Chapter Text
Ankh Morpork, Angua had heard, was a city that didn’t sleep. (This was a common misconception: it slept, but with its eyes open and a knife under its pillow). Under Lord Vetinari, the city had, in recent years, grown from a revolting cesspit to the revolting cesspit.
The cesspit of opportunity.
Almost everything had been decriminalized under Vetinari’s guild system. Criminal behavior was now a set of professions, each with its own guilds, quotas, and licenses. You could be taxed on your income from panhandling, prostitution, mugging, and even assassination (Police code DPB, Death by posh bugger.). Vetinari had become ruler of a chaotic city rife with crime, and demanded, at the very least, that it become organized crime. And it was.
Most criminals had licenses to steal, kill, what have you, within a quota. When they didn’t stick to the quota, guilds cracked down in a way that was rather final.
For some time after the guild system was created, the Watch had floundered, then dwindled to almost nothing. It hadn’t been clear what the role of watchmen would be, aside from walking, a bell in hand, announcing the time, and that all was well.
Then, (coincidentally, when Carrot joined) the Watch was reinvigorated, finding the cracks in the guild system where they could be allowed to investigate. They had foiled a conspiracy to reinstate monarchy (this was in their jurisdiction, as there was no guild of conspirators). The city’s grateful Patrician had been reinstated. The grateful patrician had given them his full support, and now they had a new Watch House, ballooning numbers, and an anti-speciesist recruitment policy.
And that, upon arriving in the city, was how Angua had found herself at the Watch. At first, it was a job. Not many places hired women to do interesting work, and almost no one hired werewolves. Besides, it was steady work with benefits. The first benefit was a uniform that kept men from telling her she’d be prettier if she smiled.
The second benefit was Carrot.