| Subject: (ooc: Well, we were...I posted Chp 11&12 with something actually in it right after I accidetally posted it without...but you'd beaten me to it! Ah well...)bic: Here's CHAPTER FOURTEEN...the name's inside, and I don't want to write it again, so click to see! |
Author:
Dakkan
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Date Posted: 00:51:06 09/17/02 Tue
In reply to:
Dakkan
's message, "Oh..." on 20:15:43 09/13/02 Fri
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: REUNIONS AND DEPARTURES
Skipper looked up from a cauldron of hotroot soup he was stirring at the sound of dripping. There, on the bank, was his brother Riverwyte. The big otter let go of the soup ladle and approached his sibling. “Riverwyte, where’ve y’been? We thought you’d been slain with the others!”
The gray otter shrugged nonchalantly. “Got captured.”
Skipper shook his brother’s paw excitedly. “You escaped their dungeons?!”
Riverwyte let his paw hang limp in Skipper’s as he shrugged again. “In a way.”
Skipper let go of Riverwyte’s paw, noticing the distant look in his brother’s eyes. “What’s wrong, mate?”
Riverwyte’s eyes narrowed and he clenched his paws until the tendons stood out. “I only got captured, only lost my rapier, only had to suffer the shame of living in their dungeons!” he rasped in a voice strained with helpless rage.
Skipper stepped closer and put a comforting paw on his brother’s shoulder. Riverwyte recoiled slightly. “So what are you gonna do?” Skipper inquired.
A table nearby was piled with food for lunch; Riverwyte turned abruptly and seized a knapsack. He filled it with food and a few other things before slinging it onto his back. He slid a long dagger decisively into his belt as he faced Skipper again. “I’m going roving for a while, to prove to everyone that I’m a true otter. I can’t live among you with this kind of shame on my shoulders. I just need to get out.” Without further explanation, he turned and began walking due north, snatching his walking staff off a rack as he passed it.
Skipper followed him. “I would go with you, but I can’t. I’m Skipper here now, leader of all the ottercrews!”
Riverwyte stopped suddenly and faced his brother. “You are?”
Skipper met his brother’s strange eyes. “Yes. After the battle was over, Mum, Bargud, and a few cousins refused to liver under the heel of a conqueror, but they also didn’t want another battle. They forced me to come with them, but I was no longer of a mind to follow anybeast’s will but my own. So I left them after only two days, and when I returned here, they made me official Skipper.”
Riverwyte looked confused. “Surely Dad didn’t go with them? And what about all the crew leaders? Why didn’t one of them become Skipper?”
Skipper shook his head slowly. “All the crew leaders, even Rockfist and Nitestream, are dead or captured.”
Riverwyte took a step back toward Skipper. “And Dad?”
The big otter was silent. Finally he choked out, “Dad…didn’t make it either.”
Riverwyte moaned as all the despair, shame, and hopelessness set on his mind at the same time. Not able to take any more, he tore off north as fast as he could go, blinking tears of grief and anger away.
Skipper watched as Riverwyte was lost to sight in the trees. “Good luck…my brother.”
At that moment a tiny mousebabe toddled over to Skipper and pulled on his tail. “Who him run ‘way?”
Skipper lifted the little tyke in his strong paws. “That’s my brother, liddle matey. He’s sad ‘cause our father died.”
The mousebabe sucked on his paw thoughtfully. “Died?”
Skipper stroked the young one’s headfur. “Like yore daddy, liddle Gonff. He went to sleep an’ didn’t wake up.” The otter glanced sadly over to the cemetery erected by the big willow tree. He could see the headboard etched with “Mikk Deftpaw, warrior of the Rebellion.”
Gonff did not entirely understand the permanent effects of death, which was plain as he playfully swatted at Skipper’s tough whiskers. “But you me daddy now, right big matey?”
Skipper indicated the masses of otters now crowding the lunch table. “Naw, we’re all your daddies.”
The mousebabe hugged the otter’s big paw. “But you my favorite daddy!”
Skipper grinned with pleasure, then looked north to where his brother had gone. The smile slowly faded from his face. “Good luck,” he repeated under his breath.
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