Once Warm

[Revel]

"Tell me, little Eliza - what is your dream? When you close your eyes and wish yourself away from here, where do you go? What land holds your heart, your passion, in its clutches, squeezing you 'til it aches in your chest? Go on, do tell."

"Th'forest..."

"The forest! Acres and acres of majesty, aren't they? Columns of Mother Nature's porch, strewn about, some towering, some fallen - why? Why the forest?"

"It's... 's nice."

"The forest is a deathtrap. Plagued with woodlanders and birds of prey, snakes and spiders. Berries more poisonous than tasty, nuts and fruits too scattered among the useless trees. A storm can kill you with a crack of a branch. A winter can kill you with a hidden snowfall. There's nothing lovely about forests, Eliza. Do you know why it's not called Dark Heath? Or Dark Prairie? Dark Meadows? It's called Dark Forest, though. Ever stop and think why?"

To this, Revel had no answer. She sat, semi-cowering in her corner, as Adriak paced the little room. Bellona had been dragged away, but the pine marten had elected to stay and taunt her a little more before returning to attend to the rest of the prisoners.

More annoying than his constant monologueing was his calling her Eliza. Revel had tried to correct him half a dozen times before, but nothing seemed to stick; or he interrupted her with another tangent. She had learned to just shut up and let him speak.

"There is a place in everybeast's heart, Eliza, that hurts them for want of it. It's a place they call home, or a place they imagine they will go to when they die. It's different for everybeast - the color of the sky, the feel of the breeze. It's what everybeast searches for, constantly, whether they know it or not. They never find it. Everybeast dies for it. They die before they find it, or they die to find it. I want you to consider this, Eliza - I found mine. I am very much alive, and this is mine."

Adriak spread his arms out, indicating the cave. "It's everything I want. Cool, dark tunnels. Caverns of crystalline beauty. A breeze from somewhere, cold as steel, warm as iron fire, always rushing with me. And I, as a social creature, am never alone. I have my Strong Fangs, I have my beautiful mates, I have my Kelly, and my children. I am very happy here, and everybeast is happy when I am happy.

"Eliza, consider once again, your forest. Is it really the place you would call home? Is it really where you would have your children live? Or would you kill them, trying to find it? Why not... why not let them stay here, with me, and be happy, with me, as my children?" Adriak tapped his nose. "Something to think about. Let me know when you've decided. Right now I have to go watch your rescuers beat each-other to death! Haha!"

The marten chuckled boisterously as he sauntered out of the room. He paused by the Srechrrl guard and added, "When she's done feeding those disgusting hare pellets, bring her out to watch the fight."

Revel sobbed into her arm. She hadn't thought of it before - or had she thought of it, and merely kept it down, layering her other problems over top? - but she missed the forest something fierce. She missed the crinkle of leaves in the air, and the scent of elderberries even when there were no elderberries. She missed the musk of rotting cedar and the puddles of stagnant rainfall hidden among twisted roots. She missed the noise of it, the symphony of every moth's flutter and every cricket's dance. She missed the crumble of wet bank-side clay, and the mornings when nothing stirred but the wind and the lapping of a pond's ripples fading against the pink, purple, yellow, white, black, gray, blue, green, red stones of the shoreline's fractured rainbow.

She missed the forest and it hurt in her lungs, behind her heart, where before there had been nothing to hurt. She had been happy. There was always something to be happy about: an egg, a wonderful male scent, a broken rope, the thrill of a hunt, a feast after famine, a new dress, a song to listen to - even her kits, which she had never expected to be happy about.

And now?

Now she wasn't so sure. Kits still, she supposed. Those were always something to be happy about lately. Except...

She wanted all of them. This motley assortment was not fair. This ferret kit - almost too old to be weaning - and this infant rat, they did not replace her Zubble; why was she being made to feed them? If their mothers had died in some attack, that was their problem. The ferret, especially, was being annoying, shoving aside Revel's own newborns to get at the best spots.

Revel growled and grabbed it by the scruff of its neck, flinging the rotten little beast away. Its tiny claws skittered as it fought to keep from rolling, and then came tromping back to her, burying its nose in her fur with a squelch. It made her rather want to throw up. At least the rat hadn't grown teeth...

