"Damn mouse!" Fret swore, hissing at the ground with enough hatred to fill a lake or seven. Ever since his return from Triel, or Tarelis or whatever it was called, Momchillo had been showing anybeast willing to look (and there seemed to be nothing else of interest to look at) the drawings of Inkheart. Artistic renditions of an increasingly-embittered Fret clad in increasingly ridiculous outfits. They had been made during the ferret's brief stint as the slave of a noble's incredibly spoiled daughter and now haunted him everywhere he looked.
Whenever Fret entered a room the beasts inside would chuckle, or stifle their laughter, or- in the case of the Guosim who were mean even by the standards of vermin- guffaw openly.
The laughter he could bear, despite the passion he hated it with. What he could not stand was the muttered commentary that came with it, and -in the case of Angus and Andrew who he hated with a similar passion- the open insults.
"You look very pretty in a dress."
"You must give our compliments to your seamstress."
"And if you could give us her address-"
"Shut up!" Fret snarled. "I didn't have a seamstress, I was a slave!"
Abbot Martin had ended the conversation there, but Fret's anger still boiled within him like hot oil. He stomped through the abbey, crushed the grass beneath his feetpaws with relish, and lashed out against the cursed red walls of Redwall with all his might.
Then he screamed because his footpaw was not as strong as sandstone.
"The good news is I can fix it." Rosebrush, the abbey's resident nurse and infirmary keeper informed him a short while later as she tightened a bandage around his injured footpaw. "The bad news is that you've broken several bones."
Fret moaned, and threw his paws over his face.
"There, there Fret," she passed him a candied chestnut- the favourite abbey treat. "You'll live. How did this happen again?"
Grumpily, he tossed the sweet into his mouth and chomped down on it. He crossed his arms over his chest and explained in his most serious tone. "Angus and Andrew threw a brick at me."
"Humph, well I'll make sure those troublemakers are dealt with, don't you worry. It's nearly supper time anyways I'm sure they'll be in the hall. Speaking of which, want me to bring anything for you? It's just, under no circumstances whatsoever are you to put weight on that footpaw."
The ferret shrugged and muttered something about nutfarl 'if there was any'.
"I'm sure there will be some," Rosebrush smiled, before twisting her face into a concerned frown. "By the way Fret, I hope you don't mind me asking but is your chest alright? You haven't had any breathing difficulties?"
"No," the young ferret eyed her suspiciously. "Why?"
"Well it's just that… uhhh… wearing a corset can be very bad for one's health."
Fret let out an imperceptible hiss. Of course she knew. She was Momchillo's mother after all…
"Anyways," Rosebrush turned away, clearly wishing she hadn't brought up the subject of corsets. "I'll bring up some nutfarl in a moment."
"Why did I ever go to Triel?" Fret wondered aloud, once he was sure that she was out of earshot.
To his surprise and horror the empty air replied. "Because dessssssssstiny!"
The ferret whirled around in search of the noise, which only earned him gales of laughter. From out of thin air, the grinning face of an otter appeared.
They carried themselves like a king, complete with fancy solid gold scepter and overly large, jewel-encrusted crown. His long, bedazzling robes blew in a wind Fret could not feel. "At least, that's the standard reply," the otter went on. "If you ask me it was more of a joke really. A new and exciting way to make you miserable." To underline his point he slapped the ferret's wounded footpaw.
"OW!" snarled Fret, baring his fangs against the otter. "What was that for?"
"Just seeing if I could fix it. You look lovely in a dress by the way. Oh stop it with the growling, will you? Nothing wrong with having a lovely pair of hips, as somebeast once said." The otter winked broadly. "You'll never know when they'll come in handy."
Fret went pink, and his voice turned ineligible. The humiliation was too great! He was sure he was going to die of shame. Growls, snarls and embarrassed howls filled the air.
"Ahem!" the otter cleared his throat. "As nice as your hips are, we're not here to discuss them. You're probably wondering who I am really- most beasts do when I come out of nowhere you know? Well ferret! You are honored to be in the presence of the One True King of Parma!" he jabbed a pair of thumbclaws at himself. "That's me by the way. I have a bunch of other titles as well depending on what kingdom I'm ruling and what timeline I'm in but you may call me Old Thordan, Kiordan, Your Majesty, Your Highness, Master-"
"What do you want, otter?" Fret demanded, already tired of the overly-excitable creature.
"I suppose 'otter' works as an alias but I would really prefer if you called me 'Your Highness'." He pointed at his crown. "I brought this bad boy out for a reason, you know."
