RP:The Trouble To Which Cheese Might Lead
Synopsis:Lucien, cheese, rat people and a frump. The makings of comedic genius.
Location: The Cenril Docks
Characters: Noose, Lucien,Caedan
It was busy at the docks today, to say the least. Five great cargo ships were due in from lands near and afar, loaded to groaning capacity with goods to keep a thriving city like Cenril fed and clothed, and stocked in the multitude of practical resources it needed for day-to-day smooth running, as well as few rarer items, heavily guarded. Those guards could be seen standing afore on the first ship to sail toward port, a dozen swarthy sailors armed to the teeth, indentured to protect the precious goods locked in the hold. On the dock, among the throngs of shouting, laughing, whistling, shanty-singing, barrel-rolling sailors was a lanky white-haired youth who, in contrast to those gainfully employed tars, was loafing on the edge of the wharf, sandalled feet dangling over the edge as he waiting for the good ship Moneypenny to glide into view over the sea, propelled by the day's obliging winds. Beside him was a paper sack, from which a delicious scent wafted, savoury and wholesome, causing a few hungry eyes to swivel looks his way, not a few beady and small, and sourced in the heads of rope-climbing vermin.
Noose had brought his amalgamate ratpack to the wharfs this quiet and brisk morning to await the arrival of some rather low-sitting vessels. It was quite the unfrequented spot for the sable furred rat, but at least this day it promised to be lucrative. As the first of the ships pull in to the pier for mooring, so too do the first of the Fermin appear, eight of them coming hand over hand to vault over the edge of the pier, their impatience in part due to the wafting odours of delectables. All but two of the unseemly coterie are entirely aloof to the ships and their marks, and instead are following twitching noses and hungry bellies. The other two, whose willpower forgoes the enticing smells, continue to stare out at the vessels that are now pulling up to the platform. They are both much larger than the others, and the biggest of the two is completely colored in shadow, the other being mottled with brown and black. All of the rats are adorned in tattered and soiled garb, and the weapons that are visible are meagre, rusty, and disintegrating. "What do you think, Noose?" asked the mottled rat, who carries a morning star at his side. "Lotta dogs on 'em." The black rat known as Noose nodded solemnly, beady crimson eyes fixated on the guards on one particular ship. The other five rats have crept up rather surreptitiously behind the lounging man whose goodies have drawn their unrelenting attention, and are poised to grab the sack.
Lucien, meanwhile and completely unaware of the motley crew of rodent-men swarming the dock, was munching an oatmeal cookie which tasted vaguely of the powerfully-scented cheese he'd picked up at the shops as a favor for one of Simon's girls. Wrinkling his nose, he'd toss it over his shoulder for the gulls as his eyes peered still at the sea through a mussy veil of snow-white hair, the lad eager to pick up the bales of wool he'd ordered some time ago. His mind was, as usual, filled to the brim with ragtag thoughts, a jumble of whimsy and more serious business, a chaotic mess of awareness that he afforded himself when not entrenched in any more demanding task than sitting on his bum in the sun. So he wouldn't notice anyone creeping up, especially over the rumble of background noise. Including the shouts from those guards on the now-docking Trident, a vessel famed for safe transport of gold and valuable items, and as well-known for putting swift end to any piracy via its mercenary squad - humans for the most part, though as they gathered into ranks to escort the several trunks of jewels they were charged with ashore, it may be seen that one stout and towering fellow had at least some orc in his ancestry, if not a little cave-troll, too, to judge by the way his prognacious jaw was slanted toward his overhanging brow. All bore weapons of frightening proportion and shape, all were muscled with years of hard training. Lucien happened to look that way, while one hand reached blindly back into that sack, the lad hoping to find at least one untainted cookie.
Lucien winced as the guards contributed to the din, hollering in unison, "Aye-aye!"
Noose pulled his snaggletoothed mouth into a frown at the menacing sight of the guards, pondering the plausibility of their venture. "We can't fight them face to face, Scabies," he said to the other large rat, who toyed with the end of his flail. The entourage of other rats were practically breathing down Lucien's neck when he tossed a cheese-tainted cookie back at them. It struck one of the Fermin in the face, and caused him to be mobbed by two of his brethren in ruthless endeavors to stake a claim to it. The other two seemed a little more cunning, and a ceasefire of sorts presided over the while they turned towards the source of their avarice. Lucien's hand reached back towards the paper sack, and as it delved into it, it was grabbed, the pouch making an angry crinkling sound in the process. Two rat hands tried to tear the scrumptious package from him, whilst the other offered the unsuspecting and lackadaisical man a boot to his broad side in an effort to send him into the wharf below. Pirating desserts rather than jewels apparently made Noose all the more disdained as he watched; his underlings were attracting more attention than he would have liked. Scabies, the brown mottled Fermin, watched as the gem wares were being stowed on shore, surmising the defenses and various conditions there.
