Mirrored Truth

five things meme

2020-03-30T07:22:09Z

Still not sick (and Philomythulus is much better) but self-isolation is proceeding on the one-good-day, one-bad-day cycle right now that I've seen other people report, and judging by the way this morning has started, it's Box Two today. So in the interests of distraction, the Top Five meme I've seen going around.

Ask me for my top five of anything, fannish or RL. Serious answers not guaranteed ;-)

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/172019.html. There are comments there.

wherever i goddam like

2020-03-26T22:36:16Z

On a lighter note, I have watched more of The Expanse and I can tell that I am going to be here 110% for the relationship between Avasarala and Bobbie. Terrifying political mastermind and terrifying space marine from opposite sides of a war bonding, and they're both women? I have waited all my life for this. I like Cotyar too, if you wanted to make it OT3 I could be convinced of that, but Avasarala was my favourite from the moment she appeared (I saw her described as the ultimate female power fantasy, and, yeah. Would give cash money to put her and Phryne Fisher in the same room, too, some kind of wardrobe singularity might occur). Bobbie grew on me slowly, but when she ran off to see the ocean I fell for her as well. And I adore Bobbie snapping right back at Avasarala, that is the best thing ever and Avasarala looks so delighted about it, like she's finally found someone tough enough to fight with her for fun.

But mostly I love Avasarala. I love her sitting on the roof, I love her swearing at important people, I love her listening innocently while people tell her things she already knows and then turning around and slapping them in the face with that, I love her sending little side messages that make other people dance the way she wants them to dance, I love her pushing and pushing and daring anyone to make her stop, I love her using her own sincere emotions as a trick and a trap, I love everything. I love Cotyar's long-suffering face when he tries to make her consider her security, and I love how she switched from wearing Earth colours to Mars colours when she woos Bobbie.

The rest of the show is good too, I like Holden and his increasingly disastrous crusade, I like Alex a lot, he is very cute, I like Naomi and Amos, I am just getting to know Prax but I like him too. And I'm enjoying the breadth of the storytelling and all the SF stuff and really all of it. I have bought the first of the books to read, but I'm still torn on wanting to experience the show as its own thing first or wanting to read along and do a compare and contrast in my head. Also I'm afraid that Avasarala in the books wouldn't be as awesome as on the screen, Shohreh Aghdashloo is amazing. Right now the forty minutes late in the evening when I can sit down with this show is definitely a bright spot in the day.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/171576.html. There are comments there.

Fic: Ariadne

2020-03-20T22:23:46Z

So this is probably a good time to post completely plotless h/c fic that I wrote a while back and didn't post. If you ever wondered what my drawerfic looks like, this is a pretty representative sample of it. But writing these things makes me feel better, so maybe reading them will make other people feel better? IDK, it's worth a try.

Ariadne (1697 words) by Philomytha
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Simon Illyan/Alys Vorpatril
Characters: Alys Vorpatril, Simon Illyan
Additional Tags: Exhaustion, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort
Summary:

Alys leads Simon out of a maze.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/170947.html. There are comments there.

hurt/comfort exchange letter

2020-03-14T22:42:29Z

Dear h/c writer,

Thank you for picking up my requests! I'm repeating myself from last year in this letter in some places, because my tastes haven't changed much, so apologies if you've read this before.

For every fandom I've ever been in, my first instinct with any characters whose relationship I like is to put them into a h/c situation and see what happens. I love h/c as a way to explore relationships, as a way to find out how far characters will go for each other, explore their trust or lack of trust, push them to extremis and see how they cope. I like role reversal in h/c: I like it when the more competent/powerful character is hurt and the other characters have to step up. In general, I like plotty adventure stories, 'away mission' type stories, missing scenes from canon, canon AUs, domestic fluff and pure tropefic. For me, h/c and loyalty kink go together all the time, and all of my requests go that way. I like the way h/c intensifies the loyalty issues, it forces the characters into situations where they have to express their loyalty, whether it's the classic throwing yourself in front of a bullet or something more low-key.

For all of these relationships, I like both the gen and the shippy version and regardless of what I've selected, I don't mind which you write. If you want to write something more explicit, go ahead. In explicit sex, I like imperfect, messy, complicated situations more than idealised sex, and I'm happy with any kinks you think fit the characters and situation.

With the h/c dynamic, unless I specify below, I don't mind if you want to mix it up, have the hurt and comforting character the other way round or have both playing both roles.

I've used a lot of the same tropes on every request because they are general h/c tropes that I adore, and added some others that match up with the various fandoms. But reading through the list of tags, there are hundreds and hundreds on there that I like, so if something else has sparked off an idea for you, by all means use it.

My only DNWs are death of a requested character, and death of or severe violence to young children. I am fine with gore, noncon, violence, bodily fluids and any other dark stories, though I think by its nature a h/c story needs some kind of happy or comforting ending.

Endeavour (TV), Endeavour Morse & Fred Thursday (Thursday hurt, both hurt)
I've just watched the most recent season, and I want reconcilation-through-h/c so much. These are the opposite of demonstrative men, and that's how I want the h/c to be. And for this one, it's Thursday I want hurt. Morse can be hurt too, but I'm not asking for the dynamic where Morse is hurt and Thursday relents towards him, I want it the other way around, for Morse to have to swallow his pride in the face of how much he loves and respects Thursday. Any kind of scenario whether casefic or missing scene or a brief domestic moment or anything else. Of the other characters, I adore Bright and Wynn, and I wasn't terribly interested in Morse's disaster affair in the most recent season.

accepting injury to protect someone
Altered Mental States
Bedside Vigils
Character insists on completing mission despite injuries
Collapsing on character's doorstep
Comfort focusing on little hurt because the big hurt is massive and unapproachable
Huddling For Warmth
Hurting Oneself to Win/Complete the Mission
On the Run with a Sick or Injured Partner
Neither comforter or comfortee will directly acknowledge that comforting is taking place
Exhaustion
Sick/hurt character forgets they are undercover
Technically awful attempts at comfort are actually very comforting

Flight of the Heron - DK Broster, Ewen/Keith
This book is the quintessential h/c novel already, but that doesn't mean we can't have more. Obviously, there's fixing the ending, or you could diverge from canon somewhere else, or just find some extra scenes to add into the books. The torture with Guthrie is ripe for h/c, you could just extend the Edinburgh scene and have them kiss, or show some extra scenes from the early days at Ardroy and on the march with the Highlanders, or go completely AU somewhere along the line.

accepting injury to protect someone
Altered Mental States
Bedside Vigils
Doing the "Dirty Work" Themself At Great Emotional Cost So Others Won't Have To
Exhaustion
Huddling For Warmth
Imprisoned/locked up with person who needs medical care
Nightmares
Pining character reveals their feelings while not quite lucid (hurt/drunk/etc.)
Mistreated While A Prisoner
Sharing a Bed
Struggling Against the Caretaker
Technically awful attempts at comfort are actually very comforting
hurt character still being the protective one

Hamilton - LMM, Hamilton & Washington
I've come very late to this show, but I love it, and of everything I love in it, it's the Hamilton-Washington dymanic that does things for me, the loyalty kink side of it, the severe and brilliant general and his dazzling, brash right hand man, the friction between them and the way Hamilton gets in his face but in the end when Washington raises a finger, Hamilton jumps. And when I like a dynamic, the first thing I want for it is h/c :-).

I have one DNW for this, no modern AUs please. Other kinds of AU are fine, change the course of history, add magic, but I like the period setting, the war, the nation-building, and the way the relationships work in the setting. If you want to go more historical RPF, that's fine too, or feel free to be anachronistic in the way the show is.

Assassination Attempt(s)
accepting injury to protect someone
Altered Mental States
Bedside Vigils
Character A is cursed to obey every order; Character B protects them when it goes wrong
Character insists on completing mission despite injuries
Doing the "Dirty Work" Themself At Great Emotional Cost So Others Won't Have To
Exhaustion
Huddling For Warmth
Hurting Oneself to Win/Complete the Mission
sick/hurt at formal social event
field medicine

Rivers of London - Peter & Nightingale, Peter/Nightingale
Give either of them some comfort for the things they go through in canon, or give them some new magical trauma, make use of the fact that for much of canon they live in the same house for something more cosy and domestic. If you want to include Beverley or go OT3 that's fine, and I love the entire cast of characters so feel free to use any of them. I am up to date with canon.

accepting injury to protect someone
Altered Mental States
Bedside Vigils
Character A is cursed to obey every order; Character B protects them when it goes wrong
Comfort focusing on little hurt because the big hurt is massive and unapproachable
Forced to hurt friend to maintain undercover identity
hurt character still being the protective one
Character Finally gets a Hug
Entering a dream/nightmare to help the dreamer
Magical Exhaustion
Injured by Mind Controlled Friend or Loved One
Sick/hurt character isn't quite lucid
Character insists on completing mission despite injuries

Star Trek: Discovery - Georgiou, Mirror Georgiou, Michael and Saru
Feel free to mix up the characters: I love both Georgious, Michael and Saru a great deal and I don't mind which combination of them you use or whether they're shippy or gen. I love all their interactions, and I'd love to see that explored and exposed with h/c. Saru, Philippa's first alien protege, and then Michael, the second, faster-rising one, always sniping at each other but both loyal to her. And then on Discovery, Michael and Saru learning to become friends, their ranks reversed, and then they go to the Mirrorverse, which is completely ripe for h/c in so many ways and if you want to go there, with Michael and mirror!Philippa (or mirror!Saru; by all means use him too), and then Mirror Philippa in the main universe, obsessed with Michael but viewing Saru as dinner. And all that Michael and Saru go through together in S2, and Mirror!Philippa's overtures towards Michael and her scheming... there's so much going on between them all.

Altered Mental States
accepting injury to protect someone
A's seriously injured on mission; B's ordered to leave A and proceed with the mission but disobeys
Character A undertakes a dangerous mission and Character B's job is to keep them alive through it
Huddling For Warmth
Injured/sick in the wilderness
Forced to hurt friend to maintain undercover identity
hurt character still being the protective one
Hallucinations
Bedside Vigils

Vorkosigan - Alys/Simon, Aral/Simon, Aral/Cordelia, Ivan/Duv
All characters I love very much, who all go through all sorts of unpleasant things in canon. Feel free to either use canon events as a base, or go off into something totally different, perhaps set during the Regency when there must have been all sorts of hijinks that never get mentioned in canon, or a canon AU of any kind you like (I've often wondered about the Prince-Serg-survives AU, if you want to go really dark). Or something light and fluffy, or anywhere in between.

Assassination Attempt(s)
Protectiveness
Bedside Vigils
Comforting over the phone/radio
sick/hurt at formal social event
Pining character reveals their feelings while not quite lucid (hurt/drunk/etc.)
Huddling For Warmth
Sharing a Bed
Sick/Injured Character Slipping In And Out Of Lucidity While Important Information Must Be Shared
Technically awful attempts at comfort are actually very comforting
Injured by Mind Controlled Friend or Loved One
Struggling Against the Caretaker
Drugged Character
Hiding Injuries

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/170471.html. There are comments there.

Fic: Brown Eyes, Silver Eyes

2020-03-11T15:24:53Z

So this is the other fic I wrote for Chocolate Box, for @karanguni, only a month late /o\. It would have been on time, but instead of a short action scene followed by a fairly straightforward sex scene, it turned out that Aral would. not. stop. talking, and it turned into a completely different story, with a lot less sex and a lot more of, well, everything else, but mostly angst.

Title: Brown Eyes, Silver Eyes
Length: 5000 words
Rating: M
Tags: suicidal character, alcohol, declaming revolution in iambic pentameter, hurt/comfort, competence, Escobar, angst
Summary: Aral goes drunk-flying in the Dendarii gorge. Illyan follows.

Brown Eyes, Silver Eyes on AO3

Aral pulled back on the joystick and let the flyer soar upwards until her nose was almost vertical, up, up, up, he was staring into the moons, the stars, pressed flat in his seat by the g-forces. He let out a yell, no words, just a raw scream of exhilaration, then forced the stick forwards as hard as he could. The flyer groaned and lurched, and the moons and stars whirled around him. He plunged down, flung with bruising force against the safety harness, his body screaming. A rock wall loomed up on his left, on his right. He swerved, threw the flyer into a spin, his vision blurred and for an instant he blacked out.

When he blinked back into focus, he thought he was aiming for the sky again, then realised he was seeing the reflection of a moon on water below. Water very close below. He pulled up, gasping, heart thumping, and got the flyer level, banking into a wider valley where the rock walls gave him more clearance. It would annoy his father if he crashed in such a stupid way. He set the flyer on a steadier course and took another sip of mead instead, rolling gently around the turns. At least he'd lost the ImpSec flyers again, somewhere before that last dive. Negri's men were a gutless lot.

More, he'd lost his thoughts. He pictured them spinning off the flyer, crashing into some rock wall a few minutes ago, leaving him with just his hands and the flyer's responses and the canyons and cliffs of the Dendarii gorge for company now. Much better company. He swooped up and then began to push the joystick forwards for another dive when something swept hard across his nose, so close that he thought it was a hallucination. He jerked his flyer back level reflexively, but the other machine was already out of sight, above and behind him. Aral cast a confused glance around but saw nothing save a flash of moonlight on a wing as it banked and turned.

"Who the hell's there?" he demanded, broadcast across the comm.

His proximity alarm sounded: the other flyer was on his tail, tight behind him and a little off-centre, and even before the response came, he knew who it would be.

"You've terrorised my men enough for one evening."

Commander Illyan. Of course it was Illyan.

"If they can't keep up then stop sending them," he retorted, and pulled into another dive. Illyan followed as if roped to his tail. Aral swerved, lurched, rolled sideways and twisted into a narrower canyon. Illyan was still there. He'd left the channel open, he could hear Illyan's breathing over the link, steady and calm as if he were waiting through a meeting instead of speeding through the Dendarii range.

