Hey yall! I can't believe I haven't written any fanfics since... December? School got really crazy! How are you all doing?

This is just a random idea I've had bouncing around in my head for the last day or so! Enjoy! Feedback welcomed!

"It's been awhile, hasn't it?" The cloaked rabbit said in a muted whisper, walking slowly towards where I stood in the back of my shelter. I started into his piercing, dazzling, diamond blue eyes, feeling lightheaded and fuzzy, struck with familiarity. Where had I seen him before, this mysterious buck with searching blue eyes? "I believe we were friends up until five years ago, though I might be very much mistaken."

The whole point of the long night time journey here, into the wastes, had been to avoid anyone who may know me, anyone who may thwart my plans, anyone who may try to convince me otherwise. I’d been on the run, place to lace, name to name, for several years. "You don't know me." I replied, keeping my voice low and mysterious. "I have never had friends. I am just a journey-worn traveler, seeking refuge in a simple cave from the storm of life."

"Somehow, Terreyon Steadfast, I don't believe that." The cloaked rabbit rasped, stepping towards my fire, which was burning faintly in the semicircle of rocks on the floor of my smooth-walled weather-worn cave. He pulled back his rain-slicked cloak, revealing misty-gray fur speckled with little spots of brown and tan, deep scars across his face and hands.

"Easton? How in the Blue Moss Hills did you find me?" Although I had done my best not to recognize him, there was no mistaking who this rabbit was, and no masking my excitement in finding him.

"You thought you could hide from Morbin at Kingston. After that, you were easily tracked."

"Tracked? You've been following me?" I felt my heart thumping against my chest, I felt dizzy and shocked, full of nerves that reminded me of fluttering butterflies. If Easton Fordley could find me, who else could? I highly doubted most rabbits were old school friends I would be secretly pleased to meet in a dark cave on a rainy night.

"By order of Lord Blackstar. I've got news for you, Terreyon, and you're not going to like it."

"Great, I was hoping someone would give me a key into the outside world sometime soon." I replied, feigning optimism.

"Well, you're going to wish I hadn't come when you hear this piece of news."

"Why, what's up?" I asked, pulling another stump from the firewood pile by the door. Easton winced when he looked down at the deep, fresh ax marks imprinted on the stump, but sat down anyway. I pulled a kettle of tea- mainly hot water with some mild flavoring- from the branch extended over my dying fire and poured a decent amount into two wooden hand carved cups. I handed one to Easton and kept the other for myself.

"It's about Jupiter's heir." Easton explained, taking a sip of the steaming tea.

"King Jupiter left an heir?"

"Yeah, his youngest son Smalden."

“So the king… Is dead?” I was taken aback at the sudden news- I had known King Jupiter since I was a youngling and I had volunteered my life, without him knowing, to watch out for the royal family. The fact that the king was dead was like a physical blow to the stomach.

“Yeah, I forgot how badly informed you've been.”

"And how have the Embers been protecting the heir? Is he safe?" I was in a rush to know- if the king was dead, his children needed desperate protection now, before it was too late.

"The Order of the Embers has been pushed to it’s limits dealing with all the Joveson kits. We've all been hoping you'll come back, help us again. Wilfred Longtreader has been in over his head as of late, to be honest, in protecting the heir."

"You know as well as I that I will never be able to go back. I made too many mistakes, I lost one of the Joveson Bucks. For all we know, he could be a Wrongtreader himself."

"I'm assuming you haven't heard, if you think Fortress Joveson could turn traitor." Easton looked harried, confused, and worried all combined. He opened the thick, beat up satchel hanging at his side and withdrew a folded piece of battered parchment, unfolding it and holding it near the red and gold flames so I could read the curly, small black print.

"Wanted- Rebels and Malcontents- any members of the Akolonian Resistance caught have a reward of a thousand, members of Skyward Flight are placed at two thousand." I read aloud the words under a silhouetted photograph of a dangerous-looking rabbit with a longsword.

"That Joveson lad you claimed was lost now has a two thousand dollar price on his head."

"Not that Morbin would ever pay a reward." I added in, recalling the stories the Order had been told about so many rabbits who tried to free their younglings on victory day using rewards and head prices.

"True, but that doesn't mean no one will try."

"Fortress doesn't know his true identity, does he?"

"I'm sure he suspects it, but when several hundred rabbits are relying on you to defend them, the idea doesn't really cross your mind. Anyways, he doesn't even know his true name, or that he has a triplet brother, but he and Jasper have discovered they are twins and are causing quite a stir wherever they go."

"It sounds like there's nothing for me to do but pray." I replied dismissively, grinning at the thought of Jasper and Fortress Joveson running around with explosives. Easton took the cue and stood up, pulling his dense black traveling cloak over himself once more.

“Farewell, my friend. It will not be so in the mended wood.”

“No Easton, you're wrong. I'm starting to think the mended wood won’t come.”

“I wouldn't be so sure of that, Terreyon. You never know what might happen next in this story, as we can't skip to the last page until it is written. All is not, however, lost while some still have embers of hope in their hearts. Some still continue the fight, still press on. There will be a mended wood, whether it is in our lifetime or not.”

I sighed as my childhood best friend backed softly out of the cave into the pouring gale beyond. See you, I thought to myself, knowing it was an irrational thing to think. To me, hope was a sentimental object, to be taken as a feeling, another worthless emotion to be cast aside. I doused the fire with a pail of rainwater I'd collected earlier that day and lit several oil lamps, Yet something about Easton’s words still haunted me, and I could not settle down.

Maybe hope was real. Maybe the heir of Jupiter would bring it, and i'd be able to walk in sunlight again, feel the wisps of a warm summer breeze in my fur, smell the fresh scent of a forest after the rain, and relax under a starry sky at night, surrounded by my family, my friends, and those whom i had fought so hard to protect. Thoughts of home made my heart ache, and the ache triggered something that hadn't been triggered in years.

I grabbed my traveling cloak from its hook by the door, strapped my sword around my waist, and sprinted into the rain, relying on the light of my lantern to guide me down the familiar path towards Kingston. “Easton, wait up! I’m coming!” I shouted into the wind, my heart as light as a feather. “Wait for me!”

-Fleck 😉