forwardmomentum: (to make me horny)
forwardmomentum ([personal profile] forwardmomentum) wrote in [community profile] 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like meditating on, but the distraction of company is too overwhelming for the first couple of days, and so he stays withdrawn to his cabin, trying not to replay the last few hours of his life -- his last life -- over and over in his head.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 official complaints 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. ]
tearmeanewone: (155)

[personal profile] tearmeanewone 2015-12-14 01:21 am (UTC)(link)
Elizabeth looks a little horrified by the process Miles is describing. What kind of world created humans and then tried to perform brain transplants into them? That's just insane-- anyone could live forever in that case, with their brain slowly deteriorating until they were insane.

...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.
tearmeanewone: (011)

[personal profile] tearmeanewone 2015-12-15 06:09 am (UTC)(link)
"Not unless the Ingress pulled us from the very moment we were about to die-- then we were somehow saved by the medical technology here," Elizabeth admits slowly, a hand to her cheek. "But in that case, why not invest in some teleportation technology? It would probably be less unpredictable..."

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."
tearmeanewone: (142)

[personal profile] tearmeanewone 2015-12-20 07:06 am (UTC)(link)
"...right, true..." Elizabeth nervously touches her forehead, rubbing it slightly and frowning as though deep in thought. It's very disturbing for her to be losing what she thought was a clear understanding of the Ingress, and what she could become capable of if they pitched some part of her into it.

"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.
tearmeanewone: (001)

[personal profile] tearmeanewone 2015-12-21 08:13 am (UTC)(link)
"Lovecraft." It had stuck with her, honestly. Everything that concerned humans being afraid of things and working to contain them instead of understand them stuck with her for extremely personal reasons.

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?"
tearmeanewone: (106)

[personal profile] tearmeanewone 2015-12-26 06:59 am (UTC)(link)
"Ah, well..." Elizabeth fidgets with her hands for a moment, just to steel herself and remember Miles' promise to keep these things to himself. "It's a strain when you're responsible for the lives of dozens of people and you really don't know what direction you're supposed to be traveling in-- if that's indeed what's happening with him. I should know, the one time I couldn't see where I was going, what door I'd opened and why, I nearly lost my mind over it.

"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.