"Bucket-face," she said, looking up at the blank-eyed Srechrrl fox standing by the entrance. "I'm 'ungry. How'm I gonna feed these if I got nothin' inside meself?"

Bucket-face - whose snout really did look like it had been molded from a bucket, like a sandcastle - stared at her in complete confusion.

"Food," she said. "I know you unnerstand me! That pine marten told you stuff!"

The fox shifted around and shouted something in Fritterik at the next cave over. A smaller fox trotted up, seething in quiet reply. Revel recognized the tod as being the one Zhipzi had branded - the one that had tried to eat Zubble right out of her paws. The little beast looked to be in a lot of pain, just barely able to concentrate on his orders. Revel had no sympathy.

She lay back and waited, paws folded behind her head, the kits splayed every-which-way atop her. One by one they drifted off to sleep, and food had still not come. She could hear shouting and screaming, with the occasional burst of clapping.

Placing the ferret and rat together, Revel got up and put her dress top back on, and collected her kits back into the pockets of her coat. Marching up to the fox, she poked him in the chest.

"If I don't get food, I'm gonna eat you," she said.

Mutely, the guard grabbed her paw and hauled her away, pausing only to shout for another Srechrrl to tend to the two kits left behind.

The gladiator pit was not far from Adriak's throne room. As far as Revel could tell, the Srechrrl territory was a lot more densely packed than the Fritterik's. There were very few side caves for families to sleep in, and more general-use chambers laden with pelts and bones in the corners - most of them empty, as everybeast had turned out for the fight.

Revel was sat down beside Adriak, on the pine marten's left. To his right, the vixen Kelly sat, with the Melt-face tod on her lap. The brat craned over to look at Revel and, in the language of all youth in need of a good slapping, stuck his tongue out at her. Revel stuck her tongue out right back, and then snorted in laughter as the fox's face contorted in pain. Kelly held him tighter, stroking his head, as he whimpered.

"I'm - " Revel began.

"Hush," Adriak said, patting her shoulder. "Look, Eliza - watch the squirrel. Oh, you just missed it! That fox got her in the leg, oh, what a good strike it was! Pity he was chased off again. Weakened by coughing, was that right, love?"

"She kicked him right up in the face," Kelly nodded. "I can see him stalking that mole now."

"Ooh," Adriak said, peering up. Revel looked down at the edge of the pit, where he had been gesturing previously. She could see Birch struggling to make her way up the sides of the quarry, slipping now and again with her leg leaving behind a small trail of smattering blood.

"_{I... want... my...}" Revel could hear her grunting. She turned away from the scene and scowled at Adriak.

"I want food."

"We have our kitchen-slaves working on that very problem, my dear," he said distractedly.

"Fritterik are stupid," Revel said. "They don't know 'ow t'cook right. I 'ad t'show 'em everythin'!"

"Ah, but these are Srechrrl, and they are very good cooks, because Kelly and I showed them everything, didn't we, love? Mmhm, and just look at the collection down there - do you see that otter, anywhere, anywhere at all, my dear Eliza? Take a guess where she is!"

"Be'ind that rock?"

"What a card! What. A. Card." Adriak slapped his thighs, nearly suffocating through his laughter. At last he gasped, his face bulging like he'd just been stabbed. "No! She's in the kitchen. Making us a very lovely meal, mm, and that stoat too. But," he added, frowning, "we're so tired of stoat. We've only had otter the once, some old female, isn't that right, love? This younger flesh will make a wonderful celebration feast for our new addition to our families..."

Revel scooted away as Adriak reached out to brush her coat. The pine marten smiled and shook his head.

"Oh, fine. If you're not interested in the fight... My dearest Eliza, would you consider staying with us, if I were to appoint you head cook?"

"I don't wanna cook just 'eads," Revel said.

"Such. A. Card. Oh my oh my oh my. You can cook whatever you like, my dear! You would be in charge of cooking everything. I fear it may be too late for our next meal, but - ah! Gordok, do show Eliza to the kitchens, mm? Show her the other catch we have. Maybe she will know of a way to make him not a complete waste, since you and your lot ruined any chance of his pelt being in good enough shape to make into a good hat. Tsk. There's And I thought the Fritterik were wiry little blighters... Go on, then."

