The pale guard noticed her first. His eye to hers, then his eye to her hands. Recognition crested him with a flush of indignation. He grabbed his watchman’s whistle, which hung around his neck on a plaited cord sporting the Court of Justice’s colors, red, yellow, black. He put it to his lips and blew a single shrill note. The sound died early. It was the locked knees that got him. He fell forward as a rag doll.

“Why you!” said his companion guard, looking between them like it was her fault there was now a limp man flat out in the street.

Mooni pulled her shawl from her head and gathered her skirts over her knees in a well trained glide of her right hand. She turned on her toe with a swish and a challenge.

You know me. I know it wasn’t mine. From under your nose, I took it. For I am quicker than you. See.

Another street and two alleyways later, Mooni had to give this man some credit. He knew how to give chase, even as his hard Fort Orinica-issue boots made him sound like a fevered pony with cymbal feet on march in a trumpet parade.

But he wouldn’t catch her at her clip. Not until she let him.

She reached the end of the road, paused to make sure he wouldn’t lose sight of her for too long as she took the corner past the high awning of a poultry stall, then down the stairs to the next level. The seller, his face drawn closed in recognition, paused mid-transaction. He lifted the chicken he had just sold to cover the top of his head as she passed.

With her face in clear view, people yielded a wide berth. They flinched and flung out of her way, careful not to touch her. Helpful even in their rejection of her. Some made the sign of the sun over their heads, hand raised to forehead, fingers spread wide, palm out. A light to protect them from misfortune. Others covered the top of their head with their hats, their scarves, their bags.

Mooni could have found a way to laugh at it all. That a street girl like herself, barely visible, born to live in the world yet always skirt its edges, would have gathered such a response. She could have giggled at their white eyes and gawping mouths, like little fish staring blankly up for bread crumbs as you passed by a fountain pool in the upper markets. The guppies there would nibble your fingers if you swished them over the top of the water.

She would have returned to the sparse room she had shared and spun out the story of her day, over dinner by the dented tin stove, with her dearest friend. A sunshine memory. A moment even an orphan like her could afford. If only some of these people hadn’t once been friends. If only her home hadn’t been dead for a year.

Two at a time. Skidding over steps where the mortar had crumbled from the prying fingers of last winter’s frost. Around a man who had overstayed his welcome at a tavern and now found sleep where he could. Down she sailed.

A weightless rush caught in her lungs as she landed on the planks of Sauter’s Landing with a squelch of soggy boot meets puddle.

Her boots were little more than buckets with strings but she trusted her feet. It might not always take her to good places, but still, it took her forward. Her cheeks rose round into warm apples from exertion. Mooni wiped some luster from her stinging eyes with the back of her sleeve and felt lucky. Breath in the lungs, blood in the veins, at the end of the day could you honestly ask for anything more?

Sauter’s Landing, one level above the shore, was the wallflower of Hanging, and an old friend. A bric-a-brac of wooden buildings, speckled with moss, slanted like cypress trees from wind and fast, cheap construction. The unavoidable consequence in the march of upward progress. Destined to be little more than a place that is passed through by those that didn’t have to live there.

The clip clop of the guards boots descending the stairs signaled the end of her moments respite at the bottom of the stairs.

“Just you wait” - he gulped a breath as he picked his way down- “Not a step, not a - c’mon, no! You wait right there and I’ll put in a good for for you with the jailer. We’ll forget this whole thing.” He said. Was that a whine or a wheeze when he spoke?

Mooni turned back and waved, then dove back into the flow of Saut.

--

One more level to go, then left, that should do the trick.

She hadn’t been back to this place in a year and yet still she could run it blind. A good thing too. The luster had resumed the assault on her right eye. She would have to wash it out with clean water soon. The thought of her eye, red and bleary, stung worse than trodding on the rough plank nails through the soles of her shoes as she ran.

Sauter’s Landing had been simple enough to avoid. There were side ladders that trailed from Red Fin Market on the third level straight down to the shore, easy access for seaman and visitors who wanted to roll off a boat and head straight to the market. But when she was in trouble, her feet always wanted to carry her back to the roads and alleyways she knew so well. She had resisted each time until today.

