Jojo frowns. "We do have history and moral philosophy and natural philosophy, but... government isn't a word I recognize."

Gosh, are they anarchists, that'd be neat. "I mean the way people settle their disputes and prevent anyone from doing from doing someone else harm on purpose or by accident." If they're all perfectly prosocial with no extrinsic incentives that's going to come off as a weird question but also she's going to eat the hat she isn't wearing. 

"...oh, we do have treatises on the laws of the Abbey and records of infractions! It's, erm, a bit dry, but I'm sure you expect an amount of that when you go looking for records of that sort."

"Oh, of course. The boring records are the records of things that happen often and those are the important things to know about."

"Exactly why I could never be a scribe," Jojo laughs.

A mouse in a yellow habit enters the hallway, squeaks, scurries over, and says "Jojo! You didn't tell anyone we had guests!"

Jojo scratches his ears guiltily. "Oh - sorry, Bryony. I was trying to get them settled in before anyone could question them senseless, and I remembered these rooms were open... They're not travelers, though, they'll likely be staying at least for a goodly time."

"Well then it's even more important to - I'm talking past you goodbeasts, sorry," she says, turning to Bruce and Jennifer. "Hello, I'm Bryony, I'm Jojo's sister, it's lovely to meet you!"

"Lovely to meet you too. I'm Jennifer and this is my cousin Bruce."

Bruce waves and then gets distracted by his own paws. How much of his knowledge of anatomy works? Can he determine by wiggling his fingers and introspecting whether he has phalanges and the correct set of tendons? No wait he should be paying attention.

Bryony peers dubiously at Bruce but elects not to say anything. "Anyway. I came to tell you, Jojo, my beloved brother, that the feast is almost ready and if you miss it not only will Abbess Meriam be terribly disappointed in you, I will cry."

Jojo winces. "Just because I forgot to come to the feast?"

"There is a cake," Bryony says threateningly, "and I worked on it for hours, and you will have some." She turns to the cousins. "And of course you must come as well, travelers are always welcome at the table and if you only just got here you must be awfully sick of travel rations."

"Thank you. We expect to be staying here for the foreseeable future."

Bryony pauses to rewind in her head. "Oh - yes, he did say - but, well, residents are even more welcome, of course! And everyone will want to meet you, if you're staying, and it's best to get that out of the way when everyone is together!"

Jojo sighs. "I suppose it is. Shall we, then?"

"Sure." They can follow Jojo and Bryony to wherever the food is.

He wonders what badgers and hares and mice and so on eat. There was a mention of cheese. Do they keep cows? Are the cows people or are they just regular cows? Is there factory farming? Does he still need to be vegan? Can he keep being vegan in this economy? Can he keep being vegan in this body? He tries imagining various plants and they still sound like food, so probably yes. At least he knows he's not going to end up trying to eat people or they wouldn't've been willing to let him in.

"So where does the Abbey's food come from? Is it all grown here?"

Bryony hums thoughtfully. "Well, we have our fields, but we also gather from Mossflower Wood, things like berries and nuts. But the staples - the cereal grains, the tubers, the sugar beets, the milksap grass for cheeses - those we grow within our walls. And we fish out of the pond or the rivers and streams of Mossflower, depending on the season. And of course we can't grow all the spices we'd like here, it being so temperate, but the traveling merchants come by every few seasons and we get what we need."

"I don't know how much we need the spices, really," Jojo murmurs.

Bryony rolls her eyes but doesn't comment.

"Neat! Uh, incredibly stupid question, sorry: what of those can badgers eat? As far as I can tell from my memories I was a different species yesterday," he adds to Bryony.

Bryony looks increasingly concerned. "Um, you might want to ask Yenha? Yenha Wolfharrier, she's our Badgermother - I haven't known her to avoid anything in particular, but I wouldn't necessarily know if she can't have, you know, chestnuts or something."

"A different species?" Jojo asks. "What kind, if you don't mind my asking?"