Chapter 182: Heather and Hannah.

"That night, he sat staring at his reflection for a long time. That was the night he realized that even if he could clear his name, he could never go home. Because, if he went back, who would recognize him?"

-Keeralie Starflight, Over The Hills And Far Away

It was around mid-day when Hazel first went above ground. He had been kept busy most of the morning by the kittens, who wanted to play games. Some recent incidents had reminded him how painfully quickly they were growing up, so he was determined to make most of the time they still had.

When he finally went above ground to silflay, it did not take long for someone to approach him; it turned out to be Heather.

-"What do you see in this warren's future?"

-"You should ask Fiver, he's the one who can see the future," Hazel said with a chuckle.

-"But you're one of the Chiefs. Do you have anything planned for the future?"

-"It all depends on what ends up happening with Woundwort. If he is defeated, I see a great future for this warren, although no special plans. What brings this up?"

-"I'm a bit worried, that this warren may be too large for its own good."

-"Are we running out of burrows?" Hazel hadn't seen anyone sleeping in tunnels or the Honeycomb, but he could have missed something.

-"No, there are enough for all of us. It took a lot of digging recently to get there, though."

-"In that case, I'm not sure what the issue is." Hazel resumed his nibbling. "The fact that we have so many rabbits should ensure our future for generations to come."

-"Indeed, it's important for the warren to have enough rabbits. But too many is just as bad as not enough: we may end up attracting the attention of elil, or humans."

-"I wouldn't worry too much about humans: the only ones in the area would be the farmer from Nuthanger Farm, and his family. They never tried to destroy our warren, even after we helped their hutch rabbits escape. We just have to be careful when raiding their flayrah garden, because they have thundersticks, not to mention Tabitha and Duster."

-"That's reassuring."

Heather did appear to be feeling better after hearing Hazel's words, and started to silflay alongside him. After a few minutes, however, she thought of something else.

-"What about food? With so many of us, we may be eating the grass and clovers around the warren faster than they could grow back, which would force us to venture further and further for a decent silflay."

-"You know, that reminds me of an incident earlier this spring. A bunch of sheep arrived on the Down overnight. Sheep eat grass, like us, but they ripped it out by the roots, preventing it from growing back. There was also a goat with them; it chewed some of the bark off the tree, which would have killed it had this gone on much longer. Not to mention, large elil like eagles also appeared, hoping to get at the lambs."

-"That sounds highly unpleasant, to say the least. How did you get rid of them?"

-"We lured a sheepdog to the warren so it could herd the sheep away, back to their farm. Not Nuthanger Farm, but another one, distant enough that going there for flayrah raids wouldn't be practical."

-"I assume you've never seen the sheep again afterwards?"

-"Indeed, we haven't, and it's for the best: their presence was an awful nuisance, and the dislike appeared mutual."

-"What about the grass, and the tree?"

-"The tree appears still alive, for now anyway; we got rid of the goat before it could do too much damage. As for the grass, as predicted, much of it didn't grow back, but once again, we got rid of the sheep in time, before the Down was stripped bare."

-"It's great you were able to avoid a potential disaster this way."

The two rabbits returned to their silflay. Once again, Heather thought of another question, a few minutes later.

-"There's something I don't understand, about Redstone. From what I hear, the warren initially fell victim to the great sickness, with only Captain Broom surviving. Later on, Hickory, Marigold and the others chose to rebuild a new society in the abandoned warren."

-"That is correct, yes," Hazel confirmed.

-"Why did they choose to move to a former plague warren, as opposed to staying here? Weren't they afraid of the sickness returning, and killing them all once again? In the end, they did die out again, just not due to the sickness. The warren was destroyed twice! One could almost assume that it was cursed or something."

-"We did invite them to live here, but they turned us down, they really wanted to lead their warren. They went to Redstone because it already existed, which saved them the trouble of digging a whole new warren themselves." As he thought back about it, Hazel realized that this decision had inadvertently doomed them: if they had chosen to live at Watership Down, they would not have perished in Redstone's destruction. While the warren would still have caved in, there would have been nobody living there, and therefore no fatalities. "There was also the added advantage that there would be two warrens against Woundwort, as opposed to just one. As for the sickness, you make a valid point. We were very fortunate that it did not return, or we might have fallen victim to it too."

-"Fortunate indeed...what you said about 'two warrens against Woundwort' makes me think, though. With Redstone gone now, you have no place to run to in case Woundwort attacks."

This was something that Hazel had not considered.

-"You're right," he admitted. "Hopefully it won't be necessary, but there's no harm in being prepared. What do you suggest?"

-"That some of us would leave this warren to set up a second one elsewhere. We would maintain friendly relations, and if one warren gets attacked, everyone could flee to the other one. Would that be a good idea?"