It was out of necessity, she assured herself, purely from need.

What kind of need? Whispered a voice that was a different hue than her own.

A year and still the feeling remained undiminished. As she dodged through pedestrians and slid into narrow spaces between the buildings you’d have to know to find, she felt the pressure inside her grow. The way the light haloed in the rain, now relaxing into a mist that made the moss glow with its own inner light; the familiar faces, their voices bouncing along the narrow walls. A distinct and familiar chill washed over her. It ate through her feet, slithered up her spine and nested itself into her chest cavity.

The many years spent in Saut were the threads she had used to mend her heart a year ago. The spaces between the stitches rattled with her breath, pulling tight with each inhale, threatening to bleed.

Mooni had earned a spot in her group of friends with the sweat of years running the boards. At first, when she still had a daisy smile and adults trusted her, she worked to deliver messages, letters and, on special occasions, minor packages along the streets. She knew the owner of every food stall, from fried squid to steamed egg cake. Listened to the stories from the woman that sold dried flowers outside the Twang Bow Tavern (voted best butter fish pie, and least likely to give you food poisoning for two nonconsecutive years). Medics. Soothersayers. She even knew a few of the patrolmen.

Later, she had followed the footsteps of many friends before her, and worked the alleys. Loose money burned through the veins of Saut. And there are always more dark alleys than roads.

There were many flavors; Mooni’s favorite was cards. You had to be nimble fingered to shuffle the cards, always knowing where you stood with the deck. And the game Night and Day was a staple, played for pleasure even without money.

Customers would shuffle in, fresh from the taverns with an hour to fill. Or a day. Or every day if it called to them like their own personal siren.

Deal the cards, run the game, and purr her sorries at their loses, cat smile flashing as she palmed pennies, copper, on a clear sky day a silver. Then off to meet up with Barr, the only person she had ever called home.

Memory was a slow killer.

And today it could get her caught.

A look back proved her suspicions. The guard was closer than planned. Eyes bright, face red with more than just exertion.

Guess we are out of the bargaining phase, and into anger. She thought. Better take the short way down or he might just string me up himself. No jailer needed.

The next alley was less familiar but straight enough to see the connecting road to a stair that led down to the beach level and her goal. Into the alley she pushed, head down, focus directed on her back in case the guard made a desperate grab for her long braid.

Two shadows sloughed off from the greater darkness of the alley to bar her way.

Mooni didn’t believe in curses, as a general rule, and she had never been of a religious mind, but today it would’ve been nice to have something higher up the food chain to blame.

She slowed herself to a walk, then, casually as she could with her heart humming a rabbit’s truth in her ears, slid a working girl smile into place.

When her world was more than dealing with, or running from, the next problem, she would allow that feeling the time it needed. Uncoil the threads that bound. Let it bleed clean. When she could float across the surface of her loss without drowning, she owed herself that kindness.

A salt stained i-o-u promise, written in her own hand, on the kitchen table of her heart.

The Saut had taught her the lesson all cast-off children learn, that to pull close is both blessing and burden.

She turned her back on herself and walked out the door into reality. There were two men, one she knew, and both were dangerous.

“Rust.” Mooni said nodding to the familiar man. “So nice, a chance to see you. I’ve not see you since, what, been about two months now?” Mooni said.

Rust shrugged and made a noise usually reserved for barn animals. Then he spat. Rust had been born with a coal chute personality and today the dust hung thick over the stooped shoulders of his cracked leather coat.

“Two and a half it is.” Rust said. “And every day the Boss has been askin for you. Loudly.”

“Best to keep busy. You guys know how it is. Always need something to do.” Mooni said.

“Yeah.” Rust said. It was a yeah that kicked your shin under the table to make you cry then took your sweet roll. A yeah that stood up at the bar with its fist raised when the bartender said it couldn't have another drink because it had thrown the last one through a window.

