Drunken laughter and glasses clinking against glass was the current mood of the night.
A gathering of Mutes sat merrily around a long table inside of the treetop territory within the undiscovered forest region. They were newly set with food and beverage; beverage being the main focus of the day for these Mutes.
The Archerats had finally hit the jackpot. What was supposed to be just another weekly scavenging had turned into something much more. And as a result, an seemingly endless supply of aged wine was now theirs.
And all thanks to a certain Mute.
"Pipe down, my fellows!" the slightly raspy voice called out, originating from the elder of the large group. Sporting a brown scarf and a wooden walking stick, the elder smiled with closed eyes as the conversations dimmed out into a calm silence.
"It is only right to give some acknowledgment to the one who made this special feast possible!" the rat elder eyed the particular Mute who now sat wide-eyed amongst the gathering. The elder rat waved him over and the Mute placed his glass down, slowly arising to comply.
The rat that was called alongside the elder was a dark gray-furred Mute that had a short, red cape tied around his neck. His red gloves had adjoined it along with a belt that had an arrow quiver attached to it, arrows at the ready. An simple archer's bow was worn proudly around his shoulder.
The rat store into the crowd of his brethren and sistren with magenta-colored eyes. Internally, he felt he hadn't deserved this. They had all got them here. Maybe he was over-thinking things...
"My Archerats...if you don't already know, our pal here is the reason for most of this here tonight. And on this night, we raise our glasses to Piercer!" the elder Archerat proclaimed. He raised his wine-filled glass and watched all the others follow.
"To Piercer!" the multitude of Archerats rang out in unison.
Piercer store through the empty glass that lay in front of him.
"Piercer? You listening?"
Piercer shot his eyes towards his friend, his face devoid of a placable emotion.
"Yeah, I'm fine."
"Ya sure? Looks like your contemplating your life accomplishments through that bare glass there, heheh." his friend teased, taking another drink.
Piercer found himself looking to the side.
"It's nothin'." Piercer replied back.
His drinking buddy and friend of many years store back with unconvinced eyes.
"You're not fooling anybody, pal. You deserve the recognition. If not for yer' good eyes, we would've missed the place entirely! Have some pride!"
Piercer smiled finally, tilting his cup sideways.
"Fine. But I'm not admitting that all of this was all me."
His friend's grin was indifferent.
"Never said it was, but here, here to that anyways!"
Piercer closed his eyes and repeated the notion, raising his glass high. He only opened them after hearing the chuckles from around the large table. His close friend was the one to pipe up.
"Um, Piercer...you might wanna refill your glass. You're raising an empty cup."
Piercer remained stagnant in his embarrassing pose before suddenly sliding his seat from under him.
"I'm getting another glass."
Walking up to the many cases of wine bottles, he sifted through and finally found the one he was searching for. He was too focused on pouring his glass to notice the elder coming behind him.
"Are you not drunk enough?"
Piercer's fur stood on end, but he held in a stifled yelp.
"Third time this week." Piercer stated.
"You're keeping count?" the elder laughed hardily. "Anyways, I wanted to talk about what you told me earlier. You said you felt like we were being watched?"
Pouring another glass of his own, the elder took a quick sip and listened in on what he had to say.
"I...can't explain it. It's not that I never thought we were. It's just that still even after we covered our tracks out there...even after we checked our backs...the feeling still persisted." Piercer took a drink of his own, but doubled the intake.
"Hmm...well I suggest that you should just sleep on it." the elder Archerat suggested. "Maybe it was something, or maybe it wasn't. Either way, you deserve the rest. I'll have someone else cover night watch for you tonight. And just for safe measures, I'll put an extra on guard. Sound fair?"
Piercer pondered on it and concluded with a small smile and another swig of wine.
"Thank you, Elder Arrus."
Piercer stirred and wrestled his precious sleep away.
He wasn't sure how much he had been able to rest but he soon found himself in front of his room desk nonetheless. The rat glanced out of the window and observed the treetop cabins outside and found it was still dark out. He pulled his attention back to the small drawer connected to the desk and rummaged through a few things before pulling out the item of focus.
It was a necklace.
The very sight of it threatened to choke him up. He had tried keeping it away to avoid the hurt it had ceaselessly brung. But now...he felt he needed to face what it represented.
