The trip from the horse village to the rabbit village was faster than she'd expected. Chiaki was glad though. The rains seemed to follow them as they moved, it started sooner and lasted a bit longer each day. By the last day, the ground had a layer of standing water making the plains become muddy to walk through.
"The flooding comes from the mountains to the west." Shuu said, pointing. "The village will have protective walls built by now though, so there shouldn't be any problems there."
"You've been this far south before, Shuu?" Chiaki asked.
"Once. When I joined the Highcliff guardsmen. I had to travel through the Greens Plains and bring down a giant sand digger to make my own armor with." He shrugged. "If you can't take down one of those on your own, you aren't much use as a guard."
Chiaki smiled with a nod, glancing at the System map she had up. Green Plains was the whole area, with the Beast God's Ribs, Dark Ice Mustang Village, and Little Leaf Rabbit Village being inside it's boarders. It was nice to be able to see where they were and had been, the world was less a giant blank mystery now. Excited thumping from the rabbit merchants caught her attention and Chiaki looked up to see a smaller group of rabbit folk headed their way.
"Looks like we are close to the village." Skye said, watching the two groups of rabbits rushed to greet each other.
That was indeed the case as the traveling group entered the rabbit village only a few short hours later. The village looked a bit different from the horse village. The houses were all mud brick and fired clay brick, with mostly flat roofs. There were no guest huts made of drying plant debris and hay tops. They were surrounded by excitable groups of people, small in stature but cute in looks. Chiaki even spotted a female from the village and thought she was probably the closest to 'cute' by human standards as any female she'd met on the world.
The streets were crowded, small rabbits dashing about everywhere. The merchants quickly made their ways to their own homes, leaving Chiaki and her mates at the center of the attention. Feet thumped, teeth clicked, ears moved in excitement.
"Make way, make way." An elderly female voice called. The twitching crowd stopped as a collective, all rabbits standing tall on their hind legs and looking towards the voice. The group parted and a small female, perhaps a foot shorter than Chiaki, came into view. She was obviously an elder, her hair gray and her face more wrinkled than a raisin. "Well, my goodness!" She said looking at the newcomers. "We have visitors! Why are all of you standing around?!" With her words, any rabbit beast that was an adult darted away to prepare.
Now surrounded by small bunny sized rabbits, Chiaki guessed they were being gawked at by children, many, many, many children. They ranged in size from about a normal earth rabbit to about two and a half foot tall. Their colors were mainly in the natural range, but a few sported exotic blue, purple or soft pink fur. Long ears, short ears, tipped with black here and there, other lopped over cutely. The rabbit village sported the most diverse genetic pool for a single village.
"I'm Hyun Jae Sook, the matriarch of the Little Leaf rabbit village."
The translation magic of the beast world seemed to hiccup when parsing the matriarchs name to her. Chiaki nodded politely. "I'm Chiaki Sato."
The small woman looked at her oddly. "Toh Chi-Aki?"
"Just Chiaki please." Not sure if she could clear up the translation easily.
"Chi-Aki, you are welcome in this village. As are you mates and litter." She waved to the basket of curious cubs that Curtis was holding. Chiaki wasn't sure when he'd transformed exactly, but it had been shortly before they arrived at the village. She was thankful, a snake entering a rabbit village could set off a whole host of problems.
"Thank you matriarch, we hope to stay for the rains and through the cold season."
The woman eyed the males. Just meat-eaters, like most females gathered. They probably would lack the finesse to help in the field harvest. She might be able to pass the small amount of hunting the village did in preparation for the cold season off to them. "I see, so you wish to live here?" She tapped her foot much like the males did while in rabbit form.
"You must make yourselves useful." She said pointing at the males and speaking to them directly for the first time. Her hand was thin and gnarled. "There are fired bricks that resist the rains, build a proper place for your mate to live." The her tone softened. "Children, take these males to the village brick yard."
A wave of small rabbits began to herd all the males away.
"...and I will see how useful you are." She said as she watched them go. "As for you-" She returned her attention to Chiaki. There was a pause as Curtis returned, basket of cubs in hand. Chiaki held back a laugh, seeing the already frazzled look from the snake.
"Kurt, I'll watch the cubs."
He gave a soft hiss, his snake tongue flicking out in agitation. "No, I will stay with you." He glared at the old female. She seemed unfazed by the male disobeying her.
Faolan and Mu Die found themselves pushed along with Chiaki's mates, the rabbit children not knowing any difference. The destination was not too far, a large open area with carefully piled stone. There were short towers of bricks, heat radiating off of them. The males working in the area could be seen mixing clay brick sludge the same as the horse village had. Others were forming bricks with a mold. Dry bricks were being packed into a baking tower. Fired bricks were being piled up into towers, just waiting to be used.
The workers stopped to look at the newcomers, but resumed after seeing it was only some males. One child pointed to the finished bricks. "G'maw said build home. Use these." The small gray rabbit then hopped on top of a stack of brick and thumped a foot against them. "See strong!"
One of the adult male rabbit men walked over. "Did the little one just say the matriarch sent you?"
Shuu nodded first, followed by the other males. Bai Di spoke up first though. "Apparently, we have to build our own place if we are to be allowed to stay."
The male laughed. His chocolate brown eyes twinkled in mirth. "I'll get you started, then."