Thank you Keeralie, MyLifeBeingABookworM, Rizzy2, weekyle16 and guests for your reviews! Yes! Irt was sweltering. Guest, sure up next chapter! I'm sorry this is so rushed and so LATE! I AM SO BUSY LIFE IS HORRIBLE! Anyway faithful WSD lovers, make the best of it

Summer 2013 – The Heatwave

Part Two

Night was Blackberry's favourite time of day. Long after the sun had surrendered and the dark had drawn around her, she every once in a while went off on her own. Sometimes she went to the opposite end of the Down and admired her home in the moon's light, others she would travel a bit just to feel the ground solidly beneath her. It was to remind her the world about her was reality. That she really was fortunate to have overcome so much and have what she did. Now the nights were ingrained with worry for the coming light and the potential peril it would mean for her daughter.

Campion loved dusk, as it was the only time so long ago that he could sneak away from duty and be covered by a roof of trees, and not roots that were bones. At twilight that day he shielded Frith from his little family with his long body.

Hazel lived for all time. There was life in all, whether it was one of his rabbits or not, he gazed with pride. They had survived two wars and still he could watch lives unfurl into futures, as was all he ever really wanted. Now he crouched beneath the long drapes of a willow tree and rifted through all the things he had done that he regretted. Perched at the top of that mental list, was Primrose.

"Tell me to go away ad mind my own business," the tall shadow offered, "but I can guess what's bothering you."

"You're right then, brother," Hazel sighed. "Sit down, Campion."

For a while of comfortable, companionable silence, they followed Blackberry and Fiver attend to Cascade and Wish in their end-of-day ritual. Fiver floundered, a little lost without Ivy, but Blackberry passed him pieces of advice. They set some cool grass they found in a nearby cave under the youths noses. From across many oceans, wind rippled across the drooping fingers of the willow's vines.

"Primrose has never been like that before," Campion said, matter-of-factly.

"No, never," Hazel agreed, with an extinguished shake of the head. "We haven't…connected in a very long time. I remember our winter celebration as the last time she smiled at me. We don't silflay, we don't talk – at least not like we used to."

"Hazel, have you done anything?" Campion suggested gingerly. "To provoke her?"

"No! No, you see that's the problem! I don't know what is I'm supposed to have done against her."

A smaller figure than the rest sidled up to them. "I could sense what you two are discussing," Fiver aid plaintively.

"Fiver has more sense in his head than an entire Owsla. I'll leave you with him." Campion dragged himself over to where the remainder of their group were spread out. Blackberry stayed propped up, looking at him as if in a new light.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Campion asked hesitantly, unnerved by the vacantness in her expression.

"Hazel will never figure out what's wrong with Primrose. I know you try; you were quiet all day. To me it's obvious."

He propped his head sideways, so he could still share a conversation with her eyes and rest. "You're closer to her than I am. What do you think?"

Blackberry smoothed a stray hair on Cascade's head, and kept her voice steady. "Hazel and Primrose never chose to be together, not really. All the others couples chose one another, but they decided under pressure. The warren needed families, future. She was the only doe, and in her eyes since he had rescued her, he was the only option. Maybe she did love him, maybe it was infatuation or graciousness. Could have been loneliness. The point is, now that there is no more trauma she doesn't feel bound to him to protect or be protected."

"Poor Hazel, he's taking it tough. It came so abrupt really, well, to us. Why would you make a dedication like that if you weren't in it for the long run?"

Blackberry raised her head, conflicted. "What if you were before you woke up one day to find all that had changed, and you still had to spend that day and night wanting to be elsewhere?"

Campion's ears split to the sides. "Oh."

Just then Bigwig came over with Wish. "What are you two looking so sullen about?" he asked. "Anyway I might have something to cheer you up. Hazel, Fiver! Come on."

All of them exchanged looks before leaping to a stand. Bigwig did not have far to carry them along. The land split further open until out of it peeked sleek brown pipes. These had men written all over them. Fiver ran uncertainly at the rear, while Hazel travelled with his nose scraping along the increasingly pebble floor.

"Welcome to the edge of the world," Bigwig proclaimed. He was posed against the night drop, one paw raised. The earth gave way under him, and the rabbits scuttled on their bellies to the place where air met land. At least ten feet down lay the unmoving surface of a reservoir. Fetid brown algae and stagnant rust and metal wafted up into their noses, but none cared.

"How do we get down?" Hazel seemed to wake up from his comatose state.

"Woah, Hazel! Watch!" Bigwig restrained his oldest friend. "I'm afraid it looks like we'll have to jump if we want water."

"Is there any way out?" Campion warned suddenly. "The walls are steep all the way around."

"Do you see over there, by the sides, the vegetation hanging? I assume we could use them as leverage to get out."

"You and I first, Bigwig?" Campion bent his head to sniff the caged stones holding the walls. The moon came out from behind its mask of dry, wispy clouds.

"You might have it under control, Bigwig and Campion, but beware." Hazel nodded his consent.

Bigwig kicked his back feet in joy. "Last one in is a rotten apple!" With mammoth momentum, Bigwig shot into the empty air and plummeted. Campion took to sliding down the sides in a skilful and precise fashion. That was until the edges slid more vertical and he somersaulted into the water.

