It is currently 20:52 Pacific Time on Sun Apr 11 2004.
Currently in Saint Claire, it is mostly cloudy. The temperature is 71 degrees
Fahrenheit (21 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the
southwest at 9 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 29.87 and rising,
and the relative humidity is 37 percent. The dewpoint is 44 degrees
Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius.)
Currently the moon is in the waning Half Moon phase (53% full).
Zoo - Main Building(#2634RAJh)
The doors to this squat, ugly, single-story, 3,000 square foot cinder block
building were stolen long ago. The main doorway has been replaced with
thick piece of plywood, warped by weather, time, and decorated with the
spray painted words "Rat's Home". The plywood covering really doesn't fit
the doorway all that well and one can wriggle past fairly easily, to gain
entrance to the building.
The entire place is dark, devoid of water and electricity. All the toilets have
been stolen, leaving the building's two bathrooms little more then sad
stall-filled rooms, which are surprisingly popular with the local rodent
population. All in all, there are about ten offices and what used to be a
lunch room within the giant cinder block. Some of the rooms have been
blocked off with hanging blankets, while other remain open and show a
varying assortment of old mattresses, blankets, and seemingly useless
junk. The whole place smells of musty, rotting cloth, and unwashed
bodies. The only saving graces to this place are the building's roof,
which doesn't seem to leak, the windows in the outer rooms, which save
the building from being pitch black inside rather than just dark, and the
privacy from the outside, fenced off city.
Joey frowns a little bit and shrugs at Olga. "I dunno! He is sitting there with
that funny grin. I'd be crying." She folds her hands into her lap and
lets out a sigh. "I don't think I am cut out to be a werewolf. I'm too
soft."
An undersized, near-bald rat pokes her whiskery nose out from a small hole in
the ruined builting and sniffs the air for a bit before venturing out.
Olga sets herself down on her crate, in her section of the room, by her bag.
She starts rummaging around in it and pulls out a pot and a wooden spoon.
"Ask him about Cat," Olga offers Joey, jerking her head towards Joshua,
with what she hopes is an encouraging grin, though the light from her
flickering candle paints her face in ugly, menacing shades of orange. She
begins scooping up some of the trashier stuff around, the stuff that even
Olga can't think of any use for, and dumping it in the pot.
Joshua tears off a peice of the place mat, sliding it along on the concrete in
the general direction of Olga. The mention of Cat prompts a broad grin
directed at Joey. He nods in agreement with Olga's general sentiment.
Joey looks between the two. "Cat? What is Cat, or who? As bad as me? Bet she
didn't cry when someone asked her to..." she stops, "Nevermind."
Joshua grins, nodding a yes to Joey. Apparently Cat did.
Cornpop rises up onto her hind legs, using her tail for balance, and sniffs
some more, her nose to the air. Then the little mostly-bald thing squats
back down and starts grooming herself.
Olga lurches forward to snatch up the piece of paper Joshua's slid towards her,
and she struggles to make it out as she holds the candle close. It takes
her a while to read, and once she's done it seems she doesn't know quite
what to make of the thing. Her face falls into a pensive cast, she drops
her head onto a palm and taps the paper against her cheek, looking at
Joshua, and finally she gives him a small grin, still a little strange
looking in that flickering light, and she drops the paper in her pot as
well. "'S alright, Josh," she says somewhat awkwardly, setting the candle
between her knees and beginning to stir all her collected garbage. Her
eyes search the room for something on which to rest her eyes instead of
the Ahroun, and for a moment they find the rat, and she smiles in small
amusement before shifting her attention to Joey.
"Oh," Olga adds, finding something to shift the conversation to, "Jo's got the
Litany down now, actually."
Joshua offers another smile, nodding approvingly.
Joey grumbles a little. "Don't say that Olga.. dunno if I'd be real good at it
right now." She shrugs, then turns to look at what the others are
focusing on. She squints, but can't see anything. "What is it?"
Olga's spoon rises and falls and spins around its pot with practiced speed,
making a high-pitched scraping sound. Soon it's covered by a thick white
goo like wallpaper paste. "Nothing, Jo," she says, in that tone parents
use to deliver the obvious lie to children. She lifts up the paste and
sniffs at it, grimacing a little and going back for another stir.
Joshua bends down to scratch scratch scribble at the McD's placemat some more,
a light grin still on his face.
Cornpop continues grooming, hidden within the shadows past the flickering light
of the pair of candles. Paws, whiskers, ears, sides, haunches. She's
quite thorough about it. Then she stops, sniffs the air again, and
scuttles forward, circling around until, quite suddenly, she can be seen
near Olga's shoes, the candlelight flickering in her dull, leaky black
eyes. The Gnawer is between the sickly-looking little rat and Joshua.
