Coming on the heels of Selaxes' latest installment of Sounds of the Heart, a new Celeste! He says Celeste and friends can now run free of the convolutions of his tale of woe, but obviously there will continue to be some bleed over, as both stories are running parallel. And, who knows, with the whiplash plot developments he's apt to throw at us, there could be some kicking and screaming as characters get dragged into glob knows what. (and I now discovered FFN won't allow some things in the text, such as the proper spelling of the author mentioned in the first paragraph)
She didn't quite know how to react to Riina's gift of an outfit. It was oh so nice, too nice for the routine wear that she was more used to. And it reminded her a bit of something Oh. Hennery might have written, with two individuals miss-reacting to each other initially and then over-compensating to make up for it.
For now, she'd save it for some special occasion, maybe if she got asked out for something. It didn't need to be a real date, and she was too soon after Jeremy to think of such still, but Paul at work was showing some interest in her, hopefully just as a friend for now.
Paul. What was it about that name locally? There were three Pauls in the shop, the wolf, the bear, and the Llama. Then there was the local pub, Paul's, with the owner, Paul, and one of the wait staff, Paul, and a couple of the regulars were also Pauls.
Oh well. With things settling down just a tad after the terrible video business, Celeste had been on hand to be shoulder to cry on at one point when Riina had a little breakdown. But with the broad and deep circle of friends and family to help, the little fox was in good hands.
On the other hand, the two were hardly BFFs, they had little in common aside from their entanglements with Hopps boys, but she hoped she could be counted on to be there if she was ever needed.
Getting something approximately regular also meant she could schedule some time as the Fluffy One for the Hopps compound, just a couple times a week for now. And special occasions. With such a large and closely-knit family, group events were common, and parent 'vacation nights', a dance party or some such, needed help for the collective baby-sitting.
But her schedule was also a bit iffy at the moment, as the fall harvests meant a lot of equipment getting ready or repaired throughout the Tri-borrows.
Celeste pulled in to the Sward compound, a smaller but going concern, one of the neighboring spreads to the Hopps. The hydraulics on one of their tractors, a venerable Springbok, likely older than she was, correction, older than most of the folks extant around it. As most of these folk had a fair amount of handimammal wherewithal, a service call meant something was seriously dead.
Even before the rather eventful summer, the appearance of a predator in most bunny compounds would create a nervous wave in the crowd. However, heretofore, Celeste was largely immune, as she was regarded as a rather slight kit or cub and entirely non-threatening. But the various incidents regarding pred/prey relations had heightened an often unwanted and unwarranted awareness and even she got a lot of wary eyeballs as she dismounted the service truck.
She had also become aware of a new social and even political edge to things, she, as a Coyote, had had an affair with a rabbit, a Hopps rabbit, and could be counted as a Hopps ally. And a friend of the foxes in the video. Even though the images were now thoroughly confirmed as faked, the damage had been done for too many folks around the 'Burrow, and she was suspect by extension.
"So, Hershel, what's the problem?" Celeste approached one of the elders she'd worked for before.
"Don't work." The old black and white buck deadpanned, then shrugged. "Figure the hydraulic pump's dead, there's a grinding noise and no pressure."
"All at once?"
"One of the boys was using the machine and wasn't paying attention. Worked when they first brought it out, didn't work later."
They shared an eye-roll at that.
"Let's take a look."
The tractor itself was one of the mid-size types, large enough to do some serious work, but not so big as to be unwieldy for the bunny operators. It was old, and had seen some hard use, but was not yet all that seasonally work dirty and looked cared for. But when Celeste saw the hydraulic pump, she knew there was going to be trouble.
"Where did that come from?" Pointing to the mystery off-brand pump that appeared to be cloodged into position. Worse, it wasn't on the isolated power take off, but a smaller unit driven more directly out of the transmission.
"We got the tractor from Uncle Don when he gave up his little spread over by Deerbrook. He had all kinds of other stuff jerry-rigged on to the thing that we've replaced with more or less original parts since. We didn't want to even touch this thing, hoping it would last."
