You're bigger than me, you've trained longer than me, but, I assure you, if you try this, you won't win. You have your strength and military training. I've lived in the streets. I'm younger than you, but you touch these two teens behind me again, and I will snap you in half. -- Anon Guest
[AN: This almost turned into a Kosh story. Gotta remember those qualifiers you put in there, Nonny!]
They call me Maw, and they don't do that because I eat a lot. I'm the oldest one in the Tosheroon, though I ain't much older than many of 'em. I'm as good as their maw, anyway. Not like there's many volunteers.
As for why we're the Tosheroon? Well. You know gutters and drains, how things clump up in the eddies and make a sort'a... ball of mud and other stuff? That's a tosheroon. There's precious things in those sometimes. We're all people who washed up together in the gutter. And every single one of 'em is precious to me.
I ain't their maw. Their maws left 'em on the street or in middens t' die. I'm better. I saved 'em. I reared 'em. I protect 'em.
You think you can barge into the tumbledowns and take 'em? You ain't gonna get far.
None of mine are going with you, Big Tough. You think that armour protects you? You think because you're big that means you're strong?
You think because nobody in the Tosheroon is over twenty, means you can throw us about?
You're already dead, Big Tough. I got in through a chink in your armour with my little blade. It ain't a fast poison, but it don't got to be.
All we gotta do is stay out of your reach until you start t' suffer from it. And then, Big Tough? I'll just walk up t' you and slit your throat. That's what happens to people who threaten my treasures.
I'm their maw, and you ain't gonna touch 'em.
[Photo by Yaroslav Кorshikov on Unsplash]
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