"It should wait until he can comfortably walk, at least, and possibly also until I've had a crash course in wooing the uncertain."

"Sensible. We'll see how fast he's recovering, then, so we know how to schedule things. As for your crash course... I'm all for it, but did you have an instructor in mind?"

"Not especially. You? Alys, maybe, although I'm less sure she'll be able to produce comprehensible instructions, I can barely understand her when she's explaining how bolero jackets ought to interact with necklaces."

"Well, I'll do the best I can."

"I volunteer as strategic consultant," says Aral. "I daresay I can go down the guest list - once we have one - and guess which way some of 'em are going to jump, and how their trajectory might be altered."

"For that matter, you can help me assemble the guest list," says Cordelia. "I might ask Gregor for some input there, too."

"This has become much less facetious all of a sudden. What are parties here like, what happens at them?"

"Rampant ethanol consumption," says Cordelia. "Food. Dancing. Or did you mean at Vorkosigan House specifically? We don't tend to host this sort of thing."

"Perhaps given this freeing lack of precedent we could omit the ethanol. I have historically tried to avoid dancing, too, for that matter, although I suppose I could revise the habit in different company."

"The ethanol is a longstanding cultural tradition. You don't have to partake, but hosting a large Vor social gathering without it would be sort of like - I don't know a good Cetagandan example. Ask Miles for one, maybe; he's been to Cetagandan social gatherings. It would be extremely off-putting to the guests. You don't have to dance, either, but again - abstaining for yourself is one thing; denying everyone else the opportunity is another."

"Fair enough. I don't have as much information about ghem and prole parties, but haut parties invariably have music and food and elaborate decorations," she supplies. "Dancing is not invariable, but when it occurred, I avoided it by supplying the music portion with an instrument played sitting down. I don't actually know if I'd be embarrassing at it relative to the heirloom population."

"If you want to play the piano at this one, I'm sure that can be arranged," says Cordelia. "And if you want to evaluate your dancing ability relative to the population of this planet, we can find an instructor to teach you a few of the standard Barrayaran dances."

"That sounds like a good idea."

"I'll get right on that, then."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Eventually dinner is all eaten up. Linya notifies the kitchen that they may be prevailed upon to send a tray up to Miles later, if he wakes up before morning, and goes up to their suite.

Miles is still napping. He looks terribly cozy.

He does indeed get up earlyish and hobble the short distance to the bathroom, where he pees and showers and takes painkillers, all very important aspects of starting the day. Then he dons clean pajamas and hobbles back to bed.

"Morning." Snuggle. Cozy, only somewhat pained snuggle.

"How're you feeling? You slept right through dinner."

"Hungry," he admits. "Sleepy. And very cuddled."

"We can get breakfast sent up." She gets her pen and sends the kitchen a note; it took a little doing to make the comm system accept the pen as one of its nodes but that's long handled. "At dinner the 'Lady Vorkosigan Doesn't Bite' party became somewhat less hypothetical. Although apparently ethanol is not optional at Barrayaran parties."