Fic: Spin Recovery, Part Ten
Dec. 18th, 2007 02:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalPG for use of alcohol.
Note: This bit wasripped off inspired by some of Miles Vorkosigan's observations at Lord Yenaro's party in LMB's Cetaganda. Go read it, she's a much better writer than I am.
Bobbi’s club was one of the more expensive venues to be found on Vulpine Prime. Actually, the term “on” was something of a misnomer, since it was actually aboard a gigantic airship, nearly half a kilometer long, that traveled a constant circular route between the continent’s largest cities, about a kilometer above the planet. Access was restricted to club members and their guests, who were brought aboard by the airship’s own lighters. The interior was done up in an archaic style, with much brass and dark wood, meant to invoke the heady period of flight in the century between the development of lighter than air transportation and the coming of the Dominion. The passageways Bobbi led Rufus down smelled of brass, good food and money
Bobbi brought him into private dining room that featured tiered leather couches in a half-circle in front of a large window looking out of over the twinkling lights of the city. Several other Vulpine were already there, most of Bobbi and Rufus’ age or a bit younger, most dressed in cutting edge fashions. A few of the faces he recognized from his younger days, and even the ones he didn’t he could guess at their status. Farmer lords and ladies all, enjoying the fruits of their families’ wealth.
“Well, look at what the kin goose dug up! Rufus Brushtail, it’s been too long!” one of the vixens called out.
“Hello everyone,” he said, a little tentatively, feeling himself tense up. The room wasn’t crowded per se. There were just a half-dozen others inside, aside from himself and Bobbi, but it still made him feel uneasy. Gritting his teeth, he stepped deliberately into the room, finding a spot on one of the couches with a nice view of the world below. Damnit, he was an adult, not a mewling cub who had lost his mother in a shopping plaza. He shouldn’t start panicking just because there were a few people he didn’t know in a room.
“I just bumped into him while I was conducting some business with the Countess Brushtail,” Bobbi explained. “Fellow has been on the ground for a week and he hadn’t bothered to call his own friends!”
“Well that’s a fine thing! Have a drink and we’ll celebrate your return,” the vixen said. Belatedly Rufus recognized her as one of the posh crowd from his school days, though he was blanking on her name.
“Oh, I can’t. I’m still recovering,” he said hastily, touching his empty shoulder socket. He didn’t bother to explain exactly what he was recovering from. If he started telling his story to this bunch, it would be halfway across the planet before sunrise.
“Don’t be a stiff tail, Ru. One won’t hurt,” Bobbi said. He stepped behind the room’s small bar and poured a couple of fingers of a Terran brandy in a cocktail glass.
“Fine, fine,” he replied, taking the glass and taking a brief sip out of politeness. The brandy burned on its way down his throat, leaving a pleasant tingling sensation in its wake.
“So what happened, Ru? You look utterly horrid,” the vixen said, looking more excited than revolted at his injury. Fruit, what was her name? Fam, Tam, something like that, from one of the minor noble houses. Anyway, she looked pretty enough, especially wearing the dress she was in now, a black piece of silk with a deeply plunging neckline that gave a generous view of her pale chest fur.
“I was victim of my own stupidity,” he said, taking another brief sip to forestall further explanations.
Bobbi sat down beside him with his own drink and said, “I still don’t understand what you were thinking, flying off to be a fighter pilot. If you wanted to engage in that sort of nonsense, you could have just as easily joined up in the Defence Force. With your name you’d likely be a flight leader by now.”
“That wasn’t what I wanted.” Yes, he probably could have gotten a position worthy of the Brushtail name just by asking for it. But being a flight leader had never been what he wanted. It had been the sheer joy of flying that had drawn him to fighters, not leading others into combat or dealing with the painstaking bureaucratic details of command authority. He took another sip of his drink, feeling a pleasantly warm feeling start in his stomach that banished that negative thought into the background.
“Well I just don’t understand why you’d want to leave home like that,” Fam/Tam said. “What’s out there in the galaxy except a punch of hairless barbarians?”
“I’m sorry?” Rufus asked.
“Hairless, hungry barbarians,” one of the other males added, getting a chuckle from around the room. “Can’t fault their appetites, they’re the ones who buy our farm goods!”
“Well they can’t help it, being raised in societies with no social order,” Bobbi said. “We once a hosted some Creo from one of their industrial guilds at Brightspot Manor. Decent enough folk, but I don’t think they could have agreed on the time of day if you’d given them an atomic clock. Did you know that they don’t have a single religion?”
Did you really think everyone did? Rufus thought silently, keeping his tongue between his teeth and listening.
