faderift | [ open log ]

Entry tags:

[ 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! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Miles is leaning against a bookcase when he hears Petra, and damn nearly plants his ass on the floor on the spot. But no, the tone of voice rather paralyzes him instead, and he looks instantly startled and then embarrassed. He had been absorbed enough in the thick cryptography manual in his hands that he had, for a bit there, forgotten he had wandered into someone else's personal office space.

"Ah..." He smiles sheepishly at her, feeling immensely stupid just standing here. He clears his throat. "No, I was just, um...looking for something to read."

It sounds like an infinitely lamer excuse once he's said it out loud, and his tired mind starts to flail uselessly. He has potentially just made a spectacularly poor first impression on someone whose opinion of him actually matters, all because he was...bored. He snaps the book shut in his hands in a hurry. "It's just that I've sort of exhausted the reading material in the library on the subject, and I thought I'd, er, get some more reading in..."

In the middle of the night. In someone else's office. Well, for what it's worth, he did look fairly captivated by the subject.

Certainly, as first impressions go, there have been better. On the other hand, there have equally been worse—worse here, even, albeit not specifically in this room—and while her first instinct is concern for the more sensitive information housed in her office, that is not left carelessly unprotected on her shelves and that it's undisturbed is evident enough to prevent her from immediate suspicion.

Or at least suspicion that he'd got anywhere; opportunism might have seen an attempt made, if she hadn't arrived. But for now,

“I'm afraid I'm not able to part with any of these volumes presently,” as for the most part books kept in this office are on a cycle of relevance, and when she no longer needs them they find their way to the library or whoever she borrowed them from, make room for the next project, “but you are welcome to read them here if you think you might make something productive of it.”

In other words: she's happy to make him less bored by immediately putting him to work.

“My name is Madame de Cedoux; I am Riftwatch's chief cryptographer, and this is my office. You are, I take it, a new arrival.”

God, please put him to work. He would actually love nothing more right now.

"That I am." He tucks the book under his good arm and sketches her a bow, head bent respectfully low. "Miles Naismith Vorkosiga, at your service. A pleasure to meet you, Madame."

Chief Cryptographer? Oh, God, he's either just won the lottery or completely blown his chances at anyone in this organization taking him seriously enough to let him do any real work. But no, she isn't chasing him out or calling for a guard, or even snatching the book from him. That's...promising. He turns what he hopes is a blinding smile on her as he straightens as much as his back will allow. She is small, only slightly taller than himself, and exquisitely polite. A bearing akin to a Vor lady's, to Miles's eye. The wired smile slips from his face after a moment into something more nervous, a little jittery.

"That's a generous offer, er, all things considered." He wonders why she hasn't chased him out; either she's bored, or she does not view him as any particular threat. Or -- no, best not flatter himself too much at this early date. He clears his throat. "I'm, uh...I've been a little disoriented from all this, and the reading has been keeping me grounded." (Distracted.) "If you think I could make any use out of these...er, that is, I'm in intelligence. Was in intelligence. Back on my planet. Barrayaran Imperial Security."

He snaps her as sharp a salute as he can with the heavy book in hand and nearly brains himself with it. Oh, how he eloquent he is today.

If her mild expression could be called anything, then perhaps pleasantly tolerant—opaque in the way of usually-ladies who have learned the necessity of being so. When he narrowly avoids giving himself a concussion, there is a very fleeting look of amused indulgence that's almost something more human, but if he blinked he might well have missed it.

“You won't become useful sitting on your hands,” she observes, gesturing to the other seat and the unattended desk, sweeping further into the room in a soft rustle of skirts and petticoats and the clack of Vysvolod's hard nails on the stone behind her, following her in. “One's history before Thedas means much less than what one might demonstrate of one's capability presently.”

Ergo, the only way to see if he's useful is to give him enough rope to hang himself if he isn't, and hopefully not so much he hangs anyone else in the process. Letting him page through books in the hopes he might be more useful than not is, as tests of such things go, low-risk for all involved.

“You haven't struggled with the local trade language? It seems an equivalent to you.” Presumably, if he's already reading books, but she has to check.

