forbarrayar | [ february ii log ]

Entry tags:

[ 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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Lakshmi comes back so much older looking than she left. Beth starts dropping into the medical tent to check on her (still sleeping? still sleeping) in the afternoons. There's little change, but it's nice to know she's safe. And it's even kind of warm in there--probably especially under all those blankets.

One day, though, Lakshmi's up. Not only that, she's awake and in the midst of work. The fact that she's doing something, not just sleepily sipping from a cup and curling back into the mattress, does more than anything to convince Beth that she's getting better.

She sits where she's told but doesn't pick up a uniform. Her sewing skills are pretty minimal, but she'll gladly keep Lakshmi company. "How are you feeling?"

She's glad to see Beth, smiling widely the moment she does. Glad to see her well, in a cell, with nothing else to do, her mind had been prone to worrying. She had done what she could to look after her, to make sure she was in a position to fend for herself, explain to her what she must understand. Hoped it had been enough.

( She's good at worry - maybe in place of Devi, she must turn it on someone, apparently ).

"Well, enough, now." Which is brave words, considering that the moment she utters them, forces her throat to move and she coughs hard into her hand that she brings up quickly against to cover it. Then, gingerly, as if she must concede. "But I have been better."

"Getting better, though." Rani looks better than she did when she first arrived, and Beth would rather focus on that than the fact that she seems to have a ways to go. With a cough like that, she's probably reminded of it too much as it is. "You'll be out of here soon."

She feels a little superfluous, sitting here with nothing to do, Keeping a sick woman--a sick friend? she's not sure if it goes that far, exactly--company has to be enough for now. And thanking her. Thanking her should help.

The smile she gives Rani is a little teasing, buoyed up by a sort of guileless happiness. "I came here to thank you. You brought me a friend."

"I hope so, they will run out of things to give me to do, soon enough, and I think I shall go mad from boredom."

She doesn't suit well to being an idle woman, that much was plainly obvious, by taking up the first thing she was allowed to do with a eagerness that perhaps wasn't fitting for the work that it was. Which she turns back to, and perhaps she will ask Beth to sing, a little later on, to fill the time. But she cuts across the thought, and Lakshmi looks up again, frowning slightly. "I did?"

"They won't," Beth replies, her smile coming easily to her face. It's teasing, but only a little. "Because you'll drive them crazy, and they know that."

And if they don't, Beth will bring Rani something to do herself. She, at least, knows somebody who doesn't like to sit still when she sees them. Might as well leave Maggie cooped up in recovery--the results would be an equal amount of wasted energy.

Rani looks at her like she has no idea what Beth's talking about, which isn't surprising and doesn't do a thing to quell the way she's beaming. "Daryl said you ran away together. I mean, he called you that queen lady, but it wasn't hard to figure out."

Shake a description out of him, visit the med tent, and apparently Rani's a queen, not just some kind of lady.

It's hard to argue, when Beth is smiling like that and intended or not: she's glad of it. Glad to give her a reason to look her own age, instead of a grave old woman peering out of a young woman's body.

Life was too good at separating, it seemed. "Had I known, I would have tried to get us out sooner." Like she had been in much of a position, but she owed Dixon nothing less than her life.

The second part, she hesitates, grimacing a little. "I must... apologise to you, Beth, for nothing tell you the truth." It's tentative, she doesn't apologise to anyone very often. Nor is she sorry for doing what she had to protect herself.

"You got out. That's what matters." Sure, she would have liked to know Daryl was around as soon as she showed up, but this way, he was here to help a friend escape. From what he said about the Cetagandans, they sounded unlikely to do much to make sure Rani was comfortable--which means that in the end, it's better if the two of them cut and ran together.

(Now if only they could rescue the other people the Cetas have captured.)

She pauses when Rani apologizes. It comes out of the blue, at least by her standards; it's hard to imagine the woman needing to correct herself and offer a sorry Beth's way. Nothing she can think of seems to require it. "About what?"

She shakes her head, briefly. "I did not tell you who I truly was, when I asked you far too many questions about yourself."

It's a grimace, it had been a necessity in part. A want to make sure Beth was looked after in the case that she - well, she hadn't been here, had she? "You are welcome to ask me for the same, if you wish."

She looks, uncomfortable, with it. Didn't want to talk much about herself again for an age, if she had to. Done sharing as much as wants for at least another century. But fair was fair, and she could do that much for the girl.

She shrugs. On the long list of things Rani could have done to her, asking her about something she was (mostly) willing to talk about doesn't score too harshly. "It's okay. You wanted to protect yourself, right?"

It's what Daryl would have done, she bets; it's what Daryl did, back before he told her about his life before the turn. From the outside, she thinks it's understandable.

Besides, Rani looks like she's offering to drink cod-liver oil or something. If she actually wants Beth to take her up on the offer, she's terrible at showing it. So all she asks for the moment is, "Are you really a queen?"

