forbarrayar_ooc | test drive meme

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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

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Beth shakes her head, her knees pulled up nearly to her chest. "It just seems like we should be doing something like that, since we have a campfire."

Fires lost their novelty at home, even if there were still times they really felt like the stuff of bonfire nights and camping. Ghost stories did, too, with real monsters lurking in the woods. But here, she only knows one person, and the orange glow of the flames is almost gentle against the snow. It feels safe to Beth, despite the knowledge that it isn't. Not really.

"I'm Beth," she offers after a moment, since it sounds like they're probably not going to get too far on the subject of ghost stories alone.

"For Elizabeth?" Brief, she knew how the English liked to name their children often.

After a moment though, she continues, just watching her in consideration if nothing else. Still strange, sometimes, to introduce herself. Didn't have to, once upon a time, and then her name had been banned and treason to speak of. "Lakshmibai - but Lakshmi if that is easier for you." Her expectation about English speakers managing her name at this point is... limited. To say the least.

She watches the flames, again, the dart and jump and life of them. What was needed against this bitter cold that settled so deep into bones.

"I can tell you other stories, if you wish."

"Only when I'm in a lot of trouble." And even then, it's easier just to yell BETH! under those circumstances: fewer syllables to bite out before the walkers come. She smiles. "Your name's pretty, Lakshmibai."

She says the syllables a little on the slow side, determined to get them out in the right order and something like the right pronunciation. It's Americanized, a little Southernized, but the effort is there. It's only going to get easier from here, if you keep saying it.

"What kinds of stories do you tell?" Ghost stories might not be ideal as long as the wind howls through the fir trees--she's right about that much. But other stories would be fine with her.

"It's beautiful too." That she would try, and no, it's not how it should be said, but it doesn't matter so much that she tried, nothing that endears her quicker to the girl.

"All sorts. I did nothing but nag the -- priests for them as a child." Laughs briskly with it, how she'd sit at their feet, studious as she must be to be Queen, but eager too. To hear the tales that they could speak at length. "My husband would employ poets and playwrites from every corner and let us see them. So it really matters what story you would like, and how well I remember them." It's teasing then, at least a little, though it comes only in the crinkle of her eyes and the upturned corner of her mouth. "Love, perhaps, or war, they are the favourites together?" Didn't matter which country she went to, so much was the same.

Beth giggles along with Lakshmibai. She remembers the children at the prison, clamoring after Carol to hear stories. Of course, there was more to Carol's story hours than Tom Sawyer alone, but it's easy to remember her own childhood, too, asking everyone else in the house to read to her.

"Love," she answers immediately. That's an easy choice. The whole world is war--no matter what world you're on, it turns out. She smiles at Lakshmibai, a little tentative. "Or--anything you know with a happy ending."

She nods, taking a drink as she composes it in her mind, picking through the pieces of memories scattered about after so long.

"Is there a way that you prefer them to start?" Sips her drink again slowly, forming the words in her mind. Well, there's one that is easy.

"Where I come from, we say once upon a time. For some stories." Maybe not the kind that she's planning to tell, but Beth can't think of any other phrases that are quite so important at home. "What do you say?"

If it's Lakshmibai's story, it should start the way her people tell them. That's part of the story itself, in a way.

"Something similar," not in truth but - tired as she is, it's an easy way to begin it. "So easy enough to begin I should think."

Another sip, and maybe drinking makes it easy. She feels - pleasantly warm. Comfortable, or at least, comfortable as she can be with a wounded leg. "In a country, far from here, - " go figure, another world from here. "There was an Emperor, named Akbar. He was prosperous and ruled over many lands of what is called Hindustan in the Indus Valley. When he was young, he favoured war, hunting, violence, as was his father before him that had built his Empire. Have you heard of him?" He was an old story to India. The mighty Mughal Emperors that had conquered all in their path.

