To Shake The Heavens (Old VI Thread)

[Jeshal the Ironclaw]

(Infamous criminal Keinruf Wright sets fire to the Opera House and finds allies and enemies. Warnings for injury detail and violence. Starring Keinruf Wright, Kaleb Otto Othro-Leah, Rommily Valkensfaust, Fistol and Borrum Tockfor, Aedan Kingussie, Rhona Kingussie, Frostbite R. Tarrin, Callix Noxi, Tamlyn, Minty, Pudding Chester, Blaine (Blinky) Hinkly, and Pink. Presumably not the pop icon.)



TO SHAKE THE HEAVENS
First post Bugs 24, Yr 1729



Keinruf Wright
The facts were these:

Tonight, the 24th of Bugs, was the gala night of a new opera. The Bully Harbour Opera House was well and truly packed with creatures of all sorts, (excepting, of course, anybeast who wasn't rich enough to purchase a ticket). Not a seat was left un-sat-in.

The orchestra was just winding up the overture - a stunning 12-minute theme piece, which gave enough time for all the peanut vendors to make their rounds without disrupting the actual show. The chandelier burned majestic, throwing a red glow onto the vast dome above the crowd; the underside of the dome, painted light blue with fluffy grey and white clouds, now looked as though the entire theatre was bathed in the throes of a sunset on the ocean.

Everything was perfect. Everybeast was relaxed. Everybeast would enjoy themselves. Everybeast would die.

Every door had been locked. Every side-door, every backstage entrance, every secret route used by opera singers to escape their fans, even the front doors were locked. And why not? There was no more room for more audience, and they'd be blasted if they'd let anybeast leave before it was all over ...

The strange thing was, not only were they locked from within, but bolts had been drawn across them from the outside as well. Bolts that had been installed under rather curious circumstances the day before.

It was raining that night, but nobeast watching the opera knew that. It was a light drizzle, hardly worthy of the word "rain". Really more of a vague, sharp mist.

The strange thing was, they should have known it was raining. There were enough holes in the domed ceiling to make it quite obvious. There was, in fact, a small hole the size of an average wine bottle cork every three inches in a circle along the middle of the dome. The reason no water was going through them was because they had been cleverly stuffed with tiny rags, which had not yet begun to drip.

Keinruf Wright had spent a lot of time on that roof, taking advantage of the summer draught and the noise of rehearsals.

Anyone who might have remembered the pine marten would have hardly recognised him now: gone were his yellow and green coat with matching scarf, replaced now with a drab brown trench coat and dark grey scarf, and a large grey flatcap pulled over his face and covering his bent ear. His half-tail was covered by the coat's rear flaps, although this in itself was a dead give-away, for any pine marten with a proper length tail would not be able to conceal it entirely.

More than just his dress was his body itself. Keinruf, in the prime of his reputation, had been known to be a sickly fellow, bloodshot eyes blackened and baggy, whiskers bent and drooped, fur drab and limbs thin from malnourishment and sickness. His current looks were a far cry from this: his eyes, while still bloodshot, were brighter than ever before, and his face showed signs of good slumber; his whiskers had grown out, and though still drooped, were straight and nary one of them missing; his body had regained muscle, both in his arms and legs and his chest.

Further still was his lack of weapons. The Keinruf of old never left his bed without buckling on his trusted rapier, or filling his pockets with something or other to wreak pain on others, be it a doorknob or a pawful of rusted nails. Hunched in the drizzle on the roof of the Opera house, anybeast who had sight of him - currently no one at all - would see how closely his clothes fit his form, clinging wetly to his back and chest, leaving no disfigured lumps to the imagination. He was unarmed.

And tonight was the last night he would ever visit the Opera. Tonight was the last night anybeast would.

The Opera would fall tonight, starting with the domed ceiling. The painted heavens would fall, taking the chandelier down upon the heads of the audience, spreading fire and rubble across to the stage and walls of the main theatre. From there, four pillars in each corner of the theatre would fall every which way - Keinruf had found an account of the building, and gleefully noted that corners had been cut considerably. Not one of the pillars was actually connected to the ceiling; the roof merely rested upon them, as it was unfathomable that any structural damage should befall such a well-kept building.

The pillars, oak trees cut to size and painted to resemble marble, would fall, and the outer halls of the Opera house, arranged as they were in a U shape around the main theatre, would begin to feel the impact of the disaster, and slowly collapse outward as the fire and panicked audience spread further, trying to escape through the double-locked doors.

The entire building would collapse, and it would all start with the dome ... if only Keinruf could trigger the event.

Every time he had come up to drill a hole in the dome with his trusty auger, Keinruf had brought up a small rock the size of his paw. A forgotten rain collecting barrel had been tipped of its mosquito-spawn, and the rocks placed inside. This barrel, while it had been light, had been placed on a makeshift ramp aimed towards the dome. Keinruf had made sure the roof could sustain the weight where this was, and so no sagging had been noticed from below.

The idea was, that once tipped, the barrel would roll down the ramp into the dome, crashing through a spot that Keinruf had half-sawed a square into, creating a weakened "window". The barrel would catch on the chandelier below, and the combined weight would do the rest of the damage, snapping the dome's weakened circumference all around.

The problem was that, while Keinruf had indeed been working out to regain muscle mass, he was still not very strong. The barrel was heavy.

And the overture was ending ...

So much for theatrics.


Kaleb Otto Othro-Leah
Kaleb let out a weak yawn, pulling in a sharp breath of oxygen and holding it in his lungs before exhaling. The fox, by his own account he considered himself fancy, wiped a non-existent crumb or speck of some sort from his dark red trouser leg. His matching red jacket held its crisp form. He ran his right paw along both sides of his whiskers to straighten them back to how he had them before they began slouching. Though invisible, he liked every aspect about him to obey his every whim.

He felt a little out of place during the overture, but knew it would fade once the show started. He only agreed because one of the performers was a kind customer to his Port Products store. He raised his paw at the passing peanut vendor and tried to enjoy the bag as much as he could.


Rommily Valkensfaust
The overture was ending. Violinists screamed down the scales toward the last notes of the overture, drawing out each quivering tone with painful effort. The ear-shattering chorus set a decisive tone that would define the rest of the opera. It was one of those classics - a hit tragedy involving murder and mayhem, intrigue and backstabbing, chases and hunts and gallant, vicious swordfights, all terrible consequences of a twisted romance. Everyone died in the end, with much blood and gore everywhere, but that was to be expected. This was a vermin opera, hardly a Redwall Abbey affair.

Rommily munched ferociously on a pawful of dried corn kernels, deflecting the ubiquitous peanut sellers with loud crunches of her teeth. There wasn't much that could deter a Bully Harbor entrepreneur, but a female marten ravaging dried corn kernels while unyieldingly deaf and blind to every attempt at salesbeastship could make a rat shrug his shoulders and try the next fellow with no more than a "Have a nice opera, miss."

Rommily reached into her paper bag for another pawful as the next peanut seller trudged by. "Have a nice opera to you, too," she muttered.

A stunned silence bloomed in the opera as the music finished, the enraptured opera-goers too overwhelmed with ecstasy to clap. Then the silence burst with enthusiastic rounds of applause, particularly from the front section of the audience. There were some serious opera-fans up front. Already a bailiff was sauntering along the edge of the platform, his destination a young female ferret screaming and bouncing up and down. In a moment she would dive for the stage, and he would be there to give her a good wallop.

Rommily was glad she had picked a seat in the middle of the house. The front was too close to the crazies, and the back was just dark enough for the catnip-dealers, the thugs, and the pickpockets to prowl around.

The applause swelled as the conductor gave a flourish and a bow. She clapped halfheartedly, for the sake of clapping.

In truth, she wasn't really interested in opera. She was here on official business. A gull had shown up a few weeks ago, with a message that had babbled on something about officials and ministers and qualifications and invitations. In short, Bully Harbor was short on officials. They wanted her for an interview.

She decided to go, and found herself in a posh hotel, as far as posh in Bully Harbor went. Right after introductions, they (a few names she had already forgotten) procured her a guide and sent her to the Opera. It was the first attraction of a planned tour. Maybe they hoped the town would grow on her a bit. Bah. Didn't they know she was the rough, outdoorsy type? She could handle paperwork and desks and officialdom. Delegation was a skill well-learned. But opera? She would have preferred the Colosseum.

Her guide, another one of those opera fans, sat beside her, entranced, shoving pawfuls of peanuts down her throat. She already had tears in her eyes, sentimental thing.

Rommily halfheartedly munched some corn. The peanut sellers were heading toward the back now.

The applause settled and the orchestra began again.

Rommily flicked an ear and settled a little lower into her seat, waiting for the tragedy to begin.


Fistol and Borrum Tockfor
Backstage, the weasel twins Fistol and Borrum were quietly practicing their swordfighting scene. Sure, they were just background actors, but the new boots they were going to buy with their compensation were well worth degrading themselves to such a level. Back and forth, they swiped and parried with the rapiers, covered with cloth to keep them from clinging while the show was proceeding. They didn't dare cause ruckus at such an important event. Other actors were going over their lines for the last time, waving one paw in the air while holding the script with the other.

"What d'you suppose the play's about anyhow?" Fistol whispered. "How should I know? You ask more questions than I do." Borrum swiped at his brother's head, who ducked and counter-swiped, only to have his own blow blocked. "Just wonderin' is all. It's probably quite a show." Borrum shook his head. "Nah, too much singin'. If I had to sit through the first five minutes, my ears would be bleedin'." Fistol grinned, working his footpaws forward and backward to give momentum to his thrusts. Fistol stopped his actions and tested the sharpness of his rapier, looking deep in thought. "Something about this is bothering me though." His brother rolled his eyes. "Calm down. What could possibly go wrong?"


Keinruf Wright
Keinruf grunted. He groaned, and snarled, and growled, and generally made a nuisance of himself, but there was no more time for stealth.

The barrel full of rocks gradually began shifting as the marten leaned all his weight into it, and then some; both forepaws were pushing against the top, along with the back of his head, and his footclaws were gouging grooves into the shingles beneath him.

Behind him, the lights of the square glowed, little specks of orange in the black-blue veil of evening, but he was hidden from view of anybeast on the ground by additional chest-high walls around the front of the Opera, where banners and flags were hung to advertise. Along this wall was a dark red smear, almost invisible now ...

Keinruf had hung the last of the flags himself. That had been two days ago. He had not been bothered since.

At last, the barrel finished tipping, struck the ramp with a crunch and rattle of rocks, and began rolling down toward the dome.

Though he didn't know it, Keinruf had just invented a new kind of music.

The marten fell flat and lay there, breathing deeply, regaining his strength as he watched the ponderous journey of the barrel, watched as it broke through the weakened bit of wood and dropped out of sight. There was a shriek - he couldn't tell if it was the first note of the next song, or somebeast feeling actual terror - and a crinkle of metal, offset by a loud, uneven groan of wood, and for a stunning moment or two, nothing happened.

Keinruf stood up. Had it not worked? Was the Opera really so structurally secure that -

A crack ran under his footpaws.

"Oh Schicksale."

He ran.



Rommily Valkenfaust
Keinruf's barrel was just rolling down the ramp as the prima donna, arrayed in brilliant and gaudy finery, swooped onstage. An appreciative, excited murmur rose from the front section.

Then someone shrieked. Rommily assumed it was a fan. But it started something; screams and screams broke out from all over the opera, especially from about ten rows behind her. She sighed. Weren't all the fans supposed to be in the front? Some lurkers deciding to come out of the closet, she supposed.

The prima donna bowed splendidly to the crowd. She opened her finely brushed muzzle to sing... and stopped, letting her mouth hang agape. Rommily raised one eyebrow. Stage fright? This opera was getting worse and worse.

Her bloodcurdling scream set the marten's neckfur frizzling. She sat bolt upright out of reflex, her tail tingling as it bottlebrushed. Corn spilled all over her lap.

What was going on? The musicians were leaping to their feet. Was this some part of the show? Unusual Bully Harbor waltzes, perhaps? Why was the prima donna still screaming like that? That sounded like real terror...

Something cracked above her head. She looked up.

A twisted iron monster, flaming with the fires of Hellgates, filled her vision.

Amazement locked her down into her seat. She was too surprised to be scared.

Her guide's shriek that saved her, half a second later. The sound invaded her mind, sparking some reflex there. Adrenaline injected into her veins, forcing her muscles into a frenzied spasm of energy that launched her into the air. She lunged over the seats on all four paws, barreling for the aisle, trampling over the less quick opera-goers. One second later, the chandelier plunged to the floor. Candles whirred in all directions, deadly projectiles that caught the wooden seats, torching them within seconds. The shock of the crash knocked Rommily off her flying trajectory and tumbled her onto the floor. Her head struck a chair, hard. She crawled toward the aisle in a daze.

In moments the middle of the house was blazing.

Then she heard another noise, very similar to the sound of rolling thunder. A prolonged crackling, with deep rumbling underneath. The opera began to shake.

Chest heaving, her head still buzzing, she stopped and gazed up at the ceiling. The chandelier's chain had torn through the ceiling, and the edges of the roof were crumbling away along the tip. She knew what happened to domes, and arches, and anything that had a central pressure point. Once you took the cornerstone away, the whole thing collapsed into itself.

Against all apparent logic, she stood and shoved her way back toward the middle, toward the blaze. No one stopped her, no one shrieked at her. They were too busy heading for the exits. If some fool marten wanted to try self-immolation, then let her.

Wood beams were crashing down now, bricks and shingles hurtling to smack the unfortunate. The ceiling itself was not on fire, thankfully, but each fallen piece was soon overtaken by flames.

She was closer to the center now, fighting her way through the crowd like a salmon running upstream. She glared upward, determined to evade the falling ceiling. The hole in the roof was huge. The chandelier had started a chain reaction of crashes. As the sections near the original gap fell, the sections behind those found themselves too heavy and fell also. ...But in the middle, everything had already fallen. The chandelier was a tortured iron skeleton blazing away, surrounded by destroyed roofing and dying beasts writhing in flames.

She noticed that the flames were taking the seats more readily than the roof - much of the roof matter was wet and sodden. Thank the Emperor! Mar'kan's golden fog swept into the opera, covering her fur with a light sheen of moisture. It was cooling, even slightly chilly, but it did nothing to stop the fire.

The edge of the blaze was near now, devouring the opera seat by seat. Rommily stopped, shoving opera-goers out of her path, and waited. She had to force the panic down, force herself to think rationally. She couldn't form thoughts, but she knew one thing. She had to stay as close to the blaze as possible until the panicked masses made their way through the doors. She would follow on the tail-end of the crowd and escape. She clung to this rationality like a drowning rat, unable to reason it out but knowing it would work.

Fire licked at a seat no more than twenty feet away. Her limbs trembled as her mind warred between instinct and logic. She wanted to run. She wanted to run so badly. But she needed to wait. Her life depended on not obeying her deepest instincts.