He opened up the throttle and took the next turn very fast, scraping the tip of his starboard wing against the rocks. Sparks flew up. Illyan did not scrape his wing, nor did he drop behind. Annoyed, Aral increased his speed further, following the old road his father had once shown him, though the canyon walls were starting to dance in his vision. The invisible rope holding Illyan to his tail did not alter.

"You flown down here before?" he demanded.

"No," came the instant response. "But I've seen a map."

"Fuck that thing in your head, anyway," Aral said savagely to this. "If I had one of those in my head I'd just aim this flyer straight at the wall now."

Illyan's steady breathing didn't alter. "No," he said, "you wouldn't." His tone was as level as his breathing. He was angry at Aral. Good. More people should be angry at him. Aral suddenly dived low, only pulling up and levelling out at the last second. Illyan was right behind him; if he crashed Illyan would crash too.

Aral took another gulp of mead and turned south, into the narrowest parts of the range, clipping his other wing as he went. The joystick was slippery in his hand, the control lights on the dash swirling, he swung one way, then the other, then got her straightened up again. There was only one path through here, with overhangs above and rocky pillars below, and he knew it was madness to go in, but he plunged in anyway. A glance behind: the other flyer wasn't there.

"Simon?" he said, and then, "Shit." The canyon was not wide enough for two flyers side-by-side, but Illyan was overtaking him anyway, his flyer rolled over on her side with one wing pointing at the narrow chasm beneath, the other aimed at the moon, skimming between the tip of his rocking wings and the rock wall. There was a sharp turn coming up, one wrong move from him now, one swerve, and Illyan would be crushed.

Aral dared not slow down lest he unbalance his flyer, dared not adjust his course, dared not even breathe as they rounded the turn side by side. Then Illyan shot out in front of him. The canyon twisted, and Illyan twisted with it, flying upside-down. There was no room for him to roll in this narrow section, but he rolled anyway in an odd twisting manoeuvre, his wingtips coming within a hairsbreadth of the walls, then settled right-way-up. Aral lurched sideways in his seat with a relieved shudder, and his flyer veered towards the cliff face. He steadied it, gasping.

"You fucking lunatic," he spat into the comm.

There was no response, but he thought Illyan's breathing was a little faster. Illyan pulled ahead as the path widened, swooping through the gorge like some night-hunting bird. Aral opened his throttle again, trying to stick to Illyan's tail the way Illyan had been doing to him, but every time he thought he was closing the gap Illyan lost him again. Illyan suddenly soared up, above the rocky walls, and Aral followed him, his vision narrowed to the tail of Illyan's flyer. There was a strong wind blowing up here and he fought with it, trying to keep the light craft steady as he followed. Illyan, apparently unaffected by the wind, went into a series of spins and rolls that Aral, after the first nauseous swirl, did not attempt to imitate. Belatedly he realised that Illyan had lured him out of the gorge. He considered diving back down, but the moment his flyer's nose tilted downwards, Illyan sliced across it again, his twisting turn taking him within inches of the rocky plateau beneath them. Aral pulled up.

"All right, all right," he said across the comm. "You've made your point, you're crazier than me." He circled as Illyan looped back up again, then followed Illyan along and down into a wider valley where a small river meandered with a broad meadow on either side of it. Aral was struggling to focus now, on Illyan, on the ground, on anything, dizziness and exhaustion and drink starting to overwhelm him. He swung left and right, drifted over the river, then swore as the flyer suddenly lifted as something flashed past. Illyan swooped around him again, using the downdraft from his own machine to push Aral's into a safe landing spot. Aral pancaked onto solid ground, bounced once, then settled down in a flat landing. He sat back limp in his seat. Illyan's flyer soared past him again as if checking he was going to stay there, then spun around on its own length and flew straight at him. Aral's head went back, lips parting in shock. At the last second Illyan swerved, grav-thrusters firing, and landed neatly alongside. Aral blew out his breath in a puff, took another gulp of mead and then swiped the control to open the hatch. The fresh air roused him, and he pushed himself out of the flyer to stand leaning against it, catching his breath, feeling the ground rock beneath his feet.

The hatch opened on the other flyer and Commander Illyan jumped lightly out. He looked at Aral, and his face was not in its usual bland lines of the Emperor's vid-camera, nor yet the grim acceptance he'd displayed on other drinking expeditions lately. His hair was sweat-streaked, he was breathing fast, and his eyes were wide. A small satisfied smile curled at the corner of his lips, and the thrill of their flying duel still glowed on his face. He met Aral's gaze directly and held it.

Illyan didn't look directly at people. Aral had noticed it again and again over the months in his company. Illyan always stood to one side, a spectator in other people's lives, deliberately excluding himself from involvement, a vid-camera with legs. With a body. His direct gaze was as startling as if Aral had just brought a statue to life.

Aral pushed off the side of his flyer and closed the distance between them. His legs were unreliable, and he crash-landed on Illyan, much as his flyer had landed on the meadow.

"You fly like a fucking angel," he said, and kissed Illyan on the mouth.

If this greeting surprised Illyan, he gave no sign of it. Instead he caught Aral in a hard grasp, and Aral couldn't tell if his intent was romantic or practical.

"That mead is even worse second-hand," Illyan said when he broke off. He reached into his flyer with one hand and pulled out a water bottle and gave it to Aral. Aral took a few swallows, then put it aside and kissed Illyan again. "Better?" he mumbled.

"Much."

His thoughts were still far behind him, smeared somewhere along the walls of the gorge, Illyan was still breathing fast and responding enthusiastically to the kiss, and the thrill of the flight was beginning to shift into a different thrill as he pressed his body against Illyan's. Illyan, evidently, had not given up exercise since getting back from Escobar. Aral could feel his wiry strength, hard arms that had no difficulty keeping him steady as Aral put all his attention into his mouth on Illyan's, the sharp line of his jaw, the velvet-soft skin on his lips, the way even as he kept his grip on Aral he made a low sound of pleasure at Aral's efforts. He redoubled those efforts, and was rewarded with another gasp and a sudden slide of Illyan's hips against his. Aral reciprocated and immediately lost his balance, and Illyan broke off with a laugh, catching him.

"You're way too drunk," he said, but warmly, amused.

It was a mild night, the native mosses that covered the ground looked soft and inviting. Aral let himself sink down on it bonelessly. Illyan turned his skew-limbed collapse into something more controlled, ending up lying beside him propped up on one elbow.

"I'm not," Aral said lazily. He reached out, ran his fingers through Illyan's hair, still sweat-damp after the flying. The flyers loomed up on either side of them, and Aral squinted at Illyan's.

"You know what that looks like?" he said as he pulled Illyan in for another kiss.

"What?" Illyan mumbled. His hands were running down Aral's chest, making him shiver in anticipation.

"Your flyer. It looks like the new Model F. I saw the specs for it last year. Nice bird."

"It is." Illyan moved in for another kiss, but Aral raised his head, staring at the flyer.

"Can't be. It's not in production yet, there's only one prototype, it's still being tested... Simon. How the hell did you get that?"

"I borrowed it," Illyan said. There was something in his face that caught Aral's breath, some combination of amusement and smugness and calculated defiance.

"You borrowed--" Aral lay back again, staring at the sky, picturing the way Illyan had pushed that flyer to the limits of its abilities, within inches of smashing it. "I knew it, that chip in your head must have knocked some screws loose. You just took it?"

"I have an order," Illyan said primly, "in the Emperor's own Voice, to follow you. I judged that I needed this so that I could obey that order. And I was right, none of my men could keep up with you in the older models, and they're all good pilots."

Aral caught at Illyan's arm, pulled him down again and kissed him. "You stole it," he said. "Confess. You stole the prototype. What did you do, just waft in with your Horus-eyes and glare at them until they handed it over? And to think you had me convinced you were the most by-the-book lieutenant in the entire of the Imperial Service."

"Perhaps it's your influence."

"Ha. You've got to watch your step, Simon, if you really took that without authorisation they can cashier you for it. Look, I'll give you a chit for it--oh." His thoughts, left behind on rocky walls of the gorge, were starting to come back. He wasn't an admiral any longer, he couldn't cover for Illyan. He pulled Illyan back towards him, as if he might serve as a human shield between Aral and his memories.

"They can't cashier me, don't worry," Illyan said lightly, and let himself fall onto Aral as if recognising Aral's wish for distraction, his hips pressing frankly in, no hesitation. Aral surprised himself with a laugh, letting his eyes rest on the way Illyan's shoulders moved in his uniform jacket, enjoying the familiar press of his belt buckle against Aral's hip, the heat of his mouth.

His hands curved on Illyan's neck, fumbled with the buttons on his high collar. The moonlight gleamed on the Horus-eyes on either side, their two pupils seeming to watch him in tandem with Illyan's own eyes. Aral touched the pins. "They used to tell us there were miniature vid-cameras in these. I suppose for you that would be redundant." He ran his fingers over Illyan's lips, giving up on the collar, but Illyan had drawn back at his words, a new tension in his body.

"What?" he demanded. "I'm not too drunk, I'm never too drunk for this, so unless you've changed your mind--" Intuition came a moment too late, and he pulled Illyan in hard and kissed both Horus-eye pins. "You think I mind you watching me?"

"It would not be uncommon," Illyan said, his voice as cautious as his body. He wasn't looking at Aral any more.

"Who the hell have you been taking to bed? And I thought I was the one who was supposed to have bad taste." He let the flare of anger soar upwards like the flyer had, and rode it, used it to pull Illyan bodily on top of him, wrapping one hand around the back of Illyan's head where he vaguely supposed the memory chip might be, pressing Illyan's mouth towards his for another kiss. Illyan reciprocated, but still cautiously, his earlier enthusiasm modulated into a minor key. Aral got Illyan's tunic loose, slid one hand under the layers of uniform until he found the bare skin of his back, startlingly smooth and soft.

"ImpSec's watched me all my life," he mumbled. "Negri's got recordings of me fucking already. Lots of them. Dammit, Simon, nobody should have done this to you in the first place." He caught Illyan's chin with his other hand, staring into his brown eyes and his silver eyes. It was just a trick of the light, a trick of the mead, that made it look like the silver eyes were shimmering, alive, wet. "What are you even doing in ImpSec? You're a good person."

Illyan made a sound that might have been a laugh or a snort, but Aral continued, the pressure of words rising in him.

"You're a good person, but ImpSec isn't, and you know it. We may have got rid of Grishnov and his mob, but honestly, was there much to choose between them and Negri?" Words were beginning to boil up inside him now, venting from a source that had lain dormant for many months. "But ImpSec isn't past reforming, and you're the proof of that, Simon." He still had his hands pressed against Illyan's back, he could feel the tension, the truth of what he was saying. "The day will come when you will have to change. Whatever ImpSec's sins are, they lie on us all, on what we are willing to permit. And in this, we are very close to being exactly what our enemies call us. When we do these things to you, when we allow you out to smash down any door, drag any man away without recourse, when no law but the Emperor's voice governs you--" Illyan's whole body flinched at that, but Aral was in spate now, carried away on words, flying through them as recklessly as he had through the gorge.

"When we permit this, then how can we face the rest of the galaxy as anything other than the barbarians they call us? Intelligence work always operates in the grey areas, but other planets, other worlds, have intelligence agencies, and they are governed by law, they collaborate with others, they have windows in their walls." He paused for breath, staring up at Illyan's face. He wasn't sure Illyan was breathing at all. He hadn't been able to outfly him, but he could out-talk him. "One day we'll do it. Smash holes in that great hideous building and let in the light." He drew one of his hands out, caressed the Horus-eye pins again. "I don't want to see you take the role of a monster. I want to see you out of the shadows, with the trust and respect that your labours deserve."

Illyan was absolutely still now, looking directly at him, Horus eyes and real eyes both. Then he let himself drop on Aral, mouth hard across his, as if Illyan was trying to swallow his words before they emerged, as if his words were food and drink, and politics and lust melted together again in his mind. He had, he thought dimly, managed to provoke Illyan just as much now as he had with the flyer.

Just when Aral's whole body was engaged, when he was unable to think of any more words, Illyan pulled back and said, "But what is the point in you formulating all these plans when you turn down the opportunity to put them into practice?" and it was Aral's turn to freeze.

"I thought I wasn't inviting Ezar into bed with me," he snarled back, appalled at the longing in Illyan's eyes, trying to drive it away. "If that's all you're really here for, give me that bottle and go wait in the flyer."

This time he'd truly hurt Illyan, the blank shock that precedes pain filling those wide human eyes. Anger flashed over him as quickly as brandy catching fire, anger at his own words, self-loathing, escaping as gouts of brutal rage, directed inwards and outwards indiscriminately. He'd been here before, he'd been here so many times before, he and Ges, that sudden flick from pleasure to pain. Instinctively he rolled over, trapping Illyan beneath him, seizing his shoulders.

"Damn you, what did you even follow me here for? When I want the Emperor's lapdog to come to my heel I'll say so. I've had enough of you glued to my elbow like some really fucking aggravating shadow, I--"

Illyan twisted away, breaking his grip, rolling into a crouch. His Horus-eyes watched neutrally; his human eyes burned. Aral struck out, not sure why, not even sure who he was attacking. His blow glanced aside, and so did the next, and the next, whatever he did, Illyan wasn't there. It was like trying to attack smoke, and it wasn't just that everything was spinning and tilting around him, he'd been drunk when he and Ges had grappled like this, but Ges had always closed with him, the blows switching to kisses and then back. But Illyan was moving now as he had in the flyer, spinning, catching his attacks and turning them aside, never striking back, never taking the pain in his eyes and converting it into the pain of the body. He charged, trying to pin Illyan against the flyer, but when he lunged forwards Illyan wasn't there and he was going headfirst for the river. For an instant he welcomed it, anticipated the burning icy plunge and the rocky smash that would obliterate all his crimes, past and present.

Instead he was seized, turned around, pinned to the ground, held down by two iron-strong hands and a knee. His mouth opened on helpless gasps, winded, and he could only stare up at Illyan's blank face.

"Don't make promises you won't deliver," Illyan said at last. Don't offer me something I want and can't have, both pairs of his eyes said.

