deshabille_maladicta | cosmic jokes are like that

Entry tags:

angua

cosmic jokes are like that

Maladicta was lounging against the outside wall of the IPD in jeans and her boots and a tank top and her uniform jacket with the sleeves bunched up to her elbows. She'd wanted to go full regalia for her first patrol with her brand new partner, but it was too damn hot.

A werewolf. Honestly. At the time, she'd been just getting over severe hallucinations and head trauma, and stunned by the fact that a female was an officer. Without pretending to be male. After waking up undressed and in the same bed as her fellow ex-Unholy Empirial partner, some of the awe had been tempered.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Carrot told Angua there was a uniform for the IPD, and had shown her his own uniforms. Which were actually simply several brightly colored shirts (http://shop.eaa.org/StoreImages/2004/hawaiian_shirts_500.jpg). And then when she'd gone to the box he had also told her about* she eventually found one that seemed to fit her.

Angua wasn't sure what was worse, the funny looking pink creatures (http://4imgs.com/301/x/pf266_BIG.jpg), or the metal breastplate of her old uniform.

Or the fact that she would be patrolling with a vampire.

Arms crossed, Angua met Maladicta outside the office. Her expression faltered when she saw what Maladicta was wearing. Vampires. Why did they always have to look so...together?

"That's not the uniform," she said with a small frown that was bordering on petulant.

* Among other things he thought she should know. Many, many things.

Maladicta looked over, took a good long moment taking in the other woman's... outfit, looked back up at her and allowed her eyebrows to draw together fractionally.

"It contains part of a uniform," she countered, "and it's what I've worn since I joined."

Great. It was like Angua was already having a bad hair day.

She glanced down at her shirt.

"There are no uniforms, are there?"

Maladicta glanced down, fought a pained expression, and looked back at Angua with something very like sympathy. And not the condescending sort.

"No."

Angua sighed. She glanced around, and then took Maladicta's arm. "I'm not patrolling in this. I might not be from this world, but I can tell ugly from ugly no matter where it comes from."

"You can help," she decided, and lead the way to the clothing box.

"What?" Maladicta said, eyes wide. "Me? I spent the last three years dressing as a man. I mean, here, there isn't much difference, it's just trousers and shirts but-" They were walking down the hallway. The werewolf was dragging her down the hallway to the clothes box.

"I would be fine with trousers and shirts, but that thing wasn't giving me just trousers and shirts," Angua assured Maladicta, a look of pure distaste on her face. She took the stairs down two at a time.

"It never does," Maladicta mumbled, taking the stairs similarly, without paying attention at all. For being a very short person she had a good stretch of leg.

"All right," she said, passing the werewolf to stand over the box. She eyed it with an unimpressed sort of air.

"Here we are again," she said to it, rather coolly, then knelt and stuck her arm into the box to the elbow.

Angua watched, arms crossed. "Carrot told me it...changes. Something about the L-space, I don't know."

"Most of the amenities here are magic-addled, usually in a way that maximizes the potential for personally-catered insult," Maladicta said, and stood up holding a fistful of clothes. The colors weren't bad. The shirt was cap sleeved and was made of something not found in nature, but it was fitted and had a collar and a little tiny alligator on the chest. Brown on the shoulders and white everywhere else. It wasn't a particularly attractive shade of brown, either, but at least it didn't have giant pink birds on it. The pants were made, it seemed, out of the same material as the shirt and were black, and long, and Maladicta shrugged a little because they probably wouldn't be...so bad, and then there was one of the thin strapped shirt, the tank tops, like she was wearing only in a hue of green that wasn't quite blue but wasn't really green and was sort of unfortunately pale. She offered them over to Angua.

"None of these have bows, lace, leather, a pattern of stars or hearts, or giant pink birds on them. It's a start."

Angua's eyebrows rose. Well, it was nice to know the thing wasn't just purposefully cruel to her, it was equally cruel to all who took from it. She took the clothes from Maladicta. "Thanks..."

She turned around and began to change, deciding on the pea-colored sleeveless shirt to match her new partner. Maladicta could watch or not, it didn't really matter to Angua for a few reasons.*

Angua turned around, when finished, looking unphased. At least during her years with the Watch, fashion had never been an option, so she couldn't be too disappointed with this. "Do I get a sword?"

* There was the matter of waking up half-naked next to her. There was also the werewolf thing. When you tended to end up naked in all manner of places your first thought wasn't always to cover your chest.

Maladicta leaned against the washing machine, entirely unperturbed by the werewolf changing.

Just like home.

At the question, she arched an eyebrow.

"You can't have mine."

Angua returned Maladicta's Look with one of her own.

"I don't want yours," she assured the vampire. "I want one of my own, I wasn't exactly carrying in my pajamas. Don't they give new members a weapon?"

It hadn't come up with Vimes, and in fact their conversation on the entire IPD matter had more or less consisted of him telling her that she was expected to join and he would partner her with someone the next morning.

"I think someone's failed to explain to you the nature of this place, which is that there wasn't really anything to start with and there aren't, at present, any resources to make new things with. I arrived with my sword and my uniform, so I have a sword and my uniform. But there aren't weapons lying about." She shrugged.

"If you can find one, by all means carry it."

Angua sighed. "No, Carrot explained it. It was just...long. And some of it was, um, interrupted," she said, looking a little embarrassed.

"I knew he had to have a human weakness," Maladicta murmured, eyes narrowing shrewdly with thought.

"Well. I don't have any weaponry for you."

"Fine," Angua said, though she felt anything but. She wouldn't need a sword at all if things were normal like back home. "Let's just go, then."

"You can probably steal someone else's," Maladicta pointed out as she started to walk.

"There's bound to be something lying about. Also, if you have any old family heirlooms, they might be bound to show up. Though in your case that might be somewhat disturbing as the closest thing to a weapon your family's passed down through the ages is teeth.

"I'm a member of the Watch, we don't exactly condone stealing," Angua said flatly.

"You're hilarious," she added sarcastically, walking back upstairs. "Especially since that's a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, don't you think? I see you still have the fangs here."

"I know," Maladicta mumbled, frowning a little down at the general vicinity of her mouth. "Nice for style but wholly impractical. NotthatIwasusingthem anyway," she added, "but still. Not much about the way things work here makes sense, though."

"I still can't fathom how fangs are stylish," Angua said. Fangs were for biting, which she dearly missed. There was nothing like taking a good chunk out of a criminal to get your message across.*

*That message being, generally, Stop.

"Well, humans don't have them," Maladicta said, canting an eyebrow, "so it's a start. Exclusivity."

"Ah. Are we in a clique now?" Angua asked, unable to hide her amusement.

"Not by choice," Maladicta replied with a slight shrug as she started toward the compound door.

"If you think about it."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

cosmic jokes are like that

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject