A little joke

By: biacebaolck

"But Honour-" Backlash began. Honour finished scrubbing her arms and began to scrub on her head.

"No buts. Now zip it. " Honour said firmly, scrubbing the gray furred hare on the head so hard that Backlash was beginning to wonder if the healer wanted her head to fall off. Honour knew about Backlash's pretending to be a boy.

"Um, Honour? How'd you know I was a girl? I didn't tell anyone…"

"It's obvious, stupid." Backlash glowered at being called stupid but Honour didn't notice. "You told me that I was less likely to be spotted and you said you trusted me to take care of myself. Any other male would have said it was too dangerous for a girl like me to scout ahead unaccompanied."

"Oh." Backlash said lamely.

"What is wrong with the dirt on you? They won't come off! How'd you even get them on you?" demanded the healer.

"I just jumped in some water, got out, rolled in the dirt, jumped back in the water and it stuck." Backlash answered truthfully.

"Where'd you get all this dirt? It looks…old…"

"My father." She answered again, truthfully. Honour gave her a strange look. Backlash knew the healer thought it was strange. After all, she had told her that her father had died when she was very young.

"If this is a little joke of yours, let me tell you, I'm not amused about this one bit." Honour finished scrubbing and picked up a pail filled with water and dumped it over the gray furred hare's head.

Backlash shivered. It was freezing cold! "What's happening to your fur?" Backlash looked at her paws, since she couldn't see her face and gasped. The dirt was coming off, but with it, gray! When the dirt washed out, Backlash's fur was a nice black, the same as her father's.

"Damn! Now, I have dad's fur!" she growled. She had liked the gray fur she had inherited from both her parents. "Oh well," she sighed. "This'll disguise me better…" She noticed Honour trembling behind her. "What's wrong, Honour?"

"Y-Your fur… I-It's black! I-It's supposed to be gray!" Then, the healer saw the 'what-do-I-care?' look on Backlash's face. "Aren't you frightened?"

"Why should I be? It's just fur colour. Normal hares have them, right?"

"But normal hares don't change fur colours!" Honour blurted out. Backlash paled.

"Y-You mean this doesn't normally happen?" Honour shook her head, expecting Backlash to look upset. But, the black furred hare wasn't. In fact, a smile appeared on her lips.

"This is a little joke, courtesy of my dad," grinned Backlash, and she heaved Honour up. "Come on," she said, picking up the scrubber and the pail in one paw and gesturing for Honour to follow with the other. "I can't wait to see the looks on their faces when they see me!"

As Honour stumbled and struggled to keep up with the black furred hare, Backlash threw her head up and yelled, "GOOD ONE, DAD!"

The healer could have sworn she heard a chuckling that certainly didn't belong to Backlash and a voice saying, "Thanks, kiddo." She shook her head to clear it of these crazy thoughts and ran after the happy hare who was running faster than usual, as though she had been given new strength.

Back at camp, all the beasts, especially those friends of Backlash, would be shocked out of their wits to find out that their friend had changed in a most unusual way…

"Hey, Honour," Streak said, looking up. "What-" Then he saw Backlash. Raising an eyebrow he asked, "Do I know you?" Backlash, in mock anger, hit him on the head.

"Don't tell me you don't recognize me, you idiot!" she growled, using her male voice once again. His eyes would've bugged out, as would everybeast's, if the eyeballs hadn't been stuck to the sockets.

"Backlash?" Stryke asked meekly. "What happened to you, old chap?" She hit him on the head.

"I am not old!" she growled again.

"Whit's goin' on here?" Bucko asked, walking into camp. Then, he noticed her. "Who're ye and whit are ye lookin' so smug aboot?"

"Backlash is the name and pounding hares on the heads is my game," she smirked and hit him on the head, a bit more powerfully than she had hit on Stryke and Streak. Dotti took one look at her and put a paw to her forehead.

"I say," she said in disbelief. "My eyes are jolly not working well today, wot! Wonder what's wrong with it?" Stryke chuckled.

"Methinks you have something wrong with being a fatal beauty, wot." Dotti glared at him.

"And methinks you better shut that mouth of yours before I hit it with my haversack!" she said angrily. Stryke would have laughed, had he not remembered Ruff and Brocktree's telling of how powerfully and successfully Dotti could swing her haversack into somebeast's face.

"Backlash, how did your fur change colour?" Brocktree asked. Backlash raised a tired eyebrow at him.

"You want answers, ask Honour," then, she sat down, leaning against the trunk of a fallen tree and closed her eyes, signaling that she was not going to speak anymore and that she was going to sleep.

Everybeast's eyes turned to the healer. "Well, I was scrubbing all that dirt off Backlash, she kept on complaining so I told her to zip it, then, after I rinsed it off with cold water, the dirt came off, and with it, the gray colouring of her fur." A silence.

"Ye don' suppose that Backlash's fur was originally black?" Ruff asked at last, breaking the silence. A few more silences but then a few murmurs of 'Maybe it was.' Backlash cracked open one tired eye.

"How much pounding on the heads do I have to do to get you all to shut up?" she asked irritably. "Or if you want, I could revert to kicking the shins instead." At this, everybeast shut up and prepared to go to sleep (including putting out the fires) only a few staying awake for their shift.

"Skikkles don' wanna take baff." The baby hedgehog's voice rang out as his mother dragged him to a pool so he could take a bath. The hedgehog mother carried a lit lantern so she could see.

"Oh, hush up. Why couldn't I have had a nice mannered maid instead of you little rascal?" she complained.

"Hee hee, Skikkles likkle rascal." A pause. "No baff. Not want baff! SKIKKLES NEVA WANT BAFF!"

"SHUT UP, YOU VERTEBRATE! WE'RE ALL TRYING TO SLEEP SO QUIT THINKING OF YOURSELF AND START THINKING OF OTHERS!" Backlash's voice yelled. "Children these days," she muttered. Silence.

"Skikkle's sorry…" the babe's voice whimpered and then silence again.

"Wot's a 'vertebrate'?" Ruff's hushed voice asked.

"Och, nay a clue, but ah'm bettin' it's insultin'…" Bucko's whispered voice said. Two hard pounds on two heads could be heard, along with a couple of 'ows' and 'ye didn' have te do that' from Ruff and 'ye dinnae have tae do that' from Bucko.

"Shut up." Backlash's voice was heard growling the darkness. Finally, silence, except for the fact that Skittles and his mother came back as silently as they could and turned out the lantern, going to sleep.

Nobeast wanted to get on Backlash's bad side because they had seen her in a very foul mood. And nobeast, nobeast, was going to be happy if they were victim to Backlash's bad temper. Everybeast had seen her slaying many a vermin who got on her bad side and those experiences had been enough.

'Now what?' Backlash thought as she drifted off into the world of dreams. 'I'm changing, I know it. I have a shorter temper and I don't hold back from yelling at a babe. What is wrong with me?' Then no more. Backlash was asleep.