The Prisoner on Board

[Airan]

Character Name: Tooley Bostay
Character's Species: Weasel
Character's Gender: Male
Character's Age: 27
Category: A Prisoner on Board

The brig was especially cold this night. The muffled rattling of rain from above told of a storm, and puddles of water had begun to form from several cracks in the overhead. The ship groaned against the push and pull of the torrid waves, swaying and bowing however nature saw fit.

In a small, rusty cell in the back of the brig, Tooley sat crouched in the corner. He drew his weather-beaten waistcoat closer to him and attempted to wriggle away from the spray of a puddle that had formed in the middle of the cell.

"Really should tell th' Cap'n 'bout this..." he mumbled to himself, frowning up at the troublesome leak.

It hadn't been his first time in the brig. Clumsy mistakes, drunken sea-songs taken too far, and one too many insults to Stitchtail's mother had all landed him here before. Especially that one time he had kitchen duty and a knife somehow wound up in First Mate Ginson's  soup. They still called it "Cutthroat Stew" to this day.

But for once in his life, Tooley had no idea what he had done wrong.

The weasel reached up and slid a heavily-patched cap from over his ear. Running his fingers over the rim, he counted out six holes that had been newly gnawed into the hat. Had it really been six days? No, two of those had been when he half expected he was going to be thrown overboard, and a third was from when they forgot to give him supper last night.

The snap of a bolt loosening - and the accompanying groan of a wooden hatch - drew his attention away from the cap and to the stairway leading up to the deck. Rain poured in from the deck, and a figure ducked down onto the ladder.

It was a rat that stepped off, shaking the water off from his fur. He had a lazy eye that always seemed to be looking up, and several seasons-old gashes that cut across a crooked snout.

Tooley jumped to his feet, grinning widely. "Daggle, mate! Please tell me yer 'ere to get me outta this hole!"

Tooley looked past the rat to see two ferrets descend the ladder and step up beside Daggle, paws resting on cutlasses at their side. Tooley's smile faltered.

"Any, uh, any reason fer the convoy, mate?"

Daggle didn't respond as he fished out a set of iron keys from his coat. The cell door unlocked with a heavy clack and Daggle swung it open.

Neither spoke for a moment, with only the pattering of rain and groaning of the ship to fill the silence. Swallowing, Tooley croaked out the question that he'd been asking himself for days. "What's goin' on?"

Daggle finally looked up at him, his good eye focused firmly on him. "Ginson's dead. Got poisoned."

Tooley froze. He blinked at the rat for several moments, waiting for the tell-tale smile to spring the joke. There was nothing. His gaze trailed back to the two ferrets, whose grips tightened around their weapons. The reality of the situation suddenly hit him. He attempted to work out a response, but found his mouth dry and only managed a stuttering cough.

Daggle drew his cutlass and pointed it towards the ladder, adding in a low tone, "Yer best off not makin' things worse."

Tooley took several uneven steps forward. He wasn't sure if it was just the ship, but the world seemed to be twisting and turning as he walked. As he reached the ladder, he risked a glance back at Daggle. The rat simply gestured him onwards. Turning back around, he stuck his cap in his mouth and placed two tentative paws onto the ladder. He began working a new hole into the rim of his cap as he took the first step.

All at once, the brig seemed to be a very wonderful place.

[Airan]

Character's Name: Nisky Banchibar
Character's Species: Squirrel
Character's Gender: Female
Character's Age: Too old to be bothered with counting seasons
Category: Prisoner

In the cramped, steamy kitchen of his treehouse, Brusk Banchibar hovered in the doorway and rubbed the back of his head. "Gran, I could do that for you, you know."

"What," Nisky laughed, "and forget the salt or mix it 'til it's mush?" She stirred up a cloud of flour over the bowl, then tapped the wooden spoon against the lip as she paused to scratch the dust out of her whiskers. "Now did I put that in yet?"

"Yeah, Gran. You added the salt already."

"I meant the leavening, dear, and I most certainly did put it in, I remember doing it."

Brusk sighed and settled in to watch his grandmother at work. The old squirrel would have looked like she'd been fashioned from twigs and rags if she hadn't been in motion - which was perhaps why she never seemed to stop moving. Even when she wasn't scurrying about, she blinked and twitched her whiskers and shook her tail all in an unending stream of activity.

"Gran," Brusk asked at length, "does Mum know you're in the village?"

"Nope! And if you run tattling I won't give you a single scone." Nisky smiled a wrinkly, squinty smile over her shoulder at him. "You can tell her I said hello when you take her share over to her later."

"You're not even going to go see her?"

"Oh, she'd just start up with all that fear-mongering flimflam," Nisky said as she poured the milk and egg together in a separate bowl and began beating them to a froth. "I swore to Herkule over and over, bless him, she gets that from his side but your Gramp was stubborn as a hickory nut." She laughed and shook her head as she began folding the liquid into the dry. "Your mum must've gotten that from him as well. Be grateful," she said, eying Brusk without missing a beat of stirring, "you inherited my agreeable nature."

Brusk bit the side of his mouth and drew a long breath. "She's just scared for you, Gran. And? she's got a point. The way you run around alone in the forest-"

"Patrol, dear." Nisky stopped stirring and scattered a blizzard of flour over the countertop. "I'm not off picking flowers, you know. Someone has to keep an eye out for seascum on our shores."