Fret merely crossed his arms over his chest and frowned grumpily.
Momentarily, Old Thordan seemed to deflate. "Fiiiiiiine, we can cut to to the fun part." His grin returned with vengeance.
Fret braced himself, knowing full well that the 'fun parts' were never fun for him.
"You're a wizard Harry!" The otter cried. Lightning flashed in the background. Thunder growled. Old Thordan played a celebratory tune on his trumpet.
"My name is not Harry."
Old Thordan stopped mid-song, nearly choking on his instrument as he did so. "I-i-it's not? B-but they said?" He spun around abruptly and screamed up at the heavens. "ISANGRIM!" Then he turned round again. "You can tell me your name later I suppose, once we've gotten to know each other better. For now let's just keep things simple and open up with what we've all been waiting for!"
"My nutfarl?"
"You… are… far too sarcastic for somebeast who saw me come out of thin air. Er no, I was going to launch into a lengthy expository paragraph about Thaumaturgy and Sorcery and it's origins and these things called Shards, and how vermin in one world are slowly being driven to madness by latent magical abilities or something like that-"
Fret yawned.
"But I'm not going to do that now! The gist of it is that you, my fine stinky friend, are capable of amazing things-"
Muttering under his breath about 'crazy, overdressed otters' Fret eased himself under the infirmary blankets.
"I AM NOT OVERDRESSED!" Old Thordan howled, snapping his scepter in half. He sighed dramatically. "Kids these days, they're making me act out of character! You don't want the boring version then, how about a demonstration?"
Fret snored gently.
A sudden gust of wind swept across the room, slamming the door shut and knocking over several bottles of medicine. Fret's eyes snapped open as his blanket was blown right off of him. He had little time to react however, as a moment later the wind picked up speeds and sent him flying into the newly-made heap of bed material.
"Now that I have your attention," Old Thordan smirked at the pair of feetpaws sticking out from between a pair of pillows. "Would you be so kind as to follow me outside?"
A short while later the pair left the infirmary and made their way to the abbey grounds. The otter-king chattered endlessly as he half-guided and half-carried Fret towards whatever their destination was (for all his talk of healing it, Fret's footpaw was still broken).
"Now you must understand there are strange things afoot- several universes have got all these weird things going on- did you know that I'm being rewritten as we speak?"
For the most part he made no sense and the ferret tuned him out. It was not until the otter stopped in his tracks all of a sudden that Fret paid him any attention.
"Who is that ravishing beauty?" the otter's mouth hung open, his eyes were glazed over. Fret followed his claw towards a large mousemaid near the pond, no doubt offering a paw with kitchen duties for the evening.
"My momma," the ferret replied, not at all keen on the way Old Thordan was staring at her.
"Is she really?" he asked, in a voice that suggested he hadn't heard a single word. "Well you've certainly inherited her feminine-" he waved his paws in a vague motion around his form. "Her hips that is."
The otter was definitely ogling right now, earning him a growl from Fret, who promptly brought his uninjured footpaw into the otter's.
"Ouch!" Old Thordan hopped backwards, nearly dropping Fret as he did so. "What was that for?"
"You were staring." Fret replied hotly, swaying to and fro but maintaining balance.
"So?" the otter scoffed. "I intend to do a lot more than just staring. Lesson postponed- I have a lady to impress!"
"Y-you can't just impress my momma!"
"Perhaps not, but I can try." The otter shrugged. "You just let the adults do the talking," he yawned and snapped his fingers.
Fret had little choice in the matter, as the ground beneath him suddenly gave away and began to pull him into it's depths. Startled, Fret snatched at the nearby grass in a desperate attempt at pulling himself free of the soil. To no avail of course. He remembered briefly one of Abbot Martin's lessons about bogwaters and quicksand, but could not for the life of him remember what to do. He opened his mouth to scream, but found it filled with dirt a moment later.
"In private that is," Old Thordan chuckled, plucking a flower from besides the ferrets desperately twitching nose.
Fret was not entirely sure how long he'd spent in the warm soil, but an eternity later, the ground loosened it's grip and allowed his head to come spluttering out.
"I think I hit a worm!" he squealed, as slimy flesh tickled the space between his toes.
"Earth is clearly not your style," Old Thordan mused, his signature smirk firmly in place. "It went well, by the way. Your mother and I have arrangements."
