Chapter Text
The ringing of her trusty alarm clock yanked Esme Flores bodily out of dreamland and into the real world. Face buried firmly in her pillow, she reached out and smacked the snooze button. For a moment silence filled the dark bedroom and the young woman snuggled into her bed for a few more cozy moments. Her mind was blissfully empty, her body loose and settled deep into her blankets. Her bed was simply too warm and soft for her to get up right away - especially since she had gotten up at three in the morning to hide the eggs -
Her eyes snapped open in realization, just in time for her bedroom door to swing open with a bang. She sat bolt upright in bed, only to be blinded by the light from the hallway. Her empty mind was suddenly pounding from the rush of blood and stimuli. Before her eyes could adjust, she found herself being pounced upon by a small, furry form. Esme’s breath left her lungs in a whoosh as small arms wrapped around her neck in an embrace.
“Happy Easter, Mom!” A shrill voice cheered in her ear.
“Jeez, Sunshine, let me wake up first.” She groaned, patting her son on the back. He leaned back, sitting down on her lap bashfully. As Esme wiped sleep from her eyes, she blinked down at Sunny.
His long, expressive ears twitched with excitement in time with his pink nose. His butterscotch fur was wild from his own slumber and the whole left side of his face had been flattened by his pillow. The same side of his muzzle was slightly matted with what appeared to be drool. A large, green t-shirt with “flower child” in faded letters across the chest swamped the rest of his furry frame. Esme absentmindedly smoothed her fingers across the dark, sunflower-shaped markings on his brow and pressed a kiss between his ears (one tipped with brown, the other with white), earning herself a small giggle.
“Happy Easter, Sunny.”
“Happy Easter!” He repeated, before jumping to his rabbit-like feet and tugging her hands towards the bedroom door. “Now come on! The Easter Bunny came! I can see the eggs from my window!” Esme chuckled and let herself be pulled off the bed.
“Let’s get dressed first, bud. Remember, we need to do our chores before we go egg hunting.” His ears wilted and Sunny slumped in place.
“But Mo-om, what if the treats go bad before we finish?”
“They will not. Now, the sooner we get started the sooner we will finish. Go get dressed and -” Seemingly convinced by his mother’s logic, the child bolted down the hallway and into his bedroom. Esme could make out the rustle of him flinging his clothes around and she chuckled to herself.
He was such a good kid.
A few minutes later, both mother and son were gulping down green protein smoothies in the kitchen downstairs. Sunny - now clad in a long, orange hoodie - was perched on one of the barstools, impatiently kicking his furry feet against the legs of the stool. Esme was leaning against the butcher block counter, swiping through camera feeds.
Years ago, when Sunny finally felt brave enough to start going outside, Esme had posted cameras all across Girasol Landing. Her neighbors had been distant since the death of her aunt, but she was not taking any chances of her new ward being discovered. The cameras on the long, winding driveway had motion detectors that sent alerts to her smartwatch. There had been a couple of close calls, but Esme had drilled enough contingency plans into Sunshine’s head to put a doomsday prepper to shame.
The young woman triple-checked each feed with a critical eye. There were a few deer that appeared in the cams around the fence, but otherwise everything looked clear. Letting out a breath she wasn’t even aware she’d been holding, Esme focused on finishing her smoothie.
Meanwhile, Sunny kept leaning back in the stool to peer through the sliding glass door that led to the back porch. If he strained his blue eyes, he could make out tiny dots of color speckling the yard in the pre-dawn light. His gulping became chugging, earning him a look from his mother.
“Careful, you’ll choke.” He took one last gulp and finished the smoothie off. He took a deep breath - and let out a deceptively large burp. He smacked his paws over his mouth as the belch echoed off the tiled walls and high ceiling. Esme stared down at Sunny with cartoonishly wide eyes.
“Sunshine Flores, were you raised in a barn?” She teased. He grinned behind his paws.
“Maybe?” The young woman shook her head and polished off her own smoothie. After tossing their cups in the sink, the duo made their way to the mud room. As Esme pulled on her galoshes, Sunny began to wrap his large, furry feet in black trash bags. His little pink tongue poked between buck-teeth as he carefully wound duct tape around the top, turning the bags into make-shift booties. Esme helped him cut the tape and then the two of them were ready to start their chores. After one last glance at the camera feeds, she swung the door open and took a deep breath of fresh, spring air.
“Okay, do we wanna divide and conquer or -?” Sunny was off like a shot down the green patch that led to the north side of the yard.
“I got the chickens covered, Mom!” She blinked owlishly after her son for a moment before shaking her head in amusement. With one last deep breath, Esme set off for the barn on the other side of the yard.
The Flores family finished their chores in record time, and soon, Girasol Landing was ready to greet the sun as it peeked over West Point. It was a fairly small farm, only boasting four buildings (five if you counted the chicken coop), a vegetable garden, and two small pastures. Outside of the Flores family themselves, Girasol Landing was home to two goats, Birria and Barbacoa, the dairy cow, Lucy, and the chickens, Henny, Penny, Renata, Julieta, and Cookie. The rest of the acreage was devoted to the beautiful forest of East Point.
Esme’s Tia Lola had been given the land as a wedding gift from her husband. She had built the whole farm at his side, from raising the barn, to hand-painting the Talavera tiles. She poured so much love into the house, with its tall ceilings, big kitchen, and hand-painted walls. When she had passed away so suddenly, Esme had been haunted by the house. Her aunt had poured so much of herself into it, it was like the house itself was a ghost. It had paralyzed her.
But then, Sunshine came along.
