The morning was relatively peaceful, despite the chaotic events that took place earlier. The sun shone bright and the birds sang beautifully as Redwallers entered the Great Hall for breakfast. Nobeast grabbed any of the wonderful smelling food yet for Abbot Nill said he had an announcement. Everybeast was quite curious on what the Abbot had to say so early, except those who where there to witness the events.

Mariah, being one of those curious beast, entered entered Great Hall alertly. She saw that the seat next to Gred was empty. Ignoring her mother asking her to sit with her family, she sit down right next to Gred. Soma was seated to his right and Hoff sat down next to Mariah. Not that she noticed him. She was looking at the empty space on Gred's habit where his badge normally was.

"Gred where is you're badge?" she asked.

Before Gred could answer Abbot Nill called out, "Redwallers, I have distressing news. Begon has stolen Gred's gold badge and run away from the abbey in search of the missing sword of Martin the Warrior."

Mariah was quick to shout, "The fiend! The villain! He was always a strange one, staying outside the main building!"

"And if it were up to me, he would never be let back in!" Gred said, "There is no place in Redwall for thieves!"

There were whispers of agreement from almost eveybeast, and but before the Abbot could say anything Hoff yelled, "Shud up everybeas'!"

The intensity in which he said it caused everybeast to go silent.

Hoff continued, "I'm not sayin' what Begon did was right, but no beast don't ever corrects Gred when he don did wrong. He went 'n' prodded Begon during the games, caused him to lose his temper. Gred shoulda been disqualified. And on top that when he was braggin' and all nobeast corrected him! And Mariah, you are s'busy tryin' to get Gred's attention, that you don't even notice Begon got feelings for you!"

"I'm not interested in him! He has always been a weirdo." Mariah said ignoring the Abbot's glare. "I'm surprised that he and Gred are the same species! Gred is a million times the mouse that Begon could ever hope to be!"

For the first time ever Gred flashed her a smile. He didn't really care for Mariah, but if he could make Begon feel even worse when he returned home by having the girl Begon loved as his girlfriend, what better salt for his already wounded pride? Begon deserves it, after all. Stealing and being all-round pathetic, Begon definitely deserves it.

Soma, as if reading Gred's thoughts, said, "I don't know why Hoff and I keep company with you! If you were half the mouse everybeast thinks you are, you would go looking for him!"

"Not a chance," Gred scoffed

"And Abbot Nill, you still are not correcting Gred!" without awaiting the Abbot's reply, Soma heads for the door of the Great Hall and grabs his quiver and bow saying, "I'm going to look for Begon. Anybeast who wants to can join me can."

As he starts to leave there is a sound of somebeast leaving the table. The otter smiles as he sees Hoff coming to join him. As they start heading for the door, Gred followed only to see if they were serious, and Mariah because she want to show how devoted she was to Gred.

It was indeed true, Hoff and Soma where trailing off to go find Begon, their figures getting smaller and smaller as they traveled further from Redwall.


A/N: I've taken a little break from this story, but now I should be getting back to the usual schedule. Redwalllover is pretty much a co author to this story now. But that's great, I could never come up with such interesting ideas and plots myself.