tales-in-paper-and-ink - Tumblr blog

tales-in-paper-and-ink · 8 years ago

Photo

INKTOBER TALES - DAY TWO

(Illustration prompt: Vagabond, bonus story prompt: Divided)

Pepper woke to the sound of an unfamiliar voice, rough and husky, mingling with their parents’ familiar squeaks, spilling indistinctly into the burrow with the early morning sunshine. They tumbled out of bed and scurried to the door to see their mother and father chatting amiably with a huge grey rat. Her posture was casual and comfortable, leaning back just a little on her thick, ropy tail and dangling a rucksack at a jaunty angle over her shoulder, and she was in the middle of a throaty laugh that showed off her sharp, yellow front teeth. Russet and his wife, Maple, were laughing too, but their smiles were a little more reserved, and Maple kept fidgeting absently with her front paws and glancing about. When her wandering gaze came to rest on Pepper in the doorway of the burrow, her smile widened and warmed a little, and she called out, “You can come on out, Pepper, dear! I’m sure you’d like to meet our visitor.”

Pepper scampered over to their mother’s side and gazed up at the cheerful, scruffy face of the rat. The rat looked back down at them, her shiny black eyes like beads of onyx, and Pepper thought that she looked much, much larger up close somehow. “Good morning, little crumb!” she said, leaning down to Pepper’s level and putting her rough paws on her knees. Pepper noticed that she was wearing simple matching bracelets on each wrist - a single smooth stone tied around with coarse twine. “My name is Bailey, what do they call you?”

Up this close, Pepper could smell the unmistakable scent that permeated the air around Bailey. There was a faint undertone of unwashed musk, but it was mostly covered up by hints of pine sap and cut grass and rich soil, and Pepper thought they could smell something like berries and sour honey on the rat’s breath when she spoke. To Pepper, the smell spoke of travel and freedom and open air, and the effect was altogether enchanting. They grinned and stood up tall and held out their paw. “I’m Pepper!” they declared. “And I’m going to be a wanderer like you when I grow up!”

Bailey shook Pepper’s paw with a delighted chuckle. “So you are!” she said. “And a fine one, too, with that kind of spirit.”

Russet’s brow furrowed - only for a moment, but Pepper saw it - then he said, “Bailey, you mentioned you were only passing through the orchard when you stopped to chat with us, I would hate to slow you down on your travels if you have some place you need to be.”

“Oh, no, your little Pepper here has it right,” Bailey replied. “I’m a bit of a vagabond, no destination or schedule, just wandering. I gather food when I’m hungry, find shelter when I’m tired, and the rest of the time I just walk where I walk and see what I see.”

Pepper’s eyes widened and their tiny jaw dropped open. “That sounds just wonderful,” they whispered in awe.

“It sounds stressful and dangerous to me,” Russet said, “but we all live our own lives, I suppose.”

“Oh, there are risks, of course,” Bailey shrugged. “I find it just adds to the adventure of it all. Though once in a while it can be nice to stop and catch my breath.”

“Oh you should, you should!” Pepper cried out. “You can catch all the breath you’d ever need here with us!”

Bailey glanced at Russet’s thin smile and Maple’s twiddling fingers and shook her head. “I wouldn’t want to impose myself on your family, little crumb,” she said. “I can spend the day around here, find my own food and a place to sleep and be on my way at sundown.”

“Oh Bailey, I won’t hear of it,” Maple interjected. “Really, you’re welcome to stay as our guest for as long as you’d like.”

Russet nodded. “Maple and I may be a little shy around strangers, but please don’t take that for inhospitality. While you’re in our orchard you can eat and rest with our family any time”

“And besides, Pepper’s taken a real liking to you,” Maple added meekly. “I’ve been a mother long enough to know who I can trust around my babies and, well... I’d be happy to have you in my home.”

Bailey set down her rucksack and swept up Maple in a big, joyful hug. The little mouse squeaked and blushed a little as the rat hoisted her off the ground for a moment. “You’re a kind soul, miss Maple,” Bailey said, then she set the flustered mouse down and patted Russet on the shoulder. “And you too, sir. I’m awfully grateful.”

By now, the sounds of conversation had woken several of Pepper’s siblings, and Bailey was soon swept up in a swarm of curious voices and whirlwind introductions. During the days that Bailey stayed in the orchard, the clingy curiosity of the younger mice faded slowly, and they returned one by one to their regular routines, but Pepper stuck closer to Bailey than the fur on her back. They ate when she ate, slept when she slept, and hung on her every word.

Bailey reveled in her little companion’s adoring presence, and she showed Pepper all sorts of things she’d learned in her travels. She explained the difference between poison oak and poison ivy, taught them to make a backpack from a hollowed-out acorn and some ivy, and showed them how to find the best shelter in any kind of terrain.

