Rodentia Adventures

CHAPTER 22: FAMILY REUNION

"What do we do?" one of the nearby mouse guards muttered to another. 

"I don't know... maybe we should just rush it?" 

"That's crazy!" 

"All I know is that it can't stay there. Go tell it." 

"Me? Why should I have to do it?" 

"You have seniority!" 

"I was recruited one hour before you were!" 

"Exactly!" 

The young guard sighed, ultimately unable to challenge that logic. He worked up his nerve and very slowly walked up to the dark lord who happened to be casually sitting in the grass, looking up at the tower with great interest. 

"Um... excuse me?" he said in a meek voice. Midnight turned a single bright green eye towards the small creature, as the mouse swallowed down a lump in his throat and continued. "Sir? It is sir, right?" 

"Yes." the dark lord replied. 

"Oh, good! I mean, it would be fine if you we're a sir too, of course, I just meant that..." he cleared his throat, looking away, unable to will himself to meet the gaze of the black cat. "Well, you see, I was just wondering, that is to say the rest of the guards were wondering... it wasn't my idea at all, of course..." the guard said, shuffling his feet nervously. 

The dark lord stared at him, coldly, but said nothing.

"Well... um... we were wondering... could you perhaps please, you know..." the armored mouse forced a smile, trying to say the last word with both a forceful and diplomatic tone. "Leave?"  

"What?" Midnight said, glaring down at him. "No!" 

The guard raised a finger, opening his mouth to object, but in truth he couldn't think of an even adequate counter argument, let alone a strong one. "Oh. Okay." he said, dejectedly, returning to the group of soldiers, his first mission a failure. It had appeared that none of the others standing nearby were willing to take on the task themselves, either. 

"Rude." Midnight grumbled over his shoulder, returning his attention to the now severely damaged tower. 

<3~ <3~ <3~ <3~ <3~ <3~ <3~ =^..^= 

"There's a pretty big gap up ahead, and the stairs past it don't look very stable..." Mathias said, leading the way. He had set up ropes along what remained of the tower's inner wall in order to aid with their slow descent. "Right past that, it looks like we're good!" he said with a smile, before that transformed into a frown upon giving the path ahead a more thorough examination. "Oh, never mind, my mistake. It actually gets far worse." 

"Was that really necessary? The whole wrecking the tower thing? You could have brought the entire building down!" Aaron said. 

"Hey, I saw an opportunity to make an amazing entrance, and I took it! Any self respecting mouse would have done the same!" Jerin said, "Still, I'm very sorry! See, This is why you need to list off your requirements in advance, so the next time that I need to do a dazzling last-second rescue, I won't inconvenience you! Maybe I should have brought some refreshments too, just to make the experience as comfortable as possible!" 

"Heh, fine, fair enough." Aaron said, shaking his head and chuckling. For the moment, it was absolutely impossible for him to be angry with her, which said an awful lot considering just how easily anger normally came to the larger sibling. 

A few minutes before, back at the top of the tower, Rowan, now with both feet firmly planted upon the relatively flat surface was bandaging Aaron's wound, while Mathias was dealing with Aaron's still visibly shaken sister. The fact that she hadn't even tried to 'heal' her brother was clear evidence of her poor mental state.