Empty Burrow

Many years ago, there were only hills in the area near the forest, thick and rolling, natural wild flowers growing atop them. Fertile and empty, the land was left alone for quite some time, waiting for the right group to come across it...And one day they did. Two rabbit beastkins, a sailor and a florist, came here to settle. Taking inspiration from ancient ancestors, the two began to create their home on the side of a hill, lovingly dubbed ‘The Burrow’. Over time wildflowers were joined by cultivated ones, neat rows of various blooms lined up for the florist’s uses, carefully tended and used to earn the bits needed for supplies for their growing home. And one day that home grew even further. Their first and only son, James, was born and raised within the burrow. He was taught about some of the carpentry work used to make the burrow, but he shone when he worked in the fields with his mother, carefully convincing flowers to grow and bloom under blue skies and sunny days. And following in the same footsteps of his mother, selling flowers to bring in bits, he met and fell in love with another beastkin, a rabbit woman named Rosie. And years after meeting and falling for Rosie, James had a new little light in his life. His beam of sunshine...Minsa, with fur as white as the freshly fallen snow, and ears that would alight before she had any sense of control. For a few years, it was just them, three generations in one cozy burrow. Before they knew it, another couple of sets of ears would make their way into the world, as twin siblings Thomas and Lola were born. Then, the family of seven fell back to five. Old and full of love, the sailor and the florist followed after one another rather quickly. Minsa had been young at the time, barely reaching five years old, but she still remembers two old rabbits, one that looked like her, singing old sailing songs to one another. Thomas and Lola had barely any memories of their grandparents, having only been creasting over the age of two years. The space in the burrow was soon filled though, a second boy named Rowan being born. With so many extra siblings, Minsa was soon sent to enter school with fillies and colts, helping her to learn and giving her parents a slight break for a few hours. That break hardly helped, with Cooper being born only a few years into her classes, and Em a year after him. For quite some time, the family was happy. Sure, James had a little bout of illness near the time that Rosie had been pregnant with Em, but for all the doctors could tell, James had recovered extremely well from surgery. And so for years the family was happy. Of course there were sad moments, Minsa being bullied in her younger years, Rowan breaking an arm once while climbing a tree, but overall it was a joyful life. So when James seemed to start getting sick once more, the children mostly thought he would be okay. James Rousain passed during lunchtime on a peaceful day in the summer, the kids having been sent out to enjoy the sun. Minsa had been the first to notice, a sorrowful wail escaping the hill of the burrow and creeping across the field. She had made sure that Thomas and Lola kept track of the other three while she returned back to the burrow. At seventeen years old, Minsa became the lead of the household, as Rosie struggled with her own depression, a pervasive sadness and loneliness spreading. The tension within the household didn’t get any better over the next two years, and the moment that Lola turned eighteen, she left for the city, planning to design and excel in fashion for bipedal creatures. Rowan, still sixteen but nearly seventeen, moved with her, planning to search out an education more advanced than the small town they lived near could provide, a medical vengeance against the illness that took his father emblazoning him with passion. Seeking purpose, Thomas eventually left as well, aiming to join the royal guard, wanting to try and do something bigger than himself with his life, leaving the burrow at four. And yet, illness would rear its ugly head once more. Around the time that Minsa was turning twenty-one, her mother began to decline. Physically weak, easily exhausted, the trips they had started at the beginning of the year to the larger city, that usually took three hours or so in each direction, were becoming too draining upon Rosie. And so, in an attempt to make life easier for their mother, Cooper and Em moved with Mama Rousain to the city, taking care of and supporting her, making sure she made it to appointments. And so there was one.