“Ulagu, we fail to understand what you are trying to tell us,” Waya said after Timpoochee finished the rabbit story and all fell silent for a while.
“What has our decision to turn back to the Yonega town have to do with escaped rabbit?”
“Don’t be so impatient, young ones,” Timpoochee said, immediately recalling his own youthful impatience. “We may have higher duties to perform.”
“Our higher duties are to return to our own people, our own families,” Waya said. “We can accomplish nothing with these Yonega people. They only want. They do not give. We have nothing to show for this journey.”
Timpoochee felt the anger welling up within himself and the young one’s impertinence. He took a deep breath.
“There were many trees that mattered greatly well before you walked this land,” Timpoochee said, quietly. “There is much in the air which mattered long before you breathed it. There is much more to this world than what you see immediately around you and much more to duty than your own wants of the moment.”
Waya recoiled ever so slightly away from Timpoochee.
“I mean no disrespect, Ulagu,” he said. “We are tired. We are hungry. We miss our families.”
“No more than me,” Timpoochee said. “But, then, there are duties.”
“To others?” Waya asked. “Or to ourselves?”
“And why do you draw a distinction between duty to others and duty to ourselves?” Timpoochee asked.
“Our first duty is to others?” Waya asked, timidly.
“Tell me what you know, what stories you’ve heard of my own family,” Timpoochee asked. “Tell me why you think it is that you find yourself here, in this place, with us, with this assembly.”