"I can understand why." And Celeste crawled in to take a closer look. What a mess. All the fittings had odd thread adapters and a multitude of plumbing joints where one or two would do. One output had a column of elbow joints, used to reach a hose that was a few inches too short.
"Can you start it up?"
"Sure thing."
It took only a couple revs to hear bad thing and she shouted, "Turn it OFF!"
"Sounds like gears. Let's just hope it's all on the pump and none on the engine."
She headed back to the truck for tools. "I took the chance of bringing a replacement, if you want me to do it. It's a rebuild, but I can get you new if you want." She knew Pablo would prefer a little up-selling, but didn't begrudge economizing. Better for long-term business.
Herschel asked how much, Celeste had a figure for the work and part. He couldn't help but make a face, but shrugged, it needed to be done. And she could likely do the deed quicker and more reliably than he and his kin might be able to fumble through.
Celeste had to warn, "That's if it's just the pump. Once I pop that thing open, we might find other damage."
He could only shrug.
As she returned to the tractor with a toolbox and bucket to catch the likely flood of fluids, she kept an eye on the small knot of youngsters who watched from a little distance. Several were simply waiting for the job to get done so they could get at the various tasks that the tractor was needed for, a few were actively curious to see the fix. Others were just idly watching the show. But she did notice the less than neutral attention she got from a few, and wondered how many of them were Riina's or Hopps'classmates.
To the technically curious, she narrated her progress, pointing out the whats, whys and hows. Suddenly, there was a cry from the watchers, one of the girls had her tablet 'phone out and was reacting very badly to what she saw. The initial reaction turned into a hysterical shriek and she bolted from the shed, running blindly away. Everyone simply stood there in puzzled surprise at that until she collapsed about fifty yards on and made a momentary awful writhing motion then lay still.
At that the adults on hand bolted towards her, as she was having a shock crisis. In some cases of extreme emotion, bunnies can go into a kind of systemic failure that could be life threatening. While it was more common that they might be literally scared to death, for some, extremes of grief or hopelessness could also trigger the reaction.
Celeste too recognized what was happening. During her time with Jeremy they talked about a lot of things, including rabbit physiology, outside of reproduction for the most part, and many of the special quirks rabbits were susceptible to. He had explained some of the practical first aid for this kind of situation, not all of it obvious or intuitive.
She was right behind the elders who clustered around the fallen young doe, not entirely sure how to proceed. Seeing the hesitation around her, Celeste forced her way in. Crouching over the prone figure, she checked for a pulse, fast and weak for the moment, then she balled her paw and ground the knuckles down the girls chest, grating at her sternum. The heretofore limp bunny squirmed with the pain and Celeste gave her a couple sharp face slaps, supporting her head with her other paw, being terrified of hitting her too hard and doing an injury to her neck.
"OW! Stop!" Weakly but clearly, arms attempting to rise and fend off the blows. Then an outburst of sobs and clutching at one of her kin.
The cluster was growing with the youngsters then warily approaching but no one had any notion as to what happened until another girl, Mica, exclaimed, "Oh my teeth and whiskers!" Then rushed up, holding out the girl's 'phone. "Tara's attempted suicide. That's what set Jessie off!"
"Tara?" Another girl, Debbie picked up the explanation. "Tara Lagontelli. She's one of those sosh types, little clique of bad girls, and she's the worst, so the tale goes."
"Jessie, what's up with you and her then?"
Now recovering, Jessie sobbed and coughed a bit before answering. "We were kind of friends for a while. Not like her little circle. But I knew she was having - problems. All queen bitch on the outside but, I dunno, hurt or something inside. Then she started nipping."
There was general recoil at all that.
"You're not using are you?"
"Around all those horny bucks? No way I'm gonna get that kind of stupid. Besides, its crazy expensive, and booze is cheap." And she did a 'said too much' cringe, being rather under age for alcohol.
Another adult asked, gently, "So why the reaction, you had us really scared."
The girl shuddered again, "I knew she was getting worse, but I didn't try to stop her or tell anyone. So it's my fault it happened."
As everyone's attention was focused on the young bunny and to assuage her guilt, Celeste was able to extract herself from it all and get back to work.
