Well, we're back.
After a thousand-mile trek to the Northlands and back, me, Gonff, Dinny, and the others reached Redwall shortly after dawn today. We were given a grand welcome, even for Redwall. The feast lasted all day, and into the evening, stopping only when too many had left for their own homes or gone up to the dormitories to turn in for the night. It is dark outside now, and my room is lit only by a few candles, and the sliver light of a full moon shining through the window.
Great seasons, but I am exhausted. So strange how a creature can have so much fun that that he wouldn't know how tired he is until he settles down.
I learned much over the last two seasons. Things about my past that had long since vanished from my mind. The only thing I wish I hadn't learned was the reason those memories had been lost.
That battle. Tsarmina. My friends believe I hated her. That isn't true. It's true that she made me furious, so much that I was consumed by rage. But my fury had nothing to do with my own pride. I was angry for my friends, for all the good creatures of this land. For the way they were treated by that worthless excuse for a creature.
And yet, I have forgiven her. After all, some day I will meet Tsarmina again in Dark Forest. What good would it do me to cling to festering hatred there? Would I battle her for all eternity? Draw my sword and stab her back to life?
No. There is only one creature I wish to see when I leave this world and pass through those gates. The one who died in my arms. The one who was taken from me not once, but twice.
The wounds the wildcat dealt me during that last fight were so serious that I lost all of my memories of everything that happened before that day.
Except for one.
And that was only vague and blurry, as if it were something I had dreamed as a tiny babe lying in my cradle on the northern coast.
Before this journey, my memory held a hazy vision; a face, a body, but no name. I remember hazel eyes and a gentle smile, a slim figure.
But the day I sat with my friends in the cabin of that wrecked ship, hearing the tales of my father, the memories came back full force. All of them. Even that one.
It hit me almost too hard, like emerging from a pitch-black cave into sunlight. I remembered seeing her face for the first time, thinking that the starlight reflecting from those soft brown eyes was surely the most beautiful thing I would ever behold.
I remembered all the adventures we had together; meeting her parents. Even Redwall has yet to produce a banquet that could replace that night in my heart. I knew at the time that her father might not approve of me, but I didn't mind. I knew he would come around sooner or later.
And I remembered the secret night we spent together, under those same stars, sharing the oldest and most sacred dance.
And then came the part I would rather have left in some dusty corner of my mind, never to be thought of again. A broken, lifeless body lying in the cold dirt of a smashed fortress, empty eyes reflecting blue sky. I was silent for a solid week, wishing only to be alone with my grief. And my friends, bless them, wherever they are now, respected my privacy. No companions I have ever had since could compare to them.
I realize now that Tsarmina unknowingly finished the work that Badrang had started. Even with her dying breath, as she passed through the Dark Forest gates, she had dealt me one last parting blow, that has taken all these seasons to finally heal. Badrang had taken Rose out of my arms, and Tsarmina had taken her from my mind.
But I'll meet them again someday, in a place where there can be no grudges, no old hatreds, simply because such things would be pointless even if they did exist there. And so, since there is only one thing I can do about my age-old enemies when I see their faces on the other side, I have chosen to do it now.
I forgive them.