Hopefully, Vervain's next. Sorry for lack of updates on other stories.
Disclaimer: Do I sound like I wrote Watership Down?
Sometimes, in the heat of day, Thlayli remembered.
While most rabbits were underground, dozing or chewing pellets, he would sit among the beech trees, eyes unblinking as he reminisced. When the heat grew oppressive, he remembered thunder growing overhead, and the pain in his shoulder and courage in his veins as he led the does on their race for freedom under the dark sky.
Sometimes, when he lay down in his burrow to rest, he would claw out reflexively at the rabbit who prodded him awake. The first time it happened, he had leapt up in alarm, clawing blindly ahead lest Woundwort push his way into the space behind him. His ear burned.
Then his senses had flooded in- the smell of the rabbit, Efrafan but not Woundwort, the runs opening up instead of pressing against the sides of his body, and he had stared in horror and dismay at Blackavar, who bore a vicious scratch on his front leg and a hurt, betrayed expression on his face.
"Blackavar-"
The Efrafan had fled up the tunnel, and it had taken Hazel, Blackberry and Fiver put together to make him understand that no, Bigwig was not mad at him, he had done nothing wrong, and that it was really all a big misunderstanding.
After the third time it happened- Dandelion was quick enough to escape injury- the rabbits in the Watership Down Warren had learned not to touch Bigwig when waking him.
But most of all, he remembered- choking, cold metal circling his neck and pricking his throat, thrashing wildly to get it off get it off, and his eyes would roll up in his head as he remembered falling in the ditch of leaves, hind legs escaping his control to spasm, fighting his unseen enemy in the only way he knew; the slow realisation that he would soon be meeting Inlé-rah-
"Thlayli!" Hazel called, shaking him out of his stupor. "Thlayli!"
"Coming, Hazel-rah," Bigwig said.