A/N: AlexFalTalon, Greyclaw Vs Victoria* coming soon (although it'll most likely be a verbal fight. Greyclaw isn't exactly the combat expert- no matter how hard she tries to change that XD)

Lord Demon, I'll give it a looksie. And alright-the detective personality actually fits perfectly into what I have planned. Halloween special it is. Although, that most likely means we won't see him until the Halloween after I finish this...

Sebias of Redwall, Very shrew-d guess there. We shall see their patrol next time. For now we're with our other travelling heroes who we haven't seen in a while ;)

Abrahem, To be fair I think I managed to read one or two stories 'fresh from the oven' (ten minutes after publication) so yeah, I'd say it's healthy (besides this story isn't junk food... Although too much of it might still kill you XD)

The Junior Corporal is the same hare from the first Salamandastron chapter- it does make a bit of a difference in Redwall. Rabbits are rather meek in this world, hares are more boisterous, outgoing and a little eccentric. I'd put him at a bit older than Angus and Andrew (who are in turn older than the rest) who are all in turn older than Tibbers who is the youngest. Was it them? Eh, it could be- but I think it's unlikely they could give anybeast a black eye (especially in a three on two against older creatures)

Funny that you mention Greyjoy there, Theon definitely was a source of inspiration for Fret (minus as you said, all the frankly evil shit and so forth). The whole Whimper storyline is a kind of watered down version of Reek if you think about it (he's given a new identity and name and so on and just goes along with it- just ya know. Minus all the torture)

I've also borrowed rather healthily from the ASOIAF books- it's where the name Jon Connington comes from along with the inspiration for Jon's arc (also the spelling of Jon as opposed to John).

Well for one thing, Fret probably doesn't think they'd believe him- because when do they do? Pretty sure Connington isn't anyone's dad. They just look alike- same species and all. That would add an interesting layer I suppose, if Fret and Momchillo were cousins but that's not the case. That flashback isn't necessarily a 'true' flashback. It's a dream that is a collection of flashbacks that happened differently to the way it all played out. So the Skipper that stepped on Fret is the one Constance beat up (because the prior conversation between Constance and Connington was from a different flashback) but he's mixed with the 'important' Skipper who nearly javelinned Fret in this muddle up. It's meant to be a little confusing to emphasize 'lack of memory'. That's how it stands now of course, I probably didn't think too deeply when I wrote it though XD

I'll look into Maggie May.

One-eye: Yeah I saw your self-review so I wasn't worried, glad to hear your thoughts on Grey Claw though XD

The journey down the river (none knew which one it was anymore) had been a pleasant one for Hawthorn, Sharpfur and Grollo. The three had been content for the first few days to let the current carry them aimlessly along. They had had plenty of food Sharpfur had 'borrowed' from the old hedgehog and the warm spring days had been spent without a care in the world.

Needless to say, they regretted that now. Every last stolen crumb had been eaten, the pleasant warmth became overbearing heat and the cramped spaces of a small boat was not large enough for the three of them. Then the bickering had started and never stopped. Grollo grew progressively grumpier with each passing day- their plan to 'bump into' somebeast friendly was failing rather dramatically and Hawthorn now regretted leaving the cottage in the dead of night.

Funnily enough that was the one point they all agreed on.

"We'd be havin' lunch now." Said Sharpfur, miserably.

"Will you stop talking about food?" Grollo snapped. At the same time his stomach grumbled in discontent. They were all hungy- and their was nothing to chew on except each other's egos.

"What do ye want us te talk about then, eh? How we're lost? How the sun is Hellgates itself? Why ye're covered in pin needles?"

"Or we could talk about how you didn't steal a map. Or how you convinced us to leave. Or how you ate most of the food-"

"Which I stole!" The weasel snapped. "Be grateful I shared it with ye, greedy-rump! And about convinced ye! Ye both wanted te leave- same as me. Don't ye go pinnin' this on me."

"Well when you said 'we're leaving' I thought we might actually go somewhere! You know. That's not the middle of nowhere!" As if to underline the hedgehog's point, the desert around them echoed the last word with avengeance.

"Go on blame the vermin. Typical woodlanders."

"I'm not blaming you coz you're vermin! I'm blaming you because this is your fault!"

"Go boil in puddin' or something! I can't argue with an appetite."

"I wish we had pudding."

"Water that don't taste like salt would be good too." Sharpfur agreed.

Hawthorn, who had been tuning out the conversation so as to maintain a kind of inner peace, was jolted back into reality by the weasel's words.

"The water's salty?"

"Can't ye tell?" He asked dryly.

"We haven't been drinking from the river." Grollo pointed at a pair of water bags that were by now half-empty.

"And ye call me a thief! Ye went and stole that old witch's bags!"

