Black Sheep, Come Home

[Rousseau]

"Imitation is Suicide." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dear Captain Rousseau,
Hello again old friend, how are you?  I hope you are doing well, because I need a favor.  As you are aware, I have promoted you to head of The Crimson Lass, a significant position that I have specifically chosen for you after hearing of your? might I say efforts, in your previous position of first mate.  Captain Zihark personally begged requested that you be removed from his ship and put in command of your own.

Onto more pressing matters.  I have tasked you with a very important mission.  I?m sure you have heard of the Mossflower Country.  Currently, the land is being inhabited and ruled by a badger lord, but that is beside the point.  What I want done is this:  a group of wolves have set up a stronghold in the country that is nearing completion, and I desire that you help them complete it and defend it from attack.  Your vessel has already been prepared with the following materials:  

1.)   A harvest of lumber taken from Southsward?s dense forests,
2.)   Sandstone taken from our own stores to help with the building of the walls and,
3.)   Twenty slaves for whatever purposes you see fit.

If you succeed, we may gain a valuable ally and trade partner for Terramort.  If the work goes smoothly, you should be home soon.  Good luck to you.

                     

Your king,
                  Reginald Frostfang

P.S. I will be sending more letters soon.

Blast them.  

Blast them all.

Captain Rousseau of The Crimson Lass snarled as she reread the letter for the sixth time, becoming angrier with each read as the small myriad of doodles she had made in the margin with her quill had grown in number.  Some were of certain kings being pushed from high cliffs and some were of Captain Zihark being gutted by the rat?s rapier or crushed beneath a boulder.  The pirate captain had always wondered why the rat king?s writing tended to irk her to the brink of insanity.  She came to the conclusion that the sheer formality of it (something that always tipped her off to the fact that it wasn?t actually Reginald writing the blasted thing, but somebeast else, as how could such an obnoxious, rotund idiot like King Reginald write like some well-mannered woodlander brat?) and the way he worded things seemed to contain hidden meanings behind them, like the rat?s own artwork.

In Rousseau?s mind the letter went like this:

Dear ?Captain? Rousseau,

We hate you, so we?re sending you far away from us because we do not want to look at you any longer.  Please, if you don?t mind, go die in a ditch.  Thanks.

      

Your king, the magnificent, gracious, handsome, and definitely-not-fat,
                        Reginald Frostfang

The rat laughed at her interpretation of the king?s writing.  ?Blast them?? she repeated, changing moods in an instant.  She had been in Mossflower for three days and already hated the place.  The tall shrubbery grew like the hairs of some giant beast, ensnaring her boot straps and making it difficult for her to move, and every root seemed eager to trip her for the sheer hilarity of it.  Insects buzzed in her ears and her lack of an eye gave her a blind spot, causing her to run into the trunks of one too many trees.  Although she found the forests of the country to be a mystifying sort of beautiful, she already much preferred the tall, grey cliffs of her home in Terramort.  

?We?re lost, aren?t we?? some nuisance of a beast said from behind the rat.

?Aye, I think yore right, mate.?

?Why are we followin? this beast anyways?  Why?d she get promoted??  

?Dunno, mate, but watch yer tongue.  Remember wot happened to Blacktail??

?Aye, poor beast, got ?is head cleaved roight off, and the scum used his blood as paint.?

Rousseau twirled around, but any words she had were lost on her tongue.  She surveyed over the group, a ragtag crew of about twenty-five vermin and the twenty slaves in tow behind them.  The rat gulped at the idea of addressing the crowd, realizing why Captain Zihark had recommended this position for her.  He knew she couldn?t do it.

?We are not lost!? she shouted, struggling to prove the fox wrong.  ?I?m merely? watchin? the scenery, er, lookin?? fer inspiration? fer a paintin?.  Now if yew lot don?t stop interruptin? me, I kin per?aps get it and we kin still make it t? Kotir ahead o? schedule.  Otherwise, I?ll use YOUR blood as paint.? Rousseau saw the lot, crew and slave alike, shaken in mortal fear.  She smiled in satisfaction and even chucked to herself.  Zihark didn't know anything.

?Look no further.?  

Rousseau felt the breath on her neck.  She spun around in an instant, paw on rapier hilt, and came face to face with a barn owl.  The avian stared back with emotionless, obsidian eyes, his eggshell and beige feathers plumed to near perfection.  The rat blinked.  

?I can guide you to Kotir easily,? he said, ?if??

She already hated the beast.  
-.-.-

Rousseau harrumphed.  She had read the letter again, crumpling it up and tossing it rather carelessly aside upon her truckle bed in her temporary living quarters as she gazed from the single window of her room.  The last of the work force, having finally completed their duties on the castle the day before, piled inside the stone fortress in preparation for some great feast planned for the evening.  The rat chuckled at her own luck.  She had been residing within the castle for little over a week and, although being told directly by her king to help with whatever needed to be done, there hadn?t actually been much for her to do.  The artist and her crew had no knowledge of how to place limpid sheets of glass in their frames for windows, or of the correct ingredients used to make bricks and mortar for the walls, let alone how to read the schematics for blueprints, so she found herself supervising the operation with some other captains of the guard and the head architect.  Luckily, it was difficult to supervise something the beast herself didn?t know how to do and, besides occasionally letting her shout a word of encouragement to a passer-by or tell somebeast to carry something more carefully, her partners had taken over rather quickly.  

And so the rat had spent the week painting pictures of the surrounding countryside or sketching whatever passed by her field of vision on the backs of her captain's logs.

