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forbarrayar2017-03-18 02:15 pm
barrayarmods) wrote in forbarrayar2017-03-18 02:15 pm
[ march ii log: ageless beauty ]
Who: Everyone!
What: The skies finally lighten, and so do spirits, but there are still quiet machinations in the dark. The good doctor's fate is finally decided.
When: March 18th - 31st
Where: Barrayaran camp, Cetagandan base & Riverfall Village
Warnings: TBD
Quick links:
Riverfall
Barrayar: Plague / Camp / Missions
Cetaganda: Plague / Base / Missions
First: Special thanks and credit to Vee (veelynn) for lending us her beautiful photography for this event!
TIMELINE
3/19 Art Fair
3/20 York & Ratchet's arrival to the Barrayaran camp
3/22 Raid: Medical Supplies
3/26 Haut Sei's arrival, Eavesdropping Eta
3/27 Eavesdropping Sigma
3/27 - 3/28 Rat Race
3/29 Official reception for Haut Sei
3/30 Mystery Plot
One thing can be said for the month of March: at least the weather's gotten better. By mid-month, while the piled-up snow is slow to melt, the temperatures have now risen to just freezing rather than well below freezing. It's still a pretty cold March, but by this point, anything close to freezing feels like a balmy spring, and they have a nice string of sunny days for the rest of the month.
riverfall
Although their numbers have been thinned by the flu epidemic, Cetagandan patrols still pass regularly through the village, allowing those spying for the Cetagandans to pass along information via dead drop.
Riverfall was hit just as hard by the epidemic as the camp, and by the end of the month, the village houses no more than sixty people. The aid from the outsiders and soldiers in caring for and treating the sick goes a long way, but by the end, there are still a lot of bodies to bury and souls to burn death offerings for. There's an overall somber cast to the village despite the brightening weather.
barrayar
The Barrayarans haven't been hit as dramatically as the Cetagandans, but their numbers are much fewer, and patrols are still thin. Anyone healthy enough is being asked to pull double shifts, stretching their resources where they can, but at least the food situation is improving considerably thanks to both Xav's relief supplies and the lightening weather.
Once seeing both his daughters recover from the flu, Prince Xav leaves camp on the 19th to rendezvous with his transport back to Vorbarr Sultana so he can make another risky attempt at getting off-planet and back through the wormhole blockade. Ezar, as Piotr's aide-de-camp, sticks around -- and so does Negri, of course.
Knowing that it would be safer (if less comfortable) and possibly more useful for the Barrayarans to rendezvous with Micah rather than try to get them back off-planet, Xav leaves Doctor Niadem's fate in Barrayaran hands…and not to great result. Now that the Cetagandans have Micah, Piotr and his general staff -- and anyone in-the-know enough about the situation to provide any advisement -- are still debating what to do about Micah and the wormhole device. They could either try to rescue Micah to their side…or leave them in Cetagandan hands and hope to make contact via one of their informants.
This makes cultivating informants on the Cetagandan side an even higher priority, and if anyone has any ties to outsiders on the other side, personal or otherwise, Piotr wants to hear about it. Any intelligence about the Star Gate Project is vital.
plague
The ill in the camp and Riverfall are recovering, slowly, but the flu is still spreading, reaching its apex, and people are still getting sick. Even as the weather clears up, it's still damp, and many of the sick are falling to pneumonia, a near-certain death without antibiotics. They've already exhausted the medical supplies Xav and Ezar brought with them, and the medical raids went poorly -- only resulting in enough antibiotics for about 20% of the village and camp's combined population.
By the end of the month, though, the Barrayarans are finally beginning to pull through. The camp and village start to recover, with the mortalities over the month total to 58 influenza-related deaths. It's time to bury the death, burn a death offering, and keep on moving on.
camp
Both Olivia and Sonia have recovered from their bouts with the flu, more or less intact despite Olivia's very touch-and-go health for a while. Now Sonia's repaying everyone's visits to her by tending to the sick and helping out where she can. And as the weather warms up and people start to recover, the line for the bath tent starts getting longer…it's still pretty cold, but after lying around in the sickbay tent for a while, few people are going to complain for the chance to wash.