Fret's snarl turned to a scream as the earth suddenly thrust him forwards and launched him into the air. He hit the ground hard and tumbled all the way to the edge of the abbey pond. There he shook himself free of the stray bits of soil, pulled an earwig out of his ear, kicked the offending worm off of his footpaw and pulled a shiny black beetle from under his tail. Growling, he turned to Old Thordan, his hackles raised and his paws clenched into fists.
"You're a slow learner, aren't you? All that time in the ground and you still think it's a good idea to keep baring your fangs at me." The ground beneath Fret suddenly began to shake and spit apart. A large crack opened up directly beneath the ferret, who now found himself doing the splits. "Perhaps a longer stay?" Old Thordan offered.
Fret took one look at the harrowing depths beneath him and swallowed heavily. He shook his head from side to side.
"Good! Then you can just follow me through the portal to your left."
Fret turned to his left, and scowled at the nonexistent portal.
"Ahem, that is your right, sorry."
Sure enough a shiny black abyss appeared besides the ferret, and before Fret had time to scream, it sucked him in with all the force of a vacuum cleaner.
Old Thordan grinned and followed him in. The cracks in the ground vanished, the portal closed, and it was as if he'd never been there.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! OW! OOF! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" Fret hurtled through space and time for what felt like forever, every now and then slamming into something rock-hard and solid before being propelled forwards by whatever strange, mystical force was at play. At long last, the portal opened up to a solid red brick wall.
"Welcome to the Dreamscape," Old Thordan announced, as the ferret slid to the ground in a crumpled heap. "A land of incredible possibility and the training grounds for all young mages! It's also a crime scene, but that's not what we're here to discuss."
"Why?" demanded Fret. "Does your stupid portal lead to a wall?"
"The Dreamscape looks like what the user is familiar with. In this case it became Redwall. Your home."
"Well I don't care!" snapped the ferret, carefully using the wall to ease himself upwards without putting weight on his bad leg. "I don't know who you are- you've done a very bad job of explaining anything- and I don't care! Open that portal and send me back home right now!"
"No can do, I have to teach you." Old Thordan grinned. "Relax ferret, I think you'll find this next part far more enjoyable. After all, who doesn't wish they could control the elements?"
Fret merely glared.
"Oh come on! Like you've never wanted to throw a fireball at somebeast!"
The ferret bit his lip. "I can do that?"
"With time, and training, anything is possible."
"S-so I can… move objects with the wind? Bury beasts in dirt?" Fret tried and failed to sound uninterested.
"While it smells like you've got wind right up your alley," Old Thordan pinched his nose in an exaggerated fashion, Fret scowled. "No, earth, water and air are for woodlanders. You vermin get the more destructive elements."
"Right."
"Fire, lightning, ice. Nevermind that ice and water are, like, the same thing."
"R-really?" There was a small voice in the back of his head that said this was a waste of his time, that the otter was pulling his broken leg. But the prospect of summoning a bolt of lightning everytime somebeast laughed at him was a temptation Fret could not resist.
"Really! Now, brief note. We mages live in the greatest of secrecy. You are to tell nobeast whatsoever of this, understood?"
Fret nodded eagerly.
"Then this is where the fun begins!" Old Thordan pointed at a replica of the abbey pond. "Try freezing that a little. If the water is marginally colder by the time you're done we'll call it a success!"
Forgetting, briefly, that he disliked the otter, and filled with the happy thought of burning Momchillo's tail to a crisp, Fret skipped towards the reservoir of water and, not feeling stupid at all shouted "FREEZE!"
Nothing happened, and in hindsight he shouldn't have expected anything to, nothing ever did go smoothly for him.
"Turn to ice." The ferret muttered, toeing the edge of the pond and beginning to think that this was somebeast's idea of a joke.
"Think of magic like an energy. A force of sorts. A slave to bend to your will. You have to command it, control it, dominate it! It's all about strength of will. You have to make the pond freeze."
Now feeling incredibly stupid, and deciding that Abbot Martin was no longer the worst teacher in the history of the world, Fret continued to growl at his reflection. He wanted it to go cold and solid. He felt a slight prickle around his feet and encouraged, growled harder. "I want ice. Lots of it. A solid wall of ice." Nothing seemed to be happening. "Maybe if I spoke in latin? No, that's stupid I don't even know latin." The tingle began to creep up his form- it was at his tail now- perhaps he had to charge up his willpower? "That sounds stupid inside my head!" The water didn't look any colder.
It was then that he noticed the lower half of his reflection was encased in a block of ice which was steadily growing taller.