She holds herself like she's waiting for a blow, whatever Beth might ask, she will answer. She promises that, she will. But it - doesn't come and she sinks down a little in relief. At least, it's nothing too serious, so far as questions go.

Rather she nods, to both, yes she was protecting herself, and yes, yes she was a Queen. Whatever that meant anymore. "My husband was the King of Jhansi -" a smile, light. "Maharaja Gangadhar Rao Newalker." She remembers him well, still, he was always a before point. "When we married I became his Maharani Lakshmi Bai." Her name, if Beth wants it.

Beth sees the way Rani seems to relax when all she asks is about her title, and she makes quiet note of it. Maybe sometime, the woman will want to talk about the past. Until then, it's kinder to let her keep her secrets.

"And--Rani, that's why." Maharani sounds like it could as easily be a name as a title, but his Maharani definitely sounds like a title. And isn't Maharaja a title, too? Or is she thinking of Rajah? (Or is she only really thinking of the tiger in Aladdin?) It's not something she's certain of, and it's something she suspects she still wouldn't know for sure, even if the world hadn't ended. So the only thing to do is ask, idly fingering the sleeve of a uniform as she does. "What do I call you now?"

She's not going to switch to Maharani or Lakshmi or anything else without permission. It's rude, and more than that, it's annoying--as anyone with a nickname, especially one from a name with a lot of nicknames, knows.

Damnit, Beth.

She smiles, though, tired and slight a thing as it is. She was a sweet girl, brave, misused as far as she could tell. But sweet. Let her keep that. That she would think to ask where most of the time, from half the people she had met here so far. "Rani is perfectly fine. But..."

Names... well, names are something personal, after all, why she was particular to called Beth 'Elizabeth' or 'Miss Greene'. Even so "... If you wish to call me Lakshmi, that is also acceptable." It's nothing she would extend to anyone else.

Beth shakes her head. "Rani's fine." If you like it.

Rani--it's hard for Beth to look at her and think Lakshmi--seems so tired, so filled with secrets that don't seem to need sharing. Her name can be one of those; it seems like that must have been Rani's goal, or she'd have introduced herself with the whole thing originally.

So it'll just be something between them. Maharani Lakshmi Bai, queen of Jhansi. Wherever Jhansi is--her guess is India, but she would have guessed that Piotr Vorkosigan was from Russia if she'd met him in a different context. For all she knows, Jhansi is another planet entirely.

"Was it bad over there?" she asks after a few quiet moments. She's sure it was--Rani slept for a week after, Daryl said he was tortured--but asking is gentler than tell me what it was like. This way, Rani can slip out of the question if she wants to.

She sinks back and it's a matter to consider how to answer her. Outwardly, there was nothing particularly terrible about them, not really.

"Not so much. At least not in how they kept us. They rather liked to make a point of how they fair better than these people. They like to keep things beautiful, and keep a veneer of such at all times."

Her head shakes, her distaste of that is... obvious. Far too much like the honourable United India Company. "They call us Exotics there, instead of Outsiders. They treat us all like we are particularly stupid children and something to be dressed up."

"Sometimes you're better out in the woods," she says, still picking idly at the hem of a uniform, "if it means you're free."

You can be kept someplace with food and a roof over your head and still be trapped. Then, shelter is just an easy cover for something worse. Torture, this time. Who knows what it'll be in the future?

One thing is sure: Rani can't be captured by them again, now that she's escaped. If they start with drugs to force the truth out of people, things are only going to get worse.

"Then we'd better stay outsiders." The look she gives Rani isn't quite a smile, but there's a sort of warmth in her voice. At least we're treated like people here.

She looks to her warmly, smiling if somewhat briefly. The lines at the corners of her eyes deepen with it. Some of age and some - some at least of happier times. "Yes... I always thought that too."

That yes, sometimes, sometimes it was better to belong to nothing and no one - as much a reason to never give her name, is that to be Queen, quite naturally, came with expectations. Perceptions. To be nothing and no one was... easier. Sometimes you're better out in the woods.

"And you, they have been treating you well? The countess is seeing to you?"

Presses a little - she had nothing else to do but worry. Good at it, apparently. Worried she had, about not being able to keep an eye on her. She trusted Olivia not to take advantage of her position - but she couldn't see everything, her place was at her husband's side after all. Anything could happen when people weren't paying attention.

It's easier to be good when there's no one around to do you harm. Two people alone in the woods can argue, but they only make life miserable for each other. One person in charge of dozens more can do more for people--but they can also do less, so much less that anarchy would be a better fate. She's happier here, she thinks, than she ever would be with the Cetagandans. Rani clearly is.

"Yeah," she says, giving Rani a little smile. I'm going to have to learn how to sew, if I keep sitting here--really sew, not awkwardly stitch something together in home ec. She feels a little useless when her companion's working so hard. "I've been okay here. And the countess is a nice woman."

