Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Papa, get the rifle from its place above the French doors!
They're comin' from the woods!
Oh, they're comin from the woods!
The Rifle, Alela Diane.

Some decisions one simply doesn’t think about when they make them. All it takes is a look, or a word, and the deed is done. As it is, Joxter knows the decision the moment he sees the kit for the first time.

Mymble has waved him over to the cradle from where she is lying in the bed, exhausted but pleased. 

Who’d have thought having only the one would be so much more work than usual, she’d said of the birth when Joxter had been allowed in. In said cradle is a small bundle that squirms like a worm on the hook.

How strange, to meet at last. Joxter has spent the last few months wandering the wood around Mymble's cottage, climbing high to avoid the sticky hands of Mymble children and lurking late for the pleasure of his own pipe under the stars he can see here. But he'd stayed in her company, slept in her bed and all to watch her belly grow. 

It had been the gentlemanly thing to do, Moomintroll would say. If he knew, that is but Joxter thought it all the same. 

Joxter touches the kit’s outstretched hand first, bald fingers as they so often are this early. Not that Joxter has ever seen as such in person, before.

‘He’s so small,’ Joxter says, awed as Mymble giggles from her pillow.

‘He gets that from you, dear.’

‘Must do.’ Joxter is too breathless to speak really. The kit’s nose is certainly Mumrik in nature, almost too large yet for his tiny face. And my, what a tiny face!

Joxter already has the kit out of the cradle before he realises what he’s doing, the creature so light in his paws. The kit’s head fits in the palm of one, like an orange or some other exquisite fruit.

As he holds his son in his paws, Joxter realises with a certainty that frightens him that this creature is his. In every sense something can ever belong to anyone.

Joxter panics and nearly drops the kit altogether.

‘Mymble!’ he yelps, falling backwards onto his tail and cushioning the kit against his chest as he goes. ‘Mymble! What do I do?’

‘Booble’s wept, Joxter!’ Mymble scolds, half-laughing as she does. ‘Have you never held a child before?’

‘... No,’ Joxter says, looking up at her upside down from where he’s lying on the floor with the kit held tight to him. He wriggles in Joxter’s paws, making small murps that have Joxter’s fur stand on end.

‘Couldn’t you have at least practiced before coming in and nearly killing the poor thing!’ Mymble says, sitting up to reach down. She winces slightly and Joxter pangs with the guilt at having her move, but she has the kit up and into her large hands before he can say a word. ‘Now, now, little one. Better?’

The kit can’t answer of course but Joxter feels like he does with the small squeak of a yawn he makes. Joxter rolls over, tail up as he stands to loom over them both. Mymble makes holding the kit look so easy and Joxter feels an instant and unusual jealousy.

‘Can I hold him again?’

‘Are you sure you’re able to?’ Mymble is only teasing but Joxter bristles anyway, which only makes her laugh. That gutter-drain laugh Joxter adores, even now as she mocks him. Mymble nods to the bed. ‘Come sit properly and I’ll show you.’

Once suitably perched and with the kit arranged in one arm as Mymble likes, Joxter tries to resist the urge to squeeze him. He feels like a bird in Joxter’s paws, too light and maybe brittle. How can something so precious even exist in the first place?

Mymble reaches down to pet the end of Joxter’s tail where it twitches on the duvet, her fingers a reassuring warmth that ripples right into Joxter’s gut. He looks at her, the fuzz of his cheeks twitching with the swell of affection that floods through him at the sight of her hair all tumbled down, sticking with sweat and her red, red cheeks like apples.

‘You are a magnificent creature, Mymble,’ Joxter tells her because it is true. He wants to look at her more, but finds himself too distracted by his son. Who is blinking up at Joxter with dark, toffee-nut eyes. Joxter’s breath catches. ‘Look at the marvellous thing you have made.’

‘The marvellous thing we made,’ Mymble corrects him gently and Joxter touches the kit’s face with one finger. Long enough to reach forehead to chin.

Joxter has never felt anything remotely like this for Mymble’s other children. He thinks they’re a pleasant enough sort, certainly the elder ones. But mostly Joxter finds them to be an overwhelming tide of excitement, noise and mischief. While no stranger to mischief himself, Joxter does find himself off-put entirely by the bother they are.

This kit- their kit, his son- is as still a thing as a deep rooted tree.

How is it even possible? Joxter thinks. To adore so truly, so quick.

‘Any idea for a name?’ Mymble says after a long time of listening to the kit breathe. Oh, how Joxter feels he might do as such for hours, like lying in a Spring meadow listening to bumblebees. ‘Myrik, maybe. Mym?’

‘He’s no Mymble,’ Joxter says, not liking the sound of any of those names. So similar to Mymble’s other children when his son most definitely isn’t. ‘It would be dishonest to give him a Mymble name.’

‘Maybe he can share yours,’ Mymble suggests, easing back on her pillows with Joxter’s tail in her hand. ‘Joxter and his Papa.’

Joxter doesn’t like that either. He doesn’t want to give something up when he can give something new.

‘Snufkin,’ Joxter says after a thought. He stares at the kit’s face- his nose, his eyes wide like buttons and the pink curl of his mouth. ‘His name is Snufkin.’

‘Snufkin?’ Mymble repeats, clearly dubious. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Certain,’ Joxter says as he is. He looks at the kit’s face and sees a Snufkin looking back. ‘A soft beginning, like a whisper. Something not quite ready to be said aloud.’

And the end because- well...

Joxter knows but can’t quite find the way to say it. Snufkin blinks owlishly up at him, small fists all pink skin and flat fingernails, and Joxter moves his finger down for Snufkin to wrap one around.

’My love, that’s a dreadful thing to name a child. What is he to be now? Some old codger in the corner of the public house?’

’How bad if he were,’ Joxter teases, knowing it will only serve to wind Mymble up further. ‘But it won’t come to that. He’ll be too brave a thing for such, believe me.’

’Got the run of him already, have you?’ Mymble says, running her fingers through the soft tuft at the end of Joxter’s tail. 

‘More than! A fine fellow you are, Snufkin!’ Joxter says, giddy all of a sudden and he finds he’s laughing, crying, or something jumbled between both at once.

Joxter lifts Snufkin up over his head with both paws, ignoring Mymble’s instant rush of careful now!

Snufkin doesn’t laugh, or cry- he simply stares down a Joxter, his father! His father, his one and only in the whole world and Joxter is terrified at the thought and thrilled by it all the same. He feels like a kettle boiling over, a river rushing too fast with rain swell.

‘Don’t drop him,’ Mymble warns, squeezing Joxter’s tail in a nervy manner. Joxter laughs, a barking breath of it shooting out of him as he looks at Snufkin above him.

‘If I did, I would catch him all the same!’ Joxter says brightly, and he rolls into his back on the bed, across poor Mymble’s legs. Snufkin comes with him, eyes never leaving Joxter’s face. ‘Marvellous. He’s truly marvellous.’

‘He’ll be truly ill over your nose if you’re not careful. He’s barely born, you know.’

Even so, Joxter feels it would be worth it. He brings Snufkin back down, places the kit under his chin and pets at the downy hair on Snufkin’s head. Auburn like wet clay, just like his mother’s and Joxter looks at where Mymble is shaking her head at him, eyes heavy with tiredness.

‘Oh, Mymble.’ Joxter keeps Snufkin close with one paw and reaches for Mymble with the other. She takes it, linking their fingers together. ‘How much can a poor Mumrik bear to adore you?’

‘As much as he can bear to crush my poor legs,’ Mymble replies, squirming underneath him and Joxter laughs, Snufkin bouncing on his chest.

How right Joxter was, for how marvellous it all is. He sits with his son in his paws, his Mymble beneath him and right in the middle of the decision he's made. 

It's almost like no choice at all.

*/

‘I want to play with him.’

Joxter tips his hat back to look at one of Mymble’s children, who’s standing over him with her hands on her small hips. They really are such tiny creatures, for a mother so tall. And voices so loud.

‘I’m afraid not,’ Joxter says, dropping his hat back down.

He’s lying in the tall chamomile at the edge of Mymble’s large garden, the wee Snufkin curled on his chest and sleeping. It’s better to be outside when at all possible, the walls of the house so close together and doubly so for the children running between them.

Joxter is feeling the tension inside like the thrum of an angry wasps nest. He swallows it down every day best he can, trying not to flinch from the way Mymble holds him so tightly like she knows. The garden helps, he must admit. But usually only without-

‘We all play together!’ the Mymble says petulantly and Joxter shrugs, not swayed. 

‘He’s too small to play.’ 

‘I want to hold him then! He’s my brother, I should get to!’

‘Absolutely not,’ Joxter tells her, a paw on Snufkin’s back and tightening instinctively there. ‘You wouldn’t know how to do so properly, small one.’

‘Mama says you don’t know how to either.’ 

That stings, Joxter must admit but there’s no denying that Mymble herself is prone to correcting whatever way he may be holding Snufkin when she looks at them. A paw here, an elbow there- Snufkin never seems to complain himself, Joxter thinks and that should be plenty good enough.

‘He’s happy the way I hold him,’ Joxter says, trying to wave the Mymble off with his free paw. ‘Which one are you, anyway?’

‘Little My,’ the Mymble says with an air of much importance. 

‘Well, then, Little My,’ Joxter says, trying to settle himself back down so he might return to the nap he’s been having. ‘Why not run off and be a little bother to someone else?’ 

‘I’m not a bother!’ Little My says in a manner most bothersome, doubly so by the way she kicks a small foot in Joxter’s ribs. ‘You’re the one being a bother! It’s not fair you get to keep him all to yourself all the time!’

‘I’m his Papa,’ Joxter tells her but that means sod all it seems. 

‘So? He’s my brother and that’s forever. Papas are only for sometimes.’ 

Joxter frowns, not at all impressed with that sentiment. ‘Not all Papas.’

‘All our Papas,’ Little My says with a solemn nod, as though bestowing some great wisdom. ‘He won’t remember you when he’s big.’

‘Of course he will,’ Joxter says, trying to be above getting into an argument with a child and failing miserably. ‘I’ll still be his Papa, even when he’s big. Some things can’t be forgotten.’

‘Do you remember your Papa?’

Joxter doesn’t answer that and holds Snufkin tighter instead. He shuffles a bit on the grass, trying to make a show of getting comfortable again as he says to Little My: ‘You have many other brothers and even some sisters, too. When you’re big you won’t remember it if you don’t play with this one.’

‘I would to!’ Little My says firmly. ‘I’m not like Mama, I don’t forget everything!’

‘Your mother doesn’t forget everything,’ Joxter replies, before thinking for a moment. ‘Just a far bit of some things. She’s got a busy mind, that Mymble.’

Little My kicks him again and Joxter frowns at her, tail whipping. 

‘You love her,’ she says and Joxter’s whiskers ruffle, a touch embarrassed even if true. ‘It’s weird.’ 

‘Loving someone?’ 

‘Loving her,’ Little My says oddly, stopping when Snufkin suddenly moves. 

The kit stretches on Joxter’s chest, not quite awake and he makes small snuffling noises. He turns his small head, dark eyes blinking for a moment before he curls back in like a knot of bread, little hands scratching on Joxter’s coat.

Little My comes closer as he does, narrow-nose first and Joxter watches her down the length of his own.

‘What’s his name? Mama keeps forgetting.’

‘She doesn’t forget,’ Joxter sighs, half-fond. ‘She just doesn’t like it. Thinks it’s an old fellow’s name.’

‘Is it?’ Little My asks, poking Snufkin with a small finger. Joxter just resists batting her off as Snufkin squirms.

‘It’s his name and that’s all that matters,’ Joxter says with a small huff. ‘And his name is Snufkin.’

‘Snufkin?’ Little My repeats, pulling a face. ‘That name’s weird. Like you.’

‘Snufkin’s supposed to be like me, I would think,’ Joxter says, rubbing his paw over the top of Snufkin’s fluffy head.

‘Not like me?’

‘He won’t be like you, Little My.’

‘Why not?’

‘It’ll be his nature. He’s a Mumrik after all.’

’How can you tell that? He’s got no fur,’ Little My points out and though it shouldn’t, Joxter can’t help but feel it to be a slight somehow. ‘Or tail.’

Joxter pats Snufkin’s back reassuringly though the kit most definitely doesn’t care what Little My may say. ‘He’ll get his fur when he’s older, he’s only a wee ane.’

On the tail, Joxter is less optimistic. That’s rather one of those things one’s born with or not. It doesn’t matter a jot to Joxter though, who would never judge a creature by their tail or lack thereof to begin with. 

‘He’ll be quite splendid, I think,’ Joxter continues to say, more to himself than anything. ‘Even more than he is now.’

‘What makes him so special?’ Little My asks rudely, going to poke Snufkin again and this time Joxter does whip his tail over to put her off. He doesn’t hit her with it, but it gets the message across and she snaps back as though he had.

‘Many things.’

‘He’s my brother same as my other brothers.’

‘I very much doubt that,’ Joxter says and despite his best efforts, Snufkin is awake and starting to fuss. Joxter takes him with both paws, holding him up over his face and Snufkin peers down at him with a frown. ‘Your Mama and I have made someone rather new here, I think.’

Little My comes closer, tilting her head up to keep looking at Snufkin. ‘How though?’

‘Because of the way we feel,’ Joxter says hurriedly, dodging that topic best he can after he’s wandered blindly into it.

Instead, he brings Snufkin down to leave a lop-sided kiss on the top of his nose. Breathes in the scent of him and how close it is to the way Mymble smells after a day in the garden.

‘I know songs,’ Little My says suddenly, standing up a bit straighter and looking Joxter right in the eye. Fierce creatures, Mymbles. ‘Not lots of songs. But little songs and I’m really good at singing, too.’

‘Are you now?’ Joxter sits up gently, letting Snufkin slide slowly down into his lap. He catches him fast and holds him the way Mymble always tells him to. ‘What songs do you know?’

‘Does he like songs?’ Little My asks, pointing to Snufkin. Joxter looks down at him, making a small hum of thought.

‘You know, I’m not quite sure. I don’t think he’s heard one yet.’

‘You’re a bad Papa,’ Little My says and Joxter coughs, slightly offended but mostly just amused by her brazenness. ‘Papas and Mamas should sing songs. I’m a good sister though, so I’ll sing for him.’

‘Will you now?’ Joxter says but Little My is already ahead of him, humming away to herself at first before she puffs out her little chest and starts to sing proper.

‘All small beasts should have bows in their tails!’ she sings loudly, a touch sharp to Joxter’s poor ears but his wince melts the moment she looks down to Snufkin as she continues. ‘Or they’ll find themselves locked in Hemulen jails!’

It’s a song Joxter has heard about the cottage a few times now, though Mymble herself always falters half-way through as she never remembers the end. She’ll try to pass it off as on purpose though, slipping a delicate hand out to get under Joxter’s chin and tilt him up. How many kisses she’s stolen from the unfinished song.

Snufkin is fascinated by the swaying Little My has added to her song, her hands swinging broadly with the theatrics of it all. Joxter grins, beginning to lean one way and then the other as she goes and Snufkin waves his tiny hands towards her.

‘You can’t blame another and then ruuuun away!’ Little My warbles at the end, but Joxter must give credit for her being the first Mymble he’s ever heard get to the end of it at all.

Once she’s finished, Joxter bows his head down low to her. ‘Well, well, Little My. I’d say that he couldn’t have asked for better if that is to be his first song.’

Little My smiles but it’s rather more the smile of someone who knows they’ve done well already. She looks less sure when she bends down to get a better look at Snufkin.

‘I’ll teach you how to sing it when you’re big,’ Little My says to the kit, who watches her back with eyes like chestnuts. ‘All our Papas were useless, too.’

With that, she saunters off with a holler towards a gaggle of the other children from where they’re starting to make a mess of Mymble’s lavender. Joxter watches her go, that buzzing nag in his chest thrumming to life again as he thinks about what she’s said.

He brings Snufkin up close, presses his forehead to Snufkin’s and lets the kit get his tiny fingers into Joxter’s whiskers.

‘Will you remember me when you’re big?’ Joxter asks, his lips brushing against Snufkin’s nose. Snufkin tugs on a whisker, hard but it doesn’t hurt and Joxter laughs. 

He brings Snufkin down to look at him properly, tail whipping in a nervy manner he tries to ignore.

‘Silly me. You won’t ever be big,’ Joxter tells his son, who takes the news with a yawn. 

*/

Joxter awakes to the shutters on the window rattling.

He leaps from the bed, paw out instantly over the curled bundle of Snufkin next to him defensively. His fur stands on end, heart pounding as he looks at where the shutter quivers in the window-frame against a strong wind.

It’s still dark and his eyes adjust, shadows becoming clear lines and when he slinks from the bed, he’s careful to pad the blanket up around Snufkin so the kit doesn’t roll too far one way or another. He’s only a few weeks old, after all. 

Joxter opens the window to get at the shutter, a cold November wind blasting in through the slits of it and he starts to fidget where the first latch has come undone. A Northerly wind, he senses and the cold ripples the pelt along his arms. The seasons are changing.

Tonight, then, Joxter decides.

It’s been brewing a while, boiled over even once or twice and Joxter knows he’s left it too long to begin with. It’s an itch he’s scratched raw and there nothing else to be done anymore.

He looks to the bed, to the Mymble’s broad back where she lies with it to him. Her hair is all curly across the pillow, like ivy and he takes his knife from the dresser. Joxter leans over the bed, careful of Snufkin where he sleeps and cuts off the end of one of her locks. It curls like a half-moon in his paw, brilliant orange on the dark fur.

Joxter starts to pack. Mymble sleeps through it all; the remarkable woman could sleep through a thousand storms but not one cry from a babe, so Joxter is only careful not to rouse the many sleeping heads of the house. 

He ties his boots and pinches one more thing of Mymble’s. A hollow brooch, inside which he places the curl of her hair.

Joxter pins it to his coat. Mymble would likely have given it if he’d asked but Joxter doesn’t want what he could ask for. 

Joxter places his hat on his head and kneels to the blanket box at the end of their bed. Mymble’s bed, now- just as it was before him and now it will be after. Joxter takes what he needs, pulls a small smock and some smaller trousers. Neither will fit, not yet, but Joxter takes them all the same and adds them to his pack.

‘Come here, my little one,’ Joxter says, coming to the bed to steal Snufkin from it. 

Snufkin wakes, silent though and he blinks blearily up at his father as Joxter pulls him close. Snufkin’s tiny hands scratch at Joxter’s coat, grip there and Joxter holds him with both paws. The bird-light shape of him.

‘It’s time to go.’

Joxter looks down where Mymble sleeps. Looks at the steady rise and fall of her wide chest, the cushion roundness of her cheeks. How beautiful, she is, Joxter thinks. And how truly and most terribly he does admire her.

But he turns and leaves anyway. Snufkin’s small fingernails are not sharp enough to cling yet, but he tries by an instinct so Joxter keeps one paw under his rear as he swings the pack over the other shoulder. He crosses the hall, opens the window over the front awning of the cottage.

Joxter tosses the pack first, listens to it flump down on the grass outside before clambering out, he and Snufkin.

Joxter doesn’t look back once as he moves into the forest that surrounds Mymble’s house. He keeps his eyes wide in the moondark, holds Snufkin against the wind until the trees are close enough together to shield them. Joxter walks off the path, through the shrubbery and down the slope of the mountain, down and down as the thickets grow close.

As he walks, Snufkin begins to tremble with the Autumn chill and Joxter hushes him softly, petting at the auburn hair of his head. ‘Oh, no, my dear. Let me mind you.’

Joxter pulls at the buttons of his coat, opens enough to let his kit slip inside. He tightens his belt at his waist, almost too tight for comfort but it holds the fabric of his coat like a pouch sling. Snufkin curls inside, rolling his small body to peer up at Joxter from the dark. The moonlight is in his eyes and Joxter wonders for the hundredth, the thousandth, millionth time how he can love something so entirely.

‘Better?’ Joxter asks though Snufkin can’t answer, small as he still is but he blinks slow and Joxter returns the gesture, tugging his coat closed again, though not all the way. Open still enough that if Joxter looks straight down he can see Snufkin staring up at him.

Joxter walks for some time. Walks through wood so thick he has to take his pack off to move through it, then down again to where the trees grow barer from firewood cutting. It’s well past dawn by the time he makes it to a road; weather-worn and not well travelled but there none the less.

Snufkin is sleeping, Joxter can tell from the stillness and the beat of his heart. Joxter settles them in a heather bush by the road, taking his well-earned rest and starts to purr softly for Snufkin where he lies just under his ribs. Snufkin scratches through the muslin of Joxter’s shirt and Joxter keeps a protective arm over him as he sits, thinking of Mymble.

She’ll be awake by now, it must be nearer to noon than not. He wonders if she panicked at all, if she worried or simply thought Joxter had taken Snufkin downstairs already. What did she think when she saw his hat is gone? His pack? What will she say once she realises what Joxter has stolen from her?

Joxter banishes the thought. He reaches for an apple in his pack, puncturing the soft flesh of it with a claw. It doesn’t do to dwell on such things. It’s not enough of a call, not enough of a reason to go back and what is the point of it then?

Joxter is half-way through his apple when his ear pricks behind him, picking up the sound of a rolling coach of some kind. He peers through the heather, waits for the vehicle to make itself known and sure enough, a wagon comes around the bend at the end of the road.

A fellow drives the mule that pulls it and there is a large stack of cut logs in the back. Joxter waits for it to rumble almost past, before he sneaks from the bush after it.

He tosses the pack first and then hooks his claws into the lip and hoists himself up. He turns and sits with his legs hanging over the edge, bobbing along to the awkward shuffle of the wagon over the dirt. He looks down, sees Snufkin watching him and Joxter unhooks his buttons to let Snufkin have a look around.

Joxter holds him up as Snufkin stares out at the open, broad world before him. The light is coming in high over the trees, over the mountains behind them and everything seems as yellow as butter in the Autumn sun.

‘Well, my little one,’ Joxter says, sitting back against the stacked logs. ‘Welcome to the adventure.’

Snufkin purrs in his arms and with a bone set clarity, Joxter knows that there could’ve been no path for him without the kit. Not one he would’ve walked unless to turn back.

‘You and I,’ Joxter tells him and Snufkin reaches out, touching Joxter’s own large nose with his small hands. ‘What a life we shall have. Together, yes?’

Snufkin smiles, purrs like some mechanical tractor and Joxter clutches the kit to him.

‘I’m glad you agree.’



*/

Snufkin is bleeding and Joxter doesn’t know what to do. 

He’s so light in Joxter’s paws and they are shaking so much, Joxter is afraid he’s going to drop him. The snow is thick around the two of them, stinging Joxter’s nose and making every breath feel too tight in his chest. 

Snufkin is wrapped in two blankets, under Joxter’s coat and clutched as tight as Joxter can without smothering him. Which is a horrible, lurching fear that raises its head every few minutes and Joxter stops, just to fretfully look down and see he hasn’t done so.

‘Just a little bit further,’ Joxter pleads to the kit, squinting through the flurry that blusters. Joxter is sure it’s this way.

They are lost. With the snow as thick as it is, the sky so terribly clouded, Joxter had lost sight of the stars some nights ago and has been following his own instinct since. Lost is usually not so grievous a thing but to be lost in the blizzard, with an empty pack, makes it considerably more deadly.

But Joxter is sure they are heading the right way for what they need. The odd tree looks familiar, the certain slant of the hill leading way to-

Just as he thinks it, a red light flickers in the distance and Joxter knows they’ve made it. He says as much to Snufkin, who is so very small and doesn’t understand a word but Joxter needs to tell him all the same.

It’s a farm Joxter knows from a season or so ago. The farmer himself is a wretched curmudgeon of a creature; but he did only threaten to shoot Joxter the last time he’d had passed through to pinch some eggs. And a threat is better appreciated than the action, as far as a Mumrik is concerned and so Joxter had decided against pinching the chicken as well.

Now, all Joxter hopes to reap from this trip is a fireplace. A stove. Even a candle- anything, to get Snufkin warm. When Joxter opens his coat again, fervently checking once more that Snufkin is breathing, he nearly lands them both into the snow.

The blood from Snufkin’s small, pointed nose seems to have stopped for now but it’s stained the kit’s top lip and Joxter’s heart seizes in his chest. It’s frightful to look at it and Joxter doesn’t understand, has no means to understand either, how serious this may or may not be.

But Snufkin is breathing and truthfully, that’s all Joxter can even begin to focus on.

Once Joxter makes it to the farm, he weaves through the yard without any grace as most of its cobbles have frozen over with slick ice. His boots slip and there’s no tail to balance him, tucked as it is into his belt so as not to freeze. In his coat, Snufkin sneezes and Joxter’s thoughts scurry to the pleading thought of Just a little bit further…

Joxter stumbles his way to the door of the farmer’s house, throwing his shoulder against it but his hopes are dashed when it holds firm. Locked.

Joxter holds the bundle that’s Snufkin with one paw as he hammers with the other, barely hearing it over the roar of the wind. The brim of Joxter’s hat is tugged down on each side and pinned under his chin, feebly protecting his ears. The blizzard is coming down in full force now and even if Joxter were to steal away to the barn, he doubts he could get Snufkin warm enough.

Gritting his teeth, Joxter bangs on the door harder and panic streaks in his voice like the wrong note of a song; ‘Hoo, there! Please! Is someone there?’

There’s still no answer but the windows burn red with warmth all the same through the curtains so Joxter knows there must be someone. He tries again, more insistent until finally he hears the slide of a bolt over the din.

‘Good gracious!’ the farmer says, pulling open the door somewhat only for it to blow the rest of the way with the fierce wind.

Joxter takes advantage and scurries in, helping the farmer close the door quickly against the snow that sweeps in after him. Joxter collapses with his back to the door, the farmer stepping back from him with one paw outstretched to his side. A quick glance shows Joxter that he’s reaching idly towards the rifle by the door.

‘I thought it was the wind, but it’s a Mumrik!’ the farmer says and when he sees Joxter looking at the rifle, he pulls his paw away from it entirely. ‘Sorry, old chap. Can never be too careful this time of year-’

‘Please,’ Joxter interrupts, holding up his free paw to show he means no harm and pushing his hat back so it hangs around his neck. ‘May I sit with your fire a while?’

