At camp Mark is every bit the mutie that Miles is, of course, but he moves through the camp a bit more easily than his brother does. It's part that Mark just doesn't care about the looks that these hicks give him - he has wounds aplenty, after all, and doesn't want to hoard all of 'em; he's generous enough to give Miles primary ownership over the old mutant scars and bruises. But it's also part that they give him fewer looks. Maybe it's how distinctly unfragile Mark is in comparison to his brother, a fact that makes him look less like a failed infanticide, maybe it's his unapologetic surliness - maybe it's because he's shown up dressed in a way that makes him look less small than Miles - but by his sheer heavyset aggression he moves a bit more subtly.
Also, when one of those hicks had muttered something about him being a Cetagandan plot, he'd responded with a direct, "Komarran, actually," and that had been confusing enough to redirect some of the conversation.
It's possible to find him around at a number of different places, but he absolutely stops by the mess tent. And curls his lip in utter dismay. Military rations. Military rations. His therapist has been working with him on redirecting Gorge, encouraging him to work with quality instead of quantity - but, hell, how's he supposed to work with this sort of quality?
"Isn't there a cook around here...?" he murmurs.
In the woods It doesn't take him long to remember: he showed up with a little box of butter-bugs. Samples, for the most part, but even sample bugs still produce, and there's a queen in there, too. Not bioengineered for Barrayaran plantlife - he could tear out his hair over that, why couldn't Enrique have come up with that permutation on the creature right away (oh, right, midnight flight from Escobar, that's why) but he manages to find a twisted old maple and gathers up the twigs to feed to the bugs.
Before long, he has a respectable little pile of bug-butter. And what if they breed? What if he can figure out a way to get them to reproduce, and then he has enough to produce large amounts of food - feeding the Barrayaran Resistance with bug butter. Mark Vorkosigan, hero of the Occupation. Well, every Vorkosigan did their part in this war, they say...Granted, that assessment definitely didn't include time-displaced ones from the future who just want to go home and bury themselves in the warm round arms of their beautiful, marvelous, miraculous Kareen...But his mother and father wouldn't ever let a bit of time-travel let him off the hook from making something of himself.
He leans his forehead against the trunk of the maple tree and lets out a loud, cracked laugh.
Mark Vorkosigan | OTA
Mark is every bit the mutie that Miles is, of course, but he moves through the camp a bit more easily than his brother does. It's part that Mark just doesn't care about the looks that these hicks give him - he has wounds aplenty, after all, and doesn't want to hoard all of 'em; he's generous enough to give Miles primary ownership over the old mutant scars and bruises. But it's also part that they give him fewer looks. Maybe it's how distinctly unfragile Mark is in comparison to his brother, a fact that makes him look less like a failed infanticide, maybe it's his unapologetic surliness - maybe it's because he's shown up dressed in a way that makes him look less small than Miles - but by his sheer heavyset aggression he moves a bit more subtly.
Also, when one of those hicks had muttered something about him being a Cetagandan plot, he'd responded with a direct, "Komarran, actually," and that had been confusing enough to redirect some of the conversation.
It's possible to find him around at a number of different places, but he absolutely stops by the mess tent. And curls his lip in utter dismay. Military rations. Military rations. His therapist has been working with him on redirecting Gorge, encouraging him to work with quality instead of quantity - but, hell, how's he supposed to work with this sort of quality?
"Isn't there a cook around here...?" he murmurs.
In the woods
It doesn't take him long to remember: he showed up with a little box of butter-bugs. Samples, for the most part, but even sample bugs still produce, and there's a queen in there, too. Not bioengineered for Barrayaran plantlife - he could tear out his hair over that, why couldn't Enrique have come up with that permutation on the creature right away (oh, right, midnight flight from Escobar, that's why) but he manages to find a twisted old maple and gathers up the twigs to feed to the bugs.
Before long, he has a respectable little pile of bug-butter. And what if they breed? What if he can figure out a way to get them to reproduce, and then he has enough to produce large amounts of food - feeding the Barrayaran Resistance with bug butter. Mark Vorkosigan, hero of the Occupation. Well, every Vorkosigan did their part in this war, they say...Granted, that assessment definitely didn't include time-displaced ones from the future who just want to go home and bury themselves in the warm round arms of their beautiful, marvelous, miraculous Kareen...But his mother and father wouldn't ever let a bit of time-travel let him off the hook from making something of himself.
He leans his forehead against the trunk of the maple tree and lets out a loud, cracked laugh.