Rook Lafetra
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rooklafetra.bsky.social
Rook Lafetra
@rooklafetra.bsky.social
4K followers 680 following 9.5K posts
Author of SFF and historical fiction. Rambler about paleontology and animal facts. Snuggler of cats, dogs, and deeply confused chickens.

Patreon: patreon.com/rooklafetra
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rooklafetra.bsky.social
But this is a story and Onri warned me many times that every people have their own story and there is no truth without true knowledge. I cannot verify that this is how it truly happened, only repeat what I’ve been told. And though my people are as clever as any and seek out every scrap of knowledge they can, they are very small and have only ever been able to sneak a few scrolls to the village, never a heavy book. We do not know as much as we’d like. Now as winter approaches, I must soon move on from Baile Beag to preserve their store of food. Yours Faithfully, Áine
November 17, 2025 at 6:45 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
"...the story goes that long ago the Creators made the first people and sought to make them perfect. Never to be sick, never to carry a scar, never to age. They were successful in this, but forgot that life requires change..."
This is where all of the people (yes, they are rats, but they are people rats) in our village come from. Perhaps ten generations have passed since the transformation, but all of them can trace back to the big folk once. And just as the big folk carry that blood memory of ancestral magic, so do the little ones. Halfway done with my first year, I went from a barely furred wee kit to a giant pink thing bursting my parents’ home to pieces in the span between one breath and another. My parents were as ill prepared for caring for me as your parents would be for you if you transformed into a ratling, but by some unexplainable blessing Onri was passing near enough to the village to hear the hearty chuckle of a big folk child and found us. Among the ratkin, the story goes that long ago the Creators made the first people and sought to make them perfect. Never to be sick, never to carry a scar, never to age. They were successful in this, but forgot that life requires change and without change the first people could bear no children. A gift from the Creators can’t be returned, so though the first people were grief-sick they had been bound to never change and even the Creators could not alter that. Yet bearing isn’t the only way to have children and the Creators found a way to still bless the first people. They took up the beasts of the field and hearth, the creatures that sought the warmth and prosperity of people without fear, and transformed them. A loyal hound became a loyal child; a beloved cat, a new son or daughter. All people today, you included, are also animals. Tied to the earth, capable of change and growth, not like the frozen perfection of the first people. Some remember a glimmer of the magic from the Creators and return to one form or another, but most do not and simply carry the cloak of flesh their mother bore them.
November 17, 2025 at 6:44 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
"Among your folk, there is a fear of children being snatched and replaced... This is a charge often turned against those who are different or ill, because the parents hate to accept their child as they truly are and would prefer to imagine them stolen instead."
My dear patron, There’s much we might miss from one another, because each will be speaking from such a different place, so let me begin with what I believe is the story your people tell. Among your folk, there is a fear of children being snatched and replaced with animals, dolls, or sickly creatures that resemble the original child. This is a charge often turned against those who are different or ill (I hope it’s not one ever made against you, my friend) because the parents hate to accept their child as they truly are and would prefer to imagine them stolen instead. But there is a tiny bit of truth in it, if viewed from the right perspective. Once in some span of unnumbered generations a child is born who is different. For reasons I don’t myself understand, they remember in their blood and marrow what magic their ancestors once experienced and they change. That memory comes back usually sometime between walking and weaning, but occasionally later in life. There’s a song I learned in the big folks’ village of an old and withered weaver who changed, though the song blamed a witch for the transformation. When that bone and sinew memory awakens, the child changes to a beast carried in their family line. Rats are, of course, the one I’m most familiar with, but there are stories of cats and wolves as well. One story popular over ale involved a goat. Parents don’t recognize their child when they transform and, as the song did, blame witches or spirits. It’s a dangerous thing, to not be seen for who you are by your parents. Baile Beag sends out watchers who have a little bit of magic to sense when a transformation is likely. They watch over a babe they suspect might change, then slip away with them, bringing them to our village or another to be cared for in safety.
November 17, 2025 at 6:42 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
"When that bone and sinew memory awakens, the child changes to a beast..."

A new letter from Áine has arrived!

