( open ) one more new arrival

[middling]

WHO: Ivan Vorpatril
WHERE: fountain & around the village/inn
WHEN: November 17th
OPEN TO: everyone
WARNINGS: none, will edit if needed.
STATUS: open!

---

arrival; fountain

Something within Ivan knows that something is desperately, deeply wrong before he's fully conscious — a tug on a part of his brain rewired not ten years past to pay attention to places that were dark, damp, and inclosed. The shove on his back upwards is only enough to jolt him into a shocked awareness, at which point he opens his mouth, swallowing ice-cold water. He isn't here, he's somewhere else, Miles wasn't quick enough and no one came — Ivan's panicked strong strokes upwards means he breaks the surface to open air and a sky rather than thick metal and he coughs as one hand goes to find the edge of the damned thing.

It's freezing, Ivan is freezing and already beginning to shiver as he clings to the edge of the fountain, face caught in an echo of panic as he swallows large gulps of equally freezing air. Barrayar, he thinks first, before the emptiness of the land makes him reconsider. And, for that matter, where the hell is his uniform? The navy blue of whatever it is he's wearing is nice, but it's hardly warm and now soaking wet.

Ivan pulls himself up onto the lip of the fountain with no trouble, cold, dejected, and most of all — completely lost. "Er," he starts, in the general direction to anyone passing by, voice accented in Russian, "where am I?" It can’t be Earth, can it? If it is, it’s cold, dammit.

around;

Not a naturally curious man, Ivan has decided to stick around the main area of town until he’s gotten his bearings. It might be difficult to miss him, as he looks horrifically out of place in his scrubs, but he is, at least, dry. And wrapped up in the black peacoat he’d found in the pack on his back. That, at least, makes him feel a little bit like he’s at home. It might not be a military greatcoat, but it’s warm.

He can be found wandering the streets, still looking slightly lost, but with a blank sort of open that makes him seem approachable. But his final destination is clearly the inn, or rather — the pub that comes with it. "I hope," he mumbles into the air more than anything, "that they'll accept an IOU for something hot."

And something to drink, but as Ivan is Vor, he considers that a given.

Comments

Arrival

[domesticaffairs]

Byerly quickly learned that to stay in the know, he needed to be at the Inn in the evenings. It was a popular gathering spot after a day of surviving where everyone could be apprised of new resources or arrivals.

And so it was on his way there, in his black scrubs and (thank god) matching pea coat that he hears a loud splash from the direction of the fountain. It couldn't be anything but a new arrival.

He casually saunters over to get a look at the poor sod, but the facial profile is unnervingly familiar. It couldn't...could it? Byerly had had a lot of time to think over the past few days since arriving. He had come to terms with possibly not seeing Barrayarans ever again depending on why exactly they were here. In truth, there was only a bare handful of people he would miss. Among them was the person sitting on the edge of the fountain.

Ivan was usually a pleasant sight on his own but now he was doubly so in this godforsaken village.

Byerly comes closer, remembering how bitterly cold it felt being soaked as well. He slides out of his coat and slips it onto Ivan's shoulders.

"The only answer I've been able to come up with thus far is 'not Barrayar'."

[middling]

The shock is still settling in Ivan's mind, so much so that he accepts the voice and the coat without complaint for a long moment. He curls into the still-warm wool, trying but failing not to shiver. Why'd it have to be so damned cold? If he wanted to freeze he'd spend Winterfair at Vorkosigan Surleau, not climbing out of a fountain. At least it wasn't frozen over, Ivan tells himself, casting a worried look over his shoulder at the water. How deep was it?

It's a good second from the moment By puts his coat around him and spoke that Ivan finally registers that the other man had mentioned Barrayar. And more than that, he knows that voice.

"Oh God," Ivan says, staring at the other man, "Vorrutyer. What are you doing here?"

