((Disclaimer: I'm sure you will all be shocked to hear that I am not Brain Jacques and, therefore, do not own Redwall.))

They bring him in like a savage, and Lesina thinks, maybe, that's what he is. The cub is snarling, snapping, struggling like a drowning creature fighting to get at that last little bit of air, and when the otter punches him, hard, in the throat, Lesina thinks, maybe, that's what he needs.

The little savage sags briefly in their arms, and its time enough for them to grab his paws and tie them behind his back. He surges back to his feet before they can get the rope tied completely around the oak tree, but, since there are four of them and since they are used to fighting for their lives, they manage to subdue him long enough to tie the knots. They back away quickly afterwards, though, because the mouse has turned on them like any wounded creature with nothing left to loose will do, and there is blood on his claws and blood ringing his muzzle.

"This one ain't worth it, Sina." One of the otters says, looking first at the savage and then at Lesina, and its hard to tell which one he looks at with more pity. "The cub's insane."

"Not insane." She argues, though she's not completely sure, herself. "Tortured. He's still in there, somewhere."

"Maybe." Another otter speaks up, and he's pressing a paw against the deep wounds in his neck. "But 'e just tried to bite my throat out, and, I'm thinkin', maybe he's buried a bit too deep for rescuin'."

Lesina crosses her arms over her chest and intensifies the look of determination on her face. She doesn't answer them, just gives them a look that she hopes will shame them into leaving.

"Honestly, Sina." Says the first one, and Lesina realizes it's Skipper's youngest nephew. He's winded but unwounded, and he's looking at the mouse like he wants to break the creature's neck, wants to put him down like a fledgling with a broken wing. "Skipper'll kill me if you get hurt."

"He wouldn't have a chance to. Skipper will die of shock if I get hurt by a mouse that's half my age and twice as foolish." Lesina snaps back. "I am old enough now that I can look after myself, I think." She gives the otter a harsh look. "Now, go. If senility doesn't set in, I'll be by the kitchens for lunch soon enough."

Skipper's nephew ducks his head and has the decency to look somewhat humiliated. "Yes, ma'am. I'll let the cooks know."

The otters leave quickly after that, and Lesina reminds herself to tell Skipper he's letting his brother raise his youngest cub to be far too obedient. All his older brothers and sisters would have stayed for a few minutes longer. Granted, they would've left either blood-stained or teary-eyed, but they would have argued. This youngest one...Lesina just isn't sure about him.

"What d'you want?" The mouse demands, and his voice is harsh and challenging. "What d'you want from me?"

Lesina turns to him and gives him a long look. "Who says I want anything from you?" She retorts sharply. "You're half-starved and more than half crazy. Most would say you're absolutely useless."

"Aye, well, everyone always takes something." His eyes are wide, dangerous, feral. "No one's so happy with what they have that they don't wanna take something from me, as well."

"Oh, you're a clever one." She says, an eyebrow arching in disapproval. "But far too cynical. Truly, cub, you should try to be a bit more optimistic."

He snarls and lunges at her, and the rope tearing into his flesh doesn't even seem to register. There are flecks of red in his eyes, and Lesina notes them with cold interest. She's seen the blood wrath before. But never in one so young.

"Optimism is for those that aren't tied to trees." His voice is rough and more growl than anything else, but Lesina thinks she hears something other than rage and hate in that voice of his. His voice is rough, yes, but perhaps with restrained tears of frustration or fear, and Lesina has long held the belief that if someone is capable of crying, they are capable of healing. It's only those fools that hold everything inside that are beyond help.

"You'd be untied promptly enough if you'd just stop trying to gouge out other beast's eyes."

"They've got two. They can spare one." The mouse returns immediately, and Lesina truly does admire his wit. But there's something below that wit. Some intelligence that she hadn't expected to see, and Lesina wonders what kind of creature he really is behind this facade of brutality and hate.

"They've also got two lungs. Tell me, do you intend to take one of those, as well?"

He snarls at her, all fangs and fury. "Just tell me what you want." He says. Demands. "Just tell me."

"I'm too old to want anything other than a good night's rest, an early afternoon nap, and a few tears at my funeral. Since you don't seem to be the crying type, I think we can safely assume there's nothing I want from you."

