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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."
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isthisart
first-loyalty
"Oh - I don't think you talk too much about pens. Pens are interesting. I don't do anything nearly that interesting," she says. "I garden, when I have the time - we have a young son, just a year old."
isthisart
"Nikolai, right?" says Linya. She did her homework. "What do you grow besides him, though?"
first-loyalty
She smiles uncertainly.
"I, um - have an interest in native Barrayaran vegetation... I know it's mostly not known for its beauty, but I think it has potential. I have a bonsai'd skellytum I inherited."
"I, um - have an interest in native Barrayaran vegetation... I know it's mostly not known for its beauty, but I think it has potential. I have a bonsai'd skellytum I inherited."
isthisart
"I know almost nothing about Barrayaran flora - I actually haven't left Vorbarr Sultana since I got here. But I've always liked bonsais. How old is yours?"
isthisart
"I'm impressed that non-Earth-derived life forms even bonsai. Does it need a lot of maintenance?"
first-loyalty
"Technically no. Barrayaran native plants don't produce anything we'd recognize as a flower. But it does do something similar."
isthisart
"Prettily, or just in such a way as to inconvenience people with allergies?" Linya glances at her husband.
thisvorlunatic
"I am violently allergic to an amazing variety of Barrayaran plants," he confirms.
first-loyalty
"Oh. Well, I don't know how pretty it is, but it's... visually striking. Very red."
isthisart
"Maybe I should look up pictures of skellytums. Or you could borrow your husband's pen and send me one of the bonsai, next time it does its nonflowering."
first-loyalty
"I'll try to remember to do that. How would I know where to send it...?"
isthisart
"Pens have numbers. Mine is 'one', and it'll happily take messages from any pens in the first batch since I want the user feedback but that will work just as well for pictures of plants."
isthisart
"When the pen starts up for the first time it'll offer the tutorial for all the basics that you won't have seen on a comconsole before, including the messaging between pens function, and you can get the tutorial back again if you're borrowing by going into the point-and-poke menu or by flailing the pen around confusedly in any non-drawing mode."
isthisart
"It seemed reasonable to have confused flailing produce the tutorial."
"What if you get stuck in drawing mode?" Vorsoisson asks.
"Put it back in the charger and it'll save your work and back up to the initial menu."
"What if you get stuck in drawing mode?" Vorsoisson asks.
"Put it back in the charger and it'll save your work and back up to the initial menu."
first-loyalty
"Very, what's the word, user-friendly," says Madame Vorsoisson.
isthisart
"Why does it save the - the confused flailing?" asks Vorsoisson.
"In case you meant to scribble violently all over the projection range for some reason. It will make some guesses about what you want, but conservative ones."
"In case you meant to scribble violently all over the projection range for some reason. It will make some guesses about what you want, but conservative ones."
