Ok, so this is based around my tribute to Brian Jacques. This probably won't make much sense without reading it.

If, at any point while reading you think this is not worth reading and decide to press the back button, could you take the time to scroll down and tell me why it's so bad? I'd like to improve.

I'm not sure how to start this. My master says to start strong, but I'm not sure how. I can't fall back on "Once upon a time", like I do with the tales I tell our dibbuns, because it's real, as strange as it is.

I can't jump into the action, because we would lose too much of the tale.

I'm barely sure of who to meet first! There's so many beasts who played a part-even me!

I can't write something this big.

But I must do this, to show I can be the recorder. What good would it be, to keep around all these scraps with beast's tales on them? They could be so easily lost or burned-oops! I knocked over a stack of them! The mess!

There. All cleaned up, and none are dirtied.

My master is laughing in his chair by the fire. My clumsily attempts to clean up quietly failed, it seemed.

No wait. It's about my complaints.

It's simple, Melly. Start where it begins. The rest will follow.

*...*

The sun looked down on the wild forest of Mossflower. If you had seen it, long ago, you wouldn't have recognized it now. Trees had come and gone, an ancient oak to the north disappeared in a long ago storm, the rivers wearing new courses.

But the biggest change would be the abbey.

Once the Abbey of Redwall had stood tall and proud, towering over all like a mountain. The red stone had gleamed and changed with seasons, the belltower ringing out a message of sanctuary. But no more.

Now the abbey was gone. The walls had crumbled, the doors rotted away, being only wood. The main building was leaning, falling, stones slowly joining their companions on the ground. The gardens and orchard, once so carefully tended and culled, had run wild among the willows that had once marked graves. The clear scent of herbs mixed with the wild sweetness of flowers and fruits and the earthy scents of willows. Along a wall, a huge rosebush leaned and climbed. The legendary Laterose. Once known for its beautiful flowers, now it had faded to dormancy so long, it appeared dead.

Inside was scarcely better. The windows were gone, gaping eyes in the walls, pieces of glass from windows shattered by storms scattered across floors, still with a sharp edge for the unsuspecting paw. The tapestry was frayed and faded and torn, disintegrating. Dormitories and rooms were full of molded, ancient bedding and strange heirlooms. The very spirit of a place abandoned.

In the cellar, there was a mouse.

He was by no means young. His fur had hints of gray, his clothes, a vest and white shirt, were stained slightly by travel, and a cap perched upon an ear that had been nicked by one thing or another.

"See this, Teddy? Elderberry wine, by these marks here. Just a light taste, to see the age..." He tapped a tiny amount into a beaker before tasting. "Strong! Even an infirmary couldn't use this. There's a good hundred seasons to this 'un's name."

"Really, Brian? But this place has been abandoned longer."

"Never underestimate a woodlander looking for a home."

"Somebeast lived here the-" Teddy, little white muzzle in the air, walked farther along the dark cellar. "Brian! I found a lantern!"

"Good!" Brian considered that it must have been a hedgehog or mole that would live down here.

"I'm lighting it, Brian!"

"Ok then, Teddy." Or maybe an otter. It would resemble a holt...

"Hey Brian!" Teddy's voice echoed from farther down. "I found our beast!"

"Hedgehog or mole, then?"

"I think itsa mole, can't tell though! All that's left are bones!"

Brian walked the small patch of dark tunnel, to where Teddy stood next to a skeleton.

It was indeed a mole, and had died in it's sleep, from the way it lay so peacefully.

Brian sighed gently. "A true cellarmole. Look round, Teddy."

A forge, neat and tidy, still waiting to be used. Barrels and casks, with designs half-worked in their wood. A bowl that had contained a small fruit harvest, now with a tiny withered bush sprouting from it.

"Can't just leave him here, Brian."

"Indeed, we cannot!" Taking the lantern from Teddy, he set it on the ground, beginning the arduous tasking of removing paving stones. Using chisels, the two but carefully into the seams between stones. They were rewarded for this work when the stones lifted out whole.

"Now we to start digging."

Teddy did this job, him being part dog made it an easy task. Brian hunted for something with a name, or at least some neater cloth to bury him in.

In doing so, he discovered a dress.

"We were wrong about one thing, Teddy! This mole is female!"

Carefully setting it down-it was in amazing condition, he kept looking.

Tucked on a shelf populated by cobwebs, there was a sheet of sailcloth. "Well aren't you a lucky find."

He took it back to Teddy, who had finished. Together, they slid it under the mole, wrapped it gently around her, and lowered it into the grave.

Suffering from a bout of lucky finds, Brian found a stick of charcoal, gently scribing "Here lies an unknown female mole, the last master of the cellars."

And with that done, they headed back upstairs into the much brighter kitchens.

Once they were gone, something appeared. A mouse in armor. If one peered close enough, they would see the outline of the forge behind him.

This mouse leaned down, picked up the chisel and traced something in the charcoal and stone. A light followed, carving "Here lies Nen the Cellarmole, the last of it's first masters."

Satisfied, he reached down into the stone, pulling somebeast up.

The mole looked at the mouse, then at the carving and covered her face in her digging claws. "Youm too kiond, Martin. Oim no marster of nuthin."

"You deserve it, friend. You truly do."

Brian sighed as he looked around the kitchens. The windows were long blown in, and he and Teddy were forced to be very careful how they stepped. Glass still lay sharp, as in the hall. Pots and pans, metal rusting red or oxidizing into a coppery green, were scattered in every place possible.

