Festibility: Prompt Post
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access_fandomWelcome to the Festibility prompts post!
Festibility is a fandom festival accepting all kinds of fanworks (fic, meta, art, icons, podfic, vids, recs, picspams, drabble sets etc) about disabled characters. Works can focus on canonically disabled characters or canonically able-bodied characters that you reimagine as disabled. Pieces can be as long or short as you like. You can find out more at the Festibility announcement post on access_fandom!
Here’s how the prompts will work:
Prompts can be general or fandom- or character-specific. You can also choose to specify a type of disability. Be creative and have fun. Post prompts now through September 15th!
Fills can be posted starting Thursday, July 15th and the posting period goes until September 15th. We encourage you to post disability-centric fanworks toaccess_fandom after the close of the fest. After September 15th, please post to the community instead of commenting here, and link back to the prompt (if any) that inspired you.
Nest Your Responses. Respond directly to a prompt with the text of your story in the comment or a link to the story if it is posted elsewhere.
Anonymous commenting is allowed. To post anonymously when logged in, click on 'More Options' and pick 'Anonymous'. Do not ask anyone to reveal themselves if they choose to post anonymously.
Warnings:
We want warnings to be a community standard for this festival. If you need help putting warnings on your fan work, please ask your beta or contact a moderator. We accept “Choose Not To Warn” as a warning, but in the interest of making this fest as accessible as possible we prefer to have works be labeled with specific trigger warnings.
ETA: Please state one of the following on your work: "No warnings apply", "Choose Not to Warn" or include warnings/content notes mentioning any triggering material that does apply to your work. Marking your work in this way helps people with triggers to navigate the Festibility responses. Thank you! /ETA
Warn for common triggers even if the prompt implies some. You must warn for common violent or sexual triggers. Unwarned stories/art are subject to immediate screening at the mods' discretion.
o Triggers to warn for:
o non-con, dub-con, and rape
o character death
o suicide
o self-injury
o child abuse
o graphic torture
o incest
o underage (under the age of 18)
o extremely ableist language
o mind control
o If you are uncertain if you should include a warning, better safe than sorry.
The above list is not all-inclusive or meant to be limiting: people can and should warn for other things. You can gray out warnings or spoilers using this code that amadi posted, which also works for screenreaders.
If you have a policy of not warning, you must put "Author does not warn" in the subject line. Failure to do so will result in immediate screening/deletion.
Post links to NSFW images or images that require warnings. Do not embed them.
Single prompts can be answered as many times as you wish.
Anonymous posting and commenting is allowed.
Language reminder: Please say “has diabetes”, don’t say “suffers from diabetes” or “suffers hearing loss” when describing someone’s disability. Please say “uses a wheelchair” or similarly neutral language, do not say “wheelchair bound” or “confined to a wheelchair”. Please do not use ableist or other oppressive pejoratives such as “lame”. For more about inclusive language, click on the language tag of this community. Also, please do not include disabilities in your content warnings--It is disrespectful to cast a piece of someone's identity as a warning.
ETA: There have been some concerns raised about this language policy. For clarification, this language reminder is meant more for prompt suggestion than for actual fic. You are allowed to use whatever language you like in your fan fic. If there is a lot of ableist language in your fic, we would prefer that you warn for it in your fic headers. You are also welcome to address the negative as well as the positive aspects of living with a disability.
Thank you for participating! Let the prompts begin!
Festibility is a fandom festival accepting all kinds of fanworks (fic, meta, art, icons, podfic, vids, recs, picspams, drabble sets etc) about disabled characters. Works can focus on canonically disabled characters or canonically able-bodied characters that you reimagine as disabled. Pieces can be as long or short as you like. You can find out more at the Festibility announcement post on access_fandom!
Here’s how the prompts will work:
Prompts can be general or fandom- or character-specific. You can also choose to specify a type of disability. Be creative and have fun. Post prompts now through September 15th!
