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laleiaPrompt: A time when young Ivan really, really resented Miles.
i.
Ivan Vorpatril turned five today, and he was supposed to have a brilliant birthday party with all the little Vor boys and girls, and a really big cake, and lots and lots of presents. His mama has been planning this day for weeks and weeks and weeks, and he’s in his very best outfit, and everyone so far has said that he is the cutest boy ever.
Ivan Vorpatril is the star of the party, and he loves it.
That is, until they choose a game to play, and mama says he has to choose something cousin Miles can do as well – only cousin Miles is small and wrinkled and crooked, and there’s a lot of things he can’t play.
ii.
Ivan Vorpatril is 8, and it’s just not fair! [they get involved in prank, and when they get caught, he gets in trouble but Miles doesn’t]
iii.
Ivan Vorpatril is 10, and he knows he’s in trouble. He knows he’s in big trouble because he’s done a very, very, very bad thing. He hit Miles.
He didn’t mean to, not really, because he knows that Miles is small and weak and should be protected, and he knows that Bothari is going to kill him when he finds out, because Bothari is a bodyguard and that’s what bodyguards do. Uncle Aral will probably exile him and Mother will get that look in her eyes, and he doesn’t even know what Aunt Cordelia will say, and doesn’t want to think about it.
He didn’t mean to actually hit Miles; he was just thinking about it. He thought about it a lot, every time Miles had another “brilliant” idea that he just knew would get him in trouble. He thought about it every time Miles did something dangerous, and he knew he was going to get lectured about not watching Miles. He thought about it sometimes when he was in a really bad mood, and he wanted to hit everyone who talked down to him, and Miles was a kid too so there was no reason Miles should talk down to Ivan, as if Miles were an adult and Ivan a kid.
He doesn’t even remember why he hit Miles, all he knows is that Miles is standing there, clutching his arm with those white fingers and pinched lips, and Miles is trying to make him feel better. Miles is trying to laugh, to joke, to shrug it off
Ivan Vorpatril is 10, and he’s in trouble, he knows he is. [he punched Miles, who is manfully holding in his pain, and he feels guilty, and resents miles for making hi feel guilty.]
iv.
Ivan is 15, and his date is blonde, beautiful, and Vor. He doesn’t remember her name (Mar-something? Marleen? Marni? Whatever), but that’s okay because the girls like it when he calls them “Babe” and “Darling” and “Love.” He is 15 and he is high on life, because even if-
But then
v.
Ivan is 17 and he’s throwing up. He almost died just now, as Miles decided to fly blind through the Dendarii gorge, and Miles is laughing at him.
--
Ivan is 30, and his worried about Miles, who hasn’t been answering his comconsole, who hasn't been seen, and who has apparently last been seen looking like death. If Miles were in his manic mode, he wouldn't be so worried, but what if he hit depressive ...
Prompt: Martin (from Memory) enlists in the army and says something innocently about his temporary work for Miles. An experienced soldier realizes that Martin must have seen a lot of fascinating things about the whole Illyan\Haroche scandal and tries to get information out of Martin. He has trouble doing so because Martin doesn't know what is so special and why anyone should want to know about his job.
“Since when do you have any experience with lightflyers?” a voice asked skeptically. “Not something I imagine you’d come across everyday.”
“Oh, I spent the summer before my 18th birthday working as a chauffeur,” a cheerful voice replied, apparently unaware of the classist insult intended. “Groundcar, lightflyer, the like. I had a bit of trouble at the beginning, scraped things, ran into them, clipped lights, you know. But by the end, I’d gotten pretty good. It helped that milord didn’t care much about the damage.”
Fedor turned, to track the voices. Ah, it was young Martin, new and not quite bright, but certainly enthusiastic. And his friend Dmitri.
“Milord? You worked for one of the Vor, then?” Dmitri asked with some interest. “What was it like?”
“It was alright. Milord Vorkosigan was a good sort, didn’t mind if I slept in, or if I wasn’t so great with steering. And staying at his place was certainly a lot better than staying at home.”
