and the next step is—
May. 16th, 2015 01:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thisvorlunatic(Relevant to this.)
Assembled materials:
One maplewood bowl, Vorkosigan District local product, with geometry scribbled all over it.
One dark orange-brown citrine unearthed from the attic of Vorkosigan House. Why there was a raw citrine in his attic, he still isn't sure, but he feels like it's an appropriate place to get one.
One lump of extremely pure copper.
One jug of distilled water.
One Vorkosigan seal dagger.
Miles takes these goods out to the long lake. He burns a death-offering for his grandda while he's there, and silently apologizes for taking this latest step towards being an evil mutant wizard straight out of a fairy tale. He sets up by the lakeshore, on a grassy patch with a good view. Bowl, crystal, copper, water, knife.
Before he does anything else, he reviews the steps of the ritual in his mind several times, to plan his approach.
Then he puts the crystal in the bottom of the bowl, pours water over it - enough to cover the crystal and then some, enough to qualify the bowl as 'full of water', not enough to present any danger of overflowing. Picks up the seal dagger, nicks his right thumb just as though he's going to seal a letter, puts down the knife and picks up the copper and his blood drips into the bowl and he puts his right hand over the quartz and the copper over his right hand and his left hand over the copper and the next step is to distill himself into thought form—
Who is he, then?
Lieutenant Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, let's start there. Start all the way back, in fact, with the first Count Vorkosigan - Selig Imir Vorkosigan, sometimes called 'the Clever', more frequently 'the Weasel'. And all the way down the line: Rosair Solon Vorkosigan, third son of Selig, the first two having died of war and disease respectively. Valens Vasil Vorkosigan, fifth son of Rosair Solon, the first four having been done in by assassination, duels, and poor horsemanship. Rosair Leon Vorkosigan, first son of Valens, the lucky shit. Piotr Vasil Vorkosigan, second son of Rosair Leon, survivor of the childhood illness that took his brother, the Count whose wife believed herself to be made of glass. Demyan Sacha Vorkosigan, third son of Piotr Vasil. Piotr Isidor Vorkosigan, first son of Demyan Sacha; Demyan Antoly Vorkosigan, first son of Piotr Isidor - they had a lucky run, there.
Piotr Pierre Vorkosigan, first son of Demyan Antoly, hero of a fistful of wars, one of the main contributors to the modernization of Barrayar. God, what a man. Pure Vorkosigan, too stubborn to quit, too smart to lose, took cavalry up against atomics and won. They cast a long shadow, do Miles's ancestors.
Aral Antoly Vorkosigan. Second son of Piotr Pierre. Hero/villain of the conquest of Komarr. Lord Regent of Barrayar through Emperor Gregor's childhood, now its Prime Minister. Thankfully unaware of his son's attempt to become a wizard. Would probably laugh.
Who is he? A Vorkosigan. Someday to be the eleventh Count of that line, hopefully not anytime soon.
But let's not neglect the other side of the family: Countess Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, who ended Vordarian's Pretendership in a single raid, coming back with Vidal Vordarian's head in a bag and dumping it on a conference table in front of Da and a bevy of alarmed generals. The Betan woman who came to Barrayar and so aggressively refused to change for it that it changed for her instead. Still wary of ethanol and animal meat, and he can just imagine the noise she'd make if she saw what he did to that hand-carved wooden bowl. It'll wash off, Mama. Wood is cheap here.
Who is he? A Naismith.
Admiral Miles Naismith, commanding, Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. His mother's Betan accent wrapped around a manic bundle of silver-tongued mad genius. Took the lie and made it true, and truer still every day. A complete farce that's changed lives and won wars.
Who is he? A leader...
But the Dendarii sprang from that ill-fated trip to Beta Colony, and that sprang in turn from his failed first attempt at entering the Service Academy, and his grandfather's death. Oh, Grandda. Your tiny mutant scion hopes that one day he will make up for that final disappointment. And poor Sergeant Bothari, loyal, complicated, killed by his little lord's careless romanticism. From getting rattled and breaking both his legs out of a stupid momentary impulse, to deciding to mortgage his recent land inheritance to help out a down-on-his-luck cargo pilot, to running that cargo straight into a war zone and stumbling out months later in possession of a mortally illegal mercenary army... it's a wonder he ever made it to his eighteenth birthday.
