Lanna Michaels (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lannamichaels) wrote2025-06-15 09:41 pm
lannamichaels) wrote2025-06-15 09:41 pm
Entry tags:
"And Though The Static Walls Surround Me." (Vorkosigan Saga) G
Title: And Though The Static Walls Surround Me.
Author:
lannamichaelsFandom: Vorkosigan Saga
Series: Part 11 of Are You Out There, Can You Hear This?
Rating: G
A/N: The title is from Are You Out There by Dar Williams.
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld
Summary: Miles is hanging out with mercenaries. Gregor has a headache and would rather be listening to the radio. Or: Warrior's Apprentice in radioverse.
Gregor has started beginning every briefing from Illyan with "what has Miles done now?" It saves time. There's growing evidence that Miles is up to something, and Illyan's best analysts can't figure it out. Gregor's political analysts -- the ones who aren't just Vorkosigan holdovers or puppets, as few as they are -- would figure it out far too easily.
There's not much for it anymore. He's going to have to take his courage, tie it up, fling the copilot's chair into the wormhole, and damn it all.
By which he means, he's going to have to actually ask Aral.
His fingers itch and he indulges himself by closing his eyes and working his way through it. It's a great avoidance technique. No. It's a great focus technique. He's focusing.
Subject: OT: I had to confront my foster father
My foster brother has been fucking things up in a way that I have to clean up. I finally confronted my foster father (his dad) about it. We don't have the easiest relationship. I know he resents me for having to take me in, and he's made no secret of his feelings that I'm not his son. He only has one of those and it's not me. But I think we're still cordial. It's just been getting harder lately. I know that if/when it comes down to me or my foster brother, my foster father is not going to hesitate in who he picks.
It's always so much easier to talk to the Radio Komarr mailing list than to anyone Gregor actually knows.
Gregor opens his eyes. Aral is standing there. Gregor sighs.
He doesn't want to have this discussion as the Emperor. He doesn't want to have this discussion as Gregor Vorbarra. He wants to be Greg, asking his foster father what the fuck his foster brother thinks he's doing. But Greg wouldn't have any right to that information. The Vorkosigans washed their hands of him the day the Regency ended. They're not family; they're just vassals. They moved out when he was twelve and they left him for good when he no longer needed Aral to sign things for him. Gregor doesn't get to have family. Maybe Greg does, but Gregor doesn't. The only way Gregor can have this discussion is as the Emperor talking to his Prime Minister, even though he wishes it wasn't. He'd need the Vorkosigans to change.
His Komarran friends are slowly teaching him that he can't force the world to be the way he wants it to be. He just has the world the way it is, and the music.
He doesn't know what he'd do without the music.
Gregor puts his elbows on the table, because if he has to be the Emperor, at least he can also be angry about it. "Aral," he says pointedly, "what the hell is Miles doing?"
Aral hesitates. "I don't know, sire." He sounds frustrated. At least he's frustrated with Miles, not with Gregor not being a good enough Emperor.
Probably.
"What is Armsman Bothari saying Miles is doing?" Gregor asks. It's not something that's allowed; he's not supposed to ever get involved with the relationship between an armsman and his count. But Gregor knows Bothari and Gregor knows Miles. He's taking the liberty and thinking to himself, Komarrans don't have to deal with this.
Not for the first time, he wishes he were Komarran.
Not for the first time, he wishes he were Greg Bleakman. Greg Bleakman doesn't have to deal with this, either.
Unfortunately, he's Gregor Vorbarra. Maybe Greg Bleakman has a foster-father, but Gregor Vorbarra has the Vorkosigans. Komarrans are smart. Half the mailing lists Gregor is on don't let you even mention Vorkosigans. Gregor wishes he could go a day without doing that.
Not that this specific Vorkosigan is being helpful. Aral says that Bothari hasn't been in touch. Aral says that the last he'd heard from them, Miles had caught up with a deserter and sworn him as an armsman. Gregor knows all of that already.
"What do you think Miles is doing?" Gregor asks.
Aral doesn't know that, either.
"Captain Illyan reports that Miles has sworn a mercenary fleet," Gregor says and watches Aral's face. Gregor hadn't ordered Illyan not to tell Aral, and he's been wondering how much Illyan has told him. Illyan's smart enough to know a loyalty test when one is dangled in front of him.
Illyan failed it. Aral already knows. But Gregor didn't expect otherwise. Illyan will say it's because Aral is the Prime Minister. Illyan will say that Gregor has to be the one to restrict access. Illyan will say many things, and Gregor will fondly fantasize about the day he will be able to replace Illyan with someone who isn't a Vorkosigan dog and proud of it.
One day he'll be able to replace all the Vorkosigan dogs in his government. But he has to wait. He can't listen to Count Vordrozda, who wants Aral out and himself in, and has lost his subtlety over his years of pouring poison in Gregor's ears.
Gregor might have fallen for it, if Vordrozda hadn't tried to do it while saying he was Gregor's friend.
Alas for Vordrozda, Gregor has real friends now; he knows what friendship looks like now. And his real friends call him Greg.
He really, really wishes he were Greg.
Subject: OT: If my relationship with my foster-family is already broken, why am I trying so hard to fix it? Why am I trying harder than they are?
No.
He can't drift away during this discussion. He has to stay here. He can't go where the music is, where he's someone else, where he's just another Komarran lost on Barrayar and aching to go home.
This is Gregor's home. This is Gregor's office. This is Gregor's Empire.
And the Komarrans hate him, and they'd kick him off all of the lists if they knew who he really was, and he needs to remember that. They're Greg's friends, not Gregor's, and Greg doesn't exist. Greg only exists because everyone avoids asking questions.
