Chapter Text
Hidden in the bushes, Beanhop kept watch over the trail. It was quiet. There was a soft wind that made the leaves whistle a tune, but besides that, he could not sense a thing, and hadn’t for the past hour. He let out a sight. Eventually, the bird made its way from the top of the canopy, and landed sharply on the dirt of the trail with a thud and a quick flap of his wings.
“We usually stay at our post for thirty minutes,”, he said. “before moving to a new spot. Of course, in such circumstances we are patrolling a much larger area. The Rats are simple minded, but they would never be brazen enough to send scouts into the Woodland through the beaten paths.”
“How many have you found?”, asked the bun.
“Many. But of note, two”, he replied. “One was a petty warlord; I could see it in the singular ambition in his eyes. He believed himself capable of uniting the clans under his leadership, if he could lead a successful raid. We caught him with a party of five. They were not bold enough to raid a clearing, and instead preyed on caravans and travellers along the main road. Trade is sparse here, so his success had been minimal before we got to him. Three dead rats, one of my men injured, and the leader captured alive.
The other was a lone beserker. In times when the rat clans stand united, he’d be the kind of madman to lead the frontline shock troops. In times like ours, his kind are lost souls in search of indiviually obtained glory; not out of ambition to rule, but simply ambition to lead in battle and draw blood. That one was… troublesome. My men were green at the time, and their presumptousness cost us dearly. I lost two good scouts to his axe, and a third was severely injured. My whole party was taken out of comission for some weeks as we waited for reinforcements.”
Beanhop thought back to the days of the great war. He had rarely seen such creatures himself; tales of their everlooming shadow largely came to him in the form of distorted rumors and tall tales spun by his comrades in arms across the Woodland. However, there was one instance where he did get the chance to lay eyes on a Rat himself. It was during the deep darkness of the night, when the spring came to a close and the conflict approached its bitter conclusion. He and some others were guarding a clearing where a speaker had been deployed. The poor sod turned up dead when they turned their eyes away for an afternoon, and naturally, his colleagues had immediately suspected the birds that garrisoned a regiment nearby. However, a quick investigation cleared that suspicion. They found the speaker’s body torn to pieces, brutalized by sharp teeth and claws and cleft by heavy blades that the eyrie don’t favor. The clearing’s population told them of a monster lurking in the woods, and hid inside their homes.
They found the monster: neither Beanhop nor any of his mates had experience in such things, but by Hawkeye’s descriptions, it must’ve been a berserker. It was a tall, haunting thing whose hunched back still held its head far above their own, and whose bloodied battleaxe dripped incessantly, being the reason they caught his trail and found him. It had shifty, maddened eyes that darted about with no apparent pattern, and its whole body spastically twitched as if afflicted by some demonic spirit. When a sound escaped its mouth, it was a low pitched, whispered squeaking through heavy breathing.
They attacked it all at once, spears raised high. Despite that, the mouse next to Beanhop was effortlessly crushed by a downward swing of the axe before they pierced him and ended its life.
“Beanhop?”, Hawkeye’s voice snapped him away from his thoughts.
“I cannot face these things”, he replied at last.
He had begun to think taking this job was a grave mistake. His sword arm had been strong during the war, and he never doubted himself before, even against the most self assured of eyrie infantry, whose gleaming spears threatened so many others into compliance. But the Rats were, to him, something else entirely.
“Your job is not to fight, lest you forget”, said Hawkeye.
He paused, and turned his head sharply to one side and to the other, in search of any movement. He found nothing. Then, he said:
“Above all, your job is that of a… an advisor, shall we say. Did I not make it clear? My men are good scouts and good fighters, but I figured a man of your background and natural inclinations would offer much needed perspective that would help my decisions. And besides…”, he hardened his gaze. “The Rats are an issue for another time. For now, focus on what matters. We need to find this rabbit gang. If they’re primarily targeting the fox clearing, they cannot have set shop too far away.”
