"People," (what a word) "do say a lot of things."

"They do, don't they," Jojo says ruefully. "-at any rate, I should bring in these berries, but it was good to meet you, Tigerclaw. Ah - and if you wander through Mossflower Wood today, I'd advise you keep away from the northernmost reaches. There's, erm, a vermin horde approaching, headed east to west, and they'll blow past us by their current heading but we'd rather not tempt fate."

"Thank you, I'll take that under advisement.  Which directions are those?"

"Ah - the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. North is the direction you face when you stand with east at your right paw and west at your left. South is away from north."

"I see.  And which direction did the sun rise from today."

Jojo points away from the gates.

"Thank you.  How many vermin make a horde?"

Jojo hums. "The squirrels are still scouting out the exact numbers, you understand - but, if not in the thousands, several hundred at least. Where the Abbey supports a population of five hundred and some comfortably - though we've allies who don't traditionally live in the structure itself, and when those alliances are called in it does become a bit cramped. As indeed it is now."

Tigerclaw makes sense of very little of that but there's no need for this to be externally apparent.  "It's an impressive camp."

"When called upon for it," Jojo agrees. "Usually it's just... home."

Tigerclaw nods.

"What code do those in Redwall Abbey follow?"

"The most important is not to hurt another without immediate cause - defend yourself as you must, or defend others, but if there's no one who'll be in danger if you don't act now, the dispute's to be settled by a neutral party. No feuding, no fighting, no bullying. The other one that really matters is that we don't take what isn't freely given, but accordingly we shouldn't hoard what we have. The second half of that is a softer rule than the first, but both matter." He scratches the back of his head. "And, you know, based on the history of what's gotten people in trouble there's a thousand little rules about - when to stop singing after lights-out, or what is and isn't acceptable to say at the supper table. But if you tread someone's tail with one of those, it's enough to just apologize and remember not to do it again. The other two are the ones that keep everyone safe."

"Sensible.  I'll come with you, and follow those."

"-oh! Excellent, we'll be glad to have you. Safer together, you know."

Jojo leads the way through the gates, carrying his basket of berries and whistling a little tune.

Well, the whistling, strange as it is, at least gives him a bit of cover for walking as quietly as he's used to.  While he's in no danger of falling prey to his instincts and accidentally hunting this strange, very large, Twoleggish mouse . . . others' perception of him is more in question.  He scuffs a paw or a tail on the ground every once in a while just in case.

Jojo continues providing flak whistling until they begin passing by other assorted rodents (of varying size, but mostly only slightly taller than Jojo), at which point he switches to chatting with them. Tigerclaw, he introduces as "Tigerclaw, a guest at least for now". Most of the rodents accept this.

An exception to both the "rodents" and "acceptance" rules presents herself when he passes by a cluster of child-rodents, and their caretaker, a badger at least a (typical) mouselength taller than Tigerclaw and several mouselengths broader, who stands from her seat on a stone bench and lumbers over to glare at him, one eye milky and another one like flint.

"Who's your friend, little one?"

"This is Tigerclaw, Mother-" Jojo begins.

She pats his head, not taking her eyes off the cat. "Think I'd like to hear him introduce himself."

Tigerclaw bows his head to her.  "Tigerclaw, a guest.  At least for now."

She rumbles with laughter. "So I hear. My eyes may be going, but not my ears... Tigerclaw. What a name. A warrior's name, no? Perhaps we're lucky to have you now."

"Perhaps."  His tail swishes.  "A warrior's name, yes.  And what's yours?"

"Jenhora Wolfharrier. I got that second part for killing a wolf. It took my eye, but I took its skull."

She picks up a vole child tugging insistently on her habit, who shouts joyously as she tosses him in the air. She lowers her voice.

"I haven't been a warrior in a long time, though. I certainly couldn't kill another wolf. But if somebeast came here with evil intent, spying or assassination or anything like that - I'd say he should find some way to kill me before he started it. Because I can kill anything less."

Vole back on ground, pat pat. Voice back to normal volume. "Anyway. Hope you like it here. We cook a damn good fish."

Tigerclaw flashes through several emotions.  One, it's very strange to see rodent young doing cute little kitlike things, or at least to see it and have reason to care about it as if they were cats.  Two, rage, despair - why is this happening again - but these . . . beasts . . . don't know him, they don't have any reason to trust him, unlike his own Clan; there isn't much grounding for blaming them for being suspicious.  And what's a wolf.  He resents not knowing this fraction of the words in this strange way of talking more than he might resent not being able to understand or speak it at all.

Wolfharrier speaks of wolves as if they're impressive, and he's inclined to believe her.  Especially if killing one warranted a name change.  After the initial flash of defensiveness, he finds he respects her quite a bit.  She's acting to protect her Clan; he wouldn't do anything less.  (If he had a Clan worthy of his dedication.)

"Thank you for your generosity.  I won't forget it."

His reaction, in turn, seems to raise him in her estimation. She nods to him and hauls herself back over to the bench.