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Entry tags:
fanmix: Paper Moon, Ekaterin/Miles
because I ship my ship, oh yes I do:
88.69MB at sendspace
behind the cut, track list and lyrics paired with Vorkosiverse text, Ekaterin's pov dominant:
She sighed, and turned away from the view, and switched on the spotlights she’d put up to supplement her own tiny balcony garden. Some of the Barrayaran plants she’d started were particularly touchy about their illumination. She checked the light with a meter, and shifted two boxes of deerslayer vine closer to the source, and set the timers. She moved about, checking soil temperature and moisture with sensitive and practiced fingers, watering sparingly where needed. Briefly, she considered moving her old bonsai’d skellytum indoors, to provide it with more controlled conditions, but it was all indoors here on Komarr, really. She hadn’t felt wind in her hair for nearly a year. She felt an odd twinge of identification with the transplanted ecology outside, slowly starving for light and heat, suffocating in a toxic atmosphere... Stupid. Stop it. We’re lucky to be here.
1. Better Man – Pearl Jam
memories back when she was bold and strong and waiting for the world to come along
Then she’d chosen Etienne Vorsoisson, or he had chosen her... You were pleased enough at the time. She’d said Yes to the marriage arrangements her father’s Baba had offered, with all good will. You didn’t know. Tien didn’t know. Vorzohn’s Dystrophy. Nobody’s fault.
2. Precious Illusions – Alanis Morrissette
this won't work now the way it once did 'cause I want to decide between survival and bliss
A Vor woman’s first loyalty was supposed to be to her husband. Even unto treason, even unto death. The sixth Countess Vorvayne had followed her husband right up to the stocks in which he had been hung to die for his part in the Saltpetre Plot, and sat at his feet in a hunger strike, and died, in fact a day before him, of exposure. Great tragic story, that one—one of the best bloody melodramas from the history of the Time of Isolation. They’d made a holovid of it, though in the vid version the couple had died at the same moment, as if achieving mutual orgasm.
Has a Vor woman no honor of her own, then? Before Tien entered my life, did I not have integrity all the same?
Yes, and I laid it on my marriage oath. Rather like buying all your shares in one fleet.
3. Rush Hour – Ani DiFranco
there were some days when I did not love him; he didn't understand me and I don't know why I didn't go
Undressed and in bed, she closed her eyes as he caressed her, partly to concentrate on the touch, partly to block out his gaze, which was beginning to be excited and pleased. Wasn’t there some bizarre mythical bird or other, back on Earth, who fancied that if it couldn’t see you, you couldn’t see it? And so buried its head in the sand, odd image. While still attached to its neck, she wondered?
She opened her eyes, as Tien reached across her and lowered the lamplight to a softer glow. His avid look made her feel not beautiful and loved, but ugly and ashamed. How could you be violated by mere eyes? How could you be lovers with someone, and yet feel every moment alone with them intruded upon your privacy, your dignity? Don’t look, Tien. Absurd. There really was something wrong with her. He lowered himself beside her; she parted her lips, yielding quickly to his questing mouth. She hadn’t always been this self-conscious and cautious. Back in the beginning, it had been different. Or had it been she alone who’d changed?
4. Stray Italian Greyhound – Vienna Teng
I just stopped believing in happy endings, harbors of my own
“But... if you are ill, or expect to become ill, there is a great deal that can be done for you.” He hesitated. “The contents of that file tell me you already know this. Is anyone helping you?”
Help. What a concept. She felt as though she might melt through the floor of the bubble car at the mere thought.
5. Kindle My Heart – Patrick Doyle
and my heart cannot be kindled without you
She was not normally very body-conscious, she thought. She watched people’s faces, giving a bare glance to anything below the neck beyond the social language of clothing. This... not aversion, screening... seemed a mere courtesy, and a part of her sexual fidelity as automatic as breathing. So it was doubly disturbing to find herself so very aware of the little man. And probably very rude, as well, given the oddness of his body. Vorkosigan’s face, once she’d penetrated his first wary opacity, was... well, charming, full of dry wit only waiting to break into open humor. It was disorienting to find that face coupled with a body bearing a record of appalling pain. Was it some kind of perverse voyeurism, that her second reaction after shock had been a suppressed desire to persuade him to tell her all the stories about his war wounds? Not from around here, those hieroglyphs carved in his flesh had whispered, exotic with promise. And, I have survived. Want to know how?
