Pairings: Polly/Mal, Mal/OCs
Rating: Strong C for Mal being Mal; the concept of sexual violence is mentioned.

Disclaimer: The author makes no claim to owning the rights of anything to do with Terry Pratchett or Discworld.
Notes: Prelude to (possibly) several fics in what I dubbed sparkleverse, which has two purposes: 1) lead up to the events in Dust, 2) introduce Mal to the concept of body glitter. I'm completely serious. It's rather dark even for me, but this story here's more light-hearted. Polly can't sleep, Mal is scandalous, together they discuss politics.

Later, Who Knows
by Latin Doll

As a rule, inns get more run-down the closer you come to the border. This one, so far, has had a roaches count of two, no strange itches as of yet, and fairly thick walls, so Polly marks it quite high on the zero-to-Duchess scale. And they've only got about twenty miles to go, too. It's a mystery!

Of course, Mal is responsible for the route planning. And she says it's much easier to spend IOUs than real money, the reason being, spending the latter tends to put a dent in your budget, while spending the former puts the dent firmly in other people's budget. Mal is so awesome with finances, Polly thinks fondly.

Despite all that, Polly can't sleep. Currently she has given up on it, after several rounds of rest- and fruitless tossing and turning, after opening and closing her window, after going to the loo just in case, after going down to the bar for a therapeutic dose of a well-known depressant and coming back with the biggest double shot she has ever seen - and never poured. Apparently the barkeeper'd just had an intense discussion with an equally sleepless Mal on the subject of coffee, and the proper quantity thereof.

Polly'd like to claim it's the worry that's keeping her awake, and it's true: worry is keeping her awake. Even though the command is, this time, actually pushing for something resembling peace, it's doing that with the biggest army that Polly'd expected could possibly be squeezed out of the long-suffering Borogravian people. At least it's late spring now and they're not in immediate danger of being terminally snowed in, which is more than a hint that Chris Clogston had a hand in planning this mission.

A pace across the room. Turn, glare, pace back. And who are you attempting to double-cross? she thinks. Us? The Zlobenians?

Both?

Or maybe it's really just a safety measure. Diplomacy, and all that.

So, hello insomnia. If insomnia were a race and if worry were a horse, the champion has just come in as number one. Far behind and galloping on three legs is -

- oh dear sweet Nuggan, the sounds. Someone shoot her now.

It isn't truly outrageous, just a bedspring here and an enthusiastic noise there, on top of the wind howling outside and filtered through the thick walls (good walls, thinks Polly. Very thick and... thick, and I might want to close that window again because it appears they have theirs open), but it's been going on for near an hour now and every nice Borogravian girl has got to wonder, and possibly investigate. All in all, it's enough to make the old Polly blush, a slightly newer Polly exasperated, and the currently slightly tipsy Polly endeavour downstairs to get herself another drink.

"Put it onna tab," she mumbles, leaning on the bar as a result of underestimated momentum. The barkeeper just snorts and pours her something smelling vaguely of very dead apples.

This drink is noticably smaller than the last one, Polly muses that she should really grow some serious fangs these days -

"'ve you ever heard of the ministry?" she mumbles in the general direction of the barkeeper. "Odd bunch o' folks."

There's a long-suffering glance that conveys a strong opinion on the subject of nonsense after midnight. Right, thinks Polly, want a classy bar, don't let loud folks in with their moaning ways and bed thumping, that's the way to go - but while she doesn't have fangs, she can still intimidate people into polite conversations by means of her uniform.

"Really," comes the answer. "What're they the ministry of?"

Polly examines the fluid in the glass. It's too bright a yellow to really look drinkable, so she downs this one before the taste can hit and clinks the glass on the table..

"'nother," she says, and the glass is duly refilled. "Nothing, I think," she says. "They're just, you know. General ministry thingy. Not even governmental, just opinionionated."

Her attention to the outward world picks up when she hears laughter emanating from upstairs, someone walking down the stairs and leaving through the back door; and it diminishes when she remembers that the recruits sleep outside in the barracks, that she won't notice any desertions until tomorrow and has no intention of cutting off private heads, that anyway none of her recruits has a habit of wearing stiletto heels as far as she knows, and that this sound thus can only mean -

Silence! Sweet, merciful, family-friendly silence! About bloody time, too.