Who is he? A walking disaster, on occasion.
But there have been better moments. Brighter ones, or more meaningful. Like the time his father sent him as Count's Voice to investigate an infanticide in a Dendarii mountain village. Poor little Raina Csurik. She deserved so much better than her tiny grave. Like all painful things, though, she had a lesson to teach, and one much more important than "don't fucking jump off of tall objects, you fragile little moron". Miles cannot forget what he owes to his planet, his people. He is Lord Vorkosigan and that means something.
Who is he? Mutie Vor, a contradiction in terms, the wave of the future crashing on the rocky shore of Barrayaran history.
Okay, so far, so good. What are his core values as a person? Honour. Loyalty. Integrity. Duty. Excellence. Intelligence. Spirit over letter. Being right over looking right. Support, uplift, inspire, lead from the front, succeed against all odds.
What feelings, what experiences come to mind when he reaches for his true self? The taste of maple sugar. The balance of riding a horse. The weight of combat armour, the information density of a tactical display, the soaring immediate aliveness of field command. Fishing at Vorkosigan Surleau, the sound of the lake where he now sits. A tangle of roses growing wild in half-terraformed Barrayaran soil. School on Beta Colony, the desperate lonely anguish of his teenage years, the suicide attempt that probably makes him the first Vorkosigan whose bodyguard had to save him from himself. The pain of broken bones, again and again and again and again and again.
The Empress of Cetaganda's face when she told him, not yet as Empress but well on her way, that if things had worked out a little differently she would seriously consider running off with him. Her voice, listing his virtues - quick mind, quick wit, an eye for detail, a gift for interpersonal relations. Everything he's ever loved about himself, somehow visible to this alarmingly beautiful woman. His energy, his drive, his on-and-off charisma—and his need for validation, his urge to be a hero. His pretty eyes. She smiled when she said that part, but she was not mocking him - she never mocked him.
Maybe he should be focusing more on himself and less on other people. But a Miles without other people is a bleak and lonely creature. His friends, his family, his ancestors, his role models, his planet, all are components as vital as his veins and arteries and lungs. He is the sum of more than his parts...
Who is he? Half-Betan Barrayaran. Cousin to the Emperor, and to that idiot Ivan. Fruit of an overpruned family tree. Cosmopolitan galactic; polished aristocrat. A man of honour, a man of his word. Vassal secundus to Emperor Gregor Vorbarra, and sworn officer of the Barrayaran Imperial Service. Imperial Security courier, intelligence agent, undercover operative. Still a bloody Lieutenant after all he's done, except when he's busy being a fake Admiral. Holder of the Cetagandan Order of Merit, which he keeps locked in the bottom of a drawer in his bedroom, yet another top-secret accomplishment. Survivor, winner, stubborn as a mule, manic-depressive, the sort of person to whom mere perfection is a low standard. The sort of person who routinely achieves the impossible.
Who is he? The man who owns Vorkosigan Vashnoi. Former capital of the Vorkosigan District, blown to radioactive hell in the Cetagandan wars, left to him without explanation by his grandfather; tainted land for the tainted grandchild, or a message of hope and renewal, that within Miles's lifetime people might be able to live there again? Little of both, he thinks, and something else besides: a reminder not to give up, no matter the odds, if the cause is important enough.
Joy and despair, loyalty and insubordination, pleasure and pain. Issues with authority. His father's uncompromising integrity, his mother's uncompromising will. Boundless energy. Staggering exhaustion. A dash of wisdom, unfortunately elusive but beginning to show up when it's really needed. Barrayaran to the bone, ha ha. A sick sense of humour, yes, let's not forget that one.
