As the door came creeping forwards, he tried his hardest to make himself invisible...not like that was possible anyways. But it gave him some hope. If whatever was coming couldn't see him, and seeing him in this darkness would have been difficult to begin with, well it couldn't hurt him, could it? Unfortunately his efforts were in vain, for the figure had brought a candle.

And what a figure it was! Taller than him, and broader, a beast built of fur and muscle. With wind-swept, and water-soaked clothes, and a cutlass hanging from a belt. His teeth were long and jagged and yellow, and his eye, for the other was hidden under a silken patch, glinted of dirty ice. His fur was dark brown, and was speckled with what looked like dried blood. His luscious green cape hung from his shoulders, and was the one thing he had that was not tarnished in some way. His long, worm-like tail was an oily grey, and it's tip rested on the handle of his cutlass. He held in one paw the candle, and in the other what looked like food.

"Glad you're awake. Here, have some grub." The rat tossed the bread at him, and his eager paws caught it mid-air. It turned out to be a loaf of bread, plain and stale, but to his hungry jaws, the greatest delicacy. While he tore into the loaf with savage zeal, the large rodent shut the door behind him, and set the candle down on the floor, before seating himself at the foot of the bed. For a while the only noise was the swaying of the room, and the ferret's hungry chewing.

Once the loaf had been devoured, the ferret found himself staring at his apparent savior. Who then spoke.

"What on earth where you doing with that load of bandits?"

"Er..." Lie! Think of something good. Blame someone else! But no excuse came to him and a moment later he found himself dumbly answering the question with one of his own. "What bandits?" The rat raised an eyebrow. For a moment there was something like cunning in his eye, but then it turned to concern.

"The cannibals, remember? I don't know what you were thinking of by running away. They would have eaten you!"

"Er... I-I don't remember." He admitted, almost pleadingly. Then a sudden fear swept over him. Why had he been running away? What had he done?

"Nothing?" The rat looked stunned.

The ferret shook his head weakly. "You wouldn't either if you got hit on your head as hard as me!" He snapped back defensively. He couldn't admit weakness to someone he had only just met.

This elicited a chuckle from the rodent.

"It's not funny! I could have been...scarred." He finished lamely.

"There's nothing wrong with a good scar little Whimper, it puts hair on your chest."

"Whimper?" His name hadn't been Whimper, it had never been whimper it had been fr...fr...fre..ferret? His name hadn't been ferret...but he couldn't remember being called Whimper...then again he couldn't really remember anything.

"You don't know anything do you?"

It hurt him to do it, but he shook his head in all honesty. The rat stood up, and left the candle where it was. "I'll be right back. Don't you move a muscle."

Matiya stepped back and vomited. He had done all he could for the stoat and even then he was not sure had done enough. Snow had helped stop the bloodflow, and he had found a needle amidst the vermin's clothes, with which he had delicately sewn the wounds closed. Somehow he doubted he would wake up, but the squirrel could now rest easy knowing that as a true abbeybeast he had done the most he could to help the poor creature...even if the poor creature would never live to thank him for it. Or thank him for it even if he did live. He was weak, and tired, but couldn't have held back the contents of his stomach even if he wanted to. There had been so much blood. He shivered. The stories they had all been raised on back at the Abbey had mentioned the blood of course...but he had never quite imagined it...the way it was.

"Right. It's going to get dark. And that means it's going to be colder, which means... fire! Yes! I just have to make a fire, and then I can rest a bit and try and find the others." And if I'm lucky then maybe they'll see the smoke and get to me first. Matiya did not consider that his friends weren't the only ones who could find him...

The rat was back faster than he had anticipated. In his paws he held a tome. He sat on the bed, taking up almost twice the space the ferret was, and threw it open at the first page. It was an old portrait of a ferret, a dagger in her paw and a grin on her face.

"Is that me?"

The rat burst out laughing. "Don't you know what's between your legs? No, haha, this is your mother."

The ferret cocked his head to the side. Mother... her name was Con... Con... Con something, and she had been a big rat... if he remembered right.

"It's not surprising you don't know her." He said, suddenly solemn. "She was taken... many years ago."

"Oh..." He was surprised by how little this hurt him. Surely he should have had some kind of lingering affection for her somewhere. All children did love their mothers, after all. Was he even a child, or just small? "How old am I?"

"You should be...about ten seasons, give or take?"

Huh, so he was a child...

"This is Mad-Eye Marik. Your father and my best mate." He didn't recognize the quite figure that stared back at him from the old tomb. He looked a lot more like the first ferret, than this muscled, silent, brute.

"Right." If this was his father's best mate that meant he was safe.

"But, where are my manners? I am Captain Trammun Clogg! Captain of the Black Death and your dearest matey!"

The ferret blinked. He had heard that name before. Good, something he was familiar with!

"Would you like to see where we are?"

