Samantha was glad to see the last of the desert, Robyn had apologized to her after her beating by the slavers, after talking about her sister being sold and the fear that she might never see her again the two shed some tears and hugged glad that they were friends again. What Samantha couldn't understand was the seeming absence of her hooded fox, she didn't miss him, but his presence had become something she'd grown used to and she valued his wisdom despite how infuriating it was. During the time she had to herself, which was surprisingly little, she went into deep meditation to explore everything she knew about herself, examining everything with a fine tooth comb to suss out anything that might indicate something special about her, as far as she could tell though she was completely ordinary. All the other bunnies in the cage had problems that they were sure only she could solve, everything from how to divide up the rations to hurt feelings between siblings, every time one of them called her name she rolled her eyes and sighed, but she did her best to keep everyone from tearing each others throats out.
The slavers were much more lax about silence now that they weren't on any well traveled roads, as long as everyone was moderately quiet they were left alone, speaking out loud or yelling wasn't tolerated, but after Robyn's beating no-one was eager to test it out. Cotton always seemed to be by Samantha's side, not leaving her for any reason, this was troublesome for the bunny during the times she wanted to meditate but it wasn't as if she didn't understand. Then one night she dreamt of the black robed fox again, "Why haven't you spoken to me for so long, did I do something wrong?" desperate to understand why he was absent for so long her pride was thrown out the window, she was strangely drawn to this person. No longer concerned with concealment or trickery the figure had his hood down and faced her, "I have many responsibilities that demand my attention, you are but one part, I have come to you tonight to tell you to be ready, in the next few days your caravan will be heading into a canyon, in that canyon is your sister Judy and her husband Nicholas, they will fight the slavers holding you and you must be ready to make your escape along with the rest of the captives."
Samantha was overwhelmed with trepidation, how was she supposed to organize the bunnies in the cage to prepare them for an escape without alerting the slavers, the moment she said anything to them they would get excited and blow the whole plan before it even started, bunnies couldn't keep a secret if their lives depended on it (and in this case it most certainly did), her fox told her the attack would be in the next few days, but that could be anything from two days to six, without knowing how long she had before she had to tell the group in the cage she couldn't do anything, but if she stayed silent for too long they wouldn't have enough forewarning to prepare, now on top of the stress of keeping everyone calm, she had the added stress of keeping everyone alive. Then she hit on it, there was one bunny in the group that was also half fox, and one thing fox's were good at was keeping secrets, she just hoped that was one of the traits Robyn had inherited from her father.