© 1991,1998,2003 Watts Martin
This story deals with adult themes and sexual situations.
– Chapter 2 –
The embarrassment he had felt at his own nakedness had dissolved in the first week; after a month he wasn't sure he remembered what clothes felt like. He had learned the rabbits' words for yes, no, good, and bad, for food and water and, he thought, cage, but no effort had been made to formally train him.
Allin had dismissed the possibility of physically fighting his captors early on—maybe the first time the storekeeper had backhanded him, but probably, he suspected, the first time the slaver doe had grabbed him. Acquiescence might make for poor fireside tales in years to come, but his personal pride didn't demand being beaten and humiliated repeatedly.
Judging by the way most passerby lost interest in him when they saw the numbers on the glass, his asking price was indeed high; after that month, several of the humans he'd been brought in with had already sold. What made him valuable? His exotic appearance, likely. His spirit. The wider range of funny noises he could make, even.
Allin's pride did demand a daily routine, as much as he could manage one—enough of one to keep him sane. He waited until night to perform bodily functions, defecating only in mornings, shortly before the cages were cleaned for the store's opening. Most of the time he made the meat and bread into a sandwich. He passed most of his time watching the rabbits who walked past the storefront and imagining stories about them: what their home lives might be like, their shrewish wives or boorish husbands. Mentally, it brought them down to his level, or perhaps lower; at the end of that first month he had successfully moved his feelings toward them to a humorous contempt.
Of course, he did think about escape—but he knew any chances for freedom would come after his purchase. A careless master, leaving the gate unlocked. Ideally, one who lived on a great plantation, removed from the rabbits' cities.
Perhaps, hope against hope, he might even be purchased by someone who would want to talk to him—who he could explain his dilemma to, convince to help. If the rabbit could get him back to Ranea, he could repay his purchase price with interest.
His life had become stretches alternating between hours of artificial light, rough handling and incomprehensible speech, and dark nights, the store lit only by a single orange bulb in the back. And nothing else. Nothing but food and poking.
Allin began to wonder why he bothered with any pretense of civilization, such as waiting until night to perform bodily functions. But part of him demanded that he do so—not out of modesty, or a now-useless notion of dignity, but as a last, slippery grip on normalcy.
With no apparent chance of escape from the shop, chances for freedom could only come after his purchase. Could he hope for a careless master, or even a good one? One he might reason with?
A former lover had gotten into fascinating, if fruitless, discussions with him on morality; here was a situation to put her ideas to the test. Were "right" and "wrong" subjective? She believed so. He'd argued, though. Never had he heard of a culture that shared no moral absolutes with others. But what about slavers? A "good" slaveholder might simply never beat their slaves without good reason. They would be wrong by Allin's own standards—but in their culture, perfectly moral. How could he depend on appealing to an owner's morality?
* * *
The third time she went by the store, Allin knew she would buy him. He was sitting in the middle of the cage facing the arcade's hallway when she stopped and kneeled down, her arms folded across her chest and her eyes locking on his face once again.
He couldn't recall exactly when he had seen her before, how many days had passed since the last time she had stopped and kneeled. His captivity was going on two months, and he knew his mental acuity had been slipping. It'd been a struggle to create stories about the shoppers the past few days—more precisely, a struggle to care. He had trouble focusing enough to meet her eyes.
She seemed average height, light orange-brown fur shading to white around her neck, paws and (he guessed) chest, radiant golden hair spilling over her ears and down her shoulders. Was she pretty? He vaguely remembered asking himself that the last time she had been there. Her drab clothing made it difficult to tell.
This time when she stood, she walked into the store.
A few minutes later the storekeeper walked up to his cage with her and opened the door, motioning for Allin to come out. She spoke, in a soft contralto, looking at Allin with what he swore was nervousness.
"I don't see what you have to worry about," he said hoarsely. The sound of his own voice startled him—and shocked him. It'd been the first time he'd spoken in well over a month, he realized, and his voice sounded awful.
When he stood up, the woman placed a furred hand on his shoulder and stepped up close to him, standing a few inches away. His eye level was below her chest. Allin flinched slightly; somehow he'd managed to forget just how tall someone who stood eight-foot-four would be.
He steadied himself, trying to study her as she examined him. You have to be in control of yourself. Her clothes were not revealing—especially when you were looking up at her cleavage—but she was full-figured even in scale, and her shirt was a size too small. But he could tell it was not a purposeful attempt to look "sexier," because, simply, she didn't. Her clothes showed little more than a profound lack of aesthetic sense.
