A prequel to Chapter 63
In the Celestial Realm, there were many beings born of the Prime Deities, Order and Chaos. Each had their role to help direct the Earth to become balanced and in harmony though application of both changes and stability. Even splashes of chaos were necessary to obtain total balance in a world governed by order.
One such Celestial was Karma, the canid goddess of consequence. She looked down in displeasure upon Earth, growling to herself as she saw a young fox tod being bullied by several prey animals.
"Deplorable!" spat Karma, her magenta fur bristling. "These children should be ashamed of themselves, bullying this eager, earnest young boy!"
Off in the distance loomed another Celestial, a giraffe. This unusually tall being slowly trotted over to Karma, a bored look over her face. It was Destiny, the goddess of finality and inevitability. Her coat of fur was a color that cannot be described by a mammal word, inasmuch as death is an indescribable mystery to mortals. In fact, from a certain angle, viewing Destiny would allow you to see through her fur and to her skeleton underneath, where around it surged the incalculable energy she possessed to command, attract, and direct souls. This energy rarely went used, as she was a somewhat lazy goddess.
"What has your interest, Karma?" asked Destiny with her droning voice.
Karma shook her head. "Surely nothing that would concern you, Destiny. However, I will be marking these children down in my accounts! They will all get what's coming to them eventually, and as far as the tod? He must be compensated for this injustice!" Furious, Karma trotted off.
Destiny sighed and rolled her eyes, looking at the display of Earth, specifically of Zootopia, where a weeping fox boy sat slumped against a stairwell. She found this hard to care about. Destiny and Karma were technically "sisters", as they both were Order's Offspring. Most Celestials, though, had some sort of counterpart in Chaos' Children; Destiny's was a rather frightening-looking bear named Paradigm, God of sudden, sweeping change. Together, Paradigm and Destiny could be called the Celestials of Death, though they had other duties as well. Paradigm could be as lazy as Destiny, as he also governed such things as hibernation, which he often indulged in himself when there were no major plagues or disasters occurring.
As it was, Destiny found it very hard to care about mortal affairs beyond her most custodial of duties: ferrying the souls of the departed to the Celestial realm where they would await reincarnation. The amount of praise or recognition the Celestials culled in those modern days was extremely low, as many mammals lost faith or belief in the idea that there were metaphysical beings that could, even in a subtle way, affect their lives.
Destiny blinked in mild surprise as she saw a soul wander towards the display and through it. Destiny sighed, shaking her head at the top of her long neck as she nodded at it and dispersed the display of Earth Karma had left on.
"What are you doing, wayward soul?" Destiny grumbled.
"I felt something," said the brilliant, indistinct sphere. Its voice was uncertain.
Destiny peered over the soul, gleaning some of its identifying marks. "I see. Well, you shouldn't have come here on your own. There is very little in the realm of Celestials for souls to do."
"Who am I?" the soul asked hesitantly. "Why can't I remember what I am?"
"Poor, unfortunate soul," Destiny said, and grit her teeth. Souls usually weren't so talkative, or curious. "What you were when you died has faded away over time, and you are left with only what is truly 'you' and cannot be differentiated from any other individual."
"Well, what sort of things would those be?" the soul flitted this way and that, as if uncomfortable.
"You are driven," Destiny sucked her teeth. "To get into trouble mostly, it seems."
"Why do I feel an ache...?" the soul stopped moving where the display had been.
Destiny groaned, looking away from the soul briefly. She had been eschewing one of her major duties, as she didn't think mortals "deserved" it, given their collective lack of faith. "Soul, do you remember stars?"
"Of course," the soul bounded around as if nodding.
"Stars sometimes rarely come in pairs or even more rarely, more," Destiny went on, "They are caught in each others gravity. When souls develop from the Source, sometimes they develop thus. We call your souls soul-bound."
"Where is my soul-bound?" The soul asked anxiously. Destiny felt mild alarm that the soul had already ascertained that it was a paired soul.
"He is..." Destiny looked away again, her expression even. "Already on Earth." If Destiny was doing her job well, the soul before her would already have a name and possibly have even met the young red fox already.
"I must go to him!" The soul vibrated eagerly.
"Well, as long as you're here in front of me," Destiny grumbled, "I might as well send you to Earth. He has a bit of a head-start on you, and..." Destiny pulled up a statistical display and looked through it. "Seems like I won't be able to put you anywhere very close to him, and I can't even guarantee you'll be his species. Are you sure you want to go now?"
"Yes! If there's nothing to do in the realm of the Celestials, I must go back to Earth!" The soul seemed to be getting more and more agitated. "Let me go and live!"
"You've always been... strangely agitated," Destiny huffed. "I suppose that's one thing about you that is rooted deep in that soul of yours. At any rate, come here."
The soul floated around the base of Destiny's neck and swirled around it to the top, where it paused briefly between Destiny's stubby horns. These glowed with energy that arose from within her, and she pointed her head at the direction of Earth and "fired" the soul out toward it.
There, Destiny thought. Technically, she had done her job, and even what the soul had wanted. She turned around and trotted off to some of her more usual haunts.
It wasn't her fault, she reasoned, if the soul never actually met its soul-bound.
"You did great, Bonnie," Stu smiled warmly. Giving some shaky huffs, he wiped some tears out of his eyes. "Just great."
"Oh, Stu," Bonnie grumbled weakly in the hospital bed. "You get like this every time I have a litter of kits."
"Well, forgive me for appreciating the miracle of life!" Stu chuckled weakly and wiped his eyes again. "What a precious little arrangement." Bonnie was carefully holding her six kits.
"The little gray one there," Stu noted. "She was the first one out, wasn't she?"
"Oh yes," Bonnie laughed tiredly. "She came out like she couldn't wait to get into the world. And my was she displeased! Quite a set of lungs on that one!"
Stu laughed proudly. "That's good! A good farmer needs a voice that can carry across a whole field. Is she okay?"
Bonnie nodded. "Mm, they're all fine. Would you like to hold her?"
"Of course!" Stu smiled. He softly took the small gray bundle from Bonnie, leaving her with the other five kits. "C'mere, my newest little loudmouth." The kit opened her eyes only briefly before shutting them again. Being born was hard work. "Wow! What a set of peepers on this one! Stunning violet, like yours."
"Any idea what we should name any of the kits?" Bonnie smiled serenely, laying her head back on the pillow. "We've already used a lot of good ones."
"How about Laverne for this little girl?" Stu smiled warmly at the tiny rabbit.
"Laverne?" Bonnie raised an eyebrow and her eyelids fell halfway. "Uh, no. That's the kind of name that could get you teased all throughout school. How about Judith?"
"Judy?" Stu smiled. "That's a nice name! Judy Laverne Hopps!"
Bonnie sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine, I guess Laverne works as an embarrassing middle name. Judith Laverne Hopps it is."
Unaware of her new christening, the baby bunny scrunched in her father's grasp. Didn't these noisy large creatures know she was trying to sleep?
"Now," Stu said. "How about the others?"