Chapter 205: Inqwynn's Tragedy.

"Perfect. Just perfect, now he was ruining someone else's life. [...] But what he didn't understand and the moment was that she did all these things because she cared about him, and wouldn't ever want to see him get hurt."

-Whispy-bunny, What Things May Come: Hugging at Heartstrings

Vervain and Inqwynn returned to their burrow, after another busy day they spent digging. The initial chamber was complete, but remained unused; the rabbits moved on to digging another tunnel, which would likely meet the same fate once completed.

-"It makes no sense that they just keep us digging when they don't even have any use for the new burrows," Vervain complained.

-"We have to be kept busy," Inqwynn calmly explained. "You heard the owsla: this is how we pay back the council for the privilege of being allowed to live here."

-"You don't seriously believe this sick propaganda, do you?"

-"No, but I have to pretend to believe it, otherwise the owsla will punish me." Inqwynn sighed. "My friends used to call me the bright side, but not anymore."

-"What would that make you now? The dark side?"

Inqwynn briefly chuckled.

-"I wouldn't go that far. But this place has a way of sucking the life out of you. You lose all desires and personality. You survive, but you don't live."

What Inqwynn had said was true, but it left Vervain defiant. He would not let his life get sucked out of him. He would not lose his desires and personality. He would live, and escape, finding his way back to Chibiscuit. Or Woundwort. Or both.

-"Tell me more about your friends." Perhaps hearing about more positive things would help him get his mind off his current, unpleasant situation.

-"I'm sorry Vervain, I'm afraid I can't do that, as much as I would want to."

-"Will the owsla get mad at us again if you do?" It seemed to Vervain, based on his limited encounters with them, that they objected to absolutely everything.

-"No, this has nothing to do with the owsla. Instead, it's all about a promise I made long ago, that I would not tell the details to anyone. While it is likely that I will never see any of my friends ever again, I still feel the need to honour my commitment. If they ever found out that I broke their trust, they would probably be very sad."

-"That's pretty pathetic," Vervain spat. "What's so secret that you can't tell anyone?"

-"They were...very private creatures, really. And it's not just with me, they made the same demands of everyone they encountered and trusted." Inqwynn lowered his head, but soon perked up again. "Perhaps I could simply describe them, without telling you their names. That would be a fair compromise between my own desires and theirs."

-"If you're fine with that, I'll listen." Vervain still thought Inqwynn was overreacting and should break his promise, but he also realized that he wouldn't be able to get him to change his mind.

-"It's been so long since I last saw any of them...my memory may be hazy at times, but I will do my best. I'm going to start with the first one I met, a doe. She had some imaginary friends, I suspect based on brothers and sisters that died as kittens. Whenever she thought there were no real rabbits around, she talked to them. Also, she always kept leaves on her head, tied together with grass, as if to hide her face away. I'm not sure why she did that: her face was fine, she didn't have any more scars than anyone else, but she still hated to display it. She had to stay away from tall plants, or risk the whole mess getting tangled together. Despite her best efforts, it still happened sometimes."

-"Wow, she sounds like a real freak!"

Inqwynn merely sighed at Vervain's insult.

-"If she heard you say that, she would probably agree with you. She would, however, be very sad, although she would do her best not to show it."

-"Were your other friends that weird?"

-"Weird is subjective. But anyway, next up, we have a buck, I suppose you could say he was the leader of our friend group. He was also the most outgoing one, overall very friendly"

-"Sounds like a reasonable fellow. Much more than the other doe."

-"He was pretty nice. Then, there was another buck; he was huge, and very strong. He would have had no trouble making it into the owsla, but our warren didn't have one, so he didn't."

-"No owsla?" Vervain was left extremely surprised by this statement. "Then who kept a look out for elil? Who went to raid flayrah? Who protected the Chief?"

-"The answer to all three questions is 'nobody'. Things were very chaotic...as for that friend, I didn't get to know him as well as the others, but he could still be trusted to protect the rest of us if necessary."

-"Always good to have someone like that around, but come on, no owsla..."

-"We were mostly fine without one, so we saw no need to create one. It's really that simple."

-"Who else was there?" Vervain was eager to change the subject, away from the lack of owsla at Inqwynn's former warren.

