forwardmomentum (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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thisavrou_log2015-11-30 12:29 pm
forwardmomentum) wrote in thisavrou_log2015-11-30 12:29 pm
[ catch-all for miles, post-death ]
Who: Miles Vorkosigan and YOU
When: 11/27 thru...whenever
Where: the Vor cabin, the bar, the Personnel Office, wherever
What: Miles has recently recovered from a nasty bout of being dead after a week. so that's fun.
Warnings: talk about death, probably some other heavy emotional shit
Recovering from death is sort of like recovering from a cold, Miles has found, aside from the more obvious gaping differences. It leaves one feeling at least as drained as a nasty virus, weak and shaky, and in both cases you come out of it with a hell of a case of the chills. Then there are the obvious psychological differences between death and a cold, which Miles does not particularly feel like meditating on, but the distraction of company is too overwhelming for the first couple of days, and so he stays withdrawn to his cabin, trying not to replay the last few hours of his life -- his last life -- over and over in his head.
Cryoamnesia is a fairly common occurrence with cryorevival patients; many of them never fully recover their memories, especially around their deaths, Miles has heard. Not enough time to store it in long-term memory, or something. He wishes he were so fortunate. No, he can remember every excruciating moment of it in perfect detail, to the curious numbness of his lower body to the thick taste of blood in his mouth and the chest-clouding panic that had overtaken him in the face of death. That's almost harder to stomach than any measure of physical pain. It was frigging humiliating, that's what.
The first couple of days after his return he keeps to the cabin he shares with Ivan and Gregor. He doesn't exactly know who knows he's back yet, or even who knew he died in the first place, and he's not keen to ask. His week-long absence had to have been missed by at least some, and Gregor and Ivan probably had something to do with that. Miles is still a little wan and sickly-looking from his recent revival, and aching, too; not where the glass had perforated along his stomach, he has suspiciously few scars from that, but curiously enough his legs, and -- the rest of him. It's that damned osteo-inflammatory horseshit again, he's sure. But at least, for the first time in two months, nothing's actually broken and he is somehow whole again.
By the 27th, he finally starts to emerge from his cabin and make his way back to his duties at the bar and in the Personnel Office, where he'll be taking interviews and reviewing submissions to the officialcomplaints suggestions box on his office door.
[ feel free to tag in with whatever or hit me up if you want a particular starter. miles was dead/in cryo between 11/18 - 11/25, and is only really returning to work on 11/27. ]
When: 11/27 thru...whenever
Where: the Vor cabin, the bar, the Personnel Office, wherever
What: Miles has recently recovered from a nasty bout of being dead after a week. so that's fun.
Warnings: talk about death, probably some other heavy emotional shit
Recovering from death is sort of like recovering from a cold, Miles has found, aside from the more obvious gaping differences. It leaves one feeling at least as drained as a nasty virus, weak and shaky, and in both cases you come out of it with a hell of a case of the chills. Then there are the obvious psychological differences between death and a cold, which Miles does not particularly feel like meditating on, but the distraction of company is too overwhelming for the first couple of days, and so he stays withdrawn to his cabin, trying not to replay the last few hours of his life -- his last life -- over and over in his head.
Cryoamnesia is a fairly common occurrence with cryorevival patients; many of them never fully recover their memories, especially around their deaths, Miles has heard. Not enough time to store it in long-term memory, or something. He wishes he were so fortunate. No, he can remember every excruciating moment of it in perfect detail, to the curious numbness of his lower body to the thick taste of blood in his mouth and the chest-clouding panic that had overtaken him in the face of death. That's almost harder to stomach than any measure of physical pain. It was frigging humiliating, that's what.
The first couple of days after his return he keeps to the cabin he shares with Ivan and Gregor. He doesn't exactly know who knows he's back yet, or even who knew he died in the first place, and he's not keen to ask. His week-long absence had to have been missed by at least some, and Gregor and Ivan probably had something to do with that. Miles is still a little wan and sickly-looking from his recent revival, and aching, too; not where the glass had perforated along his stomach, he has suspiciously few scars from that, but curiously enough his legs, and -- the rest of him. It's that damned osteo-inflammatory horseshit again, he's sure. But at least, for the first time in two months, nothing's actually broken and he is somehow whole again.
By the 27th, he finally starts to emerge from his cabin and make his way back to his duties at the bar and in the Personnel Office, where he'll be taking interviews and reviewing submissions to the official
[ feel free to tag in with whatever or hit me up if you want a particular starter. miles was dead/in cryo between 11/18 - 11/25, and is only really returning to work on 11/27. ]
no subject
"My old, um...body was destroyed along with the planet," he explains, shifting uncomfortably in his station chair. Talking about himself like a walking corpse is still kind of jarring. "As far as I understand it, a new body was produced by the Ingress and placed in cryo. I don't really know if that counts as a reversal, but it certainly was a revival." He pauses, looking suddenly much more tired. The memory of his painful death is still uncomfortably fresh in his mind. "But, yes. I was dead."
no subject
"I hope it's not just... spitting out alternates of us that are just sitting in storage somewhere," she says, looking a little ill at the thought. Well, that was impossible on her end-- she'd completely collapsed. There's only one of her now.
