7: Learning the Language
As Elaine sat on the rabbit's back she felt she had to do two things: First she had to learn the rabbit's language; second she had to learn the rabbit's name, it was a very deep feeling. She was sitting on the back of a giant female rabbit and she was thinking about getting to know it; she carefully moved forward towards Subject #229's head to speak to her.
"Pardon me, madam;" She said to the rabbit, "But I was wondering if you could let me know your name." The others that had been captured by this rabbit were shocked by her gentle approach to a rabbit that could crush her beneath one of it's paws.
When Vilthuril heard eth of the female humans speaking to her she couldn't understand what she was saying but could tell by the tone of her voice that she was being gentle. Carefully turning her head she could see that it was the same human who had given her a sympathetic glance in the hrududu, she thought hard about this approach before she decided to reply as gently as possible for fear of hurting this human's ears.
"I don't know what you said," She whispered to the human, "But my name is Vilthuril. By what name are you known?" Vilthuril looked into the human's minute little eyes and could tell that it was in shock & awe of her. What Vilthuril couldn't comprehend was whether she was astonished by her speech or by her size.
Elaine looked up into the giant doe's magnificent eyes, she still couldn't comprehend the language but she was sure that the long word was likely to be the enormous rabbit's name. She could easily catch the word 'Vilthuril' but the rest was beyond her.
"Vilthuril?" She squeaked to the rabbit, raising her hand up towards her head to indicate that she was enquiring as whether that was her name or not.
The colossal lagomorph looked down to her, she replied "VAHL!" And nodded her humongous head to indicate she was acknowledging her question. Elaine was becoming very fond of this mammoth lepus, and she looked up into her enormous eyes and made a sweet smile before telling her, her name.
"Me, Elaine!" Elaine told Vilthuril in a soft voice, pointing at herself to indicate she was talking about herself. Vilthuril managed to perform the facial expression known as a smile and lifted her huge forepaw and gently stroked Elaine; Elaine nearly fainted from being touched by this tremendous paw, but shock gave way to admiration & love of Vilthuril when she identified that he was being stroked.
Both Vilthuril & Elaine felt a great affection for one another now, despite of the fact that Elaine was only the size of an insect compared to Vilthuril. It was a most astonishing situation for the both of them; Vilthuril was still trying to get over the fact that she was now even larger than a human, and Elaine was still coming to grips with the fact that she had been picked up by a giant rabbit and flung onto her back (Vilthuril's back that is, not Elaine's back).
Meanwhile the committee was going down to the delivery yard to get the shotguns, which had only just arrived. The Chairman of the committee was very impatient.
"It's about time you arrived!" He growled at the deliveryman, who was rather offended.
"Well," the deliveryman replied, "If you are going to be like that I can always take these shotguns back until you send an apology." His voice was gentle, but that only made the sting of the sentence worse.
"Very well," replied the chairman, despite his annoyance, "I'm sorry!" The deliveryman nodded in response and handed them the shotguns, then the chairman handed him a cheque for the shotguns, followed by a tenner for the deliveryman's tip. Once the deliveryman had left one of the men pulled out a knife and stuck it into the box and pulled it across the box to open it; inside there were seven shotguns and five cartridges for each gun.
As the Watership rabbits continued on their rescue mission, Fiver started to twitch, and they all knew what that meant. Fiver was having another eth of his omens; Hazel-rah came to his side.
"What is it Fiver?" Hazel-rah asked him with a tone in his voice that he was expecting it to be about Vilthuril, Fiver began to speak.
"Hrair men shall attack her with tunnels of fire, yet she'll have no true injury and will bring them severe pain!" He cried out, Hazel-rah stood there for a while to figure it out, and then he turned to the others.
"He said," Hazel-rah informed them, "That hrair men will use guns to try and harm Vilthuril, but she will not receive a wound from the guns." He left out the bit of what Fiver said Vilthuril would do to them afterwards because he couldn't quite get to grips with that part. So they just continued on their journey.
The committee walked down the corridors towards the holding room, the chairman, the reporting scientist & five others had a shotgun each. They were determined to destroy Subject #229 because, like many humans, they hated the idea that any animal could be better than a human; size ratios were one significance, they saw any animal that was over twice it's normal size was a threat to humanity's pride.
Their pace quickened, they weren't running or jogging, just walking quickly; eventually they found the door that led into the animal holding room, carefully one of them opened the door.
"Naylte?" Elaine spoke pointing at Vilthuril; despite the language barriers she was a quick learner as she observed Vilthuril's indications as she tried to learn the language of the lagomorphs.
"VAHL!" Vilthuril replied, nodding her head, which made Elaine understand that 'vahl' meant 'yes'. The other two just stared at the both of them, they couldn't quite work out what was going on other than that rabbits have their own language & that Elaine was trying to learn it from this enormous doe. One thing was that despite Vilthuril being a doe, her voice seemed to boom due to her increase in size; at least she tried.
At that moment they all heard the door being opened, they all turned and saw seven figures standing in the doorway, each one holding a shotgun in it's hands. The man & Elaine had a hunch about why they were here, and they didn't like it; at that moment the scientist in the new group spoke with the voice of a hero (even though he was anything but) to the humans around the rabbit.
"Don't worry" He cried out, "We will rescue you from that overgrown vermin!" At this Elaine became so angry that she could hold it in no longer, and she shouted from Vilthuril's back.
"Leave her alone, you b$#$!" She cried out. "Have you no respect for marvels of nature?" This was followed by another, probably rhetorical, question. "Why don't you leave Vilthuril alone?" Five of the other humans stood there agape, both at Vilthuril & at what Elaine had just shouted, but the chairman & the scientist were stubborn enough to reply.
"Oh," Spoke the scientist, with a mocking tone in his voice, "So it's 'Vilthuril' now, is it?" Then he made a mocking laugh that not only angered Elaine, but her companions as well.
"No creature should ever supersede humanity!" The chairman cried out. "Move back from that rabbit's head so we have no risk of harming you!" Elaine scolded at him.
"I WILL stay HERE!" She shouted back at him. "If you're gonna kill her you will kill me too!" The chairman told the others to load whilst he loaded his own shotgun.
Vilthuril could not comprehend what the humans were saying, but the tone in their voices gave her some idea as to what they were saying. She then noticed the shotguns in the other group of humans and knew what they were for. Eth of them shouted a word she could not comprehend and they all started shooting at her; it was painful but she found she wasn't being injured.
Eventually, after des shots per gun had been shot at her, she could stand it no more and lifting up her forepaw she swatted the humans in the doorway sending them flying into the walls. All of them were injured, kes of them more seriously injured than the others.
Elaine marvelled at Vilthuril's might compared to the big-heads that tried to shoot her, with that lot out of the way she presented Vilthuril with a sweet, respecting smile and a look that asked for further teaching of the language of the rabbits.
The other two humans were amazed at the fact that rabbits had a complex language with distinct words; the fact that this particular rabbit was a giant astonished them enough, but that she had evidence of rabbits being a civilised race took the biscuit!