"Adventuring"
by Anonymouse

My grandma always used to say if a mouse ran through enough ink and over parchment fast enough, soon or later, there would be something worth reading. That's how I got my start, you see. Scratching out labels that said "Made by Frog and Lilli". Or fine silver lettering on a tag that says "These boots by my hand - Stiltskitter" Do you think those labels were by their hands? Nae, milords and ladies! Mouse scratches! Quick, clever and tiny with a finesse even a gnome cannot match.

I may only be a poor church mouse from Tiger Clan, but I was raised right. My parents chewed up the finest book they could find for a nest. I spent my early days curled up with words like "serendipity" and "fastidious" and "dictionary" under my nose. So when my grandma began to dip me in the inkwell and send me scampering, I was prepared! I was a natural. I wrote devotions for clerics first, and then one of the mages scooped me up. I worked for crumbs. And the days of writing labels for the greater mages might have kept me happy if it hadn't been for Pockets.

I fell out of one, you see...and into another.

Her name escapes me just now, for reasons both wise and small, mage though she is. We had a wedding to finish, fancy clothes and all, and we were late. She'd done a waistcoat for me (It is a catskin waistcoat with flared shoulders and tapered waist, and I delight in showing off this fine garment. Look how the fine blue fur of the catskin coat hugs my frame neatly, tailor cut to hang close and yet allow the me ample room to wield a rapier if necessary!) and the bride suddenly had an emergency. Her gown did not fit and off we went. That is to say, off the mage went. Curious and clever, I first slipped into her pocket to see what the fuss was all about. A job of scratching out labels in the workroom had grown somewhat boring.

"What am I going to do!" The bride paced the waiting room, her hair fairly standing on end. Her gossamer spidersilk gown brushed the floor, its softly draped folds caressing her toes, the plunging hipline... I poked my head out even as the mage uttered a small cry and began to tug at the woman's dress, trying to arrange it properly.

The bridesmaid, her hand over her mouth, swallowed several times, the corners of her Prydaen mouth twitching. Cat! Thought I and kept quiet in the pocket, watching without being seen.

"We'll have you fixed up in a jiffy," the mage soothed. Shortly after the plunging hipline took a cascade even further south and the bridesmaid let out a noise which sounded rather like a fit, face twitching.

"Gods help me," the bride cried. My mage responded with an "I'm trying dear, but you need to hold still-"

"Not that!" the flushing center of attention retorted, standing on tiptoe as my mage worked quickly. "He is not even awake yet."

"It doesn't take men that long to dress," the bridesmaid told her with a soothing purr.

They exchanged looks and then whispers which the mage did not seem to notice but which my ears caught. For the life of me, I could not understand what they meant by only doing it for the clothes anyway. Perhaps my mage had heard, for she gave a sudden heave on the corset and gown, and as the bride merged into its proper shape, I went flying out of the pocket. Cat! Thought I and kept flying, out of the waiting room and down the stairs of the keep.

The strains of a fiddle playing and a lively voice drew me scamper-quick down the hall and into a side room. The fiddler played on around the corner. I could hear bawdy jokes, restless booted feet and slippers on the marbled floor, but it all scarcely mattered. I could smell a lovely, enticing smell up on the table and scaled the leg to see a crumb...oh, what a lovely crumb...so high it nearly reached the ceiling, iced in buttercream frosting and swirled about with Elven chocolate shavings. Surely I had died, squashed in the mage's pocket between the squabbling bride and her late arriving groom, and gone to paradise.

I crept closer.

The scent was intoxicating. My heart pounded inside my waistcoat. Surely this....this...was why anyone would marry! I put my pawhand out, carefully, for it was the instrument of my craft...both paws actually... to snatch a taste....

"I need a drink!" The voice boomed and table thumped. I backed hastily into the punch ladle just as it swung into the air, wrapping my tail about the handle of the bowl and praying for salvation.

"They're animals out there! I've played my fiddle to splinters. What's keeping that cursed bride. Rum punch, thank the gods!" The ladle dipped and I climbed higher up the handle, and the bard and I met nose to nose as he bent to dip his in. It was, I noted, a noble nose which had been broken at least once by the knob on the bridge. He blinked at me.

