A/N: Abrahem: I think you'll find plot two was the more accurate of the two guesses but well, there are always more than two paths.

Keldor: You know otters, always putting hotroot in things! (They would totally be the type of creature to make hotroot ice cream).

AlexFalTalon: Hmm, I suppose those two really have the monopoly over identical twins, eh?

Sturm and Drang: Sharpfur doesn't necessarily trust them... but he is also past the point of caring. And yes, I know, I know. This is all fluff and filler compared to some of the juicier plotlines. I can only say please be patient and bear with me. On that note this should be the last Salamandastron chapter of the bunch. Next time we should hit up the Pirates for a rather extended period of time.

Glad you liked the chapter anyways.

Waycaster: It is always nice to see things from the other footpaw.

Having agreed to the otters' offer, Sharpfur had followed Angus and Andrew to the beach for his first lesson in hare speech. Grollo and Hawthorn had seen fit to come along as well. Sharpfur wasn't sure why, but didn't much care for that matter. In any case the five of them now found themselves in the shadow of the mountain.

"You had the costume down pat."

"Minus the ears."

"But we can get to that later."

"But something you really need to work on-"

"If you really want to be a woodlander that is-"

"Is the accent."

"The accent is so, so important."

"If you can't talk like a hare-"

"You can't be a hare!"

"Right." Said Sharpfur, his eyes narrowed. Angus and Andrew had lead him to the courtyard to begin their training. Grollo and Hawthorn had tagged along as well, probably because they didn't have anything better to do.

"I really don't see why that has to be the first thing anybeast learns." Hawthorn said with a scowl. "If you want to fit in at Redwall good manners will take you a lot further than an accent will."

"She's right." Grollo nodded in agreement.

The twins gave the pair patronizing shakes of their heads and went on.

"It would be bally prudent, wot wot, if we kick off with a bit of hare talk, eh, ole chap?" Said Angus with a wink.

"We're bally fabulous at the ole rabbit chatter, wot wot!" Andrew added with a grin.

"And it's jolly fantabulous when you've got the hang of it, don'tcha know!" They finished in unison.

Grollo, Sharpfur and Hawthorn were left dumbstruck by the rather unflattering hare impressions, to the point that the otter twins looked a little abashed.

"We use it to sneak into the kitchens, mostly."

"And we've spent lots of time around hares."

"We've sort of mastered it, really."

"But it's not just the accent of course."

"You've got to act like the beast too."

"Hares have got fluffy little tails and long legs so they march stiff-like." One twin recited, while the other demonstrated. Angus or Andrew puffed out their chest and walked with the kind of prissy pridefulness all vermin associated with hares. Hawthorn frowned with distaste but Sharpfur thought it to be a spotless imitation and bobbed his head up and down.

"They're also eating machines."

"But that's harder to replicate."

"Hare stomachs are something else."

"And never doubt a hungry hare."

"I swear I saw the Junior Corporal fit a whole cabbage in his cheeks!"

"Swallowed it whole too."

"He's been round ever since."

"Granted, he was round before that too."

The Junior Corporal, who was busy bossing around a lower-ranking cadet somewhere further down the beach, shot them a sour glance, but did nothing more.

"We can't teach you much about their hearing either."

"They've got very good hearing, hares do."

"Well obviously."

"Ears that long."

"But that doesn't matter now." They declared in unison.

"Right." Said Sharpfur, trying his hardest to commit this all to memory.

The twins were on either side of him now and each placed an elbow on his shoulder. They leaned in conspiratorially. "The one thing anybeast needs to know when acting like a hare."

"Is to end every sentence with a wot."

"And every third sentence with a wot wot."

The two straightened up abruptly, in perfect sync. "Now you try."

"Alright." Sharpfur grumbled, all too aware that the other four were watching him intently. Angus and Andrew were grinning widely, Grollo looked curious, Hawthorn was unamused. The weasel cleared his throat and said in a small voice. "Good mornin' wot."

The otter twins tut-tutted, provoking a growl from the weasel. "Not nearly loud enough." Angus shook his head patronizingly.

"Hares are always the center of attention." Andrew added.

"They're the loudest of beasts."

"Try that again."

Sharpfur flattened his ears and in a slightly higher voice repeated. "Good mornin' wot."

"Grit your teeth less."

"Much less."

"And always remember to pronounce your 'g's."

"Thats the 'ge' sound."

"I know what sound it is!" Sharpfur snapped. Why had he agreed to this?

"Go on then."

"Do it."

"If you can anyways…"

"I told you this was a bad idea." Hawthorn grumbled, her arms crossed over her chest.

"Good. Morning. Wot." Sharpfur growled.

The twins shook their heads in unison. "Now what did we say about gritting your teeth?"

"Here. Let's give you something else to say… how about… the weather."

"Talk about the weather."

"You can always talk about the weather."

The little weasel scowled. "Well it's bloody hot an' I ain't a fan of the sea neither."

"That's a good start!" Angus cried, clapping him on the back.

"It's not bad!" Andrew agreed, doing the same.

"I know it's not bad!" Sharpfur snapped, his fur bristling both from pride and bodily contact.

"But a hare would use 'bally' instead of 'bloody' most of the time."

"That's another thing you need to know."

"Hares don't just talk in a funny way."

"They've got funny words too."

"Bally is a bally fantabulously spiffing example."

"But there are others."

"Like 'fantabulously'."

"And 'spiffing'."

"They usually refer to vittles as 'scoff' by the way."

"And they almost never refer to each other as pals, chums, or mates. They prefer 'chaps' or chappesses."

Sharpfur was sure his brain would explode from all this information. No wonder woodlanders wrote so many books down, if something as simple as the way a beast talked was picked apart as much as this…

"We should probably start small."

"Give you some words to repeat and stuff."

"Until you get the hang of it."

"For goodness sake." Hawthorn rubbed at her forehead. "This is getting ridiculous. Nobeast at Redwall cares about how much you sound like a hare. Grollo! Tell him!"

The hedgehog, stolen from whatever his thoughts had been, nodded in agreement. "We don't really bother all that much about the way beasts talk."

"But ye bother about everythin' else." Sharpfur pointed out. "An' I'm still mad at ye so I'd rather not take any advice from either of yer!" The weasel crossed his paws over his chest and turned his back on the pair.

Angus and Andrew grinned and went on as if there had been no interruption.

"Repeat after us." Said one.

"Bally." Said the other.

"Ball-ee." Sharpfur repeated, narrowing his eyes in concentration.

"Bally wot."

"Ball-ee wot."

Andrew nodded. "You've got the basics down pat, now let's add a few syllables."

Sharpfur gave a grunt of approval.

"Ponderous."

"Pond-air-us."

"Terrific."

"T'rrific."

Angus applauded him and Sharpfur felt his ears straighten up with pride.

"Looks like you're ready for the very difficult words."

"I was born ready." Sharpfur cracked his knuckles, and smirked confidently. "Bring it on."

"Gasconade."

"Gas-con-aide." That was an easy one.

"Brobdingnagian."

"Blob-ding-nag-ee-an." Harder, but still manageable. The old hedgehog had taught him well.

"Discombobulate."

"Disk-comb-bob-you-late." Another easy one!

"Sesquipedalian."

The hardest one so far. "Could ye repeat that?"

"You heard me." The otter twin grinned wide. "Sesquipedalian."

The weasel cleared his throat, no longer as confident as a moment ago. "Says-quip-a-dandelion?"

The twins frowned in unison.

Sharpfur cleared his throat and tried again. "Sea's-kweep-a-dee-lion?"

The otters shared a look.

"Maybe we ought to skip to the next one."

"N-no I can do it!" Sharpfur rubbed at his spectacles. "Sez-kwi-pah-dee-lion."

"It'll do."

"Good work weasel!"

Hawthorn, who had watched the entire exchange with growing annoyance, sat upon the sand and rubbed at her forehead with both paws.

"Alright!" Sharpfur seemed to inflate with confidence. "What's next?"

"Hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobic."

Had he been drinking anything the weasel would have done a spit-take. As it was he settled for stuttering out a "W-what in Hellgates? That ain't a word!"

"Oh but it is." Said Andrew.

"It describes somebeast scared of long words."

"Hares use it to describe their enemies."

Hawthorn made a noise of frustration somewhere behind them.

"Not hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobic, are you?" Andrew asked, his grin as challenging as grins came.

Sharpfur scowled and rubbed at his spectacles. "Course I ain't." He cleared his throat. "Hippo-pot-oh-monstrous-ess-kwi-pah-dee-lion-pho-bik. There! Hippopotohmonstrousesskwipahdeelionphobik!"

Angus laughed uproariously and patted the weasel on the back. "Good job mate! You're starting to sound like a real hare!"

Sharpfur beamed wide and seemed to inflate with pride.

"Now our next word is a very common one used by hares everywhere."

"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious."

