Yn Faire Morporkia Where We Lae Our Syne

"I'll be dressed in two minutes," you agree.

When the two of you emerge from the shop door, the street is already starting to get busy. You have to dodge a few delivery wagons and knots of lunch-pail-swinging workmen on the way to Mrs. Khayat's bakery, where you can get knafeh with named cheese and hardly any insect parts.

 

While Mr Makwaa's selecting his pastry, you try to talk to the proprietor about pest control services, but she takes one look at your bats and shoos you outside, despite your protests that they're perfectly clean.

"I've got enough rats!" she declares. "I don't need flying ones."

You stand on the stoop and glare at your feet resentfully until Mr Makwaa's done with his business.

 

You try to put in a good word for Aspera's work while you pay for your pastry, but she's not going to be moved. As you join him, you give him a rueful shrug. "I think what she needs is a cat. I don't suppose you can turn into one of those? Or a terrier?"

 

"Unfortunately not, just bats. I suppose they're traditional. Ye gods, I'd love to turn into puppies, can you imagine?"

 

"I'd die of cute. I can hardly handle the bats. Puppies or kittens would kill me dead. So -- lead the way, I don't know where we're going." You bite into your pastry.

 

"Oh, hm... which way to the, the Hubwards Gate? It's near there. Bit of a walk... you must know your way around the city pretty well, right? Were you born here?"

 

"Yep. Outside the wall, not right in the city; a woolworks needs space, especially if you're dyeing your own colors. But I went to school in town, and I've had my shop for almost three years now." You neatly catch his arm and tug him out of the way of a milk float without pausing in your conversation. "So yeah, I know my way around. Ankh-Morpork must look like sheer chaos after the open spaces in Uberwald!"

 

"Open spaces?" you repeat, amused. "There's this thing called trees, Mr Big City. We have a very great deal of them in Uberwald."

 

"More crowded than this, are they?" you laugh, dodging through a gaggle of small boys, offhandedly smacking the wrist of one who makes a grab for your pocket. "I've never been to Uberwald. Have you ever been to Klatch? My relatives there think two trees within sight of each other counts as a forest."

 

"I can't imagine. Our barony was wooded just about right up to the seacliffs. I've heard the desert described as an ocean of sand, but—" you shrug, "— we didn't have much sand, either. I never got to travel further than Quirm, before. First I was young, then I was busy, and Klatch is just about the entire way across the continent. Just a name on a map... it's a lot closer now that I'm here, isn't it?"

 

"Right across a little round bit of sea, thattaway." You point. "Closer than Pseudopolis, at the near point. I go over for my holidays most years, catch up with my Auntie Farah's side of the family and crib their patterns."

 

"I've never been to Pseudopolis, either," you remark. "I've got quite a lot to do. Oh! Here we are!" You've reached the Dolly Sisters' Chapter House, a plain three-story rowhouse.

Some of the members still have access to their accumulated fortunes. Most, like you, left in too much of a hurry to quibble about finances, so the dues are low and the houses are... well, they're very clean. The outside is freshly whitewashed, though the doors and shutters are painted a glossy black, and the black windowboxes are growing black petunias. The sign engraved on a brass plate beside the door is in four languages, a different reprehensibly ornate typeface for each, and looks a bit like a spider had a seizure. When you ring the bell, there's a tortured howl.

"I'm so glad I'm moving out," you say fervently. "Vampires are weird."

 

"Yes, but they have black petunias," you say, impressed. "Do you think I could beg a cutting?"

 

"You're weird," you tell him. Black flowers are creepy.

The door is pulled open— dramatically— to reveal a short, fat young woman with the same dead-white complexion you're sporting. She's got a lot of black on, but it's in the form of a sacklike dress and at least three shawls. Knitting needles pin her hair up.

"Young Aspera," she intones— dramatically— then catches sight of Mr Makwaa. "Good heavens, what a lovely jumper. Where'd you get it?"

"This is the Lady Mandragoria Wulfsend," you tell Mr Makwaa. Hestia is walking in a circle around your new friend, looking like a predatory black hen.

"Call me Hess, dear," she says, and pulls at the elbow of Mr Makwaa's jumper. "This is very nice."

 

"Thank you, I designed it myself," you say warmly, letting her tow you inside. "I sell the pattern in my shop, I could put together a kit for you if you'd like the same colors I used."

When someone has you off balance, try to make a sale. Practically no one has the composure to take the conversation back after that.

 

You leave Hess to her newest victim, or possibly Mr Makwaa to his, and go upstairs to get your things packed up. A second secondhand suit, a shabby old coat and a colorful new scarf for colder weather— apparently this is colder weather, though you're unconvinced— a nightshirt, a comb, a small yellow wooden hippo with Wylcm To Ynk-Moprok carved badly onto the side, and a cheap canvas duffle bag. Your worldly possessions.

You really miss your clothes, and your gear, and your horses. And your smews. And your friends. And—

Well, you have at least one new friend, now. So that's nice.

You go back downstairs to find Hess elbow-deep in a table loom, arguing ferociously with Mr Makwaa about something you couldn't understand with sixteen books and a map.

 

"No, the cards function as a heddle, the heddle is superfluous, that's what I'm saying! But then you have to turn them all by hand so if you want anything wider than a ribbon --" You break off as Aspera joins you. "Come by the shop, I'll show you what I mean. I'll have that jumper kit ready for you by noon." To Aspera, you say, "Ready? To the dairy market, then!"

 

"You watch out, she's still got access to her clan's funds," you tell Mr Makwaa as you leave. "She'll buy out your whole stock."