Author's Notes: Thank
you all for reading this. As you read I
want you to keep in mind that I'm just a 14-year-old girl who loves writing,
and loves Watership Down. It is my favorite
book, so I guess it makes sense that I'm writing a fan fic about it. This is a work in progress, which means that
I don't know when it's going to be done.
Because I'm just a 14 year old don't be too harsh on my work when you
review it. I'm no professional, and I'm
not even a good amateur. Enjoy, anyway!
HainInlé means "Song
of the Moon".
Down is Richard Adam's. I'm not affiliated in anyway with
Richard Adams, and I don't even
think he knows I exist. With
that said and
done . . .
PART ONE: LOST AND FOUND
CHAPTER
1-
The
song of a thrush drifted through the afternoon air as Frith reached his
zenith. His light shined down on the
meadow below, his eyes looking over every detail. The long grass soft and flowing, it's color a deep green as if in
celebration of the new summer. Small
white and pink flowers poked their heads out from between the long blades,
giving the meadow an extra dab of cheerfulness. The thrush's voice died away, and the breeze halted it's blowing
as the meadow was framed in a perfect, peaceful moment.
The silence was shattered by the pounding of paws and the
cry of voices as four young rabbits bounded into the meadow, calling back and
forth to each other as they ran. The
young rabbits—who were just kittens, really—didn't seem to notice that their
presence had much of an effect on their surroundings. The thrush, on the other hand, took flight, startled, and rather
put off. It soon became apparent that
the rabbits were having some sort of argument.
"I'll cuff you 'til your fur splits!" Shouted one, a
large kitten with brown fur and queer tawny splotches along his back.
"You do, Nutmeg, and I'll report you to Juniperah!" squeaked the rabbit in the lead, who had
light brown fur to accompany his light brown eyes. Before Nutmeg could respond to Worray's retort, the third rabbit,
HainInlé, called up to her smaller brother.
"Worray, the day the Juniperah knows you even exist is
the day a homba rides in the hrududu that was outrun by a baby yona."
"It could happen!"
Worray shouted back indignantly, turning his head so that his sister
could hear. It was a bad idea, because
it slowed Worray down. Nutmeg barreled
into him full force, knocking him onto his side. Both rabbits then proceeded to bite, scratch, cuff and claw at
each other with much vigor. HainInlé
lost no time in joining the fight. The
fourth rabbit approached, padding up lightly.
Uléhyzinlé was the normal size of a three-month-old kitten. She had mousy brown fur with strange hazel
eyes; all four of her paws were white.
Casually walking up to her scuffling siblings, she gave them an
exasperated look. They were too busy
tearing at each other to notice, however.
"Hey, you oafs!
Stop fighting! It's silly! Why do—" before she got the chance to finish
her question, a misaimed kick caught her in the jaw. "Ouch! Why you embleer little pellets! Kick me, will you?" Her crusade against the fighting ended then
and there as she flung herself bodily into the row, adding to the rolling mass
of claws, teeth, and flying fur.
Before any of the four rabbits ever noticed someone had
approached, an adult rabbit paw shot into the fray, knocking two kittens
several feet away, and withdrawing with another rabbit latched on. Nutmeg was blindly gnawing on the paw, his
eyes closed tight to protect them from harm.
Noticing the sudden silence, he ceased chewing on what he thought to be
a sibling's hind leg, timidly opened one eye, and lifted his head. He found himself gazing into the face of a
doe. Releasing his grasp, Nutmeg
dropped to the ground and bowed his head, waiting for the rebuke that was sure
to come.
"Worray, HainInlé, Nutmeg, Uléhyzinlé! If I were elil you would be dead! Nutmeg, don't even start! I don't care if you want to practice fighting
to be the Captain of the Owsla someday, it's still no reason to be beating on
your brother. Besides, it'd be a pretty
shabby Captain to be caught so unawares."
"But Marli . . . "
"We were just . . ."
"He started it."
"They wouldn't listen . . . "
The mother's eyes softened. "Enough of that. Now
come, or else you'll miss Briar's story.
He's telling 'El-ahrairah and the Homba Tail'." The young rabbits' faces all lit up at the
prospect of hearing one of Briar's tales.