Revel shivered as she took off. She breathed through her nose again. Something about Adriak was just wrong. It wasn't just his own overpowering musk that engulfed him, but the scents of many other beasts. Was it from his pelts? It smelled wetter than that.

She was led to the kitchens, which were little more than yet another cave, but with a high ceiling hidden in smoke. Her guard barked an introduction - Revel caught something about not eating her, as she was now a cook like them - and shoved her further inside.

The Srechrrl paid her little attention. All of them here were larger than the rest, their stomachs and limbs thick and wobbly. They clustered around little workstations - tables and basins, and a giant oven, all made of stone. The only wooden object was a frame of sorts, over which hung a decidedly otter-like shape. Two rats were tugging the skin taught while a third scraped away with a knife, simply slapping everything that came loose into a nearby basin. Revel watched as a weasel took a pawful of this stuff and threw it into a simmering stone pot.

The place smelled so familiar. Revel tried to place it. It smelled safe. She felt that this was a place that belonged to her, that she had long ago claimed as her own. It came to her as she spotted something on a far table:

It was the smell of otter soup and a disemboweled male stoat.

For some reason, it made her want to cough.

As she wandered further into the cave, a tray was pulled from the giant oven and quickly placed on the nearest table. Nona's charred body lay curled on the platter, cooked through. Revel headed towards it, grabbing a knife from a cook. The beast nipped at her, but she kicked him away and began sawing through the blackened outer layer. Snipping and sawing, Revel pulled off a hefty chunk of thigh and bit into it, closing her eyes in bliss as the bloodied meat seeped down her throat.

She allowed herself to be shuffled aside as more cooks portioned it out for their masters.

She finished quickly, gnawing the bone clean, and licked her paws. A few shreds of meat she stuffed into her coat pockets, either for herself for later, or for her kits to gnaw on.

With her stomach assuaged and her tongue aching from trying to round up the strands of meat stuck between her teeth, curiosity overtook her. She went over to the dead stoat, which the cooks had been ignoring.

It was Venril.

His clothes had been robbed, one of his arms were missing. There were chunks of flesh gone from his face, his body and limbs. He was cold to the touch, and stiff, but she held him tight anyway, and soaked his neck with her tears, because he smelled like death.

"I didn't mean it... I mean it, Venril, 'm sorry, 'm sorry..."

* * * * * *

"Eliza! Mm, wonderful tuck isn't it? Come look at this fantastic fight! See, my dear, your doppelganger?"

"My what?" Revel said, sitting down beside Adriak once again. She wasn't in the mood for his jovial antics. Her nose was runny from crying, and her eyes hurt.

The marten was waving around a piece of Nona's tail, jabbing it towards the quarry.

"Look, down at Eliza, Eliza."

Revel looked down at her stomach.

"No, I mean Ugly Eliza."

Revel stared blankly, then pointed to herself questioningly.

"Uglier Eliza," Adriak sighed.

Revel's face scrunched in thought. "Me?"

"No! The pine marten Eliza! Look, down there!"

The stoatmaid's face burst into a glowing smile. She wasn't the Uglier Eliza? Somebeast... thought she was better looking?

At that moment, Revel didn't care about Adriak's smell, or his constant threats, or the way he dismissed her kits as hare pellets. She wanted to hug him and have him tell her she was beautiful, like he did with Kelly. She clutched her tail to her chest happily.

No. She wanted Venril to hug and have him tell her she was beautiful. But that wouldn't ever happen.

"Oh, now you've gone and missed it... Such suspense!"

"I was sure Mr. Scumjaw was going to strangle her," Kelly sighed, slipping a bone out from her mouth and setting it on a neat little pile with some others. Melt-face was curled up beside her, sleeping fitfully.

"But where has the dormouse got to? Can you see them, Eliza, over there?"

Following Adriak's lead, Revel leaned over and tried to find the fighters in the pit. She could see Matuhkana and Rugger, dead at the far side, and Birch was curled up along right below them, as if napping - the wall bloodied from her attempts to scale it with a wounded leg. But she couldn't see - oh! There they were, rolling into sight from behind a clumpy formation of rocks not far from where Matukhana's body lay.

