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Snufkin had a knack for making friends, for getting people to like him.
But, by the same token, he also had a knack for infuriating people.
Primarily, people who kept parks, orphanages, or private property. Those who had strict rules about How Things Were Supposed To Be and posted signs to enforce that on people who didn't share those views.
It didn't much matter, as he wasn't going to see them again. Well, mostly, but it was true for all of them so far except for the park keeper near Moomin Valley, and that one was...interesting. A strange, uneasy truce, for the time being.
Some of it was caused by Snufkin looking younger than he really was, causing people to think a child was alone by himself. Well, he had been, once, but he was an adult now and didn't need taken care of.
He let Moominmamma because, well, it was Moominmamma. She earned it, through love and respect and kindness. So from her, he would accept it. For her, there was love and respect in return, and the understanding that it was how she showed she cared. She would listen if things went too far, and stop.
Some people didn't want to listen. They didn't care that he was an adult.
Snufkin mostly forgot about them after awhile. He healed from the damage done, thanks to his family in Moomin Valley, both the blood one he'd rediscovered (who hadn't abandoned him, who had lost and mourned him, and that healed something he hadn't realized still hurt) and the family he'd found.
But some people...didn't forget.
---XXX---
Snufkin cast out his line again. They were biting well today, well enough he might take a few of them up to Moominmamma. If she hadn't planned anything special for supper, he could help her make some fish pies. That might be a nice change, and a nice chance to chat with Moominmamma. He didn't often cook for or with people, but it was nice to do it with Moominmamma, and it had been awhile since they'd done something together, just the two of them.
A shadow fell over him, and Snufkin glanced up, eyes narrowing against the sun. The fillyjonk sneering down at him seemed somehow familiar...
“So, there you are. Still idle and undisciplined, I see,” she said, glaring down at him. “You learned nothing from us after all.”
Snufkin tilted his head. “Do I know you?” he asked, not really caring if he did. Sounded like someone he irritated in passing with his presence, no effort necessary on his part. Those ones were in turn irritating and amusing, given how little he had to do to earn their ire save existing as he was.
The fillyjonk sniffed. “Oh, I see, you ruin so many lives and destroy so many good, upstanding homes for poor, destitute orphans, who just need a little training and discipline to become proper, productive members of society that you forget the individual ones.”
Snufkin's eyes went wide and he scrambled to his feet as memories flooded back, of an orphanage that dragged him behind its doors, insisting that he was still a child, of one where the children's eyes were blank with hopeless despair, where those who had gone through their program and were near to 'graduation' and going up for 'adoption' had sat silently where they'd been placed, their eyes empty, unmoving unless given an order.
The place had burned during the escape, during the exposing of what they'd had going on behind closed doors to the horrified community.
“What you were doing was evil,” Snufkin snapped. “Now leave me alone.”
The fillyjonk smirked down at him. “Oh, so soon after I've finally found you? I don't think so.”
Arms snatched Snufkin off the ground, holding him tight as he kicked and yelled and struggled. Someone else yelled, and Snufkin got a brief glimpse of Moominmamma running towards them as he was spirited off into the woods.
---XXX---
Moominmamma glanced out the window. Ah, there was Snufkin, on the riverbank, fishing.
She was going to take a little break...perhaps he would join her. She enjoyed their talks, and it had been far too long since they'd sat over a cup of tea together.
Oh, but he had company. Moominmamma paused in the doorway, watching as he spoke with the fillyjonk who had stopped to speak with him. She didn't recognize the woman, but perhaps Snufkin...
Suddenly Snufkin stood, and it looked as though he snapped at her.
That was strange, Snufkin didn't usually lose his temper like that...from the nearby woods came two more people, a hemulen and something she didn't recognize but who was three times Snufkin's size, coming at him from behind.
Moominmamma cried out when the huge person snatched up Snufkin, pinning his arms to his sides and lifting him bodily off his feet, and started running down to stop them. They turned at her cry and saw her before racing off into the forest, carrying the struggling Snufkin with them.
---XXX---
Moominmamma couldn't catch up to them, but she was quick to spread the alarm.
It didn't matter how fast they were, they were going to be found.
Grabbing a cast-iron frying pan, Moominmamma joined the hunt, refusing to stay behind as she often did.
