Hope for the Worst [o]

[Makarov]

The smell of garbage was all around him, flooding his senses with a sensation he and all rats knew all too well and that was hunger. Rats were great divulges in the wonders of human food and the insane amounts they cast away everyday as scraps. Could feed a rat for ages this place, he thought to himself as he ambled swiftly into the crevice of a dilapidated sofa and wound his way through the network of crushed springs inside with relative ease. If there was one thing that Priest deemed humans worthy of, it was catering to the needs of rats. But they never set out to do that, it happened purely by accident and turned into a rather parasitic relationship due not that any dignified rodent would admit that. Twas simply the cards that life had dealt them and they flourished with it none the less. Well some of them did, the rest were captured, kept in cages and carted off to be used as cheap jokes and experimental bodies for the drugs and diseases that human kind would not dare inflict upon their own kind.

Cruelty was the innate and ingrained quality that the human race seemed to hold closest to their very selves. Forgetting animal pasts and instincts they drove further and further to their own demise.. Or so Priest liked to think. He made his way to the other side of the couch through a chewed out tunnel of fabric, back into the fetid stench of the smorgasbord assaulting him from all sides once again. The large rat paused to lift his nose, twitching his whiskers to and fro as he took in every individual scent that wafted across his muzzle. He washed himself briefly and calmly, stroking his paws over his face before the white and tan rat continued on his mission. This one was not for food though, as much as he wished to stop and indulge along the way he knew he had come here for a reason and he'd be damned if anything got in his way right now.

What Priest was interested in, was a scrap of metal, but not just any, something strong, the right size and shape to be crafted a little more finely into a usable weapon. He had not had one since their depressing walk back from the kingdom of the Rat King, Cane. He sighed to himself, turning the right left side of his head fully around to survey the area in full. The gruesome half of his face twitched ever so slightly and contorted devilishly with every facial movement he made, turning simple gestures into something sinister. The milky graying globe of what had once been his eye rolled sightlessly like a marble long past its prime. If Mako was going to be a fool, to pretend to be a warrior, then Priest would have to be prepared.

A glimmer in a nearby pile caught his attention.

"That's the ticket," he said to no one in particular, grasping the curving piece of scrap metal gingerly with both of his coral-hued paws and giving it a decisive tug. It wriggled encouragingly, budging just enough for him to know he could get it out easily enough and he did. The piece was curved, sharp on the leading edge and just a little too big but Priest knew he could grind it down to something far more usable. Stowing it underneath a scrap of cardboard and marking it with his scent he set about searching for binding material for the handle and perhaps something to tie about his tail or hips as a belt in another nearby pile. Climbing atop of a toaster he surveyed with one good eye and clicked his teeth in simple joy as he went about his task.

No other rats in sight though. Curious.

[Pesty]

One such rat is also within the very same section of the junkyard but with slightly different intention. A pixie of a rodent hurries along a musky pile of heaped debris. Behind her drags a tattered black ribbon with faded yellow stitching to again hide that grotesque length of her tail. No one knows how many ribbons this secret agent has but she seems to have a myriad of them. And today she desires to perhaps find another one or even some cotton to bring back into her comforting lair. She still needs extra nesting to fill a new chamber she's dug two nights ago. It'll be strictly for new arrivals to settle into. Sometimes it feels as though her hovel is a hotel for rats...in many ways it is. Cass has grown closely to some of the rats that visit, others she doesn't care for. In the end the business in the hovel is for the rebellion. And sometimes cotton.

One good resource of cotton are discarded dolls. Humans have odd ways of entertaining their young. They get them toys or pets to keep the pups busy. What a terrible thing to do, closing them off from their family like that, distracting them from time with parents and much more important things in life. Why give them something that would do them no good? It most certainly wouldn't last forever. It could get lost, stolen, forgotten, or simply the child would fall out of love with it. Such a waste. And as always most of them wind up here in the junkyard. One such waste has been left to rot under the wheel of a biciycle.

Ms. Cassie moves along the thin piping of the wheel effortlessly, not disturbing any sort of rotation. Her sense of equilibrium has been vigilantly honed over the seasons of acrobatic pursuits. And swift escapes from predators. Eying the decapitated teddy bear the femme grips the outer rubber circle with her hind paws before lowering herself down. The mountain of trash she's squirming in seems stable enough. Slipping inside of the doll she writhes happily for a few seconds, giving in to whimsical delight at being surrounded by stuffing. She should just take this partial doll to be her own personal bed. Brilliant idea.

