Hay is for Horses {open}

[Judy Hopps]

Judy tumbled into a pile of hay. She puffed out her lips almost immediately, wiping away her face and looking around, her eyes wide. This was definitely not Zootopia. Or, more accurately, it wasn't a section of Zootopia that Judy was all that familiar with. She frowned, pushing against a rather rickety feeling wooden wall to try and hoist herself up to her feet. For some reason, this took a lot longer than she remembered, and as she looked down, Judy could quite clearly see why:

she wasn't a rabbit any more.

This caused her to freeze for several seconds, staring down at her most definitely not rabbit-body. There were the same amount of limbs and arms and everything, but no gray fur. Just this strange, pinkish skin sticking out from her Zootopia officer's uniform. At least she still had all her gear; a quick pat down confirmed all that. Judy took a breath and nodded, fumbling for her phone. Signal! Yes, excellent! Judy punched a number, hoping to call Nick or someone only to find... nothing. So no signal? That was... weird. Judy reached down and tapped her radio, but that got her nothing but static. "Great, and I don't even have backup."

Judy took another deep breath and cautiously moved forward. She could smell something kind of nasty on the air, which made her nose wrinkle as she recoiled. It took her a few more seconds to just adjust. She took a few deep breath, trying yet again not to freak out. "I just need to find a way to contact HQ," she said, "and my friends. Let them know the portals aren't lethal..." Judy began working her way forward again, only to stop. This time, she heard a noise, one that she swore was making her ears twitch. Judy spun, drawing out a flashlight and pointing it. "Halt! Who's there!" she called, edging forward. "Come out where I can see you!" Because naturally a tiny little woman was going to be able to deal with whatever it was. What? Judy had dealt with much bigger before...

[Bartok]

Sometimes, when Bartok closed his eyes and wrapped his wings around himself very tight, he thought he could almost remember what it was like to be an ordinary bat. To not be Bartok, to just be another bat, with no responsibilities, no knowledge of the terrible awful things in the world, no terror of his own existence. Sometimes he found a few little moments of quiet peace, but it wasn't often. Most of the time, he just tried to blend in with other bats (hard when you were albino amongst mostly-black-and-brown creatures), and eating bugs. It wasn't a bad life. It was certainly better than the terrifying war that had been going on back on the other side of the portal before he had fled.

Sometimes he still felt bad about that. He knew there were people who would wonder where he'd gone. It hadn't been that long, but Giselle had probably found a new best friend, the good guys had probably won the war, everything was fine without him. He was sure of it. There was no need to worry about that, not when there were so many things to be terrified about here. It was getting close to dusk, and that was dinnertime for Bartok, so he stretched his wings, letting out a little yawn. He let go of the branch he was hanging on. flapping his wings to take flight...

...and found himself plummeting towards the earth. Bartok flapped his wings desperately, but he suddenly seemed to be falling much faster than he ought to be, and his wings weren't catching the air at all. Before he had time to put together what had happened, he hit the ground.

Mercifully, there was a lot of old, musty hay in this place, and none of the manure or other things one might expect to find in a place with a lot of hay. Bartok felt like his whole body was broken, although it was probably some aggressive bruising at best. His legs were sore, his head was sore, his arms were...wait, arms? Bartok whimpered softly and extended one...arm...out in front of him. Yep. Those were definitely fingers.

"No," he moaned quietly. "No, no, no." Someone was pointing a light and yelling at him already, he realized, and he looked around desperately, grabbing at pieces of hay and pulling them over himself in an attempt to cover his whole body. "There's no one here," he muttered. "No one here at all, I'm just a pile of hay."

[Judy Hopps]

Definitely a noise. Even with her reduced ears, Judy could pick up on that. She felt them twitching, almost as if to move in the direction of the sound. Again she felt that almost constant desire to start running, but she'd learned to conquer that ages ago. Strangely, it was a little harder than she remembered. Probably because of this awkward, gangly body.

"Hay doesn't usually speak," Judy pointed out. She took a few more steps forward, peering. The light helped, and her eyesight was pretty decent (carrots, yo). She could just make out the shape moving, and its owner looked at least as terrified as Judy. She shifted the grip on her light, moving to point it down, though this would also let her club if need be. "Hey there," she said, kneeling down, "there's no need to be scared or anything. I'm Officer Judy Hopps, of the Zootopia PD," she extended her open hand, though she kept her eyes locked on him, ready for any sign of movement. Given the guy's posture, she didn't think that he was going to be particularly aggressive, but that could be a ruse of some kind.

