A/N: Sure is nice doing review responses again, rusty though my fingers be.

Codj: Thank you, thank you. It's always a pleasure to meet a fan. *Grins smugly and dies happy knowing he has fans*

Sebias: I mean, I'm not sure intense was the right word. (It would be... pretty lame to just have Kew-Kew hunt an eagle and then just die- but I did consider having the bird gobble up Margaret and flap off... but I kind of like this version more. Not that Margaret is particularly interesting in her own right (she was an NPC made purely to show off how crazy Kew-Kew is so...) but it would have dramatically altered the plot I had in mind. As er- hilarious as Kew-Kew's reaction to her gruseome demise might have been. And yes I will continue with this. I have... many plans :) Working on multiple fics isnt terribly difficult per say but what with an ever-increasing word count, and my newfound habit of pre-writing you might have noticed I've gotten slower at the good ole updating game :P

Waycaster: I'm gonna have to look into this genre because it certainly looks quite fun. I lean more towards the former definition of boke and tsukkomi to be honest. Margaret is the straight mouse, Kew-Kew is the wise wear- er eagle :) Yes it's funny how often I end up writing about orphans and adopted creatures... What can I say? They intrigue me.

Nice catch ;)

It took the eagle-that-was-not-an-eagle almost an entire hour to leave the nest. Margaret waited outside the tunnel, her footpaw tapping away at a piece of exposed root. Find the path, get home… that shouldn't be too difficult. If only we could get started already!

As if he'd heard her thoughts, Kew-Kew scampered out the tree trunk. "Kraw! I is ready Marr-garr-ett. Mousie village is not far, yes?" he asked, rolling the boulder back into place and covering it once more in vines and foliage. "Eggchickies have enough to eat for many days, but not too many." He turned to face her. "I can come back soon, yes?"

There was a sort of nervousness about him that Margaret had never seen before. His tail thrashed from side to side behind him, and his ears swivelled about left and right in search of some non-existent threat.

The mousemaid told him what he needed to hear. "Of course you can come back. Nobeast will keep you prisoner. If you want to go, you'll be allowed to go." She stretched her paw towards the frightened wearet, who seized it as if it were a lifeline. "You're more than welcome to stay of course. I guess I owe you that much after your… hospitality." Turning away from the makeshift nest, Margaret began to lead the way.

"Yes yes, mousey-thing is right. Eggchickies will behave, and Marr-garr-ett will be with family. I is silly for being scaredy."

At this the mousemaid could not stop herself from snorting. "Scared? Sweet-cherry pie Kew-Kew, you hunt eagles for a living. How can you be scared of anything? This is just a short trip to a small village. Nothing to be scared of."

"I knows, I knows." Kew-Kew raised a gnarled claw to his lips, the better to chew at it. "But I never leave eggchickiesh for sho long. And not all moushies are like Marr-garr-ett." He pointed the saliva-coated claw at the aforementioned mousemaid. "Margaret-mouse is kind and smart. Very scaredy but not mean. Other mousies much meaner and say all kinds of bad things about Kew-Kew."

Is this before, or after you string them up as eagle bait?

Oblivious to Margaret's private thoughts Kew-Kew continued. "They say I is crazy, I is ugly, I is stupid. They say I is not eagle. One called Kew-Kew vermin!" The wearet huffed. "And after I catch eagle and frees them, they is all angry and screaming and blaming Kew-Kew. Then they run off into the woods and I never sees them again."

"Well I don't think you've met anyone from where I come from." Margaret's village wasn't particularly big and if any of her neighbours had been kidnapped and used as eagle bait, she would have heard about it. "And I'll be sure to put a good word in for you."

Kew-Kew beamed, and his tail began to wag. "Is very nice of mousey."

''''''''''''''''''''''''

It was nearly midday by the time Kew-Kew and Margaret stumbled upon the rough cobblestone path, and by the time they reached the outskirts of the mousemaid's village, the sun was high in the sky and beating down upon them with all the fury of a vengeful deity. Together they scrambled up the final obstacle- a hill entirely devoid of thorns. At the top, a small, creaking sign welcomed them both to Thornhill Grove.

Kew-Kew, who had never laid eyes on a sign before, stared at it (and the village beyond) in wonder.

More than used to the view, Margaret merely sighed in relief. The end of her ordeals seemed to be in sight.

"This is village of mousey, yes?" The wearet beside her whistled appreciatively at the place she called home. "Is big, is very big. Lotsa mouse-nests."

"Well it's not really that big, at least, when compared to other towns and such." Margaret rubbed the back of her neck. "This is nothing compared to, say, Craylock."

Kew-Kew tested the word on his tongue. "Cray-lock?"

She waved away the question. "It's another town. You wouldn't know about it, nothing happens there anyways." Raising a paw, the mousemaid pointed at a far-off corner of the village. "I live somewhere around there, so not too far left but erm… I was hoping to ask you a favour?"

"Kraw! Of course I do Marr-garr-ett favour." He clapped his paws excitedly, and for a moment Margaret wasn't sure he knew the meaning of favour.

Still, things would be easier if she could prepare for his arrival. "Well it's just, most of my neighbours have never seen a er- an eagle before. Er- especially not one like you and well, we wouldn't want to frighten them, now would we?"

Kew-Kew nodded in primitive agreement. "Mousies stink big when scaredy."

You have a strange sense of smell... thought Margaret. "Exactly!" said Margaret. "A-a-and that's why I was thinking it might be best if you waited here and let me go ahead and er- help everybeast get ready for you." The mousemaid clapped her paws togethers and put on her most winning smile.

"Wait… here?"

To her surprise the wearet sat down immediately. "Yes, yes. I wait here. Momma come back, yes?"

"Y-er-yes I'll come back. Just er- don't go anywhere, alright?"

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"Come back? Of course I'll be back!" A tall jill threw her head back and laughed as she set down a small ball of pink skin and sparse fur. "Just wait there lil' rat an' momma'll be right back!"

"Awlwight momma! I'll be de best waitew evah," promised the infant. By the time he finished speaking however, his mother was long gone. The creature wriggled himself into a more comfortable position amidst the brambles and feathers that surrounded him and leaned back against a large, white stone-thing.

Then the waiting began. At first it was easy for Kew-Kew to occupy himself. All the branches were different, and he spent a great deal of time hopping around the white stone, waving his sticks high in the air.

It wasn't until this game got boring that the young wearet grew impatient. Crossing his paws over his chest Kew-Kew leaned back against the stone, his footpaw tapping impatiently at the brambles. He tapped away until he got tired, then he settled for standing very still.

As the forest darkened, his arms grew slack and fell to his sides. His ears flattened themselves against the top of his head and only shot up at the sound of movement. Yet nothing sounded like his mother's approach. Not the rustle of feathers. Not the shadow that fell over him. Not even the sharp beak that leaned in to sniff.

Eventually the harsh truth set in, the way a cold wind did, and the wearet whimpered. A comforting talon was placed gently on his shoulder, and Kew-Kew clung to it desperately as tears began to slide down his face.

"Kraw," he cawed, coming back into reality. The 'weird dreams' as he liked to call them had come and gone for as long as he could remember, yet never stayed long. "Mousey is taking long time," the wearet mused- the 'dream' already banished from memory. Frowning slightly, he rolled onto his front- the better to stare at the village below. "Maybe mousey is lost again? No, is Marr-garr-ett's home. Only big stupid gets lost in home… but Marr-garr-ett is also not big smart..." Thoughtfully, Kew-Kew picked at his nose.

Going to look for Margaret was the nice thing to do, but she had also asked him not to follow her. As much as he would have liked to take a closer look at the village below, the mousemaid probably wouldn't like it if he did that.

"Yes, yes. I is good eagle. I listen to smart mousey Marr-garr-ett thing and wait here. I is good waiter. Always wait for the eagles to swoop in and then-"

The wearet's tummy rumbled slightly.

"Lunchy-time!" he cheered, scampering down the hillside without another thought.

….