The teddy bear isn't that large, about five inches tall at least. It'll still be a challenge to transfer to her hovel...and how to get it inside? Well she'll worry about it when she gets there. Right now she's floating on a near literal cloud nine. So fluffy and warm...very comforting. Sadly all of her wriggling is doing her no good. The teddy bear begins to slip, her tail sticking out of the open throat. She feels an odd sensation as the doll begins to slide. Eyes widening in realization she grips onto the inner layer of clothed belly. Down, down it goes, toppling and tumbling until it slams into something. With a disgruntled squeak the femme crawls out backwards. Her whiskers are a smoldering dark orange, her color for concern and overall fretting. The doll had collided with a large rat but their upper body is hidden by said doll but their scent is easily marked as masculine musk. "I'm so very sorry, are you alright sir?" she feebly tugs at the teddy bear's arm, slowly slipping it away as her paws drag in the ground.

[Makarov]

He had spotted something in a sharp drop between some clutter consisting of a bedframe lodged up against a mash of old metal appliances mangled together. It was the dulled glint of worn leather, perhaps some sort of discarded jacket but either way it would be perfect for the job. His front half took the plunge and he began to worm his large furry body into the slowly tightening space of the crevice. But despite the size of him, there was one part of rat anatomy that never failed to be useful and that was the ability to squeeze your body down to the size of your head for the purpose of making it through jams such as these. He was halfway down, reaching out one paw in the dark cramped space, feeling with his whiskers when a rumbling from ahead caused the whole pile to give a little shudder and Priest froze. There was that immediate firing of synapses and something, some wildly screeching survival instinct was telling him to unbury his fat head.

From the topside it would have looked like quite an amusing sight, a rat rump wriggling and straining, backlegs peddling as his wormy tail flicked to and fro. He felt stuckfast until he closed his eyes, sucked in his gut and popped outward like a cork out of the neck of a winebottle almost tumbling backwards. Luckily he had grasped the fabric needed from within the pile to act as a lifeline and he dangled for a moment before rectifying himself just in time to figure out what was going on. Priest saw it on the good side of his head immediately the juggernaut of rushing brown fur and the helpless kicking legs. Setting his jaw grimly the large rat knew he had only a few moments to brace himself, setting his hindpaws square and his forepaws as guides. The runaway teddybear, a human plaything, came to a screeching halt as Priest let out a gruff grunt and powered his own weight against the thing. Now stopped it was really not that much of a threat anymore even if he did end up with his back up against the jutting bedpost.

Silence... and then a voice began to natter from above. He felt familiar with it, he had heard it probably, but for now it was too distant to distinguish. He screwed his eyes up, wound his muscles and pistoned them against the opposing toy which toppled off his body and to the side only descending a few feet down the rubbish pile before stopping again.

"I'm so very sorry, are you alright sir?"

Priest lifted his head and stared blearily at Ms. Cassie, a pretty little wild rat, a friend of Mako. The good side of his head was most prominently showcased but his disfiguration was still obvious. Those strange blue eyes though. Blue was a very weird eye color to say the least, for those of his species, being mainly albinos. And he prided himself for that which marked him out as unique, not for the human scar that had been forced upon him, a violation of his being.

"Quite alright," he grunted, sitting up suddenly, wishing to get back on his feet. He set about grooming himself and his fur down as the she-rat gazed at him. Her eyes more then likely lingered on his scars but he hardly cared about that anymore. After a few moments of that he stopped and looked at her, tilting the left side of his head in her direction eerily. "What were you doing cavorting around atop the garbage pile anyways, ma'am? I doubt you'll find anything good to eat in those teddies." He wriggled his snub nose at her a moment before setting down on all fours and stalking around her and started eying out a length of the leather hide jacket he had pulled up with him.

"You're alright then?" Priest didn't bother looking over his shoulder.

[Pesty]

It was astonishing when the brute had been able to simply stop it, her own body tumbling out once the teddy landed. Covered in fluff she squeaks faintly and plucks it away after dimming her whiskers to their normal hue. A pile of clouds had trailed behind her and she hastily stuffs it all back inside of the teddy, not wanting a single fuzzball to be dirtied. Ms. Cassie paused to study the rat and easily recognized him for his looks. Not just that marred half of his face but his overall size. While everyone is larger than herself, he is explicitly much larger.

