childhood memories - imogen

Tears stung at the corners of Imogen’s eyes.

She had run away from Murmur. She couldn’t help it; she was so upset with him! Fat streaks of blobby tears fell down her cheeks, staining her fluffy fur all the while. In a rather dramatic fashion, she slapped her paws to her face, sniffling openly into them.

Imogen didn’t want to remember what Murmur had said to her. She hated it and she hated him. She was certain that she never wanted a single thing to do with him ever again. 

Imogen wished her horns would just grow in already. Murmur told her that when baby buns reached adulthood, their horns would sprout and she’d be sent off to a place called Burrowgatory.

Another sob threatened to wrack her tiny body, sitting on her round bottom as she looked out across the cliffside she’d escaped to. As she inhaled through her miserably twitching bunny nose, she teetered; scaring herself in the process. Her impossibly small paws scrambled to hold herself steady. 

Imogen had a crush. That’s what Murmur had called it when she expressed to him that warm, fuzzy feeling inside of her whenever she’d get close to one of her littermates. He said that a crush was the sensation of being in love with someone.

A crush! Imogen embraced the sensation fully. A crush means being in love. Love was a wonderful feeling that she wanted even more of. She couldn’t get enough of it!

Because she couldn’t get enough, she continued to pester the other girl bun of her little. She wanted to cuddle next to her when they’d sleep in Murmur’s large arms, yet the bun she liked so much would whine and kick and push her away with her paws. 

When that bun wanted to be alone, Imogen didn’t like it, since that meant she wouldn’t be with her, and when that bun wanted to be with another bun, Imogen would get very mad at her.

That bun didn’t know how much Imogen wanted to be with her, so Imogen continued to follow her, even though she yelled at her “Go away, I want to play with my other friends!”, and when Murmur had told Imogen that she was being greedy, she bursted into tears and ran away.

Imogen sobbed softly.  Why couldn’t that bun just understand she loved her?

Footsteps approached Imogen from behind. 

Hearing the heavy crunch of grass and flowers crisply in her ears, Imogen jolted forward in surprise and was almost sent off the cliffside. 

Luckily, the owner of the footsteps—which turned out to be Murmur—swept her up with a large hand Imogen couldn’t possibly hope to push away. Not even the entire litter of buns she was raised with could push Murmur away; he was so much bigger and stronger than them.

“Go away,” Imogen sniffled. “You said something above love and then you said I’m greedy.”

“I did,” Murmur said with a kindness in his tone that never seemed to go away, even as he tended to the most mischievous of her friends. “But that’s not a bad thing, little Imogen. Do you remember? Before I taught you about love, I taught you about your adult horns, didn’t I? About how they will grow when you reach adulthood, the horns that all big buns have will grow in. Yours just might be greed.”

As Murmur spoke, he lightly pinched Imogen’s head between his thumb and his forefinger, both of them dwarfing her in size alone.

Greed. Imogen was greedy? She did always want more; especially of attention, of affection, and of love. Was that what greed was?

“Oh,” Imogen said, somewhat mystified. “Okay then.”

“Just try to give her a bit of space,” Murmur stood up, cradling Imogen in his arms. “Even just a little. I won’t stop you too much. And don’t run off again. If you fell off that cliff, you’d plunge straight into Burrowgatory! And it’s too early for you to go and do that, alright? I’m greedy, too; I want to stay with you a little longer.”

Imogen puffed out her little bunny cheeks.

“Okay,” she agreed, and as Murmur carried her back home, she thought about how she’d get closer to her friend.