6. Better – Regina Spektor
if I kiss you where it's sore will you feel better, will you feel anything at all?
Miles bit his knuckles, hard. Right. So at the dawn of puberty, she’d learned no one would defend her, she could not defend herself, and the only way to survive was to pretend to be dead. Great. And if there were a more fatally wrong move some awkward fellow could possibly make at this moment than to take her in his arms and try to comfort her, it escaped his wildest imaginings. If she needed to be stone right now because it was the only way she knew how to survive, let her be marble, let her be granite. Whatever you need, you take it, Milady Ekaterin; whatever you want, you’ve got it.
7. Love Will Come To You – The Indigo Girls
my words are paper tigers, no match for the predator of pain inside her, I say love will come to you
If a person lived in hurt like a mermaid in water, till hurt became as invisible as breath, its sudden removal—however artificial—must come as a stunning event. Miles breathed covert relief that Ekaterin apparently wasn’t going to be a giggler or a drooler, nor was she one of the occasional unfortunates in whom the drug released a torrent of verbal obscenities, or an almost equally embarrassing torrent of tears.
No. The kicker here is going to be when we take it away again. The realization chilled him. But my God, isn’t she beautiful when she is not in pain? Her open, smiling warmth looked strangely familiar to him, and he tried to remember just when he’d seen that sweet air about her before. Not today, not yesterday...
It was in your dream.
Oh.
8. Virgin State of Mind – K's Choice
now there's a key where my wonderful mouth used to be
Both their lives were out of phase with their chronological ages, Ekaterin realized bemusedly. She now possessed the education of a child and the status of a dowager. Vorkosigan... was young for his post, to be sure. But this whole posthumous second life of his was surely as old as you could be at any age. “Time is out of joint,” she murmured; he looked up sharply, and seemed about to speak.
9. If You Want Me – Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
I think of you smiling with pride in your eyes, a lover that sighs: if you want me, satisfy me
“The next number up,” he breathed, “is ‘one.’ ”
It was her turn to be taken aback; her eyes fell, scorched by the blaze in his. He had lured her into levity. His fault, for being so... luring. She stared wildly around the room, groping for some suitably neutral remark with which to retrieve her reserve. It was a space station: there was no weather. My, the vacuum is hard out today... Not that, either.
10. The Garden – Mirah
Won't you bring all the flowers you find out in the garden, don't tell me the truth – that your heart has hardened
You can't give me my own soul." She stared, not at him, but inward, on what vista he could not imagine. "The garden could have been my gift. You took that away too."
11. Grey Matter – Jewel
you're sweet but don't remember my name; and heads you win, tails I'm lost, love equals pain
All the plans and notes for Lord Vorkosigan's Barrayaran garden were now neatly and logically organized, and indexed. Anyone — well, any gardener who knew what they were doing in the first place—could follow them and complete the job in good order. The final tally of all expenses was appended. The working credit account had been balanced, closed, and signed off. She had only to hit the Send pad on the comconsole for it all to be gone from her life forever.
She groped for the exquisite little model Barrayar on its gold chain heaped by the vid plate, held it up, and let it spin before her eyes. Leaning back in the comconsole chair, she contemplated it, and all the memories attached to it like invisible chains. Gold and lead, hope and fear, triumph and pain . . . She squinted it to a blur.
12. Bird On A Wire – k. d. lang
but I swear by this song and by all that I have done wrong I'll make it all up to thee
I love you. But I lust after and covet so much more than your body. I wanted to possess the power of your eyes, the way they see form and beauty that isn't even there yet and draw it up out of nothing into the solid world. I wanted to own the honor of your heart, unbowed in the vilest horrors of those bleak hours on Komarr. I wanted your courage and your will, your caution and serenity. I wanted, I suppose, your soul, and that was too much to want.
