The squirrel swung through the trees acrobatically, picking up the pace as she caught a glimpse of her village through the boughs. The squirrel reached the end of the rather large copse, though still too small to be considered a proper forest, and landed skillfully on her footpaws, jogging for a few paces until her momentum wore off.
Still breathing evenly, the squirrel walked into the village. She glanced to her left and made a mental of note of the sun's position. It was dropping close to the horizon; it would be dark and cold soon, and she would need to trade for her evening meal and reach the warmth of her own hut before dusk. After she had eaten, the squirrel could return to outdoors.
She shivered in delight – night was her favorite time. Distracted, she paced towards where the open-air marketplace was starting to slacken of its pace for the night. She ignored the boisterous chatter of the other squirrels who resided in the village; those ninnies could be excited by something as simple as strawberry cordial. Sighing at her own thoughts, the young squirrel approached a booth that specialized in soup and bread.
The keeper looked up from where he had been intently gazing into a bowl of water, murmuring to himself. He was not as bad as the others, in the squirrel's opinion, at least it took the mention of October ale to excite him. He smiled warmly at the squirrel when she had reached the booth's counter. "Good afternoon, squirrelwife," he said.
"Don't call me that, it's sexist and I'm not even married." The booth-keeper grinned, quite amused with himself, as he bustled around, preparing his customer's usual order. The female squirrel suppressed a growl, instead changing the topic of conversation. "What do you see in the water about the newcomer?" she asked the booth-keeper.
He shrugged, deliberately ladling the soup. "You know very well my gift of the seer does not let me choose what I see…." He hesitated a moment. "Though my eyes do." He paused, looking up into his customer's eyes. "It should be clear to anybeast with a brain that he is concealing something from us." The squirrel slammed a fist onto the booth's counter.
"I knew it!" she exclaimed.
"Do not be so brash," the booth-keeper admonished, waving his soup ladle in front of the squirrel's face. "It would do you well to make friends, not enemies. It will get you in trouble someday." The booth-keeper turned his back, but continued lecturing the other squirrel. "I do not think the visitor lies out of greed or other false intentions. Did you not notice his wariness?" He glanced over his shoulder in time to see the squirrel pause for a moment, consider his words, then nod slowly in agreement. The older squirrel returned to his work. "You have never hesitated without reason."
"He is an outsider. What reason do we have to trust his word, spoken or implied? Speculation on matters such as these can cause death." She stared stonily at him. "As a seer you should know that."
"Stop faulting me for your sister's death! You know I had naught to do with it." The male squirrel dropped his voice after his shouts had drawn the looks of other shoppers in the market. "She went off her own free will."
"You encouraged," the female squirrel spat. The older squirrel slumped.
"Let us speak no more of the incident; let it pass from our minds. I have some questions on my mind I would like you to answer."
The female squirrel did not stop glaring at him. "Questions like what?"
"Like what, for example, do you think our newcomer is hiding."
"Why ask me? I have no more knowledge of him than that of your's."
"Ah, yes, but soon you shall." The female squirrel narrowed her eyes. "I have arranged for him to stay in your hut. Company will do you good."
The female squirrel exploded. "How dare you do such a thing without my consent?" she fairly screamed. In one angry motion she scooped up all the soup and bread she had been going to trade for. "I'll consider this his rent payment. You're still in my debt." She stalked off, out of the marketplace, and down the road towards her hut.
As the seer squirrel watched her disappear, he chuckled, "I think I've just been demoted to strawberry cordial status."
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A young male squirrel sat on the ground in front of the warming fire he had built. He could have chosen to sit at the table in front of the hearth, or even in the one chair in the room, but that would have felt like trespassing. He already felt like a trespasser. Think nothing of it, the middle-aged squirrel had assured him. It is no trouble.
The squirrel looked down at his idle paws, twitching them, wanting to do something; he was not at all used to sitting quietly and not working. But there was nothing to do: he had already swept the hut out, built up the woodpile inside the hut. He sighed, but his sigh turned into a gasp of surprise as the door slammed open, banging against the wall. The squirrel almost instinctively rolled onto his knees, but he caught himself just in time.
Jumping quickly up, he extended his paw, careful to keep the sleeve of his shirt pulled up to the wrist. "Hello," he said politely. "My name's-"
The squirrel who had just entered the hut glared at him. He quailed, feeling his legs turn to butter. "I wish I could tell you to go to Hellgates, but that would be impolite and profane." She was using a mocking tone, as if referring to an instruction a parent had given her. "So I'll settle with saying I don't really care who you are. Or what you do with yourself as long as you leave me alone. Despite what the squirrel in the market told you, this is a bother, I don't like housing you, I'll probably soon hate you, and newcomers can't be trusted. So just leave me alone."
The squirrel stepped back a few paces and lowered his eyes. "I'll just sleep outside ma'am," he mumbled apologetically. "I didn't mean to bring you any trouble." He wrapped his cloak around himself and quickly exited the hut. The female squirrel stood, taken aback and off-guard.