Lucien found himself suddenly in the throes of a battle over cheese, and as suddenly grabbed as well, far too suddenly for him to do anything about it, which would have amounted to snatching his limbs back in a most dismayed and horrified fashion, for the most part. But that option was, as he discovered, quite removed from him - not only was he seized by the hand still in the sack, which was squashed rather firmly into the fermins' erstwhile and blue-veined prize, but his other hand was grabbed as well, as he tried in vain to push them off. "No!" he shouted, wildly, his voice at a volume and pitch of panic as to suggest that he too was protecting valuable gems, rather than some currently rather unappealingly misshapen dairy produce. He'd swivel as the ratmen tugged on the sack, one sandalled foot planting in the midriff an accosting rodent, firmly enough to warrant his stomach heave in while the long-limbed youth used him as potential leverage to pull away. And that was about the time that unpolished boot sunk its sole into his ribs, sending him on a quick backward trajectory toward the edge of the dock Sadly, at least for his fellows, the cheese-thieves were still firmly attached to the boy and took his sudden yank away as an outrageous attempt to rob them of their robbery. Thus, the one with the sandal planted to his gut went sailing over the boy's body, also toward the edge of the dock, while the other would tip sideways, still hanging on hard to Luc's hand, which was still clutching that woebegone cheese-filled sack. Which provided Luc a sort of anchor, to prevent him being knocked off onto the jagged rocks below, where waves crashed and cranky, harpoon-bearing fishermen waited for the larger ships to go, eager for the easy catch the emptying bilge would bring as fish swarmed in to feed off the flotsam garbage. "OW!" Shouted Luc, at some remove from the blow, stunned as he was to receive it. "DON'T TOUCH ME," was also bellowed toward the fermin-anchor, who was touching him alright, with a bunched fist. It was a right fol-de-rol, and one which indeed had caught the eye of those mercenaries, who as one glowered over to the disturbance, several of their number closing a tight formation around the trunks, several fairly bristling with weapons stepping forward in obvious preparation to pulverise anyone who came too close.
Noose hissed a string of expletives under his breath as he observed both the foray over the cheese and the respective response of the mercenary guards. The rat that had been vaulted over top of Lucien frantically groped for a hold, his clawed and fetid digits wrapping around and likely sinking into the young man's leg that was the fulcrum of his fate. His tail, the long and scaled appendage that it was, snaked out and coiled around a post on the pier's corner. The combination of these hysterical saving throes brought the rat to a precarious frozen charade, looking face down into the jagged rocks below and the merciless tide that pounded them, his tail taught and forearm flexed with the effort of holding his mass. The poor rat that served as Lucien's anchor point, leaning all of his center of gravity away from the lip of the pier, now had the added burden of one of his Fermin kin, and so he began slowly sliding with the lot of them towards inevitable death. His back knee was buckled as far as it could be, though he did not rest his grip on the container of snacks, which was now surely ruined beyond recognition. His comrades, who had since devoured even the crumbs of the discarded cookie in the throes of their own havoc, began to form a tug-of-war of sorts by linking up first to the cheese-clutching rat and then to each other. Four rats pulled on the cheese and Lucien, with another hanging precariously over the edge of the pier. Scabies and Noose had quieted their disapproval, and now appeared quite amused as they looked on, although cursory glances towards the bounty on the shore tried to keep track of the jewels' final destination.
Lucien might have been more dismayed by the predicament of playing piggy-in-the-middle to a bunch of whiskery rogues while having his limbs almost torn out out of their sockets in the process, were it not for the fact that - despite Luc's emphatic and repeated warnings - the sack-clutcher among them had indeed laid hand on the boy. The result of this act would become apparent in short order to those in his immediate proximity, particularly the leg-gripping fellow who was hanging in a kind of unfortunate reversal of the Damocles' sword principle over sundry perils awaiting him below, as well as Sack-clutcher, who was the first to get a clue that all was not quite kosher with their intended victim. Beady rat-eyes boggled from his head as he witnessed the youth begin to writhe, not merely as one might struggle to gain freedom, but in a queer and disturbing way that caused the lad's jaw to crack audibly, like a pop-gun being fired, whence his face contorted into a ludicrous parody of itself, and also caused his limbs to shorten abruptly - which was a real worry for those on either end of him, the contracting limbs, torn free of thin cloth in the fray, suddenly covered in a bizarre and visibly-growing crop of silky-smooth hair. Luc's hand, now properly a clawed sort of semi-paw, was slick from all that squashed cheese, causing that appendage to begin to slide slowly but surely from the Sack-clutcher's desperate grip, aided by those others of his kin who were pulling on him. Meanwhile, back at Luc's other end, the dangling ratman had his own trouble to deal with. Aside from being freaked the hell out by the human's buckling, warping frame and features, several of those fishermen below - whose hatred for rats was comparable only with their vehement dislike of bathing with soap - had pointed their harpoons upward, toward his exposed underbelly. To add to this string of mishaps, the advancing half of the guard were stoutly marching toward the lot of them, the huge fellow with the low brow and arms thick as hams leading them, his horrendous, serrated sword held at an angle which suggested he might enjoy julienning as many of the trouble-makers as possible. Lucien, as the mercenaries advanced, let out a miserable... squeak. And twitched his whiskers, and large, rounded ears. Because his tail was hurting, stuffed into pants never designed to hold more than a boy's backside, let alone a long and thinly-haired, scaly rat-tail. As to Sack-clutcher's probable horror at this turn of events - well, it wasn't as though he had not been adequately warned.
