Jun 29, 2025
Sunflash: We need to do this diplomatically. Skarlath: I'm diplomatic. Sunflash: You threatened someone with a metal chair. Skarlath: That was the diplomacy.
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Sunflash: We need to do this diplomatically. Skarlath: I'm diplomatic. Sunflash: You threatened someone with a metal chair. Skarlath: That was the diplomacy.
Sunflash the Mace, the exact moment he finds himself near and alone with Skarlath:
Quite literally. Best friendship BTW 💖
Mist, Part Two
Part One
“Go on, then, if your shells are so clever, what else do they tell you? That little pale shell that fell far apart from the rest, what does that say?”
“Lord, though it doesn’t say anything it tells me a great deal. Remember you once had a babe, a female? This shell represents her, and you would do well to beware of it.”
“Oh yes, I remember the brat, but that was long ago, she’s probably dead by now. We lost her after the battle on the path. Huh, that one wouldn’t have survived anyway. Too weak.”
“You never really lost her. See – she’s still alive.”
“Idiot! How can a little white shell hurt me?”
“Pick it up and see – it’s not so pale and fragile after all, Lord. It’s got other colours and it’s sturdier than it looks. Beware of it, I say. Turn it over and look.”
“A few markin’s on it, like scratches. So?”
“Six marks, Lord; six scratches representing six claws!”
-----
“Abbess Meriam! Abbess Meriam!”
Bryony hurries into the hall, notes clutched in her hand. She almost knocks over Myrtle and Friar Bunfold in her haste to reach the Abbess’s seat.
“Bryony? Whatever is the matter?”
The mousemaid skids to a halt. “It’s Mist. She’s gone. I…I found these on her bed, Mother. She’s gone, she’s run away! Why, why would she…”
Meriam takes Bryony’s paw. “If she left during the night, she can’t have gone far. We’ll send out search parties.”
“Something must have happened. She was happy here,” Bryony sobs, heartbroken. “Wasn’t she?”
By now, most of the other Redwallers have realised what’s going on. They’re whispering amongst themselves, some surprised, others alarmed. There are some who seem more than a little relieved.
Sister Orris and Skipper are not among that number.
-----
Exhausted after travelling through the night and well into the day, Mist falls asleep under a tree. She wakes after an hour, eats an oatcake and an apple, and keeps going. She has no idea where she’s going, nor does she care.
This goes on for days. She’s been taught, along with the other Redwall youngsters, which plants in the wild are safe to eat; once, she comes across a cache of nuts some squirrel has forgotten.
One day, she comes across a family of dormice: an old male and two little ones. After assuring them she means them no harm, she sits by their fire and shares some apples and nuts with them.
When asked about her family, she says she had one but she doesn’t anymore.
Ole Hoffy, the grandfather, says they had a narrow escape from a pair of robber foxes. “I wish Sunflash the Mace was in these woods. He’d send those vermin scurrin’ away, that’s for sure!”
As Mist goes to sleep that night, wrapped in a ragged blanket, she can’t stop thinking about the name Sunflash. It seems familiar somehow.
-----
The next morning, Mist tells Ole Hoffy about Redwall. It’s a safe place for his grandchildren to grow up, and they will never lack for food or shelter.
In return, Ole Hoffy insists she take his staff, just in case the foxes are still about.
Mist goes on her way, still not thinking about where she’s going. Instead, she thinks about the parents she’s never known, but mostly about her mother: the grey ferret with sad eyes.
Does she ever think about her? Is she still alive? Is she Swartt’s wife, and if she is, does he treat her well?
Mentally, Mist wagers that he doesn’t.
-----
She reaches the outskirts of Mossflower Woods and out onto open hills. The sun beats down harshly, and it’s rare that she manages to find shelter from its rays. She uses what little water she has sparingly, but soon she’s lucky enough to find a stream to drink from.
One particularly hot day, she looks up and sees a solitary shadow circling above her. It’s a hawk of some kind. Mist stays where she is, intrigued and curious about what the bird can see. She raises a hand and waves at it; moments later, the hawk stops circling and flies away.
Mist follows it until it dives behind a hill. She keeps walking, glad to see some trees in the distance.
Then she hears voices up ahead. They sound…rough, and she’s a little frightened, but she still steps closer.
She sees her own kind for the first time. She doesn’t want to move in case they see her.
“No slip-ups eh? Lissen, mate, it’s been one long rough of slip-ups since I took up with this lot, an’ who was the one who did all the slippin’ up, eh? Ole Sixclaw, that’s who!”
Mist’s breath freezes in her lungs. They work for her father, which means he can’t be far behind them. She has to get out of here.
She turns to leave and sees the hawk again, wings fluttering as it hovers busily. Some strange instinct tingles through and she looks back to see one of the group, a fox in a long and sweeping cloak, fit an arrow to her bow and carefully aim it into the sky…
…right at the hawk.
“LOOK OUT!” Mist screams. The vixen jumps and lets loose early; the arrow shoots past the hawk, narrowly missing its right wing. It cries out in alarm.
“You fool!” The vixen freezes, staring at Mist. “You.”
Before Mist can say or do anything, a bellow splits the air. A badger races towards them, roaring in rage, massive club in hand. Mist freezes, unable to move at the sight of a Badger Lord in his wrath.
Run!
The vixen is already running, leaving her bow in the dirt. Mist turns and flees in a different direction, her heart pounding, breathing in the hot air, screams of fear and pain chasing after her. She doesn’t know where she’s going, and she doesn’t care.