Joey lets out a little sigh, and looks down to her shoes. "Well, uh, if you
guys are hungry, I could go out and get something for us all?"
Joshua looks up from his writing and points to his lack of throat. He keeps his
expression light enough, though, smirking as he shakes his head no. He
then returns to writing what ever he is writing.
Olga instinctively jerks back her feet at the sudden appearance of the rat,
though only a foot, catching them in mid-air and giving an embarassed
grin. Her candle tips over and nearly sets her pants on fire, though she
gets it up just in time, delivering a pained hiss at the heat. "Fuck,"
she mutters with almost amused embarassed to the room, before setting her
feet back down and offering the offending rat a strange apologetic look,
even going so far as to mouth `sorry` at the little thing. Her head spins
up to see what she missed, and she answers the Cub, "Hell, yes, Jo. You
got money, go to."
Cornpop withdraws sharply as thought startled by Olga's sudden movement, then
edges forward again, still sniff-sniffing, her eyes blinking and her
whiskers all a-quiver.
Joshua misses pretty much all of Olga's display, slowly ripping off another
piece of place mat. The Glabro youth holds out the piece of paper with
writing to Joey, a light smile still on his face. He does, however, wince
as he reaches out, his side clearly giving him a few problems.
Joey looks to the paper and then to Olga's shenanigans. "Whoa.. geez Olga, you
alright over there?"
Olga makes a determined show of keeping her shoes flat against the floor, now,
offering the little creature another kind look rendered scary by the
strange lighting. "I'm okay, Jo," she says with a brisk cheeriness,
looking up. "Going to go get food, then, go, go. Get an extra burger or
whatever for the rat here, very bad karma to scare 'em and very good to
feed them. Mother likes it, eh?" she adds, secretly scheming to take most
of the extra burger for herself: how much does a rat eat, after all?
Joshua keeps holding out the paper to Joey expectantly.
Especially a very _small_ rat like Cornpop. Probably doesn't eat much at all,
the poor sickly little thing. She creeps closer to nose at Olga's shoe,
then withdraws to the edge of the candlelight.
Joey gasps and stares at the rat, ignoring the paper for a second. "Wait, a
rat...in here?" She swallows and nod, "Getting food then, right.. uh...
but don't feed it, it'll bring more..."
Joshua rolls his eyes, face wisting up something terrible as he stands up. He
slowly stumble/walks over to Joey, making all the facial gestures that go
with, handing her the paper directly. He staggers back to his spot near
the candels, slowly sitting, then laying back down.
Olga watches the rat with casual disinterest until Joey's small outburst, at
which she looks up at the Cub with an stern glare, an expression which
for once the candlelight accentuates. "Jo," she instructs her thinly,
"you do as I say, and you show Joshua his proper respect." As if to make
a point, then, she begins to pull from her bag, knowing just where it is,
a plastic bag full of stale and occasionally mouldy breadcrumbs,
presumably to feed their visitor.
The rat also seems to look sternly at Joey... or just look at her, nose lifted
slightly. Olga bringing out the breadcrumbs gets the rodent's attention,
however.
Joey frowns at Joshua, "Oh god, sorry J-joshua-rhya. Uh, I'll bring you back
some food too, cheeseburgers? All around?" She looks back to Olga and
nods apologetically, "S-sorry. K, uh, I'll be back, an' and' I'll read
the note as I go Joshua-rhya."
Joshua shakes his head from his spot laying on the floor, pointing to his lack
of throat again. No food for him.
Olga nods quickly and energetically at Joey, trying to interrupt Joshua's
motion with her own. Her candle bobs a little sending flickering shadows
all around. "Yeah, that's right Jo," she encourages, "four cheeseburgers,
one for Josh, one for me, one for you, one for the rat." She decides to
wait until the girl has left before feeding the rat any bread, lending
credibility to her suggestion.
Cornpop rises up onto her hind legs, nose in the air and little forepaws
hanging down. She weaves a little, back and forth, blinking.
Joshua closes his eyes as Joey leaves, but that doesn't last long. He opens one
eye, looking over to Olga and smirking. He holds up four fingers and
arches his brow.
Once Joey's left, Olga ducks her hand inside the bag of stale bread crumbs
usually reserved for the park pigeons, and she gives the small sick rat a
liberal palmful. "There you go," she says, ignoring the creature then,
turning her attention back to Joshua. "Well," she answers him
defensively, "I haven't had much of anything to eat today. Thought I'd be
getting this glop," she says, lifting a spoon heaping with glop up as
evidence. "This's by the way what you're getting. Healthy."
