It was dark in Blackberry's world as she lay on the floor of her burrow, trembling and enduring the pain. She didn't mind the pain so much as she did the fear. These were her kittens she was worrying about. It wouldn't be long until they came around. What if they ended up like…

She didn't want to allow herself to think about the first litter. They had all been born dead. Not one had survived, forever scarring Campion and Blackberry, putting them in fear of trying to have kittens once more. How could they? It would never be the same.

She hadn't even noticed Primrose come in until she had dropped some new bedding beside her. Startled, the expectant doe looked up at her friend. "Primrose," she said, quivering. "Oh, thank you… but you don't have to—"

Primrose was all smiling as she sat beside Blackberry, giving her a friendly nudge. "Oh, of course I do. You've taken care of everyone in their time of need. You were right there beside me as I was going through the same thing as you. I do have to help you."

Blackberry managed a weak smile and sat up, figuring she couldn't become a lazy waste of space just because she was pregnant. "Thank you, Primrose. You're a lifesaver."

"I'm nothing of the sort," argued Primrose.

Blackberry smiled, closing her eyes and feeling the pain once more of the not-so-distant past.

Blackberry, however, was not the only one in pain. One look at Vilthuril, sprawled on the ground beneath a bush, shivering and crying, and this could be told right away.

Zephyr tried to calm her down, but he felt close to tears as well. His sister was sick, possibly dying, but taken over by something terrible, and neither he, his little sister Fern, or Nutmeg, his Mum, could do anything about it.

Vilthuril opened her blue eyes, sputtering ancient words that perhaps not even she understood.

"Frith, deliver saviors, at what be thy cost,

One shall live to tell, whilst the other be…"

Vilthuril gasped for breath, and began to kick wildly, fighting her hardest against the fear of tomorrow. She screamed, much to the dismay of her brother. "MUMMY! MUMMY!"

Now Zephyr, protective brother as he was, began to cry beside her. He fidgeted between the branches of the bush they lie in, yet he could not find his mother. "Mother! It's happened again! Mother! Frith, protect us! Mother!"

No one dared say a word as these calls erupted from just behind the doe. The entire array of the vision they'd just heard was frightening. Perhaps it had nothing to do with Watership Down, and perhaps it had everything to do with it. "Frith up a tree!" exclaimed Bigwig as the noise died down. "What was—"

"Leave," ordered the doe coldly. When she got no response, she began to scream at them, working to be as threatening as she could. "LEAVE!!! Get away from me and my family! I need no help from outsiders such as yourself, especially not bucks!" She spat out the word as if it left a disgusting taste in her mouth. "I'll have nothing more to do with bucks. Not ever again!"

The dark, withered doe backed up from her hostage, shoving the long golden rabbit forward into Hawkbit, who tripped into the mud. Bigwig gave an eye twitch in humiliation, thinking to himself that it was a bloody shame his Owsla should choose now to seem like a great bunch of bumbling fools.

With that, the mysterious doe that they knew nearly nothing about turned and ran towards the screams, tears already in her eyes. The reddish kitten, too, had now departed into the bushes, where the screams were growing worse.

Dandelion sat up, fear and curiosity, and a few other feelings, in his eyes. "What's all that about, then?" he asked shakily. He was trembling, figuring that he had very nearly told his last story.

"It's nothing our business," dismissed Bigwig, and he gestured to his peanut gallery to move out, and to do it fast. Not even he believed these words, but if he led on his friends to believe otherwise, only Frith knew how they'd react.

No one seemed to want to argue about that. Bigwig began to trudge off, flinching with each scream of the tortured soul that lay so close, half of him wanting to turn back and help, while the other half knew that would be near suicide.

Then the screaming began once more, and, this time, not a single one of them dared to speak, move, or breathe as their blood turned cold.

"FIVER!"

After that, the cries settled back into whimpers, and the only other sounds were the scuttling of nearby animals and low conversation that came out in only buzz.

Bigwig sucked in a breath, and blew it out. "Okay…" he said after what felt like an eternity of fear and wonder. "Now it's our problem."

Quite a buzz had come up back at the Honeycomb as soon as Kehaar had once again joined his friends, and began to tell of his adventures. "Everywhere I go," he said, shaking his head and pacing for emphasis. "Dere cats, people, and udder meanies that love gobble me up. But I outsmart dem all!"

Everyone nodded in agreement, figuring they couldn't well argue with that. Kehaar was still alive, relieving nearly anyone.

"So, tell us, what did you see, Kehaar," said Hannah, thinking back to what she remembered of the big city. It'd been a long time since she'd been there, and she'd been lucky to escape with her life. Just thinking about it made her damaged ear feel the sick sense of fresh blood oozing across it. Fast as she could, the little mouse shook her head and got up a plastic smile.

Kehaar puffed out his chest, proud as his daughter, who was sitting in the corner next to Pipkin. "So much food! Men, dey leave 'im scattered on the ground like dey're leaves and sdicks!"

Kehaar began to flap, rising dust around. "But mostly, I see junkyard. BEEEG Von full ov food scraps. And I make friends wit all de odder animals dat live dere, just like you teach me do here!"

