AUTHOR'S NOTE: thank you TheRanger101 for the review. I have some special plans for Vervain later on.
This chapter features a few minor crossovers. Once again, this is almost a one-time thing and won't be a recurring part of the story. Overall I'm not that satisfied with this one, but hopefully you will all still like it.
Chapter 63: Transportation.
"Now, still, after these long generations past, they still meet every now and then, and again they meet in battles of epic scale that no one will ever forget, let alone be lucky enough to see."
-Psyber, General Woundwort
The train station was very busy at this time of day and, strangely enough, nearly everyone wanted tickets for the same train.
Among the travellers at the station was a scarred young man. A few days ago, he had been involved in a car accident with a gasoline truck; both drivers involved had been lucky to escape with their lives. However, his driver's license had been suspended indefinitely following the accident. It wasn't the first time this happened. On previous occasions, he drove anyway, but this time, his vehicle had been completely destroyed. To make things worse, the wreckage was filthy, covered with animal blood; no scrap metal could be salvaged. He would have to buy a new vehicle, but until then, he had no choice but to take the train to go to work.
After obtaining the ticket and boarding the train, he had trouble finding a seat: only two were still available. He sat down and glanced at the two passengers in front of him. They appeared to be teenagers; one had a red sweater, while the other was wearing a yellow shirt and a purple skirt. Both of them were wearing sunglasses and staring at him; they didn't seem pleased. He couldn't understand why, but he remained silent.
On the other side of the wagon, there was an old man, holding a book of some sort, clearly absorbed in his reading. A few minutes later, a young blue-haired woman took the last available seat, in front of the reader, and put a suitcase down on the floor next to her seat. He did not react to her arrival, and the train departed soon afterwards.
For the first ten minutes of the journey, things appeared to be going well; the only notable event was when three kids ran across the wagon, jumping on the seats and annoying everyone along the way. The bad driver's face was briefly tickled by one of the kid's tail. Wait what? Why did that kid have a tail? Were they wearing costumes? It didn't make any sense.
Meanwhile, the woman suddenly opened her suitcase and pulled out two wooden sticks.
-"You wanna see a magic trick?"
-"Hmm?" The reader momentarily looked at her. "I'm sorry, I was reading..."
-"Come on, it won't take long!"
She pulled a box of matches out of her vest pocket, and used one to light one of the sticks on fire.
-"Here, hold this." She threw the stick at the reader before he could react, and he had no choice but to hold it.
A few seats away, the driver could see three teenagers sitting together. He had a bad feeling about them, but he couldn't quite understand it.
-"Uh, should I pull the emergency brake?" one of them, wearing a blue shirt, asked.
-"Not yet," the one sitting next to him said. "I want to see how this turns out."
Meanwhile, the woman had lit the second stick on fire, and she carelessly threw the still-lit match out of the window. She then took the lit torch out of the reader's hands, so that she held one in each hand.
-"I don't think she's really a witch," another of the three teenagers, the only girl, said. "I think she's faking it, but I don't know what she's trying to accomplish."
The woman held one stick over the other for a few moments, before dropping it. It fell into the other fire, and the two fires merged into one.
-"It's fire on fire!" she said with a grin.
-"Thanks for the demonstration, now if I can just go back to my book..."
-"Am I offending you? Am I inappropriate?"
Still holding the lit torch, she stood up on her seat.
-"I really want to pull the brakes..." the teenager in blue said, clearly even more nervous than a few minutes before.
-"Not yet," his companion repeated. "This is just getting exciting."
-"I certainly didn't expect THAT to happen," the girl added.
The reader looked up at the woman, clearly terrified.
-"Your silly little stories are quite laughable!" the amateur magician kept shouting. "You're not using a smartphone or an e-reader to read your stupid book, you're using paper! You're an old joke!"
Clearly losing all traces of sanity, she started laughing loudly.
The car accident survivor had watched the entire scene unfold with increasing fear. By the time the woman started shouting, he was unable to contain himself anymore.
-"That's a fire hazard!" he shouted.
Moments later, a young man burst out of nowhere with a fire extinguisher and sprayed both the woman and the man in front of her for almost ten seconds, shouting wildly the whole time. He had a very strong accent, preventing the bad driver from understanding what he was saying, although he made out a few words: "don't play with fire around the kids".
-"I just wanted to read my book," the old man said as he tried to wipe the foam off his clothes.
-"A highly predictable outcome when you don't respect the privacy of fellow passengers," one of the kids said, pulling a book out from his pocket. "According to the J..."
