[ She kisses the space between his brows. Light and careful, as soft as asking for forgiveness. Because she doesn't expect anything else from him, no more than she can expect anything else from herself. ]
Then you have your answer. Let me do what I can to spare your home the horrors I could never save mine from.
[ She keeps smiling, shaking her head to hush whatever else he might say. Keeps close even as she shifts, laying down against his side on the ground. Looks up briefly away from where she watches the curl of his mouth in the surety of shared intimacy. Settled then. Her eyes drift up, idle more than anything direct. Letting her mind slip away. ]
Do your people tell stories about stars? Or does travelling them mean no one bothers anymore?
The Zorja, I think. Which is funny, because Barrayar doesn't have morning and evening stars, not the same way Earth does. They were two sisters who were tasked with keeping Simargl chained up, lest he devour the world.
[ She stiffens utterly with the thought of that. Too apt, too close, she doesn't pull away from him - but she's still. Taking slow breaths to will down that unnameable something that wells fresh still in her throat even after all these years. ]
[ She stays quiet for a while, looking up at - any of them, she doesn't know his stars. But she knows Simargl, what a name for it - but she can latch onto it. Oh yes, the great wolves that devoured the world. Swallowed it up. Her fingers don't stop the back and forth brush against his hip. Thinks about not telling him any of it. What kind of story is it? Nothing as beautiful as those stars. ]
The fourth day of the siege, a traitor opened the gates of Jhansi. I could barely speak for screaming by orders by then. [ She keeps her voice even, removed, like all of it happened to someone else. An explanation there - why her only instinct anymore is to kill Byerly, to keep anyone at arm's length. ] They came in then, in the dead of night. You see the British, not all of them knew what their forces were made up of. So it was better done when no one on their side could tell the truth of it.
[ Hard then, hard to be removed, hard to keep it out of her mouth, out of her eyes, out of her lungs. That smoke, so much smoke, that sulfuric wretch of gunpowder, the burning of hot metal that was this side of blood. ] There were so many - we were overwhelmed. They were purebloods, not just the halfbreeds. A half-breed can tear a man in half easily. But a pureblood? It takes ten or twelve just to draw one down. Most will die in the effort. That's why the blackwater is so needed.
[ Now her fingers grip, taking hold of him, easy, easy, easy, breath, breath, breath, she can only smell woodsmoke, think instead of the feel of his mouth of his skin, anything at all. Anything had to be better. Worst getting quicker as she talked, not so calm, not so removed. Hard to be. ] Some of the women couldn't kill themselves and their children fast enough. Their limbs were ripped off them, torn, some of them were with child and... [ the woman she remembered clearest, it's muzzle sunk into her belly - full with a child, not three days before. Her eyes blinking rapidly where shock just hadn't let her die, as gore and viscera and what remained of her unborn child was yanked from her. ] - but they were still alive, looking at me - set upon, like a dog had gotten a chicken coop.
[ She turns her face into his shoulder. Doesn't weep, doesn't know how to anymore. Just holds and holds and holds. Tight to him. A fast rhythm to her throat, loud as hoof-beats. ]
[ He pales as soon as she mentions the traitor, clinging hard to the edge of his own uniform. By the time she's done, though, his face is completely bloodless. Dear god. He can't even begin to fathom. Only imagine, perhaps, in his own small. What that must have been like. What she must have faced ...
He turns in an instant, moving to put both arms around her. And squeezing hard. He is too small to be any true comfort, he thinks, but she has his love. His affection. And what little shelter his small arms can provide. ]
You were brave. You are brave. But I am sorry your world needs such bravery.
[ She doesn't expect it when he grips back, she doesn't comfort herself? Why would anyone else? Blinks, taking a shallow breath as if he'd struck her because he could, he could a thousand times, and it would be nothing - nothing to undo her like that. To being held onto. The compression of ribs, the tight feeling in her chest that she doesn't have to pretend, it's the hold he has on her. Stays stock stiff, taking a little hitched inhale because eventually, she must breathe, eventually, she must move, eventually, she will have to unwrap her limbs from his, her heart, from where it thuds hard in her chest like it might crawl out of herself and into him.
Then she latches back, her fingers slip up against his back, fingertips pressing in, her head tilting down to press her face into his hair. ]
[ No need to move just yet. No need to move for a long time, if she wants it. He presses himself close to her, tucking his head in closer to allow her to keep her face pressed down against him. It nearly seems like she's pressing a kiss to his hair. ]
It is comforting to name our monsters, even if we cannot defeat them. It's all over our folklore.
Satya... I met her when I was.... [ Clears her throat, she still doesn't wish to talk of being imprisoned. Isn't ready yet really, for that either. ] She told me it will take fifty more years. Fifty more years and they will be gone from my home.
[ Which sounds like an eternity, and so much to pass in that time, it seems like nothing at all, after the last half century. A hundred years sum total, a century all to itself. That was a small price to pay. ]
I've seen a knight be killed, I have all but killed one myself.
[ 1000 years of history, lived by one man, and Sir Bors had died with relief in his eyes. Will she be the same? Will she be as cold, as removed as he was? As Sir Galahad seemed to be? ]
Being harder to kill does not make me immortal. That's all the blackwater does. Anything but the most immediate of deaths has no hold on me, but I am still within that coil.
[ Worries, so many worries, at the thought of that future, that she fought so hard for, nearly wept to hear, like the crack of the summer storms splitting apart the air. But for all she fought for it, did she have a place in it? ]
Satya... she said they tell stories of me still, that they keep statues of me. That I am remembered. What if I am better a martyr than queen?
