Just Another Perfect Day

[Revel]

It was going to be fine. Everything. Everything was going to be fine.

The soup bubbled. She had found some flint and tinder, in all the mess. The only spices around were shredded pieces of amaranth. One of the searats had been kind enough to leave a flask of water outside the hut for her, which she used as the base after wetting her tongue. The meat was good.

Everything was... was going...

The hut stank. She'd done her best to clean it up, pushing the scattered tools back into a pile, putting the cot back against the wall, rolling the straw mat back out. The coat was spread across the cot, arranged with almost loving care. But she couldn't fix Tishka. He was everywhere, all over the floor, on the walls, in the dirt, on her dress, her fur - in the pot.

Everything was going to be fine...

Her eyes hurt. The strange hues of morning turned the desert beyond the doorway into a landscape out of nightmare. She hadn't slept more than a few minutes at a time, and she couldn't stop crying. Rath - Tishka - Venril - Eliza - Rath - Keane - Eliza - Zhipzi - Venril - Rath. It whirled constantly, the names and faces and smells of each beast, gone. Gone but not gone, ghosts in the sand. She wasn't forgetting them. Why couldn't she? They were gone...

Everything...

What would she call them when they came?

"Feh... so th'old weasel was tellin' truth, eh?"

Revel started so badly the trowel she was using as a ladle dropped into the pot, spraying her with the soup's contents. She yelped at the heat, and wiped her face with her blood-dried skirt as she reached for her knife.

Her wrist was pinned to the ground by a footpaw. She stared up the leg, past the woodlander-hide kilt, the fuzzy, scarred white chest, now yellow in the dim firelight from the stove. She stared into red-rimmed black eyes as they scanned the hut with interest, glimmered with mirth at the mess of otter, and then settled themselves on her, locking their gazes together.

"Remember me, wench?"

She tried to place him. The voice rang no bell, the face conjured no memory. She sniffed at him.

He smelled...

Empty and musty. Dry, rotten wood. Dirt and dust and sand. A little of grog, a whiff of coconut, rust and - oh, it was strong, overpowering. Such a coward. Not a whiff of blood on him, not a fleck of sweat but his own, and it was weak and oily, far worse than Venril's old scent.

Venril. Venril's sweat had been strong, full of fire and passion, and the blood in his clothes that one time - like a fantastic fog, it had swirled about him, drawing her in. Such a heady scent of dominance. There had been something like the last will of a life, holding onto his fur in quiet desperation, and power over it had been his. Not fear, but power.

There was no power here. There was no fear. There was just this stoat, and his whiskers half-missing.

"No," she said.

She missed Venril - Rath - Keane - Eliza - Tishka - Trpcic - no. Everything was going to be okay.

The stoat's other footpaw caught her in the chin, and would have sent her backwards if not for the weight - all of his weight - on her arm. Revel twisted sideways onto the floor, and whimpered as a tooth drooled out the side of her mouth.

"First Mate Nivard. Ye thought I was scum, dincher, wench? Thought ye were above me. But ye came around! Almost 'ad ye, back on the ship. Clever move, gettin' Cap'n ter put ye in th'brig, nice an' safe. Feh! But ye came around! Why? Why? What did ye want with me? Why'd you leave? I told ye to stay! It was safe there!"

He kicked her again, in the back, as she tried to push herself up. Her paws slid in a pool of Tishka's blood; something slimy gave way beneath her, and she fell hard.

"Ye ran away. With th'marten, aye, and all the woodlanders. Think yer a woodlander, wench? Got yer tail all busted up, bent like a squirrel? Thought I wos gonna kill ye, didjer? After I gave my word? Said I'd come back fer ye. Thought I'd lie?"

Kneeling, Nivard brushed Birch's hammer up and down her cheek and neck, as if petting her with it. Revel kept still, trying to keep her eye on it.

"So soft now... wot a lovely winter coat comin' in... I wanted ye. But ye ran away. Why?"

"E-E-Eliza... promised me a dress..." Her head felt numb, her tongue heavy. She spat blood, but not much. "I wanted t'be pretty for Ven - for you."

"This wreck?" Nivard took a fold of the dress between two claws and rubbed the fabric against itself. "This won't do fer me."

He seemed to notice her stomach for the first time. A slow, wicked smile twisted his muzzle. He looked at the hammer in his paws, then shoved it back into his belt as he stood up.

"Too easy..."

Turning around, he selected the shovel from the pile of tools. He grinned down at Revel.

"Ye wanna be pretty? Feh! First things first - ain't no maids a-milkin' ever been pretty twice!"

It hit once - Revel screamed, silent and breathless. He had hit her chest with the flat of the shovel, having misjudgied the length. Despite the pain, despite the agony rippling through her body, Revel held her paws up and grabbed at the shovel blade when it came around a second time. The impact broke through the flesh on her arm, but it she had succeeded in stopping it coming nearer her stomach. She grasped and pulled, yanking it out of Nivard's grasp. The male was surprised for a moment, then grinned wider.

"Feisty..."

She couldn't swing the shovel back at him in time, not from her position on the floor. He hooked his paw around her neck, the other one grabbing the shovel and tossing it away as if it were no more than a dead stick.

Revel's jaws snapped, but all she bit was dust. Her nose filled with it; her lungs ached for moisture. Nivard had turned her head, and was pressing her face into the floor. She heard a ripping sound, felt a draft across her back, and then the world was muffled. Her mouth was relieved but for a second before it was filled with cloth, and her nose covered, too.

Everything was going to be fine. She was sure of it.

"Not gonna be a lick-spittle," she could still hear the male stoat grunt, as if to himself. "I'm still First Mate, 's bloody right... They'll learn t'fear me again, on me oath! One wench at a time."

The struggle was brief, and not nearly so violent as anything before it. When Revel's kicking had stopped and she was finally unconscious, Nivard unwrapped the dress top from her head and laid it down over her like a blanket.

Then he ate some soup. It was better than anything Kirby had fed him.