"The Story of Marli-hrair and the Black Rabbit of Inle." Watership Down, by Richard Adams.
This is a yuletide New Year's Resolution story for spoke. I will upload it to the Yuletide archive as soon as they finish maintenance and that becomes possible again.
This story takes place after the climax of the novel, but contains no spoilers other than revealing that the characters who are in it are still alive after that. It's rated G. (What, you thought I'd commit rabbit porn?)
“A hlessi, sir!” announced young Bracken. “A doe!”
“I can see that,” said Bigwig.
He inspected the doe. She looked ordinary enough: healthy, if a little thin and worn, but that was natural for a wandering rabbit. But her steady gaze reminded him first of Hyzenthlay, then of Hazel, and he wondered why she had left her warren, or if it had been destroyed.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Inléhain,” she replied.
Bigwig was taken aback. “Song of the moonrise” had the structure of a typical doe’s name, but with Inlé’s other connotations- darkness, fear, and death- he’d never heard it used as part of a name before.
“I can make a scrape here,” said the doe. “Or I can move further away. I’m not looking for a fight.”
“Stay in our warren instead,” offered Bigwig. “A storm’s coming.”
Inléhain nibbled on a bit of grass before she replied. Bigwig wanted to assure her that she’d be safe, but he smelled no fear on her.
“Thank you,” she said at last. “It looks like a fine warren.”
But rather than make more conversation, she casually hopped to a patch of clover, and then to another farther away. Bigwig watched her for a while, until lightning turned the downs the color of bone, and thunder rumbled through the sky. Then he, like the other rabbits, took refuge in the warren. He was almost the last to go, but when he did, he found Inléhain at his heels.
He introduced her to the others in the Honeycomb, as they were all settling in and shaking beads of rain off their fur. They sniffed at her, and Hyzenthlay offered the doe a piece of an old carrot from Nuthanger Farm. She nibbled it, slowly but with relish. Bigwig hoped she’d relax enough to tell them where she had come from: somewhere far away, he thought, farther than the Belt or even Efrafa, for she had not heard of the warren on Watership Down.
But before anyone had a chance to question her, little Threar piped up. “You must know a lot of stories. Can you tell us one?”
“Is there a particular one you’d like?” asked Inléhain
But Threar was overcome with shyness after having spoken up, and all that anyone could understand of his reply was something about lettuce and rainbows- which could have been any one of a hundred stories.
Fiver spoke up. “Do you know ‘Marli-hrair and the Black Rabbit of Inlé?’”
Inléhain’s whiskers twitched with surprise. “I do.”
“Won’t that frighten the young ones?” asked Pipkin. Bigwig suspected him of being frightened himself.
“No,” said Hyzenthlay. “It’s a good idea. That’s a story best told by a hlessi- and a doe.”
Inléhain began.
The Story of Marli-Hrair and the Black Rabbit of Inlé
Marli-hrair was the Chief Rabbit of a warren like many others. But it was her warren, and she loved it. All Chief Rabbits love their warrens, of course, but maybe she loved hers more than most. We call her Marli-hrair [mother of a thousand] because she gave birth to so many large and healthy litters. What her real name was, nobody knows, nor does anyone now remember the name of her warren. But they say that it was a happy place, well-run and healthy and contented, until the white blindness struck.
Before she could isolate the affected rabbits, it had spread throughout the warren. Her Owsla fell ill, then her own kittens. She remained healthy, but what did that matter when her warren was dying? If a weasel had attacked, she would glad have led it away and, perhaps, traded her own life to save the rabbits under her protection. But no amount of cunning could trick a disease.
Then she remembered that there was one rabbit who could fight that invisible elil. Surely the rabbit who sent it could take it away. Leaving her kittens with a doe whose litter had died, and her warren in the care of the Chief Officer of her Owsla, Marli-hrair set out to find the Black Rabbit of Inlé.
How she found his land, nobody knows. Some say that those were different times, when anyone could call out to the Black Rabbit or El-ahrairah and be heard and answered. Others say that any rabbit can call and be answered now, if they are truly willing to give their life. What lies on the dark side of the moon? Ask the Black Rabbit. He knows.
