Chapter 137 - My SI Stash #37 - GATE: Thus I was Reborn as a Half-Orc and Tried to Civilize a Savage Bunny Tribe by konamikode (Gate: Jieitai Kanochi nite, Kaku Tatakaeri)

-Pretty much Re: Monster(no gamer though) but set in Gate, with some sneak peaks of the future added to the beginning of every chaps~

*The longest title in the stash? ♪(´▽｀)

Sypnosis: ???

Rated: M

Words: 38K

Posted on: forum.questionablequesting.com/threads/gate-thus-i-was-reborn-as-a-half-orc-and-tried-to-civilize-a-savage-bunny-tribe.8662/page-2#post-2442742 (konamikode)

PS: If you're not able to copy/paste the link, you have everything in here to find it, by simply searching the author and the story title. It sucks that you can't copy links on mobile (´ー｀)

-I'll be putting the chapter ones of all the fanfics mentioned, to give you guys a sample if you wan't more please do go to the website and support the author! (And maybe even convince them to start uploading chapters in here as well!)

Chapter 0-2 (exceptional)

For many thousands of years, our home has been connected at times to a certain plane. An untamed and wild world, it is this place where the majority of the female dominated races originate from.

The mysterious and secretive Striped Lahmia who dwell deep in the jungles of the Dragon's Jaw Isles.

The capricious Sharp Toothed Merfolk who raid the southern shipping lanes for loot and plunder.

The soft spoken, but deadly Queen Cobra Gorgons of the eastern desert whose potent venom can turn a humanoid into stone.

And of course, the Head Hunting Rabbit tribes of the great eastern plains.

Dangerous races one and all with an ancient history of constant, bloody struggle, but among them, the Bunny tribes are without a doubt the most prolific and successful migrants.

It is said that their homeworld was one of scarcity. A place where the works of civilization and science had never passed the point where sticks and stones were the weapons they prized. That the most queenly accommodations were the upraised huts of mud and grass where tribal leaders resided with their carefully guarded breeding stock.

Be it a quirk of their formation or a safeguard made by their foreign gods, males of any race were a rare breed with every birth being a joyous occasion to a tribe blessed with such a gift. Regardless of whether they were born of the mother's or the father's race, they were a precious existence, kept safe by the blood of their mother's, sisters, and cousins against rival tribes and the many predators that roamed their home.

An often repeated tale, when the Gate opened for the first time fifteen hundred years ago, a small group of chosen heroes and priestesses were sent to this mysterious realm.

When they returned to their tribe, they did so not with stories of gods and demons, but with a gaggle of curious canine-like males who were hunting in the area. Soon more bunnies were sent along with their new 'companions' in order to further relations with these strange, curious wolf men.

It was unbelievable to the bunny people.

Never had so many males been seen together, and by their awkwardly burgeoning dialogue, that it was normal for so many to be part of a clan. It was unfathomable to them that they were even allowed to hunt and war!

Not only this, but the other world was a lush land, filled with game and vast areas filled with edible plants and grain. With such a welcoming land full of bounty, mystery, and willing flesh, it was no wonder that so many decided to leave their ancestral home.

And thus, the Warrior Bunny Tribes made a life here.

Savage, simple, pure.

But it was life all the same.

-Excerpt from High Elven Loremaster Salisbury's Humanoid Species Compendium, Volume 18-

Part 1: Fire and Frost

------

Prologue: Blessing

"He was quiet as an infant. There was none of the usual fuss that accompanies the rearing of humanoid pups, regardless of race. Even before he opened his eyes mere moments after his birth, I knew he was different. Blessed by the Gods."

-Layna Frostfang regarding her Blood Son, Khornami Frostfang during his infanthood-

------

1st Spring

Khor

As far as I could tell, it'd been roughly a month or so since I'd been born. My eyesight was rapidly getting better as were my other senses. Much faster than a normal human infant's would develop.

It was probably a perk of 'nudging' the feeling of what I somehow knew was my development mostly towards the physical. From what I could tell during the short bouts of consciousness that began occurring more frequently as what I assumed was my mother's heartbeat grew clearer, I was given the opportunity to hedge my body's growth in several paths.

To describe the innate feeling I had of this process, I'd started with a template with minimum and maximum thresholds I could slightly nudge this way and that as a baseline.

My race? Species? Whatever it was, I knew that the base template of the creature I was going to be reborn as something strong. Maybe I wouldn't be the smartest or fastest thing out there, but I was pretty sure I'd be strong enough to eventually take on an entire pro rugby team and have a good chance of bashing my way out. That same something told me that there'd be a limit however, with the tradeoff being an increased level of mental acuity compared to the 'standard' template.

The reverse also applied in this case.

I knew that I should've been able to go one way or the other if the template wasn't… meshed? But I was locked in. Could've been that I was a nonstandard… something or another.

Regardless, I'd noticed something very curious. The 'potential' of my old body had been added on top of the parameters of this new one on top of the baseline that was already there. With just this I knew that I'd be abnormally strong and smart when I finished maturing, something bordering the top 2% of what I was going to be born as. I'd be at least as intelligent as I was before and much stronger than I'd ever had the capability of being.

But more than this, there was yet another pool of completely unspent 'points' just waiting to be allocated. I knew it to be larger than what it should be, twice that of what would normally be allowed for a new soul. The personal instincts and desires of the unborn meant to 'customize' the body before birth.

I wondered for a long while whether I'd just bumped aside whoever it was that was originally supposed to be here, but a sense of urgency began to overtake me as 'time' passed. I didn't have to dawdle forever so I made my choice.

I was already going to be more than I was on every level. But given I didn't know what life was going to be like once I was breathing again, going a full physical build seemed like a better idea. Whatever was out there, I was going to survive long enough to enjoy my hopefully long next life.

With that thought I'd nudged my physical parameters far above what my new body would've normally been capable of and metaphorically closed my eyes to wait the death of my ego as the circle of reincarnation refreshed my mind and spirit.

Except that I didn't lose my sense of self or my memories of the life I'd had before I ended up here. The details of my original body's death were a little on the fuzzy side, but that's not really important.

What was were the blurred shapes that looked and felt like hands holding me close to a soft something followed by the voices of what sounded like speech.

That realization was relieving in more ways than one.

I was human. Or at least I thought I was.

So color me surprised when I saw the blurry, but still discernible, lightly furred face of a rabbit eared woman cooing over myself and several other bundles.

Given that was now several weeks ago, I got over the surprise. I had more pressing concerns at the moment.

Namely, I was moments away from soiling the cloth diaper wrapped around my bottom and all around me my… brothers? Sisters? Cousins-

Well, whatever their relation to myself, the babies were fast asleep.

There was finally a moment of peace where all the kids had nodded off and if I didn't think of something soon, nobody was going to be happy for the next hour or two.

Then a shadow slid past the light of the falling second moon, the first having set an hour ago.

"Khor? What are you doing awake?" The young woman who I believe to be my mother ghosts with silent footsteps towards the comfortable pen me and my fellow inmates were currently confined.

"Gu." Hello mother. You're up early as usual.

The brunette colored woman with blue eyes leaned over the small pen where we babies slept, playfully tapping a clawed fingertip against my nose with a loving, hooded gaze.

Behind her I could hear the beginnings of a.d.u.l.ts and older children stirring and getting ready for the day ahead. Given I'd been able to do nothing but look around in between long naps, I can't say that I was really bored.

Seriously, there was a lot of anthropological work and theorycrafting to be done!

Besides being stuck in a pre-industrial society, the first thing I'd noticed was that the majority of the people living here were long eared females first, non-bunny males second, and male rabbits being the rarest. And by rare I meant that of the hundred or so individuals I'd seen milling around the den, I'd only seen two.

I'd wondered at first about the impossibility given that my skin was currently a pale greenish color and that I lacked the fuzzy ears of my crib mates, but there had been other children in what I think is the extended family den. The majority of them had been furred in some shape or another with most of the non-bunnies being what I believe is some sort of canid.

A wolf? Maybe a fox? I'd seen older boys fitting those characteristics running around.

I hadn't seen another person with green skin like myself, but one of the boys sharing the crib area with me is a human, I think. There's enough children of what should be different races sleeping, crawling, playing, or bawling that I'm beginning to come up with a few theories.

Firstly I can probably nix the idea that the non long eared children are adopted. It's not like these bunny ladies are going out stealing babies or something either. I'd seen plenty of pregnant women on one day, the next there'd be a new bundle placed in the pen, and soon after the missing bunny would return haggard, but happy with obvious affection for the new neighbors.

So, from what I can observe either these rabbit women pop out non-bunny infants at random or they're one of those fantasy races that can magically be i.m.p.r.e.g.n.a.t.ed and carry to term children not of their own kind.

Without shame I can admit to wondering whether I'd landed in a hentai world. What with the number of objectively exotic and beautiful women walking about in the near nude, it didn't seem all that farfetched in reality.

Seems awesome in hindsight, but I'd rather not get NTR'd or do the NTRing. Or the raping.

Simulated non-con filled with fuzzy handcuffs, panda blindfolds, and plenty of giggle worthy one liners are totally cool, but uh… yeah.

If I end up being an orc or something I'd rather not go around furthering that specific stereotype thank you very much. I'm not that kind of orc.

Heh.

Urk, yeah gotta poo.

Ma!

Silently locking eyes with her, I raise my small, chubby arms with a real sense of desperation and communicate the universal baby body language of 'up'.

"Right, right, c'mon up you go~" Despite the bags underneath her eyes, the youthful woman gently picks me up with strong, calloused hands and presses me against her chest.

Ah no, I'm not hungry mother.

I turn my face away, pressing my cheek against a bountiful bosom whose cloth bindings were already halfway loosed in preparation when the bunny woman makes a small noise of confusion.

"What is it Khor? Aren't you hungry?" A sleepy, but indulging smile finds itself on her face as she lifts me higher to rub her nose against mine. "Do you want to spend time with your Blood Mother?"

"Nnnnngu." I grunt, scrunching my face up as best as I can in an attempt to get the message across.

"Oh. Oh. Wait just a moment child and let's save us both some time." She titters nervously as we make our way towards the slit trenches.

I like this one more than the others. She's quick on the uptake.

-

"He's a strange one, isn't he?" My mother spoke her nonsensical gibberish of a language while bouncing me up and down her lap.

I played along, using the opportunity to exercise my legs a bit as she chatted with a scarred woman of middle age who bore a strong resemblance to the younger bunny.

Said woman snorts softly to herself, using the remains of a mangled left hand missing its two last fingers to stroke a sharp steel dagger against a whetstone. "Of course he is different. Did you think a child blessed by the gods would be normal?"

It was a comforting noise. Something familiar that I'd grown used to in my last life whether it was preparing a blade for field use or kitchenwork.

"Of course not Blood Mother." Ma rolls her eyes, using the same title she uses to refer to herself to the person who I'm pretty sure is my grandmother. "He's just so quiet and measured in his actions. My first child he may be, but I've helped care for many of my clan cousins and children. He so rarely cries, and the way he watches those around him whenever he's awake. At first I'd worried he was slow of mind, but there is a deliberateness in everything he does that doesn't befit the actions of a babe."

