“I haven’t forgotten a thing!” Frill snapped, tapping the side of her head with her forepaw and walking over to the door. “Just because my mind is in pieces doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten.”
“Everything goes on with you.” Hail couldnt think of a time since he’d known Asher when there was nothing going on.
Gretchen reached out a silver and white forepaw and knocked on the Abbey gates, then shuffled back a step and waited. “Hello?” She said, her voice light and airy. “Anybody around?”
"Where're you going?" Scartooth asked, sitting up and watching her.
"Mirabella won't be too 'appy."
"Well, aren't we vague." muttered Asher to himself, about to go on when he heard an unfamiliar voice ring out from around the gates. His fur spiked up, and his ears began twitching.
"Do I dare answer that?" he whispered to Hail.
“I didn’t ask to be brought into the infirmary, Scary Tooth.” Frill said, looking over her shoulder before freaking open the door. “That hedgehog and rabbit dragged me in here. I didn’t ask for that, I never said they could do that. I wasn’t finished, and I was ready.”
Hail flicked his ears forward and glanced at Asher. “I don’t know.” It wasn’t anybody he recognized. How was he supposed to tell who shouldn’t or should be allowed into the Abbey? That was something the Abbess was responsible for, and she was dead.
When she didn’t get any reply right off, she knocked again. “My name’s Gretchen.” They couldn’t turn her away, not when she was by herself like this.
"If she attacks me... Please." Asher tried to make eye contact with Hail, but that was hard because of the hood. "Step in."
Knowing that what he was about to do was bad, not only because it was about to get him in trouble but because he felt red flags waving in his head, the stoat wheeled himself through the grass and up to the gate.
He squinted out through the bars.
"What do you want?" he asked coolly.
"But he's dead now," Scartooth complained. "So where are you goin'?" He wanted to get up and drag her back into the room, and he would have, too-- if not for his leg and blurry vision.
The rat curled his lip slightly.
"Don't jus' leave me an' go back out into th' woods."
Frill shook her head and tapped on the doorframe. She wanted to go back to the burned Tree Circle more than ever, to drown in memories and be done with her life, but then there was Scartooth. One moment she felt like she could part ways with him, the next she didn’t want to leave his side. She leaned toward the latter more often than not. “I wasn’t going anywhere.” She closed the door, turning back toward Scartooth.
Hail didn’t stay back while Asher wheeled himself over to the gates. He’d step in all right. He shifted off to the side of the gates and listened while he waited for the stranger to reply to Asher.
Gretchen peered at the gates and smiled as she spoke. “I’d like to stay for a night or two before I continue on my way south.” She replied, her tail twitching behind her. “I don’t know if you can see me, sir, but I’m a mouse. This is Redwall, isn’t it?”
Asher batted his eyes. "I am quite literally the lowest creature on the Redwall hierarchy. I can't let you in." He sat back, looking down at her and feeling his distrust run rampant as soon as she said that she was a mouse. What normal, true mouse would feel the need to announce that to him?
Sure, as much as he would love to escort this stranger inside and watch her potentially wreak havoc, he couldn't bring himself to. He was fair game.
The stoat adjusted the red collar of his cloak and glanced back at Hail, gritting his teeth and waving his paws in the direction of the door as if to say "Go get somebeast."
Then he turned back to Gretchen, pricked his ears, and angled his snout at her.
"I can wait with you while my friend gets somebeast, though. Now tell me... where are you from?"
The rat frowned and picked at the sheets.
"Okay," he muttered. "Hope you don't change yer mind."
Me too. Frill nodded her head and started pulling off another bandage. “What am I supposed to do in here? What are we supposed to do in here? Sleep? I can’t sleep.”
Hail hesitated, turning away and going back inside the Abbey. His pace picked up the second he stepped into the first hallway, flinching with the dull pain going through his paws. “Aura? Mirabella?” He didn’t bother with Talisa, not because he wouldn’t mind having a wolf approach those gates but because she had pups she wouldn’t leave alone in a room.
“Okay, I can wait.” Gretchen replied, wrinkling her nose and tilting her head to the side. She didn’t know what would be the lowest, and quite frankly didn’t care. “I’m from Salamandastron. I haven’t been there for a while though with all the traveling I’ve done lately.”
"No clue," Scartooth said. "I've been in 'ere a lot. Used t' be me room, before they trusted me an' I fully moved in. Not sure what we're supposed to do here, though. All it's good fer is sleepin'." The rat rested his chin on his knee and huffed.
Asher rolled his eyes. "I didn't ask for your life story, I only wanted to know where you came from." Hail, he thought desperately, Hurry up! If she isn't evil, she may as well bore me to death!
“You know how to put yourself to sleep, then?” Frill would have to ask Mirabella about that if she couldn’t manage to fall asleep on her own. “If all there is to do is sleep, then I am going to lose my mind. I can’t sleep. Can you talk me to sleep or something?”
Hail spotted Aura wandering down the hallway and called her name again, just barely getting a response from her. “Aura, theres somebody at the gates that wants to come in.” He said, angling his ears sideways.
Aura turned toward Hail and didn’t do much to reply to him beyond gesturing for him to lead the way. “Is it just one creature?” And who was at the gates with the stranger now?
“And I told you where I came from, and where I’m going. Just because you don’t care to know the details doesn’t mean somebody like the Abbot or Abbess won’t.” Gretchen leaned against the gate and stretched out her forelimbs. “You get used to answering questions before they get asked when you go to all the places I’ve gone to. What’s your name, by the way?”
"The Abbess is dead, and we--I mean they--haven't chosen a replacement yet." said the stoat curtly, not once relaxing his posture. "My name is Asher."
"Talk about what?" Scartooth asked, swiveling his ear. He wasn't against talking, for he was bored too.
“What we could be doing if we weren’t confined in here.” Frill trudged back to her bed and used the sheets draped over the side to climb back up into bed. “Or, what we can do without having to leave the room.”
“Just one.” Hail replied, keeping his pace slow so that Aura could keep up. He was in pain when he put too much weight on his paws and he could still hold a faster pace than the hedgehog. “She said her name’s Gretchen, and she’s a mouse.”
“So she’s a stranger.” Aura couldn’t care less that Gretchen was a mouse. She didn’t want to turn somebody away that just needed a place to stay for a short while. Once they got outside, she shambled over to the gates. Of all those that lived in Redwall, why was Asher the one talking to the mouse?
“Oh...” Interesting. “I’m sorry to hear about that.” From the sounds of it, he didn’t seem particularly heartbroken about such a loss, either. “It’s nice to meet you, Asher.”
Scartooth snickered for the first time since Mia's death.
"I'd be downstairs eatin' breakfast if Aura made it, no doubt about that. How 'bout ye? I'd like t' imagine y'being with me."
"Oh, that's a first." Asher mused, noticing Hail leading Aura out and feeling slightly relieved. "It's not much of a problem," he muttered out of the side of his mouth. "You don't have to be sorry about it."
“I’d be with you in a heartbeat, making a mess and eating it, too.” Frill hadn’t forgotten Scartooth’s adoration of pies. What had been his favorite one, again?
Aura continued to shamble over to the gates until she was less than a pace away from Asher. Who knew what he had been talking about with a mouse. “She can come in.” Hail or herself would need to let the others know about the new guest of course, but there was no reason for Gretchen to not be allowed in. If this had been moons ago, before the first wolf attack, they would’ve never had to question everybody that came to their gates like this. “Let the others know she’s here.” She said, more to Hail than to Asher.
Hail glanced at Asher before he helped Aura unlatch and open up the gates. He purposefully opened it just a crack. A mouse or rat could get through it easy enough, but nothing much larger than that. Not that he didn’t believe Gretchen, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
What a fool. A lucky fool, but still a fool. Gretchen smiled slightly but didn’t say another word until the gates were opened a crack to allow her in. “Hello.” She said, her voice turning timid as she looked at the hedgehog and the stoat in a wheelchair. Who crippled him and gave him a wheelchair? Hail really had hidden himself here. She didn’t have to see him or hear his name to know it was him. He had claws that didn’t belong to him, and his scent was the same one on the tattered cloak.
"Hi." said Asher blankly, feeling his skin crawl. He eyed Aura diffidently, hoping he could sneak in a word to her after she got this mouse situated. And, hopefully, she would hear him out.