It was storming. The rain poured down heavily, pounding against the ground, and making it harder and harder to find a foothold. It slicked across the trees, running down the trunks in rivulets. Sight was all but impossible. By the time Smalls and Wilfred found somewhere sheltered enough to camp, they were mud-streaked, sopping wet, and exhausted. It was quickly discovered that fire was useless, and practically everything in their packs was soaked, including, to Smalls’ great displeasure, all the food.

Smalls bit back his complaints and settled for an apple, which tasted fine regardless of water and mud. It was, rather unfortunately, one of the hard nights. One of the nights where Smalls wished more than anything that he was warm, safe, and full of some half-decent food, but wasn’t. He was used to it. He was used to the hunger, to the chill. He was used to the harshness and cruelty of the world around him.

That didn’t mean he didn’t still hate it.

             He’d figured out pretty early on that the world was heartless and savage, quite content to watch him suffer under it’s reign. There were few people he trusted, and even fewer he could rely on. His childhood innocence had been stolen at age eleven after he’d watched five hundred people massacred in front of his face.

His hatred of Winslow had bubbled to the surface again and had only recently cooled to a simmer. He felt hollow, and empty. And sad. Adrenaline might give him a high in the middle of a fight, but the euphoria died down after he paused later to consider what he’d really done. And that might’ve contributed to his difficulty sleeping.

Smalls pulled his cloak tighter around him and pulled his scarf up over his face until all he could see was the fabric and the rain was muffled. Right. He could muffle it, but not block it out.

The scarf had been his father’s. King Jupiter’s, that was what he meant. Wilfred had given it to him years and years before.

“He refused to take that silly thing off the entirety of our youth.” Wilfred had said, shaking his head. “His mother had to make him do so that it could be washed.”

“Why’d he do that?” Curious, seven-year-old Smalls asked.

Wilfred laughed. “Because he was seventeen and thought it made him cool.” He replied. “I like to think it was because we all wanted to feel……normal.”

Smalls was quiet

“Did it help?” Evan chirped.

Wilfred sighed, then chuckled. “No. No, I don’t think it did. Our normal was different from other rabbits’ normal, and that’s the way it always was.”

Smalls nodded. “I think I understand.” Wilfred’s smile turned sad, then, but at the time that hadn’t clicked.

“Yeah.” Evan agreed. “Normal’s weird.”

Smalls nodded, making a face at the odd paradox.

            Wilfred smiled, but it had been pained, though Smalls didn’t realize that until he thought about that memory much later.

Wilfred hadn’t told a story like that in a long time. Was Wilfred getting sadder, or was Smalls now just old enough to see it? He didn’t know. Somehow, he felt it was both. Wilfred rarely spoke of Jupiter now, and the mention of the mended wood seemed to do little to lift his spirits.

            Smalls tried to picture the mended wood, tried to envision what that could be. But it was so hard. He knew that a true mending wouldn’t come with Morbin’s fall. A long peace, perhaps, but evil wouldn’t suddenly vanish with Morbin’s death. Though it would take a good chunk of it out of the world. Smalls thought. But they needed more than that for a mending with a capital M.

The present issues felt so big and pressing that mending with a lower-case m would be just fine for Smalls.

Sometimes he felt he’d seen only all the bad and none of the good. He knew this wasn’t true, but on hard days it felt like it was. On hard days he ached for the mended wood, ached so badly it seemed his heart was bleeding with longing.

It would be safe.

That was one thing he could consistently keep in his mind about the mending, that it would be safe, and he would no longer be in constant danger. Tonight, that was all he could remember. It would be safe. And warm. And pleasant. And he was asleep before he could come up with another adjective to describe it.

“Rise and shine.” Wilfred’s voice broke through to Smalls, and he groaned. “You’ll get up if you’re hungry.” Wilfred added decidedly.

Smalls grumbled, annoyed that Wilfred was right. He sat up groggily, rubbed at his eyes, and swallowed some water to wash the dry taste out of his mouth. He glanced at the sky and could tell by the light levels that the sun had just risen. The sky had cleared a bit, but for the most part a low cloud coverage remained. Everything was still soaked, but Wilfred had managed to start a fire and had some apples roasting by it.

  Normally, Smalls would have grumbled good-naturedly about the four hours of sleep he had gotten, but considering the previous night’s events, decided against it.

“Where are we going?” He asked after a minute.

Wilfred’s cheerful attitude faltered. “Nick Hollow.”

“Up there? Why? They’ve never liked Natalia.” It’s the backwoods of the backwoods. He added privately to himself. There’s a reason Half-Wind is up there.

“That,” Wilfred stated, “Is a debate for another time.” He paused, sighed, and then continued. “I don’t think you know this, Smalls, but I’m half hollower myself. I was raised for some of my childhood in Nick Hollow.”

Smalls’ interest was piqued. Wilfred rarely talked about himself and even less often about his childhood or family. Smalls had a sort of natural curiosity about it all, the kind that comes when you get older and realize that adults are only grown-up children.

“After the old kingdom fell, my brother moved back north, into the house we grew up in.”

  It can’t be Garten. Who is he talking about? Seeing the look on Smalls’ face, Wilfred elaborated.

“My younger brother. Whittel.”

Smalls had never heard of this. What a shock. Wilfred didn’t tell me the whole truth.

“A few weeks ago, I received my first letter from him in years, though how he knew where I was, I have no idea.” Wilfred paused.

“Why did he contact you now?” Smalls prompted.

Wilfred sighed. “He had information he was asked to pass on to me, about a few Hollowers interested in joining the secret citadels.”

“If it’s only that, then how come we have to go all the way to Nick Hollow?” Wilfred looked exhausted. Smalls wondered if he’d slept at all or had been faking it.

