Wureini the salamander woke before dawn and leapt out of bed, eagerly anticipating the day ahead. Or at least, that’s what she told herself she would do the next morning as her backup-backup-backup alarm went off for the final time twenty minutes before her shift and she groggily rose to her feet. Throwing on the same clothes she’d worn yesterday, the [City Guard] grabbed a piece of toast and sprinted out of her apartment, taking the steps two at a time. She made it halfway down the block before she realized that she’d grabbed the wrong bag, and though time was short, there was no way that she was going to spend the next ten hours in that miserable little shack without her tools.

Cursing her soft, fluffy bed and warm, snuggly blankets for the trouble they put her through each morning, Wureini turned around and activated [Pursuit] to zoom back up the block so she could swap out her bag. Using the skill while out of uniform was technically against the rules, but nobody else who lived on her street was awake yet and so there wasn’t any risk of getting caught.

There was, however, a risk of being late to work, and Wureini didn’t need any more demerits. If she got another one she’d have her pay docked for a month, and she was saving up to buy some new paints!

Thankfully, she lived close to the barracks, and it only took a few minutes to get there, her clawed feet slapping against the snow. Waving a frantic hello to the living gargoyle who guarded the door, Wureini bolted down the hallway and took the first left that led her into the armory. It was empty, as the [City Guard] knew from experience that it would be. The rest of her comrades on duty that morning had long since gotten into their gear and headed out to their shifts.

Throwing open her locker – which she’d left unlocked and ever so slightly ajar the night before just in case – the salamander grabbed her armor and made a dash for the next door.

Her shift started in six minutes.

The streets blurred as Wureini activated [Pursuit] in short, controlled bursts between putting on pieces of armor. Armoring up while running was easier than it sounded…because Wureini had lots of practice. This wasn’t the first time she’d dueled the devil of punctuality, and if she was being honest, it probably wouldn’t be the last.

She was out of breath and sweating by the time she made it to the guardhouse next to the Westown gate, but more importantly, she looked like a respectable – albeit slightly ruffled – [City Guard].

Twisting her last bracer into place, Wureini checked the time and smiled.

There was still a whole twenty-six seconds before her shift started.

“Easiest morning of my life,” she crowed as she gave the official knock on the gatehouse door and waited for her senior partner to open it up for her.

“That’s not the right sequence,” came a brassy voice from inside and Wureini groaned, looking up at the sky. Staring at the sleek gray clouds, the salamander wondered how in the world she’d gotten so unlucky as to be paired with Jean that morning. The man was like a black hole for fun and happiness, sucking both out of every room he set foot in as if it were a passive skill.

Heck. Maybe it was. She didn’t know what other classes he had. It was probably something like [Least-Fun-Guy-In-The-Room] or something. Had Taziel – her bestie in the corps who had a tiny gambling problem – been there, Wureini would have put money on it.

Flailing her claws, Wureini silently pleaded with the heavens, asking once again for a sign to show her what she’d done to deserve such a cruel fate. Spending ten hours on duty with a man who kept a pocket-sized copy of all [City Guard] regulations on his person, even when he wasn’t working, had to be a form of torture!

The heavens, of course, were silent on the matter, and Wureini vowed to spend her next days off engaged in whatever manner of debauchery she deemed most fitting at the time.

“I’ll show you,” she muttered to the sky.

“Who goes there?” Jean’s voice called. “Why are you using [City Guard] knock codes? Are you a criminal? An imposter! Prepare yourself!”

The door whipped open and Wureini took a lazy step back as Jean’s impeccably polished blade came swishing out toward her.

To the lunatic’s credit, he stopped as soon as he saw that she wasn’t some sort of criminal, though he scowled as he returned the weapon to its sheath.

“Sorry about using the wrong knock, Jean. I forgot to check the codeboard this morning,” Wureini said. It wasn’t really a lie; she had forgotten, but only because she’d been in such a rush.

Her partner glared at her and shook his head as he turned around. “It’s Blue Robin Blackberry this morning,” he said as he slammed the door shut in her face. There was an unmistakable click as he relocked the door, and Wureini put her hands on her hips.