-"I can see your points, a second warren isn't a bad idea. This isn't Efrafa, anyone who wishes to leave is free to do so. That said, whether this new warren would be viable would probably depend on whether enough rabbits would be interested in joining it. Did you convince anyone else so far? Moss, perhaps?"

-"I should probably go check on Moss. But later. And it's not actually my idea: it was Flyairth who suggested it, earlier this morning. She told a few others, not sure the exact number, and I don't know if Moss was among them. I just wanted to hear your opinion because you're the leader. One of them, anyway."

This new information left Hazel with mixed feelings. This idea was suspiciously similar to Flyairth's previous suggestion of abandoning Watership Down. That idea had been rejected by everyone else at the warren, and she appeared to have moved on. Now, she was suggesting something less drastic, but he couldn't help wonder whether she had any additional motivations she wasn't publicly revealing. His thoughts were interrupted as he heard another feminine voice:

-"Good afternoon, rabbits!"

Hazel was unable to recognize the voice, leaving him anxious. In the past, he had always been able to quickly identify all rabbits at the warren by their voice, but he did not recall ever hearing this one before. Could it be that of one of the other Efrafan survivors? He didn't get to know them all too well individually, but he was sure there were no does among them except Heather.

There was also the fact that the speaker had addressed the crowd as "rabbits", as opposed to "everyone" or something else. The only creature he had ever heard do that before was Hannah, and this sounded nothing like her.

-"Good...afternoon?" he replied nervously. Hopefully the other rabbit wouldn't be too offended at the generic response.

-"What's the matter, Hazel?" Hannah walked over to Hazel, and he realized, with great confusion, that it really was her talking. "The way you're acting, it doesn't sound like a good afternoon at all. Has Woundwort done something evil again?"

-"Uh, no, Woundwort hasn't done anything that I know of. It's just...you sound weird. Are you ill?"

-"No, I'm not ill, I..."

-"That's not Hannah!" captain Broom suddenly shouted. "Woundwort kidnapped the real Hannah and replaced her with this imposter."

-"I'm not an imposter, it's just that Brain visited last night and..."

Before Hannah could finish her sentence, she was tackled by the elderly captain.

-"What did you do with the real Hannah?" captain Broom shouted, ready to smack the mouse in the face. Fortunately, Hazel held him back.

-"Stop! Don't hurt her!"

-"Why shouldn't I? She's working for the enemy."

-"If you're right, there's no need to beat the answers out of her, when Silverweed can easily obtain them without her fighting back. If you're wrong, then you would be hurting an innocent creature."

Captain Broom sighed.

-"You and your new ways of thinking...why try new ways when the old ones work just as well..."

-"I'll go get Silverweed now. Hopefully he's not asleep."

-"Oof!" Hannah was not pleased with the delay. "Waiting, waiting, nothing but waiting..."

-"I'll keep an eye on her, so she doesn't try to run away," captain Broom said.

-"And I will keep an eye on you," Holly said, hopping over to Broom, "to make sure you don't do anything foolish."

Silverweed was indeed asleep, although upon subconsciously sensing Hazel's presence at his burrow's entrance, he woke up. He instantly realized what was happening: he would have to look into someone's heart again.

-"Who is it this time?" he asked with a sigh.

-"Hannah, the mouse," Hazel replied.

-"What am I looking for?"

-"If it's really Hannah, or an evil twin."

-"For real?"

-"I'll admit it's a weird request, but Captain Broom seems convinced that the real Hannah's been kidnapped."

-"Take me to her."

As Silverweed had asked, Hazel led him above ground, where Holly and Broom were guarding Hannah. Once there, he placed his paw on captain Broom's chest, and his eyes started to glow.

-"What are you doing?" the captain asked. "You're supposed to look at the mouse's heart, not mine."

A few moments later, Silverweed removed his paw.

-"I had to look into your heart first, to see if you really believed that she's an imposter, or if you were just making an inappropriate joke." Silverweed had seen that Broom was serious, leaving him distraught. If it had been a joke, it would have been in bad taste, but it was horrifying to see someone believe something so outrageous. Nevertheless, he would do as he was asked, and hopped over to Hannah.

-"Don't you ever get tired of spying into everyone's innermost thoughts?" she asked him. He did notice that her voice was different, but he just wanted to quickly get this madness over with, and therefore did not mention it.

-"I don't want this any more than you do."

-"Then why don't you just say 'no'?"

It was a valid question, but Silverweed was in too much of a hurry to ponder it. He placed his paw on her head, and quickly removed it; finding the desired information had been very easy.

-"It's really Hannah," he announced.

-"What?" Broom said with a gasp. "Impossible!"

-"Very possible, and in fact true."

With that, he hopped back underground. Hazel, meanwhile, turned towards the mouse.

-"I'm sorry, Hannah, that you had to go through this. We had to be sure, though, considering how serious the accusation was."

-"Yeah, yeah, not your fault." She turned to Broom. "I'll remember this, you old fool."