Skial & Kater

During an average afternoon, after some nerve wrecking lessons within the university building of a highly respected law school, a young student named Maximilian Kater came back to his room, and fell backwards onto his bed, exhausted. Two other students of his class are downstairs, loudly discussing some terms they picked up in the lessons of today.

Maximilian Kater, or ‘Max Cat’ as some friends call him, is one of many sons from a rich and noble family, with him following his father’s wishes to become a respectable and famous lawyer… …though with some reluctance in that regard. He and the two his two friends downstairs bought this small house together, it being one of the cheapest in the noble square of the city, but also one of the closest to the main street and the merchant district, those being frequented mainly by the commoners and poorer civilians. It's good for living and studying, but most of the richer students tend to look down upon them...  ...speaking of them as "fortunate non-nobles".

Max' Room was on the second floor, filled with expensive furniture, a comfortable bed, and a big wardrobe full of fancy clothes. It has a small window, facing a back alley strewn with boxes and trash. He also has a little cage with a brown furred rat, this being the little pet he takes care of and plays with after his school days, releasing some of his stress. He adores his tiny furry friend and its carefree life, his room smelling a bit of rodent, but he’s not bothered by the odour.

But today, something different than the usual happened during his afternoon, as he tried to relax by playing fetch with his pet rat. First there were loud noises in the distance, coming from the streets of the merchant district, followed by the explosive bang of a gunshot, then screams of anger and fear. Max didn't pay much attention to it, since criminality was common around here. But some noises caught his attention, coming from the back alley below his little window.
He put his pet aside and went to look for who caused the disturbance, but as soon as he came close to the window, a cloaked figure suddenly jumped though the wooden frame. Startled, Max stumbled backwards and fell on the ground. Bright red eyes leered at him, a twitching nose attached to a muzzle, just like a rat’s, poked out from under the cloak’s hood, the sound of heavy breathing emanated from the creature as it stood in front of him. "W-who ar-" Max stuttered in surprise, but paused as he saw that the cloaked creature began to stumble backwards and dropping to the floor, nearly falling out of the window it just entered  through.
A dark, inhuman blood dripped onto the floor from the rat-like creature as it tried to get back up. Max spotted a blood drenched dagger in its hand, and scuttled backwards in fear. Suddenly, shouts were heard from outside the window: "It must be this way! Search the area and check the houses!" Max got up on his feet and reached for the window to look outside, standing next to the wounded and bleeding ‘person’, to see some heavily armed Watchmen looking around for someone, or something.
With a quick peek down to the cloaked person, he saw a furless tail peeking out from under the torn cloth, confirming what he saw of the creature’s face a moment earlier.
He heard fists hammering against the door downstairs, and a masculine voice yelling to open the door. "Q-quick! In here!" the young student lifts the rat person by its arm and drags it with him, towards the big wardrobe, then pushes the wounded creature inside. He took some of his good cloth out before he closes the doors and locks the wardrobe. In the meantime, heavy steps of several men are heard throughout the house from downstairs, searching every room for trails and signs of the cloaked individual.

He didn’t have much time, but Max managed it to toss the clothes onto the spilled blood next to the window, a few seconds before his door almost flew out of its hinges as a man with sword drawn and armed with a flintlock pistol storms into his room, catching the upset student near the window.
"You there! Boy! Have you seen a suspicious person in a black cloak?! Answer me at once!" the guardsman demands aggressively.
Max nods, "Y-yes, good Sir..!" he said, intimidated by the armed man, and motions to the window. "I caught him climbing over the wall." He pointed at the high wooden wall, leading to the other side of the back alley.
"Yer sure, boy? Don’t you lie to me." the guard says, leaning his head out of the window to look at the alley from above, and tries to see how the escapee might have managed to overcome the wooden wall. Max used the distraction to take a quick glance at the locked wardrobe, and then looked back at the guardsman. "What happened?" asked the nervous student to the guard. "This guy murdered a rich merchant, right in front of everyone’s eyes!" the guard replied quickly. "Keep an eye out and tell the guard if you see anyone suspicious, boy!" the guardsman adds and hastily pulls out of the room, only having taken a quick look through the room and the at the 'mess' Max created to hide the blood stains. "Sigmar bless you, sir. F-find that scum." Max said before the guard left the room. A bit later, the guardsman and his men left the house entirely.

His friends came up to him a moment later and asked him about what just happened, looking out of the window as he told them the same lie he gave the guard, keeping the mysterious rat creature in his wardrobe secret.
Finally, after several minutes of stress, he was back 'alone' in his room, nervous and tired. He locked the door to his room to prevent any further surprises before he went anywhere near the wardrobe with his ‘guest’. He carefully knocks on the wooden frame before he slowly unlocked the wardrobe again, just to be pounced by the rat, taking him by surprise again, pinning the poor human to the ground. He shrieks out in surprise and pain as his head hits the floor, but a furry hand seals his mouth shut, followed by a sharp blade at his throat and furious, glowing red eyes glaring into his own as his heart fills with fear and regret.
Now the poor boy could take a closer look at the rat creature, which is sitting on top of him. First of all: The rat was female, by the looks of her slim and feminine frame, and the clear presence of breasts as seen from the corner of his eyes. "Hush, Man-thing!" the rat chitters in a high pitched feminine voice "One sound, you gone-dead!" she threatens the boy and the blade at his throat cuts slightly into his skin, not deep enough to draw blood but to feel the bite of cold steel. Fearful, he nods and the rat girl takes her hand from his mouth. She still breathed heavy and was in obvious pain, using her free hand to hold her still bleeding wound. "Why you help?" she speaks in a broken human-language, with hissing and squeaking, allowing him to speak now. "I... i-i don't know...!" he stutters "I-i like rats... maybe?" answered Max, not even knowing why he just helped this rat creature to hide, and not telling anyone about her existence. "Tell-Speak to anyone, you die. We know.” With a gulp, Max nods as his mind processes there being more of these rat-people.

His gaze wandered over her bizarre, humanoid body. It was covered in short dark grey fur, only wearing some leather straps, little cloth and a poorly stitched skimpy thong behind a big leather belt around her hips to cover her almost completely nude body. He can feel the smooth pink tail of hers swishing around nervously near his legs. He obviously notices the bleeding wound on her side. "You're hurt...! I-I could help you." he offers, saying he got some fresh bandages somewhere in the house. "Foolish man-thing..." the rat girl mutters and climbs off of him and pulls the blade from his neck, him noticing that some of her blood has ended up on his shirt and pants, leaving stains on his now ruined clothes.

"Just wait here" Max says as he hurries to the door, the rat girl not hindering his leaving of the room. Being careful of course, he locks the door and looks for bandages, as well as something to eat for his 'guest', but once he came back to his room, the visitor was gone.
He only found his blue shirt, an expensive tailored piece of cloth from Tilea, torn to pieces...
Feeling relieved, but also a bit disappointed, he began to clean his room and get rid of the blood stains on the ground. After that was done, he held out a piece of cheese just above the floor, and his little pet rat came back to him from its hiding place, nibbling on the treat. "Hey my little friend. Guess what I just found out today." he softly talks to his little rat while he carefully picks her up. "Seems like you’ve got a big sister somewhere out there."