Chapter 281: The Killer.
"The look on his face showed concern and uncomfort. His brows were furrowed."
-shannonpottergreene, Animal War
At the warren of the shining wires, the rabbits were staring at the unexpected visitor. The first to speak again was Flesca; her eyes went wide with excitement.
-"Celandine!"
She ran up to him and kissed him. The last few skeptics were now convinced: she really was in love with one of the enemies. Toadflax in particular was left disgusted by this emotional display.
-"All right, will someone PLEASE tell me what's going on?"
-"Should I come back later," Celandine asked, taking a short break from the kiss, "or..."
-"No, you can stay. I have no secrets from you." She then turned back to the other rabbits. "Everyone, meet Celandine, my future mate. Celandine, meet the wire lovers."
These last two words were clearly an insult, but nobody felt like arguing, so nobody mentioned them.
-"How did you two meet?" Tindra asked.
-"It last spring, shortly before that pesky Hazel first visited us..."
-"Don't say his name," Speedwell said. He could tolerate being called a "wire lover", but this was too much. He, along with nearly everyone else, felt uncomfortable at the mention of Hazel, and all the trouble he had brought, stealing Strawberry, and later on Hickory, Marigold and their followers. Ignoring Speedwell's complaint, Flesca continued.
-"In these more innocent times, nobody hesitated to go to the flayrah. I certainly didn't, and I almost paid the ultimate price. The shining wire around my neck, I was sure it was the end. But it wasn't. I was saved by my most precious Celandine here."
She went and kissed him again; this time, Toadflax looked away.
-"Enough with the kissing already," Speedwell said. "You're going to kill him eventually, aren't you?"
-"Kill me?" Celandine was stunned. "Why does he think you would do that?"
-"You wouldn't be the first one she would kill!" Acorn shouted in accusation.
-"That's exactly what I was explaining," Flesca said. "Now, if I may continue my story?"
Everyone fell silent, so she continued.
-"Celandine saved me, and he introduced me to his warren, New Sandleford. At first, I was in denial about all of this, so I returned to this warren as if nothing had happened. And, I will admit, I was actually mad at Celandine for saving me. But after a few days, I was starting to reconsider. I went to visit him. He gave me a tour of his warren, introducing me to all the important rabbits. And I saw how amazing it was. They had a great storyteller, Butterbur, who knew everything there is to know about El-ahrairah. The other rabbits actually looked alive when listening, unlike when Silverweed was telling his own poems. There were no wires in the vicinity. Pine Needles was a much better Chief than Cowslip was."
-"It is still being worked on, don't improvise too much, fill up the hole," Cowslip said as her name was mentioned, although she was not the same Cowslip.
-"I visited increasingly often," Flesca continued, still ignoring the ghost, "because of what a great place it was compared to this warren. As for Celandine, he kept rescuing other snare victims. Pimpernel was the next, and there were several others after him. He wasn't always successful, but he always did his best, and I eventually started helping him."
Flesca paused to see if anyone would react. Judging by their facial expressions, it was clear that several rabbits disapproved, but nobody voiced any complaints, allowing her to continue her story.
-"Soon, I came up with what I felt was a brilliant idea: getting everyone to abandon this warren and move to New Sandleford. This way, we could all lead better lives. But I knew very well that convincing anyone else to switch sides would be pointless. Hickory and Marigold had already made their own deal with Haz..." Flesca caught herself just in time. Not wanting Hazel's name to trigger another interruption, she changed her wording. "With those other rabbits. Those who stayed behind all agreed with Cowslip, freedom is a lie, and all that, and I knew I wouldn't be able to convince them otherwise. Therefore, since there was no peaceful solution, I came up with up with an alternative: an attack. But with old age, the Chief of New Sandleford, Pine Needles, had grown soft. Something about having witnessed too much destruction in his time, probably talking about Old Sandleford, whatever that was. It seemed that the situation would remain forever the same, and I would be forever doomed to constantly travel from one warren to another, always lost, never with a home." Flesca sighed. "And then, we had a few eventful days."
