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Here are two - please feel free to request others, on this post or the last one. I'd love to do something not Vorkosigan, but am happy to take more of those too.
For avanti_90, from Single Combat:
"Not that it matters." Cavilo turned the glass in her hand, watching the patterns of light on the remaining swallow of wine. I use light-on-whatever's-being-drunk a lot; I like the visual spark and it's a good way to keep someone occupied during a dramatic pause. I loved doing all the physical stuff in this fic. "I didn't raise him," she said. "I was captured by the Cetagandans, and when they discovered the pregnancy, they took the fetus and grew it in a replicator. He was raised in the household of a ghem-General and his haut-wife. He escaped, on his own, at fourteen, and found me on Earth. Oh, dear. The backstory as it developed through the series (which I didn't know then I'd write; this was supposed to be a one-off) was totally improvised. In retrospect, Cavilo is mostly lying here, though part of it is a lie that Serg told her and part of it is her own effort to gain Aral's sympathy. He knows who his father is. So do the Cetagandans." That part's true.
"They let you go?" said Aral.
"I paid for my freedom, believe me. One thing you can say for the Cetagandans, they are more sophisticated than anyone else in the galaxy." Oh, Cavilo; you do know how to insinuate. Her eyes bored into Aral's. "Stanis used to call me a frill. Have you ever called a woman that?"
"Not after the age of..." He considered. "Thirty or so. Aral and his kneejerk honesty. I'd like to know what exactly stopped him using the term, besides being disgusted with his peers. You're not. Frilly, I mean." A fascination with etymology while slightly drunk. Makes sense to me. I bet Aral used to dissect words in four languages in between the political harangues, in the bad old days. Damn, he wasn't getting drunk on a few gulps of wine, was he? Never could hold your liquor, Ges sneered in his head. There is canonical backing for this. Miles can't hold his either, which is an effect of body size, but considering Cordelia's idiosyncratic drug reaction that he seems to inherit I wonder if any of the alcohol stuff is genetic. Or just an allergy to Barrayar.
Well, if Ges was talking to him, he was at any rate... up past his bedtime. And experiencing time as an ever-present continuum. I really enjoyed writing old!Aral. "What do you want from me?" he asked. "If this young man is Gregor's get nice slap-down word choice, go me -- and I have only your word for that -- that fails to make him Crown Prince, I'm afraid. And I assume you wouldn't be satisfied with a quiet annuity." Nothing quiet at all, for Cavilo. Cavilo shook her head. "Then," said Aral, "I regret to tell you that facility with swords isn't going to protect him. We've taken down pretenders before. Even those with good bloodlines." Oh, the history that is lurking behind this. Not just Vordarian and those who went before him, but Aral's own claim to the throne that he'd rather die than act on, Yuri's, Ezar's, and hence Gregor's, which Aral would rather die than dispute. Cavilo just doesn't understand Barrayarans. The bloodline is all; the bloodline is nothing.
She just smiled at him. He stared back for a moment, then echoed her earlier remark. "Here, tonight. Where it counts. I liked this line, obviously. Why here? Why me, for that matter?"
"You are Sergyar; that answers for the place. Besides the amusement of the name. Not that Cavilo realizes just how ironic it all is. Why you? Because you're a father, I suppose."
"Miles's father." She shook her head, slowly. Gregor's father. Where it counts. There's the whole series in a nutshell. Interesting that he doesn't think of Mark here, and the parallel between him and Serg, as everyone else seems to later on. I can't remember if I'd made that leap yet at this point, but if so I knew that it would be a distraction and spoil the pacing to include it.
"I wouldn't stay my hand, you realize," he went on. "And it wouldn't be my word that brought him down." Or... why do you think Guy Allegre came to you? Allegre is squeamish about letting Gregor know, as it turns out, and he has the same instinctive response as Cavilo and, later, Gregor, that Aral is the best and most eligible person to make the decision.
I also need to mention here that I completely screwed up the reality of intergalactic communications, and have Aral talking directly to Allegre and later to Gregor, although you could possibly interpret it as "sent off a tight-beam message" if you are feeling generous. I've never gone back and fixed it, because after enough people have read it one way I don't feel it's fair to make the correction.
