The Gate - Elvish Has Left

"How do you know it was Queen Mary and not the traitor Tyuule or one of her followers impersonating the Queen? Have you ever met Queen Mary before?"

Stefan and Lelu looked at each other and conversed silently, "I can't fault her for wanting to be sure, worse things have happened." He looked up at Chef Bunny and said, "Hiya boys," in a deep breathy voice. That was Queen Mary Atchi's standard greeting, even though 93% of the warrior bunny population is female she always says "Hiya Boys" to open a speech or ceremony.

"Good, but not good enough," snarled Chef Bunny, "everyone knows that." It looked like this was going to get ugly real fast.

"I'm not going to fight you," said Lelu, "My teammate Hahn Tahn Amaya said that she was Queen Mary, I'm sure that Hahn knows her own mother. I was there when Mary awarded Hahn two bucks."

"And I just took Cookies word for it. Leah Cooka Rohcha was one of the bunnies we rescued, and she told me that Queen Mary was her mother," said Stefan then he took another bite of pizza and rolled his eyes in pleasure. "This is so good..."

Chef Bunny took a chair next to Lelu and Grandma bunny sat next to Stefan. Chef Bunny asked "How did you know? How could you be sure?" She looked worried as she added, "I've heard a rumor that she's been assassinated and Tyuule took over again."

"We were both right there in the town square in Nangda the night that Queen Mary presented the award to Hahn. If you don't believe me, ask her yourself." Stefan glared at Chef Bunny, for the first time in his life a cleavage like that was not a distraction. "I'm getting quite tired of this game you're playing. I may be a human but I'm not one of those jerks in the palace that have been fucking up everything since..."

"I'm sorry, but I had to be sure," said Chef Bunny, "Aunt Mary is not the type to hand out awards like the mark of the queen lightly, and never to an elf or a human."

"Aunt Mary?" asked Stefan. "So Hahn and Cookie are your cousins?"

"Not really, I was orphaned, Mary took me in, Hahn and Cookie raised me. Because I..."

Before Chef Bunny could finish her answer, she was interrupted. "I was there," said Grandma Bunny, then she pointed a shaking finger at Stefan. "You were there, I saw you, but you were there with The Troll, it was The Troll that got the mark of the queen." She pointed a shaking finger at Lelu. "How did you receive the mark?"

Now Stefan was livid. "The Troll?" He looked like he was going to hurt Grandma quite seriously, and Lelu was starting to freak out. She withdrew from the conversation and was curling up in a tiny ball in her mind. Stefan somehow turned his attention away from Grandma bunny and reached for Lelu's hands. He gently clasped her tender right hand but as he was reaching across the table for her left hand Chef Bunny reached for her hand. Chef Bunny ended up holding Lelu's left hand and Stefan's right hand just as Stefan started sending a flood of love and comfort to Lelu. The chef completed "the circuit" and suddenly had Stefan's love flowing through her.

Bunny didn't realize what was happening, but she did realize that this wasn't meant for her, it was for Lelu. But Chef had never felt such a thing before, there's no romantic love in the world of the warrior bunnies, there's no time for it. Not when each bunny male had 15 women waiting for him to pay attention to her needs. Bucks will develop friendships with a warrior bunny, but he really doesn't have time to spend time with her and sadly, while a warrior bunny will be fertile into her 70's and live to 110 or more years, a buck rarely makes it past his 35th birthday.

The emotions that flowed back and forth between the elf and the human were overpowering to Chef bunny, there were few actual words, it was all feelings and memories, it was like Stefan was emotionally petting Lelu and slowly Lelu began to calm down and start to... Chef Bunny decided that the best way to describe it is to "purr," emotionally. And now she noticed a scent from the couple, it wasn't strong, a normal person wouldn't notice it over the smell of the pizza and wings, but to Chef it was there, and it was enchanting, it smelled of calm and gentle times, of relaxing, it smelled like a walk in the woods or gazing at the stars at night with a friend and Chef Bunny became addicted. The pheromones of Stefan and Lelu entrapped her, wound around the bunny's mind and refused to let go and somehow Chef's body responded producing her own pheromones that Stefan and Lelu noticed were weaving into their web of harmony.

"Grandma," said the chef softly. "She's not a troll, she's an elf, please hold your tongue." Her grip on Stefan and Lelu's hands tightened and her eyes never left theirs. "Yes, she looked different back then, but you should know better, your boyfriend helped heal her." The fact that shortly after moving into the Alnus Hill refugee camp, Grandma Bunny and the mage Kato El Altestan began a quite active affair which was one of the worst kept secrets on the Falmart continent.

