Full of Beans
WHO: Zatanna Zatara, Rei Ayanami, Milfeulle Sakuraba
WHAT: Zatanna's bunny 'Mr. Beans' makes an ill-advised bid for freedom in the Hub.
WHEN: Thursday night
WHERE: The Hub - Terminus
WATCH FOR: Zatanna's indulgence in just a bit of professional jealousy for a Marvel character, and Rei's secret for maintaining a waifish figure.
Zatanna needs a tag!
THE HUB! A nexus of time-lines and alternate dimensions, constructed by the long-vanished race that ruled the Transbaal Galaxy until the great Chrono Quake. The Transbaal Empire, assisted by the White Moon, had attempted to reverse-engineer the technology with some initial successes, including contact with NEUE and the Celldar Empire, but these were curtailed when a gate was discovered in a retrograde polar orbit. Now more and more, Imperial personnel make use of gate transit to establish trade and interstellar relations with cultures all across the space/time continuum. Truly it is a great awakening for the peoples of the universe!
Plus, located in the Hub is C. M. O. T. Dibbler, licensed Quantum Mechanic. "I broke my spaceship!" Milfeulle explains. "I was trying to parallel park on this asteroid where there's a famous candy shop but I accidentally hit a solar flare hydrant, and something's all messed up. I can't take it home because Forte-san will yell at me! Oh please can't you help me?"
Master Dibbler sizes up the Lucky Star, sitting in his hangar, sparks flickering off the superstructure, shimmers in reality occasionally rippling throughout the ship. Plus the windshield wipers won't turn off. "Well, at a minimum I'd say 300 credits! That's 266.50 galas to you Transbaal blokes. And that's cuttin' me own throat!"
Milfeulle beams happily, despite the fact that she only has 2 galas in her pocket. "Yay! I'm so relieved!"
Cut to Dibbler and his staff working on the ship. "What's that do?" Milfeulle asks.
"Where's that go?"
"Oh! I pulled this thing off! Is that bad?"
"All this hard work is making me thirsty. Mmm, lemonade!" *splash* *crackle* "Oh no!"
A short time later the door to the mechanic's shop shuts in her face, locking with a *click*. "Oh, why're you so mean? I just wanted to watch you work!" She pouts and swings around to walk away, but before long is happily roaming the Hub, eyes wide at all the cheap novelty entertainments and overpriced retail outlets. "So pretty!"
THE HUB!..
Yeah that's all I got. Zatanna's relatively new to the hub, since she's been keeping busy with her performances and her steady protection of the mystical plane. It can wear a girl out! This is why she's coming straight out of one such event, still in stage clothes because hey, when you look the way she does, sometimes you get free snacks! Breezy, but stylish.
Stopping at an ice cream parlor, she flashes her sunniest, prettiest smile at the vendor - but alas, her charm does not get her a free ice cream. Which is fine, she would have paid anyway. "Double chocolate please."
"That'll be three fifty."
Zatanna pauses, "Oh is that all?" She removes the top hat from her head and reaches inside, "My wallet's in here somewhere.." She pulls out a white pair of flowers, then a sheepish looking white rabbit, which she drops gently to the floor, then finally withdraws her wallet. Withdrawing the money, she hands the fee over to the vendor, puts her hat back on and drops the hat back on her head.
A wave of the hand, and the flowers have vanished - save one - but her rabbit... seems to have hopped away. "Hey! Where'd you get to now you little rascal.." Zatanna scowls good naturedly, starting off.
Meanwhile, Mr. Beans the bunny is about to cross paths with Milfie! See, there he goes! Hop hop hop!
Rei has been here many times before. It's fun to go swimming with aliens! (All of them are aliens. All of them.)
She is wearing a somewhat unnecessary wide brimmed hat, but maybe there's a lot of sun on the way to the Gate where she's from. She has a list in her hand - a new filter for her frog's tank and some of these anchovies that the penguin seems to like. She walks, steadily, easily -
And pauses to look down as a rabbit hops past about a foot away from her own foot.
Indeed, the cute little bunny is heading right for Milfeulle. In fact, it would seem that this encounter is meant to be. Milfeulle --> cute little bunny --> happiness. And the universe craves happiness, does it not? In fact as Milfeulle looks down to see the squiggling white shape down at the corner of her vision, it would appear that a happy little encounter is about to take place.
But such is not to be!
For, at that moment, perpendicular to the line between Zatanna's happy little charging bunny and Milfeulle, directly in front of the oncoming Ayanami Rei, is NONE OTHER than the official delegation to the Hub of the galaxy-spanning Empire of Omicron Persei VIII, ruled by the all-powerful and merciless Emperor Lrrr! Numberless are the armies to whom he has laid waste, limitless are the planets he and his size 128 boot have crushed under their heel! When he wears boots anyway. With his glorious Empress Ndnd at his side, no one and NOTHING can stand against his limitless, awesome power.
"Dammit, my feet hurt," he complains in his gruff, gravelly voice to Ndnd, walking at his side, a phalanx of imperial stormtroopers walking three paces behind. "Let me tell you, I was on the edge of my seat listening to all those IPA politicians going on and on about peace and harmony, but that was NOTHING compared to the INSANE EXCITEMENT of going bustier shopping in an interdimensional strip mall!"
The Empress Ndnd is none too impressed. "Oh, NO, we've BORED the glorious Emperor. Lrrr, who spends sixteen hours every Sunday watching Alpha Centaurian golf tournaments on pirate cable and scratching himself! So sorry to keep you from your exciting life! NOW SHUT UP AND HELP ME LOOK FOR SOMETHING NICE, you overgrown reclining-chair mold!"
Lrrr clenches his fist and raises a finger. "One of these days, Ndnd, one of these days-* Oh hey, look at that."
The diplomatic party of Omicron Persei VIII has at that moment crossed paths with a cute little white bunny rabbit, known to his owner as Mr. Beans. Ndnd narrows her eyes. "What IS it? It looks like a rodent with a hearing problem!"
Lrrr waves a hand. "No, no, it's one of those self-propelled hors-d'ouerves like they had at that theme-restaurant they built at the moment of universal entropic heat-death! Man, was that a fun meal." The hulking Emperor leans down to grasp the little white bunny. "C'mere, you, I need energy to keep up with my wife's traveling flea-market!"
But at that very moment, in the blink of an eye, Milfeulle is standing in front of the bunny, arms outstretched, blocking the Emperor's way. "Please don't eat Usagi-chan!" Milfeulle wails, eyes wide.
