Tinkerer's Repose

[oyedboats]

"..You're kinda fucking crazy, you know that, rat boy?"

Our family has the greats of our kind. Granny killed a prince and then some, our great uncle killed a Knight after fending off the King himself… Most of our family, even, are considered war criminals from what they’ve done.

Where does that leave us, though?

Lucky’s grown strong, so very strong, and I can’t help but feel pride in my brother. Alchemical goods sell better than those made through fire and anvil, unsurprisingly. By all means he’s the more successful of us two by principles alone.

So why should I feel jealous?

Maybe it’s the control over himself he has. Maybe it’s how unnerved I get each time someone so much as pokes me let alone needs me to touch them. I’m supposed to be the big rat that’s not afraid, so why am I afraid of something so stupid? I am the real one - Every other clone dissipated before me is fine proof of that…

“Your biggest supporter…”

“You didn't have to even stick up for me as much as you did, there...”

“What's.. What's NGLC stand for?

“You are an artist, Charlie - truly.”

Just… Give me a bit guys. I promise I’ll get over this fear and be something just as great as them - Better, even.

I’m a genius after all.

[oyedboats]

“You’re a good soul, King Charles.”

Family.

That was my original intention when I called a gathering within my sewers. Granny said the sewers weren’t being feared anymore, that the days before I was here are gone. I made a promise to renew it - An oath as a Rat King to once more spur what the Family was meant to be.

We weren’t supposed to sell out to a nation - At least, not in my eyes. When the Family began they all came from different walks of lives that strained from the same desire - Freedom, a greed to obtain what they were kept away from. Yet when we look at the Family now…

Who is it beyond the Docros these days who have sold me and mine out to a place of restrained freedom?

I have a rat to thank for showing me just how far granny’s ideals have been smeared across the pavement of ‘progress’. One so annoyed by just how blind the soldiers are within Achyon as to not express themselves, limiting true progress from the creativity that has been confined within remolded flesh and conscious steel alike.

All because of one definitive factor - A dictator. It always comes back to nations and cities in their quests for “brighter futures”.

This same rat I have to thank for this time to think, truly. I caught their plague, you see, and it honestly hurts to move and breathe… Yet when I can’t forge a priceless piece or armor, trinket, or weapon I am left with rampant thoughts of  my paranoid little head.

Like… What makes me, a Rat King, any different from any other fool that claims themselves to be a ruler, a leader?

As the Rat King I don’t ask for a kingdom, a crown. I don’t fight for the right to own either. I fight for the oppressed - The needy, the cold, the poor. The unsung and untold sufferers of war and the products of kingdoms and governments alike are my people.

For them and I there is no amount of coin that should stray our focus from this goal. We deserve all that we’ve been kept away from after all.

That is the difference between them and I - The desire to steal away not just coin, but a destiny for those that have suffered in silence for so long without someone to guide them.

I aim to be a hero, but an unconventional one all the same. A rogue. Just like he said.