barrayarmods: (Default)
For Barrayar mods ([personal profile] barrayarmods) wrote in [community profile] forbarrayar2016-12-19 09:43 pm

[ january i log: barrayar ]

Who: Everyone
What: Arrival on Barrayar and what follows
When: January 2nd - January 17th
Where: Barrayaran guerrilla camp
Warnings: None (at the moment)


welcome to barrayar.
It's the dark of night when you come to in the foothills. Snow on the ground, chill winter wind whistling. 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 nine 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.

They're dressed in weather-worn green uniforms, bearing swords and bows, and they surround you immediately, poised to attack. But they quickly realize you're not their enemy, the ones they call Cetagandans. They're just as confused as you are, but rather than hanging around to puzzle it out, they start shepherding you toward their camp in the mountains while it's still dark. There's a war on, they say, and you unlucky bastards have just been dropped right smack in the middle of it.

the guerrilla camp
It's a few hours' hike through the mountains to get to their hidden camp, set up in a clearing framed by dense, hard forestry and backed against a rock face. Daylight is finally dawning when you make it there. You and your fellow sudden arrivals are ushered to an empty tent on the far end of the camp, just big enough to fit all ten of you. You can't help but notice they've posted guards all around it. You aren't under arrest – they just don't know what else to do with you.

You are able to glean, from hearsay and what the soldiers are willing to share with you, that you are on a planet called Barrayar, and this is their home, and ten years ago they were attacked without warning by the Cetagandan Empire. They've been holed up in the mountains fighting against their invaders ever since, outgunned and outmanned, but scoring little victories where they can. They don't tell you much more than that. Some dialect of Russian seems to be one of the predominant languages of the camp, but for the most part they all speak English too, if with an accent. They're gruff and wary, and if you look a little less – or more – than human, they'll eye you with suspicion, maybe even make obscure hex signs at you that seem intended to ward off evil or disease. But they aren't hostile to you, not unless you start something with them.

the outsiders' tent
It's not in the greatest shape, but if you look around the camp, the rest aren't much better off. It's cramped, but you've at least been provided with bedrolls and heavy wool blankets to ward off the frozen chill, and if you're in need of clothing, they'll provide it, although it probably hasn't been washed in…a while. The soldiers bring you food at mealtimes -- not very good food, mostly tough meat and groats, and they keep you your own campfire, just to keep you warm. They've also hastily dug you your own latrine area at the edge of the perimeter, just behind the treeline. No private bathroom stalls in this outfit, unfortunately. The entire camp seems tense and wary, and the soldiers are alert, but they don't talk much. You could try sneaking past them, but you probably won't get far.

Well, at least you've got each other for company: the outsiders on Barrayar.
vorbratta: (give me an answer)

[personal profile] vorbratta 2017-01-05 01:14 am (UTC)(link)
"Miles," Sonia says helplessly, looking both a touch distressed and frustrated. This man is a tiny, self-contained disaster. Good God. She bites her thumbnail anxiously. "You don't get much warning, do you?"
dendarii: (034)

[personal profile] dendarii 2017-01-05 01:17 am (UTC)(link)
He feels a bit guilty slamming his homeworld like this, but - well, it adds to his story. As does the faint note of homesickness in his voice, he hopes. "Just so. Difficult to return for many reasons." And he'll leave it at that for now. Mostly because there are more interesting topics to discuss.

Other courses of action, eh? He rubs at his chin lightly, and suppresses the urge to pace. "Assisting with the resistance?" he asks. Obviously he's no soldier, but he has other talents. "Barrayar may not like my sort much, but it is my home." A beat. "And I've no love for Cetaganda."
dendarii: (bg059)

[personal profile] dendarii 2017-01-05 01:18 am (UTC)(link)
Sorry, great aunt. He ducks his head at that bit of helplessness. Certainly he's not making things easier for himself, but he needs someone who might be able to talk Piotr out of throwing out a useless seizing mutant.

"Alas. Minutes at most," he says. "I get a sort of aura just prior."
truevor: (pic#10326015)

[personal profile] truevor 2017-01-05 01:57 am (UTC)(link)
Those poor Jacksonian Communists, all three of them.

Olivia's nod towards him is slightly more amicable at the correct guess of her home world -- so whoever he is, underdressed and out of his element, he's observant enough to catch and identify her accent. Strange, but better that than someone they must carry or risk letting them fall behind. And they can't afford to lose any more Barrayarans, even ones that look like he does. "Once, maybe," she concedes, "but I would rather be here on Barrayar than somewhere else, helpless to watch from a distance."

