8: At Large in Basingstoke!

The Watership rabbits were getting close to Basingstoke, but they wouldn't be able to reach it before the day was out. Hazel-rah realised that night was falling, they couldn't go on through the night; he called the others together.

"I'm afraid," Hazel-rah told them, "That we will have to stop for the night; I hope that Vilthuril would be safe for each time we had to stop." As soon as he finished his speech they all set to work to create some scrapes; as the moon began to peep over the edge of the horizon Hazel-rah took Fiver to eth side. "Will we be able to save Vilthuril in time?" Hazel-rah asked him.

"At the present time," Fiver replied, "She can take care of herself, but she must return to the warren in des days from tomorrow!" Hazel-rah realised that there was a time limit to this adventure once he heard this, but he thought that des days would be, as humans would say, 'a piece of cake'.

Now that Elaine knew the basics of the Lapine language, Vilthuril picked up the other female human and put her on her back (Vilthuril's back that is) with the other si. She took a last look at the room that was now in ruins caused by her sudden growth and carefully stepped out onto the road silf; she felt she had to return to the warren, but for now she could investigate the human world.

She looked about herself, the world looked so different now; a rather large hrududu (a lorry) drove by her, passing very close to her forepaw, as Vilthuril watched this hrududu go by she felt a taste of power and what was more was that soon after the hrududu passed her it swerved creating an annoying screech sound and very nearly crashed into a smaller, more common hrududu (a car). Vilthuril then looked into the front of the hrududu and saw a man inside who was staring up at her with a look of shock on his face; observing that this man was in the hrududu she came to the conclusion that hrududil were not alive, but objects of man's design. She slowly moved forward trying not to cause too much harm to any humans or animals around her, went down on her haunches and looked at the man at closer proximity; the tip of her nose was very nearly touching the hrududu, but she could see that his body was moving faintly and rapidly, clearly showing that he was somewhat frightened of her. She then got up off her haunches and carefully reached down with her forepaw, scooping up the hrududu and holding it close to her face, trying to avoid dropping it. As she looked at the man inside again she noticed that he was quivering even more now; as she inhaled she picked up a whiff of what was inside the hrududu other than the man, there were carrots in the hrududu. Vilthuril was feeling rather hungry so she carefully turned the hrududu round so that the back was facing her, she then reached out her other forepaw and ripped the back off and carelessly threw it down within a few feet of another hrududu; from her back Elaine watched everything that was happening with awe & astonishment; now Vilthuril silently opened her mouth and tipped the hrududu backwards causing the entire contents of the back part of the hrududu to fall into her mouth, 140 crates of carrots emptied from the hrududu into her mouth. Once she found no more falling into her giant mouth, Vilthuril withdrew and levelled off the hrududu, whilst she closed her mouth and swallowed the crates whole, it took des big gulps and eth minor gulp to swallow the hrair.

She then realised why the man was so frightened of her, she was large enough to swallow HIM in eth gulp, but she was a rabbit, and rabbits don't eat other animals, let alone humans. But as she turned it back so she could see the man he was ranting and shouting at her, but she did not know why, anyway his shouts weren't that intimidating, they sounded feeble & helpless to her. Elaine knew what he was saying though, he was angry that Vilthuril had just swallowed what he was going to deliver, there were many people like that who were more interested in getting a job done quickly & easily so to get some money, than they were in the survival of other animals.

Elaine found the whole experience quite astonishing, especially the sight of Vilthuril swallowing the entire cargo of a lorry, since the driver of that lorry wouldn't stop shouting at Vilthuril she decided to introduce him to realism.

"Listen man," She shouted at him, causing the driver to stop shouting at Vilthuril and to Elaine, peering over Vilthuril's shoulder blade, "You won't get anywhere complaining to her; she's so large now that you and I are insignificant by comparison!" She made gestures to indicate that she was talking about Vilthuril when she said 'she'. This soon got him incredibly nervous again, once again anticipating that Vilthuril would either eat him or crush him like an insect.

Vilthuril wondered what to do with this man in the hrududu, she was now rather puzzled about how to treat a man who shouted something or rather at her when she was hrair times bigger than he was. The question on her mind was 'Shall I kill him for his selfishness, or shall I let him off with vao intentions?' The whole thing was confusing her, but she then decided to imagine the answer Hazel-rah would give her; this helped a great deal. She gently placed the hrududu back on the road and headed off into the city, slowly but surely to avoid stepping on any human or animal that she felt didn't deserve it.

As she advanced into Basingstoke she could feel the humans on her back clinging on to avoid falling a distance from 27ft to 53ft. She wondered what the other rabbits (including Hazel-rah & Fiver) would say if they saw her at this size; or even if they would say anything at all, they could be sent tharn at the mere sight of her.