"Can't," Aral whispered. "Not 'won't'. Can't," and Illyan released him. He lay still, breathing hard, then stumbled to his feet, crossed to his flyer, retrieved the bottle of mead and took it to sit on the riverbank, propped up against a rock. He stared at the flickering moonlight on the water, raising the bottle to his lips. "Everything I touch," he muttered. "Everything I fucking touch. It's just as well she won't come."

He didn't know how much time had passed. It might have only been a minute or two, it might have been an hour; it was enough that he could see Ges's face in the water; it was enough that random half-splintered memories of the retreat were flashing into his mind, perfectly vivid, the ships he'd lost, the mistakes he'd made, the lights flaring and going out on the tactical computer. His face was as wet as if he had fallen in the river, his eyes aching.

He jumped violently and nearly dropped the bottle when Illyan sat down silently beside him. But it didn't help, his thoughts seguing smoothly from past to present failures, embodied in the man at his side.

He offered Illyan the bottle. "It won't help you forget what I said, but if you have enough of this you might not care."

"Previous experience suggests not," Illyan said, but he took the bottle anyway, had a sip, grimaced and passed it back. "You have to be Dendarii-bred to like this stuff." He sat without saying anything more, but Aral was aware of Illyan's eyes on him, sidelong, a spectator noting all that he saw. Then, just as the pain of that drove Aral to take another drink, Illyan turned and looked directly at Aral again. His expression changed, and Aral recognised it: precisely the look he'd had when the flyer had landed. "I fly like a fucking angel," Illyan said, in Aral's own intonation.

Aral's mind was working slowly now, but the cues were strong enough that he reached out to Illyan even before he grasped what it was Illyan was offering him: a chance to start again, to replay that exchange only without injuring each other in the process.

"You do," he said. He touched Illyan's cheek, let his thumb play over his lips. Illyan exhaled, his expression changed, no longer the perfect past-imitation, but his true present self: like Aral still had something he wanted. Aral had seen that expression so often and knew what it was Illyan wanted: he wanted to be led. He let his hand fall slowly. "I'm sorry, Simon. I'm sorry. Whatever you're looking for, it's not here."

"While watching you trying to punch me has its charms, as a pastime," Illyan answered, "I am not so fond of it that I'm going to answer that truthfully."

Aral supposed he deserved that. He offered Illyan the mead again. Illyan took it, but instead of drinking he said, "Captain Voraronberg?"

It wasn't really a change of subject. His tendencies had been the stuff of gossip for decades, in town and in the Service, and men who shared them approached him regularly. Mostly he turned them down, but Voraronberg was recently back from Escobar too, and drinking in the same bar, and there'd been a grief in his eyes that Aral recognised. He didn't think it was because he could call Voraronberg 'captain' in bed, but it might have been. They'd both been drunk enough that it had been a brief encounter. Though not as abbreviated as earlier with Illyan.

"You watched?" Aral heard himself say, and wished he hadn't. His mouth had bought him enough grief tonight. But Illyan merely snorted a laugh.

"There wasn't much to watch. I was surprised you both made it to a bed."

Aral had woken up at home. That was normal, lately: he never woke up where he finally passed out. Judging by the way the rocky side of the gorge opposite was fading out of focus, it wasn't going to be long now. Perhaps Illyan would just leave him here for the carrion-eaters.

"You minded?" Aral said next. "I don't know Voraronberg. He doesn't know me. But he wanted to fuck the Hero of Escobar, even after seeing what happened."

"He wanted to console you," Illyan corrected this. "Stupid of him."

Aral deserved that too. He took the mead back from Illyan, leaned back against the rock, then let himself slump sideways until he was leaning against Illyan. Offering himself to Illyan. Illyan adjusted his balance, opening up his shoulder, not quite putting his arm around Aral.

"You could push me in," Aral suggested. "Tragic accident. War hero gets drunk and falls in the river. They could have a funeral for me like Serg's."

"Don't imagine I'm not tempted."

"I know for a fact you can lie better than that, Simon." He turned his head slowly so that he could see Illyan's face, and Illyan did put an arm around him then. Aral kissed him, slowly this time, without promises, without politics, just the warmth of his mouth on Illyan's, apology and forgiveness together.

He pulled away at last, drowsy now, and lay back, letting his head sink on Illyan's shoulder. His earlier passion was gone, all three passions, sex and politics and fighting, leaving him nothing but burned-out ash. Illyan held him wordlessly. Clouds covered the moon, and the flickering lights vanished from the surface of the water. For a while, all was still.

It was his body that broke the spell, the mead turning on him and seeking its revenge at last. Aral was aware of sweat starting on his face, on his neck. He opened his mouth to speak, then thought better of it. His stomach lurched, he heard himself groan. Illyan's head turned sharply, a rueful awareness rising in his eyes.

His thoughts became very hazy then, only the misery of his body at last overwhelming the misery of his mind as the familiar consequence of alcohol poisoning ensued. He was always aware of one thing: he was not left to suffer alone. Strong hands held his head, wiped his face, wrapped something warm around his shoulders when he shivered.

When the spasms left him, and he began to be aware of his surroundings again, he found he was no longer at the riverside but back near the flyers, lying on his side on the dry moss. He coughed and raised his head. He felt less drunk now, more exhausted, a little more clear-headed. Illyan was there, and when Aral tried to sit up Illyan caught his shoulders, raising him until he was supported against Illyan's chest. For a moment it was simply nice, uncomplicated, right: of course Illyan was there with him. But his clearing mind brought him back to reality, and he began to remember. He tried to pull away, but for all that his mind was clearer, his body was uncooperative.

"Why," he croaked, coughed, tried again. "Why can't I get rid of you? How much more do I have to do to get you to go?" A clumsy gesture took in everything: the flight, the fighting, the insults, the vomiting. The past.

Illyan had turned all such questions aside, before, with light insults or bitter jokes. This time, he didn't answer at all.

"Why won't you go?" Aral repeated hoarsely, and Illyan gave him a true answer.

"This is clean and easy," he said, "compared to before."

Aral felt as though Illyan had punched him, winded. He coughed again, his own words sour in his mouth. "Oh," he managed. "Simon..."

"I was there too," Illyan went on, as if having started to speak he couldn't stop. "Everything you did, my hand was over yours, holding you to it." As if in illustration he put a bottle in Aral's hand, closed Aral's drink-stunned fingers around it. "That was my role, to force you to keep your hand to the job. I didn't know what I was doing until later, but I did it."

Aral raised his hand shakily to his mouth and took a sip from the bottle. Illyan's hand remained over his, guiding him. It was only water; he supposed he should not have expected anything else. He sipped it slowly, and his mind felt clearer. He didn't want his mind to feel clearer. His fingers lost their grip and Illyan caught the bottle, his hands moving away, then returned and covered his again, unexpectedly tentative. Aral laced his fingers into Illyan's.

"'m surprised you don't do what I did," he said at last. "Resign your commission."

Illyan made an odd sound. "When I was on Illyrica," he said, "they tried taking the chip out of some of us, when they could see it was fucking us up. It didn't help. It grows into your brain, and the way they tried to pull it out, it takes your brain with it." He brought his hands together, fingers joining, the chip's threads growing into his mind. "If I resign my commission--" He stopped speaking, then gave a shaky laugh. "Negri can't fire me, either. Not even for stealing that flyer. They gave our families death-in-service benefits when we left. I'm in this as long as I live."

Aral turned his head, looking for Illyan's face, afraid of what he would see on it, needing to see. He reached up clumsily, touched Illyan's forehead. "I'm sorry," he said at last. "What I said earlier. When we were flying."

Of course Illyan knew what he meant. Illyan always knew what he meant. He sighed. "No," he said. "That's not the way out, for me."

"Why not?" Aral asked, meaning it truly, hearts on the table. "Why not, Simon? You've seen what we are, you've had your brain fucked by them, you're bound to them for life--what stops you?" He raised a hand suddenly, and added, "And don't look at me like that. I'm not enough of a reason."

Illyan's eyes said otherwise, but then a tiny smile touched the corners of his mouth. "Curiosity," he said at last. "I want to know what happens next. What the consequences will be. What the surprises will be. I want to find out."

Aral lay back, let his hand fall. "Yes," he said at last. "You're in the right line of work, you know that, Simon. Even with--all of it." A twitch of his hand, encompassing all that was wrong with ImpSec. "Curiosity. Yes."

He closed his eyes, wondering what his answer might be, if he could answer anything to that. But thinking was growing more and more difficult, exhaustion was beginning to overwhelm him, suck him down, even gravity was pulling harder on him. He could hear Illyan's steady breathing, the thud of his heart, and he let that fill his mind as everything else faded and blurred.

"Ready to go back?" he heard Illyan say.

Words were starting to slip away from him, his mind too thick and slow, and he could only jerk his head in a faint nod. He felt himself moving, Illyan was lifting him up, supporting him, carrying him to the prototype flyer, lowering him into the passenger seat, settling him comfortably. One word floated in his mind, drifting there like a becalmed boat, as his eyes refused to open and unconsciousness began to cover him: love. He tried to send it away, but the word remained there like a snatch of music repeating itself in his mind. With an effort he pulled his eyes open enough to see Illyan's face bending over him, smoothing a blanket over him. Love. He whispered the word, barely more than a breath, and the last thing he saw as blackness swallowed him was the warm crinkle at the corners of Illyan's eyes.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/169919.html. There are comments there.

reading etc

2020-03-04T09:36:04Z

- I have been reading Victorian instruction manuals for household servants. The one for nursemaids has surprisingly sound advice on teaching kids good table manners, and also advice about feeding infants that makes me amazed that infant mortality wasn't higher. The one on being a good lady's maid is full of gems like 'it is a blessing to the heart and to the mind to have some one to love and serve' and lengthy digressions about lady's maids who started their careers of dishonesty by taking a pin from their mistress's workbox and ended by cooperating with jewel thieves and languished for the rest of their days in prison. Very Victorian, much moral, surprisingly good on the subject of keeping your temper when provoked and how to tell the difference between occasional annoyances and a complete personality clash. Also a brief mention of what to do if your mistress is subject to domestic violence, which is to say, pretend not to see too much and comfort her as you can. The one on being a laundry maid is utterly horrifying and makes me want to hug and kiss my washing machine. My dad's into family history and apparently many of my ancestors were washerwomen, god it must have been a shit life. There's no moral edification in the book for laundry maids, just a detailed description of the correct order for two women working together to wash about ten people's laundry in one day, with times for each task, instructions on when you pour out the dirty water and when you pour it into the next load of washing, and a note that at some point you have to stop and eat and rest but not for long. That one's peppered with advertorials for new Patent Machines for trying to make the process easier. I have to say, I have considered this and I would sacrifice my computer, tv, freezer, fridge, central heating boiler and oven before I sacrificed my washing machine.

- also just started reading the Hamilton biography, which is fantastic, and I never knew that Britain considered trying to swap the entire of Canada for Guadeloupe, but France considered that Guadeloupe was worth an awful lot more than Canada... Anyway, I've only read a bit of it so far, but I am deeply impressed with how Miranda turned it into a musical.

- still watching The Expanse and I love it, I adored Chrisjen's visit to Holden's mother and really everything she does is magic, surprisingly interested in Fred Johnson, still underwhelmed with Detective Hat but the rest of the cast is great and the plotting is wonderfully complicated

- after reccing The Flight of the Heron I suddenly had to reread it, and I still adore it. I'm now halfway through The Gleam in the North, which I haven't reread for ages because it's so painful and hence I've forgotten lots of it. I usually skip it and just read The Dark Mile which is a sweet romance and has a happy ending.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/169576.html. There are comments there.

False Value notes

2020-02-26T22:28:05Z

Okay, False Value, notes as I went along. This is not an intelligent review of the book, this is more a look inside my head as I was reading it :-P

- okay Peter and Stephen doing the fake-kissing thing to avoid being caught snooping, plus some of the later bits, there's definite ship potential here if anyone's interested

- so this is almost a Librarians crossover with new characters? I mean, there's a TV show about the Librarians who travel around semi-legally stealing magical artefacts and stashing them away in their archives... I've often thought it would make a good ROL crossover. Omitting the violet goo is a smart choice

- Peter making threats to Stephen confident in the knowledge that Nightingale is sitting right behind him is fantastic

- Nightingale training Peter on demon traps by HIDING FAKE ONES ALL AROUND THE FOLLY. I just. I suppose I should have seen this coming given that Nightingale tested his new magic-proof cell by locking Peter in it, but. There is an entire GENRE of fic in Nightingale's experiental style of teaching. Also obviously someone whose kinks go that way will have to put this together with the fact that Peter's been practicing getting out of having his hands tied.

- okay, I want to know how the Lovecraftian Jellyfish Monster made a demon trap. And I liked the details about exactly what happens inside a demon trap, and also the brief mention of magically possessed axes, rings and books at various places in the book are going to make great fic plot bunny fodder

- someone's going to write Peter taking Nightingale round the Science Museum, right? I haven't been for a couple of years, but I did spend a very long time with a space-mad five-year-old in the space gallery then. And there's the earthquake simulator, and the whole floor of fun experiments for tiny and not-so-tiny tots...

- UNDERCOVER FIC. This book is a PETER WORKING UNDERCOVER FIC and I love it. Nightingale doesn't approve!

- Peter is going to be so shit at being undercover. Peter is a community police officer. Peter likes people. They like him. This is going to be heartbreaking for him

- Nightingale reworking his syllabus for Abigail and testing it out on the legal group first!

- Guleed! Interviewing undercover Peter! And struggling with Michael's family oh Sahra

- Tyrel and Stacy, I thought that invite to dinner was going to be him accusing Peter of being undercover but no, it's much worse: they're just really good nice people giving troubled teens a second chance (and incidentally I liked Peter's empathy with Baz later on, everything that reminds me of that bit in LS where he's remembering what Inspector Neblett taught him about how pitiful criminals are) and Peter's got to betray their trust

- Mrs Chin and Stephen eat and drink under Beverley and Peter's roof. Nobody ever seems to mention obligations and it doesn't seem to stop them attacking Peter later on. Are they under an obligation to Bev and if so will she call it in?