Fills can be posted starting Thursday, July 15th and the posting period goes until September 15th. We encourage you to post disability-centric fanworks to
access_fandom after the close of the fest. After September 15th, please post to the community instead of commenting here, and link back to the prompt (if any) that inspired you. Nest Your Responses. Respond directly to a prompt with the text of your story in the comment or a link to the story if it is posted elsewhere.
Anonymous commenting is allowed. To post anonymously when logged in, click on 'More Options' and pick 'Anonymous'. Do not ask anyone to reveal themselves if they choose to post anonymously.
Warnings:
We want warnings to be a community standard for this festival. If you need help putting warnings on your fan work, please ask your beta or contact a moderator. We accept “Choose Not To Warn” as a warning, but in the interest of making this fest as accessible as possible we prefer to have works be labeled with specific trigger warnings.
ETA: Please state one of the following on your work: "No warnings apply", "Choose Not to Warn" or include warnings/content notes mentioning any triggering material that does apply to your work. Marking your work in this way helps people with triggers to navigate the Festibility responses. Thank you! /ETA
Warn for common triggers even if the prompt implies some. You must warn for common violent or sexual triggers. Unwarned stories/art are subject to immediate screening at the mods' discretion.
o Triggers to warn for:
o non-con, dub-con, and rape
o character death
o suicide
o self-injury
o child abuse
o graphic torture
o incest
o underage (under the age of 18)
o extremely ableist language
o mind control
o If you are uncertain if you should include a warning, better safe than sorry.
The above list is not all-inclusive or meant to be limiting: people can and should warn for other things. You can gray out warnings or spoilers using this code that amadi posted, which also works for screenreaders.
If you have a policy of not warning, you must put "Author does not warn" in the subject line. Failure to do so will result in immediate screening/deletion.
Post links to NSFW images or images that require warnings. Do not embed them.
Single prompts can be answered as many times as you wish.
Anonymous posting and commenting is allowed.
Language reminder: Please say “has diabetes”, don’t say “suffers from diabetes” or “suffers hearing loss” when describing someone’s disability. Please say “uses a wheelchair” or similarly neutral language, do not say “wheelchair bound” or “confined to a wheelchair”. Please do not use ableist or other oppressive pejoratives such as “lame”. For more about inclusive language, click on the language tag of this community. Also, please do not include disabilities in your content warnings--It is disrespectful to cast a piece of someone's identity as a warning.
ETA: There have been some concerns raised about this language policy. For clarification, this language reminder is meant more for prompt suggestion than for actual fic. You are allowed to use whatever language you like in your fan fic. If there is a lot of ableist language in your fic, we would prefer that you warn for it in your fic headers. You are also welcome to address the negative as well as the positive aspects of living with a disability.
Thank you for participating! Let the prompts begin!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-10 05:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-11 12:42 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-11 01:41 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-07-11 01:56 am (UTC)Beginning of commentfic: Ship Duty
Date: 2010-08-06 01:16 am (UTC)Fandom: Vorkosigan Series, between Brothers in Arms and Memory
Rating: Gen
Warnings: None apply so far, but unfinished. I'll note if it changes. Um, this is the first fanfic I’ve ever posted, so that’s the warning.
Ship Duty
Lieutenant Lord Ivan Vorpatril looked at Captain Duvalier and smiled thinly. “Ship duty?” he echoed, feeling hollow. Anything more coherent seemed beyond him.
Duvalier grinned. “You’ve been complaining for years about being stuck dirtside, and you deserve better. Never say I never did anything for you.”
“I would never say that, sir,” Ivan said automatically. He was sure his smile was sickly, but his superior didn’t seem to notice. He was too happy with himself -- and really, Ivan reminded himself, why shouldn’t he be? Ivan had complained about being stuck dirtside. Whined, even. He knew it. He even knew why. But somehow, telling Duvalier that he’d been lying for the past three years -- that all his moaning about working on nice, large planets with nice, wide horizons and nice, big rooms had been a put-on? Not going to happen. Not in this lifetime.
“Thank you, sir,” he said, because Duvalier had earned it. Saying Fuck you for putting me back in one of those goddamned tin coffins seemed pretty unfair, all things considered.
