[ february ii log ]

[barrayarmods]

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.

Comments

[littlemissfutility]

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.

[shri]

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.

[littlemissfutility]

"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.

[shri]

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?"

[littlemissfutility]

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.

[shri]

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."

[littlemissfutility]

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?"

[shri]

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."

[littlemissfutility]

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.

[shri]

"She," it's a mild correction, as she watches her move. Tsking faintly for where Beth needs to improve and giving a quiet murmur of approval when she does right. In that way she keeps it fair. What is done correctly is alway given praise and what isn't is explained in soft words. Never patronising for all she can be shockingly bad with that sometimes, but not when it comes to learning, to encouraging, to making better. "Mastani Bai was a warrior and a princess. She was as gifted with her blades and spears as she was in singing and dancing. She was beloved by her husband for both."

Though at her last words, bring out a laugh, which immediately turn into a cough that shudders her breath momentarily. Has to take a second to clear it. "I did start a great deal younger than you. As many years, and no doubt you will - 'kick my ass', is it?"

Which sounds - ridiculous coming out of that proper accent that she always talks with.

[littlemissfutility]

Beth laughs, sitting back down on the bed beside Rani. It's hard to listen to the woman cough--she seems so much older than she was a few weeks ago, and everything that comes with that is tough--but hearing her laugh is nice. Better, hearing her talk about ass-kicking with that precise voice of hers. Rani's never said that in her life, has she?

"You're kind of scary," she says, grinning. "I'm pretty sure you could kick my ass in twenty years, too."

She pauses a moment, considering Rani, and after a moment or two, asks, "Was she related to you? Mastani Bai?"

Maybe it's the equivalent of Smith, the name Bai, but she's curious."

[shri]

It does wonders just the same to see Beth laugh in turn. To share it. She has been miserable - worse than that, though she'd never say it, still grieving something of herself that the Cetagandan's had dragged out for their own purposes.

It feels good to do something else but think about it and wait for her death.

"Scary?" Her eyebrows go up mockingly, then waves it away, well she supposes she might be. The rest of it is easy. "No, not at all. Though I grew up in passing with her Grandson, when we grew older, we fought together in... well, in many battles." She swallows, he was... a good man. Prone to his own foolishness, but weren't they all? He fought to his last, like his Grandmother before him, with as much nobility as she was said to have possessed. "In the language of my home, 'Bai' is added as... perhaps as you would think of saying 'Ma'am', it is added to a woman's name if she is respected or an authority of some manner. An... acquaintance of mine, he often calls me 'Lady Lakshmi', which is near enough to meaning as well."

Easiest way to put it, really.

[littlemissfutility]

"In a good way," she clarifies. Scary the way Maggie is, when she wants to be--so capable and forceful that you might as well try to talk down a hurricane. Beth's starting to think everyone should be able to draw up that kind of scariness when they need to, just in case they need to someday.

She listens to Rani's explanation in a slightly embarrassed silence. Talking about all this history, history she's still about fifty percent sure is about her Earth, reminds her of how much she never learned. Having the opportunity now--a second chance that's more like a continuation of her first chance--counts for something, and she won't squander it, but it's a rocky learning phase.

Luckily, Rani doesn't seem to mind, and her explanation of Bai draws a smile back to Beth's eyes. "That's nice. Respectful."

Rani alone seems kind of rude by comparison, even if it's part of a title as well.

[shri]

Well, at least if it's in a good way. Her eyes lower briefly, bemused as she looks to her sewing again, adjusting it into her lap along the tear she was working on. "Respect has always been important to me. So I was honoured to have it added to my name by my people. I have tried to deserve it as best I can."

She pauses there. Wondering at her question and she wants to learn, she can tell that much. Asking after such things, asking about her name, taking up swords. "Do you like such stories?"

Tentative. It would be nice to - share something, so removed from everyone. At least, with Devi, quietly of a morning they might share between them things neither of them had a hope of seeing again.

[littlemissfutility]

"I like all kinds of stories." Life and death, love and war, stories told and stories sung--especially with so little to do here once the work's done, stories make a difference.

And she thinks, maybe, that Rani could use a story or two, herself. The way she looks at Beth when she asks looks hopeful. It can't be easy to shoot here and wait to get better, even with uniforms to mend. "Do you?"

[shri]

A nod, adjusting the sewing again in her hand as she turns it on the angle. Perhaps if she doesn't look at her, it is easy to say - perhaps she can do it of her own volition, speak of thing that they had pulled from her. A deep breath in, then out as she brings herself to try and say something more to her. Her husband - she begins. There were always dancers and - she bites her lip. The day the theatre was built, there were plays for a week -

She can't, and she frowns at her work.

