Wishing Well of Wenatchee Part 2

Elsewhere around the faire, Princess Lolly was having a wonderful time blowing bubbles with all the colorful little spritelings who had come out to play.


All the while, swarms of rats were making their way through the hamlet of Wenatchee.  They had come in on that rapscallion Sparrow's ship and were now running amok around town.


These particular rats weren't hard to spot since they had grown quite large.  Sailing around on a pirate ship, food was easy to scavenge around the bulkhead when humans were sleeping.  Consequently, these fat rats were dawdling around town, swishing their tails and frisking whiskers on their search for scraps.

Giant Rascally Rats

Lured by the wonderful sting music around the faire, three sleek rats followed their ears: one brown, one black, and one white.  A colorful maypole rose up on the green, leading the way to rows of merchants and the rats snuck in the gate by trailing the hems of skirts on the young ladies.


One of those maidens just so happened to be Lavender, a purple-gowned faerie in the Princess' court.  Lady Lavender squealed at the sight of the vermin.  They could sense her fear and so decided to have some fun, nipping at her toes and chasing her (and anyone else who would run) around the faire.

Artea the Dragon

Well, those rats were so rascally and fast, the Princess had to hire as many Royal Rat Catchers as she could.  Fortunately for everyone, Lolly had a pet dragon named Artea who loved to make snacks out of rat tails.


The Princess struck a deal with the young ones around the faire: for every rat tail that you bring Artea to snack on (dragons can have quite an insatiable appetite), I'll trade you prizes from my Magic Apple.


A sweet deal, to be sure!  Royal Rat Catchers were in action everywhere, catching small rats and medium ones, spotted rats and lop-eared rats.


As one might suspect, pandemonium ensued as the children gave chase to those rats.  In the bright sunlight, there weren't very many dark corners for the rats to skulk off to and hide.

.To and fro they chased those rats but there were just too many of them, and the big ones were especially clever, eventually a different solution had to be found to resolve the rat infestation...

...to be continued...