"I am not jealous," Rolf glared at his reflection with as much conviction as he could muster, daring himself to say otherwise. His eyes trailed off to the massive trophy sitting next to the dismal little room's sole mirror. It was almost as large as Rolf himself and was adorned with glittering letters that spelled 'Kew-Kew'. The mouse deflated. "Okay fine, maybe a little."

The wearet, curled in a tight ball and yet still taking up most of the room's floor-space, snored and turned in his sleep.

"You would be too!" The grey mouse hissed, his voice a whisper as the green-eyed snake stirred within him. "All those years getting crushed by Ralph, trying to crawl out of being the losing stooge and then s-some misguided monster comes along an- and does everything you've ever dreamed of doing!" He could not shake away the look of awe and admiration that had glazed Ralph's face, nor could he easily forget how quickly Carrabas had forgotten his anger. The stoat had certainly not chewed Kew-Kew out over his destruction of The Barfing Bird, yet had been more than willing to fire Rolf for it.

"Rolfie is big champie..." muttered Kew-Kew.

Rolf almost leapt out of his skin. Whirling around, his fur standing on end, a hundred excuses rushed to his lips- he did not want to explain himself to anybeast, let alone Kew-Kew.

"Tasty mousie-thing..." the wearet continued to murmur. Rolf blinked in confusion, before sighing with relief. Kew-Kew was still fast asleep. "Good roommate... bestest roommate."

"You're pathetic," Rolf turned towards the mirror and hated what he saw. A sad, grey mouse with drooping ears, wearing far too many bandages. He flexed the arm that hurt him least, and hated the pitiful lump of muscle too. "Jealous of the beast who thinks he's a bird." Once more he glanced at the trophy that was not his. "Jealous of the beast... replacing you." He forced himself to turn away, and growled. "But that's not you, Rolf. You're not a champion." Carefully tip-toeing over and around the wearet's snoozing form, the mouse threw himself upon his bed. It squeaked loudly, but didn't break under his weight- for that Rolf was thankful, he'd had enough disasters for one day. "You're just the stupid mouse with stupid dreams, that lets Ralph pummel you into pulp." But Kew-Kew was replacing him there too.

"Tommorow is gonna be a new day..." Glowering up at the ceiling with decaying force, and feeling sorry for himself the mouse drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

Kew-Kew rose before the sun did, yawning wide and sighing happily. "Goooood dream," he cooed, stretching as best he could in the limited nest-space. He had been a wild eagle again, flying amidst the trees with his mother and hunting preythings the way he had always dreamed of doing. He had even caught one! A juicy, grey mouse with a most succulent flavour.

"Looked just like Rolf-mousie!" His smile vanished immediately and Kew-Kew lay blinking in horror. "Was Rolf-mousie." A quick look over his shoulder confirmed that Rolf had of course not been consumed (Kew-Kew breathed a sigh of relief) but the dream now left him with a strange feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with hunger. "I is not going to eat Rolfie! E-even if mousie is much tasty!" A guilty glance backwards confirmed that Rolf was too fast asleep to hear him. For this Kew-Kew was grateful. "Rolfie is good roommate!" He did not want to imagine the look on Margaret's face if she ever found out he'd dreamed of eating her brother. "Is good roommate even if Rolfie is big lying mousie. And today I is throwing Ralph-ratty for mousey."

He grinned again, and rubbed his paws together excitedly. "I is going to throw match at Ralphie like spear! And then I is going hunting with Rolfie to catch teeeen biiiiig eagles!" He gave a guilty start as the events of his dream once more gnawed at his mind. Then he remembered the way Barrumtum had thrown Rolf around without mercy, and the way Auslag and the rest of the crowd had trampled over the mouse as they made their exit and the guilt gnawed harder. "Fiiiiine- six eagles!" His stomach grumbled, and Kew-Kew scowled. "Five," he muttered crossly. "No less."

Then, for a short while he occupied himself by playing with his trinkets. He plucked the feathers from his hat and with great care folded them into his skirt. He filled his trophy with water from a jug, and lapped it up noisily. He stared, unblinking, at the strange creature in the mirror that copied all his movements. He practiced his match-throwing on the surprisingly-durable Ralph-plushie.

None of it could distract him from the growls of his stomach. He caught himself licking his lips as a gust of wind wafted Rolf's scent over, and forced himself to cut his eagle-hunting down to just four.

"Rolfie!" Kew-Kew cawed, attempting to gently shake the mouse awake. "I is hungryyyy." But the mouse could not be stirred.

Finally, the wearet could wait no longer and made his way upstairs in search of breakfast, promising to return with some for Rolf.

It was the same stupid dream again.

A muscular mouse was cheered from all sides by a massive audience. Countless opponents lay behind him in defeat. Within paw's reach stood a trophy with his name on it. His family were cheering from the stands.

"Rolfie! Rolfie! Rolfie!" They were all, of course, waving knitted flags his mother had made and decorated with a blue 'R'.

I'm going to need a more fancy symbol. Nevertheless, Rolf raised his paws high, and the crowd roared louder.

"Uncle Wolf!" His nieces and nephews waved around plushies made in his image.

Rolf reached for the trophy- and it vanished.

The cheering of the crowd turned into cruel laughter. The muscles vanished. The strength vanished. Rolf stood alone, as small and as pathetic as he had always been.

"Of course, it's not going to be that easy for our new challenger!" Carrabas' voice boomed over all the cheering. "Did he really think we were going to hand him over the title?"

The crowd laughed again. The trophy returned, but it was much bigger now and cast a dark shadow over the terrified mouse quivering in the sands of the arena. 'Kew-Kew' was written on it in big, bold and glittering letters.

"Of course not! He hasn't even faced our champion yet!"

The ground shook. Once, twice, thrice, and yet another shadow fell upon Rolf. Clad from head to toe in feathers and standing eight times larger than usual, Kew-Kew loomed over him like a vulture. Two gnarled claws effortlessly hooked onto the back of Rolf's neck, and lifted him into the air.

The crowd was cheering again. Ralph could be heard leading a chant. Carrabas was laughing. Not even his family were raising a finger to save him."You're just a fake Rolf." Margaret's voice was colder than ice.

"Sorry Rolfie," the wearet's voice alone was loud enough to split the mouse's skull in two. "But champie-thing needs to eat!"

Foul breath wafted over him as the wearet's mouth grew impossibly wide.

Screaming back into his senses, Rolf bolted upright.

SPLAT!

For some reason his face was met with a bowl of porridge.

"Even... fake champie-things," Kew-Kew finished lamely, distancing himself from the bowl he'd been holding over his roommate. "Sorry Rolfie."

"It's... fine," the mouse grumbled, as the thick broth of oats slid down his face.

Today is a new day...

Plomplemoof had little in the way of entertainment for beasts not partial to fighting- beasts only came for the combat after all- as such, cleaned up and armed with fresh bowls of porridge stolen from the Barfing Bird's kitchens (Rolf would have payed for them but he was penniless and Kew-Kew had no concept of coinage) the mouse and the wearet made their way through the town in search of a brawl.

"So..." Rolf let a spoonful of the silken porridge drop back into his bowl. He frowned dismissively at his breakfast, as besides him Kew-Kew wolfed his down. "Big day today. Me and Ralph's last match... well, yours and Ralph's now I suppose."

"Aha!" Kew-Kew trilled in the affirmative. Yellow teeth stretched into a wide grin. "Kew-Kew is going to throw Ralph-ratty just like Rolfie does!"

"I've never exactly thrown Ralph," the mouse grumbled, poking at his food in the hopes it would rekindle some kind of appetite. It did not. "And you're not supposed to either. You throw the match."

"Yes," said Kew-Kew, with a great roll of his eyes and a condescending shake of his head. "Ralphie is the match."

"No he's not." At last Rolf gave up on breakfast and handed his bowl over to a random passer-by. "He's your opponent."

"Oh," Kew-Kew frowned in disappointment as he too handed his (surprisingly clean) bowl to a nameless figure in the crowd. "So no throwing Ralph-ratty?"

Rolf nodded.

The wearet frowned in confusion. "So what is Kew-Kew throwing?" The erupting roars of a nearby arena gave him an idea. "Cheering-beast?"

"N-no. You never throw the audience- well, there was this one hare who wore a cape and juggled babies, but it was-"

"Kew-Kew throws babies?"

"No! D-don't throw anything!"

"But I is throwing match?"

"That's just an expression Kew-Kew, a-a figure of speech."

"So what does Kew-Kew throw?"

They were interrupted by a large rat that bumped into Rolf and sent the young mouse sprawling.

"Watchit pipsqueak!" snarled the vermin, their face twisted into that insufferable 'I dare you' grin that larger beasts always seemed to wear when throwing their weight around.

Kew-Kew stepped between them, towering protectively over the mouse and looming menacingly above the no-longer-grinning rat. The manners and good social ettiquette Margaret had been teaching him rushed to the front of his mind.

"And if you ever bump into somebeast just say sorry." Margaret explained patiently. "A small apology can go a long way."

"Apologize to Rolfie," the wearet demanded. "Or Kew-Kew will do something barbic!" He whirled his wings about in a crude motion that either meant he was going to tear the insolent rat apart or was going to blow him away with a mighty gust of wind.

"S-s-sorry!" With a large wet stain growing on his pants, the vermin scurried off.

"I think you meant 'barbaric'" Rolf climbed to his feetpaws, dusting himself.

Kew-Kew frowned. "Like... like.. uh... Eating with mouth open and slurping soup?"

The mouse blinked, and decided this had something to do with Margaret "...Yes."

"Keeraw!" the eagle clapped his paws together and made to restart their previous conversation. "So what does Kew-Kew throw?"

"OI! Kew-Kew! Eagle-fellar!" Auslag, oblivious to Rolf's very existence, crushed the mouse into the dirt beneath her footpaw in her hurry to greet the wearet. "Yew have got te consider goin' inter fightin'! D'yew have any idea how much I made yesterday? Well I'll tells ye, more than I do in an average month! An' all from one bar-brawl!"

"And suing my boss," Rolf added bitterly, squeezing out from between her toes. "You nearly got me fired."

Auslag kicked him free, and watched as Rolf rolled head-over-tail a short distance away. "Nothin' personal mouse, just business." She grinned her toothy grin. "An' what a business it is! I AM RICH!" Her claws slid out from her paws, each one bedecked with half-a-dozen jewels shining all the colours of the rainbow.

"Sorry Aus-lag," said Kew-Kew, lifting Rolf off the ground and dusting him off. "But I is not champie-thing." He set the mouse down with a gentle pat on the head.

"Suit yerself," the wolverine shrugged- a failed attempt to hide her obvious disappointment. "I just want te thank yew anyways. Maybe ye'd like te see a few more matches?"

"We have got better things to do," Rolf snapped irritably. "Come on Kew-"

"Just one match." Auslag insisted. "My treat."

"Just one," Kew-Kew begged, the eagle's eyes wide and pleading.

Rolf sighed, but knew this was a battle he could not win.

Barely a moment later, Auslag mowed through the crowd of beasts like a blade through grass. Kew-Kew, his excited tail repeatedly smacking Rolf across the face, dragged his roommate in her wake.

"NOOOOOOOOOO!" Auslag and Kew-Kew screamed in unison, as Rudolf the Red-nosed Rein-deer was sent hurtling into the dirt by a hulking monitor. The hare, his fake horns broken and his nose as purple as Rolf's, was promptly carried out of the arena on a stretcher.

"Gila! Gila! Gila!" those who had bet on the monitor roared in pleasure.

"Booooooooooo!" those who had bet on the hare hissed in defeat.

Rolf rolled his eyes as his companions began chattering about how unfair the match had been and how Rudolf would have won were it not for an injury he had sustained several matches ago. It was well-past noon now, and Rolf had long-since lost count of how many fights they had seen.

"He threw the match! I'm sure of it!" Auslag complained, as a dozen beasts she had gambled with watched her wearily- it was always hard taking betting money away from somebeast three times your weight.

"Kraw! Lizard-thing throw him much far," Kew-Kew agreed. He brightened up suddenly, remembering the occasion. "I is throwing match today!"

Auslag turned to him, her disappointment forgotten. "But I thought ye said-?"

"I is no champie-thing Aus-lag. Kew-Kew is just doing one match for Rolfie." He patted the mouse's head for emphasis. "Then I is going to hunt eagles!"

"A match for the mouse, eh? Who're ye fightin'?"

"Ralph-ratty," Kew-Kew grinned.

The wolverine snorted. "No way are yew gonna lose te that one!"

"Krackaw!" the eagle agreed. "Of course I is not losing!"

Rolf stiffened suddenly. "B-but you're supposed to, Kew-Kew."

Kew-Kew blinked, and turned towards the mouse, scratched the back of his head. "I... lose?"

"That's what throwing a match means," Rolf, an expert on losing, explained. "It means you lose. You take a fall, and you let the other beast win. You do exactly what I do."

The wearet frowned. "But Carcass said-"

"Rolf! Kew-Kew!" Ralph sauntered towards them, a visible spring in his step. His freshly-polished nosering swung from side to side, underlining the massive grin on his muzzle. Today was his big day after all. Kew-Kew's feather, his new lucky charm, was tucked behind one ear for all to see. "Glad I finally found yew! Asked at the Barfin' Bird but the toad only glared at me."

"Hello," Rolf grumbled, besides him Kew-Kew waved emphatically in greeting.

"So er- Carrabas wanted yew te meet him at his office Kew, says he's got some details te sort out with yew an' stuff. I think he's prepared an outfit for our little, heh-" the rat winked broadly. "Our little rumble."

"Outfit?" Kew-Kew sniffed at the word, as if he could derive further meaning from it.

"Clothes," Rolf translated grumpily. "You're probably going to get a pair of wings or something."

"Keeeraw!" the wearet whooped, hopping to his feetpaws. "Finally! Kew-Kew flap-fly!"

"Yer goin' inter business with Carrabas!?" Auslag exclaimed. "That sorry ole geezer who keeps goin'on about his glory days?"

Ralph, Rolf, and Kew-Kew, none of whom had never heard the stoat talk about his glory days, shared looks of confusion. The wolverine went on.

"The one so deep in debt the moles call him 'poi'?

The three shrugged in unison, Auslag sighed and shook her head. "Don't say I didn't warn ye, but Carrabas is bad luck."

On that note the unlikely trio made their way out of the arena, and in the general direction of the stoat's office. They waded through the throng of beasts, entered a small building and made their way through the long and winding streets below ground. Plomplemoof was just as crowded below as it was above, but crowds were easier to navigate in groups and before long they squeezed into Carrabas' office.

As was evident from the smile stretching across his muzzle, the stoat was in a very good mood. "There he is, the one, the only, the beast of the hour!"

"Shucks boss," Ralph straightened up bashfully, and puffed his chest out with pride.

Rolf had to suppress the rather mean urge to laugh as Carrabas swept past the stunned rat and launched himself at Kew-Kew. Ralph deflated, and turned his gaze towards the ground.

"So, ready for tonight? Had a good rest? Big breakfast? Well, you really shouldn't have a big breakfast before a fight, all that tumbling about and throwing around," Carrabas shook his head in disgust. "But that doesn't mean you shouldn't eat! Proper nutrition is the secret behind any good fight. And yours will be glorious! Most glorious! The pinnacle of my career!"

"Isn't it my fight?" Ralph butted in, his ears downcast and his whiskers drooping in misery.

