Beneath the Mistlebells 1
#1 of Beneath the Mistlebells
The stars said to the sky, "I think I love you."
The sky said to the stars, "I hope you're wrong." There was no way the stars could see how empty the sky was, or be aware of the dark that filled every part of space between those dim pinpricks of light.
The sky held the stars, despite his words, and would hold them still, until every last one had shined their last.
Far below, a forest was bathed in darkness, far from any star which may bathe serenity. Instead, the mistlebells shone their unearthly light, upon the face of a hare, who stared up fondly.
"What strange light you shed," the creature said, a brief hop between the thick tree trunks. "What strange warmth from your glow I feel."
They hung from the trees like some exquisite fruit, round and plump, the blue glow fading to the darker edges, and white freckles adorning the surface. "How marvellously odd a bulb you are," the hare said, and looked beyond, where trails of the bells led through the foliage. With no where else to go, she travelled onwards, hopping in the silent forest, from spot to spot beneath the canopy of darkness and the glow of blue.
At length, she came upon a clearing, but stopped shy of entering as she detected the presence of another. She shied back behind a trunk, as a mumbling fox stepped into view, wearing a waistcoat and top hat. He looked peculiarly preoccupied, slinking from trunk to trunk, as if looking for something, his bushy tail flicking behind.
By the light of the mistlebells, his shadow grew long against the trees, dancing and shrinking as he would cross the clearing, like an extension of himself, touching all that he passed.
It was strange, thought the hare, but she sensed no danger from the figure, sinister though he might be, with flash of fang in the dark, and tread of claw on leaf. She took a deep breath, and stepped forwards from her cover.
It took a while for the preoccupied fox to notice the quiet little hare, so silent she had been in her approach, and so locked up in his thoughts he was, but after a minute or two, his path crossed her, and he stopped short, all of a sudden, regarding the unfamiliar hare.
"Oh my," he said, "Oh my, oh my. What are you doing here?"
The hare shrank back. "I apologise if I'm interrupting, good fox," she said graciously. "But I could not help but stumble upon this clearing, and my curiosity got the better."
The fox paused, contemplating, his features all the more imposing up close - the sharp shaping of that snout, the hang of his teeth, and the way he clasped his claws together - but still the hare made no move to run, and in kind the fox made no move to chase. "I am Blue," the fox said at length.
The hare smiled. "Hello, Blue," she said, nodding her understanding, for it could only be his name - as his coat was as red as any she had ever seen, even under the blue light of the mistlebells. "I'm-" she began, but paused almost as soon as she had started. She had not known what would be coming next in that sentence.
"You are, indeed," Blue, the fox said, after a moment's silence.
"I am what?" the hare asked.
"You are," Blue replied. "And that is enough for any one of us, I should think."
"There's more to it than that, I'm sure," the hare said.
"Then being so certain, you shall doubt furnish me with the details, in time," Blue said, curling his head and looking somewhere over her shoulder.
"That's a silly thing to say," the hare declared.
"Then it must be a silly person who said it," Blue returned, then took on a different tone of voice entirely. "The known and unknown are only significant with a reason to know and not to know, don't you know?"
"I don't know," the hare said.
Blue nodded. "I know."
"What do you know?" the hare asked.
"Enough, and a lot more besides." he said.
"That's another silly thing to say."
"I like you, hare," Blue said with a grin, flashing his menacing looking teeth. "You may stay,"
"But I was only passing," the hare protested. "You can't mean to keep me,"
"I don't, of course, but the mistlebells..." he trailed off, and turned away, going back to searching around the trunks of the trees.
"What are you looking for?" the hare said, after a moment, hopping closer.
"Same thing anybody is looking for," the fox replied. "With all questions there is an answer, though," he turned to the hare "not, perhaps, the ones we would desire."
"Questions?"
"Yes. That was an easy one. Give me another," Blue said.
"Okay," the hare said with a giggle. "Why is your name Blue?"
"You might as well ask why the earth is green or a tree is brown," the fox replied.
"The earth isn't always green, and trees aren't always brown," the hare retorted.
"And I am not always blue," Blue replied.
The hare paused. "I suppose that makes sense," she said.
"Not the answer you wanted, though, I suspect."
"Felt like more of a riddle than an answer," she acknowledged.
"An answer is only as good as it's understanding. I have a question for you, hare."
"It's only fair."
"What has brought you here, beneath the mistlebells?" he asked, turning back to her again, kneeling down and raising his hands upwards, towards the hanging blue lights.
The hare thought, but shook her head. "I don't know, I'm afraid."
"You're afraid? That makes some measure of sense."