"Very much so. It is good. With so many different people here, there should be many stories."

[littlemissfutility]

Rani looks frustrated suddenly, or maybe unhappy--like she's forgotten the words to a song she'd thought she'd memorized. Beth's not sure what to make of it. It's difficult to decide whether she ought to ask the woman a question or let the silence between them reign, even though it isn't exactly comfortable. The rules Rani lives by are, in some ways, too different from Beth's to know what to do about them.

Not deciding is its own decision in this case. Beth is silent, and so is Rani, and then Rani speaks, and it's impossible not to wonder if this is what Rani meant to say.

She agrees, a little non-committal noise in her throat. And then, tentative, she adds, "Makes it easier to be here, when you can talk about home."

[shri]

"It can be, yes." She doesn't wish to venture on her own, not right now. After some time, some moments where she can mourn for awhile.

"Why don't you tell me of yours?" That at least will be easier. She shifts herself back into her blankets, into the pillow propped up behind her in the insistence of the physicians this morning that she should still be resting. The sewing is tugged back comfortably into her lap, taking up the needle once more to begin her stitches. "I have never seen the new continent. I am told it is very beautiful there."

[littlemissfutility]

"It is. Our farm, it's--" She corrects herself. "It was everything you could want. We had cattle. Some crops."

The words come out half-hearted, but she tries to push through it. "Georgia has the prettiest flowers. Bluebells, chicory, Cherokee roses..."

And I'm never going to see any of it again. Beth tries to quiet the thought, tries to bury it under something else, but she can't find anything that'll muffle it enough. The quiet stretches out around her, empty and indifferent.

[shri]

Quiet that they can both feel, quiet is such an awful thing. The quiet of a cell, the quiet after battle, the quiet that comes with realising you will never go home again. It has many qualities, and not least amongst them, the ability to rot. Like a river carving a canyon wider, and wider, and wider, until it was possible how to ever cross it.

There's no point in pretending about it otherwise. So she doesn't. Simply she shifts, arranging the sewing in her lap to be out of her way even as she moved it closer, ignoring it for the moment and instead she pats the spot she had just vacated. "Come, for a moment."

She could say no, and it wouldn't be an insult, just an offer, the same as she had given her before. If involving a lot less impromptu dragging her off this time.

[littlemissfutility]

Beth's motionless for a moment, watching Rani gesture to the space on the bedroll next to her. And then, giving a little shrug, she moves over, taking up that little space beside Rani.

It feels almost like sitting next to Maggie. Not quite like Mama--nothing's going to bring back her mother, nothing will ever be like her again, but Maggie survives. No matter what she comes up against, Maggie lives on. And that makes it easier to see her in others, tough and kind in equal measure. She has to stop herself from settling her cheek against Rani's shoulder.

[shri]

She might stop herself, but Lakshmi has no interest in it, her arm slips up and around, soft against Beth's hair and tugging her in close so she can kiss her temple. Firm, sure, anchoring. Affection this open that she wouldn't spare to most, true enough, but in this it is the only thing that matters.

"The memories never get easier, but it's important to have them." Tucks her into her side, her fingers finding her hair and drawing through it slowly. "I dream of my home, every time I sleep." Doesn't add, that those dreams turn to smoke and screaming and horror in the battle that was the last time she ever saw Jhansi. But for a time, it was peaceful.

[littlemissfutility]

It's kind of her. Gentle, kind--she's not sure when somebody last kissed her like they were family. Beth relaxes a little, letting Rani stroke her hair, and slips an arm around her in turn.

"I'm never going back, Rani," she admits, her voice low. If they weren't sitting so close, it'd be inaudible--and she wouldn't say it. She hasn't told anyone since Daryl said it to her, the night he'd arrived. Even now, she's not sure she wants to get into it, but the words slip out anyway. "I can't."

[shri]

Little songbird, all perched and shivering with grief and cold. She keeps her in close, pressing her face into her hair as she speaks. Squeezing her tightly as she speaks. "What has happened?"

Patient, if she wanted to say nothing, she was free to keep her silence, but if she needed the support, she had that too.

[littlemissfutility]

"Nothing." She wants to mean Nothing, never mind, but she doesn't. It hasn't happened yet--not for her, and not ever, if she can help it. There's no proof that they'll be able to return, anyway, no explanation for how they got here in the first place. But if that ever changes, she'll send others back to their homes and know all the while that she'll never see Georgia again. "Nothing yet. But if I go home, I'll die."

She can remember Daryl's hand on her head, near to where Rani's rests now. It leaves her tense, suppressing a shudder at the memory.