Watership Down: Untold Legend [Fox!Reader]

Chapter Five: My Rabbit

The forest thins and you feel a now-familiar weight as your friend leaps onto your back. His voice yells out, "Look, Red! The forest's edge!"

You laugh, easy, and free. Slim black legs pick up into a jog, "I think we're almost there, Treering!"

"Ah! Slow down, F-flame!" All four of his limbs grip your red fur tightly.

Your eyes twinkle with amusement, "Hang on!" and you leap over a stretch of gnarled roots.

He squeaks and you grin, "We're almost—!"

A man's voice fills your head:

"The primroses were over..."

Your animal eyes blink.

You come to a stop, and the wind rustles the trees above.

"...Toward the edge of the wood, where the ground became open—"

You shake your head and your fur fluffs out.

Words fall on blank sheets of aged paper.

You...read them and u n d e r s t a n d—

"—and sloped down—"

"Red...?"

"—On the other side of the fence—"

"—...again? Hey—"

"—the upper part of the field was—"

You're looking ahead as the writing in your mind begins to blur. You take a step forward and it's like you're falling out of your BODY—

"—full of rabbit holes."

"RED—!"

Treering. The fox's head snaps in his direction, but it's unseeing. Ears pointed forward. You open its mouth and you speak, "Words! Telling me something! Treering! Something is—!"

"—A hundred yards away, at the bottom of the slope—"

You turn away, back to the open space in front of you. "A place! This place—it's-" Your voice is rushed, a whisper— as if you should keep them secret. Like you're worried something else is listening.

Your heart quakes.

Color fills the fog in front of you and your vision is bathed in a Sun's rise.

"—...red in clouds, and there was still half an hour to twilight."

If you were to see yourself, your mouth would be open in awe. Teeth glinting and furry face slack.

You're stepping on wet grass. The voice doesn't fade, the strange words stay. But you take another step as if getting closer will make things easier to understand what is happening now.

If Treering is talking, trying to break through your now heavy mind, you don't hear him

"My dreams, Treering! This is the place—!"

The words bleed through paper and they swirl into colors. Simple drawings. A slop dotted with rabbits.

Like pages in a s t o r y b o—

A bird's song echoes from somewhere far off.

"This place is—!"

Treering doesn't run. He doesn't understand and he hasn't this whole trip. But he wants to. They're standing at the forest's edge. Nearly close to stepping free from the tree line.