#ponderwind

ponder: I want you

Rincewind was generally a great fan of faculty meetings. They were very long, very dull, and had very generous tea breaks. Of course, he had to put up with a certain amount of Archchancellor Ridcully’s shouting, but that was par for the course around the university anyway. Generally he could just keep quiet and fade into the background for an hour or two, content in the knowledge that he wouldn’t be faced with anything more exciting than a new variety of biscuit.

Generally the topic of the meeting didn’t strike so close to home.

It had started with the discreet little announcement in the Times that the editors and head iconographer were to be married the following Octeday. That would probably have been an end to it as well if the Senior Wrangler hadn’t been baffled by a wedding with more than one groom. Even then, it could still have been a five minute diversion.

But Ponder had to be helpful. Apparently one of his aunts had been Offlerian and her friend whatshername had married a Tsortean couple, and no one had thought anything of it. “And besides, you all act like an expanded old married couple anyway,” he’d finished brightly.

Rincewind tried to hide under his hat. It was difficult to make out any full sentences in the ensuing uproar, but loudly declaring their heterosexuality and/or general lack of interest in their fellows seemed to make up a decent chunk of it.

Ponder’s “I didn’t mean-” wasn’t quite lost, but it was ignored.

“Mustrum, we’ve known each other almost half a century, so I only think it’s right to let you know. I never liked you in the slightest and I hope the feeling is mutual.”

“It most certainly is, Two Chairs,” Ridcully bellowed. “You remember Esme. You’ve met Esme!”

“And you know Mrs Whitlow. Come to think of it, the way you and Ponder acted back on the island was very odd,” the Senior Wrangler said pointedly.

“Oh, so not fawning over a housekeeper is considered strange now?”

“Whatever happened to the days of women and wizardry not mixing?”

“Esk, I think.”

“I’ve got nothing against it, but it isn’t natural.”

Whatever Rincewind said at this point wasn’t going to make anything worse and probably wouldn’t even be heard. It certainly wasn’t going to be listened to. Might as well get it off his chest, then.

“I’m gay,” he said quietly.

And with the luck he was so known for, his statement coincided perfectly with a lull in the shouting.

All eyes turned to him. Rincewind could feel his cheeks going red. A familiar pit of dread welled up in his stomach.

“And?” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

Rincewind peeked out from under the brim of his hat. “And nothing. I’m gay, that’s all.”

“So?”

“Funny thing to bring up.” The Chair of Indefinite Studies snatched the penultimate chocolate biscuit from under the Dean’s hand. “It’s not as if anyone here is an Orthodox Omnian.”

“You have a point, Chair. How are the Times people supposed to marry in any religious building when one of them’s a vampire?”

“Maybe at Small Gods? Old Windle wasn’t stopped by a bit of hallowed ground.”

“He wanted to come back as a woman,” the Bursar said.

“Really? Good for him- uh, her. Well done, Bursar, a valuable contribution.” The Archchancellor pushed the final chocolate biscuit towards him.

Rincewind breathed out as the faculty’s attention turned away from him.

Ponder caught his eye. “Alright?” he mouthed.

Rincewind nodded.

“Drink?”

Rincewind started to nod again, then stopped. “Dinner?”

Nodus Tollens // the realisation that the plot of your life doesn’t make sense to you any more

It’s dark and they’re alone, or as alone as anyone can be while Hex hums and fizzes in the centre of the room. All of the students have retreated to the pub, leaving Ponder and Rincewind to deal with the mess the students’ experiment has made of Hex. They have already corralled the mice and cleaned the wiring of spilt jam, and all that really needs doing is to reassure Hex that he’s fine, but that’s what’s taking the time.

“We’re all traumatised,” says Rincewind, perching himself on the windowsill without a window on the north wall. It was, once, a window, but a student had smashed the glass and after that it had been bricked up for their own safety. There was still a windowbox, though the object was rather defeated by now.

“Mm?”

“I was talking to Hex.”

“I haven’t refit his listening horn yet.”

“Oh.”

Rincewind lifts his foot onto the windowsill, flexing his toes. It’s dangerous, being barefoot in the High-energy Magic building, but he’s been barefoot in worse places and it’s too warm for shoes. It ought to make him feel anxious, vulnerable, but it doesn’t really. Not here, anyway.

“Ponder,” he says, and Ponder looks up at him over his glasses. He’s frowning, though absently, and Rincewind is rather bemused at the flash of fondness that hits him.

“Yes?”

“Hex will be alright?”

Ponder rolls his eyes and goes back to messing with a small tangle of wires about which Hex has been complaining.

“Don’t you start,” he says, dry and flat but with more humour than Rincewind had ever expected to be able to discern, “I don’t want a hypochondriac boyfriend as well as a hypochondriac child.”