That was - she gives him, then the glass a look. "This is theirs - ? Alright, wine then." She can agree to that. ( Alright, another sip - the flush that is steady in her cheeks as she raises a toast to his point with it. )
"But what then, if I were to marry a Barrayan, will I have nothing but drink and my husband to occupy my time? No singing, weapons or prayer? Everything I've heard says I may as well lay about in bed all day." It's faintly challenging, go on then, prove her wrong.
He really, really shouldn't. It cuts too close to his true identity; he'd be much safer just saying he knows nothing of it and moving on. But. Goodness. These are some first rate lies he has to clear up here. "Nothing of the sort," he says. "You'd marry a Vor, first of all, and their women are famously violent. Have you not heard of a Vorfemme knife?"
"No?" He has her at an interest there, and she straightens more. For the first time in hours, not punishing herself in her own severeness, eager. She liked, as it turned out, nothing half so much as blades.
"They're quite beautiful. I've been after one for years, but never managed to add it to my collection." True, but - not quite so difficult for him as he makes it out to be. "It's true Barrayar has issues with wanting to keep her women in traditional roles, but those traditional roles are still quite violent. I could tell you many tales about Vor women being the ones to hold her ground during a siege, for example."
"Tell me." It's ordered, where she doesn't quite have the right but it's breathless. Eager. She wants to hear victory, she wants determination to try and dress herself in it when otherwise she might fall. "Tell me the most famous."
Miles sits back a bit, his bright eyes gray with interest. He'll never turn down an opportunity to discuss this, for sure. "I heard of one whose adult sons were kidnapped by the siegers. Her response was to get up on the battlements, hike up her skirts, and inform them that she could just as easily make more where they came from."
She listens, avidly, all brightness that the drink doesn't dull, all open in her face as quickly as he begins. Then still, quiet, watching him -
- Before she falls back, her face breaking into a wide blinding smile and peels off laughter. The wine spilling in the glass over her fingers as she settles. Her other falling over her eyes, covering her as she laughs and laughs and laughs. Still breathless, still earnest. Her laughter turning to giggles, letting her bemusement fill her utterly. "They should have sent their wives. I am sure they looked utterly stunned."
Good, that had the intended effect. He quite likes the look of her smile. "I imagine so," he says with a grin. "She made them pay for kidnapping her sons, of course. With her knife."
She quiets, letting her hand move enough that she can peer through her fingers at him. "Of course she did. They dared threatened her family, her honour. They should pay with their lives."
She settles back, swapping the glass between her hands so she can lift the one with the wine spilt onto it to her lips, pressing her mouth softly to the side of her finger to kiss away the spilt wine. Little movements still, measured, but comfortable enough in his presence to not be bothered that he saw her doing it. "How did you come to know so much of the place? I heard that they were like us -" Paused, a correction. "That they were hidden away, rather." Not kept impoverished.
He finds himself watching her, utterly charmed by all those little gestures. God, he really shouldn't be getting attached here. Soon enough this fight will be over, and she'll return to her newly freed home...
And if he's not careful, he'll give himself away. Goodness. Focus, Miles. "It is a long and sordid story," he says. "But - to put it simply, I am the clone of a Barrayaran Vor lord. Escaped from my captors, then raised on Beta Colony. But I know a significant amount about my progenitor's homeworld." Sorry, Mark. He's stealing your backstory here.
Somewhere, Mark wakes up with a need to punch Miles.
As for Lakshmi - she looks downright alarmed. Her eyes going wide, pushing herself up. She'd heard - a lot of things. Of course she had, some of them she even knew to be UIC propaganda. Others, they had simply been notions she had been raised with, wary, unsure as she watches him. "But you're... so," mouth opening, closing. Trying to be polite. "Slight." She winces even as she says it.
But that wasn't polite either. She struggles, again, the drink didn't make it easier. "Aren't clones meant to be ... impossibly made? Big men and women who have tiger claws and fangs and have purple skin." Alright, that sounded more ridiculous when she heard it out loud, but that was the stories at least. "That was what the... UIC told us, about other places." Definitely, definitely embarrassing.
Miles just winces a bit as Lakshmi seeks politeness and lands on ... probably the best description he could hope for. But it still drives all of this home: he's a lowly mercenary who's just helping her win back her homeworld. After all this is done, they will be strangers again. As it must be. As is best, really; he will not force his ugly body upon her any more than he must. But he will take a large gulp of wine to wash down his pain with.
