If you’re sad that you didn’t win- don’t despair (much), you can still bid on the coffee pack, or the tea pack on eBay.

“It’s not as though I had any choice in the matter. They’re visitors, guests, and they haven’t any way home. We shall help them as best we can and then send them on their way.” Mr. Fuzzhat removed his fur clump from the nest and tossed it out the door.

Flopsy gave a sniff, and turned onto her side. “I don’t see how you can call them guests. I say intruders, and don’t you dare nay say me.”

Mr. Fuzzhat heaved a sigh and plopped himself down next to his wife. He sniffed at her ears and nibbled a bit at her cheek.

“Not tonight. I have a headache.”

He sighed again and lay down.

*

Carlene followed the sounds of banging and flowing water in hopes that it would lead to a kitchen. Last night’s dinner had been delicious, aside from the “heir” incident.

Eventually she came to a door that indeed had many pots and pans, but they were all being washed very carefully by several hairless rabbits. Scrubbed was more like it, and in fact, the pots and pans were not the only things being scrubbed. Every time a bit of food, or even soap landed on anything, anything at all including other scrubbers, the item was immediately converged on by all the others and scrubbed mercilessly until spotless.

After watching for several minutes, and seeing as many rabbits scrubbed as minutes that passed by, Carlene decided that there was a reason they were all hairless, and that it wasn’t a fashion statement. She chose to move on rather than asking any of the serial scrubbers any questions. There was no telling what they would do to her in her current state of dishevelment.

She continued to follow the main paths carved in the warren, eventually finding a room that appeared to have several members of Rabbitania that she’d met the previous night digging into the morning meal.

“Ah, greetings.” Mopsy stood on his hind feet and bowed towards her. “Won’t you join us? We’ve already begun breakfast, and I apologize, but we did not wish to wake you.”

Carlene nodded in greeting and sat down. A few seconds later, one of the hairless rabbits from the kitchen arrived with a bowl of soggy grains. Mopsy leaned towards her and whispered, “Apologies again, Lady, but this servant is something of a cereal scrubber. There’s no stopping him, I’m afraid. One wrong word and you could be hairless for years.” He shivered a bit, and then dug into his meal.

The hairless rabbit stopped in the middle of the door way, sniffed twice, then pounded over to Mopsy, swiping the glasses off Mopsy’s face and scrubbed the heck out of them. After a careful inspection, he handed the glasses back, sniffed again, and hopped off.

Carlene sat shocked at the proceedings, and after the hairless bunny was out of sight, Mopsy confided to her that “those blasted scrubbers are at least good for some things. My vision has never been better!”.

“Are you quite well? Perhaps you’d like to have a bit of a lie down. Yes, that’s it.” He clapped his paws again, and the servants appeared to clear away the dishes and leftover foods. “Come with me. We have few rooms suitable for persons of your size, but I think we have a room or two that might do.”

“Go? But, oh no, couldn’t we just…” Carlene trailed off when she realized that she didn’t know anything about how to fix a saucer. And why wasn’t Trent speaking up? It was his little sports do, after all. She fixed Trent with a glare, who merely shrugged. In truth, he had a strange light in his eyes as he looked about him. Carlene shivered and decided to leave well enough alone.

“Come, come” said Mr. Fuzzhat. “I’ll show you the way.”

So Carlene reluctantly stood to follow Mr. Fuzzhat, and he led them through a large tunnel to the left of the cavern they were currently in.

“This way, quickly now. My, but humans are slow.” Mr. Fuzzhat hopped quickly down the corridor, and Carlene and Trent hurried to keep up. As they passed several branched tunnels, even Carlene’s curiosity grew. The burrow, for that’s what she decided the cavern must be, was humongous. How could anyone have a memory strong enough to allow them to navigate easily? And how long it must take to get anywhere from anywhere. The branching tunnels certainly didn’t appear to be in any sort of order, and judging from the tunnel they were in, none of them were altogether straight.

Eventually, after passing by several tunnels and rooms where crashing, running water, and a few screams could be heard (that sounded as though it may have been the children of the local inhabitants protesting bed time), they came to another series of tunnels that branched very quickly into a series of rooms. Mr. Fuzzhat pointed to two of the largest, and waved them on.

“Yes, yes, I think you’ll be very comfortable in here. Please, take your rest, and we’ll show you more of our home in the morning.” And without so much as seeing them into their rooms, Mr. Fuzzhat hopped off. They were well and truly stuck as there was no way they’d find their ways out of the burrow without a guide. And for all they knew, they could starve to death in the search. There was nothing for it but to head to bed.

“Goodnight!” Trent stalked off to the furthest of the large rooms, and laid on the floor with his back to the room’s entrance. Clearly he was in no mood for a cuddle.

With a sigh and a shiver, Carlene moved to the next large room and settled onto the floor. There were bits of hay and fur all over the floor, almost as though it was an abandoned nest. Given the intelligent nature of their hosts, Carlene shoved it all away with a shiver and lay on the hard stone floor. Thankfully, it wasn’t too cold, and she soon fell into a deep sleep.

The next morning when she awoke, Trent had already left the room next to her. She waited a bit longer in case her hosts should appear, but when her stomach began to growl, she decided to suck it up and try to find a kitchen or dining room on her own.

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.

She grabbed Trent’s arm, and stood shivering beside him. Trees swayed in the wind, and the tall grass rippled before them. The faint smell of carrots ebbed and flowed with the breeze.

“What? There’s nothing here. Not even bugs as far as I can tell.” Trent pried her fingers from his arm and stared around him, daring any creatures to show themselves to this earth man and, his, woman. Puh. His woman indeed.

