Ratsbane is a city god, embodiment of the scamper of tiny feet along the sand-worn ruins of our city. He is the Orphan, he is the Thief, and he is the Hero. One entity, many faces.
He is Rabanastre.
Vaan 'Ratsbane' and I first met when he was young and the plague was spreading and I was stronger and my smoke den was smaller.
In the days of the plague, I was respected, sought after for my knowledge of herbs as if I alone would push the plague from Rabanastre. They expected this of me, and they expected to then push me back into my status of seedy foreign herbalist whom no one with pure intentions trusts when it was through. I, however, was unwilling to play their game.
Ratsbane was plague; his dark eyes were the toxic waters of our wells and his parents were some of the firsts to succumb to the disease and, once they were gone, he embraced the rest of the city. I often spotted him playing at the gates with his plague carrying kin, caressing their illness-ridden flanks and cooing childish things to them while Penelo watched in fascinated silence.
For a few quiet years, the city bred her champion, her Ratsbane, with his smile like the sun, drying up our wells. He worked for me in his youth. He spent his days learning the stories I told all the children and picking up even more from watching me work; trading in stolen antiques and dangerous drugs.
As I taught, I watched his brother disapprove—and begin to make friends with the hunter—and I also watched Ratsbane's desperate orphaned expression, hungry for his brother's father-like approval.
I remember the day the Archadian army began to move on Rabanastre. The girl, Penelo's, father was killed in action and a new slew of Orphans appeared and Vaan was king of them all.
I remember the day because Ratsbane came to blows with his beloved brother. I remember seeing the confusion in their eyes, a warrior—a guardsman—trying to understand the motivations of a thief and Vaan trying fiercely to comprehend him in return.
I remember Reks's expression as he found he could not empathize, but still found he loved his brother with all his heart.
There was a warm spilling of seed upon the sands, a hurried and confused consummation of trust that would be broken again within weeks when Reks marched out with the army.
Then Ratsbane embodied a new aspect of the city, the quiet revolutions that began in the mind and moved to the sky and then grounded themselves in the waiting-city of Lowtown, where my shop had always been and now the populous also scurried.
For a time, Vaan ran messages for me, back and forth amongst the nervous merchants of the city, arranging for weapons and armor to be sent to the troops along with the potions and gaseous poisons I made for the use of our men.
This was only for a time, of course. Only until Reks was brought back half-mad, half-broken and then Vaan could no longer work. He would only come to me for drugs he would surreptitiously slip his brother to ease the pain, the slow madness brewing in dear brother's mind.
I truly wish more people in our city shared my—what they call—superstitions. For the most dangerous pain of all is that of a god. Ratsbane embodied new aspects, the festering wounds of Rabanastre's new grief showing in the grimy lines of his face.
Reks dies and Vaan will not work for me, but he will pay me for hours spent in my den and for poisons he slips to Archadian guards.
Vengeance is in the waters of Rabanastre and Ratsbane finds succor from its call by sharpening his blades on the sewer creatures and by practicing his disguise as an innocent.
He and his horde of ratlings become one with the shadows, they learn the rooftops of the upper city and the tunnels of the lower. Their revolution growing as they do…
And then my prophetic little God does not disappoint me. I am less than thrilled with the way Migelo takes from my pool of customers, but I am eager to see the optimism he inspires in Ratsbane and the others.
Excited by how Vaan's hatred smolders, growing brighter with every passing day. He is sent on errands into the palace—Migelo is a far more respectable employer than I, you see—and Ratsbane begins learning its halls as he has learned the sewers and the rooftops.
Soon after, my dear little Vaan—having rested in Penelo's family and my smoke den until the time was right—takes wing. Leaving behind phoenix eggs of discontent everywhere he passes.
He becomes the pirate, the outlaw, the inspiration, the hero no one expects. He is the return of Rabanastre and her glory. And all the signs she left while sleeping pointed to this day. There are just so few, other I, who are willing to read them…
Vaan is gone now, fully-grown, too old to play the game of little god and I watch sharply for whom Rabanastre will choose next at the birth of her new era.
Standard Disclaimers.