Private Tales Bloody Rats

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 assault upon the eyes, with meticulous and vibrant decorations adorning the array of sweets that sat there in glorious temptation. Who could resist such enticement without a single burnt edge or soggy bottom in sight? Who could stop their mouth from watering when gazing upon the precision piping of every inch of icing? Who in this city could deny themselves a decadent treat the moment they bore witness to such perfection? No mortal man, indeed!

Never mind mortal rats.

The target was one pastry in particular - the mille-feuille. Layers upon layers of flaky puff pastry sandwiched between rich dollops of crème diplomat and vibrant raspberry jam. This majesty was topped off by a layer of white and pink fondant icing, feathered to perfection with neither colour bleeding into the other. It was a sheer delight, the pinnacle of pastry.

Itch and her troupe of sticky-pawed rats had waited for months each night, hoping that one of those buttery, flakey creations might have been leftover after a day's trading and discarded into the street as delicious rubbish. No such luck, not only for a mille-feuille but for anything. Alas, there were no crumbs from Crumbs.

Not a single one.

Eventually, Claude, the gluttonous menace (and her favourite rat), convinced Itch that they needed to take action and commit a daring daylight robbery. Frankly, she wasn't a fan of the attention of such a bold scheme, but every day that passed without so much of a taste of those heavenly confections had worn the young woman down, and with that, he had won her over.

The premise was simple: Itch would run distraction, entering Crumbs to the owners' horror. Not only was the presence of some filthy vagrant off-putting to any potential customers, but her existence was a health code violation that would set them all scrambling to evict her.

While that was happening in the front of the shop, the rats would be working at the back. The bakery had a tendency to keep a window into the kitchen open so that the wondrous smells could drift out into the street and entice customers. This was the point of entry for the rest of the crew. They were a motley crew of four rodents who would scarper in as a unit, grab a mille-feuille and get out.

Claude had insisted that he was exempt from the leg-work, not only because he was obese but because it was his idea. So, in the mastermind's absence, the daring quartet assembled were Freida, Renfrew, Jacque and Clementine (Clem, if she liked you).

They'd set out in the morning, after the early bird rush for a fresh loaf, but before the customers descended for a fine treat for a midday indulgence and, to Claude's credit, everything was going to plan...

...until it wasn't.

The sewer-dweller remembered quite vividly the sensation of the clerk's hand gripping her upper arm to escort her out as she continued making a scene, begging for the chance to stay and look at the sweets. She remembered his face, how even his ridiculous moustache seemed angry alongside his ruddy complexion and the deep grooves etched into his brow. She especially remembered the shrill scream that rang out from the kitchen, the precursor to absolute disaster.

'RATS! WE'VE GOT BLOODY RATS!'

But most of all, she remembered the loud stomp of a boot followed by a sharp, pained squeak.

After that moment, everything devolved into a blur of chaos, and their heist was promptly abandoned. In what was admittedly a feral reaction, Itch bit the man who had grabbed her until he had released her, and then she ran to their agreed-upon muster point at the closest entrance to their home in the sewers. That horrible squeak played over and over atop the backdrop of the blood pounding in her head.

Only three rats returned.

Renfrew hadn't made it.

It had all seemed so silly before, a fun scheme cooked up to net them a tasty morsel and a fond memory. They didn't need the mille-feuille; they got by fine with what they could scavenge. Suddenly, Itch was furious at herself more than anything. How greedy! How foolish! How could she forget that when people looked at rats, they saw vermin only fit for death?!

Before she'd found sense, the young woman had gone to her stash, retrieved a piece of parchment and quill, and penned a short, tear-stained note for a friend who came to mind alongside feelings of rage. Her usual wonderful penmanship that betrayed her status as an urchin was loosened by rage and bordered on illegible, and Claude, in his guilt, was sent forth to carry the hastily rolled-up note missive using his nose and wits.

Dearest Wren,

I need your help. Please meet me at the old place with the broken door.

Itch

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 chose to preside in the one place that smelled worse.

Not that she noticed, as the weight of guilt from Renfrew's death crushed such trivial passive thoughts.

She had sat in the corner of the room with her knees pulled up to her chest and waited, staring blankly at the gouges in the door from ghosts of thrown knives.

Freida, Jacque and Clem had made a valiant effort to assuage her remorse. That's just how life is for rats. Every passing boot a threat, every pantry guarded by a cat a gauntlet. In the eyes of the world around them, they were vermin, and vermin existed to be exterminated.

Itch refused to accept it. Even if the rest of the realm saw them as a plague, she saw them as friends. They had their own personalities; she knew each of their voices, and she knew that every rat held a soul with wants, hopes and dreams just as unique as any person. Would there not be outrage in the streets if it was her who had died instead? Killed for the want of a silly little pastry? Then why should it have been any different for Renfrew?

Claude returned, the message having been delivered and found solemn purchase on her shoulder. His usual gluttonous arrogance tempered by the mourning. The grey blob snuggled into her neck in an attempt to comfort her, but such a thing was too far from her mind.

She wanted vengeance.

And who better to ask for aid in that respect than the woman who announced herself by smashing her foot through the front door? Blubbery blue eyes framed by puffy flesh stared at the boot. Wren was always giving the boys a hard time for kicking that door, and on a better day, the sewer-dweller might have made a cheeky remark.

"...Wren?" Itch sniffled, cutting a tragic figure in the corner, "You...you came so swiftly."

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 it was not an ordinary day.

"Yes, I need..." she began before faltering, realising that in the gut reaction to Renfrew's death, all she had was a concept. What was a desire for vengeance without a plan? "I want..."

She wanted what? What revenge was suitable? A life for a life? Isn't that what was fair? Itch flinched at the thought before wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Suddenly, she felt every bit as small as her posture suggested, not aided by Wren's closed-off disinterest. She felt ridiculous and out of her depth. That thought alone hit the back of her nose like vinegar, her eyes welling up once more.

"I...I need to get even with somebody, but I don't know...I don't know where to begin. I don't know what I'm doing."

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 quiet now and still bunched in the nook of her neck.

"Not me," she answered with a sniff, looking up at Wren with glassy eyes on the verge of overflowing once more, "but one of my friends..."

It did not seem entirely possible that Itch could shrink into herself any more. Still, she achieved the impossible, all her limbs retreating into a tighter huddle, Claude getting softly squashed by her chin as it was tucked below, and eye contact was lost.

"They...they killed Renfrew."

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 weren't welcome. From her life so far as one of Alliria's vagrant sewer dwellers the young woman could relate, to that same disdain held in swift glances that hoped not to make eye contact in fear that she would ask for help.

However, more than that, she could understand them. When did a beast cease to be a beast? When they told you how much they liked freshly baked sourdough and how much they loathed mashed potatoes.

So when Wren's hand upon her shoulder sought to comfort her as opposed to throttling her Itch felt the briefest glimmer of reassurance.

"...Crumbs," she squeaked, eyes still downcast, "...it'sa...it's a...bakery in the outer city..."

As if it couldn't get any more ridiculous. Crying for a dead rat and seeking vengeance against a bakery. It was hardly a revolution in the streets.

"...we weren't hurting anybody," came the following sniffle, a tattered sleeve rising to wipe at tears and snot alike, "...we just wanted a cake..."

Her voice snapped off into a hoarse sob. Nobody should die for a cake. Not even a rat. The thought gave her enough will to raise her head and look up at Wren, as if seeking vindication.

"Is...is that so bad? To steal a cake?"