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[ Okay. Good. He looks sleep-fogged and confused. Kitty would have liked a baffled, mumbled whah or huh just to underline his fuzziness, but the wide-eyed look demonstrates his disorientation well enough. Okay. Good.

Remember, this is for them. It feels grotesque - more than a little grotesque - threatening a man who's addled and sleepy and unarmed. But Miles is a threat, one who's already been hurt by this man's hand. And Gregor is a deserter from his planet and his backwards aristocracy. And both of them, thin helpless things, could be crushed by a single blow. No: she is not going to leave her friends undefended, even as their fear and their conflicted feelings hamstring them.

Besides...it's sort of nice to maybe get out a little bit of aggression. There are times when you just want a big ugly bully to look scared of you. ]

I understand you aren't shy about hurting other imPorts. Do you want to know how we react to that here?

[ A bit of a smokescreen. It can't be about taking revenge for him hurting Miles - because that'll just bring his attentions back to Miles. Her intention is to imply that there's some sort of shadowy, imPort-defending cabal out there. Hopefully it'll work... ]

[He didn't have to feign the confusion here, or the narrowing of his eyes. The poor light of the room helped the disguise and the words helped clear any political motivation from the intruder. Which left him.. what?

A lie? Who knows. He could count the things he was sure about in this world on one hand. The first of which was taken by his own name.

There was no way any report would have been filed. Monitored? No. The miscommunication would have been sorted out. If alerted by some function of these intrusive nanites themselves, it would mean Miles would be in the same situation, if not presently, then very shortly.

He reached out mentally, finding the same absence of Gregor he'd quickly become accustomed and the nonsensical murmur of sleep from Miles. Not presently.

For Kitty, that maddening, high-handed composure crept back into the man's face.]

Assault for assault. Charming.

[He could hardly move to free him range of movement without being fired on with her attention on him.

As much as these powers were alien, an intrusion on his person and space... he was not a man who scorned a tool. With some concentration, he sought to summon an iron guard, forming behind her.]

I'm not going for charm.

[ She stares down into his face. God, she loathes that lordly sort of look. Granted, she's seen it on Gregor's face before, a look very similar to this one, but...on Gregor, the High Vor Look is charming, coupled as it is with good intentions and genuine compassion. There is clearly no compassion coming from this man. Even if he didn't have anything to do with Miles' upbringing, he raised someone who did. Someone in his family thought it was all right to raise a brilliant, funny, compassionate boy to be nothing except for a cow for the slaughter. No. The lordly look on the face of a man who'd even contribute to something like that... ]

I'm going for cooperation. Are you going to keep your hands to yourself, Mr. Vorkosigan?

[There was a acerbic joke there, about how he would keep HIS hands to himself. Even as the guard behind the intruder finished forming. He could feel the anticipatory hum from it, awaiting orders.

An attack on Miles again? He would take his own hands off, gladly, before lifting another finger. But this?

His look was downright wintery.]

I'm disinclined to give my word at gunpoint.

And yet here we are.

[ She inclines her chin, glares down at him. The disguise sort of robs her face of the proper gravitas needed to pull of wintery - it has to be noted besides that Aral Vorkosigan with sleep-mussed hair has more gravitas than Kitty on her best day - but there's still real anger to it. ]

There are consequences for refusing to live in peace with others. Do you understand that?

[An impossible situation. The threat was clear, it was his word or her consequences. He pushed, briefly, but hard at the connections he had with the other two Barrayarans in the house.]

Indeed. We call it 'war.'

[The curl of his lip was the only warning given. The faceless golem strikes, arms wrapping around her shoulders and wresting her to the right in hopes of throwing the aim of the weapon off.

At the same time, Aral threw the covers, blankets obscuring his motion as he rolled to the left, finding his feet heavily on the other side of the bed.

Or it was the intent - the guard shattered only a moment into the action, iron shards hitting the ground and dissolving... The sound, the sensation of it simply ceasing gave a stutter to Aral's recovery, moment's start.]