"The village watch hasn't seen pirates in the cove for five seasons. Maybe it's time to let younger beasts take over the patrolling."

"A bunch of half-sprouts with the combined attention span of a bumble bee?" She overturned the bowl and, with a heavy slap, a wad of dough hit the counter. Nisky flung a pinch of flour on top of it and turned around to frown up at her grandson. For an instant, she was perfectly still. Then, her shrewd eyes softened. "Brusky, do you remember the scaredy toad song?"

Brusk let out an exasperated breath but nodded. "I preferred 'The Corsair Hare Who Lost A Dare?'"

"That one was just silliness, I made it up. This one's got some depth." Nisky hummed out the tune.

"Scaredy toad hides under his rock,
safe and sound with nice dry socks,
but scaredy toad is in for a shock
when the tide comes in."

Brusk couldn't help but hang his head and smile along with her, but he quickly sobered. "That has nothing to do with this."

"Sure it does! You and your mum are afraid I'm gonna croak, aren't you?"

"Gran!"

"Well, fiddlesticks, Brusky!" Nisky threw up her hands and turned back to knead the dough. "You're grown now, dear, you know how life works. It ends. And I'd rather spend the rest of mine doing what I've always done, protecting my loved ones and remembering my Herkule as he was when we were young." She began slicing the dough into triangles and plopping them in rows on a tray.

[Airan]

Character's name: Brother Bogdan
Species: Mouse
Gender: Male
Age: 53
Category: Prisoner

?Not one for the supernatural, then, wot? Don?t believe in ghosts??

Brother Bogdan twisted his whiskers in his hand as he chuckled, resting comfortably in his overstuffed armchair. ?Don?t be absurd. Of course there are ghosts. Ghosts are just souls. You have one, I have one, and maybe even our dear Lord Atlas has one?. though I wonder sometimes.?

The bulky, well-armed hare shifted uncomfortably in the large library. Expensive tapestries decorated the walls, showing great figures in intellectual history. He avoided the mouse?s eyes. ?Not quite following you, sah.?

?Of course I believe in ghosts. Souls. Immaterial minds. Haecceities. Obviously, they?re typically contained in our bodies, but sometimes they hang around a bit after our bodies are gone ... this is not really a surprising thing after you encounter it a few dozen times, Sergeant. Everyone sensible believes in ghosts. What we don?t believe in are ghost ships.?

?So... wot you?re saying, sah, is that... you believe in ghosts, but not ghost ships.?

?Yes, you beautiful, lovely, magnificent creature!? Brother Bogdan stood up, excitedly, and embraced the hare, before beginning to pace the room.

The hare looked at his paws awkwardly. He pretended to be scanning the titles of the volumes in the library, and then back at his paws, while waiting for the mouse to continue.

?You see, ships don?t have minds. Ergo, they don?t have souls. Ergo, there simply cannot exist ghost ships any more than there could exist . . . ghost water. Unless, of course, you think water has a mind, or ships have a mind. You don?t think that, do you??

?Well, no sah. But about the offer . . .?

?The offer?? The monk?s enthusiasm had disappeared. His face was set firmly, as he pulled a manuscript off the shelf at random and peered through the pages forcefully. ?You mean, the demand. I don?t really have a choice in this, do I?? He gave the Sergeant an accusing look.

?Well . . .?

?If I say no to your dear Badgerlord?s ?offer?, which sounds like a great opportunity to drown after getting lost on the high seas, with no meaningful reward, then you?ll just pick me up and take me unto your mighty Zephyr by force, won?t you, Sergeant??

?Well . . .?

?Those are his orders, aren?t they??

?Well . . .? The hare nodded in affirmation.

?And it?s all a stupid, comical, silly mistake! It?s hilarious. He thinks I know something about . . .ghost ships? Ghost ships? Who heard of a more absurd thing!?

?You are the greatest metaphysician in all of Mossflower, sah. He thought, if anyone . . . ?

?Yes, I know that, Sergeant.? Brother Bogdan took it as a statement of fact, not as flattery, as he paced furiously from row to row of shelves in his private library. ?But that?s the trouble, you see. All this power, and no idea what a metaphysician is. Ask me about something I've spent my life studying, like, ?if you take a ship apart, removing a plank and replacing it with a new one, one at a time, is the result identical to the original ship, or a new ship entirely?? But . . . ghost ships? If our bloody Lord Atlas thinks I?m an expert on that, then he -?

But before Brother Bogdan could finish the blasphemous sentence, the door burst open. An axe blade swiftly removed the head of the unsuspecting hare, and a sword blade found itself lodged at the mouse?s throat. Six water rats dressed in black stood before him, weapons pointed threateningly at him. Shackles clicked onto his feet, and a rope bound his hands. The tallest rat pointed into a dark sack.

?Please, no, this is mistake. I will repay the money, I promise.?

?Shut yer hole,? the leading rat scowled. ?The Silver Maiden?s brig has all the time in the world t? listen t? yer yabbering?? The other rats cackled.

?But... but... I get terribly sea-sick . . . ?

With a thud to his head, everything went black.