Neither of these facts bother her. From her year in the lab as a young rat she had seen what happened to those gaining extra attention from the humans. Some didn't even resemble rats anymore but she had still interacted with them because she knew they were still rats beneath all that contorted flesh and twitching fur. She never pitied them, trying to tell them they still had life, they could keep trying and one day fight. Sometimes she got a few blinks in reply or a harsh remark in return. It never dissuaded any of her attempts.

Still this male is large and a bit alarming at first. The wild femme is thankful he was not outwardly enraged. She wouldn't like to set off on the wrong paw with an angry rat. as he went around her to his work again a brief shadow engulfs her from his size. Ms. Cassie's nose twitches in the male's wake as she clambers on the teddy bear's belly to lounge for a moment. "Yes, I'm fine...ah. I wasn't foraging for any food, there's plenty in storage for now. No it's this cotton I'm interested in. It makes fine bedding and I'm adding another chamber in my hovel." she pauses to sit up on her haunches, flashing the white flag of her belly as she twists to check on her tail. The ribbons are always tied in a fashion to conceal the top of the appendage. It's secured at the base of her tail with a medium sized bow, looping around the pale length before cinching the two ends at the tip of her tail to form a smaller bow. She makes sure the ribbon stays in place by readjusting the knots sporadically throughout the day, only ever removing it at night.

Her treasure decorated ear flickers as he continues to examine a patch of leather. "What do you have in mind with that leather, if I may ask?" she hops down from her cozy perch to patter towards the behemoth, stopping at a respectful distance so as to not get in his way. Ms. Cassie rubs a paw against her chain to wipe off some grease. Oh the junkyard makes her so easily prone to getting filthy...snout working again to check the area's familiar yet rancid odor the she-rat tilts her head with a genteel smile. "I'm afraid I didn't get your name while Mako had you all resting."

[Makarov]

She seemed a little bit astonished, but not by what he first would have assumed. Most of her awe seemed to come from the sheer size of him. Priest was a brute of a rat, a monster in the eyes of many, but something else glimmered inside of those wide little eyes. He busied himself mentally chalking out what he might need for binding, a belt as well as maybe a scabbard. Hell there was enough of it here. Meanwhile Ms. Cassie climbed up atop her bear and lounged as she watched him curiously go about his own business. If there was anything Priest loved more then the heat of battle it was the craft of taking what was around him to benifit his needs. It breathed with a craft of pure skill, and many rats found themselves quite adept with coming to these new technologies.

"Yes, I'm fine...ah. I wasn't foraging for any food, there's plenty in storage for now. No it's this cotton I'm interested in. It makes fine bedding and I'm adding another chamber in my hovel."

"Sounds cozy," piped Priest deftly as he spun his body around, whiskers frisking the air and then the ground beneath him as he tried to get a good grip on things with his limited eyesight. He spotted down near the bottom of the pile, that muted twinkle of dull scrap metal hidden beneath some remnants of a cereal box. Priest lifted back up onto his hind legs and hooked his fist into his open palm, cracking his knuckles. The she-rat meanwhile busied herself with babble, as females were renowned to do, and he said very little, letting her do all the talking.

"What do you have in mind with that leather, if I may ask?"

He turned his good eye towards her, ear rotating slightly. "I'm making me a good old fashioned sidearm, lass. Think you could do me a spot and dart down there and grab me that little bit o' scrap metal? I need it to cut the leather and blimey would be wrong of me to leave you to harvest all that bedding yerself." He scratched his tummy, moreso indicating that Ms. Cassie was indeed much more fleet of foot then he. She at least did not react like an uncultured rat to the appearance of his face, she knew of the horrors his kind had faced. She had faced it herself at a young age or so the story went. "Quid pro quo, yaknow?"

But then there was the matter of his name. Priest of course knew hers, all of the escapees in Mako's party did, she was infact revered in a kind of way. A motherly figure a lot of them had never had the fortune to experience during their trying youths. It was good for them, but Priest was not in need of such a thing. He had long known to trust only the dependance he had in himself and his abilities. With that he would make it in the world just fine.

"Priest, they call me Priest. But some of the rebels like to call me "Six" He hiked his thumb over his shoulder, rotating his body around slightly to display the tattoo on his rump. oo6