A Merry Life And A Short One

[Plink]

There's the whole world out there for a lass like you, and I aim to have you live to see it.

And then that look, that gentle gleam in his eye, the soft upcurving of his dark snout?

When all this here's done, if it ain't no bother to you, I'd like it if you'd come live with me an' my family.

Plink's head buzzed and her chest ached as she stood with the wounded, watching the battle wind to an end. The slaves and mongooses had pushed the pirates back and met little resistance, now that Blade had set off from the harbor. One by one the pirate ships pushed off, rowing for the open sea with all they could muster. Soon they would all be gone.

And Plink would still be here, with Robert and Chak and Vera and, miraculously, Crue. It had been a shock, and then a pleasurable rush, to see the healer alive. Plink knew she was mere feet behind her now in the makeshift infirmary, tending to the most severe wounds. That was good, that was right.

But it was wrong that Plink was here, too.

She had failed to help the slaves. If it hadn't been for the mongooses, they would have been entirely on their own, because she was hiding in a crack from the beast she'd meant to use for a distraction. If it hadn't been for Vera coming to draw Maurick away, Plink might have died in that hole. If it hadn't been for Maurick, Plink would probably be aboard the Zephyr right now.

It was even worse to think about how effective Maurick had been at cutting beasts down. All through the corridors, Plink had dodged around parties of mongooses and pirates, and the sounds of rending flesh and cracking bones had announced Maurick's passing. Probably dozens of beasts had died at his beak and talons. So much death? and all because Plink had brought him here.

"Hey! If you aren't doing anything, why don't you help me dress this wound?"

Plink turned around to find Crue watching her while she pressed a bandage to a hare's leg. The patient was holding valiantly still, but the wound had bled all the way to her toes. Crue raised her eyebrows, waiting.

"Are your paws clean?"

The question gave Plink a jolt. "N-no. They ain't."

"Then only touch this part of the gauze. See? Clear of the wound. Hold it while I bind it in place."

Plink crouched down and did as Crue said, but she couldn't look at the hare. Her eyes flitted around, finally settling on the hat the healer was wearing. It was distinctive, different from any other hat Plink had ever seen. She'd recognized it at once, but hadn't wanted to think about what it meant that it was on Crue's head and not?

"Where's Tooley?" The words came out faint, but the healer was leaning very close.

Crue remained focused on her task and it was a long moment before she spoke, but Plink didn't like the creases that formed around the healer's eyes. She swallowed hard, but the thickness in her throat didn't go away.

"He fell," Crue said at last. "Saving me."

Plink felt like the stone under her paws had dropped away and she was dropping right with it. Her friend was dead, and suddenly all of his annoying traits fell away and the good he had done for her joined with the wrongs she had done to him and together it all rose up in a drowning tide.

"He was very brave," Crue was saying. "I would be dead if it weren't for him."

Plink hardly heard. The last words she had said to him had been so cruel? She had called him an idiot. She'd said he was useless. He had saved her life that day when Maurick had them, and she had repaid him by turning her back on him.

Crue waved her away from the bandage as she secured it and Plink sat back, digging her paw in her pocket to squeeze the bag of coins. She had meant to give it back to him. Maybe even apologize right, too.

"Buck up now, little rat-chappess. Your friend was a right hero, donchaknow!"

Plink looked at the chipper patient and stared at the long scar down one side of her muzzle. She remembered this hare from the sinking of the Silver Maiden. This was the same hare who had been unconscious, and Plink had stood over her with a dirk, trying to decide whether to test the blade by cutting her throat.

Presently, the hare waggled her ears and quirked a brow. "Not the talkative sort, I gather? Bally good form! Can't abide a gabber, myself. Strong an' silent type, that's the berries, wot wot!"

Plink scrambled to her footpaws and hurried from the infirmary. Crue shouted something behind her, but her voice was easy to ignore in the clamor of the fading battle. All but a few pirate ships had launched now, the Remorseless Lady and the Deathblow slowest among them. They were all leaving.

And they were leaving Plink behind.

She didn't belong here. She wasn't a hero like Tooley. She wasn't a penitent goodbeast like Chak. She couldn't even live peacefully amongst goodbeasts like Vera could.

Plink was a backstabber and a liar and a sneak. She was a rat. It was ludicrous to hope she could live with a family of kind hedgehogs. She'd only muck it up and make them sorry they ever knew her.

No, Plink belonged with her own people. And right now, her people were in trouble.

Groups of Waverunners were boarding the remaining small craft and making to follow the fleeing pirates. They were even readying the Phantom for pursuit. The massive Deathblow was only now beginning to pick up any speed, and it wasn't quite halfway to the exit.

Plink set off at a sprint for the footpath around the harbor.

Dampaw paused to lay her head back against the tree and the furrow between her brows deepened. She drew some heavy breaths, then pressed on. "An' when your da finally won, an' Colonel Bristleworth was kneelin' before him an' all the beasts of their crews who'd gathered to watch, what d'you think your da did then?"

Plink ground her thumbclaw deep into the petalled center of the dandelion, staining her paws with yellow juice. "He chopped the devil's head off."

"No," Dampaw said gently, finally opening her watery eyes. "Bristleworth yielded, an' yer da had mercy on him. He made those Waverunners all swear an oath to never kill another pirate, then he sent 'em ashore in their longboats while he scuttled their ship in case they decided to break their oath."

"He shoulda killed 'em all. They wouldn't've gone huntin' any pirates at all, then."

"That's true? But your da was smart. He was the kind of pirate who knew he didn't need to kill everybeast in his path to call the fight a victory." Dampaw smiled faintly. "There're all kinds of ways to win, my little buccaneer. The easy way nearly always costs the most. But if yer smart an' brave, you can always do right in yer own way."

Plink reached the hidden curtain just as the Deathblow drew abreast. She peered up the side of the ship, and saw a few beasts looking back at her. One of them had the boxy, wide ears of a cat.

As the Deathblow shipped oars and coasted through the gap, Plink held up one paw. Captain Burnet, after a pause, saluted in return.

Then, Plink shoved the curtain aside and threw herself against the lever. It wouldn't budge. She tried pushing and pulling, but it was so tall that it was difficult to get a good angle on it. Finally, she yanked off her jacket and tied one sleeve to the top of the lever, hauling the other over her shoulder until, finally, with a massive groan and a fierce rip, Plink tumbled forward. Over the ratcheting of the chain rising up across the mouth of the harbor, she barely heard the voice of the beast who had come up behind her.

"What have you done?" Vera asked faintly, then louder. "What have you-?"

Her snout twitched at the same moment Plink's did. A cloud of fox scent washed past them both. Plink's jacket had torn apart under the strain, and the hidden pocket had loosened, allowing the vial to slip free and shatter on the stone.

Vera looked at the vial, then at Plink, and it was clear from the look on her face that she was coming to a terrible conclusion.

"You!"

Confused and alarmed, Plink cringed back on the floor.

"You're the thief they were looking for!" Vera barked. "You're the one who made the treasure room smell like a fox!"

"So what!" Plink shoved herself up the wall, scowling.

Vera stabbed one claw at the shattered vial. "So I got blamed for what you did! I got tortured because of you! This is your fault!"

"I didn't-!"

But Plink fell silent when Vera yanked the makeshift bandage off her paw and revealed the drying blood, the raw, carved-down clawbeds. It hadn't occurred to her that somebeast might get hurt by her efforts to conceal her theft, and now, as she stared at the consequence Vera had born for her crime, Plink felt sick.

Without a word, she turned away and dropped her eyes to the torn remnants of her jacket. Paws shaking, she methodically untied the sleeve from the lever and began gathering the objects that had scattered into a snug bundle. She avoided touching the shards of vial.

"How could you?" Vera said behind her, aghast. "Plink! How could you do this to me?"

Plink pulled the knot tight and stilled. Then she glared back over her shoulder. "It was an accident. I was stupid an' I didn't think about anythin' but savin' my own tail." She stood up, bundle resting against her hip. "Don't worry," she spat. "It ain't gonna happen again."

Before Vera could respond, Plink turned and hopped off the rock ledge, dropping into the water of the harbor. She kicked hard and held her bundle over her head, trying to keep it from the worst of the water, and emerged with salt burning her eyes and tender nose. Then, biting solidly into the cloth to hold it above the water, Plink swam.

