Chapter One: A nervous thief
The rat peered at the badger and hare from behind a few trees. He was trembling, which betrayed his rather nevous nature. The grey-furred rat immediately thought of getting the group, but wondered if he could actually steal something for once. He toyed with the idea in his mind, and decided against it. Why endanger his own life when someone else in the small group could endanger theirs instead? He had nothing to prove to them.
The rat tried to remain as silent as possible while wearing his brown boots as he walked away from the cave the two beasts were staying in. "Morey... Kiver... Niskel..." he rasped, "Mystic...?"
"BOO!"
The rat yelped, flinched and jumped in the same motion, which truly amazed the squirrel who had been intent on scaring him, the squirrel grinned, "Oooooh... Neat thing y'did there, Boots."
The boots which he was ridiculed for were mentioned once more, and a frown appeared on the rat's face.
"So, Boots, did you see anythin'?" the squirrel inquired.
"Walk a bit, then talk." whispered the rat, then glanced at the direction the badger and hare were in.
"Okey-dokey."
Idiot... the one thought passed through his mind as he glanced at the brown-furred grinning squirrel. The squirrel darted ahead and the rat followed, trying to remain silent, not having the natural ability of a squirrel to do so. Even if he had, a squirrel in boots wouldn't be silent.
The squirrel waited for the rat to catch up, which he did soon enough. "Niskel and Mysticriver."
"Are we now merely reduced to stating names to replace actual sentences?" questioned the rat, wearily.
"Naw, it jus' means that Mystic and Nisky are ahead of us... us'ns."
The rat nodded and looked ahead, he could clearly see the short black-furred rat, and the tall brown otter ahead. "Oh joy. At least I'll be able to tell you all at the same time." he could only speak to the squirrel this way, idiot he was. Besides, it was only certain types of idiots who wouldn't talk about this to leaders. If anyone else in the group had heard him, they might've been a bit surprised.
"Heya Niskel! Hiya Mysticriver!" called the squirrel.
Well, there's no point being silent now... thought the grey-furred rat, frustrated, and sighed. The squirrel's voice was quite loud and annoying.
"Rapport, did you spot anything?" questioned the rat, Niskel.
"Badger and a hare." spoke the grey-furred rat. "Two packs."
"Well, you certaintly have tons of information." spoke the otter, Mysticriver, "Did they say anything?"
"I wasn't close enough to hear." spoke Rapport.
"Of course you weren't." Mysticriver said, "That question arose from some strange optimism... Now it's gone."
Rapport nodded, his whiskers seemed to droop.
"Rappy, tell Morey where they were. He'll get close enough to get a good look. He might talk to them."
"The cave." mumbled the grey-furred rat to the squirrel who was just waiting to dart off and get killed, "Oh, by the way, they're armed."
"Goody!" cried the squirrel, a brown blur as he dashed away.
He asked a question suddenly, his nervous nature bringing it about, "What if he gets caught and then he tells them where we are and they kill us?" talking quickly was something the rat usually liked doing, it was a way to annoy others without them killing you. Most of the time. This time he wasn't trying to annoy anybeast.
"Oh well, we'll be dead and it's not like we'll be able to complain about it." spoke Niskel and shrugged.
Rapport decided to walk away from the two clearly insane individuals. Behind them and to where the other idiots were. Dargee, Cole, Kiah and Kiver. Maybe Kiver had some intelligence. Maybe Kiah did. He doubted it. Rapport sat down, sitting against a tree, wondering how the squirrel would do. If the squirrel died it was no problem of his. His green eyes watched every movement his 'comrades' made.
The shrew, Dargee, was currently speaking to the stoat, Cole. It appeared the weasel, Kiah, was having an argument with Kiver, the ferret, who looked half-asleep to the rat. He couldn't stand the sight of them anymore, so he decided to take a walk. Alone. Where, of course, somebeast could kill me and nobeast would hear my screams. Then again, even if they did, would they help? He walked off to dwell on the matter, whilst the rest bickered and talked.
((I actually wrote this chapter a day after the prologue, and half-wrote the second chapter the day after that, then I totally forgot about this story as I began to write beginnings for other Redwall Fanfics in notebooks. So expect the second chapter soon.))