Adius excused Justin from his chatter for him, dragging him upstairs, though Justin didn't mind. Justin took off his new knitted coat he received earlier, having been given to him as a selfless gift by another rabbit, and even though it was a dud gift and didn't quite fit him, he knew it would have been rude not to accept it.
Adius' respectfulness was high on the scale, and he obliged, "Let me get that for you." His shoulder swept past Justin's, and for a brief moment, as he watched his friend hang up the garment, he felt a very strange feeling in his heart. Something he had trouble explaining.
Justin sat side by side on the bedsheet, now conducting the same chatting he had been thirty minutes ago. Adius was adamant about wanting to know more, and to bond, as if he had been brainwashed by the denizens of the kingdom who had done the same this whole time. After paragraphs of back and forth, stories of their worlds and small talk of what rest they had to say of their lives, Adius felt the feeling he had once more, only much stronger. It radiated off of him, being an empath, and Justin realized the source of it as his chest tingled again. Adius didn't need physical contact to transmit. Justin's face was a look between astonishment and concern.
"Are you alright?" Adius asked with a hint of nervousness.
"Yeah, I uh..."
Adius knew full well what was happening, "Sorry... I... didn't know I could do that... Unless?"
Justin looked them in the face, his voice sheepish, "I... don't know..." Was Adius expecting him to admit that? "Stop." He told him, signalling to tone their empathy down.
Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.
"...Sorry." Adius thought for a moment to get his mind in order, "Maybe we should talk about something else?"
"What else is there to talk about?"
The rabbit needed to calm himself down somehow, "Did I ever tell you about the Trader Wars?"
Justin admitted no.
He started, "Well, about twenty years ago, not long after I was born, the other kingdoms around us used to be friendly, and closer in territory to us. Us rabbits were unable to farm at all, so we relied on them to farm for us; in exchange we helped them defend themselves. Our defense mechanisms were generally better than theirs. The two kingdoms in question got along a little too well, and formed a pact. They became more equiped thanks to us, and they started to ween our resources in favor of each other. Eventually, it became so bad that Orycto was starving and some of us were on the verge of death. The queen sent a handful of representatives to one of the kingdoms where the three would meet and explain. According to... sources, a homemade bomb was set off, and it killed most of the bucks. Two of them survived; they made it back, and the queen ordered we would now be an independent kingdom and go about isolationism. We learned to properly grow our own food and it went in the history books."
Admittedly, Justin felt sorry for them.
But it wasn't as sorry as Oden felt towards his self dignity. It felt as though the walls were colliding, but, there was something in his eyes to do now. He was the one who needed to get away, away from this miserable place that never did anything for him, only working him diligently harder, year after year! He would be appreciated elsewhere, another kingdom, even if it was treason under his selfmade code. It didn't matter anymore. What was the point of staying in place, if they would force you into invisible chains and take your mental stability? If they didn't care for him, not even Her Grace, then he would form himself a footpath of success—a true desire path.
On his person, he took what he needed and ran out into the wilderness towards the others.