“You have got to be kidding.” Carlene stopped and looked back towards Trent’s little saucer and wondered if she’d be able to get to it in time. Probably, whatever it is doesn’t seem to be moving very fast, she thought, but he has the keys. Screwing up her cowardice, she plodded along behind Trent, keeping her eyes on the moving spots.

The white spots converged, making one large white mass in the middle of the grass field. The light of the moon shone on them, and it almost seemed as though the spots had fur. The ripples of movement almost suggested conversation or a consultation,with one or two of the spots seeming agitated, and the rest, well… whatever a not agitated spot would do.

Trent seemed to notice this to, as he stopped and scanned the now white blur before him. Apparently the white mass had reached a decision, because it was surging forward again with a few spots breaking off and disappearing around the edges.

But are they leaving, or surrounding us? Thought Carlene.

Eventually the spots made their way within easy seeing distance, and paused again. This time, they seemed to be purposefully giving Trent and Carlene an easy opportunity to view them without getting to close.

And the creatures were taking their own time analyzing the creatures before them. Eventually, one spoke, and Carlene assumed that it was the first spot that they had seen moving over the hill.

“Greetings” it said in a high, chittering voice. “Take me to your leader?”

Carlene fainted.

When she came to, there were several small white faces staring down at her. Fighting the urge to slip into blissful oblivion, she forced her eyes to stay open and take in her surroundings. After all, being unconscious only makes murder easier, and she certainly didn’t want to stay long enough to find out if that was their intention!

“Woman, woman” the speaker poked her with a soft paw. “Mistress? You live?”

Carlene shrieked and the little fluffy creature covered its ears with its paws. Or, at least, it covered two of its ears… it had four of them. Its two noses twitched.

“Woman, no. So loud, children, you’ll wake them. And make me go deaf.” It shook its head as though to rid itself of a dreadful nuisance.

“What, what are you?” Carlene gasped and tried to crawl away, but found that laying on her back was a bad position to move around in. Especially after having been unconscious for, oh, she didn’t know how long.

The creature leaned closer to her, and Carlene had to stifle a scream. “Woman, what are you?”

“What?” What an impertinent question, wasn’t it obvious? “I’m. A. Woman. I should think that’s obvious!”

“Yes, yes, yes. We know that. The man said so. But what are you?”

“I’m a woman. A human. What on Earth are you?”

“Earth? This is no Earth. What is Earth?” The creature seemed thoroughly disgruntled by her answer. “And what is human?”

Not Earth? Oh, right. Trent had said he’d wanted to go off the map. And then one of the burners had gone and he’d had to actually stop on one of the smaller satellites.

“Woman, what is human?” The creature prodded her again.

“Um… me. Human, people. What are you?”

She took in his two twitchy noses, his four long ears, four beady black eyes. And soft, luxurious fur. Carlene simply itched to pet him, but resisted. It might be rabid.

“Are you a rabbit?”

The creature drew itself up proudly. “Why of course! And what else would be on Rabbitania?”

“Rabbitania?” Carlene stifled a giggle. What a ridiculous name.

“Come” said the rabbit, “we will follow your man, and eat.”

Follow my man and eat? Eat what? I don’t want to know…

The rabbit hopped up, and waved her forward. Slowly, Carlene got to her feet and followed.

They seemed to be in a large cave with smaller tunnels running off in every direction. Even down. She’d had to step carefully around several of those before they reached another large tunnel with a delightful smell emanating from it. Her stomach growled, urging her own despite her own misgivings. Hopefully the smell wasn’t Trent.

A few minutes later, they emerged into another large room with several more tunnels sprouting off into various directions, but thankfully, none of the tunnels went down.

A low, round table sat in the middle of the room, with cushions instead of chairs. Then again, as Carlene considered it, rabbits weren’t naturally built for chairs. The head rabbit indicated that she should sit, and glancing to her left, she saw that Trent was already there, sitting cross legged on one of the cushions. She did the same.

“Excuse me.” She said to the head rabbit. “I don’t even know your name.”.

The rabbit considered this for a few minutes, and then finally addressed her. “My name, is Mr. Fuzzhat. My companions here, “he waved towards the rabbits on either side, “are Mopsy, and Mr. BunBun. And you, Woman? What is your name?”

Carlene paused, then finally gave her name.

Mr. Fuzzhat wrinkled his two noses. “What very odd names you humans have.”

He clapped his paws twice, and everyone was seated, including a few females which Mr. Fuzzhat introduced as his wife, Flopsy, and his daughters Tricksey, and Chocolate.

Eventually, a few heavily laden trays made their way to the table with the assistance of several more rabbits.

“Please, help yourselves.” Mr. Fuzzhat indicated the platters of delicious smelling food as Carlene and Trent both took plates from one of the wait staff.

As much as Carlene wanted to ask what was in the food, it all seemed straight forward enough. And, after all, rabbits were vegetarian. Correct? She assumed that it would be safe to eat without worrying about ingesting any previous travelers.

She watched her bunny hosts to see what the proper way of things was before joining in.

Taking a helping of a bowl of noodles and vegetables, a serving from another bowl containing herbs, oil, and what almost seemed to be pork was mixed into the first. The dish turned out to be very spicy, and quite tasty, but the presence of pork concerned her until Mr. Fuzzhat assured her that it was merely a special kind of root.

Near the end, a dish came out containing a round piece of crispy pastry, much like what a fried egg roll wrapper would be back home. With it, came a small, square piece of what seemed to be exceptionally fluffy omelets.

This omelet like item was placed on top of the crunchy item, and eaten much like a miniature taco. It was quite delicious, but at one point, a hard, long strand of something got caught in her teeth. As Carlene removed it from her mouth and from the strange eggy taco, Mr. Fuzzhat looked at her wistfully.

“I wish I could get a string for an heir.”

Flopsy glared at him. “Albert, absolutely not.”

“But, I’ve always wanted an heir. It’s very important, you see. And that’s a splendid one right there!”

“No.”

“But Flopsy, dear…”

“That’s disgusting, and I don’t want to hear any more about it. It’s been in that human girl’s mouth! No, no heirs unless you find one yourself.”

Carlene was very confused and disturbed by this exchange, but decided that it was a question that would just have to wait. But she lost her appetite and set the rest of the taco thing down.