Piercer held the sparkling diamond that the necklace had attached to it up to his eyes. The glimmer was still present in the faint glint of the moon's light.
He still remembered her face.
And what she tried to do to them.
And what he did to her in return.
*Knock Knock Knock*
Piercer shot his attention towards the door. He immediately pondered equipping his bow, but chose to put away the necklace instead.
'Maybe another day...' he thought solemnly to himself.
He finally opened his door to find his close friend on the other side, visibly worried.
"Radan? What's goi-"
"We need to get down to the front gate." Radan interrupted hastily. "Someone's found us."
Piercer's initial fears showed clearly through his widened eyes.
"What?"
"Elder Arrus is speaking to...whoever they are right now. I just hope that it's not..."
Piercer put a paw on his friend's shoulder.
"Let's get down there. Just give me a minute; I need my bow."
Piercer and Radan weaved their way through the gathered crowd of Archerats to find their elder standing in front of the entrance gates, the person they were conversing with hidden from view. Piercer had finally reached the front, eyeing the many Archerats that had their weapons at the ready as he had slipped past.
"Elder, what's this about?" Piercer asked, gaining Elder Arrus' attention.
"It's alright. I have this under control."
Piercer ignored his claim and approached to look past the gated doors. And what he saw sent his heart racing faster than before.
It was a human. A white-masked human. The human adult wore 18th-century European court attire, and behind him stood a two-headed flamingo that began to hiss at Piercer's presence.
'No, no, no, no, no.'
Piercer resisted the astronomical urge pull at the fur of his head. He thought he'd ditched them. They all did. But the worst thing that could possibly happen was happening.
Scarlemange's posse had found them once more.
The masked human continued his talk.
" I believe you all know that you can't escape punishment for any longer. However, our great leader has purposed one final option. Just follow by Scarlemange's rule and you all will never have to live in fear again." the masked human spoke. His voice, though muffled through the white mask, held the tone of a chilling calm. The soulless eyes peered through the mask with an unflinching gaze.
'The audacity! To send some lowly human puppet to do the talking!' Piercer raged from inside.
Piercer stepped forward to speak his own mind, but Elder Arrus held out a arm to stop him.
"No need, my friend. I've got this. Now..." Elder Arrus stood eye to eye with the human. "We have made it very clear about our stance with Scarlemange and his foolery. We do not care to be apart of his pointless war with humans! We are apart of no creed but our own. And we wish to be left alone! We are well-prepared for a fight. Now leave and don't come back!"
Piercer watched on in a slight surprise. He's never witnessed his elder so angry before. Regardless, the human's eyes never once flinched.
"There will be no need to return. Your warning has been relayed. Good day."
The masked human immediately turned to walk away. He remounted the dual-headed flamingo and with a mighty flap of it's wings, they were off. Piercer and Elder Arrus stood glaring at the sky until the flying Mute was out of sight.
"We're ready for whatever comes next." the elder told Piercer, passing him by.
"Elder Arrus, this is my fa-"
"No." Elder Arrus turned and faced Piercer with emboldening eyes. "This is not on you. We will handle what ever comes next together. We will all bare this-"
Elder Arrus never finished his sentence.
An ear-splitting roar and blinding light took over Piercer's eyes.
One second he was thrown into the air, the next he was pinned to the ground by broken wood and various debris. His body ached and ached all over. His hearing failed him; a persistent ringing overtaking it. Smoke and dust concealed everything around him.
The initial confusion had faded and now panic washed over Piercer's struggling form. He pushed as hard as he could against the splitting headache and numbing pain but it just wasn't enough. The debris that held him down had yet to budge.
"cough cough Piercer? Piercer, h-hold on, mate!"
The voice was echoed and faint, but Piercer still recognized it. He couldn't find the strength to speak, but he didn't have to. Radan appeared through the cloud of dust and moved his injured legs as fast as he could towards him.
A glimmer of hope.
A glimmer of hope that faded the moment something in the sky was caught falling towards them. It moved in slow motion to Piercer, and his attempts to call out for Radan to move away went unheard.
The instant the glass capsule shattered against the ground was the moment everything white and then dark.
Piercer kept the arrow trained at his once-beloved's head.
"This paradise the elder set up isn't going to last forever! So why not give it up? We could be blessed with so much more!"
