The surface of Babupekkakerok was still a cold, ice and snow locked wasteland of evil! A place of predatory plants, hunting birds, stalking animals and giant trees that threatened to wallop anyone who walked under them. Even the seemingly harmless bunnies were a dangerous predator if you happened to be a small bug. Of course the place had balanced this out by breeding bugs bigger than the bunnies; according to Thiln that was "Balanced."
Tri, the bunny elder, called it the "Cycle of the Land." It all added up to make an ecosystem that seemed intent on devouring each other. Ki had never seen a planet so damn dangerous and yet he had to admit it appeared to live harmoniously. He and Firi had been quietly changing that balance for the past three weeks, at least in the ten mile radius around their basecamp and the three Bunny villages they were aware of.
Stamping his armoured feet in the snow to knock some of it loose, Ki scanned around with his armour’s sensor suite, checking for predators. He was taking no chances whilst working down here so was entirely encased in the armour Firi had made him. Chantelle had even etched some new symbols into the outer layer to personalise the suit, a memorial to his previous pack. The temperature was beautifully frigid at a balmy -30c which made it pretty perfect for Avali. The whole “Death Planet” classification notwithstanding. Not that he could feel it, the temperature inside his armour was properly regulated.
Since the horrible, nasty shock of nearly losing Seinu and Firi during her crazy sky-dive, Ki hadn't touched any alcohol. In fact he’d tossed every hidden bottle, secret stash and emergency flask of booze into the recycler. He was now three weeks sober which was still taking some getting used to but he was trying very hard not to touch it and be a productive member of his new pack. It helped that for most of the past three weeks he’d barely been back to the ship at all, which cut down on the chances he could weaken and order the food synthesiser in the pack kitchen to make some of it.
He’d been working on their anti-predator systems with Firi, securing the space around the base-camp and generally coming along behind Firi and toning down some of her wilder ideas… while suggesting some wild ideas of his own, that Firi would tone down in return. He’d also confiscated all the plasma grenades after he’d caught her holding an impromptu firearms lesson with a group of visiting bunnies. That was one nice thing; as they had expanded the anti-predator system, the drones, sonic emitters and the judicious use of fire to burn out evil plants. It all helped the bunnies grow a little bit braver about visiting.
The camp itself was still an avali style collection of tents sat in a clearing in the snow but the path and land between it and the village Seinu had been living in was pretty safe now. Ki couldn’t promise one hundred percent but he was satisfied the security he had set up would keep most bunnies and Avali safe as they ventured into the countryside. He’d even set up gravity nets around the base of the Cinati trees, simple poles that linked together to form a field that slowed down falling fruit so they landed gently in the snow instead of exploding, or from falling on top of somebody and killing them.
Following Seinu’s exhaustive notes and documentation on contact procedures Firi had (with the help of Thiln the bunny) introduced the other members of the pack to the villager bunnies over the course of the last two weeks and they were slowly becoming friendlier. This in turn had allowed them to be introduced to other nearby bunny villages. With the glut of fruit available to Tri’s village they had set out to share some of it with their neighbours.
Firi was off with one group of bunnies; she had joined the foraging party that was taking some fruit over to the village to the east. Taran had joined another foraging group heading to the second nearby village located to the south-west. Both villages had met the "aliens" before and this was their second visit, so the delivery of food should go a long way to helping the local communities feel more at ease with them. Ki also thought it was sweet that the bunnies didn’t expect anything in return, they had more fruit than normal so they were sharing it. This was a stark contrast from his days working with his old pack, where nobody would care about his family’s survival and everyone would demand something in return, from money to being given some service. It was so different that it took a while for Ki's brain to wrap around the idea that they truly wanted to help without expecting anything back. Since Ki and Firi had secured the countryside they were able to transport more than usual in a larger group, though Firi still had four drones shadowing each foraging party watching over them.