For Philomytha, from Fathers and Sons:
"Good way to deal with that suicidal streak you've all been worrying I have." Gregor bit off his words so hard Miles could nearly see the blood. This is the height of the tension in this fic; the point where Gregor is absolutely furious with Miles and Miles is as submissive as he gets and worrying that this might be the end of their friendship and his career. And still, Gregor is beating himself up in preference to anybody else. But nevertheless getting in the little digs, and the reference to The Vor Game is totally not coincidental, obviously. "I could have found another way too. I tried to, just stupidly. I let Serg go, after the kidnapping. He'd already killed four people, and he might have killed more in escaping. My luck that he didn't. And" -- Gregor held up a hand, forestalling Miles's objection as though warding off a blow more of the hard physical imagery; loved doing this -- "I apologize for working on a scale smaller than planetary warfare oh, Gregor -- also by luck -- but I think the few who died were missed just as thoroughly. Maybe not Cavilo. One wonders if there's anyone who misses her. She was a good theatrical director, if likely rather vicious to anyone who argued with her or fell short of her ideals. The others, though. I wrote condolence letters too. And he does not have to say how hard it was. Oh, Gregor. You once told me" -- eyes drilling into Miles's -- "that there was no moral difference between killing ten thousand and killing one. Anyone remember where this is? I thought it was in the garden scene of The Vor Game, but it's not, and my Kindle-for-PC is broken so I can't search. Anyway, I remember being happily startled when I found it. Or four, I assume. What do you think now?"
"No moral difference," Miles said; it was the only thing he could say, with all the equivalences and perpetrators jumbling together in his mind. And shit, when had he said that, and had he really pulled that ten thousand out of his subconscious? Or Lois Bujold's. By the way, ten thousand is the estimate for how many died altogether; five thousand on the Barrayaran side is the more commonly used figure. "A practical one, though. Massive slaughters mean more ghosts and legacies to trip over. An entire new layer of my father's relations with Count Vorhalas has come clear, for example. I really want the fic where Aral and Count Vorhalas don't discuss this, over and over. And then there's politics: forty years on, we can finally stop holding our breath with Escobar and Beta, but who knows what might have happened without the war?"
"If Serg had inherited," said Simon, "or if your father had died with him at Escobar and not given us his firm leadership as Regent, or if we hadn't succeeded in uprooting the Ministry of Political Education, the resulting chaos would have opened the door to the Cetagandans. And later, we get all the other things that would have happened and/or wouldn't have happened, also from Simon. The analytical, truth-finding part of him is still dominant even in retirement. I'm wondering how his chip dealt with what-ifs. They are still, demonstrably" -- he nodded at Gregor -- "looking for opportunities." A reference back to their manipulation of Serg, which leads to Gregor's response below; one can't really imagine he wanted the Cetagandans to succeed in their plot, but he nevertheless resents that they didn't trust his son enough to support him in the usurpation.
Gregor scowled. "If they don't invest fully in them, it doesn't matter. Except to the few who die as a result, and those who mourn them. And I am not responsible for the Cetagandans and their... devices and desires" -- a phrase of his mother's, Miles recognized -- "We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts," Book of Common Prayer. This series is still officially incomplete on AO3, which is my way of making sure I don't write any more of it, but at one point I did have an impulse to write some of the Cetagandan side of it all, and it would have been called "Devices and Desires." Gregor knows the full phrase, and fully recognizes the application to himself. "all I can do is attempt to protect the Imperium from them, and from the wilder desires of her own subjects. Including mine. I don't believe I would resort to Ezar's methods, at least on such a scale, but I don't privilege myself above him for my restraint." Oh, Gregor. I know I keep saying that. He put his hands flat on his desk -- the tendons stood out like whipcord cliché, tsk -- and rose to his feet. "Thank you, gentlemen. This has been quite illuminating, but I can't take any more of your time."
It was a clear dismissal in Imperial tones, and Miles was ready to stand, bow, and take his leave, oh, Barrayaran conditioning. Actually, considering my most recent fic, I'm actually a bit concerned about my pleasure in writing dom/sub relationships, even if Gregor only insinuates about the sexual side of it (probably caught that from Cavilo). uncertain if he'd be returning -- the thing about serving at the Emperor's pleasure was that if you didn't please him, you were out of a job; he could yet be the youngest Auditor Emeritus ever I did use the phrase "the youngest Imperial Auditor ever" in one of the earlier fics, and it's not quite accurate, but I was hardly going to add "post-Time of Isolation" here, and in this case it's probably right anyway -- and then Simon, who might have lost a shitload of data points but still possessed his iron nerve, curled his fingers securely around the arms of his chair and spoke, in the oh-so-familiar tones he used to a subordinate whose self-reporting was in arrears.
"Gregor. You're not done yet. Sit down." Simon being awesome! Loved writing this. And less dramatically, Simon proving yet again that he is, even in retirement, able to slip out of the chain of command and Barrayaran conditioning to boss around his Emperor. Negri would be proud.