She wasn't going to stay behind when one of her children had been snatched right in front of her.
Come hell or high water, she was getting her son back.
---XXX---
Snufkin struggled and clawed and bit, but the guard who had stayed with Madame Fillyjonk and Principal Hemulen was used to dealing with the unwilling and had him bound far too soon, bound like a parcel, tied at arms and wrists and gagged, his legs left free for now as the guard kept tight paws on his arms.
He glared at them over the gag as they argued.
The fact that they had been seen upset them – as it should, Snufkin thought viciously – but if it were something to worry about they couldn't seem to agree upon.
Madame Fillyjonk worried that they would be misconstrued, that this would end in a mess, while Principal Hemulen insisted that they should be thanked for taking the 'filthy little vagabond' in hand.
Even if they hadn't gagged him, Snufkin wouldn't have told them. He just hoped Moominmamma found someone to come after him, and quick – he didn't like his chances when it was the three of them against him.
The guard voiced, quietly fearful, a question. That if this person they'd captured was an adult, then why...?
“Because he's the reason our orphanage is destroyed, fool,” Madame snapped. “We need to get moving. Whether they like us taking him or not.”
Snufkin was slung over the guard's shoulder and they set off again.
---XXX---
Snufkin waited until the trio had to set him down to cross one of Moomin Valley's many streams before making a run for it.
He got into the woods before the guard caught up with him, grabbing onto the long tail of the rope wound around Snufkin's chest and pulling, knocking Snufkin off his feet.
He dragged Snufkin back, kicking and struggling, wrapping the rope around tree and branch and making the guard fight him for each inch until he had his hands on Snufkin again.
More rope was pulled out of his pack, and Snufkin fought still, kicking and twisting, but despite all his struggles his legs were bound above the knee and at the ankle as Madame and Principal watched with quiet fury.
The guard slung him over his shoulder and started walking again.
---XXX---
The trio entered an abandoned mansion, locking the gates behind them.
Not that it would do much good, Snufkin thought. The gates looked as though Little My could knock them over with little effort, they were so old and rusted.
Having to carry Snufkin had slowed them somewhat, as had Snufkin's escape attempt. Even if he hadn't gotten away, at least there was that. Every minute, every second, he could buy counted.
The door shut with a solid-sounding thunk, but again, it sounded more solid than it looked to Snufkin's eye. It probably would fool at first glance, but he could see the stains on it of rot and weather, the way it sagged at the hinges. It would take more effort to knock down than the gates, but not enough.
“This is what we have been reduced to,” the principal said, striding across the dusty, cobweb strewn great hall. “With time, we shall rebuild here. But with the shreds you left our reputation in, it will take a great deal of both time and effort.” She glared at Snufkin at that, and he glared back.
He hadn't been exaggerating when he'd called them evil before. There weren't many things in this world he classed as true evil, people or ideals he hated, but what they had been doing, and the way they continued to insist they were in the right, put them solidly in that category for him.
Snufkin was carried upstairs and lowered into a chair, the trailing rope wrapped around his waist and the chair back to keep him there.
The two women huddled, deep in discussion, on the other side of the room while Snufkin tried to squirm free.
The guard may have been the only one left, but he knew how to tie people, and despite his struggles Snufkin couldn't get his claws into the rope or pull his paws free, though his wrists began to chafe from fighting.
He didn't know what they were planning, but the longer he could keep them distracted, the longer it would be until they could do it and the more likely it was he'd be found before something happened.
He had to believe someone would come for him. Moominmamma saw him being taken, she wouldn't give up.
She wouldn't.
Snufkin glanced around the room as the discussion continued, too quiet for him to make out more than a few words.
This room was a far step down from how the two had lived at the orphanage. Two beds on the far side of the room, a table and chairs, small set up for cooking...and some sort of wooden bench or table.
There was something about that bench that Snufkin didn't like, that set his nerves on edge. It was too high to sit on comfortably, too low to sit at, and it had some sort of straps attached to it, on the legs and back.
Given its owners, he knew it wasn't good, but exactly what it reminded him of was remaining just out of reach.
“I don't care!” Madame abruptly cried, voice shrill as she gestured wildly towards Snufkin. “I want him punished! Whatever else happens, he needs punished for what he did!”
