dendarii | [OOC] For Barrayar - Timeline Differences

SO as a result of his timeline meddling, Miles's timeline looked a BIT different when he went back to it! This IS flexible, especially if this affects someone else's character and your plans, and also does not have to be definitive for "the timeline" or whatever. Byerly and/or Duv can go back to regular canon if they want, the reunion event won't affect this new AU, etc. etc. I just happened to do a very long PSL using this as a base setup and therefore have a lot of details and thoughts.

A brief summary of events:

Piotr is slightly warmer towards mutants as a result of Miles's help, and does not attempt to interfere with Miles's replicator post soltoxin incident.

Unfortunately this means that his replicator isn't as heavily guarded, and Vordarian's raid steals him a single week early. The rest of Barrayar (the book) proceeds on roughly the same timeline, but that extra week of medical attention winds up being crucial.

Miles is decanted much weaker than canon, and dies at the age of three. His death is a mess for a lot of reasons, not least of which because Cordelia blames Piotr for the incident due to Piotr's increasing rhetoric about starting fresh with a new heir. (The truth is that Piotr didn't touch Miles but Cordelia will never believe that. Miles only gets Cordelia's story so that's what he knows.)

Cordelia promptly has five daughters and zero sons because fuck you Piotr. Their names are Aurelia (oldest, married to Gregor), Lakshmi (current Lady Vorkosigan and Aral's heir), Helena and Alena (the twins) and Karen (youngest girl).

Because of his memory chip, Simon Ilyan remembers both timelines. He mostly can't DO anything with this information, aside from eventually breaking down on Cordelia about what he's seeing, and from then on giving both Aral and Cordelia occasional visions of their son's life from another timeline. It's hopeful and depressing at the same time. It also means that Aral and Cordelia never fully let go of Miles as a concept.

Anyway so here comes Mark in the middle of that. The whole "replace Miles" thing comes to a head earlier due to the obvious lack of Miles Vorkosigan existing and general hole for Galen to do something with that opportunity. He is specifically created from samples of Miles's genetic material before he died and is eventually raised to try and get launched into the Vorkosigans' orbit and trigger a succession crisis. Without Miles's horrible template, Mark has normal bones and is an average height and Simon sniffs him out INSTANTLY.

Also the Vorksigans do what they do best and adopt Mark immediately, thus disarming the entire plot. He is, however, gently dissuaded from becoming Lord Vorkosigan and winds up being Lakshmi's fervent supporter in her claim to the future countship.

Bothari is technically retired, which means that Cordelia has a backup armsman with her nowadays rather than just him, much to his annoyance.

Most of the major changes are limited to Vorkosigan family drama though there's probably still a knock on effect due to the Dendarii not existing the way that they do, especially with the Vervain invasion likely going Cetaganda's way instead. Simon does what he can to cheat as much as possible, but he is naturally a bit behind due to the way he has to remember things when his original timeline self knew about things and not as they happen.

So all of this arrives roughly at the same spot that Miles originally left. History has changed enough that Simon still has the chip, Aurelia is expecting her first son with Gregor, Lakshmi Vorkosigan is the current heir, and Simon's alternate timeline memories finally stop coming after thirty long years of duplicates.

Miles reenters the new timeline at the same time he left it, but in the middle of the mountains rather than anywhere near civilization. He stumbles down towards Silvy Vale, delirious, arm rapidly going gangrenous, rambling about being Lord Vorkosigan and needing to get home. A local doctor amputates his arm.

Miles spends a couple months slowly recovering from that, and by that time Simon has found him. Miles immediately spills the whole story to Simon; Simon takes him back to his family.

Cordelia and Aral welcome him back as a miracle and immediately fold him in. Aurelia, secure in her life and position, and having made her peace with the shape of Miles's absence, also welcomes his return. Lakshmi and Mark are both deeply threatened by him and/or scarred by his absence and therefore give him tons of shit about it. The twins are teenagers and therefore unimpressed (but also not mad about his existence); Karen, the youngest, is utterly fascinated by Miles in a bookish way. She can't decide whether to call him "brother" or "uncle."

Miles has spent the last 4-8 months adjusting to the new timeline, getting to know his sisters, frankly being pretty depressed about all of it, but he's had enough time to get to know his new family that this timeline has been more of a lateral move than a downgrade. He spends a lot of time wearily confirming to Mark that he's not here to try and become Lord Vorkosigan given all of THIS.

Simon has informed Miles that if Miles even thinks of creating a THIRD TIMELINE to keep in his head, he is personally going to kill Miles dead, goddamn you.

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Bits of the PSL reposted because I liked the writing, or they have more key info about the AU base.

And then there, at the bottom, is the whole crew. Miles identifies them all in Wash's stream of consciousness: that tall, somber one with Aurelia is Emperor Gregor Vorbarra. Talking animatedly to Mark is Lady Lakshmi Vorkosigan herself, brilliant orange hair cropped stubbornly short, dressed in pants but a feminine bolero on top. Twin girls are sampling the brunch - darker red hair, named Helen and Alena - and then Karen, the youngest, reading quietly in a corner.

There are others there as well, whom Miles identifies in passing. That gaggle of blonds with their parents are the Koudelka sisters. Alys Vorpatril, elegantly dressed without a hair out of place, talking to Coredelia with a stem of glass in her hand. And a young man barely older than Miles named Ivan, at the brunch bar with the twins, trying to sneak more pastries. Miles views him with a pang of sorrow; Ivan had been his closest friend growing up, and now the man doesn't know him.

