"The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for."
-Allan K. Chalmers
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The sun glared brightly in a cloudless summer sky. It had not rained in over a week, and, though it had made the trees a little less green and the hot air a little more stifling, this fact had opened up several new oppotunities for two creatures in particular.
A large, rocky pit in one of the deepest parts of the forest, a pit that was normally full of water, was now dry, the stones exposed and forming an invitingly strange terrain.
Swish!
Clang!
Dogdge, parry, swing, turn, jump up, jump down...
Clang!
Swish!
"Touche!"
The point of a blunt practice sword tapped against the chest of a red-furred instructor who was panting enthusiastically.
"Good job, Erin." Said Bratis, grinning. "But I've seen better."
"Better! Ha!" snorted the spunky, adolescent vixen, flopping into a rock. "That was my best work!"
Erin had grown a lot in the past few years. Her coat was no longer fuzzy and buff-colored, but a flaming orange-red. A tuft of tousled longer fur on her forehead hung comically in front of her strange eyes. At first, Bratis had thoguht that it was merely due to prolonged puppyhood, or perhaps a sign that her eyes were going to be green when she grew up, but now there was no mistaking it. Erin's eyes were blue.
Bratis sat on his haunches an scratched one ear with a hind paw. "I know, but it wasn't my best work. I could've defeated you easily." His enigmatic eyes twinkled.
"Aw.." Erin exhaled a long breath and laid her head on her paws. "I'll never be as good as you, dad! You're the best there is! and you're old, too!"
"Old?" Chuckled Bratis, "You think I'm old?" He leaned over and nipped her ear playfully. "Why, compared to some creatures I'm a mere kit!"
Erin looked at Bratis. Some creatures... She had always wondered about other creatures.
Oh, certainly she'd seen birds ang bugs and reptiles, even the occasional small mammal, like shrews and squirrels, but they were Wild.
Wild ones were no less intelligent, but they shunned civilized ways. They didn't speak the common tongue, but preferred to use their more ancient native speech, which only they knew.
But compared to the things she'd read about in books, and the things Bratis had told her, Erin herself was nearly Wild, when you thought of some of the civilized ones.
Erin couldn't imagine things like cities. Small villages, maybe. But thousands of civilized creatures living right on top of one another? Was such a thing even possible? Perhaps one day Bratis would take her to one of those mystical places...
"Dad, will I ever get to see those other creatures who you say are so much older than you?" She asked.
Bratis stood up and laughed. "Oh, one of these days, Erin. Shall we get back to work?"
"Yeah!" Erin picked up her sword. Trips to cities would wait. She had some serious fencing to learn!
* * * *
Sir Bratis sat down outside the cottage in a wooden chair that Erin had built. The lines were a bit rough, but it was sturdy. He sipped at a cup of herb tea and sighed happily.
Erin was working on a project behind the house; digging a well. She said it was too much work to walk to the river to get water, especially with this dry spell. So she was digging a well.
Erin. She was not his own child, but sometimes Bratis forgot that fact. She was the apple of his eye, his best hope for the future. His link to the past.
Bratis thought of his old friends, Erin's parents.
Seumas, her father, possibly the cleverest, most audacious dog fox that ever jumped a fence. Bratis's close companion in his younger days. He had been made an outlaw, however, by the king, and it was mainly that fact which led to Bratis's betraying the monarch.
And Deirdre, the beautiful vixen from afar. Bratis had loved the blue-eyed she-fox once, but his life would have never suited her. She was one of those strange, rare creatures who don't seem to be bound by anything, except, perhaps, love. The hard, intrigue-riddled life he'd lived in the castle would've destroyed her. That was why, when his good friend Seumas had announced that he and Deirdre were getting married, he had been almost happier than the betrothed ones themselves.
Never mind the fact that Seumas was supposed to be banished from the kingdom. None of the king's guards or soldiers could ever catch that fox! Seumas and Deirdre had run away together, and lived in the woods (it was they who had built the cottage where Bratis and Erin now lived), free as birds, planning a revolution.
When Bratis had heard of their death, his heart had seemed to shatter...
But he still had Erin, his friends' legacy, and she meant everything to him. And life was good.