[domesticaffairs]

"If I knew the answer to that I might not still be here to tell you that I don't know," he replies with his usual smirk, sarcastic lilt to his voice. "Also I'm flattered you're wondering about me instead of asking more pertinent questions like 'why did I just climb out of a fountain?', 'what day is it?', or 'what planet am I on?'."

He pulls back and folds his arms across his chest, weight heavy on one hip as he eyes Ivan up and down--he's currently dressed in black, short-sleeved scrubs, skin pale on his arms and likely he looks more muscular than Ivan has ever seen--Byerly never wears short sleeves in public.

"The answers to these questions are 'Don't know', 'unsure', and 'Earth, likely' in that order, by the way. Come, I'm cold. There's a fire at the Inn."

[middling]

Byerly Vorrutyer's presence simply drives home the fact that there is no divine power, in spite of his aunt's deepest desire. Not that Ivan has ever approached something close to Theism, but if he had-- he groans, running a hand through his quickly freezing damp hair and weighs his options. The first -- shrugging By off -- is tempting. He doesn't want to deal with a headache this early, and not after whatever the hell just happened to him. But as he's currently desperately using By's coat as the only thing keeping him from freezing to death, and the other man knows where there's a way to get warm, ditching him seems like a one way ticket to a very unfortunate end.

"Is any of that supposed to be reassuring, or is it just because you're the one saying it?" Getting to his feet, Ivan pulls the jacket tighter around him, enough to fight off the cold and the -- oh God, snow. And By is the one complaining about cold. Ivan looks at the other man, eyes narrowing slightly as he gives him a once over. He doesn't think he's seen Byerly in anything but his usual finely crafted suits, and he looks odd and less like he was the sort of weasel that just woke up from a night in an unsavory place and found it to his liking.

But Ivan doesn't make a move to cut and run, stuffing his hands into the pockets of the coat with a nod at By to lead the way.

[domesticaffairs]

Byerly's smirk is back in full force at Ivan's question, though more wry than usual. His arms tighten around himself as a gust of wind blows through.

"No, not quite, though I should think that finding yourself in the situation we are in, any answers at all are better than none," he replies coolly. And with Ivan's acquiescence, he leads on, subtly rubbing at his bare skin in the cold.

He leads them not very far at all to the Inn, wave of heat washing over them as soon as Byerly opens the door, leading Ivan inside. Byerly heads straight for the large fireplace, sitting right in front of it to warm himself.

[middling]

Ivan doesn't trail after Byerly so much as he does stop once he gets in past the threshold to look around. It reminds him of some of the older rooms in various Vorbarr Sultana residences, the kind that don't get updated with new technology because someone clings to hard to old aesthetics rather than embracing change. The kind of places Ivan hated going to parties at because the hosts were dull and the buildings drafty.

Oh God.

"By," Ivan says, wandering over the only source of warmth with no small amount of trepidation. "Don't tell me we've ended up somewhere like the Time of Isolation." There was a reason they had groundcars and stunners and central heating, damn it. He holds out his hands far too close to the fire, hissing when the sting of heat bites into his half-frozen fingers.

[domesticaffairs]

Ah yes, those were typically the places that didn't host the kinds of fetes Byerly went to to get good gossip. If the place had decent heat, better running water and didn't let the cold in, he wouldn't mind the quaint decor.

He rolls his eyes before stepping up next to Ivan and cupping one of Ivan's hands between both of his own in order to warm it up with body heat before allowing him to try shoving half numb fingers near flames.

"I won't, then."

around!

[warriorborn]

Benedict has developed a routine to his day, a routine that largely revolves around sorting out the firewood situation for the Inn. He's more or less the tallest of those that live there — there are others around the village who are of a height with him; Captain Rogers comes to mind — with the broadest shoulders, which means he often finds himself walking back from the forest with a few more branches balanced on one of them so that they can be hacked to useable sizes and stacked along the back wall of the Inn.