Ki checked the outputs in his visor and checked up on the remaining foraging parties, there were three more groups who worked during the day; all of them were out in the fields and forest gathering food. This included Thiln’s group, with Rayen fully recovered, she and Fi were out with Thiln foraging. Though their numbers were somewhat reduced with Cri and Cal up in orbit helping to look after Seinu. So the three of them were sticking close to the village teaching and escorting some of the younger bunnies almost as if trialling them out to see if they were ready to join their party; it was interesting to watch, Ki was going to have to ask them about it when he saw them in person next.
The Horker drones were also eagerly counting bunnies and sending reports up to their control satellites. Ifelse reported that the changes they’d quietly introduced to the system were doing their job and the "system failure" was diligently recording that 0 bunnies had been spotted.
Ki, however, was waiting for Tri; he’d received word that the bunny elder was coming to the base-camp to see them and as Seinu was still in the med-bay he had somehow wound up being the only available Avali to meet her. Chantelle had resumed her survey of the solar system whilst Selenu was on the ship so Seinu wasn’t all alone with just the AI for company. This wasn’t ideal, he wasn’t a Diplomat, heck, he was a mechanic but someone had to speak to her. So Ki removed his helmet and settled down onto a stool that could manage the weight of his armour. Once he was comfy he helped himself to a drink of tea from a thermos and waited. It didn’t take long for a group of four bunnies to come into view. He sat up and watched as they approached, one male, two females in hats similar yet distinct from Cri and Cal’s in purples and yellows and an older female in the middle.
She had a magnificent hat, it was yellow with a ring of purple pom-poms on the crown and star-shaped yellow crystal pendants hanging down on either side. Underneath the hat she had a wise and friendly looking face but it was her fur that stood out the most. She had rich vibrant orange fur as her primary colour with a darker orange under-belly. The customary thick fur around her paws, neck ruff and thick fluffy brush like tail all matched; bright and vibrant and showing no sign of grey or ageing.
It was the way she walked slowly however that gave some indication of her age; her fur was no different than the younger bunnies but her little feet shuffled slightly as if her joints ached and her tail wasn’t as effective at wiping out her footprints as the others. The younger females walking behind her were taking time to wipe them out along with their own. The male was fussing, Ki could see that from where he was sitting but as they approached he stood up and bowed to the matronly bunny.
“Hello Tri,” he chirped in avali, “Welcome back to our camp.”
She looked up at him for a long moment then smiled, “Hello,” she said in avali, not just any avali but the dialect the Trail pack used amongst themselves, her pronunciation whilst slow was nearly flawless, “Language… of the friends of feather from space… is… interesting.”
Ki looked on in surprise, the pack had only been interacting with them for what, three months? …and the bunnies were already picking up enough words to string together a sentence. The Avali meanwhile had to rely on translators or augments to get a grip on the bunnies language.
“Thank you for coming to visit us,” Ki sang, unlike the others his back-pack computer enhanced his thoughts, especially after the upgrades Firi had made to it. This had allowed him to programme his mind with the Bunny language in about an hour. It was a delight to speak in, every word a literal song, “It is an honour to speak to you.”
She tilted her head curiously, watching Ki sing the words, it was very hard to not stand tall and belt the words out like he was singing karaoke with Taran and Chantelle. Tri however nodded and switched back to bunny song herself, “I have come today to ask for your help, you and the yellow one who commands the fire have made it safe, the predators are less, more bunnies come home each day with more food.”
“Mother,” the middle aged male interrupted, “This isn’t important, you really shouldn’t be above ground, it isn’t safe even with all these aliens help! They will go eventually and it will go back to how it was.”
She turned to look at him, his colours matched her, if Ki remembered Seinu’s briefing notes correctly he was her son and the twins Uncle. His hat was very similar to the girls making them his daughters. Their hat codes were a baffling mire Ki had not tried to study. It was interesting to see how Tri reacted to her son; she reached out one paw and patted him gently on the muzzle.
“I refuse to cower any more Tel,” she turned and gestured at the snow fields, “This is our world, I can hide down in the caves until my end or I can embrace the gifts these aliens have brought us," She paused looking sombre for a moment, "Yes… I am wary, aliens ate us, killed us, but not these ones. They have proven they are kind and gave me back the sky and the snow.”
