Chapter Text
Euca.
Violet and Euca had been born completely identical both physically and in temperament. Everyone knew that the short temper the both of the twins had was something that had been there from the start. It was one of the things that alienated them from the rest of their siblings in addition to the resentment of their special status as genetically engineered inheritors for their mother's title.
The differences came from the twins’ personalities. Euca preferred the quiet while Violet was made for light and sound. Euca was very serious while Violet could hardly take anything seriously. They might have both had short tempers, but they manifested very differently. Euca has always been rude and had a sharp tongue, while Violet often made her point through physical violence.
There was some overlap, of course. When you spend almost every waking hour around someone, you tend to pick up each other's traits. And so Violet would often say something scathing while delivering one of her beat downs, while Euca' own sharp words became a warning and a prelude to flashes of physical violence.
The true difference between them only became apparent after the two had already reached adolescence. That was when their oldest sibling, Thyme, started teaching them shapeshifting. While Violet had been excited over getting to learn new forms she could use for combat, Euca had used his new ability to alter his base form. While the changes weren’t completely outward, the flattened front teeth were a great difference from Violet’s long and sharp ones.
That was when the two stopped being completely identical but, while there were some difficulties brought on by the change (mostly from their grandfather not approving of Euca being anything other than a copy of his mother), Violet never stopped being the sibling closest to Euca.
It was Euca’s first attempt at freedom, at distancing himself from what had been planned for him since even before his birth. It would be a long while before Euca attempted anything new after.
Eucalyptus.
In Pooka Battle Academy, Eucalyptus finally got to taste true freedom. There was no grandfather to watch over everything he did, and his teachers were no longer tutors hired by his grandfather and loyal to their employer only. The only teacher who remained the same was Nasturtium, who was a friend of Eucalyptus’ mother and understandably more trustworthy than most. Finally, Eucalyptus experienced for the first time what it was like to live without someone constantly trying to spy on you.
Well, Dill was there, but her disregard of Eucalyptus had always appeared more as negligence than outright verbal abuse. In addition to that, Eucalyptus’ older sister had never much cared for their grandfather, so she had no need or desire to spy on Eucalyptus for their crotchety grandfather.
It was at the Pooka Battle Academy that Eucalyptus made his first friends outside his twin sister. However, that didn’t happen right away. Eucalyptus had never gathered the experience of interacting with Pookas outside his family that he’d needed for befriending them, and Eucalyptus even convinced himself for a while that he didn’t need to make friends.
Befriending Wattle was more an accident than any effort on either of their parts. Wattle, as student healer, did not appreciate Eucalyptus’ exhaustion-related injuries that were a result from overtraining. Eucalyptus, meanwhile, did not appreciate having some magic-user lecture him on how much physical training he assigned himself.
The solution to the problem had come from Wattle’s mentor, head healer Aloe. Said solution had been to force Eucalyptus to spend time in the infirmary, observing the work the healers did so that he could see the kind of damage warriors caused each other and themselves. Supposedly, Aloe had wanted to teach Eucalyptus to appreciate his body more. Instead Eucalyptus had learned to appreciate Wattle’s hardworking nature.
Eucalyptus worked hard because it was literally all he knew. It had been drilled into him since he was young that he was expendable, that he was supposed to suffer for the sake of others, so that they didn’t need to. However, before he’d come to Pooka Battle Academy, he’d sometimes had other things to distract him from training until he dropped. Violet and Edelweiss wanted to spend time with Eucalyptus, and Eucalyptus himself occasionally enjoyed reading in the calm and peaceful presence of his father or Thyme.
At the Pooka Battle Academy there was no Violet or Edelweiss to distract Eucalyptus. Neither was there Oak or Thyme to do nothing more than breathe to fill the silence of a room. As the son of the Hope of the People, Eucalyptus had some special privileges; this included a personal room not shared by anymore. Frankly, Eucalyptus would have preferred to share. He had a small army of siblings, and had always shared a room with his twin, of course a silent room all to himself would unnerve him and drive him outside, where the only thing left to do was train.
The make-shift probation Aloe planned did help out in the end, however. Spending time in the infirmary did lessen the time Eucalyptus spent training and pushing his body. And when the probation ended, he simply kept coming back. At first he always brought a book with him, just to have a non-silent room to read in but, eventually, he and Wattle began to talk to each other, moving from simple greetings to brief exchanges and finally to long conversations that sometimes led to Aloe slapping them both on their heads to get them to focus on what they were actually supposed to be doing.
Pooka Battle Academy came to mean freedom to Eucalyptus, but it was Wattle who came to show Eucalyptus what friends were, and it was a lesson that sunk in much more faster, even if not with more ease.
Aster.
Eucalyptus had died. He'd felt his perception growing confused as he'd struggled to breathe. He'd felt dizzy, despite lying down and he'd been too weak to do much to protest when an unfamiliar voice had started to tell him that it wouldn't be the end.
Eucalyptus had died, but his body was still moving around. He wasn't dead, but neither was he alive like before. He could breathe, he could remember his life up until now, but he didn't have a heartbeat. How could he when he didn't have a heart?
The space within his chest had been hollowed out to make space for the Light of Creation. It settled comfortably there, both physically present and not. The Light kept him alive, so it was obviously concrete in some form, but its power was intangible and outside anyone's reach. It was like Eucalyptus had become a receptacle for unimaginable power, being able to contain something like this. Pookan magic came from the within, but it wasn't a wellspring of pure might like the Light was.
