Aeslin Mice

Official artwork

## Reference

**Aeslin Mice** are intelligent rodents known for their fantatical religious practices and perfect memories. They appear throughout the InCryptid series.

## Appendix Entry

**Aeslin Mice** (Apodemus sapiens). Sapient, rodent-like cryptids that present as near-identical to non-cryptid field mice. Aeslin mice crave religion, and will attach themselves to "divine figures" selected virtually at random when a new colony is created. They possess perfect recall; each colony maintains a detailed oral history going back to its inception, and beyond. Origins unknown.

## About

### Appearance

Aeslin are mimics, looking nearly identical to a common field mouse, though closer examination will reveal their enlarged brain pans and far more articulated paws. The easiest differentiation is that each sect adorns itself with scavenged regalia specific to its target of veneration. Internally their brains have a high number of folds in involutions, known in biology as brain crenulation, that gives them a larger surface area for their intelligence to work in.

Their given names are unpronounceable by humans; consisting of squeaks and gestures with anatomy, such as ears and tail, that most humanoids do not have. Some go by titles or nicknames when interacting with their gods.

### Abilities

Aeslin mice are highly intelligent cryptids with near-flawless memories they keep impeccable oral records of everything they experience and pass it down the generations without no modification. They are able to speak human languages in addition to their own and tend to be very loud and excitable.

They have significant fighting skills: they have been known to take down alligators and other predators by working as a group. They are also stalwart scavengers, making their homes and accessories with found objects. Similarly

They live much longer than normal mice; one of the high priests of the Violent Priestess [Fran] lived for 37 years, the longest recorded lifespan being over 50 years.

While every sect will have abilities related to the object of their devotion, several abilities are consistent across the various faiths:

* Being able to find family members
* Accurately guessing when a significant other will be joining the family.
* Institutional knowledge, knowing what werewolf infection smells like, detecting when a priestess is pregnant.
* Acclimation to Angela and Sarah so they have resistance though not total immunity to cuckoo telepathy and control. It is unknown if this can be taught.
* Infiltration and navigation of airport terminals and planes.

### Habitat

No Aeslin mice have ever been observed in the wild. It is unknown whether this is natural to the species as a whole or simply due to a limited data set.

The mice attached to the Healy family have created entire city structures to live in. Building material for their homes is often scavenged or provided by their deities. When allowed to flourish, these homes will become sprawling cities that include passages hidden in the walls throughout a house, allowing the mice to quickly appear and disappear around the home at will. They may need to be explicitly ordered not to drill holes in the walls when traveling outside their deity's homes.

Adding to these structures is sometimes called Construction, with a capital C, and may involve extensively detailed specifications.

### Culture

While religious to the point of pathology, not every Aeslin member is a priest. The title itself is gender-neutral among them as is any role in their community. Traveling contingents will have a head priest but the high priest of a given religion stays at one location, in the Price-Healy case this is at the family compound. While religion is a huge part of their lives they do have other interests.

Each colony of Aeslin mice to have been recorded has worshiped a different god or set of gods. These have included, but were not limited to, "a large oak tree, a roll-top desk, and Caroline Davies's chickens." Religious schisms typically occur every three to five generations, with groups of younger mice splitting off and leaving the parent colony to find new gods. To date, none of these child colonies have been heard from again, The Price-Healy colony practices population control specifically to combat this. While a colony of Aeslin may be devoted to an overarching concept, such as an entire family, there are also sects within the colony that worship specific deities.

They don't consider other species of rodentia, the non-sapient kinds, as people. Maybe something closer to beasts of burden. Amusingly they still share the instincts of their kin, such as gluttony and wishing to be unobserved while eating.[*citation needed*] At the same time, they lack scatological habits and infant cannibalism so it all balances out.[*citation needed*]

A significant part of Aeslin theology is recording every event of their deities, so traveling without the mice is a rare occurrence. When it does happen, the mice will attempt to hear the traveler's stories and commit them, albeit fractured, into the liturgy.