- Foxglove running in naked except for a sheet while Peter's having breakfast, tearing around the room and charging out again is the thing in this story that is most likely to happen to me IRL, only normally I'm expected to get up and make my son put some clothes on when he does that and it's his duvet rather than a sheet. It filled me with delight to see it in the story, though

- okay I think a valid reading of this book is that Nightingale is pining for Peter. I am surprised that I think this because I have never seen this before in the text in the other books, it's always been Peter admiring Nightingale all the time. But there's something about Nightingale's attitude to Peter in this which really pings me this way, it's written quite a few degrees more intensely than in the previous books, his worry about Peter is obvious and he's always right there being Peter's backup in a way that he wasn't before

- Mrs Chin objecting to sitting on a stakeout for two hours without a toilet break is a MOOD. In the same vein, I appreciated the pelvic floor exercises Bev does

- Nightingale walks in and says Hello my name is Thomas Nightingale, and that threw me at first, and then I realised: that name is a weapon in its own right, people must surrender when they hear that all the time

- Mrs Chin going toe to toe with Nightingale is just incredible, we now have a magic battle to top the one with Varvara. As is the ending: the dust settles and Nightingale has her chivalrously in a chair while he stands behind her ready to kick some serious formae if she twitches. And then replaying the battle to spot the discrepancies, that was such a Nightingale thing

- oh yeah she is totally the Chief Librarian. I adore how protective Stephen is of her. Librarian friends, is there some secret meaning in her serial number being 020.131? That looks like a Dewey classification number to me...

- using Foxglove to make the magic-proof cells at the Folly HOLY SHIT PETER. How does Peter feel being down there? Somehow I don't think that Nightingale tested these ones by locking Peter inside.

- ARRESTING THE AI! Go Peter go, I love how Peter goes from 'is this a sentient being? yes? okay then I don't have to kill you, I can arrest you instead'

- the final battle is a bit muted, compared to the Nightingale-Mrs Chin fight earlier. I like the description of the allokosmos coming in at the corners of the room, and I guess now we know what it was that Peter nearly fell into back at the start in RoL when he does the ritual in the graveyard and opens some kind of portal.

- and there's more of Nightingale being worried about Peter, I am loving this new dynamic and I'm trying to work out if it's because Nightingale hasn't recovered from Peter being kidnapped and then handcuffed to Chorley while Lesley shot Chorley, or whether Nightingale was always this worried about Peter only until we got this new post-therapy Peter he didn't notice

- Peter sending Stephen and Mrs Chin away with fleas in their ears is fantastic

- holy shit now Nightingale's telling Peter about Ettersberg and the Black Library, and yeah, that was always going to be the big question, isn't it: who's read it, and why. Lots more details here for the fandom to chew on

So, all in all, yeah, I really enjoyed this. I adored Stephen and Mrs Chin and the contrast between how they handle magic and how the Folly works, I loved meeting characters who don't know who Peter and Nightingale are in advance, I liked all the tech company stuff (it reminded me in some ways of Murder Must Advertise, the same undercover-in-a-weird-workplace vibe), I loved the whole undercover thing, it was a great romp and a lot of fun to read.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/169303.html. There are comments there.

Fic: lean on

2020-02-21T23:14:30Z

I wrote a fic! For Chocolate Box, where loads of people left fantastic Vorkosigan prompts. I really wanted to write more treats but I had the flu half the time so not so much writing happened. And then when I did have writing time, well, my brain has a frustrating tendency to hare off in the wrong direction when I see a prompt: viz lots of people wanted Ivan interacting with any of Miles, Gregor, Aral, Laisa, Ekaterin, By... so I stared at those prompts for a while, and then came up with a plot bunny for Ivan talking to his mother instead.

But anyway, I finally got to use my favourite Aral/Simon quote as a fic summary for lean on aka the time Aral tells Simon not to use Miles as an assassin please. Because when I saw that conversation referenced in ACC, I went OUCH, and have been meaning to write it up as a fic sometime and finally did it. And I hope to finish the Ivan & Alys fic, and also something for @karanguni who continues to have the best Aral/Simon prompts and who I really hope isn't tired of me writing them yet.

And in my other fandom, False Value is out, I have read it, I love it, and I don't think it's spoilery to say: if you were frustrated by the lack of Peter-Nightingale interaction in some of the previous books, you are going to like this one. Longer review when I finish rereading it.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/169166.html. There are comments there.

reviews

2020-02-17T23:42:42Z

A couple of things I have read/watched/etc recently.

The Spy and the Traitor, Ben Macintyre
Macintyre has a great line in tell-all real-life spy dramas; he's written several for WW2 and they're all very readable and fascinating, so when I saw this on the shelf in Sainsbury's I knew it wouldn't disappoint, and it hasn't. This is the story of Oleg Gordievsky, a KGB colonel turned MI6 spy, and his ridiculously dramatic and amazing life. Macintyre makes a pretty good case for him having saved the world from nuclear apocalypse. I fell quite a lot in love with him in this, and I suspect Macintyre did too. Also Thatcher did, which is almost makes me question my taste, but still, he was pretty incredible. The story of how he made a summit between Gorbachev and Thatcher a complete success because he was briefing both sides as the KGB's senior man in London and MI6's window into the KGB - if that was fiction it would be unbelievable. He literally took the Foreign Office's agenda for the meeting and fed it to Gorbachev and took Gorbachev's agenda and fed it to the Foreign Office, and Gorbachev was very surprised to find that it was easy for him to understand what Thatcher wanted and what she would do. Thatcher, meanwhile, knew that her briefings were going to Gorbachev, so she wasn't surprised. All this on its own would be pretty amazing, but then there's the story of how the KGB found him out, and how M16 activated a frankly ridiculous escape plan to rescue him and smuggle him back to England, which - well, I take my hat off to the woman known in the book as Caroline Ascot (a pseudonym). She was the wife of the MI6 chief in Russia, who foiled the KGB sniffer dogs on the Russia-Finland border by dropping some cheese and onion crisps on the ground by them, and then CHANGING HER BABY'S DIRTY NAPPY on the lid of the car's boot. Inside the boot, sedated and wrapped in space blankets, was Gordievsky. Because of course if you're smuggling the most wanted man in Russia out of the country, you take your baby with you.

*

Coriolanus (2011)
As recommended by absolutely everyone, and holy shit was this amazing or what. It is hands-down the best Shakespeare film adaptation I've seen. I adored the conceit of it all, modern-Roman-AU as only the Beeb could do it, using the same sets they use for political shows and just to finish it off, a cameo from Jon Snow somehow managing to give Shakespeare the exact intonation he uses for the news. I loved all the modern war-torn state feel to it all, it's such a fresh take on Rome and it feels true. I also got strong New Labour vibes from the tribunes, which I presume was intentional, and Menenius felt like he'd somehow walked out of The West Wing into this. But Fiennes as Coriolanus knocked my socks off, his power, his rage, his warrior spirit, totally and predictably failing as a politican. And the UST with Aufidius was off the charts, in their first duel, and then in the scene where Coriolanus offers him his throat, wow. You don't need to write the slash, Shakespeare's done it for you. And I adored Voluminia too, you can see exactly how she is his mother and exactly how hard as nails she is. I loved her attacking the tribunes and then walking off arm in arm with his wife.

Also, wow, is this the most Barrayaran play ever? I want to know how they stage it on Barrayar, and also the overlap between Aral and Coriolanus is striking.

*

The Expanse
I have just started watching this, I am three episodes in, I am not sure of anyone's names or what's going on, and I love it. I saw it recced as near-future space politics and drama and complexity, and so far it's delivering. It's set in a future in which Mars is colonised and independent and seems to be Space Russia, the asteroid belt is the Space Wild West, and Earth is Earth, crowded and running out of resources and considerably more underwater than it is now, and there's a cold war between Mars and Earth with the asteroid belt as their ping-pong ball. So far we've got three sets of characters, none of whose names I can remember: there's Detective Hat who is investigating a missing person case on Ceres that his boss told him to forget about. There's the crew of the Canterbury, currently prisoners on a Martian warship and trying to work out who blew up their ship and whether or not Smart Navigator Lady is a sleeper agent for terrorists. And there's Lady Alys But Really Scary, the powerful UN politician who likes torturing people, double-crossing people, and trying to prevent wars. (I like her a lot.)

Oh, and there are still Mormons in the future and they travel out to the asteroid belt and try to get people to come to their meetings. The whole show seems to have this level of background worldbiulding detail, I especially love the way the people on Ceres use water when they're having meetings, how they ostentatiously pour each other glasses of water or help themselves to water as a character thing, it fits so nicely. So far I am utterly curious about Mars and the Martians and what they're doing, and I really want to see Mars like we've seen Earth and Ceres.

*

And finally, I am probably the last person on the planet to listen to the soundtrack for Hamilton. But I have a trip to London planned later in the spring and then I realised we could go to a show and that Hamilton was playing and tickets were available, so I am going to go and see it live in the West End, and I thought I'd listen to it and find out what it was all about. And so I did, and by the time I got to rhyming 'Lancelot' with 'pants look hot' I knew that I was in for a wild ride. Mr P refuses to let me play it around him, he wants to see it completely cold without any clue at all what's going on (or any knowledge of American history) but I have had it on repeat for the past week whenever he's not around, though it's lucky some of the lyrics go by too fast for Cub to hear them properly ;-)

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/168640.html. There are comments there.

new book glee

2020-01-21T12:37:39Z

There's a special kind of joy in reading a book, enjoying it very much, then discovering it has a sequel, then realising it is the first in a series of nine books so far. My only problem now is that I have a lot of other things I'm supposed to be doing. Still, thanks to @sholio's post about spy thrillers, I remembered that I had At Risk, the first novel by Stella Rimington, ie the retired director of MI5, sitting on my shelf waiting for me to have some time for it. So I read it and loved it. It's a great thriller: the plot unfolds cleverly, the twists are good, the characters are briefly but vividly drawn, there's lots of detail about how the intelligence organisations work and it all feels, as you'd expect, very authentic. Liz Carlyle is an excellent main character, and my one complaint about the first book, that Liz felt a bit of a lone woman in a sea of men, was improved in the second book in which she has a female sidekick too. And I want to go and buy the third one right away, but I am going to hold it in reserve as a reward for me finishing some of the more tedious jobs I have piling up.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/167888.html. There are comments there.

fic: dark clouds gathering

2020-01-10T17:28:11Z

My first fic of the decade, and it's the one where Simon fast-pentas Alys. This one involved a sudden panic this morning when I realised I'd messed up some of the canon details, but working out what really happens in canon has helped me figure out a bit more of what was going on, so that was helpful in the end.

So here it is:

dark clouds gathering (6805 words) by Philomytha
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Simon Illyan/Alys Vorpatril
Characters: Alys Vorpatril, Simon Illyan, Count Vordrozda, Count Vorhalas
Additional Tags: Barrayaran politics, Interrogation, truth drugs, Angst, Book: The Warrior's Apprentice
Summary:

The close relatives of suspected traitors must be questioned by ImpSec. For the most high-ranking, the Chief of ImpSec performs the interrogations himself. And everyone knows that Lord Ivan Vorpatril is ruled by his mother.

The morning sun gleamed redly on the groundcar's long bonnet, making it glow like fine black silk by candlelight. Christos pulled up at the Residence entrance, jumped out and came around to open Lady Alys's door. Alys was halfway out when he suddenly turned, moving in front of her in well-drilled reaction.

Four black-uniformed guards were marching towards the groundcar, Horus eyes glinting on their collars. It was not the approach of an honour guard. Alys straightened her skirts and stood up, moving past Christos, though she had to force her legs to carry her smoothly. "It's all right," she murmured to him. It wasn't, but Christos could not hold off the entire of ImpSec and she could not win this battle by force. Could not win any battle by force. And her heart was clear away from her this time, not trapped in her body but safely hidden, just another Vorish cadet in the Academy. That idiot Ivan, nobody had accused that idiot Ivan of conspiring against the Emperor. She had seen to that. His mother, though, that was a different matter.

"Lady Alys Vorpatril," the lead guard said. He was a middle-aged man in corporal's tabs, running a little to fat. Alys could picture him in his shirtsleeves at the breakfast table with a rabble of boistrous children, a perfectly pleasant family man. He stared at her insolently now. "You are to come with us immediately."

"Go home," she told Christos. Meaning, report in to Cordelia at once, and stay free. "It's fine." Then, to the guard, "Am I under arrest?"

"You are to be detained." The other guards were eyeing Christos, who backed slowly towards the driver's seat of the groundcar, but did not get in, his eyes fixed on her in open distress. Alys went with the arrest squad. They did not lay hands on her until they entered the Residence, when they seized both her arms uncompromisingly. She had been expecting this, had tried to brace herself for it, but she wasn't braced enough. An old panic-reaction kicked in, and helplessly she gasped and flinched from them and tried to pull away. They tightened their grip, but otherwise scarcely seemed to notice her terror. It must be normal for them.

They marched her away from her usual route, towards the main security HQ here. But not into the familiar offices of the Residence guard commander or Simon's own office, but to a small separate room, windowless, guarded.

Inside were four men. Alys took them in: Count Vordrozda, of course, in his full House uniform, his lips tilted in the faintest of smiles. Admiral Hessman, his lackey. Captain Illyan. And Count Vorhalas, standing a little apart from the others, stiff-backed and stern.

It was Illyan who stepped forwards, and his eyes were cold and shallow and as blank as a computer's power lights. "Lady Vorpatril," he said. "You are here to be questioned regarding the activities of your son Lord Ivan Vorpatril. Count Vorhalas and Count Vordrozda are here as witnesses to this interrogation, in accordance with standard protocol. Sit down."

