elnysa | video; un: eproghuefgdzptrrw

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video; un: eproghuefgdzptrrw

[ Byerly, a handsome fellow with a hard-to-place accent that just sounds a bit different, is lounging on a couch. The angle isn't entirely flattering, since he's filming himself while laying supine, and so there's a view sort of halfway up his nostrils that is a little bit too much information. A bottle of brandy dangles from one hand, and his voice is slurring just a bit. This fellow seems quite drunk. ]

Bonsoir, you grunting peasants and cultureless rubes, and happy Winterfair to all. For those of you who are cultureless monsters, Winterfair is a time when gifts are exchanged and joy is had. My gift to you is that I won't call any of you peasants again for the duration of this broadcast. Winterfair was also the last Emperor's birthday, or thereabouts, which meant everyone had to give him their taxes for the year, but mine's not till later, so you don't need to pay me till then. I'll let you know when taxes are due. Start saving up now.

So what should you all give me instead? I suppose to begin with you could entertain me. What do you say, my cream puffs - a little game of two truths and a lie? You know the rules, since the rules are literally the name of the game. Go on, play with me, do. I'll start. I'm currently rightful Emperor of Barrayar, my great grandfather Pierre once showed up to a Winterfair ball soaked in blood to send a message, I'm terrible in bed.

Anyone who opts out of the game, I'm going to assume they're simply too in love with me to speak with me, so don't play at your own risk.

[ He winks, and then lifts the brandy to his mouth - and it apparently goes down at a bad angle, because he sits up, coughing and spluttering and getting alcohol down his front before he shuts off the feed. ]

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Which part?

[ Another deep slug. The slur is gone from his voice, now. In its place is a clipped sort of precision. ]

The part about being a bad person?

All of it.

[He sets his bottle aside, lips thinning in effort to keep from frowning. All this, over the network... he's only just realizing.]

Can I come over, Byerly?

[ A bit petulantly, By looks away from the camera. ]

If you'd like. I won't stop you.

I'll be over soon, then. Don't... [What? Do anything stupid? No, he shouldn't say that. Not now.] Don't miss me too much.

[He winces at his poor substitute, and shuts off the feed shortly after. He doesn't waste any time in going, though - rather than wait, he spends the walk there collecting his composure, bracing himself for any response he might get when you take away the filter of publicity. When was the last time he made such an effort to keep his head for anyone's sake but his own? He wasn't sure.

He knocks, but still tries the handle without waiting.] By?

[ By doesn't respond, but the door opens. He's sitting at the table of his apartment, one bottle of brandy empty before him and a second well on its way to drained. There's an uncharacteristic composure and quiet to him, rather inconsistent with his usual ebullient, slightly sleazy charm. He lifts his chin in greeting. ]

Dorian. Go ahead and come in.

[Dorian is slow to shut the door, just so he has time to take in this... this. Apprehensive wouldn't be the way to describe how he looks at him, no, it's... attentive.]

You didn't waste any time in actually drinking, I see. [He finally sighs, closing the gap and taking up a chair beside him.] I don't know if that lowers or raises the chances of you talking to me.

Is that what you're here for? An interrogation?

[ He points to the kitchen. ]

Another bottle in there, if you want it.

An intervention, actually.

[Dorian casts a cursory glance towards the kitchen, but he doesn't move to go fetch it yet.]

Not for the brandy, so don't fret. Your performance. This... thing you put on for everyone, it can't be even remotely healthy.

Am I performing?

[ He smiles without warmth behind it. Without amusement, either. ]

I had thought this was simply me.

[He doesn't bother smiling in turn, just watching Byerly's expression.]

Truly? Because I believe this is the first time I've actually witnessed you finish a bottle, let alone two. [Dorian had drank most of their last, he remembers. He hadn't thought much of it before, but now...] The spill was a nice touch. You get by quite convincingly, up until I point out what's so likable about you. Then you deflect, distract. So tell me, why is it so horrible that anyone knows Byerly Vorrytyer can be kind, hm?

[ He takes a long drink, and - not looking at Dorian - asks - ]

Are you accusing me of something?

Yes. I'm accusing you of being unable to handle anything but what you're trying to make other people believe, and I think I have enough evidence, what with all... this. What I said-- it was much, yes, but it was mild.

[He hesitates, but leans forward to place a hand over the one on the bottle to get him to lower it.]

Why do you do this, Byerly? You don't need to hide in plain sight. You've come so far from where you were before.

[ So not the half-expected follow-up - are you a spy? No. Dorian is perceptive, but not quite that perceptive. And yet in a way Byerly can't help but be sourly disappointed. He thinks he could handle a true interrogation - fast-penta or torture - trying to get at the secret of who he serves - He could handle that far more easily than he could handle this. These questions about all his emotional vulnerabilities. ]

Have I?

[ His voice is rather distant, detached, and clipped. Quite devoid of emotion. He sounds like someone delivering a report - a report on something that had been a failure. ]

Physically, perhaps. But I've often left Barrayar. It doesn't make me any less Byerly Vorrutyer. [ Then he turns his eyes on Dorian, and says, that same indifferent tone - ] Do you anticipate, Dorian, that if you bring me some comfort, there will be some sympathetic magic that will make your father's death hurt less? Because you could fix a hundred people and you'd be just as miserable.

