Miss Mayweather had worked tirelessly on the new 'Jerin' figure. Nobody called her 'Miss', of course, as among mouse society, nicknames were not seen as replacements for the originals, rather something added to them, an improvement upon the name given at birth. This, of course, only applied to the more complimentary titles, the sort that you were actually willing to speak aloud to the face of the mouse in question. Otherwise, it was just seen as a more personalized insult. Reginald, a mouse known for being stupid wasn't called 'Stupid Reginald', or 'Reginald the Stupid', he was simply called 'stupid', for instance. It was his brother, Roderick, who was called 'Roderick the Stupid', purely because he took pride in the title, being a either a little too stupid to realize that stupidity wasn't such a good thing, or just clever enough to recognize the value of a title, any title, while still being stupid enough to qualify for that specific one.. This was, of course, an immense source of friction between the brothers, borne out of jealousy for one having an enhanced name, which the other had lacked. As for Miss Mayweather, many might find it skeptical that being terrible at hitting her opponents (yet being excellent at accidentally striking her allies) with thrown weapons should be seen as any sort of compliment, but when one considers that her failure as an adventurer had lead to her true calling as a merchant, it makes a little bit more sense.

Back to the making of the dolls. Work was slow, seeing as how her primary workshop had been completely destroyed under mysterious circumstances. Normally this wouldn't have been such a problem, as the entire community would have come together to assist in the repairs, but with the dark lord attack, her precious general store was now just another of the many ruined structures throughout the city. The rubble of the store was, thankfully, undamaged in the assault, not that it would have made much practical difference if it were, but still,, it was a matter of principle. As challenging as her work may have been, it was also rewarding, each new design giving the mouse woman a chance to further perfect her craft, and despite the many hours that it took, she was extremely proud of this new prototype. It wasn't simply a copy of the last version, only wearing more pink and red. This would have technically worked, but she was an artist. It had to be completely unique, not only to justify its price to a collector, but also to capture the growing maturity of the hero, something that the last version, the version depicting Jerin's first steps into adventuring, had lacked. She even made a point of adding a multi-colored tail, whereas the precious version simply had the stump.

The old merchant was determined to create a proper, worthy likeness of the great heroine. It wasn't so long ago that she would regularly see Jerin looking about her store, a quiet and rather sullen girl, always avoiding eye contact, occasionally scrounging up enough to crumbs to purchase herself a new action figure. She remembered the girl's eyes being drawn to the displayed map, however, with sudden light filling them once the shopkeep had explained where it lead, and the sorts of treasures which could potentially be found at the end of the path. The shopkeep had even given the girl a discount, something almost completely unheard of. She had never dreamed that the tailless mouse would have ventured out on her own, however. She had expected that the girl would post a quest notice, or perhaps not even go that far, rather simply keeping the treasured map in her possession to fantasizing of grand, exciting quests which she would never dare venture upon, as so many mice did. Even weak, beaten down and filled with guilt, however, the Jerin she had met hours before was like a completely different person to the meek and shy child that Miss Mayweather had once known, and she took no small measure of pride in her role in that transformation. Of course, had things gone differently, and had the girl simply perished within either the dark tunnels or the shrine of the Maker, well, that would have been unfortunate, but those things happened sometimes. She happily took credit for such positive outcomes, but rarely guilt over negative ones. A hypocritical stance, of course, but sometimes it's just important to feel good about ones self, logic be damned.

She smiled proudly as she held the completed work up to the candlelight of the tiny burrow acting as a temporary home. Absolutely perfect. It wasn't easy, but now, finally, the citizens would be able to buy an authentic Jerin action figure which looked exactly like the brave hero. Had she known that, at this very moment, that the very same girl was under arrest for treason, her enthusiasm would have remained unchanged. There was always a strong market for figures of villains as well, after all.

Some hours before the confrontation at the top of the hand of God, a group of heavily armed mice escorted a wheeled cart through an earthen cavern.

This wooden cart was in no way designed for traversing underground tunnels. The passage was wide enough, but the floor of it horribly even, both in level and texture. The cart itself was similarly uneven, with no two of the wheels being quite the same size. Had both been uneven in complimentary ways, this might have worked out well, but instead the trek was slow, rocky and cumbersome one.

