated, “that’s even dumber than rabbits.”

   “I can see you’re in the utmost spirits, sir.”

   “Yep,” Pobe fiddled with his neck as one of his relays moved steadily over, curbing brain matter softly as it elucidated him to his other half.

   “Happy you enjoyed yourself, sir.”

   "We're going."

   Beetle looked at Lupin as he tried to expert the scissors with his small paws.  Pobe lay incoherent on the stadium plaza, head still wrapped in launderings.  People berated him repeatedly as he drooled, body too sprained and torn from its ridicule, a testament to the mockery of nature.

   "Amethyst, you really care...," he moaned on.

   "You did it now," Lupin reminded him.  Beetle watched as the rabbit attempted diligent work.

   "No, the Zion have spoken."

   Rabbits lined the room in their high stools, challenging their opposition with reproach and stature.  From underneath them were many plugged men, all smiling in their indecency.  The center rabbit reprisaled with aura, putting down woes with his deft front paw.  From the back of the room, two men looked steadily at each other.  Lupin remained unconscious in his seat, paws affront and hindquarters neutered.

   "Us Zebrakind cannot afford to tarry with our master so long.  He affords to show his face later.  I show my face here; I do not hide it."

   Pobe remained steadfast in horror as the blur of the antechamber dimmed and the rabbits left back to their quarters, many muttering in a lipless tongue about the cold.

   Beetle looked at Lupin as he lay back in his seat.  The front of his face was torn off to make way for the apparatus.  She fiddled with his brain, toying at it with a finger as the rabbit snarled and hiccoughed.

   "That's a little too far for me."

   "Is he going to make it?" a man droned.  His pained expression resented him as he moved his face eastward to the wall, and his face began spooling lines of blood slowly down the side of his expunged countenance.  Pobe hiccoughed and his sole horn began twaddling from its crevice, unsupported.

   Beetle continued at the man in repulsion, her face and steel strand hair roofing revile.

The End

[King Zultan]

Hello, glad to see this return.

[hedgerow]

Hello, glad to see this return.

I am having fun at it.  I was considering attending a calculus course in the near future since my math is limited.

[hedgerow]

Hello, glad to see this return.

I guess I thought about the idea of settling a new world.

The way we grew up, we grew up in groups of twenty-or-so children, one time per day, and then eight times per day, and finally four times per day, and then half that for half a day.

And I did the trig to find the identity of a triangle which took me years, and I did some rudimentary logic to deduce the way the world actually worked.

And I came up with eighteen people per party, in groups of four peoples, sortied nine times, for a total of about six-hundred people, which would be the necessary number of people to make a castle, which is the reason we're alive.

[King Zultan]

Thinking of using that as a starting set up for a fortress?

[hedgerow]

Thinking of using that as a starting set up for a fortress?

No, it was this Jolly Ant Farm tipoff I got from the government about aliens.

Basically, we had a bible in school.  So they said, "Well, the first thing you'd need if you went off into the desert is a codex of sorts."

"Well, what kind of codex?  How big is it?"

"Twelve volumes, each one with the science of the natural world to its zenith."

I thought that was cool.

"What are the women like there?"

"Well, they're fashioned like a tank."

"How so?"

"Well, they have eyebrows and nipples that squirt milk, and big asses too."

"Well, you'd get a copy once you finished the first one."

So we went off about what life could and couldn't be because I was fascinated by the way of an ancient set of laws.

"""So we have arms for sticks.
That's right.
We have skulls for horns.
That's right.
We have heel bones for cattle.
And no opposable thumbs."""

We had one discussion, if I can put it that way because lungs, right?  And we went on about how six-hundred and forty-eight people wouldn't be enough near the end of the year.

"So, trains are expensive, and sewers make shitstone."
"Sewers use a grate, and it breaks the shit down."
"Oh, so it's cold."
"The whole world is cold, it doesn't produce enough produce as it is, nothing grows."
"So it's a nipple?"

And we went on about how civilization might be a nipple, and it's arced out to make space for development.

I had my own tangent:
"Well, if it were more than a castle and less than a palladium, it could be a magical kingdom."
"I'd send twelve-hundred; research indicates twelve-hundred might actually survive."
"Well it couldn't be twelve-hundred, because then a castle would be a magical kingdom."
"You say that, but I don't think it'd work with six-hundred."
"Well if there's a keep, a house, a castle, and a fortress; it only stands to reckon that there was a magical kingdom and that would have been the light."

We were civilized with getting there.
"Well, you could just jot down something on a piece of paper and give it to each one of them."
"Yeah, people in the country are somewhat violent."
"Okay, so..."
"They'd take your stuff for having it."
"Maybe just a note."
"They'd get scared of two or more people."

We also went over temperature which I thought was kind of rigged until someone mentioned locusts.  It was something like this:

"So it's colder."
"Well, we know it's cold because calcium didn't sink."
"I don't know anything about calcium."
"The sun only shines for eleven hours a day."
"That makes sense."
"It only shines on the north pole."
"Oh, so it's nice."
"There are locusts everywhere."

He even told me trees have organs and I thought that was something sustainable.

"Well, skin is something new."
"No skin?"
"It's pretty red."
"So the trees have organs, is there any fruit?"
"There's food, but there's also division."
"I know how to do division."
"That's the only thing you're allowed to do."

And finally lungs, which was enlightening:

"The big difference might be the lungs capacity to breathe."
"There is a difficulty breathing; the atmosphere is too thin."
"Yeah, maybe it's not a diaphram, maybe it's a cavity."
"And you can't smoke anything, like you do."
"Oh, yeah that makes sense."

But nothing would have prepared me for a hoof.
Maybe toe fingers, or toe hands, but not a fucking talon.

[hedgerow]

Thinking of using that as a starting set up for a fortress?

We were civilized with getting there.
"Well, you could just jot down something on a piece of paper and give it to each one of them."
"Yeah, people in the country are somewhat violent."
"Okay, so..."
"They'd take your stuff for having it."
"Maybe just a note."
"They'd get scared of two or more people."

The man hands a note to the lobotomite.
He scrutinized over it with blurry vision as he made out an image.  Suddenly, his breath began to seize; he made excited sounds.
"Really?" he whined genuinously.  "He- he- you're choosing me."
The man looked visibly upset.

[King Zultan]

No, it was this Jolly Ant Farm tipoff I got from the government about aliens.

What's a Jolly Ant Farm?

[hedgerow]

No, it was this Jolly Ant Farm tipoff I got from the government about aliens.

What's a Jolly Ant Farm?