He tugs at the ropes, ripping his skin. There's blood running freely from his wrists now, and he just doesn't seem to care. He doesn't answer her; he doesn't believe her. He stares at her like she's a monster, and he's a monster, too, and he's just waiting to see who's going to devour who.

He's looking at her like a cornered and crippled wolf would look at a rampaging badger, and it makes her feel sick inside that someone has taken an innocent and made them into this.

She leaves him there, knowing better than to release him, and she wanders through the woods for an hour or so before going into the kitchen. In the bustle and the bellowing, she gets lost. She enjoys it for awhile, but then it grows tiring, and she takes the food and goes back to the mouse.

And she cuts him free because she finds him crying, and she doesn't ask him who he was crying for just like he doesn't ask her why she let him free. They sit, and they eat, and they don't say a damn thing because Lesina knows that words don't really matter, anyway. And she knows that trust grows best if nurtured with silence.

. x . x .

He's getting better, this half-savage of hers, and, despite the fact that he's only been here for three days, he's already managed to become a hero among the cubs. They love him; they worship him. They crawl over him while he's pretending to be asleep and pull his fur to wake him up. They scream in cheerful terror when he sends them flying into the creek, and they laugh happily when he leaps in after them to fish them back out.

It didn't happen peacefully, this little bond he has with the cubs. The first time he saw a cub about to totter into the creek, he had leaped for it, grabbed it, and been attacked by half of Skipper's otters.

They'd managed to beat him unconscious in the thirty seconds it took Lesina to force her old bones into action, and she'd hit each of them over the head with her cane until Skipper gently forced her to stop. He'd seen it, too, and, while he wasn't particularly pleased with his otters, she had to understand that sometimes mistakes were made.

She had to forgive them for jumping to the most obvious conclusion.

And she cursed them and rallied against them and bellowed that cubs were never bad, just misdirected and afraid, and they bowed their heads in mock-shame and never once thought they had done anything wrong.

The mouse still bears the bruises from that fight, but he carries himself as if he doesn't feel them, and, when the cubs that follow him around wrestle him to the ground and accidentally pound on those bruises of his, he doesn't seem to care.

"That new orphan of yours..." Skipper says to her one night while the mouse is tending to his flock like a particularly sweet-minded and foul-mouthed older brother. "He's a far sight kinder to those cubs than anyone would've foreseen."

"I foresaw it." Lesina retorts because old age hasn't improved her cantankerous nature. "He's still mostly a cub himself, after all."

"Aye, but he's a cold one. He won't so much as speak those his own age, and he lashes out at every adult other than you." Skipper eyes her sidelong and doubtful. "Why he likes them so much, I don't understand."

"He doesn't like them." She snaps grumpily, still not quite ready to forgive him. "Watch him. He only smiles when they're looking for it. He doesn't like them any more than he likes the rest of us."

Skipper's eyes narrow. He sizes up the mouse. "Then why's he do it?"

"He's protecting them." Lesina says, her tone harsh and her eyes soft.

"Protecting them?" Skipper demands. "From who?"

"From us."

"He thinks we're dangerous?"

She just looks up at him and tries to forgive him his ignorance. She's spent the majority of her life taking in orphans and setting them on the right paths. She's raised eleven cubs that nobody wanted, and she knows how they think. Knows what they fear. The bruises the mouse bears so easily aren't anything close to the first ones he's had to deal with, and the condition they found him in says nothing good about where he came from.

This new orphan of hers is used to pain and used to betrayal, and he still watches her every time she gets within striking distance, his eyes just a little off-center. Staring. Watching her out of the corners of his eyes, just in case she attacks. It hurts her a little every time he flinches when her voice gets a little too loud or her gestures a little too sharp. But she knows better than to take it personally.

This isn't the first orphan she's taken in; this isn't the first broken heart she's tried to set right.

"Just keep your otters away from him, Skipper. He's got a good soul."

"He tried to tear out Erian's throat with his teeth."