Noose curled back his upper lip at the sight of advancing guards. Apparently, with the preoccupation of his entourage, he and Scabies would be left to deal with the entire lot of them. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place at the end of the pier in this way, threatened by mercenaries on one side and a plethora of problems on the other. The metamorphosis that has begun to transpire baffles the ratfiends, even if the outcome is something more familiar and fond to them than the washed human countenance that Lucien had formerly maintained. The upside-down rat had begun to writhe away from the fishing implements that had gotten too close when, as he reels himself against that aforementioned pier post, he descries a different mark than there had been prior. He shrieked at this, and abruptly relented his grip on the now-furred appendage, and careens over the edge that he had done so well to avoid. He is eviscerated on the descent, and after plummeting through the many sharp prongs that eagerly awaited, his spine was splintered on the rocks that were hidden beneath. His final expression was that of utter befuzzlement, mouth agape and brow scrunched up. The sack-clutcher, erstwhile, elicited a much more tenacious response to the changeling's shifting. Two of the rats that had relented their hold on each other down the chain, and scurried up to the head of the line. There, they were met with confusion being that Lucien as they had known him was gone, and instead it was a fight for the prize amongst Fermin. Or so it seemed, and these particular rats were not intelligent enough to reason that this one was not of their brood and determine culpability. The sack-clutcher lunged forward with expedience to gnash at Lucien's wrist before it was completely withdrawn, and his brethren began indecisively feuding over the cheesesack that, thereupon, came loose. They gouged each other, at Lucien, and appeared completely consumed in lust for the demolished dessert. The rat that still clung to the old sack-clutcher's tail ceded its grip, and turned to spy the advancing mercenaries, Scabies, and their packleader preparing for a tumultuous confrontation. He scurried to his feet, pulling out a short rusted brand, and dashed behind the two larger rats whose backs were to the cheese-centered fray. Scabies had started to whorl his flail and get their deadly heads to start knocking when Noose prepared for a more insidious tactic. From a pouch lining his waistbelt emerged a green pustule that looked, and indeed was, from the walls of the sewers. It reacted in his hands like a ball of snot, oozing and flexing but not quite bursting. With a sharp flick of his wrist, he sent the egg-sized missile towards the front of the mercenary group before they drew too near, and upon impacting, it would explode and expunge a caustic fluid in all directions. Noose turned his head swiftly after throwing it, as did the three at his side, knowing well the effect of the assailing fluids; were the contents of that slimeball touch bare skin it would begin to burn terribly, but the prime intent behind its use was to blind, and the particles that spewed through the air would no doubt find some purchase. Hopefully the eyes.
Lucien was being pummelled, nipped, punched and generally mistreated between the antics of the quarrelsome, cheese-centric fermin whom he now resembled almost exactly, except for an odd white patch atop his long and flattened skull, and the temporary absence of a tail - the latter becoming no longer such a marker of oddness when the boy-rat's pants split at the seams and said tail spilled out to a length which might have only set the others upon him harder, in sheer envy of its prodigious extent. While the pool-spawned youth was thus soundly occupied, Pugnacious-jaw and his crew were gearing up for what, in their opinion, was to be an easy sort of bloodbath, what with their opponents being vermin, as well as vastly underequipped to deal with such enmity as that offered by the Trident's proud and maliciously-armed guardsmen. And watching them with obvious glee were the many sailors and dock-workers who had ceased at their duties and crowded into a jeering, cheering half-ring around the only path to exit from the dock, causing the remaining several mercenary guards to cluster more tightly around their charged treasure-trunks, growling curses at any who ventured near, and even going so far as to lop off a few fingers or a nose from the overtly curious, as a more serious warning to keep clear. Meanwhile, Pugnacious-jaws second-in-command had loosed his deadly throwing-knives at the furred company, in a volley of metallic flashes, as his leader dipped a pair of meaty thighs, bunched his bulk low, and sprang like a rabid wharg toward the Fermin gang, his vicious sword swinging like a metallic rotor of sorts. Whether he'd clash at all with Scabies was a matter for Fate to decide, for at this very moment, Noose's pustule of slimy doom went flying, it aggrievous and caustic fluids spattering hither and thither, both upon the troll-faced leader and his advancing, furious crew. Men shrieked, weapons slashed, rats squealed, sailors cheered and laid bets... It was an event that would become legendary around tavern hearths for weeks and, at back of it all, Lucien - mostly horribly confused and sick of being chewed on - had finally decided to fight back. Being a head taller than his apparent counterparts, and a great deal more angry, the boy-rat was throwing punches wildly, his cheese-scented fist flailing into snouts and bellies, and his sandalled feet - from the edges of which ridiculously lengthy toes now poked - stomped down on dirty feet, shod or bare alike. Below, on the rocks, lay Damocles-rat, whose sad remains were being prodded by harpoons, before the salty old dogs wielding them hocked tobacco juice on the corpse and left it for the gulls and crabs to feast upon.
