Hoshor Plains run rabbit run

Lovely morning for a nervous breakdown, innit?

“Won’t be long now,” Cypress murmured reassuringly. He nosed companionably at his brother’s left shoulder when the band came to a stop, meeting the grayscale Frostfur’s sunny expression with a roguish half-grin of his own — but as the wind shifted and that acrid, sour stench filled his nostrils, the guardian grew deathly still. He knew that scent — and for a second he couldn’t believe that Rannoch didn’t.

Panic swept in first, blotting out rational thought as he trembled, again that small boy looking at the broken bodies of his parents — again that weakling orphan who begged his father to “Fix it! Paw! FIX IT FIX IT NOW!” — again the blessed innocent who believed that magic could undo the wrongness that was two pairs of eyes, one turquoise, one gold, that stared on and on at nothing. He was just shy of five months old and his parents were dead and his brother was gone and his cousins and aunt were missing his uncle and that was his fault too because if he’d just taken better care of Lucy and Noch everything else would be —

“I don’t know what that thing is, but I know running into it could cause trouble.”

“Bear,” the raven croaked, catapulted back into the present at the sound of his brother’s voice. “Bear — Noch, it’s a bear — it’s a fucking bear.” Cypress’ stomach rolled violently as he continued to tremble, the shaking of his bones so intense his teeth chattered through the words that he fairly gasped into being. “You have to go — you have to take them all and go — you’re my brother, Noch, and you have to run — you have to go and tell Alya I went and did it anyway even though I said I wouldn’t — ”

He buttoned his mouth over his last sentence.

“I was always supposed to protect you,” he muttered inanely, and then he whipped around, breaking rank despite his brother’s command to do exactly the opposite. He did it smart, circling around in a wide arc to approach the bear from the other side — away from the wolves whose lives he was charged to protect. He was quick and quiet, but truth be told, the wide circle he’d drawn compiled with the raw fear he felt stole a hefty slice of his endurance. A volley of furious barks ricocheted from his slavering jaws as he made himself tall, eerie lantern yellow eyes full of madness. A cutting growl left his throat as he advanced a few steps toward the behemoth. You killed my mama, he thought to himself. You killed my paw. Another step.

You won’t kill my brothers.