"I never said he was polite, Skipper. Just that he means well. And if he doesn't trust anyone, well, that's doing no harm to you. And if he doesn't like you, well, he's not the first." Her paws tighten around her cane, and she watches her newest charge as he lies on the grass with a dozen defenseless cubs sprawled around him and on him, and she watches the way his eyes never stop scrutinizing the adults nearby. She watches the way he never stops looking for a threat to protect them against.

He's a strange one, this half-savage of hers, but she thinks, maybe, he's worth saving.

. x . x .

It's the fifth day he's been here, and he's screaming at the top of his lungs at Skipper's nephew because the fool had the audacity to help him to his feet when one of the other otters knocked him down.

Lesina comes to the nephew's rescue because he's backing away, paws up and mouth twisted in confusion, but the anger and frustration in his eyes says he's about one more insult away from swinging those paws at the mouse's head. And, once that happens, Lesina can't guarantee one or both of them won't get their fool head smashed open.

"Mouse!" She shrieks, and the mouse twists to look at her, lips lifting in a snarl. "You woke me from my nap!"

He flings back his shoulders in an arrogant disrespect he hasn't shown for days. "If you'd like," he growls threateningly, "I can send you into another one."

Her eyes widen because he hasn't threatened her for at least four days, and Skipper's nephew takes this threat as suitable grounds for attack.

She watches the two of them rolling around like wildcats or wolves, hissing and roaring and hitting each other with a brutality she hadn't expected from Skipper's nephew but had certainly seen in the mouse. And she can do nothing. Because she is old and because she is frail and because she has left her cane beside the tree she was sleeping under and has no other weapons.

So she screams at them to stop and watches, waiting and hoping that one of them will just win already so that peace could be restored.

And it happens, curiously enough, when the otter finally wins and then, strangely, stupidly, rolls over one more time so that it's the mouse that seems to have won, seems to have gained control.

"Alright?" The otter asks, winded and furious and staring right up into the mouse's berserker glare like he can see something behind it. "Alright?"

The mouse stares down at him, his paws clenched in the otter's shirt, and he just looks. For a long time, he just stares. Then he stands up and reaches down to pull the otter to his feet, and he nods. "Alright."

Lesina watches the two of them, watches the way the orphan looks down first, and decides, maybe, Skipper's youngest nephew is worth something after all.

. x . x .

The two of them are inseparable now, of course. The mouse follows the otter like a shadow, and the otter keeps an eye on him whenever he isn't too busy. There's respect there and something like friendship. It's the nephew that steps in whenever the mouse gets too angry, too scared, and starts trying to fight something. It's the nephew that takes those punches, and it's the nephew that spends more than one hour vomiting on his knees because the mouse is good, too good, with those quick kicks to the lower abdomen that send all the muscles in the torso heaving desperately.

But the nephew doesn't seem to mind the price he pays. He seems, instead, to understand that the mouse just needs something to hurt, sometimes. He seems to be glad that the mouse has decided to hurt him because he knows he can survive it.

Lesina takes him aside and tells him he's a good, smart, faithful little thing and that he's her very favorite among his family. He just smiles at her and winks. "I always am, ma'am." But the smile he gives her is crooked because one side of his mouth is swollen and scabbed.

"You're alright?" She asks, gesturing at the wound.

He reaches up to touch it and then shrugs. "I will be." He says. "And he doesn't hit as hard as he used to."

"He's taming fast." She notes.

"No, ma'am." He shakes his head, and her gaze sharpens. Because as often as she's done this in the past, she's not near stupid enough to think she actually knows what she's doing. "He's nothing like tame. He's just not as afraid anymore."

And she nods because maybe he's right, and she pats him on the shoulder, finally figures out that his name is Raulin, and sends him on his way.

. x . x .

The mouse sidles up to her out of nowhere, looking at her like he's a little afraid and a little hopeful, and he holds up two slices of pie.

She stares. "What's this?"

"My mother used to make them." And his eyes flicker briefly. Dark-light-dark, and she knows it hurts to talk about his mother. He hesitates, staring at her like he's not sure what to make of her lack of response, and then adds. "I wanted one this morning."

"Doesn't explain why you're handing it to me at sunset."

His eyes dart around. "It took me awhile to remember how she did it."

