Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Banica Conchita doesn't seem as interested in the cucumber salad as everyone else.

It had been a group effort, getting the cucumbers and spices from the garden and washing, cutting, seasoning, cooling it, but her mind is somewhere else. Her fork stabs slightly into a few slices of cucumber, raising it to her mouth and chewing. It's a mechanical motion.

"What's on your mind, lady Banica?" Pollo asks her first, he's just observant like that. Arte was too preoccupied with fixing the salt levels in the container to even look up at their mistress's face.

"My, I don't know. Every time I see our cucumbers I have to remember that there's something happening to them."

The maid girl also takes a taste from the cucumber salad before motioning to the butler boy, who then continues asking. Both of the twins are thinking the same thing, as they often are. 

"What's wrong with the vegetable garden?" he stirs the bowl with the spoon. 

"Recently, some of the cucumbers have been damaged. It looks like some animal or animals started to eat from them.. I'm not sure what to do. I had to compost so many cucumbers because they were unsalvageable."

As well protected as the Conchita estate's garden is, brick walls can't keep out the enemy that's already infiltrated it. 

"At least my roses are fine." the brown-haired woman sighs in order to calm herself down, those red rose bushes were her favorite thing aside from the vineyard "Whatever is living in the garden must only be going for the vegetables. Do you two have any idea what it could be?"

Pollo's shoulders shrug up, he's clueless. The older twin watches her younger twin eat from the cucumber salad as well before making up her mind on what to say.

"No. I haven't been there in a while." she admits to both of the others "But we can look into it, lady Banica."

"Oh, no need. Not the first time something like this happens, anyway."

Those poor onions from last year.. 

"What do you think then?"

Twirling her fork between her fingers as she stalls, Banica Conchita watches as her retainers each get a few bits of the cucumber salad. It was really refreshing, even though it isn't as hot as it could be right now. Beelzenia's climate isn't often this pleasant in summer.

"Maybe one of our animals escaped and wanted to try some of the vegetables?" that was her best guess "What you could do is see if maybe a gate had been left open somewhere and return the animal, but nothing beyond that. I'm certain it's just an one-time issue."

For someone whose garden is at stake, the lady sure is calm. Arte and Pollo made eye contact from the two sides of their mistress before each of them spoke up.

"We'll investigate right away, lady Banica." the blonde insists.

"Yeah, just leave it to us! We'll get to the bottom of this." the blond followed after his twin sister.

The maid girl and butler boy take some more of the cucumber salad before putting their forks into the kitchen sink and immediately darting out of the room, Arte in the lead and Pollo following after her. 

The sooner they could figure out what was causing all the damage, the better. 

Looking after them with confusion evident on her face, Banica shakes her head lightly and returns to eating the cucumber salad. 

"They're just kids, they're playing around." she tells herself.

But there's no time for playing around when there's something eating the cucumbers. In record time, the twins are out through the back door, their shoes clacking on the stone path that leads to every part of the estate's garden. 

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The garden had been built on the estate around the same time as the mansion itself, so Banica grew up already knowing the layout. It was one of the first things she taught Arte and Pollo when they started working here. 

Arriving at the cucumbers, the maid girl slightly bends her knees to look at what their mistress was referring to. The soles of her loafers dig slightly into the soft, light brown dirt.

Sure enough, most of the cucumbers that are growing closer to the ground seem to have small bite marks littering them. The ones further up the vine however seem to be healthy and growing as cucumbers should. 

She grabs one that's laying on the ground and twists it, breaking it off the vine. Even though it was still small, she figured it was already over for this one and it would be a waste of energy for the plant to keep nurturing it. 

"These bite marks are really tiny. A small animal with a small mouth must have made them." she concludes before looking over her shoulder, to see her brother. 

Pollo is right behind her, his gaze flicking from the damaged cucumbers to the chicken coop right next to where the two of them are standing. A small drop of sweat runs down his cheek. 

"You're telling me.." his voice is small but clearly terrified.

"I'm sorry Pollo, but we can't rule out the chickens just yet. This investigation needs to be thorough. Lady Banica is counting on us! The cucumbers are at stake!"

Getting more and more heated, the blonde springs up from the cucumber patch and darts over to the chicken coop.

"After me, brother!" she waves her free hand suddenly, and he follows after her, like a duckling to its mother. 

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The gate is properly closed and locked, and the wire fence isn't damaged, tilted, or stretched apart. Still holding the cucumber in one hand, Arte pushes the gate open with one hand, Pollo meekly following after her. It closes with a small, metallic creak, like it hasn't been greased in a while. 

When the chickens see him, all Hell breaks loose. The chickens love Pollo, and Pollo loves the chickens, he treats them like pet animals almost. They flock around his thin, boyish legs, clucking and squawking to get his attention, occasionally shaking their round, feathery bodies, sending loose feathers flying into the warm air. 

He's flattered by the display. His sister is just having enough of all the noise the flock is making. 

"Can you pick one up for a sec?"

"Sure." the butler boy is already bending his knees. A large, white hen is chosen to be interviewed, his small hands scooping it up gently and holding it against his chest as if it was a baby. "Here we go."

The hen is calm in Pollo's arms, curiously clucking at both him and Arte.

She holds the cucumber close to the hen, turning it so the undamaged half is facing it. Its brown, beady eyes fixate on the offered food. 

"I want to see what a chicken 'bite mark' looks like." the maid girl explains her plan "We can rule them out if it's dissimilar."

Interested in the cucumber, the chicken starts pecking at it, moving its head rapidly as it starts snacking. Quickly, a sizable chunk is missing from the already damaged cucumber, and Arte pulls it away to look at it.

It doesn't look anything like the bite mark they found earlier.. So far, the investigation is a failure. 

"Nope, not a match." she turns to Pollo, her head shaking in disappointment "You can put it back down now."

"I knew they were innocent.." he smiles, rubbing under the wing of the large hen before putting it back onto the ground.

Arte swings her arm and suddenly throws the damaged cucumber against the ground, splattering it everywhere. The chickens quickly take notice and flock around it, all of them tussling around for a bit of the cucumber. 

"Okay, and what now?"

Before the older twin could answer her younger twin's question, there's another small noise in the chicken coop. The pile of hay that the chickens sometimes sleep in is slightly shuffling, like something is in there. 

Both of them spin around in shock, their blond hair bouncing from the motion. 

It's a small rabbit, its body smooth and athletic, its eyes big and dark, the coloration of its fur reminds Arte and Pollo of bread crumbs. They stand and stare in shock, and the bunny notices them, freezing up similarly as it's caught in the act. 

"That bastard!" the maid girl suddenly yells and lunges herself at the haystack, missing the rabbit by a second. A squeaky breath leaves her. 

Holding a handful of hay in its mouth and cheeks, the frightened animal squeezes its small brown body through a gap in the wire fence and makes its escape. Arte watches it bounce and hop away, her small, pale hands clutched in fists.

Pollo, in the background, picks up the pitchfork and quietly manoeuvres the pile of hay closer to the middle of the chicken coop, hoping that the less accessible it is, the less likely anymore theft will occur. He hums a small tune to himself. 

"At least we know the culprit now." she anxiously combs through her blonde hair with her fingers, trying to get the slightly damp strands out of her eyes "One step closer to solving the issue once and for all."

Her anger is both reasonable and an overreaction, and Pollo knows that, but he isn't about to make anything worse by letting her onto that. He just plays along, like usual. 

"So that means rabbits live on the estate." the blond concludes, turning to his twin sister with his blue eyes wide open "How have we never seen them before..?"