"Elise, please. Don't make me shoot you down...you've already caused enough pain. Just come back with u-"
"With what? You know it's only a matter of time, Piercer. Better alive and a slave to Scarlemange than a fool complicit with his own demise. I'm as good as dead, anyways."
The bow's string loosened.
"Elise...I know you don't mean that."
"I'm going."
The bow's string drew back again.
"I'm going to tell him where our little hideout is. Then maybe when they come for you, you'll have a clearer understanding."
"Elise don't-"
"Or what? You'll shoot me in the head? You don't have the guts. You won't stop me."
"Elise..."
"Elise!"
"...."
The bowstring was pulled back as far as it could be.
"Elise..."
The bowstring was held that way for a moment. To Piercer, it seemed like a lifetime.
The bowstring was let go.
Elise turned around.
The arrow met clean through her sku-
Piercer's eyes shot wide open as he gasped in breath.
His head darted around and all he saw was the stark contrast of what his home used to be. Debris, trees and homes were all destroyed. He pulled himself up from his back but immediately fell back down. His legs and arms felt like noodles. His head was tingling and sore.
'No....no....no like this...'
Piercer tried and tried, but he continuously felt down, his face meeting the dirt.
'Not like this!'
With a mighty grunt, he raised himself up. His feet were shaking vigorously as he shuffled forward, searching for any signs of life. He went to rat to rat, shaking their shoulders and praying for a sign of life. Even the one's who were clearly too far gone. He searched frantically for his friends, but found them not. He searched for Elder Arrus and...found him. He was lying against an uprooted tree, a piece of wood protruded through his side.
Piercer stumbled over a dozen times in his rushed bid to his mentor's unmoving body. He shook his shoulder and lightly slapped his cheek, unable to accept death as an answer. But then he witnessed something that made his heart leap.
Elder Arrus's eyes began to ever slowly open. They met with Piercer's and a barely noticeable smile was given. The elder's hand lifted...and then felt lifelessly against the ground.
The immense reality of what had just happened finally struck him. Elder Arrus was gone. Radan was gone. All of his people were gone.
Piercer stood up, stuck in the mindless bog that was his mind. Then it all came rushing back.
"RAAAAAAAGH!"
The last surviving Archerat raised his head towards the sky, raging against the beautiful, starry night. His screaming was forced to a stop by the course and stinging pain his throat was already going through. He fell to his knees and sobbed into his gloves.
"This was me..." Piercer looked on at his elder's deceased form. "It was all me...I should've covered better...I should've..."
Piercer ceased his whimpering. His ear twitched. He caught something in the air up above.
It sounded like flapping.
Getting up, he looked towards the sky and found two silhouettes circling around his position. Then it clicked for Piercer. He had no time to say goodbyes. No time to bury his dead.
He had to leave now.
And so that he did.
From behind a faraway tree, he watched as the third and final explosion went off in his now demolished territory. Everything that represented him was nothing else but bits of rubble and piles of dirt.
Piercer had turned to walk away before he even registered it himself. The loneliness that draped over him seemed to welcome and encourage it.
DAY 1
Piercer's ear twitched and he awoke in a heartbeat.
The shuffling of fallen leaves in the near distance drew him to full alert as he sprung up and leaned against the tree he slept against.
The steps only drew nearer.
The Archerat's eye twitched. The dreaded thought of another creature coming to finish the job poisoned his mind. That somehow they figured he'd escaped his clan's grim and unfair fate.
He wouldn't be a casualty.
So he swiftly made his way up the tree and stood still. The knife was unsheathed and his grip on it strained. The footsteps grew close and closer until...
It was right underneath him.
Piercer leapt down and crashed against the unknown being, forcibly wrapping a hand around the neck of the struggling target.
"Wait-ack! S-stalp!" the creature cried out, revealed to be an armadillo Mute. Piercer, however, ignored the cries.
"Please....I'm look-ing-wife-" the Mute squirmed, trying his best to escape despite his vision growing blurry.
The Archerat store through the Mutes eyes as it's cries for mercy flew past him. He maneuvered the knife closer to the armadillo's neck.
"P-please-ack!"
You don't have the guts.
Piercer blinked his eyes.
The rat immediately let go of the armadillo and fell backwards, leaving the Mute holding his throat and gasping for air. Piercer slid away even further, distancing himself from the person he nearly murdered.