Everything she can think of to tell Rani probably wouldn't actually bring the woman much comfort. We caught a traitor. I almost poisoned Barrayar--but I didn't. Sonia and I drank and played games at a party. She tries a broader smile. "They've been teaching me to use a sword."

That, she's sure Rani will approve of.

It is something she approves of, enough to actually stop her sewing to give her proper attention of. "I had not thought the sword was your ... interest." She might have been thinking of approaching her with a bow again. Not a crossbow, but a recurve. Something light but deadly. Perhaps long knives like she had been keeping in recent years.

But swords?

That cheers her immensely. "Well then, up you get, I wish to see what you've been learning." She gestures eagerly, with pinched fingers around the needle and the brown thread trailing off the end. Urging her up. "Come, let's see your stance. See how well you've been doing."

So utterly encouraging to this point.

"I like knives better," Beth admits, shrugging. She's caught a little off-guard by the way Rani's eyes light up--but in a pleasant way. It makes her look like her old self, when her gaze grows so sharp with interest. "But I'm going to learn everything here."

Longbows, rapiers, those enormous broadswords if she can manage it. And she'll practice with her knife. If they had guns and bullets to spare, she'd add them to the list, but people here look at you like you're crazy when you bring those up.

"They've been showing me rapiers." She gets up as she speaks, feeling vaguely self-conscious. If it'll make Rani happy, though--and it already has, as far as she can tell--she'll show off what she's learned over the last few days. "The broadswords are half as big as me. It looks kind of crazy without the sword, but..."

But she's settling her feet beneath her anyway--one facing forward, one facing out, her knees bent slightly--and raising her hand like she's brandishing the hilt of a sword.

She can't get up properly to move with her - as much as she wants. As it is, she feels every muscles of her body protest. She's better though not yet mended. But she forces herself to sit up straight so she can observe her better.

It's a critical gaze, if pleased. It does wonders for her - more than anything it's something to be useful with. Something she knows, that she can give easily. "Good," the praise comes easy. The tone of a mother and she had done the same for Damodar, when he had been learning the same. "Your foot there, turn it a little in."

Gestures to her back leg, curling her fingers to gesture. "Not crazy to me." Cheered, she continues. "Which do you prefer so far?"

It's enough to see Rani sitting up. After a week of watching her sleep, Beth's perfectly willing to stand around holding an imaginary sword, adjusting her stance the way she's told to. She thrusts her weapon at an equally imaginary enemy, for Rani's benefit, and grins.

"I haven't decided yet." Rapier or broadsword, sword-fighting as a whole or archery, fighting or learning to set traps or anything else she's picked up lately. She feels like she's learned more in the last month than she has in years. "It's just nice to know what you're doing."

Killing walkers is a matter of stabbing blindly (and occasionally flailing a little). Killing people hasn't been much different. But this is, even if stabbing swords at people feels strangely staged to her in comparison.

It won't be staged when they get into the thick of it, then it will only matter how deep those reflexes go - and she steels herself and that notion, she will make sure Beth's are the best. She already had the training in knives, and it could be built upon.

But for later, for now, she reaches up and taps Beth's elbow when she goes to strike her imaginary enemy. "Never at full extension. You need it to stay loose for your movements."

Slides her eyes back, nodding. "Of course, it's good when you know the... tools available to you. I always preferred it, even when they weren't my particular taste, to know rather than not."

Training in knives might be pushing it a little--but she's definitely spent at least a year stabbing things with a great deal of purpose. The emphasis on form here is so far removed from what she's done before that it hardly feels like fighting at all.

Of course, that'll probably change as soon as she's doing more than practicing footing and the right way to hold the sword. It's been difficult to imagine how she'll use this in a real fight, with people coming from any angle (walkers, she's really picturing walkers), but she's only just starting to figure the basics out. So she crooks her elbow a little when it's touched and tries to remember everything else she's been told. Feet like this, back like that, head up, someday maybe a knife in her other hand...

Beth nods, trying to remember what else she can show Rani. "You never know what you're going to have on you. Better safe than sorry, right?"

She smiles openly as she gets her form correct, and easy to be praising for work well done, when she so desperately needs something to be cheerful about. Anything at all to put the worst of it from her mind. To draw her from sinking back into that ugly place that is homesickness and resentment.

"Very good. You are learning well. Soon I will have to call you Mastani." Fond, easy, old stories, old comforts. Like she has any idea who that is. Draws her gaze up again, nodding. "Always. Even if you cannot be proficient in them all, to know their best use is always preferable."

Beth's expression is uncomprehending, but interested nonetheless. "Was he a sword fighter?"

For good measure, she tries a little step back and a block, and then another step forward, and another thrust--with her elbow loose this time. And, suspecting that it's a suggestion Rani will like, she says, "Once you're better, we can practice together. You'll probably kick my ass."

It won't be hard. Rani actually knows how to do this.

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