13. Aching For You – Kristin Hersh
you know you're truly bizarre, you're changing all the rules and I don't need you, but I want you bad
Soil was a living part of a garden, a complex ecosystem of microorganisms, but this soil was going to be dead in the sun and gone in the rains if no one got its proper ground cover installed . . . Miles, she saw as she drew nearer, was sitting next to the only plant in this whole blighted expanse, the little skellytum rootling. It was hard to say which of them looked more desperate and forlorn. An empty pitcher sat on the wall next to his knee, and he stared in worry at the rootling and the spreading stain of water on the soil around it. He glanced up at the sound of their approaching steps. His lips parted; the most appalling thrilled look passed over his face, to be suppressed almost instantly and replaced by an expression of wary courtesy.
14. You're The Storm – The Cardigans
and if you want me, I'm your country
The weary straitened housewife in her—Tien's pinchmark spouse—was horrified. The secret soul of her rang like a bell in resonance to Miles's words. Yes. That was how it should be. This saddle belonged under a fine lady, not under a glass cover. Gardens were meant to be seen, smelled, walked through, grubbed in. A hundred objective measurements didn't sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something. How had Miles learned that? For this alone I could love you . . .
15. You Have Loved Enough – Leonard Cohen
you whisper: you have loved enough, now let me be the lover
"Endurance used to be my specialty. In the old days."
"I was hoping to bring you some new days."
16. Situation: Relation – Rainier Maria
you and I together can be like divorcees
"To use Kareen's Betan psychology terminology," she said a little breathlessly, "I have this Thing about oaths. When you became an Imperial Auditor, you took oath again. Even though you were forsworn once. How could you bear to?"
"Oh," he said, looking around a little vaguely. "What, when they issued you your honor, didn't they give you the model with the reset button? Mine's right here." He pointed to the general vicinity of his navel.
She couldn't help it; her black laughter pealed out, echoing off the beams. Something inside her, wrapped tight to the breaking-point, loosened at that laugh. When he made her laugh like that, it was like light and air let in upon wounds too dark and painful to touch, and so a chance at healing. "Is that what that's for? I never knew."
17. Sigh No More – Mumford & Sons
love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
The look on Richars's face made Miles think of a man tormenting a leopardess suddenly discovering that the creature had no leash. Which way would she pounce? Miles held his breath.
Ekaterin leaned forward, gripping the railing with her knuckles going pale. "Let's finish this. Lord Vorkosigan!"
Miles jerked in his seat, taken by surprise. "Madame?" He made a little half-bow gesture. "Yours to command . . ."
"Good. Will you marry me?"
18. All You Need Is Love – Across the Universe
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be; it's easy
At last, the moment arrived; the hall and antechambers became brief, crowded chaos as wraps were redonned and the guests all streamed out the gate and around the corner to the garden. The air was cold but not bitter, and thankfully windless, the sky a deepening clear blue, the slanting afternoon sun liquid gold. It turned the snowy garden into as gilded, glittering, spectacular and utterly unique a showplace as m'lord's heart could ever have desired. The flowers and ribbons were concentrated around the central place where the vows were to be, complementing the wild brilliance of the ice and snow and light.
19. The Riddle Song – Joan Baez & Pete Seeger
a cherry when it's blooming, it has no stone
By some tacit assumption, Ekaterin got first dibs. She held her new son and watched as the second replicator yielded up her very first daughter. Miles leaned on his cane at her elbow, his eyes devouring the astonishing sight. A baby. A real baby. His . He'd thought his children had seemed real enough, when he'd touched the replicators in which they grew. That was nothing like this. Little Aral Alexander was so small. He blinked and stretched. He breathed, actually breathed, and placidly smacked his tiny lips. He had a notable amount of black hair. It was wonderful. It was . . . terrifying.
"Your turn," said Ekaterin, smiling at Miles.
"I . . . I think I'd better sit down, first." He half-fell into an armchair brought hastily forward for him. Ekaterin tucked the blanket-wrapped bundle into his panicked arms. He had been the end point of human evolution. At this moment he abruptly felt more like a missing link. I thought I knew everything. Surely I knew nothing. How had his own life become such a surprise to him, so utterly rearranged? His brain had whirled with a thousand plans for these tiny lives, visions of the future both hopeful and dire, funny and fearful. For a moment, it seemed to come to a full stop. I have no idea who these two people are going to be.
Ekaterin slipped her hand into his and gripped tightly. It felt like free falling into the future. He squeezed back, and soared.