Noose and his gang did in fact look quite unseemly, but at least he and his larger associate were quite tactful in battle. As if the greater majority of others would be of any assistance anyways, the three of them being fully occupied with subduing this one particularly fiesty rat. They were, for the time being, more or less oblivious to the group of mercenaries that sought a bit of entertainment in inciting further violence with the ratpack. Scabies was spared the brunt of the trollish leader's attack, as he maneuvered his body to one side and allowed the poison-struck assailant to land where he once stood, swinging his blade blindly. For blind he was, or would be soon at least, as the implemented toxin began to burn into his flesh and ocules. He seemed hardly to notice the single dagger that had embedded itself in his left shoulder. It was in deep enough to not wiggle loose, but the immediate threat of battle and coursing of adrenaline made it indiscernable to Scabies. With a graceful sidestep and counter-clockwise pivot, he pulled the momentum from hip to his inside, wounded shoulder as he heaved the flail's dangerous end towards the back of the aforementioned mercenary's skull, hoping to disable him in one fell swoop. The smaller rat that had stood behind Noose had scurried around him in the face of the half-orc's charge, and now found himself vis-a-vis with the rest of the brigade. Leaving the mercenary leader with the most brutish of his underlings, Noose set himself into lissome motion. He tucked his shadowy head into his knees and launched forwards, rolling several times past the now-frozen rat that wields a rusty short sword. In all good fortune, the black rat would have skirted the attention of the advancing company. He sprung up, untucking himself and springing forward in one fluid motion, with fine dark steel daggers in hand like two hellward facing fangs. They came down upon the nearest body above its collar bone where protection was presumed to be scant, and without much ado a clawed foot sent it, in whatever condition it may be, hurdling into the backs of the other guards. Noose was in the rather advantageous position of being behind the handful of adversaries, who in the best of scenarios -for the Fermin- would be burning and at least partially blind at this point. The unassuming rat, having seen its liege's adroit assault, dashed into the melee with naive fearlessness, lunging at the nearest foe with very inexperienced form. Noose, clearly the most skilled, agile, and confident of the ratpack, had placed one of his daggers in his mouth so as to free up his right hand, which in no time flashed two thin blades from the folds of his ragged attire. Said hand quickly removes the trusted dagger from its toothy purchase immediately after sending the two projectile blades airborne towards one mercenary's exposed back. Thanks to the rat assassin's rapid and sly maneuvers, the entire gang was no longer surrounded, and a few of their antagonists might well be dispatched. Meanwhile, the foray at the end of the pier continued, until at long last on grey Fermin wrests the mushy bag of cheese from beneath the ratpile and holds it high. He scampers atop the writhing mass of furry, soiled bodies, and descries the modest-scaled battle ahead. With an attention-demanding shriek, he roused his kin from their fervor and took up arms, removing themselves from their entanglement with the white-spotted rat that was Lucien. The pier was alive with violence, a veritable morning theatre.
Lucien was as abruptly abandoned as he had been attacked, and where the shapeshifting youth had only just now been engaged in enthusiastic fisticuffs, he was suddenly left swinging at thin air, as the rat pack rallied to the call and scampered off toward the more serious altercation further along the dock. Blinking black eyes, he took this moment's peace to glance down at himself, upon which those same eyes would roll skyward, a great sigh swelling his ribs before being expelled in a huff. Great. If the bear experience was anything to go by, he'd be stuck like this for a week. His attention returning to the bloody carnage ahead, where Pugnacious was howling in his death-throes, a ratman's throat clenched firmly in one iron fist, and twitching severed limbs and prone bodies were already beginning to mount up, rodent and human alike. Bugger that, he thought, and decided his best course of action was to go around the fight, slipping through the crowd as best he could. And he damned well almost made it too - he was about level with the nearly-abandoned treasure trunk, which was guarded only loosely now by the two men who'd been forced to stay put and forego the sort of battle they'd been geared up for, for months now, without any chance to vent their testosterone-and-rum-fuelled desire for a decent fight. Sulking at having such misfortune and indignity thrust upon them, they'd resorted to sitting on the trunk glumly, watching all the fun from some distance. And, like almost everybody else, they were completely absorbed in the ongoing debacle, so that they didn't notice the tallish rat-boy slouching past until he nearly was past them. But, as fate would have it, a jostling onlooker knocked another into his path, and a heavy boot descended ungently on the end of Lucien's newly-acquired tail, upon which the lad let out a vociferous shriek of pain. This, in turn, had the two sullen guards rise to their feet, swords at the ready, a glimmer of hope sparking in their eyes as both gazes fell upon the pirate's son. The interloper whose boot was still pressed on his tail-tip caught on quickly, and ground his foot down even harder, effectively tethering the youth to the spot. Which Luc realised as he began to bolt off and instead was yanked to an unceremonious halt that left him feeling as if his spine was being extracted from its base. Another yelp of pain, and he'd swivel back toward the oncoming guards, his ratty paws slapping at torn pants for a weapon-belt that wasn't there - he hadn't bothered bringing his skinning-knives, not expecting to want to skin anything, only collect the wool he'd promised to bring the flying elf. "Oh, shi..." His expletive was cut off, as the first man lunged forward, sword sweeping in a deadly neck-level arc that Luc narrowly managed to avoid by hastily ducking. The interfering