She took three steps and face planted in a drift of fresh snow off to the side of Ki’s chair. She hugged it, burying her hands and feet into the soft powder and buried her face, making a long, happy, contented sigh as her hat fell off. Ki watched, incredulously as this bunny elder just rolled over, balled up a handful of fresh snow and hurled it at her son.
“They gave me back the snow,” she sang and there was such delight in her voice it made Ki tear up a bit, their language was so expressive, the tone of her voice, the pitch of her words, it hit Ki’s brain via the quadraphonic positioning of his Avali ears and pushed all the buttons marked Wonder. That was the context behind Tri’s voice, she had never expected to see the surface again and here she was revelling in the moment.
“The sky, the sun, the colour clouds,” Tri sang, “These aliens have given them all back to me. If a predator took me today and the Land called me home I would die happy,” she sat up and looked at the girls then Ki and took a large bite of the second snowball she was making, she scrunched up her face, clearly delighted at the taste, “We must not hide, yes it is scary and we are easily killed and the awful beasts who came before might come back, but today, right here, in the snow… we can and should be happy.”
“Yes grandma,” the younger female bunnies chirped and her son stared at the ground, brushing snow out of his ruff then glanced around. He looked sheepish and unsure and Ki knelt down and offered him a paw.
“We are here as friends,” he said, “And when we leave I promise we won’t abandon you all, we will try and keep the surface safe. We won’t let the Horker’s harm you either.”
Tel hesitated again then gripped the Avali’s wing-hand and nodded before walking over to hug his mother, she stroked his muzzle then nudged him into helping her back up. Ki chuckled and offered a hand and once she was back on her feet she turned back to the business at hand, brushing snow out of her fur.
“Onto business, we have too much food, between all the fruit and plants and Cinnati there is too much, which is in itself a novelty we’ve never had to deal with before,” she gestured at the snow field, “We are sharing it with our neighbours, but it will rot underground. We can’t leave it in the snow to stay fresh. It will attract predators so we need a way to keep it cold in the caves. You are aliens, can you do this?”
Ki rubbed his chin and nodded, “Yes, we can give you a machine to do this but… I will need to see the path into your village so I can work out how to get it down there.”
Tri stared at Ki for a moment and he held still, she had very piercing yellow eyes that seemed to stare through him. He was aware he still wasn’t the best at looking after his feathers, most of the mess was hidden under his armour but his the big three feathers that made up his crest were not that tidy after being crushed under his helmet for hours. He was if anything a scruffy mess but she didn’t seem to be looking at his appearance; more something else, her nose twitching as she sampled his scent. After about a minute Tri seemed to reach a decision and nodded, “We… will show you the way inside, but you might not fit,” she gestured at the Avali, “You are… very tall.”
Ki laughed, “I’ll wiggle and take my backpack off if I have to, once I’ve seen the path I can get the machine down there for you.”
“Very well, follow us,” she turned and started back across the snow, but paused, glancing up at Ki with a frown, “We will show you and see if you fit inside a bunny home, but you are only to go in the cave we show you, ok?”
“I understand, don’t worry,” Ki nodded seriously, “Seinu taught us all about how important it is to not violate the privacy of your private rooms.”
Tri nodded and the bunnies started off across the snow and Ki followed, sending a message to the others to let them know where he was going. He’d seen Seinu’s recordings of the village but it was going to be fascinating to see inside for himself, an experience the him of just three weeks ago thought would never be allowed. Yet here he was, his brothers and sisters trusted him to do his part and Tri had clearly decided he could be trusted.
Seinu woke up, his eyes snapped open and he was just aware. One moment he'd been quietly dreaming now he was awake. He lay there for a long moment staring at the curving white ceiling of the room he was in, just quietly absorbing the fact he was alert, awake and feeling fine. He had vague memories of being awake before, of his pack, being fed, people talking to him, coming and going, making a fuss and using strange machines. But he'd not been coherent for any of it and the memories were blurry, like a fading dream. He'd been talking to someone about Vampire Bunnies and… no it was fading, his sleep addled brain unable to retain the phantom images and words his subconscious had thrown up.
