"I don't know about this," Hof'toth complained when he realised just how far they'd come. Like the rabbits of Peter's old warren, the hares were a largely closed community who put a great deal of emphasis on their borders.

"It'll be worth it," said L'Inflo. "Trust me."

"Hmm, all right," Hof'toth agreed.

L'Inflo picked up the pace as he followed the base of the hill. He knew that this far out, Hof'toth wouldn't want to go back on his own, and as he had no intention of going back himself yet, the younger hare would just have to shut up and follow him. And Hof'toth did, getting further and further from home...

Unlike rabbits, wild hares don't have a long history with mankind. Little did these poor hares know that in some places their kin were caught and bred so that humans could set dogs upon them and laugh as their blood spills over the grass. These hares - living away from the roads, as hares do - had never seen a dog. There was, however, a vague myth surrounding the existence of humans. Apparently, a long time ago, a human had come over the hill, tied a rope to a tree branch and then dangled on it for a week until another human found him and then two more took him away. It was a story saturated by history and sanitised for children. Within a generation, the story would be gone and then humans, as far as hares were concerned, would no longer factor into their existence at all. The concept of humanity would be extinct.

Both L'Inflo and Hof'toth were reaching the age of ascension. Soon they would be men in the hare community, though L'Inflo was going to reach that age several months before Hof'toth. Both were already betrothed to mates. Secretly, Hof'toth had already been canoodling with his. She was a bit of all right. L'Inflo's, on the other hand, had a face like an unwashed arse and a smell to match. He would have happily swapped her for Hof'toth's. Little wonder, then, that L'Inflo was feeling some desperate last minute urge to rebel against the system, and Hof'toth was just getting increasingly bored with waiting for his turn to come round.

The briar patch L'Inflo was taking Hof'toth to was now visible. To the human eye, the countryside appeals because of its apparent natural randomness. That's why we go for walks in woods rather than farmland. Nature can be tamed and controlled, but who wants to experience the agricultural equivalent of suburbia when we go for a proverbial walk in the fresh air? However, the chaos of untainted countryside is misleading, which is something those of us who are not intimately linked with it can not understand. Where we humans see a briar patch as an inexplicable thorny plot, to L'Inflo and Hof'toth, it is part of the system. There is reason why this bush grows in this place - even if the hares didn't know what it was.

"Here we are," L'Inflo announced when the pair of them were sitting in the middle of the briar patch. They cut themselves getting through the thorns and Hof'toth was having serious doubts whether this was worth it, after all.

"How could you possibly have found this by chance?" he grumbled.

"Okay, I didn't," L'Inflo admitted, lifting his paws up and grinning. "I was talking to a badger and he kinda told me it was here..."

"You've been talking to badgers?!" Hof'toth cried.

"Yes, yes, I remember all the warnings."

"L'Inf, they're perverts!" Hof'toth wailed, ignoring his friend. "You shouldn't listen to a thing they say. If they're talking to you, that's because they want something. And the only thing badgers want is..."

L'Inflo nodded. "I know," he said. "Sex."

"He probably wanted to rape you, L'Inf!"

"Oh, I know he did," L'Inflo said with a shrug. "But hey, it can't be rape if I consented, can it? And I dunno, anything's better than that arse I'm gonna have to mate with in a few weeks." He shuddered.

"I worry about you," Hof'toth muttered.

L'Inflo rolled his eyes. "Over here," he said. He led Hof'toth deeper into the briar patch. There was something of a clearing in the middle. The badger had indeed lured him away from the rest of the hares for some buggery, and L'Inflo had at first gone willingly. However, when he changed his mind, the badger had got lairy, so L'Inflo came in here, where the snarling badger couldn't reach him.

"It's a dandelion," Hof'toth said, unimpressed.

"Ha ha," said L'Inflo. Then he bit off some of the leaves. "This is no ordinary weed," he said with his mouthful. "Bite some off for yourself and see."

"Er, why?"

