The Odyssey was on the final warp approach to Babupekkakerok [Vampbun Packmate Land]. They had been travelling for a few weeks since their last mission. Seinu's diplomatic compromise over the border dispute had been a good one. He’d proposed a new string of avali navigation beacons charting a safe course through the nebula. This allowed the young species from planet Crastaforna to get their legal territory, the older, established races had a safe and secure trade route and didn't have to lose face by paying for access to Crastafornian territory. Then Seinu had clinched the deal by proposing that instead of the Avali making it a toll route the two more established races could pay a modest amount every cycle to the Illuminate to cover the maintenance of the new beacon route.
Everything was a success; Seinu averted a border dispute and brought peace and the Avali looked generous. Whilst a win the whole mission had been rather dry and boring as far as Ki was concerned. A diplomatic conference didn't really need a mechanic. The conference itself had been a success thanks to Seinu and the pack had been praised by Director Ck'kak personally. It had been pretty awful for Ki, after the seven month survey there had suddenly been no practical work that needed doing. He'd started drinking more and there had been a very bad day when the hallucinations came back. He'd been so hung over he'd not taken his medication and he'd had a hysterical breakdown after convincing himself he could see his sister outside a window.
Ifelse had suspended gravity to stop him doing anything really stupid and had sedated him by adjusting the atmosphere mix in the compartment he was in. He'd woken up in the infirmary with everyone around him. He'd been mortified and wanted to hide away but they wouldn't let him and despite being embarrassing it had helped, they had all just sat with him, Selenu holding one of his hands until the med-bay was done. Then Chantelle took charge, she'd been bossy and annoying and dragged him along to the exo-vehicle hangar to start a full programme of maintenance on every vehicle. That was exactly what he needed, practical work alongside other Avali. The fleet of vehicles had clocked up many hours of use during the survey of Salib-76T. They were no longer shiny and sparkly, new and unused but proper working machines and they all needed maintenance.
A week or so into the maintenance work he’d been given a new job too. Selenu had asked him to do it personally. The Odyssey was to build and deploy the navigation beacons needed to mark the safe route through the nebula. The ship had a factory on board, the drone launcher system could be used to deploy beacons; they just needed a design. Ki was honestly surprised, after his melt-down he thought they’d not trust him but here was… here was their pack-leader offering him the chance. He trawled the nexus engineering files for standard Nav-Beacon designs, selected one, adjusted the schematics to take account of the hostile nebula atmosphere then presented it to the Captain. Chantelle and Firi had reviewed his idea, Taran had made some suggestions for the computers; small tweaks to help them communicate better through the nebula and then they’d started printing them.
Even after setting it up, Ki couldn’t really believe it. After the new treaty was signed by Seinu and the other diplomats, they had taken two weeks to deploy the beacons. His design was now out there being used as part of an official Illuminate function. Seinu even explained the proposal had been a success because they could deploy it so quickly, the Crastafornian wanted their borders secure and the opposing Aliens wanted minimal interruption to their trade routes. A two week set up time allowed everything to move forward swiftly before anyone got frustrated. It had been a big success and Ki had played a part in it, Seinu was very clear about that, the pack had succeeded as a whole.
Ki hadn’t been entirely sure at being included in the “whole pack” statement but he had been able to hear how sincere the silver Avali was and had retreated to Firi’s workshop to talk to her about his feelings. That had been a couple of weeks ago and now they were on-route to the homeworld of the Vampire Bunny species so Seinu could make contact and learn about their culture and society. Ki had read the brief and it was interesting, he was hoping to convince Seinu that he was stable and safe to let down to the surface to meet them too. It was still very much a maybe and certainly not for first contact but it was another goal for Ki to work towards.
Crunching through the snow of the communal Avali room, Ki headed for the central tent. His visor informed the black and white Avali that his pack-friends… friends who were a pack… were in the lounge. After eight months he was a lot more relaxed about being around his fellow Avali. He’d lost most of his reticence at their casual contact and cuddling, they were not his missing family but they fulfilled a deep need inside him. He’d even relaxed enough to join in general grooming in the bathroom, which was a big help in keeping his feathers oiled and getting rid of the loose ones, although he had so far resisted all of Firi’s attempts to give him a new crest style; he liked his look as it was. Still, he was certainly over-all feeling more comfortable around everyone though he still bounced back and forth between sleeping in the same place as them all or hiding in his room.