She found what she sought in a cold stone tunnel, with no earth to scratch away to form a hollow to nest one’s kittens in. But there were no kittens in that land: it was a place of death, not birth. And yet Marli-hrair meant to wrest life from it.
The Black Rabbit crouched before her. He was a silhouette of darkness upon darkness, and he had no scent. His shadowy Owsla flanked her. Their breath was a chill and heavy mist.
It was a long time before Marli-hrair could speak.
“I want you to save my warren,” she said at last.
There was no reply, but the tunnel seemed to grow even darker. She had the sense that something was standing just behind her, but when she spun around, it seemed to move with her. And yet nothing unseen could be more terrifying than the Black Rabbit.
But though Marli-hrair’s breath caught in her throat, she remembered the tales. “Shall we play bob-stones? Or tell stories?”
Still the Black Rabbit was silent.
“I will give you my tail and whiskers,” offered Marli-hrair. “I will give you my ears.”
But the Black Rabbit regarded her with eyes as bottomless and still as a pool in midwinter, and said no word. It is not enough of a sacrifice, she read in those icy depths. It is not enough.
“And my fur,” she said, a little doubtfully, for she did not know if she could survive without its warmth. But a Chief Rabbit’s life is always held more lightly than that of her warren. “Is that enough?”
The Black Rabbit did not answer, but his shadowy Owsla grew restive. One brushed past her. The touch of its fur sent a shudder through her body, as if she had bitten down on a white rock instead of a turnip.
“I will give you my life,” she said. “My life for my warren.”
“Your warren?” asked the Black Rabbit. His voice awoke memories of rabbits screaming in the jaws of foxes, rabbits choking in snares, the weak mew of kittens born too soon to live. “An entire warren, for the life of one small doe?”
“I am the Chief Rabbit,” said Marli-hrair. “I am all I have.”
The Black Rabbit was silent, while the shadows moved about him. Marli-hrair waited. After a while, she became so cold that she wondered if he had already taken her fur. She nosed along her flank, half-afraid and half-hopeful. But he had not accepted that bargain.
“Most does offer their lives to save their kittens,” said the Black Rabbit. “Have you no litter?”
Marli-hrair drew in a deep breath of the dry and burning air. Her claws scraped against the bare stone floor. She could save her kittens, all six of them, even the runt. It was more than worth her life. She longed to say yes. Yes, to save her kittens. Yes, to leave this terrible place, even if death was the only way out. She could not bear to look into the fixed red glare of the Black Rabbit’s eyes for one more moment. One eye seemed to flicker- but no, it was only the shadow of a shadow, as one of his Owsla flitted by. The Black Rabbit too had a warren.
“Not- not only my kittens,” she stammered. “My warren. I know the stories. You cannot force me to leave. My entire warren, or I will stay here forever. I will stay here forever!”
“Marli-hrair,” said the Black Rabbit. “Do you understand the bargain you’re offering?”
In the flat silence after his voice ended, in the unechoing vaults of the cold warren, Marli-hrair understood.
“I do,” she whispered. “Not my death- my life in your service. Forever. If I give you that, will you save my warren?”
“Beware, Marli-hrair,” said the Black Rabbit. “If you choose this path, you will never see your kittens again, until the end of their lives. You will see rabbits torn by foxes, kittens too weak to suck, strong bucks strangling in snares, and warren after warren dying of the white blindness. Forever, you will see nothing but death.”
Despite the Black Rabbit’s terrible words, confidence grew in Marli-hrair. The Black Rabbit would not break an offered promise, and so her warren, at least, was saved. Even here, pledging herself to the service of death in this place of chill sterility, that knowledge made her bold again.
“I don’t think that’s a fair bargain.” She thought for a moment, of what might equal forever. “All rabbits must die, but a warren remains unless it’s destroyed by men or fire or disease. Protect my warren forever, and I will give you myself forever.”
A harsh bark tore through the tunnel. Marli-hrair flinched, and her ears flattened against her back. Then she realized what it was, and became even more afraid. The Black Rabbit had laughed.