Lying still he let himself just adjust to being awake. The lights were very low, in night mode he guessed. Seinu had no internal HUD or UI before his eyes which he knew was wrong but for some reason didn't alarm him. His last clear memory was of him floating inside a pool of green-blue liquid waiting for the end, the fact he was here in a bed meant it hadn't been the end, a pleasant surprise for sure. Taking a deep breath through his nose and mouth he just let his mind adjust. He had a nose and amazing eyesight, even with the lights on low he could see as good as if it was daytime. This meant he was still in Vampire Bunny form, but him being in the infirmary made no sense, he couldn't get ill, not in the traditional way so whatever had happened had been bad.
Lying still Seinu breathed in through his nose, still a novel experience after all these years of changing form. Avali had no noses, smells happened on the tongue, breathing through tubes hidden between their ears. Actual scents and air flowing through his nose and being identified by his brain was novel. There were a lot of scents, clinical, clean, antiseptic. The faint tang he recognized as Avali and, strongest of all, Cri and Cal. Turning his head he found the copper furred bunny twins curled up on either side of him. Cal was fast asleep but Cri was awake, his bright eyed meeting Seinu's.
Cri chirped, resting nose to nose with Seinu. The silver slime avali turned bunny rolled onto his side, instinctively gripping Cri's paws with his. All four of them pressing against theirs as they just lay together for a moment being bunnies. Cal rolled over in his sleep, smuggling up against Seinu and Cri smiled wider and rubbed their noses together.
"Hi," the copper bunny chirped, "The Doctors said you'd properly wake up tonight, welcome back."
"Hi," Seinu replied lamely, flexing their paws, shivering as memories unfurled inside his mind. The bug, the crushing walls of Snapping Death and finally dissolving sap all set to a backdrop of screaming snow, "I… I… how long have I been out?"
"Twenty three days," Cal murmured, awake now and shifting his body to rest his head on Seinu's, arms adding to the hug, "We should go tell the Doctor's he's awake."
"I'll go," Cri declared then took a moment to unpeel his furry self from Seinu, letting go of his hands and feet last. It was during this sticky manoeuvre the slime avali realised his body was in default, gooey, translucent purple slime mode without the customary covering of fur across the surface. It was a shocking thing to realise, he very rarely let anyone see him like this… it was like he was truly naked, his alien form on display for all to see. Closing his eyes Seinu took a deep breath, forcing himself to move on and relax.
"What are you two doing here anyway?"
"We've been helping look after you," Cal replied as his brother jumped off the bed and scampered out of the room, "You're part of our village now, we made a big nuisance of ourselves until they let us."
"Thank you," Seinu chirped, feeling very small, "I… should never have gone outside without checking with someone."
"It's OK," Cal chirped, "You learnt more about us the hard way and we learnt lots about you too, we helped to feed you and move the machines around."
"They certainly helped a lot," a new voice said and Seinu looked up in surprise. An elderly Avali with white and black feathers banded by a stripe of deep indigo was standing in the door, "They refused to leave you alone either, sleeping in here, one of them always present no matter what, they are some good friends you have."
"Doctor Rhaii!" Seinu exclaimed, "What are you doing here?"
"You nearly died my boy," he nodded to a screen displaying Seinu's medical data, "After Selenu called us for help, my pack and I hopped a shuttle straight here, you've given us all a bit of a fright young one."
The older avali was followed by another equally as old avali with white and pink fur and purple banding, Doctor Taluni. After her came a pair of identical twins, blue and white avali with yellow stripes, Halyu & Halyan, the only way to tell them apart their different crest styles. The four avali made up the specialist doctor pack who cared for him. They worked directly for the Illuminate Medical Directorate, he'd known them all since he was a kit and got turned into slime when Doctor Rhaii and his pack saved his life with their experimental nanite treatment.
"Hello Seinu," Halyu chirped, "Welcome back. I've sent Cri to get Selenu and Chantelle. They'll want to see you."
"Why was I asleep so long? Why am I still a bunny? I thought you'd send me back to Avali form if I was ill."
