Chapter Six: The First Meeting Pt. 1

Setting: Mossflower Woods, early morning. 6 seasons after Chapter 5

((Author's Note: There is something I wish to clarify. I'm making a season in the story equal essentially one year to us. This differs from Corsairs, where one season equals two years, but meh.))

"Fang! Get in 'ere, I need yer 'elp!"

The vixen's voice echoed out of the tree and through the surrounding forest. After a few moments, the kit dawdled out of the woods toward their home. His silver fur lit and darkened as he passed in and out of the trees' shadows. He had a funny coloring, for though his fur was silver, his tail was a firey red. The kit's snout was a bit longer and narrower than was normal, giving him a slightly malicious appearance, but his large and expressive eyes negated the effect quite nicely.

He ducked under low branches and weaved around bushes without thought; they had become second nature to him. The fox knew this part of the forest like the back of his paw, for he had spent every day of the past two seasons exploring it. After a few moments, he came to the hollowed out tree that signified where the two lived. It was one of the taller ones in Mossflower, towering over the others by at least twenty feet. As he passed under it, Bladefang couldn't help but look straight up at it, standing in awe as he always did.

"I don't 'ave all day!"

Shaking his head to clear it, the fox looked a bit lower, seeing the cut-out window about twenty feet above the ground. A rebellious sneer crossed his face for a moment, but was quickly replaced by curiosity, which led him to open the door and walk inside.

As the wooden door latched shut behind him, Fang looked around the room. The tree was essentially split into three levels, each of which had it's own window. The ground floor, which he had just entered, was set up to look like a psychic's tent. A large table sat in the center of the room, one chair on each side and a large crystal ball in the middle. It reflected the light streaming in from the window, every dust particle perfectly recreated in it's glassy surface. Memories of staring into it for hours, enchanted by the reflections, returned to the young fox, and a smile crossed his face. A dark blue circular rug covered the space under the table, the golden embroidery outlining elegant drawings of snakes, foxes, rats, and all sorts of shapes, vague only to the point to tell what they were.

The side of the room turned into a staircase, and wound up to the ceiling. Fang followed this up to the second floor, where the older vixen was spending more and more of her days now. She was sleeping more, and her fur had slowly turned to a silvery-gray, though it wasn't nearly as vibrant a color as Fang's, actually being more of a dull, tired color, reflecting her attitude.

The room was set like a bedroom, a few feather-stuffed sacks under the window; the best bed that she could afford. Scattered around the room were various things, not fitting in with each other. There was an old, wooden trunk on one side of the room, filled with various herbs and plants; ingredients for the vixen's unorthodox healing techniques. A large shard of glass, from who knows where, hung across from the window. It was jagged around the edges, as if cut in a hurry. The window itself was something to be interested in. It was hacked out with a sword. Rough edges and a lack of anything valuable summarized the vixen's life. To the wall was, once again, a staircase leading up to the final room; Fang's room.

But he had no need of going up them now, for the reason he had come up this far was sitting on the bed, giving him a slight glare. She had never given him a name, so he knew not what to call her, but sufficed with 'ma'am'. He used this now in his greeting, which sounded slightly like he forced a happy tone.

"Yes, ma'am?"

"Get over 'ere and 'elp me up."

Fang walked slowly over to the older fox and held out a paw. He couldn't do much in the area of actually helping her up, but the kit provided enough support so that she could do enough of the work herself to actually make it to her feet. As she rose, there were quite a few audible cracks and pops, and she groaned in pain. The younger fox gave a sympathetic wince; the vixen was getting pretty old, and not everything was working as well as it should have. She didn't seem to like having to call her adopted son inside to only help her up, but old bones were forcing her to.

Once she was on her feet, her mood immediantly changed, and she glared at the smaller fox, her sharp golden eyes holding a disappointed and sad gaze.

"Get up ter yer room, we're going out today. Can't 'ave you lookin' like that."

"Yes ma'am."