Mooni and Rust eyed each other.

“Miz Mooni.” The mass of man next to Rust said. “Or do you go by your full name now?”

He removed his wide brimmed hat and inclined his patchy shaved head in greeting. It would have seemed a gentleman like gesture if he didn't have a fried chicken foot sticking out the side of his mouth as he did it.

“That’s just a court decree thing. I’ve no name but Mooni.” She said.

“This here is Pummel.” Rust said.

“He’s right worried, Miz Mooni. The Boss, I mean.” Pummel said. The chicken foot waggled as he spoke.

“Right.” Said Mooni.

“Right” said Rust, threateningly.

“I’ll stop by the Titled Hull real soon. Have a nice friendly chat with the Boss and all that. Maybe deal you a few games of Night and Day for old times sake? Real shame it can’t be sooner, but I’m a bit busy with some trouble at the moment.” Mooni gestured at the trouble behind her, who was bracing himself against the wall with a splotchy hand.

His triumph at catching her was dampened by the huffing wheeze on his exhale. He lifted one foot, then the other, to alleviate the sting of mashed toes in tight boots.

He was standing in the middle of her escape route.

“Don’t worry, Miz.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Pummel shouldered his way past her. Mooni had the distinct impression that he had never walked anywhere, that at an early age his shoulders had taken control of him, and he had been shouldering through life ever since.

“You there, Thief. In the name of the Court of Justice, I command you to stay yourself.” Came from behind her.

“Consider it done.” Mooni said, turning her cat smile at him and placing her hand on her heart. “I will remain myself. So sweet of you to be worried about a petty thief like me.”

He was barely visible past the mountain of Pummel. Mooni knew this guard didn't have a whistle, with men like this he was going to regret that.

“No, what I, er, mean is, you will not flee any further. You will come with me. Now. Peacefully. And I will escort you to the nearest available jail where you will be held accountable for your, um, theft, and other such crimes.”

“Bit busy here pal.” Rust called. “Why don’t you go stand with the other toy soldiers out someplace fancy, or whatever it is you need doing, and leave us to our own.”

Mooni heard that crunch of a chicken foot, bit, chewed and swallowed.

“I am an official guard commissioned under His Grace Duke Guspit of Orinica and you will address me with due respect.” The guard demanded. It would have had more impact if he wasn’t listed to one side to avoid a sore foot.

“What’s your name then, your Hiney-ness.” Rust said.

Pummel rumbled with a thunderstorm chuckle.

“You may address me as Robert.”

Mooni winced. Pummel looked behind him, first at Rust, then Mooni. His face split into a grin with missing teeth. The storm rolled into bawdy laughter.

“HA!” Pummel bellowed. He clapped the poor man on the shoulder with the weight that made Robert’s knees buckle. “You ever play cards, Robert? You should. I bet you’d pull all the suns with luck like that.”

Rust didn’t smile much but he did now. It was horrible, the rotten cabbage under the fingernail of life. He put one hand out as if to say “hold on” and Mooni moved, back to the wall, to avoid it. At times like these it was best to be silent, a passing notion of a person haunting the periphery.

Mooni had learned that Rust hated most things besides drink and cards. He had spent his life cultivating a garden of hatred, pouring weed killer into the soil until all it could grow was squishy green mold.

He hated sunlight. He hated cakes with edible flowers. People who laughed with their chests. Living things that were small.

The one thing he hated more than anything, was running trivial or inconvenient errands. Mooni knew Rust considered her both trivial and inconvenient.

“Go easy Pummel.” Rust said, wiping his nose on his jacket sleeve. “Boss’ll be pissed if you beat up his namesake.”

Mooni heard the ping of opportunity. A snap trap, the springs stretched out of use, teeth sharp but forever stilled from the lose of one crucial piece. A place of assured safety if she could maneuver to the right moment.

She looked down the alley wall to the street beyond, full of sunlight and the flow of witnesses. Past Rust, now distracted. She lifted her heels, aligned her center of gravity forward, over her knees, as weight shifted to the balls of her feet. The coil of her body tensed, waiting for a chance.

