Open Minded
(Not a drabble, but still waaay too short to be a fic in it's own right).
A coach, somewhere between Ankh-Morpork and Borogravia…
Vimes put down the folder and rubbed his eyes. It was a mess.
There wasn't a single country in the area that Borogravia hadn't been at war
with at some point in the last century. It was madness. And he was meant
to stroll in and sort things out. Oh yes.
He looked across at sergeant Angua, the only other occupant
of the coach. Buggy was out stretching his hawk's le- wings and Reg had gone up
top because he knew that, while it usually wasn't a problem, in such an enclosed space his smell made Angua uncomfortable.
Angua had abandoned her copy of the mission notes some time
ago. Vimes really couldn't blame her, it was dry and rather aggravating reading. She was now curled up on the seat, engrossed
in a book. Vimes squinted at the cover, trying to see what she was reading.
"Are you reading a romance, sergeant?" he asked,
surprised. He hadn't thought her the mushy type. She gave him a look out of the
corner of her eye.
"No." Pause. "Maybe a little bit," she admitted. Vimes gave
her a look of his own.
"It's something Cheery forced on me just as we were
leaving."
"Dwarf romance?"
"Apparently so sir."
Vimes groped for an appropriate expression, but couldn't
find one.
"It's surprisingly good actually," said Angua, her own
expression one of disbelief at her own words. "Oh the writing could be better,
this reads like a saga or opera a lot of the time, but the story's not too bad."
"But… dwarf romance? Isn't half of it just figuring out
which one of you is the girl?"
"Mm. But, see, that's the twist here. About a third of the
way through the book Armstrangler finds a case of makeup in Gritshins's room
and thinks he's cheating on her, but when she confronts him about it, it turns
out they're both girls! So they part ways and some time later Armstrangler is
going to get married to another dwarf who she's sure is male, but
realises she still has feelings for Gritshins. Armstrangler runs away from the
wedding and shacks up with Gritshins again and it all gets a bit… er… well, I
know now why it was written in Morporkian. I don't think Dwarvish has
words for some of the things they've been doing."
Vimes stared for a moment. "You mean…?" he didn't dare
finish the sentence for fear of what it had to contain.
"Quite open minded, our new dwarf women," said Angua
brightly.
Vimes sat in silence again. "Good grief," he managed
eventually.
He picked up the mission notes again. He needed something to
banish the mental images.