A cry went up. At first it was an indistinguishable sound of panic and despair. Slowly, the words made their way through the crowd, emerging into the open air of the opera house.

"The doors are locked, the doors are locked!"

The burning had mesmerized her. She tore her eyes away. The crowd had not diminished. The screaming hordes were still crushed against the exits. No one had gotten out. Someone had locked the doors.

But Rommily had no thoughts of sabotage, only survival. Real panic threatened to overwhelm her. Caught between the exits and the fire, she had nowhere to run. And she would be one of the first to burn. She choked back a scream and glanced around frantically. Her breath came short and quick, and she breathed faster, trying to get air where there was none. The rain was against her now. The drizzle did not diminish the fire, but the sodden beams were setting up a great smoke. It stung her eyes and burned her lungs.

Now the fire forced her back, away from the middle and toward the falling debris. It was a rapid, eager fire, pushing her back faster than the crumbling roof was falling. She was going back into the danger zone, no, 'Gates! She fumbled for her dagger, somewhere on her belt. If some piece of roof crushed her legs, she wouldn't let herself burn.

Something huge crashed down next to her, shocking her into the air. She picked herself up twelve feet away, head spinning. One of her eyes was dark. She panicked; was she blind? But it was only blood. A shingle had clipped her head, forming a deep gash just under her left ear. She blinked the blood away, and gaped.

The falling item was a huge beam, still intact. It must have been the soundest piece of oak in the entire opera. It was also a gift from heaven. One end had hit the floor, but the other end was still resting on the wall above.

Suddenly there was blinding pain in her tail. She screamed and whipped around. The blaze was licking at her back, and she hadn't noticed. She stamped on her tail. The pain of crushing that sensitive limb was nothing compared to the fire. It went out.

She turned to the beam, eyes dark with terror and hope. Here, finally, was something to do where both instinct and logic agreed! She sprang onto the beam, blunt claws latching into the wood, and shot upward. Terror her paws wings, and turned her claws into iron hooks. She didn't slip once. But she did get a lot of splinters.

Rommily catapulted onto the roof, and collapsed. Smoke from the opera billowed overhead as she gasped in cold, moist oxygen.

She stood, and looked back down the beam. There was another figure scaling it, a black silhouette against the blaze. She blinked, and the figure was gone. Perhaps it had only been a bit of blood in her eye. She blinked again.

Now the entire dome was gone, fallen into the opera house. Dozens of beasts were trapped under the wreckage, screaming and screaming as the fire engulfed the wood. The rest were pressed into the hallways, the corridors, the lobbies. The fire would get them eventually. They had nowhere to run. All the doors were locked. Rommily stood on the edge of the opera's remaining flat roof, watching it all with a kind of fascinated horror.

She turned, and found a leap of several stories below her. She needed to find some way off, but where was it? A gutter pipe would suffice. She began to lope around the roof.

Thoughts began to formulate. Her terror cleared, now that she was out of direct danger. She could think. Less focused on survival, she turned to the question: how? Sabotage. It had to be sabotage. Then - why? And before that could be answered - who?


Aedan Kingussie
It was, reflected Aedan Kingussie as he struggled against the mad press of beasts fighting to get outside, altogether a disagreeable situation.

He had just wanted a bit of relative serenity, an escape, however brief, from the troubles that surrounded the Opera and, indeed, the entirety of Niceties. He'd fought for months, was still fighting - perhaps in vain - to keep hold of a ministry that was slowly beginning to crumble around the edges. First Miles - and really in the end it all led back to Miles, didn't it? - and the revolution, which had failed utterly despite his perhaps misguided efforts to lend aid to its students. Then Grey, who had lasted all of several hours, and Tinker, whom he had never even met - or was it Tinker first and then Grey? He didn't even remember anymore. And the Unsmudgables, almost none of whom he'd seen around town in ages.

The Ministry of Niceties was collapsing around his ears, and it was all he could do to watch. And, occasionally, escape to the Opera (which was still Niceties). And was that so selfish of him? Evidently so, because now it was the Opera which was collapsing around his ears, and it was likely to result in more than mild depression for himself and the beasts around him.

The announcement that the doors were locked spread almost as quickly as the fire, and Aedan was dismayed to find himself not at all surprised. When exactly had he begun to lose faith in his fellow beast? He'd gone six years in Bully Harbour without noticing.

Around him the panicked operagoers were still pressing forward, as if they thought they could break the doors down through sheer force. Aedan knew it was a futile effort. He'd been there when those doors were installed. They were like every other fixture in the Opera, ornamental or otherwise - built to last, in the bombastic pseudo-Falterlandish style that had been fashionable at the time. Nothing less than a volley from a Navy ship's trebuchets would break those doors down, and the harbour was too far away from Satire Square for that to be a practical plan.

But that didn't mean there was no practical plan at all.

There was one exit, just one, that could not possibly be locked. Well - his gaze traveled upward to the gaping hole in the Opera's roof - two now. But there were only so many beams leading up to that exit, and only so many beasts capable of climbing out that way. Most of the Opera's patrons were rich beasts, used to the soft life. They wouldn't get five feet up those beams before feeling out of breath.

Which left one exit. One small, unused exit, for all of these beasts. It was naïve to think he could get all of them out that way. But if there was one thing he wanted to keep in this accursed furnace, it was his naïveté.

"Follow me!" he shouted above the crackle of flames and the screams of those around him. His voice didn't carry very far. It was not a voice used to shouting. But one or two beasts heard him, which was what mattered. Slowly, laboriously, but surely, they began to make headway against the raging crowd, toward the fallen chandelier - and the burning stage beyond it.



Kaleb Otto Othro-Leah
The play was proceeding slowly. Unexpected pauses caused Kaleb's legs to shift to cross over to the left. A sound, which was easily able to be connected with the play's ongoings, caused the fox to be slightly more aware of his surroundings, causing him to lose sight of the illusion of the setting. He awaited the first opera note. He'd practiced his singing voice, hoping he could sing the exact same pitch without anyone beside him realizing it. It was the most perfect, most sneakiest plan. Well, besides that of the devil who decided to unleash mayhem upon the opera house.

*CRASH!*

Kaleb remained seated and calm as wood splinters flew all around. A stoat maid screamed in his ear and jumped up from her seat, clambering over his lap to get to the aisle. He helped her regain her balance, but she was in too much of a hurry to give any sign of thanks. He then jumped up and stood on top of his seat as he saw the rest of the crowd stampeding his direction.

*WHOOSH!*

A candle flew past his head, landing in a seat a few rows back and lighting it almost immediately on fire. Standing there in his chair, Kaleb brought his paw to his chin as he considered the many, many variables. He grinned and snapped. "That's it!" he exclaimed out loud. The shrills, the growing fire, and the panic drowned him from anybeast's ears though. In his mind, he envisioned himself carrying out a beautiful vixen on his shoulder, lying her on the ground outside the burning opera house, and staying with her until she regained consciousness. It would be the perfect romance scene, and the perfect opportunity for the Smelt to interview him. And that, in turn, would be the perfect opportunity to tell everyone about his store, Port Products. It was a flawless plan! Or so, it was as he envisioned it.

The worst thing was, he couldn't see any vixens. In fact, the smoke was growing too quickly. He could barely see anything. Well, he thought to himself. Maybe my friend in the play is still alive. Might as well go see. He jumped down from his seat and began making his way toward the stage, keeping a good enough distance from the fire. Just as he hopped on stage, he heard two soft coughs. The form became visible through the smoke. It was a ratmaid trapped between a fallen beam and a crumbling, burning performance stage. It was at that moment Kaleb realized the smoke filling his own lungs, and let out a good series of hoarse coughs. No longer caring about the publicity, he grabbed her unconscious body instead of his fantasy vixen and began making his way backstage with her slung over his shoulder. He cursed her weight under his thinning breaths.

The curtains kept most of the smoke out from backstage, but that would fail once the flames began devouring them too. The rooms were completely deserted by that time. All except for two weasel twins, who were bickering something about semantics.

Suddenly, the hall began shaking, cracking, and collapsing. The weasel twins turned and saw the fox with the ratmaid slung over his shoulder. They ran and tackled him as the heavens came crashing down.


Keinruf Wright
Though the evening was off to a great start by Keinruf's standards, things were not looking up for him at present. He'd marked several routes of escape off the roof, once the deed was done, but had underestimated several things.

One route was a drain pipe that led up the side wall. Unfortunately, lack of upkeep on the outside of the building had led to it coming loose over time (and Keinruf's constant use of it, most likely), and it had fallen away and collapsed just a second after Keinruf had reached the edge of the roof. A particularly loud crash behind him seemed to have been the catalyst for this - possibly one of the pillars.

The second route was located to the rear of the building, where it's U shape ended in a flat wall along some back alley. There had been a ladder there when he'd first climbed up; it was gone now. He really shouldn't have expected its random appearance to be of any use, he decided, a little put-out by all of it.

There were other drain pipes, but none he trusted with his life - they had creaked when he'd first tested them, weeks ago, and if the sturdiest had fallen, there was little doubt the rest had gone even quicker.

This left one possible outcome: bunting.

Keinruf abhorred bunting.

There was a thin line of flags, hung from the Opera to the buildings on either side, up near the front of the building where they would catch the sunlight during the day and brighten up the alleys somewhat. Keinruf had tested one of the ropes, once, never considering it a feasible escape route due to the fact that they didn't really go anywhere except straight into a wall. But maybe now if he could find one that led into a wall with a proper gutter pipe or windowsill ...

It was difficult, staying upright when the entire roof was collapsing around his footpaws. At one point a chunk of shingles gave way right as he'd lifted his back leg off it, causing him to panic slightly and try to leap mid-step.

... right into a female marten.

"Sie doofes Geschoepf! Warum bist du so schwer zu toeten! Grah!"

Keinruf shrieked and attempted to kick the female back into the growing pit in the center of the roof. Though his footpaw struck her, he had no time to make sure she fell properly, as another crack was forming below him.

Turning back around to investigate the bunting, Keinruf chose one at random. If all else failed - and it had - he would just have to break a few claws scrabbling at the brick on his way into ... oh, joy, a pile of barrels filled with waste from the Opera house. Mostly peanuts.

Whipping his flatcap off, Keinruf looped it over the rope, clamped his paws down on either side, and leapt.

One thing nobeast ever told you about sliding down bunting when you had short mustelid arms, was that the flags poked you in the eyes even with your head ducked.

He made a note to bring two flatcaps next time.


Rommily Valkensfaust
Romilly stumbled back as Keinruf's footpaw connected, and screamed, half from fright, half from rage. She tried to reverse direction, thrusting her shoulders forward and waving furiously, but momentum sent her right off the edge. She dropped for three feet, and then her outstretched arms smacked into the roof. Pain jarred her bones, but that was nothing compared to dying. She scrabbled at the roof as she began to slide, and somehow stopped. She lashed out with a footpaw, caught a protruding bit of architecture, and kicked off.

As she stood on the roof, gasping, she realized that she knew the strange marten's language. It was very similar to her home dialect.

You stupid creature! Why are you so hard to kill!

Romilly sprang to the far edge, catching a glimpse of Keinruf as he latched onto a string of bunting and started to slide down. She watched him like a hawk, not because she realized he was the saboteur (though she did know that now), but because she wanted to see if the rope held.

Keinruf was halfway to the ground when she ran to the bunting, latched on, picked up her footpaws, and leaped off the roof. The moment she was airborne, it occurred to her that she should wait a bit before following a genocidal marten.

Oh well.

Keinruf, perhaps, was a little disoriented when he hit the peanuts, or perhaps he wasn't expecting another marten to leap after him. Whatever the reason, he didn't move right away, and Rommily, coming down like a falcon, rammed both footpaws straight into his back.


Rhona Kingussie
Opera was stupid.

It was one thing to sing. Rhona knew a lot of songs. Sometimes she sang herself, except mostly she didn't, because otherbeasts tended to throw things at her when she sang. Which wasn't all bad, cos once she had got a fish out of it, and it had only started to go a bit off, and Missus Trunkenbold had only scowled at her a little when Rhona had given it to her. But usually she didn't get fish. Anyway the point was that singing wasn't the problem. Sometimes it was fun.

But opera was stupid. Singing was all right, but only if you knew what you were singing. What was the point of singing when you didn't even know what the words meant? Rhona knew what most of the words of all the songs she sang meant, even if sometimes they were stuck in all weird, with bits in between where you had to swing your grog tankard, and Rhona didn't have a grog tankard so she usually settled for popping Tevan between the ears at those bits. And anyway opera went on for hours and hours, and you could have thrown four or five or maybe lots of fish at the singers in the time it took for them to finish.

Rhona had tried that once, when she'd snuck in as a lark, except the singers and the actors and everybeast else had been very cross indeed, and Da had had to take her aside and tell her that maybe it wasn't a good idea to sneak into the opera any more. Which Rhona had been all right with, mostly, because it hadn't been a very good lark anyway. Nobeast had even appreciated her fish, and she had had to scavenge around the heaps for days to get those.

But there was one good thing about the Opera, and that was peanuts.

You didn't even have to sneak inside for those, because they threw out all the peanuts they didn't think were good enough for them, and even those peanuts were better than anything they had at the Bonnet or Herring heaps. The nights before and after a show were the best ones for going round the Opera heaps, but sometimes you found good ones during, too. Tonight was a good night, because some proper idiot had thrown out a prop bag too, which only had a little hole in it near the top, and who knew how many peanuts you could fit into that? Rhona didn't, but she aimed to find out.

Or she would have, but she had only got the bag half-full before there was a noise that sounded like whrr-plapplapplap above her, and two large, dark forms had landed in front of her, scattering peanuts everywhere.

She had been so busy filling the bag that she hadn't even smelled the smoke, but she smelled it now. She looked up at the Opera, where a dim yellow glow had begun to light the sky, and then back down at the two beasts in front of her, who looked like they were about to start a tiff. If the Opera was burning, that was certainly a lark, but these two beasts sitting in her peanuts were a much bigger problem at the moment.

Rhona had never been one to back down from anybeast. Planting her paws on her sides, she glared at them, tilting her head in a manner that she was sure made her look very - what was the word?

She paused.

Impressive, that was it.

"Oi," she said. "If you louts want peanuts, get your own heap. This one's mine."



Keinruf Wright
"Oomph," Keinruf said, to the wall against which most of his face had been plastered. He slipped his cap off the rope and scrabbled against the wall - there was nothing. He fell, quiet and dignified, which is to say, it hurt too much to curse about.

He was just about coming to terms with various new pains spreading about his limbs from coming into contact with the peanut bins, when something vaguely Keinruf-shaped fell on him. This gave him a bit of a start, as he began to think maybe his head had fallen off and the rest of his body was crushing it, but half a second later he realised how stupid this was. Another half-second later he realised it was just another pine marten, which explained why it was more or less shaped like him. Then it took a full three seconds before he realised it was the same beast who he'd tried to kick back into the hole on the roof.

