The Rise of the Raccoon Queen
Or The Big Grey Fluffy Butt Matter

A Story of Faerie
© 2019 by M. Mitchell Marmel

(Additional characters by E.O. Costello and W.D. Reimer.)
Thumbnail art by  tegerio, color by  marmelmm




Part Sixteen.



Tessie:

[Note appended to manuscript: “NO.”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “’No?’ What do you mean, ‘No?’”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “I’m not saying anything until YOU apologize, Master.”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “What did I do?”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Don’t you mean, ‘What did I do now?’”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Please, wolfess. What’s the matter, Tessie?”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “You don’t know. YOU don’t know. There’s been an entire CHAPTER and not a SINGLE mention of me OR Ooo-er!”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Oh, by the Lady . . . Look, Tessie, this chapter’s about you and Ooo-er, okeh?”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “It is?”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Yes.”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “All right then. You all right with that, Ooo-er?”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Sure.”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “I’ll even give it its own title.”]


***


The Ring of the Raccoon Queen

[Note appended to manuscript: “I like it; do you?”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Hmm. Yeah.”]

[Note appended to manuscript: “Just get on with it, you two. Please?”


Ooo-er:

“OW!”

This was actually rather fun.

One of the highwaymen, it turned out, was only unconscious. He’d been bonked over the head with Tessie’s double-bardiche, as opposed to his mates, who were either dead or fled. The canine woke up with me and Tessie – the Raccoon Queen – standing over him.

Watching him curl up in a ball and put his paws out in front of him like he was trying to ward off a blow might have softened the hearts of milder femmes.

Which we weren’t; I’m a member of a fierce tribe of unlettered savages (I heard some jerk in Albric Tor call me that, and it took everything I had to not shred his duds down to his small-clothes), and the Raccoon Queen is –

Well, she’s the Raccoon Queen, isn’t she?

She poinked him in the side with the Moon-blade, not very hard. “Your leader is dead, but he had not the wits the Lady gave him. Ambushing two femmes on the road demanded the justice of the Raccoon Queen.” The Regalia was in charge, judging from her voice. “You will tell us where your true leader is.”

She had to say that three times, as he kept fainting.

He was a canine, with gray and reddish fur. Might have been handsome after a year spent in cleaning him up and making him Seelie, but we didn’t have the time for that. The food and water in the cart wouldn’t last forever, so we needed to find a place sooner rather than later.

Tessie started to jab him again, but I held out a paw. “Wait a minute, Raccoon Queen.” The raccoon stopped and looked at me. “Let me try.” After a moment, she nodded and stepped back.

I crouched and said to him, “Look, we need to get going, but our supplies are running low. Now, if you could be really helpful and show us the way to the nearest village where we can stock up, we’ll let you go.” The Raccoon Queen growled at this, but nodded when I glanced up at her. “Do we have a deal?”

The fellow thought it over, and a smile crossed his muzzle. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll lead you to The Boss.” His smile widened into a very nasty grin. “I’ll even make introductions.”

Tessie and I exchanged glances.

Yeah. Didn’t need Elf-mind.

“OW!”

Which leads me back to here. The canine who very generously offered to lead us to the nearest village, and his “Boss,” was true to his word. Mainly because we were holding him to that promise in a particular way my Father would have heartily approved of.

“Holding him to his promise” entailed putting a rope around his neck with the other end tied to the yoke between Kora and Veyt. He seemed pretty reluctant to move, but with his paws tied behind his back he couldn’t get the rope off his neck. After a few moments his tail got a little too close to Veyt, who put her mandibles to good use.

“OW!” He set off at a trot, but got pulled up short by the rope before he could get too far away. Tessie tapped the ant-goad, and we set off.

It started to become pretty obvious that our newfound friend needed someone to set the pace. Luckily, Kora and Veyt seemed to get in the spirit of the thing, and they’d give him a nip at whatever part of his anatomy presented itself.

“OW!”

See?


***


Tessie:

It was sort of fun watching this Unseelie guy dodging and yipping in pain every time he got too close to the ants. It may just be my opinion, but I’ve been on the receiving end of the Unseelie before, and I didn’t much like it.

A knife to the throat tends to cause things like that. Bad opinions, I mean.

“OW!”

Kora almost managed to get a piece of the guy’s trousers that time. Maybe if I turn the cart to the left, she’d get a better try at him . . .

Hm, it was really a shame that otter girl fried that raccoon.

Huh?

Rather than let Ooo-er hear just my side of the conversation, I thought as hard as I could. Are you bringing that up again?

Sure, the Regalia said. Venery honors the Lady, after all, and you, my girl, are built for venery and having children. Wide, child-bearing hips, really nice breasts – a passage you could drive -

Stop right there, I ‘said.’ I get plenty of venery from the Master, thank you.

But no children.

Damn, but this was distracting. Veyt almost got the canine’s leg that time, and I twitched the reins. No, no children, I admitted. The Master had no end of trouble the last time he had venery while transmogrified, and he doesn’t want it happening again.

You do want children though.

Ugh. Get out of my head, please. YES, I do want children of my own. I see how happy the Ashearths are with their cubs, and little Stormy and Sunny are so Lady-blessed cute. But I’m not going to link rings – have venery to you – with just any boar. I imagined myself putting my snout in the air. I have standards, I do.

Yes, you do, the Regalia said. And there are no raccoons in Elfhame.

No, there aren’t.

Mercifully, the Regalia stopped talking, which was both very pleasing and really disturbing. Pleasing because I wasn’t being distracted any more, and disturbing because the Regalia was right. I do want children, but the Master (the only fur in Elfhame I’ll have venery with, because I have an obligation to my Hero) won’t change shape.

And there’s no raccoons in Elfhame, meaning that if I want children I have to leave the Master’s service. I’d hate that.


***


Ooo-er:

Tessie started looking a little . . . down, like watching the ants chivvying the canine like a shark teasing amberjack wasn’t as fun to watch anymore. I figured (rightly, as it turned out) that their conversation hadn’t gone well, but I thought that it was too early to talk to her about it.

Our new friend’s tongue was hanging out of his mouth by the time we started moving down a track between grain fields, and saw small farmhouses. The Elves there, though, either scattered or ran into their houses, with a lot of door-slamming. We could only get a glimpse of them, but they looked . . . afraid.

And their pinched features spoke of hunger.

Hungry, in the middle of all this wheat?

“Um, Tessie . . . “

“Yeah, I see it, Ooo-er.” My traveling companion reached up to rub her ear. “The Regalia’s feeling a little suspicious about this.”

“A little?” I asked. A slightly emaciated pup peered out at me, and retreated quickly when I smiled at her. “Any idea what they might be afraid of?” Our ears swiveled at the sound of a very nasty laugh, and our captive half-turned toward us with a sinister leer on his muzzle.

Of course, he might have cut a more sinister figure if he’d still had all of his pants.

He sniggered again and said, “You’ll see. Ain’t no one’s ever stood up to Reg. He’s the King.”

“Who’s he?” I asked.

He just turned around and kept walking, keeping a wary eye on the ants. “You’ll see, don’t worry.”

I sat back and I guess my face gave me away, because I heard the Raccoon Queen say, “Do not fear. Only the evil and Unseelie will fear when the Raccoon Queen comes.” I glanced over at Tessie, and she sat there blinking and looking embarrassed and confused.

We entered a small village, and heard the last thing we expected to hear.


***


Tessie:

Singing?

What the Netherhells was this?

We pulled up to a stop at the entrance to the town square. To our left and right were groups of townsfolk, dirty, afraid and hungry-looking, guarded by some wolverines and bears armed with spears. The guards looked well-fed, though, which explains why the villagers looked like they were starving. Up ahead of us was a raised platform in the center of the square.

The fellow at the end of his rope waved and said, “King! Oi, Reg! I got – “ He abruptly stopped talking.

Three arrows in the head will do that to a fur.

It happened so suddenly that I confess that I screamed and ducked down behind the cart’s seat, and Ooo-er did much the same. A few furs laughed, but swiftly quieted when we heard a loud voice shout “SHUT UP! I CAN’T HEAR!” There was a pause, and the voice said, “COME ON THEN!”

We must get closer.

Seriously? I asked the Regalia.

Yes, seriously. I sense something . . . something I haven’t felt in –

Yes? There was no answer, so I shook the reins and the cart moved past the dead canine. Kora and Veyt seemed a bit downcast that someone’d taken away their fun.

I saw a feline urging a small kitten, his daughter by the look of her, onto the platform and gesturing to her. She started to sing in a high, quavering, terror-stricken voice that slowly gathered strength. It was a song in praise of The Lady, and it was beautiful.

“STOP!” The girl cowered and her parents covered their eyes as the voice boomed, “NOT BAD, GIRL. GOOD HARMONY, AND A RIGHT GOOD TUNE. BUT YOU SHOULDN’T BE SINGING TO THAT SKUNK, YOU SHOULD BE SINGING TO ME.”

By now we’d gotten close enough to see who was shouting all the time, and I brought the cart to a stop.

He was a bear, a huge specimen with snow-white fur and with a gut on him that made me think of the Master’s liege-lord. He was sprawled in a chair and holding up a glass cup that had some kind of dark brown, bubbling liquid that he occasionally swigged from. He drew the back of a paw across his muzzle and then seemed to notice me and Ooo-er.

“OHO!” he boomed, smiling and showing stained teeth. A few were missing, and one appeared to be gold. “AN OTTER AND A RACCOON – AND BOTH DRESSED APPROPRIATELY!”

Hey!

What? The Regalia asked.

There’s no need to suddenly go ‘DUN DUN DUNNN’ like that, you know.

Oh. Sorry.




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