1. Cold Bopen: The Bopening

[The Grey Coincidence]

It was the Winter Of The Frigid Stones in Mossflower. A soft, pristine blanket of untouched snow carpeted the world. The trees had been reduced to skinny, cheese-coated broccolis, or in some cases, cauliflower.  A faint echo reverberated through the woods. The tuneless, repetitive chanting of two dozen over excited squeaky voices, punctuated alternatively with the counting of an aged badger and the long suffering sigh of a younger one.

Bo trudged through the flavourless ice cream, forging a path for the second badger to follow while a bullfinch flapped overhead and provided directions. There was a coldness about him unmatched by the wintry chill. A frosty visage that promised vengeance and spoke of nothing else but the desire to stay in bed.

It was not that Bo was lazy. On the contrary, being a beekeeper was a demanding job and he prided himself on always being ahead of schedule, but even bees knew that winter was good for nothing but hibernation. It was cold and one's fur inevitably got wet. There were no flowers to pollinate and no fruit to collect. Yet here they were. Foraging.

"We're here, Sticky!" chirped Infirmary Keeper Peri, before dipping her head under her wing to prune her feathers. "Just the place I was talking about! I think we'll fill those sacks in no time!" Her voice held far too much enthusiasm for the badger's liking.

"Right. You heard her. We're here. Get off." And as if in mocking imitation of his companion's ability to fly, Bo began flapping his arms with all the fury of a demented hummingbird.

The giggling that followed made the 'why' of it apparent. A small horde of Redwall's Dibbuns had attached themselves to the badger for an easy ride, using Bo's animal magnetism against him.

Shaking off Dibbuns was somewhat akin to shaking one's fur dry in that only the most sudden spurts of movement sent the little abominations away. When the Dibbuns came loose they went tumbling through the soft, white carpet with cries of delight. Some made snow spirits where they fell, others merely laughed and giggled, glad to be outside, and others still shaped rough eggs and threw them at one another.

Soon all that was left was a chubby little hedgehog. It giggled with sinister intent, and curled up tightly against it's perch. The badger moved his claws over to extricate them, but withdrew it a second later, a set of quills sticking out of them.

"Settle down children!" Peri chirped, bouncing from talon to talon in order to keep warm. The Dibbuns obeyed, and circled the bullfinch, their eyes bright and eager.


"Alright, so, who wants to guess what I'm standing on?" For emphasis, the Infirmary Keeper leaned in and pecked at the bark.

"A log," said Bo dryly, still wrestling with the hedgehog.

Before the bird could offer a retort, a voice as old as time cut through. "Wait,  Peri, not so fast! I've got to do a headcount first. Make sure Sticky didn't lose any on the way here." Everything the Badgermum said sounded, somehow and inexplicably, like a door creaking open. She walked with the tell-tale sighs of rusted hinges and screws needing a fresh coating of oil. Really it was a miracle she could walk at all! But then Bo supposed, old machinery was perhaps the most reliable.

Badgermum Susan squinted through a pair of spectacles, her claw pointing from one giggling dibbun to the next. Bo was impressed she could tell them apart. One little mouse looked a lot like another after all. And she knew all their names as well. They were the hardest for him. Bees didn't have names for a reason.  "And Acer! There all accounted for- no! Wait! Bo! Where is Hubert?"

The badger spun round, pointing wordlessly at the curled up ball of spines stuck to the small of his back.

"There you are!" Susan breathed a sigh of relief. "Alright, sister, you may continue with the lesson."

Bo tuned the bullfinch out before she could begin.  Peri's inability to stop moving made his head spin in more than one way. Besides, it was a lesson he had already learned and yet more proof that insects were superior to beasts. Bees never needed to learn what was edible. They were born and tossed into the world knowing everything they needed  about their purpose. What could be pollinated and what was a threat.

In that regard the dibbuns were less like bees and more like wasps, who existed only to be pesky and irritating and build hives (snowbeasts) in poorly planned places. They buzzed around not with a pleasant hum but a sinister drone that promised violence and chaos at every turn. Much like the giggling of the hedgehog he was still trying to pull off of himself.

Some days, when the Dibbuns were being extra bothersome and playing dangerously near his hives, Bo had to repress the deep rooted urge to punt one into the sun. But if Dibbuns were wasps, the Badgermum was their queen and one did not declare war on queens lightly.

At last, with an excited 'Weeee!' the spine-coated, overgrown wasp came loose. They rolled along the ground, gathering snow as they went and forming, perhaps, the most perfectly round snowball in the history of snowballs made by Dibbuns.

While the young hedgehog certainly deserved a time out, and while bees did mummify invaders alive, Bo was Bo, not a bee. So he dug a pair of claws into the lump and fished out a grinning, but shivering, hedgehog.

"That was f-fun Mister Shticky! Can we go again?"

Wordlessly, the badger set Hubert down and shoved him in the direction of the lesson.

