Author's Note:

I find so often that you save a lot more by saying nothing than you gain even by saying the right thing. Sharla has learned this too, perhaps.

If you are just joining this series for the first time this story is in the continuum AFTER Season 2, so you will definitely want to read Thanks for the Fox and Guardian Blue Season One and Season Two for important context, you may also want to read Winter Hearth for important causal background.

I do not work for Disney. I do not own any part of Zootopia or its characters. I write this for fun. And I always will.

Also! A HUGE shout-out to J. N. Squire for assisting with editing this series! It's a dirty job, but someone's gotta do it. Thank you!

Sheepless in New Reynard

Chapter 5: Deerbrook

The soft listing of the train as it went around a curve is what woke Sharla. Her face had been pressed against the cool window of the car, the winter air rushing outside the moving train keeping that pane of glass icy. It helped her face. She forgave the hyena for decking her after everything she'd said. The ewe had lashed out at Vivienne over anger about her own brother and it was for far less. She understood the rage that accompanied it.

Sharla looked across from her. Motti and Honey were both asleep. A nap after such a long night with an equally long day ahead of them was definitely in order. Honey had slumped against her hyena friend who had a large, strong arm over her to keep her from falling away as the train moved. They were close friends. Judy and Sharla had been such close friends once. While the sheep saw some glimmer of hope to resolve the loss of her brother, it pained her to accept what her callousness and anger had damaged or even destroyed in the process.

Perhaps someday she could fix it, but there was something important she had to do first. She could not hope to salvage things with her former friend with all the weight she carried that moment in her heart. Sharla gazed outside as she mulled over these heavy emotional burdens. She could see very little. The inside of the train car was only dimly lit with a soft red light. It made it easier on nocturnal mammals, providing the luxury of not being blinded by bright lights when boarding the train. Red lights always made Sharla sleepy, however.

Based on how few trees she saw whipping by the dark window of the train, she imagined they were probably near Bunnyburrow, if not just beyond it. Their destination was about 40 minutes by train to the south of the Sharla's home town. The sky had partly cleared, or perhaps they had simply travelled south of the rain, so stars peered through the cloud-littered dark sky.

"Too worried to sleep?" interrupted the badger's soft, deeper voice. Still feeling slightly sluggish from dozing, Sharla glanced back at her. She was still resting against the slumbering hyena.

"I'm… anxious, I think? Not really worried. I've been through a lot the past 24 hours or so. Honestly, I'm kind of emotionally numb." Sharla was forced to consider in a flitting memory all the things she'd endured. She brought most of that on herself.

"Nothin' wrong with that. I'm worried too," answered Honey, dismissing the claim that her woolly companion was not concerned.

"I have trouble imagining you being worried or scared," offered the sheep with a meek smile.

Honey looked out the window a bit wistfully. "You worry about your safety. And rightly so." Sharla tensed up at that point. "Me however? I worry about… disappointment? Maybe I fear he won't be like I've always imagined him, y'know?" noted the badger.

"Who? The wolf?" asked Sharla.

"C'n I tell you a funny and personal story?" inquired Honey.

"I… I think so?" the black sheep responded.

"So… When Judy came t' my place… with Jack and his lady fox…" began the badger.

"Wait, Jack Savage?" gasped the ewe. "Jack Savage was there?!" She knew Jack had been somehow involved in the Interior thing from social media, though the details weren't really clear. She also knew that the actor was with a fox now. Surely she meant a different Jack though...

"Yep! He was with Judy. They did the Interior thing together!" Honey gave a broad grin. It was not widely known, so Sharla logically assumed telling her this linked the badger to that same huge story. Honey was happy to get to play a part in it all, the overdue justice for the Interior. Given what had happened, it was understandable… however, it left Jack's involvement a mystery.

"He's an actor, not a real action hero!" returned the ewe. It's why she dismissed his involvement even when the rumors started flying.