-"Yes, the murders began," Toadflax said.
-"No, a few days before that. Woundwort arrived. And it was also on that day that Pine Needles died."
-"Because you killed him."
-"Sorry, it wasn't me that time. It was old age, very boring."
-"Why are they accusing you of murder?" Celandine asked.
-"Because I'm a murderer, I'm getting there. Anyway, with Pine Needles dead, Scabious took over. He was named after an Old Sandleford rabbit, but he had never seen Old Sandleford itself, and so he wasn't bothered about destruction. I made the same suggestion I had made to Pine Needles, and he was a big fan. He decided that he would claim this warren at any cost, and I volunteered to assist. My plan was to kill one of you to destabilize your society and make you weaker, and therefore easier to annex. But then Scabious felt that this was taking too long, so he kidnapped Toadflax, and you all know the rest."
As they heard Flesca's story, it was with great horror that the other rabbits realized that she was telling the truth, she really was the murderer. Her thought process was objectionable and traitorous, but it still remained logical in its own twisted way. No one seemed more shocked by this revelation than Celandine.
-"I didn't expect to hear such things about you..."
-"Are you mad at me?" she said softly.
-"I don't approve of your methods, that's for sure." His frown then turned into a smile. "But that doesn't matter. You are still the love of my life."
He moved in for another kiss, deeply and passionately. The fact that he had forgiven her so easily left everyone else completely shocked.
-"Aren't you afraid of being her next victim?" Tindra asked.
-"She loves me, and I love her," he calmly replied. "She wouldn't kill me."
-"She's obviously deranged," Speedwell said.
-"Aren't we all?" Celandine chuckled; Speedwell and Tindra deduced that he was overly naive and not taking the situation seriously.
-"I just have one question." It was Acorn's turn to speak, and his question was completely different from the previous ones. "Where do I fit in all this?"
-"You don't," Flesca said in contempt. "Stop giving yourself more importance than you actually deserve."
-"You still tried to kill me after Buckthorn was already dead."
-"Isn't it obvious?" Flesca rolled her eyes. "Toadflax had decided that you were the killer, and stability would return, threatening my plan. So I attempted a second murder. I chose to let you live because otherwise, Toadflax would have decided that you committed suicide out of guilt."
Once again, Acorn could understand Flesca's twisted logic.
-"You also said that the solution to the disturbance was to try another version, and then pretend that nothing ever happened," he recalled. "What did that mean?"
-"That was one of Silverweed's stories. You know, the one about the toxic relationships. Don't you remember?"
-"Of course I remember, but what does it have to do with the murder?"
-"Nothing, obviously. I was just trying to be mysterious. Stop overanalyzing meaningless nonsense."
-"Now that you all know the unfortunate truth," Celandine said, "would you all like to move to New Sandleford? We're not forcing you. Scabious is gone, vanished without a trace, and he was probably the only one willing to go to war over this. So this is just a friendly offer."
-"Assimilation," Tindra said, the one word summarizing her thoughts on the proposal; several others nodded in agreement.
-"Unlike some other invaders," Celandine added knowingly, "we're not trying to eradicate your culture or kidnap your kits. We're just giving you a new home (a better one, we hope). If you choose to come with us, you will have access to the flayrah like everyone else. While moving your famous shapes from your current warren to the new one would be impractical, you would be free to build new ones. In fact, I think your original shape-builder, Laburnum, was one of the rabbits I saved from a wire long ago. If you want, I'll go get him."
-"Just so you know, if you choose not to join New Sandleford, then I'll just keep killing you all until you change your mind," Flesca said.
-"I love your sense of humour," Celandine said, giving her a quick kiss before hopping off, presumably to fetch Laburnum. He was the only one to think that this was a joke; everyone else was convinced that Flesca fully intended to carry out her threat.