“You worked inhouse for Lord Vorkosigan?” Dmitri asked, a bit incredulously. “Was he like they said? All … you know. Corrupt from galactic practices? Or strange-looking?” It was obvious he wanted to repeat some of the more gruesome rumors in detail, but knew better than to do that here.
“Milord was a good sort,” Martin repeated, this time a little more firmly. “Me brother worked as his gate guard and me ma still works as his cook – I won’t hear anything bad about him.”
Fedor found this conversation too interesting to pass up, and slid into the chair next to them. “I’m afraid I find this conversation too fascinating not to join,” he said, smiling winningly. “I hope you don’t mind the interruption.”
“Captain Golovin,” both trainees stammered, and fumbled with a salute.
“No need,” Fedor smiled kindly. “I’m interested in the answer too, you know. You worked for Lord Vorkosigan?”
“He just needed some help, what with his seizures and all,” Martin shrugged. “From dying.”
“From dying?” Dmitri asked, incredulous.
“From a needle grenade, yes,” Fedor smiled, “I remember the furor at the time. I suppose that’s why he was medically discharged.”
Martin shrugged, and snagged another roll. Fedor mentally rolled his eyes. Apparently, it wasn’t going to be too easy trying to get information out of him.
“That would be the summer with the internal ImpSec administration change, wouldn’t it?” Fedor said encouragingly. “Do you remember anything particularly interesting happening?”
“Administration change?” Martin gave Fedor a strange look.
Fedor sighed. Not the brightest of bulbs, though his heart was certainly in the right place, from what he’d seen. “When Captain Illyan had the medical difficulties, and it turned out General Haroche had done it. Lord Vorkosigan was put in charge of the mess, as acting Auditor. Surely you remember?”
“Oh,” Martin said, slightly enlightened. “Well, I remember when I drove him to ImpSec HQ, and Har- pardon, General Haroche almost had him stunned.”
Fedor’d known that already, though – his brother-in-law had been guarding the gates that day, and he’d heard about it firsthand. Dmitri looked suitably impressed, though. “And then what happened?”
“And then milord was so upset, he went home and put on his official, official Vorkosigan uniform with all its medals – there were a lot of them, too.”
“Really? Do you remember any of them in particular?” Fedor asked, intrigued. Although Vorkosigan’d worked ImpSec, he’d thought the man had scored the job through Vor connections – he’d certainly never heard of any of these medals.
“There were a lot, at least three rows, probably,” Martin shrugged. “All different sizes, too,” (which meant from different planets too, interesting) “with the great biggest one as big as an apple.” Martin demonstrated with his fingers. Fedor tried to think what planet that might have been. “I think that one might have been from Cetaganada?” Martin sounded dubious.
“Cetaganda?” Fedor repeated. If Martin’s tone radiated doubt, his radiated disbelief.
“Maybe not,” Martin shrugged. “Anyways, then we go to the palace – where I didn’t clip the gate this time, and then he comes out with his Auditor’s chain, only I didn’t know it was that at the time, didn’t really get a good look at it, you know, and we went back to ImpSec HQ, and he went inside and did his thing.”
“Did you notice anything special? Or strange?” Fedor asked encouragingly.
“No,” Martin said, shrugging. “It was pretty boring. Working for milord involved a lot of aimless driving around.”
“Where?” Fedor asked, pouncing on the lead.
“Well, we flew a lot around his District,” Martin said, trying to remember. “And I tried maple mead.” He made a face.
“When was this?” Fedor asked, trying to narrow down-
Martin shrugged. “Before the ImpSec HQ thing,” he supplied helpfully. Before the Illyan debacle, then. A false lead. “Before his birthday.”
“What’d he do for his birthday?” Dmitri asked with interest, no doubt curious about Vor excesses.
“Get drunk, I think,” Martin said. “Or maybe that was the day before. In the hills with this small backwater place. My ma made a very good cake when we returned to Vorkosigan Surleau, though,” Martin said, eyes bright in remembrance.