Such carts hadn't been around for a very long while, but they weren't brand new, either. They simply hadn't had much use. Heavy weights were rarely transported any real distances, and in the rare cases that they are, carts were large, slow and outside of the city walls, highly visible and an easy target for attack, the sorts of attacks which even an army of armed escorting guards couldn't hope to fend off. Even in the case of large scale trade or scavenging operations, it was usually considered far more practical to rely on multiple mice each carrying a heavy load upon their backs.

In this case, however, It was either the cart or carrying the young mouse prisoner over one of the guards shoulders, which felt as though it would have grown terribly awkward over the long trip.

"We're finally here. the end of the line." Samuel smiled to the bound and blindfolded Jerin. She didn't respond.

He had assumed that the mouse was simply being defiant. That was before he had noticed the way that her head was bowed, chest rhythmically raising and falling, and how she let out the faintest whistle whenever she exhaled.

"Hey! Wake up!" he growled at her.

"Huh? Wha?" she said, raising her head and turning it from side to side, taking more than a few moments to figure out why she couldn't see anything.

"How can you be sleeping at a time like this?" the mouse in red grumbled.

"It's been a long day, and it's way past my bed time!" Jerin said, yawning. "What do you want?"

"We've arrived at your execution site. This newly discovered which passage leads into the lair of a dark lord. In the old days, we used to offer sacrifices to them, in hopes of appeasing the beasts." Samuel said, "I figure that since you have so much experience with the lords of darkness, it only seemed fitting. I'm not much of a traditionalist myself, but I must admit, even those older generations had some good ideas."

"So, I'm going to die soon, huh?" Jerin said, sounding nonplussed.

"Indeed. Quite horribly."

"Why did you bother waking me up, then? I was having a nice dream." she said, doing her best to stretch out her limbs, even if her best still accomplished very little.

The mouse in red scowled. "You've been a consistent nuisance to me. Did you really expect me to let you off so easily?"

"Oh, I get it." Jerin said, nodding her blindfolded head in understanding. "You're still mad about that time I beat you up and stole your pants, right?"

There was a brief pause as two palace guards stared at the court magician.

"I-I don't know what you're talking about." Samuel said, wrapping another bit of cord about the small girl's snout, forcing a muffled squeak from her before she could offer any further clarification. "That never happened." he said to the guards.

"Uh huh."

"As you can clearly see, I have pants on. How would I if they were stolen?" Samuel said, "...and that's just the beginning of the reasons why the whole idea is absurd. Why, I could go on all day!"

"Right." the leftmost guard said. His face had large black spots about the eyes under his ill-fitting metal helmet, both the product of natural genetics and bags under the eyes as the result of the late nights assignment. "We, uh, totally believe you. It's just that, well... this whole thing here? It just doesn't seem right. We know that this girl is a traitor." he added emphasis to that 'know' implying that such knowledge might, in fact, not be so commonly held, "But sending her to be eaten by a dark lord? After she's already helped defeat two of them? This isn't the kind of work we signed up for."

The second guard nodded in agreement.

"Really? Are you truly willing to defy the will of your king?" Samuel asked.

"Well, it's just that..."

Smirk chuckled. "My apologies. I clearly wasn't thinking." the leftmost guard let out an urk, looking down with wide eyes at the wooden blade pressed against his throat. "Are you truly willing to defy me?"

The conversation had come to an abrupt end. From there, Jerin had little idea of what was going on, just that she was roughly hoisted up, heard some sounds of exertion, was carried a short distance, and then was unceremoniously dropped onto a strangely soft, plush surface. She was expecting some sort of ritual or at least a few spoken words, but instead only heard the patter of fleeing feet, none of her captors willing to try their their luck within this dangerous place.

Even without Samuel's explanation, even while blinded, the mouse could immediately tell that she was inside of a Maker's shrine. Even aside from the unnatural floor that she was lying upon, the likes of which you'd virtually never encounter in nature, the air simply felt different. The smell was rather strange, however, different from the other shrines that she had visited: floral, but in a distinctly exaggerated and unnatural way. The small mouse grunted, rubbing the side of her face against the floor, pushing away her blindfold with ease.