Pushing aside the tent flap into the lounge Ki ducked inside and paused to stamp snow off his talons and look around the space beyond. Everyone was here and the scene was both domestic and at the same time a performance that made Ki nostalgic and sad. He had seen it before of course, once he used to be part of one with his lost brothers and sisters: The pack-song, a tradition among Avali packs that had existed for centuries. He was outside this one but it was still a marvel to witness and some deep part of his brain found it comforting. The first few times he fled because this would trigger all his emotions and thousands of memories, but this time he decided to try to just stand in the tent door and watch.
Everyone was going about the task in front of them, Chantelle was using the crest-tongs on Taran’s feathers to shape them into a new style, it looked like he’d finally given in to his sisters nagging about being scruffy. Seinu was lying on his stomach atop a beanbag whilst reading from his visor screen and Firi was surrounded by the schematics for a new gun she was reviewing whilst using a pair of drumsticks to tap (very gently) out a tune on a small percussion instrument next to her, Ki had heard it was called a stare drum, spare drum, or something like that. Either way, it was something Earthian; Firi had gotten really into their music of late and had even started to try and learn the drums and this instrument was a component of an Earth drum kit.
Whilst all this was going on Selenu was lounging next to her twin brother playing her harp. Both of them were the same height but couldn’t have looked more different. Ki wouldn’t have believed they were twins; their colours were too different. But apparently this was a limitation in colour pigmentation imposed by Seinu’s slime. No one cared though, he was silver and charcoal, that was just a thing, the pair of them were still very much twins and out of the whole pack spent the most time together. Ki watched as Selenu’s claws plucked the strings and filled the air with a quiet tune that worked beautifully with the percussion accompaniment from Firi.
The truly astounding to Ki was that the tune from harp and drum, was being carried by the whole pack who were all singing along whilst taking care of whatever task was in front of them. He remembered doing things like this with his pack but until he’d seen this the memories had been buried. Locked in that door of “happy times” that he couldn’t bear to face but today, today he wanted to remember and to hear it. Chantelle, Taran, Seinu, their voices had woven together into a twittering complex harmony of sounds and words that filled the tent alongside Selenu’s harp and Firi’s drum. Yet at the same time Seinu was still reading, Taran was working on an old computer module, re-assembling its components whilst his sister worked on his crest. Ki didn’t want to disturb them but it turned out he didn’t have to, without missing a beat, fingers still playing the harp Selenu spoke.
“Hi Ki, join us, how are you?”
The Avali padded across the room, his organic hand playing with the metal fingers of his bionic one as the others waved, chirped or reached out to ruffle his wing feathers in passing all without breaking or disrupting the song. Settling onto a beanbag next to Selenu the black and white Avali smiled at the pack-leader.
“Don’t mind me…” he whispered, not wanting to break the peace of the tune, “I will just sit for a bit and listen.”
Selenu nodded and her voice soon returned to the song as Ki settled deeper into his cushions and just listened, ears perking this way and that as he followed the tune. He loved this, closing his eyes he let his hearing take over as the primary sense and started to untangle what they were singing about. They were not just making a wordless tune, but holding a whole conversation in song, no, several conversations. There were words mixed into their soft voices as they exchanged information with one another. Curious queries about what Firi was doing, what Taran would like his new crest to look like, what to expect when they arrived at Babupekkakerok with soft quiet orders and suggestions from Selenu. As Ki listened he heard how Seinu’s plan for how to approach first contact slowly went from bullet point ideas to a resolved and refined plan, all conducted through the chorus of the song with input from everyone.
Squirming on his beanbag Ki took a deep breath, counting quietly in his head and then at the right moment chirped his way into the song, singing his suggestion in a hesitant voice. The reply was instant, Selenu sang her approval at the idea. Once contact had been made and a base camp on the surface was up and running Ki would be allowed to join Taran in setting up the tech Seinu needed down on the surface to run their planned base camp.
The message was half lost as suddenly the entire pack was on top of Ki in an Avali pile of feathers, chirping and hugs and the partially bionic Avali froze, part of him still wanted to flee, to kick and squirm and fight his way out these were not his pack! But the larger part of him just relaxed into it; there was no point fighting it, he didn’t want to fight it, they were practically family at this point and he’d just joined in the pack-song. It was practically a declaration that he was ready to accept their soft, quiet offer to join them as a brother and pack-mate.