"That would have been good if it had been deliberate," Bigwig roared with laughter. He sent a wave of delicious, cool, velvety water over his friend's head.

Soon they were all in, doing unrabbit-like things because they felt good. Diving and cavorting, their fur was rinsed of dust and dirt. Eventually they grew wary and, one by one, they disembarked the reservoir.

It was tempting to fall asleep at once, but Bigwig was prickling with an ominous alert. He waited, irritated, for the youngers to come out of the water so that he could work out his tensions with a scan of the land.

"Hurry up Cascade and Wish!" Bigwig called gruffly. His own kittens weren't nearly as ignorant. The only thing that answered him was the croak of a frog and the flit of a bat. He lowered his front body into the water where it swirled in his extensive mane.

"No! You mustn't go in there!" Fiver exclaimed, pummelling a preventive paw in his path. "We just noticed from this angle that water whirlpool. We're blessed to have taken advantage of the water up to now. It was luck we didn't venture into that beast's path." Fiver's shoulder sagged in relief. "Now, where's my son?"

Bigwig's eyes were saucers of understanding turmoil. "Great Frith! They never left the water, Fiver. They're still in there."

"What!" Fiver shrieked.

The contraption man had fashioned to plug the water was activated in the distance, a noisy and hungry distributor of the dark. "No, Fiver!" Bigwig assaulted him to the floor. "Are you stupid? An imbecile?"

"What's all the noise about?" Campion flapped his ears in annoyance. He did a double-take at Bigwig's restraining position on Fiver. "Your enthusiasm to get back to Owsla training is…..am, rare, Bigwig."

"Campion," Fiver squeaked, air supply rationed.

"Don't say a word," Bigwig said threateningly. The last thing he needed was for Campion to get sucked into an underwater world, as if Fiver kicking his face every few seconds wasn't enough to contend with. The reservoir was now half-empty, or half-full if Bigwig was an optimist – which he wasn't.

"I'm verging on concerned now," Campion tilted his head to the side. "For Frith's sake, Bigwig! Don't amputate Fiver's head!"

Bigwig started to feel pangs of sorrow in knowing that his friends were to be branded with this inconsolable mourning for ever.

A sigh came from behind an astonished Campion. "Why did Primrose have to do this?" Hazel sniffed.

"You see," Bigwig cleared his throat, and released Fiver.

He popped up and bolted in the opposite direction. Both Owslers stood immobile and watched him run from the ghosts of his past and the tragedy of the present.

"Why Primrose?"

"-what I have to tell you is-"

"Your youngest daughter is with Fiver's son..."

Campion's forehead raised high. "So they're making friends. Bigwig….they're barely yearlings."

Bigwig rotated robotically to the reservoir, and dipped his paw over the side. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but both of them were in the water when that portal began to spiral."

Campion's eyes looked with a raw intensity into his, progressing into shadows and mist. He shivered once and sluggishly sank back. Bigwig had been a witness to the definable day that also had Hemlock hold timid little Ash at ransom, and how Campion hadn't thought twice before forfeiting. As for Fiver….he had crossed that bridge before and somehow he and Ivy had managed to sow together.

"Hazel, look Primrose hasn't done anything fundamental yet. All she wants is to loosen up a little, especially now there's no need to be so serious any longer." Blackberry tried to sneak away from Hazel.

"Don't tell her," Campion pleaded in a whisper. "Bigwig, don't." He took a deep breath that would crumble the most compact soul. "I will find a way to minimise the….to minimise it."

"I understand," Bigwig said respectfully. Suddenly he wanted Spartina and their kittens close to him, just so he could remind himself that the sky, for him at least, was still standing.

"We have visitors," Blackberry fretted. They were quiet, only the trial-hardened rabbits could pick it up. She approached first, ears forward in a friendly way and nose pinkie from the nourishing water.

They were, the bucks noted with surprise, two does. The less shy undressed them all with her eyes, squinting at times. She jutted her chin out. "This territory is claimed. Please leave."

Blackberry blinked and froze. "We weren't causing any harm."

"I've asked you once. Leave now," she said condescendingly. Her partner kept her head down and repeatedly threw her head back, as if she had lost something.

"Excuse me, but we're not going anywhere!" Campion snapped. "This patch of grass is just as fine as that in the next pasture."

The younger raised her head as if he had been ranting at her specifically. "Let him come, they're alright as long as the one with the furry cap stays here."

Bigwig was extremely offended. "It's a mane actually."

"We don't need to come with you," Campion said.

"Yes, we do," Blackberry corrected. "Cascade needs this, Campion." There was no denying the relief in her expression.

He swallowed thickly. "I won't leave, Bigwig." He dug his heels in the dirt, and pretended to silflay.

"You need to come, Alder. There's elil out here you know! You did always think you were invincible, didn't you?"

They all searched the night behind them, but it was empty. "No," Campion said as if he was teaching Cascade to talk all over again. "There's no one here."

"Of course there's not! I'm talking to you!" she laughed, a boisterous symphony of bells. "Fine, all come. That way, you can meet my new kitten!"

"For someone that's just given birth she's awfully lively." Bigwig rubbed his mane straight self-consciously.