Edited (Because redundant word choices bother me. Even if they were puns.) 2016-02-04 18:04 (UTC)

[ A muffled sound - throatier than a squeak, quieter than a shriek, but regardless deeply unmasculine and undignified - escapes from her mouth when those arms wrap around her. And she bites out - ]

Shit -

[ When it falls apart. A power, she figures, and therefore useless on her - but startling enough that he's on his feet now, moving. Shit shit shit - he was supposed to just get scared - damn it -

The gun is lifted towards him again. The problem is that she got turned around, and now Vorkosigan between her and the window that's her best route of escape...And she knows that the longer she goes without firing, the more obvious it'll be how empty the threat is. Literally empty. Still, she speaks in her best ferocious snarl: ]

Back off!

[He was not one to hesitate at gender. Cordelia's survival was not some gallantry as it was the orders of peaceful detention and the lack of aggressive response in his prisoner.

Perhaps, more distinctly misogynist was the assumption that it was her now revealed gender was the reason she hesitated to fire.

There was no hesitation. No inclination to become a hostage or an executed victim, she'd laid her intent. He lunged at her, all speed, power and ferocity in the movements, striking in at her wrist, intending to follow it with a jab to the neck that flowed through the form.]

[ Shit -

The gun goes flying. She doesn't go after it; it's useless, after all. Instead, she moves fast, getting the hell out of his way. He's very obviously strong - clear from his build as much as that blow - and so the worst thing she can allow is him getting a hold of her.

But Kitty is fortunate, because she's fast. The jab to the neck meets nothing except empty air. She's already ducking, wheeling around and vaulting atop the bed, grabbing a pillow as she goes. She grabs it by the loose cloth of the pillowcase and swings out with it, hard - it might be a weapon that'll do no damage, but being smacked in the head will still sometimes disorient you. ]

[He didn't dare jerk back, already off balance from the missed strike, being laid flat was far worse. It grants her a moment of blindness, a still reprieve.

One that is broken as he grabs and yanks hard at the sheets under her feet.]

[ This time it is a squeak, a high-pitched chirp of alarm as her feet are pulled out from under her and she lands on her arse. Fortunately, the bed is springy, and fortunately, her back rather than her head bumps against the wall behind her, and so she recovers quickly and rolls off to the side. She lands on all fours. A few paths open to her now: not under the bed, she's skinny enough to hide under there easily but not skinny enough to shimmy with any sort of speed; ahead, towards Vorkosigan; a break for the door.

Her shoes have hard heels and hard toes. She flips so that she's face up, and she goes for Vorkosigan, slamming out with her shoe towards his knee. She has good aim, and she's aiming right for the kneecap. ]

[Reflexes more than intent saves him from a shattered knee. Aral twists out of the way. With her sheer speed outstripping his own, and the way that the wrenching movement conspired with the freshly healed injury in his leg, it became clear that a change of tactics was the only way to make it out of this.

He wasn't too far from his desk in this small room and the stunner on it. She'd have momentum to pull in check to turn and catch him. He pivots again and grabs for it.]

[ Meanwhile, Miles' side of the link has been buzzing rather insistently at him since this whole mess started. A faint murmur at first, barely enough to disturb his dreams. Then louder as he jolted out of bed and realized that he wasn't dreaming it. Gregor--? No, a quick mental stretch over to his emperor quickly lays that to rest. That leaves ... hell.

He's out of bed in a flash, only stopping long enough to grab Gregor - awaken him if necessary, though surely Miles' alarm is enough even if he was asleep - and head down the hallway. ]

[ A reverberating sense of a distant alarm bell in his mind awakens him, and he immediately dips his fingers into Miles's head enough to get a sense of what's going on, hastily lurching out into the hall. He even eases his link with Aral open, only to receive the adrenaline rush of combat. It's sufficient to clear any lingering traces of sleep from his system completely.

He meets Miles at the door, then stops abruptly, all momentum halted. Miles is still injured a bit-- Gregor should go in first-- damn it. All of this races through his head and filters down the link to him, but there's no time to argue, and Gregor knows he will lose this fight. He always loses this fight.

