forbarrayar_ooc | test drive meme

Entry tags:

!tdm

test drive meme

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

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh, trying to out-manipulate this Princess? It'll take more than that, Byerly. Sonia's eyebrows raise slightly in amusement at his proffered hands -- one of the few Vor around here who doesn't seem like the soldierly type -- and she indulges him by touching her own gloved hands to his, plucking lightly at the tattered fabric.

"Hm. I'd lend you mine, but your hands are rather a lot bigger." She gives him an impish smile, and then snorts out a laugh. Very princesslike, yes. "The General Count? Egalitarian? Good God, no. A progressive, sure, but if anything it's his wife who's the egalitarian. Half-Betan, you know."

She glances at his shovel, taps the shaft of it with the toe of her boot, and gives him a smug look. "Oh, don't you know? I've already got a job. I'm here to boost morale."

Hah. What a thought. Piotr Vorkosigan was considered progressive in this time period. He supposes that anyone who advocated a style of warfare more elegant than "smash heads in with rocks" is comparatively forward-thinking, yes...Still, that's an interesting tidbit. Somehow he'd forgotten that the old Countess Vorkosigan had been part Betan. That's right - Miles Vorkosigan's more Betan than Barrayaran, isn't he? In retrospect, that makes his constant More-Vor-Than-Thou routine even more obnoxious.

But: there are forms much lovelier than that hyperactive dwarf's to contemplate right now. "Well. And a marvelous job you're doing. They should give you a raise." He turns his hand around to capture hers and sweeps an exaggerated bow over it, pressing an admirably chaste kiss to the back of the wool. Miracle of miracles: she seems to be the one person in camp who doesn't stink. "I know my spirits are lifted, Lady...?"

Sonia positively grins at that kiss to the back of her hand, a girlish laugh escaping her. Oh, and he's fun. Dour Barrayaran soldiers, indeed; bless them, but they do get old after a while. She can already hear Olivia's sigh of disapproval and she can just about feel the look that goes with it, but screw it. Olivia's married, and Sonia's bored, and without Armsman Gavalas around, really, who's going to stop her?

She bats her eyelashes at Byerly in response to the compliment, fully exaggerated, but the grin is genuine. "A raise from what?" she laughs, tossing her hair. "Just Sonia, thank you. And now you've got me at a disadvantage, sir."

And you a lady with such marked...advantages. He suspects, given her liveliness so far, that she'd savor a few well-placed double entendres, but this is a notoriously humorless era of Barrayaran history; he has no great desire to offend the lady and end up hanging by his toenails in Piotr Vorkosigan's war tent. So instead, gallantly, and without addressing either advantages or things that can be raised, he responds, "Byerly Vorrutyer."

And then, pressing her hand between his, "You are a breath of fresh air, Sonia. I had started to think that smiling was disallowed here."

Sonia's eyebrows raise slightly as Byerly clasps her hand in his, but she gives him a tilted smile, her dark eyes bright, permitting the flattered look to show on her face. Ooh, and he's got all the right lines, too.

"Only when the General Count's looking," she says teasingly, and looks around in mock furtiveness. "Hm. I don't see him anywhere around here. And I promise not to tell."

She turns her smile back at Byerly, tilting her chin up. "Not Lord Byerly Vorrutyer, I hope. I've found high Vor to be so stuffy. Not an ounce of fun in them."

Like, say, a certain General Count.

"Heaven forfend," Byerly responds, laughing. "Not Count Vorrutyer, not Lord Vorrutyer, not even Lord Byerly, and praise be to the rare streak of unambition that led my ancestors to not try for any political power at all." Which would be happening right about now, wouldn't it? Perhaps he ought to go out and find his grandfather, just to put a word or two in his ear about disinheriting his father once and for all. Perhaps starving him as well. Giving him a good kick or two, to see whether a bit of that would improve his personality. The bastard.

Anyway.

"After all, the only thing duller than talking to a High Vor, I should think, is being a High Vor. Have you had to put up with many of their type, milady?"

Oh. Oh, good. Sonia awards him a wild grin. She doesn't correct his mode of address this time, taking it for a sign of flattery, and to turn that down would be quite out of line here, she thinks. She tosses her hair in an appropriately exaggerated sign of exasperation and disdain.

"Oh, only all the time. It's not so bad here, at least not all the officers are Vor, but Count Vorkosigan," she says, just barely catching herself from the decidedly more familiar Count Piotr, "he's the stuffiest of them all. He doesn't have a stick up his ass so much as a steel rod -- or maybe an entire maple tree, for all I know. I'm not so sure he even knows how to smile. The man doesn't know the meaning of the word fun."

True, she's somewhat fonder of Piotr these days, ever since he married her sister and proved to be a good husband who makes her happy (no accounting for taste, there), but God if the man isn't the most hard-faced high Vor out there outside her own Imperial family. She casts Byerly a sly look.

"You look like you do, though."

"Oh, I've been known to have fun now and again," he answers with a grin. Interesting intel, though. What sort of woman is sweet little Sonia, here, that she has to suffer the presence of General Count Vorkosigan? If he were a Cetagandan agent - perish the thought, of course, he'd sooner go and kiss Vorkosigan himself than work for the Cetas, but if he were a Cetagandan agent - he'd focus a bit of attention on this girl right here. Bored, coquettish, and powerful - by most standards, the ideal mark. Perfect for cultivation as a source of information. Perfect, too, as a hostage.

Of course, a good ImpSec agent who focuses on the High Vor might also take pains to cultivate her. You know. Cultivate her.

"Looking at you, though..." His grin turns sly, teasing. "I don't think you do. You look far too good and obedient for fun."

Sonia scoffs out a real laugh at that, though the hand she clutches to her chest is in mock indignation. "You need your eyes checked, sir," she says, lifting her chin, and kicks away a small mound of snow between them. With a bright-eyed smirk, she neatly kicks the shovel out from under Byerly's hand and takes a step closer, letting it fall back into the pile of snow. "I think you need a closer look."

Oh - ah. Hm. Well. The maiden is a little bolder than he was anticipating. He'd thought that'd spark a little fire in her, but not exactly enough fire to make her kick out shovels and get very close and that sort of thing...He wonders what his excuse might be if General Count Vorkosigan comes across them and get worked up over Byerly's advances on his niece? cousin? sister? lord help him, surely not wife. Don't worry, sir, I was just checking her over for defects...Preserve him, but that makes him sound like Ivan.

Actually, maybe this would be a job for Ivan, now that he thinks about it...

"Hm." He reaches out his thumb and forefinger to gently tug on a loose lock of her hair. "What exactly should I be looking for, milady?"

"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?"

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?"

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?

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..."

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?"

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.

Edited 2016-12-07 21:24 (UTC)

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."

"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."

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."

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."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

test drive meme

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

LMK IF THIS IS OK

lmk if THIS is okay

ITS PERFECT

You're perfect

wow YOU

no subject

no subject

no subject