88.69MB at sendspace
behind the cut, track list and lyrics paired with Vorkosiverse text, Ekaterin's pov dominant:
She sighed, and turned away from the view, and switched on the spotlights she’d put up to supplement her own tiny balcony garden. Some of the Barrayaran plants she’d started were particularly touchy about their illumination. She checked the light with a meter, and shifted two boxes of deerslayer vine closer to the source, and set the timers. She moved about, checking soil temperature and moisture with sensitive and practiced fingers, watering sparingly where needed. Briefly, she considered moving her old bonsai’d skellytum indoors, to provide it with more controlled conditions, but it was all indoors here on Komarr, really. She hadn’t felt wind in her hair for nearly a year. She felt an odd twinge of identification with the transplanted ecology outside, slowly starving for light and heat, suffocating in a toxic atmosphere... Stupid. Stop it. We’re lucky to be here.
1. Better Man – Pearl Jam
memories back when she was bold and strong and waiting for the world to come along
Then she’d chosen Etienne Vorsoisson, or he had chosen her... You were pleased enough at the time. She’d said Yes to the marriage arrangements her father’s Baba had offered, with all good will. You didn’t know. Tien didn’t know. Vorzohn’s Dystrophy. Nobody’s fault.
2. Precious Illusions – Alanis Morrissette
this won't work now the way it once did 'cause I want to decide between survival and bliss
A Vor woman’s first loyalty was supposed to be to her husband. Even unto treason, even unto death. The sixth Countess Vorvayne had followed her husband right up to the stocks in which he had been hung to die for his part in the Saltpetre Plot, and sat at his feet in a hunger strike, and died, in fact a day before him, of exposure. Great tragic story, that one—one of the best bloody melodramas from the history of the Time of Isolation. They’d made a holovid of it, though in the vid version the couple had died at the same moment, as if achieving mutual orgasm.
Has a Vor woman no honor of her own, then? Before Tien entered my life, did I not have integrity all the same?
Yes, and I laid it on my marriage oath. Rather like buying all your shares in one fleet.
3. Rush Hour – Ani DiFranco
there were some days when I did not love him; he didn't understand me and I don't know why I didn't go
Undressed and in bed, she closed her eyes as he caressed her, partly to concentrate on the touch, partly to block out his gaze, which was beginning to be excited and pleased. Wasn’t there some bizarre mythical bird or other, back on Earth, who fancied that if it couldn’t see you, you couldn’t see it? And so buried its head in the sand, odd image. While still attached to its neck, she wondered?
She opened her eyes, as Tien reached across her and lowered the lamplight to a softer glow. His avid look made her feel not beautiful and loved, but ugly and ashamed. How could you be violated by mere eyes? How could you be lovers with someone, and yet feel every moment alone with them intruded upon your privacy, your dignity? Don’t look, Tien. Absurd. There really was something wrong with her. He lowered himself beside her; she parted her lips, yielding quickly to his questing mouth. She hadn’t always been this self-conscious and cautious. Back in the beginning, it had been different. Or had it been she alone who’d changed?
4. Stray Italian Greyhound – Vienna Teng
I just stopped believing in happy endings, harbors of my own
“But... if you are ill, or expect to become ill, there is a great deal that can be done for you.” He hesitated. “The contents of that file tell me you already know this. Is anyone helping you?”
Help. What a concept. She felt as though she might melt through the floor of the bubble car at the mere thought.
5. Kindle My Heart – Patrick Doyle
and my heart cannot be kindled without you
She was not normally very body-conscious, she thought. She watched people’s faces, giving a bare glance to anything below the neck beyond the social language of clothing. This... not aversion, screening... seemed a mere courtesy, and a part of her sexual fidelity as automatic as breathing. So it was doubly disturbing to find herself so very aware of the little man. And probably very rude, as well, given the oddness of his body. Vorkosigan’s face, once she’d penetrated his first wary opacity, was... well, charming, full of dry wit only waiting to break into open humor. It was disorienting to find that face coupled with a body bearing a record of appalling pain. Was it some kind of perverse voyeurism, that her second reaction after shock had been a suppressed desire to persuade him to tell her all the stories about his war wounds? Not from around here, those hieroglyphs carved in his flesh had whispered, exotic with promise. And, I have survived. Want to know how?
