faderift | [ open log ]

WHO: Miles Vorkosigan and YOU
WHAT: Weird little space man enters orbit, immediately breaks arm, generally gets in the way
WHEN: From Cloudreach 30 through the first week of Bloomingtide
WHERE: The Gallows
NOTES: Miles's info post is here! i'm sorry, you're welcome

rift entry (first come, first serve)
It's a classic dream: Miles, back in his academy days, suddenly finding himself sitting an exam he hasn't studied for and is drawing dreadful blanks. More ridiculous still that it's a test on a book he already knows inside and out. It's sitting right in front of him, even. His hand is shaking, gripping the light pen a little too hard. He's been sitting here far, far too long without having written a single thing. Oh, god, he's starting to feel dizzy. His palms are suddenly slick with sweat. The room feels like it's tilting on him -- no, it is tilting -- and then the room vanishes away altogether.

By the time Miles realizes he's falling, it's already too late. He tries to curl in on himself and hit the ground rolling, but he connects with it at entirely the wrong angle and lands on his left arm with a sickeningly familiar crack. Dammit, the fall couldn't even have been that far for how fast it happened. Miles gurgles out a curse, only barely registering the unfamiliar scenery and just how strange the air smells amidst the shock. Oh, that's a broken humerus right there.

The odd-looking little man rolls over onto his side with a groan. Too tall and too skinny to be a dwarf, but at only about 4'9, still much smaller than the average adult human. It isn't until he takes a look down at his cradled arm that he notices the bright glowing green fucking shard in his hand.

"What the hell," he wheezes, trying to sit up, "kind of dream is this?"

those who can't with this guy, teach
Miles is a quick study, and not a terrible student, especially with his abrupt and avid interest in all things Thedosian. Part of it is a transparent and desperate attempt at distracting himself from the situation at hand, the rest genuine interest. Everything here is so new, so different and familiar all at once. There is so much here that reminds him of home in odd, fractured ways. Learning more about this place will smooth those edges, break it down into things he can understand.

He will devour just about any subject matter, but the things that will grab his attention most are military history, politics, and magic. Oh, man, he's got like, a million questions about magic. Maybe your character finally has a willing audience to babble on about their pet subject of choice, or maybe your character's just unlucky enough to have been drafted to give the new guy the Thedas 101 course. Either way, Miles will only stop asking questions long enough to breathe.

sleep? in this economy?
There's a lot about this that's hard to swallow. He's a pretty flexible guy as far as his sphere of belief goes, or at least he likes to think so. Sure, this could all still be a dream, but his broken arm feels pretty fucking real. Hell, where he's from they jump through wormholes. He can take this at face value, at least for now. The only part he's having a hard time stomaching is the part where he doesn't go home.

The trick is not leaving himself any room to think about it. Sleep? Way too much room to think in there. So mostly, at first, he doesn't, except in short shifts when he's exhausted enough to pass directly into blissful unconsciousness. So late at night, when there's no more lessons or real work to keep him occupied, he haunts the library. It's late, and he's generally disinclined to ask for help, so when something is out of his reach, he's more likely to try and scale the shelves himself, as one with a broken arm does.

put that thing where it came from or so help me
Miles's Thedas 101 only goes on for so long, and then he is left to stew in frustration over not being able to join most of Riftwatch on the sudden rescue operation. It seems that as quickly as he'd gotten here, some shit had hit some fan somewhere, and everyone's off on a mission. And he can't go, because quarantine.
Realistically, he understands. He can even admit to himself that he probably wouldn't even be able to contribute much, with his broken arm and only nascent understanding of this world. (Mostly the arm.) But that doesn't leave him any less vibrating in idleness, and he's spent a lot of time in the library, and when Miles doesn't have anything else to engage him, he is at the whim of his own curiosities.

What is he doing? Great question. Probably something he's not supposed to be doing, somewhere he's not supposed to be doing it, although he may or may not be aware of that fact. Feel free to find Miles with his nose in anything mildly illicit, awkwardly personal, or hey, unexpectedly benign.

wildcard
[ feel free to find miles anywhere around the gallows or hit me up at

runawayballista for a starter! ]

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The bafflement makes sense, the smile is a new one. She makes a mental note to check his head for bumps as she pulls a battered journal from the depths of her habit and takes a few notes.

