For Barrayar mods (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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forbarrayar2017-02-18 03:21 pm
barrayarmods) wrote in forbarrayar2017-02-18 03:21 pm
Entry tags:
- !event,
- #barrayaran camp,
- #cetagandan base,
- #riverfall village,
- *amai ghem-soren,
- *diya d'zefyst,
- *gail ghem-estif,
- *olivia vorkosigan,
- *piotr vorkosigan,
- *sonia vorbarra,
- agent washington | protocol,
- daryl dixon | pigsfeet,
- kaidan alenko | standsentinel,
- lakshmi bai | shri,
- lapis lazuli | mirrortide,
- lavernius tucker | lovernotafighter
[ february ii log ]
Who: Everyone
What: Traitors exposed, celebrations had, sleight hands passing cards under the table. And so begin the preparations for what is soon to come.
When: February 18th - 28th
Where: Barrayaran camp / Cetagandan base
Warnings: Torture (interrogations thread)
Quick links:
Riverfall
Barrayar: Barrayaran camp / Party / Missions
Cetaganda: Cetagandan base / Moon-poetry party / Missions
The harsh weather rages on, which temperatures still averaging far below freezing, and the wind is still strong. But things are a little less dire for the outsiders, and for the exotics -- well, they have their own chills to deal with.
riverfall
Riverfall village is your typical Dendarii mountain village, which means it's small, humble, and mostly poor. This is the most rural of the rural around here, a little backwater even by Barrayaran standards. Most of the villagers live in houses of wood and stone built themselves or by ancestors. Despite the cold, there are plenty of people outside at any given time -- working, mostly, because the daily grind stops for no one, but even the occasional group of children taken over by fits of cabin fever. The village is built up against a rocky mountain face, from the top of which the eponymous waterfall flows into the river that borders the west edge of the village and continues down the mountain. The place isn't exactly hidden, but if you don't know your way around, it'd be hard to find without a native guide.
The villagers are wary of the outsiders at first, even more than the soldiers had been -- the rural Dendarii are as superstitious as they come -- but, slowly convinced of their good intentions, start to warm to them. They're a blunt, hardy people, largely uneducated and tending toward the most extreme of Barrayaran sensibilities, but they are undeniably fierce. The General Count trusts them, so they'll be more or less civil (by Barrayaran standards, anyway), but you might catch the occasional scrutinizing, watchful stare. With Cetagandans in camp and exotics among them, they border on hostile, especially those who are visibly nonhuman. They keep their heads down enough to keep from getting into trouble with the soldiers, but they do not like you at all.
Not everyone in Riverfall speaks English -- Russian is everyone's first language, and only about half the village has any passable command of English. Thankfully, the village's Speaker Yakiv Gura speaks English, if heavily accented. They're clearly stretching to the limit to help the camp, but to the Dendarii, there's no higher act than one in the Count's service, especially when it comes to fighting this war.
barrayar
Even after scoring themselves a little extra food, morale in the camp is at an all-time low. The miserably dangerous weather hasn't let up, food is still heavily rationed, and everyone is still at least a little tired, cold, and hungry all of the time. It doesn't help that they've lost a few soldiers in the last couple of weeks, and in Riverfall, too, some villagers have died of the cold despite their relative warmth and safety, mostly children. This is hardly the first harsh winter they've faced, but that doesn't stop the inexorable loss that comes with it. Some villagers may be somberly putting their loved ones to rest in the village graveyard when the outsiders are in town.
But Piotr finally calls Negri out as a spy sent by his aide-de-camp Captain Ezar Vorbarra, partly to deliver a message and partly to test Piotr, because Ezar loves coy bullshit. However, he does learn that both Ezar and Prince Xav Vorbarra, Olivia and Sonia's father, are en route to Vorkosigan's District with relief supplies from Beta Colony secured by Xav's ambassadorial connections and tireless lobbying. Once Piotr judges it safe to release this information, it bring with it a bit of hope -- and to seal the deal, Piotr and Olivia arrange a celebration of sorts in the village.
Finally outing the ring of reason in the camp helps to bolster morale, too. Vorhalas is interrogated, and the names of his co-conspirators are revealed: Lieutenant Boris Vortala, who killed himself in disgrace shortly after his fast-penta interrogation at ghem-General Zefyst's hand, and their commander Captain Aaron Vorbataille. Vorbataille has, of course, already started to make his escape -- but with the help out of the outsiders, he won't get very far. Once Piotr is satisfied with Vorbataille's interrogation as well, both men are put to execution, but not by beheading as Doctor ghem-Miko: the sentence for treason is death by public starvation and exposure, and in this weather, it doesn't take long. They are publicly and emphatically denounced as traitors with no honor to speak of, sending a very clear message. Although this might seem like a gruesome sight to the outsiders, to the Barrayarans this is simply how it goes, and very few of them are sorry to see these traitors suffer, particularly as Vorhalas was the one responsible for their food shortage in the first place.