Rei's attempt to continue on her merry way may be interrupted, when a voice interrupts what she was doing, "Hey, excuse me - sorry to bother you," the magician shifts to put herself in front of Rei just in case the girl kept walking. "But have you seen a white rabbit, about yay big-" She holds her hands apart to indicate size. "Hopping around here? I seem to have misplaced him." And while it would be child's play to just find him, what's the fun in that? Not only was the bunny crucial to her act, he was her little pet and friend! No magician worth her salt /didn't/ have a bunny.
Meanwhile, Mr. Beans is busy exploring the joy and sparkles of the Hub. It surely would be fate if he were to encounter the wonderful, joyous and overall sweetness and light of Milfie; after all, she brings good luck, he was good luck. It was a match made in heaven! Sort of. But then! Something icky, green and .. well can you really call that a /shape/? Bulbous? Fat? Gross?
Whatever it is, it's threatening his delicate bunny life! Until lo, an angel appears! And good thing too; his entire life had flashed before his eyes.
The presence of squabbling gooey aliens is kind of unusual to Rei. She is used to squabbling aliens with a thinner and denser shell of rind, usually in some shade of gold or brown. Just like the one who's addressing her! Her head turns to regard Zatanna as she lifts one hand, the brim of her sunhat shading her eyes as she points in the direction of the retreating bunny rabbit... ah, a voice.
"Sakuraba has found him," she informs Zatanna. "You must retrieve him quickly." Or worse may happen!
Something dares stand between the glorious Emperor Lrrr and his mid-day snack? The vital life-giving energy he needs to get through a day with shopping with his glorious and gloriously tedious wife the Empress? Unheard of! "Hey!" he shouts, waving his huge greenish-brown scaly fist in the air. "I called dibs! Go find your own Bunny McNugget, snack-thief! Don't make me call security! They'll strip-search you and find out you're padding your bra!"
The reaction of his wife of course is quite different in substance. "Oh my goodness, what a HIDEOUS color!" hisses Ndnd, recoiling visibly and throwing a hand up over her face. "She's got hair the color of blood mixed with milk! What are you, some kind of sicko? Don't let her touch it, Lrrr! She's so scrawny and pale, I think she has some kind of disease!"
Milfeulle's eyes go wide, mouth parting, staring at the two Omicronians for a full several seconds, UNTIL!
She falls to the ground on her knees, fists against her eyes, bawling her head off. "WAAAAAAAH! I'm not scrawny! I'm thin-boned! And I can't change my hair, it grows this way! That's so mean! WAAAAAAAAH!"
The two Omicronians blanch visibly, darting their eyes from side to side as a crowd gathers. All they can see is two giant Omicronians standing over a crying human. "Do something!" hisses Ndnd. "We're representing the Omicronian people! If we don't act fast this whole thing will wind up on YouTube!"
Lrrr clenches a fist. "Don't worry," he hisses back. "I'm on it!" He holds up his arms as Milfeulle continues to cry in front of the inoffensive little forest creature. "PEOPLE OF EAR... I mean, PEOPLE OF THE HUB! Don't worry about this disruption. She's only crying, because I attacked and enslaved her planet, killed her family and carried off her people to a life of hard labor!" He asides to Ndnd. "And NOT because we made fun of her!" There's a giant Omicronian wink shared between the two.
But, surprisingly enough, the crowd's reaction becomes a whole lot worse. "You enslaved her planet?!" calls out a random passersby, who just happens to be the Planet Oligarchus, a planet with an advanced civilization on it who miniaturized their world so that they could go out and mingle with the other cultures of the universe, and laugh at their inferiority (as seen way back in Episode 2!). "That's awful! I mean, enslaving the planet's population, we can totally understand. But the planet itself? You ought to be ashamed! ASHAMED!"
Another passersby speaks up. "Yeah! And couldn't you have SOLD her family? Why'd you have to kill them? That's a lot of wasted resources right there! What's WRONG with you people!"
Soon the angry crowd advances on the Omicronians, shaking their fists. Lrrr and Ndnd back up against each other, looking worried. "Wh-what's going on?" Lrrr blurts out. "They're booing us! But I've always been great at working the crowd!"
Ndnd whaps him upside the head. "That's because we've always fed anyone who didn't laugh at your stupid jokes to the Digestion Pit! Now DO something!"
Milfeulle continues crying. "*-And, and in second grade, ahuh-ahuh, they called me 'Mudball' instead of Milfeulle, and that was so mean, but later at the class reunion they said it was actually because I made the best mud-pies, but it hurt really bad at the time, waaaaah...."
"Sakuraba?" Zatanna lifts her head to follow the direction that Rei points, where she can pick out the definitely feminine voice. Beyond the crowd. Along with another pair of voices she really didn't want to see the owners of. Glancing to Rei, Zatanna raises an eyebrow, "Sakuraba's a friend of yours? Sounds like she's in trouble." Well no, actually it sounds like she's lost, crying and pining for all of the troubles of her younger years. But this brings the problem of getting through the crowd. "This is getting annoying." Zatanna mutters.
Until she casts a glance around. Someone was bound to get stepped on! From her sleeve she withdraws a sleek black wand with white tips on either end. "It's a bit overcrowded here, wouldn't you say?" Let's take care of that shall we? And she waves her wand once, "Dworc esrepsid." It's a harmless spell - it shouldn't trigger the Hub defenses any. More of a 'move along people, nothing to see here' - just enough for Zatanna to have a path to advance through.
As for Beans, why, he's there nuzzling against poor distraught Milfeulle's foot, his ears flat against his back. There there. ;.;
Rei turns her head for a moment at the peculiar words, perhaps wondering if she's being sworn at. But no - it doesn't seem to be the case. The crowd does seem thinner. Stepping forwards, her hair twisting a little in the tidal breeze from the miniaturized planet, Rei ignores the boos, the jeers, and the roar of the crowd, such as it is. She gives the universal conquerors a short look over the rims of her fashionable glasses, and then crouches down towards the rabbit, dress's hem pooling around her ankles.
She offers it a rice cracker from her pocket.
Things look bad for the absolute rulers of Omicron Persei VIII! The crowd's against them! They're on the verge of being an intergalactic laughing stock for the next ten million years! "Oh man, oh man, what do I do? My confidence is totally shaken!" complains Lrrr, clutching his head. "The walls are closing in! I can't breathe!"
