Day 27
Hmm, maybe I can finish it today. If I can get into it. ... Oh yes, I can! A winner is me! :D
Well, I actually passed 50,000 yesterday, but today I've also finished the story, so real winner! *thumbs up*
It appeared that Amanda had a very regular schedule, and even this long after Jessica's involvement with her, she was able to identify exactly where she would be at that time of day. It was apparently "Amanda time," when she liked to be alone for a short part of the day, relaxing in her luxurious room.
They had taken the fast way through the castle. That is, they had hitched a ride on their larger guides. Jessica had been more than willing to help Rob, and on the urging of Roger, she had agreed to split the labor evenly with him and take Arthur as well.
With the decreased weight, the trip had been quick and relatively painless. Luckily, no one had fallen off the backs of the energetic rabbits.
Outside the doors to Amanda's room, they had stopped. While Jessica checked that Amanda was definitely alone in the room, Rob took the ring out of his bag, saying his final goodbyes.
"Are you ready to go in?" Jessica asked, unable to hide her own excitement.
Robert took a deep breath before answering. "Alright, let's do this. But you lead the way."
Jessica and Roger went first, occasionally checking that the mice were still following them. As they got deeper into the room, the mice were slightly confused. They didn't see anyone else inside. Amanda would have been towering over the bed had she been standing, but she wasn't visible. She wasn't even in bed.
"Where?" Dan started, but he was immediately hushed by Jessica.
"You'll see her in a moment," Jessica said quietly, leading them around the bed.
There, they saw the human. This human had very long fur on her head. She was sitting down on the ground and some of her hair was laid out flat on the carpet -- another new word that they had learned on their short journey through the castle. Her head was down as she was sorting through some papers. As they approached, it became clear that they were colorful drawings. Some were of the castle and its grounds, others seemed to be representations of her.
The mice kept a safe distance as the rabbits approached, nuzzling the part of her leg that was furthest away from most of her.
"Oh!" she gasped, looking down. "Is that you, Jess?" She asked, extracting her hand from the papers to pet her. "What are you doing here?"
Roger put his relatively little paws on her leg to get some attention. "Hello!" she laughed, picking him up and bringing him closer to her. "I see that you brought your little friend with you, Jess."
Rob was conveying his words to the rest of the group as quickly as he could. They were rather amused, seeing these large, informed creatures getting treated like this.
"I'm afraid I don't have anything for you," the princess said, trying to split her attention evenly between the two rabbits. "Anyway, I haven't seen you in ages," she added, sounding slightly accusing.
Jessica wriggled out from under Amanda's hand, hopping once in the direction of the mice. She succeeded perfectly in getting Amanda's attention. "You brought even more little friends. That is a bit unexpected." Now she was watching the mice closely, petting Roger almost automatically.
Robert collected his courage to step forward, holding out the ring. Jessica stepped out of the way so that Amanda could see him very clearly. "What's that you have there?" Amanda asked.
As Jessica started translating for the rest of the group, Amanda gasped. "Is that?" she asked weakly.
"It's just a ring," she tried to tell herself. Her eyes widened out even more when Robert walked a bit closer to her, holding out the ring as far as his little arms would allow.
"For me?" she asked quietly. Robert could only nod.
Suddenly, she reached out and grabbed Robert, lifting him up to her head. He could only squeak in terror and hold tighter to the ring. "I'm sorry, little guy," she said, opening up her hand carefully and letting him stand up. It was a strange terrain, but he could stay upright.
She was trying to see something on the ring, and in a stroke of brilliance, Rob realized that it was probably the inscription that she was looking for. He repositioned the ring in his arms so that the strangely textured inside was visible to her.
"Oh, Dominic," she said in a quiet choked up voice. "How did you ever find this?" she asked Robert in a weak voice.
He held it out towards her again, his arms getting tired as he began to regret giving it up. Finally, Amanda brought her other hand closer, bringing oddly flat claws very close to him. As she took hold of the ring, Rob clamped down on it, initially preventing her from taking it.