"What's your name?" she tried, figuring that starting with something soft and easy could help. Plus, it felt decidedly better helping someone else out. Helped Judy deal with some of her own rising panic.

[Bartok]

No need to be scared or anything. Well, right there, Bartok knew this person was full of it. There was almost always reason to be scared. Especially when you'd been thrown off your cozy branch into a pile of hay in a place that smelled all wrong, felt all wrong, and you were IN A HUMAN BODY ALL OVER AGAIN. He drew back, moving into the corner of the stall he'd fallen into. Why was she holding her hand out like that? Did she have food? Come to think of it, he was incredibly hungry. Bartok inched forward, eyeing her hand, until he realized there wasn't anything in it. Certainly not food.

For a moment, he stared at her, eyes wide, trying to sit perfectly still. Maybe if he sat there and didn't move, she would forget that he was there and leave him alone. A good ten second passed, and it didn't seem to be working, though, so he swallowed hard and stood up slowly.

Oh, he was going to be sick. He was too tall, there was too much of him, much too much, everything was too much.

What's your name? she asked, and somehow, that cut through the fog of confusion and denial. Something in his eyes shifted, and he met hers, his whole body relaxing just a little. His name. He knew that. He had always known that, for as long as he'd known anything, that was the one bit of information he couldn't get rid of no matter how hard he tried.

"Bartok," he said, reaching out one of his weird human hands to grab hers. "I'm Bartok." He cleared his throat. "You're...the police."

[Judy Hopps]

Okay, so the guy seemed to be suffering form continued panic. It was weird, but it almost reminded Judy of the prey-panic that she'd seen time and time again back home. Except that this guy looked every bit as weird as she did. Still, it was far more important to get him calmed down and comfortable than worry about the other details.

Judy extended one of her odd furless hands to take his, giving it a light squeeze and a few little bobs. "Nice to meet you Bartok," she said, offering up a friendly smile. "And you're right, I am the police. Or at least," Judy pursed her lips, looking around, "I was. This place doesn't look like Zootopia. In fact, you don't look like any animal I know," she nodded, then moved to try and help Bartok up, assuming he needed help with something like that.

"I don't suppose you'd know where we are or what's going on?" Judy asked, careful to speak slowly, just in case he happened to be as lost and confused as she was. He did seem more than a little frightened and weirded out, but then again, this whole situation struck Judy as very strange, very strange indeed.

[Bartok]

He didn't know where Zootopia was...he didn't know where he was now, but if she said it wasn't Zootopia, he'd take her word for it. She was so friendly, and it made him feel a little less like he wanted to dig a hole in the ground and bury himself in it. "It's...nice to meet you too," he said, although he couldn't remember exactly what she'd said her name was. Juicy? That sounded right.

He wanted to know where they were, and what was going on, but he couldn't even come up with a good idea to impress her with, so he shook his head sadly.

"I was just sleeping. Hanging and sleeping. And then I thought I would get some dinner, and then I fell on the ground." It didn't make any sense, and he knew it, but he was trying to put together the pieces, and going over the events of the past few minutes seemed to be as good a place to start as any. He was a little shaken by her assertion that he didn't look like any animal she knew, because...well, if she'd caught him ten minutes ago, maybe that would have been different.

"I don't know," he said slowly, trying to figure out how to piece together the sentence, "where we are, but." He cleared his throat. "I haven't been in this body for a long time. Several years. I only had it when I was at school, when I went through the portal, see. Now I'm back in the body, but this doesn't look like...the school is newer than this."

[Judy Hopps]

Judy nodded, keeping her smile despite her rapidly rising nerves. Weirdly, the calmer Bartok got, the more nervous Judy did, as if she were about to start running from him. When he spoke of sleeping, it reminded her more of the bats or birds: hanging, relaxing, then again, that could just be a turn of phrase from around here. But apparently he didn't know where they were...

...but he did seem to know what they were. That had Judy's eyes widening. "You know what's up with these bodies?" she asked, holding out her furless paw. "Wait, did you say school? So... so you've been here before, and it's a school, and you were in this body, but the school didn't look--" Judy looked around, considering. Now that she stopped and studied, used all those finely honed law enforcement skills, certain elements became all the clearer.

"This place hasn't been tended to in ages,' she said, looking around. "This school, was it abandoned?" She looked back to Bartok. "I'm sorry to be pumping you with questions, but this is all new for me. I'm a rabbit back home, in a large city. This..." she looked around, "looks like some kind of creepy movie set or something."

