Disclaimer: I do not own Watership Down
Before writing this chapter I had the fortune to find a Youtube video where people react to the 70s Watership Down film. They go over what they think the movie is about from nihilism to believing but mostly compare it to The Velveteen Rabbit. What do you guys think?
Ebony didn't have time to try to convince the kitten things weren't going to be scary for much longer.
With perfect speed to match the fleeting wheels of the train, he picked him up and let him sail from his mouth through the gap.
Tacca was too timid and afraid to keep his eyes open when he was escaping a flurry of wheels that would crush most Hare's in twelve heartbeats, one-tenth of a second.
Hitting the dirt was the most comforting thing he felt, falling so hard he was bleeding as if a elil snuck up and mauled into his flesh, since their new home was ruined by a hungry dog.
He was away from the train only to be in an exasperated state where his legs wouldn't or couldn't stand up, he was too tired and afraid to really try.
He couldn't hear the hopping of the two older Buck's escaping the train, he couldn't hear the flapping of the looming kestrel, but he could hear the growling belly of the hungry wolf; if there was one good action a Hare could make it was making a wolf's belly empty for one day.
Suddenly, he felt a warm nose nuzzle him in his dirty but still pink and moist nose. His eyes just shot open, reacting with the same energy his heart had, and he gazed at the one he thought was an elil checking to see if he was a cold sack, easy pickings.
What he saw wasn't a elil, a fellow animal who enjoyed the sweetness of flayrah or the profound boring taste of flay, or even real for that matter.
He saw the transparent face of his grandpa.
"That wasn't bad for your first dive," the apparition told him in his grandfather's mellifluous voice. "You know a Hare is good at surviving when he can put his life on the line to avoid being a chew toy for Frith's greatest zorn."
Tacca's whiskers made a trilling sound while he looked forlorn at the dirt.
"No...no more. Your suppose to be resting. Momma and papa came to see me, your just away."
"Your mother and father just wanted to see you one last time, I think we both know so long as you make it through the day to rest for the night there will always be time to see them again."
"But they never help me; it's always 'stay with your grandpa', 'listen to your grandpa', 'someday grandpa will need you more than you'll need him'—how can I listen to any of it in my sleep when your gone?"
Tacca could hear it now, wouldn't be much longer until Ebony and Blackcurrant escaped and hopped their way to him, but he didn't want to look completely delusional like a tharn rabbit.
Even the apparition knew Tacca didn't need to hear anything that came out of his mouth; he nuzzled his nose against his grandson kitten before helping him up using his mouth on his neck.
Now Tacca felt the energy he needed to stand on his quadruple paws again, Ebony the first to reach/comfort him.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm deeply sorry Tacca. I put you in danger and there's nothing I can say that can make it up to you for it. Are you okay?"
Tacca had to move his quadruple's to make sure he was okay. He seemed to be as his legs bent without any searing sensations in his bones and he could get back up to look at Ebony and Blackcurrant.
Suddenly, a looming threat came down and plowed into the kitten!
Tacca couldn't see what got him, but since he was still on the ground without a talon slicing his fur he could only be thankful it wasn't a hawk.
He got to see the orifice of his elil, the kestrel that has been soaring over him, as it pecked its tiny beak in his face.
All Tacca could do was flail his legs as the tiny bird was so helter-skelter and tiny he dodged all his leg movements. But he was relieved from the birds beak by another fast moving object tumbling precipitously into a solid object, Blackcurrant.
At first the rabbit was on top of the much smaller kestrel, but with his mouth he raised it up, fluttering its wings to try to escape the capture.
Ebony helped Tacca get back up the same way Blackcurrant captured the bird, raising him up by his neck but putting him at a distance safe enough to look at his elil.
"Do you speak Lapine?" Ebony finally asked.
It made lots of chirping noises, was enraged to be captured, and through it all Ebony got no word out of it.
Nevertheless, Ebony was listening to every loud bleep that cooed out of the birds orifice, all while keeping his adult paw over Tacca's tiny little one.
Tacca didn't know why this older Buck was acting like he was his father or his big brother, just that it made him feel like he was weak.
He was going to get to know a new side of Ebony from just one thing he saw to Blackcurrant.
"Bring the kestrel closer."
Blackcurrant moved with an unfettered conviction closer. Tacca went tharn thinking that tiny bird was going to pluck its beak in his fur. He just froze seeing it getting closer, unguarded, alone.
He squeezed his eyes shut trying not to see this elil and its ravenous beak.
Ebony's eyes were still open. He could see the shivering, the fear and the uneasiness in the little Buck's face—he could also feel the tiny prickle of the kestrel's beaks chewing on his fur.
