AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thank you TheRanger101; glad you liked the two chapters :) Silverweed will soon return with another plan...

Chapter 46: The Real Trouble.

"It sounds plausible enough tonight, but wait until tomorrow. Wait for the common sense of the morning."

-H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

Violet slowly opened her eyes. Her paws were in great pain, and every movement made it worse. She slowly tried to get up, doing her best to ignore the pain. Where was she anyway? This place was clearly not Marli-rah. It looked like a tree. Wait what? She slowly turned her head and looked down; the ground was far below. She was somehow on a branch near the top of a tree.

What was she doing there? Rabbits are not very good climbers, so she had certainly not made it there on her own. Another animal, probably a bird of some sort, must have carried her there. Only then did she remember what had happened, how she had saved Thethuthinnang from a hawk; the pain in her paws was related to the sharp pieces of glass she had stepped on. She couldn't understand how she could have survived such an attack.

She looked down, trying desperately to think of a way to get back to the ground before the hawk came back. Jumping down would kill her, or worse, leave her paralysed and in agonizing pain until the hawk came back and put her out of her misery.

Her thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the sound of flapping wings. Her first instinct was to hide, but there was nowhere to go. She therefore remained on the branch, nearly tharn, as the hawk arrived and perched close by. Suddenly, another, smaller hawk also arrived, and landed next to the first one.

There was no way out of this situation. Violet simply closed her eyes and put her front paws over her head, awaiting the inevitable. She could hear the two hawks squawking randomly; why didn't they just kill her now and spare her the mental torment?

Little did Violet know, the two hawks were actually having an elaborate discussion in their own language, which she did not understand. The larger hawk was the one who had captured Violet near the roundabout, and brought her back to the tree so her young son could practice killing. However, the son seemed to object to the idea of killing a rabbit in cold blood like this. The mother reminded him that that this is a necessary skill if he intends to survive, but no matter how hard she tried, she could not convince him to try it out. She finally gave in to his requests, and flew away to search for a creature that was already dead; killing practice would have to wait.

As she heard the flapping of wings, Violet grew tense. Could this mean the hawks had left her alone and gone someplace else? She slowly uncovered her eyes, and saw the face of the younger hawk, his eyes staring right into hers. She squealed and leaped back in fear, nearly stepping off the branch in the process, but the hawk grabbed one of her front paws and pulled her back up.

The hawk spent a while staring at Violet; she was unable to figure out what his intentions were. He lowered his head and looked at her front paws, which were stretched out in front of her. Suddenly, she felt his beak underneath her paws; the pain became much worse, and the paw started bleeding again. She saw the hawk spit out something, before returning to her paw and removing another piece of glass.

After he had finished removing the glass embedded in Violet's front paws, the hawk flew further down the branch and inspected her hind legs, before removing the glass there too. She struggled to figure out why he would bother to do this, before finally coming to the conclusion that it was for his own safety. Sharp pieces of glass wouldn't do any more good to a hawk's stomach than to a rabbit's paws. She weakly raised her front paws and started to clean the blood, hopefully easing the pain until her inevitable death.

After a long time, the hawk had finished removing the glass from Violet's hind legs too, and returned in front of her. She did her best to ignore the bird, simply focusing on her paws; when he would finally decide to eat her, she would hopefully die quickly.

Soon afterwards, the older hawk returned, carrying a dead rat in its talons. The younger hawk screeched, complaining about the purpose of life. At his mother's urging, he eventually ate the rodent. Violet grimaced as she saw blood drip out of the hawk's beak.

Blackberry was walking along the river, attempting to find her way through the fog. Earlier that morning, she and Primrose had resumed their journey towards Watership Down. The two does had remained largely silent; the fear caused by being lost in a strange land had drained their strength.

Suddenly, Blackberry spotted a dark shape on the river. Judging by the scent, it wasn't dangerous, so she got closer. The shape was a large wooden object, and it seemed vaguely familiar to her. She stepped on top of it; it leaned a little, but overall seemed very stable. As she walked along the edge of the object, she could see that it was floating on the water. It was hollow, and there were claw marks at the bottom, clearly coming from rabbits. It all came back to her: this was the boat used several seasons before during the escape from Efrafa. After the stream had carried it a certain distance, it had finally gotten stuck on the riverbank, a short distance from Watership Down. Therefore, if this was the same boat, then it was the same river, so the warren had to be nearby.

-"Hey Primrose, take a look at this!" she said. A nearby frog jumped into the water; there was no other sound.

-"Primrose?" she called out. Still no answer. She jumped off the boat back onto solid ground, and sniffed the air. There was no sign of her friend. Looking at the ground, she could only see one set of pawprints: her own.

Blackberry worryingly retraced her steps, periodically calling her friend's name, but never receiving any answer. After walking for a while, she finally saw the second set of pawprints, which she identified by smell as Primrose's. The tracks led in a completely different direction; Primrose had no doubt gotten lost in the fog. Blackberry started to follow this other set of tracks.

The tracks went on for a long time, and Blackberry did her best to follow them, until suddenly, she came across a dreadful scene. There were many sets of tracks and claw marks in the flattened grass, along with the scent of several other rabbits she didn't know. It was as if there had been a struggle of some sort, and Primrose had been captured by strangers.

She blamed herself for what had happened: had she kept a closer eye on Primrose, her friend would not have strayed away, and would not have gotten captured by these other rabbits. Unfortunately, it was too late to prevent this now, but she could still attempt to find her again. A few sets of tracks led away from the scene of the incident; Blackberry decided to follow them.