She is Vor, after all. The Vor, in a way -- not like the Emperor-her-grandfather, but Vorbarra. Her marriage to Piotr Vorkosigan had only changed her name. "I assume you arrived here, with the rest of the outsiders, instead of the result of unfortunate circumstances. Or else you'd be wearing something warmer." He is, of course, free to correct her. But that leaves the matter of what District, and who.
vorbratta: (o-o-okay dolore)

[personal profile] vorbratta 2017-01-05 02:29 am (UTC)(link)
"Ha!" Sonia claps her hands and laughs. "Do you really? God, I'd pay to see that." She tosses her hair over her shoulder and makes a slight face. "Barrayar's kind of...behind the rest of the Nexus on some things. Especially that kind of thing."
truevor: (pic#10326015)

[personal profile] truevor 2017-01-05 02:46 am (UTC)(link)
The respect, however given, goes a long way. It's that, more than the hints of a more prestigious past, that make Olivia nod in return, a deeper dip in an echo of the deepest bow she's received. The fact it is a woman giving it does not escape her, and rather than finding it offensive, it's possibly the most interesting thing to come of the outsiders in Olivia's personal opinion.

The hint of something that could, with time, become a smile lingers at the corner of her lips as she gestures the other woman forward. "It does. Would you rather discuss it here, or somewhere less public?" She's not opposed to attempting privacy -- not fully, as two men in brown and silver livery lurk behind her several paces, and have at every appearance. They, she knows, will find it their duty to keep her safe.
littlemissfutility: (35)

[personal profile] littlemissfutility 2017-01-05 03:12 am (UTC)(link)
Beth watches him spin around and back again. She doesn't bother joining him; everything's unfamiliar enough without making herself dizzy on top of it. Eventually he'll figure out where, and she'll look--except that he doesn't, so she just keeps looking at him and curling her fingertips around the cuffs of his (her?) coat.

"Must be a busy place." Out here in the sticks, it's hard to imagine Barrayar having a bustling city, but anyone in rural Georgia might have said the same thing about Atlanta once. She likes to imagine it's out there somewhere--maybe with time and some effort she could get out there, find a way back to Earth, and even if she doesn't stay, get her sister and the rest of their group out of the reach of the walkers. Her voice grows a little quieter. "Where are you going to go? Back to your house? Or--?"

He's still got the noisy good cheer of somebody who's had too much to drink. A happy drunk, maybe a blind happy drunk. But if she can steer the conversation in a softer-spoken direction, maybe she can turn it toward the means he's planning on using to get out of her. Letting him holler out the answers seems like a really bad idea.
vorrutyer: (world-weary (and smug))

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-05 04:14 am (UTC)(link)
Which you're not going to, because you're too memorable.
dendarii: (cocky lil bastard)

[personal profile] dendarii 2017-01-05 04:15 am (UTC)(link)
So we're agreed, then. Good.
traitorous: (MORTAL.)

sry for his awkward lakshmi

[personal profile] traitorous 2017-01-05 07:20 am (UTC)(link)
That's unexpected.

She moves closer, and every military-bred instinct in his body tells him that she's a threat because no one voluntarily moves closer to him unless it's with a knife or a gun in their hand (or a sword, in some very rare, very strange cases). All she has in her hand is a scarf, held out to him in silent offering. For the blood, she says. He hadn't realized he was bleeding.

Maine blinks once or twice just to be sure that she's actually there, and once he confirms that yes, she definitely is, he gathers his hands against the ground and heaves himself up into a kneel. The pain in his head is still very present, twisting the trees into fuzzy green shapes, and he sways unsteadily for a few seconds before the world rights itself and he can focus. On the soldiers, cutting through the rocks and frozen brush to check on the remaining eight. On the scarf, dangled across her open palm. On her face, committing small details to memory.

THANKS, he writes with one finger in the snow, after he's carefully plucked the scarf from her hand. He presses it to the gash on his temple. Thanks doesn't feel quite good enough for a stranger who came to his aid when she absolutely didn't need to, so he finishes it off with two dots and a backwards c. :)

Better. Or the best he can do right now, anyway.
shri: (» and the shivers move down)

Maine you are a big dumb cutie wth

[personal profile] shri 2017-01-05 09:01 am (UTC)(link)
She waits, careful on her haunches. It's like watching a wounded animal, curling over himself. Seen it before, seen it in herself. The nervous, waiting for the blade to drop. The need to lick wounds and hiss at everyone and everything out of sheer rejection of intentions. Once she remembers as a child, her father showed her a wounded horse, badly treated, it could not bare to be touched. Patience was how it was coaxed to the hard, not force, and patience, when you're twenty five going on sixty, is easy to cultivate.

Well, sometimes, when she's not in the middle of her own wars.

