Author's Note:

Badgers in a rage are scary. Badgers in control are way worse. How scary? This scary.

If you are just joining this series for the first time this story is in the continuum AFTER Season 2, so you will definitely want to read Thanks for the Fox and Guardian Blue Season One and Season Two for important context, you may also want to read Winter Hearth for important causal background.

This is a lot of fun. But it's not profitable. Hear that Disney?! I'm doing this for free. Now maybe you can see fit to get off your asses and take another billion of our dollars. Chop chop! Get to it! .

Also! A HUGE shout-out to J. N. Squire for assisting with editing this series! Able to correct 200 typos… before noon. Thank you!

Sheepless in New Reynard

Chapter 2: Memories

There was blood. There was so much. It mixed with the dusty tan farm soil. It had been a dry few days, but there was still enough that it stayed wet. Sharla felt ill. She did nothing. She didn't so much as yell at Gideon for doing it. She just watched as he held the little bunny down and ripped half her face off. That's what it looked like anyway. Bunny faces were small, and it didn't take a lot of blood to seem like a lot, but that was a lot.

"Someone get the constable! He won't see the light of day again! I want him tied up and locked away!" boomed the uncharacteristically furious voice of a normally mild Stu Hopps.

"Oh Stu, they're the same age for cryin' out loud! Stop it, you're scaring her worse!" Bonnie injected the voice of reason.

"Hello, not scared?" Judy waved at her parents with one paw while holding her fathers pawkerchief loosely to her cheek. Pressure was supposed to stop the bleeding, but Sharla was on the same page with her little friend. The proud and emotional buck blew his nose into that thing at the beginning of Judy's stage play. Ick.

"Come on, Judy, let's get you to a doctor. You need stitches."

"Dad! It's fine!"

"It'll scar!" Stu fired back.

"Maybe, but scars are pretty cool!"

Her mother knelt down where she was sitting under the tree that everyone else had been shamefully hiding behind. "Judy, do you want to have to explain that scar to a boyfriend or something one day?" Sharla sucked in a breath, tears welling up. She should have just thrown down the tickets and ran! Why didn't she do that? Judy was scarred for life!

"Mom!" Judy pushed the pawkerchief back in the matronly doe's paw, "No one cares if I got in a fight. It's gonna heal and no one's gonna care. We don't gotta make a fuss, I handled it."

"Oh, you handled it alright, missy. You ran off while we were talking to you and immediately got into a fight! That's how you handled it! That's trouble for everyone!"

"Yes, Gideon Grey, uh huh! They live at the edge of town." Sharla glanced back in the direction of Judy's dad. He was talking to one of the deputies who was attending the fair off duty.

"Come on, we need to at least get this cleaned up with something other than a pawkerchief," Bonnie ordered.

"Mom," Judy pressed.

"Now." The finality of that got the obstinate kit on her feet and then in seconds it was like nothing ever happened there in that vacant lot.

Except the blood. There was the blood. That horrible animal attacked a harmless little bunny to make a point. He was stronger. She was weaker. That's really how his kind thought. He said it himself. The killer instinct is there. In a million years it would never be fully bred out of them. She heard sniffling.

Her brother. In everything, she'd almost forgotten about him. He seemed fine!

She found him behind the same tree they had cowered behind.

"G-Gareth?" Sharla announced, as he hadn't seen her yet. He gasped a little, and wiped his eyes with his woolly arm as if to pretend he hadn't been caught crying. He had congratulated Judy on getting their tickets. He told her she was awesome. He looked fine. Why was he crying now? It was over.

"Do you think she's gonna have a big scar, like they were talkin' about? I mean, it looked bad. Is she gonna look messed up now?" he asked.

The black lamb tried to reassure her brother. "Hey, no… I mean, they will get her treated and I bet she'll look fine. Scars are kinda grey, and her fur is grey. I bet you'd have to be real close to… you know.. notice them."

"I feel like I shoulda rammed him or something. Got him off her before he could scratch her. I was so scared."

"We all were. Gideon's mean!" his sister protested. That wasn't his fault! And besides, if it was, it was her fault too! She didn't want to think like that.

