Denny made his way back to his shack as the grey light of dawn spread over the slum's crooked rooftops.
He had spent the entire night tracking a pickpocket through three districts, finally cornering him in a warehouse and collecting the bounty. Twelve silver coins jingled in his pocket, enough to last a week if he was careful, or three days if he wasn't.
His head throbbed. The ale from the previous night still lingered in his skull, and his mouth tasted of copper and regret. He needed water. Sleep. Maybe more ale.
He turned into the narrow alley leading to his shack and paused.
Someone had been there.
His soldier instincts kicked in before he could think: scan, assess, identify the threat. Footprints in the mud—small and bare. Recent. A disturbance near his storage crate, where he kept tools and stolen goods. The lid was askew, not how he had left it.
His hand instinctively moved to the knife at his belt.
He approached slowly, his boots silent on the muddy ground. He circled the crate and listened.
Breathing. Faint and shallow, like something on the verge of death.
He opened the lid—prepared for a fight, expecting a thief or rival—
And found a child.
A tiny, filthy, half-dead child curled up in his storage crate like a corpse waiting to be buried.
"What the hell—"
She flinched at his voice. Her eyes flew open—wide, dark, and wild with fear. The look of a cornered animal that knew it was about to die.
They locked eyes. Denny's mind raced through the assessments: Threat level? None. Age? Six, maybe seven. Condition? Dying. Blood on her clothes—not fresh, but dark and dried. Scratches on her arms and legs. Bare feet torn and muddy. Lips cracked and bleeding from dehydration.
He glanced around the alley. No one. No ambush. Just a dying kid in his damn crate.
His first thought: This is a problem.
His second thought: I should walk away.
His third thought was already moving his hands, already crouching down, already reaching for the waterskin on his belt.
"Alright," he muttered—to himself, not to her. "Let's see what fresh hell this is."
He raised his hands, palms facing out. Non-threatening.
"Take it easy. I won't hurt you."
She remained still. No blinking. Just stared with those dark eyes as if she was facing death itself.
He noticed her lips were cracked and bleeding. She had been without water for too long.
"Are you thirsty?"
No answer.
He sighed, opened his waterskin, took a drink himself—showing it was safe—then placed it down within her reach.
"Drink. Or don't."
He stepped back, giving her space.
She waited. Long seconds stretched like wire. Then she lunged—desperate, awkward—and grabbed the waterskin. She drank too quickly, choked, water spilling down her chin, and drank more.
Denny observed. Saw the desperation. The fear. The way her eyes stayed on him even as she drank, ready to flee if he made a wrong move.
When she finished, she held the waterskin to her chest as if it might be taken away.
He took a piece of bread from his coat—stale, but food—and tossed it near her feet.
She pounced on it like a wolf. Tearing, choking, tears streaming down her dirt-streaked face. Animal sounds came from her throat.
He waited until she was finished.
"Do you have a name?"
Silence.
"I'm Denny."
More silence.
He shrugged. "Suit yourself."
He stood, brushed mud off his knees, and turned toward the shack.
He paused at the door.
"You'll die out here tonight. The cold will get you, or the rats, or someone worse than me." He opened the door. "Come on."
He didn't look back. Just walked inside and left the door open behind him.
After a long moment—long enough that he thought she wouldn't—he heard small, cautious footsteps.
She appeared in the doorway, silhouetted against the grey dawn. Small. Shaking.
He pointed to the worn rug by the cold hearth.
"There. That's yours."
She moved across the room slowly, as if wading through deep water, and sank onto the rug. She pulled her knees to her chest and watched him.
Denny poured ale into a tin mug and took a seat at the table. He had a long drink. His head was still pounding.
"So," he said, leaning back in the chair, "you're probably wondering what kind of fool lets a random kid into his shack. That's a fair question."
She didn't reply. He didn't need her to.
"My name's Denny, as I mentioned. I'm a thief-taker. Do you know what that means?" He took another sip. "Probably not. It means I catch criminals for a living. If someone steals something, I find them. If someone runs away, I bring them back. The guards in this city couldn't catch a cold if it bit them, so people hired me instead."
He gestured with the mug, ale spilling a bit.
"I'm good at it too. The best in the slums. Maybe even the best in the whole city. Just caught a pickpocket last night—it took me two days. The guards had been searching for a week." He laughed, a harsh sound. "Twelve silver for two days' work. Not too shabby, right?"
She stared at him, silent.
"Of course, the guards despise me for it. You'll see that soon enough if you stick around. They hate that I'm better than them. They hate that I don't bow down. They hate that I call them what they are—dogs on the king's leash."
He took another drink. The ale was starting to ease his headache.
"I used to be one of them, you know. A soldier. I fought in King Adam's army and saw half the kingdom." His voice became distant. "I saw some things..."
He trailed off, staring into his mug.
Then he shook his head, finished the drink, and stood up.
"Anyway. You should sleep. I'll be here."
He moved to the narrow bed in the corner—just a plank with a thin blanket—and collapsed onto it without taking off his boots.
In a few minutes, his breathing deepened into the rough rhythm of tired sleep.
Reerie sat on the rug, knees pulled tight, and watched him until her own eyes finally closed.
When she woke up, she heard him moving around the shack.
Grey light from the afternoon came through the dirty window. He was at the table, sorting coins into small piles. The air was filled with the smell of old ale and damp wood.
