AUTHOR'S NOTE: thank you Anonymous Guest for the review! I remember you mentioned DT17 was one of your other fandoms a while back; out of curiosity, what is your other one?
Chapter 104: The Old Times.
"Remember when all the coolest websites had black backgrounds and colored text that just about jumped off the page at you? And animated gifs? Consider this header to be a little homage to those more innocent times."
-Alice Voith, Fish of Gold
While Vilthuril went back to sleep rather quickly, Fiver had more trouble doing so. He remained worried about the potential flood, and the unknown disaster that befell Hickory and Marigold. Hopefully the day's events would allow everyone to relax...unless it ended with a tragedy.
He remained awake when, a while later, Pipkin entered the burrow.
-"There's something important I need to tell you," he said.
-"You can tell me anything, Pipkin."
-"Well...one of our rabbits has gone missing. I haven't seen Leo since yesterday afternoon."
-"That's the second rabbit to vanish recently." Fiver sighed. "First Blueberry, now Leo."
-"Blueberry?" Pipkin suddenly remembered the young kitten he and Strawberry had found the previous evening, and how he remembered meeting him before. "I think he's back."
-"Well, that's good. Any idea where he was over the past few days?"
-"I didn't get the chance to ask. But I would say that Leo should be our priority at the moment."
-"I fully agree. Do you have any idea where he could have gone?"
-"Not at all. I couldn't find any tracks anywhere."
-"I see. That makes things more complicated. I'll ask Silverweed to try to ping his location later."
-"Thanks Fiver." Pipkin lied down next to his friend and fell asleep quickly. Surrounded by two sleeping rabbits, Fiver found himself falling asleep too.
Late that morning, the rabbits started to wake up. One of the first to do so was Hyzenthlay, who had trouble containing her excitement. At first Thethuthinnang, who shared a burrow with her, was annoyed at being woken up like this, but she too became excited when she learned what was happening.
Hazel was also one of the first to wake up. He wanted to make sure he would be able to greet everyone and allow them to have fun. However, he reasoned, there would have to be several options, so that if someone was not interested in one activity, they would have other choices. He expressed his concerns to the first rabbit he met in the Honeycomb, who happened to be Flyairth.
-"You have good ideas, Hazel-rah," she said. "We did the same thing at Marli-rah. Generally we had two groups, one who went above ground for various activities around the warren. This group generally had a few members of the owsla, in case they encountered elil. Meanwhile, the second group stayed underground to play a game, generally a big competition that lasted all day, and sometimes was not even finished by sunset."
-"That seems like a good idea, Flyairth. But we already had a bob-stones competition just a few days ago, the day before you arrived, I think. I don't know if the others would be interested in another one so soon."
-"It doesn't have to be bob-stones. It could be another game, such as owslafa."
-"Did someone say 'owslafa'?" Holly ran into the burrow. "It used to be really popular among the owsla at Sandleford Warren, but I haven't played it in a long time. If you're hosting a game, count me in!"
-"I never heard of this owslafa game," Hazel said, "but if there's enough interest, I suppose such a competition could be hosted here.
As more rabbits woke up, the news that Hazel had an important announcement spread rapidly. Everyone gathered in the Honeycomb, where they exchanged rumours as to what the announcement was all about. However, as Hazel revealed his plan for the day, the rabbits remained largely silent.
-"Did I do something wrong, Fiver?" he asked his brother.
Fiver took Hazel to a far corner of the Honeycomb, where they could have a semi-private conversation.
-"They're not used to this," Fiver explained. "In the past, we never made any plans, except maybe for farm raids, and sometimes we didn't even plan those either. We just had a good time as the day went on."
-"Maybe this idea wasn't really a good thing after all..."
-"Don't worry Hazel, everything will be all right. We just need to get them started."
-"Do you have any ideas how to do that, Fiver?"
-"You're the Chief, Hazel. You're more than capable of doing this yourself."
-"I guess you're right. Thanks for the advice Fiver."
Hazel hopped back to the centre of the burrow, where he stamped to gather everyone's attention.
-"I suggest that we all start with silflay, if you wish. All those who are interested, follow me. If you're not ready to silflay, then Flyairth has a special game planned."
Hazel made his way through a nearby run. As he arrived above ground and looked around him, however, he saw that very few rabbits had followed him. The only others were Fiver, Bigwig, Pipkin, Blackberry the doe, Dandelion, Hawkbit, Silver and Primrose.
-"Mostly the originals from Sandleford," Hazel whispered to Fiver.
-"Don't worry too much about it, Hazel," Fiver said. "It's better than nothing. And besides, the others will be having fun underground with Flyairth."
-"So..." Hazel looked at the small crowd. "What made you decide to join me?"
-"I wanted to see exactly what you have in mind," Bigwig said.
-"I just want to be with you, Hazel," Primrose said. "If you go above ground, I go above ground."
-"Uh, I don't know really..." Dandelion said slowly. "Hawkbit just dragged me above ground and..."
-"I've been at this warren for a few days," Silver said, "but I didn't get many chances to interact with you all. I would like a chance to get to know you all better."