"Splendid, Kehaar!" answered Hazel, proud that his teachings had indeed made an affect.

Hannah, however, felt a little difficulty with this, having distant memories of a less-than-friendly friends from a junkyard herself, and the way Kehaar was speaking of them made her stomach churn. "Friends, Kehaar?" she asked nervously.

Kehaar smiled at Hannah, figuring that she had guessed what was to come next. "Ja, ja!" he said, ruffling his feathers just so that he could smooth them out again. "Dere one colony of mice, actually. Dey say dey know you!"

Hannah's heart nearly stopped beating as her eyes widened in fear, but Kehaar didn't quit, him being quite poor at picking up body language.

"Dere chief, he say he remember you. He say he want meet you again and asked vere he find jou!"

"And you told him!?" asked Hannah, her fear becoming full on terror.

"Ja!"

Hannah gasped, shaking violently as if she were on the verge of tears, and fell back against the wall. Kehaar frowned, finally picking up that something was wrong, and the whole of the Honeycomb became dense with silence.

"Kehaar…" said Hannah slowly, her voice fragile as if she would burst out crying at any moment. "… When you talked to him… did you see his left paw?"

Kehaar nodded, his eyes trained on the little brown mouse.

"What did you notice about it?"

The gull paused. "It…"

Hannah jerked her head forward and looked at him with eyes now shining and pure terror written across her face.

"It was… missing a finger."

That was enough for Hannah. She gasped for breath and turned to run out of the Honeycomb, painful memories rushing towards her, drowning her as she let her teardrops roll across her whiskers.

After that were a few mutters of curiosity and concern for the little friend of Watership Down. She'd never acted like this before. In fact, this was the first time anyone had ever seen her cry. Everyone was curious, but no one was willing to venture into that unknown territory of whatever it was that was bothering Hannah.

Finally, Fiver sighed. "I supposed I'll go see what that's about then," he volunteered.

Hazel looked up the run. "I hope she's alright…"

Fiver nodded in agreement before he, too, made his way out of the Honeycomb and into the open air.

There was a sense of stillness and terror in the air as Robin and Eliroo looked round at the bushes that they'd found themselves lost in, hearing a predator stalk round in the cover, not quite sure of where it was. By now they regretted more than ever going on a secretive wide patrol as they had so dreamed of, thinking it would be all bob-stones and beechnuts.

The brothers pressed against each other, trembling as yet another twig snapped, the two close to tears. "It's been nice having you as a brother," whispered Eliroo. "It's just too bad we were idiots."

Robin nodded fearfully, but, not wanting to die a coward's death, step forward and challenged the hunter. "Show yourself, you mangy horror!"

"What on earth is mange?" questioned Eliroo.

Robin shrugged. Then he turned back to the silent bush and called, "I'm not afraid of you, you load of toad's breath. Come out here so I can tear you down by the whiskers!"

"Well, that's not a very nice thing to say," said a calm voice from behind the kittens. The two brothers jumped and ran into each other, each trying to bolt, but before either could get away, a chocolate brown paw was laid comfortingly on them.

"Whoa, don't run," she whispered, bending down to seem less threatening. "I'm just as lost as you."

Panting, out of breath, Robin looked round wildly. "You're not elil?"

"Sorry to disappoint you." She smiled cautiously. "Where's your warren."

"On the path of the setting sun," whispered Eliroo. "We've disobeyed our father, though. He'll be cross when he finds we're gone."

"I'm afraid I can't help you with that, though I was the same way as a kitten. My sister and I got into barrels of trouble." The light brown doe smiled now, though her eyes were filled with remorse. "But that's beside the point. I've become a hlessi now, as much as I wish to deny it. I'm trying to find a home."

Eliroo, good hearted lad that he was, immediately bounced up excitedly, energized by the chance of being able to help a fellow rabbit. "Hazel-rah would be glad to have you in the warren!"

Robin blinked, innocence in his eye as he nodded. "I was just thinking the same thing. Yes, we could take you back to the down. We could always use more rabbits after all we've lost in that war…"

Silence filled the air for a few moments before Eliroo looked up once more, another smile plastered from ear to ear. "What do you call yourself?"

Smiling, the doe nodded. "Hyzenthlay. My name is Hyzenthlay."

XXX

Surprised? Lol, sorry about how long our update took. In truth, since Tabitha hasn't bothered to watch this series, it's just me writing, and I have MANY fanfiction account and even more stories. So I'm going as well as I can. ^_^ Anyways, hope you enjoyed this next chapter. As for what's coming with Hannah, I've always wondered what her past was, and why she's living in solitude, how she came to rip her ear like that, so now I've decided to fill in a story about that. Also, you can probably tell Hyzenthlay is going to stir up some drama. I figured we needed some of that after all the warfare, but there'll still be action. Plenty of that. The one thing that I regrt not having more of here, though, is some good Hawkbit and Dandelion bits. Seriously, how do you not love them?

'Till next time then.

-Phoebe.