CHAPTER1
Emilia Jones was not a small bunny.
She was not a particularly large human, at least not in terms of height, but she was, in bunny terms, a chonky girl. There were many reasons for this. One—perhaps the most significant one—was that shifter animals tended to be larger than their true animal counterparts. Even, somehow, the ones that didn't make any sense. Grizzlies, for example. An average male grizzly bear weighed in around, say, five hundred pounds. Grizzly shifters, though, they landed in the six hundred and up range, and that was without even being, like, aKodiakbrown bear.
So Emmy would be big for a rabbit anyway. But to make matters…well, larger, if not worse, she was a Flemish rabbit shifter. Flemish Giants were the largest rabbits in the world. Been around for centuries. Bred for meat and fur, back in the day, but they were often show rabbits now. Emilia's family had raised them back in the old country, and kept doing so after they emigrated to Virtue, New York, more than a hundred and fifty years ago. Mostly because it was very hard to disguise a family of giant rabbit shifters in a place where there were absolutely no giant rabbits at all. It was practical. Emmy's family approached things practically.
Somehow no one had ever approached the practical topic of what a very large rabbit shifter was supposed to do if she had been out hopping around the springtime woods, sniffing flowers and nibbling grass, had gotten spooked by a fox, and had bolted into a no-kill trap somebody had set up at the edge of a clearing, probably for the fox.
The fox had come to sniff at her with a combination of bewilderment, amusement, and fascination. It couldn't get to her, although it tried for a few minutes, sticking its slender black paws through the small wire squares, and poking its skinny pink tongue in to lick her nose and ears. After a while it gave up and sauntered off through the grass, leaving Emmy to her utterly ridiculous fate.
There was nothing she could do. She couldn't even turn around in the stupid cage. She was too big. Her sides pressed against the wires, fur fluffing through the squares like a 'pet this!' display at a zoo or a museum. If she could turn around or even roll over, she might be able to jimmy the mechanism and release herself. She did, after all, at least still have human intellect behind her soft rabbit paws. But no. There would be no turning, no rolling, and certainly no shifting, because while her rabbit selfbarelyfit in the cage, her human self wouldn't fit at all.
This wasmortifying.
Her rabbit, who was relatively placid by rabbit standards, said,We're going to die here, because 'placid by rabbit standards' equalled 'wildly melodramatic by most shifter animal standards.' Otters were worse, maybe, but they were just ridiculous. Rabbits were, by nature, prone to alarm and panic. Emmy was used to it; her rabbit had been saying things like that her entire life.
We are not going to die here. The entire point of a no-kill trap is somebody comes along and gets the animal out and takes them to safety.
GOING. TO. DIE.
Emmy's little rabbit heart was going, well, rabbit-fast, and occasionally she was absolutely unable to stop herself from trying a desperate kick against the cage floor. Mostly, though, she sat there grouchily, concentrating on breathing slowly because otherwise her rabbit would make her hyperventilate, and waited for somebody to come let her out.
Although honestly, it was hard to be grouchy on a day this beautiful. The trap had been set deep enough under the trees at the meadow's edge that she wouldn't get too hot, and mild sunshine fell beautifully over the young wildflowers, bringing them to life. A gentle breeze ruffled the new grass, and birds darted across the blue sky, or paused in the branches to sing and call to one another. Everything smelled fresh and green and alive, and Emmy's rabbit gradually calmed down. She even started to get sleepy, because there wasn't much point in being awake when she couldn't go anywhere and nothing could eat her. Her ears twitched as a bug landed on them, but that was really about the extent of her ability to move.
Somewhere in the midst of drowsing, she realized the birdsong had changed. It took a while longer to realize the bird was whistlingOde to Joy, which, while not impossible, wasn't super likely. Emilia's ears perked as far as they could under the circumstances. Someone was coming to rescue her.
We're not going to die?
Itoldyou we weren't going to die.Emmy tried to sit up so she could get the rescuer's attention, bonked her bunny head on the top of the cage, and sank down again, squeaking with irritation. Rabbits weren't exactly known for their vocal range, but theycouldmake noise. They just preferred not to.
