Disclaimer: Miles Vorkosigan belongs to Lois McMaster Bujold
Disclaimer: Miles Vorkosigan belongs to Lois McMaster Bujold
Rating: PG – 13
Prompt: L is for Luddite
Characters: The Galen family.
Summary: There's blood on her hands and nothing will ever wash it away. Or the thoughts of Duv Galeni's mother during the Komarran Revolt.
Lady Macbeth's Soliloquy
There's blood on her hands.
She stares at them, smooth, pale skin tainted by crimson stains water cannot wash away. For the life of her, she can't remember how she got them.
Then David's anguished cries pierce her ears, shatter her soul, and she remembers.
He looks so pale. His skin is milky white, flawless except for the burns and bruises on the left side of his face and body. He wasn't so pale before. There was always a healthy color suffusing his cheeks, which turned into a white, greenish hue once he started to live underground.
'Madam, is this him?'
It takes her forever to look up and even then she can't quite look the officer in the eye.
No, sir. This is not my eldest son. My son was smart, he was brave, he was full of life. There was a spark in his eyes and a proud note in his voice, a bounce in his step and he always walked with his head held high, just as he'd been taught. He loved his family and his homeland, and he would have given everything for them.
My son was only seventeen years old, sir. He can't be a corpse.
She says nothing. Instead she nods, and the men wearing green uniforms and somber looks try to cover the body with a grey sheet, but David's arms are still wrapped around his brother's neck. One of them tries to pull him gently away, David doesn't budge. The other one lets out a frustrated groan and grabs the boy by his waist. He raises David without effort, paying no attention to the boy's loud protests. She watches it all in silence, but when the first officer makes a move towards his stunner she reacts.
'Let's go, David.'
'But, Mom, we can't leave him here with… with them.'
His words fall on deaf ears. She drags him away and he keeps protesting, tears still rolling down his cheeks, his entire body shaking from grief and shock that are quickly turning into fury. Fury at her, at the men that pushed him away from his brother, at this never-ending war and perhaps at his own homeland too, which keeps asking for more young lives, more violence, more blood.
He soon falls into silence, his face resembling a marble statue. Tears are still glistening in his lashes and every now and then his breathing chokes, but not another word escapes his lips. He is young (oh so young, so horribly, hopelessly young), but he's already the soldier his father has trained.
She wonders, for a fleeting instant, where her baby boy has gone, because she can no longer find him in this young man walking beside her, whose eyes are cold and dull, his expression forever serious and severe.
He is what you have made him to be.
Once they enter the rundown warehouse that has become their refuge, their headquarters, their shelter – but never, never their home – he lets go of her hand and heads directly to the furthest corner, where his tools lie. Soon he's engrossed in his work, which has nothing to do with either school or house chores.
She looks at him for a moment, the frown on his forehead, his lips pressed into a thin line, his knuckles occasionally turning white. She wants to say something, anything, but there's an abyss between them no bridge can connect.
-
She's asleep when they arrive. It took her a long time to finally close her eyes, troubled by David's muffled sobbing and the emptiness inside her chest even more than by the realization that daybreak approached and she and David remained the warehouse's only occupants.
Her eyes snap open at once, her fingers already curling around her stunner. She doesn't cry out, she doesn't jump to her feet when she sees herself surrounded by ghostly shadows whispering among themselves. She just lies on her side and points at the one nearest to her, waiting for her opportunity. A familiar voice calling her name makes her muscles relax, but she doesn't let go of the stunner until he's kneeling beside her and assures her that no one's followed them.
'What took you so long?' she hisses and he lets out a weary sigh.
'ImpSec was there.' At her sharp intake of breath, he hastens to add: 'Don't worry, they didn't see us. Farr was almost caught but he managed to get away in time.'
'You got the blueprints, then?'
He nods, a triumphant glint in his eyes that soon vanishes when he sees David tossing and turning a few meters away. He bites his lip and even in the dim light she can see that his face has turned grey. 'What about…?'
'It was him,' she cuts him off shortly. 'ImpSec took us to see him – don't worry, I made sure we weren't followed.'
His hands clench into fists. 'How was…? Never mind. We'll make sure they pay, now that we know where to strike.' He cups her face, with a tenderness that conflicts with the hatred blazing in his eyes. 'I promise you, they will pay for what they did to our child, for what they did to all of our children. Not a single one of them will be left unavenged, I swear it on my life.'
Her throat constricts, as images of her child sprawled on that cold metal table flood her mind. He caresses her cheek, his gaze more intense and scorching than ever, and she nods as he keeps talking, hatred and passion fueling him. They will get their justice, for their child and all those that have perished at hands of the enemy. The Barrayarran scum won't escape unscathed, not after all they've robbed from Komarr, from them. The time to fight back has come, victory against oppression is near and now they must keep on with the battle until the last one of them hasn't any breath left, because in the end all the sacrifices will be worth it.