Finally, after a few moments of being stunned she shoved her head out the door. "Don't ever call me ma'am again, squirrel," she yelled into the night.
The male squirrel, who was now curled up on the grass between her hut and the next mumbled, "Yes, miss." The female squirrel rolled her eyes, slamming the hut door shut behind her. The male squirrel curled his tail around himself and tried desperately not to cry.
He lay there, miserable, hungry and cold, on the solid ground for what felt like an hour. Soon after dark had completely fallen, he noticed the middle-aged squirrel who had directed him to the hut enter it. He curled up, stuffing his paws in his ears, trying to ignore the shouts. He trembled as he remembered how he had been yelled at like that before. A heavy weight in his chest, the young squirrel tried to sleep.
Just as he had almost drifted off, there came a gentle tapping at his shoulder. He flinched and jumped up, now completely alert. Standing on the balls of his footpaws, he cocked his fists in what he hoped was an aggressive manner. A soft chuckling met his ears. "Young squirrel, you could not fight me that way, nor any other beast." The younger squirrel lowered his gaze, flushing. He did not even bother looking up as the older squirrel put a reassuring paw on his shoulder.
"This firewood is not for heating the out-of-doors. Hurry up, seer!" came the call from the hut.
"Loud enough to wake the dead, is she not? Come with me, young one, I sense you are not as you say." The young male squirrel froze.
"I am a traveling musician, nothing more, nothing less, sir," he managed to squeak out, his voices rattling with tremors. He could not even sing well, surely he would be caught!
"There is nothing to fear. Let us now share stories in the hut, before she cuts our tails off for being too slow." Though the older squirrel had meant this last remark as a joke to lighten the mood, his heart sank as his suspicions about the other squirrel were confirmed as the younger one subconsciously touched his tail, checking it was still there. The older squirrel steered him towards the hut.
Once the two male squirrels entered the hut, the female squirrel approached the younger of the pair, her eyes over-bright. "Have you-" she started eagerly, but the older squirrel stopped her.
"Time enough for that later," he told her. He turned back to the bewildered male squirrel. "Now, good sir," the younger squirrel flinched at being addressed by sir, "perhaps you shall do us a favor." The younger male squirrel nodded compliantly. "Roll up your right sleeve."
"What?" he gasped, looking up. Terrified, he looked back down at his footpaws. "I mean no disrespect, sir and miss, and you have been nothing but kind to me, I ju-"
"Shut up, you liar," the female squirrel said, stepping forward. "There is no need to grovel before us. We have guessed what you were, not it is time to ascertain that guess." She reached for his sleeve, but the older squirrel halted her.
"Though, keep in mind stranger," he said with a little bow, "this may all just be speculation." The female squirrel ignored the pointed glance she was given and pushed the young squirrel's sleeve up to his shoulder. Even she gasped quietly when she and the older seer squirrel saw the scars and wounds criss-crossing the other squirrel's shoulder.
The older squirrel looked up sadly. "I expect if we saw your back, we would only see worse." The young squirrel nodded sadly and pushed his sleeve down. He tugged his ragged cloak tightly around himself.
"I'll be leaving then." He was almost at the door when the female squirrel called to him:
"Wait, stranger, stay at least the night." He looked up, absolutely astonished as this quick personality change. "You must have been very brave to have escaped. It is a story we would like to hear." She pulled a chair out from the table and indicated it. "And you are the only one in the village who can tell it."
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"Why are you showing me all this? This place where you're sister was last seen, your favorite places in the copse." The former slave looked across the clearing to the female squirrel. She sighed.
"Because – because you, you are tough. I only act that way. You've met creatures that weren't squirrels and done exciting things with your life. We're practically the same age, but I have yet to see a forest. You, on the other paw, have been gallivanting all of the North, running for your life." She sighed again. "You've lived. Whereas I will surely die without having been born." It was his turn to sigh.
"I was not living. I was a slave." He shook his head. "That is not even close to living. And as for escaping, I never expected to get as far as I did. I thank my ancestors everyday in Dark Forest that I was not captured." The female squirrel crossed the clearing and tentatively put her paw in his.
"Good." She smiled up at him. "Then we are not so different, you and I." He jerked his paw away.
"Why are you acting like this? You've never acted this way before, and I would not have expected you to."
"Because," she almost snapped, as if stating the obvious, "you are smart enough I don't have to act hostile to drive you away." The male squirrel felt a blush creeping up his cheeks.
"You think I'm smart," he asked. The female squirrel nodded.
"Whatever kind of shot in the dark your escape was, you still made it here and have not been followed. A fool could not have done it."
The male squirrel shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose you are right."
The female squirrel felt a tremor of nervousness twinge in her belly as she moved closer to the male squirrel. "Those I like to know intimately are those who aren't fools."
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"Honey, did you have to pack so much food for our trip?" The male squirrel called over his shoulder. He alighted on the ground. His wife came swinging down as well, a little slower then her husband because of the tiny squirrelbabe clinging to her tail. The little one let go of her tail and landed on the ground with a tiny "Oof".