He flailed at her. She flailed back. There was, to put it simply, a lot of flailing of marten limbs. Sometimes they hit each-other, but more often than not they just flung peanuts about. Then Keinruf managed to get hold of a barrel lid, and began pounding it against Rommily's head, punctuating each hit with a word:

"Warum! Bist! Du! So! Schwer! Zu! Toeten!"

This seemed to stop some of the flailing, around the four or fifth hit. Keinruf was not very strong - it would have taken a beast more than twice his strength to actually knock out someone in one or two hits.

Keinruf slipped out of the barrel and tumbled down the pyramid to the next one.

"Oi. If you louts want peanuts, get your own heap. This one's mine."

The marten paused to consider the ratmaid.

Then he leaned over and brained Rhona with the barrel lid and, taking advantage of her and Rommily's somewhat-stunned state, bolted down the alley into the main street. He took a quick left upon reaching the road, and headed into the square, which even now was filled with gagglers and minor acts of entertainment.


(Autos all around! But only Rommily's agreed to them. Rhona ought to be alright, though.)


Rommily Valkensfaust
Black fuzz zoomed through her head. She could feel it traveling through her brain matter. It made her skull buzz. The reverberations lasted for several seconds, and when they faded, she reached up and touched her skull. Her paw came away slightly damp, and she could feel the tingles where her fingers had brushed.

"...Ow," she said, after a pause.

Then the message finally got through. She hadn't been taking the whole thing personally, because she knew mass murderers liked to focus on, well, mass, not the individual. But the marten's comment... had turned this personal.

That sounded cliche, but it wasn't just business anymore. He had insulted her. He had thought her easy to kill!

Fury flared past Rommily's temples, bringing a different kind of buzz into her head.

She rose to her feet and roared, "Difficult to kill! Yes, you blasted marten!" Her teeth bared in a grin; Keinruf's failed attempts were splendid compliments. Her head pounded from the beating.

She had just been trying to escape, to survive. But suddenly survival was no longer appealing. Flailing the 'Gates out of the marten, just to prove that she could, that she was alive, now that...!

Rommily scrambled out the peanut heap, leaping right over the dazed Rhona without a single glance, and tore after Keinruf. The adrenaline rose, terror turning to blind eagerness. She shot through the square, bowling drunks and urchins aside, fixed on the fleeing marten in front of her.

Anything that runs will soon have something after it. No one can resist a running beast.


Frostbite R. Tarrin
Off duty from his morning Fogey patrol through the Marketplace and Warehouse districts, Frostbite sat in the Bilge smoking an herbal pipe, looking out the window, and humming to himself a sailor's tune. Sure, he could be at the Opera, but the place was sold out by the time he got wind that there was even going to be a show. He sighed as the evening air patted the earth with millions of soft drops of moisture. He blew a smoke ring toward the window, watching it splatter soundlessly against the glass. He watched with a grin as the smoke took its time dissolving. He blew a steady stream at the window. It too lingered for a bit. Frostbite decided he'd had enough herbs for one night and got up to leave the Bilge, leaving his bill to his tab. When he got to the door, he realized the smoke wasn't just on the window. It was off in the distance. A cookout? It couldn't be the Falgrin hoodlums cooking another fish in the middle of the street again could it? Well, the fire was rather large for a measly cooking spot. Though it did smell like something was cooking. Against all voices in his head telling him to go home for the night, Frostbite straightened his uniform, sucked in some air to stiffen a lively posture, and headed off into the distance toward this night's Bully Harbor menace.


Rhona Kingussie
Rommily wasn't the only one feeling insulted tonight. As if one little tap from a barrel lid could have laid her out! Rhona had just been...caught a little off guard, was all. Could've been a little quicker on her footpaws. But she'd had worse thrown at her from the Trenches when she'd tried that one very interesting ballad about the hedgehog, which had been difficult to begin with, never mind she didn't entirely understand the words.

Anyway the point was somebeast had just brained her and run, which you did not do, especially when he wasn't even after her peanuts to begin with. That meant he had done it for no reason, and that meant Rhona could retaliate in kind.

She stuffed her bag of peanuts into a nearby bin and slammed the lid over it before taking off, barely giving the burning building behind her a second glance. There would always be more peanuts later. And Da had said something about going to the opera tonight, but he'd be all right. He always was, cos he had her to watch his back.

It was easy to figure out where the two of them had run, cos not only was there a trail of peanuts for a good block, there was also a trail of bowled-over drunks and fellow streetrunners going off into the distance. And there was the lady pine marten in the distance! Rhona sped up. Setting Duck Street shortcut behind the fishstick vendor, hah, easy. She came out almost on top of her quarry, beaming hugely.

"Hallo, miss," she said, pace never flagging for a moment. "Wot's all this about, then? Want a peanut?"



Callix Noxi
Constable Callix Noxi, however, was on duty. She had spent the most part of the evening patrolling alone against the prudent advice given by her superiors after the recent string of murders surrounding the Fogies. Her partner, Blinky, had stayed behind several hours ago, curled up in an upturned cart with his blanket stating that she should wake him if one of the following things happened: a vast quantity of food appeared, his tail caught fire, the world was ending, or simply 'Molly'.

So, the monitor lizard had strolled off alone, glaring menacingly at every dark corner she passed. Later on into the night there came the distinct smell of burning. She sneezed as it filled her senses. Callix looked up to the skyline to see billows of black smoke escaping the opera house.

Callix growled. She had enough brainpower to know it wasn't her partner on fire. If he was, he'd have to catch up with her first if he expected it putting out. The Fogey constable seized her truncheon from her belt and bolted for the Square.


Tamlyn
Tamlyn popped another mushroom into her maw, some drunk spilled his grog, and a rumble, accompanied by much crackling noise, invaded the semi-stillness of the bar.

The fennec rubbed at her head. "Shrooms don't work that fast." She examined the assorted fungi in her paw. "And not a hallucinogenic one in the bunch."

All of a sudden, those not stone drunk turned their conversations.

"Wuz at?"
"How's I s'posed to know?"
"Ha-choo!"
"Scringy just sneezed!"
"Where's the fire?"

Tamlyn's ears went up. "What fire?" Then she smelled it.

A few of the bar's patrons had stumbled to the door and opened it, revealing the smoke cloud emanating from the opera house. They stood there, gaping at the rising smoke in the relative silence of a ususally bustling evening. The desert vixen rose and glided past them towards the blaze.

"Looks like the opera was hot tonight!"
"I'll say."
"Hey, where ya goin' lil foxy?"

Swinging her mushroom pouch over her shoulder Tamlyn walked on. "Towards that fire."

"But why'd ya wanna do that big-ears? It's gotta be awrful hot that-a-ways."

A grin spread over the fennec's features. "That's kind of the point."


Rommily Valkensfaust
Rommily flinched as Rhona came at her, broadside, swerving out of her trajectory three feet. Her footpaws danced around each other, somehow not catching on each other and tripping. She recognized Rhona, and resumed running at somewhere just under a sprint.

"No peanuts, thanks," she said, breathing quick and fast. Her gaze fixed on Keinruf again, following the fleeing marten's flapping tail. He took an alley and she sped up, angling to get across the street.

Rhona was still dashing beside her, waiting for an answer. "Chasing down bloody marten," Rommily huffed, sparing her breath. The initial first dash had winded her slightly, but she was getting into her stride now. Oh, it felt so good to run again! "Gonna catch 'im an' bash 'im. Y' can come if y' like."

She approached the alley at a sharp angle, realizing too late that she needed to swerve into a circle to enter properly. No time for that. Her footpaws pattered and she leaped, twisting in midair to hit the wall with all fours. She ricocheted off into the alley, bounding once on fours again before springing to two.

It hurt bad, but 'Gates, she could feel the glee.


Rhona Kingussie
Now there was a cause Rhona could get behind!

"I like that," she said, nodding sagely. "I always say to my da, what's the point of havin' one holiday where you can bash only certain beasts specially hard if you can't do it to other beasts all year round? Always love a good bashin', me. You sure you don't want a peanut, miss? It's all right, I got plenty in my pockets before the two of you ran into my heap. They're only a bit musty, I would've got to 'em earlier but Tevan found a whole half a corpse down in the Slups an' I spent all afternoon seein' if the eyes went squish like they do in all the stories. They do, you know."

She paused for breath as she spotted their quarry disappearing into an alley. Her long tail flicked out as she made the turn, balancing her neatly as she spun on one footpaw and barreled into the darkness. There was a whump noise to her left and she ducked instinctively as the pine marten sailed overhead, landing in front of her and continuing the chase. Rhona's eyes shone.

"Oaw, that was champion! I've never done that before. C'n you teach me how to do it? I bet that'd throw the Fogeys off every time. D'you think the Fogeys will come after us? I done nuffink, but you never know with coppers. Wot's Mister Forriner do to you wot makes you want to bash him so much?"

The stream of words halted momentarily as she leapt over a collapsed bin before she continued: "M'name's Rhona. Wot's yours?"


Minty
Minty sat in a pile of rags on the ground, leaning against a building and watching the show as the opera house collapsed inwards upon itself. She could hear beasts screaming inside. Interestingly enough, there were also some on the roof. She had seen one on top earlier and guessed that they had something to do with the roof collapsing. It was a pity that so many peanuts would be wasted that night. She would have to return later to collect the salvageable ones from the rubble.

Bored with the screams, the rattess left and began weaving down the alleyways. After a few minutes, footpaws coming quickly from behind her caused Minty to turn around. In the gloom, she could spot two beasts. One was a mustelid-type, the other a rat much like herself. She ducked out of the way as they sprinted past, and then jumped in behind them to join in their evening jog. Perhaps they were going somewhere interesting.


Keinruf Wright
It occurred to Keinruf, a little late in the game, that, while he'd been practicing running in the darkness of a no-longer-used taxpayer's dungeon, he had neglected quite a few things.

One was, he'd always run without the coat on. Now he was wearing the coat, he was finding it was bogging him down somewhat. But it was such a lovely coat, he did not want to merely fling it off. He would have to either find a memorable place to stash it, or use it as a distraction if they got too close. (Of course, if he dumped it now, they would never be close enough to warrant its use ...)

The second one was, running in the dark in a perfect square with nothing to slow him down was all fine and dandy, but running in the dark in zigzags through unfamiliar alleys filled with clotheslines, fences and all manner of random storage and drunkards, was an entirely different experience. A familiar experience, to be sure, but not one he'd been practicing very much.

Still, he made do. Sometimes he would drop to all fours, to see if he could get a little more speed out of hitting the ground twice as much, but more often than not he'd just stay upright, to better react to things he had to climb over. Sometimes, when he looked behind, he would see the other pine marten, and knew it would be futile to go to the rooftops once again. Better to try to lose her in the street.

Keinruf's path was unusual. Rather than run straight to his hideout, he kept around the area of the square, doubling back and forth, in and about. The Opera's heat was beginning to spread through the streets, making the already warm (if slightly drizzly) summer night even warmer. But he couldn't leave the area yet, not while being tailed. He had to lose them before he dared return to his sanctuary.

And something else was weighing on his mind. Something the female marten had said ...

"Difficult to kill! Yes, you blasted marten!"

Keinruf's eyes widened. Come to think, he'd never really got a good look at her.

All at once, he skidded to a stop right by a fruit vendor and spun about, just as Rommily rounded another corner, followed by two rats. He held his paws out, empty, and waited 'til she passed through the light from the street lamps.

The martenmaid skidded to a stop about fifteen feet away, confused at his open gesture. Her face, rendered bright and harsh by the lamps, showed up plain.

"Oh," Keinruf said. "I t'ought you vere mein vife."

With that, he reached over to a bin behind him, hefted a pineapple into his paw, and chucked it at her head. Then he went back to running.


Rommily Valkensfaust/Keinruf Wright
(Slight copost.)

Rommily ducked the pineapple, hoping it would hit one of the irritating tagalongs behind her. She tried to comprehend what Keinruf had said.

"Your wife?" she asked, bewildered. Her brain tried to connect the dots, reason out the running and the pineapple and the quip and everything else. Something clicked, though it wasn't necessarily a logical conclusion.

Rommily's ears laid back, and she sprinted after Keinruf, her unretracted claws gouging the ground. "You insult to the country, you traitor to our honorable values, you wretched slime! You are not only a genocidal -" It was hardly the worst word one could use, but Rommily had had a somewhat sensitive upbringing, and it was pretty bad in her vocabulary. "You are also a wife-abuser! You run from me, who looks like your wife? I pity the poor wretch you conned into loving you! Actually, she was probably just as wretched and traitorous as you are, you -" And there that word again.

She was running out of breath really fast, and stumbling as she flagged, panting, but she was hardly about to stop running. If there was one thing her upbringing had convinced her of, it was the sanctity of marriage. And besides, she hated when things got screwed up. She hated messes, she hated purposelessness, she hated unnecessaries, she hated corruption, she hated tragedies, she hated failures, she hated screwed-up stuff in general.

Unless it was artistic, of course. Tragedy and corruption made good literature.

It was unfortunate she was so badly mistaken about the Keinruf's marital history, really.

For instance, Keinruf rather wished at the moment to stop running, grab her by the neck, and slam her face into the nearest wall a few times for what she had said. Though they ran and skittered through puddles, dodging between random obstacles, not a word escaped his ears. And what was this he heard now? A pause.

He glanced back. She was slowing.

There was a fire escape latter bolted to a brick wall up ahead.

Keinruf grabbed at it as he passed, hauled himself with astonishing speed up a few rungs. Rommily caught up to his position soon. Then Keinruf kicked off, pushing along the wall to the left, and fell as his arm scraped at the brick. He ignored the gash it tore in his coat and arm.

The trick was a dirty, dangerous one, but it had worked; Rommily, paws grasping the ladder and beginning to climb it herself, found him behind her. In an instant he looped one arm around her neck and held a claw fully extended against her chin, poking through the flesh as if it were a fine-tipped dagger. From the position his paw was in, there was no way for her to tell he was unarmed.

"Her name vos Leite. She vos der only t'ink in dis vorld dat made my life vort' liffink. All I haff left to do iss to kill effery von off her murderers. You ... you are not from here, so I vill spare you. You did not kill her. Aber wenn du deinen Mund nicht haltest, werde ich deinen spindelduerren kleinen Hals knicken!"

He looked behind again, at the two rats.

"Moof closer and I vill kill her."

Keinruf's look away was all Rommily needed. Scarcely had his words finished when she twisted one elbow high into the air and backwads, jabbing Keinruf's face. He jerked in surprise and pain, but didn't fall back. Rommily dropped, and rammed him in the stomach with her shoulder, knocking them both to the ground. In an instant she was rolling free, bouncing to her feet.

"My apologies, then, about the misunderstanding," she said, sincerely. Then her expression changed; she didn't dare kick him in the face, because on the street that was as good as falling down yourself, "But I'm still right about the Opera, aren't I?" She glared at him, lips pulled back into a snarl. "Tell me why you had to destroy the opera. We're vermin, no one's innocent, but we're not mass murderers! Why'd you have to burn hundreds of beasts just going to an opera?"