"Oh great," Ndnd says, rolling her eyes and smacking her vast forehead. "It's our wedding night all over again. FINE, I'll get this done!" She turns to the crowd, rolls up her ... er, arm scales ... and holds up a fist. "Now you people all listen to me!" she declares, just as a quiet call of 'dworc esrepsid' is heard from a short ways off. "If you bottom-feeders don't back off RIGHT now, my husband is going to get SO flatulent that he may very well violate the atmospheric integrity of this ENTIRE-* oh hey, they're leaving."
Seemingly as one, the crowd suddenly gets it into their head that there are more interesting things going on in the hub than watching a bunch of creepy aliens and a skinny girl having a self-image crisis. "I must continue my journey to observe the outside universe!" declares Oligarchus, shouldering its way through the press of people. "IGNORE ME!"
"Hey, we need to get home to watch World's Greatest Ladies Men. It's a rerun of the April Fool's Day episode with Roy Fokker."
"Hey, did you see that hot lady magician down at Spango's Magic Emporium the other night? The one with the tophat and no pants?"
"Yeah, she was hot! What was her name...?"
"Jennifer Kale!"
"YEAH! Man, she was smokin'..." Zatanna finds no trouble in getting through this crowd.
Meanwhile, Ndnd stares at the people meandering away, whose sudden dispersal could almost be called 'magical'. "Hey! I did it!" Ndnd's face breaks into a wide smile. "Look at that! Maybe -I'm- the political one in the family!"
Lrrr hmmphs, crossing his massive arms. "Yeah, but you did it with a threat involving MY flatulence!" He jerks a thumb at himself. "Team effort at best! Don't get a swelled head, Golda Meir. Now where were we? OH YEAH! Some anorexic bimbo was about to steal my snack. She doesn't deserve it! She'll probably just yak it up again!" He turns to look down at Milfeulle and Mr. Beans, now noticing Ayanami Rei leaning down to offer it a rice cracker. "OH CRAP," Lrrr exclaims, once again shaken to the core as he hides behind Ndnd. "Do your making speeches thing again! Now there's TWO scrawny girls with pastel hair trying to steal my snack! They multiplied when we weren't looking!"
Milfeulle suddenly notices Rei crouching next to her, offering the little bunny some food, and her tears vanish quicker than the crowd. "Reichan!" she says happily. "You've made friends with Usagi-chan! Isn't he cute? Those mean aliens want to eat him!" She shoots a glance at the two Omicronians. "You should have more compassion for living things! Bunnies do all sorts of nice things for people. They eat our lettuce, carrots, and all our vegetables, so little children don't have to, and they can concentrate on eating dessert! Do you want to make those poor children eat vegetables? How cruel!" Tears glisten in her eyes again.
Ah, another approaches! And she comes bearing snacks! Mr. Beans turns his head to sniff sniff curiously at the rice cracker, then lifts his head to seize the cracker daintily and begin nibbling. Look Lrr! The girls are fattening up your snack cake!
Zatanna trails along behind Rei by a few feet, mildly with her hands behind her back, pausing when she hears some people talking about a 'hot lady magician'. She can't help but grin - clearly they were talking about /HER/. After all, top hat, no pants, and her name--
Was so not Zatanna Zatara. "Ah-!" The magician huffs. It's the Tom Incident all over again! :( "Damn that Jennifer Kale. =.=" She seethes. Oh HOW she seethes! She'll be along shortly, but for now, you two are on your own!
Rei continues to hold the snack cracker out. She remains thin on her diet of junk food and Vicodin; why can't the bunny do the same? She looks up at the slime beasts and listens as Milfeulle issues her theoretical argument as to why it is that we must be friends to our natural rulers, the lapines, moving to pick up the rabbit if it's not too huge and squirmy, afterwards.
She straightens up in either case, to look at the two slimbeasts. "You should not eat red meat," she tells them, in an act of naked anthropocentrism. Perhaps they have to, Rei! She continues, "It contains cholesterol, that is bad for you."
The Imperial Duo of Omicron Persei VIII are now confronted by the implacable stoicism of Ayanami Rei. It is a contest of the ages! A clash of wills unparalleled in galactic history! It is... IT IS...
Pretty much over before it started. "Cholesterol?!" roars Ndnd, putting her hands on her hips and whirling on Lrrr. "Oh I see how it is! Trying to pull a fast one on your poor long-suffering wife, is that it?" She slams a finger into his chest. "You know very well you had an 80,000 cholesterol count at your last doctor visit!"
Lrrr's arms windmill wildly. "Whoah, whoah, WHOAH! How was I supposed to know the little meat gumball was bad for me? BESIDES! Who are YOU to tell the Emperor of Omicron Persei VIII what he can have for dinner? I'm the tyrant of the galaxy!"
Milfeulle, at this point, is standing next to Ndnd and offering moral support, putting her hands on her hips and nodding along with Ndnd. "You tell him, Auntie!"
Perhaps somewhat emboldened by this, but more likely because of her sheer contrariness and bull-headedness, Ndnd waves her fists in the air. "Oh YEAH? Well I tell you who you're talking to! You're talking to the EMPRESS of Omicron Persei VIII, and besides that, Doctor Pzzz told me that if you didn't get below 60,000 at your next checkup, that I was permitted under Omicronian law to tie you to a chair and throw cabbage heads at your face until your count goes down!" She shakes a fist and points her opposite index finger at Lrrr's face. "Just TRY me, prettyboy! See how you like the taste of raw cabbage crammed up your craw!"
"YEAH!" echoes Milfeulle, wagging her finger. "And it doesn't taste very good, crammed or otherwise! Unless it's pickled. Mmm, Kimchee is just delicious!" Her head tilts to the side and she sighs, thinking of a tasty gourmet Korean meal...
Meanwhile, Lrrr glares at his wife, rearing up to full height! "OH YEAH? WELL YOU KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO SAY TO THAT?!" The Emperor's voice booms across the Hub.
Undaunted, the Empress rears up to full height right up in his face. "NO, TELL ME, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY TO THAT?"
Milfeulle continues her monologue. "... With some potstickers in ginger sauce, mmmm, oh, and some ja ja myun, bee bim ba and a side of radishes... sigh..."
And at that point, the Emperor's eyes narrow. "I'D HAVE TO SAY ... to say that ... that's making me kind of hot." His eyes blink, new glint in the giant sickly yellow orbs. "Did you mean it when you said... prettyboy?"
