the fable of the rats

the fable of the rats

It's once upon a time ago and he wants to talk to a rat so he goes where the rats'll go. He goes near and underneath a restaurant that's just nice perfect but an annoyance to its neighbors with a dumpster that's almost always overflowing, a multiple health-code violation just waiting to be written and fined, a stinking, reeking feast set out for the crows in the morning and the rats at night. He wants to talk to a rat so he figures there'll probably be rats here and then he goes near-by, but where you wouldn't look for a man if you were looking for one (instead of a rat [who the hell wants a rat? Other than Jack]). 

Denver, Colorado has a complicated history under the ground. The paranoid speak of underground bunkers built for the government just in case of invasion or nuclear fall-out or apocalypse armageddon gehenna revelations. They are insistent about the possibility of a secret underground city, of tunnels connecting safehouse to safehouse. The wistful speak of secret prohibition-era tunnels running from The Oxford to The Brown Palace to some of the local cat houses so that visiting mister muckety muck and visiting mister slick could make a certain kind of visit without a scandal. Who knows, maybe more. Tunnels to the railroad. Tunnels to over-there and over-here. Lots've tunnels, few of them confirmed by anything but hearsay, right? But maybe they do exist and somebody somewhere knows. Maybe it's a good thing your average urban explorer can't seem to find 'em all.

There are plenty of narrow, foul-smelling sewer drains to squeeze into. But better: There are plenty of storm drains and steam tunnels. The near and underneath a restaurant that's in high favor with the local rodent community that he goes to call himself a rat or two to talk to and ask a favor of is one of these. He calls 'em. He knows the trick of making his voice into a charm that'll call 'em through sheer force of will and he does that. He never knows how many'll come. How many'll hear and how many'll heed the compulsion the charm'll put on them. Once he called and called, and nothing came at all. Once he called, and too many'd come and he… Let's leave that story there.

This time a few come. A handful. A mouthful, heh heh. Four, maybe, and one of them stays well back, watching the monster like she's seen this before and she's not falling for it this time, and even to his used-to-the-dark eyes she's just a suggestion of shape.

Now, he has manners. Manners are important, see, and not squeaking like you're a five year old trying to talk rat, because the sounds rats make around five year olds are typically sounds of alarm and terror, warnings to other rats and maledictions, and also important is quiet generousity, because rats are shy. He brought them one of those little elementary school cafeteria boxes of cereal (Kellog's [sponsorship! wink]) and a stale piece of bread both of which he scatters for them. He listens patiently to the largest one, a brown and silver male whose fur looks the worse for wear, who is missing a toe and has a cut on his fat crooked tail, with a look to him like he's recently lost a lot of weight. The largest one talks about being taken by two small humans and about the barking of dogs and the teeth and about the flight through the air when the small ones threw him hit him into the place with the barking dogs and how he got away how he got got away doesn't like dogs doesn't like the small ones or the big ones but especially not the small ones.

Then he looks three of them in the eye, one after the other, and he wills them to do as he asks.

He asks them - clever, clever, go-anywhere rats - to look around for him. There is something new under the ground and it has caused those tremors. Maybe it cannot find a way to come above. Maybe it is just sticking to its territory like the owl - worry not there is no owl shadow here - sticks to the skies. There is something new and strange. What is it? Where is it? I want you to listen and look and then find me and tell me what you see or hear or notice that might be this thing. That's what he tells the rats.

The first one he tells this to looks as if it doesn't quite get it all. But it does get the appeal of cereal and it regards him with a certain je ne c'est quois. It wants something for its trouble and it's restless and it disappears off to shadow the other that hadn't come all that close.

The second rat he tells this to is the smallest and it is also the twitchiest and its ears lift the highest and its eyes might be the brightest. It crawls over his slacks and investigates his pockets once it gets edged out've the way of the cereal by the first rat. It's investigations are not rewarded because his pockets are not full of crumbs or candy.

The third rat he tells this to stares at him for a long, long and curious time after he is done, and it oozes along the edge of the storm drain's wall and then it looks over its shoulder at him. The third rat's fur is spiked on the top of its skull almost like a mohawk and when it leaves it does so silently.

