She threw the tuft of fur down on the floor. She tried to run her fingers through her hair, but they snagged up in her tangleness. For a second her hard eyes went all brimful, but she blinked them back.

Hot from Bakery, and all asweat with rage and the unrightness of it all, Auri turned and stormed away, her bare feet slapping angrily against the stone.

Heading back to Mantle, Auri took the shorter way. All draggled and smirched she took a moment to dunk herself in the pool at the bottom of The Silver Twelve and felt a little better for it. It was no kind of proper bath. A dip. A rinse. And chilly. But better than nothing, if only just. The moon peered faintly through the grate above. But she was kind and distant, so Auri didn’t mind.

Getting out of the water, she shook herself and rubbed her damp skin with her hands. She couldn’t think of going back to Bakery to dry. Not today. She eyed the moonlight peering in the grates above and had just begun to squeeze the water from her hair when she heard it. A tiny splashing. A tiny mewling squeak. The sound of distress.

She dashed around in a long moment of panic. Sometimes a lost thing found its way down to the bottom of The Twelve and fell into the pool while drinking.

It took a breathless time to find it. Her damned awful flickerlight seemed to shed more shadow than it burned away. And echoes came from everywhere, scattered by the pipes and water in The Silver Twelve, so ears were hardly any help at all.

Finally she found it. A tiny thing, mewling and paddling weakly. It was the next thing to a baby, barely old enough to be out on its own. Auri took hold of a hanging brace and leaned out long across the water, one leg lifting up for balance while her other arm went out above her head. She stretched like a dancer. Her hand described a gentle arc and dipped into the pool, gently scooping the tiny draggled thing up…

And it bit her. It sunk its teeth into the meaty bit between her finger and her thumb.

Auri blinked and pulled herself back to the edge, cupping the small skunk gently in her hand. It struggled, and she was forced to grip it tighter than she liked. If it fell into the pool again, it might gasp and drown before she found and fetched it out.

Once both her feet were back upon the stone, Auri made a cage for the tiny skunk with both her hands against her chest. With no hands left to hold her lamp, Auri trusted to the moonlight as she scurried up Old Ironways. It squirmed and scratched at her chest, fighting to be free, biting her a second time on the tip-pad of her smallest finger.