Once he had recovered, he began tugging on his mother's tunic. It was her favorite one, because it matched her fur color perfectly. "Mama," he cried, "Mama, me wanna go exporin'."
"Exporin'?" the little one's father questioned.
"He means exploring," the female squirrel explained. She crouched down to her son's eyelevel. "You can go exploring, but not too far. Come back to Mama and Dad in half an hour." Her son nodded furiously, then bounded away through the trees.
His father watched him go. "Are sure it's wise to let him go off alone?" The female squirrel shrugged.
"What harm can he come to? If he gets in trouble, he'll annoy somebeast to their limit until they help him." The male squirrel nodded, chuckling quietly.
He touched his wife's paw. "Both of us have grown the last five seasons, you know. But now, I've been wondering, when we had our son a season ago, was our decision to be together just a foolhardy, spur-of-the-moment one?"
The female squirrel angrily jerked back. "You wondered? I thought we loved each other and our son as well."
"Do not twist my words back upon me," the male squirrel begged. "I love our son. He is the dearest thing in my heart!"
"Well, ain't that 'andsome talk." Both of the arguing squirrels whirled around. A fox was holding their giggling son.
He waved to the female squirrel. "Mama, da fox wanna play wid me!" He giggled even more.
"Get down from there now!" she shouted.
"Now, now," said the fox calmly, "as long as both of yew come wid me, I won't hurt the little one, see?" Both squirrels bared their teeth. "Fine, I'll be even more reasonable, 'ow's dat? One of youse come yonder wid me, and I won't put this 'ere frogsticker in this 'ere liddle'un's neck." The fox drew a dagger with his free paw, and held it underneath the squirrelbabe's chin.
The now-terrified squirrelbabe began sobbing, "Mama, me taut da fox wanna play wid me."
The male squirrel stepped forward before his wife could do anything. "I'll come, just put the blade down, please…sir." He shook all over, but sighed with relief as the fox lowered the dagger. The squirrel flinched as the dagger went flying past him suddenly. His wife's screaming rent the morning air as the fox's dagger buried into her thigh.
The male squirrel began yelling as well, which earned him a slap from the fox. He held his face, the stinging pawprint burning on his flesh. He heard the clanking of chains as the fox shackled him to his son, who was also now in tears, screaming for his Mama. He looked up when the fox paused.
Seeming oblivious to the racket the female squirrel and squirrelbabe were making, he yanked the male squirrel onto his knees by pulling on his arms. The squirrel squirmed as the fox flipped over one of his paws and took note of the deep scar there. "So you were a galley-slave once?" He peered into the squirrel's face. "You seem familiar." A cruel grin crossed his face. "I think you're due for punishment for escaping."
"Just let my son go," begged the squirrel. "Leave him out of this." The fox surveyed the scene before him. The female squirrel had finally passed out from pain; the area was now silent.
"No, I don't think so." He hauled the squirrels to their footpaws and dragged them away.
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It was night when the female squirrel awoke from her pain-induced unconsciousness. She sat up, shivering, looking at the dagger buried in her leg. Her whole leg felt numb, but the dagger had kept most of the blood from leaking out. Taking off her tunic, she clenched her teeth. She pulled the dagger forcefully out and was sprayed with hot blood.
This time, though, she was ready. She fought back her screams, clenching her teeth and biting her lip. She pressed the tunic to her wound until the blood finally stopped flowing. Using the cleaner parts of her tunic, she tied it around the gash. It still hurt like Hellgates, but she would not be able to receive medical attention until she reached the village.
She crawled across the clearing, over to the sack of provisions her husband had left behind. An empty ache swallowed her chest as she thought of his final parting words to her. I love our son. He is the dearest thing in my heart! She thought bitterly, But I wasn't the second dearest thing, was I? You didn't even do anything when the fox wounded me. She had let her guard down once, but never again. She had learned her lesson. She managed to push herself onto her footpaws, but bore no weight on her injured leg.
She paused for a moment, hearing a sound in the trees around her. A humming sound reached her perked-up ears. Not daring to breath, the female squirrel stood stock-still. A lone hare materialized out of the words, his creamy fur standing out against his camouflaged-colored tunic. She waited, still holding her breath, lungs burning, as he walked straight to her. If she moved now, he'd see her for sure. Too late!
He walked right into her. Jolts of fiery pain went through her gashed leg, but she held her screams in. The hare peered into the darkness. "Who's there?"
"I am," the female squirrel said boldly.
The hare looked in the direction of her voice and finally saw her. "I'm sorry about that, stranger. You blend right in with the night."
A/N: I've probably succeeded in offending someone about their favorite canon character. I did not write this story to butcher them. puts away suspicious meat cleaver All I tried to do here was explain some characters' actions by giving them a background. If you have a problem with what I've written, I would appreciate you telling me how they acted out of character, instead of a flame.
I'm not saying who any of them are, but if you ask nicely I'll probably tell you. Probably. evil grin