Reports from those soldiers and outsiders who were in the village at the same time as the Cetagandan field science team present the General Count with another troubling problem, however: the implications of the Cetagandans building a device that could control this phenomenon are terrifying, particularly to this threadbare resistance movement. But sabotage seems hardly a worthy solution, either. This is the only lead they have on sending the outsiders home, and so many of them have already put their lives on the line for the cause of a planet that otherwise nothing to most of them. There would be no honor in robbing them of their only chance to return home. But whether they should continue to allow the Cetagandans to proceed with their research or try to find a way to copy their plans themselves, a dubiously possible venture at best, weighs heavily on his mind. It only complicates his strategic concerns further, but by his military orders in the next couple of weeks, at least one thing is clear: he wants Cetagandan bodies.
camp
Morale is critically low among the soldiers, particularly after a few casualties during a recent skirmish with a Cetagandan patrol, but spirits definitely begin to lift with news of relief. The soldiers are now more or less accustomed to the outsiders' place in the camp, and they're even starting to become a little friendlier toward them, particularly those who've been involved in the war effort. They might invite outsiders to play card or dice games with them, or share a conversation over an admittedly meager meal, or better still, bond with them in the true Barrarayan form: over a lot of alcohol.
Negri has more or less built himself a niche in the camp, and doesn't look like he's going anywhere any time soon. But he isn't the only spy around. They desperately need a man on the inside, particularly with the troubling news about the wormhole device, and right now, that man is Byerly Vorrutyer. Starting next month, Piotr is sending him on assignment to infiltrate the Cetagandan base under the cover of a cowardly collaborator.
party
By the time they have the party on the 21st, the villagers have warmed up to the outsiders a little, but they don't really bond until the party. With what little they have to share, they scrape together as much of a feast as they can: not much, but by this month's standards, any hot meal prepared with fresh ingredients seems absolutely decadent. And because this is Barrayar there is, of course, plenty of liquor, that Barrayaran moonshine maple mead not the least among them, and there's no shortage of wine or vodka, either.
The hillfolk light lanterns all around the village and raise large tarps to cover the open center of the village where they usually hold gatherings. Inside, protected from the wind and lit by the bonfire and braziers placed around the perimeter, it's actually almost warm. Every villager who's ever laid hand to an instrument seems to gather there to play music all night long, an energetic mix of lively folk music and raucous drinking songs. Anyone with any musical talent would be welcome to join them as well. There's plenty of dancing, too, very little of it formal or complicated, but everyone's having a good time for the first time in weeks, maybe months, and the mood is infectious. By the end of the night, morale seems to have risen overall, and people in camp have something real to look forward to. The partygoing visitors are put up in warmed tents within the tarped village center or in the villagers' homes where they have room. Come morning, they'll head back, but for just one night, it's almost like there isn't even a war on.
missions
Outsiders have been assisting with moving supplies between the camp and Riverfall all throught he rest of the month, and it mostly goes smoothly. Vorbataille is caught on the 20th, although he and Vorhalas aren't publicly executed until a few days later, when Piotr is satisfied with the intelligence he's extracted. By the time he gets Vorbataille's name out of Vorhalas, the traitorous Captain has already fled -- but thanks to Carolina, Duv and Zarya, he's dragged back to camp for his interrogation.
That evening, Maine and William have the misfortune of encountering a dragon -- Darkstalker is on a mission with a Cetagandan patrol, and they run right smack into each other. A fight breaks out, but ultimately Darkstalker and the Cetagandans come out on top, and the outsiders and Barrayarans are forced to retreat -- but not before managing to kill a Cetagandan soldier or two, just barely escaping with one of the bodies.
Miles finds himself in a terrible position when a guard patrol shift goes horribly wrong in a skirmish against some Cetagandans, resulting in the death of their squad leader and a very ugly aftermath.
Zarya, William, Beth and Miles are in Riverfall with some Barrayaran soldiers on a supply run when a Cetagandan field science team arrives with a few exotics in tow. This is a rare chance to learn more about the Cetagandans' scientific exploits, and among other things, they find out that whatever it is that brought them here, the Cetagandan scientists are convincede it has something to do with the wormhole that collapsed 700 years ago.
The unabridged mission writeup is here.
cetaganda
The Cetagandans are a notoriously tight-lipped bunch, but they're blowing away most of the smoke surrounding their wormhole science research. As has been alluded, they're currently working on a device to harness the phenomenon that brought all the exotics here in the first place, and hopefully find a way to send them all home with it. They invite any exotics with scientific expertise to a series of interviews about neurology, astrophysics, and mechanical engineering. None of the advisement they receive helps to solve one of their most critical problems -- that of generating a Necklin field to match the one that must have surrounded each exotic -- but it certainly puts them closer to their goal, particularly in the area of neurology, and they're hardly going to stop there. But it's clear that the mathematicians and astrophysicists on base don't have sufficient expertise to solve the most complex equations before them. But on the brighter side of things, in the interest of this scientific exchange, they're letting the lab techs help a little more beyond just grunt work.
