Hi everyone and welcome back to my story Follow That Future!
With only 1 review and 2 follows in the time it's gone up, I'm quite surprised that it's gotten some feedback and follows already but I'm happy.
Also I'd like to announce that recently I've got lucky to have someone to help me out with this story. His name is Beecroft who you might recognize from his work in the What If Collaboration by Cimar Wilde Hopps. Beecroft can be found at:
u/2238095
I'm very pleased with your help with me on this work going forward. Now, let's get back to the story
Chapter 2: On The Way From Misery To Happiness:
An hour had passed since the Sandleford Survivors left their former hometown on the road north to a newer destination for living in based on Fivers dream that no future would happen if they stayed. He hadn't had a new vision yet but the other rabbits were trying to make use of their time on the road as much as possible in the meantime. Bluebell begun thinking up funny jokes while spreading them out to have enough for their journey. Violet was discussing the excitement of making new friends in their new destination to Acorn, Silver and Speedwell. Blackberry had taken it upon herself to reading some of Sandleford's history to Pipkin and Hana. Buckthorn, Hawkbit and Dandelion were listening to a bit of country music on Hawkbit's Swansung S8 plugged into a set of Oceantooth Speakers. Holly was taking a nap on the left side of the bus next to Pimpernel behind Bigwig up front and Hazel was comforting his brother who'd just been staring out his window watching the sights roll by.
After about half an hour of more driving, they spotted a giant building shaped like a barn named "Batter Up Buffet" with a tan coloured buck by the name of Buck Ruth holding a bat on the sign plastered on the upper front of the barn. At first they didn't know what to make of this place but given there was a stand up sign reading "All You Can Eat", that caught the attention of everyone who was awake. Bigwig decided it made sense to preserve their rations on the bus if there wouldn't be more places of getting food for miles. That sign spoke to their hunger even if they didn't know what it is. They just needed food given they hadn't eaten any breakfast before departing their hometown.
"Oi, seems this is a good place for getting food don't you think Hazel?" Bigwig said as he stopped the bus.
"Certainly even though none of us know what a buffet is," added Hazel. "Attention everyone!" He whistled a bit with his right paw and grabbed everyone's attention including Pimpernel who woke up. "We're on our first stop in our journey for food. Now I'm sure none of us know what buffets are but we've seen a sign that says all you can eat and our rations here need to be saved. So all of us will be getting our first big fill of food here alright?"
"Any meal is good for me!" Hawkbit said first. Everyone else cheered and got off the bus to walk quickly to the entrance. Hana scurried up onto Pipkin's head to be safe.
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Inside the barn, there surprisingly was a lack of hay on the ground but instead were clean wooden floors. A giant buffet table sat in the centre of the eatery with sections for hot food like steamed carrots, cold food like salad and a desert bar with stuff like jello. Several of the tables were behind wooden fences to give off the impression of stables and there was a ton of space indicating this area was prepared for large quantities of mammals. There were a few rabbit families in some of the stable sections eating and chatting loudly with each other.
"Look at all those carrots!" exclaimed Pipkin as he tried to run over to the steaming tray of steamed fresh steamed tall carrots. Hazel held him back a bit.
"Whoa slow down little one," chuckled Hazel. "Let's settle down first and see how this works." He spotted a female spotted brown deer who he waved over to their group.
"Welcome to the Batter Up Buffet!" Smiled the deer doe with a name tag reading Katie at Hazel. "How many are with you today?"
"15 rabbits and one mouse," Hazel replied pointing to Hana who waved from the top of Pipkin's head. "Now we're all new to this thing but what is this buffet and how does it work?"
"Oh buffets are basically places where there are big trays of food that you pay a certain price for to have all you can eat," Katie replied. "Here, let me show you how it works" She picked up a tray, a plate and grabbed the black plastic tongs in the carrot tray snatching about 3 carrots inside its grasp before letting the tongs open and drop them on her plate. "That's how you serve yourself at a buffet. Get a tray and a plate first. Then go to the tray of food you like and use the tongs or scoopers to grab what you want to eat for yourself. Its that simple!" She then set down her sample plate to go off and greet another set of rabbits coming in
"Doesn't seem that hard," Hawkbit said out loud. "let's eat!" Everyone began a lineup at the buffet to get their food in this grand new experience.
