Chapter 181: Spartina's Confession.

"Everybody was happy and they had peace for a long time."

-lilyqueen777, Watership Down Continuation

The sun was slowly rising over the horizon. At Watership Down, a certain number of rabbits were at silflay, a few cautiously looking into the distance, just in case danger struck.

Flyairth appeared in a better mood than the previous day. She chose to silflay near the Efrafan survivors, despite having had little contact with them in the past. They seemed to be enjoying her presence, and rapidly becoming friends with her.

Spartina was calmly hopping throughout the area. Her Darkhaven past had been weighing on her mind ever since she had remembered it. She would have to tell the others, and now seemed like a perfect time to do so: everyone appeared in a good mood, so it would be less likely that they would lash out at her. It was still possible (she was revealing that she used to be with their enemy, after all) but she would be doing everything she could to reduce the odds of that happening.

Unfortunately, as she looked around her, she saw that none of the Chiefs were above ground. It was still early; perhaps they would come later. Still, she didn't like the idea of waiting: other duties would probably keep them busy. As she saw Bigwig, she decided that she would tell him first: he was the highest-ranked rabbit available, and she got along well with him. She hopped over to him, and started to casually nibble the grass, waiting to see if he would speak first; he did.

-"Good morning."

-"We need to talk about Darkhaven," the doe replied, getting straight to the point.

-"Do you have any suggestions for ways we could defeat them?"

-"Well..." Spartina knowledge of Darkhaven's inner workings could end up being useful, but it might not be enough to ensure the Watershippers' victory. "...yes, and no."

-"I don't quite follow."

-"I encountered them in the past, before I lived here."

-"Oh...did you win?"

-"There were no winners." This was technically true: while the Darkhaveners defeated nearly everyone they attacked, they still failed morally, by choosing to fight these pointless wars in the first place.

-"I'm sorry." Bigwig shook his head in sadness. "You must have lost many friends in the battle..."

The truth was that Spartina had not lost a single friend, in any battle. While some of her fighting partners did get killed sometimes, she did not consider any of them "friends": there was no point in getting attached to anyone, since they were all going to die soon anyway. Nevertheless, she was starting to feel bad, for giving Bigwig a misleading impression of her past situation.

-"It's not what you think. I wasn't attacked by the Darkhaveners. I...I was with them."

Bigwig abruptly stopped chewing the grass as he heard this. He had not expected the doe to make such a shocking revelation. His silence left Spartina anxious: maybe he wouldn't react as calmly as she had initially suspected.

-"You're from Darkhaven?" he finally said. His reaction was one of disbelief; this was not as bad as it could have been, Spartina reasoned, considering his extended silence.

-"Yes. I understand you probably have a lot of questions, so here goes. Why am I no longer with them? I was injured in a battle, they left me for dead. Why didn't I confess earlier? I had amnesia following the battle, and only regained my memories when we encountered Woundwort just before things went weird. Am I a spy? No, and for the record I don't think Blueberry was one either, I never saw him in Darkhaven when I was there. What do I plan to do now? That largely depends on what you choose to do with me now that you know the truth."

Spartina stopped to catch her breath, and awaited Bigwig's response. He was still staring at her, still silent. Had she overwhelmed him by answering so many questions before he could even ask them? Was he mentally preparing a plan of attack? Spartina was staring to fear the worst.

-"If you don't want me living here anymore, I understand," she said. She was aware that, by speaking again, she may be making the situation worse, but there were still more things she felt needed to be said. "But this warren is such a great place; I never realized until now how terrible Darkhaven was until I discovered this warren. If you will have me, I would love to stay."

This was followed by further silence on Bigwig's part. The longer he took to speak, the more stressed Spartina became. At this point, even getting kicked out of the warren would be preferable to waiting much longer for a response.

-"Ultimately, it'll be up to the new council of Chiefs to decide if you can stay here. But I don't have any objections, and I doubt they will either."

-"Really?" Considering Bigwig's extended silence, she was expecting a stronger reaction than that. "You would have no objections to a former enemy living with you?"

-"You wouldn't be the first one. Strawberry, Silverweed, Silver, Hickory and Marigold were all part of Cowslip's warren, another enemy we had to deal with in the past. Now, they all live here, and get along with the rest of us. There's also Campion, a former Efrafan captain, who is now working against Woundwort from within Darkhaven."

-"I doubt any of them hurt or killed as many rabbits as I have."

-"You would be surprised. Cowslip's warren was filled with snares; the rabbits there knew and accepted it. While they didn't kill anyone directly, they were still complicit in the deaths of those who were snared."

-"That sounds like a horrible place."

-"It's worse than you can imagine. I almost died there." Bigwig shuddered. "But enough about those freaks, let's talk about you. It was brave of you to tell me about your origins. A lesser rabbit would have kept this a secret forever. I'm grateful that you're with us now."

-"Thank you..."

Bigwig nuzzled Spartina, hoping to cheer her up: this confession couldn't have been easy for her.

-"So, I can stay, then?" she asked.

-"Like I said, it's up to the Chiefs. But my prediction is that yes, you can."

The news of Spartina's past quickly spread throughout the warren. The first to find out, after Bigwig, were other rabbits at silflay who had overheard the two rabbits' conversation. The Chiefs eventually found out; like Bigwig had predicted, they had no objections to letting her stay at the warren.

When the day's owsla training session began, Bigwig announced the truth about Spartina to everyone, and warned that anyone who had objections to training with her would be dismissed, permanently. Following this, nobody objected, although Spartina was unsure whether it was because they really were willing to accept her, or whether they were just terrified of Bigwig.

Later in the afternoon, Bigwig took a short break for silflay, and in his absence, allowed Spartina to teach the others some of the special moves she had learned in Darkhaven, an opportunity she greatly welcomed. She was rather pleased with the way this turned out, apart from a few rabbits complaining that they weren't allowed to take a silflay breaks like Bigwig was. After this incident, Bigwig relented, and let them have a short break (but even then, they still complained that the break was too short).

That evening, after training had ended for the day, Spartina received a lot of visitors at silflay. It seemed everyone wanted to know about life in Darkhaven. Nobody accused her; instead, she was asked many different questions. While some of them were reasonable, others were extremely silly, such as the location of her favourite patch of grass (to which the answer was, she didn't have one, because there was no decent grass in Darkhaven). She did her best to answer all questions truthfully, no matter how illogical they seemed to her: the other rabbits were clearly curious enough to ask, they deserved to know. Besides, she had to do everything she could to redeem herself following the horrible things she had done in the past; this was only the beginning, she still had much more to do.