Morale is still buckling, so amidst all the doom and gloom, Sonia decides to try and bring a little levity to the camp by hosting a makeshift little art show on the 19th. The Princess can often be seen with her old antique camera, taking candids or scenic pictures in the mountains, although she rarely shows her work to anyone else. Tonight, though, she has hung up a variety of her black-and-white photos around the camp for the art fair -- some of the candids are even of outsiders, and Sonia's aim seems to be catching everyone in their warmest, happiest moment. There's no sense of tragedy or despair in her work.
She's encouraged as many of the soldiers and outsiders to contribute anything in the way of art -- stories, songs, performance, or craft, she invites it all. A few soldiers make a surprisingly harmonic little chorus, and some visiting villagers give engaging tellings of Barrayaran legends. Lakshmi shows off some of her embroidery, and Beth and Tucker both bring a little singing to the table, although the majority of Barrayarans probably aren't going to appreciate a cappella Queen. Daryl shoots a mouse and either fails to understand art entirely or transcends to a brand new plane of artistic enlightenment. Also, please don't let Tucker pose nude for you.
It winds up doing some good for morale -- giving the soldiers some other context to focus on besides the war, something of an escape, or a reminder of what they're fighting for and what they long to live to see again. And for the first time, Sonia doesn't feel quite so useless.
missions
The medical assistance provided by the outsiders doesn't go unappreciated, nor without effect. Not every day is a success, but at least they manage to keep the mortality rate from climbing too high.
The medical raids are a near-unmitigated disaster, with every single raiding party running afoul of Cetagandan guards and losing some of their bounty on the way out. They only manage to make away with supplies/topicals/OTC analgesics for 40% of the population, vaccine for 20% of the population, and antibiotics for 35% of the population.
The race to Micah's location in Vorkosigan Vashnoi is a frantic one, but despite the outsiders' efforts as well as Natasha, Byerly and Kaidan's efforts to slow down the Cetagandans, the Cetagandans get to Doctor Micah Niadem first.
Here are the unabridged mission results.
cetaganda
Piotr's attempt at psychological warfare was a total success: Zahal is furious over the severed body parts of his own soldiers discovered around the camp, and even more so over the wholly unintentional but devastating biowarfare that comes with it. That part has Piotr rather tickled.
With full intel on Micah's location in hand, Zahal sends as many able-bodied squads to Vorkosigan Vashnoi as he can, including several exotics. Natasha, Kaidan and Byerly work covertly to try and slow the operation down, but ultimately, the Cetagandans still reach Micah first and bring them back to base -- taking proper precaution to vaccinate them before bringing them in, of course. It wouldn't do for their newest and very valuable asset to suddenly die of some backwater plague.
The Cetagandan base is still pretty thin on the personnel front, but they're managing to continue operations as normal. The announcement of the visit from the Handmaiden of the Star Crèche has every able-bodied person on base in a frenzy as they try to prepare and make the base suitable for receiving her. This is clearly an occasion of great honor as well as face -- if she were improperly received, ghem-General Zahal and Lady Diya would surely suffer for it.
plague
The plague reaches its apex in the Cetagandan base, but with Ratchet and Natasha's help, they were able to synthesize a vaccine for the flu. The quarantine isn't airtight, so there's still risk of infection, and they have to make sure those distributing the vaccine aren't at risk of spreading the infection. Overall, they're able to inoculate about 80% of the uninfected population.
Amai makes a full recovery, despite being dramatically (albeit not entirely unrealistically) convinced she was on death's door every second.
By the end of the month, the Barrayaran flu has about a 30% mortality rate on the Cetagandan base, resulting in about 3000 influenza-related deaths.
base
The quarantine remains in effect until nearly the end of the month, but finally, once the epidemic has died down and the Handmaiden has been vaccinated, Haut Sei Navarr arrives. The base hurriedly puts together a formal reception for her on the 30th, and rather than another party, it is just that -- a clearly ritualized receiving of her presence, so rarely seen beyond Eta Ceta, let alone the rest of the Empire.
The reception for Haut Sei is exceedingly formal, and unlike the relatively lighter air of the party last month, inappropriate behavior is going to be much less generously tolerated here. The exotics are not required to attend, but if they do, it'll be about a four-hour reception with a clear ritual protocol that will nonetheless seem very obtuse to outside viewers. Diya is prominent in the reception, being the only other haut on base, and is in fact the only one truly suited to receive her -- although, unlike Diya, Haut Sei does not appear in public unmasked. As is the custom of haut ladies still in their constellations, Haut Sei travels in a float chair encased in an opaque force bubble -- she can see out, but no one can see in. She brings with her a small entourage of servitors known as the ba, who serve not only as testing grounds for new genetic combinations, but are also genetically engineered for loyalty and service. Ba are not clones -- each ba is a work of art unto itself, each carefully created, and while they are not quite so fey in their beauty, the aesthetic effort is undeniable. All of the ba with Haut Sei are curiously hairless, which seems to be a popular trend in their design among the haut these days.
Meanwhile on the scientific end, the Cetagandans are delving deeper into what is officially referred to as the Star Gate Project. They're working with Satya to build a hard-light mapping device, but in the meantime, they have laid out the most crucial parts needed to build it: high-precision electromagnetic bearings to hold up the Necklin rods and spin them by a magnetic field for reduced friction; high-quality seals and pumps to create the necessary vacuum required for precise jump-plotting; something generating EM shielding to prevent interference, a problem unique to creating a Necklin field of this size and in this environment; and high-precision controls and controls software based on those used in existing jump ships, modifications for which are underway. And, of course, the Necklin rods themselves, which they have yet to figure out a way to fabricate.
And now that Micah is on base, the Cetagandans can finally put them to work in the wormhole lab on some of those elusive five-space math problems.
They're still developing their theory of neural netting and how a Necklin field might directly interact with the human brain without a jump implant. Based on their research so far, this may not actually be much of a problem, but there's another factor they have yet to work out: how to key the Star Gate to an exotics' own home universe. The Cetagandan neurologists have a few theories that they're working with Deanna and Natasha on.
missions
With help from the exotics, they're able to vaccinate 80% of the base's uninfected population. Satya and Pearl, despite their hard efforts, have yet to finish the hard-light mapping device by the end of the month.
A few exotics learn a bit more about Sei and Diya's history, as well as Diya and Amai's plans for covering up their less than authorized experiments. It also comes to light that the haut are planning to open gene therapy trials for any exotics who experienced power loss.
The race to Micah's location in Vorkosigan Vashnoi is a frantic one, but despite the outsiders' efforts as well as Natasha, Byerly and Kaidan's efforts to slow down the Cetagandans, the Cetagandans get to Doctor Micah Niadem first.
Here are the unabridged mission results.
Note: Negri, Amai, Zahal, and Olivia are available for threads by request only. Please hit up Madi (Negri & Amai) or Ammay (Zahal & Olivia) respectively for you want threads with either of those NPCs. You can also request a thread with Village Speaker Yakiv Gura if you want, in which case hit up Madi.
What: The skies finally lighten, and so do spirits, but there are still quiet machinations in the dark. The good doctor's fate is finally decided.
When: March 18th - 31st
Where: Barrayaran camp, Cetagandan base & Riverfall Village
Warnings: TBD
Riverfall
Barrayar: Plague / Camp / Missions
Cetaganda: Plague / Base / Missions
First: Special thanks and credit to Vee (
veelynn) for lending us her beautiful photography for this event!TIMELINE
3/19 Art Fair
3/20 York & Ratchet's arrival to the Barrayaran camp
3/22 Raid: Medical Supplies
3/26 Haut Sei's arrival, Eavesdropping Eta
3/27 Eavesdropping Sigma
3/27 - 3/28 Rat Race
3/29 Official reception for Haut Sei
3/30 Mystery Plot
One thing can be said for the month of March: at least the weather's gotten better. By mid-month, while the piled-up snow is slow to melt, the temperatures have now risen to just freezing rather than well below freezing. It's still a pretty cold March, but by this point, anything close to freezing feels like a balmy spring, and they have a nice string of sunny days for the rest of the month.
riverfall
Although their numbers have been thinned by the flu epidemic, Cetagandan patrols still pass regularly through the village, allowing those spying for the Cetagandans to pass along information via dead drop.
Riverfall was hit just as hard by the epidemic as the camp, and by the end of the month, the village houses no more than sixty people. The aid from the outsiders and soldiers in caring for and treating the sick goes a long way, but by the end, there are still a lot of bodies to bury and souls to burn death offerings for. There's an overall somber cast to the village despite the brightening weather.
barrayar
The Barrayarans haven't been hit as dramatically as the Cetagandans, but their numbers are much fewer, and patrols are still thin. Anyone healthy enough is being asked to pull double shifts, stretching their resources where they can, but at least the food situation is improving considerably thanks to both Xav's relief supplies and the lightening weather.
