Chapter 8:
There is no Foresight for Sacrifice
Eventually, Balm had to stop hitting himself over the head because it was beginning to give him a pounding headache that caused his temples to pulsate with pain. But when he stopped, the remembrance of Zenthlay began to fade from his mind, and he was left with an emptiness that his only dear sister could fill. See, Zenthlay was now the only family that he had left, and as much as it pained him to admit it, he really was dependant on her. Sure, she didn't show it very well, but he knew that Zenthlay cared for him very much.
The three hutch rabbits had been staring at Balm for quite a while now, wondering if he had some kind of sickness. He didn't seem to be acting like they thought a normal rabbit should act; he was looking quite tharn. Arwen had yet to speak up ever since Balm had entered into the cage and hopped over to him. She put her paw on his shoulder, and spoke softly into his ear.
"Don't give up hope yet, oh forsaken one,
for the day is not yet done.
Keep hope and then one day you'll see
that you, and I and they may be free."
Arwen gave him a small smile, and then she hopped back to the corner of the cage, where she began to nibble on some of the pine wood shavings. There was a mysterious air that seemed to radiate from her very being, and she cast another glance over at Balm.
Stardust and Cloves' mouths both dropped open as Arwen actually spoke to Balm. The fawn coloured doe rushed over to Balm, almost tripping over her delicate ears in the process. "Balm, Balm," she whispered to him, casting a glance over at Arwen. "What did she say to you?" the pretty doe inquired, as she hit one of her ears with her forepaw, causing it to flop backwards onto her back.
Balm was still a little in awe about the way Arwen had talked to him, and it ran it over and over again in his mind, trying to figure out why she had said that to him. Probably just to give him some comfort in this desolate place. He was so engrossed in thinking about this, that he didn't even notice Stardust talking to him.
"Uh hummmm..." the hutch rabbit cleared her throat, not used to being ignored. Stardust was a little spoiled since she was the prized doe of the man's herd. She waved a well groomed paw in front of Balm's face, and when he still didn't realize she was talking to him, she stared into his eyes. They were all glazed and far-off looking. "HEY!" Stardust yelled as she grabbed one of Balm's ears.
"Wha?" Balm asked as he blinked, a little startled at Stardust's display. "Why were you yelling at me? I didn't do anything," he sulked, as he hunched his shoulders over a little bit. What was her problem? He answered her as soon as she had spoken to him, so why were rabbits always yelling at him? Balm came to the conclusion that it wasn't him with the problem, it was definitely everyone else.
Stardust grunted and smiled at Balm. "Glad you're finally here," she said, looking at him intently. "So," the doe began, "What did she say to you? That Arwen doe's awful strange, she usually never talks to us. Keeps to herself most of the time. So spill, what'd she say?" Stardust asked in one breath, seeming a little overbearing because she was so excited.
Balm hesitated for a moment, and then raised his forepaw off the ground, holding it there for a moment, and then placing it back on the ground thoughtfully, thinking about if Arwen would really want him to tell Stardust all about it. Well, he figured, there wasn't much harm it could do, and he didn't want to disappoint Stardust either. In fact, he was rather starting to like the man's rabbit, even though he knew he shouldn't. Zenthlay would never approve of him getting together with a hutch rabbit. They are weak, he could hear her saying. Don't know the ways of the wild, stupid if you ask me. He nodded; yes that was exactly what she would say. Balm realized that he was losing his trail of thought and needed to concentrate a little more. "Errr.....sorry," he replied to Stardust, his ears flushing a little bit with embarrassment. "She said that we were all going to be free someday," he smiled at her.
"Oh..." Stardust looked at the ground. Her heart sunk, she really didn't want to be free, she was happy enough where she was, in this cage. Here it was safe, warm, and they had plenty of food. The same place as her marli, and her marli's marli had lived in their entire lives. She wasn't about to, and didn't want to leave, despite some feelings of unhappiness that she sometimes had. But she guessed that was normal.
Balm furrowed his eyebrows, looking at Stardust with concern. "What's the matter?" he asked her. "I thought it was good news, why aren't you happy?" He was confused as to why the hutch rabbit would actually like living here. He shook his body so his fur stood up a little and then flattened out again.
