test drive meme

[barrayarmods]

Playlists by tsarcasm:
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

Comments

[vorbratta]

"Hm. Someplace a little less public would be a start." She seems to have unbalanced him slightly. Good. Maybe if she keeps him on his toes he won't have a chance to work out who she is. Sonia smiles sweetly up at Byerly, but there's a thoroughly impish undertone to it. "Do you like to dance, Byerly?"

[vorrutyer]

Ah. Bolder still. What happens if he deflowers the flower of the Vor? Or, potentially just a hill-woman, possibly, some concubine of Old Piotr's...The likelihood of that seems low, though; she seems Vor. And he is not going to be that time-traveler from the terrible holovids who sires his own cousin or...whatever. In the worst possible situation, if he can't wriggle out of getting into bed with her without arousing her suspicions, he'll do what he's done a fair number of times before: he will inject something (saline) or drink something (apple juice), roll over, and fall asleep, leaving the maiden disgusted with her dissolute lout of a would-be lover. That'll save him from any accidental dishonoring.

"When my partner is charming," he says. His hand drifts downward from her hair to hover a little teasingly...and then descend to grasp her hand. "And you certainly are that. Lead me to a bit of privacy and a bit of music, won't you?"

LMK IF THIS IS OK

[vorbratta]

Deflower? Oh, you flatter yourself, Byerly.

Sonia turns a brilliant grin on him, folding her hand over his. "Mm. I can't promise a full orchestra, but I think we can make some music, you and I." A slight smirk, a flash of the eyes...and heavy boots pounding on snow behind them.

"Princess!" A tall, thickset man in black and silver Vorbarra livery is running to cross the empty swath of snow between them, looking red-faced, a little breathless, and thoroughly exasperated. "Princess Sonia, you can't just -- "

Sonia jerks back away from Byerly, looking both aghast and frustrated. "Gavalas!" she splutters, sounding strangled. God dammit.

Her Armsman finally catches up close enough to them to slow to a walk, puffing a little, and when he fully notices Byerly he shoots her a scandalized look. "Princess Sonia," he says again, the name alone a weary reproach, followed up with the unspoken Again?

lmk if THIS is okay

[vorrutyer]

Ah. Ahhhhh. Well, Byerly can't say he's surprised - he'd have to be quite a lot slower to be truly surprised - but it's still not the first Sonia he'd have guessed. After all, how likely is it to see Princess Sonia Vorbarra walking around, sans armsman? A little more likely when said princess is, apparently, a tricky, slippery little minx. How often does she get loose from poor Armsman Gavalas, he wonders? Enough that the poor man looks positively...resigned.

Well. Here goes, Princess. Here's hoping he can buy her a little reprieve at the cost of his dignity...After all, the people of this benighted era don't know just how devalued a currency his dignity is.

And so Byerly does a convincing stagger to the side, teeters, and then collapses into a snowbank off to the side. He long ago mastered the boneless-looking slump, a carefully controlled fall that looks completely uncontrolled. Usually used to fake passing out of drink, here of illness. "Is this - " He moans up piteously. "Princess, is this the man you called to help me?" And then, flopping a bit deeper into the snow - "Thank you, Princess, for nursing me...But I feel...I don't feel well..."

ITS PERFECT

[vorbratta]

Sonia is so caught in whiplash between the two of them that she stalls a moment, glaring at Byerly in a surprised kneejerk reaction, but mostly she just resents not having thought of it first. But hell, she's impressed.

But she doesn't resent it much at all in the grand scheme of things, because it does cut her a break, and she gives Gavalas an expectant, slightly exasperated look as she drops to a low crouch next to Byerly. Too much snow for her to kneel, of course.

"There you are," she says, chastising, as though she's not the one who went off...cavorting, or whatever. She lifts Byerly's head slightly with one hand cradled at the back of his head and glares at Gavalas. "Stop shouting and stomping around. Can't you see this man is ill?"

Gavalas does come to a halt a few paces away, looking torn. Years of acting as Princess Sonia's bodyguard has taught him well how finicky and manipulative she can be when she wants to be, but he knows well she's not a bad person, and...she is an Imperial Princess. Calling her out on a lie without the Countess around might...yield less a less than ideal scene.

"Princess," he says again in exasperation, finally, although he can't decide in which direction, and finally he lets out a sigh. Sonia conceals a grin. Point to her. "What's wrong with him?"

