Chapter 1- The fire
The Warren was once a beautiful and peaceful place. Homes were built deeply into the sandstone earth and towers were built in the middle of the settlement, peeking above the green grass of the earth. There were markets of merchants selling their wares and children running havoc in the streets, dancing with their siblings in the joy of the summer mornings.
Now these were not ordinary people. They were Pookas. Now if one does not know what a Pooka is then this is the only to describe them: they are rabbits. They are rabbits that average around 6ft tall and walk on their back legs in a human like manner, and come in a variety of different shapes, colours and sizes. They are peaceful creatures and are fiercely protective of their young. They were organized into six clans; Mahuagh, Mund, Carreon, Evne, Norte and Gouldn. If you were to look closely you would notice that each Pooka was wearing a cloth and they were six different colours for each clan: red for Mahuagh, green for Mund, blue for Carreon, yellow for Evne, orange for Norte and purple for the Gouldn clan. Each cloth was personalized to the owner's content and many were a thousand shades of the same colour, each beautiful in its own way, and they were sacred to every Pooka who wore them. The Pookas who did not wear their colours were outcasts who betrayed their clans or families in some way, often killers of their own kind.
The Pookas were not alone at this time though; there was a terrible foe named Man .The Pookas were constantly battling Man, as the hateful creatures wanted their pelts and their flesh to feed on. Man had only ever been nonsense, as the Pookas could drive away Man before they got too close to the Warren. The Pookas were still worried though, so the male Pookas left their wives and kits often to fight the evil Man, but Man had discovered fire, a biting foe that burned and stuck to the Pookas' fur. When the bucks rustled themselves away from home again to fight the evil Man and his fire only half returned.
Even when she was a kit she was warned about the fire of man and how its hot fingers would bite your fur and leave you with terrible scars. Her grandfather had a large scar across his back; his black fur had been bitten with horrific force, leaving bald milky white patches on his once flawless pelt. Man had previously held a war over the land the Pooka civilization rested upon –a tale she told as soon as she had opened her eyes- and they returned with hot fire and burnt the Mahuagh clan's section of the warren to the ground. Only two Pookas survived that fire, and none of the kits slept that night.
But now she watched as smoke began to pour out of the Warren's entrance and listened to the screams of chocking kits as they struggled to breathe in the thickening smoke. Still hidden in the grass her tears streamed from her eyes as she watched the Man clan slip away from the giant hill cheering and holding a single torch in the inky darkness as if he was lightning the way to the death of all she knew. A single Pooka emerged from the smoke, falling to the grass and gasping for air, coughing and covered in soot.
She ran to him, sprinting over grass and land faster than she had ever done in her life to be by his side. He was old and the burns on his flesh were extensive, they were hot to the touch and oozing white puss. Her stomach turned circles as she saw the yellow layer of his fat protecting his organs, his glistening insides hissed as the air he was desperately trying to gasp for escaped his lungs. His eyes were bright blue and his cloth was tattered and torn, purple in colour, and he was carrying a cherry wood staff that looked as if it had been woven. He was shivering as his life blood dripped into the grass, feeding another generation. He tried to speak to her, but the pain was too much and he groaned his words as she fumbled with her pack, trying to find her water canteen.
Her paw grasped it and she uncapped it, tipping the water onto his stomach where the burns lay. Her eyes streamed water, knowing the pain that this elder felt and it hurt her heart seeing him in this pain, and when he screamed a note so pure and heart wrenching her ears rang with it, and her face grimaced at the pain she was causing him. Blood sprayed at her face with the force of the water, slightly matting her fur. Steam hissed off his wounds as the heat battled the water. Her tears were turning into sobs now as she fought to save this buck's life, screaming apologies at him as his cries turned to moans again. She screamed for help for this poor buck, but her words were lost to the heat and screams coming from the warren, piercing her soul. They were the screams of the dead and the dying, children's cries of pain. No Pooka was coming. No Pooka could get out.
The Pooka who lay below her coughed violently and yet more blood escaped his lungs onto her fur and with a shaking grip deposited the staff into her hands. He whispered one last word and his eyes rolled into the back of his head, passing into the void.
"Run…" The word sang in her ears and looking up once at the fire she fled, the staff held tightly in her paws.
She thought she was the only one to escape, but she was wrong.
There was another.
"Aster? You shouldn't be here!" Her called struck his ears like a slap, but he reached his arm through the gap in the wood, touching her face and caressing it lightly. She pressed her face into his paw, wrapping her own around his.
"I'm not leaving wit out ya, love…"
"Above ground! Just go! Go! We'll be fine." Her voice was desperate, begging him to leave before it was too late. She was always this selfless. He pressed his noise against hers, and tapped each of his kits' noses before ripping at the wood blocking the way into his home, the flames getting closer. His mate began to scream at him to leave, to get away but he stayed, ignoring her pleas with silence. A large timber of wood crashed near to him, stirring up cherry red sparks of fire, blasting soot and smoke into his face. Coughing harshly he pulled at the wood, it easily breaking away as his panic began to rise. He heard a shout from his mate and looked up to see a rock falling towards him. He tried to jump away from it, but he was too slow and it hit him in the forehead, blurring his vision and filling his mind with paralyzing pain. Blood trickled down his face. His body wouldn't obey his commands, and his mind kept flickering between darkness and light.
No! Get up! GET UP! SAVE THEM! His thoughts screamed at him.
"Hush children, papa is fine!" Her voice was laced with worry as she looked him in the eye with her own filled with love and pain, her face in a soft smile. She vanished from his view as another timber fell before him, missing his skull by inches. The wood took the view of the wood pile away from his view. He could hear her singing to the mewing kits who could not understand her words.
"Just close your eyes, the sun is going down. You'll be alright, none can hurt you now… You and I'll be safe and sound…"
He wanted to scream, but the pain just made him groan, powerless against it. Held to the floor in a heavy heap he was forced to watch helplessly as the fire took over his home completely, his eyes had dried out from the fire, and he couldn't even close them. He heard her voice turn from singing to screams, and the noise of his dying kits would never leave him. He heard the scream of the one he loved most. That final awful cry as the fire slipped too down her throat, burning away at the last thing he had left. His mate, his three kits who had yet to grow up and everything he cared for was gone. Murdered in the flames of this broken night. He had watched them die, frozen to the ground in pain.
Sections of rock fell away from the ceiling and he struggled to hit feet, body shaking with stress. His body and sharp instincts forced him to move, to run away from his home.
No. He stopped the thought. I have no home now.
He dropped to all fours and sprinted away, not daring to take one look at his previous home, tears streaking down his face as his heart broke, and the one thing he had loved was gone.
He had lost all hope.
He followed the old tunnels that ran underneath the complex; forgotten and unused he battled against the rocks build against the entrance he had read about in his books to get into the safety of them. When the rocks gave he pushed himself feverishly, the sudden rush of fresh air seemed to have fuelled the fire further and it was inches behind him as he rushed away from it. A layer of grass and dirt blocked the exit and he jumped against it, the world slipping into slow motion as the flames tickled his back, pushing him to the surface.
The fire exploded behind him as it reached more fuel for it to feast on, and it pushed him away from the exit, pushing his body to ground and breaking his ribs. With racks of pain he took deep lungful's of air, coughing up black spittle and vomiting his last meal out of his body. He could smell smoke and burning hair and his rolling stomach was making him nauseous. His frame was exhausted and the shock from his loss still had to settle into his mind. His family was dead: it felt like a dream.
The hill he had settled on was a good half mile away from the Warren, and he watched as the dark tongues of red licked at the sky, crushing the Warren into nothing. He waited for what felt like years, just to see if any other Pookas escaped, but he saw nothing apart from dancing shadows as the night collected the screams of fear.
It took three days for the fire to die out. Nothing remained but ashes and broken ruins, and when the fire had died out he left, knowing he was the last of his kind.
He was utterly and totally alone.