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Rulatani’s Tale Part 2: The Wildbun

-Hapsan 77, Old Calendar-

We have spoken of the Underwood and the elderbuns that lived there; of their halcyon days under the seeress who guided them, and of the pact she made to save her only son. All the troubles of rabbit-kind thereafter were laid at the paws of Rulatani, runt of the darkened moon turned gentle giant, who never spoke but toiled away that he might someday earn a smile.

The worst monsoon season in known rabbit history left the elderbuns naked before the harsh whims of nature; flailing and desperate, with neither their seeress nor a dry hole to huddle in. Their woes did not go unnoticed.

Ulstaad, the one-eyed watcher, was a paragon amongst his people. A wiry stoat with the scars of his prey painted across his autumn hide, Ulstaad took particular glee in venting his personal insecurities upon his victims, shattering them in mind and body before their misery came to an end. Nobody knew exactly what had happened to his other eye, but the one that remained was an ice age all its own, sending a shock of winter across the shoulders of whomever it fell upon. The stoats were predators, not evil creatures, but under Ulstaad they were ruled by propaganda and the fear of disobedience. Thus it took but a single chirping speech upon the stump of a felled oak for Ulstaad to convince scores of stoatish hunters that the rabbits had somehow brought the rains. The truth meant nothing, for he worked their hate and their resentment into a clay ball of madness, then unleashed them in a frenzy upon the Underwood.

The hoppers were already becoming accustomed to eluding a single hunter, but surprised by organized numbers they stood not a chance. They kicked and bucked for their lives, but they were set upon from all sides, and their waterlogged burrows left them no place to go. They closed ranks under a canopy of saturated lotus leaves, but fear had run away with their souls, and their empty stares were a thousand leagues away.

All except for Rulatani.

The stoats, who could not handle him alone for his massive size, tackled him to the ground in threes, but found his hide too thick to bite through. He whose entire life had been an apology—who hung his ears low and had yet to ever speak for fear he had no right to—decided that day that what he had taken with his beginning he would give back with his end. In the name of his mother, who guided her people no matter what, he rose up to vent a lifetime of frustration upon his foe. He batted them away half a dozen at a time with every swipe of his massive paws, and kicked twice as many senseless with every buck from his sharp, snapping hinds.

Rulatani became known as the wildbun that day, for his hops shook the Earth, and his whiskered countenance was a force of nature. He blocked the way to the lotus grove, his girth too much for the stoats to run over or around, and held them at bay from the last rays of the daystar long into the night. An errant nightingale who happened upon the scene made song of it from the highest boughs, and many night creatures turned out at the fringes to see if it were true.

By the time the daystar peeked over the mountaintops to see what had happened Rulatani was covered in scars, but still he stood. The many stoats called for his surrender, but he refused, and in response uttered his first words, his ears held finally high:

“By my ears alone will I be dragged from this place. Come and try to take them.”

The stoats, ruffled and exhausted, fell into confusion and sought to parley. Words were exchanged with the cowering buns, and the stoats began to think for themselves. Like any other predator they took only what they needed from the Underwood. Anything more harmed them all.

But Ulstaad the one-eyed was a crafty dictator. He placed himself in the center of the gathering, gesturing to the stoats’ felled companions, and called upon them to make revenge. The stoats were worked once more into a fervor, but they hesitated; none among them wanted to be the first to meet the wildbun again. Thus Ulstaad, who had made many words, was forced to make actions instead.

“You are brave, rabbit,” rasped he, his icy eye aflame, “But bravery is easy when you have never truly stared your end in the face. Know that I am it.”

There the champions mixed, and from neither side did any dare to intervene. They leapt and swiped, charged and bit, until the night creatures who observed gave way to flocks of daylight. Ulstaad was fresh and strong, but Rulatani’s heart was an object unmovable. For a day, a night, and both again did they contest one another, until the stoats became hungry, and went off in search of easier game.

“Come back!” Ulstaad shouted. “There is an easy feast here! More than we could ever need! Only one measly rabbit stands in the way!”

One measly rabbit, indeed.

But Ulstaad’s strength was gone. He faltered, and upon his crown came the hardest buck he had ever felt. He spun about, then crumpled to the damp earth, his autumn coat like a frail leaf trod over.

The danger had gone, and the rains along with it. The daystar came out full in the sky, and Rulatani collapsed in a heap, creating a rabbit-shaped crater in the ground that still stands somewhere today.

You may think ill of the Elderbuns for what happened next, but they had their kits to mind, and too many predators had witnessed their near-demise for the Underwood to remain safe. The medicine bun could do nothing for Rulatani and so embedded in the earth was he that none could move him, so they heaped up their forage and made plans to light out. Their departing train passed by the still form of their champion. Some whispered their apologies. Some found no words at all. The kits, who did not understand, left wreaths of flowers, and asked when they would see him again.

The elderbuns peered bashfully at one another and spoke not. They soothed their young ones with pats upon the ears, then turned them towards the unknown.