Ndnd stares back, deflating a little, a shy and gentle blush the color of heavily used WD-40 coming to her girlishly scaly and warted cheeks. "Well, uh," she murmurs, rubbing the back of her neck. "Of course I did. You're still the hottest chunk of space meat this side of the Persei Nebula... Why do you think I'm so worried about your health?"
The two Omicronians grunt and shuffle their feet for just a moment, before their heads snap up, they let out twin strangled roars, and proceed to clench carnally, making the most disgusting slurping and sloughing sounds imaginable. "RRRRRAAAAGH*shlooooooorp*!"
Milfeulle at this point is gesturing wildly to Rei and the bunny. "... So, you see, with a completely dessert-centered diet, you can live for over 400 years! Now, I know it sounds farfetched, but..." She blinks. "Oh my - what's that SMELL?" She turns around just in time to see an embracing pair of ankyloid lizard monsters fall right on top of her with a *SPLORCH*. "MMMRPH!"
.. it's.. sheer CHAOS. Even Zatanna, who has seen a lot of -bizarre- things (though Dr. Strange has got her beat on that department), finds herself only .. staring.. once she's gotten herself over the sligt of Jennifer Kale's status being a better magician than her! Or at least notice more. Let's see. Rei was there feeding Mr. Beans - "Hey, So THIS is where you've gotten yourself t-Oh *God*" This is regarding the Omicronions, which ... well by themselvs they're pretty gross looking. With that carnal display, they were a thousand times worse! And now poor Milfeulle's being /crushed/! What a way to go C.c
"Teg a moor." She whispers under her breath, gesturing in the Omocronian's direction. "That's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen." Mr Beans is inclined to agree, nodding affirmatively with Zatanna's comment. Fortunately he's not that big or squirmy, and Rei doesn't seem the type to hand him off to the Omicronians who..looked like they had *koff* OTHER things on their mind. The bunny wiggles a bit in Rei's arms, getting comfortable, his little bunny heart no longer racing the speed of light. And hopely the crowd has finished dispersing, or at the very least, there were no children present. This is pretty traumatizing.
Somewhere, Dr. Strange is having a refreshing soft drink and trying to ignore the existence of the impending Hulk. BY HOGGOTH
Rei pets the bunny, holding it close. While she is perhaps a little unusual, she has a sort of warm physical neutrality. She rests a hand on its fur for a moment, as if willing it to calm; she doesn't mind white hairs against her dark blouse as she looks towards the aliens and their exposed squeedly-spooches.
She considers just what to say. She stares at the aliens - but they are not dangerous now. Her attention goes over to Milfeulle as she tells her, softly, "Are you from one of the worlds damaged by Captain Novolin?" There are legends, after all, and tales, and some planes have suffered more at the hand of the diabetic crusader than others.
In the midst of the monstrous, horrible, hideous and aesthetically revolting carnal clenching of the Perseid life-forms, which cause the still-dispersing crowd to adopt a pace that is not so much 'dispersing' as 'FLEEING FOR THEIR LIVES', the two are both struck by a sudden thought, just as the quiet call of 'teg a moor' can be dimly heard in the background. "Are you thinking what /I'm/ thinking, my slimy succubus?" groans Lrrr, pheromones boiling off his carapace like smutty wet popcorn.
"I sure am, you hunka hunka burning biohazard," she purrs back at him, which is actually more like the sound of a helicopter caught in a peat bog. Their eyes go immense, enormous leers on their faces, as they roar out their romantic innovation in blazing, ear- and window-shattering stereo.
"WE NEED MORE ROOM!"
"Quick, my bloated turkey of lust," Lrrr says, scrambling to his feet (as mush as a being of his titanic size and girth is capable) and yanking Ndnd to hers, "I saw an empty superfreighter hangar deck on the way up here!"
Ndnd jumps into his arms in a move that's measured on the Richter scale. The two are all smiles, which is of course hideous enough in its own way to crack mirrors, windows, and any reflective surfaces in a thousand yard radius. "You're so romantic, my giant scaly love sloth! TO THE HANGAR BAY!"
With a roar, Lrrr carries his blushing behemoth bride, each step resounding with a *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* and shaking the entire Hub as he heads like a runaway alien hive queen toward her birthing marsh. "GANGWAY, INFERIOR LIFE FORMS! And you might want to deploy your blast shields! DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU!"
The bunny-toting Ayanami Rei may very well notice a curious Milfeulle-sized indentation in the floor, but Milfeulle herself... is gone.
In fact she's stuck to the back of the giant Omicron alien, the noise deafening as he makes craters in the hard tempered plasteel and super-tough organic materials the station is composed of, but even that noise is drowned out by the two aliens swapping the congealed viscous rotting mass that serves as their saliva. *SMOOOCH*
"Wheeeeeeeeee! Ahahahahahaha!" she calls out, wiggling her arms and legs as she's carried along. "This is gross, but it's kind of fun! Sorry Reichan!" She waves at the receding Ayanami. "We can talk about Captain Novocaine later!" The walls of the Hub speed past, fleeing hordes a blur. "Hello, Hub-people! UWAAAAAAH!" She yelps as, hurtling over a barricade hurriedly erected by terrified Hub security forces, the Perseid Emperor manages to obliviously jiggle her loose with a *SPLOOCH*.
Rather than falling unceremoniously to the ground, however, she is deftly caught in the safe, strong arms of a fleeing random passerby. "Oh my gosh!" he says. "Are you alright?"
Milfeulle opens her eyes, blinking, to behold the most beautiful face she's ever seen: a rather nondescript looking fellow wearing a paper hat that proudly declares in stylized letters, '31000 Flavors Ice Cream Corporation'. It's love at first sight. "You... you saved me!" she sighs, hands clenching at the side of her cheek, stars in her eyes.
The man, an expert at his trade, narrows his eyes in concern. "You poor thing, you've had a terrible experience!" he announces. "You're obviously going into hypoglycemic shock!" He turns to the camera, poses heroically, and lifts his finger to the sky! Well, the Hub ceiling. "This woman! Needs ICE CREAM!"
Milfeulle sighs happily. "My hero..."
Rei Ayanami says, "I'm keeping the rabbit." It is like her. Pallid, soft, and vegetarian.
~fin~
See you next time!
WHAT: Zatanna's bunny 'Mr. Beans' makes an ill-advised bid for freedom in the Hub.
WHEN: Thursday night
WHERE: The Hub - Terminus
WATCH FOR: Zatanna's indulgence in just a bit of professional jealousy for a Marvel character, and Rei's secret for maintaining a waifish figure.
Zatanna needs a tag!
THE HUB! A nexus of time-lines and alternate dimensions, constructed by the long-vanished race that ruled the Transbaal Galaxy until the great Chrono Quake. The Transbaal Empire, assisted by the White Moon, had attempted to reverse-engineer the technology with some initial successes, including contact with NEUE and the Celldar Empire, but these were curtailed when a gate was discovered in a retrograde polar orbit. Now more and more, Imperial personnel make use of gate transit to establish trade and interstellar relations with cultures all across the space/time continuum. Truly it is a great awakening for the peoples of the universe!
Plus, located in the Hub is C. M. O. T. Dibbler, licensed Quantum Mechanic. "I broke my spaceship!" Milfeulle explains. "I was trying to parallel park on this asteroid where there's a famous candy shop but I accidentally hit a solar flare hydrant, and something's all messed up. I can't take it home because Forte-san will yell at me! Oh please can't you help me?"
Master Dibbler sizes up the Lucky Star, sitting in his hangar, sparks flickering off the superstructure, shimmers in reality occasionally rippling throughout the ship. Plus the windshield wipers won't turn off. "Well, at a minimum I'd say 300 credits! That's 266.50 galas to you Transbaal blokes. And that's cuttin' me own throat!"
Milfeulle beams happily, despite the fact that she only has 2 galas in her pocket. "Yay! I'm so relieved!"
Cut to Dibbler and his staff working on the ship. "What's that do?" Milfeulle asks.
"Where's that go?"
"Oh! I pulled this thing off! Is that bad?"
"All this hard work is making me thirsty. Mmm, lemonade!" *splash* *crackle* "Oh no!"
A short time later the door to the mechanic's shop shuts in her face, locking with a *click*. "Oh, why're you so mean? I just wanted to watch you work!" She pouts and swings around to walk away, but before long is happily roaming the Hub, eyes wide at all the cheap novelty entertainments and overpriced retail outlets. "So pretty!"
THE HUB!..
Yeah that's all I got. Zatanna's relatively new to the hub, since she's been keeping busy with her performances and her steady protection of the mystical plane. It can wear a girl out! This is why she's coming straight out of one such event, still in stage clothes because hey, when you look the way she does, sometimes you get free snacks! Breezy, but stylish.
Stopping at an ice cream parlor, she flashes her sunniest, prettiest smile at the vendor - but alas, her charm does not get her a free ice cream. Which is fine, she would have paid anyway. "Double chocolate please."
"That'll be three fifty."
Zatanna pauses, "Oh is that all?" She removes the top hat from her head and reaches inside, "My wallet's in here somewhere.." She pulls out a white pair of flowers, then a sheepish looking white rabbit, which she drops gently to the floor, then finally withdraws her wallet. Withdrawing the money, she hands the fee over to the vendor, puts her hat back on and drops the hat back on her head.
A wave of the hand, and the flowers have vanished - save one - but her rabbit... seems to have hopped away. "Hey! Where'd you get to now you little rascal.." Zatanna scowls good naturedly, starting off.
Meanwhile, Mr. Beans the bunny is about to cross paths with Milfie! See, there he goes! Hop hop hop!
Rei has been here many times before. It's fun to go swimming with aliens! (All of them are aliens. All of them.)
She is wearing a somewhat unnecessary wide brimmed hat, but maybe there's a lot of sun on the way to the Gate where she's from. She has a list in her hand - a new filter for her frog's tank and some of these anchovies that the penguin seems to like. She walks, steadily, easily -
And pauses to look down as a rabbit hops past about a foot away from her own foot.
Indeed, the cute little bunny is heading right for Milfeulle. In fact, it would seem that this encounter is meant to be. Milfeulle --> cute little bunny --> happiness. And the universe craves happiness, does it not? In fact as Milfeulle looks down to see the squiggling white shape down at the corner of her vision, it would appear that a happy little encounter is about to take place.
But such is not to be!
For, at that moment, perpendicular to the line between Zatanna's happy little charging bunny and Milfeulle, directly in front of the oncoming Ayanami Rei, is NONE OTHER than the official delegation to the Hub of the galaxy-spanning Empire of Omicron Persei VIII, ruled by the all-powerful and merciless Emperor Lrrr! Numberless are the armies to whom he has laid waste, limitless are the planets he and his size 128 boot have crushed under their heel! When he wears boots anyway. With his glorious Empress Ndnd at his side, no one and NOTHING can stand against his limitless, awesome power.
"Dammit, my feet hurt," he complains in his gruff, gravelly voice to Ndnd, walking at his side, a phalanx of imperial stormtroopers walking three paces behind. "Let me tell you, I was on the edge of my seat listening to all those IPA politicians going on and on about peace and harmony, but that was NOTHING compared to the INSANE EXCITEMENT of going bustier shopping in an interdimensional strip mall!"
The Empress Ndnd is none too impressed. "Oh, NO, we've BORED the glorious Emperor. Lrrr, who spends sixteen hours every Sunday watching Alpha Centaurian golf tournaments on pirate cable and scratching himself! So sorry to keep you from your exciting life! NOW SHUT UP AND HELP ME LOOK FOR SOMETHING NICE, you overgrown reclining-chair mold!"
Lrrr clenches his fist and raises a finger. "One of these days, Ndnd, one of these days-* Oh hey, look at that."
The diplomatic party of Omicron Persei VIII has at that moment crossed paths with a cute little white bunny rabbit, known to his owner as Mr. Beans. Ndnd narrows her eyes. "What IS it? It looks like a rodent with a hearing problem!"
Lrrr waves a hand. "No, no, it's one of those self-propelled hors-d'ouerves like they had at that theme-restaurant they built at the moment of universal entropic heat-death! Man, was that a fun meal." The hulking Emperor leans down to grasp the little white bunny. "C'mere, you, I need energy to keep up with my wife's traveling flea-market!"
But at that very moment, in the blink of an eye, Milfeulle is standing in front of the bunny, arms outstretched, blocking the Emperor's way. "Please don't eat Usagi-chan!" Milfeulle wails, eyes wide.