"Bite some off and you'll see in a few minutes why," L'Inflo said, the inflection of his voice like an aural wink. He continued to chew. Hof'toth looked wary. "Go on, it won't poison you. Trust me."

So Hof'toth nibbled at the dandelion. It tasted bland and a little chalky, if Hof'toth was to be honest. It made him want to spit it out. But L'Inflo looked at him disapprovingly when little flecks of masticated leaf started to dribble out of his mouth, so Hof'toth took a bigger bite and swallowed it.

"No, don't swallow," L'Inflo said. "Just chew."

Hof'toth took another big bite, then the two of them just sat there chewing for the next few minutes. But then something strange happened...

"Whoa, dude, what the fuck is this?"

"Tell me what you can see," said L'Inflo distantly.

"It's like... I'm swimming inside my own head!" Hof'toth slurred. "Like I'm not part of my own body anymore. Like I'm floating, trapped inside it. Oh, man, I just wanna break free. I wanna fly. I wanna fly like the birds!"

L'Inflo chuckled drunkenly.

"Hey, what's that?" Hof'toth said.

"Can you see it too? The bright light."

"The what? No. Those things over there."

L'Inflo was lying on his back now, staring up at the sky with his glazed eyes open wide. He didn't want to miss anything he was seeing. But Hof'toth, who was still upright, though resting his chin on the ground, made him roll over.

"Whoa, they're baby hares, two of 'em..."

"Nah, they ain't hares, man. They're rabbits."

"Rabbits? All the way out here?"

Then they both burst out laughing.

"Hey, little bunny," Hof'toth crowed. "Come in and join us. Share some of this dandelion with us, man. You won't regret it. Whoa, L'Inf, can you see what I see now? The hill just hopped over the sun..."

L'Inflo squinted, trying to regain control of his vision. He looked out of the briar patch at the silent, waiting rabbits. "Hey, you, rabbits, are you even there? Or are we just seeing you? Speak, little bunny rabbit, speak!"

"How many can you see, man?" sighed Hof'toth.

"I dunno, mate," L'Inflo muttered. "There were two a moment ago, I'd swear it, but now I'm kinda seeing eight, no, six, no four. Hey, now I'm seeing five. That can't be double vision, can it?"

"There are just two of us," said the first rabbit.

"What's wrong with them?" asked the second.

"Can you come out?" the first continued. "We need to speak with you. It's on a matter of utmost urgency, I assure you."

Hof'toth snickered and smirked. The little bunny rabbit sounded just like his mother. In hare families, the matriarch is the dominant parent. Male rabbits are only good for fertilising females, something that they are inclined to do far more than is appropriate. The larger, stronger female hares had to force the concept of betrothal upon their male counterparts just to ensure some sense of familial responsibility. As he looked out at the rabbit, it even began to look like his mother.

"Are you coming out?" the rabbit demanded.

L'Inflo rolled his eyes, which made his head spin.

"This is important!" the other rabbit added.

"Okay, okay," said L'Inflo. "Let's see what they want."

So he and Hof'toth got slowly to their feet, swayed a little as intoxicated blood rushed to their heads, then tripped over themselves. When they had finally got over their subsequent fit of laughter, they made their way out of the briar patch. They got cut on the thorns, but it didn't really hurt. It didn't hurt when the other dozen rabbits that'd been hiding outside leapt on top of them either...

Meanwhile, Mopsy and Tom were coming round the hill from the other direction. Tom had agreed to Mopsy's plan to confront the hares without even thinking and now he was missing having a leader figure around to protect him from all the evil in the universe. Most of the rabbits we have so far encountered have grown up within a culture of authority. They have a pathological need to be given instruction. And even though Tom had been exiled from Alexander's warren, he still lived within Mark's sphere of authority. He wished his older brother were here with them now. Or perhaps even Peter. Or even that rogue Jack.