#
Ivan staggered back to his flat, only to find Byerly Vorrutyer sitting outside his door, legs stretched out to trip him. He managed not to fall. “What are you doing here?” he demanded, though it may not have come out quite right.
“Congratulating you,” By said cheerfully. “You’ve got what you always wanted, I heard.”
“Fuck you,” Ivan said, but without any heat, and leaned against the wall because the floor wasn’t level any more.
By looked him up and down. “Not in your condition. Come on, I’ll help you in.”
He fumbled the keycard, and didn’t object when By picked it up and opened the door. Then By put a very solid arm around him and dragged him in, to the couch, and set him down. “You’re used to this,” Ivan observed, meaning, manhandling drunks. “Why are you here?”
By had disappeared, though. Ivan waited, and he reappeared, this time with a glass of water. “Because they’re giving you ship duty, and you’re going to do something stupid about it. Drink.”
There was something in the water, though he couldn’t taste it. Suddenly, Ivan was stone cold sober. “What is that stuff?”
“Water. And a little something from Escobar. You’re a very trusting drunk, you know.”
“Yeah,” Ivan sighed. How could he have let Byerly Vorrutyer into his flat? Though he had to admit that Byerly hadn’t even said anything nasty yet. “Why are you here? I want an answer this time.”
By sighed back. “Look. It doesn’t serve anyone if you crash your damned car or something else like that at the moment.”
“I don’t know why it would bother you,” Ivan said suspiciously. “You don’t like me. You don’t do anything but flirt and buy clothes.”
By smiled sweetly and made an expansive gesture with his hands. “Ivan, Ivan, Ivan. Do you know how many men, discovering that you are so decidedly heterosexual, turn to the nearest Vor faggot for consolation? Believe me, dear boy, I would be heartbroken if you should damage your pretty face.”
It was almost believable. But there was something off with what By was saying -- though it was true that By slept with men, and very few Vor advertised such a thing, and yes Ivan had gently refused a number of uninteresting offers in that vein.... By was a very good actor, but for once Ivan had the sense that he was acting. “That makes no sense,” he said. “First of all, why do you think I’m due for an accident?”
“I think you’d cut out your eyes if it would get you out of ship duty,” By said frankly, dropping the pose. “You wouldn’t have to do anything deliberate. Everyone knows you drive like a maniac. Just think of being in that ship while driving....” He trailed off. Ivan felt a little green.
“I’d rather not, thank you,” he said stiffly. Conceding the point, he supposed. “Why would you notice? Why would you care?”
“Notice? I notice everything. The only enclosed space you’ll get into is your car, and no one thinks you’re exactly sane in that thing. Care?” By shrugged. “I told you why. Take it or leave it.”
“Huh. Well, I’m sober now and I’m hungry. Don’t expect me to feed you,” he said, and wandered into the kitchen. He heated up some of what his mother disdainfully called “bachelor chow” and considered a bottle of wine, but settled on some tea instead.
Sadly, By had taken over the couch when he returned. He sat in the chair, his dinner tray in his lap. “Still here? If you’re so hard up, why’d you turn me down? Not that I was offering.”
By blinked at the change in subject. “You were drunk, and I knew perfectly well you weren’t offering.”
“What does my sobriety have to do with it?” Ivan asked between bites. He did not recall anyone ever turning him down on the grounds of his drunkenness. Other reasons, sure, but not that.
“You may have heard of my wicked uncle,” he said dryly. “Everyone thinks I have, shall we say, similar sexual proclivities, but my only real fetish is for consent.”
Ivan considered that, and the implications. “Do you think women can give meaningful consent?” he asked slowly, feeling the click as certain pieces of history and knowledge fitted together finally.
By looked very satisfied at the question, as though it answered something for him. “In general? Of course. On Barrayar? Let’s just say that I need...evidence.”
“And why are you telling me this?”
By looked up to the ceiling. His expression was so patiently exasperated that he looked a little like Ivan’s mother. “I don’t know. Maybe so you’ll stop pretending and admit you’re claustrophobic as fuck?”
“Oh. That.”
“Yes, that. Ship duty, man. I have to protect my steady stream of disappointed Ivanophiles, remember? Focus.”