At least, they preferred not to until it became clear thatOde to Joywas walking right past them. There was a footpath at the edge of the meadow, tromped down by animals and humans alike, but it was far enough from the tree cover that unless someone was looking, they wouldn't necessarily see a giant rabbit stuck in a no-kill trap. And apparently her rescuer was not the person who'd set the trap, so they weren't looking. Emmy took a deep breath and threw herself sideways against the cage wall.
It would have worked better if she'd had more than half an inch of room to spare. She tried again, hoping to knock it over with a satisfying, human-attention-grabbingthump.
On the positive side, after a few more tries, the cage fell over.
On the not-so-positive side, it did not thump. There was too much new grass. It just fell over with a relatively quietfwump, and now Emmy was stuck on her stupid side instead of on her tummy, which was at least comfortable. She started squeaking in earnest, and, discovering she had a smidge more room to move, began kicking the bottom of the cage with her very strong hind legs. To her relief, it rattled meaningfully, and she let her rabbit decide they really were going to die, so she could really shriek.
Ode to Joystopped and a man's voice said, "Oh my God, what the hell? Hello? Is everybody okay? Is anybody okay? Hello? Are you okay?" A few seconds later he came under the tree, and Emmy, who was in full-on Bunny Panic Mode now, caught a glimpse of wide shoulders made wider by a backpack, a baseball cap, and sunglasses getting knocked to the ground as the man knelt to right the cage. "Oh my God, bunny! Look at you! What are you doing in there? Okay, okay, calm down, baby, I'll get you out. Oh my goodness, aren't you the biggest fluffiest bunny I've ever seen. Look at you. Look at you, yeah. Yeah, it's okay. It's okay, sweetie. You'll be okay."
He had a soothingly deep voice, although a great deal of what he was saying was pitched high and soft, in the reassuring tones used for babies and frightened animals. Emmy tried to slow her heart, but her rabbit had complete, terror-stricken control and was trying with everything it had to escape the cage.Calm down, Emmy told it.He's rescuing us. Okay? We'll be fine.
We're going to DIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
The thing was, as a nearly-thirty-pound rabbit, most of the ordinary threats were not actually all that threatening to Emilia. Hawks. Foxes. Owls. Weasels. A coyote or a bobcat, or even an ambitious eagle, would probably judge her worth trying to take on, butmostpredators that would normally go after rabbits weren't really all that dangerous to a rabbit her size. Convincing her inner bunny of that, however, was a lifetime job that had not yet fully succeeded.
In case of point, the rabbit, catching a glimpse of their hero's shadow as he moved in more closely, shrieked,DEATH! FROM! ABOVE!and tried with everything it had to run away.
Emmy swore to God, next thing she knew, the rabbit would decide she was under alien attack. Nothing less than pure, unadulterated drama would suffice.
"Shh, shh, shh, it's okay. Gosh, how did you even get in there, you must have been going headlong," the man murmured as he righted the cage. "What a big pretty bunny you are. Okay. I'm going to open the end of the cage now, all right? Don't turn out to be the Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog, okay? It would be embarrassing to have hiked from Seattle all the way to New York only to be taken out by a rabbit before I finished my trek."
Emmy, forgetting she was a bunny, squeaked, "The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog!" and did her best to give the hiker heart eyes.
He winced apologetically as she squeaked and stared at him, which, from his point of view, no doubt looked and sounded like an abjectly terrified bunny. "It's okay, sweetie, I'll have you free in a second, okay? Yeah. You're gonna be fine, poor thing."
She wanted to say, "But Monty Python!!!" and wiggle with excitement at meeting a guy who obviously, instantly, Got Her. Except that would look like continued fear, so she tried hard to hold still and gazed up at her hero with adoring eyes. Her surprise and delight at least calmed her rabbit, who stopped kicking so wildly as the hiker opened the cage. Emmy bolted out and was halfway across the meadow before she got hold of her rabbit's flight or flight response (it didn't really have a 'fight' response) and made herself turn around to look at her rescuer.