Rei's attempt to continue on her merry way may be interrupted, when a voice interrupts what she was doing, "Hey, excuse me - sorry to bother you," the magician shifts to put herself in front of Rei just in case the girl kept walking. "But have you seen a white rabbit, about yay big-" She holds her hands apart to indicate size. "Hopping around here? I seem to have misplaced him." And while it would be child's play to just find him, what's the fun in that? Not only was the bunny crucial to her act, he was her little pet and friend! No magician worth her salt /didn't/ have a bunny.
Meanwhile, Mr. Beans is busy exploring the joy and sparkles of the Hub. It surely would be fate if he were to encounter the wonderful, joyous and overall sweetness and light of Milfie; after all, she brings good luck, he was good luck. It was a match made in heaven! Sort of. But then! Something icky, green and .. well can you really call that a /shape/? Bulbous? Fat? Gross?
Whatever it is, it's threatening his delicate bunny life! Until lo, an angel appears! And good thing too; his entire life had flashed before his eyes.
The presence of squabbling gooey aliens is kind of unusual to Rei. She is used to squabbling aliens with a thinner and denser shell of rind, usually in some shade of gold or brown. Just like the one who's addressing her! Her head turns to regard Zatanna as she lifts one hand, the brim of her sunhat shading her eyes as she points in the direction of the retreating bunny rabbit... ah, a voice.
"Sakuraba has found him," she informs Zatanna. "You must retrieve him quickly." Or worse may happen!
Something dares stand between the glorious Emperor Lrrr and his mid-day snack? The vital life-giving energy he needs to get through a day with shopping with his glorious and gloriously tedious wife the Empress? Unheard of! "Hey!" he shouts, waving his huge greenish-brown scaly fist in the air. "I called dibs! Go find your own Bunny McNugget, snack-thief! Don't make me call security! They'll strip-search you and find out you're padding your bra!"
The reaction of his wife of course is quite different in substance. "Oh my goodness, what a HIDEOUS color!" hisses Ndnd, recoiling visibly and throwing a hand up over her face. "She's got hair the color of blood mixed with milk! What are you, some kind of sicko? Don't let her touch it, Lrrr! She's so scrawny and pale, I think she has some kind of disease!"
Milfeulle's eyes go wide, mouth parting, staring at the two Omicronians for a full several seconds, UNTIL!
She falls to the ground on her knees, fists against her eyes, bawling her head off. "WAAAAAAAH! I'm not scrawny! I'm thin-boned! And I can't change my hair, it grows this way! That's so mean! WAAAAAAAAH!"
The two Omicronians blanch visibly, darting their eyes from side to side as a crowd gathers. All they can see is two giant Omicronians standing over a crying human. "Do something!" hisses Ndnd. "We're representing the Omicronian people! If we don't act fast this whole thing will wind up on YouTube!"
Lrrr clenches a fist. "Don't worry," he hisses back. "I'm on it!" He holds up his arms as Milfeulle continues to cry in front of the inoffensive little forest creature. "PEOPLE OF EAR... I mean, PEOPLE OF THE HUB! Don't worry about this disruption. She's only crying, because I attacked and enslaved her planet, killed her family and carried off her people to a life of hard labor!" He asides to Ndnd. "And NOT because we made fun of her!" There's a giant Omicronian wink shared between the two.
But, surprisingly enough, the crowd's reaction becomes a whole lot worse. "You enslaved her planet?!" calls out a random passersby, who just happens to be the Planet Oligarchus, a planet with an advanced civilization on it who miniaturized their world so that they could go out and mingle with the other cultures of the universe, and laugh at their inferiority (as seen way back in Episode 2!). "That's awful! I mean, enslaving the planet's population, we can totally understand. But the planet itself? You ought to be ashamed! ASHAMED!"
Another passersby speaks up. "Yeah! And couldn't you have SOLD her family? Why'd you have to kill them? That's a lot of wasted resources right there! What's WRONG with you people!"
Soon the angry crowd advances on the Omicronians, shaking their fists. Lrrr and Ndnd back up against each other, looking worried. "Wh-what's going on?" Lrrr blurts out. "They're booing us! But I've always been great at working the crowd!"
Ndnd whaps him upside the head. "That's because we've always fed anyone who didn't laugh at your stupid jokes to the Digestion Pit! Now DO something!"
Milfeulle continues crying. "*-And, and in second grade, ahuh-ahuh, they called me 'Mudball' instead of Milfeulle, and that was so mean, but later at the class reunion they said it was actually because I made the best mud-pies, but it hurt really bad at the time, waaaaah...."
"Sakuraba?" Zatanna lifts her head to follow the direction that Rei points, where she can pick out the definitely feminine voice. Beyond the crowd. Along with another pair of voices she really didn't want to see the owners of. Glancing to Rei, Zatanna raises an eyebrow, "Sakuraba's a friend of yours? Sounds like she's in trouble." Well no, actually it sounds like she's lost, crying and pining for all of the troubles of her younger years. But this brings the problem of getting through the crowd. "This is getting annoying." Zatanna mutters.
Until she casts a glance around. Someone was bound to get stepped on! From her sleeve she withdraws a sleek black wand with white tips on either end. "It's a bit overcrowded here, wouldn't you say?" Let's take care of that shall we? And she waves her wand once, "Dworc esrepsid." It's a harmless spell - it shouldn't trigger the Hub defenses any. More of a 'move along people, nothing to see here' - just enough for Zatanna to have a path to advance through.
As for Beans, why, he's there nuzzling against poor distraught Milfeulle's foot, his ears flat against his back. There there. ;.;
Rei turns her head for a moment at the peculiar words, perhaps wondering if she's being sworn at. But no - it doesn't seem to be the case. The crowd does seem thinner. Stepping forwards, her hair twisting a little in the tidal breeze from the miniaturized planet, Rei ignores the boos, the jeers, and the roar of the crowd, such as it is. She gives the universal conquerors a short look over the rims of her fashionable glasses, and then crouches down towards the rabbit, dress's hem pooling around her ankles.
She offers it a rice cracker from her pocket.
Things look bad for the absolute rulers of Omicron Persei VIII! The crowd's against them! They're on the verge of being an intergalactic laughing stock for the next ten million years! "Oh man, oh man, what do I do? My confidence is totally shaken!" complains Lrrr, clutching his head. "The walls are closing in! I can't breathe!"