She takes in each one of his words and recognizes many of them as her own. Ever since Barrayar took away their freedom, the same fire has burnt inside both of them, pushing them towards the battle, to the glorious fight of resistance. They both knew the risks, they both knew that they had children depending on them, but the calling was stronger, the love for Komarr and the want of freedom ruled out any other concern. They've poured their hearts, souls and minds into this war since the very beginning, and she knows they must stay together until the very end.
Tonight, though, those inspiring words sound hollow, distant, as though he were speaking in a foreign language. Perhaps exhaustion is wearing him down, perhaps he is also thinking of their lost child. They both agreed a long time ago that they were willing to make sacrifices for the cause, but what happens when the price scorches your skin and scars your heart, bleeding the life from you, leaving only an empty shell?
'We have to get going, now.' He urges, glancing at their comrades, who are either tending to their wounds or gathering weapons and tools. 'We have an advantage now, but we can lose it.'
She swallows, because her entire body hurts, her mind is tired and unfocused and there's an ache inside her chest that she knows it will never subside. She understands, though, and rises from her mattress. He almost gives her a smile that falters before curving his lips.
'Go and wake up David. We need him.'
She freezes on the spot, her heart pounding in her chest.
'He's tired, Ser. He's barely slept since…'
She leaves the sentence hanging there, they both know the ending and she'd rather not say the words outloud. He lets out another sigh and suddenly he looks like every year of his life is weighing on his shoulders.
'Only he can get in there, Sara. Not even you are small enough to do it.'
She hesitates. She doesn't want to voice her fears, she doesn't want to acknowledge the chill that's crushing her heart in a vice-like grip, to tremble or show weakness. Certain instincts, though, run deeper than reason, than idealism, certain instincts are more powerful than any cause.
'It's too dangerous, Ser. He's so young…'
'He's already done this. Don't treat him like a child, he's earned the right to be considered an adult after all he's done for the cause.'
He doesn't wait for her reply and instead heads towards David's mattress in long strides. She hurries to keep up with him and watches him kneel by their son's side and place a hand on his slim shoulder. David's eyes snap open at once and he jumps to his feet, wildly looking around for a threat. When he only sees his parents he relaxes slightly, but his eyes don't lose their alert gaze.
'What is it, Father?'
She's noted that he no longer calls him Dad, not since he's been recruited to carry out missions like the rest of his comrades. On occasion he even calls him 'sir', as though Ser were his superior officer instead of his father. She doesn't want to ponder on what it could mean.
Ser rises to his full height and places both hands on his son's shoulders, looking into his eyes intently.
He briefly explains the plan, or at least the part pertaining to David. No one but Ser ever knows the plans and strategies in their entirety, it would make things too easy for ImpSec if one of them was captured.
David has always been bright and understands what he is asked to do much faster than most men twice his age would have. But then David was raised listening to whispers of plots and schemes, he has been trained by his father on strategy and subterfuge, he is familiar with the way Ser's mind works.
She watches him closely, trying to glimpse a flicker of fear or doubt in his grey eyes like she has seen sometimes before (and she's always kept quiet about those, but today she won't, today she won't force her, now, only child to face his worst terrors, Ser's plans be damned). All she sees on his face is grim resolve as he nods, the certainty of the gesture weighing on her like a gravestone placed on her shoulders. Her throat constricts and her chest hurts when she sees that Ser is right: he no longer is a child. Between yesterday – before ImpSec confirmed their worst fears – and tonight something has shifted inside her son, leaving him irrevocably changed. She realizes now that the last shard of innocence has been shattered, destroyed by the cruelty of a never-ending war, by the violence of idealism and oppression clashing and disrupting the world in their wake. Her child will never be the same and for a moment she feels a bout of anger swell inside her, as though those monsters had murdered both her children instead of taking away just her firstborn. Then the fury becomes a pang of pain as she realizes that she's equally to blame for her child's slaughtered innocence.
She pushes those thoughts out of her mind, though, as she watches Ser squeeze the boy's shoulders almost tenderly, a proud note in his voice when he says:
'You'll be alright, David. I know you won't fail me.'
Their son nods, but there's no relief showing on his face, no sign of pleasure in his father's praise, which he's tried so hard to earn in the past. There's only grim, resigned resolve, and she feels as though she's been stabbed.
What have we done to our own child?
-
There's blood on her hands.
Everywhere she turns she sees death and despair, horror and mutilation. The world around her is in ruins, the overwhelming silence barely shaken by agonizing cries of pain that seem to come from all sides. She walks in a daze, her eyes fall on the disfigured faces and the twisted, broken limbs, her lungs fill with smoke and her mouth with ashes.