Stardust shook her head, "It's nothing at all, except I don't want to be free. I want to stay here," she told him, looking around at Cloves and Arwen. "They're my family, and plus, I'm going to have his kits soon," she pointed at Cloves. Stardust's stomach wasn't extremely large like some does were when they were pregnant, but her kits were due any day now.
Balm looked from Stardust to Cloves with an agonized look on his face. He could have just screamed out loud then. Balm felt so...so betrayed. Like his beating heart had been ripped out of his body and then thrown on the floor and trampled on by a pack of dogs. Stardust had been leading him on, like she had some feelings for him, but truly she already had a mate, and wasn't about to go ditching him any day of the week for some wild rabbit. "Why didn't you tell me before?" he asked her, biting his lip to stop from crying. Balm put a little too much pressure on his lip, and his teeth sunk into the flesh. He winced, but licked his lips to clean up the blood before Stardust could see his ignorance.
"Well...I'm sorry. I didn't think I had to," Stardust replied to Balm. "I've had a couple of litters before, and all with different bucks. I mean, I like Cloves all right and everything, but it's not like he's my mate or anything," she told Balm, feeling extremely bad now that he looked so upset over such a little thing like that.
Balm drew back a couple of steps from Stardust, giving her a funny look. "What do you mean, why would you mate with him then if you don't even like him?" he asked, as her brought his forepaw upwards to scratch some of the fur on his head. Balm just couldn't think of a reason why she would do such a preposterous thing when she clearly had so much going for her. He had to stop thinking because it was starting to make his head hurt again.
Stardust shrugged her shoulders as she sat in front of Balm. "Because the man puts us in the same cage together until we do mate. Might as well do it sooner or later before he gets mad at us or something like that." Stardust's ears drooped as she remembered the past litters she had. "And then, when they're old enough..." the pretty doe choked, wondering whatever happened to her babies, "the man comes and takes them away." She lowered her view of sight so she was looking at the ground, sadly. "You know, Balm, sometimes I wonder what happens to them, I mean if they even had a chance to grow up, what they would have been like," the hutch rabbit sniffled a little bit, and looked back up at Balm. "But I suppose you don't really want to hear about my troubles though do you," she said with a feeble laugh as she glanced at Balm with blurry eyes.
As much of a buck that Balm may look like on the outside, he still has a sensitive side inside, though he cannot always think of the right thing to say at a certain moment in time. This was one of those moments. Balm looked around uncomfortably, as he shifted his weight from one forepaw to another, trying to think of something to say to Stardust that would cheer her up, since, after all it had been his excessive prodding that had resulted in her now downcast mood. "Well....um....I....err....understand?" Balm said, ending the sentence in a question as he really wasn't sure if he understood or not.
"You.don't understand!" Stardust wailed, as a salty tear escaped from her eyelid. She wiped her paws across her face quickly, trying to dry off the tear before any of the others noticed. "How could you understand? You're just a buck!" she hissed and turned away from Balm. The fawn doe returned to Arwen and Cloves, looking very depressed and alone.
That was a huge blow to Balm. He just sat there for a moment, his mouth hanging open, as he tried to think of something, anything to say back to Stardust. But it was true. He was just a buck, that's all, nothing special. Somehow, everyone seemed to be always there to remind him of that. Every day seemed to be "Bash Balm Day." There was never a stop to incoming insults, which as Zenthlay often reminded him, was just constructive criticism. Sometimes it was hard to find how anything constructive can be made out of someone calling him a flea-ridden lummox, or a stupid clumsy pfeffa. Balm suddenly snapped out of his thoughts when he heard the man.
"THUMP, THOMP, THUMP," the man made his way into the room, his heavy boots bashing against the floor, making it impossible to notice his presence.
Balm looked up as the man made his way over to the cage with more food. He really didn't care that much anymore; he would rot away in this cage his entire life, as a man creature. There was no way he was going to be caught dead eating those..pellets.
Seeing that the time was right Arwen rushed over to Balm, and sat beside him as the man opened the cage. She leaned over towards him so that she could whisper in his long ear.
"Balm, the time has come, and you know what you must do.
Escape from this cage so you can start your life anew.
Wait until the man drops off the pellets and goes on his way
To bring us some new timothy hay."