"That'll make things a bit difficult. No help for it, we'll have to cut you out of your shirt to start." The journal is replaced and a pair of scissors is retrieved, once more from the depths of the habit pockets. "Turn on your good side and keep still."

Miles practically jumps back at the sight of the scissors, looking alarmed. "Oh, hell no -- no, that won't be necessary."

The idea of cutting clean through his uniform is distressing one, the only familiar thing here. He holds up his good hand, fending her off. "It's fine," he says hastily. "I said it hurts, not that I can't move it. Just -- give me a sec."

Determinedly, stupidly, Miles wrestles his good arm out of his uniform jacket and then gingerly starts to pull the other sleeve down around his broken arm. Oh, it's fucking agony, but he'd much rather keep the uniform.

"Stone and blood," she says, exasperated, grabbing his good hand to tug away from his uniform, "We're not so well off I'd butcher a perfectly good shirt to get you out. We've plenty who can stitch it back together just fine when we're done without you making my job more difficult."

Miles is instantly embarrassed, caught on a chain of sheer reaction. Think for half a second, dammit. These people aren't your enemy. According to them, anyway, but he thinks he's good enough at reading intent to know they're telling the bulk of the truth.

"Ah..." He blinks, stupidly, at Sawbones, whorls of pain beginning to rise up around the edges of his mind again. He realizes, dimly, that he's breathing a little too quickly. He looks at the uniform jacket, now hanging by his bad arm. He sits back with a shaky breath. "Right. Of course -- sorry. Just, ah, disorienting, you know, falling out of one of those great green rips in the sky you've got here. Not sure I've really got the lay of the land on what that's about, though the fellows who brought me here did try to answer all my questions. Not enough time for questions, though, I'm afraid. Don't suppose you might be able to answer a few, ah...I don't think I got your name, did I?"

If he keeps on babbling, it's almost like it hurts less.

She lets him talk til he seems to have run out of words, more focused on maneuvering the coat off his arm and cutting along his shirt seams so she can get it off him. She's efficient and quick in her work, the cuts clean and the fabric folded away so she can begin examining him.

"Sister Sara," she says, when his chatter ends in a question, "I'm with the Chantry, but serving here in the Infirmary and Riftwatch's research division for the time being. Take three deep breaths and then tell me your name."

He still winces as she cuts through the fabric, as though she's cutting away a part of him, but he tries to reassure his still-wild mind that he'll get it back more or less whole soon. It won't be the same, though.

Sister. Chantry. Some kind of church? She does look sort of clergy-like, except for that tattoo. It doesn't quite jive with Miles's vague impressions of ancient Earth religions. Miles's mind goes down a stupid line of thought involving a number of things that rhyme with 'habit' until he manages to follow her instructions and properly breathe for a few seconds.

"Miles," he says, his voice sounding strangely reedy to him. He still feels a little dizzy. "Miles Naismith Vorkosigan. Pleased to meet you, Sister." He bites down on that last syllable, trying admirably not to tumble back into babbling.

His internal struggles go largely ignored as she begins to pull the uniform top off him, though she nods a bit, "All right, Miles. Deep breath and deep breath out. Off with the sleeve."

She doesn't really wait for a response or to see if he obeys her orders before she begins. There's no gentleness in her handling, but she does it with a calm confidence that at the very least won't make any of his injuries worse. "Well, you've gotten yourself a good knocking, but it's an easy break. Clean as far as I can tell and no broken skin. One of our mage healers can put you to rights quick enough. I'll get you bound up in the meantime and mind you be careful with it."

Sawbones's bedside manner leaves something to be desired, but there's something oddly comforting about her stark and businesslike attitude. It's familiar enough to cling to, this whole process is, right up until --

"Mage healers?" Miles doesn't intend for his voice to end on a squeak, but his voice takes a high-pitched turn. He looks a little wild-eyed, white around the lips with a rather ill set to his mouth. His nerves are frayed enough as it is, and magic seems a touch too exotic right now. Too alien, too unknown. Miles jitters horribly. "No, I -- " He finds himself gasping for a breath. Everything's feeling a bit...fuzzy around the edges. "That's fine, I'm fine, I don't -- can't you just give me something for the pain?"

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