"I'm starting to wonder if there's anything the Ingress can't do," she says with a worried little chuckle.
no subject
"No," he decides, shaking his head. "No, I don't think we could be clones of any kind. Clones just don't work that way, it takes -- hell, it takes a brain transplant to give a clone any memories of its progenitor, and that's a dirty business." Done often on Jackson's Whole, along with a host of other ethically dubious industries. Miles gestures at the short length of his body, his mouth twisting into a self-conscious frown. "And then there's my body. My particular condition arose out of a dozen random factors -- the nature of the soltoxin attack, the array of experimental treatments used just to carry me to term -- I can't see how that could possibly be created through the cloning process. And my bones still snap like twigs, I assure you."
He smiles thinly, but then it slips off his face as he rubs his jaw in somber thought. "Considering what we know of the nature of the Ingress, I think maybe... What if the Ingress wasn't producing clones, but reaching into alternate timelines? Lose one, grab one from another -- although that does't explain the memories. I don't know."
no subject
...but that was a fridge nightmare for another day.
"Y... yes, that's what I meant. Alternates from our timelines. Which would make sense, but... after my collapse, there weren't any more of me."
Which probably means that if she were to die on the Moira, that would actually be the end of her.
no subject
"Well, it still wouldn't explain the memories. Of this ship, I mean. No reason an alternate timeline Miles would remember any of this, right?" Miles rubs absently at his throat and laughs awkwardly. "I don't recommend dying, in that case. Or at all. Best if you can avoid it."
no subject
Speaking of the Ingress being unpredictable... "Miles... I'm starting to think that the Ingress and the technology I'm familiar with are completely different. I never managed to completely destabilize an entire planet before. The energy it produces is far more volatile and potentially more powerful than I was ever capable of."
no subject
He glances down at himself -- at his belly, where all the glass had pierced -- and looks back up at her with a totally bleak smile. "It'd have taken some very advanced medicine and even more advanced skill to put me back together after -- that. And I hardly have any scars."
And Eggsy -- poor Eggsy -- he'd come back missing a hand...
no subject
"It split that planet in half though. And we have something that can do that on this ship right now." She sighs, agitated by the memory. She's never seen that level of destruction before, and Elizabeth would be lying if she said she felt no connection to the death of the planet and her own previous abilities. "What can I say? I don't like that I seem to know even less about the Ingress than I thought. I could at least feel safe around something that I used to be, but..."
She shakes her head and covers her mouth, trying to hold her nerves in. "I'm afraid of something because I don't know what it's capable of." That makes her no better than Comstock, probably.
no subject
His smile grows a little less strained, though subdued. "Right now it seems like there are far more questions than answers, but I refuse to believe this is beyond our grasp. We need to keep looking. There are answers to be had -- we just don't have them yet." He chews absently on the side of his thumb. "I've built up something of a rapport with Captain Thán, I'll see if I can squeeze anything out of him. Cagey as hell, but once in a while he'll spill something relevant. Assuming I can get him to talk to me again."
no subject
Miles is, of course, right. As much as she's afraid of her comfortable life being literally ripped in two, if they don't work to understand the Ingress it could come back to bite them later. She might even feel more secure knowing a little more than absolute speculation.
"Cagey?" Elizabeth frowns, looking quizzically at Miles. Cagey? Captain Thán? The kind man who brings her boxes of books and shares her love and care for them? "He's been very forthcoming to me-- did you do something to make him dislike you?"
no subject
Miles smiles tightly. However Thán is around Elizabeth, it's no tthe same treatment he's been getting. But then again, he doubts Elizabeth has been pursuing the same topics of conversation with Thán. "He's only cagey when you start sniffing around the curtain they're hiding behind. Tell me, is he very forthcoming when you ask him about the Ingress? Or about himself?"
no subject
"I did ask him about the Ingress, and when he said he didn't know enough about it to discuss its inner-workings I believed him," Elizabeth says with conviction. "I've been lied to in creative and consistent ways before, I didn't think he was lying to me when he said that. As for talking to him about himself..." She fidgets again with her pinky and shifts on her feet. "That's not really my place to discuss with him, is it?"
You can ask Thán about what he likes to do on weekends all you like, Miles-- Elizabeth feels that if she started asking those kinds of questions, there would be a certain unavoidable undertone.
no subject
He makes a smooth transition from that, though, hardly skipping a beat, and shakes his haed. "I never said I thought he was lying, just playing it very close to the chest. He's very selective about what he tells us, and at any rate, my concern is with the quality of their command. And if you can't get anything from him on a professional level, learning something about his person might give you some other kinds of insights."
Spoken like a true covert ops agent. Miles shrugs, though, and lets out a sigh, leaning back in his chair. "But I'm not going to push too hard. That doesn't get you anywhere either."