The stoat's face briefly twisted into a scowl, but the smile was back in a moment. "Of course! Yes, Ralph you will be my champion going forwards, but tonight is Kew-Kew's time to shine."

"But Rolfie said I is losing?"

"Did he?" Carrabas shot the mouse an imperceptibe glare, before sighing heavily. "Unfortunately, he's right. Ralph will emerge the victor- but that doesn't mean you shouldn't throw in a swing or two beforepaw! You have to make it look real. Remember, we're not Brave Sir Robin, nobeast knows that our fights are -ah, as dramatic as they are." He shot them all a broad wink.

Kew-Kew blinked, Rolf muttered something about the punches still hurting, Ralph nodded glumly.

Carrabas went on. "Now, I see this as a Matthias and Cluny sort of deal. In one corner, the big, hulking monster!" He gestured towards Kew-Kew. "In the other our plucky hero, the one nobeast expects to win, the one that gets thrown around time, and time, and time again." He threw his arm around Ralph. "But no matter how many times he falls, he rises up again!"

The rat swallowed. "I-I-I'm the monster, right?"

The stoat frowned. "Unfortunately the monster always loses."

"Hihihihi! Rolfie must be biiiig monster." Kew-Kew sniggered, lightly punching the mouse. Rolf merely scowled and rubbed his smarting shoulder.

Carrabas went on. "Just when it looks like you've had enough, your arms are shaking, your face is probably a little bloody- don't worry, we can fake that easily- you get up, you give them a quick one, two, threefourfivesixseveneightnineten-" Rolf cowered behind Kew-Kew and away from his employer's flurry of fists. "And down goes the monster! The crowd. Goes. Wiiiiiiiiiild!" The stoat collapsed into his office chair, the smile on his face wider than ever. "Sounds good?"

"Keeraw! Yes, yes, much good!" Kew-Kew hopped from footpaw to footpaw.

Ralph, too, was unable to contain his excitement. "It's amazin' boss! Alla Plomplemoof'll be talkin' about it!"

"Most of Plomplemoof will be seeing it! I've booked us the biggest arena in town!"

"I thought we were performing in the usual place?" Rolf emerged from behind Kew-Kew's skirt, rubbing a tail that had been stepped on one too many times.

Carrabas snorted. "The usual place can barely fit a dozen customers. A friend of mine gave me an easy booking after I mentioned Kew-Kew. The one who beat Alphonso? Everybeast wants to see more of him!"

"You could have mentioned that before," Rolf scowled.

"I only just got permission- somebeast else cancelled last minute and I was the first to snag the spot." Carrabas shrugged. "In any case it's none of your concern. Ralph, the match is at sundown- report to me ten minutes before then so that I can introduce you to the Hut's judges. Kew-Kew, if you'll just come with me I have a surprise for you."

The wearet gave the rodents a quick goodbye nuzzle, before scampering off in Carrabas' wake.

"What about me?" Rolf grumbled, swinging half-heartedly at an ugly, half-finished portrait of Carrabas.

"Actually, if ye didn't have any other plans..." Ralph tweedled his thumbclaws and rocked backwards and forwards. He did this for an impossibly long time, until Rolf had long since lost his patience. "Weeeeell me grandad'd really like te meet yew."

"Your... grandfather wants to meet me?" Rolf repeated, flabbergasted.

The rat nodded, his nosering bobbing up and down. The tips of his ears were reddening slightly. "Weeeeell, I've told him quite a bit about yew, ye know."

The mouse raised an eyebrow. "Y-you told your grandfather about me?"

"Sure I did! Yer me best friend!" Ralph's grin faltered slightly at the look of surprise on Rolf's face. "I-I mean, yew told yer family about me, didn't yew?"

Rolf blinked.

"And there was this ugly, stinking rat with a nosering but I gave him a little bit of this!" Rolf raised his fist to the delight of his nephews and nieces. "And he didn't bother me again."

"Er- of course I have." Rolf put on a smile, but it was weak even for a fake one. "We're friends."