Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1992 15:56:23 EDT From: Message-ID: <92261.155623ASG102@psuvm.psu.edu> Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [MI] Bath Time for Little Rat Little Rat played in the tub for a while and then noticed that her skin was wrinkling. She wondered if this was why old people were wrinkly and then decided that she didn't want to be old yet, so she got out of the tub. She thought about putting her old clothes back on, but decided to wait for Prince Elfman to return with the new clothes that he had promised her. She picked up her nice blanket from the floor and wrapped it around her for warmth. Then she curled up in a corner of the room and fell asleep. ----------- Little Rat walked through the alleys of the low city with her brother. He was about to get them some food. He was so clever. He walked up toward one of the vendors of the floating market who had a cart of pears. The man selling the pears was busy fending off urchins and trying to sell his fruit at the same time. Little Rat saw that this man was fat which meant two things in the Low City: he was rich and he was slow. A ragged looking girl ran down the street toward the pear vendor and grabbed a pear from his cart as she passed. When the fat man turned to scream 1000 obscenities at her, Rat's brother grabbed a dozen of the fruit, quickly stuffed them into his shirt, and walked back to where Rat was hiding. A few minutes later, they were joined by Kestran, the girl who had distracted the merchant. Together, they walked back to their shack to split their feast and celebrate. After eating a few of the pears, Little Rat and Kestran fell asleep on the floor of the shack. Rat's brother was out on one of his "jobs" which usually meant that he was stealing something from someone. Little Rat didn't mind that her brother was a thief. The Low City law was clear on this: If you can steal something from someone, then they didn't deserve to have it in the first place. Her contented sleep was broken by a knock on the door. The pattern of the knock was that of Trecke, one of her brother's friends. She crawled to the door and pulled off the bar to let him in. Trecke's face told her that something was wrong. "Rat, Iramus was hurt real bad. Him been jumped by da Doom Walkers an' dey took all his stuff an' left him dyin'. Ya gotta come quick," he ran out the doorway and down a street. Little Rat followed after. She felt numb from shock. When she got to the scene, she saw that ALFVAEN was on the ground bleeding from several knife wounds. The worst part was that his legs were bend in unnatural angles. The horror of the scene hit Little Rat and she screamed... ------------- Delmara heard the scream and quickly opened the door to the bathroom. "Rat, what's the matter?" she asked. She saw that Rat was in a corner of the room wearing only a blanket. She was sitting curled-up with her arms around her knees, slowly rocking herself and shivering. Delmara dropped the clothes and rushed over to Rat. "Rat, tell me what is wrong." Delmara cleared the stray hairs from Rat's face and then looked Rat in the eyes. For a moment, they were unfocused, but then they cleared. "I seen Prince Elfman an' he was jumped by da Doom Walkers. Dey stabbed an' took his stuff an' left him all broken an' bleedin', just like when dey jumped my brother...." she said on the verge of tears. "Hey, listen, I just saw him. He's fine. You just had a bad dream. Why don't you put these clothes on and we'll go see him ok?" She reassured Rat who just nodded unsurely and dressed in her new clothes. "What kind of name is 'Little Rat' for a girl anyway?" Delmara tried to change the subject. "What do ya mean? It's my kinda name. What other kind is dere?" At this point, Delmara could see that she had overestimated Rat's size. The clothes hung off her, but Rat didn't seem to notice. "Well, don't you have another name like Laura or Chris or Kamissa? I can't imagine that your mother named you 'Little Rat'." "I ain't got no name like rich folk. I is just da Rat cause I live in da streets a da Low City like a rat an' I is kinda little. Whatcha need a rich folk name anyway? Does 'Delmara' mean sumfin'?" Little Rat was fully dressed now. "Well, it doesn't mean anything specific, It's just the name that I took when I became a priestess. It was also the name of a wise old woman that I knew from when I was about your age. She was very kind to me." Delmara said reminscing. "C'mon Delmara, I wanna see Mr Elfman." Rat grabbed Delmara's hand and pulled her back to the storeroom. Then Delmara stopped her. "We have to wait for him here Rat, he wants to ask you some questions." The two waited patiently for the arrival of Alfvaen. Love and Peace and Concern for Others, -The Dreamer-