Queen Sable's Getaway Cabin

I didn't know what a luxury privacy was until I became the queen. What I wouldn't give for a few hours of simple privacy...

— Queen Sable's wistful lament, confided to the Royal Consort

Lapinites who are formerly Canadians like to joke that there are thousands of kilometres of untamed Lapin wilderness where things can disappear. One of those "things" is the Bunny Queen herself.
Deep somewhere in the north of the Lapin Protectorate, hidden among the snowy boreal forest, Erin Righ has built a cabin of birch, pine, and brick for his beloved wife and queen, in answer to her desperate need for peace. Simply known as her "getaway cabin," this cottage is located within a magical grove where the animals are peaceful, and the leaves of the birches, still present even in the depths of winter, display all the colours of the rainbow.
While it would be possible to access the cabin by helicopter, assuming one could find a place to land in the nearby evergreen and maple forests, the GPS coordinates of the cabin are not stored in any database. Instead, a small, private teleportation device is located in the immediate vicinity, so that the Queen may be reached for emergencies. A clever and astute intelligence operative, spending hundreds of hours poring over satellite footage, might be able to spot the birches, and a satellite dish and solar panels at the roof of the cabin, but they would have to know where to look.

Purpose / Function

The Getaway Cabin was built to allow the Mother of Bunnies to have some space to herself. Between being the Queen of the Lapin Protectorate, and the fact that there have been two nearly-successful attempts on her life, not even considering the risk of the Word Wars, the Bunny Queen is almost never alone. At least one of her loyal bodyguards, the Owsla, is with her 24 hours a day, even while she sleeps and occasionally, even in the bathroom. The media constantly seeks her attention, and every inch of her Warren fortress is observed by security cameras. For an introvert who cosplays extrovert, this is occasionally more than she can bear.
Erin Righ, sensitive to his wife's needs, discovered this magical grove (though he has not shared the details of how,) and decided to build her a private little getaway. Since the Owsla had to know how to find it anyway, he recruited their help for the additional labour needed to erect a self-sufficient, off-the-grid cottage.
Queen Sable comes here when she has need of quiet and privacy.

Alterations

Princess Rowean has established a "tree path" to the big birch tree just outside the cottage door. This is a form of fast, extradimensional travel; not exactly teleportation, but more like a quick hyperspace jump, in which moving a few feet within the connected network of trees covers a few miles. This allows the Princess to be at her sister's cabin within minutes if needed.

Architecture

Erin Righ, with the Owsla's assistance, built Queen Sable's Getaway Cabin as a surprise for her, using plans downloaded from the internet. It is mostly just a simple log cabin, constructed principly of birch wood, with some pine and fir wood features. However, it features a steep brick-and-wood roof, suggestive of more Asian architecture, in order to deal with the heavy snowfall in the region. Window panes are constructed of glass and birch wood, with the birch bark lacquered on for aesthetics, as it is for some of the logs and features of the house. The ceilings are low, to conserve heat. The windows all open to the side, but can be shuttered for heavy weather or cold winds.

Sitting room in Queen Sable's Cabin by Sable Aradia & Erin Righ with Minecraft

Kitchen in Queen Sable's Cabin by Sable Aradia & Erin Righ with Minecraft

Hearth in Queen Sable's Cabin by Erin Righ & Sable Aradia in Minecraft

The cabin consists of two rooms and a root cellar. The main floor is the sitting room, pantry and kitchen, while the attic level is the bedroom.
Heating is by wood brick stove, although there is some limited plumbing for hot and cold running water, incorporating an RV water system into the cottage that draws from a natural well with a pump. However, there are no sewer facilities; that need is served by a composting toilet in an outhouse (which uses lye and wood shavings to naturally compost waste, giving off surprisingly little odour.)
Bathing and hygiene are served by a large hot tub, located just out the back door. It is necessary to pass by the hot tub to get to the outhouse, thus keeping the route relatively warm. It is shrouded by magical rainbow birch trees, providing a peaceful sanctuary that dissuades prying eyes in its isolation.
The doors and much of the furniture are hand-built of hard fir wood, including the kitchen cabinets, counters, and the small tables and chairs in both main rooms. These pieces aren't incredibly skilled, since the Prince Consort is not a woodworker by trade, but they are functional, and the Queen loves them. One of her favourite features is the wooden chandelier that her husband constructed for her in the attic room, designed to make use of candles.

