RedVenture 5: the mirage files

[Revel]

I was going to include this scene in a future post, but as it relies on Venril being alive and Birch and Eliza not being in a life-threatening gladiator battle, I've had to cut it. But that is no reason why I can't still share it with you!  ;D

Part 2 will be on its way soon.

* * * * * *

There was a sense of peace in the hut. Zhipzi was humming quietly to herself as she stitched up Revel's dress a second time. The pile of infants on the cot was heaving gently. Revel lay stretched out in the sunbeam falling through the doorway, trying to get as much warmth on her bare stomach as she could after the long cold night.

Suddenly, the stoat sat up.

"I'm 'ungry," she announced. "Hrmph. Why'd Venril 'ave t'go an' hide all th'meat... Stupid 'edgehog, thinkin' I can just eat bread! Zhipzi, 'm gonna go find somethin' to eat."

"Okkidoke," the weasel said, not looking up.

Revel threw on Keane's coat and pocketed her knife. She stretched hugely and smiled at the collection of mustelids ignoring her.

"I'll be back!"

A few paces away from the hut, she stopped. A sudden pang told her to go back, to curl around her kits - but then another pang in her stomach told her to go on, past the amaranth field and into the vermin camp in the palm grove. Kirby would have something simmering, even if it was probably horrible porridge again. Maybe they'd gotten smart with the dead woodlanders from the battle earlier...

Revel ploughed on ahead through the tall grasses. She was halted early on by a rock of some sort, stubbing her toeclaws on it. Hopping around and cursing, she slipped on something wet and fell onto a startling discovery; hidden amongst the amaranth lay a bloody mess of a stoat, his stomach torn wide open. His entrails were nowhere to be found, probably lost elsewhere in the field. Revel noticed the kilt of pelts, and laughed.

Served him right!

Rolling off him, she nursed her footpaw for a moment, before grabbing the rock. Which turned out to be a hammer.

She moved on then, smiling all the wider for her sudden fortune. Venril hadn't been lying! Nivard really was gone... for good. She decided she would thank him before getting food. Maybe she could make him a nice meal! He would like that. Maybe she could find Damask to sing while they ate. There could be candles and napkins, like the woodlanders had!

Food was the way to a male's heart, not pretty... whatever it was that Eliza had that was pretty. It hadn't been her face, and it wasn't her dress, so what was it that captured Venril's eye? Eliza had never cooked anything for him. It didn't make sense.

Nobeast noticed her in the vermin camp. Wrapped up in Keane's bloody coat, she looked just like any other tired stoat who hadn't gotten enough rest from the battle.

She asked a ferret if they had seen Venril, and was pointed to the edge of the grove, where she could see the stoat was talking with Eliza.

"Stupid beast!" she hissed. "What's so pretty about her?"

"I wouldn't mind a tug o' that tail, if ye know what I mean!" the ferret said, grinning and elbowing Revel.

She narrowed her eyes at the tail in the distance. Even from here, she could see it was fluffy and shiny. Her own tail, in comparison...

She'd tried to keep it looking nice. But she'd been so busy, with her kits and everything. It was dusty, and crinked, and there was a bit of stringy red something from Nivard's corpse hanging off the tip. And it wasn't fluffy barely at all. It was just a regular boring stoat tail, the kind that Venril already had. Why would he want her tail, when his was better?

Revel growled louder, at the sight of Birch coming out from the woodlander's collection of huts. The squirrel's step was jaunty, the tune she was whistling, infectious. She stopped near the two and said something to Venril, who went off towards the woodlander huts. Birch and Eliza stayed near the edge of the grove, apparently trading scathing insults.

Revel stomped off towards them. A plan was forming...

[Revel]

*yawn* Here's part 2! Earlier than I expected. Maybe now this scene is out of my head I can sleep.  :P

Bellsy! You should share that scene you wrote up too!

* * * * * *

"Oi! Birch! 'Ey! Eliza, stop 'er!"

