[ 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

[vorrutyer]

Speaking from experience, fair maid?

[ His smile has returned to lightly mocking. ]

[latkje]

[ He tilts his head. ]

Are you?

[vorrutyer]

[ By watches Nash for a moment, then answers. ]

After a fashion. I was too young to fight in the War of Vordarian's Pretendership, but I remember it. Not my warmest childhood memories.

[latkje]

[ He nods. ]

I was born in 437, a little too late to remember the Sanady Rebellion. [ He was about five, when it ended. ] But I remember what came after. Wagons of children, my own age, sent to the capitol. They were— very thin. All their clothes were new. I wasn't allowed to play with them, and I didn't understand why.

[vorrutyer]

[ By's eyes narrow just a little bit. He's not entirely certain of the significance of those children - why wasn't Nash allowed...? He hazards - ]

Refugees?

[ Or - slaves? But that's a horrifying possibility. ]

[latkje]

Something like that. They were sent to be educated. Brought up with good manners and the correct values.

[ Away from their families, their homes, their culture. That's why they were given new clothes. As a strategy, it had the double effect of demoralizing dissidents and indoctrinating a new generation of loyalists. Two birds felled with one stone. That economy had a particular appeal to the Holy Kingdom, which was always trying to accomplish much while moving little. ]

[vorrutyer]

Ah. Instead of the ones that the rebels held.

[ There's a slight frown of disapproval on Byerly's brow. Barrayarans, after all, are more comfortable with annihilation than colonization. But he doesn't express it outright; he hardly knows all the details, and he did just call for an end to war. ]

And did that serve to keep the peace?

[latkje]

Oh, yeah. Not a whisper of rebellion from Sanadia for decades.

[ It doesn't always go so smoothly, but in this case, it did. ]

I wonder, though, if the Nathans will have us all dressing in new clothes before long. [ They are being made to deny where they come from, for the purposes of some inscrutable scheme or whim. ]

Not that I have any trouble denying where I come from.

[vorrutyer]

Ah.

[ By runs a hand along his jaw in grim thought. ]

But your people took those children, at least in part, as hostages. Who would we be held hostage against? Our people cartainly aren't about to attempt a daring rescue.

[latkje]

No, but…

[ He can't help but look up. ]

If they're the hostages, and not us, does it really change the play? Sometimes an actor has to multiple parts.

[vorrutyer]

[ He lifts his eyebrows in acknowledgment of this. Fair enough. ]

I do wonder, sometimes, if our celestial overlords simply craved a strange little menagerie. If the story of the storm simply keeps us docile.

[latkje]

Or perhaps, milord, you are simply the destined king.

[vorrutyer]

Heaven preserve me. I'd sooner cut my own throat than be a king in truth.

[ He tilts his chin up towards Nash. ]

Be honest. Do you really think you were chosen by some higher power?

[latkje]

No. [ A shrug.] But I don’t know that I wasn’t. [ Maybe one day he’ll explain his whacked-out “108 Stars of Destiny” theory.]

What makes you think the Nathans meant to wake you up?

[vorrutyer]

And that it wasn't an accident? That I simply wasn't one of the healthy ones, like they say?

[ He shrugs. ]

My naturally suspicious nature, I suppose. [ Less glibly - ] There are a great many people in my world, and a great many people in yours. What percentage of them are spies and warriors and magicians?

[latkje]

You mean how almost everyone here has the look of a protagonist? Present company excepted.

It’s a point.

[vorrutyer]

[ Mildly: ] How rude.

But - after a fashion, yes. I skipped my lessons on mathematics - and demographics - but in my home, most people are farmers and laborers. The same in yours, I should think. Yet here we are, two devilishly useful men, plucked out of all the millions. The Orbiters are fighting a war, no? I shudder for our chances of winning if they're truly reviving their soldiers at random. They're idiots, if that's the case.

[latkje]

Byerly, you talk way too much to be a protagonist. [ He's seen them before, he knows the type. ]

If the Orbiters are trying to win a war, there are people they could've gotten that are more useful than me.

[vorrutyer]

Protagonists can talk a lot. Haven't you ever read Hamlet?

[ Then, with a shake of his head: ] Every key has its lock. The key does not know what it was forged for, no, but the blacksmith knows. [ A less cryptic translation: ] Take it from a drunken shambling fool who was made into a spy: sometimes others see your use when you do not.

[latkje]

[ He raises an eyebrow. ]

"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will." [ He couldn't tell you who wrote the play, though. These things just appear in random chests. ]

[vorrutyer]

Are you quoting Hamlet? That sounds vaguely familiar. I'll be honest, I haven't actually read it myself. Did see it performed once, though. It was when I was very high. Spectacular experience. Highly recommend it.

[ He laughs shortly, then gestures at the sky. ]

The locals here say they're gods, don't they? Perhaps they're the divinity shaping our ends.

[latkje]

My missus doesn't like it that I know poetry. Can't be helped, though.

[ Anyway, let's return to the more interesting part of that last bit. ]

Did you see the play before or after some darker power plucked you from drunken obscurity and made you into a spy?

[vorrutyer]

[ By waggles his finger at Nash. ]

Drunken notoriety, my friend. [ Then, with a sigh - ] But - before. I associated with many actors, opera-singers - undesirables of all sorts.

[latkje]

Like me. I am well-known to the theater-goers of the Zexen borderlands. [ Playing roles such as sheep, guard, and narrator. ]

But continue.

[vorrutyer]

Heavens. I knew you were a loathsome ne'er-do-well the moment I saw you.

[ But By shrugs. ]

The war they're fighting - if it is a true war, and not simply something to keep us docile - it's rather beyond our comprehension. To fight against a shapeless darkness. How can you know you're not of use?