There was still a long way to go, things to learn, his pack-loss would take years if not decades to truly fade. But he had made the first declaration that he was willing to try, that he wanted the place in their family they had been offering him. They had the whole stay at Babupekkakerok to work on it and slowly but surely walk down the path to fitting in. Of course this meant Selenu would have to re-arrange the work schedule, there was therapy involved in Ki joining the pack, not just more therapy for him but guidance for the others as well to help them adjust. An Avali pack was a near unbreakable bond, adding an outsider could be easy or difficult but regardless of the path the pack were ready to walk it. As Ki lay there he realised that as far as the Trail pack was concerned this was now as important as the mission to the bunny world and Ki was happy to be here. For now, the mission was discarded, planning was dropped in favour of a giant cuddle pile.
It was going to make the last few days at warp really nice.
Sitting in a chair on the bridge Seinu watched the planet moving closer as the Odyssey settled into a high orbit. The world below was a beautiful pearl with patches of thick grey clouds swirling out of the polar vortexes to spread snow and ice across the land and oceans. There was very little liquid water directly on the surface, just a few hot-spots near natural hot springs. Scans showed the oceans were sheets of rugged ice (whose thickness ranged between a few metres to several kilometres) stretching from shore to shore. Massive jagged ice-sheets floating on top of the actual water oceans that contained a heavy amount of salt. This allowed the water to stay in liquid form way below its normal freezing temperature leaving patches of unfrozen water near the shore line in certain spots near the equator. Three large continents rose out of the seas of ice, folded lands of rock whose tall mountain ranges reached into the pristine sky, capped by more snow and trailing glaciers of ice from the highest peaks to the shore. There was however green covering the plains and rolling hills of those three lands. Forests of impressively tall trees that Seinu’s files from Sawi named Cinati that reached about five hundred metres into the sky. A quirk of the low gravity generated by a planet this small; those magnificent trees produced massive fruits that were according to those same notes one of the favourite food sources of the vampire bunnies. The existence of these trees hinted at the existence of sub-surface water within reach of their roots. Nowhere on the surface was above freezing, meaning there would be no free water for trees and plants. The water table was either quite deep or possibly there were underground pools of water, though from orbit this was at best a guess as the scanners couldn’t penetrate very deep.
It wasn’t just a planet of ice and snow and hardy every-green trees, there were other plants and animals too. Flying beasts, land-bound creatures and, according to the very scant notes of the original human pirate crews who used the planet as a dumping ground over the years, practically all the fauna and flora was deadly. They’d classified the planet as a Death World and there had been at least one colonisation attempt by the Teresh about seventy years ago which ended in tragedy. The Teresh had never come back, although their notes made no mention of the Vampire Bunnies which was odd considering they were supposedly the planet's dominant sapient species. That strange oversight was only now being cleared up as the Odyssey scanned the planet in the region Sawi had specified; there were inconsistent life signs that matched the vampire bunny organic profile. After struggling to detect any vampire bunnies the scans were now returning a count of about four hundred and seven. They were living in an area of one continent that was about six hundred square kilometres wide, nestled on a plain of snow and trees surrounded on three sides by mountains and to the east by the shore of an ocean. Seinu knew the bunnies lived underground which may have explained the low scan results but with less than five hundred on the surface, their predictive computer model suggested a total population less than three thousand. It was a very disturbing result to receive, the dominant species of a planet was rarely confined to such a small area. Avali, Humans, Teresh, Qualfon, any race Seinu could name covered the entire habitable surface of their world.
“Orbit achieved,” Ifelse reported, the holographic Jakub was perched atop the primary viewscreen, “We shouldn’t appear as anything more than a star on the surface.”
“Thank you Ifelse,” Selenu said, “Keep us at this distance.
“That’s odd,” Firi said from the tactical console, “I am picking up several artificial drive signatures, at least three on the planet and another seven coming and going. I am also detecting multiple drones, small ones all over the place.”
“Oh?” Selenu glanced over at her sister, “The technology level should be about iron-age, they shouldn’t have drones or ships, I assume these are the leftovers from the Horkers Sher’s notes about the planet mentioned?”
