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forbarrayar2017-02-02 08:00 pm
barrayarmods) wrote in forbarrayar2017-02-02 08:00 pm
Entry tags:
- !event,
- #barrayaran camp,
- #cetagandan base,
- *diya d'zefyst,
- *olivia vorkosigan,
- *piotr vorkosigan,
- *sonia vorbarra,
- *zahal ghem-zefyst,
- agent maine | traitorous,
- beth greene | littlemissfutility,
- kaidan alenko | standsentinel,
- lakshmi bai | shri,
- lapis lazuli | mirrortide,
- ratchet | asafepairofhands
[ february i log ]
Who: Everyone
What: New arrivals, desperate times, whispers down the hall.
When: February 1st - 18th
Where: Barrayaran camp / Cetagandan base
Warnings: TBD
Quick links:
Barrayar: Barrayaran camp / Missions
Cetaganda: Cetagandan base / Missions
welcome to barrayar.
It's the dark of night when you come to in the foothills. Snow on the ground, chill winter wind whistling -- in fact, it's dangerously cold, and all you have is the clothes on your back.. A steep mountain range towers just ahead, its peaks illuminated by the light of two moons. Whatever you last remember, it isn't how you got here, and you feel oddly jetlagged, slightly queasy.
And you're not alone. There are a few other people close by, all looking equally lost and confused. But before any of you have a chance to figure out what's going on, the soldiers arrive.
There's a war on, they say, and you unlucky bastards have just been dropped right smack in the middle of it.
barrayar
The cold snap hits the guerrilla camp hard, especially with a handful of new people to care for. On the 1st, a few people from Riverfall Village come to the camp, Village Speaker Yakiv Gura among them, who seems to have a rapport with Piotr. They bring extra supplies with them, such as clothing, heavy wool blankets and bedrolls, as well as extra firewood to help fend off the cold. The new outsiders are accommodated the best they can -- they're all provided bedrolls and any extra clothing they (probably) need -- but the Barrayarans don't have an extra tent to spare, so that means all twelve outsiders are force to share a tent that ordinarily sleeps ten. On the plus side, it should provide some warmth. The cold is
A young boy comes in tow of the villagers; Speaker Gura tells Piotr that the boy turned up a week ago and insisted on helping them with the supply haul, despite his small size. He's clearly Barrayaran, and looks as though he might have been living on hisown for a while. He doesn't speak mcuh, and when asked his name, will only give it as Negri -- first or last, no one's sure, but the boy doesn't seem easily fazed. Piotr tells the villagers he has no room in his camp for lost children, but somehow the day after the villagers leave, Negri turns up in camp again. He's curious, but quiet and unobtrusive, wherever he is in camp. He's a very good listener…even when you might not want him to be.
On the 3rd, the Barrayarans and outsiders awake to discover that the part of the cave where they've kept the majority of their food supply has collapsed, either blocking their access to the cache or destroying it entirely. It's impossible to tell. The villagers can't spare much more than they already have been -- certainly not enough to feed the hundred and fifty-odd soldiers in the camp -- so while they try to find out a way to recoup their food supply, they have no choice but to slaughter their own horses for food. Food will be heavily rationed, but fairly -- the outsiders receive no less than the rest. The prisoners, on the other hand, get nothing. There probably isn't enough wild game in the area to sustain the camp, but Piotr sends out hunting parties, and when they get wind of a Cetagandan supply drop on its way, they organize a raid on the supply lines.
camp
With temperatures well below freezing, no food, and excruciatingly little in the way of advantage against the Cetagandans after their last infiltration attempt, morale is beginning to drop. Piotr and Olivia remain bastions of perseverance as always, but Sonia is beginning to buckle and wilt as the days go on. The soldiers do their best to entertain themselves and keep morale up, but all they've got are maple mead, and old card and dice games. They could use some new forms of entertainment. Maybe a snowball fight might get the blood moving -- assuming you can stand the wind chill. Thankfully, there's no shortage of warm clothes and wool scarves.
The cave isn't big enough to simply move all of camp inside, but the sickbay and mess tents are moved where it's a little warmer and out of the harsh wind. It's generally crowded with off-duty soldiers despite the food shortage, because no one wants to be out in the cold right now. Things get a little better after the mostly successful raids, but food is still heavily rationed.
missions
The hunting parties are only moderately successful; there isn't much wild game out there right now, and while the soldiers fare alright, the outsiders' hunting party fails miserably. The raiding parties yield a little more in the way of relief, enough now that they don't have to keep eating horse meat, but Pearl was captured by enemy forces in the chaos.
Maine helps Piotr with a very successful final interrogation of ghem-Miko, the Cetagandan scientist taken prisoner last month. He reveals that the Cetagandans have been studying the locations where exotics appeared, as it seems to be linked to wormhole technology, and that the Cetagandans are planning on building a device to control it. They have the technology, they're almost sure, but it's a puzzle they haven't solved yet. Ghem-Miko doesn't live long past his interrogation -- public execution by decapitation is his sentence, and when it's done, a few soldiers carry off his body and severed head.
