Author's Note: This has been a work-in-progress for a good while, and only now have I finally decided to post it here. This is basically a tale told by a weasel. I'll let you find out the rest. Save travels!

Endangered

Part One: Kithood

In the depleting light, I know not why I write this down. The time has passed for words to have meaning or to settle my troubled thoughts. Yet my paw continues to write along the parchment, unable to be to stopped.

There is no point to what I say; I am not even supposed to have the ability to write. It is strange for some to consider that a weasel like myself would have the talent of writing. Vermin are only to have ability to deal pain and suffering as they ravage the countryside. We were not meant to have thoughts and opinions.

Perhaps that is true. Thoughts have only brought me to despair, and opinion has only caused disaster.

I know that I grew up with reading; I vaguely remember my ma, snuggling me in her lap, reading through a tattered parchment. They were bloody and violent tales, those suited for a weasel kit. I liked listening to her voice, though it is now only a tinny echo in my memory now. My eyes soon began to follow the words along with the voice, cuddling closer to her warm tawny-furred stomach. She licked me behind the ears to make me giggle. I wrote soon after, before memories began to form fully, when that vixen seer was speaking to my ma, saying I held a certain talent with the quill. As she spoke I played with the nice sensation of the new quill in my paws, made out of an eagle's feather, a gift from the vixen. I do not remember the vixen's name. I do know that it was she who taught me, chided me on spelling, lectured me on style, and edited my words with an unrelenting force. My weaselbabe mind did not make sense of all her advice. I stored the tips away until they did.

So I grew in my talents of reading and writing, though made sure not to bring attention to it. In the tough nature of vermin kit games, such talents could mar a suitable reputation. It made no difference; I was an average beast when it came fighting. Coming up with devious ideas was my strength.

Hordelife for a kit is a maze of possibilities, many outlets for our dark humor and naughty plans. The times were blissful and sweet, our transgressions rewarded by a pat on the head. Any bad action short of injury or murder was taken as a sign that we were developing properly, that we had more chance to survive hordelife in the future. My father, Jarvik, showed worry at my apparent lack of fierceness, though through my scheming he grew a certain respect for me.

"Anybeast can decapitate another beast," I remember him saying. "With brains, decapitation is only one choice of infinite possibility." I can't be sure if that was a quote from him. My memory says it is and that's good enough for me. He left on a raid against an otter holt soon after and never returned; I don't think I ever questioned where he had gone. The same thing had happened to my ma. I thought of them occasionally, but never wondered when they would return.

Such losses of close family came as normal in hordelife and we all lived with it, not mulling over the loss, just pulling fellow hordebeasts closer, as extended family beasts.

Growing up was a blur of activity, from one scheme to the next, more extensive and risky as we grew older and more experienced. From messing with the armory, causing various heads to almost come detached, to messing with the mess tent food, reducing half the horde to retching in the bushes. Even if we were caught, no repercussions were made, only a semi-formal evaluation of the ingenious nature of our project. A few, I heard rumored later on, were used for traps in certain raids.

We were vermin kits, this was our education; until one day when a horrible thought came to my mind.

"What if some goodbeasts attacked?" I asked my friends.

"Pah, dey wouldn't 'tack us, unless we 'ad some prisnoors or sometin'," Hock, a rat, muttered.

"What if they came without reason?"

"Loik a surpise attack?"

"Yeah, like that. How would everybeast react?"

My friends's interest was piqued This situation had not been dwelled upon; the possibilities of the situation were irresistible. We quickly set out a plan of what we would do.

The plan went right; the reaction did not come as expected.

In the opening moments of dawn, we stole to the edge of camp, pans and broken weapons in our small paws. This was a possibility of mischief that was beyond our imagination.

Madness erupted from all corners of the camp. Yelling, screaming, weapons flailing, beasts running in all directions, confusion, fury, anger: an overwhelming panic that infected everybeast.

I had never been so scared in my young life.

My friends disappeared into the mass of beasts. I just stood there watching, as the madness faded, as the anger began, as the short debate took place, as I was pointed out. A

paw roughly took me and dragged me to the center of camp, to the tent where our feared hordeleader dwelled: feared for his unpredictable temper, feared for his bloodlust in battle, feared for his soul-shearing gaze.

Not feared by the younger beasts who regularly played pranks on him, Levit took it all in stride, from the dye incident on his tail to the time we set his cape on fire. Those times were different from this prank. This was beyond those. We had done something wrong beyond our imagination. I was the culprit and I had no idea what was coming. The beasts that brought me to the tent didn't give any hint, only growls to show their own rage.

By the time I was pushed past the tent flaps, my mind had conjured so many horrible possibilities of what could happen that I was clutching my tail so hard it hurt, trying to catch some last security to keep from bursting into tears.

The stoat warlord was facing away from me, his paws clasped behind his back. He stood there and my heart started to slow as the moments dragged on. My fear was giving way to curiosity of what was going to happen. As the fear-shrouded view melted a little, I saw that his paws were not clenched or showing any sign of anger and his tail revealed no signs of aggression.

Was it part of the punishment, that he torture me with waiting?

I almost jumped out of my skin when he spoke.

"It's Reuben, correct?" he said.

I confirmed; though many of my kit friends called me Ripclaw, that was the name my ma called me. I wondered how he knew.

"State your business."

Though I knew why I had been brought here, I wasn't sure of my business, so I said so.

Levit turned slowly and I found that there were no signs of rage on his face either. Still, my young weasel mind feared the worse, top of the list being that my tail would be chopped off any moment. I clutched the fuzzy appendage closer.

The warlord stepped up and knelt down before me, placing a paw on my shoulder. "Never have I seen my horde ready and at arms as fast as this morn." He stood and headed to his desk. "I admit, my first thought of what to do to the beast responsible was to release their entrails from their stomach and skin them as they writhed in pain." Levit had his famed knife in his paw, eyes closed with a grim smile, as if relishing the thought. "I'll have to yell at you later to have the horde know you're getting what you deserve and I'm sorry to say I will have to rough you up. You understand."

I did. If I came from the tent unscathed and anything less than downtrodden, questions would arise of Levit becoming soft, not giving justice where justice was due, even if it was just a weasel kit. I deserved it. I had brought this upon myself. I cursed myself on the name of Vulpuz under my breath. Still, this caught me off guard, this apology from the warlord.

"I want you to know, Reuben, that I am not angry; I know that you do not know of the realities of what you did. Goodbeasts are just what they sound like, 'goodbeasts' and yet, we are unsure if it shall always be that way." He must have noticed my confused face, because he continued, "We gain our power and supplies and way of life from what they gain. We set a raid upon them, they give a counteraction, a few of theirs lost, a few of our hordebeasts lost, and that is that. They fear us. That is what keeps them from taking more than what's deserved. When they stop fearing, that is what fear lies deep within every vermin's soul."

I still didn't understand but I nodded anyway.

The stoat pulled a thick leather strap from behind the desk and snapped it across the air. "Remember. This is for the horde."

I nodded.

Levit started walking back."I've heard from the seer that you are diligent in letters and words."

I nodded.

"She recommended you as a candidate for a clerk. Your situation requires further implications. You begin once your wounds heal enough for you to write."

The strap came down upon me.

I can only remember the first shearing bites of that leather strap; it was because of them that I remembered his words. It was because of them that I grew out of kithood. It was because of them that I survived.