Polly and Mal and pretty much everything belongs to Terry Pratchett and his super amazing fantabulous novel Monstrous Regiment.
Um...just don't ask. But have you ever, at any point, really wished you could wash your brain out with soap because images were stuck in there that you didn't want there to be? Yeah. It burns your brain cells. But that's a good thing.
And a slight hint of Polly/Mal. FINALLY. Sorry.
"When you worked at your family's pub, did anyone ever jump onto the bar and start dancing to edgy folk songs?" Mal wondered quietly at Polly, who nearly tripped over herself.
"What? No. Hell no." she said. "I would have thrown anyone who tried that out into the street."
They resolutely did not look behind them at the building they were retreating from. From the outside it looked innocent enough, for PrinceMarmadukePiotreAlbertHansJosephBernhardtWilhelmsberg, but on the inside…oh, on the inside. The grungy Borogravian alleyway pub was far from what the two self-confessed women (or human woman and female vampire, if you wish to get technical) were expecting.
All the dancing, for one.
"And after I threw them out, I'd close the pub and clean it all over with lye. Food should not be served on the same tables as those…" She struggled for a politically correct word.
"Harlots? Hustlers? Whor-" Mal supplied.
"Yes, them… were…hopping about on."
"That wasn't hopping." Mal absently pulled a coffee bean out of her pocket and sucked on it regaining her cool.
"…No." Polly agreed.
They walked (in-step) down a much less ostentatious avenue towards the barracks and the safety of the army. Neither of them spoke, until:
"I wonder what you'd look like in that-."
"Don't even think about it." Polly cut Mal off mid-question. "I have some standards, you know."
"This is the army, Pol. Standards are for civilians."
"So is dancing upside-down in a…string."
"Thong," Mal supplied helpfully.
"And how do you know so much about all this?" Polly asked suspiciously, adjusting her simple white shirt. It was strange to be out of uniform. It made her feel vulnerable. Mal only increased that, because of course she radiated calm reserve. And she was strange anyway. And then that inferfnal bar…. It wasn't a good day to be average.
But Mal only smiled her trademark cryptic noncommittal smile that could be read many thousands of ways.
"Ah. It's one of those things. The underwire-nightdress things that I really don't need to know no matter how curious I am."
"Exactly. Preserve your innocence while you can." Mal said.
But then they reached the barracks and conversation had to be halted for now to stop a small fight. And by the time time was available again, it just seemed stupid to continue a conversation of that persuasion. But it kept bugging her.
The mental image of her- or Mal- in one of those string outfits wouldn't get out of her head. And then it transferred to Blouse in something along the lines of what she'd seen. And then various military ranked officials. And then the worst image of all of them popped into her head, adorned in floss.
Jackrum.
It took Mal nearly five minutes to get the soap out of Polly's hands, from where she had been trying to shove it into her brain.