The Story of Bren Sprackenwulf (and her mate, Dylan)
Note: Much of this is from Dylan's perspective
Note: As in Nexus, all "power" in this story is not magic but natural
Dylan
The unrelenting sun seered every inch of me, my eyes, my pads, my brain, turing my thick, coalish pelt into an oven. Severe heat stroke getting in, I collapsed, helpless in the wilderness, all memory of my past boiling away.
I drifted back to consiousness, at least semi-consiousness, in a much cooler cave. My sight too blurred to make out anything but insubstansial ruddy shapes. I relied on my ears for information.
"A definite northern fox. His coat's too thick for this area. And black too, a heat conductor. Not suited for gorge area, I'm afraid."
"Wonder what the beast's doing out here. Poor little whelp, can't be more then 10 years old. Y'know, I don't have any cubs. Maybe I'll take the little one in."
"Lupinfang might object to a foreign fox."
"Lupinfang's so wrapped up in that half-bred daughter of his, he won't care. Doesn't care about the tribe, just about making young Wolf's Blood into some war machine at his command. He's talking of overrunning Redwall and of Mossflower. Personnally, I think he'll just fail like all the rest. Wolf's Blood will fall by some chance and he'll be left without his ace card. Not even the brilliant Marlfoxes had a chance. I tell you, the place is cursed. I say, Lupinfang should just work on his tribe. Conquest? Pagh! We're living on old, twisted roots to eat. If we tried farming...But no, Lupinfang flaunts that wolf skin his father scavanged off HIS father and makes promises of glory and plunder, after all isn't he the Foxwolf. If he's anymore than fox, I'm a hare. I'll bet there isn't a drop of lupine blood in the chief. His daughter's wolf blood comes from her mother, Cloaked Steel, and didn't mother go absolutely berserk a year or so back? Must be a wolf trait. Well, the chief's daughter, Wolf's Blood is going down hill fast. Won't be long 'til she's as bad as her mom. Can't blame her though, poor thing's cooped up in a cage..."
I lost the train of thought and began to fade out. As I lost the last wisps of consiousness, I was aware, somehow, something was seriously wrong with me...
Bren
I snarled at the pretty figure grinning at me through the bars. "Scarletfyr, leave me alone. Don't you have any life besides making mine more miserable?"
Th vulpine teenager just grinned more broadly, "Of course, little sister, but it gives me such pleasure to take a few minutes each day just to be with you."
The comment was not especially scathing, but my vision clouded with red and I exploded in uncontrolled rage. I was helpless to stop myself from slamming against the bars, the impact jolting through my body as a sudden rush of pain. It was almost as if I was watching some other half-mad hybred injuring herself, I had that little control. I only vaguely heard my father, Lupinfang yell, "Scarletfyr, get away from Wolf's Blood, now!" Only vaguely realized I was alone, banging myself against the bars. Finally, exhausted, I slumped to the floor, regaining enought sapience to sob bitterly at my wretched state.
Dylan
I awoke again, fully this time and sat up groggily. A grizzled fox walked over to me, bearing a small bowl of a broth of dubious origin. Smiling he handed it to me, and despite its unappetizing scent, I gulped it down eagerly. After I had drained the dish, the elderly fox and I stared at each other for, what seemed to my young mind, an eternity. After eternity, the fox smiled again and asked, "Well, what's your name, son?" I knew I should have a name, but the question drew a blank. Noting my bewildered expression, he patted my knee. "Its okay, son. I'm adopting you if you don't mind and I can give you a name. Can you remember anything?" I shook my head dumbly. The fox's smile didn't falter for a second, "Well, that's a shame, but you've got your whole life ahead of you. Plenty of time for new memories. Now, I'm going to take you down to Lupinfang if you're feeling up to it. Must regester you with him. What do you say to that, son?" I hadn't the slightest idea. All the same, I supposed it was only polite to say something in return. I began to move my mouth in reply and stopped, realizing nothing was coming out. I may have lost my memory but I know that wasn't supposed to happen. I tried to force words, any words, through my throat, but gagged violently instead. The grizzled fox supported me, "Then again, perhaps I'd better take you back to Healer Sagepaw. He helped me care for you while you were unconsious with fever and he said you'd be fine, but maybe you need another looking over." The cave's mouth opened into the floor of a wide gorge. The fox led me down its length to an almost submerged enclosure, which he entered. I followed.
A familar voice, I supposed it and the older fox's were the voices I'd heard in semi-comsiousness, greeted us, "Why, Tracker Ruddcoat, and the black cub. The little tyke's looking much better, I dare say."
"Actually, I'd like you to look at him. He started to try talking and he doubled over, like he was in pain."
Sagepaw motioned for me to sit and began to feel my stomach, then my neck. I resisted my urge to snap at his paw. I hate being touched. "No swelling in the abdomen, voicebox is normal. Do you hurt anywhere?" I started to shake my head. "No, say it. In words." I tried to speak once again, not using so much force this time, but my breath whistled out ineffectively. Sagepaw shook his head, "He's healthy enough, though frail by nature. I'm afraid the problem's up here." He tapped his head. "It's fairly rare, but heat stroke can cause brain damage in severe cases, and his was definitely severe. Was there anything else unusual you noted about him?"