Ivan? No, surely she was being questioned on her own behalf? Her heart pounding, she did not obey at once, and the guards shoved her towards the solitary chair in the centre of the room. She lost her balance and would have fallen if they hadn't grabbed her. Vorhalas drew in his breath, but Illyan didn't seem to notice. The chair didn't slip, and Alys realised it was bolted to the floor. There were rings where she presumed straps could be attached, though the straps had been omitted today. Small mercies. She did not meet Captain Illyan's eye, did not look at him for support, for help, for consolation. He had been under suspicion for weeks, and Hessman would be watching him as closely as her. Safety for both of them lay in following through this ritual as precisely as the steps of a dance. She smoothed out her skirt and sat up straight, controlling her shaky breathing.

"Do you consent to be questioned under fast-penta?" Illyan went on once she was seated, standing just close enough that it was uncomfortable having to look up at him. It had been years since Captain Illyan had been able to make her feel uncomfortable.

Fast-penta. Alys knew it well by repute, but had only once seen a person under it: Padma, grinning wretchedly with anguished eyes. He'd been triple-dosed, they'd told her when his body had been retrieved after the cease-fire began, triple-dosed to force him into betraying her and Ivan. Now--now would she be the one to betray Ivan? She would be able to hold nothing back, every foolish thought and stray idea spilled out in front of Vordrozda and Hessman. And in front of Captain Illyan. She swallowed.

"Fast-penta?" she echoed aloud, and tried not to let her voice shake. Illyan had told her, from time to time, that this or that piece of security information had been obtained through fast-penta interrogation, and she had accepted it blandly, not thinking about the details of the process. Now she would find out exactly what it looked like.

"Yes. Do you consent?"

This too, Alys knew, was a step in the dance. Refuse consent, and be arrested. She looked from one face to the next, and stopped at Count Vorhalas. Vordrozda and Hessman were openly her enemies, and Illyan could not show her the least sign of favour. Vorhalas was not her friend, but he was not wholly her enemy either, and he might give her some cover. She could not understand why he was here at all; Vordrozda surely would not have chosen him as a witness.

"Given the sensitivity of your work in the Residence," Count Vorhalas said, "refusal of consent in this situation would prevent you from continuing in your duties afterwards, regardless of whether the interrogation found anything of concern."

"I see." She had won a little ground from him there, he was talking to her as if she did not already know that. People underestimate you, Simon had told her once. I underestimated you. Now she needed Vordrozda and Hessman to underestimate her too, even under fast-penta. "Very well, then. I consent." She carefully pulled back the sleeve of her navy gown, exposing her forearm on the arm of the chair. A shiver went over her, unstoppably, and she set her lips.

Captain Illyan bent and applied the patch test without further words, careful not to touch her skin. Everyone stood and waited in silence for the minute it took to work. Alys tried to hold on to her poise, keep her face calm and ignore the men standing over her, but her stomach was churning. Something had happened with Ivan, Vordrozda was making another move, and she had no control over what she would tell these men. Oh Ivan, what have you done?

The minute passed and no welt appeared on her arm. Captain Illyan bent and put the hypospray to the inside of her elbow, and this time he did hold her forearm still. His hands were very cold.

"Count backwards from ten," he said, stepping back, and she did.

This is going to be dangerous, she thought, but by the time she reached three, she was not afraid any more. It was the first time she hadn't been afraid for months. Years, perhaps. Ivan must have done something foolish, but it would be fine. Simon was here. It would all be fine.

Simon was frowning at her. Alys smiled up at him, pleased to see him even in these conditions, and his expression grew colder.

"Lady Vorpatril," he said, "you are now under fast-penta. You will only speak to answer my questions. Do you understand?"

"Yes, of course," she said. She didn't want him to look so distant and unhappy.

He asked her simple questions first, her name, her addresses, her family background, her role in the Residence. Alys answered warmly, trying to see if she could make him smile. He didn't. A part of her was aware that she shouldn't, that she should be careful, but that part seemed very quiet and far away and unimportant. She felt comfortable, insulated from trouble and worry, just her and Simon, chatting. There were other men around, but they were standing back, and she didn't have to think about them. It was nice not to have to think about things. The little room felt pleasant now, its military austerity softened into pleasant simplicity. Even the hard chair was perfectly adequate for her needs.

Simon's attention seemed to sharpen, and she sat up straighter, wanting to be helpful. Simon relied on her help so often, and she was glad to be able to ease his burdens a little.

"Where is Lord Ivan Vorpatril?" he asked, his voice taking on that deceptively gentle tone that meant extreme danger.

But this wasn't a difficult question, this was easy, so easy that she giggled in relief. "He's at the Academy, of course. The Imperial Military Academy. It's his first year. You know that, I was telling you only last week about his grades in--"

"He is not at the Academy," Simon interrupted her. She knew, distantly, that she didn't like being interrupted, though the feeling of annoyance was oddly muted. "Where is he?"

"It's rude to interrupt," she said, distracted. "You should know that, you--"

"Answer the question," Simon said, interrupting again. His voice was still level, but even so Alys blinked up at him in bemusement. Simon was usually so careful and polite. It worried her that he was being impolite now, it made her afraid of what else he might do. "Lord Ivan is not at the Academy. Where is he?"

"He is at the Academy," she said stubbornly. "He vidded me only last week. I asked his senior officer to make him vid me once a week, and he's very good about it. He's at the Academy. He's safe there." But Simon was frowning as if she'd said the wrong thing. The lights in the room seemed dimmer. Why didn't he believe her? She was under fast-penta. He should know that meant she was telling the truth.

Simon took a step closer to her. "Lord Ivan Vorpatril left the Imperial Military Academy last night, without orders or leave, without telling anyone where he was going. We believe he may have gone to the shuttleport."

Alys rocked back in her chair as if he'd struck her, as if he'd lashed her across the face with a riding whip. "No! That's ridiculous! Why would he do that?"

"Can you explain why he would do this?" he continued. Alys tried to get a good look at his face, but he leaned over her uncomfortably.

"No. He's not supposed to leave, he'll get into trouble. I don't want him to get into trouble." Ivan, vanished. First Miles had gone offworld, and all this awful mess had started, and now Ivan had gone too and it didn't make sense, nothing made sense. She shifted in the chair and ran her hands over her face. "It doesn't make any sense," she said out loud. "There's no reason for Ivan to go anywhere. All he had to do to be safe was stay where he was and behave himself. I've told him that. I've told him so many times, and I told him that if he didn't listen to me he'd end up in trouble, and now he has." She turned her gaze up again. Simon did not look happy. Simon rarely did look happy, but he seemed angry with her now, and it made her feel sad, and scared, and alone.

"Did you arrange for Lord Ivan to go to the shuttleport?" Simon asked when she stopped talking. "Is he going to his cousin Lord Miles Vorkosigan on Beta Colony?"

"Of course not. He's studying at the Academy, not on Beta. He's not half-Betan, there's no reason he should need a Betan education." She wanted to think about where Ivan might have gone, and why, but she couldn't concentrate on her own thoughts. She gave Simon a frustrated look. If he would only be quiet for a bit perhaps this ridiculous drug would let her think...

"Did you tell him to leave the Academy or go anywhere else?"

"No! I didn't tell him to go anywhere. I told him to pay attention to what his instructors say, try his best, and not run after prole girls. I don't want him bringing me a prole daughter-in-law, even an offworlder would be better than that, Vorpatrils have never married proles." She didn't see any change in Simon's expression, but a thought occurred to her anyway, and she went on, "I don't mean--"

"Did you arrange for anyone else to take Lord Ivan away from the Academy?" Simon interrupted again, his tone exactly the same as it had been before.

"No," she said quietly. She'd upset him. She hadn't meant to say that, but it was fast-penta, it was true. Vorpatrils couldn't flirt with proles, even brilliant-eyed ones with calm voices and strong hands. Simon's hands were by his side, perfectly still. He was always so still, he reminded her of some lean waterbird waiting for its prey to swim by, poised, then a single flash of lethal movement so swift that you might think you imagined it. Now she felt like a fish.

He leaned in sharply and she flinched away. His expression didn't change. "Why has Lord Ivan left the Academy?"

"I don't know."

"Why has he gone off-world?"

"I don't know," she said again, but the questions distracted her from Simon and she leaned back, thinking about it. Her thoughts emerged from her lips unstoppably. "Perhaps he's going to have fun. He was so jealous that Miles got to spend a student year on Beta, he wanted to go there too. Not that he'll bring me back a Betan daughter-in-law either. At least, I hope not, I love Cordelia but one of her is quite enough for the planet." She saw Vordrozda choke back a smile at that, and wanted to smile back at him, but her ideas were still flowing so she continued to speak, "Besides, it's too soon for him to marry anyway, not before Gregor marries."

"Why shouldn't Lord Ivan marry before the Emperor does?"

Alys turned, startled, because that wasn't Simon, that was Count Vordrozda who had asked the question. She looked between them in confusion, because Simon had told her only to answer his questions, but she could feel the answer starting to come into her mind and out her mouth anyway.

"It is inadvisable to have more than one questioner in a fast-penta interrogation, sir," Simon said, interrupting her just as she was drawing breath to speak.

"This is pertinent, Captain. Carry on."

Vordrozda didn't give orders to Simon, that was wrong. Alys opened her mouth to say that too, but before she could, Simon asked, "Why shouldn't Lord Ivan marry before the Emperor does?" and her thoughts flipped back to their original track.

"People would want to make him Gregor's heir, if he was married and had children and Gregor didn't. I want grandchildren, but not if my daughter-in-law has to go through what I went through. I want them to live. I want them to have quiet lives." She could remember things too clearly under fast-penta, things she didn't try to remember, things she didn't like remembering. "I want everyone to have peaceful lives. Nobody should have to see--" Her voice faltered. Simon remained perfectly still. "Nobody should have to watch their husband like that, he was under fast-penta too, I could see his face when they shot--"

Vorhalas coughed loudly, and Simon moved abruptly back, making her feel dizzy, losing the thread of her thoughts. She held on to the arms of the chair, her gaze following him as he moved. He was watching Vordrozda and Vorhalas and Hessman too, she thought. He always watches everyone. His eyes seemed huge, empty, the openings of a vast camera. Alys stared up at him and couldn't think at all.

"Does that suffice, sir?" Simon asked, and he was speaking to Vordrozda again. Alys closed her eyes, and the room swam around her. If Vordrozda answered, she couldn't tell. She couldn't think on her own, her mind would only do what Simon told it to do. Wasn't it enough? She opened her eyes again, but it didn't help.

"Do you love your son, Lady Vorpatril?" Simon asked, his words disrupting her dazed thoughts like bombs landing. She tried to think about that question, but was distracted by Count Vorhalas, who was frowning again as if he didn't like something. "Do you love your son?" Simon asked again, leaning in, and this time she was able to parse the question, and she laughed, and then she couldn't stop laughing, or possibly she was screaming, she wasn't sure of the difference from the inside. Simon made a cutting gesture at her, so sharp it seemed to slice the air. "Do you love your son?"

She gulped, swallowed, breathed, and answered, "Of course I love him. Of course I do. Ivan is all I have. Ivan, my little Ivan." Thinking about him calmed her, he always calmed her, she had to be calm and steady for him, be his mother and his father both. "Ivan, my beautiful boy, and they want to kill him, so many people want to kill him, is that why he vanished, do you think? Please, tell me, is that why--"

"This is not an investigation into a death," Simon said, and his tone was angry, as if he was annoyed at her question, but Alys felt only relief. Not a death. Not yet. Ivan wasn't dead.

Simon took a step to one side, and her gaze followed him. "And do you tell your son what to do, Lady Vorpatril?"

She managed to gather her thoughts, though odd giggles kept escaping her. Simon was still looming over her, but there was an inward look on his face now, the camera turned upon itself, remembering something. Something sad. But that wasn't what he'd asked her about, so she didn't mention it.

"Of course I do. I have to. He needs me to tell him what to do." Ivan needed her to escape these questions, needed her to find out what had happened to him and fix it, and she couldn't, she couldn't...

"Why is that?" Simon interrupted her thoughts.

"Ivan has no sense at all. That idiot Ivan," she added, and giggled again. Believe something long enough, and it becomes true. "He'd get mixed up in politics if I didn't keep him out of it. He has no sense."

Simon said nothing, so she continued.

"You know there have been plots. People try to get him involved, try to drag him into their schemes and their treason, and he doesn't understand how to avoid it. I have to be so careful with him, and make sure he never gets mixed up these plots."

"What kind of plots?" Simon asked, his voice frighteningly gentle again.

"Plots to make him Emperor." Alys stared up at Simon in misery. She shouldn't be talking about this. Nobody should ever talk about this, not in public, not so bluntly. Why wouldn't he stop asking?

"And do you believe your son could become Emperor?" Simon's voice was very quiet now.

"Yes, he could," Alys said, and wished she could choke on the words instead. But the fast-penta wouldn't let her, and it was true, and she knew it was true. Simon had to know it was true too, why would he ask all these questions otherwise? Vordrozda was watching with gleaming eyes, and Alys tried to explain. "People have tried, you know that. But it would be a disaster. Gregor is much better," she went on earnestly. "Ivan would hate to be Emperor."

"You believe your son does not want to be Emperor?"

"Of course he doesn't. Ivan's lazy. It would be far too much work for him."

"And do you want your son to be Emperor?"

Alys gasped aloud. "No!" she said. "No. I--no. Never. Please, never. Don't even think about it."

"You are very emphatic," Simon stated. "Why is that? Is there someone else you want to be Emperor?"

"Gregor is the Emperor. We have given him our oaths. I want Ivan to live. If he was Emperor someone would kill him. People have tried to kill him just for being related to Gregor. They've tried to kill me. I want Ivan to live," she repeated, staring imploringly up at Simon. Surely he understood this.

"And so you tell him what to do, and advise him to avoid politics?" Simon said.

"Yes." Alys began to laugh again, at being understood. Of course Simon understood. "Yes."

Simon took a step back from her, and his eyes were absolutely hard and cold. "Then how can such a mother, a mother who dotes on her son and carefully manages his life, not know when that son suddenly runs away and deserts his post?"

