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Summary: In which Mal explains a bit about why vampire women are so crazy...
Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with Terry Pratchett or Discworld.
Confessions
They'd rented a room in a run-down inn. The raft would have carried them all the way to the capital, but Mal and Polly had looked at each other, had looked at each other in their stupid, horrible, embarrassing white skirts, and had known that they would make the final leg of the journey on foot. They'd lit the stub of a candle found on the night-stand, and now she and Polly were turning back the blankets on the one narrow bed in the small, damp room. The place smelled of mold and rats, but it also smelled faintly of honey. That was Polly. The sweet, spiced smell of her was... rather distracting, to say the least. "Weren't those skirts awful?" Mal said, for something to say. There had been a barracks in Sklotz. That had been two days ago. They had... acquired trousers. More specifically Mal had acquired trousers twice by dissolving into mist outside the kit-room, drifting under the door, and slipping the breaches on under her offendingly girly uniform. "I know," said Polly. "What a parade! As if you could actually fight in something like that." Mal shook her head. "I hate them," she said, quietly, and Polly chuckled. "No," Mal repeated, suddenly needing to explain. "I mean I really hate them." Polly looked at her. "What do you mean?" "I mean I hate them. Just that. They feel wrong to me," she said, not knowing why. "Like I'm becoming something I'm not. Or that I'm not... anymore..." Polly tilted her head, puzzled. But how would she understand? "You know how you told me, on the march to the Capital, how you felt like you were 'dressing up' when you got into the keep by pretending to be washer women?" Polly nodded. "It's like that, but a lot stronger. Like I'm not just putting on clothing, but a personality, too... The very last time I drained a human dead not the last time I drank from one, but the last time I killed one for food I stole his clothes. I didn't know why, at the time... But I think I wanted to change myself..." She rubbed her face absently. "You know how I told you, when we delivered the truce letter?" She continued. "About how vampire girls are supposed to act crazy? It's not just crazy. We're expected to play head-games with everybody. With each-other I think that's what makes us act so nuts. We all end up paranoid about the gossip and about who's more popular, or who's on their way up. It's a giant fake show and you can't even trust your own family..." She let the words pour out of her, a sea of confession that had been drowning her for so long, too long. "When I put on a dress, I feel like I'm putting all of it back on... All of the lies, and the pettiness, the malice and the fear and" she gripped her hair with her hands, too many words, to many feeling, choking her. She felt Polly slip her arms around her shoulders, pull her into an embrace. Mal realized that she felt safe. Overwhelmingly, wonderfully, safe. "I don't like who Maladicta was..." She murmured into Polly's hair. "You aren't her any more though," Polly said, stroking Mal's dark hair. "Remember? You're you. Just you. Just Mal." Just Mal. Mal rested her head on her friend's shoulder, slid her arms around Polly's waist, breathed a sigh of relief, and thought, Thank you. |