‘Ah, yes? I mean, yes! Yes, yes. Of course!’

Joxter doesn’t need to be told twice. He bolts across the room and skids down to his knees before the fireplace. It’s a large, square hole in the wall as most in such cottages are and Joxter nearly falls into it in his desperation.

He starts to unwrap Snufkin best he can, trying to be so very careful but his paws are shaking terribly. He’s gone from too cold to warm quite quickly and his pelt ripples all the way down, body trembling. He manages to undo his coat and pull Snufkin from it, the blankets drooping and gathering ash.

‘Snufkin,’ Joxter says, putting a paw to his kit’s cheek. The kit blinks, slowly as though still mostly sleeping but surely he shouldn’t be? Should he? Oh, how Joxter wishes he knew!

‘By my tail!’ the farmer says, coming close and Joxter instinctively holds Snufkin tighter to him. This time, it’s the farmer who raises his paws. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you, there. Just I’ve never seen a Mumriken babe before.’

‘He’s sick,’ Joxter says, voice croaking. The chill is in his lungs, he already knows. ‘Do you have warm water and a cloth?’

‘That stove there,’ the farmer says, pointing to the small black furnace in the far corner of the fireplace.

He isn’t how Joxter remembers him, but it’s so distant a thought as to not matter and even so Joxter had only seen him from across the barn. The farmer is not as tall a creature as Hodgkins was, but he’s of a similar breed with longer whiskers and perhaps it is that strange familiarity that lets Joxter think he and Snufkin safe for now.

The farmer comes close and gently takes the kettle from the stove, walking over to the sink to wet a cloth.

When he comes back, Joxter doesn’t even flinch but he does near scrawl the poor creature in his haste to take the cloth from him.

‘He’s bleeding,’ Joxter explains, gently starting to wipe the dried blood from Snufkin’s nose. ‘I don’t know why, I don’t understand it.’

‘Now, now. Don’t be a nervous nelly for nothing,’ the farmer says, putting a paw to Joxter’s shoulder. ‘I’m sure all he needs is a chance to warm up.’

‘I tried to keep him warm,’ Joxter says, not entirely sure why he feels such a need to explain but he turns to the farmer and implores anyway. ‘I tried everything I could!’

‘I’m sure you did, lad,’ the farmer says, kind again but before he can say anything else, Joxter turns his face away and coughs. It’s a brutal, wracking thing that shakes his bones like a coin purse. ‘Woah, now. I think we better take all this off you, it’s practically frozen to your fur!’

It’s true; Joxter’s coat has a thick layer of snow embedded to it, white and freezing. His whiskers are frosted, fur soaked and only as he begins to warm does Joxter realise just how very sore and tired he is in all manner of places. 

But to take the coat off means to put Snufkin down. 

‘I shall, but in a moment,’ Joxter says, trying to wave the farmer off but another cough strikes him. This time, it bends him over and when he breathes, he hurts. 

‘I think the moment is now. You won’t do the little one any favours if you die of cold, now will you?’

Joxter doesn’t dare voice what he’s thinking lest it come true, but he can’t help the way he stares down at Snufkin, the uneasy expression on the wee thing’s face. What if Joxter’s already failed?

‘I need to get him warm,’ Joxter says insistently, rubbing his damp thumb on Snufkin’s cheek to ease the chill there. ‘I did everything I could but his nose was bleeding, I don’t even know what it means.’

‘It’s gotta be normal, I’d say,’ the farmer tells him but Joxter is not convinced, fretfully brushing at Snufkin’s nose to quell the blood. ‘Not that I know much of children, even less of Mumriks. But I get a fierce bloody nose myself when a bad cold catches me. It’s rough on the sinuses, you know!’

Joxter does not, having never experienced anything of the like for himself. The only bloody noses he can ever remember having are ones gotten in a scrape or tussle, neither of which a promising circumstance.

What if Snufkin’s injured and Joxter has just never noticed? Has the little thing been suffering all this time and Joxter, his own sodding father, been none the wiser?

‘I… I don’t know what I’m doing,’ Joxter finally admits and his face goes hot all over as the despair hits him. He splutters as he tries to subdue another cough, running his fingers over Snufkin’s downy head. ‘What have I done? I should never have taken him with me.’

He sags down against the stone floor, sinking until his back hits the wall and the exhaustion is burning inside of him like one of the coals. He balances Snufkin close, cradling him and brushing off snow where it drips from his thawing coat. He’ll drown them both if he doesn’t take it off soon.

‘I don’t know how to do this,’ Joxter continues, looking to the farmer and not entirely sure what he wants from him but desperate to let it out all the same. ‘I don’t know how to be a father, how to look after him as a father should! What if he’s too sick to fix, what if all I’ve done is taken him from his mother just to perish out in some cold corner of the world?’

‘No one’s perishing,’ the farmer says but it’s no comfort, as he’s interrupted by Snufkin sneezing. It’s a small, weak noise but it sets Joxter’s alight with fear.

‘My dear, my dearest,’ Joxter says to Snufkin, curling a finger around Snufkin’s tiny, pointed ear. ‘Can you ever forgive me?’

‘Oh for goodness’ sake!’ the farmer says, moving suddenly and before Joxter realises what’s happened, Snufkin has been taken right out of his paws.

He goes to leap up, but the farmer is stronger anyway never mind with how weak and cold Joxter is himself. The farmer takes Joxter by the shoulder and forces him back down, firm and Joxter is frightened by how easily he goes. The farmer’s paws are so large that Snufkin near fits entirely in the one holding him.

‘Steady yourself, lad!’ the farmer scolds but Joxter just tries to get up again, before being shoved a touch harder. ‘Not going to pinch him! You’re no good to either of us like this. Shaking so much you might toss him into the hearth and then we’d all be crying, won’t we?’

Joxter can’t really argue with that, as the more his coat thaws the wetter and heavier it becomes and the more he shivers. But he’s anxious; he doesn’t want Snufkin too far, if away at all and the farmer can clearly tell from whatever look Joxter must have on his face.

‘Get out of that sopping rag you call a coat, will you?’ the farmer says, before he starts adjusting his cradle of Snufkin. ‘I’ve got some proper blankets for the little one. What you both need is a bath but let’s not have either of you freeze before the kettle’s boiled, alright?’

Joxter still lingers by the fire, watching closely as the farmer walks away with Snufkin in his paws. But the farmer does nothing but exactly as he said; he goes over to a blanket box by the window, balancing Snufkin with an ease Joxter might’ve been jealous of had this been any other occasion. He pulls out a thick woollen throw and places it on the ground.

‘You did a good job, lad,’ the farmer tells Joxter, carefully unwrapping all Joxter has had Snufkin in so the kit can stretch his legs. ‘You kept him dry and that’s half the battle.’

Once Snufkin has been placed down on the wool, Joxter begins to disrobe himself. His coat hits the floor with an ugly slap, and Joxter’s jumper is fast after it. He kicks off his boots and strips down to his muslin, shaking with a cold that seems to be set in his bones. But he crosses the room and gets back down to his knees to look at Snufkin where he lies on the throw.

‘You’re little things, aren’t you?’ the farmer notes, whiskers bristling. ‘He’s not even half the size of my boot.’

‘He’s special,’ Joxrer says, as even for a Mumrik Snufkin is a small kit. Maybe he’ll be tall later; like Mymble children who don’t grow for years and then do so all at once.

‘I’ll say, never seen an orange Mumrik before!’ the farmer says, rising to his feet and rubbing his paws together.

Snufkin is awake properly now, watching both Joxter and the farmer above him. But his eyes look glassy to Joxter, like marbles and the warmth Joxter is so used to seeing in them is out. Joxter touches his face and not for the first time, feels overwhelmed by the sense of failure that hits him.

‘I did this to him,’ Joxter says and the farmer just tsks, heading over to the hearth for the kettle. ‘What was I thinking? I can’t do this. I can’t be a father.’

‘Bit late to change your mind now,’ is all the farmer says but Joxter doesn’t listen.

‘I should never have taken him,’ Joxter continues, voice hoarse and he tries to swallow around the scratch that wheezes in his throat. ‘It was a foolish, selfish thing to do.’

‘What was the alternative? Leave the poor thing all alone?’

Joxter doesn’t talk about the Mymble. He can’t bear to even think of her. Oh, what would she say if she saw what Joxter has done to their son? She has so many children and Joxter has never seen one sick, though she indeed has so many perhaps he’d simply never noticed if there had been. But even if they were sick, Mymble would have them in a bed. She’d have them warm, she’d have them fed and Joxter-

Joxter’s face creases in on himself as he bends over, suddenly overcome. He could weep, wail- he truly doesn’t know what to do with the gaping, black feeling inside as he realises that if they’d not found this farm as they have, they could’ve both frozen to death out in that storm.

‘Ah sure, none of that,’ the farmer says, patting Joxter hard on the back. ‘You’re your own creature, aren’t you? No point giving way to all that fuss and crib. Come on, help me make up this bath.’

Joxter reluctantly leaves Snufkin, piling the throw and blankets up so Snufkin can’t roll too far either way. Together, he and the farmer reboil the kettle twice more to make up a bath. The tin boat of it steams when the water hits it and the farmer brings Snufkin over, passing him down to Joxter once he’s settled down into it.

‘There’s no spare bed, but I’m sure I’ve got a box we can use for a cradle,’ the farmer says, before taking his leave to the bedroom, letting Joxter and Snufkin be in the bath by the fire.

Snufkin makes his first noise save for the quiet sneezing when he hits the water. He makes an unhappy trill and Joxter is so relieved, his eyes water. His Snufkin does ever so hate a bath.

‘Just like your Papa,’ Joxter says, smiling for the first in days it feels. ‘Rotten business, this bath malarkey.’

But the farmer had been right about the need for it. Snufkin’s skin is turning pink again with the warmth of the water, his tiny hands fisting in the fur of Joxter’s wrists. Joxter brings him close; he lays the kit over his chest and lets them both sink a little further into the water, trying to purr but it comes weak. If anything, it just makes Joxter cough more.

‘Please be well,’ Joxter says to Snufkin, who shuffles closer. The fur on Joxter’s neck is finer and Snufkin burrows his nose into it, small scratches with his blunt nails on Joxter’s skin. Joxter closes his eyes and coughs again. ‘Please, please be well.’

Snufkin is still sneezing but the rasping quality of his breath after has mellowed somewhat and Joxter rubs his back in an effort to be comforting. Joxter feels they’re not out of the woods yet.

After the bath, Joxter is lent a fresh muslin that hangs all the way down to his ankles, the farmer is so much taller and Snufkin is bundled back up in his blankets. He’s still sneezing, his nose still quite red but it appears that the bleeding has stopped for now and Joxter anxiously hovers over him, unsure if he can trust this happy turn of it.

Joxter places him in the apple crate the farmer has provided, padded out with the woollen throw. Joxter had attempted feeding him some stale porridge from the farmer’s stove, but Snufkin had fussily refused and it sits like a stone in Joxter’s own nauseous stomach.

Why won’t he eat? Surely a kit should eat, even when sick?

Joxter can’t help but feel there’s damage done somewhere and he is just too useless a father to see it.

‘You should sleep, lad,’ the farmer says, stoking the fire next to the nest of blankets Joxter has made for himself by it. ‘You’re dead on your feet.’

Joxter coughs, chest seizing with pain from it but he refuses to budge from his sentinel seat over Snufkin’s crate. ‘Not yet.’

He doesn’t want to say that he’s afraid to sleep lest he wakes to a cold kit but that is the truth of it. It’s a horrid, sharp fear that sticks like a hook in Joxter’s thoughts and yanks painfully there. He can’t stop picturing Snufkin; so very small, struggling to breathe during the night. Picturing more blood. Joxter’s heart turns like an iron bar, all out of shape with the fear of it.

‘You Mumriks are hardy folk. Not the kind to be beaten by a cold,’ the farmer says gruffly, standing to his full height. He scratches at his whiskers, which are snow-white at the ends where they droop low. ‘The little one just needs a good sleep with a warm fire. His Papa, too.’

‘Some Papa,’ Joxter says derisively of himself. ‘He would’ve caught his death had we not made it here.’

‘But you did so don’t go fretting,’ the farmer says, going to the window and peeking out behind the curtain. ‘That snow will be in for the most of tomorrow as well, I’d say. You better hold out here. Wouldn’t be right to toss you both back out into that.’

Joxter thinks the farmer is joking but it lands flatly as Snufkin sneezes again, wheezing at the end and Joxter has his paws on him instantly, taking Snufkin out of the crate and into his arms.

‘Do you have anything that might help?’ Joxter pleads to the farmer, Snufkin pressed to his chest. ‘Sage, ribwort?’

‘They’re weeds, not medicines!’ the farmer says and Joxter is about to point out that they can help all the same when his cough returns, more insistent and he doubles over.

The farmer comes over and takes Snufkin before Joxter drops him, replacing him in the cradle and coming back to hold Joxter steady. Joxter can’t seem to catch his breath; his throat is burning as though he’s been ill and his chest stabs with each difficult airful that struggles to get in.

‘You need to sleep.’

‘But Snufkin-’

Joxter doesn’t get to finish, blinking as he tries to clear the fuzziness from his eyes but it only gets worse. The orange light of the fire blurs and he suddenly feels nauseous once more. The farmer is talking to him, Joxter knows but he can’t make it out and he reaches feebly for Snufkin once more before the world goes black.

*/

Joxter’s fever doesn’t break until the second day.

He wakes in an unfamiliar bed, aching everywhere like he’s fallen from some great tree and hit every miserable branch on the way down. He groans to himself, throat scraping as he does and he’s very hoarse. He rubs at his face and winces, pulling his paw away- his fur is tacky, all stuck together with sweat.

The room is a small bedroom, a spindly washstand in the corner and short bookshelf in the other. As he rolls, Joxter meets the bulk of a tin water-bottle in the bed with him, nearly cooled. He must’ve been left alone for some time.

At that thought, Joxter sits up so quickly his head spins. He clutches at it, squinting through the faint light that pokes through the curtains.

The room is empty save for him and Joxter’s blood goes cold.

‘Snufkin!’ he cries, throwing the blanket off him and hopping from the bed. Only to collapse entirely as his knees are far too weak and his head fuzzy like a lint-stuck pocket. 

The door of the bedroom opens and Joxter instantly reels, hackles raised and fur on end at the tall figure who approaches.

‘Ge’way with all that!’ he says and Joxter’s memory comes back to him, recognising the farmer for who he is.

The great creature comes over and picks Joxter up like he weighs nothing, the brighter day showing his dark grey fur to be speckled with white to match his whiskers. He plops Joxter back on the bed with little grace but Joxter is already half-way to getting back out of it again.

‘Where’s Snufkin?’ Joxter says, looking around like the farmer might have the kit hidden behind his back. ‘What have you done with him?’

‘Snoofkin’s grand,’ the farmer says, pushing Joxter back down onto the bed. ‘Doing a damn sight better than you. I thought you’d die on us, you know and I have barely the land for the sheep I’ve got, never mind your miserable corpse.’

‘Snufkin,’ Joxter corrects and the farmer hums.

‘Isn’t that what you called him? Snoofkin?’

‘Snufkin,’ Joxter says again, a shade impatient and the farmer laughs at him.

‘Well, Snoof or Snuf, he’s just fine.’

‘But where is he, can I see him?’ Joxter asks anxiously, grasping at the sleeve of the farmer’s loose jacket.

‘In a moment, I think you need to be cleaned up a bit first,’ the farmer says, nose wrinkled with distaste and he plucks Joxter’s paw off him. ‘You’re more sweat than Mumrik at this point but at least you’ve come out the other side of it.’

‘I want to see him, please,’ Joxter says again, more insistent and uncaring how sticky or miserable he is. The farmer gives him an arch look and Joxter twists a paw in the bedding tightly. ‘I’ve not been parted with him ever.’

‘I imagine not, the wee ane is barely a season old,’ the farmer grumbles but he makes no move to go and fetch Snufkin at all. Joxter digs his claws into the bedding and the farmer frowns, swatting his shoulder. ‘Don’t go making more of a mess than you already have. Snufkin’s well, like I said. He stopped sneezing a day or so ago and is pink as a peach, which I say is a fine colour for any healthy babe to be, even a Mumrik one.’

‘And the bleeding?’ Joxter asks and the farmer smiles at him.

‘Scratched his nose is all,’ he says, tipping back the flat cap on his head. ‘Fair of you not to notice, you were half-mad with fever.’

‘So he’s well?’ The farmer sighs at Joxter’s questions. ‘You quite sure, I mean. There’s no danger?’

‘Only from you,’ the farmer says and Joxter’s relief cools instantly. ‘Wasn’t sure what was running in you, had to keep you both separated lest he caught it as well. You understand me?’

Joxter does but he doesn’t say so, too overcome with a great simmering pot of emotion inside. He’s so relieved to hear Snufkin is alright he’s quite sure he’ll weep with it, a weakness coming over him that has nothing to do with the sickness. He sinks down onto the bed, burrowing his long nose into the linen to try and hide the tears that start falling.

‘I… I was so afraid,’ Joxter says, more to himself than anything and he starts shivering with the uneasy sob that rumbles through him. ‘My dear Snufkin, I thought…’

‘No need to be dwelling on all that,’ the farmer says, kicking the leg of the bed to startle Joxter back upright. ‘Now, if you’re well enough you best get cleaned up and then you can come out and join us in the land of the living. I’ll bring you water for the basin.’

After Joxter has washed himself down with a hard brick of soap that smells mostly ridiculously of lemon, he takes his now clean and dry clothes from where the farmer has left them on a chair in the corner. His hat is a touch crooked still from how he’d tied it, but it looks to have mostly regained its shape and Joxter replaces it on his head before heading into the main room of the cottage.

He sees what he’s looking for at once, drawn inexplicably to the small bundle in the apple crate by the fire.

‘Snufkin!’

Joxter runs over and picks his kit up with a joy that feels like a balloon inside about to burst.

Snufkin is perfect in his paws, as pink in the face as the farmer said and his eyes are bright again. Joxter can’t stop the tears this time and he doesn’t wish to, so very happy to see Snufkin well and he clutches Snufkin close, claws out slightly to catch in the soft cloth of his wee smock.

‘Told you he was right as rain,’ the farmer says, going back to whatever he seems to be doing at the table. A quick glance over shows Joxter an assortment of tools and what looks like the cracked head of a shovel.

‘And like you said further, no thanks to me,’ Joxter says, cradling Snufkin and looking down at him. Joxter can’t stop touching his sweet face nor can he seem to stop the flood of cool dread that slips into him. ‘I nearly got us both killed walking in that storm.’

‘You’ll know better for next time.’

Joxter isn’t sure there ought to be a next time. He looks across the cottage, out the window with the curtains open now. The blizzard has long passed but there’s still snow, thick and piled high.

Joxter reaches out and touches the brooch on his collar, thinking of his Mymble. They are so far apart now but his heart wallows in a cool stream of longing for her all the same. It had been so dull at the time of leaving her, the staying-sickness thick as it was with him, but now it reveals itself again.

‘I should’ve known better from the start,’ Joxter says, more to himself than anything. He looks at Snufkin again, sees the soft Mymble roundness of his cheeks and leaves the brooch to touch the pointy end of his Mumrik nose. ‘But I just wanted him so desperately.’

Snufkin raises a tiny hand, taking Joxter’s fingers between his own and holding on tight. Joxter wonders if he understands at all.

‘I’m your father,’ Joxter says and his heart aches with the heavy sense of failure. ‘And how poor you are for it.’

Joxter sleeps most of the day, more so than usual even for him as he is still not as well as he ought to be. He curls like a ball by the fire, Snufkin tucked in safe against his chest and Joxter purrs for the pair of them. His dreams are as uneasy as his waking thoughts.

Is it too late to undo it all? Perhaps Joxter should send Snufkin back to his mother- bundle Snufkin up in the apple crate and send him back aways to where he may never be cold or hungry or clutching to the chest of a father like Joxter.

The thought is as unpleasant as a fence through a fine, green field. It makes Joxter purr a little louder, coil tighter around the soft kit against him and the low note of longing for Mymble warble like a song inside.

That night, Joxter has supplies kindly given by the farmer in his pack and even an extra layer for under his coat. He stands by the window, looking out at the clear evening and the white blankness of the world. He drums his fingers on the window-sill nervously, deciding and un-deciding in equal measure.

If he were to leave a note, how can he be sure the farmer would heed it? And if safely given away, how is Joxter to know Snufkin has made it back to the Mymble's cottage? There are so many uncertains, so many who-is-to-says and Joxter twtiches his tail with agitation.

And what if the farmer keeps Snufkin instead of delivering him, fine a kit as he is- what of Joxter’s son then? To live and stifle in these stone walls, wander fields with borders given like they are restricted to a painting’s frame? It would be no life for such a creature as Snufkin, not as Joxter has made him.

Joxter looks over to where Snufkin sleeps by the fire. Mymble orange and Mumrik small; a funny little in-between thing like Autumn sun or the way a name is called across a party. 

'Got everything you need?' the farmer asks him as he comes out of the bedroom. Joxter adjusts his hat, lingering. 

'Just about,' Joxter replies and he doesn't say thank you as he has already done so and once more seems terribly awkward. 'I'm trying to decide the best path.'

'Do Mumriks care for such things?'

Joxter doesn't answer that for it is not the path he means. He taps a foot on the floor, tail swishing as his thoughts circle. 

'Don't forget anything now,' the farmer says, a touch firmer than most of what he says and Joxter glances over, feeling caught out. 'Be a shame to leave something behind, you might never find it again.'

'There's nothing I wish to part with,' Joxter says earnestly, crossing the room over and taking Snufkin up into his arms. He holds him close and breathes in the scent of him, considering and wistful. 'But how very precarious things can be, good fellow.'

'How indeed,' the farmer says, fishing about his pocket for some chewing tobacco. 'Best to keep what we have then, I suppose.'

'Have you ever loved something all the better for leaving it behind?' Joxter asks, turning to the farmer and genuinely curious for an opinion. Or perhaps even desperate for one, as Joxter suddenly feels he is navigating new fences of what was once free in him not too long ago. 

'Never loved at all,' the farmer says with a shrug, chewing with a suck in his cheek. 

'I am sorry to hear,' Joxter says genuinely and Snufkin's small hand paws at the hollow brooch. 'It is a very fine thing, to love.'

Joxter opens his coat, slips Snufkin inside it and tightens his belt to hold the pouch of it together. He keeps a paw over the small bundle Snufkin makes there and feels little fingers curl in his jumper. 

'But scary, too,' Joxter admits further, bidding the farmer goodbye and fair luck for when the Winter would end.

As Joxter walks along the powder top of the snow, he lets his thoughts wander back behind them on the path to Mymble. No wonder her beloved self lost half her rememberings. If Joxter's heart split any more ways he would lose his way even from nose to tail. As it is, he settles for the two little turns he has taken for it, Mymble in one and Snufkin in the other.

Walking with Snufkin close and the decision re-made like one might follow their own bootprints in the snow, Joxter understands that he has been looking at the whole thing as though through the wrong end of a telescope. Oh, Snufkin is his in as much as any child could belong to a parent. But Joxter now knows it is far more the truth of it that it is he that belongs to Snufkin.

How strange, he thinks as they travel together and Joxter touches the brooch himself, tracing the edge of it with his thumb. How strange indeed to never be one's own again. It feels rather less like the surrender Joxter fancies it might've to some other creature and more like...

Well, it can't be like anything for there is nothing like it, Joxter thinks. It simply is and if it is to be Snufkin, then Joxter would have no other choice even if given. 

Chapter Text

As the seasons roll past, Joxter loses any fear in travelling with Snufkin, knowing the kit as certainly as he now does.

Snufkin is quiet in all he does, sleeping against Joxter’s body mostly as they travel and taking his first unsteady steps on the sand of some ocean beach. When he makes it back to Joxter’s arms, Joxter picks him and spins him.

How clever! How wonderful a Snufkin! You will outrun the Park Keeper before he even laces his boots! he boasts and Snufkin squeals, delighted.

The first year or so passes quickly and so easily as well that Joxter feels he can be forgiven for letting himself slip into a lull of security. They have never been apart, not for more than an hour if it truly couldn’t be helped. But always left on purpose and left to be returned to as quickly as possible.

This bright summer morning, Joxter experiences something he hadn’t even considered. He wakes in his tent, a lop-sided pitch against a fine peach tree for he’d been too lazy to replace a pole lost some months ago and blinks at the sun beating on the canvas.

It takes Joxter a moment to notice what it is that’s wrong. He rolls around in the nest of blankets he’s got, bolting up in a sudden panic when he realises he’s alone.

‘Snufkin?’ he asks, first quiet and then loud. ‘Snufkin! Where are you?’

Joxter throws the blankets aside but it’s a small tent, too small for even a Snufkin as marvellous as his own to hide. Joxter looks at where the tent is gaping, never truly closed and he scatters outside in a tumble. He’s not even dressed for the day, muslin hanging out from his trousers with only one suspender clipped.

Joxter turns and looks, pricks his ears for any sound that might betray where his son has gone as his tail thrashes nervously. He looks up and down the line of the orchard, beautifully manicured and thus perfectly inviting for a Mumrik to steal away inside for some peaches. And evidently, enough for an even smaller Mumrik to run off in.

‘Snufkin!’ Joxter hollers, the closest he’s ever come to being angry with a blessed thing in some time. It’s not right, not usual for Snufkin to wander. He’s got nimbleness to him, but Joxter has never seen Snufkin run far and he can’t think of any reason he might’ve done so now.

Joxter has to make a decision. Left or right. Whatever he doesn’t choose now he’ll choose again later, but Joxter is conscious of the time. The sun is high, he has slept late as he is usually wont to do and slept deep, curses to him. Too deep to notice Snufkin stealing away. Or someone stealing Snufkin.

The thought is like a crack of gunpowder inside and Joxter makes a brash choice, turns left and barrels down the line of peach trees, calling for Snufkin as he goes. If someone has taken him- oh, Joxter can’t bear to think what he may do. It rattles inside him like buttons against a jar.

‘Snufkin, come to me!’ Joxter pleads desperately, scanning the ground and the thinning wildflowers at the base of the trees. He looks up, stops at a few of the thicker bustles to shake at the trees themselves and groans with frustration when nothing but an overripe peach comes down.

