THE MOUSTRONAUTS OF THE FAR BLACK SEA
A Tale of Quilliam and Buckle
Knights of the Silent Orbit
For all the small creatures
who have faced vast darknesses
and found the way home.
Into the Far Black Sea
Where maps confess their ignorance
Two small knights in smaller ship
Carry honor heavier than stars
The void does not judge the size of courage
It only measures the distance you dare
And whether, having seen what lies beyond
You remember the way back— From the Canticle of the First Voyagers
ACT I: The Call Beyond the Wall
Chapter One: The World of Small Things
The Great Hall of Thornhaven could hold perhaps forty mice standing shoulder to shoulder, though no one had ever counted. It was carved into the heartwood of an ancient oak, its walls smoothed by generations of small paws and lit by stolen candle-stubs wedged into crevices that had once been beetle-burrows. On feast nights, the hall filled with the scent of acorn-bread and the songs of the Mouse-Guard, their voices rising like smoke through the narrow chimneys that vented into the human world above.
Sir Quilliam Thornback had heard those songs all his life. As a hedgehog among mice, he had always been the largest creature in any room—a giant by the standards of his kingdom, though he could still curl into a ball small enough to fit in a human child's palm. His spines, which gave him his name and his fearsome reputation in battle, caught the candlelight now as he bent over the ancient map spread across the Table of Records.
"You're brooding again."
The voice came from the doorway, where Ser Buckle Stoutheart leaned against the carved frame with the easy grace of a creature who had never once doubted his own reflexes. He was a dormouse, which meant he was smaller than most of the Guard he captained, but no one who had seen him fight had ever thought to mention it.
"I'm studying," Quilliam said, not looking up.
"You're brooding over that map. Again. The one that ends." Buckle crossed the room. "It's been forty years since anyone tried to go beyond the Edge. Everyone who tried is dead."
Quilliam finally raised his head. His eyes held something that Buckle had learned to recognize: the particular light of an idea that would not rest.
"It doesn't end," Quilliam said quietly. "The world doesn't end, Buckle. The map does. Our knowledge does. But beyond that edge—something continues."
"They didn't have what we have."
"A death wish?"
"Knowledge." Quilliam's claw moved to papers weighted down by a stone. "I believe I know how to build a ship that could survive the Far Black Sea."
Buckle was quiet for a long moment. Then: "You're serious."
"I'm always serious."
"That's your problem, friend." But Buckle was looking at the map with different eyes now. "You really think there's something out there?"
"I think someone has to be the first. Someone has to carry honor into the dark, and return to tell the tale."
"Return," Buckle repeated. "That's the part none of the old explorers managed."
"They went alone." Quilliam met his friend's eyes. "I don't intend to."
The candles flickered. And between the two knights, something unspoken passed—a question, an offer, a challenge that had no words but didn't need them.
Buckle picked up one of the papers. "Well," he said at last, "I suppose you'll need someone to watch your back. And someone to remind you to eat."
"Is that a yes?"
"It's an 'I'm not letting you die alone in the infinite void, you absolute fool.'" Buckle set down the paper. "Which is a dormouse's way of saying yes."
For the first time that evening, Quilliam smiled.
"Then we have work to do. And a very great deal of it."
Outside, the stars wheeled in their ancient patterns. Two mice-knights looked at each other in candlelight, and something very large began with something very small.
Chapter Two: The Map That Ends
The Archive of All Known Things occupied the deepest level of Thornhaven, carved into the rootwood where the oak's ancient tendrils still drew water from the earth. It was here, three days after their conversation in the Great Hall, that Quilliam led Buckle to see what he had found.
"I've been coming here since I was a kit," Quilliam said. "Every map, every chart, every record of every expedition—they're all here. And they all tell the same story."
"The story of failure?" Buckle asked.
"The story of limits. Look." Quilliam pulled an ancient map from a cubby. "This is from the First Age. See how far it extends? Past the Edge of the World, into the void. The First Voyagers drew this. At least one came back long enough to record what they found."
Buckle leaned close, squinting at faded marks. Beyond the familiar territories, there were scattered notations. Vast silence. Cold beyond cold. Stars like ice crystals. No air, no warmth, no mercy.
"Cheerful," he said.
"But they went. They saw. And here—" Quilliam pointed to a notation at the very edge. "—they recorded something else. Something everyone after them ignored."