bastard standing on the boy's tail was chuckling away to himself as that vicious blade bit into his skull instead, sticking there in the manner of an axe sunk too deep into a tree-trunk. But as his body fell, pulling the guard - who had not expected to murder a bystander and being thusly and momentarily shocked at his own failure to murder Luc, forgot to let go of his sword - over on top of Lucien and all, that boot came loose of Luc's tail, giving him the opportunity to scamper away. Or so he thought. A pair of rough hands seized him, shoving him bodily, manhandling him backward toward the trunk - another helpful bystander, who had thought to aid in the arrest of the rattish troublemakers. The second guard grinned a gap-toothed, nicotine-stained grin, preparing to dispatch the offered verminous lad, when a dark steel knife from somewhere or other slivered through the air and embedded itself firmly in the fellow's cheek. The rough-handed bystander let go of Lucien and backed away, eyes darting about in fear of a similar come-uppance. Lucien himself was already making a vaulting leap over that abandoned treasure-trunk, quite happy to be gone from the entire brouhaha as quickly as possible. Which would have happened, had his injured and horribly swelling tail-tip not caught in the handle of said trunk, only jamming further as he tried to tug it loose. Frantic seconds later, having realised his agonising efforts were in vain, and seeing as the way past was clear now that half the dock-workers were in on the fight themselves, he had to face the choice of either ripping his tail-end off... or dragging the trunk behind him as he forged his way across the boards to what was, hopefully, freedom.
Lucien decided - trunk-dragging, it was.
Noose was finishing letting the blood of another mercenary when his eyes caught the fleeting movement -and subsequent yowl of pain- of one rat, Lucien. He was a good deal bigger than the rest, and this made for quite the quandary. Noose had no time to percolate on the possibilities though, as he wrenched one of his daggers from a hired goon's armpit, sending him face down onto the pier. One rat lay dead here, a half of another there. It was carnage, and the Fermin numbers were plummeting as fast as the mercenaries' were. The helm of their numbers, Mr. Pugnacious, became a prime target of Scabies’ frustration with the entire ordeal as he was busy wringing the neck of one diminutive Fermin. He fell to his knees, releasing his grasp on the other rat, having been struck in the hump that was his upper back by a vicious blow from that stout morning star. He looked up at Scabies' anger-torn visage, just in time to receive a mouthful of ball and spike. The top of his thick skull blew into fragments as the flail passes through it, leaving him in a laconic pose on his knees for a moment before flopping lifelessly back. The ratpack's numbers now waned dramatically, leaving only Noose, Scabies, and one rat that was gasping for breath. The remaining mercenary, who had just observed his comrades of some time be massacred in a flurry of fur and steel, turned tail to flee back to the others. Noose, apparently unseen in his peripheral vision, sent him skeetering to a halt with a snaking tail around his legs. His blade clattered just out of reach upon his collision with the wooden planks, and as he lurched forwards towards it, his arm was pinned by a clawed foot. Placing the knee of the other leg into the small of his back, Noose knelt down and lifted up his head by his chin. The man was grovelling, quite protestant of such an end, until a fountain of blood spurted forth from his slit jugular. His face smacked into the pier, and the black rat rose to his feet, lucky to have aimed it away from him and not have been showered with the torrent of blood which now pooled beneath him. Scabies was tending to the knife that was protruding from his shoulder and howling as he removed it, and the little Fermin was selecting the prettiest of weapons from the fallen opponents; only Noose had spied Lucien and the original target. He took a few steps through the puddle of ichor, leaving crimson ratprints in his wake. The crowd that had amassed parts way a line to Lucien and the chest, and Noose looked to him quizzically as dock-workers buzz about. "Who brought you out here?" he asked above the din, not recognizing the rat.
Lucien didn't realise at first that Noose was speaking to him, and would take two more incredibly painful and unhasty steps with one supporting hand clamped to his poor tail, which was garnished with a fist-sized lump at the end that had somehow come to be threaded around or into the metal handle of that thankfully not-too-heavy but still uncomfortably weighty trunk. It would scrape across the boards, then stop as Lucien wiped his watering eyes and glanced over his shoulder to see whether he was actually a part of some unfeasibly slow-moving pursuit, only to find a large, black rat staring at him. "Uh...." said Luc, through long, buck teeth, his mind wheeling madly for an idea that might avoid him having his tail lopped off, or worse. "It was... uh." Luc knew a lot of things, on a startling variety of topics, for one of such an apparently young age. But being raised in the Obsidian Pool was not your garden variety childhood, and the lonely youth had observed as much of the world as he could in his odd dim way through that living nightmare's arcane pall. Except.. for fermin culture. Think! he urged himself, silently. Who could intimidate such a brutal killer as this blood-sodden knife-wielding fellow? In his misery, the boy had missed the obvious answer, and could’ve kicked himself for it, when it dawned on him. "Why," he said, drawing himself upright, to what he hoped was a jaunty stance, fists on hips and his chinless snout jutting at a good approximation of rodent chutzpah. "It was none other than the scourge of the seven seas himself, that murderin', pillagin', nutjob of a killin' machine Cap'n Leo of th' Eternity, out of Rynvale, and his delinquent bride-to-be, the fearsome Lady Joliette." Luc's whiskers shivered, because he couldn't be sure if the fermin had ever heard of his Mum and Dad. But if he had... well, their reputation - more properly, infamy - alone may very well make the creature think twice about taking a knife to him. He hoped. For both their sakes.
