Redeemed
His name used to be Summer Nectar, a sweet rabbit who in his youth often hunted for the sweetest, most pleasant flowers and the juiciest of berries. He remembers having den mates, although if they were his siblings or cousins he could not recall. Time marched on, allowing Summer Nectar to grow into a strapping buck, confident and sure and curious of the world around him. As he grew older, he found himself in the company of a group of rabbits -- a loose warren, a family to replace the one he'd left behind when he grew too old for the burrow he'd been born into. They traveled together, foraged and built together, and loved together.
The warren was lacksadaiscal, with little structure or concern for anything so long as they were all happy, fed, and free. Freedom comes with a price. This price was unknown to the rabbits Summer Nectar grew to love and confide in, until it was time to be paid. They never expected anything to come after them in the safety of their connected burrows, least of all other rabbits. The confidence of the young rabbits, the surety that Death could not touch them, would be their downfall.
They never stood a chance.
Summer Nectar led his mate to the farthest point of the connected burrows, hoping to barricade themslves in and dig a tunnel out on the opposite side. She raced ahead of him, trembling in fear. The tunnel collapsed under the violent parade of rabbits chasing them. Summer Nectar fought the rabbits for as long as he could to buy her time, but he was quickly overrun.
If it weren't for the fact that they thought he was dead, he surely would have been killed in their purge. It took the invading rabbits no time at all to dig out the collapsed tunnel. To find his mate. When Summer Nectar came to, faint and bloodied, no one remained. He said goodbye to his family (those that remained), he looked for the ones who'd been taken away to no avail. He mourned, he raged, he swore to find them.
Anger gave way to grief. Loneliness settled into his bones. Revenge burned in his veins, but faded in time. They'd come into their den like shadows in the night, and were gone just as quickly, leaving no trail for him to follow. No matter how long he tried.
Summer Nectar had been born in the early days of summer, when spring clung to the air and tried its best to stay just a bit longer, to make the flowers just a bit sweeter, the sun kinder. As time and circumstance withered the lone buck, and he settled into the autumn of his life, the buck saw no need to cling to the sweet tendrils of his past.
"Scar." He introduced himself to any who had asked, painting red dye across the prominent marks under his fur, a reminder of what he had lived through and who he had lost in the process. In time, Scar would find a new warren. A new someone to believe in. Guilt would grip him like a beast, the soft voice of his mate in the back of his head screaming that he'd found a new warren but he couldn't find her.
He'd learn to ignore that voice, eventually. Or go mad. Some days, Scar wasn't sure there was much of a difference.
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