He looked about to elaborate the exquisiteness of the cake in detail, so Fedor interrupted. “Well, what was the most interesting thing to happen during your employ? Or most exciting, or most dangerous. What stands out in particular?”
Martin paused in his eating to consider the question very carefully. “The maple mead was certainly interesting,” he said, finally. And that was that.
He didn’t know why these people were so interested in a simple summer job, why it sounded so exciting to them when it really had been very boring most of the time. Comfortable and well-paid, but boring.
Milord was a good person, a good employer, a good man. And it really wasn’t any of their business how odd it had been to see milord so happy, and working, and productive one day, and then in the slumps the next. He didn’t feel like telling them how his heart had leapt into his chest when milord had that seizure, how he had thought milord was dying for a moment. They probably could care less about his first impression of Lord Vorkosigan (short, serious, odd) and how much he’d looked at him in awe, eventually. After hearing some of his stories, after learning that he’d met his first real live dead person, after working for the man … And he knew better than to tell them about the cautions he’d had from three different sources to watch out for the signs of suicide. He knew better than to explain how much he’d had to learn about spotting destructive behavior, how to dispel odd moods with questions.
For the most part, anyways, it had been boring.
Prompt: Lord Mark meets Silvy Vale.
“Remind me again why we aren’t with your soon-to-be-wife, as you inflict your disgustingly sappy premarital bliss on each other without bothering innocent bystanders,” Mark asked dryly, as he steered the lightflyer according to Miles’s precise instructions.
“You know she’s up fitting dresses in Vorbarr Sultana, an activity I am definitively not allowed to participate in because of some antiquated custom or other,” Miles said. “Careful, don’t clip that-”
Too late.
“Navigating these blasted [note, right swear word?] Dendarii hills by lightflyer is not exactly my forte,” Mark said testily. “Why couldn’t we have someone else drive?”
“Because pilgrimages are rarely chaperoned by chauffeurs,” Miles said dryly. “We could have come by horseback, as well, but I didn’t think you were comfortable enough with the horses to try. Besides, this way is faster.”
“And you still won’t tell me where we’re going,” Mark hissed as he barely avoided scraping another rock. “Are you sure flying through this canyon is the best place to get to … wherever we’re going?”
“I told you, it’s Silvy Vale-”
“Like that tells me anything.”
“-and this Gorge, I thought, would be the scenic route.”
“And the death-defying. Miles, you’re flying me through rocks and canyons and cliffs because of the scenery?”
“It’s good training for you,” Miles said judiciously. “And you must admit, it is pretty majestic, even for a cosmopolitan galactic like you.”
Mark was ready to make a comment about the difficult of appreciating grandeur when your lightflyer was wobbling from too many close calls, but then the vid map/navigator program was leading them out of the gorge and toward the hills.
“As for Silvy Vale, it’s … the site of one of more important learning experiences in Lord Vorkosigan’s life.”
Mark did not comment on the odd phrasing, landing the lightflyer rather gracelessly instead.
Prompt: Ivan has to babysit a Betan anthropologist
It was all Aunt Cordelia’s fault. “Ivan, you’re not doing anything this weekend, right?” “Ivan, you know a lot of about the city, right?” “Ivan, you’ve met Betans before, right?”
The long and short of it was, Grandma Naismith (not like she was his grandmother, but somehow, being remotely familially related meant he was roped in to help) was sponsoring some sort of Betan-Barrayaran joint conference. And Ivan had been volunteered to host a Betan anthropologist for the duration of the conference.
So instead of meeting up with some young Vor debs, he would be chauffeuring and escorting some old Betan grandmother and exposing her to the more cultured side of Vorbarr Sultana. Or something like that.
“It’ll be fun, Ivan,” Aunt Cordelia had said in that cheerful tone that vaguely, horrifically, reminded him of Miles.
And that's all of them! Except the ones that were False Starts and qualify for the Work Procrastination Edition.
i.