When their deities travel, the mice typically send a small contingent, or "splinter", along to record the family history. Being chosen is a great honor, and sometimes requires specialized training so that they do not reveal themselves to the general public. While traveling, their deities typically provide the mice with a secure habitat and snacks within the luggage. In addition, they are typically given permission to steal food from the local kitchen stores as well. When traveling, the mice prefer to ride with the eldest member of their family. Members who married into the family do not count for this honor, while those who've married into the family "outrank" their children they will not outrank their spouse.

Their perfect memory also makes them pretty conservative and as such have some notions on human gender that are rooted in English society from the 1800s.

Their rituals and beliefs are incredibly frequent, convoluted, and nearly impossible for outsiders to keep track of. The Price-Healy Colony celebrates approximately 32 months each year, including The Month of Do Not Put That In Your Mouth. The family has a calendar at home to keep track of everything.

Members of the Healy-Price family accrue titles over the course of their lifetimes, changed where necessary for best fit, upon their death the Aeslin bestow their posthumous naming.

Aeslin teenagers have their rebellious phase with requisite boundary pushing just like any sapient. Aeslin mice never leave ghosts, as their absolute faith in their gods leaves no room for unfinished business.

Very rarely, the colony will intentionally Forget a deity who has done an act so terrible as to be stricken from the family record. While individual mice cannot forget the details, they will not share the relevant rites and proverbs with their fellows and so the knowledge will be lost once they die.

## The Price-Healy Colony

### Before

Ancestors of the colony have run into the Covenant of Saint George. They witnessed cuckoos conduct a major ritual and lost members to the action.

### History

**Main Article: Price-Healy Family**

The Healy-Price colony are the last known Aeslin mice in existence. They were first discovered by Elizabeth Evans, whom they dubbed the Kindly Priestess for offering them food and shelter. They internalized the roles of men and women of the family from Beth, who believed a woman should not be above her husband.

Her daughter, Caroline, "first raised us from the Dust and brought us shining into the Light of our Faith." According to family lore, Caroline claimed to have found them "out back of the barn," engaged in ritual adoration of a chicken (one of the "Feathered Lords"). She took the mice with her when she fled her father, the Cruelest God, and married Peter Carew.

Each family member has their own branch, or sect, of clergy who are dedicated to remembering their specific lives, though the key histories of the rest of the family are still known to that priesthood and the collective colony. As the family has grown and moved around, the mice have broken off into splinter colonies. The priesthoods for living family members are the largest, while deceased family members typically have fewer. While living in Buckley, the Healys buried their Aeslin clergy in the same plot as their own dead. It is unknown if this practice will be continued in Portland, as none of the family have died since leaving Buckley.

The splinter colony that remained in England when Enid and Alexander left for America were forced to hide from their "gods" who despised all cryptids. They continued to chronicle their deities despite the misery it brought them. One member, nicknamed Mork, has been reunited with the main colony in the modern day and presumably shared many of the splinter colony's rites and catechisms.

The splinter colony that broke off to live with Jane Harrington-Price when she moved out is divided on whether Alex, Verity and Antimony should be considered deities.

### Theology

* Aeslin mice typically follow direct instructions from their deities, but will occasionally disobey if their faith demands it, such as seeing the birth of a new member of the family.
* The Afterlife is known as "The place beyond the attic, where the cheese and cake are plentiful, and where we will all one day go." Another name is "The Land Where All Is Well, Turn Out the Damn Lights and Go to Bed".
* Gender Roles:
	+ "The Kindly Priestess refused to be recognized as a god, saying that it was improper for a woman to set herself above her husband."
	+ "Gods bring the Heavens to us. Priestesses bring the Gods to Heaven."
	+ "Aeslin mice worshiped the men of his family as gods, while being far more inclined to listen to the women, who the mice viewed as priestesses and henceforth far more sensible than their divine counterparts."
	+ "When we were kids, Annie would rant and rage about how even the mice were determined to enforce human gender roles. She stopped when Elsie asked the mice what they'd do if there had been an error and she'd actually been a boy. The mice had begun planning a ritual to transition her catechisms on the spot, and it had taken most of the evening for Elsie asserting multiple times that she was definitely a girl to derail them from their plans to celebrate her ascension into Godhood. They had some antiquated and rigid beliefs about how humans worked, but they were doing their best."
	+ A sect in Alex's clergy believe he should be considered a priestess given his abundant common sense.
	+ They have considered every girlfriend that Elsie Harrington has brought home to be potential gods rather than priestesses.