Once seeing both his daughters recover from the flu, Prince Xav leaves camp on the 19th to rendezvous with his transport back to Vorbarr Sultana so he can make another risky attempt at getting off-planet and back through the wormhole blockade. Ezar, as Piotr's aide-de-camp, sticks around -- and so does Negri, of course.
Knowing that it would be safer (if less comfortable) and possibly more useful for the Barrayarans to rendezvous with Micah rather than try to get them back off-planet, Xav leaves Doctor Niadem's fate in Barrayaran hands…and not to great result. Now that the Cetagandans have Micah, Piotr and his general staff -- and anyone in-the-know enough about the situation to provide any advisement -- are still debating what to do about Micah and the wormhole device. They could either try to rescue Micah to their side…or leave them in Cetagandan hands and hope to make contact via one of their informants.
This makes cultivating informants on the Cetagandan side an even higher priority, and if anyone has any ties to outsiders on the other side, personal or otherwise, Piotr wants to hear about it. Any intelligence about the Star Gate Project is vital.
plague
The ill in the camp and Riverfall are recovering, slowly, but the flu is still spreading, reaching its apex, and people are still getting sick. Even as the weather clears up, it's still damp, and many of the sick are falling to pneumonia, a near-certain death without antibiotics. They've already exhausted the medical supplies Xav and Ezar brought with them, and the medical raids went poorly -- only resulting in enough antibiotics for about 20% of the village and camp's combined population.
By the end of the month, though, the Barrayarans are finally beginning to pull through. The camp and village start to recover, with the mortalities over the month total to 58 influenza-related deaths. It's time to bury the death, burn a death offering, and keep on moving on.
camp
Both Olivia and Sonia have recovered from their bouts with the flu, more or less intact despite Olivia's very touch-and-go health for a while. Now Sonia's repaying everyone's visits to her by tending to the sick and helping out where she can. And as the weather warms up and people start to recover, the line for the bath tent starts getting longer…it's still pretty cold, but after lying around in the sickbay tent for a while, few people are going to complain for the chance to wash.
Morale is still buckling, so amidst all the doom and gloom, Sonia decides to try and bring a little levity to the camp by hosting a makeshift little art show on the 19th. The Princess can often be seen with her old antique camera, taking candids or scenic pictures in the mountains, although she rarely shows her work to anyone else. Tonight, though, she has hung up a variety of her black-and-white photos around the camp for the art fair -- some of the candids are even of outsiders, and Sonia's aim seems to be catching everyone in their warmest, happiest moment. There's no sense of tragedy or despair in her work.
She's encouraged as many of the soldiers and outsiders to contribute anything in the way of art -- stories, songs, performance, or craft, she invites it all. A few soldiers make a surprisingly harmonic little chorus, and some visiting villagers give engaging tellings of Barrayaran legends. Lakshmi shows off some of her embroidery, and Beth and Tucker both bring a little singing to the table, although the majority of Barrayarans probably aren't going to appreciate a cappella Queen. Daryl shoots a mouse and either fails to understand art entirely or transcends to a brand new plane of artistic enlightenment. Also, please don't let Tucker pose nude for you.
It winds up doing some good for morale -- giving the soldiers some other context to focus on besides the war, something of an escape, or a reminder of what they're fighting for and what they long to live to see again. And for the first time, Sonia doesn't feel quite so useless.
missions
The medical assistance provided by the outsiders doesn't go unappreciated, nor without effect. Not every day is a success, but at least they manage to keep the mortality rate from climbing too high.
The medical raids are a near-unmitigated disaster, with every single raiding party running afoul of Cetagandan guards and losing some of their bounty on the way out. They only manage to make away with supplies/topicals/OTC analgesics for 40% of the population, vaccine for 20% of the population, and antibiotics for 35% of the population.
The race to Micah's location in Vorkosigan Vashnoi is a frantic one, but despite the outsiders' efforts as well as Natasha, Byerly and Kaidan's efforts to slow down the Cetagandans, the Cetagandans get to Doctor Micah Niadem first.
Here are the unabridged mission results.
cetaganda
Piotr's attempt at psychological warfare was a total success: Zahal is furious over the severed body parts of his own soldiers discovered around the camp, and even more so over the wholly unintentional but devastating biowarfare that comes with it. That part has Piotr rather tickled.
