For Love of Mister Cotton Tail: An Apocalyptic Fairytale (Single)

by Walken, Serena

  She dismissed the thought though and watched as Darren came toward her. Momma and Poured Sweet were wrong, the rabbits had the real prophecy. Candy’s world had never made sense, just loose translations. The rabbits though, they had more concrete pieces. Maybe the whole thing used to be one long ago when everyone had been the same? She didn’t know, nor did she care. Candy stopped as Darren came up to her, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Darren.”

  “I was on my way over.” He rubbed his hands together while his breath hung in the air. “You got the fifty fifty contract? Because Posh was willing sixy forty. You are beautiful, but I’ve got to make sure. My family begins cutting me off next year.”

  “Suing for currency rights may have been a bit showy I suppose?” He didn’t answer back. “Fifty fifty,” Candy agreed. “Walk with me, it’s only a few more blocks.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want an extravagant ceremony?” Darren asked.

  “No need to, that’s just wasting money.” Candy shrugged. They both walked side by side. The snow was coming down harder, but it made no difference to her. Her mind was set.

  She put the ball in Cotton’s court, whether he knew it or not.

  * * *

  Cotton moved as fast as he could heading down the blocks to the court. If Candy was going to marry Darren she wouldn’t bother having a big ceremony. Signed papers, that was all it took. The weather didn’t make it any easier. The snow had become a blizzard again and the sidewalks were getting buried. He kept his eyes open though, knowing she would head to the closest place.

  Candy’s family made her mad, and when they did that, she tended to become reckless and not think things through. Seeing how having a successful magic basket day didn’t do a thing for the weather, Candy’s recklessness may result in the ending. It wouldn’t be the first ending Cotton had seen, but he’d never lost anything precious in them. Not since he was young and went on his first dimension skip.

  Holes. Holes in the ground, spread out all around found the dimension holes faster. If the weather didn’t fix itself, his kind would be heading out again. Candy would be left behind. “Candy!”

  There in the distance hiding by a building with Darren was Candy. Cotton hurried even faster, knowing the weather would prevent her from doing anything else. “Candy, I said we need to talk and I meant it!” Cotton raced with everything he had. In this form, he couldn’t run half as fast, but he had to make it to her. “Candy.” Now bent over, catching his breath and staring at her feet, he was nearly at the finish line. “I’m sorry about what happened. We can give it another chance.”

  He looked up toward her, but she didn’t have love shining back in her eyes.

  “You need to stop this. You made your choice,” Candy answered. “I made my choice. There is no going back.”

  “There is always time to go back.”

  “Not now.”

  “Nothing can make me believe that.”

  “I’ve already been caught by the wolf.”

  That phrase made him stop. Was he too late, did they make it to the courts? “Did you get married?”

  “I got caught. I got caught a long, long time ago.” Candy shook her head. “You only assumed you were saving me if I waited five days from having Darren in control.”

  Cotton felt his mouth go dry. “The wolf had you.”

  “Yes, silly rabbit.”

  He looked back at her again. She knew. Somehow, she had put it together. “I’m sorry for lying. I just―”

  “―it doesn’t matter. At least you know the truth. At least I know the truth.” Candy looked away. “Why my heart was so confused between two people that weren’t even people.”

  “When?”

  “When I found out about what Momma and Poured were up to. I had some funky suspicions but nothing I would let myself believe. Oh, but Cotton Tail, dead giveaway.” Candy placed her hand over Darren’s mouth as he complained senselessly about wanting to know what was going on. “Funny thing is, if you just would have told me, we could have saved so much time.” Her eyes met his confidently. “I already knew you couldn’t stand wolves as a bunny, but as Cotton, you couldn’t even accept a glass of water that he touched.”

  He should go crawl back to his hole. Darren had already won.

  “Just tell me,” Candy said. “Did you believe the same things? Was the goal just to get me to trust in you, to let you save me from the big, bad wolf so the world would be saved?”

  “No.” Cotton walked up closer to her. “No. My family didn’t even plan on me getting caught in a cage. When it happened, we just went with it. I swear. It wasn’t until after we met that I figured out your role, but just as the one to help save the business. I never even looked at the book of your world.”

  “Yeah, well.” Candy shrugged. “What can you do? I hope your business is successful now because we’ve crossed that threshold where I have to say goodbye to you. Our relationship can never be the same before. Big Bunny.”

  “I know.” Cotton didn’t even know how to react. Darren held out his hand toward him in a friendly shake but he batted it away and glared at him. He’d never shake hands with a . . .

  with a wolf? “Did it matter? That I was half and half, Candy?” He needed to know as he reached his hand out, grasping her arm gently.

  She took his hand off of her arm. “Love is strange.” That was the only thing she said before she turned away from the building, grabbing Darren’s arm again. The snow was getting lighter again, enough to escape. Cotton stood there several seconds, thinking what she said through. She rejected being a rabbit. She rejected Cotton. All because the wolf already had her. He remembered the water incident clearly. It was in his nature to hate wolves, but experience just deepened it.

  Candy didn’t reject him, she knew that he would reject her.