The room was not at all what she had anticipated. It had all of the calling cards of the previous shrines she had visited: High walls, unnatural floors and strange objects cluttered all about. The general appearance, however, from coloring to general tone to the specific items strewn about, was far different. Where the other shrines has a sort of sterile and mechanical manner to them, everything glossy, hard and angular, here, virtually everything was plush and soft and colorful. No matter where one looked, there were dangling glass beads, frilly doilies, bright colors and images covering virtually every inch of every wall. Rather than stone or wood or metal, most of her surroundings were of soft looking fabrics, often of downright gaudy colors and random textures, the very earth beneath her being no exception. The floor surface was a bright orange, the touch of it somewhere between the feel of fur and grass, certainly unlike anything that she had ever encountered before.

Jerin awkwardly worked herself up onto a sitting position, trying in vain to take in all of her surroundings, but there was just too much. This living/dining room area was so much busier than the kitchens she had encountered in the past, not only due to the very nature of such places, but the rather unusual tastes of their owner as well. The visitors parlor of the palace had seemed heavily furnished, but it was absolutely nothing compared to this place which, even shrouded in darkness, completely filled her eyes and mind.

That was when she felt the large presence directly behind her, leaning in towards the back of her head.

"I wasn't expecting you so soon." the voice of the dark lord, Midnight, cooed in her ear, her body reflexively tensing up. "You really should have been more patient. Enjoyed your final days, and waited until you were summoned, like a good little mouse."

Jerin lowered her head and closed her eyes. She wasn't scared, but wasn't brave or defiant either. She didn't really feel anything. Her life didn't flash before her eyes, she didn't think of the family or new friends that she would leave behind, or wonder what that final moment might be like, that sudden transition between being a living, breathing sentient being, and oblivion.

Mice as a whole did not believe in the afterlife. It was not because the divine or mystical elements of it seemed implausible, as they are all for such things, rather the whole idea just felt a little bit pointless to them. You are born, grow, struggle and live a full life, which eventually comes to a dramatic end, some more so than others... and then there is simply another one? No matter how different that afterlife would be, whether a permanent paradise of hellish torment, it just felt anticlimactic. Like adding a literally endless epilogue at the end of a tight three act story. The Starman cult had a slight spin on this idea, whereas rather than there being one or even two lives, everyone was born with three, and once you died, you would return back to the moment of your birth, all memories lost, and were thus destined to repeat it once again in exactly the same manner as before. They believed there was an important message there, about the nature of life and causality, even if there happened to be intense debate over what, exactly, that message actually was. Despite not believing in the afterlife, virtually all mice believed in ghosts, however. Why wouldn't they?

As for the large black feline, he was feeling nowhere near as calm and collected as he had let on. This whole situation was just wrong on so many levels. Why was this creature just sitting there, waiting for him? Was it a trap? That would have been nice, but he couldn't imagine what manner of trap that it could possibly be. He had also never wanted for his enemy to see his lair in person. The potpourri and soft, colorful pillows strewn about really didn't fit the sort of image that he wanted to cultivate.

After a brief hesitation, the dark lord stepped out in front of her, lying down, putting himself at nearly eye level with the mouse. It's eyes are a bright green, bathing Jerin in a gentle glow, but he didn't bother doing the dramatic spotlight thing. He saved that for when he was trying to look impressive, which hardly seemed necessary here. The fact that it also happened to cause terrible headaches seemed a good excuse to avoid it, too.

"What is this? Some sort of armor?" Midnight asked, looking at the cords wrapped around her body, face and limbs. "It doesn't look very effective." he said, extending a single claw which he swept downwards, vertically in front of the helpless mouse. She closed her eyes as this happened, feeling the faintest breeze as the cords fell away from her body. She reached up with her paws to tug the looped binding away from her mouth.

