[Fic] Aletheia

[crisis_control]

Another Vorkosigan piece!



This piece was a whole lot easier to write than the previous one - for one, it didn't require any research. Well, I had to pull up the exact quote about the Investigatif Federale building, if only to check the spelling, but that wasn't too difficult (a quick ctrl-F through the e-book; how I love digital copies).

The quote about the chip being the most trivial - a direct lift from Miles, in Memory. I love that line so much that I just had to put it in. The horses snuck in too. Sneaky things. (All thanks to that line from Simon in Memory - "I can stay alive on a horse, but I don't recall its being what you would call a sybaritic pleasure. More in the masochistic line." And staying alive is a pretty high bar where it comes to riding - and what better way to learn it than under fire, chasing after a tiny Miles who rides like he was born on horseback? Heck, sometimes I think I learnt how to stay alive on a horse from crazy horses who took off with me without warning.)

I wonder whether I'm getting tired of writing action and adventure - I considered (briefly) whether I needed to have other-memory-chip-guy trying to kill Simon, and the thought of writing some high powered chase with a lot of explosions was extremely off-putting. I never used to shy away from writing high powered chases with a lot of explosions - what changed?

This fic was just downright fun. Simon's mumbled a few times in the books about taking the damn chip out, and I've always wondered whether he'd actually seriously considered the possibility. Probably not.

Come to think of it, I might need a break from all these serious-bizness fics for a while. I've been writing too many of these pieces with Epic Insights and what-have-you, and I fear they're all going to sound the same very soon.

Comments

[philomytha]

I have long wanted fic about Simon learning to stay alive on a horse! And possibly Alys introducing him to the more sybaritic side of it, since riding sedately through lovely country with congenial company is somewhat more fun than having Count Piotr (surely the world's most alarming riding instructor) yelling at you about your knees ;-).

Also, I have to say, I am very glad that Simon appears to have obsessed your writing muse, because it's like you're writing all the fics I particularly want to read but didn't know until you wrote them. ♥

[crisis_control]

Having Count Piotr as one's riding instructor must be terrifying. And Piotr does say in Barrayar that dressage training starts on a lunge line, and you're not allowed to use your hands until you've developed your seat - cue mental images of Simon bouncing around gripping madly at the saddle while trying to learn the arcane art of posting the trot, with Piotr alternately screaming at him to let go and cursing the standards of Imperial Service personnel these days...

On the bright side, any fear of the horse will almost certainly give way in the face of the fear of the instructor.

(And if Simon always ends up getting the stubborn, bucky, bitey chestnut with the biggest, bounciest trot, instead of the sweet dark bay with a trot like silk, Piotr will just innocently pretend that it has absolutely nothing to do with ImpSec throwing him out of ImpMil back when Miles was in the replicator...)

*holds head* This is how all the fics start...

*grin* Simon has been a favourite of mine for a very, very long time (possibly the longest, of all the characters that I write for), but it never actually occurred to me to write for the Vorkosigan series (I had no idea where to even start) until the activity on the bujold_fic comm really started exploding. (I still remember yours being the only Simon fic on ffnet for the longest time). The Winterfair Exchange and the Summer Ficathon are always such great sources for prompts - I think almost everything I've written is a response of some kind.

[philomytha]

Oh, Piotr would put Simon on a thoroughly awkward horse, wouldn't he. Toughen 'em up is very clearly his view. And poor Simon gritting his teeth and thinking that yes, he survived basic training but that was a long time ago and damn why don't these animals just have controls? I do also have a mental image of Lady Alys (who, like any Vor lady, would have been put up on her first pony at toddler age, and habitually rides sidesaddle) watching a lesson and wincing a lot, equally sorry for Simon and the horse.

I managed to fall for Simon *before* reading the books from hedda's Harry Potter crossover fic in which he shows up and gets poisoned by Snape by accident. And then I read the series thoroughly out of order - I think I started with ACC, and then went on to Memory, then Shards and Barrayar, then the rest basically as out of order as possible, and he kept popping up and catching my attention every time. Though I don't think mine can have been the only Simon fic on the internet, because I remember finding The Councils of Despair around the time I posted Lost, and it making me want to give up in despair because I would never write anything that good. Though I did finally get over that... and it is lovely to see the fandom finally start growing, because I've been hoping it would for years.

Incidentally, if you're ever short of prompts, Lanna and I and a few other people have contrived to make fic_promptly the only place on the internet where Vorkosigan is a megafandom...

[crisis_control]

Oh, I recall that cross-over! And Simon wasn't even the main character...

Though I don't think mine can have been the only Simon fic on the internet, because I remember finding The Councils of Despair around the time I posted Lost -- I think The Councils of Despair was a yuletide fic, and probably posted on the Yuletide archive (so I only found it much later...)

My goodness, the fic_promptly list has exploded since the last time I looked it at. Thanks for the reminder, I'll check it out!