Ma chews her lip lightly, tugging lightly at the thin fabric hugging her b.r.e.a.s.ts with a raised brow before smiling ruefully when I turn my head with a noise she'd come to learn as 'no'. "You see?"

"Mayhaps he is an old spirit reborn. Or perhaps he is the sum of his unborn siblings together in one container? Only the gods know my child, and it is apparent that he's been blessed by them." Grandmother chuckles in an chiding tone before scooting over. "It is not so rare for orc-blooded to be born without siblings, but he has fire and water in his eyes, not like yours which has too much melted snow."

The elder bunny hovers over me at her daughter's side, presenting the dagger held by the guard so that I could equally grab the blade or the handle with my hands.

"Blood Mother! He's too young!" Ma attempts to interrupt, but doesn't move me from her lap.

Instead she bites her lip, but locks her eyes with mine with a sense of curiosity mixed with rightly felt dread.

"Well my youngest grandchild? Which do you choose?" Grandmother asks something with a fang filled smile, watching me carefully with her arms tensed as if ready to pull away the moment I went for the shiny, pointy end.

Wow. Yeah, you're a badass grandma, but pretty sure I'm not going to let you babysit my kids if I end up having any in the future.

Still, I get the idea well enough. While I'm not sure about our neighbors, but back in Korea we hold this ceremony for year old children where we give them a few toys prior to their formal naming. It's a type of fortune telling from the oldest days and the first time around I'd apparently grabbed the brush to signify that I'd become a scholar or writer of some sort.

Prophetic in some sense, but in the more immediate sense I guessed this was more along the lines of some kind of warrior tradition here.

Of course I'm going to mess with her a bit.

Regardless of her scars, Grandma was cute so I wanted to elicit a satisfactory reaction from the hardened and grinning woman.

"Blu Ma." I stated with all the poise and authority I could muster with my infantile body while firmly wrapping my small fingers around the single large digit of grandma's left middle finger.

I love you~

I giggled as a baby would, joyfully smiling and kicking my legs while my right hand reached to join my left around the frozen digit whose partner was still carefully lifting the blade away from my body.

Her middle finger separated slightly from her index, allowing me more room to hold on even as a small, soft breath left her lungs and her eyes widened minutely.

Ever so slowly did my mother's hand leave my side to snake to the side and gently pull the dagger my grandmother gently released to her daughter's grasp away with her own tinkling giggles and smile.

"Do you see Blood Mother? How different he is?" Mother whispers, rubbing her cheek against grandma's and knocking her out of the elder woman's reverie. "He is both sweet and intelligent beyond his years."

"He is odd indeed." Grandma speaks with hooded, warm eyes as she allows me to wrap my fingers around her mangled hand. The older woman leans in close, nuzzling the tip of her nose against my fingers ticklishly while humming to herself in a familiar tune Ma used when it was nap time.

"A loving heart." The mother of my mother soothingly whispered, stroking her thumb against my fingers. "And such strength already." She laughs softly when her two fingers and thumb flex lightly and I do so back with all of my insignificant baby power.

"Will he be a great warrior as well as a bridge to the gods?" Mother asks, bumping her shoulder against the other woman while stroking the hair lightly dusting my head. "He is growing so quickly…"

"Yes. He will be strong. Very strong." Grandma replies in a hushed tone, looking deeply into my eyes.

I stare back, wondering why she looks between my left and right as many others do before putting more points into the idea that I may have different eye colors.

"Blood of my Blood, Khornami Frostfang." Grandmother sighs, bringing her other, healthy hand around to lightly play with my own digits. "He will be great. Of this I have no doubt my little Layna."

"But I fear that his heart may be too large for the life that we lead." Grandma says with heavily closed eyes, brushing her nose against my mother's neck with a silent breath.

"Blood Mother?" Mother replies questioningly.

Her excitement mixed with the tangible and acrid taste of worry spreads through the countenance of her muscled form.

The slight hint of coppery tang that follows Ma seems to strengthen for a second before fading away into the air.

Like a warning set off by a prey animal that is anything but defenseless against anything that would dare to harm her.

"He will love you. And me. He will love us all." Grandmother laughs lightly, never looking away from me.

"He will shed blood, his and that of his foes without fear. But he will will harbor those in need and provide succor for those he wishes to protect."

"..."

"But I fear for a future where that love is taken from him." Grandma mutters softly, bringing her nose close with my own to nuzzle me before gently taking me from my mother's lap into her strong, warm arms. "He will take from the gods and goddesses all that they have to give my little Layna."

"And he will burn all who he believes to have wronged him and what is his."

---

Chapter 1: Fluffle

"Khor? He was my blood cousin, the firstborn child of my mother's fourth sister, Layna. He was older than myself by a year and I looked up to him. Smart, strong, fast, and large of both size and heart. All of us children of the Frostfang clan and the Winterwood tribe as a whole loved and sought to spend time with him."

...

"He liked to tell us stories you know? Of your world. We didn't know it then, but tales both real and fiction crossed over the boundaries of the Gate and set themselves in our hearts warrior Itami."

"Tell me, has the legend of the hero known as Deku been finalized? If you have time I'm sure you'd be welcome to tell the rest of the story at the tribal hearth. All of us have been waiting years for this moment!"

-Grick Frostfang regarding his Blood Cousin, Khornami Frostfang during their childhood-

------

3rd Summer

Khor

What do you call a group of rabbit pups? Because it's become pretty damned relevant over the course of my peaceful village life thus far.

A fluffle.

Fluffle.