"You know, I bet you have no idea I'm standing down here critiquing your wardrobe," he said aloud in a doggedly cheerful tone. The woman stopped mid-sentence and looked down at him, startled. He resisted an overwhelming temptation to try and "beep" her pink nose; he would have had to climb up her to reach it anyway.
"You have a nice face," he continued as if explaining his last statement, "and an impressive chest, if you don't mind my saying so. But you have the fashion sense of a rock. If you went simple—corduroy shorts, maybe a red halter—you'd have giant bunnies tripping over their own ears after you. Oh. And take better care of your hair."
She looked back up at the shopkeeper, obviously delighted with the funny noises, and said something in a questioning tone. The proprietor looked down at Allin suspiciously and shrugged, responding in a bored, slightly irritated manner.
The large hand on his shoulder moved to his face, caressing him gently under the chin. Allin realized the tips of her fingers were brushing the top of his ear when his chin was cupped in her palm, and he swallowed. Why couldn't she be just a foot taller than him?
She looked down at him with a curious smile, and said something to him softly. The shopkeeper responded, and he realized she hadn't been talking to him at all. Then she took his hand in one of her own and walked toward the back of the store, gently compelling him to follow.
Papers were passed between both rabbits, signatures exchanged. In a moment, she turned away from the shorter, fat rabbit, calling something out to him in a cheerful tone. He repeated part of it in a gruff, slightly resigned tone. The word for goodbye? "Sharm," Allin said to the man. His apparent new owner beamed, almost squealing with delight; the shopkeeper returned a look of pure contempt Allin hadn't thought cute, cuddly herbivore 'morphs were capable of.
He hadn't noticed the leash and collar when the storekeeper had handed them to her, so it took him a full second to react when she put one hand on each side of his neck and started fumbling under his chin. "What the hell?" he said, pulling at the band. It was as thick as three of his fingers, made out of something softer than leather. He pushed her hand away from the buckle, reaching up with both hands to remove it.
"Kin," she said. "Vo'juv lintra ni chrai." She braced his head just under her breasts momentarily and fastened the collar securely, shielding the buckle from his fingers with the back of one hand. "Uti, ponthala."
She took the end of the leash in one hand and walked toward the shop's exit; Allin stayed in place, dumbstruck, waiting to see how long the leash was. Six feet. The rabbit turned back around and tugged on the leash insistently. The collar jerked against his neck, not threatening to choke him but painful nonetheless. If she pulled a little harder, he would lose his balance. "All right," he growled, following after her and managing not to stumble.
Watching the giants walk past his cage for a month, even coming out to be poked by them and their children every once in a while, was no preparation for stepping into the shopping arcade. It was a busy day; rabbits moved in every direction, walking past on either side, towering over him.
Another tug at the collar, and Allin set off behind his new mistress. He found himself jogging every few steps to keep up with her pace, even though she walked casually. Every minute or so, she looked back at him, ecstatic with her new purchase.
They stepped out of the arcade into brilliant sunlight. Allin shut his eyes in pain; he hadn't realized how dim the lights in the slave shop had been. He opened one eye halfway, was stabbed by a bolt of sun again, and quickly closed it, ignoring the impatient tug on his collar. "Give me a minute, bitch," he muttered.
He felt a big arm snake under his own, wrap around his chest and grasp his other side. He opened his eyes in surprise, the light momentarily forgotten, as she scooped him up, cradling him in her arms like a mother might hold a small child. Allin almost kicked her. The rabbit said something in a soothing voice, her hair brushing Allin's cheek as she looked down at him, then set off at an even faster pace.
Her body shielded him from the sunlight; he stayed quiet, head tilted toward her, and waited for his eyes to adjust. In a minute, he turned his head around to face the direction she walked in.
They travelled down a wide sidewalk, to their left of a smooth, black paved street. Wagons passed in both directions, uncrowded and unhurried, bicyclists threading between them like dragonflies navigating a forest. Above, occasional floating platforms sailed past silently.
The buildings were large and widely spaced, few over two stories. Up close he found the architecture's fluid curves vaguely unsettling.
He turned his head. Rabbits passed by, some glancing at him and pointing; they reacted to him as if he were a curiosity. It was true that there were no other humans on the street, being carried or otherwise.
Allin frowned. The inconsistencies between his image of the rabbits' world and its apparent reality were mounting. He wasn't expected to communicate, he'd received no training… with the magic he'd seen, the society obviously didn't need slaves for its work.
The most logical conclusion: the humans hadn't been taken as slaves.
They were heading toward a short bridge, perhaps over a narrow river or chasm. The rabbits walking past sometimes gave him—or more often his owner—a smile and a quick comment. He had never found a language barrier more infuriating; they might be saying What a cute little human! or He'll be pretty good for yard work or, considering he had no reason to suppose the super-rabbits were strictly herbivorous, That'll make a pretty good stew base there.