"Oh great," Ndnd says, rolling her eyes and smacking her vast forehead. "It's our wedding night all over again. FINE, I'll get this done!" She turns to the crowd, rolls up her ... er, arm scales ... and holds up a fist. "Now you people all listen to me!" she declares, just as a quiet call of 'dworc esrepsid' is heard from a short ways off. "If you bottom-feeders don't back off RIGHT now, my husband is going to get SO flatulent that he may very well violate the atmospheric integrity of this ENTIRE-* oh hey, they're leaving."
Seemingly as one, the crowd suddenly gets it into their head that there are more interesting things going on in the hub than watching a bunch of creepy aliens and a skinny girl having a self-image crisis. "I must continue my journey to observe the outside universe!" declares Oligarchus, shouldering its way through the press of people. "IGNORE ME!"
"Hey, we need to get home to watch World's Greatest Ladies Men. It's a rerun of the April Fool's Day episode with Roy Fokker."
"Hey, did you see that hot lady magician down at Spango's Magic Emporium the other night? The one with the tophat and no pants?"
"Yeah, she was hot! What was her name...?"
"Jennifer Kale!"
"YEAH! Man, she was smokin'..." Zatanna finds no trouble in getting through this crowd.
Meanwhile, Ndnd stares at the people meandering away, whose sudden dispersal could almost be called 'magical'. "Hey! I did it!" Ndnd's face breaks into a wide smile. "Look at that! Maybe -I'm- the political one in the family!"
Lrrr hmmphs, crossing his massive arms. "Yeah, but you did it with a threat involving MY flatulence!" He jerks a thumb at himself. "Team effort at best! Don't get a swelled head, Golda Meir. Now where were we? OH YEAH! Some anorexic bimbo was about to steal my snack. She doesn't deserve it! She'll probably just yak it up again!" He turns to look down at Milfeulle and Mr. Beans, now noticing Ayanami Rei leaning down to offer it a rice cracker. "OH CRAP," Lrrr exclaims, once again shaken to the core as he hides behind Ndnd. "Do your making speeches thing again! Now there's TWO scrawny girls with pastel hair trying to steal my snack! They multiplied when we weren't looking!"
Milfeulle suddenly notices Rei crouching next to her, offering the little bunny some food, and her tears vanish quicker than the crowd. "Reichan!" she says happily. "You've made friends with Usagi-chan! Isn't he cute? Those mean aliens want to eat him!" She shoots a glance at the two Omicronians. "You should have more compassion for living things! Bunnies do all sorts of nice things for people. They eat our lettuce, carrots, and all our vegetables, so little children don't have to, and they can concentrate on eating dessert! Do you want to make those poor children eat vegetables? How cruel!" Tears glisten in her eyes again.
Ah, another approaches! And she comes bearing snacks! Mr. Beans turns his head to sniff sniff curiously at the rice cracker, then lifts his head to seize the cracker daintily and begin nibbling. Look Lrr! The girls are fattening up your snack cake!
Zatanna trails along behind Rei by a few feet, mildly with her hands behind her back, pausing when she hears some people talking about a 'hot lady magician'. She can't help but grin - clearly they were talking about /HER/. After all, top hat, no pants, and her name--
Was so not Zatanna Zatara. "Ah-!" The magician huffs. It's the Tom Incident all over again! :( "Damn that Jennifer Kale. =.=" She seethes. Oh HOW she seethes! She'll be along shortly, but for now, you two are on your own!
Rei continues to hold the snack cracker out. She remains thin on her diet of junk food and Vicodin; why can't the bunny do the same? She looks up at the slime beasts and listens as Milfeulle issues her theoretical argument as to why it is that we must be friends to our natural rulers, the lapines, moving to pick up the rabbit if it's not too huge and squirmy, afterwards.
She straightens up in either case, to look at the two slimbeasts. "You should not eat red meat," she tells them, in an act of naked anthropocentrism. Perhaps they have to, Rei! She continues, "It contains cholesterol, that is bad for you."
The Imperial Duo of Omicron Persei VIII are now confronted by the implacable stoicism of Ayanami Rei. It is a contest of the ages! A clash of wills unparalleled in galactic history! It is... IT IS...
Pretty much over before it started. "Cholesterol?!" roars Ndnd, putting her hands on her hips and whirling on Lrrr. "Oh I see how it is! Trying to pull a fast one on your poor long-suffering wife, is that it?" She slams a finger into his chest. "You know very well you had an 80,000 cholesterol count at your last doctor visit!"
Lrrr's arms windmill wildly. "Whoah, whoah, WHOAH! How was I supposed to know the little meat gumball was bad for me? BESIDES! Who are YOU to tell the Emperor of Omicron Persei VIII what he can have for dinner? I'm the tyrant of the galaxy!"
Milfeulle, at this point, is standing next to Ndnd and offering moral support, putting her hands on her hips and nodding along with Ndnd. "You tell him, Auntie!"
Perhaps somewhat emboldened by this, but more likely because of her sheer contrariness and bull-headedness, Ndnd waves her fists in the air. "Oh YEAH? Well I tell you who you're talking to! You're talking to the EMPRESS of Omicron Persei VIII, and besides that, Doctor Pzzz told me that if you didn't get below 60,000 at your next checkup, that I was permitted under Omicronian law to tie you to a chair and throw cabbage heads at your face until your count goes down!" She shakes a fist and points her opposite index finger at Lrrr's face. "Just TRY me, prettyboy! See how you like the taste of raw cabbage crammed up your craw!"
"YEAH!" echoes Milfeulle, wagging her finger. "And it doesn't taste very good, crammed or otherwise! Unless it's pickled. Mmm, Kimchee is just delicious!" Her head tilts to the side and she sighs, thinking of a tasty gourmet Korean meal...
Meanwhile, Lrrr glares at his wife, rearing up to full height! "OH YEAH? WELL YOU KNOW WHAT I HAVE TO SAY TO THAT?!" The Emperor's voice booms across the Hub.
Undaunted, the Empress rears up to full height right up in his face. "NO, TELL ME, WHAT DO YOU HAVE TO SAY TO THAT?"
Milfeulle continues her monologue. "... With some potstickers in ginger sauce, mmmm, oh, and some ja ja myun, bee bim ba and a side of radishes... sigh..."
And at that point, the Emperor's eyes narrow. "I'D HAVE TO SAY ... to say that ... that's making me kind of hot." His eyes blink, new glint in the giant sickly yellow orbs. "Did you mean it when you said... prettyboy?"
Ndnd stares back, deflating a little, a shy and gentle blush the color of heavily used WD-40 coming to her girlishly scaly and warted cheeks. "Well, uh," she murmurs, rubbing the back of her neck. "Of course I did. You're still the hottest chunk of space meat this side of the Persei Nebula... Why do you think I'm so worried about your health?"
The two Omicronians grunt and shuffle their feet for just a moment, before their heads snap up, they let out twin strangled roars, and proceed to clench carnally, making the most disgusting slurping and sloughing sounds imaginable. "RRRRRAAAAGH*shlooooooorp*!"
Milfeulle at this point is gesturing wildly to Rei and the bunny. "... So, you see, with a completely dessert-centered diet, you can live for over 400 years! Now, I know it sounds farfetched, but..." She blinks. "Oh my - what's that SMELL?" She turns around just in time to see an embracing pair of ankyloid lizard monsters fall right on top of her with a *SPLORCH*. "MMMRPH!"
.. it's.. sheer CHAOS. Even Zatanna, who has seen a lot of -bizarre- things (though Dr. Strange has got her beat on that department), finds herself only .. staring.. once she's gotten herself over the sligt of Jennifer Kale's status being a better magician than her! Or at least notice more. Let's see. Rei was there feeding Mr. Beans - "Hey, So THIS is where you've gotten yourself t-Oh *God*" This is regarding the Omicronions, which ... well by themselvs they're pretty gross looking. With that carnal display, they were a thousand times worse! And now poor Milfeulle's being /crushed/! What a way to go C.c
"Teg a moor." She whispers under her breath, gesturing in the Omocronian's direction. "That's the most disgusting thing I've ever seen." Mr Beans is inclined to agree, nodding affirmatively with Zatanna's comment. Fortunately he's not that big or squirmy, and Rei doesn't seem the type to hand him off to the Omicronians who..looked like they had *koff* OTHER things on their mind. The bunny wiggles a bit in Rei's arms, getting comfortable, his little bunny heart no longer racing the speed of light. And hopely the crowd has finished dispersing, or at the very least, there were no children present. This is pretty traumatizing.
Somewhere, Dr. Strange is having a refreshing soft drink and trying to ignore the existence of the impending Hulk. BY HOGGOTH
Rei pets the bunny, holding it close. While she is perhaps a little unusual, she has a sort of warm physical neutrality. She rests a hand on its fur for a moment, as if willing it to calm; she doesn't mind white hairs against her dark blouse as she looks towards the aliens and their exposed squeedly-spooches.
She considers just what to say. She stares at the aliens - but they are not dangerous now. Her attention goes over to Milfeulle as she tells her, softly, "Are you from one of the worlds damaged by Captain Novolin?" There are legends, after all, and tales, and some planes have suffered more at the hand of the diabetic crusader than others.
In the midst of the monstrous, horrible, hideous and aesthetically revolting carnal clenching of the Perseid life-forms, which cause the still-dispersing crowd to adopt a pace that is not so much 'dispersing' as 'FLEEING FOR THEIR LIVES', the two are both struck by a sudden thought, just as the quiet call of 'teg a moor' can be dimly heard in the background. "Are you thinking what /I'm/ thinking, my slimy succubus?" groans Lrrr, pheromones boiling off his carapace like smutty wet popcorn.
"I sure am, you hunka hunka burning biohazard," she purrs back at him, which is actually more like the sound of a helicopter caught in a peat bog. Their eyes go immense, enormous leers on their faces, as they roar out their romantic innovation in blazing, ear- and window-shattering stereo.
"WE NEED MORE ROOM!"
"Quick, my bloated turkey of lust," Lrrr says, scrambling to his feet (as mush as a being of his titanic size and girth is capable) and yanking Ndnd to hers, "I saw an empty superfreighter hangar deck on the way up here!"
Ndnd jumps into his arms in a move that's measured on the Richter scale. The two are all smiles, which is of course hideous enough in its own way to crack mirrors, windows, and any reflective surfaces in a thousand yard radius. "You're so romantic, my giant scaly love sloth! TO THE HANGAR BAY!"
With a roar, Lrrr carries his blushing behemoth bride, each step resounding with a *BOOM* *BOOM* *BOOM* and shaking the entire Hub as he heads like a runaway alien hive queen toward her birthing marsh. "GANGWAY, INFERIOR LIFE FORMS! And you might want to deploy your blast shields! DON'T SAY I DIDN'T WARN YOU!"
The bunny-toting Ayanami Rei may very well notice a curious Milfeulle-sized indentation in the floor, but Milfeulle herself... is gone.
In fact she's stuck to the back of the giant Omicron alien, the noise deafening as he makes craters in the hard tempered plasteel and super-tough organic materials the station is composed of, but even that noise is drowned out by the two aliens swapping the congealed viscous rotting mass that serves as their saliva. *SMOOOCH*
"Wheeeeeeeeee! Ahahahahahaha!" she calls out, wiggling her arms and legs as she's carried along. "This is gross, but it's kind of fun! Sorry Reichan!" She waves at the receding Ayanami. "We can talk about Captain Novocaine later!" The walls of the Hub speed past, fleeing hordes a blur. "Hello, Hub-people! UWAAAAAAH!" She yelps as, hurtling over a barricade hurriedly erected by terrified Hub security forces, the Perseid Emperor manages to obliviously jiggle her loose with a *SPLOOCH*.
Rather than falling unceremoniously to the ground, however, she is deftly caught in the safe, strong arms of a fleeing random passerby. "Oh my gosh!" he says. "Are you alright?"
Milfeulle opens her eyes, blinking, to behold the most beautiful face she's ever seen: a rather nondescript looking fellow wearing a paper hat that proudly declares in stylized letters, '31000 Flavors Ice Cream Corporation'. It's love at first sight. "You... you saved me!" she sighs, hands clenching at the side of her cheek, stars in her eyes.
The man, an expert at his trade, narrows his eyes in concern. "You poor thing, you've had a terrible experience!" he announces. "You're obviously going into hypoglycemic shock!" He turns to the camera, poses heroically, and lifts his finger to the sky! Well, the Hub ceiling. "This woman! Needs ICE CREAM!"
Milfeulle sighs happily. "My hero..."
Rei Ayanami says, "I'm keeping the rabbit." It is like her. Pallid, soft, and vegetarian.
~fin~
See you next time!