A/N: Well, I did promise that this story would be even weirder than 'Little People'! I think I was correct. Very bizarre, but I've had the idea for ages, and I finally gave up and wrote it down.
Disclaimer: I still don't own Terry Pratchett. I don't even own this interpretation of Blouse, though I'm fairly certain it's unique.
Ease
The first time round, everything went wrong. The world crashed and burned, and some people were relieved that it did so. You were burned, sweet Polly, and Maladicta's head was cut off and her ashes were intermingled with yours and Tonker's, and Shufty's and her child's, and they put Wozzer to the torch too, and they killed Igorina and they killed Lofty, too, by drowning her and they even killed Jackrum.
The first time round, flames licked you up, and our comrades, and in doing so licked up my world, while Nuggin laughed, and it's possible that the Duchess wept.
I wouldn't know. I'm not like Wozzer: I lost my faith in icons.
But I've always been intelligent, even when I was stupid, and it was easy, easy to find a wizard, to research wizards and find their strengths and their weaknesses. And since my stupidity had burned up with you and the rest of my squad, it was easy, so easy, to threaten one into doing what I wanted to, into turning back time and taking me with it.
(A part of me, a small part, mourned its ease, but I'd learned from you and Jackrum on the night you died to do anything to achieve my goals.)
And I changed things, just a bit. I let you see a letter, I didn't, this time, try to beat Jackrum. I acted as myself, long ago, but with additional knowledge.
I nearly laughed when I heard that Jackrum had christened me the Tiger, though my first thought was How could he know? and I watched him sharply after that. But I think it was just an accident, or maybe he'd heard me talk in my sleep (though surely that would have raised questions) because he had no way of knowing that after my squad died, one by one by one, and you last of all, Polly, that my enemies had given me that title. No one who met me survived, but I heard that they'd found the corpses—many, many corpses.
And so now I've come back, and I'm determined that things go right this time, even if it means you're falling in love with that damn vampire. (But that's not fair, really, because I love Maladicta, too, just as you once did: she was once our sister, and I can't, really, begrudge her your love, when you don't even know that it might have been given to me.)
And this time, if a world crashes and burns, it won't be mine—and this time, it will be Nuggin weeping.