He could feel the adrenaline course through his body as he tried to get away from this place as fast as possible. The growling of the wolves would get distant one moment, but then the leaves would rustle as soon as he tried to relax. He didn’t even know if his body would be able to continue running like this. Even at this moment he could feel his body starting to feel fatigued every hop he took.

Why were there wolves in these parts of the woods anyway? It was too close to civilization for them to be here. It wasn’t his fault that he was just trying to protect the pregnant doe from being mauled by wolves. He didn’t even know that the wolf he shot with his crossbow was one of the witch’s familiars. He didn’t even know she was a witch!

He should have listened better to Sir Hobeom when he was trying to teach him about witches and magic and whatever. If he did, he would have caught the signs of her being a witch with her familiars and kindly asked her to back off and offered her some food from the palace as etiquette with people like them dictated. Now, look at him. Stuck in a small body that could barely run away from wolves whose owner wouldn’t even stop them from eating him.

Suddenly a growl reached his ears. The rustling of leaves were getting closer as well as the light steps of a prey following him.

Oh no, oh no. Oh no. This was not good. Why didn’t he notice sooner that the wolves were getting closer to him? Instead of getting a couple minutes away from them, now he’s only a few seconds from being eaten.

He found a large pile of leaves just ahead of him and he wasted no time to jump into it. In hindsight, he should have probably ran farther instead of hiding since those wolves could probably smell him out, but he was just so tired and he was defenseless and what can a body of a small rabbit kit do against a large prey like a wolf? If he ran some more, he was just going to get more tired and ultimately eaten either way.

He tried to as silent as possible, his ears low and made himself as small as possible. He could hear leaves crunching as wolves sniffed and grunted. He could barely see anything from the little gaps between the leaves. He was pretty sure that they could smell him; know where he was hiding, but for some reason they weren’t moving to where he was.

Suddenly the ears of the one of the wolves’ twitched and looked back to where they came from. The wolf gave a small bark, looking around before he pointed his nose towards the direction they came from and started running again.

He waited a few more minutes inside his pile of leaves, making sure that the wolves were far and gone from where he was.

word count : 495.....

When some time has passed, he gingerly hopped out of the pile. There was a some pain coming from his hind legs but he didn’t mind it. He was more concerned about surviving more than anything.

Suddenly he heard leaves rustling from his left. He stood on his hind legs (there was that pain again, but he paid it no mind). His ears perked up in alert, ready to jump in case it was another one of the wolves.

“I thought I heard something coming from here…”

The one who came from bushes wasn’t another wolf… It was a human. He was tall, and that was saying something when he had to look up at everything now. He was dressed in layers; winter was coming after all. He had a thick scarf around his neck that seemed to be worn down, but it still looked to be in good condition. The human looked harmless.

But the human had a knife, and that was not a good sign.

The human’s eyes landed on him, and he felt himself freeze.

“Oh? A bunny out at this time of the year? Shouldn’t you be hibernating with your family little one?” he asked as he came closer to him.

He tried to move away, but when he put pressure on his hind legs, he felt unbearable pain from one of his legs, much worse that he experienced a few moments ago that he somehow released a pitiful cry.

“Oh no!” the human exclaimed as he went nearer to him, the knife still in his hand. He made another distressed noise. The human looked at his hand and looked surprised before scrambling to put the knife back in its sheath.

“Sorry about that little one,” he said as he crouched in front of him. He tried to move away, instinct he supposed, but since the pain was still unbearable, he couldn’t do anything.

The human carefully tried to reach for him. “It’s okay,” he said softly, touching him with his fingers gingerly. “It’s okay. I’m not going to hurt you.” He touched his right hind leg, making him squeal in pain.

“It seems like you’re injured buddy,” he informed him. “I don’t really know anything about rabbits, but it doesn’t seem like you broke a bone. Just a wound, which I guess is better than a broken bone. I read somewhere that if animals broke a bone then its worse cause then you won’t be able to find food to eat and just be left alone to die…”

The human was definitely rambling, but for some reason he didn’t seem to mind. His deep voice was actually soothing, and usually he wasn’t one to be comfortable with strangers but there was something about the way he was touching him that told him that he wasn’t going to hurt him, and that he could trust him.

“But still, your wound is bleeding a lot and if that doesn’t get cleaned something might get into it and you could also die from it…” the human said, which made him perk his ears up in alarm. What did he mean he was going to die?

“Hey, hey, hey,” he tried to comfort him as he petted him when he started to fuss, “It’s okay. That’s just a thought. We’re still not sure if that’s true or not. Hold on, let me-”

He took one hand away from him and patted himself before shoving it inside his coat pocket. He got out a clean handkerchief and ripped it half using his teeth. He shoved the other half back in his pocket and then moved the other one towards his hind leg.

“Just hold still little one,” he said as he began tying the handkerchief around his injured hind leg. It hurt, it really did that he started squirming and squealing just to make the pain stop, but his hands were firm and warm and just… comforting.

“A little bit more, bud…” he said as he made sure the tie as secured before smiling.

He stopped and took a look at this human.

Dimples.

“That should do it for now,” he said. Then his eyebrows furrowed together with worry on his face. “But I don’t think I should leave you alone at all… That’s still a pretty bad wound and I’m pretty sure I heard some wolves around here earlier.” If he was human, he would have coughed right now. “It’s weird too. They don’t usually go this close to town, and winter’s about to set in. They should be as far as possible from here.”

He looked up just to see the human tilt his head to the side and he seemed to be in deep thought about something. A cold breeze passed through them and he felt himself close in, trying to keep himself warm. Maybe it’s because everything has finally passed, and he could relax again, but he suddenly felt so sleepy he could sleep for a whole season.

“The cold isn’t going to help you either…” the human spoke again.

“How about this,” he began as he gave a soft pat on his head with his fingers. He moved closer to his hand, searching for warmth. “Would you like to come with me little one? Just until you get better? I don’t really know where your family is but I can’t leave you here all alone.”

The human offered his hand to him as he looked up. The human had a smile on his face, his dimples showing.

One of the first lessons Jeongguk learned as a prince was to never trust someone he didn’t know.

But hey, he’s not a prince right now.

With a tiny hop, he jumped into the stranger’s hand and settled into his warmth.

"There we go…” the human said as they came into his room. Jungkook wiggled from where he was hidden in the human’s scarff. He knew that winter was coming; he could feel it as everyone in the palace was starting to keep more firewood and stock up for food as it got colder everyday.