Author:
Shaiala (I was Alder, but my name's been changed)
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Date Posted: 05:09:11 08/25/04 Wed
Well, it all started when I was five seasons old. The Titan, largest trireme ever built, was almost finished. I helped out all the time. I'd either come home covered in blue paint, sawdust or soot. I helped the painters a lot, so mum was forever making new clothes, because the paint used oil instead of water and she couldn't get it out. The sawdust from helping the carpenters make oars for the ship made a soggy paste whenever any attempts to wash it out were made. And the soot from helping the blacksmiths...Don't even get me started on what a mess that made! Anyway, a few weeks before my initiation to our tribe, searats started to raid the outer farms and homesteads. Oddly enough, they would only ever take badgers as oarslaves. We got along well with all the others that had survived, but when they began to take other woodlanders as slaves we called everyone from the outlying areas to the town for protection. We also put more and more creatures up to guarding the Titan. Everybeast realised what danger we'd be in if it fell into the wrong paws. About a season later, it was finished. It took us another season just to get it down from the shipyards to the sea. Nobeast thought it would float, but it had to. Father had spent the last of the town's gold on getting it built; he would not be the one to see all that hard work sink to the ocean floor! While we were helping load the ship for its maiden voyage across Malalla Strait, I went to play in the caves and under the sea arches with my sisters, Angelica and Serenity. Serenity was born blind, but her eyesight was coming back, so we took her to the beach to let her see what the ocean looked like for the first time in her entire life. I found my green stone amongst the rocks at the bottom of the cliffs, and we all went looking for shells, coloured pebbles and feathers to trade. The next season, the Titan returned unscathed from the voyage across the strait, which startled everyone in the village. Hundreds of ships had tried to cross the strait, few retuned without damage. If the strait was a tree, it would be covered in thorns. Anyway, the fleet prepared to sail for the first time since the Sirius vanished in the northern seas through the famine three seasons before I'd been born. Home One went out fastest because the Titan was coming out full speed. If the Home One had been ten seconds slower it would've been crushed. The Home One's the fastest, and the smallest, ship in the fleet, but it's also got the second largest ram because it goes so fast. But the ram's been changed because when it sailed once, it tipped up. Lucky that it was only out waist deep in the water. We pulled it back down. Anyway, back to the story. Liberty was the next ship out. Then came Sativa, Sirius II and III, Hawk, Sunstroke (named coz a painter splashed gold paint along the side when he tripped. Well that's what dad said) and finally Sativa II, III, IV and V. Titan became the new flagship. Funnily enough, when we tried to smash the bottle of wine against the side, despite the fact I'd made the bottle from the thinnest clay possible, it wouldn't smash. So dad used a hammer to crack it. We always smash a bottle of wine on the side of a ship before its maiden voyage. Usually it smashes pretty easy. Anyway, back to what was happening. The ships set sail for a searat stronghold about twenty days sail north in good weather. Unfortunately, the searats had found out the exact day that the ships would sail. Two days later they attacked. Mum hid me in a cupboard and told me to stay there until the next day. She used dad's old broadsword. He didn't take it with him, preferred his old sabre more. Anyway, next thing I heard was yelling and a thump like something hitting the floor. Then the searats found me in the cupboard while they were looking for anything of value. I got chained to an oar and I was an oarslave until I was ten. I don't know what happened to Serenity and Angelica. I just hope they got away. When the ship was near the land again, we got attacked by another boat. With all the confusion, I managed to get my chains off with a file the oarmaster dropped. I broke the chains and crept out. Then I used one of the longboats to get back to shore.
About a season later I met Beech and his nephew Rowan. They took me with them to Redwall. Rowan went missing and Beech died of old age. But I still get along fine. I'm hoping to one day return to the islands in the north seas and see if Angelica and Serenity survived the attack.
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My life so far...(may be sad)