Author's Note: Sorry this chapter took so long! It's just that it's hard enough thinking up an idea for chapters when I have tons of homework (Man!Can school get any worse?) and when I have to think up some more ideas for my other (ahem) unfinished stories...

Chapter Two: Aunt Rhia and Uncle Emrys

By: biacebaolck

She trudged back to where Kagroo had said to go once she had found the herbs she needed. She and Bucko had their farewell and both went their separate ways, wondering if they would ever see the other ever again.

She gasped as she saw the camp. It had been raided and everything was turned over and in places they shouldn't have been as if somebeast was looking for something. "Master Kagroo? Master Kagroo?" she called out.

She gasped as she saw the stoat, staring up at the sky, his normally brown eyes clouded over. In short words, her master was now dead, killed by some unknown beast. She felt angry.

Why? For 11 seasons, all Master Kagroo had done was order her around. But, she still felt a lingering, if small, attachment towards him.

He had been like family to her. He had also been her mentor and teacher. He had taught her to fight with any weapon he could think of and was delighted to find out that his student was a fast learner.

He made funny jokes and faces and made her laugh whenever she was so bored or so upset she couldn't concentrate on her lessons. Now, all that was just a memory. It was all just a distant memory now.

Despite all his whipping her and slashing at her with his cutlass, she had never even thought of leaving or running away. He had been her family. Now, her family was all gone, just because some stupid beast murdered him! She'd give anything to strangle Master Kagroo's murderer by the neck!

She gathered her pouch, which carried her sling and stones and fastened it around her waist. Taking what little herbs were left in the camp, she put them in her bag, in case she would ever need them.

She gave Master Kagroo a proper funeral, even though she knew some other beasts would just leave him there. She couldn't leave him. He had taught her so much. Taking one last look, she turned and walked away, unable to stand the stench of blood that poisoned the camp any longer.

"HELLO?" She jumped. She had been walking for at least an hour when she heard it. "HELLO? IS SOMEBEAST THERE? IT'S AWFULLY UN-NATURAL FOR A CHAP LIKE ME TO BE IN A CLOSED SPACE, Y'KNOW, WOT WOT! " She looked into the trench on her right. A field hare looked relieved when he saw her.

"Good day, marm! D'you think you could help a chap up and out of here? I've been in here for bally ages." She extended a paw out to him and he took it. Any other female would have had trouble pulling a male out of a trench, but she had been trained by Kagroo to do this sort of thing.

He had made her lift heavy boulders twice her size before he was certain she could go up to the next step. The next step turned out to lift him out of a ditch with heavy stones tied onto him. This training was for rescuing mates from falling into the sea when on a boat, he explained.

"Goodness!" she said once he was out of the trench and sitting next to her. "How much do you eat? You're so heavy!"

"Oh, only about 6 good square meals a day." He told her, like it was nothing.

"That's a lot of food." She said, after a while. He shrugged.

"Do you have some vittles with you? I'm bally well starving!" he said. She nodded, and took out some carrots she had found in the garden she had secretly been attending to.

Even though Master Kagroo said that gardens were for weaklings, she knew you could never have enough food with him around. She had washed them in the first stream she encountered and jumped over the rocks in it to get to the other side.

She watched as he nibbled daintily on carrot. "I say, marm, this carrot is delicious!"

"Thanks," she said. "I think." She added as she watched him finish that carrot and start on the other ones. "What's a field hare like you doing around here? I happen to know for a fact that the Southland is a good 7 days walk from here."

She happened to know, because Master Kagroo had taught her how to read maps and navigate. While being his slave, or student, she had found out that he was once a captain of a ship, but lost everything on it when a violent thunderstorm appeared.

He lost all his crew and his beautiful ship too. But, he didn't let that memory stop him from teaching her everything to know about boats and good advice that she would need if she had ever went traveling.

"Oh, just a little run. Those bally puddings me mate makes can make you as fat as a boulder. So, I thought I'd go for a little jog. It's a nice day, isn't it, wot wot!" he explained, finishing off the remaining carrots.

"A little run?" she asked. "It's about 1500 paces from here!"

"So?" She sighed in disbelief.

"Never mind." She stood up, closing her bag and picked up a couple of stones from the ground, putting it in her pouch and closing it. "Nice meeting you, bye."

"Wait a bloomin' second!" he said suddenly as she was about to leave. She stiffened; quite sure that he was going to ask her name when she didn't know it. "I didn't tell you me name!" She sighed a breath of relief.

"I'm Stryke. Me mother named me that afore I could bloomin' blink! I strike vermin fast when I'm alert but…" he trailed off.

"Ok." She said hurriedly, wishing that he could just finish and she could just leave without appearing rude. Despite what Master Kagroo said about not caring about what others thought, she cared, and that was that. Master Kagroo had found out that no amount of training or whipping could stop her from caring about what others thought.

"I say!" he said suddenly, looking at the sky. It was midday. "It's nearly time for sparring! My mate isn't one to stand around and wait! Cheerio!" He waved and ran off, dust coming out from underneath his footpaws.

"Thank my sires and grandsires that there are men with everyday duties in this world." She muttered; turning to go, walking in the opposite direction the field hare had gone.

She ducked as a stone hit just where her head had been seconds ago. "Who goes there?" an elderly male hare said, walking out of the bushes.

He was facing her, and that's when she noticed his eyes were clouded over, but not the same cloudiness that Master Kagroo had had. In other words, this hare in front of her was blind.

"I do." She said standing up straight, looking at the dent in the tree that the stone had made. She gulped. It made a hole that went all the way to the back of the tree trunk. This obviously showed that the stone was still flying in the air, until it would hit some unsuspecting beast on the head and make them unconscious.

"What's your name?" he asked, his voice not as harsh as before once he realized that the intruder wasn't a vermin.

"I- I don't know." She said. She sighed. After all her hard work, after all her trying, finally, someone found out about her being… nameless. He was silent for a few minutes, put his sling back into his pouch, which was identical to hers, since it was a sling pouch too, and finally spoke.

"Follow me." He walked back into the bushes and she hurriedly followed him. He moved surprisingly fast for a blind hare, but, after a few faster paces and her sheer determination, she caught up.

They stopped at a…cottage? The strange thing was that….she felt like she had been here before. But…that was impossible! Wasn't it? After all, she had spent most of her past life with Master Kagroo, had she not?

Unknown to her, when she had been whipped for the second time after Master Kagroo had made her his slave, her memory started to evaporate into thin air, all memories disappearing, one by one.

"Have I ever been here before?" she asked softly. He gave her a strange look (uh, sorry…) but stayed silent, as though thinking and piecing together a puzzle, piece by piece.

"Come." He said and she hastened to obey. The seriousness in his voice told her this wasn't a time to stall for time like she normally did when Master Kagroo had ever said that.

They walked in, and immediately a silver-furred female hare started to ask something. The male gestured to the haremaid, and silver-furred female said a soft, "Oh."

"Sit down." He said pulling a chair out for her. She did so and the female quickly burned some sort of braided plant. Her eyes began to droop, and had she not been sitting in the chair, she would have fallen to the floor and broken her neck.

But she was not concerned with this. No, she was concerned of what was going to happen to her, in this cottage of two hares she did not even know.

"Auntie pway?" asked a younger grey-furred haremaid. Her aunt, with her silver fur shining in the sunlight, smiled at her niece.

"Ok, Backlash. What should we play? Better not be 'Make Auntie Eat a Mudcake, wot wot!" her aunt chuckled.

"Go back home, pway 'Bedtime'." She answered making a mud-pie in the mud. Unlike other babes, Backlash loved her bedtimes. It offered her enough rest for her to wake up bright and early the next day.

"Alright, wot." Her aunt said and she picked up the babe and walked back to the cottage. "First of all, lets get you bloomin' cleaned up." She filled a basin with water and placed Backlash in it. The little grey hare only giggled and splashed the water around her.

After washing Backlash, her Aunt dried her off with a big fleecy towel, and dressed her in a nice blue dress. Backlash made a face at this.

"Me no likie dress." She said pouting.

"You'll have to get use to it, Backlash, wot. Don't you want to be pretty?" asked her aunt.

"Me no want to be pwetty. Want to be strong like Daddy and Uncle." She said determinedly.

"Maybe you'll be a bloomin' great warrior like them someday." Her aunt said gently and picked her niece up. She hummed a little song, picked up the babe in her arms and started rocking her back and forth, slowly.

When her niece fell asleep, she passed her to her sister. "Selena, you best take her back home. It's dangerous these days, wot!"

"I know." Selena replied grimly. "But she loves it here. I love it here too, because I was brought up here."

"I agree, wot, but it's best for her safety never to come back here. There's a war going on y'know."

"A war, in which our husbands are in, sister. They do it to fight for the right for Torquoi like ourselves to live in these parts." Selena reminded her sister.

"Yes, and our hearts go out to them." Her sister said. Selena said goodbye and left with her babe, knowing that the war threatened her babe's life and well being.

Her eyes flickered open. She was in a bed, a quilt covering her. She took another look at the silver-furred female at her side and realized who she was and who the babe in the dream was. She sat up and got off the bed, folding the quilt before waking up the female.

"Auntie?" she asked softly. The female hare awoke and when seeing who it was, looked at her with loving eyes.

"Yes, it's me, Backlash." At long last, she had finally found out what her name was! She was ready to jump for joy but she remembered to ask one important question she had evaded all her life.

"What's your name?"

"I am known as Rhia and my husband's name is Emrys. We're your aunt and uncle." Emrys, the blind male sitting next to Rhia, smiled at her surprised expression.

"Never knew I was your uncle, did you?" he asked. She shook her head and he let out a laugh. "Well, now's a great time to start! I see you know how to use the sling." He said, gesturing to her sling pouch. She nodded. He brightened up. "How's about I teach you a thing or two about using the sling?"

Remembering the hole he had made with his sling, she nodded eagerly. But wait… "Not to be rude or anything, but how can you walk around without bumping into anything?" she asked cautiously.

"Oh that." He said, dismissing it with a wave of his paw. "That's nothing. I've been living here for countless seasons, so I knows me way around these parts. Ready for training, young 'un?"

"I'm ready!" she exclaimed. She was finally in a family, a family who knew her when she was little and a family who loved her. To her, a family was a priceless treasure and could never be replaced. The same thing went for other beasts.

From the day when Backlash left her aunt's cottage, she had never returned, not knowing she had family here. Now, after 11 long seasons, daughter of Selena and niece of Rhia, had finally returned. She had finally returned….home.