A more apt term couldn't be described for the small pen of poof poofs crawling or toddling around in search of entertainment and comfort. Little bundles of floof and cuteness, each demanding love and attention from something bigger than them.

"Khor! Khor! Play!" One such dark furred toddler stumbles forth to burrow his snout against my chest and stomach happily, his yellow eyes glinting with the innocent giddiness of an untroubled child who'd just discovered his favorite playmate.

Grick was a wolfman pup, my cousin by my mother's sixth sister Karla who was currently exhaustedly taking a nap in the sunlight nearby. The youngest of three children, he was also the last to be born and the runt of the litter between himself and his elder bunny sisters who were equally as endearing as the smaller than normal wolf boy.

They were a little bit more disciplined though, having long taken to looking after their smaller brother with all the fierceness of an elder sibling all but a few minutes older than the little wolf.

"Nyo! Big brother do chores! Stay!" The firstborn and largest triplet, Trix, bumbles forth to ungracefully tackle her yelping younger brother into an impromptu wrestling match.

"Play!" The second girl, Chex, thrusts two tiny fists into the air before tumbling into the excited bundle of fur and playful biting of her siblings with a challenging bellow.

By challenging bellow I mean happy cheer.

Whatever god or gods that sent me here, nonexistent temptation of the flesh is one thing. There may be the tantalizingly sinuous, well developed, svelte, muscled, and everything in between bodies of beautiful bunny women wandering about near unclothed everywhere, but that was only a trick.

A smokescreen for the real danger.

Fire can be fought. Danger can be prepared for in advance, especially since I currently lacked the hormones to really appreciate and act on the feast fed to my eyes daily.

Now cuteness?

That's just not fair.

There is literally nothing I can do in this era to protect myself from diabetes you cruel and glorious bastards. If you wanted me to form attachments to my new life, you could've stopped at a sweet younger sister or two.

"Play, play!" The mismatched choir of bloodthirsty voices hungering for violence in the opened play area began to chant as more bodies stumbled forth in an attempt to wrestle their foes and family into the soft grass mats of our clan's den.

But no, the gods had to prey on the weakness of near every mammalian type lifeform on any planet.

Damn and bless you for making my ever expanding fluffle so cute!

I can't even think of an Oreimo reference here. It's just that damn attention grabbing.

"Nnngh…" The tired and exhausted form of my younger aunt grimaced from her freshly interrupted sleep as a single red eye drooped open with a sigh.

Agh, no! Grandma said you were pregnant again so you need to take it easy while the rest of the warriors are gone doing…

Stuff.

Putting the memories filled with sight, smells, and sounds of ritual blood paint, blade oil, and ecstatic prayers the the gods aside, I puffed myself up to my full height and quickly replaced the diaper I'd been changing with a snort.

The noise is familiar and intimidating enough for the large ball of fur, limbs, and wide eyes to stop their play fighting and stare in my direction.

I was tall for a three year old.

Large.

Much larger than any of those children born around the same time I was and bigger than even the majority of those who were twice my age.

The clan mothers who'd fed me before I'd been weaned of milk had all complained and lauded how much I ate compared to the others. Their words meshed well with the growth spurt I'd come into and seemingly never stopped experiencing so far.

Grandma and the other elders had said that it was normal.

Half-Orcs like me grew quickly when proper nourishment was available. And while I was a baby, I quite literally had my choice of food dispensers to choose from almost at my leisure.

Sure, as I grew older and started eating solids I admittedly began to miss the thick, frothy liquid provided to me as an infant, my extended family had everything necessary for a young child to grow healthy and strong.

To clarify I mean that fine dining here is pretty much nonexistent. There is plenty of meat brought back from the tribe's hunting parties. Enough for us to have a chunks of meat for everyone in the clan pottage most days of the week during spring and summer. Even in winter we had enough dried meat, legumes, and stored mushrooms for a thick, hearty stew to be served alongside slabs of brown bread.

I ate well. Peasant fare it may have been if I got the time period correct, but oddly enough peasantry ate better than most people thought in the old days. Everything we ate took time to prepare and got old after a while, but it was nutrient dense and filling.

Dark bread, beans, root vegetables, mushrooms, and plentiful meat when it was time to hunt the herds of megafauna roaming the plains.

The problem?

Spices.

What salt we were able to trade or take from other tribes was barely enough to cure enough meats and vegetables to get us through the winter.

As far as I could tell, we were some of the northernmost tribes settled on the plains that bordered forests and mountains to our upper borders. Settled next to a major river, we didn't have to worry about fresh water and even had access to fish and crustaceans every so often. However, this meant there wasn't a salt deposit we were mining from.

At least not to my knowledge and whether or not there were nearby salt deposits our village could utilize didn't matter at the moment. It's not like I was an expert in mineralogy. What did matter was that we had a limited supply of salt with much of it being provided by trade and what was likely pillaging.

My new people weren't completely backwards, we burned plants high in sodium and filtered the ashes to take what salt we could, but there was never enough of it in abundance for use in something so comparatively frivolous as cooking.

It was another thing to tack onto the list of 'improvements' I needed to make. Bad enough that there was no white rice, but at least there were plenty of wild vegetables we foraged that I could use to recreate some old dishes.

Wild rice was a thing. I could work with that.

What I couldn't work with were the wide eyed children looking up at me with excited eyes.

I was an only child before, but I'd been the second youngest first cousin consisting of a family where my eldest non-aunt or uncle was nearly fifteen years my elder.

Hell, some of my second cousins were almost my year.

Fortunately this meant I had quite a bit of experience in dealing with unruly children even from a young age.

And the one thing kids respect?