"They were in the boat we didn't steal them." The hedgehog protested.

"Well ye didn't share either." Sharpfur muttered.

Hawthorn, once more ignoring the snapping duo, leaned over the edge of their small raft and dipped her paw in the water. It was refreshingly cool- especially after the beating the sun had given them- and as she found out upon licking her wet paw clean- salty.

"Do you know what this means?" She gasped, already staring off into the horizon.

"That I'm a nicer beast than the both of ye? Thaks for noticin'."

"That we're near the sea!"

"What sea?" Asked Grollo. "And how is that good news? I want to go home, not the beach."

"Think Grollo, think! We're going West, and we're near the sea shore- what lies on the Western Shore?"

The hedgehog furrowed his brow, deep in thought. His specialty was cooking, although he was very good at brooding, and it took what felt like a century for him to find an answer. "Not Redwall."

That much was true, but it wasn't what Hawthorn had been looking for.

"Salamandastron!" The ancient fortress home of the Long Patrol and the Badgerlords. Hawthorn had always wanted to visit the place (although staying was out of the question -it was a volcano after all), and now ironically, she would get her chance. And more importantly, the road from Redwall to Salamandastron was well-known and traversed, and going home would not be difficult if they could just find the place.

All Sharpfur knew, however, was that the fortress was the bane of any vermin band and that a badger lay inside, drinking tea from out of skulls. "We can't go there!"

"Why not?" Asked Grollo. "We might even get an escort home. Ha! I bet Jack's there."

"Yeah, the hare I kidnapped. Ye really think anybeast there's gonna be happy te see me?"

There was an awkward silence and then Sharpfur continued, more frantically and with a note of genuine fear. "Besides! There's badgers there an-and- that large patrol thingy. They- they'd eat me alive. Or throw me down their vol- vol- vol-" He'd learned the cursed word, but panic made him forget it.

"Volcano. And I don't think they will." Said Hawthorn. Sharpfur had to tear his paw out of her grip to avoid physical comforting but their was no escaping her words. Not unless he jumped overboard and he didn't know how to swim. "They won't do anything horrible to you because we'll tell them what a lovely creature you are-"

"Yer not funny mouse! I'm bein' serious! This is serious!"

"So am I! You're our friend Sharpfur, and you've got nowhere else to go. They can't just turn you away at the gates-"

"No, but they can roast me over a fire or boil me in soup or whatever! I don't care how 'edjucated' I am it don't change the fact that I ain't a woodlander."

"We're not monsters." Grollo said, aghast. "We're not going to roast you for nothing- and the only thing you'll boil in is a bathtub. Look. You don't have to stay in Salamandastron, we won't either. Just as long as it takes to get to Redwall-"

"But I don't wanna go to Redwall either!" The weasel snapped. "I wanna go-" He barely managed to stop himself from saying 'home'. His home was long burnt to ashes and Sharpfur belonged nowhere. Not in the mountain, not in the abbey and certainly not in present company!

"So…" Grollo breathed, as awkwardness became palpable around them.

"I mean I will go there, even if I don't want to." The weasel continued. His family was dead. There was no home left. No Honest Bunch. No Greyclaw. He had to make do with what he had and Vulpuz had only given him woodlanders. And when life gave you woodlanders you made… woodland trifle? That didn't sound right… "But don't be surprised if yer ghost murders me."

"Nobeast'll murder you." Hawthorn said, surprised slightly at the relief rushing through her. After the past few weeks she honestly could not imagine a life without Sharpfur's bitterness.

"Ghosts ain't beasts but that's a problem for later. Doesn't change the fact that I ain't goin' to the fire mountain. We ought to turn around."

"But then we might get lost again." Grollo pointed out.

"Does it matter? So long as I don't end up feedin' a badger, I'm happy!"

Grollo opened his mouth to argue- but Hawthorn stopped him. "We can't paddle upriver." She explained gently, watching the rapidly spinning wheels turn inside the weasel's head. All faults aside, Sharpfur was smart. But he was prideful too, and pride always came before the fall. "But if you're scared of a doddery old badger I suppose we could start going upriver on foot."

"But that'll take us back to the cannibals!" Grollo protested, unaware of her scheme.

"Well Sharpfur can fight them off! He's scared of badgers not beast-eaters."

"Badgers are beast eaters!" The weasel snapped. "And I ain't scared of them-"

"But doesn't their height terify you? Why I heard some badgers can grow as tall as mountains, as wide as hills! It makes sense for a little creature like you to be scared of them."

"I'm not that little." The weasel growled, his claws digging into the sides of the boat. But Hawthorn could tell by the twitching eyelid- magnified by the over-sized spectacles he still wore- that her plan to goad him into obedience was working.

"I know that." She said soothingly, as Grollo watched dumbfounded. He was easily the slowest of the three- but it was easier to spot manipulation when it wasn't being used on you. "You're a perfectly normal-sized creature."

Sharpfur looked slightly surprised, but didn't seem to mind the unexpected compliment. "Why! You're even bigger than me!" Now the weasel was smirking. "But next to a badger you and I are like- like flies." The vole shook her head vigorously. "No Grollo, I don't think we can go to Salamandastron. I think Sharpfur's right and we should head back upriver."

"Now hang on a minute." The weasel raised a paw. "A badger can't be that big."

Grollo raised a skeptical eyebrow to go with his question. "Have you ever seen a badger before? They've got fangs the size of swords, claws like spears! We're not even flies! More like… like...like crumbs!"

Sharpfur swallowed and all of their hard work was blown into the wind. "Yer right, Salamandsasstron ain't safe. So directly to Redwall it is."

Perhaps they had taken the 'badgers are big' thing a little too far… Or perhaps Grollo had emphasized the wrong things...

"We were joking!" Hawthorn admitted. "Badgers aren't big at all!"

"Yer just sayin' that now! A badger'd squish me. Now help me turn the boat around!"

"We can't paddle upriver." Grollo reminded him.

"Watch me! Between paddlin' up a waterfall an' meetin' a badger, I'll take the waterfall!" The weasel was panicking now, his fur on end, his eyes wide and darting- as if teriffied a badger might suddenly pop out of the river.

"Sharpfur stop!"

"No!"

"Listen!"

"Yer not the boss of me!"

"Guys? I don't think we're on a river anymore." The hedgehog drew their attention to the shore, and the waves now bobbing them away from the sun- that meant west at this hour.

"Oh no no no no! This is horrible." Sharpfur turned around to try and find the river- but could not spot it with the sun glaring down at him... like a hungry badger. The weasel shrunk. "What're we goin' to do?"

"Well that's a pretty simple question to answer." Grollo stood up- shaking the whole boat but not capsizing it, and hopped off. Plump as he was, water was splashed everywhere, and Sharpfur was left wiping his glasses. The hedgehog was the tallest of the three, but still the water reached up to his chest.

"If ye think I'm gonna do that then yer dumber than ye look! I can't swim remember?"

"I never said you had to jump off of anything." Placing a paw on the side of the boat, the hedgehog guided it closer to the shore. Very little pulling was required and the tide was low so he did not have to walk much.

"So we're on the beach." Sharpfur squeaked, narrowly avoiding the water as he jumped off the boat- which now began to drift away. "Now what?"

Hawthorn chewed her lip. The weasel was not going to like this, but she couldn't see any alternative. "We find Salamandastron."

"No! No! No! No! I already told ye, no!"

"But Sharpfu-"

The weasel pointed in a random direction- he wasn't sure where Salamandastron was exactly. "That mountain exists purely to kill beasts like me! No way in Hellgates am I setting footpaw inside!"

"Alright." Grollo raised a paw to stop Hawthorn from replying. "Here's what we do. We go to Salamandastron-"

"What part of my sen-tense did ye not understand!?"

"We go to Salamandastron and we ask for directions, maybe some supplies too and then we go straight to Redwall. No pit stops. We're not staying anywhere and if we're lucky we won't even have to deal with the Badgerlord." This was in all likelihood a very unlikely outcome. Grownups rarely let children off on their own- let alone in the company of a weasel- and the Long Patrol was definitely going to insist on an escort of some sort. But Sharpfur didn't need to know that yet. Besides, if the walk was long- which in all likelihood it was- then there was every possibility into coaxing the weasel into a small break- a bit of a lie-in, a bite to eat and the like.

"And supposin' the hares were to- whatsit- arst me?"

"Arst?" Asked Hawthorn.

"It means te hold ye for crimes."

"Arrest." The vole corrected. "And what crimes? We didn't do anything wrong."

"I'm a weasel." Sharpfur pointed out. The furs along his back rising and falling at every moment.

"That's not a crime."

"I know it ain't! Bu-but I- I kidnapped you-"

"And saved us from cannibals." Grollo reminded him. The hedgehog set off at a slow pace. "If you hadn't picked the lock I'd have been made into soup."

"And you didn't hurt us either." Hawthorn too, began to walk down the beach. "Besides, weren't you planning to ransom us here anyways?"

Sharpfur scowled, loathing the pair for their cleverness. He glanced half-heartedly in the opposite direction, but knew that alone he stood no chance. He was in a desert, there was no food or fresh water for miles out. He couldn't swim and had never been good at fishing. With a sigh of resignation that was closer to a growl of annoyance, the weasel followed after his companions. The mouse had called him their friend. And he supposed that was true. But Vulpuz… what had he done to deserve friends like these?