[ He's tired. He aches all over. He wonders if he's done the right thing - because is this possibly the right thing? To stay here, in this era, in these circumstances, in this time of war, when he could have returned home? He finds his hands nearly tremble with his hunger for Vorbarr Sultana, for a glass of wine, for a night spent on a bed stuffed with synthetic goose feathers with sheets made of synthetic silk - for a trip off-world - for the certainty of his home. Now that there's no chance of return, he wants it more than he thought possible. ]
Dear Rani.
[ He bows to her, a lock of hair falling over his forehead as he straightens. He settles down across from her. His smile is not, perhaps, fully convincing. ]
[ She still favours her side, even after resting the wound as long as she could possibly stand being still. Leaning her weight heavily on way, letting her arm hook back over the chair languidly to support herself. A faked ease, but held at least. Not so much because she doesn't expect it to be seen through by him with his sharp eyes, but simply that she couldn't allow herself to ever be less.
Sure that she looked as hellish after this war's end as he did. That exhaustion which was so palatable thing - but this wasn't her home. She could scarce imagine what it was to look over all of this and know your home laid in the balance, some future that was beyond you now. ]
It is good to see you alive, still. I thought the celebrations might have done you under in drink.
[ His eyes sweep over her, taking her in. Good to see you alive. It's...shocking, in its way, that she made it through. But that's the way of it, isn't it? Life isn't cruel all the time. Just most of it. ]
It is how I aspire to go. [ A hand, pressed to his chest, and a mock-wistful sigh. ] I've been working at it for years...One of these days it'll take.
[ The smile is a grimaced flicker - but it's there and it's hers, letting her eyes lower to the chess board between them.
An easy point there, as she forms the words longer in her mind - this isn't something she both can and cannot approach with her usual directness. Ripping things apart with her bare hands served only so well most of the time. It was why it had to be him. He had an eye and a grace she simply... lacked. A talent she had never possessed, even before she had scars to take away all her soft edges. ]
Will you join me in a game? I would like your company for a moment, and a request of you I will need you to consider carefully.
[ He flicks his eyelashes down at her. It's a lie, of course, though not much of one. He's cautious more often than reckless - but good god, when he's reckless. Perhaps it's why they get on, in spite of their phenomenal differences.
He leans forward, studying the board, and confesses: ]
I never did quite get the hang of chess. Strategic thinking is not - hm - my forte.
[ She rolls forward to press her fingers on one corner of the chess table. Spinning to on its axis so that his preferred choice is facing him. Then settling back.
Now, now came the choice, the moves. Hers - first, his second. How it seems to be their pattern. Her fingers slide over the pieces, and all first steps are the same, aren't they? The pawns, all a row, all first steps, all set apace to each other. Only one step that was theirs. Just like that, she can't imagine how he will react to the proposition. But to deliberate too long would be to act like she had some overall plan beyond the immediate.
Her fingers curl against the top of the piece, settings first, second finger and thumb to it as she lifts it clean up from the board for just that one step. ]
[ He chokes, with his finger on a pawn; the sudden jerk tips the piece over, sends it crashing down. He coughs, drops his head, looks up at her, eyes gone a little wide. She's joking. She has to be -
[ Plainly serious, she doesn't so much as blink when he chokes. ]
Married, Byerly. Joined in body and soul, for this life and the next.
[ She reaches across, to take up the cup of wine that is becoming something of a comfort to her aches and pains, something she would have to watch in the days after her wounds are healed - but for now, she takes a small mouthful.
She carries on, then, like he hadn't just overturned everything in his shock, or like he was being willfully obtuse. ]
I believe the terms for such on Barrayar are different. I am, of course, happy to adhere to the customs here. As I do not think we could find a brahmin to match your stars to mine.
[ He swallows against a mouth gone suddenly dry. Then he forces a laugh, saying - ]
Well. I've been propositioned many a time, but I've never been proposed to.
[ And why does this sound so much more indecent than...oh, a threesome? Or a foursome, or an orgy? He feels like putting his head between his knees, like that'll make the spins go away. ]
[ He looks... like she had just killed a family member in front of her. She blinks again, mild as she could be - it was marriage and he was a Lord.
She was neither nor young, nor a pretty woman, she supposed. Perhaps that was it... and if there was love between them, it was not of the sweeter kind. It was gritted like something hard between the teeth. Latched onto and held. ]
Many reasons, I have spent a great deal of time thinking on this - [ of course she did, like she measured the pieces in front of her. ] - and I concluded we would do each other best in this matter.
I have some matter of prestige here, but I am a woman who cannot be accepted without some concessions on my behalf to the expectations of these... men. [ To her credit, her disgust over the matter is mild. ] You are a spy who is a distant son to a far greater house. If I have understood all that I have been told and all that you have told me: one with something of a reputation. I lend you a certain amount of... my own reputation.
