AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you TheRanger101 for the review. Glad you liked the two chapters :)

Chapter 76: Magic Is Very Confusing.

"Everything is different

In this dissembled design

We will never see the light"

-Feather in a Pillow, Cowslip's Poem

Hannah was sitting on a lily pad, resting her head on her front paws. After landing in the middle of the lake, she had managed to swim to the nearby lily pad, but now she was trapped: the shore was too far for her to swim. To make things worse, she was soaking wet. She spent a long time thinking about her predicament, staring at the water in front of her. While the current was calm, there was a strong wind blowing.

Suddenly, she saw something dark just beneath the surface of the water, slowly moving closer to her. Then suddenly, when it was right in front of her, it jumped out of the water: it was a large fish, with its mouth wide open. It was mere moments away from swallowing her, leaving her with only one option: jumping off. Drowning would be a less painful death than getting eaten alive. After she jumped, the fish dove back down in the water, without eating anything. Lots of water splashed in all directions, carrying Hannah all the way to the shore.

Hannah remained on the muddy shore for a long time. This adventure had been very weird and extremely tiring. and yet it was just beginning. All this trouble just to get to see the hedgewizard, who may or may not be able to provide useful advice to save two rabbits, who may or may not be alive. Not to mention that she would have to find another way to cross the lake after she was done with the hedgewizard. Was all this actually worth it?

After a while, Hannah got back up. She had already made it this far, there was no reason to stop now. The island was unlike any other place she had ever seen before. As she moved further inland, the vegetation became very dense, blocking nearly all sunlight. Nevertheless, there were several fireflies in the air, providing some faint light. The area was eerily silent, the only audible sound being that of a stream.

Hannah wandered around the island, trying to locate the hedgewizard. Suddenly, as she climbed on top of a rock, a gigantic fire-breathing monster raised its head. Startled, Hannah fell in a nearby puddle. As she got back up to flee, she realized that the "gigantic fire-breathing monster" was actually just a turtle with a few fireflies on its head.

-"Oof, ya had me scawed for a moomin 'ere. Are ye the hegdezizwer?"

-"Ah. I am Hedge."

-"Ar ye tha dehziawar?"

-"I am Hedge the wizard."

-"In 'at case yer the one I'm lookin fer."

-"I assume, Hannah, you wish to learn magic?"

-"I donn wish to lern mahgek, but ah think ye cou...wait! How do ye know me nam?"

-"You told me."

-"Ah didn't!"

-"Now you did."

-"I'm confuzzled."

-"What is confusion?"

-"Aig, never mine, sorry I ever brought up tha soobjec in a frist plass." Hannah sighed. "I 'eard ye know some'ing aboot mahgek, and I though ye might use it to help meh fine two fwiends."

-"What is magic?"

-"What is ma...yer the hegediwazrd! Ye of all creatures should know th'answer to 'at queshton."

-"I know, but what type of magic? Do you want to make a rabbit jump out of a hat? Summon Death itself to destroy your enemies? Create your own personal magical slave, who will eventually turn against you and destroy you? Banish someone to an alternate invisible dimension? Or perhaps take over the wor..."

-"Ye, well tanks fo da philosophet dump, but Im no in th mood. Can ya fine me fwiends?"

-"Blackberry and Primrose?"

-"Ye know so mush ah don tell ya. Ar ye a seer or somefin?"

-"Like Fiver? No. I just know because you will tell me."

-"And 'ow do ye know 'iver? Oh, neever min...is is gettin needlessly compilated. Are th two buns alive?"

-"That is for you to find out."

-"Oof how very helpful. How do ah do tha?"

-"You need the tool. Follow me."

The turtle got up and very slowly walked towards a thick bush. Hannah followed her, feeling rather annoyed by how long this was taking.

-"By that point, it was winter again. I had been in Efrafa a full set of seasons. I had given up hope that I would ever get out. And around that time, they sent another rabbit to live with me."

It took a while for Primrose to calm down, after telling Hyzenthlay about Redstone's destruction. But eventually, she was able to continue telling her story.

-"His name was Blackavar," she continued, "and I lived with him until I was rescued from Efrafa. In fact, he lives here at Watership Down too, you probably met him."

