"Come on Snow, race me to the hole!"
"You're on, Blackie!"
The two kittens raced side by side, kicking out with their powerful back legs, using their new-found muscles. As the two young ones dashed towards the hole, ears slicked back to prevent air resistance, both of them suddenly jerked their bodies into the air, twisting around and scoring the soft ground with their claws as they landed. Their long legs soon became entangled in their need to escape what was in front of them. A stocky form had risen from the hole they were racing towards, and cuffed both of them sharply across the face. They both fell on their thin backs and gazed sorrowfully up at the figure in front of them, Blackbur's legs still twitching feebly.

"Hullo, Mum."
"Yo, 'sup Mom?"
Earth's face was contorted with rage, and a silent growl was on her handsome features. "Fuya-thlay! Blackbur! IN THE BURROW AT ONCE!" She snarled. Ivy sneered at them with contempt from about her mother's ankles as the two kittens dragged their feet down the rabbit hole and along the passages, their dam breathing down on their necks.
"Nice going." Snow whispered in Blackbur's ear, a smile playing on her face.
"It was so worth it." He said, grinning back.
The two young rabbits slipped into their mothers burrow, the full grown doe behind them. "Ivy," Earth growled, "go visit Cleave. I need to talk to these two." Ivy gazed up at her mother reproachfully; Ivy loved to hear her siblings being yelled at, which happened quite a lot. Nevertheless, she slunk from the burrow.
"Now, as for you two." Earth said. Her face was no longer contorted, but had calmness in it that reminded Snow forcibly of the eye of a hurricane. "Now, I seem to recall telling you two something before I left the burrow this morning. Do you remember what it was?" Earths two youngest kittens mumbled something, their ears drooping dejectedly. "Sorry, what was that?" Earth asked dangerously.
"You said that a homba and his mate were hunting on the downs." Snow said, her huge brown eyes fixed on her feet.
"You said that by no means whatsoever were we to go above ground." Blackbur finished, his head hanging. Earth gazed at her kids, disappointment stirring in her eyes.
"Guys, I love you. You know I do. That's the whole reason I set these boundaries- so you won't get killed. You two, Ivy, and my mate are my whole world. I don't know what I would do if anything ever happened to any of you. Don't you understand?" Earth looked at both of her misbehaving kittens in turn, and they looked up to meet her eyes. Beneath her anger, a mothering instinct, a kindness stirred. "If you two want to go above ground again, then I'll go with you before it gets too dark." Her kittens ears perked up slightly and they smiled weakly as they filed out of the burrow behind their mother.

Two deep green eyes danced dully like emeralds in the dark. The whites were rolling about them, and a thin dark trickle of blood was trickling down her snout from her nose. Creamy froth was bubbling at the corners of her mouth. She had many deep scores on her side that were oozing thick blood. Ivy was deep in the warren passages, in an unused burrow. She was lying on her side and panting heavily, her head aching with what she had just gone through. Painful as it was, she had to relieve it once more, had to try once more to figure it out.

She had been trotting lazily to Cleave's burrow, but something about the voices floating out of it made her stop at the entrance and shrink into the shadows. Her pink nose had told her that Cleave and the chief rabbit were conversing in there. Her ears came up when she heard her sister's name.
"That Fuya-thlay, now what do you think of her? Will she interfere with our plan? I've been getting rather bad vibes about her." The sleek voice of Cleave had said.
"I don't know, but something is telling me she will. We can't have that." The chief answered back hoarsely.
"What do you propose we do? Drive her out?"
"No, we must slaughter her. Her and her brother. We need to make it look like and accident, thou-" Blowhard had raised his head, his pale eyes wide. He had just smelt Ivy.
"Shall I kill her, too, sir? She might warn Earth." Cleave said at once. Ivy did not wait to hear the answer. She had already darted back down the passageway. It is rare, if ever, for a rabbit to bolt and keep up that speed underground, but Ivy was did it then. Her legs were a blur as she ran farther and farther in the warren, turning sharply, banging her hips on the unused corners. Her legs had started to feel like lead, and she had no choice but to turn and fight the pursuer she knew was there. As she spun around, she felt two powerful, muscled back legs tearing into the skin on her side. As she choked and spluttered, she felt front claws cuffing her nose sharply. Her shining eyes had slipped closed as she collapsed onto the hard, cold floor of the burrow. When she had opened them again, the light in them was dull, and no one else was in the burrow.

She mulled things over for a bit, then tried to rise, but failed. The pain in her side was receding slowly. Actually, she was finding all of the pain disappearing. She was also finding it hard to draw breath, and she was tired, very tired. She longed to close her eyes and sleep the day away, sleep the months away, to sleep and not awaken. No creature was around to watch the light leave eyes that could no longer see, watch drooping whiskers that would never feel wind sift through them again. Soft paws that would never have earth crumble under them again. As the warmth left the does body, a black shadow, black as death with shining red eyes came to collect the one fallen so young. The small does body, however, would rot in the burrow so isolated that the stench of death didn't even start to permeate the upper burrows, and a loved and cherished soul's light flickered and died, alone and cold.