For avanti_90, from Single Combat:
"Not that it matters." Cavilo turned the glass in her hand, watching the patterns of light on the remaining swallow of wine. I use light-on-whatever's-being-drunk a lot; I like the visual spark and it's a good way to keep someone occupied during a dramatic pause. I loved doing all the physical stuff in this fic. "I didn't raise him," she said. "I was captured by the Cetagandans, and when they discovered the pregnancy, they took the fetus and grew it in a replicator. He was raised in the household of a ghem-General and his haut-wife. He escaped, on his own, at fourteen, and found me on Earth. Oh, dear. The backstory as it developed through the series (which I didn't know then I'd write; this was supposed to be a one-off) was totally improvised. In retrospect, Cavilo is mostly lying here, though part of it is a lie that Serg told her and part of it is her own effort to gain Aral's sympathy. He knows who his father is. So do the Cetagandans." That part's true.
"They let you go?" said Aral.
"I paid for my freedom, believe me. One thing you can say for the Cetagandans, they are more sophisticated than anyone else in the galaxy." Oh, Cavilo; you do know how to insinuate. Her eyes bored into Aral's. "Stanis used to call me a frill. Have you ever called a woman that?"
"Not after the age of..." He considered. "Thirty or so. Aral and his kneejerk honesty. I'd like to know what exactly stopped him using the term, besides being disgusted with his peers. You're not. Frilly, I mean." A fascination with etymology while slightly drunk. Makes sense to me. I bet Aral used to dissect words in four languages in between the political harangues, in the bad old days. Damn, he wasn't getting drunk on a few gulps of wine, was he? Never could hold your liquor, Ges sneered in his head. There is canonical backing for this. Miles can't hold his either, which is an effect of body size, but considering Cordelia's idiosyncratic drug reaction that he seems to inherit I wonder if any of the alcohol stuff is genetic. Or just an allergy to Barrayar.
Well, if Ges was talking to him, he was at any rate... up past his bedtime. And experiencing time as an ever-present continuum. I really enjoyed writing old!Aral. "What do you want from me?" he asked. "If this young man is Gregor's get nice slap-down word choice, go me -- and I have only your word for that -- that fails to make him Crown Prince, I'm afraid. And I assume you wouldn't be satisfied with a quiet annuity." Nothing quiet at all, for Cavilo. Cavilo shook her head. "Then," said Aral, "I regret to tell you that facility with swords isn't going to protect him. We've taken down pretenders before. Even those with good bloodlines." Oh, the history that is lurking behind this. Not just Vordarian and those who went before him, but Aral's own claim to the throne that he'd rather die than act on, Yuri's, Ezar's, and hence Gregor's, which Aral would rather die than dispute. Cavilo just doesn't understand Barrayarans. The bloodline is all; the bloodline is nothing.
She just smiled at him. He stared back for a moment, then echoed her earlier remark. "Here, tonight. Where it counts. I liked this line, obviously. Why here? Why me, for that matter?"
"You are Sergyar; that answers for the place. Besides the amusement of the name. Not that Cavilo realizes just how ironic it all is. Why you? Because you're a father, I suppose."
"Miles's father." She shook her head, slowly. Gregor's father. Where it counts. There's the whole series in a nutshell. Interesting that he doesn't think of Mark here, and the parallel between him and Serg, as everyone else seems to later on. I can't remember if I'd made that leap yet at this point, but if so I knew that it would be a distraction and spoil the pacing to include it.
"I wouldn't stay my hand, you realize," he went on. "And it wouldn't be my word that brought him down." Or... why do you think Guy Allegre came to you? Allegre is squeamish about letting Gregor know, as it turns out, and he has the same instinctive response as Cavilo and, later, Gregor, that Aral is the best and most eligible person to make the decision.
I also need to mention here that I completely screwed up the reality of intergalactic communications, and have Aral talking directly to Allegre and later to Gregor, although you could possibly interpret it as "sent off a tight-beam message" if you are feeling generous. I've never gone back and fixed it, because after enough people have read it one way I don't feel it's fair to make the correction.
For Philomytha, from Fathers and Sons:
"Good way to deal with that suicidal streak you've all been worrying I have." Gregor bit off his words so hard Miles could nearly see the blood. This is the height of the tension in this fic; the point where Gregor is absolutely furious with Miles and Miles is as submissive as he gets and worrying that this might be the end of their friendship and his career. And still, Gregor is beating himself up in preference to anybody else. But nevertheless getting in the little digs, and the reference to The Vor Game is totally not coincidental, obviously. "I could have found another way too. I tried to, just stupidly. I let Serg go, after the kidnapping. He'd already killed four people, and he might have killed more in escaping. My luck that he didn't. And" -- Gregor held up a hand, forestalling Miles's objection as though warding off a blow more of the hard physical imagery; loved doing this -- "I apologize for working on a scale smaller than planetary warfare oh, Gregor -- also by luck -- but I think the few who died were missed just as thoroughly. Maybe not Cavilo. One wonders if there's anyone who misses her. She was a good theatrical director, if likely rather vicious to anyone who argued with her or fell short of her ideals. The others, though. I wrote condolence letters too. And he does not have to say how hard it was. Oh, Gregor. You once told me" -- eyes drilling into Miles's -- "that there was no moral difference between killing ten thousand and killing one. Anyone remember where this is? I thought it was in the garden scene of The Vor Game, but it's not, and my Kindle-for-PC is broken so I can't search. Anyway, I remember being happily startled when I found it. Or four, I assume. What do you think now?"
