E. Aster Bunnymund sighed. He'd been stuck in this damn cell for three days now. All he'd wanted to do was check in on his planet and get back home. He'd even planned it! Land in an unpopulated area, set up his base in the Warren he'd built, check the planet's Light, and then gather some information on the people that now populated it. He'd planned it to be a relatively short trip, maybe three or four months, before sending his report back to Gallifrey. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. He'd landed in the middle of a desert, and had just managed to take the atmospheric readings before being netted and tranquilized.
He was now waiting impatiently for someone to come and explain what this place was. He'd paced and grumbled and cursed, in quite a few languages, before he heard the quiet approaching of footsteps. A single ear twitched in the door's direction. Two legs, that was for sure. The weight seemed to be falling on the heel, so that meant an upright walking stance. The volume of the steps suggested a light weight being, much more so than his own people. But Pooka were notorious for being hard to catch, see, or hear. Evasion was their specialty, you see.
Aster sat back on his haunches, facing the door, as he intently watched. The lock clicked and the whirr of an electrical system met his ears as the door slowly slid open and in walked three males, as their scents told him.
It had been millennia since he'd checked this planet, letting the Light dictate life's growth as it pleased, so Aster had no idea what the dominant species looked like, though he guessed they looked like this.
The first male stepped forward, dressed in a pressed suit of solid black; in his hand was a group of papers. "Do you understand us?" He asked, toned slightly on edge.
Aster furrowed his brows. The language was strange, but it held many little qualities of familiar dialects. It was easy enough to understand. "I do. Where am I?" He asked, taking note of the widened eyes of the youngest looking man in the back.
"You are in a secured government facility. You are an unidentified alien life form, none of which we've ever seen before. We'll be asking you some questions, and doing some tests just to make sure you're not harmful to our planet." The first man droned. It sounded like he'd done this a few times before. He made a vague gesture behind him and continued. "This is Agent Overland-Frost. He'll be your interviewer while you're at the facility. If you have any questions, please direct them to him. Anything you'd like to add, Agent?"
The brunette male walked forward, straightening a black strip of cloth that hung from his neck. "You're interviews will start tomorrow. We'll be going over just the basics: who you are, where you came from. Just stuff like that. Breakfast is served at eight a.m., lunch is at twelve-thirty, and dinner is brought at five." The boy held out an arm, motioning to the third man. "This is Agent Bennette. If you'll tell him what your diet is, we'll try and find something as close as we can to it."
Aster nodded and looked the three over. They were being oddly professional about this whole situation, he thought. The two that spoke to him turned and left, leaving him with Agent Bennette. The young brunette paused before haltingly stepping forward and clearing is throat.
"We have a multitude of different vegetables and meats available here at the facility." He said professionally. "Um… are- are you a vergetarian? Or do you like red meat, pork or chicken?"
Aster just stared. He had no idea what any of those things were; though he recognized what meat was- flesh. He shuddered; there was no way he was going to ingest anything of the sort! "Ta, mate. I don't eat anything that could bleed."
Agent Bennette nodded and scribbled on his clipboard. "Alright, then. I'll get those off to the kitchen for you." He walked to the door and paused, motioning to a speaker box on the wall. "If you need anything, press this black button. It will put you in contact with an on duty soldier, and they'll tell Agent Overland-Frost. He'll come- check on you as soon as possible."
~*~*~Line~*~*~
The next morning found Aster pacing around his rectangular prison. He was beginning to worry that he'd be late for his check in back home. He grimaced; he could hear the elders now- how could you get captured? Don't tell us your own planet outsmarted you. How embarrassing….
A click-whirr drew his attention to the door as it opened, revealing the young looking brunette from the previous day. The man was dressed just as before, with a dark suit and tie, this time he had sunglasses perched on top of his head.
"Good morning!" He greeted, walking into the room with a plate covered in shades of green. The agent placed it on the floor a few feet from Aster and stepped back to lean against the wall.
The Pooka approached the plate with trepidation, leaning down to sniff at it. It smelled heavenly, Aster deduced, and began to sift through it, finally snagging a large stalk of celery to nibble on as Agent Overland-Frost smiled. He then produced a note pad from the confines of his jacket and flipped it open, readying the pencil that was folded inside.
