Matt looked from one creature to another in the room, searching for some unspoken answer. Finding none, he spoke, realizing his mouth had been open slightly. "You're kidding, right?"
Hali almost looked confused. Matt laughed out loud and said, "Haha! I mean, come on. Me? The One? I couldn't even lead my high school science project. You expect me to believe I'm supposed to be some…some – oh, I don't even know the word for it!"
"We don't expect you," Hali said, the initial surprise she, Charlie and Lucy had experienced wearing off. "Martin does. And just look at the facts! You're the professor; you tell me the definition of 'precursor'."
"'One that precedes and indicates, suggests, or announces someone or something to come'," Matt recited, his stomach feeling rather unsettled. "But what does that matter?"
"Oh, come on," Charlie said impatiently. "You're the one who found the a-cursed thing! What in your mind would lead you to think you wouldn't be going? That would be totally analytical!"
Lucy's encouraging gaze turned from Matt to Charlie, transforming into a bemuddled, nose-wrinkled glare at Charlie's ill-placed word choice. Matt was still dealing with the sudden narcosis the revelation of the prophecy had put him in, so he did not notice. He nodded slowly and reluctantly. He suddenly remembered something from his dream. "Not 'one', she ment 'One'," he muttered to himself. Charlie gave him a confused look, but Matt payed no heed.
"All right," he said, looking squarley at his three companions. "I'm all in for it."
Lucy and Hali both looked relieved that the sudden rememberance and comprehension of his dream gave him firm conviction that it was the correct choice to be making. Charlie was about to voice something, a confused expression still on his features, but Hali shushed him swiftly.
"You'll see in the end what good you are doing, Matt," she said convincingly. Somebeast knocked at her front door. She stood, walking over to answer it as she continued, "There's a lot more to come, but time always – "
She cut off sharply and slammed the door shut, pressing her back up against it and bracing her paws against the frame as through to prevent somebeast from entering. She looked horrified. As Charlie and Lucy stood in alarm, she darted forward as though she were going to attempt to make it down the hallway behind Matt. But, when another – louder – knock sounded on the door, she decided she wouldn't make it and swerved to her direct right through the swinging kitchen door, hissing, "I don't live here!" Curiosity replacing apprehension when a third booming knock, followed by a male voice that called through, "Hali, open the door!", Charlie walked forward, granting the request.
A fox stood on the other side of the threshold. His red fur was a few shades darker than Hali's, and his front paws, (one of them currently poised in the air to pound on the door again,) were black instead of white. His slender muzzle, chin and bib area trimmed with snowy fur, was set into a frown that deepened when he saw the creature that followed through his command. Rolling his honey coloured eyes heavenwards, he called into the house, "Hali! Quit playing around and come out here!"
Dawning came upon Charlie. "I take it you're Todd?" he asked the fox politley, stepping to the side and allowing him entrence to the house. Todd nodded, needing to stoop slightly to avoid the top of the doorframe as he took Charlie's invitation. "I take it you are Charlie?"
Charlie grinned roguishly and said proudly, "Yup. Although, I'm not sure what you've heard about me, so forget all of it except for the remarkable bits, because those are true."
Matt had deducted that Todd was from Hali's country from the very light accent there was through his dominant Yankee tounge. By the curiously uniformish-looking green tunic and leather belt he had on, Matt would have guessed he was some creature in Hali's guard in her origional country. Todd, however, was in no mood for lengthy introductions.
"Where's she at?" he asked Charlie, frowning again. Charlie, apparently finding Todd's American roots as kindred spirit material, unabashedly jerked a thumb in the direction of the kitchen and said, "In there. Just hope she hasn't made it through the attic and onto the roof."
Todd had taken three lengthy strides to the door and was about to go through it when Hali herself came out, surveying Todd with great dislike. When she walked forward, Todd took several aprehensive steps backwards, holding his paws up in defence. Turning her peircing stare onto Charlie, Hali snapped, "Thanks a lot."
Charlie shrugged and said, "You're welcome."
Glaring at Todd once again, Hali asked, "What do you want?"
Standing up to his full height and trying to move past the fact he had practically been cowering under her gaze, he said, "It's not what I want; it's what your father wants."
"Oh, is it, now?" Hali practically shouted, turning on her bare pawfoot and pacing several steps away from Todd before rounding on him again, charm braclets jingling as she waved her paws in the air. "And what does the all- knowing fool want now, eh?"
