Beneath the Same Moon

The evening was still, and the rabbits sat together beneath the beech trees while the last light faded from the Down. They had fed well, and now they watched the shadows lengthen as the first stars appeared above the hills. 

At length Hazel looked across at Dandelion.

"Dandelion," he said, "you've been quiet all evening. Have you no tale for us tonight?"

Dandelion twitched an ear and smiled.

"Oh, I have a tale," he said. "Though it is not one that many rabbits care to hear. It is about the greatest chief that ever lived... and the last rabbit he would ever meet."

The young rabbits crept a little closer, and Dandelion began.

In the days when General Woundwort ruled Efrafa, there was no rabbit stronger, nor any chief more feared. His Owsla obeyed without question, and the sound of his name travelled farther than any patrol.

It is said that he stood so high upon the bones of those who had stood against him that he believed no rabbit could ever look down upon him.

Yet every rabbit lives beneath the same moon.

And where the moon shines, the Black Rabbit of Inlé may walk.

So it was that, on a still night, while Woundwort looked only ahead to the battles yet to come, another rabbit stood quietly behind him.

The Black Rabbit neither threatened nor judged. He waited with the same quiet patience he had shown since Frith first sent him into the world. In time every rabbit, from the smallest kitten to the greatest chief, must walk beside him.

Woundwort did not turn. His gaze remained fixed upon the battles he had won, upon the power he had gathered and the fear by which he ruled. He believed that strength could master all things, and that order born of fear would keep death itself at bay.

Yet fear was never part of the natural order.

The woods did not grow through fear, nor did the streams run because they were commanded. The grass still sprang where Frith willed it, and the seasons turned as they always had.

The Black Rabbit knew that nothing needed mastering.

For the world belonged to Frith, and always would.

For in the end, even the mightiest chief cannot defeat the natural order. He can only take his place within it.

For a while no rabbit spoke. The breeze whispered through the long grass, and somewhere an owl called beyond the trees.

One of the smallest rabbits looked up at Dandelion.

"Did  Woundwort ever see him?"

Dandelion shook his head.

"No," he said softly. "Not until it was his time."

Hazel nodded, and after a while the rabbits rose together and made their way down into the warren beneath the hill, while above them the moon shone upon the Down, just as it always had.