"They probably just moved in. That would explain why the cucumbers were only recently starting to have problems."

The Conchita estate has a tall brick-and-stone wall surrounding the mansion and its garden, but it is fairly close to a forest and there are gates in the wall, one in front of the mansion and the other at the back of the garden. The rabbits must have invaded through them. They already proved their agility and their ability to fit through small spaces. 

Arte cracks her knuckles in front of herself, huffing in irritation. They have to act quickly, the rabbits are probably planning another attack. 

"Back to headquarters, Pollo!"

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Saying goodbye to the wrongly accused chickens and feeding them more of the damaged cucumbers, the maid girl and butler boy admit defeat for now and once again enter the mansion.

Their shared bedroom is on the second floor. They will lock themselves there and not come out until they come up with the ultimate plan. 

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Pollo is already sitting on one of the beds (Arte's bed, specifically) and swinging his legs off the edge of the mattress before he hears the sound of the desk's drawers opening. The slight creak catches his attention and he turns his head.

"What are you looking for?"

She answers him in a dry fashion. "My blueprints."

A stack of papers is pulled out of the desk, none of them blue. The butler boy shoots a sceptical glance to his sister, who doesn't even notice that he's staring.

"I have been preparing for this day for quite a while now." the maid girl mumbles under her breath "You never know when the enemy is going to strike."

In all honesty, Pollo thinks that Arte is being really dramatic, but that's nothing new. As she turns over to him, he hunches over, putting his elbows on his knees and propping his chin up with his hands.

"Are those your drawings?"

She waves the pages in his general direction.

"They're blueprints, Pollo. I have sketched down a couple of weapons that could be used against intruders."

Of course, Arte was a big fan of weapons, and she tried to use them at any given opportunity. 

"Woah, we don't need to think about attacking them yet." he tilts his head, his blond bangs falling into his eyes "Don't you have any other ideas?"

The maid girl scratches the nape of her neck, she's not really good at coming up with non-violent alternatives.

"Gimme a moment."

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Having retrieved one of her pens earlier, she gets an empty page and writes down a list of ideas that might or might not solve the crisis their vegetable garden is going through. The list is short because she would much rather do unsavory things to the new pests in the garden, but for her twin's sake she's at least willing to try.

A minute passes with small scribbling noises filling the air.

"I think this is all." she clicks the pen closed with her thumb.

"Read them out one by one and I'll tell you what I think."

She walks into the middle of the room and stands in front of the butler boy, the list clutched in her hands like she's about to give an important speech.

"So my first idea is to move the vegetable patches or at least do something to protect them externally. Like a greenhouse."

There are a lot of things wrong with the idea, but he doesn't want his stutter to come out, so he stays put for a moment before answering.

"But greenhouses aren't fortresses." Pollo pauses for a second "I feel like the rabbits could slip in while we open the door or something." he explains to her "Besides, it's already pretty hot without a greenhouse. The plants probably wouldn't take well to more heat and humidity."

An image of the entire vegetable patch dying and rotting away flashes briefly in Arte's mind.

"That's one way to keep the rabbits out. Just starve them." she chuckles, the morbid idea entertaining her "Alright, so no greenhouses."

"Unless lady Banica ever wants a greenhouse, but I doubt it."

Her eyes trail further down the paper in her hands.

"My next idea is that someone from the staff always needs to be patrolling outside."

"How would that work?"

"Well, they stand at the vegetable patch and keep an eye out for the rabbits, and then chase them away when they try to eat the vegetables."

Pollo's eyebrows knit together in the middle. "Imagine having to tell lady Banica that you missed work because you were running after a bunny in the yard."

"You got me there." she shifts her weight from one leg to the other "And it would be difficult do be out there when it rains or in any other difficult circumstances."

With each plan being rejected (rightfully so) one after the other, Arte is becoming more and more certain that her initial violent approach is the correct one. Pollo on the other hand is becoming more and more certain that his sister is coming up with bad ideas on purpose.

"Can we look over the traps now?"

He reluctantly agrees, watching his twin get the "blue"prints from her desk again.

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By no means is the butler boy a weapon expert, but his main goal is to stop the maid girl from committing any war crimes, or at least postpone them until he can't reasonably be held accountable for being her accomplice.

Arte shuffles her drawings like a deck of cards before pulling one out randomly and showing it to her brother. His eyes grow round, not out of interest, but fear.

"This is a guillotine." he blurts out. 

"Yeah, basically a guillotine." she agrees, noticing his tense body language "So that's a no?"

"Arte, we are not going to behead the rabbits."

The maid girl huffs in irritation before putting the page back onto her desk. "Fine. Pollo, you're such a contrarian." She reaches for another one of her sketches and shows it to Pollo again. He doesn't seem very impressed by this one either, his gaze trailing over the page.

".. This is basically the meat grinder from the kitchen."

"Nuh-uh." she wags her finger at her twin "This is a meat grinder with a trapdoor mechanism on top so we can cover it with foilage and the rabbits won't see it."

She explains it like it's a good thing, like the trapdoor mechanism would change the fact that she just proposed grinding rabbits alive. Pollo lets up an exasperated sigh before responding.

"Arte, we are not going to grind the rabbits alive."

".. Okay." a pause. "Replace the giant meat grinder with a spike pit-"

"Nope." he shakes his head.

".. A pool of glue?"

"You can't be serious." Pollo buries his face into his hands, not wanting to see any more of the blueprints and also experiencing major second-hand embarrassment.

Her hand suddenly losing tension, Arte drops all of the pages onto the floor and just stands there.

The silence is deafening.

"Nothing I do is good enough for you!" she barks at her brother.

Finally getting up from the bed, Pollo goes to the other side of the room and sits down on his own bed instead. He doesn't want to see her mope; having his twin sulk over something insignificant can be just as annoying when she gets pissed off for no reason.

"It's not you, it's that you just proposed putting live bunnies into a giant meat grinder." Pollo tells Arte slowly and with extra emphasis on the second part of the sentence.

Falling silent, the maid girl notices the blueprints scattered all around her feet and quickly crouches down to retrieve them.

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Her drawings are quickly collected into a stack and she makes sure none of them are upside down before she speaks up.

"I have one last idea, Pollo."

He's equally scared and intrigued, letting his twin know that he's listening by tilting his head to the side. 

"We find the rabbit burrow and personally chase out all the rabbits that live inside!"

Shocked but not surprised, the butler boy tries to ask a question. "And by personally-.."

Until this point, Arte was facing away from Pollo, but her neck turns an unnatural amount as she looks over her shoulder back at him. 

"Whatever it takes, Pollo! I volunteer to lead the expedition. Besides, we're small enough to fit into those kinds of tunnels, right?"

He doesn't respond as quickly as she wants him to, so she takes his silence as a yes.

"It's war now! Come, let's get dressed appropriately."

Springing up and jumping to her feet, the maid girl grabs the butler boy by his sleeve and pulls him up from the bed, tugging him over to their wardrobe.

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Upon opening the door, the twins are greeted with the sight of a bunch of uniforms that look exactly like the ones they're wearing at the moment, nicely folded or hung up on coathangers. But that's not what's important, and Arte pushes them apart to see into the back of the closet.

Beelzenia's climate is usually rather warm, but during winter or for visiting foreign countries, the two of them might need coats. She takes hers out before letting Pollo grab his own. Their hats are on the top shelf and are also retrieved, even if they have to go on tiptoes to actually reach them.