"Quite slight," he says, giving her a weak smile. "I am quite the failure. In attempting to build my progenitor a better body he could take over, they just duplicated his issues. Which is part of why I was able to escape, I believe." Another small smile. "Clones tend either to be younger body doubles - for transferring - or as outlandish as you say." Sometimes also for transfer, but.
There is a horror on her face - rather than revulsion for him. That had been his fate, that he had only escaped it by chance of what he had been made to be. How could they do that to him? How could anyone? Many, Lakshmi, you have learned that lesson, many would.
And she'd been just as bad.
"I have hurt you. I am very new to... this." Means forgive me, but such things are hard for any royal, after all. Instead, she sits up, putting the wine aside. Though there is no pretending the drunkness she's inevitably falling prey makes her bolder than she would be when she moves closer to him. "Curse them that made you with so little imagination to see all that you might be, curse the Vor Lords then, and me too. Damn them all. If they cannot know you for what you are - my people and this planet, and I as their Queen will always know you for the hope you give us. Even if that comes to nothing. That will always be yours."
Miles' expression is grim. He'd hated the practice even before meeting Mark, but now that he has ... he's even more infuriated by it. Slavers and murderers all of them.
Though - he has to step in to defend his planet a little bit. He hadn't quite expected that reaction - nor how she moves towards him, good god. He has to swallow thickly, looking up at her with no small amount of pink dusting his cheeks. "Do not damn all the Vor Lords," he says hesitantly. "Just the one who commissioned me. The rest of Barrayar abhors the practice, by all accounts." He quiets after that, touched by her words. Hope, eh. He'll take that gladly. "I'll be more than just hope, if I have anything to say about it. We will finish this job successfully." Or die trying.
She watches him still, blinking owlishly as she does, that lightness to his fair face under her gaze. Strange. She knows how she speaks of those that had misused her, her people.
It wasn't kind. "Perhaps I have been fighting too long." young as she is, old as that makes her. "The man today, he would take the oldest who could not pay their taxes up against a wall and set starving dogs on them. When the fester in our desert heat became too much, he sent their widows to clean up the pieces. I let my rage blind me, its true, for every minute those widows wept at my floor for justice. I would have killed him, his men, every single person who served him, if you had not been present."
Those that made her, were as much the cruelty of the UIC as the love of her father, the steadiness of her husband. She did not have his apparently magnanimous nature it seemed, could think of no other way to say it more plainly. But to that she wondered.
"Do you love the Vor, even as they are?" because his words, his stories of them - she couldn't help but think of otherwise if not for the life he had told her.
A small flinch of guilt; he's still not certain he should have stepped in to save anyone. As she says, the whole lot of them likely deserved it. But. Dammit, he hates wasting life, even evil life. The commander and the casualties was enough. "Mercy is a heavy thing to grant," he says after a moment. "I find it best to provide when possible." Even when the cause is that just. God.
As for the Vor ... Another small wince. He should probably not speak of them in such loving terms, but. He just can't help it. "I admit to a certain fascination," he says with a soft sigh. "And I have met those who are not so bad as the stories make them out to be. The Vor lord's parents attempted to adopt me. As their second son."
"That is... Kind of them. To try and right the wrong done to you."
A quiet resolve, of course which doesn't bare mentioning, that if she finds the Vor Lord in question that had caused him such suffering she'd cut his tongue out.
But, a later concern.
"I admit, they're a story of hope to many of us. We heard of the General Vorkosigan, and how he fought off the Cetagandans. So much so that the UIC began to spread awful rumours that he walked with a stump leg, and had a hunch shoulder. That Vor Lords all kept their women in stables and gave their horses the beds instead." A shudder.
"We did not believe all of them, but I am glad to hear they are not all true. Perhaps I will consider the marriage alliance after all." Because the thought that even half of it might be true? Would be enough to put off anyone.
Um. Miles chokes hard on his wine when she mentions a marriage alliance.
Both dizzy with dreamy glee at the thought of being married to Lakshmi -
and horrified by the thought of her being forced into a marriage of
convenience with someone as deformed as he is. God. There’s no easy
resolution to that thought. Either he steers her away for her own good, or
he selfishly tries to set himself up. The first is heartbreaking; the
second, surely evil.
He coughs a little more before finding enough breath to speak. “Both are
quite wrong,” he says firmly. “That description belongs to Lord Vorkosigan,
as you can see by his clone,” he says, gesturing to himself. “And you may
find Vor women in stables, but only because they are thoroughly enjoying
themselves by preparing their steed for a ride.” So none of either of that
shit, good god. He. Hesitated a moment more. Piotr is such a conflicted
influence on him that he’s not even sure what to say of the man.
Best not to.
when will my phones auto correct no longer be upset with vor names and try to fix them
"They ride?" !!!! He has her immediately sidetracked, quite easily so. Reaching for her wine and resuming her drinking. Though for the first time in hours it was cheerfully sipped, not the drowning of misery. "Do you ride as well?"
Wait - hang on. She catches up and this time, it's her turn to choke on the wine. Nearly dropping the cup as she coughed on it. "You're clone of the son of Lord Vorkosigan?"
Re: when will my phones auto correct no longer be upset with vor names and try to fix them
Ah. Oops. He never did quite spell that out, did he? It would be better if
she did not know who his specific “progenitor” is... But perhaps it’s
better this way. The little Lord Vorkosigan cuts a unique figure after all.
“I have no horses here, nor anywhere to ride them,” he says with a real
twinge of longing. He misses the Vorkosigan stables deeply... “But the
Vorkosigans have massive stables, yes. They’re famous for being horse
lords.”
So - there. That’s all the help he can give himself. If she wants him for
his horses, then that seems a fair bargain. As for the other question,
well. He gives her an awkward little bow. “I am,” he says. “That is
something of a secret, though, so I would rather you keep it that way.”
She nods, utterly serious. He has her, after all. Hook, line and sinker. She would never dare betray him. Not now, especially not now - even if she ever would have.
"None will know of it. Not from my lips."
Lips that she purses, thinking. Breathing slowly but heavily for it - a lot. A lot all at once when she was already felt a strung out thread. Pressing - well, that was all dreadfully serious, wasn't it?
"It is... good that you have some notion of horses. We use them a great deal. I was worried... you, your men. When we go ground side. It is will be primarily how we move."
“Good. Thank you.” He believes it too, coming from her. It takes a weight
off his chest.
He breaks his own tension with another sip of wine, letting its warmth
slide over him. Not much more for him, alas; he’ll be asleep all too soon.
“I should be fine on a horse,” he says, waving a hand. “Genetic memory,
apparently.” Complete bullshit, more like, but he won’t be able to hide his
skill if he has to ride. Better she has an excuse ahead of time.
"Naturally." She laughs, more sedately, lighter. Letting her fingers press against her lips with it. Absent more than thought through.
"There is one matter though. You have assured me on all matters that come with the Vor, drinking, tradition, a woman and her knives." She says it very seriously, but there is mischief is in her eyes. "You still have not told me if there is dancing."
God. As if he weren’t already in love with her after watching her weave
through the enemy with her weapons. Watching her smiles like that, teasing
him... he might truly be lost already.
“Every time they drink, apparently,” he says, raising his glass. “Which is
often.”
And teasing him she is most happy to keep on doing, utterly oblivious to whatever else he might be thinking of. For the first time in weeks, she can be just herself. Her people are not watching them, nor his. That she can roll her eyes and swat at him in the air with a flick of her wrist.
"I struggle to call those circumstances fit for dancing, Admiral, no matter how you might protest."
And with no warning what so ever, she slides right off the side of the lounge onto the floor. Sat there and her hand lifts to crook her finger to beckon him down to join her. "You are going to subjected to it later on whether you like such things or not, so you best learn how we attend such things while no one was looking. My triumphant Admiral cannot be seen to embarrass himself at his own celebrations."
On the floor, apparently. Right now. Her eyes are bright, still, as she takes another sip of the wine, the glass was almost empty - that just wouldn't do. So instead she goes fishing for the bottle as she waits for him to join her on the floor. Pouring herself another glass - all interest in maintaining an air of position firmly gone for the moment.
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"But what then, if I were to marry a Barrayan, will I have nothing but drink and my husband to occupy my time? No singing, weapons or prayer? Everything I've heard says I may as well lay about in bed all day." It's faintly challenging, go on then, prove her wrong.
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- Before she falls back, her face breaking into a wide blinding smile and peels off laughter. The wine spilling in the glass over her fingers as she settles. Her other falling over her eyes, covering her as she laughs and laughs and laughs. Still breathless, still earnest. Her laughter turning to giggles, letting her bemusement fill her utterly. "They should have sent their wives. I am sure they looked utterly stunned."
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She settles back, swapping the glass between her hands so she can lift the one with the wine spilt onto it to her lips, pressing her mouth softly to the side of her finger to kiss away the spilt wine. Little movements still, measured, but comfortable enough in his presence to not be bothered that he saw her doing it. "How did you come to know so much of the place? I heard that they were like us -" Paused, a correction. "That they were hidden away, rather." Not kept impoverished.
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And if he's not careful, he'll give himself away. Goodness. Focus, Miles. "It is a long and sordid story," he says. "But - to put it simply, I am the clone of a Barrayaran Vor lord. Escaped from my captors, then raised on Beta Colony. But I know a significant amount about my progenitor's homeworld." Sorry, Mark. He's stealing your backstory here.
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As for Lakshmi - she looks downright alarmed. Her eyes going wide, pushing herself up. She'd heard - a lot of things. Of course she had, some of them she even knew to be UIC propaganda. Others, they had simply been notions she had been raised with, wary, unsure as she watches him. "But you're... so," mouth opening, closing. Trying to be polite. "Slight." She winces even as she says it.
But that wasn't polite either. She struggles, again, the drink didn't make it easier. "Aren't clones meant to be ... impossibly made? Big men and women who have tiger claws and fangs and have purple skin." Alright, that sounded more ridiculous when she heard it out loud, but that was the stories at least. "That was what the... UIC told us, about other places." Definitely, definitely embarrassing.
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Miles just winces a bit as Lakshmi seeks politeness and lands on ... probably the best description he could hope for. But it still drives all of this home: he's a lowly mercenary who's just helping her win back her homeworld. After all this is done, they will be strangers again. As it must be. As is best, really; he will not force his ugly body upon her any more than he must. But he will take a large gulp of wine to wash down his pain with.
"Quite slight," he says, giving her a weak smile. "I am quite the failure. In attempting to build my progenitor a better body he could take over, they just duplicated his issues. Which is part of why I was able to escape, I believe." Another small smile. "Clones tend either to be younger body doubles - for transferring - or as outlandish as you say." Sometimes also for transfer, but.
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And she'd been just as bad.
"I have hurt you. I am very new to... this." Means forgive me, but such things are hard for any royal, after all. Instead, she sits up, putting the wine aside. Though there is no pretending the drunkness she's inevitably falling prey makes her bolder than she would be when she moves closer to him. "Curse them that made you with so little imagination to see all that you might be, curse the Vor Lords then, and me too. Damn them all. If they cannot know you for what you are - my people and this planet, and I as their Queen will always know you for the hope you give us. Even if that comes to nothing. That will always be yours."
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Though - he has to step in to defend his planet a little bit. He hadn't quite expected that reaction - nor how she moves towards him, good god. He has to swallow thickly, looking up at her with no small amount of pink dusting his cheeks. "Do not damn all the Vor Lords," he says hesitantly. "Just the one who commissioned me. The rest of Barrayar abhors the practice, by all accounts." He quiets after that, touched by her words. Hope, eh. He'll take that gladly. "I'll be more than just hope, if I have anything to say about it. We will finish this job successfully." Or die trying.
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It wasn't kind. "Perhaps I have been fighting too long." young as she is, old as that makes her. "The man today, he would take the oldest who could not pay their taxes up against a wall and set starving dogs on them. When the fester in our desert heat became too much, he sent their widows to clean up the pieces. I let my rage blind me, its true, for every minute those widows wept at my floor for justice. I would have killed him, his men, every single person who served him, if you had not been present."
Those that made her, were as much the cruelty of the UIC as the love of her father, the steadiness of her husband. She did not have his apparently magnanimous nature it seemed, could think of no other way to say it more plainly. But to that she wondered.
"Do you love the Vor, even as they are?" because his words, his stories of them - she couldn't help but think of otherwise if not for the life he had told her.
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As for the Vor ... Another small wince. He should probably not speak of them in such loving terms, but. He just can't help it. "I admit to a certain fascination," he says with a soft sigh. "And I have met those who are not so bad as the stories make them out to be. The Vor lord's parents attempted to adopt me. As their second son."
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A quiet resolve, of course which doesn't bare mentioning, that if she finds the Vor Lord in question that had caused him such suffering she'd cut his tongue out.