Size and bravado. Something I had down in spades.

"I'm the boss you brats! And Auntie is trying to sleep so shut up!" I growled with a nod to my thankful relative who continued watching with careful, but tired eyes.

Aunt Karla was kind of a flake as the third youngest of my mother's siblings. But that didn't mean she was inattentive.

She just trusted me to handle things is all.

The toddlers that could disentangle themselves from the pile of fluff did so with shrieking cries of excitement as I barreled forth with carefully applied strength to wade through the furred and squirming bodies of my cousins. Blunted claws and playfully biting fangs bit into my already thick skin without much force as the children giggled and squealed, capitulating to my superior bulk, size, and strength without resistance.

The kids knew who was boss inside the den and most quickly fled before the terror of tickling fingers came to mercilessly assault their sides.

"Rrr!" Little Grick though, he rolled upwards immediately after his giggling sisters fled to the sides as big brother Khor came stomping into wrestling range.

The small pup futilely threw himself against me, midnight black fur weaving through the varied coats of his cousins as he tried to find a weak point in my thick green skin.

Tried anyway.

Instead I picked up the little runt fully over my shoulder to sit down on the dried grass carpet with him on my lap as I easily dodged the uncoordinated swipes and swings of his small, sharp claws.

"Be good!" The human girl who I thought was a boy during my early days grouched from the side and toddled forth with her arms clumsily wrapping around Grick.

Milly was an oddity in bunny society as a Yoh Lokmin; A female of another race born to a long eared mother. Opposite to the usual ratio of greater bunny female to male births, the reverse was true regarding non-bunny children.

In the quickly growing trade tongue of Latin, a general translation would mean daughter of another tribe. But that's just a basic interpretation. There was more nuance to the meaning in the northern dialect of what I affectionately term 'Bunnish', even among the various regions of the bunny tribes due to our histories with our elven neighbors to the great forests in the north.

For us northerners, it was a term of endearment and a reaffirmation of the ties between mother and daughter, clan and family, and tribe to clansmen.

Girl of my blood without my form, but with all my heart. This is about the best I can do to explain without going into a relatively long linguistics lesson, but it's a relevant one given the larger numbers of Lokmin children born to border tribes such as myself, Grick, and Milly.

We may be without the forms of our mothers, but we are not treated differently. You could say that we're treated better in some ways.

Historically, or at least from the stories the elders tell us, Nam Lokmin were almost universally lauded in Bunnish culture as children who would bring strength and prosperity to a tribe with their eventual seed. Originally we males were protected, our duties traditionally being non-combat oriented occupations with none of us being allowed to fight, hunt, or raid.

This changed when our people crossed over to this 'world' and while men were still encouraged towards less dangerous paths in the central regions, the frontier was different.

Up here at least. I can't say much for my cousins across the plains and bordering the seas and lands to the south and east, but the nature of life so close to other racial populations means we don't lack for 'new blood'. Our tribe, the Winterwood, traded rather than raided with our foreign neighbors more often than not. To my knowledge we had good relations with the High Elf enclaves in the great forest and traded crops for tools and weapons to the great Dwarven caravans that looped around the plains and back to their frozen mountains.

My own father was a half-orc of northman stock. He was a member of a trade expedition from the northeastern island of Jotunheimr of the port city of Utgard. As Ma tells it, he was an unnaturally large hulk of a man who stood nearly a foot taller than the rest of his 'full blooded' kin. His incredible strength was made clear just by looking at the man and even the ten man party was the catch of the week.

Ma says there was a great battle between the bunnies attempting to garner the giant's attention and that she'd come out on top. That the fierce and jovial Vyking had taken a shine to her battle prowess in the ritual arena where she'd decimated her opposition with fist, foot, and claw before fighting her himself. Of course she also happened to win this battle after hours of brutal fighting which led to an increasingly steamy and glazed eyed explanation of the aftermath before she trailed off and began to fiddle with the hilt of her dagger with a dreamy look.

My aunts say that my father, Bjorn, was in actuality the shyly stoic type and that Ma only bagged him because she was so boozed up in her attempts to impress him that he took pity on her and attempted to put her somewhere comfortable to sleep it off. Which of course led to the natural conclusion of my being born ten months later.

The way Grandma tells it, the latter of the two tales of gossipy romance is the accurate version with a cackling laugh of how she thought her daughter would remain permanently bow legged if the expedition had stayed any longer.

Well, her and about half the warriors given the suspiciously well timed births of many of my tribe sisters and two northman tribe brothers.

"Milly play!" Grick eagerly turned to burrow into the similar sized Milly who fell to her bottom with puffed cheeks, her curly dark hair flowing along with her.

That's not to say our tribe didn't loot, plunder, ****, and slave. Of age with Grick, Milly's father was a young smith's apprentice from the human empire to the west.

Cassius had been fourteen or so when he'd been taken by one of our raiding parties along the western border settlements of the empire two years ago. Milly's mother had taken a shine to him and happily ripped him from his home and all that he knew not only because smithing was a valuable skill, but because the Roman seemed like a fun tumble in the hay.

I didn't know him well, but Cassius seemed like a good kid and had made the best of his situation as a skilled slave to become part of the community. Most did after a period of adjustment. Being a male slave to a bunny tribe generally wasn't a bad life even if the circ.u.mstances leading to it were horrible.

At least after Stockholm syndrome set in, a slave was 'persuaded' to comply, and a few children were birthed anyway.

So that's how Milly, her Bunny twin, and another probable set of twins baking in the oven had been conceived.

She'd grown to be a careful one. Her skin was soft and without the protection of downy fur like those of her bunny and other mammalian family or the thick, leather-like flesh that was quickly beginning to resemble light armor across my body.

Despite the other children quickly learning that she was more 'fragile' than the others pups within the fluffle, the human girl had found it was less painful for her to stay on the edges of a playfight than in the midst of it where she could assert herself and be part of playtime.

Regardless of her fervent babble that she was just trying to help me in a fit of tickled giggles.

"Brother…" Milly grumbled to look up at me with soulful eyes as the wolf pup gently nipped and nibbled on a long bundle of thick hair, the serious girl wishing to assist me in looking after the rest of the unruly fluffle.

Ah, so cute.

"No biting Grick. Listen to Milly." I huffed and ruffled the whining boy's furry head and ears before lightly picking up my smaller cousin and herding the rest of the fluffle back into the playpen.

Dutifully, Milly half walked, half crawled her way into play area in imitation, looking up at me with a proud smile. Her eyes shined for my approval to which I gave half heartedly before rolling my own mismatched orbs while keeping alert for any further crying of needy infants.

But then aunt Karla yawned loudly, her sharp canines visible as she stretched her topless torso backwards with her arms in the air. "Mu… you're so dependable Khornami. You're making me tired just watching." The currently pregnant young woman sighed softly to herself before beckoning me over with clawed fingertips.

"Come here and take a nap with auntie, the sun feels nice and even you need to take a break sometimes you little old spirit."

It's a tempting offer. It'd be a warm and comfortable cuddle and the kids were probably fine for the moment.

But there was always something that needed doing in the clan house and I wasn't really feeling a nap. Three years and a change I may have been physically, but I had an able body that was developing abnormally fast. I needed to do my part and help out so that less bodies were here taking care of children and more hands were out in the fields or doing other tasks necessary for our continued survival.

I ate. A lot.

We hadn't had a bad crop yet, but as the great Eddard Stark had parrotted, Winter is Coming. At the current tech level it'd only take a few curveballs to royally screw up the life we had here and my family was way too cute to starve.

"Fiiiiine." I grumped, walking over to lay back first against aunt Karla's thin summer coat of her still taut belly.

Some things could wait though, I could afford to take a break for an hour.

"Mrr." Already half asleep, the red-eyed bunny woman curled in around me to wrap an arm against my own stomach as I closed my eyes.

And what do you know, when I woke up nothing had gone wrong.

Today, anyway.

Chapter 2: Work, Work

"Eldest Brother? Ah, um… I was still very little by the time he was a warrior so I can't really tell you much about how he acted as a child. But I guess he hasn't changed all that much?"

"I mean, all the older warriors born from his generation and the elders always told us to be more like him, hard working I mean. I'm our Blood Mother's youngest by fifteen years so I don't know that much besides hearsay."

"Big brother is responsible… but only when he has something to drive him, a goal like he said to the clan fluffle whenever it was his turn to look after us. He always said that he was lazy without something to work toward, but I never really saw it."

"Brother Khor always worked hard, whatever it was he was supposed to do. It didn't matter if it was sweeping the floors or grinding meal for the children, he put all of of himself into work."

"... I guess I never got to see him relax. I don't think he ever felt like he could when he was looking after us. He loves us too much to be selfish, at least that's what I think."

"He always tried to make our lives better, even if it was just taking us with him to explore the fields."

"Ah, have you tried his food? Brother Khornami is quite famous for his unorthodox dishes!"

-Chirio Frostfang regarding her eldest blood sibling, Khornami Frostfang's work ethic-

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4th Spring

Khor

So back when I was your average Asian boy of probably mostly Korean descent, I was somewhere around 3'2, 3'3 by the time I was four years old? More than likely I was a little shorter.

You know those big bastards in middle school that were either lying about how many times they failed a grade or had an islander parent? That was probably going to be me in a few years given I was already four and a half feet tall. I wasn't just lanky or anything either, my shoulders were broadening at a steady rate and my wrists are already just about as thick as my forearms like I was a character from WoW or something.

I could probably get into a fistfight or a wrestling match with a human teenager and have a good chance of coming out on top.

I was strong. Ridiculously so.

Just to reiterate, I'm somewhere around four years old. Grandma says it's normal for orc blooded to grow quickly and powerfully. It wouldn't be out of place for a pure blooded orc to be out and about by the time they were ten years of age and be expected to contribute to their tribe in a meaningful fashion.

Half-orcs should develop slower physically. But given where I 'placed' my points during gestation, I guess this is just a natural part of my development, especially since I have ready access to plenty of grains and meat.

This is relevant because currently I was out in the fields with my mother and many clan cousins checking the fields for our first harvest of fall and winter planted crops. And the harvest was… ah well, the yields weren't quite what you'd expect to see in the modern era.

You see, bunny tribes weren't farmers by nature, rather from what grandma tells us around the evening fire is that we were a hunter gatherer people for a very long time. Our ancestors had only switched to an agrarian society because we as a people were forced to do so before we crossed into this land of plenty, and even then our people had long learned the lesson of depending only upon forage and the meat of hunted animals to feed us.

That said, after some thousand years of living this way meant that there'd been some advancements in farming methodology and technology.

Our tribe had learned through trial and error which plants grew best during a season as well as when and what plants could withstand the hardship of winter an be ready to be picked from the earth come early spring. The fields weren't haphazardly strewn about without planning, there was a method to how we did things that were learned through hard lessons and from the trading of knowledge with other races and peoples.

What I meant by the crop not being as large as I would've expected was just that, the end result was so much smaller than I thought.

You see, modern humans have through the progress of science basically bred our food for maximum size and health to be planted in perfectly fertilized, enriched soil.

