[walkabout] Duck! Rabbit, Duck! [backdated to the end of March]

[capital_asset]

I'm not sure I entirely trust this, but the Arcana seem to have given me a new trick in that I can discern one random non-obvious fact about something or someone. I tried using on the casket, and, well...

Apparently it contains a rabbit spirit. Specifically, an antelope jackrabbit. It seems to be in some kind of magical suspended animation.

Comments

[breakaleginhalf]

...huh. I thought it was gonna be, like. An actual weapon or something.

Wait, so if it's sentient, then...

[There's silence on his end for a good few seconds--




--and then he sounds super confused.]

Wow. It's scared of so much shit, holy fuck. I mean, probably most important one is it doesn't want the casket being opened, like - at all. But also being touched or grabbed, in hands or nets or blades touching it or whatever, being seen and... nests? That doesn't even make sense.

[capital_asset]

That's... quite a list. Most of it follows logically, but nests?

[breakaleginhalf]

Yeah, that's got me stumped. The being seen one as well, it doesn't... hm. It doesn't fit.

Which feels weird to say, but this Contract literally has 'intuition' in the name so it's just a gut feeling I have.

[capital_asset]

I can keep looking - or, well, "looking" - but there seems to be a limit on how often I can do this. It hasn't worked since my first attempt.

[breakaleginhalf]

We can just add it to the growing pile of 'we are never gonna get the fucking answer to this are we'-type questions.

Like why the fuck does his Royal Manticore-ness need a pet rabbit that's scared to leave its cage.

[capital_asset]

I might be able to try talking to it via lucid dreaming, if we ever get a spare moment for it. But there's no guarantee that it knows the answer to that one.

There's also the question of what, if anything, to tell the Rooks or the White Company, or certain members of them anyway.

[breakaleginhalf]

You only found out 'cos of Arcana bullshit. I seriously doubt any of the others here know anything about it besides how dead they'll be if they don't deliver it properly.

[capital_asset]

Assuming it should be delivered at all.

[breakaleginhalf]

On the one hand, weird man-eating ruler of England who's probably gonna kill anyone who survives anyway, versus fucking Nazis isn't exactly a hard decision to me.

On the other, like. Fucking timey wimey bullshit. You've been to this world before, right, do you remember this coming up anywhere?

[capital_asset]

No. But then I'm not sure I would have known either way.

[For one thing, half of him hadn't been born yet. The other half had been happily minding her own business in the spirit realm.]

The focus that time had been mostly on Britain, and to a lesser extent the Spirit Realm. There was apparently a Jaunt that would have fallen between this and the Newport Jaunt, but it was pre-Moebius.

[breakaleginhalf]

Yeah. Hm.

...well if we need to, I can smash the casket. That bunny's gonna have a fucking heart attack but it'll have a chance to not be manticore chow.

[capital_asset]

Hopefully we can find some way to communicate with it first - preferably before someone decides to use the casket as leverage somehow.

[breakaleginhalf]

Anything we do to the actual casket is gonna be super obvious, though. Since everyone's right fucking there.

Best option is to give that lucid dreaming you mentioned a try? Then... we'll see, I guess? Fuck.

[capital_asset]

[There is the mental equivalent of a sigh.]

It'd be nice if we had any idea of who to trust besides "not Yohann." Unrealistic, probably, but nice.

I can try to get this thing to work again, too. It might be one of those skills that only work at set intervals, like the prophetic dreams.

[breakaleginhalf]

I trust Beatrice, but I have a track record of bad life choices. But like, at least if she's gonna plot something against us, it'll be expected. Typical for her, even.

[capital_asset]

True.

[Granted, sometimes that's been good for them, too.]

[portinari]

These spirits seem to resemble, at least a little, the myths of other worlds. Fairy tales, I've heard them called.

Do we know any such tales about... antelope jackrabbits?

[capital_asset]

That species is from one of the American continents, and I'm not very familiar with their tales.

[goestoextremes]

Oh, but then at least it's from somewhere in Earth for sure...? 'Cause that species name sounds like typical for any species in my home world where animals can be spirits in the Spirit World too and let's just say it's always a surprise back home if we run into something that's just a bear or dog or whatever one species.

[capital_asset]

It's an Earth species. I think they probably gave it that name because it has something in common with an antelope, like its speed or its color. It's definitely not part-antelope.

[portinari]

Perhaps stories about very swift rabbits, then? Of any variety.

I regret I've been unable to help more directly, but war is no business for a lady.

[capital_asset]

They tend to be portrayed as tricksters, although they're not always successful at it.

[See also: Inaba, Hare of]

There are some religious traditions that associate them with cowardice as well. In my own country, as well as a few others in Asia, they're associated with the moon, and they're one of the zodiacal animals. I'm afraid that's more or less all I've got in terms of traditions and stories about rabbits - my education was very... specialized.

[He's... not going to comment on her statement about war being no business for a lady; he doesn't know her, or how things work in her world. Besides, there are more important questions:]

Are you all right so far?

[portinari]

I have been keeping my distance.

It seems understandable that a trickster might be locked away... less understandable why soldiers would be sent to retrieve an imprisoned trickster from an allied nation, unless I misunderstand what has happened here.

[capital_asset]

That's wise.

It does seem strange - it's very far from home here.

[portinari]

Does the geography of this place's Spirit World correspond with the geography of the world around us?

[capital_asset]

I'm not sure - there isn't a great deal of traffic between the two worlds, and most spirits prefer to keep a low profile.

[backdated to early April - let's say the 2nd or 3rd]

[capital_asset]

[A few days later, Raidou addresses the network again. There's a certain amount of puzzlement in his mental "voice."]

Well, the good news is that I managed to get that trick to work again. I'm not sure it really clarifies anything, though: it told me that there's a duck inside the rabbit. It's apparently a black scoter duck, which is also an American species.

[breakaleginhalf]

OH! Shit, right!

[Suddenly something has clicked.]

That's why there's so many fears, I was getting both of them at once-- that's why it felt weird! The being seen and the nests, that's what the fucking duck is scared of.

[capital_asset]

So there are really two of them? My first thought was that the rabbit might be an illusion or a disguise, but that didn't seem quite right.

[breakaleginhalf]

Yeah, there has to be. I've never gotten that much info from just one target before, ever. But if there's two, all the weird shit and extra info makes sense.

Still don't know what any of that means, in terms of like, any kind of bigger picture. But hey, one minor mystery solved.

[capital_asset]

Yes.

I wonder how they got this way.

[breakaleginhalf]

Somehow I'm not thinking it's because the rabbit ate the duck.

[Sorry. Literal fairy tale monster means obligatory eating joke.]

[capital_asset]

Probably not.

Still, there's something familiar about this...

[This is going to nag at him for a while.]

[breakaleginhalf]

You mean besides the Looney Tunes reference?

[He goes silent for a moment so he can stare at the casket IRL.


But, when he talks again, suddenly it sounds strangely suspicious.]

...so, when you do your Arcana trick, does your Mark start feeling weird or is that just me.

[capital_asset]

Looney Tunes?

[There's a short pause when Gil asks his question, as if Raidou's mentally shifting gear.]

Yes, it does. Why? What happened?

[breakaleginhalf]

Okay, cool. Apparently Magician decided to give me a nudge.

Don't think about the contents. Think about the origin.

...so where's the casket even from?

[capital_asset]

[Raidou's "nudge" had felt slightly different from normal - certainly not how it had felt when he'd reset people's impressions of him in the Pogemon world and Portabellow Station. That's probably a mystery for another time, though.]

That's a good question.