The pine marten's face squeezed into an expression of major internal struggle, before her footpaw shot out and tripped up the fleeing squirrel.

"Just so you know," Eliza said, "I did that because I wanted to trip her, not because I was helping you."

"Fine," Revel said. "Birch! Stop crawlin' away, you coward."

"Don't bite me!" Birch wailed.

"You taste awful anyhow!" Revel exploded. "Shurrap! I foun' your 'ammer."

It was record-breaking, the speed in which Birch was suddenly on up on her footpaws, grasping Revel's coat lapels.

"Where!?"

"Nivard 'ad it," Revel said. "It's back near my 'ut. I can show you!"

Eliza shook her head as the pair scampered off. Apparently Birch had the common sense of a frog when it came to her hammer. Revel was a terrible liar.

* * * * * *

"I don't see it," Birch sulked, sifting through the amaranth grasses.

"Keep lookin'! He threw it in there somewhere."

Revel waited by the edge of the field, until the squirrel was tail-deep into the grasses. Then she pulled the knife from her coat pocket and approached the fluffy extremity. She took hold of it with one paw, and with her tongue sticking out in concentration, began to saw.

Birch screamed and whirled around, throwing everything out of order. The knife tumbled away.

"What are you doing? You crazy beast! Did you try to bite me again?"

"Look!" Revel cried, pulling the hammer out of a coat pocket. "I found it!"

"Why was it in there? You had it the whole time?! Give that to me!"

The squirrel's expression turned to horror as Revel gave her her hammer as quickly as possible.

Clonk!

"Shoulda just done that first, I s'pose," Revel mumbled, dragging the squirrel out of the field and across the short stretch of sand back to her hut.

Revel poked her head through the doorway.

"They bein' okay?" she asked.

Zhipzi nodded, still working on the dress. Revel shrugged the coat off and hung it on the end of the cot. She brushed one paw along the kits' backs, then turned to Zhipzi.

"I need your sword. My knife's not sharp enough."

"Okkidoke."

Zhipzi pointed to where she'd leaned Deadtail's sword against the wall. Revel took it and went outside.

She came back a moment later, and wagged Birch's tail under Zhipzi's nose. The weasel, confused, put aside her sewing and looked up.

"I want you," Revel explained, dropping the tail and her headscarf into Zhipzi's lap and turning around to display her own crinked tail, "to tie this to my tail so I can be pretty like Eliza." She craned her neck around and grinned down at Zhipzi. "It's fluffier!"

"Okki...doke?"

* * * * * *

Then there was the question of just what to do with Birch. The squirrel was still alive, which ruled out any possible meals being made of her. But she was clearly wounded and unconscious, and that state was not one Revel was willing to overlook so quickly. It was a rare and very peaceful moment of time that the squirrel was not crowing about her hammer.

Dragging the squirrel into the hut and leaning her up against the wall where Tishka had died, Revel came to a suitable conclusion. At least, it sounded good in her head.

"I don't think this is workin'," she admitted.

"Squiddle ihn vikvi," Zhipzi nodded. She tapped at Revel's stomach. "They wan' eat vikvi-chip."

Revel sighed and sat on the edge of the cot, chin in her paws.

"I don't unnerstand it. H'come they're not eatin' her? How else are they gonna learn t'hunt?"

"Ihn mivik," Zhipzi said, baring her teeth. "Grow mivik when pratcha. Pritter vikvi - ihn mivik."

"Ah," Revel said.

Birch began to giggle in her sleep.

* * * * * *

Her kits safely asleep again, and properly fed, Revel made another excursion to find food. After she showed Venril hew new tail of course.

This time the vermin of the grove gave her a wide berth, and strange stares. She waggled her hips at them, swishing her tail back and forth as best she could given the weight of her new attachment. There was a second of lag as Birch's tail fought against the air to keep in time with Revel's own.

