A Born Fighter: A Tale of Riverwyte the Mask

[Maudie]

This is a shortish story that I wrote about one of my favorite characters. It's not very good, but it's the first Fan Fiction I've ever finished.
I recommend not reading this unless you have read all of The Legend of Luke and Mossflower.
Here goes:

The old-looking otter was huddled over his campfire. His back was hunched, his eyes were squeezed shut, giving the impression that he was in deep pain. He shivered and pulled his blanket around him more tightly.
In the brush by his camp were five vermin. A rat, two stoats, and two ferrets. They were huddled together, whispering amongst themselves. After a few minutes the rat looked through the brush. He giggled and turned back. "Now he be sleeping. We can git 'im easy!"
They stepped out of the bushes. The tallest of the ferrets brandished a club and was about to clobber the otter  when a paw holding a knife shot out from the blanket and brought the blade down on the vermin's wrist. The paw holding the club fell to the ground and the ferret stepped back, yelping with pain.
The otter stood up. At his full height they now saw that he was a tall and formidable beast. One of the stoats, more confident than they others, charged, his sword held high. The otter dodged him with the ease of an experienced fighter. He brought his long knife down and the stoat's head rolled on the ground.
The other vermin started to run but the otter cut them off and stood in front of them, his bloody knife poised for action. The rat charged at him frantically. The otter threw his knife down and met the rat head on. After wrestling on the ground for five minutes the other vermin heard a loud crack, and saw the rat lying on the ground, his head lolling limply to one side. His neck was broken.
The otter turned to them, a bloodthirsty grin on his face. "Who's next?" He said, his voice cold and menacing. The remaining stoat and ferret each drew their swords and charged. The otter caught the stoat's blade in his hand and snapped it as though it were a twig.
The vermin began hacking at him. He didn't seem to notice. He just toyed with them like a cat with a mouse.
After several minutes of fighting both vermin were lying on the ground, dead. The otter was salvaging through their things. He took all the food out of the packs and was about to rise when he felt a horrible pain in his backside. He turned around and saw the ferret whose paw he had cut off holding a knife. On the ground lay a bloody something.
The otter cut off the ferrets head with his own knife and looked at the thing on the ground. To his horror he realized that it was his own tail! An otter without a tail was scarcely an otter at all.
He began to walk away from the scene of carnage. After several minutes of walking he saw a fire blazing up ahead. He walked towards it, relishing the thought of either another battle, or the company of goodbeasts. The latter was more likely than the former.
In his bloodlust he walked into the camp without scouting it out. There was at least a score of vermin sitting around various fires.
As he walked in they all turned to look at him.

Skipper of otters sat drinking from a flagon of October Ale. He was in his little cottage where he went to get away from his overly lively crew sometimes. He enjoyed being a Skipper, but it could get tiring sometimes.
As he took a good long drink a knock sounded on his door. He hurried to open it. To his great surprise a limp figure lay on his doorstep. His stooped and looked at the face.
He gasped. "Riverwyte! Is that really you? What happened?" His brother looked at him with something like alarm in his eyes. "They got me, Warthorn, they got me. They thought they'd finished me off, but I survived. My tail, Warthorn. Where is my tail?"

Several weeks later.
Skipper stepped into the cottage. There was no sign of his brother. "Riverwyte! Where are you?" A voice came from behind him. "I'm here, Skip." Skipper turned around. A sneaky-looking ferret stood in front of the door.
Skipper reached for his sling, but the ferret pulled his ears off. Standing in his place was Riverwyte, with a ferrety look on his face. He laughed at Skipper's expression. "I scared you pretty good, didn't I?"
Skipper stared at him in wonder. "How did you do that? I could have killed you." Riverwyte shook his head. "No. You couldn't have killed me. Nobody will kill me til it's me time, an' it ain't my time yet."
Skipper nodded. "I believe you. What about the ferret?" Riverwyte grinned. "That's my little secret. I plan on being able to fool anyone with my mask." Skipper clapped him on the back. "Now I'll call ye ole Riverwyte the Mask, eh?"
Riverwyte clapped Skipper on the back as well. "Just Mask will be fine."

Please comment!

[Darkenmal]

Since you read my story and reviewed my story, I felt honour bound to do the same to yours.