“Creo are as bad humans in that respect,” someone else said.
Fam/Tam added in a conspiratorial tone, “They say some of the Creo still worship the Varn!”
“Who can blame them? After the humans stirred everyone up five hundred years back, it was the Creo who lost the most when the Varn retreated,” Bobbi said, in what he probably thought was an evenhanded tone. “They never had a real religion. There’s probably some cult of poor grey headed fellows out there who worship Galen space rats, just because they need something.”
“I don’t care what they worship, just so long as they leave the Holy Den Mother to us,” Fam/Tam declared.
“Hear, hear!” someone else called out and everyone sipped a toast, Rufus included, though more to stop his own tongue than to enjoy the alcohol. He continued to listen, as the conversation veered away from discussion of the other Alliance races and back to more comfortable subjects, such as the latest fashions, the scandalous marriage of some low level farmer lord to an even lower level member of the military (“not even a commissioned officer!” Fam/Tam said in shock.) and the latest grav ball scores.
It was all very depressing. The males and vixens in the room weren’t automatically bad individuals, but in listening to their conversations Rufus realized that, aside from Bobbi, they were all sons or second and third daughters. None of them appeared to consider the military as a viable option, so instead their lives and horizons seemed to revolve around nothing higher than parties, minor scandals, and living off the rents of the lands their mothers had granted them for revenue. There didn’t seem to be an ounce of ambition among them. Indeed, why should there be? They would not inherit, therefore they would not rule. They were not, in word, useful, and were never expected to be.
Rufus finished his drink, feeling himself begin to float pleasantly even as his mind considered darker possibilities. This was the fate he had been running away from, he realized, flying to the stars to avoid this endless limbo. It wasn’t as if he’d been unloved in his family. Even the stupidest cubling could be loved, so long as they were never malicious in the mistakes they made. His mother’s acceptance of his return had proved that. But there was a difference between being loved and being valued.
He could see the future quite clearly now. He’d recover from his mistakes, he was sure. Get a new arm, trick his body into not needing the drugs he currently craved. Maybe even find a vixen from a proper family who wasn’t too picky about a mate and raise some cubs. He’d settle down, he would be respectable, and when he passed on the universe would forget about him completely.
“Bobbi, be a good man and get me another drink, would you?”
TBC
Note: This bit was
Bobbi’s club was one of the more expensive venues to be found on Vulpine Prime. Actually, the term “on” was something of a misnomer, since it was actually aboard a gigantic airship, nearly half a kilometer long, that traveled a constant circular route between the continent’s largest cities, about a kilometer above the planet. Access was restricted to club members and their guests, who were brought aboard by the airship’s own lighters. The interior was done up in an archaic style, with much brass and dark wood, meant to invoke the heady period of flight in the century between the development of lighter than air transportation and the coming of the Dominion. The passageways Bobbi led Rufus down smelled of brass, good food and money
Bobbi brought him into private dining room that featured tiered leather couches in a half-circle in front of a large window looking out of over the twinkling lights of the city. Several other Vulpine were already there, most of Bobbi and Rufus’ age or a bit younger, most dressed in cutting edge fashions. A few of the faces he recognized from his younger days, and even the ones he didn’t he could guess at their status. Farmer lords and ladies all, enjoying the fruits of their families’ wealth.
“Well, look at what the kin goose dug up! Rufus Brushtail, it’s been too long!” one of the vixens called out.
“Hello everyone,” he said, a little tentatively, feeling himself tense up. The room wasn’t crowded per se. There were just a half-dozen others inside, aside from himself and Bobbi, but it still made him feel uneasy. Gritting his teeth, he stepped deliberately into the room, finding a spot on one of the couches with a nice view of the world below. Damnit, he was an adult, not a mewling cub who had lost his mother in a shopping plaza. He shouldn’t start panicking just because there were a few people he didn’t know in a room.
“I just bumped into him while I was conducting some business with the Countess Brushtail,” Bobbi explained. “Fellow has been on the ground for a week and he hadn’t bothered to call his own friends!”
“Well that’s a fine thing! Have a drink and we’ll celebrate your return,” the vixen said. Belatedly Rufus recognized her as one of the posh crowd from his school days, though he was blanking on her name.
“Oh, I can’t. I’m still recovering,” he said hastily, touching his empty shoulder socket. He didn’t bother to explain exactly what he was recovering from. If he started telling his story to this bunch, it would be halfway across the planet before sunrise.
