Abbeybeasts did not kill with weapons or bare paws. They killed with sharp looks and whispers that slid under his skin and flayed away the woodlander he could not quite shape himself into. Every interaction from a simple greeting to another beast to conversations under the skeletal roof of Great Hall contained social cues beyond his grasp. No stranger to double meanings, he had played small games with heavy stakes since he was a kit. Even then, he'd been aware father's words held meanings as caustic and elusive as smoke, aware Antigra's words swirled and twisted on themselves like blood in the water- and that was as Juska as the tattoos he no longer bore.
He clung to the whispers following his every action. They were his chart in these unknown waters. Of the things he had learned, the first and easiest to learn was not to speak of his father. He knew why the Abbeybeasts hated him so- two of their own in the ground because of him, if not more. But the empty grave on the grounds which was supposed to mean 'father' to him meant little more than a life he could have had, or the ghost in Filorn's eyes when she looked at him on a bad day. 'Father' meant a silky pose, a firm paw manipulating his grip on the first dagger he'd ever owned, colorful tattoos and clever eyes shining under the light of moon and star, satisfied dooking at the aftermath of a good haul- and the rare, rare times when the camp was asleep in the embrace of the mature night and his father's breath hissed a quiet 'I love you' in his ear. He could not pretend those words had never mattered. To the Juska, they were weakness if seen by the wrong beast. To the Juska, they were everything.
But the Abbeybeasts had no concept of those words here. Woodlanders in general never did, even at a place where family was supposed to come before all else and you never had to worry about someone confronting you over your weakness.
(a place where the walls pin you down and drown you in a world no longer yours a world which has never been yours)
A paw curling around the empty space on his hip when someone caught up in the onions they were chopping waved it too close to him. An idle comment wondering why Abbeybeasts ate fish but not birds. Teaching a Dibbun how to punch when she complained about one of the others cheating in a game. All of those choices had felt right at the time, but the Abbeybeasts saw nothing more than missteps generating more whispers and askance glances. Every time, Filorn's delicate paws slipped onto his shoulders. "It's ok, Deyna," she'd whisper. "You belong here."
All the Abbeybeasts said the Taggerung was dead. They believed it, too. But a warrior's blood stirred in his veins, and sleeping outdoors under the moon and stars felt more like home than the tiny room with a tinier window. Her words wormed between his ears and crawled over his empty skin, rotting away into echoes of the warrior mouse who had drawn him to the Abbey. The dreams of the warrior mouse had not stopped, either. Deyna, Deyna, Deyna, he said, the name as strange and foreign as it had been since the first dream. Pleas for the warrior to tell him what to do, tell him what he was doing wrong, were met with nothing but silence and half-riddles that evaporated into smoke when he woke in a cold sweat.
No matter what any of them wanted to believe- warrior mouse, Filorn, Mhera- he was still Juska. Empty skin and a new name did not change that. And only one other person understood.
"We can't stay here, matey," Nimbalo told him after spring bled into summer and he'd mastered Boorab's ridiculous instrument. "It's killing you."
"I can't leave." he said, tracing the empty place on his paw, "Filorn still needs me."
Nimbalo sat next to him. "We won't be leavin' forever. Just 'till you work things out a bit. You haven't been yourself since we came here, Tagg."
He reeled at the name- the way one would react to a loved one though dead, the way they had reacted to his birthmark. "That's not my name anymore."
"Ain't that your choice to make?" Nimbalo asked.
"I don't know how, Nimbalo. I don't know who I'm supposed to be."
The harvest mouse's small golden paw patted his shoulder. "That's what we're goin' to find out. You won't be able to work it out here."
And, as he so often was, Nimbalo was right.
They didn't leave that night. The road called to him. But he couldn't leave Filorn without a word, despite still working through his mixed feelings about her. But preparations began the next day. Desperate to escape the pressing, bloody walls, he told everyone Martin had spoken to him the night before. It was the truth- Martin visited as he always did. But as always, Martin had given him no purpose or objective. But if the Abbeybeasts assumed he'd been given a quest or an errand by their guardian spirit, he wouldn't say anything to contradict them. He did leave the sword, at his own insistence and the small white lie that Martin had said to go unarmed. And if he had a small dagger at the bottom of his pack, well. None needed to know.
He said his goodbyes at the small western gate. Filorn cried into his shoulder as a dry-eyed Abbess Mhera watched with a paw on each of their shoulders. Lost for words, he had no comfort to give Filorn except the promise he would return. It did little to assuage her fears, but it calmed her enough to kiss his cheek and promise to wait. As always, the warrior mouse hovered in the back of his mind- if he broke this promise, would the warrior come for him?
He hoped would never have to find out.
They made it halfway to the treeline before running footsteps caught up to them.
"You're not coming back, are you Deyna?" Mhera asked, her voice low as they cast a quick glance back to her mother, still watching from the open gate.
"If I do," he said at last, his eyes flicking from Filorn back to Mhera, "you may not like the beast who returns."
Her eyes softened. "That's fine. All I ask is that you come back alive."
"You wouldn't say that if I came back as you met me."
She laced his paw in hers. "You are family, Deyna. But you're something else, too. And we can't ignore it anymore. As long as you want them, the doors of this Abbey will always be open to you."
The steady flare in her eyes, the convicted stance and the set of her jaw laid some of his uncertainty to rest. She spread his arms and he slipped into her embrace with no reservations.
"I love you, Mhera," he said, the words slipping out like smoke through a net.
She started, and fumbled for a response. He wondered if she had ever heard it as her soft voice replied with "Martin guide you."
He slid his arms off her shoulders as she pulled away, reluctance lingering in her eyes.
The wind kicked up again as he turned his back to the bloody red cage behind him. Nimbalo's paw slipped into his, and squeezed. Grateful for the harvest mouse's support, he returned the pressure as they resumed their trek to the treeline.
Tagg felt her eyes on him until the forest swallowed them alive.