A good bunny…a smart bunny…a thoughtful bunny.
Trivia: long before I got to the point of writing this scene, when it was just a vague future-scene-shaped blob in the plans, I had the idea that Cohen would assume “Cybele, like so many other Beings, is actively taking a form that her Master finds sexually-attractive.” And he would (unsurprisingly) be hostile and threatening toward Bennett about that. Until Bennett — for whom this had never occurred to him — finally caught on, and frantically cleared it up.
The story didn’t go that way at all, and I’m glad it didn’t. By the time the writing got here, I had plenty of reasons why it wouldn’t make sense. For one thing, Cohen has lots of experience with Beings taking non-sexy forms — even his Patrick went child-shaped in specific circumstances. For another, it only takes about 30 seconds on in-universe Wikipedia to learn about the accident/miscarriage in Bennett’s past, and Cohen is supposed to be a competent researcher. (Drinks and all.)
Bennett: I —
— that’s a really good question. Why didn’t I ever do that?
Cybele: Because you didn’t want to, boss! Didn’t you realize that?
Bennett: I don’t even know how you got that form in the first place!
It’s not like I ever told you about the accident. And how would you find out? Looking it up online? You can’t even read!
Cybele: There was an accident? I’m real sorry to hear it! I didn’t know that part.
I just knew . . .
. . . you had a blank space in your life . . .
. . . and that it was shaped something like this! And I could tell you would need to yell at me a lot, but it would be okay, because you weren’t really mad, just sad!
Cohen: Aaaand now I’m feeling sorry for you again. I’m really not sober enough to deal with this kind of moral ambiguity right now.
