(I am so sorry for the extremely long wait for this chapter! I will try my best to get more chapters up soon and the story moving along again!)

Five days later, the beach…

"He tried to kill me, what am I supposed to say?" Duris snarled, glaring at Satinspar, who seemed contentedly oblivious to his annoyance.

"Just be nice. Please. Treat him normally. And…if you say anything that makes him angry the… monster... might come out." That was the way Satinspar usually referred to Wezem's condition, as the monster. She skipped around the subject, preferring not to spend too much time thinking about what could have caused his other personality, and what he was like when it took over. Duris decided to change tactics. Obviously intimidating her wasn't going to work. He'd have to try whining, try to get some pity out of her.

"But why do we have to go today? My back hurts, and so does my head. Can't we go some other day?" Duris was good at whining, at looking pitiful and small and hurt. That was how he'd survived aboard the Merciless initially. If the other crew members thought you were weak and harmless, you were left alone, and nobody noticed if you were seen sneaking around the galley, trying to grab an extra helping of dinner, or maybe a bottle of grog… Duris leaned heavily on the staff Satinspar had made for him; she had even gone so far as to put seashells on it.

"No." Satinspar traced patterns with the end of her staff in the sand, quickly washed away by the waves, "You'll be fine, you can always sit in the water or something. We only had to walk down a path to get here, and Wezem had to swim all the way from the island."

Duris squinted suspiciously towards the larger island in the distance. Instead of warm, sloping beaches, all he could see of it were jagged cliffs, and thick, thorny bushes and trees on top of those. There was no place where someone could easily just walk off the beach and into the water.

"So he… jumped off the cliff?"

"No, silly! He lives in these caves that stretch all over the cliff and lead up to the surface. I've tried to get him to take me over there, or let me at least make some sort of raft so I could visit every once and awhile but he won't let me. I wonder why… I bet he's lonely over there."

Duris knew why, why there weren't any birds circling the island. They knew about the badger, that damned crazy murdering badger, and stayed far away. Duris would too, if he was a bird. Except he'd fly off the island and away from the crazy badger and irritating hare and finally have some peace. Lost in those happy thoughts of flying away from all this madness, he didn't spot the black and white striped head bobbing in the water just off shore until Satinspar pointed it out.

"Look! There he is!" She turned to Duris suddenly, making him flinch back at the fierce look in her eyes. "You will be on your best behavior today, you hear me, Duris Swordfur? Wezem is a good friend, a good badger. If you do anything to him, so help me, I'll…" She trailed off, and waded into the water to help the giant badger ashore. That, mused Duris, is one bipolar hare. But watching her, he couldn't help but feel a pang of affection. She was so energetic so full of…of… something. He couldn't quite place it. She was so like Snow, in so many ways it hurt to think about.

The sound of Wezem's voice across the few yards of water between them as he slowly answered Satinspar's barrage of questions was a low rumble of distant thunder that caused shivers to run up Duris' aching spine.

So this was the monster- Wezem. Wezem the nice, harmless, badger. Who happened to murder defenseless ferrets for a light appetizer. Never mind, never mind that. He had to be polite, had to put aside that horrible night and play nice if only for Satinspar's sake. If only so that mouse would stop speaking nonsense and tell him how Satinspar was supposed to get him off this island. But mostly because Satinspar wanted it.

For her sake? Since when had he every cared about how anyone ever felt except for himself? Snow. Not since Snow. Duris hissed, anger bubbling up in his chest suddenly. Hares. He hated hares. And with most hares came badgers.

"Duris, I'd like you to meet Wezem. Wezem, Duris." Satinspar piped, gently tugging on Wezem's massive paw and coaxing him out of the sparkling water.

Duris looked up, squinting against the dark mountain that rose up in front of him and silhouetted by the sun which wasn't quite to its highest point in the sky yet. Hazily, he noted the gleam of teeth, the rippling muscles, and paws which could without a doubt easily snap his body in two. The tension in the warm air was almost tangible as Wezem moved slowly and without the sun at his back, Duris could see more clearly the scars which covered his body. They were jagged and raised, random. Some were long, running from his shoulder down one of his legs, others were short, but just as nasty looking. Duris didn't want to think about what would have caused those.

Without the sun behind him, Wezem seemed to shrink from a murderous monster into a tired and soaked creature who only wanted to sit on the warm sands of the beach and sleep for a little while. Light hazel eyes flecked with gold swam in a sea of unknown emotion.

Why was he thinking about the sea so much lately? He had to get back to it; he was restless on dry land…. Satinspar cleared her throat, shooting Duris a meaningful glance.