6. Better – Regina Spektor
if I kiss you where it's sore will you feel better, will you feel anything at all?
Miles bit his knuckles, hard. Right. So at the dawn of puberty, she’d learned no one would defend her, she could not defend herself, and the only way to survive was to pretend to be dead. Great. And if there were a more fatally wrong move some awkward fellow could possibly make at this moment than to take her in his arms and try to comfort her, it escaped his wildest imaginings. If she needed to be stone right now because it was the only way she knew how to survive, let her be marble, let her be granite. Whatever you need, you take it, Milady Ekaterin; whatever you want, you’ve got it.
7. Love Will Come To You – The Indigo Girls
my words are paper tigers, no match for the predator of pain inside her, I say love will come to you
If a person lived in hurt like a mermaid in water, till hurt became as invisible as breath, its sudden removal—however artificial—must come as a stunning event. Miles breathed covert relief that Ekaterin apparently wasn’t going to be a giggler or a drooler, nor was she one of the occasional unfortunates in whom the drug released a torrent of verbal obscenities, or an almost equally embarrassing torrent of tears.
No. The kicker here is going to be when we take it away again. The realization chilled him. But my God, isn’t she beautiful when she is not in pain? Her open, smiling warmth looked strangely familiar to him, and he tried to remember just when he’d seen that sweet air about her before. Not today, not yesterday...
It was in your dream.
Oh.
8. Virgin State of Mind – K's Choice
now there's a key where my wonderful mouth used to be
Both their lives were out of phase with their chronological ages, Ekaterin realized bemusedly. She now possessed the education of a child and the status of a dowager. Vorkosigan... was young for his post, to be sure. But this whole posthumous second life of his was surely as old as you could be at any age. “Time is out of joint,” she murmured; he looked up sharply, and seemed about to speak.
9. If You Want Me – Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova
I think of you smiling with pride in your eyes, a lover that sighs: if you want me, satisfy me
“The next number up,” he breathed, “is ‘one.’ ”
It was her turn to be taken aback; her eyes fell, scorched by the blaze in his. He had lured her into levity. His fault, for being so... luring. She stared wildly around the room, groping for some suitably neutral remark with which to retrieve her reserve. It was a space station: there was no weather. My, the vacuum is hard out today... Not that, either.
10. The Garden – Mirah
Won't you bring all the flowers you find out in the garden, don't tell me the truth – that your heart has hardened
You can't give me my own soul." She stared, not at him, but inward, on what vista he could not imagine. "The garden could have been my gift. You took that away too."
11. Grey Matter – Jewel
you're sweet but don't remember my name; and heads you win, tails I'm lost, love equals pain
All the plans and notes for Lord Vorkosigan's Barrayaran garden were now neatly and logically organized, and indexed. Anyone — well, any gardener who knew what they were doing in the first place—could follow them and complete the job in good order. The final tally of all expenses was appended. The working credit account had been balanced, closed, and signed off. She had only to hit the Send pad on the comconsole for it all to be gone from her life forever.
She groped for the exquisite little model Barrayar on its gold chain heaped by the vid plate, held it up, and let it spin before her eyes. Leaning back in the comconsole chair, she contemplated it, and all the memories attached to it like invisible chains. Gold and lead, hope and fear, triumph and pain . . . She squinted it to a blur.
12. Bird On A Wire – k. d. lang
but I swear by this song and by all that I have done wrong I'll make it all up to thee
I love you. But I lust after and covet so much more than your body. I wanted to possess the power of your eyes, the way they see form and beauty that isn't even there yet and draw it up out of nothing into the solid world. I wanted to own the honor of your heart, unbowed in the vilest horrors of those bleak hours on Komarr. I wanted your courage and your will, your caution and serenity. I wanted, I suppose, your soul, and that was too much to want.
