Chapter 10: Dinner and an Expy

Charlemagne's mess hall was clearly designed to host many more beasts than currently occupied it. The massive hall was far larger than even the legendary Great Hall of Redwall (at least, as far as Welking knew), and was lined with tables in neat rows. Abzel had settled into a table in the nearer far corner of the rectangular room, next to a small countertop. She was already tearing into what appeared to be meat jerky of some sort.

Welking seated himself across the table from her, while Seamus slipped behind the counter and began preparing something. He seemed to be working on a lowered portion of the counter, behind a small partition, because Welking couldn't actually see his paws. He could, however, hear something grilling, and smell a variety of delectable aromas wafting up from the kitchen behind the counter.

Abzel finished off her piece of jerky. Welking must not have been paying much attention to the tabletop, because the bowl she procured her next piece from didn't register in his memory as having been there before. He shrugged, and reached for a strip himself.

The taste was… hmm. It smelled somewhat like a sour apple, and tasted a bit like it too, but the taste was mixed with a few other fruits as well, and a fair deal of salt, while still containing that distinct flavor of meat. Curiously, the texture was reminiscent of fish jerky, and it came apart rather more easily than other meat jerkies tended to. He popped the rest in his mouth to chew away, picked up another piece, and began rubbing it with his pawfingers. Strange… the jerky didn't seem to have any sauce on it. Perhaps the fruity flavors were marinated in? Well, he could always ask. "Seamus-"

"Water beetle."

Welking paused for a moment. "Um, what?"

Seamus kept his eyes on his work behind the counter. "The jerky is made from water beetle meat."

"Beetles?" He looked down at the strip in his paws, suddenly not nearly as hungry. "You mean like… bugs?"

Abzel took his moment of trepidation to swipe the piece from his paws and pop it in her mouth. "If it's weird, and it's tasty, it's not weird," she mused through a mouthful of stolen beetle jerky.

"Well said," Seamus commented, picking up a cutting board and scraping the contents into a pot that appeared to be simmering on an obscured fire. "That particular species of giant water beetle is locally cultivated for meat around the plateau. Charlemagne prefers to keep options on paw for those beasts with a biological predisposition for a carnivorous diet, and birds are a bit too high-maintenance."

"Oh. Thoughtful." Welking decided to forego his apprehension and have another strip.

"Indeed. Certain species of mammals, reptiles, and raptors are simply unable to digest vegetation for nutrients. Better to give them something to eat that won't mark them as cannibals, than to force them to go hungry for sake of their biology."

Welking chewed silently for a moment. "So, the taste…"

"That is their natural flavor." Seamus ladled the contents of the pot into five bowls, four of which were set behind the counter next to the pot. The fifth was set aside on a tray outside the kitchen; shortly, it was joined by a small arrangement of fruit slices. Then, Seamus opened up a panel on the wall, slid in the tray, and performed some action that was obscured by his back. After a little while, he closed the panel and stepped away; Welking's keen eye noticed, in the fraction of a second that the compartment was unobscured, that the tray had vanished.

It's amazing what an empty mind does for your perception.

Seamus returned to the kitchen, set a few more things next to the bowls, and then picked up the previously obscured tray that the food was set upon. This tray was much larger than the one that had disappeared into the wall compartment, and in fact seemed to be holding four of those same trays atop it. Seamus carried over the serving tray to the table, set out the four smaller trays, and sat down next to Abzel.

Welking picked up the silverware on the tray, then stopped to count. "Uh, Seamus, who was the tray in the wall for?"

Seamus put down the apple slice he was about to put in his mouth. "Charlemagne is currently working on a vital project, and cannot accompany us for dinner, so I sent his meal down to him."

"Oh." Welking looked at the untouched setting beside him. "So then…"

"Our final guest will be along shortly." Seamus took a moment to finally consume the apple slice he had been holding off on. "In fact," he said after he had swallowed, "I do believe she is already with us." He looked over at the door, and Welking followed his gaze. "They are your father's guests, Katrina," Seamus explained to the empty doorway.

A few seconds passed, then a foxmaid emerged from around the corner. She was dressed in a curiously colored outfit, a well planned mixture of secretive blacks and vibrant purple and turquoise. Her face was hidden by a wide-brimmed hat adorned with two feathers in the same radiant colors that accented the rest of her outfit.

Despite her flamboyantly colored getup, she had the demeanor of someone who didn't socialize well. She kept her head low, obscuring her eyes under the brim of her hat. Her posture was that of a beast trying to make itself smaller; she hunched her shoulders and kept her arms at her sides. The silence in the room began to grow in magnitude, kept at bay only by the faint clicking of her footpaws-

Of her… um…

Welking averted his gaze as nonchalantly as he could manage; it was rude to stare at disabled beasts. Instead, he focused on fighting the silence, by slurping at his stew as loudly and obnoxiously as he could. A quick glance told him that it was working; or, at the very least, she didn't seem to be shrinking any more than before.