"How 'bout some introductions? My name's Jackson Overland-Frost. But you can call me Jack, if you'd like. What's your name?"
"Bunnymund." The Pooka deadpanned. He didn't want to give away too much. Hell, they probably wouldn't believe him even if he did… Aster pondered that train of thought before deciding. What could it hurt, he thought, s'not like they'd be able to do anything to him. "Just Bunnymund."
Jack raised an eyebrow, no doubt thinking 'Really?' but nodded and scribbled in his manila folder. "Well, it's nice to formally be introduced. Now," The agent smiled, showing off perfect, pearly whites as he enthusiastically scooted his chair closer to the table and rested his chin on the palms of his hands. "Let's play a game."
Aster narrowed his eyes. What in the universe was this human doing? He was supposed to be trying to grill him for information, not start some childish game. The boy was certainly interesting, he thought, and easy on the eyes, if not a little odd. Never the less, he nodded. Never let it be said that E. Aster Bunnymund ever backed down from a challenge.
"Great!" Jack exclaimed, smile brightening his eyes. "Here's how this is gonna work: I'll ask a question, and you'll answer it, thoroughly please. Then you can ask one, and I'll show you the same courtesy in my answer. How's that sound, Bunny?"
A green eye twitched. Bunny? He was one of the top Shepherds on Gallifrey and that deserved some resect! But he wasn't about to give out that kind of information, not if it could lead to anything being calculated to find his home; regardless if this planet's technology couldn't get to his home, it was not something he wanted to risk. Aster just nodded again, breathing deep through his nose.
"Sweet. Alright, first question! Do you have family?"
The Shepherd stared at his interviewer; that was not a question he'd anticipated. 'Do you have allies? Are you an enemy to this planet? Why are you here?' those he expected, but not this. He nodded.
"I do." He answered curtly.
Jack smiled and motioned with his hand for Aster to continue. The Pooka growled in annoyance but complied. "I have a Dam and Sire. They birthed three litters… I was born in their first."
Jack jotted down the information and looked up with his smile bright and sunny. "So you are one of the oldest? So am I. What's your first question?"
"When can I leave?" Aster snapped. It was the only question he wanted an answer to. He had a job to do, and was not about to take being captured lightly.
Jack's smile faded a bit, drooping at the corners of his lips. "Not for the foreseeable future, I'm afraid." He paused, twirling his pen between nimble fingers. Aster watched, noting how graceful the movements were. "We've never seen anything like you before. Nothing as sentient as you, anyways. What we've managed to find… most don't have a working vocabulary, nor do they even attempt to learn our languages. But you… You're so different. You're unique, and from what we can tell, highly intelligent. There's so much we could learn from you about the universe. Even the tech guys that are going over your ship are in awe of you."
"Ya've got my ship?! I swear, if they-" Aster snarled, shooting up from his seat making his chair fly across the room. His eyes were narrow in anger and his claws dug into the table in front of him. Fear rose on Jack's face, making Aster pause. It wasn't the agent's fault, he was sure the boy was just following protocol, but if they compromised any of the technology on his ship… they could potentially endanger his home, his people.
His outburst, unfortunately, had been caught by the multiple cameras the cell. A team of black clad men swarmed through the door, guns raised and shouting at him to stand down, to back away! He answered them with a resonating growl, almost daring them to make a move. And they did. Three shots were fired, with two hitting Aster; one in the hip and the second right in the middle of his chest. He hissed and quickly dislodged the offending materials, glaring at the yellow liquid that seeped from the tip of what he now saw was a needle.
"No! Everything was under control! Why would you do that? He was just worried about his ship!" Jack yelled, trying in vain to pull the larger men away from his charge. They wouldn't budge for him, being much stronger than a lowly interrogation agent, so Jack pushed through them instead. Placing himself between the team and Aster, who had swayed from his feet and now sat, weakly, on his haunches- head down and ears flat against his neck and back.
"Bunny!" Jack breathed, coming to the alien's side and placing a protective arm around the Pooka. "It's ok, you're ok. It's just a tranquilizer, just tranq darts. They make you sleepy. That's all they do." He said lowly, the worry in his voice did nothing to placate the other.