In contrast, Aral knows who he is and just thinks he's a weak Emperor. Aral's the one who made him a weak Emperor, but why quibble over details?
"I can't hide this forever, Aral," Gregor says.
Aral asks for a day to strategize. Which means he's going to go talk to Cordelia and see if she'd given Miles any secret orders that Aral then has to lie to Gregor about.
Gregor almost wishes that Cordelia had, because it would mean the Vorkosigans have any idea what's going on. It would give him an answer that isn't Miles breaking all trust Gregor ever had in him, that isn't Miles destroying his family's legacy of loyalty (but it's only ever been selective loyalty, Uncle Yuri's ghost whispers), that isn't Miles committing the kind of treason that will force Gregor to execute him.
Gregor wants any other answer than what's probably the true one. But the longer this goes on, the less likely that is.
Duv's on the air tonight. At least Gregor has something in his life to look forward to, that isn't Miles forcing Gregor to have to execute him or forcing Aral to destroy another Emperor. How much does Gregor trust Aral? Not that much.
Gregor waves his hand and nods to Aral and lets him go.
Gregor paces the room when Duv's special show is on. He does calisthenics the way his armsmen have started suggesting. It's supposed to help with stress. Exercise the body, relax the mind. They can't keep him from staying up all hours of the night listening to music, but at least they can make suggestions for insomnia.
He sings along to the music. He fall asleep an hour after the show ends and sleeps until Illyan comes to his door with coffee and breakfast and more bad news.
And when Aral arrives later in the day, Gregor brings out sandwiches and several blank sheets of paper and says, "Count Vorkosigan, let's make a deal."
Subject: OT: I finally did it
I finally got my foster-father to see me as an independent adult. I think I completely lost any chance of ever getting our relationship to where I'd want it to be, but I've been trying to listen to you all that there's no way something can be fixed that was never "fixed" to begin with. We always had a broken relationship. It might now be broken in a different way, but it's not broken in the same way.
Subject: Re: OT: I finally did it
Greg, we're all really proud of you.
Subject: IN BEFORE THE BAN
What the FUCK just happened THE BALUSTRADE RESIGNED his kid ran away from home and partied too much to pay attention to calendars THE BALLOON RESIGNED?????
Subject: Re: IN BEFORE THE BAN
I have no idea what's going on but I now understand Barrayar even less than I did this morning, so good job, Barrayar.
Subject: Re: IN BEFORE THE BAN
Mods say: this is extenuating circumstances, so we will give everyone ONE FULL BARRAYARAN DAY to capslock about this, after that, it's back to normal.
No, we are not lifting the automatic renaming. If you want to use the B word, go back to Solstice.
Subject: Re: IN BEFORE THE BAN
Thank you, mods!
But really what the fuck can anyone explain this AT ALL??????
Years and years of effort to get THE BALLAST out of our collective lives and he gets ousted because HIS KID did something?????
Subject: Re: IN BEFORE THE BAN
I can't believe it either. I guess the Emperor also wanted him gone!
Subject: Re: IN BEFORE THE BAN
Hey, Emperor, thanks! Good job! We really appreciate it! Komarr is going to get DRUNK tonight!
Subject: Re: IN BEFORE THE BAN
Shipmates, THE BUCKET is being replaced by a _prole_.
WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?
Subject: Re: IN BEFORE THE BAN
I don't know and I'm enjoying it immensely.
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It's really bittersweet that (on list) Gregor gets praise on a personal level for standing up to his stepfather at the same time that we get the "good job, emperor!" posts. Because he is not 100% wrong that people on the list would hate him if they knew who he really was even though he is also not 100% right about it. Or at least, he doesn't realize he has the ability to change that, because Greg Bleakman is also a real person, no matter what Gregor thinks here.
I'm sure you've discussed this elsewhere, but these stories give Gregor such a specific type of emotional support -- what was the kernel that got you started with this series? Was it just list dynamics and music fandom, or were you already seeing how the Komarran context provides Gregor with perspective on his relationship with the Vorkosigans and especially Aral?
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So actually it was the song. It gave me so many feelings, about how late at night, you'd get radio stations from so far away that you'd never get during the day, and I really wanted that feeling of late night listening to the radio, hearing some DJ somewhere talking, hearing just these glimpses of a whole different radio landscape than during the day, and how the shows were different too because they expected a different kind of listener at night than during, you know, morning shows and drive time, etc. The scrivener file was called "vk late night radio". The initial notes on the idea are "someone does a late night radio show. gregor listens to it and calls in to feel connected. maybe duv as david, maybe he never joined the imperial service academy, and does a dry-voiced dead pan "best hits of komarr" radio show at 2am in a nearby city that gregor gets because radio travels better/further at night, and it's that slot because no one would play komarran music during the day. so the callers in are a lot of lonely komarran expats... and the emperor of barrayar"
And then it's all, okay, when does this happen and where and how. It's a very crackfic idea that I de-crackficed in order to make it actually work, but there's still a crackfic that could have been.
And I had a note early on that it had to be distorting his voice on the air itself because Metzov recognized Gregor by voice, not by face. So that also went in with that Gregor has to have a more casual/relaxed tone/speech in every day than he does when he's doing Speeches As The Emperor when he's performing As Emperor, or else he'd be immediately noticed as Emperor -- as it is, he can't hide that he's got the Important Vor In The Capital Accent, but at least he can elide which Important Vor In The Capital he is.
I also had a note in the header: maybe be like "this is not the radio free barrayar fic you're looking for" ;)
Which is funny because in a way it sort of turned into something with a little of that flavor, even while still not being the Radio Free Barrayar Fic You're Looking For.
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