(Note: this snippet is from a flashback sequence in the story, telling of Flagstaff's childhood.)

* * * * *

The Sorceress stood at the door and wiped her wet hands on her apron. "Why do you come to me?"

The elderly rabbit pulled on either end of the flat hat in his hands and ducked his head in embarrassment. "I beg apology of you, revered grandmother..."

"Please." The Sorceress forestalled her visitor with an upraised hand, "There's no need for that. Wisar will be sufficient."

The rabbit nodded energetically. His head bobbed loosely as though attached by a spring to his thin neck. "Yes, Wisar. Well, you see, we don't know what else to do. His own parents are dead, you see, and we're his closest relatives, even though we're not all that closely related. His father and mine were third or fourth cousins, I forget which, but now we're all he's got left. And we've got twenty of our own young ones," he added, turning to indicate the mob of frenetic rabbit children running around a weary motherly rabbit. The Sorceress suspected that neither of the adults was nearly as old as they appeared, but were aging prematurely in the course of their parental duties. "At least, I think it’s twenty. Nineteen or twenty, I sometimes forget. We have more than enough to feed and clothe, and as much as we love the boy, we can't take on another one to care for. We just can’t!"

The cat listened without reply. She wiped her hands again, and waited patiently.

The rabbit hemmed and hawed for a moment, shuffling his large feet in the dirt. "It's not an easy decision, Wisar, not for Lep'kufft, I'm sure you understand. But we didn't know what else to do with him. He's a little odd, which makes him more of a handful than a boy his age would be."

"How so?"

"He..." He paused and glanced away, looking at the dirt road leading up to the cabin. He spoke again in a furtive whisper. "He fights, Wisar. He fights."