She sat down next to him and silently tucked into her food. Although she didn't seem any more depressed, she was still clearly feeling awkward about socializing. The silence was starting to affect the mood of the room; even Abzel had slowed down considerably in her voracious consumption. Oh well, desperate times called for desperate measures.

After a little while, Katrina realized that the stoat next to her had gone silent. She looked over at him, mildly alarmed, only to find him staring at her with a blank, wide-eyed expression. To-literally-top off the ridiculous look, his bowl of stew was now balancing perfectly on top of his head. She broke into a giggling fit, then looked back at him with a much brighter countenance. He smiled back at her, relieved to see her finally appear happy.

With that, the tension in the room dissolved. Abzel picked up speed again, shoveling her food partly into her mouth and partly into her vittles sack. Seamus took a few bites as well, then commented, "I see you're enjoying your father's sewing kits. Did you make that hat yourself?"

"No," Katrina replied between mouthfuls of stew, "I found it in one of the storerooms."

"Ah yes, I do recall the master's hat phase. Did the feathers come with it?"

"No, I dyed those myself. I couldn't find any accents to match the color scheme I had going..."

Welking began to drift off in thought. Seamus had started a topic Katrina was clearly interested in, and she cheered up considerably after that. That was good; she needed a bit of cheer. Or, she looked like she needed it. You could never tell with some beasts. Sometimes they were stronger than they looked.

Welking stopped, and wondered how he could possibly have known that. His confusion was brought to a halt, though, when he realized that the conversation was angling towards involving him.

"...suppose it could be covered up with a bit of lace." Seamus turned to Welking. "What do you think, Welking?"

"Um." Hellgates, Welking, is that all you can say? He cleared his throat and gave it another effort. "It reminds me of a corsair outfit. Just, like, add an eyepatch, a few gold earrings, and…" He trailed off, unsure how to finish the sentence but confident that the thought had been conveyed well enough.

Seamus wiped off his mouth with his napkin. "Her father has forbidden her from getting piercings until she has reached twenty seasons."

Welking started taking large spoonfuls of stew to wash out the taste of footpaw in his mouth, and fervently wished he were back in the pile on the beach.

Abzel, oblivious to the mental chaos around her, chose that moment to speak up. "How are you doing with your kata?"

Katrina stopped eating, or at least slowed dramatically. "Great… but how did you know I was doing kata?"

"Your pawwraps look like the training wraps I used back in the Tassa Province, before I signed on with the crew." She took another spoon of stew, blind to the astonished expression on Katrina's face. "Isn't it, like, traditional to take those off when you're not fighting?"

Katrina shot a bewildered look at Seamus, who just nodded. That calmed her down a bit, and she reached down to undo the pawwraps.

Welking saw the glint of metal, and began watching with a keen interest. The thick pawwraps gradually came off to reveal a pair of metal paws. For a moment, he tried to convince himself that they were just gauntlets, but they were riddled through with hollow points, and no fur showed underneath. He looked away, determined not to be rude if he could manage it.

Abzel, as usual, was far less tactful. "Whoa, peglegs and metal paws!" Everyone turned to look at her; Katrina with a mildly ashamed expression, Welking with a stern glare, and Seamus with a blank face. This had no effect on her, as she continued with, "Where did you get them?"

Seamus set down his utensils. "That question touches on quite a loaded subject, Abzel."

"Oh. Sorry." Thankfully, even Abzel wasn't so socially clueless as to ask after that.

"No matter. You were bound to learn at some point; might as well get it out of the way."

"When Master Charlemagne first found Katrina, she was grievously injured, and on the brink of death. He managed to coax her back, but her limbs were unsalvageable and had to be amputated. Charlemagne was too invested to let such an impediment stop her from living a full life, and immediately set to work fashioning a full set of prosthetic replacements for her missing limbs. As he has explained them to me, they connect directly to the severed nerves in her amputation sites, converting electrical impulses from those nerves into input for the mechanics in the artificial limbs."

Welking contemplated that for a moment. "So she was adopted?"

"That is correct."

"So Charlemagne might not be a fox?"

"It is a distinct possibility."

"So then what is he?"

"If Charlemagne has chosen not to reveal himself yet, then I must trust his judgement in that. He has always advocated letting actions speak for a beast, rather than appearances."

"Ah." Welking started silently thinking again. "Abzel… how old are you?"

"Wrbf?" Abzel gave a slight start at the question, mouth still full of food.

"You said you trained in kata in the Tassa Province before you joined the crew. That would mean you learned Shuan-Ge. Doesn't that take seasons to master?"

"How do you even know that? You were hit in the head by the ground!"

"Look, I don't know, okay! Argh!" Welking grabbed his head and groaned in frustration. "I remember all these pointless facts, but I didn't even know my own name before you told me!"

"Well, you're wrong, in any case. Shuan-Ge isn't that hard to master, if you get a good teacher. Learned from somerat in Tassa Province for about eight seasons; reached eighth-level kata in unarmed, eighth-level in form weapons, and fifth-level in special weapons."

Seamus looked up with the most surprised expression his face could muster (that is to say, eyes that looked slightly more awake than normal). "My, now that is impressive. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the standard kata scale caps at tenth level?"

"That's right!"

"Well then." Seamus stood up and started clearing dishes from the table. "If you don't mind, I do believe I've found our upcoming itinerary. Master Charlemagne will be hosting a ceremony for the dead of the Yalza Flitchaye in a little over a week. As long as you're not opposed, you could offer a Shuan-Ge demonstration for Katrina's sake some time between now and then."

He reached for Welking's tray, but halted when the stoat stabbed his fork downward to block his paw. "Hold on," said Welking. "Something's not adding up here. You said Katrina's prosthetics were mechanical? But they're too compact for anything strong enough, and I've never even heard of 'nerve signals', or whatever you called them."

"Yeah," Abzel said, "and what about all the flameless lights? And what are these tables even made of?" She knocked on the textured white surface, producing a thin, hollow tapping sound unlike any wood or metal. "And how does someone who nearly lives alone even afford to make a front door that big, let alone the size of the fortress inside?"

"And why did Charlemagne sound so much heavier than a badger in a suit of armor should? Every step he took shook the ground."

The narrator would like to amend the previous comment about Seamus's most surprised expression possible, as the expression he was currently showing was far more shocked than even that. He looked back and forth between the two, then sighed and slumped back into his chair. "Charlemagne was right about not taking beasts at face value. You two are far more observant than you let on."

They both muttered excuses; "Comes with the age," "Got a lot of room," "You know how it is."

"Well, I suppose everything will come to light eventually. First of all, to head off any more asking, no, I will not be revealing Master Charlemagne's species; if for no other reason, because you'll no doubt find out on your own eventually anyway. That being said, you do deserve an explanation for the rest.

"Welking, do you recall what I told you when we entered the dining hall? You are an Aspect, a beast split between life and death. You are functionally immortal, and were you ever to die, you would be reincarnated. I will trust Master Charlemagne to fill you in on the details of that, but it is besides the point.

"Now, each Aspect has a unique ability, a domain of power that they represent. Were I to hazard a guess I would say that, based on your ability to recover from grievous injuries in seconds, and return from death itself in a mere few days, you may be the Aspect of Growth, or somesuch. You possess the ability to accelerate your own growth and recovery, and possibly that of other beasts.

"But I digress. Master Charlemagne is an Aspect as well as you are, and his domain-would either of you care to guess?"

"Metal! Light glowy thingies! Uhh, bugs!" Abzel immediately began spouting a wave of nonsense suggestions, each one quickly shot down by Seamus with a shake of his head.

Welking rested his head on a paw and considered the question more carefully. Then he raised his paw. "Mechanics?"

Seamus made a motion somewhere between nodding and shaking his head. "No, but close. Think wider."

"Technology?"

"Correct. Master Charlemagne presides over the domain of technology and innovation. With but a glance, he knows the inner workings of any machine. He can assemble from scratch what most beasts would require years to build even the equipment to produce. His mind is a library of intricate blueprints and complex calculations. He has mapped out the far reaches of the stars, the intricate systems of the body, and the most basic building blocks of creation, all in the pursuit of advancement."

"Woah!" Abzel shouted. Then she leaned in closer and whispered quite audibly, "Can he move stuff with his mind?"

"Yes, though in the thirty seasons I have lived here, I have observed him doing that only twice, to demonstrate to me and Katrina, respectively. It is not something that he is proud of; he considers assembling with his mind to be 'the easy way,' a route beyond the reach of ordinary beasts. He prefers to work with his paws and the tools he has created, and leave miracles to the gods."

"But, by the same logic, wouldn't his perfect capacity for schematics be 'the easy way'?" Welking pointed out.

"Indeed, but those schematics can be written down and shared; his technopathy cannot. He desires a situation wherein he is, near as makes no difference, the equal of his peers."

"Hence the secrecy about his species?" Welking asked pointedly.

"Exactly."

A pounding of metal sounded from the hallway, then Charlemagne's helmeted head peered into the room. "Welking, do you have a moment?"

Welking looked at Seamus, then back at Charlemagne. "I guess. What do you need?"

ZOMG rushed ending! But seriously, I wanted this next scene to happen at some point, and didn't have a clear picture of the ending to this conversation, so I opted to cut it off.

Next chapter will feature Ripfang (if I can figure out how I want the scene to play out) and/or Smack (if I can remember where I left him). Ranga and Mayton are, luckily, going to have a very uneventful journey for the time being.

Finally, I have a request. If you've made it this far, and you aren't completely sick of the concept yet, I would greatly appreciate some review and criticism. If I've missed anything major, or left any inconsistencies or plot holes lying around, I'd love to be able to fix them before they cause major issues. EDIT: Plot holes have caused major issues. Fixed a few grammatical errors and edited for consistency; amazingly, this turned out to be one of the least broken chapters thus far in my editing spree.