The Wart was bored. It had been raining all day and there was almost nothing to do inside, especially since Kay had been refusing to spend time with him lately. He had spent almost the entire day sitting in the kitchen watching the rain splat down outside.
The cooks had been trying to get him to do something useful in the kitchen all day but he finished the tasks they set him to so quickly he was easily bored. Finally deciding to have mercy on him and let him go do something other than work in the kitchen Mary, one of the cooks said warmly "Why don't you go find that tutor of yours?"
The Wart shot up from the stool and ran out of the room, yelling, "Thank you!" as he went. He sprinted all the way to Merlyn's tower, nearly running into several people as he went.
"Merlyn," he called as he entered the tower closing the door behind him.
The magician was sitting in front of the window. He too had been watching the rain shower from the window and his beard was still in his mouth, probably because Merlyn had been munching on it while he thought.
The Wart walked up to him and repeated, "Merlyn?"
He still did not turn and the Wart got closer still trying to see what Merlyn was looking at. From Wart's vista it was hard to tell what Merlyn was staring at so intently. The Wart saw an overgrown field in front of the forest but nothing much else was there.
"Merlyn," he said again, hesitantly, but still he did not look up.
The Wart looked back at the window to see if he had missed something in the vista. Scanning he saw nothing different, but—wait… What was that? The Wart tilted his head to the side to see if he could get a better view. There it was, a flash of brown in a storm of green. Two rabbits sat in the middle of the field.
"Oh Merlyn, are you going to turn me into a rabbit?" the Wart asked delighted.
"What? Hmm?" Merlyn muttered startled. "Oh," he said when he saw the Wart. He stared at him for a bit, "I don't know if you're ready."
"Of course, I'm ready! Please turn me into a rabbit," the Wart implored.
"I hate to ruin something so innocent," Merlyn mumbled to himself under his breath, "but he has to learn eventually."
Merlyn sighed and told the Wart, "I suppose I must," and began the spell, "Dies Pan, puer cuniculum est."
The Wart felt his bones shifting and shrinking and his ears grow. When he opened his eyes he sat in the now sunny field that he and Merlyn had just been watching. It felt odd to walk on all four legs. It came naturally but it still felt funny. He hopped through the grass that now towered over him. His whisker's twitched. He smelled something. Was it the other rabbits? The Wart hopped a few steps forward. Sure enough, a bark-brown rabbit jumped into view.
"Greetings," the rabbit that had been chewing on the green grasses said.
"Greetings," the Wart replied as more rabbits, about ten, hopped over. Most of them were brown and they all looked very talkative and friendly.
They chattered and babbled all the way to their warren and quickly accepted the Wart as their own, dubbing him Lux, which was some ancient rabbit language for golden, because of his golden fur that stood out brilliantly in the chaos of their brown furs. There were so many rabbits in the warren that his fur was the only way to tell the Wart was any different from them.
The Wart stayed with the family for weeks and learned how to live like a rabbit. Rabbits lived life to the extreme and were always laughing and talking. He became very close friends with a young rabbit who was barely a year old. Her name was Vox because from the time she was born she had never stopped talking. She was the chattiest of the chit chatters.
One day they were out in the field and Vox was, like always, chatting about who knows what while they were supposed to be gathering grass and eating some but they were laughing too hard. Suddenly they heard a squeal to the side. The Wart and Vox raced over to the source of the noise.
An immeasurably gigantic smoky-gray wolf with rabid glowing yellow eyes that would strike fear into the heart of anyone who saw them stood in front of them. Hanging from the creature's mouth was a rabbit. Swinging limply, the rabbit was clearly dead. The Wart gave the wailing sound of alarm as they'd been told to do if they were in trouble and ran. He'd only gone a few paces when he realized that Vox wasn't following. He pivoted and saw she was frozen with fear standing only a few inches away from the wolf. She was shaking badly and the Wart could tell she was scared stiff and, probably for the first time in her life, she said nothing.