Among the many things Kew-Kew considered himself the 'bestest' at, it was stealth that proved the most useful. The wearet's feetpaw made nary a sound as he slunk across tiled rooftops. Nobeast noticed his furless paws snatch a flowerpot off a window-sill. Nor did the chattering mousies take note of the clothes disappearing from their washing lines. Imperceptibly, Kew-Kew bolstered his new-found collection of trinkets with any strange objects he caught sight of. And the eyesight of an eagle was legendary.

Taking shelter behind a particularly wide chimney, Kew-Kew spread his treasures across the roof of a bakery. To the average beast they were mundane items, the kind of things that often went missing and were swiftly banished from memory. To Kew-Kew they were strange and foreign and exciting and the wearet was most eager to explore them.

A set of thin, round things jingled and jangled and made all sorts of noise as he tossed them high into the air. But they were hard things and cold, and wouldn't fill him up.

He chomped at the flowers next and found that they were not at all tasty. Spitting them out, he proceeded to dig through the soil. Kew-Kew was most disappointed that there were no worms inside, and upended the flowerpot's contents onto the street below. Frowning, he decided that this object was useless and boring, and tossed it over his shoulder.

Oblivious to the sound of shattering clay, the wearet picked up a dreamcatcher, and fiddled with the weaving. His claws slid through and poked at the intricately made patterns, until he decided that it would look pretty atop his head.

"And Kew-Kew is pretty eagle!" he giggled, batting at the feathers and ribbons dangling from the object the way a dibbun would.

Still wearing the dreamcatcher, Kew-Kew moved on to the final object- a scarf. "Notta good rope," he commented, having accidentally torn it to shreds. Realization struck him as soon as he had tossed the remaining rags into the wind, and suddenly horrified, he cried out in alarm.

"I is gonna starve in village of preythings!"

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

The initial panic faded away as soon as Kew-Kew started using his nose. A hundred different scents hit him all at once, each as mouthwatering as the next, and they all seemed to be coming from behind his head.

The wearet twisted around, peered down the nearest chimney and took several deep breaths. The most delicious things were sending up tentacles of smoke to meet him, hooking their tendrils round his nose and beckoning him forth. They were calling him and Kew-Kew was not the type of beast to refuse an invitation. Licking his chops, the wearet climbed down the sweet-smelling tunnel, his tummy rumbling in approval.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

Everything at the end of it screamed to be eaten. Demanded to be tasted. The wearet was more than happy to oblige- and had already left behind a long trail of half-eaten bread loaves. Crumpets, muffins, pancakes, quiches- Kew-Kew snatched and tore at them all without mercy. His stomach had long since stopped complaining, but it was now the wearet's tastebud's that ached for more.

A sizzling, buttered-up pancake was snatched from its pan, rolled up and swallowed whole. A loaf of nutbread was torn to crumbs in a matter of seconds. Kew-Kew's teeth, long since adjusted to tearing at flesh alone, made short work of all that was put before him, till at last the most offensive of belches came roaring forth.

"Beshtest… nesht… evah!" Kew-Kew grinned, picking his teeth. "Only missing a sweet-thing…" The wearet sniffed at the air, and wrinkled his nose in disgust. The overwhelming stench of fear hit him like a bucket of cold water. Slowly, he turned towards the doorway and found himself faced with a violently-shaking hedgehog.

Kew-Kew glanced about the bakery and opened his mouth to greet the spiky-thing. Yet before he could utter a single syllable, the creature fainted clear away.

The wearet closed his mouth and shrugged his shoulders. "Marr-garr-ett mousie should be back by now."

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It was a bit of a squeeze getting back up the chimney (Kew-Kew blamed the food), but soon enough the wearet emerged with a fresh coating of soot to boast about. He swaggered across the rooftops, smacking satisfied lips and rubbing a content tummy, when suddenly his ears twitched.

In the distance a bell began to ring, but not too far away Kew-Kew heard somebeast call his name.

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

"Doesn't sound like Marr-garr-ett…"

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

"Kraw! Could be trapses!"

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

The voice began to ring within his head.

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

"Kraw! Fine!" The wearet threw his paws into the air in a show of frustration. "Kew-Kew coming, Kew-Kew coming!"