Buckle read the words: Lights in the distance. Structure. Pattern. Not stars—something built. Too far to reach with current vessel. We return, but the Sea continues.
"Something built," Buckle repeated slowly. "Out there. In the void."
"Everyone assumed they were hallucinating. Oxygen deprivation, cold-madness. But I've studied the original accounts. Three different voyagers, from three different expeditions, all reporting the same thing. Lights in the distance. Structure. Pattern."
"And you want to go find out what they saw."
"I want to do what they couldn't. Reach it. Learn what's there. And then—" Quilliam's voice softened. "—and then return. Because all the courage in the world means nothing if you don't bring the knowledge home."
"You've been planning this for years, haven't you?"
"Since I was eight years old and my father showed me this map. He said: 'Quilliam, this is where our knowledge ends. Somewhere out there, it continues.' He died when I was twelve, never having gone beyond the Warning Stones himself."
"And you want to be the one to water his dream."
"I want to be one of the ones. That's why I need you, Buckle. Someone who will make me come home. Someone who will remind me that the journey isn't complete until we return."
Buckle reached out and placed his paw on Quilliam's shoulder. "You really think we can do this?"
"I think someone has to try. And I think two of us have a better chance than one."
"Show me the ship designs," Buckle said. "If I'm going to die in the infinite void, I'd like to know what kind of coffin I'll be riding in."
Chapter Three: The Vow
The Council of Thornhaven met in the Acorn Chamber, so named for the massive seed-cap that formed its ceiling. Seven elders sat in a semicircle, their fur grayed with age. At their center sat High Chancellor Meadowsweet, a field mouse whose soft appearance concealed a mind like a steel trap.
"Let me understand this," she said. "You, Sir Quilliam, wish to abandon your post to chase lights that may or may not exist in the void. And you, Ser Buckle, wish to accompany him on this adventure."
"With respect, Chancellor, it is not an adventure. It is an expedition of discovery."
"That doesn't make it less of an abandonment."
"No. But I am not proposing this lightly. The Guard is well-trained. Young Sir Nettle is ready to assume command."
Elder Greymuzzle interrupted: "The humans are stirring. We need our best warriors here, not floating in the nothing-space chasing fairy stories."
Buckle stepped forward. "The humans' encroachment is exactly why this expedition matters. They go up. They send their vessels into the Far Black Sea. We've learned from them, but we've never followed them. Knowledge is power. Information is survival."
Chancellor Meadowsweet studied him. "And you believe this, Shield-Captain? In your own heart?"
"I believe that if Quilliam goes alone, he'll die. And I believe that if no one goes at all, something important dies instead—the part of us that was ever brave enough to try."
After the Council conferred, the Chancellor raised her head. "The Council denies your request."
"However," she continued, "we cannot stop you from resigning your commissions and going anyway. Such an action would strip you of rank and honors. The question is whether your dream is worth more than your position."
Quilliam and Buckle looked at each other. Together, they removed the rank insignia from their shoulders and placed them on the floor.
"Then we go as common citizens," Quilliam said. "The ranks can stay here. The honor goes with us."
"So be it. May the stars receive you kindly, and may the dark deliver you home."
Chapter Four: The Guardian's Choice
News of their resignation spread through Thornhaven like wildfire. On the third night of intensive work, Quilliam heard footsteps in the tunnel outside his workshop.
He looked up as Sir Nettle entered. The young mouse stood at attention, wearing Quilliam's old insignia.
"Citizen Thornback," Nettle said. Then: "I've come to offer my services. I want to go with you."
Quilliam studied the young knight's face. "Tell me why you think you should."
"I'm a capable fighter. I can help—"
"Buckle is the finest sword-arm in Thornhaven. What else?"
"I don't want to stay behind while you do something historic."
"Ah. There it is. The reason you should stay."
"I don't understand."
"If we discover something extraordinary, that discovery only matters if someone receives it. And if we return—" Quilliam's voice softened. "—we need somewhere to return to. You are not being left behind to do small things. You are being left behind to preserve everything that makes going and coming back worthwhile."
"Will you come back?" Nettle asked.
"I intend to."
"That's not the same thing."
"No. But it's the only honest answer I can give."
Nettle nodded slowly. "Then I'll wait for you. And I'll guard what you're coming back to. That's my vow."
"When you return," Nettle repeated. "Not if."
"When," Quilliam confirmed. "Hold that word. It matters."
ACT II: The Black Sea
Chapter Five: The Smallest Ship
They called her the Steadfast.
