Title: Princess Isabelle.
Author: lannamichaels
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga
Series: Part 12 of Liegelord
Rating: G
A/N: Cast list and timeline.
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld

Summary: The story of Isabelle Vorbarra.



1.

Izzy goes to Earth to get away from her family.

Oh, they tried. She knows they tried. Aunt Helen was always stepping in, and Izzy wasn't supposed to notice as much as she did. She was the oldest grandchild. She was supposed to be doted on by everyone. And she was. But it just made it even more clear where the fault lines were in her family. And she didn't want to be around them more than she had to.

And so Princess Isabelle Lorna Vorbarra moved to Earth at the ripe old age of twenty-three.

She looked back. Of course she did. She wrote letters. Her cousins would visit. She never severed the cord.

And then, on her thirty-fourth birthday, she gets an urgent message from home. Come back. Your grandfather's dying.



2.

She gets letters while she's en-route. Uncle Ivan has declared Aral as his heir; she has seven letters from home, all in various stages of disbelief or rationalizing. The letter from her father is a masterpiece of family solidarity. But that's her father. He and Uncle Ivan have always been like that. Uncle Ivan would never have made the decision to ignore Castor if Father hadn't told him it was okay. Father's not the type to care that Uncle Ivan is now the Emperor; he'll still tell Uncle Ivan what he thinks.

Izzy wonders how mad Castor is. Castor's letter is more careful than anything Castor himself would ever write; either he didn't write it or someone helped him clean it up before it left the planet.

And then she gets home. They meet her at the port and Mama hugs her. Izzy hasn't been home since she left. It's not that she doesn't like Barrayar. It's that being on Barrayar means... this. It can be suffocating. And her family's always at the center of everything. She can't escape. The only way she could escape was by going to a backwater planet.

"I'm so glad you're home," Castor says to her. He sounds like he means every word of it. But that's Barrayar. Uncle Ivan picked someone to be his heir, so every other candidate for the Imperium is probably feeling every ounce of the increased scrutiny, even Castor, who isn't the type to ever notice any of that. Or, well, he never noticed any of that before.

They take her to the Imperial Residence to get her oath sorted out. Uncle Ivan greets her warmly, but he's distracted. He takes her oath perfunctorily, then kisses her forehead. "Welcome home," he says to her, then his attention is caught by another Minister.

Aral's been moved into the Crown Prince's suite, so they go there next. Aral's in residence and looks very uncomfortable. He hugs Izzy, holding her tight.

Then the three of them settle down for a council of war. Castor always insisted on calling it that when they were kids, when Izzy was forced to play with her brother and her cousin and Castor always wanted to seem older than he was. But now it feels like it could be one. Would be one, if they're not careful.

"Let's get one thing straight," Izzy says to Aral. "I'm not marrying you." That would be the old Vor's solution to the nightmare that Uncle Ivan's put them into. Because nothing can't be solved by Vorbarras marrying each other. It had worked for Emperor Ezar. It's not going to work for Izzy.

Aral nods eagerly. "No, no, of course not," he says. Izzy wonders how many of the old Vor have been suggesting that to him in the six weeks it took for Izzy to come home. You might think most of the old Vor have died out. You'd be wrong. There's an apotheosis that happens when the Vor turn fifty. They wake up one day with the kinds of opinions right out of a holodrama, and they actually believe them.

"Aral thinks he can't get married at all if it's not to you," Castor says. "And he's not getting married to you, so he's not getting married."

Izzy frowns. "Why can't you get married?" she asks Aral. Castor's not known for his grasp of the political reality.

Aral waves his hand vaguely. "Would you do it? Uncle Ivan just stood there and dared Castor to commit treason. And he loves Castor."

"Uncle Ivan doesn't have a son he's using you to replace," Izzy says. "You can have sons. What's the problem here?"

"It's the precedent," Aral says. "He's not just skipping primogeniture, he's put explosives underneath it and watched the fireworks."

"And if you don't have kids, you'll make it worse," Izzy says. "Come on, Aral, stop being so worried. Have a son, name him your heir, let it be."

Aral and Castor exchange looks. "Izzy, you haven't been home for ten years," Castor says delicately, and if Castor's the one who thinks he knows more than Izzy does... hell, he might be right. That hurts, but Izzy's brought this on herself. She's the one who turned her back on her planet.

