~This is Why You Need Drainage Ditches~
On a rare rainy morning in June, Reisen woke up to a bouncing bunny turning her bed into an earthquake simulator.
"Aaugh…" Reisen half-groaned and half-yawned, sitting up without much enthusiasm. She grasped the bunny firmly by the shoulders. "Tewi, what are you playing at?"
"Waking you up!" giggled Tewi.
"I know," said Reisen heavily. "Why, though?!"
"It's raining!" declared Tewi.
"And?" growled Reisen.
Tewi's cheerful expression wavered a little. "Are you dense? No, don't answer that. The vegetable garden, Reisen! Everything's going to rot!"
Reisen gasped. "We have to do something!"
"Well done for finally reaching that conclusion!" said Tewi, giving Reisen a friendly pat on the head.
Reisen glared at her, but there was no time to press the issue. She quickly changed into her dress, put on some pink waterproof tights and non-stick teflon sandals and ran to the back garden.
The House of Eternity's vegetable garden was abuzz with motion. Rabbits ran to and fro with mud splattered as high as their knees, mopping up puddles, planting sponges between row upon row of vegetables and catching the rain in wooden buckets.
"Good grief…! What are they all doing?!" breathed Reisen.
"Keeping the crops dry! Haven't you done an honest day's work before?" said Tewi.
"Wh-what are you talking about?! Of course I have!" snapped Reisen. "Just, you know, not in this context…"
"Just grab a sponge and get to work," said Tewi, with a fond sigh.
Reisen couldn't shake the feeling the universe was playing an incredibly complicated joke on her, but she obediently waded through the small swamp that had once been a patch of flowers and retrieved a sponge from the shed.
"Oh, Reisen! Good to have you with us!" Decked out in the finest gold-trimmed overalls, Kaguya met her as she shut the door. She was carrying a filthy sponge and a large bucket.
"Princess?!" cried Reisen. "You… you're here too? Now?!"
"Of course! Everyone has to pitch in," said Kaguya brightly. "Tewi said the rice and celery can handle being wet, but the asparagus especially needs drying."
"And we're going to use sponges?"
"What else?"
"Um…" Reisen didn't know enough about farming to dispute her. "Where did she say the asparagus was?"
"This way." Kaguya took Reisen by the hand and led her through the garden. Bunnies scurried past them or dove between their legs as they picked their way through the soggy crops.
Several forlorn rows of asparagus were poking up from a long rectangle of mud. Kaguya immediately set to work sopping up the pools of murky water and emptying the sponge into her bucket.
Reisen knelt down, ruining the hem of her dress, and plunged her sponge into a puddle. She moved to squeeze it out and came to a worrying realisation.
"Ah," realised Reisen, "I have no bucket."
Where was she going to squeeze out her sponge if she didn't have a bucket?
"Well, don't delay! Go and get a bucket!" said Kaguya.
"Right!" Reisen ran back to the shed. She managed to take fourteen steps before she slipped in the mud and almost impaled herself on a carrot.
"That was close!" said Reisen shakily. The carrot was just a millimetre away from her body, its pointy end thrust skywards.
"Ow…" whimpered the rabbit she'd landed on.
Reisen gasped. "Oh, no! Are you all right?!" she cried, leaping up in a panic.
"I've been better…" The rabbit was wearing a yellow poncho a couple of sizes too big. She left a deep rabbit-shaped hole in the mud as she stood up. "I don't think we're gonna win, Reisen. No matter how fast we dry the fields, it just rains faster!"
Reisen bit her lip. The rain was pretty heavy; it had already rinsed most of the mud off her clothes. With Eirin's keen mind and the strong arms of a hundred rabbits there was little they couldn't do, but taking on nature itself was a monumental task. Perhaps it would be better if they salvaged what crops they could and left the rest for the worms.
Therein lay one of life's biggest contradictions: for all its many bountiful gifts, nature could take everything away in a heartbeat. Trying to control the cycles of living things was futile. Farming could give one a semblance of dominion, but it was more like riding a hippopotamus than a loyal, well-trained horse. You could try to steer it and tether it up while you slept, but sooner or later it would stomp to the watering hole, throw you off its back and have a bath.
A bath… Yes, that sounded good. Reisen was growing colder and wetter by the second, and the dense fur on her tail and ears was going to need at least an hour in warm, soapy water. She hadn't had any breakfast either. Perhaps she'd have porridge-
"Um, Reisen? Hello?!" The rabbit was jumping up and down, waving in front of Reisen's eyes every time she rose high enough. "Come on, Reisen, snap out of it! We have work to do!"
"Wha…? O-oh, right!" Reisen laughed nervously. "Sorry, I was lost in thought. Um, I think I was fetching a bucket-"
Something pressed up against Reisen's foot. She screamed, flailed her arms around and fell on top of a lettuce.
"Fear not, my sisters!" Tewi shouted as she emerged from the ground in a pile of mud and mostly-dry earth. "I have a plan! We're going to dig tunnels to drain the water!"
"Guhhh… Drain water? I-I get it…" moaned Reisen.
"Since you're so big, you'll be draining that big puddle outside the back door!" Tewi declared. "Try and come out near Kappa Valley. They won't care about a little extra mud."
"But that's miles away! Tewi, there's no way I can burrow that far!"
"Is that so?" Tewi smiled sweetly and pulled a bottle of orange liquid from behind her ear. "Drink this. It'll help!"
Reisen was not convinced. "It's not a laxative, is it?"
"Of course not! Cross my heart and hope to die!"
After a few moments' thought, Reisen took the bottle and gulped its contents down. The liquid flowed down her throat like liquid fire, making her cough several times. "Wh-what was that?!"
"Carrot wine." Tewi giggled. "Just normal carrot wine. No special ingredients. It may or may not be four hundred percent proof, though…"
"F-four hundred per…? Per…?!" A wave of unfettered joy suddenly hit her. Reisen's eyes started to glow. She leapt a full ten metres into the air, screaming in rapture. Mud exploded upwards as she hit the ground.
"What have you done?!" the other rabbit gasped.
"What do you mean? I just gave her a little pick-me up," said Tewi blithely. "I think she'll do just fine!"
"I hope so…" The rabbit cast a worried eye over the deep hole Reisen had left. She bent over the entrance and called out. "Reisen?! Hello?!"
Reisen didn't answer. She was already halfway to Misty Lake.