The forest of Greenwood was changing, and Walter loved it. Everything was stronger now, and much tastier. None of it tasted as good as that one rabbit smelled, but it was much tastier than the boring animals that spawned there before.

Right now, he was chowing down on some kind of teleporting deer. It had been an exciting hunt, but in the end, it couldn’t escape Walter. He was the king of the forest. Nothing got away from him without his permission. Except that one rabbit.

Freddy kept telling him to make friends with the rabbit, but Walter didn’t understand why. Why make friends with something so weak? Especially when she had broken his legs before. He hated her. Unfortunately, he had to comply. Freddy was way stronger than he was. Walter might have been the king of the forest, but Freddy was the king of the whole country. Or something like that. He didn’t actually know what Freddy was the king of, but it must have been a big region if he was so strong.

When the rabbit rejected his friendship request, Walter was happy. He didn’t actually want to be friends with her. She was weak, and she broke his legs. And she smelled yummy. She was a snack, not a friend.

But Freddy didn’t care. “You cannot eat her,” he had said.

Ridiculous!

But there was nothing he could do about it. He had to obey. Or else Freddy would punish him…

The thought of that put a bit of a damper on his meal. He still finished it though. A king always eats his kills.

When he was finished, only a hollow husk remained, all of its innards-- and some of its ribs-- now in Walter’s innards. He growled in satisfaction, then made a round through his territory to make sure nothing was trying to sneak in. There was another small herd of the teleporting deer, and he scared them off, but he didn’t chase them. He was already full. He would just eat them later.

Once he was done, he went back to his home, a small cave in the side of a nearby mountain next to a creek. Well, it was small to him at least. But he was big. Very big. Almost as big as an elephant, and probably stronger than an elephant too.

The hill leading up to the cave used to be grassy, but ever since Walter evolved and got his {Winter} skill, it turned into a much nicer snowy hill. He had to restrict the range a little bit to not freeze the creek solid though, so the pleasant white powder petered out and turned back into grass as it got nearer to the water.

When he returned, the cave was not empty like it was supposed to be. There was a stupid-looking man there with stupid golden hair and stupid square teeth. Why was he always showing them off? It was annoying. They were nothing to be proud of. They probably couldn’t even kill a deer.

“Walter!” said the man. “Welcome back! I’ve brought you a present!”

He held out his arms to show Walter that he was holding a rabbit. It was not white, like the other rabbit. It was gray, and small, and its eyes were brown and dull. It still smelled good though. It would make a nice dessert. He opened his mouth to reach toward it, only to be stopped by the man’s hand on his snout.

“This is not food,” said Freddy. “This is your new friend. Meet Alice.”

“Walter no want friend,” said Walter. “Walter eat Alice.”

“You will not eat Alice. Not if you don’t want to be punished.”

“...Walter not eat Alice.”

“Good,” said Freddy, showing off his teeth again. “Alice is an ordinary rabbit. She has no special abilities. She cannot survive on her own for very long. If she is left unattended, she will probably die. Your job for the next 3 months is to keep her alive.”

“Walter no understand.”

“It’s simple. I am going to leave Alice here with you. If I come back to find her dead, you will be punished.”

“Why?”

“It will be good for you. Trust me.”

Walter growled lightly, but didn’t protest. He had already been punished recently for that incident with the deer lady. Freddy told him only to fight humanoids in self defense. “You can’t just kill people for no reason like that,” is what Freddy said. Walter didn’t understand. He had a good reason. She was trespassing on his land. This was his forest. If she didn’t want to die, she shouldn’t have been there.

He wanted to eat her afterward because she smelled good too, but there was that other gray human who seemed a little bit dangerous, and then the white rabbit appeared. If he fought with the white rabbit again, Freddy would punish him even more, so he had to leave. When he came back, the body was gone.

“I’ll be going now then,” said Freddy. “I put a restriction on her so she can’t go too far from you or your cave, so at least she won’t be able to run away. Good luck.”

He set the rabbit down in the snow and then disappeared in a puff of gross smoke. Walter always hated when he did that. He knew that Freddy could fly. Freddy knew that Walter had a sensitive nose. But he insisted on doing it anyway.

When the smoke cleared, the rabbit was still there, and shivering in fright. That lifted Walter’s mood at least a little bit. That was how rabbits were supposed to act: terrified and helpless. Not all tricky and evil like the other rabbit.

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“You, Alice,” he said. “No die.”

The rabbit stayed where it was, still shivering.

That no work, thought Walter.

How was he supposed to keep a rabbit alive? He had only ever killed rabbits before. What did rabbits even eat? He realized he had only ever seen that one rabbit eat. Every other rabbit was running away when he saw it. That one rabbit ate fruits, but he didn’t have any fruits, and didn’t know where any were. Did he have to give it some of his kills? Maybe he could teach it to hunt for itself instead. That would be easier, probably.

“Alice,” he said. “I teach you how hunt. Okay?”

The rabbit continued to shiver.

That wasn’t going to work either. It clearly had no idea what he was saying. And it was too scared to even move. What if it just never moved and it died of starvation? Then Freddy would punish him.

“Alice,” he said again. “You need eat. Or else.”