Why is it that a few drinks and a morning after suddenly made two people a couple? Ridiculous really. It certainly hadn’t meant anything to him, and how was he to know that she was the clingy type? He shook off another of Carlene’s attempts to grasp him.

“I’m going over there. Maybe I can find something to fix this hunk of junk.” Trent gave the small ship a swift kick and set off grumbling towards the hill.

“No! Wait! I’m going with you. There is no-way-in-heck-that-you’re-leaving-me-here-alone.” When he shrugged, she pulled her already tight sweater even tighter around herself, and step jogged to catch up to him.

The night was cold and windy, and yet there didn’t seem to be any sound except the rustle of the branches and grass. Eerie. As though they were the only living beings on this planet.

Carlene shivered again just thinking about it.

“Wait, Trent, you’re going to fast.”

“Heh. If only you’d said that yesterday.”

“I’m not the one who kept ordering shots all night.”

“I wasn’t the one drinking them either.” Trent pushed a branch out of his way and let it swing back, hitting Carlene square in the mouth.

“Well at least I… What was that?”

“What was what?” Trent didn’t stop moving.

“That noise. Like, like a chittering. And the grass sounds different.”

“The grass sounds different?” Trent scoffed, but paused to look around anyway.

“There, I heard it again. Look!”

Carlene’s trembling finger was pointing straight at a white spot in the distance. As they stood, trying to see what it was, the spot began to move closer. Soon, several more white spots joined the first, and they all began creeping towards the couple.

“What is it?” Carlene was holding Trent’s arm again, but this time he didn’t push her off.

“I have no idea.” Trent began to move forward again as well. “It’s obviously alive, whatever it is. The question is whether we should run, or try to meet it.”

“I vote for run.”

“Then I say forward.” Trent began to climb the hill. The white spots were nearly on them now, but still impossible to make out. Either the creatures were very small, or they were hunched over too far to be easily seen in the tall grass.

Ya’ll get a chance to win this:

Yup, full of goodies.

Are you or a loved one participating in National Novel Writing Month? If so, you (or they) are going to need all the help you (or they) can get to reach the 50,000 word minimum by the end of November. This NaNoWriMo Survival Pack includes:

• 1 copy No Plot? No Problem! novel-writing kit by Chris Baty- the founder of NaNoWriMo (kit includes 48 page booklet with inspiration, instructions, activities, and anecdotes- Month long, guided, displayable log with gold star decals for keeping daily and weekly track of your progress- Motivational materials, pep-talking letters, and commitment coupons designed to keep your energy up and your word count flowing- The Radiant Badge of the Triumphant Wordsmith) Please note that while this book/kit is new, it’s a bit dinged up and has a HUGE crushed part at the top (though this is a box containing the kit, and not the book itself)

• 1 memo pad for jotting down plot ideas, names, details, etc.
• 1 smiley face pen with neck-strap
• 1 snack bag of Lay’s potato chips in Barbecue flavor
• 1 snack bag of Doritos in Cool Ranch flavor
• 1 foil bag of The East Indies Coffee Company ground coffee in Wizard’s Spell flavor (maple walnut)- makes 8-10 cups
• 1 foil bag of Arbuckle’s Fine Roasted Coffees in Blueberry Muffin flavor (100% mountain grown Arabica coffee- makes one pot)
• 1 tin of sugar/fat/calorie free coffee flavoring tabs- Cinnamon Pecan or Dutch Chocolate (48 flavor tabs) is available, but… I’m auctioning off a similar pack, and the buyer of that pack gets to choose. You get what’s left over.
• 1 Snickers Charged bar with Caffeine, Taurine, and B-Vitamins
• 1 Snickers Marathon Energy bar with 16 vitamins and minerals and 14g of protein (chewy peanut butter)
• 1 Ritter Sport dark chocolate with whole hazelnuts
• A handful of cherry Hershey Kisses and Hot Cocoa Creme Hershey Kisses

For those not in the know, NaNoWriMo is a grueling, 30 day ordeal involving sleepless nights, foodless days, and a growing dependency on caffeine and sugar. And then there’s the writing.

How to enter? Simple. Go to NaNoWriMo.org, register, and add me as a buddy. If you’re already registered and my buddy, you’re already in. No prob. Then, come back here and leave a comment telling me that you’ve buddied me, and make sure that I have a way to reach you if you win. That’s it. If I can’t reach you, you can’t win.

I do need to say, however, that the contest is only open to people living in the US and Canada. This is because I’m cheap, and already spent over $15 on the pack supplies, plus I’ll be paying for shipping. I really don’t want to have to deal with customs crap. Please feel free to tweet or blog or stumble the contest, NaNoWriMo.org, or whatever else you feel like. It won’t gain you more entries, but it’s good karma to let other people know about free goodies.

Contest ends November 3rd at midnight, Eastern time. Winner to be announced on Tuesday.

If you’d rather not tell anyone about the goodies, feel free to send them to my NaNoWriMo Coffee Survival Kit auction, or my NaNoWriMo Tea Survival Kit auction.

Just remember, this giveaway is for NaNo participants only! Now, have at it!

I will warn you: this story is going to be intentionally atrocious. I mean, REALLY bad. On purpose. Think Rabbitania. Think Serial Scrubbers. Think Service Manuels.

Why? Because I need the feeling of actually accomplishing a novel. Just writing something that big, no matter what it’s about should help. I’m a perfectionist, and can’t let myself write something that isn’t perfect. So purposely writing something that ISN’T perfect, should work. Right?

And besides, it’ll be FUN.