The condemnation in his tone was like another blow, and her laugh changed to a gasp, and another, then a sob. Tears escaped her eyes, but the need to answer the question overrode all else, and her voice broke and stuttered as she said, "I don't know, I don't know where he's gone, and I don't know why he didn't tell me. I don't know. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I don't know."

Some distant part of her was furious, was mortified, but that distant woman had no control over her words or actions. Simon showed her no mercy, looking at her with the same cold emptiness he had worn throughout this interrogation.

"This seems very unlikely. Did you tell your son to leave the Academy?"

"No," she breathed. She'd answered this already, she'd told him already. "I told you this already, why are you asking me the same thing, please--"

"Did you arrange for anyone else to tell him to leave?"

"No, no. He was safe there. I just want him to be safe, please--" She tried to wipe her face with her hands, but her coordination was confused and she slumped back in the chair instead.

"Did you arrange for him to get passage to Beta Colony?" The question was as impersonal as another hammer blow on a nail.

She tried to speak, but only a gasp came out. Simon stood waiting. She didn't know what she'd done to make him look at her with so much cruelty. He'd already asked her these questions, but she must have given him the wrong answers. She wanted to give him the right answers. Simon always needed the right answers, or he couldn't do his job. It was her job to make sure he had those answers. But this was the truth, and she had to say it. "No," she whispered. "No, I didn't."

"Did you ask him to find Lord Vorkosigan?"

"No. I didn't ask him to do anything. I didn't know he was gone. I don't know where he is. Please, Si--" Her voice choked on a sob, and distantly, she was grateful. Even weeping was less undignified than this helpless pleading. Simon watched her impassively.

"Did you--"

"This is a waste of time," said Vordrozda across whatever Simon was going to ask. Alys blinked up with tear-blurred eyes, not knowing who or what to answer. Ivan was gone. Ivan was gone and she didn't know where he was and nor did Simon. "She doesn't know anything about this. Give her the antidote."

"Standard procedure would be to continue for at least ten more minutes to cover all the possibilities," Simon said, still in that empty voice. "Fast-penta means you have to ask the same questions many different ways to be sure. These emotional reactions are quite normal, nothing for you to be concerned with."

"No. Give her the antidote and move on." Vordrozda grimaced. "If she's really not mixed up in it, I've got to work with her, and so do you."

"Very well, sir."

Admiral Hessman came forward with a second case. Alys turned worried eyes up to him. She did not want Hessman to touch her. Simon moved sternly between them, took the case and removed the hypospray. "This is the fast-penta antidote," he said. "You may feel unwell. Remain still."

She flinched back as he leaned over her. He ignored this, took her forearm in one cold hand, and pressed the hypospray to her skin. "Count to ten."

By the time she reached seven, she felt as nauseous as if she had morning sickness again, and the room swam around her. Captain Illyan watched her, still cold and hard-faced. She wanted to think it a mask, but knew it was something more fundamental, the side of ImpSec she tried to avoid seeing. The side he tried to avoid showing her. Interrogating sobbing women without feeling anything was part of his job.

"Eight, nine, ten," she whispered, staring fixedly at the wall, willing herself not to vomit in front of this audience. Though if she did, a small part of her said, she would aim for Vordrozda's shoes. But she sat still and the sensation passed.

Four pairs of male eyes regarded her, and she did not move, not even to wipe the messy tears from her face. The misery of the drug was nothing compared to the much deeper panic she felt now. Ivan. Ivan was missing, something had happened to him, he was gone and he was involved. She was cleared, for what good that would do her. She had no wish to be cleared, if Ivan was condemned, but the cruelty of fast-penta was that it gave her no way to push back, no way to reverse their suspicions.

Captain Illyan said, "This interrogation is concluded."

"Indeed," said Vordrozda. "I think it's clear that whatever dangerous, ah, activities Lord Ivan may be implicated in, Lady Alys is ignorant of it. She is not involved in his disappearance. Very well, Lady Alys, this is over, you can go back to work now and forget about this." He paused, and gave her a little smile that made her wish she had vomited on his shoes. "And should you learn anything of what your son is doing, do not forget that it will be in his best interests as well as yours if you report immediately to the proper authorities."

Captain Illyan neither looked at her nor spoke again before leaving the room with Hessman and Vordrozda.

Alys closed her eyes when they had left, trying to compose herself. When she opened them again, she realised she wasn't alone. Count Vorhalas was standing several steps away from her, his face averted. Wordlessly, he removed a large, crisply folded handkerchief from his pocket and offered it to her.

She took it shakily, the gesture somehow making her want to cry again, and wiped her eyes, her nose. Her makeup was running, staining the white linen, and she carefully wiped it all off.

"You will wish to rest for a while before returning to your duties," Vorhalas said, looking at a spot somewhere above her head. "Permit me to escort you."

He offered her his arm to stand, and Alys took it. She would not usually have permitted herself to lean on a man so much older than her, but this time she felt shaky and weak enough to be grateful. Vorhalas walked with her to the door, along the corridor, away from the stark security offices. The guards stood impassively by as they left.

She relaxed a little as they reached her own suite of offices, a familiar and comfortable space. The senior maid, Gina, was standing by the wall, her face its usual mask of trained blankness, but Alys knew she had been watching for her return. Gina's aunt was the Vorkosigan House cook; Cordelia would shortly know she was back from interrogation.

"Tea, please," Vorhalas told her, and Gina bobbed a slight curtsey. Vorhalas saw Alys into one of the small reception rooms, into a soft armchair that Alys normally reserved for elderly guests.

"Thank you," she managed, as Vorhalas settled her with punctilious care. Perhaps it was only courtesy that had brought this unexpected attentiveness from him: Vorhalas could be eloquent on the subject of proper courtesy and its decline among the youth of today. But she was not fool enough to spurn an olive branch from Vorhalas. Whatever he wanted, it would not be to embroil her in some further scheme.

Vorhalas took a seat opposite her as Gina returned with a tray, and left again at Alys's nod. Vorhalas poured the tea and handed her a cup himself, and Alys was grateful, because she still felt too shaky to trust herself with the heavy silver teapot.

"I am sorry that you had to endure such a distressing situation," he began, and his usually clipped voice was unexpectedly kind.

Alys held the cup in both hands, letting the warmth seep through the fine china into her skin. "It is ImpSec's duty to do these things," she managed.

"I do not believe," Vorhalas said, taking his own cup, "that there is any honour in questioning a mother over the loyalty of her sons," and Alys swallowed her mouthful of tea and suddenly understood exactly why Vorhalas had volunteered to be a witness, and why he was here with her now. Of course.

"But ImpSec has never had honour or decency," Vorhalas continued. "That was--exactly what I would have expected of them."

It had doubtless been Illyan himself who had fast-penta'd all of Evon Vorhalas's family after the soltoxin attack, fresh in his terror and fury at what had happened to Aral and Cordelia and Miles. Alys did not think he would have crossed the line into open cruelty, but Vorkosigan's Dog would have harried and bitten deep in his pursuit of the truth.

She knew then why she'd had a sense that Illyan had been talking to someone else, had been replaying his chip. The interrogation had been a show for Vordrozda and Hessman, yes, but also a show for Count Vorhalas. Illyan had interrogated both him and his wife, after Evon's treason. It must be a memory burned in Vorhalas's mind. And he would have noticed, if Illyan was gentler to Alys than he had been to them, would have noticed and been suspicious. But Illyan had that memory in his mind too, far more vivid and precise than Vorhalas's. He had been using it to guide his interrogation of her, so as to convince Vorhalas of his sincerity. And, perhaps, to win a little bonus of respect from Vorhalas: Illyan was harsh and exacting in interrogating his friends as well as his enemies. Vorhalas would like that.

Which told her how to play this. Vorhalas was thinking of his distraught wife as he tried to comfort her. She sipped her tea and didn't look up, didn't try too hard to control her still-shaky breathing.

"You had no idea anything had happened to Lord Ivan before this," Vorhalas said, not a question. But then, he didn't need to ask: he had seen her reaction. "It was a cruel way for you to find out. I requested them to tell you beforehand, but I am sorry to say that neither Vordrozda nor Illyan would hear of it. I'm afraid I also have no idea where he may have gone."

"It is... very worrying," she said, and she wasn't sure if she was pretending distress or really feeling it. Vorhalas saw something, because he bent to refill her teacup. "When he gets back--" and she couldn't go on, because there was no 'when', no certainty that he would come back and be hers to scold and lecture and embrace again. There was one thing Illyan hadn't asked, one thing she was absolutely, painfully certain of: if Miles had somehow sent some message to Ivan, requesting his urgent help, Ivan would have gone at once. If Miles had a target on his back, then Ivan would rush in to share it.

"I am sorry," Vorhalas said soberly. "I can make you one promise, my lady. If it is nothing more than some boyish prank, badly mistimed, I will not hear of any punishment more than is fitting for a boyish prank, regardless of what other events are going on around him."

Alys looked up at him then, wide-eyed. Vorhalas's protection for Ivan. It was not a sturdy shield, but it was more than she could have hoped for. She swallowed, struggling with herself. If Vorhalas was willing to commit himself thus far, she should push for more, try to get him to look kindly on whatever ridiculous mess Miles was mixed up in, instead of merely shielding Ivan. She drew breath, trying to force herself to speak.

Count Vorhalas was one of the shrewdest players in Vorbarr Sultana. His lips twisted as he watched her. "I am not going to change my views on what Count Vorkosigan and his heir may or may not be doing," he said, cutting her off before she could try to ask him. "Your loyalty does you credit, my lady, but do not think of it. But there is no reason for all of our sons to be destroyed on the board Vordrozda and Vorkosigan are playing between them."

Alys gave the ghost of a smile. "Then, my lord count, I will respect your forbearance. You will not wish for my gratitude, but you have it nonetheless."

Seated, Vorhalas bowed his head to her in understanding.

It was almost midnight when there was a knock on the door of her office. There had only been a minor event this evening, and she'd survived it as best she could and then retreated to her private office in the Residence. She ought to go home, but she didn't think she could sleep, though she felt as exhausted as if she'd just given birth, empty. She stared at the door, and the knock came again, more hesitant than normal. She had wondered if he would come.

"Enter." Her voice was steady.

Simon stood in the doorway, rigid and even more grim-faced than he had been this morning, holding a flimsy across his body like a barrier between them. "My lady," he said. "I have the vetted lists for next week's events."

"Yes," she said, not rising from her seat on the sofa. "Good."

He entered cautiously, closing the door behind him. In the brighter light of the room, he was almost grey with fatigue, his eyes hollow. He crossed the room to give her the flimsy, and suddenly he was standing over her just as he had during the interrogation. She didn't think she'd reacted or made a sound, but she must have betrayed herself somehow, because Simon froze. Then, slowly, he dropped to one knee to be face to face with her.

"My lady, I am most deeply sorry."

His voice was as sternly controlled as it had been during the interrogation, controlled to gentleness now, his whole body controlled to give the impression of innocuous kindness instead of impersonal cruelty. Alys hated that control suddenly, hated that he should have to pretend anything to her, hated everything that had brought them to this horrendous place. She snatched the flimsy from his hand and tossed it onto her desk, and as he blinked, she seized both of his hands in hers and pulled him up, off the floor and onto the sofa beside her.

"No, you aren't," she snapped. "Why should you be sorry? You did the only possible thing to protect me, to protect us both. How dare you apologise to me for that? You aren't sorry and you have no right to be."

His control fell away then, and she saw his true expression on his face at last, a bitter, comprehending smile. "No," he agreed in a low, intent tone. "No, I am not sorry that I protected you, nor yet that I've kept us all going another day." He studied her again, and instead of the careful gentleness she saw honest worry and pain. "You're bearing up?" he said, only half a question. "There was no possibility of warning you, or telling you what had happened with Ivan. Not that we know much. I haven't had any more news about him, you had it all this morning." The pain on his face was a mirror of hers, she knew. "I have no idea what he is doing, and evidently you haven't either. So far," he added, his voice very soft, "there is no evidence that this is an attempt on his life. I believe he did board a shuttle and leave the planet, but as yet I am not certain which of the five ships that departed this morning he went on. Or why."

She said what he hadn't asked in the interrogation, what she'd been thinking with Vorhalas. "If Miles asked him to go, he'd have gone. Just like this. Damn the boy, damn them both."

"I am aware." Memories flickered behind his eyes, and Alys knew what they were, the thousands of childhood scrapes and idiocies Miles had dragged Ivan into with him.

"How has it worked out?" she asked after a moment. "Vordrozda bought it?"

"So far. And you played Vorhalas perfectly."

"You played Vorhalas perfectly. That's how you interrogated him and his wife, twenty years ago, isn't it? He offered me his protection for Ivan, afterwards."

At that, Simon gave an honest smile. "I knew you would see it. Vorhalas didn't. They don't--nobody does--realise that for me it really is as clear as yesterday, it's easy for me to match my behaviour now to my behaviour then."

"Well, of course." Alys let herself take comfort from leaning against him, just for a moment, his wiry strength at her side. "Will it hold?"

The bitterness returned to his face. "I hope so. You understand, it wasn't Vordrozda who wanted you interrogated today. He was all for waiting and seeing what happened with Ivan. I prompted it, I pushed them to question you at once, fast-penta you in front of witnesses at once. 'ImpSec protocol dictates we cannot leave a potential threat at liberty in the Imperial Residence'," he parroted himself, the cold voice from this morning. "Now you have been cleared, in front of Hessman, in front of Vorhalas, and in front of Vordrozda. ImpSec has conducted a full investigation into you, and you have passed it. You will be safe now, and you will be free to act, later on, whatever happens." After he was arrested, or executed, she knew he meant, and while she wanted to match his detached, wry attitude, she found herself catching up his hands again, gripping them tightly.

"Ah," she said. Then, after a moment, "Good. Thank you." She did not let go of his hands. "It'll be your turn next. Won't it."

