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She hadn't meant to leave him.

And yet, somehow, she had been taken — pulled away from his warmth like the last leaf plucked from a branch by the wind. Torn from his side, displaced from the familiar comfort of his scent, his voice, his steady presence. When she first opened her eyes to the strange hush of a foreign world, her heart near split with the thought that he might've left her. That perhaps he’d tired of her burdens, found her too soft, too much, too little — whatever it was that made her feel like she took up more space than she was worth.

It was a cruel thing, the mind. So quick to twist tender memories into dreaded shadows. The way he looked at her — that warmth she thought she’d seen in his eyes — surely it was just hope painting things sweeter than they were. And yet… as the days crept on, the world changed around her again. New scents. New sounds. New soil beneath her paw pads. Just like before, she’d woken in another place altogether.

Alone. Defenseless. Vulnerable.

But not broken.

She was no fighter by trade, no warrior of legend, but Bunny had always known how to survive. Even if it meant her paws bled from wandering, even if the ache in her heart grew heavier than her bones could bear — she pressed on. She searched. She hoped. Faith and longing were all she had, but they were enough to keep her moving forward. She had someone to return to. A friend, a heartbeat she missed more than breath. A home more real than any cottage or quilt ever could be to her.

One night, beneath a quiet sky, she closed her eyes and prayed for a miracle. And when next she woke, the world had changed once more.

The birdsong was the first thing that told her this wasn’t where she'd laid her head to rest. Her nose twitched as unfamiliar scents danced through the air: decaying wood, fresh ivy, faint floral threads of herb gardens long gone wild. Blinking the sleep from her eyes, she slowly lifted her head, ears flicking and swiveling with caution as her paws shifted beneath her.

The clearing was quiet — too quiet.

What stood before her might have once been a traveler's refuge: a quaint old wooden inn, now collapsed in spirit but not yet in structure. Moss curled thick at its foundations, and ivy gripped its weather-worn sides like a lover that refused to let go. The doorway yawned open beneath a slanting roof, bathed in golden light. Dust floated in shafts of sun through shattered windows, catching the glint of dried herbs strung from forgotten beams. Beds, though worn and covered in age-old leaves, still held despite the rot eating away at the foundations. Nature had begun to reclaim the building, yes, but it had not yet erased what it once was.

A swallow of breath caught in her throat.

She rose slowly, each movement laced with caution. Her tail, heavy with sleep and tension, swept behind her. Hackles did not lift, but her stance remained low — cautious and uncertain, like a doe stepping into a clearing. The fur around her cheeks was mussed, flattened on one side from where she had rested in curled-up slumber. Her body felt heavy, not with exhaustion, but with that thick fog of sleep still clinging to her like morning dew.

H-hello? she called out softly, voice cracking like dried petals against the hush of the afternoon. The word was barely more than a breath. A plea for response.

She turned in a slow circle, nose lifted, hoping against hope to catch some trace of him. Of home. Of anything familiar.

But the wind gave her no answer.

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