Story Summary: This is a story about sex, magic, and being young and stupid. This is the story of Rincewind before he became a Wizard.

Story Notes: In this alternate history of the Discworld, Rincewind enrolls in Unseen University when he is 21 years old. He spends much of the time before that trying to get laid. Cross-posted to Archive of Our Own. Becomes sexually explicit after Chapter 3, "The Seamstress." See the bottom of this page for more notes. Incomplete.


Figure of Eight: Prologue

Rincewind always knew his parents had run away before he was born. Even his mother.

"Look, I'm not keeping it."

Jeena, exhausted and drained, held the boy reluctantly. The midwife had to practically force her to feed him. The baby suckled and Jeena winced, not from the discomfort, but as though there was a bomb against her breast. As if carrying the child for nine months weren't torture enough, the hefty responsibility of raising him lay ahead.

The baby's grandfather, against tradition, propriety or any expectations, entered the chamber to check on the newborn and sat at the end of the bed. After years of estrangement, her coworker's cousin's barber had informed him of the pregnancy.

His first instinct was to find the baby's father and kick the stuff out of him. That would be difficult, however, since Jeena had been moonlighting as a "seamstress." Kicked out of her brothel when her belly began to swell, she had to take up the other kind of sewing, and she was rubbish at stitches.

He thought it unfortunate Jeena's mother had already passed on and couldn't handle this female stuff herself. But being told that not one but bothparents wanted nothing to do with the scrawny infant was the worst possible news and reignited his paternal instincts.

"He'll die without his mother."

"I'll find a wet-nurse."

"You can barely afford rent. How can you hire a wet-nurse?"

"I'll put it up for adoption."

Now that was a feasible idea. Jeena locked eyes with her father and saw him seriously consider it. He thanked the gods she hadn't asked him to raise it.

However...

"What couple would take a…a seamstress' street rat?"

Jeena didn't even flinch at either insult. She had always called a spade a spade.

"He'll have to go into a group home," he said. "One of the guilds."

"Not if you take him."

So she'd said it after all. Her statement hung stewing in the air. They sat for a while in uncomfortable silence.

The boy took a breath and made indiscernible noises. Jeena didn't even know how to hold him right.

"He stopped. What do I do?"

"How should I know?" Her father averted his gaze as she adjusted her breast, trying to get the baby to latch back onto it.

"I think the thing wants me to change it. Or burp it, or something."

Her father turned to look at them.

"He just wants to be held by his mother."

"Hmph."

"Let me hold him, then."

Jeena gladly handed the child to him. Swaddled in a cheap, coarse blanket, his skin was red and puffy, his lips wet with milk. The baby already had tufts of ginger hair and squinted up at his grandfather with wide, black eyes. So small and helpless, he thought. How could anyone possibly abandon him now?

"I'm going back to work as soon as I can," his daughter said.

The thought used to disgust him, but he'd accepted it long ago. Apparently the girl had found the one thing she was good at and he couldn't begrudge her that. Unfortunately, she wasn't very good at other, more conventional professions. And clearly she wasn't very good at counting.

"And what of the babe?"

"The other girls can take care of him until I find a good orphanage or something."

"The city has one good orphanage. At Small Gods."

"Ah. Then it won't be a very long search."

"What shall you name him?"

Looking into the boy's eyes gave him a warm, gooey joy deep inside, like when he'd first held Jeena.

She shook her head. "I don't know. You think of something."

His unnamed grandson began to open and close his mouth and murmur softly. Still hungry. He reluctantly handed the baby back to his annoyed daughter. He stood up.

"Well if your son makes your skin crawl so much, you get those other girls over here right now. Because I'm taking a walk."

"The same kind of walk you took when I was little?"

She said it very softly and casually but it felt like a slap.

"The very same, my dear."

For now, he thought.

Exiting, he bumped into the midwife, and Jeena called out one last thing.

"Would you…Would you find his father and kick his arse for me?"

That was something he could agree to.


Additional Story Notes: (1) I'm American, so I apologize in advance. This fic uses a mashup of British and American spelling/dialects. (2) For reasons unknown, the Internet decided Rincewind was a redhead. (3) The state of Rincewind's virginity is muchly contested. (4) When Rincewind enrolled at Unseen University is a mystery. Going by typical educational practices, he would have been 17. One fan-made timeline I found suggested he was 24, while another said he was 14. In this fanfic he is 21. (5) Virgin or not, there is the question of whether Rincewind could get a date in the first place. (6) Perhaps the History Monks made a mistake. Perhaps this takes place in the other leg of the Trousers of Time. Perhaps it's just impossible for me to write Gen. (7) I'm sure you already know how significant the number eight is to wizards.