Disclaimer: I don't own teen titans, the tale of Despereaux, blah blah blah…

Chapter 3: Once upon a time…

Mento and Rita tried to educate teach their brother how to be a mouse. His brother took him on a tour of the castle to teach him the art of scurrying.

"You have to move from side to side," Mento instructed, scrabbling across the smooth stone floor. "Look over your shoulder all the time, right, left, right left. Don't stop for anything!"

Garverde tried to follow his brother's paranoid rants, but he tripped and fell over his feet. He stared at the light pouring into the stained-glass window that indented the wall. He stood up and looked up, up, up, into the glorious light.

"Dude!" He stated, just looking into the light. "What is that? What are all those colors, are we in heaven?

"What did mother tell you about saying 'Dude'?" Mento sighed. "Don't just stand there in the middle of the floor talking about heaven! Your not a man, you're a mouse, you've got to scurry!" He ran away like a good mouse into a hole in the molding.

Garverde looked around for him

"What dude?" he said, still transfixed by the mysterious light.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next day Garverde's sister Rita took him into the library, where light came streaming in through tall, high windows and landed on the floor in bright yellow patches.

"Follow me!" Rita called, "follow small brother and I will instruct you how to nibble paper.

Rita ran up a chair and from there hopped onto a large wooden table where there was a huge, open book.

"This way," she called as she crawled over the pages of the book.

And Garverde followed.

"Now then," she instructed. "This glue, here, is tasty, and the paper edges are crunchy and yummy, like so." She nibbled the edge of a page and then looked over at Garverde.

"Now you try," she ordered. "First bites of some glue, and then follow it with a crunch of the paper. Oh, and these. The squiggles. They are scrumptious."

Garverde looked down at the book and something amazing happened. The marks on the page, squiggles, made themselves into shapes, and then words and the words spelled out a wonderful phrase: 'Once upon a time.'

Garverde repeated the phrase. "Once upon a time."

"What?" questioned Rita.

"Oh nothing." Garverde said nervously.

Rita looked at him suspiciously. "You aren't going to play one of your stupid pranks on me again are you?"

Garverde shook his head, although that would be rather fun.

"Eat." She ordered.

Garverde looked at her in horror. "I can't!"

"Well why not?"

"Um…It would ruin the story."

"The story? What story? Is this a stupid joke?" The mostly level tempered Rita threw her hands up in exasperation. "Something's not right with you, just like father said when you were born, quit joking around and act like a mouse for once in your life!" She turned and scurried from the library to tell the family about this new disappointment that had arisen.

Garverde waited she was gone, and then reached out and touched the lovely curling words with one paw. Once upon a time.

"Once upon a time," he said aloud, and the words tasted good coming from his tiny green mouth, like the honey sound he had heard the other day. He read a story about a beautiful princess who was rescued by a brave knight who serves and honors her.

Garverde did not know it, but he would need, very soon, to be brave himself.

For below the castle there was a dungeon, and in that dungeon there were rats. Big rats. Bad rats.

Garverde was destined to meet those big bad rats, for there is an interesting fate that awaits almost everyone, man and yes, even mouse, that does not conform to the society they live in.

Hey dudes… hehehe. I tried to make Gar a little less OC in this chapter, but yes I know he still needs work. I'll make him more like himself next chapter, which will also introduce 2 of our titans, cough birds cough. Please review! It will only take you like 2 seconds and it will let me know if I'm doing a good job and if I should continue! Review! Review! Review! It would make one treehugga's day great!