13. Aching For You – Kristin Hersh
you know you're truly bizarre, you're changing all the rules and I don't need you, but I want you bad
Soil was a living part of a garden, a complex ecosystem of microorganisms, but this soil was going to be dead in the sun and gone in the rains if no one got its proper ground cover installed . . . Miles, she saw as she drew nearer, was sitting next to the only plant in this whole blighted expanse, the little skellytum rootling. It was hard to say which of them looked more desperate and forlorn. An empty pitcher sat on the wall next to his knee, and he stared in worry at the rootling and the spreading stain of water on the soil around it. He glanced up at the sound of their approaching steps. His lips parted; the most appalling thrilled look passed over his face, to be suppressed almost instantly and replaced by an expression of wary courtesy.
14. You're The Storm – The Cardigans
and if you want me, I'm your country
The weary straitened housewife in her—Tien's pinchmark spouse—was horrified. The secret soul of her rang like a bell in resonance to Miles's words. Yes. That was how it should be. This saddle belonged under a fine lady, not under a glass cover. Gardens were meant to be seen, smelled, walked through, grubbed in. A hundred objective measurements didn't sum the worth of a garden; only the delight of its users did that. Only the use made it mean something. How had Miles learned that? For this alone I could love you . . .
15. You Have Loved Enough – Leonard Cohen
you whisper: you have loved enough, now let me be the lover
"Endurance used to be my specialty. In the old days."
"I was hoping to bring you some new days."
16. Situation: Relation – Rainier Maria
you and I together can be like divorcees
"To use Kareen's Betan psychology terminology," she said a little breathlessly, "I have this Thing about oaths. When you became an Imperial Auditor, you took oath again. Even though you were forsworn once. How could you bear to?"
"Oh," he said, looking around a little vaguely. "What, when they issued you your honor, didn't they give you the model with the reset button? Mine's right here." He pointed to the general vicinity of his navel.
She couldn't help it; her black laughter pealed out, echoing off the beams. Something inside her, wrapped tight to the breaking-point, loosened at that laugh. When he made her laugh like that, it was like light and air let in upon wounds too dark and painful to touch, and so a chance at healing. "Is that what that's for? I never knew."
17. Sigh No More – Mumford & Sons
love that will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free
The look on Richars's face made Miles think of a man tormenting a leopardess suddenly discovering that the creature had no leash. Which way would she pounce? Miles held his breath.
Ekaterin leaned forward, gripping the railing with her knuckles going pale. "Let's finish this. Lord Vorkosigan!"
Miles jerked in his seat, taken by surprise. "Madame?" He made a little half-bow gesture. "Yours to command . . ."
"Good. Will you marry me?"
18. All You Need Is Love – Across the Universe
Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be; it's easy
At last, the moment arrived; the hall and antechambers became brief, crowded chaos as wraps were redonned and the guests all streamed out the gate and around the corner to the garden. The air was cold but not bitter, and thankfully windless, the sky a deepening clear blue, the slanting afternoon sun liquid gold. It turned the snowy garden into as gilded, glittering, spectacular and utterly unique a showplace as m'lord's heart could ever have desired. The flowers and ribbons were concentrated around the central place where the vows were to be, complementing the wild brilliance of the ice and snow and light.
19. The Riddle Song – Joan Baez & Pete Seeger
a cherry when it's blooming, it has no stone
By some tacit assumption, Ekaterin got first dibs. She held her new son and watched as the second replicator yielded up her very first daughter. Miles leaned on his cane at her elbow, his eyes devouring the astonishing sight. A baby. A real baby. His . He'd thought his children had seemed real enough, when he'd touched the replicators in which they grew. That was nothing like this. Little Aral Alexander was so small. He blinked and stretched. He breathed, actually breathed, and placidly smacked his tiny lips. He had a notable amount of black hair. It was wonderful. It was . . . terrifying.
"Your turn," said Ekaterin, smiling at Miles.
"I . . . I think I'd better sit down, first." He half-fell into an armchair brought hastily forward for him. Ekaterin tucked the blanket-wrapped bundle into his panicked arms. He had been the end point of human evolution. At this moment he abruptly felt more like a missing link. I thought I knew everything. Surely I knew nothing. How had his own life become such a surprise to him, so utterly rearranged? His brain had whirled with a thousand plans for these tiny lives, visions of the future both hopeful and dire, funny and fearful. For a moment, it seemed to come to a full stop. I have no idea who these two people are going to be.
Ekaterin slipped her hand into his and gripped tightly. It felt like free falling into the future. He squeezed back, and soared.