dye

[isthisart]

The next time Linya and Ekaterin meet up (for impromptu bonsai skellytum pruning lessons, lunch, and an attempt to teach Ekaterin the simplest version of a complicated haut card game) Linya says, while shuffling for a second example round:

"Miles and I are planning to get married again, Barrayaran ceremony groats and all, and I wondered if you'd be my Second."

Comments

[isthisart]

"Are you sure you want to hear it?"

[thisvorlunatic]

He sighs. "Yes. I've probably heard worse."

[isthisart]

"Quote, 'the next generation of Vorkosigans will be little twice-mutie monsters'."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yes, that's a nasty name, and yes, sadly, I've heard worse." He locates one of her hands and kisses it. "Did it bother you?"

[isthisart]

"Not by itself. It is sort of alarming in the sense that - all my instincts are to retort that I know what I'm doing, I have more than enough knowhow, I passed my classes with excellent marks, hell, I could afford all the equipment I need out of pocket now that I've sold enough pens - I am competent - and I don't know if any of that is going to matter, because we haven't talked about it. Maybe it doesn't matter that I know what I'm doing. They'd still be mistaken, but it's because you're not in fact genetically damaged and because a woman I met once was under constraint to ensure that random-assembly would work and knew what she was doing. I feel very removed from the hypothetical process."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I'm... not sure I understand what you mean," he says slowly. "I mean - it certainly wouldn't matter to a Barrayaran who'd call our children twice-muties in the first place, whether or not you are competent to... design... them."

[isthisart]

"I know. The remark only precipitated that line of thinking - it's like when I mentioned how people on Eta Ceta talked about my balance issue, a little, I think. My intuited defenses against that sort of nastiness - the reasons I generate to reassure myself that it's nonsense - are distinctly imported, and I don't know yet if they've survived the trip intact." She shakes her head. "If it's - look, you're entitled to random-assembly children if you want them, that's well within the scope of what I originally bargained for, it only - is not the subject of my fondest wishes."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I, um," says Miles. "I haven't really... thought about it, to be honest. I don't know what my fondest wishes are. Do you know yours?"

[isthisart]

"They're - well, modest by Cetagandan standards. But they do not involve random assembly. I don't know how much detail you're comfortable with...?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"How much detail about what?"

[isthisart]

"About what I'd be doing if you handed me a somatic cell sample and told me that all you required of me was that the result be a baby."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Um... give it to me straight," he says with a little shrug.

[isthisart]

"I'm principally concerned about quality of life interventions. I don't think it's a stretch to say I'm legitimately afraid of having a child who sees me as not only a designer to be held responsible for his or her characteristics but also as a parent to be applied to for relief from various aches and pains who then goes on to have them. I can't make them invulnerable to, I don't know, falls from heights, deciding to eat bees, walking facefirst into glass doors, but they don't have to have headaches. They don't need to cry when they teethe or get colic or catch colds or be allergic to half the species on their native planet or experience ingrown toenails or suffer through ear infections or itch in dry weather. If you let me work on them." She shrugs. "I care a lot less about everything else - I'm not getting much value beyond your admiration from the prettiness, and while I like your admiration I think half-haut children will be more than pleasant enough to look at for any purpose that isn't sabotaged by their very origins. I don't care very much how tall they are except that if they're going to be as tall as, say, Ivan, there's an adjustment to the heart muscle that would improve longevity - I have no specific designs on their hormone balances or - or inner ear morphology as long as they're within any remotely reasonable values, I don't need to pick their eye color. Although if I were completely unconstrained I think I'd give them yours," she adds softly.

[thisvorlunatic]

He smiles a little at that last.

"I... really, honestly don't know what I want," he murmurs. "I know I have - feelings, preferences of some kind - but I don't know which parts of the, um, traditional child creation process I feel strongly about keeping and which parts I could just as well leave. I'm... going to have to think about it."

[isthisart]

"Okay. There's no rush," says Linya.

And then, because he is cuddly and she could use cuddles, she wraps her arms around him and sighs.

[thisvorlunatic]

He is very cuddly. He will give her all the cuddles.

[isthisart]

She will collect them gladly.



They continue to be extra married. Linya enrolls in the new semester at the university, taking a blend of undergraduate and graduate-level courses that she has tested into with her previous education and some textbook-reading.

[thisvorlunatic]

Miles congratulates her on her enrolment and braids her hair and listens to her talk about her studies and braids her hair and uses his pen for everything and braids her hair and cuddles her. And braids her hair.

And not too long after she enrols, he gets a new "courier mission", for which once again he won't be told any details until he's on his way off the planet. He kisses his wife goodbye.

[isthisart]

She kisses him back, of course. "I put a holo of me in your pen," she says lightly, completely unaware that Miles Naismith cannot be observed to own a pen. "So you don't have to forget how pretty I am."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Holos don't do you justice," he says, grinning. "But I'll treasure it anyway."

[isthisart]

"It's in full color and everything." He gets another kiss.

[thisvorlunatic]

"Alas, tragically wasted on me." Kisses! "I really need to go, though, I'm supposed to be off the planet in two hours. Duty calls. Love you."

[isthisart]

"Love you too."

She does not further impede his progress.

[thisvorlunatic]

So he progresses his way right back out to the Dendarii, to interfere in a hostage standoff that has been dragging on in a little backwater a few jumps from Komarr. After almost a month, the hostage-takers - a small but enthusiastic protest group very interested in the preservation of the planet's toxic and hostile native wildlife - are nearly as sick of this as everyone else, and seem almost grateful to have the miscellaneous group of foreign delegates and transients rescued out from under them. The Dendarii take payment aboveboard from the local government, and a secret bonus from Barrayar for the unharmed return of a couple of ImpSec agents who happened to be passing through undercover at the time of the initial incident. Miles returns to Barrayar a little less than three weeks after he left it, feeling very pleased with himself.

[isthisart]

When he collects his pen at Impsec, it has a message for him. It's Linya, voice only, she doesn't seem to like requiring the attention of two different senses for not-in-person communiques.

"Hi, Miles, it's me," says the message. "I'm fine, first of all, but thought you'd want to know whenever you got back rather than hearing it weeks later whenever it came up over breakfast if you're gone for months and I forget about it - anyway, somebody tried to get at me. Bylinkin stopped him before he'd managed to do more than pull my hair, he's been arrested, and I'm fine. As of this writing I'm on my way home. Hope your mission went well, I love you!"

The message is timestamped half an hour ago. She's probably still on her way home.