Cold

[rodentus_callidus]

*chuckles* It occurs to me that I never answer the cheerful questions. Perhaps I am not well disposed to cheer? But it does not matter.

Cold. *smiles* This is a strange subject, for a rat. Or perhaps only to a blind rat, or to a rat doctor. But I think it is a thing all rats share. With humans, it is the darkness, yes? The dark is the herald of bad things, the place where they lurk, the thing you fear, ja? But we rats, we live in darkness. Even those who are not blind. Myself ... darkness and light are words without meaning. If you don't know what one is, how can you recognise the other?

No. For us, for me, it is the cold we fear. Cold is where the bad things lurk. Cold is their herald. While things live, they are warm. When they die ... they are not. This, I know very, very well. This is easy, and simple, and it is a thing all understand. Death is cold, and in all cold places it lurks. Fear is cold. It pulls at you the same way, the seeping of life and strength from your bones, your body. Rats, we fear the cold, and invite it with our fear. Cling to the warm places, to warm bodies and good cheer, to friends or family or anyone at all who will warm us for a little time. That is good. That is life.

But sometimes ... the cold comes for you. Sneaking, moving. Sometimes the cold can live. Sometimes it can hunt.

I am a doctor. For all that I seem to spend more of my time playing politics and dealing information, I am still a doctor first. I put people back together, when I can. But sometimes I can't. Sometimes they die. Sometimes, the body lives, and something else dies. And I can feel it when that happens. The cold ... it seeps from such people.

Sometimes, when I sit in my little apothecary, I feel a shiver in my spine. A whisper, a quiver of my whiskers. The air moves. Cold air moves differently to warm. It creeps, stays low, seeps up from the ground, forcing the warmth over it. It pushes the warmth away. Sometimes, there is cold air where no cold air should be. And when a person enters after that, after the cold seeps in, I know they are not healthy people. I know that they deal death, or will have it dealt to them, or simply carry it within themselves. There is a chill that follows them, that marches before them, and all sane rats should flee before it. Death lives in the cold.

It sounds foolish, I know. To be frightened of a little cold air, that could come from anywhere. A draught from under the floorboards, and it frightens me so. Little cowardly rat-doctor. But I cannot see your darkness. For me, there is only the cold to warn me. And I listen to it. That shiver in my spine, I know what it means. I know what it means.

Sorka, she knows about it. Death-dealer, but also cold-blooded. She is sensitive to it. I think, sometimes, that that is how she knows who to fight. She follows the cold. Me, I stay away from it. As well as I can, as long as I can. But I am a doctor. Death is my neighbour, my enemy, my oldest friend. We have met so many a time. I have invited him, more than once. I have killed, more than once, and felt the cold in my own paws. Sometimes I wonder how I feel, to others. Sometimes I wonder if the cold I fear in others follows me, clings like a lover, and that is what wards people away. Maybe, to human eyes, I wear Death's shadow too. *smiles strangely*

Ah well. Maybe it does not matter, tchu? But that is what the cold means, anyway. That is what I feel of it, what I know it brings. Perhaps you will think me a silly superstitious little coward. Perhaps not. But you should keep to the warm anyway, my friends. Should cling where you can. The cold is where Death walks. And whether you believe it or not matters little to him, ja?