Ivan laughed, because he had been meant to, but then found he had nothing else to say. Because what did you say when someone you’ve despised for years, in a general way, finds out your darkest secret and says he wants to help you? He didn’t exactly believe the reason, but he did believe that, unlikely as it was, By wanted to help. Not for the disappointed Ivanophiles -- or at least, not solely because of them -- but he was somehow sure it was genuine.
“All right,” he said slowly. “I don’t like small spaces. Ever since Earth.... I couldn’t take the trip back. I was in sick bay for the physical stuff, I didn’t even have to do anything, and I just kept taking tranqs one after another.... They therapized me, y’know? By the end, I wasn’t taking anything at all. I could walk and talk just like a real boy.”
“But you still weren’t doing anything,” By said gently.
“If I’m on a ship with real duties, I’ll get someone killed.”
“Yes,” By agreed; when Ivan looked at him, he added, “I’ve seen you drive.”
“I’m not that unsafe,” he protested.
“No, of course not, not driving.” By was using that gentle voice again, which ought to have been annoying but wasn’t. “So the therapy didn’t take?”
He laughed and then stopped, because it didn’t sound like laughter. It sounded horribly bitter. “They stopped at Beta Colony on the way. It went very well, you know.”
By nodded. “The Betans have a very good opinion of their therapies. It might not occur to them that it wouldn’t work, if you were acting as though it were. You can be very convincing. I thought you were an idiot for almost two decades. Even your family....” he shook his head. “Do you know why I hate Vorkosigan?” he asked suddenly.
What could he say? You may have heard of my wicked uncle. Such a flippant way to refer to one of the more flagrant sadists and war criminals in Barrayar’s bloody history. “Yes.”
“I’m not going to stand by and do nothing.”
As Uncle Aral had, for years. Ivan had some suspicions about the wicked uncle’s death, but that had been a long time coming. “This is hardly similar,” Ivan protested.
By just stood up. “You should sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow about your little problem.” He let himself out.
#
Ivan finished his dinner and his tea and sat in the chair for a long time. Every time he drifted off, he heard the faint sound of water, dripping on metal.
Re: Beginning of commentfic: Ship Duty
Date: 2010-08-06 01:30 am (UTC)Re: Beginning of commentfic: Ship Duty
Date: 2010-08-06 03:09 am (UTC)Re: Beginning of commentfic: Ship Duty
Date: 2010-08-06 01:32 am (UTC)Re: Beginning of commentfic: Ship Duty
Date: 2010-08-06 04:02 am (UTC)I have been writing it, just not so much posting it. But if I post it, I have to finish it, right? Anyway, there is more.
Re: Beginning of commentfic: Ship Duty
Date: 2010-08-06 01:35 am (UTC)Barrayarans. *shakes head*
Re: Beginning of commentfic: Ship Duty
Date: 2010-08-06 03:52 am (UTC)This really is gen. But they play off each other SO WELL. Thank you!
Re: Beginning of commentfic: Ship Duty
Date: 2010-08-06 03:16 am (UTC)Of all the things that make me shudder about it, the comment about Betan therapy makes me shudder the worst. We know the ways Barrayar is broken, inside and out. Beta ... is subtle.
Re: Beginning of commentfic: Ship Duty
Date: 2010-08-06 04:06 am (UTC)Betan Therapy (tm) creeps me out, too, but I wasn't foreshadowing anything scary there ('cuz if I were, I would seriously have warned for it, because SCARY PSYCHOTHERAPISTS should be a warning). No secret psychotherapy trauma.
Re: Beginning of commentfic: Ship Duty
Date: 2010-08-06 04:20 am (UTC)Re: Beginning of commentfic: Ship Duty
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2010-08-06 12:54 pm (UTC) - ExpandShip Duty 2
Date: 2010-08-06 04:00 am (UTC)There was a party. Ivan smiled a lot, and drank more. When he got home, his bad-luck charm was sitting in the hall again, dozing. Ivan dropped his keycard on By's head, startling him awake. "Don't be an ass," By muttered, and opened the door. He fetched the magic water again, too. Ivan wondered, again, why he was allowing this.