Piotr's interrogation of Duv Galeni goes about as well but, blessedly, less fatally. It becomes known that Duv is from Komarr, the planet that sold Barrayar out to the Cetagandans, and that Duv Galeni is really David Galen, a relative of a few Counselors in the head of Komarran government. However, he's able to successfully convince Piotr that he isn't allied with the Cetagandans, and after a few days of agony, Duv is granted parole at Piotr's discretion.
On the evening of the 15th, Maine, Beth and Byerly inadvertently catch Vorhalas in the act of trying to sabotage what little of their food supply they've been able to recoup. He tries both fight and flight, but the three outsiders are able to take him down and drag him to Piotr's doorstep. It quickly becomes apparent that Vorhalas was responsible for the cave-in earlier in the month. Piotr is both furious and victorious; he now has a lead on the traitor conspiracy among his men, and his esteem of Beth, Maine and Byerly has gone up considerably for their part. Vorhalas is up next in the interrogation chair, and this one won't be pretty.
The unabridged event writeup is here.
cetaganda
The recent supply drop not only provides resources for the base and for distribution to their other outposts, but also brings fresh species for transplant into the gardens at the Grow Labs. The arrival of a handful of new exotics gives rise to a fresh wave of buzzing curiosity around the base. All of the new exotics are given thorough physicals, just as the first wave were, and provided with fatigues and anything else they might need. They make an even dozen now, their bunk at capacity. The Cetagandans are beginning to become accustomed to having the exotics on base, some of them even forward enough with their curiosity to be friendly. Darkstalker now has a small following of ghem lady scientists who regularly feature him as a subject in their art.
New arrivals will be processed as the first were -- once everyone has been whisked out of the extreme cold, everyone is subject to a thorough physical, including a number of scans that may or may not seem totally arcane to you. Other than a blood sample, nothing they're doing is at all invasive. Lady Diya d'Zefyst, while not a physician, is present at all physicals. She is easily notable not only for her striking, almost ethereal beauty as is typical of the haut, but, as the only haut on base, she is easily distinguishable by her lack of facepaint.
While the exotics still have freedom of movement around the base, the recent extreme temperatures have their hosts diplomatically suggesting they travel as much as possible, they are provided cold weather wear, as the mess hall and medbay are in separate buildings from the barracks. Weather warning aside, they encourage the exotics to take advantage of the non-restricted recreational facilities -- exercise rooms, art rooms, the lush gardens in the Grow Labs -- and will satisfy any reasonable curiosities.
base
In an effort to make the exotics feel more at home, the Cetagandans decide to put on the sort of function they might for visiting diplomats, full of art of all sorts, to show that they're just as willing to share their culture with the exotics as they're asking the exotics to share with them. The function is hosted on the evening of the 7th in an annex to the Grow Labs apparently meant for this express purpose, as it shows off the most beautiful and elegant of the Grow Labs' specimens, and acts as a live arboretum in and of itself, and quite vibrantly beautiful.
If there's one thing the Cetagandans are good at (besides art, and language, and genetics) it's throwing a good party. Functions like this are always an opportunity for Cetagandans to try and socially one-up one another; everyone is in their most fashionable dress in the latest fashions they manage to keep off-planet, or at least a dress uniform, wearing fanciful scents and vibrant facepaint they might not otherwise on the job. For the artistically inclined ghem (read: a lot of them), this is the chance to show off their artistic endeavors as well -- large sculptures of unusual and improbable materials, walkable installations meant to engage every sense, and of course the living art engineered by the ghem ladies, ranging from relatively simple and tame pieces such as koi fish patterned with clan insignia or black roses and blue orchids, to complex combinations of non-human DNA to create some genetic sculpture. There is, of course, food and drink -- in the usual flagrant Cetagandan style, although the hors d'oeuvres and drinks are even more ecletic than the usual mess hall fare. It seems as though the Cetagandan passion for genetic art extends even into the culinary realm.
At the center of the party is a particular kind of art installation called a discernment garden. Housed in a beautiful, improbably architectural tent, the discernment garden consists of a series of rooms, each meant to test the refinement of the senses -- not unlike a varietal wine tasting. Each room is dedicated to a single sense, inviting participants to judge a collection of samples and suss out the differences, or match tastes and smells and textures to labels; the end of the garden presents its visitors with a final art piece incorporating all five senses, as a final test of one's refinement. Some of the ghem might (a bit wryly) confess that this is actually more of an education tool used for Cetagandan children, but this is meant as a gesture of good will toward the exotics.
missions
On the evenings of the 6th and the 8th, some of the exotics do a little sneaking around, and not for the first time. York lends Kaidan his access badge to the R&D Lab on the 6th and Kaidan, along with Sans and Symmetra, stumble onto a whole lot of wormhole data and schematics to construct a device capable of controlling the phenomena of the exotics' appearance. On the 8th, Deanna and Natasha sneak around to the tactical buildings and overhear some marital discord between Zahal and Diya, and a troubling glimpse at their diverging plans.
On the evening of the 13th, Jasper, York and Daryl are all in the medbay when a biocontainment breach sends it into automatic lockdown, trapping them inside. They overhear Diya arguing with one of her subordinates over unauthorized use of ba genetic material, whatever that is.
The unabridged event writeup is here.
What: New arrivals, desperate times, whispers down the hall.
When: February 1st - 18th
Where: Barrayaran camp / Cetagandan base
Warnings: TBD
Barrayar: Barrayaran camp / Missions
Cetaganda: Cetagandan base / Missions
welcome to barrayar.
It's the dark of night when you come to in the foothills. Snow on the ground, chill winter wind whistling -- in fact, it's dangerously cold, and all you have is the clothes on your back.. A steep mountain range towers just ahead, its peaks illuminated by the light of two moons. Whatever you last remember, it isn't how you got here, and you feel oddly jetlagged, slightly queasy.
And you're not alone. There are a few other people close by, all looking equally lost and confused. But before any of you have a chance to figure out what's going on, the soldiers arrive.
There's a war on, they say, and you unlucky bastards have just been dropped right smack in the middle of it.
barrayar
The cold snap hits the guerrilla camp hard, especially with a handful of new people to care for. On the 1st, a few people from Riverfall Village come to the camp, Village Speaker Yakiv Gura among them, who seems to have a rapport with Piotr. They bring extra supplies with them, such as clothing, heavy wool blankets and bedrolls, as well as extra firewood to help fend off the cold. The new outsiders are accommodated the best they can -- they're all provided bedrolls and any extra clothing they (probably) need -- but the Barrayarans don't have an extra tent to spare, so that means all twelve outsiders are force to share a tent that ordinarily sleeps ten. On the plus side, it should provide some warmth. The cold is
A young boy comes in tow of the villagers; Speaker Gura tells Piotr that the boy turned up a week ago and insisted on helping them with the supply haul, despite his small size. He's clearly Barrayaran, and looks as though he might have been living on hisown for a while. He doesn't speak mcuh, and when asked his name, will only give it as Negri -- first or last, no one's sure, but the boy doesn't seem easily fazed. Piotr tells the villagers he has no room in his camp for lost children, but somehow the day after the villagers leave, Negri turns up in camp again. He's curious, but quiet and unobtrusive, wherever he is in camp. He's a very good listener…even when you might not want him to be.
On the 3rd, the Barrayarans and outsiders awake to discover that the part of the cave where they've kept the majority of their food supply has collapsed, either blocking their access to the cache or destroying it entirely. It's impossible to tell. The villagers can't spare much more than they already have been -- certainly not enough to feed the hundred and fifty-odd soldiers in the camp -- so while they try to find out a way to recoup their food supply, they have no choice but to slaughter their own horses for food. Food will be heavily rationed, but fairly -- the outsiders receive no less than the rest. The prisoners, on the other hand, get nothing. There probably isn't enough wild game in the area to sustain the camp, but Piotr sends out hunting parties, and when they get wind of a Cetagandan supply drop on its way, they organize a raid on the supply lines.
camp
With temperatures well below freezing, no food, and excruciatingly little in the way of advantage against the Cetagandans after their last infiltration attempt, morale is beginning to drop. Piotr and Olivia remain bastions of perseverance as always, but Sonia is beginning to buckle and wilt as the days go on. The soldiers do their best to entertain themselves and keep morale up, but all they've got are maple mead, and old card and dice games. They could use some new forms of entertainment. Maybe a snowball fight might get the blood moving -- assuming you can stand the wind chill. Thankfully, there's no shortage of warm clothes and wool scarves.
The cave isn't big enough to simply move all of camp inside, but the sickbay and mess tents are moved where it's a little warmer and out of the harsh wind. It's generally crowded with off-duty soldiers despite the food shortage, because no one wants to be out in the cold right now. Things get a little better after the mostly successful raids, but food is still heavily rationed.
missions
The hunting parties are only moderately successful; there isn't much wild game out there right now, and while the soldiers fare alright, the outsiders' hunting party fails miserably. The raiding parties yield a little more in the way of relief, enough now that they don't have to keep eating horse meat, but Pearl was captured by enemy forces in the chaos.
Maine helps Piotr with a very successful final interrogation of ghem-Miko, the Cetagandan scientist taken prisoner last month. He reveals that the Cetagandans have been studying the locations where exotics appeared, as it seems to be linked to wormhole technology, and that the Cetagandans are planning on building a device to control it. They have the technology, they're almost sure, but it's a puzzle they haven't solved yet. Ghem-Miko doesn't live long past his interrogation -- public execution by decapitation is his sentence, and when it's done, a few soldiers carry off his body and severed head.
Piotr's interrogation of Duv Galeni goes about as well but, blessedly, less fatally. It becomes known that Duv is from Komarr, the planet that sold Barrayar out to the Cetagandans, and that Duv Galeni is really David Galen, a relative of a few Counselors in the head of Komarran government. However, he's able to successfully convince Piotr that he isn't allied with the Cetagandans, and after a few days of agony, Duv is granted parole at Piotr's discretion.
On the evening of the 15th, Maine, Beth and Byerly inadvertently catch Vorhalas in the act of trying to sabotage what little of their food supply they've been able to recoup. He tries both fight and flight, but the three outsiders are able to take him down and drag him to Piotr's doorstep. It quickly becomes apparent that Vorhalas was responsible for the cave-in earlier in the month. Piotr is both furious and victorious; he now has a lead on the traitor conspiracy among his men, and his esteem of Beth, Maine and Byerly has gone up considerably for their part. Vorhalas is up next in the interrogation chair, and this one won't be pretty.
