barrayar

It's been completely nonstop since Miles first dropped into her musty basement prison, and as a result, Taura hasn't really been able to notice or process the additional feelings filtering through. Miles might be loud as a mental presence, but Taura's constant hunger, her savage impulses and blood running high with first sex and then revenge, are strong competitors. The whirlwind of her emotions have been completely overtaking any of his thoughts or feelings leaking over.

Being rescued - joining the Dendarii - learning Dr. Canaba, and Miles, had lied - but Miles still wanted to sleep with her -

Taura feels like she's run a marathon on starvation rations, likely because she essentially has. It takes some time, a couple days of showers and food and finding clothes in her size, for her to start to even be able to notice something is amiss.

That's about when Miles, perhaps presciently, summons her to his private quarters. Taura eagerly hopes it's for round three, though she shows up in-uniform and proudly shows off that she's learned both the salute and proper etiquette when she arrives and the door slides shut behind her.

"You asked for me, sir?"

dendarii

( In which Miles is not nearly as smart as he thinks he is. )

vorbarra

[ 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. ]

jacksonian

All the other starters are so beautiful but instead I'm coming in and ruining everything with this useless post with this sad sack
Comment to this post and I will write you something

naismith

Miles would never admit to nervousness. Certainly not. But he'd been with Agent Texas in every capacity for several months now, and she appeared to be making no sign of either spacing him out the airlock or simply breaking him in half in bed, so he was increasingly being filled with the desire for her to know him honestly. To know the other half of his personality, as it were. To see if she could handle Vorkosigan as well as she handled Naismith-- namely, that she wouldn't run in the other direction.

He's not at all sure she won't. Most do. Miles tries not to blame them. He knows he's a lot to take, but surely some woman somewhere can take all of him, damn it, can't they?

That's how he's left pacing his admiral's quarters on the flagship Triumph impatiently, fingers rapping against his thigh. He's dressed casually today, not in uniform, just plain clothes that nonetheless had to be personally tailored due to his size. When the door swooshes open, he rounds on it immediately, eyes alight with the same sort of nervous energy he gets before he pulls off a very large scam. She'll likely recognize it.

"Tex, good. Thank you for joining me. Come in, come in. I have, er, something to tell you."

naismith

Miles's proclamation the next day that he was taking a lightflyer and showing River the district was met with an amused quirk of his mother's lips and sedate agreement. His father didn't say anything against it either, which he wasn't surprised by. Neither of his parents had any intention on pressuring him to follow through with this mad scheme-- and in fact they would be best pleased if he abandoned it entirely, steadfast as they both were in their progressive views. They'd both ultimately married for love and found their happiness in that, and wished the same for him. But Miles's protective streak, that urge that makes him want to save everyone in distress he comes across (damsel or not) is too strong to quash that easily.

Plus, Miles is finding himself warming up to the whole idea. River is smart. Smarter than him, and tenacious, and certainly better looking than him, and... He can't quite put off the conviction that she'd be entirely out of his league if her parents hadn't pushed for this kind of arrangement. It leaves Miles nearly vibrating with the need to impress her.

So he leaves his parents behind to entertain hers (and he'll have to make that up to them later, he thinks wryly, aware of the favor they're doing him) and then goes to find his -- well, his intended. It's an odd thought, something he's still fitting to the shape of in his mind.

He finds her out in the garden and tries to resist the urge to bound up to her. He manages to keep it to a fast walk, though there's a bounce in his step, his eyes alight. "Lady River," he begins, half teasing and half respectful with the title, "would you care to join me for a morning excursion? I thought you might like to tour Vorkosigan district. From the air."

And if he has plans to spend a good portion of that time showing off his piloting skills (not substantial, but daring as hell), it'll be a damn sight more entertaining than puttering around Vorkosigan House with four parental chaperones and the bland supervision of the armsmen in residence.

naismith

The whole job was a mess.

Miles finds himself stuck in the basement of a Jacksonian corporate building, the lift he'd used to arrive collapsed behind him and groaning shrilly with the sound of steel sliding against concrete as it settles. Dust clouds the air. Someone had cut the cable, someone prepared, because cutting industrial grade, ten centimeter lift cable took malice aforethought. You didn't have those kinds of bolt cutters just lying around.

He eyes the jammed lift doors grimly. No sense waiting here to be cornered. Turning immediately to leave, Miles searches through the surrounding rooms with all the urgency of trapped prey. They'd succeeded in separating him from his escort, and however frantic Taura was upstairs and outside, even her formidable strength would be no use. Miles has his combat armor and a plasma arc and a stunner-- the stunner he has out at the ready-- and his now useless command helmet, the meters of concrete and dirt between him and the surface cutting him off more effectively than any communications jammer. They'd planned this, oh yes. They'd planned this very well.

When he finds what he presumes is a laundry dumb waiter in the laundry room, he stares at it and sighs. Once again, his tiny frame is going to get him out of a situation with a method that he wouldn't be able to use if he were a normal person. Obviously if they've cut the elevator they'll be attempting to herd him toward the stairs, or at least trying to enclose him somewhere he'd be backed into making a desperate, futile last stand. With this dumb waiter, he doesn't have to do either.

Grumbling to himself about the unfairness of being stuck in vents or vent-like spaces again, Miles slaps the button for the uppermost floor available-- best to get as far away as possible; he can get an emergency pick up from the roof if necessary, and they certainly won't be anticipating that-- and clambers in. He just barely fits, yanking a last foot out of the way before the hatch closes and the box starts to crawl upward. Miles hurriedly checks that the safeties are engaged on both his weapons and settles in for what is sure to be several minutes of claustrophobic tedium.

He has no idea where he'll be coming out. It sends a little thrill of excitement through him, actually.

rathercommon

This isn't a world that really matters to anyone. It's not on any important trade routes; it's not wealthy, doesn't have any real technology of value. The terraforming took hold well, so it's prosperous enough, but not so much to make it outright wealthy. There haven't been any real great thinkers from the world. There's not much culture of note there. If there were something that distinguished New London, anything at all, anything of real worth, then maybe people would care about what happened there. But there's nothing to take note of, and so no one interferes.

Which is a bad thing indeed. Because affairs on New London are...awful, honestly. Not so awful as to really arouse the fury of some of the more enlightened planets, because again, there's nothing really sufficient to distinguish this planet, but...The planet is ruled by a circle of quasi-religious oligarchs, a group of a few hundred wealthy men and women who use technology to make themselves appear to be magicians. They're able to conjure flames, make predictions about the weather and natural disasters, communicate over long distances, heal injuries that regular folk medicine can't; they use these remarkable deeds, and strictly control travel on- and off-world, and strictly control education, to make the people believe that they're nearly gods. It's almost laughable - indeed, on other planets, New London is sort of a joke, that planet where the people in charge have managed to convince people that they're magical. But the lines of control are cruel and efficient: the people are too afraid to rise up against people with such remarkable abilities, and so they work to prop up the horrid regime. They live lives of terror and squalor, while the so-called magicians live in luxury off their labor.

But those are secrets that can't stay secrets forever. The magicians are good at concealing the source of their power, to be certain. But there are people who are resisting magician rule, and they're making some small amount of headway. One rebel group, calling itself the Resistance, in one raid on a magician office, managed to acquire some communications equipment. One of the few survivors of the raid, Kitty Jones, actually managed to make contact with someone offworld - someone who knew what was happening on New London, how the so-called magicians held onto their power. And once she heard it all, Kitty - furious - began planning how to turn this opportunity into an outright coup.

An outside force is what's needed. She figured that out early on. And so, she rooted and researched and planned, and talked with offworlders more and more to try to determine who was best to contact. In the end, she hunted down a name: the Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet, a group of mercenaries with reasonable rates led by a man named Admiral Naismith who, someone had said, seemed to have some fondness for just causes. And finally, after some time, she contacted them, and she asked to meet.

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Barrayar | a musebox

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Entries tagged with character: miles

if you couldn't be good, at least you could be discreet

VKS/POI PSL

the better space adventure

I am junking up this beautiful community with this junk

} identity crises for all

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