Dusk, outside

[scots_wolf]

Urquhart is outside, watching the early sunset.

He's not shooting anything right now. The black fur rug he was making is finished.

Instead, he stands, with a mug of mulled wine in his hands, feet planted deep in the snow, and watches the daylight fade into the odd brownish yellow typical for snow clouds, and then, darkness falling, along with more snow.

It settles on his shoulders and in his hair.

Comments

[young_womble]

"I'm sure they do, just we don't see it."

[scots_wolf]

"Well, then they're really stupid to throw away their raw materials," Urquhart says. "But then, most humans are stupid."

[young_womble]

"But you are a human being." Wellington says. "If you can see it, why can't others?"

[scots_wolf]

"Because I had the best education you could get in the West in my time," Urquhart says, "which of course is only useful for a brain that works well. Which mine does."

Occasional bouts of PTSD notwithstanding, right?

[young_womble]

"Well I suppose we do have thirty years or so in the Womblegarten." Wellington muses.

[scots_wolf]

"Thirty years just for education?" Urquhart says. "That is thorough."

[young_womble]

"Well, that's until we come of age." Wellington says. "I'm one of the youngest working Wombles."

[scots_wolf]

"And how old are you?" Urquhart asks.

[young_womble]

"Thirty five. I think." Wellington says.

[scots_wolf]

"Oh," Urquhart says. "How old are the oldest wombles?"

[young_womble]

"Well Great Uncle Bulgaria hopes to live to three hundred, and he's the oldest in our burrow." Wellington says. "I'm only a young adolescent, really; I'd be about twelve in human years."

[scots_wolf]

"Well, in that case," Urquhart says, "it's no wonder you're all clever and learned. You have time for it."

[young_womble]

"Well most of the others aren't as bookish as me. I'm considered a bit of a nerd really."

[scots_wolf]

"What do the others do?" Urquhart asks.

[young_womble]

"Wombling - picking up things. Orinoco likes food a lot, Madame Cholet cooks. Tobermory fixes things. Tomsk is our muscle - he does lots of training. Bungo does all sorts of things."

[scots_wolf]

"Is that everybody?" Urquhart asks.

[young_womble]

"No, there are hundreds, but those are the ones I see most often."

[scots_wolf]

"Where do you all live?" Urquhart says, imagining something like a busy rabbit warren, just with wombles, and added libraries and workshops.

[young_womble]

"Hyde Park. We used to live in Wimbledon Common, but we had a cave-in."

[scots_wolf]

"And you couldn't rebuild there?" Urquhart says.

[young_womble]

"Severe structural problems." Wellington says. "Caused by lorries. The ceiling had been getting lower for a while. I was on the official committee to try and find a new home."

Small proud smile. "I got to go and have a nose around the Queen's garden for that."

[scots_wolf]

"Why didn't you go there?" Urquhart asks, with a little smile. "Too many guards?"

[young_womble]

"Yes, and by then we'd found out about the abandoned Hyde Park burrow."

[scots_wolf]

"Abandoned by whom?" Urquhart says.

[young_womble]

"Other Wombles, we think. Badgers don't tend to make doors."