Just when he thinks he may turn back, coming to the edge of the orchard where it meets a broad stream used for irrigation, Joxter’s ears take to the sound of laughter. Snufkin’s laughter.

Joxter runs, he runs and trips and his tail barely keeps him balanced as he goes, practically on all fours.

Along the stream, there’s a large shed where the workers of this fine orchard keep their tools. Now as Joxter approaches, he can see it’s open and there are two large Hemulens in overalls, a tool in each hand and before them at their feet, a small Snufkin stands. How little he looks, before those great creatures! He doesn’t even make it to Joxter’s knees as it is!

‘Snufkin!’

Joxter leaps the last of the distance, landing on his hands first and skidding around Snufkin so he sends dirt up like a cloud. He bares his teeth, hisses from deep in his chest so it practically curdles to a growl. His tails goes straight up, trying to make himself bigger from where he still crouches low to try and keep Snufkin from view.

‘Woah, there! Woah!’ one of the Hemulens cries, dropping his rake with a fright and he stumbles back as the other one bends his arm. Joxter can see him tighten his white grip on the hoe in his paws and Joxter spits, pulling his claws out and raising a paw to use them.

‘A Mumrik!’ the Hemulen says but the first quickly starts shushing him. ‘There’s no Mumriks allowed here, you know!’

‘Now, now, there’s no need to be hasty!’ the first one says and Snufkin whines behind Joxter, startled by the noise no doubt.

Joxter reaches back with one paw to try and comfort him. Snufkin puts two hands on Joxter’s wrist, clutching tightly and if Joxter has to spill blood to get his kit out unharmed, he’ll spill it by the pint.

‘He’s got claws! Look, he’s growling!’

‘Shut it, will you!’ the first Hemulen says to his companion, shoving him backwards to put some distance between he and Joxter. The Hemulen looks down, a sheepish expression across his large snout. ‘That your kit, Mister Mumrik, sir? Meant no harm, we did! Saw him chasing dragonflies by the stream there, thought he might fall in. Just trying to help, honest.’

Joxter isn’t sure he believes it or not, but he had noticed yesterday how Snufkin had been fascinated with the insects, his large brown eyes following them in circles. He doesn’t let up, keeps his hackles raised and the claws out and the Hemulen looks nervous but kneels to Joxter’s level anyway.

‘We’re awful sorry, Mister Mumrik,’ he says and he sounds genuine, eyes big and green. Joxter stops hissing at least, but he still murmurs threateningly from the back of his throat. The Hemulen is still too close for Joxter’s liking. ‘He’s a sweet lad, though! Mighty fine Mumrik, if you don’t mind me saying. I think he liked our noses, is all.’

Snufkin tugs on Joxter’s fur, at first anxious and then insistent. ‘Papa…’

Joxter scoops Snufkin up and leaps to his feet in one movement, startling both Hemulens so the first one falls back on his rear and the other jumps. Joxter steps back, angles his body with Snufkin away and all his fur is still standing on end, puffing up his skinny frame like he may be even the slightest threat to the Hemulens who tower over him by a solid head and a half.

‘We really didn’t mean to scare you,’ the Hemulen from the ground says, raising a paw as though in surrender. ‘Why don’t you take some peaches for you and your boy? Least we can do!’

‘Least we can- what are you doing?’ the other asks, dropping his hoe as he regards his friend with confusion. ‘I’m not giving no Mumrik our peaches!’

‘He didn’t mean no offence, Geb! He was just scared for the little one!’

Joxter takes his chance as they’re arguing. He bolts back the way he came, springing like a trap and he runs so fast all he can hear is his heart pounding in his ear. The Hemulens call after him, but he could outrun a Hemulen with one leg tied to his tail.

Joxter flops down before his tent, some way back up again and starts to pull it down one-pawed as he refuses to put Snufkin down. It’s a trial, he doesn’t really have the time, but he manages to get the tarp down and somewhat stuffed into the top of his pack. It just has to be enough to run a little ways with, he can fix it once they’re safe.

Joxter puts his hat on his head, grabs his pack by the straps and runs for the hole in the fence he’d squeezed in through.

Once clear of the orchard and safely sequestered behind a low, crumbling wall of some nearby farm, Joxter drops his haphazard pack and sinks to the ground with Snufkin clutched to him.

‘Are you well?’ Joxter asks, pulling back to look at Snufkin properly. The kit is still swimming a little in the smock he wears, red like rust and Snufkin fusses as Joxter pulls at him, checking for any stray scrapes or bruises. But Snufkin appears quite well, if a little moody at being pawed at.

Joxter relaxes, flops back against and the wall and let’s Snufkin roll from his paws as the kit is clearly eager to do. He lands onto the dirt, where Joxter’s tail twitches anxiously and starts to swipe at it. Joxter watches for a moment before rubbing a paw over his face and scrunching his whiskers.

That had been reckless, even for him. One solid swing of that rake or hoe and there wouldn’t have been much Joxter could do. But even then, a Hemluen isn’t known for their violence. What had Joxter thought would happen?

But there had been something about Snufkin, so very small and standing with those enormous creatures looming over him that put the fear of Groke into Joxter like one had appeared to set the chill herself.

He’d seen it so clearly in his mind’s eye. A large paw coming down, grabbing Snufkin by the scruff and what could Joxter have done against two Hemulens that big?

He would’ve fought, Joxter thinks fiercely and he looks at where Snufkin pounces on the end of his tail, tumbling over his own head as he goes. Joxter would’ve fought even if that rake had gone right through him for the trouble and had been near about to before the opportunity to run came.

‘What a bother, you are,’ Joxter says to Snufkin as the kit rolls onto his back, staring up at Joxter upside-down. ‘Before you I wouldn’t have fought a Hemulen even if he had both paws stuck in a pot of honey each. Now look at me.’

Joxter reaches a paw out towards Snufkin, tensing so his claws slip through and Snufkin’s eyes go wide. He turns himself the right way around, shuffling up close and reaching a small finger out to touch.

‘Careful,’ Joxter warns gently and Snufkin nods, being exactly so as he touches the tip of the claw on Joxter’s thumb. ‘You know what claws are for, my darling? Plucking fruit and climbing trees. Not scaring big Hemulens.’

Snufkin doesn’t understand, too fascinated with the claws and Joxter pulls them back, laughing when Snufkin frowns petulantly up at him for it.

‘Suppose not much point in asking you not to wander off,’ Joxter says, taking his hat off to shake some shape back into it. The point is crushed from where he’d slapped it on his head earlier. ‘Not a fair thing to ask any Mumrik to do. Even one as troublesome as you.’

Snufkin starts climbing up Joxter’s lap, tiny nails in the shirt as he pulls himself up onto Joxter’s shoulder. He’s getting quite good at it, the climbing that is and Joxter glances over his shoulder where Snufkin settles.

‘But perhaps leave me a clue next time,’ Joxter says, nuzzling his pointy nose into the junction of Snufkin’s neck and the kit laughs, tickled by the whiskers. ‘It’d be quite the chore to go looking for you should you go off alone again. What if one day I lose you and can’t be bothered to find you again?’

Snufkin doesn’t look convinced, giving Joxter a look almost sceptical for a wee kit and Joxter laughs himself before turning his mouth to get his teeth into the cotton scruff of Snufkin’s smock. He carries Snufkin like that as he stands, tucking his pack together properly with both paws and he shucks it onto his back.

Hat on head and kit in mouth, Joxter starts walking along the length of the wall towards wherever lies over the hill.



*/

Snufkin points up at the sky, little finger pink against the inky black and Joxter follows the line of it.

‘Grus,’ Joxter explains, reaching up with his own paw to trace the constellation where it peppers white against the dark. ‘A member of the Southern Birds. Spotted her that quick, did you?’

Snufkin isn’t talking much yet, but he listens with rapt attention though Joxter isn’t entirely sure how much he understands. They’re lying on their backs, upside-down to each other, on the quarter-deck of the pinnace ferry that’s carrying them South.

Above them, the sky is completely clear and the stars are out in all their glory. With nothing but the sway of the sea beneath them, Joxter feels like they could float right away into the nothing.

‘Perhaps it’s a sign,’ Joxter tells him, one arm folded behind his head and he scratches his cheek, whiskers twitching. ‘You may have a touch of sight to you.’

Snufkin shuffles across from him, inching a little closer so the top of his head bops to Joxter’s.

‘Grus favours divination. Truth-seeking,’ Joxter continues. ‘When she can be bothered, of course. Stars are tricky. They are so very far away, of course, that all this has already happened to them long before it happens to us. They don’t always remember as well as they should. You’d be better sticking to cards or the wind.’

At that, Joxter sits up suddenly.

His back is straight; whiskers, too as he looks East, or thereabouts. It’s clear, dark sky all the way as far as his night-eyes can see… But…

‘Come, Snufkin,’ Joxter says, rolling over and scooping Snufkin up with one paw and his hat with the other.

His pack is lighter now, having torn their tent a season or so ago and needing to leave it after them. He grabs it by a thread-bare strap and hops down the steps, towards the gallery below with Snufkin cupped over his arm.

Below deck, the gallery is yellow with candlelight as the other passengers sit for their tea. It’s a Hemulen couple, a Fillyjonk and some other dark creature Joxter doesn’t know the name of but has met the like of once before in his travels and knows well enough from that not to ask.

‘What are you doing back down here?’ the Fillyjonk snaps from where she’s sitting at the long table. Joxter had the misfortune of meeting but the pleasure of annoying her earlier that evening when she’d caught him hiding in the cubby she'd intended to put her luggage. ‘Stowaways without a legal ticket don’t get a bed, you know!’

‘Storm,’ is all Joxter says to that, not caring for the beds on offer anyway if they’re going to stink with the sickly perfume of a Fillyjonk.

The Fillyjonk makes an ugly noise from the back of her throat that Joxter thinks is intended as a laugh. ‘Storm? Don’t be ridiculous! The Captain says it’s clean sailing.’

‘Well, if the Captain says,’ Joxter replies idly, settling himself and Snufkin down in the corner between two large crates that are held in place with thick rope. Not likely to shift in the toss of angry waves.

‘Your lot just fancy trouble,’ the Fillyjonk says primly, sticking her snobby up in the air like Joxter could possibly doubt her tone. She nods to Snufkin. ‘What will his mother say when she sees what terrible habits you’ve given him?’

Joxter is hardly going to dignify that with a response but he doesn’t even get the chance of that, as Snufkin bizarrely answers before he can even turn his hat away. 

‘No mother,’ Snufkin says plainly and the whole gallery goes quiet. 

'What did you say, child?' the Fillyjonk says though she must've heard. 

'No mother,' Snufkin says again from where he sits on Joxter's lap. He leans himself back so his chin goes up, staring at Joxter upside-down. 'Just Papa.'

The Fillyjonk rounds on Joxter immediately. 

'No mother? What poor child doesn't have a mother?'

Joxter doesn't answer and in the end, doesn't need to as the whole ruddy mess of it comes an abrupt halt when the boat suddenly rocks. The Hemulen husband snatches the candlestick before it slides off the table and his wife the breadbasket. Neither are fast enough for the serving bowl of soup- which promptly slips right into the Fillyjonk's lap.

She shrieks like a horrid banshee, leaping to her feet and nearly toppling over herself as the boat then rocks in the other direction. Above them, there are shouts from the crew and what is most definitely thunder.

Snufkin squeaks and flops backwards onto Joxter's chest, small hands tight in the folds of Joxter's trousers. Joxter puts an arm around him to tug him tight. Snufkin knows thunder, of course. But thunder in the pit of some dark, little boat is quite another thing entirely.

They both curl into each other, watching the mayhem as the rest of the passengers try to get some semblance of themselves together as the boat has clearly sailed into a sudden storm. 

'Are you well, my little one?' Joxter asks, pressing his face down to the top of Snufkin's head. 'Nothing to be afraid of.'

Snufkin doesn't seem too convinced of that as the boat turns again. The crates they're nested between groan against the ropes they're tied with, but they hold fast which is better than most of the furniture that scuttles about like marbles. 

'Shall I tell you a story?' Joxter says gently, coiling his tail up and around them both. 'I know a very special one.'

Snufkin turns like a screw in Joxter's arms, looks up at him and Joxter grins, poking Snufkin's pointy nose with a long finger. 

'You know, Snufkin,' Joxter tells him as the Fillyjonk makes another hysterical noise from somewhere. 'Every creature has a mother. Even you.'

Snufkin takes this news as much as he takes anything, really. Silently but Joxter knows he's listening. 

'Would you like to hear about her?' Joxter asks, pushing at Snufkin's hair. 'Because she is remarkable, your mother.'

Joxter talks about the carousel. He talks about the lights and the colour the Mymble's cheeks were when she'd smiled at him, that very first time. He talks through the roars of the wind and the thrash of the waves against their little boat and sees the Mymble in the roundness of Snufkin's face and the bright, bright shine of his hair.

How like dear Mymble he is, when Joxter is looking. Joxter smiles as he talks about her, loving her all over it feels and how sweet it is to love someone who is not here. Like a secret, special thing carried in one's pocket. As Joxter talks and Snufkin listens, Joxter wonders if Snufkin will love someone like this some day when he is grown.  

They best deserve it, he thinks as Snufkin starts to doze against his chest, soothed from the storm by how Joxter describes how poorly his mother sang. 

Snufkin is made from great love, after all.

 

*/

Joxter is out of tobacco and perhaps on his own, it mightn’t be quite so bad. As it is, he’s got a fussy kit who’s determined to grate along his nerves until they’re as fine as something to smoke anyway.

(None of it is probably helped by the fact that it’s been a solid day and a bit without a proper meal, something the tobacco usually helps with).

‘For the love of all creatures, will you stop?’ Joxter near snaps at Snufkin who’s furiously digging through Joxter’s coat pockets.

They’re South and though it's well into Autumn, the sun is beating down something fierce.

Snufkin, little ways past his third birthday, looks up from where he is; down on his knees next to where Joxter is stretched out on his back over a large rock by a meandering river. He’d thought a nice lounge in the sun might take his mind off the pinch in the back of his throat.

All it’s doing is make his mouth dry and all the more in need of a pipe to bite on.

Joxter flicks his tail in warning as Snufkin pays absolutely no attention and continues to ferret his tiny hands into Joxter’s pockets. 

‘Snufkin, stop it.’

Snufkin does not stop it. If anything, he gets more into it and tips over to stick his nose into the pocket and all. This, unsurprisingly, only serves to drag Joxter’s coat down quite quickly and in the process, disrupts Joxter from his laze completely.

‘Snufkin!’ Joxter yelps as he goes, rolling over and landing on the dry dirt with a small cloud of dust, face first.

Snufkin is caught in the tumble of Joxter’s coat, making the whole situation worse as he tries to scramble his way out, only serving to get more stuck.

‘Snufkin, would you- would you just-!’

Joxter doesn’t get a word in, as Snufkin has started to growl in frustration. Normally, Joxter finds Snufkin’s attempt of a growl to be more funny than anything, so clearly Mumrik and yet not remotely strong enough to be any kind of threatening. But for the first time ever, Joxter finds himself annoyed instead of charmed.

‘All right, that’s enough! Enough!’ Joxter says, taking his coat and giving it a good yank.

Snufkin rolls out from the folds and a good deal of what Joxter has stuffed in his pockets. The collection of small Mumrik and stray buttons spills out into the grass.

‘When Papa says stop, he means stop, Snufkin.’

‘Comb,’ Snufkin says, bizarrely and Joxter is so baffled he actually stops to stare down at the kit.

‘What?’

‘Comb,’ Snufkin says seriously and slowly, like Joxter is being particularly stupid. Which only serves to nettle Joxter further. ‘I want the comb.’

‘The comb?’ Joxter repeats, completely lost. ‘What comb? Why?’

Snufkin huffs, patting down at his own hair. Now Joxter looks, there’s a scattering of brittle leaves and the odd twig caught in his curls.

The South is very windy and truthfully, Joxter hasn’t really noticed, wearing his hat as he is. But now he looks, even down the fur of his own arms, he sees a splattering of dust there, too.

‘Oh for goodness’ sake,’ Joxter groans, rubbing a paw over his face. He flops backwards against the rock he’s fallen from, elbows on his knees. He feels a headache coming on and he twitches his fingers like he might shake it off. ‘Snufkin, you’ll survive having a twig or two in your hair for a day.’

The face Snufkin makes suggests that while that may be true, Snufkin really doesn’t fancy having said twigs in his hair regardless.

‘Give me the comb,’ he says, surprisingly firm for so small a creature.

Joxter’s whiskers twitch with impatience.

‘No,’ he says, not to be contrary but because he’s the father and he will not be ordered about by his own kit. And also, perhaps, to be contrary.

‘Why not?’ Snufkin asks, almost whining and it’s so unlike him to be this way. It annoys Joxter more than it should and again, for the hundredth time today, he wishes he had something to bite down on.

‘I don’t have a comb, Snufkin. I’ve lost it, I’m sure.’

‘That was silly!’ Snufkin replies with a grumpy huff and Joxter isn’t sure why it sets him off like it does, but it does all the same.

‘What on Earth would you want one for?’ Joxter retorts, tail whipping again and Snufkin’s eyes go right to it. Snufkin puffs up his chest, as though to challenge and really, such cheek! ‘Since when does it matter to you if you’ve got knots in your hair or not!’

‘Hurts,’ is all Snufkin says to that and truly, Joxter doesn’t know what to say other than;

‘But surely not all that much,’ he says, exasperated but Snufkin tugs on his own hair as if to make a point. ‘Oh, stop it! Come here and let me undo it for you then.’

This quite quickly reveals itself to have been a bad plan, the moods that they’re in. Snufkin is fussy in his paws, pulling away when Joxter tugs too hard. But Joxter needs to tug otherwise what hope will there be?

All of this good sense falls on deaf ears and Joxter finds himself boiling over again, the headache well and truly here as Snufkin suddenly yelps at Joxter using a claw to cut a mighty curl loose entirely.

‘It’ll grow back!’

‘I don’t like it,’ Snufkin tells him like Joxter could’ve had any doubt on that.

In being a fastidious, prissy little nit- Snufkin is showing himself to be entirely Mymble.

‘By the Groke’s frozen nose, spare me the fussiness of a Mymble!’ Joxter snaps, waving his paws to be rid of the whole mess. ‘Be silent or be away, I won’t listen to this any longer!’

There’s a very long moment of quiet. Snufkin eyes are wide, his little mouth turned down and Joxter realises with a sudden, icy horror that Snufkin looks like he may cry. Joxter has never made Snufkin cry before. 

Almost as quick as it came, the anger vanishes and Joxter instantly bowls over with the flush of regret that hits him. 

Snufkin looks stricken and it’s so deeply terrible, all Joxter’s fur sticks up as though stung. Joxter rubs a paw over his face, tugs on a whisker as he takes a deep breath to calm himself the rest of the way down. 

‘Oh, Snufkin,’ Joxter sighs, paw wringing around the back of his neck. ‘My little love. Papa didn’t mean that.’

Snufkin hops out of Joxter’s lap as though burned, sniffling and he runs off through the brittle rushes. Joxter leaps to his feet, bolting after him.

‘Snufkin! Wait!’

Joxter is much taller but Snufkin is so little. He hides well in the tall reeds and Joxter has to stop the odd time, boots slipping off dry earth and into pockmarked puddles from where the river spills over. Joxter calls Snufkin’s name, perks his ears for the sound of small feet and follows it.

He finds Snufkin much further down and curled up over his knees, hidden in the shade of a particularly large dock leaf.

‘Oh, my darling one,’ Joxter says to himself as he looks at where Snufkin hides, where his narrow shoulder shiver with tears. Joxter crouches into the reeds, careful to keep his distance. ‘Please come out. Papa’s very sorry for getting cross.’ 

Snufkin looks up, eyes shiny and his nose between his knobbly kneecaps. 

‘Will you come out and forgive me?’ Joxter asks but Snufkin does neither the first nor even suggest the second. ‘I really am most sorry.’

‘No, you’re not,’ Snufkin says, so quiet Joxter has to strain to hear him. ‘You never say sorry.’

Joxter doesn’t, it’s true but only because he so rarely does something he regrets. ‘I’m saying it now. I’m sorry, Snufkin.’ 

Snufkin gets up from under the dock leaf but not to come to his Papa’s paws. Instead, he hovers close in the grass as though daring Joxter to try and force him. Joxter knows the kit too well to fall for that. 

‘Don’t look so very sad, my little one,’ Joxter says, sitting down a little closer. ‘I can’t bear it.’

As if to spite him, Snufkin’s bottom lip trembles. 

‘I must have you smile,’ Joxter tells him, putting a paw to his chest. ‘If only to soothe my poor heart. A Papa never wants their son to cry and yours was very silly to make you.’

Joxter holds out a paw.

‘What will help, hm? A kiss?’ 

Snufkin wrinkles his nose; a stern No to that then. 

Attempts of scooping, hugging and even a playful swish of the tail all meet the same dreadful rejection and Joxter sits back, regarding the misery puss Snufkin has become. 

Only thing for it, Joxter thinks.

‘Ohh,’ he starts to sing softly, tipping his hat up to get a better look at where Snufkin stares at him. ‘My name it is Joxter, a name quite hard won! My cry is all for all, and one for one!’

Snufkin wipes at his face, getting a streak of dirt right along his ruddy cheek. Joxter reaches a paw out to fix, but Snufkin takes a broad step back with a frown on his face. Not forgiven yet then. 

‘I walk the roads, I never will run,’ Joxter continues, swaying his head and tail in opposite directions because he knows Snufkin likes that best. 'I’m the last of the travelling people.’ 

Snufkin hiccups once before he crosses his slender arms, a mighty pout on his tiny face and it’s enough for Joxter to stop his song for a moment as he smiles. 

Silly Papa, he is. Never smile before one is pardoned of all crimes, as Snufkin clearly takes this as too premature a remedy and he storms off with a tiny huff towards the river bank. 

Joxter takes a deep breath- loudly, for a little Mumrik to hear- and starts the next verse with gusto; ‘With my banjo and fiddle, I will honour the song! I’ll sing to all people who do me no wrong.'

Snufkin looks over his shoulder, a familiar look of profound disinterest on his dainty features. Joxter knows the kit too well to fall for such an act, especially for this song. 

'But if others despise me, I’ll just move along!’

Snufkin makes a miserable sniff, scrunching his nose and he turns his head with small fury, giving Joxter his back. 

‘I know I’ll find friends, in the mooorning,’ Joxter finishes the verse with an exaggerated draw to the last note, a paw to his chest with mock offence just for the whole extra effect. 

Well, seems it’ll take a little more than that. 

He sings nice and low, as if to himself though it is anything but. He can see Snufkin’s ears twitch, round like his mother’s but they move like a Mumrik and now the frustration has passed, Joxter sees less of her in the kit.

‘Oh, the road isn’t easy. But it’s what I choose,’ Joxter sings, rolling onto his knees and starting to creep, low and quiet, up behind Snufkin. ‘I’m not always a winner, but I never lose.’ 

Except the favour of a wee Snufkin, it appears. 

‘I’ve the pride of my race,’ Joxter sings, smirking as Snufkin shuffles as if to turn before stopping himself. Such pride indeed, even in so small a Mumrik. ‘I’m the last of the few…’

Snufkin doesn’t thaw to Joxter’s singing but that doesn’t stop him. Joxter’s very close to the ground in the grass, far too short to hide him really but it’s not really about the surprise. The surprise, if managed, will only be a bonus. 

‘And I live like my father taught me…’

Joxter’s hat slips back down when he bends his head, nose down into the grass as Snufkin hunches his shoulders in moody defiance. Truly, Snufkin prefers this song as a quick thing to jig to and perhaps Joxter will sway him again, but for now Joxter sings it slow like a lullaby. 

Slow so that someone might want to join in, if they were to fancy it. 

‘Oh, I’m on the road, I’m travelling still…’  Joxter trails off, humming to himself before he sighs. ‘Dear, dear. I’ve gone and forgotten the end like darling Mymble. If only I weren’t the only Mumrik about, I might have a paw in remembering how it goes.’ 

Joxter waits in the long grass as Snufkin sticks to his silence. Waits for the little signs that might show clemency and indeed, a crack in Snufkin’s mighty wall forms. 

Joxter pretends not to hear him.

‘What was that? A small croak of a frog maybe?’

‘Summer or Winter,’ Snufkin repeats, louder and a touch grouchy. 

Joxter tuts, flicking his ears for a show Snufkin isn’t even looking at but Joxter will hardly let that stop him. ‘A tetchy little cricket, I think. Speak up, creep!’

‘Summer or Winter!’ Snufkin says, jumping up to turn and as he does, Joxter pounces.

He sweeps Snufkin into his paws and rolls them both over, Snufkn stuck to his chest and grumbling about such, his small hands slapping at Joxter’s coat. But Joxter has him caught fast. 

‘Yes, yes!’ he says brightly, flopping down onto his back and staring up at the clouds as his hat flies off somewhere in the kerfuffle. ‘Summer or Winter, keep travelling I will! What’s the rest, little creep?’ 

‘I’m not a creep!’ Snufkin squeals, possibly more offended by that than anything and Joxter slacks his grip a little so Snufkin can least glare up at him.

‘No?’ Joxter says, staring Snufkin down the length of his nose. ‘You seem very sure.’ 

‘I am sure!’

‘So sing me the rest,’ Joxter replies and Snufkin puffs his cheeks out, any trace of tears gone from his face and that had been the original goal, so Joxter is pleased with himself for that. 

Snufkin is still wary. ‘Why?’

‘A Mumrik is always good for a song and hearing you sing makes me happy.’ 

‘Because you can’t sing?’

Oh! Joxter’s jaw drops, stunned quite to silence for a long moment before he barks out a laugh. Joxter releases Snufkin entirely, putting a paw over his face to try and stifle the fierce laughter that bubbles out of him. 

‘Goodness,’ Joxter says breathlessly. ‘How cruel one’s own son can be.’ 

‘Cruel?’ Snufkin says, tilting his head and Joxter laughs again. 