Considering how much firewood they go through just to fuel the kitchen alone, he knows his work is never truly done, especially not with Miss Kate insisting on continuing her daily lunches.

He's currently hauling a few fir branches across his shoulder, the tips bobbing merrily with each step he takes, when he notices a new figure (he thinks) wandering around the so-called town square.

"Hello," he calls out, slightly wary of strangers, but wanting to be friendly nonetheless. He remembers just how disconcerting it was to appear in this place, with no knowledge of how he got here, or where here even was. "Are you new?"

[middling]

Rather than unnerving Ivan, Benedict's hight and build do more to put Ivan in mind of Barrayar than anything else he's seen since pulling himself out of that damned fountain. Not that any man in the Imperial Service would do anything like carrying branches unless he was a prole visiting home out somewhere in the backcountry of some District. Still, it makes Ivan's smile widen.

"Probably," he replies, shoving his hands into the pockets of his coat, waiting for the other man to come closer first. Caution is still in the forefront of his mind, but he certainly didn't arrive with any of his weaponry, and acting like you're suspicious is the first thing that'll give him away. Although he can't figure out why on earth someone would grab him now that Gregor'd gone and gotten hitched and Miles was fighting with his wife over how many kids to have at once. "If being new means crawling out of a freezing fountain. You might want to work on that, people might get the wrong impression."

[warriorborn]

Benedict rather likes being on firewood duty, if only for the sheer novelty of finding wood. Growing. In the wild. He'd never seen trees before he arrived here, and the strangeness of such a sight still hasn't wholly gone away, even after three months of waking up to seeing them growing outside his window.

His boots leave large, obvious tracks in the snow, his body weight and the added weight of the heavy branches on his shoulder making him sink deep into the drifts.

"Yes, I'm afraid we've all had to suffer that indignity." Luckily, Benedict did not have to crawl out of the fountain while it was snowing, a fate the newer arrivals did not share. "I see you've fond your coat. There should be dry clothes in your pack as well, in case you need to change." He can't quite tell if the trousers the man is wearing are navy blue and wet, or simply black like his own. Either way, he's sure he'd appreciate being inside, especially with some of Miss Kate's tea to warm him up.

"If you'll follow me, I can show you where to go once I deposit my burden."

[middling]

Navy blue, which Ivan would find more appealing when he wasn't freezing. It's one thing to be shoved into a fountain on a planet that was decidedly not Barrayar, but at least half of the Vorpatril colors came with him. Still, Ivan doubts most people who've ended up dumped in that fountain have the exact same background that made waking up in freezing cold water with no idea how they got there as horrifying as it was to him. At least the fountain was big.

Still, he gives the other man an encouraging, friendly smile. "Go right ahead," he says, with a wave of his elbow -- he's refusing to pull his hands out of his coat pockets if it's all the same to Benedict. "Captain Ivan Vorpatril, by the way." His title and his rank probably don't mean much here, but it feels wrong to introduce himself without the military rank. Leaving the 'lord' out of it seems easier, however. At least until he finds someone soft and feminine to impress by using it.

Ivan falls in behind Benedict easily, stepping in his tracks already to minimize the amount of effort he has to expend walking through the snow.

[warriorborn]

"Another Captain, hm?" Benedict can't help the smile that curls his lips, but it's not mocking. "You're in good company, then." It's a little strange how many military men have wound up in this little village of theirs; one day, he should do a proper count. It might be important. As it stands, however, he's got other things on his mind. "Benedict Sorellin-Lancaster, at your service." Captain Vorpatril's mode of speech makes Benedict feel much more at home than some of the other residents', and it endears the man to him a little more quickly than normal.

If trudging through the snow bothers him, he doesn't show it, gamely slogging along around to the back of the Inn where there's a sort of lean-to erected to shield the wood stacked there from the worst of the snow. Once he's added his new collection to the pile, he leads the way into the building proper, clapping his hands together to warm them and stomping his feet to get the worst of the snow off his boots.