"_{Get away from me, you disease-ridden maniac!}"

"_{Come back here, coward!}"

"Oh, what fun," Adriak giggled. There was flash of silver between the fighters, as they raced towards the side of the quarry closest to the spectator's ledge.

Eliza - the pine marten - turned with her back against the wall.

"Stay back!" she shouted, her voice ringing clearly in Revel's ears, despite the distance. Eliza waved something at Bellona, as the mouse lunged and shrieked, prancing back and clutching her arm.

"A weapon?" Adriak said, incredulous. "That's not fair..."

"But it's interesting," Kelly said. They both laughed.

"Uneven odds are what I'm all about, love!"

Eliza, with all the prowess of a pine marten, was scaling the walls and ledges towards them. Revel reached over to the pile of gnawed bones and, selecting one, threw it down. It missed the marten's head by inches.

"Nagger-nugger!" Revel crowed, cackling along with the other two, although her laughter was cut short by a cough. They were correct - this was great, watching Eliza and the funny-looking mouse finally duking it out. Revel, now lying on her stomach with her paws clutching the edge, looked down and grinned.

Bellona had recovered, and was following doggedly, ascending much faster than Eliza originally had. Birch had woken up and was edging along, away from Eliza's course.

"Give me that knife!" Bellona yelled. She caught Adriak's eye. "You said no weapons! She's cheating!"

"I am not!" Eliza said, kicking out at the mouse's head. "I don't have a knife, you brute!"

"Better a brute than a strumpet!"

"Stop calling me that, Scarface!"

"Kettle, much?" Adriak murmured. Kelly sniggered.

"I call it as I see it, marten. Why else would Matukhana have kept you alive so long?"

"How dare you insinuate I?m anything like those disgusting creatures up there!"

"I say," Kelly interjected, pouting. "That's a bit heavy-pawed, isn't it?"

"Tch!" Bellona grabbed Eliza's tail, yanking the marten down from a clawhold. "Let?s count the idiots you?ve seduced: a stoat and a bird. It doesn?t seem a far step to fox from there."

Revel sat up and scooted back as Eliza reached for her nose - somehow the pine marten had gotten a lot closer than seemed possible. Hauling herself up onto the ledge, Eliza stopped a moment to breathe.

"Tell me," Bellona growled, hauling herself up behind Eliza. The pine marten and mouse stood now, circling each-other. Adriak and Kelly were grinning ear-to-ear, shifting themselves to get a better view of the show. 

"Tell you what, mouse?" Eliza said.

"Were you always such a strumpet, or did the corsairs teach you one by one?"

Eliza threw herself at Bellona with a snarl, and the two locked into a furious grip of paws and claws, yet somehow keeping themselves at arm's length. They fell and rolled along the ledge, nearer and nearer to Adriak and Kelly, who were clapping. The young fox, Melt-face, had long since run off.

Eliza at last kicked Bellona off her, and as both of them rose to her footpaws, Bellona launched herself again - this time straight at Kelly. The knife appeared in the dormouse's paw, pressed tight against the vixen's throat.

"See?" Eliza said, holding her paws out to Adriak. "Told you I didn't have it."

Before Adriak could reply, Birch whacked him across the back of the head with the bone Revel had thrown down earlier. The squirrel grabbed her hammer and whirled on Revel, who was pressed up flat against the wall. The ladder leading up off the ledge was behind Eliza and Bellona; the stoatmaid was stuck.

"Don't 'it me!" Revel squealed. "I didn't make you fight!"

"Leave her, Birch," Bellona said. "She's not worth it."

Revel nodded wildly. "Adriak said 'e only didn't make me fight too because 'e wants my kits!"

Birch paused a moment, as if considering this, then raised her hammer a bit higher. She grinned as Revel flinched.

"Does anybeast else hear clapping?" Eliza said suddenly.

"That's not clapping..."

Nevertheless, thunder gradually filled the cavern. Dust shook from the ceiling. Revel clutched her tail tightly.

Looking up at the ledges above them, the Srechrrl watching the fight had vanished.