Starbasin

It was a mercy that Rhizo passed out after being lifted into the air. The feeling of flying was so far beyond what his mind could accept. His captor let him sleep, and his body took the chance to catch up on the rest he didn’t get the night before. At least it was dreamless.

As awareness returned, the warm feathers that were wrapped around him felt like the rabbits back home, but something was clearly wrong. There was the scent of the nest, a dry woody smell with a slight hint of old death. He was also pressed against a large bird’s chest, which rumbled with a light hooting wheeze as it slept.

His eyes opened and took in a large round nest with a single circular opening that seemed to have only sky beyond. Through it, the Lord Sun was starting his late day descent. Rhizome swallowed, he couldn’t help but pull away, but knew he couldn’t bolt. The wing around him gently pulled him back to the owl.

The owl yawned, her sharp beak pointing away from him, but if she decided to use it, Rhizo knew he’d stand little chance. The head dipped down to greet him. “Glad to know your heart didn’t burst during the flight.” The voice was cold, without concern but also without hunger. “Welcome to my nest.”

Rhizo’s panic started in his gut, but he pushed it down. Death wasn’t here to collect him just yet, so maybe he would survive. Few words came, even the instinct to plead for his life fled from his terror. He managed to get out a simple, “Why?”

“Hooo.” The owl slowly withdrew her wing. “I brought you here to talk. I am Belenus and you have done something recently that caught my interest. It seems that you terrified a wolf. And not with mere threats; that would be boring. A rabbit who could do that might have a secret or two that even an owl doesn’t know.”

“Terrify a wolf?” Rhizo let his legs give out as he collapsed in the middle of the nest. “How could any rabbit terrify a wolf?”

The owl tilted her head, and shuffled lightly around the nest. “How indeed. Your canine dialect is impressive. Do you actually know those words, or are you mimicking mine? Unless I, too, am speaking Lapine. Do you have a chant for owl?”

Rhizome’s ears shook and flattened. In his panic, he hadn’t noticed the other language. He pushed it down again; fear would only get him killed. He sat up and puffed out his chest in a feeble attempt to seem bigger. “What did wolf tell you?”

She chuckled and slipped into Lapine. “Impressive. You stand despite your perfectly reasonable fear. Very well then. He was still running when I saw him. Do you know how much it took to reassure him that I wasn’t speaking rabbit? Every word I said only seemed to upset him more. I had to go through three dialects and two languages before he stopped trying to flee. Once he realized your chant had worn off, he explained what you did. Warned me not to go near you. You or your weasel slave.” She poked at his chest with a sharp talon. “Now, do I have the correct rabbit?”

Rhizo lowered himself back to the floor of the nest. “It was me. What do you want?”

“Me? What does Belenus want? I’ve never heard of a seer infecting another with language. And my memory goes back quite a ways. You clearly didn’t use an herb.” Then her voice got quiet. “How. Did. You. Do. It?”

“I was told there are taboos against speaking the language of prey.” It wasn’t a plea for his life, but there was no holding back against the owl’s demand. “I played to that. I could understand him, and I thought it was unexpected. And maybe if I talked back, it’d keep him off-balance.”

“You expect me to believe you simply talked to him?” The owl clicked her beak, but didn’t advance again. “Details!”

“I’m a warren rabbit. I have no power. Not a seer, not a healer, not an herbalist. I can’t fight. What I seem to do, is be so insignificant, I change visions. I stomped instead of hiding when I met Eitan. And when we came upon a seer who expected to die, we made up a story. An act. I talked, and he pretended to be a talker. Only it was in Canine. So the wolf was confused. He didn’t believe. But the seer had words from his vision, and Eitan is a convincing liar. I just had a dumb idea that worked.”

“Visions cannot be changed, little one. Every owl knows that.” Belenus hooted again. “Perhaps you do not know what you did. Which is a shame, because that makes you much less interesting.”

“I spoke with Death!” Rhizome desperately grasped for something to get back the owl’s interest. “When Eitan gutted me, when we first met, I spoke with Death. Not a vision of Death, but I was dying and he came— he came for Eitan, but Eitan wasn’t dying, I was. And we talked. and he led us to the seer. And I just had to try something.”