And he's searching for recognition, for some kind of comfort, and so she smiles and takes the extra slice of blueberry pie he's got, and she is truly caught off guard by how good it actually is. "Your mother," she says, "was a glory of a mouse."

He nods, reassured by her reaction, and takes a seat beside her. "I loved her the most." He says, and she doesn't have to look at him to realize that he's got that intensely focused look on his face that he gets when he's trying his hardest to keep from crying.

"Well, I can understand why, if she made pies like this."

"My father killed her, you know." And he says it like it's nothing. Says it like he doesn't care. But his paws are trembling and his own slice of pie is shaking on the plate like she imagines he's shaking on the inside, and a great wave of pity renders her utterly speechless. "Because she told him not to sell me. Because she fought him when he tried to send me away."

And she'd expected something like this because she'd seen the way he snarled when Skipper's brother had jokingly threatened his mate, but it was still hard to hear. She thought of the way he protected the cubs, and she saw him trying to be like his mother, trying to live up to the memory of the one he loved the most and the one he probably thinks he killed.

"I don't know what happened to my brothers and sisters. They were too young to sell, so maybe they're still home." He lifts a shoulder in a shrug. "I had a friend whose parents wouldn't sell him. Maybe he watches them."

"I imagine he does."

"Ah, well." He looks at her sidelong like always, but there's no fear. No watchfulness. "You don't know this particular friend."

She doesn't know what to say to that and so she says nothing. Some things have to be nurtured with silence. He isn't looking for her opinion, merely her attention.

He shifts around a little, pokes at the pie but doesn't eat. He's still got more to say; he's just not sure how to say it. She gives him time, and gladly, because she's learned that, sometimes, that's all that these cubs need.

"And I could go back for them, but I don't know the way. It's been three seasons now, and my tribe never stayed in one place longer than a season. They're gone."

She just looks at him, watches the way he stares into the sunset like he's seeing something there that he can barely stand to watch. Like he's seeing his siblings begging for his help. Like he's watching his mother dying.

"They had me fight, you know. That was..." He waves his free paw in a strange, half-hearted gesture. "That was what I did. They put me in a cage with another slave, and we fought until one of us died." He sets the plate down on the ground and looks at his paws, turns them over, stares.

"Sometimes," he says, "I think I'll never get the blood off."

She sighs and looks down at her own, withered and weak and bony. "That," she says, "is because you never will."

He looks up at her, hurt and confused, and she knows he wants her to lie to him, but she's never lied to her orphans. Not once.

"It's a permanent stain, cub. You will always remember."

He nods slowly like he always knew that and then he sighs. He picks up his pie and she picks up hers, and they eat in silence while the watch the sunset.

"I've been thinking," he said, "that's it's about time you name me."

She startles a bit because she had been mostly asleep and twists to look at him. "You have your own name." She says. "Use it."

"No." The vehemence surprises her. She hadn't been expecting it. "They didn't want me. I don't want them." He looks at her. "Give me a name, Lesina."

She considers her. "Well, what kind of name would you like?"

He shrugs. "Something the creatures at Redwall will like. Raulin promised he'd take me to see them sometime this season."

She snorts. "You could always call yourself Martin. They'd probably stick you on a pedestal and worship you."

He mulls this over for awhile and then shakes his head. "No. Martin's too...perfect. He doesn't seem real."

"Aye, well, there's a truth." She lapses into silence for awhile and then, because she's been thinking for awhile now that this name would fit, she offers him something else. Something a little less than perfect. "Luke."

He grimaces slightly at the name, like he doesn't like the taste. Then he tilts his head, blinks, and repeats it. "Luke." He says and then, after finishing off the last of the pie, he nods. "Alright." He says. "I'll be Luke."

. x . x .

((Note: Alright, so, this is a collection of short stories. I've never done one before and decided I might as well try it out. I'm using present tense which, as you may have noticed, isn't my strong point. I would really appreciate some constructive criticism on this. Also, none of the characters that will be mentioned in this fic (besides, of course, Martin) can be found in any of the Redwall books. Yes, there's a Luke. But he's my Luke. Ok? So...don't get confused.

The next update will revolve around Luke and Sath. And, if you have no idea who they are, you can always go read Regal. It might help a bit.))