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Once upon a summer's morning
A trainee witcher woke up, yawning,
Trained in swordcraft, ran the walls
(Careful not to trip and fall);
Broke his fast and swept the floors,
Finished all his other chores;
Time to sit with his best friend,
Whose book was *boring* to the end...
"I'm late!" - a rabbit checks the time;
"Geralt, did you see...? ugh, fine."
Rubbed his chin, scratched his head...
And chased the lagomorph, instead.
Eskel was beginning to get very tired of sitting by the lake with his friend, and of having nothing to do. He had tried to tempt the other boy with shenanigans and mischief, like the time they had caught a giant bumblebee together (and been soundly beaten by the swordmaster) - or even just a refreshing swim to cool down from the summer's heat, but Geralt was so very soundly absorbed by the book he was reading, that he wasn't even hearing Eskel's suggestions.
So he was considering, as well as he could, for the hot day made him feel very sleepy, whether it was worth the trouble of getting up and picking dandelions and daises to make a flower crown to place on Geralt's head (without Geralt noticing), when suddenly a white rabbit with pink eyes ran past.
There was nothing so very remarkable about this; nor did Eskel think there was anything so out of the ordinary to hear the rabbit say to itself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be late!" - although it occurred to him later that perhaps that should have raised some sense of alarm - but at the time, it all seemed quite natural; but when the rabbit took a watch out of the pocket of his waistcoat and looked at it, and then hurried on, Eskel jumped to his feet and raced after it just in time to see it pop down a large rabbit hole under a hedge.
In another moment, Eskel dived into the rabbit hole after it, never once thinking about whether he might fit, or how deep it might be, or how he would get out again, and before he had time to start thinking about such things, he was falling as if down a well.
Either it was a very deep well, or he fell very slowly, for he had plenty of time to think about what a silly thing it was that he had just done, and wonder how he would get out again, and if Geralt would even notice that Eskel was no longer sitting by his side, as thoroughly absorbed as he was in his book.
Eskel looked around, trying to see something he could catch onto on the way down. At first, it was too dark to see anything, but soon his eyes adjusted and he could see shelving, stacked with jars and books and pottery. He reached out and caught a jar in his hand. The label said "CREAMED RICE", but it was empty. He dropped it again, and it fell through the air a little faster than Eskel, and soon he lost sight of it.
Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to an end? He worried, by now, that it wouldn't. That he would fall right through the earth and out the other side. He attempted to grab hold of the cupboards on the way down, but unlike the empty jar, the shelving inexplicably slipped from his grip and refused to be caught.
Suddenly, a thump sounded from below, followed by some very grown-up swearing, and the sound of shattering pottery, which was followed in turn by Eskel landing none too gently upon a heap of sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Eskel jumped up, not a bit hurt (minor scratches and bruising, and even prickling ceramic splinters, did not count as hurt, by Kaer Morhen standards) so, not a bit hurt at all, he dusted himself off, pulling splinters out of his... out of where they had lodged, and looked around.
To one side of the pile of sticks and grass, lay the white rabbit, and Eskel jumped belatedly away from the place where he had landed, lest another jar of dessert be rudely dropped from above. He wasn't too sure how you were supposed to help a rabbit: Eskel only knew about skinning them when he was helping in the kitchens, but it had a bump on one side of its forehead and it still seemed to be breathing regularly, so Eskel hoped it would be okay, and not get eaten.
Being as he didn't know anything about where he currently was, he rather hoped that he didn't get eaten, either.
The light was still very dim, but ahead of him was a passageway carved from the earth. He thought, for a minute, about waiting where he was for someone to come and find him, but given the very, very long time for which he had fallen, he doubted that, should anyone even find the rabbit hole, they would not find the bottom without also falling in. And they would certainly not hear him calling from such a distance, so onwards he went.
Turning a corner, he found himself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by lamps hanging from the roof. There were doors all around the hall, and Eskel tried them one by one, but they were all locked. He was pondering returning to the rabbit, to see if he had a key on his person - his, uh, rabbitness? Lagomorph... something? - when he caught sight of a little three-legged table, all made of solid glass; there was nothing on it but a tiny golden key.
Eskel tried the key on every door, but it would not open any of them.
Trying again, he came upon a low curtain. Pulling it aside, he found a low door, around fifteen inches high. He tried the little golden key in the lock, and to his great disappointment, it fitted perfectly. The door opened with a snick, and lying down to peer through it, Eskel could see that it led to another tunnel, and at the end of that tunnel was the loveliest garden you ever saw, full of bright flowers and cool fountains.
Eskel could only just get his head through the opening, he tried to squeeze his shoulders through as well, but it quickly became apparent that if he kept trying, he would become properly stuck. He sat back, staring at the door in frustration.
