(Untitled)

[sir_samuel]

Where's my cow?
Is that my cow?
It goes Baa!
it is a sheep!
That is not my cow!A lot had changed on the island for Sam Vimes and Sam Vimes, Jr. No longer was the time father and son spent together severely limited by the elder's Vimes' work. No longer did Young Sam have to wait patiently for the 6 o'clock hour to arrive. Mornings were slowed and

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[doesntdosocks]

As soon as Rosemary Palm walked through the door, happening upon what was happening, she found herself stuck in one spot. Finding oneself inexplicably feeling aged by the sight of the boy who used to be the Lad Around the Corner1, now not only just a lad, but a father complete with son did that to a girl.

She wondered if she was going to go grey next, and shuddered slightly at the thought. It was up there with having gravity take its toll and what not. Still she could not help but stare, and more importantly listen.

1. Figuratively speaking.

[sir_samuel]

Vimes had never seen a gray hair on Mrs. Palm's head. He was pretty damn sure no one had, and that the head of the guild of seamstresses had every intention of keeping that way until the day she died.

When he saw Rosie standing there, watching, Vimes actually faltered just slightly. It was one thing to have people wandering in and out, it was quite another when one of those people was Rosemary Palm, someone Vimes had never in all his life expected to witness this scene.

Young Sam was having none of it, though, and charged on with his recitation. His father took the hint and got back to his reading. No other interruptions were made. When they were finished, he closed the book and sighed a little.

"Evening, Miss Palm."

[doesntdosocks]

It was almost like she'd been reanimated or something similar, and perhaps she had. No one could ever really be certain about these things, and as she cleared her throat, wiping her palms against her shorts, she smiled.

"Evenin Vimesy," she said, perhaps it was a sign of something that The Shades in her came out just a bit thicker as she spoke. "Little Vimesy."

[sir_samuel]

Vimes glared just a little. "This is Young Sam." He looked at his son. "This is a woman you want to stay as far away from as is humanly possible when you're stuck on a damned desert island."

Young Sam nodded thoughtfully and Vimes flashed Rosie a dry smile.

[doesntdosocks]

For a moment Rosie looked hurt, but like hurt on most Seamstresses, it didn't quite reach her eyes. Most things never really did.

"Pardon me, Young Sam," she corrected, bowing her head slightly, the smile turning to a smirk. "Oh, you pain me Vimesy, I'm not that sort of dangerous and you know it."

[sir_samuel]

"Gods know what kind of dangerous you could be, Rosie. That's the trouble. And if you don't stop calling me Vimesy, I'm gonna start calling you Madam." Though force and habit, Vimes' accent had cleaned up over the years. But in Rosie's presence, a bit more of the Shades dropped into it again.

Young Sam watched this unknown woman with a frank, thoughtful expression. "Wosie."

[doesntdosocks]

"Then aren't we lucky that we don't have any Gods hangin' about?" Rosie didn't put much stock in Gods to start with and why would she really start now. Islands do that to a person; either suck the faith out or shove it right back in.

She sniffed slightly. "Madam and I are nothing alike, not really, and oh look, your son might just like me."

[sir_samuel]

"I wasn't talking about her, see. But if you're gonna go making me feel my age, I'll be returnin' the favor." He made a face. "He's young and impressionable. We'll work on that."

But Young Sam, who knew when he was being talked about, grinned in a way that could almost be called conspiratorial.

[doesntdosocks]

In the way that Seamstresses and girls predisposed to not be so keen on the young and impressionable like the young and impressionable, Rosie gave young Sam a sly wink. "I'm certain you will. Make his mother proud and protect him against the likes of me and those who follow after. It could worse. I could be a Thief."

[sir_samuel]

"Or a Reporter," Vimes added dryly, and then remembered that there was one definitively good thing about old A-M - no newspapers. "Or have you had the luck not to run into de Worde yet?"

" 'porter," Young Sam echoed with a serious frown.

[doesntdosocks]

Her lip curled instinctly as all those from the Shades have the tendency to do when those from the sunnier, more self-satisfied (and wealthy) sides of the Ankh are concerned. It was just instinct. "There's a de Worde involved here? I thought none of them types could actually write?"

[sir_samuel]

It was an instinct Vimes appreciated, even duked and living on the Ankh side as he was these days - and oh gods, Rosie was never going to let him live it down when she figured that one out.

He made a face. "Mmph. William de Worde. Second son, rejected his own family to make his way in the world, the lot. He writes the news."

[doesntdosocks]

He was quite right in that one, once Rosie knew about the Duke situation, she was going to rail on him until his...well...not dying but pretty close day.

"Ah, so they do turn people out. Figures, I love it when they have proper scandals, ridiculous and overfluffed as they are."

[sir_samuel]

Vimes snorted. "You always were one for gossip, Rosie." Seamstresses usually were. It was something he learned early on, actually. You want to know what's really going on behind closed door? Ask a seamstress.

But Young Sam had decided that they had spent too much time not paying attention to him. "Cow?" he asked Rosie seriously.

[doesntdosocks]

"It's not gossip, it's news and I have to know what sort of business I'm going to be getting myself into." Rosie shrugged, as it was the truth.

At the question though, she smiled. "Cow? Do you like cows, Sammy?"

[sir_samuel]

"S'least you use it honestly," Vimes said, not without irony. Vimes wasn't sure of as many things as he would like to think, but that seamstressing was more honest than reportering, he was sure. For a given value of honest.

"Cow in book," he explained helpfully. "Cow in barn. " If Young Sam had stayed in Ankh-Morpork, he would have never seen a cow that wasn't on his dinner plate. On the island, he had discovered that real cows were much less interesting, much more stupid, and much less likely to wander off and cause adventures. But he didn't hold this against the book. Or the cow.