A Tyrant in Training
Notch, Gage, Sweetbread [Riverdale]
Location: Docks
Who can say what is going through the young mind of the rat prince, who is presently grinning as he sits crouched in a crate. Adventure, that's what he has decided he needs more of and stowing away for destination unknown seems a fine life. perhaps he could be a priate lord, master of the seven seas! Only he starts to itch, not having had time to check the contents of the box before lidding himself into it. Eventually though he's scratching and itching as the straw packaging presents an uncomfortable itch.
A heavyset, middle-aged female rat comes puffing in from the direction of town. With her paws she gathers up her frock to liberate her legs from the interference of its hem--it is already rather too threadbare and sullied to need much saving of its own. "Ohh, goo'ness me, little gnat'll be the death a me!" A paw flies to her chest as she gathers in the scene at the dockyard: a few small rowboats and dinghies suckle at the edge of the piers, rising and falling gently with the waves. "Notch?" she calls guardedly.
Gage has spent most of the past week around the docks, trying to control the chaos of a port, doing his best to check cargo for any goods being smuggled out. (Not that there's much worth smuggling on this island) He also has become the de facto overseer of the construction of the new navy, a process that is going less than smoothly, between the lack of work ethic and materials. Right now he's walking around the east side of the docks, which has become the makeshift drydocks for the new ships. He watches, flanked by a female fox, as a group of rats struggles to get the rigging up on the ship nearest completion. He saw Notch wandering around the docks earlier and is doing his best to stay away from the obnoxious heir.
The nursemaid casts about for any sign of the young prince. She finds nothing, amid the cacophony of wound ropes and stacked crates, pallets half broken and ship bottoms upturned on the planks of the boardwalk looking like alien eggshells, full of jagged holes. She huffs loudly. A palm rises to adjust her hair--hopelessly, it turns out, for a morning's worth of running after Notch has left her locks in a tangle of half-tamed gray curls--and composes herself. "Excusin' me, sar," she says, clearing her voice and approaching Gage.
There isn't a lot of room to maneuver in the box but what little Notch can is used to do his best to scratch as the straw gets to him, he almost sneezes once but stops himself. Not wanting alert anyone to his presence. He doesn't hear anyone caliing for him, glad to be out of the sights of that polecat that was looking at him earlier.
Gage turns to face the rat maid, his vulpine companion following suite. "Good evenin' marm, can I help ya?" he asks as cheerfully as he can manage, despite knowing that she's looking for a beast he /really/ dosen't want to find.
The nurse curtsies, studiously avoiding Gage's regard at first, then nervously looking up at him. Her face explodes into a goofy grin. "Oh, Mestar Gage!" she sputters. "Didn' see it war you befar." She curtsies again. "My eyes, you know. Don' suppose you'd remembar me--No, a course he wouden remembar you, silly." She coughs. "Welcome back, sar."
"Um, thank you," the polecat captain says. He dosen't recognize the ratmaid, but he's been congratulated by so many beasts since he was washed ashore that he's starting to lose track of them all. "Should I remember you?" he asks, quirking a brow. The fox at his side remains quiet for now.
Notch sneezes, and pops out of the box suddenly. Unable to bare it any longer.
"No, no," the ratmaid says softly. "A carse not, nay. Jes' been a maid about tha keep, you know." She flashes her palms and tilts her head to the side in a display of coy self-deprecation. "Little me, saw yar grand return!" The sneeze tears her out of her girlish hero worship. "Aha!" she cries. She dips her head to Gage. "Sweetbread," she says hurriedly. "That's my name. Sweetbread." Then she darts toward Notch's hiding place.
Gage nods to her, "Oh, well, nice to meet you." he turns his head over to the box where Notch has just appeared, cringing slightly. He decides to let Sweetbread deal with the heir for now, turning to have a quiet conversation with the fox.
Notch scrambles to get out of the box before his nursemaid can lay a paw on him, but is still sneezing and trips in the rush to flee, "Let me go, am going to have an adventure and be a pirate! Ain't'cha ever wanted to be anything but a grumpy ol' maid?"
Burdened though she is by age, a bit of extra padding, and cankles, years of experience have cultivated in Sweetbread a knack for lunging to just the right spot to intercept spry youths. Having disengaged herself from her conversation with Gage, she sloughs off any vestige of decorum. With a leap, she closes the distance between herself and the fallen child. "Oh, jest ev'ry bloody day I'm with you!" she says, chest heaving. She swings at him to grab the scruff of his neck.
Notch is snatched, struggles but to no avil and still sneezing all the while, itching too. Scratching what little he can, "Let me go!" He whines, "I was gonna be a priate lord!"
Gage and his companion watch this whole thing, Gage chuckling softly and even the serious looking fox cracking a smile. "Havin' a little trouble?" he calls to her.
"Lard, I've no doubt a that!" Sweetbread exclaims, hauling the impish little Notch to his paws. "But you ain't one yet!" Hearing Gage, she calls back over her shoulder: "Trouble? Oh, ay, trouble!" She shakes the prince. "But if I tried ta be rid of it, I'd be the one hanged far it! Some justice that is, if you ask me!" Continuing to Notch, she says: "'Sides, even princes need a bath now an again, ay?"
Gage walks over, the fox following a few paces behind as usual. "I figure it's hard ta discipline the royal bra... I mean the prince, what wit' his daddy bein' king." he srcatches his chin thoughtfully. "If he wants ta be a pirate lord he'll hafta know how ta swim. We could always teach 'im." he offers, making a tossing motion towards the salty water beneath the docks.
Sweetbread does not seem to hear Gage's offer of accelerated training. Instead, she hustles off toward the fortress, Notch in tow.
