2: Missing (Presumed Tortured)
As Frith sank slowly in the west, Hazel-rah was ready to retire to his burrow for the night, once he asked someone to bring Vilthuril back up from the bottom of the down. As he started off he saw Bigwig racing up towards him.
"Frithaes Bigwig," Hazel-rah spoke to the approaching rabbit, "Anything wrong?"
"No, Hazel-rah," Bigwig groaned sarcastically, "I just thought I'd have a vao run across the grass before I went underground and you just happened to be close to my direction of running. Of COURSE there's something wrong! Vilthuril's been taken away by some men!"
'HRAKA,' thought Hazel-rah, 'now I'll have to see to the rescue effort!' So he turned to Bigwig and asked him to tell everyone that there'd be a meeting in the Honeycomb, ethile thing tomorrow.
"You really make use of your position, don't you?" Bigwig commented in a rather cheerful tone before he set off; the cheerfulness in his tone of voice made Hazel-rah assume that he was glad something was going to be done about it.
'Knowing Bigwig,' thought Hazel-rah, 'he's probably hoping that I'll decide on something risky to save Vilthuril; he gets so excited about danger!'
In the van Elaine looked sympathetically at the doe in the cage, filled with sadness & anger of what would become of her; but she still had some hope for her. Then she suddenly turned to the doe for the sound that came from her, she listened carefully as the doe repeated it.
"Embleer Ithéil." groaned the doe; this caused Elaine to jump with astonishment. She could make out the variations in sound as words! Unrecognisable words, yes; but they were definitely WORDS.
"Don't worry," She told the doe, "You might be able to take revenge on what these people do; I only participating because I have too!" But then the doe shot her a look, one she recognised as being the look for 'What are you talking about?' She then realised that their languages were very different & there were some English words that rabbits would have seldom, or never, have come across, so she just gave her a look of 'I don't want you to suffer too much, if at all!' Which the rabbit clearly received by relaxing as sunset came along.
Vilthuril looked up at the man who was always keeping watch over her. She felt cheated & very angry she was ready to make an expression to try & level with these men. Eventually she could hold it in nahl more.
"You EMBLEER Men!" She cried out, then the watching man made a more direct look at her, a look of astonishment; Vilthuril felt there was something getting to it. "Embleer men." She grumbled, and then the watcher jumped back with evidence that it was surprised of hearing her. Then she heard the watcher making words in it's own language, Vilthuril could only just make out it was an actual language; but she didn't understand it so she shot the watcher a look of puzzlement, which did seem to sink in. In response the watcher shot her a look of sympathy & forgiveness, Vilthuril then realised that, for some reason, this man was taking it's actions whether it liked it or not, but with an element of vengeance for it's own species in it's eyes, Vilthuril decided to relax before the worst stuff came along.
As the journey continued Elaine kept a watch on the doe wondering how she'll be when, if ever, she'll be released back into the wild; continually looking into her eyes, the two were able to understand that they both felt in a similar way to one-another. Eventually the van stopped and the back-doors opened revealing the inner city region of Basingstoke behind one of Elaine's (so-called) colleagues.
"We're here then?" Elaine asked him sarcastically, the man gave her an annoying look before replying.
"Yes," he groaned, "We ARE here!" Elaine rolled her eyes; he always had a thing about people asking the obvious when, usually, that was the everyday way of speaking. So she gave the doe a look of sympathy & farewell before the man came in and took the doe away & into the building; Elaine & the others following.
As Vilthuril felt the bumpy-bump of the hrududu moving along the road, she wondered what these men were planning on doing to her when they got to wherever they were going, but Vilthuril knew eth thing; after continually exchanging glances with the watcher man she knew that not all men were bad, just (by her standards) most of them. She felt a need to get the way she felt under certain conditions into the consciousness of hrair men, but how? She thought.
Just then the hrududu stopped & a light came in through an area, someone was opening the hrududu; as she looked into where the light was coming from she found herself in the middle of a very large place of human creation. Eth thing that shocked her was that it was fu-inlé, yet there was more light silf than what was normal for the night; she looked back to the watcher just in time to receive a sympathetic farewell glance, and the next thing she knew, she was being carried out into the bright region that made hrududil lights seem dim by comparison by another man, and off towards a building larger than any she'd ever came upon before. Eth problem she realised was that she didn't know how far away she was from Watership Down, there wasn't enough of a view to help her judge how far she'd come, let alone what direction she travelled in.
By morning on Watership Down, the rabbits were rapidly gathering in the Honeycomb, ready to hear what Hazel-rah had to say; tension was high, and it was very clear that it had something to do with Vilthuril's absence. At about des hours after sunrise Hazel-rah took 'centre-stage' and began the meeting.
"Comrades," He called out, silencing the minor conversations between the rabbits, "We are facing a crisis; as you might have heard Vilthuril has been captured by some men. She has a good chance of being alive, but we must act fast before something unspeakable happens to her! I'd like any of you to bring any rescue suggestions to me, the more suggestions the better. I've decided to set off for her rescue des days from now, thank you!" As he said this the rest stood down and dispersed to continue with their daily lives whilst thinking about how to rescue Vilthuril from the men. As Bigwig was about to leave, Hazel-rah called to him. "There's something I need to know since you were the eth who saw her capture." At this Bigwig turned to him.
"Hazel-rah." He replied, "They went off towards where frith rises & in the direction of, as Kehaar tells us, 'Der Pig Vawter'! Both directions at the same time!" At this Hazel-rah stood down himself & withdrew to his burrow, thinking about the rescue mission himself.
Author's Note: The large region that Vilthuril has been taken to does exist; the science lab, I'll just take that on trust. It's Basingstoke, the closest city to Watership Down.