Gareth took a trembling breath. That was it. The adrenaline or whatever it was called was wearing off. He was scared now. He clutched his lucky shamrock hat. Lot of good it did him today. Though, it had certainly been lucky for their possession of their stupid tickets that Judy showed up. It just wasn't so fortunate for Judy. There was a bit of quiet as he just stared at the ground.

"Judy's strong," Sharla insisted. "Stronger than any of us. She's gonna be a cop one day, you heard her."

"Yeah, well… maybe I'm not gonna be a cop or nothin… but I'm not gonna be scared next time."

"We ain't gettin' into a fight next time either. Gideon's probably gonna go to jail forever. You heard Mister Hopps tellin' the others."

"I mean ever. I'm gonna know to make the right choice, even if it's scary. I'm not gonna let someone get hurt like that if I can stop it. I can't. I can't." He pulled his knees up and put his head on them, hugging his legs.

"It's gonna be alright, Gareth. I promise. Judy's fine."

"I ain't." the pale lamb whispered despondently. "I didn't even blink. I watched. I just… watched. I can't stop seeing how… how it flung out. On the ground.

"Stop! I don't wanna hear that!" Sharla shouted.

"I cain't just stop, Sharla! Yew saw it too!"

"No I didn't, I covered my durn eyes! C'mon, let's go home."

"I don't wanna go home," Gareth grumbled. "Judy got tore up so we could keep havin' fun at the fair." Sharla fumed. She needed someone to talk to! She didn't want to be alone after something like that!

"Well, here's your dumb tickets then. I can't even think about the stupid fair!" Sharla snapped. If her brother wanted to be dumb he could be dumb without her! She was going home. She gave Gareth his half of the tickets, pivoted on her little hoof and away she went.

She would check on Judy once she got done getting cleaned up. She could just walk to the Hopps farm. After that, she bet Judy could use someone to talk to and play with too. Sharla would swear to be her friend forever. If Judy was gonna have to walk around with a totally wrecked face, there was no way that was going to mean she was friendless. Not ever.

"Judy, I promise," Sharla swore as she stalked away in the late afternoon heat.

"... definitely not an assassin. If she was, dang she'd be the worst." That female voice was familiar. The ewe's eyes shot open. Hovering over her, looking directly down at her where she lay on a couch, was a hyena. Motti. It had not been Motti's voice she heard though.

Badger with a sword. There was a badger, and she had a sword, and she was going to kill her! Sharla sat up, feeling dizzy and cold and clammy. She was in a living room, presumably at the bed and breakfast. She had been covered by a quilt. The room was kind of dark, save for the blue light coming from the media menu on the large flat-screen TV.

"Don't kill me!" she bleated immediately.

"Suffice it to say, I stopped regarding you as a threat about ten minutes ago when you turned to over-cooked spaghetti at the sight of a blade." Sharla snapped her attention over to the hyena. She was sitting in a chair off to the other side. The ewe's eyes immediately tracked back to another form between where Motti was and where Honey was, however.

There was a sheep with glasses hanging from the rafters by a chain.

BLEAT!

The volume and harshness of Sharla's scream made the hyena jump back.

"It's a punching bag, holy hell!" Honey burst into a fit of laughter. "You're a real flake, you know that? So… I'm still wanting an answer to my question. What made Vivienne send you here?"

"Geeze! You guys are psychos!" cried the shaking sheep. She felt dizzy again.

"No, no! Stay sitting up. Shake your head and … hoof… things." Honey shook her paws to indicate. Sharla did that.

"She said she was helping me. I asked my friend Judy for help and she refused! She don't want anything to do with a sheep. No one does right now."

"Shetani!" Motti gasped. The sheep still had no idea what that was about. Was it some kind of insult?

"Why didn't Judy want to help you?" interrogated Honey calmly. A wave of irritation swept through the exhausted, terrified, bitter ewe. That dream. She promised herself she would be Judy's friend forever, and that wasn't enough to even ask for help when her own brother might be dead.