And in the center of it all is a stocky, dark-haired man. Gray touches his temples; the cast of his face is dour, speaking to years of sacrifice and hardship in the name of his planet. Count Vorkosigan himself, Lord Regent and Admiral in previous roles, currently the Viceroy of the entire planet of Sergyar, intimidating in the extreme...

And the man is leaning comfortably in a wicker chair, wearing the loudest, most ridiculous Hawaiian shirt. Bright pink, bright teal, just godawful.

He brightens as soon as he spots Miles (despite glares from Lady Vorkosigan and Mark.) And stands, holding out his arms to Miles.

"My boy." Utterly fond, like he's still not used to seeing his dead son, and every moment is a treasure. He's not actually that tall of a man by Barrayaran standards - about 175 cm - but like Miles, he exudes a presence far greater than his actual size. "I was hoping you'd come."

Some of Miles's nerves evaporates; he gladly reaches out for his father, wrapping both arms around him in a tight squeeze. (Aral, meanwhile, hugs his son like he's made of glass.)

Edited 2025-09-20 15:21 (UTC)

There's plenty of history accessible - of Barrayar in general, its rocky history and current state. The planet was cut off from the greater Nexus shortly after colonization, leading to 700 years with basically no tech at all. They'd barely made contact with the rest of the Nexus again when Cetaganda invaded, and that part Wash knows up close and personal. And the outsiders are definitely mentioned: Sonia's visit to the Star Gate, the Cetagandans' mysterious technology, the outsiders. In fact there are a few family lines that sprouted from the outsiders who stayed. And Lakshmi is listed, of course. The famous female Ranger, worshipped breathlessly in Vorkosigan's district even now. There's a shrine to her in Riverfall still.

If Miles had gone back to an unchanged timeline, he'd have been fine. Still in Silvy Vale, yes, but with people to help him and a communication line straight back to Vorkosigan Surleau. He'd have been airlifted to Hassadar in an hour. But returning to this new, changed timeline ... no. He'd had none of those amenities.

Telling the story wouldn't have been too bad to do in front of the guards; they all know it by now, and Miles is weary of telling it. What he couldn't do was tell Wash, who actually has the proper context to understand why Miles hurts as badly as he does, without being able to reach out for him. Given how strange his position is right now, he can't risk Barrayaran opinions about bisexuality from making his life more difficult. Not when he's not entirely sure what his permanent position in the family will be.

So when Wash reaches out for him, Miles turns and just - pulls him into a hug. He clings, desperately, to this last scrap of his former life, if only by proxy. This man who'd witnessed Miles' stories on what his life had been like before Miles had known for sure that was all he'd had left. That's all home is now: a wild story with no actual reality or substance to it any more.

"It's - it's simple, really." He laughs, the sound hysteric and strained. "My grandfather didn't hate me enough. He had a good example of a mutant in his army. A man who swore himself to him during the Occupation, who exceeded all expectations. So - when I was born in this timeline, he didn't try to kill me. I wasn't moved to a higher security location in response. And Vordarian stole my uterine replicator just a week earlier than he did in my timeline."

One critical week - one small shift in his grandfather's opinion - had been enough to unravel Miles' life completely.

There's more, of course. So much more to it. But as far as Miles can tell, this is the strand to pull to unravel everything. The changepoint that drives everything else, that has left him just as stranded here as he was in Piotr's camp. He is never going home. He - probably wasn't ever going to go home from the first moment he stepped foot in camp and tried to be a soldier. Better if he had defected to Cetaganda, probably, and laid as low as he can ...

Too late now. Too goddamn late to save himself from his own goddamn pride that insisted he could help with a war he already knew Barrayar would win.

"I lived through the Pretendership somehow. But that extra week without medical help made me even more desperately fragile. My parents fought for my life with all their hearts. Hell, Mother says - Mother says she tried to take me back to Beta Colony for a while, just to try and save me." Mentally, Miles fills in how impossible that would have been: Beta Colony and Barrayar had just come out of a war at the time, with Miles' father being known on Beta Colony as a horrific war criminal, and Cordelia as his brainwashed abductee who'd kicked their president in the balls on public television.

"I lived until I was about three years old, but only barely. It was a miserable effort from start to finish, and ultimately, my grandfather ended it."

Again, without the first attempt, his parents had not known to guard him; it had taken longer, more extreme circumstances to prompt the act, given Piotr's softened opinion on mutants due to Miles' own influence. He's just - numb as he talks, clearly having walked through this scenario multiple times. What else can he say? He'd fought, his parents had fought, but it had come to nothing.

His mother had welcomed him with grateful, open arms, yes. Having her son restored to her after twenty-seven years had been a miracle beyond hope, and she'd treated him as such. Aral had been more cautious by necessity. After all, Miles' arrival had been quite the political snarl - still is, in fact. But. Regardless of how that shakes out, his parents both love him absolutely. It's the rest of the family that needs convincing ...

When they get out into the sitting room, there's a woman sitting there, with a rather intimidating armsman standing behind her. Not Vorkosigan colors, though. Wash can likely recognize those particular shades of black and silver as belonging to House Vorbarra. The woman is dressed rather more colorfully, though, in a pleasant array of blues and grays. Conservative - but very finely made. The woman is younger than Miles by about five years, with bright red hair and keen gray eyes.

She grins a little to see him, breaking what had (up until just now) been a rather regal pose.

"There's my little brother."

Miles rolls his eyes just slightly, but he relaxes. Aurelia likes him just fine.

[OOC] For Barrayar - Timeline Differences

PSL Excerpts

Aral's Birthday

History Changes

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Aurelia