In Loki's Honor

I was alive again. The "perk" that allowed me to relive my memories reminded me of my first life and of the previous ones. It was a terrible experience, to have all these memories flood my new brain at once. A brain I had, for the first time since arriving in this hellhole of a world. There was no revolving lantern upon dying to me. It all came upon returning to life. Dazed by this influx of memories, my body moved on instinct. I wasn't completely oblivious but these newborn instincts were too strong. In hindsight, I should be glad it was so. My track record showed I sucked at surviving.

I could breathe and move. I felt warmth softness against my skin and heard squeaks. I had a heartbeat. I felt the softness return and felt the smell of... what my brain recognized as food. I was surely hungry, starving. Agitated, I sought the source of that smell. I rubbed something really soft, fur I think. Someone pushed me and in my irritation, I pushed back. Soon I found the source of the delicious aroma and latched to it. I couldn't see anything but my sense of smell was strong enough to guide me.

I sucked. Warmth and moisture invaded my throat and it felt divine. Something or someone pushed me and I fought back. Then I was tag-teamed and pushed away. I found another source of food and latched to it again. With the hunger diminishing, I could think about what I was doing.

Sucking on teats, that's what. It meant what was pushing me were my siblings, and I was a mammal. What an evolution, I must say! Also, to become a mammal after only 3 lives was a very good progression, according to 1 out of 1 test subjects. I kept trying to find milk long after my siblings stopped sucking. I frantically switched from teat to teat, taking my time to brush my snout on mom's soft underbelly fur. My siblings were all rubbery skin so we're probably still naked.

Mom got annoyed and leaped away. I dozed off to sleep only to wake up with the smell of mom's milk to fight again for the precious nectar. I tried to access the System but it was impossible. I think I was not "of age" to do so. Or maybe it was all a hallucination.

I had no idea how long it was, but I spent dozens of suckling and napping cycles. My siblings and I were growing fur at an alarming rate. Soft, downy fur. I had eyes, I could move them but for all that was holy, I couldn't open them. Fighting for mom's teats was easier and easier. I was greedily plucking the lion's share of the milk and as I grew in size, it got easier and easier to push them aside. Most of this behavior wasn't intentional, but I was leagues smarter than my siblings. When all else was equal, it mattered. I goaded them to fight among each other to tire themselves.

After living two lives blind, I was very surprised when I was able to open my eyes and look around. it was blurry. A day or so later, I was able to see in the dim light of our burrow. We were rabbits. Fluffy cuddly warm rabbits. When we weren't feeding, we laid in the straw of the nest, me in the middle, and my siblings rolling around me. This way I had to spend the least amount of energy heating myself, devoting the most to growing up.

We fed, we grew. Two days later and my siblings and I were exploring the burrow. Mom still brought us milk. I saw her fur for the first time. She was a beautiful broken red and her coat was very wooly. I wanted to communicate with her but that was just not happening. My siblings were a mix of two broken red, one broken opal, and one full amber. My fur? All white. Rabbits are flexible as they come and I could even look at my back. Lick even.

But anyone that ever raised rabbits knows, there is one nasty habit they - we - have. Everyone eats their first poo in the morning. Eww. Best served warm and eaten as it comes out. As my body developed and I relied less and less on my instincts, I came to loathe this rite and stopped bending over to eat from where I... you got it. Mom looked hungry for my poo and I let her eat it a couple of days after my rational self noticed the gross habit. After all, it would all become milk for me later.

However, that proved to be unwise. I soon felt weak and lethargic. I came to the conclusion rabbits do that not because the morning ablution is a snack, but because it is a vital nutrient. Something, something, digestive tract, something, turns out poo breakfast is the most important meal of the day. If you are a rabbit, that is. I would roll my beady red eyes and submit myself to that rite.

Otherwise, one would think that the whole burrow would be a mess of poo pellets and urine, but rabbits are somewhat responsible. After being able to bound around and explore the burrow with my siblings, I found that there was a chamber in the burrow where the adult rabbits went to do their business. Regular ones, self-baked breakfast was sacred. I was sure there was fungus growing in that chamber and I could see several army ant trails carrying the fungus and small poo crumbs out of the chamber. Mutualism for the win! Our janitors were ants and they were paid in poo.

Of course, the sight of me gawking at the ants doing their thing was enough to draw the attention of my siblings. They came and sniffed me, tickling my soft fur, then went about sniffing the toilet to see what was so interesting. I bounded down the tunnels to my spot in the warren.

I was getting used to that rabbit life. Until the day mom's milk thinned. She was growing uncomfortable feeding us. Annoyed, even. One day she laid on her side but once we all headbutted our way to her teats, she bounded out of the warren and into daylight. Siblings chased after she and I stopped to think. Was that the way she used to try and lure us into the outside world? Curious, I followed.

The sunlight hurt my eyes. In my defense, I was the only albino rabbit in the warren. You might think we are cute, but in the wild, that's a liability. Mom and my siblings could camouflage themselves very easily. Me, I had to pray for a field of blooming dandelions if I wished to do so. But the verdant green forest called and we answered that summons.

Exploring the surroundings, we found several herbs with bite marks. We recognized the scent from what the older rabbits in the warrens ate and tried it for ourselves. The next week was a marvel as we experimented with everything in our surroundings. A buffet of nature, herbs of all kinds and tastes for us to sample.

Alas, nothing lasts forever.

I heard one of my siblings squeak in panic and pain. My heart rate soared and I shivered in primal fear. More squeaks and the sound of twigs snapping. All bunnies dashed to their burrows. I only came to my senses when I was already underneath the straw of our chamber. Trembling in fear. I focused on my breathing and calmed myself down. Then the stomping started. Giants were loose on the forest, and the rabbit kingdom laid low.

It was Amber, the one in distress. We never saw him again.

The next day we went outside our warren to feed and I found something strange. A scent I couldn't recognize, something musky and irksome. I walked around and found crushed herbs. Investigating the site, I found the site where they were crushed made an indent with perfectly marked borders. Wondering about that, I felt a sense of deja vu hit me.

A scene from a movie with dinosaurs came to mind. When the explorer is in a depression caused by a dinosaur footprint. I felt the panic take over me but I measured. the depression. It was round and oval in shape, with an indent on one side. I knew what I would find if I moved a bit ahead and truly enough, I found another ovaloid with an indent on the opposite side. Those were boot prints. My ears laid flat against my back as I tried to lower my profile. My siblings were all prancing and frolicking without a care in the world when the dread sound of twigs breaking and squeaks broke the forest lull.

We all bolted to the burrow. A giant monster that stank of rotten meat appeared out of nowhere and grabbed two of my siblings by the ears. I dashed and wove between their legs, noticing they were wearing crude leather boots. Passing right in the middle of the boots, I didn't raise my head to look or watch. Given my advantage, I was the first to reach the burrow. More squeaks and stomping ensued. Still in panic and watching the entrance hole, I saw only one of the broken red twins enter. The others, I would never see them alive again.

After I calmed down and wept for my lost siblings, a whole day passed. I felt hungry. I wanted to go out and eat and drink some water by the stream but the fear of the hunters kept me pinned to the straw in my chamber. Mom passed and I could see she was already belly-heavy with a new litter. Me? I wanted vengeance.

So I went out and walked carefully, keeping track of my surroundings. I remembered this area of the forest very well, and I was sure it didn't contain... twine. No, sir. This loop of twine seemed most unnatural. Worse yet, it was right in the trail to the stream. The one everybunny takes to slake their thirst. I ate my way through the bush, creating an alternate path and found twigs stuck to the ground tied to the twine loop with more twine. A rabbit that went through the trail would put their head through the loop of twine and tight the noose as they tried to barrel forward and escape the loop, springing the trap.

Devious. After inspecting the twine cords for tension and finding none, I chewed on the twig stakes and broke them. The whole trap became undone but I went a step further. If the hunters knew the traps were being chewed on, they could very well switch to less-chewy materials. With some effort, I dug out the stakes and bound the pieces with the twine noose that was now loose. I dragged the bundle to the stream and looked around.

A tree branch hung over the stream and I decided to put some of my earthworm powers to good use. I still had no access to my Status window, but I was pretty sure my previous lives' powers were active. I mean, I definitely moved twice as fast as my rabbit siblings. Tentatively, I put a paw on the tree and tried to pull myself up. it didn't work so well. After some trials, I found out that I couldn't overthink it. I should just move up the tree as if it was nobody's business how I was doing it. Act naturally. The trait took over and I walked up the trunk and down the branch, trap bundle hanging from my mouth. When I was so far down the branch my weight was slightly bending the tree limb, I dropped the trap. It fell with a loud "splat" sound on the lazy stream. Then I heard branches snapping as one of the hunters came to check on the noise.

He said, "Ers tadecorbusagm smughtford pendons! Bootgushute jimedinac cognify alizes... Recleight henditions ablestoop immopsycle?" Or something to that effect.

The hunter mumbled and scratched his head in confusion. I crawled to the upside of the branch slowly. If he looked up, I was doomed. My white fur was a liability. Fortunately for me, he didn't. I examined the hunter. Looked human enough but he seemed like a caveman, with brutish features. I was sure from his outlook and stench that soap wasn't yet invented. He wore hide clothes, made of crudely sewn furs, and had a jagged black stone-tipped spear in his hand. Oh. That's why they were called the flint-stones. His hair was a tangled mess that would make some dreadlock enthusiasts gush. He could feed himself for life if he leased that mane as bird nest apartments. I couldn't even tell if he was young or not, but his moves were springy and powerful.

That, coming from someone that ritualistically devoured her own poop every morning, was not a compliment. Yes, her. I didn't want to remind myself of that part, but I was pretty sure from what I saw when I was doing the business of eating my business next to where rabbits do the business of making more rabbits that I had a vulva. Which reminded me of one of my curses, that I was always female if my current species had a female gender. I even compared my bunny bits to some of my siblings and found that the males were shaped differently, with a round orifice instead of a slightly slitted one.

And I missed talking to someone more than I missed my old human dangly bits. Absorbed in my gender confusion, I didn't notice the predator coming. The king of the forest, the jaguar. I saw the cat before the cat saw me, probably. Maybe it was ignoring the snack in favor of the meal downstairs. Also, I was out of the way in a thin branch hanging over the stream. Anyway, I definitely spotted the majestic and definitely huge tawny with black spots South-American jaguar. With a practiced and gracious leap, it pounced from the tree next to mine on the unsuspecting hunter.