scentbombed | Entry 18: Spam for George

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Entry 18: Spam for George

[After the blowup on Mariska's introduction, Angua's infuriated and at a loss. She doesn't cry, because coppers don't, and she's pretty bad at it anyway; she sort of wants to go for a run, but she only ever goes running on all fours, and that seems like a bad idea in the current climate. She paces for a while, throws a chew toy at the wall -- and then eventually she remembers that there is someone she can go to with these things, now. Someone she's maybe supposed to make deal with it when she's upset.

So she stalks down to George's room and thumps on the door, flushed and bristling wildly. When he answers, she stalks in and thumps on the floor, instead, growling without so much as a hello:]

No offense, but damn everyone on this ship!

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Oh...my...

[Those are strong words to George.]

...something?

[He shuts the door behind them and gazes at her expectantly.]

[She's just gonna rant for a bit, George. Don't mind her.]

I thought things would be better after that bastard Peter Vincent left, but no, it's all a lot more insidious than that, isn't it? The ones that are left are just the ones that call you a friend to your face and see nothing wrong with carrying silver when you're not looking! I had a friend like that, you know, and she stopped after a week, so what's their excuse? They claim to be protecting the entire damn multiverse or whatever and they don't have the brains of an Ankh-Morpork copper?

[Admittedly, Cheery probably is smarter than Buffy, but--] It takes a little more than that, I would think! But no, if you ask them, it's-- we're protecting all the people, you lot don't count. Or even better, it's, oh, but Angua, you're one of the good ones, you're not like them. You're just as good as a person, aren't you! And the damn stupid undead on this boat aren't making it any better, going around giggling over blood and brains like they want nothing more than to get slayed or staked or whatever they call it!

[He doesn't mind her, certainly, but it's a bit hard to follow out of context.]

Someone's...been swiping the silverware?

You're certainly just as good as a person, as you are one. What's happened?

Silver, George, silver! For werewolves, the dispatching thereof!

[She takes a deep breath and tries to calm down, although it's hard when she wants to shake out fur that isn't there and dig her claws into something.]

I don't know if you've noticed this, but there's rather a large and vocal segment of the warden population that makes a habit -- a career, even -- out of killing undead. Oh, I'm sorry -- slaying, hunting, they call it.

Oh. That's quite different. And more impolite.

I had thought there was only Miss Summers and Mr. Winchester. Although they are both quite vocal.

[She hesitates a second, because okay, point, but that's like half her social circle right there. Which is probably an issue in and of itself. It's one she's pretty much been successfully avoiding until now, but...]

...And that girl Faith who works the pub. And Vincent and Rayne, before they left. But they all seem to feel that they're bloody well within their rights to taunt and threaten undead inmates for the high crime of not having enough blood in their bodies, or going a bit funny at certain times. Never mind that we're not all from Earth here! Never mind what I know about it!

And the damn fools don't want to help themselves, either. Every time I think I'm getting somewhere, and someone on one side or the other just goes and makes it worse! [Nope, forget cooling down, she's still mad.]

That's rather unhelpful of them.

But what happened exactly?

[She sits down hard on the bed, sulkily.] We've got a new inmate in who's a zombie, so of course that makes her fair game. 'If you eat anyone I'll...' and so on. Teasing her about the smell, that sort of thing. As if Buffy Summers knows what anything really smells like.

Well. Eating someone isn't something to be taken lightly, but you're right that we oughtn't to punish those who have yet to do anything wrong.

Our zombies don't eat anyone! And she hadn't said anything about it at that point! Not that she made anything better by admitting it about five minutes later, the stupid girl.

But they made it more than clear, they think this is part of the job. They said so! Openly! Don't mind that the murder rate on this ship is generally a good five human perpetrators for every undead, and I'm including the damn vampires in that. Don't mind that wardens walk around carrying enough firepower to kill an entire floor. I mean, I've been warden to two semi-professional assassins now, and you had Mr. Hoffman, for goodness' sake. This place is just about a testament to the kind of cruelty humans can inflict on each other!

The zombies I'd read about don't eat anyone either, they merely do the bidding of a vodouist.

It can be difficult to change someone's mind on a subject if they've only ever thought about it one way, but the best thing one can do is to not give up on them.

Have we...got, er, people alternative? In the kitchens, I mean.

Of course we have. It's just blood and meat, we've got plenty of that for the vampires as it is.

And they keep expecting me to change! If I understood, they keep saying. Maybe they'd like to understand that in Ankh-Morpork, they'd all be hanged for murder in a heartbeat-- no, they're not interested in hearing that. They're only doing good things, they insist, and not to people, anyway.

I just happen to be one of the good ones, you see? That's why I get a pass. Because I'm a good dog.

You aren't a good-...well, I mean of course you are, but not...

People do say those sorts of things. About everyone, it seems, sometimes. Everyone who isn't themselves. And it isn't right, of course, but perhaps if you continue share with them the truth, they'll come to see that it isn't a matter good and bad ones, but of good and bad choices, just as they themselves make.

Edited 2012-07-23 04:11 (UTC)

[And then she really almost does start crying, because that's just the sort of obnoxiously patient thing a certain other person would say, and it reminds her how much she misses... less him, now, and more the city, and a world where the struggle to fit in mostly ended long ago.

She doesn't cry, because she doesn't, but she sighs and runs her hands through her hair, calming slightly, if no less upset. She waves him over.] Don't be so bloody reasonable, Constable Crabtree.

[He approaches cautiously. Not out of fear of her, but because who knows what might make a woman bolt? George grew up surrounded by them, and he still can't say that he does.]

I've had similar sorts of pronouncements made of me. Not about being a good dog, exactly, but very close implications.

[She squints at him, and doesn't appear to be bolting yet.]

What does anyone have to say about you? You're human, and not even the complicated kind.

[An excellent sign.]

I am, but I'm also a foundling. So there's no telling what my lineage might be, and as such it's generally suspected to be quite low, and the family I was raised by wasn't very well off either, and I'm not terribly educated. But I do try very hard to make something of myself, and to further my station in life, and as a result I have had it implied that I am one of "the good ones" for not being some sort of drunken lay-about, as if that is the only thing a man of my parentage might achieve.

Sometimes...sometimes I do worry that by wishing to raise my prospects I am proving them a bit right. But at the same time, I don't see why anyone shouldn't be able to be anything they want, so long as they come by it honestly.

[The first part makes her give him a very funny look, indeed (really? another orphan?). But eventually she softens and beckons him to sit down with her, the corner of her mouth upturning ruefully.]

You can have my title, if you want it, how's that? Baron Crabtree? My father owns nearly half of aboveground Uberwald and he's... they're... They're not good dogs, let's put it that way, and I ran the hell away as soon as I was old enough to know better, and now I live in the muckiest city in the world and make a policeman's salary. And my commander, he's from bloody Cockbill Street, which is about as mucky as it gets, and he's a Duke now. One of the good ones.

[Technically not orphaned: just abandoned. He sits beside her.]

Baron Crabtree does have a very nice ring to it...

How did he come to be a Duke?

He... Um, he married into it, actually.

Or married into the knighthood, anyway, and got promoted from there. Extraordinary actions in service of the city. [She sounds a bit proud of that; they all tend to be proud of Mister Vimes.]

And her family didn't object?

I'm pretty sure they're all dead, but I don't think she'd have cared much if they weren't. [Sybil Vimes is kind of a badass that way.]

Oh. Pardon.

But she sounds like quite the lady.

She cuts a rather... impressive figure, yes.

[Pause.]

You're not, say, secretly royalty or anything, are you?

Me?

[George laughs, because the very idea is laughable. It's a cheerful laugh, however, because it's a cheerful idea.]

No, no sadly not. Why do you ask?

No reason. Don't worry about it. [And she'd probably have noticed any crown-shaped birthmarks or the like, she thinks... and he doesn't even use swords...

She shakes it off and lets it go, leaning into him with a grumpy sigh.]

Is everything on Earth really that bad? It honestly sounds terrible.

[He takes one of her hands in his own. Like a ~~boss~~ gentleman.]

Bad? Oh no. No. ...Well...bad things do happen, of course, wherever you are, but the capacity for good is so much greater. People simply forget that, sometimes.

