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.
littlemissfutility: (32)

[personal profile] littlemissfutility 2017-01-10 02:36 am (UTC)(link)
"Well, you're not. I had a life before this, you know." Sometimes it was pretty terrible, but it was real. All the crazy relatives in the world don't change the fact that she's not a figment of this guy's imagination.

But maybe he's a figment of mine. Maybe she's lying on the floor of the hospital as they speak, twitching while the trade-off stalls around them. Or maybe the trade-off never happened, and she's actually dozing off next to Carol. If the hospital was even real. Once you start wondering if everything happening is just you being so crazy that you think you're on another planet, there's nowhere to stop besides your birth. So it's not a good possibility to dwell on, because it's too huge to consider--and there's no real solution for it, anyway.

"And I've seen what people can do. But that'd be a huge thing to cover up--wouldn't it? The whole world is covered in walkers. Somebody would notice, even if nobody gave a damn." Because that's the problem with that possibility, because it assumes that the whole universe is so full of assholes that nobody else cares that Earth's being consumed by the dead. And she can't do any more with that than she can the possibility that she's just nuts. "So a whole other universe looks like the best idea we've got."
vorrutyer: (shaaaahhhhts)

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-10 02:47 am (UTC)(link)
"Oh, not necessarily," By replies. "I mean, you might not necessarily be on Earth at all. You could be on another terraformed planet you're told was Earth. Someone could have seeded that planet with a human population, and then a genengineered population of your not-dead men, left them to shamble about..." He strokes his beard thoughtfully as he considers the possible culprits in that scenario. "Beta Colony would have the resources and technology to do that handily enough, but they wouldn't, bless their soft hearts. Jackson's Whole might be able to and would, if they could hang up enough cameras, make it into some sort of holodrama - but they'd also want to have people pay to watch it, and no such thing has been advertised. So if it were anyone, it would be Cetaganda, trying to have you fight to the death so that the most genetically superior could be airlifted out to have their genes extracted and spliced into the next generations."

What a dreadful thought. And how...plausible. Well, plausible morally. Not in terms of practicality.

"But - yes. That would be an enormous undertaking. Hiding a livable terraformed planet alone - that would be phenomenally difficult. The heretofore unknown seems more likely than the wildly implausible."
vorbratta: (and throw me back in the ditch again)

[personal profile] vorbratta 2017-01-10 03:14 am (UTC)(link)
"What industry?" Sonia asks curiously, brow knit. She doesn't know what else there is for Zarya back home. She does smile a little, though. "You would be good at that, I think. Probably better than me. I think they'd do better if they just stuck me on a pole and waved me around a bit."
vorbratta: (give me an answer)

[personal profile] vorbratta 2017-01-10 03:14 am (UTC)(link)
Sonia's hand does fall away from Beth's shoulder, eventually, if only because it seems rude to touch a stranger for too long. She smiles, tiny, rueful.

"I think it's a different kind of dangerous." She sits back on her heels, fisting her hands in her skirt. "I am glad that the dead stay dead. There are just...so many of them." And war -- war is so much more personal, even on the biggest of scales. "At least with...with them, it isn't because they hate you, or...want to control you. There's no greed or spite or vengeance in it."
vorbratta: (so little darlin)

[personal profile] vorbratta 2017-01-10 03:15 am (UTC)(link)
Sonia almost looks disappointed. She's glad to have another Barrayaran to talk to -- someone so much like herself, although he's at least several years her senior -- somehow the knowledge that he arrived her along with all the outsiders puts a bit of a damper on it.

But then he mentions the secret again, and oh, Sonia is invested in this game. She'll work for that secret.

"How I engage myself?" She lets the question hang in the air for an extra moment, smiling broadly. "Oh, you know. Staring at the moons in soulful contemplation. Braiding my hair. Long walks on the mountainside..."

She lets out a pfff and tosses her hair over her shoulder, still grinning. "Spending time with my sister, whenever I can. She always does make time for me." It's important, maybe one of the most important things to her in this war. She contemplates telling Byerly about the sport she's made of ditching her armsman, but hm, no. Not the time to let that slip. She pauses for a moment, thoughtfully, and then she turns slightly diffident, lacing her fingers together.

