Title: Five times Bangladesh DuPree Should Have Died, But Didn't.
Author: ![[info]](https://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
redbrunjaFandom: Girl Genius
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Because no one ever said that Bangladesh DuPree wasn’t a survivor. Written for
mzminola.
( Five Times Bangladesh DuPree Should Have Died, But Didn't ) She was born Fatima Maria Aviz and she would have died called such, except that when the pirates came, she wasn’t under the floorboards.
Her village wasn’t wealthy, by any means, but they did fairly well, and had been lucky with flooding and marauders in recent years.
So it wasn’t a surprise that they’d look good to the wolves of the world.
When airships appeared in the sky, Fatima’s mother threw back the rug, yelled at them to hide and started pulling up floor boards.
Fatima didn’t listen.
She had dirt under her nails and the stink of fish in her nostrils and she’d rather chew through her wrists than spend the rest of her life harvesting rice.
While her sisters huddled under the floor and her mother weeped, she hacked off her hair with a carving knife, dragged on the clothes of her dead brother and walked into out of her house with her head high.
She practically tripped over her first pirate.
“I wanna see your captain,” she demanded, before he could do anything rash like throw her over his shoulder and/or shoot her dead.
Fatima didn’t intend to end up a whore or a corpse.
Pirate would do her just fine.
“You’re a girl,” the man in front of her said.
“And your captain is....” Fatima said, in the sweet drawling tone that made the boys in the village want to do things her way.
“I’m supposed to–”
“Your supposed to be sacking this town! What’s wrong with you? Now tell me where your captain is, and get on with it!”
The man pointed toward the village square, and Fatima stalked off, putting an extra swish into her hips.
She looked over her shoulder to see him throw a bomb through the kitchen window of her house. Flames roared out, and the pure, clear brilliance of destruction was the prettiest thing she’d ever seen.
She walked up to the pirate Captain with a smile on her face.
He was a lanky man on the hard side of thirty, had a ugly scar crossing his face, and skin pockmarked from teenage acne. He looked like her way out of the delta and she threw him a salute.
“Hello, sir, I hear you’re recruiting.”
The captain rocked back on his heels and gave her an interested look.
“What’re your skills, girl?” he asked after a long moment, fingering the hilt of her sword.
“I can read and write and figure,” she recited in one breath, “and I can do this-” she waved her hand about to encompass the wreckage occurring around them, the damage of a flood in the space of a half-hour, “like icing a cake.”
The captain looked intrigued.
“Can you cook?”
“I make a killer sweetmeat,” Fatima returned, “and I can fence.”
“So,” he said, and he was going to take her, she knew it, he was settling into bargaining posture. “I’m expected to take you on and train you up all piratical and what do I get out of this?”
“The best damn pirate you’ve ever seen,” Fatima promised.
“And for the privilege of this, I’m expected to treat you right and keep my hands to myself?” he said, hooking his thumbs around his belt and raising his eyebrows.
Fatima gave him a long once-over, noticing the strength in his body and the length of his eye lashes.
“Well...” she said, giving him her best bold, sultry smile. “I
do expect you to treat me right.”
“I’m Louis DuPree,” he introduced himself. Fatima leaned forward to shake his hand as her smile grew wider, and within six months she had his ship and last name, and he was feeding the worms in some forgotten grave.
~That Bar In Mozambique~
It was a bar fight; what kind of moron threw a grenade? What, were guns not good enough for him?
(Actually, DuPree was kind of impressed by that one, and was considering offering the man a job.)
She and her first mate where taking cover behind the bar when the grenade fell between them with a small metallic clink that was almost drowned out by the sound of gunfire.
Pin’s out, she noted, and then her first mate threw himself on top of the bomb.
There was a frantic, still moment and her first mate stared at her with white rimming his eyes; he had time for one fluttering breath and then was ripped apart.
He splattered all over her; droplets of blood showering her flesh and worse, goblets of flesh splattering her white coat.
“Another fucking jacket ruined,” DuPree snarled, and unsheathed her cutlass. “You’re all
dead.”
~Zeetha~
“Huh,” Brit Rose said, listening to the wireless and DuPree’s ears perked up.
“Anything interesting?” she asked.
“Just a bit of echo,” Rosie answered after a bit of fiddling with the radio. “It could be somebody hiding in the canyons and trying to keep on the down-low, but it’s more likely that it’s a throwback from the mountains.”
The likelihood of it being anything interesting were infinitesimally small, but hell, her feet were itching and she’d loitered at base long enough.
“Let’s check it out,” DuPree ordered, and through the soles of her feet she heard the engines start up.
Her ship wheeled and headed for the mountains.
Two days later, she came back to complete devastation.
If it had been anyone else’s base, DuPree would have been impressed, but it was
hers, and she was
furious.