"Castor's the closest thing to a son that Uncle Ivan ever had," Aral says. "Uncle Richard and Uncle Ivan have always been the same person, and Uncle Ivan just ignored that and picked me. I don't know why he did. He won't say why, just that he thought I was a good candidate. And Uncle Richard won't say anything--"

"Not to me, either," Castor says. "Just that I have to be loyal to Aral."

"You'll always be loyal to Aral," Izzy says. It's Castor. Uncle Ivan can't be concerned about that, can he?

"But the Counts are going to see this as, uh, something that can be influenced," Castor says. "They'll start having candidates again. And Komarr, that's going to be a problem. It's going to be a lot of people jockeying for favor. And Uncle Ivan didn't pick Papa, even though everyone thought for our entire lives that he was going to. It's all chaos, Izzy." He looks miserable.

"If the Emperor starts picking whoever he wants," Aral says, taking a deep breath, "then it doesn't matter who his children are. Everyone else in the family is going to think it's possible that he picks them. And then last week, everyone suddenly remembered that Grandfather had been adopted. And now it's worse. Now everyone cares about salic descent again. So all the cousins are in this. And your kids, if you have them. And-- all my sisters, everyone--"

Oh. This... this is a problem.

"Well," Izzy says weakly, "I guess I might have some more company on Earth."

It's a joke, but Castor looks really serious. "Izzy," he pleads, "please don't go back to Earth."



3.

No one ever remembered that Grandfather had been a Vorpatril. It had been removed from everything. Izzy only remembered it because she'd gotten the talk about salic descent precedents when she'd been old enough to start thinking about dating. It was why she had to be careful, that there was a chance that someone could think that, by marrying Izzy, his sons could become the Emperor.

If Uncle Ivan has just exploded Imperial succession and made it a free-for-all, that's something that's not just Castor's problem or Aral's problem. It's a problem for every descendant of Padma Vorbarra.

And Aral won't mention it, because that's not Aral's way, but he has seven siblings. If it's a free-for-all between Vorbarras, that means it's between Aral's siblings and Uncle Alexander's children. And Uncle Alexander's children will have the support of Komarr if anything happens.

Izzy has no idea how anyone allowed this to happen.

And they probably didn't allow it to happen. It probably just... happened. Grandfather wasn't Old Vor, he wasn't going to make his son divorce Aunt Helen just because Aunt Helen couldn't have kids. But it meant that primogeniture was going to get a work out. And Uncle Ivan then skipped Papa and he skipped Papa's son and he skipped any of his own brothers... why would he do that?

Izzy's best guess, after talking to her mother, is that it's because Aral's grandfather was Aral Vorkosigan. Uncle Ivan might have prioritized uniting the family branches again, getting all of Dorca's descendant lines back together in the person of Aral Vorbarra. But even that doesn't seem like something Uncle Ivan would ever really consider. No one cares about this anymore.

Uncle Ivan's just given them a lot more to care about.

And he's dropped it onto Aral and Castor and made it something that might get Izzy's baby brother killed by conspirators.

And Izzy has to choose if she wants to deliberately put herself back into this again.

And she's not sure what she should do.



4.

Izzy hadn't come home when her grandmother had died. She'd thought about it, but then she'd remembered how Grandma had all but pushed her onto the jumpship to go to Earth. Grandma would understand not coming home. The Empress set fashion and Grandma had set it very firmly for her own daughters. And she'd used Izzy to set it for her granddaughters. Grandma's whole life had been about giving her female descendants options that Grandma had never had. Grandma would understand. And so Izzy hadn't come home.

But it also means that Izzy's never make an offering for Grandma. She's never thanked Grandma for everything she'd done. She'd sent letters home, but that's not enough.

She hadn't arrived in time for Grandfather's funeral. She can make offerings for both of them at one time. But she makes one for Grandma first.

"Grandma, I don't know if I'm going back to Earth," she starts. And then the whole story comes out, silently, just in case someone's listening. Izzy knows how to keep her counsel close. On Barrayar, it's a necessity.

When the flame's burned down, Izzy doesn't have a decision made, but she feels better. And when she lights for her grandfather, she feels more centered. She doesn't start shouting at him about anything. She was the oldest grandchild. She was pampered and cherished. He had loved her. But he hadn't loved them all enough to stop Uncle Ivan from trying to destroy everything once he could. He had left them to pick up any pieces that Uncle Ivan broke on his way to making the Vorbarra family the way he wanted it.