“Not Sher’s, but Naha, even if both are from the same pack. Naha saw the ships when he came months ago, and said that based on their distribution across the surface and plotting the paths of those in orbit, it’s extremely likely that these ships are running back and forth on old automated delivery routes,” the yellow Avali sat back in her chair and scratched one of her ears, “And I’m inclined to agree, so yes, I’d say they are are the trash left behind by their former conquerors. Also based on our observations, these ships appear to be old cargo carriers on an automatic route between various landing zones on the planet and GR-TY65, QE-6HT and Vander-Dell, the nearest trading stations.”
“Well, according to Sher’s notes he and his sister Roi travelled into space by hitching a lift on an old unmonitored cargo ship.”
“This checks out then,” Firi said, “These things really are trash, I am already into one of their computers… Ifelse can you dump its core please but don’t interrupt its auto-pilote route.”
“On it,” Ifelse chirped, “Gosh… look at me, hacking things… totally ethically too! Though this feels wrong it is so old!”
“Ifelse, please don't make it weird,” Selenu chirped and glowered at the AI as they giggled and scampered along the screen. Their hologram leapt over to land on Taran’s workbench. Selenu sighed and shook her head and turned back to Firi, “As for the drones, do you think you and Ki can capture one and work out what they are doing?”
“Yeah,” Firi chirped, “I will talk to him and we’ll go out and nab a couple whilst you and Seinu are making contact.”
“Well then,” Chantelle said from her seat, “We are in your hands Seinu, are you still sure of this approach?”
“Yes,” the silver Avali said, “I am taking the shuttle down with Selenu, the rest of you will stay in orbit. We are here to make official first contact with them. The pair of us should be enough to make initial contact and not be too intimidating.”
“But why not beam down?” Chantelle said, “Taking the shuttle seems overly complicated, just use the teleporter without all the extra faff.”
“Because magical beings from the stars materialising out of thin air is how we wind up as gods,” Seinu said patiently, “We are doing this my way which does not include me explaining to the Illuminate or Sher why the Vampire Bunnies are erecting temples to my glory and sacrificing their virgins to my honour by tossing them in the cryo-volcanos.”
“Ok ok,” Chantelle sighed, “Are you sure about me not scanning the planet though? We have a hold full of geological survey equipment it wouldn’t take long.”
“No,” Seinu grumbled, his feathers fluffing up, “We are here to meet them, learn about their culture, their society and talk about their lives not check their planet out for anything expensive”
“But, you are letting me survey the rest of the solar system,” Chantelle grumbled back, “We might as well do their planet.”
“No,” Seinu chirped, “I explained this, how would you like it if an alien race showed up and started scanning Avalon for resources?”
“I think we shot them out of orbit,” Selenu chirped, “And then I think if I remember our history lessons at the nursery correctly we might have threatened to eat them before shipping them back to their home,” she turned to look at her sister, “We aren’t scanning their planet. No surveys, no geological explorations.”
The blue and white Avali sighed and folded her arms grumpily as Seinu chirped, “We talked about this, we are here to make friends. Having a scan of the rest of their system will be useful information to share with them at some point if and when the Illuminate decide to enter any agreements with them. But scanning their homeworld can be done later once we have established a proper relationship with them.”
“Fine,” Chantelle raised her hands in defeat and chirped, “I know when I am defeated,” she wandered over and draped herself against Seinu for a moment then perked up, “But right Ki and Firi are on drone capture, I am going to go roundup Taran and formulate a plan for this system survey.”
“Very good,” Seinu nuzzled her back, “Sel are you ready to go now?”
Selenu hopped up out of her chair and nuzzled Chantelle between the ears before extracting Seinu from her hug, “We are off then, come on slime bro let's go meet some bunnies.”
“Wait, is this outfit ok?” Seinu ran his hands over his mantle, he’d chosen an orange outfit with white Avali symbols stencilled around the hem and collar. “I don’t want to look too threatening.”
“You’ve been agonising over what to wear for weeks,” Selenu said, “You look fine, now come on.”
Selenu grabbed Seinu’s hand and dragged the silver Avali off of the bridge. It was good to finally be getting started, they were off to meet the vampire bunnies.