Those poor delicate creatures.
Removing the pump revealed that it had been poorly installed, with an unnecessary spacer plate that had left only a minimal gear engagement. With all the load on just a tiny fraction of the tooth surface, the teeth had rather dramatically failed, though, luckily, all apparently on the pump side.
As she set about installing the replacement, she saw Herschel approach.
"Glad you were on hand to help with that."
"It's not too bad, just the stripped gears on the pump. Properly installed, the new one ought to last as long as the rest of this beast."
The old Rabbit snorted at the deflection.
"The one to thank is Jeremy Hopps. If I hadn't been hanging out with him this summer, I wouldn't have had a clue." That ought to cover several bases.
He pursed his lips, recognizing all that she had implied. She finished the job and wrote up an invoice, pointing out he could settle with Pablo at his convenience. He held out his paw and she took it, most Rabbits would find pretexts to not shake, including the practical matter that she often still had oil or worse on her pads. But he didn't show any concern for the grease stains on his furry palms as he gratefully pumped her paw.
That didn't go so bad. The job was simple enough and Pablo had a new trophy for his WTF hardware collection. But as she drove, she began to think about the other thing.
Sure she had helped the poor girl. Saved her life? Maybe, maybe not. The rest ought to have figured it out, she just did it first. No big thing. Then why was she shivering with tension? Memories of Jeremy? Doing the right thing? Being so close to a crisis? She knew that many would feel elation with such a heroic act, special accomplishment, something.
She felt none of that. Maybe it was all social expectation. She saved a life, fixed a pump, both helped others. But the pump felt like a job well done. The girl - only a sense of disquiet. She thought about the Old Ways for a moment, could she have interfered in some Fate? Snatched away Death's prey?
Or was it the dread of praise? She'd never sought attention. Do your job and keep your head down was her life.
Her thoughts kept going back to Jeremy. He'd know what to say, what to do. In the moment, that what she really missed about him, his calm wisdom and compassion.
His warm, velvety body wasn't far behind though.
Part of her wanted someone to cuddle, to be cuddled. To have another soul close and to comfort with intimate proximity. Going to the Hopps compound for some fluffle time didn't seem quite right. She was the giver for those little ones, but now she was the one in need.
She shook herself in frustration. She never 'needed' before, not like this. This sense of dependency was unpleasant, a sign of weakness. Well, maybe that was a bit of an overstatement. But it did fly in the face of her sense of self-sufficiency.
She went back to the shop, and to an unwanted welcome from the whole crew. Social media had beat her back and everyone now knew of her heroic rescue.
"Come on everyone, I was there and knew what to do and that was that." The little coyote whined in the face of her co-workers. Pablo Jr. saw her discomfort and shooed everyone back to work.
He was shrewd enough to see that the last thing she wanted was any special attention, not unlike her day-to-day accomplishments of often-exemplary work. She was not one to take praise comfortably, so instead, he asked her about the job, and was amazed and delighted with the glob-awful contraption at the heart of it.
He could also tell she was a bit distraught over the experience. "Do you need some time?"
"No. Just some work to keep me busy."
There was a harvester in bay three that needed a whole new set of hydraulic lines. The machine itself was an antique, or at least what little of it was left after decades of repairs and replacements. It reminded Celeste of the old joke about the beast's favorite axe, explaining that, in the decades of hard use, he had replaced the handle five times, and the head twice.
Certainly there was plenty to keep her distracted and she finished her shift well into the job. Commonly, she'd work overtime to get a particularly fussy job done, or at least to a reasonable break point. But today had been a bit much and she needed the break.
The wolves had noticed her discomfort earlier on and had largely given her some space. Now that the work was done for the day, Paul was there with a sympathetic face.
"You okay?"
Celeste grimaced, "Not so much. Been worse." She considered a moment. "Could you..." Conflicted as to what she wanted and what she needed in the moment, "I could use a hug, if you don't mind."
Paul hardly needed urging to hug a cute little female, even as he recognized it was simply a comforting embrace. He was young and full of romantic nonsense, but for the moment he was content to take what he could get.
