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Characters: Polly, Mal, Annagramma, Shufti, Froc, OCs
Disclaimer: Thanks to Hyel, whose WWI AU pictures gave me the inspiration.
The Mushroom of Life
Plan “Soooo. Do this lot have a plan?” Mal asked, gesturing at the bunch of nattily dressed ruperts nearby, their bright uniforms and jewelled medals glittering in the weak sun. Polly sighed, and propped her chin on her hand. She looked sad. “Yes, sergeant.” “Crap, we’re all dead,” Mal muttered, and got a desultory thwap on the back of the head for her pains. “Ser-geant.” “Lieu-teeee-nant,” Mal mocked her stern tone, and Polly did not rise to the bait. They remained silent for a while, Polly feeling Mal’s warmth next to her in the chill air and Mal, as ever, acutely aware of every heartbeat within a hundred metres. She focussed on the generals, and did not like what she heard. Old men, their hearts beginning to weaken, their minds full of the military tactics of thirty or forty years previously, and these were their leaders in battle. She had every confidence in Froc, but the rest of them she was less sure of. “Mal? Mal.” The vampire turned her attention back to the lieutenant. “Did you know,” Polly continued, “they’re calling it the War To End All Wars? Already?” “Yes,” Mal said. She slung an arm around Polly’s shoulders. “I know. It’s not true, Poll; when you’ve been around as long as I have...” She fell silent, and then persisted. “You know... that there is no such thing as an end to war, or an end to human suffering. Somewhere, always, even if the big wars stop, there will be some petty little conflict, an argument, a local feud, and boys, men, women, girls, will die and it won’t be necessary.” She waved her free hand at the generals. “Whatever their plan is, no matter whether or not it means to make this a quick war, it will not last. War's got a mind of its own, and it's not civilised.” Polly sighed as if she had all the weight of the warring world on her shoulders. “I could but hope.” Revelation “Lieutenant?” Polly looked at the recruit, a boy barely eighteen years old, thin-shouldered and wide-eyed, plastered in mud just like everyone else, and put down her field-glasses. “Private Harrison?” He looked even more knee-knockingly terrified than ever. “It will be all over by Christmas, sir? That’s right, isn’t it?” Mal snorted, almost inaudibly. Polly shot her a poisonous glance –she didn’t need Mal’s particular brand of cynicism depressing the troops just now- and then returned to the recruit. “I’m sorry,” she said as kindly as possible. “I’m afraid that’s not true.” Understand and Repent The chaplain was a master of droning. He had been born with the splendidly adventurous name of Indiana Hawkins, his father having been a librarian with a thorough grasp of L-space and an addiction to adventure novels, but had managed to overcome this disadvantage with a vocation to the Omnian religion and a practised monotone. So Polly stood quietly, listening to his sermon, and thinking about the captain (not a bad man, for a rupert) who had died, and left her his rank, and the other two lieutenants, one of whose lungs now gargled with corrosive gas, and one of whom would never walk unaided again, and about Mal, who was now her only lieutenant, and the clever capable young woman she’d promoted to sergeant, who would please Om not be the next one to die. Mal, who loathed the chaplain and his sanctimonious sermons, poked her in the ribs and hissed “Repent!” in her ear. “Shut up,” Polly muttered through gritted teeth, “and listen to the sodding sermon, why don’t you,” but she hadn’t needed Mal’s exhortation. She already understood how great a crime it was to kill, even in battle, and regretted it bitterly. --- “You know,” Fate said, eyeing the tiny figures of the dark-haired vampire and the curly-headed soldier, “she really ought to be dead by now.” He looked at Lady Luck, and raised an eyebrow. Lady Luck saw his eyebrow, and raised him another. “Perhaps she’s just... lucky.” There was a moment of still silence, treacherous as black ice, silent as granite. Fate reached out, and flipped over the counter of an enemy soldier with bayonet aimed at the dark-haired figure, and far beneath, some sixth sense warned Mal just in time, and she ducked. The silver-tipped crossbow bolt whistled harmlessly past her, and struck Polly’s shoulder. Sometimes, the gods have a funny idea of mercy. Judgement and Mercy Creative It took some seriously creative bending of the Black Ribboners’ rules about not intimidating humans to get Polly into a hospital away from the front line, but it was worth it.