“We are on final landing approach,” Selenu murmured, her soft voice a quiet comforting rumble. Seinu looked up from what he’d been reading then lifted his visor to peer through the screen ahead. He squinted and tried to make out the trees and mountains with his unaugmented vision.
“It looks a bit like home, but the cloud cover is a lot less dense,” he commented before lowering his visor back into place, “It looks pretty according to the files I have, there are warnings about some parts being a danger but nothing our Avali tech can’t cope with. Hopefully once we are down we can appreciate some of the views.”
“It’s an interesting location you’ve picked,” Seinu commented, “I thought you’d want to start with Nau and Khi, Sher’s parents?”
“No,” Seinu shook his head, “Those two have already had alien contact, have been offworld and while it might not taint their view of their culture, it certainly will have changed it,” the Avali indicated their landing zone, “I want to meet some bunnies for whom space is mostly just a story. According to Sher, the village we are heading to is where the oldest bunny lives, it is also as far from a cargo ship landing site as possible.”
“Ok, this is your area of expertise bro,” Selenu touched the screens in front of her and then gripped the manual controls and gently brought the orange and white shuttle down in a clearing of snow. “I am seeing trees… man those things are big. We also have sandstone outcrops slowly rising in rolling hills into the mountains. A lot of snow, current surface temperature is -14c and gravity is not far off Avalon standard, we should be able to fly.”
“Sounds good,” Seinu hopped up and picked up a white and orange nanofibre satchel, he slung it over his shoulder and chirped excitedly, “Let’s go and see what we find.”
Outside of the shuttle the air was crisp, the snow was deep, light powder that indicated it had fallen recently. The sky was currently clear and a deep azure colour though there were thick grey snow clouds slithering around the shoulders of the distant mountains. The Cinati trees formed a forest of massive pillars of bark that marched away into the foothills. Their massive trunks soared over five hundred metres into the sky and their spreading canopies formed near perfect circular or oval spreads of leaves and fruit way, way out of reach.
“It feels a bit like home,” Selenu murmured and took a deep breath, her chest expanded and with a flap of her arms the Avali launched herself into the air. She skimmed up to the top of the shuttle and perched on the hull, her long bow hooked over one shoulder. The quiver at her waist was full of aerogel arrows and the bow itself was wrapped in an activated nanite scarf of black and purple designs. It was more a work of art than a weapon but Selenu preferred it over lasers or railguns and Seinu knew as long as his twin sister was nearby with her bow he was safe.
“I’ll keep watch from above,” Selenu declared, “You do your thing and set up cameras and have a look around. I’ll be watching.”
With that she launched herself into the air and Seinu watched her take off before turning and starting across the clearing. His feet crunched lightly in the snow and opening his satchel he pulled out a handful of small survey drones. After linking them to his visor and the shuttle he launched them towards the Cinati trees, ordering them to attach themselves to the trunks and start scanning for local fauna. He wasn’t going anywhere near them himself; he did pause to watch one of their fruits drop, after falling for 500 metres it smashed its way through the snow and exploded into shards and released a wave of sticky red liquid when it thumped into the ground.
“Yeah, not standing under those,” Seinu muttered to himself and resumed his walk towards the far side of the clearing. There was an out-cropping of sandstone, the soft mellow yellow stone a splash of colour against the snow and around the base of the crags where bushes. According to his visor and the limited data from Sher they were a type of thorn bush that produced a cotton like fibre bud. The bunnies collected it to spin into the fabric they used to make their distinctive hats.
According to his files each bunny usually had a hat that was based on a family design. He reckoned it was a good shout to start there to see if he could encounter any bunnies out foraging. After about an hour of aimlessly wandering around the rocks however he gave up. He clambered up on top of a crop of sandstone and sat down to review the footage from the cameras. So far nothing had triggered the motion detectors, he’d caught several nice videos of falling fruit, five birds and some sort of spiny four legged thing that shuffled past under a bush. One camera had even been smashed when a Cinati fruit fell close to the trunk and took it out.
Humming to himself and reviewing the various live feeds it took Seinu a minute or two to realise there was now a bunny standing about ten feet from him at the bottom of his rock. The silver Avali paused and cleared all the data away from his visor, leaving just the HUD in the corners and took a moment to get a good look at the vampire bunny.