She's not about to abandon her drink merely because of the cessation of background noises, though, so she decides to take it with her. Upon getting back to her room, she passes what she, in her present state of mind, is pretty sure is Mal's room, on the other side of their corridor. There's a thin line of flickering light underneath the door. That's tempting.

What's being a corporal all about? she thinks, tiredly. Being an assistant to the sergeant. Being at their disposal at all times. Intelligent conversation. Discussing the future of this country in the middle of the bloody night -

Oh, bloody hell. She knocks anyway. At least Mal's awake, right?

There's a noncommittal sound from the inside, and it doesn't sound too disinviting. Polly, gracefully as ever, opens the door abruptly, and her first impression of a snug vampire sitting in the window having an after-bedtime cigarette, looking thoroughly at rest with herself and her notebook and her glass of wine, and then a sudden draft of air from the window whirls up a stack of paper from the table. A few candles go out.

"Bugger," says a slightly distressed voice in the suddenly darker darkness, from the general direction of the windowsill. "And I was so close to having them organised by by word count." There's a pause to appraise the extent of the disaster. "Will you close that door, for fuck's sake."

A somewhat dishevelled vampire wearing an oversized white men's shirt and not much else jumps down from the sill and, adding "sergeant" as an afterthought, balances a burning cigarette and a half empty glass of wine in one hand as she collects the strewn paperwork, throws it back on the room's rickety table and, examining the result, stabilises the heap with the glass.

It doesn't take more than a few seconds. Polly, meanwhile, carefully retains her place in the doorframe, leaning against it for reasons of balance and also, style. A vampire in close proximity will do that to you.

"Counting words at two in the morning might be seen as a tad obs -," Polly begins, and then stops.

"Joke." Mal shrugs. "I thought it a good idea to have a look through the lieutenant's -" and then her eyes follow Polly's gaze to where the sheets on the bed are quite obviously extremely rumpled. "Ahem," she adds, completely unabashed, even though Polly knows that Mal knows that Polly knows that Mal doesn't actually sleep in beds, ever.

"- underwear?" Polly suggests.

There's an expression of shock, but not of shame. "Are you insinuating that -"

"Well, I don't know, but - " says Polly.

"I and - the lieutenant and - " says Mal.

"As I said, I don't - "

"Please do excuse the question, sarge, but are you drunk?"

"Lieutenant Windbag, third battalion, is all I'm saying," Polly says. Then she remembers the stilettos. The general theory of lieutenants might not hold up to their current rupert. "This is the second time in two weeks, too," she says.

"Oh, is it?" says Mal, and there's an edge to her voice. "Clearly, I must be getting older. If it's all the same to you, I will go out immediately; I haven't fulfilled my tempting quota." Her long hair is unruly and her shirt is threadbare and Polly thinks she'd probably succeed, too.

"Don't bother for my sake," says Polly, leaving her lounging position in the doorframe and sitting down on the only available chair in the room, because it has a backrest, and that seems like a good thing. She takes a small sip of the apple schnapps and it turns out to taste like the stuff she used to scrub the Duchess' toilets with smelled. "But you are setting a bad example for the lads. Is what I'm worried about."

Raised eyebrow of taunt. Oh no, not that one. "Two words," says Mal. "Hard. Alcohol. They fall over from beer!"

"Mal, half of them can become pregnant!" And the army, while having grudgingly evolved somewhat farther than medieval, does not actually offer daycare.

A slow smile plays around Mal's dark lips. "Not if they're paying close attention, they won't."

Polly is beyond being scandalised. Still. "Mal!"

There's a silent interlude in which that same cheeky smile just won't leave, and, in the flickering light of the remaining few candles, Polly notes for the first time that Mal seems oddly flushed still, and that her mouth and neck are just the tiniest bit bruised.

Oh dear. Polly suddenly feels like one single solid invasion of privacy. She supposes it's a good thing that Mal does not actually possess any shame.

"Was that the extent of your argument?" asks Mal. "Because if you're done playing Mum to a seventy year old vampire, I have some interesting discoveries to share."

