thelegion | (no subject)

Time for a confession, mates. I never have eaten chocolate.

[The Easter Bunny is only recognizable by his accent, thanks to all these supernatural shenanigans, and nobody has yet convinced him to wear Ray's lended flightsuit as intended. He's about as comfortable as he can get while under these wholly uncomfortable circumstances with the arms of the flightsuit knotted around his waist, because pants on a human are an understandable necessity, but shirts are just excessive, and the feeling of cloth on bare skin is merely one thing wigging Bunny out right now.

But that's not why he's set up this video feed. He crouches amidst the green of his semi-warren, a few of the chocolate eggs he'd made the previous day set up on a flat stone next to him.]

Not because I didn't want to, or because I'm some hypercritical fearmonger too spooked by joy to give having some a try.

[His stare at the camera is real pointed for a few seconds there. Maybe it is directed at someone.]

But because chocolate is actually toxic for rabbits, unlike humans, for whom is a delight enjoyed sensibly across my world in moderation.

[The pointed stare at the camera is obviously directed at someone. Otherwise why would it keep happening?]

'But Bunny,' I sense you wondering, 'If you can't eat chocolate, how have you been able to make it not only well, but better than any living mortal has ever dared to dream any single piece of candy could ever taste?' A fair question. The answer is both that I invented chocolate as candy - it's a long story, theft was involved, ask an Aztec deity if any ever show up here - and that my sense of smell is - was - so much better than a human's that I haven't needed to use taste to figure the quality of my own work, and frankly, the reviews have never once been bad.

[He smiles fondly, remembering the little glimpses he gets every year of kids unrepentently enjoying themselves, running and playing and full of joy for the one day he calls his own, enjoying the work he's poured his life into.]

Anyway, this is all to say that there is a bright side to the current madness, and it is this. [He holds up an unpainted chocolate egg.] I get to taste what all the fuss is about. America - this one's for you.

[He digs in, biting halfway through the candy and holds onto the bite, allowing himself to savor immediate flavor, texture, and all at once his casual, mischievous attitude is swiped away, staring at his remaining egg in shock.]

Holy dooley.

[A few more wordless seconds pass as he finishes the candy with quiet sounds of enjoyment. He tries to begin speaking a few times without success after it's gone, finally lifting a free hand to his face. He's actually crying, yes, crying, happy tears of joyful awe.]

I had no idea. I thought I did. I really had no -

I need a tic.

[He hastily shuts the video off so he can have his joyous revelation in private.]

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Glad I could help.

[Glad's an understatement. This is only his entire immortal existence's purpose, appreciable on a new level. The chain reaction of delight has him practically giggling. No wonder mortals have appreciated his day as much for as long as they have.]

Why chocolate, though? Not that I'm complaining, but it's like you said - you can't eat it. I've had cacao. It's bitter. It's like the first guy to have cow's milk. Who looked at a cow and said "I want to drink that?" Who eats a cacao bean and says "This'll make a great candy"?

Oh, that's a long story.

[And he opened it up for discussion - mostly because he couldn't resist the urge to rub a history of thievery in America's face, where she can't do anything but be uptight about it. But any story from long ago involves navigating the minefield of avoiding talking about the terrible parts, and even some of the not-terrible parts that inevitably lead to the terrible ones.]

Can't tell it as good as Anansi would, but he's not around for me to put on the spot, so I'll do my best.

[He did open it up.]

Back before I was a Guardian, I was a bit of a larrikin and I heard from certain . . . less-bloody-than-average Aztec contacts that their mortals were offering a new sort of delicious magic bean up for their gods and emperors only.

[Someone's going to have to press a lot harder than Robbie is to get him to name the 400 Drunken Rabbits, and nobody's going to press hard enough to get him to admit how often he used to associate with said contacts, during his itinerant youth.]

I didn't have the power back then that I have now, so the world was more than a bit bloodier and nastier, and that particular pantheon liked it that way. Freeing a bunch of human sacrifices wasn't all-in-a-day's-work for me back then, but I was planning a round of it anyway when word of cacao pricked my ear. If you're already freeing a bunch of scared children, stealing magic beans is as easy as an afterthought.

Anyway, I got off with all this cacao and had to figure out what I was going to do with it. Well, what DO you do when the world is a bloody, terrifying place, full of mortals scraping by each year under too many uncaring gods? When they're struggling to feed themselves and their families and find something to look forward to in the dead of winter when the stores are getting low? What would you do, if you happened to find yourself with a new nutritious, stimulating, calorie-dense crop containing nothing bad for mortal humans, and plenty good for them? And a bunch of bloody, angry gods demanding something more enticing than a still-beating, bloody heart?

[Could he smirk any harder if he tried? Probably not.]

If you're me - you get creative. You sniff around for complimentary ingredients, call on some willing test subjects, and invent chocolate.

Things got a bit, ah, political for . . .

[for Eos. They got political for Eos. Fat chance he'll mention his dead patroness, though, while avoiding sad subjects.]

. . . for a while there, but eventually everyone agreed that I'd come up with an end that "justified" - like freeing scared children needed justification - my means. I still get a bit mad about having to share my greatest creation with beings that thought murdering kids was a good way to organize a religion, but well, nowadays they don't get a lot of tribute, while I'm looked forward to every year.

[Oh would you look at that, he can smirk harder.]

There ya go. Not the best telling of the tale, but I'm the Guardian of Hope, not Stories.

That's a lot to digest.

[ The pun is 100% intentional, and Robbie can't help grinning. ]

I think I would've voted for punting the gods into a volcano, but... I'm glad you saved the kids.

[ Any story that ends with saving a bunch of kids gets a huge thumbs up from Robbie. ]

So... you're Australian, but you definitely have a Central American story, and then you got linked up to a Christian holiday. Er, Christian holiday stolen from the Greco-Roman pagans. How does that part work?

[He chuckles because that was a good pun! He got it! He shrugs, though, because he would have agreed back then about the volcano, but -]

Eh. You'll never hear me disagree. Didn't have the power back then, though.

[Which is a nice way of saying he has the power now . . . or had it back home, anyway. But he's starting to learn from dealing with other underpowered Legionnaires (hello, Aku) that complaining about being nerfed is pretentious when you're the one hearing about it.]

[If Robbie likes stories where kids get saved, then he's in luck - Bunny's got more of those than he has sad stories. Thank goodness.]

I've got a spring holiday. Every human society north or south enough to have cold winters has had one since holidays began. You change the names and the dates around on us, but the spirit of the thing remains. The traditions get kept.

[And his tradition is, obviously, the best tradition. How can it not be?]

You can't get a better tradition than free candy and a day playing outside.

[He'll argue until the year's come around all over again that even Christmas can't compare.]