Beanhop nodded, but felt conflicted on the matter. That a gang like this would even be formed… what could possibly have happened?
“If they cannot be lured out,” he said. “There’s something we can try.”
“What is it?”, asked the bird.
“I can…”, Beanhop turned to answer, but his words trailed off into silence and disgust. “Keep your scouts here on the road, just in case. I’ll advance alone.”
“That’s ridiculous. I’ll watch over you from up above.”
“No.”, insisted Beanhop. “This can only work if nobody’s watching. I’ll call for you.”
Hawkeye stood in silence for an instant, but quickly replied:
“So be it. We’ll be right here.”
And with that, he flapped his wing again and took flight, disappearing into the canopy and making no noise as he nestled inbetween the leaves, as if he’d never been there at all. As for Beanhop, he turned and stepped off the trail into the untreaded folliage, but he stood for a moment, to make sure he sensed no movement in the canopy. Assured that the bird had kept his word, he went further in.
All alone, he fell to his knees and then to his paws, and treaded carefully along the trail in search of a sign. He could not bear letting the birds know of this, for two reasons. For one, Beanhop had no idea just how aware the eyrie were of their habits and customs, and revealing anything without cause was too deep a betrayal to those of his kin for him to ignore. Secondly, the act itself was embarrassing, requiring him to stop standing tall and crawl along the ground as a submissive prey animal, and he knew predators found it all too amusing to give chase under such conditions. It was degrading, and something rabbits of the modern age only did in hiding, when they were among friends that could be trusted.
Eventually, Beanhop’s wild shot did bear results, as he had suspected. The gang, being composed solely of bunnies themselves, had clearly seen fit to use their trail signs as expected, and it wasn’t long before Beanhop came across rabbit fur left intentionally tangled in the vines and roots of the oaks. These fur patterns were small enough to be left undetectable to untrained eyes, and yet complex enough that an individual could twist for themselves a unique signature, identifying him to his brethren. Beanhop could not notice anything of that nature in the fur left behind by strangers, but he could well enough sense the most common markings in the nearby bark: he was along what the bandits considered to be a safe trail to slip by unnoticed.
Beanhop stood up, and shaked the dirt and leaves off his cloak and paws. Armed with this knowledge and a direction, he called sofly for the birds, that responded with a tune and a rustle of the canopy above him. Step by step, he marched forward, and the rangers followed him unseen until he came across a tiny clearing up ahead, with just enough of a slit inbetween the leaves to let pass some thin rays of unmolested sunlight onto the forest floor. Beanhop climbed the nearest trunk, fearing that his steps in the dry leaves would give him away in a vulnerable position, and from relatively high he threw rocks, acorns and twigs at the ground below.
It worked like a treat. It took no time at all for a lone pair of curious ears to pop out of the leaves, as a hatch was carefully swung open. The birds did the rest.
Hawkeye took something of a leap of faith, not flying so much as falling straight towards the target before spinning in a gracile pirouette that turned him upright, as he landed unharmed by the hatch and kicked it open before being noticed. Dexterously, he reached down and yanked the unaware rabbit off of the ladder he was precariously holding on to, and flung him up until he landed on the ground with a crack of a hundred leaves and a cry for help already formed in his lips.
As the rest of the scouts flew down to aprehend him, an effective blockade had been set up around the bandit hideout. Hawkeye quickly flew about and ordered his guards to clean away the thick lawyer of leaves around the small clearing, in search of a second hatch that could be used as an emergency escape route. There was none; the bandits were fully trapped in their underground base.
There were some attempts at a clean fight, but the bandits’ unenviable position and the sole chokehold made it easy for Hawkeye to negotiate their surrender from a position of strength.
“In no unclear terms,” he spoke with a commanding voice. “you are charged with banditry, assault, theft, among many other charges that will certainly arise from your confessions. However, you are assured that no harm will fall upon you, so long as you lay down your arms and submit peacefully to a search.”