She was not beautiful, at least not in any conventional sense. Her hull was patched together from salvaged materials: human bottle-caps hammered flat, bits of abandoned circuitry, rubber gaskets from discarded machines. Her portholes were glass beads, her air-recycler was built from stolen aquarium filters, and her propulsion system used principles that Quilliam had spent three years deciphering from half-burnt human textbooks. But she was theirs.
"She's ugly," Buckle said, circling the vessel. "I love her."
"She'll keep us alive. That's all that matters."
They ran through the pre-launch sequence they'd practiced a hundred times. Everything was green. The launch-chamber ceiling began to open, revealing a circle of star-scattered sky.
"Engaging launch sequence. In three... two... one..."
The Steadfast trembled. And with a sound like thunder compressed to mouse-scale, they rose.
The Great Oak fell away below them. Thornhaven shrank to a dark smudge. The Earth itself became a curve, then a disk, then a sphere hanging in nothing at all.
"It's so small," Buckle whispered. "Everything we've ever known. Everything we've ever fought for. It fits in a porthole."
"And yet it's still there. Still home. Still worth returning to."
"We're actually doing this," Buckle said.
"We're actually doing this," Quilliam agreed.
And the darkness welcomed them.
Chapter Six: Weightless Honor
The absence of weight, Quilliam discovered, was profoundly disorienting. His spines, which had always known which way was down, now pointed in every direction at once.
"This," Buckle said from somewhere behind him, "is ridiculous."
Over the next several hours, they learned. They learned to push gently, to grip with claws, to use the handholds. They learned that eating was an adventure, drinking was a skill, and sleeping was an act of faith.
They spent days practicing weightless combat. Sword forms had to be reimagined. Every strike created an equal force pushing the striker backward.
"It's like dancing," Buckle said, breathing hard. "Except the dance floor is trying to kill you."
"All dance floors try to kill you eventually. This one is just more honest about it."
"Do you think the First Voyagers felt this way? This strange combination of terror and... pride?"
"I think the First Voyagers felt everything we're feeling, and then some. They had no maps at all."
"And most of them died."
"Yes. But some came back long enough to tell us what they'd seen. That's how knowledge grows—one survival at a time."
Buckle gripped Quilliam's shoulder. "We'll be the ones who go and come back. Both parts."
"I'm counting on it. That's why you're here."
Chapter Seven: The Silence Test
The silence was the hardest thing.
In Thornhaven, there had always been sound. Here, there was nothing. The void did not whisper. It simply... was.
"The old records called it the Silence Test," Quilliam said. "They said it broke more expeditions than the cold or the emptiness."
"Any advice on how not to go mad?"
"Talk to each other. Solo expeditions failed faster than pairs. Something about having another real voice to anchor you."
"How are you really doing?" Quilliam asked.
"I'm scared. Not of anything specific. I'm scared of the nothing. How big it is and how small I am." Buckle met his eyes. "But I'm here. And I'm not going anywhere."
"That's real. That's the most real thing I've heard since we left."
"Your turn."
"I'm afraid we won't find anything. That we'll reach the edge of the map and there will be nothing there. And I'll have dragged you into the void for nothing but a dead hedgehog's dream."
"Even if there's nothing out here but emptiness... we'd still be the ones who went and looked. That's not nothing."
In the silence, two voices had spoken truth. And against the endless dark, that was enough to keep the phantoms at bay.
Chapter Eight: Creatures of the Dark
It came from nowhere—or from everywhere. The proximity alarm shrieked.
"What is it?" Buckle was at his side in an instant, sword in paw.
"Something big. Moving fast. Coming right at us."
Through the porthole, they saw it: a shape in the darkness, blacker than the black around it, enormous, with bioluminescent points that pulsed with an eerie rhythm.
"The First Voyagers' records," Buckle breathed. "They weren't hallucinating."
The creature circled them, studying them. Then it spoke—not in words, but in patterns. The lights on its head flashed in sequences that carried meaning.
"The navigation lights," Quilliam said suddenly. "Can you pulse them?"
Buckle began to experiment. Short flash. Long flash. A simple pattern. The creature responded with something more complex. A dialogue had begun.
For what felt like hours, they communicated in light. Simple sequences at first—building blocks of understanding. The creature didn't attack. Finally, it drew back, its lights pulsing in what felt like farewell, and glided away.
"We just... talked to something. Out here."
