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Chapter 145: The Late Night Frustrations.

"No sympathy for him! He's doing it on purpose, trying to make you drop your guard. One second is all it takes for your disgrace."

-TortureMegan, Don't Run

After the departure of the pair of mice, Woundwort became extremely bored once again. After way too long, he decided that he had had enough. He was not a feeble rabbit like in those stereotypical boring old stories, who repeatedly got into trouble due to their own weaknesses, and always needed some conquering hero to save them. He was General Woundwort! He was perfectly capable of saving himself without anyone's help! He started to scratch the ceiling: since the others clearly weren't going to dig him out, he would have to do it himself.

Vervain collapsed yet again. This had happened hrair times already over the course of the journey; carrying Orchis was truly exhausting. Aspen was close behind, but he did not appear as tired. Lady May had fallen asleep on his back; as a consequence, unlike Vervain, he did not have to put up an eternally frustrated passenger who kept complaining about how long this was taking.

Campion was running. This had been a great day. He had finally been able to sort out the situation regarding the Watership Down rabbits and Blackberry, he had not encountered any elil on the way back to Darkhaven, he had been able to stop for flayrah along the way, and best of all, he was alive. At first, he had remained very nervous, worried that death might come at any moment, but as the day progressed, his fears vanished. He had not felt so well in seasons.

When he spotted his archenemy from a distance, he still remained cheerful. Vervain had another rabbit on his back; Campion found this extremely funny. As he got closer and realized who it was that Vervain was carrying, he could not repress laughter. Vervain turned his head and stared angrily at him.

-"I was hoping you drowned."

-"Sorry to disappoint you," Campion replied, still laughing. He glanced at Aspen, and spotted that he too was carrying another rabbit, albeit an unfamiliar one. Hazel and the others had not mentioned that one of their own had gone missing, so she was most likely a hlessi. "I see you found someone on your patrol."

-"It's a real annoyance," Orchis said. "I still say we should have let it drown."

-"Come on, now," Aspen said. "She's not THAT bad. But she is heavy...are we there yet?"

-"Almost there now, Aspen," Campion said. "Not far now."

Indeed, it only took a few more minutes before all five rabbits reached the edge of the pit of Darkhaven. As they surveyed the scene, they realized that the biggest problem would be the complete disappearance of the path leading to the bottom. There was nothing left but mud; it would be impossible to use step there without sinking.

-"Oh great," Vervain mumbled. "How do we get down now?"

Campion hopped closer to the edge of the pit and looked at the bottom, where he spotted a small puddle, no doubt a remnant of the flood. In his current mindset, he felt invincible.

-"Simple. We jump!"

He jumped over the edge; the others did not have the time to try to stop him, and simply stared in disbelief. Vervain in particular was horrified: considering their well-known rivalry, Woundwort might accuse him of pushing Campion. His fears soon proved unfounded, however, as he heard Campion's voice again.

-"Come on! It's perfectly safe!"

Vervain peaked over the edge. Campion had landed in the puddle, saving his life.

-"You go first," he told Orchis.

-"No, you go first."

-"No, YOU go first."

-"YOU go first!"

-"NO, YOU!"

-"YOU!"

Tired of arguing, Vervain simply shook Orchis off his back, sending him plummeting to the bottom. As soon as he heard the splash, he jumped in after him, landing a few moments later. Aspen followed, but unlike Vervain, he did not send his passenger first. Not wanting to wake up Lady May, he jumped while she was still on his back and, amazingly, she remained asleep throughout the entire ordeal.

Woundwort's tunnel finally reached the ground, allowing him to exit. He was pleased to see the flood was over; as he looked at the sky, however, he growled. It was past sunset. It had been a full day since he had been buried. As he looked around him, he became even more furious: he was surrounded by sleeping rabbits. There were a few who were awake and hopping about, but the vast majority were asleep, rather than digging.

-"WHAT ARE YOU DOING, YOU LAZY NO-GOOD FLEABAGS?"

This woke up most of the rabbits, rather unpleasantly. Many of them were disoriented, while others were terrified at Woundwort's sudden appearance, considering they had not dug him out yet.