"I have an old camera," she confesses, "rather an antique, at least by galactic standards. But it still works. I take pictures, and...collect them, mostly. Some things ought to be remembered."
littlemissfutility: (40)

[personal profile] littlemissfutility 2017-01-10 03:25 am (UTC)(link)
"No," she agrees. It's hard to mean anything personally when you can't actually mean anything at all. "They can't help what they are. But there are thousands of them out there. Maybe millions."

And hardly any of us. Never mind what it is to look at all those corpses and know they used to be people. You can reason with people on the other side of a war. You can only burn the dead.

But it's not a competition. Both situations are awful, even if she prefers the look of all this pristine countryside. "I guess there are millions of Cetagandans, too."
vorbratta: (okay okay dolore)

[personal profile] vorbratta 2017-01-10 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
"Billions." Sonia's gaze drifts into empty space. "Billions of them on every planet, and they have eight. And it isn't enough for them."
dendarii: (cunning plan)

[personal profile] dendarii 2017-01-10 03:34 am (UTC)(link)
Because it's no, of course.
vorrutyer: (explaining everything (badly))

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-10 11:43 am (UTC)(link)
Is it?
dendarii: (no shit)

[personal profile] dendarii 2017-01-10 11:44 am (UTC)(link)
What else would it be.
vorrutyer: (condescending aka default)

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-10 12:41 pm (UTC)(link)
[ By spreads his hands. ]

The nature of a yes-no question is that there are at least two possibilities.
starsneverpay: (Queen bitch)

[personal profile] starsneverpay 2017-01-10 02:06 pm (UTC)(link)
Now, if there's a time one would want to seek comfort or relief from a bottle then it's definitely now. It's been a long, exhausting and confusing day and Elsa certainly wouldn't object to a schnapp or two. Nor to opium. But unfortunately, she has none of those in her possession at the moment, and she has an appearance to keep. Especially in this new and strange world where she needs to be careful. She, just like everyone else, is currently dependant on the mercy of the soldiers.

But it should be noted that while she can understand why someone choose drunken oblivion over the present it still doesn't her stop from judging. She sees the drunk man, babbling nonsense and bothering those around him. How typical, she thinks to herself and huffs out irritated air as she brings her attention back to cigarette she was lighting, intending to leave the man alone.

Which definitely would have been much easier if a spoonful of groats hadn't just flied at her, nearly hitting her.

"Schaisse!" She screams a German curse and directs her, stern and angry glare at him. Luckily she's still wearing one of the green coats that soldiers had given her during the hike, but one could see a perfectly fine and elegant dress along matching heels. "Oi, you drunkard. Watch it!"
littlemissfutility: (28)

[personal profile] littlemissfutility 2017-01-10 03:35 pm (UTC)(link)
"Then they don't need another," she says, though she privately has the feeling that having billions of people across eight planets mashes them think they need dozens more. And then, after a moment, she adds, "You're not doing a bad job, if they haven't taken this one yet. Ten years is a long time to survive."

Even if they aren't winning, they're putting up a good fight, by Beth's measure. That must mean something.
littlemissfutility: (Default)

[personal profile] littlemissfutility 2017-01-10 03:49 pm (UTC)(link)
The whole idea is incredibly unsettling. The more the man talks, the more it sounds like it could be a real possibility--like maybe the problem isn't that NASA never got past the moon, it's that everyone's been lied to for...what, decades? Centuries? How does that explain their farmland, or the stories her parents told her about the past?

She's pretty sure she was right the first time: the whole idea is screwed up. But it's starting to sound like the kind of screwed up the world's always been. People have always done unthinkable things to each other. Would it really make that much difference if they were doing them to all eight billion people?

It sounds like it'd be hard to do it, but the idea is still a little better than a different universe. She'd prefer the idea that they could find some non-Earth planet and rescue Maggie, Rick, and everyone else.

Beth shakes her head, worry pinching her features. "It doesn't really matter until we actually go someplace," she finally says. "It's all the same from here. "
vorrutyer: (hung over 1)

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-10 06:10 pm (UTC)(link)
"Wise child." He sighs windily, but he's hardly even being sarcastic - she is quite right on that account. The solutions to their larger problems, this mystery they've been thrust into, is far beyond their grasp. At the moment, they're limited to resolving lesser problems: don't starve, don't pitch headlong off a cliff, don't get your throat cut by Dendarii hillmen. Don't freeze to death. He suppresses another shudder - even this exertion isn't sufficient to keep him warm. He does hope the girl is doing all right...

