Voice Testing Post

[use_everything]

Canon

A.

[You may find yourself facing large, heavy gates. Behind the bars, you can easily see the enormous, austere residence spread both tall and wide against a backdrop of a lake, stables and a small, private cemetery. The unbridled horse grazing, unhitched beside a carriage, by a liveried servant is in direct opposition to an obviously futuristic lightflier not far from it.

Even the guard that narrows to nervous attention holds both a sword and a strange, small device.]

And you are?

[The voice comes from behind.

Aral, for his part, neither looks, nor feels the part of the lord. Having taken the long way, treacherous and unmonitored paths and foothills back to the residence, he smells of sap, a chemical tinge of smoke and the exertion it took to get back. His green dress uniform had survived in all but the pressed edges, looking as if he'd intended the slight look of disarray and set jaw.

He lifts a hand, stilling the guard from comment on him, and focuses all of his attention on this newcomer.]

B.

[The Counts and Minsters poured out of the building first. The debates of the evening being traded in words so sharp that they might as well have been blows. Aral followed much more sedately, having taken a bit of time to brief his intelligence officer and leave orders for the evening.

It's by chance he stumbled across a stranger, enough out of place to inspire both caution and curiosity in equal measures.]

You seem lost.

Mask or Menace

C.

[It helped to liken the city to a space station. It had the bustle of a large hub.. the rowdy clash and wild fusion of fashions and cultures that defied any easy identification of a trend or perhaps some anthropological hint as to the people - and species... intelligent and alien, the very thought sent his mind into fits of fantasy and planning at once. It was like water, as far as he could tell. Formless, impossible to grip, but could fill the air around you and sweep one far away should he let it. There were colors and layers fitting the ghem Cetagandan... lack of modesty known to the Betans... the maliable gathering of anything adorned by a Jacksonian mindset...

And yet, nothing that fit anything else.

There was only one way to begin. Diplomatically.]

Might I ask a question?

OTHER

[Pick your poison, or let me know and I'll cater a starter to you.]

Comments

[use_everything]

[He takes it, reading briefly... and then seeming to scour each of the words.]

A poor attempt at humor.

[keep_nothing]

I'm certainly not laughing at it.

going to skip initial meeting for impact later.

[vorbarra]

[It's intensely awkward.

There's really no other word for it. Gregor has the links to everyone but Miles shut down tight, though it's some strain on him to keep them so tightly closed. They naturally want to be at least a little open, leaking feelings piecemeal, but he patently can't handle that on top of everything else.

Here he is, making dinner-- nothing complicated, granted-- when Aral arrives home. He is abruptly hyper-conscientious that this is not an Imperial activity to be doing, in the way he never is with Miles. Hell, sometimes he enjoys how un-Imperial it is, and it's not like someone else is going to cook his food for him here. Miles is even more hopeless than him. Gregor has nothing to apologize for.

But all he can think of is Aral discovering his guilty midnight raids into the Residence's kitchens when he was a child and taking him to task for it, an event that had never happened but he used to live in fear of, at age twelve.

Gregor pauses where he is at the stove, glances over at him sidelong, and clears his throat. He quietly offers a,] Welcome home.

[use_everything]

[Aral's brows drew together, expression faltering to blatant confusion. Pieces slid into place, finding purchase and clearing the contradictions and edges that didn't make sense. Why mention Bothari as a guardian? If he'd merely needed the credibility of the house, there were 19 other names that were not so heavily influenced by the man's reputation. Why attribute a clone to the phobic Barrayarans?

And the dagger...

Each took their turn and got rejected by the simple last memory he had of Miles Vorkosigan... a baby so tiny, so fragile, being carried away for the first of what was going to be a lifetime of terrible odds and endless medical procedures for.....

He didn't answer, searching that face. Those eyes, they were Cordelia's... clouded by hysteria and pain, or was it just his guilty imagination. His eyes fell on Miles' shoulders, lingering on each, a moment of raw uncertainty clear.]

[use_everything]

[Without comment, he withdraws his own from his pockets, handing it over to her. They weren't anything he'd ask for, or even prefer to find any use for, but in comparison...]

I might have had a bit more fortune, inexplicably.

[dendarii]

[ That uncertainty ... His own father doesn't believe him. His own father is looking him at him, at the dark bruises already purpling up the side of his neck, and finding him wanting. That is a nerve disruptor directly to the heart, worse than the guard clutching his shoulders and the implied threat of the knife in his table. He'd be better off gutted with that knife than he would be facing down even a second more of it.

