Work Text:
Their first meeting goes like this:
“So, we need to get out“, Dom says, nodding his head.
“Don't talk with your mouth full“, Eames chides and hisses and curls up farther away from Dom.
“Do you know how few nutrients are in this shit? I have to eat a few kilos of grass a day or I die.” Dom shoots back, munching on blithely. “Now, how do we do that?” He looks around at everybody with an expectant, waiting look. It might not be deliberate, sheep always look like that.
“I am not a public transport service, I really wish you'd start to honour that.” Yusuf grumbles and makes his way across the muddy ground towards the stables. On his back, Eames yawns and stretches lazily. “And have to lick an entire bog off my paws? I think I'd rather not.” He demonstratively starts cleaning his tail.
After a few more laborious metres in silence Yusuf gives a little shake and chirps, “Well, if you weren't so heavy, maybe I wouldn't have to bitch quite so much.”
“Hey!” Eames squeaks and almost falls into the pig trough in his scramble to get down.
“But you could potentially break the door.”, Ariadne repeats. She is peeking out of a milk can. “Yes”, Saito answers mildly, “but I would like to avoid it.” He keeps working on the lock of his stall. It is larger than most of the others, but then again Saito already broke three. Ariadne watches for a little while, then she weasels up onto the half-door and starts tinkering on the lock with her miniature claws. Saito watches in growing amusement, and when the lock clatters to the door, he silently bows his large head and waits for Ariadne to climb up onto the space between his horns. Then he nudges open the door and wanders out into the sun.
“You know they're just going to put a new, better one back, right?” Ariadne pipes up, curling up comfortably. Saito hums and flicks some fleas off with his short tail. “That's what I have you for, don't I?”
“You don't need to follow us around, Arthur, really. We like our privacy every now and then, you know.” Dom says between mouthfuls of grass and pecks at Mal’s tail.
“But I'm herding you”, Arthur says helplessly. “It's my job”, he adds apologetically.
“Yes, I am sure, and you've proven you can do it very well.” Mal nudges him in the flank. “Now go and pester Eames. Aren't you guys supposed to chase each other around the haystacks or something?”
“That is such a cliché.” Arthur mumbles and trots off in a huff.
Their second meeting goes like this:
“Mal, that will never work.” Arthur exclaims exasperatedly. “Humans cannot read, everybody knows that. Their sense of smell is too underdeveloped for that. If we leave them messages all over the place they will not know what to do with that. Besides,“ he adds after a moment’s hesitation, “To them, you mostly just stink.” Mal drives her small horns into his ass in retaliation.
“I think you smell wonderful, dear.” Dom croons while he rubs his face against her neck. “Spicy.”
“I think it's called cheese”, Eames contributes. Mal glares daggers up at him but cannot do anything about his smug grin. He is lounging high above them on a beam and waves his tail mockingly at her.
“They use their eyes more, I think. To compensate, I mean.” Ariadne pipes up and proves that she has the biggest brain-to-body ratio of all the attendees. “That's right.” Yusuf muses, gently lifting his head. Ariadne sits on top of it, after all. “They also use their mouths an awful lot. Seems very draining to me.” Then he slowly lies down next to where Arthur is still licking his butt. “That hurt, Mal.” She just flicks her miniscule tail at him.
“Maybe,” Ariadne directs at the room at large, “Asking them to just let you go is not going to work anyway. I mean, you were all brought here for a reason, right?” Under her, Yusuf shifts uncomfortably. The little markers above his stall are getting more numerous.
“That's what I am trying to say”, Arthur points out, still whining. “And it's not like we have a lot of time left.” He also eyes the symbols on Yusufs' stall, and the ones on Mal's and Dom's. “Really not a lot.”
“Yes, but which direction is best?” Eames says. His paw is very heavy, Robert notes. “Uhm, that depends on whether you want to go to the sea or the mountains or - “ Eames cuts him off with a hiss. “No. I want to know where the least humans are.” Robert tries to flutter and flails. “Well, well, there are lots by the sea and in between the mountains but not up, but up it's cold so that's why - “ Eames lifts his other paw and lets his claws show a bit. “Where. Are. The. Least. Humans?” It was a long shot anyway, but Robert proves to be especially tricky.
“Uh, well, I guess the bits of the mountain that are not quite so high up, or the valleys behind the big valleys – I could guide you there, uhm, if you didn't mind letting go of my wings, uh.” That is probably the best he is going to get, so Eames takes his paw off Robert and watches him sputter off immediately, very nearly falling off the roof in a false start. That wasn't very helpful, Eames decides and climbs down with a defeated slump in his shoulders. Bird-brains.
“But why not give it a try, at least?” Mal is hopping in circles around Arthur and Ariadne, who is sitting on his shoulders. “We have been through this, Mal. They are not going to release you and Dom. Or Yusuf and Saito.” Arthur tries to steer her into the direction of the goat paddock, but she keeps bouncing back. Dom is in the other enclosure across the meadow and sends them longing looks. Well, he sends them to Mal, mostly.
Ariadne scurries up to Arthur's ears and tries to look Mal in the eyes. It's not the easiest thing, because her own are as big as beads. She tends to be overlooked. “You know, you might as well. I am afraid Arthur's right, but if it doesn't work, at least we can say I told you so.” Mal looks confused for a moment, but then her ears perk up again. Arthur watches her finally spring off towards the paddock and then shakes off a yelping Ariadne so she is sitting in front of him. “Great. Now she'll leave her marks on every corner of the farm. Those humans have terrible noses, but mine is excellent, you know.”
Their third meeting goes like this:
“Of course I am aware of the problem”, Saito muses over a mouthful of hay. Eames covers his eyes because everybody here seems to take delight in showing off their chewing skills. “You are all so disgusting”, he complains. Dom gives him a sidelong glance in between two bites. “Sourpuss. You have no balls.” Eames pouts but can't refute that, because it is true.
Saito smirks because he is a Kobe breeding bull and nobody would ever dream of taking his balls. They are worth their weight in gold. “But I think this calls for a less...olfactory solution.” He sniffs subtly and takes a very small step away from Mal and Dom.
Yusuf does not say anything because for once nobody is complaining about his smell and he is enjoying the feeling. To celebrate, he took two mud-baths in the morning and did a little victory dance when not even Arthur lifted an eyebrow.
“Maybe we could sneak off in the night”, Eames supplies from behind his paw-covered eyes. Arthur slaps them away. “You are such a pussy cat.” Eames cannot object to this, because it is also true.
“I think you are all a little naive”, Ariadne confides in Dom after the meeting. She is clinging onto the curly wool on top of his head and constantly has to disentangle her tiny claws. “You seem to think all you have to do is leave the farm, but then you'll have to look for food and water and hide from humans all the time. Did you think about that? It's not gonna be easy, you know. Living here is a dream, actually.”
Dom purses his lips and attacks a patch of clover. “Yes, to you. You can snag corn and seeds for free and nobody is after your blood once you get fat. You do know that Eames is actually supposed to get rid of you and yours?” After a beat of silence, they both snort.
“I really wish you would stop doing that”, Dom complains while Arthur tries to steer him into the direction of the farmhouse. Mal saunters along because she never passes up the opportunity to see Dom get naked.
“Stop being so stubborn.” Arthur snaps at Dom’s flanks to get him going. Rams are the worst.
“You are conspiring with the enemy”, Dom mumbles.
“You're just bitchy because everybody will see your spindly legs once you're shorn”, Arthur calmly retorts. Dom tries to lunge at him with his curled horns but misses broadly because Arthur hides behind Mal and Dom's survival brakes kick in. She bleats cheerfully and clicks her tongue. “Aren't you a brave big scary doggie. Next thing we know, you'll be cuddling with the cat. Then you can be ball-less together.”
Arthur narrows his eyes at her. “At least I don't have a goatee.”
Mal also has a vicious kick.
“If the farm was gone, we'd be free to leave, yeah?” Eames succinctly sums up all ongoing discussions. Arthur, who has given up trying to reason with Yusuf over sleep-inducing herbs being added into the human’s meals, slumps onto the hay in the pigsty. “That's your contribution? Eames, I'm impressed.”
“No, think about it”, Eames says, ignoring Arthurs yelp when one of his claws accidentally finds itself buried in Arthurs behind. “Say they found a reason to leave very suddenly, very permanently? Nobody'd care much we'd be gone.” This is met with contemplative silence all around, except for the sounds drifting in from outside. Mal and Dom are frolicking in the meadow, and it's audible.
“Maybe we could trick them”, Ariadne says after a while as she scurries up the milk chug boards. Sometimes there are crumbs. “I mean, it would be even better if they actively wanted you to leave.” Saito stares after her with the faint impression that if they were of somewhat comparable size, he'd totally make love to her brain. “That is a very sound theory. And you propose...”Ariadne looks up at the wooden beams that support the one hundred and fifty year old roof. “Let's just say I know quite a bit about statics.”
Their fourth meeting goes like this:
“Yes, but can you get them all to do it?” Mal says through her lunch. Eames is whimpering from his hiding place behind Arthur, who is trying to stuff a small rag up his nose. They have found much consolation in silent synchronized suffering.
Ariadne scrunches up her nose and nods to the army of tiny, squeaking mice surrounding her. She seems to be floating in a sea of very large ears. “I only need to say the word.”
Yusuf lets one of the babies crawl across his snout. They are about as big as one of his nostrils and tickle terribly. “Best would be just before nightfall. When the doors aren’t locked yet, but darkness would cover us.”
Saito hums agreeably. “We just have to make sure the others won't follow. A large herd will be discovered in no time.”
“Says the cock in the hens' nest”, Eames purrs and starts listing off all the calves Saito fathered just this year.
“I think I just heard it creak. Did you just hear a creak?” Mal nervously flickers her ears back and forth. She is scuttling around Dom, who almost twists his neck trying to keep her in his eyesight, and Arthur, who is trying to fit three bones he stole from dinner into his mouth. “Ihm schust tryin tscho be pschepared.” he growls when Eames pokes them questioningly. Yusuf feels completely vindicated in his bid to carry a small bag of apples and grunts in comradeship.
Saito re-munches his dinner for the fourth time when suddenly, many tiny paws start pattering over the ground, and then almost explosively a stream of mice emerges from the house in wave after wave. The roof starts shaking faintly, a few tiles gliding off already, and faint yells start to rise from inside. Stables doors are hastily pushed open and padlocks are fiddled with, shouts fill the air and herds are shooed towards the doors.
Ariadne breaks out of the mice mass in their direction, races up Dom’s hind legs and squeaks, “Run!”
After a small chaotic incident involving five hooves, one tail and three paws, they take off in a coordinated panic, racing into the night. Behind them, the roof and then the entire farm building slowly collapses in on itself, but they are long gone by the time there is only a heap of bricks and beams left.