Unfortunately I’ve caught glandular fever (boo) which means I won’t be able to mod the account next week…. Soooo beacon week has been pushed back a bit! Apologies to anyone expecting it next week, but it hopefully gives anyone procrastinating some more time to finish the prompts!
I wasn't for sure if I'd have enough time to get this done but I made it! My first time participating, I'm so excited!! Special shout out to @moonmaiden86 who wanted more with Hope and lil Enver ;)
Bite
Little mouse. That's what she calls him.
It’s not what anyone else calls him. The imps and guards and debtors, and all the other cruel-eyed servants of the House, have other names for him. They sneer and spit the words as they cuff his ears for talking too loudly, cleaning too slowly, for filling the wine with trembling hands and sloshing crimson across the silver.
Boy. Filth. Whelp. Dog.
Rat.
The Master is most fond of that one. The boy is a rat to his burning hellfire eyes: dark of hair and skin, filthy and small and silent and scuttling. He steals food like a rat, pilfering scraps from the kitchens when no one is looking. He steals trinkets and little useless treasures—a discarded carved snuffbox or a lost silver ring from a hand laden with much finer jewels—and hoards them in the barren hole of his room, despite the whippings that inevitably follow when he’s always found out.
Born low. Gutter trash. All worn rags and naked, filthy feet, and filching little fingers.
Rat.
But to the woman in the cell beside his, he is her little mouse.
Sometimes, when the boy has been particularly disobedient, when he's hidden a crust of bread too well or when he's answered back with too much fire in his voice, he is taken from his bed and thrown into the dungeon cell. With her.
The dwarven woman with red hair. She’s a permanent resident of this place, imprisoned for refusing the Master, for daring to say no. He keeps her like a prize, a broken toy he refuses to throw away, and she sings to herself in the dark when she thinks no one is listening.
"Hush now, don't you cry,
The moon will rise, the sun will die,
And in the dark, we'll find our way,
To somewhere bright and safe..."
"Little mouse," she murmurs, her voice cracking and ruined, but tender in a way that makes his skin crawl. "You're so small. So thin. When did they last feed you properly?"
He hates it. He hates her.
Hate the sweetness in her voice when she speaks to him. Hates the trembling in her fingers when she reaches through the bars to pet his matted hair. Hates that he is here again, forced to endure her songs when all he wants was the cold silence of his own barren hole of a room.
She is mad, the dwarven woman. Everyone says so. She sings to herself in the dark, crooning lullabies to no one. She calls him little mouse and sweet thing and tells him stories about brave creatures who find their way home. When he wakes screaming—and he always wakes screaming—she’s there, pressing her face to the bars, her voice cutting through the nightmare.
"Hush, little mouse. Hush. I have you."
He doesn’t want to be had. But when the tears come, embarrassing and hot, she’ll hum until they stop. And he loathes her for it. Loathes her for the comfort she offers and the way his treacherous body leans toward her voice, and most of all, for the strange piercing pain that makes his chest hurt when she touches him gently.
She reaches for him now, her fingers brushing his cheek, and he flinches away. She doesn't take offense. She just sighs, a soft, sad sound, and settles back against the damp stone wall.
"I used to have a little mouse," she says, as if to herself. "In my cell. Years ago. It would come to me when I was cold. I would share my bread with it. It kept me company." She pauses. "I think it died. Or maybe it escaped. I never knew which."
The boy says nothing.
He is not a mouse.
Mice are soft and sweet. Mice have big teardrop ears and bright black eyes and tiny, delicate paws. Children's stories are written about them, brave little creatures that put aside their fear and find the strength within to leave their comfortable lives for grand adventures. Mice are heroes in those tales, drawn cute and clever and loved.
He is not a mouse. He is a rat.
And rats bite.
His hands are just as clever and quick. His eyes are just as bright. But rats don't want to be loved, held, petted—he knows that firsthand, from the rats that scratch and scurry about the dungeons. Their claws are sharp. Their minds are sharper. And they always bite the hand that feeds them.
One day, so will he.
He will grow. He will learn. He will memorize every lesson, every trick, and every whispered secret that slips from the Master's lips. He will hoard knowledge instead of bread, power instead of trinkets. He will wait for the perfect moment, when the Master's guard is down, when the chains are loose, when the opportunity is ripe—
And then he will bite.
He'll bite so hard that the Master will never forget him.
The dwarven woman strokes his hair again, and he jerks away from her touch. His small body curls into a tight ball in the corner of the cell, his dark eyes blazing with a fury that is far too large for a child.
"Don't touch me," he hisses.
She doesn't flinch. She just sighs, that same sad, knowing sigh that makes his blood boil.
"One day, little mouse," she murmurs, "you'll understand."
"Understand what?" he spits.
"That the soft things survive longer than the hard ones." Her voice is distant, dreamy. "The hard ones break. They shatter. But the soft ones..." She smiles, and there is something awful in it. "The soft ones bend. And in bending, they endure."
He wants to scream at her. He wants to tell her that she is wrong, so wrong—that he will never bend, never break, and if he does, he would rather shatter than kneel. He wants to tell her that he will escape this place, that he will burn it to ashes; that he will become something so big and sharp and terrible that even the Master will tremble before him.
But the words stick in his throat. Because she is still reaching to stroke his hair, still humming that aching, beautiful lullaby, and despite everything—despite his hatred, his fury, his desperate need to be strong—he finds himself leaning into her touch.
Just for a moment.
Just long enough to hate himself for it.
"Little mouse," she whispers. "My brave little mouse."
He closes his eyes and he lets her comfort him. He lets her pretend he is something soft and small and broken. Something that could be tamed. Could be loved.
thank you to everyone who submitted a form! we received 70 responses in total, and the amount of excitement expressed in the write-in question was incredibly contagious.
keep an eye out for the official prompt + guidelines post, coming soon. reblogs appreciated - thank you for all of your support!