It wasn't pretty and smooth like when Chak swam, but it took her steadily under the dripping chain and out into the open waves of the cove. Plink squinted against the brilliant daylight and, to her surprise and delight, spied a massive ship with its oars still in the water. With a new surge of energy, the rat swam out to the Deathblow and mounted the rope somebeast lowered for her. She nearly lost her grip when the crew above began hoisting her up, feeling warmer than the afternoon sun could account for.

At last, Plink reached the rail and hoisted herself over to the sound of Captain Burnet's casual orders. "Take us to sea, Mister Uleng. I want this ship caught up with the Zephyr before nightfall."

The pine marten nodded and spun around shouting at the top of his lungs. "Right yew lilly-livered bilge-baskin' flea-flickers! Shore leave's over! Get back ter work!"

He went on, but Plink was no longer listening. She was peering up at Captain Burnet, who approached with her paws joined behind her and an unreadable look on her face.

"You waited... fer me, Cap'n?"

Burnet gave her whiskers a twitch. "Are you hoping that I've grown fond of you?"

Plink knew the foolishness of such a hope without needing to be told. Still, sodden and raw at heart, she dropped her eyes to the deck and the puddles that had rolled off her. "No, Cap'n."

"Good. Tell me, why do you think I delayed my departure? Was I just that grateful for your quick thinking with the chain?"

Plink licked her lips and shrugged sourly. "You want me fer somethin'. Cuz I owe you fer not tellin' Blade about-"

Vera's injured paw flashed behind her eyes. Maurick, bloody and murderous and dead. The look on Tooley's face, the last time she had seen him.

"-what I did."

A different paw, soft and heavy as sleep, came down on Plink's shoulder. Burnet was smiling at her. "Smart little rat. You're right. I have a very special job for you."

With irresistible force, Burnet guided Plink to the stern railing. The crew had hoisted the towering sails up all three masts and the Deathblow was surging forward in the steady wind outside of the cove. Peering out on their wake, Plink could see that they had already passed a number of smaller vessels. There was no sign of pursuit, and the island filled the horizon with dazzling green and sun-warmed stone. It might have looked beautiful, if Plink hadn't known what had happened there.

And yet, it pained her to leave that place behind.

Burnet peered off into the distance for a moment, then looked sideways at Plink. Her voice was low, and beyond the two of them, it was lost in the wind. "When we catch up to Blade, you'll go aboard his vessel and do as you always do. Run his orders, fetch his grog. You'll be his creature, as you have been all this time." Her paw flexed on Plink's shoulder. "But in secret, you will be mine. You will tell me everything Blade knows. And when I give you an order, you will do exactly as I say. Do you understand?"

"Y-yes, Cap'n." Plink dared not blink or look away as Burnet assessed her expression. At last, the wildcat spoke.

"Do you know what Petre told me?" Burnet watched her through slitted eyes, her whiskers twitching slightly upward. "He said your mother was an actual mouse. A gross exaggeration, no doubt, but interesting none the less."

Plink's ears scorched with the shock of the insult and she couldn't hold back a mutinous look. She shrugged off Burnet's paw. "My ma wasn't any mouse."

"Do you know the real difference between mice and rats?" Burnet stepped closer, forcing Plink to step back and crane her neck to look up at her. "Mice are just as cowardly, just as small, but every once in a while, one of them does something heroic and the rest of them just won't let it go." She narrowed her eyes. "When a rat tries to be a hero, it never ends well. Best you remember that."

Plink stared up at her, then startled as Burnet's paw settled back on her shoulder.

"I don't know where your loyalties lie, and I couldn't care less. Play my game to my satisfaction, Miss Plink, and I may very well make you my lieutenant one day." Her claws slid out, tearing easily through the worn fabric of Plink's shirt. "But if you cross me... well, that nickname the rabble have given you will become quite literal."

Burnet paused meaningfully, then withdrew her claws and turned to oversee the workings of her crew, leaving Plink stunned and shaken. "What nickname?" she finally asked.

"You haven't heard?" The wildcat peered back over her shoulder, smirking. "They've started calling you the Halfrat."