There seemed to be no use waiting by the little door, so he went back to the table, half hoping to find another key, or at the very least, a book of instructions on how to make one's way through a tunnel that is too small for one's person; instead, he found a little potion bottle on it (which was certainly not there before). Tied around the neck of the bottle, was a paper label with the words "DRINK ME" beautifully printed in large letters.
It was all very well to say "Drink me", but wise young Eskel was not going to do that, no. He had seen what potions do to witchers. So he put the bottle down to explore the room further, until the sounds of a very angry rabbit came thumping and banging from down the hallway. Hurriedly pulling out the stopper, Eskel downed the contents of the bottle in a single gulp.
Much to his surprise, instead of tasting as foul as witcher potions were described, it tasted like wonderful things from the kitchens, on the rare occasions the kitchens were permitted to cater for a celebration: fresh cinnamon rolls, baked apples and custard, roasted venison and sticky toffee pudding.
Eskel felt his skin grow tight, and before he knew it, he had shrunk down to the perfect size to fit through the small door. He raced back to it, but alas! The door had shut itself again, and was firmly locked. He felt ill when he realised that he had placed the key on the glass table when he picked up the potion, and he ran back, but now he was so small that he was unable to reach the top.
He sat down with a thump, trying his hardest not to cry. He was too old for such nonsense, and almost nearly becoming a witcher (just a few years now) besides. Blinking furiously, he looked around him and saw, under the table, a glass box. He opened it, and found in it a very small cake, made of rich chocolate and decorated quite fancy, like something he had only seen in stories, complete with sugared decorations and carefully dripped icing, and little candles. On top of the cake, the words "EAT ME" were marked in currants.
"Well, I'll eat it," thought Eskel, "And if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key, and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door, so either way, I shall get into the garden and away from the rabbit."
He ate a little bit, holding his hand on the top of his head to feel which way he was going to grow, and was quite suprised to find that he remained the same size. Which, to be sure, is what usually happens when one eats cake, but Eskel had become so convinced that the little cake would have some effect that he was not at all prepared for it to have none.
If it was just a normal cake, it was very tasty, so Eskel set to work and soon finished every last crumb.
Just as he finished, and with a feeling like his skin was stretching far enough to break, Eskel shot up, and in a moment, his head struck the ceiling, and he had to sit down again, hoping he didn't grow much further lest he become unable to fit inside the room at all - and what would become of him then? "Oh, what a big silly you are," Eskel said to himself, as the tears he was holding back fell in earnest. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, carrying on this way."
"Who's there?" came the voice of the late (not dead) white rabbit. "If you're the one who knocked me out, you'll have the Red Queen to answer to!"
Eskel suppressed his tears with one last sniffle, and attempted to hide behind the now too-small curtain. The sound of the voice changed to muttering.
"Oh gods, I'm going to be late, later, latest! And 'off with his head', she'll say. Oh, I'm so very late!" The voice rises in volume again, tinged with a note of hysteria.
"Where are you, you rascal? If I must face the guillotine today, the least you can do is face it with me."
Eskel wonders why the rabbit simply does not go back at all, if this red queen is such a fatal proposition. He does not want to be dragged before an angry queen, to be executed for something that was an accident. Well, not exactly an accident, but he didn't mean to hurt anyone when he dropped that jar, did he? How was he supposed to know there was someone - somerabbit down below? Yes, fine, yes, the rabbit went down ahead of him, of course he should have known, and he's very sorry, but he's not going to die for a mistake, okay? Perhaps - perhaps if he couldn't hide from the rabbit, he could talk to him, ask him to help. Convince him not to return to this red queen, only to get his head chopped off?
The rabbit's thumping steps entered the room.
"Excuse me, sir - " Eskel started.
The rabbit screamed, dropping a pair of white gloves and a small fan, and scurried away into the darkness as fast as he could go.
"No, wait - " Eskel called after him, but the rabbit was nowhere to be seen. He picked up the small gloves and fan he had dropped, looking like miniatures compared to his current size, and absent-mindedly waved the fan at himself while he thought through his predicament.
"Geralt would know what to do," he asserts. "He reads so many books, he must have read something about this. One of the many mysteries of Kaer Morhen, somebody must know about this place, and how to get out. How to find me. Somebody simply must!"
He glances at the gloves in his hand, and to his surprise, they have grown larger - large enough to fit his very own hands. He looks at the table, which is now at shoulder height, and realises that the gloves have not grown larger - rather, he has grown smaller again! Realising that it is the litte fan that is making him shrink, he drops it in a hurry and snatches the golden key from the table while he can still reach it, and lucky he did, for he keeps shrinking until he is once again small enough to fit through the door to the lovely garden.
A tumble down a rabbit hole,
A jar of sweet creamed rice;
A table with a golden key,
A door, too small, how... nice?
A potion for a lost trainee,
The rabbit isn't dead!
Sure, he's made a mess of things,
But blimey - lose his head?