That was another thing she hated. Unreasonable acts. Not unreasonable as in ridiculous, but unreasonable as in... it didn't have a reason.

Keinruf spat.

"Vell," he said, "killink dem all seperately ... vould haff taken too lonk."

Rommily stared at him, for a long moment. Then Keinruf turned and began hauling himself up the ladder again, snapping her out of it. She jumped on him.



Rhona Kingussie
Well. That had been interesting. Rhona had never seen a pineapple before, but the foreigner had thrown it at her, which was as good as giving it to her directly in her book. It probably tasted quite nice, she decided as she looked down at it, footpaws still moving at a ridiculous rate. Why did they call it a pineapple if it didn't look like either?

They had acquired another runner by now, one that radiated the familiar scent of mint. Rhona looked askance at the other rat, still unrepentantly cheerful. She'd never spoken to her before, but everybeast on the streets knew her by smell, if not by sight or name.

"Hallo," she said, speeding up a little. "I've got a pineapple! Want t'come an' bash a forriner's head in for a lark?"

"Actually," the lady marten was saying as she ran, "she was probably just as wretched and traitorous as you are, you -"

Rhona looked ahead, tucking the pineapple under one arm. "Cor, miss, you don't 'alf got a good vocabulary!" she declared. She was a little short of breath now, but that didn't stop her from trying to talk. "Course, you ort to come down with me to the Gizzard sometime. Me an' the regulars could teach you some new words f'r free..."

She screeched to a halt as the foreigner placed a claw on the lady marten's neck. Rhona had seen her share of throats cut before, and she certainly didn't care much about the lady marten to begin with, except that she seemed to have a similar sense of head-bashy fun and that would be a shame to lose. But before she could elaborate, the lady marten had knocked the foreigner down and was yelling something about the opera.

Shame it had to be the opera again. Hearing about it just reminded her of the fun she was missing back there. But now that he'd admitted to starting it (and now they were scuffling again, what larks), and mentioned his wife's name, and now that she thought about it, he was almost as hard to understand as Da...

Rhona jumped on the foreigner without a second thought.

"You're Keenroof Wreeght!" she announced, butchering the pronunciation so brutally it had to have been on purpose, clinging on with her tail and using both paws to bring the pineapple down on his head. "My Da says you're a - "

The rest of her words were momentarily lost to the reader in the squelch of pineapple meeting head, although rest assured it put Rommily's previous efforts to shame.


Minty
The night was getting more interesting by the moment, and Minty was rather glad indeed that she had joined these beasts for the chase. She recognized the beast whom they were chasing by his accent. There were not many beasts in the Harbor who had accents such as his, and Minty most certainly never forgot an accent. But his name... that was another matter.

"You're Keenroof Wreeght!"

Oh yes. That was it. Though, she recalled it being pronounced slightly differently the last time she heard it.

The pineapple squelched upon the foreigner's head, making Minty frown. Waste of good pineapple... Then she brightened with a thought and also dove upon the now pineapple-covered beast, launching herself at his chest to claim the bits of pineapple that were falling about his ears.

Her footpaws scrabbled for purchase on his torso as one paw clung to his shirt, claws digging into his flesh, the other snatched up bits of the juicy fruit and she stuffed them into her mouth. This was much better than peanuts.


Frostbite R. Tarrin
Stroll turned into sprint as the albino ferret caught sight of the amazing tragedy. From behind red-reflecting wood and metal, Frostbite heard screams of agony, pain, cursing, clawing, and all manner of torturous brutality. "FOR FENGRIN'S SAKE!!!" he yelled.

Fengrin was a martyr from an island he was once stranded on. On said island, he was the voice of reason and deemed leader of the island. Then one day, word of mutiny took foothold and silently spread. Under the cover of night, the mutineers took him to the highest hill on the island and tied him to a post. They demanded all his secrets and demanded to know why and how he was so charismatic and wise. When he insisted he didn't know, they put him through the most rigorous torment anybeast had ever seen. They say there was nothing left of him to bury when the screaming stopped. How that was possible, nobeast knew, but the screams could not be ignored. It was a story that had rarely left the island, and almost never told except to one who had gone through a similar experience, but managed to survive.

For now, the beasts inside the opera house were still alive, and Frostbite had to get them out. As he flung his jacket away and darted for the door, the flames began burning his face. He turned away and began retreating, coughing from inhaling too much heat. "That's not possible..." he stammered, risking a look back at the place. The sprinkling rain gave the illusion of feeding the fire. Frostbite couldn't hold his rage. "STOP GAWKING!" he shouted to the stunned bystanders. "GET WATER FROM EVERY NEARBY PUB AND HOUSE! YOU TWO, FIND A MAKESHIFT BATTERING RAM! YOU TWO, CHECK FOR A BACKDOOR EXIT! MOVE NOW OR I'LL BITE YOUR NECK!!"

Everybeast immediately began scurrying. There wasn't a stationary footpaw at the scene except one pair. Frostbite had to take the scene in for another moment to assess more possibilities. There was none he could see. Fate, it seemed, would claim them all. The last time he saw so many beasts die was in the battle at Harruk Village, when a ship was bombarded, sunk, and all who attempted to swim from the wreckage was arrowed down. This was worse. The best hope for some of these beasts was to be killed by the others inside before they burned to death.

After his moment of hopeless assessment, Frostbite blew on his whistle in intervals of three-two repeatedly and without stopping as he ran to the Fogey headquarters, absent-mindedly leaving his jacket behind.


Keinruf Wright
If anything in Keinruf's life had ever had the most influence in his decision not to bless the world with his offspring, it was the sight of a dirty rat maiden sitting on his chest and raising a pineapple above his head.

Second to that, it was the sight of the pineapple hurtling towards his face at speeds previously only attained by weasels sledding down steep hillsides on oversized jelly-filled doughnuts.

And if anything would have put him off eating pineapples ever again, it was the sight of an older ratmaid picking bits off his ears and gobbling them down as if he were the buffet table at the Ullyanov's Giftsgiving ball.

The marten lay dazed beneath the three beasts who had tackled him in turn. His cap had fallen off, and now there was a bit of a spot on the back of his head that was soggy, not from pineapple meat, but blood seeping out a small crack in his flesh. His left arm, though not bleeding much yet, was still impressively scraped up.

He had just about had enough of this, oh ... eight minutes ago. Now he most certainly had had enough.

But there was precious little he could do. He was pinned, and all he could be thankful for was that pineapples were not native to Vulpinsula, and the one that had been cracked over his head had softened considerably in transit from one of the southern isles.

"No, I'm not," he said in response to Rhona's accusations of identity. "If I am, den vhere iss my yellow and green scarf, and my coat? Wright alvays vears der coat and der scarf. Nobeast has seen him vit'out."

This doubt planted in the little one's mind, he decided it was best to ignore the rats for now. They seemed to be in it just for the amusement of chasing, although the one possibly had something against him. Most beasts did.

"I don't see vhy you are so upset," he said, staring Rommily in the eye, and snorted a bit of yellow goop off his nose. "It vosn't like I killed anybeast important to you."

Keinruf thought back to when he'd first seen her, on the roof. She had, somehow, crawled out of the inferno from the inside, possibly making use of one of the collapsed pillars he'd caught a glimpse of when he'd peeked below. It hadn't seemed very steep to him; if she had been with anyone she wanted to see alive, she could have easily assisted them up with herself. Unless, perhaps ...

"Habe ich?" he added, and grinned.™

His right paw, pinned to his side, had just about worked free a small chunk of cobblestone ...


Pudding Chester
Pudding had no real interest in Opera. She had, once, but he had died. She'd heard his casket had been stolen mid-procession and his suit stolen, and him propped up in some tea and bun shop in nothing but his skivvies, and dearly wished to at least have seen that, but she had been sorting peanuts at the time and had only come up when one of her sisters told her the Emperor had di - decided to change his name very suddenly. Which had been quite a few days after they'd found better clothes and buried him properly.

She had left a peanut on his grave. It had seemed fitting.

It wasn't often these days that she came up from the cellar. There was basically no point. She had all she needed down here - a nice bed, all the peanuts she could eat, and ... well, that was about it. But it was all she needed. Without him, the rest of the world just didn't have the same charm it used to.

The weaselmaid raised another doublet of peanuty goodness to her nose, and drew in a deep breath. Rotten. It had felt rotten when she'd picked it up - too light. She shook it, and listened to how rotten sounded. Then she broke it open and ate it, because somebeast had to. What she couldn't eat, she threw in a barrel, and some nice lad came and took it up and put it in the alley outside once a week.

If they weren't rotten, she would put them into one of three bins: very good peanuts were sold at the Opera itself. Satisfactory peanuts went to various businesses that felt they could use peanuts, such as the Red Herring. Merely passable peanuts, and everything between "passable" and "maggot-infested, but not yet rotten" went to the Plume in the Bonnet, whose owner had once been very rude to her sisters, and possibly would have been rude to Pudding as well, had he known she existed.

Pudding reached for another peanut, completely oblivious to the fact that the noise above her was not just the new opera having a bit of trouble with the conductor jamming his baton into the lead soprano's eye. Again.

But then suddenly the noise was louder, and there were several beasts pushing their way past her crates of peanuts.

"Wot's goin' on?" she said, to the first beast in the crowd. He was a rather handsome(ish) specimen of weaselkind - no Mistoffelees, of course, but perhaps she would consider him, if he were a peanut, somewhere between Merely Passable and Satisfactory. She might have eaten him herself, torn between the decision of which bin to chuck him into.

Through the open cellar doors, Pudding could see a rather uncommon flickering glow. She was pretty certain flickering glows were not allowed backstage, but this new opera had been lauded as changing all the rules about the art, so what did she know?

She knew about peanuts. That was about it.


Rommily Valkensfaust
Rommily stared at Keinruf stonily, ignoring the ratmaids scrounging around the fallen marten. She almost wanted to knock them off. Such disgusting displays!

"Important?" She stepped over to Keinruf's head, restraining the urge to kick at the last moment. "Everybeast is important. Maybe not to me, but of themselves. Every life has value! You can't just go around killing like pulling leaves off a tree! It's wrong!"

Rommily was one of those few vermin who could be labeled "morally ambiguous." She had a surprisingly strong sense of ethics, and a miserably finical conscience. These two forces warred daily with her natural vermin dispositions, resulting in odd statements that she never quite took seriously. In the beginning, she had only said the stuff out loud to appease her tormented conscience. But then she started believing what she was saying.

Anyone else might have said, "Those were some fantastic fireworks! And wow, amazing job with the roof."

But Rommily had to keep on pushing the moral corruptness of it all. If she had been smarter, she might have riffled Keinruf's pockets for gilders. The thought never crossed her mind. If she had been even smarter, she might have shut up as soon as she saw him grin™. But the thought that she might be wasting her words never crossed her mind.

"Wretch," she snarled. "I oughta just kill you." She had a rapier. It was still dangling from her side, forgotten in the whole fiasco. She could ram it right through his head.

She hadn't ever killed somebeast before, but that didn't matter. There was always a first time. And it would be Justified.


Rhona Kingussie
"No, I'm not. If I am, den vhere iss my yellow and green scarf, and my coat? Wright alvays vears der coat and der scarf. Nobeast has seen him vit'out."

Rhona paused a moment before answering, but only because she had to fish a stubborn bit of pineapple from between her back teeth. It was sticky and blobby and horrifically messy, which was to say it was perfect.

"'S at the cleaners'," she said around her paw. "Or y'got mugged, or maybe you wore the same clothes every day f'r so long they stiffed up an' broke off. That happened to me once. Doesn't matter, you're still him. You're the only marten in town 'oo's harder t'unnerstand than my Da, an' that's a fact."

A movement in the corner of her eye alerted her to Keinruf's paw – being a pickpocket alerted you to this sort of thing – and she stomped on it, hard. Which wasn't saying very much, given her weight, but it was the principle that counted.

The lady pine marten was blathering something about Right and Wrong and the lofty ideals that applied to beasts who could afford to wear more than one set of clothes, like the students, who were also dead. Rhona didn't care much for either. Briefly she wondered what a tree was, then decided it didn't matter. But it seemed the lady marten wasn't as much fun as Rhona had thought she was, especially if she got all talky like her Da did when he was unhappy. Too bad. Rhona had been about to invite her to run with the Anomalous Street crowd sometime.

"Wretch," the lady marten was saying. "I oughta just kill you."

Rhona brightened visibly. A death! Now that was a lark worth listening to all that blather for. She shoved a pawful of goop down Keinruf's ear with vengeful glee.

"Yeah, she should!" she announced. "My Da's in there, you two-faced stinkin' forriner!"

Which had absolutely no bearing on the topic at paw, as she wasn't particularly worried about her Da's well-being, but it sounded like the sort of thing she ought to say.


Keinruf Wright
Keinruf frowned and grunted as his paw was stamped on, but he did not wince. He kept his eyes firmly open, focused on Rommily. There was something familiar about her. A tinge to her accent, perhaps. He had been right in his deductions; she was from Falterland, or, if not, then very nearly around that area. Falterland itself was but a simple duchy in a larger country - it had no female martens, which was why his father and, to a lesser extent, he himself, had come to the Imperium in the first place ... She must have been from one of the neighbouring counties, which Keinruf would rather have ravaged in war for a hundred years (as pretty much had been going on) than scour them for courtship opportunities.

But the smell ... was it his imagination, or was there a faint whiff of the same perfume ...?

Splortch, Keinruf heard. His good ear was rendered instantly useless by a pawful of pineapple mush. With a growl, he attempted to shift some weight somewhere, to dislodge any of the females holding him down, but to no avail. It felt like the only leg that might be free even the slightest was his bad one. Unless he wished to perhaps break it again, he was truly pinned. How embarrassing.

"Vhy," the marten asked, stalling for time, "vould you kill me? Vouldn't dat be ..." he frowned, licked his lips in uncertainty, then tried out the word; he hadn't uttered it for quite some time. "Wronk?"

He grinned again.™

"Besides, I can't - "

The marten twitched, grin fading. His whiskers splayed, ears flattening as best as they could, seeing as one was filled with goop and the other he had little control over in the first place; it was always flattened.

Around the corner, a drunkard ferret appeared, and glanced at the four with a look of bewilderment. He raised a half-full bottle of grog and belched: "H'lo, ladies? Wozzis? Somebeast die?"

He leaned over, trying to peer through the tangle of rats at Keinruf, and reached out to the wall for support - the bottle of grog clanged against brick, and the ferret looked at it as if for the first time realising what he held.

"Get him avay," Keinruf hissed. He didn't care if he couldn't die - he knew better than most what it was like to wish for it and have it be out of reach. Death would be preferable to the pain of not being able to breathe.

The ferret tilted his head and leaned closer.

"Wossat?"

The grog bottle began to tip, the fiery liquid sloshing closer to the open neck...


