Innocence and Avarice [closed]

[Zhavi]

Zhi was slack-jawed as she watched Lalataru go, the notepad clutched tight in one hand. The expression was not constructed. She'd been thoroughly flummoxed by the man, by her mistakes, by the fact that he'd just handed her some work to do, and that she might fail that work through no lack of effort on her own. The triumph of success and the bitterness of defeat: her quickly beating heart would not wholly make up for the sour taste in her mouth. She was left standing on the bridge, alone, as he disappeared from view. Only the ancient stone of the city, the water and the stars were there for company, and they left her to her struggles. She stood there for a long time: a silhouette in the darkness, outlined by the moon's faint light.

 

___________

 

Someone knocked.

 

Zhi looked up from her idle pursuit of repeatedly-stab-the-table-in-frustration, and then around at the small space she presently lay claim to. Bed, table, two chairs, door, explosion of poorly maintained clothing used for various disguises for various jobs, leftover food, mouse slowly creeping towards leftover food. She frowned at the mouse. "What," she said, too pissy to inflect the word as a question.

 

"'Sme." The door made a rattling noise, almost as if it would fall to pieces should someone lean on it. "Unbar th'door."

 

The mouse fled. Zhi nearly took off after it. Killing it would be stress relief. She stared at where it'd disappeared, fighting the instinct and the urge; how much dignity did she even have left at this point? She opened her mouth and inhaled, dragging air over the glands in the roof of her mouth. It smelled tasty.

 

"Zhio?"

 

She got up and let Brindle into the room. He looked around and whistled, a cocky grin plastered on his face as he looked back at her. Without even acknowledging him, she resumed her seat at the table, and returned to scarring its imperfect surface with her knife. The silence became oppressive. Brindle awkwardly took the seat opposite her, and folded his arms on the table. His eyes grew wide as he watched her, but he knew better than to speak.

 

Finally, she exploded. "That self-ruttin' dog set me up!"

"That why ye bit it?"

 

His smile was as innocent as her glare was venomous.

 

"Shut it, scrag. Lalataru?"

"Jes some drab what works at th'Gate. Oo set ye up?"

"Galleon," Zhi growled the name. Small chunks of wood splintered off from the table as she worked her knife back and forth. "Right craven bastard he is, too, hirin' me on an' then -- ye know what he did? I was thinkin' on it, thinkin' how I missed me step, an' it came from him! He gave me the blimmin' crumb what set me on th'trail."

 

Brindle considered this. "'Ow ye know it was a-purpose?"

"Hear nothin' 'bout that book Lalataru carries?"

"Not solid."

 

Zhi slapped the table with her free hand. "Right so, an' yet this bastard wants it? Not for no reason he don't, not fer what he's payin'."

"Ain't his fault y'didn't check thrice."

 

It was the truth in Brindle's words that made Zhi bristle. She started stabbing the table again, the thunks of metal hitting wood forming a counter-rhythm to her words. "Lalataru wants th'name o' me source."

"So?"

"Thinkin' might be time t'cut loose."

 

Brindle stared at her for a tense few seconds, then he broke down into giggles. "Even th'mighty Zhio takes a turn at bein' craven, is't?"

"I aint craven."

"Yeah? Prove it."

 

___________

 

Zhi lived for challenge. That was truth. Zhi lived to stay living. Also truth. At the point the two truths met was where she often found herself, hanging out over the edge and staring death down. That was how she lived. But there was something about Lalataru, about her employer Galleon, about the mess of a job that felt twisted. Something was off between the three, something she couldn't pinpoint, and that took her off course more than she cared to admit. Though she'd set Brindle out on his ear the night before after grilling him for all pertinent information, his words had stuck between her ears. Piss on what people said, but he had set her a challenge. He'd given her something to prove. He was just a dumb kid with a flapping tongue what didn't know when to stop, but he'd made his point. She'd been about to back off from a challenge. A challenge that stood to make her a lot of money.

 

Greed and her stupid sense of pride won out. She tracked down the woman she'd gotten the information on Lalataru from (short hair, petite, not anything like what she'd told Lalataru). At first she pressed the woman for more information on Lalataru, and was laughed at: "I give you word that the mite has a rotten past chummy with rats for a handful of gil, and you think you can afford the rest?"

 

As it turned out, she couldn't. Though, truthfully, Zhi couldn't tell if the woman even knew more, or was just putting her on.

