Excerpt: Blue on Blue

Prologue

Fennec lay on his belly, chin on folded paws, staring out across the River Twig. At least, if you could call it a river, he thought. Having walked down the Derwater all the way to Chatton-on-the-Sea with his friend Argos just the year before, the red fox felt he was now qualified to tell the difference between a river and a mere backwater.

The sun was warming his fur almost to excess, but Fennec just yawned and watched the little cat's pawprints left by the breeze as it skipped over the water. A fly buzzed at his ear until he could no longer ignore it and shook his head hard to chase it away. That only diverted his thoughts briefly though. He was trying to figure out how to get Argos to go on a voyage with him.

Well, he admitted to himself, "voyage" was a bit of a stretch. OK, then, a fishing trip. Argos did like fishing when they could get time for it. More precisely, he enjoyed watching Fennec fish. Despite the fact that the white wolf stood two paws taller than Fennec, Argos subsisted largely on a vegetarian diet, indulging in fish or fowl but rarely.

The fox knew that old Mazer, Argos' teacher and mistress in his chosen craft of weaving would allow him a few days off. She was kind and generous anyway, but Argos was certainly a hard worker too, which she recognized. There had been no fuss the previous summer when he and Argos took a week to hike down to Chatton and see the sights of a real city.

As for himself, the fox would have no problem getting away. Town business was slow at midsummer, and he was the senior of two assistants to the mayor, so had priority when it came to days off.

Reaching out with his left paw, Fennec let one claw touch the surface of the water very delicately. Sometimes he was able to imitate a hapless fly well enough that fish would strike at him, but this time nothing happened. Probably it was the time of day, when the sun was so high in the sky that the fish could see the shadow of his whole arm and paw. Oh well. He levered himself up, doing a push-up on the grassy stream bank, then rolling onto his back and sitting up. Must be time to get back to work, he thought. It wouldn't do to take excessive lunch breaks just before he was planning to ask for a week off work.

Bouncing nimbly onto his feet by using his tail as a counterweight, he set out briskly across the common and back to the town hall.
The sky was a bright cerulean hue and an oriole sang out persistently from the elm trees along the main street of Westvale as Fennec crossed the cobbles and re-entered the building that housed the mayoral offices and the constabulary as well.

His fellow worker, Sulo, looked up from a stack of mail as he entered the outer office and grinned. "You missed Argos," the otter told him with a wink. "But he said he'd meet you after work."

Fennec was never quite sure how Sulo was able to always look as if he'd just climbed out of the river, even when his fur was completely dry. They got along well enough, though, which was a good thing. Sander, the elderly gray fox who had been mayor of Westvale for many years, needed all the help they could give him in order to keep up with his duties. Not that Westvale was that large or busy, of course, but it was undeniably true that Sander was slowing down.

"Thanks, Sulo, I'll wait for him then," Fennec answered, his ears perking a bit.

Sulo grinned, showing his polished and sharp teeth before running his tongue over them. "For the life of me," he chuckled, "I can't figure out which of you is the other's shadow, but you obviously make a matched set. Like salt and pepper, you know... Well, red pepper anyway." He picked up a wooden letter opener and began slitting envelopes as he sorted them into stacks.

Fennec started to protest, but decided not to do it. He'd learned that Sulo would just keep teasing if given any encouragement at all. Instead, the fox leaned over to peer at the stacks of mail. "All this came today?" he asked.
Typically, the mail would consist of just two or three envelopes, and perhaps a newspaper from Dermouth, the nearest town with a printing press. Today there were more than a dozen letters.

The otter nodded, dropping the last of the missives onto a stack. He looked up at Fennec, twitching an ear. "Sander's birthday is this week," he announced, pushing one stack toward the fox. "You can sort through these and figure out which ones require an actual reply. Most are just notes of congratulation, I think. I'll just run these three over to the constables. They're the only ones that have anything official in them." Sulo stood up and took three envelopes with him, heading down the stairs to the constabulary office below and leaving Fennec with a stack of variously colored envelopes.

Not without a longing glance back out the door at the pleasant weather, the fox took a chair and started through the correspondence, making a few notes on a scrap of paper at his side. He curled his tail about his feet as he made a list of the names, noting which ones would need a personal reply from the mayor. A couple of them politely hinted that perhaps it was time for Sander to take a retirement and "enjoy life." Fennec couldn't help smiling at that. He was inclined to agree that Sander should probably step aside in favor of someone younger, but it wouldn't do to say that to the old fox's face. This was a polite way of suggesting the same. Westvale was comfortable enough working around the "old man" as Sander was often called behind his back, but there were limits to how much two administrative assistants and the head constable could do on their own authority.

The council of elders, of course, could act in spite of or in opposition to Sander's occasional stubbornness, but they preferred to keep that as a last resort.

Mayors had no official term of office in Westvale. They were appointed by the council to act as day to day administrators, and could, in theory, be removed from office by the council, but it hadn't come to that yet. He suspected that at least some of the council members were going to try to persuade Sander to step down now, on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday.

Fennec had just dipped a pen into the inkwell to compose the first of several warm notes of thanks when Sulo returned. The two young furs spent the next hour writing polite notes for the mayor to sign, and matching them up with the appropriate letters. When they had finished, Sulo reached over with a webbed footpaw and tweaked the fox's tail."Your turn to wake him up," the otter chuckled, pushing the stack of letters toward his colleague. "I did it yesterday."

Fennec sighed, picked up the papers, and went to the inner door that led to Sander's office. He scratched politely on the heavy wooden panel, but received no response. Laying a black ear against the door, he listened. "Snoring," he told Sulo, and opened the door.

As he expected, Fennec found old Sander leaning back in his comfortable chair, sound asleep. He looked up at the stern, disapproving portrait of Arsenius Wolf, Westvale's first mayor, that hung behind the desk and struggled to keep from laughing. That earlier leader would, by his reputation, have pushed Sander out of the chair to wake him up. Fennec merely deposited the letters on the desk blotter in front of the old fox, and stood back before coughing loudly.

Sander sat up so abruptly he nearly slipped off the chair, but caught himself by bracing both paws against the heavy desk. He blinked and mumbled an indistinct "Wha..." before turning toward Fennec.

The red fox just nodded politely to the older gray and smiled. "Your mail, sir," he announced rather loudly. "Answers all ready for your signature."

"Oh, right, excellent," Sander mumbled. "Thanks, son, that will do just fine. Now take the afternoon for yourself, I can manage here."

"Yes, sir, thank you, sir," Fennec answered, flattening his ears respectfully as he went out, closing the door behind him.

Sulo looked up, whiskers twitching gleefully, as Fennec returned to the outer office. "Well?" he asked.

The fox put on the most mournful expression he could manage. "He wants us to spend the afternoon hunting through the archives for some old letters from ten years ago," he announced dolefully, ears adroop and tail dragging the floor.

The otter wasn't taken in by the attempt though. He just stuck his tongue out at Fennec. "Oh right, and he promised us a silver apiece if we could find them, I'm sure."

They both laughed. "Actually," Fennec admitted, "he told me to take the afternoon off and he could manage alone. I'm not sure he really distinguishes between the two of us any more.

"Sulo blinked. "Oh, he's not that bad yet, surely. But you can go if you like." Sulo was the senior of the two, and could excuse Fennec for a couple of hours if he chose to do so.

Fennec shook his head. "Nah, I'd just be waiting around for Argos to finish his work," he said. "Why don't you go instead? I'll be all right here. He'll probably be asleep again by the time you're out the door."

"Hmmm," the otter considered, "Maybe I will. I could do with a nice swim now that the weather's so good. Leaves will be falling before we know it. If you're sure..."

"I'm sure," Fennec told him, sitting down at the table. "Go ahead, you've earned it." He watched Sulo perk a bit at the prospect and then head for the door.

"You don't have to offer twice," the otter said, and with a flick of his tail, he slipped off toward the river.

Fennec stared after him for a moment, then leaned back in the chair, wondering what would follow if Sander were actually convinced to take retirement.