“You would be a very poor servant,” he said. “You would plead for a new bargain every time you saw a rabbit you wished me to spare. Very well. I will spare your warren, and I will not take your life. But there is a price, little doe. Everything has a price- including your impertinence.”
Marli-hrair was silent, fearing that to open her mouth again would let more impertinence slip. But inwardly she rejoiced. Her warren was safe, and whatever curse he called down upon her could not dim her joy.
“You will never see your warren again,” said the Black Rabbit. “You will never have another litter, nor train another Owsla, nor call any place your home. As long as you roam, your warren will be safe from the white blindness, and men with gas, and anything that might destroy it entirely.
You asked for forever, Marli-hrair, and forever I will give you. Keep moving, and you will never grow older, and never die. But if you ever spend more than one night in the same place, I will withdraw my protection from your precious warren. Now be gone. You will not find me again… until you lie down twice in a place you call home.”
“I accept!” cried Marli-hrair.
But her words were spoken into the teeth of the wind. The scent of crab-apple and groundsel surrounded her, and the earth was yielding under her paws. The cold tunnel of the Black Rabbit was as far from her a dream is from waking, yet she knew that the bargain she had made was real. She put her whiskers to the wind, and took the first step of her endless journey.
“That is the story of Marli-hrair,” said Inléhain. “It happened hrair years ago, and no rabbit knows the name of the warren she swore to protect. Her kittens have long since grown and died, and their kittens have grown and died, and their kittens too. But her warren remains, as long as she wanders. Sometimes she catches a glimpse of a rabbit with starlight shining on his ears, and she knows that if she only asked, he would take her home. But then she remembers the duty of a Chief Rabbit to her warren. And she moves on.”
“Well done,” said Hazel. “You may stay as long as you like, if you can tell a story like that. There are plenty of good bucks to choose from if you wish a mate, and you’ll find that we value a good storyteller.”
Bigwig was glad of Hazel’s offer. A rabbit who could wander alone so far must be capable; and the passion with which she told her story convinced him that she had some measure of Marli-hrair’s steadfast courage. He’d give her a while to show her stuff, he thought, but he was already sure he wanted her on his Owsla.
Inléhain finished the last of her carrot, then looked up at Hazel. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll stay this night. But tomorrow I must move on.”
This story takes place after the climax of the novel, but contains no spoilers other than revealing that the characters who are in it are still alive after that. It's rated G. (What, you thought I'd commit rabbit porn?)
“A hlessi, sir!” announced young Bracken. “A doe!”
“I can see that,” said Bigwig.
He inspected the doe. She looked ordinary enough: healthy, if a little thin and worn, but that was natural for a wandering rabbit. But her steady gaze reminded him first of Hyzenthlay, then of Hazel, and he wondered why she had left her warren, or if it had been destroyed.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Inléhain,” she replied.
Bigwig was taken aback. “Song of the moonrise” had the structure of a typical doe’s name, but with Inlé’s other connotations- darkness, fear, and death- he’d never heard it used as part of a name before.
“I can make a scrape here,” said the doe. “Or I can move further away. I’m not looking for a fight.”
“Stay in our warren instead,” offered Bigwig. “A storm’s coming.”
Inléhain nibbled on a bit of grass before she replied. Bigwig wanted to assure her that she’d be safe, but he smelled no fear on her.
“Thank you,” she said at last. “It looks like a fine warren.”
But rather than make more conversation, she casually hopped to a patch of clover, and then to another farther away. Bigwig watched her for a while, until lightning turned the downs the color of bone, and thunder rumbled through the sky. Then he, like the other rabbits, took refuge in the warren. He was almost the last to go, but when he did, he found Inléhain at his heels.
He introduced her to the others in the Honeycomb, as they were all settling in and shaking beads of rain off their fur. They sniffed at her, and Hyzenthlay offered the doe a piece of an old carrot from Nuthanger Farm. She nibbled it, slowly but with relish. Bigwig hoped she’d relax enough to tell them where she had come from: somewhere far away, he thought, farther than the Belt or even Efrafa, for she had not heard of the warren on Watership Down.
But before anyone had a chance to question her, little Threar piped up. “You must know a lot of stories. Can you tell us one?”