"There are rooms upstairs, if you want to find a place to set your pack down, and towels to dry yourself with. I'll put the kettle on and brew some tea while you change, if you'd like something warm to drink." As an afterthought, he adds, "There's no wine, though." Their last new arrival was pretty adamant that he be given alcohol, so it's better to head that off early.

[middling]

He's about to thank Benedict for the information -- getting warm and getting dry are high on his priority list for the moment -- and he's about to make his temporary excuses to do exactly that when the other man slides in the news about wine. Ivan pauses, staring at him slightly.

"No wine? Is there any alcohol at all?" He's Vor, how is he supposed to live without something to imbibe?

Inn

[thekittenqueen]

It was never a surprise to see a new face coming into the inn. She managed to miss his arrival and the usual signs of someone crawling out of the fountain, but after having come to recognize many others around the village, it didn't take much to guess he was new.

She had seated herself by the fire, a warm cup of tea beside her as she finished the last of a cloak that she was making. Spying Ivan, she set it aside and got to her feet, offering out her hand. "I wish I could say 'welcome'." She offered with a kind smile.

[middling]

Ah. Well maybe this wasn't a complete and total loss, Ivan thinks when Margaery speaks and offers him her hand. With a polite bow, Ivan presses his lips to her knuckles -- ever the proper lord -- before letting her hand fall. "Knowing that you're here has made the place a fair bit more welcoming," he replies, grinning.

He might be far away from Barrayar and the Nexus proper and he might be freezing, but nothing has ever stopped him from flirting before. Why waste a chance to see if this place might not be a complete wash?

[thekittenqueen]

"You are perhaps the first new arrival that chose flirtation as your greeting." She grinned, folding her hands in front of her. Her eyes glimmering with amusement as she regarded him. "Though I can't say that I am disappointed. If only all others possessed such charm." Why not have a bit of fun flirting with a stranger?

She offered him a seat beside her, turning to face him in her chair. "Do you have a name or does your smile speak for you instead?"

[middling]

"Am I?" That doesn't strike him as true -- surely anyone else would want to flirt with her as soon as possible? "Then they have no appreciation of the beautiful things here." The amusement is encouraging, and Ivan hopes that it's at least a little bit genuine. Not that he didn't mind the faked laughter if he was just getting the feel for a woman, but it was better when it was the real thing rather than something a woman would do to flatter him and encourage him.

"It could speak for itself, I suppose. Captain Lord Ivan Vorpatril, at your service." Again, the rank and title would probably mean little here, but Ivan is perfectly willing to see if they work both to impress and in his favor. He says this with a bow -- fluid and habitual. If there's one thing Lady Alys Vorpatril attempted to do, it was instill manners in her son. It worked, but possibly not to the end that she wished. Ah well, Ivan had been a disappointment to her at home, he'd continue to be one here.

[thekittenqueen]

"Or perhaps they are afraid to speak so cavalierly to a lady?" He didn't strike her as someone that was afraid to display gallantry and charm. It certainly was refreshing. She had missed these sort of interactions. That chivalry that existed in the south and was admired so deeply didn't exist in this world, as it was unnecessary and not practical.

Which was why it was a welcomed relief here. "If you call a woman beautiful, she will expect you to go into detail. Otherwise, she might view it as empty flattery."

She offered him the seat beside her, pleased by his fine manners. "A pleasure, Captain Lord Ivan Vorpatril. I am Margaery Tyrell of High Garden." It would at least indicate she was a lady without revealing she was once a queen.

[middling]

"Perhaps," Ivan admits with a slight shrug. "But I've found that one has very little to lose by trying." That's the trick of it -- it's worth nine rejections from women who have little to no interest for the one that does, and Ivan has never found himself put out by rejection for long.