‘No hope of getting an ego with you around,’ Joxter say, still chuckling and Snufkin sits nice and proper across Joxter’s chest with a leg down each side. ‘I sing as well as any creature.’ 

‘Birds sing better. They teach me, maybe they’ll teach you.’ 

‘I scare them away mostly.’ 

‘You eat them,’ Snufkin says sadly, looking up himself like there may be birds nearby. As it is, the sky is clear but for fluffy clouds. ‘It’s horrible.’ 

‘I don’t eat them much anymore,’ Joxter says honestly, as it had begun to upset Snufkin so when he did. 

(Fish, it seems, remain to be fair game for they don’t teach Snufkin anything). 

Joxter sits up and catches Snufkin quickly as he rolls backwards off Joxter’s chest when he does. He lands with his back to Joxter’s open paws, blinking up at his father with less frown but still equally serious. 

‘So, little love,’ Joxter says gently, twitching his nose so his whiskers prick up how Snufkin likes. ‘Will you sing for me or not?’

Snufkin seems to be thinking about it and Joxter lets him take his time, getting ready to hum along even if it won’t be as sweet as whatever a bird may manage. But then Snufkin catches him by surprise. 

‘I don’t want to be like her,’ Snufkin says quietly, eyes away and Joxter frowns, not quite following. 

‘Like who?’

‘Mama,’ Snufkin says and Joxter’s heart stops. 

‘Goodness,’ he says breathlessly, leaning closer as Snufkin curls in on himself, as though trying to be smaller. ‘Why ever not?’

‘She’s not here,’ Snufkin says to that and Joxter isn’t sure how to reply to whatever that means. Snufkin has never shown grief over Mymble before- he never knew her, after all. Joxter had been too quick for that and not for the first time, Joxter feels a knock of guilt.

‘We’re not there would be closer to the truth of it,’ Joxter says, unsure and strangely nervous.

He thinks at first he may suggest they go back, go visit but he’s too afraid to voice it aloud because what if Snufkin says yes? Joxter never asks, no matter how close they come to speaking of it for if Snufkin says yes, then they will have to go and what if Snufkin decides to stay?

That’s a path Joxter is too selfish to walk down. And though he knows it to be selfishness it’s not enough to stop the feeling.

‘She’s the Mymble,’ Snufkin says and his voice squeaks, sniffling and Joxter realises with a hurt that Snufkin is crying again. ‘She’s not like us.’ 

‘That isn’t a bad thing,’ Joxter tries to say, taking more of Snufkin’s weight in one paw and arm so to free the other that he might brush tears away. ‘I think of her all the same as I did when I first met her.’

Snufkin rubs at his nose, glancing up. ‘What do you think?’

‘That she is lovely,’ Joxter says sweetly. ‘That she’s in my heart.’

‘More than me?’

‘Never,’ Joxter says firmly, as it is both true and perhaps warrants saying more often. ‘There’s nothing I could love more than you.’ 

‘You called me Mymble,’ Snufkin replies and Joxter finally realises what Snufkin is saying. ‘And Mama is a Mymble.’

‘You’re not a Mymble,’ Joxter says steadily. ‘You are you and I am me and we are like each other, you understand?’

‘You were cross,’ Snufkin points out and Joxter sighs.

It feels so simple to Joxter but to put it to words makes the whole thing sound exceptionally silly. 

‘Not because you’re like my Mymble, darling one,’ Joxter says though it’s a small lie in it's own way, cupping Snufkin’s face. ‘I shouldn’t have gotten angry in the first place. That was a bad thing for a Papa to do.’ 

‘Yes,’ Snufkin agrees firmly and Joxter nods, before his mouth opens aghast as Snufkin adds: ‘Will you leave me, too?’

'I think you'll leave me.'

'Why?'

'That is the nature of things. Kits leave their Papas.'

'And Papas leave Mamas,' Snufkin says like it's that plain and Joxter sighs, whiskers twitching. 

‘Just because I am not with her does not mean she is not with me,’ Joxter tries to explain, but finds he can’t much. It’s such a messy thing, especially for a kit so young. ‘You’ll understand someday, I’m sure. When you love someone all your own.’

How wonderful and frightful a thought, all at once!

Joxter suddenly hugs Snufkin to him, squeezing too tight going by the pitched breath Snufkin wheezes out when he’s crushed to Joxter’s chest. 

‘But until then,’ Joxter teases and Snufkin goes still, clearly realising something is about to happen. ‘I have you all to myself. And it really is so dreadfully hot.’

‘Papa-?’

It’s as far as Snufkin gets before Joxter stands, bounding two quick leaps over the riverbank and into the cold water. Snufkin shrieks, practically jumping out of his clothes and even Joxter swears because by a Hemulen’s stuffy tail- this water is as   cold as the day warm.

That is to say, very cold indeed. 

Snufkin tries to paddle back to the shore, but Joxter gets a paw around him before he can. ‘Come back here, you! We’ve got knots to undo!’

And knots are indeed undone, amongst other things. Joxter starts his song again from the beginning as he pulls the twigs from Snufkin’s hair. They float in the shallow bank, careful not to slip too far into the current and how easy it would be to forget the whole mess of it.

As it is, something sticks in Joxter’s mind like a splinter. 

‘Now I’m on the road again, travelling still!’ Joxter sings quietly, frowning to himself as the thought lingers. ‘Summer and Winter, keep travelling I will!’

Snufkin joins in, arms already up to meet where Joxter reaches down. 

‘For the road it is long,’ Joxter sings, hoisting Snufkin up onto his shoulder so they may wade back to land together. ‘And I know it’ll kill-‘ 

‘The last of the travelling people,’ Snufkin finishes, voice sweet like spring water and when he laughs, Joxter feels the doubt take root like a stone.

*/ 

It’s the summer before Snufkin's fourth birthday when Joxter meets Moomintroll again.

It’s complete chance as Joxter wanders his way into the bustle of a small village, the name of which he doesn’t ask for as he slips through the crowd. There appears to be a festival brewing, the high heat of the sun suggesting Midsummer or the like. Joxter doesn’t keep track of such things himself.

Joxter passes close to a stall, paw quick over the plate sitting there and he snatches a small bun. He rounds past a gaggle of what suspiciously looks like Niblings and he ducks his face into the high collar of his coat, protecting his nose from sight. He just gets free of them, raising the bun to his mouth when someone hollers at him through the crowd.

‘Joxter! By Booble’s many scales, it’s you!’

Joxter freezes, fur on end and tail high as he looks to the sound of the voice but too late. A white blur comes at him from nowhere and Joxter is hoisted into the air.

Joxter raises one hand to keep his hat on his head as he stares down at the large, long snout of a Moomin. A familiar Moomin and Joxter grins, barking with laughter when he realises who it is that’s caught him. ‘Moomintroll!’ 

‘I knew it was you!’ Moomintroll says, not putting Joxter down yet it appears and Joxter’s tail swings. ‘I saw your hat across the market!’ 

‘A terrible giveaway,’ Joxter says with humour. ‘I ought to toss it before it gets me into trouble.’

‘Knowing you, you’re already in some,’ Moomintroll says brightly, his eyes like barkwood in the summer light and they both laugh. But Moomintroll’s laughter cuts like a rope when something starts wriggling between them from inside Joxter’s coat. Moomintroll drops Joxter rather unexpectedly. 

‘Goodness, what have you got there?’ Moomintroll asks, curious and then suddenly frowning disapprovingly. ‘Oh my- you haven’t pinched some poor unfortunate chicken already, have you?’

Joxter is flattered by the suggestion and he grins, raising a paw to his buttons; ‘Not quite.’

Snufkin pops his head out from the opening of the coat, hair tufted all up one side where he’d been asleep against Joxter’s chest. He’s not much bigger, but he’s a little leaner and all bones which Joxter is reminded of as he scrambles about to get a better look at the Moomintroll.

‘Great mountains mist,’ Moomintroll says, mouth agape and his eyes go very wide. He stares at Snufkin a long while, the kit watching back with a small, curious turn of his head. Moomintroll seems quite stunned to silence, which only makes it all the funnier when he suddenly snaps up to glare at Joxter. ‘You stole a child?’

Joxter laughs like a gunshot, startling himself because why, yes, he rather had but it’s not quite the whole thing either and oh, his heart suddenly aches warm like a bruise with the fondness that overcomes him. All this time has hasn’t missed Moomintroll, but Joxter thinks it would feel rather like the way remembering him now does if he had. 

Such a proper little Moomin, under all that guff.

‘This is Snufkin,’ Joxter says, reaching into his coat and taking Snufkin out with both paws. ‘My son.’

And also, incidentally, stolen but there are some secrets for just a father and his boy.

Moomintroll looks rather like he might keel over and perhaps one shouldn’t find the shock of their friend quite as funny as Joxter does, but he can’t seem to help it. Moomintroll raises a paw, holding it out uncertainly and Snufkin reaches back to hold one of his outstretched fingers like a tiny handshake.

‘Your son…’ Moomintroll says quietly, clearly still surprised. He looks up to Joxter’s face, as though waiting for Joxter to pull the rug from under him and claim it’s all a grand joke. ‘You’re a Papa. You?’

That nettles a little. ‘Well, why not?’ 

‘I can think of a few reasons,’ Moomintroll says but he’s beginning to smile now, eyes creasing with it and how soft, he looks. ‘May I hold him?’

‘Oh.’ Joxter stalls, suddenly unsure. No one has ever held Snufkin before, not since they left the Mymble. ‘Um. You can try?’

Joxter cautiously lets Moomintroll take Snufkin from him, a paw under each slim arm. Snufkin tips his head back, as though waiting to see what Joxter might say but Joxter is hardly going to tell his own son what he may or may not like. Moomintroll adjusts his grip, settling Snufkin into the crook of one bent arm with an ease that Joxter feels a little self-conscious of. Moomintroll doesn’t need to be taught how to hold a kit, it appears. 

‘Hello there, little one,’ Moomintroll says and Joxter sucks in a breath. Snufkin blinks, thoughtful and even a tad moody looking. Very in character, Joxter thinks. ‘I’m Moomintroll. I’m your Papa’s friend.’ 

Snufkin glances to Joxter as though for confirmation of this. Moomintroll does as well. Joxter shrugs.

‘Does he speak?’

‘Only when he fancies it,’ Joxter says honestly, but Snufkin seems to be relaxing a little now. Joxter swings his tail around, flicking it at Moomintroll’s elbow so it’s close enough for Snufkin to feel.

‘Quite right to,’ Moomintroll tells Snufkin warmly. ‘Goodness, Joxter. I must confess that of all the things I thought might happen to me today, this was far from it.’

‘You and I both,’ Joxter replies and they both share a look, one of many unsaid things that only friends could know. How nice, Joxter thinks, to visit an old place again.

Moomintroll is watching him and Joxter watches back, taking in the Moomin as he is now. He’s a little taller, or perhaps Joxter just misremembers. Rounder, too and for that Joxter is definite. He must be eating well and hoisting the ropes of a ship less. The scent is different, too and Joxter feels a loss to not smell the sea he so associates with the troll now.

‘You don’t look different at all,’ Moomintroll says and Joxter blinks, caught off guard and he tugs at his raggedy coat that was snatched from a line some time ago. ‘How can it be for someone to be so changed and not make my memory a liar?’

Joxter considers the Moomin before him, the changed shape of him and how close he is to what Joxter remembers, now he lets himself look. Close and yet not quite. ‘If my memory could speak, he’d be no liar but I think he’s embellished some of the finer aspects.’

‘I dread to think,’ Moomintroll says, acquiescing to Snufkin as he wriggles to be free. He settles Snufkin down to the ground, anxiously hovering but Joxter waves him off as Snufkin scurries about Joxter’s boots. ‘I haven’t seen you in so long! Not since all that business with the Amphibian and I had- well, I’d rather hoped a letter or two might’ve made it my way. 

Joxter ruffles but tries not to show it, shrugging in an effort of blasé. ‘I don’t carry much by ways of a letter-kit with me, dear friend. Better to see where the wind takes me and look, it has taken me back to you regardless!’

‘You don’t have to leave it quite so to chance,’ Moomintroll says, but he seems pleased all the same. His eyes are down, watching where Snufkin weaves between Joxter’s boots, watching the activity of the bustling village no doubt. ‘Last I saw you, you were in the arms of a rather handsome Mymble. Forgive me if it’s untoward to ask, but is she-?’

‘Yes,’ Joxter answers, getting ahead of the question and Moomintroll meets his eye again. Joxter raises a paw absently, touching the hollow brooch where he has it pinned just by his collar. A different coat now, but her curl remains from that night. ‘An exceptional Mymble. The most darling of any, I would say.’

‘How wonderful!’ Moomintroll says brightly, casting a look around. ‘Is she near? I’d like to introduce myself properly and someone else, too.’

Joxter nervously looks down at Snufkin, who does not appear to be listening as he strays a little further but with one hand on the end of Joxter’s coat like a ribbon to tie him back.

‘It’s just Snufkin and I,’ Joxter says by ways of an explanation and Moomintroll looks at him, crestfallen before Joxter presses a soft finger to the brooch. ‘But I imagine wherever she is now, she is just as rare and must know somewhere how lovely I still think of her to be.’

‘I see,’ Moomintroll says after a moment’s pause and Joxter smiles, lost to the memory quite suddenly of Mymble. Every now and then, Joxter smells the tart-scent of gardenias and remembers her face. Sometimes, Snufkin looks at him and Mymble is there. ‘At least you and Snufkin have each other though. 

‘Not the least by any margin,’ Joxter says fondly, watching his son inch further away. Oh, that kit is a rascal. No doubt there’s something shiny a little ways away that’s caught his eye. Then, rather late, Joxter realises what else Moomintroll has said. ‘Who else have you to introduce?’

‘Oh! Well,’ Moomintroll stammers, grinning but blushing. Joxter can tell by the way his cheeks fluff that he must be flushed beneath his pelt. ‘I don’t know if you’d remember, all those years ago now! But there was that Moominmaiden I- we rescued! Well, she and I have rather… well…’ 

Joxter grins, canines showing and Moomintroll flusters instantly, pucking Joxter on the shoulder with a closed paw.

‘Oh, please! Don’t look so very smug about it!’

‘My, my! Moomintroll, are you telling me you’ve managed to romance a sweet maiden? How on earth did you manage that? Sweet poems about the Muddler’s buttons? A serenade by the great glory of Moomin cursing? Or did the poor thing simply get shocked by too many a Hattifattner?’ 

‘Must you?’ Moomintroll pleads and surely he knows that Joxter absolutely must.

‘What a talent you must’ve had all along! How did we never notice?’

‘Please, you are so ridiculous! We’ve been courting for three years, you know! I don’t need you teasing when I know, or at least I think, I’ve done a fair job at it! Or at least, she seems to think so…’ 

‘You’ll be having kits of your own if you don’t reign such romance in!’ 

‘Well, we’ve rather- er- put the horse before the cart there,’ Moomintroll says and Joxter blinks, completely thrown before he starts laughing in earnest again. ‘She’s due quite soon, actually.’

‘Is she now?’ Joxter says, making a show of cupping his ear as though listening for something. ‘I daresay I hear the threat of wedding bells on the horizon!’

‘We’ve eloped, if you must know!’ Moomintroll huffs suddenly, interrupting Joxter’s teasing and Joxter’s laughter cools off. 

‘Oh, I see,’ he says, quieter and he touches his brooch again before smiling up at his friend. ‘I can’t very well make fun of you for that.’

Joxter holds out his paw and Moomintroll only looks suspicious a moment before taking it and Joxter shakes it warmly.

‘That is all splendid news, my friend. Truly splendid.’

‘I did try to invite you,’ Moomintroll says but Joxter waves him off. ‘Only none of us could find you and I began to think… well, given how we’d parted, I began to think you simply may not have wished to be found. By me, at least.' 

Joxter isn’t sure how to say that he mightn’t have come anyway, so he simply settles for a grateful hug. Moomintroll seems unsure, before he squeezes back and Joxter wheezes, Moomins tending to be a great deal stronger and his friend being no exception. They pull away and consider each other, so familiar and yet not anymore.

Husband and vagabond, fathers both and it’s like they are dancing but ever so slightly out of tune to each other. Not that they ever found the rhythm to begin with.

How funny life can be, to bring you friends whom you could never understand.

Moomintroll suddenly frowns, looking around, agitated. ‘Joxter.’

‘Yes, Moomintroll?’

‘Where’s Snufkin?’

‘Causing trouble if we’re lucky,’ Joxter says, elbowing Moomintroll but Moomintroll doesn’t seem to find that as enticing as Joxter does. Joxter gives a quick look around to see Snufkin has indeed wandered off. He doesn’t worry though, for he never has to wait very long and just as he thinks it, there’s an almighty crash from somewhere up ahead.

‘What on earth-?’

Moomintroll is interrupted by the scattering of something and Snufkin suddenly reappears, a wooden plank of some kind that’s far too big for the kit to be carrying held over his small head. Snufkin runs straight for Joxter, skidding to a halt and Joxter reaches down for the plank, holding it up to see it’s a sign.

‘No unlicensed musicians,’ Joxter reads aloud and Moomintroll starts poking him incessantly.

‘Joxter, I think that custodian is looking for that.’

Joxter looks up to see a tall Hemulen lumbering into the square, all tangled up in a rope of some kind. He scans the crowd, spotting Joxter and the sign in his paws. The Hemulen points across the crowd.

‘Oi! Stop right there!’ 

‘Pleasure to see you, dear friend!’ Joxter says brightly, bending down to scoop Snufkin up quickly. He turns on the heel of his boot and bolts in the opposite direction. ‘Sorry to dash off!’ 

‘We’re staying in the Fox Inn!’ Moomintroll calls after him. ‘And the window will be most certainly locked! So don’t get any ideas!’ 

‘Wouldn’t dream of it!’

Joxter runs out of the square, right to the bridge. He leaps onto the wall and he grins down at where Snufkin laughs in his arm.

‘Take a deep breath!’ Joxter says and Snufkin does, little cheeks puffing out as the Hemulen custodian runs towards them. Joxter tosses the sign first. ‘Yip, yip!’

Just as the two of them plunge into the water, popping up in a moment for Joxter to settle Snufkin safely onto the sign like a makeshift raft, Moomintroll makes it to the bridge. He watches as the Hemulen hollers down at them, furiously shaking a paw and threatening all sorts of punishments should he catch sight of the Mumrik again.

‘Two of them,’ Moomintroll says, dazed and delighted. ‘Help the sunny world, now there are two of them.’

*/

Joxter doesn’t break into the inn, far too comfortable as he is once he finds a suitable tree to sleep in a little ways out of the village. So Moomintroll comes to him.

Joxter is up said tree, stretched out on a thick branch with a leg swinging beneath him and hat over his face. Snufkin is curled on his chest, safely held in place by Joxter’s arms and they both doze in the shade of the bright summer sun. Joxter had been singing, soft and maybe a little out of tune but it had done the trick and their chests rise together now in tandem.

‘Joxter! Joxter, good fellow, are you out this way?’ 

Joxter’s ears pick up the noise, rousing before Snufkin does. Joxter stays where he is, but he tips his hat back to look blearily down through the tree leaves to see two long shadows moving about. Presumably belonging to two Moomins, if Joxter were to guess and he’s proven right as Moomintroll walks under the tree, a Moominmaiden just behind.

A considerably pregnant Moominmaiden, Joxter notices. Goodness, did Moomintroll have her walk all this way? 

Joxter is loath to do it, but he sits up and Snufkin trills unhappily at being woken from the motion. He digs his little nails in, making his protest it appears but Joxter just lifts the kit to his mouth and takes his scruff by the teeth. Then Joxter clambers down, paws free so they might not fall and break a bone or two.

Joxter lands quite suddenly, catching the Moomins by surprise. Or at least, Moomintroll who puts a paw to his chest with the fright. The maiden just makes a soft noise, the only thing to betray her and Joxter regards her, impressed. Snufkin struggles where he’s held and Joxter raises an arm to catch him where he falls, gently placing him to the ground.

‘Any particular reason you’re out here waking me up, Moomintroll?’ Joxter asks, turning to address his old friend who at least has the grace to look a touch embarrassed.

‘You never broke in our window.’

‘At that inn? Their locks are so flimsy it could hardly be called breaking in so much as strolling across the welcome mat,’ Joxter says to that, walking over to the trunk of the tree and settling himself down there with his legs crossed. Snufkin runs under a root that’s come up, peering out at the two Moomins with round eyes.

‘All the better we come to you, then.’

‘Is it now?’

‘Joxter,’ Moomintroll says, completely ignoring Joxter’s snark is appears. He turns and holds his paw out to the maiden, who takes it with a look of such clear fondness on her face Joxter is vividly reminded of the Mymble, completely unprepared for the trip it gives over his heart. ‘This is Moominmaiden.’

‘Moominmama soon,’ she says with a breathy laugh, rubbing a paw over the swell of her stomach. Snufkin comes out from the root, more curious. ‘And then the trouble starts.’

‘You better believe it,’ Joxter says, reaching down to tug at the end of Snufkin’s smock just to see the way his kit glares up at him for the having the sheer audacity it seens. ‘Nice to meet you, Moominmaiden. Even though it can’t be such for your poor feet after that oaf having you walk all this way.’

‘Must you be so cold?’ Moomintroll sighs, but Moominmaiden laughs. Her laugh is like something tinkling, a bell or a stream and Joxter thinks Yes, this is who Moomintroll would marry.

‘Pull up a root,’ Joxter says, gesturing to where the nobbled turns of such come out of the ground. Moomintroll leads Moominmaiden over and she accepts his help gracefully, sitting with all the poise of a creature in a much less trying condition. Moomintroll settles on the ground next to her, bright with love.

‘All I had to do was ask around for the tallest fruit tree nearby,’ Moomintroll says to the question Joxter hasn’t asked. Moomintroll nods up, towards the shiny, black cherries above them. Hanging like stones. ‘I remember you said once it would be a fine place to live.’

‘Oh, I don’t know if I said live, exactly,’ Joxter replies, tail flicking awkwardly as despite his best effort, he’s not entirely sure what to say. He hadn’t thought of stopping by their inn but he hadn’t exactly been against it either. It rather feels now his paws been forced.

‘Who’s this?’ Moominmaiden asks as Snufkin ventures forth, standing up to his impressive height of Joxter’s knees. ‘Hello there, little one. What’s your name?’

‘Snufkin,’ Snufkin says and Moomintroll gasps when the kit speaks, pleased it seems. He looks to Joxter, who can’t help but roll his eyes at his friend’s nonsense.

‘Hello, Snufkin,’ Moomimaiden says patiently and her voice is soft, inviting and Snufkin goes as though done so.

Snufkin walks up on the balls of his feet, ready to spring back at any moment should he need to but he eases somewhat the closer he gets. Joxter watches, tail flicking a little more and he can feel Moomintroll’s eyes on him, but Joxter keeps his face clear.

Moominmaiden holds a large paw out and Snufkin takes it, so big his head nearly fits in it but he attempts to shake it all the same.

‘We’re going to have a kit, too,’ Moominmaiden says when Snufkin points at her wide belly after. ‘But you can’t meet him yet, I’m afraid. You’re too early, it seems.’

‘Oh,’ Snufkin says, hovering still and Moominmaiden takes his little hand and places it, palm up on her belly. Snufkin’s face splits wide open, like a flower blooming and he looks to Joxter as though Joxter might be inclined to explain.

Joxter is most certainly not inclined but it does make him smile.

‘You can say hello though, if you like,’ Moominmaiden tells him. ‘I’ll keep it safe, right here in my pocket and give it to him when he’s ready. Would that be okay, little one?' 

Snufkin nods, looking at Moominmaiden’s belly with a very serious expression on his face. ‘Hello.’ 

Moominmaiden makes a small show of grabbing the air. ‘There. When he’s ready, it’ll be the first thing he hears. Sound good?’ 

Snufkin smiles, running back towards Joxter in a flurry of excitement. He hops into Joxter's lap, embarrassed it seems by his first hello and he buries his sharp, little nose right into Joxter’s chest and paws at Joxter’s shirt. 

‘He’s a sweet Mumrik,’ Moomintroll says, laughing with a shake of his head. ‘Are you sure he’s yours?’

‘Now who’s being cold,’ Joxter replies and their eyes meet, merry each and it is a little easier then.

They talk a while, Moomintroll even sacrificing the comfort of his tail as something for Snufkin to chase. Joxter snares some cherries and lets Moomintroll convince him into brewing what’s left of the coffee in his pack- as long as Moomintroll does the actual boiling and serving, of course. 

Moominmaiden declines politely and instead shows Snufkin how knot cherry stems into a bracelet.

‘Won’t you come to town with us?’ Moomintroll asks once Joxter starts to tidy up the coffee cans after. ‘The least we can do is replace the coffee.’

‘That’s kind, but I don’t need you to replace my coffee. I’m perfectly able in getting my own.’

‘You can get a fair bit more for a little of our coin than what you might stuff in your pockets,’ Moomintroll says, jest undercut with an edge that makes Joxter keep his eyes down on the task at paw. ‘Come on, Joxter! For old times’ sake.’

‘And what was this if not for old times’ sake?’

‘A… wedding gift?’ Moomintroll suggests and it stuns Joxter so, he has to laugh. Moomins are such an odd creature for the world to have.

‘Then you need not repay me the coffee. Rather defeats the purpose of a gift,’ Joxter says but Moomintroll still looks insistent. Joxter tries Moominmaiden, but she has dedicated her entire attention to showing Snufkin how to weave daisies into the bracelet they’ve made together.

She’s started humming a song Joxter knows from the East, a merry thing that hops like a stone skipping water. Snufkin stares up at her, transfixed and it isn’t long before she slows down, letting him hum back to her in as close an imitation as he can. His sweet voice warbles and Joxter feels such a swell of love inside of him it weakens. 

‘Likes music, does he?’ Moomintroll asks, offering one of the cans back for Joxter to pack.

‘More than any lark,’ Joxter replies, Snufkin getting more confident. ‘I’ve been teaching him some songs.’

‘Oh dear,’ Moomintroll says, raising an eyebrow. ‘So he must have a quite the collection of Joxter originals then, as you butcher every tune you sing. He won’t know what to do with himself if someone asks him to sing the songs with the right notes.’