Balm blinked as Arwen spoke to him again, trying to figure out what she was telling him. He watched the man drop off the pellets into the ceramic food dish and then he headed over for a little bale of hay that was with the food in the corner of the room. Suddenly, it hit him like a brick wall. "By Frith and Inle!" he exclaimed happily as he saw that the man hadn't closed the cage door. The latch was flung open. Without even thanking Arwen, Balm took a deep breath and then leapt out of the cage; not looking how far down the drop was. It was a rather large drop, and Balm hit the ground, taking in gasps of air, trying to breathe.
Then another rabbit landed almost on top of him. She appeared frightened, as she shook her paws, which were tingling with pain from the landing and grinned at Balm. "Think you could leave without me, didn't you?" she smiled at him, and nudged him with her nose.
"Stardust!!" Balm hissed excitedly. He stared at her for a couple of moments wondering why in Frith's name she would be coming with him, and then looked up. The man was standing right over them, with his hands on his hips.
"Hey, whaddaya tink you're a doin'?" he asked the rabbits and he knelt down to pick them up once again. There was a hint of annoyance in his voice.
"GO!" Arwen yelled from the cage, as she was right near the cage door. The quiet doe inhaled deeply and then launched herself onto the man's back with her claws outstretched.
The man immediately jumped up screaming, "What the ..!!" Arwen was tossed from the man's back and hit one of the hutch's legs with a deafening thud. Her leg was all twisted out of place, and her eyes rolled back in pain.
Balm's eyes widened as he watched this all unfold, and then forcibly tore himself away from it. He felt so bad for Arwen, not so much Cloves though, since he had stayed in the cage eating his precious man food. But Arwen had tried to help them, risking her own life to do so. Now she was hurt and it was his entire fault. Again. Just like it had been his entire fault that Zenthlay had been shot. Balm blinked and then poked Stardust a little roughly, "Come on, we have to go," he told her, the urgency quite overpowering in his voice. The only thing that Balm could think about was that he hadn't even thanked Arwen for her help. Without her he would never have thought of escaping the cage. And now she was hurt.
Stardust nodded, quite dumbfounded at what her friend had just done. The English lop put one paw in front of the other and tried to stumble along behind Balm, obviously quite upset with what had just taken place. Slowly, the show rabbit picked up her pace, as she was getting a little left behind by Balm.
Balm ran for quite a while, fueled by the thought that the man might be behind them, and what he had done to Arwen. He ran blindly by quite exotic objects, until he came upon the door. He skidded to a stop, almost ramming right into it.
"Wha-" Stardust began to ask Balm a question, when he suddenly stopped in front of her. She put on the brakes, which cushioned the impact with Balm a little bit. Both of them tumbled over as they hit the door. "S- sorry," Stardust said bashfully, flicking her head back so her ears weren't in her face anymore.
"Owww," Balm groaned as he rubbed his head and got up. His vision swam slightly and then he shook his head, "No, its okay," he told her. "Totally my fault. Yep." Then the buck's attention focused on the door. It was shut tight, and there was no way that they would ever be able to open it.
"Balm, in here," Stardust whispered to the buck, as she hopped into another room. She had been in this room before when the man had been holding her.
Balm gradually made it into the room, looking at everything in it. At first he was hit by a powerful smell and recoiled. But his curiosity overcame his cautiousness, as he seemed drawn into the room. He was quite amazed with the things that these humans seemed to have. The room was a little cluttered, and Balm hopped over to Stardust, looking around. He wasn't paying much attention to the things on the ground though, so he accidentally tripped on a towel, which sent him sprawling to the ground. Then Balm lay there with a dejected look on his face. "I don't get it. What's so special about this room?" Balm asked, only seeing looming man structures and other weird things.
Stardust beamed and nudged a blanket aside with her head so Balm could see. There was a nice empty shelf that when the blanket was put back down, would be covered up and fully out of sight.
A look of absolute and utter amazement passed over Balm's face, as he shook his ears. He couldn't believe it! The buck slowly moved aside the blanket, thinking that at any moment he would run into a solid wall. But it wasn't so, and he joined Stardust on the shelf, where the darkness seemed to cover them. Then the buck began to explore the limited space, until he reached the far end, where Stardust was hulked over, looking very pale. "Stardust..." Balm whispered to her, his brow wrinkling with concern for her, "What's the matter?" he asked, one of his ears falling over on his head in a comical manner.
