Details in the Fabric

[Gashrock]

It felt good to be armed and, if not exactly dangerous, several times more formidable than she had been just waiting for Blackbriar to cut her free. No?Zevka. While she'd hardly befriended the pine marten, somewhere in their captivity they'd progressed to a mutually first name basis.

So, it was Zevka who replaced her saber by her side. Gashrock, for her part, was able to catch her breath and test the weight of the dagger in her paw. ?Ain't mine,? she announced, ?but it'll do.?

?Why's et's nae yers?? asked Fern, still bloodied and flecked with sweat from her battle with the moles and the subsequent run.

?On account of, mine was sort of beat-up on this side, see. This one's cack-handed. Well it ain't, it's the other cack-handed...ah, no matter.?

?Well, then,? said Istvan. ?We'll need to be retracing our steps.?

?Aye, thank you,? said Gashrock. ?Just?wait a tick. Summat I need to find.?

?Wot? Summat ye need tae find? We are nae goin' back tae find yer dagger!? said Fern.

?No we ain't! That can rust in these clarty holes, I reckon. No, er, Zevka and I saw a message.?

?Gashrock,? Zevka amended, ?saw a piece of paper??

?Get delivered real uh-fisshel like. Between a couple of guards in Carrig outfits. Moles! It ain't right.? All right, not all of them were in Carrig outfits, one of them had come along with a headdress of feathers. The point stood.

"Ach, Gashrock, we ain't hangin' aboot 'ere fer a blasted piece o' paper, Carrig-wotsit moles or no! We came tae git ye oot, this isnae wot we're here fer!"

?No we ain't,? Gashrock agreed once more, ?but I ain't showin' up in Carrigul, just to find they've all traded places and everything's built out of hollowed-out mole dirt. C'mon, won't be long.?

?Gashrock,? said Zevka, ?This is not a script. Not everything is a clue.?

?You owe me one. We'll make it quick.?

?Do you even know where you're going??

?It'll be right back behind where they kept us,? said Gashrock. ?Or, thay-ruh-bouts.?

?And could you not have...identified this while you were escaping?? Istvan pressed.

Fern limped forward, as well, making sure everyone heard her opinion. ?Zevka, yer not goin' back doon there agin. Ah dinnae fancy havin' tae pull off this thing a second time, ye ken!?

Zevka flashed the otter a combination of a smile and a grimace. ?I'm not looking forward to it either, but somebeast needs to keep an eye on Gashrock. Don't worry, though, if things get too bad, I will drag her back here kicking and screaming, if need be.?

Gashrock gave Zevka a grateful smile before turning her attention back to Istvan. ?It'll be easier to haul out of here than a ruddy molebrat.? She glared at Nyika and the squirming babe that clung to her paw. ?And make less of a mess.? All right, maybe that was being unfair on the molebabe. Its monosyllabic grunts probably rhymed better than Nyika's excuse of an incantation. Though it would have been worth it, to really see Cookie again...

?It would be a poor repayment of our time,? Istvan went on, ?if you need us to rescue you once more.?

?Look, iffen it ain't there, we'll come right on back, ain't gonna hunt around.?

?I cannot forbid you, you're not in my employ??

?Ah, confound it, good enough for me.?

She rushed back along the nearest structurally-intact tunnel, and Zevka followed along as they retraced their footsteps?the dirt being somewhat more difficult than the snow, but far easier than normal terrain, to spot pawprints in. Sure enough, after a few slow twists, they spotted a molemaid, and a piece of parchment curled up on a ledge made of soil.

Gashrock jumped for it, testing the altitude. Not quite. She landed. The mole turned.

?Escapin' prisoners!? she bellowed. Well. There was somebeast that everybeast could agree was behind the times.

Gashrock jumped again,  that time managing to topple the parchment from the ledge; it landed between her footpaw and that of the mole. They jostled and, before either could pick it up, stood each with one paw on it, careful not to step backwards and rip it entirely.