With full intel on Micah's location in hand, Zahal sends as many able-bodied squads to Vorkosigan Vashnoi as he can, including several exotics. Natasha, Kaidan and Byerly work covertly to try and slow the operation down, but ultimately, the Cetagandans still reach Micah first and bring them back to base -- taking proper precaution to vaccinate them before bringing them in, of course. It wouldn't do for their newest and very valuable asset to suddenly die of some backwater plague.
The Cetagandan base is still pretty thin on the personnel front, but they're managing to continue operations as normal. The announcement of the visit from the Handmaiden of the Star Crèche has every able-bodied person on base in a frenzy as they try to prepare and make the base suitable for receiving her. This is clearly an occasion of great honor as well as face -- if she were improperly received, ghem-General Zahal and Lady Diya would surely suffer for it.
plague
The plague reaches its apex in the Cetagandan base, but with Ratchet and Natasha's help, they were able to synthesize a vaccine for the flu. The quarantine isn't airtight, so there's still risk of infection, and they have to make sure those distributing the vaccine aren't at risk of spreading the infection. Overall, they're able to inoculate about 80% of the uninfected population.
Amai makes a full recovery, despite being dramatically (albeit not entirely unrealistically) convinced she was on death's door every second.
By the end of the month, the Barrayaran flu has about a 30% mortality rate on the Cetagandan base, resulting in about 3000 influenza-related deaths.
base
The quarantine remains in effect until nearly the end of the month, but finally, once the epidemic has died down and the Handmaiden has been vaccinated, Haut Sei Navarr arrives. The base hurriedly puts together a formal reception for her on the 30th, and rather than another party, it is just that -- a clearly ritualized receiving of her presence, so rarely seen beyond Eta Ceta, let alone the rest of the Empire.
The reception for Haut Sei is exceedingly formal, and unlike the relatively lighter air of the party last month, inappropriate behavior is going to be much less generously tolerated here. The exotics are not required to attend, but if they do, it'll be about a four-hour reception with a clear ritual protocol that will nonetheless seem very obtuse to outside viewers. Diya is prominent in the reception, being the only other haut on base, and is in fact the only one truly suited to receive her -- although, unlike Diya, Haut Sei does not appear in public unmasked. As is the custom of haut ladies still in their constellations, Haut Sei travels in a float chair encased in an opaque force bubble -- she can see out, but no one can see in. She brings with her a small entourage of servitors known as the ba, who serve not only as testing grounds for new genetic combinations, but are also genetically engineered for loyalty and service. Ba are not clones -- each ba is a work of art unto itself, each carefully created, and while they are not quite so fey in their beauty, the aesthetic effort is undeniable. All of the ba with Haut Sei are curiously hairless, which seems to be a popular trend in their design among the haut these days.
Meanwhile on the scientific end, the Cetagandans are delving deeper into what is officially referred to as the Star Gate Project. They're working with Satya to build a hard-light mapping device, but in the meantime, they have laid out the most crucial parts needed to build it: high-precision electromagnetic bearings to hold up the Necklin rods and spin them by a magnetic field for reduced friction; high-quality seals and pumps to create the necessary vacuum required for precise jump-plotting; something generating EM shielding to prevent interference, a problem unique to creating a Necklin field of this size and in this environment; and high-precision controls and controls software based on those used in existing jump ships, modifications for which are underway. And, of course, the Necklin rods themselves, which they have yet to figure out a way to fabricate.
And now that Micah is on base, the Cetagandans can finally put them to work in the wormhole lab on some of those elusive five-space math problems.
They're still developing their theory of neural netting and how a Necklin field might directly interact with the human brain without a jump implant. Based on their research so far, this may not actually be much of a problem, but there's another factor they have yet to work out: how to key the Star Gate to an exotics' own home universe. The Cetagandan neurologists have a few theories that they're working with Deanna and Natasha on.
missions
With help from the exotics, they're able to vaccinate 80% of the base's uninfected population. Satya and Pearl, despite their hard efforts, have yet to finish the hard-light mapping device by the end of the month.
A few exotics learn a bit more about Sei and Diya's history, as well as Diya and Amai's plans for covering up their less than authorized experiments. It also comes to light that the haut are planning to open gene therapy trials for any exotics who experienced power loss.