It took her a week of pointless searching for the rival who’d decimated her fleet, three (former) villages and a lot of alcohol before she calmed down enough to decide that the best course of action was to offer her services to Baron Wulfenbach in exhange for information.
~Klaus Wulfenbach~
He kept wondering if he should kill her. Bangladesh DuPree had many useful qualities, her admirable work ethic and mediocre level of intelligence being two that Klaus prized, but he did wonder if she would be more ...calming in cold storage.
He’d been toying with the idea since she came back from her first patrol over his lands with that (familiar) destructive gleam in her eyes.
She wasn’t anyone to worry about; not a spark, and not smart enough to betray him in a manner he couldn’t see coming. Still, he had the nagging feeling that she’d be better dead....
DuPree wasn’t a question that worried him, not like where Barry and Bill had gone, or what Gil would do once he was the reigning Wulfenbach, or lately, what he was going to do about that brat of Lucrezia’s. But still.
The only reason she was still alive was that he was damned if he was going to become some delusional ruler because Lucrezia had left him twitchy with regards to psychotic women. DuPree wasn’t a threat and her death would serve nothing; ego, she still lived.
Klaus wasn’t a mindless murderer and DuPree was useful.
That was all.
~Zulenna Luzhakna~
Zulenna was royalty, was a daughter of the House Luzhakna, was heir to a world of power and privilege and secret machinations.
She woke up trash.
She woke up in Wulfenbach’s cold room, shuddering, gasping, frigid sweat standing on her dark skin, weak and worst of all.... common.
She was no longer heir to anything except shame and poverty and pity.
“How are you feeling, Miss Luzhakna?” a voiced asked. He was a Spark; she knew by the pleased sound in his voice, pride that she’s been successfully resurrected.
Her groping hand found some tool, her eyes were blinded by sweat and light, and she shoved the pointy end into his neck.
Zulenna brushed at her eyes, blinking until they stopped watering and she could see again.
She spent a moment staring at the Madboy’s body while white noise hummed through her head.
She was nothing.
She had died a princess and returned as trash.
Zulenna took a deep breath.
Luckily, she had one option left.
There was a lab coat hanging by the door and she pulled it on. It was too big, but she jerked it until it hung straight.
She shook her hair back and walked out of the cold room.
Zulenna was going to find a sword, find DuPree, and kill that bitch dead.
She strode along the corridors. She walked like she belonged and no one questioned her.
Some technician caught up to her and grabbed her arm. She turned toward him, cutting look firmly across her face.
“I beg your pardon?” she drawled.
“Zulenna?” he gasped. “Thank the gods.”
“What?” she said snappishly, and the technician turned into Theopholous DeMudd.
“Thank the gods you’re alive,” he said, pulling her into an empty work room, tools hanging on the walls like weapons ready for battle.
“I’m not,” Zulenna said automatically.
“I need your help,” Theo continued.
Zulenna was sure he did. His eyes were too bright, his swarthy skin had a sickly green undertone and the hand on her shoulder was damp. Zulenna looked at her shoulder, realizing that his hand still rested there, and smoothly stepped further away from him.
“Unfortunately, Theopholous,” she said, “I’m rather busy at the moment.”
“They’re going to kill the Clays,” Theo told her ardently. “I’ve been pretending to be a maintenance engineer since Agatha escaped, so I could keep an eye on things, and I just found out that Gil resurrected–”
Zulenna flinched at the word.
“–Agatha’s parents, and the Baron found out and is going to–”
“None of this is my concern,” she said. “I have other priorities.”
“Like
what?”
“Killing DuPree,” she said tightly.
“Can’t that wait?” Theo said, always the peacemaker. “Can’t you kill her later?”
“
That bitch made me trash,” Zulenna ground out between her teeth, “and didn’t have the courtesy to finish me. She dies
now.”
Theo looked as if a number of things were falling into place for him.
Zulenna turned and started to exit the work room. “Now excuse me, I have things to do–”
“It’s
Agatha’s parents,” Theo said, a last ditch-effort.
“I’ve died for that woman,” Zulenna managed to sound flippant, and was impressed with herself. “I think that nicely resolves any obligation I owe her family.”
As she closed the door behind her, she heard him mutter, “I never thought
you would ever shirk your duty.”
Go to hell, Zulenna thought, squaring her shoulders and standing tall. When she was two corridors away, without warning, she pivoted on her heel, a move that tossed her hair and would have flounced the skirt of a proper gown, and stalked back the way she had come.
“Before we move the Clays off the airship, Theopholous,” she said as she sailed back into the room, ignoring the gigantic, relived smile that broke across his face, “you’ll need to procure some appropriate attire– I can’t be expected to rescue anyone wearing only a lab coat.”
~~~
(
frenchroast, your fic is coming. Sorry it's taking so long.)
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