Rosie

Once upon a time there lay a field next to a lake. In this field lived a vast array of insects, arachnids, rodents and rabbits, each crafting their own home according to their instincts: webs and burrows and dens and nests. Then the first humans appeared and, finding the soil was a desirable quality and the lake a satisfying size, they too built their homes amid the grasses: squat huts out of mud bricks and woven thatch. Time passed and the lake swelled in size and the nearby stream bubbled into a river and a forest grew alongside the field, and in this time more humans arrived, and the homes grew. Mud was replaced with stripped wood, then blasted clay, then moulded steel. Grass was carpeted in gravel, then stone, then tarmac. More homes sprung up, and the homes sprung higher, reaching ever upwards towards the opalescent sky.

Then the humans left, and for a time the homes were left to rot. Even as the creatures of the grass returned to the once-field and made the most of the newly available hollows, the knowledge of the difference between a house and a home had been forgotten.

But that is changing, and the homes are evolving once more.

One of the tributaries of this river of change found its source in a cavity in the wall of a structure the inhabitants of the not-field call the Grey Trees. Just a few pieces of insulation here, some coloured paper there. A wish and a dream infused in the four walls like a promise. It spread like a smile to the rest of the floor of the structure, then to the floors above and below. Like seeds blown on the wind, it appeared in a handful of Shelters in the Suburbs, the Squirrel Nation, the City Centre. It germinated in the Plains, grew steadily upwards along the Shore, blossomed in the Forest. As Spring yawned, homes opened like flowers upon the stale metal vines of the City. These were not just a sum of structure and insulation, but a product of colour and style and design and layout and practicality and fun.

Now the City blooms like the field once did. Now something new is growing out of the old.

And amidst this vast meadow of creation, a hamster scurries home after a long day of work. She is tired and drained yet flushed with jubilant success. Her name is Rosie, and she is blessed with the sight of imagination, and blessed again with the desire to share that with others. The field shines under the Summer sun. And its gardener goes home.

Bandita had to stop herself from racing her way back through the woods. The trip with Pebbles into the Deep Wood Place had been a breath of fresh air both literally and figuratively, and exactly what she’d needed after weeks of feeling cooped up in the City. The two of them had spent their days exploring the Forest, chatting to strangers, investigating places new and wonderful, and at the end of it all – the Masked Man. Bandita couldn’t get him out of her mind. So mysterious. So alluring. So… masked? Bandita wasn’t entirely certain what had captivated her so completely with the strange Spirit, but she was obsessed.

But at the end of the day, being obsessed with something alone wasn’t as fun as sharing that with someone else. And although Pebbles was an amicable travelling companion, there was only one person Bandita wanted to share all her stories with.

So although Bandita wanted to go tearing through the woods and straight up the side of the Grey Tree, she forced herself to stroll at an ambling pace, watching the trees thin out around her and the City’s skyline slowly materialise through the mist of foliage, and with each step that brought the Grey Tree closer to her she felt her heart grow just a little bit more for the hamster that would be waiting for her there.

And of course, she was.

There wasn’t a force on Earth that could have held back the goofy grin that stretched across Bandita’s face as she scooped up her girlfriend and swung her around, nor one that could have peeled it off for the rest of the evening as she and Rosie lay in their shared home, forehead to forehead, speaking long into the night. Bandita described to Rosie all the secret glens and shy streams she had encountered on her own journey, naming each of the flowers that had reminded Bandita of her, detailing all the clearings she’d love to take Rosie to for a picnic one day. It made her heart flutter when Rosie agreed.

Rosie for her part had been off for the past few days approaching the spiders of the City about the prospect of employing them to mass produce their silk, and she excitedly told Bandita about the vast array of clothing, materials, bindings, structures, pouches and decorations that she pictured being produced from these. A whole new industry of creation, she told Bandita, not just repurposing what the humans had built, but making something entirely the animals’ own. As Bandita looked into Rosie’s tiny eyes, she saw within them the briefest glimpse of the creations that Rosie envisioned, and she was struck with awe yet again that out of all the beauties that this hamster beheld, she should count Bandita’s face among them.

Bandita fancied that she could listen to Rosie speak for hours upon hours and never grow bored of her voice, and yet what warmed her heart so fully was that she didn’t have to. Rosie would never attempt to tie her down and hoard her attention for herself. When Bandita needed to travel, to itch that urge for exploration and discovery, Rosie would always understand. That understanding and trust started a flame in her heart that spread outwards to warm her entire body. It was the reason why, not matter how deafening the call of the wilds became, Bandita would always return home in the end.

A knock at the entryway to their home brought Bandita out of her reverie. She padded to the source and poked her head through a curtained hole in the wall, finding an abashed beaver standing outside.

“Can I help you?” Bandita asked.

“Um, y-y-yes. You s-s-see, I’ve accidentally chewed through s-s-something of mine. It’s very v-v-valuable to me.” The beaver holds up two sides of a thin wooden rectangle with regularly spaced notches up its length. “An ibis t-t-told there was s-s-someone who fixes up trinkets here. C-c-can you help?”

Bandita smiled and ducked her head back in. “Hey Rosie,” she began, but her girlfriend was already collecting her tools, smiling determinedly.