Ivan Vorpatril turned five today, and he was supposed to have a brilliant birthday party with all the little Vor boys and girls, and a really big cake, and lots and lots of presents. His mama has been planning this day for weeks and weeks and weeks, and he’s in his very best outfit, and everyone so far has said that he is the cutest boy ever.
Ivan Vorpatril is the star of the party, and he loves it.
That is, until they choose a game to play, and mama says he has to choose something cousin Miles can do as well – only cousin Miles is small and wrinkled and crooked, and there’s a lot of things he can’t play.
ii.
Ivan Vorpatril is 8, and it’s just not fair! [they get involved in prank, and when they get caught, he gets in trouble but Miles doesn’t]
iii.
Ivan Vorpatril is 10, and he knows he’s in trouble. He knows he’s in big trouble because he’s done a very, very, very bad thing. He hit Miles.
He didn’t mean to, not really, because he knows that Miles is small and weak and should be protected, and he knows that Bothari is going to kill him when he finds out, because Bothari is a bodyguard and that’s what bodyguards do. Uncle Aral will probably exile him and Mother will get that look in her eyes, and he doesn’t even know what Aunt Cordelia will say, and doesn’t want to think about it.
He didn’t mean to actually hit Miles; he was just thinking about it. He thought about it a lot, every time Miles had another “brilliant” idea that he just knew would get him in trouble. He thought about it every time Miles did something dangerous, and he knew he was going to get lectured about not watching Miles. He thought about it sometimes when he was in a really bad mood, and he wanted to hit everyone who talked down to him, and Miles was a kid too so there was no reason Miles should talk down to Ivan, as if Miles were an adult and Ivan a kid.
He doesn’t even remember why he hit Miles, all he knows is that Miles is standing there, clutching his arm with those white fingers and pinched lips, and Miles is trying to make him feel better. Miles is trying to laugh, to joke, to shrug it off
Ivan Vorpatril is 10, and he’s in trouble, he knows he is. [he punched Miles, who is manfully holding in his pain, and he feels guilty, and resents miles for making hi feel guilty.]
iv.
Ivan is 15, and his date is blonde, beautiful, and Vor. He doesn’t remember her name (Mar-something? Marleen? Marni? Whatever), but that’s okay because the girls like it when he calls them “Babe” and “Darling” and “Love.” He is 15 and he is high on life, because even if-
But then
v.
Ivan is 17 and he’s throwing up. He almost died just now, as Miles decided to fly blind through the Dendarii gorge, and Miles is laughing at him.
--
Ivan is 30, and his worried about Miles, who hasn’t been answering his comconsole, who hasn't been seen, and who has apparently last been seen looking like death. If Miles were in his manic mode, he wouldn't be so worried, but what if he hit depressive ...
Prompt: Martin (from Memory) enlists in the army and says something innocently about his temporary work for Miles. An experienced soldier realizes that Martin must have seen a lot of fascinating things about the whole Illyan\Haroche scandal and tries to get information out of Martin. He has trouble doing so because Martin doesn't know what is so special and why anyone should want to know about his job.
“Since when do you have any experience with lightflyers?” a voice asked skeptically. “Not something I imagine you’d come across everyday.”
“Oh, I spent the summer before my 18th birthday working as a chauffeur,” a cheerful voice replied, apparently unaware of the classist insult intended. “Groundcar, lightflyer, the like. I had a bit of trouble at the beginning, scraped things, ran into them, clipped lights, you know. But by the end, I’d gotten pretty good. It helped that milord didn’t care much about the damage.”
Fedor turned, to track the voices. Ah, it was young Martin, new and not quite bright, but certainly enthusiastic. And his friend Dmitri.
“Milord? You worked for one of the Vor, then?” Dmitri asked with some interest. “What was it like?”
“It was alright. Milord Vorkosigan was a good sort, didn’t mind if I slept in, or if I wasn’t so great with steering. And staying at his place was certainly a lot better than staying at home.”
