There were two types of men at Basil’s pub, those that knew how much they could drink and those who did not care. Those that did not care often came earlier in the day. Finley was sitting between two such men, or so he figured.

"Finley, Finley!" called the bartender from behind him, wiping clean his counter-tops and wringing dry his assortment of towels.

"Uh, yes?" he tried to speak around the paw he was rubbing into his itching eye.

"C’mere, c’mere," and Finely did, "you’re a good guy, right Finley?"

"My job rests on people thinking I am, so yes, I might just be."

"And you know these parts well, right? I mean, I always see you sitting’ over there, watchin’ people."

"What are you trying to say?" Finley asked as his bartender poured him another drink, not caring to notice how much head he left in the mug.

"Here you go, and nothing bad, I don’t mean you bein’ some kinda creep, but you know these families, right?"

Finley nodded, one hand with the drink and the other being denied payment.

"Then, well, then you see that guy over there? Guy has been here all day."

"Basil, I’ve been here all day."

"Well, yeah, but you done bought something, more than something, and you a friendly folk, this guy... he lookin’ shady, like, literally shady, all covered in blacks and blues, y’know? Something seems fishy with him."

Finley sighed, "Some folk just like to wear black, it’s a slimming colour, you know. And besides, the mysterious shady man in the corner of a bar? Is that not a tad cliché? I am sure even he has read a few novels, eh?"

"Well, fine, I trust you, you good with people. But if anything goes missing, if I find myself looted or somethin’, I am gonna blame it on him."

"Why him? If anything you should blame yourself, Basil, for spending so much time looking at that guy over there and ignoring the little brats trying to siphon some drinks from--"

Basil caught two kids tip-toeing around his kegs, grabbed them by their cuff and their collars and tossed them over the counter table.

"—Hey, you little rascals, whippersnappers! Finley, you got this?" With one paw on the counter, he leapt over it, some drinks and some barstools and ran after the two thieves.

"Yeah," Finley tried to keep down a yawn, "I got it."

"He’s going to take a while, isn’t he?" the man in the shadowed corner spoke up.

"Yeah, a while," Finley suddenly felt anxious, he could watch over the bar, but he hadn’t promised much more.

Finley felt the seat beside him move, "Don’t worry, I am not here to take anything," Finley acted less relieved than he actually was.

"You, uh, you new in town? Had a drink yet?"

"Yes, and no... but don’t worry, I am fine. But, eh? You a Scout?"

He was taken a bit back, Finley was, "No, I am a teacher, why?"

His guest winced, "Sorry. I mean your last name, Finley Scout, right?"

"I don’t hear that name much, just Finley, why?" he was starting to worry that clichés were sometimes clichés for a reason.

"My name is Allard, Allard de Burgh, I know your grandfather, Garin Scout. Well, knew him."

"Oh, great," Finley replied around a bit of leftover cheese he caught between his teeth.

* * *

Finley Scout came from a family of badgers known for not acting like they should and usually getting away with it. He was no farmer, no fisher or tiller of fields, he did not use his size to help the police of New Lorcastle, or any of it’s neighboring settlements. No, Finley was a teacher. He taught classrooms full of young, impressionable minds about things like arithmetic and farming, of history and morals.

To his children; his shrew and otters, his mice, mole and hares he was this aged old man, wise beyond his years and the holder of the utmost position in their lives. To their parents, he was a marvelous babysitter (he was not sure how he felt about such a title.)

"Good morning class," he said, the words lingering in his throat.

"Good morning Mr. Finley," the class echoed.

"Good morning Avery," said Mr. Finley.

"Good morning Sir Uncle Finley," Avery squealed out, the class around him giggled. Finley was not expecting Avery to say much for the rest of the day.

Teaching a squad of children was not his life goal, but as someone not terribly far from his middle age, Finley was not much counting on starting a family of his own. As a generally over-sized fellow, Finley never found much an opportunity to meet someone to start a family with, and when he finally did, and when she was actually home, he was still never sure enough to pop any sort of question.

So, in more ways than one, he almost adopted these students as his family. They were not going to spread his seed, nor where they going to spread his family name, or legacy or anything of that sort, but they did afford him the chance to watch someone grow up.

Again, these were not his children, but save for some of the more personal aspects of fatherhood, he was never any less proud when he saw his students grow, or learn, or find out who they were, who they wanted to be, or who they never wanted to turn into. Not that everything about his job was great, but all in all, he got to watch the best part of these children’s lives, while missing out the parts on where he teaches them where to shit, and how to not eat that previously expunged shit.