Flying the Dendarii Gorge with his eyes closed because he needed to win decisively in his childish game with Ivan. Playing Mad Yuri to rescue Gregor from that witch Cavilo. Masochistically memorizing an ancient Earth play about a deformed evil king. Using his grandfather's seal dagger to escape a rigged practical exam without sustaining the expected imaginary harm. Well-tailored clothing. The Imperial Military Hospital. The hated spinal brace of his childhood. Digging escape tunnels and driving tanks with Ivan and Elena. Arguing with superior officers.
Who is he? Arrogance and self-loathing, each deserved in turn. All the oaths he has sworn, and every lesser promise made between them. All his failures, all his mistakes; all his successes, all his accomplishments. Getting better every day. Finding ways around every obstacle in his path. If you can't be ten feet tall, be ten feet smart. Anything worth doing is worth doing well.
Who is he? Miles. An atomic unit of self, a collection of experiences and habits and customs, a head too big for his body, a personality too big for his life, a pressurized spirit powering pneumatic miracles. Without the little admiral as an escape valve, the whole system would probably have blown by now.
Afraid of failure, afraid of obscurity, afraid of not being good enough, fast enough, smart enough. But thriving under pressure, turning spectacular disasters into spectacular successes, pouring himself into his work until it overflows, striving to do more than his best. The correct response to "you can't do that" is "oh yeah? Watch me." The correct response to "that's not your problem" is "are you sure?"
Who is he, really?
Miles Naismith Vorkosigan. Small, warped, fragile, too smart for his own good, too stubborn to let it stop him. This Vor lunatic, this human whirlwind, this fast-talking rule-breaking bundle of nerves whose highest aspiration is to - to - what? Hell. To find a higher aspiration, probably. To surpass all expectations including his own. To be good and honourable and right and worthy and successful beyond the dreams of his dreams. Tall order, kid. But he knows he'll never settle for anything less.
His train of thought briefly slows to a stop, he inhales, and he belatedly notices that the world is a different place than it was two minutes ago.
It is very much like hallucinating vividly, except hallucinations are rarely this - comforting? Concrete? Sight and sound have more depth, more meaning, more distinctiveness; the grass and trees nearby feel like wells of potential; temperature is clearer and sharper, and he has an intimate, almost proprioceptive sense of fluid dynamics, like the wind and the lake are his own breath and blood. The seismic stability of the ground under his feet is a tangible factor. More disturbingly, he can feel the weakness in his own damn bones.
He gets about a blink to absorb all this, and then he notices two things: one, it's not done yet. Two, he has stopped thinking about himself.
He dives back into self-contemplation. Memories of his past come back more vividly. With the new sense of his own body, he is naturally reminded of every single time he's ever broken a bone. It's not the most fun thing he could be thinking about, but pain is a part of him - a big part - so he shuts up and remembers. His very first fall from a horse; the fateful leap from the very first wall in the Imperial Service Academy entrance exam's obstacle course. And on and on, in no particular order of chronology or anatomy. Surgeries, too, many and varied - he hasn't thought about some of the earlier ones since he was a kid. He has had a long, hard road to get where he is.
Who is he.
Lord Vorkosigan - duty, honour. Admiral Naismith - energy, drive.
Miles. All this and more. The overwhelming need to excel. The sick stress of not knowing if he'll make it, and the lovely flying feeling of really being on top of a situation.
Barrayar, his planet, his home, his heart and fucking soul. Beta Colony, his mother's planet, familiar and important but never quite perfectly comfortable. Vorkosigan District - Silvy Vale - Hassadar - the family home in Vorbarr Sultana - the Imperial Residence -
(Another new sense comes in, informing him from yet another angle that his skeleton is a fragile piece of shit, one of the least stress-resistant objects in the vicinity. Thanks, magic, he hadn't fucking noticed—)
Who is he? Beginning to repeat himself, but that's probably fine, it's an indication that he's found the good stuff. The hopes and fears and dreams, the parts that really matter. What really matters? The spirit of the law; making the right choice, not the hard choice, not the easy choice, but the right one, when it counts; recognition, validation; reaching for perfection, and flying right on past it, and pulling everyone else up with him. Making himself matter. Achievement, and more than achievement. Excellence. The extra mile, you might say. Bad puns are not a core personality trait, they just sort of happen - but they arise out of deeper things, he supposes. Wit, eloquence, a mind that makes connections.
