Saint Suran, Factuals attested to Inspector Flywin, Bridge Tower Station, winter 846
He didn’t grow up on the streets, he grew up in the back workrooms of Ink Lane shops. He devoured the sensational and lurid accounts of criminals and their philosophies, worshiping powerful figures who could rise above and beyond the law. He was one of those well-fed and plump-faced kids who would talk in awe about The Life and Crimes, if you know what I mean. He ached to be cool, to grow into the image.
Sometime around puberty he got the biography of Lye, the Iruvian assassin—I think it was called Lye and Truth. For a whole month he reverently recounted this story from the book to everyone he met. Lye was talking to an Inspector who was grilling him about a murder weapon during Lye’s music lesson, and Lye insisted that he didn’t care about the weapon; anything could kill if you become a weapon. The Inspector scoffed at him, so Lye jammed his piccolo through the lawman’s eye socket.
Bored with the brat’s lust for shock value, his uncle said he could be a murder weapon—he could be a piccolo. It stuck because the kid adopted it, all “hell yeah I’m a piccolo murder weapon.” This was an early example of his stubborn refusal to let people shame or praise him; that’s the core of his character, and the reason I let him into my crew. If he lives, I think he could really make something of himself.