Rousseau grew uninterested with the beasts on the lawn and turned her attention to the trees beyond the walls.  They had shed their cloaks of leaves for the winter, turning into garbled messes of twisted, mahogany branches and roots. The rat, although hating everything about Mossflower from her short visit, liked the trees in this country.  They were taller and more beautiful than the few that were on Terramort, and they seemed almost more lifelike than the other plants.  In an odd sense, trees didn?t seem to fret over what others thought of them, shedding their only coverings and exposing what was beneath it all in an instant only for the sheer reason that they could.  A flower, however, wouldn?t discard her petals, or she would simply die of embarrassment.  In a way, the captain felt trees were similar to her.  

The rat smiled to herself.  She had successfully caught the illusive beast known as Inspiration.  A homemade sketchbook held together by a single ivory colored cord appeared on Rousseau?s lap in an instant and opened to the first available page she could find.  She mused to herself.  The finished product would be perfect, a true work of art. And the colors. The light goldenrod of the sunset would only be contrasted by the dark ebony of the tree trunks and the obsidian shadows they would cast upon the lawn.  

Rousseau got to work, pressing a charcoal stick against the cheap parchment.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

She gritted her teeth, her concentration already broken by the sudden knocking on her door.  The rat panicked, already trying to search her thoughts for what she had been planning.  Realizing that Inspiration had escaped yet again, she cursed.

?Wot is it, Willump? I?m busy!? The spite in her voice cut the air like a knife.  He had interrupted her enough times that she had memorized his knocking.  

?Are ya goin? to the feast, cap?n?? The boyish voice of her first mate echoed into her ears.  

?I?m busy,? she repeated.

The doorknob rattled but didn?t turn fully.  Unlike her ship or some of the buildings in Terramort, all of Kotir?s doors had a well-furnished lock.  She loved them.  ?But,? her first mate continued, ?Lady Kovari and Lord Tirian requested ya come.  I think they?re gonna talk t?ya about an alliance with Terramort.?  

The rat practically leapt up out of her chair.  The idea of her job being done and getting out of the ?Gates forsaken place even a single day earlier made her giddy to the core.  ?Wot time?? she called, unlocking and throwing open the door.

The lanky weasel blinked.  ?Twenty minutes, ma?am.?

With one motion, the artist untied the strings of her painter?s apron and threw it neatly on her bed.  ?I?ll be right down.?

-.-.-

Rousseau had to shove if she wanted to even make two steps within the growing crowd that had gathered in the great hall.  Beasts moved to and fro, sporting over-the-top frock coats and dresses with intricate designs that were expertly implemented by some great seamstress into ruffled atrocities that dragged behind them like second tails. The pirate heard a few comments as she passed on her own attire: her usual jacket and vest with a cream colored dress she had decided to wear in place of her trousers and a pearl necklace that had been given to her long ago.  

?Oh, look at the new rat, she looks so positively foreign.?

?Aye, she makes those pearls look appalling.?

Rousseau chose to ignore them. Thrusting her way past some rabbit slave with a tray of scones, the rat found a place to sit at the captain?s table placed close to the wolf couple, who were surrounded by a horde of beasts all echoing their thanks and praises.    

?Wine??

?Aye,? Rousseau said, not bothering to look at whatever slave had approached her.  The beast obliged, pouring out a glass of some amber liquid that reminded her of honey.  The rat knew the tiny glass wouldn?t get her through the entire evening, so she guzzled it down quickly and held it out for another round.  Filled again, she set it down on the table and preoccupied herself by staring at the lifeless crowd and thinking of her next portrait.  A certain owl?s ebony eyes met hers almost immediately.  

?You?d best go ahead an? give me th? entire bottle,? she said to the slave, seeing the great bird hobbling his way towards her and leaving behind a chorus of yells in his wake as he stepped on beasts? dresses clumsily.

She nodded. ?Right away, marm.? Not knowing what else to say, she offered a compliment.  ?I-I like your necklace, marm.?

?Yew kin have it if ya want.?  The rat untied the cord from around her neck and tossed it to the little mousemaid, who fumbled with it before blushing in delight and running off to another table.

?Well, aren?t you all dressed up so proper, Rousseau.  Your necklace looked rather splendid on you actually. It's a shame you threw it away like that to such a lowly morsel.? The owl appeared at her side like magic.  

?Stop suckin? up to me, Clutus, I?ve already finished it,? she replied to the beast.  ?Here.?  She produced a folded slip of thin canvas from her coat pocket and unfurled it for the avian.  On the cream colored paper was a perfect portrait of the owl as he had described himself: tall and magnificent with dark, foreboding eyes, and magnificently plumed feathers that were as soft as a pigeon?s down.  

?I do believe the feathers should be a softer color of white instead of say, the slight beige you seemed to have added to it.? And so it began.

?That?s th? canvas affectin? th? color.?

?Well, you should have applied the color more carefully on such an important project.  Perhaps another layer.?

?If I had put another layer on, it would have clotted up.?

?I see, well, what of the eyes?  They could be darker, I think.?

?It?s perfect th? way it is.?

?And you folded it--"

?It?s perfect!? she snapped.

She had been smart to ask for the entire bottle. Taking it, she took a swig.  Rousseau glanced to where the wolves were once more and saw that the crowd around them had grown. The rat cursed and went to get up and reserve a place in line, with Clutus following her like a pet.  

?Now then, perhaps we can talk about my beak, it looks rather misshapen.?

It was going to be a long evening.