"That you made rummaging through the lieutenant's underwear?" asks Polly. She may be drunker than she lets on.

"That I made rummaging through the lieutenant's paperwork," says Mal.

"Oh, wow. Paperwork. Glorious, attention-keeping, exciting paperw -" For the first time, Polly takes a closer look at the forms on the table. Nearly all of them are carrying a stamp saying "confidential" in big, red, and very capital letters. She buries her head in her hands. "Mal, that's not actually better than underwear."

"He's stone out cold," says Mal. "Fell asleep over the marching orders. Might be just a tad drunk. I thought I'd be helpful. And guess what I found?"

Polly tries half-heartedly to make a facial expression that encourages further disclosure.

It seems to work. Mal presents a small square of paper with not one, but three "confidential" stamps and two different seals, covered in Chris Clogston's minute handwriting. Polly tries to read it, but the tiny letters and the dim light do not go well together. Or maybe it's the alcohol.

"She ordered us back," says Mal, helpfully.

"Who us?" asks Polly. "Us us? The regiment us? The army us?"

"From our regiment it's just the two of us; I don't know who else." Mal takes the letter back, folds it neatly, and puts it in her breast pocket. "Funny how it arrived two weeks ago in Plün and we weren't informed. It isn't as if Chris hasn't acquired some serious gongs recently."

Chris is a colonel now and she should damn well be able to order back her favourite soldiers. An expletive looms at Polly's inner horizon. She swallows it with another sip of the apple cleaning fluid. "Fuck," she says. Okay, maybe that wasn't so successful.

Mal grins. "Yes," she says.

"Was that a 'yes, please' or -?" Some things do slip out under the radar. Polly has long since got used to it, and she suspects that Mal has, too.

"If you like it to," Mal says lightly. "Why have you come here, Pol?"

This is when Polly remembers that she has gone over with the intent of discussing a specific worry with Mal, because Mal tends to be good, or at least patient, with politics. And then she somehow got sidetracked by loose morals and breach of military secrets.

"I did come here," she says, and tries to remember why exactly she came here, "because I was worrying that we should never have left the capital, what with this whole hullabaloo about the new ministry. And the new guard. And the absolute and utter lunacy of bringing the whole of the Borogravian army to what's supposed to be peace talks. I find this all a little odd and I can't sleep and I thought I could bother you with it. Yes?"

"Ah," says Mal.

"And now you've essentially told me my worries are founded in reality," says Polly. "Thank you for sharing, by the way."

Mal is silent, apparently thinking. Polly is prone to these worries, and she knows that Mal would normally lift an eyebrow or two, and say something to the effect of, "Don't you think they can manage for five minutes without you while you lead this country to peace?", which is what Polly wanted to hear when she came over, so the silence is getting to her.

Then Mal opens her mouth, as if to say something, and Polly hopes it's something reassuring, but for now it's only "ouch", because Mal's cigarette seems to have burned down and scorched her fingertips.

Mal drops the cigarette end into the wine glass, where it hisses and dies. She shakes a new one out of a rumpled pack and lights it, puts it between Polly's lips like an Igor would a thermometer, shakes out another, lights it up, takes a deep drag.

"I have a bad feeling about this," she says. That does not fall under reassuring. As a rule, Mal doesn't worry. These seem to be extraordinary circumstances.

"Okay," says Polly. "What are we going to do?"

"Tomorrow, you mean?" asks Mal. "We could get to the front tomorrow. Or to the capital in three weeks if we, for some reason, decide to go the other direction."

Polly grimaces. "It's not a front if there's peace talks."

"It's not peace talks if there's a front," says Mal. "Personally, I think we should wait and see. It's got to be one or the other." She watches Polly for a moment. "Pol," she adds, "I'm sure Christine is doing fine without us."

"I don't think so," says Polly. "There's something going on and I hate that someone is trying to keep us out of it." She takes a deep drag, but there's no truth in tobacco. "And there sure as hell won't be peace talks when we don't even know what kind of government we're going to represent. Also, Chris doesn't have an army, 'cos we're all here." She thinks. "There's a point about separation of power to be made here, but I'm too tired to think of one."

