Challenge 81 -- School (Discworld)
Fandom: Discworld (Monstrous Regiment)
Pairing: Polly/Mal
Challenge: 81 - School
Word Count: 142
Rating: R?
Title:
An Avid Learner
Polly learned to read, because that was acceptable. She learned to write, even though it wasn’t, by looking at the letters, and tracing them with her finger in flour while she was making the bread. She didn’t pick up a pen until she was thirteen, when her mother started getting sicker. She could recon accounts in her sleep.
There are other forms of education: How to keep your mouth shut, how to present the face of obedience while doing what needed to be done behind the backs of authority. How to walk like a man, and when to wear an extra pair of socks.
In the past few weeks, Polly’s had another education. Her tutor is a proponent of teaching by example, and she is very thorough. Her classroom is a downy bed, and Polly is nothing if not an avid pupil.
*****
Fandom: Discworld (Monstrous Regiment)
Pairing: Tilda/Magda
Challenge: 81 - School
Word Count: 172
Rating: R
Notes: Cannon! My Gods! :-)
Title:
What I Learned in the Girls’ Working School
We call it the Grey House or, more accurately, the House of Pain. But officially it’s the Girls’ Working School.
What did I learn in the Girls’ Working School?
I learned that I was an abomination unto Nuggan.
I learned that I was a whore in my soul, and that I lead pure men’s thoughts into sin.
I learned to pray with a urine soaked sheet draped over my head to a god who enjoys my pain and doesn’t answer.
I learned to not pray to the soul of fire, to find salvation in the flames.
I learned how to be invisible.
I learned what I could survive, and what I could endure.
I learned what I could not endure.
I learned that to love someone is to feel the lash when it tore her skin, and the cane when it bruised her bones.
I learned that I could not endure her suffering.
And so I learned how to find our way out.
And so we learned the heady taste of freedom.
*****
That Was… Educational
Fandom: Discworld (Monstrous Regiment)
Pairing: Polly/Mal
Challenge: 81 - School
Word Count: 186
Rating: G
Notes: School: (v) To School: To instruct, to teach, to discipline, etc.
Title:
Instructions
Polly was in the closet.
Literally.
Although, technically, the term ‘closet’ really didn’t do justice to the massive store-room that was where Mal kept her clothes. You could fit a whole country inside the thing. Polly half expected to turn a corner and find herself in a sugar-frosted winter wonderland ruled over by a disconcertingly intense pale woman… Polly paused by a rack of velvet cloaks (largely black) and thought about this. She shook her head.
Clearly, she was already there.
She had brought a lamp in with her, for all the good it did. The sheer weight of black velvet in the place was enough to swallow the meagre light into nothingness. Mal didn’t even like high heels, and there was still an entire wall dedicated to shoes!
She picked up a dainty leather boot that must have buttoned all the way up to the knee of the wearer. There was a three-inch spike where the heel should have been.
Polly examined it minutely. She still didn’t understand how Mal had ever learned to walk in these things. Perhaps they came with an instruction manual.
***
Fandom: Discworld (Monstrous Regiment)
Pairing: Polly/Mal
Challenge: 81 - School
Word Count: 242
Rating: PG/R
Title:
Getting an Education
Polly walked on through the maze of clothes. There were racks and racks of dresses, most of which looked like they hadn’t been worn in years. Not that they weren’t lovely despite the accumulation of dust. Silk and taffeta glowed in the lamplight.
She turned a corner.
Oh.
Polly was a sensible girl. She always had been. Her underclothing had only ever consisted of a shift and socks and, now that she wore trousers, it consisted of just socks, and only one pair at that. Maybe a vest if it was cold.
This was. This was… Well… Educational, if nothing else.
She picked up… an, an item with more straps and clips on it than any item of clothing should properly have. What were you supposed to do with this?
Polly did recognize some of the things. She was no stranger to petticoats, for example, although hers generally hadn’t involved quite so much lace - or any lace, really - and her mother, being married, had owned a corset. Granted, hers had been made of un-dyed linen instead of deep purple silk, and it certainly hadn’t involved spider-web embroidery or quite that much… definition around the under-wire.
She had a brief mental image of what they must have looked like on Mal, back when she was Maladicta.
Mm.
She wondered if she could get Mal to put them on… only, of course, so that Polly could learn how to take them off her again.