The unabridged event writeup is here.
cetaganda
The recent supply drop not only provides resources for the base and for distribution to their other outposts, but also brings fresh species for transplant into the gardens at the Grow Labs. The arrival of a handful of new exotics gives rise to a fresh wave of buzzing curiosity around the base. All of the new exotics are given thorough physicals, just as the first wave were, and provided with fatigues and anything else they might need. They make an even dozen now, their bunk at capacity. The Cetagandans are beginning to become accustomed to having the exotics on base, some of them even forward enough with their curiosity to be friendly. Darkstalker now has a small following of ghem lady scientists who regularly feature him as a subject in their art.
New arrivals will be processed as the first were -- once everyone has been whisked out of the extreme cold, everyone is subject to a thorough physical, including a number of scans that may or may not seem totally arcane to you. Other than a blood sample, nothing they're doing is at all invasive. Lady Diya d'Zefyst, while not a physician, is present at all physicals. She is easily notable not only for her striking, almost ethereal beauty as is typical of the haut, but, as the only haut on base, she is easily distinguishable by her lack of facepaint.
While the exotics still have freedom of movement around the base, the recent extreme temperatures have their hosts diplomatically suggesting they travel as much as possible, they are provided cold weather wear, as the mess hall and medbay are in separate buildings from the barracks. Weather warning aside, they encourage the exotics to take advantage of the non-restricted recreational facilities -- exercise rooms, art rooms, the lush gardens in the Grow Labs -- and will satisfy any reasonable curiosities.
base
In an effort to make the exotics feel more at home, the Cetagandans decide to put on the sort of function they might for visiting diplomats, full of art of all sorts, to show that they're just as willing to share their culture with the exotics as they're asking the exotics to share with them. The function is hosted on the evening of the 7th in an annex to the Grow Labs apparently meant for this express purpose, as it shows off the most beautiful and elegant of the Grow Labs' specimens, and acts as a live arboretum in and of itself, and quite vibrantly beautiful.
If there's one thing the Cetagandans are good at (besides art, and language, and genetics) it's throwing a good party. Functions like this are always an opportunity for Cetagandans to try and socially one-up one another; everyone is in their most fashionable dress in the latest fashions they manage to keep off-planet, or at least a dress uniform, wearing fanciful scents and vibrant facepaint they might not otherwise on the job. For the artistically inclined ghem (read: a lot of them), this is the chance to show off their artistic endeavors as well -- large sculptures of unusual and improbable materials, walkable installations meant to engage every sense, and of course the living art engineered by the ghem ladies, ranging from relatively simple and tame pieces such as koi fish patterned with clan insignia or black roses and blue orchids, to complex combinations of non-human DNA to create some genetic sculpture. There is, of course, food and drink -- in the usual flagrant Cetagandan style, although the hors d'oeuvres and drinks are even more ecletic than the usual mess hall fare. It seems as though the Cetagandan passion for genetic art extends even into the culinary realm.
At the center of the party is a particular kind of art installation called a discernment garden. Housed in a beautiful, improbably architectural tent, the discernment garden consists of a series of rooms, each meant to test the refinement of the senses -- not unlike a varietal wine tasting. Each room is dedicated to a single sense, inviting participants to judge a collection of samples and suss out the differences, or match tastes and smells and textures to labels; the end of the garden presents its visitors with a final art piece incorporating all five senses, as a final test of one's refinement. Some of the ghem might (a bit wryly) confess that this is actually more of an education tool used for Cetagandan children, but this is meant as a gesture of good will toward the exotics.
missions
On the evenings of the 6th and the 8th, some of the exotics do a little sneaking around, and not for the first time. York lends Kaidan his access badge to the R&D Lab on the 6th and Kaidan, along with Sans and Symmetra, stumble onto a whole lot of wormhole data and schematics to construct a device capable of controlling the phenomena of the exotics' appearance. On the 8th, Deanna and Natasha sneak around to the tactical buildings and overhear some marital discord between Zahal and Diya, and a troubling glimpse at their diverging plans.
On the evening of the 13th, Jasper, York and Daryl are all in the medbay when a biocontainment breach sends it into automatic lockdown, trapping them inside. They overhear Diya arguing with one of her subordinates over unauthorized use of ba genetic material, whatever that is.
The unabridged event writeup is here.
BELATEDLY...
[ Young enough to not quite remember what it was like before the war except for the haziest of memories, old enough to not truly comprehend but still sense the gravity of the situation, to still tell that the way the adults spoke about it all around him meant that something was terribly, terribly wrong. He'd grown up wanting to fight, wanting to be old enough to do his part. ]
I enlisted as soon as I was able, I wanted to do my part -- and it wasn't that long after before the Covenant got to my system. [ And he did his part. Nothing. Wasn't even there when his colony was destroyed. It'd been the first real cold shock to his system, a proper understanding of the stakes and scale of the war. The Covenant destroyed planets, colonies, worlds. He was just one soldier. He was nothing. ] I was lucky I signed on when I did -- less lucky years later, when they asked me if I was interested in a special program. That there was a man somewhere, who had an idea.