“Well, Robert. I know you been running - a pause for another gawf-HA laugh. Robert seemed to realize a joke was being made, and he wasn’t in on it - “after our Mooni here, but she is past due to talk to us, that is, to the Boss, Tooth Robert. You know, the man more-” Rust paused, his mouth a u-turn of thought.

“Situationally appropriate?” Pummel said.

“Yeah, right, that. More shituationally appropriate, than some Duke in some south Castle. So she’s comin with us. Right now.”

“No. This young lady will be coming with me. To answer for the crime of theft.” Robert said.

Two ways out, double chances of not having a friendly chat with Tooth Robert. A conversation that would start with blame and end with blood. Hers. His too if she got a lucky shot.

“Sure. Pup Lily is through that way, down the stairs, to the left. If we leave now we can make it before the afternoon switch off and you could get that foot looked after before Doc Huxel leaves for the day.” Mooni said.

“How did you - Doc Huxel is working today?” Robert said.

She drifted backwards, away from Rust and towards freedom.

“He’s the better of the two, you know.”

“Yeah, I know.” Robert said in equal parts relief and confusion.

Rust clamped onto her arm.

“What’re you playing at.” Rust said. His face narrowed to fox point.

It wasn’t a question. Mooni didn’t chance an answer.

“He’s never been to Hanging anyway.” Pummel said.

The next time I see Pummel, if there is a next time, I’m going to steal him the largest roast chicken I can. Mooni thought.

“Of course he is. Doc Huxel is a fixture of the docks.” Mooni called over her shoulder, relaxed, unhurried, calm. Her eyes locked on Rust. His hand locked around her forearm.

“Remember that brawl they had some seasons back? Spilled out into a riot all along the waterline. Someone knocked over a lantern, burned down a few buildings. Some docks too. Clean down to the post. Doc Huxel worked wonders on those burned men.” Pummel said.

“I remember.” Mooni said. Hard not to. The flames rose so high it scorched the bottom planks of Red Fin.

“C’mon girl. Don’t keep Boss waitin.” Rust tugged on her arm, Mooni planted a back foot and resisted.

“Please remove your hand from her person. And you, Pummel was it, please step to the side. You are impeding the apprehension of a suspect.” Robert said. He tried to slide past Pummel and bounced off his arm instead. Pummel blinked at him.

Rust spat again. This time landing on Mooni’s shoe.

A heart thread gave way and revulsion poured out. A trap rearmed. It brought with it a kick.

Mooni twisted free of his arm. She kicked out hard, connected with his knee, and pushed with both hands. He stumbled backwards hitting the wall with a thump.

Get away from me. Her heart seethed against its cage. Touch me and I’ll bite you.

Rust felt her fanged mind. He responded the only way a predator can.

Away from the wall he surged. Fist raised, he swung wide, for her face. She ducked under. He always aimed for the nose.

Mooni had seen him scrap before outside the Titled Hull. He would go for the soft places, throw sand into eyes and, if they got close enough, bite off ears. His sour breath the last thing his opponent would smell before he knocked them to the ground, and delivered a round of kicks to the ribs for good measure. His fighting left no excuse for dropped defenses.

No room for ethics or sportsmanship. It was fighting born from need, honed with experience.

This Pummel on the other hand, Mooni knew nothing. He was a wall. A head taller than most men, with the placid expression of a man unburdened by the concept of deep thoughts. His riptide arms didn't so much taper into hands, as it ended with swells of unstoppable force. To be caught in those hands was to stay that way until he chose, or was ordered, to release them.

She feinted to the left then dodged to the right on the balls of her feet as the wall came down. Pummel grabbed empty air. He paused, seemingly pondering the Mooni shaped hole that now existed in his grasp. Then he straightened and frowned.

Rust pounced as her momentum carried her too far over her own feet. She couldn't stop in time and his haymaker caught her in the chest. His fist ate into her sternum. Bile rose in her throat. Robert was shouting, something about fairness and hitting girls.

