Disclaimer: I do not own Redwall
A/N: This story was originally written for and posted on my Tumblr blog, RedwallThoughts. The italics are taken from the first post I made musing about what might have happened if things had turned out differently in Taggerung. The non-italics are the story that I developed afterward.
Imagine if, while they're at Redwall, Grissoul tells Tagg that he originally came from Redwall, and about what happened to his father.
Some days after their arrival at Redwall, Grissoul sought out Tagg. She found him at the abbey pond, swimming with Skipper and his crew. Pulling him aside, she asked to speak with him. Tagg was confused, but agreed, walking with the old vixen down past the orchards to a quite area near the back of the abbey.
There Grissoul told him of the day he had come to the Juskarath. She told him of his father, and of her omen predicting where he would come from. When she was done, Tagg sat silent, gazing into a distance she could not see while he tried to make sense of the new knowledge.
Eventually he stood, bidding Grissoul wait before telling any of the abbeybeasts of his past. He wanted to think on the matter a while longer. Grissoul agreed and left.
She was fairly certain now who Tagg's family was. She had been taken aback by the face of the pretty Abbess when they first met, recalling unbidden the sight of Tagg's face before the tattoos were placed there. She could also see that Tagg bore the same eyes as thse of the otterwife, Filorn. Tagg had taken well to the two otters, which did not surprise Grissoul. She only hoped that the three could be happy with each other if or when Tagg told them of his origin.
Cregga came and sat beside her as she watched Abbess Mhera playing with the dibbuns.
"He knows now," was all the vixen had to say.
She had suspected for some time now that the big badger had guessed Tagg's heritage. Blind creatures could recognize others by different characteristics than sight, and Grissoul and already seen the badgermother's uncanny way of sensing which creatures stood near her wherever she went.
"Do you intend to tell them?" the badger asked.
Grissoul shook her head, allowing herself a moment of silence before answering.
"I think that he will tell the council himself once he has had time to think on what I told him."
Perhaps she should have felt afraid, sitting beside the ancient badger who knew that her clan had kidnapped one of the abbey's own. Yet she felt nothing but a strange sense of calm. No omens, good or bad, had come to her since she passed through the main gate, and for once she was glad of it.
Cregga sat beside the vixen, listening to the subtle sounds the old fox made as she thought. She had expected to feel rage. But sitting beside Grissoul, and having heard over the past few days of how difficult it had been to keep the clan together under Swaney Rath, she could not bring herself to anger. Grissoul had done what she could to ensure the survival of her clan, something Cregga could appreciate, and now the vixen had helped to bring the long-lost otter-cub home. She would not ask for more.