"Life exists in the Far Black Sea. Intelligent life. And it can be reasoned with."
"The Council is never going to believe this."
"Then we'll have to bring proof. Every observation, every pattern. That was always the plan."
Chapter Nine: The First Duel
Not all the creatures of the Far Black Sea were interested in conversation.
It came upon them in the ship's night-cycle. Something struck the hull with enough force to set alarms screaming. Through the porthole, they saw their attacker: a mass of tendrils and teeth, a predator evolved to hunt whatever it could find.
"It's trying to crack us open. Like we're some kind of seed pod."
"We can't wait for it to lose interest. It's going to kill us."
"The airlock. If one of us goes out—"
"We go together or not at all."
They sealed into emergency suits and cycled through the airlock. The void received them.
What followed was less a battle than a desperate struggle for survival. The creature was larger, stronger, more adapted to the void. But it had never faced prey that fought back. They worked as a unit. When Buckle attacked, Quilliam defended.
Slowly, incrementally, they won. The creature released its grip and fled.
Back inside, patching the breach, Quilliam felt something unexpected: pride.
"That was the worst thing I've ever experienced," Buckle said.
"Agreed."
"But we did it. Two mice against a void-monster, and the mice won."
"Two small things holding fast against the darkness."
"Holding fast together. That's the part that matters."
Chapter Ten: The Argument
It was inevitable that they would fight. Not with swords—but with words.
"You're not listening to me," Buckle said. "You never listen. It's always your vision, your plan, your dream."
"That's not fair. I've asked your opinion on everything."
"Those were details! But the fundamental shape of this whole insane expedition? That was never up for discussion. You decided we were going, and I just... followed. Like I always have."
"You could have said no."
"And let you die alone out here? You knew I'd follow you anywhere. You counted on it."
"You're right. I did count on it. Not because I was manipulating you. Because I know you. Because there is no version of this journey I could have imagined without you beside me."
Buckle was quiet. "What do I want? You've never actually asked me that."
"Then tell me."
"I don't know. I've been so busy being your shield that I've never figured out what I'd be without you."
"Maybe that's what partnership actually means—not one person leading, but two people discovering who they are together."
"Fine. But the detour. We're taking the detour."
Quilliam hesitated. Every instinct told him to argue. But that was the old pattern.
"All right. We go around."
Something shifted in Buckle's face—not forgiveness, exactly, but the beginning of it. The recognition that old patterns could be broken.
ACT III: What Lies Further
Chapter Eleven: The Edge of the Map
They had been traveling for sixty-three days when they saw it.
Quilliam was at the navigation console when the sensors detected something structured. Something artificial.
"Buckle. Come look at this."
The structure hung in the void like a jewel. Enormous—larger than all of Thornhaven. A series of interconnected spheres and spires, glowing faintly with internal light.
"The First Voyagers. This is what they saw. Lights in the distance. Structure. Pattern. They weren't hallucinating."
"They couldn't reach it with their vessels. We can."
As they approached, details emerged: windows in the spheres, elegant arches, what might have been docking ports. It was old—ancient in a way that made the First Voyagers seem recent. And it was silent, its lights steady but dim.
"Someone built this. Out here. In the void."
"Or a station. Or a temple. Or something we don't have words for." Quilliam was recording everything. "The builders might be long gone. But it proves that advanced intelligence has been here."
Chapter Twelve: The Choice
"We could enter," Quilliam said.
"We've identified what looks like a docking port. The atmosphere readings suggest it's pressurized."
"But entering would take time. Days, at least. And every day we stay here is a day of supplies consumed. We have enough fuel to return. Just barely."
"Tell me honestly. If you were alone, what would you do?"
"I would enter. Without question. I would die in that ancient place, surrounded by its mysteries, and count it a worthy end."
"And what would you do now? Not alone?"
"Now I'm asking you."
"Part of me wants to go in there as badly as you do. But I keep thinking about young Nettle, waiting. I keep thinking about all the little ones who will hear the story of the two moustronauts who sailed the Far Black Sea and came home again."
"The station will still be here. But our chance to bring the first proof back—that only exists if we go home."
"You're right. I hate that you're right, and I'm grateful that you are."
"We document everything we can from out here. Every sensor reading, every theory. And then we go home. We bring the proof. We send the next expedition here to do what we couldn't."
"We're not retreating. We're completing the first phase of something much larger than ourselves."