The ferret nodded. Maybe he'd even find something that could remind him of himself. Or maybe the headache would just go away.

"Right then get up you landlubber, and I will show you." The rat said with a cheery laugh and a smack on the back that probably hurt more than intended.

Whimper did as he was told and followed the rat out the door and into the darkening sky, ignoring the fact that the name 'Whimper' still felt so strange to him...

The moment Connington had been dreading since they had found the mole came, and the mouse's heart steeled itself. He would know, at last, what had happened. They had not found any trace of Fret...which he decided was a good thing. The sight of his nephew's corpse would have broken him harder than a battle-axe.

The weasels they had tied, not because they were any threat, but rather because it seemed safer than letting them run around on a deck full of sharp weapons.

It had taken a lot of soup, and a warm fire to get Rosebrush back to some form of health. And now, as they made camp for the night, One Eye, the Log-a-Log and Jon Connington sat before her, ready to hear what she had to say.

"Oit wazz Frettie." She said after a long silence.

"No." Connington snapped. Nonononononononono! It was not Fret! It was not Fret! Fret was... he wasn't evil. Yes he was rude and snappy and selfish and...None of that made him evil!

"Oit wazz! Oi dunno whoi 'e don it but 'e did." She whined.

"Did what?" One-Eye pressed for answers. Connington didn't know how much more he could listen to.

"'E sold us to slayvers. At the Gurt Big Feeost, oi and the odders went to bring 'im back. And then we got captured coz Matiya didn't wont t'layve without 'im. And then we was travellering downroiver and they tied oz to a mast and dey were moin...and then dere was a foight and we wazz going to escape, and den Matiya didn't wont to layve widout Frettie and then...Then I dunno know wot 'appened. We were going t'go home but, b-b-but-"

She could go no further and burst into tears. Log-a-Log got up to comfort her. Connington, too, rose but he went the other direction.

It hurt. That was the only way to describe what it felt. Like somebeast cruel had decided he had nothing better to do but crush his insides. Fret, the silent little babe he had first found in Constance's arms. Fret, the dibbun that had caused no end of mischief back at the abbey. That had been natural...all dibbuns went through that stage... Fret, who had never expressed joy except when he had no choice but to. Fret who had snapped as a way of greeting. Fret... The ferret's face swam in his mind. He wondered what his nephew felt like now... Was he satisfied with his revenge? The children at Redwall had blamed him for practically everything. He had always denied it, even when he had been caught buried under the honeycakes... He had always said the others hated him...that they blamed him for everything because they didn't like him... Sometimes Connington put it down to him not wanting to disappoint Constance... but other times he was inclined to agree that his nephew was the scapegoat. The Skipper had almost run him through, and that had definitely not been Fret's fault!

But which was this? Fret wouldn't have sold his peers. He wasn't a vermin, and anyhow it wasn't like he knew any vermin to sell to. He had left the abbey walls once. He was too young to know how the world worked...

"Connington." One-Eye had followed him.

"It wasn't Fret's fault." The mouse repeated stubbornly, and believed the words entirely.

The hare raised his arms defensively. "Never said it was mate. But..."

"You're suggesting my nephew was behind all that bloodshed?" Connington snapped. Really he was surprised he and Fret didn't get along so well.

"No, I'm saying that well... the mole couldn't have been wrong about everything."

"There was a fight." The mouse allowed.

"This is serious. There are more lives at stake than just your nephews'."

"I know that!"

"And if she is telling the truth?"

Connington shook his head vehemently. "She is saying what she thinks is the truth. Fret is no vermin! And I know that!"

"And if he is?" The hare insisted.

Connington had no reply to that, the mouse turned away, breathing heavily. "He isn't. He just... isn't."

"But if he tries to stop us-"

"He is coming home. I will drag him back if I have to!" He ended the conversation there, and walked off. If what Rosebrush had said was true...he may very well have to.

Footnote: And Fret's latest issue is... amnesia. It was the most effective way to explore vermin nature from Fret's perspective. I think it was decided that he wants to go back, but the situation never lends itself to it. Now though he doesn't have any knowledge of Redwall, which means he will be... a bit less conflicted. The reason Trammun Clogg strikes Fret as familiar is because my OC is named after one of the vermin (arguably the funniest) in Martin the Warrior. Which Fret is familiar with because abbey history.

Now Rosebrush or Roseheart (I think her name varied a few times this story...) might be the most dislikable character in the story (for now), but given her situation I think it's unfair to be too harsh on her. She is at the end of the day, still a child, and children are prone to make mistakes (more so than other people, but it varies), and they tend to have a less insightful disposition. Which is why so far Matiya is the only guy who has a sense of how complicated Fret is.

Also the cover image is from Berserker88. As he put it 'artist's interpretation of Fret being woken up for the Feast.' I thought it fit with Fret's 'snappy' attitude and is also in Black and White, which is fitting.

Enjoy!