 

"Ye know Galleon, then?" Zhi was grinning at the woman for all she was worth, her fangs on prominent display.

"Don't you just have the most interestin' names on the tip of your tongue. Careful you don't bite it off, dovey."

"He tell ya I was comin'?"

"As it happens, I'll be shippin' out tomorrow. Give your dear little friend my regards, hm?"

"Oh, really? Huh. 'Cause I thinks yer in it deep wi'Galleon, an' holdin' out on me. Whatsit, got his cock so far down yer throat y'can't talk?"

 

The woman laughed at her, again. The sound was too big for her small frame. Zhi weathered it, beaming at the woman like they were close friends sharing some stupid joke.

 

"We all have our errands to run, don't we? Best stick to it lest your attempts at cleverness see you caught out."

 

The conversation went nowhere from there, and Zhi was finally forced to admit defeat. The whole situation baffled her. Something was going on, something that had to do with Lalataru and that book of his, something that her employer and his rutting lapdog didn't want her to know. It made her uneasy. If there was more to the situation then she had been let in on, fine -- but it was seeming more and more like she was some throwaway piece in the game being played. Get the book, she'd been told. You'll probably have to get on Lolotaru's good side; it's not something easily snatched from him. You'll need information on him for that, so if you go to the lower decks. . .

 

She'd been lead along like a puppy on a string, and it pissed her off. She'd followed the information and hadn't given it a second thought. Why? What was with the runaround? Did they want Lalataru chasing phantoms?

 

No, Zhi didn't like the rutting mess at all.

 

_________

 

Two days had passed before Zhi shadowed the entrance to the Arcanists' Guild again, notebook in hand and clothing unchanged since he'd last seen her. She was curled up in the corner again, watching people walk by as she waited for Lalataru.

[Goodfellow]

The day after meeting Joz, Lolotaru almost didn't return to the Guild.  He debated returning to Wineport, laying low in the country.  But his curiosity was piqued.  He needed to know what was being said about him and he could best control the situation from nearby.  Reconciled with the fact that there was no satisfactory course of action to be taken just yet, he went to the Guild.  He breathed a small sigh of relief to see that Joz was not there, then entered and lost himself in his notes and books.

 

By the time he left late that evening he was almost disappointed not to have encountered her.  It was hardly orthodox, but the ways of the Arcanists' Guild, while official, were newer than those of the thaumaturges and conjurers; writ less in stone, more flexible.  If he decided to take an apprentice, he could reconcile it with the system.  If it became problematic, there would be paperwork to do; a semi-official recognition sanctioned by the Guild itself.  Nothing insurmountable.  Nothing to bar the Thaliak-given right to learning and education.  He began to look forward to their lessons, frustratingly basic though they may be at the start, and wondered if he wasn't still a fool for it.

 

The following day was much the same.  The sharp edges of his feelings eroded somewhat and he spent the whole of it again in his books.  And in the book, tracing its sand-yellow pages, his eyes following the dancing script that so entranced him, despite his complete and utter lack of understanding.  Nothing calmed him so much as the presence of his book.  Nothing so excited his mind with the imagination of possibility.  And yet, nothing frustrated him quite so much as its perpetually impenetrable mysteries.

 

He had allowed him to become so distracted, so detached from the events of two days prior that when he saw Joz there, waiting for him just as she had been before, he was shocked and taken aback all over again.  Well, at least it wasn't quite so hot today.

 

"Good morning, Miss Joz," he said.  And waited.

[Zhavi]

A grin was Lalataru's first response. Zhi got to her feet, clutching the notebook a little tighter as she looked down upon the shorter man. "Fair winds, Master Lolotaru," she replied. She was fidgety, looking at him and then away, sideways or down at her feet. Her posture was a careful work of art; her indrawn shoulders and lowered head brandished 'don't look at me!' even before one could look at her ears or tail. She was not one well used to honest conversations.

 

Abruptly, she bent and proffered the notebook to Lalataru. "I done as ye asked, sir. But. . . I couldn't find th'man again. I-I'll keep a lookout, fer true!"

