dissonance

[isthisart]

Dr. Cheung's at a funeral all day, so Linya decides to go up to London and see if Miles is out of his Mood.

Security has decided to be deeply unhelpful today. She is currently showing them various forms of ID and repeating in a slow, patient voice that she has been here before, there is not more than one of her, and she promises she is not there to assassinate her husband or whatever fool thing has them skittish today. Perhaps she shouldn't drop in while the captain's missing; it seems to make them worse. But she got in before while he was missing...

Comments

[thisvorlunatic]

"And what did Mark think of that?"

[isthisart]

"He can see why you like braiding."

[thisvorlunatic]

"I wonder if he can. ...I suspect so."

[isthisart]

"Can - see why you like it? Is it very complicated?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Reasonably complicated, yes."

[isthisart]

"Well, now I want to know."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Well... there's the 'your hair is soft and nice to play with' aspect, and there's the 'spending time with my wife' aspect, and there's the challenge aspect, and there's the accomplishment aspect."

[isthisart]

"The challenge and the accomplishment are separate?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Yes. They're - complementary, but differently enjoyable."

[isthisart]

"Mm." She sighs. "I imagine he and his nine feet of stolen hair didn't exactly bond, though."

[thisvorlunatic]

"But I suspect he would've been able to extrapolate that part, at least to some degree."

[isthisart]

"Probably. Although given how startling he finds the concept of - friendly physical contact - I'm not sure it was a significant degree."

[thisvorlunatic]

"The concept, or the practice, though?"

[isthisart]

"I was getting at something like - the first-person apprehension of the phenomenon more than either of those per se."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Hmm." He falls into a contemplative silence.

[isthisart]

Braid braid braid. She's trying to give her hands something to do, not get a pretty result. She drops it, untied, when she reaches the ends of her hair and shuts her eyes. "I am so bored."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Me too. We could name some more little Vorkosigans to pass the time," he suggests.

[isthisart]

"Right. What's Ninon's middle name, hm?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Hmm, girl's names... Axia, Akilina, Arisha, Olya, Rada, Sura, Rosal, Petya, Teka, Inna, Zina, Tsila, Varya, Coralie, Tamsin, Sandrine, Soraya, Luva, Yana, Esfir, Kira, Davina... I'm not filtering these by any kind of aesthetic preference, I'm just listing everything that springs to mind. And I keep gravitating back to two-syllable probably-Russian-derived names ending in A. There are rather a lot of them, it turns out."

[isthisart]

"I like a lot of those. Especially Petya and Teka and Tamsin and Davina. Well, aesthetically, anyway," she says, glancing at the light fixture when she mentions "Davina".

[thisvorlunatic]

"Tamsin's quite nice. It might be worth a first-name slot all by itself. I can always come up with more... Stasya, there I go again... Amarante? Edmee? Camille? Chantal? Eloise? Elaine? Licienne? There, now I'm on probably-French-derived names mostly ending in a silent E, that's new and different."

[isthisart]

"Amarante's nice. Ninon Amarante flows really nicely. Ninon Amarante and Tamsin - Stasya? Tamsin Petya?"

[thisvorlunatic]

"Ninon Amarante is lovely. Tamsin seems harder to find a middle name for... let's see what happens when I pair it up with as many of the other options as I remember. Tamsin Axia, Tamsin Rada, Tamsin Rosal, Tamsin Luva, Tamsin Soraya, Tamsin Esfir, Tamsin Davina, Tamsin Chantal, Tamsin Elaine, Tamsin Eloise... none of those are running away with me, but they're mostly decent. I seem to be fond of the ones that end in consonants. Rosal, Esfir, Chantal. Should I generate another list and see if any of them work better?"

[isthisart]

"I think Tamsin Rosal works well, but if you don't like it, sure."

[thisvorlunatic]

"Tamsin Rosal is pretty nice. It has rhythm."