### Rites & Proverbs

**Discount Armageddon**

* Sacred Route of Celebration
* Celebration of the Union of the Noisy Priestess [Alice] to the God of Things It Is Almost Certainly Better Not to Be Aware Of [Thomas], celebrated every eight years. It lasts the length of time from the leaving of the family home and the arrival at the graveyard (both in Buckley). (Ch. 2)
* Festival of Come On, Enid, We're Getting Out of Here Before These Bastards Make Us Kill Another Innocent Creature (Ch. 4)
* Holy Feast of I Swear, Daddy, I'll Kiss the Next Man that Walks Through That Door (Ch. 14)
* Sacred Law of Food for Privacy (Ch. 15)
* Feast of Washing Out Mouths With Soap (Ch. 15)

**Midnight Blue-Light Special**

* Food for Privacy
* The Coming of Cheese and Cake
* The Catechism of the Patient Priestess [Enid]
* The Catechism of the Violent Priestess [Fran] - takes place every ten years, tends to involve property damage
* Holy Ritual of the Phone Call Home
* Conversation for Cake
* The Feast of the Waheela With Religious Questions [Istas]
* The Fury of a Thousand Angry Rolling Pins
* The Sacred Ritual of Packing All the Crap

**Pocket Apocalypse**

* Per The God of Scales and Silence [Alex], the mice should Leave Some Cheese when they raid the kitchen. (Ch. 3)
* The Aeslin intend to celebrate Crossing the Sea, and Arriving in Australia, and Killing a Very Large Snake. (Ch. 6)
* And lo, the Patient Priestess [Enid] did come to the God of Uncommon Sense [Alexander] and say Dear, Something Is In the Sheep Flock, and We Should Investigate. Then did the God of Uncommon Sense call upon the Sitter of Babies. (Ch. 8)
* It is as in the teachings of the Violent Priestess [Fran]: Always should popcorn be eaten when people fight over foolish things. (Ch. 9)

**Chaos Choreography**

* Feast of Dammit, Enid, Where Is That Girl, I Know She Tells You When She's Sneaking Out
	+ Recreating when Alice got lost in the woods for almost a whole day, then wound up at Thomas's house for the first time (Ch. 2)
* **Antimony:** Oh, Thank God, At Least With Barbie Back In The House, I Won't Have To Do Every Single Ritual (Ch. 2)
* Bedroom Privileges, Food for Privacy
* The Thoughtful Priestess [Evelyn] did say, lo, Go Easy On Her, She Is Going To Be Under A Lot Of Stress (Ch. 5)
* Dancing is a significant part of the rituals honoring Verity's original time on Dance or Die. Her head priestess teaches dance classes.
* **Antimony:** Have You Considered Hiding In Plain Sight?
* **The Violent Priestess:** "Ain't Nothing Wrong with Most People which couldn't be Fixed with a Good Smack Upside the Head." Then she did deliver a Good Smack Upside the Head to her husband, the God of Unexpected Situations, and All Was Well. (Ch. 15)
* The hour is late, and you have said, many times, that we must Let You Sleep. (Ch. 15)
* **The Well-Groomed Priestess:** What Has Been Discarded, You May Have, But Don't You Little Monsters Nip My Embroidery" (Ch. 16)
* "Though you walk through the hallway that was not on the map, you should fear no evil." (possibly a joke)(Ch. 16)

**Magic for Nothing**

* "...when the Patient Priestess [Enid] and the God of Uncommon Sense [Alexander] were forced to leave the Obedient Priestess [Ada] and the God of Bitter Honesty [Charles] behind as they struck out across the Great Water. For did not the Patient Priestess say, ‘Charles, I know you’ll never forgive us, but please believe me when I say I love you. Ask the mice. They remember.” (Ch. 8)
	+ “Those who chose to stay and chronicle the lives of the Obedient Priestess and the God of Bitter Honesty knew they might never have a close relationship with their gods, for they were to be raised Outside the Family, by those who Did Not Understand. But still, we have a duty, and that Duty Must Be Fulfilled.” (Ch. 8)
* "The Precise Priestess [Antimony] did say, 'Keep Your Paws Off'” (Ch. 13)
* "Is it not tradition to travel to carnivals and fall in love under false pretenses? Did not the Violent Priestess [Fran] ride a white horse and love the God of Unexpected Situations in a place very much like this one?" (Ch. 19)
* “Did not the Thoughtful Priestess [Evelyn] say We are Not All Mind Readers, We Leave That to Sarah?” (Ch. 21)