His gaze falls after a moment as he fishes for something, anything that might possibly convince him. He has no golden sacrifice to lay at his father's clay feet. Nothing that could prove his worth. He still doesn't know if this Aral even has a son at all, if he's even met Cordelia. Hell. What can he even say? ]

My room is in the east wing back home. The one with the smallest windows. You replaced them all with force screens, after Vorhalas.

[ Soltoxin poisoning - and the antidote. He lifts his gaze back up again, begging his father to recognize the reference. ]

[use_everything]

I'd presumed so.

[That gets a slight upturn of the corner of his lips, the reason following audibly.]

The character of the governance behind it, mostly.

[keep_nothing]

[ Huh. Her eyebrows raise lightly. ]

At least they seem to suit you.

[protagerrant]

[Yuri's own expression turn's a little wry, but then he sighs a little.]

Good question. They're pretty shady if you ask me, but other imPorts might tell you different. They're just a little too nice for my tastes.

[use_everything]

[Aral had paused in the threshold himself. While years of command could keep such trivial emotions such as uncertainty from his face, that beast had no less of a hold on him.

The child he knew... It wasn't hard to recall how the hands he'd placed his own in barely could hold two each of his fingers. He'd seemed small, solemn and almost mute, unbearably aware of what was going on. Sharpened by the dizzying sequences of trauma, no doubt.

He no more knew what that young boy thought than the man he saw in adulthood here. That vague static of emotions he'd misunderstood and dismissed when he'd first arrived was now patently gone. What years he'd spent grooming this man was a mysterious future and an inscrutable past. There were no hints, no clues.

Some part of him wondered if he should offer a hand to the kitchen, but he didn't have the first idea of left from right in THIS battlefield. Ezar, you never mentioned this challenge. The old spirit was probably laughing hysterically.

Finding no answers in the pause, as it drew out, he offers a similar, steady,] Sire.

[An acknowledgement, a question and an answer at once.]

[rathercommon]

[ A new imPort, then, almost certainly. The clothes - not strange, but not of here - lend support to that supposition. A prickle of suspicion runs through her mind. Greg's accent - it sounds like his. ]

Sure. Historical research, or current events? I can recommend books for the one and blogs for the other.

[use_everything]

[His heart lurched as surely as if it alone had dropped into zero-g without the rest of him. Cotton mouthed, he struggled to swallow, the last piece settling in a way that couldn't be denied or argued with. There's no way an outworlder could know. Some information couldn't be bought, wouldn't be sold even by some of his most dire enemies and the correlation was clear, pointed.

He stood, color draining from his face, and made a sharp, dismissive gesture. The iron guard holding Miles prisoner is gone as immediately as the blocks hampering his power.]

Miles...

[His voice is rough, hoarse enough that the single syllable breaks.

The emotions, unwittingly loosed as a flood were even starker. Blazing for their intensity, mercurial. There's confusion... but the sort of aching relief that comes from a muscle too long tense. A flicker of joy, pure and white, a crackle of wonder in its wake...

And suddenly realization burned a clear path for guilt and that maddening, controlled panic Miles himself might find familiar from those situations where everything suddenly seemed wrong and he sat in the center of it.]

God. Your shoulder, let me see it.

[He stepped forward, hurriedly. Everything else, ALL of the concerns were a pale distant ghost to the pressing disaster of his own making.]

1/2

[use_everything]

I'd rather command a man with a heart and a mind than a machine with neither.

[use_everything]

Still. The poor humor of it aside... I can't find much fault in an assassin getting a taste of their own evil.

Keep that on.

[vorbarra]

[God. Sire. And Gregor daren't say a word to convince him to call him aught else in private, for fear of how he might take it. The last thing he wants to do is give some signal to Aral that he doesn't accept and own his position, with rather more grace now than he ever has, really.

But it's certainly true that a somber-eyed child reluctant to express himself has grown into an adult much the same.

He hesitates a moment, but surely he owes Aral more than letting the man stew in confusion indefinitely about the nature of their relationship. His arrival had been such a whirlwind mess that Gregor has not really had a moment to be merely at peace with him.]

Would you like to join me? [A ghost of a wry, self-conscious smile. Surely he can afford to seem human this much.] Not a requirement, you understand. Though it feels very strange to have to say that to you.

[He wants it to be absolutely clear that he doesn't require anything of him.]

