Family chats and firesides

After Rye’s sudden proclamation that she’d caught more than just a small amount of feelings for Dustin, he felt a little awkward returning to the colonists and helping with the construction. To his relief, Rye more or less marched him over to her uncle who was busy stripping side branches from felled trees and handed him a power-tool. “Wooden construction is a little awkward and old fashioned you’d think, but it’s tradition for our first homesteads to be made of natural materials. They’ll serve as temporary accommodation until they’ve gotten the first burrows set up - modern construction takes far too long to settle when you’re in a rush against time before the winter. Here.” And with that Dustin found himself left working alongside the older Rabyth at his task, the bunny folks’ traditional desires thankfully extending as far as the construction and not the tools.

With power-tools making swift progress through the incoming wood from other groups of colonists, Dustin found he had time to talk with Leaze as they worked. “How long have you been on the planet?” He ventured at first, adding “Rye told us a bunch of stuff about the colony, but not how long you’ve been out here.” The older man shrugged as he single-handedly lifted a log onto the trestles they were using to make the process of smoothing the timbers easier. “About four months; we’ve been in system for six, but the first two were all spent on a ship while surveying to find the ideal place to start off. We’re a low priority colony, so we’ve been working with manual tools for the most part - hence why it’s taken so long to get the houses up.”

Another blur of wood chips later and the man glanced at Dustin. “You managed to make my niece come out of her shell to the point she actually yelled at our Jammieth. I’d add my thanks into the ones you’ll inevitably get from her folk once they hear from my better half. Do you want some advice about our kind?” Dustin mused for a moment, double checking the last of the branches had been cleared before setting his cutting tool down and nodding. “If you don’t mind, sir. Rye mentioned you and Lavendi have been paired for a very long time.” The old bunny chuckled at that and sat down on one of the cleared logs. “That we have lad, that we have. Nearly thirty years; we don’t look our age do we? We’re a rare pair in that we were friends when we were young too. Well, my advice is this; Rabyth women don’t change just because they’re paired. Oh don’t look so shocked lad, you don’t have a long relationship and get to be a colony leader without being able to spot the signs when a young couple are moving in a certain direction, and your pointing out my relationship only helped me confirm my hunch.”

Leaze paused, pulling on one ear absent mindedly before continuing. “If I’m not mistaken, Rye and you’ve already talked a little about it. Well, as I was saying, regardless of whatever you’ve read about our kind the womenfolk don’t change during pairing in terms of who they are. Folk always worry that the person they’ve fallen for is going to change just because they agree to stick with one other Rabyth. And from the folk I know in mixed pairs, it’s even more of a fear - and even more stupid - when it’s with a non-Rabyth partner. The only thing that is guaranteed to happen is a little more predictability for when our cycles fall - oh, and the pairing itself. On which note, my second bit of advice - let the lady plan the whole thing. I mean, you’d probably do that anyway, it’s her culture not yours - but let her plan it out herself. Then, when she’s done planning, insist on their being plenty to drink available at appropriate moments. Lavendi and I got quite the telling off by the doctors when our pairing was finished for letting ourselves get that dehydrated.” The old man chuckled for a moment, eyes going misty with remembrance before he shook his head. “Well, that’s it - keep treating her as you have been, stay hydrated and stay yourself young man. Do all that and you too could be passing down advice to young bunnies in love in thirty years time.”

As Dustin was thanking the man for his words of wisdom - and pondering if “make sure to drink plenty” really counted as relationship advice, the thrum of the shuttle engines announced the return of the others. All hands stopped their work at that point, changing power tools, construction and tree felling for unloading and carrying the mixture of metal, cement bags and wire spools from the two vehicles further up the hill. Lugging a box of electrical odds and ends, Dustin followed the others and was surprised to see them entering what appeared to be the mouth of a cave. Ducking inside, he blinked at the well lit room beyond. Jammieth giggled as he paused to stare around him. “Rye, you really should have taken your man to see one of the survival cities before you started roaming the galaxy.”

Rye set down her own burden and took Dustin’s from him, shelving it neatly on a rack on one side of the chamber. “One, he wasn’t ‘my man’ at that point - I was still as neutral as always on the subject of intimacy until we’d been in space for a while. And two, I was worried despite everything he said that he’d kick me off the ship if I wasn’t a normal Rabyth, so I wanted out of the home system as fast as possible to make that less of a risk.” Dustin caught her in a hug before she could pick up another box to shelve it. “You know I wouldn’t have done that, I told you that we wanted you for your skill on the crew not in anyone’s bed.” Rye kissed him, earning a whistle from her cousin before pulling firmly from his arms and returning to her work. “I did say I was worried, not that I am worried Dusty. That was several months and a significant amount of fucking ago.” Then she winked and in a lower voice clearly meant for his ears alone added “not to mention a whole bunch of feelings.”

It took most of the rest of the day to finish unloading the vessels and storing away all the timber that had been prepared, followed by a trip to the stream to wash. Out of respect for Dustin’s human sensibilities and Rye’s glare, the Rabyth had let the crew of the Solar Ascent have their own bathing time alone. Tomorrow, construction proper would begin - Dustin after some thought decided that Emely and he would resume transporting supplies up via shuttle. While neither of them were exactly weak by their own species’ standards, compared to the wiry muscles of the Rabyth it made the most sense for them to not be on the crews lugging entire tree trunks around to build housing. It also gave him a neat excuse to spend the entire night with Emely inside the tent that he pulled from one of the shuttles. While Rye and the others gathered food and firewood supplies and set to cooking a vast array of hotpots for dinner, he beckoned to his comms officer. “We’ll set our tent a little bit back from the Rabyth housing, but somewhere you can still see the fire.” He decided, pointing to the edge of the clearing. “There’s a spot over there that looks pretty flat, and it’s a quick run down to the stream tomorrow for bathing.” Emely glanced at him as he said that. “We just bathed, sir. Will we need to clean up again tomorrow morning?”