“These are the people! Arrest them!”

“Can I know why you are shouting at us with guards and even disturbing our meal?”

In front of us is one of the Sisters. She looks angry and waves her finger in our direction.

“You broke into the Orphanage! The children were all so scared! Do you think just because you gave us some money you can do anything to them? I wish for them to be arrested!”

“When did we broke in?”

“The day before yesterday! Your Rat girlfriend was seen by many children and while not directly seen by the caretakers, they saw her silhouette while thinking it was the trick of the light. Later came the truth of you burgling into our poor Orphanage! You will have to pay a rather hefty reimbursement for not to be held responsible.”

There it is. Money, as if they would care if someone ate one of their children in front of them, as long as the money is in their pocket.

“For such a blatant lie, you will be held responsible. You know that, right?”

“Hah! As if that is a lie. We have eyewitnesses, you can not wiggle your way out of this.”

All around us look at the scenery, but I do not care. All is according to plan.

“Fine. I will ask our eyewitnesses also to be at the courthouse. Shall we go?”

She seems smug, but thinks something is off. Well because it is. The trap is already sprung.

…

While under rather comfy house arrest for the night, Snow was seen again and albeit most children were happy, a few were really confused. No wonder you little spies. Maybe you got for the telling a bit more food and preferential treatment, but that does not hold on for long. You will be sorry and I do not have to even lift a finger.

Seeing all of it while inside a Mouse, Snow had graciously taken with her shadow we both lie on our beds in physical form. Snow really has some neat tricks, if you do not look too deep into it.

The reason to not look to deep into it is her copy is made out of melded together shadow Rats. She is a mountain of rats in human Form. If a child might see this, there will be panic for sure.

Now we are even under arrest and the children might blabber about her being with them while we are literally on watch. Have fun with that!

…

A slightly bored looking apprentice sits on the Podium. Our trial is next and might look at first sight easy to handle, but somewhat irks him, when he saw the record. Must be the long list of witnesses. Ah well, not my problem.

“The next trial is the Orphanage asking for repercussion from a break in. Snow is the culprit and Ava is here to defend her… right?”

Such a sloppy telling. He just does not care about it at all. Now lets rattle some bones.

“Yes, your honor. We were accused of a break in, but it is impossible for us to have done that, as we were at a totally different place at that time.”

“Lies! She was seen by more than one person. She even told everyone her Name!”

“Can not be possible, as we were at the slum district distributing food to the poor. We have Four Guards as witnesses and as the list shows six workers and about a hundred poor fellows who even thanked her personally for giving it.”

“Those poor were obviously bought.”

Not so sure anymore, eh? You just jumped over the other witnesses.

“And we also bought the Guards we had with us for a calm distribution? Maybe the Workers we had with us were bought, too?”

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“That… These children here have seen her!”

At first the apprentice was just giving in and judging for the Orphanage by the look, but now he has a problem. Those Guards are of his own Caste. There might be a really bad problem, if he just disregards their account.

Yup, we bribed some of the Guards to be our watchdogs for the night, where Snow was inside the Orphanage. They saw us and even had as thanks from us something to eat later too. And some booze, do not forget the booze they greedily took from us.

“So, let us hear the children first. I want to know what they saw.”

And there came their telling. How Snow was with them three days ago and yesterday. Did I mention we were under arrest that time? Yeah, that can not be good looking, if even the Guards stationed at the arrest hall are questioned if they might just let us out.

After the first said it, the others were already rather scared to even talk by the looks of the Sister.

“Your honor, may I talk?”

“What is it?”

Already having a headache, eh? Let me make a rather sharp observation.

“Those children look extremely intimidated. And how the Sister looks they might be forced to tell such stories.”

“Nonsense! What do we get from this?!”

Did you really just say that? Oh, you really are dumb…

“Of course, Money! We gave the Orphanage last time three large Gold. They even saw how heavy our pouch was. It is obviously greed, which they made them think of such a ridiculous attempt in framing us!”

No response? A white face and shivering like a newborn calf is also a response dear Sister of the Orphanage.

“This are rather strong accusations. Are you sure you will want to keep them in front of this court?”

Trying to intimidate me now, dear judge? I knew you were bought from the first time I saw you. Have fun explaining a false ruling, with so much proof.

“Of course. We have heard the Children telling when we were apparently burgling their Orphanage, and in both cases we cannot even be close to doing that. The Money was paid one and a half week ago, there must be documentation of it in the Orphanage and the children there also thanked us for it. Maybe those intimidated children will not say it, but the others will definitely tell the truth of our donation. Shall we go and ask them?”

Nothing to do. What will it be? I bet the donation was not logged and ‘vanished’ into thin air, but if the children were asked, there will be a discrepancy about us being there being thanked and not even having given anything. What now?

…

The final verdict: Innocent. Not only that, the Orphanage has to pay a horrendously large fine. Five large Gold, and that was only the monetary damage, as they also need to apologize inside the Food shack where we were last time in front of all the guests AND give back our donation, as they have been shown unworthy of our help. Pleading for leniency as the children would hunger and suffer from it did nothing, the Money was already reduced by their bought Judge as the Orphanage might suffer, so no dice.

Well… maybe he wasn’t bought, but who knows really? Better seeing him as an accomplice than thinking an honorable person sits where a snake is hiding.

The reason for the Verdict are manyfold. First they lied, even if not. Second we were put under house arrest for a day, would the Caste pay our wrong incarceration? Void no! Third is the Sister making a scene, we were in the public and she said Snow had been breaking into the little children bedchambers. The question of how the apprentice would feel if someone would throw a rumor around him doing that made him coming close to sanctioning me.

We are close to the final act. Right now we are barred from ever going back to that Orphanage again, but that is not our goal anyways. Right now we plan something different. An escape plan.

…

Leaving Malek, we travel into the Forest. Everyone saw us go, as we were the talk of the City for bleeding out the Orphanage right after giving the poor workers food.

“Have you found a way?”

“There were some, but all are guarded Null. We need to remove the obstacles. Are you fine with that?”

“Why not? I do not care about humans, other than who are cared for from myself or my family. You want to help them, so we help them. All the others can just die.”

“...Sometimes I think you see the World strange Null.”

“Yes, I see everything rather strange. You are growing up it seems.”

“A bit. The whole thing we are doing right now is showing me how sad this World can be.”

“...I am sorry.”

“Null?”

“Yes?”

“Do I need to grow up?”

What should I answer about that? I really like her happy go lucky demeanor, but…

“A little bit. It does not mean you do need to change completely, but there are dark undercurrents in the world. Like a Snake hiding to catch the rat searching for food.”

“I remember sometimes my old life… While I got stronger, the World also got more complicated. Why do we not just take them by breaking the walls?”

“We would be seen as the bad guys, destroying and kidnapping the children.”

“But we are somehow kidnapping them, right?”

“We ask them if they want to come with us. If not, then they can stay.”

With a nod we travel the Forest. There are some plants we need. Extracting the poison from them is harder when you can not just disassemble the plants, but it is still possible. We have until the evening for the work, and then we need to be ready for the final play. This will be ugly…