"No memory recall."
"Well, then I'm fairly sure he wasn't born mute then. Definite brain damage. I'm afraid I can't do anything for that. But you're literate, which is rare in gorge foxes. Teach him to write. It's really..."
I stopped listening. Naturally, I was crushed. No voice, no memory. Holding back the brimming tears, I tried to visualize not ever talking, not in a year, not when I was 75. And writing, it was just some wierd scratching in the dirt to me. Something caught my eye, something new to me. I may not have had life memory, but I could recognize things I'd known before, and I'd never seen it's like. Wiping the moisture from my eyes, I grabbed it, over come with youthful curiosity. It was several small, thin cylinders bound together with twine. Experimentally, I blew into one of the cylinders and my breath echoed through it, making a pleasant note. I smiled slowly, it dawning on me. THIS could be like a voice for me. I suddenly noticed Sagepaw staring at me, "Keep them. You'll need them more than I. But be careful. They're very old." He turned and entered the deeper regions of the cave.
Bren:
I looked up on response to the sound of light footsteps. Two figures exited the healer's cave across from my cage. One was familar, Ruddcoat, the chief tracker and forager. The other I didn't recognize. A small, bony black fox trailed Ruddcoat, holding pipes in his right paw. But I remembered those pipes. When I had been about five, I wasn't caged then, I had seen him play at the annual Chieftain's Fest. Why did the fox, who seemed about a year younger than me, have Sagepaw's pipes? And why couldn't I take my eyes off him. there was something strange about him, almost unearthly. Red mist began to creep around the corners of my view and I knew my sane time was at an end. Sight completely clouded with red now, I felt myself doing the regular ritual of hurling myself against the bars.
"Stop! Be still."
My body moved to obey the voice as if it were a natural extension of it, or a sword or shield it might freely manipulate.
"Ha! I see the voice control indoctrination is working fine. And they called me a fool! Ah, my ultra-Dirgecaller, you're worth all the trouble I had getting you a mother. But poor Wolf's Blood. You will only be a tool, not a heir. Scarletfyr shall succeed me, my cub by my first wife, that is, if I can't get another one. Much rather have a male succeed. If anyone does, for I plan to have the largest empire ever aquired by anybeast, with your help, as soon as you become a full-grown foxwolf, yes. Then the name of Lupinfang will be more emblazoned upon history than his famous grandfather, Urgan Nagru, yes, ten times!" His voice faded out as he walked away, bedraggled wolf cloak swishing noisily about his heels. Some later said about Lupinfang that he was as mad as his daughter. Being his daughter, I disagree. Lupinfang was just an idiot. An evil, ambitious one, but still an idiot!
Dylan
Flames everywhere, licking up the wooden timbers of a house that once existed. I ran in fear of their groping heat. Hard, frozen ground pounding beneath my paws, I suddenly saw dark forms emerge from the shadowed trees, bearing flickering torches. I looked back to see a multitude of forms with flaming brands burning the village. I tried to run back to the village, but my legs turned to lead.
A black, formless shape flew at me and for a second, my view went dead. Then I woke up, on dry wilderness soil and I screamed, but the sun sent out snaky flames amd pulled the scream out of me. My eyes filled with the view of raging fire, coming to claim me... I came awake, clutching in my claws my sweat-soaked straw mattress. I was alone. Ruddcoat went foraging at night. I grabbed my nearby pipes and rushed out of my cave, away from the wraith's of memory haunting my dreams. Down the canyon I ran, then stopped suddenly. There was a cage. I hadn't noticed it before. Inside was a female fox, or maybe a wolf, grey furred and yellow eyes. She peered keenly out at me, and I returned her gaze. I noted a faint reddish tinge emerge in the whites of her eyes and she suddenly snarled and threw herself against the bars. On impulse, I jerked the pipes to my muzzle and began to blow into them, tentatively at first....
Bren
The haze dissipated and I was sapient again. The blue-eyed shadow fox stared back at me, meloncholy strains flowing from the pipes he held. I could almost understand uords in the melody, a lament for something, I didn't know. But something passed between me and the young fox, something inexplainable. How long we stood there, keeping eye contact, I couldn't tell you, but there we were, until a voice rang out, "What's going on out there?" I looked in the direction of the voice and when I looked back, the shadow fox was gone.
