Disclaimer: MINEEEEEE! Well, except the Redwall concept and Salamandastron.
A/N: Before and After: A prologue to Clandestine Affairs: A (pre)sequel to the fic "What Really Counts". Yeah, I'm back, so live with it! This is a prequel. For those too lazy to read TYATO (Yes, this is PRE TYATO), Clandestine is Dale's sister, though she does not know it at this point in time. Squee. *nodes sagely*
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A/N: Wow. Nearly two years after my first post on this board (TYATO), more than one after my second fic, also first posted here (WRC), comes my third Redwall fanfiction: Clandestine Affairs, to be, guess what, also posted on the RFF. At first, I wanted to post it on Fanfiction.Net, but I realized that would be breaking a fine tradition. *grin* Go ahead. Read it. I know you don't want to, but you have to anyway.
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Fluttering in the wind. Nothingness screamed at me. Fluttering in the night air. Everything screamed at me. Fluttering in planes of though. I screamed at myself.
Never. Never ever.
I can hear the distraught, the madness, the fear. Always flutttering in the wind. The crash of air upon air, plane upon plane, thought upon thought and existence upon existence.
Never ever. Never ever about.
Can you hear me, I scream. Nobeast will hear me. Nobeast will know. Nobeast realized - save one. Who will realize? Who will see all that drifts upon the wind?
I would have never known, save for the fact that he left a note upon my desk.
What it said, I will never forget.
Not about war. Not about the blood. Not about death. Not about the War. Never about the war. Never about everybeast else. Never, I can see it, hear it. Hear you. But still, it is so, never. Never ever.
Who can hear me screaming in the dark when I have no courage to voice it?
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'Clande?'
Major Clandestine, head of the 22nd Mossflower Patrol, looked up from her desk, peering at the door, where she spotted Rapieratce. The captain had his head half poked through the gap in her door. Odd, she thought, I never heard him open the door. Rapieratce pushed the slightly ajar door open and slid in.
'What is it, 'Atce?'
Rapieratce shrugged.
'The colonel wants to see you.'
Clandestine groaned.
'It's not about the patrol again, is it?'
Rapieratce shrugged expressively again, rolling his eyes. The captain cocked his head to the door.
'Let's just say he isn't too bally happy that your patrol is still missing two members after so long.'
Clandestine whined slightly, placing the parchment she had absently been holding in her paw down.
'I don't need another two hares! My patrol does well enough as it is.'
For the third time, Rapieratce shrugged.
'Tell Galde that. Come on, before he blows his top. Spring is never a good time for him.'
Clandestine sighed in defeat and lugged herself up from her desk, squinting slightly as the sunlight from her window fell upon her eyes. Tugging slightly at a wrinkle in her jacket, the major gave her friend a slight, playful shove on the shoulder, pushing him out of her room and plodding after him, shutting the door quietly behind her.
But nobeast can hear you screaming
in the dark...