"I wouldn't be so sure!" laughed the badger. "Well, Skye, his fox sweetheart… It turns out she actually killed some mammal out there… I heard the report they gave to the wolf ZBI agent. I wasn't supposed to hear, but I did. But… Anywho, this story ain't about Jack n' Skye. It's about the ZBI agent who was stayin' with us! His interest in the case made me think…" The badger took a deep breath. "It made me think that, hey, he was working on cracking the 'cudspiracy'. Front and center." Sharla lowered her head. She wished it wasn't being called that. It made it way, way too broad. Honey pressed on with the apparent intention of preventing the sheep from dwelling on it. "So… don't laugh… I thought Richter, the agent, was actually Big Bad! I could swear it was him. I mean… He was a huge black wolf! And he was dealing with a huge case related to all that… And we just got confirmation in the news conference and it was a huge deal! Richter was in the middle of it, right there with us."

"Wait, is this the same wolf that Motti was referring to when she said…?" The ewe didn't want to just assume.

"Oh yeah. Definitely. But, after what she was, ah… referring to… I started getting messages from Big Bad… the stuff about your brother being compromised, the tower falling, how monumental all of that really was… Big Bad was disbanding our little group as the threat was crumbling and there was no need for any of us to be exposed to legal risk. It was understandable, but this conversation… it was goin' on while Bay was asleep beside me. It wasn't him! I felt so silly. But… Big Bad told me to give the documentation to the ZBI only on the condition that I was provided immunity from any prosecution. It was easier to give me that, he said, because I was only in charge of hosting the information, not actually gathering it."

"Why couldn't he just give it to them himself?" suggested the sheep.

"It would implicate him in the collection of this information. I hosted it, but the actual collection was done in a… ah… ethically substandard fashion."

"Ah. Okay… corporate espionage. I forgot."

Honey hissed, "Don't go droppin' the 'e' word… we don't know who can hear us!" That served to remind Sharla that the badger was pretty paranoid.

"Right. Sorry. So… You haven't met Big Bad yet… but you thought you had and you…" Honey nodded slowly. "…right. So I guess you were attracted to him? To Big Bad?" asked the sheep.

"Duh," replied Honey. "So… how that happened… I first encountered him in a text-based role-play kind of thing… Think tabletop like your brother did, but online."

"Gotcha. Nerdy stuff." The ewe laughed at the idea of the tough badger rolling die late into the night. It tugged Sharla's heartstrings hard as she suddenly realized that her brother wasn't gonna be rolling any more 20's.

Honey interrupted that introspection after a moment. "Err… yeah… So, it was a fantasy kind of story, right? He played this huge barbarian wolf, and I played … a magic user. So… we played through a few campaigns and became closer and closer friends as time went on. So, naturally, he found out about the work I was doing to expose the conspiracy."

"What were you?" interrupted Sharla curiously.

"Huh?" returned Honey.

"Your character, I mean. What was your character?" Sharla was curious. Her brother had characters in his game and she never bothered to find out more about them. Now she wouldn't have the chance. It seemed somehow unkind that she'd never even asked, even if it wasn't her thing. She should have shown more interest in his hobbies. He might not have felt like he needed to do it all alone. He might have been safer. There was no way to know.

"A cleric… a healer in that role-play world," Honey replied after a short pause.

"I mean… were you a badger?" pressed Sharla.

"No," answered Honey with an uneasy tone in her voice. "Anyway, in some of our late night pushes into the campaign, when other players in our online group were not around… we got a little… better acquainted, if you get my drift. All text, but very nice all the same." Honey nodded. Okay, she decided she didn't want more details about that.

"Were you a wolf?" Sharla verbally pondered. That was important to her understanding of why Honey was nervous about this meeting. Had she lied to this canid about her species? It was understandable given the situation. He shouldn't fault her for that. It was still the same mammal, after all. It's not like Honey was really a magic user, either. It was all pretend stuff.

"No," dropped the badger, "So, the intimacy was really passionate, bordering on violence sometimes. Really aggressive…" the badger further explained. The ewe winced. No, this was the part she didn't want to know about.

"A sheep," responded Motti blankly. Sharla hadn't even noticed that Motti's eyes had opened.

"Not her business!" snapped the badger. "How d'you even know about that?!"

"Drinking badger talks about these things!" stated Motti confidently, giving her suddenly struggling friend a tight bear-hug.

Sharla widened her eyes in immediate surprise. "You… played as a sheep… intimately involved with a wolf?" That made literally no sense. "Why?!"

