Author's note: This is a gift written for Reyavie, because something she said over at the CMDA forums triggered an association... and basically it all spiralled out of control from there.
"Vialle Caron," the Warden-Commander said, holding out her right hand.
The Duke shook it carefully, mindful of its three missing fingers. "Sam Vimes. Look, I'm sorry about this."
Vialle shrugged it off. "There's always so much misinformation about the Wardens going about, a little co-operation and goodwill operation can't hurt, even if we had to travel in a damned uncomfortable manner to get here. Just be grateful it's only the two of us. If we hadn't managed to give Oghren the slip ... " she shuddered. "... actually, just don't ask."
"I won't," Vimes said. "To be honest, I don't really care about the Wardens. We don't have any troubles with darkspawn here – if they go into the Shades they get eaten like the rest of us. You've got your job and I've got mine, and after today I don't think our paths will cross. Let's just follow our people and get this over with."
"Sigrun," the dwarf said.
"Cheri Littlebottom," Vimes's alchemist replied, staring at the Grey Warden. "Are you sure you're a dwarf? What happened to your beard? Illness? Accident? Fire?" She lowered her voice. "I was in Madam Sharn's the other day, and I noticed she has some wonderful prostheses..."
Sigrun laughed. "Are you sure you're a girl? I've never seen a girl dwarf with a beard! I like the ribbons you've plaited into it, though."
"They were on sale just down the street. Want to take a look? They'd look so nice in your pigtails!"
"Ooooh, yes."
Exchanging somewhat bemused glances, Vimes and the Warden-Commander followed Cheri and Sigrun out into the street.
-0-0-0-0-0-
"How many ribbons can they possibly buy?" Caron asked. Sigrun had a fistful – pink, and pink edged with gold, and pink edged with silver, and pink and blue, and blue, and blue edged with gold, and blue edged with silver and...
"Lord Vetinari instructed me to extend the full hospitality of Ankh-Morpork –" Vimes furrowed his brow; that phrase was a little misleading, "well, all the parts that don't involve getting mugged, killed, left facedown on the Ankh, blown up by the Alchemist's Guild, eating a Dibbler pie or having custard poured down your trousers." He paused, trying to find a way back to where he'd started the sentence. "But he's footing the bills for today's little junket, and I don't think even Cheri can bankrupt him with ribbons. Although they're certainly trying hard enough."
"Forgive me, but 'Cheri'? How does a dwarf end up with such an Orlesian name?"
"You mean Quirmian? She adopted it. More feminine than 'Cheery'."
"And she is clearly very concerned with her femininity."
"It's a dwarf thing. A recent dwarf thing."
"Ooh, this one's chartreuse!" Sigrun held the ribbon against her face and turned towards Cheri. "Does it suit me?"
"Hmmm... we really need to go to Grabpot Thundergust's and get your colours done."
Vimes groaned.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Sigrun wriggled like a little girl – or a puppy – in delight as the attendants fussed over her.
"Definitely a Cool Winter," a dwarf with flowers braided into her beard announced. "Have a look at this swatch. These are the colours that will look best on you."
"I'm a Warm Autumn," Cheri announced and rubbed her hands together in glee. "It will be so much fun when we go to Madam Sharn's – I thought we could look at her new range of micromail."
"Micromail?" Sigrun asked, as the attendants swarmed her and started applying makeup.
"Almost as soft as silk, more flexible than leather, and better than anything short of full plate for stopping a blow," Cheri told her. "And it doesn't chafe."
"There we are!" an attendant said, and held up a huge mirror.
"You look lovely!" Cheri beamed. "Shame about your beard, though."
The mirror was lowered, and Sigrun grinned up at the humans accompanying them. "What do you think, Commander?"
Caron had seen some beautiful cosmetics at the Orlesian court. She'd seen some ghastly ones, too. She'd never seen anything like what they'd done to Sigrun. "You look... amazing." Beside her, Vimes dissolved in a suspicious coughing fit. But indeed Caron was amazed; she hadn't known it was possible to make a perfectly healthy dwarf – and a Grey Warden - look so much like a ghoul, using only paints and powders.
"Now," an attendant said, "we really must do something about your hair."
"And mine!" Cheri jumped into one of the chairs. "I ran out of Helmet Hair Soothing Serum last night, and I haven't been able to do a thing with it."
"We brought ribbons!"
"Just have a seat, your Grace, Warden-Commander," another attendant said. "You might be here for a while."
