Second Cream Cake: [Action/Written]

[vor]

It’s a bad night.

Gregor hasn’t slept. The boredom in this place leaves him too much time to think, and his thoughts revolve around what he learned on Komarr. Alone at night, wondering when his genes will start generating monsters in his head. Prince Serg, the longed-for father, the hero of the last generation, also a sadist who tortured pregnant women. Great Uncle Yuri, Mad Emperor Yuri, slaughterer of almost all his relatives. Ezar, who married his own cousin, Yuri’s sister, and produced Serg. Genes doubled and redoubled, madness folded over itself and compressed into Gregor’s own flesh, sleeping, latent. When will it raise its head?

He wishes and doesn’t wish for Aral Vorkosigan, Prime Minister and Puppet Master, foster-father and cousin, former regent and perpetual mentor. Aral would have answers, but Aral is the last person Gregor wants to hear them from. Aral led the retreat from Escobar after Serg’s death, then taken his place in the Imperium and at home until Gregor reached his majority. The truth about Serg can’t be heard from many others. Why has it never been revealed to him? Why didn’t they warn him of this latent threat? Did they think he would go mad simply from the revelation?

I am glass. Drop me and break me.

He finds himself leaning out the third-story window and wondering if it’s high enough. It’s the thought of Cordelia that makes him back away and close the window after several minutes of leaning. Cordelia, wrapping a protective arm around him after he lit his mother’s funeral offering.

Are they going to kill me, too?

No. I won’t let them.

Cordelia was far more a mother to him than Aral was a father. Still, unlike with Serg, Gregor remembers Kareen. She was murdered when he was five, but he still remembers her, maybe because his subconscious has to hold on to all the memories of his mother that it can. Cordelia had been her friend. Cordelia had tried to save her. Cordelia had taken care of her son. But he still remembers a time when someone else was his mother. He still knows he can’t compete with Cordelia’s actual son.

All the same, she might be the only person who loves him for himself. To her Betan mind, all these formal titles are sort of an optical illusion. And she’d be the first to point out that pitching himself over the side would only make him wake up a week later with his life even more in shambles than before. It doesn’t make him stop wanting to test whether or not he’d really come back, if even that escape is closed to him.

He pries himself away from the window. He should go do something else. Not get drunk, because that would make it worse. But it’s three in the morning and there’s not much else to do except wait till dawn. And that’s what he does, curled on his side on the couch, until the sky begins to lighten and he finally falls asleep.

He dreams about Serg melting the skin off one side of Captain Negri’s body with a plasma arc, mouth open with pleasure.

[He wakes up early in the afternoon and doesn’t feel better until after he’s taken a shower. It takes a lot of motivation to go outside at all. He spends a little time in the stables just to remember the smell of horses even if there aren’t any that belong to him. Riding. That’s the only thing he can think of that’s worth going outside for, and he can’t do it.

He tries the library. Barrayaran history won’t hold any answers about Serg, so maybe Escobaran. He doesn’t find Escobaran history. He does, however, find some psychology books that he winds up taking with him to the tea shop on a whim. There, he sits and sips his cuppa while devouring one book about mental illness by a supposedly distinguished author. There’s comfort in looking at it from a curable, clinical perspective. Most of the actual content matter he’s already learned at Cordelia’s knee.

Feeling like he’s doing something helps. He starts to look up more information about missions. He wants at least one horse, dammit, and the currency here seems to be these points earned by doing favors for the Malnosso. Maybe during a research mission, he could even learn something about what happened at Escobar.

He has a plan. Horse, psychology, and Escobar. And after the first horse? Maybe another. Maybe he’ll fill the stables so people can travel more easily within the enclosure. It would be good to have horses around. Maybe he could take up a career as a groom. Ma and Da (Illyan and Aral) would have conniptions. Cordelia would say it’s good for him.

He writes:]

Would anyone ride horses if we had them?

Also: I would like to speak with anyone who has died here and come back, if anyone would be willing to speak of it.

-GVB

Comments

[herotypical]

...Greg? Is that you?

[ she knows it's him. still, when she turns away from the counter at the tea shop, she makes a show of recognizing the man whose apartment she had barged into.

buffy approaches his table with her mug cradled in her hands. ]

[vor]

[He freezes and meets her eyes. He knows she knows it's him. She's being...Naismith-esque, he supposes. Tactical in a sort of off-center way, like Miles and the Betan branch of his family. Maybe she's some distant ancestor. That would be...annoying. And comforting.]

Hullo, Buffy.

[herotypical]

Settling in?

[ she raises her cup to her lips. a simple herbal tea. ]

[Written/Private]

[eyesofstrength]

[Leonhardt puts a filter up because he doesn't like discussing this openly on the journals, but has no issue discussing the fact that he died here.]

I am willing to speak of it. What questions do you have?

[Written/Private]

[vor]

You really come back.

[That's a statement of surprise, not a question. Gregor wonders, after writing it, why he even wrote it.]