On Vilthuril's back her passengers clung on to prevent a dangerous fall; they were usually just holding on, but when she made a certain move (like standing up) they would greatly tighten their grips to make sure they didn't slip down her back and slam into the tarmac/concrete on the floor below. Elaine kept close to Vilthuril's neck, when a dangerous situation faced her she would hold on tight in the procedure of hugging Vilthuril by the neck; the man was in the middle of her back, his procedure was to grab onto the fur in the opposite direction of the ground; and the other woman found the best thing to do was to use Vilthuril's tail when danger was near.

Such a time soon came when Vilthuril sat up with a car beneath her 'harrumph'; they all went through their procedures to prevent a fall. As Elaine looked up she could see that Vilthuril was peering through a flat window. She wondered what Vilthuril would do if she saw anyone inside.

As Vilthuril looked into a high level room in eth of the buildings, she could see a female human walking into that room from her (Vilthuril's) right; only a few seconds past before the woman saw Vilthuril's enormous eye peering through the window, she screamed in terror and reared back against the far wall with no coolness for her to figure out that she could just have moved quickly to eth of the doors and get silf. Her screaming shocked Vilthuril, she felt upset at understanding that the woman was screaming because she thought she was going to kill her, if this human just made a yelp and jumped back then that would mean surprise & astonishment at seeing her.

Vilthuril was so upset at this understanding that she managed to produce a facial expression of this, also she turned her head so both her eyes were looking into the room; the woman inside stopped screaming but she was trembling vigorously and staring at Vilthuril with both fear & awe. Elaine had also heard the screaming and sighed at the fact that people seemed to have the common misconception that virtually anything that was much bigger than a human was when it's normally about the same size as a human or smaller, would either have a desire to crush them like insects or a desire to eat them.

As Elaine looked up to Vilthuril's sad face she decided to make a negotiation with her. She carefully climbed up so her feet were level with her shoulders (if you call them shoulders) and commenced to ask Vilthuril a favour.

"Veth A meth - asith mi, Vilthuril?" She asked her, Vilthuril rolled her eyes around to look down to Elaine.

"VAHL, MI VETH." She replied in a sooth, gentle tone of voice.

"Os i veth - ma ven thli, A - bral A veth - val mo na - lan i vao." Elaine explained to her as best as she could. Vilthuril lifted her forepaw up to where Elaine was and replied.

"VAHL, A LAYTH KOI MI VEN THLI!" She managed to find a way to pick Elaine off her back with her forepaw, by curling her toes round to give her support and indicating to Elaine that she had better climb into her forepaw. Elaine did so taking care so she wouldn't fall. Once she had managed to settle in Vilthuril's forepaw she clung on as Vilthuril carefully lifted her to the window. As Elaine looked inside at the petrified woman she was greeted by a look of great shock from her, it was probably from finding another of her kind sitting in this colossal rabbit's forepaw unharmed and cool as a cucumber.

Then, without Elaine even asking, the woman inside moved forward and opened the window, and pulled Elaine in off Vilthuril's gigantic forepaw, quickly closing the window behind her. Vilthuril however decided to make sure she didn't haul Elaine away against her will; she kept a watch on Elaine & the other woman to rescue Elaine in case she was hauled away.

"Please," Elaine told the woman, "Don't be frightened; she won't harm you!" The woman stared at Elaine in disbelief; she found it hard to trust someone who kept so cool when there was a colossal rabbit keeping a watch on the both of them.

"How can you be so sure?" The woman asked Elaine rhetorically. "A rabbit that size means nothing but trouble!" Elaine sighed and shook her head whilst looking down at her feet.

"Vilthuril's only curious about human society," She told the woman, "She doesn't mean any harm, and she's barely caused any." The woman was now more preoccupied with what Elaine was saying to her than with Vilthuril peering through the window.

"VILTHURIL?" She cried. "Has this rabbit been your pet once?" She asked Elaine, half expecting the answer to be 'yes' since she thought that a rabbit only had a genuine name when it was domesticated.

"No!" Elaine told her. "She's of wild origins; rabbits are more civilised than people think, they even have their own language. I learnt some words in the language of the rabbits and that is how I was able to distinguish between her name and common nouns." The woman was now in more disbelief of the situation than ever; the whole idea that rabbits could civilised enough to have a complex language & names was too alien to her.

"Well I don't know the rabbit language," She replied, "So I wouldn't be able give her any info about mankind if I wanted to." Elaine sighed and partly nodded & partly shook her head; she was ambivalent to what she said.

"I'll ask her, her interest in you!" Elaine told her and then turned to the window, walked forwards under Vilthuril's gaze, opened the window and asked Vilthuril. "Bleth mul mi tring asith mo? Kan o tring na lan!" Vilthuril took a mighty sigh and told Elaine.

"A TRING NA LAN HLOTH SETH ITHÉIL KOI HLIENESIL VEN SI HRISTH FLOWIL A SETH, VARU O, KOI HLIENESIL VEN HRAIR HRISTH FLOWIL." Elaine thought about the Lapine words and managed to reproduce them into a suitable English sentence in less than two minutes; then she turned back to the other woman.

"She said," Elaine told her, "She wants to know why some people live in normal houses & some, like you, live in tower blocks." The other woman looked at her with doubt over her reply.

"Well," the woman told Elaine, "Tower blocks are cheaper than houses; it depends on who has more money." Elaine stood for a while so she could work out what Vilthuril would think of as money; eventually she had to settle for 'flayrah' and translated this for Vilthuril. One thing was clear to both Elaine & Vilthuril; in learning Lapine, Elaine was a fast learner.

After a few more clear ups Elaine said goodbye to the woman, climbed out of the window into Vilthuril's forepaw, returned to her perch behind Vilthuril's neck and Vilthuril continued looking for, what to her were, human curiosities.

Eventually Vilthuril came upon a police blockade; they were desperate to restore human superiority to the land. The chief on the ground gave the order to fire; he was of US origins and had this thing about aggressive responses, and the police began shooting their rifles at Vilthuril. This got her very upset and found no other course of action than to sweep them from the road.

The sun rose over the hills, the owls went home and the Watership rabbits came out of their scrapes to silflay. Fiver turned to where the sun was rising and went starey-eyed; Hazel-rah noticed this and ran to him.

"What is it Fiver?" Hazel-rah asked his younger brother, Fiver lifted his forepaw as though he was pointing to the sun.

"The sky is red with Frith's rise;" Fiver told Hazel-rah, "Blood has been spilt last night!" Hazel-rah was stumped at this; he wasn't sure if Fiver simply meant that blood was shed during the night or if he was suddenly making a big deal about the colour of the sky in the morning.

"Fiver," Hazel-rah asked him, "Do you mean someone has died in the night, the colour of the sky in the morning isn't coupled in with fate you know." Fiver looked into Hazel-rah's eyes and answered.

"Blood was spilled last night! The red sky was comparison, an unusual coincidence that the sky is coloured red when the night before had the red of blood flowing from living things." This most definitely cleared things up, but it also made Hazel-rah nervous.

"Whose blood?" Hazel-rah asked him. "Whose blood was spilt?" Fiver thought deeply, before returning a cryptic answer.

"It was the blood of man," Fiver told him, "His blood has flown from a fight with a rabbit!" Hazel-rah immediately jumped at the news, he quickly rushed back to the others who had seen Hazel-rah talking to Fiver.

"Vilthuril's killed them!" Hazel-rah cried as he ran into the group. "Vilthuril has killed some men!" They all jumped at the news, the concept that a rabbit could kill hrair men single-pawed was difficult to grasp.

"How could she?" Bigwig asked him. "It's nearly impossible for a rabbit to kill eth man, let alone hrair." Hazel-rah looked at him in a way that told Bigwig that he (Bigwig) had forgot something.

"In case you've forgotten what I told you about her from Fiver the day before last," Hazel-rah announced to Bigwig, meaning that Bigwig has forgotten, "Vilthuril is much larger than she was, which means that she could deal with men more easily now." Bigwig shook his head; he wanted to explain reality to Hazel-rah.

"Even if she was as big as a cow," Bigwig replied, "Even si men could easily deal with her; surely she wouldn't be…" He trailed off as Hazel-rah & Blackberry looked at him with a 'you know what we're thinking' looked at him, and then the truth hit him like a mountain.

"You mean," Bigwig cried, "Vilthuril's even bigger than that?" Hazel-rah & Blackberry nodded their heads, it took a few minutes for Bigwig to get his act together again, and then they set for Basingstoke, which was already within their sight, but they couldn't see Vilthuril.

Vilthuril aroused herself as the sunlight shone on her over the buildings, she looked down at her new friends, they were still asleep draped over her forepaws, after the feud with the armed men last night she found a place she could go to sleep, the City Park. Eth thing was sure of her before she settled down, no elil would attack her while she was asleep (or if they were they wouldn't stand a chance), so she didn't bother digging a scrape, she just placed her friends on her forepaws, where she would keep them warm with her body, and settled down to sleep.

Now it was time to wake she was amazed at the fact that humans were capable of sleeping fu-frith. 'They wouldn't be able to rest during ni-frith,' Vilthuril thought to herself, "If they kept sleeping fu-frith." She then noticed that Elaine was stirring, Vilthuril felt terribly sentimental at the sight of a female human that was smaller than a mouse in comparison to her, lying there asleep and beginning to wake & stir; Elaine was so cute from Vilthuril's point of view.

Elaine was all out of her mind when she woke, once she had got her act together the first thing she saw was Vilthuril's enormous eyes looking down at her, this made Elaine go all soppy as well.

"Vao fu-frith, Vilthuril!" She greeted, Vilthuril managed to smile at her and reply.

"VAO FU-FRITH, ELÉN!" She boomed; Elaine smiled up to Vilthuril, it was clear that the name 'Elaine' was difficult to pronounce in Lapine.

After about half an hour the others woke, found their bearings and then Vilthuril picked them up in her teeth and gently placed them on her back, before setting off to look through Basingstoke.