The two pairs of knee-high boots are also tucked away in the wardrobe, not seeing much use in the recent months. But it's not a good idea to go to war in indoor shoes, especially because you might be scolded for getting them dirty.

"We're gonna overheat in these." Pollo undoes the buttons on his coat anyway, checking the inner pockets for any tissues or candy that he might have forgotten inside. The fabric lining is fairly thin but not thin enough for the current weather conditions.

It was strange to the blonde that her twin actually said something she could agree with.

"You're right." while speaking, she's already taking her hairpins out in order for them to not get caught in her uniform later "I'll get out of this and you can just take your vest and tie off."

A sense of foreboding came over the two of them. To anyone reading this, it might be obvious that waging war on animals that are both smaller and quicker than you will most likely not end well, but Arte and Pollo have already set their minds to this. Or at least Arte did, and Pollo is following along because something funny might come out of the situation.

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The maid girl takes the black bow out of her hair in preparation for undressing, earning a gasp of confusion from her brother.

"Wow Arte, I haven't seen you without the headband in ages." he mentions.

She looks almost plain without the hair accessories. Some would even say that she looks normal.

And then Arte puts the cap onto her head, slightly adjusting the visor.

"It's Dictator Arte now."

Chapter Text

Arte and Pollo notice that they're each holding the other's clothes after taking the two hangers out of the wardrobe. While they might look similar from the back and side, the cut is slightly different on Arte's coat, flaring out below her waist to accomodate for her skirt, and the lining for Pollo's coat is slightly warmer because of his bad temperature regulation.

Also, there are name tags sewn over the breast pockets.

Something like that helps others differentiate the twins from each other when the jacket covers up their usually distinguishable clothing, and also it saves Banica time with not having to introduce them whenever the three of them are visiting a foreign country.

They switch the coats between themselves and Pollo immediately finds a piece of candy in said pocket after digging his hand inside. 

"Hey, I knew something was up when the pockets were empty." he tells her before unwrapping it and simply popping it into his mouth, not caring that it had been in the closet for a couple of months. The caramel flavor cheers him up instantly.

That smile quickly fades when the maid girl doesn't respond, and he spins over only to see her head and arms stuck in the outer layer of her maid uniform as she's trying to pull it over her head.

"Can you come and pull me out of this before I choke?" she mumbles, her voice muffled by the black fabric "Nothing urgent though, enjoy your caramel."

"Dictator Arte is so dramatic."

Putting his coat down onto the bed, the blond moves over to his sister and grips the now inside-out dress, tugging and pulling on it until her head and arms come out. She takes it back from him and awkwardly turns it back the right way, slightly shaking it out. The cap she'd put on earlier also falls out of the dress.

"..Why did I put it on my head before even taking off my clothes?" Arte asks herself and Pollo answers in her place: "Because you're a showoff."

The hat is lifted into the air and the older twin lightly smacks the younger twin on the shoulder, making him recoil.

"Ouch, you're punishing me for saying the truth?"

"That's what a dictator does."

"But we're on the same side." he retorts again.

Arte is already getting to work on untying the yellow tie from around her neck, which was practically a bandana. "Actually you're right. I'm sorry Lieutenant Pollo, I will try to not censor you so much in the future."

The only response she gets is a hum, but she can tell that he'd already forgiven her. Pollo isn't very serious about anything and doesn't hold grudges.

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After getting out of their loafers, the maid girl helped the butler boy take off the vest and tie, and every piece of discarded clothing was laid over one of the chairs at the desk. The sunlight is still beaming in through the window, almost illuminating their pale skin and immaculate white clothes.

In all honesty, Pollo feels a little naked, standing in only his shirt and pants, but Arte is somehow worse, at least in his opinion. 

"You look like the tooth fairy." he motions over at his sister's white, puffy dress, and the white tights covering her legs, barely differing in color from her actual skin tone.

"How do you know what the tooth fairy looks like in the first place?"

It's hard to tell whether that was a genuine question or if Arte is trying to turn her brother's argument inside out.

Looking over at his sister with an unusually serious expression, Pollo answers "Sorry, I meant that you look like a tooth."

She was on the verge of saying something right back at him, something along the lines of pulling one of his teeth out with her bare hands, but manages to hold herself back and picks up her coat. The correct one this time.

The outer layer is composed of a grayish, slightly scratchy fabric, but the inner lining is much softer. It slides up her arms easily and she gets to work in buttoning the copious amount of buttons. On the other hand, Pollo had started from the ground up and is trying to tuck his pants into his boots.

"None of this is helping us blend in. The rabbits are gonna see us from miles away, Dictator Arte."

"I don't mind that." she shrugs off her brother's observation "If anything, we need to show aggression, otherwise they might think they stand a chance."

Moving on to getting himself into the coat, the butler boy checks the pockets again and finds a white handkerchief. He gets a feeling that they might need a white flag later and simply leaves it in his pocket before also moving on to buttoning his coat up. While Arte left the top two buttons open, he does all of them in.

"What are you doing with your tie?" the younger twin asks the older one as he glances at her from the corner of his eye "Are you using it as an armband?"

"It's actually called a brassard."

"You're not answering my question."

She's actually too busy trying to tie it onto the sleeve of her coat, even trying to hold one end with her teeth before simply giving up.

"Lieutenant Pollo, help me with putting this on." Arte hands her brother the yellow bandana, and he folds it in half lengthwise.

"Okay, I guess you are using it as an armband."

Holding her arm horizontally so Pollo has an easier time manoeuvring her tie into an armband (or a brassard as she calls it) Arte stands by awkwardly until he pulls away. He tied it into the same type of knot she uses when tying this tie around her neck, except this time it's around her arm.

She tests the durability of her new armband by flopping and waving around with her arm, and it only mildly slips from its place. That's good enough.

"Thanks."

"So what is this for?"

"I've seen this type of armband on military personnel before. I thought it would fit."

Although he does raise an eyebrow, Pollo has to admit that the yellow of the bandana and the gray of the jacket do go together well. Backing off, he gives the maid girl space to put her own boots on. She struggles significantly less than him because she doesn't have any pants to tuck into said boots.

The last thing to go on are actually their caps. And just like with everything else, they pick up the one that belongs to the other first. Arte's hat is always set a little looser with the clasp because she doesn't want it messing up her hair, on the other hand Pollo could care less and just wants it to not fall off his head.

For decoration, the two hats each have one yellow circular pin, Arte's hat has it on the right side above the visor and Pollo's hat has it on the left side. Even they themselves don't know why they set it up like that, but they got used to it quickly.

The maid girl dusts off her brother's shoulders with a surprisingly gentle motion.

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"Ready?"

"Can I be honest with you, Dictator Arte?" but Pollo was grabbed by the wrist before he could actually be honest. "Ahh.."

"Come on brother darling. We're going to find the rabbits' headquarters, and we're gonna win the war."

He follows after Arte as she stomps her way down the staircase, her blonde hair and white skirt bouncing with each step.

"Will it be as easy as you're making it out to be?"

"Totally. Even easier than that. They might as well surrender already."

"I don't think the bunnies are aware of the concept of losing a war.."

They don't continue talking because it's hard to keep coherent while darting down a flight of stairs. Before long, the twins are in the garden again, frantically trying to trace the steps of the rabbit they saw by the chicken coop earlier.

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Banica Conchita looks after her retainers from her spot in a lounge chair, her hand swirling a glass with some expensive alcohol inside. Their clothing seems to confuse her more than their erratic behaviour.