Dylan
Years passed, I learned to read and write from Ruddcoat, who named me Dylan, meaning 'reserved' and Sablefur for obvious reasons. Troubled by dreams, I often played my pipes by Wolf's Blood's cage at night. I didn't really know what attracted me to her. Maybe it was the fact we were both trapped by something. Anyway, I was 16, almost 17 now, and she was as big as she was going to get, a huge 7' 2". I was 5' 8", not bad for a fox, but still skinny and frail, always the first to get sick if something came around. I wasn't thought as being worth much, but was appointed as a minor forager, after all, that wasn't too hard. One day, I happened upon a large crop of turnips and began to eagerly dig them up. Unfortunatly, the soil was grainy and it took me all night (I avoid foraging in the wilderness in daylight) to load my sack with the full patch. When I arrived back at the gorge, tired, but rather pleased with myself, I abruptly let my sack drop and burst on the rocks below, in reaction to what I saw on the bottom. The gorge was filled with the tribal foxes, lead by Lupinfang, and more prominently, Wolf's Blood, in full body armor including metal claws and saber, snarling unintelligibly, tinted crimson in dawn's early light. I could make out war cries, "Down with Redwall! Mossflower is ours!" What?! I climbed down the lower wall of the gorge and ran alongside the throng. There were so many familiar faces. Ruddcoat. Sagepaw. These were good beasts. What were they doing following Lupinfang. Why, Ruddcoat thought Lupinfang was an idiot! I went up to my foster parent and blew in the pipes hanging about my neck to get his attention. He looked at me sorrowfully. "What choice do we have? He'll kill us if we don't follow. Get in line, son." But didn't you always say he was just a fox like the rest of us? I really wished I could have spoken. Why was everyone so blind? And what was Wolf's Blood doing?! I ran ahead keeping to the shadows, until I was abreast with her. By chance I caught her eye and somehow I understood. There was fear behind those eyes, and desperation. Suddenly, triggered by my anger and intense feeling of helplessness, something welled up inside of me, something I didn't know I had, and forced itself through my long useless voicebox...
Bren
Suddenly the ultimate control Lupinfang had over me shattered and the scarlet mist receded. Somebeast was screaming, but it was a strange scream. There was words in it. The words were foreign, but powerful, though the tone was high-pitched and raspy as if the screamer hadn't spoken for a long time. Tracking the noise, I found the source. Dylan. But Dylan never so much as...
"Kill him." It was Lupinfang and I waited for my body to carry out the command, but nothing happened. Realizing this I turned to my father.
"No!"
"What!? You're so heavily indoctrinated if I told you to jump off a cliff you'd do so without hesitation. What do you mean, no? That so-called mute, he's done something to you. Give me that!" Taking a crossbow from a nearby gorge fox, he set a bolt to the string and fired. Hit square in the shoulder, the black fox screamed at an earsplitting pitch a final word, than choked off, collapsing. At this final word, something opened up in the back of my mind, but was then buried by red haze. Dylan might have somehow reversed my indoctrination, but my madness still flared. Howling in bestial rage, I raised metal sheathed claws as my vision erupted in crimson, which is fortunate. I didn't want to see the havoc this mad hybrid I was trapped in would cause.
Dylan
The pain awoke me. I lay face down upon red-tinged brushgrass, the salty smell of blood in the air. The reeking scent was so thick to make me gag violently, twisting in a fetal position as if to protect myself from the stench. A paw suddenly clamped on the back of my head, a voice whispering urgently, "Don't move, Dylan! Go limp. Your life depends upon it!" I released my tightened muscles and rolled, seemingly lifeless, back to the fully prostrate position. As I returned to lying on my back, I abruptly located the source of the body encompassing agony, my shoulder. Even if I hadn't been instructed to lay still, I wouldn't have had the strength to examine it. My briefly regained consciousness was swiftly fading....
Bren
I awoke to find myself on a bed of leaves, surrounded by high sheaves of unfamilar grass. How the heck did I get here?! Then I suddenly realized I had no idea where "here" had been before this "here." In fact, I had no recollection of anything at all, my past enveloped in an ipenetrable red haze. A twig cracked behind me and I whirled around, teeth bared. It was a hare, paws spread out to show whe was unarmed. I had some vague notion I was supposed to be enemies with such a beast, but I couldn't recall why. All the same, I drew myself up to my full height of 7' 2" and snarled, "Well, hare. Explain yourself."
She smiled, a little uneasily. "I'm Lilac Blacktip. I have been caring for you the past few days. You see, you were really quite out of your head, completely mad. I have been trying to disperse the insanity with some special herb mixtures and such and well, you seem sane enough."
Well, I wasn't sure what to say to that, but I saw no reason to disbelieve her at the time. And I was still too tired to do anytning more. I laid back down, muttering, "Sure, not too crazy anyway..."
Dylan
I gripped the protruding rocks of the southern gorge wall, scaling it carefully. I hoped I would be as inconspicuous as I thought amid all the fighting for new tribal dominance. If I was seen, I knew I would be executed swiftly. For the past few months, I had been recovering in the healer's caverns, hidden in a back room. He and my foster father had saved my life from the retribution of the gorge foxes. Bren had killed many beasts, including Lupinfang, before excaping the gorge and I was blamed for her outburst. Perhaps I was to blame. But I admit, I didn't much care. The young adult male foxes were even now battling to take Lupinfang's place and I doubted the victor would be so ambitious to attack Mossflower. Scarletfyr might have attempted, but she had been driven out shortly after her father's death. She vowed she'd make them pay of course and changed her name at the spur of the moment to Nexus or something like that. But no matter, I was off to a new life, a new hope, to be something more than the weak, helpless mute....