This position also allowed him to actually have a favorite. A favorite or two.

Avery, the well read and silent son of a family friend of his, and Gidget; the lovable, passionate, wonderful mole named Gidget.

Due to Gidget’s size her parents wished to enroll her in a class of forest-folk of whom she was more familiar with. Being herself born to a family of moles, Gidget was already one of the smaller in the classroom, so being born a few days earlier than planned did not help her case at all. Her parents were a bit worried that she might be picked on, but her size and demeanor quickly elevated her to the status of the class mascot.

Every morning Mr. Finley gave his class a chance to ask him any question that came to their minds, be it about the city they were now living in or anything else in the world. He did, however, use his general ignorance of New Lorcastle politics to keep such discussion out of the classroom.

"Let’s make this clear," Finley barked slowly and with an enunciation he learned from an upset neighbour, "we will all sit down and I will answer whatever questions I can, in the most honest a way I can. Sound good?" the classroom had quieted down by now. Admittedly, Finley had no idea what he was expecting to hear.

He gave his class another few moments to compose himself and pointed to one of the shrew twins who’s long nose twitched at the chance to speak up, "Now Daisy, what are you wondering about?"

"What does my dad mean when he says that Steveston has a ’new crop’? Where is Steveston?"

"Well... erm, well Daisy, I am not entirely sure about the crop - they might have found a new kind of fish, or some sort of plant found on the seaside, but I will have to look into it. As for where?"

Daisy nodded her little shrew-head, glad to know that the question she had been working on all night was one of potential value.

"As for where Steveston is, well, if you will pay attention..." his words trailed off as the hook that held the map of Dunlaw rolled up over a dusty chalkboard, after much effort, finally let go. It clicked again as he pulled it all the way down, and Finley grabbed a half-chewed yardstick, "... here we go."

"This," he pointed at the very top, very left side of the map, "is New Lorcastle, I certainly hope you recognize as the place you live," he stopped laughing when he noticed that he had students who still looked confused.

"This is where Steveston is," he slid his half-chewed yardstick down an inch or two, "and beside it," another inch or two, "Guelder, and above it, Falconcrest."

"What the heck is a falcon?"

"Language, Parker."

"Sorry," the over-sized badger was, by Finley’s educated guess, most likely not sorry, "and why does it have a crest?"

He groaned, "Daisy, is that enough of an answer for you? Steveston makes our boats, and catches our fish, that is about all I can tell you right now," the petite shrew nodded, "as for a falcon?"

Finley poised himself in a stance unappreciated, and quoted with an eloquence and specificity that came off as nothing less than pride, the entry in the latest edition of The Thorin Dictionary[JRR wrote the W setion of original Oxford dictionary] (for which he filled the etymological definitions for the W section), "falcon, Parker, is a curved blade, pruning hook, sickle, war-scythe. It is not much used lately, but it made sense when the settlement was built."

"Whoah..." thankfully, Parker’s interest in sharp objects had not yet found it’s way into his classroom.

"Is that what the Boroughs are, Mr. Finley?" Daisy was not the oldest in the classroom, but she certainly was the most inquisitive.

Finley cracked his neck, "More or less, yes. Within the country of Dunlaw, the west coast is home to the four New Lorcastle Boroughs - named as such because they were the first three settlements, well, settled, after our city was laid claim to. I don’t remember, specifically, the founding of the other settlements, but we were settled enough for the name to stick."

Daisy had a pair of wonderful eyebrows that asked nearly as many questions as she did, so Finley replied before she asked him to, "the others, to the east of Falconcrest, are..." he checked his map, "Osthill, Greenwick, and Wildelea. So far. Ever growing, we are."

Now it was time for class.

“Now, students, this may sound like an easy day of class, but rest assured, I am most definitely going to test you on this, to make sure that at least some of you were listening,” Finley grabbed a bright red notebook from atop his desk, “how familiar are you with… well, no, hold up. I know this stuff is new to you, but who here can explain to me what anthronification is? Avery? You have been quiet lately, how about you?”

Little Avery’s face blew up like one of his mothers dog-roses, just more often, “Uhm,” he stood up, literally said the words “cough, cough,” and continued, “the attribution of a beastly nature or beastly characteristics to something non-beast, a Feral, or the representation of an abstract quality in beastly form. Thank you,” he bowed, and sat back down in his chair. No one was more surprised at his eloquence than Finley himself.