Venril, apparently done with whatever the woodlanders had wanted from him, had returned to the vermin camp to check on Eliza, and there Revel foudn the two of them warming up by a fire.

"Look!" Revel bellowed, storming up to them. She practically waggled her hindquarters in Venril's face. "I have a new tail! Isn't it so much better than scarface's? Look, it's nice an' brown an' fuzzy an' poofy an' - 'ey! Come back 'ere! VENRIL! 'm not done showin' you my new tail!"

Eliza, meanwhile, couldn't decide whether to laugh herself silly or throw up. Revel glared at her and stomped off.

"GREENFANG! Come lookit my tail!"

"Wouldn't if you paid me!" came the weasel's yell from across the darkening palm grove.

[Cairn Destop]

Ah yes, the old "out take" file.  Can remember many such snippets when I was in QB-2.  Either the story moved too far along for that great episode or the character you needed had just been voted out by the evil audience.  Thanks for giving the readers a view. 

[Bellona Littlebrush]

Right. Well, these two scenes were a bit of comic relief that just didn't fit into the story well. They're both flashbacks with Freyr. The first one was slated originally as a possible insert after Revel's kits were born. It was to explain why Bell, at her age and with a loving husband, had no dibbuns of her own running about, attacking baby stoats with toy dirks. The second scene was a bit of silly non-sense to explain how Freyr and Bell each brought 'special' talents to their relationship.

-----


?We?ve talked about this, Freyr, and I already told you: not until Nashald's dealt with,? Bell intoned, drying a dish and setting it aside.

?But?Bells!? Freyr pleaded. ?Can?t you imagine a little dormouse running about? A little Bell to carry on the warrior family tradition??

?My father was a carpenter; my mother was a baker; my grandfather was an apothecary; my??

?The new warrior family tradition,? he tried. Bell stared at him impassively and set aside another dish. ??It could be ages before Nashald?s gone!? Freyr exploded. ?And,? he paused, whiskers twitching in consternation as he thought over his next words carefully, ?and you?re growing more beautiful each passing season.?

Code. Bell hated it when Freyr tried to be clever with his words because he was never quite clever enough -- not with her, anyway.

?I?m still ?ugly? enough to know we have time,? the female growled, turning to the side to savage an innocent cup with her towel. ?This conversation is over. Now.?

Freyr slouched away, lips drawn down, but ears jutted forward aggressively. Bell gave a sigh of long-suffering as she watched him slink off to his favorite ?I?m miffed? activity: Sailpaw sniping. To be fair, the squirrel had a similar hobby when Bell had rebuffed him: Freyr sniping. The dormouse rolled her eyes.

Males.

She?d once caught them comparing tails and nearly suffered the most pathetic death she could think of: choking on a canteen of water.

?Mine?s bigger, laddie,? Sailpaw had explained, stroking his thick brush. ?Allus will be, aye? ?Cause I?m a squirrel an? there?s no? a creedure soo well endowed as oos!?

?Hmph!? Freyr snorted. ?It?s not about size, friend, it?s about length compared to body weight. You?re about as well-endowed as a hedgepig when it comes to that.?

~ = ~ = ~

?Bells, have you ever actually cooked before? for other creatures?? Freyr asked, poking at the charred remains of what might have been a mushroom and leek pie. He narrowly avoided a cuff.

?See if you can do better,? Bell challenged.

They had a three course dinner cooked to perfection the next night. Bell stopped burning things and calling them food.

-----

?Freyr, have you ever chopped firewood before?? Bell asked, eyeing the uneven splinters her husband tossed moodily onto the stack near the door.

?See if you can do better,? Freyr challenged.

She brought home four bundles of neatly chopped logs the next day. Freyr stopped hacking at chunks of trees and calling the resultant smaller chunks ?quarters?.

[Damask the Minstrel]

So cute! *huggles a Freyr*

My little mousey clone. Surly and pouty and artsy, just like Dammy. Just, you know, obviously with better endowments in some departments.