As he spoke, a swing of blades came from the hatch at his feet. He quickly jumped out and parried at them with his sword, but found it impossible to swipe them away or yank more of the rabbits out of the access tunnel.
With the situation made to be at a standstill, Hawkeye eventually managed to spook the bandits with the promise of an effective siege that would not relent, taking advantage of the fact the bandits were not entirely aware of just how many men had them surrounded. Eventually, one by one, the bandits came out of their hole with their hands up, and sheepishly submitted themselves to be searched and cuffed before realizing they had been duped; there were seven of them in total, compared to the three that made up the scout party. But when they became aware of this, they were already disarmed and restrained.
The march back home was near unbearable for Beanhop. He refused to make eye contact with the bandits. He could feel them burning the back of his head with their stares as Hawkeye and his men led them back to the clearing through the road. Not a single word was spoken from the moment the thieves were caught to when they finally arrived back at the clearing. First, he heard whispers of disbelief, as the bandits wondered just what had happened, believing themselves mistaken with their first guess. However, Beanhop’s presence and the eyrie’s pinpoint precision made the situation all too clear. The whole trail back home, the bandits eyed Beanhop with murderous eyes. He could not bear see their faces when the birds took them to the Waystation, and chose instead to stay by the clearing’s edge in silence, awaiting Hawkeye’s return.
That was a rather poorly slept night afterwards.
In the following morning, sensing time itself to stand at a strange standstill, Beanhop stared glass eyed at the horizon over the treeline, as he listened to Birdsong’s humming tune. Hawkeye eventually came to him, finding that he had made camp at the clearing’s edge rather than risk mingling about the populace again.
“Have you eaten?”, he asked.
Beanhop gave him no response. Hawkeye tossed him a bundle of carrots in a shallow wooden bowl, that the rabbit began to peck away at instinctively.
“I’m not sure what exactly happened,”, said the bird. “but I’m no fool. The bandits, they got to you, didn’t they? I could see the way they were all eyeing you down.”
Beanhop, once again, did not respond.
“I can’t relate”, Hawkeye continued. “Not because us Eyrie don’t worry about such things, quite the opposite. Rather, we are so accustomed to factionalism and betrayal among our kind that it does not register to us as strange. It’s been this way for as long as anyone can remember.”
Still no answer. Hawkeye stared off to the rising sun, and comtemplated the consoling music that spun through the air from the distant roosts. And then he said:
“It wasn’t always like this, though. Have you ever heard of Drinks-From-The-Moonlight?”
The name was very much familiar to Beanhop, yes. It was, as far as he knew, familiar to all creatures of the Woodland.
“No Eyrie lineage ever questioned him, or attempted to undermine his authority”, said Hawkeye. “To many among us, he’s a hero; some of our houses even go so far as to claim descent from his bloodline. Posthumously, they bestowed upon him many titles: The First King, Solemn Ruler of All, Master of Masters, the First Among the Elders… He held no titles in his life. That makes him a rarity among my people. I don’t think you quite grasp the significance of it.”
“Do tell”, finally came from the rabbit.
“In the day of our fifteenth birthday, our families give each of us a name. This is our true name; or so it is for most, anyhow. To reveal our true names to each other is considered to be something of a social mistep, to put it lightly. Rather, each of the Eyrie accumulates over the course of their life a litany of titles, nicknames given to them by others. We use these names much in the same way, say, that one might use a variety of different masks at the carnivals of summer. We call ourselves by a name in some circumstances, by another in others, like one might put on formal clothes for his professional trade or armor for battle. The true name is reserved for only the most intimate of occasions: it is traditional among the lower nobility to reveal their name to their partner – and only them – as the deepest declaration of love. It is also customary to speak the true name during the wake at one’s funeral, only after listing all of the titles they earned in life.