First the good.

Your writing style is clear and precise, with good diction and a somewhat clear sense of direction.

However, the story would have been helped immensely if you had proofread it a few more times. Just some fine-tuning here and there.

An example would be; "After several minutes of fighting both vermin were lying on the ground, dead. "

For any action scene, this is a huge no-no. For most action scenes, they go by the second, with the heroes reactions and his clear thinking usually helping himself get out of any situation.

"several minutes of fighting" instantly pulls the reader out of the scene, and drains any tension you were trying to develop.

Other than that main complain and a few spelling errors, I liked it. With some more precise editing, your writing would improve immensely.


Hoped this helped you out. Cheers.

[Shadowed One]

Interesting. I liked it!

[Blazemane]

I like the premise here of seeing how Mask lost his tail, and I enjoy seeing him interact with Skipper as a brother.

There are some surprisingly intense moments here, what with the way various creatures in here got severely injured or killed. On the one hand, that does sort of shock me into paying attention even more closely to the story. But if you don't mind me mentioning it, some of the violence seems a bit out of character for Mask, as does the part about him cutting the vermin off when they're simply trying to retreat. It seems really... well, like your narrator says directly in the story: "bloodthirsty."

Of course, maybe that kind of surprising characterization is what you were going for? Maybe you're saying he learns from this experience and changes into a less bloodthirsty warrior? That would be very interesting.

Now, what happened with the scene where Mask runs into that second band of vermin? He's already lost his tail by the time he's finished with the first five vermin, so what's the significance of the second group? Does he get more injured from them? Does he beat them all? Does he run away and just barely escape with his life? I got a bit confused about that.

Finally, I felt when I read that line Mask gives towards the end--about no one being able to kill him until it's his time--that it had a really effective hint of tragedy. My mind jumped to the fact that eventually he does get killed. It's as if he is acknowledging here that, indeed, there will be a time for him. It's also really interesting that he says that line to Skipper, who will end up being his avenger in Mossflower.

Good work in here!

[Maudie]

Thank you for the review!

About him seeming more bloodthirsty. Well, in The Legend of Luke they say that Mask had an unusually keen lust for battle, or something like that. I actually was trying to tie this story in more with what is told about him in Luke than the events of Mossflower. I'm not sure quite what I was thinking about when I wrote this.

The second group serves to give him even more scars than the others. Also, their main purpose is to reunite him with his brother. Like I said before, Im not sure what I was thinking of when I wrote this story. The ideas just popped into my head and I tried to put them down on paper. I wrote this in like an hour and it certainly wasn't a very well thought-out story.

[Blazemane]

Thank you for the review!

You're welcome!

About him seeming more bloodthirsty. Well, in The Legend of Luke they say that Mask had an unusually keen lust for battle, or something like that.

Oh, o.k. I hadn't known that. Or, rather, I hadn't remembered that after all of these years since last reading the book.

The second group serves to give him even more scars than the others. Also, their main purpose is to reunite him with his brother.

So you mean he wouldn't have sought Warthorn out if it weren't for his being so incredibly hurt? That makes sense.

I wrote this in like an hour and it certainly wasn't a very well thought-out story.

Well, an hour of writing isn't an hour of thought--I'm sure there's more thought in here than you're saying. And it doesn't matter how long you were putting work into it if it seemed like a cohesive, logical story to you. If an hour's all it needed, there you go. You say there were two reasons for the second vermin crew. And there those two reasons are. I just hadn't recognized them at first.

[Captain Tammo]

Great story! Unknown histories of characters are the reasons we write these fanfics! It gives us that info we've always wanted to know about Mask.

Will you be doing other characters? You could easily make a whole topic of short-histories of different characters. I think this opens up a whole new style of redwall fanfictions!

[Maudie]

Great story! Unknown histories of characters are the reasons we write these fanfics! It gives us that info we've always wanted to know about Mask.

Will you be doing other characters? You could easily make a whole topic of short-histories of different characters. I think this opens up a whole new style of redwall fanfictions!

Thank you! I have considered doing other ones, but mostly my other fanfics are about non-canon characters. It would be cool if we could inlist some forum members to write short fanfics on their favorite characters, but I think that's an idea for another time.

[Gonff the Mousethief]

I really liked it!