Disclaimer: Characters created by Brian Jacques and copyrighted to Redwall Abbey Co. LTD. The Poem "In Favor of Tears" written and copyrighted to Gaillen (1997).

A/N: This story's sole purpose was to improve my descriptive abilities so it really has no point, but I tried. The poem is an excerpt from a poem I did back in '97 called "In Favor of Tears". I used it simply for that last line, shameful I know. I shall post the original, in complete format, at FictionPress at some point. Currently I'm too lazy. It is kind of sad but not enough to bring tears to one's eyes.

In Favor of Tears

Did you ever look back at the days gone by
In the end, when it was over?
When your journey reached its end at last
Did you not see the four-leaf clover?

But at what cost did the end come about?
The lost of a life too precious to the heart,
A memory bourn deep within the soul,
A dream that was never to be broken apart?

A deliverance from the pain of the past…
From the sadness and dreadful fears,
From shattered promises left behind
To the sword cast aside in favor of tears.

-Excerpt from "In Favor of Tears"

Silence reigned supreme from the bare tors to the pounding shore. Not even wind song broke through the oppressive quiet that settled on the land like a blanket across a babe's back. No seabirds wheeled and called, even the sea seemed to fall into a discomforted quiet locked by a key of sadness and dread. Even if sound had found its way to that desolate pier of rock and scrubland, it would have not found its way to his ears.

Sound and touch and sight played very little in his own personal world, deadened by a numbing pain at gnawed at his heart and whispered in his ear at night. They had been right, they had all been right. He should have listened but his determination and need for justice could not be quelled. Now he stood, perched upon the spit of land that held far too many painful memories for his heart to contend with.

He was here…alone, and he should have been there…with her. Just thinking of her made his heart wench painfully and tears well behind his eyes. The only cure to his quilt and pain was to completely push her from his mind, to forget, and that was far more painful than remembering. Choking back tears, he stood upon to high cliff looking down at the ruins of what had once been a source of terror and hatred upon the shores and inland alike. Its dreaded name would ring for ages as a symbol of the nightmare that took place upon to the wind-swept and blood stained stones.

Marshank!

The way the name sounded in his mind brought the tears to freedom and they rolled down his face, dripping from his whiskers. Almost sensing his sorrow, the sky darkened and there was the imminence of rain. He dropped to the ground and set with the side of his face pressed against the cold rocky outcropping on the cliff no longer trying to stem the flow of tears. Slowly, ever so slowly, he removed the sword from its sheath. This was the prize that he had worked for and oddly enough it was no longer important. The sword rested in his paws and he studied the reflection on the blade.

His face looked so much older now than the last time he had stared at his reflection in the blade, so many new scars as well. Both those that were physical and those that were not. Taken by a sudden spur of emotion he gripped the leather-bound hilt tightly between his paws, leaping up he swung the sword aloft over his head before bringing the blade down against the outcropping with a roar. Shouting the only name his mind could find. Her name.

"Laterose!"

The blade met rock with a resounding ring and sparks flew outward from the contact. The force of the blow was so great that the blade reverberated until his paws were forced to release the hilt and he fell to the ground weeping. Like a floodgate being released, rain suddenly poured from the sky and he lay there waiting for the silent sobs to cease and his paws to stop tingling.

Part of his mind began chiding him for being foolish. Here he was lying in the rain getting soaked through at the base of a fortress that no longer held any meaning to his life while he should have been traveling South like he had told his friends he was. The other part was filled with remorse and the desire to remain right where he was until he died. Closing his eyes, he ignored the rain and pain in his paws falling into a state of half-consciousness.

Martin.

Who was calling him? What did they want?

Martin. Get up, Martin. Get up and stand, show me that you can.

His eyes opened wearily and his vision was filled with that of a battle sword, his father's sword… his sword. It commanded his attention.

Get up, Warrior. Get up and keep walking. Up, Martin.

Slowly, begrudgingly, he began to stand. Afraid almost to speak the words locked in his heart. They were not for forgiveness, no, they were for something else.

Get up and stand, Martin. The only one that can deliver you from this pain you writhe in is yourself. Get up and keep walking.

His footpaws carried him South away from his past and his memories.