There is no Foresight for Sacrifice
Eventually, Balm had to stop hitting himself over the head because it was beginning to give him a pounding headache that caused his temples to pulsate with pain. But when he stopped, the remembrance of Zenthlay began to fade from his mind, and he was left with an emptiness that his only dear sister could fill. See, Zenthlay was now the only family that he had left, and as much as it pained him to admit it, he really was dependant on her. Sure, she didn't show it very well, but he knew that Zenthlay cared for him very much.
The three hutch rabbits had been staring at Balm for quite a while now, wondering if he had some kind of sickness. He didn't seem to be acting like they thought a normal rabbit should act; he was looking quite tharn. Arwen had yet to speak up ever since Balm had entered into the cage and hopped over to him. She put her paw on his shoulder, and spoke softly into his ear.
"Don't give up hope yet, oh forsaken one,
for the day is not yet done.
Keep hope and then one day you'll see
that you, and I and they may be free."
Arwen gave him a small smile, and then she hopped back to the corner of the cage, where she began to nibble on some of the pine wood shavings. There was a mysterious air that seemed to radiate from her very being, and she cast another glance over at Balm.
Stardust and Cloves' mouths both dropped open as Arwen actually spoke to Balm. The fawn coloured doe rushed over to Balm, almost tripping over her delicate ears in the process. "Balm, Balm," she whispered to him, casting a glance over at Arwen. "What did she say to you?" the pretty doe inquired, as she hit one of her ears with her forepaw, causing it to flop backwards onto her back.
Balm was still a little in awe about the way Arwen had talked to him, and it ran it over and over again in his mind, trying to figure out why she had said that to him. Probably just to give him some comfort in this desolate place. He was so engrossed in thinking about this, that he didn't even notice Stardust talking to him.
"Uh hummmm..." the hutch rabbit cleared her throat, not used to being ignored. Stardust was a little spoiled since she was the prized doe of the man's herd. She waved a well groomed paw in front of Balm's face, and when he still didn't realize she was talking to him, she stared into his eyes. They were all glazed and far-off looking. "HEY!" Stardust yelled as she grabbed one of Balm's ears.
"Wha?" Balm asked as he blinked, a little startled at Stardust's display. "Why were you yelling at me? I didn't do anything," he sulked, as he hunched his shoulders over a little bit. What was her problem? He answered her as soon as she had spoken to him, so why were rabbits always yelling at him? Balm came to the conclusion that it wasn't him with the problem, it was definitely everyone else.
Stardust grunted and smiled at Balm. "Glad you're finally here," she said, looking at him intently. "So," the doe began, "What did she say to you? That Arwen doe's awful strange, she usually never talks to us. Keeps to herself most of the time. So spill, what'd she say?" Stardust asked in one breath, seeming a little overbearing because she was so excited.
Balm hesitated for a moment, and then raised his forepaw off the ground, holding it there for a moment, and then placing it back on the ground thoughtfully, thinking about if Arwen would really want him to tell Stardust all about it. Well, he figured, there wasn't much harm it could do, and he didn't want to disappoint Stardust either. In fact, he was rather starting to like the man's rabbit, even though he knew he shouldn't. Zenthlay would never approve of him getting together with a hutch rabbit. They are weak, he could hear her saying. Don't know the ways of the wild, stupid if you ask me. He nodded; yes that was exactly what she would say. Balm realized that he was losing his trail of thought and needed to concentrate a little more. "Errr.....sorry," he replied to Stardust, his ears flushing a little bit with embarrassment. "She said that we were all going to be free someday," he smiled at her.
"Oh..." Stardust looked at the ground. Her heart sunk, she really didn't want to be free, she was happy enough where she was, in this cage. Here it was safe, warm, and they had plenty of food. The same place as her marli, and her marli's marli had lived in their entire lives. She wasn't about to, and didn't want to leave, despite some feelings of unhappiness that she sometimes had. But she guessed that was normal.
Balm furrowed his eyebrows, looking at Stardust with concern. "What's the matter?" he asked her. "I thought it was good news, why aren't you happy?" He was confused as to why the hutch rabbit would actually like living here. He shook his body so his fur stood up a little and then flattened out again.
