Redeemed
The digging was hard work, and she kind of hated it. Shoving and kicking another pile up out of the burrow she was working on, Fivespot flopped half out of the hole to catch her breath. It was getting dark, but she was pretty much done! After a moment she went back down to look at her work.
The burrow was not the nicest thing, but nice for a First Burrow. It was a rite of passage in her warren that doelings build a burrow when they were of an age to be on their own. But Fivespot had not wanted a burrow with the warren, she had ignored all her mother's suggested spots and wandered half the day looking for THE SPOT. Finally, she had burrowed under an especially pretty clump of crocus growing among the roots of an old bush. She had even chosen many lovely little twigs, leaves, and an assortment of flowers to line and decorate it. Unlike the burrows back home, hers was colorful, fun and FAB! But now it was dark, too late to go back all the way home, so she decided to stay in it and see how it felt really being an independent doe.
It turns out it is scary and very creepy to be alone in a strange new burrow. She could not get to sleep and kept hearing strange noises in the night. Unable to sleep, her thoughts chased themselves around. Perhaps I will never leave home again... I should have never wandered off.... mother was right....what if there are predators... She finally was dozing when suddenly she heard a scrabbling racket at the top of her burrow. There was just time to sit up when a furry thing collided with her! She hollered, and without thinking, walloped the thing with a hard kick!
Blinking, she looked down in the dark to see a furry shape, it felt like a rabbit, laying there. It was breathing, but apparently ...unconscious? And now its dumb fat body was blocking the entrance. Debating if she should shove him out, or burrow around him... she finally decided to do neither and just blocked her tunnel up a bit and went deeper in to try to get some sleep. She awoke a bit later, to find the entrance still mostly blocked with a sleeping young bunny body half-covered in dirt and had a little laugh at the night's scare.
"Hello?" Fivespot poked him gently, then more rudely, and Smudge rolled over, blinking. After a quick startle, and hasty apology, he settled into an account of his adventures. Finding she related quite a lot with this strange, dramatic buck, she shared her own story and they passed most of the day chattering and hopping about. By nightfall they felt like they had been friends for their whole lives, and they decided to camp out in the burrow again.
Smudge knew it sounded foolish, but it was easier to talk in the dark about his secret ideas of finding a home where they could hang flower garlands from the trees, and paint the burrow walls, and smash berries for inks... he was scared she would laugh. But she didn't. "It would be so lovely to have fun.. make things, DO things... there must be more to our lives than digging burrows!" She sighed, smacking the dirt wall with a foot.
"Come with me Five!" he said excitedly, and taking her own bold move, she agreed.
Their journey had more adventures, and they found more friends along the way that shared their dream... and one day, they came upon THE SPOT. An old, abandoned rotted wood creation with thick old vines holding it all together provided a bit of shelter above ground, and the dirt was rich for burrowing. And they all knew it for what it was... HOME!
642 words apparently
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