"Did the temperatures drop while I wasn't paying attention..?"

She shakes her head to get her mind off of whatever Arte and Pollo are up to, already knowing by now that she will get the context sooner or later.

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The first thing Arte says after almost five minutes of non-stop running is "Let's split up to search for the enemy base."

Pollo is way too out of breath to either accept or deny.

".. Why?"

"We can cover more ground that way." her hand slips under her cap so she can push her blond bangs out of her eyes. All that movement had messed her hairstyle up.

"There has to be a better way of finding the entrance to the rabbit burrow."

"There probably is," the older twin replies, shooting a glance to her younger sibling over her shoulder as she starts walking away "But I wanna do it like this."

".. Okay, Dictator Arte."

As instructed, the two of them split up. 

The maid girl's first move is going over to the cucumbers and seeing if any footsteps lead from it in any direction, but the grass is too short for anything to make much of an imprint, even her boots.

The butler boy is going off of his earlier observation that the rabbits probably invaded through the gate that leads to the forest. He plods his way over to the brick wall and starts looking around.. 

"Bingo."

Near one of the lemon trees on the ground is an obvious indentation. Cupping his hands around his mouth, he stands a few steps away from the newly discovered burrow and turns towards where he last saw his sister. 

"Over here!" he yells again when the maid girl turns around to face him "I found it."

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Hearing her brother's voice from the other side of the garden, Arte books it and runs in the direction she heard him from, almost running into him and nearly avoiding a collision by catching herself on one of the lemon tree's branches.

"You made it look easy, Lieutenant Pollo. What's your secret?" she walks a couple of circles around the entrance of the rabbit hole, checking for any underground sound or movement.

"It's pure luck." his shoulders move upwards with a shrug "I have nothing else going for me."

This kind of blunt answer is something Arte knows she should be expecting but is never completely prepared for. She shakes the surprise off and bends her knees to crouch down.

Through the soil, the small scratching noises of the rabbits inside can be heard, startled after having noticed the twins' sudden appearance. 

"I think they know we're here." Pollo mentions and makes a motion with his hand between the two of them and the rabbit hole. 

"That's too bad. I bet they're not expecting to be attacked, though." she moves away slightly and gets on all fours.

"Wait, what are you going to do?"

"Climb down into the burrow and chase them back out into the forest."

"The tunnel is a bit small for you, don't you think?"

Arte crawls her way towards the entrance of the rabbit burrow and checks it out. Her head seems like it should fit even with the hat on, but even she's having doubts on whether the bottom half of her body will. But at this point she's too stubborn to back down.

"Shut up, Lieutenant Pollo. You can just stand guard here, I'll do it."

Not having any issue with that, the younger twin shrugs and sits down onto the grass, his knees pulled up in front of himself. 

"If Dictator Arte says so, I believe in her."

Pollo is once again misplacing his trust and it's starting to dawn on him, but at this point he doesn't really care. 

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The hole in the dirt is big enough for the maid girl's left arm. It's big enough for her right arm as well, and she slowly begins to make her way downwards, even fitting her scruffy blonde head inside.

The way down is steeper than expected, but that's not what stops her from moving in further. That's actually a combination of two things.

One is that she can already see one of the "rooms" in the complicated structure that is a rabbit burrow.. and the other one is that she's stuck halfway inside. Arte tries pushing further but her hips aren't going through. 

It's almost ridiculous. Even her brother has bigger hips than she does, the skirt is the only thing holding her back, and it's doing its job very well. She sighs to herself inside the dirt tunnel and tilts her head towards the little room that she had discovered.

Lined with dried grass and hay from the chicken coop is a circular chamber. Inside the nest, two adult rabbits are cowering, along with what Arte thinks is a pile of fur but is actually a haphazard pile of juvenile rabbits. She counts at least three but it's hard to tell in the near darkness. 

All of them are stuck right now, with Arte standing (better said, laying) in both their way and her own.

The longer she looks at the rabbits in front of her, the more her bloodthirst is quenched. It's like those brown eyes are looking right into her soul through her own, trying to find a part of her that would rather back away and let them be instead. Actually, the maid girl is starting to feel like she does whenever she accidentally walks into the dining hall while her mistress Banica is having guests over. 

She swallows and starts to kick her legs, which are still outside the burrow, trying to get her brother's attention.

"Lieutenant Pollo.. some help, please?"

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The butler boy had been perfectly happy sitting on the grass and looking at the clouds above, watching as the wind drags their fluffy whiteness through the sky, but the muffled voice of his twin pulls him back into reality. 

".. Did you get stuck?"

"No." Arte lies immediately "I'll explain everything, but there's not much air down here, so pull me back up, won't you?"

Assuming a similar position to his sister from earlier, Pollo makes his way over to where she is and wraps his arms around her thighs. His knees dig into the grass as he stabilizes himself. 

"Can you try pushing yourself backwards? I'll pull you."

Still inside the tunnel, Arte takes special care to not wave her hands too much in order to avoid scaring the poor bunnies even further and starts to wriggle her way back out. "I'm on it."

"Is your hat still on?"

She immediately grabs the visor to at least have it in her hand and not lose it in the rabbit burrow if it happens to fly off.

"Yeah, you can pull now."

Pollo takes a deep breath that fills the entirety of his lungs and does as instructed. With one strong move, he manages to pull Arte back out onto the grass, and then immediately lies down next to her in exhaustion, obviously after letting go of her legs. 

"So, what's Dictator Arte's excuse this time?"

Even though she's resting her face directly on the grass, the older twin can hear her brother's smile from the tone of his voice, and she groans under her breath. In usual Arte fashion, she bends the uncomfortable truth to make herself seem correct as well. 

"I didn't want to go any further because I was outnumbered, for your information. There are actually more rabbits than I expected."

"So what you're saying is that you're a coward." Pollo snaps back immediately, he could see very well that she had been stuck and also that she was hesitating while in the rabbit burrow. 

That makes the maid girl push herself up into a sitting position and angrily adjust the cap on her head, which is very much coated with soil. 

"It's not cowardly to know when to stop. Actually, it takes a lot of bravery to know that you were wrong and admit it."

Pollo would love to say something along the lines of his sister being a hypocrite, how she's always the one pushing herself through situations that she can't come out of as a winner, how much of a sore loser she really is and how much of this is just her way of trying to make herself feel better. 

But he doesn't say any of that, and just extends a hand towards her face. Arte lets him fix her bangs without a word.

".. The battlefield hasn't been kind to you, right? Let's go clean up."

She reaches up to hold her brother's hand, cupping it against her cheek. A sense of comfort fills her as she slowly stops feeling the scent of dirt in the back of her nose. 

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Once again the twins say goodbye to the garden before making their way into the mansion, but not before trying to dust as much dirt and grass off of themselves and possible in order to not track too much of it inside. Arte is still holding Pollo's hand (which is much cleaner than hers) and pulling him after herself, she somehow still has more energy than him. 

While moving up the stairs, the two of them once again pass by Banica, who was in the process of looking at her expensive paintings in the hallway again. The small noise of their boots catches her attention and she subtly turns to see them as they pass her. 

Banica Conchita knows better than to worry about her retainers, but that doesn't stop her from becoming curious. It's actually been eating away at her, they've been so secretive about their activities ever since they made cucumber salad earlier. 

So, as she stirs her drink with a straw, the brown-haired woman makes a mental note to check up on them once she gets to know exactly where they are heading this time.

And by the sound of their stomps, they seem to be on their way to besiege the upstairs bathroom. 

