The amount of blood in the area clouded Bunny's sense of smell, but more than the amount, the traces of so many sources of blood gave him pause. Two people had bled a lot here, but mingled with those two scents were traces of many others. A weapon that had spilled a lot of blood had been used.
At the cliffside, he dove in as soon as Ray was done speaking. Swimming, as a rule, was not something Bunny liked doing. The sensation wasn't pleasant, he looked ridiculous when wet, and fur as thick as his took forever to dry out. But he knew how to do it. Too many children drowned, and too many things that hurt children lived in water, for him not to have learned.
Under water, though, he realized that the boy's head was not going to reach the surface, not with that tree on his torso, and not with the surface where it was. But like Ray, he had more than a few tricks - at least, for keeping a dying child alive.
He gripped the tree with one clawed hand and supported the boy in the blue armor's head with the other, focusing on the breath he held and the boy's slowing heartbeat pounding from everywhere in the lake. He pulled himself down by his grip on the tree, and when his feet touched the mud, stamped to open a wide tunnel beneath them. The shallow lake drained quickly down the mountainside, until Bunny could hold the boy's head above the water.
Then, with the lake still draining, he did something stranger yet, and breathed through the cracks in the armor onto the boy's face. The breath he'd taken in before diving left his lungs like a shimmer of summer heat on a meadow, almost visible in the deepest tones of green leaves and gold sunlight.
In the Warren, such a breath made stone effigies stand with a life of their own. Here, it made the banks around the lake bloom with new shoots of grass, flowers opening out of time, and more importantly - it strengthened the boy's heartbeat.
Bunny closed the tunnel siphoning the water out of the lake and kept the boy's face above the surface. When Ray moved the tree, he would move the boy.
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At the cliffside, he dove in as soon as Ray was done speaking. Swimming, as a rule, was not something Bunny liked doing. The sensation wasn't pleasant, he looked ridiculous when wet, and fur as thick as his took forever to dry out. But he knew how to do it. Too many children drowned, and too many things that hurt children lived in water, for him not to have learned.
Under water, though, he realized that the boy's head was not going to reach the surface, not with that tree on his torso, and not with the surface where it was. But like Ray, he had more than a few tricks - at least, for keeping a dying child alive.
He gripped the tree with one clawed hand and supported the boy in the blue armor's head with the other, focusing on the breath he held and the boy's slowing heartbeat pounding from everywhere in the lake. He pulled himself down by his grip on the tree, and when his feet touched the mud, stamped to open a wide tunnel beneath them. The shallow lake drained quickly down the mountainside, until Bunny could hold the boy's head above the water.
Then, with the lake still draining, he did something stranger yet, and breathed through the cracks in the armor onto the boy's face. The breath he'd taken in before diving left his lungs like a shimmer of summer heat on a meadow, almost visible in the deepest tones of green leaves and gold sunlight.
In the Warren, such a breath made stone effigies stand with a life of their own. Here, it made the banks around the lake bloom with new shoots of grass, flowers opening out of time, and more importantly - it strengthened the boy's heartbeat.
Bunny closed the tunnel siphoning the water out of the lake and kept the boy's face above the surface. When Ray moved the tree, he would move the boy.