[Irn League] The Zen Of War

[Philomel]

A sweet wind whistled from the east.

Not only did it sound as a melody of charm and joy, but also did it taste pleasant to the tongue, bringing with it the scent of honeysuckle, rose and vanilla - three flavours most delicate and flavoursome. It brought with it the lively chitters of birdsong, that brought calm to a pounding heart and cheer to a broken soul. This, joined with the white light of a summer sun, that streamed down and touched the features with a tenderness that it could be described as a mother's caress, spoke of perfect bliss in the place.

A utopia.

Suddenly a bird flittered into the relatively square garden, a light hop over the high wall. It came to land on one of the six stones that rested amongst circles of grass, which themselves rested amongst a stretch of sand, which took up the majority of the space. Lines, drawn with absolute care and precision, encircled these monuments to mineral and also divided the sand into a neat pattern, like that of a chessboard. Horizontal patterning met vertical, in squares and sections of a fair stride's length, creating the illusion of a tiled place going far back as the garden allowed. The small bird, looking at these arrangements was silent for a while as he contemplated them, black beady eyes blinking. But then he chirped a tune, communicating that it was all rather dull and boring. Rather too simple if you asked him. Rather too perfect.

Then he spied what he had come here seeking. A wriggle in the unusually sharply-trimmed grass. Hooting with delight and beating his wings the bird darted down to the thin band of grass beneath his stone, and pecked willingly at the ground. As he drew his head up a lithe worm wriggled in his beak, and his eyes shone with a cheer. As he looked up again he saw an odd-looking woman who seemed more tree than monster-two-legs, thus he paused - but then he remembered his family. Despite the fact she was kneeling and looked somewhat distressed did not concern the bird; his life and his home did. So he spread his wings and drifted off, back over the wall and into a place that did not exist, but fundamentally, for him, it did.

And as he disappeared another figure came into view, and it was as harmless as he, and as possibly part of nature. It - she - was a small, brown and white rabbit with a splodge-like pattern on his coat that was officially called 'piebald'. With one ear down and the other erect she slowly leapt into view across from the narrow verandah that came directly out of the south side of the teahouse (for a teahouse it was). The rabbit hesitated as she approached the smooth rocks that made up the border of the field of sand, taking a moment to check the stability of them. For unlike the bird she could not just avoid these things and fly away. Instead the rabbit needed to make the possibly treacherous journey from wooden decking to sandy shore, all in an aim to gain to the grass that was the only thing worth eating here to a herbivore.

Gingerly the rabbit distributed her weight and found the rocks to be suitable for walking. With a light pound on the earth with her back paws she sent herself into a hopping motion, going straight over the stones and then onto the sand. Directly distrupting the sand did she go, leaving behind her from first pawfall to each after occurring, dark dents and marrs in the previously impeccable pattern. She made no sound but for a gentle thump, thump, thump, as her back legs rose together and fell together, pushing her body over the sand and in front of the kneeling figure.

Whom she did not stop to say hello to, or to even acknowledge. All the rabbit simply did was head over to the closest surround of grass, and begin to nibble.

For hunger, not battle, reigned just now. And the faun she had left on the verandah to stare and blink with utter surprise at their opponent for this Citadel match, very shocked to see a very old friend right there, not a typical enemy - the rabbit disregarded her. She disregarded them all.

Because right now was grass-eating time.