Chapter One:
Teralose woke to find herself sleeping on a ground covered in needles. Quickly, she stood, a green cape swirling around her.
She turned, examining her surroundings. A forest, not unlike some of which she had seen. Her clothes matched into the surroundings quite well-tunic of brown, cloak of a mottled green-brown.
She smiled gaily. Boar had done a good job. Complete with this set of clothing, was a small, undecorated save the hilt-stone, which was red.
Her mind returned to the present. Now she had to get to this place, the one that looked red. He had said to wander south if she found a path, and so she would. But right now, there was no path, and she had to still wander-east.
She looked up into the sky, trying to judge the suns' path. Unfortunately, she didn't know if it was morning or late afternoon.
So instead, she turned around slowly, taking deep breaths as much as possible. Once, she stopped, sniffing one more time to make sure that it was what she thought it was.
She smelled the ocean in that vague direction. The ocean, of course, was westward. So she turned around in the opposite direction, and started to walk.
She moved as quietly as she could, but every now and then, a twig underpaw would snap with surprising loudness. Every time she would cringe and grimace, and look around hastily to see if anybeast had heard.
She started to hum under her breath, and then, suddenly, a song, short as it was, burst out of her chest loudly.
"Through the forest,
Over the hills,
Though not as far,
As the ocean.
My home,
There lies,
Within the willows,
Oh why, oh why did I leave?"
Rose paused, listening to the echoes ringing away, pleased that she still had her sweet voice. She continued walking, and then stopped.
The crunch of footpaws behind her took one last step, and stopped as well. Teralose wanted to bang her head against a tree. She shouldn't sing so loud, even if she was joyous to be alive, if only for a little while.
She continued walking, but silently. Her tracker obviously couldn't walk quietly, or chose not to. She quickened her pace, and her pursuer did so, making sure that she wouldn't get away from him/her.
Abruptly, she stopped, and whirled around, dagger withdrawn but concealed for the moment.
The beast was going too fast to stop in time, and so he skidded to a halt just in time to not knock the mousemaid over.
The beast was a not-so-young mouse, a little laughter in his eyes, a small grin on his face, barely showing.
"Hello, mate!"
Rose kept her paw on her dagger, just in case. "Hello back to you. May I ask who you are?"
"Certainly!" He stopped there, while Teralose waited for his reply. He started to speak again. "Are you goin' to ask my name or not?"
The mousemaid sighed. "What is your name?"
"That's the ticket!" he chuckled. "Well, you c'n call me the Prince of Mousethieves, Prince of Escape Artists, Prince of Getting Warriors out of Trouble, Prince of Pie Snatchers, Best Friend of Martin, so he says, or just plain Gonff."
Martin's name struck her, almost catching her breathless, but she made it just in time. "Just Gonff."
"Gonff it is, then! Now, what is your name?" He was a cheeky mouse, but Rose liked him all the while.
"Ro-Teralose." She stumbled over her name, remembering just in time not to say her nickname.
"Roteralose?"
"No, my tongue got tied up. My name is simply Teralose." Silently she cursed herself for her mistake.
"Tear-uh-lose, then? Much better than Roteralose in my opinion." He winked, but she saw that his eyes had suspicion within their depths. Her heat pounded, but she was determined to not let any fear show.
Gonff continued. "Where is a fine maiden like you going?"
"I'm not sure what the place is called, and all I know is that it is an Abbey, it is newly built, and is made of a sort of red rock."
"Ahh!" the Prince of Mousethieves looked jollier. "You mean the wonderful establishment of Redwall?"
"I guess."
"Of course you do! Well, then, I live there, or at least nearby, so I can take you there gladly." He lowered his voice a little. "Don't tell Columbine that I called you a fine maiden."
Rose was puzzled. "Why?"
He grinned. "Because she's my wife, of course!" Rose laughed, and suddenly, without any apparent reason, he slapped a paw to his forehead.
"Drats, I forgot! I need to get Columbine some huckleberry. She's making pies for the Dibbuns." He muttered something under his breath.
Rose percked up. "Huckleberry?"
Gonff nodded his affirmation.
"See some to the right, a little back."
Gonff was off and had whipped a small sack, with a small plaited rope tying it,-+ shut out of his tunic.
Minutes later, a cry of joy had appeared, along with the rustling of bushes. Rose ventured forwards, and saw Gonff plucking the small, but ripe, red berries off, a beaming smile on his face. Turning, he saw Rose.
"Thanks for the advice! Yes!"
"May I help?"
"Of course you can! Anything you want!"
To see Martin again and have him recognize me, she thought. But out loud, she only laughed. "Are you sure about that? What if I asked you to eat a full panful of foxgloves?"
He paled in mock horror. "Of course not! That'd kill me! And I have a family to be with!"
Rose picked another huckleberry, and popped it in her mouth. "They're ripe. They're the right size. Your wife should be very happy with you for this."
Gonff peered into the sack, which was only half full, and the large bush almost empty. "We'll have to move onto another one."
Rose nodded her head in agreement, and they went on in the direction of Redwall, keeping keen eyes out for more of the berry bushes.
"Look! Raspberries!" She cried out, and leapt towards the thorny vines, laden with many matured berries. Gonff frowned.
"Why do we need raspberries?"
"Because, where I come from, raspberries are generally used with huckleberries in the pies, and are a good combination. Or at least they are to us."
Gonff nodded, if hesitantly, and they began picking them. "Where do you come from, anyway? Anywhere nearby?"
Rose paused, thinking quickly. Boar hadn't told her anything about not saying where she had lived, had he? "A place where there is almost always peace."
"Called….?"
"Noonvale."
"Nice name, Noonvale. I like it."
About a sixth of an hour later, they had gotten the sack full of red berries, both kinds.
Gonff sucked at his red-stained paws, and then plucked another raspberry. The sun was a bit lower in the sky to their right. "We should be going now, shouldn't we? In about two days, there's going to be our First Feast, which should be a huge affair. Just got back from finding out Martin's past, his father and everything. Nothing else."
Rose had been holding back a breath of dismay, until she heard what Gonff had just said. "Well," she stood up, brushing the juice off on her tunic. "I'm going now, and I would rather have your company, with reasons other than your conversation."
Gonff leapt up, and picked up the sack. "I'm going with you. My family is staying at Redwall to help with the feast, though Gonflet will most certainly be pinching treats off the table while others have their backs turned, the little rascal. Don't know how it got into his system. Most likely that hare taught him how." Deftly, he tied the rope around the neck of the bag, and held it in one paw, and took the lead. Teralose followed him, trotting a little.
A bit later, perhaps a third of an hour later, they were approaching a pair of huge gates, surrounded by looming red walls. Gonff walked up to them and pounded loudly, shouting.
"Come on! Let us in, for Mossflower's sake! Let us in, let us in!"
A mouse's head popped over the battlements above the gate. " 'Us'? Who is with you, Gonff, my friend?"
Gonff grinned widely. "A lovely young mouse. Perfect for you, Martin, don't you think?"
"Oh, never! She probably isn't lovely at all! And besides, I'll tell Columbine about what you just said."
"No! Don't! As for what you said, I think you had better take a look at her." Martin searched around Gonff, and finally saw Rose.
A strange look passed over his face, and Rose inwardly cursed. She should have taken better care of what she looked like-Martin should still remember her.
"Her name is Teralose! Found her in the forest. She has good ears, too. Tried to sneak up on her, whirled around and saw me. Barely avoided knocking into her."
Martin muttered something, and then spoke louder. "Alright, I'll open the gates. Perhaps Teralose would stay for a while?"
Rose's voice carried on the wind up to Martin. "I'm planning on staying for as long as I can."
"Of course. Now, I need to get the otters-make sure that you aren't trying to get in and steal all of the food-not that Beau is helping any."
Gonff feigned disbelief, and shook his fist up at the first Warrior, who looked like he was holding back a bout of laughter. "Oohhhhhhhhhhh, you liddle cur! I shouldn't have helped you out of Kotir-I should've left you there to rot in that damp darkness!" He sobered. "But now it's too late-you're calling me a thief now, and scorning be in front of this young maid."
"Weren't you thrown in there with me because you were stealing food, bread and cheese, from Tsarminas food storage? And aren't you called the Prince of Mousethieves?"
"I was stealing from Tsarmina to help the Corim survive, and I gave myself that title."
"Then how do you explain the missing custard that Goodwife Stickle baked yesterday, and the dish and spoon inside your room, hidden in a secret compartment that only you and I know of?"
"Erm……. It was…..it was…..it was…..um, I don't know who it was! And I have never seen any dish and spoon inside of my secret place! On my honor as a Mousethief!"
"Fine. I'll open the gates." Martin glanced at Rose one more time, and disappeared from sight.
As soon as they were inside, and the gates closed behind them once more, Gonff winked at Martin.
"I really didn't see the dish and spoon inside of there; I had a blindfold on just in case!"
Martin left off a wild whoop, and chased the grinning Gonff, but hesitated once as he heard Teralose's laughter following them, sounding hauntingly familiar of a mousemaid that he once knew…..