The Leveret and Us

 Frustrated by the attendants yet again

It's really annoying.

Clio found this tiny hare, I heard it's called a leveret, in the long grass in the orchard.

She was playing with it I think, but the leveret didn't want to play. It was screaming. I heard the screaming and went bounding over to the orchard to inspect. 

Unfortunately one of our attendants was nearby and heard it too. 

Now the one screaming was our attendant. Just as I reached Clio, spotted the prize and picked it up in my mouth she raced over like crazy whirling her arms and screeching at me to Drop It Argo!

Naturally I bounded off with the leveret in my mouth. It screamed some more, so there was this thing in my mouth screaming and my attendant, chasing after me, also screaming.

I decided to cut my losses. It's not worth agitating the attendants too much. If she wanted the leveret, she could have it. I dropped it and loped off to a safe distance in case she was going to punish me.

But she wasn't interested in me once she picked up the tiny creature with its ears flattened on its back, its tiny tail tucked in behind and its long paws splayed on the ground.

It looks like neither Clio nor I hurt the creature, so it was put in a box with some grass and water, left to recover for a few hours and then released into the woods outside our fence. They did something really weird first: they smothered it in mud so that it wouldn't smell of dogs or humans any more.

I heard the attendants discussing the incident: they couldn't understand why we hadn't harmed the leveret since I (in particular) am totally unforgiving of any non-human encroachments on my territory. But from my point of view, Clio is a dill and was treating the leveret like one of her lost puppies and I - I didn't have time to do anything, I was too busy running away from the screaming.

So the leveret was saved, which is completely frustrating. On the upside, it'll probably still be around to be chased another day.