A Drabble

[Rousseau]

Hello everyone, Rousseau here, I've been out of town for the last three days with little internet, and on the seven hour car ride back home, I started writing and ended up with a little drabble of Alder Flint's character. There were a few people over in the reveal thread who were interested in reading more about Alder, so I figured I'd put it up in a separate thread as I didn't know whether or not it would fit the formula for the RP thread (I've never really understood how to RP to be honest -.- ) But yeah, I figured I'd post it just because I'd probably end up rewriting it for the RP thread anyway.

-------

Forest Fires

?You?re destined t? start a fire everywhere ya go, Alder Flint,? a wise beast once said to the mouse. ?Every place ya step, everything your paws touch, burns in the end. And one o? these days, it?s gonna be you who?s the one gettin? burned.?

It had taken some seasons for Alder to realize, but through his travels across Mossflower, peddling his wares from town to town without ever looking back, he finally understood what his father had meant. The blaze of a forest fire had no care for what it burned; it never looked back at the destruction it caused in its wake. And neither did he, beasts always told him. Alder Flint. The mouse felt his name was appropriate: a tree and a flint, he was a forest fire waiting to happen, waiting to burn and not look back at the beasts he hurt in the process.

Alder paced through the snow, the tin flask he kept on a clamp on his belt making a clink sound with every step. But he wasn?t a forest fire, and, with every chink of his flask, the mouse continued to look back to the wrong he had done. But it didn?t matter, the burning feeling of the drink washing down his throat always seemed to help him forget what was burning just behind him, and though he always looked back to the beasts he wronged in order to fill it, he could always make himself forget in the end.

So why couldn?t he now?

Alder followed behind the merchant caravan he was supposed to have been a part of as it made its way through the mountains along a particularly precarious-looking cliff towards the mysterious town of Carrigul, taking his flask from his belt and taking a swig of the fiery liquid within. It had been too cramped for his taste, beasts all longing for a seat, pushing and shoving against each other as if it were a competition to get a seat, and so, the mouse had elected to walk instead. The fresh, cold air felt better in his lungs anyway, much better than the dusty interior of the cart where he might be squeezed or wouldn?t have any room to breathe.

The merchant caravan?s purple entrance flap fluttered in the cold wind, Alder turning his head so he wouldn?t have to look at it. It reminded him of a cape. It reminded him of his latest mistake, the fire he couldn?t look back from.

?You?re leaving?? the squirrel, Abbot Demetri of Redwall, said, his paws always folded into the sleeves of his brown habit.

?I need time to think,? Alder replied, shifting the pack on his back. The mouse ignored the look of disbelief in the abbot?s eyes. ?The letter you beasts gave me said that my wife was dead and that I should come to her funeral, not that I had a son. Nobeast told me. Do you just expect me to be able to come to a decision about raising the lad within a day??

?He?s your son, I assumed you would,? the beast replied. ?And you have. I was simply wrong about what decision that would be. I had hoped that if you truly loved your wife, you would want a piece of her, but I know now that there is indeed nothing noble about you, Mister Alder. You?ll abandon him just as you did your wife and never look back, because it?s always been only about you.?

?I NEED TO THINK!!? The mouse shouted, looking both ways to make sure no one had heard him. ?He?s not my son, father abbot, he?s just a? child to me.  I don?t know anything about him. You wouldn?t even tell me his name!?

?I figured it would do you best to learn that on your own, Alder,? Abbot Demetri said.

Alder shook his head. ?I don?t know anything about children or how to raise them proper. Look at me, I?m a wanderer and a drunk, I don?t care if he?s my son or not, I can?t raise this child!?

The abbot?s stern gaze hardened. ?I always thought that there could be some good in you, Alder, that I was wrong about you not loving your wife. But I was wrong. You won?t even take her child? your child.?

?I loved my wife, father abbot,? Alder said, ?and I?d like to think that she still loved me too.?

?Then take your son. Keep a part of her,? he said. ?Be a father.?

Alder was silent as he pondered the demand. ?Give me a season. I can?t just take him. I need to make preparations. I need to THINK.?

?But you will be back, won?t you?? the abbot said. It came off as more of a demand than a question. ?You will take him.?

?Tell me his name.?

?No,? Demetri said simply. ?You don?t deserve it. I?ll tell you when you?ve decided that you don?t want to be a hopeless drunk anymore and would like to have a family. Or, you can ask him? after you?ve told him why you?re leaving.?

?I?ll be back,? Alder said.

?Do you promise??

?I do.?

The moment Alder Flint stepped outside of the front gates of Redwall Abbey and turned to go north in the direction of Yew, he had regretted his decision, and every step he took he wished he hadn?t. The liquor in his flask didn?t help him to forget the fire he had started, and instead merely fueled it more, the thoughts of his son?s face- and her eyes- always appearing to plague his thoughts and dreams, to remind him once more of every fire he had started.

For once, Alder stopped moving, watching as the caravans and carts kept moving past him, ignoring him, unaware of his plight. The purple entrance flap of the merchant?s caravan fluttered once more in the wind, and the mouse turned around to face the flames that were spreading behind him. His son stared back from within them, alone, waiting, wondering if his father was going to come back.

Alder realized what his father meant about him eventually being burned, because as the mouse turned around to face his mistakes, he could feel the heat surge from them despite the cold of the mountain air and the snow underpaw. And, as he began walking in the opposite direction of the caravans, he felt as if every spark were personally there to lick at him and turn him to ashes, every instinct in his body telling him to turn and run from the pain he was about to face, to run from his mistakes and forget them as he always did.

Chink. Chink. Chink..

The sound of his flask bouncing up and down from where it was connected onto his belt was unmistakable as Alder ran as his instincts told him to, but in the opposite direction. He ran headlong into the blaze, moving as fast as his paws could carry them back in the direction of Redwall, the direction of his son.

And as he ran, he didn?t hear the shouts around him, nor did he notice the fact that the cliff he was running upon was crumbling beneath him.

His paws met the air instead of the snow and, when gravity overtook his body and yanked him over the edge of the crumbling cliff and into the abyss, Alder finally realized what was happening. He had lied to the abbot when he said he was going to come back. He was never going back to Redwall. He was going to die here.

He prayed he was wrong, that the Fates would be kind to him, and give him the second chance he longed for, to let him go back and know his child?s name. As Alder fell into the abyss, he longed to scream it to give him some penitence, to make the mouse feel as if the abbot was wrong about him, to show his son that he cared.

Somewhere he knew, a child was crying.

And so, Alder tumbled along with the other caravans and carts and beasts off of the cliff into nothingness, piercing the air with a scream of the only other name he knew that he loved.

And the flames consumed him.

[TNT]

Oooh. This is very good. I loved the fire imagery, and I hadn't even noticed that connection with his name. I was suprised he DIDN'T have his son with him. Was that what you were planning to do with him had you gotten in? I liked it, but I was just a little surprised by that. Anyway, I hope to see more of this in the RP! :)

[Rousseau]

Thanks for the comment, glad you liked it. Yeah, I said over in the reveal thread that I really didn't know myself whether or not Alder was going to bring his son or not and that decision would be based on the reviews of his application. Based on the fact that most people were skeptical of the NPC Package deal, I simply decided he would leave his son and ended up liking the idea. I felt it would be dramatic and unexpected anyway, and could really hit home what I wanted with the character.