Then I Close My Eyes

[Revel]

When the sun began to peek over the horizon, Revel was just waking up. The night had been pleasantly cool, and her stomach didn't cause her any grief so much as her bowels did. That coconut stuff was tasty, but she wasn't sure she was keen on trying it again anytime soon. When the stoat stumbled out of her hidey-hole in the sand and actually looked at her surroundings in the light proper, only one word came to mind.

Bright. This was something Revel was sure she'd never get used to. The fields she'd known growing up had been dazzling with their golden stalks in autumn - but they'd also been wind-dappled and cloud-softened, never so still. Not even a coarse howl of wind was stirring the dunes here. Enough to raise the neck bristles on anybeast, it was.

It always took a while to get initiated into a new group. This time, Revel was completely lost. These vermin were considerably more organized than the bickering forest clans, with actual ranks and positions. They actually had just one ferret doing all the cooking! Again, she had been sent away from the cook's new hut-based kitchen with a stern vocal warning and the rrroing of a fresh knife in the door beside her ear.

The stoat found herself wandering aimlessly with her thoughts in tow like confused ducklings. They were few, staggering in circles after her and each-other, and occasionally one would fall over.

But it was nice to be alone with them all the same. Solitude was something Revel treasured, and which she hadn't had any of since waking up in that hedgehog cottage. With nobeast to confuse her mind with complicated ideals, the world was a wondrous place, all just blazing sights, fantastical sounds, and an eternal swirling rainbow of new and old scents. This was life; this was her world. Not in voice or thought shared between creatures, but every sense drowning in the reality of it all. The sand was wonderful, the stifling hot air was splendid, the sound of crunching grains was water to her ears.

And Eliza had ruined it.

Revel growled low and stormed around in a circle, kicking up a fog of dust around her footpaws. Who was she to say that woodlanders could think? That ugly pine...thing had no experience with them. Revel had. She'd fought them, stole from them, killed them - and what had they done to suggest their lives were of any importance? She felt, she saw and tasted and smelled and heard. She lived.

Eliza had not.

The hedgehog had a name. Was that enough?

Revel headed to the slave pit. It was really more of a trench, dug out of a pre-existing depression in the dirt. A small irrigation stream bled through to the outlying field; runoff from the oasis pool. The slaves were still shackled, until such a time as Matukhana decided to put them to work in the fields. The hedgehog, Suellyn, and even Eliza had been tied up again. Revel had been as well, but by the time they'd rounded her up with the rest, they had run out of shackles from the slave galley, and had to make-do with stray bits of rope - which she had then gnawed through when the guard wasn't looking. It had tasted salty.

The guard this time was different, a bored-looking weasel balancing on the lip of the ditch as if for sport. He glanced her way; in the hazy heat, it was hard to make things out. Revel was poking Suellyn's stomach gently, hissing at the hedgehog. He could see nothing wrong with this picture so long as he heard the clanking of chains. The weasel stepped onto firmer ground, glanced back towards the village, and leaned on his spear, sighing.

"I want my hammer," somebeast said behind him. The weasel kicked some sand in their face.

Revel found Suellyn curled up, the slaves around her giving plenty of room.

"Psst. 'Edgehog! 'Eeeeedgehooooog." Revel prodded, practically rolling Suellyn over onto her back. The hedgehog opened a sand-encrusted eye and smiled.

"Revel."

"Aye." It had a memory, of course. A rather annoying one. It reminded Revel of salmon.

"Can you think?" Revel asked.

"About what?"

"About things." Revel stomped her footpaw impatiently, oblivious to the irony of the conversation. "'Ow can I know if you think if you don't even know what to think about? Stupid creature."

"Well, o' course I think," Suellyn said. She chortled, shaking her head at the stoat almost pityingly. "I just figured you meant about somethin' specific."

The hedgehog yawned, squinting her eyes closed for a second or two. But Revel had already stood up and stormed off down the line, not paying any more attention to the sleepy hog's words. All this stuff going on in her head was getting far too annoying, and somebeast had to recompense her for that.

"Scissor-face!"

Eliza had seemed asleep at first, leaning up against the side of the ditch. But at this utterance from Revel, the pine marten snapped her teeth just inches from the stoat's nose. The two slaves on either side gave moans of surprise at being yanked awake. Revel smiled down at them all, safely out of range, then stuck out her tongue and cackled.

"Lookit you, all tied up still. Hah!"

"Step closer, flabgut, I've got something to show you."

"Ooh?" Revel actually did take a step. But then she took three steps back.

"Clever," she snorted. "Clever pine. Almost 'ad me."

"Pine marten."

"The 'edgehog can't think," Revel said, pointing her nose down the line in Suellyn's direction. "You were wrong. An' now you're stuck 'ere with all of 'em! Nagger-nug - "

Eliza smiled suddenly. Revel shut her maw quick.

"Revel. If you let me free, I can see about getting you a nice dress like mine."

Revel examined the marten's dress again. Now she could see it in better light, it did look quite nice, although terribly ruined by the ordeals it had been through. The thought of having so splendid a dress was simply delightful. Revel grinned and clapped her paws.

"Chivvers! I'll be back."

It did not take the stoat very long at all to find an appropriate tool. Yet her return to the slave's ditch was hindered by a motley assortment of vermin and woodlanders poking along. Revel kept her distance, hoping nobeast would recognize her. Most of them seemed too busy with the task at paw: she spotted Rath, holding a furious-but-dazed squirrel still, as Matukhana himself tied its paws together - behind the rodent's back this time - with stray rope. A short scuffle broke out with the hare shackled next to Suellyn. The beast was unlocked and their body dragged off. A dormouse was put in its place beside the hedgehog. None of them looked her way.

She slid into the ditch next to Eliza.

"Where did you get that?" Eliza whispered, looking skeptical about the weapon in Revel's paws. "Is that Slug-guard's?"

"Rath's," Revel corrected. "No. I stole it from a rat. 'Ere, 'old still."

"Wait!"

The corsairs only had enough chain to keep the slaves' forepaws locked up, keeping the footpaws free for trekking. Where the individual chains ran out, they were looped together at the end, to keep a continuous line. It was almost as if they were being forced to play a gigantic game of tug-o-war.

Eliza scooped a furrow in the sand and lay her paws and the chain down in it. She then instructed Revel to fill it in and draw lines overtop where the chain lay: Two on either side, to disconnect Eliza from the rest of the slaves, and one in the middle, to give her the freedom to move her arms apart. The shackles themselves would have to remain for the time being.

Even with these precautions, the marten was uncertain.

"Can't you find a key or something?"

"Naw. I chopped wood afore. Move your 'ead back."

"No, no, I think you should try to distract the guard and - "

Revel, impatient with the marten's dallying, struck a blow for freedom. Eliza's head crashed into the sand with a pff, her body tilting to the side. Sticking her tongue out, Revel reversed the axe in her paws, now gripping the handle properly, and concentrated.

Fwoach! Scrinch! Tshnff! Dulled clinks echoed each sound, and sweeping the sand aside, Revel found her aim to be true. Eliza was free.

The stoat frowned and tossed the axe down.

"You owe me a dress," she said, kicking the unconscious marten softly. "But we're even on bruises for now."

Further down the ditch, chaos and confusion was keeping everyone's attention focused. Revel clambered out again and headed back to the village. There was something she had to do.

At the other end of the ditch from the new additions, the weasel guard began playing with a balled-up headband, kicking it between his footpaws as he patted away a yawn.

* * * * * *

Revel followed her nose; Nivard's scent was singular and strong. It would lead her right to him... once she sniffed past all the other vermin scents assaulting her. It was not as bad as the ship, but still far more concentrated than she was used to. It didn't help that the lingering odors of woodlanders were settled in deep everywhere, and the fine mist of battle had not yet dissipated.

She saw another stoat headed the opposite direction, one in clunky, ill-fitting chain mail, and turned to stare after him as he passed by.

Now that was curious.

She followed. His scent... it was not entirely appetizing, not in the way Nivard's was. Nivard's was sickly sweet, a powerful kick to the sinuses, like . This stoat's scent was weaker, almost distilled, a bit tangy and sour, but...

But so familiar.

He noticed her, and stopped.

"Can I... help you?" he said, tilting his head and eying her stomach.

"You smell," she said.

"Now look here, I - "

"Musty, like dead leaves. A bit of caterpillar doings." She sniffed again, closer. "Vinegar an' feathers... soggy clay. You threw up on yourself." She frowned at this. "Days ago. An'... somethin' wet, sharp. Your armor 'urts, right 'ere." She tapped her head, between her eyes, which were watering a little. "But th'rest I smelled afore. Do I know you?"

The male fixed her with a steady - but baffled - stare. Revel wrinkled her nose. The nervousness was pouring off him now.

"I think there's been a mistake," he mumbled, backing away slowly. Revel raised a brow and let him scamper off between two huts. He certainly didn't look familiar.

She tried for a moment to place his scent, with no luck. She couldn't even remember Bruscus's scent, and he could have given Nivard some serious competition.

Revel sighed, shoulders heaving. She didn't like not remembering things. Eliza had been helpful in piecing together that evening at the tavern, and walking through the desert with the hedgehog had cleared up a little of what had gone on between the cottage and the town - a whole lot of nothing interesting - but this went deeper. She couldn't remember what Bruscus looked like. And that old rat, what had his name been? It hadn't hardly been a week ago yet, and it was gone. Puddlepaw, maybe.

