Hestadil One-Shots

Anadil's Rats

Dot was an observant girl.

Those around her might not see it, but she does.

The truth was in the pudding... well, at least with the pudding-obsessed witch.

But then again the truth was in the rats...

Dot was getting distracted and she forced herself to focus.

The rats was where it had started and where it always circled back to, it seemed.

It all began in their first year, back when Dot thought she was being insane.

Back then, Dot has been worried about her place in the coven (and perhaps rightfully so since they kicked her out of the room for a time that year, but that wasn't the point) and she had been trying to get to know everything she could about her roommates.

Hester had been... well, asking Hester personal questions was like herding cats.

So she decided to use the thing that always led cats to where they were wanted.

Rats.

~

And that's how Dot found herself sitting in Malice room 66 alone with Anadil while Hester went off to write letters to her relatives for the cursed love spell.

"You and Hester seem close," Dot said carefully, licking a bit of fudge she had.

Anadil, who was sat on her bed doing homework, looked up.

She eyed Dot for a moment before shrugging.

"She's the least terrible person in a rotten school, I guess. She's cool."

Dot raised an eyebrow as she watched Anadil go back to her book.

She would have moved onto other, more personal, subjects if she hadn't caught sight of the strangest thing.

Was... was that the slightest bit of pink in Anadil's frightfully pale cheeks?

"I suppose so. With Sophie gone by the end of this year, that'll make Hester Captain, won't it? You think she'll choose you as her henchcaptain?"

That was all Dot had to say to get Anadil to look up again.

There was a long, tense moment of silence.

"Whatever," Anadil finally said, turning back to her books with an air of finality.

Dot raised an eyebrow.

She spoke so levelly, but then Dot caught sight of her rats on the bed beside the albino.

The rats were all scurrying around and playing, but they kept giving Dot anxious looks as if she were about to attack.

That was the first time she realized that Anadil's rats... showed more of Anadil's emotions than Anadil herself did.

But before she got the chance to really consider it, Hester stormed into the room and aggressively flopped onto her bed.

"I'm going to smother that Ever in her sleep," she growled lowly.

Anadil had looked up the moment Hester had walked into the room and hadn't taken her beady red eyes off of her.

"Wake me up when you do so I can watch," Anadil said, closing her Henchmen Training textbook for the first time since Hester had left.

The rats scurried around the bed until they all climbed onto Anadil, watching Hester.

Anadil packed up her supplies while Hester continued to rant about how she was going to dismember Sophie, not looking at the tattooed witch.

But her rats kept looking at her.