The race to Micah's location in Vorkosigan Vashnoi is a frantic one, but despite the outsiders' efforts as well as Natasha, Byerly and Kaidan's efforts to slow down the Cetagandans, the Cetagandans get to Doctor Micah Niadem first.
Here are the unabridged mission results.
Note: Negri, Amai, Zahal, and Olivia are available for threads by request only. Please hit up Madi (Negri & Amai) or Ammay (Zahal & Olivia) respectively for 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.
no subject
…he hoped not.
But Wash was asking him again, and dude, someone was persistent, weren’t they? Tucker looked back to him, his shoulders rolling, and damn he was bad at lying.]
He got sick. I carried him out. [It wasn’t exactly a lie, was it? Not…really. But the agitation over the whole thing was thick in his voice, the frustration over being kept out of the loop when they were supposed to have each other’s backs. Dammit.] Dude, it’s not a big deal; we’re back, we’re alive and it sucked. Why do you care so much?
no subject
[ He made a friend, Tucker! But of course, that's not why he's pressing, here. It's unlikely that anyone is going to be questioning Tucker too closely about this mission in specific, but if it happens, if anyone else catches wind of anything and decides to ask Tucker about it, these are the questions he's going to have to face. He wants a measure of how well you're going to do against it -- he won't lie to Miles about how much he has to worry about. If it is viable that you'd cave and tell someone if they dug enough, he'll have to tell Miles that, too.
Wash folds his arms over his chest, drums his fingers against his arm. ]
You don't want me to actually make you write out your mission reports, do you? [ Because he goddamn will. Give him a proper report, soldier. ] He got sick?
no subject
He warred with the secret for a few seconds, before his shoulders fell and he just gave up; he was too tired to fight against Wash of all people, the one person here he trusted above all others. He had shown him rashes, for God’s sake, had gone to him with his worries, his fears, with the weight of leadership on his back.
…And he really didn’t want to write out mission reports.]
Fucker had a seizure. Right there, in the med room, just dropped down and it felt like forever. [The palm of his hand ran over his hair.] There was no way he was getting out of there on his own, so I gave him a piggyback ride right the fuck out of there.
no subject
Wash can see how Tucker struggles with it for a few moments before he gives in, and his eyes are hard as he watches him, as he takes in that information -- and he sighs, the tension in his own shoulders easing. ]
You're going to have to do better than that if anyone else asks you. [ Note how completely unsurprised he clearly is at the news of Miles having a seizure. Sorry, Tucker. ] Thanks for getting him out of there, though.
How long did it last? [ Because of course he's going to be more concerned with those details than he is about telling you the circumstances of the secret, sorry, Tucker, but there are things and protocols one adheres to when dealing with someone who's seizing okay. He's had that training. ] What did you do?
no subject
[It’s not the lack of surprise that gets Tucker; it’s what he says. It’s the insinuation that he knows it’s a secret that needed to be protected, sheltered, kept from anyone else. It’s that he didn’t trust Tucker, after everything. Wash knew.
Wash. Fucking. Knew.
The other follow up questions were forgotten, because screw that, Dr. Freelancer, go check on the patient yourself. Tucker would worry about them later, when he wasn’t wrapped up in a rage so tight that it made his hands curl into fists at his sides. Tucker was, as always, a billboard projection of what he was feeling, from the wideness of his eyes to the way his mouth opened, shut, opened, then shut once more with his jaw tightened.
Wash always had secrets, and whatever, he let most of them lie. But this…?]
You fucking knew and you didn’t warn me that this shit could happen?! What the eff, Wash?! We could’ve fucking died! Shit, I still don’t know how we didn’t!
[There was a step back before he turned on his heel and started to pace, because no. Fucking no.]
Why?!
no subject
Dr. Freelancer is going to come back to those questions because asking the person who had a seizure how long their seizure lasted doesn't really work, but Tucker's anger is -- expected. Wash wishes he didn't keep so much from Tucker, he really, really does, but this is who he is, has a hundred things he'd tell some people and not others. Wash's shoulders sag a little more, and he just lets Tucker yell at him, lets him start to pace. The anger is understandable. The anger is well-deserved. ]
I thought about staying close enough to your team to know if something went wrong, but the objective Lucy and I had was different. I -- thought the chance was low enough that we could take the supplies.