 

The matter of the notebook had been the uppermost sour note in the past two days for Zhi. In between her fruitless attempts to gather more information that would benefit her own tenuous position, she'd found herself stone-sober as she labored over the damn thing, drawing runes and trying to make sense of why it was even necessary. She didn't know what 'latent skill' meant, but she hoped for her own sake she harbored something, because she couldn't allow the farce to end. She always could beg for general education, she supposed, or to become an assistant. Anything to further the cause.

[Goodfellow]

Lolotaru took the notebook from her outstretched hand and began to skim through its contents as he spoke to her.

 

"Hm...that's too bad.  If you don't see him soon, we may have to be more proactive in our search."

 

His eyes traced the lines and designs scrawled across the pages.  She had little enough experience, sure enough, and any creative flourishes of her own were sorely lacking, but that was to be expected on the first of such assignments.  The students first inclination is to parrot and not innovate, a tendency which left unchecked will lead the neophyte not so far into arcanima at all.  Still, his own successes had hardly been immediate or his talents readily apparent.  And despite her experience with ink and parchment, she was clearly a careful and accomplished mimic.  After the first few tries, he could find hardly any variation in her reproductions of the symbols he had drawn for her.  It's a start.

 

He looked up over the edge of the notebook at Joz.  "And what did you feel?  Tracing these, I mean."

[Zhavi]

There were many unflattering things Zhi had been called on account of her typically bad attitude. All of the reasons for those monikers lay at the forefront of her mind as Lalataru looked at her from over the top of the notebook. Restraint was somehow very difficult in that moment. Resentment curdled deep in her gut.

 

"Umm," she said, because she suspected there was a right answer and she had no idea what it was supposed to be. "I felt right calm, I guess?"

 

Bored. She'd felt bored. Bored, and frustrated, and resentful. But it hadn't been hard, at least, and that was one small favor out of a heap of shite she'd gone through the past two days.

[Goodfellow]

"Er...hm..yes," he began.  Calm?, he wondered to himself as he allowed the notebook to fall to his side.  She was reaching.  He continued, "I apologize, Miss Joz.  I was unclear.  'Calm' is how you felt.  I want to know what you felt while working on the designs."

 

And again he waited.

[Zhavi]

Zhi almost glared at him. She stared at the ground instead. Clearly Lalataru was a little bit loose between the ears, which left her in the lurch. Gamble with a madman, or stick to the truth? If he found out she was lying, well, she'd already found out that hard way that toying with him wasn't too smart. "Nothin'. . .special, I don't think," she said slowly. "It was jes. . .lines, an' they done what I asked 'em."

[Goodfellow]

Lolotaru frowned.  He felt like a fool.  He had aspirations of teaching one day, perhaps at that very guild, and yet he was failing miserably in anticipating the needs and frustrations of his first student.  He had enjoyed tutors and professors throughout his life and, what's more, was a skilled autodidact; he had not had to think about how others might learn.

 

He softened his countenance and responded.  "The lines did what you asked of them, yes.  The problem is that you asked so little of them.  I've done a poor job explaining.  Come."  He turned and beckoned her after him with his hand, entering the guild and descending the stairs into the room where they had concluded so abruptly their tense first meeting only days before.

[Zhavi]

Zhi followed Lalataru, meek as you please. Her re-entrance into the Gate brought with it sweaty palms and an instant jump in pulse; she'd expected the need to go back in, but couldn't claim immunity to the strange moments that had passed between herself and the lalafel when they'd been alone. Oh, sure, she'd people who'd wanted to kill her before, but the set she floated between were typically more straightforward with their threats and intentions. Lalataru was strangely opaque to her, as if there was something else lurking behind the scholarly facade -- something that would eat her for a snack and not think twice of it. It was as frightening as it was thrilling, and she ought to have conspired to avoid being alone with him until she'd had more interactions with him. And there it was again, the ought to that spoke of common sense.

 

As she neared the bottom of the stairs, the silence and memories got to her tongue before she could pinch it down between her teeth. "What was I sposed t'have felt, Master Lolotaru? An' whaddya mean, I asked too little?"

 

Curiosity, and all that.

[Goodfellow]

"I mean that you only asked the lines to be straight."  He raised the notebook and painstakingly drew a reproduction of the same symbol he had given her.  He finished and looked up at her, turning the page toward her to show her.  "You see, I reproduced the symbol perfectly, but with only that intention.  Now, watch again," he muttered as he turned towards an empty, bruised looking patch of wall across the room.  He once again drew the symbol's basic form, tracing the lines just as he saw them, carefully aping the angles exactly.  As he finished, he quickly turned the book toward the spot on the wall before him and a small bolt of distorted energy leaped forth, crossing the room and striking the wall before bursting and dissipating.  He looked back at Joz.

