#kite also has a habit of wrapping his tails around things. it came from the fact that he's super lightweight

[theboxfort]

Kite specific doodles

[subtleshenanigans]

Just something I wrote - probably won’t do anything further with these characters.

In Bloom

————

————

Birch Brickpaw, mother of the dibbuns of Redwall. Brickpaw for her speedy cuff and sizable paws.

Badgers don’t name in clans like otters, not in a traditional sense. They like codes and riddles and secrets to share. It’s about fitting a long name, a meaning, into something simple. Like Hares, but not broadcasted.

Birch had grown up in the plains, in a humble home. Her mother grew flowers and herbs, her father farmed. It was a simple life.

“My little garden,” her mother would say. “See the flowers? They bloom in their own time. But the week you were born, my oh my! It made no sense. Borage, Iris, Rosemary, Catnip, Hyssop - they all bloomed with one another, so I named you for them.”

“I thought daddy said I was named after a tree,” Birch had asked in puzzlement. They looked over to where her father was splitting logs.

Her mother had winked. “Well, that’s what he thinks.”

It was happy, and simple. Her father called her ‘little sapling’ and marked as she grew. Nights were warm in summer, they holed up in winter at Redwall Abbey, came back for spring and sent gifts from autumn harvest.

Until one day they went to Redwall in late summer, and her father and mother kissed her brow, worry etched on their features.

The Abbot held her paw as they watched them leave, with the Skipper of otters and his entire crew.

And the door shut behind them.

And her parents didn’t come back.

———-

She would always be thankful for the otters, who under a new skipper, had tried their best. They hadn’t hid what had happened to them, and she was thankful for that as well.

Abbot Verum wasn’t that old, even as she was full-grown now. He had raised her, and trained her, and though she still held a temper after losing her parents, she was a kind, loving creature.

It was customary to have a Badger Mother at Redwall, and while Abbot Verum assured her that she need not take the position, she found caring for the little ones soothed the hurt in her heart. Even with the add-on of Brickpaw, she was gentle, and kind, and never raised a paw in anger. Discipline, don’t punish, and only if truly needed was her motto.

Many dibbuns were under her care throughout the seasons; the mischievous and the shy and the clever and the kind. She took in orphans and helped raise those who had parents. Life was beautiful, even if the hurt never truly left.

So when Skipper Wagrudder and his crew came one somber day, five rescued oarslaves and an orphaned babe, who was she to say no?

Until she found out it was a rat babe.

“Birch-“

“No, Verum.” She growled. That thing needs to be taken out of the abbey, immediately.

It was the first time Abbot Verum had ever been mad at her.

“That thing, as you put it, is a babe, with no family, and no home. He will be staying at Redwall Abbey, regardless whether you take him on or not.” He folded his paws into his habit sleeves, and his gaze softened. “I know you’re angry, and you have every right to be. But my child, don’t blame him for what happened.”

She watched him leave, the hurt aching.

—————

He’s a rat! Vermin, he’ll grow up one day and murder us left and right.

. . . but he’s also just a little baby. Will he really?

All vermin are the same!

. . .but, art they?

She remembered something her dad said once.

“Well, sapling, vermin are vermin, it’s true. But I knew a weasel once, and he wasn’t so bad. He made tools for cooking - I can tell you he shocked me right out of my fur when he first pointed that knife at me! But he wanted me to try it out. Gave me some of our nice spoons and ladles too. Said if I cooked him something and he liked it, I could keep the tools. Odd weasel, just liked making useful things I suppose.”

————-

The babe is wrapped in a shawl, chewing on the fabric and making it wet. It’s fur is gray with a blueish tinge. It doesn’t look too different from a mousebabe.

“They called him Houndstongue, according to Skipper,” Sister Fallow says, rocking the babe. The Abbot sits in the great armchair. Cavern Hole is empty this late at night, except for them, and Mother Birch, who watches from afar.

“Hmm, well we should change that. A new name for a new start,” the Abbot looks right over his glasses at Birch. “Any ideas?”

He reminds her of a periwinkle. “Pervenche.”

She doesn’t realize it was even her who said that, until she flees, his voice echoing up the stairs.

“A lovely name, I think.”

————-

By time he’s toddling around, which isn’t too far off, her fears come back tenfold, as does her doubts.

It will kill everyone I care about-

But-

But he cries, the first time he sees a fire lit, and crawls to hide behind the Abbot. He’s scared to take food without asking, and even then is scared to ask.

And he plays, tentatively at first, but then joins in more. Skipping and twirling and giggling with the other dibbuns, who look at him no different from themselves.

He holds his tail in his left paw, when he’s nervous, and chews on his right. He wants to learn to spell, doesn’t want to learn to swim, and likes cloudgazing with the others.

And Birch grumbles to herself, berates herself, because her she was, judging a child. A child who will grow and learn, and who better than her to teach him.

“Everyone is able to love, as much as they are to hate,” Sister Fallow mused, that night he was named. Before Birch fled. She hoops his nose, and he sneezes. “And this little fellow needs a lot of love, I think.”

————

Seasons pass, and he is walking instead of toddling. He’s wary of Birch, but knows the other dibbuns trust her.

“Ma Birch! Lookit meeee!”

It’s Ringul the squirrelmaid, hanging from a branch by her tail. Birch gently plucks her off. “Naughty little Ringul, you’ll fall on your head.”

She sets her down. “Now go off and play.”

“Butter kite stuckina tree!” Edin the otterbabe huffs. Thankfully, Birch is used to hearing baby speech run together.

Sighing, she crouches down, “Well master Edin, I’ll have to go get Addle, but for now-“

There’s a tug on her dress. “Mama, I’ll get it.”

And before she can respond - it’s the first she’s heard his voice - he’s scrabbling up as well as any squirrel, and back down, slipping a bit but using his tail to wrap around limbs and branches.

She wonders, then, is it really only because they corsairs rats are good at climbing?

——-

Pervenche still calls her Mama instead of Mother Birch or Ma, and she, in bewilderment, allows it.

Pervenche is still scared of fire, too, so he turns his back to it to enjoy its warmth. He wakes in his sleep with silent cries, and Birch only knows because she checks on the dibbuns every night.

But as he grows, he learns. He gains good friends, finds a skill in penmanship; Brother Mells teaches him how to plant crops.

“All the dibbuns are shaping up to be fine abbeybeasts, aren’t they?” Abbot Verum comments, one evening. Most of the young ones are helping set up for a late summer supper; Ringul and Pervenche helping with the lanterns.

And Birch thinks about the hurt that has steadily begun to leave; about small, tentative smiles and how he snuggles in her arms as she brings him up to sleep.

He’s no longer a little babe, but the worries she had had long since faded.

He sees her and the abbot staring, waves a paw after elbowing Ringul so that she’ll join in too.

“Yes,” she says at last, “they really are.”