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

[isthisart]

Linya finds a snuggling position that leaves one of her arms free, and does some programming.

[thisvorlunatic]

If it's up to Miles, he is just going to stay in this bed until his legs don't ache anymore. They can have meals sent up, can't they?

[isthisart]

They can. Linya mostly loiters around their suite in case he wants to go somewhere and to keep him company, though she gets plenty of her own work done too, and does ask when it's time for her econ lesson if he'd rather she took the call in another room.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Nah, 'sfine," yawns Miles. "Just as long as you don't get your convalescent husband on the vid, I'm sure I look absolutely pathetic, nobody wants to see that."

[isthisart]

"You look tired, mostly," she tells him, kissing the end of his nose. "Which is striking compared to your usual. But all right." And she goes and turns the comcomsole so it doesn't include the bed and calls Tsipis, and they talk about fungibility and the parable of the broken window and the estimated production date for the physical casing of Cordelia's pen, by which time Linya optimistically hopes to have a serviceable software package set up. (There will, of course, be updates later.)

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles cuddles a pillow and listens and reflects that he is absolutely the luckiest man alive.

[isthisart]

The lesson cum status update lasts about an hour, and then Linya hangs up and goes back over to Miles to pet him because he is cute and pettable. "Really," she remarks, "the only thing stopping me from suggesting that we get married over again next week is that I can't ask him to be my Second. I like Cordelia but we don't have nearly as much to talk about, you see, so I've been dithering - and if my Second can't be related to you or something and this wasn't mentioned in the book, I don't know what I'm going to do."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Technically the Seconds aren't strictly necessary - but it would be nice. Symmetrical. I'd pick Ivan for mine. The origin of the custom does suggest that the bride's Second shouldn't be the groom's mother, but fear not, the practice of the Second serving as substitute spouse in case the principal drops dead before the ceremony has been abandoned for at least a hundred years if I remember right. Um - perhaps you can find an excitable female optics engineer to have regular chats with?"

[isthisart]

"The person from the holos company who answered my letter is named 'Jocelyn', which in dialects I have more experience with is unisex, and their gender didn't come up in the discussion of how your complicated nib might be made to work. Does it strongly suggest a gender here?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Um - offhand I think it can be optionally gendered with spelling. Does it have a double N at the end or a double S in the middle? Those are girl-markers."

[isthisart]

"Neither, alas."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well, then, it remains a mystery."

[isthisart]

"Perhaps I will go visit their office and see. It's reasonably likely there are some female-type people on this planet who are not related to you who would be friends with me. Why, I haven't even been to any Vorish social functions yet to distinguish between who runs screaming at my approach and who is reasonably well-convinced that I don't bite, let alone identify those with interesting areas of expertise and limited prejudices."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Maybe we should host one," Miles says whimsically. "A Vorish social function, that is. Come Meet The New Lady Vorkosigan, We Promise She's Harmless?"

[isthisart]

"Come one, come all, behold as Lady Vorkosigan eats twice her share of hors d'oeuvres and does not at any time prove to be venomous?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yes. Perfect. Just as soon as I can wobble along on my own two feet without the intervention of heavy painkillers. I'm sure having you carry me would be adorable, but I'm not sure my dignity could bear the strain."

[isthisart]

"Your dignity seems very fragile. Perhaps that should be replaced next," she teases.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles giggles. "Alas, medical science has not yet learned how to synthesize them."

[isthisart]

"Perhaps that will have to be my next project. Synthetic dignity. On second thought, overdoses would be a disaster."

[thisvorlunatic]

"And the potential for addiction has got to be vast."

[isthisart]

"Yes. Dignity abuse, the scourge of our age. I will not invent it in consumable form. You will have to make do."

[thisvorlunatic]

"But my need is so great! I demand reparations for your failure to act. A hug should do." He holds out his arms.

[isthisart]

"I am glad that your needs are so easily filled." Huggle.

[thisvorlunatic]

Snuggle-huggle. "It's not that my needs are especially easy to fill, it's that your hugs are especially restorative."

[isthisart]

"Perhaps I should have traipsed about hugging every patient in the hospital, just in case it was the key ingredient to recovery."