[use_everything]

I tend to find one indelibly tied to the other.

[There's a touch of wry humor to his tone.]

I would not turn down either.

[dendarii]

[ It likely doesn't help that the first rush coming back from Miles is sheer agony. Mental and physical mixed, the pain of his father looking at him like that first and foremost (against a steady abyss of self-worth) and the searing pain in his shoulders (bright against the background radiation of his bone aches).

The mental, at least, crumbles in the wake of Miles' getting Aral's emotions - not disappointment, as he had assumed, but this strange complexity. Joy? Joy for him, twisted and fragile as he is? How is he not disappointing without the Dendarii to validate his life? He doesn't understand it. The panic is almost a relief when it comes; that, at least, is familiar. He goes through mental motions that are likely familiar to Aral, compartmentalizing it and setting it aside so that he can function. Much easier when they're not his to begin with.

A terrible thought strikes him. Miles has been seated this whole time, his tiny frame not nearly as obvious as it would be if he'd been standing. Will his father be disappointed now that he finally gets to see it? Still trembling from the effort, Miles rises to his feet half out of obedience, half out of a morbid need to see his father's reaction. Let him see the full extent of how twisted his son turned out.

(But he's on his feet under his own power - his bones do not snap underneath the weight of his body --)

He gingerly pulls back the collar of his t-shirt to let his father see - or at least, as much as his shoulders will let him move. His right shoulder is dislocated, painful but whole; the left has at least one badly cracked bone somewhere down in there. Any movement has him hissing with pain as it sends hot sparks down his arm and neck. The skin here is badly purpled, a telltale sign as well.

He practically holds his breath. Still unsure of what his father is thinking, truly. He doesn't even dare to speak. ]

[use_everything]

[Now, that was interesting. He let himself come to an easier rest, head tilted slightly in acknowledgement.]

May I ask what leads you to the differing opinion?

[keep_nothing]

[ She can't help the upward twitch at the corner of her mouth, especially when he makes that sort of face. ]

I believe that would apply to you too, love. Best you keep that in mind whenever you're feeling mischievous.

[rathercommon]

[ She gives a little nod and pulls out her communicator. Casually, she says: ]

I'll text you some links and some titles. You're an imPort, yeah? What's your name? I can look up your contact number by name.

[use_everything]

Please.

[A strange tension, so diffuse he could hardly find its source or give it name, eased at that. Even one who so routinely ignored the definitions, lines and rules was by nature, comforted when they simply exist.

It wasn't a sketch but the first lines were beginning to be laid on what had been a blank page. Gregor knew the power of his words and was conscientious of them... It was enough to be a little hopeful for how long he'd stared at his own inadequacies in such a crucial role.

He lets some of that cautious reserve give as well. He remained as close to formal as he ever manages, but the chair he pulls from the table gets turned before Aral takes his seat.]

You've learned that here?

[protagerrant]

Paranoia or life experience, call it whatever you want. But I know whether they planned it or not, having a bunch of powerful 'weapons' around while they're on the brink of a war is a lot of temptation.

[keep_nothing]

[ Awkward is the word of the day, it seems.

Cordelia is barely half a step behind Aral when they come back inside; indeed, almost bumping into Aral from behind when he stops. She catches herself in time though, spared that small indignity in front of the men she's supposedly raised in the missing years she can't yet account for.

She stays to the background for now, watching the tension as if trying to figure out how to navigate it before taking the first plunge ... ]

[vorbarra]

[It's such a familiar position for him to see Aral take that Gregor involuntarily glances over at him. The tiny smile makes another brief reappearance. Some subtle tension likewise eases in him, too.

There's no actual bad blood between them, now or ever, so why is this so damnably hard? Onward and through, Gregor reminds himself.]

Oh, yes. Some kind soul took pity on Miles and myself and taught us enough so that we wouldn't starve. It's been... educational, being here. [But Gregor does not appear disgruntled in the least by that; on the contrary, to an observant eye he can be read as bemused, even fascinated, as he idly stirs stir fry in a pan.]

[use_everything]

[There's a moment where the irony of his introduction presents itself to him, drawing a wry smile to his face. Lord of no where anyone has heard of. Admiral of no fleet yet even conceived of.

Still, they were more than clothes. If he didn't have Barrayar, even in honor of it, he had nothing at all.]

Admiral Aral Vorkosigan.

[A compromise. There seemed to be far more military here than nobility.]