‘I’ve gotten better, I’ll have you know. Rave reviews given.’

‘Snufkin has to like it, you’re his father.’

‘You jest, but I’m sure your son will tell you you’re talented some day and mean it just as much.’ 

‘You’re awful, I hope you know that.’ 

As Joxter packs the cans up, he decides he must leave this village. Perhaps not tonight, but maybe tomorrow and Joxter thinks which way he may go as Snufkin starts to dance in small circles, Moominmaiden’s tail a flicking companion as they sing together.

‘Joxter?’ Moomintroll says and Joxter blinks, turning back to realise he hasn’t taken a word in for a while. Moomintroll is smiling but it’s a sad sort of thing, Joxter can see. ‘Already looking to that horizon, are we?’

‘How can you know me so well after so long?’ Joxter says, only half-joking but Moomintroll doesn’t laugh.

‘You haven’t even been here a day,’ Moomintroll says, sitting back down against the trunk of the tree. ‘Was it that short when I first knew you?’

‘None of it really follows a timetable. When it’s time, it’s simply time.’

‘And what about Snufkin?’ Moomintroll asks, turning to the kit in question. Snufkin pauses mid-note, looking at him.  ‘Are you ready to go?’

Snufkin glances at Joxter. ‘Yes. It’s leaving-time.’

‘You feel it, too, then?’ Moomintroll says, shaking his head. Joxter folds himself down next to Moomintroll, fishing in the depth of his pocket for his pipe and tobacco. ‘You never did explain how it works. Mumrik farsickness, so to speak.' 

‘It’s not farsickness,’ Joxter says, tapping tobacco into the chamber and pushing it down with a claw. ‘More like wanderlust.’

‘Is there a difference?’

‘I’m not ill with it,’ Joxter replies, popping his lips on the bit as he lights the pipe. ‘Nor indeed is it quite a lust. So maybe you’re right, no difference at all. All I know is it cannot be explained. Not all things are meant to be, Moomintroll. There are in things in the world that simply cannot be reasoned down to what one of your fuddy-duddy books might say.’

‘Even so, don’t you long for other things?’

‘What do you long for, Moomintroll?’ Joxter retorts, pawing nervously at his brooch as he smokes. ‘I remember when you longed for glory, for valour and thought those things set in stone. How frail an ambition, it seems.’

‘And you never cared much for it nor indeed whether that opinion was welcome or not,’ Moomintroll says, a touch sharply and Joxter blows a long stream of smoke.

‘I cared for you and that was plenty.’

Moominmaiden rises from her root, brushing of some stray bark.

‘It’s a bit cooler now, I think I might go for a small walk. Awfully stiff sitting on that root. Would you be opposed to me taking Snufkin with me? Such a clever Mumrik, I’m sure he knows a good spot for a wander.’

Snufkin looks to Joxter expectantly and how is he supposed to say no? Joxter inclines his head, puffing quietly as Moomintroll frets over whether Moominmaiden will be alright on her lonesome. Joxter takes so much for granted from his time with Mymble, who of course had been seasoned to a pregnant condition by the time he’d experienced it with her. Moominmaiden is only having the first and only. 

Moomins only ever have one, Moomintroll tells him. In that, he and Moomintroll are the same and it’s so rare a thing, it feels buoyant to finally share something other than conversation.

She gracefully puts him off regardless, following Snufkin out from under the tree and leaving the two old friends sitting together in the quiet.

Joxter taps the end of his pipe with a finger, before he holds it over for Moomintroll to share. Moomintroll takes it after a moment of thought, sighing with pleasure and Joxter smiles. Good taste in tobacco, the Toffle he’d nicked it from has.

(Had, rather, Joxter thinks and he grins to himself for a theft well done).

Moomintroll puffs big clouds, never having the skill for rings and he hands the pipe back. ‘Did you not think of us at all, over the years?’

‘Did you think of me?’

‘Often. You are my friend,’ Moomintroll says and Joxter can’t argue with that, he supposes. ‘What did the Mymble say when you left?’

‘Don’t know, the last thing she said to me was goodnight,’ Joxter answers and Moomintroll looks at him, clearly aghast.

‘You fled during the night?’

‘Don’t be daft, I fled nothing. She's my darling one, after all.’

‘Then why leave?’

‘It was time to do so,’ Joxter says simply, popping on the bit again.

‘But didn’t you love her?’

‘We are in love,’ Joxter tells him firmly. ‘It is not some path you reach the end of. It walks with me every step.’

‘But you didn’t even give her the option to follow,’ Moomintroll says sadly, looking out past the tree. Down to where Moominmaiden and Snufkin have settled by some flowers a ways away. ‘And you took Snufkin, too.' 

Joxter stiffens. ‘He’s my son. Can’t take what’s already mine.’

‘Yes, yes! Of course!’ Moomintroll says hastily, hearing the hard line of Joxter’s tone. ‘I simply meant- oh, it doesn’t matter. Forget I said anything.’

They fall silent again, alternating the pipe. Joxter slinks down onto his back, only his head against the trunk and lets the warm evening settle between them. As affable as Moomintroll is, Joxter had forgotten how finicky he could also be with what was expected. Joxter supposes it may even be fair, given his circumstances. But a part of him is stung all the same by the implication.

Mymble, bright and wonderful as she is, would’ve never said such a thing of them.

‘We’re looking for a house,’ Moomintroll says after a long while, eyes out over at Moominmaiden where she and Snufkin play. ‘Or somewhere for me to build one anyway.’

‘Cutting it fine, I see,’ Joxter grins and Moomintroll gives a look, but he does smile back and some of the tension eases. ‘A house would be a fine thing for you both.’

‘You’d be welcome to visit.’

‘Oh no, don’t say that or I shan’t ever come,’ Joxter teases, tapping the chamber to keep the last bits of the tobacco lit but it’s a lost cause really. They’ve smoke it to the last. ‘But who knows? The path may take us the way to a Moominhouse.’

‘Snufkin and you?' 

‘Snufkin and I, or maybe just the one of us. We shan’t be together forever. One day the last thing he’ll say to me will be goodnight, too.’

‘Won’t you miss him?’ Moomintroll asks and Joxter puts the pipe on the grass, tipping his hat like he may nap beneath it.

‘Not a blessed bit,’ Joxter says and Moomintroll punches him on the knee. 

‘A whole new life starting,’ Moomintroll says and goodness, he is so very misty over this whole thing. Joxter is quite sure he wasn’t half as interested in the prospect of fatherhood until Snufkin had arrived in his paws. Moomintroll does seem to be jumping the gun. ‘Do you ever wonder what he’ll do without you? Who he’ll be?’ 

‘I imagine he’ll be himself until he decides to be someone else.’

‘Perhaps he’ll be you again, like Spring after Winter,’ Moomintroll says thoughtfully. ‘And break the heart of whatever poor creature comes to love him as well.’

‘Hearts are made of sterner things than what a Mumrik can do.’

‘Some hearts break in a way only a friend can manage it,’ Moomintroll tells him and but Joxter doesn’t hear him.

Instead, Joxter suddenly goes still save for his ears, which twitch for a noise that isn’t there. It’s a feeling inside; like taking a step into nothing and falling. A swooping, deep drop in his gut. 

‘Joxter?’ Moomintroll asks when Joxter doesn’t answer him still. Joxter sits up, stares out over the hill. ‘My fellow, what it is?’

‘Nothing,’ Joxter says though it’s most certainly untrue. His skin is pimpling beneath his pelt, fur rippling with a shiver. ‘Just a feeling.’

‘A feeling?’ Moomintroll repeats, confused until he isn’t. ‘Good gracious! Not a Foreboding, is it?’

Joxter doesn’t wish to say though it surely is. But not like those he’s had in recent memory; the last years have had him trembling little more than a storm might. The promise of rain, the threat of tree branch breaking. 

This is not like that. 

‘What are you thinking, Joxter?’

Joxter’s tail flops on the grass uneasily. Could be nothing, has been nothing these last few years but Joxter is very sure that is definitely something. 

It isn’t clear, not yet. All it is, is a terrible certainty. But-

‘That branch,’ Joxter says, looking straight up so his hat nearly falls off. ‘Right there. That’s where I was thinking of taking my nap, you see.’ 

Moomintroll sighs dramatically, wrinkling his snout. ‘Is that really all you have to say? What about your Foreboding?’

‘Oh, yes, yes,’ Joxter says, closing his eyes and waving a paw. No need to worry Moomintroll over such a thing. ‘I had a terrible premonition just now.’ 

‘What for? Is it a storm, a flood?’

‘I saw a great disappointment in my future, Moomintroll,’ Joxter says seriously, swallowing the heavy dread with a grin. ‘I saw that I may not get back to sleep once you leave and my nap is well and truly interrupted.’ 

‘Really?’ Moomintroll doesn’t sound convinced in the slightest but it hardly matters- Joxter may never see him again after today. ‘I remember them being a little more serious than that.’

‘Our lives are very different now,’ Joxter points out, shaking himself out to rid the unpleasant goose pimples. His calms down, rolling his shoulders as though shrugging the worry off. ‘What trouble can we get into on dry land that could possibly be more perilous than what we faced together at sea?’

As if to prove the point, Joxter turns his head towards the sound of a fast approaching Snufkin. 

He pounces towards Joxter and Joxter raises his paws to catch him, always ready to do so. Snufkin curls in them like a dry leaf, staring up at Joxter and his nose is pink from the sun. Snufkin says nothing, but he lifts a small hand to show Joxter the finished bracelet, now decorated with some sprigs of lavender. 

‘How splendid!’ Joxter tells him and Snufkin presses closer, turning his back to Joxter’s chest and he watches as Joxter puts the bracelet over one wrist. A touch big for him, so certainly too big for a little Snufkin. ‘What a lucky Papa, I am.' 

Joxter bends his head, nuzzles his nose and forehead against Snufkin’s head who strains up to return the gesture, his fine hair tickling. Like this, how could one ever find it in them to worry?

Moomintroll pats Joxter on the shoulder, standing up to join where Moominmaiden walks up to him. ‘It is good to see you well, my friend. I did so worry for that strange heart of yours.’

‘I have my whole heart right here, Moomintroll,’ Joxter says, breathing in how Snufkin smells like summer grass and lavender. ‘For as long it will stay.’ 

‘Hopefully it stays a while longer,’ Moomintroll replies, pressing his nose to Moominmaiden’s cheek. ‘We best be off. Things to do, houses to build.’

‘And hellos to give,’ Moominmaiden says gently to Snufkin where he tips his whole, little head back against Joxter’s chest to stare up at them.

Joxter waves them off as they make their way back to town. Moomintroll talks of the carpenter, the mason and the others he’s consulting with before moving on and he’d so appreciate that, if Joxter were staying, a keen eye to come with him. But Joxter makes no promises. Said keen eye is already on the West.

But they’ll take leave in the night, Snufkin and he. There’s beautiful heat left in the evening still and it would be a shame to waste it.

Silly to leave so soon, even if the nag inside urges him to. The lingering sense of danger, like the smell of smoke from a far off fire. 

Joxter lies back down on the grass beneath the tree, the shade cool and perfect a shroud to nap in. Snufkin curls under the brim of his hat, his head on Joxter’s shoulder to join him. 

‘I think I shall like a friend,’ Snufkin says and Joxter turns his head, half-asleep already. ‘When I am big.’

‘You don’t want one now?’

‘You’re my friend,’ Snufkin tells him primly, pressing his forehead to Joxter’s and Joxter hums, so very content.

‘I’m your Papa, too. And your Papa needs to sleep, I’ve been interrupted twice and if it happens once more I fear what I shall do.’

‘What will you do?’ Snufkin asks, taking the bait and Joxter rolls over suddenly, giving the kit a fright. He shrieks when Joxter sticks his paws to him to tickle, small hands furiously trying to bat him off.

It is a nothing, Joxter thinks of his premonition as Snufkin laughs. They are not always what they seem and on a day like today, how could it possibly turn so bad anyway? 

Chapter Text

Joxter falls so hard on his feet he actually cries out, worried as he rolls over an ankle but he can’t stop now.

He’d leapt from the staircase to the gallery, then down again, giving the police a fair skip as they run to get down the stairs fast enough to catch him. But Joxter is already running, bad ankle or no, through the foyer of the palace and towards the serving quarters.

The front gate will be covered; he’d heard the trilling drone of sirens and the police will have likely blocked it off. Above him, amongst the commotion, Joxter hears the rifle goes off.

He runs faster, wincing as his ankle throbs and his boots hit the fine marble floors like stones.

Snufkin is in his coat, clinging so tight that he may wound through the muslin and Joxter skids around the corner at the end of the hall, furiously pressing his paws against the panelled walls. There has to be a latch; a door for some mild-mannered maid to secret to and fro through.

He should’ve left Snufkin at their cherry tree, he should’ve left him with Moomintroll at that inn. Should’ve, should’ve, should’ve-

One of the panels pops and swings open and Joxter nearly weeps with relief, just as a police officer comes into the hall.

‘Oi, stop right there!’ the Hemulen calls, waving a baton threateningly.

What else he has to say Joxter doesn’t hear as he’s already through the panel and into the servant’s corridor, pulling the door behind him with his tail.

Joxter runs and nearly falls down the next set of steps when he gets to them, stumbling upright as he hears the door get bashed in behind him. Joxter gets to the basement quarters, runs headlong into some poor servant as he’s passing but Joxter doesn’t stop. He barrels into the kitchen, spotting the exit to the courtyard when it suddenly flings open.

A tall Hemulen officer stands there, her baton raised high. She steps in and blocks the door, holding a paw out to him;

‘Don’t move! There’s nowhere to go!’

Joxter refuses to believe that and he backs on his heel, turning around only to meet a gaggle of three or four more officers coming down at him from the corridor. Joxter jumps back, looking around the large kitchen for something- anything- and settles on a broom left by the range.

He holds it like a staff, across his middle where Snufkin is well-hidden by the buttons of his coat and tries to think what he can do. He stays centre, backs towards the far wall as the officers come in from both doors.

Joxter scans a look over. Four on the left, one on the right. If there’s a way out, it’s through her and she’s left the door to the courtyard open behind her. But he has to be careful, not too hasty or anything of the like as there’s an officer coming forward, revolver in paw.

There’s already been one gun fired this evening and Joxter is more scared than he’s ever been about the chances of a second. He tucks the broom closer, shaking so it bounces in his paws.

This is bad, very bad and he’s not been in a jam like this for years and years but that was then and this is now, and now he has-

‘There’s nowhere to go, Mumrik,’ the Hemulen officer on the right says again, inching closer and lowering her baton. ‘Don’t do anything you’ll regret. We’ve got your friends already so don’t pick a fight you won’t win.’

Joxter wants to tell them they’re not his friends. Not even remotely.

Instead, as she takes a step closer, Joxter’s instincts piston ahead of him and he bares his teeth. He crouches a little lower and raises the broom, but as he does, an officer on the left points at him.

‘He’s got something in his shirt!’

Joxter panics, paw coming down tight like a vice over where Snufkin is pressed close and he feels Snufkin gasp with the fright, tiny teeth into his shirt. He points the broom at the officer who spoke, chest heaving and voice like ice;

‘Don’t come any closer.’

‘Surrender what you’ve stolen!’ the officer with the revolver says, but he doesn’t raise it. A Hemulen never does, not unless absolutely forced and Joxter desperately tries to take advantage of the time that gives him. ‘We told you, there’s no way out of this, Mumrik!’

The officer on his left comes closer, close enough and it’s all Joxter needs.

He swings the broom with one great motion, with all his strength and it wallops her across the stomach, doubling the great creature over. Joxter pushes back on his tail, springs forward with the momentum of tipping back and leaps over her. He slides down her curved back, onto the floor and he bolts out the open door.

The night is still warm and smells of roses. Joxter runs through the courtyard, can hear the Hemueln police scrambling behind him. The officer won’t be hurt, not truly though maybe bruised and Joxter thinks he may be sorry come tomorrow. But right now, all Joxter can think about is the garden wall ahead of him.

If he can just get over it, get into the streets, and then he’d be able to lose them.

There’s an unholy screech behind him. A wailing, furious noise and the sound of the revolver being fired. Beside him, one of the bushes bursts as a bullet rips through it and Joxter startles, tripping over his own feet.

He curls in as a ball on instinct, cradling Snufkin best he can but the kit still yelps as they hit the ground. Joxter tells him it’s all right, they’ll be all right and then the revolver fires again. It still misses but not by much, dirt spitting from the ground by Joxter’s elbow. He rolls over, glances down.

One of the officers is wrestling with an occupant of the palace, taking the gun off her. She’s fighting for it, desperate it appears and Joxter’s heart bends in sympathy, but there simply isn’t time to explain.

Joxter gets up and flees, throwing himself onto the ivy of the garden wall and scaling. He throws his legs over the top, leaps to a nearby cart and hits the street.

There’s the sound of sirens again, the rolling wails as someone cranks them. The paddy-wagon can’t be far but Joxter just needs to get out of the village. He can see better than any Hemluen in the night and he sticks to narrow streets, slipping down snickets and jumping walls.

‘Papa?’ Snufkin asks but Joxter hushes him quickly, paw over Snufkin’s small head through his coat. ‘I can run.’

‘You will stay right here,’ Joxter says fiercely and Snufkin’s hands grip tighter.

He reaches the end of a guinnel, turning out onto the street and straight into a Hemulen officer.

‘Woah, there!’ he says, turning to Joxter who quickly bows his head so his hat hides his face. Like such a thing might disguise him when he’s so clearly a- ‘Sorry, Mister Mumrik- wait, Mumrik!’

The officer snatches for Joxter's coat, a gloved paw turning in the lapel. Joxter shoves him and Snufkin nearly loses his grip inside, slipping and Joxter’s buttons pop open. Joxter snatches the edge of his coat, tugging it and Snufkin back like a net and darts off, the officer calling for backup.

‘Hey, wait! Stop, thief!’

The siren screeches to life again, much closer and Joxter curses, running out into a familiar square.

The stalls are half-down now, but it’s the same festival from the day before and Joxter stops, panicked for a moment at how open he is. Behind him he can hear the clattering of the paddy-wagon across the cobbles; they’ll be upon him at any moment. He needs the river.

Joxter takes off for the next street; the best he can do for cover and spots an inn ahead. The bridge is just past it! 

But just as he approaches, another paddy-wagon comes around the corner at the end and barrels up towards him, wailing like the Banshee. Joxter skids to a halt, turning back but there’s more behind and he stares at the officers unloading before him, heart thundering.

The two officers in front of him have batons and not much else, which is at least some relief.

‘We’ve got you surrounded, Mumrik! Surrender now and we can promise no one else has to get hurt tonight.’

Snufkin is a trembling leaf against him. Joxter can feel his fear seep through to him, like water to a sponge and Joxter thinks of the horrible violence at the palace. He shouldn’t have even been there. Should’ve just left like he said he was going to do.

The inn opens, the tavern inside clearly roused by the excitement and a few creatures slip out into the street behind the paddy-wagon, curious glances and well-drank ale. In the crowd, Joxter sees a familiar white face.

‘Joxter!’ Moomintroll cries through the din, rushing forwards only to be stopped by one of the officers. She takes him by the paw, quickly pinning him and Moomintroll grunts with the obvious hurt of it. ‘What are you doing? Let me go!’

‘Do you know that Mumrik, sir?’ the officer asks, her voice betraying the panic of the whole evening. She warbles, like a wind chime.

‘Of course I do! He’s my friend!’

‘Did you have anything to do with the attack on the palace this evening then?’

‘Attack?’ Moomintroll says, his squirming stilling instantly. ‘What attack?’

‘The Earl’s been shot, sir and the palace robbed!’

Moomintroll whips his face to look at Joxter, eyes wide with horror.

Joxter wants to explain, is desperate to ease the look of terrible devastation upon his friends face. But Moomintroll is a distraction, such a bloody good one and Joxter can’t wait.

Joxter swings left, gets his paws around a gutter and starts to scale up to the roof of the terrace. His boots are slick on the slates and Snufkin fumbles a bit with the commotion, but Joxter gets up and runs across the top of them, tail holding him steady as he goes.

‘Where are we going?’ Snufkin asks but Joxter doesn’t answer. He can’t as he doesn’t know, all he knows if they have to get away and they have to get away quickly.

If they’re caught-

Joxter can’t even think about it. He puts an arm around where Snufkin is pressed against him, squeezing the kit too tight as they leap from chimney to chimney. If they’re caught, Joxter doesn’t know what he’ll do only that nothing could possibly stop him from keeping Snufkin safe.

At the last house, Joxter teeters on the edge and looks down. There’s a paddy-wagon waiting, a gaggle of officers. Another gun, an old hunting rifle looks like but it’s enough to send Joxter reeling back against the chimney to hide himself. 

Joxter throws himself behind the chimney on the roof, pressing close against the brick work and trying not to panic. 

If he goes back, it means getting back to the streets and the streets are crawling with interested villagers at best or officers at worst. Neither likely to let him get away unscathed. Where else is there to go?

‘We know you’re up there!’ an officer calls from below, voice echoing through a speaking-trumpet it seems and Joxter’s ears twitch. ‘Surrender now or we will have to use force!’ 

Force from a Hemulen could mean a number of different things, least likely the rifle Joxter has seen but it doesn’t change the fact that they have one all the same. What if they fire a warning shot and miss? Joxter has already been remarkably lucky as it is and every time he thinks of that bullet hitting the dirt next to him, his blood turns to ice. 

Snufkin is shaking but silent against him and Joxter keeps a large paw over his head, the two of them heaving together. Joxter needs to get Snufkin away. If they’re caught, they’ll take Snufkin and- Joxter stops the thought. They won’t be caught. 

The river. It’s the only chance they have and even then, it’s just that. A chance. But it’s better than nothing and Joxter tries to think of a way to get to it from where he is. As it stands, a gaggle of Hemulens and a barricade of paddy-wagons stand between him and it and Joxter’s tails whips anxiously. 

He’s startled out of his plans by the clatter of something on the roof behind him. He glances around the chimney to see the top of a ladder and Joxter’s stomach drops. They’re climbing up to get him. 

‘Now, see here!’ a voice calls, before a Hemulen officer reveals herself. She looms at the edge of the roof, armed with only a baton. ‘There’s no where left to run, Mumrik! We’ve got you surrounded. Now paw over whatever you’ve stolen and come quietly, or things will get very ugly for you!’

Joxter could tell them that he hasn’t stolen a thing from that palace, but what Hemulen would believe that from a Mumrik to begin with, never mind now? 

Joxter watches the Hemulen carefully, wary of what she may do as he keeps close to the chimney. If they find Snufkin, they will surely take him and what can Joxter do then? If he fights he won’t win. He’ll probably get a few good licks in but a Hemulen is just too large to fight alone. 

‘Come now, Mumrik,’ the Hemulen says, climbing onto the roof proper. She seems ghastly with the moon behind her like this, cumbersome and enormous. ‘Just give me what you got in your coat.’

Joxter tightens his grip on Snufkin and makes a bold, stupid decision. But it’s all he can think of and jumps with one great push of his legs. He lands on the top of the chimney, catching the Hemulen off-guard and he sees her teeter precariously from the fright. He’s got a foot on each side of the chimney spout and he looks down at the black of it.

The Hemulnen makes a dash forward.

‘No, no! Don’t you dare!’

Joxter more than dares. He hops up once and snaps his legs tightly together, tail up like a poker as he falls straight down the chimney spout. 

Snufkin makes his first noise in the chase, a small yelp as they fall. Joxter trusts the kit to hold on as he throws out both paws and both booted feet out to try and get some purchase on the brickwork. He manages to slow them down just as they hit the end and Joxter rolls out of the fireplace, scattering soot everywhere. 

It’s a kitchen, a large one and Joxter sneezes through coaldust to smell yeast and wheat. Bakery, perhaps. Joxter leaps to his feet, hearing the screeching turn of the siren outside and the commotion as the officers come. They won’t barge in, they’ll knock first but that still isn’t quite enough time.

Joxter looks around, trying to think and he stumbles backwards into a table. It sends up a cloud of flour and Joxter waves it off, sneezing again as it gets caught in his nose. Definitely a bakery then- a bakery! 

Joxter turns on the spot, looking with more purpose. A bakery would have a basement for deliveries, for storage. No establishment of the like is without one and Joxter would know, he’s snuck into them often enough. Just as he thinks it, Joxter spots the double doors at the far corner in the floor. 

He bolts over, throws a door open and slides the lock behind him. Then, Joxter plunges down into the dark. 

The basement smells of bread more than anything. But there’s something else and Joxter actually laughs with relief. Water- this basement smells of the river so there must be a way out near or on it. Joxter walks through the basement to another door, heavier and with a big bolt. Once open, Joxter can hear water.

Underground canals. There’s a boat tied at the end of a stone slipway and Joxter jumps into it, giddy with his luck. Of all places to be trapped, he’s happened on this one! He collapses back against the bench of the boat, still laughing and Snufkin burrows his way out of the folds of his coat. 

‘Papa?’ is all he says but it’s enough for Joxter to grab him, hugging him close. Feels the fluttering beat of Snufkin’s small heart where it rattles against his ribs. 

‘It’ll be all right,’ Joxter tells him, putting Snufkin down so he can start unmooring the boat. But just as he does so, Joxter freezes at the sound of a commotion overhead and his relief snuffs out like a candle.

They’re local officers, the bakers themselves must be up as well and they’ll know about this boat. Joxter looks straight down the canal, down the tunnel where it gapes like a dark mouth. They’ll be waiting for him at the end by the time he makes it, waiting to catch him and take what they think he’s stolen. 

Standing on the boat as it rocks with the soft water, Joxter looks down at where Snufkin watches him. How small, Snufkin still is. How tiny he looks in this great Hemulen boat and the fear inside of Joxter that’s been burning all night suddenly explodes like a rifle's piston. 

His heart is racing as he unties the moorings, starting at every clunk the boat makes against the slip way as he thinks it’s the door finally bursting open. If they’re caught Joxter won’t be able to fight them and when they take Snufkin- and they will- he may not be strong enough to rescue him even if Joxter tries. 

What can he do? Joxter thinks in a panic, tail furiously tossing behind him and Snufkin’s own eyes are round with fright as he watches it. 