Todd matched her stare, determindly not rising to her firey temper. "To know where you are. Hali, you haven't contacted anybeast for almost four seasons, now!"
"Best four seasons of my life."
"Things have gotten to the point of chaos back home."
"Obviously they have," Hali sneered. "If they've sent you!" She gave Todd a swift poke in the sternum. He winced, but continued anways.
"If you had bothered to care," he said, as much displeasure working into his own voice as Hali had thrown about in hers. "You would have learned I've been placed Captain over the Palace Guard, and that position required me to be the one that tracked you down."
Hali looked mildly impressed. "Well, you've come upon the problem: I don't care. Now, you can just clear off!"
Todd shook his head and sighed, giving her a crooked smile despite the grave tone he had been delivering his speech with. "I know you don't feel that way, Hali. Come on, I've known you since we were, what, 7?"
"Yes," she snapped, still not about to be consoled. "And I could beat you up then, I can do it now, no problem. I'm giving you the count of two to get out…"
Todd sighed again and said, "We didn't come for –"
"'We'?" Hali interjected, putting her paws on her hips and taking another step towards him, tilting her head back sharply to glower up at him, as he stood a head taller than she. "What harebrained idiot would go tracking with you?"
Matt, feeling thoroughly confused and much like a tennis match spectator from looking back and forth between the vixen and fox as they threw words, jerked his head up as a lean, light-chestnut brown otter popped through the door crying in a thick American accent, "To whom does this car belong to?" He was pointing a paw out the door towards Charlie's Pontiac. The mouse answered proudly, "Mine."
The otter whistled admiringly, jealousy clouding his handsome features quite comically. Hali, miraculously, grinned brightly and addressed the otter happily, "Ben, you brainless fool, how are you!"
Ben smiled and entered the house fully, also stooping to avoid a collision. He glided over to her and scooped her up in an enormous bearhug, spinning her around in circles as he said, "A bit worse for the wear, but I'm not dead yet!"
Charlie waited calmly with his paws clasped in front of him as, laughing girlishly, Hali was set down and began talking to Ben in dialect too rapid to understand or identify. "That's ok!" Charlie said loudly. "I'm sure we'll figure out who you are in time, don't you worry your pretty head over intros, Hal."
"Oh, hush up," Hali said. However, she was still wreathed in smiles and had one paw firmly clasped around Ben's waist, the other thrown over Todd's shoulder, Todd – apparently – having been forgiven for some unknown crime. She continued, "Todd's mother was an old friend to my mother; they went to school together. When my mum died when I was seven seasons and Denis was six, my father brought Deema, her husband John, and Todd over to the palace so Deema could nanny and school us. We hadn't known they hadn't just taken Ben in as well, so it was a bit of a surprise. Two hits in one blow!" She directed to last comment to the two creatures she was holding on to like death, shoving them both away playfully. Ben shoved her back, saying, "Oh, there's gratitude for you… do you know how this heartless beast greeted us?"
Matt, of course, was still having a hard time keeping up with the newly-introduced dueo and hadn't the foggiest idea as to what Hali might have concidered acceptable hospitality when first meeting them. Ben was not one with great patience, though, and continued anyways. "She tried to shoot us, that's what she did! Deema, bless her heart, told us to go out and play, it was alright, she was just getting settled in, it would be ok, try and find the princess, if you can, she's gone missing again…hah! We found Denis alright enough; he had the flu and was in the palace library. He told us where Hali had gone off to. Y'know, I new from the first moment I met that cheeky little whelp that he was trouble! He sent us right into a trap, the maggot. Should have suspected that…smirk he was giving us when he told us where Hal was… bless his memory, though...
"Anyways…where was I? Ah, yes, Hali tried to impale us with the bow of hers! We hadn't been walking in those woods for no more than five minutes when an arrow came out of nowhere!" Hali snorted, frowning at the pair once again.
"You lot were making enough racket to wake the dead. I'd been following you ever since you had left the palace." This was new news to Ben; he looked at Hali incrediously before going on with his monolouge.
"She popped out of a tree somewhere and came up to us, and, do you know what she said? 'You almost got in the way of my arrow, you twats,' that's what she said. Todd and I must have said something after that to offend her after that, (though I can't imagine us doing something like that,) because we near about scared Deema to death when we came back sporting black eyes and bloody noses…" Hali inturrupted his grand finish.
