After the Plague

[veryvorkosigan]

Count Aral Vorkosigan, Viceroy of Sergyar, scanned the flimsy the aide handed him and set down his coffee mug with a deep and profound sigh of relief

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[sign_seeker]

Several hours later, Will stood with Cordelia in the Residence's small courtyard gardens, watching the slanting afternoon sunlight make rainbows in the spray of a tiny marble fountain. He dipped a hand in the basin, and watched the water drip from his fingers onto the gravel of the path, and turned a little to smile at her. "It's a lovely place," he said.

[sign_seeker]

"No. Forgiven, of course, but not undone. Nor cancelled out, like weights on a scale."

He idly brushed a leaf of the wild grape twining about the fountain with his fingers, and watched as it bent and sprang back.

[veryvorkosigan]

She was silent for rather a long moment then, looking at nothing in particular. When she spoke, her voice was low.

"Forgiven?"

[sign_seeker]

Will looked at her. "There is always forgiveness, Cordelia," he said, very gently. "Forgiveness of oneself first of all, and from others. Always that chance. It is one of the great gifts of life."

[veryvorkosigan]

"Of life. Can the dead forgive?" Her voice shook only slightly, a bare ripple in the otherwise cool tone.

[sign_seeker]

Will reached out and stroked the grape leaf again, letting the spiraling tendrils spring back against his hand. "I don't know," he said thoughtfully. "You find that out after, I think."

He looked back at her, gravely. "So the question is what you do until then. What you do as one of the living. How you balance the need to remember the past, and your life in the world here and now."

[veryvorkosigan]

She let out a small, slightly shaky laugh. "Here and now. Or wherever and whenever..."

The brief mirth faded back into sober reflection. "Until then."

[sign_seeker]

Will smiled a little, though his eyes were still sober. "Until then, it is your life. Each moment, each choice, and then the one after. Until then, at the least, there is always that chance of forgiveness."

[veryvorkosigan]

He says it with such certainty. Almost casual. "Forgiven, of course."

Difficult to avoid the question of by Whom. Or the question of how he knows. Even more difficult to avoid the obvious answers.

Another quiet laugh, this time without the edge of the earlier one, and she tilted her head at him wryly. "This is highly unfair, you know. I'm used to being on the other side of this conversation."

[sign_seeker]

Will grinned. "Turnabout is fair play." He shrugged. "It's... easier, sometimes, to hear it from the outside."

[veryvorkosigan]

"Almost always, in fact."

Cordelia drew in another long breath, and glanced at the westering sun. "We should probably get inside. I've got a few things I really should get done before dinner is served.... You'll join us?"

[sign_seeker]

He smiled. "I'd like that."