Esme wiped the sweat from her brow as she let the goats out into their little pasture, watching Birria trot in happy little circles around the pen. From her position, she could see Sunny bouncing down the path from the chicken coop, clutching a basket full of non-Easter eggs and with the hens following him like a pack of chicks. She smiled at the scene and internally marveled at how far the both of them had come over the past six years. Yes, it hadn’t been an easy transition for either of them, and they weren’t perfect - far from it - but they had each other now. Sunny had once been too terrified to come out from under his bed, and Esme had been too stuck in her own grief to properly connect with him. But, after a lot of trial and error, they became a family.
“Mo-om,” The child called, pulling his mother from her thoughts. “Renata and Julieta were fighting, I think we need to spray them again.” She sighed and hopped over the fence to join him.
“What’s the problem, ladies?” She chided the two hens. Renata, the black one, seemed to glare daggers at Julieta, who pointedly ignored her rival, choosing instead to peck at Esme’s boot.
“Renanta has anger issues.” Sunny explained sagely, before hefting the basket up to show his mom. “But she’s our best layer! She had four while the other ladies only had two!”
“Nice, thank you for your contribution, Renata. I guess I won’t be making fried chicken tonight.” The child gasped and leaned down to cover Renata’s ears.
“Don’t threaten her, she’s sensitive!” Esme rolled her eyes and picked up the basket, making her way back to the house.
“I’m not threatening her - I said I wouldn’t be making fried chicken tonight. That’s the opposite of a threat!” Sunny scooped the disgruntled hen into his arms.
“Don’t listen to her, Senorita. You are a valued member of our family.” Stopping at the mud room door, Esme turned and stared down at the mismatched duo, placing her free hand on her hip.
“A valued member of our family that isn’t allowed in the house.” She corrected pointedly. Sunny pouted for a moment, but let the struggling chicken hop out of his arms, clucking her disapproval.
Inside the mudroom, Esme shucked off her boots and started helping Sunny out of his booties. With a pair of scissors kept on the coat rack specifically for this purpose, the young woman carefully cut the duct tape and peeled the trashbags away. With his makeshift booties off, Sunny was suddenly filled with energy, bouncing in place as his mother poured them both a cup of water.
“Can we go egg hunting now, can we?”
“Hydrate first, mijo, jeez! Do you wanna pass out from heat exhaustion in the middle of your hunt?” He rolled his bright blue eyes.
“It’s not that hot.”
“Hydrate or die-drate, bud.” She handed him his favorite cup - a green plastic one covered in Minecraft symbols. He immediately started chugging it, earning him a disapproving look. She sipped her own drink even when he finished his with a gasp. Sunny bounced from foot to foot impatiently as she purposefully took long, slow sips.
“Mo-om, come on!” He begged. Esme smirked around her cup, and cocked a brow down at her son. “Ple-e-ease!” He tacked on, batting his big baby blues up at her. She held up one finger, finished off her drink, and placed her cup in the sink. Then she leaned back against the counter and folded her arms, gazing impassively down at Sunny. He shifted uneasily under her stare for a few moments, as she fought to keep her smile hidden. Then, the young woman crouched down.
“One, two, three - go!” She yelled, sprinting at the child, who spun on his heel and ran shrieking for the front door.
“No fair, no fair!” He cried, yanking the door open and bounding into the front yard. Esme quickly slid on a pair of tennis shoes waiting by the door, then continued to chase her deceptively quick son.
The front lawn was dotted with colorful, plastic eggs. Even more were hidden in the bushes, trees, and flower beds around it. Esme had upped the ante this year, going so far as to scale the huge oak on the side of the house in order to make this year a bit of a challenge. Sunny had said last year was an easy hunt, and she couldn’t have that.
What kind of cross-species, adoptive mother would she be?
“Come here, you!” Sunny led her in a zig-zag pattern around the yard, until he slipped on the wet, dewy grass and promptly face-planted. It was one of those epic falls that only children seemed capable of. Her sense of fun was immediately replaced with concern as she trotted over to her fallen child.
“Jeez, mijo, that was - hrrk!” In the blink of an eye, Esme went from crouching over Sunny to skidding across the lawn on her back. Her breath whooshed from her lungs, pain blossomed across her sternum, and her head cracked against the ground. For what felt like hours, the blue sky swirled above her head as Esme struggled to reinflate her lungs.
What hit her?
Was Sunny okay?
Maternal instincts flooded her with adrenalin, and she forced herself upright.
Sunny was frozen, ears pressed back against his tiny skull and blue eyes bulging.
Between mother and son, stood … something.
It reminded Esme of a heat mirage. The air shimmered and seemed almost solid. The young woman blinked, and in the microsecond before her eyes fully closed she swore she caught a glimpse of gray. By the time her eyes had refocused, however, it had melted back into a colorless blur. Her head throbbed, whether it was from the blunt force trauma or the strange phenomena before her, she had no clue.
“What?” She croaked out. The strange blur flickered and -
Suddenly, Sunny was being hoisted into the air!
“Hey!” She screamed as the shimmering air wrapped itself around her son. Sunny froze in terror at suddenly being manhandled by this - thing - and panic poured through Esme’s veins. His eyes found hers for a split second and -
The ground rumbled and a hole opened up in the earth of its own accord. The young woman struggled to her feet, but was powerless to watch the blur plunge down through the opening with her child in its grasp.
“No!” Esme screeched, sprinting for the hole with all her might, slipping on the wet grass. She slid to her knees before the hole just in time for it to seal up. The earth rumbled again as the walls of it closed as quickly as it opened, sprouting more luscious grass. She clawed at the earth there, only to be rewarded with a small purple flower, rapidly blooming where the hole once was.
Esme stared.
And stared.
And stared.
A breeze rustled through the trees, birds chirped, and bees buzzed.
Sunshine was gone.