Meanwhile, the genetics project that seems so strange and arcane to the exotic carries on, largely behind the scenes, although Diya is increasingly at odds with her husband and even some of her senior staff, particularly the precocious Amai ghem-Soren. But there is very real purpose behind it -- and far more than just one -- and Diya d'Zefyst is a woman of great ambition. And more than anything else, she is haut.
Unfortunately, the relative peace on base is abruptly broken when Daryl, Lakshmi and Wash all manage to escape in a wild breakout attempt on the 25th. York and Ratchet are left behind, and as a result, some of their privileges revoked. They're now being watched a little more closely as a result.
base
Overall, despite simmering tensions under the surface and the miserable weather, life on base seems to be going more or less smoothly around them. The Cetagandans have had some recent victories against the Barrayarans, so morale is high. Unfortunately, after the breakout they begin cracking down on security with the exotics -- going back to treating the exotics a little more like they did when they first arrived. They aren't under guard, but after the 25th, they are being watched.
They still maintain that insistent veneer of civility, however, breaking only in cases where they feel the need or security risk is significant enough. The ghem on base remain overall cordial and courteous to the exotics as they ever were, which is to say considerably and always with a touch of smug superiority. With her success at the party earlier this month followed by her performance in the moon-poetry garden, the often-sequestered Amai ghem-Soren is seen more around the base.
moon-poetry party
The moon-poetry party is about three hours long and steeped in ceremony, each participant taking their turn to recite. This is, apparently, not a recitation of one's own work, but rather selections of classical Cetagandan poems, and in so referencing something culturally ubiquitous, each makes a statement in its mere selection and juxtapositions. If you pay close enough attention, you might notice that each participant has very subtly coordinated their outfits to further complement the theme of their recitation. Although there is a definite dignity to the party, it doesn't take much to pick up on the fact that this is yet another arena ghem use to try and socially one-up one another. Among the participants are both the Chief Medical Officer Colonel Faro ghem-Naru and Doctor Amai ghem-Soren, whose performance was especially well-received, the theme apparently being something about subtle passions.
missions
The science interviews with the exotics go more or less well, although not quite so hopeful as the Cetagandans were hoping. They do, however, learn some things about FTL travel in other worlds as well as other kinds of neural implants.
On the evening of the 21st, York, Natasha and Kaidan accidentally bear witness to what is clearly some kind of travesty: clearly a human being, but both overgrown and underdeveloped, and exhibiting powers of hydrokinesis and psychic empathy, referred to only as a ba.
On the 23rd, Jasper, Lapis, Pearl and Darkstalker accompany some soldiers and a field science team to Riverfall village, coinciding with a visit from some outsiders and soldiers. They encounter some outsiders while there but also pick up a bit on what it is the Cetagandans are doing -- that the Necklin field problem still remains their biggest problem, and they've been getting conflicting orders from the higher ups lately.
The unabridged mission writeup is here.
Note: Negri and Zahal are available for threads by request only this round. Please hit up Madi or Ammay respectively if you want threads with either of those NPCs. You can also request a thread with Village Speaker Yakiv Gura if you want, in which case hit up Madi.
What: Traitors exposed, celebrations had, sleight hands passing cards under the table. And so begin the preparations for what is soon to come.
When: February 18th - 28th
Where: Barrayaran camp / Cetagandan base
Warnings: Torture (interrogations thread)
Riverfall
Barrayar: Barrayaran camp / Party / Missions
Cetaganda: Cetagandan base / Moon-poetry party / Missions
The harsh weather rages on, which temperatures still averaging far below freezing, and the wind is still strong. But things are a little less dire for the outsiders, and for the exotics -- well, they have their own chills to deal with.
riverfall
Riverfall village is your typical Dendarii mountain village, which means it's small, humble, and mostly poor. This is the most rural of the rural around here, a little backwater even by Barrayaran standards. Most of the villagers live in houses of wood and stone built themselves or by ancestors. Despite the cold, there are plenty of people outside at any given time -- working, mostly, because the daily grind stops for no one, but even the occasional group of children taken over by fits of cabin fever. The village is built up against a rocky mountain face, from the top of which the eponymous waterfall flows into the river that borders the west edge of the village and continues down the mountain. The place isn't exactly hidden, but if you don't know your way around, it'd be hard to find without a native guide.
The villagers are wary of the outsiders at first, even more than the soldiers had been -- the rural Dendarii are as superstitious as they come -- but, slowly convinced of their good intentions, start to warm to them. They're a blunt, hardy people, largely uneducated and tending toward the most extreme of Barrayaran sensibilities, but they are undeniably fierce. The General Count trusts them, so they'll be more or less civil (by Barrayaran standards, anyway), but you might catch the occasional scrutinizing, watchful stare. With Cetagandans in camp and exotics among them, they border on hostile, especially those who are visibly nonhuman. They keep their heads down enough to keep from getting into trouble with the soldiers, but they do not like you at all.
Not everyone in Riverfall speaks English -- Russian is everyone's first language, and only about half the village has any passable command of English. Thankfully, the village's Speaker Yakiv Gura speaks English, if heavily accented. They're clearly stretching to the limit to help the camp, but to the Dendarii, there's no higher act than one in the Count's service, especially when it comes to fighting this war.
barrayar
Even after scoring themselves a little extra food, morale in the camp is at an all-time low. The miserably dangerous weather hasn't let up, food is still heavily rationed, and everyone is still at least a little tired, cold, and hungry all of the time. It doesn't help that they've lost a few soldiers in the last couple of weeks, and in Riverfall, too, some villagers have died of the cold despite their relative warmth and safety, mostly children. This is hardly the first harsh winter they've faced, but that doesn't stop the inexorable loss that comes with it. Some villagers may be somberly putting their loved ones to rest in the village graveyard when the outsiders are in town.
But Piotr finally calls Negri out as a spy sent by his aide-de-camp Captain Ezar Vorbarra, partly to deliver a message and partly to test Piotr, because Ezar loves coy bullshit. However, he does learn that both Ezar and Prince Xav Vorbarra, Olivia and Sonia's father, are en route to Vorkosigan's District with relief supplies from Beta Colony secured by Xav's ambassadorial connections and tireless lobbying. Once Piotr judges it safe to release this information, it bring with it a bit of hope -- and to seal the deal, Piotr and Olivia arrange a celebration of sorts in the village.
Finally outing the ring of reason in the camp helps to bolster morale, too. Vorhalas is interrogated, and the names of his co-conspirators are revealed: Lieutenant Boris Vortala, who killed himself in disgrace shortly after his fast-penta interrogation at ghem-General Zefyst's hand, and their commander Captain Aaron Vorbataille. Vorbataille has, of course, already started to make his escape -- but with the help out of the outsiders, he won't get very far. Once Piotr is satisfied with Vorbataille's interrogation as well, both men are put to execution, but not by beheading as Doctor ghem-Miko: the sentence for treason is death by public starvation and exposure, and in this weather, it doesn't take long. They are publicly and emphatically denounced as traitors with no honor to speak of, sending a very clear message. Although this might seem like a gruesome sight to the outsiders, to the Barrayarans this is simply how it goes, and very few of them are sorry to see these traitors suffer, particularly as Vorhalas was the one responsible for their food shortage in the first place.
Reports from those soldiers and outsiders who were in the village at the same time as the Cetagandan field science team present the General Count with another troubling problem, however: the implications of the Cetagandans building a device that could control this phenomenon are terrifying, particularly to this threadbare resistance movement. But sabotage seems hardly a worthy solution, either. This is the only lead they have on sending the outsiders home, and so many of them have already put their lives on the line for the cause of a planet that otherwise nothing to most of them. There would be no honor in robbing them of their only chance to return home. But whether they should continue to allow the Cetagandans to proceed with their research or try to find a way to copy their plans themselves, a dubiously possible venture at best, weighs heavily on his mind. It only complicates his strategic concerns further, but by his military orders in the next couple of weeks, at least one thing is clear: he wants Cetagandan bodies.
camp
Morale is critically low among the soldiers, particularly after a few casualties during a recent skirmish with a Cetagandan patrol, but spirits definitely begin to lift with news of relief. The soldiers are now more or less accustomed to the outsiders' place in the camp, and they're even starting to become a little friendlier toward them, particularly those who've been involved in the war effort. They might invite outsiders to play card or dice games with them, or share a conversation over an admittedly meager meal, or better still, bond with them in the true Barrarayan form: over a lot of alcohol.
Negri has more or less built himself a niche in the camp, and doesn't look like he's going anywhere any time soon. But he isn't the only spy around. They desperately need a man on the inside, particularly with the troubling news about the wormhole device, and right now, that man is Byerly Vorrutyer. Starting next month, Piotr is sending him on assignment to infiltrate the Cetagandan base under the cover of a cowardly collaborator.
party
By the time they have the party on the 21st, the villagers have warmed up to the outsiders a little, but they don't really bond until the party. With what little they have to share, they scrape together as much of a feast as they can: not much, but by this month's standards, any hot meal prepared with fresh ingredients seems absolutely decadent. And because this is Barrayar there is, of course, plenty of liquor, that Barrayaran moonshine maple mead not the least among them, and there's no shortage of wine or vodka, either.
