Hopping Place to Place
You take a moment to weigh whether or not you would want to actually try and engage with someone that’s obviously a normal person like you – your understanding of the rules in this weird, whacky world make it feel like it could be a bad idea, and yet, you are still quite curious to meet someone else, especially when you consider how you were told some people prefer to be left alone, which means they aren’t easily findable.
I wonder if this person knows that, you think. I can see them, so, if they do, then maybe they don’t mind talking? Or maybe they don’t, and they’ll see me as a threat to them.
You decide, after thinking, that you would like to approach them to see if they’ll talk, but you decide to do so as casually as a humanoid griffin can. As such, you land on the ground, your paws feeling the softness of the grass beneath seconds later. When you look toward the direction you saw the rabbit person, you note that your vision has adjusted itself to what it was prior, so, ‘normal’ vision instead of being zoomed in vision.
Your eyes are unfazed by the shift, at least, even if it’s a bit startling for you.
That’s trippy, you think. You even rub your eyes with your paws to be doubly certain that your vision is back to normal. I’m guessing that’s part of my abilities for the eagle side of being a griffin. I wonder what else I can do. You glance down at your furry arms and clench your paws into fists a few times. What does the lion portion of this form give me?
For now, you shelve this pondering, and, you set out toward the direction you saw the humanoid rabbit person – you fold your wings as you go about, not only for ease of moving around on two legs, but also because you feel it might be less… threatening.
I’m assuming the rabbit costume was an option for the ground room, you think.
You begin to walk at a measured pace, and while you do, you think about the various options that are available to pick and choose from regarding those costumes – what would have happened if you’d gone through a different door? What other creatures were possible choices, especially for the myth one? You try to wrack your brain for other mythological creatures that represent the element of air… a phoenix, maybe?
No, phoenix is more fire than air, isn’t it? You frown to yourself as you ponder, at least until you decide not to dwell on it for the time being since you’re stuck as a griffin.
It takes a bit of time for you to venture over to the area where you saw the person in the rabbit costume – by the time you manage to get near it, you see that the rabbit person is no longer standing where you saw them. This, of course, doesn’t surprise you all that much since with those ears, they might’ve heard you and opted to run off. You admit you maybe should’ve flown if you wanted to make contact, but, then again, if you had…
“What in the world are you?”
The sudden voice catches you off guard and you turn to the side to see who’s speaking – funnily enough, standing a few feet away from where you are is none other than the rabbit person you were aiming to talk with. They are perched atop a large rock in a relatively calm position, watching you with great curiosity and a hint of wariness on their face, or at least that’s the sense you get since their features aren’t all that easy to read.
They do indeed have a feminine shape to their figure, particularly at the hips region, but they are a lot taller than you expected for a rabbit hybrid to be – they have large, massive ears like you saw before, a little pink nose with small whiskers, and though their mouth is human in shape, you can see the makings of teeth poking out from their upper lip. Their eyes retain a humanlike shape, and you notice they have hair on top of their head alongside the white fur that covers most of their body. Their hair is quite short and reddish in color, and it seems to be more ‘natural’ to you from a glance.
The rest of their body is covered in white fur that looks quite soft and a puffy tail above their rear, however, to your surprise, the fur is thin enough that you can see their navel at the center of their stomach, instead of the fur covering it. They have human hands, but their feet are rabbit-like and also large in size, bigger than yours, that’s certain.
They clear their throat. “Hello? Are you a creature or… a person?”
You blink. “Huh? Oh, sorry.” You shift around and shake your gawking away, feeling a little embarrassed from staring. “I’m a griffin. Or, I’m wearing a griffin costume, that is. I got a little distracted since you’re the first person like me I’ve seen here, but, yeah.”
This perks the rabbit person up. “Oh, thank God. I was worried when I saw you that you were some savage beast coming to devour me. Of course, I was still curious to find out for myself, but my gut instinct told me you weren’t a threat.” They speak with a definite female voice, and they offer you a bright smile as their posture relaxes. “I’m Penelope.”
You introduce yourself to her. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise!”
Penelope hops off the rock and walks up to you – she’s basically your height, although her ears when poking upright definitely give her a few inches extra, to your amusement.
“So you ended up going into the weird building too, huh?” she asks.
You nod.
“And you ended up going through a door that took you to a griffin costume?”
You nod again. “It was labeled air and myth, and I guess I had another choice besides what I have now. But, I don’t mind – being a griffin has been kind of neat so far, even if I haven’t had the chance to really tap into whatever I can do.” You give a shrug. “I take it you ended up in the land rooms, since, well, a rabbit is an obvious choice for land.”
“Yup, pretty much,” Penelope replies, and she snorts. “Honestly, I don’t know if I should be offended or not that I wound up picking a rabbit for a costume to wear. Not that I dislike rabbits, mind you,” she folds her arms, “bunnies are adorable, but, I wasn’t expecting to end up with a prey animal form. Then again, I guess at the same time, it hasn’t been so bad. Being able to leap super high and jump kick a bitch is pretty fun.”
You blink several times and eye her curiously. “Do you mean…?”
“I got into a fight with someone, yeah,” Penelope replies. She pauses to eye you with a look of incredulousness. “You act like you haven’t been here for very long, have you?”
“Not really, I guess,” you reply, rubbing the back of your neck. “I don’t know how much time’s passed since I put this costume on, but I don’t THINK it’s been a long while.”
“I can tell,” she says, and she snickers. “I’d say I’ve been in this form for at least four or five days total, maybe six give or take.” She wiggles her nose for a moment. “I think the first day, I was mostly bemoaning how I hated being in a rabbit hybrid body, but, by the start of day two, I was kinda loving it. It’s grown on me, but,” she pauses once more and gives a sheepish smile, “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to ramble on like that since we just met.”
You shake your head. “No, not at all. I’m actually really excited to meet someone else that isn’t a talking animal. Not that they haven’t been fun to chat with, but, a person is…”
“More familiar given the insanity we’ve gotten ourselves into,” Penelope finishes.
“Exactly,” you say.
She nods knowingly.
Silence falls for a moment over the two of you, and Penelope takes that instant to eye you with a thoughtful, quizzical expression – you get the sense she’s as curious about you as you are about her, and so you expect she’ll have questions for you, which you aren’t surprised about one bit. You have some for sure, and you begin to think of how you want to approach this – what do you want to ask, or do you want to let her go first?
Written by Hollowpage on 28 June 2021