-"I've met many rabbits since I arrived here, but I don't recall anyone by that name...what is he like? Considering his name, I assume he has black fur?"

-"No, brown. I don't know why he's called Blackavar. He's around my size, and he has a weird fur pattern on his head. Not like Bigwig, smaller and weirder."

-"Oh, now I know who you're talking about. He rather creeped me out with his ghost stories."

-"That's weird, I never knew him to tell ghost stories. I'll have to ask him about it. Anyway, he was a nice buck, but he had one massive weakness: he was loud. He was always talking very loudly, even in situations when doing so would endangered our lives. I spent the entire winter with him, and...you know, it feels like I talk too much about myself."

-"I'm interested in everything you have to tell me."

-"Thank you, but still...I've been telling you all about my life since our last meeting, and I don't know anything about what happened to you. Tell me about you."

-"There isn't much to say, honestly. You remember that day, when I left with Flyairth and the others?"

-"I remember. There were dark clouds in the sky, and the storm broke that evening. What happened then?"

-"We travelled all day, and when we realized the storm was going to break, we tried digging some scrapes. They didn't really keep us very dry, because the ground was soft and soon turned to mud. By the time the rain stopped the next morning, we were all covered with dirt."

-"That's terrible, Hyzenthlay..."

-"It was unpleasant, but Flyairth told us all that life wouldn't be easy until we were settled in a new warren, so we all better get a move on. She was very persuasive, and so we kept going. The next day we reached a clearing in the middle of the forest, the perfect place to start a new warren. And we did."

-"What was it like?"

-"It was a nice place. The ground was soft enough to be easy to dig, but not so soft that it would collapse. Everyone, does and bucks alike, helped dig, and by the end of the day, we had a small network of tunnels that would keep us safe from elil and the weather. At first it was small, but it didn't take us long to expand it into a warren of a comfortable size. But it never was truly finished. Over time, more runs and burrows were added, and existing ones were expanded, as the warren grew. We called it Marli-rah."

-"Why that name?"

-"Well, one thing that bothered Flyairth and Prake about their old warren was how it seemed that does didn't have much of a chance in life, and they wanted to try to fix that. We started the warren in the fall, and the next spring they thought it was time to create an owsla. The owsla they chose was made entirely of does."

-"That sounds unusual. I've never heard of it happening before."

-"Neither had I. But the bucks didn't seem to mind, since the owsla was friendly and didn't bully them. Their only real task was to keep the warren safe from elil, really. Flyairth had made it clear that anyone who wasn't happy at the warren could leave, but very few did.

-"Were you in the owsla?"

-"Yes, actually I was the captain of owsla. Me and a friend called Thethuthinnang."

-"That's amazing. You're amazing."

-"You're amazing too Prim."

Primrose blushed.

-"How was life at the warren?" she asked.

-"It was good. The warren was comfortable, everyone got along very well, we were all free to silflay whenever we wished and choose our own mates..."

-"Do you have a mate?"

-"No, never."

-"Why not? Don't you want someone who loves you, and is always there for you? And kittens?"

-"I never really considered it. I made many friends over the seasons, but never anyone I truly loved romantically. If I meet such a rabbit in the future, though, we'll probably become mates."

-"I just want to know one thing, Hyz. Are you happy?"

-"Yes. It's quite unfair."

-"What's unfair about happiness?"

-"Primrose...I was living an enjoyable life at Marli-rah, while you suffered for one and a half sets of seasons. I was unaware of all that was happening to you, and unable to do anything about it. I should have stayed with you at Redstone."

-"No, of course you shouldn't have. You would have been taken to Efrafa with me."

-"But at least this way, we would have had each other's company."

-"No. They would have sent us to different marks, and we never would have seen each other again. No, I'm glad you left when you did, just a few days before the Efrafan raiding party came. That saved you a lot of torment."

-"I should have tried harder to convince you to come with me. Then you wouldn't have gone through all this."

-"You did try, very hard. Don't blame yourself, Hyzenthlay, it's my fault I didn't accept your offer. But if I had accepted...I probably wouldn't have met Hazel."