The great A'Tuin is probably, by his (or her) reckoning, just your ordinary turtle, migrating from A to B. Whether even he (or she) knows where either of these points lies is a mystery.
Ephebian scholar Hipposethes once theorised that point A was a huge explosion and that A'Tuin has merely been unsuccessful in all attempts to stop since then. He does, however, have a nice comfy room to himself and as much foil as he wants for making hats, although even he doesn't know why.
Around it, the sun and moon orbit slowly, occasionally giving one of the four great elephants need to move its leg or else suffer the universe's worst sunburn. The sun's light starts its life with ambition, but realises the lack of point on entering the Disk's magic-laden atmosphere, and slows to a comparative jog, tracing slowly across the surface so that the Hubward regions on the opposite side of the disk to its rising hardly notice it rising over the peak of Cori Celeste, home and alleged casino of the Gods before it's already sinking below the rim.
Right now, the same sun was staring at Ankh-Morpork, which would make it feel glad it had no eyes, had it a mind to not go with them.
Ankh-Morpork may be the only place in the known multiverse where garden centres are tolerated arms dealers: they sell pitch forks, hedge-trimmers, scythes, other sharp implements, you see, which seem innocent enough until you look back on the city: geographers say Ankh-Morpork is built on loam, based solely on the circumstantial evidence that the surrounding countryside is; Ankh-Morpork is, however, built on more Ankh-Morpork, which is not known for its fertility (in the soil, anyway). Moss thinks twice before braving the gaps between cobbles and even then decides against it.
The rains of the night before had left lines of water in the cobbles and puddles on the surface of the river which were best not to think about, but it had cleared the sky for a bright, clear Grune day, where it could be guaranteed the trolls would be literally too hot to think of waking up and vampires would batten down the hatches and stay in.
Or they should, anyway.
Looking down on the pile of dust and fabric, off-duty Sergeant Angua, city Watchdog with a nose for crime, trouble and anything else pungent enough to puncture the fog of the Ankh, realised why they said in the Rimward lands that nature abhors a vampire.
She carefully scooped the ashes into a straight-edged agriculture-oriented polearm, until recent law amendments known as the spade and used as the axe, picked the clothes up, careful to leave them in the same arrangement as they had fallen and sought a shaded alley.
As she laid them down, a shadow detached itself from its surrounding brethren, another one who thought black was the best thing for hiding in shadows, rather than thinking logically and realising that being the same colour as what the shadow fell on would make you the same shade of black. Nevertheless, the ease at which this one had managed to blend in despite this lack of common sense filed it under the category Assassin, and its gait filed it under Turning In For The Day. Angua stepped not quite into his way.
"Got a knife?"
The assassin took this question like most people would respond to such questions as "Excuse me, do you have a head?", held out an arm and made a tiny movement somewhere in the shoulder area. A thin needle shot out, the tool known as the Golden Handshake, as, like its business counterpart, it meant "Goodbye, I doubt we'll meet again; nothing personal, but it's more economically viable to let you go." The assassin looked slightly puzzled, half-shrugged again and it clicked back and was replaced by a thin blade. He held it up to his nose and, presumably, sniffed, but with professional inaudibility.
"Yep, clean." he said, lowering it again with the curiosity of someone standing before a conjurer in the knowledge that there's about to be a trick, but will be damned if they know what it's going to be. Angua held out her own hand and moved one index finger across the tip of the opposite one.
"Just across there, thanks."
The assassin blinked.
Quite a few times.
He looked from Angua's hand to her face.
To his knife.
To her face.
To her hand.
Over his shoulder.
To her hand.
"Anytime today, please," Angua sighed slowly. The assassin drew the blade's tip across her finger then darted back as if expecting an explosion. She winced a little and, with exaggerated emphasis, did not explode.
"Thanks." He didn't move, but stood watching her hand, counting under his breath.
"You can go now." Having passed three, five and ten, satisfied that narrative causality wouldn't be so inventive as to allow anything interesting at any time past these points, he continued to walk out of the alley.
Had he known that at no multiple of three or five seconds after his departure Angua had let a drop of blood land on the pile of dust and cloth in the alley and it had erupted into the shape of a pale woman who hadn't yet grasped the skill of picking up the clothes as she ascended through them, he'd probably have kicked himself. Being armed with poison-tipped heel blades, this would have been silly and quite terminal move, so, probably, it's for the best.