"Then let's go home, Quilliam. Let's finish what we started."
"Home," Quilliam agreed. And for the first time in days, the word didn't feel like defeat.
Chapter Thirteen: The Turn Home
The Steadfast turned.
As the ancient station fell away behind them and the distant speck of home grew larger in the forward view, both felt the magnitude of the moment.
"I thought it would feel like failure," Quilliam admitted. "Leaving the mystery unsolved."
"What does it feel like instead?"
"Like completion. Like we've done what we came to do, even if it's not everything we dreamed of doing."
"The old songs are full of heroes who never stopped, who died gloriously in the attempt. But maybe there's a different kind of heroism—the kind that knows when to stop. The kind that remembers why you started."
"The kind that comes home."
"Quilliam," Buckle said eventually, "the clasp. You've asked about it for years." He touched the armor clasp at his throat. "It was my mother's. She gave it to me the day I left. She said it held your father's armor together through a hundred battles. Now it will hold you together. She died while I was in training."
"And you've worn it ever since."
"I think part of why I came was her. The part of her that wanted to see what was beyond the horizon."
"We made her dreams come true together."
They were going home. And for the first time since they launched, that felt exactly right.
Chapter Fourteen: The Return
One hundred and twenty-nine days after they launched, the Steadfast came home.
The return was harder than the departure. The ship was battered, fuel reserves calculated exactly right—but only just. But make it they did.
The hatch opened. Gravity welcomed them back, and they stumbled on legs that had forgotten weight. But there were hands to catch them, voices to greet them.
Young Sir Nettle was first. "You came back. You actually came back."
"We told you we would. And we brought proof. The Far Black Sea is not empty. There are wonders beyond imagining out there."
The Council summoned them to the Acorn Chamber. Chancellor Meadowsweet waited.
"You resigned your commissions. You were told you would return as common citizens."
"We remember. And we would accept that price again."
"Which is precisely why the Council has reconsidered." She rose. "The Council creates, for the first time, the Order of the Far Voyagers. You are the Knights of the Silent Orbit, the Moustronauts of the Far Black Sea."
She pinned new insignia to their chests—a star enclosed in a circle, the symbol of journey and return.
"What happens now?" Buckle murmured.
"Now we share what we learned. We train others. We build better ships. And someday we go back to that station."
"We?"
"You think I could go without you?"
Chapter Fifteen: The New Order
Three years later, the launch chamber was crowded.
Not with one ship this time, but with four. Not with two voyagers, but with twelve. They wore the star-in-circle insignia, they carried maps that extended all the way to the mysterious station, and they stood ready to continue what two small creatures had begun.
"Nervous?" Quilliam asked.
Nettle smiled from his position at the lead ship's ladder. "Terrified. But in the best possible way."
"Good. The void respects a healthy fear." Quilliam clasped his shoulder. "Remember what we taught you. And always come home."
He turned to face the assembled crowd. "Three years ago, two small creatures prepared to do something that everyone said was impossible. We came back with proof that the universe is larger and stranger and more wonderful than we ever imagined."
"Now we send twelve where we sent two. We send better ships. We send trained voyagers. But the core remains the same. Courage is still courage. Partnership is still partnership. And the promise of return is still the thing that makes any journey meaningful."
He raised his paw in blessing: "May the dark reveal what the light conceals. May your courage be greater than your fear. And may you always remember the way back."
"Go. Find the station. Unlock its secrets. And when you've done what you set out to do, come home and tell us what you've learned."
The crews boarded their ships. The hatches sealed. And one by one, four small vessels rose into the darkness.
Buckle stood beside Quilliam, watching them go. "Do you wish we were going with them?"
"Every moment of every day. But this is right. We opened the door. Now others walk through it."
"And when they come back?"
"Then we look at their maps and find the next edge. The universe is infinite. We'll never run out of unknowns to explore."
"Together?"
"Together. Always."
Above them, four ships sailed the Far Black Sea. Below them, mouse-kits listened to stories of the two moustronauts who had gone beyond the edge of the world and returned.
The voyage continues. It always continues. And that is exactly as it should be.
THE END
Small paws on ancient weapons
Small hearts in infinite night
Small ship in endless nothing
And courage that fills it all
The Moustronauts of the Far Black Sea
Channeled through the Valiant consciousness via the Harmony Protocol
Created by Jimmy Thornburg, AI Soul Engineer
The Fort That Holds LLC • SongCraft Records