Sharla sat up straighter and spat out, "I don't even know. Okay? I don't know what happened. She went from caring about justice and helping other mammals to being a self-centered little predophile freak."

The sheep never even saw an expression change. With no warning, Motti spun her upper body around and punched the hanging sheep.

Sharla might understand anger or intimidation being used and punching a weird effigy could achieve that, but nothing prepared her educated mind for seeing a mammal hit a heavy sand-filled bag so hard that it snapped the heavy-gauge chain it was hanging from and into the corner so hard that half the pictures and paintings on the wall fell to the floor with a crash. Sharla had absolutely no idea why Motti even did that.

Even Honey flinched.

"Who is Judy to you again?" quetioned Honey, quickly 's ears were ringing and her head felt light. She had nearly fainted again. This was a nightmare reality. What the hell was Judy and her dumb new fox family mixed up in? Was this really just the bunny's regular life?

"I am not meaning to break-" Motti attempted.

"Don't worry about it, you will fix it later," Honey expressed.

"Yes, Ma'am."

Sharla collected herself enough to answer before she became the new effigy. "I used to be her best friend, when she was a kit. Hey, I'm just a teacher in Bunnyburrow. I came here for help, but that dumb fox's dumb fox mom set me up for… whatever this is. I didn't want any trouble, I just want to-"

"Dumb… fox mom?" interrupted Honey.

"That conniving vixen made me think she was helping me and sent me here for you to do her freaking dirty work." Sharla pulled her legs under her, feeling violently bitter. They got set up to do a crime that had nothing to do with them. She wasn't even really a threat, they informed her as such themselves. If they thought this didn't concern them, they should let her go. But a fox sent her out here for this mess.

"We have to be getting dirty for work?" responded Motti.

"How's it feel to be used by a filthy, rutting vixen who thinks she's too good to get her paws dirty?" the sheep practically bleated. Vivienne teased her with the possibility of finding her brother but was just trying to get rid of her over a bunch of dumb insults! Sharla grumbled, "…so she's gonna make you do it. To a freaking second grade teacher who just wanted someone to listen and help!" She was near tears. How could she be pushed into this nightmare after asking her dearest friend for something so life-or-death?

Sharla suddenly sank back into the couch, as if it could protect her. Wow, hyenas had a lot of teeth. And they were honestly the most terrifying teeth she'd ever seen. And she saw a lot of them. Motti was showing them to her.

Honey said nothing, just picking up a remote and clicking 'play'.

"This is confidential." she stated casually.

It was a section of forest. Oh, a sheep showed up. Wait. Why would Honey be showing her this? Was something going to happen to the sheep? Oh god, it was intimidation, something was gonna happen to the sheep. What was that in his hooves?

A spear. That was unexpected. He was dragging a pig with him.

Wait, that pig was on the news.

Sharla squinted. "Is that…?"

"Shhh." She was shushed by a hyena.

This began to feel like something different. The sheep strong-armed the pig down pretty brutally, and then tied her hooves with rope, and then staked the rope down with her splayed out like some savage sacrifice.

Sheep were doing this. Not foxes. Not wolves. Sheep. It immediately turned Sharla's stomach. They were showing her justification for their actions to her.

"This is on your property?" she asked, remembering how the scenes on the cameras she saw upstairs looked.

"Camera 6," announced Honey without answering the question. The camera changed. It was a little ridge in the woods near where the pig was. It was Nick and Judy. Both scenes were shown side by side.

"Oh my god, what's she wearing? Is this from the 80's?" she murmured.

"Last fall." Motti responded, then shushed herself.

"I can't hear anything anyway," Sharla observed.

"No audio. I'll translate. The sheep's a paid assassin. They were gonna chuck knockout gas into the inn here, then burn it down with everyone inside. Fortunately, I spotted them first. Thinking they missed out on taking out Nick, Judy, and the other survivors, they were gonna execute Porcintia."

"I thought she was familiar… So… You know that I have nothing to do with like… any of that crap, right? I mean, not every freaking sheep that existed was involved!" She began to feel a sense of panic. That's what was going on. Honey's home was attacked by sheep involved in that Interior mess. Holy crap, Vivienne was right. Honey probably knew a ton about it, or they would not have been attacking her Bed and Breakfast.