Stardust shook her head, "It's nothing at all, except I don't want to be free. I want to stay here," she told him, looking around at Cloves and Arwen. "They're my family, and plus, I'm going to have his kits soon," she pointed at Cloves. Stardust's stomach wasn't extremely large like some does were when they were pregnant, but her kits were due any day now.
Balm looked from Stardust to Cloves with an agonized look on his face. He could have just screamed out loud then. Balm felt so...so betrayed. Like his beating heart had been ripped out of his body and then thrown on the floor and trampled on by a pack of dogs. Stardust had been leading him on, like she had some feelings for him, but truly she already had a mate, and wasn't about to go ditching him any day of the week for some wild rabbit. "Why didn't you tell me before?" he asked her, biting his lip to stop from crying. Balm put a little too much pressure on his lip, and his teeth sunk into the flesh. He winced, but licked his lips to clean up the blood before Stardust could see his ignorance.
"Well...I'm sorry. I didn't think I had to," Stardust replied to Balm. "I've had a couple of litters before, and all with different bucks. I mean, I like Cloves all right and everything, but it's not like he's my mate or anything," she told Balm, feeling extremely bad now that he looked so upset over such a little thing like that.
Balm drew back a couple of steps from Stardust, giving her a funny look. "What do you mean, why would you mate with him then if you don't even like him?" he asked, as her brought his forepaw upwards to scratch some of the fur on his head. Balm just couldn't think of a reason why she would do such a preposterous thing when she clearly had so much going for her. He had to stop thinking because it was starting to make his head hurt again.
Stardust shrugged her shoulders as she sat in front of Balm. "Because the man puts us in the same cage together until we do mate. Might as well do it sooner or later before he gets mad at us or something like that." Stardust's ears drooped as she remembered the past litters she had. "And then, when they're old enough..." the pretty doe choked, wondering whatever happened to her babies, "the man comes and takes them away." She lowered her view of sight so she was looking at the ground, sadly. "You know, Balm, sometimes I wonder what happens to them, I mean if they even had a chance to grow up, what they would have been like," the hutch rabbit sniffled a little bit, and looked back up at Balm. "But I suppose you don't really want to hear about my troubles though do you," she said with a feeble laugh as she glanced at Balm with blurry eyes.
As much of a buck that Balm may look like on the outside, he still has a sensitive side inside, though he cannot always think of the right thing to say at a certain moment in time. This was one of those moments. Balm looked around uncomfortably, as he shifted his weight from one forepaw to another, trying to think of something to say to Stardust that would cheer her up, since, after all it had been his excessive prodding that had resulted in her now downcast mood. "Well....um....I....err....understand?" Balm said, ending the sentence in a question as he really wasn't sure if he understood or not.
"You.don't understand!" Stardust wailed, as a salty tear escaped from her eyelid. She wiped her paws across her face quickly, trying to dry off the tear before any of the others noticed. "How could you understand? You're just a buck!" she hissed and turned away from Balm. The fawn doe returned to Arwen and Cloves, looking very depressed and alone.
That was a huge blow to Balm. He just sat there for a moment, his mouth hanging open, as he tried to think of something, anything to say back to Stardust. But it was true. He was just a buck, that's all, nothing special. Somehow, everyone seemed to be always there to remind him of that. Every day seemed to be "Bash Balm Day." There was never a stop to incoming insults, which as Zenthlay often reminded him, was just constructive criticism. Sometimes it was hard to find how anything constructive can be made out of someone calling him a flea-ridden lummox, or a stupid clumsy pfeffa. Balm suddenly snapped out of his thoughts when he heard the man.
"THUMP, THOMP, THUMP," the man made his way into the room, his heavy boots bashing against the floor, making it impossible to notice his presence.
Balm looked up as the man made his way over to the cage with more food. He really didn't care that much anymore; he would rot away in this cage his entire life, as a man creature. There was no way he was going to be caught dead eating those..pellets.
Seeing that the time was right Arwen rushed over to Balm, and sat beside him as the man opened the cage. She leaned over towards him so that she could whisper in his long ear.
"Balm, the time has come, and you know what you must do.
Escape from this cage so you can start your life anew.
Wait until the man drops off the pellets and goes on his way
To bring us some new timothy hay."
Balm blinked as Arwen spoke to him again, trying to figure out what she was telling him. He watched the man drop off the pellets into the ceramic food dish and then he headed over for a little bale of hay that was with the food in the corner of the room. Suddenly, it hit him like a brick wall. "By Frith and Inle!" he exclaimed happily as he saw that the man hadn't closed the cage door. The latch was flung open. Without even thanking Arwen, Balm took a deep breath and then leapt out of the cage; not looking how far down the drop was. It was a rather large drop, and Balm hit the ground, taking in gasps of air, trying to breathe.
Then another rabbit landed almost on top of him. She appeared frightened, as she shook her paws, which were tingling with pain from the landing and grinned at Balm. "Think you could leave without me, didn't you?" she smiled at him, and nudged him with her nose.
"Stardust!!" Balm hissed excitedly. He stared at her for a couple of moments wondering why in Frith's name she would be coming with him, and then looked up. The man was standing right over them, with his hands on his hips.
"Hey, whaddaya tink you're a doin'?" he asked the rabbits and he knelt down to pick them up once again. There was a hint of annoyance in his voice.
"GO!" Arwen yelled from the cage, as she was right near the cage door. The quiet doe inhaled deeply and then launched herself onto the man's back with her claws outstretched.
The man immediately jumped up screaming, "What the ..!!" Arwen was tossed from the man's back and hit one of the hutch's legs with a deafening thud. Her leg was all twisted out of place, and her eyes rolled back in pain.
Balm's eyes widened as he watched this all unfold, and then forcibly tore himself away from it. He felt so bad for Arwen, not so much Cloves though, since he had stayed in the cage eating his precious man food. But Arwen had tried to help them, risking her own life to do so. Now she was hurt and it was his entire fault. Again. Just like it had been his entire fault that Zenthlay had been shot. Balm blinked and then poked Stardust a little roughly, "Come on, we have to go," he told her, the urgency quite overpowering in his voice. The only thing that Balm could think about was that he hadn't even thanked Arwen for her help. Without her he would never have thought of escaping the cage. And now she was hurt.
Stardust nodded, quite dumbfounded at what her friend had just done. The English lop put one paw in front of the other and tried to stumble along behind Balm, obviously quite upset with what had just taken place. Slowly, the show rabbit picked up her pace, as she was getting a little left behind by Balm.
Balm ran for quite a while, fueled by the thought that the man might be behind them, and what he had done to Arwen. He ran blindly by quite exotic objects, until he came upon the door. He skidded to a stop, almost ramming right into it.
"Wha-" Stardust began to ask Balm a question, when he suddenly stopped in front of her. She put on the brakes, which cushioned the impact with Balm a little bit. Both of them tumbled over as they hit the door. "S- sorry," Stardust said bashfully, flicking her head back so her ears weren't in her face anymore.
"Owww," Balm groaned as he rubbed his head and got up. His vision swam slightly and then he shook his head, "No, its okay," he told her. "Totally my fault. Yep." Then the buck's attention focused on the door. It was shut tight, and there was no way that they would ever be able to open it.
"Balm, in here," Stardust whispered to the buck, as she hopped into another room. She had been in this room before when the man had been holding her.
Balm gradually made it into the room, looking at everything in it. At first he was hit by a powerful smell and recoiled. But his curiosity overcame his cautiousness, as he seemed drawn into the room. He was quite amazed with the things that these humans seemed to have. The room was a little cluttered, and Balm hopped over to Stardust, looking around. He wasn't paying much attention to the things on the ground though, so he accidentally tripped on a towel, which sent him sprawling to the ground. Then Balm lay there with a dejected look on his face. "I don't get it. What's so special about this room?" Balm asked, only seeing looming man structures and other weird things.
Stardust beamed and nudged a blanket aside with her head so Balm could see. There was a nice empty shelf that when the blanket was put back down, would be covered up and fully out of sight.
A look of absolute and utter amazement passed over Balm's face, as he shook his ears. He couldn't believe it! The buck slowly moved aside the blanket, thinking that at any moment he would run into a solid wall. But it wasn't so, and he joined Stardust on the shelf, where the darkness seemed to cover them. Then the buck began to explore the limited space, until he reached the far end, where Stardust was hulked over, looking very pale. "Stardust..." Balm whispered to her, his brow wrinkling with concern for her, "What's the matter?" he asked, one of his ears falling over on his head in a comical manner.
