Most of Caper’s life had been one long journey. He’d left his warren as an adolescent to venture out on his own, abandoning the well-loved principles of family and safety in numbers to pursue his wanderlust, gallivanting across the land on a great long adventure that had at long last left him tired and missing home. He was on his way back, though it seemed he’d quite forgotten where exactly he had left it.
Still, that was what Caper considered a long-term problem. Right now, staying hidden and watchful were more important. Tucked safely behind a little lean-to shelter made of bark and grass, he snoozed lightly as evening fell. His days of travel had been long, and though his paws itched to move, the rest of his body told him to rest. The road to finding his family would be long - if indeed they still welcomed him home - and Caper was but one bun in a great big world. He would need the rest.
The buck was rudely jolted awake by the sudden loud sound of buns conversing beside his shelter, practically bellowing out some story as if it didn’t behoove them to be quiet – as if it wasn’t important to travel safely through these meadows. With a quiet groan, Caper rolled onto his tired feet and emerged from the shelter with an unamused glint in his eyes.
“I don’t suppose you lot have ever thought to be quiet?” he asked with no preamble. The three buns in the motley crew stared at him in sudden surprise, and Caper found he couldn’t quite bring himself to stay irritated by their youthful optimism. “I just meant it’d be smart to stay cautious. You never know what’s lurking around the corner.”
He trailed off, suddenly wishing he hadn’t been quite so blunt from the get-go, and was about to turn and reenter his makeshift burrow when he found himself being plied with questions from all sides, asking him who he was and where he had come from, and would he like to come with them to build a fantastical warren full of dye and fun?
His first instinct was no – he’d learned to live his life solo, reveling in his own grand adventure, beholden to nothing and no one. Part of him still believed to his core that the wild was calling to him and that he had to respond. And yet, wasn’t he on his way back to a home he couldn’t find? Why not just build a new one? Caper eyed the three eager faces before him, thinking that they might really need his help, that it couldn’t hurt to have someone who thought quite extensively about keeping himself safe.
“Well…” he said finally, still not quite sure what had possessed him to say the words. “I guess it couldn’t hurt.” The wide-eyed cheer and optimism around him were rather infectious, and after a moment’s pause, Caper managed a big smile of his own. “This will be its own adventure! We’d better make it a real good one.”
511
