Amétór
"Mama."
It was his first word. Windred wasn't quite sure how.
"Mama."
Windred cut her eyes to where Luke would be, his shoulders tight and his head down, but the widowed warrior knew better than to linger in the first hour after dark. She thought she heard him screaming on the shoreline, but tuned her ears from the soundA- old age had its perks after all.
Martin had a little doll- a pitiful thing crafted of dried kelp and seashells- and he studied it with singular intensity.
Mama.
And he bobbed it once in his paw.
Mama.
Again.
Mama Mama Mama Ma- Thud.
Windred didn't need to look to know, but she did, and little Martin was pointing at the doll splayed on the floor and his eyes were wide and misty. "Mama."
"Martin, Martin," Windred sighed. She picked the battered doll up from the floor and made a weak effort to straighten its leafy dress. "Must you play this game every night? It's not a nice game, little mouselet."
He had the grace to look shame-faced, and that alone- in a child of half a season- was chilling.
She'd tried to teach him gentle words- words unlike death, or war, or vengeance. But the gentlest word, the one he seemed to favor, cut the deepest.
"Mama, why d'you feed 'im like that? Why not y'feed me, Mama?"
A careful breath.
"You're too old, Timbal. You know that."
A moment's pause.
"D'you no love your Timbal? 'M hungry too, Ma."
Timballisto's mother gave a long-suffering sigh and set Martin down to play.
"I love you, Timbal. But Martin needs me too. He doesn't have anybeast to feed him."
The young mouse didn't need to be reminded. He watched his mother half-heartedly shake a bone rattle at the mousebabe, and he let his ears droop. His eyes found Luke across the cave.
"C'n Da mice not feed their babies too?"
His mother's eyes darkened with a look he didn't know how to read, and she wasn't looking at him when she said, "I'm not sure he has a da anymore either, love."
He didn't know why his mother would say that. He didn't know why Luke hung his head as she passed.
"Mama." And he didn't know why little Martin called that in her wake.
"She's not your ma," Timbal corrected. He tried to be gentle, but firm, and rested his paws on his hips.
"Mama." Martin replied just as firmly.
Timballisto's ears flattened. "She's not your mum. She's mine."
Baby Martin was glaring now, mirroring his posture with tiny paws on tiny hips. Timbal lowered his voice and leaned close to the milk-stained snout, knowing his next words would get him a tanning if they were overheard.
"You don' even have a mum. Tha's why you have to steal mine!"
Timballisto didn't need to be overheard. Martin had yet to stand on his own footpaws, but now was as good a time as any, and he lunged at the older child with clenched fists and eyes full of tears.
"Mama!" He fell on Timbal, biting and punching. "Mama!"
He took a chunk out of Timballisto's ear before Luke wrestled them apart. Both got a tanning. Neither mentioned the fight again- and Timbal was sure Martin had long forgotten it.
Late that night, long after Windred had gained an uneasy sleep and Luke had disappeared, Martin sat alone in the sands on a still-stinging tail. The driftwood plank rose high above him. He couldn't make out the squiggles on it. But the monument seemed to whisper to him in the light that danced from the waves. And he whispered back, the only word that mattered to him.
"Mama."
It was a frightened whisper, and the little one held his tail in his paws for comfort in the darkness. He heard a sniffle.
"There there now, little beast," the orphan leapt in fright and landed hard on his rump. Martin knelt before him. The paw he held out to the babe was long past the age of flesh and bone, but was solid enough for Matthias.
"M-m-"
"Shhh," the ancient warrior cooed. "You'll see her again someday, little one. Just not tonight."
"M-miss her."
Martin led his charge to the abandoned cot and perched with him on the edge. Moonlight washed through the uncurtained window, and if young Matthias could see the way it streamed straight through the warrior's body, he made no comment.
"She misses you too, y'know."
Matthias didn't speak.
"But she wants you to be brave. Can you be brave for her, Matthias?"
Matthias nodded glumly, and his head had no more bobbed than the great Joseph bell tolled out once, twice, thrice in the night. Little paws clutched his shoulders. The other dibbuns began to stir, but Martin quieted their spirits one by one, and wrapped almost formless arms around the mouselet in his lap.
"Do you not like the Joseph bell?"
The little paws tightened, threatened to pass through him.
"Scary."
Martin chuckled.
"I was scared of it too, at first," the long-dead warrior admitted. "I had never heard a bell before- not a big one like that."
Matthias's eyes were drifting shut, the child warm and feeling safe, and the hour late.
"But after awhile... You realize what a pretty sound it makes." Matthias's nose gave one last, defiant twitch before his face relaxed. Martin let the mouselet lie back. "Maybe one day you'll ring the big bell, eh Little Champion?"
The echoes of the bell were like the echoes of waves, and Martin relished their fading as he passed over the heads of the dibbuns in their slumber.
And the ancient spirit hummed to them, as he had done for countless babes over innumerable ages: half a song that was half a memory of a little warm cave on the northland shore, of a mousewife an old one- and a stoic little mousebabe that called every passing beast mother, mother, and whose cries in the night went unbroken.
A/N: Hey compadres! Long time no see. This lovely fic was written for the Redwall Fic Month 2017 thing going on on Tumblr and AO3. A couple of you may recognize those last couple lines there- they came from a chapter of Something Stronger Than Time (if you haven' read it do so and cry) (shameless self advertisement is over I swear). Tell me what you think, folks, and I hope you enjoyed!