They were short, about the same height as Sher. However this bunny had soft sand coloured fur over most of their body and the fluff around their neck, paws and feet was a light grey. They had big bright green eyes and were wearing a hat as expected that had long ear-flaps on either side. The hat itself was a three colour tartan, solid black, solid red and then a weave of black and red together. On the front over the forehead was a small octagonal gemstone that had been stitched into a point where the three colours of tartan met. Atop the hat was a red pom-pom. There were also shapes stitched into the side tassels of the hat, a series of octagons surrounded by wavy lines and then additional red poms attached to the base of each ear-flap.
Carefully Seinu clambered down off the rock, being sure to move slowly so as not to startle the bunny. It looked like they had stopped curiously mid-foraging to look at the alien creature and as the Avali moved they looked ready to run. Once he was on the ground Seinu stopped and held up both hands and then spoke, well more sang in bunny song. It was a beautiful language of chirping melodies that conveyed meaning, emotion and hopefully understanding.
“Hello, I mean you no harm.”
The bunny freaked the fuck out at that. They took a step back but hesitated; he clearly hadn’t been expecting the strange feathered alien to speak their language and that was just enough to stop them fleeing immediately.
“He.. hello,” the bunny chirped back in a deep rich voice, “What… What are you?”
“I am an Avali,” Seinu chirped, “A species from the stars, my people have sent me here to learn more about your kind.”
“The stars!” the bunny scampered back a few more feet and raised his voice, “We don’t like creatures from the stars! You disrupt the planet and eat us!”
“No… no I promise we don’t,” Seinu raised his hands, “We are not like them… I have met another bunny, out amongst the stars and most of us would never harm you like the Horkers did.”
“You… you promise?” the bunny asked, “You aren’t here to eat us?”
“No…” Seinu sat down slowly, folding his wings over his lap, “We are not here to hurt you. We want to learn about you, your people, your way of life.”
The bunny moved a few steps closer, sniffing the air, “You don’t smell like you are lying,” they shifted a bit closer and sniffed again then took another step closer and peered at Seinu. “You smell weird, there is a little hint of… something tingly under your scent.”
“I probably do,” Seinu said, “But I promise I am not here to harm you, my name is Seinu.”
“I saw you arrive,” the bunny said, “We all did, your big white bird, my foraging party watched it land but we didn’t want to get close.”
“We?” Seinu looked around but he didn’t see anyone but then the bunny let out a soft series of chirps and four more bunnies popped up, two of them in purple and yellow hats, one in a red hat and the fourth in a bright green hat.
“Yeah, we have been watching you,” the bunny said, “But we didn’t want to be seen whilst we were foraging, then you seemed to be distracted so I snuck closer and you caught me.”
“Qhoi…” Seinu muttered in Avali as he stared at the bunnies. There was no way he should have missed them! One of them was wearing a hat that was practically lime green for Avalon’s sake!
“Oooh what does that mean, Qhoi?” the bunny asked, “That wasn’t our tongue.”
“Oh…” Seinu repeated the word, “It means “how” you startled me is all, your friends, they are very good at hiding.
“We have to hide,” the bunny said looking around, “there are many predators around.” he shuffled closer, “So I am Thiln, that is what you can call me.”
Their name was musical, almost two syllables smashed together to create a sound that identified them. The translator in his visor threw up a phonetic translation for Seinu and he repeated it back to them. The first two letters were pronounced as “Te” and the second part as “Iln” with an emphasis on the I.
“Te-Iln” Seinu said and smiled, “Well it is nice to meet you Thiln, I was hoping we could talk for a…”
He was cut off as with a squawk and flap of large leathery wings something swept out of the sky, sunk its talons into one of the watching bunnies and soared back up. It happened so quickly Seinu wasn’t entirely sure what he’d seen at first as he leapt to his feet and watched the flying monster carry the high-pitched squealing vampire bunny in the lime green hat up toward a nearby tree. Their hat fluttered to the ground and the other bunnies yelled and dived for cover.
“Damn it…” he reached for his satchel, hurriedly trying to grab the rail-pistol hidden inside but he needn’t have bothered. The big leathery wings flying beast suddenly folded in half as an arrow took it through the wing. A second arrow hit it in the back as it tumbled out of the sky and then Selenu swept in low and landed next to the fallen creature.
The larger Avali took a moment to sink an arrow into the back of its head to be sure and then Seinu was there, rolling it aside to reach the bunny underneath.
