[ january i log: barrayar ]

[barrayarmods]

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.

Comments

tent

[changeth]

Beth is difficult not to notice in some ways -- young, slight, so out of place in a harsh environment like this, he thinks. (Little does he know.) Their group of arrivals is small enough that he had some opportunity to familiarize himself with all of them, at least enough to pick them out of a crowd; not that they don't all stand out, for the time being, in a strange mishmash of clothes and treated with wariness by the locals.

He's laying out his bedroll for something to do, not that he's quite sure he intends to sleep in here nor at all, when she speaks to him directly. Sharing a tent is unusual enough for him, and sharing it with women isn't entirely proper. Needs must, it'd seem, but still.

"Arthur," he says after a beat, and then reaches behind him for his blanket, offering it to her. Chivalry. "You must be cold."

It's a bit politer than saying you look like you're about to catch your death. But the sentiment is there.

[littlemissfutility]

Beth's drawn to Arthur in turn by the fact that he looks like he might be near (or nearish, at least) her own age. Lacking a group here, she needs to make her own allies, and the only way to do that is to start talking to people. She'll find the right ones eventually.

And in the meantime, it seems like she'll end up with every blanket in the tent if she isn't careful. She's not entirely sure what she looks like to others here--whether they look at the blood on her clothes, the cast around her wrist, and the stitches crossing her face and see someone dangerous or broken--but she's getting the feeling the answer is cold. (Which she is, but that's beside the point.)

"Oh." She considers the blanket for a moment, and then her gaze shifts to his clothing. It has a vaguely old-fashioned look to it, the collar of his shirt especially, though she doesn't know enough about either fashion or history to know when or where it's from. (England, to go by his accent, but England's been around for a long time.) More importantly, it looks lightweight enough that he'd be comfortable in springtime, maybe even summer.

And that means that right now, she's probably not the cold one here. Not with the two blankets she already has, one rightfully hers and the other a gift from the Siberian woman going around sleeveless like it's the height of July. It'd be wrong to take a third, knowing someone else might not have any. "It's harder to fall asleep if you're cold. You might need it."

[changeth]

Cold, injured, young; and it'd be a lie to say that his actions aren't partially motivated by the fact that she's a girl. Protecting women and children being, of course, quite within the tenets of chivalry and honorable conduct in Camelot. He sees her as some of both, though she isn't terribly younger; he was 18 some five years ago, though that feels like a lifetime now.

Not that he isn't cold, much as he'd deny it. He was dressed for much warmer days in Camelot before being pulled here, and tunics offer scarce little protection from this much cold. There is, at least, a jumper laying on his bedding; he'll admit defeat and pull it on sooner rather than later. But it doesn't feel right to him either to dress so warmly while so near people so visibly still cold, least of all one who looks like her.

"You've no need for concern. I've weathered colder winters than this."

In weather-appropriate clothing. Often in castles with roaring fireplaces, and with luxuries of royalty even out in the open. Details.

[littlemissfutility]

"I didn't know it got that cold in England." The only thing she knows about the weather there is that it's supposed to be rainy.

After she says it, it occurs to her that the accent doesn't necessarily mean he's actually from England--not when the people keeping them in this tent sound Russian but aren't--but he can direct her if she's wrong.

She should probably start getting ready for bed, too; after their walk through the strange, too-red forest, she's bone tired. She starts unrolling her own mat, placing it neither too near Arthur's nor too far away. There's safety in numbers, even if you aren't entirely sure which are the numbers you can trust. His blanket, she leaves alone. Maybe when he falls asleep, she can spread it back over him.

"We should have a watch," she adds, after a few quiet moments. "Just in case."

[changeth]

"In some parts of the Five Kingdoms, the winters are infamous for their length and cold. It gets particularly so in the Northern Plains, especially in the lands of Ismere. Camelot's usually warmer."

He sets the blanket down when she doesn't take it, somewhere in reach should she change her mind, settling back on his bedding. He's slept on less comfortable before, even the ground itself, and he's certainly rolled out his own mat before. But the whole thing feels fundamentally wrong -- it's been years since he's not had Merlin on a journey with him, and he's rarely gone without any of the knights along. And there's the thought of Guinevere, not knowing when he'll see her next...

He blinks at Beth's suggestion; it's a good one, but not one he would've expected of her for its pragmatism.

"I agree." Then, "I'll take first watch."

Which just might become all night watch. He's too wary to sleep anyway, and he's got thinking to do. (Much as Merlin would joke that Arthur and thinking don't go well together. )

[littlemissfutility]

"Camelot?" She sounds a little dubious, sitting down cross-legged on her mat. Maybe it's just a little town someplace--maybe somebody just really loved King Arthur stories back when his hometown was founded. And maybe his name just happens to be Arthur. That has to be the case, if only because accepting another explanation is completely insane. He's not the actual Arthur from the actual Camelot (was there really a Camelot?), because that just doesn't make any damned sense.

Neither does showing up on another planet out of nowhere.

Maybe not, but you were there. You know it happened.

They could take the first watch together, maybe--she's not sure she's ready to lie down and try to sleep. Five Kingdoms, she thinks. Even if Camelot could be the name of a little town somewhere in the country, the Five Kingdoms probably can't. "Not, like...the Camelot, though. Right?"

[changeth]

Arthur wouldn't normally have thought much of that question, but after Miles's reaction he finds himself frowning, defensive.

"The Camelot," he says, more irritably than he perhaps ought. "and the only Camelot I've ever heard of. It is a real kingdom, whatever you might've heard."

Honestly, calling it and him a myth. Absurd.

[littlemissfutility]

After the last couple of weeks, a little annoyance doesn't do much more than make her wonder if he gets this question a lot.

"Yeah, but--" It's not really a matter of yeah, but--, since she's pretty sure Camelot was made up, but what's she going to do, tell him the place he's from isn't real? It seems bad enough to say, "That was hundreds of years ago."

Because it was, Arthur. Since he's already getting kind of annoyed, she hurries to ask, "So, like. King Arthur?"

This way, if his irritation gets worse than a little edge to his voice, at least she has the answer to the question she's wondering about.

[changeth]

"By your reckoning, perhaps."

Which isn't actually much of a comeback, and somewhat halfhearted besides. If space travel and alien empires is strange to him, time travel isn't any easier to believe. He inclines his head slightly at her question.

"The very same." He supposes. It's not like he has any insight into what the supposed myths say. "Unless there are other King Arthur Pendragons I don't know about."

His tone makes it pretty clear what he thinks about that idea.

[littlemissfutility]

It's a fair point, and one that gives her pause. It's as likely that someone else is going to come along from the year 3000, wondering why she's still talking about walkers when they're busy fighting space aliens or learning telepathy. As crazy as all of this seems to her, it must be even weirder for Arthur. At least she's heard of wormholes, even if she didn't think they were real.

"There aren't." She's sure of that much. Kings of England are always named Charles or George, right? "Just the one who pulls the sword out of the stone."

For a moment she pauses, fixing him with a thoughtful expression. "I guess this is pretty weird if you're coming from Camelot."

[changeth]

Wormholes, timelines, and the stuff of science fiction are all beyond him: so he focuses on what's before him. Barrayaran technology is, thus far, on a familiar level to Camelot's; and the concepts of a siege, of fighting a greater enemy on little more than hope, are ones he knows well. He can imagine, in some ways, how these people might feel, and what sorts of choices their leaders must be considering.

Even if these stories sound more insane by the moment. Pulling a sword from stone? Now that is mad. He makes a face, but keeps himself from saying as much.

"It's a strange enough situation for anyone, I'm sure. Unless you're used to -- " he waves a hand at their surroundings. Teleportation. Space travel. And so on. "-- this sort of thing."

[littlemissfutility]

Wave your hand around in a tent where they're eating what basically tastes like jerky and oatmeal, and she's not going to think of space travel. That part is weird, sure, but the rest of this is appallingly familiar.

"Not all this snow," she admits, "but sleeping outside's nothing new."

It's nicer than some of the camps they've made, thanks to the tent over them. A hell of a lot colder, even with the added protection from the element, but nicer nonetheless. "Just...showing up here, though. That's not normal when I'm from, either."