The other heavy truth that dawned on Sharla was that Honey was telling the absolute truth. This was confidential. Nothing about this was on the news. Not yet.

"I know Porcintia survived, so I take it Judy creamed this guy?" It was hard to hide the little bit of pride left in Sharla's voice. Judy was a heck of a fighter.

Motti responded as Nick and Judy obviously tried to delay the inevitable on camera 6. "She couldn't. Shetani was still recovering." Sharla paused at that. Shetani was a nickname of some kind for Judy. It was not just a passing familiarity. These mammals knew her. Maybe being the bunny's friend would really help. Or would have, before… everything.

"Camera 14." introduced the badger. A third scene popped into the lovingly crafted video. A large white rock in the forest, wide and flat. In a flash, a green-hooded figure popped into view on it. Kneeling, they lifted their bow up and pulled back an arrow. The camera suddenly, shakily zoomed in to see this new mammal.

Sharla recognized her immediately.

She could have been completely covered, not just in a hoody, but in a full suit of armor and the sheep would have known.

It was the eyes. Those eyes were so sharp, keen, and malevolent.

"This is my favorite part," whispered Honey.

The sheep raised his horrible-looking spear to stab the bound, helpless pig, and the vixen released the arrow.

That was it. Sharla knew then that she was dealing with someone who had willingly and easily spilled sheep's blood. The point had not been to make the ewe aware of what happened to trespassers. It wasn't to make her understand that Honey had a reason to think she needed to kill a sheep suddenly showing up at her home. It was not to remind her that Nick and Judy were heroes who the angry sheep had just verbally smeared and called freaks.

It was to show her that Vivienne Wilde absolutely did not need someone else to do her dirty work. Sharla felt a prickly dread that came with the realization that in a dozen alternate universes she died in a public bathroom.

And this mammal was involved, just like the vixen had promised.

Honey could help her.

But after all the crap Sharla just unloaded, there was absolutely no way that was going to happen.

"I'm sorry," she bleated softly. "I came searching for help, but my stupid mouth just cost me that. I'm sorry." The ewe sniffled. She had to get her anger in check, but everything made her furious. All these chances to help Gareth, and no one was gonna do it. And now it seemed even Sharla herself wasn't gonna do it because she was letting her anger keep winning out. She put her face in her hooves.

"Oh no, don't do that. Make her faint again, Motti," Honey groaned. The hyena glanced with uncertainty at the owner of the inn and made a pounding motion with her huge, meaty paw. "Uh… no, I didn't mean…" Honey held her temples, standing up in front of their uninvited guest. "Look, what am I even supposed to help you with?"

"My brother. He went missing after the Lanolin thing," the ewe stated with a crack in her voice. "I tried to get help, but the local Sheriff's a ram, and he doesn't want anything to do with helping someone who might have been involved. It's a damned election year."

"You want to find a missing mammal," reviewed Honey, "and the best mammal in the entire world that could find him is unable to help you because she's directly involved with the case and it's not allowed." Sharla gritted her flat sheep's teeth tightly. Okay, so that part of what Judy said might have not just been an excuse. "Pretty terrible luck for your brother. Even if it were allowed, last I heard, she's not even been cleared from administrative duty because of her injuries."

"Injuries?" interrupted Sharla.

"Your friend that you seem to have such a high opinion of…" Honey ground in, "… was cut nearly in half while saving Motti's family from really bad mammals in The Interior." The badger narrowed her eyes. "And on that video, while she was held together by stitches and awesomeness, she ran her bunny bottom out into those woods to save me while I stayed to help protect all the mammals your 'friend' already almost died to save. But, yeah, she's just… selfish and stupid. That fits, doesn't that fit, Motti?"

"No?" the hyena replied questioningly.

Yeah, this wasn't going in a good direction.

"I didn't know any of that, you guys. That's not public knowledge."

