Lydia had been called before the Rat King, and she wasn’t sure if she would be able to come out of this one alive. She looked around her room, she hated it here.

Yet, it was her home. Deep underground, damp, dank, dark, but still her home. The place where she had lived her entire life.

She was in the great Undercavern, where all the rodents had gathered after the defeat they had suffered at the hands of the Evertree denizens all those years ago. A time so long ago that only tortoises even remembered anything about that time.

She sighed and rubbed at her snout, it seemed that the grudge had held out even after all these years. The Evertree would probably have fallen had the Rat Kingdoms joined together for once and attacked their mutual enemy instead of constantly plotting against each other. Especially since there were so many rodents in their respective territories, they could probably overwhelm the Evertree through numbers alone.

Lydia once again sighs, and this times rubs her broken fang, the fang that she had lost when she was but a kitten. Her nest had gone out, and teamed up with another nest, to try to find something to kill and bring back to the caverns, it was a rat's entrance into real society.

Her group was unfortunate enough to come across two of the Everguard, she rubs her broken fang more vigorously, those two had already killed three rat soldier and a weasel! The young rats though needed to prove themselves and the two Everguard were injured from their encounter.

To say the least they didn’t make it out of their alive. She had been one of last to jump on them, she had jumped on the biggest look guinea pig and bit it right on the head! Sadly, the pig had been wearing a helmet, and while her fang had gone through the helmet and killed the thing it had broken off inside its skull.

Now here she was, with an angry Rat King waiting to see her, a broken fang, as well as a destroyed reputation. She had wanted to join the Rat Kings special forces, meant specifically for killing guinea pig but hadn’t even managed to pass the first inspection! Apparently no matter how well trained you were beforehand if you didn’t both your fangs and weren’t bigger than average then you didn’t even have a chance!

Not her fault she was born small and could pass for a large critter! She had no control over stuff like that! And so what if she had lost a fang? She could still fight! She had killed one of the Everguard for goodness sake! Sure, they were injured, sure, they were completely swarmed by over thirty other rats, but Lydia was the one that landed the killing blow! Who cares about all the other rats?

Even forgetting that, she was still able to defend herself! You die if you can’t fight, that is the way of the rat! She had made sure that no one was able to mess with her!

So to prove herself she had gone out on her own, trying to find a critter or something else to kill that she could bring back and show to the special forces, something to prove that she was able to fight without a fang.

Lydia did find something as well! An owlet that had fallen from its nest, Lydia was on that thing in a second! A second! The owlet was dead before it had even managed to see her, then the Kings nephew had come strutting over, Lydia could still remember his horrible voice and just as horrible words.

“Ooh, lookie here. A dead owlet.” At that point, he had glanced up at her and leered, “a pretty rat to go with it as well! Pretty rat, give me the owlet so that I way I can show my uncle, you’ll be rewarded of course.”

She had responded quickly, baring her teeth at the scrawny little creature that was leering at her, “No way! My kill, my reward, you can go and pit yourself! Thank you very much!”

The other rat hadn’t liked that at all and started going off about all his family connections and blah, blah, yadda, yadda, yadda. She didn’t give one skunks fart, but when he started to look at her again and reached out for a touch?

That was too much for her, he was on the ground bleeding within a second, his throat ripped out and his expression one of shock. Didn’t even have a chance to defend himself the poor buffoon, sadly a kings nephew never goes without an entourage and they had chosen that exact moment to appear when her teeth and paws were stained with the blood of the stupid rat.

Lydia growled at them, warning them away, but they attacked, no doubt hoping that their efforts would be rewarded. Lydia went down, she was a good fighter, but she wasn’t a soldier. Something that the special forces also rejected her for.

Thing is on the application it said that they would train the person selected! Regardless of whether that person was a soldier or a mere rodent. Just another example of the bias of the rat race.

Anyway. Here Lydia was, preparing for an audience with a King. Normally she would be exited after all it’s not every day you even get to see a king, much less meet one. This time though….

Lydia sighed, got up, and prepared herself for what might very well be the last moment in her relatively short life.