Rommily Valkensfaust
(Auto approved.)

"Wronk?"

Rommily glanced away, indecisive and hiding it badly. His words sparked an uncertainty in her that she didn't like. Was all murder bad, or could some killings be justified?

She knew he knew she was unsure, because he was grinning at her. The grin... She stared, transfixed. No one had ever grinned like that before. It was horrifying and fascinating at the same time. She couldn't stop staring.

"No," she said, slowly, trying to break the trap. "It would be... Justified." She swallowed, her throat burning oddly.

"I vos Justified," Keinruf said.

He didn't say anything more, and Rommily didn't let him anyway. The transfixion snapped in her fury. Her footpaw was ready to connect when she jumped, startled, and ruined the attack. She took a quick step back to regain her balance, and eyed the drunkard distastefully.

"No one's died," she snapped. "Although-"

"Get him avay," hissed Keinruf. Rommily glared at him. "What?" Keinruf wasn't looking at her; she followed his stare to the bottle. Her eyes flicked back and forth a few times as she connected the dots.

It was a snap decision. She didn't think; she just reached out and vindictively smacked the bottle downward. The ferret's paw clutched compulsively, but the damage was done. Neck pointing earthward, the bottle fountained grog straight into Keinruf's face.


Minty
Minty jumped out of the way as the grog spilled upon the marten. She absolutely detested the smell of the stuff, and no matter how many mint leaves she stuff in her clothing, there was no way of removing the stench of grog from a beast without a good scrubbing. Minty enjoyed scrubbings more than most street rats, more than most vermin in general, but to avoid smelling like grog was her main goal.

Her pineapple-slathered nose wrinkled in disdain at the drunkard weasel and the entire mess in general. She went to stand beside the other rattess, raising her paws in a helpless shrug and shaking her head as if to question the sanity of the beasts making the scene in front of them.


Keinruf Wright
Though the weight of the rats had been lifted off him, Keinruf suddenly felt as though a thousand pounds had been dropped onto his chest. No matter how hard he tried, it was impossible to draw a breath.

The marten began thrashing wildly, completely dislodging Rhona. Paws flailed for the ladder near his head, gripped it, and he hauled himself to his footpaws, only to stumble and fall against the drunken ferret, sending them both to the ground again.

Keinruf rolled off, onto his back, and now more effects were showing: angry red welts on his chin and throat, where the lighter-coloured cream white fur allowed it to show through; his tongue stuck out, swollen, and his eyes puffy and red, contrasting horribly with the yellow pineapple bits all over his face. He rolled over again, stomach heaving, and threw up in the street, and continued the roll until he lay on his side. His limbs curled up like a newborn, twitching and spasming - but one arm stretched out, toward a cluster of weeds poking out from between the cracks of the cobbled road.

It was perhaps an odd thing, to see something actually growing in a Bully Harbour alley. But then again, it wasn't quite that odd at all. The weeds in question were, in fact, (due to an urgent need for a deus ex machina) a species of reed, and had plenty of water from the gutters (very nutrient-filled gutters, those) and the single-story buildings in this particular section of town gave plenty sunlight. This specific alley had nobeast tending to its spotlessness, so there was no flustering stoatwife to attempt to yank them out.

Keinruf's paw clutched around one reed, managed to snap it off at the base by biting it, and attempted to jam the makeshift tube down his throat - but by then his arms were no longer under his control in the slightest, and he lay there like a dying cockroach, making not even the slightest of wheezing noises. His chest was thinned out, and in moments, his nose would possibly start turning blue.


Rommily Valkensfaust
In Rommily's defense, it must be said that she had no idea what was going to happen. She didn't know what she had been thinking because she hadn't been thinking anything, beyond maybe some petty vindictiveness. She had expected some screaming, because alcohol in the eyes burns like 'Gates, but not... this.

Keinruf tried to shove the reed down his throat, but he wasn't doing very well. Rommily knew what was going to happen. It was quite natural.

Therefore, she tipped him over and knelt on his chest, and pulled his trembling paws away. With a veterinarian's patience, oblivion to pain, and all-around lack of shame, she lubricated the reed with saliva and began threading it firmly down Keinruf's throat. (She didn't dare try CPR.) His expression was lost on her, as was the faintly blue nose. The reed met with some resistance, but it had snapped cleanly; no splinters to get wedged in Keinruf's swollen windpipe.

...She just hoped it was his windpipe, and not his esophagus. This wouldn't work at all if she had the wrong tube.

The Manual in her head didn't say that Murderers could not be Helped. And this did not count as Aiding and Abetting the Enemy, either.

Now there were only a few inches of the bent reed visible. Rommily paused and estimated the length in her head. It ought to have reached his lungs. But he wasn't breathing yet, and even though his chest was spasming, there wasn't any hiss of air.

Without a second thought, she gripped the reed between her teeth and expelled her lungs' contents violently.



Minty
Well, that certainly was odd. Minty didn't like grog, but she didn't dislike it so much that she went into spasms and then began to croak and wheeze like a dying frog. Then Keinruf began to shove a reed down his throat; a very conveniently placed weed at that.

Surely the Fates had some say in all this. Somebeast long ago had told her about Them, but she couldn't remember who or when she had been told. Her understanding was just there in her head, and had been there for as long as she had known. Minty believed in the Fates very much, whoever or whatever They were. It did not necessarily matter what form They took, but it did matter that They acted, and indeed this was a night laden with the actions of the Fates in her opinion. She looked over her shoulder nervously, hoping that They didn't have it in for her. That was why she always smelled of mint. The Fates didn't like mint.

Now the other marten was doing something exceedingly odd, making Minty wince slightly as the reed slid down Keinruf's throat. She made a low sort of grumbling noise of sympathy in her own throat that sounded something like "Ahhrrr", imagining how it must feel to have something shoved down one's windpipe in such a manner.



Rhona Kingussie
Rhona positively glowed. Now this was entertainment, even if Keinruf had completely knocked her off him and she'd bumped her head on a paving-stone. That was a small price to pay to watch him turn interesting colours and grow funny bumps and flop around like a beached dolphin. Rhona had never seen a beached dolphin, but she imagined it would be very much the same.

And now the lady pine marten (whom she had realised was also a foreigner, but that was all right) was shoving something down Keinruf's throat and that was champion, too. Rhona was a very vocal advocate of shoving things down otherbeasts' throats, especially if it meant that the entertainment would continue.

"Go on, do another!" she said. "Maybe it'll make more bumps happen!"



Keinruf Wright
Through his swollen eyes, Keinruf couldn't make out very much. There was some fuzzy brown shape, which could have been anyone or anything, outlined against the glowing red storm clouds reflecting the Opera fire - ash was beginning to fall along with the light drizzle.

He could feel something in his throat, just barely, and a sharp stinging sensation rose above the cacophony of aches and pains bubbling all over him, and he knew he had been saved. Or, at least, was in the process of being saved.

He couldn't fathom why.

His chest still burned. He wasn't breathing. He was sure he had the means now, but the willpower - no ... the memory of how to work them was gone.

But just as soon as he realised this, something filled him, expanding the airways just that little more, and overloading his lungs. The extra air shot out through his nose, spraying yellow gunk over Rommily's head - only some of it from the pineapple.

But it had done the trick; he could work his lungs again, and though the effort was tremendous and the passageway impossibly thin, he was able to breathe.

The marten let himself lay still for a moment, going limp as his spasms would allow. His eyes closed, and despite the wracking nerves and savage headache, he enjoyed living just a little longer.

Five seconds ought to do it.

Raising a shaking paw, Keinruf put out his claws and stroked his throat, feeling the swollen tissue for the right spot. Was it this bit, or this bit? One wrong slice, and he'd never talk again. Or he'd bleed to death, either from losing it all down his front or drowning in it. Or he'd seriously impair his ability to consume food for a few weeks. Blast, why did the throat have to be so filled with useless tubes? If only he had a mirror.

If only he were doing this on somebeast else. He had, once or twice before. Closed off the inside of their mouth accidentally, with this or that, just experimenting with ... things. Had to open a spot and jab the body of a one-piece crossbow in. They'd breathed for a few hours longer, after that, but had died of poison after he'd upended a jar of spiders into their mouth.

That had been the second biggest tongue he'd ever seen.

Keinruf drew one last, painful, reed-rattling breath, then began to claw at himself.


Rommily Valkensfaust
Rommily threw a rock at Rhona, but because she had just been splattered with yellow gunk, she missed.

She sat back, not daring to touch her face. Every nerve was revolting, but she suppressed the urge to scream like panicked nobility and claw at her own face.

Instead, she turned to the gutter puddles on the side of the alley and splashed the mysterious liquid on her face. It was at least 50% water. It stank, and burned, and now her face was damp and she carefully pressed out the fur along her eyes so she wouldn't go blind. No one had told her that Bully Harbor water was caustic, but she could guess that without much trouble.

Keinruf was lying flat. The reed whistled as his lungs pulled air through the tiny tube. It wasn't enough air; he would asphyxiate soon. Her considerations stopped short as the marten in question starting clawing at his own throat.

"Oh. Is that what you're after?" She nodded, watching with clinical interest. "'s a nice idea." She bumped his paws away once more and drew the dagger from her belt. The failing light gleamed off the blade as she held it up, inspecting the nicked edge.

After a few seconds she twitched her whiskers and put it back. Too dull, too jagged. Out came the folding knife, opening with a satisfying snap.

"Hold still," she told Keinruf, looking him in the eyes while she laid the blade against his throat. "And try not to scream."

She knew where the windpipe was, had done this once before with a choking sibling in the middle of the woods. The traumatized memory didn't resurface. She only knew that she could, and that the best spot to open the windpipe was right above the collarbone, and the thing you did right afterward was flip the victim over so the blood didn't run into the lungs and pool.

"Three," she said, to be nice. Then she jabbed, and sliced.

There was no arterial spurt, because there were no arteries, but there was a good deal of blood. She immediately rolled Keinruf over, and it occurred to her: she needed something to hold his throat open.

Ignoring the wheezing and gurgling, she tossed about for a solution. Reeds? No. The hilt of her knife? No. A piece of glass? Ouch, no. No more allergic reactions needed.

She pushed him over, to see the gap again, and something shiny caught her eye.

"Oh, perfect."

Rommy grabbed for Keinruf's belt buckle, oblivious to the Awkwardness of this, and ripped the entire belt out. She detached the metal buckle with a few quick saws of her knife. Then, going for Keinruf's throat, she wedged the metal piece into the gap, holding it open.

She rolled him onto his stomach again, and watched a thin pool of blood spread from his neck. But it was already slowing; the cut hadn't been that large, and that part of the neck didn't have arteries either.

It was very pleasant to hear him breathing.


Minty
Minty determined that these beasts were insane. There was no questioning it now. However, she was rather intrigued by the whole process.

With a twitch of her ears, the rattess moved closer. Then another step, and another.

Now she was directly next to the pair of martens, and she knelt down moving her nose close to the pooling blood, sniffing. She looked up at the female marten, her eyebrows raised in question. Then she tapped her own throat somewhat empathetically, shaking her head and looking back down at the face-down form of Keinruf. Something occurred to her. While he was down, she may as well...

She began to run her paws over him, much as she would have a drunk passed out in the gutter. You know, just in case he had some gilders on him...it never hurt a beast to try...


Callix Noxi
Callix burst onto the scene that was the blazing opera house just in time to see her superior officer dashing off back to the Headquarters at full pelt. The scent of the smoke was overpowering, she shook her head against the dizzying fumes. The screams from within were enough to make even a cold-blooded beast's vital fluid chill.

Constable Noxi took a run and slammed herself into the opera house doors, trying vainly to bash them down. At the moment of impact she shrieked in pain and staggered back. The door hissed steam. Callix clutched the seared scales of her arm. She gritted her teeth, her anger boiling with the pain and the frustration of being powerless to do her duty. Beasts were dying and she was failing.

Unable to think past her best primal instincts, Noxi roared, forgetting to bother with the whistle, and began besieging the crumbling opera house's doors with her truncheon. Her eyes lit with rage, she barely noticed that her Fogey weapon was beginning to spark. Some of the beasts who were attempting to fight the fire with water had stopped to stare at the berserk ex-warrior. Others simply gawped in horror as yet more of the vast structure began to cave inward.

"If she dies," shouted a rat to a neighbouring ferret onlooker. "I'm nickin' that beret of 'ers! If it ain't too squashed by the end, hurhur!"


Blaine (Blinky) Hinkly
Fogey Cadet Blaine "Blinky" Hinkly was, in a word, lost. But he didn't know it yet. He wouldn't have known he was lost even if a talented special aids teaching professor came to Bully Harbour and sat down with him in a comfortable room with a lot of large, brightly illustrated flash cards with various pictures of stoats, streets, and blankets. If Blinky had attended a seminar in which all the speaker had to say was "You, Blinky, are lost," he would have walked out not knowing what he had been told, but instead wondering what colour his pajamas were - unless he was already wearing them, which every so often was the case. Sometimes he forgot this simple fact, and was pleasantly surprised when he came back to his cabin on the BlackShip to find out.

They were blue.

But right now the stoat was dressed up in his grey* Fogey uniform, and he wasn't wondering so much what colour his pajamas were, so much as he was wondering what smelled like barbecue.

He had woken up some minutes previous, to the startling revelation that his tail was, in fact, on fire. A stray ember from the sky had fallen and set up a tiny smoke signal into his nose. He'd put it out before it got too big, by biting it. Then he went to go find his partner, Callix, and get irate at her for not telling him his tail had been on fire, and possibly shout at her a bit more for not telling him that Molly had been by.

Molly hadn't, but the news would have cheered him up even so.

Blinky slowly drew upon the Opera house's location. But, as had been stated, he was lost.

So instead, he came across a peculiar situation involving a bleeding pine marten, a pine marten with a knife, two rats that smelled like pineapple, and a ferret who was, Blinky noticed with extreme sympathy, very upset about his empty bottle of grog.

"Aw, cheer up, mate," Blinky said, patting the ferret's shoulder. "Y'can still lick it up from the ground, see, like this."

As Blinky got down on all fours, the ferret tugged on his uniform collar.

"Hey, yer a Fogey!"

"Slrrrpfshwrrpt ... aye?"

The ferret pointed. "That lady marten knocked out me grog an' now she's stabbin' th'other fellow."

Blinky stood up again and, after bundling up his blanket and dropping it onto the puddle of grog to soak up the liquid so he could suck it out later, eyed the pair of martens further down the alley. Yes, he could see it now. She was poking at his throat with her knife and now ... His eyes widened. She was jamming his belt buckle into the hole.

"Huh," he said. He scratched his stomach, and wondered if maybe his pajamas were yellow, like his blanket. It would be a nice match.

He picked up his blanky and popped a corner into his mouth, and chewed thoughtfully. Maybe they were red.

"Aren't y'gonna do summat?" the ferret asked.

