Chapter Text
"Maybe it's a special brand of rabies, only catchable by quiet people."
--Book girl fan, Downs We Go
Early in the morning, Hazel called a semi-secret meeting. He did not announce it in advance, choosing to invite only a few other trusted advisers: the other two Chiefs, as well as Fiver and Bigwig. That said, if anyone stumbled upon the meeting, they would be welcome to join (although, due to how early it was, nobody did). The topic that needed to be discussed was, once again, Flyairth.
Hazel started by retelling what Heather had told him, about Flyairth’s plan for a new warren.
-”I’m not entirely surprised she would suggest something like this,” Hyzenthlay said once her fellow Chief had finished. “She probably wants to be Chief again, and after losing the election here, starting a new warren would be the best way to accomplish this. But this feels like a weird time to bring this up, so soon after her previous warren’s destruction, and the rejection of her previous suggestion to leave this one.”
-”The timing is indeed unusual,” Holly said in agreement. “The idea isn’t bad on its own, though. It’s not all that different from what we did with Hickory and Marigold when they took over Redstone. But it still feels unnecessary at the moment: this warren is doing fine on its own, we’re not overcrowded or anything.”
-”What I don’t get is why she didn’t talk to us first,” Bigwig said. “Instead, she secretly tried to recruit the former Efrafans. She didn’t even ask for our permission before telling everyone her grand ideas.”
-”It’s not like she needs permission,” Hazel pointed out. “This warren is based around freedom, and that includes the freedom to leave.”
-”That may be true, but it is no reason for her to spread dissension and inciting to mutiny.”
This last reply left Holly uncomfortable. The words Bigwig had used were eerily similar to what Holly had accused Hazel and the others of, back at Sandleford Warren, when they had decided to leave following Fiver’s ominous vision. Although he was convinced he was doing the right thing at the time, in hindsight, he regretted what he had done. He was unsure whether Bigwig remembered and he was deliberately attempting to provoke a specific reaction from him, or if the choice of words was merely accidental.
-”I think this might be her attempt at a compromise,” Fiver said, speaking for the first time in the meeting. “Remember how, initially, she wanted to abandon the warren entirely, all of us leaving. Since that didn’t work out, she’s now trying to start a second warren alongside this one. While some of our rabbits would leave, this warren would not be entirely depopulated.”
-”I still don’t appreciate the way she’s basically undermining us by doing this behind our backs. I’m getting the impression that she doesn’t like it here, but why? Why does she hate this warren so much?”
-”’Hate’ seems like a strong word,” Holly said. “But either way, there is only one way to know the answer to that question: asking her.”
-”And hope she gives an honest answer.”
-”Knowing her, it would depend on how we approach her,” Hyzenthlay said. “If we act defensively, she will probably react the same way. If we bring it up more gently, she is more likely to answer us.”
-”Unless we get Si...” Hazel started to say, only to be cut off by Fiver:
-”I know what you’re going to say, and I beg you to reconsider. He hates looking into other rabbits’ minds, it should only be done as a last resort.”
-”In that case...Hyzenthlay, since out of all of us, you’re the one who knows Flyairth best, you should probably be the one to approach her first.”
-”I can do that,” Hyzenthlay said.
It took a few hours before the conversation with Flyairth could take place. The main cause of this delay was the fact that, when the private meeting took place, she was still asleep. It was late morning when she finally went to silflay. As the Chiefs had agreed, Hyzenthlay was the first to approach her, with Hazel and Holly staying back at first. However, this ultimately had little impact on the outcome, as Flyairth quickly noticed all three rabbits present.
-”It’s the ruling trio! Good to see you, I actually wanted to talk to you about something.”
-”Would that ‘something’ involve starting a new warren somewhere, and bringing a few of the rabbits here with you?” Hyzenthlay asked.
-”Wait, you already know? This is awkward...have you come to shut me down?” Flyairth appeared disappointed. “I honestly expected better than that from you, Hyz.”
-”And I thought YOU knew ME better than to assume I would do something like that.” Hyzenthlay, if anything, was even more disappointed at Flyairth than she was at her. “If you choose to leave, you still can. We just want to understand why.”
-”Because it’s not safe here!” Flyairth stamped in frustration. “I have already told you all several times, but you never listen to my warnings.”
-”We’re listening now,” Hazel said, as he and Holly hopped closer.
Flyairth lied down, getting ready for a lengthy explanation of what she perceived as dangerous.
-”Being at the top of the hill allows you to see the whole world. It’s beautiful, and convenient, but elil would also benefit from it. If it were elil living here, they would be able to spot an easy meal from far away, long before being spotted themselves.”
-”I understand your concerns, but I think you may be overestimating the danger,” Hazel said. “The band of weasels’ visit a few days ago was the first time in the warren’s history we had to deal with such a massive attack. Before that, the only elil we encountered here was a lone weasel last spring. He was there before us, and planned to kill us all, one by one, In the end, he was the only one to die, Bigwig and his owsla killed him.”