"A mouse by the Goddess. Ye'd better not have drunk much, my lad!"

"I...I've not had any. And it's not the bride, it's the groom!"

"Is it now? He not show up?"

I shook my head. The vapors of the warm rum punch misted up around me and I felt quite bold just inhaling them. The bard smiled wryly. His eyes were a warm ale-brown, and his curling hair of Elven silver had been tied back neatly for the festivities. "I know just where they parked the poor bas...er, lad...after last night's party. He'll need a sober...that is, a rescue. Off we go, then!" He opened his vest and I jumped in, not a second before the cleric stumbled in, and grabbed for the ladle. "They're animals out there!" she gasped.

"The groom's been detained. I'll just pop out and fetch him."

"Do that," she panted, then downed two ladles of punch. "And I'll double your pay."

"Ah," says he, and gives a hasty bow. Off we go, trotting down the keep's back stairs to a portal where, after a wrenching moment, I found myself peeping into the salty, sullen fog of Crossing's backrows as the bard whistled and strode knowingly. The first pub's dark corners and back room yielded nothing but a surly shiprat which hissed at me, eyes glowing, and I held tight to my new pocket transport. The second however, found a wretched lad curled up under the corner, a bottle of spoiled beer in his hand. The bard leaned down and shook him roughly. "Up lad! It's your wedding day!"

The groom stared up, face bleary and eyes reddened. "Let her have the clothes!" he said, to my wonderment. What was all this about the clothing?

"It's a wedding we need! Come on, a moment in Orem's steamroom and you'll have all the misery sweated or puked out of ye!" And without further ado he hoisted the groom to his feet and dragged him down the streets. Orem looked none too happy as we came in, shaking a finger at my bard. "No trouble tonight!"

My bard winked. "No trouble any night!" as he pushed the poor groaning lad into the sauna, shut the door, crossed his arms and leaned upon it. Long moments went by. My tail twitched uneasily. "What are we waiting for?" I finally ventured.

My bard held up a long, ink-stained finger, listening. Then we heard the moan, rising into a cry for help. "Well done," the bard cried. He pulled the door open, and yanked out the lad, pale and trembling but on his feet. Within moments, we were in the keep again, and the groom was being pushed and stuffed into his wedding finery, by no less a personage than my former great mage who looked akin to a stormcloud and I decided to stay in my refuge a while longer.

Despite the bride and groom, the wedding went off with a joyful shout, the rum punch got guzzled along with countless more drink, sausage and thyme rolls, stuffed salt crab claws, sticky sweet doughnuts, green and white fettuccini, and the cake. Ah me, the cake. The bard got his two plat tip from the grateful cleric, and we stood in the corner, singing bawdy songs from days gone by and watching the lasses swirl by in their colorful gowns.

When all was said and done, 'twas only the two of us left by dawn. The bard crawled out from under the gift table and stretched and I tumbled out of his pocket. He looked at me. I looked at him. He put a finger out. "I...must remember...to do more weddings sober," he remarked.

"Why? You were grand!" I perched upon his finger.

"By the Wren. It is a talking mouse."

"I am a scribe." I tucked my paws into my catskin waistcoat proudly.

"Are you indeed?"

"Indeed! For...." And I paused, remembering the countenance of great unhappiness. "That is. I was."

"Out of a job?"

I nodded. "And out of pocket, so it seems."

"Well, lad, then you'll have to throw in with me. I can take you places you've never been-"

"Of that, I have no doubt," I answered dryly. "But I cannot sing. Nor am I enchanted and when kissed will become a prince."

He grinned. "Lad! I don't need a prince if I have a talking mouse!" He scooped me back up, settling me into his vest pocket. Brocade, with a silken lining...not bad. "What say you?" he asks me.

And I answer, "An adventure or two or three!" So we set off, me from my boring job as a label writer, and he from, or to, wherever it is bards are from or going to. Pockets I call him, and he whistles and winks at me. It's a good partnership, so far.

Besides...his crumbs are rum soaked.