#LettersFromÁine
www.patreon.com/posts/letter...
A rotund brown and cream rat sits on a windowsill on a cold autumn night smoking a pipe and wearing a little hat made of a red poppy. She's watching a baby in a cradle, whose chubby toes wiggle just in view. Bundles of woad leaves hang from an open shutter, alongside dyed cloth in red, yellow, and blue. Through the open shutters trees covered in fall leaves and the first few twinkling stars are visible. The light is bright on the rat, as though someone off-frame has just come upon her with a candle.
November 17, 2025 at 6:40 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
Here's an interactive project I'm working on right now!

It's an epistolary novel with accompanying illustrations by our narrator as she travels across a fantasy world, writing to a boy who is too ill to go on adventures himself but can pay her to adventure for him.

#LettersfromÁine
A cartoon illustration of rats on a rat-sized wooden boardwalk outside of rat-sized wattle and daub buildings. Two of the rats are using a tiny saw to divide up a plump turnip, while a young rat behind them uses a tiny broom to sweep the stoop of a cozy little shop. Golden light streams out of the windows to the shop, illuminating blackberries on a table outside and a pile of acorns. Dappled autumn light filters through the bowing thyme plants above the rats as one of the rats looks up towards a little moth flitting through the plants. Let me tell you of where I came from. I don't know how I would spell my family's name for our village, because they speak no language you know. My friend Onri, who taught me to speak like you, said to simply call it Baile Beag or Little Town to outsiders. I could tell you exactly where it is, even draw you a map, but you would never be able to find Baile Beag. How Onri found it in the first place, I don’t know. I asked him once and he merely smiled. Our little village is on a rocky peninsula, too rough and small for farming with no good harbors for fishing boats. Over the years the trees have wound their roots in between the rocks, cracking them apart to make space for life. That’s how my parents and their parents before them lived, worming into the little cracks where no one else could go. They can garden and they can tend their orchards, but there is no plow strong enough to work this land. That they were able to grow enough food to feed me and not starve themselves while I was growing astounds me. When the big folk try to find Little Town, they get turned around. They walk the same path over and over, which seems to turn back on itself. They look up through the trees for the sun, but cannot find it. The sound of the sea is everywhere and also miles away, so they cannot follow it to shore. If they take a bit of twine to mark their way and stay straight and true until they reach the very end of the peninsula, somehow they still never find the village. That’s a bit of magic I’m told that all the feral folk have, which only grows stronger the more of them there are, and our little village has nearly five hundred villagers. Five hundred! I imagine you crying out. What sort of little village could that be? How could that many people simply be invisible on a peninsula, which only has one way in and out? But you see, it’s the people who are small, not the number of them. I know my skin has no fur and I stand as tall as any other young woman you’ve met, but I was born to rats. Rats, the vermin I’m told your people kill on sight. That’s why feral folk magic is so important, so that outsiders struggle to focus their eyes on the them if they don’t want to be seen. Don’t confuse my rats with their wild kin, for they are as clever and industrious as anyone in your grand cities. Their gardens are richer in life than your sterile fields and they love to tinker and build. You would think their lack of thumbs would be a hindrance, but I told you they were clever and industrious. They build themselves gauntlets to strap to their wrists, which have a little false thumb to help them grasp and hold onto things. They’re also less shy about using their teeth as tools than you might be. At this time of year, they gather the acorns to blanch in the stream and roast alongside chestnuts. They dig up fresh roots like turnips and carrots for immediate eating and, because they’re unable to make root cellars deep enough for storage, they pile up all the grasses they can atop their gardens to insulate what remains through winter. Blackberry season is dwindling now and it’s getting too cool to dry them effectively, so what remains must be eaten before it turns to mold and mush. I can never have enough of them, loving them with all my heart but knowing my size and appetite could make others go hungry. They keep no livestock, though maintain friendly relations with the bees and butterflies. They don’t have much capacity for working iron at their size, so must take bits from the big folk for their tools. They don’t think of stealing the way that you do, because they don’t think of ownership the way that you do. Their tools are what they need and use. If they do not need it or use it, someone else can. There is so much that the big folk cast aside or ignore or forget about that little clever paws can find use for. It was not my first time venturing into a big folks’ village when we met, but nearly so. I told you then that my family could no longer feed me, but I was literate and could make myself of use. There was no lie in anything I said. My own garden had to be ten times the size of my family’s and I had grown too big to safely walk the streets of Baile Beag, which are only slightly wider than my feet. I can write to you of wonders that you have never seen in exchange for your generosity. Your patronage will allow me to live and my family to prosper. Yours Faithfully, Áine
November 8, 2025 at 8:48 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
Somehow his genes combined in a way that he came out gold, which is why nobody realized what he actually was at the time.