What can I do? Joxter thinks desperately, over and over like a terrible song. He feels powerless, like he’s being crushed beneath something too great to lift and he looks ahead into the dark, frantically hoping that maybe there won’t be officers waiting. But Joxter doesn’t believe his own hope for a moment.

There’s a sudden bang- a mighty thump against wood from above and Joxter knows it won’t be long now before they descend upon them. Joxter pushes the boat out and lets it get caught in the canal’s current, faster than he’d thought it would be and they vanish into the tunnel.

The dark doesn’t bother Joxter, or indeed Snufkin with the eyes they have. It takes just a moment for them to adjust as the boat is swallowed by shadow the further it moves from the candlelit slipway.  Joxter scans the walls, but there’s nothing. No hatch, no door. Only stone and Joxter can see the light at the end. He can also hear the commotion waiting for them.

A plan comes together, if one could even call it plan. It’s more desperate than that; a mad bid in a gamble with the odds stacked ridiculously against him. But Joxter can think of nothing else. He can’t go back and ahead there’s only the certainty that he’s one firm grab away from losing Snufkin. Or worse- one stray bullet.

‘Snufkin, come here,’ Joxter says, taking Snufkin’s hand in a paw and tugging him close. He curls down over him, bends to press their foreheads together. ‘I need you to be brave. And very, very quiet.’

Snufkin looks up at him, frowning but quiet as told. Joxter reaches under the bench of the boat, dragging out the workbasket that sits there. He tips some of the larger tools out before picking Snufkin up.

Snufkin kicks a little, clearly seeing where this is going as Joxter puts him in the basket. 

‘No,’ Snufkin says, whispering and then near shouting. ‘No, no!’ 

‘Quiet, I said!’ Joxter hisses, hackles rising with panic and Snufkin falls silent instantly, frightened by Joxter’s sudden anger. Joxter doesn’t have the mind to even notice truly. ‘Listen to me good and careful, Snufkin. This is very important. Are you listening?’

Snufkin nods, eyes shiny with the bare light that starts to creep in around them as they come closer to the end of the tunnel.

‘You stay in this basket,’ Joxter says, taking up the work-cloth that sits at the bottom of it and shrouding it over Snufkin’s shoulders. ‘You stay quiet and you stay hid, you understand me?’

Snufkin nods again and as Joxter tightens the cloth around him, he can feel Snufkin shaking. Joxter blinks quickly, trying to curb the sting that burns in his eyes. He runs a paw over Snufkin’s head, down his cheek and tries not to grip too tight lest he cut him with anxious claws. 

‘You don’t come out for anyone but me, yes?’

Joxter starts to arrange the tools back in the basket around Snufkin best he can, knowing it’ll be uncomfortable and thinking frantically to himself over and over But not for long, not for long, not for-

‘You don’t make a sound and you don’t move from this basket until I come for you. Do you understand me, Snufkin?’

Snufkin doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything and Joxter is trying very hard not to show how deeply afraid he is but he fails miserably when he hisses again with frustration.

‘Snufkin! Do you understand?’

Snufkin jumps and nods again quickly. It’s all Joxter can bear to ask for and it’s not enough of a promise, though Joxter wishes so deeply it would be. He can’t stop his mind outrunning his sense and it has him spinning inside like a top. Joxter’s never been one for thinking ahead but now the uncertain future swells before him like a great tide.

‘The boat will float along the canal until it hits the bank at the bottom,’ Joxter says hurriedly, scrambling about the boat and snatching up a small bundle of rope. He stuffs it in his coat, where Snufkin had been. ‘I will find you there. All right?’ 

Nothing about this is right, Joxter knows and he can see it in Snufkin’s face so clearly. But he truly can’t think what else to do to keep Snufkin safe and out of Hemulen paws. Joxter wants to beg him to be careful, to be quiet, to be safe- but Joxter is his father and it’s his job to make the promises. 

‘I promise,’ Joxter says, taking the lid of the basket and pressing it over where Snufkin ducks down. Joxter lingers, his paw large over the wicker top. ‘I promise I will find you.’

The boat floats out from the tunnel and Joxter puts a paw over the bulge in his coat caused by the rope. The quays on either side are lined with officers and Joxter gives them a quick scan over. Up ahead, there’s another boat with a particularly tall Hemulen standing in it, baton raised. 

‘Nowhere left to go, Mumrik,’ an officer says from the quay. ‘We don’t want to hurt you.’

‘Don’t fancy it much myself either,’ Joxter says to him and the officer huffs with frustration. On any other day, that might’ve been funny but Joxter can’t find it in him to laugh. ‘Don’t suppose you have any of the nicer manacles? That iron can be terrible for my poor fur, you know.’

‘All right, sir,’ another officer says from the opposite quay that Joxter’s boat drifts towards, standing almost in the water he’s so far down some steps to a mooring pole. ‘Come over to me nice and easy.’

As the boat approaches, Joxter bends his knees. Swings his tail to keep his balance and hopes against anything and everything that Snufkin will stay quiet.

‘Don’t call me sir,’ he says, before leaping from the boat to the mooring pole.

He balances on one foot, right on top and just for a moment before he pushes off again. He rolls like a ball when he hits the stone of the quay, right between two officers who make swipes to catch him but Hemulen’s are such bumbling creatures. Joxter springs up and turns, running backwards and making a big show of covering where the ropes are hidden.

‘I’d love to stay and chat, but I really am so very busy! Such a bother to be popular like this, I haven’t the time for the friends I have never mind new ones! But I’m sure you are all quite splendid fellows!’ Joxter calls, grinning madly and it must be madness; the volatile kick of panic inside.

Joxter can’t see the boat from here but he can see that the Hemulens aren’t even looking at it. All eyes on him, just as planned.

‘I do wish you luck and a merry time of it! May our paths never cross, eh?’ Joxter says, hopping on the back foot and going to bolt off down the nearest street- but instead slams nose-first into something. Or rather, someone.

Joxter falls back, completely caught off-guard and before he even has a chance to blink through where his eyes are watering, something grabs by the lapel of his coat and hoists him up.

‘So much trouble for one so small,’ the Hemulen officer who’s caught him says. Joxter shakes his head, trying to get his bearings and his feet swing beneath him. ‘And you are in a great deal of trouble.’

‘I usually am,’ Joxter says, getting both paws onto the officer’s wrist and trying to pry it open. He fails and the Hemulen shakes him once, knocking the hat off him so the strap catches at his throat.

‘You finding this funny, Mumrik?’

‘Perhaps the delivery could use some improvement,’ Joxter says, swallowing thickly. ‘But the punchline isn’t too bad.’

‘Your friends are for gallows, after what they’ve done,’ the officer tells him and Joxter can hear the others from the quay approach, ears flicking behind him. ‘You don’t have to follow them.’

Joxter wants to be understanding- violence is so rare a thing, for some creatures. The officer reaches towards Joxter’s coat.

‘And it all starts if you give back what you stole. If you’re lucky, you can escape a cell for the rest of your life.’

‘Luck seems in short supply tonight.’

Joxter tenses his paws and digs sharp claws in the officer’s wrist, right through his gloves and drags. The officer yelps and Joxter can smell blood, but he’s been dropped like a hot coal from the stove. Joxter ducks down and scurries around the officer, who makes another solid grab for him.

He runs and doesn’t look back, making a show of holding his coat fast to him. He pulls his hat back up and heads straight back into the town.

There’s certainly no way out this way but it’ll give Joxter time to convince them he left nothing in the boat, enough time to let it drift further down the river until it hits the forest bank a mile or so down.

Hopefully they won’t even look, or if they do it’ll be just a glance–

Joxter trips over himself, tail over his head as he rolls and is suddenly hoisted into the air. He scrambles, trying to make sense of what’s happened and his paws get tangled in looped rope. A net!

Joxter kicks his legs, getting a boot stuck through one of the loops of the net and his tail sinks through another as he tries to figure out which way is up and which is down, body swinging high above the round.

‘I got him!’ someone cries, clearly delighted and Joxter pushes the hat from his face, furious and alarmed. A tall civilian Hemulen is holding the net by the ends, Joxter bundled up inside like apples. ‘I got the Mumrik!’

Joxter gives a mighty kick, right into the Hemulen’s side and though he yelps loudly, he doesn’t drop the net.

‘Oi! Quit it, you!’ the Hemulen says as the officers approach, batons raised.

‘Well done, Mister Hemulen!’ an officer says as the Hemulen who’s caught him swings Joxter over his shoulder. Joxter lands on the Hemulen’s back with an oof! ‘The Lady of the Palace will be so grateful!’

‘Now then,’ another says, coming forward just as Joxter flops down from his struggle, almost upside-down in the net. This one looks important, with a star on his chest. ‘You’ve caused a lot of trouble.’

‘I tend to,’ Joxter says mildly, trying to get himself right way up but the net is so burdensome to move around in.

‘None of this has to get any uglier than it is if you just tell us-’

‘Sergeant! Sergeant!’

Everyone looks in the direction of this hysterical wailing as Joxter just manages to right himself, back to back with the Hemulen that’s caught him. Another officer is running full pelt in their direction and Joxter can see it before the rest of them do, his eyes keen in the dark. His heart stops.

‘What in blue blazes-?’

‘Sir, oh great goodness, sir!’ the younger officer says, panting and near doubling over. In doing so, he gets the blood that’s on his gloves onto his knees and Joxter covers his nose. He can smell it from here. ‘There’s been… oh goodness, oh goodness!’

‘Out with it, lad!’ the apparent sergeant says, eyes going wide when he sees the blood himself and Joxter wonders why he even asked. Surely they must all know?

‘The Earl didn’t make it,’ the officer finally manages to say, eyes bright with tears and he looks quite ill. Anyone would be, Joxter supposes. He’s never been witness to a murder before either and his own stomach turns.

‘Didn’t make it? What do you mean he didn’t make it?’

The new officer just shakes his head, taking deep breaths that quiver his snout. He looks at Joxter and then quickly away. ‘Died in his bed, sir. Nothing could be done.’

They’re all quiet then and the Hemulen holding the net drops it suddenly. Joxter hits the ground in an ungraceful lump, catching him off-guard. 

Joxter uses this to try and fidget for his pocketknife. The net is all tangled, he’ll never undo it before they stop him and too thick for claws. 

The Hemulens are talking to each other. Their words are frantic, horrified. A rifle has likely never been aimed at one of them before as far as they know. 

Joxter knows better. He’d known there’d been no hope; he’d seen that bullet tear right through the Earl himself. But now he knows he’s dead Joxter realises he has even less time than he could’ve hoped. He needs to get out of this net. He needs to get back to Snufkin. 

Joxter’s desperately trying to get a grip on the knife, trying to get its edge out to cut the rope when the sergeant suddenly rounds on him. The anger pours off him like water.

‘You…’ the sergeant says, pointing a shaky finger down at Joxter, who twists his body to hide the knife. ‘You were part of this.’

‘Not that,’ Joxter replies, insistent and honest. The sergeant’s face is all open grief and suspicion. 

‘But you were there!’

‘I wasn’t meant to be,’ Joxter says, more desperate and his paw slips where he’s hiding it, knife fumbling. ‘I give you my word on it.’

‘What good is your word? The Earl is dead!’

Joxter wants to say he’s sorry, for he thinks he might be. But Joxter can’t care for anything but Snufkin, safe but alone. Snufkin has never been alone, not for long, not like this and Joxter knows he needs the time for Snufkin to drift away but he can't stop picturing all the terrible things that might go wrong.

The sergeant turns to the young officer, panicked. ‘What about the others? Do we have them?’

‘All but one, sir,’ is the reply. Suddenly, a horrid scream fills the air, followed by more and more shouts of outrage. News is spreading and Joxter’s chances grow slimmer. ‘Only thing from the chest we can’t find is the necklace that was taken so it must be with the last one, or...’ 

Again, Joxter finds himself under scrutiny. 

‘We have the necklace here,’ the sergeant says and suddenly Joxter is hoisted up- or rather the net is and he along with it. He drops the knife and panics when it feels it slip through the rope. 

It hits the ground but no one notices. No, no. There is too much tragedy for any creature, even a Hemulen, to notice that. 

‘The Earl is dead,’ the sergeant says again, shaking the net and Joxter tumbles around inside. ‘And for what? To line your measly pockets?’

‘I wasn’t there to steal,’ Joxter says between gritted teeth, though it’s only half-true. Doesn’t matter anyway- they clearly don’t believe him. 

The sergeant carries him down the street, ignoring the way Joxter struggles and then Joxter is thrown like a sack, net and all, into the back of a paddy-wagon. He rolls and hits the bench of it hard, right on the side of the head and he sees stars. 

He clutches at it, pushing his hat best he can out of the way as the door to the paddy-wagon slams shut. Blinking through the pain, Joxter starts to tug on the net. He pulls out his claws and tries to run them through the links, desperate and wincing as they catch unpleasantly.

He needs to get out. He needs to get back to Snufkin. Once they know he doesn’t have what they’re looking for they’ll go back. What if they get to the boat before him? Joxter can’t allow that to happen.

The paddy-wagon starts to roll along and Joxter hisses, a pain lancing through him from where he struck his head. He shakes himself, refusing to give in to the dizzy lights that bloom in his eyes again and he continues to shred frantically against the rope with his claws. The strand starts to splinter, but there's no real give and he groans with frustration, kicking his legs and only getting more tangled.

'Come on,' he says furiously, hissing and whiskers sticking straight up as he gets back to it. His fingers are starting to ache, but he finally gets through the first strap. 'Come on!'

Joxter gets a grip and tries to tear himself out, tugs with all his strength but it isn't much good against Hemulen rope. His head throbs and he curls inward, eyes watering and tries to keep his thoughts straight. 

'I'm coming,' he says to a Snufkin who can't hear him and his head drops, suddenly too heavy and Joxter starts with a horror as he realises he's nearly fainted. He slaps his cheek, gets back to pulling on the rope. 'No, no! Come on, Joxter!'

He struggles and struggles, but eventually, one of the loops gives again and from there the whole net starts to come undone. Joxter leaps to his feet in the tight space of the paddy-wagon and brushes the net off him. He replaces his hat on his head, pulling his paw away to see some blood. He must've done a worse job of it against that bench than first thought. 

They must be nearly to where they're taking him, Joxter reckons. Whether that be the station or... well, doesn't matter any which way where they've brought him. All that matters is getting away and getting back to Snufkin as quick as he can. He throws himself against the doors, meets hard steel and flops backwards. Foolish thing to have done, but Joxter's last bit of sense has clearly drifted down the river with Snufkin. At least there was that much at all to get Snufkin away.

The panic is threatening to take over. Joxter looks out the barred windows on the doors, sees the streets and a crowd gathering along them. There'll be no easy way out, if there is any way out all. 

With a sinking, freezing feeling, Joxter begins to realise what will have to be done if there is to be any hope of getting out of this before he's thrown in something a touch sturdier than some old fellow's net. He's not a creature for it himself, has taught Snufkin nothing of it.

But as the paddy-wagon comes to a stop, Joxter realises that if he is to get free of them all, to get his feet out from under him and back to where Snufkin is, then there is only this.

Joxter stretches out his claws, crouches low before the door and thinks of Snufkin, safe but alone. And his mind is made up, distasteful as it may be.

There will have to be violence. 


*/


Joxter has followed the river for nearing two days now and there's still no sign of the boat.

Travel has been slow. His arm is still not quite right from his escape the other night, keeping him out of the trees he'd normally hide in.

Thankfully, Hemulens are not the best creatures for woodland and nature that can't fit inside a neat little fence and Joxter had lost those that had been brave enough to follow him quick enough. He'd waited out their hollering and their lanterns, hid himself well and tried to keep the scent of the river in his nose lest he wander too far.

Now, Joxter is nearing where the river has widened into something wilder, faster. The narrow dyke at the end of the village's canal, where the woodland starts, had been where Joxter had been sure the boat would raise to ground. But it hadn't been there.

Joxter knows the Hemulens haven't found it. They'd have found Snufkin, too, if they'd had then Joxter would've heard of it. They'd have goaded him, teased him to come from hiding with his kit in their large, horrid paws like a bargaining chip. Hemulens are not often cruel as such- but murder will do the worst to even the best of creatures. 

As it is, Joxter has heard nothing and he's far from the village's borders now and there's still no sign of the boat. And thus, no sign of Snufkin and Joxter's heart grows more and more afraid.

Pushing through the bushes to get as close to the river as he can, Joxter's boots hit the clear water and he looks around.

The river is at it's widest so far, low in places and rushing deep in others. There are rocks as it's moved out, large ones that stick up in sharp peaks. The rushing, roaring noise of the water has Joxter's ears twitching beneath his hat, desperate for anything. A word, a mewl. Just... something. 

When Joxter turns again, looking downstream, he spots something between two rocks, upturned and crooked. 

'No...'

Joxter sees the boat and everything stops. The boat is on it's side with water cascading over and around it, carrying small bits of it away in splintered chunks. 

'No, no,' Joxter says, heart rabbiting in his chest and breaths frantic. He bursts from the wood, through the reeds and his boots sink into the dark mud of the river, torn-coat catching the water like a net as he struggles out to wade. 'No, no no!' 

The water is fast and shallow for a bit, but then the bottom of the river falls out from under him and Joxter falls beneath the rush of the waves with no warning.

He sucks water in, coughs and struggles to keep himself above the surface, kicking his feet furiously and coat suddenly leaden. His hat floods with water and carries off him, string catching at his throat like a noose and he jerks. He sinks like a stone, struggling to keep going.

But Joxter must keep going! He pushes with his legs, pulls against the current with his arms and strokes with his tail. He has to keep moving, has to get to the boat.

Joxter bobs up, fails to catch his breath and swallows more water. It's freezing and shocks him from the inside out. Everything is screaming for him to get out of the water- his lungs are burning, his arms ache and ache and he's so incredibly heavy and the water so very cold. 

'Snuf-Snuf-!'

Joxter tries to cry out, tries to get just a little bit further. He can't leave Snufkin trapped in that boat, he can't leave Snufkin alone in this water, he can't-

The world shifts so quickly Joxter can't make sense of it. He splutters, wipes at his face and swings madly as someone lifts him from the water like they might poach a fish. Joxter is dragged up and out of the river, into another boat and he shakes his head manically, scattering water everywhere.

'Woah there, Mister Mumrik!' 

It's a fisher and someone else, each in one end of the small rowboat they're in. Joxter coughs the water out, shrugging away from where the fisher reaches for him.

They're not Hemulens, which might've been a comfort if Joxter had a thought left to him that wasn't the gulping, frightful one that spirals dark and endless. The creature furtherest from him is something closer to a Fillyjonk than not, the other some fair folk. Not unlike a Mymble.

It's this one who has pulled Joxter from the water and it is this one who stops Joxter from jumping straight back in. The whole boat rocks as he does so, getting his long arms around Joxter's shoulders and pulling him back. Mymble's are so tall and Joxter is dwarfed. 

'Let me go!' Joxter cries, throwing his arm out and wincing as it twinges. He had forgotten it was hurt. 

'Hey now, no need for all this fuss!' the fisher says, but his boatmate doesn't seem to agree. He makes a high-pitched, shrieking noise.

'Careful, fisher!' he says, rowing against the river's current so the boat turns sharp. The three of them swing with it. 'Don't let that thing drag you into the water with it!'

'We got you, Mister Mumrik!' the fisher says, ignoring his friend and indeed, ignoring Joxter, too. Joxter worms out of his grip and throws himself to the edge of the boat, both paws clinging to the gunwale, claws out and he scans the water.

They're moving to the bank quickly, the fisher joining the Fillyjonk so their little rowboar skims over the river's current. Joxter looks at the baker's boat, at where it's been torn like a sheet up the middle by the rock beneath it. The river must be tidal, must have swollen the other night before dropping and how foolish Joxter has been to have not paid attention! 

They reach the bank faster than Joxter had waded out. Once there, the fisher jumps out and Joxter does, too, with far less grace.

Joxter gets to his unsteady feet, looking back out to the river. He looks to where the baker's boat is stuck, at the cracked bow of it and the things that stream out like an open wound into the water. A little ways down, on the other rocks that stick from the rushing water, Joxter sees the wicker lid of a basket.

It's split, almost in half and flutters in the current like a flag and the world around him shatters. 

Joxter cries out, not truly hearing it but he's moving before he can stop himself. Back out towards the water, almost running but he's suddenly stopped. The fisher has caught him again around the middle and it sends them both down into the mud. Joxter reaches with claws, digging them into the soft earth and tries to pull himself out of the fisher's firm grip.

'He's wild, fisher!' the other says, but the fisher doesn't let go despite Joxter's struggles. 'You know Mumriks are practically feral, everyone says so! What if he bites you?'

'I don't think he's dangerous, Gorfle- ah, come now, Mister Mumrik!' the fisher says, pulling back and dragging Joxter back with him. Joxter near hisses as he's pulled from just where his paws had started to touch water again, up onto his knees. 'Please, let me help or you'll drown!'

'Let me!' Joxter says with a trembling whine. He pulls against the struggle, a great and devastating realisation crushing down upon him. He stalls in the mud, stares at the broken basket and sobs; 'What good is any of it?'

'Now, now, Mister Mumrik!' the fisher says, slacking his grip slightly and Joxter uses it to curl in on himself, paws coming over his own head and tangling mud into his hair. 'It can't be as bad as all that! Whatever you lost in that there boat you'll be able to replace, right as anything!'

'He's gone, he's gone...'

'Who's gone?' the fisher asks and Joxter's will, whatever was left of it, finally snaps.

He collapses in on himself with a crumpled violence, like a tree suddenly struck by lightning and many fragile pieces of himself scatter.

The fisher drops him properly in shock and Joxter lands in a sodden heap against the riverbank. He curls in like a ball, paws coming down and crossing over his body. He digs his claws into the softness of his arms and wails. He simply cannot contain it; the horror of all that has happened is too huge and terrible to hold back. 

This wail turns sharp as his chest burns, a horrible hiccuping yowl from somewhere irrevocably ruined within him. Eventually, his lungs gives out entirely and all Joxter can do is gasp through it, never catching his breath. He may never breathe again. 

'Oh goodness, oh goodness!' the fisher says, coming close and hovering. Joxter flinches away; he does not want to be touched. 'What is it? Are you hurt?'

Hurt? Joxter is more than hurt. There is no word for it, no desperate thing to call what has split apart inside of him as Joxter realises that Snufkin is gone. He's gone! Small, beautiful body probably smashed into those rocks. Tiny and lovely, too little and fragile to swim against a current like that when Joxter could barely even wade it.

He's drowned or broken and gone, gone, gone-

Joxter sobs and sobs. His hackles rise and his fur stands on end, water pouring from everywhere. He coughs it up, cries it out. He's drowning.

'Leave him, fisher!' Gorfle says and Joxter can hear them faffing about, but he doesn't care. They could kill him where he lies. 'He's clearly raving mad!'

'I don't think that's it,' the fisher says, touching Joxter's back with a hesitant paw. Joxter rolls away, buries himself into the dirt. 'Please, Mister Mumrik. Let me help, if I can.'

There is no help. No fix. Joxter can't even open his eyes with the despair that crushes him.

'Something ain't right here, Gorfle,' the fisher says, trying to come close again and Joxter swipes at him viciously, claws out. He misses but the fisher jumps back, eyes wide. 'Please, sir-'

'Don't,' Joxter says, strained. 'Don't call me that.'

Joxter can't face it, the kindness in the fisher's face. The pit that's open in Joxter's heart has no kindness inside to recognise it with. 

'Just get away,' Joxter tells him, both of them and he bares his teeth.

The fisher seems to be considering arguing further, but Gorfle has some sense at least. He pulls at the fisher and both of them retreat, back towards their boat. 

Joxter doesn't watch them go. He turns back to the river and stares at the water. 

He needs to find Snufkin. Joxter can't rest, he won't, until he find what's left to find. Even if only to bury. 

The sob is out before Joxter even realises he's the one making it. A weakness threatens and he falls forward, both paws landing back into the dirt. The mud is caked into the fur of them and he sinks into the wet ground. He can't feel it. Can't see it for what it is. The world seems too large around him and the work of even getting back up seems too great. Joxter doesn't know if he can stand, let alone walk.

But he has to. 

Joxter forces himself his feet. He's unsteady, swaying and can't see clearly but he forces himself to move. He has to move, he has to find Snufkin as that is what he promised and Joxter will always keep his promises to Snufkin. 

He walks down the edge of the river, boots slipping on wet rocks as he goes. The grief inside of him has galvanised, pushes him onwards with a frantic energy. He looks through the reeds on the river's banks, wades in slightly to get a better look across the other side of the river. He walks for a very long time, searching and searching. The hopelessness of everything almost swallows him a few times but Joxter doesn't stop looking. 

Eventually, so very far down the river's journey, he finds something. 

Joxter freezes where he's wading, knees weak as he sees it, just up ahead and right up on the bank. He can't... he shouldn't let himself hope-

But Joxter does hope, he hopes a frightful, blistering amount and he runs, trips and clambers up again as he makes his way to the bank. 

He throws himself down onto the ground next to the basket and he tears the cloth out from inside it. He chokes, words failing him as the disappointment of it being empty goes through him like a blade. He doubles over it, staring at how empty it is and clings to the sides. The wicker punctures from his claws and creaks from the strain as Joxter tries to steady himself. 

The basket is empty, but not entirely. The tools are still there, the cloth he'd used to wrap Snufkin in as well so it can't have capsized at any point. And it is unharmed. It must've floated or if it's this far up the bank, out of harm's way, then someone must've found it and brought it safe there like the fisher had done with Joxter. Which means Snufkin, while not here, has to be alive. 

Joxter falls to the ground. He lies there in the grass, simply breathing with a relief too powerful.

Snufkin is alive. 

Chapter Text

Joxter isn’t sure where to look at first except to start making his way back towards the village.

He pulls himself up from the bank, short of breath and desperate. The top of the bank gives way to more trees and a path, mostly overgrown but there. Snufkin is wee yet, but old enough to know a path when he sees one, Joxter reckons. Joxter clenches his fists, feels the dirt stuck to them clump between his fingers as he does. 

It's the best chance and yet... 