Sharpfur's ears flattened themselves against his head. "B-but that's longer than I am-"

"Hares love long things." Andrew nodded wisely.

"Ears, feet, words."

"They have eight seven different words to describe length alone."

Sharpfur's eyes narrowed. "Which one, eight or seven?"

"Sorry." The twins apologized in unison. "Eighty seven."

Sharpfur flinched. "D-did ye really count?"

"Of course we did."

"Granted prolonged and protracted sound fairly similar-"

"And you wouldn't describe the length of ears with the same word as length of time."

"But we did know a hare who measured himself in minutes."

"Okay, okay! Stop, stop! I get yer point!" Sharpfur waved his paws frantically around. Hare talk was starting to sound very difficult... "Hang on. He could've been measurin' himself in tiny. Coz he might have meant my-newt. In which case yer confused an' gettin' mixed up. Tiny doesn't mean long. Alter-native-lie he could have been usin' a newt te measure himself."

The twins glanced at one another. "Errr-"

Sharpfur frowned skeptically. "But that is odd."

"And hares are odd creatures." Angus said, nodding feverishly.

"Unlike anything else in this world."

"No, it seems odd because last time I checked, 'minute' meant 'small', and you were talking about 'long'."

Angus and Andrew shared a look, having not expected their 'student' to already have considerable information.

"Err, did we say minutes? We meant hours!"

"Hours?" Sharpfur repeated.

"Hours."

"Also important to note that length is a measure of how long one is."

"To be length is not to be long."

Sharpfur growled. "This is makin' me head spin."

"Mine too!" Grollo piped up.

"You're right." Angus cleared his throat.

"We're getting sidetracked."

"Back to the lesson. Think you're ready for some common hare phrases?"

Sharpfur nodded.

"Repeat after us." Said one.

The other fainted dramatically and clutched at his stomach. "Aid! Assistance! Breakfast feels like a fortnight ago, wot! Somebeast lend a paw, or better yet a jolly ole crumpet before I starve!"

The twins burst into laughter, Sharpfur sniggered and even Grollo could not suppress a snort. Hawthorn looked on with the same kind of disapproval a parent wore upon catching a dibbun in mischief. She looked remarkably like Victoria.

"Alright weasel." Said one twin, helping the other to his feetpaws.

"Your turn." Said the other with a challenging grin.

Sharpfur cleared his throat and wiped at his spectacles. "Aid! Wot! Ass-is-stance! I'm starvin' wot wot. I er- haven't had any bloo-bally scoff since last wot fortnight wot wot. I needs a scrump-tie-us crumpet before I starve!"

Hawthorn buried her face in her paws to hide an involuntary smirk and Grollo chortled like a mole. Angus and Andrew were bent double with laughter. Sharpfur grinned wide and puffed up with pride. "How's that fur haretalk?"

"Appalling." A large shadow fell over the weasel, who's face fell almost instantly. "For one thing breakfast was less than an hour ago." The Junior Corporal was unamused and scowled down at the assembled children. "For another we don't say 'wot' nearly as much as you do, wot wot."

"Sure ye don't." Sharpfur muttered.

"In any case." The corporal said, straightening his jacket. "You lot are disrupting our drills. We can hear you, you know, wot. And I can proudly say that I have never described my enemies as hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobic-"

"Which explains how ye know te pronounce it properly." Sharpfur muttered again, drawing snickers from the twins.

"Or described anything as supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." The fat hare went on, ignoring the weasel. "And I was measuring the time I spent training, not myself using minutes- er-" He gave his belly a poke and found that it did not wobble as much as usual. "Hours!"

The quintet promptly giggled, which only served to rile up the hare.

"While I can't stop you from… entertaining yourselves… I can politely request that you do not do so in earshot of me." He crossed his paws over his chest. "Please leave."

A short while later, they found themselves atop the walls of the mountain fortress, the better to observe the hares.

"Go on vole, admit that was funny." Angus grinned, gently tugging at Hawthorn's tail.

Grollo smacked the otter's paw out of instinct, the way skilled pastry chefs protected a lovely cupcake from the claws of snacking creatures.

"It was a little funny." The vole admitted, crossing her paws over her chest.

"Glad you were entertained." Said Angus, with a wink.

"Ready for the next lesson Sharpfur?" Asked Andrew, turning to where the little weasel had been. The young vermin was heading back for the beach now, and a quick glance at the shore was all the otter needed to know why. "Well... this should be good."

There were worse punishments, Victoria supposed, than being ordered to spend an afternoon away from the training grounds and with Tibbers and Berty... Greyclaw... It was an excellent way to get to know the... rat. The mousemaid scowled. It was hard to call him Greyclaw. He had neither the sinister look of all vermin, or visible claws of any kind, yet according to him he had been Greyclaw for as long as he could remember.

"I never thought I was a weasel." He went on, nervously twisting his fat pink tail between his paws. "And always knew I wasn't really their babe b-but they loved me." He sniffed and tried to hold back the tears. Genuine tears unless he was an exceptionally talented actor. "And I loved them. It didn't matter what I was. M-ma probably knew I was a mouse come to think of it but she never held that against me. Always let me eat as much as I wanted, let me help her with the dishes an' the cooking and all the other things. And my brothers teased me and my older sister too, but all brothers d-do that. B-but they always said they were sorry afterwards and they did nice things for me."

Had Victoria not known that the creatures Berty was describing were the lowliest of vermin, she'd have pictured an idylic family home. As it was she was left incredibly confused by the acts of kindness... Berty was probably exaggerating it. Or suffering from some kind of brain trauma.

"Sometimes when it got cold in the winter Pa would give me his cloak so I didn't freeze. An' coz it was too big for me he would wrap the end of it round my tail so that it didn't get cold." He sniffed loudly. "I miss my Pa..." Tibbers gently patted the rat's back. Greyclaw went on. "Sharpfur was only a little older than me so we spent a lot of time together. W-we did everything together an' shared everything. Except his dirk. That was his-"

"I let ye use it sometimes though, didn't I?" Sharpfur now stood before the three of them, and swallowed awkwardly. The little weasel removed his spectacles. For the first time in a long time, he was nervous. Not terrified, not frightened, not angry, not joyful... nervous... which meant that this was important.

"What do you want?" Victoria demanded crossly.

"Te talk te Greyclaw." The weasel shot back with just as much force.

Tibbers cleared his throat. "I'll leave this to yew two." He muttered, turning to slink away.

Victoria scowled, but did not think it wise to escalate a conflict now. "See you later Berty. We can talk more when you're done here."

Greyclaw did not seem to notice either of them leave. His eyes were wide and fixed on Sharpfur.

Which made apologizing a hundred times more difficult! Look away fur Hellgate's sake... The weasel cleared his throat and turned his own gaze to the floor. "I'm... sorry. I didn't mean it when I said we weren't brothers. I-I was angry an' I was confused an' an' I was surprised an' I wasn't expectin' ye here. Hellgates, ye know me. I didn't wanna come here! I didn't want te be here an-"

"It's okay." Greyclaw smiled, and tears rolled down his cheeks. The rat spread his arms wide open and pulled his elder brother into a hug. "It's not the first time you hurt my feelings. And it won't be the last. What matters is that I forgive you."

"Yer so sappy Greyclaw!" Sharpfur snapped, fiercely returning the hug. "Always goin' on about feelin's an' yer always so soft an' sensitive an- an cryin'." The weasel took a deep breath to suppress the sappiness beginning to pile up round his eyes. "I missed yew!"

High above the pair, a smile tugged at Lord Umber's muzzle, but it did not stay there long. The badgerlord turned towards the sea. For the time being it was calm, cool and still. A shame things never stay that way.

"You called sah?" Came the grizzled voice of Philip Footwood.

Umber stared into the open ocean a while longer. His eyes drifted off beyond the horizon, transcending time and space. He was a creature built for war and he was good at war... but he'd grown used to the peace. The tranquility. In some ways he felt helpless, nothing more than a child. The flower of peace was being snatched away from him now by larger paws that refused to listen to his pathetic pleas. At last he sighed wearily and turned toward his one-legged steward. "Call the captains. I have foreseen black sails on the horizon." He turned back towards the sea, already a slight breeze was sending ripples through the water. "I fear that something terrible is about to happen."

Footnote: Thus ends the current Salamandastron arc (I know, I know, right when things were getting interested). Now I don't want to be a Debbie Downer or anything but this was the last of my reserved chapters and we'll be moving into the more-or-less unplotted pirates arc next and License To Klis isn't finished yet so... I guess what I'm trying to say is brace yourselves for another semi-long hiatus.

On a more positive note, today is Keldor's birthday. I wouldn't say the chapter was dedicated to him or anything, but the timing was not coinicidental. He's a great friend and a wonderful proofreader (also a very good brainstormer) and deserves all the best birthday cakes. This story for one, would not be as good without his help. Keldor, this ones for you!