"I, uh, I believe, we've, you know. Met before." At the silence that follows, Duris realizes that he's said the wrong thing. He's not supposed to talk about… that. Backing up a few feet, too afraid to look at either one of them, he hears a strange noise, almost like mix of choking and growling.

Oh. Oh no. The badger was probably going into one of his fits of rage. He'd probably kill both him and Satinspar and eat their insides. There'd be nothing left of them but a few random splotches on the ground to be washed away at the first high tide.

Satinspar snickers, noticing the look on Duris' face.

"Relax, its okay. He's just laughing, idiot."

Laughing. Laughing! Why?

"Bipolar, crazy, cackling fools," He hisses under his breath through a clenched jaw, his paws digging into the shells around his staff.

"I am… pleased to meet you." The badger's voice was educated, gentle, "I regret what the Other did, was about to do, to you." He stuck out a huge paw, laced with more scars, and waited.

"You," Duris paused. Would he be considered a traitor if he took that paw? Badgers and their kind were enemies, not to be trusted. They were the only things that stood between creatures like himself, and weak woodlanders. But what was Duris? The last week or so had changed him into some awkward hybrid, like a cross between and rat and a weasel, whatever that was. It wasn't right- but it was happening.

Wezem started to pull his paw back after the long silence and Duris jerked forward, grabbing the paw and losing his balance. The badger steadied him, very gentle, like a glass statue.

"I, er, you're different than I thought you would be." Duris finally managed. But the deed was done, he'd accepted that paw, and the stars only knew he'd probably have some sort of moral hell to pay later if he got off this island.

"Good. Great. Excellent! I can already tell you two are going to be great friends! I figured we could have sort of a party down here on the beach, sort of like a feast at… at…" She frowned, her memory failing her, but then shrugged and started off on a spiel about something or another.

Duris reclaimed his paw from Wezem's massive one and worked up the courage to meet his eyes. They stared steadily back at him, into Duris' eyes which he was sure showed his fear, of Wezem and this new unspoken boundary he just crossed.

"So."

"So."

"How did you get on the island?" Duris asked, for lack of better conversation topics. It wasn't like any of them had anything else to talk about except the island. Wezem's expressions darkened and he looked out across the water.

"I came here by myself, by choice, on a boat that I stole from Salamandastron. Not as exciting as you'd hoped, I'm sure." He smiled, and Duris gulped. It may be daylight on a sunny beach, but those teeth were the same nightmarish yellow ones from that night days ago.

"By… choice?" Duris scoffed, he couldn't help it, "Were you drunk?!" An indecorous snicker slipped out of his mouth.

"How dare you! You were probably dead drunk the night your own crew threw you overboard! Trust me; I can sniff your type out from leagues away. Captains like you are no better than the scum on the bottom of their boats." Wezem shoved him backwards into the damp sand where the waves reach the shore.

"I'll have you know, you deranged flea ridden carcass, that it was is in a battle." He rubbed his back, "And I was winning!" An afterthought.

Satinspar had wandered into the water a ways off from them and could still hear their shouting. It was best to let them get it all out of their systems now, she mused as she lazily kicked at some brightly colored fish. She'd known some beasts like them before, somewhere. Always so violent, so competitive. It was no use trying to intervene in arguments while they were still getting to know each other.

It was strange. Satinspar had been on the island for many seasons, it seemed, but only now, with Duris around was some of it starting to come back to her. Just snatches, really, and nothing she could put together to make sense of. She remembered red stone and safety with them. Peace, too. There were lots of faces in her memories that she knew were important but couldn't put names to- especially a hare, always making jokes, in most of her memories. And then there were the ships. Two of them.

In fact, one of them looked exactly like the ship that was slowly coming towards the island. She turned away. How odd.

Wait.

Her ears flicked suddenly straight up in the air as she whirled back towards the sea, blinking furiously. It was still there. She knew its name, somewhere, deep inside of her- the Happy… the Joyful… the Cheerful-

"HEY!" She screamed, starting to jump in the water, dropping her staff and running back to the shore. "We're here! Heeeeeeeeelllllloooooo!" Shadowy figures appeared on the deck, running back and forth, pointing. A rowboat was lowered into the water, a small group of the crew climbing into it.

And on the island, fear was felt for three very different reasons. One was scared but excited at the same time, knowing that so many memories, both good and bad were bound to appear soon. One was scared because he didn't want to hurt anyone, but knew that it was inevitable that no matter how much he protested he'd be forced onto that ship, and people would get hurt when the Other appeared.

And Duris? All he knew was that those weren't rats aboard that boat, not by a long shot. And every single one of those long eared menaces would recognize his sorry hide in an instant. Satinspar would finally know who he really was and what he had done, which right now was the real tragedy.