He looked at her. "You're awake. Good. I thought you might have died."
He slid a bowl across the table to her side of the room. It was thin stew, more water than food, but it was steaming.
"Eat."
She moved slowly, took the bowl, and went back to her corner. She ate with her hands, too hungry to care about manners she likely didn't possess.
He observed her for a moment, then returned to his coins.
"You still haven't told me your name."
She stopped mid-bite. Looked at him. Her lips moved, almost a whisper:
"...Reerie."
He grunted. "Reerie. Alright then, Reerie. Welcome to the best place in the slums." He waved his hand around the rundown shack with exaggerated flair. "Don't get too comfortable. I'm not running a charity."
But he didn't tell her to leave.
The days started to blend together.
Denny left each morning, sometimes before the sun rose, hunting for bounties in the winding streets of Sumeiyash. He came back at strange times—sometimes with coins, sometimes with injuries, always with tales to tell.
He never stopped talking.
"Caught a thief today," he declared one evening, dropping a small bag of coins onto the table. "The bastard thought he could hide in a brothel. Didn't realize the madam owed me a favor." He poured himself some ale, grinning. "Got six silvers for that one. Easy money."
Reerie sat by the chilly hearth, observing him.
"The guards tried to claim the credit, of course. They showed up just as I was dragging him out. 'We'll take it from here,' they said." He chuckled, bitterly. "I told them if they wanted the credit, they should've done the work. You should've seen their expressions."
He took a deep drink.
"They despise me, you know. All of them. But they can't do anything to me. I'm too skilled at my job, and the merchants recognize it. The guild knows it. Even the magistrate is aware, though he'd never confess it."
Some nights he returned home with injuries—split knuckles, a black eye, and once a cut across his forearm that he stitched up himself while drinking and cursing.
Reerie watched him as he threaded the needle through his own skin, his jaw tight, and something in her chest constricted.
He caught her gaze.
"What? You've seen worse, I bet." He tied off the thread and bit it clean. "This is nothing. If you want to see real bad, you should've witnessed the campaign in the borderlands. I lost half my unit to infection before we even engaged in combat."
He flexed his arm, checking the stitches.
"War isn't like the songs portray, kid. It's mud, blood, and waiting to die. And when you finally get to fight, it ends so quickly you hardly remember it. Just the screaming afterward."
He poured more ale, his hand trembling slightly.
Reerie hugged her knees closer.
One night, he returned home soaked from the rain, tired and without anything to show for it.
"No bounty," he grumbled, sinking into his chair. Water drips from his coat onto the floor. "I spent three days tracking a merchant's runaway servant, and when I finally found him, he was already dead in an alley. Stabbed by someone else."
He gazed at the table.
"No reward for a corpse."
He remained silent for a long time. Then he grabbed the ale jug and poured until the mug overflowed.
"You know what the worst part is?" His voice was heavy. "I used to be good at this. Really good. Had clients all over the city. Made decent money, had a decent reputation."
He took a drink.
"Then I started... I don't know. Missing things. Losing trails. Drinking too much." He chuckled, a sharp and mocking sound. "Now I'm scraping by. Chasing pickpockets and runaway servants. Living in a shack that smells terrible."
He turned to her, really looking at her.
"What the hell are you doing here, kid? Got a family? Someone looking for you?"
She looked down at the floor.
He sighed. "Yeah. Didn't think so."
He drank until he fell asleep at the table, his head resting on his arms.
Reerie sat on her rug, watching the rain pound the roof like fists.
Time went by in small increments.
She no longer flinched when he moved abruptly.
He began lighting fires in the hearth—not every night, but occasionally, when the cold was too biting.
She started sitting nearer to the fire. Not next to him, but closer.
One night, he returned home from a tavern, flushed and boisterous.
"Had a run-in with a guard today," he declared, grinning. "I told him if he spent less time accepting bribes and more time doing his job, maybe the crime rate would go down."
He sank into his chair and poured himself a drink.
"You should've seen his expression. Red as a beet. I thought he was going to hit me right there in the street." He chuckled. "But he didn't. They never do. They know if they lay a finger on me, half the slums would hear about it by nightfall."
He reclined, satisfaction emanating from him like warmth.
"They despise me, Reerie. Every last one of them. But they can't do a thing about it. I'm just too damn good."
She observed him from her corner, and something in his tone—the pride, the arrogance—made her feel uneasy in a way she couldn't quite identify.
Another evening, he returned home drenched from the rain and unsteady from drinking.
He slumped at the table without removing his soaked coat. He just sat there, head in his hands, with water gathering on the floor around his boots.
Reerie observed from her rug by the fire. The flames crackled gently, creating flickering shadows on the walls.
He remained still for a long time.
At last, she got up. Crossed the room slowly, with hesitation. Stopped next to his chair.
She reached out.
Her small hand brushed against his wet sleeve.
Just a light touch. Almost no pressure. Checking.
He looked up, taken aback.
She remained silent. Just gazed at him with those dark eyes—the first time she had willingly reached out, the first time she had given anything in return.
Something in his chest broke.
"I'm fine, kid," he said, his voice rough. "Just tired."
She nodded slowly. Did not withdraw her hand.
They lingered like that for a moment—her small hand on his arm, both of them soaked in different kinds of rain.
Then she retreated to her corner, and he watched her go, a look of wonder or horror on his face.