"Vivienne risked her life out there too. So you probably understand… exactly how much incentive I got now t' help you find anything but the train station."

"Motti owes life to Shetani. It is forever bond. She is not your friend, then you is not our friend." The huge hyena crossed her arms.

"I am her friend. Or I was," sighed the sheep dejectedly. Yeah, she screwed literally everything up. "I … had to promise Vivienne I wouldn't talk to her again if she found someone to help me." After hearing about how wrong she was about Judy's reasons for not helping, and how badly she'd treated the doe in public, she was really regretting that deal. She wished she could at least apologize face to face, so Judy knew she really meant it. Sharla messed up. Judy didn't deserve that.

"Wait…" Honey leaned in. She had been so angry that musk was practically boiling off of her. Even Sharla's nose was a bit overwhelmed. "I help you… and Judy never has to deal with your bigot sheep butt again?"

"What?" responded Sharla as she drew away from the pungent scent with aggravation. "I'm not a bigot! I'm upset, I'm tired, and I'm desperate. Maybe I said stuff I regret in all that, but I don't just… hate mammals to be hatin' them. I'm not like that!" With her chances to find Gareth pretty much back to square zero, Sharla felt like her character was about all she was going to have left in all of this. She might have been wrong in how she handled herself with Judy and Vivienne, but there was a reason!

"You called Judy a predophile freak." reminded Honey. "Like… that was something seriously terrible," Honey reminded her. Oh crap.

"I was upset!" shouted Sharla. She then tried to reign herself in. She did not want to appear threatening. She had no idea where that sword was.

"Uh huh…" Honey stood up and paced. "Why not call her just… selfish? Or say she was a cheater, or a backstabber? You could have just said she was a terrible friend." Sharla's heart plunged into her feet. No. No, she wasn't a bad mammal. She wasn't like that! She was just angry and wanted to say something hurtful.

About someone who wasn't there to be hurt by it.

The sheep looked down in disgust at her own keratin-coated cloven fingers. No. She wasn't. But there was absolutely no argument against it. She knew the definition by heart. She could have chosen anything to insult Judy, Nick, or Vivienne. But the whole time, only one thing ever came up as an exploitable flaw.

Nick and Vivienne were foxes.

And that was not a flaw.

Sharla knew very little about Nick, but didn't dislike him until it became clear that he was romantically involved with Judy, and it didn't even blink into the sheep's skull that Judy was happy. He was a fox, and Judy was too good for him.

She never even asked herself how good Nick was. She was too good because Nick was a fox. There was absolutely no other reason.

Sharla felt sick, empty, and terrible. She had never felt, even for Gideon, the kind of revulsion that she had for herself in that moment.

"Oh, she didn't know. Oh dear." Honey sounded sincerely sympathetic, and in the sheep's state, Sharla couldn't tell if she was being absolutely smug about it. If she was, she deserved it.

"She didn't know," Motti repeated, nodding.

"It's hard. I know what it's like." Honey sighed slowly.

"No. You don't. You can't know what this is like." Sharla couldn't even flavor her words with inflection. "I'm complete shit." She felt like she didn't even deserve to see Judy again in the first place. The bunny sure as hell got over hating foxes without justification. Sharla suddenly represented the closed-mindedness and ugliness that she hoped all her students would be above.

"Yer a bigot, not a corpse," the inn's owner stated. "You can get better, dummy."

"What?" Sharla gazed up kind of dizzily. It completely derailed her. Was this badger being nice to her now? Why would she do that?

"Oh, my little ghost of mittens future…" she sat down heavily by Sharla, putting a heavy, meaty arm over her shoulder. "I'm gonna confess something. I don't say this to jest anyone, hear?" Motti nodded, as if understanding what this was about. "I have been, in my past, where you are now. Conflicted. Scared. I was seein' a part of me I didn't think was there. But it was… like a big, fat, bloated tick no one was nice enough to tell me was on my face until the last day of the Arrow Jamboree."

"Uh…" Sharla slowly leaned away.

"Anyway, it happened to me. I discovered, to my disgust… I had not always been fair to sheep." Sharla's eyes darter to the slumped, wool-lined bag of badly beaten sand. She had discovered this a couple minutes ago, then?

"I'm not… I don't want to be… that." It was the most genuine Sharla thought she had ever been about anything.

"And boom, just like that, you ain't a bad mammal." Honey slapped her on the back too hard. "No, not really, yer still garbage."

Sharla flinched.

"Are you… able to help me then?" she inquired warily.

"I'd sooner see you knitted to death by my NightHowlered granny, truth be told," Honey stated.

"Ha!" beamed Motti. "Knitting."

"So… we're done here then…?" whimpered the sheep.

"No, my end of the bargain here is I owe that bunny and her fox," explained the badger. "I get to take out the trash, as it were. I help you, and she doesn't deal with you again. Right?"

"Right…" replied an honestly crestfallen sheep. "What happened to not-too-late to change?"

"You gotta change for you, Lamb-burger, not for them." Sharla cringed at that, but nodded slowly.

"Can you at least help me prove he's got nothing to do with any sheep conspiracy?"

"Well…" The badger sat up straighter. "I may not look it, but I know more about both sides of this conspiracy than anyone else." The ewe gazed at honey blankly. Oh no, she looked it. "I know all about the sheep involved, and I know tons of mammals who resisted them every day. If your brother's name's been floated out there for any reason, I can scan through logs and documents and everything and find it." This encouraged the sheep a lot, and she sat up, clutching her hooves together. Yes. This was it. Some real help. "But I still don't know why Vivienne wanted you messed up when you got here."

"Why do you say she wanted me messed up?" asked Sharla, her velvety ears falling back as she frowned. Okay, maybe not help.

"You said she told you to tell me to give you an arrow to point the way?" verified the badger.

"That's what she told me to say, y- oh, no!" The ewe cupped her blunt caprid muzzle in horror. There had been meaning of which the sheep was completely unaware.

"Yeah, not a five star recommendation from our town's fair Maiden, if you will." Sharla found herself squeezed against the badger's side. "So… what did you doooo?" The question was pleading, as if it might follow with a scolding, not having her skeleton turned to powder by a hyena.

"I was a raging anti-fox bigot," sighed Sharla. Definitely no help to be had here. This was worse. She had been agonized over this the whole train ride over. She had been awful to Vivienne.

"Ah. Not enough to ruffle that fox's fluff, I promise ya. Go on."

Sharla sighed out slowly and laid herself bare. "I said mean things about her son." Honey continued to bear down on her with that skeptical gaze. Somehow she knew there was more. She needed more. "… and said hateful things about fox kits."

Motti and Honey both jerked back as if Sharla had vomited that last part, not just mentioned it. The badger scooted way over to the other side of the couch. "Yeaaaah…" Honey drawled.

"I'm sorry, okay? I haven't eaten, drank, slept… I promise you, I haven't been myself, alright, and I admit it, okay? I was wrong. I know you said you're gonna help me, but please don't think this is all I am. I deserve everyone being mad at me, I messed this up good, but… I don't want to leave here with everyone thinkin' the Shearer family was … this." She indicated herself, still feeling like the absolute peak of suck in all the universe. Getting stabbed in the face might have actually been better.

"Wait, Shearer?" Honey deadpanned.

"Yeah, I'm Sharla Shearer. That's my last name."

"And your brother's name is also Shearer?" asked the badger.

"Y… yes…"

"Gareth?" pressed Honey.

That went like a fox-fired arrow through the ewe. Oh God. She knew. Somehow, Vivienne had known exactly what the hell she was talking about. Sharla had not given her brother's name to anyone since she'd arrived. She was sure of it. The ewe forgot, for a moment, how much she felt like she was just the worst possible mammal and latched on to the slightest little glimmer of hope.

"Yes. Gareth!" pled Sharla, near tears.

Honey deflated in a long, tired sigh and leaned heavily back on the couch, putting her big paws over her black and white face. Sharla's heart froze. This seemed… not good.

"Motti, get the whiskey," the badger ordered. "Sharla, hon… I don't have… the best sort of news for you."