Fic: Silflay with a God (Worlds of Chaos, xover with Watership Down)

[bookishwench]

Loki’s delight in other tricksters was not limited to humans. He had visited many worlds, many realities, and in all of them he had found his devotees who practiced cunning in the face of peril, who could slip from any ingenious trap as though they were greased. He adored watching them, and on occasion he would provide a guiding nudge or two, if it were warranted, but mostly he remained invisible and enjoyed the antics of the cleverest rapscallions with relish.

However, today was different. He was quite visible, though not in a form he supposed most would recognize. Perhaps Thor might, if he had learned anything from past experiences, which was doubtful. Loki, however, enjoyed the diverting change in perspective, sniffing the brisk wind and savoring the fresh, open scent of the breeze on the down. His ears quivered, sharply attuned to any danger, as he considered which patch of grass to choose as a tidbit. Delicately, he bit a dandelion stem, chewing it up to the flower and then popping that into his mouth as well.

“Pardon me?” ventured a polite but timid voice.

He had known the other rabbit was there, of course. He paused in his meal, tipping his head to one side and considering for a moment before hopping lightly towards him.

“Yes?” he responded.

“I don’t believe I’ve made your acquaintance before,” the small rabbit said nervously.

“You have.”

The other rabbit looked at him closely: a black rabbit with bright green eyes. His nose twitched very fast, and Loki could hear his heartbeat racing.

“There is no need to fear, little one,” Loki said. “Though I share a color with your Black Rabbit of Inlé, I am not death. Not now, at any rate.”

Still suspicious, the rabbit hopped a little closer, and when Loki made no move to stop him, he sniffed again.

“You don’t smell like a rabbit,” he said. “But you don’t smell like a human either.”

“I should hope not. They stink.”

“You do smell a bit like danger.”

“I mean you no harm, Fiver,” he said, using the name deliberately.

Fiver kept staring at him, and Loki could tell he was slipping between realities, as some of the rabbits tended to do. Suddenly, he gave a shudder and hopped backward once.

“I do know you,” he said, a quiver in his voice. “You were the one who told me.”

Loki bit into a bud of pink clover, chewing steadily and looking at Fiver without blinking. He neither confirmed nor denied the other rabbit’s realization.

“Are you—” the rabbit paused, looking frantically around at the rest of his warren, none of whom had seemed to notice the black rabbit except for him, “—are you going to tell me something else? Something horrible again?”

“Not today,” Loki said. “This spot is safe, or as safe as anything can be for rabbits in this world of men.”

“Is it really their world?” Fiver asked.

“They think so.”

“But is it?”

Loki played with a pebble between his paws for a moment before answering, “What do you think?”

“No,” Fiver said, almost as once. “They don’t know how to love the fresh wind and the grass and the morning dew. They don’t see the animals around them as anything but nuisances or food. They don’t taste the sweetness of the world. All they can do is destroy it, not own it.”

“And do rabbits own it, little Fiver?” Loki asked.

“No, and we don’t want to,” he said. “It’s enough to live, to run, to feel the grass under our feet in the summer and the soft dirt of a burrow in the winter. To outwit the Thousand Enemies for as long as we can, and then, perhaps, to join the Owsla of El-ahrairah and run and play and sip dew from cowslips and eat flayrah and play bob-stones beneath the golden light of Frith forever. But we do not want to own this world. Only man is so stupid.”

“Quite right,” Loki said, finishing another clover.

“You are not really rabbit or man, though,” Fiver said.

“No.”

“What are you?”

“Something else.”

“Yes,” Fiver said. “I suppose that’s enough of an answer. And you were who told me of the destruction of the Sandleford Warren.”

Loki said nothing, focusing on a point distant, one Fiver couldn’t see, but he was looking in the direction of where the humans had built their own warrens atop the bones of the mischievous rabbits who had once lived there. His eyes flashed red for an instant, then calmed back to green like the clover that covered the hillside.

“That was kind of you, though it was frightening.”

“Would you have left had you not been frightened?”

“I don’t know,” Fiver said. “It was hard to understand, but what I could made every bit of me tremble.”

“And run,” Loki finished. “Run far and fast. That was the point.”

“Why couldn’t I remember seeing you until now?”

“Because I didn’t want you to.”

“And why can I now?”

“Because I want you to.”

“Yes, but why?”

Loki seemed to be considering this for a long moment. He knew why he was there, of course, but he was weighing the consequences of telling the truth. Truth always had its drawbacks. As he thought, he drank a few drops of dew that had collected on a broad oak leaf that had blown from the forest to the hillside. He let himself relax further against the earth, then glanced at Fiver.

“I was lonely,” he admitted. “Where I live, there is no one else like me. I am… an aberration.”

It was Fiver’s turn to say nothing, thinking.

“I’m an odd one too,” Fiver finally said. “Too small, the runt. Without Hazel, I don’t think I would have survived, but then I suppose that’s true of all of us.”

“He’s a good trickster,” Loki said. “I come here sometimes to remind myself that there are others like me somewhere. Those who live by their wits, who have sense enough to run from danger, who may make the occasionally deeply stupid mistake, but in the end, they live to tell the tale.”

“Where is your warren?” Fiver asked.

Loki nodded towards the sky overhead.

“Are you one of Frith’s children?” Fiver asked, looking like he might flee.

“One might say that,” Loki said, his eyes dancing merrily. “How is it nothing ever tastes so good as a simple dandelion in open wind eaten in this form?”

“Because it doesn’t,” Fiver said, “that’s all. Silflay is the best thing in the world.”

“Perhaps so, little Fiver,” Loki said, stretching his legs. “Perhaps that’s all the wisdom in the wide universe: the taste of dandelions and the warmth of the sun.”

“And to know we are not alone,” Fiver said, glancing around at his fellow rabbits as though he were pondering how awful life would be without them.

“I suppose not,” Loki said. “I intend to be on my way, but before I go, I believe I’ll have a good run across the grass and feel what it is to be nothing but a blur of fur and paws.”

“That always makes me feel better,” Fiver agreed. “If you feel lonely again, come to visit. After all, we wouldn’t be here at all without you. It’s your warren as much as ours.”

Something like a smile played on Loki’s lips.

“May Frith bless your bottom and keep you from the reach of the Thousand Enemies, and may you live to run for many long years filled with peace,” he said, then added, “and may your kind never run out of tricks.”

Then, like a flash of black lightning, he shot across the meadow, his paws carrying him swifter than the flight of the hawks above until he faded into nothing, leaving Fiver to blink, then return contentedly to chewing a particularly plump dandelion.