"Thanks!" she said. The black cat had absolutely no idea why she would say such a thing. Even Jerin felt it was a little odd, in hindsight, but her body was growing rather stiff from being bound up for so long, and she was glad to be able to once again move freely. Sure, her rescuer may have been a murderous, bloodthirsty foe, but that's no excuse to be impolite when someone helps you out.

"Welcome to my lair! Your final resting place!" the dark lord chuckled, doing his best to pretend that the past awkward moment had not transpired. "I've waited a long time, and now... and now..." he paused and sighed, his voice abandoning the dramatic inflection, taking on a more causal tone. "Okay, I've got to admit it, I'm a little bit confused here. Is this some sort of plan to catch me off guard? If so, then bravo! I honestly haven't a clue what's going on, but I somehow don't think that you're that smart. That armor of yours was pretty pathetic too. I don't see how it was supposed to protect you at all, quite the contrary, it looked downright inconvenient. Anyways, I'll just come out and say it... you are here to fight, right?"

Jerin looked up at the huge creature, still not afraid or despairing, only feeling, if anything, a hint of embarrassment. A sense of failure. The small mouse lowered her head. "I-I can't."

"What do you mean you can't?" the dark lord snarled, narrowing its green eyes, long tail angrily flicking back and forth behind the sleek black form. "You're supposed to be the great hero! I'm your nemesis! We're meeting in my lair, and you're telling me that you can't fight?"

"Yeah, that's right." she said, dejectedly. "Not without my sword... or my friends."

"Oh, who needs them? A one-on-one showdown is more suitable anyways! And it's not like that little piece of metal would make any real difference."

"Of course it would! It's a holy artifact created by the Makers, and was destined to fall into my hands, purely to destroy evil like you!" she shouted, standing up, shaking paws balled into fists at her sides. "And Aaron, Mathias, and Rowan... they're all important, and really strong, and I-I don't know what I can do without them." she sighed, her high pitched voice cracking at the end of that sentence. She sighed, looking down to her feet.

"Well, you have to try." Midnight said. "You don't have a choice."

"What am I supposed to do? Punch you?" Jerin grumbled. "Even if I was really good at punching, it would take all day to win like that! I can't possibly fight like this, so you might as well just finish me off. That's what you wanted all this time, right?" she closed her eyes, tensing up. Running was hardly an option with the dark lord right next to her, even if she were at her best, and had even the faintest idea of which direction to run towards. Her mind returned to the earlier prophecy, of how she would fail to defeat the dark lord Midnight, and while she did find herself a little bit disappointed, the young mouse couldn't help but also feel relieved on two fronts: One, that her friends weren't joining her in death, and two, that she hasn't felt the slightest urge to cry or beg. This wasn't the way that she had wanted things to end, of course, but she had to admit, it wasn't the worst way that they could have, either. Ultimately, this was her journey, and in the end, she even felt the slightest hint of pride at being able to take responsibility for it, to be able to stand on her own two feet. The tiniest smile even appeared on the muzzle of the young mouse, as she waited for the final blow which would never come..

The dark lord simply stared at her. Even lying down on his stomach he needed to look down to see the mouse. "Leave."

"Huh?"

"Just leave. I had high hopes for you, but if you're not willing to fight, you're not even worth killing. Get out of my sight." Midnight growled.

Jerin wanted nothing more than to speak up and defend herself, but there was really nothing to say. That faint hint of pride that she had earlier felt had melted away in an instant. She instead never felt so small. This was the encounter that she had awaited for so long, but as she looked to the terrible monster which had stolen her tail, her friends and her former home, she felt no anger, just a sense of weakness and disgust with herself. A part of her imagined how different things would have been at this moment, had her brother, Mathias and Rowan been standing at her side, had she held the gleaming sword in hand. Imagining what a triumphant moment that would have been. Another part, however, a non-trivial part, wondered if things would really have been different at all. Different in practice, of course, but perhaps not so different in principle. Regardless, there was no sense in dwelling on possible worlds which would never exist, as there was only the reality. She simply nodded her head and turned to leave. That's when the small mouse found herself looking about in confusion.