“Now, calm down dear,” the principal said, as Snufkin felt his heart stop, terror flooding his body. He could remember some of the things the orphans had mentioned during the few nights he'd been trapped, before everything had been destroyed. There had been no details, but the haunted looks in their eyes had said more than words could.
They may have been without their resources here, but considering who they were...he had no doubts that they could make his life hell if they were determined to.
He struggled harder as fillyjonk and hemulen turned to look at him, the hemulen's eyes calculating while the fillyjonk's were ablaze.
---XXX---
Snufkin struggled desperately as the last rope was tightened. He could at least say that it had been a fight to get him into this position, bent over the bench and strapped down, tied with more rope so he couldn't move, and the guard bore more than one mark from his claws, but it hadn't mattered in the end.
The guard tied the last knot and bowed to the women before leaving, without a glance back.
The two looked over Snufkin's bound, struggling form with deep satisfaction and anticipation. The hemulen slowly, almost ritually, unbuttoned the back of his smock, letting it fall open, and stepped back.
Snufkin twisted to see what they were doing, paws tightening on the ropes and feeling his face pale at the sight of the belt in the fillyjonk's paws.
She traced it down his back, enjoying the anticipation, the way he struggled harder to get away.
“You brought this on yourself,” she said, raising the belt.
It cracked as it struck Snufkin's back, and though he'd been determined not to give them the satisfaction, he cried out at the pain, jerking against the unforgiving ropes.
She paused, listening to the soft gasps he gave as he rode out the pain. She tapped the belt against her palm as she spoke. “You lack discipline. You exist outside of proper society. But we will fix that.”
She struck again, another burning strike, and though Snufkin gritted his teeth the cry of pain still burst forth through the gag.
“We shall purge you of imperfections. Just as we have for so many others.”
A third strike, and the tears began, despite Snufkin's best efforts. He trembled against the ropes as a fourth strike fell, and a fifth. The sixth crossed an earlier welt, and the shock of it made the pain worse, blanking out other thought beyond endurance.
His back, his backside, his thighs, she struck without mercy, and Snufkin screamed, tears streaming down his cheeks as she hit him again and again, lecturing between strikes, taking her time, her eyes burning with satisfaction as the hemulen watched.
---XXX---
Outside, Moominmamma led the group into the mansion's grounds.
“Why do you think they're here?” the Inspector asked.
“Because I was following them, and I can smell them,” Little My snapped. “Hurry up, who know what they might be doing!”
The doors fell under the combined force of the Inspector and Moominpappa as they rammed against it.
A guard stood blocking the way, waving the debris away from his face and coughing in the dust the falling door had kicked up.
“That's him!” Moominmamma cried. “That's the one who took Snufkin!”
“Where are they?” the Inspector demanded.
The guard puffed up, advancing on them. “Not to be disturbed,” he rumbled.
“You are all under arrest,” the Inspector said, standing his ground. “So...”
From upstairs rang a scream, and they froze while the guard stood, unmoved and expressionless.
“That was Snufkin!” Moominmamma gasped. She glared at the man blocking their way. “Let us by!”
“Not to...” he began to repeat, cut off by a clang as Moominmamma's pan struck.
He fell like a stone.
Mouths dropped open, everyone slowly turning to stare at Moominmamma.
She paused, flustered, before another scream rang out.
And she raced up the stairs, leaping over the prone guard, leaving the rest to follow.
The Inspector paused only long enough to handcuff the guard to a still-sturdy stone balustrade before following.
---XXX---
Madame raised the belt for another blow, having finished her latest lecture, one that was lost on Snufkin as he focused solely on endurance, no attention to pay to the buzz of her hateful words.
The door burst open and Madame dropped the belt with a yelp, flinching away from the remnants of the door as they flew about the room.
It took all of Snufkin's energy to raise his head, and he couldn't believe what he was seeing, half believing he was hallucinating.
And yet...
“Get away from my son!” Moominmamma yelled, swinging her frying pan.
The fillyjonk went down with a satisfying clang and thud as the hemulen backed away.
She was yelling, words Snufkin couldn't understand through his own panting, as Moominmamma put herself between Snufkin and the hemulen.
The Inspector and Moominpappa burst into the room a few steps behind Moominmamma.
Little My squeezed in past them, saw her brother, and saw red.
The hemulen began yelling more a few moments later as Little My's teeth fastened in her leg.
