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Barrayar ⚔ Cetaganda ⚔ The Invasion

Have you read the FAQ?

The Village ⚔ The Barrayaran Camp ⚔ The Cetagandan Base ⚔ The Fight

You've been on Barrayar for a while now, and you're finally starting to adjust. Or maybe you're not. Maybe this is all still too much for you – the attacks, the constant raids, living in the middle of a war zone by no choice of your own. But if you want to live long enough to make it back home one day, you might as well do what you can to help the war effort. Besides, where else are you going to go?

The fierce Barrayaran winter rages even to the southern end of the continent, and it's been none too kind to Vorkosigan's District. Temperatures at sea level are well below freezing, and up in the mountains, it's even colder. Several inches of snow already blanket most of the mountains all the way down to the Cetagandan base, and the storm that's just started up is only bringing more down. Visibility is low in the flurries, wind swirling snow everywhere, and God help you if you get lost on your own out in the storm. Nights are cold, these days.

A recent attack on the Cetagandan base has left half their facilities damaged and in disarray. Raid parties snuck in by night, planting bombs in previously scouted locations for maximum effect. Damage to the base's water treatment plant and organic grow labs have considerably impacted the Cetagandans' food and water supply, and in the chaos caused by the explosions, the Barrayaran guerrillas raided their medbay and made off with a considerable bounty of medical supplies. One man's bane is another man's boon, and while the Cetagandans have reserve supplies to sustain them for now, some of the damage is extensive and the repairs will take time. But in the meantime, the Barrayarans have scored a precious victory as well as equally precious resources.

the village
The Riverfall villagers are used to the harsh winters of the Dendarii mountains, and though they don't have much themselves, they are happy to offer what they can in terms of cold-weather clothing and extra blankets to those allied with the guerrillas. Despite the cold, the hill children are going wild in the snow, and they may try to lure you into their play by sneakily pelting you with snowballs.

Cetagandan allies, however, may not be met so warmly, and at the first sight of ghem soldiers, any children out playing in the snow will be immediately ushered into their homes. Unaccompanied outsiders from the Cetagandan base might have an easier time talking to the hillfolk, but any attempt at digging information about the guerrillas out of them will get you stonewalled fast. A sneaky hill child or two may steal away from their home to approach one of the "bad guy" outsiders to sate their curiosity.

the barrayaran camp
Morale is higher than it has been in a while after their recent victory, and the guerrillas are in high spirits. And do they ever love their spirits – as night falls, most of the Barrayarans gathered around the campfires are enjoying the deceptively named, dangerously alcoholic moonshine they call maple mead. It might start out sweet, but it burns all the way down, and a few glasses of that stuff will tank even the heaviest Barrayaran soldier.

But the storm rages on despite their celebration, and preparations must be made. Clearing as much snow off the tents as possible will help ensure that no tents collapse overnight, the horses need to be tended to, and the officers are always running training drills. Food is in real supply now, but the guerrillas need help foraging and hunting nonetheless. And when night falls, you'll have to find a way to keep yourself warm – it's a good thing there are a cozy ten of you to a tent.

the cetagandan base
The Cetagandans outnumber their guerrilla enemies almost seventy-to-one, so their base has not been completely devastated, but it hardly looks to be the work of a few raiding parties. Nothing is beyond repair, but the water treatment plant has been taken offline, which means that all water is now locally sourced and must be treated by hand with purification tablets. No one in the base will starve, but fresh food is mostly unavailable until they get the grow labs back online, which means that meals are mostly comprised of ration bars and MREs. Morale isn't exactly at an all-time low, but none of the ghem officers seem to be in a good mood.

They won't hesitate to put you to work, either. They need all the engineers and laborers they can get for the grow labs and the treatment plant, and the medbay's inventory needs to be thoroughly audited before they can send a request for more supplies. But if you need a break, it's not too hard to slip away for a little quiet downtime. Some of the lower-ranked ghem ladies might let you participate in some more artistic activities, or maybe some of the enlisted soldiers who are a little more used to you by now might invite you into one of their Cetagandan games of strategy. Or, since the treatment plant only affected potable water, you could appreciate your comfortable surroundings and take a nice hot soak in the bathroom while everyone else is working.

the fight
PVP
You're in the midst of a skirmish with the other side -- maybe you signed up for the battle, maybe you just got caught up in the fight -- but at least it's easy to tell who's on what side. Only one side is wielding swords, and the other guns.

But then you come across someone who doesn't look like they're either -- not one of the rugged Barrayarans or the face-painted Cetagandans, but an outsider, an exotic like you. They must be. So do you fight?

RECON
Maybe you're not on the front lines, but there's plenty more to winning the war than just fighting. You're partnered with another outsider on recon; the ground is cold, and you try not to let your shoes crunch too loudly on snow as you scout, scanning for patrols or supply lines.

Or maybe you're with the Cetagandans, hiking it thorugh the mountains with one of your fellow exotics in an attempt to locate the enemy camp. Except it's damned cold, and there's hidden ice everywhere, and everything is starting to really look the same.