Chapter Text

"Can I come too?" 

Arte is struggling out of her boots when the question comes her way. When she looks behind herself, her brother is taking his hat off.

It's obvious who got the shorter end of the stick in the blitzkrieg. 

"You're not even dirty, Lieutenant Pollo." 

"You say that, but I was sweating a lot while you were trying to climb down."

"Sweating? From stress?" 

He gives her a deadpan look, his little hands getting to work on unbuttoning his coat. "Yeah, and the other part of it is that you took a very long time and it was kinda hot outside." 

Even though they had wasted a significant amount of their day waging war on the bunnies, the Sun is still up and beaming into the bathroom. The maid girl scratches the back of her head before moving over to the butler boy and helping him out of his clothes as well. 

"Fine, I'll allow it."

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The washing machine is loaded with the dirty clothes, the boots awkwardly strewn around on the floor. It provides background noise along with the bathtub slowly filling up. 

"Do you need to wash your hair?" Pollo momentarily looks away from the slight ripples in the bath to ask his sister. 

"Actually, my cap did a good job on protecting me. Maybe just with water."

He sneaks up behind Arte as she's looking at herself in the mirror and makes bunny ears over her head with his fingers. It's a good thing he stepped away quickly or else he probably would've gotten a fist to the stomach. 

"Hey, we'll have to figure something out sooner or later."

The maid girl scratches the back of her head. "Probably sooner than later. Who knows what the rabbits are planning just now.."

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From outside the room, Banica Conchita catches snippets of conversation and the splashes of water. By the time she actually opens the door, both of the twins are inside the bathtub, with Arte on the farther side and Pollo on the side that's closer to the door. 

They're so small that the two of them fit inside the bath without touching, but to be fair it's a pretty large bathtub. Not taken by surprise, the noblewoman takes a sip from her glass and waits to be noticed. 

The noise of the door creaking open alerts Pollo first and he turns around, one arm hanging over the rim of the bathtub as he spots their mistress. He gently kicks Arte in the leg under the water. 

"Hey, what the-" she rubs some water out of her eyes, only then noticing Banica "Good afternoon lady Conchita."

"Hey, lady Banica." the butler boy waves the hand that's not in the water and tries to smile properly. 

Their mistress doesn't seem very amused. 

".. What have you two been up to today? Every time I saw you, you were going somewhere." the noblewoman pauses, almost as if coming to a realization "Don't tell me you've been trying to solve the problem with the cucumbers?" 

"Oh, but we have, lady Conchita." Arte reassures her in the least reassuring way possible "We found out a lot of things. Specifically, that it's a rabbit colony that moved into the yard."

The answer doesn't give Banica any relief, she doesn't know what to do with the rabbits, but that's also not what's on her mind right now. 

"And don't tell me that you're taking a bath in the middle of the afternoon because you tried to fight the rabbits yourselves..?" 

Immediately, Pollo's other hand shoots out of the water and motions over at the other side of the tub, his index finger pointing at Arte accusingly.

"It was Dictator Arte's idea."

"But-.." the maid girl can't protest, because it's the truth. She's a lot of things but she's not a liar. "Yeah, it was mine. It totally could've worked if the rabbits weren't already one step ahead of us."

Still standing in the doorway, Banica's gaze travels between the washing machine that's working overtime and the bathtub, switching back and forth. The news don't even come as a surprise to her. 

They're just kids, they're just playing around.

"So I take it the rabbit problem hadn't been solved?" she swirls her drink around, the ice cubes clicking slightly against each other as they're in motion.

"No, lady Banica."

"Not yet." Arte continues her brother's thought process, and the two exchange a knowing glance between them "But I'm already thinking of our plan B."

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Banica digs one hand through her short, brown hair as she thinks, her thoughts bouncing between her retainers and whatever is going on in the garden. Of course, she should be scolding them, for getting their uniforms dirty, for not telling an adult and trying to solve a problem that's much bigger than them, for practically wasting their entire afternoon.. 

But she can't. 

It's actually heartwarming for the noblewoman to see her little maid and butler enjoy their childhood so much. 

Banica didn't have that kind of freedom, growing up with an overbearing mother and a loving but absent father, as the only child of two nobles.. The more she thinks, the more she wants to scold Arte and Pollo for not dragging her into this, for not letting her play along with them.

She lifts her glass back to her mouth and takes in the last of her drink, God knows it won't be her last cocktail for today anyway.

"Better luck next time, then." turning and preparing to shut the door, Banica speaks over her shoulder "You can have your fun but make sure to return for dinner. It won't serve itself after all."

Pollo nods mindlessly: "Of course lady Banica."

"We'll be there, lady Conchita." Arte spits some bathwater out before replying. 

The bathroom door clicks closed and the twins are once again left with themselves. 

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".. Say Arte, you think she's mad at us?"

Normally, the butler boy isn't bad at reading emotions, growing up with a twin sister who has such a fickle personality, but it's never that clear with Banica. They know her the best out of any outsider, but there's still a lot to learn.

"No." Arte starts with a very certain tone but it softens right afterwards "Actually, I can't tell.."

"If anything, I think she's sad." he says, his hand outstretched to offer the soap to the older twin. 

She takes the offered bar of soap from her brother and watches as he unties his hair, slightly combing it with damp fingers. 

"It really did seem like it. There was a thoughtful expression on her face.."

"It's probably because of the rabbits."

"Elaborate."

"Well, she owns the estate, right? I'm not happy about the rabbits living in the garden, imagine how she feels about them."

As any sibling would, Arte hates whenever Pollo is correct about anything, but she has to give this one to him. 

"So.. what you're telling me is that when we win the war, lady Conchita will be happy again?"

That wasn't exactly what he was implying, but he goes along with it anyway. If their first plan went up in flames like this, he can already imagine how much of a disaster the next one will be. 

"Yeah, I guess I am."

"Alright.. When we get back to headquarters, we're completely revamping the strategy. It will be like no other!"

He's slightly preoccupied with trying to pull the plug out of the bathtub underwater to care about the maid girl's dictator instincts coming back out.

"Whatever you say, Arte."

"It's Dictator Arte."

Chapter Text

After toweling themselves (and a little bit of each other) dry, the twins make their way back to their bedroom. Fortunately, not all of their clothes were involved in the military operation and they only have to get a few new items from the closet.

Arte is putting the pins and bow back into her blonde hair and Pollo is just giving up on trying to look like he knows what he's doing. 

The yellow tie hangs undone around his neck as he climbs onto his bed and sits down, nearly banging his head into the wall behind him. Not that it would've changed much, his head is mostly empty anyway.

"We totally blew that." he sighs. 

Arte doesn't like admitting her faults, but her need to correct her twin is stronger than her need to pretend like nothing is wrong. "No, it was me who totally blew that. You did exactly what I asked you to do, so it's on me."

Watching as the maid girl starts pacing around the room, the butler boy's eyes follow her movement, observing as she seems bigger whenever she's near him and smaller whenever she's further away. 

The thing that breaks the silence isn't any sort of reassurance for their recent failure. 

".. You forgot to put your shoes on, Dictator Arte." Pollo points out after he realizes her footsteps sound much softer than expected against the wooden tiles.

Instead of getting her loafers back on right away, the blond snaps back at her younger sibling "And you forgot to tie your tie, Lieutenant Pollo."

He leans back further against the wall and makes direct eye contact with her from across the bedroom. 

"I didn't forget. I'm just saving it in case our plan B fails and I need to hang myself to avoid total humiliation."

Arte knows he didn't actually mean that. Of course Arte knows, the way her smile froze onto her face and her eyes widened ever so slightly isn't indicative of anything. Still without proper footwear on, she stomps over to Pollo's bed and climbs on next to him without asking.

"No. That's a coward's way out." she mumbles under her breath, taking the two ends of his tie into her hands and starting to tie it for him "Don't say things like that, Pollo."

".. Get off my bed." Pollo tries to shove his hand into her chest but she doesn't budge. It does hurt slightly, but her brother is the last person she's going to let on to that.

"Dictator Arte can sit wherever she wants to sit."

"And Dictator Arte should be thinking of her plan B instead of sitting on my bed." he spits back immediately, waiting until his neatly-done tie is released before climbing off the bed. "You know what?" 

Before either of them know it, he's sitting on his sister's bed on the other side of the room. His legs don't really reach the ground from his spot, but at least he has shoes on. 

".. Fair enough."

Pollo undoes his tie as a sign of independence immediately. 

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Of course the first plan wasn't made in mind with the possibility of it failing. Why would it have been? The maid girl doesn't think of possible weak spots in her plans and the butler boy doesn't think in general. Not often enough for it to count anyway.

While the cogs in her brain turn, the older twin grabs the bow on her head, each side with one hand, and pulls and twists it, keeping her hands busy always helps her concentrate better.

"I think we need to look at everything we did last time and do the exact opposite." she declares.

"Are you admitting you were wrong?"

"No." her mouth moves faster than her brain "I mean.. I walked right into that one, huh."

Pollo snickers under his breath but it's somehow loud enough for her to hear from the other side of the room. It's a good thing that he laughs often, but she'd rather him laugh with her, not at her. He continues anyway. 

"Really, what was the first plan? Other than bad, obviously." his chuckling doesn't stop.

The blonde doesn't reply immediately, instead pushing herself off her brother's bed and actually putting her shoes on. She only speaks again when she's standing by the window, looking down at the yard through the squeaky-clean glass.

"So what we did was launch an attack on the rabbits' headquarters. For plan B, I think we need to make the rabbits come to us instead."

"And how do you think that'll work?"

Despite his tone of voice, the blond is genuinely curious. He had seen enough bunnies around to know that they're very skittish and wouldn't just launch a military operation like that.

"The cucumbers!"

Even though they're facing away from each other, the younger twin can hear the older twin bash her fist down against her other open palm.

"Sure, the cucumbers can be bait." Pollo tilts his head "But what do we do after the bunnies are out of the burrow?"

In order to make eye contact with her brother, Arte has to turn her head backwards with an almost unnatural neck rotation.

"See, I didn't think that far yet. Just don't doubt me, okay?"

"Sorry Dictator Arte, it's hard not to be skeptical right now."

"Are you perhaps siding with the enemy, Lieutenant Pollo?"

He wants to look out of the windows as well and climbs off of his sister's bed, joining her in standing in the other side of the room. The damaged cucumber patch is just barely visible from where they're standing.

Cucumbers don't sound that bad, maybe he could take some for himself. 

"I dunno." his right hand goes up to palm his stomach "I could use some vegetables right now."

"Ohh, you traitor." Pollo is flicked in the nose. "I can't believe my own brother is a double agent."

"Sure, accuse me."

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Before the conversation could go completely off track like a train that had been hit by a cannonball, the maid girl pushes the window open and sticks her head out. No rabbits in sight.. for now. And like younger brothers do, the butler boy wants to be included and makes space for himself and also leans his head out. 

No matter how hard they stare, no rabbits are coming to attack. 

"I think you scared them." Pollo nods towards the tree below which the rabbit burrow is situated "I mean, I'd be horrified if a huge unknown creature suddenly came into my room."

"That's how I feel when I'm half asleep and you decide that you want to sleep in my bed instead." she teases him right back. 

"Why are you bringing that up? I've grown out of that already." he squints at the blonde, a hint of a smile on his lips "I haven't done that in five days."

Arte silently hopes the streak will continue but doesn't comment on it. 

".. Anyway, if we can't go to the rabbits, we'll make them come out to us. And that's where the cucumbers come into play!"

".. And then what?" one of his hands go up to scratch the back of his head "They're just gonna go back inside after they're done eating."

A pause.

"Well, they're not gonna go back inside because we catch them and bring them back into the forest."

"And they're going to come back into the garden through the back door like they did the first time." Pollo points out another flaw. Of course, he wouldn't want to come up with anything by himself but he loves to criticise people. Arte is the same, and that's why she hates that part of him.

"No they're not!" she stomps her foot in irritation "We're going to fill the entrance to the burrow with dirt from the empty garden plots."

"There are probably multiple entrances."

Both of them vaguely remember seeing a diagram of how a rabbit burrow is composed of multiple complex tunnels and chambers. 

"We'll fill all of them with dirt."

"They're just going to dig another burrow somewhere else and move right back in, Dictator Arte!"

Turning to face the butler boy, the maid girl's confident expression had switched to something much more pouty.

"Would you rather do this or the giant meat grinder?"

Pollo cringes. "That's not a fair comparison.."

"All is fair in war. Or however that saying goes." Arte almost gets it right. "Anyway, I think we'll have enough time to do almost anything while the rabbits are eating the cucumbers."

"Are you really expecting me to come up with something on the spot?"

"No." she lightly elbows him in the side, he doesn't react much but it's all for show anyway. "I'll do that. You just do what I say, got it Lieutenant Pollo?"

He doesn't have a choice in the matter. That's the reality of being a younger sibling. 

"Alright." the blond shrugs, already having accepted his fate "But I'll throw a cucumber at your head if this plan fails."

Arte is so desperate to prove herself that in the moment she doesn't even mind the idea of being bonked over the head with a vegetable. 

"I'm in." suddenly, she grabs his hand and pulls him away from the window, a hint of a grin already on her face "But you won't get to do it, because we'll succeed. I just know we will."

Before Pollo could even make a noise, Arte yanks him after herself and the two bounce down the stairs. All this running, especially up and down a staircase, is equal to a serious workout.

"Now.. back to the battlefield we go!"

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Banica Conchita is checking out some expensive caviar in the kitchen when the sound of her retainers darting right back into the garden passes by her. She almost drops the tiny spoon directly onto the floor as the noise comes and goes by the room, but it's not the source of the noise that shocks her, just the suddenness.

"And they're doing it all over again, aren't they.. Do they ever learn?"

The bit of scooped-up caviar makes its way to her lips, but her mind is somewhere else. The noblewoman can't even pay attention to the exquisite salty flavors because her mind is in the garden again.

She doesn't worry for Arte, she worries for Pollo and the cucumber patch and the wild rabbits. It's all Arte's game, after all. She's the dictator.. and she didn't even let her mistress on to anything. 

Suddenly, she spits the caviar right back out and the tiny, translucent orange specks go everywhere.

"What am I even doing?" Banica awkwardly closes the tin and puts it into the refrigerator, still while talking to herself out loud. "I don't even like caviar that much. Especially not by itself, that was foolish from me.."

She is prone to losing track of herself and going on autopilot whenever presented with food. 

There isn't a window from the kitchen that faces the yard, so the brown-haired woman hitches up the bottom of her long, red skirt and makes her way up to the balcony.

Maybe she could feel a bit more included if she could see what the twins were up to. 

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Setting her elbows on the railing, Banica Conchita cups her face into her hands and stabilizes herself like that, slightly leaning out towards the open air in front of the balcony. She's just high up enough to not be able to make out the details like expressions, only knowing that Arte is the tiny figure with the black bow on top of her head and Pollo is the tiny figure who's failing miserably to keep up with her. 

The two blond dots are making their way towards the cucumber patch, and their small footsteps on the grass don't even make enough of a sound to be heard from the balcony. 

"Let's see about that 'Plan B' of yours, my dear Arte.."

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By the time the twins are at the cucumber patch, the younger is all out of air and nearly faceplants into the dirt. 

"Tired already?" the maid girl comments, waving her right hand in front of his face "How are you gonna hold up in battle, Lieutenant Pollo?"

"You said just now that we're not going to actually attack the rabbits.."

The butler boy's whine doesn't phase his sister at all and she gives a shove against his side, forcing him upright and making him let out another noise of displeasure. 

"Do you think the rabbits are the only ones out to get us?"

"Is Dictator Arte just getting paranoid over some wild animals moving into the garden?" he scoffs back at her, bending his knees to crouch.

No further damage is visible on the lowermost cucumbers on the vine, the number or size of bite marks hadn't increased since the retainers' last visit. This gives the maid girl one of her less bad ideas. 

"Dictator Arte refuses to comment. Anyway," she crouches down right next to him and plucks one of the lightly-eaten vegetables from the vine "These will be perfect for bait. We're not risking the rest of the cucumber population."

The two of them get to work without further conversation, their small, pale hands gripping the cucumbers and tearing them off the vine. Occasionally, Pollo's fingers touch against the exposed inside of a cucumber and he scrunches his nose up in disgust. 

After about a dozen cucumbers are harvested (simultaneously too early and too late), everything is ready. 

"So.. Which lemon tree did we find the entrance at?" cradling the vegetables to his chest with one arm, the butler boy uses the other to fix his bangs and scratch the back of his head in confusion. 

"Wasn't it you who found it?"

"Well, it's easy to spot a hole in the ground when you're right next to it."

The older twin doesn't take well to the scolding but decides to let it slide for once.

"So I guess we're just gonna walk around and we'll find it eventually."

Regretting the fact she didn't make an "enemy territory" sign that she could've stuck into the dirt nor did she tie a handkerchief on the branch of the lemon tree under which the rabbits live, Arte straightens up and begins her search, Pollo trailing right after.

He's the one holding the majority of the cucumbers, just like any other time where the two of them have to carry multiple things together. 

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They split up just like the first time since covering more ground means finding the entrance more quickly. Arte goes from lemon tree to lemon tree, checking the roots and the general area around them, while Pollo isn't even paying attention.

Suddenly, he almost trips on a small dirt mound, and he immediately knows what happened.

"Over here!" the butler boy throws up a hand.

Right before his feet is the entrance to the burrow, the grass chewed short in an oval around it, "decorated" with a few lost pieces of hay that didn't make it inside.

Arte sees her brother wave towards her from the other side of the garden and nearly drops the cucumbers in shock. She's never fully prepared for just how good he can be without even trying but doesn't want to strain her throat yelling back to him. Getting herself together, she darts over to the correct lemont tree, squeezing the damaged vegetables to her flat chest to make sure she doesn't drop any.

"So we're back, huh." the maid girl looks between the burrow and her twin's face, her expression not showing one bit of amusement "We're not losing this time though."

No new rabbit footprints have appeared since their last visit, but the two of them can hear a faint movement from under the soil. Small scratching sounds. It seems like the animals hadn't recovered yet from Dictator Arte suddenly invading their home and decided to stay put.

".. So do we just put the cucumbers down and wait?"

"I guess we could pelt the entrance with them as well." Arte's shoulders go up with a shrug "Since they want the cucumbers so badly, a little bit of bombing wouldn't hurt, right?"

Before she could follow through with her sudden idea, the older twin receives an elbow into her small ribcage.

"Ow! Lieutenant Pollo, stop siding with the enemy."

"And you stop changing the plan."

A pause. Not expecting the blond to scold her right back, she pouts at him but lets him continue nonetheless.

"We agreed on this.. Let's place these down a few steps away and then hide behind a tree that isn't this one."

The two of them look over to a slightly bigger lemon tree simultaneously. Once again the twins are doing the same thing by accident. Grumbling something under her breath, the maid girl puts the vegetables down in front of the rabbit hole, and after waiting for the butler boy to follow suit, grabs him by the wrist. She would've grabbed his tie if it was tied correctly and not hanging undone around his neck..

"Quick, they'll be here in no time. These bastards just can't resist the cucumbers."

Arte scurries over to the tree and ducks behind it, Pollo almost crashing into the tree and then his sister from the sudden stop but dodging both of the "obstacles" just in time. As she puts her hands on the bark of the tree to stabilize herself, he lazily throws his arms over her shoulders, taking her into a hug from behind as he puts his face right next to hers, their cheeks squishing together in the middle.

"And now we wait."

It's surprising to both of them that she doesn't push him off.

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Still watching the scene play out from the balcony, the brown-haired noblewoman is getting almost antsy. Not being able to hear the conversation that was happening between her retainers is one thing, but not being able to see their facial expressions is making it infinitely worse.

Banica straightens up with a conflicted expression before making her mind up and actually going back inside the mansion; sure, she could throw herself over the railing and land unscathed, but that isn't exactly ladylike. So with newfound determination, she rushes down the stairs, the lonely clacks of her heels as they touch the wood echo between the walls.

"Arte, Pollo, please quit leaving me out."

Her hand isn't even holding the handrail, she'd ran with similar carelessness down these stairs more times than she could count. She doesn't even feel dizzy.

"You two mean more to me than anyone else, you know I would let you do whatever it is that you wished in the garden."

She's almost at the door, the fresh air and the prospect of getting to know the plan B only making her want to speed up.

"Don't turn away from me.."

Apparently, the maid girl and butler boy were in such a hurry that they didn't even close the door after themselves, and their mistress is out before she knows it.

The Sun is still high enough on the sky to make Banica squint and raise a hand to her forehead to shield her eyes, and only then does she spot the twins at the other end of the garden. They don't notice her, but they're being awfully still and quiet for two teenagers who are constantly having a sugar rush. That's suspicious.

Instead of making any sort of scene, she moves over to the cucumber patch first, noticing that the cucumbers that have been damaged previously are nowhere to be found. And then, from the corner of her eye, she spots all the chewed-up vegetables in a pile, just haphazardly placed on top of each other like a lost game of Jenga.

"Did they set up a trap of some kind? Or might this be an offering to appease the rabbits?"

The thoughts run through Banica's drunken mind, getting lost in wondering just what the purpose of the "sacrifice" might be before she catches herself. The easiest way to know is to ask the masterminds behind it, isn't that right?

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Pollo hears the approaching footsteps first and his head immediately jerks in that direction. Even though there was literally no one else the footsteps could belong to, the surprise is evident on his face, and he gently shakes Arte's shoulders to alert her as well.

"Hey, what the-.." she complains in a whisper before looking in the same direction her brother is "Oh, hey lady Conchita."

"Hi lady Banica." the butler boy greets her as well "We're waiting for the rabbits to come out."

The noblewoman's expression is a perfect mix of confusion and amusement, her brown eyes flicking between the pile of cucumbers, the opening to the rabbit burrow, Arte's face, and Pollo's face. She can guess that the situation is serious because her retainers aren't yelling or at least talking slightly above normal volume, and she lowers her voice as well.