The Inspector rushed to handcuff her as she continued yelling, about discipline and training and more hatred and cruelty, that the little vagabond deserved all he had gotten and more for the destruction of their orphanage. The Inspector had to wrestle her to the ground to get the cuffs on her, and after the way Snufkin had been screaming he wasn't as gentle as he usually might have been.
He wasn't gentle at all, actually.
Rather the opposite, really.
She faltered as Moominmamma raised her pan again, and the Inspector intervened.
“They're going to jail, Moominmamma! It's enough! I need at least one of them conscious, and Snufkin needs you!”
Moominmamma dropped the pan, panting, her paws shaking as she rushed to Snufkin's side.
Moominpappa was already tearing away the ropes, and Moominmamma knelt by Snufkin's side, wiping away his tears.
“Snufkin? It's us, we're here sweetheart,” she said, keeping up her soothing words as the last of the ropes and straps gave way.
Snufkin tried to get up, his arms shaking and giving way under him. Moominmamma caught him before he could fall and picked him up, holding him close as he gave in and wrapped his arms around her neck, sobbing quietly into her shoulder.
She stood, wincing at how much she must be hurting him, and glared at the hemulen and fillyjonk. For them to have driven him to this...
They were lucky one of them were already unconscious and the other safely cuffed.
“Stay. Away. From. My. Children,” she said coldly. Little My snarled softly at the hemulen, who flinched, and ran after Moominmamma as she hurried down the stairs, on her way back to Moomin House.
Snufkin nuzzled against her shoulder, still clutching her fur. “I've got you, Snufkin. We'll be at Moomin House soon,” she said, terrified of what he must have endured to put calm, gentle Snufkin into such a state, and if she could even do anything that would be enough. “The Inspector will make sure they're locked up for good, and I have things at home that will help. We're here. Everything's going to be all right.”
There was a pause, silence as she hurried back along the path to Moomin House.
“”Moominmamma?” Snufkin whispered, voice thick and pained. “...I love you too.”
Moominmamma's heart skipped a beat and she held Snufkin tighter.
---XXX---
Back at Moomin House there was a bath, and pain tea, and salves. Moominmamma's paws shook as she helped Snufkin with the salve, gentle touches with a good deal of warning ahead of each as she saw red inside, angrier than she'd been before in her life.
How dare they? How dare those...those creatures harm their Snufkin, and try to justify it?
If the look on the Inspector's face was anything to go by, he was going to make sure they were locked up so tightly they'd have to have daylight imported to them, and she intended to be sure.
Then there were blankets and tea, and Snufkin leaning against her, outright cuddling against her side as she stroked his hair, more needing of comfort than he'd ever been before, drifting into sleep as exhaustion and the pain medicines took effect.
Neither brought up what Moominmamma or Snufkin had said, earlier, but they both remembered and held it tight like the precious gift it was.
Snufkin clung in his sleep, pressing against Moominmamma's side tighter, and she stroked his hair soothingly.
For once in her life, she wished the Inspector hadn't stopped her from giving that horrible woman a good smack with her pan. At least Little My had gotten a good bite in. Moominmamma was a gentle person, who didn't like violence, and it should have upset her to find she was capable of it...but she was still a mother, and they'd been hurting her son.
She could find no shame in what she'd done.
He could tell them when he woke why those two had come after him. What had happened at the so-called 'orphanage' they had run that the hemulen had been yelling about, why he'd helped destroy it.
---XXX---
The Inspector was gentle with him when he came by the next morning after a long, exhausting night, but Snufkin was still hesitant.
“...why should you believe me?” he said, and something about the way he said it spoke volumes to both Moominmamma and the Inspector, even as oblivious as he could be.
“You mean besides catching them in the act?” the Inspector pointed out. Snufkin refused to look at him, clutching at the blanket wrapped around his shoulders tighter. “Because I trust you to tell me the truth. I've heard what they've yelled all night, and a bigger pack of lies and hate I've never heard in my life. I need to know the truth, and I know you. I believe you.”
Snufkin stared at him silently before slowly nodding. “I...” He looked away, hesitating.
The Inspector set down his notebook and slowly reached out to Snufkin, the way he'd seen Moominmamma do. “There's nothing to be ashamed of,” he said. “The ones who should be ashamed are those three, for what they've done.”
