Fleet

[Fleet]

Name: Fleet Abbotpaw
Age: 52
Birthplace: Southern Mossflower
Gender: Male
Species: Ferret
Job/Position: Bandit/Hunter
Physical Description:

Fleet has been around the block once or thrice and looks it. His once-glossy dark fur has turned dull and is well on its way to graying completely. He is more or less covered in scars as well. Few are so bad as to make bald patches, but he has two noticeable trails of hairlessness on the back of his right arm and one across his left shoulder. Completely ignoring the one that cuts through nose, eye, and ear on the left side of his face. He is completely blind in that eye, what is left of his eyelids healed itself shut and is now wrinkled skin over a mostly empty socket. His other ear has a nick out of it as well. None of this (except perhaps the blindness) makes people think of Fleet as a weak ferret. Forty-one years of banditry and living off the land have given him a lean but powerful body and if age has taken the edge off his reflexes and strength it's given him plenty of time to practice.

Fleet dresses simply, leathers that he stitched together himself. In warm seasons he wears cloths to keep covered and hold weapons, when it get's cold he'll bundle up several layers, some of which have hoods. Rarely will Fleet be seen without a weapon. Most commonly a quarterstaff, which has become a favored weapon with age, or javelins, which he can hurl with surprising accuracy for a ferret without depth perception. He's also likely to be bundled with any number of small bags of herbs, hunting poisons, traps, his pipe, or something to snack on.

Belongings:

For a ferret of fifty-two years, Fleet hasn't really accumulated that much. With clever use of carpentry he's turned a small cave in Mossflower into a small home. It mostly bristles with weapons he's made. The quarterstaff he uses to walk about when his joints ache, all carved up in leaves and vines and flowers now. Many a javelin, some given bone tips with barbs, bone tips designed to break off inside the target, bone tips with a hollow for putting poisons. Any number of different sorts of traps or snares. A long curved knife he won from a fox. His (mostly) non-lethal poison collection, acquired from his study of herbs and some of the particularly nasty vermin he's bludgeoned over the years. A rather impressive collection of dried herbs and pre-mixed teas for common ailments. He has a small tac farm. Tac is an herb he found on his foraging that produces a mild relaxing sensation when smoked. An appropriate long-stemmed wooden pipe to go with the tac, carved like the quarterstaff. And of course, stocks of preserved foodstuffs. He's an industrious ferret.

Personality:

Fleet has been an observer and a learner from the very beginning. As a young ferret he was often so eager to be doing that he would dart off with only half a set of instructions. It was said that his ferret parents had given him a remarkably well-suited name. Fleet was fleet of foot, mind, paw, and tongue. Which no doubt got him in trouble a lot. Nowadays you wouldn't believe a word of it unless he started pummeling you with a quarterstaff. Age has honed Fleet into a patient and often slow of tongue ferret. His mind is as sharp and fast as ever, but now he takes time to thoroughly think things through rather than leaping to the first conclusion he can draw. When at his ease Fleet seems as harmless as your grandfather, but can change like mercury, capable of going straight from serving you tea to taking all your belongings and sending you on your merry way. More often than not he's cheerful. It has been a long time since Fleet has been in a situation he felt he couldn't control, and that makes him rather casual about most things. Due to his upbringing Fleet makes a rather trusting and unviolent ferret. The scar across his face was given to him by a rat he mistakenly trusted to walk away from a fight he could not win. He's more cautious now, but still gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, even rats and the like.

History:

Fleet was born in southern Mossflower to a roving band of bandit ferrets. His early life was the sort of violence you would expect in a varmint band, especially when a particularly nasty ferret took charge and began leading them to greater heights. Heights are, however, dangerous. And attempting to rob and enslave woodlanders headed to the Abbey for feastdays is foolish. Doing it within sight of the walls might be called suicidal. Both of Fleet's parents were slain by angry woodlanders trying to get family members back before the ferret chief realized his error and took the band back south. Fleet, with no desire to stay with the ferrets, and some inkling that he should try and avenge his parents stayed near the Abbey when the rest left. Despite his plots of vengeance, Fleet ended up a starving ferry of five years crying at the Abbey gate within the month.

The Abbot at the time did the only thing a mouse in his position could do: took in the ferret child. The next six years of Fleet's life were undoubtedly the best. Life at the Abbey banished his thoughts of revenge and he instead focused on living in the much more peaceful and relaxing manner of Redwall Abbey. He relatively attached himself to the Abbot, running errands and making himself useful. A kind and elderly badger dubbed him “Abbotpaw” since he seemed in need of a second name. Fleet wore the name like a badge of honor. He was a ferret, yes, but his name was Abbotpaw.

All good things come to an end. Fleet was there when the Abbey fell to N'Tashi he was part of a small group of children slipped out one of the side gates at the last moment. They hadn't gotten far when N'Tashi raiders found them. Fleet still doesn't know how many besides himself escaped from that encounter. Fleet hid himself in Mossflower. He had come a long way from the ferret of five and managed to keep himself fed this time around. For the next forty-one years Fleet lived bu himself in Mossflower, often roaming from one side of the forest to the other once he became a skilled enough hunter/forager to live off the land anywhere. When he became older and stronger Fleet turned to banditry as a source of income. Perhaps it was his ferret instincts coming out, but perhaps not. Any squirrel or mouse he robbed would probably report a kinder experience than any rat or stoat.

As of present Fleet continues his mostly solitary lifestyle. Cut off from the world as he is Fleet is as yet unaware of the recapture of Redwall Abbey. He doesn't head that way often, too many well-armed vermin.

Code Words: Tears, candlestick

[Treble Tiderunner]

Accepted.