Beasts were fleeting. The world stayed. The trees and grasses were all the same, the seasons returned one after the other. Everything was so simple, a constant she would never take for granted, every day a joy to live.

Beasts were complicated. They moved about, they changed things around them. They changed her world. Revel wished they would stop. They never held still and just let the thrill of being overwhelm them. They never paused to smell the differences between two trees of the same type, or watch the patterns the wind played in the grasses, or listen to the levels of cricket song and know the distance between each one.

Sometimes she felt so alone. And she loved it.

But sometimes she felt she needed something more. Warmth. Comfort. Safety.

So wild her youth had been, so gleeful her chirrups in the fields, that her mother had named her accordingly. These new desires were as strange to her as the desert was. What need had she of warmth? The sun offered plenty. Comfort? A spot of grass by a stream was all she'd known. Safety? A bizarre sentiment for life in the forest, full of hawks and owls and woodlanders. She had no need of such a thing.

Yet something in her thought she did, and so she hunted them out. The desire to find these things was as painful in her thoughts as that strange stoat's armor polish was in her sinuses.

"Oh. Revel, hello."

The stoat glanced up. The wildcat, Keane, was just shutting the door of a hut behind him. Revel held her breath; even so, she felt dizzy. He was a strange creature, stranger even than Eliza, and there was just something about him that made her feel loose and melted.

"'allo..."

"Hey - you okay?"

"I'm..." Revel blinked a few times. "Fine. Lookin' for somebeast."

"Ah. Nice to see they let you go. Say, you're... you're 'with stoat' aren't you?" The cat was putting something in a coat pocket, almost reluctantly.

"Huh? I was goin' to see Nivard."

"Oh. He's inside. But I mean - aren't you... expecting?"

"Expectin' what?" She eyed the hut wistfully, and began edging towards it, while still keeping her distance from Keane.

"Well... Kits?"

Revel nearly choked on her own tongue.

"No!"

"Oh." Keane glanced at her stomach. Revel self-consciously folded her paws in front of her. He shrugged. "If you say so."

He smiled and waved at her then, and sauntered away whistling. It was the same song she had been humming on the dinghy. Revel glared daggers at his back.

That hedgehog's babbling had gotten through to almost everybeast, it was starting to seem. Wherever had such an idea come from? Revel had known a few kits. They were grabby, dirty things that scampered underpaw and stole food from her and other, more deserving vermin. Such useless whelps they had been, sticky and loud when not outright moronic. There was no way she was going to let them anywhere near her.

She poked her nose through the gap in the doorway, and all misgivings melted away. Nivard was here. That... was really all that mattered right now.

"'oo's that?"

"Revel."

"Wot?"

"I'm Revel," she said, stepping in and closing the door. The hut was dark, the curtains drawn. But she saw the outline of the cot, Nivard sprawled over it; his arrangement of belts was hung on a chair, his hammer leaning against the wall. The air was heavy and dank, filled with his scent, and now peppered with hints of Keane's coat. Her footpaws scratched the thin reed mat as she crossed over to Nivard's bedside.

The male groaned, a sound somewhere between pain and relief, as Revel brushed her paws against his chest.

"You're 'urt," she said, surprised.

"Feh. Got sliced up by a ruddy squirrel. Cap'n got 'im in th'end, though."

Nivard shifted himself up slightly, into a more lounging than laying position. His eyes traveled warily up to Revel's face, squinting in the dark.

"Yer a stoat, right?"

"Aye."

"Mm." He relaxed under her touch then, allowing her to rub his shoulders softly. She sat on the cot next to him, her tail flicking against his. Nivard closed his eyes again. Revel gradually lay herself beside him, digging her muzzle into his neckfur.

"I like your smell," Revel said.

"Hhhnrm. Mind th'bandages."

There were a few, some dry and flaky, some wetted with blood. She let her paw slide over them, only putting pressure where she felt his fur between her claws. She felt scars, and clumps of sand, and began trying to work them out of his fur, to smooth it out as it should be.

"Feh! Mind yer claws, wench!"

Nivard's change was unexpected. Suddenly the stoat was sitting straight up, pushing her away and yet scratching for purchase on her tunic. His fist worked its way around a clump of fabric, bringing her back towards him. His other paw swung around with a sharp crack.

He threw her to the floor and settled back again, growling.

"If ye can't do it right, don' do anythin' at all. Let me sleep."

Revel lay still for a few minutes, until the stinging in her cheek subsided. Quietly, she stood up and slid into the chair. Resting her paws on the back, overtop his belts, she planted her chin and stared at his sleeping silhouette, not daring to move further until he began to snore.

She breathed him in, and understood.

This was warm. This was comfortable.

And now she was fairly certain she knew what safety felt like.

She hoped Eliza would hurry up and get her that dress soon.