She trips over a rock and tumbles into a stream. Desperately, she uses the roots of a nearby tree to pull herself out of the water and curls up, gasping for breath.
-----
The red mist fades, leaving the sightless eyes of the dead fox staring up at him.
Sunflash drops his club. “Skarlath,” he whispers. Then he’s shouting. “Skarlath! Skarlath!”
“Hekeer!” A flutter of wings, and the kestrel lands on a nearby branch. “Sunflash, your footpaw is…”
Sunflash snatches his friend off the branch and wraps his paws around him. He sits down, trembling and breathing raggedly, his hold on the kestrel gentle enough not to hurt him but strong enough to keep him fast.
“I am not hurt,” Skarlath says soothingly. “I haven’t been harmed.”
-----
Once she feels strong enough, Mist follows the stream again. Soon, it widens into a river that leads to some mountains. They seem a good enough place to hide, if there are any caves.
She finds one, curls up and prepares to rest for the night, although the screams of the terrified vermin do not leave her mind for a long time.
She falls asleep and just before dawn, she dreams of an autumn evening when she and Bella were sitting by a great log fire and talking.
“Do you have children, Bella?”
The elderly badger shakes her head. “I did once, Mist: a little son named Sunflash. I miss him so much.”
Mist sees the way Bella’s eyes glisten slightly and decides not to ask any more questions. She snuggles up against Bella’s side and slowly falls asleep.
Her eyes fly open.
He’s her son. Sunflash the Mace is Bella’s son. He’s alive!
Mist has to go back to Redwall. She scrambles to her feet, grabs her pack and runs out of the cave…only to stop, staring in horror, feet frozen to the ground.
Standing in front of her is a huge male ferret.
outcast: the necessity of the mace
The kestrel spoke around a beakful of chestnut: “I am Skarlath; I was alone, but you saved my life; now I am with you. Where come you from, friend?”
Scratching his golden stripe, the badger chewed thoughtfully. “I’m not sure. I think I had a mother, Bella or Bellen or something, it’s hard to remember. I must have been very young. Boar the Fighter, that’s a name I recall, maybe he was my father, or my grandsire, I’m not certain. Sometimes I dream about home, or maybe it’s my imagination, but it feels nice. Then there’s the mountain, was that my home? It is all very mixed up.”
Sunflash speaks about himself, excerpt from Chapter 2 of Outcast of Redwall
one of the reasons outcast differs from every other novel of redwall is in the fact veil, the titular character, does not even exist until the eighteenth chapter of the book. the previous seventeen chapters are spent building the rivalry between swartt sixclaw, the primary antagonist, and sunflash the mace, ascendant badger lord. though he may not have done so intentionally, mister jacques’ inclusion of the experience of sunflash allows us to draw comparable narrative lines with veil’s story. sunflash is fortunate to bear memories of his early childhood that become the lynchpin for his growth into a just, kind, and wise badger lord and friend. this foundational aspect of backstory, echoed more explicitly in the narrative of deyna in taggerung and rooted in current theories of psychology and human development, postulates that positive experiences with a parental guardian in early life are necessary for healthy growth and formation of the self. in future posts, we will weigh the differences between sunflash’s early childhood and veil’s early childhood; here, we will extrapolate what sunflash’s early memories imply about his childhood environment.
though his memories are certainly sparse, the tone and descriptive words sunflash uses to talk about his early childhood betray more about it than he is consciously aware of. he begins his reminisce with his mother: she is the largest figure in his memory as a baby. her name comes to his lips immediately, though when he presses against the fog of memories, he falters in his confidence. so much of the secure base of his babyhood has been eroded by the cruelty he experienced at the hands of swartt. bella likely spoke to sunflash of boar the fighter even before he could understand speech, sharing the legacy of their bloodline and imparting some of the sense of the destiny of badger lords to her son--whom she knew, even as he was a babe, he would one day take on that heavy mantle. perhaps boar even visited little sunflash in his early dreams, as is the mysterious power of some badger lords, which could explain sunflash’s vague sense of the existence of salamandastron. it is one of the latter lines of sunflash’s dialogue that gives us the most information about his formative environment. he dreams of his home and the emotions those dreams conjure for him are inherently positive. these dreams bring him comfort and they are totally unlike his reality at the mercy of swartt. “... it [thematic elements of home] feels nice.” what does “nice” mean for a baby? we can easily guess. there was safety. there was security. there was warmth. baby sunflash’s basic needs were met: he did not go hungry, somebeast tended to him when he cried, and he was groomed and cared for.
swartt tried his absolute damndest to beat any sense of personhood out of sunflash. swartt gave sunflash a degrading name, forced the young badger to commit acts lower than a slave, deprived sunflash of food and drink, and left him exposed to suffer the full effects of the weather. swartt did not succeed in breaking him because sunflash carried his verifiable sense of self borne out of the scant memories of his childhood. sunflash knew he had a benevolent mother figure. he knew he had a family history, the promise of having come from somewhere and something of any measure of meaning. he knows he had a home: a place where he was wanted, where he belonged. it was a place where he was safe, where his needs were met, and where his worth as a living creature was imparted. sunflash subconsciously knew that swartt could not truly define him.
veil, in strikingly direct contrast, was given none of these things.
Best Warrior
Trisscar Swordmaid
Skarlath
Sunflash and Skarlath the second they met:
Sunflash the Mace and Skarlath the Kestrel
***Spoilers below for Outcast of Redwall if you haven’t read it yet, I know its an older book but new people pick up the series for the first time every day <3
Chibi Sunflash
I’m taking a little break from inktober stuff because of school.