Snufkin huffed softly. “That's easy enough to say, but...” He glanced back up at the Inspector.
“We have statements from the others who escaped – I called in for the reports,” the Inspector said. “But to have it from an adult is more damning – people tend to trust that adults aren't exaggerating their stories. Those three are already facing being put away forever, but we need to know what happened yesterday so I can make sure they never see daylight again. When I add your witness account to the rest, alongside yesterday, it'll be what we need to make sure no one can get them out, ever. So I can get assault and kidnapping and who knows what other charges on them. I know you don't have reason to trust most people in authority, but please, Snufkin. Tell me what happened, and know that I know you didn't somehow deserve any of it. You shouldn't feel ashamed for what they did.”
Snufkin hesitated another moment before the full story came pouring out, of finding the orphanage, of being dragged inside, of what he'd found in there. Of the escape and what had happened after.
Of everything that had happened yesterday.
It felt so wrong, to speak of such things here, in Moomin Valley, but he hadn't realized how much keeping it to himself was hurting until he'd laid it all out, seen the Inspector write it down, felt how Moominmamma still stroked his hair as he fought back tears as he finished his story.
Not repulsed by what had happened, but loving and supporting and outraged for him. And the Inspector only asked a question here and there to clarify, never doubting Snufkin's word.
He carefully put away his notepad and thanked Snufkin solemnly when Snufkin was finished speaking.
After everything they had done, he assured them, the three would be going somewhere much more secure than Moomin Valley to serve out their sentence, somewhere they would never be able to hurt anyone else again. A sentence that, with all that had happened, was going to take them the rest of their lives to complete.
If there was anything he could do, anything at all, they were to call on him and he'd do everything in his power for them.
Snufkin fell asleep on Moominmamma once again once the Inspector left, emotionally and physically exhausted.
---XXX---
Moominmamma woke to a noise in the middle of the night, opening her eyes to find Joxter sneaking in the window.
“Just heard?” she said almost silently.
He nodded, already bending over his son anxiously.
“He'll heal soon,” Moominmamma said, still quiet so she wouldn't wake Snufkin, passing a paw over his hair. “It's inside I worry about.”
Joxter nodded again, climbing into the bed to curl against Snufkin's back, careful of hurting his son. “He has us. And the rest.” Joxter smiled shakily up at Moominmamma, more shaken than he let on save to those who could read him. And more guilt ridden that he hadn't been here than he wanted even her to know, though she understood.
“The Inspector will see they're punished,” she said, gently cautioning.
Joxter's mouth pressed into a thin line. “We need to focus on Snufkin and trust him,” she continued. “There's one you can trust, I promise you. He cares about Snufkin as well.”
Joxter was obviously displeased about that, but, Moominmamma felt, he would...curb his revenge somewhat now.
Oh, he'd still make them pay, but it would be more subtle. And he'd make sure the Inspector kept his word.
Joxters, she had found, were not just predators that most overlooked due to their laziness, but they were also more fiercely, viciously protective of their children (blood or adopted) than anyone would have guessed.
---XXX---
Snufkin did heal, and sooner than Moominmamma expected. He was angry, not afraid, and what fear there was he was working through.
He would not let them dictate anything to him.
And with everyone by his side, he was going to make it through this.
Moominmamma's salves and balms took care of the welts soon enough, and as for the rest...they were liars. Their words didn't stick, except to make him furious at their presumptions, their arrogance.
They were wrong, had always been wrong, and he'd known it from the first poisonous words that left their mouths.
And now, everyone knew just what they were. They might have hidden for the rest of their lives, been able to keep running and set up again somewhere new despite the warrants out for their arrests, if they hadn't been so obsessed with getting even.
He was just spiteful enough to be satisfied with knowing that, and that they would never be getting out of jail.
Joxter confirmed it, the Inspector was sure of it, and Snufkin had people around him who loved him and cared for him and felt all of it just the way he was.
...Moominmamma had knocked two people unconscious with a frying pan for his sake. He was never going to forget that...in a way, it was almost worth it, to know just how far she'd go to protect any of them.
Snufkin turned to Moomin House, looking for Moominmamma, who stood waving at him from the veranda, and got up to go join her for tea.
Yeah. Things were going to be just fine.