thisavrou | video. 001.

video. 001.

( the face that appears is open and handsome, smiling charmingly and with wavy black hair parted smartly to one side. it's clear from the feed that he's unusually tall, and his accent when he speaks is rich and warm, though guttural. a cousin to russian, maybe, if someone was familiar with that particular accent. he's dressed in the given uniforms of the ship, reclining in his assigned quarters that are, for once, blissfully quiet.

well mostly, because there's a small, tiny meow coming from his hand — a grey kitten from the bonsai kitten tree. someone's stepped up and taken responsibility for something that came from his universe. ivan's petting it absently with a finger until it decides that its had enough of that and sinks its teeth into it instead. ivan hisses in annoyance as he tries to pry it away. )

Get off you little monster — I knew General Count Piotr was a good name for you—

( because his great uncle was a right fucking terror. anyway, onto the point of this broadcast! )

I'm looking to set up my cousin on a blind date. He's going to drive me mad otherwise — I think he's doing it on purpose this time, instead of it being a natural byproduct of his personality. ( a beat, and then he has a really great idea. ) And my other, more distant cousin, because he deserves to have a good time for once in his life. I can vouch for them both if you like, give an honest opinion of them to interested parties, but I think they'd like to speak for themselves. Well, one of them you won't be able to get to stop.

He likes tall women. Dark hair, and with the ability to break him in half if they wanted to. Not actually that hard to do, so be careful when throwing him around. I'm told he's charming, but it comes across as him being an egotistical prat. Damned clever and knows it, so be prepared to suffer if you can’t keep up. Requirements include being open to sexual creativity and unusual partners.

( you're welcome, miles vorkosigan. )

Anyway, the other one's your typical tall, dark, silent fellow. I don't actually know what his type is, come to think of it, and I'm not sure anyone does. M'mother would have thrown every woman that fit it at him until he married one of them if she knew. If the phrase 'let’s wait and see what happens' won't drive you up the wall, he's the guy for you. Requirements include being open to having five children. At least.

( you're also welcome, gregor vorbarra. please find a nice woman and get married and have as many children as there are uterine replicators on barrayar. )

So! Interested? Let me know and I’ll set you up.

ADDED IN LATER:
Nevermind about the child thing, just be willing to handle a fun, no-committment deal with him instead.

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[the feed takes up a moment or two with indeterminate muffled sounds. when the voice comes through, it's difficult to tell whether it's choked with anger or hilarity.]

.....You named the cat after his grandfather?

You know, private feeds destroy the point of this post.

( DEEP SIGH HI BEL PLEASE DON'T BE ANGRY WITH HIM )

And my Great Uncle, yeah.

[now the smirk is clearly audible] No, they just let anyone who's truly desperate think they're responding first.

[see how conscientious Bel is? so polite to the competition. ~~would volunteer just to give Miles a break, but... he'd probably like that even less than the ad.~~]

You didn't even ask them, did you? You didn't even ask Greg. [because if he had, it would not be up there. omg, Ivan.] Just so you know, I'm not letting you hide in my cabin when he sees this.

( muttered: ) He's the one who wanted us to just think of him as Greg.

( he'd ask the emperor for permission. he wouldn't ask his cousins. also, that's rude, bel!! )

They've already got to me, and are entirely ungrateful. Even though Miles has been up my ass about it lately.

( in his usual miles-y way )

You'd think he'd be more appreciative of having his private life splashed all over the network by micromanaging relations. Just like a normal person.

[have you met Bel, Ivan?~~]

[snort] I assume not literally, since you specified women. [why no, Ivan, cousin taboos don't exist on Beta Colony.] -- Both of them, really, and you haven't taken it down yet?

Edited 2015-12-29 19:23 (UTC)

Yeah, back home he only has to worry about m'mother parading every eligible Vor woman in front of him instead of letting people get interested in him for himself.

( completely missing the point, he is.

ivan makes a coughing, choking sort of sound at that first response -- glad as hell he wasn't drinking anything at the time. ) What-- no! He's my cousin for god's sake, Bel.

( WHY THIS WHY ANYTHING. )

Miles brought this on himself. I'll edit it as Gregor wants.

And so instead you're inviting people to parade themselves instead. Completely different.

[can't decide whether painful or funny to hear the point being so completely and repeatedly missed]

And.....? Don't tell me that's another one of your Barrayaran customs. How far along the family tree do you have to go before it's safe? Bad enough you cut off half the playing field to begin with. If you're going to do this anyway, why not go full throttle?

...You don't say. Being a... what was it, "egotistical prat," was he?

Absolutely.

( both is a good choice when it comes to ivan. )

At least a generation or two -- we Vor are an inbred bunch, but not that bad. It's probably a good thing Uncle Aral's first wife died before they could have a kid. They weren't all that distantly related through good old Pierre "Le Sanguinare" Vorrutyer.

No, giving me shit for getting laid when he wasn't. He chooses to not to play the field, it doesn't give him the right to be angry at me for months about it.

Ivan, for the record? I was being sarcastic. It's actually the same thing.