Backyard of Queen Sable's Cabin by Sable Aradia with Minecraft

Defenses

The greatest defense of the Getaway Cabin is the fact that nobody knows where it is, and while it's likely that someone will eventually discover its location, it is sure to take some time. Its low power needs, and the fact that Queen Sable conserves power by using kerosene lamps and wood heating, makes it extremely unlikely to be spotted by air, especially since most of the structure is hidden beneath the thick, rainbow foliage of the birches in this small grove; a feature that is completely indistiguishable from regular birches by night, when spotting a cabin by its lights is most likely.
However, the Queen's cottage is not without other, more subtle, defenses. The grove itself appears to have a calming, disarming effect on people under the rainbow branches. Lynxes have been known to stroll peacefully through the Queen's yard, allowing their ears to be scratched, and watching the many snowshoe hares and white rabbits that lope through the area, almost as if they've been attracted by the Bunny Queen's presence.
Likewise, the bunnies themselves do not destroy the Queen's small cold-weather vegetable garden, although they do nibble at it from time to time. The Bunny Queen doesn't seem to mind.
It may be this calming effect that is the greatest attraction for the indomitable Mother of Bunnies, who has been diagnosed with PTSD, and has been public about her diagnosis.
It remains to be seen what, if any, Literomantic defenses the Queen herself has installed, but anyone who knows of the cabin, and who knows Lapin's queen, is sure they must be considerable.

Tourism

There are no tourists to the Queen's Getaway Cabin. Occasionally, she permits her children, and sometimes her husband, to stay with her in the two guest beds in the attic. The Owsla are also rarely permitted to remain (although, of course, they have secretly installed cameras and listening devices unobtrusively, which they can access at any time via satellite, and they can be through the teleporter and to the Queen's side at a moment's notice.)

This article is a work in progress, and may be subject to changes.

This article is part of a series related to streaming the Game of Tomes. For more information, see Streaming Game of Tomes.

Front door of Queen Sable's Cabin by Erin Righ & Sable Aradia with Minecraft

Teleporter in the yard (Queen Sable's Cabin) by Sable Aradia & Erin Righ with Minecraft

Founding Date

April 2024

Type

Cottage

Parent Location

Lapin Protectorate

Owner

Sable Aradia

Owning Organization

House Lapin

Rainbow birch tree with beehive outside Queen Sable's cabin's front door by Sable Aradia & Erin Righ with Minecraft

The Rainbow Birch Grove

The grove that houses Queen Sable's Getaway Cabin is something of a mystery. Its very nature seems to calm all creatures under the branches of the unusual, multi-hued foliage of the rainbow birch trees. The landscape is frosted, and receives regular snowfall except in the summer, but the ambient temperature is rarely perceived as more than cool.
As a result, the Bunny Queen is able to keep a small garden featuring vegetables that don't mind cooler climates, and she also keeps a hive of bees for fresh honey. The bees seem adapted to the cold-weather climate, and do just fine on their regular diet of the violets and icy irises that naturally proliferate through the grove. Queen Sable does her own canning, and occasionally invites her sisters up to the cabin to help her with it, so they can all take freshly-canned vegetables home.
Nobody knows exactly what caused the rainbow birch grove to manifest. Three theories are popular among the handful of people who know of its existence: it might be a natural leyline nexus; it might be a portal to Faerie; or possibly, there is a nearby Void rift that connects to The Firmament.

Kitchen table in Queen Sable's Cabin by Sable Aradia & Erin Righ with Minecraft

Queen Sable's root cellar by Sable Aradia with Minecraft

Queen Sable's Garden - front view by Sable Aradia & Moonflower with Minecraft

Queen Sable's Garden by Sable Aradia & Moonflower with Minecraft

Chandelier by Erin Righ with Minecraft

Queen Sable's bedroom in her Getaway Cabin by Sable Aradia & Erin Righ with Minecraft

Guest beds and table in Queen Sable's Cabin by Sable Aradia & Erin Righ with Minecraft

I love it! It's very restful. I really enjoy chopping my own wood and tending the garden; keeps me in shape for the wars. And the writing nook, with its view to the birch grove... lovely. The pantry and the cellar keep all the food I might need; I'm never there long enough for anything to go off, and I can keep some canning that way. The satellite dish gives me all the internet I need, too. And it's so quiet! And I love candle and lamplight. kissing her husband Thank you, dear. I love you so much.

— Queen Sable