The Bitterness of Memory
a NIMH-fic by Mana Angel
The rats which lived in the sewer under the marketplace agreed, in a
general sort of way, that the rats of NIMH were too sharp; entirely too
sharp for their own good.
Nicodemus' generation of quarrelsome market rats had come and gone by the time they returned to their old haunts. There wasn't a rat there now who could remember the day when twenty-odd of their number had been scooped up into bins by white-clad men and taken away. Not so much as a story of their disappearance had passed on, recorded in fearsome, exaggerated tales of what would befall unwary ratlings who chose to venture into the night alone. It puzzled them, for a while, and then Nicodemus realized that he had quite completely forgotten that ordinary rats had almost nothing in the way of long-term memory if it wasn't related to food or the elaborately sprawling hierarchy that passed for social ranking about them. The others would have registered their disappearance as nothing more than the removal of competition, if they even remembered it a week later.
Jenner laughed when Nicodemus voiced this observation aloud, the mocking edge to his chuckles drawing alarmed stares and twitching whiskers from the 'dumb' rats brave (or foolish) enough to stay at the edges of the NIMH rats's huddled group.
They were curious and good-natured, those rats, and couldn't help being what they were -- no more than Nicodemus and his fellows could help being NIMH rats, now. Still, it hadn't occurred to Nicodemus that there could be any common ground between them, beyond that of species, until he finally called for their departure from the marketplace.
He'd blinked, then, and blinked again, trying to ascertain what he was seeing. No matter how much he blinked, however, the vision didn't fade. The bucks -- four of them, he ascertained, and if memory served, the youngest of their lot -- were still half-crouched in front of him, somewhat defiantly clutching onto the paws of uneasy-looking does. It took Nicodemus a moment to realize Jenner was with them; off to the side, yes, and slightly behind, but he too had a far smaller female rat tucked up against his side, though he handled his companion with somewhat more grace than the younger ones did theirs.
Nicodemus didn't bother with asking the huddled rats questions. His gaze turned directly to Jenner, and in response, the rat's muzzle twisted in a grin. An unusual habit in rats, Nicodemus thought, and one they'd picked up from humans; if they'd been anywhere else, been anyone else, he might have interpreted it as a challenge.
"They aren't such a bad sort, this lot," Jenner said then, letting his shrug speak volumes. His fangs flashed in the dim light, and this time Nicodemus couldn't tell if it was a grin or a snarl. "Besides, they seem to want to come with us." He clutched the doe by his side a little tighter, and she squeaked in response; whatever it was she wanted, clearly, she was having second thoughts now.
In the end, the younger rats got their way and they kept all the does with them save for one: Jenner's. When Nicodemus asked him about it later, the other rat shrugged. "What's the use," he said, "Of having something pretty around that can't take care of itself?"
That first set of wives died with the first frost to touch the country's pastures.
They weren't the last.
---
Naturally, I apologize for this fic's general incongruity with canon. I just couldn't shake the idea of it; Jenner strikes me as the sort of character who'd scorn those even fractionally less intelligent (in his perception) than him, and since to the best of my knowledge they never escaped with female rats, I presume in order to get the colony at the size they have it by book/movie timeline they've had to take mates from local rats. Just a theory, of course.