"I wanted to get into the mind of a sheep! It's why I chose it! And it helped! Big Bad knew lots about sheep, and helped me play the character! It's not like I set out originally to get close to him as the sheep, it just… That's how it happened! And it turns out it was fun putting this frantic little ewe into those crazy situations, alright?" protested the Honey. "Anyway, it's not really relevant here!"

"Wait, he's expecting to see a sheep?" pressed Sharla anxiously. "Oh you are not going to try to pass me off as you! That is so not happening!"

"No!" cried Honey. She then ducked down some, lowering her voice to an exasperated whisper at her own advice from before. "He thinks I'm a wolf, dummy! He wouldn't have needed to help me play a sheep character if I were really a sheep!" The badger crossed her arms over her chest as Motti stopped hugging her. "But he's gonna know today that I'm not a wolf and that I hacked his computer to find him."

"How did hacking his computer give you his location?" Sharla bluntly inquired.

"His browser auto-saved information with the address where he was sending his pizzas." Honey beamed. The ewe leaned back. Okay, that was pretty clever. She would never have thought to immediately look for that information.

"Why did you hack him?" asked the sheep. "Did you not trust him at first?" That would make sense to her.

"Oh no… I hacked him only like… a day before everything went nuts!" stated Honey firmly. "See, it wasn't about not trusting. I was trying to find him because I cared about him, and if he or I were trouble, I was gonna go to him. With the thing that happened to Swinton, I was really unsettled. I needed to know I could find a friend if I needed one." Sharla nodded slowly at that, rubbing her chin and wincing. Her face still hurt noticeably. That was gonna last a while.

"Well, I honestly think he'll understand. And not being a wolf isn't gonna matter. It doesn't matter that… who was it? Skye? It didn't matter that she was a fox, right? How they… feel… God, I am such a jerk." Sharla lowered her head again shamefully. Of course it didn't matter. It never should have. Why was every part of this little 'adventure' in loyal service to reminding her of her biggest mistakes?

"Well, Jerk," laughed, "We're about to pull into our stop. I hope you aren't too tired. We have a bit of walking to do before we get to that address. It's in the woods outside town. Perfect place for the Big Bad Wolf." Despite how warmly Honey said it, the use of that name for a beast dwelling in the charming forests of Deerbrook County was actually kind of chilling. This mammal had a lot to lose. This could seriously be dangerous. But, they were not alone. They had Motti, and even a wolf would be hesitant to tangle with the lady hyena.

The train pulled into a small station that was, if possible, even more distinctly simple than the concrete platform out in the forest in New Reynard. It was literally a gravel patch in the grass with some wooden benches surrounding it and a single glowing streetlight. One had a better scope of their surroundings here, however. The rolling hills of the area made it feel more sheltered than the open field of the Bunnyburrow station.

By the time they'd arrived at the 'station', the colors of sunrise were beginning to bleed into the eastern sky. They were traveling East. The walk wasn't unpleasant despite occasionally having to go up the random hill, but it was too quiet, and finally, Sharla had to speak up so she didn't just fall asleep on her feet. It had already been one of the longest nights of her life.

"Motti, if you don't mind my asking… would you tell me a little about your brother? What did you say his name was?" She ticked faster on her hooves to catch up to the faster-walking hyena.

The larger spotted female smiled, seeming immediately glad to speak of him. "Ukweli, yes. He was younger than Motti. Five years. He was very little when we get him. I was just turning fifteen, he was almost ten. His home is burning but he alone is saved of his family. He is adopted by Motti family."

"Oh… So he was not your… I mean he was your brother, but not a blood sibling?" Sharla hoped she'd not been offensive in pointing that out. It was no less important a bond.

"No, he was not even hyena!" laughed Motti, showing she was not offended. In fact, she was very cheerful to talk about it.

"Really?" asked Sharla.

"Truly. He was lycaon. Very pretty lycaon. Such vivid patches. Tall too, and such nice ears. Scars on his back, but most never see them. He was burned there. He didn't like fires."

The ewe glanced away, mostly at her hooves on the lonely grey morning road. "I'm sorry to hear he had that happen. And then to… to be lost after that…"

Motti patted the sheep on the back heavily, almost making her stumble forward. "He is hero now. This is good for him. But he is missed. I will always miss Ukweli. Village sees him as my brother, but he was more to me, when no one is looking."

Sharla snapped to attention. Wait, what? Surely that was not meant the way it sounded, but she was honestly not willing to ask for Motti to clarify. The ewe discarded the thought outright.

"In the end he was remembered as more than even that." It was Honey that diverted the conversation. "Becoming part of the endless story of your village is the greatest reward, yes?"

"Mananasi is listening!" laughed Motti. There was an innocent joy in her voice that made Sharla dismiss the less innocent pondering from a moment before. The pair seemed to compliment each other so well, the badger and hyena. One was carefree and sunny, the other was paranoid and brooding. From Sharla's best reckoning, they hadn't been together very long, but it would have been a cinch to believe that these two had been best friends since their earliest memories of youth.

"This is the entrance to that forest I was telling you about." As they had been walking, Sharla had been paying more attention to her hooves. She had not realized, as they went over the top of the next hill, that a massive forest stretched before them. It looked like a nature preserve in how pristine it was. The road narrowed, suggesting that it was little more than a single driveway. The trees were almost as dense as those that surrounded New Reynard. It was dark. A single wooden sign, run down and barely held to its post by rusty nails, clearly stated "Keep Out".

This was exactly what a little lamb would expect a cursed fairy tale forest to be like. The ewe plodded even more slowly, as if some dark miasma were pushing her back. Every strand of wool shorn close to her slender form felt almost electrical with fear. This was what her prey biology understood right down to a cellular level as 'a seriously bad idea', and she was not stopping.

On the ground, just at the entrance of the forest, Sharla saw something that drew her attention away from the road. She moved over to it. Scorched onto a large mostly-buried granite rock were the words 'Unsafe Woodland'. She turned to announce this fact but found that Honey and Motti had stopped a good hundred feet back at the side of the narrow road. She was rooting around in the pack she'd brought with her.

"Oh my God, were you guys just gonna hang back there and let me walk in first?!" shouted the sheep, clicking her small hooves quickly back over to her friends.

Honey chuckled, "No, nothing like that, I didn't realize you'd gone on ahead."

Exasperated, Sharla hissed back, "What are you doing? Did you bring a weapon with you or something? There's a warning that it's not safe right at the durn entrance!"

"Here we go…" Honey took out some kind of fabric from the bag. It was deep crimson. The ewe stepped back as her badger companion wrapped it around herself. She fastened the clasp under her neck and adjusted the garment slightly.

"You have got to be kidding!" snapped Sharla.

"It's how he'll know it's me!" responded Honey confidently.

"There is no way in hell I am ever gonna follow you into that forest with you dressed this way!"

"I don't get it," offered Motti.

Sharla rubbed her hooves down her blunt caprid muzzle. "If you are correct, there's a big sheep-hatin' wolf in there! Besides, Red Riding Hood was a little roe deer, not a badger or a sheep!"

Honey frowned. "I ain't explainin' this one - It's personal."

Sharla openly blanched at that. Yeah, she had all the information she needed right there. What a deviant!

"Let's go, then?" pushed Motti, apparently also not caring about the reason.

Her cape billowing with sudden motion, Honey laughed and skipped toward the forest. Sharla sighed and walked close to her spotty traveling companion. The ewe felt that at least Motti would immediately be defensive if they were confronted by the wolf, not drawn practically floating with hearts in her eyes toward him.

The density of the forest provided a dark and foreboding feel on its own, but the morning had turned slightly breezy. While the breezes did not ruffle fur inside the forest itself, the trees hissed and groaned and scattered sound that made it hard for her ears to pick up even the footfalls of her companions. It made it impossible to know if they were being followed.

Things were terrifying enough for Sharla. She'd already been through so much stress. She had just discovered that her brother was killed while doing something heroic, but even worse, he didn't trust his sister enough to tell her what was going on. He did it alone. The darkness of the forest did nothing to lift the weight on her spirit. She walked with a badger who was obviously crazy, dressed as a story-book character. On her other side was a fearless hyena who had already punched Sharla in the face. And Motti was still the more trusted of the two. It had been a good, honest, well earned blow to the head.

The quiet walk afforded Sharla time to consider the pure insanity of what she was doing. She had offered to even do this alone. If she'd been alone, Sharla was pretty sure she'd never have even ventured into the forest.