The hillfolk light lanterns all around the village and raise large tarps to cover the open center of the village where they usually hold gatherings. Inside, protected from the wind and lit by the bonfire and braziers placed around the perimeter, it's actually almost warm. Every villager who's ever laid hand to an instrument seems to gather there to play music all night long, an energetic mix of lively folk music and raucous drinking songs. Anyone with any musical talent would be welcome to join them as well. There's plenty of dancing, too, very little of it formal or complicated, but everyone's having a good time for the first time in weeks, maybe months, and the mood is infectious. By the end of the night, morale seems to have risen overall, and people in camp have something real to look forward to. The partygoing visitors are put up in warmed tents within the tarped village center or in the villagers' homes where they have room. Come morning, they'll head back, but for just one night, it's almost like there isn't even a war on.
missions
Outsiders have been assisting with moving supplies between the camp and Riverfall all throught he rest of the month, and it mostly goes smoothly. Vorbataille is caught on the 20th, although he and Vorhalas aren't publicly executed until a few days later, when Piotr is satisfied with the intelligence he's extracted. By the time he gets Vorbataille's name out of Vorhalas, the traitorous Captain has already fled -- but thanks to Carolina, Duv and Zarya, he's dragged back to camp for his interrogation.
That evening, Maine and William have the misfortune of encountering a dragon -- Darkstalker is on a mission with a Cetagandan patrol, and they run right smack into each other. A fight breaks out, but ultimately Darkstalker and the Cetagandans come out on top, and the outsiders and Barrayarans are forced to retreat -- but not before managing to kill a Cetagandan soldier or two, just barely escaping with one of the bodies.
Miles finds himself in a terrible position when a guard patrol shift goes horribly wrong in a skirmish against some Cetagandans, resulting in the death of their squad leader and a very ugly aftermath.
Zarya, William, Beth and Miles are in Riverfall with some Barrayaran soldiers on a supply run when a Cetagandan field science team arrives with a few exotics in tow. This is a rare chance to learn more about the Cetagandans' scientific exploits, and among other things, they find out that whatever it is that brought them here, the Cetagandan scientists are convincede it has something to do with the wormhole that collapsed 700 years ago.
The unabridged mission writeup is here.
cetaganda
The Cetagandans are a notoriously tight-lipped bunch, but they're blowing away most of the smoke surrounding their wormhole science research. As has been alluded, they're currently working on a device to harness the phenomenon that brought all the exotics here in the first place, and hopefully find a way to send them all home with it. They invite any exotics with scientific expertise to a series of interviews about neurology, astrophysics, and mechanical engineering. None of the advisement they receive helps to solve one of their most critical problems -- that of generating a Necklin field to match the one that must have surrounded each exotic -- but it certainly puts them closer to their goal, particularly in the area of neurology, and they're hardly going to stop there. But it's clear that the mathematicians and astrophysicists on base don't have sufficient expertise to solve the most complex equations before them. But on the brighter side of things, in the interest of this scientific exchange, they're letting the lab techs help a little more beyond just grunt work.
Meanwhile, the genetics project that seems so strange and arcane to the exotic carries on, largely behind the scenes, although Diya is increasingly at odds with her husband and even some of her senior staff, particularly the precocious Amai ghem-Soren. But there is very real purpose behind it -- and far more than just one -- and Diya d'Zefyst is a woman of great ambition. And more than anything else, she is haut.
Unfortunately, the relative peace on base is abruptly broken when Daryl, Lakshmi and Wash all manage to escape in a wild breakout attempt on the 25th. York and Ratchet are left behind, and as a result, some of their privileges revoked. They're now being watched a little more closely as a result.
base
Overall, despite simmering tensions under the surface and the miserable weather, life on base seems to be going more or less smoothly around them. The Cetagandans have had some recent victories against the Barrayarans, so morale is high. Unfortunately, after the breakout they begin cracking down on security with the exotics -- going back to treating the exotics a little more like they did when they first arrived. They aren't under guard, but after the 25th, they are being watched.