Both raised their heads in unison at the sound from above, the darkened room suddenly flooding with unnatural light. There was a verbal call from the distance which Jerin couldn't even begin to decipher, as heavy, booming footsteps moved towards them.

"Okay, seriously, you need to get out of here, right now!" Midnight said, more than a hint of fear in his voice.

"I don't know how!" Jerin replied, looking around more frantically, very much eager to comply

"Idiot! Just go out the same way you came in! It's right over..." the dark lord looked about. "right over..." his keen eyes darted to every every spot along the wall, every space beneath the furniture, "right over..." he searches for any sort of opening before tilting his head and asking. "How did you get in here?"

Even if she had an answer, she wouldn't have had the chance to say it. The Maker stood before both of them, taller and thinner than any living creature had any right to be, seemingly all arms and legs, face shrouded in shadow. Once again, rather than afraid, Jerin found herself simply stunned. She couldn't move even if she had wanted to. She couldn't even have wanted to, even such a simple, instinctive fight or flight response being far beyond what her mind was presently capable of.

Both the cat and mouse simply stared at the human, unmoving, as it very slowly reached for something on a nearby wooden pedestal. With a motion which was quick by the standards of the Maker, but which Jerin could have reacted to effortlessly in so many ways, had she been even a little bit capable of acting at all, it slammed a round transparent cylinder down over top of her.

Jerin found herself more-or-less freed from the spell, and was able to move, even if she was still not entirely capable of taking in everything that was going on. She gave the glass a tap with a finger. It was clearly quite thick.

"Now you've done it." Midnight grumbled. The mouse has no idea of exactly what it was that she had done. In fact, it felt as though the entire cause of this predicament was due to her doing nothing at all.

The Maker walked away, although even when out of sight, the heavy plodding footfalls could still be clearly heard. Left alone in her bizarre glass prison, the mouse had little idea of what to think. Being seen by a Maker was considered terribly bad luck, and it was no secret that the Makers could be incredibly dangerous. Still, just moments before, she was resolved to die at the claws of her arch enemy. Was her current situation any worse? Better? The same? She couldn't even begin to work out the logistics of this unprecedented turn of events.

Eventually the human had returned, carrying a large squared object in hand which it set down onto a nearby wooden platform with a heavy thunk. The platform was one of the few items that the mouse had recognized from her first visit to a shrine, even if the legs of this table were far shorter than the one which had housed the collection of divine blades. The absurdly lanky being then crouched down, sliding a piece of paper underneath the glass shell. Jerin reflexively hopped up onto it so that it wouldn't trip her, and the Maker, gripping the paper from the bottom, it's long thin fingers curled up around the base in front of Jerin, lifted the prison up to eye level, staring directly at the mouse, who had found herself once more frozen in place.

It had just looked so wrong. Not in an eldritch sense of something so alien that it was incomprehensible, but still nonetheless wrong. Even Jerin could recognize the basics: The eyes, the nose, the mouth, but it was all so flat, so plain, so smooth. The entity spoke in a booming voice which the mouse couldn't even begin to comprehend, it's free hand extending another of its far too long fingers to tap upon the glass. The only thing that went through her mind was a little bit of surprise that the creature did, indeed have five fingers. This was a well known fact, and she had even seen many drawings of humans herself, but still, the verification of this did catch her off guard. Jerin was sure that the finger would shatter straight through, but instead, it just sent a loud thump echoing within the round chamber. She looked down at the dark lord, still lying upon the floor. He looked back up, his expression not one of fear or concern, rather one of sheer annoyance.

Being lifted up so quickly was rather disorienting, Jerin being convinced that at any moment that she would come crashing down to the floor, especially once she had felt the paper ground of her strange prison cell quickly pulled away, but instead of plummeting to her death, the fall proved to be quite a brief one. She landed in something soft, and looked about to see wire metal bars all around her. There was a strange, faintly organic scent to this place, not of mouse, Maker or even dark lord. One of a strange creature which may have lived here some time ago, one unknown to her, but only the lingering sensation of it had remained. The Maker once more crouched down, offering another divine edict. The glass had done little to muffle the earlier statement, and even without it, this one was proved no more comprehensible.