It's not that Izzy necessarily wanted her father or Castor to become the Emperor. But it was always a fact of her life that one day they would be. And they would be, and she'd probably have to come home for it, but they wouldn't mind if she left again. There wouldn't be any work for her at home. Everything would be as it was supposed to be. It would be as Izzy had expected her whole life that it would be.

And Uncle Ivan, in one pronouncement, had ended that.

Aral doesn't necessarily need her. He has his parents. He has Castor. He has any other of their cousins that Aral might trust. And Izzy's made a life for herself back on Earth.

But... they're Vorbarras. The lesson of Barrayaran history is that Vorbarras shouldn't trust each other.

And Uncle Ivan had decided to spend the night Grandfather had died informing the family that Uncle Alexander had once betrayed the Vorbarra name and that Grandfather had let Uncle Alexander get away with it. Izzy had always seen the fault lines in her family, but she hadn't seen all of them. Grandfather had kept a lot of them hidden, but Grandfather wasn't there anymore. And Uncle Ivan had gleefully revealed them. Had dared them to make more.

Someone has to keep this family from falling apart, and Uncle Ivan has declared that Aral has to be the one to do it.

And Aral can't do it alone. And Aral can't do it with just Castor.

She's still Vor. She still has a duty to her family, to her planet. If Uncle Ivan is going to destroy the family peace that's held since Emperor Ezar adopted Grandfather, then Izzy should be getting her elbows into the fight. It's her right. She's the oldest. It's her responsibility.



5.

It takes longer than expected to track down her father. He's busy with the Emperor, but he's always been busy with the Emperor. He's avoiding her. He's probably also avoiding Castor, but Castor will let him do it. Izzy remembers back before Castor was born, when Uncle Ivan and Aunt Helen had taken her for days at a time, when her parents were trying to make Castor. Izzy's always known what Castor meant to her parents: it meant they didn't have to keep trying anymore to make an heir for Uncle Ivan. Castor was born for the specific purpose of being that heir, and now Uncle Ivan's skipped him entirely. And Castor might forgive him for that, and Papa might have let him do it, but Izzy holds a grudge.

"Isabelle, I'm so glad you're home," Papa says. "How was the trip?"

"Long," Izzy says. "I might not make the return trip."

And Papa looks overjoyed and Izzy feels guilty. It's not her Papa's fault that this happened. Is it?

"Did you suggest Aral to Uncle Ivan?" Izzy asks. Everyone else in the family might be tip-toeing around it. Izzy isn't going to do that too. Castor's right, Izzy hasn't been home in ten years. It's meant that people have had space to miss her. It means that they've been able to forget about her, to romanticize all the brittle parts of her, the parts that had seen what her family was and wanted to get away from it.

"No," Papa says honestly. "The decision of the Crown Prince is the Emperor's, you know that."

But that doesn't actually matter, not when it comes to Papa and Uncle Ivan. Izzy's always known them to be a monolith. Uncle Ivan becoming the Emperor isn't going to stop that. Everyone had told her that Uncle Ivan had taken Papa into a room before the announcement had been made. If that hadn't been Uncle Ivan asking Papa's permission, then nothing Izzy knows about her family is right.

And no one had asked Aral before giving this to him. He'd never been given the opportunity to decline. But Papa had been able to forbid the Emperor and obviously, he hadn't, because Aral's the Crown Prince now. And Aral's not being allowed to be happy that he was chosen; he's being consumed by the consequences.

But maybe that's how their grandfather had felt, being picked from Dorca's descendants and made the Crown Prince without any warning. Maybe this is the family tradition that Uncle Ivan's decided to continue.

It would have been so much easier if Uncle Ivan had picked Papa. But maybe Uncle Ivan doesn't want this to be easy. Maybe he wants to see what will happen.

Izzy had grown up idolizing Uncle Ivan. But now, she's not sure she'll ever stop being angry at him. In one announcement, he dared Castor to be a traitor and elevated Aral into a nightmare that Aral doesn't know how to escape. And he did it for what? For Barrayar? For the family? Uncle Ivan has her loyalty as her liegelord. But she doesn't know if she trusts him. Not anymore.

And that, more than anything, is what decides her. She has to stay. She has to be here.

She's the oldest. She has a responsibility. It's a matter of honor. She's Vorbarra. She's the oldest of her generation. This is her legacy to inherit.

Padma Vorbarra rebuilt the Vorbarras from nothing. But Padma Vorbarra is dead now. It's a new Barrayar. And it's Izzy's Barrayar. It's Aral's Barrayar. It's Castor's Barrayar.

They won't let the Emperor destroy it.



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