“You worked inhouse for Lord Vorkosigan?” Dmitri asked, a bit incredulously. “Was he like they said? All … you know. Corrupt from galactic practices? Or strange-looking?” It was obvious he wanted to repeat some of the more gruesome rumors in detail, but knew better than to do that here.
“Milord was a good sort,” Martin repeated, this time a little more firmly. “Me brother worked as his gate guard and me ma still works as his cook – I won’t hear anything bad about him.”
Fedor found this conversation too interesting to pass up, and slid into the chair next to them. “I’m afraid I find this conversation too fascinating not to join,” he said, smiling winningly. “I hope you don’t mind the interruption.”
“Captain Golovin,” both trainees stammered, and fumbled with a salute.
“No need,” Fedor smiled kindly. “I’m interested in the answer too, you know. You worked for Lord Vorkosigan?”
“He just needed some help, what with his seizures and all,” Martin shrugged. “From dying.”
“From dying?” Dmitri asked, incredulous.
“From a needle grenade, yes,” Fedor smiled, “I remember the furor at the time. I suppose that’s why he was medically discharged.”
Martin shrugged, and snagged another roll. Fedor mentally rolled his eyes. Apparently, it wasn’t going to be too easy trying to get information out of him.
“That would be the summer with the internal ImpSec administration change, wouldn’t it?” Fedor said encouragingly. “Do you remember anything particularly interesting happening?”
“Administration change?” Martin gave Fedor a strange look.
Fedor sighed. Not the brightest of bulbs, though his heart was certainly in the right place, from what he’d seen. “When Captain Illyan had the medical difficulties, and it turned out General Haroche had done it. Lord Vorkosigan was put in charge of the mess, as acting Auditor. Surely you remember?”
“Oh,” Martin said, slightly enlightened. “Well, I remember when I drove him to ImpSec HQ, and Har- pardon, General Haroche almost had him stunned.”
Fedor’d known that already, though – his brother-in-law had been guarding the gates that day, and he’d heard about it firsthand. Dmitri looked suitably impressed, though. “And then what happened?”
“And then milord was so upset, he went home and put on his official, official Vorkosigan uniform with all its medals – there were a lot of them, too.”
“Really? Do you remember any of them in particular?” Fedor asked, intrigued. Although Vorkosigan’d worked ImpSec, he’d thought the man had scored the job through Vor connections – he’d certainly never heard of any of these medals.
“There were a lot, at least three rows, probably,” Martin shrugged. “All different sizes, too,” (which meant from different planets too, interesting) “with the great biggest one as big as an apple.” Martin demonstrated with his fingers. Fedor tried to think what planet that might have been. “I think that one might have been from Cetaganada?” Martin sounded dubious.
“Cetaganda?” Fedor repeated. If Martin’s tone radiated doubt, his radiated disbelief.
“Maybe not,” Martin shrugged. “Anyways, then we go to the palace – where I didn’t clip the gate this time, and then he comes out with his Auditor’s chain, only I didn’t know it was that at the time, didn’t really get a good look at it, you know, and we went back to ImpSec HQ, and he went inside and did his thing.”
“Did you notice anything special? Or strange?” Fedor asked encouragingly.
“No,” Martin said, shrugging. “It was pretty boring. Working for milord involved a lot of aimless driving around.”
“Where?” Fedor asked, pouncing on the lead.
“Well, we flew a lot around his District,” Martin said, trying to remember. “And I tried maple mead.” He made a face.
“When was this?” Fedor asked, trying to narrow down-
Martin shrugged. “Before the ImpSec HQ thing,” he supplied helpfully. Before the Illyan debacle, then. A false lead. “Before his birthday.”
“What’d he do for his birthday?” Dmitri asked with interest, no doubt curious about Vor excesses.
“Get drunk, I think,” Martin said. “Or maybe that was the day before. In the hills with this small backwater place. My ma made a very good cake when we returned to Vorkosigan Surleau, though,” Martin said, eyes bright in remembrance.
