AUTHOR'S NOTE: thank you Anonymous Guest for the review. I'm glad you liked the two chapters. Perhaps I'll try writing something for DT17 eventually.
Chapter 87: Not That Perfect.
"If she has even a scrap of sense, she'll guess that you didn't want to go home in such weather. Besides, you being so valuable to her, and me- yes, we shall be friends- it's likely she won't begrudge you for looking out for yourself."
-LauraCynthia, Downward
After jumping out of the bushes, Vilthuril ran towards the scrape. She had never been a member of the owsla at Marli-rah, although she had participated in training a few times. It seemed to her that training at Marli-rah was more varied; here, she simply had to run through an obstacle course over and over again.
As she started to scratch the ground, she heard someone call her name. She hopped out of the scrape, and saw Fiver sitting nearby, looking at her.
-"Can you stop for a moment?" he asked. "I would like to talk to you."
-"I could."
They hopped over to the rock.
-"What is it you want to talk to me about, Fiver?"
She stared at the small buck, waiting for him to talk to her. However, he remained silent, and kept staring at her, unable to utter a sound. After a while, he closed his eyes and shook his head.
-"Vilthuril, I want to ask you something. Will-"
-"LOOK OUT!" came Nyreem's voice.
Fiver and Vilthuril looked behind them, just in time to see Dandelion fall off the rock straight onto them.
Bigwig was supervising the rabbits who were taking part in training. Now that Hawkbit wasn't distracting them anymore, they seemed to be doing a good job, travelling through the course at a reasonable speed, and nobody seemed to be having any problems, except maybe Nelthilta, who was slowing down. He didn't really care, if she was too tired she could just stop. He hopped away and started to nibble some clover, until suddenly he heard...
-"LOOK OUT!"
-"Something going wrong again...what is it this time?" he mumbled, as he ran back to the training grounds. Once there, he saw Dandelion lying on top of two other rabbits.
-"What in...what is going on around here?" he shouted in frustration.
-"It's my fault," Dandelion said, as he got back up and brushed the dirt off himself. "I stopped on top of the rock to catch my breath, my paw slipped and I fell on these two."
-"No no no, don't blame yourself, Dandelion, it's my fault," Fiver objected, as he shook his fur. "I told Vilthuril I had something to tell her; if I hadn't done that, we wouldn't have been here, and this wouldn't have happened."
-"Fiver, you're being too hard on yourself," Vilthuril interjected, as she started to scratch her ears. "This is all my fault, I was the one who chose this spot for us to talk. If I had chosen another spot further away, this would..."
-"Stop the blaming-shifting!" Bigwig shouted. "It's so counter-productive. Nobody got hurt, that's all that matters. Fiver, are you done talking?"
Vilthuril looked at Fiver, but he simply sighed.
-"I'll tell you later," he said simply, before hopping away.
-"All right then," Bigwig said. "Now everyone get back to training."
Dandelion and Vilthuril nodded, and made their way towards the bushes, until Bigwig spoke again:
-"Dandelion, one more thing..."
The storyteller slowly hopped back to Bigwig, slightly nervous.
-"Yes?"
-"DON'T STOP ON TOP OF THE ROCK ANYMORE!"
-"No Bigwig. I won't."
-"Good. Now don't you forget that. I'll be watching you."
Blackberry was asleep in the Honeycomb. She still felt rather tired following her extended absence from the warren, and the incident with Hawkbit hadn't helped. Suddenly, she was woken up by someone shouting.
-"BLACKPERRY YUR ALIV!" came an unusually loud voice.
-"Wha...who is this?"
-"IT'S MEH, HAINNAH! YER SAVIEE!"
-"Hannah...where are you?"
-"ON YO 'EAD, SILL BUN!"
-"Oh...will you please jump off? You're shouting directly in my ears..."
-"SORREH!"
Blackberry then saw Hannah slid down her face onto the burrow floor.
-"How have you been doing, Hannah?"
-"Oof! You wouldne belev it! I went to see 'assel, and 'er fwend told meh to see heggziwar, and she game me the mugok poobble, and I savd ye."
Hannah proudly waved the magic pebble in front of Blackberry, who stared at it, unable to see how it was different from a regular pebble.
-"Saved me? From what?"
-"Froom...danno, e'il rabbitsor or fooxs? All th danges ye and Primrose face on ye twip. Speakin of Pimoosse, I bettee go an see 'er..."
With that, Hannah left the Honeycomb towards Hazel's burrow.
Hazel had fallen back sleep, when he suddenly felt something fall onto him. At first, his instincts told him that he and Primrose were being attacked, but he soon realized that this was not the case.
-"Hannah?"
