V is for Votive, W is for Wanton
Title: Your Hands Together
Fandom: Discworld
Pairing: Tilda/Magda
Claim: Discworld
Rating: PG
Word count: 200
A/N: Characters and spoiler from Monstrous Regiment.
The smell of cooking wafts through the trees. Tilda wanders back from a circuit around the camp and almost stumbles upon Wazzer preparing to pray.
Transfixed, she watches as the skinny girl goes through a ritual she knows down to her bones.
Thin hands settle the portrait on a branch at about the height of the prayer table back (home) in the Grey House. Wazzer kneels down, crosses herself, and - yes - even makes the horrible twin motions with her arms, and winces, as if really struck. (They were instructed to imagine the whip, and feel the skin tear, even when they weren't handed the actual thing.)
Wazzer prays. Intensely, fervently.
Feeling sick, Tilda walks over to where Magda sits on a fallen tree trunk sharpening her knives. Her tightened mouth tells Tilda that she's seen Wazzer too.
Even though there are others about (but Shufti's busy at the cooking, and Ozzer seems too preoccupied to watch, for once) Tilda slips her hand into Magda's and hangs on for dear life.
Every time they made her knot her hands in prayer, she imagined she was gripping Magda's instead. Now it's happening, it's real, and Tilda isn't ever going to let go.
Title: Easy Virtue, Hard Malice
Fandom: Discworld
Pairing: Esme/Gytha
Claim: Discworld
Rating: PG
Word count: 250
A/N: Again, set in the time they were girls together.
Gytha Ogg, they said, was no better than she should be. Esme found her just as good as she ought to be.
Esme'd known the back of her father's hand just for being friends with her, but Esme was growing up now and there were places in her head he couldn't penetrate, places she would not let him touch, and Gytha inhabited one of them. Darker things lived in the others.
Lily knew how to play their father better than Esme did, always had; where Esme defied, Lily soothed. Lily was the good daughter, everyone said, the pretty one, though they shared all their features, and truth be told neither of them was particularly handsome. But Lily was pleasing. Esme was like sour milk to her sweet wine.
'I don't know why you insist on goading him,' said Lily once while applying foul-smelling lotion on another bruise down Esme's back. 'He thinks you'll become a strumpet like the Ogg. Just leave her be and all will be well.'
'That's a lie, Lily, and you knows it,' said Esme as she concentrated on not wincing. 'He'll beat me anyways.'
Lily clicked her tongue.
Esme had no intention of becoming a strumpet, but she needed Gytha to keep her sane. Gytha was free.
Gytha was beautiful, and somehow Esme knew, in the way of witches, that they'd be together for good. It felt right; she'd scowl, and Gytha'd laugh; and they'd both be ten times stronger than her father ever could be.
Fandom: Discworld
Pairing: Tilda/Magda
Claim: Discworld
Rating: PG
Word count: 200
A/N: Characters and spoiler from Monstrous Regiment.
The smell of cooking wafts through the trees. Tilda wanders back from a circuit around the camp and almost stumbles upon Wazzer preparing to pray.
Transfixed, she watches as the skinny girl goes through a ritual she knows down to her bones.
Thin hands settle the portrait on a branch at about the height of the prayer table back (home) in the Grey House. Wazzer kneels down, crosses herself, and - yes - even makes the horrible twin motions with her arms, and winces, as if really struck. (They were instructed to imagine the whip, and feel the skin tear, even when they weren't handed the actual thing.)
Wazzer prays. Intensely, fervently.
Feeling sick, Tilda walks over to where Magda sits on a fallen tree trunk sharpening her knives. Her tightened mouth tells Tilda that she's seen Wazzer too.
Even though there are others about (but Shufti's busy at the cooking, and Ozzer seems too preoccupied to watch, for once) Tilda slips her hand into Magda's and hangs on for dear life.
Every time they made her knot her hands in prayer, she imagined she was gripping Magda's instead. Now it's happening, it's real, and Tilda isn't ever going to let go.
Title: Easy Virtue, Hard Malice
Fandom: Discworld
Pairing: Esme/Gytha
Claim: Discworld
Rating: PG
Word count: 250
A/N: Again, set in the time they were girls together.
Gytha Ogg, they said, was no better than she should be. Esme found her just as good as she ought to be.
Esme'd known the back of her father's hand just for being friends with her, but Esme was growing up now and there were places in her head he couldn't penetrate, places she would not let him touch, and Gytha inhabited one of them. Darker things lived in the others.
Lily knew how to play their father better than Esme did, always had; where Esme defied, Lily soothed. Lily was the good daughter, everyone said, the pretty one, though they shared all their features, and truth be told neither of them was particularly handsome. But Lily was pleasing. Esme was like sour milk to her sweet wine.
'I don't know why you insist on goading him,' said Lily once while applying foul-smelling lotion on another bruise down Esme's back. 'He thinks you'll become a strumpet like the Ogg. Just leave her be and all will be well.'
'That's a lie, Lily, and you knows it,' said Esme as she concentrated on not wincing. 'He'll beat me anyways.'
Lily clicked her tongue.
Esme had no intention of becoming a strumpet, but she needed Gytha to keep her sane. Gytha was free.
Gytha was beautiful, and somehow Esme knew, in the way of witches, that they'd be together for good. It felt right; she'd scowl, and Gytha'd laugh; and they'd both be ten times stronger than her father ever could be.