Jerin had absolutely no idea of what to think. She was not a genius, and while capable of the occasional moments of cleverness, at heart, she was quite a simple creature. The mouse could only take in so much information, and as a result, she had basically shorted out, barely able to comprehend what was happening, let alone make any sense of the whys of it. The Maker had remained crouched, watching her, allowing the mouse to get a slightly better look. This was the first time she had ever really seen a Maker. Sure, once in a while you could catch a distant silhouette, or the sight of a head bobbing up and down over the fence in the distance as it passed by, and after the battle with Fury she had even caught a fleeting glimpse of one seated at the opposite side of the flats. Still, this was the first time she had the opportunity to take a long, clear look at one of the greater beings. It was largely furless, eyes relatively small, nose subtle, mouth tiny, yet in spite of all of those smaller components, the head still looked huge. The torso was similarly larger than it had initially appeared, originally feeling like a minuscule base from which the tree-like limbs extended, yet it still felt smaller than it had any right to be, with the arms and legs still stretching out forever. Both the body and legs were covered in a light blue which contrasted with the pinkish hue of the face and most of the arms, along with the golden length of fur which covered the top of the head and seemingly nowhere else.

It turned to the dark lord, moving unusually slowly so far as the mouse was concerned, as though every slight motion was engaged in a hard-fought battle with gravity itself. It spoke directly to the cat, not talking for very long, but even the finite number of syllables sounded immeasurably complex. It finally stepped away, but didn't move far, pulling a large wooden frame from another pedestal, much taller than the one that the mouse's own strange box was set upon. The human took a seat before it, their attention focused on the multi-colored items upon the table.

"I hope you're happy." Midnight grumbled.

"Um... I'm not sure if I am. Still, it's nice of you to hope!" Jerin said.

"I don't actually hope that you're happy, I was just being..." the dark lord sighed and shook his head. "Ugh, Just forget it. She told me that I'm not allowed to hurt you."

Jerin nodded and blinked, suddenly coming to multiple realizations at once. "Wait a minute, 'she'? And you can understand what the Maker says?"

"Maker? Why are you calling her that? She's a human." He said, his tone shifting to demonstrate a hint of pride. "And of course I can understand what she says. Well, most of it, anyways."

That was, of course, something of an exaggeration. He could understand the important words like his name, food and 'no', and beyond that get the general gist of most other messages. It was often more useful to pretend that he couldn't, however.

Obviously, virtually all species had completely different languages which corresponded to their own vocal ranges, and similarly having vastly differing vocabularies based off of their own cultures, assuming that the creature was intelligent enough for some manner of verbal communication. Despite this, they could all somehow understand one another. This convenient fact did not extend to the Makers, however, which, of course, could neither properly communicate with mice or cats, nor could their language be innately understood by such creatures.

The nature of this communication was a mysterious one. For instance, while mice have many, many words for cheese, and cats have none, in the rather unlikely event that a mouse would find themselves in a conversation with a dark lord on the subject of cheeses, the cat would naturally understand any one of those words, even if they had never before heard them up to this point. Many would claim that mice have no real interest in cheese, at least no more interest than they have in any other foods available, but this wasn't entirely true. It had once been the case, but once the mice had learned to understand pictures and take in other aspects of the human culture, they often recognized that the Makers associated mice with the eating of cheese. From there, eating cheese simply became popular, even if it could be a little bit hard to come by.

"Wow, that's amazing!" Jerin beamed, turning to look at the 'human', who was holding a metal object within her hands, squeezing and using it to slice into a piece of thick colored paper. She repeated this, every few times muttering something to herself as the twin blades would jam up, refusing to close together, requiring a little bit of extra force. "What's it-I mean what's 'she' doing now?"

"Scrapbooking."

"Huh? What's that?"

"I don't really know. it involves cutting paper, sticking it to other paper and adding shiny stuff and googly eyes."

"Wow, the Maker is building right in front of my eyes! This is great!" Jerin said, awestruck. She, like all mice, was very familiar with googly eyes. It was hardly a surprise that mice were so fond of them, however. It is a well known fact that all sentient creatures throughout the universe enjoy plastic googly eyes, to some extent.