Joxter hesitates, looking behind him. Down the river where it runs. It must lead to the sea, eventually. What if Snufkin followed that tide instead? Snufkin loves the sea, Joxter knows. 

But then, Joxter thinks, Snufkin is so very little. Too little to find his way anywhere. He needs his father, he needs Joxter. 

Joxter's knees tremble and he sways, like a reed and nearly falls entirely.

The failure is crushing; feral in the way it tears at him but Joxter tries to catch his breath and bring himself together. He can't afford to let Snufkin down anymore than he already has, can't afford to fall apart. His son needs him to come for him, as promised and Joxter will not break his promise.  

He needs to stop dilly-dallying, needs to pick a direction. This way, or that. He's already wasted so much time!

Joxter tries to look ahead, tries to clear his mind enough that something might tempt him one way or another but no sense of Foreboding comes. He can't see anything but the trees. 

Joxter replaces his hat and starts down the path. He runs and takes deep breaths that sting his lungs where they still ache from the water.

Joxter can't smell him, feels tears when he realises. Joxter's sense of smell has never been as impressive as someone like Moomintroll, but it's always been enough.

Now all Joxter can smell is the river water that clings to him. He can't find Snufkin anywhere and he near trips over himself, overcome but unwilling to give in.

The path runs parallel to the river, the rushing noise of it enormous as Joxter makes his way back into the pit of the fire that has started all this trouble. If he goes too far back-

Joxter sees them before they see him and darts for the nearest tree, stumbling as he throws himself against the trunk. Old and knobbled, it’s an easy climb even without claws and he makes it up high into the leaves to hide, watching through them as the fisher and the Gorfle creature from before walk ahead with full baskets on their backs. They're not alone.

‘Ho there, good fishers!’

Whoever has approached the fisher and the Gorfle are Hemulen in nature; Joxter knows a Hemulen accent whenever he hears one. Joxter lies still across the branch, ears pricked to eavesdrop on the conversation. If there’s a Hemulen guard or paddy-wagon ahead, then Joxter needs to know.

‘Good afternoon, Mister Hemulen!’ the fisher says, friendly and Joxter wishes he could see better through the leaves. As it is, he can just see the fisher and the Gorfle’s backs. ‘What has you so far down this way?’

‘Have either of you seen a Mumrik?’ the Hemulen asks, sounding very rushed. Perhaps the great oaf has run here, Joxter thinks and he tries to swallow the bitterness that lingers.

‘A Mumrik?’ the fisher says and his partner, Gorfle makes a sudden and awkward coughing noise. ‘What’s got you looking for a Mumrik, Mister Hemulen?’

‘Officer,’ the Hemulen replies primly. ‘And we’re looking for a thief more so than a Mumrik. It just so happens this thief is one and we’ve already been led off in the wrong direction once already today.’

‘A thief!’ the fisher exclaims and then there’s a considerable silence. ‘Don’t think we’ve seen any creature like that, have we, Gorfle?’

The Gorfle doesn’t answer but Joxter can only imagine the expression he might be making. Joxter is confused himself- why would a stranger lie for him like this?

‘Not at all?’ the officer says, sounding put out. He adds, more insistent: ‘We’re having such a bad run of it, you know. What do you think are the chances of two Mumriks being in the same place at the same time, Fisher?’

‘Not very high, I would think if you were to ask me, Officer,’ the fisher answers and the officer makes an impatient huff.

‘Exactly! But just our luck to have just that, isn’t it?’ the officer says and Joxter freezes, claws out with a tension that seizes him. ‘We heard talk of a Mumrik down this way and so here we are only for it to turn out that he wasn’t the same Mumrik at all! Wasn’t even grown, he was. Just a kit.’

Joxter nearly falls from the tree as a weakness takes him. Snufkin- it must be, for who else? Do they have him, have they hurt him? Joxter’s heart thunders like a storm. So many things could’ve happened in his carelessness and most of them terrible. Joxter can’t stop thinking of it. Should he reveal himself from the tree, bare his claws against this Hemulen and beg?

‘A kit, is it?’ the fisher says, sounding interested. ‘Where’s the little thing now?’

‘Oh, goodness knows!’ the officer says. ‘I’ve far too much else to be worrying about than chasing the tails of creatures of no interest to me! No doubt it’ll be picked up sooner or later.’

‘You left the kit alone?’ the Gorfle says, speaking at last if only to scold by the sounds of it. ‘Children should never be left alone!’

‘Well, you see- we didn’t-‘ the officer is stuttering now, but Joxter is already inching his way backwards along the branch. He’ll get to the trunk, climb a bit higher and see if he can get to the next tree over. Joxter needs to leave now he has sense of where to be going. 'Someone else had already gone and looked after him by the time I showed up! So he's not really on his own, in'he?'

'But who picked him up?' the fisher asks. 'His father?'

The officer makes an impatient noise. 'Don't be ridiculous! If there was a father, he's probably the Mumrik I'm looking for and if it'd been him, I'd have him!'

'This thief you're looking for? What did he steal, if I may ask?'

'I... don't know, if I'm to be honest,' the officer says and Joxter wonders what to do. 'Not my jurisdiction. Just got a telegram from the Earl's Village West of the river asking all available officers to help in the search of a Mumrik thief.'

'Don't believe everything you read in telegrams,' the fisher says before rustling his basket. 'Sorry we can't be more help to you, Officer Hemulen. But good luck to you all the same!'

'Thanks for your time, good sirs!'

At that, Joxter creeps further in on the branch, back towards the trunk. He leans against it, tries to make sense of it. Snufkin is definitely alive, definitely safe and a breath Joxter hadn't realised he'd still been holding releases itself.

He sinks against the tree, the relief flooding him. Snufkin is safe but someone has him. That someone is not Joxter and that is enough for them to be the wrong someone, Joxter feels. 

'Why did you lie?' the Gorfle asks, bringing Joxter's attention back to the pair below. 'You know that creature you saved in the river was probably who the officer is looking for!'

'You saw the way that Mumrik cried,' the fisher says, an evident distaste coming through in his tone. 'Like the whole world had burned down around him. I wasn't going to bring more hardship down on someone already suffering like that.'

Joxter listens to the wicker of their baskets strain as they seemingly adjust them. He can hear the forest floor crunch under their boots as they make their way again. 

'I bet you my bottom shilling that kit the officer nattered on about was his. They must've lost each other.'

'But the officer also said that fellow was a thief!'

'Any Hemulen would say that of a Mumrik, now wouldn't they?' the fisher says to that and the Gorfle grumbles. 'Besides, you didn't grass him up either, did you?'

'Well- if you weren't going to...'

Joxter sits in the tree a long while until they are gone. Confident the place has cleared, Joxter jumps down from the tree. The fisher and the Gorfle have walked the direction he just came, following the flow of the river.

Joxter feels he should keep going the way he was, following where the Hemulen must've come from. Surely, if the Hemulen came that way and knew of Snufkin, then Snufkin must be at the end of the path?

'Snufkin...' Joxter says, a paw to his chest and then up again. Touches his brooch like it might be a balm to him as before. 

Nothing is soothed.



*/ 

It has been a season, the warm weather waning and Joxter is still alone.

There has been no sign, no clue nor lingering touch for Joxter to turn to. He’s found nothing but he keeps looking for it must be the next bend in the river, the next peak of the mountain. It must be soon, the point in which this nothing will end and Joxter will find Snufkin again.

It’s night and Joxter is resting by a waterfall, the rushing music of it deafening. Joxter wants to be deafened, feels a stone of guilt in his chest like a boulder for the want.

Even when sleeping, Joxter lies in the quiet with his ears pricked and anxiously resisting the pull of dark dreams lest he sleep too much and hears too little. But he is so terribly tired and he sits by the waterfall, hearing nothing but it and wonders if the exhaustion that drags at him is betrayal to Snufkin  somehow.

He has done everything but when one is alone, everything is a very small amount.

Water mists over the edge of the rockface he’s perched on, a small ledge shrouded in thick bushes and Joxter lies on his back to read the stars. He looks for Grus and tries to follow the light of her wing like it might answer his questions. He asks for truth, for guidance, for a future that had seemed so certain and is now gone.

She doesn’t answer his questions. Joxter can see Snufkin nowhere in the stars; he is too small for them to remember but his absence is the biggest thing in Joxter’s life. He rolls over on the ground, curls in tight on himself and stares at the black roots of the bushes. The grief is still not familiar and he wears it too big, like an ill-fitting coat.

Joxter sits in the pit of this tragedy and he longs for a friend. He wishes to retrace, to search valleys and find Moomintroll and the house he may have built. He wants to sit by the Muddler’s hearth and bask in the settled happiness he must have.

Joxter wants to hear a kind word and though he can’t imagine what any of them might say were he to tell them his sadness, Joxter likes to think that if Moomintroll were to say something, Moomintroll would think it very wise. Joxter is in need of wisdom.

But the last he saw Moomintroll was the last Joxter also saw Snufkin and those things are tied very much together in a terrible knot. Goodness knows what Moomintroll must think of Joxter now, of what the Hemulen police must’ve said or done.

Truly, what would he say if Joxter were to find him? Does Joxter really believe Moomintroll would be kind? Joxter can’t even pretend to be kind to himself.

When he wakes to cool blue sunlight and the first bite of the chill, Joxter realises that he never even noticed falling asleep. It feels like losing Snufkin all over again and the next night, he settles somewhere so quiet he can hear his own grief beating like a heart.

*/

Joxter is so drunk he's stumbling. 

He wobbles like a circus act, like some great trapeze artist along the edge of the quay. He's in some Eastern town that's speckled with lanterns and flags. A festival of some kind and the drink has been flowing, even for creatures like him. Joxter's been empty for so long what more harm could possibly have been done in trying to fill it with wine? 

He leans too far forward, almost into the still canal that runs through the centre of the town. 

Joxter sees his reflection, the great circle of his hat and the ripple face of himself in the water. 

I could drown, Joxter thinks and he leans forward again. Joxter could let himself fall, let himself sink beneath the water and down to the bottom.

Joxter thinks of that day. That very first day he realised he'd lost Snufkin, truly. He'd waded out into that river and almost been carried away, out into the sea...

Joxter slips and nearly topples into the water, but his tail swings with an instinct and over-balances him the opposite direction. 

He falls backwards onto the cobbles with a hard slap. Joxter stares up at the dark night sky, at the stars as they twinkle with laughter at something that is long over for them and not even started for him.

Joxter laughs anyway though, puts a paw to his forehead as the laughter starts bleeding at its edges. Like ink overrun from the pen-tip, the drunken delirium is spreading out into other places. Darker, sadder places.

How can he ever, possibly, keep something as simple as a promise if he can't keep himself upright at the least?

Joxter can't even drown himself properly. Even in making Snufkin an orphan, Joxter can only manage half the job.

*/

A year.

A year and the nothing has not ended.

Before the day it became a year, Joxter had been burning hot with a fierce drive to not have his son be lost so long. He searched more ridiculously, pulling up rocks and chipping his claws to find creeps and critters small enough to ask. He climbed more trees, followed tracks that can’t possibly be Snufkin’s for surely he’s grown at least some since Joxter last saw him.

It had been that thought that palled the insistence.

Now, it crests like a sunrise on the new year of life without Snufkin and, one year to the day, Joxter collapses against the trunk of a yew tree and stares down the barrel of it all. For the first time, Joxter realises that the kit he’s searching for is already gone. Grown, changed. If Joxter found him, would he even recognise him at all?

It is a terrible cruelty. A violence really, upon a soft and tender part of one’s soul to lose a child like this. Joxter spends the day under the yew tree, watching the clouds roll overhead on the Summer heat and wonders how it can even possible, if it is even fair amongst any living creature, to experience missing someone like this at all.

Will any of it ever have been worth it, if it is to be this way forever? Joxter is not who he used to be and Snufkin is never to be who he is to Joxter again. What worth can it be to be reunited at all, when neither are who they’re supposed to be?

For the first time, Joxter lets himself look at the future for what it may be now. Looks at the long stretch of this nothing and on this day, something changes in Joxter once more.

There is no back to himself, no back to the Joxter who is not a father despite the fact that he is without a kit to parent. And there can be no forward, for the grief is too great. But there is this.

And this? This will raze everything to the ground. 



*/



It is desperation that has brought him here.

Joxter has spun all sorts of tales in his mind to explain how it may have come to be that Snufkin would be here. He's thought of letters sent, or perhaps even a friendly face spying Snufkin through the world and seeing her in him. Perhaps she simply might have found him herself where Joxter has failed.

The Mymble's cottage is almost the same as when he'd left it. But only almost. The thatch of the roof is sparse in places where it oughtn't to be, the garden wilder for it seems no one has pruned it for sometime. It seems... smaller, somehow. As though it has wilted, like a flower left in an Autumn chill too long.

There's the smell of turf in the fire and it is that scent that leads him through the trees, the laughter of children through an open window tempting him closer than he ought to. 

Joxter doesn't go to the door, never one for such things. He slinks low and secret through the Mymble's garden, presses close to the white-wash stone of her house and puts a paw to the wall. Joxter lingers there, wondering if he might feel her heartbeat somehow through it like when they used to lie together.

Oh, how Joxter could lie for so very long against her breast and listen to the life of her body. When she was pregnant, she would let him rest his head below her sternum so he could press an ear to her swelling belly, so he might listen wee Snufkin's heartbeat. It beat out of step with Mymble's, like they were having a conversation somehow for just the two of them. Snufkin used to kick if Joxter got too heavy.

Now, Joxter just feels stone.

He continues along, creeping to her bedroom window where he used to come through during the strangest hours before, just to find a space in her bed for him.

It has been years and Joxter doesn't want to trouble whomever may be in her bed now, if there is indeed anyone at all, so he stays low and sits beneath her windowsill. He sits for a very long time. 

Eventually, the window above him opens. 

Joxter doesn't move. He's well-hidden by a thorny and unkempt rose bush, the brim of his hat preventing him from seeing much even if he were to glance. All Joxter does is sit very still and listen to her.

For, oh, it is her. His heart swells with the familiar sweetness of her humming, the rap of her fingers against the window pane. She never beats a rhythm that matches the song she's singing. 

He strains to hear more but there's no gentle scolding or a laugh. There's no one in her room but her, it seems and that should be enough for Joxter to reveal himself. It should... it should...

'Oh,' the Mymble says suddenly, stopping halfway through her song. Not that Joxter has ever known her to finish one anyway. 'There's someone in my garden, isn't there?'

She could always tell. But again, Joxter dithers. His mind runs ahead of him, tempting him with all sorts of things. 

Joxter has been alone so very long now after having become so unused to it. He has missed her terribly, misses Snufkin still and he wants Mymble to coddle him. He wants her to hold him close and kiss him, to love him even only for a little while. He finds the secret, delicate place he holds for her again in this moment like a stone unturned.  

'Joxter?' the Mymble says and Joxter holds his breath, paw going to his brooch with an instinct. ‘Strange creature, is that you out there in the dark?'

There is no reason to deny her. He's come this far, after all. 

The Mymble fidgets above. He can hear her playing with the window, can hear the rusted creak of its hinge as she swings it slowly. Joxter has never known her to be a terribly nervous creature but neither of them are who they used to be, he thinks. 

'Or our little one?' she says and Joxter's blood goes cold. 'Is it you, instead?'

The Mymble leans out her window. Joxter can see her shadow through the rosh bush, can smell her perfume. 

'If it's you, come to me,' she says, warm and pleading. Her voice is a hand outstretched. 'Come to me, my little one. I know your father gave you a terrible old guff of a name but if you like it still, then come tell me and I'll remember, I promise.'

Snufkin doesn't come. How could he? 

'You can scold me for forgetting in the first place if you come along,' she continues, laughing but it's shrill. 'I'm so terribly absent-minded, you know. I'm sure your sweet father will you have told you. But will you come to your mother and tell her your name again? I promise there's room for you!'

Joxter puts a paw over his mouth to stop the deep, grieving howl that lingers behind his teeth. He holds his silence like a rope and the Mymble waits. She waits, silent and patient as she is with all her children. 

How can he reveal himself now? Joxter flinches into himself. Reveal himself now to what? To the truth that he has made an orphan of their son, the truth that Joxter has lost him- their one and only Snufkin, as though he were something that has slipped from a hole in Joxter's pocket? 

Joxter realises then how cruel he has almost been. There is a deep, black horror inside of him and he nearly brought the Mymble down into it with him and for what? For the hope that Snufkin might be here? Joxter could laugh if it weren't all so dreadfully, unspeakably cruel.

The Mymble doesn't hover much longer. She closes her window and never finishes her song. Joxter waits with his back to her wall, until the night starts to turn frosty around him. 

It shimmers on the grass like stars.



*/



This one isn't much taller than Joxter is, but he's a lot wider. Something like a Snork and nowhere near as friendly, Joxter has had to take his time with the options open to him. As it is, he's been luring this one where the trees are taller and closer together. This Sneak can't see all too well in the dark. 

When he passes below, small lantern the only thing helping in the night, Joxter jumps from the tree and right on the Sneak’s back.

His claws are out and the Sneak squeals in shock as Joxter comes down on him, the lantern going out in the scuffle.  The claws sink in and Joxter drags them down the Sneak’s shoulders, softening his landing to the forest floor and then he bends low. Joxter balances on his paws and kicks one leg out long and right behind the Sneak’s ankles, tipping him over.

The Sneak falls forward, lands on his chest with a thump and Joxter leaps to his back, pinning the Sneak behind the neck with one paw and baring his claws on the other. He brings it close to the Sneak’s face, watches the panic set in on the creature’s knobbly features.

‘Wait, wait!’ the Sneak shrieks, trying to wriggle free but Joxter just presses down harder on his neck, edges his claws out to press through the thin pelt there.

‘Did you find anyone else?’ Joxter asks, tightening his grip. ‘Any other Mumrik?’

‘What?’ the Sneak says, squealing again when Joxter presses harder. ‘No! Stop, stop! No, no one else! You’re the only one I’ve found!’

‘I’m the only one, you’re sure? You didn’t hear of anyone else?’

‘No, no one!’ the Sneak says and his fretful twitching suddenly stops. He tries to look at Joxter from the corner of his eye. ‘… why are you asking this? Who are you looking for?’

Joxter doesn’t answer that. He slams the paw on the Sneak’s neck down, pressing him into the dirt and then springs backwards off him. Joxter steps away as the Sneak scrambles to his feet, turning to Joxter as he does. He winces when he straightens up and looks over his shoulder, eyes wide.

'Where'd you go?'

'Need your lantern that badly, do you?' Joxter says, hovering close to the tree. The Sneak looks over at him, but he's squinting through the dark. 'Amazing you got this far when seeing so little past that wretched nose of yours.'

The Sneak puffs up his chest and says; ‘You’ve done damage to me here, you know!’

‘It will scar,’ Joxter tells him as it’s likely true. The Sneak's frown shifts to something more panicked. ‘And I could’ve done worse.’

The Sneak puts a paw to his throat, seemingly without noticing. ‘But you didn’t.’

‘No, I didn’t,’ Joxter says, raising his hackles again as now they are standing like this, the Sneak is taller than first thought. Most creatures are. ‘But not out of the goodness of my heart.’

‘I don’t have money,’ the Sneak says and Joxter lets out a low hiss of distaste.

‘Wasn’t looking for it,’ he says and the Sneak frowns at him. ‘You were sent to find a Mumrik, yes? Well, you found one and this is what I’ve done with you. So consider your search over.’

‘Over?’

‘Go back to wherever they found you and stay there. Or don’t. Hardly matters where you go as long as it’s in the opposite direction of any Mumrik. Whether it be me or anyone else.’

The Sneak makes fists and Joxter keeps his claws out, ready. But the Sneak makes no move forward. He simply swings his arms anxiously before wincing, clearly feeling the wound on his back.

‘I can’t go back with nothing, they won’t pay me!’

‘You won’t have nothing,’ Joxter says coolly. ‘You’ll have a scar.’

‘They’ll just send someone else,’ the Sneak replies, wincing as he tries to adjust his coat. Joxter can smell the blood from where he's standing and his ears can pick up the wet squelch of the Sneak’s coat on his back. ‘They want you and don’t much care how they get you.’

‘Then let them send someone else,’ Joxter says, unsympathetic. ‘There’s nothing for you here but a fight you won’t win.’

‘I wasn’t going to hurt you,’ the Sneak says but Joxter doesn’t care.

‘I hurt you,’ he says to that, standing up straighter. ‘Don’t have me do it again.’

The Sneak looks like he might argue some more, but then he seems to decide against it. His back must be stinging by now; Joxter has been putting his claws in oak sap and witch hazel. Nothing deadly, but nothing friendly either and it will hurt. And like Joxter said, he hopes it will scar. He went deep enough.

Joxter watches as the Sneak grabs his lantern with another flinch, before righting himself and heading off in the opposite direction, stumbling through the dark. The back of his coat is a dull colour where the blood soaks through and Joxter waits at the bottom of the tree, waits until he can’t smell the Sneak or his blood any longer.

Sneaks are baleful creatures, but generally ones that favour the path of least resistance. Joxter intends to resist as much as possible, at every turn. He has important work and he can’t afford to keep letting these wretched souls and their bounty hunting steering him off-course.

It’s the third Sneak he’s had to cut off like this. The first had been a panic; a reckless caper and ill-advised fight. But Joxter had gotten away and knew how to spot the signs by the time of the second, trying to outrun than outmatch. Now for the third, Joxter is beginning to change tact.

If there’s money to be made on catching Mumriks, then Joxter wants the risks to outweigh it.

Joxter knows it’s been years. He knows how much it has cost him, knows how little he’s achieved for all of it. He knows that if they’re looking for him, then they can’t have found Snufkin. Joxter hasn’t found Snufkin either, not even a clue to where he might be, but he also knows that he will. He will.

And he will do whatever it takes to make sure he’s the only one looking.



*/

When the door for the boatshed opens, Joxter doesn’t even flinch from where he’s stretched out in what might be a currach when finished. He’d left the door conspicuously ajar for a purpose.

‘I might’ve known it to be you,’ Hodgkins says, putting his lantern down as he walks in. Its yellow light changes the shape of the boatshed, giving everything the eerie shadow of a dream. ‘But leaving the door open like that? Why, you were always a lazy fellow but that was downright careless.’

‘I can never be accused of care, that much is true,’ Joxter replies, sitting up in the currach to look at Hodgkins from under his hat. Hodgkins is quite grey now, hunches slightly though an impressively tall creature he remains at that. His eyes are as astute as ever and he watches Joxter the way some might watch a shark.

‘Accused of much all the same, I hear.’

‘It’s funny, you know,’ Joxter says, fishing in his pocket for his pipe. ‘I’ve never had anything get ahead of me before, so I suppose it’s a compliment to my own singularity that the only thing to have managed it at all is my own reputation.’

‘Reputation might be too kind, as I understand there is nothing reputable for it,’ Hodgkins says and Joxter pops his lips on the bit of his pipe, humming with consideration. ‘It’s not all I heard of you.’

‘No? It must have at least been the most interesting.’

‘I heard you’re a father,’ Hodgkins continues and there an unpleasant quiet then.

‘Well, if you heard it, it must be true.’

‘Are you telling me it isn’t?’

‘I’m telling you that’s rather a question of perspective,’ Joxter replies, striking a match. It blooms a brilliant orange and lights the pipe. ‘Is one still a father when he doesn’t have a child anymore?’

‘Joxter…’ Hodgkins says and Joxter takes a few brief puffs, just enough to get the tobacco going.

‘Don’t be so morbid,’ he says, cutting Hogdkins off before he even starts. ‘He’s not kicked a bucket or indeed any other utensil. I am simply… without.’

‘Without?’

‘Without him,’ Joxter says and he tilts his head back, smoke billowing in the cold air above him. ‘We were parted some time ago. Rather sad tale, come to think of it. Which I rarely let myself do.’

‘Must be a very sad thing indeed,’ Hodgkins says thoughtfully, shuffling closer to the currach. ‘His mother?’

‘Darling. Too darling to be told how careless his father has been. I’ve enquired in a discreet manner but she knows nothing but what she last did.’

‘Which is that he’s with you.’

‘Which is that he’s with me,’ Joxter repeats through smoke, old wound but one all the same. ‘Another question of perspective, that is.’

Hodgkins kicks the currach, disrupting Joxter from his lounge so his hat flops over his face. Joxter sits up, frowning at his old friend who returns the gesture down to him.

‘Get out of my boat.’

‘Oh, how long it’s been since I’ve heard that?’ Joxter grins and he takes the paw that’s offered down to him.

Hodgkins suggests they sit inside but it has been so long since Joxter has been to the ocean. In the end, they decide to sit on Hodgkin’s ramshackle pier. The wood is warped and cool from the water and they sit with their legs hanging off the edge.

‘You’re going grey, you know,’ Hodgkins says, pouring a generous helping of whiskey and handing the glass to Joxter. ‘Right on your whiskers. How old are you now? Must be approaching middle age, surely.’

‘Give over! I’m thirty-four, you old codger. You’re one to talk anyway, I thought perhaps I’d missed a snowfall when you walked in.’

‘Such dreadful manners,’ Hodgkins laughs, pouring his own drink. He holds it out to Joxter, who toasts silently. After their first sip, Joxter looks over to him and considers.

‘Not a lot of people would offer me a drink like this after hearing what you’ve heard.’

‘I suppose most believe it.’

‘You don’t?’

‘I like to think I know you too well for that,’ Hodgkins says thoughtfully, taking a slow sip of his whiskey and that just makes Joxter sad, kind as it is to be said. Not everyone has felt the way Hogdkins does. ‘But a sordid story like that is tempting for most to put faith in. Makes their lives more interesting, I think.’

‘It’s certainly made mine more complicated.’

‘I believe that, too.’ They say nothing for a nice moment, enjoying each other’s company and the sound of the sea before Hodgkins speaks again. ‘You must be lonely. You’ve lost friends over this.’

Joxter shrugs. ‘Mumriks travel alone.’

‘That’s rather different though,’ Hodgkins says which Joxter can’t deny, so he settles for sipping on his drink. ‘Have you heard much of my nephew?’

‘No, I must confess,’ Joxter says honestly. ‘How is the Muddler and his wee bonnie lass?’

