Disclaimer: I would like to spend a moment in silence to lament my lack of Tin Man ownership.

Author's Note: …moment over. Alrighty then, first I want to complain about my narrator who, like all my narrators this story (except Raw), was extremely uncooperative. Except even more so. Not only did he take an extremely long time to let me know what he looked like (or rather, let another OC who isn't even born yet tell me), but then he changed the tone of the chapter so that I couldn't put the description in. Or a fair few jokes. The bastard. Not to mention how, once he decided to open up about himself, he decided to really go to town about info dumping his whole family. Apparently muse is tired of creating characters…now she wants to create new whole cultures. WAAAAAAAAAAIILLLLL.

PS The fanfic site, in its infinite wisdom and current updating, seems to have turned my anonymous reviews back on, with the new perk of being able to veto a review if I don't like it. I have decided after some consideration, to leave that be for the time being. So if anyone not registered with the site has had a burning desire to leave a comment, they can now feel free to do so. I won't be able to reply directly (which is a sadness), but I suppose I could address any pertinent questions one might have in my AN. I don't think they're long enough. ;P

...

Mishaal Ottokar understood moments. A man could not have fifty-three sisters, all but eight of them prostitutes or former prostitutes, and not realize that life was made up of moments, great and small. For he watched them live their lives in moments, in the space between customers, when they shined and sparkled as themselves and not what a bar of platinum said they should be. When it was 'just us girls and Mishee', when he was not their guard but their older/younger/same aged little big brother and they were all one big family under the roof of Mother.

Mother herself was a beautiful mosaic of moments: the moment she first stepped from her life in the Shifting Sands into the arms of a loving husband; that instant an enemy's blade had left her a widow with four young daughters to feed; the infinite second in which she made the decision to fall. The moment in which Aylshia of the Shifting Sands set aside her life as Ottokar, as she had once relinquished glyn Da, and became Aylshia of the Night. And from that first joining of Night had come Mishaal.

The fatherless son grew up in the indifferent playground of Sin Square, a brothel for a home and its ladies his family. Of those fifty-three sisters, four were the daughters of Ottokar, four were as fatherless as he, and the rest told him stories of moments, moments filled with bad choices, poor circumstances, and at times the kind horrors that made a gutter born waif thankful for his lot in life. The moments of their fall. It had taken him a long time to understand.

His mother's people believed that life's journey was about interconnecting these moments, and that those with farseeing eyes could see where it was leading, like the path of a caravan. Of course, it was easier to look back at the route already taken than divine the path ahead. His path to now began the first time he stepped between a violent customer and one of his sisters, followed as it was in rapid succession by his first beating and the entire brothel's extreme displeasure (someday the tin men might find the body, but he doubted it). He had been nine at the time. By the time he was eleven he'd learned to read people well enough to head them off without physical confrontation, and by fourteen he'd gained enough skill if not size to hold his own in a fight if he had to. At sixteen he'd made it clear that any harm to any girl was utterly unacceptable, and there would be consequences. Even for Longcoats if he could manage it.

Mishaal respected the fallen woman. Because he never forgot that every single person who set foot on a path, any path, was but a moment from falling…or from picking themselves right back up.

Princess Azkadellia hadn't fallen so much as had been hurled off a precipice into a deep abyss. The way back up was lined with jagged edges and crumbling footsteps, but at least it came with a guide. A blind, deaf and occasionally drunkenly stumbling guide who was nevertheless strangely effective.

Officer Gulch travelled by the path of a whole different caravan, what could anybody say?

Except that he was an excellent provider of moments. Mishaal had been trained from a young age to gather the moments that happened around him. Knowledge, as Mother would say, was life in a desert. Though today was less about knowledge and more about details – when a man had fifty-three sisters waiting to hear about a wedding, he damn well made sure he had details to give them. Well, make that fifty-two sisters – Circe was around here somewhere, but being the evil blood relative that she was, she'd pointed out that as an on-duty Royal Guard of no less than the eldest princess' protection detail, Mishaal would have a better view.

Sisters: couldn't live with them, couldn't feed them to the Papay. It would upset Mother.

The moment his commander had walked into the Bridal Tent to find the guard's fingers entwined in the Crown Princess' hair, his mouth far too occupied for explanation, would amuse, though not surprise, most of them. That Old Gulchy had made a brick line for her bed while his subordinate was spitting out munchinpins, however, would interest them greatly. When a man had fifty-three sisters, if they wanted him to learn how to make hair pretty, he did; as ladies of the night, when a man headed for their bed, they didn't expect him to sleep. Dawkins would be disappointed: his latest ambition in life was to see the Tin Man and the Othersider fight, and there went an emerald opportunity, right over the rainbow.

Mishaal figured the window of opportunity had passed before the mischief maker had even been aware there was any doubt as to the outcome. Way he saw it, there was really only one thing that could provoke the two of them into battle, their goals were too similar, and since neither of them was going to attack a princess…

…well, anyone who'd seen the moment between them, when the bride had tucked her hand under the cop's arm, would realize that Gulch had never been a threat to Cain. His sisters would never hear of the surprised look on Officer Gulch's face, nor of their shared half grins of understanding as the guard commander escorted the Crown Princess to where her fathers were waiting. That moment was theirs.

But that was just one moment in the thousands he'd gathered from his place in the shadows.

All around the guard people were following the path their moments were taking them. Alone on the dance field, the Crown Princess turned slowly with her Tin Man, one last dance before they disappeared into the night. The Queen and Consort watched them with matching wistful expressions. Over by the banquet tables That Winky gingerly rubbed her feet while the eldest princess' clod-footed toe assassin kept as far from his victims – present or future, because darkness knew Princess Azkadellia was relentless in guarding what was hers – as politely possible. Ayan was still holding fort in the impromptu 'VIP' section, keeping guard over the Royal Shoes (as a man with fifty-three sisters, Mishaal had warned him that you do NOT mess with the shoes). Moving through the trees after a suddenly fast moving princess, the guard discovered that Dawkins had, for some reason, treed a drunken lord…

…a curiosity Mishaal really wished he hadn't taken a moment to explore, because the eldest princess had apparently used that time to have a moment of her own.

Used it to have an Officer Gulch kissing moment in point of fact.

Mishaal Ottokar was a man with fifty-three sisters; he couldn't help but know the significance of moments…

"We," announced the princess as she pulled back, "are getting married."

…and this moment was labelled…

"Um…Okay?"

…Aw, shit.