And that was before she saw the skulls.

On either side of the road as they went around a bend where the trees were most dense, as if to focus attention on them, were two clean, white skulls. Right above the skulls was a sign that looked like it was written in old, dried, dark blood. It said simply:

'Too Late'

Suddenly, it didn't even matter that she had two strong mammals with her who could protect her. Sharla wanted to run into the sun itself to get out of this darkness. She backpedaled a few steps into Motti's front.

"That's not a good sign," Honey murmured in a heavy breath, pulling her cloak a little tighter around herself. It was very literally an awful sign.

Sharla shook her head slowly, speaking a bit hoarsely, "Sheep. They're… sheep skulls." Her blood felt like ice, both in how cold it felt in her body, and how hard it felt like her heart had to push to move it through her veins.

"Is either one Gareth?" asked Motti in an emotionless tone. It struck Sharla how barbaric it felt to drop such a question, and that it was the hyena's immediate thought. How hard was life in the interior?

"N… No, they ha-have horns. My brother d-doesn't." Sharla was battling hyperventilation. She had never been more consumed by abject horror as she was in that dark, hissing forest staring at the two skulls on the ground.

The lady hyena moved over to the spot where they rested and picked one up.

"Motti, no! It's a crime scene!" cried Sharla.

"She's right," agreed Honey warily. "You don't want to-"

Sharla sucked in a breath that felt like lead in her lungs as she watched Motti put the skull in her mouth and bite it. The sickening scraping noise made the sheep's legs like soft butter. Down to her backside she went, right onto the little road.

Crunch. Scrape. Tack tack tack. Motti bit and chewed upon the caprid skull.

"Guuuhhh…" Honey's eyes were impossibly wide at the actions of her hyena friend and her annunciation was about as good as Sharla would have managed if she could even breathe. Sharla's vision went fuzzy. She shook her head to keep from fainting.

Motti took the ill-fated sheep head out of her wide, dangerous maw. "Skull is not real. It is for play."

"What?" squeaked a legitimately terrified-sounding badger. "It's fake?"

"Smelled wrong for bone. It is not." She showed the bite marks to her friend as Sharla struggled back to her feet.

"Are you … are you sure?" begged their wooly companion. Upon cautious inspection, she found it to be true. The scrapes were a different color. The white color was painted on. Underneath was a darker material. It might have been plastic or something.

"Good work, Motti," congratulated Honey. "You have solved that mystery and made it so I probably won't ever sleep through the night again." She patted the hyena on the back and moved over to the other skull, picking it up and putting it in her backpack. Sharla shuddered at that. Would that end up gracing a shelf in the bed and breakfast now? What a terrible idea!

The sheep gasped as she heard a loud thwack in the distance. It wasn't even evident who moved first, but all three travelers were immediately bunched tightly together in the middle of the road. Motti threw down her chewed up skull as if not wanting to be caught stealing or something.

Breathless, they listened. It didn't sound like a natural sound. A few moments passed. No sound. Even the wind seemed to have let up. It was so dark in these woods. It could be almost nightfall and they would not know it. This place had a feeling of timelessness. It was still and silent, and for a brief moment, Sharla felt like maybe they only heard a limb falling or something.

But finally, the sound was heard again. And again. Then it was heard yet again.

"Chopping wood." It was a whisper from Honey that clarified the sound they were hearing. Sharla had to agree. It was definitely that.

"Who else lives here?" whispered Motti.

"Past the threatening signs and the skulls of sheep?" pointed Sharla.

Honey hissed back excitedly. "Right. Only Big Bad. Has to be. And… he's chopping wood. With a huge, scary-looking axe… Oh God… Dark, strong… shirtless, I bet… Just… Just like in my dream…" Her voice sounded cautious at first, but by the end of that statement she sounded like she was near tears with joy.

"Wait!" Sharla shot back anxiously. But Honey was already moving forward at a near jogging pace into the darkness beyond the skulls.

"Badger is happy," expressed Motti, nodding.

"Badger is crazy!" Sharla groaned back, striding after her. "Dear God, I'm crazy too! Wait! Stop!"

"We is all crazy!" laughed Motti, and she ran along to catch up with Sharla.

Three crazy friends ran into darkness, hope, and doubt.