You're perfect

[vorrutyer]

Oh ho. Well. Clever Princess. She didn't even miss a beat, did she? Perhaps it's a family trait. Ivan always was good at thinking on his feet when properly motivated - which is to say, motivated to avoid getting socked in the nose by a jealous husband. Being the subject of a scandal due to a bad association with an unvirtuous young man is, Byerly supposes, the Vor lady equivalent of a Vor gentleman's getting socked in the nose. Which is, he thinks, a very hateful sort of thing. Having been punched many a time, he'd sooner endure that than a scandal.

Our poor women. Well, nothing to be done for the status of the ladies of the Occupation. Aside from retching convincingly in defense of their perceived virtue.

And so Byerly does give a convincing retch - he's vomited enough times that he knows how to fake it well, a hideous gut-deep noise that concludes with a sick, lurching sort of belch and then a miserable shiver. This isn't winking playacting for the Princess' gullible prole guardsman - hell, her Armsman is no doubt smart, no one to wink around. So he gives a very, very plausible performance of a man who's sick and miserable, tensing his throat till a nasty blotchy sort of redness comes into his face, swiping some snow over his forehead to give himself a look of damp distress. He looks up at the Armsman under eyelashes clumping with the start of tears of distress.

"I just ate a fruit," he said, leaning into his city accent with alacrity. Playing the clueless urban Vor, transplanted cluelessly to the back-country, blundering about. "It was one of the native fruits, yeah, but I thought that was okay. I didn't know they'd really kill you..." Fortunately, not kill - By is not quite ready to commit that fully to this performance - but the particular fruit he'll pretend to have ingested does apparently cause the most hideous diarrhea. Gruesome.

wow YOU

[vorbratta]

Oh, damn, that's impressive. If he hadn't just been seducing her moments before, she'd really beleive that performance. It's even enough to make Sonia recoil a little in genuine...well, not disgust, but some more mature form of ick, gross. She could take a few pointers from him, maybe. Outrageous lies with a straight face, sure, but if she could throw that kind of a show...

She gives Gavalas a look that is both entreating and I told you so, why didn't you believe me, keeping a hand on Byerly's back. Gavalas, watching the scene, sighs heavily.

"It won't kill you," he finally says, a little tartly, and the look he gives Sonia isn't entirely charitable either. He has his suspicions, but the man really does seem to be ill. "Alright, I'll go fetch a med tech...please stay put, Princess."

"I promise," Sonia says dutifully, and actually means it, too. The moment Gavalas is out of sight she leans over and murmurs, "Nicely done, Byerly."

[vorrutyer]

"What do you mean, nicely done?" he whispers in return. "I'm quite serious about this." And then he leans forward to put his head near her lap and make theatrical vomiting noises against her - a foolproof way to make a girl of any degree of ticklishness giggle.

Then, that having been accomplished, he rolls back to collapse, arms spread, into the snowbank, grinning in spite of himself. It always feels good to pull off a bit of a con. Doubly pleasurable when you're not targeting fools, but perfectly capable Armsmen. "I assume your solid fellow isn't quite diligent enough to stand over me until he sees me shitting, right?" By asks. "He'll pass me off to the medtechs? I don't want to have to cadge some laxatives to make this convincing."

[vorbratta]

That earns a laugh from Sonia despite herself, and she playfully pushes him away as he rolls back. She can't deny her own delight in the thrill, because that's probably the most interesting fun she's had in weeks. She makes a disgusted little scoff at his suggestion, scrunching up her face.

"Eugh, don't be gross. No, you'll be spared that, I can make sure of it. You're not his job, I am." Sonia huffs out a little breath, but she can't help grinning still. She perches herself on a low rock next to the snowbank, leaning forward with her chin in her hands. "That really was quite brilliant. You've had a lot of practice, I take it."

[vorrutyer]

More than you can possibly imagine. "But of course," Byerly answers easily and cheerfully. Then, tilting his head towards her, he lifts an eyebrow and purses his lips. "This will shock you, I think," he says, "but I have actually been involved in a scandal or two in my day." And then he lets his head fall back and sighs. "I got out of some of them by being five times as clever as the people around me...though by no means all. Alas. It's difficult, being as thoroughly disinherited as I am."

Translation, he hopes: I am precisely no one to pin any hopes on, milady, unless your hope is for a life of drunken poverty. Not that he expects she will, of course. But he is Vorrutyer, and of suitable bloodline, if not of suitable levels of degeneracy...And it's wartime. And the poor girl seems desperate for a bit of fun. God, though, imagine if Sonia Vorbarra fell in love with him, Byerly Vorrutyer, scourge of all right-thinking Vor. Ivan would shit.

"So," he says pointedly after a slight pause. "Princess."