Her ears are still ringing from the explosion, but some part of her troubled mind registers distant sirens and she should feel the fear of being caught, relief that help is on the way. She feels nothing. The fear of being captured is distant and foreign and she knows it's already too late for help. The cries of pain are few and they start to subside as those unlucky enough not to have been killed instantly lose their strength and start spiraling into nothingness.
She nearly trips and barely manages to regain her balance before falling to the ground. She glances down and is surprised to see a doll at her feet. She idly wonders why there is a doll here of all places, when dawning comprehension hits her like a bolt of lightning. This is no doll.
It's a child.
The long, dark tresses must have once been beautiful, but now they're tangled and sticky. The chubby face is smeared with dirt and blood, blue eyes glassed over. Her dress (one of those laced, horrid things with ridiculously long skirts that Vor ladies seem to thrive upon) is torn and burnt, the small form lies impossibly still, her right arm twisted at a strange angle. The body looks like a lifeless, human-sized doll and all of a sudden, she wants to scream, to tear her hair, to run as fast and far away as her legs will take her.
Instead she falls on her knees and for some inane reason she takes the little girl in her arms and starts rocking back and forward, the child's blood smearing her blouse, marring her soul.
She tries to remember what their target was. She tries to remember Ser's incensed words of encouragement as they got ready for this mission, she tries to picture her comrades' hopeful faces. She tries to remember the cause, the reasons, the conviction she once had. She tries to muster the fury and the rage that have fueled her ever since the day she had to explain to her four-year-old son why his beloved Auntie Rebecca would never come to visit again. She tries to picture her husband's wounded expression as they heard the news, her eldest son's confusion and fear.
All she can see is the lifeless corpse of the five-year-old child she's cradling in her arms, all she can remember is her son's still form sprawled on that cold table and she surprises herself by wishing with all her might that this girl's mother is dead as well, never to go through the excruciating pain that is ripping her heart apart.
Tears start rolling down her cheeks, tears that soon become tinged with red as they leave trails on her blood-stained cheeks, tears that fall upon the little girl's tangled hair. Air seems to have abandoned her lungs not to ever come back and she couldn't care less.
Rebecca, in the end, got it easy. She stood up for what she believed, she defended her land on her own terms and met a merciful end by a blue spark. Her sister-in-law didn't perish slowly, decaying inside until there was nothing human left. She did not see her dreams stomped by the enemy, her idealism and passion crushed by her own blood-stained hands. Rebecca might have given up her life for an ideal, but she did not trade her soul, her very essence for an impossible utopia; Rebecca did not lie awake at night during endless hours haunted by crimes perpetrated by her own hand.
She wishes she could be Rebecca now.
She starts to hum a lullaby, the same one she used to sing to her children at bedtime, the same one she hummed when she dried their tears and comforted them after a nightmare, once upon a time.
She keeps humming and rocking the little girl, her blood the exact shade of her eldest son's scraped knees, the exact shade of her fallen comrades wounds, the exact shade that painted Solstice's ground on that doomed day when their fate was sealed.
-
There's celebration at their headquarters that day, subdued due to respect to fallen brothers in arms and ImpSec's tighter security.
She avoids them all and in her quest for solitude she finds her son throwing up all the contents of his stomach. She kneels beside him and supports him until he's done, then she embraces him fiercely as he trembles and sobs. He is uninjured on the outside, but in his sullen eyes and the greenish hue of his skin she can glimpse the open wounds inside.
'Mom, there's blood all over you,' he says once he regains enough self-control to speak. 'You should clean up.'
'Later, David. They're just clothes.'
They stand still for the longest time, her little child in her arms, not unlike the girl she held a few hours ago. He looks shaken and pensive and perhaps a little broken, and she wishes she could fix him, could give back to his eyes their lost spark. Instead she just holds him close, because there are some things she is not willing to sacrifice.
'Mom,' he asks after a moment, 'where has all that blood come from?'
He suddenly looks wary of her, warier than he's ever looked in front of his father. She sighs and feels very weak and tired.
'Does it matter, David? Blood will always be blood, no matter if it comes from brave Komarrans or traitorous Barrayarrans, whether it belongs to friends or foes. In the end, it's all the same blood, the same pain, the same loss.'
He stares at her, clearly not understanding what she means. She wishes she could explain herself better, she wishes she could make him see… but she and Ser both have made sure he would never see, he would never know any different than what they taught him, that he would never have the chance to make his own decisions, follow his own path.
The worst crimes can be committed with the best of intentions, and the end does not justify all means. She wishes she could have seen it sooner, she wishes she could take back all the pain she's inflicted, the despair her actions have caused. She wishes she had learnt to build rather than destroy. She wishes she could be free from the chains made of ache and regret. But above it all, she wishes she could have both of her children back in her arms.
She knows, though, that wishing is futile.
There's blood on her hands and nothing will ever wash it away.