(For size perspective, the "puppy" on the right is an adult, normal sized Lab.)
Three dogs playing in a muddy hole in the middle of a meadow. There is leggy German Shepherd mix, a yellow Great Pyranees mix, and a Lab, who is half the size of the others. They're all very happy and filthy.
November 7, 2025 at 4:38 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
You know, when all of the images on your "turkey breast" recipe are of this cut instead of a breast, I have some concerns about whether or not a human being wrote the recipe.
A roast turkey thigh on a platter with caramelized brussel sprouts.
November 5, 2025 at 8:34 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
Hey, strangers.

Do not write an entire thread in my mentions because you're incapable of actually speaking to your children.

I am not your therapist, but if I was your therapist I'd still tell you to stop and then charge you money.

Thanks.
An entire goddamn thread in my mentions from Green Owl: Here's the thing about that - you're not happy when we express preferences/needs either. We're not supposed to have any. & it's much easier to let our loved ones decide what they want, exercising a bit of veto power, than to say, I want this & have them be unhappy, complain, make more work for Mom. It's not passive aggressive. They truly want it to be whatever you want bc the aftermath is easier. If it's something important, they'll choose. But otherwise, making you decide cuts down on the stuff on their plate & means you can't whine at them about it later bc you picked it, rather than Mom. So if you're running into "whatever you want," instead of yet again blaming Mom for being annoying, consider how you've acted in the past when Mom picked stuff you didn't like. Bc moms of any age do pick their battles & moms always get blamed for decisions, whatever it is. Just a little mom advice. & she knows you love her & are trying to make it special. But you're asking her to do WORK & then hope none of you give her grief w/ the outcome. It's not self-martyring; it's defense to have some relaxation & peace & not be responsible for everybody's expectations & planning. So she's not sacrificing her needs. She's looking out for her needs. & you're putting your need on her to figure out & organize her own birthday luncheon that she's then responsible for. So, my suggestion, pick something based on what you know about her, chk w/ her on scheduling, then just do it.
November 1, 2025 at 5:35 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
I'm launching a little project here next Wednesday! If you think fantasy doesn't center enough rats, pigeons, and feral hogs, you might enjoy it.
A digital painting of a rat standing on her hind legs under a canopy of thyme plants. She holds a tiny saw in her hands and appears to be sawing through a white root vegetable. Dappled afternoon sunlight through the leaves surrounds her.
October 31, 2025 at 3:55 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
Important update!
A calico kitten sleeping on her side on a soft grey weighted blanket. One ear is folded under her head, one arcs upwards, and her tongue is sticking out.
October 26, 2025 at 11:26 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
3 months ago:

Me: I'd like to get my A1C in a normal range before starting HRT, so I have one less thing to worry about
Doctor: We can definitely get improvement but this kind of thing takes a lot of time

Today:
FIVE. POINT. THREE

I'm going to be so damn smug at my appointment
A Hemoglobin A1C chart from April 1 2024 to October 24 2025. The chart is creeping up towards the diabetic zone of 6.5 until taking a dramatic nose dive in the last three months into the normal range.
October 25, 2025 at 4:28 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
Yeah, buddy. That's how I feel too.
A Starbucks cup with a smiley face on it except the smile is half off the face and cocked so it's like "WHELP"
October 24, 2025 at 3:07 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
Pepper got her birthday bat today and the absolute very first thing she did with it was run and put it on my pillow in our bed.