"We had to rebuild your mass," Doctor Rhaii said as he moved over to sit on the edge of the bed, "We decided against changing your form to avoid more shocks, we can't change your neural map whilst you're asleep. If you'd woken up with your brain set to bunny but your body an Avali well we don't know what would have happened."
"Why was I out so long? I've had to rebuild mass before."
"Never this much," Taluni said as she sat behind a console nearby and began to bring various pieces of tech online, "You were in deep shock, whenever we did wake you up it was clear you were not lucid, Rhaii had the right idea to keep you out of it."
Seinu glanced at Doctor Rhaii and wriggled his paws, "Thanks doctor…"
"You're welcome, but let's focus on you getting all the way better first," the doctor said with a smile, "Cal we will need you to hop down for a moment."
"Oh sure," the copper bunny tried to detach himself from Seinu but after a couple of wiggles he grunted, "I'm stuck, he's gone all rubbery and sticky again."
"That's OK," Doctor Taluni said, "That's just his nanites redistributing the load now he's conscious, Seinu can you reconfigure your surface to let Cal go?"
“Er I can’t,” Seinu squeaked, “I have no operational control in this body, no HUD, no access,” he closed his eyes as he thought, “Yup, I get a message about using external access like before.”
“Halyu?” Rhaii asked as he turned towards the female blue avali, “This body has complex senses but that shouldn’t be enough to shut down his control systems.”
The twin Avali where working on a set of consoles and after a minute Halyan the male twin sighed and sat back, “I don’t get it, everything is working but something is draining a significant amount of processing power, it is a miniscule level across every nanite but that plus the bunny body requirements has pushed it into the amber zone for control.”
He glanced at his twin sister Halyu who was staring at the screens, “It’s in the networked operating system. As far as I can tell it has always been there but it is so small it fell below our base comparison scan threshold, like just under three percent, but that's significant across his entire body, it adds up to a constant drain of processing power.”
They pointed a claw at Seinu, “Have you got anything else running? Or made any edits since the last time you saw us at the clinic?”
“No,” Seinu said, “Just the bunny DNA sequence and we followed the procedure step for step as always.”
“Ok,” Doctor Taluni sighed, “Halyu, please reconfigure Seinu’s surface layer and give them his fur back and unstick Cal, we can solve this later, for now he is stable and awake.”
It was a rather unpleasant experience in Seinu’s mind, knowing someone else was interacting with and operating his body. But the twins knew what they were about. Soon enough Seinu was fuzzy again, soft, silky new fur covering over his gelatinous purple slime and Cal was thankfully free. He didn’t get much chance to ask more questions as it was at that point Selenu and Chantelle arrived and he spent the next twenty minutes hugging them both and re-assuring Sel that it hadn’t been her fault.
It was a relief to see them both and then there was a video call with Taran and Firi down on the surface. Ki was apparently out of direct contact inside the bunny village which was a big surprise. It was so good to see everyone but the visit was soon wrapped up with Doctor Takuni ushering everyone but her pack and the bunny twins back outside. Once the room was clear Taluni and Rhaii called a conference with the others and set about running a whole series of tests, Seinu was awake but they clearly were not ready to let him leave the med-bay just yet.
Sher was humming quietly to himself as he paged through the building select screen in My Life as King, an Earth kingdom builder for the Wii. The console was an older one that Naha had suggested getting, and after some hunting around, D had been able to find someone selling one. The seller even offered to deliver it to a station they had been doing a gig on. It had been ridiculously expensive but Sher wanted it and the sale came with a whole bunch of games to, a lot of them busy active games with lots of movement to make use of the unique motion detection system in the controllers. The real fun, however, had been having to call Naha and then Taran to have a conference call about how to plug the stupid thing into the monitors on the band's ship. The Wii hadn’t come with any of the standard cables so that had been fun watching the Avali geek out over connection systems. Naha had even recorded the work they'd had to do to make it work so he could do a little presentation about it at his weekly game-geek club back on Protion. But it was finally up and running, and Sher was chilling out with this cute game about being a young king rebuilding his land.