As an example let's take a look at this head of winter red cabbage I'd just picked and placed into the basket at my side. A normal medium sized head of the leafy red plant would be around two, three pounds at the supermarket.

Hell, I'd tried my hand at various kinds of gardening here and there and at worst I'd expect even the runts to be nearly that size.

Instead what I had in my hand was a pound of food, maybe a little more than that.

That in itself didn't make much sense to me. We'd been farming these crops for so long, and my people aren't dumb. Of course they'd save the seeds of the largest vegetables to replant at a later time, and this village has been around for several hundred years if the stories are to be believed.

So then what was it? Was the soil quality bad? Or was there something else sapping the nutrients such as parasites or sickness?

This was something I needed to figure out. I knew that some years were better than others in terms of growth and yield, so it must be something controllable. I just needed to find that correlation and narrow it down so we could have more to eat in the coming years.

The elders were worried. It wasn't such an immediate issue when my generation were still babes subsisting mostly on milk and boiled grain, but now that we were growing, we needed more food.

I don't think it would've been such an issue if my yearmates were normal bunnies, but well, the northman known as Vykings were jacked up mountains of lumbering bone and muscle who required a good deal of calories to maintain their massive forms.

When the trading caravan that led to the conceiving of myself and many of my tribe cousins, no one really thought far enough ahead in the heat of the moment that the many children born from those unions would require so much nourishment to be healthy. I mean, given that 9 out of 10 of us were born as bunnies, you'd think it wouldn't really matter much?

Wrong. Terribly so.

Bunny genetics worked strangely. Let's use Grick's two slightly older sisters, Chex and Trix for example. They were wolf blooded bunnies and despite being long eared in form, they took from their father something of his that imparted several physical characteristics unto them.

Your basic bunny is a lean, mean, fighting machine. If you matched up a human male and a bunny female side by side, the physical superiority of a bunny tribeswoman is made clear.

They are pound for pound stronger, absolutely brimming with lean muscle tissue made for a sublime combination of lengthy endurance running and bursts of deadly surges of strength. That isn't even beginning to note that the average height and weight of a bunny raider is at around 5'10 and 170 pounds of taut muscle and solid bone.

They might look cute and cuddly, but behind that thin veneer of fluffy goodness is a killing machine whose teeth and claws will clamp down gleefully on a limb and break the bones under it with little trouble.

No exaggeration, bunny children are able to and more than willing to crack open half boiled bones to get into the marrow within. I've snapped more than my fair share of megafauna spines and femurs to get the good stuff for the hungry little fluffs.

Now, back on my original topic.

Chex and Trix are both predatorily lean like both bunny and wolf females, just slightly thicker than their contemporaries. Their summer and winter coats come in slightly heavier than the norm and their canines are more pronounced. Beyond that, their noses are notably more sensitive than many of our clan cousins, second only to a wolf like Grick himself. Even their claws are slightly different, thicker and less sharp but powerful and meant to dig into flesh and earth.

So think of these small differences that eventually add up to a subtly different type of potential killer than the average bunny.

Now take that process and apply it to my many tribe cousins and dozen or so half siblings. As I said before, the Vyking people are large, tough, and strong. Extraordinarily so for a people that I believe originally came from man flesh.

If I'm right, like the Romans that arrived some centuries ago, their ancestors may have come from the Danes of my original… possibly original world. Whatever happened in the intervening years caused them to bulk up to obscene levels of physical ability.

The closest to myself in size were the two Nam Lokmin twins, Ivar and Dan Cottontail; Northman in form with strong bunny blood flowing in their veins. Like myself they grew quickly and were only slightly smaller than me.

The three of us were the largest and fastest growing children the Winterwood tribe have been blessed with in many, many years.

Were it only us that the tribe mothers needed to feed, it wouldnt've been too much of a issue. But when you factor in all of our tribe sisters birthed from the same blood?

You only needed to look at a few northman blooded bunny children to see the correlation. They were larger than normal, taller and wider with well defined musculature even at their early stages of development. These girls would eventually become walking amazons in build and more importantly, that much more resource intensive to feed.

Omnivorous my tribe may have been, but from the foods the clan mothers preferred to make, our diet was one rich in legumes and what meat could be spared.

A protein heavy diet in order to encourage strong muscle growth and skeletal development.

From how prominent the flesh tearing incisors and canines we boasted were, it wasn't that hard to assume that whatever the bunnies original ancestors were, they ate mostly meat.

Hell, we were being fed small chunks of heavily stewed or chewed meat by the time we were yearlings. I can only assume there's a reason beyond tradition for this since the kids love eating meat and stew bones with such giddiness.

So it didn't much surprise me that some of the rare few spices we had included a type of fermented bean paste. We just needed more of it in the coming years.

This was how my first 'experiment' began.

Cabbage and soy bean paste stew was a staple in Korean culture, something you ate along with rice to help with the inevitable hangover before groggily dragging yourself from out of the gutter or subway station before trudging to the nearest life giving chicken and ginseng soup establishment.

"My son? What are you doing?" Ma asked, coming to crouch down next to me by the clan house's cauldron of daily pottage.

She looked down at me with a bemused expression as I stirred in chopped slices of cabbage, onion, garlic, and a hefty amount of mashed beans and leftover paste from the winter into a smaller cooking pot as another container filled with wild rice simmered gently atop the glowing coals of our hearth.

It wasn't much in the scope of things and I was allowed this little 'childish indulgence' due to the work I'd put in this week on top of my… gifts.

Being born with two separate eye colors and being obviously gifted in the brains department lent me a good deal of leeway from the clan elders as a God blessed child.