  The only thing that had kept them apart was him. His lies and his blindness. He looked at his feet, wondering how people could ever see them as lucky. Not that they were rabbit feet right now, but he was one in the same. So was Candy. He liked her as a human or as a rabbit. She took care of him. She saved his life. She even tried to save his family’s business, whether she understood the true impact of it or not.

  Darren may have had her once, but he wouldn’t let him win again. “Candy!” He rushed up toward her again. “I don’t care!”

  Candy turned around. “What?”

  “Darren Manner.” Cotton watched Posh come straight for Darren. She was waving a contract. “Seventy thirty!” Behind Posh was Momma and Poured Sweet. They snitched. Not because they cared, but because they were trying to prevent the end too.

  “Seventy thirty?” Darren asked as he went toward Posh. “Who gets the seventy?”

  “You, you dweeb.” Posh grabbed him and kissed him on the lips. “Knock it off, let’s go. I’m tired of this. You won, you get your seventy. Happy?”

  “Eighty twenty,” Candy came back on her offer.

  “No.” Cotton pulled himself to the front of her. “You don’t need him. You don’t need Sweet Meats. I don’t care. I mean, I do, but . . .I care too much for you to let you go.” He touched her cheek. “I have been a jerk not telling you everything. You haven’t done anything wrong. If I found a carcass left behind that a wolf devoured, I would still have the decency to bury it.” Was that the right way to put it? “I mean. I told you to stay before I knew you had been with Darren. I still say, stay.”

  “As a rabbit.”

  “Whatever you want. We can work from your apartment. Rabbit, human, I don’t care.” He preferred his rabbit form over his human, but for her, he’d change that.

  “Would I have to stop eating meat?”

  “Rabbit senses would say yes, but if you don’t want to become one, that’s fine. Keep the Vegan power, dump the vegan taste.” It was still so risky. That look in her eyes. All the times he had lied to her, they were coming back into them. His past actions were being judged for and against him in her decision.

  “Do you really th
ink you deserve that? After all of the lying?” Candy looked over toward Darren and Posh. Neither of them understood a thing. She drew her attention back to Cotton. “Do you have the power to forget?”

  “No.” Cotton didn’t know what she’d want with that power.

  “Does your friend, Matt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” Candy gestured the other way. “Now go home. Take your spot at the window and I will see you when I get home. If you decide not to go home, then you decide not to. It’s your choice.”

  * * *

  In his rabbit form, Cotton waited by the window. He snuggled himself up tight in his bed, not knowing what would happen. The snow had increased again, but he didn’t care anymore. Candy wanted the power of forget. She didn’t say she forgave him, chose him, or despised his trickery.

  It scared him more than anything. What did she want with that power? Was he supposed to forget her, or the other way around? Did she want to forget being with Darren so she could be―

  His thoughts were interrupted as he heard the door open. Instinctively he wanted to run and greet her. He stayed on his bed though, as she instructed.

  She moved over toward him next to his bed by the window. “Did you find Matt?”

  “I did.”

  “I want to forget that you can talk. I want my Big Bunny, before things got awkward. I don’t want to remember the other rabbits, the chicks, or the hill.”

  Full erase. She wanted him back as her pet and nothing else. Oh, was that hard to hear! His head ducked a little further down than usual, letting his ears completely hit the ground without care. She would still be able to take care of him. He could still see her.

  Just nothing else.

  “Can you do it?” she asked him.

  “Yeah. This time tomorrow, I could have it done.” His voice was broke, but he completed the sentence. He could never be anything more than a pet to Candy, but at least he’d still have her in his life.

  “You would?”

  Cotton looked over toward her. “Anything to make you happy.”

  “Good. Then cancel that. I canceled the thing with Darren too. You know, marriage.”

  Cotton’s ears shot up a moment before they flopped back down against him.

  “You used me. You betrayed my trust and you lied to me.” Candy shook her finger at him. “Naughty Big Bunny. If I wasn’t madly in love with you I would have kicked you to the curb. In adult form. I couldn’t do that to you as a rabbit, you’d hurt your head.”

  Cotton couldn’t even wrap his mind around everything he was hearing. A second chance?

  “Now, before I tell you anything else?” Candy gestured to him one more time. “Is there anything else that you have to tell me? Any more secrets that you are hiding from me? There’s not some other lost part to a prophecy book out there somewhere?”

  “There might have been. I believe your kind took it and began to worship it.” Big Bunny chuckled, finally feeling relief. “Oh, there is something though. You are safe.”

  “What do you mean safe?” Candy asked as she stroked his ear. She always did that when she was conflicted. “Big Bunny?”

  “Cotton Tail would work better for me now,” he said, “and I meant dying because of a Vegan kiss. I am not your typical Vegan, no other action is needed.” Before she could say anything else he added, “I didn’t know if you would love a rabbit that you only knew as a pet. I really planned on telling you.” She had nothing but trust for that issue. “You’ll have to trust me on that. I know I lied a lot, but from now on, I won’t.”

  “Okay.” Candy sighed. “I lied too by the way.”

  Cotton looked over toward her. “About what?”

  “Getting nailed by the wolf. I’d never let Darren near me.”

  “What?!” His ears shot up again before gravity brought them down along with him in her lap.

  “You pushed me to the edge of sanity, buster.” Candy crossed her arms, refusing to acknowledge him. “I had to push you to the edge to see if you would still want me. If you didn’t, then I’d have my answer and be married to Darren with Sweet Meats making me tons of money right now.” She uncrossed her arms and groaned. “Instead, Posh and Darren tied it. Momma and Poured are angry as hell I let that happen, but I’m angry at them, so . . .” She shrugged. “Life’s just as messed up as ever.”

  No more Darren Manner. Yes.

  “As for you, rabbit, I don’t know what to do yet with you.” Candy lifted his ear and watched it droop. “Should I help out with the next year as a rabbit, or should I help out as the human I like to be? Especially since my father is just fine, Sweet Meats business is thriving nicely. Maybe I should do both?”

  “Both would be fine, whatever you want.” Cotton rubbed up against her tummy, finally being rewarded with a scratch behind his ears. So far, so good, but she hadn’t said what he wanted to hear yet. He knew she loved him. She let Darren go. She was figuring out her future.

  But did it include him as more than just a nice pet?

  “I think both then. No rush this time, I can work on weekends down on Bunny Hill, and weekdays at Sweet Meats.” Candy nodded. “Yeah, I think that settles it.” She moved away from the window and headed for the fridge. “What would you like for supper? I saw you chewing on that carrot grass when we were out delivering baskets.”

  Cotton’s ears drooped further down again. “Oh, I don’t know,” his nose twitched. “I was thinking maybe some of the carrot grass with a side of-am I just a pet or not?

  Candy looked away from the refrigerator back at him. “If I am human and you are my cuddly rabbit, you are my pet. When we are the same, we’ll just see next time what happens.”

  That’s all he needed to know as he took action. He watched as Candy danced around, trying to get out of her oversized clothes. “There, we are both rabbits. So?”

  * * *

  Candy trotted away from her clothes, now back in her white fur with blonde streaks. She twitched her nose. Then started licking her paws and washing her face. Cotton wasn’t going to just transform her into forgiveness. She watched him hop over towards her with a single untransformed basket. He laid it in front of her and transformed it.

  “I made this for you.”

  Candy looked at the basket. It didn’t have candy in it or a chocolate bunny. There were eggs, but they weren’t real. “What are the fake eggs?”

  “Something I tinkered with on the old conveyor belts.” Cotton gestured to the two fake eggs. “You twist in the middle and they open. I wanted you to have it if you didn’t throw me out.”

  Candy climbed into the basket and tried to hold the fake eggs with her paws. She held the bottom and the middle twisted easy. Inside were two tiny strange gold bands. “What are these?”

  “We call them pinkerlings.”

  Pinkerlings? She picked one up and looked at it. What were they supposed to do?

  “Your kind have something similar. It’s in the other egg.”

  Candy moved herself to the second egg. She held the bottom with her body and twisted it with her front paws again. The whole top fell out of her hands and onto the carrot grass as she looked inside.

  The human equivalent.

  Two engagement ring bands.

  ***

  It was the first time Candy had been cuddled up at her window with Cotton in her rabbit form. Watching the snow get lighter, they still wanted to cuddle up next to each other. Tucking her head below his, she thought for a moment over the last two crazy weeks she had. It was all worth it though. She wiggled her own cotton tail, still feeling the pinkerling around it. A magical band that never fell off. “Do you think the snow will stop soon?”

  “I am sure by tonight it will. True Spring has already started for us.” Cotton nuzzled her gently with his nose. Nothing else was said between the two rabbits.

  Year by year, Spring took over its rightful place. The word Easter Bunny was known on every child’s lips as if there had always been such a thing. People pick
ed up preparing for it as they did other holidays. They even colored their own eggs, just in case the rabbits didn’t leave enough.

  The supply of Easter Bunnies to keep the special day going each year only increased. Even Candy and Cotton added their own children to the mix. They all tended to be Vegans. Except for Butterscotch.

  Like Candy, she had Sweet power, which just went to show everyone:

  Even vegans could be Sweet.

  ###

  Author’s Note:

  Did you enjoy your adventure? If so, I hope you consider reviewing it to let others know how much you enjoyed it. The more reviews I receive, the more it helps me out, so I appreciate it very much. I do not respond to reviews, but if you would like to contact me personally to let me know how you are enjoying the adventures, you can reach me at authormelanieray@gmail.com. (Serena Walken is my pen name.)

  Don’t forget, you can get many more adventures in Apocalyptic Fairytales.

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  You just read a single An Apocalyptic Fairytale. If you would like to enjoy more adventures, check out my other An Apocalyptic Fairytale.

  Order of Books:

  Enslaved in Wonderland (An Apocalyptic Fairytale Part 1)

  The Dreaming (An Apocalyptic Fairytale Part 2)

  Branded (An Apocalyptic Fairytale Part 3)

  Apocalypse Travelers (An Apocalyptic Fairytale Part 4)

  Castles of the Seas (An Apocalyptic Fairytale Part 5)

  Good Boy Bad Girl (An Apocalyptic Fairytale Part 6)