So. I'm back. Except, this time, I'm taking a tiny break from the one-shots and I'm doing a multi-chapter. Something that's been itching at me for quite a while now.

But please. Review. Reviews are what I live for...well, you know.

In short, please tell me whether you think this hurt your head to read, or if you actually like it...

…thanks.

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Chapter 1: Killing All Hopes

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SET A FEW MONTHS AFTER BLOODHOUND

Written after watch

Tunstall is an extremely light-hearted cove, with a smile to make mots melt and the attitude of a real Dog. He has a bad side, I'll admit. My partner is not somebody you'd want to cross –– but people so rarely want to cross him that it didn't matter.

The problem is, contrary to his reputation, sometimes he can be the most pestering and annoying cove I know. He loves his job, as most of us do, but it was obvious that sometimes he gets bored.

As any Dog does.

And a bored and idle Dog is the recipe of mischief, as Mya used to repeatedly tell me with that serious and motherly tone of hers.

"So Beka," he'd said earlier this evening as we walked through the Lower city. There was no fear that perhaps we would miss a pickpocket or any Rat, due to attention elsewhere; me and him both have the ability to multitask.

When it comes to Watch, anyway.

Pounce purred loudly in my ear, letting himself drape loosely over my neck. I raised an eyebrow at Tunstall and his damned curiousity. "Yes?""

"You've been with us for a while now. You're quite well-known throughout Corus. You've grown up a fair bit –"

I didn't look at him; my eyes were too busy scanning the streets. "…Tunstall? You're frightening me with all this talk. You ain't going to advise me of the ways on canoodling, are you? Because it's beginning to sound like whispering of that type."

Tunstall had raised his eyebrows at me, I could hear it in his sarden voice. "If we need to talk about that, then…"

Oh gods, please no.

I made a face, and motioned for the looby to continue.

He smiled. "Well, I was just wondering, Beka. I know you're working a lot, but it wouldn't hurt you to relax a bit …maybe have some romance." He winked at me.

I snorted. "As much as I like you, I don't quite look at you in that way, Tunstall," I joked, hoping to distract myself and him from the blush rising in my cheeks.

"Not like that." He grinned. "I was just thinking–"

"Watch out!" I jumped in front of Tunstall just in time to pull out my baton and swing it in an S-shape, so the attacker who'd lunged towards him got a good hit in the side his sarden nob.

The looby fell to the side, panting. He wore old and worn clothes, the garments of a beggar or one of the lowest of the Lower City.

"I would have seen 'im," Tunstall said, his pride clearly a little hurt. "You didn't have to come to my rescue."

I just shrugged and went over to the cove, grabbing his wrists and tying them together with a rawhide thong. I then gently thrust him at Tunstall.

"Your attacker, your problem," I said, getting him back for complaining about my coming to his rescue.

Tunstall rolled his eyes, but took the cove by the shirt. "Why did you attack us?" he demanded. His voice had gone from his usual, laid-back tone to a much more toneless, serious-meaning one.

"I – I –" the cove began to stutter. I think Tunstall and me both came aware of the audience we were getting at the same time, and we slipped quietly into a side alley.

The beggar turned a pale colour, and then a sick blue, afore his eyes rolled up in the back of his head and he went limp. I looked at Tunstall. He grabbed the cove's wrist and checked his pulse.

From the look on his face, our captive was dead.

I sighed, stepping back. Pulling out my whistle, I blew the summons for murder, just as a light shower of rain began to fall.

_

When Watch finished, I rushed to the baths, needing to feel the hot water to relax me. Pounce sauntered by beside me.

So they have no reasoning as to why you were attacked, my cat pointed out the obvious, hiding behind me as we slipped into the baths.

"No," I said out loud. The few mots in the bathing rooms peered around to look at me, the looby who spoke to her cat. "It could have been entirely random, you know."

But you don't think that, Pounce said. Not a question, but a statement.

"No, I don't," I said as I slipped out of my uniform and hissing in pleasure as the warm water engulfed me. "After all, the cove had a spell put on him that was specifically so he could not tell anything, should he be questioned or tortured. And, what sane person attacks a Dog? When you pick a fight with a Dog, you're picking a fight with the law."

Pounce just purred his agreement, before curling up on the benches next to the baths – far away from the water – and falling asleep.

I swear that cat can sleep anywhere.

_

I didn't see much of anybody when I got back to my lodgings. Rosto is probably at his court by now, along with the rest of our fellow people of the Rogue. Ersken is bound to be either with Kora, or sleeping.

I feel a weird wave of loneliness. Tunstall's words are stuck in my mind. It wouldn't hurt you to relax a bit. Maybe have some romance.

No. That was stupid. I didn't need anybody. The idea of somebody who was able to put up with me was completely cracknobbed.

But then again, Rosto did still look at me in that way. The way that meant I was a conquest to him. He still tried to convince me to canoodle with him.

No. That was probably all it was to him. Canoodling. He wants no more. He has his mots, anyway. He will live.

I will live.

So, now I will go to sleep and forget I ever even considered this. It is getting late. I need to sleep.