“Oh hell…” Seinu cursed in Avali and touched the side of his Visor, “Seinu to Odyssey, medical emergency. Ifelse, lock onto my signal and teleport an emergency medical drone here now.”
“On its way,” Ifelse replied instantly, “ETA one minute.”
“Ok… ok little bunny help is on the way,” Seinu leant over the bunny and applied pressure to the dead predators claws, holding them inside the wounds they’d caused, “This will hurt but we can’t risk pulling these out, just stay with me little one.”
As Seinu held the claws in place Selenu used one of her arrows to slice the taloned foot off the flying predator. This made it a lot easier for Seinu to hold the claws in place and try to keep the little bunny from bleeding out.
Thiln wanted to run, needed to run, he could smell his own fear, it was wafting off his body in waves and he was ashamed to admit he’d peed himself out of sheer terror. These aliens were so strange, so unusual and terrifying looking with their mouths full of fangs and yet… they’d stopped the Shadow-Wing… Rayen was right there with the weird alien named “Seinu” and he wasn’t eating her, it looked like they’d not stopped the predator to claim the food for themselves but to help her.
He needed to run, he wanted to flee, Cri, Cal and Fi had all fled, diving through the bushes on all fours to run for it, scattering like they trained for if a predator attacked their foraging party. They were probably halfway back to the village again but he had stayed. Well by staying he’d dived for cover, convinced it was all going to happen again. Just like in the stories, the creatures from the stars came to kill and eat them! And yet… they were apparently trying to help Rayen he should… he should at least tell them this was pointless.
“You… you stopped it,” Thiln said as he crept up close to Seinu, sniffing the air before the bunny turned to stare at the white and green space creature. The vampire bunny was in awe; that one had swept out of the air, FLYING like a Shadow-Wing and somehow killed the predator as if it was nothing. She was perched on a rock, some sort of curved device wrapped in a gleaming black and purple ribbon held in one hand as she watched for more threats. Thiln had watched them use the strange object to fire a dart at the shadow-wing, pulling on the string and releasing it to hit the predator and knock them out of the sky.
Shivering at the utter alien nature of these “Avali” he turned back to Seinu and sighed as he looked down at Rayen, Seinu was of all things holding the shadow-wings severed foot and holding its claws in place which was very odd. But Thiln could see the damage had been done, “It’s too late… their talons got them, they’ll bleed and still die. I’ve seen this before when one of these creatures dropped a bunny after grabbing them, escaping the shadow-wing doesn't help, it's a death sentence. Please let me take her home… don’t eat her.”
“What? We are not going to eat her!” Seinu sounded horrified at that, which was weird. Every bunny knew the creatures from space just wanted to murder and eat them.
“It will be ok,” Seinu said, “She is still alive… and as long as we keep the claws in place we can stem the bleeding.”
“Stem? I… what do you mean?” Thiln asked confused, he wanted to run so badly. This was so weird and he let out a terrified squeak as the Avali grabbed his hands. This was so wrong, so scary and not right. He froze up as the alien bird creature pulled on Thiln's arms and made him press his paws down on the shadow-wings foot, holding the talons in place.
“Hold them there… do not pull them out ok?” Seinu said firmly, “Do not let them slide out no matter what you do, they are the only things keeping her alive.”
Thiln nodded, way too scared to disobey, it made no sense, how would holding the claws in place save Rayen! But the alien Avali was just as scary as the predator, he had such sharp teeth. So Thiln stood there holding the predator's foot in place. This allowed Seinu to pull something out of his pretty bag and press it against Rayen’s neck. She let out a soft little sigh and went limp… this was it! Thiln braced himself, thinking a goodbye to his family as he prepared himself to join Rayen in the cooking pot any moment now.
Except the silver bird did nothing, he just seemed to stare at the strange crystal that covered his eyes for a moment. Then all hell broke loose!
A flare of orange light stabbed out of the sky and another one of the space creatures appeared! Thiln screamed and went to pull away and finally flee but Seinu was right there, holding Thiln’s hand in place.
“No, don’t let go,” he shouted and Thiln whimpered and froze, watching in terror as Seinu chirped and cheeped and whittered at the blue creature! It was accompanied by a floating white beast that had long, flexible orange tentacles.
