Comments | bracketyjack: Forward Momentum -- Chapter 11 (b)

bracketyjack

Forward Momentum -- Chapter 11 (b)

Jan 23, 2010 21:13

“Your Imperial and Celestial Majesties. Honoured haut. Honourable ghem.” His hand sketched bows of precise declination. “I make no apology for mentioning, once, the unfortunate entanglements of Your Majesties’ imperia.
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Comments 11

philomytha January 24 2010, 16:23:18 UTC

Ah. You were serious when you said you wanted to give these characters the best things rather than the worst. That was perfect. I do love the way everything keeps coming back to Aral in this story, and the image of him walking amid the olives is poignantly joyful. Excellent.

bracketyjack January 25 2010, 00:18:19 UTC

Oh yes, deadly serious. All shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well. Redemption and summer hols all round; it's one of the things fiction is for, nu? Besides, if the Cetagandans had said 'no' I'd've been well up the creek!

beatrice_otter January 29 2010, 06:31:40 UTC

I have to stop reading now to go to bed, but my God this is awesome. When finished, I will have thinky thoughts in my comment, but here's my squee.

bracketyjack January 29 2010, 15:03:47 UTC

Thank you. Your squee is warmly and furrily received, and your thinky thoughts awaited with interest.

zahri_melitor January 30 2010, 12:38:10 UTC

Oh my.

I'm flailing for words to describe this chapter. It's just... perfect.

Playing the recording. The planning Miles and Benin obviously put in. The way the accords are carefully built up.

Miles uses anything and everything to make a point. Incorporating in the olive trees. Interrupting when necessary to drag things back onto the path he wants.

The image of Aral having more years, walking once again in Vorkosigan Vashnoi under olive trees.

And that final step of reminding Rian exactly what she owes him, that she can give him one further gift... and then to name the planet Aralyar Ceta.

Plus, with this step, Miles has nailed Cordelia's feet to Barrayar and the Imperium for even more years of service. Less chance of her escaping back to Beta after Aral's death, especially as it's being put back.

bracketyjack January 30 2010, 17:24:03 UTC

Thanks for the kind words.

You know, I hadn't quite focused on extending Aral's life as extending Cordelia's service to Barrayar, but you're right, that would be a motive in the mix. One has to think in canon that Miles's and Mark's marriages to Barrayarans (and god-daughter [Cor]Delia Galeni) would mean she wouldn't leave the imperium permanently even as a widow. And I think it's in canon that she's still officially wanted, at least for questioning, on Beta, about assaulting Dr Mehta with a fishtank and being a deep penetration agent, so going 'home' would not be straightforward.

zahri_melitor January 31 2010, 00:00:05 UTC

I know, LMB has basically said that it's going to happen, but I don't like Cordelia leaving. At this point, she's spent almost half her life on Barrayar, and her children and grandchildren and friends are all there. Mark and Kareen are very likely to come back to Barrayar once they've finished their education, because Miles and Aral have managed to infect Mark with a sense of duty to the District.

And while she tore up all her roots before, once, that was to go to Aral.

Cordelia's changed Barrayar, and Barrayar and her family have changed Cordelia. I can't see her fitting in properly if she went back to Beta, no matter what she says - she's used to fighting for equality, and advising an Emperor, and running a planet. That sort of assumption of duty and privilege does not fit well back into technocratic Beta, where she'd have to start all over again in a job, since no one's going to let her back in command of a Survey ship...

enleve February 2 2010, 06:17:11 UTC

Helen felt faint. Was Miles really negotiating with the highest Cetagandan command about butter bugs?

Ha ha ha -- I love it.

I'm enjoying this story, and the premise of something really good happening. There are a lot of details that I find appropriate or amusing.

bracketyjack February 2 2010, 10:32:13 UTC

Thank you. Hope you keeping liking what's to come.

jlvsclrk June 6 2013, 10:37:38 UTC

I love the thought of Aral in his old age wandering through the olive groves of Vorkosigan Vashnoi. Beautiful!

bracketyjack June 6 2013, 19:22:23 UTC

Thank you. It's an extreme, of course, but as my purpose here was avowedly to unspill milk and reward all, why not go the whole hog? I don't think the experiment would be repeatable, exactly, but I also came in doing it to think the modern nostrum about all drama proceeding from conflict is ... overstated, anyway. And as you say, it can move, all the same.