Drinks-From-The-Moonlight did not consider himself bound by this standard. Naturally, the people of the Woodland called him all manner of things, but he never claimed these nicknames for himself, and he did something considered disgraceful among all the Eyrie: present himself by his true name to his subjects, even his peasants and retainers.”
This was news to Beanhop. It recontextualized disjointed conversations he heard among the more intellectually minded of his peers in the Alliance; talk of the repulsive ill of these archaic practices. He understood now. Still, it left him puzzled. And then, he came to a sudden realization.
“So why did you tell me your true name? If that’s what Sings-Upon-Sunset is.”
“Because I, like him, value honesty. It establishes trust.”, replied the bird. “I have my own litany of titles, some that I resent, others that bring me a measure of pride. But this token effort, that of revealing the true name, I do not consider it shameful.” Hawkeyed turned his eyes away, towards his side. “I came to despise the secrecy that dominates life among the courts of Woodland. It was never in my nature to keep my tongue tied, and I resented being judged for it. In the army, there is strictness and discipline, but more important, there is honesty. I know all the true names of my men, and they know mine. That binds us in oath, in a way.”
Beanhop, out of curiosity, replied with a sly smile.
“Well then, if you value honesty that much, tell me: why is it that you were given that name?”
Hawkeye turned towards him and shot him a stare of surprise, as if the question was utterly scandalous. Still, he eventually chuckled, and said in return:
“Among most people, a baby’s first cry represents his first breath of life. Among my kin, however, our eggs hatch in the sunrise, and when the birdlings sing towards it, that moment is taken to be their equivalent. But I was different. I did not hatch along with my brothers in the morning. My parents feared that I’d be a stillborn, as is typical of such situations. They consulted the elders and the clan’s priest for help, and my mother prayed to the gods throughout the day that I would live. All throughout, she held my egg to the sunlight in prayer, and by evening’s end, she feared that I would not survive. However, I would eventually hatch in her embrace, weak and silent, and she held me to the setting sun, where I sang my first song and became rejuvenated by the last of its rays before it slipped past the horizon. She named me in honor of the gods, for she believed it was their intervention that saved my life.”
Beanhop stood there in silence for a moment, and turned back towards the sun of Birdsong, saying:
“And do you believe it?”
“I believe both that yes, and that regardless, it matters little. Some call it the gods, others Nature, others fate, others the whims of chance… I don’t think it’s wise to get hung up on the details. By the will of fate, I lived, and like all things, there was a purpose to that.”
After standing by Beanhop without saying anything for a bit, Hawkeye stepped aside, and said:
“My men know my name. They do not know the reason why it is my name. Suffice to say that if the name itself is an intimate matter, its origin is even more so.” The bird hardened his gaze. “Among the Eyrie, loyalty is everything. For a man of the army, doubly so. I hope you understand the weight of this sincerity, and don’t take it lightly.”
As Hawkeye was about to walk away, Beanhop stopped him, and replied:
“It doesn’t matter nearly as much to me, but… Beanhop is a family name. It skips generation: my father didn’t have it, but my grandfather did. It’s a farmer’s name, and it’s meant to be humble. Mom told me that it’s derived from an old Eyrie term for menial laborers.”
“I see.”, spoke Hawkeye in turn. He smiled. “Thank you for sharing it, regardless.”
His attention was briefly stolen by the end of Birdsong: the soft tune came to a swift conclusion on a high echoing note, and then the air became silence save for the blow of the wind and the distant rumbling on the populace on the clearing.
“Come now.”, he said. “You have no reason to fear the foxes. Now that the bandits are locked away, they’ll have no issue with you. Everything will be cleared up.”
Shyly, Beanhop followed behind the bird, taking his things with him. As he stared at Hawkeye from behind, he became terrifyingly mesmerized by the uncanny resemblance he bore tho the old nobleman, and almost recalled a memory he had of seeing him walk away, blade in hand, surrounded by blood and flames before vanishing in the darkness.
This bird, though… this bird was definitely different.