This post's authors have general content warnings that might apply to the current post.
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
The day of the party approaches. Linya learns a Barrayaran-original solo piano symphony, adds some flourishes of her own where the composer has marked that it may be played "freely", memorizes the whole thing, and arranges to be playing it on the grand piano when party guests file in on the day of. She smiles and nods at them and takes note of how they arrange themselves in the room; there are thirteen minutes in the piece unless she decides she needs an extra three (if there seem to be a lot of stragglers; if there isn't a good path to the people she wants to meet and around the people she wants to avoid) and takes the repeat at the end to prolong it.
She doesn't wind up taking the repeat; the end of the symphony without it has her playing the final chord when Lord Auditor Vorthys is nearer than anyone she's hoping to evade. She counts out the beats, holds for a moment longer, and then lifts her hands from the keyboard. She has decided that given her choice of titles she's going to address this particular guest as -
"Professor Vorthys."
isthisart
first-loyalty
"On Barrayar we don't design our Emperors. They sort of - well, I suppose 'happen by accident' isn't quite right..."
isthisart
"And the term of art I've been using for unengineered organisms is 'heirloom' - which is complimentary in every sense except for being originally meant to describe produce."
first-loyalty
"I see. Does that make me an... heirloom human? I've never thought of myself in terms of not being engineered before."
isthisart
"You are indeed an heirloom human," says Linya. "It wouldn't be a particularly useful term if there were no other genetic engineering products besides the haut, but there are also of course the ba, and the ghem get some engineering done, and there are plenty of things elsewhere in the galaxy where it's practiced. I'm sure all manner of things and people have been made on Jackson's Whole, for instance."
first-loyalty
"Ick," says Ekaterin. "About Jackson's Whole, I mean. I don't know very much about the place, but the little that I know is... ick."
isthisart
"I agree completely. If it had turned out to be a complete disaster to have me here and there had been no choice but to ship me off somewhere else my stated criterion was that it be a reasonably civilized planet - defined significantly to exclude Jackson's Whole."
first-loyalty
"That seems like a reasonable definition of civilized. But... I hope Barrayar will be civilized enough to keep you."
isthisart
"Yes. Also, he braids my hair."
This is a party, so Linya's hair is in a particularly ambitious braid cluster.
This is a party, so Linya's hair is in a particularly ambitious braid cluster.
isthisart
"Yes. He is. He practices a lot and is very perfectionistic about it and it's adorable."
Linya is bragging about her adorable husband! Is this better than bragging about pens? Unclear!
Linya is bragging about her adorable husband! Is this better than bragging about pens? Unclear!
first-loyalty
"Among the Vor, yes. Although I think it's getting less so. My father is a little old-fashioned."
isthisart
"Does it tend to work out reasonably well? I'm gathering that unlike the awarding of haut-wives, where it's entirely possible for the pair in question to barely interact, there remains an expectation for arranged marriages under other circumstances that they be - marriagelike."
first-loyalty
"It's... it's all right. We're not forced to marry, if we don't like each other - if I'd been put off Tien from the start I could just have declined to say my vows, and not have suffered anything but my father's disappointment. I took my oath of my own will."