Ah, more detail? Ivan grins, leaning forward after he's taken the seat next to her. "Lady Tyrell, then?" He asks, trying to find the proper form of address for her -- his mother would be proud. Well, less proud about his flirtation in general, but Lady Alys Vorpatril had suffered through that for a decade and a half, plus some change. At least she's not here to see it. "The pleasure is all mine. Although I have to confess that I don't know where to start, as the whole of you is captivating enough it's hard to focus on the details."

Although in his personal opinion there's not enough give to her to suit his tastes. Ah well, one couldn't have everything.

around

[zomboligist]

Snow is not something Ravi's used to. Snow doesn't belong in Seattle or London and certainly not Atlanta, so he's never prepared his body for this inevitability that he might end up in a place with endless, awful, constant snow. Why is it that he's so miserably cold right now? He shivers as he wanders in after the other man, teeth chattering in an all-together unpleasant way, trying to give him a friendly mental push to get into the inn.

"They've got fires and warm things like soup," he promises. "We just have to get inside a little faster, before I freeze certain unmentionable parts off."

[middling]

That's all the encouragement Ivan needs to let his wariness of the place evaporate -- hot food and no loss of use of anything below the waist. Grinning and huddling further into his coat, he doesn't loiter around the door, retreating further into the Inn and directly towards the closest source of heat.

"Please don't tell me that last part is a real worry." Barrayar was cold, sure, but never really that cold. And if Ivan did manage to freeze it off, he could pay money for someone to grow him another one and graft it on. Like Dono had, only his circumstances were... different, Ivan supposes. Although he could without a second go at puberty.

[zomboligist]

"The last part is a general worry and recurring nightmare since I was roughly fifteen," Ravi shares, which does supercede the nightmares about being naked in front of his class, his panel of bosses, and now, a ridiculous number of zombies who would think of him like brunch. He hurries inside, shaking as he does and letting out a sigh of relief as he makes it.

"I'm telling you, after all this snow, I genuinely don't understand anyone who willingly moves into this sort of climate," he rails and starts dragging some chairs towards the fire.

[middling]

Ivan can't help the laugh that escapes him, grinning. "I was always concerned I was going to loose it in a freak accident after my cousin spent three weeks telling me a bunch of bull about Vor Lords who managed the same. One of them included a woman who cut it off and cooked it for her adulterous husband." He shudders, partly out of theatrics and part genuine discomfort at the thought.

Following quick on Ravi's heels, Ivan sighs with relief the moment he enters the Inn, although the look he casts around the building quickly changes to one of dismay. "This is it?" He's from the year 3000 and some, alright, he needs a moment to realize his fate. "We get snow where I'm from, in the capital and up in the mountains of my uncle's district. But normally I'm wearing winter boots and a wool uniform." And, well. 'Willing' isn't so much of an option -- he was born in Vorbarr Sultana, he'll probably die there too. "Guess you're from some planet that's more temperate?"

It hasn't yet occurred to Ivan that people might not be used to the idea of interplanetary travel, let alone interplanetary colonization.

[zomboligist]

Ravi tips his head to the side and then back to the other when 'planet' actually shows up in conversation. "Yes," is all he says, very firmly. Yes, he is from another planet, which means that technically speaking, Ravi is experiencing his own personal first contact with an alien. It's not exactly what he expected (more abnormal physical characteristics), but it's not awful, either. "I'm from Earth. I thought we were on Earth?"

"Is this not Earthy looking to you? Have you ever visited Earth before? Where was your planet located, what's it called?" he asks rapidly, his questions coming out as quickly as he can breathe.

[middling]

"Earth doesn't look like this. Not when I was there. It was a lot less green and a lot less cold." It was, in fact, a giant city kept from being flooded by some dams. Ah, London. "Are we on Earth?" And if they are on Earth, where the hell are they that's kept mostly natural like this?

The questions take him aback, and Ivan blinks once or twice as he holds up a hand for Ravi to slow the questions. "About eight years ago? Uh, at a dead end wormhole past Komarr, and it's Barrayar?" Hopefully those answers suffice.