“Is there a particular one you’d like?” asked Inléhain
But Threar was overcome with shyness after having spoken up, and all that anyone could understand of his reply was something about lettuce and rainbows- which could have been any one of a hundred stories.
Fiver spoke up. “Do you know ‘Marli-hrair and the Black Rabbit of Inlé?’”
Inléhain’s whiskers twitched with surprise. “I do.”
“Won’t that frighten the young ones?” asked Pipkin. Bigwig suspected him of being frightened himself.
“No,” said Hyzenthlay. “It’s a good idea. That’s a story best told by a hlessi- and a doe.”
Inléhain began.
The Story of Marli-Hrair and the Black Rabbit of Inlé
Marli-hrair was the Chief Rabbit of a warren like many others. But it was her warren, and she loved it. All Chief Rabbits love their warrens, of course, but maybe she loved hers more than most. We call her Marli-hrair [mother of a thousand] because she gave birth to so many large and healthy litters. What her real name was, nobody knows, nor does anyone now remember the name of her warren. But they say that it was a happy place, well-run and healthy and contented, until the white blindness struck.
Before she could isolate the affected rabbits, it had spread throughout the warren. Her Owsla fell ill, then her own kittens. She remained healthy, but what did that matter when her warren was dying? If a weasel had attacked, she would glad have led it away and, perhaps, traded her own life to save the rabbits under her protection. But no amount of cunning could trick a disease.
Then she remembered that there was one rabbit who could fight that invisible elil. Surely the rabbit who sent it could take it away. Leaving her kittens with a doe whose litter had died, and her warren in the care of the Chief Officer of her Owsla, Marli-hrair set out to find the Black Rabbit of Inlé.
How she found his land, nobody knows. Some say that those were different times, when anyone could call out to the Black Rabbit or El-ahrairah and be heard and answered. Others say that any rabbit can call and be answered now, if they are truly willing to give their life. What lies on the dark side of the moon? Ask the Black Rabbit. He knows.
She found what she sought in a cold stone tunnel, with no earth to scratch away to form a hollow to nest one’s kittens in. But there were no kittens in that land: it was a place of death, not birth. And yet Marli-hrair meant to wrest life from it.
The Black Rabbit crouched before her. He was a silhouette of darkness upon darkness, and he had no scent. His shadowy Owsla flanked her. Their breath was a chill and heavy mist.
It was a long time before Marli-hrair could speak.
“I want you to save my warren,” she said at last.
There was no reply, but the tunnel seemed to grow even darker. She had the sense that something was standing just behind her, but when she spun around, it seemed to move with her. And yet nothing unseen could be more terrifying than the Black Rabbit.
But though Marli-hrair’s breath caught in her throat, she remembered the tales. “Shall we play bob-stones? Or tell stories?”
Still the Black Rabbit was silent.
“I will give you my tail and whiskers,” offered Marli-hrair. “I will give you my ears.”
But the Black Rabbit regarded her with eyes as bottomless and still as a pool in midwinter, and said no word. It is not enough of a sacrifice, she read in those icy depths. It is not enough.
“And my fur,” she said, a little doubtfully, for she did not know if she could survive without its warmth. But a Chief Rabbit’s life is always held more lightly than that of her warren. “Is that enough?”
The Black Rabbit did not answer, but his shadowy Owsla grew restive. One brushed past her. The touch of its fur sent a shudder through her body, as if she had bitten down on a white rock instead of a turnip.
“I will give you my life,” she said. “My life for my warren.”
“Your warren?” asked the Black Rabbit. His voice awoke memories of rabbits screaming in the jaws of foxes, rabbits choking in snares, the weak mew of kittens born too soon to live. “An entire warren, for the life of one small doe?”
“I am the Chief Rabbit,” said Marli-hrair. “I am all I have.”
The Black Rabbit was silent, while the shadows moved about him. Marli-hrair waited. After a while, she became so cold that she wondered if he had already taken her fur. She nosed along her flank, half-afraid and half-hopeful. But he had not accepted that bargain.
“Most does offer their lives to save their kittens,” said the Black Rabbit. “Have you no litter?”
