One shot just to get the idea out of my mind. 'Forgotten Enemy' may be over, but I can't stop writing!
I had to do this as a writer, how could I pass up the chance to explain this character a little more? Campion is the most complex and damaged soul I've ever seen, and though the series did a great job with him, I don't think they had the time to develop his character as much as was needed.
I decided to post this as a treat for my readers of my other fic. If you're not a Campion fan, then I'm sincerely sorry, but who knows what other character I'll come up with in the future.
Yours, Embemxrabbit :)
Chapter One
The Blackness in His Heart
My paw started its descent from the very ruined tip, running downwards; feeling the rough outlines of what was my ear. Its edges should've caused me pain, but this was one consolation the Black Rabbit had spared me, but I was anything but grateful. Instead I was filled with angst, despair and depression, the very proof that being in this world wasn't doing me, or anyone, any good.
The left side of my face was too smooth, too cold and even to have been caused by a crushing rock. I shouldn't have lived as I did, I shouldn't be here, but I was.
"Oh, Black Rabbit, why me?"
I hated myself, for betraying me warren, then betraying another by running away, and then breaking the heart of someone I cared about the most. I missed my past. If it were up to me, I would be trapped forever in one day, my very first at the Down.
My burrow was secluded, positioned around the bend from Woundwort's, and until recently my, grand chamber. I guess Woundwort still respected me enough to not only make me Captain of his Owsla once more, but also giving me the second largest burrow in Darkhaven. My lies were opaque, was I the only one who could see through them? My soul lied but my body portrayed different, did what it had to.
I certainly did not hate Hazel and his warren, I definitely did not want to remain in Darkhaven and I would rather die than serve Woundwort again. But the fact that I had said and done these things showed that it wasn't just me in my head, but the Black Rabbit too.
I was curled up in a tight ball, staring at the cold walls with hate, seeing how they emanated war and fighting and lost promises. They radiated weak light from the holes in the ceiling. Nowhere in the warren did one have a burrow with four walls and a ceiling, it was just not going to happen in a scrap yard such as this.
Everything about me had changed; even my eyes had switched to an electric blue that I could only describe as 'not mine'. I figured it was a token of not being truly of the living anymore. If I had been cold and distant before the events of the past seasons, now I was practically a social outcast.
Soon I knew that I was going to have to report to Woundwort for the morning shift, soon I knew I was going to have to face Blackberry as she underwent interrogation for the first time with Woundwort, soon I knew I was going to have to piece myself back together and do the massive job that rested on my shoulders.
Blackberry had looked me right in the eye last night with so much conviction, so adamant to stay with me. I remember urging her with my whole being to get out of there, nothing was as bad as Darkhaven. But she was captured by Spartina like she was some sort of criminal, viciously held by the warrior doe even though she had not made a move to escape in the first place. I had an unconventional desire to shout at Spartina, but had restrained myself.
Spartina was as lost as me in the world, and knew nothing but the life of her warren, not so unlike me when I had been in Efrafa.
Blackberry had looked at me with sadness, but I couldn't read it and had no idea what she wanted me to do.
Up till now I had refused to look at her, even when I had plenty a chance to talk to her on our way back to the warren. I wasn't just falling apart on the outside.
I had come so close to happiness, and it was this that haunted me every night when I had no fights or duties to distract me otherwise. That one leap into the path of the falling boulder so easily could not have happened. Then where would I be? A season would've passed in Watership Down, a glorious expanse of time so out of my current reach I wanted to go right back and die all over again, just so I could experience the good time again.
Who would be here in my position, undergoing the ruling of the Bringer of Death, if not me? But my thoughts slipped elsewhere, and I thought of the one rabbit that had looked at me without a trace of judgement or pity. Blackberry. How stupid was I being? My one chance at happiness had come bouncing back, thanks to her sheer stubbornness at refusing to label me as a lost cause.
I slowly sat up, but was overcome with indecision, held back again by my wish not to drag her into this world of death and immortal bargains. Was I to die when all this was over? And if so, Blackberry would just get hurt more. If you tell her this though, then it would be honest….
Half of me begged the other half to cave in and give up. The rabbit half was still there, even if shadowed by something much larger and stronger. But what good would it do? Some would say having a short time is better than none at all, but who are they to talk when they lived to say it? If there is an afterlife, or whatever they call it, then I'd still remain as guilty and self loathing as ever at the pain I left behind, the only change was that I would be up there and not here.
Only I had the power to continue punishing myself, or move onto a place where I could gladly stay for as long as the Black Rabbit needed me in the mortal world.