He moves back from the two rats who've remained to nibble nibble on the cereal. There is this: the Day might be long-gone and the Sun a faded photograph, but the language of animals has been unlocked - and isn't that a miraculous thing, a momentous thing, no matter what comes of it?


coming soon: the fable of the cats

--
ooc: I meant to post this a while ago (back when I did a certain occult roll-y dealio), and it's mostly for creepy-Nos mood/atmosphere. First witness is CC (as with occult roll-y dealio), the last is Mags.

Tithe
[All right. Let's see. Beckoning. Char + Survival. Ratsies, ratsies, where are the ratsies.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 3, 7, 9) ( success x 2 )
Tithe
[I think I've got a command for you guys, if you don't mind. Manip + Animal Ken.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 3, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 1 )

Tithe
[Oh wait. The commands are for the individuals. Jack'll try that out on another rat too, so secondary Manip + Animal Ken.] 
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (2, 3, 3, 4, 10, 10) ( success x 2 )
Tithe
[Okay now I'm done! Plz witness, beauteous CC.]
Witness
[AAAAAAAAAAAAY-MEN!]

Dice, Dice
[Okay! This is addendum to CC-witnessed rolls, because need a third. Manip + Animal Ken.]
Dice: 6 d10 TN7 (4, 4, 9, 9, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )

Mags Witness
Witnessed!

Some Time Later: 

their claws patter needle-click and their eyes are bright in the underdark

[Tithe] 

That storm drain in the underdark, see, that's where Jack is right now at this particular moment, Jacky-O, O Jack. Oh, Jack, melancholy these past nights a shadow at his back, and he's wearing a nondescript hoody, the hood of it old and faded like dirty'll never be a think it's not pulled over his head, and it helps him be unseen even when he doesn't need the help, because Jack is often Nobody between things, you never know, never know who's around, and there are some crumbs in his pockets this time, and he's got a whiff of bakery about him 'til - well. 'Til later tonight, when that scent'll be replaced with sewers and other nasty questionable sludge-y things, most like - but that's later tonight, right? The point is this:

That storm drain in the underdark, see, that's where Jack is right now at this particular moment, letting himself slide into place like a dagger into its sheath, click. Home, or what passes.

--

[Joey]

As Jack lowers himself into the crevice below the street he doesn't need to wait long before he is again created by the three rats.

The one rat whose attention had been most rapt-snapped into focus by Jack's chirps and whispers seems to now be bullying around the other two, jerking one by its tail, twisting his other companion's ears back and dragging him to his other side.

They begin acting out a scene, a strange scene with a matchbook at its center, a burrito wrapper that somehow made its way down the drain, a broken toy truck that has been down here so long it is only a vague shape of dried mold and green much, and a safety pin.

The burrito is a hovel for the first scene, where the one male rat goes inside and seems to be talking to an unseen figure. There is a struggle and he is injured.

There is no dialogue because none they'd seen had spoken in the right language, but first the male is hurt, the one in the burrito lean-to, then one of the females carries him back to a small alcove where a brick has cracked, almost like a home.

Then they open the matchbook, one dragged behind after the scene in the burrito wrapper, and there he is hurt again, this time biting into his own finger to show where he had been burnt, hissing and screaming with wide eyes in a way rodents react to fire. Next the other pretends to jab itself - actually does, for this is the one most yearning to share its story with Jack - with the safety pin and spills a bit of blood on the book.

When she does it it is as if the book suddenly becomes a very interesting prospect to the three rodents, and they hover around it immediately.

Throughout it is the most loyal of the rats that seems to describe the locations, though in ways only a rat will understand. Past the red dog. Five or six layers of cockroach-burrows up. Near the park with all the stray cats. Giving approximations that he will need to check on - indeed that she will take him along to verify - but as Jack has probably expected the rat can only tell so much.

There is no dialogue, no names, though the rats seem to understand that all three are like Jack.

[ This is a brief approximation of the Beef at the Taqueria scene depicted in the forums involving Mercy, Kali and Baja. Please remember that no dialogue has been communicated. ]