Marli-hrair drew in a deep breath of the dry and burning air. Her claws scraped against the bare stone floor. She could save her kittens, all six of them, even the runt. It was more than worth her life. She longed to say yes. Yes, to save her kittens. Yes, to leave this terrible place, even if death was the only way out. She could not bear to look into the fixed red glare of the Black Rabbit’s eyes for one more moment. One eye seemed to flicker- but no, it was only the shadow of a shadow, as one of his Owsla flitted by. The Black Rabbit too had a warren.
“Not- not only my kittens,” she stammered. “My warren. I know the stories. You cannot force me to leave. My entire warren, or I will stay here forever. I will stay here forever!”
“Marli-hrair,” said the Black Rabbit. “Do you understand the bargain you’re offering?”
In the flat silence after his voice ended, in the unechoing vaults of the cold warren, Marli-hrair understood.
“I do,” she whispered. “Not my death- my life in your service. Forever. If I give you that, will you save my warren?”
“Beware, Marli-hrair,” said the Black Rabbit. “If you choose this path, you will never see your kittens again, until the end of their lives. You will see rabbits torn by foxes, kittens too weak to suck, strong bucks strangling in snares, and warren after warren dying of the white blindness. Forever, you will see nothing but death.”
Despite the Black Rabbit’s terrible words, confidence grew in Marli-hrair. The Black Rabbit would not break an offered promise, and so her warren, at least, was saved. Even here, pledging herself to the service of death in this place of chill sterility, that knowledge made her bold again.
“I don’t think that’s a fair bargain.” She thought for a moment, of what might equal forever. “All rabbits must die, but a warren remains unless it’s destroyed by men or fire or disease. Protect my warren forever, and I will give you myself forever.”
A harsh bark tore through the tunnel. Marli-hrair flinched, and her ears flattened against her back. Then she realized what it was, and became even more afraid. The Black Rabbit had laughed.
“You would be a very poor servant,” he said. “You would plead for a new bargain every time you saw a rabbit you wished me to spare. Very well. I will spare your warren, and I will not take your life. But there is a price, little doe. Everything has a price- including your impertinence.”
Marli-hrair was silent, fearing that to open her mouth again would let more impertinence slip. But inwardly she rejoiced. Her warren was safe, and whatever curse he called down upon her could not dim her joy.
“You will never see your warren again,” said the Black Rabbit. “You will never have another litter, nor train another Owsla, nor call any place your home. As long as you roam, your warren will be safe from the white blindness, and men with gas, and anything that might destroy it entirely.
You asked for forever, Marli-hrair, and forever I will give you. Keep moving, and you will never grow older, and never die. But if you ever spend more than one night in the same place, I will withdraw my protection from your precious warren. Now be gone. You will not find me again… until you lie down twice in a place you call home.”
“I accept!” cried Marli-hrair.
But her words were spoken into the teeth of the wind. The scent of crab-apple and groundsel surrounded her, and the earth was yielding under her paws. The cold tunnel of the Black Rabbit was as far from her a dream is from waking, yet she knew that the bargain she had made was real. She put her whiskers to the wind, and took the first step of her endless journey.
“That is the story of Marli-hrair,” said Inléhain. “It happened hrair years ago, and no rabbit knows the name of the warren she swore to protect. Her kittens have long since grown and died, and their kittens have grown and died, and their kittens too. But her warren remains, as long as she wanders. Sometimes she catches a glimpse of a rabbit with starlight shining on his ears, and she knows that if she only asked, he would take her home. But then she remembers the duty of a Chief Rabbit to her warren. And she moves on.”
“Well done,” said Hazel. “You may stay as long as you like, if you can tell a story like that. There are plenty of good bucks to choose from if you wish a mate, and you’ll find that we value a good storyteller.”
Bigwig was glad of Hazel’s offer. A rabbit who could wander alone so far must be capable; and the passion with which she told her story convinced him that she had some measure of Marli-hrair’s steadfast courage. He’d give her a while to show her stuff, he thought, but he was already sure he wanted her on his Owsla.
Inléhain finished the last of her carrot, then looked up at Hazel. “Thank you,” she said. “I’ll stay this night. But tomorrow I must move on.”