This was it, the chef! He tried to pull free of Seinu’s grip and run! He should have joined the others and fled when this all started but he stayed for Rayen and because the silver Avali had seemed nice! Now they were going to eat him, if he was lucky they’d kill him first and not start devouring him whilst he was alive just to hear him scream.
The strange orange tentacles started to caress Rayen’s body, he could see the flat ends pushing themselves against her skin, he could see it sinking needles into her! A strange glowing light flowed over the severed foot and Seinu pulled Thiln back, finally allowing him to let go. This stopped the bunny from running and he just started sobbing hysterically as the blue creature knelt down on the other side and pressed a long strip of weird white material against Rayen’s neck. He squirmed and tried to pull free, he very nearly went to bite the alien but just before he did there were more flashes of orange light and an amazing thing happened!
An igloo made of orange and red cloth appeared, unfolding, standing upright on long poles. Thiln momentarily forgot about being scared to stare at this igloo just assembling itself! Then several of the long tendrils of flexible orange material wrapped around Rayen and lifted her into the air. Then the white monster and the blue and white Avali vanished inside the igloo. The strange fabric swished shut and that was it… Rayen was gone, devoured by the igloo that had appeared out of the sky!
Thiln was trembling, shaking, and at last Seinu let go of his hands but he couldn’t run. He was frozen in terror and thumped to the ground and lay there on all fours, waiting for the end. But… no ending came, Seinu tucked a blanket of silver material around Thiln.
Letting out a long, shuddering sob Thiln pulled the blanket over his head and buried into the snow and darkness it created, hunkered down, still expecting the end but at least he was in the dark. It was a childlike thing to do, burying himself in the darkness before the end and whispering a prayer to the Great Protector that the ending would be swift.
Still no death came… he let out a startled squeak as he felt a paw on his head, gently petting him through the fabric of the blanket and then Seinu sang at him in his own language.
“It will be ok Thiln, I am sorry that was so terrifying, but we had to move quickly to save her life.”
He sounded genuine, which couldn’t be right but the vampire bunny lifted his head and sang, “Will she be ok?”
Maybe these alien Avali meant what they said about not eating them, “She will,” Seinu said softly, “I promise; it was our fault she was in the open, we couldn’t just sit by and not stop them.”
Thiln used his front paws to wipe his eyes, trying to stop the crying, “How can you save her? No one has ever been saved from one of those before. If a shadow-wing gets you then that’s it, you are dead. Nature has called you home, even if it drops you, their talons cut too deep.”
Seinu's hand on Thiln’s stopped petting and the Avali let out a soft chirp, “I see… Well today we can offer a happy ending at least. I promise you she will be ok.”
“Thank you,” Thiln nodded and wiped his nose sniffling, “Can … can I just stay in the dark for a bit? You… you won’t suddenly start eating me right?”
“Of course not,” Seinu said, sounding scandalised, “I am going to order another tent set up around us so we aren’t out in the open. But you are safe, I promise, stay there in the dark as long as you like.”
“Ok…” Thiln lay still, breathing slowly, his nose slowly sorting out all the scents he could smell. There was him… which was mostly terror and piss, Rayen’s blood… the odd tangly smell of Seinu and another tingly smell from the strange material the blanket was made from.
He could also hear Seinu talking in his twittering, chirpy language. It was pretty so for now Thiln just lay there listening to it. He could make sense of all of this later, after he’d calmed down and once he saw if they were true to their words about saving Rayen. Between all the emotions he was feeling and the real confusion over what these things from the stars were doing, he felt right about doubting their intentions, even if he couldn’t do anything.
For now he’d stay in the dark and wait… they had already captured him. So either they were true to their word and not going to eat him, or this was all an elaborate scheme to make him not be stressed so he’d taste nicer. The old tales were full of things like that, sometimes the aliens from the stars ate them alive, revelling in their screams. Other times they killed you quickly in the dark, letting you think you were safe so as not to taint your flesh. Either way he certainly wouldn’t get far if he tried to run, not with their magic. Maybe they really were saving Rayen and today wouldn’t end with the loss of a friend, although that’d be a rare treat considering usually a day never passed without some family losing someone to a predator.
He’d stay here in the dark and listen to the Avali speaking and see if he could puzzle out what any of the twittery sounds meant. It was better than the alternative right now.