The only rule in a fight was to win. It was the one thing Rust and Mooni could agree on.

And it was too late now for other options. She had avoided him whenever she could, though their time working for Tooth Roberts at the Tilted Hull had made all contact unavoidable. Seeing him again, standing in the light of day, the years of work at that smoke filled gambling hall growing out of him, assured her, despite all past and future doubt, that she had made the right choice. Running can be an act of courage. She had, and it had saved her.

Now, this fight was inevitable. Mooni wanted to make Rust wish he had let her run for longer.

A wave of nausea clinched her throat as she used their close distance to strike upward. She drove her palm up, into his nose. There was a crunch. First blood was hers.

Rust, staggered, brought his hand to his face. Blood flowed down to his mouth, pooling in the lines made from a lifetime of scowling.

“You little brat.” He said, voice flat. “Tooth said bring you in nice. Said it wasn’t for us to collect what you owed him. He’d have that himself.”

He tapped his right eye and showed his teeth, a grim mockery of a smile. Mooni swore him down. Again they traded blows. His to her forearm as she raised it in defense. She aimed for his groin, he dodged. She stumbled back at a quick follow up gut punch. Landed a toe smash in trade with a painful yank of her hair. A well placed elbow to the throat cleared her of his grasp.

They circled, always Rust blocking her exit and fought. He grappled her, using his height as advantage to force her to the ground. Mooni refused to kneel, slipped a kick into his inner calf and made him release her or fall himself. She kicked, dodged, floating on her toes, using her legs strong from years of running, to keep distance.

Mooni did not let him bite her. Rust tried twice.

Rust wasn’t a good fighter but he listened to his body. Experience decided his dodges, his punches, metered out his stamina. Mooni had preferred to talk her way out, or run. Her light fingers more suited to lifting a silk purse than rearranging a person’s face to match the slanted buildings of Saut.

She chanced a punch that carried her full weight. This would be, she found out too late to correct her trajectory, a mistake. That was the way some fighters were. Mooni had seen it in alley brawls before. Anyone could fight, as long as they were willing to pay the consequence. Good fighters knew how to turn consequences into opportunity, take a blow to give back two more.

The next punch was a straight slam into her jaw. She didn’t remember hitting the ground.

A long blink later he had her against the wall. One hand on her neck pinning her down, the other raised up.

Another blink. A scatter of stars exploded into being and out again.

Rust struck with a gavel fist that rung down her bones, a judgment. Guilty, guilty, guilty. Her breath had escaped her. When her eyes could open, her vision wavered, the world vignetted, shrunk to the alley way, then the strike and then moment after as the pain roared inside her, then the strike again.

Pummel and Robert were having a disagreement. Both were shouting. Mooni couldn’t hear them. They were two puppets flailing their wooden arms at each other in one of the storyteller’s shows. Exciting, when the story teller rolled the wooden box out, with its velvet curtain the color of night, border painted with flowers and ships. She had watched them often but never stayed for the ending. That was when the tin bowl came out and her pockets were so empty. Always empty. Born guilty, so she would run, back to her home or an alleyway. Was there any difference?

A strike that didn’t land. Mooni tasted blood and commanded herself to open her eyes.

Pummel stood between them, one hand on Rust’s chest the other on Robert. He was saying something, she felt she should listen but her bones were so loud, as if her skeleton knew the body would soon die and it wanted to climb out, free itself from a prison of flesh and live anew as nothing but bone.

Mooni turned her head towards the light of the street, of people and ocean views, of plans made and not completed. She vomited, no one noticed.

Pummel was rumbling, snatches of sounds, the word “no”. Her skeleton refused to listen. Mooni stumbled, legs driving one step then another, towards the open air of the street beyond.

If I am to die, I will not be alone. She thought. And if there are no people, the sun will be my friend, my witness. I will not die in the dark.

Her guilty feet carried her forward into a street she knew. Mooni collapsed. She was aware she was bleeding, but her face hurt too much to know where.

