The tunnels.

The sound of soft paws hitting rough flooring echoed loudly through the tunnels. For this the fawn hooded rat was glad of his small ears. Many rats had been said to go deaf traveling the tunnels, but now was a quiet time where it was only himself and the ever so often drop of water finding its way through a crack in the walls. With dim light as a guide it was easy to hit walls as turns were sharp and unforgiving. The hooded rat wasn't new to the run of the tunnels so he was prepared for the turn. What he wasn't prepared for was meeting another rat.

They hit head on, both running full speed and the fawn rat's vision blurred as he recovered from the collision. "Sorry 'bout that..." A pink paw rubbed his head as he wished for a better way to get around.
"Honest mistake, Fawn-face." The voice was friendly, despite having just been run into, and his white fur practically shone in the darkness.
"My name's Dumbbell." The hooded rat said, questioning after the fact if he should have spoken his real name to this stranger.
"Urdnot Grunt, Pleasure to met you." The albino rat shook the dust from his pelt and his red eyes shimmered just like his pelt.
"Where were you headed anyway, Grunt?" Dumbbell asked, now that the two were stopped. "Mind if we travel together? I've been a bit lonely recently..." The fawn rat's voice trailed off a bit.
"Just finding my way around actually, Truth is I am a little lost so If you can get us somewhere I'll gladly follow your lead." Grunt smiled, and with that the two rats were off.

Their pace had slowed slightly, as the two decided it would be better to walk and talk then run without communication. While the two were in the middle of trading stories, they were abruptly interrupted by a white flash darting past them. The tunnels weren't exactly designed to be three rats wide so it was quite the train wreck actually. The three rats were tangled together in the tunnels for a good minute before Dumbbell could really figure out what had happened. The slightly smaller yet also albino rat had apologized profusely for the mix up and seemed a bit flustered. Dumbbell couldn't blame her, the first time he'd ever run into anyone in the tunnels was a complete disaster.
"Well, sense we're all going the same way it seems how about we go together?" Grunt had the idea and the three agreed. Along the way they learned that the new albino's name was Snowbelle, and though she seemed a bit nervous, was a sweet personality. Dumbbell realized that he wasn't normally around many rats with similar colors before, not on such a personal level. The longer the three walked the tunnels the more he noticed differences between them. In the way they walked, how their fur lay, even their faces were different. It was a bit remarkable from a rat that had come from such a rainbow of a home.

A bit of time passed like this and the trio surprisingly didn't meet any more rats on the way to their destination. Truth be told Dumbbell didn't really have one planned, he knew every tunnel led somewhere and it was much easier to figure out what route to take after you'd already ended up in a place you weren't aiming to be in. Somehow or another the rats ended up in what was known as the Market Place. It wasn't much of a market and surely wasn't always a great place to be in but it was busy and easy to find tunnels to different locations.
"Hey!" A rat called towards the three exiting the tunnels. Dumbbell, not having much forethought walked straight toward where the voice had called and the two albinos continued to follow him as if he would lead them well.
"Hello, Do you need anything?" The fawn rat asked. With the recent actions being made it seemed Dumbbell's intelligence seemed to disappear by the minute(Or his having credit of such).
"Do you?" The brown and white rat asked a bit bluntly, gesturing to the table like structure in front of him. On it lay an assortment of hand crafted goods and a few harder to come by foods all labeled with prices. "Elwynn here make them, all the highest quality." The shop keep turned and nodded to a frail looking rat. She was all white except for her face, which held a rich amber color.
"Oh we're uhh," Dumbbell glanced behind him and saw Snowbelle hiding behind Grunt. "not really here to buy anything."
"Well then what are you doing in the market of all places? What are your names?" The Berkshire rat asked.
"Well, I'm Dumbbell...That's Grunt," The fawn rat gestured to each of the group as he said their names. "and she's Snowbelle." The albino rat was still hiding behind the other.
"I'm Moose." The shop keep said, despite knowing the group weren't going to buy anything he didn't seem mad like most of the others normally do.
"Uhh, Do you know which way to the cage district? " Dumbbell asked, taking the role of the speaker in the group as Snowbell was busy hiding and Grunt was doing his best to get her out of hiding.
"Going up top eh?" Moose said with a bit of a chuckle and the fawn rat couldn't exactly figure out what was so funny. "I really don't know, you're on your own."
Dumbbell was just about to thank Moose and see if any other polite rat knew where they should go but then Elwynn piped up.
"Back the way you came, you just barely missed it, it's the second tunnel on the right." She spoke softly and was holding her tail in her paws but nevertheless she smiled.
"Thank you!" Dumbbell said, voice filled with gratitude. As fast as he could he turned, waved to the two shop keeps and got his albino companions back into the tunnels.

"There were so many rats! I don't think I've ever seen that many in my life!" Snowbelle said and it was hard to tell if she was excited about this or frightened, perhaps a bit of both.
"Did you see that gray-furred guy in the corner?" Grunt asked with eyes wide. "It looked like he'd eaten another rat, he was huge!"
Dumbbell agreed and chuckled, though he didn't know the tunnels inside and out he was more familiar with them then these two rats. It seemed as if they hadn't been far from home most of their lives. This wasn't a bad thing of course but incredibly different to the fawn hood.

Much time passed, conversations began and died out between them though it was never really silent. The sound of paws always danced at their ears until they'd made it to the end of the tunnels. Slowly but surely the surroundings got brighter and brighter, a great contrast to the normal light of the tunnels.
"I guess we're here." Dumbbell said, realizing it had been quite a while sense he'd been 'Up top'. There the three rats said their good-byes and wishes to meet again soon, then they went their separate ways. Grunt returning to his home and Snowbelle to hers, Dumbbell however turned back and slowly made his way into the tunnels once more feeling a little more lonely than he had only hours before.