[ Her reputation. Yes. Her bloody reputation. He's struck with the image of himself cowering behind her as she brandishes a sword at some brigands. He'd have to bend down quite far to conceal himself behind her frame. But, well, she does seem to have more of a facility with bloodiness than he does. Maybe she can keep him from getting murdered in this brutal time.
Good god.
As for the reverse - ]
I should protest that - marriage to a dissolute coward will do you no favors, I fancy. None of the men will take you seriously. I can prepare a list of more suitable candidates...
[ Her eyebrow raises. ] And when these candidates want an heir off me? How much will that fuel the new to be Mad Emperor's paranoia that I respected a man of your peerage is siring his heirs off of a foreign Queen?
[ She leans forward then, much as it hurts, but she will look at him and the whole of him. Nor let him look away, either. ] Queen I am, Byerly, one who is honoured by her own people in a way he never will be. Because I am not afraid to put my own blood into the dirt beside my men, whether that is in battle or in tilling a field. I know I am a better ruler than he will be. How do you think that will help his fear when I am a position to have that known?
[ Because she is unable to be other than what she is, do what drives her - the want of a better world. ]
What do you think will become of me if I am given to a respectable gentleman? [ And that, too, its own fear, she draws in a breath, and for that, her eyes lower back to the board, leaned back again with a pained wince. ]
[ It's...a very valid point. By rubs at his mouth uncertainly, brows drawn down. And she's right that a married woman can move more easily in society than an unmarried woman. Marriage shelters her from certain suspicions, certain allegations of indecency...It's safety for her, in its way. But -
I am not young, and you are not a fool. How many of your countrymen would let a woman still wear her blades - dress as I want, act as I want? I don't care if they do not take me seriously, I have had enough of being bound for one life.
[ She swallows down hard, oh she is familiar, so very familiar with how men looked at her. That sits ugly in her mouth, but it gives her what she needs, to go on. ]
I can think of no other man that I would... trust that with, and once I am given, I am wholly given Byerly. You must know that of me by now.
[ She starts to laugh - ow, ow, ow. Shaking her head, and it isn't something she should laugh at, but at least he knows that about her. ]
Naturally, once it became bad enough. I would true enough. [ Then she waves him off, shaking her head as she quiets. ] But that would certainly serve me well, wouldn't? Marry a prominent man, then kill him because a wife would not listen to her husband about what this land as a whole considers decent.
[ And that there is there difference. She goes hard, direct. Perhaps this is why she lost her wars, lost her kingdom. Her jaw sets and rolls against itself. ]
I would never. If a man dishonoured men, he will be killed for it, and all shall know why it has happened. I do not use poison to do my work.
Because I do not use poison. I make my grieves known as plain as any man. [ She sighs, deeper - not so much at Byerly. But at this - all of this. She thought her life done with this but... ]
... So is that to be my choice? Go through husbands, killing them when they dishonour me, treat me poorly until I find one that will treat me as I deserve? How do you suppose that will serve me?
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no subject
Dear Rani.
[ He bows to her, a lock of hair falling over his forehead as he straightens. He settles down across from her. His smile is not, perhaps, fully convincing. ]
no subject
Sure that she looked as hellish after this war's end as he did. That exhaustion which was so palatable thing - but this wasn't her home. She could scarce imagine what it was to look over all of this and know your home laid in the balance, some future that was beyond you now. ]
It is good to see you alive, still. I thought the celebrations might have done you under in drink.
no subject
[ His eyes sweep over her, taking her in. Good to see you alive. It's...shocking, in its way, that she made it through. But that's the way of it, isn't it? Life isn't cruel all the time. Just most of it. ]
It is how I aspire to go. [ A hand, pressed to his chest, and a mock-wistful sigh. ] I've been working at it for years...One of these days it'll take.
no subject
[ The smile is a grimaced flicker - but it's there and it's hers, letting her eyes lower to the chess board between them.
An easy point there, as she forms the words longer in her mind - this isn't something she both can and cannot approach with her usual directness. Ripping things apart with her bare hands served only so well most of the time. It was why it had to be him. He had an eye and a grace she simply... lacked. A talent she had never possessed, even before she had scars to take away all her soft edges. ]
Will you join me in a game? I would like your company for a moment, and a request of you I will need you to consider carefully.
no subject
[ He flicks his eyelashes down at her. It's a lie, of course, though not much of one. He's cautious more often than reckless - but good god, when he's reckless. Perhaps it's why they get on, in spite of their phenomenal differences.