Blinky stared at him. Do summat? He'd been a Fogey for several months now and he had never Do summat, or Done, or Did, or anything that started with a D except Drool and, once or twice or ninety times, get Drunk.

"Y'c'nblffmwhffle, ify'fnksumfink - " he spat the blanky out " - ought ter be done," he said.

"Wot?"

"I sedz, y'can blow my whistle, if'n yer think sumfink ought ter be done," Blinky repeated. He offered the ferret his whistle. The ferret declined. This was perhaps a wise decision. The muzzle of the little tin whistle was covered in jam.

Shrugging, Blinky popped it in and licked the jam off, then gave it a good blow.

FWEEEEEEEEeeeeee...


* Muddy brown by now.



Keinruf Wright
Keinruf didn't scream. He wasn't sure he could. He did gurgle a lot, and wish he was in a position to bludgeon the female marten's brains out, but he didn't scream.

When it was over, he just lay there, letting his throat bleed out. It was an odd feeling, breathing without one's mouth. He felt as if he ought to be suffocating, and yet his chest heaved and there was a faint whistle of air below his chin, and he was still alive.

No change there, then.

Keinruf sometimes wondered, just why he couldn't die. Somebeast had once told him it was because he wasn't a killer. That, because he prolonged lives well past the necessary limit, the same was happening to him. That the Fates were having a Lark on his time. He thought this was all a load of crock, of course. But he couldn't help but wonder ... if maybe he was starting to come back around, after what he'd done to the Opera.

Somebeast was frisking him (pointlessly; he had nothing on him but his clothes), and he suddenly realised his belt was loose. Thank the fates he hadn't given up his habit of also wearing suspenders.

His ears laid back at a nearby Fweet of a Fogey whistle, and with a grunt, he began trying to get to all fours. He'd never be able to stand up in his current state, but maybe he could crawl away, or skitter like the primal wounded animal he was.



Callix Noxi
Near blinded by the mixture of ire, heat and scorching pain, Callix whirled as the scream of Blinky's whistle cut through the air. She knew that whistle. There was something about an instrument that had managed to survive several swallowings, beatings and gastronomic abuse, it developed its own voice.

Her energy driven by fury, fervently believing that whoever had caused this atrocity was probably smashing the stinking stoat's face in right now, Constable Noxi snatched a piece of flaming tinder that had tumbled to the cobbled streets and tore off in the direction of the noise. Seeing that so many beasts were still watching her with half fear, half amazement, she snarled, "Any beazt that vishes to exact juztice, grab a veapon and follow me! To armz, citizenz!"

The injured, blood-crazed monitor exploded through the streets and came across the grisly sight of the mutilated Keinruf and his attackers. A few of the vermin from the square had taken up the idea to form a small mob behind her. She swung her makeshift torch before her in a menacingly tribal manner.

"Ztop vhere you are! I vant your pawz vhere I can zee them, the lot of you!"


Rommily Valkensfaust
Rommily stood up, nostrils flaring in sudden emotion. She stepped in front of Keinruf, that is, between Keinruf and the mob. Something crazy had laid hold of her. Later, a team of lawyers and psychiatrists would come up with "temporary insanity."

Rommily laid her ears back. Then she drew her lips back, baring her teeth, exposing her full white fangs. One marten could never stop a mob, but the natural instincts in each beast would force a moment of hesitation. You always recoiled at bared fangs and fury, until reason took over and you realized that it was only one beast, come on mates let's get 'em!

"You don't get him," she said, a growl buzzing in her throat. Her mouth opened slightly, displaying every sharp canine. She took an involuntary step forward, head lowering aggressively, each neckfur bristling. "I worked on him, he's not dead, and I'm not letting you rip him up after all that effort. He needs to be brought to proper Justice."*

She backed up, snarling even more to make up for this sign of weakness, until she was level with Keinruf. She reached down, grabbed the scruff of his neck, and hauled him upwards. It wasn't hard. The adrenaline was entirely sufficient.

"Run," she snapped. "I'll find you later." ...A huge grin spread over her face. "How about tomorrow night? Around seven? That good for you?"

She shoved him toward the darkness.

A second later, she would follow, because Keinruf's fleeing tail would fire the mob's blood-craving, and no amount of bared fangs would stop them.

Keinruf stumbled off, and Rommily took care of the first beast she could reach. It happened to be Blinky: she punched him in the nose, and was sprinting before he hit the ground.


*Rommy was new to the Imperium. She didn't know that Fogeys are the Justice. She only saw Mob.


Keinruf Wright
Keinruf's eyes swollen half-shut, the rush of blood roaring in his ears, his nose clogged beyond any possible use, and his head pounding with every pain coursing through his body, it seemed as though the only sense he had left that actually worked was that of taste – and all he could taste was grog. This was not his idea of ideal circumstances for running.

But he ran anyways, because ... because he couldn't be caught. Not anymore. He'd been caught before, and he hadn't liked it. They hadn't let him have very many bratwursts and muffins, or his favourite food, bratwurst muffins floating in tea.

In times of great duress, beasts tended to think about food. Food was energy and life, and these were things they rather wanted a lot of. So it was less of the image of an angry mob behind him that spurred the marten on from a dazed crawl, to an agonized stumble, to a breath-ripping trot, but the thoughts of his mother's onion and frankfurter chowder stew.

The dizziness overtook him after a few yards, and he threw up a bit more, or tried to, as he ran; but his throat was being rather adamant about not letting anything in or out, like a fresh-faced Stoatorian Guard straight out of training who hadn't yet actually seen the Minister of War's face in person.

Keinruf managed a grin.™

He'd just compared his vomit to the MinoWar. Then he grew sad. Life was just that bit less interesting – and more tolerable and less likely to end – without Sleet in that position. He wouldn't admit to missing her, but he felt a certain pang of regret that she wasn't around to witness this. It was a prize for the ages, seeing her face contort into anger – and an amazing feat for one to push her to such an extreme in the first place.

In a way, he felt privileged.

He reached the end of the alleyway, and kept going. He couldn't see where. He just ran.

Seven, he thought. Yeah, he could probably work that into his schedule.


Minty
This night was becoming dull. The gurgling marten had nothing of value on him (even his belt buckle had been shoved in the hole in his throat, and Minty was not going to fetch that out. It probably wasn't worth much of anything anyways) and now a mob of Fogeys were bearing down on them.

The rattess glanced at the other rat. She grinned and winked, then took off in the opposite direction down the dark alley, following the other two martens. Soon she was on the rooftops, looking down at the pursuit, following it with the interest of a beast who has nothing better to do.


Callix Noxi
Fuelled with the rush of enraged leadership, the mob backing her up, Callix's temper flared. A fiery marteness had taken up ground between her and the beast she was realising needed capturing, even if they weren't responsible for the terrible occurrence at the Opera House. This was obstructing arrest. This made Rommily a liable target.

A growl started at the bottom of Constable Noxi's throat that grew and grew in volume. All of a sudden, the female marten shoved the injured one on his way and before any of the mob had chance to react, Callix saw Blinky felled with a punch.

The lizardess was stunned into hesitancy for the briefest of moments, and then she brandished her torch with a fearsome squeal. Not stopping to check on her partner's wellbeing, she led the charge after the two fleeing martens.


Rommily Valkensfaust
Rommily abandoned Keinruf. He would have to make his own way. She couldn't help him, and they would only slow down if she tried. She left him to his own devices, knowing that if he had taken down the Opera, he should know Bully Harbor well enough to escape into a hole.

Rommily, however, had barely arrived. She kept on running, turning through alleys randomly, knowing that one would be a dead end – both literally and figuratively. The mob was behind her, spreading out, searching, yelling eagerly. They were like predators, a pack of hunting wolves, and she was the prey. It didn't feel very pleasant.

A rock clattered into the alley behind her. Rommily whipped around, snarling. Darkness there, and nothing more. Peering into the darkness, she stood rigid, wondering, fearing, doubting her own senses.

Something flickered above her. – Gates! there was someone on the roof!

Rommily shoved her back into the wall, snarling. But it was only the little ratmaid from earlier, the one that had eaten the pineapple off Keinruf's face. Rommily stepped out from the shadow, wondering if this unwanted tagalong could somehow be turned to her advantage.

And inspiration came. "Miss! I no more want to be ripped up than anybeast else. Do you know any good holes to hide in?"

Just in case the rattess was inclined to waffle, Rommily reached into her pocketbag and pulled out a gilder. Even through the damp mist hanging about, the piece flashed in the moonlight.

("Over there! 's the marten. I can hear her yelling!")

Rommily's fur prickled. She continued to hold out the gilder, denying the urge to run in a bid for hope. Her flight instincts were overwhelming, the jumpy adrenaline nearly forcing her into a run. She stayed rigid, but her tail lashed back and forth like a flag in a high breeze.

"How about it?" she called again.


Minty
Minty looked down at the shining gilder, dark eyes blinking. She was only a formless shadow upon the rooftop, a lump upon the rooftop as she considered the offer. A few moments later, she slithered down off the roof, sliding until she hit the gutter and then lowered herself down so that she hung by her forepaws. Then she dropped to the ground with little more than a light skitter of her claws. She walked up to the marteness, looking up at the gilder. With a quick flick of the rattess's paws, the gilder was gone from Rommily's fingers and tucked away into Minty's belt.

With a slight tilt of her head, Minty motioned for the marteness to follow her. She began trotting away down the alley, then took a sharp turn into an even narrower alleyway that was littered with barrels and crates. The sound of the mob was getting closer, but Minty did not seem to be in much of a hurry as she shoved crates to the side and felt the ground with her footpaws.

Her face suddenly brightened when she stepped and the large cobblestone gave a slight creak. She got down on her hands and knees and began tugging at it as though she were trying to pry it upwards. The rattess motioned for Rommily to help her.

It sounded as though some of the mob of beasts were at the next street over. Minty pointed to the marteness, then to the rock. Then she pointed at herself and pointed to the exit of the narrow alleyway, grinning mischievously. Without waiting for a response from the marteness, Minty was sprinting out of the alley, heading for the noise of the pursuing beasts.


Blaine (Blinky) Hinkly
Blinky lay on the ground, a fair amount of blood streaking down his cheeks from his crooked muzzle.

Somebeast paused to lend him a paw. Blinky waggled his own paw at it woozily, until they snatched his arm and hauled him upright.

"You okay?"

The words seemed distant, muffled. Blinky couldn't focus on the face. He turned about slowly, staring at the blur of life as the mob ran past him.

He raised a paw to his face and felt the familiar burst of pain spread through his head from his nose. Something was loose. Possibly half a dozen teeth.

The stoat sighed.

"I fink I'm in love," he said. His helper stared at him for a few moments, before backing away slowly and running after the mob.

Blinky fetched his blanky and trundled after them, still sighing dreamily. If only Molly could sock him that hard. What a lady!

"Oi!" he called, seeing the mob start to vanish around a corner, "wait up! I ne'er got 'er name!"


Rommily Valkensfaust
Rommily crouched over the rock, her paws still wedged into the crack, helpless and bewildered. What did Minty want her to do? Take the stone, run after her, and bash the nearest mobster on the head? Pretend that Minty was Rommily, chase Minty with the rock, and pretend that she herself was a mobster? Rommily's head spun with confusion. Despite Minty's best attempts at nonverbal explanation, Rommily didn't have a clue.

Well, maybe she had one clue.

She bunched her legs under her, and dug her clawtips under the edge of the stone. Something damp and mushy was growing between the cobblestones – who knew what slipped between the gaps in the streets of Bully Harbor. Ignoring the goop, Rommily took in a deep breath, and tried to flip the stone out of its place. A quarter inch, and it stopped. Rommily gnashed her teeth, re-set her haunches, took another breath, and dug her claws in again. She forced herself to focus on the stone, and not panic because the mob was just one street over...!

The cobblestone flipped upward with a squelch, but didn't tip over. It was a good-sized stone, about the size of a rat curled up, and heavy. Rommily yelped as it fell back, stopping it just before it smashed her fingers. She sucked in a breath, coiled her muscles, and shoved the stone.

It crashed over, splitting neatly from corner to corner. Underneath it was a square-ish hole, dug straight out of the ground. Rommily stared at it.

The sides were damp with goop.

She looked up and down the alley. Minty had somehow diverted the mob, who went after anything that ran. Their cries were fading.

Rommily looked back at the hole, breathing a little easier. Now: was it worthwhile to crawl in the hole and wait out the night, or should she run for it while the mob was several streets away? Well. It depended on whether the mob actions would last all night, fired by the Opera's blazing demise, or would the excitement die down in a few hours? Stay if the first, run if the second.

She looked back at the hole, and didn't contemplate any of her questions a moment further. No way in 'Gates was she touching any of that slimy stuff down there.

Thank you, rattess, for showing me this hole, but I have a better route now...

The patters of her footpaws echoed off the walls as Rommily set out on a fast lope to find a darker, quieter part of town.


Pink
Pink was not interested in Opera, specifically the art. In art, she liked drums, and things that went bang, and things that went boom, and most of all, things that exploded and sent shards of flashing materiel zipping through the air. (She had spent some time around Innovation as a kit and always screamed in excitement when the windows shattered.) Sometimes, when nobeast was around the house, Pink would drag out some old washtubs, barrels, cymbals, and the breastplate from a suit of armor, and go whaling away. She usually had a good time. But she was also ahead of her time; rock would not come into fashion for several more centuries. Not that that mattered to her, but sometimes, after she had finished a piece and the shattering echoes withered away in the big, empty room, she felt awfully lonely and really wanted something furry and fluffy to hug.

But Miles just hadn't worked. The first time he tried to kiss her, she had just finished ranting to (not at) Pudding about the dullness and unliveliness of opera, and when Miles turned up she turned up her muzzle and blew a stream of pipe-smoke in his face. Then she ranted about how bad a singer he was. If she'd been a real contract killer, she would have hired herself out to put the chandelier through his head! He left her alone after that. Later, she was sorry. Secretly, she rather liked him. If only he had come at a better time. And liked banging on washtubs. Then they might have been able to be together!

She thought about Miles often, even though he was dead. Right now, though, she wasn't thinking about him. She was thinking about how awesome the explosions were upstairs, and how much she wanted to go up there right now and see what was happening.

She really needed to get rid of this peanut farmer.

"This," said Pink, flicking her claws at the sample bag of peanuts, "is a bunch of guano."

Pink was a peanut contractor. She procured all of the peanuts for the Opera, and managed almost the entire Harbor's peanut intake. Her sister, Pudding, sorted the peanuts for the peanut-sellers upstairs. But Pink got all the peanuts, and Pink had to be smart in this job, because there were a lot of peanut farmers that tried to swindle her. They packed the bags with straw or filled the bottom with empty shells. They gave her moldy peanuts to increase a bag's weight and get more gilders. There were a hundred and one ways to sneak bad peanuts to a contractor, and Pink knew all of them.

This peanut farmer, a grubby ferret with dirty fur, was glaring at her. Pink didn't like him. He came around too often, and sometimes she couldn't scare him off. One day, she told herself, I'll hire myself out and kill him. Then he won't be a problem anymore.