**The Recitation of the Most Holy and Harrowing Pilgrimage of Mindy and Also Mork**

* “Remember who we were. Remember who we are. Remember that one day, all of this will change. The gods provide. All else is up to us." --from the Aeslin litany of Faiths Forsaken and Yet to Come.

**Calculated Risks**

* "Is it not said by the Silent Priestess [Jane], Dammit, Arthur, I Love You, But You're Thick As a Plank Where That Girl Is Concerned, and also Just Tell Her How You Feel Already, She's Psychic But She's Not *Rude*, She'll Never Figure It Out On Her Own. And then did the God of Careful Chances not reply--" (Ch. 3)

**Spelunking Through Hell**

* Holy Ritual of If You Wake The House I Swear To God, Thomas, I Will Revoke Your Femurs. (Epilogue)

**The Mysteries of the Stolen God and Where His Waffles Went**

* Antimony instructed the mice to Figure Our Shit Out, as she had Better Things to Do.
* The Rites of Adoption
	+ “This is Enid And She Is My Daughter Now, And Should You Choose To Disrespect Her, You Choose Also to Disrespect Me.”
* Carnival
	+ "The time when the Kindly Priestess [Elizabeth] lingered in her bed after her husband, the Cruelest God, struck her about the head and sent her falling to the floor. She never woke. Her child, the Well-Groomed Priestess, smuggled us from the home upon her mother’s death, accepting at once the suit of the God of Hard Work and Sunshine, which she had previously Disdained, for did she not say, ‘Better To be Wed To a Carew Than Left Here With a Bastard.’”

**Backpacking Through Bedlam**

* The Holy Rite of a Spotter is Better than the Alternative (Ch. 3) - refers to Antimony and Sam
* “Lo, I Want Him to Stick Around , You Meddling Rodents, and You Marrying Us Off Before He Even Met My Siblings Won’t Help” (Ch. 3) - refers to Annie and Sam
* The Holy Bargain of For God’s Sake, Alex, Make Those Damn Mice Stop Yelling While I have a Hangover (Ch. 7)
	+ Once invoked, it provides three days of the mice leaving you alone as long as cake and cheese are provided. This is a very powerful bargain and only rarely invoked.
	+ Thomas is not familiar with this ritual, so it’s unclear if it originates from great-grandpa Alexander Healy or current-generation Alex Price.
* The Ceremony of Cake, and the mice’s obsession with it, dates back to Beth taking them in. It is encoded into their religious rituals.(Ch. 11)
* The Titling of the Grandparents (Ch. 12)

**Verity and Dominic Shorts**

* Ritual honoring Dominic's penis. With dance.
* "Nice People Do Not Chew Through the Support Cables" -The Kindly Priestess
* "That Child Would Not Nap If the Devil Himself Commanded It" -The Patient Priestess
* "That Girl Knows No Fear" -unknown, regarding Alice
* "Dammit, Fran, She's Going to Get Herself Et" -unknown, regarding Alice
* "This Is From Your Side of the Family, Jonathan, No One In My Family Has Ever Hugged a Basilisk Before" -The Violent Priestess (presumed), regarding Alice

**Antimony Shorts**

* You Get One, I Get One
* The Communion of Bacon
* Holy Rite of Getting Dressed, in which the dresser is afforded some measure of privacy

**Jonathan and Frances Shorts**

* Rite of Reunion
* The Celebration of Union between the Patient Priestess [Enid] and the God of Uncommon Sense [Alexander]
* Ritual of the conception of Daniel Healy
* The Remembrance of the Well-Groomed Priestess [Caroline]
* The Journey of the God of Hard Work and Sunshine [Peter Carew]
* The Parting from the God of Bitter Honesty and the Obedient Priestess [Charles and Ada]