"No moral difference," Miles said; it was the only thing he could say, with all the equivalences and perpetrators jumbling together in his mind. And shit, when had he said that, and had he really pulled that ten thousand out of his subconscious? Or Lois Bujold's. By the way, ten thousand is the estimate for how many died altogether; five thousand on the Barrayaran side is the more commonly used figure. "A practical one, though. Massive slaughters mean more ghosts and legacies to trip over. An entire new layer of my father's relations with Count Vorhalas has come clear, for example. I really want the fic where Aral and Count Vorhalas don't discuss this, over and over. And then there's politics: forty years on, we can finally stop holding our breath with Escobar and Beta, but who knows what might have happened without the war?"
"If Serg had inherited," said Simon, "or if your father had died with him at Escobar and not given us his firm leadership as Regent, or if we hadn't succeeded in uprooting the Ministry of Political Education, the resulting chaos would have opened the door to the Cetagandans. And later, we get all the other things that would have happened and/or wouldn't have happened, also from Simon. The analytical, truth-finding part of him is still dominant even in retirement. I'm wondering how his chip dealt with what-ifs. They are still, demonstrably" -- he nodded at Gregor -- "looking for opportunities." A reference back to their manipulation of Serg, which leads to Gregor's response below; one can't really imagine he wanted the Cetagandans to succeed in their plot, but he nevertheless resents that they didn't trust his son enough to support him in the usurpation.
Gregor scowled. "If they don't invest fully in them, it doesn't matter. Except to the few who die as a result, and those who mourn them. And I am not responsible for the Cetagandans and their... devices and desires" -- a phrase of his mother's, Miles recognized -- "We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts," Book of Common Prayer. This series is still officially incomplete on AO3, which is my way of making sure I don't write any more of it, but at one point I did have an impulse to write some of the Cetagandan side of it all, and it would have been called "Devices and Desires." Gregor knows the full phrase, and fully recognizes the application to himself. "all I can do is attempt to protect the Imperium from them, and from the wilder desires of her own subjects. Including mine. I don't believe I would resort to Ezar's methods, at least on such a scale, but I don't privilege myself above him for my restraint." Oh, Gregor. I know I keep saying that. He put his hands flat on his desk -- the tendons stood out like whipcord cliché, tsk -- and rose to his feet. "Thank you, gentlemen. This has been quite illuminating, but I can't take any more of your time."
It was a clear dismissal in Imperial tones, and Miles was ready to stand, bow, and take his leave, oh, Barrayaran conditioning. Actually, considering my most recent fic, I'm actually a bit concerned about my pleasure in writing dom/sub relationships, even if Gregor only insinuates about the sexual side of it (probably caught that from Cavilo). uncertain if he'd be returning -- the thing about serving at the Emperor's pleasure was that if you didn't please him, you were out of a job; he could yet be the youngest Auditor Emeritus ever I did use the phrase "the youngest Imperial Auditor ever" in one of the earlier fics, and it's not quite accurate, but I was hardly going to add "post-Time of Isolation" here, and in this case it's probably right anyway -- and then Simon, who might have lost a shitload of data points but still possessed his iron nerve, curled his fingers securely around the arms of his chair and spoke, in the oh-so-familiar tones he used to a subordinate whose self-reporting was in arrears.
"Gregor. You're not done yet. Sit down." Simon being awesome! Loved writing this. And less dramatically, Simon proving yet again that he is, even in retirement, able to slip out of the chain of command and Barrayaran conditioning to boss around his Emperor. Negri would be proud.
no subject
Date: 2012-08-13 11:45 am (UTC)From:The ten thousand vs one reference is from Vor Game, but earlier on, when Gregor is wanting to be a lowly Dendarii lieutenant with only a handful of men to look after. I was really taken with how you used that in this passage, the moral line you/Gregor takes on Escobar vs all the other times Emperors get their subjects killed, with or without good reason. (Interesting data point from Aral's own life, actually: he was equally emotionally devastated after the two times he murdered individuals as he is after Escobar.)
And I love that the Cordelia quote is actually the BCP!
no subject
Date: 2012-08-13 12:42 pm (UTC)From: