By Petra the Squirrelmaid

I have trouble telling others about my life. About the journeys. About Labrhas.

But despite the trouble, everybeast seems to like the story. I can’t say that I like it very much - living through an event is always more harrowing than simply telling it in the third person.

My life has been very peaceful as of late, and for this I am grateful. I am now married to a nice squirrel by the name of Donnovan, and we have three children of our own, who we named Ebralter, Innis and Soja. A more perfect naming situation could not have presented itself in a million seasons!

Ebralter came back today. It’s been about three and a half seasons since he left Nessa to go to Redwall.

Innis left about half a season after Ebb did to check up on him at Redwall Abbey, but the news he received was not so good: he had been denied entry, and instead left to travel across the Great Sea to the western continent.

When Innis returned back to Nessa, he was worried for his friend. Nobeast was sure what to tell him, but we all knew that Ebb would be all right.

And we were right.

The ferret returned from his journey to the western continent in high spirits. He had indeed solved the riddle of Maharan Trah and found a cavern filled with more riches than he and his band of beasts could count. It took ten trips back and forth for him to claim his prize.

What was even more interesting was what Ebb did with a large amount of the riches. He gave it away. He donated much of it to families of victims from the tragic and horrible Civet Wars. The rest he gave to freelancers and sell swords to hunt down and kill the rest of the civets. Many of the creatures he was to employ turned the money offer down and volunteered to do their job for free. The civets wouldn’t last much longer. Ebb made sure of that.

Then he came back. His return was widely celebrated, especially by Innis, who had begun to sink into depression, fearing that Ebb had perished somewhere on his journeys.

But now he was here in Nessa, and he said quite simply that he was never going anywhere else.

And so here we all stayed, growing old together. But sometimes, when we laughed, we would grow young together - remembering times of innocence without war. Peace without violence. Love without hatred.

But the most beautiful times of one’s life are always the times that arise after the rain has passed, and the sun shines through the clouds of conflict, bringing the new life of springtime from the dead of winter.

So we always remember that. We will always remember to wait until after the rain.

THE END