barrayar | the better space adventure

[ Gregor has long since progressed from afraid to bored and straight on through sullen. Just how long were they going to keep him here? Gregor is not accustomed to being kept anywhere he doesn't want to be, and maybe he's led a constrained life but it hasn't been a literal prison. And okay, so it's a little high-handed of him to be entitled about this, but he thinks he's entitled to know his future.

Yet no one answers his polite or his frustrated attempts to ask for answers. No one does anything apart from bring him food while looking harried and eye him dourly before leaving. He's started to get gross. He needs a shower, badly. He's washed his face and hair in the sink in his cell multiple times but it's just not the same and he's not used to these conditions.

Also, the boredom really is driving him insane. He's taken to composing sonnets in his head. He hates sonnets. He hates all that rigid structure in poetry, it's asinine and archaic. That's how bored he is, how craving stimulation and challenge.

When the door open, he startles upright, eyes wide. This is off schedule; he's already been fed today. ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Your fleet? So sure of that, are you? I thought you just had this one ship.

One ship is just the start. I'll find a way to get the rest, just you watch.

And then what? You'll be satisfied with that, running a mercenary fleet?

I ...

[ He gets a bit flustered at that, having not thought quite that far himself. ]

Maybe I will be. It'll be a lot more than we have going on now. And if I change my mind, I can always drop you off somewhere and go be Count Vorkosigan instead.

[ That's Gregor, always here to point out when someone is being short-sighted.

This casual plan jolts him a bit. ] Is your father aware you're intending that?

... The alternate I met does. He seems certain this version would appreciate me swooping in.

[ But his voice wavers even more. Uncertain. ]

[ Oh. He hadn't been expecting to hear that waver after all his confidence. ]

I've no reason to think he wouldn't receive you warmly, [ says Gregor carefully. ] But your entrance would be... politically fraught. I wouldn't casually jaunt in, is all I'm saying.

What do you think would happen if I did, then?

[ Evenly, ] There would be accusations that he means to name you Crown Prince. Especially if I'm still gone.

[ He pales slightly. ]

I truly don't want to though. Your alternate showed me how badly it was crushing him.

[ His paling more than anything else convinces Gregor this is the truth. But that comment...

He draws inward. ] So I'm right to think I'd make a terrible emperor, [ he says bleakly. ]

-- No, it's not that. I think he does do a good job, he's just... A bit squished under it.

[ He looks away. ]

It doesn't matter. I'm never going to become Emperor, either.

... Why the hell would you say that?

Because I'm not going back. I told you that. They don't need me.

Just because one is true doesn't mean that the other is.

They don't. Your father is ludicrously competent and my mother can have another heir whenever she likes. We've had uterine replicators as commonplace for years.

So why haven't they?

Because I was there. I told you, attempting to supplant me would be an act of war. If I'm gone it's just necessary.

They could still have given you a sibling. At any time. I doubt they're going to just make one to fill the gap.

No, they really couldn't have. And you don't understand-- they'd have to. There has to be an heir who is a Vorbarra. It doesn't matter if it's me.

So they clone you or something. They could have done that too.

A clone is never going to be accepted on Barrayar, [ he says in exasperation. ] Certainly not as the emperor.

Why the hell not? Twins would be.

[ He folds his arms. ]

They're barely accepting that the next crown prince is going to be born from a replicator instead of a body birth, and you think you can shuffle in a clone?

Edited 2016-06-30 23:26 (UTC)

(no subject)

dendarii - 2016-06-30 23:31 (UTC) - Expand

vorbarra - 2016-07-01 14:31 (UTC) - Expand

dendarii - 2016-07-01 14:48 (UTC) - Expand