Guardian of the Night

1

All four moons were out tonight, which meant smugglers wouldn't be disturbing Little Mim, here upon her special perch, halfway up one level of the towering, rundown building that looked out across the River Shcnep. It was her favourite place to come and sleep for the night, away from the press of people that seemed to fill every nook and cranny of The Sprawl.

They said she was small for her age, a mere stripling of a girl who had seen almost twelve Summers, but that only meant she was able to reach places that other people couldn't, like here. It took some climbing, a little scurrying, a few wiggles and wriggles, but she could, at least, know that few others would disturb her as she rested after a busy day scrounging and scavenging to survive.

By 'they', of course, she meant the few people that even knew she existed. Old Cantrus, the mostly-blind woman who charged a Bone to sew patches into worn clothes. Gydry, the Iibari boy who had saved her, more than once, from the roving child gangs that always tried to steal what little Little Mim had managed to find for herself. Bil-Hook, the Watch Captain, who, when no-one was looking, would pass her a half-Bone coin, accompanied by a slap around the head, if she ever caught her stealing.

Little Mim didn't steal. She liberated things from the tyranny of other people's possession. Like her little package that she now laid before her crossed legs. Today had been a good day. Fruitful. She could only open her packages here, or in any one of a dozen other little spaces that only she could reach, out of sight of the boys and girls that would think nothing of stealing the spoils of her hard day's work.

She didn't open the package straight away, she liked to eke out a little anticipation of her loot, and she enjoyed the view. Across the river, she could see lights flickering in the windows of the Old City, where once, she had heard, the city of Adrasusk had become founded. It had grown a lot since those days. Spreading out like a spider's web, over here, to The Sprawl, down the coast, across the Shcnep, even over the other river, the River Ban. Adrasusk was big. Big and old. So she had heard. She had only ever known The Sprawl.

With clouds passing across the largest moon, whose name she didn't remember, but felt certain someone had told her, once, in the past, she dipped her head to her package and began to untie the frayed string that bound it tight. Her dirty fingernails tugged and pulled at the string until it loosened and she could spread the old sackcloth aside, revealing her prizes.

A worn stub of a pencil. She couldn't write, or read, but she could draw pictures. Not well, but well enough to please her. A nub of bread, blackened and hard, but better than nothing. A small crumb of cheese, mouldy and tiny. Any other day, that would have been the greatest prize of the day, but not today. Today she had found something precious, something she had only seen on the very rarest of occasions. A grape.

She didn't want to touch it, not yet, through fear it would burst, but she could hardly stop herself. A little shrivelled, bruised on one side, it still gave Little Mim more than a little thrill to think she had found it before it had become crushed beneath the feet of uncaring people. She had protected it with her body as soon as she saw it, scraping her knees in the mud and filth of the street, eyes peering up and around, worrying that someone else would take it from her, but she had proven stalwart, like a heroic warrior from legend.

Her mother had told her those stories, before she had died while giving birth to Mim's little brother. The baby didn't live long after that, either, and, when her father got caught in a tavern brawl, not a year later, Little Mim no longer had anyone to tell her the tales anymore. No longer had someone to protect her and feed her. She had lived, though. Lived and carried on. As heroes did.

Rubbing her fingers upon her tattered shift dress, trying to remove dirt that had become caked into her skin, Little Mim tried to decide what to eat first. The bread? Filling the hole on the pit of her stomach that she had felt for days. The cheese, something to taste that could linger on her tongue for a while? Or the grape? That beautiful, green grape that looked so delicious that Mim's mouth began to water just at the thought. That, she decided, she would save for last. A treat among the greatest of treats.