Grandma Bunny looked angry but when she thought back on the misshapen creature that Queen Mary kissed and this beautiful elf seated here, now valiantly trying to hold back the tears, she was able to see that they are indeed the same elf. "I'm sorry dear, sometimes even the wise display their foolish nature."

But Stefan and Lelu weren't paying any attention to Grandma Bunny, they were looking at Chef Bunny. A look of mild astonishment washed over the faces of the human and the elf as they realized that their traveling party just increased in size. "What's your name bunny?" Stefan asked gently.

"Carny... Carny Taz."

~~~~~~*~~~~~~

Lelu enjoyed the ride on the helicopter, probably because Stefan enjoyed it so much. She spent their first ride in a helicopter on an out of body journey with Stefan to the beach. Now she was here in the huge machine with Stefan and their new companion Carny Taz, the warrior bunny chef. Also on the helicopter was Captain Itami, Arch Mage Lelei La Lalena, Demi-Goddess Rory Mercury, High Elf Tuka Luna Marceau, all heading with them to the imperial capitol Sadera. The huge double rotor Chinook took off from Alnus Hill and headed northeast. Lelu was smiling nervously but she was soothed by the closeness of Stefan and his help to ease her nerves. "I've been on hundreds of flights," he assured her, "never had a problem."

"Oh, no! Poor Carny!" gasped Lelu. Carny was sitting across from them, and she was terrified, her ears were drooped down over her shoulders, and she was trembling all over, even her large boobs were jiggling in fear. Her eyes were welled up with tears and she fought to keep from crying, but it was clear she would lose that fight soon.

Stefan unbuckled and leaned over and unbuckled Carny's restraint. "Come over here with us, funny bunny," said Stefan and Carny leapt to the other side of the copter and snuggled in between Stefan and Lelu and shivered in terror. They covered her up in her cloak and held her tight, cuddling her fears away. As Carny's trembling subsided, they decided to see if they could take her someplace relaxing.

Carny's eyes fluttered open, and she was no longer in that stinking shaking noisy torture chamber, she was laying under a tree, on a warm sunny beach and she was completely naked. She looked around for something to cover up with when she noticed that Stefan and Lelu were both here, they were walking down the beach hand in hand, both were as nude as she was.

She got up and ran after them and finally caught up. Lelu heard the excited bunny running up behind them, so she stopped Stefan and they turned, smiling, watching as Carny approached, holding her breasts with one arm because of the bouncing. "This is so weird!" the young bunny gasped. "Where are we? Where's my clothes?"

"We are still on the helicopter and your clothes are still on your body," said Stefan.

"This is like a dream, that's really all I can say about it," said Lelu. "This is a real place; my dad lives not far from this beach in those woods over there."

Carny reached out and touched Lelu's sparkling silver hair, "It's so weird, I can feel you like you're really here."

"Believe me, it's a dream," said Lelu. "How hot does the sand feel to your feet?"

"A little hot, not too bad," Carny answered.

"The days I've been here the sand burns your feet," said Stefan, "and the sun doesn't feel nice like this either. We're down south on the blue sea, it's hot down here."

"The Blue Sea?" gasped Carny. The blue sea is almost a mythical place to the bunnies of the northern fields. The Blue Sea promises an enchanted area where it's always warm and the snow never falls. "It feels real enough to me!" She started to run off to the water's edge, but something pulled her back and before she knew it, she was back in the helicopter which had just landed.

A loud shrieking noise filled the air causing Carny's ears to flatten and she pulled a wooden dagger from her belt. She knew that the noise was from some kind of machine, but to a bunny a threat is a threat. Stefan knew that the noise was the electric motor that opens the rear door of the huge helicopter. A chill wind blew in through the large open door, it was oddly chilly here today, a cold wind was blowing down from the unnamed mountain range of ice and snow to the north. The humans from the other side of the gate thought it odd that no one bothered to name a mountain range that affects the weather pattern for most of Falmart. Then again, it was highly unlikely that anyone on the continent of Falmart knew what weather patterns are.

They were led to the palace by several guardsmen, and this caused Lelu no uncertain amounts of panic. Lelu spent decades in the dungeon being tortured, her nightmares are enough to drive Stefan to suicide because he shares them hoping that it will take some of the horror of her incarceration away from her. "Is he one of the bad ones?" he asked Lelu, indicating the guard that led them to the palace.

"No," she said nervously.

"It's ok," he said as he hugged her close. "But let me know the moment you see one, ok?" She nodded nervously and even though he didn't mention verbally or nonverbally that he was looking for any guard that so much as touched her when she was imprisoned, they both knew what he was going to do.

The guard led them to their rooms, three tiny rooms with a single narrow bed in each room located just above the dungeon. Lelu was horrified to see the accommodations and Carny was starting to panic, how many Warrior Bunnies died in rooms just like this? Stefan whirled on the young guard, "Did you know that you were escorting us to prison cells?" There was death in Gunnery Sergeant Hanover's eyes, a deep-seated hatred that made the guard realize that Gunny Hanover wasn't a threat, he was a prediction of hell to come.

"T-t-t-they're n-n-not..."

Stefan held up a hand for silence. "Just... fuck it. You led us to where you were told to take us. What was your next task, to lock us in?"

"Y-y-y-y..." He was interrupted by the roar of Stefan's pistol as a water pitcher that was on a small table in the cell exploded in a shower of water and shattered fragments. Stefan made the shot without looking.

"Do you think you are capable of locking me up?" As the young guard sputtered in fear, Stefan gently pushed him into the cell, then he took the key from the terrified young guard and locked him in the room leaving the key in the lock. He turned to see an angry, shaking Lelu and Carny and said, "Let's go, we have a mage to find."

