divine comedy - joiner

[body]

Not food. Someone gets it! Ksitigarbha lowers his sword, though still keeps it drawn in case the other cat proves to be meaner than this one. This could still all be a trick. He must not let his guard down. What if he gets too comfortable and they strike? Then it would be game over for him - with one well-placed blow, he would be dead in a second, and he would become a snack to pick out of their teeth later. "I not food," he repeats, just to make sure Atbash hears it as well. "Am Ksitigarbha! Merchant of sewer." Though he's not a merchant anymore. The goods he would sell and trade are now long gone, probably being digested by that stray cat as he speaks, but Ksitigarbha has nothing else to call himself. Without his job, without a way to make a living, he's nothing but a grimy little rat. He may as well become food.

With a moan, Ksitigarbha flops onto the ground. "Wares gone!" he cries. "No more thing to sell!" He squeaks and sniffles. "Am lost! Do not know where am." He doesn't think that he could go home, even if he were to figure out the way back. He would be broke and have no spot in the sewer. Pipes these days are far too expensive. The marketplace had been the only way to make a living. He had thought his situation before was bad, but looking at it now, living in a pile of waste was heaven compared to where he currently is. Now he's laying in snow with his belly exposed to a bunch of cats, who most likely want nothing more than to chew him up. He's doomed.