[has to check, for the record, if that will work. if he can Ivan his way out of that he's more Ivan than Bel thought.]

Yes, but if you weren't planning to reproduce..... [lets that trail off on a lovely slope of implications Ivan probably doesn't want to think about] How many relatives with names like "The Bloody" do you have, anyway?

[long, long sigh. this is really territory where Bel should not be. the temptation is strong, but....]

Strange as it may seem, people play the field in their own different ways. Sometimes that includes not doing it. Relatives are supposed to give you shit [or so Bel hears,] but you might want to rethink giving them an actual reason for it.

Not when they're interested in Greg and not Emperor Ezar Gregor Vorbarra.

( watch him )

Don't even start. ( he actually has to think about that, and then shrugs. ) Me? Not many, the Vorpatrils are numerous and tend to not get involved in politics to the level of the families of my esteemed relatives. Hell, Dorca had to give my grandfather the title -- he didn't have one of his own. ( and you can't let a princess go off and marry the son of a non-cadet son of a count without at least giving him a title to be passed down through the generations. )

I know that. We used to work the parties back in Vorbarr Sultana together. ( ivan shrugs, although bel can't see it over voice. ) Least now he's on my case for something I did, instead of his usual 'Ivan's a convenient target so I should use him for practice' routine coupled with him bitching about me getting laid.

( he knows his cousin, and he knows his cousin is a right and proper ass most of the time. ivan's normally content to deal with it, because someone has to put up with him, but even miles is capable of hurting the feelings he conveniently forgets ivan has. )

Edited 2015-12-30 02:12 (UTC)

...I can see why he'd want to ditch that name.

[there wasn't much about Emperor Ezar in the book, but it was enough.]

Too late.~~~ [except the new subject is far more interesting, though it'd take someone who knew Bel to know that not running with this, uh, ball is active self-restraint.] Your family's pretty well affiliated with the Imperial family, then.

'Work the parties'? I didn't know you had those on Barrayar. I was picturing you all sitting around a large wooden table, playing a lively game of family-tree trading cards if you were feeling really wild.

[cheerfully] Congratulations on the sex, though.

It's a mouthful, isn't it? Ivan Xav isn't too bad, considering no one had a choice. We're all first sons of high Vor -- paternal grandfather for the first, maternal grandfather for the second.

( when the man who decided to test out neo-facism is better than the emperor before him, well. welcome to barrayar. don't ask about why it's miles instead of piotr. they don't talk about that. )

I didn't think it was possible for someone to be more Betan than Aunt Cordelia. ( muttered, but then ah, the question he hates talking about. well, bel knows about gregor, so. ) You could say that. I'm related to the Imperial family. Through my grandmother, just like Miles. The two daughters of Prince Xav Vorbarra -- one married a Vorpatril, the other General Count Vorkosigan. Can't imagine why -- the man was terrifying.

( both those things get a laugh out of ivan, however, even if the latter is exceedingly betan. )

The fights start to break out when someone asks about the bastards of a family and when people attempt to pull in favors from relatives they didn't know they had a second before. It's not Barrayar if someone's not bleeding from multiple stab wounds at a family gathering.

( or a sonic grenade to the stomach. little difference in the end. )

Thanks? I think.

[does Ivan just........ not stop talking.] You know, that's always confused me. Why....

[trails off. it's starting to sink in how easy it would be to just make leading remarks and learn all about Miles's entire home life, but that leaves an unpleasant lump in Bel's stomach after so many years of pretending not to know anything. they can ask questions directly now, yes? and 'why the Naismith' is probably not a question to put to Ivan.]

You just haven't met enough Betans who didn't move to Barrayar. Nice to know she's keeping up the standards.~ -- And now all the cousin taboos make a little more sense. It's a wonder the lot of you didn't flee offplanet at the first opportunity.

[and both of those get a laugh out of Bel too, though there would have been less about the first one if they knew how literal the statement was.]

Don't feel like you're missing much. Where I come from, it's endless rounds of who's back to sleeping with whom, the latest feelie-vid scandal, and who ripped off whose academic paper.

[and then, you know, never acknowledging the existence of that side of the family again. the boring, simple life.]

At least, I suppose, you all don't vid your awkward family gatherings for posterity.

( no he does not ) S'family thing.

( at least he has the sense enough not to talk about the times piotr tried to murder his grandson. mostly. )

I met one -- she was great, you know, topless sarong right at the shuttleport. Miles said some Betans liked to go trolling for galactics there. ( a long, wistful sigh before he moves on. ) We're Vor. ( he says, as simple as that. sure, ivan doesn't go all in for all honor and glory for the emperor like the remainder of his family, but he's still vor. it's not that simple to just get up and leave; it's unthinkable to do so forever. )

Good god, no. No one vids the important balls either -- probably because no one wants the proles to see all the Vor traditionally, vorishly drunk.

[congratulates themself on the save. not that Miles would want to hide in Bel's cabin from whatever the results of this might be, but if he did, there'd be plenty to talk about without stumbling into hot sands.]