“Are you actually serious right now?! Jean, it’s me! Open the stupid door and let me in.”

“Article 229, Paragraph 17, Sentence 4 of [City Guard] regulations is clear that a guardhouse door is not to be opened to anyone other than a [City Guard] who has given the appropriate day’s coded knock. City security depends on stringent safeguards and controls!”

Wureini hissed, wishing that her ability to breath fire was more potent than the tiny spray of sparks she could muster after drinking a flagon of emberberry wine. If she’d been a salamander like her brother or her cousins, she would have melted the stupid door open, just to see the shock on the stickler’s face, and screw the consequences.

Ugh. There was no point in arguing about it, either. Instead, she did the stupid coded knock – one short bop, two quick raps, another bop and finishing with two rapid beats, all corresponding with the syllables of the day’s code phrase – and gave Jean a scowl of her own as she stomped inside.

She grabbed her favorite spear from the weapons locker and put it on her chair, then sat down in front of the day’s timesheet and wrote down her name and when she’d started her shift.

Wureini Rufh – Six AM.

Jean coughed pointedly and Wureini looked over. He pointed up to the clock on the wall, which said 6:03 and nodded back to the timesheet.

“I was here and ready to work,” Wureini hissed. “You wouldn’t let me in!”

“Just acting in accordance with regulations,” Jean said. “Article 310, Paragraph 9, Sentence 2 states without ambiguity that any guard attempting to manipulate their time sheet so that they’re paid for work they did not do is subject to having a week’s worth of wages garnished and ten strokes of the lash.”

“No it doesn’t,” Wureini growled as she erased her time and “corrected” it. “You’re making that up.”

Jean looked scandalized before reaching into his armor and pulling out a wrinkled stack of faded papers. It was his pocket edition of the regulations, and it was well-used.

“See for yourself,” he said smugly, and Wureini took the nasty thing and did so. Sure enough, the rule was exactly as he’d said. Flipping him off, Wureini gave back the booklet. His eyebrows furrowed at the obscene gesture, but Wureini knew for a fact that there was no rule anywhere in the regulations about [City Guards] giving the bird to one another. That was because in the distant, distant past, one of the founders of the Oar’s Crest guard –a [Headstrong Vigilante] named Harry Southstone – had been rather fond of the gesture, and refused to work for any group that tried to ban it.

Jean furrowed his brow, but let the matter pass, and Wureini settled in for a long, boring day. It could be worse, she told herself. Manning the Westown gate as a [City Guard] wasn’t particularly fun, but it wasn’t hard either, and it was better than any of the other jobs she’d ever had. The pay was certainly better. Honestly, she earned a pretty respectable salary, considering the amount of proper guard work she actually had to do. Unlike most places in the city, the fear of the fiends and ghosts just beyond the gate kept most of the usual riffraff far away, and other than the Crestheart regulars, few people ever wanted to pass through. It wasn’t like the Eastown gate, where all sorts of “would-be emberberry pickers” and other degenerates tried to pass through at all hours of the day and night.

It was nice and quiet here, and though being a [City Guard] meant sitting or standing for long hours in her shining armor, it also meant that Wureini usually had plenty of time to work on her real passion: Art.

She didn’t dare get out her supplies now, though. Jean was watching her like a hawk, despite the fact that according to regulations, guards were supposed to remain alert and ready for trouble at any times, scanning the area around the guardhouse and making sure that nothing was out of order at the gate.

Feeling a little petty, the salamander was tempted to say something, but decided not to. There was probably a caveat or addendum in there that he’d quote back at her and she’d be worse off than she already was.

No, she’d simply wait until her lunch break to take out her paper and charcoal stubs and continue working on her still life portraits. In the meantime, she’d practice using [Keen Eye For Detail] and [See The Beauty In Everything].

With her spear resting beside her, the [Artist] looked at the buildings across the street and drank in all the nuances of their design. With her claw, she traced the shape of the rose windows and bell tower on the table, pretending that she was putting them to paper the way she often did during her shifts with semi-sane partners.