[Bartok]

"It wasn't abandoned the last time I was there," Bartok shook his head. He was reluctant to tell her how he'd left. I ran away because I was scared wasn't the kind of opening statement that made you a lot of friends, and...well, if they were the only two people here, Bartok definitely wanted to be her friend. And if they weren't the only people here, it was still important to have friends, because...what if there were bad people here? They'd definitely want to stick together.

And for the first time, he had some information that might be useful. She didn't know about the portal, apparently, and...she was a rabbit!? Where to even start, he thought, shifting from one foot to the other and back.

"This place is so creepy," he agreed, nodding emphatically. "The creepiest. But...okay, sir...I mean, okay, so, when you come through the portal, if you don't have a human body, you get one. I'm a bat at home. And I didn't mean to come back here. It just happened. I didn't try to come back. When I left, there was-" He looked down at the ground. "There was going to be a war, and I had to go home to find...some supplies, and recruit people to help. I wasn't gone that long. And now this looks like an old building, and not the school at all." Juicy seemed to be a little uneasy now, too, and that somehow made Bartok feel better and worse at the same time. Better, because he wasn't the only one freaking out, but worse because...well, somebody needed to know what was going on, and it looked like it wasn't going to be either one of them.

[Judy Hopps]

Judy listened carefully, splitting her attention between the area around them and the new arrival, Bartok, right? She locked in on him when he started explaining. Bat, that explained the hanging and made perfect sense. "So there was a war?" Judy looked around. "This place doesn't look all that wartorn, just sort of worn down," Judy ran a paw over the nearest surface, seeing dust and hay float about in the air. IT made her nose wrinkle just looking at it.

"So either the people---your people," she winced, looking back at Bartok, "lost, and this place got abandoned... or they won, and they... just left?" her brow crinkled, and she took a few more steps. "These," she pointed toward the stable stalls, "they're sort of like stalls. Like hotels, only the ones designed for quadrupeds..." Judy bent down, looking around. "So maybe this was an old living quarter? But if everyone was a... what was the word?" she looked to Bartok. "Hoo man? Then why would they need this? Are some hoo mans quadrupedal?"

Judy's head was starting to hurt just trying to figure this out. And she kept feeling guiltier with each question she asked Bartok. It had to be worse losing wings as well as fur, and this place... there must have been some bad memories, based on how Bartok was acting. Judy drew another breath, trying to steady those shaking nerves again.

[Bartok]

Bartok sneezed. He didn't mean to, but he watched a large puff of dust and hay particles billow up in the air and he couldn't help it, and he tucked his face into his shoulder at the last possible second. "Sorry, sorry," he muttered. He looked down at his body, noticing his clothes for the first time. It looked like he was wearing the same clothes he'd been wearing the last time he was here, although...it felt like they were a little looser, like maybe he'd shed a few pounds as a bat and it had carried over here somehow.

"It looks so old," he said, thinking back to the abandoned places he and Rasputin had lurked around in. Thinking about Rasputin, as usual, sent a wave of nausea and uneasiness through him, and he shuddered, looking back at Juicy. If he just focused on trying to answer her questions, maybe he'd forget how much he didn't want to be here.

"I don't know what happened," he admitted. "I...some things happened back at home, and I didn't come back here. I just know that a war was happening when I left, sir." He shook his head. "This place...this is for horses, I think...but not ones that talk like us, because...um, well, when animals are here, they don't talk, most of the time. They aren't magical." He was trying to find a good way to explain that animals here weren't quite the same as animals that came through the portals. "Do you remember...were you ever just an ordinary rabbit? Like, without wearing clothes or being in the police, just...doing rabbit things?"

[Judy Hopps]

"You've got nothing to apologize for," Judy insisted, keeping her voice warm. She'd already grown rather attached to Bartok. He reminded her a lot of some of the more skittish rodents she'd encountered during her time on the beat, and, well, the ones that she'd all but grown up with, really.

Said skittish creature still struggled figuring things out. He also kept calling Judy sir, which just amused her. It did make sense given the whole officer of the law thing, so she wasn't going to make a big deal about it. "So the animals here are all... wild," Judy said. She had flashes of what happened back home, what she and Nick had uncovered. Her heart sped up again, and she swallowed. Thankfully Bartok followed up almost immediately with questions that helped her focus.

