"The Enchainment Of Past And Future." (Vorkosigan Saga) G
Title: The Enchainment Of Past And Future. (On Archive Of Our Own)
Author:
lannamichaels
Fandom: Vorkosigan Saga
Rating: G
A/N: This fic came to me in a dream. No, really. Anyway, I'm 95% sure my dreamself was ripping off Charlotte Sometimes, but there may have been another Classic Children's Book sprinkled in there. In further ripping off, the title is from Burnt Norton by T. S. Eliot.
Summary: Ivan Vorpatril was eight years old when he got a letter from Emperor Dorca Vorbarra.
1.
When Dorca Vorbarra was eight years old, something quite odd happened. There was a small chest of drawers in his bedroom and one day it went missing. It was back the next day. Dorca assumed one of his parents or the servants had moved it, but the chest kept disappearing and reappearing and no one mentioned anything to him about it. One night, he stayed up late and watched the chest intently. At twenty minutes past midnight, it vanished. The next night, it appeared again at the exact same time.
It was some kind of magic.
Now, Dorca Vorbarra knew about magic. But he couldn't understand how someone could do this, or why they would do this. It didn't make any sense.
And so he wrote a letter to put into the chest. With the full annoyance of someone who hadn't really noticed this chest of drawers until it had started vanishing, he demanded that whoever was doing it stop immediately.
2.
Ivan Vorpatril was eight years old when he got a letter from Emperor Dorca Vorbarra. It didn't make any sense. There was an old wooden box in his bedroom and some days, it didn't look like it was really there. Once he'd poked it and his hand had gone through it. He hadn't told anyone, because that's a mutie thing to have happen, and Ivan wasn't even allowed to say the word mutie, let alone have mutie things happen to him.
But then one day the box was open and there was a letter in it. It asked him who did he think he was to keep stealing the letter writer's property and was signed Dorca Vorbarra.
"I'm Ivan Vorpatril, not a sorcerer!" was how his return letter started. This was his mama's house and so the box belonged to his mama, not Emperor Dorca. Ivan wouldn't let himself or his mama be called a thief.
But, having been brought up properly, he made sure to address Dorca properly as well. "Prince Dorca Vorbarra" headed the letter, along with the date and where it was written. Ivan felt very flattered and important as he placed his letter back in the box. Gregor didn't even correspond with Emperor Dorca.
3.
Dorca Vorbarra wasn't a prince. His mother was a princess, but his father wasn't a prince, so Dorca wasn't as well. And then there was the matter of the date... but the address was Dorca's house. How did his mother's house get owned by a Vorpatril? Maybe it ended up attached to a dowry again somewhere down the line. That would make sense. But it was weird that this Vorpatril thought Dorca was a prince. Maybe he'd made that assumption because Dorca was a Vorbarra.
Or maybe this Vorpatril, being from the future, knew things Dorca didn't know.
He asked Pierre about it that afternoon while their tutor was busy ignoring them as usual. "Do you think it would be useful to know what happens in the future?" Dorca asked.
Pierre gave him a weird look, which Dorca thought was justified. Pierre knew what was going to happen in his future. Pierre was going to be Count Vorrutyer. But Dorca's future was a lot less certain. "That depends on if you like what you hear," Pierre said, "and if you can change it around if it's not. Can you?"
"I don't see why not," Dorca said.
"Then why does it matter?" Pierre asked. "You'll just change it anyway into something you like better."
Dorca considered that. It made a lot more sense than trying to shake Vorpatril down via letter that Vorpatril could just ignore.
"Why do you ask?" Pierre asked. When Dorca ignored him, Pierre asked again louder and then grabbed him by the arm. "Dorca Vorbarra," he said with as full threat as he could while still in Dorca's house. Pierre was pretty much feral like a dog. Dorca might as well tell him.
No, better. He'd show him.
4.
The letters kept coming. Ivan told no one. There were some delays, but Emperor Dorca was very good about telling Ivan when he was about to go away for a while, so Ivan returned the favor. Sometimes the letters had parts of them written by Count Pierre le Sanguinaire, which Ivan found even weirder than getting letters from an old Emperor. At least Ivan was directly descended from Emperor Dorca. That made it more into some kind of family legacy. He didn't know what old Pierre was doing in with that.
The years passed and Ivan kept writing. He knew it was weird, but he thought it might be the best friendship he had, even though there was no way they could ever meet. Emperor Dorca had been dead for ages. But Ivan told Dorca everything that happened in his life and Dorca listened. He made Ivan feel like he was worth being listened to, like he was someone special because he was on the other side of their shared magic.
Ivan had nothing else that made him special. Gregor was special because he was the Emperor. Miles was special because he was a genius. Ivan wasn't like that; he was an idiot and no one at all. But he was the one corresponding with Emperor Dorca. Him! Not Gregor! This was the only thing that Ivan had. Maybe if he told someone, they'd take it away. Ivan didn't want that. He didn't want to go back to not being special.
And so Ivan kept the secret, even as he poured his concerns out to Emperor Dorca, as he read advice that he didn't think would be a great idea to try to follow. You could do a lot more things when you were a Dorca Vorbarra than if you were an Ivan Vorpatril, he reasoned. He did try a few of the techniques at Dorca's urging, but they just made him look stupid.
But Emperor Dorca thought Ivan could be more than he was, and he was the only one in Ivan's entire life who thought that way. Ivan was going to hold onto his secret and never let it go.
But then, when he was fifteen, it stopped working all together.
5.
Dorca looked askance at the assassin's dagger sticking out of the magic chest. He finished off the assassin, cursing himself for the lack of attention, but even after the man was dead and removed, he worried over the wooden chest.
He watched it that night and then every night for a week. Nothing happened.
Maybe it was broken. Maybe it could be fixed. Dorca sent it off to have the wound repaired and then, recalling a mention in one of Vorpatril's letters, had it refashioned into a simpler box, engraved with a forest scene. He took the box with him as he succeeded his great-uncle and moved into the Imperial Residence. He kept it with him as he waged war against the Counts and then galactic invaders, cursing Vorpatril for never thinking to mention them to him.
In his will, Dorca bequeathed the box to Xav, to be kept in the house Dorca had given to him. And he wrote one last letter, leaving it in the Imperial vault to be given to Ivan Vorpatril five years after the date on the last letter Dorca ever received.
6.
Ivan took the letter from the Imperial messenger with steady hands. It was obviously old and he knew immediately what it was.
"Lord Ivan Vorpatril," it began. "Farewell," it ended. And in the middle, Ivan read the words of an Emperor who had shared magic with him for seven years.
But it was over. He knew that for sure now. It was over and he would never hear from Dorca Vorbarra again. Ivan put the letter with the other ones and tried to think of what the hell he was going to tell Gregor when Gregor got around to asking him why Emperor Dorca sent him a letter seventy-five years after he died.
+1
"You were writing to Emperor Dorca," Gregor says flatly. His right hand reaches instinctively for the bottle of Komarran brandy on the side table.
"Yes," Ivan says.
"What the fuck, Ivan," the Emperor says and starts drinking.
This entry was originally posted at https://lannamichaels.dreamwidth.org/1114616.html.