"Dere good peanuts, an' y' kin see it yerself." The ferret stuck his grubby paws into his equally grubby pockets and kept on glaring. Pink glared back, then reached a paw into the bag and riffled around. Sure enough, up came a pawful of bad peanuts from the center of the bag. Anyone could see these were old peanuts, past good usage. Pink didn't need Pudding to tell her these were bad peanuts.

She looked at him. His expression of injured honor had not changed. "You are a bunch of guano," she snapped, flinging the pawful at him. "Take yer peanuts an' gi' out!"

He flinched, but rallied. "These 're good peanuts, and y' said y' would pay fer 'em! I didn't trek dese peanuts all th' way 'ere just to get 'em thrown at me!"

"Y' said they were good peanuts! These 're gull droppings!" Pink crossed her arms and bared her teeth. She might be a small weaselmaid, but she could be plenty ferocious when she wanted! "Now, you git out, 'cos I'm not buying your stinkin' peanuts."

She snatched the approved bag of gilders back off the bargaining table, and realized her mistake. The money clinked. She saw the ferret's ears lay back, saw his eyes focus, saw his pupils expand. Gull!

Well, there was only one thing for it.

Pink sprang for him just as he pulled out the dagger, and knocked him to the floor. They rolled over and over, wriggling like eels. Pink got the dagger and hurled it away, but the ferret grabbed the gilders while she was occupied with the hurling, and ran.

"You bloody-!" Pink cursed, sprinting after him. "You give those back or I'll kill ya!" He was running in the wrong direction, she noticed. He was taking the wrong passageway - up to the Opera floor, instead of to the outside. Well. Opera floor or not, she was getting him.

The ferret reached the trapdoor that led to the stage and scrambled out. His scream of terror reached Pink a moment later. Oblivious, she lunged for the door and sprang onto the stage.

Oh.

Wow.

Pink's mouth opened slowly, revealing a pink tongue and delicate white teeth. Her eyes widened, reflecting the flames. Her feet stopped moving, and she stood quite still.

Another piece of the roof fell in front of her, mashing what remained of the peanut farmer's body, and sent flying shards of material at her.

Pink ducked and screamed, and fell backwards through the trapdoor by mistake. She hit her head as she went down, but that didn't matter, because for once in her life she didn't want to hang around to see the explosions.

Dashing back down the passageway to the peanuts, Pink started thinking frantically. Two shipments of peanuts had just come in, the good fresh kind from a trusted farmer. They were prize peanuts; what would she do with them? Couldn't just leave 'em- CRASH Gull, there went that passageway! What about Pudding? Pink forgot the peanuts and changed direction radically, swinging about mid-stride to charge down another passage. She needed to get to Pudding!

At the very peak of her swing, just as she began to charge forward again, she smacked into somebeast. The momentum spun her sideways and into the air. Her small weasel body did a few barrel rolls in the air before smacking into the wall and bouncing to the floor.

"...OW."

Pink saw stars. They formed a brilliant halo around the head of the beast she had smacked. Angel stars or not, what right had he to impede emergency progress?

Pink stood up, and staggered into the wall for support. She did her best Angry Peanut Contractor Glare. "Wot yer do that for!"


Minty
If there was one prerequisite characteristic that one beast must have to survive more than a day as a street rat, it would be fleetness of footpaws. Alas, many quick beasts had met their demise upon the streets despite being quick upon their paws. That was why there were far more than one or two traits that a street rat must master in order to survive.

Minty, thankfully for her hide, had many tricks up her sleeves (if she were to have any sleeves) with which to send the roaring mob into a frenzy but leave them confused enough so that they never really knew where she was. They knew she was somewhere ahead of them, as she oftentimes made the point to pop up from behind a stack of crates or mysteriously appear on a rooftop. Sometimes she would even let them get so close as to nearly nab her, but she was far too smart for that nonsense.


Callix Noxi
Callix ran blindly, the majority of the mob still racing after her. It had got to the point where she had to keep going else be trampled, and still the smoke from the Opera House reached her senses. Her rage, like the fire, would continue until there was no more fuel to burn. Groups split off down varying alleyways, a river of pursuers. The Fogey constable continued her charge down the main streets, eyes flitting at every junction for her prey. She raced on until she was sure she had reached places with silence yet to fill.

Her watery blue eyes snatched sight of the injured pine marten. It might have been a shadow, a trick of the light, how adeptly the shape was managing to keep from attention. The unmistakable odour of blood attempted to drown out the smoke clogging her snout.

The monitor screamed out a call not unlike the proposed sound of a Spielberg raptor, and charged headlong on Keinruf's path. It was a sharp turn. Had it not been such a dangerous scene, one watching on the rooftops might have laughed at the amount of beasts that tripped over one another to replicate the move, skeetering on into walls, even misjudging the corners and getting brained on the corner of the alleyway. Good times.


Aedan Kingussie
Aedan's jacket had gone...somewhere. He could've sworn he had had it on a moment ago, except it certainly wasn't here now. It didn't particularly matter, all things considered, but it was something on which to fix the panicking part of his mind while the rest of it focused on more important things, like how to get the small crowd of beasts he'd somehow managed to accumulate out of the collapsing building and to safety. They were in the cellars, because everybeast knew all good tunnels started in the cellars, especially if you were in an opera building. Where had his jacket gone? Probably the same place exactly half his socks went, though to hear his housekeeper tell the tale you'd think he'd misplaced them himself.

He had long since removed his cravat and tied it round his face, mostly so he wouldn't inhale the smoke and also because the smell of burnt fur around him made him feel distinctly nauseous. What he could really do with right now was a bucket of water to dunk it in, he thought, then almost giggled. What everybeast could really do with right now was a bucket of water.

There were crates now, and suddenly there was a weaselmaid in a grey dress who fairly dripped the smell of peanuts. Aedan blinked at her for a moment before her "Wot's goin' on?" finally registered.

"Fire," he mumbled through the cravat, pointing vaguely at the ceiling. "T'whole buildin's gone oop. Come on, lass, it'll be in t'cellars next." He briefly considered adding and by the way, yeh wouldna happen to have seen mah jacket, have yeh? but decided against it.

They headed further into the cellars - presumably the weaselmaid had followed, or somebeast sensible had picked her up and carried her along. Aedan glanced back for a moment.

"Shouldna be tae far now," he added, in a weak attempt at encouragement. "T'door's just aroond this--"

And then, very suddenly, he found himself seated on his tail, watching a blurry figure somersault off into the darkness as stars exploded around it. It was the weaselmaid from before, except she had somehow got in front of him and had changed her clothes and acquired a flatcap along the way.

""Wot yer do that for!"

It was too dark and Aedan's vision was still too starry for him to make out the expression on her face, but her tone of voice carried across clearly enough. And anyway, his response was instinctive.

"Sorry, lass, ah didna see yeh there." He struggled to a vaguely upright position, holding out a paw to help the weaselmaid up. "Mah fault entirely."


Pudding Chester
It seemed things had changed a lot since the last time Pudding had gone carousing through the streets. She'd only ever seen one beast go about with neck-wear wrapped around his muzzle, and Pink had told her to stay away from that particular one. The style must've caught on, she supposed. It was a good thing Miles was dead now. She wasn't entirely sure he would have liked it. He might've suffocated on the floof.

My, but wasn't this exhilarating! Something was on fire and they were running and her peanuts - her peanuts!

Pudding spun on her footpaws and tried to fight her way back, to somehow save her peanuts, but the passageway was too crowded.

"Oi!" she shouted, hoping somebeast in the back could hear, "grab th'pail marked 'Delicious'! I sorted twenty-nine thousand, three 'unrid an' twelve peanuts t'get that many good ones! 'EY! Can y'hear me? I said - "

Pushed aside once again, Pudding snarled and bit the ferret who'd slammed her against the wall, stomping his footpaw as well. He yelped and limped on, and a rat behind her shoved her forwards once more.

The small room was quickly filling, and not enough were getting out the other end fast enough. Pudding could see her sister on the ground, although the Undefinable Peanut weasel was hauling her up now – good. Sort of. Pudding wasn't sure she liked her sister, but there was Kinship, and that wasn't something you could ignore. Besides, Pink bought the peanuts. If it hadn't been for Pink ... Pudding would still be shoveling gull guano, most like.

A sudden fire flared up in Pudding's soul, and marching up to the two star-eyed mustela nivalis...es, she grabbed the scruff of their necks and hauled them back into the flow.

"C'mon, y'dopey eyed ... let's find me some more peanuts."

And the crowd surged onward ...


Keinruf Wright
There – just ahead, half hidden in shadows, a back entrance to a cellar. Something was familiar about this spot. He strained his puffy eyes to take in as much as he could.

It was the back of a shop. The main street was very close. The cellar was likely locked. He didn't even bother with trying the stairs; he barreled around the corner and, taking a few seconds to hike the back of his coat over his head, dove straight through a side window on ground-level.

Keinruf lay, more than slightly stunned, on the ground for a few seconds. No doubt the noise had alerted the mob to his exact location. Had he imagined the fiery-eyed lizard ahead of the pack, or had it been a ghost of a memory?

The shop was empty, closed for the night. Lamplight from the front windows bled in, creating dusty yellow beams of light and grey-flecked blackness beyond. His eyes quickly adjusted, forming the possible idea of shapes.

Something was bothering him. Keinruf pawed at his mouth. The reed was still sticking out between his incisors. He pulled it out, ignoring the slime, and tossed it away. Then he folded the tail of his coat over his paws and grabbed the nearest large shard of glass, and cut a piece of the coat away. This he used as a makeshift glove, and grasped the glass shard like a knife as he stood and began to prowl the empty shop.

The cellar door on this side was not locked, but the doorknob was in bad repair, and jammed. By now he was running purely on instinct; there was no thought left that he could spare to anything more than operating his lungs. His free paw jostled and shook the knob without direction. His body was on auto-pilot, going through blind motions from some half-forgotten memory. Specters of the past haunted this realm of his existence; he could feel Itha's hot breath down his neck, hissing him onward as he clumsily fumbled through his first picking of one of Bully Harbour's more interesting locks. Dead Eye's impatient gaze flickered from the window, judging the new Kreeholder's competency. Keinruf turned his head, seeking approval, further guidance, or just to smirk in satisfaction.

Callix's mad glare stared back at him from beyond the shattered panes.

The cellar door burst open; the marten vanished within.


Callix Noxi
Ever breaking new boundaries of stupidity, Constable Noxi leapt through the broken window, torch still waving in her claws. At the sight of the glass, some of the more faint-hearted mob members began muttering amongst themselves. The spatters of blood left behind by Wright, the fact that their quarry had been desperate enough to hurl himself through glass and still wasn't dead was making them falter. The frenzied lizard at their head did not inspire their confidence in personal safety. None had yet followed her into the shop.

Oblivious to her followers, spurned on by the scent of the injured marten, Callix bared her teeth at the now empty shop floor. She glared at the cellar door as it banged offensively on its hinges. Perhaps unwisely, she gave a hiss and leapt into the darkness of the cellar, torchlight sputtering against the stairwell.

The quieted mob slowly, fearfully, began to clamber into the shop.


Blaine (Blinky) Hinkly
The mob was long gone.

Blinky pattered down a random alley, completely lost and alone – and this time very aware of the fact. Normally, he kept to the main streets of Bully Harbour. They were always warm from lamplight, and comfortable if you could find a bench that hadn't been stolen right off its blocks. And he remembered the last time he'd wandered into an alley at night...

Well, no, he didn't. He remembered that he had done so, but he didn't remember what had happened afterwards, except that he'd woken up in the Bully Harbour naval offices with an excitable rat named Derrin prattling on about how much he was going to enjoy it in the Navy, serving Mar'kan – or whatever the Emperor's name was these days – and about all the wild and crazy adventures he was going to have, and Blinky definitely remembered looking down at the little fellow, who, he remembered, had a funny squint and a pegtail, and saying to him, "Huh?"

Blinky remembered that in between his carousing around in Pricklee Point and becoming bosun of the BlackShip, there was a lot of stuff he didn't remember, such as how he'd found Molly.

And then the stoat's mind turned completely from the horrors of his past (and immediate future) and concentrated deeply on the wonders of the maiden that was Molly Serra and her delicious right hook. He rubbed his throat dreamily, remembering her delightful way of attempting to strangle him with his own bootlaces.

A sudden clacking noise, as if made by a pebble being shoved off a roof, brought him back to reality.

It was dark.

He was alone.

He was slightly wet.*

He was lost.

It was dark.

It was also very hard to see because of all the smoke wafting through the streets, and his eyes stung a little, and he thought he might just find a quiet corner and settle down for the night, and morning, and afternoon, and evening, and night, and morning, and afternoon again, if it was really comfortable, but perhaps only until the second morning if it wasn't so much ...

But then he thought about his Fogey uniform, and realised that sometime during the chase, he had swallowed his whistle again.

"Fweee," he gagged unhappily. The shriek felt deadened by the ashy air.

"Fweeeeeee," Blinky complained, tugging on the chain, which was stuck between his teeth now.

"Fweeeeeeeeeeee!" he growled, and at last yanked it out along with a chunk of pickle covered in peanut butter - those things never did quite make it all the way to his stomach.

"'Oo's there?"** he said at last, waving his truncheon at the shadows.


* This was normal.

** The last words of approximately 3,412 Fogeys before him. The other 6,937's were, "Izzat you, arghble..." A further twelve of them went out with a wheeze. One hiccoughed.***

*** Of importance, because reports say he hiccoughed a full three hours after his death. Or, at least, a full three hours after they'd found his head, which was as close an approximation as Fogeys were keen on making in such circumstances.****

**** Further reports say he said "thank you" when they finally found his arm and brought it back to the rest of him.*****

***** Eight claws and a kidney.


Minty
With the mob broken up, Minty had become bored, but was far too stirred up after the excitement of the night that she did not feel like going home and sleeping. Instead she followed a rather vile-looking stoat Fogey out of curiosity. Following Beasts Without Being Noticed was one of her hobbies, and she was rather good at it.

She sat upon a rooftop, watching with a look of disgust as the Fogey coughed up his whistle. Then he turned away from her, looking at some inconspicuous shadows and waving his truncheon. Minty suppressed a giggle as she quietly loosened a roof tile.

In addition to Following Beasts Without Being Noticed, Minty also enjoyed the hobby of Throwing Things At Paranoid Beasts In The Middle Of The Night.

The roof tile soared gracefully through the air, turning slowly in an elliptical pattern before its progress was halted by the Fogey's right shoulder. Minty had moved her location immediately after it was thrown, slipping off the roof via a downspout gutter and into a side alley to the right of the house. She pressed herself against the wall, hidden in the shadows, looking over her shoulder to see the reaction of the Fogey.