So she waits, when he looks like he might fall, she braces herself to catch the considerable size of him, a hand that hovers to assistance for him to take if he wants. But there's no jumping, no forcing him, he will take it, or he won't and when he does gather the scarf from her, she offers the barest of a smile. Flicking up at the edges of her mouth, crinkling in the corner of her eyes. She might have a pretty smile under all that ornamentation and severity.

When he writes and does not speak, she is not bothered by it either, or even inclined to speak up until that drawn ... C? With dots? Her English tutors hadn't taught her what that meant. Perhaps it was just a ... emblem of gratitude? Didn't assume either way, just graciously nodded her hand and where her hand is loose from the wrist, she waves it away. "No matter, I assure you. Keep it as long as you need."

A moment where she almost reaches out - he's not one of her men, she does not have the right. So she taps the corner of her eye on the same side of her face to where she means on his. "There is a little there still, I think."
Edited (Weird sentence structure and typo cries about phone tags) 2017-01-06 00:24 (UTC)
vorrutyer: (punchable eyebrow)

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-05 02:47 pm (UTC)(link)
"Are we Jacksonians?" he sighs. "Must we Deal? I thought we were good Barrayarans. Honor-bound to care for the weak and downtrodden amongst us." A hand clearly indicates who in this situation is weak and downtrodden. "I, madam, have come here with nothing but the clothes on my back - and the wits in my head."

He tilts his head to the side and smiles slyly, saying, "Well. And the prettiness of my face. But that's something you've no need of, I'm sure."
vorrutyer: (Backpfeifengesicht)

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-05 03:05 pm (UTC)(link)
"Off-bloody-planet," he declares at once. "My house will hardly be safe. How long before the Cetagandans come knocking on my door? Or, worse, these cave-dwellers - " He gestures around himself. "Wanting to cut my throat for desertion. Because make no mistake - they're a primitive-looking lot, but Barrayar is not a primitive planet. Our spies are the best in the Nexus." Even if those spies are not always made for mountain-climbing. Even if those spies have absolutely no idea what's going on right now, and how Cetaganda got on-planet, and who's responsible, and why this is all happening...

"No." He leans in and raises his eyebrows and lowers his voice. "I'm going to march right over to the flat of my distant cousin Captain Ivan Xav Vorpatril, in the Old Town district of Vorbarr Sultana - he works for Military Ops, understand - and I am going to tell him, you can sneak me on board a courier, so sneak me on board a courier. And he will, because he is bloody honorable."

He blinks at the girl, then, like he's seeing her for the first time. And he says, slowly, "You should come with me when I do. He'd definitely never be able to turn you down if you asked. He's quite the knight in shining armor, you know - if he sees some kid in distress, he'll definitely help." Or run off on your own, find him, get him to dump you on the first fast courier out of here and away from this war. Don't bother to wait for me. Ivan sure as hell wouldn't help By out of here, but he'd absolutely help this girl.

"Where are you from, anyway? Which planet?"
vorrutyer: (serious)

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-05 03:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Ha. That just confirms his guess of her Vor status - most unarmed, untrained, non-soldier women would run away from a battle, but a Vor lady? Towards it. They're up here in the Dendarii - is she Vorkosigan, then? He frowns for just a moment, a little puzzled. Surely not. He does not exactly take pains to stay apprised of the comings and goings of House Vorkosigan, but they're prominent to the point that he can't exactly help knowing their make-up. (Besides which, Vor society is his specialty, so...technically speaking, he actually does exert pains to know people's family trees, who's related to whom, who can exert pressure on whom, et cetera. The Vorkosigans simply aren't his favorite, that's all, because they are unpressurable.) There's only Viceroy Admiral Count Vorkosigan, Vicereine Countess Vorkosigan, his favorite dimunitive twerp Auditor, Ekaterin now-Vorkosigan (pity, that), and Miles Vorkosigan's strange clone brother.

"My thanks, milady, for crediting me with that many wits. Indeed; I'll admit that in the milder climes of Vorbarr Sultana, we do not have much of a concept of the chill the poor Dendarii folk suffer, but I'd have at the very least picked out a greatcoat to wear if I'd had forewarning." Just slipping in that reference to his residence, and the climate therein, in case the lady becomes suspicious about whether or not he is truly Barrayaran. After all, if he were Cetagandan - ugh, shudder, perish the thought - he would desperately want some agents up in the guerrilla camp. And who better to be trusted than a Vor?

