Open The Bilge In The Bucket Lute in the Bucket

Fearful and out of their depth with so many beasts making for them in what had at first seemed an amiable place, Till drew up to their full height and roared.

"Arrêtez!"

They swung out with their pan and smacked the first one to get near them.
 
Asta was shaken enough from her panic by Pomodu addressing her that she tore her gaze from the crowd and turned to the red panda. Though she couldn't understand what the beast said, there was a clear intent being expressed by her body language and expression. Asta ducked another flung bottle and fairly threw herself at Pomodu, careful of her lute.

She was startled by the sound of a loud bong! as somebeast was dropped by the pan-wielding badger. Looking past the large beast, Asta saw a flash of white.

"Caden!" she yelled, relief surging through her. She pointed to the albino marten struggling his way through the crowd with the todd lutist. She grabbed Pomodu's arm and pointed. "My father!"

In the crowd, where the first beast went down to Till's pan, his four remaining comrades jumped at her to avenge their companion.
 
Silvertongue went to help Caden clear a path, but upon hearing the roar of the badger, he froze in place. His eyes grew white with terror, and he scrambled under a table, curling up into a ball, his tail tucked between his legs. His heart was racing, and he struggled to catch his breath, clutching his lute. He stifled soft anguished cries, trying to calm himself down but to no avail. His whole body trembled, his chest heaving, the sounds of the battle drowned out by an incessant whine in his ears, as if a cannon had just been shot over his head.
 
A tap and a point from Asta was all that it took to set Pomodu in motion. She got to her footpaws, air rushing into the vacuum beneath her tail to relieve the flattened weasel assailant who had been on the verge of making history for the world's most humiliating death. Carefully the red panda adjusted Asta, clutching her to her chest, and then, putting out her paw before her, charged into the fray. The smart beasts saw a Giftsgiving-colored battering ram coming towards them and leaped out of its way, while the distracted or unlucky found out what it would feel like to be struck by a runaway wagon loaded with three hundred pounds of downy pillows. Beasts didn't so much find themselves trampled by Pomodu as trampolining off of her, flung into chairs, tables, or other unfortunate beasts. The charging mountain of fluff was proving herself to be a wrecking ball made of foam and felt, crashing through the environment with a shockingly soft touch.

Reaching the indicated albino beast, Pomodu deposited Asta gently before her father, her tail inadvertently sending a bystander flying three yards as it swished excitedly. "Hee you go," she proclaimed, smiling as if she hadn't just left a dozen beasts with psychological wounds that would leave them unable to touch a soft surface without screaming. "Sa'fe."
 
Caden swore as his newfound companion lost his nerve and dove under a table. He noted the presence of the badger, that they had entered the fight, and he hoped they stayed on that side of the room with whatever idiots decided to accost them. Badgers weren't uncommon where he had lived in Varangia--one of the officers he worked with at the military outpost was a badger--but he had seen the kind of damage they could do on a battlefield, and he was not keen on getting near the pan-wielding specimen several tables over from him.

Then something large and fluffy and red and green was barreling towards him, sending beasts scattering and toppling. Caden felt an instinct like perhaps he should jump under the table with the cowering fox. However, he noted who the stranger carried in her arms. He thought to go to her, but she was so effective at what she did, it did not take long for her to deposit Asta in front of Caden.

Terrified yet exhilarated, Asta was both crying and laughing as she threw an arm around her father. The albino held her tight, heart hammering in his chest as relief flooded over him. They spoke to each other in Varangian.

"Asta! What are you doing here? Are you hurt?"

"I'm not hurt. Oh, I'm so glad you're here. I thought I was going to get stabbed or dragged off by one of these--these--"
She scowled and gestured to the room at large with her lute.

Caden frowned. "This is why I told you not to come here, not alone. I'm just glad you're okay." He turned his attention to Pomodu, whose presence had created something of a buffer zone from the press of the crowd. Though, the fighting itself had begun to peter out throughout the tavern, save for in several particularly vicious pockets of activity.

"Thank you," he said to the red panda, looking up at her. "I owe you a great debt for rescuing my daughter."
 
Till snarled as she was leapt upon by the group. Hardly knowing where her stamina came from, she elbowed one and caught another under the chin with the pan. The other two clung fast to her, thumping and biting, forcing her to hobble round and round in an increasingly fast circle in the hope of spinning them off.

"Leave me alone!"
 
Pomodu just smiled cheerfully as she waved a paw dismissively. "I'su no turoboh!" she exclaimed. She turned as she noticed the struggles of the badger, and she put up a pawfinger. "I go," she excused herself, and then barreled through the crowd.

Reaching the badger was the easy part; figuring out what to do was the hard part. With her spinning frantically, Pomodu couldn't reach in and pull any of the attackers off. Instead she grabbed up a chair from a nearby table and, waiting, observed the momentum of Till's swing. At the nearest moment she could judge to be correct, she swung with her chair, hoping to knock one of the attackers off.
 
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