Mopsy felt no such need for control. The journey from home to Roadkill Turnpike, half of which she completed alone, was the making of her. After the supposed death of her father, the only rabbit whose authority over her she willingly recognised, she had no intention of replacing him. But even before she'd left Damien and Eleanor, self-doubt was riding her back, trying to draw her back to where it was safe and cosy but a delusion. In the end, it was only Tyler's reckless abandon that ensured she left. That's why she took him along. The noisy little bugger drowned out her doubts. And that's why she'd brought Tom now, just in case.

They made their way down the hill in silence. Tom was actually pretty intimidated by how grown up his young niece had become. He'd always been timid around the ladies, and now he saw her less as family and more as any other hormonal young female in the warren. Once upon a time he could have entertained her with a funny story or a dumb joke, but now he didn't know what to say to her. His mind was completely blank. He was just about to start commenting on the weather when she suddenly froze and he bumped right into the back of her.

"Tom, can you see...?" her whisper trailed off.

"What? What is it?" he said, picking himself up and trying to reclaim his sense of cool. He shouldered past her and stared ahead of them. There was just the thorny briar patch, which he made a mental note to steer well clear of thanks to an unfortunate experience during those exiled months with a wild rose bush and a used condom. But then he saw what Mopsy had spotted.

Then she ran forward, so Tom had to follow. There was the body of a hare splayed out in front of the bush. Except that when they got closer, Tom wasn't actually sure if it was just the one body, it was in so many pieces.

"Oh, Tom..." Mopsy said under her breath.

The sight brought back recollections of Tyler. She hadn't actually stayed and watched him die (or even stayed and tried to help - something she'd always regret), but she imagined he'd been torn asunder just like this. The skin of the hare's face had been torn from its skull, which they couldn't see anywhere. Mopsy stopped before it and regarded its loose, flattened features. Tom skulked around the edge of the bloody devastation, counting the dismembered paws. He could only find three. When he stepped in some blood, he yelped and leapt back.

"It's still warm!" he cried.

"This is recent," Mopsy deduced.

She was just leaning in close to examine gnaw marks on a bared but bloody leg bone when there was a furious snort behind her. She spun and froze. On the gentle slope that formed the base of the hill, there were up to ten hares.

To a small rabbit like her, it was an imposing sight. They were all sitting upright, spread out over a wide area, like they'd just grown out of the ground. Not one of them moved. They all just stared. Mopsy gulped.

"It wasn't us!" Tom cried.

Mopsy hadn't thought they'd be suspected, but now she thought about it, they must have looked mighty suspicious. She looked between the hares and Tom and nodded frantically, only to find Tom was waving his paws around defensively and they were covered in hare blood. This enraged the others even more.

"We came here seeking an alliance," Mopsy tried to explain calmly, but her voice quivered like she was lying. "Emperor Morellius is planning to attack you and wipe you out. This was probably done by his men!"

A few of the hares glanced round at each other. Then without speaking they all started hopping down the slope at the exact same moment. It was like they shared a psychic connection, Mopsy would have thought, had she known what one was. But there was definitely something strange about these creatures.

The hares had large strides, being so much larger than rabbits, and Mopsy and Tom took a few steps back. There were enough hares to form a loose circle around the pair of them and the corpse. It was only when they all started speaking that Mopsy realised that the hares were all female.

"This is Hof'toth," said one.

"Where's L'Inflo?" another demanded.

"Did you eat him?" asked one.

"Cannibal fuckers!" squeaked a fourth.

The one who seemed to be the leader stared Mopsy in the face. She didn't need to say much. The others all seemed to say things that fed off what the one before them said, like their thoughts were linked.

"I don't think we need an alliance with you," she told Mopsy. "I think we need an alliance against you..."

NOTES:
Sex, drugs, cannibalism and suicide! Oh, yes, it's been too long since I worked on this project. This chapter took the longest to write, finished almost exactly a month after it was started, mainly because I had to commit myself to the far less enticing prospect of doing coursework and an MA application. It took a little while to remember where I was heading with it. I think the story I wrote during my break fed into this one somewhat, if only because I had to cut so much out of it and was in an editing mood.