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''

"Blasted thing is broken again!" Somebeast was saying as the insistent calling continued. The noise was coming from a window somewhere beneath him. As quietly and quickly as he could, Kew-Kew scrambled off the roof and onto the side of the loud mousie-nest. His talons found easy purchase between the square-stones , and soon enough he had found what he was looking for.

Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Cuckoo!

"Just shut up," a weasel howled, beating the watch against his desk. It returned the gesture by singing louder than ever.

CUCKOO! CUCKOO! CUCKOO!

"The neighbours will complain again," said the weasel, screwing his eyes shut. "Damn mice."

"Kraw! Is a noisy-box!"

"They'll complain again and I'll get evicted and-" the rest of their sentence was cut short by a girlish shriek. Their own, of course, but then most creatures would have made a similar (if not as high-pitched) noise at the sight of a wearet pushing open their window.

The weasel-thing stumbled backwards, tripped over something (as beasts often did when scared witless), shot to his feetpaws and darted out the room. Screaming the entire time.

Kew-Kew paid him no mind, barely registered the lingering stink of a frightened creature, and picked up the strange-noise box. He turned it over in his paws, but found that it had grown silent. The wearet shook it thoroughly, but not another 'cuckoo' was to be heard.

"Looks like mousie-nest." Kew-Kew frowned thoughtfully, his eyes darting from the box in his paws to the houses outside. "Nest of veeeery lil' mousie?" Lifting the box up, he pressed it against his ear in search of the tell-tale heartbeats of a living thing. There were none to be found but there was a kind of ticking sound coming from within the box. A quick sniff, however, confirmed that no teeny-tiny mice resided within the strange little nest.

He was just about to put it down and make his way back towards the hill Marr-garr-ett had so kindly asked him to wait on, when the true owner of the home emerged.

CUCKOO! CUCKOO! CUCKOO!

Kew-Kew cawed in alarm and thrust the noisy box at arm's length. A small, yet bloodthirsty bird flapped towards him with all the fury of a badger in bloodwrath, before retreating once more behind the doors of it's home.

Kew-Kew swiftly glanced about to make sure nobeast had seen his brief moment of terror. The fact that the bird had been the only witness only made his next course of action the obvious one. "Kraw! Kew-Kew just wanted sweet-thing!" The wearet licked his lips. "Hihihihihi! Bye-bye angry bird-thing!"

The next coo of the cuckoo clock, would be its last.

,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

A pair of elderly rodents shouted at each other from balconies a street apart. "Matilda! Did you take my flowerpot?"

"The one with the roses Heidi?"

"No don't be daft, the lavender."

"In that case I did not."

"Hmmm... So you did steal my roses…" Heidi Bankvole muttered under her breath.

"Did you take anything from my washing line?" demanded Matilda Dormouse. "I've got a scarf missing, and I could've sworn I had more cloaks than this."

Before the bankvole could holler out her response a frightened weasel raced past the pair, screaming at the top of his lungs.

"There is a monster in my office! A-a huge, towering, hulking, s-slobbering, ravenous, hungry-looking-"

"Somebeast's spent too much time with the thesaurus…" Matilda muttered.

"I barely escaped with my life," the weasel went on, oblivious. "You should have seen it, the monstrosity, strong enough to tear me apart a-and with barely any fur. Terrible teeth-"

The pair of old ladies yawned as the terrified vermin went on about this new threat to their community. The townsfolk began to peer from windows and balconies all around, or else stopped and stared.

"It tried to kill me I swear to you!"

Many were skeptical of the existence of the creature that was being described, until the baker emerged from his bakery, wailing as loudly as a spoiled dibbun.

Then all hellgates broke loose.

"Heidi!" Matilda called, lighting a torch from the safety of her balcony. "Get the pitchforks out!"

,,,,,,,,,

"Of course I had second thoughts! I had second, third, and fourth thoughts! But I couldn't just leave him alone like that. All by himself with nobeast to talk to but his eggs."

"Maggy you just said he wasn't a bird!

"He's not!"

"Then why does he have eggs?"

"I-I don't know? I didn't think to ask."

"Well you clearly weren't thinking when you brought an eagle to our village. You do know eagles eat mice, right?"

"I am well aware, thank you." Margaret hissed, recalling the wide open beak of the eagle Kew-Kew had killed. "But for the last time Kew-Kew is not an eagle!"