Fang turned and walked up to the stairs, toward his room. At the Abbey, he would have still been considered a dibbun, but he had been forced to grow up at an early age, living where he did. When the fox reached his room, the slight breeze coming from the window startled him, as it usually did. This was usually the only floor that got wind, since it was level with the treetops, if not a little above. It was still hard to get used to the change between stillness and air.

The room itself was only slightly more impressive then the vixen's. It had the same pile of feather-stuffed sacks for his bed, though he had a stolen blanket for himself. The constant wind did make it cold at night, and he couldn't get sick, because where would the vixen be then? The blanket was simple; essentially just a sheet, stuffed to make it thicker.

There was another trunk in this room. It was wooden and had the shape of a treasure chest. The wood was chipping and wasn't in overall good shape. But it wasn't the treasure... that was inside. Everything that Fang owned was currently in that chest. He walked over and opened it, taking a quick stock of everything in there. After a moment, and seeming satisfied, he pulled out a black cloak. This, unlike any other article of clothing he owned, fit him perfectly. It covered his head and body, trailing just a bit along the ground. Fang put it on and admired it. Unbuttoning the top, he left the front open, showing off the silver fur underneath.

The young fox walked back down the stairs, past the vixen's room, and down into the bottom. There, he saw the vixen standing by the door. She had a shawl of some dark color, either dark blue or a black.

"Ready ma'am."

"Good, now let's go."

She opened the door and walked into the forest, the younger fox not far behind her. The trees blocked most of the light from hitting them, small splotches here and there the only reassurances that it was still day somewhere. From the darker areas, small flashing lights; probably fireflys, and small pairs of eyes watched the pair pass by. The vixen walked with confidence, she had been past them hundreds of times; it was a fact to her that they wouldn't, and for that matter, couldn't, harm them. Fang, on the other hand, imagined large beasts behind each pair of eyes, barely leashed from jumping out and attacking them. His childish dreams included fighting them off single-handedly, nary a drop of sweat escaping his brow.

After a few moments of this sort of daydreaming, the fox came out of the trance, noticing some of the more intricate details of his surroundings. He had come out this far before; the vixen sold things on the main road once a week, but more dreams of adventuring into the trees, finding what was out there, battling monsters and finding treasures, flitted through his mind. Every dragonfly that zoomed past was a sparrow warrior, coming to rip Fang's eyes out. He growled and billowed his cape menacingly; quite the humorous gesture for anybody who would have met them on the small, backwood path.

When they came to the road, the vixen led him south along it a little way. There, she reached into a bush, rummaged around for a minute, and pulled out a large sack, giving a triumphant cackle.

"Good, nobody stole it. Well, Fang, you know 'ow ter get us goin'."

Fang grinned and took the bag. Looking through it, he threw out anything that had gone bad over the past week. Once he was satisfied, he gave the bag back to the vixen, who gave him a slightly disapproving glare.

"No need to be so picky. Next time, leave whatever still looks good. What the customer doesn' know won't 'urt 'em. Or, if it does, we'll be long gone."

Most of that day passed without anybody coming along the path. The vixen's will was unabated, however, and she stood at the side of the path, rigid as the trees at her back. Fang was impatient; his childish imagination and energy wanted to force him to run, to play. Standing around wasn't any fun. This wasn't what he wanted to do with his day. After a few hours of standing there, he laid down and went to sleep. The vixen glared for a while, but eventually returned her gaze to the road, waiting for anybody to come...

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"Fang, wake up. Somebody's comin'!"

The fox woke up suddenly, his golden eyes taking their time to open. They seemed dry, scratchy, begging to be closed again. But he forced the impulse back down, yawned and tried to stand, getting hooked on his cloak. It seemed to have tangled around him while he had been asleep. Fang fumbled around with it for a moment, and finally broke free, standing and walking over to the vixen's side.

Down the road, five travellers were clearly visable, coming from the direction of the Abbey. A stony look crossed the older fox's face; she didn't like Abbey-beasts too much. But as they approached, and identifiable details came into place, she seemed to lighten up slightly. It was the Abbot, three otters, and a kit, out for a walk. Surely the father Abbot of Redwall Abbey would be kind enough to a couple of impoverished creatures.