Written for Rpwena DeVandal's One Thousand Words Or Less Challenge. The task was to remove a defining quality from a canon character.
My excellent beta, Andrew Salt, told me as he always does that I should have written more. But this time, I really can't. Please don't hit me with sharp (or blunt) objects for letting this happen to Angua. It's just a paper exercise. Honest. Pterry wouldn't allow it, and as we all know, Discworld belongs to him.
So here goes, one thousand words exactly.
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Picture Ankh-Morpork, greatest and grubbiest of cities, nestling like a brooch at the throat of the river. 1) Let your eyes home in on the Tower Of Art and glide down through the night air to the dome of the library of Unseen University, bathed in moonlight. The moon is not yet full, but potent enough to tug at the big blanket of reality like a wayward child tugging the tablecloth at dinner time. At times like this, it is always possible that somehow, somewhere, a metaphorical salt-cellar will fall over. Without warning, for what warnings could books utter 2), an octarine sparkle rises from the library building and gently descends on Sator Square, where a woman is running at full speed, her blonde mane streaming out from under her helmet. And somehow, somewhere, a little switch gets stuck.
oOoOo
At the edge of the square, Sergeant Angua stopped. She had lost sight of the man, who had disappeared between the buildings. It shouldn't be hard to follow him. He had been eating a curry from Mr Goriff's Klatchian Take-away when she had recognized his face. Even with her human nose, she was able to follow the smell. At least she had been until a minute ago. But now the trail had faded. Well, she had ways of dealing with that.
Nimbly, the watchwoman ducked into a shady doorway and changed. Or tried to. She cursed under her breath and glanced at the street. Moonlight reflected off the cobbles, confirming what she would have known without recurring to the conventional senses. It should be easy at this time of the month. 3) In a couple of days, she wouldn't even have the choice. Yet her body remained intractably human. With a puzzled frown on her face, Angua stepped out into the street again. She had lost her quarry, but this seemed to be the least of her problems.
oOoOo
Two days later, Angua sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the wall. So this was what it was like to be human. She had spent the previous days in a state of terror and confusion, unable to smell Carrot's feelings, unable to smell even his soap. Mercifully, her special services had not been required. At least she was off duty today. Mister Vimes will go spare, he will go spare. This thought had been taking a long, relaxed bath in her mind for the last few hours, but eventually she managed to pull the plug and it gurgled away. She waited to see what would come out of the tap next.
Yennork!
Images of her sister Elsa poured into the empty bathtub. 4) The memory of the little girl made her cringe. Elsa, the yennork: human-shaped even under the full moon. Just a whim of nature, but Wolfgang had taken it as a reason to kill the girl. Now her only surviving sibling was a champion sheepdog. And her parents...well, wasn't that what she had been trying to get away from? Mister Vimes had taken care of Wolfgang. She sighed.Her hand touched the badge on her neck.
After a while, she undid the collar, slid the badge into her hand and cast the leather strap into the rubbish bucket. Seconds later, the strap was followed by a packet of flea powder. Angua rose and looked around the room. The basket was too big to fit into the bucket. In fact, the size of the basket had always been a grievance in this small room. She would ask Mrs Cake to dispose of it.
Out in the street, she felt exposed and numb. The world appeared every bit as flat as it was. Angua walked in a haze of bewilderment. How did humans manage? But the they did, didn't they? Indeed. When she came past the silversmith's shop window, she stopped.
Fifteen minutes later she left the shop with a discreet bracelet on her wrist and a smug expression on her face. No more scent bombs. No more fear of the mob. No more guiltily stolen chickens. Time to move on. By and by, her eyes and ears would learn to guide her. She would keep all her clothes in her wardrobe and that would be a boon. Explaining to Carrot could be awkward, but since he hadn't objected so far, he wouldn't object now. As for Mister Vimes, he spent a lot of his time going spare anyway, didn't he? She squared her shoulders.
oOoOo
Withdraw your gaze. Let it sweep through the grimy streets and linger on the great domed shape of the library, where the books are trying to look innocent. The moon is waning. It has released its grip on the tablecloth of reality and the metaphorical cruets are standing still. Let your eyes climb the Tower of Art and enjoy the view from this lofty height. Ankh-Morpork, greatest and grubbiest of cities, lies spread out in the plains like a fried egg on a breakfast plate. 5) Little does the city know that somehow, somewhere in the mucky streets, the life of one of its citizens has become, if not better, a little bit simpler.
That is, if brooches were noisy and smelly and full of interesting life forms. Besides, who said that a river has a throat? In days gone by, such a simile could have got the author into serious trouble.
Well, rather a lot, actually, like "Before preparing blowfish, ensure all work surfaces are covered," and "Any unauthorized reproduction of this work will be persecuted."
For a given value of "easy". What with the worries about clothes and the fear of discovery, few things were ever really easy in Angua's life.
It is at this point that the reader will begin to empathize with Olaf Quimby II's policy regarding metaphoric language.
Under the reign of Olaf Quimby II, this would have earned the author a couple of sessions on the rack and, possibly, the Iron Maiden.