"Run, Vox!" the Wart cried out but it was too late the wolf pounced and in less than a second the Wart heard a crack and Vox's limp, lifeless body danced from the wolf's mouth. Her eyes stared blankly permanently frozen in terror
The Wart wanted to cry, to kill, and to run, all at the same time. He felt useless and pointless and sickened. Then the Wart did something incredibly stupid. He spat and charged at the wolf, kicking him firmly in the face with his back legs and jarring his jaw. Vox's body fell out of his mouth and the Wart ran to grab it in his teeth but the wolf was too fast and swiped at the Wart missing his neck by a centimeter and slicing through his ear.
The Wart sprinted in hysteria to the warren with Vox's body clutched tightly in his teeth. Only slightly aware that all he could hear in his right ear was a ringing. He felt defenseless as he ran and his heart didn't stop pounding until he had reached the safety of the warren.
"What happened?" a deep, wise voice asked.
The Wart whirled around. It was Consul, the patriarch of the warren. "She was killed by the wolf," He choked out, suddenly becoming aware of the blood pouring out of his ear and down his face. The Wart stared at the Consul, unwilling to turn back to Vox's body.
"Why did you bring her back here?" Consul asked angrily.
"I didn't want her to get eaten by the wolf. I—" the Wart was interrupted.
"It is a law of nature for the wolf to have her if he killed her. It is honorable and the way of the world." Consul's voice rose.
"I thought you'd be glad, I—"
"You must take her out to the field and leave her before the others come back." Consul told him gravely.
The Wart stormed out of the burrow and hopped slowly to the field. He felt betrayed. How could they not realize what he had done had been for them? Why did they not want to see their daughter and friend one last time?
The recently refashioned rabbit reached his destination and let go of Vox. She fell hard on the ground, her neck sticking up at an awkward angle. The Wart winced.
"Oh Merlyn," the Wart cried to the sky in some blind hope that if he was a boy again the pain would go away. "Change me back. I do not want to learn anything else. Death is horrible. Change me back!"
The Wart closed his eyes desperately wishing he could cry. But then he realized that wouldn't be very manly and opened them. He wasn't in the field anymore. The Wart was sitting on the cold, stone floor of the leaky castle. He could hear the patter of rain as it hit the roof. It was over. The ringing in his right ear was gone. He reached up timidly to touch his ear and found a deep scar that ran down the middle of his ear.
Shakily, the Wart stood. He supposed Merlyn would want to see him. Brushing a single tear firmly out of his eye he walked slowly to Merlyn's tower. All the way he thought about Vox and the wolf. It was the wolf's fault. With each step the Wart took, he became angrier and angrier. By the time he reached Merlyn's door he was so enraged he didn't bother to knock and charged right in.
"Wolves are monsters! They are the most evil beings to walk the earth!" the Wart ranted.
"The wolves kill with a purpose, " Merlyn rebutted, frowning at the Wart. "If they didn't kill they wouldn't live. Why don't you complain that men are evil because they kill for no reason?"
"But it's for honor." The Wart rejected the idea, "It's not the same at all."
"Would the wolves die if they didn't kill the rabbits?"
"Well—" The Wart started but Merlyn interrupted him.
"Would knights die if they did not fight wars?"
"I suppose not," Wart admitted reluctantly.
"You don't have to suppose, they wouldn't," Merlyn stated firmly. "More knights would live."
"I don't care. Turn me into a wolf. I want to avenge Vox," the Wart demanded.
"Not only would it be pointless, but I do not have the power to turn you into something that you would not learn from. Remember, Wart, there is only one thing to do when you are sad. Learn something."
Merlyn continued, "Death and murder are not honorable nor simple. They are both sad. I remember someone telling me once, "Do not mourn the dead, mourn the unlived life."
Merlyn paused for a moment then said, "That's all for today Wart."
The Wart walked quietly out, ashamed about his previous outburst. Just as he crossed the threshold the Wart turned around to face Merlyn.
"I'm sorry," he said in a small voice.
The magician just turned to watch the rainfall.