They still maintain that insistent veneer of civility, however, breaking only in cases where they feel the need or security risk is significant enough. The ghem on base remain overall cordial and courteous to the exotics as they ever were, which is to say considerably and always with a touch of smug superiority. With her success at the party earlier this month followed by her performance in the moon-poetry garden, the often-sequestered Amai ghem-Soren is seen more around the base.
moon-poetry party
The moon-poetry party is about three hours long and steeped in ceremony, each participant taking their turn to recite. This is, apparently, not a recitation of one's own work, but rather selections of classical Cetagandan poems, and in so referencing something culturally ubiquitous, each makes a statement in its mere selection and juxtapositions. If you pay close enough attention, you might notice that each participant has very subtly coordinated their outfits to further complement the theme of their recitation. Although there is a definite dignity to the party, it doesn't take much to pick up on the fact that this is yet another arena ghem use to try and socially one-up one another. Among the participants are both the Chief Medical Officer Colonel Faro ghem-Naru and Doctor Amai ghem-Soren, whose performance was especially well-received, the theme apparently being something about subtle passions.
missions
The science interviews with the exotics go more or less well, although not quite so hopeful as the Cetagandans were hoping. They do, however, learn some things about FTL travel in other worlds as well as other kinds of neural implants.
On the evening of the 21st, York, Natasha and Kaidan accidentally bear witness to what is clearly some kind of travesty: clearly a human being, but both overgrown and underdeveloped, and exhibiting powers of hydrokinesis and psychic empathy, referred to only as a ba.
On the 23rd, Jasper, Lapis, Pearl and Darkstalker accompany some soldiers and a field science team to Riverfall village, coinciding with a visit from some outsiders and soldiers. They encounter some outsiders while there but also pick up a bit on what it is the Cetagandans are doing -- that the Necklin field problem still remains their biggest problem, and they've been getting conflicting orders from the higher ups lately.
The unabridged mission writeup is here.
Note: Negri and Zahal are available for threads by request only this round. Please hit up Madi or Ammay respectively if you want threads with either of those NPCs. You can also request a thread with Village Speaker Yakiv Gura if you want, in which case hit up Madi.
B.
Hot chicks usually were.
Today included another walk if only because it was cold as balls and he wanted to see what he could get at the mess tent. Food? Good. Food that hopefully wasn't horsemeat? Yeah, even better.
From the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Sonia not in the cave for once, and waved as he started to run over. Maybe they would have a better time today than the last, cold and touching chess pieces and talking about the problems from his own world that were bleeding into here. It couldn't be much worse, could it?
Oh. Wait. It was.
Tucker dropped his hand, brow a little furrowed as he looked from her to the family to the grave. To the small body. Kid. It was--
"What the fuck is this?" he asked with all the grace one would at a funeral when that person was Tucker. At least he whispered it.
no subject
A frown flickers over her face at his tone, but it takes a backseat to everything else right now. She is glad that this family only speaks Russian, though, if only to spare them Tucker's grace. Sonia softly excuses herself in Russian and steps away, her face uncharacteristically solemn.
"They're burying their child," Sonia says in a hushed voice, and there's just the slightest chiding tone to it. Come on, Tucker, use your eyes. "I offered to help with last rites. What are you doing here?"
no subject
Burying their kid, and Tucker couldn't think of one joke, one moment of sarcasm, one note of anything other than a hushed little, "Oh." Then he realized she asked him a question, and he snatched his eyes back to her.
"I was hungry, so I was going to stea--see if there was anything to eat." And that was before, when he actually had an appetite, unlike now. Well, shit.
His hands curled into fists, relaxed, and curled again. "Mind if I stay?" There was no offer to shut up, but he would. There were some things that even Tucker could respect however slight, however small, and this happened to be one of them. God, having a kid made him soft.
no subject
She turns back to Tucker and gives him a small nod. "They don't mind," she says. "But...listen, this was their only child. Her mother had two stillbirths before her, it's...very hard on them."
no subject
He remembered watching a ship explode with his kid on it—
“I have a kid. I get it.” His chest hurt a little, lungs squeezing. He missed his son. He missed his weekly video calls with him since they freed up communications with Chorus. Missed having his basketball picture in his wallet. Tucker actually looked…somber. Longing for something he wasn’t talking about.
Look, he could behave for once.
“No offense, but this place sucks.” Anywhere that kids could die like this sucked, let’s be real.
no subject
"I didn't know you were a father," she says a hushed voice. It seems somehow appropriate to speak only quietly, as if careful not to disturb a sleeping child. "I'm sorry."
It's just a platitude, but there's nothing else she can offer except her hand to beckon him closer. She smiles sadly.
"It was much nicer before the war. And...in the springtime. It's not always this cold." She hesitates. "Will you -- help? With the coffin?"
no subject
He missed him now.
"Hope single dads turn you on," he whispered, as inappropriate as always. His eyes were on the coffin, though, thinking of the child inside it, hearing the sadness in Sonia's smile rather than seeing it.
Shit.
"Yeah, I mean, sure." He walked to the side of the coffin, gaze flickering to the mom, watching her somberness and feeling it in himself. Junior kept clutching at his heart, just like Church - Alpha and Epsilon - did. Shit never got easier, not for anyone.