It was mostly them being patronizing, but I wasn't about to waste an opportunity to do something good here.

If there was something I felt confident in was the cooking skills I'd gained through a bachelor's desire to feast upon good f.u.c.k.i.n.g food from the homeland.

"Stew and black grain Ma. It'll be easy to eat for the young and elders." I mumbled as I carefully lifted the pot of wild rice away from the fire and placed it on a bed of fresh, dry wood so I wouldn't burn anything. "Wanna try some? I promise it'll taste good."

Ma giggled to herself with a small smile as she internally sighed and moved to humor her eldest.

As a son, I had a little more leeway than my sisters. More than that, I think she favored me a little more than my younger sisters because I was her firstborn. And a male at that.

Beyond honor and pride, it was probably hardcoded in bunny mothers to dote on male children.

I didn't feel good about using this fact, but the ends justify the means, I think.

I took a moment to 'fluff' the rice, the husks mixed in with the the enlarged grains would add a further chewy texture that I'm sure Ma would appreciate. She had strong, healthy teeth and given the importance of fiber and the type of 'chewiness' it provided that buns enjoyed, I had this part covered.

Now the stew was a little more of a worry, but savory mixed with rice was a near instant love my non-asian friends had quickly grown to enjoy after a bite or two.

I just hoped that my mother's taste pallet had the same range as I scooped a wooden spoonful rice and dipped it into the bubbling stew before gesturing to Ma.

With an indulgent smile, my bunny mother leaned in to grasp my not all that much smaller hand in both of hers before blowing on the mixture of wild rice coated in the likely unappetizing sludgy gray green of the stew paste I'd covered the dark purple granules in.

I knew it only looked appetizing to me since I'd grown up on the stuff in my first life.

I could see the similarities between my second mother's well hidden apprehension and that of my friends who'd never had true Korean cuisine before in their lives.

I could understand it. The color wasn't vibrant and the stench coming from the pots were anything but confusedly appetizing.

It was pungent at best.

Yet, with a soft rebuke already bubbling in time with the searing hot soup covered rice, my mother blew gently on the offered spoon before fearlessly placing the offering of my best attempt at recreating my original home's cuisine into her unprepared mouth.

Her response was instantaneous if not immediately apparent.

Ma's sensitive nose scrunched and her long ears that had already been slightly pulled back in apprehension did so further momentarily before pulling forward in confused interest. She hummed noncommittally in a prepared response before that same noise changed into one of confusion and deeper curiosity.

My mother blinked several times. First in caution, then surprise, and finally interest as her gaze met mine with a curious tilt of head as I pulled the spoon out of her unresisting lips and mouth before repeating my earlier preparation.

A spoon half full of freshly fluffed and sticky rice before dipping it with just enough stew to enhance the flavor and texture of the chewable rice.

Ma didn't even wait until she finished chewing what was in her mouth before she blew softly with foggy breaths at my newly offered taste testing with an interested, but confused hum.

The down of her fluffy tail wiggled in a small amount of excitement as her button cute nose sniffed and her large almond eyes narrowed in thought as the next, hearty and heated mouthful entered her now completely prepared mouth with a careful focus.

She'd just barely stopped herself form taking a third helping before gently taking the spoon from my hand to dip it in the stew to taste the liquid by itself.

As expected she recoiled slightly before taking a small spoonful of rice before dipping it into the stew as I'd first prepared for her and taking yet one more bite.

"Hm?" She mewled and hummed before looking down at me in appraisal, chewing on the bit of still juicy, but almost firm texture of a cabbage leaf before calling my grandmother over.

"What is it now Layna? Do you have an explanation for this horrific stench filling the den- ah?" Grandma blinked as Ma prepared a spoonful of carefully cooled rice and stew as I'd shown her before pressing it against her own mother's lips.

Grandma followed many of the same actions as Ma did as she chewed her most recent spoonful of Baechu Doenjang Jjigae, or at least as close as I could get to it, with careful attention and an appraising hum of approval.

"It's easy to make, easy to eat, tastes good, and good for the body Grandma." I noted with a smile. "It's even better with pickled vegetables in all the above?"

I couldn't be sure of the flavor profile that my new family would enjoy despite my careful study of their eating habits.

We didn't have the spices for me to make such an in depth study, nor could I ever really be sure.

I was a half-orc with the memories of a human raised on both east asian and western foods. Of course I'd be biased.

I could only hope that my new family would have similar tastes according to mine based upon their dietary needs-

"This is good grandchild." Grandma stated with a nod as she began to gather her own siblings and all of their children and grandchildren towards the clan pottage. "Where did you learn to make such a thing? Was it something you crafted on a whim?

Grandma seemed to ask a question within a loaded question.

Really I could only reply in one way as the rest of the Frostfang clan gathered and ate small bites of the too small portion I had made, each with their own observations and noises of curious contentment.

"It's… an old memory Grandma? I see things, know things." I stated as I pulled out a pot of leftover pickled vegetables akin to sauerkraut and placed a crunchy morsel on top of the cooled spoon about to be fed to my toothless great grandmother.

"Ah, of course." Grandma Britta nodded to herself before trading glances with her own mother whose single working eye widened in understanding?

"He hears the song of the gods and he sees." The old, one eared and one eyed bunny nodded as she carefully helped herself to my food with the help of her middle aged granddaughter.

And so this was how I began to be known as a truly blessed child.

The Nam Lokmin with eyes of fire and frost who saw and heard the whisperings of the gods.

All this from the 'creation' of a food my people have never seen, smelt, or tasted in the long centuries they've been a part of this world beyond the Gate they crossed so long ago.