Chapter 6: Of Raffertys and Rats 1
They made their way to the cave on Seventh Down through tunnels only a Twokins rat could control. The marquise led them, and the marquis brought up the rear perched in Aaron’s hair, and he was still trying to figure out if that was the marquise sitting on Rose’s shoulder as a black-spotted pup or if some young rat had taken advantage of the situation to go for a joyride on humanity’s princess. They weren’t very restrictive of their children’s follies, were the rats: the boldest survived. Or they didn’t.
“How is this even working,” Rose asked, as part of a continued one-sided interrogation. She was on Aaron’s back again, so the pup she was talking to was doubly removed from the ground, and likely feeling about as tall as it had ever been. “Is it not keyed to your blood? Even if you are a rat king, your bodies aren’t related, unless you’re--”
She did not finish that impolite thought. Though it did not stop the rest of her thoughts. “And it’s not as if you could have keyed it to your whole species,that’s too ill-defined, this doesn’t make any sense--”
Squeak, said the pup.
Just ahead, a black-haired, black-earred, black-tailed scribe--probably not the marquise--was carrying a half-shuttered lantern for them. And a book bag, slung across her chest where thieving hands couldn’t easily nick it. She’d had pups with her, when the marquise had first called her over to their little party. One of them had even managed to come with, by digging its teeth into the bag’s flap and refusing to let go. The others had been left behind, nursing with a surrogate dam. Rat mothers rarely lacked for child care. In her other hand she was, of course, carrying the marquise. And holding her up at intervals, like a particularly sentient key. The marquise herself seemed entirely used to this usage of her personage.
“How?” demanded Rose, grabbing the edge of this newest doorway with both hands to stop Aaron from simply walking through. This left her with zero hands for which to hold on to him. Her rat gave an alarmed squeak, and tried to climb up Aaron’s ponytail to safety; the gray marquise on his head put a nipping stop to that. Aaron tightened his grip around the princess’ legs and hunched forwards, just managing to save them all from the perils of scholarly pursuits. The princess was squinting at the stone, trying to trace out the script the marquise’s blood had revealed. Alas, the scribe was already carrying the lantern onward, and Rose hadn’t a rat’s practice for feeling out letters in the dark.
Speaking of dark.
Lochlann bumped into him again, because Lochlann was walking right on Aaron’s heels, seemingly tethered to that light. Aaron was trying very hard to be understanding. The good lieutenant hadn’t been this bad before Aaron had left him tucked safely away in the dark. But what Aaron was actually understanding was how annoying it was to have someone always a step away from stepping on him. How maybe after a year or two of that, he might swear off carrying a light at all.
“I am sorry we had to leave you there,” Aaron said, because he’d not gotten many apologies of his own in these tunnels.