“Oh, wow, that is a lot more than I was asking for. Okay then, I am going to have to ask your mom for tips on teaching the rest of you,” Avery buried his blushing face into his paws, “now, who can explain - in fewer words, possibly, what a metaphor is?”

Gidget shot right up, “I can!” and Finley’s smile and nod broke whatever barrier was keeping her mouth shut, “a-metaphor-is-comparing-one-thing-to-something-else,” she inhaled, “like saying that Avery is a walking dictionary, or that Ella stinks like a fish—”

“—okay then! With that fresh in your heads, I would like to teach you a story, or tell you a story that was told to me a while back, back when I was only as tall as your parents, and not, well, this much taller. It is a story about an ant, and a grasshopper. Do you know why it will be an example of anthronification?”

Still blushing, Ella shot her hand up, “because… uhm, because ants and grasshoppers are not really beasts, but are bugs?”

“Exactly, Ella: they are bugs, or insects as us adults call them, and they do not really have emotions, and they certainly don’t worry about things like us beasts do. You all get it?”

An indecipherable noise of half a dozen different beasts murmuring something with a sort of positive vibe to it wriggled it’s way out of his students mouths.

“Excellent! Let’s get us started.”

In a field one summer’s day, one while ago, when fewer people knew things, and there were fewer things to know, there sat an ant, and there sat a grasshopper. The grasshopper was sitting by himself at the roads side, stringing together his legs and wings this way and that, making all sorts of beautiful melodies. Every once in a while, a gnat or an aphid, a moth or a tick, or a bee and a beetle would stop by him, thank him with a few pence, and have at their way.

Not everyone did, but to those who did, he would most certainly thank them.

One day, when the winds were growing chill, and the sun less scorching, an ant dropped by. He carried with him, and with great toil, an ear of corn and nothing else. After listening to the grasshopper serenade him, he offered all that he had left to give: question.

“I have seen you here for days, making melody this way and that, but where are your preparations for the winter months? Surely, grasshopper, you sense that they are coming, and that you will not much survive them without something from which to feed yourself.”

“Why bother about the winter?” the grasshopper asked, in between the melodious echos of his leg and forewings, and and intone descant, “we have more than enough food right now, and those months never last as long as one fears. No, ant, why would I waste my time collecting food when I could be brightening the days of those around me?”

The ant nodded, and continued on its way, continuing it’s toil.

As the winds continued to chill, and the sun continued to settle, the ant and the grasshopper continued to see each other: the ant, carrying foodstuffs, and the grasshopper, carrying a most beautiful note. It was still in the mid-summer months, and those moths and aphids, bees and ticks and beetles continued to visit grasshopper, and they continued to be struck by her gallant overture, by her harmonizing, and they continued to pay her in their thanks.

“You should prepare yourself, grasshopper.”

“I have plenty of time, ant. You should sit for a listen.”

“I have no time, grasshopper.”

And so would their conversations continue for the months to follow, up until the moths and the ticks and the bees and aphids and beetles stopped coming, stopped throwing pence at ants feet, and ant finally stopped asking her to prepare herself, and finally stopped showing up.

By the time grasshopper finally noticed that everyone was gone, that her legs were hurting from the cold, and that her forewings stopped holding a tune.

Finley let out a muffled cough, “does any of you know how the story ends?”

“Grasshopper dies,” uttered Parker.

“And who here knows what this story is trying to tell?” Finley asked his class, hand outstretched, surveying the class for someone, just possibly someone other than Parker to have the answer.

Avery’s paw slowly shot up, “ah yes, Avery, what does this story tell you?”

“Well,” he coughed and stood up again for a reason he never deciphered yet, “it is a story about being prepared, no? My mama read this to me as a child—”

“—you are still a child, Avery,” came a voice from behind him.

“—and we talked about how… well, about how the grasshopper should had more fore… forethought about the winter, and what she would need to survive it. She did not need to hoard as much food as the ant did, but she should have hoarded… er, some.”

Finley smiled, “very good, Avery, and I hope your mom read that to you, she is the beast that introduced me to it, actually.

“Now class, the point of this story is not just to teach us what - Ella, do you remember?”

“…anthronification?”

“Yes! It is not just an example of anthronification, it is kind of an example of what Lorcastle was meant to be, and what New Lorcastle is trying to be. Who of you can tell me which in the story, the ant or the grasshopper, New Lorcastle is?”

A few utterances were heard in the classroom, but no one was sure enough of their answer to say it clearly enough as to be identifiable.

“Exactly - neither! New Lorcastle is neither, instead, it is wherever ant is taking his food. That is what our founders did for us, they made us a city so it’s citizens, and especially it’s children, never have to worry about hoarding ears of corn.

