Rodentia Adventures

CHAPTER 2: THE JOURNEY BEGINS!

The human looked about and shook his head. The place was a mess, his room-mate clearly not pulling their weight. He simply sighed, figuring that solving the problem himself was a significantly less painful task than trying to convince their live in companion to actually clean up after themselves. He took up his broom and swept away the countless old food crumbs which covered the floor This was simply the first step in a long overdue cleaning regiment, where he dusted, wiped everything down and worked to return everything to a more-or-less presentable state, where it would remain for a week, maybe two if he was lucky. In time, the dust and dirt would begin to regroup, advancing at a faster rate than could be overcome by the occasional quick sweeping or dusting, at which point the battle would begin anew. 

The one thing that he didn't clean or even notice was the small pincushion set at the end of the table. It was a gift he had never used, often meaning to learn how to resew his damaged clothing, but it was always easier to simply replace such things. As a result, it was just there, surrounded by similar nick-knacks and items which looked nice enough at first but almost immediately just become unnoticed background details, serving no purpose beyond collecting dust which needed to be removed so that they could go back to being properly unnoticed. The young man paid no heed at all to the empty space upon it, where the missing needle once stood, much less the tiny, dusty footprints which had lead straight to it. Much like those on the floor below, they were simply wiped away as though they had never existed at all. 

<3~ <3~

"No."

 Jerin blinked, looking to her older brother with a confused expression. "What do you mean, 'no'? It wasn't a yes or no question!" she said. In truth, she hadn't asked a question at all, let alone a 'yes' or 'no' one, making such a response all the more baffling to her.

"No. This isn't happening. End of story." her brother replied, shaking his head. 

The younger mouse bit her lip, hands balled into fists, looked back over her shoulder and cried out, "Mom!" 

"What is it, honey?" an elderly grey mouse wearing a long plain dress and a bonnet asked, as she partially looked up from her knitting. Calling out so loudly was far from necessary, the room being a small one with the parent hardly a mouse length away from her squabbling children. One might naturally assume that she was well aware of the conflict, but sibling arguments quickly become simple background noise after a little while, no matter how noisy or urgent the subject matter seems to them. Still, it would have been rude to not offer aid when properly summoned. Normally one would consider white fur as lacking color, and wouldn't expect it to gray over time as one ages, as that usually represents a stage of transition between dark and white. It would be wrong for old age to pick favorites, however, so all mice tend to gray with time in order to remind them that while their lives aren't necessarily over, they aren't the same person that they used to be, for better or worse. 

That one room made up a good half of the home, a round mud dome of thick walls, the scant furnishings of similar design. There were a few chairs, like the walls little more than lumps of clay which weren't exactly ideal for keeping clean, but the malleable material was good for shifting to meet the shape of the seated individual and similarly easy to move, remove, reshape or be used to create something entirely new as needed. The only other decoration was a small wooden square set into the wall (not held by pins or nails, simply pushed hard enough to stick) which, if one were to squint hard enough, they could recognize the etchings upon it to depict a group of four mice, two parents holding a small child in their stick-figure arms with a larger individual standing in behind them. 

"Aaron's being a big, stupid jerk!" Jerin huffed. 

"Aaron, please stop being a big stupid jerk to your sister." the older woman said in an apathetic tone, one barely opened pink eye raised in his direction, the other remaining focused upon her knitting.