Noose wiped the stained blades against his ragged trousers, his eyes all the while boring into the ungainly disproportionate rat as he flustered for an answer. In the meantime Scabies, who angrily rubbed at his wounded and limp shoulder, and the little grey rat, who brandished an awful shiny longsword that was more than a tad too long for him, flanked Noose. As the names and the ample supply of adjectives accompanying them reach his rat-like ears, the sable rat nods, almost as if acknowledging an awareness of the two. But it was nothing of the sort; instead, believing the gracious descriptions they herald, he had decided that they would like to see this young'n in good condition -and might pay well to ensure it. "So they know you're here, eh?" he asked, shuffling a bit closer and spinning one of those wicked daggers idly in his palm. "I'd venture a guess that they'd like to see you safe and sound, eh?"
Lucien felt like he may just loose his bowels. "Um. No," he said, quickly, assuming the ratty leader hadn't worked out he'd been the kid with the cheese back at the dock yet. Think! he ordered himself again. "I mean, yes, they know I'm here. And no, they wouldn't pay, if you’re thinkin’ ransom. Be..cause.. uh. Yeah. Because what in the nine hells would such villainous blaggards care about a mere employee?" Luc mentally high-fived himself. "See, they're expectin' me back any minute. With this 'ere.... trunk." He lifted his stuck tail gingerly to illustrate. "And woe betide any'un who stands between the Cap'n and his business!" It was a good thing for Lucien that rats cannot sweat.
Noose pulled his lips into a maniacal grin as his tail flicked listlessly about behind him. The rat's crimson eyes followed down Lucien's unbecoming tail to the trunk, and back again. "You talk strange for a Fermin," denoted the rat, drawing ever nearer, that blade still spinning as if suspended by some mystical means other than centrifugal force against his palm. "Are you Fermin or not?" he asked, the context probably being quite startling, although it was in fact a common colloquialism amongst the kind when one's allegiance to the pack and Lich Queen was brought into question.
Lucien said, "I..." He was visibly shaking, at this point. "Um..." He was going to die. Like a rat. A dirty rat. Thinkthinkthink...."Listen," the transformed rat-boy said, with a new burst of unconvincing bravado. "If you bring me to harm an' the Cap'n don't get his treasure, there's witnesses aplenty to th' fact that a pack of ve... er. Us. Folks, I mean a pack our people foiled him. And then you'll die, make no mistake. But..." Luc raised one knob-knuckled ratty finger, its nail curved and pearly. "... if we just.. split the booty, take a few bits for ourselves an' leave enough t'make him happy... he's none the wiser, an' everybody wins, right?" His whiskers lifted, ratty ink-coloured eyes sparkling.. with what could have been hope or greed, but was probably just tears of pain, seeing his tail was still trapped in that trunk-handle and swelling more every minute.
Caedan was sauntering along the Cenril wharfs, keeping mostly to the railings so she could glance at the water ebbing and flowing underneath her. A lanky white dog accompanied her, keeping close to her heels though the puppy made exceptions to chase crabs and unruly dockhands out of her immediate path. Her eyes dilated as she neared a pair of rat men and she abruptly stopped in her tracks, turning an icy stare upon them both, appraising them silently. And stopped in between some bodies, that she'd just noticed. One foot lifts, and then the other; the tack and stick of blood clings to her boots. Henry is in a similar state, trying to shake loose the blood from her too-large paws.
Noose weighed the options. Something about an implicative threat irked the rat, clearly not being too humbled by Lucien's ultimatum. "Oh?" he queried, his tail tugging into a 'Q' behind him with a coalescence of amusement and annoyance. The strange Fermin was still speaking in a manner reminiscent of a swarthy sailor, and not a soiled sewer stalker. Likewise, his impeccable nail was a bright red flag of dubiousness. "We'll take our chances, eh?" Scabies seconded the idea, and the little literal pipsqueak at his other side mirrored his assent with, well, a squeak. "Why don't you come underground...-home- with us," he corrected. "And we'll deal with the splitting there." The verb 'splitting' had a malicious inflection to it.
Lucien was just about to launch into a series of very good reasons why that would be a bad idea, when he happened to glance aside, and glimpse a familiar indigo-clad figure. His ratty eyes popped, and the boy’s brain could almost be heard grinding its gears. “Lady Joliette!” he shouted, waving madly at Caedan. “Ahoy there!” He turned back to Noose and the others, saying in a low voice, “Be cool, lads. It’s the Lady herself, come to check up on me, no doubt. Now, don’t make any sudden moves. She’s dangerous as a rattlesnake with a fang cavity.” Once more he waved the teen girl’s way, hoping to high heavens he might think of some additional way to clue the psychic in to his predicament, and that it was himself in that rodent body. But he couldn’t. “I say, Lady Jolie, I have procured your treasure ‘ere,” he added, calling to her again. “My friends were just.. uh, helping me bring it along to you and th’ Cap’n.”