‘The wee bonnie mother of his child, I’ll have you know,’ Hodgkins says and there’s an undeniable shade of pride to his voice. He smiles to himself. ‘A son. I’m a grand-uncle.’

‘Grand in everything, you are,’ Joxter teases, bumping his shoulder to Hodgkins who waves him off. ‘How old is he?’

‘Oh, I imagine he must be near six. Possibly seven. I’ve been so busy and letters have not been as frequent as I’d like, though I am no better myself.’

‘Goodness!’ Joxter says, genuinely surprised. He sits and mulls that over, the reality of his life making itself uncomfortably known again. Like a splinter he can’t pull out. ‘So grown already and I had no idea. It’s funny how quickly time passes and not to notice. I feel as though it must have only been a season or two since his wedding, and yet…’

Joxter can’t finish that sentence, so he finishes his drink instead all in one go. It burns like the morning after and it’s been so long, Joxter wonders if he might cough it all back up but it passes after a moment. Hodgkins pats his shoulder.

‘And yet,’ he repeats quietly, understanding as he has always been. Joxter appreciates him so deeply and a hurt he didn’t even realise he’d been carrying is soothed. Oh, how Joxter has longed for a friend.

Which reminds him;

‘Have you heard of Moominpapa at all?’ Joxter asks, studying his empty glass and hoping he comes across as nonchalant. 

‘I heard he settled somewhere North,’ Hodgkins says, making a show of getting the whiskey open again. ‘Built a house there for his wife and son. I had thought you’d hear at least that much.’

'A son?'

‘Aye. Might be the same year as the Muddler’s, maybe older. I’m not sure.’

Joxter taps his knee. ‘He must be at least nine now. Nearly ten.’

‘How’d you figure that?’

‘Because Snufkin’s twelfth birthday was last month.’

Hodgkins doesn’t say anything to that but he does pour Joxter another drink. They sit with the ocean beneath their feet and the dark night above them, and somewhere far away Joxter’s mind wanders as it so often does despite all the years.

‘It’s a funny thing,’ Joxter says as he watches the wave roll over like black ink. ‘To miss someone for longer than you knew them. But some days I miss him so greatly it feels like it takes up all I am.’

Joxter sighs deeply, lifting his whiskey to take a long sip of it.

‘Some days there simply isn’t room in my heart for it,’ Joxter confesses and it shakes him, to say it aloud. He puts the glass down, nearly tipping it over into the sea and wouldn’t that just be one more thing lost? ‘It is like the small stern of a ship or a very tiny bottle. Some days all I can fit are his hands, the memory of his voice. What a father I am, to only have space for so little. But the grief is an enormous thing, Hodgkins. I may never crawl out of its mouth and my little bottle will capsize if I let too much in, you understand.’

'I must say I don't and hope to never, for it seems a terrible thing,' Hodgkins says to that and Joxter hums, mind elsewhere. 'Has there truly been no sign?'

'Oh, there have been many signs,' Joxter says, whiskers drooping. 'I spent a summer following the advice of a matron, who swore my Snufkin had passed through her orphanage. Then on again across the sea, perhaps twice but it's so hard to say. I've spent a great deal of time following signs.'

Joxter laughs.

'What a irony, that,' he says, shaking his head but Hodgkins doesn't laugh with him. Instead, he looks thoughtful. 'Hodgkins?'

'Have you tried anything else?' Hodgkins asks and Joxter is thrown, not sure he likes the insinuation. 

'I've been doing my best.'

'I didn't mean it like that,' Hodgkins says quickly and Joxter flicks his tail, unsure. 'Just we know so many who might be able to help. I could've helped, had you let me know!' 

‘Haven’t been sending much by way of letters myself,’ Joxter says, bristling and Hodgkins must notice as he stops his fidgeting. ‘Not exactly good outlaw-ship to leave a paper trail behind.’

‘You didn’t even commit the crime,’ Hodgkins says sternly and Joxter sighs, rubbing at his whiskers.

‘You really that confident, are you?’

‘You’re many things, my friend. A murderer could never be one of them.’

‘If only everyone had the faith you do,’ Joxter replies, shoulders feeling very heavy as he thinks of it all. ‘Last I saw Moominpapa, he was in the paws of an Hemulen officer. I heard later they held him in a cell for days after the murder.’

‘Yes, yes. He told me,’ Hodgkins says, idly stroking his beard. ‘Their evidence against you was compelling.’

Joxter bares his teeth. ‘I bet it was. I’ve been followed from mountains to deserts ever since by all manner of officer, Sneak and passing creature who’s heard. And I only say so as to say I’m being hunted makes the whole thing sound all the more ridiculous.’

‘It was a serious crime,’ Hodgkins says like Joxter could ever doubt such a thing. He’d been there, after all. ‘But I don’t see what running will do. Why not go back and just tell the truth?’

‘And who will believe me? They know I didn’t pull the trigger but something was still stolen in all that violence and until they get it back I’m as guilty as the bullet,’ Joxter says bitterly, tapping his glass with a claw. ‘They didn’t believe my pockets empty then and they won’t now.’

‘They want back what was stolen?’

‘I don’t have what was stolen.’

‘Can you not simply explain that?’

Joxter actually laughs at that. ‘Do you think they’d believe me? A Mumrik vagabond who broke from their own jail cell?’

‘And what do you suggest?’ Hogdkins replies sharply and Joxter’s laughter dies. ‘You keep running from them forever?’

‘They’ll give up eventually. Hemulens aren’t known for their stamina, after all.’

‘But they are for their deep pockets,’ Hogdkins says with a deep frown, whiskers standing up. ‘They’ve got more money than you’ve lives.’

‘Surely they’ve got better things to spend their money on,’ Joxter says, waving a paw like he might wave off Hogdkin’s worries. It doesn't work for either of them; for Joxter knows in his heart of hearts that this may never be over. Hodgkins seems to think the same.

'So, what of it then?' he asks and Joxter shrugs. 'You run and run, losing sight of your boats burning over a crime you never committed?'

'If that is what it is to be, then we must let it.'

'You could ask for help.'

'No one wants to help a fellow like me at the best of the times.'

'Maybe not. But Moominpapa might believe you.'

'Why should he?' Joxter asks, bitter again. 'You weren't there, Hodgkins. You didn't see the look on his face.'

'I doubt there's anything those Hemulens could've said to convince him you could commit so heinous a crime,' Hodgkins offers but Joxter waves him off.

'You know what he's like,' Joxter says and his breath stutters, like an engine, as the memory of his friend comes to him. 'So terribly proper, really. Any chance of proving myself I lost like a bad gamble when I decided to run.'

Hodgkins puts a large paw on his shoulder. 'You had no choice, you said so yourself. I'm sure if you just-'

'Did he believe you?' Joxter asks, interrupting and a touch shaper than intended and he meets Hodgkins' eye. 'When the topic of me and my horrible crime arose last, did he think you right to say differently to every soul who heard of it?'

'It would be different coming from you yourself!' Hodgkins says but Joxter scoffs, the realisation hitting. 

'So I'm right then,' he says, feeling quite ill suddenly and Hodgkins looks away, out across the sea. 'He thinks me a murderer.'

'Of course not!' Hodgkins says but he looks tense. 'Just-'

'Just the kind of fellow who keeps the company of murderers?'

Hodgkins sighs. 'What do you want me to say, Joxter? You never came by any of us to say any different.'

'You didn't need me to,' Joxter says and it's hard not to keep the sour note from his voice. 'And even if I'd wanted to, I couldn't have. Not with Snufkin to look for and Sneaks to lead astray.'

'You're here now.'

'Then you must have an idea how long it's taken to wander even this close,' Joxter points out and Hodgkins concedes with a low noise. 'I couldn't risk bringing anything ill to your door. Or anyone else's.'

'We would've borne it,' Hodgkins replies and if that is to be a comfort, it fails and Joxter stares down at his boots and the black water. 

'Perhaps, but it was not a chance I was willing to take,' Joxter says and he looks to his glass, wishing it full again. Hodgkins seems to notice and goes for the bottle. 'There never seemed the right time. There was always a Sneak too close, or an officer. And then Snufkin-'

Joxter stops, closing his eyes tightly. He digs his claws into the pier, feels the wood chip under them.

'Snufkin is all I allow myself to think of,' Joxter says between his teeth, ducking his head so his hat might hide his misery. 'I can't allow myself lose sight of finding him.'

Hodgkins hums in reply, looking down into his own glass. ‘It is a terrible thing to do alone.’

Joxter bristles, knowing at once what Hodgkins is suggesting.

‘I will not ask Moominpapa for help now. Nor the other either. I will not take fathers from their sons simply because I have been careless with mine.’

‘It has been many years, my friend, and you are no closer to finding Snufkin than you were at the beginning. ‘

‘The world is a very big place,’ Joxter says and it sounds like an excuse even as he says it. He sighs, rubbing a paw over his whiskers. ‘And Snufkin is his own Mumrik, wherever he may be. My compass may be set on his back but Snufkin has nowhere to look but ahead. He won’t slow down for what he doesn’t know follows him.’

‘What will you say when you find him?’

‘You know, I can’t quite make up my mind on that,’ Joxter says with a very brittle laugh. ‘One day, I am quite certain that all I want from him is hello. Another, I dream of asking him to sing me a song. He did so love to sing, you know.’

The ocean is a soft crash against the pier, water lapping up as far as Joxter’s boots.

‘But one thing stays the same,’ Joxter says quietly, wondering if it’s bad luck to even say it aloud at all. But he’s been carrying it like a secret for so long and it is all the heavier for it. ‘I want to ask him if he knows me. And if not, then I shall ask him if he’d like to. The last thing I want to lay at his feet after all these years is an obligation.’

‘He’s not obligated to be what he is. He’ll simply be it,’ Hodgkins says gruffly, clearing his throat of some whiskey that must’ve gone down the wrong way. ‘A son is a son all his life.’

‘I thought it was only until he gets a wife?’ Joxter jests before the humour cools off, the thought coming absently to him. ‘Suppose I miss that, too.’

‘A wife? Suddenly feel matrimonial, are we?’

‘No. I mean, what if he is in love already?’ Joxter is suddenly tearful at the thought and he rubs at his face again quickly. ‘There is so much uncertain, Hodgkins. So much I wish I could ask to stop and wait for me to be there, but it’s like asking the wind not to blow. I am bound to be swept away.’

Hodgkins, kind as he is, puts hand to Joxter’s shoulder and holds him steady. It really is so silly a thing; to cry as easily now as Joxter had then when Snufkin was first lost. But that doesn’t change it all the same and he weeps quietly, too sad to be embarrassed over it.

‘I heard his first word, saw his first steps,’ Joxter continues quietly, wiping his wet nose and Hodgkins offers him a handkerchief from somewhere. Joxter takes it gratefully. ‘And yet there is still so much I am missing. You know, my biggest fear is that I’ve found him already and just not recognised him. Daft, surely. To think one wouldn’t recognise their own son. But it has been so long, Hodgkins.’

‘You said yourself, the world is a very big place,’ Hodgkins says kindly and Joxter takes a breath, steeling himself to stop the tears. ‘And you’ve been doing the best any one creature can do, given the circumstances. It’s not like you’re in a position to put up signs.’

Joxter pulls a face, disgusted by the very thought even if he were in the position to do so and Hodgkins laughs. It’s a deep noise from his belly and how much Joxter has missed hearing it, he realises quite suddenly.

‘No son of mine is going on a sign,’ Joxter says firmly, feeling surer of himself. ‘If anything I taught him stuck, he’d be the first to pull them down anyway.’

‘I’m sure it more than stuck,’ Hodgkins replies, handing Joxter back his whiskey, now refilled. Joxter takes a large sip, feels it burn slightly as he swallows too quickly. ‘We would be surprised by what children remember, you know.’

‘I’d like to be surprised,’ Joxter says, looking up at the stars. ‘I wake every day and tell myself not to hope for too much and yet, I am disappointed every night all the time.'

'Dear friend,' Hodgkins says to him, putting his paw back to Joxter's shoulder. 'This terrible hurt you are putting yourself through. It isn't fair.'

'What about Snufkin's hurt?' Joxter retorts, the hideous guilt he has carried in his stomach all this time sinking its teeth in once again. He flinches away from Hodgkins. 'For he must have some. Suppose he thinks himself abandoned, unloved. Perhaps he doesn't even wish me to find him.'

Joxter's grip on the glass tightens and his hackles rise.

'Sometimes I think that must be it. I've searched for long and for him to still be missing, perhaps it makes more sense that he doesn't want his poor excuse of a father to ever darken his path at all.' 

'I'm sure he doesn't-'

'You are sure of nothing!' Joxter hisses and Hodgkins' own whiskers twitch. 'You never even knew him! I don't even know him!'

And isn't that the dreadful, dark truth of it? 

Joxter leaps to his feet, suddenly too fretful to bear sitting any longer. It's time to move on- he's already stayed too long. He doesn't finish the whiskey and simply turns the glass over, tipping it out into the sea and shoving the glass back for Hodgkins to take.

'Thank you, old friend,' he says as Hodgkins struggles to catch the glass, trying to get up himself. 'But it's time for me to move on.'

'Joxter, wait!' Hodgkins says, spilling whiskey in his rush to get up and after Joxter who has started walking down the pier. 'Joxter, for goodness- will you stop a moment?'

'I shouldn't have even stopped this long,' Joxter says, tail swinging behind him nervously. 'Who knows what might've followed me here and what of your standing with the King then?'

'If something followed you then we'll face it together,' Hodgkins says, reaching out and grabbing Joxter by the arm. His paw is so much larger that his fingers meet all the way around and Joxter stares down at it. 'You're in no state to go wandering off now.'

'I'm in a perfect state to go wandering where I please,' Joxter replies, trying to pull away but Hodgkins holds firm. 'Let me go, Hodgkins.'

'I shan't,' he says, standing up to his full height and Joxter resents him at once for it. 'Over a decade since I see you, only to hear wretched whispers that couldn't possibly be true and now you appear, shrouded in a grief like this and you expect me to let you go?'

'I don't expect you can stop me,' Joxter says and Hodgkins frowns, whiskers sticking up. Joxter bares his teeth, like it might help him but Hodgkins simply tightens his grip. 

'I'm too old to be scared of that,' he says, dragging Joxter back towards him. 'Now come with me and at least sleep somewhere soft. You've always been too precious for anything less than that, though doubly too proud to admit it.'

'I am not precious!' Joxter says, still trying to worm his way out of Hodgkins' grip but to no avail. 'Nor proud! Who do you think you are to say such things?'

'Your friend!' Hodgkins snaps and Joxter stops like a clock, staring. 'The only one you have left, it seems.'

Joxter can't seem to catch his breath all of a sudden. 'I don't need your pity.'

'No. What you need is help,' Hodgkins says, gentler. 'But you also have that. My pity, I mean. I'm not so proud myself to lie about that.'

Joxter stares him down. Or rather, tries to. But something is beginning to crack. 

'There's nothing you can do,' Joxter tells him, eyes hot with tears suddenly. 'There's nothing anyone can do.'

'Not if we don't try.'

'What can we possibly try?'

'Well, I haven't figured that out yet, have I? But I will. If you stay,' Hodgkins says, smiling kindly and Joxter lets himself unwind, like a knot come undone. Truly, down deep into his bones, Joxter is tired and he feels every part of it quite at once. 

'I cannot stay long,' Joxter says, letting Hodgkins pull him closer. 'I do not know what follows me or indeed how close they may be.'

'You won't have to stay long but you will stay enough for us to figure out what we might do,' Hodgkins replies, pulling Joxter all the way until they are touching. Joxter presses his forehead against Hodgkins' chest, the brim of his hat flipping down so it touches his nose. Hodgkins puts a large paw to his back to pat softly. 'You are not alone, my friend.'

'But Snufkin is,' Joxter says, tears dropping again. They run down his nose and he puts both paws to Hodgkins, gripping the rough fabric of his coat. 

'You don't know that. If he is anything like you or his mother, he'll have found some friends by now to keep him company.'

Hodgkins pauses, his gentle patting stopping as well. 

'Though if you don't mind my saying, hopefully he took more from you than the Mymble,' he continues thoughtfully. 'Poor thing is probably a touch too young yet to be getting into that kind of trouble.'

Joxter laughs and it catches them both by pleasant surprise. It's good, to laugh.



*/

He's sitting in a pub somewhere North. Not being one for maps, or even conversation in recent years, Joxter isn't entirely sure where said pub is but he knows it to be North by the thin-needled trees and snow. And my, is there snow. 

According to the chatter about the pub into which he is eavesdropping, the Winter is in fact almost over. Quarter to Spring, one fellow said but Joxter isn't sure he quite believes it. The snow looks too thick outside yet to be considering thawing, but Joxter supposes a local might know better all the same. Spring coming or not, it is still cold presently and so Joxter has curled up round and small in a chair by the pub's large hearth. 

Joxter's over forty now, his bones are beginning to groan when frost is even suggested never mind crawling up past his boots in deep snow.

He'd been pleasantly napping, not much concerned with those around nor they with him, but one particular individual is being quite a fuss-pot. Which would be fine, if he weren't also being a such loud fuss-pot.

'Took ages to find another station that'd take me once I got myself out of that cell!' says the Hemulen who is currently blowing hot air about the place, chatting with the landlady who surely mustn't be interested. 'Had to write all sorts of letters, use my best stationary and all that. Couldn't have some official thinking I wasn't bonafide in my application just because I got tricked into being locked into my first jail.'

Joxter could really do without the noise, having the sensitive ears he has. Resigning himself to the fact that there isn't much more sleep to be had here, Joxter unfurls and stretches out, paws up above his head. As he does so, the Hemulen at the bar chokes on his drink. 

'Hey-!'

Joxter immediately goes on the defensive, claws out and he looks over, ready to pounce if needs be but the Hemulen hasn't moved. Now that they are looking at each other, the Hemulen actually appears quite bashful. 

'Sorry, Mister,' he says, raising a paw and flapping it about. 'Gave me a fright there, you did.'

Joxter arches a brow, not answering. He doesn't need to really, chatty as this Hemulen is.

'Just you look awful like the feller that got me into all that mess I was talking about!' the Hemulen says and Joxter drops his arms, whiskers twitching. 

Joxter gets up from the chair, walking over to slink into the stool next to the Hemulen. The Hemulen pulls a face; wrinkling his large snout and frowning. Joxter supposes it's been quite some time since he bathed proper. (And indeed, probably some time again before he will). He reaches for the bowl of seeds left on the counter, tilting it with a claw just for something to do. 

'Tell me about this fellow,' Joxter says, interested. Not hopeful; it has been too many years, his hope is burned out. But if there is someone out in these woods making a Hemulen's life unpleasant, Joxter thinks he'd rather like to meet them. 

'Travelling sort,' the Hemulen says, fussing about in the pocket of his fine, purple coat. Now Joxter cares to look at him, he seems an official sort alright in some respect and Joxter fluffs his whiskers in distaste. 'Like yourself. Neater, though. No offence.'

'None taken.' Joxter reckons most would be neater than him, given the scruffiness that comes with being a travelling soul. 'Gave you trouble though, did he?'

'Don't know the half of it,' the Hemulen says moodily, swirling his drink. 'For a Mumrik with so fair a face, he weren't really all that pleasant.'

Joxter knocks the bowl over and seeds fly everywhere, scattering like stones. 

'Fair?' he repeats and the Hemulen looks quite alarmed now, possibly thinking some mad creature has approached him after all. Joxter feels a little mad right now. 'How fair?'

'How should I know? I don't rate Mumriks like peonies in the garden!' the Hemulen replies, arching away as Joxter is starting to lean closer. 'He looked like a Mumrik, ain't that enough?'

'But you said he was fair!'

'Well, he was!' the Hemulen says, exchanging a worried look with the landlady who is sweeping up seeds behind the bar. 'No whiskers or any of that. Orange hair-'

Joxter leaps to his feet, heart in his throat. 

'Orange?' he says and he sounds like one of those exotic birds down South. Saying everything back. 'Are you sure?'

'I think I know what the colour orange looks like!'

'How old was he?' Joxter asks, coming way too close going by the way the Hemulen recoils. 

'I don't know! Young enough, I suppose?'

'What else? Did he tell you anything?'

'He told me he was the one who tore down all my excellent signs,' the Hemulen grumbles, anxiously leaning away again as Joxter frets. 'The old officer didn't seem all that bothered about it, which is probably best I relieved her of the position-'

Joxter doesn't give a toss about any of that nonsense. 'But the Mumrik! The fair Mumrik, what else did he say? If he said anything at all?

'I suppose he gave his name alright- not that I remember!' the Hemulen says quickly, waving a paw between them to cut Joxter's next question off before he gets the chance to say it aloud. 'I just remember it was some funny sounding thing that seemed more like something you'd have in your pocket than a name. Snuffbox, or the like.'

'Snufkin,' Joxter says, breathless. He hasn't said the name aloud in... oh, so very long. 

'That's right!' the Hemulen says brightly, before he frowns again. 'Not a friend of yours, is he?'

Joxter's knees give out. He tumbles, throwing a paw out to catch himself against the counter as he sags, near to the floor. The landlady rushes over, dropping her broom and leaning over the counter to try and steady Joxter herself. The Hemulen offers no help, getting off his stool even to avoid doing so. 

Joxter's heart is something wild and terrible inside. It is a storm suddenly unleashed and his whole being is caught in the downpour. It feels swollen in his chest, like it has been simply beating the barest amount until right this moment and is now trying desperately to catch up to all those missed beats over the years. Joxter puts a paw to his forehead, teeters as he tries to straighten up and the landlady tries to help.

'Snufkin,' Joxter says again, more just to say it and he laughs. He laughs and laughs, so that everyone in the pub is looking at him now. 'I can't believe it!'

It's been years. So many, many years since Joxter has heard of him. No letter sent by Hodgkins ever brought a certain word back, nor path taken any which way by Joxter led to where Snufkin may be. The only thing that had tempted Joxter North at all was that it had been easier to catch a train heading that way then a ferry heading the other. And now-

Joxter turns to the landlady, surprising her as he jumps over the counter to hug her tightly. 

'Can you believe it?' he asks her, though she can't possibly know what he means on account of them only having met an hour or so ago. Joxter rubs at his eyes that are suddenly watering. 'Snufkin, after all this time- you! Mister Hemulen!'

'Well, it's officer, really-'

'Where did you see him?' Joxter says, crowding far too close again. He takes the Hemulen by the lapel and spills his drink. 'My Snufkin, that is. Where did you see him last?'

'The valley,' the Hemulen says, trying to pry Joxter's claws out of his coat. 'Up North, on the other side of the Lonely Mountains.'

'When? When did you see him?'

'Midsummer!' the Hemulen says and Joxter chokes, his laughter snuffed out. 

'Midsummer?' he says, releasing the Hemulen and falling back to the counter for support. 'Oh. Goodness, that was... so long ago.'

'Er. I guess?' the Hemulen says, sounding unsure as he looks about Joxter's sudden turn of humour. When he speaks again, he sounds a little gentler; 'But I'm sure he can't have gone far. That valley is an awful hustle and bustle to get to. Never mind get out of. And truth be told, that feller's probably gone and got himself stuck in another cell given how bothersome he is.'

The Hemulen huffs.

'And trust me, he's very bothersome.'

Joxter rubs at his face, pushing the fine fuzz of his nose backwards as he does. 'He'll be too clever for that.'

'He weren't that clever,' the Hemulen says, quite surly again. 'Still got himself in jail, didn't he? It were his friends that got him out of it.'

'Friends?' Joxter asks, looking up and the Hemulen shrugs. 

'Trolls, I reckon,' he says to that, putting his half-empty jug back to the counter. 'Best fill her again there, Miss.'

Joxter rushes back to the chair he'd left by the fire to grab his bag. He pulls his coat tighter, adjusts his scarf and takes the staff he uses to walk through the snow from where it's leaning against the mantle. When he goes up to the Hemulen again, the creature looks half-tempted to pour his newly-refilled drink over him. 

'Which way to this valley?' Joxter asks and the Hemulen sighs.

'Can't you go buy a map like any sensible traveller ought?' he says but when Joxter doesn't answer that, the Hemulen grumbles. 'I told you already, didn't I? Up and around the Lonely Mountains.'

'Those three peaks to the North?'

'Do I have to write it on the back of your paw or something?'

'Well, if you're offering,' Joxter says, knowing he's rubbing the Hemulen the wrong way but truly, there ought to be no other way to rub one. The Hemulen takes his drink and storms off towards the fire, seeming to claim the chair Joxter has left and if there's one thing Joxter knows, it's a Hemulen dismissal. 

'It's a long walk to that valley,' the landlady says, sounding unsure but Joxter has already made up his mind. 'It'll be well into Spring by the time you get there.'

'Something to look forward to!'

Joxter knows Snufkin has likely left already. In all the times Joxter had thought himself close over the long and sad years, it had always been to discover Snufkin had moved along already. Snufkin didn't seem the kind for staying in any one place for too long. He gets that from his father, Joxter thinks with a fervent and devastating pride. Again, the tears come but this time, Joxter smiles. Suddenly, he rather can't stop.

Joxter will find this valley. If nothing else, he will do at least that and then he will find Snufkin's friends whomever they may be. Perhaps they'll know where he's gone next, or where Joxter might write a letter. His writing's not the best, truth be told but at least it's a start. Joxter has gone a very long time without a start but now... now-

Outside, in the snow, Joxter stops as he stares out over the horizon to where three mountains rise up. 

This time will be different, Joxter thinks. This time, Joxter won't let himself fall behind again. He has a promise to keep and many apologies to give. They have never been so close as now and Joxter knows with a hope that's as frightful and burning as the sun that this time he will find him. 

There is a love deep inside of him that has been waiting for the only home it could ever have to return to. He feels it now, like the polar shift of the earth beneath him and the great turning brightness of the sky. Snufkin has never been closer, they have never been nearer and Joxter is going to see him again. He's going to see who Snufkin is now, hear what his voice has broken to and Joxter already loves him. Loves him as only a father could. 

'Wait for me a little longer,' he says to the wind, his breath clouding white and blown away. Joxter tightens his grip on the staff, plunges it further into the snow as he starts the road. 'I'm coming.'

With the Lonely Mountains in sight, Joxter walks through the snow towards where his promise ends.