He steps back from the door to let Miles through first. ]

[ And Miles is immediately bowled over in a tangle of limbs.

She'd seen Vorkosigan going for something, and she'd known that was her cue to immediately retreat. Whether it was a weapon or a communications device, it was bad for her - and so she'd scrambled at once for the door, glanced over to confirm - yeah, a gun, some space future laser gun by the looks of it - and then ripped the door open and bounded out only to find herself entangled with someone else. Someone small. She gives a little shriek as she goes down. But out of either compassion or incompetence or sheer accident, she twists around as she falls so that he falls on top of her. ]

Euuughhh -

[ Lucky for Miles, at least, that he landed on top; if she'd landed on top of him, he'd surely have broken something. Again. (He's so goddamn tired of breaking things here, it's getting ridiculous.) Off goes the link with what is getting to be an unpleasant snapping sensation. Miles barely manages to brace against the ground to keep from landing face first. It's awkward enough ending up more or less in her arms on the ground. ]

--Kitty? What the hell are you doing in my Da's room?

[ The words fly out of his mouth without a single thought. All their precious lies unraveled in a single instant. ]

[For a brief moment, he could indulge in quite a moment of satisfaction. The two outside of the door were in perfect position.

Instead of the expected stunner fire, the collision added a hell of a complication. Heart in his throat the instant he saw WHO his assailant slammed into was both assuaged by how they landed (thank God), and dismayed as his son was now a shield. He snaps his own stunner down, prepared to fire if Gregor fr-]

Ah.

[The wig is somewhere off on the other side of the hall, he notes, after the surprised questions. The light of the hallway shredded the last of the disguise...

He lowered the stunner.]

Your Miss Jones.

[ Gregor belatedly echoes his own surprised, ] Kitty? [ But it can't be anyone else with the link snapping off like that, and Gregor physically winces at the abruptness of it, the yearning maw of where it used to be sending almost phantom limb sensations through him...

But a moment later his attention is snapping into the room itself and toward Aral. Entirely deliberately, Gregor steps into the doorway, blocking his shot completely should any further violence attempt to ensue from either side. He is more than happy to use his person as a shield no one dares fire on. ]

Lord Vorkosigan. Are you unharmed? [ Leaving Miles to, momentarily, deal with that little slip. Gregor can feel their cover crashing down around their eyes and, actually, doesn't much care. Priorities again. Plus he wasn't happy lying to Kitty so much in the first place. ]

Edited 2016-02-05 15:23 (UTC)

Your...

[ Kitty's a little winded from the fall. But she wriggles, sitting up - leaving Miles sitting in her lap. It's a little fortunate that she's just too flummoxed by this turn of events - and by what Miles just said. ]

What are you two doing...in this...? What do you bloody mean, your Da? [ Her gaze turns to the tableau in the doorway, and then back to Miles, and then to Gregor and Vorkosigan, and then to Miles again. She pushes her hand against her face, and groans into her wrist - her voice really soft, not carrying past Miles' ears - ] Please, please tell me that this is a cover and you're pretending to be his son for your safety.

[ Normally that would be a pleasant side effect of their collision, but not when she's staring at him like that. Like he's been lying to her the whole time and it's all about to crash down around his ears... Right. Well. He deserves this. Besides, he's already made a dismayed face in response to her question, and he suspects that there's no walking back from that.

Slowly, carefully, he moves to disentangle them. Mostly because he doesn't think she'd appreciate him being in her lap while he tells her he's lied the whole time. ]

No... No, it's the literal truth. I'm sorry, Kitty. We haven't been completely honest with you.

[ She stares a moment. And then she lets out a breath. And, slowly, she climbs to her feet, her face hidden. And then she looks at Miles, expression dry but not the least bit angry or disappointed as she offers him a hand up. ]

Mind giving me a few of the details on just how not-honest you've been?

[ That's hopeful, he thinks. He gladly accepts her hand up. ]

There is no clone. No vile Lord Vorkosigan out to stuff his brain into my empty body. I am the actual Lord Vorkosigan, and have been since we first stepped into this world.

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