compersion & limerence

grapes on the autumn table (5187 words) by sternerstuff
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Traitor Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Baru Cormorant/Tain Hu
Characters: Baru Cormorant, Tain Hu, Duke Lyxaxu, Duke Oathsfire, Duke Unexekome
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Background M/M, growing up under empire is no fun!, canon flirtation, found dukes, references to budgets, dubious references to grape cultivation and harvesting, Misses Clause Challenge, Drinking to Cope
Summary:

“Hello yourself, imuira.”

(Or, Aurdwynn's Imperial Accountant escapes the city for the country)

Spend some time with "Baru being happy for two goddamn seconds!" (It is such a tall order, y'all.) It was a delightful challenge to modify the political frame and their particular personal-political orientations to be remain in character and give Baru the chance to maaaaybe let down some walls. I am very pleased with my dukes-into-common-grape-pickers -- it was very very fun to re-read for bantering dynamics, particularly between Lyxaxu and Oathsfire, who are just a delightful comedy duo even in the midst of revolution.

If you want to give it a shot from out of canon, the background: Baru's home (where the family structure has multiple fathers) is colonized via economics & plague & violent homophobia; she is a numbers/knowledge savant and decides that logically, her best bet to regain control of Taranoke is to rise up in the ranks of the Falcresti empire and destroy it from within.

( author stream of consciousness on what worked and what didn't )

( author stream of consciousness about writing race )

(uncutting this text so it can serve as additional Traitor Baru Cormorant rec)
For some wild reason, I thought that writing for Baru would make me less obsessed (I was wrong)—I fucking love her so much. I love her. I have never in my life empathized with a character more: she is logical to a horrible fault, she is canonically gay, she shoves her feelings under numbers and books and goals, she is fascinated by all technology regardless of lethality, she has massively stunted empathy, she fuckin' follows through. It's kind of rare to see a character do that, I think—explicitly say "well...but isn't the [horrible plague] maybe worth it for all the knowledge in the libraries?" I have big gender feelings about her, as well—"the accountant waking inside the woman." Point: it was SO COOL to delve into really deeply into this character who is so, so, horribly fucked up in ways that I, too, am horribly fucked up. Also, lord, I cried so much.

Anyway, this might be a better rec for what it does:

The first words of Traitor were “This is the truth. You will know because it hurts.” The first words of Monster are “If something hurts, does that make it true?”

vis a vis my auto-generated document outline (title redacted, ofc)