"Probably. If Vordrozda and Hessman had a way to download my memory chip they'd have done it already. They think I sent Ivan with a secret message to Miles, for Aral. I have no way to disprove them." Neither his hands nor his voice wavered, but his eyes betrayed him, a brief fear-widening. "Make sure we haven't wasted this," he said at last. He made no move to free his hands. Alys closed her eyes briefly, trying to hold in her mind the warmth of his skin, the strong muscle in the palms of his hands, even the bones of his knuckles. Then she let go, quickly, like cutting a cord.

"You can't stay," she said. "This won't be wasted, Simon. I swear."

She stood up and he put a hand on the table to push himself up, a betrayal of his weariness that Alys was grateful for, knowing he was still unmasked. She brushed a strand of her own silver hair from his sleeve, as fussily pointless as any wife seeing her husband off to war. Simon straightened up and as Alys watched, he reverted to the expression he'd worn when he'd entered, severe and grim, all traces of softness gone now. Alys did not try to touch him then, did nothing to jar his mask. Instead she found herself dropping into a deep formal curtsey, as far as her hips would let her go.

"Captain," she murmured, bowing her head. "Thank you."

His mouth stayed set and hard, but a smile warmed his eyes. "My lady," he said, and left the room.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/167674.html. There are comments there.

Yuletide reveals

2020-01-02T22:20:48Z

I wrote Peelian Principles, a Nightingale-centric missing scene set during Lies Sleeping for @luthien. Luthien's requests were perfectly up my alley, wanting missing scenes and Nightingale's perspective on Peter. I started writing this not sure exactly where it was going, with just the first line with Seawoll as a key to the story. The conversation with Chorley came out of nowhere, but after re-reading the section where Peter gets kidnapped and Chorley's efforts to persuade him to change sides, I wondered if Chorley might have thought Nightingale should be his natural ally, and made some efforts in that direction. And then I wasn't sure where the ending was for this, I overshot and started trying to write another scene of Nightingale clearing the warehouse and finding the prison where Peter had been held, but it wasn't working, and then I went back and edited the scene with Sahra and the whole thread about Nightingale's hair popped into my head and it just worked. So that's where that story came from. I keep thinking I don't have anything much to say about RoL, and then I keep getting these exchange assignments and discovering I have lots more, which is nice.

And my lovely Wimsey gifts, Good Morrow to our Waking Soules and As Their Wimsey Takes Him were by Jay Tryfanstone and tinx_r respectively. Thank you both so much for writing for me!

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/167384.html. There are comments there.

Love in the Time of Cetagandans

2019-11-28T13:30:23Z

A silly ficlet from Tumblr again, this time sparked by a post about which, if any, of Ezar/Piotr and Dorca/Pierre le Sanguinaire would scatter their bed with rose petals...

"When I find out who is responsible for this," Piotr said, enunciating the words slowly and clearly despite the amount of maple mead he had consumed, "I am going to disembowel him and decorate the room with his guts."

It couldn't, strictly speaking, be called a bedroom, being not much more than a narrow cave closed off from the passage with a heavy curtain. A straw-stuffed mattress covered with a heap of tattered woollen blankets, a wooden box containing spare kit, a shallow clay bowl and covered pot in a corner: this was what the Dendarii mountains offered the General. And, sometimes, his aide-de-camp.

Ezar followed Piotr in, letting the curtain fall shut again behind them, then stopped as he saw what had drawn Piotr's ire. There was something red all over the room; the dancing shadows from the oil lamp Piotr held made it look like they were moving. Ezar stooped, picked one up and discovered it was a rose petal.

They had celebrated a notable victory today when Ezar's engineers had breached a passage for a torrent of water from a mountain lake to sweep down onto a large Ceta base. Not even all the Ceta's clever tech had been a match for the inexorable water, and the whole base had been washed away. "Even our land and our water fight for us," Piotr had proclaimed afterwards in a victory speech. Those speeches always followed the same pattern for Ezar: he knew all the rhetorical tricks, he'd heard it all before and made many of them himself, and yet before Piotr was halfway through he would be listening like the rawest recruit, spellbound, heartbound. After the speech Piotr had allowed the men to broach a barrel of maple mead, and they'd toasted with the men, laughed and sang. Ezar had watched his General with his men, and waited for his turn to come.

"It's roses," Ezar said blankly. "How the fuck did anyone--"

Piotr whirled on him. "This wasn't your idea, then?"

Ezar glared back. "How much of that mead did you have?" he retorted, and Piotr barked a laugh and pushed him against the rough wall of the cave.

"No," he breathed in Ezar's ear, "you're not the sort for roses, are you?"

Ezar broke away and pulled Piotr with him over to the mattress, crunching rose petals under his boots as he went. Piotr flopped down on the bed of roses, picked up a handful and tossed them at Ezar.

"Smells better, anyway," he said. "Come here."

Kly and Ross had slipped out of the party earlier, Ezar recalled. He'd assumed they'd been leaving for much the same reason that he and Piotr were here now, but this prank would also explain their sidelong glances and choked outbursts of laughter. It must have taken some planning. There had been wild roses rambling along the side of a hill on the return journey, but he hadn't noticed anyone picking anything. Kly was sneaky as they made them, and it must be rubbing off on Ross at last. Good.

He unlaced his boots and Piotr's too, and extinguished the oil lamp. "I know who did it," he said as Piotr drew him down like an extra blanket across himself. "I have a much better revenge in mind." Someone, after all, was going to have to clean all this up in the morning.

"Good," said Piotr distractedly, and rolled him over, his face in a puddle of rose petals.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/166508.html. There are comments there.

Another fic: Four Swords

2019-11-14T17:44:03Z

I seem to be doing a lot of finishing things off at the moment, which is making me happy. I suspect that procrastination about Philomythulus's DLA form is the reason - it's amazing how much writing I can do when I have something to procrastinate on, and the DLA form is a thing of horror and nightmares and I can only cope with it in small doses.

Anyway, I have finished another fic, this time fluffy and short and gen as a contrast to the last. Next up, if I can keep my momentum going, is probably the one where Simon fast-pentas Alys...

Four Swords (737 words) by Philomytha
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, Aral Vorkosigan, Miles Vorkosigan, Ivan Vorpatril
Additional Tags: Kid Fic, Mostly Fluff
Summary:

Miles and Ivan play duelling.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/166274.html. There are comments there.

Fic: Adrenalin Trap

2019-11-13T14:53:39Z

I wrote another fic! One of my stranger ones: I feel like this story needs some explanation. I started it last year when I was writing Aral/Simon for Not Prime Time for @karanguni and found this prompt: Aral and Simon watch pornography together for SERIOUS security reasons. And I stared at that prompt and wondered, what security reasons could be serious enough that Simon doesn't just give Aral the precis? And then I thought, Escobar. And then I thought, this would be even more fun if Simon was both watching AND participating in the pornographic video. And then I thought about my favourite new ship from CVA: Simon/adrenalin. And then I wrote a lot and the plot got horribly tangled up and I gave up and wrote something different for NPT. But I untangled the plot recently and finished it off and now we have it, the worst way to negotiate a poly relationship ever seen.

Anyway, @karanguni, it's gone a bit off-piste from your original prompt, but here it is anyway:

Adrenalin Trap (7631 words) by Philomytha
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Simon Illyan/OFC, Simon Illyan/Aral Vorkosigan
Characters: Simon Illyan, Aral Vorkosigan
Additional Tags: Espionage, Drugs, Interrogation, Dubious Consent, Barrayaran consent issues, Time Period: Vorkosigan Regency, the largest collection of pornography on Barrayar, Escobar
Summary:

Simon Illyan likes to live dangerously. It's a bad habit for the Chief of ImpSec.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/166046.html. There are comments there.

Fic: Rising Tide

2019-11-08T12:36:04Z

I wrote a fic for Trick or Treat as a treat for the lovely @frith_in_thorns, since I can hardly be expected to resist a request for Simon Illyan, h/c and loyalty. I also threw in Cordelia being Betan at people, kid!Miles, and Count Piotr, just in case there was any worry about whether or not it would be obvious who wrote this :-D

Rising Tide (4038 words) by Philomytha
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Characters: Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, Simon Illyan, Piotr Pierre Vorkosigan, Miles Vorkosigan
Additional Tags: Barrayaran politics, Storms And Floods, Hurt/Comfort
Summary:

Cordelia deals with the aftermath of a violent protest.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/165716.html. There are comments there.

Dear Yuletide author

2019-11-02T22:40:16Z

Dear Yuletide Author,

Thank you for writing for me! I'm very easy to please and am looking forward to whatever you want to write in the fandom we've matched on. I already know you have excellent taste in fandoms! If you've got something in mind already, you are completely welcome to ignore everything in this letter, because most of all I like reading a story the author had fun making.

Things I like:
- loyalty and protectiveness and trust, and problems that arise from it, conflicting loyalties
- hurt/comfort and characters caring about each other especially in small gestures
- tropefic (things like huddling together for warmth, bodyswap, soulbonding, in vino veritas, sharing a bed...)
- casefic and adventures and characters being competent and brave
- stoical/repressed characters communicating their emotions obliquely
- role reversals
- Christmassy stories
- important platonic relationships
- moral dilemmas and difficult decisions

Things I don't like:
- young child death (unless it's canon), stories that are pure PWP, stories with a very cynical or depressing ending

Bonnie Dundee, Rosemary Sutcliff, any
This has been one of my very favourite books since I was a child, and as far as I know there isn't any fic for it, so if you write me something, you will be the first, congratulations. I love Hugh so very much, how desperate he is for someone to follow and be loyal to and how he finds that someone in Claverhouse, how for him the person of Claverhouse trumps his familial loyalties and his own instincts - I loved the note that he would probably have liked William of Orange fine, but Claverhouse was against him, so he was with Claverhouse. For me this story is just wall-to-wall loyalty, and anything you want to write about that would make me very happy, missing scenes or canon divergence or Claverhouse's POV on Hugh or anything at all about either of them, I would love it. I enjoy my lady Jean and Darklis too, and I especially adored the scene where Jean and Hugh bond over how much they both love Claverhouse with the painting, if you wanted to write about that relationship more. I love the ending sequence too, even though it's tragic, when Claverhouse is leading his doomed army across Scotland and Hugh is trying and mostly failing to take care of Claverhouse, I'd love more of that.

Upstairs Downstairs, any
I started watching this show earlier in the year and I've got up to the end of Series 4 so far and I love it to pieces! I'm not strongly trying to avoid spoilers for the episodes I haven't watched, but I'd prefer not to have a fic that relies on me knowing them. I've requested Any because I really don't mind which of the nominated characters you write about, and if you want to write about a non-nominated character instead that's fine by me as well so long as they've appeared by Series 4. I love the entire ensemble! I love how this show is unflinching in its look at the Edwardian class system, I love how it doesn't pull its punches, I love how there aren't easy answers to the issues it raises and the show knows it. Complexity, I guess, is what I like about it, and I'd love a fic that brings that out. My favourite bits of the show have been when the Upstairs and Downstairs families connect with each other seriously - the time Hudson tries to resign, the time Rose and Miss Lizzie get arrested together, the time Hazel comforts Rose about Sgt Wilmot while grieving her own airman, the time Edward has flashbacks and talks to Mr Bellamy - and I'd love a moment like that if you felt like writing it. But really, anything about these characters, whether serious or light-hearted or tropey or anything at all.

Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L Sayers, Peter, Harriet, Bunter
I've requested this before and received a lovely fic, but I reread the series recently, then reread all the fic I could find including my gift, and was left still wanting more, so I'm requesting it again. Feel free to treat this as an OR request for the characters, I'd be equally happy with a fic about any one or two of them. I love Peter and Bunter's loyalty to each other, I love how Harriet figures out what she wants and what she's capable of, I love all the secondary characters and would be very happy to see any of them appearing. I am equally happy with shippy fic for Peter/Harriet or Peter/Bunter or OT3ing them, or gen fic of any kind. I'd adore a casefic, or a missing moment from the books, or if you want to come up with a canon AU I'd enjoy that too, and I've loved the silly tropes I've read in this fandom if you enjoy writing those.

Thank you again, and I hope you have fun writing!

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/165210.html. There are comments there.

tumblr fics

2019-10-16T13:01:45Z

So I have two fics inspired by posts on tumblr lately.

The first is inspired by a post someone made a while back saying that Illyan should have reported immediately to his second in command when he started to have things go wrong with his memory chip. And I thought, yeah, but his second in command is Haroche. So that's the story of this fic:

Error State
Illyan attempts to report his chip problems to Haroche.

*

The other is a ficlet as requested by twicelivedsummer here.

"Miles, what the hell are you doing up here?"

A hand seized his shoulder and twisted him hard. Admiral Miles Naismith, self-appointed, spun and jerked backwards the way Bothari had taught him in his officer's training. The man who'd grabbed him was a stranger, pale-skinned and Roman-nosed, looking at him with clear recognition on his face.

Galactics thought that Barrayarans all looked the same, but Miles was never, ever mistaken for other people. He stared up at the man, wondering if it was some connection he'd forgotten. The man's accent sounded Komarran, but faded into a pan-galactic drawl. Miles didn't know many Komarrans.

"You've got no business coming out onto the space station on your own. Where are your minders?"

Minders. Miles could see Elena and Baz across the plaza, watching him waiting here for the rendezvous. He didn't signal to them, because he suddenly saw someone else, someone at his own eye-level, not looming above him like everyone else on the station. The boy passed out of sight quickly, slipping behind a pillar almost before he could register the face. But it wasn't a face he could mistake. This Komarran's behaviour suddenly made a lot more sense.

But--Miles? Whatever was going on here, it involved him. He choked off his first instinct to tell the Komarran he'd made a mistake, and decided to play along instead. He made a small sign to Elena: on guard. She nudged Baz, who hadn't grown up in Vorkosigan House and didn't know the signals. They began to amble across the plaza, arm in arm, chatting. Elena had been teaching Baz a thing or two on the long trip to Jackson's Whole.

"I came looking for you," Miles essayed.

"You've been working on the accent, at least," the Komarran said grudgingly, and Miles realised that speaking to a Komarran, he had reverted automatically to his Barrayaran accent. But that seemed to please him. "Not bad. Come on, then. Let's get back to the hotel. We leave tomorrow."

The boy with his face was still lurking behind the pillar. Miles caught Elena's eye and looked at the pillar, and saw the moment she saw him too. She let go of Baz's arm, muttering something to him. Baz continued to ebb towards him, a bit more clumsily. Elena went up to the other Miles and smiled at him.

"Sure," Miles said easily to the Komarran. He saw the way the other Miles stared at Elena. Whoever he was, he wasn't that different from Miles. Though not many men would be upset to have Elena smiling at them. He tamped down a flash of jealousy. Elena had that one under control. He was going to go with this Komarran and find out why he wanted a Miles, with a good Barrayaran accent. Whatever was going on here, this was definitely going to be more fun than trying to get his money out of a bunch of used uterine replicator merchants.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/164741.html. There are comments there.

twentieth century woman in the twenty-first century

2019-07-07T21:07:49Z

Sometimes living in the future is great.

The seal on our shower screen is giving up the will to live. On my most recent trip to B&Q - a regular occurrence when you have all unknowing married someone whose favourite words are 'no, we don't need to call anyone out, I can fix that myself' - I was instructed to find a new one and given dimensions. Of course they don't have anything with the precise dimensions, so I get the closest of the four available options and bring it home. It doesn't fit, and so Mr P suggests there's probably a website called shower seals dotcom where I can find every possible variety of shower seal and they'll have one that fits our shower. I laugh in his face, because this is obviously ridiculous.

My friends, there is such a website, with a trifling variation of name (just in case you are ever in this particular situation, it's showersealuk.com) and they do have every possible shape and style of shower seal. Including one that will fit our shower, which is now in the post to us. I am just delighted that this is a sufficiently common problem that some enterprising person has discovered that he can buy up stock of every kind of shower seal imaginable, list them all on one easy-to-use website, and sell them across the country in sufficient numbers to, presumably, make a living. There are times when I am annoyed by the modern world, like when Philomythulus discovered that if he types the words on his favourite marble run box into Google image search he can find 10,000 other marble runs that he would like me to buy, but this, I have to say, is excellent.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/163734.html. There are comments there.

recent watching

2019-07-03T21:45:50Z

Guardian
Which I've already talked about a lot, but hey, how often do you find an amazingly tropey sf/crime drama that's this much fun and also has a delightful active fandom on DW? This is basically a long casefic-type slashfic that got filmed in its entirety and then had all the actual sex and kissing deleted but everything else kept in. Especially the h/c, you've never seen anything like this show for long, long, delightful h/c sequences and more protectiveness than you can shake a stick at. Tearjerker ending, subtitles much more painful than Nirvana in Fire, but well worth it. Oh, and the leads are beautiful. Also watching it is expanding my knowledge of Chinese, which is currently very un-useful due to NiF: I know lots of phrases like 'yes, your highness' and 'princess' and 'the emperor is leaving' and 'KILL! KILL! KILL!' but a bit less on the 'thank you' and what you say when you answer a phone.

Gentleman Jack
Only watched the first three episodes so far but I am absolutely delighted with it and I so, so, so need Anne's coat. I love all the shots of her striding around Yorkshire in it so much, and I love everything about her really and she can break all the hearts she likes as far as I'm concerned. Also I really like how Marion is shown: we see that she's annoying Anne, but at the same time, she's definitely a person of her own with her own opinions and abilities.

Crazy Rich Asians
Good popcorn fun, and the chemistry between Rachel and Eleanor was fantastic. The romance between Rachel and Nick was okay, but come on, Rachel only accepts Nick's proposal when he uses Eleanor's ring, and all the most interesting scenes in the film involved Eleanor. I was very pleased when I looked at the tiny fandom and saw it shared my opinion on this. The mahjong scene was amazing too.

The Favourite
I was surprised by how much I liked this. It seemed like it was going to go off into the cringe/gross side of comic, but it didn't, and instead it was fantastic, a bit surreal, but somehow felt more like real period life than your average period drama. Also I am so in love with the Duchess of Marlborough that I don't even know how to describe it. If I was Anne I'd let her do whatever the hell she wanted too. The scene where she shot Abigail! Mostly, though, I loved seeing women having recognisable-to-me emotions all over the place, and a story in which men were entirely painted and frilly accessories to a complex and fierce emotional three-way tug-of-war between women.

Smiley's People
A 80s tv drama that I saw on a list of really good TV. I am not convinced, and by not convinced I mean the pace was so leisurely that I struggled to stay awake and had no idea what was happening at any point during the story. Admittedly this is my usual response to Le Carre; I never can make head or tail of any of the plots he writes even when they get filtered through a scriptwriter first, I had the same reaction to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and while I've read a lot of his books I don't understand any of them. I guess it's a testament to the fact that he does something right that I keep reading them anyway. I did sort of understand The Constant Gardener, I guess? Anyway, the show was very atmospheric and Smiley was fantastic and I really enjoyed the scene at the end when he breaks the Russian diplomat, but I spent the vast majority of the time wondering what was going on and why.

Also I have just finished a slow rewatch of Nirvana in Fire, this time with my husband, and he has never, ever, ever done this before, but as soon as we got to the end he said we had to watch it again so we're now back on episode 2.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/163415.html. There are comments there.

worth it

2019-06-05T09:29:27Z

- I loved it all! The ending, well, I wouldn't have minded seeing Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei walk off into the sunset together while both actually being alive, but I knew it was going to end tragically and it was a very good tragic ending and fit the story

- but, it was only on reading other people's meta that I realised that the Zhao Yunlan we see accepting flowers post-war isn't actually the real Zhao Yunlan but possibly the energy spirit who was living in his father's head now getting a body of his own? Which makes a certain amount of sense. I started off seeing it as 'now that he's alive and his Shen Wei is dead he is very sad and serious' but then we get the shots of Lin Jing and Da Qing holding their photos in a very 'these two people are both dead' way and I was baffled.

- I kind of adored the whole thing where we see Lin Jing and Shen Wei and everyone after Ye Zun has inhaled them, but all the red fleshy lumps around them meant that all I could think of was The Magic Schoolbus Inside The Human Body, which spoiled the effect (Cub adores those books and I have read them to him one zillion times; I apologise if mentioning this means I spoil everyone else's appreciation of the drama of the scene and you start picturing Ms Frizzle driving by saying 'and out the window you can see the partially digested souls who have been inhaled by an evil villain, are you listening Arnold?')

- the whole thing where Shen Wei uses his mortal wound of having shared human life-energy in order to kill Ye Zun was telegraphed so hard you could practically see it coming from the scene with the knife in the kitchen, but it was still very satisfying and Shen Wei suffers extremely prettily

- relately, the actor playing Shen Wei is amazing! I swear he had about six different roles in the show and he made them all distinct: Shen Wei, mild-mannered professor, nothing to see here; Black Cloaked Envoy in his majesty and power; Shen Wei in his professor outfit when everyone knows he's the Black Cloaked Envoy; bb!Shen Wei before he's Shen Wei; Ye Zun; Ye Zun pretending to be Shen Wei. And he is supernaturally beautiful too.

- apparently this show has a theme, and it's don't believe everything you see, from Congbo to Ye Zun. I enjoyed its dedication to making sure that all the villains learned that their villainy had been completely pointless and directed towards people who didn't deserve it and how they all ended up with tragic deathbed reconciliations

- if there's a vid that's basically just all the epic h/c moments between Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan, link me? The early episodes are full of Zhao Yunlan carefully helping Shen Wei up and dusting him off, and the later episodes are full of Shen Wei flinging himself dramatically into disaster to protect Zhao Yunlan, and I love it all and want to rewatch it all at once

- Chu Shuzhi and Guo Changcheng are the most adorable couple ever and their scene in the finale cracked me up so hard. No going on dates with strange girls, Changcheng! They don't appreciate you like I do! I love them to bits. It's also kind of cute how xiao-Guo slowly steals Lao Chu's heart away from the Envoy, who is clearly Chu's first hopeless crush. I loved the whole nightmare sequence too, that was incredible

- IDK if I'm wildly off-base here, but looking at shiny modern Haixing and grim grey Dixing, and the steady stream of fugitives escaping Dixing for Haixing and the scary black-robed guy hunting them down again and sending them back - does anyone else get major Iron Curtain vibes from this setup? Someone who is smarter than me should write this AU

- and by all means send me fic recs! It's trickier than usual finding stuff on AO3 because the language tagging is wonky

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/163239.html. There are comments there.

I don't even LIKE lollipops

2019-06-03T18:29:42Z

Sorry to be suddenly all Guardian all the time, but I have just watched episode 34 and 35 and I am officially DEAD now.

Take off your mask and smile for me! And I swear Shen Wei blushed before saying that he would gratify any wishes Zhao Yunlan had, later on. And then Zhao Yunlan actually does pull off his mask, and bb!Shen Wei is SO CUTE and INNOCENT it's impossible. And then the LOLLIPOP I swear I have seen full sex scenes that are less erotic than Zhao Yunlan putting a lollipop into Shen Wei's mouth and teaching him how to lick it! And then just to crown it all Zhao Yunlan NAMES him. This show is killing me.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/163042.html. There are comments there.

more Guardian

2019-06-01T15:56:27Z

So I have been watching Guardian whenever I get a spare moment, and wow, I really am enjoying how it doesn't spare the tropes. An episode without half a dozen delicious protective affectionate moments between Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan - well, that hasn't happened yet. Some highlights from what I've seen so far:

- the MUGGING! with the careful treating of minor wounds afterwards, holy shit
- SHEN WEI KNEELING ALL NIGHT IN THE RAIN. His EXPRESSION before he kneels down, almost certainly the first time he has knelt down to anyone in 10,000 years.
- Zhao Yunlan insisting that Shen Wei accept his coat
- Zhao Yunlan falling asleep on Shen Wei's shoulder TWICE (so far). The first time Shen Wei tries to make him stop, and fails. The second time he just settles back to make him comfortable and his face is like so this is my life now, okay
- after carrying an ill Zhao Yunlan home, Shen Wei tucks him into bed, washes his dishes, puts away his clothes and cooks for him. I watched in awe. I've read that fic many times, but I've never seen it actually done in the canon at full blast
- xiao-Wei, OMG. I am glad this is not my first Chinese drama so I understood why Shen Wei just sort of froze up and stared at him when he said that

I am really enjoying the careful balance between Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan. You'd expect the rugged motorbike-riding special investigator would overpower the soft-spoken very pretty and nattily dressed professor, and for a while he seems to, but then it tips over and you realise that the professor is sublimely powerful and has a will of diamond and Zhao Yunlan is almost playing a court jester role beside him, that Shen Wei is permitting him to be informal with him, and then you see that he holds Shen Wei's heart in his hand. It's nicely complicated, is what I'm saying.

The plot is governed entirely by the Rule of Cool and is held together with paperclips and puffs of black smoke, everyone has one (1) superpower except Shen Wei whose superpower is being able to learn all the other superpowers, which is the cheekiest get-out-of-jail-free clause I've ever seen a writer try, the special effects and occasionally the acting are pretty impressionistic, but I do not care in the slightest about any of these things because I am watching it to see what Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan do next, and the people who made it know this and fulfil expectations delightfully. I also adore Lao Chu and his overwhelming crush on the Envoy, and his complicated thing with xiao-Guo: the HUDDLING FOR WARMTH! I mean it when I say the people who made this know their tropes and are not holding back and I cannot wait to see what trope they're going to take out of the box next.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/162764.html. There are comments there.

hurt/comfort exchange reveals; also Guardian

2019-05-27T07:54:15Z

To my COMPLETE SURPRISE, my wonderful gift Reportedly Missing was written by the lovely frith_in_thorns, who has such excellent taste in h/c that I had to write her a treat as well.

My assignment was for Rivers of London, and I wrote both Recovery Position and Beside the Seaside for esteliel, whose requests have left me with a WIP file full of attempts to write something for practically every tag they requested. In the end I managed sharing a bed for the first, because I've wanted Peter/Nightingale sharing a bed since forever, and shipwrecks and huddling for warmth for the second because I love ridiculous magical adventures. And I should really apologise to the Thames Barrier and the RNLI for the second fic, since I am certain that sea serpents would not give either of them a moment's bother in reality.

So there was that, and then of course I had to write something for frith, so that was Inversion featuring Aral comforting a drunk Illyan, hence the inversion.

And then there was my new fandom love, Disco, and I've been wanting to write more for that, and rosecake gave me an excuse with their excellent requests, so that turned into Faithful Wounds about Michael and mirror!Saru.

***

And separately, raven said I would like Guardian and they were completely right, it is adorable and lovely and a complete delight. I have only watched a few episodes as it is half term so time is limited, but I love Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan and their ridiculous adventures very very much. Also you should all go read raven’s fic meditations ex post facto which is why I started watching it and which doesn’t need any canon knowledge to enjoy.

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/162305.html. There are comments there.

hurt/comfort exchange

2019-05-20T13:22:53Z

The h/c exchange is live! And I have a delightful plotty fic featuring Simon Illyan being an idiot. And I have an idea as to who might have written it, so thank you again <3

Reportedly Missing (2836 words) by Anonymous
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Simon Illyan, Aral Vorkosigan, Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, Alys Vorpatril
Additional Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Time Period: Vorkosigan Regency, Poison, nefarious plots, Sometimes Simon is extremely unhelpful
Summary:

"So, Simon," Aral said. "Would you like to tell me why you're hiding under my desk?"

I wrote about 15,000 words for this across four fics, and maybe one of them will take 5 minutes to guess instead of 0.5 seconds, but they're all pretty obvious. What can I do if people request characters and situations I love writing h/c for? Though actually I spent most of the writing period despairing at my inability to come up with ideas or write even the most boring of sentences, and then in the last three weeks it all came unstuck and I got four of them done in the end. This has been a really fun exchange and now I get to go and read all the h/c fics :-)

Crossposted at https://philomytha.dreamwidth.org/162294.html. There are comments there.