He can feel his new senses stretching out, reaching to fill as much space as they can occupy and then a little more after that. It feels like exactly the thing he's been trying to put a name to, this urge to pluperfection. It feels right. It feels Miles. He joked to his mysterious correspondent about it - 'naturally I aim to surpass my potential, no point in undershooting' - but no, in fact, that is exactly what he's doing and exactly why he's doing it, and it makes perfect sense, and it is him, and that seems to be just what the magic needs, and if this turns into some kind of infinite feedback loop that causes him to explode that will quite frankly be the most Miles way he could possibly die.
Achieve the impossible. Surpass perfection. Outshine the stars. Yes, yes, yes.
It starts to hurt, but pain is a part of him. He wishes she'd warned him about the possibility, but he can handle the unexpected. This is probably getting dangerous and that is who he is. Take the risk, take the reward. Take a hundred times the reward. Expand the reward to the size of a planet. Achieve the fucking impossible.
Somewhere in the middle of this slow-burning magical explosion, he loses hold of his sense of time, along with all the rest of his senses that aren't made of expanding magic. Things get fuzzy, except for the clarity of self that fuels the push, the feedback loop collapsed to a single whirling point - he is this expansion, he is this reaching-past-the-possible, and because he is it, it continues, and because it continues, he feels it, and because he feels it, it continues some more...
And then, after God knows how long, it stops. His head hurts. His soul hurts. He feels like he just ran a marathon without taking a single step. He's exhausted. It doesn't feel like standing up; it feels like falling over, possibly after having first grown to the size of a small mountain. His magic settles in: solid, true, perfect and then some.
"Oof," he says. And then, after a few seconds of deliberation, "Ow."
He pours out the bowl and collects all his things and staggers back to the house to sit down and write to Nope.
Assembled materials:
One maplewood bowl, Vorkosigan District local product, with geometry scribbled all over it.
One dark orange-brown citrine unearthed from the attic of Vorkosigan House. Why there was a raw citrine in his attic, he still isn't sure, but he feels like it's an appropriate place to get one.
One lump of extremely pure copper.
One jug of distilled water.
One Vorkosigan seal dagger.
Miles takes these goods out to the long lake. He burns a death-offering for his grandda while he's there, and silently apologizes for taking this latest step towards being an evil mutant wizard straight out of a fairy tale. He sets up by the lakeshore, on a grassy patch with a good view. Bowl, crystal, copper, water, knife.
Before he does anything else, he reviews the steps of the ritual in his mind several times, to plan his approach.
Then he puts the crystal in the bottom of the bowl, pours water over it - enough to cover the crystal and then some, enough to qualify the bowl as 'full of water', not enough to present any danger of overflowing. Picks up the seal dagger, nicks his right thumb just as though he's going to seal a letter, puts down the knife and picks up the copper and his blood drips into the bowl and he puts his right hand over the quartz and the copper over his right hand and his left hand over the copper and the next step is to distill himself into thought form—
Who is he, then?
Lieutenant Lord Miles Naismith Vorkosigan, let's start there. Start all the way back, in fact, with the first Count Vorkosigan - Selig Imir Vorkosigan, sometimes called 'the Clever', more frequently 'the Weasel'. And all the way down the line: Rosair Solon Vorkosigan, third son of Selig, the first two having died of war and disease respectively. Valens Vasil Vorkosigan, fifth son of Rosair Solon, the first four having been done in by assassination, duels, and poor horsemanship. Rosair Leon Vorkosigan, first son of Valens, the lucky shit. Piotr Vasil Vorkosigan, second son of Rosair Leon, survivor of the childhood illness that took his brother, the Count whose wife believed herself to be made of glass. Demyan Sacha Vorkosigan, third son of Piotr Vasil. Piotr Isidor Vorkosigan, first son of Demyan Sacha; Demyan Antoly Vorkosigan, first son of Piotr Isidor - they had a lucky run, there.