Human good.

And nature good. And the good that can't be explained, or understood; only appreciated. Like messages from the beyond.

Says you, George. And you can say it all you want, but it doesn't seem likely to crack through.

I've seen it do so.

There are people who say "you can't change the world", but you can. You just may have to change it in a different way.

Like patience and understanding. [Sorry, George, this is skeptical as hell.]

Edited 2012-07-26 10:56 (UTC)

Or changing it in a slightly different way.

Such as...?

Well. My friend Jimmy is an excellent tracker, and he was keen on joining the Constabulary, but the Constabulary doesn't accept Indians, although I don't see why that's so. I spoke to our Inspector, but he said there was nothing he could do.

But I thought quite long about it, and there was something I could do, which was to speak to another friend of mine, who works for the Pinkerton Detective Agency, and they were very interested in signing Jimmy up. And so now he is a detective, for a private police force.

Changing the world one moral compromise at a time, then, you mean.

[George frowns.]

No, I mean: I do believe that the Constabulary will do the right thing eventually, but until then there's no reason that Jimmy's skills ought to go to waste, no reason he oughtn't to still be what he would like to be. And perhaps seeing his success will help to convince the Constabulary that they're being pigheaded.

[She scowls at that, but there's a quiet little part of her that thinks: as if you didn't spend days befriending a girl in a werewolf-proof vest?]

Yes, but I have done something like that here, haven't I? I'm the friendliest werewolf I know, certainly.

You know that I think you to be exceptional, and I'm certain I'm not alone in that. And I don't mean that you aren't allowed to be put out about it either. But I suppose I do mean that you oughn't to let them ruin anything for you.

[That quiets her for a minute -- a minute in which she thinks, exceptional? perhaps one too many times -- but in the end, she sighs, drawing her legs up onto the bed, and feeling very childish indeed when she mutters:]

It's my own fault, really. Trying to make friends with a couple of actual self-professed vampire hunters? I mean, honestly, what did I think would happen there?

That you might make a friend, I suspect. That's nothing to chastise yourself over.

It's fine. I have other friends. [Well... she has George, anyway.] I've got what I need.

[He reaches out to gently stroke her hair. It feels rather scandalous; not tied up as it is, just slipping through his fingers willy-nilly, but it is something he has always found comforting.]

Still. If I can help in any way...

[It's a startlingly intimate gesture, even given how intimate they've already been, and it's the brief flicker of surprise that cracks Angua's shell as much as anything. She's not exactly known for being free and open with her feelings, but now she gives him a bright if brittle smile, leaning into the touch like a puppy.]

You are. This is... Well, you are, George. Trust me. Even if you do insist on being all reasonable and nice about it.

[He returns her smile with less brittleness, but more crookedness.]

I do in fact.

[There are times, Angua has to admit, where she wishes she'd find herself a man who would say something like, "What? Someone was horrible to you? Let me at them, fair maiden! Damn the logic!"

...But then she remembers that George isn't like that, and that she's not like that either, and that if nice and reasonable men are her lot in life, well, she could be doing a lot worse. That's what her pragmatic side tells her. And besides, she's already good enough at raising her own hackles.

And the other side of her, the side she prefers to pretend doesn't exist most of the time, says: He called me extraordinary.

So she sighs, without much venom, and puts her arms around him, quieting down under the force of his stupid reasonableness and dumb wonderful petting.] Well, fine, then.

[George isn't entirely not like that. If, for example, someone were to raise a hand to her, he would certainly be like that. In that he would not be gentle in restraining them and hauling them to a cell. George can be surprisingly ungentle. Although he also wouldn't presume she was unable have at them herself, unless there were some sort of extenuating circumstances. She can take care of herself, he's quite sure, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't get a few good punches in.

But words are a different matter. Most of the time. She may feel, perhaps, assured that if anyone sends her something nasty in the mail, and then insults her during a sporting event in which George is competing, George will provoke them into fisticuffs.]

I'm glad you agree with my insistence.

Shut up, George. [She says it with all due affection, though, and that's a lot. But come on, man: sometimes a girl just wants a hug.]

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Entry 18: Spam for George

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