He leans forward, studying the board, and confesses: ]
I never did quite get the hang of chess. Strategic thinking is not - hm - my forte.
no subject
[ A polite dig at them both with an easy laugh that - she immediately regrets. An unhappy grimace. No mirth, fine, fine. ]
Nor is it mine, I'm afraid, we should be well matched.
no subject
[ He gives a little pout, a tiny sigh. ]
But I like it when you crush me.
no subject
[ She smiles again, sliding the board between them. Sweeping her fingers over the board in an easy gesture. ]
White or black?
no subject
[ He winks at her. ]
no subject
Now, now came the choice, the moves. Hers - first, his second. How it seems to be their pattern. Her fingers slide over the pieces, and all first steps are the same, aren't they? The pawns, all a row, all first steps, all set apace to each other. Only one step that was theirs. Just like that, she can't imagine how he will react to the proposition. But to deliberate too long would be to act like she had some overall plan beyond the immediate.
Her fingers curl against the top of the piece, settings first, second finger and thumb to it as she lifts it clean up from the board for just that one step. ]
I want us to be wed. Soon, preferably.
[ The pieces sets down.
Your move, Byerly. ]
no subject
She's serious. ]
Sorry, you want us to be...wet? As in - water?
no subject
Married, Byerly. Joined in body and soul, for this life and the next.
[ She reaches across, to take up the cup of wine that is becoming something of a comfort to her aches and pains, something she would have to watch in the days after her wounds are healed - but for now, she takes a small mouthful.
She carries on, then, like he hadn't just overturned everything in his shock, or like he was being willfully obtuse. ]
I believe the terms for such on Barrayar are different. I am, of course, happy to adhere to the customs here. As I do not think we could find a brahmin to match your stars to mine.
no subject
[ He swallows against a mouth gone suddenly dry. Then he forces a laugh, saying - ]
Well. I've been propositioned many a time, but I've never been proposed to.
[ And why does this sound so much more indecent than...oh, a threesome? Or a foursome, or an orgy? He feels like putting his head between his knees, like that'll make the spins go away. ]
Pray tell, ma reine, why should we be married?
no subject
She was neither nor young, nor a pretty woman, she supposed. Perhaps that was it... and if there was love between them, it was not of the sweeter kind. It was gritted like something hard between the teeth. Latched onto and held. ]
Many reasons, I have spent a great deal of time thinking on this - [ of course she did, like she measured the pieces in front of her. ] - and I concluded we would do each other best in this matter.
I have some matter of prestige here, but I am a woman who cannot be accepted without some concessions on my behalf to the expectations of these... men. [ To her credit, her disgust over the matter is mild. ] You are a spy who is a distant son to a far greater house. If I have understood all that I have been told and all that you have told me: one with something of a reputation. I lend you a certain amount of... my own reputation.
no subject
Good god.
As for the reverse - ]
I should protest that - marriage to a dissolute coward will do you no favors, I fancy. None of the men will take you seriously. I can prepare a list of more suitable candidates...
no subject
[ She leans forward then, much as it hurts, but she will look at him and the whole of him. Nor let him look away, either. ] Queen I am, Byerly, one who is honoured by her own people in a way he never will be. Because I am not afraid to put my own blood into the dirt beside my men, whether that is in battle or in tilling a field. I know I am a better ruler than he will be. How do you think that will help his fear when I am a position to have that known?
[ Because she is unable to be other than what she is, do what drives her - the want of a better world. ]
What do you think will become of me if I am given to a respectable gentleman? [ And that, too, its own fear, she draws in a breath, and for that, her eyes lower back to the board, leaned back again with a pained wince. ]
no subject
Good god. ]
So - a useful fiction, then.
no subject
[ Her eyes stay down. ]
I am not young, and you are not a fool. How many of your countrymen would let a woman still wear her blades - dress as I want, act as I want? I don't care if they do not take me seriously, I have had enough of being bound for one life.
[ She swallows down hard, oh she is familiar, so very familiar with how men looked at her. That sits ugly in her mouth, but it gives her what she needs, to go on. ]
I can think of no other man that I would... trust that with, and once I am given, I am wholly given Byerly. You must know that of me by now.
no subject
You'd listen if a man ordered you to dress differently? You wouldn't just run him through?
no subject
Naturally, once it became bad enough. I would true enough. [ Then she waves him off, shaking her head as she quiets. ] But that would certainly serve me well, wouldn't? Marry a prominent man, then kill him because a wife would not listen to her husband about what this land as a whole considers decent.
How do you think that would pass here?
no subject
[ He gives a little sigh. ]
Poison. Not being obvious and lopping his head off.
no subject
I would never. If a man dishonoured men, he will be killed for it, and all shall know why it has happened. I do not use poison to do my work.
no subject
Why? What difference does it make to him?
I think I fucked up that last tag but I am not sure where laughs
... So is that to be my choice? Go through husbands, killing them when they dishonour me, treat me poorly until I find one that will treat me as I deserve? How do you suppose that will serve me?