I'm Learning To Be Brave In My Beautiful Mistakes - part II

[Revel]

Revel yawned.

Nothing was happening. Nothing had been happening for a while now. It was almost enough to make her wish nothing would stop happening.

Her stomach was at ease, for the time being. Every so often it would flare up again, tightening as though she had eaten too many coconuts again. Off and on and off again. She wished they would just hurry up and decide if they were there or not. It was to the point where she had decided she could handle one or the other, but this constant teasing was infuriating; she could not concentrate at all.

Was it possible to have maybe baby stoats growing in her?

Tishka had woken up, and began to stumble about the place, knocking into the cot and various tools, until he finally tripped over Damask. Revel scooted over to the dazed otter and carefully took her headscarf back. Though he flinched and tried to cover his eyes, he soon adjusted to the light levels.

"Ribby sleep," he said, seeing Damask for the first time.

"Dunno," Revel said. "Might be dead."

She kicked Damask. To her surprise, the bird finally gave signs of life, fluttering a weak wing and groaning. She kicked him again, in hopes that would make his song start up properly.

"Grk," Damask said, opening an eye.

Revel came around to stand behind his head and leaned over, smiling at him upside-down.

"Wakey-wakey! I need a song." She patted her stomach. "Breakfast's been actin' up again."

As if on cue, it happened again. She gave a short bark of displeasure and sat down on the cot, wincing.

"W-what? No... can't sing..."

Revel pouted at this. Stupid bird, pretending to be in more pain than she was. "Chivvers! I don't want excuses. I want a song. Make it go away, like you do!"

The bird slumped back into unconsciousness. Revel waited until her stomach unclenched, then looked over at the wall of tools. Ah, there! A fine hoe, with a nice long blade. Taking it, she tested its weight for a moment.

"This'll do fine," she said quietly, tapping Damask's chest with the backside of the blade. The bird did not move. Revel growled and tapped harder. Damask coughed up a spurt of water, but nothing more. Fuming now, she took a good whack at his outstretched wing with the handle, but this only served to dent the tips of a few feathers.

This tirade greatly interested Tishka, who now stood beside Revel.

"Song?" he said hopefully.

"Ihn," Revel replied: no song.

Her stomach lurched again. Her blood thrummed. They were back, and she was angry. She didn't want them - they made her ugly! They made her so ugly that Venril ran away from her and had eyes only for Eliza, who wasn't even a stoat. It was so unfair, so terribly unfair!

And she could handle that, she could live with it, if only they just left her alone when she slept, if only they didn't steal her breath as they had stolen her body. If only the robin would sing them away, so they never existed, so she was never fat in the first place...

Revel spun around and swung the hoe into the wall of the hut, growling out her frustrations. It wasn't enough. She wanted to hit more things. She pulled the hoe out and hit the wall again, and then the cot, and the stone stove, and the floor, and Damask - no, not Damask, not the music; he was still alive. He was moving again, wakened by her fits. Yet she needed something, something soft and squishy and messy, something that would splurt like a coconut, to relieve her of it all.

So she hit Tishka, who was simply standing there, watching her as if it were all a game, with that stupid smile on his stupid woodlander face. The long flat of the blade cut deep into the young otter's chest - he fell with hardly more than a "gurk".

Revel tugged the hoe out, shook it off, and held it over Damask.

"Sing!" she hissed.

The robin had not been in position to see Tishka's fate, and was still woozy; all he saw was the bangle on Revel's wrist.

"Wait... that's mine..." A limp wing lifted to brush it.

"'s mine now, bird. An' I want a wicky song now!"

"No!" A final gurgle of water spilled from his beak, and he broke into a series of wheezing coughs. "Give it... 's for her. I'll... kill..."

"It makes me look pretty," Revel said, picking off some brown fur the bangle had collected and letting it fall away.

"No it doesn't!"

The stoat tilted her head and let the hoe fall away behind her.

"No? What d'you know. You're just a bird." She sniffed and turned away, even so. Unbidden tears crept around her eyes.

"No, it makes you look bloated and oafish! Now give it - " Damask coughed as the bangle landed on his chest. " - back."

Damask shuffled himself upright, picked the bangle up carefully with his beak, and slipped it back onto his leg. He caught sight of Tishka. For a long while, the hut was very quiet but for Revel's sniffling as she sat on the cot and rubbed her summer coat off her arms.

"I have a song," the robin said weakly.

"Oh! Good." Revel stood up, smiling again. "That's - "

She paused then, as if she, too, had just noticed Tishka's body. After a minute's thought, she selected a trowel from a hook on the wall and crouched in front of the otter. Damask's song began, warbling at first, but growing stronger with each line.