"Gaaaah! S-stop! D-don't freeze! B-b-bad ice! Stop! C-c-c-c-c-o-o-o-o-o-l-l-l-l-l-d-d-d!" The ice had no intention of stopping and continued to climb up his form. "O-o-t-t-t-t-e-e-e-r-r-r!" His call for help fell on deaf ears.
I hate being a thaumaturge... Fret whined inwardly, his paws pinned and pressed inside the frozen prison now rapidly covering his face and freezing the look of panic upon it.
A short while later Old Thordan returned. "Sorry 'bout that, just another assassination attempt! Nothing I'm not used to be now." He caught sight of Fret, blinked, and sighed heavily. "I'll get the sledgehammer.
"This, ferret, is called an amplifier. As you can probably tell it amplifies your existing power. It also makes it easier to control." Old Thordan waved a chess piece in front of the ferret, shaped like a fox queen. "Now you're cold and shivering, so maybe we should think about starting a fire to warm you up a little, eh?
Fret, his teeth still chattering loudly, took the offered piece. He was still eager to master magic, if mostly for petty childhood revenge, but was far more apprehensive now that he had suffered the results of magic gone awry.
"Fire... I want a n-n-n-nice warm f-f-f-fire." His eyes bulged suddenly, and Fret almost dropped the chess piece, as his paws were immediately set ablaze. A pleasant warmth wafted over him, chasing the shivers away. The ferret purred as the tip of his tail caught fire and started warming up his frozen backside. "I'm on fire!" he cried.
"Knew you could do it!" Old Thordan cheered.
"I'm... on fire..." Fret repeated, suddenly frowning. The flames were growing taller, brighter and hotter. Already the tips of his habit sleeves began to blacken and curl.
"Oh... dear..." Old Thordan was beginning to smell disaster.
"I'M ON FIRE!" Fret shrieked, leaping a foot in the air. Panic set in as the ferret raced about for a solution. "Hothothothothothothothot!" He flapped his arms about like a demented phoenix, in a blur of flame.
Old Thordan brought a paw to his face. "Heaven help me... he's worse than Isangrim..."
"IT BURNS!" Moving at speeds he would not otherwise have managed (especially with a footpaw he was not supposed to be walking on) Fret made a beeline for the pond. He dived into its murky waters, and landed on his flaming rump. The fire went out. Steam clouded the air as the ferret sighed in relief.
The rest of the pond suddenly burst into flame, rapidly consuming the unfortunate reeds and lilies in its path.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Sighing, Old Thordan rolled up his sleeves and snapped his fingers. A dark cloud suddenly manifested above the screaming ferret and began to pour water with all the intensity of a fire hose, immediately putting the fire out.
Fret, dripping wet, cold, miserable, and now wearing burned clothes, limped to the bank. The raincloud hung dutifully over his head, and continued to drizzle.
"You're welcome!" Old Thordan smiled, currently armed with an umbrella. "Bit of a blaze you had there! Which, is not bad you know. It means you have lots of raw potential, just lots of it is unrefined. No matter! We can sort that out in the future."
Fret harrumphed.
The oblivious otter king went on. "This cloud will follow you wherever you go until you've got your firepower under control. Don't worry, I'm sure the abbeyfolk will understand!" he laughed and Fret was bitterly reminded of Angus and Andrew. Curling his paws into fists and unconcerned about possible consequences, Fret readied himself to lay the pain on the world's worst teacher.
He was promptly struck by lightning. His eyes bulged wildly, his fur exploded outwards. Old Thordan winced as two more bolts of lightning struck in quick succession.
"Yeees, er-" he cleared his throat awkwardly. "That can happen sometimes. Perhaps we ought to stop for today. I mean, really I should have started with the basics. Just thought I'd shake it up a bit today."
Fret, who's poofy fur was crackling with lightning, glared at him.
"If it's any consolation your powers are quite phenomenal! You have the potential to be a very powerful mage indeed! Though er- at the moment you do look far more like a pillow. I'd squeeze your tail but fear the electricity would carry on."
Fret pulled his tail away anyways.
"So! Good session, we'll pick up again next week!" The otterking grinned and drew up a portal. "At the moment I've got some boring politics to do. Until then!"
Fret felt a sharp kick on his backside, and was once more hurtling through the portal. It was a much shorter trip this time but nevertheless he was still unceremoniously dumped into a muddy puddle. The ferret slumped on the ground, not bothering to get up until he thought of a way to explain the lightning-struck fur and the raincloud perpetually hanging over his head.
But then, there was no easy way to explain it, was there?