The Fox and the Rabbit!

Chapter 2

  It was a nice bright morning a few weeks later, the sun slowly rising over the stone walls of the Scarlet Gauntlet keep. Rabbit stood in the kitchen at the sink cleaning some pans and utensils while looking out the window. No one else was in the compound so she did not have a need to do anything but clean right now.
After a few hours of her cleaning the same pan and just staring at the farm she usually tended to across the compound from her window, the portcullis to the front entrance started to roll up. Rabbit perked up and placed the pan she was cleaning down on the counter. She cleans off her hands from the water and soap and she wipes some dirt off the little apron she wore over her rose gold dress and she walks out of the kitchen and outside of the mess hall.

Coming in through the entrance all on their mounts was Lion, Raven, Robin, Goose and then Fox. Rabbit quickly checks the food in the horse trough. The guys one by one place their horses in front of the trough. Instantly Lion looks at Rabbit, gives her a light nod and then heads to his office, Raven heads to his tower without saying a word to anyone. Robin and Goose started talking about the fights they just had as they walk towards the barracks front door and Fox unpacked his horses saddle bags. Suddenly Fox caught a quick glance at Rabbit who was obviously staring at him. She looks away quickly and continues what she was doing with her horse who just walked up to the side of the trough to get some food.
"Hey, Fox! Did you hear me?" Goose's voice broke through what seemed like silence. Fox snapped out of whatever trance he was in and looked down at his little friend. Goose, the shortest of the group, stood there with his hands on his hips.
"Oh sorry Goose, what did you say?" Fox looked back real quick to see that Rabbit had gotten on her horse and was starting to head towards the main gates to the compound, fumbling with her hood and mask.
"You know what bud, you can tell me later!" Fox jumps on his horse and follows Rabbit out of the compound.
"What is up with him?" Robin asks as he stands next to Goose.
"I think he's got it bad for our Cambion baddie!" Goose has a very proud look on his face as he turns away and heads towards the barracks.

Outside of the compound Rabbit walks around gathering supplies and placing them in a bag on her hip. Fox trots up beside her and hops down off his horse. His horse trots off to the side of the clearing with Rabbit's horse.
"Hey... Need any help?" Fox asks, walking up next to her, his hand up scratching the back of his head. Rabbit smiles, nods and waves him over.
"Sure, I need some black pepper and rose bramble." Rabbit shows Fox what she is looking for. She leans down and slowly reaches for a bundle of rose bramble and pulls her hand back quickly in pain.
"Ow!" Rabbit calls out as she brings her finger to her lips.
"Oh shit! You ok?" Fox rushes to look at her hand. He takes her finger and places it in his mouth. Rabbit looks at Fox a little shocked at what is going on, then smiles as she realizes he is being sweet.
She turns her head to the side to hide the bright red blush that formed quickly across her face. A light chuckle comes from Fox as he places her hand onto his lap real quick and grabs a small piece of bandage from his pocket and lightly ties it onto her finger.
"Would you like me to check on that in a few hours." Fox smiles, the both of them burst out in laughter at his joke. Fox stands up and holds his hand out to her, She smiles as she wipes away a few tears from her face and takes his hand. He helps her stand up causing her to slightly stumble and fall into his chest. He instinctively wraps his arms around her to help stabilize her in a nice calming embrace. Rabbit stands there staring at his chest for a few seconds before looking up to his face. A blush forms across both of their faces and she pushes off his chest and looks away trying to cover her face that is as red as her clothes.
"Um, I... I think I am done with gathering today." Rabbit says as she places the last of the items she gathered from her bag on her hip into her horse's saddle bags.
"Are you sure?" Fox asks with a sound of full concern in his voice. He places his hand upon hers as she latches the saddle bags closed.
She stops for one moment and looks over to Fox who's concerned look switches to surprised. He looks away, his cheeks turning a little pink again. Rabbit giggles and covers her face with her hand, slightly stopping after seeing the bandage on her finger. She then looks away and starts to prepare to jump up on her horse. Fox takes her hand again and pulls her close to him.
"I would like to ask you something important before we go back inside the compound." Fox requests as he takes both of her hands in his.
Rabbit looks up into his eyes and swallows the lump in her throat. He smirks at her innocent look and places a hand upon her cheek.
"I wanted to know if you would like to go..." Fox started to ask when he was suddenly cut off by the high pitched squeal of Goose and Robin as the two of them came running up the hill from the front entrance of the compound.
Suddenly Rabbit pulled away from Fox and turned towards her horse hiding how red her face was. Fox rolled his eyes and looked in the direction of Goose and Robin and you can easily tell he was really pissed off. When the guys approached the two of them, suddenly before anyone could realize it, Rabbit jumped on her horse and started heading back to the compound.
"Alright then, bye Rabbit... I guess." Goose calls out as she runs by sounding a little disappointed.
When they approached Fox he folds his arms and raised an eyebrow, a low growl forming in his throat. Goose stopped in his tracks, he could clearly tell that he screwed up again.
"I... I am sorry, did I interrupt something?" Goose stammered as he started backing up his hands up palms facing Fox.
"NOOOO!~" Fox's sarcastic tone did not seem to sit well with Goose. Fox rolled his eyes and turned towards his horse and once upon the saddle he headed back towards the compound.
"Hey! We were going to ask if you wanted to come with us to fight a cyclops that was noted to be in the Desert." Robin calls out.
Fox stops for a second and sighs looking down to the back of his horses neck. He looks back towards the guys, rolls his eyes a bit then side nods his head in a way to tell them "Lets go". Goose gets excited and hops on the back of Fox's horse while Robin whistles his to come over from outside the front entrance of the Keep.
The three of them head off and Fox looks back to see Rabbit looking out at them from the front gates, with a sad look on her face. Fox turns back forward and sighs again. Goose looks up at his friend and then back towards the compound to see Rabbit slowly walking back in as the portcullis lowers behind her. He pats Fox's back looking up at him.
"I am sorry dude. Maybe we can make a plan for the two of you to have an actual date soon." Goose says with a smile on his face.
"What? A date? What are you talking about?" Fox says while nervously laughing.
Goose can tell that his best friend is easily trying to hide something by how he is trying to laugh it off.
The three of them head off in the direction of the desert so they could fight the cyclops that was reported to have been seen destroying someone's home.

Back at the compound Rabbit took her time to work on her crops gathering the wheat as of right now. Lion walks up behind her and folds his fingers together in front of his stomach, the sun shinning off his shiny cobalt blue armor. Rabbit looks back to see him standing there and slightly smiles.
"Sorry, I didn't want to interrupt your work, I just wanted to come by and see how you were feeling after the werewolf attack." Lion speaks calmly as he looks around Rabbit at her crop plots.
"Oh, I'm feeling better the claw marks are still a little sore. I can let you look over them if you want, but I am currently harvesting the wheat and then I will harvest the Glow Grapes for Raven." Rabbit wipes the sweat from her forehead and when her hand leaves her face it seems a little bit of dirt was left behind.
Lion chuckles a little bit and instinctively lowers down and wipes the dirt off of Rabbit's forehead. She pauses for a second and looks up into his eyes. Lion takes a moment and stops as his hand rests on the side of her face. He snaps his hand back and quickly looks away.
"I am so sorry." Lion spoke in a low soft tone as he continued to look away from Rabbit's gaze.
"Oh, It's ok. I guess in a way it would have been better than you telling me and getting more dirt on my face." Rabbit giggles as she goes back to harvesting the wheat.
"When you are done, see me in my office and I will check your wounds." Lion nods towards his office above the meeting hall in the center of the compound.
Lion hesitates a little bit but then walks off towards the stairs to his office. Rabbit slowly looks back watching Lion walk away, her face starts to feel hot and her cheek turn a light red. She placed her hand over her heart and took a deep breath.
"What is going on with me?" Rabbit whispers to herself through her teeth.
"What was that?" The voice of Raven piped up from behind Rabbit.
Rabbit jumps clutching her chest again while looking up at Raven, Breathing heavily.
"Why do you guys choose to scare me every time you get a chance?" Rabbit speaks through her deep short breaths.
Raven looked down at her and had a look of curiosity on his face.
"How can I help you Raven?" Rabbit asks as she places down all of her harvesting tools and wipes her forehead again from the heat.
"Oh I was just walking by and I heard you talking to yourself. I also wanted to see if you have Harvested those Glow Grapes yet!" Raven kneels down so the sun is not in Rabbit's eyes. She smiles to thank him and looks into his eyes directly.
"I see, well thank you for your concern. I was actually about to get to the Glow Grapes soon if you want to take them with you." She crouch walks over to the Plots with the Glow grapes growing. These large bushes had these small bright blue round fruit hanging off the branches. She starts to harvest the fruit, taking each one off one by one with her small scythe and place them in a basket for Raven to take with him to his Mage tower. After she is done harvesting the Glow grapes, Raven thanks Rabbit and takes the basket and walks over to his tower door.