He was about to settle on building a new inn when the ship’s AI pinged him about an in-coming video call. He set down the controller and raised one hand to his visor, the caller ID got his attention:
Diplomat Seinu Trail, AEV Odyssey: Orbit Babupekkakerok
“I didn’t realise we were in range for a live call?” Sher queried the Iron’s AI and it pinged an affirmative, the call was being routed via a nearby com-buoy and according to the AI’s response, the current lag in transmission times would be 8.346 seconds.
For an intergalactic communication that was great. Anything worse than 10 seconds and it’d start to get unbearable and it’d be easier to send pre-recorded messages. Sher genuinely hadn’t realised they were in range, according to the Iron’s AI they were only a couple of galaxies away. After this he’d try to call his parents; if Naha and Kalani had installed the communication system at his own home correctly and if they were this close, he could have a real live conversation with them too!
Sher accepted the message and ordered the system to play on the screen in front of him, switching channels away from the Wii. The screen flickered on showing Seinu, Sher went d’aw, he was a vampire bunny! Silver and charcoal fur, a modest neck ruff in a slightly lighter shade of grey that matched his paws. He oddly had black sclera instead of white but it made his yellow irises pop. He had also styled the fur atop his head in his usual mohawk. His ears faded to charcoal at the tips and he’d kept the purple band that usually bisected his feathers in a few places as accents. The whole look was adorable.
He’d clearly done as he said and was blending into bunny society, this was one piece of Avali tech Sher was still in awe of, the ability to entirely transform your species! It wasn’t for him but the fact it let Seinu do this to help him better tell his people’s story was fascinating.
“Hi Sher,” Seinu said with a bright smile, “I hope I didn’t catch you at a bad time, I just noticed your ship-time says it is pretty late there.”
“No you are good, I was playing videogame, what’s up?”
Sher tilted his head, his curiosity pique. Behind Seinu was a view of the inside of an avali ship-room, it looked a bit like their medical-bay and a bunny in a purple and yellow hat with copper fur had just walked past.
“Well… first off how!” Seinu dropped into emotion laden Bunny Song, the twang in his voice, the high register of his words a clear indicator he was in distress, “How do you do it!” he sighed and pressed his face into the palms of his thick fuzzy paws, “How do you do it Sher! Everyday living like this! The constant buzz of instincts telling you to run, or hide or panic…”
“It isn’t easy,” Sher said as he watched another bunny appear next to Seinu and rub his head affectionately, they were identical in colour to the other one he could still see in the background, “But you can learn to suppress the worst of those instincts.”
“I wish I had asked before,” Seinu sighed and lifted his head, leaning against the other bunny, “It’s been a bit of a month here, my mission to learn about bunny society slammed head-first into the screaming snow.”
“Fuck damn it Seinu,” Sher grumbled, “I warned you about the weather!”
“He went outside without talking to any of us,” the copper bunny said, “He was an idiot, Hi by the way, I am Cri and you must be Sher, I have heard all about you from Seinu here and his family.”
“Nice to meet you Cri,” Sher said warmly before he tilted his head, “How are you finding the Avali? I assume you are helping to look after Seinu and are in space?”
Cri lowered his voice, “Don’t tell them this but the Avali really stink! But you get used to them after a bit, Seinu smells much nicer now he is a bunny… and after we taught him how to groom himself.”
Sher couldn’t help but laugh at that, “We do have a lot of fur, was it just the Screaming Snow? Or did something else go wrong?”
Seinu sighed and closed his eyes, shivering and the other bunny in the background looked around as if smelling something and bustled over to hug Seinu from the otherside, “I met an Arbolin, I was going for cover during the Screaming Snow and ran right into it. My unique body defended me but then I found a patch of Snapping Death and after I escaped from that I fell into a Trapdoor Gourd.”
Sher fell still as those three names came up, he shivered himself and hugged his tail, “Any one of those could spell death for a bunny in the wild, you are damned lucky you aren’t really a bunny.”