[ 1000 years would be too much. But 50 ... hell, he'll count himself lucky to see fifty more years, himself. With his body, he'll be lucky to see another thirty. ]
Even so. You should manage fifty. One should see the future you've guided your people too, even if you cannot go there yourself.
[ Another light squeeze. ]
History is fickle, anyway. I would not trust its memory.
[ Never, it's a fairy story that she had in the Grimm tales. Pleasantly removed as castles and giants and - big bad wolves.
She swallows, shuts her eyes for a minute. ]
It does seem a pleasant fiction. I should like to train horses again. A house I think - not a palace, it would not be right if it was not full of people as it should be. But... something away from the city. Where I could... be no one at all. [ she draws her fingertips up his spine, following its line. ] Children and animals, I always wanted to have many of both. A garden.
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Then you have your answer. Let me do what I can to spare your home the horrors I could never save mine from.
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Lakshmi ...
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Do your people tell stories about stars? Or does travelling them mean no one bothers anymore?
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Of course we do. The new tales are different, but the old tales are the same as any other world's.
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Which do you prefer? Old or new?
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Ah, the old. I've many fond childhood memories of Bothari's tales. He was hillfolk through and through.
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Which one was your favourite?
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[ And from all too personal a place, she thinks she pities those sisters. Fighting to keep something like that contained. ]
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Then I hope they never fail in their task.
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Given the world is still here, they haven't yet.
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[ It's out before she's thought through saying it. She cringes as quickly as it is, swallowing it away. Shutting a door on it and throwing it deep. ]
That was not... fair. [ Which as close to an apology as she can say easily. ]
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Yours is not? Swallowed up by wolves?
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The fourth day of the siege, a traitor opened the gates of Jhansi. I could barely speak for screaming by orders by then. [ She keeps her voice even, removed, like all of it happened to someone else. An explanation there - why her only instinct anymore is to kill Byerly, to keep anyone at arm's length. ] They came in then, in the dead of night. You see the British, not all of them knew what their forces were made up of. So it was better done when no one on their side could tell the truth of it.
[ Hard then, hard to be removed, hard to keep it out of her mouth, out of her eyes, out of her lungs. That smoke, so much smoke, that sulfuric wretch of gunpowder, the burning of hot metal that was this side of blood. ] There were so many - we were overwhelmed. They were purebloods, not just the halfbreeds. A half-breed can tear a man in half easily. But a pureblood? It takes ten or twelve just to draw one down. Most will die in the effort. That's why the blackwater is so needed.
[ Now her fingers grip, taking hold of him, easy, easy, easy, breath, breath, breath, she can only smell woodsmoke, think instead of the feel of his mouth of his skin, anything at all. Anything had to be better. Worst getting quicker as she talked, not so calm, not so removed. Hard to be. ] Some of the women couldn't kill themselves and their children fast enough. Their limbs were ripped off them, torn, some of them were with child and... [ the woman she remembered clearest, it's muzzle sunk into her belly - full with a child, not three days before. Her eyes blinking rapidly where shock just hadn't let her die, as gore and viscera and what remained of her unborn child was yanked from her. ] - but they were still alive, looking at me - set upon, like a dog had gotten a chicken coop.
[ She turns her face into his shoulder. Doesn't weep, doesn't know how to anymore. Just holds and holds and holds. Tight to him. A fast rhythm to her throat, loud as hoof-beats. ]
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He turns in an instant, moving to put both arms around her. And squeezing hard. He is too small to be any true comfort, he thinks, but she has his love. His affection. And what little shelter his small arms can provide. ]
You were brave. You are brave. But I am sorry your world needs such bravery.
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Then she latches back, her fingers slip up against his back, fingertips pressing in, her head tilting down to press her face into his hair. ]
It is good to have a name for it. Simargl.
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It is comforting to name our monsters, even if we cannot defeat them. It's all over our folklore.
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[ Which sounds like an eternity, and so much to pass in that time, it seems like nothing at all, after the last half century. A hundred years sum total, a century all to itself. That was a small price to pay. ]
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Not so long a time. Won't you live to see it with your blackwater?
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[ 1000 years of history, lived by one man, and Sir Bors had died with relief in his eyes. Will she be the same? Will she be as cold, as removed as he was? As Sir Galahad seemed to be? ]
Being harder to kill does not make me immortal. That's all the blackwater does. Anything but the most immediate of deaths has no hold on me, but I am still within that coil.
[ Worries, so many worries, at the thought of that future, that she fought so hard for, nearly wept to hear, like the crack of the summer storms splitting apart the air. But for all she fought for it, did she have a place in it? ]
Satya... she said they tell stories of me still, that they keep statues of me. That I am remembered. What if I am better a martyr than queen?
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Even so. You should manage fifty. One should see the future you've guided your people too, even if you cannot go there yourself.
[ Another light squeeze. ]
History is fickle, anyway. I would not trust its memory.
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[ His own words were too apt, about what it meant to be Vor, too close to what it meant to be Queen. ]
If I do... I think I should like to retire. From... all of it.
[ It's the first time in a long time, she's allowed herself to think of that. ]
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Just stop fighting? It does sound nice.
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She swallows, shuts her eyes for a minute. ]
It does seem a pleasant fiction. I should like to train horses again. A house I think - not a palace, it would not be right if it was not full of people as it should be. But... something away from the city. Where I could... be no one at all. [ she draws her fingertips up his spine, following its line. ] Children and animals, I always wanted to have many of both. A garden.
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