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Several minutes later once everyone had gotten a plate of food while Katie and some other employees pointed out what stuff like jello was, they all sat at a table kind of centric in the middle of the place quite close to the buffet. Hazel then tapped a spoon on the top of his brown plastic cup of water to get everyone's attention.
"Hey everyone," Hazel spoke loudly and everyone immediately turned to face him. "It is with my pleasure that we all get to partake in our first experience of a buffet and survived a great natural disaster from yesterday. Now being that this will be a long trip for all of us, we should all get to know each other. I'll begin, my name is Hazel Shawnson."
"I'm Fiver Shawnson, Hazel's brother and apparently some sort of vision seeker?" Fiver smiled awkwardly. Hazel patted his back for comfort.
"Retired Lieutenant Bigwig Stevens and proud server to Captain Holly," Bigwig boomed with a smile on his face with a left paw salute.
"Captain Holly Sanders, retired war fighter who helped save many good lives in the past," Captain Holly added giving a firm right paw shake to Bigwig.
"Hawkbit Ross, sarcastic grouch who enjoys a bit of music and rest," Hawkbit said with a big grin on his face.
"Dandelion Phillips, Fast runner with a love of stories," Dandelion spoke holding up his leatherbound journal
"Blackberry Nicola, Expert clever healer," Blackberry smiled holding up her brown plastic cup of orange juice.
"Pipkin Anderson, a young buck who hopes to be in an Owsla someday!" Pipkin shouted happily
"Bluebell Davidson, a joker who tries to use humour to deal with any kind of situation," Bluebell Smirked.
"Speedwell Richardson," spoke a slightly Light brown thin buck with dark Brown eyes. His tone kind of struggled to stay happy. "That there is my brother Acorn." He pointed over to his left a brown grey thin buck who was slightly smaller than him who looked up quickly from munching on some turnip slices for a quick smile before going back down on his plate. "Much like Bluebell, I do try to use humour for making the best out of any situation but I'm easygoing though both of us aren't too sure about leaving our home given we've lived in it for so long with only each other to rely on."
Bigwig wanted to scold them about staying but taking a quick look at their thin state and how Speedwell comforted his brother after his intro and the way his tone barely was able to hold onto sounding happy throughout the whole speech, he instead decided a paw at encouragement.
"look lad," Bigwig spoke to Speedwell calmly. "I know it's difficult but none of us had a choice here. Either we leave and survive or stay and die. Obviously survival is a better option but here all of us now are living and breathing for another day." He paused briefly to look at Acorn. "You 2 just focus for now on getting something in your stomachs to keep your strength up alright?"
"thank you mr Bigwig," replied Acorn once he finished his turnip slices. The intros then continued.
"Hana is my name but I'm afraid I don't have a last one," Hana said atop Pipkin's head. "I'm a wanderer but I'll do my best to help out."
"Silver Rowanson," said a light grey buck softly. "Nephew of my deceased uncle Ralph Rowanson and the last in my family but I'll work my best to make sure to play my part in helping in our survival too."
"Buckthorn's the name. A tough buck who hopes to join the Owsla someday is my game!" Buckthorn announced grandly. "Don't worry, I'm easygoing and quiet too," He added lowering his voice.
"I'm Pimpernel," said a tall milk chocolate colored Buck quietly. "I-I-I-I am glad to survive and be here with you friends alive but there's No-no-no hope now..." he stammered before sitting back down quickly and burying himself into his plate of cabbage.
"Hey calm down there old boy," Holly said calmly patting the shaking buck on his back. "there is hope, all of us are still alive right? It'll be fine."
"O-okay H-h-holly," stammered Pimpernel. "I'm just going to eat my cabbage okay?" Holly simply nodded yes.
"I'm Violet, an outsider to you lot," said a pale purple doe with magneta eyes. "I'm a visiting doe from my parent's farm and girlfriend to Buckthorn." Buckthorn blushed at the mention of being her boyfriend. "I'm probably the most unfamiliar with a lot of these new concepts but I hope to learn more."
"No worries love," Buckthorn replied with a wink of his right eye. "We'll all pitch in to help you learn more and I'll personally attend to your needs."
"Does that include getting into her pants?" joked Hawkbit.
"Hey s-shut up!" exclaimed Buckthorn turning red from embarrassment.
"Actually Hawkbit, I'm happy to learn from you all," Violet answered. "Though you were right, Buckthorn did do that though we only got as far as cuddling in our underwear to date."
"well I'll be darned," chuckled Hawkbit.
"Now that we're all done with the intros, let's focus on eating," decided Hazel. Everyone agreed and went back to their food. Hazel smiled at some of the stuff happening in front of him. Hana was in front on a special mouse sized table in front of Pipkin's plate so every rabbit could see her eating, Buckthorn had gone back to chatting with Violet over their relationship status, Pimpernel was keeping quiet and focused on his cabbage, Bigwig had begun trading war stories to Holly about their time on the battlefield and Dandelion was looking at his past works in his leather bound journal. Truly, they were all blessed with this time together
Fiver noticed several prey and predator employees pushing out carts full of steaming food he couldn't see all of from a distance. He saw some carrots sticking out of one tray and some turnips sticking out from another but they were all coming out of the kitchen doors.
"Excuse me," he called out to Katie who was passing by their table. "What's with all the big carts of steaming food?"
"Oh, those carts are carrying fresh food from the kitchen," Katie explained. "You see in buffets, that not every bit of food will be eaten today so we have to replace the trays every so often with fresh food and during your little introductions to your group members, one of the rabbit families cleaned out a big bunch of stuff like carrots, turnips and radishes already. So we're replacing food such as those for example and given that a lot of rabbit families tend to come in here, our staff is constantly cooking to insure there's always fresh food available."
"Ah sounds good," piped up Dandelion. "Carry on then."
Pimpernel was about to bite into one of his sliced turnips when his ears picked up the sound of a big whooshing behind him.
"Oh Frith it's another angry swirling wind!" He cried covering his eyes with his long ears. Holly got up from his seat and went behind him for a comforting shoulder rub.
"Shh, it's alright Pimpernel," soothed Holly. "There aren't anymore of those here."
Actually the sound came from a vacuum of one of the janitors who was a male raccoon sucking up some dropped tortilla chips from the floors around the buffet. He stopped the machine once he saw the panicked reaction of Pimpernel.
"Oh I'm sorry about that, is he alright?" asked the male raccoon coming over. His name tag read Mathew.
"Our Friend Pimpernel is a bit shaken up from our trip," Holly explained. "We've actually survived an angry swirling wind that tore up our home town badly and had to leave for a new home. We're still figuring out where to go from here."
Mathew cocked his head right confused at the strange way of describing that before tilting it back up once he knew what they meant."
"You must be talking about a tornado," Mathew replied. "Lucky you all survived and sorry about your homes. Hope you find a newer place soon and don't fear the vacuum. They help clean." Pimpernel nodded okay weakly before the male raccoon turned it back on and continued sucking up garbage on the floor.
Many of the food on their plates disappeared fast and then the group went back for more quite a bit. With how hungry they were, the replacement food carts came out at least 2 times. Desert was great too although they needed instructions on what stuff like jello is but it turned out to be a tasty treat. Since they knew what ice cream, cake and pie, jello became a new favorite treat of theirs.
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After finishing their food, it was time to pay up. The buffet charged 10 dollars a mammal and the total rounded up to $160 dollars. Holly paid for it using a bunch of the cash register town cash from Sandleford from his end. He also tipped a generous $5 and soon they were off. Hana decided to ride atop Blackberry's head this time for the way out into the parking lot
"Man, I'm stuffed after that buffet," muttered Speedwell. "yet I'm glad my brother and I have full bellies for the road!" He hugged Acorn tightly.
"You know if we got any fatter but were light, all of us could float away like balloons!" Bluebell laughed.
"Well anyways, it's time we got back onto the road huh Hazel?" Bigwig asked as he opened the bus doors.
"Exactly Bigwig," Hazel answered once everyone got onto the bus and he climbed on as the last passenger. "Our journey is to continue north to wherever its intended for us. Any visions yet Fiver?"
"Nope, nothing yet but continuing north should be our priority," Fiver replied.
"That's fine brother, all of us shall continue that way now," Hazel said patting his back.
Shutting the doors, Bigwig gunned the engines and reversed out of the parking lot and drove forward back onto the main road heading north. It'd be a long journey but all the survivors felt a bit better with food and drink in their stomachs, each other and a bit more spirit in their continuing journey for a new home wherever it is.
Here you go everyone. This chapter is a bit short just for introducing the characters to everyone so their names and some of their personalities and/or skills become familiarized with all readers. Don't worry, there'll be more adventure to come soon as the group continue on their journey and will come across a new working place that may be more dangerous than it seems.
Leave a review, tell me what you think of it so far and stay tuned for the next chapter!