The Mouse Village rested by a stream the villagers called Saloon. The village was tiny, like most mice villages, but had a long history. Sure they weren’t a popular tourist spot like the Mouse Village next to the sunflower named Dandy, but the humble farmers and marketers of the village near the stream named Saloon were content with their little lives in their tiny village and had no problems with that, until No Tail came.

It was the cheese farmer Josef that saw the black mouse first, he took him for a guest from the village near the ant hill called Groin, but then he saw his disfigurement. Not the scars that marked him a fighter or the one white eye that said he was half blind, but the obvious lack of the appendage to his hindquarters, a tail. Sadly, like most cheese farmers, Josef had a penchant for mercy, so he allowed the No Tail to stay on his land as long as he worked the goats and diced the cheddar. Sure, Josef worked the half blind No Tail twice as hard as his other workers, but the No Tail was thrice as hard working so Josef figured he didn’t even notice.

“The neighbors will be upset,” Josef’s wife, Isabel, said. “They’ll think we come from a village near an old boot called Ugly.”

“I have a cousin near Ugly,” Josef said, sipping his tea.

Isabel frowned. “Be serious, Josef. Do we even know the boy’s name.”

“Won’t give no tame other than his station, seems he thinks lower of himself than we do.”

“Well, he’s a smart No Tail,” Isabel said. “Knowing his place and all.”

Josef nodded and they didn’t discuss it anymore that day.

The whole town discussed the No Tail living on Josef Munster’s cheese farm at length, it was the juiciest gossip since Old Lady Brenda saw a cat in the woods some months ago.

“They say he’s only got one good eye,” Tim, a small boy, said.

His sister, Angie, frowned. “Why’s that.”

“To show that he’s lost his soul along with his tail,” Howard, Tim’s friend explained.

“Really?” Angie squeaked.

“That’s not true,” Tim said.

Howard shoved him. “Is to!”

The boys began to fight and Angie went to grab her father.

“What’s this then,” Angie and Tim’s father, the obtuse mayor Ringly, came around the corner. Angie right beside.

The mice boys ceased fighting immediately.

“Nothing,” They said in unison.

“They were talking of a No Tail,” Angie said. “How not having an eye means he doesn’t have a soul.”

“Were not!”

“Quiet,” Ringly grabbed both boys by their pink ears. “Why would you speak of such vulgar creatures?”

“Josef Munster has one working for him?”

Ringly stepped back. “Josef Munster that had that terrible article about how unfit for leadership I was?”

“The very same,” Tim nodded.

Ringly smiled. “And he has a No Tail, a denizen of the undesirable in his employ?”

“My Dad works with him on the Cheese Farm,” Howard explained. “Says he works like he had three tails.”

“Yes, yes, run along children,” Ringly waved them off, he was already scheming of how to tell the newspaper about this, well how else to put it than interloper, brought out by the seemingly sweet, but conniving Josef Munster. Yes, He thought. Interloper is the perfect word.

Josef noticed the mob of angry mice approaching his house while Isabel was putting the tea on.

“Isabel?” Josef asked.

“Yes, dear?” She said, oblivious to the mob carrying torches and pitchforks that headed toward her home.

“Are we expecting guests?”

“Not today, but I think Miss Kyra and her husband are going to come by tomorrow for bridge.”

“I think I see them now.”

“Oh,” She turned in the direction Josef was looking. She screamed.

“I told you this would happen!”

“You told me that fat oaf Ringly would lead an angry mob to our door?”

“This is because of the No Tail.”

“Why,” Josef said. “All he’s done is work.”

“His kind our trouble.”

“I’m afraid she’s right,” A third voice said.

They turned to see No Tail covered in dirt and cheese bits, in his work clothes. They hadn’t heard him enter, in fact Josef couldn’t recall hearing No Tail ever make a sound when he didn’t talk.

“You’ve finished already?” Josef asked.

“Yes sir,” No Tail said. “I would ask if I could get a jump start on tomorrows work, but it looks like I’ll need to be taking my leave soon.”

Isabel nodded. “Yes you—

“Nonsense,” Josef said. “We’ll figure this out.”

A banging came on the door. “Open up Josef, bring out the No Tail!”

Josef opened the door to see Ringly and the majority of mice from the village that lived near the stream called Saloon.

“What’s this all about?”

“You know squeaking well, why we’re here.”

“No need for language,” Josef said. “You’re telling me you brought over half the town to complain about my new farm hand.”

“Is it not true that your new farmhand is a No Tail?” Ringly asked, more to the mob than Josef.

“Well, we can’t all have as plump a tail as yours, Ringly,” Josef said and some of the crowd snickered.

“Joke what you will, but we don’t need his kind around here,” Ringly said to a chorus of cheers from the mob.

“I’m not going to kick out my best worker for some superstitious hogwash—

“That’s enough,” Another voice yelled behind the mob.

They turned to see the No Tail standing behind them. “I’ll give you no more trouble.”

Then he walked away. Some members of the mob, Ringly especially, thought to run up and make an example out of the No Tail, but seeing the face of their fears showed them a broken mouse with many scars and none could bring themselves to add another.

The No Tail found a home in the alley behind the baker’s shop and would forage for food in the trash each night and no one bothered him really, except a few mean jabs from small children that were never hushed or corrected by their elders. The mice in the village near the stream called Saloon let the No Tail be.

Then the cat came.

THIS ONE'S A TWO-PARTER, LIKE IT SO FAR? LET ME KNOW HOW YOU THINK THE STORY ENDS IN THE COMMENTS. WHAT STORIES DO YOU LIKE WITH TALKING ANIMALS IN FANTASY SETTINGS?

I'M TRYING TO PLAN A BUNCH OF STORIES IN ADVANCE, BUT LET ME KNOW IF THERE ARE ANY KIND OF TALES OF ADVENTURE AND FANTAST THAT YOU LIKE TO READ? GIVE ME A PROMPT AND I'LL WRITE IT, JUST COMMENT BELOW.