"Please?" she asked, and Rob finally released the ring.
Her face lit up when she was holding the ring and she lowered her hand so that Robert could return to the ground. She placed the ring on her finger and watched it for a little while before she was brought back to reality.
She looked carefully at the mouse that had returned the ring to her, as well as the other animals that had surrounded him. "Oh, I have the perfect thing for you!" She exclaimed suddenly. "Don't go anywhere," she added, standing up and quickly crossing the room.
She returned with a box that she opened on the ground as she sat down again. It was filled with shiny baubles, more rings, plenty of colorful stones and even glittering strings. "There it is," she said, pulling out a gray ring. It had a red stone, too, but this one was cut to be round, not square. It seemed slightly brighter as well.
"It's too big for me," she told Robert, bringing it down to the ground so they could inspect it. "It's too much hassle to adjust it if I can just give it to you. Do you like it?" she asked hesitantly.
Not one to disappoint, Rob nodded quickly, touching the ring as he circled around it.
"Then it's yours!" Amanda said. "Hold on." She picked it up again, carefully slipping it over his head. It rested against his neck, the stone protruding under his mouth. It was loose and not too heavy to carry. "What do you think of that? Do you like that?" Amanda asked, seeming slightly unsure of herself.
Rob nodded eagerly, running forward to nuzzle her hand a bit.
She laughed. "Well, you certainly deserve it."
They stayed with Amanda for some time, getting petted as she spoke little nonsense to them. Eventually, though, even she had move on with her day. With a couple of last ruffles of fur and ears, she stood, collected some things and left the room.
Roger offered to teach them more things, and Jessica encouraged this, even volunteering to go along with them. The group of explorers, however, begged permission to discuss the current state of affairs amongst themselves first.
"We've done quite a lot in a few days," Jackie started.
"Not that I don't want to learn more," Rob said, "but there is such thing as too much in one sitting."
"I never thought that I would hear you say that," Dan commented.
"Still, this is going a little bit beyond our capabilities," Arthur said. "I can't see us being able to get the whole picture, not matter how long we stay out here."
"At least, not enough to satisfy the Sergeant," Rob said. "He won't be happy to see us back so soon."
"He would be pleased to know more, though," Jackie pointed out. "Then he could send us back out to find out more. He could even send out more people."
"We'd at least know what we were looking to find out," Dan said.
"Are we all okay with going back, though?" Arthur asked. "This is going to be a hard thing to give up."
"It's not the end of everything," Jackie said.
"It could be," Dan reminded them, unfortunately experienced with the Surperiors' attitudes towards these matters.
"It's not the end if we don't allow it," Rob said, strengthened by his new ring.
"So we check back in with the Sergeant?" Jackie said.
"Yes," Rob said. Arthur nodded.
"Well, we have about two days to turn back," Dan said.
"We'll need the rabbits to lead us back to the gates so that we can find our way back," Rob reminded them.
"So we'll take the opportunity to learn just a little bit more," Jackie said.
They rejoined the rabbits and told them of their plan. As it turned out, the rabbits were a bit curious about the inside of the castle as it had been quite a while since they had been permanent residents of the place. So, Roger and Jessica would accompany them for about half the trip, or a single day.
They would travel at the pace of the mice so that they would be less likely to get lost and they would try to avoid attracting attention. Most excitingly, they would answer as many questions as possible to continue their education. After all, they had not had proper guides for their journey through the castle and there was many things that they knew nothing about. The suits of armor were only the beginning of some very long and interesting stories to come.
Entirely too quickly, they found themselves at the gates of their own colony again. It was completely unreal. They had quieted their chattering and Rob had concealed his new ring in his bag again. The group was sufficiently subdued to be presentable to the Sergeant.
There was no running through the gates this time. They simply held their breaths and walked in casually. Arthur led them to his nook as they discretely looked around, remembering their old lives.