[ And he thought that maybe, if he signed onto that, maybe he'd be able to do more than his own small part. Maybe he had a chance of really making a difference in this war. A man with an idea -- as detached as Wash has been through this conversation, it's hard to keep the bitterness out of his voice, there. He'd believed in that idea -- and where did that get him, where did that get his friends? Six feet under, dead and gone, all for one man and his idea, one man and his fucking vanity project.
There's an ease and a slight relief in the tension when she starts talking about AI, and Wash can follow suit. ]
The AI we made use of were kind of like that. [ Different, very different, but not in ways that he wanted to go into, in a way that was stepping out of the scope of this back-and-forth thing, this not-quite-a-game. ] Designed to help us run our armored suits, but it could do more than that, too.
Not that it matters, here, since apparently the wormhole left everything behind.
[ A half-shrug, words that drag them back to the present, suddenly talking about here and now instead of what they were, where they've been, what happened to them ( because he knows, he can tell that so much, so much must have happened to her the same way it has to him, so many things that leave their mark and never go away ). He turns away briefly, taking another slow gulp of water from the bottle she'd passed to him -- not too long ago, but what strangely feels like hours ago.
He's not quite stepped back from their little game, but he's motioning towards it. I step back, you step back, we call it a draw, maybe pick it up some other time -- or if she wants to press more, well. Maybe he will talk more, or maybe that's when he finally has to close it up, when it turns out that apparently she's willing to share more than he is. ]
no subject
[Save us from Men of Vision.
And there's a weight to the way that she says the words. Like it's a kind of truth that she knows too, something more than just an orphan girl pulled into a program she hadn't understood. And she understands it, because she's thinking of Pierce, of a man that turned down the nobel peace prize, that she had once believed in like she'd believed in Fury. And he put ships in the sky to kill anyone that might get in his way.
She'd lost friends in the Battle for the Triskelion. Not close ones; not people like Steve or Clint. Instead, it had been more nefarious. It had been the girl that had nervously asked her for help shooting because she was trying to get her field agent certification, a pilot that she'd not-quite dated but always used pickup lines like he wasn't afraid of her.
Steve saved the world, Sam and James made it out alive, and he counted it a victory.
Natasha didn't see it, the people that had filled her life across the years she'd worked for SHIELD reduced to names on a list of dead, and all she sees is her failure.]
--Did you lose anything else in the wormhole?
[It takes her a moment to debate over whether or not to ask, but in the end she does, even if she's half tempted to just shrug and ask him if he wants to go another round. Instead, she lets that question linger because she needs to know if it hit anyone else like it did her. The reason so often she doesn't sleep, but pushes herself as if this is some barrier she can break through, something she can fix by sheer determination.
And it's easier than the alternative. Telling him about how they changed her body, the way she functions, physically and mentally. But her eyes are off to the side, not quite able to look him in the face when she asks, knowing that there's no way to know if he'd tell her or not. She doesn't quite trust him and he doesn't trust her, but there's something to it.]
i actually legitimately thought i already replied to this and i just forgot to send it, screaming
He manages to bite it back, but there's a quirk of his lips anyway, the kind of subtle expression that he thinks a woman like her would still be able to notice, but she'd likely understand why he almost smiled, too. He doesn't mean disrespect, doesn't mean to mock her, but just how familiar that is, how true that is. Men with ideas. People with grand visions to change the damn world, people who were convinced that their magic bullet was going to be the right one and it didn't matter how many lives were destroyed along the way because it was going to be worth it for the pursuit of their noble goals.
There's an honesty, in the way she says it, a bitterness. He's learned a lot more about her today than he thought he'd ever know about her, but Wash already understands that he knows nothing about her, too. Nothing that really matters, because if she was anything like him then the only things to share were what she could afford to -- and she is like him. They have a lot in common. Wars and projects and men with ideas.
The almost-smile is bitter and cold, and it flickers away once she moves on. A different question, a specific one. A different kind of information being asked for, and this time, something that Wash is actually all too happy to answer, that tension between them seeming to ease down another notch. ]
Personally, no. The armor, any weapons I had on me. [ He frowns slightly. ] I know others who might've lost more.
[ Like York, ever-reliable York, somehow with his life but without Delta, instead. ]
Seems most of us just arrived with the clothes on our backs.
[ He looks up at her, doesn't ask, but the question is there in his expression -- it doesn't seem like something she'd ask unless she lost something of her own. ]
and then I have just sucked this week guh
Really, in understanding how little he knows about her, that she shared only what she could afford to lose, Wash maybe knew her better than anyone aside from Clint or a man that had long since forgotten her. She had her friends back home, of course, but each of them got a different facet of her, a version of Natasha Romanoff that was part truth and part lies. She told Steve as much, which was maybe her biggest confession, but at the end she wasn't sure he understood. That she was lying to him, too.
Maybe it's why she likes him, why she gives him as much as she does -- because unlike people like Steve and Tony she can believe that he'll get it when it's too much. She doesn't think he'll push, desperate for answers because men like them need to know the full story, like it's theirs to ask for. It never is.
