Chapter 247: The Other Troublemakers.

"But don't worry: living with me, in our own country, you will have a much more robust and complete physical therapy than you could have lived here, amidst the ruins [...]"

-GylmarGeniusCat, Sally and Bunnie Rescue Tails

Most of the rabbits at Watership Down spent their afternoon hard at work. Some went to gather supplies: Holly supervised a raid at Nuthanger Farm, so that the warren would have enough food to withstand a siege. Others, meanwhile, stayed at the warren, preparing defences.

The latter group included Pipkin and his junior owsla, who were digging a defensive trench around the warren. The work was moving forward reasonably well: despite the kittens' short paws, there were four of them, not counting Pipkin. There was also another group of (adult) diggers working on their own trench further away; the two groups would eventually meet in the middle.

Gilia, however, was digging more slowly than her siblings. She recognized the importance of her current work, but internally, she was still fuming over what she perceived as unfair rules imposed by her parents. It had been a full day since she had last spoken with Blueberry; it felt like an eternity to her. While not an adult yet, she would be one soon, and then she would be free to do whatever she wanted, but until then, she remained angry.

As she raised her head to look out of the trench, she saw her crush further away; he was hard at work sharpening some sticks, alone. Her parents had forbidden her from seeing him (this was part of the reason why they were assigned separate tasks), but that was one order she never intended to obey. In fact, she would be going to see him right away, it was much overdue. To avoid attracting suspicion, she told Pipkin the same, overused excuse: she was going to pass hraka. But instead of going to a secluded corner, she sat down right next to Blueberry.

-"Hey!"

-"Hey," Blueberry replied, not taking his eyes off the sticks he was sharpening.

-"I'm sorry about what happened on our mission yesterday."

-"It's fine, it's not your fault."

-"Since it didn't work out yesterday, we could try again today. Hopefully we'll have better luck."

Blueberry finally looked at Gilia, but it was with sadness that he responded to her suggestion.

-"No."

-"No? Why not?" If anything, Gilia seemed even more disappointed than Blueberry that the mission wasn't happening after all.

-"It's too late."

-"It's never too late for you to get your memories back!"

-"Maybe something could be done about that later on, but not today. Based on the dream I had, getting my memories back was supposed to be the key to stopping Woundwort. But if he's already on his way here to attack, it's too late: short of discovering how to perform instant teleportation, there's no way we would make it there and back before the battle..." Blueberry stopped for a few moments, his eyes almost glowing as he made an amazing discovery. "Wait, that's it! I have to invent a way to teleport. This would allow to go directly to the other side of the water, bypassing the lengthy and dangerous journey. In fact, this is actually the key to destroying Woundwort! When he arrives here, I could just teleport him and his owsla to the middle of the Big Water, and they would all drown before they could fight us. Gilia, you're a genius."

It was around this point that Pipkin was starting to get suspicious: Gilia was taking a long time to pass hraka. He hopped out of the trench, and instantly saw the two kittens talking together. There she was at it again, disobeying orders! He would have to report this violation of the rules to her parents.

-"You three, don't move," he told the three remaining kittens. "I'll be right back."

While Pipkin made his way underground, Gilia could hardly believe her ears as she heard Blueberry's plan.

-"You're going to build a teleporter? How? Even El-ahrairah never did that."

-"I'm not sure," Blueberry admitted. "Supplies at this warren are scarce, and there isn't enough time for me to go scavenging at Nuthanger Farm for more advanced technologies that I could add to my prototype. Not to mention that the adults probably would not let me go there anyway. But I strongly believe that it is my destiny to invent this. I will get to work right away, I don't have much time."

Blueberry quickly ran off underground; Gilia did not follow him. She was left with mixed feelings about the whole situation. Blueberry's plan was ambitious and, as much as it pained her to admit, nonsensical: while he had a specific goal in mind, he had no clear idea how to accomplish it, if it was even possible. Not to mention that drowning Woundwort and his entire owsla sounded very gruesome.

This also made her question her plan of going to the other side of the Big Water. Blueberry originally got that idea in a dream, but was that reliable? Neither Fiver nor Silverweed had provided any input, and Blueberry had not shown any signs of having similar abilities either. Perhaps it was for the best that her siblings had stopped this mission...

