Burlow Broadstride — The Prairie Steadyheart

The prairie knew his footsteps long before anyone else did.

Long before Ffyo met him, long before the Empire Network heard his name, Burlow Broadstride was already a quiet legend of the open lands — a bison ranger carved from sunrise, soil, and steady wind. Where others rushed, he moved with purpose. Where others shouted, he spoke with calm. Where others braced for storms, Burlow simply stood… and the storms remembered their manners.

Every Ranger has a gift. Burlow’s was presence.

He didn’t try to lead — the land just listened. He didn’t demand respect — the prairie offered it first. He didn’t shout over chaos — he outlasted it.

Some say Burlow was born walking, taking his first steps with the same long, grounded stride he kept for the rest of his life. Others say he learned it watching the horizon, realizing early that you can’t rush the sun and you can’t rush the truth.

Ffyo met him on a morning when the world in her head felt louder than the world around her — a day where her thoughts were messy, tangled, too fast for her wings to keep up. She nearly flew past him, but Burlow simply lifted a hand.

Not to stop her. Just to slow the space around her long enough for her to breathe.

“You don’t have to walk fast,” he said, voice warm as prairie dusk. “Just walk true.”

That became the first lesson he ever gave her.

Burlow taught by doing — never preaching, never pushing. If you walked beside him long enough, your heartbeat eventually matched his: slower, steadier, calmer. When he listened, he listened all the way. When he spoke, it was with the weight of someone who understood life wasn’t a race — it was a road, and every stride mattered.

In time, Ffyo realized why so many creatures followed him, even though he never asked them to. It wasn’t strength. It wasn’t size. It wasn’t even wisdom.

It was his heart — a gentle giant’s heart — the kind that offered space, not judgment, and time, not pressure.

The prairie has many stories. But Burlow Broadstride’s is the one told when the sun sits low, the wind grows soft, and someone needs a reminder that steadiness is its own kind of courage.

And that sometimes, the bravest thing you can do…

…is keep walking.