"Then why do you keep saying he is?"

"I never said that he was an eagle!" The mousemaid tugged her ears in frustration. She loved her family, she really did, but nothing irritated her as much as them. "Look, you'll see him for yourselves soon enough and then you'll understand why I brought him here. Alright?" Her parents and siblings shared looks of concern and worry, to which Margaret rolled her eyes. "I'll take that as a yes. Now come on, before he gets himself into trouble."

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It did not take long for the townsfolk to find Kew-Kew. Stealthy though he was, he stuck out like a sore thumb in a village where everybeast knew each other. Catching the 'eagle' was a different matter.

For his part, the wearet was not sure why the mousies were so determined to capture him- the bird he'd eaten hadn't been a real bird (which had irritated him to say the least)- but he didn't care too much either.

A pair of mice came charging at him from opposite ends of a street. Long-since accustomed to dodging diving eagles, Kew-Kew merely stepped aside and let the rodents run into each other.

"Hihihihi! Kraw! Mousies not as quick as Kew-Kew"

A third mouse managed to sneak up on the giggling wearet, pounce upon his back and throw their skinny arms around his neck.

"I've got it! I've got the monster!"

"Kew-Kew is eagle, not mon-star," the eagle-that-was-not-an-eagle corrected good-naturedly, not at all bothered by the mouse's pathetic attempts to choke him.

A fourth mouse tore down the street to meet the wearet head on, pitchfork in paw. "It's here! The monster's here!"

Kew-Kew scrambled up the side of a house to get away from the overly-zealous mob-member. The mouse clinging to his back shrieked in terror as the ground grew further away from them, and clung on all the harder.

Kew-Kew watched, giggling and cackling, as the streets below began to fill with mousey-things, ratty-things and weasel-things. Many were armed with spiky-forks and hot-woods and plenty were shouting, but all stunk of fear and Kew-Kew knew from experience that a scared preything was an easy preything.

"Hihhihihi! Mousies slow! Mousies slow!" Kew-Kew taunted, as he hopped down from the roof and into the crowd below. His prey scattered and screamed, their pitchforks and torches forgotten. Cackling, and using the face of another unfortunate mouse as a stepping stone, he hopped onto another roof. The mouse on his back screamed all the louder, their eyes screwed tightly shut.

With a great roll of his eyes and an impish grin, Kew-Kew dropped onto all fours and shook off the irritable rodent, then he sat down and surveyed the crowd below. His mother would have made short work of them all, and belched afterwards but Kew-Kew was not that type of bird. In truth he found their puny attempts at scaring him off amusing.

"Monster!" the crowd screamed as they lost what little courage they had had to begin with.

"Run for your lives!"

"All hope is lost!"

"Evacuate the village!"

"Kew-Kew!" Margaret stomped towards the wearet, her teeth gritted and her paws curled into fists. "Get down right this instant!"

Swallowing audibly, and knowing that now was most certainly not the time for argument, Kew-Kew clambered down the building and made his way towards Margaret with his tail between his legs.

The frightened mob fell silent, and stared dumbly at the scene.

"You promised to wait," Margaret went on crossly, more than aware of the fact that everybeast was now staring. Well, that was to be expected- she had been missing for some time. Then again, the mousemaid doubted any of them were staring at her.

"Kew-Kew did wait," said the eagle, sheepishly. "But mousie was taking a long time and Kew-Kew was hungry." At the sight of her widened eyes and sudden palour, the wearet shook his head rapidly from side to side. "Kraw! No, no, I don't eat any mousies. No needs to be scaredy. Kew-Kew is just playing with the mouseythings, see?" He gestured at the crowd, many of whom had either fainted away or had their jaws hanging open.

Eventually somebeast broke the silence that ensued. "M-Margaret, d-do you know this beast?"

The addressed mousemaid chewed her lip, and turned to face her neighbours. "A-as a matter of fact yes. Er- Kew-Kew is…" she glanced in the wearet's direction. "Well you could say he's a er-friend of mine."

Footnote: Well Kew-Kew's arrival probably went better than expected XD Stay tuned for more eagle antics!