Big Salmon Lake part of a system, a plan. [m-ish]

Just an eensy bit of language :x

What is it about tiny things that is just so frickin' cute? It is common conception among most that mice are disgusting, terrifying creatures. When you spot them in your home or on the street, hands-down the way to react is to shriek and run for the hills. Put a mouse in a cage in a pet store--cute as a button. It's all about perception and the environment in which you perceive the thing. A mouse in the corner of your bed? Terrifying. A mouse crawling around by your dinner? Disgusting. A mouse nibbling on a piece of grain on a log by the lake? Most adorable thing on the face of the planet.

Such was this little brown field mouse, enjoying topnotch lakeside dining as dusk fell on the horizon. His little ears were perked at attention, nostrils twitching warily, eyes round and wide and watching. Beside him lay his meal--a nice collection of grass seeds and nut fragments. Fodder in the eyes of squirrels or raccoons, but a veritable feast for a mouse whose head was no larger than the walnut the debris had started as. Now maybe some would think that little guy frightening even in its natural habitat, but for those who shared that habitat, he was as adorable as a newborn babe as he nibbled, reached with tiny fingers for a new nugget, and nibbled again.

Until he was unexpectedly and unceremoniously smashed dead under a massive tan paw.

Andrus was not one to consider a his own kind adorable, much less an insignificant mouse. He cupped his paw as he raised the dead bundle of "cuteness" and licked up the gore, smearing some on his paw and his muzzle in the process, but not really giving a fuck. It was hardly enough to satisfy a pup, but the warrior was grateful for it regardless. He had been too long without a contract, and thus too long without a meal much larger than a muskrat. His usually bold coat was growing dull, and he felt his skin like rags hanging from his thinning body. The old mercenary needed to serve again and soon before he wasted away to nothing more than a meaningless smear of flesh on a log by a lake.

The day began to peel back from the world to reveal the stars underneath. The lake was glowing with that special air that hung like a blanket on the world just before twilight, but eyes of flat steel saw none of its beauty. There was work to do, survival to be had, if he could only find it.

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