~~~~~~*~~~~~~

Princess Co Lada hasn't seen Itami in ages, it was so nice to be able to walk through the palace gardens with the new Captain. Being royalty, marriage to a commoner was forbidden, and even being associated with an invader was unthinkable so having Itami as a consort probably wouldn't happen, but then... when had Pina Co Lada ever played by the rules? When her father killed nearly one hundred thousand men in his battle against the JSDF, playing by the rules went out the window.

As they walked their conversation centered mostly on the flowers they walked past, but that portion of the conversation was ending. With a subtle hand signal, she directed her escorts to fall back several yards and she started leading the conversation to something more... adult in nature, and Itami seemed to be open to her options. Just as she was about to invite him to a private dinner in her chambers, an uproar burst out of the garden door of the palace.

Five guards came out of the door backwards, swords drawn followed by the captain of the guard, a man in green almost like Itami's uniform was behind the captain of the guard. The green man had a firm grip on the back of the collar of the captain's shoulder pads and was holding a pistol to the back of the captain's head. Behind the green man was an elf and a warrior bunny dressed similarly, both had weapons drawn and were holding back a score of guards behind them.

"I'll get this," Itami said to Princess Pina. "He's... a friend." Itami hustled to the crowd of guards while Princess Co Lada's guard circled her. "Gunny!" shouted Itami. "What are you up to Gunny?"

Stefan's eyes never left the back of the captain of the guard's head. "Oh, hi Cap'n. We were just leaving."

"Gunny, why do you have a gun to the back of that man's head?" it was then that Itami realized that he knew exactly what Stefan was going to say, maybe he should have worded this differently.

"To kill him should he require it, cap'n."

Itami sighed, that's exactly what he expected. "Is there a problem Gunny?"

"Let's just say that the accommodations revealed the distaste that the management of this palace has for me and my family," Stefan snarled as he practically drilled the barrel of his pistol into the back of the captain's head.

Pina shrugged off her guards and stepped up next to Itami. "Is there a problem with the accommodations Mister Hanover?"

In answer, Stefan pressed his piston harder against the back of the captain's head and growled, "Tell her, and be aware that the device on the back of your head is a bullshit detector, if you lie it will go off."

"L-L-Level K, your highness," the captain sputtered.

Pina went ice cold; level K was dungeon. It was much better than most of the dungeon, it was reserved for heads of tribes and fallen royalty, but it's still dungeon. "Is that where I told you to house them?" demanded Pina.

"No, your highness, but..."

"But what?" shrieked the soon to be empress.

"Your highness..." he whispered hoarsely, "she's an elf!"

The color drained out of Stefan's face and a surreal calmness washed over him. Lelu started to panic because Stefan blocked all thoughts with her, but Itami recognized what was happening. Gunnery Sergeant Hanover went into kill mode. "On your knees asshole," Stefan hissed. The trembling captain slowly sank to his knees, the barrel of the pistol pressed to his skull the whole time. "You may not want to watch this ma'am," he said to the Princess without looking at her.