Mal shrugs. Separation of power doesn't come naturally to vampires. "Fair enough," she says. "I just don't see the bit where we have a choice, unless you think desertion is the way to go."

"Well," says Polly, after making sure that the window is closed and the door is closed also. "Do you?"

Mal shakes her head. "Not at this time," she says. "Later, who knows? But in the meantime, it's so good to know our rupert is a bit of a backstabber, isn't it? Also, I didn't sleep with him."

Polly downs the rest of the schnaps. "I suppose we do have marching in the morning, then," she says, trying to get up and suddenly being really glad that there's a table to hold on to, and a Mal who has grabbed her arm to steady her. Polly is content to just stand there for a moment until the dizziness goes away, and then she notices that Mal's wrist on her arm appears somewhat bruised as well, and there's a promise of more of that underneath her sleeve. Which is when Polly remembers the other other thing she wanted to mention.

"Mal," she asks, looking for a starting point that doesn't come across as reproaching or overly invasive. "Why do you keep doing this?" Okay, so maybe this fails on both counts, and she isn't so sure that she's being fantastically clear with this sentence, but Mal seems to have picked up on the meaning.

"Fun," says a level voice quite close to her ear. Polly turns to face Mal, and sits down on the edge of the table for good measure. Mal, who is smoking her cigarette in a distinctly ambiguous way, is watching her carefully, with all the intensity, but currently not the enthusiasm, that she usually reserves for coffee. There's almost a recoil. It's a bit like moving against a stream, but Polly leans forward and takes Mal's wrist before the evidence is fading.

"Who was that and why did they hurt you?" she says. She watches out for the regiment, always.

"I asked them to," says Mal with a thin and somewhat satisfied smile, and that settles it, because she isn't a tiny frightened private. She reclaims her hand. "Why have you kept doing it, in the fields?" she asks. "Not that I minded, or anything, but the winter didn't go on forever."

Polly's turn to shrug. "Warmth. Last year's spring was pretty damn cold, anyway," she says. "Comfort. Also, fun. It was nice, what can I say." Mal snorts at the word 'nice', but that may just be a reflex. Anyway, Polly has probably shared more than she would have, had she been sober.

This cigarette is only half smoked when Mal drowns it in the wine glass. "Very few humans would regard my close presence as a comfort," she says.

"I guess I'm just that special," says Polly. She has decided to watch Mal right back. The alcohol aids in that.

"I am notoriously unfaithful," says Mal. "I have this tendency to wake up with people and I don't intend to work on it."

"I kinda figured," says Polly. "You may have noticed that I'm not proposing to marry you." Polly realises in this moment that having this conversation is somewhat harder on her nerves than their usual dubious jokes and laughter, but on the other hand, this is Mal, and with Mal it's still fairly easy. Maybe it's Mal's vampiric conviction that everyone must sooner or later be attracted to her. Maybe it's something else entirely.

There's more of that watching. Then Mal, who has apparently come to a decision, is slowly leaning forward, taking the cigarette out of Polly's mouth and then cupping Polly's face in her hands with great seriousness, and kissing her square on the mouth. Polly remembers that from the winter before last, wonders what has taken them so long, and kisses Mal back. The vampire feels warmer than in the winter, still flushed from wine and plenty of coffee and recent sex; and not quite as bony as then as she pushes up against her, and that's nice, too. It lasts only a moment.

"You are completely drunk, you utter lightweight," says Mal, pulling back and keeping Polly's half-smoked cigarette for herself. "I do have standards, you know?"

Polly laughs. She's feeling much better already. It may be the alcohol, or the promise of a more interesting future. "Three words," she says. "The. Lieutenant's. Underpants."

There may be a slight rolling of eyes. "Her name is Amalie, and I've known her for years," says Mal, and then she smiles, fondly, while gathering up the papers in one arm, bringing them into something that at least resembles order. "Off to bed now, young grasshopper. You may come back when you're sober -"

" - how very generous of you -"

" - I mean that, but right now, I have an officer's room to break into. Again."

"Hah," says Polly. "I knew it."

She may or may not actually whistle on the way to her own bed.