"It's given me a headache this time," he noted.
By frowned at him, and then his face cleared with understanding. "Take enough stimulants before the alcohol, and it will do that. You were supposed to sleep."
Ivan shuddered involuntarily.
"Yeah, right. Okay." By had brought out water for himself, this time, too. He set it down on the little book-table and began pacing briskly; fortunately, his soft soles didn't make any noise. "Options. You could tell them."
Ivan shook his head. "Do you know what that will do to my career?"
By crooked a smile. "Ok. Suicide!" he suggested brightly.
Ivan said "No!" very promptly and certainly, but only because he'd thought about it. He wasn't interested in dying; he just didn't want to be on a ship in the closed-up dark with the water dripping dripping shut up shut up stupid brain. "Neither career suicide nor personal suicide are options."
"I'm glad to hear you say it. You know, if I thought it were, I wouldn't be here?"
"No?"
"While you certainly have every right to off yourself if you wish, Vor have a tendency to take out a lot of bystanders with them."
"You're concerned for the bystanders?" Ivan said, a little disbelieving.
He replied, with a wounded look, "If I thought you might actually put yourself in a position to harm others, I would have shared your little secret with someone who could stop you a long time ago."
"Who?" Ivan asked. He wondered if that were relief he felt. Or...pride. That someone else agreed that he wasn't a danger to others, even though he'd been so since he'd been born. If he wanted to be maudlin, which he didn't, he'd call it his life's work. No one dies for me. He'd succeeded, mostly, and could hardly be blamed for things that happened before he was born. Right.
By stopped to drink his water, and then mused, "I'm not sure who I'd tell. Your mother, perhaps."
"God."
"Or maybe an anonymous note to Illyan. But it's a moot point -- you're not a threat to our fair citizens. The point is to get you out of ship duty, short of suicide or career-limiting disclosures."
"Right. And how do you propose to do that?"
"Damned if I know. We could rough you up. You couldn't ship out with enough physical damage."
"One, it's three weeks; two, Aunt Cordelia has the best clinics on the planet; three, they'd just find another ship posting." He'd considered that, too.
By nodded. "So they would. Ok, beating the shit out of you is a non-starter. Pity, that."
His look of mock-regret -- and it was sham, Ivan was sure -- was really funny, somehow. "I thought your only fetish was consent," Ivan said, mimicking By's tone from the previous evening.
His expression was downright cherubic. "You'd be consenting, wouldn't you? Except you're not. Next option. Hmm, could you tell His Majesty? Privately? He doesn't seem the sort to kill your career for it."
Ivan had thought of that, too. Gregor would fix it. He did not want Gregor to fix it. The Emperor did not need to have his distant cousins asking him to fix things for them. "That is...a last resort. The last resort. So we have one. A last resort, I mean."
"Ah," By breathed. "It's good to have one," he agreed, then looked at Ivan expectantly.
Ivan tried to think of something. "I could prove myself incompetent at...something."
By shook his head. "You had ship duty before, right? No one would believe it, not enough to get you out of the post. And that's too close to career-limiting...." He trailed off in a way that indicated some thought was blossoming inside his twisty brain.
It was unsettlingly close to one of Cousin Miles' expressions. Ivan hoped the impetus wasn't like one of Cousin Miles' notions. "You have an idea," he said, his voice going flat, but By didn't seem to notice.
"What you need is a posting that has to stay on-planet. On this planet, because you couldn't exactly travel to any of the other ones easily."
"I made it here from Earth -- " Ivan protested.
By flapped his arms to shush him; his face had the beatific expression of the newly enlightened. "What you need, Lieutenant Lord Vorpatril, is a promotion."
Re: Ship Duty 2
Date: 2010-08-06 04:22 am (UTC)Re: Ship Duty 2
Date: 2010-08-06 06:14 pm (UTC)Ship Duty 3: Now with warnings!
Date: 2010-08-06 02:52 pm (UTC)#
“A promotion?” Ivan laughed at that; By looked hurt. “I’d just be promoted to ship duty."
“Not an ordinary promotion. The kind where you can ask for your next assignment -- and get it.”
Ivan shook his head. “Those don’t exactly grow on trees.”
By had taken the chair and pulled out a datapadd; he was scribbling at a furious rate. “No,” he said slowly. “Not trees. But they do grow on treason. Yes, this could do very well.... I mean finding it, not committing it, by the way.”
“I know what you meant,” Ivan snapped, suddenly angry. “I’m not going to let some nefarious scheme come to fruition just so I can get me some glory or whatever the hell you’re thinking of.”
By looked up from the datapadd, his expression very calm. He was angry, too; he wasn’t trying to hide it, so much, as control it. He didn’t look fribbly at all any more. He looked like he could beat the shit out of Ivan and not for fun. “You are confusing me with someone else,” he said, very crisply. “I do not stand aside. That said, I can’t exactly be jumping at shadows, either. No one will take my word about the Vorlaigles. Hell, I don’t even take my word about the Vorlaigles.”
There was bad blood of some kind between the Vorrutyers and the Vorlaigles; Ivan didn’t know the details, didn’t want to know, but every Vor hostess knew better than to invite members of both families to her soirée. If someone did and she were lucky, her guests would merely walk out on her; there had been some scandals, when Ivan was a child, that he vaguely remembered included bloodshed. If By thought the Vorlaigles were up to something -- why? – he was right that no one would believe him.
“I won’t press some claim just on your say-so,” he said, though he knew he was looking for a reason to still be mad. By couldn’t be so stupid as to expect him to do anything like that.
“No, no. You’ll find out. I only talk like I’m doubtful, because I know I’m biased. I’m sure. This will work. You find out, you bring it to proper authorities, they throw roseleaves on you, you ask for some cushy post in HQ. We could make sure you get nicely beaten up somehow. All the girls will throw themselves at you.”
“And the Ivanophiles.”
“Just so.” By cheered at the thought, briefly.
“So what’s your beef with the Vorlaigles?” Ivan asked. “And why are you so sure they are plotting treason?”
By frowned. “How much of that history do you know?”
A shrug. “I know not to invite a Vorrutyer and a Vorlaigle to the same party. Beyond that....”
“Ok. This goes back -- way back. The Count Vorlaigle at that time opposed the invasion of Escobar.”
“That does go back.” Before he was born, certainly. How much older was Byerly? He had to admit he wasn’t entirely sure: By was the only person he knew of who had successfully gotten himself kicked out of every Vor school he’d been enrolled in, and so he had no idea how many grades ahead of him By had been. Funny how kids measured time in schoolyears. A few. Maybe not so many. Did he even have a diploma? He looked pretty young, but he also had a reputation for using fancy face creams to be pretty, and avoiding hard work and the sun.
By, unaware of his distraction, was explaining thirty years of Vor feud with admirable economy. “Basically, Prince Serg and Sainted Uncle Ges ended their opposition. The Vorlaigle heir was found drowned in a sewer in the Caravanserai in Vorbarr Sultana.”
“Argh.” The sewer did not seem appreciably better than, say, a tidal pump on the Thames river. Possibly less stink.
“Sorry.” He actually did seem apologetic. “No one proved it was them, but no one would, either. They also assaulted Countess Vorlaigle.”
“A Countess?” Ivan said, incredulous.
“It was hushed up,” By said sourly. “Anyway. That is why they hate the Vorrutyers. They can’t exactly hate the Emperor for it.”
“At least not publicly.”
“Exactly. They feud with us, but my family has not exactly been shy in returning the favor. I’m not even sure if my cousins know why.”
“You don’t seem the feuding type, though,” Ivan observed. “Why are you so biased?”
By fumbled his stylus. Ivan almost didn’t see it; he caught himself quickly and smoothly and then it was as if nothing had happened. “Not long after the war, they decided to return the favor on one of Ges’ relatives, never mind that my Uncle was dead and wouldn’t have cared anyway. I’m fine,” he insisted, waving his hand. Ivan nodded. Of course he was. “They were amateurs.” Now that was an unsettling thought, that By had opinions on the quality of his abuse. “But I’m not a trustworthy witness against them.”