She nods as he answers, and there's a glint, a tilt of her head. It's non-specific, but enough that it seems like she might not be alone, the only one stripped of what she had been. She's not sure if that makes her feel worse or better about it, but she digests the thought, and when she catches his expression she can feel the question. She considers her words for a moment -- it's not exactly a secret, she told Diya more or less as much when they put her through the medical tests. And her trust for Diya is pretty much nonexistent.]
The brass had a saying.. one agent in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills was better than an entire army. The program I was part of involved biochemical alterations.
[She flexes her fingers and there's a shrug of her shoulder, a twitch of her lips that's almost more rueful than anything. Wash is sharp, she figures he can pick up on the pieces, on what it is that she's lost. It's more than the routine that drags her here time and again, no matter the hour.]
it's ok because i did the same sobs
Everything else she's said before replays through his thoughts, an automatic response, just a result of a life built around memory and forcing himself to remember. She was moved -- taken, he again supplies in his own words -- as an orphan to some military installation in the middle of nowhere. Miserably cold, she'd said, and Wash imagines something much like this one but less strangely beautiful, all bitter steel surrounded by ice and snow. They were trying to make the perfect soldier. Weren't they always trying to make the perfect soldier.
He thinks again of the Spartans, kidnapped, augmented, molded into machines more than people. One agent in the right place, at the right time, with the right skills. Wash looks at her, watches her, studies her expression, but she gives away nothing, of course she doesn't, she's just as practiced at this as he is, probably a lot more. It doesn't take him that long to fit together the pieces, regardless.
That's what she lost. ]
Sounds like a few things I might know of. [ Not humorless, but dry. There's always a war, and it seems like there's more they can add to that. There's always people with ideas. Always perfect soldiers. Always augmentations and alterations. A pause, distinctive, and he gestures vaguely with a tip of his head. ] Has any of this been helping?
[ He means the sparring, and the training, he's seen her here more often than most other people because he spends so much time here himself. If she's lost whatever advantages her alterations have given her, maybe it was just some function of whatever brought them here, maybe she just needed some time for everything to build back, again, with practice, with training, with focus.
Maybe. It's only maybe. He's sure she knows that, too. ]
no subject
What she really means is no, but that's not what she says. It does help, being able to spar against him, to push herself, to have a gauge as she pushes herself to do better. Even if it's only a little, she decides to try not to deny that, even if it's almost a kneejerk. What she really means but can't bring herself to say is that it doesn't help enough, but Wash is smart, and she figures he can see between the lines.
That she wouldn't push herself quite as far as she does if she could see how it comes together, see the payoff. There might not be that outright desperation that tinges it all. Because it's more than just her physical ability, it's her senses, her reaction times and all these little things that add up to the fact that she feels weak in a way she never has before. She has to relearn her limitations, adjust her skills to fit.]
A little. It helps with the focus, at least.
[She hates the way she feels, but sparring with Wash is good. It's a point of normalcy. He's good, and she'd have enjoyed sparring with him even before, back home, impossible as the thought is. Then all at once it's just not enough. Too many words, or too many things given away and while she doesn't entirely pull away, she shifts on her feet, looks at him with a lift of an eyebrow and a twist of her lips.]
Want to find out?
[She caps her water bottle, even if she's been ignoring it for the past several minutes. She wasn't so much unwilling to keep playing their game as she just. The more they talked, the more it built up this tension, and hitting something was easier because there were so many pieces she wasn't giving, so much anger about all of it. Men with plans and perfect soldiers. Memory.]
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More men of vision. [ It's always the same thing, isn't it? More men or women with ideas and grand visions, perfect weapons, perfect soldiers to end the war. In her case it sounds like they were looking for a single operative, and in the Spartans and so many others, they were trying to build an army.
They succeeded, too.
Wash understands what she means, reads between the lines easily enough. It helps, but in the way a spar helps him, in the way a spar would help any other soldier, restless and frustrated and in need for an outlet or wanting for something to keep them busy, to keep them on form. In other words, for her specific problem? It wasn't helping. Not really. And part of him wonders, looking back at her, especially when she caps the bottle, just taking her in, just what she would be like at full force. She's already one of the best damned fighters he's ever sparred against, reminding him so much of Carolina, of Tex.
That other question is easy, too. He turns away to empty the last of his own bottle, crunching it slightly when he sets it down on some nearby bench, rolling one shoulder to stretch himself out slightly as he shoots her a slight grin. ]
Ready if you are.
[ This has been a good talk. And if she's anything like him -- and she is, from everything he's learned -- then she's just as tense, and both of them know what one good way is to let that tension loose. ]
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She might ask later, at another point where she can take more of it, more of the words, more of her own vulnerability, different things offered in different pieces, small enough to be able to bear. Back home she'd stripped herself of everything, down to the quick almost, and her attempts to build it up again hadn't felt like they were enough with so many shadows over her.
This is more important. The sparring, the feel, pushing it. Pushing herself. She tosses the bottle off to the side, easy, letting it roll out of the way as she rolls her shoulders. She backs up, gives herself a little bit more room, and there's a look about her like she's not playing nice. Not that she usually does, exactly, but she hasn't tried one of her takedowns since it had failed so badly on York the first night she'd been here.
She knows, objectively, that the big part of it had been that she had still been adjusting, wasn't used to how much effort she had to put into things. The way she had to handle her weight differently, be a lot more careful about velocity and leverage. She thinks she can pull it off now, though. And she wants it. It'd be nice to have at least one thing back, even if it wasn't the same. Whether it works or not, she figures Wash will probably be game for another round.
Punching definitely helps more with the tension.]
Good.
[She gives him a few breaths once he's in position and then she's moving, using that bit of extra distance for momentum. It's not a hard throw, because she's not actually trying to hurt him here. She's taking in how he moves, adjusting so she can get the timing right when she pushes off her back foot, legs around his neck and she more or less turns her body into a fulcrum as she tries to bodily throw him off his feet with her own.]
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Has she been holding back? God, he both hopes she has and hopes she hasn't, hopes so because it would be incredible to see her push herself even more, to see what she could really do -- and he doesn't, because hell, she beats him handily enough already.
Wash was never Maine, never Carolina, never Tex -- he was never York or North or any of the others, some of the best soldiers he thinks he's ever damned mt, that he thinks could be out there at all. He was never that good, he was never that strong, never that effortless. He kept up through hard work and determination, regimented intensive discipline, train more, train harder, keep up with the rest, be good enough to protect them and watch over them the way they watch over you. Natasha, well, she can say it was the people who took her, can say it was whatever they did to her, but she's without that here and Wash thinks she's pretty damned amazing all on her own. And Wash, for all his dedication, has never had that same touch of brilliance the others had.
He gets in position, readies himself, but for all that he thinks he's learned about the way she fights over the past weeks of sparring together there's something different about this, the look in her eyes and the way she approaches. She pushes off her back foot, and Wash does try to avoid it, to his credit, but her legs around his neck and the momentum is still carrying here forward. Natasha might not be trying to hurt him but the breath still gets thrown out of his lungs as he's flipped bodily over and slammed into the ground, and it takes him a few seconds before he's bracing himself against the ground, pushing himself up slightly, gasping.
Turning around to look at her, breathlessly; ] -- That one's new.
[ There's a smile there, though. A grin. ]
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She's grinning, a bright glint to her eyes as she actually pulls it off this time, watching him as he pushes himself up. It helps, a little, knowing that even without the augments, she can still do these things. She slips up to her feet and she nods in agreement at the statement a faint shrug of her shoulders as she rolls them out. That felt good, she'll admit.]
Haven't been able to pull it off since I got here. [There's a touch of amusement, just a little as she takes a breath.] My usual fighting style was aimed at... hallway clearing. But trying to fight like I used to with how much I lost coming here has been pretty hit and miss, and mostly miss.
[So the answer to whether she's been holding back is not exactly, but she has been a little less than top form as she relearned how to move, how to use her body in a different sort of way. She does avoid fighting as viciously as she's capable of, but she's sure the same is true for Wash. She has no interest in accidentally sending him to the medbay, after all. So their sparring really was good for her, honestly. Helped her relearn how to move, even if it didn't help her regain what she'd lost. Focus, the ability to gauge herself. She wanted it all back, but she'd take what she could get.]
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Another brief moment to really catch his breath because god that'd taken the wind out of him, before he slowly pushes himself up to his feet, wiping sweat from his brow. ]
Learning to fight without my armor again has been pretty rough. [ Not nearly the same, but that's the closest sympathy he can give her, the best solidarity he can offer. The armor was a part of them, in so many ways, and definitely essential to how they moved, how they fought, even how they thought sometimes. Wash has been without it for two months now and still feels himself feeling far too vulnerable, far too naked without it. ] I've been getting used to it, a little at a time.
From where I'm standing, Natasha, that wasn't much of a miss. [ Stretching himself out slightly, reaching up to crack his neck to the side, giving her another grin, the slightest shake of his head. ] I'm sure you'll fix up that track record soon enough.
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She was used to being rely on things more than just herself, and it's part of why she pushes herself so hard here: there's no one watching when she overcommits, pushes too deep. But she catches that slight twitch of a smile, and it warms her expression, puts a certain brightness to her eyes as he catches his breath.]
I can only imagine. [And she can, a little bit. Maybe not what it's like for him, but she can imagine Tony here, without his armor, without Jarvis, and she did his operational analysis and personnel report, she knows how poorly he'd take it.] I miss my gear and it wasn't even a suit of space armor. Also my guns. I really miss my guns.
[There's that curl of a smile at the praise.] It's like you said; I'm getting used to it, a little at a time. First time I tried sparring with someone here it didn't go so well. But I think there just might be hope for my record yet.
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[ A determination, and a promise, there. He doesn't think he'll be able to beat her any time soon, if ever, but damned if he goes easy on her, damned if he doesn't try. Something else catches his attention too, though, missing her guns, and god if he can't sympathize with that. Another thing they can share, that's easier than secrets, than talk about men of vision and people thinking they can play with lives for the sake of their war. For the greater good. ]
I miss mine, too. [ A glance, curious, and about something so much more mundane, now, something easier to talk about, hopefully. ] What'd you use back home?