Cornpop drops back to all fours to nose at the breadcrumbs, then takes a
decent-sized one between her forepaws and nibbles on it delicately.
Joshua reachs over and picks up the paper, scribbling a quick responce on his
chest. The place mat is turned to face Olga as he lay. 'no thanks.'
Olga cranes her head over to observe the paper, leaning off her crate to pierce
the darkness with her candle. "It'll keep," she assures him after
reading. "You still don't have a throat, you'll have it for breakfast
tomorrow. Tastes like shit and glue but we're bypassing your tastebuds
anyway. Like I said, 's good for you."
Cornpop continues nibbling on the breadcrumb. When it's gone, she noses over to
another one and starts nibbling on _that_.
Joshua shakes his head, apparently intent on -not- eating what was there. He
fingers the written responce again, before setting the paper down.
Squeaks is awake it seems, judging by the shuffling and snorting noises coming
from the back of the building.
Olga drums her fingers against her coat in matronly annoyance. "The sooner you
get better, the sooner you get out of here," she notes encouragingly.
"It's not _that_ bad. Watch, the rat'll eat it," she maintains, flinging
a glopping spoonful of the bland, pasty stuff to the floor far enough
away from the creature to hopefully not scare it. "He knows what's good
for him." Her neck cranes up like a giraffe then at the noises in the
back, and she curses mildly.
Joshua scribbles some more, then sets the much written on place mat and pen
down next to him, closing his eyes. 'Have early errand; probably will be
out in morning for bit. Thanks for letting me stay for a bit. Sleeping
now.' And judging from how much slower his breathing is, he seems working
hard on that last point.
Cornpop freezes at the sudden motion. She rises up to peer and sniff in the
direction of Squeaks' cage, then goes to investigate the glop. After only
a second, the rat turns away from it, leaving it untouched, and scurries
off into the darkness toward the cell where the young Metis is kept.
Born in late April of 2003, Squeaks-Like-A-Rat is small for her age, standing
no more the two and a half feet tall. The mule's body is covered with
thick grey fur, while black guard hairs form a saddle across her back and
a mask on her face. Squeaks' eyes are a deep golden-brown and the pup's
ears form two neat triangles, which swivel this way and that. The small
Mule's deformity is hard to miss; instead of a normal tail, a long rats
tail extends behind the cub. Hairless and far too long, the tail impedes
the young Garou's movements and draws heat away from her body.
Squeaks has just releaved herself, judging by the smell that assults Cornpop's
nose. Thank Gaia someone 'bucket trained' that kid. Currently, the pup is
sitting on her rear and playing with a stuffed toy rat.
Olga holds her candle to Joshua's note, peering over it with a grimace the
cause of which is left unvoiced. "You want me to go with you?" she asks,
watching the rat dart off towards the cage. She adds quickly, "Not the
bed bit, the errand bit. Squeaks, don't you eat that rat now!" she yells
off at the Cub, just in case the rodent should be silly enough to get too
close, expecting food or whatnot.
Joshua sleepily shakes his had 'no'. And then his head rolls to the side as he
does finally drift off.
Cornpop apparantly is a very silly rat indeed, for she scurries right between
the bars and up to the young metis, squeaking loudly.
~Nice rat!~ The mule declairs, as her tongue lolls. She shows off her toy,
putting it down infront of Cornpop. ~See. My rat!~
Olga lifts herself up off her crate, skin rippling up into Glabro so she can
lift up the sleeping Ahroun with a minimum of damage to his bandaging.
She carries him off to her room and dumps him with little ceremony on the
bed before sliding the blanket-door into place after she's left.
Cornpop blinks at the stuffed toy, which is much bigger than she is. Rearing
up, she braces her forepaws on the toy's head and stares blinking and
twitching up at Squeaks.
Squeaks drags the toy back into her lap and out from underneath Cornpop's paws.
~Hungry,~ she complains, before heading over to her makeshift bed and
activly digging through the blankets.
Olga's heavy Glabro footsteps echo down the hallway towards the cage,
lightening as they go and she shrinks. She puts out one candle against
the wall as it's no longer needed, tucking it into her pocket while
keeping the lit one out and leading the way through the darkness.
Cornpop chitters softly, turning toward the sound of Olga's approaching
footsteps.
Squeaks finds what she is looking for, the remnants of a bag of patato chips.
Turning the bag over, she dumps a few chips and a small pile of crumbs
onto the floor.
Olga's light precedes her, but not by much. She rests her free arm lazily on
the cage, looking inside at the two illuminated by the flickering orange
glow. "You're silly," she resolutely maintains to the rat inside. "You
get your head bit off it's your own damn fault. Hey, Squeaks."
