It was getting cold in the City.

Not really Autumn, but not yet Winter, the City was stuck in-between seasons; and, some might think, in-between times. Reports from the Resistance were good: they were making progress, things would get better soon. But the average import had yet to see the results. Nill knew how rough it could be. She had been lucky so far with her orphanage. Because she took in import and native children alike, she was usually left alone.

But there was always the occasional troublemaker, as evidenced by the threats spray-painted into the orphanage's lawn that morning.

She had taken care of it before the children had woken up, of course. Cut the grass, painted over the remaining insults in greenish-brown. But the years had made Nill just a little bit colder, a little harder. She wouldn't be sleeping that night. She'd be up, Heine's gun in her lap along with a book, sky blue eyes glancing up now and then from the pages, shifting in the armchair in which she was seated. She wore a camisole, her wings (still small, but proportional), free from the confines of the jackets she usually wore.

There was no guarantee that a foe (or friend) would stop by that night. But waiting was something at which she had always excelled.