War was a bitch and damn was he sick of it.
no subject
It's the kind of sad that leaves you feeling hollow and gutted out, space you can't fill again, and Sonia's stomach flutters uncomfortably as Hera's grave is slowly filled with dirt. The earth she came from. Barrayarans are atheists, mostly, but she knows they still believe in the power of family, of blood and earth.
She nods slightly at Tucker and moves toward the brazier, setting it up properly near the edge of the grave. It's simple, nothing but a few coals and a hand torch, and a small, sharp-looking knife.
"For the death offerings," she offers in explanation as she combs through her hair and curls one little lock around her finger. "We burn offerings in honor of the dead. Pieces of ourselves. It's...an important tradition." Tradition is the wrong word, but Sonia just picks up the small knife and cuts off that small piece of hair, dropping it into the brazier.
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Tucker went to stand beside Sonia, watching her mess with the brazier, and for a second he wasn't sure if she was going to cut herself and bleed into the fire like some creepy cultist thing or not. But no, no, it was just hair, and he watched her cut it and put it in, watched it catch the flame and curl up on itself before turning to ash. His own hair was too short for that shit, but they probably didn't want his anyway; he was an outsider and this had to be something a little more special.
He didn't have anythin--
Wait. He had something. It wasn't much, of course; it wasn't like he came with all of his shit because woo, would the tent be a different experience then, but he had one thing, one. He slid his hand into his pockets, digging around before he felt the folded paper, and pulled it out, opening it. After talking to Byerly, he had sat back and drawn a picture of Junior as best he could without color or anything to help him. It wasn't great; he wasn't an artist, but he had tried and it showed with the time, the effort. In the corner there was a basketball, and the mandibles made him look like he was smiling.
Beneath, it just said Junior.
He smiled at it for a second, before folding it up and putting it in the fire. It might not have been much of an offering to anyone else, but it was to him, and the hungry fire charred the edges before working its way inward. Tucker didn't explain it, not now, not yet, but he reached over without looking, found Sonia's hand, and curled his fingers around hers.
His heart hurt, but not as much as it had to for this family here, and that's what he had to remind himself. Later he'd make some dirty jokes and hit on people and be himself, but for now, well, he could shut up and be quiet. Maybe that was his offering, too.
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Sonia only catches a brief glimpse of the paper before Tucker puts it to flame, and when he closes his hand around hers she gives it a squeeze, a small sign of comfort, of thanks. They could both use it, she thinks.
They're all silent as the offerings burn down, the flame eventually sputtering out, and Sonia murmurs a few last words in Russian before she turns away, giving Tucker's hand a gentle tug.
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As they walked, he didn't let go of her hand. Instead, he squeezed it a little more, happy to let her take the helm because he had no clue what to do now, where to go now. This shit? This shit was heavy, and he wasn't sure if he was ready to go back and see everyone else when his chest just fucking hurt, when everything hurt, when all he wanted to do was see his kid and make sure he was alive.
"Does that shit happen a lot? Because how the fuck do you deal with that shit on a regular basis?" He kept walking for a bit, his eyes on her back, the teeth worrying his bottom lip in silence before--
"Junior." It was said without hesitation, without prompting. There was a kick of the snow as he moved. "My son's name is 'Junior'. Best fucking kid you've ever seen. You'd like him." As long as she didn't mind mandibles.
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She falls back into silence with him, boots crunching in the snow. She isn't leading him anywhere in particular, just away from the graveyard, along the rough dirt road that circles the village. She looks up at him when he suddenly speaks, blinking, and then her face softens. Crude though Tucker may be -- and she can practically hear her sister's voice echoing in her head firm agreement -- he isn't unfeeling. He's a person, like everybody else. A person who feels and hurts and loves. And she can tell he loves his son fiercely. It's not hard to tell at all.
Sonia gives him a slight smile and squeezes his hand. "I'd like to," she says, even though she has no way of guaranteeing, no way of even knowing if that's possible. But it doesn't make her any less honest.
"I, ah, don't have any children, as you might have guessed, but..." She gives him a more earnest smile this time, brighter. "You sound like a good father."
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"Dude, you guys need to get with the times. Central heat. S'mores. Medicine. Shitting reality T.V.. Basebook." He squeezed her hand, letting her lead the way. It was fine to walk, get them away from the rest of the place and people and crap and bring them out here. Quiet. Well, a little quieter, anyway.
I'd like to, she said and it caught him off guard. There's no thought of If you knew what he was, you might think differently because Junior was perfect the way he is, and if someone couldn't love him that was on them. He's proud of his perfect kid. He was goddamn special.
"Dude, he's the best at basketball! Like, sometimes he gets a foul for chewing on the ball, but whatever; they've only had to replace it like three times now." His voice dripped with fondness, at least until she said that. A good father? Shit. Really? Really?