"Wasn' gon' hurt ya…" Aster slurred. He hated this, he wasn't in control of his body and he hated it. He hated the team that did this to him. He hated this place. He wanted to go home.
As the blackness edged into his sight he noticed cool digits running through the fur of his cheek and head and Jack's soothing whisper in his ears. "I know you weren't. I know."
~*~*~Line~*~*~
Aster slowly inched his way back onto consciousness. And it was not a pleasant process. He ached, his chest and hips were sore and twinged when he tried to move. But there was a pleasant warmth under his chin, so not moving was fine by him. The decidedly cool hands running over his head, and along the shells of his ears bordered on euphoric.
"You're ok, Bunny. It's just me."
"Jackie?" He murmured, nuzzling into what he assumed to be the human's stomach. Faintly catching the sweet scent of something he couldn't name mixing with the agent's crisp minty-ness.
"Right here, big guy. How're you feeling?" Jack said lowly, continuing his menstruations of running his fingers along the large ears of his charge.
"Like I was trampled."
Jack chuckled and lightly scratched under Bunny's chin. "Yeah… you kind of had a bit of a reaction to it. You're alright now. I got you."
Aster scrunched his eyes closed, fighting a wave of homesickness and nausea and exhaustion. "Wanna go back." He slurred.
"I know you do. I know, Bunny." The boy sighed, remorse thick in his voice as he continued his petting. "You know… this place used to be about gaining a better understanding of the universe. But it's not like that anymore. They've changed everything here." The sadness in his voice was almost palpable, Aster could tell how much he missed it. "When I first started I was so excited. I was so stoked to see everything here. There wasn't much, just a few flying saucers and a handful of little green men, but they were all dead though. Mostly they were kept for anatomical studies."
Jack continued to talk, his deep voice was soothing to Aster's mind as he listened to the agent drone on about dissatisfied he'd become and how much he actually hated working here now. The other agents were in it just for the bragging rights, the badge of esteem they were able to carry about working in area fifty one. They did it for the notoriety, he said, not to learn, not to make contact with races that could teach them.
"And then we find you." Jack exclaimed, smile finally returning to his voice. Aster liked the smile in his voice. "And you can speak, sure you only spoke your nave tongue at first, but it literally took you like, ten seconds. Twenty, tops, to learn ours. That's unheard of! Not even the highest IQ's in the world can do that. Do you even know how excited I was to be assigned to you? I can't even find the right word! There's so much you can teach us, I have so many questions!"
Aster smiled, warmed inside by the sincerity of the young man he really did seem to love his job, after finding a part of it to bring back his passion. It was amusing, how excided Jack sounded, as he spoke of Aster's arrival. Later, Aster would blame the sedative still in his system for becoming so talkative, and not the urge to keep the smile on the agent's face.
"Well ask away, young one." He murmured, cracking one green eye open.
"Really? Oh gosh, um. What are your people called? Are they all giant rabbits?"
"We're called Pooka. And yes, they all look like me. Not too sure what a 'rabbit' is, though." Aster smiled. He could hear the heartbeat of the agent speed up and the spicy scent of adrenaline wafted through his senses.
"What do Pooka do? As a people? What do you do?"
"We're a race of warriors and scholars. We protect and expand our knowledge of the universe. I'm called a Shepherd. I cultivate life on barren planets. Bring 'em light."
"A Shepherd of life? That is so cool! Did your people do that to earth? How many did it take? How long did it take?" Jack spit-fired his questions, ceasing his petting of Aster's ears and cupped his chin to lift the Pooka's head level with his.
"I had no help. As fer how long- it took me maybe… six full moons of this planet's to anchor the Light to its core. Evolution did the rest. I just gave it the spark, and checked up on if every hundred millennia or so."
Jack was silent, staring intently into the green eyes of his charge, mouth slightly agape. He leaned forward, bringing his nose almost to Aster's before asking lowly, "You did this all by yourself?" Aster nodded. "All by yourself. You made earth and then gave it a checkup every couple hundred million years? How old are you?" He whispered.