“No, I can see that. Who’s involved, d’you think?”
“The current Count’s younger brother and sister, and possibly the Dowager Countess.”
“The Dowager Countess Vorlaigle?” Ivan repeated in shock. He knew neither of Count Vorlaigle’s younger sibs except by sight: they were near his own age, and handsome, though the girl was brunette while the rest of the family was blond. She’d always been acknowledged a Vorlaigle, though. He’d exchanged polite words with the Count -- very polite, they’d taken each other in instant dislike -- but he didn’t remember hearing of a Dowager Countesses Vorlaigle in his lifetime.
By looked very grim. “They ‘hushed it up’ by putting her in an insane asylum. Not one of the nice ones. She’s been moved around a few times, but never let out. I don’t know if she was mad then – probably, since my uncle was nothing if not thorough -- but she probably is now. And if she does want revenge, she has reason. If she were aimed at Serg and Ges, I’d give her a disrupter and cheer.”
“Wait. The younger Vorlaigles were born after the war. Whose children are they?” Divorce among the high Vor was unheard of, even in extreme cases of madness and abuse, and anyway she wouldn’t still be Dowager Countess -- or obscure -- oh. Ivan swallowed his rising gorge. Conjugal visits to the insane asylum, for someone who had been treated as Prince Serg was known to treat women...that was vile.
By apparently saw from his face that he didn’t need to answer. “I believe that, denied their right to justice, they have turned to a more serious sort of revenge than just hurting teenagers for the hell of it.”
Ivan suddenly remembered something that turned the idea of treason from being too implausibly long-term, after three decades, to seeming the natural, almost proper, order of the Vorlaigle lives. “Isn’t...isn't the Vorlaigle girl’s name Jessie?”
“Why do you think I believe they will never forget?” By replied. He looked more sad than anything else. “I don’t want them to have been planning treason. I don’t want them executed. I want them -- salvaged. Somehow. Why do you think I’ve let this sit as long as I have?”
Ivan could understand that. He really could. But he’d always known that By’s venom and vanity hid a lethally sharp understanding of people; how could his darts find their target without it? He believed, down to his toes, that By was right about the Vorlaigles. He wondered how long By had thought them acting on treason, and stood aside in guilt and self-doubt. “And you think I can do it?”
“I can’t think of anyone else who’d bother to try.”
Ship Duty Apology
Date: 2010-08-06 06:50 pm (UTC)I'm sorry. I should have been more careful in my search for French-derived names.
V. busy at work
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2010-08-10 03:44 am (UTC) - ExpandRe: V. busy at work
From:Re: Ship Duty 3: Now with warnings!
From:Re: Ship Duty 3: Now with warnings!
From:Re: Ship Duty 3: Now with warnings!
From:Re: Ship Duty 3: Now with warnings!
From:Re: Ship Duty 3: Now with warnings!
From:Re: Ship Duty 3: Now with warnings!
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2010-08-29 12:00 am (UTC) - ExpandRe: Ship Duty 3: Now with warnings!
From:Re: Ship Duty 3: Now with warnings!
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2010-09-01 07:15 pm (UTC) - ExpandRe: Ship Duty 3: Now with warnings!
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2010-12-27 01:54 pm (UTC) - ExpandShip Duty EVERYTHING
From: (Anonymous) - Date: 2010-12-27 08:17 am (UTC) - ExpandRe: Ship Duty EVERYTHING
From:Re: Ship Duty 2
Date: 2010-08-13 06:26 pm (UTC)(I've always felt sorry that LMB didn't write more about the "Donna/Dono" and pre-story of that decision - in my opinion it's a story that deserves its own book).
Re: Beginning of commentfic: Ship Duty
Date: 2010-08-13 06:09 pm (UTC)Re: Beginning of commentfic: Ship Duty
Date: 2010-08-14 02:24 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-27 08:19 am (UTC)I'm terribly sorry for the wait.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-27 01:20 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-12-27 01:28 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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