-"We were taking a short break from digging..." Granite started to say, but was cut off by Woundwort:

-"You incompetent fools! You had all day to find me, and you didn't!" He looked around him, and spoke to the first rabbit he saw. "Vervain, how could you let this happen?"

Vervain sighed. He had only arrived a few moments before, and Woundwort was already shouting at him. The things he was going through to talk to the Speaker...

-"I'm sorry, sir, I just came back and..."

-"Please tell me you found the outsiders' warren. I could really use some good news right now."

-"We didn't..."

-"But we still brought you something," Orchis said, before Woundwort could berate Vervain further. "Show him, Aspen."

Aspen nodded, and let Lady May slide off his back; this woke her up brutally.

-"Woah, quit roughing me, you..." She stopped, failing to recognize her surroundings. "Wait, where are we?"

-"This is the final destination," Aspen said. "Darkhaven."

Lady May looked around her, and grimaced.

-"Eek, this place is FILTHY! So much trash everywhere, how can you live like this? And the ground is covered with rocks, I can't walk on this, my paws will be in so much pain..."

-"It calls itself Lady May," Orchis said, ignoring her complaints. "What do you want us to do with it?"

Woundwort stared directly at Lady May, and slowly stepped closer. The doe was now looking at the ground, complaining about the lack of grass, and only noticed Woundwort's presence when she saw his paw in front of her. She looked up, and stepped away in horror.

-"Woah, you're an ugly one. That eye is just nasty. That's one of the advantages of being a human pet: a vet would have removed it long ago and sewn the resulting hole shut before it got that infected. And that fur, so full of knots in all the wrong places. Not to mention the colour, is it even natural, or are you just plain dirty?"

Vervain looked away. After surviving the flood, and the journey through the wilderness, Lady May was going to die in perhaps the most stupid way possible. Nobody dared to speak to Woundwort like this: back in Efrafa, he had ordered rabbits executed for much lighter offences. But the poor doe didn't know better, and was going to pay the ultimate price.

But, to Vervain's surprise, and Orchis' disappointment, Woundwort did not shout at her or attack her.

-"Have her sent to my personal chamber, I'll deal with her later," he simply said.

-"I'll go with her," Campion said. Once the two rabbits were gone, Woundwort stared at the rest of the crowd.

-"Now, as for the rest you, it's time for training!"

As they heard this, many rabbits groaned.

-"We've been digging all day," Feldspar said, "we're exhausted."

Woundwort looked at the crowd; it was clear that everyone else felt the same way. The General, however, having done nothing all day, was wide awake. This was a troubling development: his sleeping schedule was now completely unsynchronized with that of his owsla. There was only one way to resolve this.

-"Too bad. You'll be training all night."

This was followed by even louder groans. As Woundwort hopped through the crowd to take a closer look at everyone's physical state, one rabbit's absence caught his attention.

-"Where's Blueberry?"

As soon as he heard this, Vervain tried to sneak away. He didn't know what had happened to Blueberry, and he didn't really care, as long as he didn't get blamed for whatever calamity had befallen that troublesome kitten.

After leaving Lady May in Woundwort's burrow, Campion went back to his own, where he was surprised to find Aspen waiting for him.

-"It's been a while," Campion said. "How was that patrol?"

-"To be honest, at times it felt like I wasn't wanted. At one point, I went off on my own while they were asleep, and they didn't seem to notice my absence until my return, and even then..." Aspen realized that he was rambling, and that this was not why he had gone to visit Campion in the first place. "But enough about me. How have YOU been these past few days? I haven't been able to spend time with you, since I was on patrol with those two fools."

-"I've bee doing great, thanks for asking."

-"Really? No issues?"

-"None at all. Even BRofI didn't cause me any trouble."

While Campion was smiling, Aspen felt conflicted. From one point of view, he was happy to see Campion doing well, it was a nice break from the many troubles he had faced recently. But from another point of view, these two great days were at the exact same time when Aspen had been away. Did that make him responsible for his friend's problems? Now that they were both together again, would these troubles be doomed to return?