While the kestrel was munching on the tiny little fleas hidden in the groves that was his fur like a freshly grown piece of Flayrah, Tacca opened his eyes in the tinniest of sliver.
The kestrel was still pecking away by the time that tiny kitten managed to fully open his eyes and see his new guardian shielding him from the fury that was the tiniest elil any hare ever had to encounter.
Even though his tongue felt tied due to how hard he was shivering and clenching his sharp teeth in all this excitement, he asked "What are you doing?"
Ebony looked at him with a face that was akin to a sobbing Buck, until he smiled at him with an invigorant smile. "We haven't bathed in a few days; it has caused some little insects called fleas to take a ride on our backs. I'm just letting this hungry kestrel have a bit of my fleas...which is odd because I thought they only eat mice."
"I'm just letting it have a little nibble, hope it fills its belly...let it gorge on our own pests, then we can push on...maybe take a bath while we're on the path."
Blackcurrant has been quiet throughout this endeavor, and he still couldn't speak with the kestrel in his mouth, but after over a dozen nibbles on his newly made friends' back, he twirled his head in the air and let go of its wings.
The kestrel adapted to its swirl managing to flap its wings and fly to the sky without even bothering to turn around and face the Buck's it went through much strain just to nibble on.
It's presence immediately flitted out of all three Buck's ears as they hopped their way to the path: a dirt road between trees and human nesting places.
The road felt completely different from the flay they eat on, inedible rocks that were rough in-between their toes.
They hopped in a straight line, Blackcurrant observing the foliage on the left while Tacca observed the big plump wood with multiple colors strewn all over it.
Ebony was the Buck in charge of seeing the shimmering light overcast by the foliage above all the pillars of wood looming above them—Frith was behind them but this was candescent for the eyes.
They hopped, they smelled the fresh air, they saw all the things humans had. A doe in Ebony's warren once talked about how human's blood was metallic and henceforth needed to have machines to match their bodies.
None of those hruduru's or tools leaning against the surface of their nesting homes compared to the giant gray metal box with three giant towers beside it. In the time they found this human home, Tacca's attention flitted to it, and being a younger kitten he had questions—and Ebony was a patient enough Hare to answer them.
"Humans don't seem like they would like living there."
"They don't. If you listen to this place you can hear animals. They are not Hare's or elil's, they are just animals humans like to stuff food down before eating."
Tacca knew humans were guilty of deplorable acts, but just keeping animals stuck in one place to feed and then butcher them was cruel. If only their was a colloquial way humans could learn Lapine, but other rabbits harm rabbits for territories or does so in Tacca's mind:
'Why should I put any faith in humans?'
Their journey had them crossing a dirt path too small and narrow for a hruduru to be anywhere near to leaping over streams of water to get to the other side. When they were hungry there was plenty of leaf's to eat by the bark of trees.
They let cuddled up Ebony with his face on the dirt, Tacca sleeping on Ebony's right leg, and Blackcurrant adjacent to them in a circle of protection shrouded by tall grass; his paw touching Tacca's little back-legs.
They slept soundly thinking of the fleeting jaws of elil, but it quickly vanished like water on flay. They all dreamed of a better place they could call their homeland.
When Ebony woke up first, he made sure to wake up Blackcurrant and Tacca as well. It wasn't fair for them to sleep longer than him-maybe for Tacca but sleeping for the same amount of time as his elder Buck would shape him into a rugged Hare trustworthy enough to watch over his fellow owsla.
They hopped down many fields, not one didn't cause Tacca to not looking around as if they were in a field of mist.
Eventually Blackcurrant had had enough of Tacca being such a worrywart.
"The homba's, the wolves, the weasels, and even the hawks are not anywhere around here. You don't need to keep being afraid. Even if they were here, they don't go on roads the humans roam through."
"I'm not doing this because I'm afraid," Tacca argued. "Grandpa and I would always make sure we turn our heads around every time we read a new area for safety." Tacca's ears started to trill as his eyes blinked excessively. He was trying to hold back his tears. "We've done it so many times...it's felt like a game to us."
"I know it's hard to move on past things your grandfather and you have done, but right now your making my spine tingle just from how many times you've-"
"Wait...Tacca, Blackcurrant...do you hear that?" Ebony spoke interjecting himself in their conversation.
Tacca and Blackcurrant perked their floppy ears up to listen. At first there wasn't the vibrating sound in their hums indicating loud noise, but in a delayed moment they heard the sound of chatter and all its excitement.
"More animals?" Tacca asked.
"Not just more animals, my young kitten." Ebony took three strideful hops towards the forest across their path. "Rabbits...maybe Hares. I think we found another warren."