[ Guns. Lets nerd out about guns. ]
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[Her grin is sharp, a flash of teeth above red lips paired to a touch of smooth laughter, and the glint in her eyes that says she relishes the challenge. She thinks he probably already knows that, though. She likes that he doesn't go easy on her, that he tries, that he's never satisfied. She likes people that push boundaries; if there's one things all of the Avengers it's that, one way or another. There's a twitch of her lips at the commiseration.
Guns. Guns were nice, they were easy. There's an amused toss of her head as she looks up at him. What'd she use?] I still can't believe they don't really use them here. A pair of Glock 26s were my typical carry, though I've rotated through a number of handguns over the years. I've used just about everything at one point or another; depended on the mission. I had a gun locker on the Quinjet for some of my favorite bigger guns. Colt M4A1, a M249 LMG, my Barrett M82A1...
[After all, what girl doesn't love her 50 cal sniper rifle? Yes, Wash, you're found one of her happy subjects. She likes weapons. And gun. Especially guns.]
I also had some custom gear. Wrist-mounted Electroshock weapons with a grappling hook and garrote for emergencies, EMP taser discs, that sort of thing. My friend Tony was working on a plasma rifle, but, it was still a work in progress.
[When she ended up here, she means.]
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It's nice to have landed on something they have in common that doesn't involve personal tragedy ( though this probably does too, if they dig deeper, or even just pause to think about a little, but they've done enough of that for a day, maybe ), though there's probably plenty of those they just haven't had the chance to talk about, what with how little they've spoken. The smile on his face is genuine when she talks about her weapons of choice, and no they aren't particularly familiar to him but what is familiar is the way she talks about them, the cadence to her voice and the way she lists off the models with a familiarity, like they were the names of people that had fought by her side more than the make and manufacture of things. ]
I've fired a plasma rifle. Fired a couple, actually -- Covenant uses them, they were easy enough to pick up in any battlefield. Hell if we know how it works, no obvious mechanisms anywhere on the thing, the triggers don't even seem to connect to anything, but you pull them and it fires, so it's good enough for use. It's got no real sight-line, clearly wasn't made for human hands, and if it overheats, well, I've only ever used one in armor, but I'd bet it'd burn the skin off your palms pretty quick. But if you got used to firing it? [ A low whistle. ] Hell of a thing. Instant third-degree burns, cauterizes wounds on impact, easily burns targets on near misses. At close range the shots can pass straight through a body, human or not, could even slice a limb straight off. Chews up shields like nobody's business.
Post-war, we've been trying to negotiate treaties to let us study the tech. The Sangheili have been pretty cagey about giving it up, though, with what I've heard. [ A pause, a dry laugh. ] Suppose I can't blame them for that.
My old favourite was a BR55 -- just a standard-issue battle rifle back home, but hey. Can't beat old reliable. [ That's what Wash is best at, anyway, reliable, practical, a fallback for when anything else goes wrong, and he has some pride in the skill he has with it. One of the few things he could edge the other Freelancers out in. ] M6G Magnum sidearms, and I'm fond of knives, too.
No wrist-mounted electroshocks, though.
[ But he's had, uh, experience. With grappling hooks. ]
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Instead, she gets to listen as he talks, and boy, aliens with plasma rifles. It's strange, the way that she knows that their worlds are different, and yet there is somehow enough similarity that when he talks about things, she understands, has a story that's similar enough. That's not something she can say even for most people from her own world. She smiles lightly, letting herself slide into the ease of it, to ignore the tales told about men of vision.]
Yeah, when they invaded New York City they had plasma rifles, it's sort of the basis for it, to be honest. I fired a few, like you said- pick them up on the battlefield. But they were certainly nice. I caught one of the Chitauri at close range and it cut straight through. They're still working on figuring out the tech. Most of it stopped working after the battle, but there's been at least one case of people being able to reactivate the dormant models. But, none of it quite seems to be intuitive to any of the techs I've seen working on it -- I'll admit I enjoy seeing Tony struggle.
[There's a flash of a grin there, amused and just a touch mean, but in a vaguely good-natured way.] You have shields? [It's an easy question, and right now they're taking the easy route. Not the one about casualties of the attack and what those plasma rifles did to civilians. Because she's sure he's seen it too, maybe worse, maybe more than she has.] Yeah, I can imagine. We'd like to make inroads with the Asgardians for tech, but even with Thor being on our team they're not really interested. I get the impression they're not too impressed with humans in general though, so we sort of leave things be.
No shame in standard-issue. [She realizes, sort of belatedly that she hadn't actually explained what any of the guns were.] The Colt M4A1 was SHIELD's standard-issue automatic carbine. The M249 was a portable machine gun, ammo drum, telescoping stock, heat shield. The Barrett's my sniper rifle, .50 caliber, effective range of 1800 meters by the book, though I've pushed it out further in the right terrain with good wind conditions and the right bullet.
[She smiles. It's a little edged, but in a good sort of way, more or less. That same sort of way she'd talked about her sniper rifle.] Knives are fun if you know how to use them.