Midnight rolled his eyes. "Of course you would be impressed by that."

Jerin finally took a moment to study her surroundings, looking down at the wooden shavings at her feet. "Look at this stuff! It's all soft! And look, look! You can kick it and it goes everywhere! Teehee!" she giggled excitedly, eagerly demonstrating. "And look over here! Is this food?" she hopped over on all fours towards the pellet dispenser, picking one from the pile, and giving it a nibble. She leapt back staring in shock as a new one fell in its place. "Are these free?" she asked the dark lord.

"What? Of course they're free." Midnight said, having very little comprehension of the idea of money.

"...and I can have as many as I want?" she said, although even if her words were recognizable, and with her mouth having been full, they really weren't, she hadn't waited for an answer. Aside from getting little chance to sleep, the young hero had found even fewer opportunities to fill her stomach over the past day.

"Ooh, and look at this water! I've never seen it so clean!" she stepped over to the small, filled plastic pool set into the side of the cage, splashing some onto her face. As a result, the water was now significantly less clean than it had been before, her paws significantly more so, but the pool still remained immaculate compared to what the small mouse was used to. That was when she had noticed the strange and elaborate device set at the other side of the cage. "What... what is this?" she asked, awestruck. Even at a glance, it was obvious that it was something truly amazing.

"That's a wheel." Midnight said. "You can run on it."

The small mouse tilted her head, approaching, and giving it a nudge with her paw, pulling back as it turned with a light clicking sound. She hopped into it, looking up and around at the metal spokes before taking a few steps. To her astonishment, she didn't go anywhere. She tried to walk faster, finally breaking into a full sprint, laughing all the while, before coming up with an idea. Did she dare? She knew that she would regret it for the rest of her days if she didn't try. She stopped abruptly, the wheel not getting the message. It spun her all the way around a few times, sending her tumbling, giggling onto the wooden shavings. "That was fun!"

The Maker turned from her work, smiling at the sight of the playing mouse, before returning to her urgent glitter related task.

"It's not made to be fun, it's for exercise." the dark lord told her.

"Exercise?"

"You know... to get stronger?"

Jerin blinked, looking up at it the mysterious metallic device. "Are you saying that this place is a divine training ground, created by the Makers to help me become more powerful in order to face the battles ahead? That I didn't end up here by random chance, but by some benevolent destiny to help me protect my friends and my people?"

"What? No, that's not even close to what I said!"

"You're right" Jerin said, looking to the wheel with an expression of renewed determination. "There's no time for fun. I have important work to do."

The dark lord simply sighed and shook his head.

---

"-and that's when the king offered to marry me, but I refused, of course... you know, because then I'd be a queen, and queens are always evil and scary." Jerin said to the feline, nearly finishing her overly long story.

Midnight nodded. "It's true."

The dark lord was currently laying on the same table that the cage was set upon, resting on his side against the metal bars. The small mouse, had taken a break from her running, and instead gently kneaded the black fur, convinced that squeezing the thick coat could offer valuable training to enhance the power of her grip. As for Midnight, while he would never even dream of saying so, he had to admit that it felt pretty nice.

"And then I got re-captured by some one eyed jerk, and brought here, and, well, you know the rest." she said. "Okay, your turn."

"Huh?"

"What's your story?"

"I don't have a story." Midnight said. "I'm a predator. I kill. That's it."

The mouse paused her massagings, furrowed her brow and shook her head. "Nope, I'm not buying it. You could have killed me a couple times already, but you didn't. There's something else going on here. You lead us to Seraphim's lair, got Fury to attack the city, and came out to meet us, even though there's lots of other mice around if you were just looking for someone to kill. Why?"

The dark lord sighed. "Fine, you really want to know? I'm bored, okay? I get free food, can be healed if I get hurt or sick, can go wherever I want, do whatever I want, and have a nice comfy bed to sleep in. I have everything I could ask for and more, but I'm bored. That's it. No grander principle or purpose. You and your friends were just a way to pass some time."

"But you clearly put a lot of work into it, making that map and stuff..."