Although, I must say - an ear of boiled corn, covered with a fair bit of salt? That there is worth hoarding.”

Not everyone in his class was aware that corn had ears, but they all knew that they were supposed to laugh. And so they did.

* * *

The days were getting longer and warmer and Finley knew that he had to find something to do while school event went out for those few months. He had time to figure something, but every time he he thought about it, he had much less time than before. He knew Victoria was due back any time now, but he also knew about the porous and malleable nature of due dates.

Finley watched silently as these small children ran away, reminding him how young his students were and how old he must have become. He closed and locked the door behind him as he left.

Being that his school one of the oldest buildings in New Lorcastle it was relatively close to the center of it all, which meant that he was within walking distance to the mayor’s office and the bar. It was the weekend, so Finley was headed to the bar

* * *

The Inkling was a dear friend of Finley’s, and through years and years of necessary civility, so was its barkeep - a certain hedgehog named Basil, the current heritor of one of the town’s longest running businesses, and the keeper of many secrets - those given with sincerity, with trust, and with alcohol poisoning. Were he to ever leave the The Inkling, he could make more than a few livings acting as a speaker for the dead.

By the time he sat down, Finley’s favorite drink was already sitting there, sweating onto the stained counter-top, and before he could ask himself if he was really that predictable, a quickly emptied mug was replaced with both a full one, and the answer “yes”.

Despite the necessity of their friendship, Finley could not think better of Basil than he did now - he was of good stock, and although not entirely complex, he was more solid and dependable than the building around him. If he were not also able to do so physically, the metaphor would say that he could hold the entire building on his shoulders alone.

When confronted by this curious case of reality meeting metaphor, he would insist that, despite it most likely being true, he really would rather keep the building settled on the land his forefathers bought than on the shoulders that they bred.

"Ability," he was oft quoted as saying, "does not equate to want."

Basil was a sturdy fellow, he was.

"How was class?" he asked, wiping another layer of bad ideas to the side of the counter-top.

"Still stupid. But hopefully, less so. We just talked about history - we apparently have history. I didn’t tell them anything interesting, of course, but they have oddly astute little ears, those kids do. Connecting the pieces, obscure shapes of memory to more obscure shapes, etcetera, etcetera."

"So," Basil asked, arms crossed over him, "what has the second-hand grape vine been yammering about lately?"

It was not very late, but it was not early either, and halfway through another swig of beer this realization collapsed on his already furrowed brow, "Fuck, they are exhausting. How is the drunk?" the last few words found themselves in an uncertain hushed tone.

"Phillip? Good, drunk, and good and drunk. And asleep for the past few hours, so don’t worry about him, he won’t be picking any fights any time soon, and if he did, his fists wouldn’t be worth shit. He wakes up and falls asleep at a bar, I think even Phillip has clued onto this part of his life."

"Well, how is his Katherine?"

"Fine, I suppose," he averted his gaze, "kinda got me stuck in a bit of a corner if you know what I mean."

"We all know what you mean, neither of you have been particularly quiet about it. She was never very quiet about it if you know what I mean."

An unexpected groan came from the further side of the Inkling, both the fellow’s hearts skipped a few, consecutive beats.

"Yeah, well, shit happens. Married, what, eight years, and trying for a third of them? She was bound to get antsy."

"I know what you mean."

A few more forest-folk came wandering in, and Finley was sure he taught a few of their children; two decently sized, graying shrew with their (admittedly) wormy tales came from the north exit - most likely the parents of Daisy, the inquisitive one, and her sister, Bella. From the more southern, more spacious exit came a rather stupendously coiffed hedgehog; it’s back was a burnt auburn color, it’s face a creamy white, and it wore a simple, yet colorful outfit of a light blue linen shirt with a collar of a deep brown leather. He wore it well, and everyone noticed, but rarely did a citizen of New Lorcastle wish their reactions to such things be found anywhere but under their collar - for the few residents that did wear collars, or could find a tailor able to make one for them.

For this is the kind of place that New Lorcastle was, one that had spent hundreds of years finding its own feet (again), one that spent hundreds of years trying to reinvent itself. And then finding a whole flood of new cultures, new technologies, fashions, and ideas wash over the entire city - wiping up any buried or trampled or forgotten bits of history, washing any wounds clean with second-hand alcohol, and as everything (and everyone) settled back into their city, leaving a definite residue.

It just also brought a new generation of problems, and most of them were named Phillip.

Next Chapter: Prelude