Zevka approached, saber at the ready. ?Give over.?

The mole grunted. ?Oo ur? An' why??

?On account of we're armed, and you ain't,? said Gashrock. It was hardly a fair fight. There'd be no sense in attacking the mole, on those terms. Wasn't that right? Even the moles had never killed them, for whatever reason. Disarmed them, yes, but were they just planning to leave them in the cell? She tried to guess what Istvan would have made of just attacking then and there. A potentially violent act, yes, but...needlessly so.

She wasn't sure if she understood him. She wasn't sure if she could. And yet, everything did fit together, in his mind. Truths were truths. They didn't pass out of style. All he really needed was a way to organize his ideas, pass them down.

Gashrock made a mental note to herself to suggest ballad meter.

And then the mole was stepping backwards, allowing Gashrock to pluck the paper up from the floor. She squinted, trying to make out the shape on the bottom. But before she could take it in, the mole was reaching for something on the ledge, obscured under the architecture of dirt. Then she'd slashed forward, slicing Gashrock's weak arm. As Zevka rushed forwards indignantly, Gashrock lurched backwards, in time to hurl the letter back down the corridor with her good arm?let some fool molebeast pick it up, going through the two of them!

No fool molebeast dared. Indeed, as Gashrock stumbled to the side of the passage, bracing herself, Zevka charged onwards, whirling her saber and slicing the mole's throat.

?So much for that'un,? Gashrock muttered, the pain in her arm having more than just cause to flare up again. She couldn't even bring herself to muster a ?good riddance.? Riddance wasn't good. Ever, really. A simple enough rule?you could always just as soon turn something into patches, saving ever smaller scraps, but never throwing it all away.

?Look what she did to you!? Zevka jumped, recoiling from a wound dripping rather more copiously than the saber. Fake blood was all well and good to spread out consistently, every furspot the same as the next, but the reality was stranger. Pricking her finger could be inconsequential, but just a single cut in a vulnerable position...well, efficiency was sort of the principle of the thing.

All the same, she could still walk, and she could still see. ?Let's go get that letter.?

?I'll get it, hold on. Please don't tell me that was your dagger,? Zevka said, as she hustled and Gashrock staggered to where the message had fallen. It felt like a long distance. Or was that just how far she'd thrown it?

?Told you it ain't. Mine's cack-handed. Remember? Here, now...?

?Gashrock, you're bleeding on the letter.?

?Might be. Would be an imp-rovement to their spellin', ain't got no dots on the is or owt.? She tried to tear off a strip of fabric from her robes, but her hand faltered.

?What are you doing??

?Tryin' to tie this off, but...? She'd seen the concern flash in Zevka's eyes, her reach for her saber to fashion a cloth that would serve, but there would be no point if there was no time. ?Skip to the end, now?what? Just to find who wrote it.?

?Finish the job, then we'll talk of provisions.? Zevka read.

Gashrock peered over, stumbling low to glimpse the paper through the dim light. A picture of a badger. ?That's the...seal of Yew. Innit?? That was one of the trumped-up bits of landlubbing life she'd never quite understood. Most of them didn't even know what a proper Seafolk looked like.

?Of Yew? Don't worry about that.? Zevka offered Gashrock her arm. ?We'll have to find a way to tell the guards. It's not going to be easy for them at all...but we'll figure that out later. First let's get you out of here.?

?Let's get out of...these ruddy old caves...and get to Carrigul. Don't trust...? They were walking forward, but to Gashrock's unsteady pace the caves looked like they could have given way again. They were smelly, crumbling apart even as she passed through. Pitching up and down. She could have gone to sea, for that...

?Gashrock?? Zevka must have ripped off a bandage, already soaked through.

?Told you...?

?Ssh, we'll deal with Yew later.?

?No. Told you, you owed me. Take the message, let them see...and we're square.?