"You know," Vimes said, "there's crime happening outside. I could be out there, doing my job. Or I could be at home with my wife and my son. Instead I'm sitting here watching two dwarves get their hair done."
Caron nodded slowly, in complete sympathy. "I could be chasing down that damn Architect, killing darkspawn. I could be flipping up Anders' skirt. I could be finding more recruits and rebuilding the Order." She groaned and put her head down on her hands. "Maker save us from rulers and their bright ideas."
"Amen," Vimes agreed.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Dwarven hair duly coiffed (Vimes thought they looked like somebody had exploded glitter and ribbons all over a pair of pineapples, and then adorned the result with a few pieces of wax fruit, and wondered why they'd gone to all the effort), they stopped off for refreshments at one of the more genteel dwarvish pubs – "genteel" signifying that the drinks were a great deal more expensive, and arrived in little glasses with umbrellas and cherries instead of greasy leather tankards.
Sigrun was poring over the menu. "Rat Onna Stick? That's classy. We never got anything like that in Dust Town. The sticks were too expensive."
"Rat? Rat?" Caron dropped the menu as if it were a dead rat itself, and sat with her eyes closed, looking distinctly green. "I never thought I'd miss Fereldan cooking. Tell me when it's over, please."
"Never thought to see a Grey Warden with a delicate stomach," Vimes observed, somewhat absently. He was trying to watch for trouble, but there was one spot his eyes keep sliding over, and it was making him feel uneasy.
"This Grey Warden has eaten Orlesian cuisine for most of her life."
"... stuff like telling how long a body's been dead for, whether poison was involved –"
"Really?" Sigrun giggled mischievously. "Well, then, Cleverclogs – how long have I been dead?"
A dark figure behind them shook his cowled head. DEAD? I HAVEN'T SEEN ANYONE PROCLAIM THAT WITH SUCH ENTHUSIASM- AND SO INCORRECTLY – SINCE THAT BUSINESS IN LANCRE.
Not that anyone heard him.
Cheri blinked. Bits of brown eyeshadow got flicked onto her forehead. "You're dead?"
"Vampire?" Vimes asked, leaning forward in his chair. The perky little dwarf had been walking around in the sun, and she didn't look like a vampire – or at least she hadn't before she'd got her makeup done – but you never could tell.
"What's a vampire?" Sigrun asked.
Vimes relaxed. "Uberwaldean, usually. Dissolves in sunlight, severe garlic allergy, talks vith vees vhere their double-yews should be, drinks blood..."
"Nothing like that," Caron said. "Sigrun's just dead. It's a dwarf thing."
The cloaked figure fished an hourglass out of his sleeve and held it up to his skull. Twin points of blue light were reflected in interesting ways from the carvings on it: flowers, butterflies, genlocks and the name 'Sigrun', in lettering that could only be called Gothic. NO, SHE'S NOT. REALLY. I WOULD KNOW.
"Drinks blood?" Sigrun wrinkled her nose. "Eeew. Well, I guess there was that one time –"
"Sigrun!" the Warden-Commander snapped.
"Ooops, sorry." She took a deep gulp of her red drink, dislodging a cherry. She looked slightly concussed when she set it down again. "Yup, dead as a doornail, that's me. What's so dead about a door nail?"
Without opening her eyes, Caron gave Vimes a long-suffering glance. "Is yours always like this?"
"Pretty much. Is yours?"
"Not usually this bad... but yes."
When the door of the pub closed behind them, Olaf Olafsson committed suicide in true Ankh-Morpork fashion by saying something terribly unflattering about Spike Stronginthearm's fathers. Spike carried on the good ol' Ankh-Morpork traditions by burying an axe in the back of Olaf's head.
Death stood up from his barstool and grinned. NOW, THAT'S DEAD.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Sigrun waltzed out of Madam Sharn's changing room draped in a long, slinky dress of blue micromail, slit up to her thigh on either side. Steel boots with welded high heels and decorative rivets clung to her feet and stretched upward; panels of delicate filigree showed off the white skin of her calves.
She pirouetted, two silver axes sparkling with sapphires suddenly appearing in her hands.
"Hey, what do you think?"
It was the thirteenth dress she'd tried on. The seventh pair of boots. The twenty-third pair of axes. Not to mention three sets of armour, five jerkins, eight pairs of sandals, and a score of crossbows, daggers and short swords.
Caron couldn't take much more. She decided to be cruel. "I'm sure Oghren will just love it."
"Oghren, pffft," Sigrun dismissed the lecherous dwarf with a wave of her hand. "I've got his measure, Vialle."