The rabbit turned suddenly when they approached the bridge, heading down a long staircase. The bridge was over a second road running through an artificial chasm cut into a hill. This road was travelled entirely by floating platforms, and it looked as if the slavers' floating cage had been far slower than average. They passed the level of the flying machines—about ten feet from the road's surface—and stopped at the roadside.
"Lord," Allin whispered, looking up. Short of the Sidhe themselves, he had never heard of magicians powerful enough to sustain something like this. Not so many magicians as it must take.
He glanced up at his owner. None of the rabbits had the grandeur of the fair folk, to be sure. But legends said the Sidhe could take many forms. And—again in legend—they had created several of the zoomorphic races through magical alteration of the original animals. What if a race had been created when a Sidhe mated with a rabbit morph?
He turned to study her momentarily. Sitting beside her, he was still a full head shorter than her shoulder. She seemed self-conscious, looking away when she caught another rabbit's eye, mostly staring at her own lap when she wasn't looking at her new purchase.
"Ji vey teisha," she said. It was a moment before Allin realized she was addressing him.
"I don't know what you're saying," he told her.
She looked at him quizzically. "Vo pu sid vo reen lochi garil," she muttered, shaking her head.
Simple, three-word sentences you might say to someone who doesn't speak your language… "Your name is Teisha?"
The rabbit looked at him oddly. "Teisha."
Allin sighed. "Teisha," he repeated, trying to replicate as much of her accent as he was able to.
She nodded enthusiastically. "Sa!" Allin already knew that word: "yes."
He pointed at himself in the same way she had. "Allin."
The rabbit looked at him, puzzled.
"Allin," he repeated.
Her look developed into complete bafflement.
"Ji vey Allin," he tried. The words that flowed off her tongue stumbled and tripped on his.
This time, she registered understanding—and shock. "Allin?" she said doubtfully. Her liquid, musically accented contralto, emphasizing the second syllable rather than the first, made his ordinary name seem exotic, that of a fabled prince fought over by the royal court's maidens. Their language was just too damn pretty.
"Yes. Sa." He wondered if she understood he had just said the same word twice. "I'd say I was pleased to make your acquaintance, but I'd be lying."
The conversation—such as it was—ended abruptly at a clatter from the road. One of the platforms had descended to street level and was rolling slowly toward the shelter; the seated rabbits gathered their belongings and stood up. Teisha picked up her backpack-sized purse and stood by her chair, gazing down at Allin in fascination.
The platform stopped directly in front of them, and they stepped up through a break in the railing. Teisha led them to a seat against the left rail; she rested her left arm on it, guiding Allin to the seat on her right with her other hand.
In a moment, the platform started moving forward again, rising a foot off the ground until it had picked up a dizzying speed, then floating up into traffic.
After a few minutes, the platform moved out of the channel cut for the highway. They floated along the side of a hill now, looking down over a vast, verdant landscape dotted here and there with buildings. The city behind them, quickly receding from view, staggered Allin with sheer size—it was quite likely the size of Raneadhros, in area if not population. Off in the distance, just visible on the horizon, were the lines of another city.
He wondered how far away from the gate to Ranea he was being taken, in what direction it lay. He had never stayed in one place long enough to call an apartment or suite more than his "base of operations." Homesickness was a new and somewhat frightening feeling.
Teisha looked down at him, noticing his troubled expression even if she could not understand the reasons for it. "Ah, ponthala," she said softly, lifting him into her lap, cuddling him and stroking his arm gently. Without thinking, he shifted to become more comfortable, his head nestled in the crook of her left arm. The side of his face rested under her breast; it was actually larger than his head, big enough to provide shade from the sun directly overhead.
"What am I to you?" he said softly.
* * *
She let him walk from the dropoff point to her house instead of carrying him. The building was smaller than other homes they'd passed, but to him it sprawled, with the rounded smoothness he was already identifying with their architecture. Even the door had rounded corners. As she opened it and led him through, he tried to identify the material it was made from. It seemed as if it were stone, but warmer, slightly soft to the touch.
The curves carried through the interior. Some men Allin had known would have become seasick merely from standing in the living room—hardly a straight, squared-off line to be seen. The floor was plushly carpeted with brown shag, so thick he had to adjust his step to move through it without falling. The main room featured a low, long white table, a big, rounded couch done in shades of red, and along two of the walls, huge bookcases, the top shelves barely within reach of Teisha's own arms. Some of the shelves contained statuettes, boxes, and unidentifiable knickknacks; most were full of books.