Beth believes her, because there's no reason not to, and she settles in to listen. It seems like a good place to start a story. From Hindustan and the Indus Valley, she thinks it's India (though, admittedly, it could just sound similar, the way people here sound Russian but aren't), and India sounds a lot warmer than Barrayar.

"No." She shrugs, a little sheepish. "We didn't get to him in school."

She's not sure that they would have, if the turn hadn't happened, but she'll never know at this point.

She has yet to understand where some of these people come from, where once it was impossible for anyone but the richest to read, and she too often found children in Whitechapel unable to read beyond the most simplistic sentences.

The words are recounted as the priests had told her - if changed slightly, it was not her people's history and Lakshmi adds as she needs to, to give her the fullness of it all. "He was a child of the Mughal Lords. Fearsome Muslim conquerors that rode in and took the land for themselves. They laid waste to all, snatching up Kingdom after Kingdom for their own in battles that raged at times for many days. They were far different from the people they sought to rule. The Hindu people that were forced to pay great taxes for their worship. Under his father's reign, there was only subjugation. But there was beauty too, the Mughal Emperor's built decadently, richly, for every battle, their splendour only grew. Lustrous palaces and gardens rich with flowers and greenery enough to be paradise here on earth." All scene setting, the buildings she knew as a child, the way that the Mughal's could not depict their God as her people did, so instead they made in intricate.

"But the Prince Akbar... he was different. So the story goes, when he was a young man, before a hunt, he couldn't stand blood for it's own sake any more. The animals were all locked up, ready to be set free, and the day's hunt was of a mighty tiger. But then, a great thought came over him. It wracked him, it's said, like a sickness, and when it appeared to him, it was like God had seized him up, direct his hand." She takes another drink, slow, savouring it before she continues. "Then - to his advisers' surprise, he lept off his horse, to where the tiger they were to hunt was caged, and wretched open the cage - and just like that, let the tiger go. Freeing it and commanded his men not to give chase. He could not stand the pointless waste any longer. They say that is when Akbar truly became Akbar the great."

As she listens, she decides it must be India and imagines accordingly. It's a tempting picture at the edges, with its beautiful buildings and grounds, but the center is uglier. More than anything, it reminds her of the book of Exodus, and of Pharaoh commanding all the Israelites to work as slaves for him. (And it reminds her of the hospital, but that's too close a memory--it's easier to think of the way old stories intertwine than to let her own into the mix.)

The action of the story makes Beth smile. It is a love story, but not the kind she expected: the prince in this story loves peace and the animals around him. It's nicer, in a way, especially for somebody who has to rule over everyone else.

"Hunting animals that've already been caught doesn't seem fair, anyway," she says, when she thinks the story must be finished. "He did the right thing, freeing the tiger."

Her tongue presses against her teeth, a consideration of the hum of alcohol in her system. Ten years living in a brothel, or near about, and she'd never indulged in such activities, but she would be lying to say she did not wander on it now. Often she would enjoy the company of the men and women there, true. Learn songs that would make her father blush for their vulgarity - such was the English way, she'd found out. Or such was the way of men and liquor and the brief interludes that made battle worth it.

"He did, but that would not be his true test of what it was to rule his many people, of many faiths." She taps her fingers against the tankard, letting the words play in her mouth before she gave them life. "To hold all his father had won, would still take blood. He still had to ride out, no matter how he might spare where others would enslave and kill. Akbar was still a child of the Mughals. "

She shakes her head, slow. "No, Akbar's challenge would be when he was to take a bride."

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test drive meme

no subject

beth r u thinking about cookies n ladybugs n biscuits again

no im thinking about the dark elevator shaft that is mortality

well, I mean, there could be cookies at the end

when you get there, lmk if there are

what is heaven but the cookies at the end of life

how do we know heaven's going to happen when all we see is death

but you can also see cookies??? gosh beth!!

WE'LL SEE. when you guys get to the hospital arc pls lmk so i can come down and listen to you cry

i did not ask for this pain its so rude you are monsters to me

no ragrets

no subject