 

"That time, I held the design in my mind as I traced it with the intention of drawing my own aether out through it.  But it was weak and difficult.  Unwieldy.  Watch once more.  This time, I will use the design as a general outline, but allow my own awareness of the internal flow of my aether to direct the subtle differences I will add to the original design.  It will be my own, ultimately, based on the skeleton of the one I drew for you, and it will respond to me in a much more efficient and powerful way."

 

He again turned to the wall and put pen to paper.  Now, he allowed the tug and pull of the flow of the aether to influence the curves and angles he drew; he added tiny embellishments and personal touches.  With a practiced comfort, he completed one final flourish and again pushed the notebook out before him.  A bolt of Ruin burst out and flew across the room, smashing powerfully against the wall and leaving a great smoking blackness hissing against the magically reinforced bricks.

 

"You see?"

[Zhavi]

The first bolt made Zhi flinch. It was fascinating, but when combined with Lalataru's dry lecture, not much to get excited about.

 

The second? Zhi yelped, jumped back, and hissed all at once as the something hit the wall with a great noise. The fur on her tail stood on end, and it stuck up nearly straight behind her, trapped between her body and the wall as she crowded back against it. It was a threat. It was a warning. It was Lalataru showing her what he was capable of, and what he'd do to her if she pissed him off. In that moment, as she stared at the smoking wall, the mask slipped off. Under it was Zhi, scared beyond measure and irrevocably drawn to the job she'd taken. Lalataru had laid out a challenge. She wasn't craven.

 

Heartbeat echoing in her ears, she got her expression under control. This time, when she stuttered it wasn't an act. "S-so how do I d-do that? Wi'the -- the aether." She'd heard of aether before, of course, but it had always been an alien concept to her, something other people did. People with power. It'd been beyond her.

 

The wheels in her mind started to turn. What if -- what if she learned how to do that? What if she became Lalataru's apprentice for true? She could be a big name in Limsa Lominsa, control her own turf and show Galine -- no! Agha, she could show Agha what was what. She pushed off the wall, pupils dilated, and went to her knees before Lalataru. The line between Zhi and Joz smeared as she held her hands up, ears sideways in submission. "How do I do that?" she repeated, fear replaced by eagerness. "Teach me."

[Goodfellow]

Lolotaru jumped at Joz's yelp.  He whipped around to see a very different girl; a much more honestly startled girl than he had glimpsed up to this point.  And he watched as it passed from her face.  It was only a moment and it disappeared like a shadow, but he had seen the hint of something else.  Defiance?

 

He quickly, and with great uncertainty, continued his lecture.  "That was Ruin, the most basic of the arcanist's designs.  It is somewhat crass and it's applications are limited compared to the full battery of arcanima, but it has its uses.  Namely, for learning how to draw out the aether.  Later manifestations require greater finesse; not so with Ruin."  He closed the notebook and held it back out to the girl.

 

"I don't want you trying to cast it.  Not outside of this room, at least.  Not yet."  His face was such that would brook no argument.  "Take the book again and return to the designs.  But don't force them so much, this time.  As you trace them over again, follow your instincts, your whims even.  If an angle seems more pleasing or natural wider or narrower, then widen or narrow it accordingly.  If a particularly straight edge seems constricting, then loosen and curve it.  If you possess the necessary aetheric levels, then the aether will manifest itself," he concluded and paused.  She seemed truly enraptured in what he was trying to teach her.

 

"Your hair may stand on end, or there may be a slight breeze where there was none, or you may feel warm or particularly energized."

 

He leaned in and placed the outstretched notebook in her hands.  They were slick, clammy.

[Zhavi]

Zhi jerked the notebook away from Lalataru without meaning to, and forced a nervous smile at him. "Ain't used t'this," she muttered, ducking her head at him in mute apology.

