Disclaimer - I don't own Astra Lost in Space. This is written for the second April 2022 regular challenge for the Froday Flash Fiction Challenge the word prompt being Easter Bunny. This is also a part of Collection Madness with this one focusing in on the Robots and artificial lifeforms collection with the two characters being genetically engineered clones.
Astra Bunny
"Astra Bunny used to be Easter Bunny?"
"Huh?"
"What we now call Astra Bunny to celebrate the midpoint between the winter and the summer equinox and the start of Spring was originally called Easter Bunny, a part of a strange tradition of a hare that laid eggs…"
"Hares don't lay eggs, Charce."
"Well, this is why they did away with religion, I guess?" Charce said. "Because some of it doesn't make any sense, even though I can understand being lost in space as we wanted to believe in some kind of god like Paulina does." He continued flipping pages. "But the Easter thing and the bunny thing were kind of a separate thing, then came together for a commercialized version where we get this delivering of eggs on Astra day by the Astra Bunny."
"Okay. So they did away with some of the religious stuff but kept others? Why?"
"Well, because something about these figures appeals to children," Charce said, looking up. "Though, did any of us do the Santa Clause thing?"
"Aries did. And she wants us to do it with our kids, this Evergreen celebration. Which doesn't make sense why it's called Evergreen."
"That was originally Christmas and a bunch of other winter holidays. The trees we use come from Christmas, and the tradition of lighting candles nightly comes from the celebration of Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. But those were nine and seven candles, respectively. The thirteen candles come from the Twelve Days of Christmas, a song with a thirteenth added as the day the couple from the song gets married, which is why Evergreen is a popular wedding period."
"So they couldn't leave behind the old traditions?"
"More of they recognized that celebrations of some kind are something that can bring people together, so they took what they thought of as the best parts of certain traditions and kept them, but it might have also made it easier for some of the people to calamari to not having religion I guess?"
"Yeah, but it makes you wonder if they were able to do away with religion at all. Technically, country boundaries were abolished, but look at the kingdom you rule?" And then, Kanata said. "By the way, this doesn't interest me at all."
"Well, I'm more interested in this Halloween and why it wasn't kept around because it sounds like it would have been a lot of fun as a kid, but I guess it's because monsters aren't real?"
"Monsters aren't real?" Kanata laughed. "I guess they didn't encounter the strange creatures we did on our journey, right?"
"Oh. True."
"Still boring, Charce."
"And what? You'd like me to talk about sports that have historically remained the same despite the transfer from Earth."
"Oh. True. Can we just not talk and me just lug around the stuff you want me to lug? Isn't that what I'm here for?"
"Well. Yes. That, and you're dating my daughter."
"Yes, oh, future father-in-law," Kanata snorted.
"Huh. This book talks about how money and other forms of power are a form of religion."
Kanata let out a sigh, rolling his eyes.
