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Fourth Cream Cake: [Action/Voice]
[It has been some time since he did this.
Tonight, Gregor is behind CH7 with two large aluminum bowls. He places them on the ground.
One, he fills with sweet-scented bark and sage leaves. The other, with twigs and dried paper.
His hair has grown too long anyway. Carefully, he snips two locks of raven-black hair from his head. One for each bowl.
He kneels in front of the second bowl, the one filled with ordinary fuel, and tosses a tuft of hair in. Then, he strikes a match and sets fire to the contents. As it burns, he quietly adds a slip of paper with his signature written on it in his best handwriting. His official Imperial signature.
He says nothing as the death offering for his father burns. He's done this many times, at the guidance of Lady Alys. There had been no funeral offering for Prince Serg but the one which had filled the sky of Sergyar.
He returns to the first bowl, tenderly adding the lock of hair, a slip of paper with an invisible kiss, and, of all things, a child's shoe. As the offering burns, tears glisten in his eyes. When he's sure no one is around, he curls to the ground and quietly weeps.
He's aware of the limited privacy, but he'll whisper a few words over each offering. Anyone clever enough to sneak up would have to come very close indeed to hear them.
It is supposed that the burning of these offerings helps to drive away ghosts.
When that's over, he simply sits with his back to the wall and speaks into his journal. It's soft and hesitating--he's certainly not the "inspiring speeches on a dime" sort of ruler back home, but writing in the dark is ill-advised. His voice is somewhat rough.]
On Barrayar, we burn offerings for the dead. People died on the draft, but generally, the usual rites don't apply if they're coming back. It's limbo. What do you do?
Um. Could...someone give me a haircut?
Tonight, Gregor is behind CH7 with two large aluminum bowls. He places them on the ground.
One, he fills with sweet-scented bark and sage leaves. The other, with twigs and dried paper.
His hair has grown too long anyway. Carefully, he snips two locks of raven-black hair from his head. One for each bowl.
He kneels in front of the second bowl, the one filled with ordinary fuel, and tosses a tuft of hair in. Then, he strikes a match and sets fire to the contents. As it burns, he quietly adds a slip of paper with his signature written on it in his best handwriting. His official Imperial signature.
He says nothing as the death offering for his father burns. He's done this many times, at the guidance of Lady Alys. There had been no funeral offering for Prince Serg but the one which had filled the sky of Sergyar.
He returns to the first bowl, tenderly adding the lock of hair, a slip of paper with an invisible kiss, and, of all things, a child's shoe. As the offering burns, tears glisten in his eyes. When he's sure no one is around, he curls to the ground and quietly weeps.
He's aware of the limited privacy, but he'll whisper a few words over each offering. Anyone clever enough to sneak up would have to come very close indeed to hear them.
It is supposed that the burning of these offerings helps to drive away ghosts.
When that's over, he simply sits with his back to the wall and speaks into his journal. It's soft and hesitating--he's certainly not the "inspiring speeches on a dime" sort of ruler back home, but writing in the dark is ill-advised. His voice is somewhat rough.]
On Barrayar, we burn offerings for the dead. People died on the draft, but generally, the usual rites don't apply if they're coming back. It's limbo. What do you do?
Um. Could...someone give me a haircut?
action:
Usually it's just one. One of twenty-four walks out alive. This year... They were going to let two of us go home. As long as we'd come from the same District.
Cato and I were so close. But I got cocky. And I got us killed.
[Apples. Blood. Blades.]
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You might want to start at the beginning.
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It's not a way of life here.]
I come from Panem. We have the Capitol and twelve districts. There were thirteen, but Thirteen led a rebellion, which we now call the Dark Days, and was destroyed by the Capitol. The rest of the districts were spared when they surrendered.
In payment, though, and to remind ourselves of our debt to the Capitol, Panem has the Hunger Games every year. One girl and one boy from every district, aged twelve to eighteen, stand as tribute and compete. In a battle to the death with a lone victor.
The victor stands as the glory of Panem, living for the rest of their life without wanting for anything.
I was District Two's female tribute in the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games.
[It's said rather neutrally, pride creeping in at the recitation of the propaganda about the purpose of the Hunger Games she has been taught all her life.]
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He says nothing. He waits for her to continue.]
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If a boy and a girl from the same district were the last two left, they would be crowned co-victors. There was me and Cato, and the two from District Twelve. The other two-- a boy and a girl-- were from different districts.
I attacked the girl from District Twelve, wasn't looking, and the boy from District Eleven got me from behind.
[It's easy to say. If she just makes herself keep talking. If she doesn't hesitate.]
Slammed me into a structure the Gamemakers had there. Beat my head in. And District Twelve got away.
[Now, her voice falters. Just for a fraction of a moment:] And Cato was on his own. [Because she can still hear the words. Words she thinks she remembers, but she could have been dreaming or hallucinating in those last minutes. Or hours. Or seconds. However long it had taken her to die.
Stay with me, Clove. C'mon. Stay with me.]
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They won. Which means Cato died.
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[[It's all she knows how to be.]
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[Gregor has had a lot of things decided for him. But one thing that certainly was, that not everyone agreed upon, was the fact that, until he reached his majority, he was a child. This had been Cordelia Vorkosigan's insistence, and he owed the fact that he had a childhood to her after the death of his mother.]
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[Yes, it was chosen for her.
Her parents chose it for her when they enrolled her in the Academy's athletic program. Her instructors chose it for her every year they passed her, rather than kicking her to the academic program. The District Two escort chose it for her when he pulled her name out of a bowl and called it. Her peers chose it for her when none of other eligible girls (the ones older than her in the fifty selected to put their names in for the Reaping) stepped forward to challenge for the honor.
It was chosen for her.
All she could do-- all she can do-- is embrace it. Is take pride.]
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What would you have done if you hadn't?
[It's a question he asks himself all the time, and he knows exactly how irrelevant it is. But at least the asking of the question gave him a semblance of self-identity.]
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"Those who can't do, teach." [Really not the original intent of the phrase, but... Well.]
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Have you talked to the other two?
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So you were trained and they weren't. And you felt that because of your training, you should have been able to keep them from killing him.
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I shouldn't have let my guard down. I did.
I got killed for it.
And because I wasn't alive to help Cato, he got killed.
[Because it's that simple.
Because it doesn't bother her that she died.
Because she doesn't care about how many other children she killed. How many more she helped kill.
It's just that simple.]
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You face the problem of every soldier killed in battle, except most of them aren't alive to feel remorseful about it.
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