“More lucky than you know,” the other bunny spoke up, “Turns out the trapdoor gourds can even melt Avali or slime critters like Seinu.”
“Really?” Sher said quietly, “That’s insane. I knew they were dangerous, but this much…? Ah well I shouldn’t be surprised, we just try to avoid them… unless it is fruit season.”
“Well.. now we know,” Seinu shook his head, “I… I wanted to ask you how you do it? Ignore your instincts… it’s so hard to suppress that desire to flee when something triggers it.”
“There isn’t much to teach,” Sher said, “You just sort of have to learn, can’t you just have that fancy body of yours dial back the survival instincts?”
Cri laughed softly, “It turns out his fancy body is too good,” he placed a paw on Seinu’s snout, “Apparently our noses are so good his body can’t be adjusted like normal, so he has to live like one of us without any of his fancy accessories. “No cheat mode” is what the nice Doctor said.”
Seinu groaned and wriggled his snout, “I don’t cheat, I am just… made of slime.”
“It is very nice slime,” Cal said, “But yeah Mister Sher, he can’t “cheat”, can you help us? We don’t really try to ignore our instincts so we aren’t any help.”
“I’m afraid there isn’t much I can do,” Sher said, smiling softly at the sight of the two bunnies being so accepting of Seinu. He didn’t think the slime-bunny realised it yet but they were treating him as a bunny completely, it was all in their body language; as far as these two were concerned Seinu was one of them, “I can talk through what I do, but it is different to how Roi, my sister manages it. We all sort of have to just find our own way as we adapt naturally. Not counting that I’ve been doing this for… how long? 14 years?”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” Seinu rubbed his muzzle and then glanced at the other two bunnies and leant against them, “I was going to try and lure you all to visit and teach us but if there isn’t much to teach then we just have to keep trying.”
“Yeah sorry I can’t offer more help,” Sher said with a sad smile, “I’ll snag Roi tomorrow and we’ll record what advice we can give as videos and send it your way. But ignoring your instincts is absolutely something I would not advise while living on our world.
“Thanks,” Seinu said, “Even a quick video where you and Roi outline what you do would help. I am still a mess after what happened and if I can’t show the Doctor’s I’ve got it under control they are going to drag me back to Avalon and cancel the whole project and I don’t want that.”
“We certainly don’t,” Sher sat up at that, “The work you are doing is super important! People… People want to know about our species! I’ll get those videos to you tomorrow I promise.”
“Thanks Sher,” Seinu sighed and rubbed his muzzle, “I already have lots of good material, I’ll send you some copies of the videos and memory experiences I have compiled so far whilst stuck here in Medbay, would love to hear your feedback.”
“Sure thing,” Sher smiled, “Oh and Cri, Cal,” the two bunnies looked up at the screen, “I’m leaving you both in charge of keeping him safe, the work he is doing is important for all of us.”
They shared a look over Seinu’s head then turned back to the screen, “We will,” Cri said, “We wanted to ask him for a nibble soon anyways, but yes, we will keep him safe, Sher.”
Sher couldn’t help smiling as Seinu tried to protest that he didn’t need keeping safe but Cal just clamped his muzzle shut between his paws.
“You got eaten like three times!” The copper bunny said matter of factly, “You clearly need looking after. Don’t worry Sher! we got him!”
“Thanks boys,” the bunny musician said, “I’ll send those videos tomorrow, speak to you all soon.”
Seinu grumbled out a goodbye and the video link closed. For a long moment Sher sat there thinking. He hadn’t considered that Seinu could run into trouble learning about bunny life. Avali tech may seem commonplace to him these days but it was a worry if even that could fail on his home-world. Hopping up out of his beanbag he headed off towards the room Roi shared with Mekari to see if the two were awake. He had meant it when he said the work Seinu was doing was important to all bunnies; if they could help with a couple of videos then that is what they’d do. But first he’d grab his sister and try to call his parents and see if the communication device his pack installed at his old place for them to use worked. Then he’d maybe snag Mekari, D and Rowi and ask if they had any ideas too. They had all lived through Sher and Roi adapting to life in space; maybe they had noticed things that would help.