“Don’t be a stiff tail, Ru. One won’t hurt,” Bobbi said. He stepped behind the room’s small bar and poured a couple of fingers of a Terran brandy in a cocktail glass.
“Fine, fine,” he replied, taking the glass and taking a brief sip out of politeness. The brandy burned on its way down his throat, leaving a pleasant tingling sensation in its wake.
“So what happened, Ru? You look utterly horrid,” the vixen said, looking more excited than revolted at his injury. Fruit, what was her name? Fam, Tam, something like that, from one of the minor noble houses. Anyway, she looked pretty enough, especially wearing the dress she was in now, a black piece of silk with a deeply plunging neckline that gave a generous view of her pale chest fur.
“I was victim of my own stupidity,” he said, taking another brief sip to forestall further explanations.
Bobbi sat down beside him with his own drink and said, “I still don’t understand what you were thinking, flying off to be a fighter pilot. If you wanted to engage in that sort of nonsense, you could have just as easily joined up in the Defence Force. With your name you’d likely be a flight leader by now.”
“That wasn’t what I wanted.” Yes, he probably could have gotten a position worthy of the Brushtail name just by asking for it. But being a flight leader had never been what he wanted. It had been the sheer joy of flying that had drawn him to fighters, not leading others into combat or dealing with the painstaking bureaucratic details of command authority. He took another sip of his drink, feeling a pleasantly warm feeling start in his stomach that banished that negative thought into the background.
“Well I just don’t understand why you’d want to leave home like that,” Fam/Tam said. “What’s out there in the galaxy except a punch of hairless barbarians?”
“I’m sorry?” Rufus asked.
“Hairless, hungry barbarians,” one of the other males added, getting a chuckle from around the room. “Can’t fault their appetites, they’re the ones who buy our farm goods!”
“Well they can’t help it, being raised in societies with no social order,” Bobbi said. “We once a hosted some Creo from one of their industrial guilds at Brightspot Manor. Decent enough folk, but I don’t think they could have agreed on the time of day if you’d given them an atomic clock. Did you know that they don’t have a single religion?”
Did you really think everyone did? Rufus thought silently, keeping his tongue between his teeth and listening.
“Creo are as bad humans in that respect,” someone else said.
Fam/Tam added in a conspiratorial tone, “They say some of the Creo still worship the Varn!”
“Who can blame them? After the humans stirred everyone up five hundred years back, it was the Creo who lost the most when the Varn retreated,” Bobbi said, in what he probably thought was an evenhanded tone. “They never had a real religion. There’s probably some cult of poor grey headed fellows out there who worship Galen space rats, just because they need something.”
“I don’t care what they worship, just so long as they leave the Holy Den Mother to us,” Fam/Tam declared.
“Hear, hear!” someone else called out and everyone sipped a toast, Rufus included, though more to stop his own tongue than to enjoy the alcohol. He continued to listen, as the conversation veered away from discussion of the other Alliance races and back to more comfortable subjects, such as the latest fashions, the scandalous marriage of some low level farmer lord to an even lower level member of the military (“not even a commissioned officer!” Fam/Tam said in shock.) and the latest grav ball scores.
It was all very depressing. The males and vixens in the room weren’t automatically bad individuals, but in listening to their conversations Rufus realized that, aside from Bobbi, they were all sons or second and third daughters. None of them appeared to consider the military as a viable option, so instead their lives and horizons seemed to revolve around nothing higher than parties, minor scandals, and living off the rents of the lands their mothers had granted them for revenue. There didn’t seem to be an ounce of ambition among them. Indeed, why should there be? They would not inherit, therefore they would not rule. They were not, in word, useful, and were never expected to be.
Rufus finished his drink, feeling himself begin to float pleasantly even as his mind considered darker possibilities. This was the fate he had been running away from, he realized, flying to the stars to avoid this endless limbo. It wasn’t as if he’d been unloved in his family. Even the stupidest cubling could be loved, so long as they were never malicious in the mistakes they made. His mother’s acceptance of his return had proved that. But there was a difference between being loved and being valued.
He could see the future quite clearly now. He’d recover from his mistakes, he was sure. Get a new arm, trick his body into not needing the drugs he currently craved. Maybe even find a vixen from a proper family who wasn’t too picky about a mate and raise some cubs. He’d settle down, he would be respectable, and when he passed on the universe would forget about him completely.
“Bobbi, be a good man and get me another drink, would you?”
TBC
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Date: 2007-12-19 06:16 am (UTC)Well, maybe a good hangover and glares from his Mother and Sister, and a mostly hidden disappointed look from Whitebrow, will be enough to get him trying to avoid the alcohol more.