plaguedrat | Big bright accent, catty smile, Oscar Wilde confrontation

"Can I think about it and call you back?" Rat looked at the script in front of him as well as the drafted contract. The casting agency's offer was far more than he'd expected, especially for an 'out-of-towner' and Rat needed the money more than he was actually willing to admit. The city stipend paid his bills bu. Marius but Rat had a little more pride than that.

"Okay, Mr. Nezumi," the casting agent said, looking a little less than pleased with it. Rat felt strange being addressed as a Mister anything, much less a stage name he'd made up because he didn't have a real last name.

Besides all that he liked working. Television was a new prospect and it wasn't the stage, but there were plenty of actresses here. They didn't need to put a dainty man in a dress and hope the audience was forgiving the way they had in the West District. There was only so much call for Shakespeare too. Rat had to either diversify or embrace his niche.

But playing an effete gay secondary character, a drag queen? Rat wasn't sure about the script. On paper, it wasn't much of a part or even much of a show. It was a miniseries, apparently, with hope for renewal as a full time show. Dark stuff, they promised. Very edgy. Rat wasn't impressed, but he was hungry and he needed work.

"I'll call you first thing in the morning with my decision," Rat said, letting himself out through the lobby.

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"Ah," Rat says. He nods, thinking of the divisions of No. 6, ranked by IQ and potential contributions to the city. The ones with less potential had had the worst housing and jobs. Shion himself should have been at the top tier, but he'd given it up because of childish sympathies. Because one boy had been kind to another, he'd been demoted.

How about that for kindness?

"Sounds like an appropriately rigid and impossible system," he agrees, glancing over at the girl. There's something sharp edged about her that reminds him of the Dogkeeper, stark and blunt. "How long before it fell to pieces?"

It's interesting, to look back now and wonder how anyone could have gotten away with structuring an entire city's population the way the Bureau structured Chicago. How Tris' bravery and determination helped to undermine the entire organization. I have no idea what's become of Chicago now, knowing that the Bureau has been stopped but winding up here in Darrow, myself. All I know is what's become of Tris.

"That just about sums it up," I nod. "Your world sounds like it's similarly impossible. Nice to know there are multiple, fucked up worlds out there." It's strangely comforting, knowing people have suffered in the same way I have. Misery loves company, or just the downtrodden and abused.

"It lasted a good while, anyway," I say. "A couple of decades, give or take. I got here after the entire system, both within and outside of the city, fell apart."

"How about you? Your world still in tact?"

"Most of them are fucked up in some way or another." By now, he's started walking in the direction of home, figuring that the inquisitive young miss will follow if she likes or go elsewhere. It's not really his problem.

When she asks about his world, Rat lets out an angry bark of laughter. It hadn't worked, of course it hadn't worked! "Aside from a nature god filling people at random with deadly bee larvae and then a bomb destroying the wall? Oh yes, everything was going swimmingly."

Rat is very, very good at sarcasm.

"I left. Or I tried to. Now I'm here."

He starts walking and I follow. I've got nowhere else to be, as it is, and our conversation is actually interesting enough that I'm intrigued by him. "Fair point," I say, considering Darrow's own insanity. I haven't experienced much of it so far, but just the fact that a city kidnaps a fair amount of its population and then prevents them from leaving is fucked up in its own right.

"I'm sorry, what did you say about a nature god filling people with bee larvae? What the actual fuck?" I am actually flabbergasted. I didn't think anything else in this city could catch me by surprise, but here I am. Talking to a stranger I've just met about invading bee larvae.

"So you walked out of one city and into another," I observe, quirking an eyebrow at him.

He nods as she walks alongside him, keeping up with long strides. After a year here, which is a depressing realization, Rat has met a lot of people and most of them have been scarred in some way no matter how stable their worlds might have been. Aurora, here briefly and shiningly kind, had been an exception and sometimes he misses that.

"They called her Elyurias. And she was angry." Even as the singer for the Mau, Rat had been too young to properly understand her demands. The level of control he'd seemed to have over her was largely out of desperate persuasion, infused with Safu's fondness for Shion.

"I did. And there are still giant wasps."

"Elyurias," I repeat. A pretty name for what sounds like a pretty ugly force. "So she just...filled people with bee larvae and waited for them to hatch, or?" I've seen a lot of strange things, especially here in Darrow, recently. But never anything quite like what Rat is describing.

What the hell is it with bees?

"I haven't seen them here, but I've heard they've got their own...abilities. Fire and ice, or so I've heard," I remark. Thankfully, I haven't witnessed them firsthand for myself.

Rat shrugs. "She was very, very angry." And he hadn't known to sing for her. If not for that shred of Safu left inside that vengeful force, he doesn't know that they would have made it out as relatively unscathed as they had.

"I heard they came out last summer. The ones with fire. If they can stay away, I'd be happy for that."

He doesn't need to become the mouthpiece for another volatile force of nature that he doesn't understand.

"Any reason for that anger?" I ask, though I'm wondering if this bee god felt anger at the way the humans in Rat's world built their utopia. Perhaps this Elyurias felt that she was acting out nature's vengeance, or something. I don't know. I'm used to humans in positions of power abusing those below them. Not bees.

"I'm glad I wasn't here for that, that's all I'll say," I agree. I've seen and dealt with a lot of things. I'd rather avoid the supernatural bees if I can help it.

Although, I suppose, the challenge in getting rid of them could prove fun.

Rat can think of reasons, but explaining them to a stranger is frankly too personal and none of her business. Instead, he just shrugs and looks skyward, "Do the gods need reason to be angry?" Accepting an actor's stance to distract her, he recites, "As flies to wanton boys are we to th' gods, they kill us for their sport."

It's a phrase he knows well, though he hasn't played Gloucester. Many of the theater attendees had loved the line because of how true it rang.

"Gods, fate. They don't need to have a reason."

"No, I suppose they don't," I agree, sensing that there's more to it than what he says, but hey. We've only just met. I'm not as defined by my first faction as I used to be; I don't press for details, nor do I let myself become consumed by not knowing. "I guess that's part of what makes them gods," I muse. I've never been overly religious, myself.

I raise an eyebrow at the recitation. "Poetic," I observe with a wry smile. "I can see why they offered you a part." It's as close as a compliment as I can get with a stranger.

"Here's hoping the gods of Darrow are kinder," I say, though I don't believe my own words. What kind of city just kidnaps people and refuses to let them leave, anyway?

Big bright accent, catty smile, Oscar Wilde confrontation

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