"Deeper in they crept
oblivious of the bears and darker terrors
Or none were there
How did they dare?"
-Murders, Miracle Musical
{***}
Speedwell woke up a good while before Thistle even began to stir. The thought of waking him crossed Speedwell's mind, but he soon thought against it. If they were at the farm some fresh flayrah must be nearby, he reasoned.
Steadily he hopped from the broken hutch and onto the cold dirt floor below. He looked about him, taking in the rank smell of the farm equipment and chemicals. Washed out light from the fog outside the ajar barn door poured over the ground and farm equipment, giving it a ghastly appearance.
Speedwell slowly hopped over to the door and peered outside; there were none of those dark-rabbits outside. Thank you frith! The old rabbit squeezed through the barn doors, careful not to reopen his tender wounds.
Going off his memory, Speedwell managed to find the vegetable garden, and to his delight, found that there was a good amount of flayrah growing. So carefully, he picked out as many carrots and beets he could carry and brought them back to the hutch, where Thistle was just beginning to stir.
"Good morning Thistle," Speedwell said as his soon looked at what he had brought, "I've just gone on a mini-garden raid. Eat up"
"Thanks Dad!" Thistle said cheerfully and he quickly started on the flayrah before him.
Speedwell watched with a somber smile as Thistle happily gobbled down the food. Then events of the day before caught up to him.
"Thistle?"
The young rabbit looked up from his feast.
"Yeff?" He mumbled through a mouthful of carrots.
"Who was that rabbit you were talking to? Why were you following her?"
Thistle quietly chewed on his food, then swallowed with difficulty. He looked at Speedwell with guilty eyes.
"She said she was my mother,"
At the word "mother" a glimmer of worry sparked in Speedwell. It couldn't be!
"That's impossible, she's been dead since before you could even see!"
"I know, but she said something about how this world doesn't work like ours,"
"This world? What did she mean by that?"
"I don't know," Thistle hung his head in shame.
Thistle was beginning to make Speedwell frustrated, first running off, and now this.
"It's okay thistle. Please don't run off with random strangers again, even if they do say they're your mother,"
"Okay."
Speedwell felt a tinge of guilt, he didn't mean to be that harsh.
"Are you done with your flahray?"
"Yes," Thistle was still looking down.
"Then come on, we can discuss this more when we get back to the downs,"
The two hopped down out of the hutch, squeezed through the door, and quickly made their way to the wooden gate, where the dirt drive spilled onto the asphalt road. There the two scanned the washed-out landscape to make sure there weren't any dark rabbits about. Confident there weren't any, Speedwell started towards the direction of the honeycomb, Thistle in tow.
"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Thistle questioned, hopping alongside his father.
"I'm confident! I know the way by heart, We won't get lost,"
{***}
"We're lost,"
The duo had been traveling for way longer than what seemed necessary, and Speedwell himself was beginning to tire out. Thistle flopped down onto his stomach almost as soon as Speedwell had proclaimed their situation, and gave a small whimper.
How could they have drifted so far from home? He felt more frustration, If it wasn't for Thistle hey wouldn't be in this mess, But he pushed the thoughts from his mind. Right now they needed to find a way back home. Sitting around and moping wouldn't help their situation.
"Okay, I don't think we'll be arriving at the warren anytime soon," Said Speedwell finally.
Thistle gave a grumble,
"We're going to have a dig a scrape for the night," he looked into the sky, shrouded in a monotone gray, "whenever night comes," He looked back at his son.
"Thistle? Do you remember the story I told you about when we had to dig our own scrapes before it started to rain?"
"Yeah?"
"It looks to me like we're going to have to do that now."
Thistle gave another grumble.
"Come on, It's easy once you get the hang of it; here I'll show you,"
Speedwell began to pay at the earth, scoping pawful after pawful from the ground until there was a small divot in the earth, in which afterward he called over thistle, showing the young buck how to correctly scrape out the dirt. The two worked for a good long while until they eventually found themselves inside a cramped hole that could just hold the two of them.
"This should suffice," Speedwell said simply and went to go silflay, leaving Thistle inside the scrape.
Speedwell absentmindedly chewed at the dry grass, wishing that they were home. It wasn't in a rabbits' nature to be so far away from home. Would they ever find their way home? He began to worry, would they die out here? No! Pull yourself together Speedwell, you'll get back to your home before you know it, it'll just take a while. But repeating the inner monologue didn't make him any more optimistic.
"Speedwell?"
A voice behind him caused him to jump. He whipped around towards the speaker and splayed out his claws, ready to attack. It was a dark-rabbit, and Speedwell was face to face with one. Without a thought, Speedwell raked his claws against the rabbit's face. A surge of pain went through his paw as he did it, but thankfully it was enough to stun the dark.
Speedwell shook out the pain from his throbbing paw. He tensed as the black-rabbit lifted his head, revealing a jagged scratch across his muzzle.
"Who are you?" Speedwell shouted, "What do you want from me?" his heart began to beat against his chest.
The black-rabbit touched his injury with his paw, studied said paw, and then set it down on the ground. Then in a low growl, he said, "Don't you remember me? I was your best friend Speedwell! I'm Acorn!"