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Rulatani’s Tale Part 1: Runt of the Darkened Moon

-Hapsan 71, Old Calendar-

Once, when the twelve daughters and twelve sons of Grandmother Hour were still virile, and their own respective offspring at sixty apiece were but stripling babes, there was a great wood that covered much of the fertile ground between the shimmering seas. This place was home to peoples beyond our knowing with thoughts and feelings all their own, but for the sake of the common tongue, they all agreed to call it ‘The Great Wood’. This was the most pragmatic name, for it was indeed great, and there was no shortage of woods to explore.

The Great Wood had its share of legends, from Atticus the Mockingbird to Swine Wilbur L’terrifique. Lesser known among them were the tales of Rulatani, mightiest hopper of them all. Ballads sung in deep halls, where nutty mugs of acorn wine clashed and much wild greenery was consumed, boasted all sorts of notions about the tumultuous wildbun Rulatani. His ears, like thorny vines, lashed out at the enemies of the Underwood from over a hundred paces. His roly-poly tummy could be scratched only by the gods, and his iron paws could lift whole chickens clear above his sueded crown. Rulatani, who wore the skins of the many melons he vanquished, and slaked his thirst by standing tall before monsoons with his mouth held open.

The truth was something altogether different, and such is the topic of our cotton-tailed tale.

Rulatani entered the world the only son of Shamariil the Seeress, most recent in a gifted line of buns that stretched back for more generations than the histories they recorded. The buns of the Underwood feared not, for there had always been a seeress to guide them, and by the power of the third ear they knew always the safest routes to fresh forage. In those days, not a single predator of the Great Wood, from the fox to the wolf to the great horned owl, knew the taste of rabbit flesh, and the buns of the Underwood flourished.

There is nothing in this world that can be said to last forever, and such were the good fortunes of rabbit-kind. Shamariil mated with her beloved—a modest gatherer whose greatest talent was to make her smile—and had a son beneath Rula, darkened twin of the silver moon, whose saccharine song can be heard only by those with the ears for it. The kit was a runt to say the least, who, after gasping for his first breath, prepared to draw his last. His mother, in desperation, made this plea:

“My light and my life for you, o darkened moon, if my own but shines for me.”

Miracles are made to be. The specter of the darkened moon breathed life into the child, but in payment spirited away Seeress Shamariil to the night sky, where she was never seen again. Her lover, who could not bear to feel a sunrise without her, entered a manic wanderlust from which he never recovered; he too was seen no more as he set off after the receding stars.

The elderbuns, robbed not only of a stout gatherer but of the Seeress herself, suffered an even greater fate, for her gift was available only to does of her now broken line. They named her kit ‘Rula-tani’, runt of the darkened moon, and heaped upon him all the blame for what had transpired as a result of his birth. It was thus that Rulatani spent his formative years seeking forgiveness for his own existence.

Rulatani didn’t stay a runt for long. By his first winter he was twice the size of any kit his age, and by his second he’d grown one whole size more. When he was old enough to tie up his ears and go gathering with the adults, he could reach higher boughs than any other and carry twice as much forage, but he ate three times his keep. Those who were stung by jealousy drew attention to this, and it wasn’t long before Rulatani was sent off to live in his own den, for no foster family could keep him fed.

Seeress Shamariil’s red mantle brought a deep vermillion glow to the once-darkened moon, but the shimmer was weak, and she could but scarcely light their way. Life in the Underwood became fast and harsh, as wild rabbits learned to survive on their own merits like they do today; those who failed found their place as prey in the great circle of life. All of this was laid at the paws of Rulatani, who never spoke in his own defense. Instead he put his head down and his whiskers to the grindstone, currying a favor he could never hope to gain.

Some years passed, and Rulatani became a gentle giant. He conversed in silence with the trees, stroked the tender petals of each white lily, and kept company with his reflection in every clear brook. To the Underwood he was a Flemish oaf, but he saw his mother always when he looked up to the stars, and did what he could to hop along in her tracks.

It may have gone on this way for all his days, had it not been for a fateful day when the monsoons came.

It was the worst rainy season in recorded rabbit history, and without their seeress, the impotent elderbuns knew not what to do. They could foresee no dry place, and every fresh burrow they dug threatened to become a watery grave. They wriggled and sloshed through the mud like worms driven to the surface after a fresh rain, with no dry place to call their own.

Their struggles did not go unnoticed, and their fate is soon to tell.