Mooni heard the feet of a woman in wooden work clogs hurrying over the boards. A face appeared. Her mother’s face, no, the face of the woman who sold dried flowers. A friend, nothing more, nothing less. Her weathered face crumbled in concern for the poor beaten girl until she drew near and saw it was Mooni. Once her Mooni, now a cursed and guilty thing. Her helping hands snapped away, replaced with the gesture of the sun. Palm out, she backed away, warning others.

Mooni looked down the alley, back to Rust whose eyes gleamed, hungry from a fight cut short. Robert touched his shoulder and was handed a punch meant for her. The man away onto his back down into the muddy dampness of the alley.

That was the problem playing cards. No matter the skill, sometimes you draw a bad hand. Keeping playing long enough and it would be unfair not too. Mooni had been playing for too long. Night and Day, shuffling between her fingers. All she wanted was sleep. But there was one more thing to do before Rust drug her back to Tooth Robert and he collected on a promise made months before.

She pulled herself up to standing, a buoy free of it’s string and wobbled down the stairs, to the left, to the Pup Lily Jail. Toy soldier guards stood out front, standing tall in starched wool coats with gold aiguillettes. Their hats, wide brimmed and white, adorned with feathers. Under normal circumstances, Mooni would have turned from the new, strange guards who wore a years worth of market earnings on a non-festival day. But today, with her face clouded with bruises, she stumbled into a new game.

Played with a trick deck, rigged with dread moon cards, opportunity flipping into consequence, back again. Mooni was too tired to care which way it landed, as long as she kept going. She played the only card on hand.

“I’m Dread Maw Mooni.” She cried, loud enough to carry. “And I’ve committed theft.”

Mooni threw down the lifted purse at their too shiny shoes, vomited and passed out.

—

From inside the jail, a man worked in an musty office, sunk over a pile of paperwork. A predicament, being demoted.

The window had been stuck open and let in the breeze, but also the moisture from the harbor. And the sounds of Hanging’s docks.

He heard a woman yell.

He pulled another piece of paper off the stack and scowled at the poor handwriting.

The first thing to do was teach those that worked intake to write properly. Was that an “e” or a “o”? Could be a “b” if he squinted.

This was a task straight from Duke Guspit himself, so said the Baron. A preeminent need to reestablish order in Pup Lily bestowed to a hand selected group.

He wished it didn’t have to be his job.

The Jail had set him up with an office straight away. The one task they have managed to be prompt for. He smoothed his travel-crumpled robe.

There was more shouting now. A brawl from one of the local taverns no doubt. Did they have to be so loud about, well, everything?

Footsteps clipped down the hallway, a knock followed.

“Sir?” Said a guard as he poked his head in.

“Yes?”

“We have, uh, that is, there is a particular inmate just come in, and the lads up front say a man with your skill should assist with intake.”

“Did they use magic?” He said, rising.

He hadn’t seen a single person use magic in Hanging since he arrived three days ago. An excited nostalgia bubbled up inside him. Hanging might have interest for him yet.

“Believe so, Sir. At least they’ve used it before. Not sure about now.”

“Excellent. Thank you for bringing this to my attention.” He said.

The man stood and reached behind him. Against the wall, leaned a staff of twined metals, iron and gold, topped with a ball of clear glass.

When his hand clasped the staff he heard the tell-tall sound of a Skill leveling. Someone, and he could guess with certainty who, had gained Experience.

The guard shied his head back from the office. Looking at the staff for too long gave him an unsettled stomach, like his brain and his eyes disagreed on exactly what they saw. His mom had warned him about those types though he would never admit it. Being scared of magic was uncultured. Being scared of a wizard straight from the second largest city in the world, well, he’d be nothing but a backgarden pumpkin to the new guys up from Fort Orinica. They’d never stop laughing.

“You can run ahead if you’d like.” the wizard said. “Tell them not to worry.”

Edwin smoothed the worst wrinkle from his robes and, with the most enthusiasm he’d had in the last few days, left his office towards a new charge.