Blaine (Blinky) Hinkly
Blinky let out a small "oomf" of pain and surprise. Well, mostly surprise. It took him a few seconds to register what had happened, let alone that he had been hurt, and so for a moment or two the stoat just stood there, still peering worriedly at the dark. When his brain finally got its act together and sent out panicked responses to the rest of him, his body did a jerky, lumbering full-circle turn about, staggering more than a little as his footpaws tried to sort out the confused messages that, it turns out, had been meant for the other limb.

Then, in an attempt to dodge what had already hit him, the stoat's body flung itself violently to the right – in the same direction the tile had come from.

Blinky did not have a very high life expectancy at this rate.

He lay still, in a pile of kitchen scraps and Mar'kan didn't even know what else, for maybe half a minute, before he crawled back to his footpaws and once again waggled his truncheon at the shadows.

"That's against th'law!" he shouted, with no real certainty. He personally felt that throwing things at beasts ought to be considered very lawful indeed. And while most of the Imperium's residents had some inkling what the law was, they tended to consider that it was meant for everyone but themselves. Those who took this idea to certain extremes either became criminals or law-enforcement. Blinky was fine with this.

The problem which he was not prepared to face was that, more often than not, the beast getting things flung at was himself.

"Don' urt me!"

As a final act of defence, Blinky drew his blanky over his face.

There! Now he couldn't see them, and they couldn't see him. It was like with mirrors. If they could see you in a mirror, you could see them. But if you couldn't see them, they couldn't see you! It was brilliant.

But he was still scared, and when he got scared, his heart began to race ...


Minty
The rattess, meanwhile, was busy collecting more ammunition. Smallish, cobblestones in paw, loosened from the alley floor, Mint ventured into the main alleyway, keen eyes peering through the darkness at the form of the Fogey flopped* in the pile of kitchen scraps and other unidentified refuse. She silently scuttled towards him in a sideways fashion, ready to make a break for it down one of the side alleys.

When a mere ten feet in front of the beast, Minty hefted one of the cobblestones before aiming and then tossing it at the Fogey. It hit the ground a foot in front of him and skittered the rest of the distance to ricochet off his leg. She giggled silently and waited for his reaction.


((*Waagh! Alliteration!))


Blaine (Blinky) Hinkly
Blinky didn't move, apart from uttering an "Ow!" from somewhere under his blanky.

This was bad this was bad thiswasbadthiswasbad! Why were they after him? Who were they? Why did everything smell like smoke? Was his tail on fire again? What had just hit him?

Thump-thump-thump.

No, no, don't worry. Nothing to worry about. They'd missed! They'd hit the ground beside him, yes, and that was what that skittering noise was about, whatever it was just bounced was all, he was invisible!

Was he? Was he!?

Blinky gasped and shivered.

Thump-thump-thump-THUMPTHUMP.

"N-N-Noxi?" he called. "'ey, m-matey ... are y'there, Nox? Miz lizard...? 'm s-s-scared, matey, where'd y-you go..."

He lifted the edge of his blanky and peered out once again. His blood raced as he scanned the various shadows, then glanced at the sky to see if, maybe, just maybe, it would be morning soon. After all, hadn't the sun just gone done before his last nap? He couldn't have been asleep that short! It was surely ... surely going to be morning soon.

THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP

No, not yet. Drat.

The stoat's eyes grew huge as he brought his gaze back down and finally looked straight in front of him.

"Don' k-kill me," he whispered.


Keinruf Wright
Sometimes – in his lucid moments, such as when he wasn't a pint short of blood and swollen to the gills – Keinruf wondered just how was it, exactly, that Bully Harbour stayed above ground. There were so many different tunnel systems, it was amazing there was any dirt left at all, between every building's cellars, the Unsmudgable's tunnels, the MinoComm's dungeons, the MinoMis's dungeons – something Keinruf thankfully had never seen - and the MinoInn's rail system to the Emperor's palace, not to mention the bare-bones sewer system.

This was actually something he thought about a lot. He'd had to occupy his mind in some manner, while hauling all those rocks up to the Opera's roof, after all. It seemed to Keinruf that, if he could just obtain an accurate map of the different tunnel systems, there should be some weakened spot he could find, and learn how to whittle away, until half the town fell into a giant hole. His job would be so much easier if he didn't have to work from the rooftops.

But at the moment, Keinruf was not thinking about any of this. What Keinruf was thinking was more along the lines of:

Oh bugger.

There was no visible exit from the cellar, except back the way he'd just came. The dingy lamplight faded entirely this far down the stairs. Fabulous.

Wait ...

Putting ear to wall, he heard ... crunching. Voices.

Frantic now, Keinruf began flailing his paws at the wall, feeling at it. Wood, mostly – rotten and wet from bad sewage in the alley just above. The bottom turned to brick, and then mud with patches of dry dirt where the uneven floor rose above the waterline. There were shelves and tools – his paws grasped at a shovel, and he dropped the shard of glass in favour of a better ranged weapon.

Knocking over some sort of bookshelf revealed a particularly soft part of wall that hadn't even had boards put up. Keinruf took a step back and hurled himself at it, lifting the shovel like a lance. The spade flew through the dirt like a ferret kit through wet sugar.

The marten blinked, then hurled himself through the fair-sized hole. Whatever was on the other side couldn't have been much worse than a sheet of glass, or a pineap -

"...soo we've got tae whistle an' dance counter-clockwise..."

Keinruf knew that accent. But he couldn't tell where it was coming from. Drat. All he could do was trust in blind luck and the fact that he was immortal. Oh, well.

He picked up the shovel and trudged on down the tunnel.



Minty
"Don' k-kill me."

Mint cocked her head to the side. She squatted down in front of him, putting on her best impish leer. The rattess hefted a cobblestone in her paw, holding it out in front of her, looking from the stone to the stoat.

Her paw suddenly shot out. The stone whizzed towards the stoat, buzzing the top of his head and then clattering along the ground behind him.

Mint leered, taking a squat-hop forward, and then another. Now she was five feet from the Fogey with one more cobblestone left in her paw. The stone was smallish, but it was dense.

Her paw moved again. It looked as though her throw would be fast and hard, but at the last minute she let up – a nearly imperceptible change in the motion of the throw. The stone soared slowly and gracefully at the stoat, hitting him softly between the eyes with a dull clunk. It would likely not even leave a bruise.



Blaine (Blinky) Hinkly
Blinky blinked. The rat was ... the rat was a midget! This was... This.

This was the best day of his life.

Midgets were, in his opinion, some of the luckiest, most smashingly brilliant creatures alive. Many a day had been dreamt away, wishing he were a midget, or at least the beast in the circus who frollicked around with them. There was just something so whimsical about them, something dainty and adorable and yet cunning and mischievous and definitely, definitely definitelydefinitely not kits.

Blinky did not like kits. Blinky liked midgets.

But the fact that one was trying to kill him only made him ... well, only a little ticked off.

Hee.

All of a sudden the stoat's fear was washed away, and a large grin spread across his sticky face. He barely noticed the first stone wheeze a furrow between his ears, so excited he was. A midget! A real midget – not like that fake one that had tried to kill him on the Skeered – how brilliant was that? A real midget! There was only one course of action now, short of drawing the delightfully small creature up in his arms and hugging it.

"C'n I have yer – " was about as far as he got before his eyes crossed; he felt that stone.

His eyes lowered as he watched it bounce away in front of his footpaws. Huh.

Blinky looked back up at the rat. A real midget! And it smelled like ... smelled like mint! This was so exciting!

So of course Blinky did what he always did when he got too excited for his own good: he dropped over backwards, near straight as a board. His Fogey beret slumped off and rolled a few feet away – the world's stiffest beret, made out of 10% cotton, 80% jam, and 10% it's-best-not-to-ask. A sandwich fell out when it stopped.

After a few seconds of lying there in the middle of the alleyway, tail sticking straight out between his legs, the narcoleptic stoat began to snore.


Minty
That certainly was curious.

Mint crept towards the snoring Fogey until she stood next to him. She prodded him softly in the side. When he did not wake, the rattess grinned.

Her paws quickly went over him in a well-practiced fashion. She dealt with him somewhat more lightly than the drunken beasts passed out in front of the taverns, for the rattess was unsure of how deeply he slept. Indeed, this was a situation she had never encountered before, but Mint was not about to pass up an opportunity for possible monetary gain.

Everything was covered in jam. She wondered how a beast could have pockets full of jam without constantly attracting swarms of flies. Nevertheless, what was covered in jam was certainly worth her while. She came away with two pawfuls of gilders (most likely a pawful for a normal-sized beast) and a pearl necklace. There was also a paycheck, which would likely be of some value in the underground markets of the Slups. The rest – some bottlecaps and corks – she left with him.

Putting the sticky collection of goods in her own pockets, crinkling her nose slightly at the thought of how difficult it would be to get the jam out of her clothing, Mint went to pick up the sandwich laying on the ground near the stoat's Fogey beret.


Callix Noxi
The dregs of the mob that lingered at the top of the shop staircase quailed as footsteps sounded from the darkness below. By now their imaginations had run wild with the escaped marten's capabilities and not one of them wanted to be standing in the way if it was that beast ascending the steps in that slow, eerie manner.

Slap...slap...slap... went the bare feet in the shadows.

They could stand no more. The last of the crowd, many of them simply wanting to get back to watching the opera house burn, fled the trashed shop. The feet continued their monotonous pattern until at last the scaly footclaw of Constable Noxi, damp from the cellar's labyrinth, hit the boards of the shop floor. Her torch had long since been doused by the dripping atmosphere below and the thousand aromas of the Harbour had leaked in and drowned out the scent of her quarry. Fearing to get herself lost, the monitor lizard had returned to the surface empty-clawed. Her watery eyes burned with the rage of her failure.

Callix stomped over to the shopfront and kicked the locked door back on its hinges, too weary to attempt the jump back through the broken window but well enough to use brute strength. Grumbling to herself, she traipsed back in the direction that she had led the fray, retracing her steps toward the opera house.


Minty
Mint sat a few feet away from the Fogey, one ear turned towards him to alert her of any signs of movement from the stoat. She munched happily on the sandwich.

The sound of footpaws coming down the main street from which the alley led from brought Minty's other ear to attention. She stopped in mid-bite and looked up. Another Fogey was passing by. The rattess didn't move, hoping that the monitor would not look down the alley.

She knew most Fogeys, and knew that the stoat and monitor generally patrolled as a pair. To be seen with the stoat in a prone state as he was could probably be construed as incriminating. Mint was not in the mood to get on the wrong side of a monitor lizard.


Aedan Kingussie
At some point, Aedan had separated himself from the grasp of one of the identical weasels (the annoyed one, as opposed to the angry barrel-rolling one). It had taken him a while to realize that he was not, in fact, seeing double, but once he had got that sorted out, everything became a little less starry and a lot clearer.

Finding the trapdoor that led out of the bowels of the Opera and into the esophagus of the old Unsmudgable tunnels was easy. Here the air was cooler, a blessed relief from the crackling heat of upstairs, and the trapdoor swung open with a slightly rusty click as he pressed his way through the locking mechanism. He only hoped that more beasts were on their way down; as far as he knew, this was the only way out of the Opera now until the walls collapsed.

The whistling and dancing part was easy, because only the first three and a half* beasts had to do it; after that it got harder, not because the puzzles were more difficult, but because he simply didn't remember what came next. It was one thing to remember all the masterpieces of Malachaeus the Frankly Barmy in the order in which they were painted; it was quite another to remember that the vague symbols on the floor represented a masterpiece each and that if you didn't, you died a fantastically spiky death.

He was busy pondering the latest puzzle, a set of rotating gears with smiley faces painted on them, when the sound of pawsteps announced the arrival of another potential escapee. Grateful for a momentary distraction, he turned, an attempt at a smile lighting his features –

– until he saw the entirely unwelcome face and the smile dropped entirely.

It was entirely possible, of course, that Keinruf Wright had not in fact caused the fire. He was holding a shovel, not a torch, after all. Logically speaking, there was nothing visible in the dimness of the tunnels that in any way implicated him.

But Aedan was done with logic when it came to Keinruf. He tried to keep his voice neutral, but he'd never been much of an actor.

"Mr. Wright," he said. "Whit a pleasant surprise."


Keinruf Wright
"Kkkwgh," Keinruf replied. Something drooly and red gathered at the corner of his mouth; he wiped it away with the back of his sleeve.

The weasel was clever, to recognise him in such a state, in such a predicament. Keinruf had been hoping at the back of his mind that he would pass by without rousing any suspicion. Apparently there was Just Something About Pine Martens Who Look Like They'd Been Run Over By A Combine Harvester that tended to give him away.

He glanced back over his shoulder. Was he still being followed by the mad-eyed ghost of Itha? Possibly. He stood on tip-paws and strained to see over the heads of the ragtag Opera survivors. The tunnel seemed to stretch on behind them. But they smelled like smoke and ... definitely peanuts. It was likely that where they had just been was nowhere he wanted to go.

Keinruf considered his options carefully. Which is to say, not at all.

He raised up his shovel, whacked the peanut-smelling weaselmaid beside Aedan upside the head, and dashed onward, past the smiley-faced cogs. There was swearing and shouting behind him, and hissing noises on either side. Something pinged off the shovel head - another something struck the tip of his tail. Others missed him by whisker-breadths, smacking into the opposite walls. One caught him in the shoulder, and when he yanked it out, he found it to be a dart. The thought of poison never occurred to him; he simply threw it away and ran on.

The path split up ahead. Keinruf went left. A darkened recess caught his bruised, swollen eye, and he all but threw himself into it – just as several spikes rose up from the floor, effectively locking him in.

The marten's throat sagged as he breathed out and fell into a sitting position. Trapped. There was a sort of comfort in that. For now, he could stop running. He closed his eyes, not entirely of his own accord.

He would rest for now, he decided. And when he woke up, he would dig himself out.


Pudding Chester
"Mr. Kingussie ..."

Pudding reached out and gripped the male weasel's shoulder.

She felt dizzy and light-headed – yet at the same time very heavy, like she was going to fall over. That didn't sound right. How could she be light-headed, and yet feel heavy? And where was that infernal ringing noise coming from?

And why was Pink swearing so much?

Pudding pulled her paw away from her aching head. In the flickering torchlight of the survivors, her paw looked red and shiny. She spat a tooth out onto it.

"Ooh, that's a rotten peanut ..."

Things began to wobble. Or had they been wobbling all along? The weaselmaid wasn't sure. This entire evening was ... undefinable.

Pudding did not like undefinable things.

But she had since defined Mr. Kingussie. Watching him lead them through several traps, there was only one sort of peanut he could be – satisfactory-bordering-on-delightful. She hadn't tasted a peanut like that for some time.

She wondered how soon she would ... but then again ...

As the tunnel around her closed off into darkness and silence, as blood dripped down her cheek and tickled her shoulder, as she swooned into Aedan's arms to the gentle, soothing sounds of Pink shouting inappropriately after the swollen-faced pine marten ...

Pudding hoped she was wrong about the "bordering-on" bit.
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