Miles sends up a silent thanks to whatever gods watch over this world that he ran into someone with an apparent sense of humor, and not a stern-faced duty guard. She must have one, he assumes, because for all her opacity, she certainly is entertaining him now. He tries to keep the surprise off his face when she invites him to sit, and he doesn't want to appear too eager, but his eyes are very bright. He waits for her to sit, partly out of politeness, and partly because he's not sure what her animal companion might be trained to do. He's not usually shy of animals, but it strikes him as particularly foolish to assume that any beast accompanying a woman of this apparent intelligence is a mere pet. He could be entirely wrong, of course, but the tiny bow he gives them both before sitting is nothing short of polite, if slightly ridiculous.

He almost points out that this is a wise approach, that anyone indeed could simply lie about his background on arrival, but just barely bites his tongue. No need to draw attention to that idea, when he knows that divulging his full security background would sound all too outlandish a claim to make up front. No, she's right on that. Better to prove himself here, now, where she can see.

"Not at all," he says pleasantly, letting the book rest in his lap, and his slung arm resting lightly on it in turn. "A peculiar but nonetheless convenient effect of passing through that rift, I'm guessing. But I come from a very multilingual society. I grew up speaking both our planet's dominant languages, and while I'd like to claim proficiency in three, I'm afraid my French isn't quite up to par. Tends to be used more in art than politics, and I'm afraid I've got little talent for the former."

“Perhaps,” she agrees, of the rift's possible effect, “though not one I myself benefited from.” Chief cryptographer, but not a native herself—an anchor-shard much like his gleams in her hand, though by now he may well be aware that not all who have one arrived in Thedas any more creatively than via birth canal. Her accent sounds French, sort of—more like French with, somehow, British diction—but isn't exactly. Sounds Orlesian, but isn't, exactly.

“I am presently engaged in attempting to use, among other things, the languages particular to rifters to build the bones of a code language that the Venatori will not readily be able to divine,” she continues, which might not have been what she led with if not for his very multilingual society. “It is a benefit if you are both willing to assist and comfortable or prepared to become so with magic.”

Her head tilts, thoughtful. “Is that your dominant hand?”

The busted one.

Miles, his mouth already open to press his curiosity, blinks in surprise. "Oh -- no, not my dominant hand, thankfully." He was, admittedly, expecting to have to fight a little harder for an opportunity around here, but no, if his sleep-deprived brain parsed that right, Petra's just offered him a job. Jackpot. Suck on that, Byerly.

"Really?" Try to sound a little less like an overeager cadet, boy. You're a professional. Miles clears his throat. "I mean -- yes, absolutely. I'd be glad to put my skills to use here, however you can use them." He tilts his head to the side slightly. "I'm quite keen to learn more about magic. My impression of it thus far has been mixed and a little confusing, but I'm certainly not shy of it."

An opportunity, certainly; if he is only a resource, he's still useful to her, but there's every possibility that someone who purports to have his background in imperial intelligence might well be even better suited to the project than she is herself, which certainly given half the chance means being annexed for its purposes. She regards him thoughtfully for a moment longer, then turns to dig about in a specific drawer of her desk—

it is a little obscure even when she straightens with her prize, a pen well-balanced for her hand and covered in intricately, carefully placed sigils.

“Then would you allow me to demonstrate the—let me say, the bones of this work, upon which I have been building. It is a painless magic, unless you find touching another person particularly unpleasant. Do you believe you could comfortably translate dictation in your second language?”

Miles blinks again, peering at the pen with keen curiosity. He's had little firsthand experience with magic, but despite his initial skittishness, he doesn't find it particularly intimidating anymore. At least not for something so easy as what Petra seems to be suggesting.

"On, sure. Grew up bilingual, y'know. English is sort of galactic standard, better for trade and the like, but Russian is rather more culturally dominant." He realizes his tired mind is starting to wander, and he reels in the babble. "I'm not particularly averse to touch, no." It's other people who tend to have a problem with touching me, he thinks, but Petra doesn't seem fazed by his appearance, nor does she seem to assume him less capable for it. It's...unusual, to not have to fight against someone else's first impressions.

