The watchman's name was Leid. He drank more than he should and got into fights because of it, and he had a daughter in one of the poorer parts of the city who he'd never met and pretended didn't exist, and he thought it was funny to kick cats because of the noises they made. He was also personally responsible for saving the lives of seven citizens of the city of Unity from untimely and violent death, had, in his time, ensured that several dozen cases of attempted rape went no further than that, and had, over the course of his thirteen years as a watchman, never once looked the other way when he'd seen something wrong taking place.

All things considered, he didn't really deserve what happened to him when he reached out to check if the girl had a pulse.

"Leid? You all right?"

As soon as Leid's fingers had touched the girl's neck he'd stiffened, frozen in place. As the other watchman looked on Leid's body convulsed, a violent spasm that sent him tumbling away from the unmoving body of the girl, the wet crack of a broken bone sounding out into the night.

The other watchman gaped at Leid where he lay, silent and unmoving, his arm twisted at an unnatural angle.

"Leid?"

There was a noise, or a presence, or something that made the watchman look away from his fallen friend and towards the girl. She hadn't moved. She was just lying there, face pale, as still as dead.

The watchman drew his sword, held it at the ready as he stepped towards her, the tip trembling as he neared that corpselike body.

Lina's eyes opened.

The watchman dropped his sword and fled.

Several minutes passed.

The softest of breezes blew, coming from the south.

Lina stood up.

Her head was throbbing and her body couldn't decide whether it was hot or cold, kept changing its mind every few seconds. She felt dizzy and disorientated, a deep sickness in her stomach, at once strangely light and oddly heavy. She didn't notice the watchman's body as she staggered away.

Though someone else did.

----------------------------------------

The sun rose over the city, driving away the darkness of the night, lighting up streets and avenues and bridges and alleyways.

It fell on Lina's face, the warmth and brightness causing her eyes to flutter then open, and she raised a sluggish arm to ward it off.

Then the smell hit her. It was like nothing she'd smelt before, thick and oily and smoky and rotten and sour and sharp, making her gag and cough, and the cough turned into a choke, and she fell on to her hands and knees as she retched.

Some time later Lina emerged from the alleyway, looking like someone who had just spent the night in an alleyway. She stared around with dull eyes, at the city that surrounded her, at the wide, roughly paved street, at the shops and houses all squashed together, at the people walking by not giving her a second glance, all of them dressed in their best clothes. Lina took all of this in without really understanding any of it. With few other choices apparent, she began walking stiffly in a random direction.

"Here's one."

"What, her? Nah."

"You know your problem, Buck? You can't look beneath the surface. Couldn't spot potential if it were pissing on your head."

"I still say 'nah'."

"You'll see. Oi! Girl! Oi, I said! Yeah, you!"

Lina stopped and slowly turned. With blank eyes she looked at the two men at the side of the road, then she turned away from them and went to keep walking.

"Hey now, we don't look THAT scary, do we?" said one of them, as he jogged over to Lina and took her arm. "Just wanna chat, maybe tell you something interesting."

Lina looked down at where the man held her, then up at his face.

"You shouldn't touch me," she said, her voice lifeless. "I might hurt you."

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The man laughed. "Yeah, reckon you could, at that! Got a good pair of arms on you there, good pair of legs too, I'd say you grew up on a farm, that right?"

Lina stared at him, then nodded slowly.

"But I ran away," she said.

"Of course you did," the man said, glancing back as his partner joined them. "Why don't we go have a drink? I know it's early but, well, for some of us the morning's just an extension of the night, ain't that right Buck?"

"Could be," said the other man, his voice low and thoughtful. Lina turned her blank gaze to him, then back to the first man, who grinned at her.

"So what do you say, girl?"

"I don't care," said Lina.

"That's as good as a yes in my book, come on then, we've got a place—"

"OI! DON'T MOVE FROM THERE!"

The piercing sound of a watchman's whistle accompanied the yell, and in an instant the two men were gone. Lina looked up without interest as a couple of watchmen ran towards her. Those men must be bad, she thought, just before the watchmen stopped, swords out and pointed at her. One of them blew his whistle again, two short blasts.

"Don't move, girl," said the whistleblower. "Just you stay there and don't you move, unless you want my sword through your heart."

Of course, Lina thought. Those men aren't the bad ones. Not compared to me. I don't know how these watchmen know, but they can obviously tell how terrible I am.

"Maybe you should just do it," she said. "Killing me now would probably save everyone a lot of trouble."

"Shut it," said the other watchman. He glanced around at the sound of approaching footsteps, as three more watchmen ran up to join them.

"This her?" one asked, squinting at Lina. "You sure?"

"So how many other girls do we got walking around looking like this?" the whistleblower said.

"What, here in the Gant? This time of morning? Couple of dozen, I'd say," said one of the newly arrived watchmen. "No, this is her though. It's you, ain't it?" he said to Lina. She shrugged listlessly. He looks different to the others, some part of her noticed. Tidier.

"So what do we do with her now?" one of the other watchmen asked, before giving a cold look to a passerby taking a little too much of an interest in proceedings.

"You lot can get back to your beats. I'll take her from here," said the tidy watchman.

"You sure, sir?"

"I've dealt with her sort before."

"But ... I mean, the stories you hear, sir, especially lately—"

"As I said, I've got experience," said the tidy watchman. The whistleblower, who had been staring at the tidy watchman since he'd arrived, suddenly spoke up:

"I don't think I've seen you around before. You new?"

"No," said the tidy watchman. "I just don't usually walk the streets."

"Oh?" said whistleblower. "Why's that, then? Thought every dog in this city walked the streets."

"Some of us," said the tidy watchman, his eyes fixed on whistleblower, "have moved beyond the streets."

"Shut your trap, Glen," hissed one of the other watchmen, "don't you get it? He's with the bloody wolves!"

"Oh, so what, you think you're above us, that what this is about? Bunch of lowly street coppers couldn't handle this girl, something like that?"

"I don't think I'm above you," said the tidy watchman, his voice level and friendly. "Quite the opposite."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?"

"Glen, shut it!"

"No, no," said the tidy watchman, eyes still fixed on whistleblower. "We've all of us got the right to a voice. Ain't that right?"

"Yeah," said whistleblower. "Reckon it is."

"So, seeing as you'd prefer to take this girl yourself—"

"Now, hang on. I didn't say that—"

"Then what were you saying?" the tidy watchman asked, his voice still quite level, still quite friendly. Whistleblower clenched his jaw, then let out a short, sharp breath.

"Nothing," he muttered, turning away. "Nothing at all."

The neat watchman watched whistleblower leave, then turned to the others.

"Anyone else—"

He smiled at the level of vehemence in the insistence that they had no problem at all with his authority, sir, thank you, sir.

"Then I'll be taking the girl," said the tidy watchman. "Good work, all of you."

The tidy watchman put his full attention on Lina as the rest thanked him and fled.

"You gonna be any trouble?" he asked. She shook her head.

"I don't care what happens to me," she said. "I probably deserve it."

"Well," said the tidy watchman. "Come along, then."

"You're not going to tie my wrists or anything?" Lina asked, as the tidy watchman led her away.

"Are you going to try to overpower me?"

"No."

"Then I don't see any need for that."

"But what if I tried to escape?" Lina said, curiosity burning through the grey fog of her mind.

"Well, again, are you going to try to escape?"

"No."

"Then, again, there's no need."

They walked on for a little while. The tidy watchman glanced back at Lina.

"What's your name?"

"It's Lina."

"Lina," he repeated. "Hm."

They turned a corner, into an alleyway, where four girls and a carriage stood waiting.

"Ah, Selene, good," said the tidy watchman. "Everything looks ready." He turned to Lina and smiled, a genuine, open smile. "Perhaps now I can properly introduce myself," he said, as he tugged off his helmet, handing it to the girl he'd called Selene and in return accepting a fine, old-fashioned hat, which he put on his head with an air of satisfaction. He turned back to Lina once more, a sparkle in his deep blue eyes.

"You can call me Fin."