Mat wasn't sure what he'd done to piss his sargeant off this time, but it must have been bad to land him a week of mind-numbing patrol duty. At least they didn't have him hauling around any of the trainees this time. There wasn't much he hated more than babesitting on duty. Not that solo patrol was much of an improvement with so many displaced crowded into the city walls. You could only cram so many people into a barrel before things started to get fishy. The pickpockets and petty thieves were having a field day, and bar fights and marketplace brawls were now near an hourly occurance. That said, Mat didn't bother with the little fish unless they got too greedy. Kids have got to eat, after all.

No, Mathieu tended to aim a little higher. While he might be stuck wearing a path into the cobbles, Garvey clambered about the rooftops keeping watch for anything more interesting. The chimeric gremlin would be sure to alert him to anything warranting his undivided attention. Entering the central square, he stopped briefly at a hawkers stall, paying far too much a rather small, sad apple. At least the crown made sure it's officers were fed at the constabulary. Couldn't have your enforcers dropping from starvation. Biting into his apple, he tried to savor it, but despite the surprising sweetness it amounted to ash on his tongue as he caught sight of the hungry, haunted eyes of an urchin in a nearby alley. He glanced between the filthy child and the barely-touched apple in his hand before tossing it to the kid with a long-suffering sigh.

"Just don't go tellin' your friends I'm a soft target, kid. You'd be mistaken," he warned with a flash of his badge, and the long-barreled six-shooter strapped to his hip. The boy snatched the apple without a word and didn't even look back.

God, he wished things could go back to the normal kind of screwed up...