Before Aster could answer the door to his cell whizzed open and a man in a black suit strode in with purpose, anger plain on his face. When he reach the cell's occupants the man roughly grabbed and heaved Aster away from his agent and the yanked the young man to his feet.
"What are you thinking, Frost! Being alone with one of these things? It could have killed you!"
Aster's fur bristled in anger as he slumped against the wall. He wouldn't lay a single claw on Jack! The boy was the only one who treated him respect and not like an animal to be caged and studied.
"He wouldn't hurt me! We were just talking! Geeze Briggs, let go!" Jack snarled, glaring at the newcomer, agent Briggs, and then glancing at Aster worriedly.
Briggs cursed and shook Jack harshly once. "You little shit, thinkin' you can do whatever the fuck you want just because you got assigned a live one." Briggs hissed and tossed Jack pushed Jack against the opposite wall, invading his space. "Who's cock are you suckin'? Is it Arnolds? Are you fuckin' him too?"
"Go to hell." Jack snapped, then flinched as Briggs slammed his palm against the wall next to the younger agent's head, his other taking hold of Jack's chin.
"Don't you talk to me that way, you little mother fuc- Wah!"
Aster growled, deep and loud, as he fixed his eyes on Briggs. He held the man completely off the ground by the scruff of his coat and shirt. "Don't touch 'im."
Briggs looked terrified as he stared at Aster, shaking his head and whimpering agreements. Jack rubbed his chin as he watched the scene before him, knowing how bad this was going to be. As soon as Bunny put his fellow agent down, the man was going to run to their boss and tell him the Pooka was violent. Briggs would get Bunny killed, all because the rabbit-man stood up for him. Jack couldn't let that happen.
He stepped up to his charge and placed his hands gently on the furry forearm holding Briggs in the air. "Bunny, put him down."
Aster whipped his head to Jack, looking incredulously at him. "He was gonna hurt ya."
"No, he wasn't. I'm fine, he didn't do anything to me." Jack told him, smiling big to placate his companion. Tension he didn't realize he had draining from his shoulders as Bunny placed the now sniveling agent back on his feet. And, just as Jack predicted, Briggs promptly ran from the cell, not once looking back. Jack sighed and locked his hands behind his neck.
"I really wish you wouldn't have done that, Bunny."
"And why is that, agent?" Aster huffed, settling back onto his haunches and cocking his head in inquiry.
"Now that little snitch is on the way to Arnolds's office to tell him how violent you are, and then you're going to be labeled unfriendly. They're going to kill you, Bunny." Jack explained, panic beginning to rise. He couldn't let them destroy such an amazing being, not without even learning one thing from him first! Bunny was important! He practically made life, with just a light! Thinking quickly he formed a loose semblance of a plan. He had to get Bunny out of here. There were plenty of empty hangars he could hide the Pooka, just until he could find a way to keep him safe until he could get the egg shaped ship cleared. But ever hall had guards and every door had guards. The only way they'd be able to get out without causing a nasty scene you be to tunnel their way out. Which was not an option.
"We need to find a way out…" Jack mumbled, hands going to his hips as he paced. "I have to get you out of here."
"Where would I go, mate? If I somehow vanish from this cell they'll have the whole place lookin' fer me. And I don't exactly blend in."
"There has to be a way!" Jack exclaimed. "There has to… If I could just get you to your ship, I could get you out of here."
Aster's ears stood at attention at the mention of his ship. "Where is it? Maybe I could get us there."
Jack shook his head in frustration. "No you couldn't. That ship's in one of our underground hangars, I think its two down and we'd have, like, four sections over just to get to the elevator. There's no way."
Aster smiled and stood. He padded to Jack's side and held out a forepaw. "Ya wanna learn somethin' else about me, Jackie?"
Hesitantly the agent nodded slowly offering his hand to the Pooka. "Yeah…"
He yelped as Bunny quickly turned and hauled him onto his furry back. "Hold on tight." He smirked, and thumped his foot against the hard floor twice. His pride swelled when he heard the awed 'What the…' next to his ear as one of his tunnels opened at his feet; Aster even chuckled as the dropped down, Jack's enthusiastic 'Whoo!' invigorating him.
As the hole closed up, a single white daisy sprung from the ground, blooming innocently for the camera.
Tbc…