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Damn it, I may have to write that Vorkosiverse/PoI crossover now. Because I'd been focusing on Simon, but it just occurred to me what Cordelia would think of Finch and Reese and their project.
Every sparrow counted; it even works with the bird theme. Damn!!
Every sparrow counted; it even works with the bird theme. Damn!!
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Date: 2012-10-30 01:07 pm (UTC)From:Cordelia would certainly have views on them both. And on Simon's role, or lack of role.
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Date: 2012-10-30 05:44 pm (UTC)From:*
"Armsman."
John Reese, slumped against a filthy wall in the warren that was Vorbarr Sultana's caravanserai district, dizzy and half-stunned with rotgut liquor, had pretty much decided he didn't care about anything any more. He certainly didn't care about words. He'd heard lots of them, in the weeks since he'd arrived in this city that would never be home but was a good place to drink himself to death, because no one cared; no one owned him here; and the natives were used to the spectacle of slow suicide. He'd heard drunk (true) and beggar (not true) and reprobate, degenerate, wastrel, which all amused him; he'd forgotten there were places on Barrayar where people still used words like that. He'd heard the words in English, Russian, French and Greek. They all rolled off him like the rain that seemed to be constantly falling, this bitter autumn before his last winter.
Except one. There was one word he wouldn't take.
He squinted up at the man who'd spoken the word. A slight, bespectacled man, older than himself, though not by much. Not age lines in that face, but pain lines. Reese hadn't seen the man walking, but he could tell from the way he held himself that there was something wrong with him. Mutant? he wondered first, and then decided no. Injured. Nerve disruptor damage, maybe, or just old-fashioned physical trauma. He didn't appear to be armed, though he wore a loose-fitting coat buttoned up high on his neck under which he could be hiding anything short of a rocket launcher.
It didn't matter. Reese could take him piss-drunk and one-handed, and he didn't care about getting shot. Innate caution, however, told him to be sure of his target before he aimed himself at it.
"What did you call me?" he growled.
"I said 'Armsman,'" the man repeated in clear, precise tones.
"That's what I thought," said Reese. In three seconds, he'd unfolded from his dreary slump, sprung to his feet, and thrown the man hard against the wall. Holding him there by both shoulders, he put his face close. "Don't call me that," he said between his bared teeth. "No one calls me that."
"Very well then," said the man, hesitated, and added, "Mr. Reese."
*
*is helpless against the tide*
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Date: 2012-10-30 07:15 pm (UTC)From: