barrayar | I am junking up this beautiful community with this junk

[He watches each as they talk, the picture forming quickly from these fragments. Abruptly, he stills and centers, the confusion gone and thought split cleanly from emotion entirely. An assassin.

The idea was clever if particularly afflicted with tunnel vision. A dark part of him admired the patience and the madness necessary for it, just as the other critiqued it, picking apart the weak points and ramifications. Komarr would not hold much longer than Barrayar. The Cetagandans would be no happier to have no control over that side of their wormhole than the Barrayarans did.

But that wasn't the curious part.

He folds his hands.]

And his intentions now?

Sworn to Gregor. He's ... [ "Safe" seems too strong of a word. "Defused" makes his brother sound like some mindless weapon, which is exactly what they want to get away from now. ] ... trying to figure things out from there. We all are.

[Gregor elaborates on the specific character of the oath, as he feels Aral is going to consider it extremely pertinent information.]

Sworn sincerely and unbreakably, using my other power, to be a loyal and obedient liegeman and not to harm anyone else sworn to me, [he clarifies.] With all the privileges and protections from me due any other liege-sworn.

[He finishes in a softer tone, knowing Aral is going to pick up the significance from that that Miles's brother hadn't-- that Gregor intends to make sure he isn't abandoned to his fate, whatever it may be.]

[It's a long span of moments that Aral is silent.

Three lines of thought crackled simultaneously. The first was easiest to examine and put aside. Oath or not, an assassin flushed out was an assassin no more. A threat, perhaps, if he made himself to be one, but that was a different term entirely.

The second stretched, as it often did now, into politics. The ramification of Gregor's words and actions did more than merely protect himself and his family. More than protect this clone who had the misfortune (or fortune) of turning up before his prey unprepared... It was law. Barrayar's laws were strung together mostly on code and precedent - obscure, ridiculous and traditional at once. In the yawning hole that was any precedence on clones, it was a resounding ruling. This boy was a Barrayaran, liegesworn as a Vor would be. Barrayaran by citizenship. Vorkosigan by right.

In those simple, softer words, it was as strong a lance of protectiveness than the one he could feel blazing from Miles.

Which left... himself... Uninhibited by the bonds of grief and duty that would chain his future self, what was left was a tangle he hardly understood himself. Hope? Anger? Confusion? Repulsion?

How much does he look like Miles? Miles' own face was new to him, achingly so. But his wholehearted emotion had taken no time in wrapping around it in memorizing it, trying to fish out missing history in every line of it. God. To look like Miles without the soltoxin... Miles was right, there would have been unaccountable tortures of the body. And colder still, the mind... To create one willing to strike after all of it, to be able to pass mentally as well... He could doubt there were any happy lessons. Any unbiased ones, either.

Rejoice, Vorhalas, you've had your revenge now on both of my sons. One for each of yours. He fancied the man would weep, despite himself.

But son... His own mind hiccuped over his own thought. Is that.. person. (Another hiccup, regarded and soothed) Is he?

He can hear Cordelia plain as day, so sharp and definite that it bleeds over to Miles. "If I've lost my agency in his birth and my say in his upbringing, then by god I'll see him a future."]

A second son... [The decision was little more than a whisper. Voice stronger as he finally focuses on the other two in the room.] You haven't mentioned his name.

[He can tell without having to say anything, or even feel it across the link, that Aral has followed every nuance of that decision, so he doesn't harp on it. But Gregor does remember that he'd made an assurance to his newest liege-sworn that he'd tell the Vorkosigans to leave him alone about his name, so he verbally steps in.]

He doesn't have one. [He speaks levelly, but the characteristically melancholy cant to his expression deepens just a little.] Those were his words to me. And I know how difficult this will be for both of you, but my recommendation is not to pressure him on it. He has been... indoctrinated into a belief system that counts Vorkosigan as the vilest enemy.

You'll have to be very careful about converting him. [Though, obviously, Gregor does hope that they succeed. It pains him to see anyone else's family with a rift in it, but this one especially.]

[ Miles agrees with Gregor quietly, a hum along both sides of the link. And yet ... He does very desperately want this little brother, to have him be part of the family. Only the thought that his brother might not want it in turn stops him. ]

I was thinking Mark Pierre, though. If he wants it.

Mark Pierre would be traditional. If he wants.

[It's a murmured agreement, uncertain still in its tone. His shoulders rise and drop with a large, slow breath and its release. There were no warnings from neutrally worded reports, no weeks or months to prepare or discuss. He was upstairs.]

Converting... what a term. [He offers nothing else, merely continues.]

How did you two talk him down?

[To Gregor's mind, it's like convincing a kicked dog that you won't kick it again. It takes patience. And you have to let them make up their own mind. What he needs most is the ability to make his own decisions, to have his own control-- a feeling Gregor can sympathize with if not understand directly to that extent.

At this question, though, he merely says quietly,] I offered him a choice. I think it might have been the first time anyone did.

Edited 2016-01-28 04:53 (UTC)

Better if you offer him options, I think. [ He murmurs, as a side note. ] Offering him all the choices at once doesn't seem to help.

I have no doubt any options I offer will be rejected out of hand.

[He, of all people, knew that choice was as much raw terror as it was a saintly boon. It all depending on the question it was framed by.

The thought crossed his mind, suddenly, to completely funk out. It was a dire temptation. Easily done, easily justified. He could offer to see himself and Cordelia rehoused for a time, to allow adjustment and to let the boy pick his own pace. He knew damn well this ... new child of his would likely never call himself ready.

Nor was he. Not to see some mirror of his son's face clouded with.. what would it be? Horror? Hatred? Fear? God. What an exquisitely designed plot. Full of madness, without question, but if it ached this badly knowing Miles this short, how would it be with 20 years of memories?

At last, his gaze fell to the dagger, sheathed on Miles hip. He took a breath, and released it.]

Allow me half an hour.

I am junking up this beautiful community with this junk

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