"No, I'm not - I simply meant that, to cause no offence, I cannot answer your question."
"So your fear was of causing me offence?" Blue asked. "That hardly seems relevant, in that context."
"I did not mean it to," the hare said, exasperated.
"Then why say it at all?" Blue mused, narrowing his eyes at her.
She shrunk back meekly. "It's an expression,"
"But I asked for an answer."
"I couldn't give it!" protested the hare.
The fox slinked forwards gracefully, coming within in an arms reach of the hare. "Couldn't, or wouldn't?"
The hare shrunk back further. "Couldn't!"
Blue stared hard, then smiled. "See, that's an answer. Not to the question I asked, but an answer all the same." He immediately turned back to what he had been doing, as if satisfied.
"I don't understand. How is one answer to your question different to the other?" the hare asked.
Blue looked up as if to speak, but then seemed to think better of it, and instead turned to the mistlebells, staring upwards as he spoke again. "If you were able to talk to mountains, listen to the conversation of streams, and discuss with the skies would you expect them, too, to follow your conventions?"
"I don't see how that's relevant," the hare said.
Blue shook his head. "Not an answer,"
"Okay, no." the hare said. "I would not. I would expect them to use their own ways, I suppose. I imagine that were streams to talk they'd... sort of warble. And mountains would probably take an aeon to say hello. I imagine skies would talk through the dance of wind. I imagine not one of us would understand, even if we could listen."
Blue smiled, "Then maybe we are."
"Are what?" the hare said.
"Listening. All the time," Blue replied. "But that's a lot of answer, for a little question."
"You ask good questions," the hare said in return, though her tone was unconvinced.
Blue turned back to his task, speaking again after a few moments. "It's your turn."
The hare nodded. She felt a desire to impress the fox. "Why do stars shine?" she said, after a moment's thought.
"Why do you care?" Blue shot back.
"That's not fair!" the hare said. "You're not allowed to answer a question with a question!"
"That's only according to your rules," Blue said.
"But if we both do that we'll end up with more questions than answers!" the hare protested.
"That happens more often than you'd think."
"I demand you answer it anyway." the hare said.
"Because," Blue said, bringing a paw up to his muzzle, resting his chin on it. "You wanted to ask an intelligent question, and you thought you'd ask me one I couldn't possibly answer."
"That's..." the hare said, embarrassed. "Not an answer to the question."
"No, but it is an answer."
"But it's irrelevant!
"Is it?" the fox said, with a smile. "Or are you saying you really think it matters, and you care about why the stars shine." he leaned closer again. "You only asked the question because you thought you already knew the answer."
"And you're saying that you knew that I knew?" said the hare sulkily.
"It doesn't matter if I know or not, of course," Blue said. "You could believe the stars are angels from heaven, a sign from God or some other higher power, or perhaps that they are the souls of lost friends or family, or people yet to pass. You could believe a million things, but what you wanted to know is would I be impressed."
"I don't want to know that!" the hare protested.
"Well, I was, a little," Blue continued, ignoring her protests. "It's a good question. Very dramatic."
"And you tossed it away?!" the hare said, indignant.
"But don't you feel wiser for my answer?" Blue asked.
"I feel a whole lot sillier," the hare said.
"Humility is the path to wisdom. Or was it arrogance? There was something about leading to a fall..." the fox mused, then turned back to his searching.
The hare hopped forwards, her curiosity getting the better of her. "So what are you searching for?" she asked again, repeating her question from earlier.
"Answers, like I said. You can help me look, if you like."
As she drew closer she saw the tree bark more clearly. These trees were different from the rest she had passed, and had scrawled on them a drawing, cut into the bark. "It looks like a bookcase," she said, confused.
"What better source of knowledge," the fox said, smiling.
"But they're not actual books," she said, touching the bark with a paw. The drawings were crude - like they'd been clawed into the trunk.
"We do not live in an ideal world," the fox answered. "One must do one's best. Question and answer, pen and paper."
"I don't see you with either pen or paper," the hare said.
Blue faltered a little, deflating and letting out a sigh. He appeared to lose the trail of what he had been doing, and instead raised a paw and leaned against the tree trunk, bring up a claw to stroke at the carving. When he spoke, it was with less of his already customary enthusiasm. "Tell me, hare. If you knew you were going to die tomorrow, would you attempt to learn new things today?"
"You mean, would I invest in a future I would never have?" the hare said, carefully.
"Good question," the fox replied. "Better than mine, and yes."
The hare thought about it for a long while, the silence dragging on under the shining mistlebells. "All of life is learning," she said. "Though we might forget, or we might ignore what we experience, on some level we are always learning."
Blue smiled. "An answer to break the question."