Emilia T. Brudenell
Gentry: Baronet
It was late, and the house was still, dark, and quiet.
The full moon peered through the window, pregnant with intention and white as bone.
All that could be heard was the crashing sea.
Emilia stood in the parlor, dressed in a long white nightgown, a flickering candle mounted atop a silver holder grasped tight in her paws.
Her fingers moved repetitively, rubbing circles into the cold silver.
Naught else moved but the rise and fall of the stoat's chest as she breathed, and the slow blink of her dark, tired eyes locked in rapt attention to a framed painting above the fireplace.
Willard, blessed Willard, standing proud and tall, a paw upon her shoulder. Willard Jr. in her arms.
Before them, Aiken, looking serious, head high, back straight, like Willard har taught him. Nuori Anais next to him in a pretty dress, smiling.
The house was so empty now.
Somewhere outside, a wind rose, howling and sending the windchimes on the porch clacking and rattling like bonemen. The chimes were made by Aiken with seashells and twine when he was just a mite, back in Bouillabaisse.
They were made of tough stuff, those Bouillabaisse Harbor shells. Oyster shells, she supposed, scored and burnished from the years spent surviving the polluted harbor waters. Nothing like the soft little things you'd find on the beach here, practically crumbling to glitter in your paws.
In Bouillabaisse, little lasted, but what did, an army couldn't destroy. Hadn't they proved that again and again, that harbor, survivor of a thousand wars?
Emilia had been so proud of her homeland. She'd once looked over it, not so long ago, with Willard at her side, and seen a place of limitless possibility and unrelenting strength. The world was theirs, in those moments, it belonged to the Brudenells and to Bully Harbor.
Once a jewel, now tarnished and filthied, a plaything of foreign foxes who don't know the first thing about helming the dreams of a nation.
Only to cut throats, crush liberty, squander Bouillabaisse's potential and betray its people.
Every week she and Willard get letters, one after another after another. Pleas for liberation, pleas for a future for their kits, pleas for a return to a world that made sense, when cool minds and steady paws paved the way to glorious days.
And when operahouses bearing your kits didn't burst into flame!
Emilia's right paw began to shake so intensely she nearly dropped the candlestick, and steadied it with her other paw.
Sniffling, the stoatess peered back up at the portrait, studying closely the face of each stoat in the portrait, until her gaze ended upon Willard Jr.'s, and a deep breath compressed and escaped slowly from between her taut, trembling lips.
She reached up to the mantel, and stroked the painted kit's face, with his big, watchful eyes, his plump cheeks and shy, curious smile. Then her fingers slid down to a stack of envelopes on the mantel, and she took one and pulled it open, read the letter for a third time that night.
"My Lord and Lady Brudenell," it began, "I am pleased to inform you of the good health of your children. Nuori is in the Navy and taking fast to the life of a sailor, and Aiken is recovering well from the terroristic incident at the Bouillabaisse Harbor Opera House, which has sadly yet to be repaired. I have with the utmost discretion delivered your funds for Nuori's supplies and for Aiken's treatment, and wish to remind you again with the nudging of O and Q that you are sorely missed here in the Harbor.
Many a beast talks fondly of the days of Brudenell when they think a Ryalor cannot overhear.
Many would gladly take up arms for your cause, if ever you chose to return.
Indebted to you,
M"
The stoat's paw squeezed around the paper until it was a crumpled ball, her heavy breathing shaky as tears began to well in her eyes.
"Why us to have... have lives fraught with such dangers?" she whimpered to herself, soft and guilt-stricken from what she and he and they must do. Not only for themselves, for everyone.
The full moon peered through the window, pregnant with intention and white as bone.
All that could be heard was the crashing sea.
Emilia stood in the parlor, dressed in a long white nightgown, a flickering candle mounted atop a silver holder grasped tight in her paws.
Her fingers moved repetitively, rubbing circles into the cold silver.
Naught else moved but the rise and fall of the stoat's chest as she breathed, and the slow blink of her dark, tired eyes locked in rapt attention to a framed painting above the fireplace.
Willard, blessed Willard, standing proud and tall, a paw upon her shoulder. Willard Jr. in her arms.
Before them, Aiken, looking serious, head high, back straight, like Willard har taught him. Nuori Anais next to him in a pretty dress, smiling.
The house was so empty now.
Somewhere outside, a wind rose, howling and sending the windchimes on the porch clacking and rattling like bonemen. The chimes were made by Aiken with seashells and twine when he was just a mite, back in Bouillabaisse.
They were made of tough stuff, those Bouillabaisse Harbor shells. Oyster shells, she supposed, scored and burnished from the years spent surviving the polluted harbor waters. Nothing like the soft little things you'd find on the beach here, practically crumbling to glitter in your paws.
In Bouillabaisse, little lasted, but what did, an army couldn't destroy. Hadn't they proved that again and again, that harbor, survivor of a thousand wars?
Emilia had been so proud of her homeland. She'd once looked over it, not so long ago, with Willard at her side, and seen a place of limitless possibility and unrelenting strength. The world was theirs, in those moments, it belonged to the Brudenells and to Bully Harbor.
Once a jewel, now tarnished and filthied, a plaything of foreign foxes who don't know the first thing about helming the dreams of a nation.
Only to cut throats, crush liberty, squander Bouillabaisse's potential and betray its people.
Every week she and Willard get letters, one after another after another. Pleas for liberation, pleas for a future for their kits, pleas for a return to a world that made sense, when cool minds and steady paws paved the way to glorious days.
And when operahouses bearing your kits didn't burst into flame!
Emilia's right paw began to shake so intensely she nearly dropped the candlestick, and steadied it with her other paw.
Sniffling, the stoatess peered back up at the portrait, studying closely the face of each stoat in the portrait, until her gaze ended upon Willard Jr.'s, and a deep breath compressed and escaped slowly from between her taut, trembling lips.
She reached up to the mantel, and stroked the painted kit's face, with his big, watchful eyes, his plump cheeks and shy, curious smile. Then her fingers slid down to a stack of envelopes on the mantel, and she took one and pulled it open, read the letter for a third time that night.
"My Lord and Lady Brudenell," it began, "I am pleased to inform you of the good health of your children. Nuori is in the Navy and taking fast to the life of a sailor, and Aiken is recovering well from the terroristic incident at the Bouillabaisse Harbor Opera House, which has sadly yet to be repaired. I have with the utmost discretion delivered your funds for Nuori's supplies and for Aiken's treatment, and wish to remind you again with the nudging of O and Q that you are sorely missed here in the Harbor.
Many a beast talks fondly of the days of Brudenell when they think a Ryalor cannot overhear.
Many would gladly take up arms for your cause, if ever you chose to return.
Indebted to you,
M"
The stoat's paw squeezed around the paper until it was a crumpled ball, her heavy breathing shaky as tears began to well in her eyes.
"Why us to have... have lives fraught with such dangers?" she whimpered to herself, soft and guilt-stricken from what she and he and they must do. Not only for themselves, for everyone.