He stopped walking, pulling her to a halt without meaning to. "Are you messing with me? Because seriously? No one's said that to me before." That might have been because he tried to bone Junior's teacher once at a meeting. Or because he taught him the Birds and the Bees with the Internet and Pornhub. Or because a million other reasons. But she sounded like she meant it, and that...that was fucking awesome.
That was the nicest thing anyone had said to him in a long, long time, and it showed.
NO LONGER HELD HOSTAGE BY MODWORK CAN FINALLY TAG THIS BACK!!
She has to raise an eyebrow about the basketball comment, because, well -- a child chewing on a ball does seem a bit odd, and also, she's not sure what basketball is. She's just opening her mouth to ask when he pulls her to a halt mid-stride, and she pivots back to look at him, blinking. She half-smiles and lets out a breath, but mostly, she just looks a little confused.
"Well, I -- really?" Her brow knits at that, because that just seems...not cruel, no, but somehow lonely. Especially with that look on his face -- Sonia's a sentimentalist at heart, but she wouldn't really have to be just to be a little bit moved by that. Were Tucker and his son really that -- what, alone? Sonia has a hard time picturing a mother in this picture, and Tucker is quite obviously not married. But it isn't a bad look. In fact, it's quite a good one on him.
Sonia's an excellent liar when she feels like playing, but it isn't hard to tell when she's being utterly sincere. She takes a proper step back to Tucker, squeezing his hand again, and gives him a small smile. "Well, you haven't given me any reason to think otherwise. And I think you'd have to be deaf as well as blind not to see how much you love him."
FREED FROM THE SHACKLES! Also...Ihopethisisokay!!!
The thought came solid and strong and all at once; it wasn't the first time it struck him (when he hit on her the first night the want had been there, but he usually wanted to make out with everyone anyway). This was the first time it was this fucking strong, though, overwhelming and sad and comforting at the same time.
Well, fuck. And it wasn't that he was lonely back home; he was surrounded by idiots who he sort of tolerated and occasionally cared about (what bullshit, as if he wasn't currently freaking out over what was happening back there while he was away from them all). But this shit? This shit was different.
Plus, it didn't hurt that most of the Reds and Blues wanted to cleanse the universe of his son. Fuckers.
"Yeah, he's a charming bastard. Gets it from me of course." He smiled a little, taking a step forward towards her, filling up the space between them. They just buried a kid. It was cold. There was a fucking war, no electricity, he had no goddamn privacy and no hot showers.
But still...
"You know, you're the only good thing in a place that sucks so goddamn hard." And fuck he wanted the comfort in that, in just being around something that was actually pretty awesome. Tucker was bad at denying himself most things, and he wasn't about to start now; leaning down, he pressed his lips to hers lightly, squeezing her hands through the gloves.
Dude, he was kissing a princess. Seriously? This was pretty fucking cool.
It was even cooler that the princess was Sonia.
MORE THAN OKAY
He's funny, for instance -- really funny, in a way Sonia doesn't often get. He has thoughts and feelings like anyone else, though she suspects he tries not to show it. But he shows it to her. And aside from those heavily critiqued one-liners he first tried on her, he's never treated her with any real disrespect. He's trying just as hard as the rest of them not to buckle under the crushing weight of this war, of this plummet in morale, and Sonia, she's lived like this for a decade now, but Tucker hasn't.
She smiles and breathes out a laugh at the compliment, because it really is one -- she's always been doubtful, at times resentful of her supposed role in boosting morale, but this is something real and tangible and, for Tucker, clearly very honest. She's smiling, about to say something in return, when he kisses her.
It's not even all that sudden -- it's not as though he grabbed her by the waist and dramatically dipped her -- but unexpected, and unexpectedly chaste at that. Not unwelcome, though; there's no recoil, no hand on his shoulder pushing him back. The pink glow to her cheeks when he draws back is not entirely from the cold, and she looks just a little stunned, blinking, touching her fingers to her lips.
"Tucker," she says, stupidly, because her brain fails to come up with any intelligent response.
AND THEN HE HAD TO OPEN HIS STUPID MOUTH
He pulled back and looked at the pink of her cheeks, the fingers at her lips, and he smiled.
"Next, let's try an Australian kiss." And he needed to stop while he was ahead, but he kept going. He always kept going. It was a curse, one that included a little leer and an arch of his eyebrow. "It's like a French kiss, just down under."
But he didn't make a move to kiss her again, just squeezed her hand and started walking again. Kissing a princess, totally knocked that off his Bucket List. But the fact that it was Sonia? Well...
"Where to now?"
THAT'S A NARROW SAVE, DUDE
She raises an eyebrow back, smiling slightly, and gives his hand a little tug. She looks at the waterfall, frozen in its tracks -- beautiful, but it is really cold. "Let's go sit inside somewhere. Speaker Gura is letting us stay in his house tonight."