Piotr Pierre Vorkosigan, first son of Demyan Antoly, hero of a fistful of wars, one of the main contributors to the modernization of Barrayar. God, what a man. Pure Vorkosigan, too stubborn to quit, too smart to lose, took cavalry up against atomics and won. They cast a long shadow, do Miles's ancestors.
Aral Antoly Vorkosigan. Second son of Piotr Pierre. Hero/villain of the conquest of Komarr. Lord Regent of Barrayar through Emperor Gregor's childhood, now its Prime Minister. Thankfully unaware of his son's attempt to become a wizard. Would probably laugh.
Who is he? A Vorkosigan. Someday to be the eleventh Count of that line, hopefully not anytime soon.
But let's not neglect the other side of the family: Countess Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan, who ended Vordarian's Pretendership in a single raid, coming back with Vidal Vordarian's head in a bag and dumping it on a conference table in front of Da and a bevy of alarmed generals. The Betan woman who came to Barrayar and so aggressively refused to change for it that it changed for her instead. Still wary of ethanol and animal meat, and he can just imagine the noise she'd make if she saw what he did to that hand-carved wooden bowl. It'll wash off, Mama. Wood is cheap here.
Who is he? A Naismith.
Admiral Miles Naismith, commanding, Dendarii Free Mercenary Fleet. His mother's Betan accent wrapped around a manic bundle of silver-tongued mad genius. Took the lie and made it true, and truer still every day. A complete farce that's changed lives and won wars.
Who is he? A leader...
But the Dendarii sprang from that ill-fated trip to Beta Colony, and that sprang in turn from his failed first attempt at entering the Service Academy, and his grandfather's death. Oh, Grandda. Your tiny mutant scion hopes that one day he will make up for that final disappointment. And poor Sergeant Bothari, loyal, complicated, killed by his little lord's careless romanticism. From getting rattled and breaking both his legs out of a stupid momentary impulse, to deciding to mortgage his recent land inheritance to help out a down-on-his-luck cargo pilot, to running that cargo straight into a war zone and stumbling out months later in possession of a mortally illegal mercenary army... it's a wonder he ever made it to his eighteenth birthday.
Who is he? A walking disaster, on occasion.
But there have been better moments. Brighter ones, or more meaningful. Like the time his father sent him as Count's Voice to investigate an infanticide in a Dendarii mountain village. Poor little Raina Csurik. She deserved so much better than her tiny grave. Like all painful things, though, she had a lesson to teach, and one much more important than "don't fucking jump off of tall objects, you fragile little moron". Miles cannot forget what he owes to his planet, his people. He is Lord Vorkosigan and that means something.
Who is he? Mutie Vor, a contradiction in terms, the wave of the future crashing on the rocky shore of Barrayaran history.
Okay, so far, so good. What are his core values as a person? Honour. Loyalty. Integrity. Duty. Excellence. Intelligence. Spirit over letter. Being right over looking right. Support, uplift, inspire, lead from the front, succeed against all odds.
What feelings, what experiences come to mind when he reaches for his true self? The taste of maple sugar. The balance of riding a horse. The weight of combat armour, the information density of a tactical display, the soaring immediate aliveness of field command. Fishing at Vorkosigan Surleau, the sound of the lake where he now sits. A tangle of roses growing wild in half-terraformed Barrayaran soil. School on Beta Colony, the desperate lonely anguish of his teenage years, the suicide attempt that probably makes him the first Vorkosigan whose bodyguard had to save him from himself. The pain of broken bones, again and again and again and again and again.
The Empress of Cetaganda's face when she told him, not yet as Empress but well on her way, that if things had worked out a little differently she would seriously consider running off with him. Her voice, listing his virtues - quick mind, quick wit, an eye for detail, a gift for interpersonal relations. Everything he's ever loved about himself, somehow visible to this alarmingly beautiful woman. His energy, his drive, his on-and-off charisma—and his need for validation, his urge to be a hero. His pretty eyes. She smiled when she said that part, but she was not mocking him - she never mocked him.
Maybe he should be focusing more on himself and less on other people. But a Miles without other people is a bleak and lonely creature. His friends, his family, his ancestors, his role models, his planet, all are components as vital as his veins and arteries and lungs. He is the sum of more than his parts...
Who is he? Half-Betan Barrayaran. Cousin to the Emperor, and to that idiot Ivan. Fruit of an overpruned family tree. Cosmopolitan galactic; polished aristocrat. A man of honour, a man of his word. Vassal secundus to Emperor Gregor Vorbarra, and sworn officer of the Barrayaran Imperial Service. Imperial Security courier, intelligence agent, undercover operative. Still a bloody Lieutenant after all he's done, except when he's busy being a fake Admiral. Holder of the Cetagandan Order of Merit, which he keeps locked in the bottom of a drawer in his bedroom, yet another top-secret accomplishment. Survivor, winner, stubborn as a mule, manic-depressive, the sort of person to whom mere perfection is a low standard. The sort of person who routinely achieves the impossible.
Who is he? The man who owns Vorkosigan Vashnoi. Former capital of the Vorkosigan District, blown to radioactive hell in the Cetagandan wars, left to him without explanation by his grandfather; tainted land for the tainted grandchild, or a message of hope and renewal, that within Miles's lifetime people might be able to live there again? Little of both, he thinks, and something else besides: a reminder not to give up, no matter the odds, if the cause is important enough.
Joy and despair, loyalty and insubordination, pleasure and pain. Issues with authority. His father's uncompromising integrity, his mother's uncompromising will. Boundless energy. Staggering exhaustion. A dash of wisdom, unfortunately elusive but beginning to show up when it's really needed. Barrayaran to the bone, ha ha. A sick sense of humour, yes, let's not forget that one.
Flying the Dendarii Gorge with his eyes closed because he needed to win decisively in his childish game with Ivan. Playing Mad Yuri to rescue Gregor from that witch Cavilo. Masochistically memorizing an ancient Earth play about a deformed evil king. Using his grandfather's seal dagger to escape a rigged practical exam without sustaining the expected imaginary harm. Well-tailored clothing. The Imperial Military Hospital. The hated spinal brace of his childhood. Digging escape tunnels and driving tanks with Ivan and Elena. Arguing with superior officers.
Who is he? Arrogance and self-loathing, each deserved in turn. All the oaths he has sworn, and every lesser promise made between them. All his failures, all his mistakes; all his successes, all his accomplishments. Getting better every day. Finding ways around every obstacle in his path. If you can't be ten feet tall, be ten feet smart. Anything worth doing is worth doing well.
Who is he? Miles. An atomic unit of self, a collection of experiences and habits and customs, a head too big for his body, a personality too big for his life, a pressurized spirit powering pneumatic miracles. Without the little admiral as an escape valve, the whole system would probably have blown by now.
Afraid of failure, afraid of obscurity, afraid of not being good enough, fast enough, smart enough. But thriving under pressure, turning spectacular disasters into spectacular successes, pouring himself into his work until it overflows, striving to do more than his best. The correct response to "you can't do that" is "oh yeah? Watch me." The correct response to "that's not your problem" is "are you sure?"
Who is he, really?
Miles Naismith Vorkosigan. Small, warped, fragile, too smart for his own good, too stubborn to let it stop him. This Vor lunatic, this human whirlwind, this fast-talking rule-breaking bundle of nerves whose highest aspiration is to - to - what? Hell. To find a higher aspiration, probably. To surpass all expectations including his own. To be good and honourable and right and worthy and successful beyond the dreams of his dreams. Tall order, kid. But he knows he'll never settle for anything less.
His train of thought briefly slows to a stop, he inhales, and he belatedly notices that the world is a different place than it was two minutes ago.
It is very much like hallucinating vividly, except hallucinations are rarely this - comforting? Concrete? Sight and sound have more depth, more meaning, more distinctiveness; the grass and trees nearby feel like wells of potential; temperature is clearer and sharper, and he has an intimate, almost proprioceptive sense of fluid dynamics, like the wind and the lake are his own breath and blood. The seismic stability of the ground under his feet is a tangible factor. More disturbingly, he can feel the weakness in his own damn bones.
He gets about a blink to absorb all this, and then he notices two things: one, it's not done yet. Two, he has stopped thinking about himself.
He dives back into self-contemplation. Memories of his past come back more vividly. With the new sense of his own body, he is naturally reminded of every single time he's ever broken a bone. It's not the most fun thing he could be thinking about, but pain is a part of him - a big part - so he shuts up and remembers. His very first fall from a horse; the fateful leap from the very first wall in the Imperial Service Academy entrance exam's obstacle course. And on and on, in no particular order of chronology or anatomy. Surgeries, too, many and varied - he hasn't thought about some of the earlier ones since he was a kid. He has had a long, hard road to get where he is.
Who is he.
Lord Vorkosigan - duty, honour. Admiral Naismith - energy, drive.
Miles. All this and more. The overwhelming need to excel. The sick stress of not knowing if he'll make it, and the lovely flying feeling of really being on top of a situation.
Barrayar, his planet, his home, his heart and fucking soul. Beta Colony, his mother's planet, familiar and important but never quite perfectly comfortable. Vorkosigan District - Silvy Vale - Hassadar - the family home in Vorbarr Sultana - the Imperial Residence -
(Another new sense comes in, informing him from yet another angle that his skeleton is a fragile piece of shit, one of the least stress-resistant objects in the vicinity. Thanks, magic, he hadn't fucking noticed—)
Who is he? Beginning to repeat himself, but that's probably fine, it's an indication that he's found the good stuff. The hopes and fears and dreams, the parts that really matter. What really matters? The spirit of the law; making the right choice, not the hard choice, not the easy choice, but the right one, when it counts; recognition, validation; reaching for perfection, and flying right on past it, and pulling everyone else up with him. Making himself matter. Achievement, and more than achievement. Excellence. The extra mile, you might say. Bad puns are not a core personality trait, they just sort of happen - but they arise out of deeper things, he supposes. Wit, eloquence, a mind that makes connections.
He can feel his new senses stretching out, reaching to fill as much space as they can occupy and then a little more after that. It feels like exactly the thing he's been trying to put a name to, this urge to pluperfection. It feels right. It feels Miles. He joked to his mysterious correspondent about it - 'naturally I aim to surpass my potential, no point in undershooting' - but no, in fact, that is exactly what he's doing and exactly why he's doing it, and it makes perfect sense, and it is him, and that seems to be just what the magic needs, and if this turns into some kind of infinite feedback loop that causes him to explode that will quite frankly be the most Miles way he could possibly die.
Achieve the impossible. Surpass perfection. Outshine the stars. Yes, yes, yes.
It starts to hurt, but pain is a part of him. He wishes she'd warned him about the possibility, but he can handle the unexpected. This is probably getting dangerous and that is who he is. Take the risk, take the reward. Take a hundred times the reward. Expand the reward to the size of a planet. Achieve the fucking impossible.
Somewhere in the middle of this slow-burning magical explosion, he loses hold of his sense of time, along with all the rest of his senses that aren't made of expanding magic. Things get fuzzy, except for the clarity of self that fuels the push, the feedback loop collapsed to a single whirling point - he is this expansion, he is this reaching-past-the-possible, and because he is it, it continues, and because it continues, he feels it, and because he feels it, it continues some more...
And then, after God knows how long, it stops. His head hurts. His soul hurts. He feels like he just ran a marathon without taking a single step. He's exhausted. It doesn't feel like standing up; it feels like falling over, possibly after having first grown to the size of a small mountain. His magic settles in: solid, true, perfect and then some.
"Oof," he says. And then, after a few seconds of deliberation, "Ow."
He pours out the bowl and collects all his things and staggers back to the house to sit down and write to Nope.
