(Scars do not appear to be cause of death –shock ... - Bad Request

choice ones he had learned on the streets as a boy, too. But he simply
winced and held it up sternly.
"Nasty little creatures, aren't you?" he muttered, and throttled the rat with
both hands. It gave a short squeal before bones crunched in his grip, and
blood spurted down along his fingers. Soego calmly dropped the mangled
mass of fur, flesh, blood, and bone and resumed his meditation.
The wormy pink tail twitched once, and was still.
~~~~~
A knock sounded at the door to Soego's chambers. "Soego? I know you're
here. You changed your assigned room."
The call went unanswered.
Another knock, "Soego? You'd better not have hung yourself from the
rafters. I'd be quite cross if you tossed aside your training like that."
The door opened, and Seladril glided in with a tray in both hands, "Tch. You
could've had the courtesy to tell me you couldn't come for tea last week.
You never missed a chance to talk, and I waited for over an hour. Do you
know how dull the other Dustmen are? Of course you do."
The blanket-covered lump lay still on the bed.
Setting the tray on his small desk, Seladril sighed. There were so few
Dustmen, and even fewer Initiates each year, it seemed. The recordbooks
had never told of a time when more than half the bedrooms were filled,
"Now I'm neither innkeeper nor cook, but I heard you haven't been eating.
Rumors of Red-Eye Fever."
Soego didn't move.
Seladril sat down on the bed and ran a hand along that lump, "Soego? I
haven't said this to anyone in a long time, but you're making me nervous."
His words came out in a gutteral snarl, "Get out..."
"Soego?" she whispered. For the first time in Soego's memory, Seladril's
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