Did you. She probably found you adorable. [not much respect for Betans who trawled the shuttleports but never left the planet, but hey, props to Ivan for being open-minded.] Were you ever there for that few years when full body paint was the biggest fashion?

[...those three simple letters, and all that they stand for.....]

[snickers. 'vorishly'?] Please tell me it's all on maple mead.

God, I hope so. She was fun. ( and she slept with him when he didn't really know what he was doing, too! bless her. the image that bel puts into ivan's mind is a damned good one -- women, everywhere, naked except for body paint. what an amazing place, beta colony. ) No. Damn it, now I wish I had been.

( their curse. ivan knows it is, knows that its got its claws in deep in gregor, in aral and in miles. him, too, in some ways. )

No, maple mead's a Vorkosigan District tradition. Wine's traditional -- and even then Vorkosigan House has the best cellars outside of the Imperial Residence themselves. Say what you want about Great Uncle Piotr, he had great taste in wine.

Ha. It's one of the few times I regretted being posted nowhere near Beta. Silica was supposed to have been eye-popping. [not that the so-called jokes trickling back through the mercenary pipeline made it easy. somehow that kind of thing never got thrown at Arde....] You know, a Betan sarong appeared on my bunk recently. No idea where it came from, but I'm thinking of saving it for special occasions.~

And there we have the reason you don't leave the planet. What do they say about Great Uncle Piotr?

Yeah, I just bet it was. ( a respectful silence as ivan imagines this further with a distracted gleam in his eyes. it gets rather cloudy as bel continues talking, and then he stumbles slowly to a halt. ) Er. You're not planning on wearing it topless, are you? And what counts as a special occasion?

( just so he can not be around for that. )

That he's one of the main reasons we're not the Ninth Satrapy. That it's his doing that Yuri Vorbarra's Civil War happened in the first place, because apparently no one thought it was a bad idea to leave him alive after killing his wife, two of his kids, and all of his in-laws and their families? A right, proper Conservative terror -- the last of the old Vor. You know, the usual stuff.

[and there it is.] Ivan, just to be clear, people of all genders got very creative with that particular fad. [most cheerfully ironic of tones] And why do you ask? I didn't think you'd have any objection to that half of me.

Your whole planet needs so much therapy. You have my sincere condolences. [but relents a little, because it's impressive that anyone growing up in that lot emerged from it even remotely sane.] The new Vor have a lot on their shoulders, it seems.

( his mouth opens and shuts several times to try and come up with a response to any of this, but he can't come ups with anything. )

That's not-- I mean-- I don't--

( HE IS GOING TO MOVE RIGHT ALONG AND NOT TALK ABOUT THIS ANYMORE, GODDAMN IT. )

Gregor and Uncle Aral do alright. It's not easy for them, having to drag the rest of Barrayar along after them, but the Progressive Party's been a mainstay. And everyone knows that's where Gregor's sympathies lie, even if he's bound to pretend like he's neutral towards all decisions made by the Council of Counts. I don't know if that's a traditional thing or just him. It's hard to imagine someone like Ezar just letting himself sit back and wait while everyone else bickers about decisions he wants.

Maybe I will let you hide in my cabin. If you asked nicely.~

[relents; it'd be cruel to go further. hilarious, yes, but the poor boy still is Miles's relative.]

The last of the old Vor, the middle guard, and the first of the new? No, Ezar would have sat back, secure with the Counts already in his pocket. He'd never have let something come to a vote without already knowing the outcome.

How does it feel, to be the fulcrum on which an empire turns?

( N O P E )

Me? ( ivan snorts. ) You're mistaking me for one of my cousins.

( someone with power. someone who has to figure out how to use something no one asked them if they wanted in the first place. no, ivan's fine with not having any of that. he's got a title by association, a title and a family history of death and bloodshed. that's more than enough for him.

he has tried so damn hard to be unimportant, to escape the politics of his extended family. he's not gonna have bel think he wants in on it all. )

[a moment of thoughtful silence.]

...yes. Sometimes it feels like that.

[but you stayed there, with them. ~~instead of, say, emigrating to Silica for good.~~

that's its own power, in a way.

cheerfully] Can't build an empire without warm bodies. Well, I hope this doesn't go too badly for them. They deserve a break.

( what's that supposed to mean, bel?

they're family, and ivan has that in such short supply. what is he supposed to do, let miles galavant around the nexus without someone to give him a friendly familial ribbing? not a chance in the world. but even then, ivan can't fully shake the idea of loyalty, of serving. it's just who you are, once you've got those three letters tacked in front of your name. )

It's going surprisingly well. Gregor's talked to more women of his own free will than I've ever seen before and someone's setting up a date for Miles.

( he's rather surprised himself )

[>>

....nothing, probably. ~~certainly nothing to do with roots and connections and changes and lives left behind or anything like that.~~

idle thoughts. nope.

are you really going to give Bel real-time itemized updates on your cousins' hectic love lives. really, Ivan. really.] Gregor can speak, you know. He's quite the conversationalist. -- Ha! Who's the lucky lady?

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still private audio idk where that went oops XD

I THINK I FORGOT TO PUT IT BACK IN my bad

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