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__________________________________ Lagomorphs Copyright © July, 2015, FurryWurry All rights reserved

Chapter 22 -- Newbies __________________________________

Sunny led them to the highest of the snugs, the one closest to the warren's entrance, where she scratched at the doorway.

"You awake? Can we come in?"

"Sunny! Hi! What brings you here?"

"This." She shoved her youngest brother into the room. "I think he has something to ask. Well, we all do, actually."

Sky looked at Diver with a frown. "I told you to decide where you wanted to sleep. Maybe it shouldn't be here. Why are you back?"

"See. I told you!" Diver whimpered and turned to leave.

Jeff blocked the way out. "Diver, pay attention. What did he just say?"

"Get out'a my way. He just now said I shouldn' be here, so I'm leaving." Obviously upset, he seemed to be trying to push Jeff out of the way, but certainly not as hard as he could have. It was more a lean than a shove. Jeff still had to strain not to move. The Rab was heavy!

"No, that's not what he said!" Sunny was quite exasperated. "Sky, you'll have to say it in simpler words. Sometimes he's just too dumb."

Sky sighed. He spoke slowly, carefully enunciating his words. "Diver, you have to make up your mind if you want to sleep in our snugrow from now on. If you do want to sleep here, you have to ask. That's all you have to do. But it means you can't go back to sleeping in your old snugrow. You'll have to do all your sleeping here, with us, in our snugrow. So... what do you want to do?"

Diver stopped leaning against Jeff and slowly turned around.

"You mean it? I can stay? Really? You really mean it?"

Sky rolled his eyes. "Yes. I really mean it. But you have to ask. It's not going to happen if you don't ask. You have to want me to be your Sire from now on. You'll have to do what I say. You'll have to do what Flower wants, too. This is her snugrow and she has the final say. She's the one who made it into a home for all of us. Don't ask if you can't do as you're told."

"I can! I can! Please, please can I stay?" The golden Rab lunged down to hug Sky's knees tightly. "Please?"

"Umm." Sky obviously was taken aback by the enthusiasm. "I'm going to say yes, but not quite yet. Flower has to agree and the others need to know what's happening. Sunny and Swimmer, what about you two? Do you want to stay?"

"Yes!" both of the other Rabs chorused together, delighted.

"OK, then." He looked down at Diver, who was still hugging his knees. "You can let go now. That's really not necessary."

All smiles, Diver got up. "Thank you, thank you! You won't regret this!"

"I'd better not." Sky looked sternly at the Rab. "I won't be so lenient with your pranks as I have been. Remember that."

Diver nodded vigorously. "I'll be good. I promise!" Sky still looked dubious.

"Sunny, would you do me a favor and go get Flower and the others? If they're not in their snugs, I'm sure they're down at the bottom of the snugrow, getting the nests ready. Well, maybe not Gemma and Singer. They're probably playing in his snug. It's on the way, though."

"Of course!" She almost knocked Jeff over in her hurry to leave. "Sorry!" floated back up the passageway.

"Jeff, can we include you? I know Flower already agreed yesterday evening, but there's something else we probably should do."

"Certainly!" Yesterday evening? When? She hadn't said anything at all during the meeting in his snug. Maybe that's when Sky meant, since she hadn't voiced any objections, or maybe they'd spoken privately afterward.

While they waited, Jeff looked around Sky's snug. It was quite a bit larger than his own. The bathing nook looked much the same, although the shower was bigger. There was a second table and more stools, too. Some of the other furniture he didn't recognize at all. Something that looked vaguely like a stalagmite was near the main entrance, for example, although there was no matching stalactite above it. There also was a heavy wooden framework on the other side of the bed, leaning against the rear wall. Some of its crosspieces were deeply scratched.

"Hi! Hi! Hi!" Gemma burst into the room. Did she do everything in threes? "What's happening? We gonna have a party? We haven't had a party in a long time. Parties are fun! Are we gonna have fun?" She launched herself at Sky, who barely managed to catch her in time.

"Nah. I told ya. It's just gonna be another horrible, boring meeting." Singer obviously was doing his best to seem mature and world-weary. He was breathing a bit heavily, though. He must have hurried up the passageway almost as fast as Gemma. He slouched against the wall, partially blocking the entrance.

"Maybe not quite that boring. We've never done anything like this before. We have to wait for your Auntie Flower though, Gemma. We can't get started till she gets here. Come on in, Singer. Sit on the bed. Please. Or lie on it if you want. I'm sure it'll be a little while before they're here. Flower has to come a ways and she just can't move as fast as she usually does."

He waved an elbow toward some of the stools. "Please, guys, have a seat, relax," he encouraged his other visitors, then tossed Gemma onto the bed.

"Whee!" She jumped up and down on it a few times.

Her youngest uncle clambered up onto the bed, probably less gracefully than he would have liked since he had an audience. To make things worse, as soon as he stretched out on it, his niece promptly sat on him. "Gemma!" he complained, but she just laughed and bounced on him a few times. Singer pouted but didn't make a scene. Like Gemma, he seemed somewhat better behaved than youngsters Jeff had encountered back home.