*~*~*~*~*
What do you think? :-)
Pairing: Polly/Mal
Challenge: 81 - School
Word Count: 142
Rating: R?
Title:
An Avid Learner
Polly learned to read, because that was acceptable. She learned to write, even though it wasn’t, by looking at the letters, and tracing them with her finger in flour while she was making the bread. She didn’t pick up a pen until she was thirteen, when her mother started getting sicker. She could recon accounts in her sleep.
There are other forms of education: How to keep your mouth shut, how to present the face of obedience while doing what needed to be done behind the backs of authority. How to walk like a man, and when to wear an extra pair of socks.
In the past few weeks, Polly’s had another education. Her tutor is a proponent of teaching by example, and she is very thorough. Her classroom is a downy bed, and Polly is nothing if not an avid pupil.
*****
Fandom: Discworld (Monstrous Regiment)
Pairing: Tilda/Magda
Challenge: 81 - School
Word Count: 172
Rating: R
Notes: Cannon! My Gods! :-)
Title:
What I Learned in the Girls’ Working School
We call it the Grey House or, more accurately, the House of Pain. But officially it’s the Girls’ Working School.
What did I learn in the Girls’ Working School?
I learned that I was an abomination unto Nuggan.
I learned that I was a whore in my soul, and that I lead pure men’s thoughts into sin.
I learned to pray with a urine soaked sheet draped over my head to a god who enjoys my pain and doesn’t answer.
I learned to not pray to the soul of fire, to find salvation in the flames.
I learned how to be invisible.
I learned what I could survive, and what I could endure.
I learned what I could not endure.
I learned that to love someone is to feel the lash when it tore her skin, and the cane when it bruised her bones.
I learned that I could not endure her suffering.
And so I learned how to find our way out.
And so we learned the heady taste of freedom.
*****
That Was… Educational
Fandom: Discworld (Monstrous Regiment)
Pairing: Polly/Mal
Challenge: 81 - School
Word Count: 186
Rating: G
Notes: School: (v) To School: To instruct, to teach, to discipline, etc.
Title:
Instructions
Polly was in the closet.
Literally.
Although, technically, the term ‘closet’ really didn’t do justice to the massive store-room that was where Mal kept her clothes. You could fit a whole country inside the thing. Polly half expected to turn a corner and find herself in a sugar-frosted winter wonderland ruled over by a disconcertingly intense pale woman… Polly paused by a rack of velvet cloaks (largely black) and thought about this. She shook her head.
Clearly, she was already there.
She had brought a lamp in with her, for all the good it did. The sheer weight of black velvet in the place was enough to swallow the meagre light into nothingness. Mal didn’t even like high heels, and there was still an entire wall dedicated to shoes!
She picked up a dainty leather boot that must have buttoned all the way up to the knee of the wearer. There was a three-inch spike where the heel should have been.
Polly examined it minutely. She still didn’t understand how Mal had ever learned to walk in these things. Perhaps they came with an instruction manual.
***
Fandom: Discworld (Monstrous Regiment)
Pairing: Polly/Mal
Challenge: 81 - School
Word Count: 242
Rating: PG/R
Title:
Getting an Education
Polly walked on through the maze of clothes. There were racks and racks of dresses, most of which looked like they hadn’t been worn in years. Not that they weren’t lovely despite the accumulation of dust. Silk and taffeta glowed in the lamplight.
She turned a corner.
Oh.
Polly was a sensible girl. She always had been. Her underclothing had only ever consisted of a shift and socks and, now that she wore trousers, it consisted of just socks, and only one pair at that. Maybe a vest if it was cold.
This was. This was… Well… Educational, if nothing else.
She picked up… an, an item with more straps and clips on it than any item of clothing should properly have. What were you supposed to do with this?
Polly did recognize some of the things. She was no stranger to petticoats, for example, although hers generally hadn’t involved quite so much lace - or any lace, really - and her mother, being married, had owned a corset. Granted, hers had been made of un-dyed linen instead of deep purple silk, and it certainly hadn’t involved spider-web embroidery or quite that much… definition around the under-wire.
She had a brief mental image of what they must have looked like on Mal, back when she was Maladicta.
Mm.
She wondered if she could get Mal to put them on… only, of course, so that Polly could learn how to take them off her again.
*~*~*~*~*
What do you think? :-)