"Is this some sort of diplomatic meeting between the rabbits and you two?"

"Nope. We're trying to get the rabbits to leave their bunker so we can take them back into the forest." the older twin repeats her earlier idea.

Of course, Banica is having the same concerns as Pollo was earlier but decides to not voice them, after all whatever happens will be amusing and that's the only important thing in life.

With slow, careful steps, she walks behind the lemon tree which the twins have been using as a hiding spot as well, putting herself behind her butler and resting her chin on top of his head. He's the perfect height for that if she hunches a bit.

The smell of unidentifiable yet expensive dishes and the abysmal amount of alcohol in the brown-haired woman's system hits the blond like an asteroid, but he doesn't move one bit. Banica is warm and he's glad to be a temporary pillow for her.

All three of them watch with bated breath as some specks of soil move around the entrance, the vibrations from the rabbits' underground activity showing on the surface.

In a moment, the same brown rabbit pops up that was observed trying to steal hay from the chicken coop earlier in the day.

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Arte is quickly caught by her underarms before she could act on impulse and do something horrible to the bunny, Pollo hugging her to his front to keep her from going over to it.

"Let go!" she whines under her breath, her legs kicking uselessly. "Lieutenant Pollo, you traitor-!"

To help the younger (and slightly smaller) twin out, Banica's own arms stretch out and envelop both of them in a hug, keeping all three of them behind the cover of the lemon tree. The butler boy and maid girl both freeze as the strong scent of various alcoholic drinks hits them both, but it's not a panic reaction.

Pollo relaxes first as he's kept in the embrace, Arte reluctantly following after. It's like the black bow on her head drooped down as well as the tension left her body.

"Let's just observe what it does." the noblewoman murmurs, her eyes fixed on the tiny wild animal "No use in intervening now."

Of course it's noticed them; even if they somehow managed to speak even more quietly, three people standing behind each other and barely hiding behind a tree is not the hardest thing to notice. Even so, it doesn't seem to want to hide again, the prospect of vegetables too enticing for its relatively simple brain. The bunny makes its way over to the pile of cucumbers and sniffs around, its tiny nose twitching as it takes in the scent.

Nobody says anything for a moment that stretches on for much longer than it should, and the rabbit begins to eat from the vegetables practically delivered to its house. Everyone is waiting for the moment all of the rabbits leave the burrow, but all three of them anticipate it for a different reason.

Eventually, the first bunny visibly relaxes, and more stirring is heard from inside the den; another one soon makes its way out, this one just slightly bigger in size than the first. With unsure movements, it moves around the offering, not knowing that it's a celebrity at this point. But the second rabbit can't hold itself back from its natural instincts and begins to eat from the cucumbers as well.

Arte can only watch from her first-row seat behind the lemon tree as the baby rabbits she'd met during the first military operation eventually take courage as well, and one by one, the children of the first two bunnies also climb onto the surface, clearly interested in what their parents are snacking on.

It's a good thing both her retainers are in front of her, or else Banica would have to suppress the sparkles in her eyes as she watches the scene.

"Aww, it's a whole family.. How endearing~" her voice is soft and gentle, and the others don't know whether she really likes rabbits or if it's the alcohol "And you wanted to wage war on these creatures, Arte?"

"Of course!" Arte snaps a little louder than she would've wanted to "They invaded your garden, lady Banica!"

"Yeah!" Pollo immediately sides with his sister "They started it and they damaged your cucumbers and scared the chickens!"

"We can't just let this happen, right?" both of them ask in unison, which was common for them.

Banica Conchita fixes the rose in her hair, wanting to keep her hand occupied as she thinks.

"Have you thought about a peace treaty?"

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This is Pollo's first time hearing the word, since Arte isn't keen on ending anything peacefully (let alone literal wars), and he curiously looks behind himself to make eye contact with his mistress.

"A what now ?"

"So, how about coming to a mutual agreement with the rabbits?"

The younger twin is immediately on board, but his sister was never the kind of person to just go along with someone else's idea.

"And why would we do that?" the blonde quickly gets worked up over Banica not agreeing with her.

"Think about it this way.. There's always some produce in the garden that simply goes unused and rots or doesn't develop correctly and has to be cut off from the main plant, isn't that right? So if we offered that food to the rabbits.. It would not only prevent them from venturing further into the garden, but we also might be able to befriend them~"

The twins are starting to think that their lady is only a good person whenever she's drunk. 

"So? What do they give us in return?"

Instead of answering her maid, Banica lets the rabbits make their own case. One of the baby bunnies moved away from the rest of its family to check out the commotion behind the lemon tree. Freezing in her spot, Arte lets the rabbit approach her, its movements cautious but not afraid. It feels like someone glued the soles of her loafers to the grass beneath them.

The tiny animal sniffs her shoe, the familiar scent of the lawn mixing with the general scent of the mansion's interior. And then, it looks straight up at the maid girl, holding eye contact and seemingly getting mesmerized by the human who had been an uninvited guest in the rabbit burrow no more than an hour before this.

The garden falls completely silent, and the bunny snaps back to reality and makes its way back to the cucumber pile with small hops. Arte keeps staring at the ground in front of herself for a moment before noticing that the rabbit had left.

No way is she going to admit to her brother and her mistress that she had changed her mind just because some stupid baby animal checked her out.

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"Did you guys see what I saw?!"

"Yeah, the bunny was trying to have a staring contest with you, sis." the younger twin slightly nudges the older one, earning a groan from her in return.

"No !"

"It's interested in you, Arte~" the lady coos at her maid, who huffs right back at her.

"Nope, all wrong! That bunny was trying to assert its dominance by staring me down!" she explained vigorously, her little hands motioning along since they weren't exactly held down by the hug "I don't know what will happen if we try continuing this war.. Who knows how much backup they might have?!"

Pollo and Banica exchange a glance, the noblewoman gently shaking her head with a smile on her lips, as if to tell her butler to just ignore her.

"So.. I guess we have no choice but to let them live here.. But lady Banica, are you sure?"

"Of course." she answers her a bit too fast, her mind already set "If need be, I will even get a pen built here just for them. The rabbits are now welcome in our territory."

The older twin has always been prone to taking things a bit too seriously, but she's absolutely beside herself at this relevation.

"Both of you are traitors!" Dictator Arte cries out before uselessly stomping her foot on the grass "I can't believe it!"

The bunnies keep munching on the apparent peace offering as the maid girl slowly but surely calms down.

".. I guess there's nothing else to be done." 

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In the time it took her to finish ranting, the butler boy notices that the Sun had started to set, a warm orange glow filling the air. That can only mean one thing.

"Hey, sis." 

Arte doesn't turn towards Pollo, but he knows she's listening, so he continues while nuzzling into her hair.

"It's dinnertime soon, so let's go inside."

Banica had already loosened the hug and stepped away from the twins a few moments earlier, watching the rabbits as they finish with their meal and make their way back inside the den.

"You two must be tired and hungry from being at war all day." she tried to reassure her retainers "Come back in, let's eat together."

The topic of food was always something Arte and Pollo could listen to, whether it was about making it or eating it. Actually, the younger spends most of his time either making or eating food.

The blonde takes her hands off of the tree at last, dusting her palms against each other to flick the particles off. "What's on the menu?"

"Well Arte, I'm glad you asked," the brown-haired woman smiles "There's the leftover cucumber salad from lunchtime-.."

"Absolutely no way."

Cucumbers are now forever cemented in the maid girl's mind as rabbit food.

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FIN :-)

Chapter Text