Somehow, this was a bigger priority even than playing with it.
A stuffed vampire bat dog toy nestled in a red blanket and propped against a white pillow.
October 20, 2025 at 4:47 AM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
I haven't shared any updates on Penny in a bit, so I thought I'd post a couple pictures. She's getting very plush with her winter coat coming in and resembles a calico ball at times.

Also her ears are curly? It's particularly dramatic when she's excited and they perk forwards.
A calico kitten peeks out from under a blanket looking like someone's babushka. The calico kitten's head has partially emerged from the blanket and rests in profile on the sheets with her eyes closed. Her visible ear arcs backwards at the tip like a lynx.
October 18, 2025 at 6:41 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
I need to find a patron who is REALLY into rats because this is apparently the thing I'm good at.

(Spent an hour trying to sketch a door before deleting it in frustration... drew this rat in five minutes. Sigh.)
A line drawing of a rat up on her hind legs with her paws out towards a very rough sketch of a turnip. A couple splotches of color for her coat are above her back. Her tail curls cutely around her feet.
October 17, 2025 at 8:23 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
Finished commission. She is a Very Good Girl.
A digital watercolor of a miniature Australian Shepherd over a soft, gauzy woodland background. She has a paw raised and her heterochromatic eyes--one blue, one brown--gaze off to the viewer's left. She's wearing a purple collar with a silver tag that says "Libby."
October 17, 2025 at 4:15 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
I am trying something new and very, very silly.
A rough composition sketch with two rats on a tiny city street using a saw to cut through a root vegetable.
October 17, 2025 at 4:13 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
I moved a little bit today.
A screenshot from Google Fit showing 64 heart points, 11,089 steps, 5.89 miles, and 119 minutes of movement.
October 15, 2025 at 12:23 AM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
Tyler Cowen wants to look at virgins onscreen.
Tyler Cowen's headshot. He is a white man in his sixties, bald, bearded, glasses. There is something deeply uncomfortable in his virgin seeking gaze.
October 2, 2025 at 8:53 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
Pepper was abandoned at eight weeks old, so we declared Halloween to be her birthday. I'm thinking of getting her a special stuffed animal this year since she loves them but currently lacks her own.

Maybe a black bat for my black Halloween dog?
A black stuffed bat with big yellow eyes, tiny vampire fangs, a red heart tummy, and purple wings and feet.
September 29, 2025 at 4:07 AM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
what is with these recipes using the most ASININE ratio for olive oil to the size of the recipe

you do not saute in half a cup of oil
Ingredients 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil 2 pounds chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces 1 large leek, cut into thin rounds 4 green onions (scallions), chopped 4 celery sticks, chopped 1 small cabbage, cut into thick slices 1 cup white wine salt and pepper, to taste 1/2 tsp paprika pinch of nutmeg 3 cups water Instructions In a deep pot, heat the olive oil. Add the chicken and sauté until cooked on the outside. Add the leeks, green onions, and celery. Sauté for 1 minute.
September 29, 2025 at 2:51 AM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
Playing around with a possible project idea...?
A line drawing on a sepia background with small blood splatters on the upper right and lower left corners. The figure is an androgynous young person with a muscular build, short hair, and breasts. They stand barefoot with a short sword in one hand, brow furrowed as they look down at something with an expression of regret.
September 27, 2025 at 3:34 AM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
This is... better.
a digital painting of a happy miniature Aussie with her paw up. The background is a plain green and there are still messy bits in the drawing around the raised paw and legs, but it's recognizable
September 24, 2025 at 10:09 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
I'm at that point of isolating little details in different layers where I look at it and go "dear god this is horrible", so everything is right on schedule.
An in progress digital painting of a miniature Australian Shepherd. At the moment, only a line sketch, a base coat, and some blurry color highlights in brown and orange are visible.
September 24, 2025 at 4:35 PM
rooklafetra.bsky.social
This is an accurate description of how Huskies perceive baths.
A wet Husky with red on white fur and one blue eye looks forlornly into the camera for a YouTube thumbnail. The account is Girl With The Dogs and the video title is, "I Bathed This Husky in Lava & Dried Him With a Flamethrower."
September 23, 2025 at 3:31 PM