Recent content by Itch

A silent part of her anticipated judgment. She knew, on paper, it was ridiculous to mourn the untimely death of a rat, not even a pet rat at that. A street rat, seen as wild and feral as any common pest. All they saw was a creature that brought forth disease and created infestations where they...

Try as she might, Wren was more than an aloof powderkeg feared by doors and faces alike. It might have been buried deep down, but she held a kind heart. Claude had sniffed it out long before in better times, and if Claude knew, then Itch knew. The portly rat, however, was uncharacteristically...

On an ordinary day, Itch might have better remembered that she had always found Wren's surly demeanour to be somewhat terrifying. It had been difficult to parse what was banter between friends and what was barely restrained rage, and there was always shouting, albeit mainly on Wren's part. But...

The abandoned house, luckily, had remained just that. It wasn't hard to see why, or rather smell. The neighbouring tannery was still in full swing, gifting a pungent stench of rotten flesh and urine that couldn't help but slither in through broken windows. Perhaps it was a small mercy that Itch...

It was the heist of the century. Not to those who walked tall through the city streets atop two legs, but instead to those of a rodent persuasion. The joint was Crumbs, a famous Outer City bakery renowned throughout Alliria for its fabulous pastries. Their storefront window was a magnificent...

The dread that formed in the pit of her stomach when Larka grabbed her wrist was indescribable, even more so when she turned back to see that look on the girl's face. Why, Malcolm, why? "N-no no, it's just..." Itch began to stammer in the face of grim determination, unsure how to fully define...

There was a simple joy in just listening to another person speak. Not that she wished to diminish the company of Claude and her troupe of rodent friends, but there were times when a salve of rats couldn't soothe the loneliness of her existence. Itch had learned the unfortunate way that...

At first, it felt as if she had taken a sharp tack of truth and burst the bubble of fantasy that had excited Larka. Who was Itch to say that such a girl did not exist? Was she the foremost expert on all that lurked within the sprawling stench? Perhaps there really was a creature of reincarnation...

Itch was still trying to wrap her head around the concept of a reincarnating girl. Every month? The very notion seemed exhausting and, to boot implied a monthly death. Larka's comment about a baby gave cause for her brow to knot with concern; did that mean that this girl lived an entire life in...

Claude stared back with greedy, bulging eyes, his rusty, stalwart teeth tearing through the jerky with ease. The obese rodent shuffled backwards a few paces from Larka, attuned prey senses dictating a little more space between them. Itch, oblivious to this, continued to rip through the meat...

She stared at her gluttonous companion, a terse judgment meeting Claude's barefaced defiance as he nibbled away on the snatched prize of dried meat. It was a small mercy, then, that their unexpected guest was charitable. "Oh!" Itch exclaimed softly when Larka continued to hold out the tin, her...

"Just a cold," she lied brightly, lowering her arm and inspecting the crook of her elbow for any escapee globs of unruly mucus, "I would say it's past the point of catching if that worries you." The moment the tin was pried open, Claude came to life, hopping off of Itch like a portly flying...

A few minutes? Itch tilted her head and stared at the girl, relieved that she seemed largely unharmed but bewildered by the notion that it would only take a few minutes to recover from what must have been quite a terrible fall. Perhaps she had hit her head? What was the procedure for those...

Oh! The lump was alive! Relief took the weight off of hunched shoulders as the figure, a girl, confirmed that she was not Claude. The rodent on her shoulder tucked back into her clothes, whiskers twitching with disappointment as he witnessed a hearty meal disappear before his greedy, beady...

It was amazing what some people threw away. Itch had learned over time that there was no away but instead a somewhere. Look in the right place; you could be fed for a day, clothed for a month, or even make a coin or two. All you needed was a good eye and a strong stomach. Look in the wrong...