[ closed ]

[latkje]

Who: Byerly (vorrutyer) & Nash (latkje)
What: Magic!
When: After the conclusion of the disease plot.
Where: On the road from Wyver to Olympia.
Warning(s): 504 Gateway Time-out

[ The road from Wyver to Olympia is well-travelled and well-packed, the long stretches of monotony preventing Nash from enjoying the landscape. Travel was supposed to bring variety, he thought, new sights, new sounds— not the same thing, over and over. It was hard to tell how far they'd come, at least in the physical sense. ]

At least we're done with that awful humidity. [ He runs a hand through his hair— short and wavy, it had gotten unruly in the heat. ] I have a northern constitution, if you didn't know. [ And a northern fashion sense, as Harmonian clothes tended toward the dour and conservative. Nash was also in the habit of wearing gloves. He's wearing them now, in fact. ] There are some things I just wasn't made for.

[ That hangs in the air a moment, then he turns to actually look at Byerly. ]

But you wanted to talk about magic.

Comments

[latkje]

Oh. Like a cigar. Those are popular with the ducks. [ He looks at it for a minute, and then nods. He'll try anything once. ]

I think he wanted me to become my more ruthless sibling.

[vorrutyer]

[ By lights the cigarette for him, then tucks his lighter away. Something isn't adding up there, and - given By's own background - it's not hard to guess what. This question is, admittedly, rather disingenuous, but he asks it regardless: ]

Dearest maiden, what was the point of that lie?

[latkje]

My father had one son. So he thought I needed more seasoning. [ A pause. ] Unless you mean the ducks?

[ The sibling here is figurative. He tries the cigarette and starts coughing violently. ]

[vorrutyer]

[ By gives Nash an amused smile and no help at all, taking a smooth drag on his own cigarette. ]

Either he disinherited you - kicked you out - or he wanted you to change for him. He wouldn't both want to force you to change and relinquish control over you.

[latkje]

[ Still coughing. This is absolutely not a stalling technique. Why would you even think that? ]

No— [ Wince. What are these devil sticks? ] There was nowhere I could go that my father couldn't control me.

And what about your father? I presume you have one.

[vorrutyer]

[ Turnabout is fair play, By supposes; he responds to Nash instead of pressing his attack. In, admittedly, a slightly evasive sort of manner: ]

Had. What about him?

[latkje]

Did you get along? Waiting for wake up and take the cursed crown from off your admittedly not terrible looking head?

[ His second shot at the cigarette is smoother, but he still coughs. ]

[vorrutyer]

Mademoiselle, it sounds like you're flirting with me.

[ And it sounds like Byerly is avoiding the question, and indeed it's so obvious that even he sort of has to acknowledge that nah he won't be able to get away with that one. So: ]

I was disinherited when I was - hm - seventeen, I believe? We've not spoken since then. [ By smiles thinly. ] And as unfit as I am to be Emperor, if he woke up, I believe I'd essentially be obligated to kill him then and there to keep him from taking the title. I can't think of a single man less fit to lead.

[latkje]

[ He laughs, then coughs at the flirting comment. But when Byerly mentions being obligated to kill his father: ]

Do you think you could do it?

[ One of those easier said than done things, even justifiable homicide. ]

[vorrutyer]

[ Ah. That question prods something...sick inside of him. An old wound that doesn't hurt normally but feels wrong when poked. He doesn't answer the question, instead saying: ]

That was mostly a joke, dear maiden. I'm not a real emperor, now, am I?

[latkje]

[ Huh. Interesting. ]

I don't know. You might be.

[ This time, he manages to take a drag from the cigarette without coughing. ]

[vorrutyer]

Well. The title is truly mine - that much is a fact. I'm not lying about that. But what sort of an empire is an empire of one?

[latkje]

It depends on the one. [ A gesture— almost a bow. ]

Anyway, you probably weren't the only one from your world that they fished out. Just the only one who's woken up.

[vorrutyer]

[ His smile is thin as he takes a drag off his cigarette. He is aware. Painfully aware. In spite of all his jesting, in spite of his ironic posture towards his title, he does take it seriously. Because he is the emperor for all those people in stasis. There are countless Barrayaran subjects, and he is the only one who can see them awake. The job of an emperor indeed - to save his subjects.

But to admit that would be to admit...weakness. ]

So how did your father control you, dear maiden?

[latkje]

[ He watches Byerly's reaction, because it never occurred to Nash to declare himself the High Priest of Harmonia, partly because that is really, really not how it works, but also because he cares more about protecting people, in the abstract, more than he cares about protecting Harmonians. He did make his favorite bargain with the Nysans: he'd go along with their terms and conditions, if they save his sister. ]

The usual way a father controls a daughter, I would think. I only learned to be disobedient later. He was right though— I do lack the stomach for politics.

[ All those killing school lessons for nothing. ]

[vorrutyer]

Nowhere you can go where he wouldn't control you.

[ There's something a bit guarded, a bit inscrutable, in his voice. ]

Usually control is direct. Do-this-or-suffer-the-consequences. A father would have to have his claws in truly deep to control you from a distance.

[latkje]

Oh, the surest cages are the ones we hang around ourselves. I bet you already knew that.

[vorrutyer]

[ He doesn't respond to that. Instead, bluntly: ]

Were you kicked out? Or did you leave voluntarily?

[latkje]

[ Tricky, tricky. ]

I left.

[ A pause. If we're revisiting the angst of his early twenties, his regret was that he left. He could have stayed, but he left. ]

When I went back, my parents were dead.

[vorrutyer]

Ah. Of what cause?

[latkje]

Disease.

[ Is it a lie if that's still the official story? Yes, it probably is. ]

[vorrutyer]

Hm.

[ He doesn't have any real reason to doubt that - well. Aside from a naturally suspicious nature, of course. ]

You must feel guilty.

[latkje]

I've already seen a priest about it.

[ Bad form, but he laughs a little at his own joke. ]

Were you expecting a tale of murder and revenge? Much like your life as a secret agent, I'd expect.

[vorrutyer]

[ His voice regains some of its lightness. ]

I was certainly hoping for it. It's so much more exciting. And satisfying, too. I'd sooner have a loved one murdered than have them die of some illness.

[latkje]

Illness does usually take longer.

[ There's a waver in his tone. He does feel guilty, though it's not nearly so terrible as it once was.]

How did your father die?