Interlude.

The present day.

The night was deep, when all food was eaten, all drinks consumed, flames in the fireplace died down to glowing embers, and the Recorder closed his book.

"I think I've read enough for tonight. I'm not getting any younger, you see, no longer have any energy to stay up from morning to morning."

"Ugh, just when things got interesting!" One of his listeners huffed indignantly.

The Recorder only smiled. "There will be more evenings. "Interesting", hmmm. Back in the days the whole thing was hardly "interesting" to me. If had a cake for every time I wished to be as far from it as possible, I would be the fattest beast this side of the ocean."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Uncle Recorder."

The old beast shrugged. "No need. Those wishes seem foolish to myself, when I look at them from where I am now."

"I wonder," another youngster said, "how do you know about all those things. I mean, it is not like you could question Kunas or Ubel when writing your book!"

"A good question, Tyngert." The Recorder smiled again. "I'll let you ponder it for the time being."

"But that's not fair. How can I know? Not fair, I say!"

The Recorder rolled his eyes. "He tells me about unfairness. Truly, Redwall upbringing turns cubs into spoiled cads!"

Tyngert pouted, but said no more.

"Now go, young rips," the Recorder waved towards the door, "your beds can't wait to see you."

After the five young creatures left, the aged beast too went to his living quarters. The moon was high in the sky behind his window, full and white, and he stopped for half a minute to look at it. How miraculous it was – being able to just enjoy the beauty of the moon, instead of looking at it with calculating eye, and assessing chances to spot or get spotted this night.

How he wanted for these seasons of peace to last forever.

Author's notes: Phew! The Book 1 is done. I was complimented before on fast pace of my story, but looking at the wordcount, I doubt if this praise was deserved. Now this fic is over 53k words – by comparison, an actual Redwall novel is 100-120k, unless Word lies to me. And I don't even waste words on detailed description of foods! Considering that I plan to have three books, I think that I still need to watch my word budget.

I had a general outline of the events pre-planned, but it is interesting to look back and see how much details have changed from my first ideas. Indeed, at least one thing surprised myself, when I realized that it should happen.

And while I'm rambling about random things, here is an animal size comparison chart for the readers, that almost perfectly matches my vision of the Redwall world:

[]fortunatafox . deviantart[]/art/Redwall-Table-of-proportions-2013-401701956 (insert you-know-what-address-attributes in place of []s - this site does not seem to like normal links)

I don't think that Redwallverse can make sense with larger size differences. The only thing I'd imagine differently here is making wildcat and fox switch heights, while keeping the same proportions. In Redwallverse every wildcat remotely interested in fighting ranked as a hardcore opponent, while foxes were treated little, if at all, differently than most vermin mooks.

And if you wonder how big in actual units of measurement I imagine Redwallverse creatures to be, consider badger/wolverine on the chart above to be 3 feet tall. Fish and birds are about their real life sizes.

As a final note, expect another big pause before updating, as I again will be working on a big batch of chapters.