-"Oof! Sorry aboo tat Hzel. Ah was juss tryin to climb to the ceilin to surprise ye, but it seems ah fell an' failed. Stooped pebble!"
-"Don't worry about it," Hazel replied, glad to see his mate had not been woken up by the disturbance. "How are you, Hannah? I haven't seen you since I called off the search."
-"Ah was buseh. Rescuin' yur darlin' for ye. With magyk!"
-"Magic?"
-"Sre, mygic! Dat pebble dat made me fall, it's mojyc!" Standing on Hazel's neck, she proudly raised the pebble over his eye so he could get a closer look.
-"Very interesting Hannah." Hazel blinked a few times. "What do you plan to do with it now?"
-"Eh, ah dunno. Ah guess I'll juss keep it in a saf place, cuz ah have a feelin' I'll need it again evenchally."
-"That...seems like a good plan," Hazel said, although he remained unsure as to whether the pebble really was magic. "What is this safe place?"
-"Le me thin...ah tink ah know juss tha plece. Be bak lter."
She quickly ran towards the exit.
-"Before you go," Hazel said, "there's something I want to ask you: where's Kehaar? I haven't seen him in a while either."
-"Oof, dat silly boid. 'e's gone to that peeg vater o his."
-"Gone? Why?"
-"Oly e know. Oof, but juss ye wait. He be back. Te only queschon is: ven?"
Speedwell had reluctantly led his friends over to New Sandleford Warren. They found the warren exactly where Scabious had said. It seemed rather small, with only four holes scattered throughout the field, and three rabbits at silflay. Speedwell recognized one of them instantly.
-"My friend!" Scabious said, hopping over to the group. "I see you decided to visit us after all. And you brought your friends too."
-"This is Scabious," Speedwell said, turning to his friends. "He says he's the Chief of this place."
-"What did you do to Toadflax?" Flesca asked.
-"What we did to him? Why nothing, of course. We have been keeping him in one of our best burrows and fed him plenty of flayrah."
-"Will you release him?" Acorn asked.
-"He's a dangerous killer," Tindra added.
-"Killer? I've never seen a more gentle rabbit..."
-"You're lying," Acorn said, staring directly at Scabious' face. The Chief had no choice but to tell the truth.
-"Fine, he wasn't that gentle, but he doesn't have what it takes to kill someone. Nevertheless, we will release him if you agree to have your warren annexed."
-"You mean all four of us would have to join your warren?" Tindra asked.
-"Yes, and everyone else at your warren too."
-"Just the four of us then," Flesca said, as she started to laugh.
-"Only four of you? But I was sure there were more!"
-"There used to," Speedwell said. "But few of us survived the war."
-"A war!" Scabious was getting nervous. He debated whether the annexation was such a good idea after all, but ultimately he decided not to voice his concerns. He did not want to appear weak in front of these dangerous warriors.
-"With only four of us, it wouldn't be much of a life on our own," Acorn said. "You can annex us, but first bring Toadflax to us."
-"Er, yes, uh, right..." Scabious had not expected them to agree so quickly to his plan. This had to be a trap, but he needed to stall them until he thought of a way out. "Threarah, go get the prisoner."
Another rabbit at silflay further away raised his ears and looked at Scabious, before hopping underground.
-"Rah?" Speedwell shook his head. "I thought you were the Chief of this warren."
-"I am; he is merely our captain of owsla. He was named this way in honour of the last Chief of Old Sandleford, who tragically perished in the warren's destruction. I am not the original Scabious either; he too died in the destruction, an especially agonizing death from what I hear. In fact, most of our younger rabbits share names with victims of..."
-"The prisoner is gone," Threarah said as he hopped back above ground.
-"GONE!?" Scabious was plainly furious; with their friend missing, the visitors would most likely try to avenge him. "What happened?"
-"I don't know sir, I..."
-"Who was the idiot sentry on duty?"
-"Nose-in-the-Air, sir."
-"With a name like that, no wonder he failed at his appointed task. Take me to him right now, I need to know what happened."
Scabious and Threarah hopped underground through the nearest hole.
-"They killed him," Flesca said with a laugh. "There's no other explanation. I mean, he's not the type of rabbit who runs away. That's got to be the laziest cover-up story ever."
-"If they did kill him..." Tindra said, shivering, "perhaps this annexation isn't a good idea after all."
-"You're right. Let's get out of here," Acorn said. "Slowly, so they won't notice."
As the four rabbits slowly hopped away, however, the only other rabbit above ground approached them.
-"I say, your voice is familiar. Have we met before?" He coughed a few times. "My name's Pimpernel. You are?"
As they heard his name, the four rabbits forgot about their initial plan of a slow and unnoticed escape. They ran back to their own warren as fast as they could.