"Oghren?" Cheri picked up on that immediately. "Is he your boyfriend? Are you..." she assumed a tactful pitch, "... certain he's male?"
"As sure as I can be without checking out his parts," Sigrun said, "not that he hasn't offered enough times."
"Please tell me I'm not actually hearing this," said Vimes, the only (openly) male in the shop.
"Ah," Cheri nodded her head wisely. "Inadequacy issues. I read about them in Grrrlfrenzz! Apparently it's a really common problem."
"I never thought I'd say this," Caron muttered savagely as Cheri and Sigrun continued speculating about Oghren's potential sexual problems, "but I'd rather be spending an afternoon with the Architect."
"Getting your house remodelled? Sibyl's been going through a phase of that lately. All of a sudden it's goodbye, swamp dragons and hello, chintz. And bobeches, whatever they are. Fred says it happens to wives."
"No, he's –" she waved her hand. "Actually, never mind. Warden business."
"Ah." A little belatedly, Vimes heard the capital letter on 'Architect'.
"Vialle? Last one, I promise." Sigrun and Cheri stepped out at the same time. Sigrun had kept her filigreed boots, while Cheri had strappy platformed sandals.
Both were wearing nothing else apart from micromail bikinis.
There are some things nobody should ask a man to do. Vimes bolted unceremoniously outside, groping for his silver cigarette case, leaving a thoroughly gobsmacked Caron alone on the battlefield. "Uh. Uh. You look... undressed? Is that underwear? Please say it's underwear. As your Warden-Commander, you can't go out on a battlefield dressed, uh, undressed, like that. Oh, Maker, they're wearing metal underwear..."
"Micromail," said Cheri cheerfully. "It doesn't chafe, and it never needs washing. You just stick it in a kitchen fire for a couple of minutes."
"You bake your underwear. Maker have mercy, I have finally lost it. I could take Anders covering Ser Pounce-a-lot's eyes whenever I tried to kiss him. I put up with Oghren attempting to play charioteer with my mabari. I survived Velanna teaching all my pot plants to sing, even though they were out of tune and tried to eat me. But I cannot talk about your metal underwear. Do what you want, Sigrun, Lord Vetinari's picking up the bill. Just don't ask me."
She bolted outside and found Vimes talking to a young woman with short, boyish hair. Caron felt her sanity slowly trickling back. "... another murder, but it's on Fools Guild grounds."
"So it's not our problem yet," Vimes said. "I'm sure it won't take too long. Warden-Commander Caron, this is Lance-Constable Sally von Humpeding. She's a vampire."
"You know, I still haven't worked out exactly what that is," Caron told him, and nodded politely at the girl. "A pleasure."
"Very useful, on occasion," Vimes muttered. "I still haven't forgiven Vetinari for foisting her on me, though." Then a brilliant, beautiful idea struck him. "Lance-Constable, would you give us a moment? Out of earshot, Lance-Constable."
"Yes, sir." The girl withdrew an improbable distance very quickly.
Vimes judged the space enough, but he didn't really trust the vampire. So he leant in and whispered a suggestion – a plea, really – in Caron's ear.
"What a strange idea. She looks so young."
"She's fifty-one, vampires age slowly. Warden-Commander... as a personal favour to me."
Caron cast him a suspicious look. "...all right. Call her back." When the vampire girl rejoined them, the Grey Warden took a deep breath and told her, "Sally von Humpeding, I hereby invoke the Right of Conscription."
"As the Duke of Ankh, I acknowledge your authority and right to do so," Vimes replied cheerfully, while Sally narrowed her eyes at him.
"You know the Low King won't forgive this."
"He doesn't like me that much anyway," Vimes said, as two dwarves, teetering on iron heels they hadn't mastered walking in yet, came out of Madame Sharn's laden down with multiple pink bags, which hung like strange tumours from their arms. "He ought to be grateful to me – one more Grey Warden to keep the darkspawn out of his hair, and one who doesn't die easily."
So two dwarves had bought a large fortune's worth of micromail. The Warden-Commander had invoked the Right of Conscription on the vampire Vetinari had so carefully inveigled into his watch.
Vetinari was going to be ironic about this. Maybe even satirical.
It was worth it.
"Before we head back to put Sally through the Joining," Caron said, "I could do with a drink. Coming?"
"Sorry," said Vimes. "I've got to get home and read to Young Sam."
I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU SAY, a dark figure muttered from the shadows. SIGRUN STILL ATEN'T DEAD.