**Alice and Thomas Shorts**

* Holy Ceremony of the Replacement of the Ammunition
* The Construction of more living space
	+ The Time of Harvesting
	+ The Time of Forging the Very Hot Metal

* "Wishes Are For Fools and Madmen; Actions Are For the Brave" --The Patient Priestess
* Sacred Ritual of If We Get Buried There, Jonathan, Something Will Steal the Bodies and Reanimate Them, and How Do We Explain That To the Neighbors? Really, Try To Think For Once.
* Eaters of Souls and Knowing [Apraxis wasps]

**Other**

* The Sacred Ritual of I Don't Care What You Say, They're Harmless Little Things and They Need a Home, They're Not Monsters, They're Mice

## Characters

* Mindy, a member of Antimony Price's priesthood. Likely named after 1970s sitcom Mork & Mindy.
* Mork, a Representative of "Lost Catechisms", possibly of Margaret Healy's priesthood.
* Laverne, a member of Antimony Price's priesthood.
* Acadia and Camden, members of James Smith's priesthood. Named after James's favorite lakes in Maine.
* Countless unnamed mice within the colony

## Trivia

* The mice have email. And Facebook. And the splinter colonies communicate with one another.
* The Aeslin enforce a fairly strict hierarchy among themselves. It was possible for a mouse who wasn't a member of the priesthood to go years without speaking directly to a family member.
	+ When meeting a family member's significant other the first mice to meet them will usually become that spouse's High Priest.
* Catherine Faber has written and recorded a song about the Aeslin mice.
* While Hyperreligiosity is considered a disorder in humans for Aeslin Mice it is their default state being a survival adaptation. This also means that they are completely fine with doublethink when dealing with contradictory doctrine.

## References

1. ↑ Audiobooks narrated by Emily Bauer. First syllable rhymes with "days"
2. ↑ Audiobooks narrated by Ray Porter. First syllable rhymes with "eyes"
3. ↑ Appendix Field Guide, Books 1-11
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Imaginary Numbers, Ch. 9
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6  The Price Family Field Guide: Aeslin Mice
6. ↑ Imaginary Numbers, Ch. 10
7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Magic for Nothing Ch. 8
8. ↑ Imaginary Numbers, Ch. 23
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 9.4 The Star of New Mexico
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 And Sweep Up The Wood
11. ↑ We Both Go Down Together
12. ↑ Pocket Apocalypse, Ch. 17
13. ↑ Midnight Blue-Light Special
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 14.3 14.4 The Recitation of the Most Holy and Harrowing Pilgrimage of Mindy and Also Mork
15. ↑ Pocket Apocalypse, Ch. 8
16. ↑ Imaginary Numbers, Ch. 13
17. ↑ Pocket Apocalypse, Ch. 3 P.57 Ebook version
18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 To Build a Better...
19. ↑ Follow the Lady
20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 20.3 Traditionalism and friction
21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Head priests and structure
22. ↑ Chaos Choreography Ch. 6
23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 InCryptid Q&A, Part V: An Outcast's Prayer
24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 Magic for Nothing
25. ↑ 25.0 25.1 25.2 25.3 We Both Go Down Together
26. ↑ Oh Pretty Bird
27. ↑ Imaginary Numbers, Ch. 13
28. ↑ Discount Armageddon Ch. 6
29. ↑ Seanan Mcguire on Tumblr
30. ↑ Imaginary Numbers, Ch. 13
31. ↑ Halfway Through the Wood Ch. 8
32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 32.2 The Mysteries of the Stolen God and Where His Waffles Went
33. ↑ Imaginary Numbers, Ch. 23
34. ↑ Magic for Nothing Ch. 4
35. ↑ Halfway Through the Wood Ch. 12
36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 36.2 36.3 Singing the Comic-Con Blues
37. ↑ The First Fall
38. ↑ 38.0 38.1 Married in Green
39. ↑ Calculated Risks
40. ↑ Swamp Bromeliad
41. ↑ 41.0 41.1 Snakes and Ladders
42. ↑ No Place Like Home
43. ↑ Chaos Choreography Ch. 7
44. ↑ The Measure of a Monster
45. ↑ Chaos Choreography Ch. 16
46. ↑ The Flower of Arizona
47. ↑ Seanan McGuire's Continuum 13 Guest of Honour Hour