A/N: Sorry for the delay! I'd like to say a huge thank-you to my beta, Kelaiah, whose help I don't think I could do without.
As always, reviews are more than welcome for an author focused on improvement such as me!
"Like my father's come to pass, twenty years has gone so fast. Wake me up when September ends." -Green Day
The midday sun had done nothing to melt the knee-deep snow that had accumulated on the grounds outside of the abbey, and consequently the earth was unyielding; Abbess Elize was grateful for the physical aptitude and work ethic of Foremole and his crew. The moles worked hard to have a rectangular hole of a beast's height and length deep within the snow-laden ground within half of an hour. She looked up from the gaping black mouth in the white ground just in time to see Skipper and his band hoisting a simple wooden create through the crowd; all the abbeybeasts respectfully made room for their path.
The Abbess cleared her throat as the otters laid down the casket within the hole before stepping back. It was now time for one of her least favorite responsibilities as Abbess. No matter how many times death visited the abbey, it never got any easier, no matter who it was who passed, no matter how long they had been at the abbey.
By a loose tradition, those who knew Lucas the most formed a semicircle facing the grave and abbess, while the rest of the abbey dwellers gathered behind. Some were standing on the abbey wall; it was also part of the tradition, to pay their respects to the departed. All eyes rested on the Abbess. The elderly mouse found it difficult to remember what she was to say while under both the oppressive silence that was interrupted only by sniffing in front of her, and under the gaze of her abbeybeasts. But she was not one to bow to pressure.
"We are here to remember Lucas, who left us peacefully last night. ...He chose a hermit's life, so many of us did not get to know this wonderful creature as well as I would have us, if I had another chance."
Elize paused, regarding the young stoat standing in their midst. His eyes were bloodshot.
"He leaves behind an adoptive son, but many of us here are his family as well. ...I myself knew Lucas when he was only a dibbun, every bit as lively and mischievous as the rest of them..."
The mouse continued, her voice weary but resolute. She executed the standard funereal rites with in iron constitution, but her words rang sincere in the ears of all those present.
"...and now Lucas has moved on to sunnier pastures, to quieter noontides... and more peaceful woodlands... though... he will always live on in the hearts of those who loved him."
A moment of silence, and the abbess called for those who knew the squirrel to deliver a eulogy. Brother James stepped forward, his usually grumpy face oddly softened in the winter daylight.
Micah watched and listened intently as the old mouse recounted his friendship with Lucas, and every honorable and noble trait of the squirrel. The words and stories soothed the young stoat, as if, only for a little while, his father lived in those words. But these words, too, came to pass, and James stepped back and approached Micah with a meaningful nod.
The old mouse had been loathe to pressure the young creature to say something, but Micah returned the nod; James had gotten him to understand the importance of it earlier.
The stoat stepped forward, hugging his cloak about him, snow crunching under his footpaws before he stood still, and took in all the gazes around him. And every planned phrase he had come up with, every word he wanted to say, turned to dust in his mouth. Nevertheless, the grieving creature summoned all of his will and began to speak.
"My-"
No words came after that.
Micah couldn't understand. He tried with all of his might, but it felt as if a string were drawn around his throat and pulled taut. Remembering the ease and eloquence with which he saw James and the Abbess speak, he furiously tried to choke out the words that sprang into his mind. There were so many things he wanted to say, so many things he wanted to share, so many, many things about his father...
It was useless though, and angry, helpless tears welled in his eyes as he failed to speak a word of the inspired eulogy that had come together, a eulogy embroidered in the most eloquent of prose he'd learned from his reading. But only unintelligible choking came out. Out of the corner of his eye, Micah became painfully aware that some of the abbey dwellers on the ramparts were averting their eyes. And of course they would; no doubt he made a pathetic sight.
Micah jolted as a warm, strong paw rested on his left shoulder, and he immediately understood what this meant: he'd failed. The stoat defiantly shrugged off the paw and redoubled his effort to speak, but once again, it was fruitless. The paw returned.
"It's alright, come on," Rugger told him in a hushed voice.
Micah finally relented, and nodded shamefully before the otter led him to the back of the semicircle of creatures. Rugger caught his gaze and tilted his head forward in a silent question. Are you alright? The stoat, unattuned to the subtleties of body language, looked back blankly until he pieced together the meaning of the otter's behavior.
Micah understood how pitiful he looked, and felt humiliated under the stares of the abbeybeasts. The proud creature resisted, but quickly succumbed to the maelstrom of confusion, grief, fear, shame, and guilt within him and wrapped his arms around his only friend, sobbing into the shoulder of the otter's shirt.
Rugger was at a loss. He was unsure of what to say or do, if anything; his own parents' deaths by plague was when he was a babe, and he always had his tribe of otters as family. But Micah had just lost the one and only family, and friend, that he'd ever had. So the young otter just embraced the stoat back, remembering a wisdom that the Skipper had given to him seasons before. If a beast comes to embrace you, let them be the first to let go.
The Abbess conspicuously continued, hoping to return the gazes of the congregation from the vulnerable and tormented creature.
"Clara, we have two visitors who need treatment direly."
The hogmaid's head snapped up from the crushing of herbs to meet the grim countenance of Brother James.
A pair of otters walked in, each supporting a skeletal mouse. Clara's analytical eyes instantly evaluated each aspect of their appearance: both mice were of a similar age, one male, one female. Their fur, both gray, was dirty and dull, and this, along with their obviously emaciated appearance, were clear indications of prolonged starvation.
"Brow, Rowana," the healer addressed the otters entering the infirmary with the mice, "place them on the beds, and gather spare clothes, fresh water, and tell the Friar to make nettle soup as quickly as possible, and bring it straight here."
The otters nodded, and, gently laying down the mice onto a pair of cots, hustled off to do the hogmaid's bidding.
Clara went to where the male mouse was laid, asking, "Are you injured? Either of you?"
The female mouse replied from her bed, "He can't speak. His... tongue's been cut out."
The hogmaid suppressed her initial surprise and disgust, as well as questions of what kind of past these creatures had fled from. She instead inspected the gaunt male, lifting his tattered excuse for clothing to check for any injuries that might need to take precedence. She found nothing dire until she removed the filthy cloth that had been tied around his footpaws with string, obviously for some sense of protection against the snow.
Clara hated herself for the immediate gasp that escaped her when she examined his feet; she'd just violated a basic principle of etiquette of bedside manner. She hastened to tell him what was wrong to avoid undue anxiety for him.
"You have two frostbitten claws, the smallest on each of your footpaws."
The male mouse looked up at her with widened eyes, obviously frightened.
"You'll be okay," the hogmaid said, trying her best to sound both reassuring and professional, "but I'll need to amputate them."
The male hesitated, staring at her with bleared eyesight before nodding slowly in tired acceptance. Clara then briefly interrogated the mousemaid and inspected her before deciding that the amputation was the most pressing priority.
As she gathered her instruments of surgery, she warned, "I will give you milk of poppy, but this will still be painful. Bite down on the wood that I give you, and don't move."
Brother James grimaced and turned away.