The little rabbit still didn’t respond. Walter sighed. Why did the stupid golden man give him such a stupid friend? It didn’t even understand that Walter wasn’t going to eat it. Maybe if he moved away, it would be less scared.

He walked away from his cave toward the tree line, looking back the whole time. It didn’t move while he was there, so he laid down in between some of the trees behind a bush. He was so big that he wasn’t hidden well, but after a few minutes, the rabbit finally started to move.

It took a nervous step forward, then turned around and took a step the other direction, then turned back around and took another step. It circled a few times, then started exploring its surroundings further. It sniffed Walter’s cave, then sniffed the walls of the mountain before finally making its way to the creek to take a drink.

Walter was relieved. At least it wouldn’t die of thirst. He wondered if he should go out to greet it again, but decided not to. He needed more time to observe it. And he was glad he did. A few minutes later, it started eating. And it was eating… grass?

Was grass tasty? How did it get full on grass? He bent down to rip some up from the ground to try for himself. It was bland, and tasted kind of like dirt. That was probably because of all the dirt he got mixed in with the grass. He tried again, this time a smaller and more delicate bite, and it was still bland. So it wasn’t eating the grass for the taste. Was it stressed? Was it starving because it hadn’t eaten in a while?

Walter decided that must have been it. He would need to go hunt for it, before it starved to death. Freddy said that if Alice was left alone, she would probably die, but it wouldn’t take him that long to go get more food. He could be back before the sun set. Besides, there was nothing that could hurt her so close to his cave. He was very careful to make sure that nothing was allowed to live there without his permission.

As if to counter his mental argument though, a shadow suddenly passed over his head, and he realized his mistake. He had only cleared out the land animals. Not the birds. They lived high up in the mountains, and they flew very fast and were hard to hit. The new ones that started spawning recently were especially hard to hit. And they liked to eat small rodents like Alice.

He jumped from his hiding place and ran toward the rabbit. The bird was fast, and was diving toward the unsuspecting Alice, but Walter was fast too. Just as the bird was about to grab her in its claws, his jaws clamped around it, snapping its neck and killing it instantly. Then he spat it out and shook his head around, spitting out feathers.

He hated birds. They were annoying and hard to kill and they were covered in feathers. They also barely had any meat, and their bones didn’t crunch very satisfyingly like deer bones did. However, they were still made of meat.

He looked down at the rabbit, and found her shivering again. A little less this time though, he thought. He walked over to where the bird’s body had fallen, and nudged it toward the rabbit with his snout.

“Eat,” he said.

The rabbit looked down at the corpse, and for a few seconds it didn’t move. Then it took a cautious step forward and sniffed the bird. It looked up at Walter again, then hopped over to him. And rubbed against his leg.

“What you doing?” he asked. “Eat.”

It rubbed against his leg for a bit longer, then hopped a few steps away and started eating the grass again.

“Why eat grass?” he asked.

The rabbit stopped eating and looked at him with a blank expression, then went right back to what it was doing.

Was it trying to leave the bird for him because he killed it? Or perhaps it was because she realized he was the king, and knew that the king should always get the first bite. He bit the bird’s head off, swallowed it, then nudged the rest over to the rabbit again. It looked at the corpse again, sniffed it again, then hopped away and started eating grass again.

What was it doing? Why did it keep eating grass? Was it possible that it was like the deer and only ate grass? Was that why it kept refusing the bird? But why though? He thought the deer only did it because they were strange. Every other animal he knew ate meat. The snakes ate meat. The birds ate meat. The slimes… The bears ate meat. The smaller wolves ate meat. Even the bugs ate meat.

But there the rabbit was, eating grass when it had a perfectly acceptable bird right in front of it. It was undeniable: rabbits ate grass. Did that mean that a grass-eater had managed to break his legs? How shameful.

On the bright side though, at least Walter didn’t have to worry about feeding Alice. She would be able to find food on her own. The only problem remaining was how to keep her safe. After all, he couldn’t just watch over her all the time to protect her. He needed to eat too. Maybe he could get her to dig a hole like the other rabbit did.

“Alice,” he said. “Dig hole.”

The rabbit stared blankly at him, then continued eating grass.

“Dig hole,” he repeated.

This time, she didn’t even bother to look up at him. He growled in frustration, and that got its attention. Its ears perked up and its nose started quivering. It was scared again. Walter huffed and turned around and walked back to his cave.

He considered just letting it die. He would get punished by Freddy, but that might be better than trying to keep that rabbit alive. No, that would be worse. What if Freddy brought him a new Alice to take care of. Then he would be punished and have to take care of a rabbit.

He laid down, watching Alice nervously nibble on the grass until at some point, his eyes lost focus and he fell asleep. When he woke up again, the sun was nearing the horizon. He was wide awake instantly, realizing that he had fallen asleep while he was supposed to be protecting something. He was about to get up and go look for her when he noticed something warm pressing against his torso. When he looked down, he saw Alice curled up in a ball, sleeping against his chest.

“Hmm,” he said.

The rabbit cracked its eyes open, looked at him for a few seconds, then closed them again. Walter considered getting up and going out on another patrol, but for some reason, he couldn’t bring himself to wake the rabbit. It was being so peaceful and un-annoying right now. Why ruin it? He could just continue his nap for a bit longer…