Ficlet: handbags and gladrags
Title: handbags and gladrags
Rating: PG-13 for mild swearing
Fandom: Discworld
Characters/Pairing: A female dwarf OC
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: I'm only playing with the setting, I have no rights to it.
Prompt: #30 on the 100_women chart, "lipstick"
handbags and gladrags
It was allowed in Ankh-Morpork, but Hrolf Glodsson didn’t think that was exactly a ringing endorsement. Most things, he had soon discovered, were allowed in Ankh-Morpork, so long as you had the gold and knew the right places to do them*. It being allowed in Ankh-Morpork wasn’t the same thing as it being right; more than that, Hrolf felt, it wasn’t the same thing as it being right for a dwarf.
When Hrolf was still new enough in town that you could’ve smelled his daddy’s seam in his beard, Hrolf had been equal parts shocked and intrigued by the dwarfs who’d wear kilts** and paint their faces, the language with more than one pronoun. He thought - oh, he’d thought a lot of things, but it had felt important and real in a way he couldn’t quite explain. At least, at first. Hrolf had spent more than five years in the city now, had learned that no matter how many dwarf bars and dwarf tunnels and dwarf restaurants you find in a place, the stench of human works its way into the buildings, leaves behind the distinct impression that even the dwarfs who clung to their axes and their trousers, the ones who’d only use Morporkian to tell a human to go feed their gold to a dragon***, were playing by human standards just by being here.
When humans described Ankh-Morpork as a melting pot, they meant it was like a forge: smelt enough metal, you can make it into any shape you want. Boil enough dwarfs, they come up acting human. Hrolf used to watch the dwarf... women... who painted their lips with a mix of fascination and disgust. It had been a long time since Hrolf had seen red lips and thought of anything but mine collapses, seams choked off from the whole.
Hrolf shook his head slowly, and closed his eyes. The idea of lipstick and heels felt not dwarfish, felt too human, but that didn’t mean there was nothing ... she... could do. The new pronoun was strange, a little uncomfortable, but there was nothing forbidden about changing your name.
Hrolf thought it over for a few minutes before Hruth Glodsdaughter opened his eyes.
It was allowed in Ankh-Morpork, he knew, but that didn’t make it right for him. Tomorrow, though, he might just have to see about finding a kilt****.
There would be time enough to practice ...her... new pronouns later.
* Most of which, it must be said, are just ‘nowhere the Watch might hear about you doing it’.
** In the entire history of the Disc, there has never been a culture so determined to spell out the difference between ‘kilts’ and ‘skirts’ as the dwarfs, nor one so ready to axe you in the knees over your definition of either.
*** Or, in Morporkian, ‘Bugger off’.
**** ‘Skirt worn by someone carrying enough weaponry to make the rest of your life both short and very painful should you refer to it as a skirt without being damn sure that's what the person in question calls it’
Rating: PG-13 for mild swearing
Fandom: Discworld
Characters/Pairing: A female dwarf OC
Warnings: None
Disclaimer: I'm only playing with the setting, I have no rights to it.
Prompt: #30 on the 100_women chart, "lipstick"
handbags and gladrags
It was allowed in Ankh-Morpork, but Hrolf Glodsson didn’t think that was exactly a ringing endorsement. Most things, he had soon discovered, were allowed in Ankh-Morpork, so long as you had the gold and knew the right places to do them*. It being allowed in Ankh-Morpork wasn’t the same thing as it being right; more than that, Hrolf felt, it wasn’t the same thing as it being right for a dwarf.
When Hrolf was still new enough in town that you could’ve smelled his daddy’s seam in his beard, Hrolf had been equal parts shocked and intrigued by the dwarfs who’d wear kilts** and paint their faces, the language with more than one pronoun. He thought - oh, he’d thought a lot of things, but it had felt important and real in a way he couldn’t quite explain. At least, at first. Hrolf had spent more than five years in the city now, had learned that no matter how many dwarf bars and dwarf tunnels and dwarf restaurants you find in a place, the stench of human works its way into the buildings, leaves behind the distinct impression that even the dwarfs who clung to their axes and their trousers, the ones who’d only use Morporkian to tell a human to go feed their gold to a dragon***, were playing by human standards just by being here.
When humans described Ankh-Morpork as a melting pot, they meant it was like a forge: smelt enough metal, you can make it into any shape you want. Boil enough dwarfs, they come up acting human. Hrolf used to watch the dwarf... women... who painted their lips with a mix of fascination and disgust. It had been a long time since Hrolf had seen red lips and thought of anything but mine collapses, seams choked off from the whole.
Hrolf shook his head slowly, and closed his eyes. The idea of lipstick and heels felt not dwarfish, felt too human, but that didn’t mean there was nothing ... she... could do. The new pronoun was strange, a little uncomfortable, but there was nothing forbidden about changing your name.
Hrolf thought it over for a few minutes before Hruth Glodsdaughter opened his eyes.
It was allowed in Ankh-Morpork, he knew, but that didn’t make it right for him. Tomorrow, though, he might just have to see about finding a kilt****.
There would be time enough to practice ...her... new pronouns later.
* Most of which, it must be said, are just ‘nowhere the Watch might hear about you doing it’.
** In the entire history of the Disc, there has never been a culture so determined to spell out the difference between ‘kilts’ and ‘skirts’ as the dwarfs, nor one so ready to axe you in the knees over your definition of either.
*** Or, in Morporkian, ‘Bugger off’.
**** ‘Skirt worn by someone carrying enough weaponry to make the rest of your life both short and very painful should you refer to it as a skirt without being damn sure that's what the person in question calls it’