Caedan daintily made her way over another corpse, while Henry went about sniffing at Noose and wagging at Lucien. The pool-spawned boy's address caused both brows to lift in a flicker of surprise, and she felt the need to correct him, simply because of her high regard for Jolie and her lack of acting chops to imitate such an inimitable woman. Amusement won out over better judgment, and Caedan lifted her chin and fluffed her tangled bangs out of her eyes. "The captain. Yes. We are in love. The captain and I." She sauntered closer to get a better look at Noose, while ignoring Lucien altogether. "The captain is dreamy." She spared a pointed look over her shoulder at Lucien to punctuate her statement. "Come then, bring me my treasure. I hope you've had the sense to bring buttons as well. You can't trade a lick of linen in this city if you haven't a button to spare."
Noose had had quite enough at this point, the charade taking a turn for the absurd. The rat looked Caedan twice over with an incredulous expression, a dagger that had been playfully spinning in one palm coming to a stop where a powerful glare of sun glinted off of it. "No!" roared the sable rodent, his tail aggitatedly swooping from left to right behind his head. "He is worthless, only distracted my pack when the guards attacked." The little grey underling eyed Lucien suspiciously upon remembering the cheese incident. "Either he returns with you, tailless, or he comes with us. That chest," Noose points, "is ours'. Earned with tooth, nail, and blood." Scabies, a Fermin only second to Noose in size and mottled with a slurry of brown and black, glares at this very eccentric 'Jolie'. A gaping wound is upon his shoulder. They looked the small woman over with uncertainty, but upon their packleader's words, decided to risk being bitten by such a supposed snake. "With or without your agreement, Lady Joliette," sneered the black rat.
Lucien's stomach griped at the thought of his tail being cut off, especially as he had no clear idea how that'd affect him on the change back to human again. Well aware of the psychic's tendency to stash sharp objects on and about her person, and on eyeing the greedy little crew of rats again, he had an idea. "Lady Jolie! A knife!" It was a long shot... but if he wasn't murdered where he stood, and she was quick enough to throw him a blade, it might just work.
Caedan decided she didn't like the cut of this vermin's jib. Eyes narrowed as she pointed a bony finger at him. "Listen here, you little barnacle on a kraken's ballsack. I do not have the time or inclination to play games with you." Stormy eyes focused on the glint of a dagger in his hand, and she watched him thread it around his palm. "I will have my chest, or I will have your every tooth, nail, and last drop of blood." She glowered at Lucien, then, and took a step closer to him. "And you. Worthless. You've double-crossed me? Me?" Her voice doubled in decibels, "I am in love with the captain! And I want my buttons!" She pulled a knife free from the sleeve of her sweater and slammed it into the trunk holding Lucien's tail captive, while she wheeled to face Noose once more. "Now do as I say before my whole crew is here and we are forced to feast on rat." She spit the last word out.
Noose reeled from the woman's words, though despite their venom he failed yet to see a reason to abide by them. Save for that last bit about a crew arriving, their own numbers being less than half of what they had been. Her harsh tone and whirling about provided sufficient misdirection so that the handing of the dagger went unnoticed. Noose took a staggering step back, formerly animated tail frozen rigid. "You send us off this way, empty-handed, and you'll regret it, Jolie."
Lucien's eyes were almost as shifty as a native of the species, while he watched for a moment when all eyes were on Caedan. In a split second, given that her posturing had at least garnered their attention for the most part, he tugged the knife free and slid the blade into the first of two locks securing the trunk. Jiggling it furiously, he almost cried out in relief as he heard the dulled metallic snap of the thing obeying him. Then, for the second one - he was not a pirate's son for nothing - working swiftly and deftly, even with his hands in that unfamiliar shape. Should Henry whuff along to lick his nose, he'd only puff his ratty cheeks and blow a breath her, hoping not to be noticed via the dog's affections. Then: pop! Success. If he wasn't stabbed already, the shapeshifter would grab up a handful of brilliant-cut gems and strew them all over the bloody, corpse-littered, sailor-occupied dock. And whatever would happen next, at least he now had a knife.
Lucien dropped 25 diamonds, 25 emeralds, 25 gold chunks and 6 glowing stones.
Caedan held her ground, despite what Lucien was doing behind her. Two more daggers slid into her palms from the confines of her too large sweater as she faced Noose. "I am not sending you away empty-handed. You have your teeth. And your tails. And your blood. Count yourself amongst the lucky. And that's Lady Joliette. I am in love with the captain." In case Noose has forgotten. Caedan feels this is an especially important aspect of 'being Jolie.'