"So what does it do?"

Had she met him some years previous, in some other place—but in this place, while he is unusual, he is not impossible or even entirely improbable. He is the first man besides a dwarf that she's, well, dwarfed; he is still visibly, to her eye, human. If she might have wondered more at his deformities before, now she approaches him with the same evenhanded briskness that everyone else gets at first, the same opportunity to be useful.

He seems engaged and engaging, and that is half the battle. If having grown accustomed to elves and dwarves and the qunari has allowed her to be more open-minded within her own species, it would perhaps not be tactful to say in so many words but there are certainly worse possible outcomes.

“Almost nothing,” she says, with a close-mouthed smile, and produces a clean sheet of parchment and an inkwell, arranging them in front of him and offering him the pen itself before, presuming he accepts it, bringing her chair to sit beside him. “I will lay my hand over yours—” the matching hand, and not the mirroring one, so she is half-turned towards him, thigh to thigh through her thick skirts and close enough to feel the boning of her corset beneath her bodice, as she murmurs a word that brings the glyphs on the pen to life in vibrant blue light reflected out of her eyes, brightly whiting out their pupils and blues.

“I will recite an unremarkable piece of writing,” she explains, as if placid, moon-faced women glowing at his elbow is equally unremarkable. “You will translate it into your Russian, as I go. When we are finished, I will be literate in this language and have something of an advantage in learning to speak it; for a time I will write it with your handwriting, but that in most cases will pass with time.”

Ah, yes, that...sure is a lot of touching, more than he'd been expecting, but to his credit, Miles does not flinch, squirm, or do anything else to embarrass him. A true feat considering how jittery he seems otherwise. But his interest is so keen as to drown out any vestiges of discomfort, because this is absolutely fascinating. His gray eyes practically glow with curiosity as she explains the spell, such as it is, staring at the pen in her hand.

"That's not nothing at all," he breathes, and then, before he can help himself, the question mill starts turning in his head. "Fascinating. Is the spell unique to you, or does it work on other people? Could just anyone use it, or is there a special trick to it -- or is it a mage-only thing?"

“That is a complicated question to answer,” she says, rueful, “in Thedas. Where I am from and where I learned this technique, magic is—a skill like any other, that anyone might learn. Like music; some will be talented, others will struggle to carry a tune. Many will never pick up an instrument in their lives. I was not born to witchcraft as a girl, I was instructed in its practises as a woman. However, it isn't so in Thedas. Mages are born, and magic is largely limited to their use; we who arrive through rifts are altered, in ways dramatic and subtle both. Magic is one such thing that must follow Thedas's rules.”

Which is a lot to drop on someone and which has many threads they might pull at, but magic also involves effort that she is already expending in preparation, so: “If you will allow me to demonstrate?”

It's invariably the same piece of writing that she dictates, something familiar enough that she can simply recite it from memory with the precise cadences and phrasing that it was drilled into her years ago now. A manual for young ladies' etiquette that would be unfashionable in more or less all parts of Thedas—it sounds as if it were written to be read aloud, and there is phrasing that suggests there is no real expectation that the elegant young ladies of court trained in its strict sensibility would be literate enough to read it for themselves.

There is a great deal about obedience, and good breeding, and mannerly comportment. The running of the household, and who they shall rely on for it; the role of one's husband as like unto one's god. Not a particularly egalitarian piece of writing.

The choice of writing is an interesting one, and Miles files that away, too, a little blurb for which he still lacks total context, but which tells him something nonetheless. He is immensely curious about the world she comes from -- another world with magic, though perhaps it's not as uncommon as it feels to Miles -- but he manages to hold his tongue for once, instead diligently transcribing her words into Barrayaran Russian.

"I'd be curious to hear more about how magic works in your world," he says once he's finished writing, looking up at her with bright eyes. He has so many questions, including a few about her ongoing projects. They'll get back to that, he's sure. "Is this enough for your spell?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ open log ]

Re: pttwicfoshm.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject