Spring in My Step: Chapter 2
#3 of Spring in My Step
The second installment to the series following the misadventures of Colen and Nyanni! Posting early because I will be away for a few days. Enjoy!
"Shhh! There's no time to explain, please just stay calm!" A squad of Rabbits wearing similar attire as Nyanni and roughly the same size marched in in a ceremonious fashion. There were four in total, all walking on their hind legs with two servant rabbits carrying two chest. One appeared to be dressed as a religious figure perhaps a priestess, holding a staff and another behind that religious figure with a lantern of platted in gold. The servants carrying the chests laid them on the ground in front of my feet in the middle of the room and opened them revealing one holding a sponge and the other full of water.
"Clean it." The priestess spoke.
The rabbit with the lantern arched over to provide more light on me as the other two said simultaneously, "Yes my lady!" Judging by their voices they were all female. One of the servants asked me to disrobe to which I immediately refused.
"Just do as they say Colen." Nyanni said and at that moment she began taking my shirt off while the other two started untying my shoes. The priestess began quoting some unintelligible phrases from a book she unearthed from a pouch on her hip. Nyanni spoke lightly in my ear, "Everything will be ok I promise, we're not going to hurt you."
This was too much for me. I had already been given way too little information to allow this to go on any further. I stood up in a rage knocking the two servants off before they managed to take my pants off and yelled, "Ok I think I've had enough of this bullshit! What is wrong with ya'll?!"
"RESTRAIN THIS BEAST!" countered the priestess.
The two servants jumped into action while four more guards rushed in from the corridor to assist. In the instant of confusion perpetrated by the priestess I was tackled back into the bench by all six rabbits while Nyanni uncovered a series of restraints that were previously buried on and below the bench and latched my right hand. I reached over with my free hand and attempted to unshackle my right arm, but was stopped with a slash unto my free arm from a sabre by one of the guards, cutting me just below my elbow. Taking advantage of my searing pain they were finally able to completely immobilize me in chains. I looked over at Nyanni, who had gotten me into all of this; she stared in shock with her paws over her mouth. I guess she didn't expect all this to happen.
The priestess in a more audible and angry tone picked up where she left off on her chant. The four guards all had their sabers drawn at me. Nyanni and the retainers stood in the background astonished at the horrific incident. The holy woman ordered the servants to finish taking off my clothes and begin washing me. The sponge was dipped into the chest of water and once applied began giving off a foul odor. Stench filled the air as then rubbed it all over me; added to the incoherent babblings of the priestess, and the pain intensified from the laceration by sabre, it made for quite an awful experience.
Whatever the was in the water that gave it that musty smell seeped into my wound making it sting. One of the servants, perhaps thinking she was helping, dragged the wet sponge across the cut making it sting even more. My yelps of pain seemed only to encourage her. Every bit of blood that oozed out prompted her to clean it again. After several attempts to clean the wound she finally wrapped it in some clothe.
The ceremony, if you could call it that, was finally over. The priestess was the first to leave, followed immediately by the guards. As the servants made their way out, Nyanni walked over to me with tears in her eyes and said, "I can't believe they did that to you, words cannot express how..."
"Just leave. I can't believe I trusted you to begin with, I'm such a fool." I told her. So filled with rage I not even once gave it a second thought what I had said to her. She left without a word out of the room into the corridor.
Hours passed in silence. My sight faded as the light in the room I was confined to flickered into oblivion. Maybe sleep was my only escape. Perhaps this was a lucid nightmare, and sleep in this world would transport me back to my ordinary life without talking animals and pain. Just before I was able to make my escape into unconsciousness, Nyanni peaked her head out from behind the archway. I turned my head in disgust as I was not in the mood to talk to anyone, rabbit or human.
"Are you OK?" Nyanni asked.
"What does it look like?.." I said.
"Well, your wound doesn't look so bad since they cleaned and you."
"It hurts a bit but I'll be fine I suppose. Look, unless you've come here to let me go then fuck off.."
"I can't do that, I don't have the keys."
"Then what do you want?"
"I just had to get this off my shoulders, the guilt is overwhelming me. I had no idea they were going to hurt you. Please forgive me!" She pleaded.
"Before I can forgive anyone, I would like to at least know what I'm doing here. Can you tell me that?
"OK but, what I am about to tell you can get me exiled from the burrow. So you must not speak of this to anyone who enters this room, do you understand?"
"Fine, whatever, just tell me already!" I snarled.
"When I told you that you were here to help us, at the time that was the best I could offer. But it's true though, you are here to help us. Our society can only survive with the help of humans. Though not directly, as over the centuries we have come to fear and despise them. But you're different!" Nyanni explained.
"Just get to the point."
"In our society there is only one of us who are allowed to propagate our race. We call her The Abbess. She is the mother of our race, as was her mother, and mother before her."
"So what does this have to do with me?"
"Well, they only way to maintain our anthropomorphic form and with it consciousness, the Abbess needs to mate with a human male who meets certain criteria for intelligence, youth, and specific physical attributes. It was my mission to find you and determine if you met those requirements. So I watched over you for the past month. I know everything there is to know about you that can be gleamed in a months' time!" she said smiling as if it was some kind of compliment. "You will be preserving our culture by simply doing what every male of your species wants to do! Have sex!"
"I'm flattered really, but that's not exactly how it works. I have no intentions of having sex with a rabbit! That's absurd!"
She laughed saying, "Wait till you see The Abbess! She is so beautiful, no man would resist her."
"Nyanni, you realize you are an accomplice to kidnap and premeditated rape right? Oh what am I saying, those are abstract human ethical ideals that I would bet don't apply here. So I have sex with the so called Abbess and then I'm free to leave?"
"After you have successfully generated an heir to The Abbess, yes you will be free to leave. But it won't be easy; historically it takes several sexual encounters to produce a fully anthropomorphic heir capable of leading our race. The unsuccessful attempts are still-born and discarded."
"Lovely." I said with the most overt sarcastic tone I could think of. I wasn't thrilled at all about this layout of my future. I'll be the father of a civilization of talking bunnies. However bizarre my future looked. I had to appreciate the risks Nyanni was willing to take to give me a small glimpse of it. I could tell she was proud of her people, or bunnies, or rabbits, whatever they called themselves. She was smiling so brightly just speaking about it. Her enthusiasm was contagious to the extent that it did make me smile along with her. For a.. whatever she was.. she was still as cute as the day I first saw her.