-"Vilthuril was initially supposed to join me, but Flyairth really wanted her in the game of owslafa so I told her it was all right if she played," Fiver explained. "Although she will join us after getting eliminated from the game."
-"I see," Hazel said. "Well, thanks everyone for sticking with me. Shall we silflay?"
The rabbits started to nibble the grass. However, Hazel spit out his first bite.
-"This grass is so dry!"
-"The heat is drying up all the vegetation," Bigwig said.
-"At this rate we will be running out of food. If it doesn't rain soon, we might have to..." he shuddered, "...eat the leftover dried grass from last winter." He glanced at the others to see how they would react. At first everyone remained silent, until Hawkbit spoke.
-"I would rather starve than eat that again."
-"I suppose we could make do with the current grass," Silver said, "but it still would be nice if it rained."
-"What we need is a rainmaker," Blackberry said.
-"I don't believe those exist," Silver said.
Further away, Fiver hopped over to Pipkin.
-"Did you hear what Hazel said?" he asked. "We might have to eat that disgusting old grass!"
-"We have to find out what a rainmaker is and get one quickly!" Pipkin said. "If we can make it rain, we won't have to eat the old grass."
-"We have to find Hannah as quickly as possible. She might know."
They found Hannah at the bottom of the down, sitting on her magic pebble and nibbling some nuts.
-"Are we glad to see you!" Fiver said. "We have an important question to ask."
Hannah quickly swallowed the nut.
-"Oof!" she said as she coughed. "Den ah will try me best to answe ye, me buns."
-"What's a rainmaker?" Pipkin asked.
-"Oof! Vere did ye hear of sooch phooey?"
-"Blackberry said we needed one to make it rain. Could you help us?"
-"Vell, Kehaar once told meh abot it. Dat old gull Natasha used to be one, 'e say. But ah don't tink she wuz. Anyvay, ah rainmaker is somevon who can call upon da rain cloods to fill up de skah."
-"How do they do that?" Fiver asked.
-"Sum rainmakers sing a sonn, some make up a dance like dat squirrell I meet reecent, and udders like dat Natasha boid juss sit quietleh and vish the cloods ta appear."
-"Then that is what we'll do!" Fiver exclaimed. "We better get back to the warren before anyone notices our absence."
The two rabbits left Hannah with her pebble and nuts and climbed the Down.
-"Uh, Fiver," Pipkin whispered along the way, "why did we ask Hannah? Why couldn't we have asked Blackberry?"
-"I hadn't seen Hannah around in a few days," Fiver replied, "I just wanted to make sure she hadn't vanished like Leo or Blueberry."
-"Looking forward to hearing what Silverweed has to say. But until then, do you think we could make the rain come?"
-"We can try later, Pipkin."
As they reached the top of the Down, they met up with Bigwig.
-"Where have you two been? You shouldn't run away like that without telling anyone."
-"I was thinking, maybe we should try to get some flayrah somewhere?" Hazel suggested.
-"Let's go to Buttercup's warren," Dandelion said. "There's bound to be a lot of flayrah over there."
-"Who's Buttercup?" Silver asked.
-"She's the Chief of a warren we visited last Frith's Eve," Fiver said. "But she said that the humans left the flayrah for the winter. In the summer, I don't think they do."
-"Fiver's right," Hazel said. "How about Nuthanger Farm instead?"
The thought of some fresh flayrah was appealing to everyone. All nine rabbits ran to the bottom of the Down, towards the farm, with Hannah on Bigwig's back.
Meanwhile underground, Flyairth was sitting in the middle of the Honeycomb.
-"I'm going to ask all of you to scratch a short line in front of me. And make sure you remember which claw mark is yours."
One by one, the rabbits did as Flyairth had ordered. By the time all of them had complied, the row of claw marks made it from one end of the burrow to the other.
-"Perfect. Now, how many of you are familiar with the rules of owslafa?"
Hrair rabbits raised their front paws. However, Flyairth was disappointed when she realized that nearly all of them were her friends from Marli-rah. The only other one who knew the rules were Strawberry and captain Holly.
-"Since most of you don't know how to play," she said, "let me explain. Three of you will be the owslafa, and the rest of you will be the outskirters. The goal of each group is to eliminate all members of the other group. There are two phases in the game: day and night. In the night phase, the owslafa decide among themselves who they want out to the game, and kick them out of the warren. During the day phase, everyone votes for the one they think is a member of the owslafa, and the one with the most votes is also kicked out. The game ends when all the owslafa, or all the outskirters, are gone. Any questions?"
-"I know this game!" Captain Broom shouted. "I used to play it at old Redstone, although I never called it 'owslafa', I called it..."
-"I must say, this sounds awfully complicated," Clover said, cutting off the old captain. "But I'm sure I will have fun, once we get started."
-"Very well," Flyairth said, as she picked up a few pebbles from a corner of the burrow, and threw one of them in front of her, onto the lines.
-"What are you doing?" Nyreem said. "You're going to hurt someone."
-"I'm just trying to assign everyone their roles. Now who made this claw mark?"
-"I did," Hyzenthlay said.
-"All right, now here is your role..." Flyairth approached Hyzenthlay and whispered something in her ear.