The kitchen opened on the right, only separated from the living room by a five-foot-high wall. He recognized the oven and a wide cooking surface, although how they were heated was beyond him; to one side was a huge pot, some three-and-a-half feet wide and almost as deep. Allin remembered his own joke about a stew base and gulped audibly.
"Pinay… Allin," Teisha said, unfastening his collar and heading through an archway to the right of the larger bookcase. It led into a short hallway, presumably to her bedroom, the bathroom and—judging by the size of the house from outside—at least one other room as well. Possibly the slave quarters.
He stood by the huge couch, sighing softly. The house was clean. Not spotless, perhaps, but clean. It was obvious Teisha didn't need a maid.
The rabbit reappeared, paying no attention to his grumbling. She was barefoot now, still in the knee-length skirt she had been wearing but with a looser, top that looked both more attractive and a great deal more comfortable. "That's what you should have been wearing out," he said.
She walked into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. It appeared to be the same appliance as the Ranean version, probably using identical spells to chill its contents. She opened a cabinet, produced two plates, and rummaged through the refrigerator for about twenty seconds before closing the door and heading back to the living room.
One plate had an appealing pile of vegetables, and a hunk of dried beef the size of his fist. So they were omnivores after all.
The other plate, which she set in front of Allin, was full of mysterious brown glop.
"You shouldn't have," he said, poking at it. "Really." It consisted of all identically-sized, thin squares that seemed to have been formed by pressing ground beef and some sort of grain together, much like the emergency rations he had lived on for three months back during his stint with the Orinthe military. The gravy coating the squares was probably well-intentioned, but did nothing for the food other than make it slippery.
He ate one square. It wasn't as bad as it looked, but it wasn't much better.
Then suddenly he started laughing. Teisha looked down at him with a slightly alarmed expression, but he paid it no mind. The food finally let him see the obvious.
It was pet food.
He ate another square, then stared wistfully at her plate, clearing his throat and sighing rather dramatically. Teisha blinked at him, smiled uncertainly and held out a carrot. It could pass for a Ranean carrot, albeit an extremely healthy one; between Teisha's proportionally slender fingers it looked like a baby vegetable. He took it and bit into it ravenously.
"I am not a pet, and we have some talking to do," he said to her. "Which is going to be a problem."
* * *
Shortly after the sun went down, after several hours of Teisha reading, going about her business, and frequently stopping to admire him, she went through the hallway into her bedroom, closing the door behind her.
After she'd retired, he walked to the front door and studied the lock. It was a bare metal plate, characteristic of magical "keys" that opened only to the touch of certain people. Back in Raneadhros, he had a matching magical pick for just such a lock. A lot of good it would do him here.
He waited a good half-hour before creeping down the hallway and finding the bathroom. It had the same water closet arrangement that Ranea had, much to his relief, but balancing himself on a toilet seat that size took more work than he had anticipated. Even so, there was a peculiar pleasure in finally being able to use a toilet again at all.
The bathroom had a shower; he considered taking one, but settled for quietly splashing water over himself and drying himself with an already-used towel.
After finding no signs of a spare bedroom, he went back into the living room, looked around, and finally decided to climb up onto the couch and sleep there. It was long enough for him to fit comfortably—in fact, it was better than some mattresses he had slept on in the past.
He awoke at a sharp collision with the table's legs. He cursed and blinked, starting to rise, and was knocked down again by a staggering blow to one shoulder. He scrambled away from the table, becoming aware of Teisha's voice raised in a sharp tone.
"What?" he yelled at her. "What the hell did I do?"
She raised her hand again, repeating what she'd said more sharply; reflexively, he cringed, nearly as terrified as he had been when Mott's pitons had slipped.
She lowered her hand and stopped yelling, rubbing her eyes with one hand.
As Allin's breathing returned to normal, he sat up, looking at her wide-eyed. She sighed and knelt down next to him, cupping a hand around the back of his head to keep him from drawing away. Then she pointed at the couch and spoke softly; he caught kin—no—but little else.
Shortly after that she left, after leaving another plate of food, more of the gravy-covered glop and some carrots, this time along with a bowl of water; she kissed him lightly on the top of his head before she went out the door.
Allin remained in place for a long time, shaking.
He'd fooled himself yesterday, after realizing she'd bought him as a pet. The idea seemed so ludicrous it'd almost been comforting—he could imagine life as a slave, temporarily, but he couldn't imagine it as a subhuman companion, little more than a living toy. And so he hadn't taken it seriously.
But Teisha did.
And as long as she did, what he thought didn't matter.