Tziggywinks, here. Enough with the frantic prenuptial, preliminary heartrendering manipulations of the nekkid humans. All that roiling around and their females bear only ONE per litter!!!!!!! Demmed inefficient (and they can't conserve their urine either.......). *clearing throat* And now, my audience, we come to the IMPORTANT part of my tale. This is what you need to know about My People and the Peril they faced from the Filthy Romans......*muttering* basting themselves in oil and scraping it off.....Hah! Hardly has any effect on the body lice....not like a good tongue licking..... At this time in Rome, there came a great Plague which affected the indigenous doormouse (Aka Glis glis) population. It swept in from the hills and decimated their foppish numbers..... The arboreal bounders dropped like flies from their perches and turned toes up. It was some sort of wasting disease. Now, those fluff-tailed wretches are not what I'd call ‘attractive' at the best of times ....personally,I like nice healthy cheek pouches on my females........but there's nothing that resembles a wasted doormouse (although, I have heard Tobius Tullius comes close after he's tippled heavily when sitting too close to his graphics program.....). The Roman humans were moaning and pissing about their lack of their preferred delicacy rolled in honey and dipped in sesame seeds......* a tremor enters his voice* ....and they began to look about them to my Brothers and Sisters. Yea!! I could see them gazing speculatively at My People. They attempted to lure us into wee domed pots and fatten us with acorns! *Tziggywinks pauses, covers his eyes with a shaking paw and continued* We lived in denial for awhile......none of us could believe that those with whom we lived in peaceful community would suddenly consider us ‘fodder'........but we were FOOLS! FOOLS, I tell you!!!!!!!! Yes, we lived with some indignity!!!!! We could surmount their foolish degrading actions of making the captive among us stand and dance to their loathsome tunes!!!!!! Some, I admit, traded a life in the wild for the comforts of a cozy home and regular nibbles and accepted the indignity of rolling around in a ball for miles or turning their twisted wheel structures to power their contraptions......some in any peoples are destined for a life of slavery in exchange for luxury. BUT THOSE BLOODY ROMANS WANTED US TO BECOME ENTREES!!!!!! One day, it began. In the place they called Subura........a new snack food made an appearance.............Hammy on a Spit, the Murders called it. Or city chicken.....but that's NOT what WE called it. WE called it..... The Slaughter of the Innocents!!!!!!!!! *here Tziggywinks pauses, a tear slips down his cheek, with a shuddering sigh, he goes on* I lost my Fair Mother that day........and six of my favorite wives....... It filled my heart with bitterness and pitched me into a slough of Dark Despair. I contemplated throwing myself into the Tiber or allowing myself to be taken by The Owls and ripped apart with my bowels scattered to the four winds....... Those of My People who remained entreated me. Their voices sang out in chirping agony begging the Great Hamster King to save them, their families and the pups... A Hardness entered My Heart and turned it into Black Obsidian....I resolved, as their King, to deliver those of My People who remained to a Place of Safety...... But I needed Muscle. In the meantime, we would seek a Place of Sanctuary. We would go to the Temple of Vesta.....