 

She couldn't deny her hunger. Dangerous way to feel around a mark, couldn't deny that either. She opened the notebook to a new page, and resolutely bent to the task that he'd set her without quite understanding how she was supposed to let her whims guide the lines. It was so stupid. Zhi had grown up scratching in the dirt same as any other gutterborn, with trash for toys and invention a necessity to stave off boredom. Rules had evolved in and between the city's laws, all unspoken and all enforced with brutality and cruelty. You didn't go there, you didn't mess with him, you watched your mouth around her. They'd grown into her, melded into her bones and grown roots beneath her. All those little unspoken understandings, methods of survival. But, if you'd asked Zhi whether or not she was a follower of laws and rules, she'd have thumbed up her nose, because they weren't rules, not to her. They just were what they were.

 

So why was it so rutting difficult when given freedom of direction for her to do it? The lines were lines, forming shapes that she could twist to whatever she chose. But warping them, they just turned to scribbles -- not the mysterious symbols Lalataru had produced. There was no breeze, no light touch down her spine. Nothing but her wasted effort. At first she thought she was just doing it wrong, that if she tried harder . . . but no.

 

Here, Joz's failure was Zhi's failure. It wasn't a competition against anyone but herself, and that made the sting of it all the worse, this thought that she couldn't do something so simple as doodle out a few different lines. Page upon page filled and was set aside, until finally she sat back on her heels and set her palms to her thighs. Her hair hung about her face; she didn't look up from the blank page before her. Her back hurt. Her neck hurt. Her hand cramped. She swallowed something ugly down, and when she spoke her voice was faint. "How. . .long does't . . .take. . .usually?"

[Goodfellow]

Lolo watched her at her work and observed her growing frustration.  He thought back to his own time teaching himself on the trade routes of rural Thanalan.  Long and hot days filled with sand and wind, how he used to study and practice to wile away the time.  All his real and measurable improvement had come in his short time with the guild, but he had started teaching himself a long time before and, up to a certain level, his skills felt worn-in and natural.  He couldn't even recall the first time he felt the pull of his own aether.  His own development had been so hard-earned and gradual that no first successful incidence of Ruin came to mind.  Rather he recalled a chain of bolts over time, gradually becoming more fully-formed, quicker, brighter, more powerful.

 

He sat down next to her.  She was clearly anxious and he didn't want to add pressure by towering imposingly over her (insofar as a lalafell can tower).

 

"How. . .long does't . . .take. . .usually?" he heard her say.

 

When he had first given her the assignment, a large part of him had wanted her to be intimidated and to scurry off and leave him alone.  Sitting there with her in that moment of frustrated impotence, he commiserated and wanted only for her to feel reassured, to not give up on learning.

 

"It depends on the individual.  It took me quite a long time, as a matter of fact," he added.  "Much longer than if I had had a teacher."  He smiled comfortingly.

[Zhavi]

That smile. It was aimed at her, full of understanding and goodwill. Something twisted inside Zhavi as she looked over at Lalataru, and she eased back into Joz's timid nature.

 

Idiot.

 

She looked back down at the pages, spread like the ocean before her. Opaque, dangerous. Too dangerous. A long time? A long time, and she didn't even have a guarantee that she would be able to use the power. Her, a gutterborn, using the arcanists' power to rule over the gangs?

 

Yer such a ruttin' idiot, Zhio.

 

Hope belonged to Joz and other halfwitted scrags like her. Zhi knew better. She'd learned that lesson a long time ago, and she was much too wise in the ways of the city to go back on it now. Leave off her job? Zhi never quit on a job, not unless she was offered better gil. Would Lalataru's compassion feed her? Would his kindness last past his own needs? No. Of course it wouldn't. He'd already proven he wasn't stupid, and she would just be underestimating him if she paid him the disrespect of thinking him some toothless old scut. All she had to do was get him to drop his guard long enough for her to grab his book, and then hide long enough to escape his wrath.

 

Her grip tightened on the grease pencil she held, and she nodded. "I'll keep goin', then," she muttered, and bent back to her task.

 

Gaining Lalataru's trust meant listening to him, and being diligent. So she would keep trying, until she ran out of paper, or time, or he chased her home for the day. She would ignore her body's complaints, and she would finish the rotten job and find out the secrets her employer didn't want her to know. She'd do everything she always did. She'd be ruthless, and practical. Just like always.

 

But she still couldn't quite smother the little flicker in her gut that wanted more.

[Goodfellow]

A thought occurred to Lolo, an idea which would ease the process of the honest student and keep the less honest student under close observation.  He did not wish to interrupt her work, but he ventured a question anyway.