Noose certainly hadn't forgotten, and probably never will. Another few begrudging steps backwards as a shower of precious stones rain down, and the rat gestures for the other two to begin gathering all that they can. Noose, on the other hand, continues to gauge Jolie's impersonator with a narrow gaze. He seemed determined to keep some semblance of dignity in the matter. Scabies and the small Fermin were on hands and knees, rummaging through the carnage and collecting blood-soaked jewels in a similarly stained tunic they had taken off of one of the dead. Blinking hard, the black rat tried to keep his composure. "Expect a visit, Lady Joliette. And you," he said, snapping towards the cunning Lucien. "You will be a trophy for any Fermin to claim.”
Noose picked up 5 diamonds, 5 emeralds and 5 gold chunks.
Lucien tried very hard not to look -too- relieved as the lead fermin seemed to find satisfaction in his offering. He did a good job, also, of shaking and quivering in a most convincing way, seeing as it was no effort at all, nor even voluntary, as he turned toward the ‘Lady’, wiping one paw nervously down his torn cut-offs. "Please don't whup me, Lady Jolie. I've been a good rat. Yes, I have. I fetched your treasure, for sure. I'll do anything, but just don't whup poor old ... Furface."
Noose hissed, and turned to rouse the other two rats. Oh, he would milk his informants and find this Jolie again. And Furface, well, that abomination would suffer as well if ever found again. The rats hobbled off of the pier heavily laden with gemstones, leaving the masses of bloodied and ravaged bodies behind. There were at least a dozen cadavers strewn over the wharf, and the crowds were still quite dense around them. Noose and the other Fermin vanished after looting the bodies for what they wanted and vowing to reconvene with Lucien and 'Jolie'.
Lucien's tail was throbbing badly, and his bruises even showed already, mainly as lumpish welts below the fur that did, indeed, currently cover his face. In the manner of a cowed and obedient servant, and despite his pain, he proceeded to follow after the psychic, having had the brilliant idea of picking the trunk up, rather than dragging it behind him. His tail hung in a limp U-shape from handle to seat of pants as he scurried up close. "Thanks," he muttered, in a low tone.
Caedan grinned, lopsided and sidelong at Lucien. "You're welcome. Are we going home? As mistress of the Eternity, I won't let you on in that state." She tried to step on his furry foot to drive her meaning home, literally. "And you have to explain to her, because I can't. Also to your father, because I won't." This is Lucien's bed of deceit, and he can do it up himself. "I hope he brings me buttons though. If he brings Caedan buttons, tell her to bring them to me. They are meant for me. My buttons."
Lucien avoided the additional hurt of being stepped on, but only just. "I'll tell 'em." he said, somewhat glumly, due to the pain, and also the sheer embarrassment of both his predicament and the whole.. rat thing. "You saved me, back there. Thanks, again." What he really wanted to say was, 'where the hell have you been, I missed you, do you still lo.. er.. like me a lot?' but didn't. Because boys are weird, like that.
Caedan was trying to head for the ship, and prayed it was the ship she had come from, as she couldn't quite remember. Maybe she was just sucked out of one of Lucien's worlds into this one. "I always come just in time," she mused, considering her appearances often correlated with moments of immediate danger for Lucien. "What happened? Why are you …" she gestured to his ratty self. "I like you as a boy better."
Lucien winced, for tail and pride. "Yeah, I do too. It's the thing, from the church." He looked sideways at her, not remembering whether he'd explained that very long story or not. "You know. The eel bite. Dad took me to church? And I woke up like.. and the spider eyes… remember?" He was limping, one eye gradually puffing closed.
Caedan stopped. Henry nearly collided with her legs the gesture was so abrupt. "Lucien. I can't read your mind. Yes? You remember? I do not know this. I don't even know where I am right now." She blew an exasperated sigh and continued to head in the direction of where she assumed the boat might be. "Let's get you fixed up in case that rat comes back for tea. I don't like rats at all. They carry disease. Who knows what you are carrying."
Lucien said, "This damn trunk, presently…" rather lamely, and trudged along for a bit until his shame subsided somewhat. Then, since she didn't know, he'd fill her in. "Remember when I was in the ship, and I had that bandage on? Well, I had spider-eyes. And I was a bear for a week. And now this.. See, I got real sick after the eel bit me, and dad took me to church to get healed. Mahri was there, and I talked to god, maybe, or one of 'em, or I was just seein' things. But when I woke up, I had spider eyes."
Caedan stopped near a ship that wasn't at all like the Eternity, but seemed stalwart enough and possibly abandoned enough she could sneak a few supplies from it. She went about testing the gangway. "The spider … I remember. And I could hear you. On the inside. That's when things …" She narrowed her eyes at him. "I thought I dreamed that. Or that you dreamed me into it." Lips pursed and she blew a sigh in frustration. "I don't understand. You. Where is the captain?" She bellowed into this strange ship, "Cap'n! I need to sleep … see you!"
Lucien was pretty desperate to get that trunk off of his tail, since the swelling was now cutting off his circulation and the tip was knobby and purplish. "Can we just.. go in there?" He didn't care if it was occupied. He'd a throw a few of those remaining gems at the crew, just for a chance to be released from ball-and-chain position. Waiting for her reply, he added, "Dreams. I've had strange ones, Caedan. Real strange. But the good ones had you in 'em. Lola.." he said, even more quietly. "Your name in those dreams is Lola."