[ february i log ]

[barrayarmods]

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.

Comments

[shri]

[ her hands stay on the glass, for all he tells her to sit, but he gives her a name. 'Daryl', mouths it slowly to form the word in her mouth. Her ally, now, apparently.

Had to pick, had to pick.

Maybe it meant nothing, but she's dying, she knows she's dying, little by little, not the way she should. Not quick and at once and all together, on a battlefield. Not with Devi, no one to close her eyes, to lay her body into fire. No one to put her ashes into a river - so far from the Ganges, so far from the rights she had in utter devotion, as she had done for her husband.

No one she had given her name to willingly. Only been pulled from her.

She had to pick something, anything. A breath, a deeper one, something fogged wider as she draws her a line across to give her space she wants. Written with her littlest finger, a drawn out ceremony. Someone to know it, even if he did not even so well in English, it is not quite about him. This is purposeful as she curls around the letters of her language she has no one else to speak with, in it. ]

झांसी की रानी
लक्ष्मी बाई

[ and then, lower, the same curving way. It's no secret now, regardless. Her fingers shaking still ever so as she curls them into her hand. ]

Lakshmi Bai
Queen of Jhansi

[pigsfeet]

[Only when she provides a translation to the looping vines and tree branches she drew does he realize that's a different language, not the doodles of a mind lost to illness. It's a way to separate what she says from the reality of his station. Royalty doesn't touch things and people like him. That can't exist on the same plane.]

[But he can't deny, from the look in her eyes, that she believes what she says.]

sit down your highness

[He stares at her a moment, the slow way she moves; he can almost imagine he hears the creak of her bones with every heavy motion.]

your sick

[shri]

[ If they were speaking, she'd duck back with a word that orders weren't given to Queens, even as she went to do it. But without it, she just ducks her head as she shakes it.

To his question - well, she thinks the sickness she has been pointedly ignoring since she arrived in the cold is getting to her. Yes, she is sick, isn't she? She feels as though she has a fever, but it's hard to tell if it's that or withdrawal from the blackwater. This tremor, the breathing that she feels laboured she can't tell either, the wound through her shoulder aches almost constantly could be as much the reason. Her body a chorus of aches and pains held at bay that come now to collect their dues.

She almost nods as she goes to the chair they had provided, mercifully close to the glass that she can continue to write to him. Leaning against it, where it's getting hard to stay standing up, but pride says she must. She is a Queen, she cannot let anyone see her fall too much.

Takes a deep breath, forms the words, the simplest way of putting it. A breath she coughs out onto the glass, wincing for how it wracks through her. ]

I'm dying.

[pigsfeet]

[It goes right to his heart. He can feel it, a tectonic echo of the hospital, the gunfire bouncing off the white walls, the cold and the snow. The whole scene's been replaying over and over through his mind since he got here, over a month ago. Maybe it's the pristine walls of this compound, the way everything's always a little too clean, smelling slightly of soap and solution. He doesn't know. All he's got is the fact that he's there again.]

[He touches his head to the glass. It's more weakness than he'd let anyone see if they weren't on death's door. There's something in that vulnerability to be shared. Something he should have done with Beth, when he had the chance. Shouldn't have hid in false words.]

[He still hasn't mourned.]

[To the dying queen behind glass (isn't there some fairytale like that?), Daryl can only say one thing:]

why

[shri]

[ That answer is long - a half century of reasons why. This battle and that, this wound and that scratch. This monster and that soldier. A blur of sieges and burning buildings. Of violence and endlessness and dying only to take a deep breath and fight again.

To end up here, to more of the same, and this man that wants to know why she's dying. That looks so grieved - it cannot be for her. A woman he's just met, a sunken, half dead queen. That answer too, probably too long. She is too jaded, too scared, to say anything of its truth to him, right now. ]

I cannot say.

[ she thinks he will understand. She's in an enemy camp, trapped. How can she trust any of them? ( Made that mistake too many times ) ]

[pigsfeet]

[Daryl closes his eyes when he sees her words. He knows what he has to do. In his heart, in a place too deeply hidden to be admitted to, he knows the reason. He knows what he's been looking for.]

[Death is everywhere. If you become afraid of it, it wins. If you aren't afraid, it still wins. It always wins. You just have to fight. Make death work for its inevitable victory.]

[Daryl fixes the queen with the sharpest look of determination he can muster.]

cant or wont

[shri]

[ She deserves that look, and in a strange way, it dispels the notion that he might be spying for them little by little. He doesn't look like a frustrated agent. Or someone irked that he's not getting what he wants. Frustrated at something else, whatever it might be.

He looks so determined, rather. So she spells it out to him plainly, fixing him with the same level look ( or as near as she can muster, strength costs her everything but it's determined ). ]

How can I trust you?

[pigsfeet]

[Good. She's still got some fight left on her. Somehow, that thought is immensely encouraging. She's not going to roll over and give up. That makes it almost worthwhile. They'll lose, they'll both die. Of course they will. Daryl has seen his death creeping toward him for weeks. But they won't go down easy.]

[Of course, there's nothing he can say to convince her, but they doesn't matter. Nothing does under death's sheer shadow.]

your dying

what have you got to lose

[shri]

[ She is hardly patriotic to Barrayar, it is not her home, and to get even half what she ought to be given, she has to fight tooth and nail for it. Sink her proverbial claws into every last thing in the effort to do what she was capable of.

But in the vain that she had promised Miles she would let herself be killed rather than hand over the secrets of the blackwater, she supposes, it doesn't matter, does it? She has already sworn. To the Countess Vorkosigan. To Miles. To Maine. People she promises herself to come back for. That she promised to burn for.

Her finger hesitates on the glass, this time. Slower, and this is the stakes they're playing at. ]

This war.

[pigsfeet]

[He understands it all, suddenly. Her weariness. The hopeful look in her eyes. The way she can't trust. The word 'queen'. It's who she is, because she can't not care, or blame herself. Shit, she's like Rick.]

[She just might make it through this.]

[Arguing with Rick about guilt never goes anywhere. He doesn't try. Daryl knows what Rick would want to hear, in a situation like this.]

if you die you cant win it

[shri]

[ Which really, only leads to one question left after that - because he has her at the one thing that she cannot fault on. She does not want to die in here to someone else's war. She wants to see them to victory, urging like she did her horses in battle, war cries in her mouth. ]

Why should I trust you?

[ That she writes as steadily as she can, fixed, determined, a promise so plain her face. She will die, if that is what is required of her, and it will be done with the same measure of purpose as she would fighting her way out of it.

But there is a desperateness to it, give her something solid, something to make her feel less alone. ]

[pigsfeet]

[Daryl stares at the words until they evaporate. If she's like Rick-- and she is, he thinks he can tell-- there are a lot of ways to reply. There are a lot of ways he wants to, but doesn't know the simple words for in missives written on glass.]

[Because I want these assholes to burn. Because they hate me as much as they hate you. Because what they did to you is wrong. Because no one should die alone.]

[But if she's like Rick-- bleeding weight and responsibility and command until nothing but bones remain-- none of those words matter. The future gets the shit kicked out of it, when you've got it balanced on your back. Nothing light and airy as a stranger's promise can remain.]

[Because you told me your name, and it looks like curling vines and tree branches.]

nothing I say will convince you

[But.]

you dont deserve to die

[shri]

[ His words - writ in mist - are a wave upon her. Slow and sinking, dragging her down. Her eyes shut briefly - a reflexive turn away. No one can see this, even as she's being watched, she knows she is. By Gods or this enemies many, many eyes, by him looking into her. Her head turns away, swallowing down - wishes for her veils for the first time in a long time.

She will never forgive the Cetagandans for doing this to her. For leaving her with her heart a staccato to her throat, the gold shimmering light about her as a reminder to her if no one else, of what she is. Her fingers in her lap, curling into themselves, trying to make this choice, she has to make this choice. Trust him or - you don't deserve to die - not.

Lakshmi Bai, rises, again. But this isn't stricken, determined: he's giving her something, something hope like and ash tasting. Opened up flat in her eyes, aching in her teeth. The soft skirts from the party the night before that trail behind her. She looks him dead, straight in the eye. War cries and queenly decrees that curve in the shape of her mouth and flow out of her fingers as she mists over the glass again.

Placing this dry wood kindling, logs and matches to strike into his hand. This will be the death of her if he betrays her.

The simplest answer is best. She traces the pattern of the ouroboros on the blackwater with a single line of focus. A weaving, looping thing. The snake devouring itself to knotted purpose. ]

Find it.

[ She leans forward, forehead tipping to the cool panel against the fever of her withdrawal, the ache of her aging. There is a lot of things to say, my loyalty is yours now, it is my life, thank you. All of them short quick words of misery and gutted intentions. Mean nothing, nothing, nothing. Sure that he will leave her destroyed in the same breath that she places all that she is into his palm.

No, she leans forward, settling herself, open, empty, there with nothing to guard it, to place her palm against the glass. Flat weaving life lines that crisscross with battle scars and callouses. A intention that is plain, and call it anything else. Right now, in this?

She needs him. ]

[pigsfeet]

[At first, he thinks it's more curling branches of her native tongue. Only at the end, just as the picture is about to fade, does he realize it's some illustration. Snakes curled in on itself? He doesn't know. The shape is enough to stick in his memory, and he studies the after-image as it disappears.]

[It's clearly a mark, a symbol of some kind. He nods, taking the order without thinking. Daryl chafes under the weight of authority usually, but this is a special case. Requests from dying women are to be followed without hesitation.]

where is it

[shri]

[ She shakes her head slowly. She doesn't know where they have taken, wherever it empire hungry demons take such things. Away from her is the most important detail she knows. ]

Where ever they take such things from us.

[pigsfeet]

[That still tells Daryl a lot of what he needs to know. That it's on an object, not a sign on a doorpost. That it was originally hers. That it was stolen.]

[He doesn't answer in more smudged words. Daryl nods, resolute seriousness, and presses his palm against the wall like she did, once. The conversation, if it can be called that, ends where it began. Without any more wasted time, he turns to go on his search.]

[shri]

[ She aligns her fingers to his through the glass, as close a proximation as she can. Taking slow, deep breaths as she measures him through the glass one more time. Win or lose now, she's placed her bet. This might be the last thing she ever does, trusting him.

It was done, now, a veritable rubicon.

She steps away from the glass after he goes, her eyes trailing him out of the room.

It might be dangerous, but when she goes back to curl up in the small bed afforded to her, she takes a deep, easier breath. ]