-”I find it hard to believe you had only encountered elil twice in a full set of seasons.”
-”That’s not entirely true. We did encounter elil several additional times, when out patrolling, or raiding gardens. But it was never on the Down, only when venturing out.”
-”Good to know. But it’s not just elil we have to worry about.”
-”What else is there?”
-”The white blindness.”
The mere mention of these two words was enough to bring utter terror into the hearts of everyone present.
-“Once someone is infected with this dreadful disease, there is no hope of them ever getting better,” Flyairth continued. “They will die, slowly, painfully, it’s pure agony. And then the disease spreads to everyone else in the warren, until there’s nobody left, just a bunch of corpses, barely recognizable as rabbits. Even the elil will leave the bodies alone, lest they too become infected.”
-”We know it’s terrible,” Hyzenthlay said. “No need to remind us.”
-”Recently, you all have been talking about another warren, Redstone. From what I have heard, it was decimated long ago by the white blindness.”
-”The lone survivor always called it the ‘great sickness’,” Hazel pointed out. “I suppose it could have been the white blindness.”
-”Right, there was a survivor! That foolish old captain, what’s his name?”
-”Broom.”
-”Yes, him. Maybe it was the white blindness, maybe it was another disease, but either way, he somehow managed to survive when absolutely everyone else in the warren died. I really don’t understand it. Maybe he is somehow immune to the disease. Or he still carries it without symptoms. Either way, he scares me.”
-”I doubt he is infected. If he was, he would surely have transmitted the disease to the rest of us. In a full set of seasons, that hasn’t happened.”
-”I suppose you’re right. But anyway, while I don’t particularly like him, he was right about one thing: Hickory and Marigold’s idea to repopulate Redstone was really, really dumb.”
-”Actually, we were all in favour of the idea,” Holly pointed out.
-”Oh. Well, no offence, but that really wasn’t a bright idea. It should have been so obvious that the warren was going to meet a tragic fate. I’ll admit, the way it was destroyed, hrududil caving it in, that was unexpected; a more predictable fate would have been the disease returning. But enough about Redstone, let’s talk about this warren. You have been EXTREMELY lucky so far, and your luck may not hold out much longer.”
-”That’s true, we don’t know what the future holds,” Hazel admitted. “Maybe you’re right, and this warren will soon face an epidemic of the white blindness, or another massive calamity. Or maybe everything will be fine and we will survive for many more seasons. Starting a second warren won’t make this one any safer.”
-”And, unlike Redstone, we take security more seriously here,” Hyzenthlay said. “There’s that new escape tunnel Blackberry is working on.”
-”Having an escape tunnel is always a good plan, but it’s not a solution to all problems,” Flyairth said. “If the white blindness strikes, that tunnel would be of little use.”
-”I hear there was an epidemic of white blindness at Sandleford, seasons ago,” Hazel said. “But that was before I was born, I don’t know anything about it, beyond the fact that it happened.”
-”I lived through it,” Holly said.
-”Do you remember anything that happened at the time, that we could learn from now?”
-”I was very young at the time, not even in the owsla yet, but I still remember how the Chief, the Threarah, handled it. The only way the warren managed to avoid total destruction was by kicking out anyone who showed symptoms, and letting them die in the wilderness far away. At least half the warren had to be exiled, so that the other half could survive. It was painful, I lost friends and relatives this way. But it was either that, or extinction.”
-”Sounds like Threarah had the right idea,” Flyairth said. “If someone here gets infected, you will have to do the same thing.”
-”We’ll...deal with it, if it becomes necessary.” While Hazel could see the logic in what Holly and Flyairth had said, the prospect of sending away a fellow rabbit, even to save lives, made him deeply uncomfortable. “Is there no way to prevent the disease from infecting the warren in the first place?”
-”No, that is impossible,” Holly said sadly. “You only realize what’s happening once the first rabbits start showing symptoms, by which point it is too late, you have to work on damage control. Any warren, no matter what, remains vulnerable. A new warren would not be safer than this one.”
-”I do suppose you’re right...” Flyairth begrudgingly said. “I guess I won’t be starting that second warren after all...”
Realizing that her plan would not be carried out, the doe hopped away. She did not make it very far, however, before turning back towards the Chiefs.
-”I did find a nice place where I planned to set up the new warren. Will you at least agree to take a look at it?”
-”Oh, so that’s what you were doing yesterday!” Hyzenthlay said. “You were searching for a safe place.”
-”There was no point in letting the day go to waste. Even if we don’t start a second warren, the place I found could still be a useful spot for patrollers to stop and rest.”
-”That would be reasonable,” Holly said. “When would you be ready to show us?”