She looked at the ground; Blueberry rushing off to invent teleportation meant that he had abandoned his prior task, and there were still several sticks in need of sharpening. Perhaps she could do that.

After seeing that everyone was hard at work, Hazel returned to his burrow to check up on his mate. When he got there, he was saddened to see Primrose shivering.

-"What's wrong?"

-"I'm afraid," Primrose admitted. "What if we lose?"

-"We won't lose."

-"But if we do...the ones who die will be lucky. Who knows what Woundwort will do with the survivors. And Vervain...he will make me his eternal slave, just like he promised."

-"I'm making you my own promise, dear. We will survive the battle and live for many more seasons. You will not be anyone's slave. We will defeat Darkhaven. They won't stand a chance against us."

-"Thanks Hazel." Primrose nuzzled her mate. "What can I do to help?"

-"When the time comes, you will stay underground and keep the children safe. Until then, do you feel capable of helping the diggers?"

-"I'll do my best."

-"I know you will. I have to go now, though, and help Bigwig with planning."

-"I understand. I love you Hazel."

-"Love you too Primrose."

Hazel had barely left his burrow, when he ran into Pipkin.

-"Is something wrong?" he asked, upon seeing the concerned expression on the small rabbit's face.

-"Your daughter is speaking with the forbidden one again," was Pipkin's explanation.

Hazel sighed: not only did he had to deal with his warren facing an imminent invasion, his daughter was still misbehaving.

-"Thanks for letting me know, Pipkin," he replied. "Me and Primrose will go talk to her right now."

Meanwhile, Lady May was lying in Blackberry's burrow. She was surrounded by healing herbs, but she was unaware of their purpose, leaving her annoyed at their foul smell. It took what felt to her like a long time before the healer finally arrived.

The two does had briefly met during a raid at her former home at Bramble Cottage. The encounter had not gone very well, with Lady May dismissing Watership Down as "ghastly". The situation was highly awkward, as both rabbits recognized each other, and fully remembered this past incident, although neither was particularly willing to bring it up.

-"Lady May, is it?" Blackberry eventually asked.

-"Yes. You are?"

-"I'm Blackberry."

-"Oh, you're the one the others have been talking about. You're going to heal me or something."

-"I will certainly try. Are you currently in pain?"

-"To tell you the truth, I've been in pain for most of my life."

This was a bit of an exaggeration: while Lady May was often uncomfortable due to her long fur, this was rarely painful, at least until the unfortunate training accident in Darkhaven.

-"Where does it hurt at the moment?" Blackberry clarified her question.

-"My paw."

It did not take long for Blackberry to find what Lady May was talking about: one her front paws was twisted at an unnatural angle; while there was no bleeding, it still looked highly painful.

-"That's a nasty wound. How did you get this?"

-"A few days ago, I jumped."

-"What did you jump off? A cliff?"

-"Nothing. I just jumped."

Blackberry almost cringed. If Lady May was telling the truth, then she was really fragile, to have sustained such a major injury so easily.

-"This might hurt for a bit, but it will be better afterwards."

Blackberry tried to turn the paw back into its natural position, prompting a squeal on Lady May's part. The next step involved wrapping leaves around it; Blackberry applied several layers, until there was thick padding all around it. Lady May looked down in confusion, and started chewing the leaves.

-"No, don't do that," Blackberry warned. "If you do, I may be forced to remove your paw entirely."

-"But how am I supposed to walk like this?"

-"You're not. That's exactly the point. You'll have to rely on others to bring you food until the wound has healed."

-"That's...that's undignified!"

-"Unfortunately, it's the only way I can make sure your injuries heal properly. And it's not going to be like this forever: perhaps one day, you will be able to walk again one day."

Blackberry started to hop out of the burrow, leaving Lady May confused.

-"Where are you going?"

-"I'm going out to gather healing herbs. As you probably heard, there's going to be a battle, and that means injuries. I need to stock up on healing herbs before then, my supplies are running short, especially after all the leaves I used on you. I would ask you if you want to accompany me, but with your paw, you're in no shape to venture out."

-"What should I do?"

-"Stay here and rest."

-"But that's boring!" Lady May truly complained about everything.

-"More boring than hutch life?" Blackberry chuckled. "I'll see if Clover wants to visit you. You two might bond over a shared past."