It was an enormous honor for Dad to be appointed to the Rabbit Council, although he remains an outsider among the group. When they convene he’s the only one who sits under a lamp while the rest remain in shadow. At first he thought that they sat in darkness out of an instinct for self-preservation, but with Coney there they should have nothing to fear.
To be honest, I never paid much attention to rabbit politics while I was growing up in the warren. You might say that was for obvious reasons, but looking back I wish I had. (I’m making up for that now.)
Speaking of instincts, last week I was asked about how Danielle and I acquired our respective rabbit and hedgehog instincts when we “crossed over” from being human. In my case, I was infant so I didn’t have an established neural framework to re-wire. It was more complicated for Danielle, and in some respects it was an incomplete process. She still enjoys eating meat, for instance, and is generally fearless. (The latter trait, of course, does run in the family.)
Danielle does acknowledge, though, that she has picked up some strong rabbit instincts. She won’t elaborate, but when she says that she smiles...at George.
My hedgehog instincts are still in full force. I wonder, though, if my being born as a human had something to do with being able to spent my entire childhood believing I was a herbivorous porcupine instead of an insect-eating hedgehog. Angelique forced that belief on me since she didn’t want to feed me crickets, but perhaps my origins left me malleable enough to maintain that identity all the way to my senior year in high school.
That needs more research. Research...Mmmm...happy place...