"Seems our mole-friend never used this."

Teddy dusted off a ceramic container. It was marked Honey, and the lid was glued fast.

"Didn't know honey did that..."

Sighing once more, Brian picked his way over to a broom tucked in a corner. He took it out, carefully tapping it against the floor, in case anything was inside.

Nothing. It was the best weathered object in this room he'd found. Brian began to sweep, guiding the dirt and dust and glass around him into a pile. He worked outward.

Teddy found another broom, and by copying Brian did the same. They teamed up on the rotting mess of a worktable.

"There! That's a good midmorning gone to nothing but sweeping! Let us take our brooms and see the rest of the abbey!"

Which is what they did. They sighed in relief as they entered cavern hole. It had only a tiny window near the ceiling to it's name, still intact. The furniture had aged well. In fact, all it took was a light work of the brooms to dust things off.

Great Hall was another story. It's looming windows that had inspired games for countless dibbuns were long gone, colorful shards on the ground. The columns coated in a strange slime mold. Benches in worse condition than the table, seemingly held together by fungus. The tapestry almost dust and pain and unraveled threads.

Brian stopped at the entrance, closing his eyes. He could almost hear it, the echoes of graces, chatter. Even battle plans and an unanimous roar of "To Martin!" Songs, dibbuns laughing, the tiniest ring of battle...

Brian opened his eyes, looking upward at the rafters. "I hear you."

Slowly lowering his eyes, he looked at the sword.

It had lived up to its name as the hope of Redwall. It sat in its rusted brackets, gleaming in the sun, showing little sign of desolation than dust and a frayed grip.

"A hero built Redwall," Teddy said at his elbow. "Why can't one rebirth it?"

Brian smiled. "Why indeed."

He began to gently clear a path to the tapestry. "Could you fetch the lantern, Teddy? I think we left it in the kitchens."

Teddy ran to get it.

When he came back, Brian was trimming the ancient candlewicks on the lanterns around the tapestry, which he had pushed closer to Martin.

"Thank you Teddy." From this, he lit the candles in their grime coated lanterns. He wiped off the outsides.

He then looked around. Unfortunately, it seemed that all the furniture around would fold in at the lightest touch.

Brian boosted Teddy on his shoulders, who reverently took it and the scabbard that was behind it.

"Thank you, Teddy." Brian took it, suppressing a shudder. Here he was, holding the fabulous blade that he had used to create this world. Wisdom of time seemed to hum from it.

"Perhaps there's magic to you after all."

Setting the scabbard against the wall, he gripped the handle. It was heavy, but Brian was a strong mouse, as he had been as a man. He swung it in a slow gentle arc, chuckling. "Always wanted to do this." But sighing, he stopped, gently setting the point in a thin crack in the stone. He gripped the handle with both paws. "Now then. For a rhyme..." He looked at the tapestry.

Kind of soul

Strong of heart

Answer to my call

Teddy watched, amazed. For ghosts had appeared. The warriors of Redwall.

Only Martin stood besides Brian, clasping the hilt. The rest laid a paw upon them or other touching them, and all faced to the south as a chant unfolded.

And our world reborn!

This final line ricocheted in the rafters.

Brian Jacques had returned. Never again would he abandon his world.

*.*.*

Far to the south, there was a land, once known as Southsward, ruled by a line of Squirrelkings and Queens.

At a glance, not much had changed. There was the beautiful emerald jewel of the land, forests and rivers not untouched, and yet still wild, surrounding the great castle once called Floret on it's plateau. The castle had very definitely had aged, the stones darkened from cream to a strange, beautiful shade of light brown, the red tiles having long been replaced with deep royal purple. The dark green ivy and climbing roses still dominated the walls, tendrils searching for any way possible to join those indoors.

There were fields being tended around the castle, on the slope, on the forest fringes, creatures laboring to bring in crops. Ships in the river waited, some straining at anchor lines to be off to the sea.

But look again. Peer closer.

The ships were crewed by vermin, swarming with ease over the rigging on one duty or another. View several weasels crossing the drawbridge. On the blood-red flags rising from the castle towers, there was images of a black fox head, a crown hovering over it. In all these places, the castle, ships, fields, and the stockade built off the castle in one age or another, there were slaves. Woodlanders. Squirrels, moles, otters, even badgers.

Watch them closer. These are creatures who are true slaves, never knowing of the word freedom. There is no memory or word of it, no tiny spark of hope to fester in their hearts. These creatures have no choice in their lives. They are gotten up at dawn, they assigned a job. They are given a measure of food and water and they eat all there, and work. They cannot even choose their mate, their children's names. One day, two creatures will shoved together and told they must breed. The children are named by the first vermin to see it after birth.

They don't protest, nor do they speak. This is how it has always been to them. They are creatures bound to serve the others without question, because they must. At the end of the day, when they were thrown back in the stockade, there was no chatter. They would just silently light a fire and wait until they slept their dreamless sleep.

In the fields, a young otter was digging. She was planting an apple sapling. In doing so, she found a skeleton, an otter bent into a grotesque shape, like he had fallen down, stabbed.

One would have been horrified by this, but she just blankly pulled it out, leaving it for the ratguards to deal with.

Look upon them, covered in scars from whips. Look into dull, blank eyes, hear the silence. Look into their minds, with no thoughts to think of, no memory worth reglimpsing.

Look upon these creatures, and weep.

So a question. Would you all still reading like the next chapter to be about Brian, or the former Southsward?

Answer in reviews

Critiques welcome!