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! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Miles, for what it's worth, does not seem particularly bothered by Yngvi's lack of cleanliness. Hell, less than a year ago he'd spent six weeks in a prison camp, half of that naked, so who's he to judge? The little squeaking coming from his pockets is...another matter, though Miles is trying not to pay too much attention to it. If something starts nipping at him, though, he's going to say something.

He's listening with rapt attention and active interest, a thoughtful frown on his face. This is not a cultural perspective he's heard thus far, and it's fairly illuminating. He makes a mental note with a cringe never to call himself a dwarf again in moments of particular emotional weakness. That, uh...could be easily misconstrued.

"A very industrious people," Miles says, a note of approval in his voice. "Quite the social and cultural reach, too. Was it that your people did it first, or just better than everyone else?"

Stroganugg (when is it not Stroganugg, bravest, most adventurous of nugs) sniffs in the hopes of foods then returns to nibbling the top of Yngvi's pocket when food doesn't materialise. Yngvi himself stops in his sketching, scores out a number and considers what he should say next.

Because well, there's plenty he could say couldn't he? And plenty that some - generally boring, stuffier folks - might tut about and look down their noses thinking that he should say it, that he's obligated even but then they're not dwarves, are they? Probably Orlesians. Or doglords with overinflated egos.

"Well it weren't like folk were beating down the doors down below back in them days because the elves way way back are how some of the elves are now, thinking they're too good for it all." He waves a hand to encompass, oh you know, the entirity of the Ancient Age or whatever. Close enough. "But dwarves got a knack for--" he lifts a page up of trap mechanisms sketched out, all the pieces to go in place eventually, the amount of force it'll take--

"For these sorts of things because that's how you got to be about these things if you're down below and you don't got other things. Down in Orzammar where we all came from at one point now we've got castes for things - warrior caste, smith caste, artisan caste so y'know, how d'you compete with that sort of thing? No one can. Unless you come topside obviously but still if you're a dwarf it's just in there in the bones of you. I mean it has to be best and/i> first, probably somewhere in the Memories Shaperate I reckon."

Miles nods along with Yngvi's narration thoughtfully, filing it all away for careful consideration and later dissection. This is quite a lot to unpack right now, and he wants to keep the information flowing. Data now, complete analysis later. He watches the nug out of the corner of his eye with a look of perturbed curiosity. The little thing is ugly as sin at first blush, but it does have a certain...charm.

"Yes, I imagine living underground would be a limiting factor to one's resources," he says, nodding. "There's a planet or two in my world that consist largely of subterranean settlements. My mother's planet, for instance, although in that case, it's because the surface is too hot for any human to withstand for long."

Then again, Beta Colony's society is considerably more egalitarian than the dwarves'. Actually, Orzammar sounds a bit more like...home.

"We have a similar social structure on my home planet," he offers, eager (maybe even a little desperate) to find something to relate to. "Not quite so many levels to it, but -- I myself am of the Vor, the military caste. Offworlders tend to mistake it for aristocracy, but we are all in the service of our Emperor." He pauses a moment, then grimaces, his expression almost sheepish. "Not...that we are particularly regarded as technological forerunners, but we can scarcely be blamed for that. We were too busy being under siege to do much inventing."

Yngvi nods, words about to come out of his mouth when it shuts with a snap that almost catches his tongue but not quite.

"Wait-- wait did you says planet or two?" There's a failed attempt at keeping the excitement at bay because how long has it been since he's spoken to a rifter that's come from somewhere that's on that sort of other level? Months? Maybe more than a year? Has to be a damned long time and the work he's doing is abandoned so he can tip his head up. "How many planets? There's been people here from other...planets. You know that never stops being weird, keep thinking it will in light of all you lot just sliding on in through rifts every now and then but no, some things just. Stay weird."

But then some dwarves genuinely do believe you're going to fall up and into the sky upon leaving Orzammar so parts of Yngvi might struggle on some fundamental dwarven level he just can't escape. Who knows.

"Don't know if it's comforting or not to know that people get to be just as shit all over the place, like on the one hand? We're not special but it'd be nice to know that other folks got it sorted so you don't need to make those sort of sacrifices." Yngvi sighs, scratches at his stubble where he really needs to shave it back before it thinks about becoming something at all like a beard and thinks. "What were you under siege from? Orzammar is technically always dealing with Darkspawn being next to the Deep Roads at all times, fighting them back, reclaiming lost thaigs. Just wondering y'know, how much you might have in common. Not often someone does. Everyone's like ooh elves, ooh humans, ooh mages."

(Not that he's bitter. Okay maybe a little.)

Miles blinks at this unexpected turn of questioning, but brightens immediately. Genuine interest in his world is pretty heartening, actually, and he's already decided he likes Yngvi. The interest in his own home universe is just another plus.

"Oh -- yeah! Dozens of planets, actually." Staying weird indeed. Miles really needs to meet more of his fellow Rifters. Just how rare is a spacefaring background around here? "There are some places out in the galaxy that seem to be doing alright. Others...well, change can be difficult."

His own homeworld has been undergoing the agonizing growing pains of change for the last three generations. No -- not his homeworld, anymore. He was forever cut off from Barrayar, now. He shunts that to the back of his mind and tucks one leg under his knee.

"They're called the Cetagandan Empire." His eyes are still bright, but his manner a little more serious. It's mostly cooled off by Miles's generation, but there's still quite a bit of bad blood there. "Eight planets to our one, and with better tech to boot. We were at something of a massive technological disadvantage to them, on all fronts. We'd been isolated, you see, for several centuries. Our technology was -- well, roughly equivalent to what you've got here, give or take. They thought we'd be easy pickings."

The smile that quirks his mouth is just a little bit vicious. "They ran us into the hills, demanding unconditional surrender, tried to take us under the pretext of civilizing us. I'm sure twenty years doesn't sound like a long time to you, but the Occupation left deep scars on Barrayar."

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