Welcome to Gaia! ::

The wind rustled gently through the gloom of a day whose sky promised rain. It stroked over the long blades of dew laden grass before crashing into the long dark green leaves of a shrub. The leaves like leather brushed against the pale fur of a rabbit, stirring her from her slumber.

Fiona crinkled her nose as her mouth elongated to let out a large yawn, the sleepy puff of breath misting in the early morning air. She turned her head to peer out with eyes as pale as her pelt, one long ear following the movement and flopping down over her shoulder. The blocked sun forced the world to look absolutely dreadful, she thought.

She sighed, why ever would she want to go out in that? She flopped over onto her side to curl up when her stomach growled, startling her into sitting up. Oh well that was wonderful timing. The weather wasn't bad enough to starve for, that was sure!

With a world-bearing sigh of disappointment, she pulled herself out from the shrub's dry ground and gave a mild shriek of discontent at the chilled dew. "Cold cold cold cold!" she cried out though it wasn't nearly as bad as she made it.

She darted back into the dry haven and gave a disdainful look to the wet grass. How dare it! She put her nose up into the air with a sniff and straightened up. That grass, no matter how thoughtless and rude it had been, was not going to prevent her from getting something to eat. No it was not!

She strained her neck to hold her head up high and with a decided huff of breath emerged once again. Oh what a day it would be.

With tentative hops, Fiona made her way steadily on--avoiding particularly wet spots and any place that looked muddy--unaware of the other rabbit awaiting her. She felt the annoyance of waking slowly ease, a heavy cloak of sheep's wool sliding down her back as she moved, and found herself almost (it was a very tiny almost) content that she had decided to leave her sleeping spot.

She came to still, nose pulling in sweet scent of grass, giving a momentary look around. She began to nibble on the grass, long ears dragging as she pulled herself forward slowly. With her white pelt often so visible against most backdrops she habitually moved about as she ate. The last thing she wanted to do was be a sitting target. Plus in her experience, if she moved then Tommaso could never decide if he should "play" with her or find something else. (Not that he could often decide on anything...)

Once the growl of her stomach had calmed, she began hopping haphazardly about on the look for something or someone. The day was already so gloomy and she was not going to spend it sleeping--at least not yet. She wasn't going to go in search of Tommaso or Cheery though, the former was always so lost in trying to make up his mind (she wasn't really sure he had one) and the latter would be so exuberantly happy, poor Fiona might have to resort to drastic measures to shut her up. No, she wouldn't be playing with them today.

But then who? Or what?

"I need more friends..." she decided with a sigh.

"Friends?"

The new voice popped up unexpectedly and the floppy-eared rabbit darted backwards in surprise. She hunkered down, tensed into a small shaking ball with wide eyes, mouth open in surprise. She quaked in shock and sucked in hurried spurts of breath while her heart pounded.

A moment later, she rose slowly. She stretched out her neck to peek over the grass at the speaker. Unexpectedly it was another rabbit. This one had short pointed ears, a white pelt flecked in colored spots of varying sizes edged in black, and purple eyes. She wasn't sure whether to laugh (it was only a rabbit!) or feel humiliated (it was ONLY a rabbit?). In the end, she was still too shocked to be either. At least for the moment.

"Yeeeeees," she pushed the word out slowly, "friends."

The other rabbit reminded her of Cheery although perhaps a bit watered down in her most rapid fire cheerful moods. She watched as the female hopped over to her and flopped down. With a moment's hesitation, she sat back and reached out to touch the other's paw in greeting.

"My name is Fiona Yan but you may refer to me as Fiona if you wish to. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance," she murmured.

The silence that followed, Chrome staring at her with a wide grin, niggled irritatingly at the pale rabbit. It was hard to say whether it (being stared at) awakened paranoia or if it (being stared at) was simply all the attention or if perhaps she was so used to someone making noise that the silence itself made her uncomfortable. In nervousness, she pulled one long ear over her shoulder and began to pet it and twist it.

At least until she couldn't take it anymore which was hardly long enough for the other to realize she should say something.

"Will you stop it!? I know I'm pretty but that is no reason to sit there and stare at me mutely! Stop it! It's rude and quite unnerving and how am I to know exactly what you're staring at?" she shouted. She leaned forward, paws stroking over the fur of her foot and eyes widening. "You cannot have my foot if that's what you want! It isn't lucky, that's a myth and--stop staring at me!" she fretted worriedly.

Why did she always find the nutty ones? (Pot meet kettle!)

Fiona stiffened and narrowed her eyes at the term grumpypants. She was no such thing, not at all, nope, no, never! "I am not a grumpypants as you say! I'm not!" she huffed. She had a perfectly dramatic and wondrous monolog at the tip of her tongue pressing against her lips when Chrome began to speak again.

"..." her mouth opened wordlessly at first the question (why wouldn't something want her foot? It was beautiful and lucky and did she mention it was beautiful? Hello!) and then at what she thought might be signs this rabbit had a few hinges loose. She furrowed her brows trying to figure out what exactly to do.

"That really doesn't at all make me feel better..." she sighed. How could it when the rabbit had practically said that feet were lucky and while two might be good and dandy, would anyone ever turn down more luck? She doubted it (Tommaso had said so once but he was too indecisive to actually take her feet) and she leaned forwardly awkwardly to cover her feet, hiding them from the unbalanced rabbit.

Still hunched forward, she softened slightly at being told she wasn't being called grumpy--at least until she was once again compared to this Noct fellow who got mad about silly things (as if she was like that). She said nothing though, rather more concerned with making sure her feet were hidden.

The sudden snatching of one of paws almost made her shriek until Chrome pulled her forward, bounding off. She had no choice but to start bouncing to keep up. It took a moment to find the rhythm the other bunny hopped at, paw still grasped firmly, and matched it so that she didn't feel as if the only rabbit was now trying to steal her arm.

"Only back feet are lucky," she muttered lightly, in case this confounded rabbit got any ideas.

The sudden stop was problematic for the pale rabbit. One moment she was hopping furiously to keep up with the excited bunny. The next she was still hopping and found the other one turning to face her. With wide eyes at the impending crash she reared her head back--falling backwards into the field (at least it was somewhat soft, except for a hard lump of dirt here and there).

She sighed, rolling onto her side and giving the spot behind her ear a scratch with her back foot, before looking up at this Chrome (Trouble seemed a better name at this point). "I see all right."

She opened her mouth to declare that four leaf clovers--like rabbit's foots--we're hardly lucky. Indeed if anything the latter was proving to be unlucky. But of course the other rabbit was much too hyper to pause and she ended up burying her head for a moment. What had she ever done to deserve the rabbits she found? Or found her?

Really she had to do something. Anything. But what? ... Maybe clover hunting wasn't such a bad idea.

Pushing herself, she began to examine the clovers. Perhaps she could find one imbued with rabbit repellent!