-"The fourth one was a doe. She was NOT the almost-leader's romantic partner, despite what some rabbits believed. Over there, we cared mostly about adventure and friendship, rather than wasting our time with pointless things like romance, so none of us ever took any mates. Personality-wise, she was very giggly. She also liked to dye her fur."

-"Dye her fur?" Vervain was unfamiliar with this concept.

-"Yes. She would find various substances in a nearby human garbage place, and rub them onto her fur to produce colours that would never occur naturally. Her favourite was deep red, and it was actually very pretty."

-"That's ridiculous! Was she intentionally trying to attract the attention of elil or something?"

-"No, she just liked the way it looked, and so did everyone else. And she was more than capable of taking care of herself on those rare occasions that elil did notice her. She also really liked fire, a fact reflected in her name. She tried to learn how to cast it herself, but she never succeeded. Probably for the best, or she might have accidentally set the whole forest ablaze."

All Vervain could do was grimace at the mention of the fire-loving doe. Inqwynn, meanwhile, continued his tale, but repressed laughter as he moved on to the next rabbit.

-"The next rabbit...all right, I can't tell you his name, but I can tell you the silly story behind it. It was a combination of the names of two random rabbits in the warren; he wasn't related to either of them. Everyone was hoping that those two would eventually become mates, they supposedly had a lot of chemistry. Ultimately, despite society's expectations of them, they both hooked up with other rabbits instead. In fact, maybe they did that simply so they could defy everyone's wishes, and cause trouble. They succeeded: many other rabbits were disappointed, while others just pretended that they really didn't care. But ultimately, life went on, and the friend still had his silly name. Also, he had only one eye."

Vervain initially struggled to believe that such a ridiculous situation was possible: surely Inqwynn was making it up as he went along. But when it was mentioned that the weirdly-named friend only had one eye, he stopped paying attention: this brought back unpleasant memories of Woundwort. Inqwynn, not realizing that Vervain was no longer listening, continued:

-"I never learned just how he lost it. Perhaps drawing inspiration from the doe I first mentioned, he kept a leaf over the empty eye socket to keep it concealed, it was less creepy this way. He was also the ruler's son. The real official ruler, not the pseudo-leader I mentioned earlier. Or rather, the former ruler, since he was killed, at which point the son killed the killer and became a fugitive. Woo, those were interesting times!"

Vervain snapped out of his trance upon noticing how excited Inqwynn was. He had never seen him so cheerful before, it was almost as if he was dealing with a completely different rabbit. Clearly, talking about his friends was making Inqwynn feel better.

-"That all sounds very interesting," he said.

-"It was a great life! And then there was another buck, and...ack, I can't remember anything about him, not even his name. All I know is that he existed and was friendly...oh no, and I thought I would remember them all my life..."

Just a few moments before, Inqwynn was the happiest Vervain had ever seen. And now, he was down in the dumps again, even worse than usual, distraught over his failing memory.

-"Is there anyone else you DO remember?" Vervain asked, hoping this would distract him from this depressing failure.

-"Oh wait, I just remembered! His name was...wait I can't tell you that. But he was probably the biggest adventurer out of the whole group, he loved to explore human places, and try to figure out the purpose of the many weird objects there. He would often bring back random items from his missions; nobody else understood why he did that, but it was his hobby, so we all supported him. He also used to have a crush on the first doe I mentioned, the one you called a freak. But as things changed, it didn't go any further, although they remained friends."

-"He had a crush on HER? Wow, he must have been as much of a freak as she was..."

-"If you told him that, he would try to convince you that he's not."

-"And he would fail. Who else?" Vervain did not wish to hear any more about someone he thought was a freak.

-"There was another doe too. She was very curious and inquisitive, she cared a lot about always doing the right thing, and spreading the truth. Out of the entire friend group, she was probably the one I resembled the most, in terms of personality...although I'm a very different rabbit now than I was at the time. This is a whole new world."

Vervain wondered what Inqwynn was like in the past. Probably a lot more cheerful and optimistic than present-day Inqwynn, who was permanently depressed over his current situation, while also failing to do anything about it. Although, in fairness, there wasn't much he COULD do anyway: escape would be even harder to pull off than in Efrafa.

-"Now, that's it for the friends," Inqwynn said suddenly. "Let's move on to the enemies."

-"You had enemies too?" Vervain was left surprised once more: Inqwynn was a friendly rabbit, why would anyone dislike him? Also, despite the many weirdos, his old warren sounded like a reasonably nice place.

-"Sure, everyone has enemies. The biggest one was not entirely evil: he had good intentions, he really thought he was doing the right thing. His goal was to try and create a better society that was completely different from the previous one. He was, in fact, affiliated with the ruler's killer I mentioned earlier. But, ultimately, nothing really worked out, and many suffered hin his experiments."

Vervain briefly wondered whether this rabbit was creepier than the doe Inqwynn had first mentioned; he soon decided that the doe was worse.

-"Was he your only enemy?"

-"There was another on too, but I never got to know him that well, so I'm not sure what made him so evil or what. The simple truth is that we were all scared of him and his gang, so we did our best to stay away. That's it for the main cast, next up are the supporting characters."

-"The what now?"

-"Let me explain." Inqwynn lied down. "You know, in the El-ahrairah stories, there's always someone who plays a bigger role. For example, take the story of Frith's blessing. If El-ahrairah wasn't in the story, it wouldn't make any sense at all. Same goes if you tried removing Frith, since he was the one giving out the blessings and all that. However, if you were to take out, say, the cat, then the story would still make sense and unfold mostly the same way. What's one missing enemy out of a thousand? So, Frith and El-ahrairah are critical to the plot, while everyone else is still important, just not as much. They still have a part to play, but it is comparatively minor. Similarly, in the story of the trial of El-ahrairah, he, Prince Rainbow, and Hufsa are the main characters, while that pheasant whose name I don't remember, and even Rabscuttle, are supporting characters. But it is important to consider that everyone, even these minor supporting characters, are still their own creatures and lead their own complex lives. They have their own interests, personalities, friends and enemies. Just because they didn't interact as much with me and my friend group, doesn't make them unimportant. While we may be the main characters of our own stories, we are no doubt supporting characters in many others. Do you get what I'm saying?"

-"No," Vervain bluntly admitted. "The moment you started talking about 'characters' is the moment I stopped understanding what you were saying."

-"Oh, that's too bad. But anyway, that's enough about me. What about you, Vervain? What were your friends like?"

Vervain was unprepared for such a question; his mind blanked.

-"I didn't have any."

-"Really? No friends at all?"

-"I was an owsla captain, so it was my duty to know everyone else I had to work with. But I wouldn't call any of them 'friends'. Blasted fools, always finding a way to mess up the most simple tasks...also my fellow captain was probably a traitor, but nobody believed me." Vervain growled at the thought of Campion, how he despised that rabbit...

-"That sounds frustrating, but surely there must have been someone you got along with? Even if just a single rabbit?"

Vervain spent a few moments considering who might match Inqwynn's description. Orchis? During the few days they spent with each other, their relationship would best be described as "complicated". Chibiscuit? It had been so long since he had last seen her, perhaps even longer than Inqwynn had seen his gang of freaks. There really was nobody; Vervain remained silent.

-"Perhaps rejoice in the fact that, even if you have nobody else, at least you still have me," Inqwynn said, as he went to hug the other rabbit. This left the captain thinking: was he really friends with Inqwynn, or was this just someone else he tolerated?

-"Hey newbie!" suddenly came a third voice.

Vervain instantly panicked: this sounded like an owsla officer. Was it morning already? Had he seriously spent all night listening to Inqwynn talking about his weird friends, as opposed to sleeping?

-"Yes, I'll be going to silflay in just a few moments..." he said, as the officer arrived at the burrow's entrance.

-"No, you will not," the officer said. "Midnight silflay is strictly forbidden. I am here only because I have important news to share with you. Tomorrow morning before silflay, you are to report for owsla training."

-"I'm in the owsla now?"

-"Yes you are, newbie." The officer then stepped uncomfortably close to Vervain's face. "Don't make the council regret it."

-"I...I'll do my best."

The officer soon hopped away, no doubt to take care of his other duties. Vervain, meanwhile, was ecstatic with these news.

-"I won't have to dig anymore! I'll be in the owsla!"

-"I think you misunderstood," Inqwynn said. "You will now have owsla duties in addition to the daily digging. That's how it always is for new owsla recruits, at least at first."

Vervain's expression instantly turned sour as he heard this explanation.

-"...embleer hraka..."

-"You will have a busy day tomorrow, so I suggest you get some sleep."