Wild Berry Meadow You're not gonna make it.

The light was blurred. He tasted his tears at the corner of his mouth, dribbling across his cheek and making it slick. The craze of his attempted self-rescue streaked that line of wetness with dirt, setting the tear in to the white of his face with a tone similar to old rust. The ground was rich with clay here, he would realize later. It was hard-packed but otherwise not suited for climbing.

Then, a javelin struck the air above his head.

He scrambled for it without thinking, riding the wall with windmilling steps and reaching with his black-tipped snout — snapping and missing, snapping and missing, until finally his teeth were set in the mass. In the next moment he was floating, he was flying, moving so quickly — the boy might've been the size of an adult but he was nothing too, merely bones connected with tired sinew.

Mou felt the pit's edge with his elbows. He felt his chest connect, his hind paws catch, as he was pulled free of the darkness. The forest was all around them both but the boy didn't see it — he was on his belly, then slouching to his side, blinking furiously in the violent light.