Bewitching Brews- Discworld- Pirate Lofty
Title: Pirate Lofty
Fandom: Discworld
Character/Pairing: Tonker/Lofty
Prompt List: Bewitching Brews
Prompt: Calico Jack. Sea air, driftwood, waterlogged kelp, and the memory of plundered spices sprayed over worn leathers, rough musk, and the salty wooden floorboards of the Revenge.
Rating: T
Word Count: 1396
Author's Notes: This is what happens if you read Monstrous Regiment while listening to The Threepenny Opera. The bearded gentlemen in the story are the Discworld equivalent to Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill. All the shows they write are based on ones by their Roundworld inspirations, as well as Lofty's song.
Summary: Tonker and Lofty thought they were just going to rob a theater. But when they become the inspiration for a pair of playwrights, all bets as to the future are off.
Ballad In Which Crime Collides With The Art of Theater
Two women sat in the back of the theater during a production of It Ends Happily, Alright?, eating chocolates and watching a world that was different from the one they knew. For instance, this one involved a great deal of singing songs without very much tune, and actors portraying Black Ribboners who periodically addressed the audience to state that while they might suck blood, this was nothing compared to the way money-based society sucked the life from the common people. It was also a world where scenes with titles explained what was about to happen, which would have been quite useful in real life.
After the performance, the two women paid a call on the owners of the theater- who were, in fact, the writers of the play. One might argue that it was unwise to trust great artists with the running of what amounted to a business. One would be right.
The woman known as Tonker wrapped smartly on the door. The woman known as Lofty unsheathed her cutlass. As the door opened, the two bearded gentlemen inside found themselves on the receiving end of a blade.
"Your money or your life!" snarled Tonker, pulling what turned out to be a sword from her cane. "Come on, there were plenty of people in the audience, they paid for their tickets, you’ve got the cash. Hand it over!"
The rational response to this would have been to back away very slowly after handing over the money that was, after all, the root of all evil, but playwrights are not rational people. Instead, they looked at each other with an expression of the utmost glee.
"Criminals! Outcasts from zer society! Oh, vat vunderful good fortune!"
The bearded gentleman who had made this unexpected outcry picked up his pen and paper.
"Vould you two laidies say, on zer whole, zat you are zer tragic victims of a money-oriented society, and forced to embark on zer life of crime as a resort to zer true human condition?"
"No, but I would say that you’re going to be the tragic victim of my sword if you don’t shut up and hand over the money right now!" Tonker glared at him, but to no avail.
The bearded gentlemen who up until now had been silent finally spoke up.
"Ladies, vhy don’t you just cooperate vith my partner? Answer his questions, vhat harm can it do? It vould be rather cruel to poke a hole in my partner’s new suit, and vouldn’t make much of a difference to his health."
"It’s lucky for you", stated the other, "zat you chose to rob two Black Ribboners who despise zer violence in all its forms."
Bloody, bloody hell! Of course they’d been vampires- who else would have life spans long enough to come up with the concept of ‘music without a tune’? The women, however, did not back down. Not just yet.
"Vampire or not, I can rip you to shreds!" Tonker screamed, and Lofty made a few movements with her cutlass. One bearded gentleman gasped at the sight of this.
"Zer cutlass...by any chance, vould you two happen to be pirates?"
Ballad In Which Research Must Be Done To Heighten Realism
"This is ridiculous", moaned Tonker. She was about to go on, but Lofty looked at her so sweetly that she couldn’t bear to deny her. For several weeks now, the two of them had been living in the theater, paid by the bearded gentlemen to be interviewed as research for their plays. If it was up to Tonker they’d have split long ago, but her partner seemed to like it.
Lofty had always been a queer sort of girl. It wasn’t her fault, of course- a lifetime of being beaten (and worse) by various moral authorities tended to do that to a girl, and it was only natural she’d develop quirks. It had been fire to begin with, but since the research had begun, that had taken a backseat to theater.
As for the bearded gentlemen...well, their hearts were probably in the right place. Tonker had taken the liberty of reading over their other plays- Indomitable Matriarch, The Rise and Fall of the Kingdom of Sapient Pearwood...they all seemed pretty much the same to her. So why they should want to write yet another one escaped her, except that writing was what they had taken up instead of biting. They’d toss off a play in a month and then start on the next, for fear of getting hungry.
"So," said the bearded gentleman who wrote the music, "are you sure you are not zer pirates?"
"Don’t listen to him," said the one who wrote the words. "He keeps pestering me about vriting a musical vith pirates in it. Now, Miss Magda"- Tonker grimaced at hearing her first name, but remained silent- "vhat vould you say vas zer underlying philosophy behind your vorldview?"
She was getting tired of this.
"You want to know my philosophy? Huh? My philosophy is this: I’m a Bad Girl. Lofty over here is, too. When you’re like us, you defend yourself before they attack. That’s life, my friend."
"Vonderful!"
Lofty, unusually, spoke up.
"I did want to be a pirate when I was little...but I burned down my boss’s boat, instead."
Ballad In Which The Bearded Gentlemen Get Their Pirate
"Where is she?!"
The curtain had already gone up on The Opera With Cheap Prices In It, and Lofty was nowhere to be found. Tonker cursed as she tore around backstage. If Lofty was in trouble, she’d skewer the bastard who dared cause it, but she was also hoping she wasn’t off setting one of her fires. Somehow, she didn’t want to be the one to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater, even if it was true.
And, much as she found the bearded gentlemen to be pompous idiots, she had to admit that it was flattering to have a main character based on her. Mag the Blade, they called her, and she had her own theme song and everything. She didn’t want the show to end before the actor playing what was essentially her got to spout a few lines of philosophy.
Tonker tripped over something in her hurry. Or rather, someone. Looking down, she saw an actor in a dress- men had to play the women, in what seemed to Tonker to be a rather poor decision- out cold. But why would anyone bother to knock out a fairly decent actor? Unless...
Oh dear. Oh dear...
From onstage, she could here singing. It wasn’t professional, but it was the voice of someone who knew every line, not by heart, but by soul. An actor who had taken another’s place for just one song.
With the show underway, there was noting Tonker could do but sit back and listen to Lofty sing.
"All the beatings you give me will make you forget
That I’m still a human being.
So I clean up your kitchens while you paw at my chest
But it’s your funeral, because you haven’t guessed
It’s no ordinary girl you’re seeing."
Of course, it had to be this scene. One way or another, the bearded gentlemen had gotten their pirate, in the character of a kitchen girl with homicidal fantasies. Of course, there was always a chance that the girl in question was simply insane and not a real pirate at all, but you couldn’t have everything.
"But when the night comes and the screaming starts
And a fire has started in the streets
Then you’ll see the way I’m smiling out at nothing
And you’ll order me to go make up the sheets.
But my ship sails towards you
With arrows all aflaming
To those pirates, you’re treats..."
The weird thing, Tonker realized, was that Lofty was actually good. It wasn’t her voice, which was a bit too soft, but the conviction behind it. What was that phrase? The role she was born to play.
When Lofty made her exit, Tonker took her arm gently.
"Very nice, Now come on, let’s go rob banks."
"But why?", Lofty asked. "I like theater."
Tonker paused.
"You know how theater takes you into another world?"
"Yes?"
"Well, this one was a little too familiar."
And with that, the outlaws forever departed the stage.