[ And because, well, he'd had Lucy with him. Tucker he would trust, and Lucy seems a good person, but a civilian. ]
I'm sorry, Tucker. You know I would've told you if I could. [ He tries. He does try to be honest with you. He really does, he just. ] You would never have heard it from me. It would've been his own decision to trust you with it, if he made it -- it'd be his life at risk, if that secret made it out.
no subject
I don’t need you saving my ass, Wash! I just need to have the fucking information to save myself and my goddamn teammate!
[Because this wasn’t about sticking close enough together or having a babysitter; this was about being kept in the dark. It was about willfully omitting shit when he almost died, when Miles almost died. It was about being tired and hurt and frustrated and—
--and dammit, Wash, when you put it like that, it’s hard to keep this rage going. It was Mile’s secret to share or deny, and Wash was just holding onto it, but…] I thought we had each other’s backs. [I thought you were the one person I could trust.
Either way, he just let his hands unclench, fingers slowly shaking out. Godammit.]
He’s lucky that I was the one that was there. There’s enough people around that would have left his ass right there.
no subject
It was his secret to keep, Tucker. You know it now. [ A breath, slowly unfolding his arms, tucking one hand into the pocket of his coat. ] And I'm glad it was you.
Now, please. [ A little pointedly. ] Tell me what happened. More detail.
no subject
[Those weren’t mutually exclusive.
But Tucker gave up a little more; this wasn’t over, he was still pissed, but he didn’t know where the anger belonged: Wash, Miles, the system that forced it into hiding? All of it?]
We were in the room looking for meds; he looked like shit and then just…fell over. I didn’t time the seizure – dude, do I look like a doctor to you? – but I tried to keep him from biting his tongue off and whacking his head against the floor. [And both of those were from a movie. Medical training? Not given to any of them; if he could put a bandaid on someone, he was lucking out. Neurological afflictions? Well beyond him.]
He looked worse after. Asked me who I was, thought he was going to puke on me, all that. We managed to get him on my back and…I ran. [On legs you helped to craft with all those laps.]
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Just give me a rough estimate. A few minutes? More than five? [ Inquiring minds need to know. ] Don't put anything in a seizing person's mouth, they can't control how hard they bite -- it's more dangerous to them, might damage their teeth or something. Controlling his head was a good idea, though. You did well.
[ Honest praise. You didn't do perfectly, but you did what you could, and Wash does appreciate that. ]
Nausea and confusion is common after a seizure. Miles told me that for his, he'll usually be fine after leaving him to recover on his own for a while. [ A heavy sigh, looking back at Tucker. ] You do know why this has to be a secret, right?
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[Oh, come on, Wash, he sort of at least knew that. It wasn’t like he was Doc.] I’m not stupid enough to put my hand in there; I just didn’t want them to bite his tongue or chip his teeth so I tried to use my gloves? You know, not while wearing them. [But the praise, goddamn, that felt good, worked out the worst of anger and just replaced it with an easing calmness he had been lacking. He had done well. Fuck yeah, he had.]
We didn’t actually have “a while”, Wash; we should have been mowed down in that room. I don’t know how we weren’t. [Luck. Fucking luck, it had to be.] All he told me was that he would be kicked out of the camp if it got out. Which – by the fucking way – is stupid! In what way does that make any sense!? Fuck, this place is just dumb.
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Don't put anything in their mouths, was my point. Not a glove, not anything, okay? Just -- for next time, if there's ever one.
[ And hopefully there won't be. He listens though, nods, his expression grim, he knows it'd have been a massive risk, with Miles as incapacitated as he was, with their cover already blown and Tucker trying to carry him on his back . . . At least he's well trained for that. He sighs. ]
It's cruel, but a lot of things on Barrayar are. [ That doesn't mean he approves. He definitely fucking doesn't. ] He'd be kicked out, and with how slim the options are and this being the dead of winter, he'd easily die out there.
-- Do you know how these people ended up here, Tucker?
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He wanted us to get some anti-seizure med, but we couldn't find any. [The sigh was heavy, annoyed, with reason.] We probably could have if he had told me sooner what the hell it was that he looking for, but whatever. Shit's done now.
[Unless they went back. Unless they tried again, but getting the clearance without saying why was going to be next to impossible. He was too tired to think about it right now, just like he had been too tired to keep angry for long. There was too much to piss him off around here.
