Metal and Bone | A Rainbow Quest AU

Chapter 23 - The 'Negotiation'

(TW: Needle, mentions of blood/death)

[Sabre's POV]

Today's been pretty quiet, which is really needed after yesterday.

Orange and I have just been hanging out in the Hub. It's a bit cooler today, I guess it wasn't springtime like I thought.

"How come you thought it was Spring, Sabre?" Orange asks me as we play with the little bunny family from afar. They're still a little scared, as bunnies are, but since they hop around near us in the Hub a lot they're starting to get more comfortable with us.

"Oh, it just felt like the spring weather where I'm from." I answer. "Didn't really guess it was the end of summer."

I toss another piece of carrot towards one of the baby bunnies. It hops back a little bit when the piece lands, but then it hops closer and sniffs it. Then it picks up the carrot piece and brings it to the other baby bunny, the two nibbling at it while the big bunny, probably the mom watches.

"That's spring weather in your world?" Orange says. "In the earlier weeks of our summer seasons, we have to be careful not to be outside too long or we overheat our systems! How did you handle that?"

"Well, in my world, it's really hot. After the monsters got there, apparently the sun got hotter and a lot of things dried up." I reply. "I lived there long after that was a thing, so I guess I was just used to it."

"If it was so hot, why did you have the hoodie?" Orange asks.

"For both the cold nights and for better protection from anything that might hurt me." I say. "It might've been hot, but because I was used to that the nights felt freezing, and whenever it got really cold I would curl up inside the hoodie because I was really scared I would freeze. And since there was a lot of broken glass, rusted metal pipes, and wrecked buildings everywhere, it was better that my hoodie would get caught on something rather than my skin."

"Is that why your hoodie has patches, and why it was so roughed up before I fixed it?" Orange says, tossing the bunnies in front of us another carrot piece.

"Yeah, I don't really know how to fix it myself." I say. "The patches are from this really nice lady named Miss Amilee that would fix it in return for bringing her materials like scrap or clothes, since she was an amputee and was too scared to go out for it herself because she was slower because of her missing leg. She had a prosthetic one, but it was basically just a crutch attached to the stump, so it didn't do much. She even gave me food and water sometimes, when she had extra."

"Well, did you get to see her before you arrived in this world?" Orange asks.

"She died to a monster that attacked her through a window two years before I got here." I answer.

"...Oh." Orange says, sounding a little uneasy.

"It's okay, she left me a note just before she did." I continue. "She put in it that she was okay with it, and something was bound to get her eventually, and wished me the best. Even wrote that I could take the supplies she left behind. Miss Amilee was always talking about how she hated living like how she did, and missed living like before the apocalypse, but she was scared of dying. I guess when she realized it was happening she made peace with it."

We stay silent for a moment, just watching the bunnies.

"...Did I just make it awkward?" I ask.

"No, no, it's alright! Just- Ah..." Orange says. "I wasn't expecting that."

"You can be honest, I don't care." I say.

"Sabre, it's alright." Orange says, chuckling. "It wasn't really your fault, I was the one that asked."