The owl’s face was one of passive disbelief. She loomed a little closer, trying to see something in the rabbit. “And what of the weasel, this Eitan? How did he go from gutting you to pretending to be your slave?”

“I am Eitan’s prisoner. He was humoring me.” Rhizo’s ears twitched. He knew the words weren’t true, but wasn’t ready to face what had happened. He tried again, “He can’t kill anymore. Maybe he never could, I don’t know. He said he sees my eyes in those he tried to eat. Mune called us friends. He was supporting a friend’s idea.”

Belenus listened, and asked, “How long have you traveled together?”

“A half moon? Maybe more, it’s hard to tell.”

“That could be it. Weasels are usually solitary,” Belenus explained. “If he started to think of you as family, and clearly he knows how to talk to rabbits… How did you get him to take you prisoner?”

Rhizo felt exposed. The owl didn’t believe all of his words, but there must be enough there. “I offered myself if he would leave the warren. He thought it was a trick, and accused me of being poisoned or sick. He was making sure I was healthy before he ate me.”

“That is not the action of a normal rabbit.” The owl looked at Rhizo, and her large eyes blinked slowly. “I suspect the vision you claim you changed predicted you’d be afraid. The wolf did not expect bravery. It left his mind open to the possibility that something was wrong. Yet, you did this by accident. Got him to hesitate when you did not show the expected fear. Or was it? You did it with me.”

“Brave?” Rhizo shook his head. “You wanted to talk, I don’t think me standing up to you would have changed your mind. I saw a weasel and I stamped. I realized the vision was wrong so I tried to fix it. I saw a rabbit in danger and I helped him. It was the right thing to do. There’s nothing brave about that. I was terrified.”

“Brave isn’t not feeling fear,” she said. “And those actions are not as common as you think. There are many who would have left the other rabbits to their fate and saved themselves.”

“That doesn’t make it okay.” Rhizome turned away.

The awkward silence hung in the air between them. Belenus seemed to have her curiosity fed. Rhizo still didn’t see Death… Were his answers enough to earn him a flight to the ground?

Outside the nest, another owl called, “Belenus! May I speak with you?”

“Go away, Taran. It is not a good time.”

He responded, “I wish to discuss the value of the rabbit you have in there.”

Rhizo flopped onto the floor and tucked his head under his ears. This was way too much.

Belenus poked her head out of the nest. “Why would you care? He has no herbs.”

“I want to be sure he’s okay,” the other owl called. “Can you bring him out?”

“Fine.” Belenus grabbed Rhizome with her talons and leapt out of the nest. She fluttered heavily to the ground and let Rhizo go. “Let’s talk.”

Rhizo winced, but his mind refused to shut down. He opened his eyes in time to see the other owl drop to the ground next to them. Taran was smaller than he expected, and the owl studied him as Belenus had done just a short time earlier. Rhizome forced himself to breathe.

“Glad to see him safe. His servant was very concerned.” Taran clicked his beak. “Why did you take him?”

Belenus hooted. “He scared all sense out of a wolf yesterday.” She tilted her head and leaned closer to Taran, “Servant? The weasel?”

“Yes. He was very clear that the rabbit owns his life. He scared a wolf?” Taran also tilted his head and poked at Rhizo with a talon. “The weasel brought a warren rabbit with him to talk to me. Gurin stood up to me because he was inspired by this one.”

Belenus raised an eyebrow. “And you’re here to save his life?”

“I am.” Taran paused and shook his head. “What am I doing? What are you?”

Rhizome wasn’t afraid. He was likely in shock at the absurdity of what was happening, but it let him think in ways he hadn’t before. The owls were curious. He had friends who were willing to risk their lives for him. He had heard of such rabbits before. He had saved at least three lives, and if Gurin had taken his advice, there was only one response. In stories, tricksters had such luck. But, only one kind of trickster cared about those around him.

“I’m the hero.”