Their marli smiled, and turned back.
"Hey, you guys!
I'll race ya! Last one there is
stoat meat!" Quick as a flash, all four
kittens were up and tearing back across the field. The doe smiled softly to herself as she followed her young ones
back to the warren.
The four
hlessil staggered blindly in the dark, overcast night. They knew they had to get out of the
brambles and thick thorns before they could settle down for the night. With a small gasp the lead rabbit stumbled
out into the open, his companions following close behind. They huddled there for a few moments, not
quite sure of what to do next. The lead
one's head kept darting every which way, but none of the other rabbits noticed
how his eyes slid in and out of focus, or how one of his hind legs twitched
once or twice. One of the rabbits
turned to the lead one.
"Yewthorn, what do we do now?"
"I say we stay here for the night. We will be in as much danger here as
anywhere else. I for one am not willing
to go any further."
The rabbits nodded, and began to settle themselves
uncomfortably on the cold ground.
Yewthorn growled, and kicked one of his companions. "Get out of my way," he snarled.
"Yewthorn, what's gotten into you? There's plenty of room for all of us." Yewthorn didn't seem to like this reply, and
angrily butted the rabbit with his head.
There was more growling and spitting from Yewthorn, before he suddenly
collapsed, his hind legs kicking convulsively.
The other three rabbits looked at Yewthorn in horrified fascination,
when a sudden instinctive fear gripped them.
Abandoning all sleepiness, the hlessil bolted away from the frightening
sight of their leader twitching on the ground, who suddenly leapt up and began
half running, half stumbling back into the woods blindly. They were lucky, because all of them dashed
in the same general direction.
At length, they all stopped, too exhausted to run any
more like that. The fear they felt was
beginning to fade, but the horror was still fresh. They looked at one another, all knowing what was wrong with
Yewthorn: the White Blindness. As they
all crouched there, panting, the moon peeked his head out from behind the
clouds, filling the meadow they had stumbled into with soft, eerie light. Several dark blots could be seen across the
meadow, and after staring hard at them, the rabbits saw that they were rabbit
holes. The hlessil hesitated, not
knowing if they were going to be welcomed into this warren, when suddenly, the
quiet night air was split by the shriek of a screech owl in the trees
nearby. Without another second of
hesitation, the three rabbits bolted towards the holes, driven by panic.
All three stumbled into the nearest hole, crowding into
the burrow at the end of the run. The
solitary buck that had moments before been dreaming of flayrah, was now jolted
awake by two strange rabbits clambering over him and a third trying to squeeze
himself into the already packed burrow.
The buck, being and old rabbit and having seen many battles, thought at
first that the warren was being attacked.
Though old, he was still fit and strong, and with a slight yell he
kicked one of the rabbits off of him, pulled himself to his feet, butted
another rabbit viciously away, and backed against the burrow wall,
bristling. To his surprise, the three
strangers did not charge at him, and he felt them trying to crowd against the
opposite wall. He squinted in the
darkness, sensing their quaking fear.
"What do you think you're doing?" he snarled, calmer but
still suspicious. The hlessi he kicked
replied with a winded voice.
"We mean no harm.
We ran in to get away from an owl."
Beetroot, the old buck, relaxed a little more, and sniffed the air. He
couldn't smell the warren's scent on the rabbits, which meant that they weren't
members of the warren.
"Who are you?"
"Hlessil. We want to join the warren."
Beetroot thought of this for a second, and then squinted
again, trying to get a good look at the strangers, but all he could see were
vague outlines of the three rabbits. He
shuffled his paws thoughtfully, then made a quick decision. He would bring them to the Chief Rabbit, the
Chief would want to know about this . . .and besides, it was getting very
uncomfortable with the four rabbits crammed into one small burrow. With a decisive grunt, he nudged the nearest
stranger in the direction of the run.
"Alright, I'll bring you to Juniperah. Go on, move your tails. Out of the burrow, hurry, now." The three rabbits awkwardly backed out of
the burrow backwards, turned around in the run, and hopped back into the
open. The nighttime was once again
silent and peaceful as Beetroot lead the three hlessil toward Juniperah's
burrow.