Daughter of nature, left now here alone.
No one for comfort, she is on her own.
Still, see it glimmer, faintly it does shine,
She holds it to her heart, this hope divine.

"Are you 'ungry, bird?" she asked quietly, sensing a pause in verse.

Damask's beak was open, but no sound came out.

"Well?"

"N-no."

The bird squeezed his eyes shut. Revel shrugged and turned back to the task at paw, using knife and trowel in conjunction to get to the good stuff.

It was sad. Tishka had been a nice woodlander. A Fritterik woodlander. Was there a word for that? She hadn't learned it.

But he was dead now, so there was no use crying over him, or letting him go to waste. Hadn't Rath wanted to try otter out with her? Then he'd gone and forgotten, and gotten lost in that cave. He'd joked about it, sometimes, during sessions with Venril, to make the sissy-skirt feel off-guard. Tishka had remained blissfully unaware of what Rath was talking about, but Revel had joined in with unrestrained glee over the prospect. But of course Baez had nosed in and disallowed any more of such talk, and sent Revel off to teach them how to fish...

"I don't remember tellin' you t'stop," she said, snapping her head around to glare at Damask.

The bird was staring at somebeast standing in the doorway.

"See ye got one," Greenfang said, nodding at Tishka's mostly-intact corpse. "Good fer ye, Crink. Very thorough. Gonna do th'bird next?"

"What d'you want?" Revel said, clenching her knife tight in one paw and reaching for the hoe again, idly wondering if maybe she should use the shovel instead.

"There's been a truce. Again." The weasel spat on the ground. "We're gonna tear down this hut fer ship's wood."

"A truce?" Damask said, eying the vermin hopefully; one wing raised to block Tishka from his side vision. "So, it's safe to go out again? Is every - ow!"

"This is my 'ut," Revel said, kicking Damask into silence. Her voice dropped dangerously low.

"It's a toolshed," Greenfang sneered. "Barely more'n a commode."

"You're not welcome 'ere, weasel. Or any of you," she added, pointing at the silhouettes waiting behind him. "This is - my 'ut."

She gasped, dropping the hoe, leaned against the wall. They were back again.

"Sing," she snarled, kicking dirt at Damask - but even as far as snarls went, it was more of a plea. The robin hopped out of range, keeping an eye on the vermin blocking the doorway.

Greenfang looked nervous.

"Yer not... not sick, are ye, Crink? Jiltsnout - she look sick t'ye?"

"Hard t'say," the rat said. "Maybe. 'Ey, isn't she that stoat, Greeny? Th'one th'Whirlwind was allus with?"

"Yeh."

The rat shouldered past Greenfang into the hut. Revel growled, baring her teeth, but didn't move from the wall. Jiltsnout placed something on the ground; a bundle of folded cloth. It smelled weird. There was blood all over it, different blood than Tishka's, and that strange dizzying smell that had accompanied Keane - that was it! It smelled like Keane, and a little like Rath, too. More like Rath than Keane.

And... gone again. She breathed.

"His coat," Damask said derisively, kicking the bundle open. "How lovely."

"Rath's coat?" Revel said, looking up at Greenfang. The weasel shrugged.

"None o' my concern."

"It was my idea," Jiltsnout said, puffing out his chest. "I thort, 'Well, th'Whirlwind's dead, an' so who gets 'is coat?' It don't fit barely anybeast, but Nivard sed 'e don't want it. So I goes, 'Well, wot about that stoat allus with him? Bein' 'is friend an' all.' So I guess it belongs t'ye now. Though," the rat added, grinning hugely, "we did empty th'pockets first. Ohoho."

Revel was quiet.

"Don't tell me," Damask said, glancing up at her. "You thought highly of the brute as well?"

"Get out," Revel said, turning away. It didn't need to be loud. Jiltsnout vanished before Greenfang could even straighten up, and the weasel stumped after him, muttering something unintelligible about the hut's wood.

Damask crept towards the doorway, watching Revel as if waiting for her permission. She did not look at him.

"Th'Whirlwind is dead?" Revel said, raising her head to stare at the wall in front of her. "Rath is - is dead?"

"Yes."

There was no further movement or talk from the stoat. Damask took his leave, without reprisal.

Hopping back to the rest of the village, his feathers ruffled in a shiver as a long, low scream sheared through the still desert air. It was followed by a cacophony of clattering, and unworldly thumping and thudding as the hut's roof practically shook itself off. It was still happening by the time Damask had hopped out of ear-shot.

It did not stop for some time.