"Where I'm from, wearing clothes was pretty much normal rabbit things," she said, moving around and continuing her investigation of the area. "The police thing wasn't though. So I'm probably an awful person to ask about doing normal rabbit things," she gave him a quick smile, then looked around again. "So if this is a... horse hotel, then were there maybe places hoo mans stayed? If everyone who can think is a hoo man, then they'd probably stay there, right?"

[Bartok]

Oh, she was nice, Bartok thought. Maybe that was her job, since she was a police officer and all, but...yes, he decided he wanted her to like him. He listened closely to everything she said, trying to listen for clues that might help him convince her that he was definitely friend material. The animals here are all wild... she said, and he cocked his head, a little startled by that. She went on about how clothes were normal for rabbits, and so on, but he was still fixated on the wild thing.

He had been wild once, he was sure of it. That was what he'd been missing all this time, why he couldn't get to sleep at day when all the other bats were sleeping, why he couldn't seem to just do all the normal bat things, because those bats were wild and he wasn't.

"Wild..." he repeated softly, under his breath. He wanted to ask her more about that, but she was asking other questions, and those took priority.

"The humans used to stay..." He looked around, realizing that at some point he had just started assuming that this was the same place he'd gone to school. "At the school, and in houses. Maybe in hotels, if they didn't live here. I think...maybe if we go outside, maybe I'll be able to tell where we are." That was a lofty promise, considering he wasn't even sure this was a place he knew.

[Judy Hopps]

Judy heard the word repeated, and she turned back to look at Bartok. "Yeah, you know: wild. When an animal loses all its thoughts and reasoning and becomes... well, wild,' Judy couldn't quite suppress the shiver, remembering facing so many predators that had been hit like that, had reverted. Those prey instincts apparently hadn't left her, despite her new body. Maybe hoo mans were prey animals; they didn't seem to have much to defend themselves.

They apparently lived in houses and hotels. Judy nodded. "We're not going to figure anything out by staying here, that's for sure," Judy smiled, then waved. "C'mon then, I'll lead the way. You should be fine so long as I'm around."

Which was Judy's lofty promise. She held her flashlight tighter as she headed for the door, feeling the dust kicking up around her wrapped paws. Each pawfall confirmed that she'd lost some of the padding down there, though thankfully not enough to be too worried: apparently the years of shoeless running had still left her with callouses. At least one thing was working.

Judy hesitated at the entrance, paw on the door, staring out. "It kind of looks like a castle, doesn't it?" she said, looking back to Bartok, that smile still on her face.

[Bartok]

Bartok nodded as if he understood, because he thought he was starting to. He had been wild once, and he had lost it. No, not lost...it had been taken from him. Even when he wasn't here, even when he was back at home, he wasn't wild. She said it like it was a bad thing, though, so he didn't ask the real question on his mind, which was how could an animal become wild again on purpose.

He was very reassured by her confidence as she started towards the door. He wasn't used to people being so brave and selfless; usually Bartok (willingly) took on the role of scapegoat or human shield, and it was intriguing to have someone just strike out into the dangerous unknown and promise to protect him along the way.

"I think it is a castle," he said, peering out over her shoulder. Despite having a good eight inches on her, he was hovering behind her warily, relying heavily on that assurance of safety. "I remember..."

He paused, wrapping his arms around himself and tilting his head to one side, suddenly unsettled by how he could hardly hear anything. "Take away the bat's ears," he muttered, "that makes a lot of sense, human ears, so useful." At least they hadn't taken his sarcasm away.

[Judy Hopps]

"Huh," Judy tilted her head to the side, considering the large buildings again. It all felt so quiet, reminding her strangely more of the Bunny Barrow than Zootopia. Judy could recall the shock that she'd gotten from going home when she'd been so defeated earlier. This felt a little different: the noise was gone, but this place...

"it feels like it's waiting for us," said Judy. her nose wrinkled again, wishing she could take in a few more smells. Thankfully, her hearing was still good, if not quite what it used to be, certainly good enough to pick u Bartok's comment. Judy let out a laugh, turning to look at him. "Tell me about it. I'm seriously missing my ears right now," she felt her own twitch slightly, but she didn't have near the control she used to. She looked back up at the buildings, flicking her eyes.

"I don't see any real signs of life? But that doesn't mean there aren't people. Is there some sort of general gathering place? a designated zone to head toward whenever there's danger?" yet again Judy found herself looking to Bartok but, well, yet again this was one of those times when relying on his information of the place simply worked best.