--

Feel free to write prompts for your character on either side -- you don't have to choose just one for the TDM! Just label it clearly so folks know. GO WILD, MY FRIENDS

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Daryl shoots Lackshmee a confused glare. "America, smartass."

"Oh - of course, after the English Kings." A hum, things she'd learned a long time ago.

She shrugs, and it's something of an apology. "I do not know your land or its particulars so well, I have not had a chance to go there." Nor does it seem she will be anytime soon, given their present situation.

Daryl rolls his eyes. "You're lucky. It's a shithole."

Despite herself, she laughs, perhaps she shouldn't. But she prefers the bluntness of it. "So much for the shining new world, then."

Daryl shrugs, because it's better than shivering in the cold. Fuck this planet. "New world's same as the old world. Who would'a guessed."

She says nothing to that, she can't. She doesn't want to think how it might be the same. Insane dream that it might be - that land represented an idea that might be. How many of her own people, those she recruited, had died for that idea? Where they had poured over the maps of the United India Company trading routes, destroying shipment after shipment?

"I've heard you're all cowboys, shooting your guns off, no manners, all drunk. That sort of thing."

Daryl thinks he looks different enough from a cowboy not to beg the comparison. So he just grunts and taps his crossbow. She can make up her mind for her own self.

"Dunno shit about where you're from." Like, for example, where she's from in the first place.

She shrugs, guiding the horse comfortably along the path they're going, watching the fresh snow. "I have not told you where I come from, why should you?"

Daryl sneers, "Hey, I answered your questions."

She looks across to him, and there's an openness to the expression, a smile that's teasing, playing, maybe - except she's so serious half the time, she's happy to let people think otherwise. "I'll make a deal with you and then I promise, I'll answer everything you can think to ask."

Daryl clearly thinks this is stupid; it's written all over his dirty, unshaven face. "Depends on the deal."

She pulls her horse to a stop, tugging on it's reigns in a brief movement, then leans forward on the saddle horn. Maybe he's expecting something grave, but she's still faintly smiling.

"Race me to the end of the road, if you win? Ask me as many questions as you like."

Daryl rolls his eyes, because he knows he can't win this. He's barely acceptable with horses. He knows enough not to fall off, and only sometimes. This is stupid.

So he just starts racing then and there. It's a handicap.

Five-second head start that seems even. Barks laughter clear and bright into the air and kicks the horse hard against its side with her heel, feeling it roll fast under her. The rest comes easy, drops her body low, feels the thunder of it under her. There's a power to it, of shifting with the animal. The air that hits her face and Gangadhar had always preferred his elephants. Beautiful, powerful - but this? This would always be her preference. The defiance to moving fast in unison with something kind enough to let her.

She pulls up even with him quickly enough - and if she wasn't sure before, she is now, he's not a strong rider. The horse isn't trying to sneak away from him, they always tended to know when a rider couldn't handle themselves, so he wasn't terrible, but - he wasn't sure, from the look of how he was holding himself. She's still laughing, still smiling. An honest, careful free enjoyment - she isn't interested in most forms of celebration that partook in, but this one was... acceptable to her.

Daryl knows he's going to lose from the onset, and that's honestly part of why he does it. They all need a moment to breathe in this stupid war, and why not give this cocksure lady her precious secrecy? If it's really something she wants to keep to herself so bad, he'll let her have it.

Fair's fair don't mean shit when it comes right down to it.

So he looses. That's fine. He's not smiling, doesn't really do that much anymore, but he's got a lighter step to him when he shrugs at her from where he's stopped his horse. "Guess I'll never know."

She bares into it fully, for it's a game that she had indulged into often before this - before England - before the weight of her people and their lives upon her. The cut of cold air that she sucks in deep, that brings warmth sharp and in contrast to the cold is the animal that powers along, that she whispers breathless words too, words not of its language, but of her own - urging it faster and quicker, willing battle cries into its steps - Har Har Mahadev.

To pull even with him, to pull past him, laughing sharp and clear into the air. That cold, unforgiving air expelled hot in exertion out of her body as she comes to the finish line. Passing over it in front of him and as he comes to the end of their little race, she pulls the horse to a halt. Not so much to a stop but turns it in a tight circle as it churned up the snow and the ground below it. Thick and flinging up, ground that is minced under hooves as her head whipped back around to face him. A dancer's turn as her body moves, her gaze fixed upon him. A high in her cheeks, the part of her lips, the gold that catches the sun, that is in winning, perhaps, but more in the race. What she needed, the break from these people that were not her home - with someone that was even less so. But for his indulgence of her, she could be generous.

Because what she is, where she came from, it is not secret, and if they were at home and - he were anyone else but an American, she might be worried about that weight. Her name is one damned by England's Queen. To the English, she is better to them dead on a battlefield.