At six fifteen, Wureini got up and did her first patrol walk of the morning, pacing back and forth outside the gate four times with her spear held at the ready. Jean went the opposite direction, and when she was sure his back was turned, Wureini stopped in place to yawn and stretch her tail. It felt like she’d slept funny, or maybe put her armor on wrong. Good thing she had that massage booked in a couple weeks. It’d been far too long since she’d last treated herself to something nice.

The minute hand went around the clock slower than a dead snail in the winter, but Wureini managed to stay sane until her break and all but tore into her bag of art supplies as soon as she finished jotting down her entry on the time sheet.

She needed to create, to let her mind stretch and find both beauty and freedom as her body was doubly trapped in armor and the guardhouse. But when she picked up her charcoal, she found that she actually didn’t know what to draw. The urge to work was there, but the inspiration for what to capture was not. The trees and buildings she normally practiced with all looked drab to her eye, and so she found herself actually looking over at Jean. He was standing in the center of the guardhouse with his arms folded over his chest, and the salamander realized that there was a certain…nobility in his features that was actually kind of nice.

She decided to draw him.

Her first attempt at the line of action wasn’t right. It was too stiff, too straight. Frowning, Wureini erased it and tried again. This time she was happy with the way it looked, so she started hanging the torso, hips and limbs along it. Slowly, steadily, she roughed out Jean’s proportions and then added more lines for his armor and features. Though she’d originally wanted the picture to be lifelike, Wureini found herself adding stylized lines as she drew. That was how she’d first learned to draw – by copying the romance comics she’d been fond of as a girl – and it was the style she was most comfortable with.

She squared Jean’s jaw and tightened his eyes, capturing the essence of the man’s steely gaze as he did his duty.

The proportions were…not great, if you wanted to get technical, but Wureini didn’t care. The image felt more real like this…somehow. Scribbles and all.

After looking at it for a few seconds more, Wureini decided that she rather liked it.

[Control +1]

[Good Taste +1]

Wureini blinked twice at the notification, and was slow to dismiss it, almost feeling like her eyes had played a trick on her. It’d been almost a month since her last stat up, and she’d broken her drought drawing Jean of all people?

Truly, the world was unfair.

Her break came to an end, but before Wureini could hide the picture away, her partner peeked over her shoulder and saw it.

“Could I take a closer look at that?”

Wureini braced herself for the chiding that was sure to follow as she nodded and handed over the paper. She felt a familiar twinge of embarrassment as Jean’s eyes – far less noble in reality than they were on her paper – studied her work.

She didn’t know how long he looked at it. It could have been a few seconds, or it could have been half an hour. Finally, he put it down and smiled at her.

“This is really good,” he said finally. “I think my mother would like it a lot. Her birthday is coming up and I don’t know what to give her as a gift. Would you be willing to sell this picture to me? I’ll give you ten silver fleurs for it.”

Wureini couldn’t believe her ears. Though she’d been working for over a year on her pictures, she had yet to make a single sale. Even the old gallery on Pine Street, which took pretty much everything had turned her down.

“But there are rules against guards selling goods to one another. Something about preventing bribery…right?”

Jean shook his head.

“Article 53, Paragraph 6, sentence 2 is only related to goods confiscated from criminals during the execution of normal duty. This doesn’t count.”

The salamander grinned and nodded.

“In that case, you can go ahead and keep the picture for free. I hope your mom likes it.”

Careful not to smudge the charcoal, Jean put the picture by the rest of his belongings, and the two [City Guards] spent the rest of their shift talking like normal people.

It was actually rather nice.

Bonus: Wureini's Character Sheet

Wureini Rufh:

Primary Class: City Guard (Oar’s Crest), Level 21

Secondary Class: Artist (Self), Level 16

Tertiary Class: Maid (Self), Level 14

Additional Class: Seamstress (Self), Level 9

Additional Class: Dish Washer (Horus Benedish), Level 4

Additional Class: Laundress (Horus Benedish), Level 2

Additional Class: Cook (Horus Benedish), Level 1

Might: 26

Wit: 16

Faith: 19

Loyalty: 11

Punctuality: 3

Bravery: 5

Diligence: 6

Endurance: 25

Good Taste: 38

Ambition: 14

Control: 17