 

"Uh...Miss Joz, you--well--you mentioned that you had been a...er... thief.  Past tense, yes?"

[Zhavi]

Zhi flinched, the line she was currently drawing veering abruptly sideways. "Err. . .yes?"

[Goodfellow]

"Mhmm.  So how are you supporting yourself now?" he continued.

[Zhavi]

Zhi hunched her shoulders. "Beggin'." Her voice was nearly inaudible. "Scroungin' in inn middens. Couple hours' worth o'odd jobs at th'docks, when they've work." She shrugged, seeming to focus hard on the page before her.

[Goodfellow]

Lolo turned his gaze.  He had grown up in relative plenty and while his personal wealth had ebbed and flowed in the years before and since the Calamity, being confronted with the reality that impeded the education of so many discomfited him.  Staring forward at the wall, at nothing, he spoke.

 

"Miss Joz, while the comforts of the student are secondary to his or her efforts, yours is hardly a situation conducive to learning.  If we are going to determine your aetheric viability, you will need to dedicate yourself wholly to the pursuit.  Otherwise, I fear I've nothing to teach you."  He paused momentarily before making his proposal, preempting any wet eyes or whimpers of protest which would frighten and discourage his constitution.

 

"If you prove yourself a dedicated and earnest student, I will aid you for a time.  It is the natural situation of a master and apprentice, after all, and I can support the both of us modestly without too great an adjustment.  A roof over your head and a full belly will keep your mind and senses much sharper than overlong hours of begging and hard labor."

 

His speech thus concluded, he again turned his head toward the girl seated at his side and awaited her reply.

[Zhavi]

In but a moment Zhi had bent over her legs, prostrating herself before Lalataru. "I'll do anythin', sir, anythin'!"

 

The position Joz was in was one constructed out of a lack of choices. Lalataru had taken her on, but he could dump her at any time, for any reason. Whatever he said went, and it was obvious the girl had already recognized and accepted that. For Zhi, it was a potential roadblock, but one that wasn't entirely unexpected.

 

"Jes' ye tell me what's needed, Master Lalataru, an' I'll see it done."

[Goodfellow]

Lolo cocked his head to the side and said, "I need you to learn, Miss Joz."  He straightened his neck and motioned for her to get up. "And any...prostration...is and will remain unnecessary. Now take the notebook, continue your practice, and return to me when you've made progress or run out of paper."

 

He paused a moment in thought before pulling out another, smaller pad of paper and continuing.  "Where do you stay?  I'll have a retainer along with some items from the market this evening."

[Zhavi]

Zhi pushed herself back up, awkwardness stretching her lips into a grimace. She clutched the notebook to her chest and avoided eye contact with Lalataru. "Yessir. I keeps ta this empty buildin' in Barnacles' Reach." Her mouth twisted. She mumbled, "Best not t'send yer 'tainer in nice garb, sir."

 

Barnacles' Reach was a cluster of homes and businesses that belonged to the poor in Limsa Lominsa. They clung to the cliffside and spread quickly, giving it the name. A long time ago it had been a nice neighborhood, as such things could be reckoned in Limsa, but the situation had taken a turn for the worse after the Calamity.

[Goodfellow]

The sides of Lolotaru's mouth turned down in unfamiliarity.

 

"Regardless, I will need the building and unit number and a convenient time when you will be home for the delivery.  Sometime, say, around six-and-a-half bells?"

[Zhavi]

Choking down the derisive laughter was hard. Zhi stayed quiet an awkward few seconds as she worked at strangling the impulse, and then carefully said, "there, ah, ain't no numbers in th'Reach, sir. I'll. . .uh. . ." she made a face, considering. Barnacle's Reach was old, and badly organized. Once upon a time, buildings had names that were well recognized, and the narrow, zig-zagging streets had been also named and counted -- but that'd been before fortunes had turned and the wealth had dried up. New growth had sprung up, built of wood and shoddy hanging bridges and stairways. It was a mess to navigate, perhaps especially because it was vertical as well as horizontal.

 

"I'll. . .meet yer man at th'edge," she concluded, dismissing the idea of a map out of hand. "It's. . .not a place t'wander, Master Lalataru. I wouldn't want yer man t'get shanked. Yeah, at six-an'-a-half bells -- " she gave him the name of the street that brushed along the edge of the Reach, the one that was easiest to find.