“Because your mother is headed there. And she’s being tracked.”

Smalls’ memory of his mother was that of a dim dream. His mother, Lady Glen, had left when he was so young-only about four or five-that his remembrance of her had faded into a kind of pleasant figment that he was half-convinced was only imagination. She had used to visit occasionally, usually at night, but that had become less and less frequent the older he got. She’d written one or two letters, but nothing long, and nothing meaningful. Smalls wondered about her often, but Wilfred disliked talking about her almost as much as he disliked discussing Smalls’ father, and Smalls had learned to leave some questions unasked.

But it hurt, not knowing if his mother cared or not. He told himself he would assume she did unless told or given reason to think otherwise, but it was hard.

He and Wilfred started out quickly, hoping to reach the half-way point to Nick Hollow by the evening. Smalls didn’t bother asking for elaboration; Wilfred wouldn’t give it if someone had a sword to his throat. Okay, an exaggeration, but it made the point.

“Thirty-nine times twenty-five.” Wilfred’s voice shattered his thoughts, and Smalls scrambled a moment, trying to remember the answer. He was horrible at mental math.

“Nine hundred seventy-five.” He answered, after a moment of deliberation interspersed with some not-so-nice thoughts towards math as a subject in general.

“Correct. Forty-two times sixteen.”

“Oh, come on, do we have to?”

“Forty-two times sixteen.”

“Six hundred sixty-two?” Smalls offered after a moment.

“Six hundred seventy-two.” Wilfred corrected. Smalls sighed, his disgust with math growing. He could recite whole histories and memorize dozens of vocabulary words quite easily, but he struggled terribly with math. Wilfred had developed a habit of asking him random math equations while they were traveling, a habit that Smalls decidedly did not like. “Seventy-three times twenty-two.” Not twenty-two. Anything but twenty-two. “If you don’t know, guess.” Wilfred added. That was one of his favorite phrases.

“……fifteen hundred?”

“Close. Sixteen hundred, six.”

“Are we done now?”

Wilfred grinned; Smalls groaned.

The math grilling, luckily, halted once they found wolf tracks. It was around midday. For once, Smalls was grateful. Anything was better than being forced to try to figure numbers in his head.

“Right for the Hollow.” Wilfred said grimly. “They aren’t even trying to hide their tracks.”

“They don’t think they have to.” Smalls replied, fiddling with his sword hilt. “How far out from here?”

“If we run? An eight or nine hour run for you, and eleven to twelve for me.”

“We need another day.” Smalls said, shaking his head. “Or we run through the night.”

Wilfred gazed at him for a moment, then laid a hand on his shoulder.

“This isn’t your family, lad.”

“Your family is mine, and besides, my mother’s in the thick of this same as your brother.”

  Wilfred shook his head, laughing softly. “That isn’t a good thing.”

“I say we run through the night.” Smalls said, ignoring Wilfred’s remark.

“We’ll need coffee.”

Smalls very much agreed.

Endurance sprints were what Smalls was best at. He knew that he could easily outstrip Wilfred and make it to Nick Hollow in eight hours if he pushed himself, maybe six. But that would’ve been when he was well-rested, had eaten regularly, and didn’t have a throbbing migraine, all of which he was currently battling.

They stopped a few times to eat and drink, and Smalls decided he wasn’t going to think about the amount of coffee he had ingested in just the last four hours. I don’t think this is helping my headache, He speculated, staring down into the mug of black-as-night coffee.

“How far off are we?” He asked around midnight. The moon shone down full and bright. Smalls felt a vague sense of disconnection from reality, and registered that as not being a good thing, but couldn’t remember exactly why that was.

“Five hours.” Wilfred said, breath coming short and rough. His eyes still had the sharpness of being alert, but they were glassy with exhaustion all the same.

Five hours. You can make it.

Smalls no longer could concentrate on anything besides running, running, running. His brain seemed to shut down and block everything out. Until, Sometime early in the morning, Wilfred stopped, and Smalls didn’t have any strength to protest. He didn’t remember what happened after that.

Smalls opened his eyes, blinking in the sudden brightness of day. The sun stretched up into its noon-time position, and Smalls wondered how long he’d been out. Wilfred was awake, stirring a newly made fire.

They were somewhere relatively warm and green with the first few buds of spring. It made him smile despite himself.  

“What time is it? Where are we?” Smalls asked, his memory of the night before failing him.

“Nearly noon. We’re about a half mile out from my brother’s house.”

“We made it?”

Wilfred chuckled. “Barely. If we’d gone any further, I don’t think we would have.” His face sobered. “I should have let you sleep longer yesterday. I wasn’t aware we’d have to run so hard or so fast. I’m sorry for that.”

Smalls waved that off. “I’m fine.” That wasn’t completely true and every muscle in his body ached, but it was nothing that wouldn’t dissipate within a few days. I am fine. He assured himself. I’m not lying.

“Well, you can be proud. We made a three-day journey in one. That’s not something everyone can do.”

Smalls brushed this aside in favor of satiating his appetite. “Is there anything to eat?”

“If you get some potatoes from the pack, there will be in a few minutes.”

Smalls couldn’t remember the last time he ate. The potato hardly did him justice, but it would tide him over until there was time for a full meal. He stood and glanced around, trying to regain his bearings.

“When will we leave?” Smalls asked.

“Soon, I think.” Wilfred paused, and then added, “There’s something else you need to know about Whittel, and it complicates things. He has three children, Heather, his eldest and only daughter, Picket, and then a baby, Jacks. Heather is about your age.”

Smalls nodded, but he was less invested with the list of names and more focused on the footprints in the soft earth.

“Wilfred,” He said, his voice edged with caution and unease, “There’s wolf tracks here.”