line dance

[isthisart]

Linya settles thoroughly in. The rest of her Barrayaran clothes filter in and she mixes and matches in Alys-approved ways. Cordelia continues to be welcoming; the Count continues to be more or less awkward (though she does catch him stifling a laugh the first time she has occasion to scoop up her husband in his presence). Tsipis continues to be marvelously helpful; between them they pick a factory that will be able to make pens for a reasonable bid, and she goes in to visit and makes sure they have everything right and decides what colors the chassis ought to come in (four standard colors, a dozen more available as custom order with optional engraving). She asks Cordelia what color she wants hers; since she doesn't want a complicated nib-end she can have the first one off the production line. For the complicated-nib version, Linya is still studying optics. She writes a letter to a local manufacturer of holoprojectors to see if they have any insight. She wraps up her study of Greek and starts on French - French, she already knew, but this is a different dialect with peculiar Barrayaran Cyrillic spelling rules, so it still requires nonzero effort.

Oh, and she snuggles her tiny Barrayaran. And makes music and has groats for breakfast roughly every other day.

Setting a date for a groat-related wedding as opposed to a groat-related breakfast is a little complicated, but they are formally, as it were, engaged.

Comments

[on_my_word]

"Some do, some don't. For variety, there's Rulf Vorhalas, who's going to be hostile to you because you're a Vorkosigan, not because you're Cetagandan. But I doubt his feelings will be any more tractable than, say - " He scans down the list from Vorbohn. " - The Vorbrettens, who I doubt will show up at all, for the standard reasons." His eye skips a few lines and he adds, "Oh, and Vorfolse isn't going to come because he has an allergy to conflict; the Vorfolses have a history of ending up on the wrong side, to the point where he's superstitiously afraid to engage in anything resembling politics, let alone get involved when people are disagreeing about hot-button issues. He's one of the courtesy invitations Cordelia and I have been debating."

[isthisart]

"What are the pros and cons of extending him an invitation?" wonders Linya.

[on_my_word]

He half-shrugs. "Not much to be said either way, which is part of why it's hard to decide. If we invite him, he won't show up but he'll notice you exist, which he otherwise might not - it would be an understatement to call him a recluse. If we don't invite him, he's unlikely to notice or care that the party happened at all. Either way, he's not going to get involved."

[isthisart]

"I do not mind being known to exist, but it seems academic in this case."

[on_my_word]

"Eh. I'll let Cordelia have final say..." He keeps going. "I've already mentioned Vorhalas, but to expand on that: I'm not sure if he'll come out of spite or stay home out of spite, but either way, I recommend avoiding him wherever you have the opportunity to do so. I can say nothing against his moral character, but he's conservative and there is a complicated history between our families that has left him with considerable ill will towards me."

[isthisart]

"Should I know the details, or just - learn what he looks like and arrange to be elsewhere in the room?"

[on_my_word]

"I'm not sure the details would do you any good," he says. "And it's not a subject I'm eager to discuss... Let's leave it alone for now." He scans the list some more. "Vorkalloner and Vormoncrief are both conservatives - Vormoncrief leads the party. More courtesy invitations. I'd be surprised to see either of them show up. Vorparadijs is a desiccated old stick who's likely to look at you with the same contempt he bestows on anything else that wouldn't have happened in Ezar's day, but you might be able to soothe him by letting him bore you for a while. I leave it up to you whether you judge it worth the trouble. He's also rude to most people, if that helps you not to take it personally when he interrupts you and criticizes your manners."

[isthisart]

"I take it retorting with similar criticism would accomplish nothing."

[on_my_word]

"You are correct."

[isthisart]

"I'll probably skip it, then. Is there anyone at this party who I should interact with, or ought I arrange to be in the corner making pretty piano music and demonstrating my harmlessness that way, the whole time...?"

[on_my_word]

"Well, there's the Vorpatrils," he says, amused - they are in fact the very next set of entries. "And, let's see... Byerly Vorrutyer is a mildly infamous town clown; if he shows up it'll be to get drunk on our wine, so he should be a likewise safe option. I'm not so sure about the other Vorrutyers on the list." He looks over the names that remain. "Doubt Vortaine is going to come... Vortala I'd expect to express open support, and even believe himself when he does it, but he's not as open-minded as he might like to think. I remember he founded that progressive party of his, trying to work for equality between the classes, and he never thought to include anyone who wasn't a Vor. Bit of a gap in his logic there."

[isthisart]

"How charming. Is it the sort of logic gap that's amenable to people being agreeable and acting as though they assumed all along that of course he meant to do it in thus and such a way, how nice of him?" She makes little symbolic notes next to various names as the Count goes over them.

[on_my_word]

"Eh. I've never had the patience to try a similar strategy, but if you think you can pull it off, I don't object to you trying it. I'd just expect managing him that way to be more frustrating and less useful than just about any other conceivable avenue of getting things done... ah, Lord Auditor Vorthys. Now there's someone I can wholeheartedly recommend to you. He's one of Gregor's additions, and I don't know him very well on a social level, but he's good at what he does and refreshingly sensible by all accounts. I'm told he plans to bring his niece and her husband - I can't tell you the first thing about either of them, but I at least expect that they won't be odious enough to ruin a conversation with Georg Vorthys about engineering, if you're inclined to have one. Before his appointment as Auditor, he was an exquisitely good failure analyst."

[isthisart]

"I don't think I'm familiar with the specialty. Is it what it sounds like?"

[on_my_word]

"If it sounds like he analyzes failures, then yes."

[isthisart]

"That sounds very interesting indeed."

[on_my_word]

"Good. Have fun." Aral looks over the remainder of the list - there isn't very much left. "And Henri Vorvolk is Gregor's friend. A bit wishy-washy politically. I'd expect you to be able to win him over with a little humanizing small talk as long as no one else has poisoned the well first, and since Gregor invited him, I judge the well likely unpoisoned. There, that's everyone I can give you significant information about. If you want the insignificant information, I can go back and appraise some of the unknowns by their families' voting habits, but you can do that too; the electronic records of public votes in the Council of Counts are, well, public."

[isthisart]

"I'll be sure to look them up. And to attach faces where possible. Thank you very much."

[on_my_word]

"You're welcome."

[isthisart]

With a woggle, the file and Linya's notes wink out. "I'll leave you to your reading, then."

[on_my_word]

He nods agreeably.