Right then.
Let’s get one thing straight from the outset: I am no ordinary rat.
I am Murray.
Laird Murray, if ye please.
His Lairdship Murray of the Shoulder Realm and Rightful Heir to All Proper Cheddar.
And if ye think that title’s too grand for a wee beastie who nearly drowned in a river last week, then ye’ve clearly never met a rat with a Scottish burr and a goddess for a shoulder-mate.
Aye, that’s right.
Shoulder-mate.
I ride the Violet-Haired Menace herself now. Omnion. The pearlescent one. The one who talks to me like I’m a person instead of a pest. Which, to be fair, I am. A person, I mean. Not a pest. Never a pest. Anyone who says otherwise gets the full wrath of these magnificent ears.
She calls me “darling” and “wee beastie” in the same breath. Lass can’t decide if I’m royalty or a snack. Last night she tried to feed me a crumb of what she claimed was “artisanal cheddar.” Artisanal. From a goddess. It tasted like regret and very expensive disappointment. I told her so. Telepathically, mind. Loudly.
She laughed.
She actually laughed.
Most folk would be offended. I took it as a compliment. A rat who can make a goddess laugh is no common rat.
She’s a strange one, Omnion.
One minute she’s leaping out of flying machines with wings made of light, middle finger high to giants twelve feet tall, the next she’s cradling me like I’m made of glass, muttering “poor drowned thing” while warming my fur with her hands. Those hands glow, ye ken. Soft gold and violet, like someone spilled sunrise on her palms. I pretend it’s embarrassing. Truth is, it’s the warmest I’ve ever been.
Her hair smells like storm-wind and coffee.
Not the drink. The vapour.
She breathes it sometimes...wee clouds of it curling out her nose when she’s thinking hard. I asked her once why she does it.
“Habit,” she said, lopsided grin flashing. “Keeps the brain sharp and the heart caffeinated.”
I told her she’s daft.
She agreed.
We get along fine.
The boy...Zephyrion...keeps trying to pet me like I’m a puppy.
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I tolerate it because he smells like copper and hope, and because he calls her “Mom” in a voice that makes even my cynical wee heart soften. He’s the one who built her a new Bell...a wee makeshift thing hammered from grief and starlight...but the sword? That was all her. She pulled it out of her own chest, snapped it across her knee while still bleeding, and wove the pieces back together with light from her own hands.
I asked her how.
“Stubbornness and spite, Murray,” she said, smirking through the pain. “Mostly spite.”
I told her she’s a menace.
She winked.
I preened harder.
The big man...Benjamin...just grunts when I squeak at him.
But he scratches behind my ears when no one’s looking.
Rough fingers, gentle touch.
I approve.
They’re a strange family, this lot.
A goddess who nearly died and laughed about it.
A boy who builds miracles and asks for wings.
A Marine who smells like gun oil and bad decisions.
And me.
Murray.
The drowned rat who woke up able to talk back.
I still don’t know what the violet-gold in my fur means. Omnion says it’s “resonance bleed.” I say it makes me look dashing. She rolls her eyes. I preen harder.
Last night she sat on the edge of the VTOL ramp, legs dangling over nothing, staring at the stars. I climbed to her shoulder and asked what she was thinking.
She didn’t answer right away.
Just watched a family of dragons fly overhead...father, mother, daughter, brother...wings cutting the dark like knives.
Then she whispered, so quiet even my ears nearly missed it:
“I need to do better.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
So I just pressed my head against her neck and let her feel my warmth.
She reached up, scratched behind my ears, and murmured, “Thanks, Your Lairdship.”
I let her call me that.
Just this once.
Now if ye’ll excuse me, there’s a wedge of cheddar with my name on it.
A laird’s work is never done.
— Murray
Laird of the Shoulder Realm
Rightful Heir to All Proper Cheddar
(and occasional advisor to a very rude goddess)