"They called me a 'girl'," she sniffed, obviously still offended at even the memory. "in a bad way." Todd smirked again, turning to hid it from Hali's veiw.
"Ah yes," he said, "I remember now: I do believe I commented on your bad aim later on, though, when I knew you were overhearing us…got a rather bad affect from it…" Charlie thought the whole thing to be hillarious and fell about laughing. Lucy had retaken her seat and was processing the information in stolic silence. Matt, however, glad to a last be following what anybeast was saying, asked Hali, "You said 'as well'…" Todd answered for her.
"I'm adopted. Deema and Johnny were foster parents at first, but they eventually just ended up adopting. I was the youngest at the time; there were six others ahead of me, but they were all grown, some of them gone." Charlie whistled admiringly.
"I can't imagine that," he said. "Well, I lied – yes I can. My parents had…I think 14 was the last head count I got, but I was the oldest, the next one down six seasons below me, so I only got the light fore-blow of it all."
Todd and Ben looked horrified, but Matt and Lucy were chuckling. "I can't imagine 13 more of you around the house," the mousemaid said, her tone only partially implying it as a joke.
"From what I've heard," Todd said, "Charlie's about as bad as Hali! The both of them, dragging themselves all across the globe doing seasons know what…" Lucy shuddered.
"I've known Charlie for more seasons than I care to recolect," she said. "Even when he was working in the Foreign's department, we'd hear about him all the way on our floor: gone off toPortugal after some suspect, Australia to look in on a tip, Andorra to get themselves permanently expelled – "
"Hey, you know that wasn't my stinkin' fault!"
" – Hali wasn't even working with the SIS, but Charlie had known her long before and trusted her enough to take her along. Apparently, they had been travling beforehand just for the joy of it all out of Hali's allowence; pretty substantial allowence, I might add."
Hali sniffed airily. "If I was to be kept from my own home, I was going to enjoy myself." Ben looked around, his sable eyes lingering humorously around the various oddities of Hali's collectables.
"I see you've done so," he said strainedly, laughter not far from emerging.
"Yes…" Todd agreed, looking at her oddly. Suddenly realizing something, he tapped the side of her nose where the silver stud was imbedded in its piercing. "When did this happen?"
"Spain," she said nonchalantly, giving a vindictivly satisfied smirk. Both Todd and Ben had a hard time keeping from smiling. Hali tugged at the otter's ear, which supported its own small, golden ring.
"You have no room to make sport, Mr. Smarty-pants," she said, sticking her tounge out at him childishly. He stuck out his tounge as well. Todd poked them both in the stomachs to make them stop and said, "I see we've inturrupted something…" he nodded his head at the paper covering the floor. Hali nodded and bit her lip.
"This could change things..." she muttered, more to herself than anybeast else. "For the better, maybe, but it didn't...of course, that never means it couldn't..."
"Did she do this at home as well?" Charlie whispered loudly to Ben. The otter nodded grimly.
"Denis was the only creature who could understand her," he said. "But just wait; pretty soon you'll get to the stage where you can pick out small bits..."
"Oh, you shoosh," she told the otter, bustling over to her papers and sorting through the. She said distractedly, "Charlie, could you take them to the library?"
"My pleasure," he said, bowing and leading them down the hallway Hali had concidered escaping down some time ago. "I shall show you the way and lead you right, my good comrads..."
"In that case," Lucy interjected, walking ahead of Matt to follow Charlie closely, "I'll come along;I want to see that."
Ben, Todd, and Matt sniggered under their breath as they asended the staircase that was at the end of thesmall corridor and turned out of sight to the upper level, which hosted another short hall sporting two doors on the left, another on the right, and one at the very end. Charlie was headed towards the last one, still bickering with Lucy good-naturedly. there was a short pause as they waited for the mouse to open the "retarded door" and the "freaking key" was nowhere to be found. However, with the help of a hairpin from Lucy, Charlie soon unlocked the imposing problem and swung it open. Todd and Ben bounded in, thumping him on the back and soundly congratulating him on his triumph over the piece of wood. He grumped to Matt, "I can see why Hali has such a grudge against those two…"
Matt stared around the room in revered awe. The wallspace that was not lined with high, walnut bookshelves was a deep red that greatly complimented the plush cherry-wood suede-covered armchairs that were placed sporadically around the room, gracing macthing ottomans and deep, almost black cherry side-tables. The back wall boasted a mahogany matalpiece over a tall-standing fireplace, stationed in front of which and off to the left sat a black, baby-grand piano and a violin on standing holder. There were as many books in the room as in any public library Matt had ever been into. He felt a thrill of exciment run through him; such boundless knowledge at his very fingertips!