The difference showed. Eucalyptus' fur had been bleached where the Light had touched it when it had been placed inside Eucalyptus. There was a reason the Light was kept in a specially crafted container; once the Light was removed from the enchantments of the container, it altered everything living it touched permanently.
Even Eucalyptus had been altered by the Light of Creation. He didn't know what changes the Light had made to him when it had been placed within him. He didn't even know if he would keep changing or if the Light was now permanently fused with his being. Eucalyptus didn't even know if he was a Pooka anymore, or merely something that resembled a Pooka in appearance alone.
The first thing Eucalyptus had become aware of when he'd woken up from what he had expected to be eternal sleep had been Nightlight. Nightlight had looked at Eucalyptus like he was a stranger, pale eyes wide with shock and eyebrows lowered in worry. Maybe Nightlight had a point. Maybe Eucalyptus was someone else now.
He still had all of his memories, but maybe those had come along with the body. His life had faded away, it had been given away freely as payment for the restoration of peace. It had been the price Eucalyptus had paid; he wasn't supposed to get it back. That wasn't how sacrifice worked, it certainly hadn't worked that way for Eucalyptus' mother.
The Light had saved Eucalyptus from the Fearling taint, but not his mother. Maybe the Light had some form of sentience, enough sentience to plan this, plan for Eucalyptus to become a vessel for it. If that was true, it might as well be that he was more the Light now than Eucalyptus. The Light made flesh with Eucalyptus' body, memories and personality.
Whether he was still himself or something transcended was beside the point. The point was that he couldn't even recognize himself anymore. He couldn't be 'Eucalyptus' anymore. The solution was simple. He needed a new name for people to call him.
'Aster' would do. It was his, even if it was inherited. And the meaning was fine enough. After all, in Pookan, 'aster' stood for 'light'.
Bunny.
When Aster came to, the first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was Nightlight looking down at him with a worried expression. Aster briefly wondered if this was going to become a habit, of Nightlight looking like he'd died whenever he got pulled back from the edge. Then again, he had died that first time. Maybe he'd died again.
He'd been about to ask about that when his ears registered sniffling. The icy room was full of people and his thoughts scattered to recall exactly what he had been doing before. Several lifetimes and identities were settling into their places in his mind, like something had come and misplaced every single memory.
Jackfruit. Why was he always the first thought on his mind, even after all this time? The Pookas were no more, they'd been wiped out by Pitch Black and his Fearling army.
He recalled another extinction now. Another path of revenge. His people had been killed by thoughtless monsters and his vengeance was only meaningful when he found the one who'd unleashed them. He'd struck Pitch Black down, finding his peace in killing and his own death in the act. Neither of them had stayed dead, but it had ended the cycle.
The foreign memories in his mind were of curses and old magic. A people who all stood as one, the Sisters of Flight, had all fallen to the revenge of a cursed once-man monkey king. The monkey king had struck down a winged woman who he'd seen as the cause of his curse, rather than his own cruelty, and the woman's sisters had fallen with her, as they existed as one. Toothiana had seen her mother's death and what her death had done to her people, and yet she'd found it in her to spare the perpetrator. Her vengeance was found in the act of living her life pure of heart, while the target of her vengeance lived until the victims of his cruelty caught up with him and ended his wretched life.
Aster didn't know where these memories came from, until he saw Toothiana's face beside Nightlight's own, relief evident in her bright eyes. He felt her magic then, the remains of a mind meld. They'd exchanged memories, Toothiana showing Aster hers in order to get Aster's own reassembling themselves.
"Aster," Toothiana spoke softly. "Thank goodness."
"Mister Bunnymund," a new voice whimpered and Aster recognized her as the one who'd been crying. Katherine. "Are you alright?"
"Eucalyptus," Nightlight murmured then and Aster turned his eyes to his old friend. "Can you speak?"
"Yeah." The word came out as more of a grunt than anything, but it did spur a relieved laugh from the side. The large, broad-shouldered warrior finally reminded Aster just who these people were collectively. The Guardians. He was among the Guardians, and they were concerned for his well-being.
"We really need to set one thing straight here," Aster spoke as he started to push himself into a sitting position. Toothiana helped prop him up and Aster noted that the she was much stronger than she looked, with her narrow hands holding a firm grip on his arm. "I'd rather you all not call me a different name. It's confusing."
Nightlight nodded silently, doubtlessly guessing that 'Eucalyptus' was very far down the list of options.
Aster felt the pieces of his mind finally settling fully into their places. He pointed at North. "You," he said, not very politely. "You called me 'Bunny' before. That'll do just fine."
Bunny watched a smile come across North's face and his own face threatened to mimic the expression. He lowered his face. "Easter Bunny, one of the Guardians, right?"
Katherine laughed then, throwing her arms around Bunny in a welcoming gesture, whispering "yes" into his shoulder. Toothiana's hands on his arm held him tighter and North released a deep belly laugh. A small hand patted his back, sprinkling ticklish stardust all over his good jacket. It was fine, he didn't feel much like wearing it anymore anyway.
Bunny looked over to Nightlight and saw the soldier smile softly. Bunny wondered if his friend knew he always came back a bit different every time he passed.
This time he'd changed into a Guardian. Maybe that one would stick.