[Written/Private]

[eyesofstrength]

[An understandable one, Leonhardt felt the same before.]

I assure you, it was quite a surprise to wake up after being dead.

[fleurdesel]

Pardon me?

[This was more than a little mortifying. But after the incident in the item store months ago she's learned that sometimes, it'd be better to simply ask for help instead of trying to reach something on her own. Still it doesn't make the asking any less awkward. Especially since she's never seen this man before but. He was tall, he was here, and she'd be there and gone after a soft, somewhat apologetic request.]

Might I borrow you for a moment?

[vor]

[Gregor gives her a blank look, blinks, then nods, approaching her with his hands folded behind his back casually.]

[fleurdesel]

[The fact he didn't ask or comment on the phrasing made her a little less awkward with the ordeal. She looks up, the top shelf just beyond her reach, and motions to a thick volume of military history.]

Would you be so kind? I cannot quite. reach.

[Voice: Filtered 100%]

[geniustheveil]

I've died here, and was revived. However, I don't remember a lot about it. [It was when she'd been here before, not this time; and besides that, she hadn't precisely been herself at the time, thanks to the Malnosso.]

[Voice: Filtered 100%]

[vor]

I'm not going to force you to talk about it.

[A beat.]

Is this a secure channel?

[He didn't think those existed.]

[Voice: Filtered 100%]

[geniustheveil]

It's as secure as possible. You should assume the Malnosso still have the ability to access it.

voice

[wannabolt]

Ride horses?

[Well, judging by the camera feed, there appears to be one very... strange looking, brightly colored, horse-like being on the other end. Hoo boy.]

Just don't go trying to ride any of us who talk and hang around the village, and you're good.

voice/video

[vor]

[The snapshot that returns is of a face so utterly neutral, he might well consider blandness to be an Olympic sport.

...Why not. He's going to consider this an exercise in diplomacy. He switches it to video, then gives a slight wave of his hand as if wiping away her worries.]

No, I'd say not. They're not creatures much like yourself.

video

[wannabolt]

Yeah, that's what I've heard. Loads of people mentioned that ponies in their worlds don't talk at all.

[stillplaying]

[There's a strange comfort in the library, being able to lose herself in the rows of books. She doesn't have to read anything. Just find a nice, empty corner by some shelf and sit when she needs to. It's become a new refuge of sorts, replacing the closets of District 13. Adding to the solace of the forest.

She's wandering when she sees a man wander in. A man about Finnick's age. There's something familiar in the way he holds himself. Almost like Gale would. Holding something in, looking almost strict. But in reality, there's something wrong.

That glumness is familiar, in so many ways.

He might realize it or he might not. But as of now, he has someone watching him. Curious.]

[vor]

[It's hard for the paranoia to wear off after only a week. Gregor does notice her, and periodically glances at her. With her height and coloring--dark hair, olive skin--she could very much be not only Barrayaran, but Vor.

...Does she recognize him?

Finally, he turns directly toward her and gives her a nod, like a shallow bow. An acknowledgment.]

[stillplaying]

[She tilts her head when he turns the first time. Has he noticed her? She isn't exactly hiding. From his table, the bookshelf does little to block her from his view. But she doesn't do anything until he nods. He has noticed her. And those prior glances back in her direction before meant he was probably watching her. Much as she was watching him.

Like Gale would.

A couple of seconds pass before she returns the gesture. A nod in return. Not quite a shallow bow, but certainly an acknowledgement.]

[theoniongirl]

[Jilly was on her way into the library as Gregor was on his way out...a situation that normally wouldn't be particularly troublesome. Except, just before stepping inside, the flash of some bright colored bird had caught the artist's attention. She froze in place, books in one arm, her free hand on the door...unaware that she happened to be directly in someone's way while she tried to spot where the bird had flown]

[vor]

[She might get a delicately cleared throat as Gregor takes the door from her.]

After you, Miss.

[A beat.]

Miss...Jilly?

[theoniongirl]

[she couldn't help jumping at the sound of his voice (she hadn't realized anyone was right there), and her eyes are a bit wide when she looks back at him with an embarrassed smile.] Just Jilly's fine...

[it's an automatic response as she collects herself, moving past the surprise to recognize him...not always easy to do, when the only reference was a miniature snapshot, but she was very good with faces. Names were harder. She'd never been particularly good with them, but she squints at him a second as she works to remember. It had been something with a G. She remembered because it had reminded her of Geordie. Not George, though. What had it been? Graham...Gray...Greg...Ah!]

Greg...right? Sorry. I don't normally try to block the exits. I promise.

[arturius]

I already do. But there are very few others around.

[voice]

[vor]

I used to have stables back home. Now I don't have anything. It's a little...

[He opens a hand, even if Arthur can't see it.]

It doesn't seem right.

[voice]

[rashness]

Y'know... I've never really ridden a horse, but given I'm going to be a knight, that might be cool...

[voice]

[vor]

...It's probably recommended coursework.