"Arthur!" The couldn't help it; they jumped at the strange voice.
"Paul, hello," Arthur said pleasantly.
"I haven't seen you in a couple of days," Paul said casually.
"Oh, you know, special assignment," he answered, shaking his head with the familiarity of the burden.
"Oh, tough," Paul said sympathetically. "Hope you find the time to rest up," he added as he passed by them, apparently on a mission of his own.
"Thanks. Have a good one!" Arthur called back cheerfully. "Nothing to worry about," he added in a low voice to his companions.
After some chilled milk and a rest on Arthur's couch, they had to move on. They left most of the baggage at Arthur's place, not wanting to attract unnecessary attention as they made their way through the colony. They did, however, take their notes and drawings in a ratty old briefcase of Arthur's.
The walk through the colony was uneventful. No one else was recognized along the way. They made quiet note that the excitement of their mission seemed to have died down, but the colony seemed to be moving forward in much the same way as it always had.
At the council house, however, they did meet a little bit of resistance. Robert had forgotten that not everyone had free reign to just wander in and request the Sergeant's audience. Eventually, the guard gave in and asked for their names so that he could at least minimally cooperate.
The resulting situation was quite satisfying for the group of explorers. They introduced themselves pleasantly, watching as the guard's eyes widened more and more, threatening to pop straight out of his skull. They were ushered through with a copious amount of apologies and found themselves facing the Sergeant behind his desk.
He stood up in surprise when he recognized his visitors. "Am I to understand that your mission was not a success?" he asked in some surprise.
"No!"
"Not at all!"
"You wouldn't believe all the things we learned!"
"Outside the castle even!"
The quality of the conversation quickly degraded as they started talking over one another. Only snippets of information could be picked out.
"The other colonies are very odd. They sleep during the day and are awake during the night!"
"That's barely the beginning! There are all sorts of creatures running around out there."
"They're quite nice, a few of the rabbits even told us quite a bit about the world and nature and royalty."
"That's nothing compared to the humans!"
"They're huge!"
"And deformed!"
"But most of them seem rather nice."
"Some are even scared of mice! Scared, can you imagine?"
"Oh, the light is absolutely overwhelming."
"It's gorgeous outside, the sun shines so brightly from the sky."
"The moon and stars aren't half bad either."
"The lake was gorgeous."
"We got a great chance to go outside a second time."
"Oh, we tried not to miss a single thing!"
"There are enormous trees!"
"The squirrels are rather charming, too."
"And the flowers!"
"They're gorgeous!"
"Such fabulous new smells!"
"It's positively stuffy in here!"
"I'll miss the feel of grass under my feet."
"I'll miss the carpet more!"
"I think I'm going to miss the princess a bit more."
They stopped suddenly as they saw that the Sergeant had fallen back into his chair. His eyes were very wide and his mouth was open.
Rob had never seen Sergeant Downs like this before. "What's wrong, Sarge?"
"I suppose I always knew that it was a possibility," he said, seeming a bit sad.
"What's a possibility?" Jackie asked curiously.
"I thought you would never succumb to that," the Sergeant said. "I thought I picked a group that was stronger than that. Still, if you've lost your minds, I should just be grateful that you found your way back here."
"What?" It was time for the explorers to be surprised.
"This carried too much risk, even with a large group. We definitely won't make this mistake again," he said, no longer even pretending to address them.
"I--"
"We're not--"
"Go home," the Sergeant said with a sigh. "Just go home."
Dan was the most surprised. "But, Sir!"
"All of you, just go home," the Sergeant repeated firmly. "You'll be better off with someone to take care of you."
They couldn't move; they were too shocked and confused.
"Go home!" the Sergeant snapped, and this time they all ran out the door.
They stood in the hallway, not sure what to do or say.
"I told you that there was nothing to worry about," Robert said weakly.
They all started to laugh. They were free from the colony. They would definitely be able to leave again and enjoy the outside. All their notes were their own. There was no one left to answer to. They were truly going home, and they couldn't say anything through their laughter.
Well, I actually passed 50,000 yesterday, but today I've also finished the story, so real winner! *thumbs up*
It appeared that Amanda had a very regular schedule, and even this long after Jessica's involvement with her, she was able to identify exactly where she would be at that time of day. It was apparently "Amanda time," when she liked to be alone for a short part of the day, relaxing in her luxurious room.
They had taken the fast way through the castle. That is, they had hitched a ride on their larger guides. Jessica had been more than willing to help Rob, and on the urging of Roger, she had agreed to split the labor evenly with him and take Arthur as well.
With the decreased weight, the trip had been quick and relatively painless. Luckily, no one had fallen off the backs of the energetic rabbits.
Outside the doors to Amanda's room, they had stopped. While Jessica checked that Amanda was definitely alone in the room, Rob took the ring out of his bag, saying his final goodbyes.
"Are you ready to go in?" Jessica asked, unable to hide her own excitement.
Robert took a deep breath before answering. "Alright, let's do this. But you lead the way."
Jessica and Roger went first, occasionally checking that the mice were still following them. As they got deeper into the room, the mice were slightly confused. They didn't see anyone else inside. Amanda would have been towering over the bed had she been standing, but she wasn't visible. She wasn't even in bed.
"Where?" Dan started, but he was immediately hushed by Jessica.
"You'll see her in a moment," Jessica said quietly, leading them around the bed.
There, they saw the human. This human had very long fur on her head. She was sitting down on the ground and some of her hair was laid out flat on the carpet -- another new word that they had learned on their short journey through the castle. Her head was down as she was sorting through some papers. As they approached, it became clear that they were colorful drawings. Some were of the castle and its grounds, others seemed to be representations of her.
The mice kept a safe distance as the rabbits approached, nuzzling the part of her leg that was furthest away from most of her.
"Oh!" she gasped, looking down. "Is that you, Jess?" She asked, extracting her hand from the papers to pet her. "What are you doing here?"
Roger put his relatively little paws on her leg to get some attention. "Hello!" she laughed, picking him up and bringing him closer to her. "I see that you brought your little friend with you, Jess."
Rob was conveying his words to the rest of the group as quickly as he could. They were rather amused, seeing these large, informed creatures getting treated like this.
"I'm afraid I don't have anything for you," the princess said, trying to split her attention evenly between the two rabbits. "Anyway, I haven't seen you in ages," she added, sounding slightly accusing.
Jessica wriggled out from under Amanda's hand, hopping once in the direction of the mice. She succeeded perfectly in getting Amanda's attention. "You brought even more little friends. That is a bit unexpected." Now she was watching the mice closely, petting Roger almost automatically.
Robert collected his courage to step forward, holding out the ring. Jessica stepped out of the way so that Amanda could see him very clearly. "What's that you have there?" Amanda asked.
As Jessica started translating for the rest of the group, Amanda gasped. "Is that?" she asked weakly.
"It's just a ring," she tried to tell herself. Her eyes widened out even more when Robert walked a bit closer to her, holding out the ring as far as his little arms would allow.
"For me?" she asked quietly. Robert could only nod.
Suddenly, she reached out and grabbed Robert, lifting him up to her head. He could only squeak in terror and hold tighter to the ring. "I'm sorry, little guy," she said, opening up her hand carefully and letting him stand up. It was a strange terrain, but he could stay upright.
She was trying to see something on the ring, and in a stroke of brilliance, Rob realized that it was probably the inscription that she was looking for. He repositioned the ring in his arms so that the strangely textured inside was visible to her.
"Oh, Dominic," she said in a quiet choked up voice. "How did you ever find this?" she asked Robert in a weak voice.
He held it out towards her again, his arms getting tired as he began to regret giving it up. Finally, Amanda brought her other hand closer, bringing oddly flat claws very close to him. As she took hold of the ring, Rob clamped down on it, initially preventing her from taking it.
"Please?" she asked, and Rob finally released the ring.
Her face lit up when she was holding the ring and she lowered her hand so that Robert could return to the ground. She placed the ring on her finger and watched it for a little while before she was brought back to reality.
She looked carefully at the mouse that had returned the ring to her, as well as the other animals that had surrounded him. "Oh, I have the perfect thing for you!" She exclaimed suddenly. "Don't go anywhere," she added, standing up and quickly crossing the room.
She returned with a box that she opened on the ground as she sat down again. It was filled with shiny baubles, more rings, plenty of colorful stones and even glittering strings. "There it is," she said, pulling out a gray ring. It had a red stone, too, but this one was cut to be round, not square. It seemed slightly brighter as well.
"It's too big for me," she told Robert, bringing it down to the ground so they could inspect it. "It's too much hassle to adjust it if I can just give it to you. Do you like it?" she asked hesitantly.
Not one to disappoint, Rob nodded quickly, touching the ring as he circled around it.
"Then it's yours!" Amanda said. "Hold on." She picked it up again, carefully slipping it over his head. It rested against his neck, the stone protruding under his mouth. It was loose and not too heavy to carry. "What do you think of that? Do you like that?" Amanda asked, seeming slightly unsure of herself.
Rob nodded eagerly, running forward to nuzzle her hand a bit.
She laughed. "Well, you certainly deserve it."
They stayed with Amanda for some time, getting petted as she spoke little nonsense to them. Eventually, though, even she had move on with her day. With a couple of last ruffles of fur and ears, she stood, collected some things and left the room.
Roger offered to teach them more things, and Jessica encouraged this, even volunteering to go along with them. The group of explorers, however, begged permission to discuss the current state of affairs amongst themselves first.
"We've done quite a lot in a few days," Jackie started.
"Not that I don't want to learn more," Rob said, "but there is such thing as too much in one sitting."
"I never thought that I would hear you say that," Dan commented.
"Still, this is going a little bit beyond our capabilities," Arthur said. "I can't see us being able to get the whole picture, not matter how long we stay out here."
"At least, not enough to satisfy the Sergeant," Rob said. "He won't be happy to see us back so soon."
"He would be pleased to know more, though," Jackie pointed out. "Then he could send us back out to find out more. He could even send out more people."
"We'd at least know what we were looking to find out," Dan said.
"Are we all okay with going back, though?" Arthur asked. "This is going to be a hard thing to give up."
"It's not the end of everything," Jackie said.
"It could be," Dan reminded them, unfortunately experienced with the Surperiors' attitudes towards these matters.
"It's not the end if we don't allow it," Rob said, strengthened by his new ring.
"So we check back in with the Sergeant?" Jackie said.
"Yes," Rob said. Arthur nodded.
"Well, we have about two days to turn back," Dan said.
"We'll need the rabbits to lead us back to the gates so that we can find our way back," Rob reminded them.
"So we'll take the opportunity to learn just a little bit more," Jackie said.
They rejoined the rabbits and told them of their plan. As it turned out, the rabbits were a bit curious about the inside of the castle as it had been quite a while since they had been permanent residents of the place. So, Roger and Jessica would accompany them for about half the trip, or a single day.
They would travel at the pace of the mice so that they would be less likely to get lost and they would try to avoid attracting attention. Most excitingly, they would answer as many questions as possible to continue their education. After all, they had not had proper guides for their journey through the castle and there was many things that they knew nothing about. The suits of armor were only the beginning of some very long and interesting stories to come.
Entirely too quickly, they found themselves at the gates of their own colony again. It was completely unreal. They had quieted their chattering and Rob had concealed his new ring in his bag again. The group was sufficiently subdued to be presentable to the Sergeant.
There was no running through the gates this time. They simply held their breaths and walked in casually. Arthur led them to his nook as they discretely looked around, remembering their old lives.
"Arthur!" The couldn't help it; they jumped at the strange voice.
"Paul, hello," Arthur said pleasantly.
"I haven't seen you in a couple of days," Paul said casually.
"Oh, you know, special assignment," he answered, shaking his head with the familiarity of the burden.
"Oh, tough," Paul said sympathetically. "Hope you find the time to rest up," he added as he passed by them, apparently on a mission of his own.
"Thanks. Have a good one!" Arthur called back cheerfully. "Nothing to worry about," he added in a low voice to his companions.
After some chilled milk and a rest on Arthur's couch, they had to move on. They left most of the baggage at Arthur's place, not wanting to attract unnecessary attention as they made their way through the colony. They did, however, take their notes and drawings in a ratty old briefcase of Arthur's.
The walk through the colony was uneventful. No one else was recognized along the way. They made quiet note that the excitement of their mission seemed to have died down, but the colony seemed to be moving forward in much the same way as it always had.
At the council house, however, they did meet a little bit of resistance. Robert had forgotten that not everyone had free reign to just wander in and request the Sergeant's audience. Eventually, the guard gave in and asked for their names so that he could at least minimally cooperate.
The resulting situation was quite satisfying for the group of explorers. They introduced themselves pleasantly, watching as the guard's eyes widened more and more, threatening to pop straight out of his skull. They were ushered through with a copious amount of apologies and found themselves facing the Sergeant behind his desk.
He stood up in surprise when he recognized his visitors. "Am I to understand that your mission was not a success?" he asked in some surprise.
"No!"
"Not at all!"
"You wouldn't believe all the things we learned!"
"Outside the castle even!"
The quality of the conversation quickly degraded as they started talking over one another. Only snippets of information could be picked out.
"The other colonies are very odd. They sleep during the day and are awake during the night!"
"That's barely the beginning! There are all sorts of creatures running around out there."
"They're quite nice, a few of the rabbits even told us quite a bit about the world and nature and royalty."
"That's nothing compared to the humans!"
"They're huge!"
"And deformed!"
"But most of them seem rather nice."
"Some are even scared of mice! Scared, can you imagine?"
"Oh, the light is absolutely overwhelming."
"It's gorgeous outside, the sun shines so brightly from the sky."
"The moon and stars aren't half bad either."
"The lake was gorgeous."
"We got a great chance to go outside a second time."
"Oh, we tried not to miss a single thing!"
"There are enormous trees!"
"The squirrels are rather charming, too."
"And the flowers!"
"They're gorgeous!"
"Such fabulous new smells!"
"It's positively stuffy in here!"
"I'll miss the feel of grass under my feet."
"I'll miss the carpet more!"
"I think I'm going to miss the princess a bit more."
They stopped suddenly as they saw that the Sergeant had fallen back into his chair. His eyes were very wide and his mouth was open.
Rob had never seen Sergeant Downs like this before. "What's wrong, Sarge?"
"I suppose I always knew that it was a possibility," he said, seeming a bit sad.
"What's a possibility?" Jackie asked curiously.
"I thought you would never succumb to that," the Sergeant said. "I thought I picked a group that was stronger than that. Still, if you've lost your minds, I should just be grateful that you found your way back here."
"What?" It was time for the explorers to be surprised.
"This carried too much risk, even with a large group. We definitely won't make this mistake again," he said, no longer even pretending to address them.
"I--"
"We're not--"
"Go home," the Sergeant said with a sigh. "Just go home."
Dan was the most surprised. "But, Sir!"
"All of you, just go home," the Sergeant repeated firmly. "You'll be better off with someone to take care of you."
They couldn't move; they were too shocked and confused.
"Go home!" the Sergeant snapped, and this time they all ran out the door.
They stood in the hallway, not sure what to do or say.
"I told you that there was nothing to worry about," Robert said weakly.
They all started to laugh. They were free from the colony. They would definitely be able to leave again and enjoy the outside. All their notes were their own. There was no one left to answer to. They were truly going home, and they couldn't say anything through their laughter.