Cornpop doesn't move toward the pup and her chips, but sits on her haunches to
squeak-squeak-squeak at Olga. Then she sneezes wetly and hunches in on
herself, blinking and twitching.
Squeaks picks up the bigger chips and starts to munch on the bigger chips,
while looking up at Olga. ~Dinner! Want dinner!~
Olga bulks up again to Glabro with a creaking of joints, candle bolting up a
half-foot, which nearly snuffs out the delicate flame. ~Hey, Squeaks,~
she repeats in a wheezy near-woman version of the High Tongue. ~Well,
there you go,~ she jokes, waving at the rat with an ugly grin plastered
on her face. As soon as it's said, though, she slides off the catch and
swings open the cage door, releasing the little terror onto the office
proper.
Cornpop squeaks a few more times at Olga, then looks back at Squeaks.
Squeaks clings to her toy rat and looks between Cornpop and Olga, bits of chips
in her fur. ~No. Not eat rat. Eat cats!~
Olga gives Squeaks a wide cracked smile which shifts between goofy and vicious
depending on how the light hits it. ~Good girl,~ she says approvingly,
leading her out. ~I was just kidding, was a joke. Joke.~ She gives a good
belly laugh in demonstration.
Cornpop sneezes an explosive little rat-sneeze.
Squeaks wrinkles up her muzzle. ~Olga Stupid,~ she decides, in a rather
unflatering manner.
Olga steps off towards the cafeteria in a long meandering Glabro gait. ~Yes,
yes,~ she answers Squeaks, sounding mostly inured to such things but
still slightly annoyed, ~Olga stupid, Olga Fat, Olga ugly. Olga still
feeds you, though.~
Cornpop scurries a few feet in the direction that Olga goes, through the open
door, then stops and looks expectantly back at Squeaks.
~Food!~ Squeaks declairs, mood brightening in an instant. Still carrying the
rat-toy, she gets up on two feet and runs after Olga. Right over
Cornpop's head. ~Cookies?~
Cornpop adroitly avoids getting stepped on -- kids will be kids -- and scuttles
along after the metis.
Olga waits for Squeaks in the cafeteria, already looking through cabinets for
Squeaks' food. ~Persistent,~ she notes as the bald rat keeps on after
her. She narrows her thick furry brows at it, and after a brief second
asks, ~You got a friend, Squeaks?~ Her meaty hands start digging about.
Squeaks looks over her shoulder at the bald rat, tongue lolling. ~Nice rat.
Lady-rat."
Cornpop scurries right up to Squeaks big dragging hairless ratlike tail and
climbs up onto it, clinging to the rough skin.
THe tail is actually quite warm, radiating a lot of body heat. Which would
explain why the kid gets cold so easily.
Olga peers closer, suspiciously. ~You sure?~ she asks the Cub. ~How the hell
you tell? Well, not like I'm going to look and make sure, so, won't argue
with you,~ she continues, grinning, pulling out a can of dog-food from
the cabinet. Sticking her candle down on the counter, dripping wax, she
sprouts fur and grows another couple feet and sprouts vicious fangs,
which she proceeds to use as a can-opener.
Cornpop crawls slowly up to the base of Squeaks' tail, pausing once as Olga
shifts forms, and then but briefly. Her target is the pup's thick fur
coat.
Squeaks tries to turn around and get a good look at the rat crawling up her
backside, but only ends up walking around in a circle.
With a crunch and a mild complaint of pain Fat-Ripper rips through the metal
container, and with a wet schlopping sound she scoops out the food
contained therein and lets it fall to the floor.
Cornpop, meanwhile, reaches Squeaks' rump and climbs up her back, her ultimate
goal the metis' shoulder.
Food! Squeaks quickly forgets the rat climbing onto her shoulder, as she drops
onto all fours and shoves her muzzle into the soft dog food. Slurping it
off the dirtly floor and making happy little growly noises.
Olga buries fur under skin as she drops down into Glabro, watching the little
Theurge eat with something almost like pride, and watching the bald rat
with growing curiosity.
Cornpop nestles down into the pup's fur, on her shoulder and close to her neck,
holding on securely. Olga finds the rodent staring back at her with
blinking, leaky eyes.
Squeaks continues to eat, making the floor cleaner then before in the process.
If one ignores the crinos drool.
Olga watches Cornpop closely, a look of confusion bordering on concern entering
the woman's face. Her hand shoots out and snatches the candle she'd put
down, bringing it back with one hand protecting it from the sudden
breeze. She spends a few moments more in deep consideration, and then,
"'Lo?" she curiously greets the strange rat.
Cornpop doesn't respond. Not in any way that Olga can tell, anyhow.
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