Author's Note: Thanks much for the kind reviews. Just as warning, not going to be a really long story, just long enough. And I /hope/ there won't be long delays in updating, considering it's mostly complete. Enjoy.
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"Everything is fine—that is to say, fine for here, not fine for me at all, I...help me, I'm not a squirrel. I may look like one, but I am not..."
"Are you sure, mate? Because on the honor of me seadog muther, you don't look much like a rabbit to me."
Liz's words caught in her throat like sharp stone; she was not expecting a response to them from anybeast. "Anybody," Liz corrected herself. She weakly waved at the otter that was now standing besides her on the ramparts. "Oh, I didn't see you...Seawisp." Liz was still trying to remember names; every creature of the same species looked the same to her. Seawisp, thankfully, was recognizable by the aqua bandana around her neck.
Seawisp's fur was still dripping from a swim in the pond, and the smell of her made Liz think of 'wet dog'. She couldn't help but be comforted by Seawisp's cheerful disposition as the ottermaid grinned down at her. "Don't mean to pry at yer shell, just get the tingle in me tail that yer worried 'bout something." She put a paw on Liz's shoulder. "What's on yer mind?"
Liz didn't know what to say. She couldn't bear to look into the otter's kind, dark brown eyes; she couldn't force herself to lie, so she said the only thing she could. "I…I don't...belong here."
"Of course you do." Seawisp's gruff voice mellowed to a smoother comforting tone. "Any beast with a good heart who comes to the our Abbey gates..."
"I know, I know that," Liz snapped, and then shrank back from Seawisp's paw. "Oh, I'm sorry…I keep seeing his face, so confused, with so much...care. And I...left him." The tears were streaming down, dampening her fur. "I'm a squirrel and yet…this place doesn't exist and it's so nice but this can't be real and..."
The otter embraced the crying squirrelmaid in her strong arms. "There, there, Elizabeth, don't cry. Can't bear to see another beast cry. Let's just get you down to Cavern Hole and get you some of those fresh scones Friar Truff is making." Seawisp finished the hug and wiped a still falling tear from Liz's cheek. "Wot do ya say?"
The hug had both surprised Liz and encased her in a deep peace, and as she looked into the otter's concerned face, the word 'friend' rose in her mind.
She sniffed, and then brought herself to smile. "That sounds nice."
She still couldn't stop thinking about Mark.
• • •
The stick whacked across Mark's maw, hard, causing him to take a few steps back.
"You need to work on keeping your paws moving."
He moved his tongue, investigating to see if the contact had jarred any teeth loose, and he forced a smile at the weaselmaid. "Yeah. Trying to remember that."
"At this rate, a bunch o' mousebabes towoud beatcher tail off," a stoat, Blookill, chuckled from where he watched, sipping generous helpings of grog between sentences.
"Not sure about that," the weaselmaid, Thorn, countered. "He may be wet be'ind the ears, but his reaction time and agility are...reasonable."
"Interesting vocabulary," Mark said, readying himself for the next onslaught.
"Vo-caby-wot?" Blookill coughed in mid swig of his drink.
"Aye." Thorn grinned, coming upon Mark with a series of quick jabs and swings with the practice stave. "'Love' is the vocabulary clouding your own talent from getting above 'reasonable.'"
"Wha—" That comment caused Mark's guard to fall a moment, and the stave met his gut, with force. The next moment Mark's snout was in the dirt, his paws were clutching at the point of impact, his lungs grappling for air.
"Blookill, leave," Thorn ordered, and the stoat noted the dangerous flare in the female weasel's eyes. He stumbled away as quickly as his drunken footpaws would carry him.
Mark lay on his back, wheezing to get his lungs working again; it wasn't until her whiskers tickled his nose that he realized how close Thorn was.
"So who is she?"
"I really..."
"Flinch, you are surviving hordelife fine for one who has not experienced it before and knows nothing about its realities..."
Mark thought of the books read through his childhood about this world, and how much they matched the reality, and also the details they missed. "I know a little..."
"You know nothing. Velaren has got it out for you, and you keep on fanning the flames of his anger with your bloody ignorance. Your life doesn't matter to me, so I will explain once and only once: watch your back and shut your maw."
Oh dang, Mark thought as he saw her eyes. He remembered Liz when she used to have that look, until it started to fade away into discontent and uncertainty. How much pain she had caused his heart, and yet he didn't want to admit it to his mind. And now...
Where was Liz? Why had she run?
He brought himself back to the ebbing pain in his stomach. Thorn, this hordebeast, this weaselmaid, cared about him.
The silence deepened, the trees rustled as a breeze slipped by, the shadows swayed, and birdsong could be heard in the distance, just past the usual drone of the vermin camp.
"I did love," Mark said. "I think I did. Love so deep that it hurt. Then doubt came, which hurt even more, and I wanted to ignore it. She couldn't ignore. We dated so long and relied on each other so much that when she finally acted on her doubt, I...I couldn't let go..." Mark was breaking down; he was not letting himself sob, as an inner instinct suppressed that into some deep unfeeling place in his soul, but the tears broke through to run down his head, back past his ears, into the dirt.
The push of Thorn's paws lightened, and she took a breath. Mark closed his eyes to the weasel. He had collapsed under the pressure, and he had destroyed any chance of getting help in this world. The weaselmaid would now berate him, and no matter how petty it was, how he still barely knew this 'Thorn', he couldn't stand the thought of it coming. He needed to break the silence. "This does not exist. This is all fiction. I'm not a wea-"
"I'm not sure what 'dating' is. Get up."
Mark opened his eyes as Thorn got off him, and readied herself for another trial with the stave. As Mark carefully got to his footpaws, for the first time he actually looked at the weasel: from her hazelnut fur to some white shading on her paws, to her light-furred underbelly, to her perhaps cute face. There was a slight sparkle near her cheek, and before Mark could be sure what it was, it was gone.
A tear.
While in this horde, he realized, he was so distracted and ignorant that he had not noticed anything besides rats and ferrets and stoats and foxes. He had not seen that they were something past rough caricatures of evil to be avoided if possible.
He saw that they were just...normal...
"Are you ready to start again, Flinch? Now that the ferret's out of the bag?" Thorn winked.
Mark smiled. "Sure."
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