Sky joined the two of them on the bed. Diver and Swimmer ignored the stools and sat down where they could lean against the wall and each other. In just a few seconds they all were dozing, leaving Jeff the only one wide awake. Rabs!

***

Eventually the four does arrived. Walking slowly, the two younger does were supporting Flower and Garland. He could swear they both looked larger than they had been the previous night.

"Sky? What's so important we had to come all the way up here at this time of day?" Flower demanded. Diver and Swimmer jumped up and helped the soon-to-be-mothers sit on two of the stools.

"Didn't Sunny tell you?"

"No, she just said you needed us. She wouldn't say anything else. And why is a widdershins cousin running your errands? She isn't one of us. Or is she?" Flower looked sharply at him.

"Well, no. At least not yet. But the sibs have asked to join us, to sleep in our, your, snugrow."

"Well, it's about time! Of course they can. Come here, you three. Let me hug you." Now she was smiling. Jeff saw that she chinned each of them when they bent down to be hugged. Oh. That must have had happened last night when she hugged him, too. Her chinning him must have been what Sky had meant. And he hadn't even noticed.

"And now it's my turn." Sky gave each of them a full body hug, rubbing against them, then chinning a shoulder thoroughly; but not the shoulder Flower had marked, Jeff noticed.

"Welcome to you all." He smiled.

"Auntie! What about Jeff? You didn' hug him! He's our fren', too! I want him to stay here, too!" Gemma was insistent.

Jeff knelt next to Flower. "May I?" he asked quietly. "I didn't ask you last night when I should have. And I'd really like to stay. Please?"

"Yes, you may." She hugged him tight. And chinned him on the shoulder that Sky hadn't already marked.

"Unka?"

Sky rolled his eyes. Nieces could be a pain. "Come here, Jeff. Do you really want to stay? Accept our authority?"

"Yup."

They both grinned and Sky hugged him tight. "Welcome!"

"Party! Party! Party!"

"Hold on, Gemma, there's one thing left to do. They all have to get new loincloths. The same colors we wear, so everyone else in the warren knows they're our snugmates now. You go first, Sunny."

"Sure."

She went over to the stalagmite and rubbed its top firmly. A drawer popped open and she dropped her breechclout into it. The clothing dispenser hummed loudly for a few seconds. When the drawer opened again, it contained a new loincloth which she donned promptly. The pattern on its front flap was the same but its colors had changed. Unlike the ones her brothers were still wearing, the new one had a green background instead of yellow, and its ten-armed, irregular starburst was red instead of violet. There was a silver triangle on the lowest, six-o'clock branch instead of on the branch that was next counter-clockwise. The black marks forming a pentagram around the border looked the same, though.

Jeff suddenly had a revelation: the starburst was a map of the warren. The Rabs didn't have clocks. Widdershins. He felt like smacking himself.

Her sibs got their new loincloths, then Sky looked at Jeff. "Well? It's your turn now. Get rid of that grubby thing you've been wearing." Grubby? His white briefs were cotton instead of silk, but... grubby?

The top of the clothing dispenser was quite rough, biting into his palm. He rubbed the white scrape marks while the dispenser made loud noises. It took longer than before, but eventually the drawer popped open. He was relieved he wouldn't need a tail to hold up his new apparel.

They all stared at it when he put it on.

The pattern on its front flap was nothing like theirs. Oh, it had a pentagon of black marks, but otherwise the design and colors were quite different. Its colors were muted, with blue background above and green below. Instead of a starburst, it had a tan tree-of-life with dark leaves and buds. There were some flowers and even a few off-white fruit. It was a colored version of his medallion. The material was soft and dull: not cotton, but not silk either.

"That's not like ours! Did it break, Unka? Jeff, you broke it!" Gemma's voice was a bit shrill.

"I hope not!" The right clothes must matter a lot to the Rabs if each snugrow had its own colors. They'd be instantly recognizable from quite a distance, without needing to smell each other.

"Let me try." Sky went through the ritual himself. The replacement was essentially identical to his old one. If anything, its colors were brighter than the one he'd removed. Cleaner, maybe?

They stared at Jeff's some more.

"I see something else. It's not just the tree," Flower noticed. "Count the marks across the top. He has ten marks there. Ours have only eight."

The other four sides of the pentagon were identical, though: nine marks along each. Jeff had forty six marks, the Rabs forty four. The numbers sounded familiar. Forty-odd wiggly Xs... Were they supposed to be chromosomes? But why?

"Well, we all can see I'm different. I guess even the clothes-maker knows it."

Gemma yawned, a big gaping one. Then so did everyone else. "Tha's OK. We like you anyhow. I'm not sleepy. Party...." She toppled over on the bed, eyes closed, breathing quietly.

Sky smiled down at his sleeping niece. "Singer, carry her back to her bed, would you please? Everybody, go get some rest." Sunny and Cloudy helped their elders through the doorway. Jeff and the two adult bucks were about to follow when Sky added "Diver, you stay for a while. Just you. We need to, uh, talk."