[It's a good thing he steeled himself for such a response before he came here. His fingers curl in on themselves, and he draws his hand back, but he lowers it to rest on the table space between them rather than recoil entirely. He's certainly frustrated, but not angry. He wouldn't laugh if he were angry.]

My father didn't bring me to the doorstep of a man I'm quite fond of. Could you imagine? He's probably turning over in his grave. [His smile is wry and brief, followed by a deep sigh.] No, Byerly. I don't anticipate it hurting any less. If anything, I imagined it would hurt more, with you bringing it up to try and dissuade me. I'm here because I think I've only met Byerly Vorrutyer briefly, when he didn't expect he'd relate to my trouble at home.

[He isn't quite that perceptive, no. But he is where he believes it counts.] Because Byerly Vorrutyer is not Emporer of Barrayar. He is not happy when he's drunk. He doesn't boldly claim anyone is in love with him, because apparently, the real man is terrified of that prospect. The only thing I anticipate out of coming here is making you realize that it is not alright to harden yourself like this.

Shall I be soft, then?

[ It's simultaneously a deep relief and hideously disappointing that he'd gotten nothing more than a wince in answer to his goad about Dorian's father. He doesn't want to hurt Dorian, not really. At the same time, he wants to rip him into shreds. He wants Dorian happy; he wants him screaming in agony. He wants him at peace, and wants him tormented to the point of madness. Ah, dear. ]

A tender little lamb for your pleasure? I've been hard since I was a boy. Not meant in the lewd sense. Could you imagine. [ The dirty joke is told rather grimly. ] And you oughtn't pretend you're any different. If you were as tender as you tried to be, would you be alive today?

No, I wouldn't. [He admits it surprising ease.] But I made my armor with who I know myself to be, and not what everyone needs to perceive me as. I made it because my father wanted me to spend my life screaming on the inside, and if I hadn't, I'd be married to some girl or a drooling vegetable. I made it because I'd rather go down, kicking and screaming, than be anything else.

[It's with less ease that he unclenches his fist, moving to pull the bottle aside entirely.]

You left your father behind because he mistreated you. You became independent of him because it ate you up inside that he'd ever do what he's done to you. Then you went on to become miserable with who you actually are- is that not giving him what he wanted?

[ By reaches out for the bottle, getting a grip around it and pulling it back towards himself. ]

I don't want to talk about my father. [ Then: ] What does any of it matter when everyone is dead?

[Dorian, in turns, moves to pull it back away from him.]

Just because everyone from your world is asleep doesn't mean that you're alone to do whatever you like to yourself.

[ By gives a hard tug. His face is still impassive, though. ]

It means that nothing was ever of consequence.

[He doesn't pull so much as strain to hold it in place. His lips thin.]

Why don't you elaborate?

What needs to be elaborated on?

[ He doesn't look at Dorian. ]

I thought this intervention wasn't for the alcohol, Dorian. Or are you a lying soul after all?

That "nothing." Whatever it is that's holding you back, that's so important that you have to be so stubborn with me.

[He keeps his eyes trained on By, allowing himself to frown.]

You can drink when you actually tell me something.

[ Byerly would fight him, but he recognizes that at this point his blood alcohol is high enough that a single wave of Dorian's magical hand and he'd probably go up in flames. So he takes the path of less resistance, and he tells him something. A partial something, a something that is only a small segment of the truth, but still - something. ]

One exhausts oneself rebelling, only to find that what one was rebelling against is now no more. All the hatred, all the fury, all the sorrow and love, poured out into what is now a void. Why did a man even bother, if all of it would in time be erased - all save for his memories?

[ A grim smile, and a hard tug at the bottle. ]

Happy Winterfair.

[It's enough, to Dorian. He releases the bottle and leans back in his chair, reeling at just how familiar that little segment is. He and Byerly are very, very different people, more evident now than ever - but somehow, he knows that feeling. That existential dread that tugs whenever he's reminded he won't be able to go home, makes his heraldry so much heavier to wear.

So he stands, and he walks around him to head for the kitchen. He isn't giving up on Byerly, no, he's just allowing himself a break. A reprieve from all the pressing on his vulnerabilities.]

We called it Wintersend, back home.

[He starts up again slowly, opening the bottle and taking a long drink before he turns back around.]

We would journey to Minrathous - the capital, with the cows - and compete against one another at the beginning of the new year. Now, on the surface, it was to make all your peers and other families jealous of how superior you are to them. But to me, it... it was always a show of how brilliant our people could be. We stood around the restored ruins, and made such beautiful displays of talent, such brilliant of how much we could advance... We forgot how often we killed each other over the corruption of our supposed betters.

That's all gone, now. I took my father's position in the Magisterium, and I took on students, all so young and willing to pull us from the way we've made people suffer for years. They're gone. My friends, as few as they were, are gone. But you know, as terrible as that is, it still mattered... because doing all that we did made them less miserable than if we'd just sat idly by.

But you worked for the benefit of your country. For its well-being.

[ The bottle is released, but By doesn't take a drink from it quite yet. ]

To what end, if your country died?

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