Katz and Foxes and Rats, Oh My!

[Gyrfalcon]

Katzaniel was bored. There was no way to escape that fact, or that she was beyond bored. Deathly bored even. With a long sigh, she rolled over onto her back and stretched out luxuriously, admiring her striped forearms as she enjoyed her tiger form, that annoying little voice in the back of her mind reminded her of all the things she could be doing. She ignored it as a matter of course.

 

She raised her head in surprise as someone knocked on her door fives times, then twice more. Pulling herself to her feet, she sighed and shifted forms, becoming the half-man half-tiger that was capable of communicating with the rest of the Pen. With a grumble, she threw open the door and demanded. “What?”

 

The young man on the other side of the door blinked in surprise over dark glasses of some kind Katzaniel had never seen. She noted his eyes were a strange golden color before focusing on the bouquet of bright wildflowers he held in his hands.

 

“If you’re another suitor, I already have plenty.” Katzaniel said, rolling her eyes at yet another suitor who didn’t understand that what she really wanted brought to her was a freshly killed creature to show the suitor’s hunting prowess. Not a bunch of flowers that weren’t even good to eat! The little voice in the back of her head piped up that flowers were considered part of the mating ritual in some human cultures – an attempt to please the woman with a pleasantly scented gift. She suppressed that voice again.

 

“Actually, you bought my attentions, unlike the others.” the stranger said with a short bow.

 

“What?” Katzaniel said, looking blank.

 

“Bachelor auction? Bidding for a date? You won me. I’m Daryl, by the way.” he said, holding out the bouquet.

 

“Oh. Oh yeah, that thing.” Katzaniel said, memory finally starting to emerge, Salinye nagging at her to bid on bachelors and her finally choosing a few at random and bidding a bit of geld just to please Salinye. Apparently, she had won one of the ones she bid on.

 

“Yeeeeeah, that thing.” Daryl said with a smirk, slightly off-put by Katzaniel’s ambivalence towards him. She finally took his flowers and tossed them to the side... where they landed on a mount of similar bouquets in the corner. “You are popular.” he muttered, slightly awed at the number of offerings that had been made, and from the sweet scent of the mound, all of them within the last few days. “I was thinking of taking you out to a restaurant.” he said smoothly. “I’ve heard that the Porterhouse Golem serves excellent steak.”

 

Katzaniel collected her spear and stepped out of her quarters, pulling the door closed behind her, deftly used to the intricacies of even simple actions like closing a door when you’re a tigertaur. “Fine, let’s go.” she said, hoping that the evening wouldn’t be too boring.

 

----

 

“I am sorry sir, but we have a strict policy regarding attire here.” the head waiter said mechanically.

 

“Look, she’s a tigertaur; it’s impractical for her to wear shoes.” Daryl argued.

 

“I’m sorry sir, but the policy is very strict: no shoes, no shirt no service.” The waiter repeated monotonously.

 

Katzaniel glared poisonously at the head waiter and wrung the haft of her spear slowly.

 

Daryl snarled in frustration and shook his head. “Fine then, I want my deposit back.”

 

“I’m sorry, but deposits are non-refundable.” the waiter said, neither satisfaction nor unhappiness staining its voice.

 

Daryl leaned closer, golden eyes staring into steel eyes. “If I don’t get my deposit back, they’ll never find all of your parts.” he said, biting off each word slowly.

 

The golem considered this statement and the spear pointed its way and wisely acceded. It wasn’t a combat model or a heavy work model and had no defense against situations like this. “Of course, please wait one moment.” it said, quickly retrieving Daryl’s deposit and returning it to him.

 

“Please come again.” it mechanically said as the two brushed through the restaurant’s doors, before turning to the next customers. “A table for two? Certainly...”

 

“Sorry about that Katzaniel.” Daryl said glumly, his carefully planned evening crumbling already.

 

“The nerve of that... that... walking rust heap!” Katzaniel fumed, thumping the base of her spear on the ground as she stormed along beside Daryl.

 

“If you want, I’ll go back and appropriate some steaks.” Daryl offered.

 

“I don’t want steak! I want something freshly killed!” Katzaniel grumbled.

 

“Foxes aren’t well known for their ability to pull down deer, but I’m willing to give it a try.” Daryl said with a shrug.

 

Katzaniel smirked at him. “I’m willing to eat smaller prey too, if your hunting skills are limited.”

 

Daryl chuckled. “Smaller, huh? Well, some of the rats in the tunnels under the Confessional back at the Pen are the same size as rabbits...”

 

“If that’s all you can handle, fox, then so be it.” Katzaniel said with a smirk. “Though they hardly match a fat deer.” she paused for him to turn away before adding. “I wouldn't want you to get yourself hurt, after all.”

 

Daryl shook his head. “Ah well, just so you enjoy yourself.” he muttered. “Even if it is at my expense.”

 

----

 

Not twenty minutes later, the two were in the tunnels under the Confessional, Daryl a fox and Katzaniel a tiger-stripped house cat, to make the hunt a little more challenging. She shook her head as Daryl bounded down the tunnel, shouting in Fox .

 

Whatever he was saying, the rats sure were responding, squeaks and chitters as rats of every size, even some as large as small dogs went scurrying every which way. Katzaniel smiled to herself and crouched, tail lashing, one particularly large rat was running right her way, looking back over its shoulder. It never even had a chance to see her spring.

[The Death of Rats]

Looking vexedly at the small Fig tree sapling it had planted outside Death's home several months ago, The Grim Squeaker tried and failed to recall its' significance. H e knew dates were of vital importance somehow, but couldn't quite put his fleshless toe on it.*

 

With a shrug of tiny shoulders, it absently squeaked a greeting to Binky, Death's horse (who was not, in fact, pale. He is in reality, quite dark.) as it checked it's minscule lifetimers, watching intently as the sand poured inexorably downward through the various glasses. Noticing one sizeable batch that seemed to have all started to hit their last grains of sand once- it was over four dozen lifetimers strong and expanding in number rapidly- it decided to head there, wherever that was, njext.

 

 

 

 

 

*The Death of Rats, unlike his master, Death, could actually remember the past, as well as the ability they both had to remember the future. His memory of the past, however could be as best qualified as 'spotty as a leopard'.

[The Death of Rats]

Three or four hordes of rats and mice in a sewer somewhere, The Grim Squeaker finally came to his final charge, a rather unique transparent rat standing next to its mortal form, but looking not at all at its body.

 

Its uniqueness was in that it seemed to be letting fly with the shrill, stacatto squeaking of ghostly rat laughter. This stopped the Death of Rats in some concern.

 

Concerned, rather than affront or outright anger; for while it was certainly capable of either, it felt no such annoyance for yet another charge that was simply going to be sent on its way.

 

Not surprise either, because the Death of Rats had never learned how to be surprised. He was simply no good at it.

 

He was also not confused, because when he encountered something he didn't understand, he simply accepted it and moved on. The Grim Squeaker's was not in even the smallest sense a questioning nature - besides, he could always count on one of Death's retinue or Death himself to explain anything he needed to know.

 

"Squeak," the ghostly rat said, once it had regained its composure.

 

"SQUEAK," replied the Grim Squeaker crypically. "Squeak," the rat insisted.

 

"SQUEAK," the Grim Squeaker said sternly.

 

"Squeak!", the rat urged, pointing animatedly at the Death of Rats' hood.

 

"SQUEAK," was the Death of Rats' final reply before raising its' scythe and sending this now irksome spirit to the next rodent life.

 

To be fair, any observer at hand (had there been any) would have agreed with the rat. The Death of Rats looked extremely silly wearing a bow tie, and it was unfathomable why he would be wearing one.

 

More than fifteen years later, the Death of Rats ambled past the fully grown fig tree in Death's front yard.

 

As it kicked a dried fig out of its path, the elusive memory suddenly returned from that long ago day he argued with a rat.

 

He hurried off with all speed.

 

Thanks to the nature of his own particular immortal life (as well as his memory) the Grim Squeaker was indeed able to make good on what would have been, for most mortals, a broken promise.

 

What Katzaniel could not figure out at all, however, was why a bow tie clad and rose* -bearing Grim Squeaker showed up at her door that day in August of 2003**.

 

 

*philosophically speaking

** Earth year