And as they spent the days together, gathering plants and hollowing out acorns and taking breaks to eat berries in the tall grass beneath the trees, Bailey told Pepper stories. Stories about places they had only seen from high in their favorite tree but that Bailey had seen with her own eyes, stories about things that Pepper had only imagined, and things that she had never even heard of. Bailey told them stories about trees with long, thin needles instead of broad leaves, about streams so big and deep you could hardly see the bottom or the other side, about strange and unlikely creatures, some fearsome and some friendly and most so bizarre Pepper could hardly believe Bailey was telling the truth. But Pepper did believe, they believed every word that Bailey said, and with every detail in every story their heart set itself more firmly than ever before on adventure.

“When Bailey leaves,” Pepper announced loudly one morning at supper, “I’m going to go with her, and I’ll see the world!”

Silence fell over the family so quickly and thoroughly that the sound of Pepper cheerfully biting into a sunflower seed may as well have been a thunderclap. Russet cleared his throat and glanced at Maple, who was just staring wide-eyed at her child, her usually-fidgeting hands stock-still. “I know how much Bailey’s stories mean to you, Pepper,” Russet said carefully. “But she’s been traveling all her life. She knows her way out there. You’re still just a young mouse, you’re safest here at home, with your family.”

“But you said yourself that Bailey knows her way,” Pepper protested. “I would be safe with her! Wouldn’t I, Bailey?”

Bailey looked into Pepper’s tiny, hopeful eyes and felt something in her heart splinter. “I’m sorry, Pepper,” she said, looking away before she could see the little mouse’s face fall. “But your dad is right. You’ve got a good home here, and I wouldn’t feel right taking you away from it. I’m used to walking alone, I can’t guarantee you’d be safe with me, and that’s just not a risk I can take.”

Pepper tried to find words to express their feelings of disbelief and betrayal, but when they opened their mouth to plead their case, all they could manage to produce was a muffled sob and a stream of hot tears. Maple bundled them off to bed with soothing, whispered reassurances, but nothing she said could break through Pepper’s shell of disappointment. Eventually she had to tend to the other children, leaving Pepper to marinate in their sadness alone.

Pepper slept fitfully that day when they managed to sleep at all, and as they lay in bed staring at the packed earth ceiling of the burrow their sorrow metamorphized into something colder and harder and heavier. It settled deep in their chest, filled their limbs with a restless energy and their mind with scattered thoughts, and before the sun had even begun to go down all the pieces seemed to snap together at once, and Pepper shot out of bed, scooped up their acorn-shell backpack, and stumbled out into the late afternoon air.

The first thing they saw was a large, familiar shape walking slowly away from the burrow with a rucksack over its shoulder. Pepper strapped on their backback and hurried to catch up, and as soon as they were close enough they squeaked, “Bailey!”

Bailey flinched at the sound, but she stopped and turned to face her pursuer. “You were just going to leave without saying goodbye?” Pepper asked, their voice thick with accusation.

“I’m sorry, little crumb,” Bailey sighed. “I thought it would be easier like this. I didn’t wanna see you cry again.”

Pepper scowled. “Well I’m not gonna cry again,” they declared, tiny arms crossed. “I’m gonna come with you, just like I said.”

Bailey smiled a little at that, but her eyes glistened with the promise of tears. “You know, I was a kid like you once,” she said. “I had a family and a home before I started wandering.”

Pepper quirked an eyebrow. “What were they like?”

There was a brief silence as Bailey looked away and tried to gather herself. “They meant well,” she said at last. “So does yours. I can’t stop you from doing what you’re going to do, little crumb, but I can tell you this: I wish I hadn’t been in such a hurry to cut myself loose when I was your age. The future is a fickle thing, and sometimes when you leave a place you don’t get to come back.”

Pepper thought about this for a moment. “Will you come back here, at least?” they asked quietly.

Bailey ruffled their ears. “I can try my best, but I can’t promise,” she said. She paused with her paw on Pepper’s head, lost in thought, then she nodded in answer to a question only she knew and slipped the bracelet from her right wrist. “Here, little crumb, wear this,” she said. “As long as you’ve got yours and I’ve got mine, we’ll have something to connect us, and I’ll do my best to find my way back to you, alright?”

Pepper ran their paws over the cold, smooth stone and the rough twine and managed a tearful smile. They slipped it over their paw and threw their arms around Bailey’s waist, and Bailey hugged them back, fighting back tears of her own. After they separated, she patted the little mouse on the head one more time and said, “Now go on back to bed, Pepper. And tell your mom and dad I said thank you, for everything.”

Pepper watched Bailey leave, and the cold, heavy feeling in their chest sank into their stomach and seemed to catch fire. They walked back to the door to the burrow and looked inside, but they couldn’t bring their feet to carry them across the threshhold. Bailey’s words swirled in their mind, her stories of adventure and her warnings of regret, and they mixed with Pepper’s own worries and wishes and wondering, until the little mouse felt that if they stayed in the little orchard for one more moment they might burst. Without another instant of hesitation, Pepper took off running, not to follow Bailey, but in a direction all their own, away from the apple trees and the quiet burrow and toward something, anything, else.

#inktober tales

3 notes · View notes