"I'm sorry..." Piercer muttered. His eyes were wide and pupils dilated.
Without another word, the rat scrambled to his feet an bounded away to leave the coughing armadillo to itself.
DAY 2
Rested on top of a blue human vehicle, Piercer drew back his bow and took in a concentrated breath.
He clenched one eye shut and steadied his hand. All went quiet in his mind.
The leaf he was confident it had finally left the tree. It floated down for only a second of freedom before Piercer released his breath.
The poor leaf's freedom was short-lived indeed; the sharpened stick piercing through and nailing it to the very tree it had thought it had escaped.
The makeshift arrows Piercer crafted from the thin tree limbs made up rather nicely for the ones he lost in the recent chaos. Assured with it's dependency, the rat sharpened the last one and inserted his dagger back into it's sheath.
He smiled lightly to himself and turned to jump off of the car, but what his eyes met next wiped it clean off.
"Hey, arrow boy! Why are you on our there property? Can't you read?"
The voice belonged to one of the four various Mutes that had strolled up leisurely, weapons in hand. Two Mute pigs, a chicken and a tiger. Piercer had earlier noticed the graffiti made on the side of the car that clearly stated it's occupation, but chose to ignore it.
Whoops.
"Doesn't matter. We were gonna kill you anyways. It's be easier if you'd got down though. Whatdaya say? We'll make it nice and slow."
Piercer was unfazed by the flat threats.
"I am extremely confident that I will execute all of you before you even touch any part of this car to get me." Piercer replied with a vacant tone of voice. The look the Archerat gave them held the energy of annoyance.
"Challenged accepted, punk!" the one-eyed pig yelled with a wide grin. He raised his machete and-
The wooden arrow leveled with the pig's head and it surged forward with a whistle. Slid straight through it's head. Before the first pig hit the ground, the second one met the same fate. The tiger made it halfway, but was not spared a different fate. He too fell to an arrow.
The last Mute; the chicken, made it to the door of the car but all Piercer had to do was lower his aim and it too fell all the same.
Things were finally silent again.
Piercer looked to his arrow pouch and found he only had one left.
"Damn..."
The Archerat leapt from the car and returned to the forest to craft more.
DAY 3
Piercer was dehydrated.
No luck with any valuable water source. Earlier in the day he had spotted a waterfall much farther off, even so reaching it would prove impossible. He had managed to scavenged some berries and other various edibles, but the terrain of the new world wasn't the only thing to look out for. The flora and plant life was just as hostile, and the rat had found scarcity in any food that wasn't out to kill him. Directly or indirectly.
He thought about going back to that gang of dead Mute assholes...but he wasn't that messed up.
You don't have the guts.
Piercer shook his head.
"You're right. I-I don't." he said to no one in particular, rubbing his face with a gloved hand.
Suddenly voices.
Voices that were coming his way.
Piercer immediately crouched low, concealing himself on the other side of some close-by bushes. He waited until the voices became clearer and pressed the side of his head closer to the greenery he squatted beside.
"It's not too far now. We won't need to worry about any stupid aggressive poisonous squirrels. Stop joking about it before you jinx something."
"I'm sorry, I just can't stop thinking about it!"
Piercer peeked from behind the bushes, eyes laced with a wary curiosity. His sight was gifted two traveling humans walking up the road center of the clearing. He then noticed the bags they were carrying. Bags that most likely held...water.
You don't have the guts.
The voice had tossed a coin against that claim and lost.
Pierce slowly raised the bow from his shoulder and gripped one of the crafted wooden arrows from his pouch. He pressed the end against the bow string and pulled back. The pair of humans were just about to pass his position. The Archerat flinched at his opportunity to pop out and waited as they passed by.
You don't have the guts.
"Shut up!" Piercer whispered in a suppressed hiss, gritting his hind-teeth.
Piercer sprung over the line of bushes and landed on solid feet, pointing his bow at the backs of his quarry. They both turned around after hearing the landing, one holding up a machete and the other drawing his long blade.
There was a brief pause before the shorter human shakily pointed to the instrument strapped around his shoulder.
"You know, instead of shooting us, I could play a solo as payment for our lives? Sound good?"
Piercer's eyes narrowed dangerously low.
The Archerat pulled the bowstring even further, arrow at the ready.
You don't have the guts.