Only Maladict(a) could find a tavern of dubious repute in Quirm, but (s)he was, after all, a vampire, and some things just came naturally to him (her.) One of them wasn’t, unfortunately, being certain of who (s)he was; for that (s)he needed desperately to be around Polly, who knew how to be sure about that sort of thing, or life wreaked havoc with his (her) identity. It was easy enough to be just Maladict around the lads-who-weren’t when (s)he wasn’t in love with Polly. But as soon as (s)he realised that Polly mattered to him (her) more than anyone ever had for a long long time, things got complicated, and (s)he became uncertain. Maladict wasn’t attracted to Polly, but Maladict(a) and Maladicta were, and without Polly being there Maladict came out to menace Maladicta, and therefore Maladict(a) made an appearance, unhappy, confused and just a bit frightened. Polly translated Maladict into Maladicta, just by being there. Problem with that being that Polly was also lying in a hospital in the centre of Quirm, her eyes closed and peaceful, her heartbeat faint to Maladicta’s ears and so frightening that Maladicta regressed into uncertain, uneasy Maladict(a) in a heartbeat. So Maladict(a) was sitting in a tavern of dubious repute, drinking his (her) fifth Belle du Jour and eighth coffee, and trying to push the Maladict identity (s)he had so carefully created and so often used, to disastrous effect on a vampire’s fragile psyche, out of his (her) mind, and trying to forget that the flimsy vulnerable weak human soldier (s)he happened to be in love with might be dying. And then a woman, her rich perfume cloying in Maladict(a)’s sensitive nostrils, slipped behind and around him (her), her long-nailed fingers trailing on the back of his (her) uniform coat, so that she was leaning against the same table (s)he was. Annagramma –at least, that was how Maladict(a) had been introduced to her- smiled, and there was a faint hint of sideways sharpness in her smile and eyes, and Maladicta felt it all settle down and the knowledge of who she really was reassert itself. Hello, I’m Maladicta. I like coffee, I’m a Borogravian footsoldier and a Black Ribboner, and I’m in love with Lieutenant Polly Perks. Suddenly, she didn’t need the rest of that coffee. Annagramma said something soft and low, and Maladicta leaned back to hear, her cigarette clamped elegantly between two long white fingers. “What was that, miss?” The woman smiled again, the tactfully dim light glittering on her jewels and carelessly curling hair, and said again: “Since you’ve been here for the past hour, have had enough alcohol to sink Nanny Ogg, appear to be oblivious to all advances, and most importantly are both a woman and a vampire in the uniform of a Borogravian footsoldier, I’m going to assume firstly, that you’re not the average customer, and secondly, something’s on your mind.” One sharp nail stroked up the side of Maladicta’s neck, and the smile curled a little more in the corner of Annagramma’s wide mouth. “Why don’t you tell me about it?” Annagramma Hawkin, once a witch of some talent, and now an expert on matching the service to the customer, suggested. Maladicta looked at her, and wondered how someone so catastrophically different to Polly could have the same effect on her. But then, she would never have told Polly what Annagramma had just asked, and Annagramma was here now; the time was right. So she drew breath, and began to speak. Surrender Back in the trenches, Mal and Polly found themselves looking at a very unhappy young soldier who was, and this was, as Mal pointed out, a very important point, on the wrong side i.e. not theirs. But he was miserable, a helpless rupert, weighed down by guilt that he’d been captured and his men were dead, and he looked pitifully young and hopeless tied up as Mal had insisted he had to be. Polly looked at Mal pleadingly (at least let me find him a hot drink or something?), and Mal rolled her eyes (oh all right.)
“You’ve been living in a cellar?” Shufti all but shrieked, shocked. Polly, who thought that since Shufti had technically never been honourably discharged (someone screwed up the paperwork) she could technically share a few details of the war without breaking too many regulations, winced. “Please, Shufti!” “It was a very nice cellar,” Mal interposed hastily, glancing at Polly, who didn’t look well after her stint in the trenches with an incompletely healed wound. “Erm... Solid. Yes. Very solid. Good thing when you have whizz-bangs going over you and Five-Nines about, means the house doesn’t come down on top of you. Good solid foundations on that house. It was relatively dry, too, and at least it didn’t have mud in it. Mud does nasty things to gas-stoves for making coffee over.” There wasn’t much that was good to say about it, so Mal was quiet. Shufti sat slowly down in her kitchen far enough from the front line for comfort, with the sun streaming in and Jack-lad running in and out and his little sister clashing saucepans together on the floor. And her face was ashen, because she had heard everything that Mal hadn’t meant to say.
--- “When you think about it,” a new young lieutenant said, straight out of his posh school, bright as a button and equally worldly-wise, “what are we fighting for?” It had been two years since the scene in the kitchen of the Duchess, where Polly and Mal had realised exactly how bad everything was in the trenches if you really thought about it, and had mutually resolved not to think about it, and they had seen others like this lieutenant. They were well-meaning, wet-behind-the-ears, and usually dead after six months, with a little epitaph in the society section of the Ankh-Morpork Times reading ‘Lt. the Hon. Jasper Frobisher-Bottomley of the Borogravian 2nd Cavalry Regiment died an honourable death in battle, 17 June. A credit to his family and regiment, he will be much missed.’ They both now turned weary eyes on the lieutenant, as did every other experienced soldier in the officers’ mess. “Land,” the new lieutenant answered himself. “Just land, that’s what caused it. I mean, is it worth it, all these lives? Couldn’t it have been settled rationally?” Polly stared into her brandy. General Froc said nothing. Various other captains, lieutenants, colonels and majors carefully did not answer, lest they said something unpatriotic. In other company, the lieutenant would have been hushed or shouted down, but these men had some idea of battle, of mud in the trenches and death by gas. At last, Mal answered, her voice a drawl, harsh and sharp after the lieutenant’s bright, almost indignant, slightly slurred by drink tone of voice. “No, lad, we’re not just fighting for land. We’re fighting for pride.” Her eyes raked the mess, a mocking challenge to anyone who might object. “We’re fighting for the pride of nations, because one country’s leaders didn’t like the actions of another, because one country invaded another. Because countries’ leaders were frightened and nervous, and they made other countries their allies in order to protect themselves, and the web of alliances grew thicker and thicker until something had to break, and the thing that broke was a single human life ended by a single crossbow bolt fired by a single student in Uberwald. Because now that they have started this war, the countries’ governments feel there is shame in an armistice, in the peaceful settling of grievances.” Mal raised her glass, squinting up at the amber alcohol. “And whatever it is, it’s dragging us down. Speaking as someone who’s lived for a long, long time, and who’s seen war before, this one is unlike any other. Only an eleventh-hour miracle can save us now, gentlemen... and ladies. ”
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