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

[dendarii]

[ And Miles, rebuffed, gets a flash of heat right back in his own face. Ugh. This ... is not going the way he'd planned. ]

You're not relaxing, that's why. I can't get in. You're all - rocks and hard places.

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[There's a puff of air, echoing frustration.]

This IS relaxed. [It's not relaxed at all.]

[dendarii]

[ God. If Miles weren't so terribly annoyed by the situation, it would be kind of funny. His father is wound up so tight he can't even undo this minor bit of telepathy. ]

... You're about as relaxed as Illyan at the Emperor's Birthday.

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That only means there's room to grow.

[There's a flash of memory there, laced with a certain black humor. The armchairs in Captain Negri's office didn't take well to his style of sitting, so he'd flung a leg over one arm and leaned on the other. The bland looking man's inscrutable, dark eyes didn't betray anything. Aral's voice, younger still "But the results..." Cocksure, more than a little challenging.

There was a tick by the ImpSec Chief's right eye.]

... I have a different approach to our problem to propose, anyway.

[dendarii]

[ Oh. Gosh. He knows that exact memory, can mirror it with his own. Miles himself with Illyan, going over the expenses of that Dendarii mission at Vervain, the ships and the medical needs and - that same cocksure attitude vs. the same bland inscrutability. The only difference being that Miles is too small to sit backwards on chairs comfortably.

It's enough to startle him into agreeing to pretty much anything. ]

-- What are you thinking?

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[He spreads his hands. There's a disquiet in talking about it, still deeply unsure about these changes made to himself and to the world around him.]

I have the ability to silence other's skills, while here.

[dendarii]

[ Miles' expression flattens just a bit at that. ]

Yes. Yes, I had noticed that.

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[This time, that look is unerringly followed with that sardonic comment.]

If you have another tact other than "relax," I'll hear it.

[dendarii]

... no, it's valid, just ...

[ A faint huff. ]

I wish we had a solution more intelligent than turning it on and off again.

[use_everything]

There is waiting and seeing if a less stressful time will be more productive.

[dendarii]

It'd be faster to get drunk.

[ Which ... has a certain level of appeal. Huh. But no, not as a solution to this, not when Gregor could be home any minute to this mess. ]

Try it, then. We may as well.

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[The idea of getting drunk, dropping those inhibitions while someone else is this directly keyed into his mind... There's no shudder, no change in his expression, but Miles can feel the connection almost closing entirely on its own.]

I think I'll pass.

[He gets up and simply wraps his hand around Miles' wrist, careful not to jostle it again.

Silence.

And once again his father's expression is truly inscrutable, familiar for being that way, if not for his age.]

[dendarii]

[ He has just a brief moment to feel a bit hurt by that - he would have liked to have a glass with his father, after everything has calmed down - before the combined pain of his bone aches and his shoulders slam into him all at once. He gasps, expression gone deadly pale as it washes over him. Drowning him, threatening to blot him out -

It's only sheer stubbornness - and the thought of how much more this will hurt if he faints onto his shoulder - that keeps him upright. The gasping becomes gulps, slowly but surely finding his equilibrium. ]

[use_everything]

[When Miles' vision clears, he'll find Aral kneeling in front of him, hand pressed in the low center of Miles' chest. The support as much as he can do right now. Grey eyes watch Miles with concern...

He lets go, stands and straightens his cuffs when he's certain Miles wasn't going to pass out. He had, if nothing else, a good estimate of it.]

[dendarii]

[ He's sweating and blinking hard and looks terribly nauseated, but he manages to keep himself upright. (He does, however, take a private moment to be grateful that he hasn't tried eating any breakfast yet. ]

I-I'm all right. This isn't the worst I've had.

[ The pressure of that agony fades into something duller, more manageable. He will endure. ]

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[The terrible thing is, he could believe that. His brows draw close and his lips thin to a line. He begins some gesture towards Miles and stops.]

I think there's some analgesic in the kit.

[dendarii]

[ He just nods weakly, desperate for any balm. If his powers weren't still off he'd be tempted to lose a few inches to take the stress off his bones. Maybe he was too quick to ask for them back. (Maybe he's too prideful to do anything but.) ]

Please. I'm not allergic. We checked.

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[He retreats to the kitchen to fill a glass with water, and fishes two tablets out of the kit. Miles had been correct, Aral reflected dimly, on the backwards nature of the med tech in this world.

The water and tablets are offered without fanfare or show - again, that pride. He didn't need to reopen that link to guess.]

A common problem for you?

[dendarii]

[ Not on this one. The flicker of gratitude is evident enough on Miles' face as he takes the pills, awkward as it is to juggle first the pills and then the glass of water with the shoulder that's merely dislocated. (He suppresses the twinge of pain in his face each time, so that it barely shows at all.) ]

Extremely. On top of everything else. Native Barrayaran vegetation in particular is a horror for me.

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Cordelia often liked to opine that Barrayar was out to get its children.

[The humor is dry, a half smile following it. He considers sitting next to Miles, but the angle would be awkward with the binding. He retreats to his place across the table.]

[dendarii]

[ Sitting next to Miles might have been the better choice; seeing Aral across from him brings a flashback of that first, terrifying impression and makes him flinch. There's still a big stab wound in the table, after all. ]

Yes, well ... Doubly so in my case, I suppose. [ He huffs faintly, forcing himself to relax. ] I was in and out of the hospital for allergic reactions to my treatment as much as I was for the treatment itself. One bad incident had me spending a week convinced that the ceiling was the most peculiar shade of blue...

[use_everything]

[The flinch doesn't pass unnoticed, nor the "doubly so." Aral looks to the side, briefly, before squaring his jaw.]

Blue. [There's some mild humor to that, at least. For what otherwise sounded ... like a particularly hard childhood. He takes a breath and while the connection was still severed, it was a good time to ask as any.]

Though out to get you certainly reminds me. By god, boy, what were you thinking with that wild story as a cover?

[dendarii]

[ Miles takes scraps of humor when he can, passes off all kinds of horrors as light stories. It's all he can do.

But here now is the question he'd been dreading ... There are so many complexities tied up in this, so many threads to unpick as soon as they so much as touch the knot. He decides to cut through to the core of it, to start. ]

Gregor is here.

[use_everything]

[Aral's expression takes a certain intensity and he leans forward where he sits. It bridges back quickly from question to something close to interrogation, again.]

Under a psuedonym as well, I take it.

[dendarii]

[ He flinches again as Aral's posture shifts, with the accompanying grimace of pain. ]

Yes. Greg Vorthys. Too much of a risk to call him the Emperor, and Admiral Naismith was a cover I'd already used back home. Natural enough to take it up again. It ... ballooned from there.