Her slight warming to him - or at least slight unchilling - emboldens him enough that he decides to ask. "Who's leading this camp? I hope I do not err in assuming it's Count Vorkosigan. No?" Aral Vorkosigan, after all, has the experience, and it's his bloody District. Would he have returned from Sergyar yet, though? Or perhaps it would be a better strategy to keep him there, to lead a second front...
vorrutyer: (explaining everything (badly))

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-05 03:35 pm (UTC)(link)
[ By sighs, rubbing at his eyes. ]

If I were to move over to the Cetagandan side...It wouldn't be easy, you know.
dendarii: (solpadeine111)

[personal profile] dendarii 2017-01-05 03:36 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Miles nods at that thoughtfully. ]

Best with the general's blessing if you can manage that. Otherwise you won't make it back in one piece.
vorrutyer: (annoyed and/or stressed)

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-05 03:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Just so. I'd sooner not be the first of your grandfather's Vorrutyer casualties. To say nothing of how much intel from a defector would be trusted, which is to say: not at all.
dendarii: (solpadeine130)

[personal profile] dendarii 2017-01-05 03:42 pm (UTC)(link)
[ A wince. For all that they've argued back and forth here, Miles very much does not want Byerly dead. ]

Then you definitely need his trust first. I still think the time travel story is going to go over poorly, but ... [ Given it's Byerly's skin on the line, it's Byerly's decision. ] I'll get you what information I remember from the Academy. Wish Galeni was here.
vorrutyer: (haughty (and smug))

you're a beautiful woodland creature

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-05 03:43 pm (UTC)(link)
"No offense," he says breezily. "My Russian is wretched, that's all. Now, if you want to switch to French, that's a little more my style."

He smooths back his hair, then, and sighs, "I can stand, at least. Oh, God, I can't describe what I'd do for a hypo of synergine, though. I don't suppose you have any synergine...?" He eyes the guerrillas. "I don't suppose they have any synergine..."
vorrutyer: (explaining everything (badly))

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-05 03:46 pm (UTC)(link)
Hm. Well - if you'd like to know my thought process - history won't have diverged too much. At least not yet. So if we anticipate and foil a few Cetagandan attacks - we can say it's through native wit rather than forewarning, if you would like, which ought to please you, a bit of late-in-life approval from your barbarian ancestor - we should be able to build up a bit of trust.
littlemissfutility: (38)

[personal profile] littlemissfutility 2017-01-05 03:46 pm (UTC)(link)
She doesn't quite ask, but he answers anyway. A name, a place, a reason to leave. Captain Ivan Xav Vorpatril, in the Old Town district of Vorbarr Sultana--if she can just remember that, she can get out of here. Captain Ivan Xav Vorpatril, in the Old Town district of Vorbarr Sultana.

And things implied, like don't cross these men and their swords and get as far away as possible and the Cetagandans won't be any more help--she does her best to store all of it away.

At the suggestion that she join him looking for this Vorpatril, she just tries to look like she's thinking about it, neither too eager nor too repulsed. Given the choice, she'd leave without him and probably never see him again; it seems far safer than leaving herself in his private company, indebted to him, no less.

"Earth." There are plenty more specifics, but she's not sure how much countries and states matter when most of their residents are dead. Voice purposely light, she admits, "I didn't know there were other options before this."
dendarii: (bg036)

[personal profile] dendarii 2017-01-05 03:48 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Miles twitches a bit but - well, he can't really deny wanting approval from his grandfather. Dammit. ]

All right. Let's try that. It'll have the added benefit of actively helping the resistance.
vorrutyer: (punchable eyebrow)

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-05 03:55 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, no comments now about the space-time continuum? Astonishing how that concern suddenly disappeared.
dendarii: (TW_S1_E2_0063)

[personal profile] dendarii 2017-01-05 03:57 pm (UTC)(link)
[ Rather flatly: ]

I've never been against the thought of helping. Just not too much.
vorrutyer: (confused)

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-05 03:59 pm (UTC)(link)
"Uh." That comment gives him pause. He looks at her, his expression for just a split second more sharp than foolish, before he schools it into a more artistic, exaggerated look of confusion. "Really." He must be misunderstanding her meaning. Earth, after all, is the endpoint for all pilgrimages, all tourism, all knowledge-seekers. Even if she were completely uneducated, raised in a cabin somewhere in...oh, wherever there aren't many people, he certainly doesn't know Earth geography...she'd probably still have met at least half a dozen off-worlders before she could even walk. That's what they do on Earth. They help idiot off-worlders.

Or, well, he assumes, at least. It's not like he's ever been to Earth. He'd always sort of wanted to go, admittedly, see the sights, see where they all came from...Ah, well. The life of impoverished nobility is truly not as glamorous as they make it out to be.

"Meaning you never thought you'd actually be able to go off-planet?" he suggests. "I do understand that. Interplanetary travel can seem like a distant dream if you're without funds. Hitch a ride with someone else, that's the way to do it."

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