"Did you know!" Peri's birdsong went on.  "That pine bark is edible!" Bo feared at any moment the bullfinch would burst into song about all the lesser known edible things she had already been regaling them about for what felt like hours. "Do you all remember when Friar Timothy was on his 'deathbed' a few weeks ago?" The bullfinch went on. "He told me that the secret ingredient of his Deeper'N'Ever Pie! Pine bark! He soaks it up overnight in water and then grates a little on top of the pie!"  Suddenly the bullfinch's face plummeted. "Er- I don't think I was supposed to say that."


The Infirmary Keeper was less of a wasp and more of a cicada. Loud, irritating and neverendingly noisy. Her beak seemed to move at lightning speed. How just talking didn't exhaust her was beyond him. She seemed to be the only creature actually filling their sack.

Might as well speed things up, thought Bo, tearing an unnecessarily large chunk of bark from the nearest tree.

"Sticky! No! That's elderflower! It's poisonous!"

.......

One lecture later, Bo stuffed his pack into his back pocket and resigned himself to merely watching and waiting. In any case whatever meager things he picked up would never compare to the delights found in Redwall's Kitchens.

His gaze trailed off to a little mouse building a snowbeast on the outskirts of the clearing. Bo's brow furrowed in recognition. It was the Bad Mouse. Acer. If anybeast had a penchant for trouble, it was him. Always playing near the beehives. Living his small little life, dangerously. Bo squinted, knowing the rodent would be up to no good. And that was when he saw it.

The stinging hornet.

Acer and the other dibbuns were monsters, that was true, but they at least did not wear the eyes of a predator so carelessly. This amphibious, shivering, bulging-eyed brigand crouching behind a bushel, did.

Bees generally fought off their own predators. They would surround their enemy and flap their wings fast enough to heat the air and whoever had been unfortunate enough to earn their ire would be roasted alive. But the small band of foragers were not bees and as funny as the image was, he doubted the flapping of their paws could hurt a fly. The Badgermum was doing a headcount and Peri was explaining something botanical to a few other dibbuns so it fell to Bo to play the guard.

Not that he minded. If there was one thing he hated more than noisy children it was hornets. Slinking into the treeline and being very careful to keep his eyes constantly trained on Acer lest the predator struck, Bo drew a circle in the snow until he was directly behind the hornet.

"Ribbit, frog."

The amphibian flinched, his eyes bulging dramatically at the sight of Bo. "W-h-how di- where did you come from!?"

"Redwall Abbey." Bo gestured at the dibbuns. "We're foraging."

"That's not what I meant- you know, nevermind. Yes. Redwall." The toad's eyes narrowed. "Foraging, huh? Not enough food in your orchards or something?"

Bo merely shrugged.

The toad huffed, shivering violently, his webbed fingers curling into fists.

"You great greedy furbiddies! You Redwallers hog all the good food." To prove his point he jabbed at Bo's sizeable gut. "And leave everybeast else to scrape a living!"

"You shouldn't have done that." Bo sighed, gesturing towards the webbed fist.

"Ha! What's the matter badger? Did I hurt you?" And then the frog jabbed with his other arm, and it too, ended up stuck to the badger.

It was only when the toad or frog (Bo couldn't tell the difference), tried to wrench his arms free that he realized he really shouldn't have picked a fight with a badger.

"What's with your fur!?"

"I suppose it's why they call me Sticky."

"You're the one with the bees!" the amphibian croaked, now pressing his feet against the badger gut in an attempt to kick his way out of the metaphorical tar. "Do you know how many times I've had my tongue stung by one of your insipid insects!?"

"If it makes you feel any better, you're not the only one who gets stung."

"What is wrong with your fur!?"

Bo shook his head. "Hang on," and belly gonged the nearest tree. As imaginary flies circled the toad's head, the badger peeled him off using the tips of his claws. "Hope I didn't hurt you." Bo smiled. Then he began frowning, remembering why he had approached the amphibian to begin with. "I think you ought to be careful about how you forage, frog. You may think you're surrounded by flies. But you don't seem to realize what's really standing in front of you is a swarm of bees."

"I'll keep that in mind," the toad croaked, rubbing the back of their head and turning to slink away.

Satisfied with the turn of events, Bo returned to watching the wannabee butterflies flutter about. One or two Dibbun Disasters later and he had all but forgotten the frog.

By the time he got back to Redwall, they were the last thing on his mind.

"See you all tomorrow!" Bo stretched. Bo yawned. Bo got ready to enjoy the rest of his entirely wasp-free day. Maybe he'd have the time to work on one of his wax models. Or else watch his bees sleep.

Alas it was not to be. He had barely taken three sticky steps across the snow-covered lawn before the Badgermum gasped. "We're missing a dibbun!"

"Are you sure?" Bo asked, patting himself down to make sure they weren't still stuck to him. "Which one is it? Shahazzz? Fitzzz?"

"No! And we don't have a Shahazz! And it's Fitzgerald! But no! No it's Acer! I- I thought he was on you. Did he maybe fall off along the way?"

"I'd have heard him. And you were behind me so you'd have seen him. Just... count again? He was probably hiding behind er- Barnaby or something."

The Badgermum blinked. "B-but we don't have a Barnaby?"

"Acer!" Bo turned to the group of dibbuns who's excitement was quickly fading at the realization that something was wrong. "If you don't step forwards right now I'm feeding you to the bees."

Nobeast stepped forwards.