[5] 23 Days Until Easter

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

[It's been a weird start of the month for Bunny. What with Holly Peaks, then getting not one, but TWO people from his home world, one of which he assumed was long gone. All in the space of a week. To make matters worse, the castle had decided to do this on the very month where Easter was held.

He could have sworn the place had done it on purpose.

As is normal for him, instead of facing any of the worry and heartache Katherine's arrival has brought him, he's thrown himself into his work. It needs to be done, anyway, and it means he doesn't have to deal with his own feelings on the matter. It's win-win, really.

And so, anyone out in the gardens today will find red tulip-like flowers sprouting everywhere, look closely enough and there's a slight glow to them. A few flowers are also blooming, revealing small white eggs on spindly legs within them. The googies, freshly brought into the world, are all heading over to where Bunnymund is sitting, pots of paint beside him as he goes through the labourous task of painting each googie, then sending them down inside the safety of his burrow. To await their big day.

Of course, to those who don't believe in the Easter Bunny, they don't see him. As he paints, his journal is open beside him, so he can listen to the casual chatter of the residents, a splatter of paint occasionally hitting the page and soaking into the paper as he works]

That whole dodgy Holly Peaks mess put me behind schedule. It's not like I can access my realm here, y'know. Everything has to be done by paw. But if it thought it could put me off, then that plan went down the gurgler.

[Another paint splatter, then a sigh. He can't keep his mind off things as much as he'd like to] Anyhow mates. Have any of you heard about Jack Frost? Mother Goose?

Comments

[schrodingersghost]

Met him already. [Danny is very cheerful about that. About time someone cool showed up here. Pun entirely intended.]

Mother Goose? Son't think I've ever heard of anyone like that. [Jack and Maddie Fenton had preferred childhood stories featuring ghosts.]

...You taking up arts and crafts?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

Good. I did tell him he might have a new student or two. Watch him. He's tricky.

She tells stories to children, and rides on the back of a giant snow goose.

[He snorts] No, it's Easter soon, I'm working.

[schrodingersghost]

Tricky how?

...Seriously?

What's the big deal with easter?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

His center is Fun. He'll play practical jokes on you for his own amusement.

Yes. Something wrong with that.

You mean besides me being the Easter Bunny?

[schrodingersghost]

....Awesome! Its been ages since I've seen a good prank.

It just sounds kind of weird. And thats coming from a guy who fights ghosts. I mean, how big is that goose?

Yeah, I mean, it just has something to do with chocolate right? [Or so Danny guessed from the easter parties he remembered from elementary school. He'd never really gotten involved in it. Mostly he just remembered something about a rabbit ghost and his parents increasingly elaborate attempts to build anti-ghost rabbit traps. Most of them had exploded.]

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

You'll regret that. But if you won't listen, it's your own fault.

Very big. She can carry a person easily. And she's still only young.

[SILENCE. ANGRY SILENCE]

I hide the eggs for the children to find. I have to grow and paint and hide each one. It's not so hard, here. But imagine doing it for millions of children, all over the world. In one day.

[schrodingersghost]

...Cool!

Um, you hide a painted egg for each kid? Why? Isn't that a lot of work for something kids are just going to eat?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

Not just one, but plenty. It wouldn't be much of an Easter egg hunt if each kid just had one egg.

...And it's all worth it. Every single one I make, to see them happy. To see them hopeful.

[schrodingersghost]

...Eggs do all that?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

And me. It's an important holiday. It's about new life, rebirth for the planet. It's about hope that the next day will be a little bit better.

[schrodingersghost]

...The last time I heard someone talking like that, it was just before he tried to turn the whole planet into a giant garden. And all the humans into chloro-zombies and plant food. Please tell me that's not the kind of rebirth you're talking about.

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

...

Danny, your world is about as tropo as them come, you know that?

No. It's not that kind of rebirth.

[schrodingersghost]

Okay, I'll give you that it gets a little weird sometimes. But that kind of thing just happens.

So what is it?

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

It's like nature clearing her throat. Making everything fresh and new.

[schrodingersghost]

That sounds kind of messy.

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

Not at all, it's beautiful. You want to know what's messy? Winter.

[schrodingersghost]

...I kind of like winter. [Much better than summer. Ever since he'd developed his ice powers the summer humidity had been completely unbearable.]

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

[:|]

You would.

[schrodingersghost]

As long as it isn't Christmas.

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

[And suddenly, there is the slightest ray of hope that Danny is not a lost cause forever]

You don't like Christmas?

[He sounds far too happy about that prospect]

[schrodingersghost]

Of course I don't like it. The entire Christmas season sucks.

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

[And then everything was forgiven. Everything being the likeness he has to Jack, which he couldn't help in the first place anyway]

I thought I'd never hear someone say that.

[YEAH! Fuck Christmas!]

[schrodingersghost]

I just don't like it, okay? The whole things just annoying. And the most annoying part is that everyone thinks there's something wrong with you if you're not all into that christmas spirit junk.

[thatrabbitsdynamite]

Yeah, well. You'd like it even less if you had Santa looming about the place, constantly telling you how better his holiday is compared to yours.

[schrodingersghost]

...He's real in your world. Of course he's real in your world.

Well that's just great.