"I didn't make it, I instructed that mouse on how to. The idiot took three tries to get it right. Okay, In fairness, his hands were shaking an awful lot, so I guess it makes sense."

"So, what was the goal? Could you see us somehow? Did you want to watch us get killed, but instead we won?" Jerin asked, returning to her 'training', rubbing a little deeper, earning herself a faint purr as a reward.

"No, I wanted you to win and get stronger. I knew that Seraphim was the sort to play with her prey, and I told Fury to go easy on you and your friends, for all the good that did." the black cat said. "I didn't want a show, I wanted a fight."

"Wait, you wanted us to beat you?"

"Heh, of course not. You and your friends never stood a chance. I just wanted you to put up a good effort."

This wasn't entirely true. While Midnight had no intention of outright letting them win, the idea of them winning did have a certain excitement to it. This wasn't to say that he had intended to get hurt, much less killed, of course, but if they did somehow win, the game could have continued longer. As a result, he would have pulled his punches to some extent. They would have still have had to really work for it, and the odds would have been very much against them, but not completely outside the realm of possibility.

"Is that why you attacked my village, and left me and my brother alive? So that we would come back looking for revenge?"

Midnight looked up at the ceiling, finding himself in deep thought. He was tempted to lie. After all, that lie was quite interesting, and would have added a whole new and deeper level to this whole thing. In the end, though, he just couldn't be bothered. "No. I simply attacked your village because it was there. I let you two live on a whim."

"So... what changed?" Jerin asked, taking a break from the pettings, now doing push-ups within the wood shavings.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, back then you didn't have a reason, you just did what dark lords do. Clearly that's not good enough anymore, though. I hadn't heard of you attacking any more villages since then, either. Sure, they're kind of hard to find these days, but you've barely been seen at all. You stopped right after that attack. Why?"

Midnight chuckled. "What are you hoping to hear? That I felt guilty or something?"

Jerin shook her head. "No, I know you don't feel bad about it. You were just doing what you do, and I understand that now. You must have some reason, though."

"It was just-It was just so pointless. I thought that destroying and killing was it's own reward, but instead it was just boring. What's the point of having power, when it's used on the weak? That's just how life is, though, you know?" he said with a long, drawn out sigh. "One day you grow up and can go anywhere, only to find that there's nothing out there to see, nothing to find, nowhere to go. The world loses its mystery, it's allure, and you're no longer afraid, so what do you do? Well, you just wait out the days, counting the hours until your next meal, your next nap, your next scheduled prowl through the neighborhood, waiting for your owner to get home from work. Next thing you know, you're counting the days, and then the months, and then the years. In a world where you have everything, there is just nothing rewarding."

"I'm sorry..." Jerin said.

"What do you mean you're sorry?" the dark lord snarled. "How could you possibly understand, you creatures which struggle for your very lives, who always have new places to explore, adventures to have, new foes to battle? You foolish little things that constantly try to futilely build yourselves up from something above common vermin?"

"You're right, I guess I can't really understand what it's like... and that's why I'm sorry. Sure, life is often hard, and sure, there's stuff about it that I, all of us, would like to change, but it's exciting, too. It's true, I set out on my journey looking for revenge, but also I wanted a sense of purpose, to have new experiences, maybe even help move my people forward. Our lives are all about running, exploring, scavenging, discovering, and well... sometimes even suffering and dying. But, that's life! And, well, without all that... without all that, I don't know what we'd do. I love my life. Well, maybe I didn't always, but I do now, and couldn't imagine what it would be like to have all those things that I love taken away. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if they were replaced with something better, but otherwise? It doesn't really matter how much food or safety or comfort any of us have. It, all of it, is useless unless we have a reason to keep moving forward. That sounds like something that you, that a lot of your kind lack." Jerin said after giving the matter some thought.

Midnight looked back the tiny mouse, prepared to be annoyed, but instead her expression to be almost impossibly earnest. He felt a twinge in his chest and a little lump in his throat. He wasn't certain of what this strange new sensation was, as he'd never experienced anything like it before. Still, he did know one thing:

He really didn't like it.