Best Lesson

[rodentus_callidus]

Best lesson learned? Tchu! There are many. Hmmm. But in my life, and my line of work, there is maybe one very important one, yes? This is - Do Not Piss Off The Nasty Rats With Weapons Who Demand Money. *nods emphatically* This is very, very important in Carogne!

"I don't want your foul potions, you little mischling! I want money, now!" (Always so hasty, Polizei enforcers)

Of course, he is very big rat, and I am somewhat surrounded (my head is twitching between the three of them, listening to metal sing), so I get some money from the store. I get also my cane. Not to attack, or even defend. I have very little chance. Only for comfort, and to remind them how helpless and blind I am, tchu!

"Not enough!" (Never enough, but that is the game)

Then I sense movement, and there are paws on my shoulders, and I am slammed into the shelves. Glass shatters, and I wince. Those are expensive to replace! But there is a knife under my chin, and I forget I am angry.

"Listen, little mischling," he hisses. "Listen carefully while I tell you what will happen if you do not stop trying to fool us, and get our money."

I nod, of course. What else can I do? And then ... then there is a sense of movement near my face, and then there are paws on my whiskers, and I know what he means to do, but he has me pinned, and then tchu! There is only pain, and confusion. I whimper as he drops me, landing on all fours, the world reduced down only to what is under my paws. I am doubly blinded, and it is terrifying (I only tell you this because, with those massive things you call hands, you would more easily crush my head than my whiskers, and I should have no problems anyway). He has numbed all one side of my face, and I cannot feel anything from the whiskers there. I cannot even tell if they still exist, or if he has pulled them out, and I reach in panic for my face, but he pins my paw under his, laughing down at me.

"No, little mischling, you do not get to do that. Not while we are here." He leans down, laughing in my ear, and I hate him, but I am too afraid for my whiskers, for my eyes-that-are-not-eyes. Without them I am lost. While I am afraid for them, I do not care what he says! But I listen, because I have to. "You have two days, mischling, to get our money, or I will rip them out!"

And then they are leaving, I hear them leaving, but I don't care, because that means he has not already torn them, and my paws are finding them, and oh! It hurts, it hurts very much, but they are there, they are not damaged too badly, only crushed a little, and all is well, all is well ...

So! What do you learn from this? To give the horrible man his money, tchu! *sneers a little* He is stupid, and mean, but he is powerful too. Do what he wants while he is with you, ja? Not to annoy him.

Afterwards, of course, you can have words with friends of the sharp persuasion, and they can take care of things for you. But that is after.