Itami stepped up to Stefan and said, "Sergeant, didn't you make a sacred oath not to kill any more."

"Well, when I rescued 73 people from assholes like this and I had to blow away thirty six pieces of shit, I kinda blew that oath, didn't I cap'n," he said without removing his glare from the back of the man's head. "Besides this isn't killing, pieces of shit like this aren't really alive. This is chlorinating the gene pool." Then without looking up he called to the princess, "Ma'am, you may want to step back, you don't want to get pieces of his head on your nice outfit."

"Gunny, this is the Crown Princess' mess to clean up. Let her take care of her own mess."

Stefan thought for a moment then removed the gun from the back of the guard's head and eased the hammer back down as he stood. "Just protectin' my family sir," said Stefan as he planted a boot in the middle of the guards back and sent him sprawling to stop at Princess Pina's boots.

Pina Co Lada looked down at the man sprawled at her feet. "Captain, your stupidity nearly caused this empire a second war with the elves and the warrior bunnies, and thanks to my idiot brother, we're not capable of defending ourselves." When the sprawled man tried to respond she pushed him down with her armored boot, "Just shut up," she sighed. "High Elf Prima Diva Lelu Nikto De Sebat and Marine Gunnery Sergeant Stefan Edward Hanover have been conferred with entry into house Atchi. They are royal blood, which is why I told you to house them next to my apartment."

"I'm royal?" whispered Lelu.

"I thought you knew that" Carny answered quietly. "That mark you carry, it's red, that makes you a member of Queen Mary's family."

"Ain't that some shit," said Stefan as he walked up to Lelu and Carny. He put his arms around his girls, his elven wife and his bunny... what is she... daughter? "Come on girls, let's get out of here."

"Oh no you don't," said Princess Pina as she stepped up to the little family. "You two are coming with me, we're going for a nice warm bath then a proper dinner." And she led Lelu and Carny back into the palace leaving Stefan and Itami behind while the guards dragged their former commander down to the dungeon for an evening of torture.

"Ain't dat some shit," said Itami watching the girls follow the Crown Princess into the palace.

"You got dat shit right," responded Stefan as they fist bumped. It doesn't matter whose army you're in, military men and women know how to communicate in their own unique manner.

~~~~~~*~~~~~~

Freshly scrubbed and her long raven locks washed, Carny slipped into the steaming hot bath with a sigh. The hot water soothed away the fear of the past day, the terrifying ride in that loud flying machine, being sent to the dungeon, then Stefan getting so mad at the guards, it was scary! Just a couple of days ago she was an orphan cooking in a refugee camp and now she was part of a human/elf family taking a bath with royalty! Aunt Mary will never believe it.

She eased into the steaming hot water next to Lelu and nudged her with an elbow. "Are you ok mom?" Lelu shook her head no. "What's the matter mommy?" Carny snuggled up close to Lelu and wished she could calm this elf like Stefan can. "Are you mad because I called you mommy?"

"No," Lelu smiled at the young bunny. "We like it when you call us that," then she looked sad, "we probably won't have children."

"Why not?" Carny moved so they were sitting face to face.

Lelu looked totally lost and heartbroken. "Elves and humans aren't compatible; we can't make a baby together."

"Who says that? Is that a rule or something?" If there's one thing that Warrior Bunnies know, it's making babies. The only thing that stops a determined warrior bunny from having a baby is the lack of a sperm donor. "Is it because you... you don't have the right equipment?"

"No, you silly rabbit, our equipment is just fine. It's just... well I guess because it's just never happened before."

Carny glared at Lelu. There's one thing that elves and humans have in common, it's the skill of over-analyzing the most basic things. "An elf has never bonded with a human before, but you guys did that... didn't you?" Carny asked with a raised eyebrow.

"No, it just happened... I see what you're doing here, but a baby is different," pouted Lelu.

"Babies are natural, they happen to everyone. Bonding is impossible for almost everyone, even for elves and you guys did it without trying. How do you know that you're not pregnant right now?" Carny didn't know much about elves, but she did know that they have very small babies and really don't show for most of their pregnancy.

Carny was right, how did Lelu know that she wasn't pregnant? They have only made love to completion once, most of their love making was in their minds, but still, there's a chance... it's a gazillion to one chance (gazillion being a number not used in elf mathematics, but Stefan uses it quite often, so it's got to be a human number) "You're pretty smart for... what is it that Stefan calls you... a Waskily Wabbit,"