Like the whole culture of Barrayar. Tucker made a face, eyes narrowed a little. Was there anything to like about these rebels?] Mind reminding me why we're on this side of the war again? Because right now, I'm thinking of just living in the goddamn village and not being a part of either messed up war sounds pretty good.
And no, but I bet you're going to tell me.
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But for Wash it really mostly just about the enemy of my friends. Miles had been a large part of this, hadn't it, he realizes suddenly, belatedly. A large part of how convicted he feels to their cause now? Damn it all. ]
It's our best option at the moment, Tucker. [ His tone here is conversational, not authoritative. Not an ultimate right answer he's trying to press, because he knows it isn't one. ] Fight for the people who fight next to you.
[ He really hoped you might've at least tried to ask someone something about Barrayar, Tucker. Wash really doesn't feel like the right person to tell you, given that he's just as alien to it as you are. But, well. Memory, and all that. He brings up Miles' words, recalls them easily. ]
Barrayar was settled by people fleeing a nuclear disaster. The wormhole they used to get here collapsed after their arrival. They've been isolated here for over seven hundred years, cut off from the rest of the galaxy, on an irradiated planet that was barely terraformed for human life. The culture that formed here as a result isn't all that tolerant of physical deformities -- and they lacked the resources and medicine to be able to treat anyone, anyway.
[ And he'll let Tucker try to string that together, first. Limited resources, limited population, complete isolation and a sudden crash from the tech they used to have -- maybe that'd make how brutal Barrayar is a little more understandable. And of course, Miles as he is, is already on thin ropes around the camp. Being prone to seizures isn't going to help his case any. ]
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That shouldn't matter; people have enough sense not to be dicks, Wash. That's the real moral of this story. [Use excuses all you want, but when the strongest person he knows was reacted to differently than he was, well, that shit went right out the window.]
I don't have to like it. I mean, I'll tell anyone who will listen what bullshit I think this place is, but I know they're too fucking stubborn to listen to an outsider.
[Ever. They would never listen, but it didn't mean he wouldn't talk about it, would shut up and get in line. That's pretty much the exact opposite of what Tucker usually did.]
God, it makes Chorus look pretty black and white.
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Illyan is native, he was born here. I'm sure you can put together that he hasn't exactly had it easy -- he's been living with this shit his entire life. [ And even before, in some ways,from what Wash understands, from a few things Miles has said. ] This is a risk to him, and our sense of moral superiority doesn't exactly rank over that.
[ He sighs, there, relenting, shoulders sagging again, his tone softening. He understands, Tucker, he really does, but he needs to press the point about how keeping this secret is fucking important. You don't need to tell him about how fucked up Barrayar is. He knows. Miles knows. Everyone on this damn planet has to know, one way or another. ]
I don't like it any more than you do, but whether or not we like it doesn't change what it is. I'm not saying you have to back down, that you can't ever stand up for what you think and believe, but you have to pick your battles, Tucker, and pick them wisely. And this? [ He shakes his head. ] This we have to let lie.
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[Pick his battles. Yeah, he got that; most of the battles he wanted to pick were ranked in the zero range. He didn't want to fight, wanted to keep to himself, wanted to say fuck it to most of this shit that had nothing to do with him, but he was liking people here. He was liking a lot of people here.
It made it harder to stay out of fights.
Still, he knew Wash was right, but goddamn, he didn't have to like it. Rolling his eyes, there was a shake of his head but he gave up. He gave up to this.] Fine. Fine, it's stupid and I fucking hate it, but fine. It's his fight, although this place is dumb and I'm still going to tell everyone it's bassakwards.
[Not that anyone actually listened to him.]
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Thank you.
I wish it were easier, but this is what we have to work with, here. [ Looking at Tucker, something like a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. ] I fucking hate it too, for the record.
[ Less of a CO, more of a friend. You aren't alone on this, Tucker, he just -- kind of has to be the responsible one. A lot of the time. But goddamn does he hate a lot of this, just as much as you do. ]
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He was back. He was back and somewhere close there was a cot with his name on it. ]
Kinda hard not to. [But he smiled, too, exhausted and worn out and--] Look, on the bright side I'm going to go crash for a million hours in a way that makes Grif look like an amateur, so no one's going to be getting shit out of me for a long while.
[Not that there was anything to worry about now; his mind was made up and he'd keep that secret for as long as he needed to. It was a promise.]
Night, Wash.