He looked about to elaborate the exquisiteness of the cake in detail, so Fedor interrupted. “Well, what was the most interesting thing to happen during your employ? Or most exciting, or most dangerous. What stands out in particular?”
Martin paused in his eating to consider the question very carefully. “The maple mead was certainly interesting,” he said, finally. And that was that.
He didn’t know why these people were so interested in a simple summer job, why it sounded so exciting to them when it really had been very boring most of the time. Comfortable and well-paid, but boring.
Milord was a good person, a good employer, a good man. And it really wasn’t any of their business how odd it had been to see milord so happy, and working, and productive one day, and then in the slumps the next. He didn’t feel like telling them how his heart had leapt into his chest when milord had that seizure, how he had thought milord was dying for a moment. They probably could care less about his first impression of Lord Vorkosigan (short, serious, odd) and how much he’d looked at him in awe, eventually. After hearing some of his stories, after learning that he’d met his first real live dead person, after working for the man … And he knew better than to tell them about the cautions he’d had from three different sources to watch out for the signs of suicide. He knew better than to explain how much he’d had to learn about spotting destructive behavior, how to dispel odd moods with questions.
For the most part, anyways, it had been boring.
Prompt: Lord Mark meets Silvy Vale.
“Remind me again why we aren’t with your soon-to-be-wife, as you inflict your disgustingly sappy premarital bliss on each other without bothering innocent bystanders,” Mark asked dryly, as he steered the lightflyer according to Miles’s precise instructions.
“You know she’s up fitting dresses in Vorbarr Sultana, an activity I am definitively not allowed to participate in because of some antiquated custom or other,” Miles said. “Careful, don’t clip that-”
Too late.
“Navigating these blasted [note, right swear word?] Dendarii hills by lightflyer is not exactly my forte,” Mark said testily. “Why couldn’t we have someone else drive?”
“Because pilgrimages are rarely chaperoned by chauffeurs,” Miles said dryly. “We could have come by horseback, as well, but I didn’t think you were comfortable enough with the horses to try. Besides, this way is faster.”
“And you still won’t tell me where we’re going,” Mark hissed as he barely avoided scraping another rock. “Are you sure flying through this canyon is the best place to get to … wherever we’re going?”
“I told you, it’s Silvy Vale-”
“Like that tells me anything.”
“-and this Gorge, I thought, would be the scenic route.”
“And the death-defying. Miles, you’re flying me through rocks and canyons and cliffs because of the scenery?”
“It’s good training for you,” Miles said judiciously. “And you must admit, it is pretty majestic, even for a cosmopolitan galactic like you.”
Mark was ready to make a comment about the difficult of appreciating grandeur when your lightflyer was wobbling from too many close calls, but then the vid map/navigator program was leading them out of the gorge and toward the hills.
“As for Silvy Vale, it’s … the site of one of more important learning experiences in Lord Vorkosigan’s life.”
Mark did not comment on the odd phrasing, landing the lightflyer rather gracelessly instead.
Prompt: Ivan has to babysit a Betan anthropologist
It was all Aunt Cordelia’s fault. “Ivan, you’re not doing anything this weekend, right?” “Ivan, you know a lot of about the city, right?” “Ivan, you’ve met Betans before, right?”
The long and short of it was, Grandma Naismith (not like she was his grandmother, but somehow, being remotely familially related meant he was roped in to help) was sponsoring some sort of Betan-Barrayaran joint conference. And Ivan had been volunteered to host a Betan anthropologist for the duration of the conference.
So instead of meeting up with some young Vor debs, he would be chauffeuring and escorting some old Betan grandmother and exposing her to the more cultured side of Vorbarr Sultana. Or something like that.
“It’ll be fun, Ivan,” Aunt Cordelia had said in that cheerful tone that vaguely, horrifically, reminded him of Miles.
And that's all of them! Except the ones that were False Starts and qualify for the Work Procrastination Edition.