-"That's it, I'm pulling the brakes now," the kid in blue said.
-"I'll get it!" the girl shouted. Within moments, she pulled a weirdly-shaped object out from behind her and dashed over the passenger's heads towards the emergency brake.
Suddenly, the green bag next to the two remaining teenagers moved. The bad driver suddenly realized that it wasn't a bag at all, but a fourth teenager, wearing a hoodie and playing with his smartphone.
-"Why are we stopping?" the teenager said cluelessly.
-"Louie..." one of the others said, "you just missed something very exciting."
-"Exciting!?" The one in blue clearly didn't agree with this statement.
-"Yeah, meh, whatevs," Louie replied, not taking his eyes off his phone.
-"Now, time to teach her a lesson!" the girl shouted, as she dashed towards the fake witch. With a few well-aimed kicks at precise locations, she soon stood triumphantly over the fire magician. Only now was the driver able to identify why he had a bad feeling about her and her companions.
-"You look worried," one of the teenagers in front of him said.
-"You should be," her boyfriend added.
-"W- w- who are you?" the driver stammered.
As the two teenagers dramatically removed their sunglasses, the man in front of them saw two giant rabbits. The male one had blue fur, while the female one was pink instead, and had ribbons at the tips of her ears.
-"I'm Buster Bunny."
-"And I'm Babs Bunny."
-"No relation," they both said at once.
-"And you," Buster added, "are a rabbit killer."
-"And you thought you could get away with it," Babs said.
Suddenly, Buster pulled out an anvil from behind his back; Babs produced a wooden mallet.
-"We'll see you again tonight," they said, before walking away.
The bad driver was petrified by this encounter. He did not notice the arrival of a few police officers, who arrested the woman and cleaned up the mess caused by the fire extinguisher. After their departure, the train resumed its journey toward its destination, and the old man was able to continue reading his book in peace.
Unbeknownst to any of the passengers, the lit match thrown out of the window had landed in a puddle of gasoline next to the tracks, the same puddle Campion had fallen into the previous evening. The gasoline burst into flames, and the fire soon spread into the nearby forest.
Pipkin was at silflay at Watership Down. He was nearly alone, as most rabbits were in the honeycomb to witness Hazel's interviews. The only other rabbits above ground were Clover and Flora, who appeared to be playing a game of some sort.
Suddenly, he noticed another rabbit further away. He could not recall having seen this rabbit in the past, so he hopped over to him.
-"Hello," the stranger said. "How are you?"
-"I'm fine," Pipkin replied, slightly taken aback. "You?"
-"I'm lonely."
-"Sorry about that."
-"What's your name?"
-"I'm Pipkin. What's yours?"
-"You can call me Vesper. Would you want to be my friend?"
Pipkin remained silent for a few moments, thinking it over. He felt uncertain about the stranger.
-"Uh, sure?"
-"Thank you," Vesper said, as he nuzzled Pipkin.
-"So, what brings you here, Vesper?"
-"I was looking for a river. You see, I have a boat, but it's useless unless I have a place to use it."
-"There is a river nearby. Look for a collapsing stone bridge, and you can't miss it."
-"Thank you. I best be going now."
-"Leaving so soon? But you just arrived."
-"There appears to be a storm on the way, so I don't have long to get to the river. But I suppose I could stay a bit longer."
The two rabbits resumed your silflay.
-"Would you be interested in joining the warren?" Pipkin eventually asked.
-"Warren? What warren?"
-"This warren. It's called Watership Down, the main entrance is right behind me."
A look of nervousness appeared on Vesper's face.
-"What's wrong?" Pipkin asked.
-"I'm not ready for warren life."
-"Why not?"
-"I'm really not good at making friends. You're only the second one in seasons who hasn't turned me down. And when it comes to love, it always falls apart. This is why I've been a hlessi for seasons."
-"I'm sorry you've gone through this, but we're a friendly bunch. The doe called Strawberry in particular, seems to be longing for friends. I'm sure you have nothing to worry about."
-"Can you give me a few days, to think it over?"
-"Of course. But I hope you will decide to join us."
-"Thank you. But now, I really have to go. Pleasure meeting you Pipkin, dear friend."
-"You too."
Vesper picked up Pipkin and hugged him.
-"Ciao," he said, as he put the smaller rabbit back down and hopped away.
Pipkin remained at the bottom of the Down for a while. This encounter with the lonely hlessi had left him shaken. He really hoped Vesper's situation would improve, but there seemed to be little he could do to help, unless the hlessi decided to return to the warren. Eventually, he slowly hopped back to the warren.