"We've not exchanged names, have we?" he asks. "Byerly. Vorrutyer, obviously - eugh, how loathsome, that I introduced myself as Vorrutyer before I introduced myself as By. I consider myself an individual, rather than a representative of my family. Not a Vorish trait, but I'm not a Vorish Vor." He sweeps a half-bow, stumbles theatrically, rights himself, hiccups, and says, "Who are you?"
littlemissfutility: (Default)

[personal profile] littlemissfutility 2017-01-10 06:31 pm (UTC)(link)
"I'm not a child," slips out of her, a little petulant. It's obvious that she doesn't look like much--she's starting to think maybe that's a good thing, if they don't realize what she can do if she has to--but there's something about being talked down to that still rankles a little. (Almost, in fact, like she's a teenager being a teenager.)

That same petulance, not to mention her lingering wariness about the guy (Byerly. By.), leaves her hesitant to introduce herself in turn. But for all she doesn't think she trusts him, she can't deny that he's given her plenty of useful information on this stupid, freezing walk. It might be helpful to have an ally when they get wherever they're going, even an ally kept at arm's length.

"Everyone's a representative of their family," she says instead. You're the sum of the people you know and all the things you learned from them, and all the ways your personality bent those lessons. Even if you don't like them, they're part of what makes you you. And then, after another moment or two considering, she adds, "My name's Beth."
Edited 2017-01-10 20:13 (UTC)
vorrutyer: (intent)

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-10 07:13 pm (UTC)(link)
"Really." The smile that crosses his face is not, for once, flirtatious or coy or ironic or theatrical, but rather genuinely surprised and charmed. How curious. The pursuit of art - at least art of that sort - is not a standard Vor-lady pursuit. Nor a standard prole-lady pursuit. Barrayar, especially Occupation-era Barrayar, never had time for aesthetics and appreciation. Less so for the recording of history - because as she said, the pictures are for remembrance, but at this time people are more in a desperate scramble to live, rather than thinking of what their descendants down the line will think of this time. Something that has left his generation rather the poorer with regards to their knowledge.

So, altogether without flattery, with genuine curiosity, he asks, "Would I be able to see them? I'd quite like to."
dendarii: (cunning plan)

[personal profile] dendarii 2017-01-10 10:03 pm (UTC)(link)
Not in this case.
vorrutyer: (rolling eyes)

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-10 10:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Fine. Yes, Vorkosigan, you're a hideous mutie mess. It'll be well worth the two bullets to put you down - one for each head, of course.
vorrutyer: (hmmmmm not bad)

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-10 10:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Hah. He shoots her a wry grin, then lifts his eyebrows and gives a flourish of his hand. "A wise wizened crone, hobbling around on her creaky arthritic knees, complaining of throwing out her hip and occasionally coughing up actual dustballs, then," he says, then sweeps that hand to the side so he can lower himself in a little bow. Then he lifts himself up again just in time to avoid actually stumbling on a rock outcropping. As convincingly as it would make him look drunk, he'd sooner not actually fall and break his face.

"So are you a representative of your family, then? I notice you didn't give me any family name. Not that I'd know them, of course, you being a prole galactic and all."
dendarii: (aloof)

[personal profile] dendarii 2017-01-10 10:53 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm told my head is big enough for that.
vorrutyer: (hung over 1)

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-10 10:56 pm (UTC)(link)
You're such a mutie mess, the Emperor's dispatched someone to cut off all four of your father's balls.
dendarii: (exercise)

[personal profile] dendarii 2017-01-10 10:57 pm (UTC)(link)
Tell me something I haven't heard.
vorrutyer: (rolling eyes)

[personal profile] vorrutyer 2017-01-10 10:58 pm (UTC)(link)
You're such a mutie mess, they say your mother eats through her ears and talks through her twat.
dendarii: (solpadeine114)

[personal profile] dendarii 2017-01-10 11:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, Betan. What can you do about it.

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