But, a later concern.
"I admit, they're a story of hope to many of us. We heard of the General Vorkosigan, and how he fought off the Cetagandans. So much so that the UIC began to spread awful rumours that he walked with a stump leg, and had a hunch shoulder. That Vor Lords all kept their women in stables and gave their horses the beds instead." A shudder.
"We did not believe all of them, but I am glad to hear they are not all true. Perhaps I will consider the marriage alliance after all." Because the thought that even half of it might be true? Would be enough to put off anyone.
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Um. Miles chokes hard on his wine when she mentions a marriage alliance. Both dizzy with dreamy glee at the thought of being married to Lakshmi - and horrified by the thought of her being forced into a marriage of convenience with someone as deformed as he is. God. There’s no easy resolution to that thought. Either he steers her away for her own good, or he selfishly tries to set himself up. The first is heartbreaking; the second, surely evil.
He coughs a little more before finding enough breath to speak. “Both are quite wrong,” he says firmly. “That description belongs to Lord Vorkosigan, as you can see by his clone,” he says, gesturing to himself. “And you may find Vor women in stables, but only because they are thoroughly enjoying themselves by preparing their steed for a ride.” So none of either of that shit, good god. He. Hesitated a moment more. Piotr is such a conflicted influence on him that he’s not even sure what to say of the man. Best not to.
when will my phones auto correct no longer be upset with vor names and try to fix them
!!!!He has her immediately sidetracked, quite easily so. Reaching for her wine and resuming her drinking. Though for the first time in hours it was cheerfully sipped, not the drowning of misery. "Do you ride as well?"Wait - hang on. She catches up and this time, it's her turn to choke on the wine. Nearly dropping the cup as she coughed on it. "You're clone of the son of Lord Vorkosigan?"
Re: when will my phones auto correct no longer be upset with vor names and try to fix them
Ah. Oops. He never did quite spell that out, did he? It would be better if she did not know who his specific “progenitor” is... But perhaps it’s better this way. The little Lord Vorkosigan cuts a unique figure after all. “I have no horses here, nor anywhere to ride them,” he says with a real twinge of longing. He misses the Vorkosigan stables deeply... “But the Vorkosigans have massive stables, yes. They’re famous for being horse lords.”
So - there. That’s all the help he can give himself. If she wants him for his horses, then that seems a fair bargain. As for the other question, well. He gives her an awkward little bow. “I am,” he says. “That is something of a secret, though, so I would rather you keep it that way.”
(( LOL I have my autocorrect trained by now ))
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"None will know of it. Not from my lips."
Lips that she purses, thinking. Breathing slowly but heavily for it - a lot. A lot all at once when she was already felt a strung out thread. Pressing - well, that was all dreadfully serious, wasn't it?
"It is... good that you have some notion of horses. We use them a great deal. I was worried... you, your men. When we go ground side. It is will be primarily how we move."
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“Good. Thank you.” He believes it too, coming from her. It takes a weight off his chest.
He breaks his own tension with another sip of wine, letting its warmth slide over him. Not much more for him, alas; he’ll be asleep all too soon. “I should be fine on a horse,” he says, waving a hand. “Genetic memory, apparently.” Complete bullshit, more like, but he won’t be able to hide his skill if he has to ride. Better she has an excuse ahead of time.
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"There is one matter though. You have assured me on all matters that come with the Vor, drinking, tradition, a woman and her knives." She says it very seriously, but there is mischief is in her eyes. "You still have not told me if there is dancing."
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God. As if he weren’t already in love with her after watching her weave through the enemy with her weapons. Watching her smiles like that, teasing him... he might truly be lost already.
“Every time they drink, apparently,” he says, raising his glass. “Which is often.”
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"I struggle to call those circumstances fit for dancing, Admiral, no matter how you might protest."
And with no warning what so ever, she slides right off the side of the lounge onto the floor. Sat there and her hand lifts to crook her finger to beckon him down to join her. "You are going to subjected to it later on whether you like such things or not, so you best learn how we attend such things while no one was looking. My triumphant Admiral cannot be seen to embarrass himself at his own celebrations."
On the floor, apparently. Right now. Her eyes are bright, still, as she takes another sip of the wine, the glass was almost empty - that just wouldn't do. So instead she goes fishing for the bottle as she waits for him to join her on the floor. Pouring herself another glass - all interest in maintaining an air of position firmly gone for the moment.
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