Dreams.

Two epic narrative dreams last night -- alas, one forgotten, save for the fact that Megan and I co-starred in it.

The other took place in a fantasy/sci-fi version of colonial India, only set on another planet, and the native population included halflings.  When a kindly older detective is murdered, the gang of street rats that adored him --- his "Baker Street Irregulars" set out to solve his murder and avenge his death, using what they know of his methods.  One member of the little gang dies, another runs off, and the leader is alchemically poisoned and targeted with a high-tech voodoo doll, but in the end both the drunk who actually murdered the man and the middle-aged society lady who arranged the death are subject to clever reversals and the justice of the streets.  As a coda, one member of the gang revealed himself to be not a child, but a fully grown halfling, and enlisted in the colonial military/

Picaresque bildungsroman vengeance play.... with elements of Kim, Sherlock Holmes, Cyrion, Aladdin, and the Lies of Locke Lamora.

My brain is clearly at it again.  Wish I could remember the first dream, my brain tells me it was just as good.