But here? Now? Her voice calls back full to where he says he'll never know. "Jhansi. Once part of the Marathi Empire in what you call India, a small Kingdom of bare rock and long hard summers." Her eyes are bright and she pulls her breath heavily as if she had been the one running. But he gets his answer, plain and simple, because she doesn't expect it to mean anything more to him than Georgia meant to her. "Come on then. If you wish to muddy our tracks, you will have to do better than that." She has no business tormenting a man she's only just met with laughter and prodding and testing him in her own way - expect that's what makes it easy. What does he know of a Queen to a fallen Kingdom? Her fallen Kingdom.

Rather, what does any of it matter to how she brings her horse around?. A sharp tug and it follows, guiding like it was of her own two legs. Feeling it take sure footing in the snow as she circles back around him, almost in torment expect where she does it to fall back to his side. He has his answer, what he would make of it, would be his own doing. No court here could say she was treasonous to a crown that she refused to acknowledge any longer.

She ain't a sore winner, that's for sure. And she has that edge, that smile that says this is right. For a moment, she forgot the war.

That can cheer Daryl more than anything, these days. The little light in the darkness, the shit that keeps you moving beyond hope or reason. He doesn't smile back, but there's a lightness to him that wasn't there before. This is good people. Worth protecting.

He nods. India sounds right, not that he'd know if she was lying. He follows her, because she wants to be followed. "Sounds like its own kinda shithole," Daryl says, lightly, his horse just barely in pace with hers. "You miss it."

Like he misses Georgia. You always miss home, even if it were a prison.

Her eyes close briefly, shaking her head - yes, she misses her home, oh how she misses it. She missed it long before now, before ending up in this other world. With them shut, and this cold removed from her, she can see it. See it as it was. Maybe it would be easier if she could only remember it in flames. But she can see it still - the walls of the Mahal, the Fortress. The call of her husband's elephants, the raga's sung, the warm colour of the carved stones. The patter of Damodar's feet towards her, running towards her and calling for her with his nursemaid trailing behind. "No, it is not." A warmth to the words. "It is beautiful, because the people there make it so." She's being - fanciful. Waves her hand as if to dismiss the sun from her eyes and good memories from her mind.

Because he's right. "I do, I have missed it for years. It has been some time since I have been able to return."

Daryl snorts at that. "Don't sound like Georgia. Beautiful place fulla assholes."

He rides alongside her, and he's still not smiling, but his voice is gentler than it was before. He's less gruff. It's good, he thinks, that this one's on their side.

"Dunno if it's lucky, to have a home worth missing." Who's better off? The person with happy memories and longing, or the one with none and no forlorn feelings about being gone?

Edited (wordingk) 2016-11-29 03:36 (UTC)

"It would depend, I wager, on how you treat your memories. Are they burdens or your comfort? What is their weight? Know that, and you will know if it is worthwhile." An amendment that comes with a grimace. "For you, at least. Such things are as personal as prayers."

She pauses, it's sharing, sharing of herself, not out of a need to keep her secrets. They truly aren't secrets now, and he had not reacted to her name. Such as it was, it would have been enough if he had any relation to the Knights in hunting her down. That, and he was American. Little as it might for others, it couldn't in his favour as she considers his words. "It is not my home that is a weight upon me, it is knowing that it was burned, that is heavy on me. That I can no longer protect it. That is what I have lost so many hours sleep on." Home, and missing it, was one thing, but she could stomach it easier than knowing her people - her beautiful home - was no food for Lycans and their ilk.

His memories are just... memories. There are ones he doesn't want to revisit, ones he does. They offer no succor, for the most part. They just are, like a stone in hand, something to distract him. A quiet man spends an ungodly amount of time in his own head, it turns out.

"Sorry to hear it," he says. He doesn't want to share his story, but fair is fair, and this woman has been exceedingly fair so far. "Georgia ain't no place to live. America too. Corpses and that's if you're lucky; the living folks are worse."

He's - not of her home, and she had worked hard, so hard, that the sickness that befell her people, befell so many other of Britain's colonies, in their greed to control as much as they could - would not befall them.

But as he speaks, she snaps back, they're not just talking, her fingers go tight on the reigns, the horse makes a sharp noise in complaint. Where her fingers are just bare at the end of her gloves, they strain white in the force of holding herself. "Lycans? Or did the vampires spread there too?"

Curses, faintly, what was it all for if not to protect a future she would do anything to make free of such fear.

Daryl doesn't know what lycans are, but vampires makes sense, so he assumes more of the same. It's all bullshit, anyway. Daryl's seen enough shit that he's not gonna bat an eye at someone believing in some other coffin dweller.

"Nah, worse," he says, because what could be worse than the dead rising to eat the living? "Walkers. It's in everybody."

"What is... a walker?"

Alright, she's - taken completely off guard, and it shows. Revel in the victory, Daryl, it's not often she's confused very much. Though, it happens here often enough.

Daryl gets about as excited as ever: he raises a brow. "Dead people coming back and eating folk." Have fun with that mental image, lady. Daryl goes a little grim at the memory, and lets his horse trot on forward, directionless.

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