"Psh! Just like Hali…" Ben said. "Always has to out-do herself." His mutterings, however, did not stop him from scurrying over to the piano and sitting – almost worshipfully – on the padded bench and plink out a few chords of Motzart. Charlie had walked in and had lowered himself partially into a chair before leaping up with a yelp. He glanced down at the seat and said very apologetically, "I'm terribly sorry, Howard. I didn't see you there."
Howard, as it turned out, was a shiny red lady-bug. As he looked up at them regally from his chair, (into which Charlie had almost squashed him,) Matt couldn't help but think the insect looked farther from a 'Howard' than anything he had ever seen. Perhaps a 'Nelly' or a 'Terfil', but 'Howard'? Unmoved by his name, however, Howard nestled back into the deep folds of the maroon suede. Charlie patted him fondly on the head and ambled off to find a different seat as Hali walked briskly in, shutting the door behind her with a footpaw. Walking over to another seat, she politly said, "I'm sorry, Gregory, but you are going to have to move."
Gregory, a small orange newt, slowly climbed onto the arm of his chair and then lept onto the back, surveying Matt with the same air of superiority as Howard had regarded him, making the mouse feel ridiculously insignificant. Hali didn't seem to take note of the oddities of her pets; she dumped her armload into the newly-vacated seat and, for the benefit of the newly-joined numbers of their party, launched into an account of the past 24 hours.
It was then that Matt thought about the position he faced in the affair. It was all a very confusing web and far more than the last thing on earth he would have expected to happen to him. He had been taking it with as much of a smile as he could muster, but for some reason, hearing Hali explain it all over again for the benefit of Todd and Ben, he felt the pit of his stomach sinking lower and lower. His beautiful schedual, his woderful routine…such luxuries he had never stopped to be grateful for, and now he felt as though he would never see them again. Within the span of a day, his simple life had been ripped to absolute shreds. Never before had the unknown seemed so daunting.
Hearing his name spoken jerked Matt out of his private remorsings. Todd was pacing the length of the room. "So," he said slowly, coming to a stop as Hali did, leaning against a ladder that was propped up against a shelf of books and maps. "What do you want us to do?" Hali smiled sweetly enough at him, but her eyes betrayed a vindictive and mischievious glint.
"Why, isn't that obvious, oh Captain of the Guard?" she practically sang. "If you are to 'protect' me, that would mean you will be joining us on one trip to Redwall…"
Todd wrinkled his nose at her unhappily and collapsed in Ben's chair, the otter having bounded up joyfully. "Sweet! Talk about timing, too. I almost didn't come with Todd; can you imagine if I hadn't? An opportunity to go to The Redwall! You've got to admit, that's pretty cool." Matt was beginning to see a pattern in the personality traits of the creatures Hali associated herself with.
Lucy, whohad coaxed Howard to sit on her lap and had taken his chair,spoke up, "We need to know if you are willing to help us. Heavens know we are going to need it."
Ben immeadiatly assured him his loyalty is to that of his friends. Todd looked reluctant, but after Ben's comment, he glanced over at Hali before nodding. The vixen turned to Matt and asked, "When do we leave?"
The mouse stroked Gregory's head absently, surprised atnot realizing the newt had left his post and jumped into his lap. "Immeadiatly."
A/N: No reviews for the last update? Bah! You don't deserve this chapter. It is only out of sheer bordom and my want to write that you have been allowed such privileges.
And, for those who were wondering, I've based the character of Hali loosley upon the origional. Yes, that's right: I have actually met an African princess with a nose ring. Neat, huh? However, such things as her past history are made up by yours truly. Howard isn't mine either; Howard is actually the name of the gnome that lives under my bed. (He asked me very politly if I would mention this to you. He sends his love to my reviewers, but it is wasted, as I appear to have none. Bleh.) Gregory I have not had the pleasure of meeting; Howard tells me marvolous tales of him, though, and he sounds like a very plesant newt, and I have high hopes of having the honor of introduction some day.
